Welcome to the new and "improved" DDQ

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  • Kaazz
    Kaazz Posts: 224 Tile Toppler
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    Srsly?!? FIRST *TWO* WAVES OF BE ARE ULTRON SENTRIES??!? SRSLY?? Then you follow that with SWitch being fed purple by 2 goons, and THEN if you survive that you get a Fury dropping his escape plan traps?!? WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA??!? You took a fun, stress-free portion of the game (the only one - every other event is challenging) and ruined it! I play ddq each day to relax and earn a little ISO. Now you've made it into the same kind of pressure as every other event - AND YOU DIDNT EVEN INCREASE THE REWARDS!!!!!!

    Devs: Tinykitty you, player!!

    icon_evil.gificon_evil.gificon_evil.gif
  • RWTDBurn
    RWTDBurn Posts: 291
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    I seriously don't get this change. Take something that was a great way for new players to get additional covers and ISO while also introducing them to the different characters. An event that's rewards were worth the amount of time and resources spent so that veterans would do it as well. Now make it harder so that the new players it was created for struggle with it and burn through their health packs that they need for PvE and PvP just trying to get through it. Extend the time and resources it takes for veterans while leaving the rewards exactly the same as they were so that it's no longer worth playing for the veterans. Who were these changes to DDQ made for?
  • n25philly
    n25philly Posts: 426 Mover and Shaker
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    You'll see who it was designed for when they add the option to pay to get an auto win on the big E. Like we can't see where the greedy devs are going with this. We're garbage to them if we dare do anything but pay up for every little thing
  • elusive
    elusive Posts: 261 Mover and Shaker
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    Congratulations, D3. My championed 3 star team wiped for the first time ever today! It was so much fun getting hit by 2 Reality Crushes in a row, then 3 Avengers Assemble, 2 Demolitions, a Diabolical Plot, and a Summon Demons soon afterwards! It's like someone purposely went, "What's the easiest way we can piss off people?"
  • Jam_Adams
    Jam_Adams Posts: 486 Mover and Shaker
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    yeah I wiped once and barely squeaked by on the second try.

    used Patch, 3Bullseye, and She Hulk. spammed the hell out of icon_shehulk.pnggreenflag.png, stole what I could with icon_shehulk.pngblueflag.png, tried to time it so icon_bullseye.png filled the board with strike.png .

    still, even at the end, Fury dropped 3 Demolitions on me. not sure how many traps were out there, but it was just simple luck that I didn't hit more than I did. on the final wave, Patch was gone, Bullseye was gone, and Shulk was down pretty far (flashing health bar). fortunately I had two redflag.png saved up. after the second, got a nice cascade to finish off Doom.

    even though i had a strategy, I actually didn't steal that many tiles, and Bullseye didn't get many kill shots. by the third wave, greenflag.png dried way up, and so I couldn't get Shulk to wipe the enemy AP that much in the second half of the match.

    my whole victory was completely based in luck, which is exactly what it shouldn't be.
  • tanis3303
    tanis3303 Posts: 855 Critical Contributor
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    I mean...I got thru it, but compared to the original DDQ, which I'd rate at about a 4 on the difficult-ometer, this was at an 11. I just don't understand why EVERYTHING in this game needs to be so bloody difficult. Why? Who is that for? Who is the guy saying "Man, you know what...if only EVERY SINGLE BATTLE, in every single mode, would be a skin-of-your-teeth affair and use up your health packs, the game would be PERFECT!" Who is this guy? Where can I find him, so I can go break his phone, his iPad and his computer so he can stop kittying up the game for the rest of us non-sadistic players. There was no reason to so drastically increase the difficulty. It's hard to argue that DDQ wasn't getting a bit stale and predictable, and there are TONS of new characters and goons that have been introduced since its creation, but why not just swap in some of those new characters without messing with the non-tile mover>tile mover>non-tile mover>tile mover wave structure?

    Overall, I'm with the majority here. If y'all feel like DDQ, which everyone loved as a low-stress escape from the rest of the high-pressure MPQ experience, needs to be ratcheted up to 11 on the difficulty scale, then y'all need to increase the rewards to compensate. With the absolutely ridiculous amount of ISO needed to level characters and the never ending deluge of new characters that need said ISO, a couple extra thousand ISO per day for completing the much, MUCH harder DDQ mode isn't going to break anything.
  • _Ryu_
    _Ryu_ Posts: 149
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    elusive wrote:
    Congratulations, D3. My championed 3 star team wiped for the first time ever today! It was so much fun getting hit by 2 Reality Crushes in a row, then 3 Avengers Assemble, 2 Demolitions, a Diabolical Plot, and a Summon Demons soon afterwards! It's like someone purposely went, "What's the easiest way we can piss off people?"

