Thank you Devs: good design aspects on Venom Heroic PvE

eShock

I would like to commend the devs on a well designed instance of the Venom Heroic PvE event (note I'm on day 125, so I don't have any comparison to previous runs of this event).

Aspects of Venom Heroic I appreciated:

• Variety of character opponents, particularly non Dark Avengers. Non DA characters were: 2* Mag, Cyclops, Mystique, Doc Ock, and Carnage. Of special note, I appreciated the flavorful pairing of Spiderman-themed enemies (Carnage, Doc Ock, and Venon) in one of the last nodes in the last subevent (with Spiderman being a featured character as well!).
• Balanced pairing of goons and enemy characters. Specifically, the AP colors generated by the goons never overlapped with enemy character abilities. I personally find it very frustrating when goons feed AP to enemy character abilities (where the AP costs are balanced on the assumption of match-3 gathering), e.g. goons feeding yellow to Hood for accelerated Twin Pistols.

The only design aspect of this PvE instance that I particularly disliked was the pairing of Carnage (specifically his black Alien Instincts) and goons, with Muscle and Lieutenant being particularly nasty choices.

stowaway

I agree. The forum is so attuned to the negative, I was thinking of saying something like this myself. I loved that the whole thing felt Spider-Man themed. We're finally getting enough character diversity in the game that they can do things like that.

I loved that there were zero nodes where goons were feeding board movers. I'm not crazy about having goons and board movers on the same node in the first place (it broke Phantron!), but at least when they're not feeding it feels like a puzzle game and not a game of Russian roulette. They've been moving away from goon feeders in the revamped PvE, and in this event it was gone completely.

Most of all I loved the absence of Community Scaling.

I didn't mind the Carnage nodes at all, because Kamala Kahn kept all that in check just fine.

I was in 2nd place at the end of the 2nd sub, but I have no intention of staying in the top ten. I'll take the HP and a yellow Falcon and enjoy playing something else for a day. So others in my bracket are welcome to the spot!

morph3us

I'll +1 this.

The original Venom: Heroic was a re-run of the Prologue map, with no subs, over 4-7 days from recollection, with the same enemies. With four hour refreshes, and personal and community scaling, the number of nodes you could beat became smaller and smaller as the event went on. The scaling was insane by the end.

This is a vast, vast improvement, so thank you.

Arphaxad

I agree, and would like to add that without community scaling I am enjoying the challenge of beating nodes attuned to my roster strength. So far I have died on several higher end nodes, but always felt I had a chance if things went a bit different.

Thank you Devs for a very fun series. I look forward to the Simulator.

JVReal

I also appreciate the devs being more careful with the goons they select and not feeding the board mover.

Really enjoyed the event until i got to the last sub and the Carnage Rules node. Bad design. Horrible unfun way to end the sub. Its the end for me because i havent beat it still. I barely get one skill off before my guys are dead from cascades and if even 1 Threaten goes off, game over.

Again, terrible ending to a fun and challenging event. I cant comment on last two nodes because i cant get to them. Also my scaling must be based on my locked characters which is a screwy way to scale.

simonsez

JVReal wrote:

Also my scaling must be based on my locked characters which is a screwy way to scale.

Things are definitely screwy when some people can report that the Carnage/Good nodes were no big deal for them. That has nothing to do with skill or strategy. That's scaling still giving some people a mysterious free ride. We need to further transition to a system where a node's difficulty levels are based EXCLUSIVELY on the characters you're using in that battle.

OnesOwnGrief

simonsez wrote:

JVReal wrote:

Also my scaling must be based on my locked characters which is a screwy way to scale.

Things are definitely screwy when some people can report that the Carnage/Good nodes were no big deal for them. That has nothing to do with skill or strategy. That's scaling still giving some people a mysterious free ride. We need to further transition to a system where a node's difficulty levels are based EXCLUSIVELY on the characters you're using in that battle.

