Simple fix to the nightmare that was Hearts of Darkness

notamutant

So, not that the event is over, we can all contemplate on what went well, and what went wrong, with the newest PvE event.

What went well:

1) It was a new story finally.
2) This brought a small amount of variation in the enemies from what we usually face.

And that is about it. I hate to complain about a new PvE since I have wanted one for so long, but this was lackluster in every department.

What went wrong?

1) A lot of the nodes still had the same enemies that we normally fight, including the Dark Avengers. Why are we still in this world!? I thought they specifically said in a video a couple months ago they were no longer staying in this time period, yet we still have the same bad guys we had in old events.
2) No new goon type or enemy characters besides Ghost Rider.
3) Lackluster story that felt like it had no real resolution. Everyone in the town was still dead.
4) Survivor nodes, which you had to repeat many times to place well, only offered rewards the first time.
5) And the final, worst part of this event: the insane grinding required. There were more than the regular 9 nodes that were repeatable in this event in each sub. And to make that worse, there were 3 survivor nodes per sub. The amount of time required to grind was insane! Considering the difficulty and need to recover healthpacks, it could take over 4 hours easily to grind a node to 1. That should never happen. Almost all other events, as hard as they might be, you can usually grind them all down by 1 and a half hour tops. This was just ridiculous. Enemy of the State had this problem as well.


So what is the simple solution they can implement next time to this PvE (and to Enemy of the State)? Block out survivor nodes from being repeatable. Alternatively, block out other nodes, one node for each round in a survivor node. You have 3 survivor nodes with 3 rounds each? Great, now make all the 6 other non-survivor nodes in the sub unrepeatable. Either solution would have saved literally 3+ hours per sub in grinding. And if you decide to make survivor nodes repeatable, make the rewards earnable again.

This event caused yet another member in my alliance to quit after being here for almost 2 years. Please, try to make your game fun, and not some grindfest. This doesn't get players to play longer, it wears them out quicker. Obviously getting people to play every day is important for the life of a game, but forcing them to play 6 hours a day to stay on the top scares far more people away. Be considerate of your players. Don't take one step forward by introducing time slices and 8 hour refreshes, and two steps back with ridiculously difficult and long subs.

puppychow

I spent 4 hours grinding sub 3, and . . . I didn't finish!

I definitely agree that the survivals were a tad too long. In second sub, one survival had 14!@#$% enemies. The other survivals had 12 enemies each. 3 hours of grinding, and . . . didn't finish either!

I don't remember EoTS being this bad.

Stax the Foyer

notamutant wrote:

There were more than the regular 9 nodes that were repeatable in this event in each sub.

That extra node, though, is the equivalent to the repeatable node that usually stays up on the main page of an event.

I actually liked that they put that repeatable node within the sub, instead of leaving it in the main event screen. It makes it more intuitive for new players, and it eliminates the "does this node disappear after a given sub, or do we need to avoid grinding it down" speculation.

However, I totally agree with most of the rest of thread, especially with the idea that a survival node should count for more than one of the typical 9 nodes per sub. The grind time was even worse than normal on this event, and I only shot for T100 for that reason. I like survival nodes, but the developers can't expect us to grind those on top of the normal compliment of nodes and have fun doing it.

fmftint

Stax the Foyer wrote:

notamutant wrote:

There were more than the regular 9 nodes that were repeatable in this event in each sub.

That extra node, though, is the equivalent to the repeatable node that usually stays up on the main page of an event.

I actually liked that they put that repeatable node within the sub, instead of leaving it in the main event screen. It makes it more intuitive for new players, and it eliminates the "does this node disappear after a given sub, or do we need to avoid grinding it down" speculation.

However, I totally agree with most of the rest of thread, especially with the idea that a survival node should count for more than one of the typical 9 nodes per sub. The grind time was even worse than normal on this event, and I only shot for T100 for that reason. I like survival nodes, but the developers can't expect us to grind those on top of the normal compliment of nodes and have fun doing it.

Except that extra node on the main page, you only grind it once, on the final day. This had an extra node to grind EVERY DAY

Arhiippa

I'm fine with survival nodes featuring only/mostly goons, because those can be played much faster, but survival nodes with active enemies tend to consume too much time and health packs to grind effectively. Also, not fun.

NighteyesGrisu

the only thing that was really messed up was the progression scale, since that was set much higher than in regular PVE.

The other parts of your complaint I don't really see. Yes it was more grindy than post events, but I attribute that more to it being a new event thus more players playing it competitively than usual than to the event itself.

I guess your experience might vary depending what goal you were aiming for. I usually only go for t100 in new character releases and that felt mostly similar, though the clears took a bit longer.