    How funny, do you read my diary ;-D

    Wasnt my first time that I get defeated but it happens very rarly and didnt get 3 Avengers, only one full Assemble but the rest sounds the same. I'm not upset about it or angry, but a 4 wave battle like this can no 2* team win regulary, which means 2* to 3* transitioners are screwed with the changes.

    2nd try I played seriously with attention and did it with almost no dmg taken or nearly get beaten.

    DDQ is without question tougher then it was before, when they introduced the changes coming I hoped they do some bonus stages for iso getting or other wicked Deadpool doings. Now it gives me only a bad taste in the mouth, nothing changed, only difficulty, hoped for more, thats it.
  • Tryke
    Tryke Posts: 320 Mover and Shaker
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    Aww yea. Good ol' Thormneto engine never fails me! Have barely noticed the "increased" difficulty. Been using this combo and beating enchilada since they were 70 thor, 66 Cstorm, 38 MNmags. To all those complaining about difficulty, build one of these teams and microwave that enchilada! icon_e_wink.gif
  • Koorogi_859
    Koorogi_859 Posts: 30 Just Dropped In
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    I have no complaints about the new changes. This being a Puzzle game, I welcome the change/challenge. Funny thing is, I tried to overcompensate on Big Enchilada at first and switch up my regular lineup, trying Fistbuster and my PVP climbing teams. Turns out I struggle more with them than if I just stuck with my regular Thor/Storm/Magneto team.
  • cardoor
    cardoor Posts: 185 Tile Toppler
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    Koorogi_859 wrote:
    ... This being a Puzzle game, I welcome the change/challenge. ....

    Do you have a strategy for playing a slot machine? Other than just dropping in another quarter and hoping that the Ultron crew does not get a cascade, what do you do to protect your strike tiles? I know strike tiles are always a gamble, but I am just curious what strategy you would use when it is a ridiculous gamble? Thanks!
  • Unknown
    Unknown
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    cardoor wrote:
    Koorogi_859 wrote:
    ... This being a Puzzle game, I welcome the change/challenge. ....

    Do you have a strategy for playing a slot machine? Other than just dropping in another quarter and hoping that the Ultron crew does not get a cascade, what do you do to protect your strike tiles? I know strike tiles are always a gamble, but I am just curious what strategy you would use when it is a ridiculous gamble? Thanks!

    Problem with ANY Puzzle Quest (Or match-3 game for that mater): All things can be reduced to luck eventually.

    That is why whenever there's any difficulty spike in the slightest, people are calling it luck based. (rarely when it is something "easy" or course)

    Although, speaking of that strategy: Take out the Fighter first, obv. Using Bullseye and stuff, you got tiles you can take out and wreck em, then the other ones aren't using Swarm every turn, and they still go down easy.

    The biggest problem with that is honestly that you kill them TOO fast, and don't have a ton of AP to quickly wipe the heroes when they show up. But you still got a good amount of power behind you by then.
  • ClydeFrog76
    ClydeFrog76 Posts: 1,350 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Wow. That was...yeah. Not fun.

    Still managed it fairly easily with my usual BE team of LazyThor, LazyCap and OBW (AP steal is a must-have for the ultronbots cheese imo) but I can understand the frustrations being vented here.

    Variety is good, but this new DDQ seems way too randomly generated for my liking.
  • cardoor
    cardoor Posts: 185 Tile Toppler
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    colwag wrote:
    cardoor wrote:
    Koorogi_859 wrote:
    ... This being a Puzzle game, I welcome the change/challenge. ....

    Do you have a strategy for playing a slot machine? Other than just dropping in another quarter and hoping that the Ultron crew does not get a cascade, what do you do to protect your strike tiles? I know strike tiles are always a gamble, but I am just curious what strategy you would use when it is a ridiculous gamble? Thanks!

    Problem with ANY Puzzle Quest (Or match-3 game for that mater): All things can be reduced to luck eventually.

