Question for devs and playtesters

Wonko33

Phantron wrote:

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.

Even Hulk bomb, they have so much health that it just takes a dent, with a good Green attack it will take more rounds than you have. Loki black might slow it down, the defensive tiles will keep his future strike tiles off your **** for a few rounds.

Unknown

Wonko33 wrote:

Phantron wrote:

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.

Even Hulk bomb, they have so much health that it just takes a dent, with a good Green attack it will take more rounds than you have. Loki black might slow it down, the defensive tiles will keep his future strike tiles off your **** for a few rounds.

How are you supposed to get 11 black to counter a passive that can end the game in 3 turns especially when they're generated in the first 3 turns of the game? At 395 Blade creates 2X130 or so strength. If he gets 6 of them out you pretty much lost the game, and even getting 2 of them out is going to make it very hard to recover. Now can you beat Blade at 395? Sure, just get a board that doesn't start with a lot of red, but this isn't something you have any control over. I guess you can say as bad as The Thirst is, Exquisite Technique is still a lot worse, but that's like saying level 395s aren't that bad compared to if those guys are 495 instead. The 395s are probably a bit too hard in the first place, but you just can't put guys who completely dominate you with a level advantage like Iron Fist or Juggernaut repeatedly.

simonsez

Linkster79 wrote:

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

And I love how the internet is still filled with people who don't understand how sarcasm works.

FierceKiwi

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...

LOL best joke ever!!!! Like these clowns playtest anything.

fmftint

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...

Not a tester, but
1: 1
2: 3
3: LCap 192/IW 160/Hood 166 opponents: 253/254/254
4:

Unknown

aesthetocyst wrote:

johnaaron33 wrote:

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

Because that's the only trick they have in regards to increasing difficulty. It would be far more interesting if difficulty meant AI sophistication. But nope. It's not uncommon, that's how "difficulty" is achieved in lots of games, not with a better opponent, but by just literally tilting the table in the AI's favor.

Edit: And 395 is not tilting the table, it's flipping it over and then Hulk Smashing it into oblivion.

Original Response:
I guess what I should have said was: "I don't understand scaling in its current state."

I understand it is far easier to just make your opponents harder (ie... more health, bigger damage, etc).
But Scaling should be tied to your roster, with a short elastic leash that doesn't allow it to go more than 50-75 levels above you, maybe even 100 if you are running maxed 4*'s.

For the AI to be able to play a character that is more than double my roster, is lazy work and ridiculous. Just saying.

Pylgrim

To be honest, I had more trouble on some of the earlier nodes in that chapter. I beat the final one on the first attempt and I cannot even remember what team did I use (perhaps Hulk and Patch?). I don't have maxed 4*s or anything. My best 4* is 200 level X-Force.

dkffiv

fmftint 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...

Not a tester, but
1: 1
2: 3
3: LCap 192/IW 160/Hood 166 opponents: 253/254/254
4:

Scaling ftl, here's some numbers:
Level 360 IW has 17247 HP, Level 240 LCap has 13892 HP (red does 5719 damage), level 166 Hood has 5100 HP.

Level 395 Ultron has 25935 HP, Loki has 13942 HP, She-Hulk has 25096 HP (red does 3837 AoE). Ultron has 175 match damage so you're taking a minimum of 525 damage a turn.

166 LCap does 4031 with red, a level 192 probably does around 4662.

166 She Hulk 10710 HP 1644 damage red, 254 should have around 16387 HP with a 2515 damage red.

166 Loki 5950, 254 should have around 9100 HP.

Ultron should have around 16,611 HP.

For about a thousand extra damage on red, a player that has reached maxed scaling has to deal with an extra 23k life and enemies that take 3/5/5 shields to kill (as opposed to 2/4/4). The player HP is mostly irrelevant due to bombs / SH red but the higher match damage means its possible for a 166 Hood to die to match damage before one of those events were to occur.

Unknown

The fact that an enemy's HP/ability damage grows faster than the player's level is probably because it is assumed that a maxed out guy has more interesting options available that is beyond just a linear addition of power. This may have been true back when pre nerf Magneto was around or even pre nerf X Force, but right now having another level 166/270 adds no real power to a top end roster unless it's someone that's really broken. At most it gives you 1/3 of a shot at getting a great board that you need to beat the 395s and it's only 1/3 of a shot every 5-6 hours since you won't be using health packs on a random 166/270.