I don't mind the survival nodes at all; in fact I quite like them they only get annoying if they're filled with real enemies (so basically only the ghost rider node)

Overall, the difficulty was rather moderate, IMO, mostly because there were so many goon-only nodes and because the buffed characters were vicious killers.

_Ryu_

Agree on most points

Pro
- New PVE
- Ghost Rider

Not so Pro
- No new goons, I really hoped for some hellish demons
- No new boss, mephisto was already in story, why not in the fights like Gorgon
- No new mechanic like wave battles, I know its "only" a 3 match system, but there can be some changes in the variety
- Grinding takes for ever, even with boosted Cyc mighty blows and AP stealing machine Hood
- No boosted Pun, but Psy? Pun is a awesome character but low tier 3*, so I dont play him regulary but in a event with him in the story it would be nice

Result
Disappointing!

New characters every mounth is good, because we are all collecters and want to achieve them, but no new story contnet and the same PVE's after and after does make it feel very boring and feels like stagnation... and stagnation feels like beeing dead...

Polares

_Ryu_ wrote:

Agree on most points

Pro
- New PVE
- Ghost Rider

Not so Pro
- No new goons, I really hoped for some hellish demons
- No new boss, mephisto was already in story, why not in the fights like Gorgon
- No new mechanic like wave battles, I know its "only" a 3 match system, but there can be some changes in the variety
- Grinding takes for ever, even with boosted Cyc mighty blows and AP stealing machine Hood
- No boosted Pun, but Psy? Pun is a awesome character but low tier 3*, so I dont play him regulary but in a event with him in the story it would be nice

Result
Disappointing!

New characters every mounth is good, because we are all collecters and want to achieve them, but no new story contnet and the same PVE's after and after does make it feel very boring and feels like stagnation... and stagnation feels like beeing dead...

I did not expect new mechanic for this event (IceIX already said it was going to be like the old events), but as soon as I saw Mephisto I thought it would be great to fight against him! A new 4 enemy (or even 5) that we need to fight (and we can't have). This is my biggest regret.

The story is ok, typical but good enough. I still think that it is great to have new stories even when nothing else changes.

PS: Well, and the looks of Mephisto were also a bit off...

Monged4life

The first 2 subs I found easy enough being mostly goon nodes, so while they didn't give as much points out as I'm used to, they were still relatively fun and quick to do.

The 3rd sub destroyed any enjoyment I had of this event. That last wave node was horrible! 9 active enemies with no space to recuperate? It worked it Growth industry because you only had to do it once, here it was totally unnecessary. The 4* matchup was pretty intense too, but that might be because I have a very undercovered Wolvie.

The worse thing for me though was how little points the 3rd sub gave out, a clear on that seemed to give less than a clear on the 2nd? Once I'd cleared that once I gave up shooting for the legendary and had fun with Cyclops instead. I was never going to make top 100 without grinding 5 hours a day.

In short, very disappointing. That showed such promise on the first day.

UNC_Samurai

I liked the story and the way the sub-events were set up. I have no problems with the event mechanics, other than I would have preferred the final node give a fixed GR cover, like the Growth Industry, Hulk, and Sentry events.

I am, however, royally teed off at the insane amount of work my group of alliances had to put together to stay in the Top 100. We're normally a T50 alliance for PvE, but between the increased scores/grinding for a new character and the merc jumping, we had to replace three of our regulars to stay above water. I'm getting supremely frustrated at the amount of work it takes just to have a fighting chance in new release events.

STOPTHIS

Overall, I quite liked the event. I liked that early on was almost excursively goons and it built up to characters. It made the earlier subs move quickly, IMO. I did expect a new goon type or Mephisto boss villain. But when the last new goon type we got was Ultron sentries, maybe it's a good thing there was nothing new.

They really need to do something with wave node rewards though. Slogging through 3-4 waves of characters for 20 iso is annoying. I get that they offer a good reward the first time, but how about each waving having 4 typical iso rewards? It seems weird to get rewards per wave the first time, but not the second time around. Bigger rewards should be offered overall. More Growth Industry type of rewards.

smoq84

It was the second time in last few months when I am really disappointed and frustrated (the first time was a 7 day long PvE).
It took me hell of the time to play this event I have won literally nothing: no Ghost Rider, nothing useful in the tokens, no LT because of the really high progression.
To be honest it was waste of a lot of time for me. I think I will reduce a time spent on this game for some time.

In addition the story wasn't too interesting.

Malcrof

Even though i didn't finish where i wanted.. i loved the event, sure, some things i would have changed...

First , the great!
The story was awesome. We had a little genocide, a nice twist, some father/son angst, and honestly.. if expanded upon, would make a really great movie.. and not only GR, but Mephisto!!! (now it's time for Morbius), i read every word of it. which probably cost me grind time, but whatever, they went through the trouble of writing it, so i read it.