    That is why whenever there's any difficulty spike in the slightest, people are calling it luck based. (rarely when it is something "easy" or course)

    Although, speaking of that strategy: Take out the Fighter first, obv. Using Bullseye and stuff, you got tiles you can take out and wreck em, then the other ones aren't using Swarm every turn, and they still go down easy.

    The biggest problem with that is honestly that you kill them TOO fast, and don't have a ton of AP to quickly wipe the heroes when they show up. But you still got a good amount of power behind you by then.

    Bullseye strategy sounds good.

    I won the first playthrough with Beast/BP/PX, but I didn't really enjoy it. Even though the match was harder overall, it was not harder for the right reasons in my opinion. I didn't really use much strategy at all. Trying to set up favorable moves or making my strike tiles harder to match was pretty pointless. That is why I compared it to a slot machine. I hear what you are saying about luck and match 3 games, I just didn't think it needed to be amplified to that extent.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
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    Arctic_One wrote:
    The one feature that no one had any complaints about and you go and change it. Why?
    This is not a rhetorical question. I honestly love to know of the process in which this clearly foolish decision was made.

    So, I had some time to think about this today, time that ordinarily would have been taken up by trying to beat DDQ. I have two theories.

    First some setup: The Big Enchilada was obviously most important for 2*->3* transitioners. It required the player to have a bunch of uncovered 3*s, but have at least some 3* covers. 3*+ players could play it for the ISO, unmaxed 2* players couldn't play it at all because of the required character, and 1* players never had a hope. But for folks with a maxed 2* stable, it was essential. Okay, duh, but it's important.

    It was a slow but reliable way to make progress in the incredibly long 2->3* transition. It wasn't as easy as directly whaling the 3* covers you needed, or as fast as getting rewards/tokens from PvP, but it worked. More importantly, it kept the 2* player invested in the transition, rather than demoralized by the breadth of the 3* field.

    With 30+ 3* characters whose covers are distributed more-or-less equally... before DDQ, getting that first cover for a 3* character wasn't a gift, it was a burden. (A burden that pushed people to buy HP for slots so their rare covers didn't expire--the primary reason for a 2* player to purchase HP, until the expiration timer was bumped up.) After the implementation of DDQ, that first cover was at least a promise that you'd be able to win further covers for that character at some point in the future. If they were like me, 2* players now felt like purchasing slots was less about the proverbial "stick" of covers expiring and more about the "carrot" of getting to play DDQ and build a new character. Again, maybe also obvious, but also important.

    DDQ is now inarguably more difficult, at least for the days when Ultron or parasite goons show up. It is very unlikely for an un-championed 2* roster to make it through Big Enchilada without burning a health pack, and maybe impossible without seriously boosting.

    At the same time, a frustrated 2* player can (essentially) no longer whale 3* covers. The change from HP to CP to purchase covers is an extremely important change for a lot of reasons, for every player, but I'm focusing on how it affects the 2*->3* transition. 3* PvP rewards have never really been a viable way to consistently transition, especially for casual players. So a transitioning 2* player must earn 3* covers through progression rewards, tokens, or through the Big Enchilada.

    Progression rewards "cost" shields or health packs (i.e. HP). Tokens can be purchased for ISO or HP. But before this change, Big Enchilada only required some amount of the player's time and a daily commitment.

    "Nominal time and a daily commitment" is already being rewarded in the form of the Resupply. Big Enchilada took longer to beat than the single-wave matches that count for Resupply, but 15 minutes of the player's time isn't worth that much more than 5 minutes.

    From the economy side of things, Big Enchilada was redundant.

    This change tacks on a cost to Big Enchilada. Not a big cost--if you were to pay for boosts/health, you'd only need to pay once or twice a week. In fact, I bet that if you were to very carefully work it out, it's less costly than spending the old HP fee to outright buy the 3* cover. Alternatively, you can spend time instead of money and champion your 2* characters until they're able to reliably push through Big Enchilada the way a 3* team can.

    Theory #1: The thought process behind this, and some other recent changes, was to supplement the relatively rare 3* whale income with more, smaller, less-frequent purchases by more players. The ultrawhales get pushed to the rarefied CP tier, the 2*->3* casual transition is slightly more monetized, and the 2*/3* grinders are more incentivized to purchase a greater number of health packs in order to get the same amount of grinding done per day.

