Oscorp Heroic Mode

bahamut685

This event is so good for my free time and other interests. Login, enter mission, enemy tile placed in complete **** location -> gg -> 3 heals -> repeat -> 2 heals + switch in new character -> repeat -> go do somethng else.
I love level 230 flamethrower/any attack all skill, it would have been nice if they'd been honest and made the top progression prize 5k, so that maybe 5% of the player base would have some shot at reaching it.
Hooray for no reset on enemy levels and not even tanking parties lowering them.
P.S. - 230 Morale Boost = amazing, I want that so bad now.

itstime1234

bahamut685 wrote:

This event is so good for my free time and other interests. Login, enter mission, enemy tile placed in complete **** location -> gg -> 3 heals -> repeat -> 2 heals + switch in new character -> repeat -> go do somethng else.
I love level 230 flamethrower/any attack all skill, it would have been nice if they'd been honest and made the top progression prize 5k, so that maybe 5% of the player base would have some shot at reaching it.
Hooray for no reset on enemy levels and not even tanking parties lowering them.
P.S. - 230 Morale Boost = amazing, I want that so bad now.

This made me LOL so hard. Congrats on the post of the day my friend. Rumour has it the next 4* character is a hybrid lieutenant/flamethrower

bahamut685

jozier wrote:

I woke up and nobody in my bracket had done anything. So I'm about to take first and I'm barely going to play this garbage because it's boring and not remotely fun to spend 10 minutes whittling stunlocked goons down to nothing.

The reason most people aren't moving is due to not having Spidey with level 5 Blue / Grey Widow with 5 Green.

Unknown

Logged in on my alt account that I have not used in months and i can beat pretty much every mission without boosts and am getting the same points as my main account gets formuch harder fights. Just waned to see - no going to do it - but I could win ez.

kensterr

bahamut685 wrote:

The reason most people aren't moving is due to not having Spidey with level 5 Blue / Grey Widow with 5 Green.

Must be the developers in their infinite wisdom, rewarding those with these characters in their roster.

Unknown

You should be able to loan minions for money. Snipers should be 'game ends in 6 turns or your money back', since they can do Deadly Shot for 0g.

Unknown

bahamut685 wrote:

jozier wrote:

I woke up and nobody in my bracket had done anything. So I'm about to take first and I'm barely going to play this garbage because it's boring and not remotely fun to spend 10 minutes whittling stunlocked goons down to nothing.

The reason most people aren't moving is due to not having Spidey with level 5 Blue / Grey Widow with 5 Green.

The only essential character is Spiderman with 5 blue (not like everyone doesn't already know he's overpowered). Even with a level 2 Deceptive Tactics GSBW can easily save you from almost any minion battle. Level 5 Sniper Rifle just helps to deal with your sanity so you don't have to do match 3 for the next 15 minutes after Spiderman has the opposition stun locked.

Unknown

FORGIVE ME FOR BEEN STUPID BUT WHY ARE MOST OF THE CHARACTERS LOCKED TO BEGIN WITH?

kensterr

TheUnwiseOne wrote:

FORGIVE ME FOR BEEN STUPID BUT WHY ARE MOST OF THE CHARACTERS LOCKED TO BEGIN WITH?

Because the developers love torturing us the players

Unknown

TheUnwiseOne wrote:

FORGIVE ME FOR BEEN STUPID BUT WHY ARE MOST OF THE CHARACTERS LOCKED TO BEGIN WITH?

That's a standard thing for heroic events. First one since I've been around, but so the old timers from the heady days of 12-16 weeks back say. The whole idea of them is to provide a different challenge from the norm by putting you through quite hard missions with a very limited subset of the available characters. In theory, they're difficult without being impossible. Pick a thread, any thread, this one included, on the front page, and I'm sure you'll find extensive discussion of what happened there.

Unknown

itstime1234 wrote:

bahamut685 wrote:

This event is so good for my free time and other interests. Login, enter mission, enemy tile placed in complete **** location -> gg -> 3 heals -> repeat -> 2 heals + switch in new character -> repeat -> go do somethng else.
I love level 230 flamethrower/any attack all skill, it would have been nice if they'd been honest and made the top progression prize 5k, so that maybe 5% of the player base would have some shot at reaching it.
Hooray for no reset on enemy levels and not even tanking parties lowering them.
P.S. - 230 Morale Boost = amazing, I want that so bad now.

This made me LOL so hard. Congrats on the post of the day my friend. Rumour has it the next 4* character is a hybrid lieutenant/flamethrower

Oh my thunderkitty, ice9 did say that the next character would be a xmen/mutant. Cooould be pyro ! Lol...

kensterr

Could be Pyro, Firestar, Sunspot or Sunfire.

Unknown

Starting to strongly doubt that I will limp my way to the 5k reward at this point.

