PVE Scaling Testing - Enemy Of The State (03/17/16)

Ralph-Wiggum

Just started and have played a few nodes. So far my impressions have been almost entirely negative. The nodes seem significantly harder, especially at the beginning and in the essentials. And apparently they are going to keep getting tougher after each play through. If that isn't a change designed to sell health packs, I don't know what is. No thanks.

fmftint

Node rewards, especially in 48 hour subs, need to be addressed. Full points 12x, 7x node rewards. and thats doing ZERO grinding end of sub
Rewards for intro nodes, especially for higher scaled players need to be increased. +300 enemies to "win" 70 ? Are you kidding me?

ErikPeter

First impression: Man, this is pretty hard. But Enemy of the State kind of always has been.

Second impression: These guys just went up 20 levels after one (health-pack munching) win? There's no way in hell I'm going to get the LT.

We'll see how I do ranking-wise for impressions 3 and beyond.

Nepenthe

I love the idea behind this update! (Play when you want, nodes that get harder when you beat them for more challenge, etc.) The actual implementation has some issues.

1. Completely eliminate points per node refreshing over time. As long as they do there will always be an "optimal timing" to rush through your clears and then wait until near the end of the event to play again. "Play when you want" is a great goal, node refreshes totally destroy that goal.

2. Start scaling lower and increase by more per clear. Okay, my scaling was not bad, but it sounds like people with maxed 4*s had a terrible time of it. I have all 3*s championed and my highest 4*s are at 170-195. I was able to do my first clear without using health packs. I did all 6 clears over the course of about 7 hours (not continually), and the ones that were all minions never became too much of a problem while the ones with Wolverine and 2 ninjas got pretty tough pretty fast. But it sounds like if I level up my 4*s I'll be facing wipes on the first clear? That's the opposite of what you want!

My scaling preference: Someone with a 2* roster should be able to do the first clear, with maybe the last node being a challenge, but they should get leveled out of subsequent tiers faster than someone with a 3* roster, who should have a hard time doing as many clears as someone with a 4* roster, etc. What is the point of getting higher tier characters and leveling them higher if it actually makes it harder to beat nodes? I want to have the experience of "Now that I leveled this hero, I can make it further in PvE than I could before!" like we all did when first playing through the prologue.

3. Survival nodes NEED to give iso rewards after the first completion, and other nodes really should after the 7th, too. Yeah, I know everybody hated getting 20 iso INSTEAD OF THE GOOD REWARDS SITTING THERE. But now if we grind through the rewards, which is pretty common in a 48-hour subevent, and we get nothing after that. It's especially bad for survival nodes. Let them give 20-50 iso per wave depending on level, or something. Okay, this applies to PvE before this scaling test too, but it feels especially bad doing back to back clears of survival nodes like I just did.

4. Completely eliminate points per node refreshing over time Yeah, I know I said this one already. But seriously, do it. It was obvious that the 24-hour refresh still would have an optimal timing windows. Some of the very first posts in this thread were pointing it out. Everyone should have seen that this wouldn't truly accomplish "play when you want."

5. Scale rewards with difficulty. Holy cow that progression tier looks sparse for a 7-day event with increasingly difficult nodes. Through in some more iso reward tiers in between those progression rewards, even if they're just 250 and 500 between the normal ones. 10k points or more between rewards is ridiculous when it takes this much grinding and each grind is harder than the last. Throw us an iso bone, here, please.

I have no problem whatsoever with nodes eventually getting hard enough that they crush me. Just not right off the bat. And it'd be nice if when I do manage to pull out a great combo and beat that crushing node the reward it gives is better than the easy version of it I fought 5 clears ago.

Thanks for reading.

Redrobot30

Since I had a bunch of time to play this morning I joined the 9am PST time slice:

I grinded pretty much all the nodes down to where I got the refresh timer to appear (after 6 clears). I am currently ranked #2 in my bracket. My roster is maxed 3*s. Here are my thoughts so far...

PROGRESSION: If you are only playing for progression this is a great new way for PvE to be played. Instead of having to dedicate 20-40 mins every 8 hours on a routine basis you get to play at a casual basis.

This is the way most mobile games play.

Getting to achieve goals as you have small periods of time to play is a great break from grinding like crazy. If you play just for progression and like a casual pace then D3 nailed it for you.