    Theory #2: The difficulty increase in Big Enchilada legitimizes and necessitates engagement with the whole-new transition step of going from a stable of maxed 2* characters to a stable of maxed and champion-maxed 2* characters. This is the sign that 2*->[c]2* isn't just a fun power trip for transitioners, it is a new goal that you must reach to continue. Big Enchilada no longer needs to be a hook to keep you interested in the boring doldrums of the 2*->3* transition, because the 2*->[c]2*->3* transition has noticeable progression all the way through. I'm guessing that based on drop rates, it's slightly easier to feed a champion 2* character a couple of times than it is to win a Big Enchilada cover on a "hard" day, just like it's easier to win Big Enchilada every single day than it is to get seven 3* covers per week out of PvP/PvE. So the thought process behind this change was "2*->3* transitioners: Your transition time just increased."

    These theories aren't mutually exclusive, but one is clearly more cynical than the other.

    I don't read these boards exhaustively so I'm sorry if this has been hashed out elsewhere icon_e_smile.gif
  • OnesOwnGrief
    OnesOwnGrief Posts: 1,387 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Did today's DDQ 3* cover node with KK, IM40, and Blade. It was stupid easy. I won't ever complain about these nodes in the future. Nice of them to change PX's enemy though.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
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    Hi folks, new player, first post icon_e_smile.gif

    I've been playing for about a month now, and really enjoy the game. But as a new player, I find this new DDQ big enchilda just about impossible.

    I don't get it? I thought the Big Enchilada was for 2* trying to transition to 3*? I'm assuming this because the reward is a 3* cover.

    Most of the time I don't have the required char needed to even play the Big Enchilada. Today, just my luck, I had the character, and even better, the 3* reward was The Hulk. I have the Hulk, with 2 covers (which by the way is currently the most # of covers I have for my 3* characters.)

    My question is how the heck could I possibly, in any conceivable way, defeat 4 waves of level 99-130 guys? It just doesn't seem to make sense to me. It seems like this would only be possible if you had some seriously covered 3* characters or better, in which case, you would not even a 3* cover nearly as badly as a newer player like me.

    About 2 weeks ago I managed to win one Big Enchilada challenge as I had my one cover 3* Deadpool fully loaded with whales -- with that and lots of luck managed to pull off a win there. But seeing 4 waves of 99-130 lvl dudes...it's just... unfathomable to me how I would be able to beat that.

    DDQ was my favorite part of the game. That daily taco keeps me going! But now, with the B.E challenge literally looking impossible, my PvP almost impossible to place in ( I think my scaling is screwed up because I have a few 4* guys w/ 1 cover... and I always seem to lose a massive amount of points & never can place anymore) and the last nodes of the PvE challenges seeming way out of my league as well (how am I supposed to kill 3 waves or 4 waves of lvl 70+ guys when I don't even have championed 2* yet?) I just don't know how a new player is supposed to transition to 2* to 3* and I've seemed to hit a wall i can't pass.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
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    I'm a 3* transitioner. All good 2*s championed, but only 2 3* over level 100.

    First Try yesterday with Patch, Daken, OBW got wiped in wave 3. So damn this is even more **** than Day 1.
    Then I tried again just for fun with 2* Storm/Magneto/Hawkeye boosted 2 rainbows and 2 blue/purple and than had an amazing board. Speedshoted almost all ultron goons and had constantly 30 blue to stunlock everything that came afterwards. Wasn't hit by a single ability.

    So if they give me such a lucky board everyday, they can keep the changes icon_e_wink.gif
  • Unknown
    Unknown
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    Well today's (Thursday's) DDQ was certainly an improvement... icon_e_wink.gif

    DBC
  • Crowl
    Crowl Posts: 1,579 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Drummerboycroy wrote:
    Well today's (Thursday's) DDQ was certainly an improvement... icon_e_wink.gif

    Hmm, I think your dictionary might be broken. icon_mrgreen.gif
  • kaelad
    kaelad Posts: 48 Just Dropped In
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    Crowl wrote:
    Drummerboycroy wrote:
    Well today's (Thursday's) DDQ was certainly an improvement... icon_e_wink.gif

    Hmm, I think your dictionary might be broken. icon_mrgreen.gif

    I was about to say the same thing. I defended the change on the first day because I thought it's just one day, let's see what it looks like after a few days. Even after a few days I thought, as a 3* transitioner, I'm still doing okay and can still get covers. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm switching sides and joining the complainers. The past two days were just not fun. Seriously, an Ultron Prime plus his bots in the first wave! What are they thinking with that one?

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