New Venom Bomb poll

GrimSkald

The old poll was locked (no aspersions there, the questions weren't exactly balanced,) I'm curious so I made a new one. I'd also like to go over what thought were the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of this.

The Good
New content! I'm always in favor of new content.
New goon types - adding more variety to your opponents is always a nice thing, it keeps the game from feeling stale.
Good structure - I thought the structure of the event was particularly good. There weren't any wave nodes (not necessarily a good thing, but the wave nodes really add to grinds so I'm putting it in the postivie collumn,) no "extra unrepeatable nodes to slow down your first clear" (I'm looking at you, Florida,) and the fact that there was a "boosted loaner" every sub gave us a chance to really test out the new character.
New story content, including use of characters that haven't really been featured in other PVE stories like Captian Marvel, Luke Cage, and She Hulk.

The Bad
The new goons were surprisingly hard, and very intensive on the Health Packs. This is not always a bad thing - shaking up strategy isn't bad, but even with good strategy things could go really south really quickly, particularly with the Carriers. A bad board and you were in trouble.
The Legendary Token was set at a noticably higher point level than other PVEs.

The Ugly
Carnage, Venom, and a Red/Green Feeder. Nothing makes the game feel more unfair than to have a bad board and watch your opponent fire off a nasty power every other turn without even having to match. The fact that there are three of these nodes (including one of the essentials!) is thoroughly unpleasant, frustrating, and not fun at all.

That's my take. Other opinions?

CrookedKnight

GrimSkald wrote:

The Good
New content! I'm always in favor of new content.
New goon types - adding more variety to your opponents is always a nice thing, it keeps the game from feeling stale.
Good structure - I thought the structure of the event was particularly good. There weren't any wave nodes (not necessarily a good thing, but the wave nodes really add to grinds so I'm putting it in the postivie collumn,) no "extra unrepeatable nodes to slow down your first clear" (I'm looking at you, Florida,) and the fact that there was a "boosted loaner" every sub gave us a chance to really test out the new character.
New story content, including use of characters that haven't really been featured in other PVE stories like Captian Marvel, Luke Cage, and She Hulk.

The Bad
The new goons were surprisingly hard, and very intensive on the Health Packs. This is not always a bad thing - shaking up strategy isn't bad, but even with good strategy things could go really south really quickly, particularly with the Carriers. A bad board and you were in trouble.
The Legendary Token was set at a noticably higher point level than other PVEs.

I agree with pretty much all of this. I generally like survival nodes but this is already a pretty grindy event, especially with the high Legendary target, and debuting a survival-focused PvE while survival fights are bugged would be exceptionally bad form. As far as the "ugly" of Carnage/Venom with red/green feeder goons, I think this only really crossed the line when we had Venom with two symbiote goons and was firing his green every couple of turns -- when it's two villains and one feeder, and we have a bunch of buffed heroes who can stun, I think it makes for a fun fight.

On balance, I like the event and would be happy to play it again without a new character on the line, provided the legendary token is set lower and there's still a good set of buffed heroes. Dealing with the symbiote army without a team that can take down the top threats fast or strategically stun them would get very very frustrating.

wymtime

I am fine with this event and feel the only adjustment would be to the Carnage Venom R,G feeding goon. Feeding carnage red is just brutal especially when you are required to bring along a new character like MM.
The issue is they need to make it challenging and that means high health low AP damage abilities.
Overall I have liked the new goons. I am also glad there was no super Juggs to take on, with super Ares. The more they can dump the dark avengers and encorporate 3-4* villains the better the game will be.

Punisher5784

These new goons were not too problematic but that might be because we had a buffed Luke Cage. However, we made the same complaints when the devs released Ninjas then Ultron Sentries.. they were not tweaked or changed whatsoever.

My biggest issue is the Goon AP feeding, the devs deliberately set them up to feed Carnage and Venom which is was ridiculous. I wish they would set it so CD skills are priority over the other enemy skills unless that CD already exists. For instance, if the enemy has enough red AP for the goon CD or enemy red skill then the CD should have priority but if the red CD already exists then the enemy may use their red skill instead of the red CD. This method would still allow goon feeding but at least be fair.