I am very suspicious now that clearing the low level missions is causing the higher levels one to increase their levels faster, TaT style.

I think I understand what the devs are trying to achieve here, but are failing miserably in their execution of this desire. In concept, the devs want everyone to have a challenging experience at the events. The core problem, I believe, is that the current end-game is trivial difficulty to most top-tier players. Max level encounters are routinely farmed, mainly because of Spidey stunlock.

Thus, the devs do not want to keep the old system, as good old fashioned mudflation has resulted in accounts becoming powerful enough to routinely grab the carrot on the end of the stick. Hence, the current system of "scaling" that is being implemented. The core problem here (besides the scaling issues) is that Spidey still trivializes encounters 90 levels over the max level of 3* characters. Unless Spidey is nerfed quickly (I don't understand why this didn't happen around the Rag nerf - Spidey's OP-ness has been known since the dawn of the game), the game is going to be continued to be balanced around people with 5-Blue Spideys, except for the new accounts where the devs feel safe in generating easier content because they know there is no real chance of any of these accounts legitimately owning a 3* Spiderman.

---

Anyways, I've been thinking about this for a bit and here are my ideas for a "scaling" event that would seem plausible (at least to me).

Event Time: 6 days, 24 hour primary cycle, (perhaps allowing 12h for a points reset?)
Event map has 12 potential missions.

-- On Day 1, the map opens with the first 6 missions, at minimum levels for everyone. Missions can be repeated 4x for minimal points (10ish). Rewards for clearing missions are minimal as well (all 1* rewards). Once all six missions are cleared at least once, mission 7 unlocks as a "checkpoint mission".

-- If the player can defeat the "checkpoint mission" before the end of the cycle, then the player "advances" to the next tier of difficulty at the beginning of the next cycle.
-- If the player cannot defeat the "checkpoint mission" before the end of the cycle, then the player remains on the same tier of difficulty for the next cycle.

-- At the end of each cycle, save the current bracket, and wipe the board clean.

-- If the player failed to defeat the "checkpoint mission", then the player restarts the map, but retains points earned from the previous cycle(s).
-- If the player succeeded in defeating the "checkpoint" mission, then raise all mission levels and points earnable on missions by 10%. Increase the rewards on the encounters slightly as "Tier 2" rewards. The player restarts, needing to clear the previous seven missions, to unlock mission 8 as the new "checkpoint mission".

-- If the player defeats the Tier 2 "checkpoint mission" before the end of the 2nd cycle, move the player to "Tier 3" (encounter levels and points +15%; better mission rewards).
-- If the player fails to defeat the new "checkpoint mission", they repeat the cycle at Tier 2 the next day.

-- Continue this cycle daily until the end of the event. Unlock a new "checkpoint mission" every day - Missions 9, 10, and 11.

-- On the final cycle, unlock mission 12 as a "final boss" encounter for all tiers. Depending on the player's skill, roster, and engagement in the game, he/she will be somewhere between Tiers 1 - 6 of difficulty. Mission 12's difficulty is tied to the player's current tier of difficulty and offers a one-time major reward to the player based upon the level of difficulty achieved. Tier 1 could be a solo level 50 villain, whereas Tier 6 would be the standard trio of 200-230s. By tying a major reward to the end encounter that is reasonably obtainable, this drives a form of progression for players to reach for.

My thoughts:

This system allows players a gradually increasing daily difficulty skill, that enables them to work themselves up to their maximum encounter capability, while keeping players engaged in the game. The devs can offer incentives or nudges for the players to shoot for the higher difficulties (buying boosts and such to do so), yet this enables the player to choose how much risk want to engage in taking for a chance at a coveted reward. The devs could also create a sense of urgency among players to reach the next tier of difficulty by showing potential next-tier rewards and by keeping a clock on the map screen that shows much time the players have left to clear a cycle. To reach the highest tier of potential rewards for an event, the player has to play daily, driving engagement in the events.

Resetting the maps and allowing players to collect rewards multiple times will likely require a significant reduction on mission rewards (at least early on in the event) to avoid inflation issues. However, this will give players something to do instead of twiddling their fingers and doing nothing. For the casuals, clearing each mission once is sufficient to advance a tier. The hardcore among us would appreciate the capacity to farm events for ISO, tokens, and other prizes.

The scoring multipliers for each tier should easily enough segregate players who are only able to reach certain Tiers for progression rewards. This would allow the devs to include better (or more precisely valued) rewards, as they would be able to gauge what type of scores players who achieve a given tier are likely to achieve (and not constantly change point values for every event based on too many people achieving a given reward). ** Note that this would require rubberbanding to be eliminated to be effective.

Ok folks, what does everyone think, now that I've rattled off a 1000 word essay on this topic?

