Episode 4: Iso-8 Brotherhood Discussion

Unknown

LordWill wrote:

I think it just scaled too quickly. If they could stretch it out some so that by day 8 and 9 it was level 230 guys all the time, I could live with it.

For me it just seems like every fight is a knock down drag out fight when only a few days into the event seeing mostly all 230 guys. Not all but most of the fights are maxed level.

If the event was 3 days, I would say they did a great job, but since the event is 9 days or whatever, its way off. They need to tune it down like 5 notches.

The PvE rating rolls over to the next event, so if you have level 230 enemies at the end of this event you will have level 230 enemies at the start of next event, so whether you get to level 230 initially in 3 days or 9 days becomes less relevant. It sucks according to everyone except devs it seems, but they don't play the game. In my opinion scaling should reset on every tournament & perhaps every subsection to allow people to play through each mission in the story-line at least once, but scale up after each fight.

ClydeFrog76

jozier wrote:

Is this your first PVE? The tinykitty roster people at the top of the brackets are likely participating in their first PVE. They won't get to steamroll the competition a second time I'm sure.

I've been around since just before the first Hunt, which I couldn't participate in because my roster was nowhere near ready. I was fine with that, I worked hard (and spent some cash) and got a respectable gang together which meant I could compete reasonably well in the first Hulk and onwards.

This scaling and pandering to the noobs seems like a kick in the teeth. Why should they get to experience the whole event while people like me and MANY others are left floundering against level 230s. My roster still isn't brilliant (my only 100+ is Patch at 115) but I'm being treated like a high-end player because I'm actually pretty good at the game due to playing it in all its many guises from the original onwards.

And to make it worse, they've removed boosts (a necessity against these monster enemies) mid-event. Who the f*ck is making these decisions?

I'm just sick of it. I love this game, I've spent good money on it, spent countless hours playing it, but it all seems for naught when they're doing $hit like this again and again.

Unknown

Okay, I see that long-time dedicated players are defending that the matches are "doable" and that lvl 230 fights are nothing new, but I think the important question is, is it still fun?

Sure, we can still beat them but I've personally limped in on this PvE because every match being lvl 230 is more like a tedious chore. I was already tired of it on Day 1. Every match is either about stun locking or stealing AP, or else one slip up and the game's practically over. It's becoming a one note, one-sided battle where the whole point of a match is to game the board in order to not let the AI attack at all. And while some might argue that's the whole point of MPQ, it's not fun for me.

ClydeFrog76

Amen, brother.

Unknown

I hear ya. I've been doing ok in this event and sim since I had a good number of boosted chars to call on, but it seems like PVE is becoming a constant slog through long fights. The PVE events used to be my favorite part of the game, even when I didn't have the levels to do everything in the old ones. Now I just grind out some points before sub's close and leave it at that.

Unknown

Knock3r wrote:

... but I think the important question is, is it still fun?

Fun is subjective. I'm sure there are people who do enjoy fighting 3x230s.

I personally don't like them. I can do them (usually) without boosts if I have access to Spidey + Punisher or Patch. I'm mainly just avoiding them in the hope I stop seeing them eventually. I'd be more happy to just have a grindfest I can steamroll, but other people don't like that so, since you can't please everyone, the devs have to enforce their vision.

It would however be nice to have them spell out how they want their game to work. Do they want 30 minute long matches? Do they want us to only play 3-4 matches before we have to stop and wait for healthpacks? I'm just curious as to what THEY want.

Bacon Pants

Maggotbreath wrote:

Knock3r wrote:

... but I think the important question is, is it still fun?

Fun is subjective. I'm sure there are people who do enjoy fighting 3x230s.

I personally don't like them. I can do them (usually) without boosts if I have access to Spidey + Punisher or Patch. I'm mainly just avoiding them in the hope I stop seeing them eventually. I'd be more happy to just have a grindfest I can steamroll, but other people don't like that so, since you can't please everyone, the devs have to enforce their vision.

It would however be nice to have them spell out how they want their game to work. Do they want 30 minute long matches? Do they want us to only play 3-4 matches before we have to stop and wait for healthpacks? I'm just curious as to what THEY want.