PLACEMENT: If you are one of the super elite who push to get the top rewards ie: 4*s, then this new way to play PvE is terribly awful. As I said, I'm ranked at #2 currently and boy was it a loooooong grind. To be able to push through all those nodes was the very definition of attrition. You have to play with your top toons if you want to blast through these nodes at a fast pace. This requires a decent board and luck to be able to get through nodes without having to use all your health packs right away. If you are a player who goes for placement then just quit PvE altogether. You will get burnt out without a doubt from having to play even longer amounts of time at once. Not to mention you won't get any rewards as at the end of each subnode you would have already played each node 7+ times.

Overall as a guy who usually plays just to get into the top 50-100 for events I think for the most part I would enjoy playing PvE this way because it wouldn't demand me to play on the games time.

It did feel weird when my mental clock told me to play the nodes again because I'm used to playing every 8 hours on the dot. I suppose I am a programmed MPQ zombie now...

Phumade

screaminviking wrote:

I'm a casual player with a somewhat solid 3 roster.

The change in the difficulty of the "easy" nodes is definitely a turn-off. The first "easy" node (Protect Your Neck) is at 135-136 for me. Based on Anthony's numbers, this is higher than I expected, as I don't think I have a "max 3 " roster.

FWIW, my top ten characters are:

5 1/1/0 lvl 255
5 0/0/1 lvl 255
3 lvl 171
3 lvl 171
3 lvl 171
3 lvl 171
3 lvl 170
3 lvl 169
3 lvl 169
3 lvl 169

and most of the rest of my 3's and 4's are lvl 140 or below.

You are definitely past the 3* roster phase. People use those labels pretty casually but the general hall mark of a 3* roster is more than 5 3* champions.

I'd probably say your a 3* transitioning into 4* roster.

Colognoisseur

I started in s3 and played 3.5 hours and did not finish taking all the nodes to the 24h timer. you know why? I got bored using the same five characters in 10-15 minute long matches against lvl 400+ enemies. There is a point when it becomes monotonous. They keep chipping away at everything I enjoy about the game. Play my 3* characters? Nope not anymore. They want the whole game to be six characters for me moving forward.

I cannot imagine using this system going forward. Final grind of one sub into first grind of a new sub will require a commitment of 7-8h of play straight. That's a part-time job for heaven's sake. The MPQ version of "Would you like fries with that?" is "Thank you devs may I have another health pack?"

I don't know how they could want to promote this kind of behavior but here we are....again.

NickHewitt12

I need ISO, but I sure don't need ISO this much. I was excited about this event too for the amount of tokens that normally get given out plus it's first run with a Vault, but I guess I'll just take the week off.

Vinmarc43

Forget this, harder for me then before, I`m too old to get stress out with hard, long and repetitive battles, this game is getting worst every week, D3 is trying stuff, but not trying hard enough I guess.
Same cheap sh....
please pull the plug, pleeeeaaase

Moon Roach

I've just decided that the next 5* should be Bishop, followed by Kitty Pryde, then we could use them together to go back in time and stop this experiment from happening.

fmftint

OK, Just finished finished 6x on all nodes putting me #2 in my bracket, a few hundred points behind #1. I started a survival without full health and wiped on wave 2 which counts as 1/6 full clears

Was it fun?


NO!

northnorth

I bet the dev team had a meeting before rolling out these changes that went
" were going to see a lot of upset players on the forums today but remember, if they're upset, everything is going to plan"

wymtime

Colognoisseur wrote:

I started in s3 and played 3.5 hours and did not finish taking all the nodes to the 24h timer. you know why? I got bored using the same five characters in 10-15 minute long matches against lvl 400+ enemies. There is a point when it becomes monotonous. They keep chipping away at everything I enjoy about the game. Play my 3* characters? Nope not anymore. They want the whole game to be six characters for me moving forward.

I cannot imagine using this system going forward. Final grind of one sub into first grind of a new sub will require a commitment of 7-8h of play straight. That's a part-time job for heaven's sake. The MPQ version of "Would you like fries with that?" is "Thank you devs may I have another health pack?"

I don't know how they could want to promote this kind of behavior but here we are....again.