GrimSkald

Hrm, I think I should clarify what I mean by "change." The LT target is a trivial (from the coding perspective) change and I really don't mean that. When I meant substantial changes, I meant things like changing up the combination of characters and/or tweaking the powers of the goons. In particular I was thinking of the red feeders and Carnage, but I'm sure other people had issues with other things.

thanos8587

if they set the leg token this high again i wont play. way too grindy and i hate the goon feed into carnage cheese ****. im not sure who thinks thats particularly fun but getting aoed every two turns for free is is just annoying.

JamesV

I went with option 3.

This event had a lot of nodes where it made me really wonder what the design process was for them (Side note: I really think that is something they should touch on more in their dev videos -- the design philosophy that they have for events or characters) because too often it felt like -- and I'm not saying it was -- but it felt either nonexistent or very anti-user. And feel is obviously different then intent.

Individually I like the new goons, but combined there was just way too many abilities to really follow on some nodes and I think that's obviously going to be less of an issue once we have faced them 30 times, but the first run through. Eek.

I enjoyed this and the GR event less than I enjoyed the Growth Industry/Cho events because I thought the nodes were more interesting. High health Spammable Character + High health feeder (literally doesn't matter who) is always obnoxious. I feel like they have a lot of tools in the toolbox and it's more interesting when they take chances (unless survival nodes have to have an equal number of enemies per wave, I do not understand why there isn't a long node of trivial enemies followed by a 3 v 1 second round with a higher level character as a boss for example).

Natsufan01

I liked it quite a bit. I has difficulties, sure. Sub 4 was one of the hardest subs so far, and really drained health packs. But it also made me look for alternatives. I used 3 or 4 different teams, and even pulled out some hardly used characters because I was having more success with them. I was able to hit all progression rewards, plus 12k above that, and the only node I ever ground to 1, was a particularly troublesome CP node. Most others I hit 3 times, with a few getting a 4th or 5th if they were easy enough.

The hardest node for me was the Miles essential in sub 4. Having a one covered Miles really weakened the team, and made it so I lost that more than I won it. Even still, it was a challenge, but not an unbeatable one. It was a good story, and the fights, rather than distracting from the story, actually added to it. You felt the danger because of how hard they were. For a match 3 puzzle game, that's a pretty hard feat to accomplish.

mpqr7

I love having new content, so I'd definitely play this pve again.

That being said, I really don't like it when goons feed nasty powers of villians. Carnage Red going off every other turn is majorly unfair.

Also I didn't like the guard dogs making lots of special tiles and then taking away tons of hit points after you destroyed each one. That also felt very unfair.

Other than that, it was great, and it's nice to have new storylines. Hopefully lots more new stories in 2016! It's great to see new heroes and villians featured other than the same original avengers and dark avengers.

Kojubat

I have always felt the 'high damage power with goon feeder' mechanic is a lazy way of making things harder. I wish that method would go away completely, or implement the AI programming option Punisher mentioned to prioritize goon powers over board movers. I do not necessarily feel things need to be a cakewalk - just having the Mutation paired with Carnage has teamwork without getting an accelerated Scythe (green countdown does more damage with more special tiles, red countdown makes strike tiles, yellow passive gets more troublesome as the match gets longer).

My biggest complaint is having a new story with the Dark Avengers that doesn't close out the storyline. Granted, they were not in every single node like the earlier stories, but any new content where I see an over leveled Bullseye/Moonstone/whatever is going to remind me there are so many other characters I could be fighting instead. (Although, at least Ares got to talk, and Sentry was in a story other than his own.)

That being said, new content is new content. I want to encourage that, especially anything that isn't a seven day event.

I don't have an opinion on the progression target other than to point out it seems somewhat absentminded to move the needle during an event at a time that is traditionally holiday/vacation/family focused, unless the intention is to reduce the number of players achieving highest progression in a general sense. I already knew I was going to start late because of family, so wasn't expecting to reach the final award anyway.

fmftint

I'll play it again as is, and play the same as I did the first run, play to and stop

puppychow

I appreciate the publisher's willingness to offer new content, and they certainly deserve credit for doing so. However, the difficulty in some of the nodes should be dialed back a few notches.