I don't think we want to find out just how much the devs value certain characters. I can see someone like IF throwing that scaling through the rough on any node he's used on. Moonstone probably being one of the lowest just because.

simonsez

OnesOwnGrief wrote:

I don't think we want to find out just how much the devs value certain characters

I agree, I don't want to see them start applying their own arbitrary values to individual characters. Just something simple... a function of *'s, level and covers.

optimus2861

The Carnage I faced was level 133, and against my Blade, 2* Cap, and 2* Torch it actually wasn't bad at all. Everyone took some damage, but the attack tiles sped up downing the goons, and then I cast a Blade purple and a Cap blue on Carnage himself. He melted shortly after.

You know, I'd sooner face a Carnage or a Patch where the match will be finished quickly, win or lose, rather than a Bullseye or a Falcon where it will drag out interminably.

Malcrof

Carnage at level 271 is no joke.. since i was on the final sub, i went ahead and leveled my KK to 166 (my first max level char, hooray!), about 10k from bringing a 2nd up.

I won, but seriously doubt i will be able to do a final clear after the 9am EST refresh, that node will be in the 300's i think, and i barely scraped by as it was.

Still going to make T50 (which is what i wanted, need Falcon yellows, and lots of them pls).

The thing about heroics that i like are basic.

Limited roster makes you use unusual teams, which can in turn help you find combo's you would not have used before.

I dig them.

But carnage can go #$%$! a tinykitty.

stowaway

simonsez wrote:

JVReal wrote:

Also my scaling must be based on my locked characters which is a screwy way to scale.

Things are definitely screwy when some people can report that the Carnage/Good nodes were no big deal for them. That has nothing to do with skill or strategy. That's scaling still giving some people a mysterious free ride. We need to further transition to a system where a node's difficulty levels are based EXCLUSIVELY on the characters you're using in that battle.

It's hardly a free ride. Carnage is several levels higher than my highest boosted character. He's certainly annoying, especially on the goon node. But this is a heroic that gives us two stunners (one cheap, one renewable), a passive team heal, and a guy who can destroy two selected blocks of tiles. If you're facing a 395 carnage, my condolences. But a 270 Carnage is not a free ride when your highest character (unboosted) is 166.

over_clocked

My sympathies, JVReal. But stowaway is correct; use stunners if the node is giving you trouble. Here, some screenshots of mine to maybe help you:

Carnage Rules:



The Carnage essential node:



The nodes behind Carnage rules:



Do not bring special tile users against Ock unless you can stun Ock; but I'd rather stun Carnage first priority.

This one is one-and-done:

puppychow

JVReal wrote:

I also appreciate the devs being more careful with the goons they select and not feeding the board mover.

Really enjoyed the event until i got to the last sub and the Carnage Rules node. Bad design. Horrible unfun way to end the sub. Its the end for me because i havent beat it still. I barely get one skill off before my guys are dead from cascades and if even 1 Threaten goes off, game over.

Again, terrible ending to a fun and challenging event. I cant comment on last two nodes because i cant get to them. Also my scaling must be based on my locked characters which is a screwy way to scale.

As a player who cleared sub 3 twice without buying more heals, let me offer my advice. Obviously it'll depend on what you have in your roster. Carnage Rules is by far the most difficult node in sub 3. so you could make multiple attempts at it and come up empty. The evilness of this node is obviously carnage bk, since strike tiles will be continuously added to the board while the goons do their thing. What I've been using personally is The Thing, Blade, and Kamala. That assumes you have Thing's yellow, which is the key to this combo. You're basically letting the AI collect reds; this allows you to put Blade's red attack tiles on board while you focus on collecting gr, pink, bk in that order. When carnage triggers his red, Thing will jump to the front and then spam out protect tiles to reduce the carnage strike tile damage.

If you don't have Thing yel cover, you could also go with Punisher, Kamala, Hood. This is a fast combo with rainbow coverage, persistent aoe damage from bk and gr, knockout punch with red and tile clearance with yellow.

A third combo is IronMan40, Punisher, and Kamala. You basically use IM to soak up damage while you collect colors. Again reliance on KK's green aoe, and use punisher's red to mope up.

puppychow

over_clocked wrote:

My sympathies, JVReal. But stowaway is correct; use stunners if the node is giving you trouble. Here, some screenshots of mine to maybe help you:

Hood/DD is a very interesting combo. Unfortunately, my DD isn't high enough in level/health to take on Carnage at normal node rating. But yes, DD's pink and blue are quite effective for this node.