The good!
First 2 subs were very very easy.. almost too easy.. and , like others, i got complacent.. sub 3 hit me like a truck.. It was a challenge, and a fun one! The big survival node, was exactly that, a survival node.. and boy did you have to survive! The mini survival node... where they snuck JG and Storm in at the end.. well done.. didn't see it coming, and almost wiped the first time. I like the creative ones.. PX, 4Clops, IM.. was as bad as any gauntlet node.. and this was the only node i ever failed on.. and i failed it a few times.. odd teams ended up winning it for me.

The Bad.
Mephisto.. one of the long awaited villains has arrived! but in a cheesy picture only. I wanted very badly for the final node in sub 3 to be a lvl 395 Mephisto boss node.. like we have in The Hulk PVE, fighting a 395 hulk all alone.. But apparently cheesy art was all we got. This was the only letdown for me.. yah, stealing the daredevil node was EoTS was lame, but i love that stupid node for some reason.. glad it was there...

UNC_Samurai

Malcrof wrote:

Even though i didn't finish where i wanted.. i loved the event, sure, some things i would have changed...

First , the great!
The story was awesome. We had a little genocide, a nice twist, some father/son angst, and honestly.. if expanded upon, would make a really great movie.. and not only GR, but Mephisto!!! (now it's time for Morbius), i read every word of it. which probably cost me grind time, but whatever, they went through the trouble of writing it, so i read it.

The good!
First 2 subs were very very easy.. almost too easy.. and , like others, i got complacent.. sub 3 hit me like a truck.. It was a challenge, and a fun one! The big survival node, was exactly that, a survival node.. and boy did you have to survive! The mini survival node... where they snuck JG and Storm in at the end.. well done.. didn't see it coming, and almost wiped the first time. I like the creative ones.. PX, 4Clops, IM.. was as bad as any gauntlet node.. and this was the only node i ever failed on.. and i failed it a few times.. odd teams ended up winning it for me.

The Bad.
Mephisto.. one of the long awaited villains has arrived! but in a cheesy picture only. I wanted very badly for the final node in sub 3 to be a lvl 395 Mephisto boss node.. like we have in The Hulk PVE, fighting a 395 hulk all alone.. But apparently cheesy art was all we got. This was the only letdown for me.. yah, stealing the daredevil node was EoTS was lame, but i love that stupid node for some reason.. glad it was there...

There's a way the dev team could turn that around on us. Have a direct sequel event for whenever they release Doctor Strange - then have Mephisto be the final boss like Gorgon was for EotS & the Electra release.

ammenell

ha, that event...

me 2 days before the event: "awesome, everything comes together - i have the time, every essential... lets go get some ghost rider covers!"
--> LIFE
me at the end of sub 2: "i wonder if the dd prog reward is still in reach?"

didnt finish, made little more than a clear per sub. life.

story?
you mean that little comic strips you see before a match starts?
i honestly couldnt care less about that. for me, its right down there with loadup/splash/victory screens.
i think its cool some guys really read that stuff and fantasizing a movie around it, but i just see it as a waste of budget - especially if that story exists solely in that comic-before-the-match. just tone down galactus, rename and tune his powers, slap a new skin over there and call him mephisto.

enemies?
no mephisto, no new enemies. why even include him in the story?
its all a little blurry to me. im currently playing A LOT, and honestly i sometimes, if there are no goons in the enemy team i couldnt figure out if im playing pve or pvp.
ares, juggs, bullseye, hood. its all the same to me, i dont see any change in like, ever.

the grind?
i couldnt really commit, but with hindsight, thats totally ok with me.
i have no problem grinding relatively fast nodes, but wave after wave of overleveled characters, and making sure its the fastest or most annoying ones?

even if i had finished and placed top2, i would have achieved:
- my 7th leg token i cant open because my roster is too low
- my 66th cp i cant use because nothing to buy except leg token
- waste of a roster spot. my 111 ghost rider wouldnt be useful in the next 2 years except serving as essential

uh well. where do burnouts post?

Vhailorx

I think this topic dovetails nicely with another thread I made about the perverse incentives of pve play (I joined slice t with an hour left on a whim and finished 4th, others ground hard for the whole event and got no covers at all).

There is no reason to grind hard in pve when 1/20th of the effort can get you and equivalent of better reward.

GrumpySmurf1002

notamutant wrote:

What went well:

1) It was a new story finally.
2) This brought a small amount of variation in the enemies from what we usually face.

Having a story runs counter-intuitive to the notion of competitive PvE, because if you take time to read said story, you're costing yourself points. Always been an asinine element.

notamutant wrote:

What went wrong?