Some of these fights should be uniquely setup and not just made as a flat level. I'd imagine the final essential should look like:

HP at level 395 levels.
Match damage is set at level 200 levels.
Ultron bomb does 4000 damage.
Power of Attorney does no damage, cost is reduced to 5 red AP.

Ultron drops an extra bomb per turn per character down (doesn't count himself, of course).

Now you actually have a lot of interesting strategy to approach this battle. I'm guessing people will still wimp out with Whales or just go with a Master Plan abuse but at least you can try some alternatives instead of having a bomb hit bottom and instantly lose a guy.

Unknown

you think they care about playtesting? Here's my comment from other thread:

raisinbman wrote:

unco_dan wrote:

raisinbman wrote:

unco_dan wrote:

you should add to the poll: did you beat the gauntlet...WITHOUT using whales?

i've yet to use whales and i only have the tetris ultron node left. so far i'm 0/1

why does that matter? It's not an achievement, but I guess + points to you or something

I save whales for gauntlet so I don't get hella frustrated. No shame in using the tools you're given against an insurmountable foe.

lol i'm confused by your reply. anyways..

if the gauntlet cant be beat without the use of whales (for that tetris ulton node), then i'm thinking that the devs either didnt playtest tetris ultron or they were seriously trolling us the devs sure know what they're doing

...said no one ever.

edits: similar discussion going on here- viewtopic.php?f=7&t=30256

U think the devs care about playtesting? Do you remember Ultron 2.0?

They said the only reason more ppl didn't complete rould 8 is cuz they gave up, so I assume they'll use similar reasoning again. After all, they're out of the office during the weekend. They don't care if we find it fair. Why do you think they stick deadpool in later nodes where he doesn't really have any synergy(besides being hard to kill)? They want to block our whale-usage as much as possible.

In short, the devs will say it's "working as intended" because "4*covers should only be gotten by X number of players". Don't expect compensation.

PS: I'd be more worried about the weird "You need 4 different essential characters that we haven't hinted at before and a 2* isn't essential even though we've made the 2*/3*/4* essential format" thing than Tetris Ultron.

Pylgrim

Well, the poll asking who had finished the gauntlet so far has been overwhelmingly positive (averaging 70%), so it seems that the gauntlet was very much a doable endeavour. Very difficult? Sure, that's the whole point of that event: is true PVE and it doesn't have alliance or placement rewards. You play as much as you want or are able to.

Sometimes it seems as though people are expecting that after successfully doing a 3-match, devs should come and pat them on the back and give them a maxed hulkbuster for their incredible feat, and are disappointed to find out that it actually takes some effort.

simonsez

Pylgrim wrote:

the gauntlet was very much a doable endeavour

That was never the point. But you already know that. Or maybe you don't, since we've already established you don't always read the threads you and your horse come galloping through...

Vhailorx

Pylgrim wrote:

Well, the poll asking who had finished the gauntlet so far has been overwhelmingly positive (averaging 70%), so it seems that the gauntlet was very much a doable endeavour. Very difficult? Sure, that's the whole point of that event: is true PVE and it doesn't have alliance or placement rewards. You play as much as you want or are able to.

Sometimes it seems as though people are expecting that after successfully doing a 3-match, devs should come and pat them on the back and give them a maxed hulkbuster for their incredible feat, and are disappointed to find out that it actually takes some effort.

c'mon pylgrim. you know that isn't what people are doing here. the people making this thread aren't the same people who whine about the ai cheating with cascades or casting abilities without the necessary ap. I get that you don't like mean-spirited attacks on the devs. I don't like those either.

But this thread is asking a perfectly reasonable question about the design choices that led to a particularly hard node. And it's great that you don't even remember how you beat the node. That's great for you. Your experience is not matched by the majority of people that have commented on that node in this thread or other threads. (and yes, 70% of repondents said they finished the gauntlet. since that involves humble-bragging, people who finished are more likely to post that people who didn't. And forumites are already a better-than-average slice of mpq players. Nor does the poll show how many people used whales to be the node versus beating it straight up. nor how many people beat it straight up with level 395 scaling.)