Just to piggy back on Colognoisseur's comments. Last year the Dev's created weekly buffs to make 3* more viable and to have players use more characters and not just the top 3-6. With the nerf to buffed 3* PVP is now your top team if it is 3*,4*, 5*. Players will run buffed characters but at high end PVP you see the stronger unbuffed 4* just as much as an occasional buffed 4*.
Now with the scaling in PVE buffed 3* are out scaled. My hard nodes are significantly higher then my buffed 3*. 4Thor has been my Queen of PVE and will continue to do so. I am actually really happy I did not level my OML to 360 as I am eventually intending to do. That single act might kill my ability to PVE.
For points I think the fact that players are going to grind down nodes 7 times in a row to then grind them down at the end should show the Dev's this is not the right way to do it. i am too tired to think about what would be better, but remember this, players will grind the game down to win so if you want to eliminate this aspect you do not set up a system that optimal clears is to grind 7 in a row and then grind again at the end. That is just encouraging the wrong behavior.

Unknown

If you wanted to making missions more about completing challenging-but-fun missions rather than playing missions quickly, at set times during the day., you failed - even if you removed 8 hour intervals, there still is regeneration time and health pack restoration time. Also I found, then easier wave mission gives more points (415), then harder wave mission (371).

fmftint

Top available roster: Cyclops 354, Iceman 354, Deadpool 352, Phoenix 345
Levels after 6x/node
Beast Essential: 152-153
Captain Marvel Essential: 319, 319, 319
Ghost Rider Essential: 319, 319, 319
One of Them: 259-319
Protect Your Neck: 327, 327, 327
Big Bad Wolverine: 341, 341, 341
Enemy Agents: 348-356
Nowhere to Run: 363, 363, 363

Rewards remaining 100 , , 200 , 200 , 100

KinDM

Yup. This just isn't fun. Instead of trivial nodes, 3 nodes around the 150 mark, and 3 around 200, I get 6 that START around 150, and 3 that START around 200. With the same rewards all around. I just don't understand the logic in thinking that any player wants a significantly harder experience for absolutely no more gain. I echo the sentiment I'm reading over and over here: make everything progression, not placement. I think that'll solve a significant number of the problems that most everyone has...

Unknown

If you wanted to update the system to give you more freedom about when you play the game., just improve Deadpool's Daily. And please, bring back ability to grind, gaining 20 iso points for completing simple mission over and over again, or make some infinite mode of something.

Ducky

Top available roster: Phoenix 390, Elektra 364, 4pool 361, Siver Surfer 360, Iceman 359
Levels after 6x/node (I only hit survival nodes once. Not doing those again for no prizes, it's a waste of time.)

Captain Marvel Essential: 347 x3
Ghost Rider Essential: 347 x3
Protect Your Neck: 354 x3
Big Bad Wolverine: 369 x2
Nowhere to Run: 390 x3

This is ridiculous. I don't have any "easy" nodes. There is no way I am grinding these again. I will hit them one more time for the final reward in each and call it a sub. Whoever thought this was a good idea has a very poor vision in terms of design. This is as bad, if not worse than, when we had 2.5 hour refreshes and this is coming from someone who would hit every refresh on time for new releases so I could get 1st prize.

As has been said before, if you are going to have a timer be apart of your design, then there is never going to be a "play as you want" philosophy for anyone trying to get top reward placement. So either completely overhaul your philosophy on PvE or just keep the old system as is. The only way this test could have been worse was if it had actually happened during the Heroic as previously planned. That would have been even more rage inducing.

DrStrange-616

Not even going to bother finishing one clear. I'm stuck using basically the same team over and over. Boring and a health pack eater. Pass.

TLCstormz

Daiches wrote:

is it too late to pull the plug on this I'll-conceived idea? This is beyond the most horrible thing ever inflicted upon this game. Every node is torture.

"You are supposed to lose" has never rung more clearly in your design philosophy.

Have the developers forgotten this is a game you are supposed to play FOR FUN?

I don't understand how this abomination went through quality control. I can not imagine the person that would sign of on this saying, wow, I had great fun running my 4-5 useable characters through the wringer.

It may sound harsh, but this is my honest criticism. And by no means meant to troll or otherwise insult the developers. I actually can not comprehend how this implementation would improve customer experience.

Quality Control, indeed.....