Unknown

It's really tedious (and sometimes even impossible) to fight these high level missions without Powered Up characters. Seriously, Daredevil is the only one getting a bonus in this event. The character who was just released the last event. There's no way any regular player could have him at a respective level to even take on L240 missions, and there's definitely at least 80% of the player population that doesn't have him at all. That locks us out of what, 2-3 missions in this event entirely?

I got to rank #3 yesterday, logged in tonight and I barely dropped down to #5. The people under man haven't moved at all but the people at top are at least 2-3k points ahead of me. There's absolutely nothing fun about this event.

Wonko33

Well I thought I was not understanding something, I guess everyone is having trouble. the only way I can win is a hit that gets my whole team down below 50% and Classic Storm just torches them With raging Tempest 3 times.

two frustrating things
- When you have 3 maxed out allowed characters for an event but you can't even finish the first map (CS 85 - Wolverine 85 IM35 50) my other choice is a 15level Spidey with no blue or Invisible Woman 38 1/1/1

- When a team of low level dudes I have on my phone can go further because they are fighting level 40 HammerHeads instead of level 120-230 ones. (GBW 46 Wolv 36 - CS 37)

Nemek

Lyrian wrote:

the game is going to be continued to be balanced around people with 5-Blue Spideys, except for the new accounts where the devs feel safe in generating easier content because they know there is no real chance of any of these accounts legitimately owning a 3* Spiderman.

This is basically what I've been thinking for a little while. So much of the PvE content has to be balanced around Spidey right now and that shifts so many things in the wrong direction. He's slightly more balanced in PvP because he's only average on defense and slows down offenses. But, once he can no longer completely dominate PvE, we'll probably start seeing these opponent levels come down and the lvl230 (or more!) missions start to become an actual challenge to the high-level players.

Unknown

+1 to the essay !

Unknown

It's not unreasonable to go for like 2 Wind Storms with a level 85 Classic Storm given how much blue you go through in a fight while using Spiderman. Sure it's not as safe as having Spiderman but there are only 2 battles that have more than one villian, so Wind Storm's stun is usually good enough because there usually is only one person you need to stun. Also Storm's green obviously is very good at hitting hard to reach countdown tiles and you'll definitely have a ton of green in these fights. Sometimes you can argue it's better to not stun the villian if the CD tiles are really hard to reach (because the villians will help you clear your way toward it), as long as the villian isn't Daken. For example it's really harmless for Yelena or Bullseye to match a tile, so sometimes you don't want to stun them because that gets you less moves to reach a countdown tile.

Unknown

greggray24 wrote:

Logged in on my alt account that I have not used in months and i can beat pretty much every mission without boosts and am getting the same points as my main account gets formuch harder fights. Just waned to see - no going to do it - but I could win ez.

Wait.. What?

Are people with lesser rosters going up against much easier opponents in this PvE?

Unknown

Nemek wrote:

Lyrian wrote:

the game is going to be continued to be balanced around people with 5-Blue Spideys, except for the new accounts where the devs feel safe in generating easier content because they know there is no real chance of any of these accounts legitimately owning a 3* Spiderman.

This is basically what I've been thinking for a little while. So much of the PvE content has to be balanced around Spidey right now and that shifts so many things in the wrong direction. He's slightly more balanced in PvP because he's only average on defense and slows down offenses. But, once he can no longer completely dominate PvE, we'll probably start seeing these opponent levels come down and the lvl230 (or more!) missions start to become an actual challenge to the high-level players.

I cleared everything in TaT with no Spider-Man. Several times, because I get pretty stupid when someone shows me shiny stuff I can get for turning a game into work . Mostly Patch'n'Loki, which is obvious yet sickeningly effective, but appropriately difficult to set going for something so "I win", unlike, say, "get 6 blue AP". Patch'n'prayer, more or less, when required characters made Loki less practical.

Not suggesting that challenge level is necessarily appropriate or what anyone really wants to see, but it can sometimes be managed without the ATU crutch, depending who's available and buffed. This time round is a complete fuggedaboudit, because the levels are much the same and I have no cover-complete or leveled characters to use for it. It'd probably be alright without the scaling issues, though - we'll have to await Word of God, or Demiurge_Will if God's not available, on how in line current behavior is with their intentions.

I strongly suspect they will need to review baseline difficulty once Spidey can't shut everything down for entire matches. I wonder if his funbalancing is taking longer because they're not so sure what to do with him? No one wants to use his blue as-is at 5AP, because then he's boring AND a bit rubbish. Doubt they want to change his role fundamentally (though they somewhat did Thor's), but they might be trying to make it work differently so it fits their balance vision without being just meh.

@Lyrian's dissertation: I think I get what you're trying to do with the reward structure and it kind of makes sense. I'm not honestly sure I see what you're getting over a straightforward static difficulty set-up like pre-scaling events is commensurate with the work involved. But I'm not sure why they felt the need to introduce scaling, either, so it'd be no worse than whatever they're actually trying to do.