Essential 18 featured an unstunnable character with a bomb attack that will 1-hit-kill all but 3 characters in the game if it reaches the bottom of the board. Each match by the enemy did a minimum of 545 damage. The enemy team also has a 2-match boardshake ability that can randomly place any tile directly at the bottom of the board, and a 3-match aoe damage ability that does 4k team damage AND removes 16 tiles from the bottom of the board, accellerating the bomb attack.

That is a VERY difficult level, and one that has abilities that mesh so well the design seems very intentional. We already know that calibrating difficulty is hard and the devs sometimes get things wrong. It seems quite to fair to make a thread asking about it. Perhaps you should address your comment to that straw man standing in the corner. . .

Unknown

If D3 offered you 3 covers for a new 4* for physically bashing your head against the wall hard enough I'm sure some people will say, 'hey it's easier than doing the PvE introduction event', but that doesn't mean just because some people chose to do that it's a good idea. The Gauntlet is positively received because it's easy covers for minimal work, and even though the design for the latter half of the Gauntlet is flawed, people aren't going to complain about free stuff. But it really isn't even that challenging because all you're doing at the 395s is starting the game and see if you got a position where you can win in under 10 turns because that's about the time you have before you lose even with the most degenerate combos you can have when the enemy features a guy with very cheap (in terms of AP cost) or a guy who can do ability damage passively (Daken, Blade, Iron Fist). And that's not actually as hard as it sounds because there are quite a few combos that can effectively win the game in 10 turns as long as you've a good board. So all you're not realy challenged in any way. You're just restarting a node and hope the enemy doesn't immediately get their moves going and that you can immediately get your going. If it doesn't work you can try again later for 3 health packs, and sometimes not even that much because the enemies are so strong that having full health is not that important when any of their moves KOs a guy from 100% to 0%.

The previous iterations of Gauntlet isn't necessarily this bad. I wonder if they picked all the powerhouses guarding the final nodes because the 4* is being offered. If you have an opponent like Thor, she'll do something like 6K on a Smite and 4K all on a Striking Distance at 395, and maybe 11K on a Power Surge combo but it's not like the AI ever gets that correct. It's not easy but you definitely have a lot of time to prepare for it, and taking a 6K Smite is hardly instantly game over.

san

NOT A PLAY TESTER.


I'm not sure if you're talking just the final node, or final essential node. I did all the essentials after completing regular nodes.

Final REGULAR node:

Hood, Loki, DP +blue/purple x2; +all x2. DP whale bomb. Done. Took me one try.

On some of the harder nodes (i.e. essentials where my essential was junk), I also did the following:

Luke Cage (for protection, but mine is not optimal, at 5/3/5), Cap (high health), and essential +DP Whales TU; +2x TU tiles +2x ALL tiles. DP bomb.

I save my DP points solely for the Gauntlets I like. I don't use them at all regularly, so I tend to have 5-6 whales saved up at any one point in time. I use them when I can't beat a node with my standard characters.

Vhailorx

Phantron is, I think, talking about the general design philosphy of using powerful passive abilities at 395.

I think the OP was specifically talking about essential 18 (IW v. Ultron/Loki/she hulk. That node is a particularly broken design, with one hit kill bombs and lots of board shake to accellerare the bombs.

I think sim 4w was more in line with the "standard" gauntlet design that phantron doesn't seem to like.

Also, using dp points to whale bomb teams is easy, but is also kind of cheesing it (and is also doable only once every 10 days or so)

Pylgrim

Vhailorx wrote:

Pylgrim wrote:

Well, the poll asking who had finished the gauntlet so far has been overwhelmingly positive (averaging 70%), so it seems that the gauntlet was very much a doable endeavour. Very difficult? Sure, that's the whole point of that event: is true PVE and it doesn't have alliance or placement rewards. You play as much as you want or are able to.

Sometimes it seems as though people are expecting that after successfully doing a 3-match, devs should come and pat them on the back and give them a maxed hulkbuster for their incredible feat, and are disappointed to find out that it actually takes some effort.

c'mon pylgrim. you know that isn't what people are doing here. the people making this thread aren't the same people who whine about the ai cheating with cascades or casting abilities without the necessary ap. I get that you don't like mean-spirited attacks on the devs. I don't like those either.

