Question for devs and playtesters

simonsez

I know you guys would never release an event without extensive playtesting, so I would like to invite all devs, and any playtesters we might have here, to tell us about your experience playtesting the final essential node in Gauntlet.

How many times have you beaten it?
How many tries did it take you to beat it on average?
Who did you use, and what level were the opponents?
How much fun was it?

Please, tell us all about it...

wymtime

simonsez wrote:

I know you guys would never release an event without extensive playtesting, so I would like to invite all devs, and any playtesters we might have here, to tell us about your experience playtesting the final essential node in Gauntlet.

How many times have you beaten it?
How many tries did it take you to beat it on average?
Who did you use, and what level were the opponents?
How much fun was it?

Please, tell us all about it...

Let me guess
#1 once
#2 zero
#3 essential character, cstorm, and moonstone
#4 it was awsome watching the AI destroy our team. The power, and destructive cascades at these levels was just too cool. We think you will appriciate it as well.

Unknown

simonsez wrote:

I know you guys would never release an event without extensive playtesting, so I would like to invite all devs, and any playtesters we might have here, to tell us about your experience playtesting the final essential node in Gauntlet.

How many times have you beaten it?
How many tries did it take you to beat it on average?
Who did you use, and what level were the opponents?
How much fun was it?

Please, tell us all about it...

I second this motion. I am not even there yet, but imagine, based on what my alliance mates, with much better rosters than me, are saying, that I will not conquer it.

simonsez

johnaaron33 wrote:

I second this motion. I am not even there yet, but imagine, based on what my alliance mates, with much better rosters than me, are saying, that I will not conquer it.

Well, the beauty of it, is that you have just as good a chance as anybody. Just bring a whales team up, and try to get 14TU before shehulk steals them, loki steals them, or a bomb hits the bottom. From my experience, and what I've heard, you've got maybe 3 or 4 turns to accomplish this. But eventually, the RNG gods will smile on you, give you a good board and a lucky cascade, and you'll succeed. Key word being "eventually". But is this really how the game should be played? Not to me.

Unknown

simonsez wrote:

From my experience, and what I've heard, you've got maybe 3 or 4 turns to accomplish this. But eventually, the RNG gods will smile on you, give you a good board and a lucky cascade, and you'll succeed. Key word being "eventually". But is this really how the game should be played? Not to me.

^this. so much this.

except, ironically (and sarcastically)....this is exactly what gameplay has devolved into lol (out of game communication, pvp boosting, retreating, etc), you know...relying on something like superwhales to hustle your way thru this ridiculous game ...much to the chagrin of those patrolling this forum who police what is 'ethical' gameplay

but you know what. the devs might read this and go..."hm, maybe we should nerf super whales!" cause like boosting in pvp, this is not how the game is supposed to be played! what's SUPPOSED to happen is that players...submit. and buy health packs.

anyways. in an attempt to be more constructive...how about when facing teams that are up 100+ levels on you they only earn like the first 5 ap from any cascade. give us this at least, yea? i mean, it'd be better if enemy teams couldnt scale that high in the first place, but hey balance is balance amirite?

Unknown

unco_dan wrote:

anyways. in an attempt to be more constructive...how about when facing teams that are up 100+ levels on you they only earn like the first 5 ap from any cascade. give us this at least, yea? i mean, it'd be better if enemy teams couldnt scale that high in the first place, but hey balance is balance amirite?

To be honest, I really don't understand scaling. Why are we facing characters at levels that WE CAN NEVER HAVE?

If I could have a 395 one day in the FORESEEABLE future, not 10 years from now, I would probably be like, well damn, ok, I know who I have to level up.

But since this is not a possibility to me, or anyone else, why?

From what I have read, the 395 (and all other crazy scaling) was due to prologue healing with Spidey and OBW. Since those have been nerfed to no longer true heal, why haven't they greatly reduced community scaling? Or scaling in general?

Eddiemon

johnaaron33 wrote:

To be honest, I really don't understand scaling. Why are we facing characters at levels that WE CAN NEVER HAVE?

From what I have read, the 395 (and all other crazy scaling) was due to prologue healing with Spidey and OBW. Since those have been nerfed to no longer true heal, why haven't they greatly reduced community scaling? Or scaling in general?

It's PvE so there is no requirement your opponent be playable.

And scaling exists to make events about more than just who can play the most. Which is what it would be if all opponents were reasonable all the time. Making nodes too hard and causing people to run out of health packs before clearing all possible nodes confers advantages to the skilled and the lucky.

And complaining about scaling in gauntlet is ironic given that it is the response to requests for a PvE that was incredibly hard but rewarded you based on your achievements and not compared to everyone else.

simonsez

Eddiemon wrote:

And complaining about scaling in gauntlet is ironic given that it is the response to requests for a PvE that was incredibly hard but rewarded you based on your achievements and not compared to everyone else.

I think the issue is, replaying a node indefinitely until you happen to get a good opening board, doesn't feel like an "achievement". It's one thing to lose by a bad cascade, or a poor decision, but in these last couple of nodes, you're not even really "playing".

Unknown

Eddiemon wrote:

It's PvE so there is no requirement your opponent be playable.

And scaling exists to make events about more than just who can play the most. Which is what it would be if all opponents were reasonable all the time. Making nodes too hard and causing people to run out of health packs before clearing all possible nodes confers advantages to the skilled and the lucky.

