Simple fix to the nightmare that was Hearts of Darkness

smkspy

I got lucky and found out about how horrible the last slice was going to be so grind the heck out of the second slice. Was still 30,000 away from progression when the third slice started. Only beat the xfw essential once got the cp points luckily first try but never beat the gr node. That node was insanely too hard, but somehow grinded out enough points with the rest of nodes to make progression.

Needless to say was not a fun ending to the event despite hitting progression.

Malcrof

notamutant wrote:

3) Lackluster story that felt like it had no real resolution. Everyone in the town was still dead.

This follows after the storyline of EoTS... where Wolvie is taken, and made to do bad things..

The HoD storyline takes place after that, it was very linear, and actually i really liked it. No, they couldn't bring people back to life all willy nilly, even Marvel leaves red-shirts dead for good.. It also leaves it open for another new event.

I will say it loudly... this storyline was better than GR's story's in secret wars by tenfold, also, one of the better Wolvie ones..

I truly loved this event, maybe because it was something different, maybe because GR is one of my fav's, who knows.

The only thing that could have made it better, would have been to fight Mephisto, as i said earlier.. but , now his art is in the game, so who knows, maybe new boss for a future event ^^.

Omega Red

I think it's hilarious that you guys are actually discussing the story!

Unknown

I liked the story arc and the characters involved. The survival nodes were in line with the EoTS theme so that was fine with me. I didn't feel the points needed for the progression rewards were too egregious either.
However what was completely bewildering was the utter lack of any real conclusion. It ended on a cliffhanger. Like where was the Mephisto boss battle that rewarded a Ghost Rider cover? I don't get it.

Crowl

Monged4life wrote:

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.

That last wave node was great, but they should have probably made it a single clear node rather than a repeatable one.

Cunneryn

The last node was great???

Maybe for the ones that has the boosted characters, but so far I managed to get out of the first wave only once. The first wave anihilated me completety, I even died plenty of time without even being able to amass enough ap to fire even 1 attack...

Yeah, trully a great node, that is faire to everyone

Omega Red

Cunneryn wrote:

The last node was great???

Maybe for the ones that has the boosted characters, but so far I managed to get out of the first wave only once. The first wave anihilated me completety, I even died plenty of time without even being able to amass enough ap to fire even 1 attack...

Yeah, trully a great node, that is faire to everyone

The purpose of that node was exactly to filter out overachievers and give more weight to players with the best rosters. As much as I hated it initially -wiped it a few times myself- it reduced the amount of grind needed to separate from the pack.

Cunneryn

Yes I see your point, but considering how scaling work, every player could theretically beat it. I felt like I truly had no chance at all to beat it, considering I died almost exclusively to match damage following them getting a few lucky green matches (daken strikes tiles). It was over 1000 damage per match wich is ridicoulous considering I'm just transitioning to 3 star land.

And besides, the well developed roster doesnt change much since technically all you can use if you have a cahnce to beat the node are the boosted characters, so everyone uses the same ones. So much for deversity.

MrMadeULook

BlackBoltRocks wrote:

Practically everyone who's played MPQ would agree that Growth Industry is the standard: a guaranteed 4* as a progression reward.

This event was a great opportunity to replicate that: since we're teaming up with Ghost Rider, it makes sense to give us one cover so that he's literally on our team (yes he's available in tokens, but that was a pathetic 0.2% chance). This would encourage people to shell out for roster slots and covers, since they already have that first cover to get started. One condition: to avoid overwhaling, they could implement a temporary ban on buying Ghost Rider covers for the duration of the HoD event, so that players don't whale a 5/0/0 Ghost Rider from that free cover (or more if you're lucky with tokens). And since it would be for free - or at least, a guaranteed progression reward - make it the worst of his three abilities. Although now i mention it, all his abilities kinda suck with only one cover

I agree! I remember when Hulk was introduced with the "The Hulk" PVE, everyone got a free green Hulk cover at the end of the final node in the event. It was a great way to introduce a character to everyone. I hope they do the same with Totally Awesome Hulk.

Omega Red

Cunneryn wrote:

Yes I see your point, but considering how scaling work, every player could theretically beat it. I felt like I truly had no chance at all to beat it, considering I died almost exclusively to match damage following them getting a few lucky green matches (daken strikes tiles). It was over 1000 damage per match wich is ridicoulous considering I'm just transitioning to 3 star land.

And besides, the well developed roster doesnt change much since technically all you can use if you have a cahnce to beat the node are the boosted characters, so everyone uses the same ones. So much for deversity.

A good, developed roster gives you more options to tackle a given node, not forcing you to rely on boosted characters. I beat that node in particular with Captain Marvel, Captain America and Scarlet Witch, none of which were boosted. Alliance mates used other teams and strategies. I will try with Iron fist, Quicksilver and Mystique next time the event runs. That's what a strong roster gives you, lots of options.

simonsez

Omega Red wrote:

A good, developed roster gives you more options to tackle a given node, not forcing you to rely on boosted characters.

Maybe, but in my experience, a good, developed, leveled roster, combined with prior PvE success, gives you scaling that severely limits your options. I'd love to be able to throw improvised sets of characters at different nodes, but vs. ones like that, it'd be suicide.