But this thread is asking a perfectly reasonable question about the design choices that led to a particularly hard node. And it's great that you don't even remember how you beat the node. That's great for you. Your experience is not matched by the majority of people that have commented on that node in this thread or other threads. (and yes, 70% of repondents said they finished the gauntlet. since that involves humble-bragging, people who finished are more likely to post that people who didn't. And forumites are already a better-than-average slice of mpq players. Nor does the poll show how many people used whales to be the node versus beating it straight up. nor how many people beat it straight up with level 395 scaling.)

Essential 18 featured an unstunnable character with a bomb attack that will 1-hit-kill all but 3 characters in the game if it reaches the bottom of the board. Each match by the enemy did a minimum of 545 damage. The enemy team also has a 2-match boardshake ability that can randomly place any tile directly at the bottom of the board, and a 3-match aoe damage ability that does 4k team damage AND removes 16 tiles from the bottom of the board, accellerating the bomb attack.

That is a VERY difficult level, and one that has abilities that mesh so well the design seems very intentional. We already know that calibrating difficulty is hard and the devs sometimes get things wrong. It seems quite to fair to make a thread asking about it. Perhaps you should address your comment to that straw man standing in the corner. . .

No, see, it is exactly my point: It IS very difficult and I don't understand why people would expect it to be easy when the reward was a 4* cover. But it is doable, so it is not poorly designed which seems to be the point of the thread; in fact, matches including highly synergistic teams are a proof of good design and much more interesting than the typical "put 3 muscleheads together so you just have to chew through over 60k HP total and that's it". Sometimes you'll get an awful board and get cleaned out regardless of bringing your best/most apt team, but that's ok: The most difficult matches in the gauntlet were the only times when I have lost in a PVE in recent memory (perhaps since Ultron), the challenge was welcome, even if it is infuriating right when it happens.

You lost? Try again, maybe with a different team or strategy? You lost again? Repeat. You are out of health packs? Well the event lasts 7 days so go take a breather and try again when your guys are healed. The point of my hyperbole was that some people seem not able of acknowledging when a defeat is either fruit of bad luck or worse, to be blamed on a poor strategy or team of their choosing. It is much easier to displace the ineptitude and blame to the developers.

And I know that /you know/ that the "asking a question" was totally rhetorical and more intended to be a transparently sarcastic complaint, so don't bring up logical fallacies to me.

Unknown

Pylgrim wrote:

Vhailorx wrote:

Pylgrim wrote:

Well, the poll asking who had finished the gauntlet so far has been overwhelmingly positive (averaging 70%), so it seems that the gauntlet was very much a doable endeavour. Very difficult? Sure, that's the whole point of that event: is true PVE and it doesn't have alliance or placement rewards. You play as much as you want or are able to.

Sometimes it seems as though people are expecting that after successfully doing a 3-match, devs should come and pat them on the back and give them a maxed hulkbuster for their incredible feat, and are disappointed to find out that it actually takes some effort.

c'mon pylgrim. you know that isn't what people are doing here. the people making this thread aren't the same people who whine about the ai cheating with cascades or casting abilities without the necessary ap. I get that you don't like mean-spirited attacks on the devs. I don't like those either.

But this thread is asking a perfectly reasonable question about the design choices that led to a particularly hard node. And it's great that you don't even remember how you beat the node. That's great for you. Your experience is not matched by the majority of people that have commented on that node in this thread or other threads. (and yes, 70% of repondents said they finished the gauntlet. since that involves humble-bragging, people who finished are more likely to post that people who didn't. And forumites are already a better-than-average slice of mpq players. Nor does the poll show how many people used whales to be the node versus beating it straight up. nor how many people beat it straight up with level 395 scaling.)

Essential 18 featured an unstunnable character with a bomb attack that will 1-hit-kill all but 3 characters in the game if it reaches the bottom of the board. Each match by the enemy did a minimum of 545 damage. The enemy team also has a 2-match boardshake ability that can randomly place any tile directly at the bottom of the board, and a 3-match aoe damage ability that does 4k team damage AND removes 16 tiles from the bottom of the board, accellerating the bomb attack.

That is a VERY difficult level, and one that has abilities that mesh so well the design seems very intentional. We already know that calibrating difficulty is hard and the devs sometimes get things wrong. It seems quite to fair to make a thread asking about it. Perhaps you should address your comment to that straw man standing in the corner. . .