And complaining about scaling in gauntlet is ironic given that it is the response to requests for a PvE that was incredibly hard but rewarded you based on your achievements and not compared to everyone else.

I wasn't specifically targeting the gauntlet. I understand that it is supposed to be a marathon, not a sprint.

And thank you for your response. So there is actually still a specific need for scaling. But 395?

Unknown

I suspect what Blizzard did on Inferno difficulty for Diablo 3 where they took the hardest thing they can imagine and doubled everything isn't unique to Blizzard.

The problem with recognizing that your own playtesters clearly can't be the very best in the world (they wouldn't have time to do their job otherwise) is that you can easily overestimate the players, though I'm not sure how they were expecting people to easily beat Ultron at 395 without Whales. Or maybe they didn't know he scaled to 395 for people with any halfway decent roster.

Ironically I took Deadpool + Scarlet Witch to acclerate for purple, but of course the AI matched/destroyed every blue CD I have the moment they're up and yet I somehow got 12 purple in the first 4 turns anyway and won it easily with Whales. But just because you can get really lucky doesn't mean that it was fair.

Unknown

I kind of like the difficulty level in Gauntlet, its more like the Puzzle Quest I started playing 10 years ago were some skill and some luck can take you through it. The time limit is generous so you can take your time looking for the right move without worrying that you're being lined up by half the table underneath you. Some of the nodes were vicious and the designers were out and out ruthless on a couple, but that's good as there's a sense of satisfaction when you do it.

Saying that, I was able to do every node except for the last one on the last branch with the Ultron boss, I had to whale it as the skill to luck ratio was overloaded to the later.

Wonko33

simonsez wrote:

I know you guys would never release an event without extensive playtesting, so I would like to invite all devs, and any playtesters we might have here, to tell us about your experience playtesting the final essential node in Gauntlet.

How many times have you beaten it?
How many tries did it take you to beat it on average?
Who did you use, and what level were the opponents?
How much fun was it?

Please, tell us all about it...

no there yet

Who's the essential and who are we facing on that node?

Unknown

Wonko33 wrote:

no there yet

Who's the essential and who are we facing on that node?

The Ultron boss who takes out the bottom line and drops bombs, along with She-Hulk and Loki. You can usually tell on about the 3rd move if you're going to have a chance at it or not, as most times it'll place an unmatchable bomb before you can build AP to counter.

fmftint

Wonko33 wrote:

simonsez wrote:

I know you guys would never release an event without extensive playtesting, so I would like to invite all devs, and any playtesters we might have here, to tell us about your experience playtesting the final essential node in Gauntlet.

How many times have you beaten it?
How many tries did it take you to beat it on average?
Who did you use, and what level were the opponents?
How much fun was it?

Please, tell us all about it...

no there yet

Who's the essential and who are we facing on that node?

Essential: IW, the 2 before her are Mystique
Enemies: Bomb dropping Ultron, Loki, She Hulk

Esheris

I want to know how to beat it with 3 covers of Invisible Woman...

fmftint

Esheris wrote:

I want to know how to beat it with 3 covers of Invisible Woman...

the same way most are... Whales

Wonko33

He still can't be stunned ?

Unknown

Wonko33 wrote:

He still can't be stunned ?

Stun would hardly make a difference since he's paired up with guys who can move the board, especially he has Loki who has a strong AP denial mechanism and Illusions can randomly move the bomb to the bottom where they blow up for 16K and pretty much instantly killing anybody. I'm sure it's beatable without Whales if you tried long enough. I almost got rid of Loki and after that you need about 5-10 turns to win the game with Professor X on a good board, though it took a pretty decent start to even come close to defeating Loki before anybody gets instant killed by the bombs.

Linkster79

I love how the OP assumes anything in this game goes through a rigorous play testing phase.

L395 AI was introduced to combat Spiderman and C.Mags stun lock/ability loop, now those are gone so should the ridiculous high levels.

Unknown

It's not just they're 395 but they're 395 on guys you usually can't do much about. For example one of my fights against 395 Blade looked like this:

Start game with PX/Mystique/Iron Fist
See there are around 12 red tiles not in an immediately matchable position
See that there are no available match 5s on the board
Figure the game is already over but might as well give it a shot

First turn, match something
The Thirst, match damage for 500
Second turn, match some red
The Thirst, match damage for 800
Third turn, match some red
The Thirst, match damage for 1100
Quit game, or die, they're roughly the same at this point, confirming my initial suspicion that this game was not winnable.

Yes there were an unusually large amount of red on this board, but we're talking about 4 turns from a passive. This isn't even factoring any moves the AI may have had. This Gauntlet is dominated by guys who have very low cost AP moves or guys who do ability damage on passives (e.g. Iron Fist). If you're fighting IMHB you can say try to keep him off red/black, it won't always work but at least it might. How do you slow down The Thirst when the board is already loaded on red? Or Exquisite Technique? Well you can Hulk bomb these situations but it doesn't even always work and it sure doesn't feel like you're doing anything creative.

Wonko33

Linkster79 wrote:

I love how the OP assumes anything in this game goes through a rigorous play testing phase.

L395 AI was introduced to combat Spiderman and C.Mags stun lock/ability loop, now those are gone so should the ridiculous high levels.

1st I think he was being sarcastic, if you are being sarcastic too that makes me look like an idiot, thanks a lot.

2nd the funny thing about the L395 is that it did not prevent anything, just took longer once it was locked or looped