I honestly don't believe that they even know what type of game they want. Everything seems to be a one step forward two steps back type of move. You want people to play the game, but slowing the game down will turn players off. You want to increase difficulty but remove aids that encourage people to take the challenge (who wants to fight 230's with no boosts and no character over level 85? just an ex. not my current situation) You want to encourage people to stop skipping, but still reward them with 5-10 point matches. You want to increase roster diversity, but still set up opponents where you're almost forced to use a certain character combo.

The chances of getting an actual answer from someone not named IceX seem to be slim to none. I appreciate what IceX does, but in the grand scheme of things it is not enough.

Kikujiro

The first PvE event I saw was Juggy heroic, where my heroes were between levels 15-20 and didnt join. My first event was Venom heroic, where I could finish only 2 matches. My first top ranking was in second run of Red ISO, where I managed to grab some Moonstones after a lot of work.

Now this is the top ten of the Russia subevent with 2 tough missions and required covers taking a spot in the team ...

10 - Max level character, IM35 lvl 50
9 - Captain, Wolverine lvl 85
8 - CStorm lvl 64
7 - Thor, Daken lvl 54
6 - IM35 lvl 34
5 - Thor lvl 64
4 - CStorm lvl 53
3 - Daken lvl 45
2 - IM40 lvl 107 (and a lvl 60 Spiderman at 3 blue)
1 - IM35 lvl 46

Fair enough.

Unknown

Knock3r wrote:

Okay, I see that long-time dedicated players are defending that the matches are "doable" and that lvl 230 fights are nothing new, but I think the important question is, is it still fun?

Sure, we can still beat them but I've personally limped in on this PvE because every match being lvl 230 is more like a tedious chore. I was already tired of it on Day 1. Every match is either about stun locking or stealing AP, or else one slip up and the game's practically over. It's becoming a one note, one-sided battle where the whole point of a match is to game the board in order to not let the AI attack at all. And while some might argue that's the whole point of MPQ, it's not fun for me.

For me, level is irrelevant to fun factor. It's all about character selection vs enemy selection. That's why I found Simulator to be the most fun.

Unknown

Kikujiro wrote:

The first PvE event I saw was Juggy heroic, where my heroes were between levels 15-20 and didnt join. My first event was Venom heroic, where I could finish only 2 matches. My first top ranking was in second run of Red ISO, where I managed to grab some Moonstones after a lot of work.

Now this is the top ten of the Russia subevent with 2 tough missions and required covers taking a spot in the team ...

10 - Max level character, IM35 lvl 50
9 - Captain, Wolverine lvl 85
8 - CStorm lvl 64
7 - Thor, Daken lvl 54
6 - IM35 lvl 34
5 - Thor lvl 64
4 - CStorm lvl 53
3 - Daken lvl 45
2 - IM40 lvl 107 (and a lvl 60 Spiderman at 3 blue)
1 - IM35 lvl 46

Fair enough.

The top 10 of my Russia subevent is basically 6 people with "newbie" type rosters, 3 people with a few 2* level 85 characters or close enough, and one guy with a half dozen maxed level 141 3* characters. Subevents are dictated by rubberbanding, though.

In my main bracket most of the rosters in the top 10 belong to people who've clearly been around for months. There's only one roster where the two best characters are level 50 IM35 and level 55 C.Storm. That's better. I do think that it's a bit iffy if the scaling can take newbies all the way to the top of the main bracket of a PVE event. They should be very competitive for the tokens and 2* covers they need to improve their roster, not be competing at the very top end IMO. I think the scaling this time has been BETTER, but obviously still room for improvement.

I agree that Simulator was a better event thanks to the wide variety of characters faced and characters boosted, and Hulk probably better thanks to the large amount of story stuff going on, but this has been a very good event too and with 5 days to go they have a lot of story left to play out. Maybe they'll adjust the scaling for the last couple of subevents, maybe they won't...

Unknown

Narkon wrote:

Ben Grimm wrote:

grimbergen wrote:

It seems tanking in PVE doesn't drop the "boss" missions... at least not in the last 2-3 events. It would drop the levels of the easier missions, but the really hard ones never seem to go down in level with tanking.

I lost one twice (bad cascades) and it dropped about 10-15 levels, but it was back up a few hours later when I actually could have tried it again.

