Redefining Essential Missions.

Mawtful

The changes to powered up characters is already being discussed elsewhere, so I won't go into detail, however I do want to talk about the way essential missions are handled.

Essential Missions should provide the option to use a very basic (1/1/1) loaner version of the required character.

That's it. That's my proposed change. Players without the character are no longer punished; players with the character still have an advantage. Players with a covered & levelled character are more likely to succeed against the community scaling than those stuck using a loaner. These missions would not only showcase the advantage of keeping a diverse roster, but they would also showcase the powered up characters. If you want players to purchase covers or cover packs then letting them play with a demo is the right way to make that soft sell.

Unknown

It is an interesting proposal. If you're talking solely about PVE events, I can get behind this idea. If this idea gets extended towards DDQ, I personally think that getting covers will become too easy and most of us may stop playing the PVE and PVP events altogether because DDQ is the one game mode that majority of the player-base love. The time:reward ratio is just way better than the other game modes.

wymtime

I would agree for PVP and I am torn about PVE. I see your point that the essential should not be locked out to players, but on the other hand I also see where the Devs want to give the players with the essential character an advantage. Giving an advantage to players who have the essential character keeps players playing, especially if they are going from 2-3*. By giving the loaner character in PVE you are putting everyone on the same level.

I am really torn on the idea. I don't fully disagree with the premis, but I think I would keep PVE the same and give a 1,1,1 loaner in PVP. Feel free to convince me otherwise.

Unknown

If they wanted the PvE nodes to be teamup they'd have made them teamups, not essentials. If there's a problem it should be that roster slots are expensive after a certain point. Even if they handed out loaners to everyone you'll quickly notice in the post X Force nerf world, it is pretty hard to go 2on3 with your loaner and once the scaling kicks in, trying to do 2on3 is borderline insanity.

Mawtful

wymtime wrote:

I am really torn on the idea. I don't fully disagree with the premis, but I think I would keep PVE the same and give a 1,1,1 loaner in PVP. Feel free to convince me otherwise.

Phantron wrote:

Even if they handed out loaners to everyone you'll quickly notice in the post X Force nerf world, it is pretty hard to go 2on3 with your loaner and once the scaling kicks in, trying to do 2on3 is borderline insanity.

The more people who hit the node, the greater the effect of community scaling. Players who are using a loaner might get through the mission once on the first refresh, but it will soon become close to impossible. In their current format, I feel that this is a good enough check to keep the advantage for players who do have the required character on their roster.


But perhaps we don't need these missions to be "more of the same". I think that the natural progression of this concept might be to turn these into "puzzle" or "challenge" missions where both player and enemy teams are tailored to create certain styles of play or obstacles. For example, a team of Cyclops, Blade, Moonstone would basically be "don't let the enemy gather Red, don't leave Red on the board". And if you have to use a team of Kamala, Black Panther, OBW then simply counter-matching red isn't going to be a viable strategy and Rage of the Panther could be a liabilty (you don't really want to be giving Red, Black or Purple AP to that team). In this case, missions would be completable only once, and have a higher scaling & point value. This would still give players who have the specific characters an advantage in completing the mission, but allow everyone to at least have a shot.

Unknown

Mawtful wrote:

wymtime wrote:

I am really torn on the idea. I don't fully disagree with the premis, but I think I would keep PVE the same and give a 1,1,1 loaner in PVP. Feel free to convince me otherwise.

Phantron wrote:

Even if they handed out loaners to everyone you'll quickly notice in the post X Force nerf world, it is pretty hard to go 2on3 with your loaner and once the scaling kicks in, trying to do 2on3 is borderline insanity.

The more people who hit the node, the greater the effect of community scaling. Players who are using a loaner might get through the mission once on the first refresh, but it will soon become close to impossible. In their current format, I feel that this is a good enough check to keep the advantage for players who do have the required character on their roster.


But perhaps we don't need these missions to be "more of the same". I think that the natural progression of this concept might be to turn these into "puzzle" or "challenge" missions where both player and enemy teams are tailored to create certain styles of play or obstacles. For example, a team of Cyclops, Blade, Moonstone would basically be "don't let the enemy gather Red, don't leave Red on the board". And if you have to use a team of Kamala, Black Panther, OBW then simply counter-matching red isn't going to be a viable strategy and Rage of the Panther could be a liabilty (you don't really want to be giving Red, Black or Purple AP to that team). In this case, missions would be completable only once, and have a higher scaling & point value. This would still give players who have the specific characters an advantage in completing the mission, but allow everyone to at least have a shot.

What you're describing is kind of like the introductory missions where your 3 guys are already fixed and often not exactly the best combination of guys but you still have to make it work, though of course those nodes tend to feature trivial enemies so it's not a big deal those 3 guys don't work together. Sure if they want to do some interesting themed nodes like that with teamup characters that aren't trivial I'm fine with that, but that's likely a lot of work to figure this stuff out.

wymtime

Mawtful wrote:

wymtime wrote:

I am really torn on the idea. I don't fully disagree with the premis, but I think I would keep PVE the same and give a 1,1,1 loaner in PVP. Feel free to convince me otherwise.