Skorche

I liked the carnage/venom/doc oct node as well was well themed for the spiderman buffed event. Was nervous going in thinking that if doctor octopus got off a blue it'd one shot my team but completed it first try team was all damaged heavily. My guys were lvl 203. Used Punisher/DD/Hood.

The muscle/carnage was just insane I beat it with Iron Man 40 had 3 HP left and the Kamala and Punisher were both dead. My only problem with Using Iron man on that node is between the attack tiles and the muscle placing yellow countdown tiles there were no yellow tiles left for me to use iron man's recharge power.

I think encourage the devs to not fully cover certain villans when planing a fight. 1, 2 or even 0 black covers would've still provided an interesting fight without giving me that feeling of I'm glad its over don't think I'll do that one again. Other time I thought that was when they paired Loki with bomb dropping ultron and she hulk. I thought you know this would've been still insanely challenging if loki had no purple covers. You still had his ability to punish you for matching more then 3 and changing you special tiles to his side without the random chance that a bomb tile would be placed on the bottom. She hulks board shaker was scary but nothing like loki's purple.

Malcrof

4 scythes team ups so far from this sub, all 4k+ damage ones.. dunno whether to save or delete.. keeping for now, may come in handy, but wow what a nasty cheap team up.

JVReal

Thanks for the tips and suggestions. I will try the Carnage Rules node again during lunch with 10 health packs... see if I can get through it.

dkffiv

For high end PvE play this is horribly designed. "Yay for new characters" and all but why are they only on the hardest nodes? Why isn't there a Carnage in 1 of the 3 easiest nodes, 1 in the essentials, 1 in the hards? Why are they the 2 hardest nodes plus the most difficult essential (for all but super whales at least)? Same for like Loki and Cyclops.

Anyway, the worst part of the design is that all the bad Carnage nodes are concentrated on the last sub of an event and are worth the most points. In a close race, whoever wants to pay the most for kits (or whoever gets luckiest) can move ahead, trivializing all the effort that went into the previous subs. If it were in the first sub or during a 1 day event it wouldn't be so bad but if they pulled something like this on a 7 day event for a new character I would be especially pissed. In general I highly dislike the increasing number of points per sub, I see no reason why they can't all be worth the same number of points.

Kolence

Didn't see anyone mention Spidey/Blade/Juggs. I used those a few times in Carnage Rules node, they worked really well (around level 210 for me). Good luck!

Malcrof

Kolence wrote:

Didn't see anyone mention Spidey/Blade/Juggs. I used those a few times in Carnage Rules node, they worked really well (around level 210 for me). Good luck!

Also, spidey tanks for Cap, cap puts out protect tiles and his blue stuns so no carnage when you use it, it also overwrites CD tiles from Muscle.

JVReal

JVReal wrote:

Thanks for the tips and suggestions. I will try the Carnage Rules node again during lunch with 10 health packs... see if I can get through it.

Wiped the first time with Hood, DD, KK... so I attempted the Thing Essential. Beat it with 1 cover Thing (green), DD and Hood.

Went back to Carnage Rules, played DD, Hood, Blade... and managed to keep everyone alive and stave off Threaten. Actually was able to get Ambush out there, stun a couple of times (had to stun Muscle once when tile was on 1 instead of stunning Carnage and then was able to clear that tile) and actually lived long enough to use Twin Pistols right after one Threaten went off to take care of the strike tiles. All 3 survived... but barely.

The other two nodes felt much easier once Carnage Rules was over. Hood didn't live too long in the 2nd to last node, but the other two carried on.

No ridiculous cascades on the part of the AI, but I did get one ridiculous cascade in my favor early on in the final node. I'll activate confirmation bias and pretend it didn't happen and that it was all skill.

Thank you for the tips. I was super frustrated last night when I tried. This afternoon I was in a better state of mind and better prepared.