No, see, it is exactly my point: It IS very difficult and I don't understand why people would expect it to be easy when the reward was a 4* cover. But it is doable, so it is not poorly designed which seems to be the point of the thread; in fact, matches including highly synergistic teams are a proof of good design and much more interesting than the typical "put 3 muscleheads together so you just have to chew through over 60k HP total and that's it". Sometimes you'll get an awful board and get cleaned out regardless of bringing your best/most apt team, but that's ok: The most difficult matches in the gauntlet were the only times when I have lost in a PVE in recent memory (perhaps since Ultron), the challenge was welcome, even if it is infuriating right when it happens.

You lost? Try again, maybe with a different team or strategy? You lost again? Repeat. You are out of health packs? Well the event lasts 7 days so go take a breather and try again when your guys are healed. The point of my hyperbole was that some people seem not able of acknowledging when a defeat is either fruit of bad luck or worse, to be blamed on a poor strategy or team of their choosing. It is much easier to displace the ineptitude and blame to the developers.

And I know that /you know/ that the "asking a question" was totally rhetorical and more intended to be a transparently sarcastic complaint, so don't bring up logical fallacies to me.

p-gizzy, you're veering off topic. read again what vhailorx wrote. no one here is saying that the gauntlet isn't supposed to be difficult.

again, to repeat the main point that many posters here have been trying to communicate on this particular thread: what was the thought process behind essential 18?

cause it's a near-impossible node apart from superwhaling it. and to be even more clear, i believe what most of us are referring to is essential 18 at lvl 395. a lot of players in the other thread with the poll have said they beat it without whales, but it seems unlikely that a majority of them were facing lvl395s. for example, one player said they hulk bombed it with hulk and patch. ALL of my alliance members who've tried lvl395 essential 18 without using whales are saying its impossible and hulk bombing it is a joke. furthermore, like vhail wrote already the poll doesn't reflect what kind of rosters players have who completed the gauntlet. for example, the top finisher in one of my alliance mate's gauntlet brackets didn't have a single character over lvl70. and none of them were fully covered. so again, no one is saying that the gauntlet shouldn't be difficult. only that for those of us facing lvl395s for tetris ultron, we realize that this node is near impossible to beat with whales, which begs the question: what were the devs thinking? (and to give them the benefit of a doubt, they were likely distracted by something moonstone related )

(edited for clarity)

san

@vhailrox - I agree that using DP points is cheesing it.

I actually didn't respond to the content of the OP's initial quarrel with the difficulty levels at all. I wasn't agreeing one way or another, to be honest. To me, they are too hard. That much I can agree with. I know, going into any gauntlet, that my levels will be hard (345-395 for the final few nodes), and so I plan for it by using whales. Is it cheesing it? Sure. Can I do it every time? Nope. I didn't do the last gauntlet at all. However, because I know about it, I plan for it.

That said, I believe that it's overdone. I think that D3Go ultimately needs to change it. However, I don't see this happening. So I adapt.

@unco_dan

Not sure what the thought process was. I know that it's nearly unbeatable without Whales, Whales, Whales, so I save the whales (hehe, I save the whales - Free Willy!). I don't think that Hulk bombing is an option, and I don't see Hulk making enough green tiles to kill any of the 20k+ characters, let alone all 3. There isn't enough time to stop all the bombs, and you really can't afford to get hit when the levels are too high. Whoever said that it's doable this particular way, is in my opinion, lying.

TheOncomingStorm

We continually tell mpq that scaling on the high end is starting too high. The matches take too long and are often too lopsided. Often the starting scaling seems like the scaling should progress up to and cap out at.

The reality is that we are continually ignored or they have too many other current priorities with issues that affect more of the player base that scaling for vets.

P.S. unsure of typical or true, but heard level 94 rosters face max scaling of 120. So it is possible they are not aware of scaling at the high end does not translate the same. For example, a level 210 4* is not much different from a 270 4*. Whereas there is a huge difference between a level 210 2*and a 270 or 395 one.

So from one stand point having scaling for players based on 270 is a stretch bc it should be based on 210 for accuracy, not to mention if 270 4* are 1.3 stronger than 166 3*, than 4* scaling should be based on roughly 210. Go further if level 166 3* are 1.3 stronger than level 94 2*, then level 3* scaling should be based on 120ish, which would make 4* 160ish. Any way you look at it, isn't it great to be a vet?