1) A lot of the nodes still had the same enemies that we normally fight, including the Dark Avengers. Why are we still in this world!? I thought they specifically said in a video a couple months ago they were no longer staying in this time period, yet we still have the same bad guys we had in old events.
2) No new goon type or enemy characters besides Ghost Rider.
3) Lackluster story that felt like it had no real resolution. Everyone in the town was still dead.
4) Survivor nodes, which you had to repeat many times to place well, only offered rewards the first time.
5) And the final, worst part of this event: the insane grinding required. There were more than the regular 9 nodes that were repeatable in this event in each sub. And to make that worse, there were 3 survivor nodes per sub. The amount of time required to grind was insane! Considering the difficulty and need to recover healthpacks, it could take over 4 hours easily to grind a node to 1. That should never happen. Almost all other events, as hard as they might be, you can usually grind them all down by 1 and a half hour tops. This was just ridiculous. Enemy of the State had this problem as well.

On the flipside, only 5 is particularly bad, though 4 is frustrating.

I don't mind fighting the DAs in one or two nodes. Typically they're in 20, which is remarkable when there are only 9 nodes. New goons are whatever, and again, who has time to read the story?

The biggest thing like always is #5. It's ridiculous to have 7 nodes + 3 waves to clear repeatedly. It's well more ridiculous that for the honor of doing those clears, you get the same (or less!) rewards than someone who bracket 'shopped' better than you.

Every time I do PvE competitively these days, it's a strain, and I hate myself a little more each time. I do it because I'm apparently an addict and/or an idiot, but it stinks.

The only redeeming quality really is that it was different enemies. Broken mechanic is still broken.

Philly79

Overall it was a success imo, aside from the fact that they shortened the event from 4 to 3 days. One thing has been bugging me though, I finished 13th (I have not placed outside of t10 in almost a year, t2 if I really want the extra cover). I always cross check the main event and sub event to see who is rabbiting and who is not. There were a ton of rabbits in my slice and somehow they kept gaining points during the last hour and a half even though mathematically they should not have had enough points available to get into t10, so yeah I missed out on the black cover and have no idea how as I did perfect clears with optimal grinds. At one point during Saturday night during my grind I hit t1, I knew it would not hold but figured I would stay t10 but nope somehow got knocked to 16th, got into 7th-9th on Sunday but could not hold it. Like I said I have no idea how people who obviously double tapped sub nodes still had enough points available to overtake someone who did perfect clears and grinds - 10th place had a 3k lead on me...end of rant but it is bugging me.....

OneLastGambit

I made the conscious decision before this event to not bother attempting to place for a couple of reasons a/ I had no space on my roster for him if I won him anyway and the lower placement awards weren't needed. B: I was more focused on getting some 3* covers to speed up my transition.

As a result of not being bothered about LT or placement I actually rather enjoyed this event. I like wave nodes because they are a challenge and aren't filled with dark avengers all the time, and although I didn't bother reading the story at least it was new content.

What's my point? I think competing and rewards makes the game worse. How many people play for enjoyment? and how many play to win something? I really enjoyed this event and I do think it's because I didn't care if I won anything, I was just playing because I wanted to.

EDIT: It might also have helped that this PVE was by far the best as far as event token luck goes, really sped me along my transition.

Philly79

OJSP wrote:

Philly79 wrote:

Like I said I have no idea how people who obviously double tapped sub nodes still had enough points available to overtake someone who did perfect clears and grinds - 10th place had a 3k lead on me...end of rant but it is bugging me.....

I think the Survival nodes might be the issue here. I can't really confirm it yet, but my feeling is: it's creating a constantly changing rubber banding effect. It could be one of the reasons I managed to sneak into a top 10 finish in EotS the second time it was run despite not playing optimally at the time. In the subsequent of EotS, I noticed very few would have the exact same points after the 2nd or 3rd clears. Rarely, some early grinders could sneak into the top 10 in the end, but usually they are still beaten by those grinding the nodes to 1 the conventional optimal way.

During this event, completing the nodes right on time for 30 minutes didn't give me the same number of points as other optimal grinders (one or two nodes actually gave me less points than initially shown). I think leaving the Survival nodes to the end gave them slightly more points.

Using your situation as an example, that person could've completed the Survival node early a couple of times, then got overtaken by the optimal grinders (usually by the 3rd grind). When they finally do the end of event grind, the points in the survival nodes would continue to rise, because the optimal grinders and the other early grinders would've accumulated a lot of points, the rubber banding would happen again for that person.

This certainly is a possibility, just sucks that I missed out on that black cover, I have horrible luck with tokens so the chances of pulling it are slim at best. I have never encountered this before though even with EotS, with optimal clears and grinds I normally end up somewhere in t5. I have seen that there were issues with this event like points not adding up and other things that players reported, possibly this was some type of bug due to it being a new event.

Cousin Simpson

Mephisto? I thought that was a new 6*:

Wolverine (Sunburned)