So there is no way around it? Once you get to the 200+ group you are stuck with it for the rest of the event? This is beyond lame.

Keep in mind that while you are tanking to lower the levels of the mission, other players are completing it which is working to raise its level. Thus, you are pretty much "swimming against the tide".

Although, it is much less effective than normal with only one sub in play this round, you can work the levels of the encounter down to manageable levels. As with anything that works in your favor, you have to commit time and effort to achieving that goal.

NorthernPolarity

What the heck, rubberbanding is crazy for this latest sub: I'm seeing the Jugg mission being worth 3.8k points.

Unknown

I'm fairly new. I had been doing the highest point value missions first, but I just realized rubber banding means I should be doing the lowest value missions first. Correct?

Unknown

Rajjeq wrote:

I'm fairly new. I had been doing the highest point value missions first, but I just realized rubber banding means I should be doing the lowest value missions first. Correct?

I have played for more than 120 days and done it both ways. It has never made a difference for me.

Personally, I choose to clear the high point missions first when entering a bracket because I like to keep as close to the top of the leaderboard as possible.

Unknown

Ghast wrote:

Rajjeq wrote:

I'm fairly new. I had been doing the highest point value missions first, but I just realized rubber banding means I should be doing the lowest value missions first. Correct?

I have played for more than 120 days and done it both ways. It has never made a difference for me.

Personally, I choose to clear the high point missions first when entering a bracket because I like to keep as close to the top of the leaderboard as possible.

Yeah I don't think it really makes a difference if you plan on doing them all anyway. Personally I like to do the ones that are higher first because if rubberbanding brings all of them down after one fight I like to feel as though I got the most points possible at that time from (presumably, not always) the most difficult mission.

eidehua

bughunt wrote:

The PvE rating rolls over to the next event, so if you have level 230 enemies at the end of this event you will have level 230 enemies at the start of next event, so whether you get to level 230 initially in 3 days or 9 days becomes less relevant. It sucks according to everyone except devs it seems, but they don't play the game. In my opinion scaling should reset on every tournament & perhaps every subsection to allow people to play through each mission in the story-line at least once, but scale up after each fight.

Im not sure about this. I was facing 230s last event (the final nodes), but now I am not facing any at all. And the other goons I faced were 100+, but when I started this event (even now) I'm facing goons that are <100.
I was also facing all 230s in TaT, although things might have reset after that.

If there is carry over, I have no idea why I'm facing such low levels.

Unknown

NorthernPolarity wrote:

What the heck, rubberbanding is crazy for this latest sub: I'm seeing the Jugg mission being worth 3.8k points.

Yup, the point values are insane. Haven't joined the round yet, but from the three missions I can see, the rubberband is already maxed out. Both character required missions are reporting 3750 point each.

I bet when the ISO mission unlocks, it will be worth 5000 points at max rubberband.

eidehua

Lyrian wrote:

NorthernPolarity wrote:

What the heck, rubberbanding is crazy for this latest sub: I'm seeing the Jugg mission being worth 3.8k points.

Yup, the point values are insane. Haven't joined the round yet, but from the three missions I can see, the rubberband is already maxed out. Both character required missions are reporting 3750 point each.

I bet when the ISO mission unlocks, it will be worth 5000 points at max rubberband.

Yeah, points are crazy. I started around 2 hrs after event opened, the char required missions were around 1.9k... and now they are about that much as well.

Jumped from 11-14th place at end of last event to 4th now. I know people havnt started, but I dont know if rubberbanding will catch them up now.

Unknown

If time is no issue, you should do the lowest point mission first and highest point mission last. However, since time is most definitely an issue in most cases, you really want to do the highest missions first because the theoractical gains for doing lowest point mission first means nothing if you run out of time or, worse yet, somehow died (which is entirely possible when they're all 230X3s). Put it another way, if you wiped out while doing the high point missions, that's probably unavoidable anyway (because they're likely hardest), but at least you got as much point as you could have. If you wiped out on the easy missions, you can easily end up leaving a ton of points on the table.

Unknown

Thank you, Nick. You're most helpful.
Psst, guys, I think they drugged Fury up a bit too much. Ask him for a raise or something whilst he's out of it.