Personally, I would play enough to at least go for the LT progression. That means grinding just the trivials and essentials. I wouldn't bother playing Venom event competitively unless new character debut.

snlf25

I'm a late 3* transitioner, I have one Miles cover and 18 fully covered optimal 166 characters. I came in 27th in the PvE with 52,218 points so my first point is that the bar is set too high on the Legendary Token. At least 10 people in my bracket made it but less than 22. Not a good percentage.

I was able to do really well with Cage/Fist both at 166 and my Spidey at level 123, all optimally covered.

I liked the story, I liked the fights but the Carnage nodes did get overly vicious at times, and I always like new content.

I hope those tendril jabronis don't ever make it into the DDQ. They are OP for sure and they slow the matches down to a crawl. The new Venom goons can easily rival the Ultron goons for **** a board full of pain in the **** enemy specials in both quantity and speed.

I only have the one cover so far but from the teamup nodes it seems like Miles is going to be very effective and a lot of fun to play.

I seriously am putting my foot down and demanding the removal of critical boost and 20 iso prizes! It's **** fighting battles of this difficulty and to have those kind of "prizes". Give us color stockpile prizes and make it 200 iso instead, something actually useful.

I would play again.

FaustianDeal

Where is the option:
"Only if its for a new character."

Polares

If they remove Carnage as an enemy completely from the event, then things would get better. His red witha red feeder is completely unfair for the player, yeah there are ways of trying to stop him (stun basically), but even then there is Venom and all the special tiles, etc.

Carnage is always very hard on health packs, he is probably the worst char as enemy because of how easily he can do some serious damage. He wont beat you, but he will damage you.

FaustianDeal

Polares wrote:

Carnage is always very hard on health packs, he is probably the worst char as enemy because of how easily he can do some serious damage. He wont beat you, but he will damage you.

After he scales up to 395 he can kill you. In the nodes with 1 goon he is scything on turns 4 & 7. 2 shots might definitely impair your ability to hang in that fight.

Then on the essential with 2 feeder goons he is scything on turns 3, 5, & 8. Eating the power 3 times is is especially rough.

(Those rates assume you don't have the misfortune of letting them match red or catch an incidental red AP from a match-4, or off a cascade.)

Edith09

I quite like this event, new enemies, new story. My only complain is that super hard 4th day. 3 Carnages nodes are too much, esp. with red feeders.

Jarvind

I'll repost what I said on the other poll - I'm glad we got new content and a non-sucky Venom, but I felt like the new goons were just obnoxious and forced you to either overload your team with board shake, or use cheese teams like Fistbuster or Charlie's Angels in order to kill them before they got out of control. Similarly, putting Carnage on the same team as red feeder goons is just cruel. Symbiote Scythes going off on the 2nd or 3rd turn was unavoidable a lot of the time, and just felt obnoxious in the same way that pre-fix Galactus did.

I picked "play it again, but make changes." Just toning down the goons a teensy bit (up their AP costs by 1 or something) and not giving Carnage a red feeder would do it for me.

slidecage

Dont let any goons be in the Car. or vemon nodes and the entire issue would be fix

i dont think that many in my bracket could play the final node on any stage. I did not play the final node on any stage and took top 20

will i play again this THURSDAY for another yellow hell ya

Lemminkäinen

It's a weird setup. They just adjusted the how fast some of the older Goons (Thugs and something else, I believe) generate AP and adjusted their skills to be firable at lower APs to compensate. This because Goons feeding insane AP every turn isn't fun, I thought. And now this. It looks like their left hand doesn't know what the right is doing

eMouse

As nifty as it was to see new content, that new content pretty much made this the worst PvE I've played yet.

Not even going to bother with the fourth sub-story, just going to move on to Simulator and PvP.

I would think they have the ability to pull up stats of how often each node gets played, what characters get used, and the outcome, and it would be very interesting to see those stats compared to other PvE events.