Crowl

aesthetocyst wrote:

2. The progression bar was too high. Posted the math in another thread. Should be around 50K +/- up to 5K depending on devs mood. It took quite an effort to hit that token. Our 2* players didn't have a prayer, and PvE has been the one place they could get an occasional LT.

It really wasn't that high despite the complaints, I got to the LT with a mostly 2* account without one essential and pretty much no grinding on the 3rd sub as t150 was more useful to me than maybe t100.

Dauthi

Survival nodes are really fun, until you realize you only get one prize and still have to grind down this difficult and extremely time consuming node for 20 iso. I am willing to bet survival nodes are the root of the problem.

It's an easy fix, and makes perfect sense: make each wave offer random prizes like any normal node. While I dislike grinding down normal nodes, I do realize I am gaining progress through ISO rewards. At least give us that satisfaction with survival nodes.

Pylgrim

I thought that the story was pretty great. Grim and without a real happy ending, but some character development (though I'm still hoping that Daredevil stops being a milquetoast goody-two-shoes and becomes more a real person). As for the mechanics, I didn't think this was particularly any worse than most other PVEs, ergo, there's lots of room for improvement but nothing really worth heavy criticism.

fnedude

I hadn't seen anyone post this point (on the 1st page of responses)...

No CP in the last survival node with 9 heroes? That was a hard node the 1st time rolling into it (which I finished the 1st try), but no reward of a CP fighting those opponents?

To me, that kind of node should be worth a CP...

I like the Iso rewards/Gold Token rewards otherwise from the event though...

Zen808

fnedude wrote:

I hadn't seen anyone post this point (on the 1st page of responses)...

No CP in the last survival node with 9 heroes? That was a hard node the 1st time rolling into it (which I finished the 1st try), but no reward of a CP fighting those opponents?

To me, that kind of node should be worth a CP...

I like the Iso rewards/Gold Token rewards otherwise from the event though...

A CP? Heck, if there was a node that deserved a Cover Reward for successfully clearing, a la Hulk and Sentry PVE's, then that node is it.

ammenell

wouldnt be much more than usual.
theres a mpq rage treshold.

Buret0

Cunneryn wrote:

The last node was great???

Maybe for the ones that has the boosted characters, but so far I managed to get out of the first wave only once. The first wave anihilated me completety, I even died plenty of time without even being able to amass enough ap to fire even 1 attack...

Yeah, trully a great node, that is faire to everyone

My decently leveled 5*s wiped. I swore not to use a healthpack, so after two wipes I was starting to play a bit lower in the deck. Thankfully I was able to survive even after losing my only AoE on the first wave.

If I was playing for position and had to grind that node I would likely feel differently about it, but since I'm not playing competitive MPQ for awhile, I enjoyed the new story and that one very difficult node.

Druss

Must admit to being confused by any "story" comments.

The way this game works is all about speed - to score optimally you have to clear nodes as fast as possible so that the clock gets ticking so that they are back to full asap. Where then does this give the time to read the story? - I skipped the whole story thing, especially as clears were taking an age anyway. Having to spend 5+ hours a day grinding the event, am I really going to take more time to read it as well?

IMO this speed aspect is the biggest problem with this game & the reason why I almost completely avoid PvP. To have a scenario where I'm facing 3 enemies where I feel that a certain character set-up would work well, only to not be able to use it because a) its too slow & b) opens you up to all sorts of attacks, is a shame. As such I'm stuck in PvP throwing a rotation of 2 out of 3 of my only maxed 4* at each battle, regardless of enemy.

XandorXerxes

1) Points were too low. I full-cleared 3x each sub and ground out the CPs in each, and I was still 10K short of the LT.
2) The story was awful. I don't know if I just haven't read recent comics or what, but the first 1.8 subs were literally "It's the Hood! Now he's getting away, after him!" The end of sub 2 was "you wanted a lot of power, you got a lot of power, but you had to sacrifice a small non-descript town and you let open a portal to hell" to which Hood's response was essentially "worth it." Sub 3 was then just a collection of three of the "shadier" characters (Daredevil was a bit of a stretch) half-reflecting on their pasts.

The Inferno storyline from the 80s or any of the old Ilyana Rasputin stories were far stronger demonic stories than the one presented in the game, and given the length and depth of Ghost Rider material I was really expecting something more than "Catch the Hood! He sent a bunch of people to hell, let's see if we can get them back. Nope, they're dead, back to our regular realm. Ghost Rider got corrupted, let's beat him down until he's sane again. Ok, he's back."

My favorite line was Wolverine's "talk or I'll give you 5 minutes with Punisher," which makes the guy talk and then Wolverine calls himself the "good cop." When you say "talk or you'll be tortured then shot" you're not the good cop!

Granted, comics (at least before I stopped reading back in the early 2000s) have rarely been the source of good writing material, and this story hits most comic tropes I can remember. So maybe it isn't a fault of bad writing, so much as it is hitting common denominators.

2a) What would have been more interesting to me is if on the "woe is me the tortured hero" nodes, they forced you to use a weakened version of the character in question (and the enemies would likely have to be scaled down for some to compensate) to actually reflect their "woe is me" state. Though for Punisher... how many people get the opportunity to kill people who seriously wronged them once, let alone twice? Could have just made Punisher fight his family while they taunted him for not protecting them.