Phantron wrote:

Even if they handed out loaners to everyone you'll quickly notice in the post X Force nerf world, it is pretty hard to go 2on3 with your loaner and once the scaling kicks in, trying to do 2on3 is borderline insanity.

The more people who hit the node, the greater the effect of community scaling. Players who are using a loaner might get through the mission once on the first refresh, but it will soon become close to impossible. In their current format, I feel that this is a good enough check to keep the advantage for players who do have the required character on their roster.


But perhaps we don't need these missions to be "more of the same". I think that the natural progression of this concept might be to turn these into "puzzle" or "challenge" missions where both player and enemy teams are tailored to create certain styles of play or obstacles. For example, a team of Cyclops, Blade, Moonstone would basically be "don't let the enemy gather Red, don't leave Red on the board". And if you have to use a team of Kamala, Black Panther, OBW then simply counter-matching red isn't going to be a viable strategy and Rage of the Panther could be a liabilty (you don't really want to be giving Red, Black or Purple AP to that team). In this case, missions would be completable only once, and have a higher scaling & point value. This would still give players who have the specific characters an advantage in completing the mission, but allow everyone to at least have a shot.

What you are basicly describing is more Gauntlet type missions, or initial team up mission as Phantron described. Part of the reason for essential mission is to feature the buffed character. In your original post you want the essentials to give the loaner character in order for everyone to be able to play all the nodes.
I would give this alternative just as we are seeing in TaT. eachcessential has a different 3* needed to complete the node. This way if you don't have one of the featured you can still play the other 2 and compete for potential 1-2 covers. It still benefits players with deep rosters and continues play, but eliminates the fact if you don't have the character you are done. It will let D3 show off certain characters and make players play them and possible level them as well.

Unknown

Keep in mind that if they fix the 3 guys you've to use they'd need to do more than just picking 3 random guys together. I remember on Rocket & Groot it is quite possible to lose to the initial The Hood + Jugg + Muscle (?) with your level 270 loaner Thor 4* even in her pre nerf form because the other two guys you get are pretty much garbage. It'd certainly be interesting but it's not going to be as fire & forget as the typical node. I remember the Simulator used to have a node where you're loaned a high level featured character against trivial enemies and they tend to be guys that your featured character would work well against, so for example if you're loaned Loki then expect to see Daken or Bullseye on the opposing team. That was pretty cool but probably took a lot more effort to do than it appears.

Mawtful

wymtime wrote:

I would give this alternative just as we are seeing in TaT. eachcessential has a different 3* needed to complete the node. This way if you don't have one of the featured you can still play the other 2 and compete for potential 1-2 covers. It still benefits players with deep rosters and continues play, but eliminates the fact if you don't have the character you are done.

I can appreciate what demiurge is trying to do, but the reality of what they will achieve is entirely different. Be prepared for a whole lot of "rich get richer" type complaints, because that's exactly how it's going to be perceived.

wymtime wrote:

It will let D3 show off certain characters and make players play them and possible level them as well.

I disagree with this. Teamup missions "show off" a character, they let you use that character and you should be able to see each of their abilities in action. Gating missions behind a required character does not. Answer me this: With 2* Captain America featured as a required character in Thick as Thieves, will you be levelling him and keeping him on your roster after seeing how useful he can be? I know I'm certainly not.

In the end, perhaps it's not necessary to change essentials. The number of players affected is ultimately going to be quite small. I'm already consistently outside of the top 10 in PvE, and I'm not going to start leveling 2*'s to try and change that. As long as PvP events continue to feature characters from the 3* tier as the bulk of the Season progress then leveling characters from the 3* tier will provide the best advantage. I'll still be a little bit disappointed every time I don't the right character, but that's just something I'll have to deal with.

Phantron wrote:

That was pretty cool but probably took a lot more effort to do than it appears.

On one hand, I can understand that time and effort would be better spent in other areas most of the time, but on the other hand, perhaps they need someone trying to create and balance more of those sorts of match ups as part of the testing process for new characters: "Oh, Character X can generate a tonne of Black AP on the first or second turn, and the most highly valued attack ability in the game uses Black AP with the potential for infinite turn generation. Hmm, maybe we should address this now?"

Azoic

It is fin as is. It rewards people who keep the characters or have otherwise earned them. Most of the events give out the essential somewhere during the event, or in pvp, so you will eventually be able to do later essentials. Further, next time, you will have that character from the start. I began in January, and now the only char I don't have is Col, which I will earn next pve.

The rich only get richer that one event, unless you opt to sell your characters, in which case, why give you a free loaner? And free loaners takes away health pack juggling, which you always have to consider if saving essentials for final grind--if he required char dies and you used all your packs on other nodes, you can't play it. Throw in a loaner, and not inly can you play, but you have him/her soak up as much dmg tanking whatever colors they can.

You play one pve through, you get the essentials for next. Pretty straight forward and keeps folks playing