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

MaxxPowerz

No 5*? In terms of scaling it's not really going to hurt you if you're already running a maxed 3* roster...

Having an easier time than most, but it's most likely because I have iceman and cyc fully covered sitting at lol 150; they're my highest level 4*.

Gmax101

ammenell wrote:

seems like having no 5*s makes that somehow playable.
still not sure if we play the same game. clearly i have an easier time with my 5*-free roster than most people are describing with 5*s and well developed 4*s

I agree, have only 1 5 who is unlevelled (albeit with 5 covers) and I found the first couple of passes fairly straight forward.

Regarding the rubbish rewards, I agree they are not enticing... but in their defence this was not something that was addressed in the changes... we can only hope at some point they decide that the next step after removing 20ISO is to have some staggered prizes based on the roster.

I do wonder if the new 4/5 meta and PVP optimising of boost your big characters at the expense of others is causing the scaling issues being seen here.

Although she has 5 covers, I am seriously considering selling my Jean Grey as she does not make my game more fun....

tizian2015

"David wrote:

Moore"]Hello everyone,

Mission Difficulty
The first thing I want to talk about is how the difficulty of the missions are changing. Previously, the system presented you with opponents based on your characters’ levels. There was a couple of quirks with this system. In some circumstances, it could be disadvantageous to level characters, or to add a high-level character to your roster. Now, the game will take into account both your heroes’ power levels and heroes’ levels into account when establishing the difficulty of the mission.

Playing When You Want to Play
The next big change we are introducing is how missions are re-played. Previously, after beating a mission, the strictly optimal strategy was to wait 8 hours and play it again. We wanted to update the system to give you more freedom about when you play the game.

In the test event, missions will be worth the same amount of points the first six times you play it. Missions get harder each of these times. Once a mission is beaten six times, the difficulty stops increasing.

After that, each time you beat a mission, it will be worth less points, similar to the old system. The amount of times it takes for a mission to be restored to full points after one play is 24 hours (up from 8). A mission can be beat 5 times (down from 6) until you reach the minimum amount of points a mission is worth, 20 points (up from 1). Our goal with this change is to make Story events more about beating challenging missions rather than having to beat missions quickly at set intervals during the day.

...

- Previously, missions increased in difficulty based on your performance within the event. Mission difficulty is now set at the start of the event and does not change for the duration of the event.
- In the old system, some players saw a big jump in difficulty between the easier missions in a chapter and the harder ones. That's been smoothed out.

...

o Missions increase in difficulty after beating them

- After completing a mission, a screen is shown showing how many levels the enemy has gained. - Each mission will increase in difficulty six times.

Well, I see some contradiction. For me, you smooth out the scaling for easy and hard nodes by making the easier harder. Nice work (/sarkasm). You say, difficulty is set at the beginning of the event and does not change by performance. Yeah, now the performance is nothing, just beating a node makes it harder, because you add levels to the enemies (so difficulty is changed in the duration of an event). Before everyone needed three clears with full points to get the progression rewards. You add many points with this six-times-clear-rule, but if it means, we need more then three full clears its a backstep for the progression players. You want us to play when we want, then give us the full roster of an event with all goons/enemies and with the points the nodes will grant so we can see what to clear if we want the progression reward.
Take out the competitive aspect in pve. With it its just another form of pvp. I´m one of the guys who love Galactus. This was a pure pve.

CNash

On the surface of it, the theory that the scaling is meant to discourage mindless grinding is a sound one. Eventually, the nodes will become too hard for the majority of players. Harder nodes don't always translate to "challenging-but-fun", especially when over-leveled 2*s like Wolverine are involved, but that's another problem.

However, prohibitive node scaling doesn't address the fundamental problem with PVE: There will always be people who will mindlessly grind every node down to dust. Maybe they have more time on their hands, or a better roster, or both. But these are the folks who'll be consistently hitting Top 10 placement in every PVE sub, and consequently the PVE itself.

Where does this leave casual players? And by "casual" I don't mean "hits the nodes once or twice for easy ISO" - I mean the ones who, under the old system, could just about manage a clear every 8 hours and a little bit of grinding at the end. They'll never be #1, but they at least had a shot at Top 10, and would be satisfied with Top 50 - especially now with championing, those Thor covers will come in handy. I'd be surprised if these players even break Top 100 in this event with that same strategy. Enjoy your umpteenth useless Johnny Storm cover!

So at the end of the day I'm repeating what everybody above me has been saying, and what we've been saying for months. The competitive aspect of PVE is what is breaking PVE; until that is removed, you will never realise your goal of minimising grinding and making the game fun for casual players. Some players are competitive by nature, use all the advantages they can get, and will simply steamroller everyone who isn't as competitive. There's a reason why The Gauntlet, Galactus Hungers, Ultron, Growth Industry and Amadeus's Inferno are everyone's favourite events.

ammenell

this thread has 20 pages by tomorrow.
20 pages filled with rage, negativity and criticism when all you had to do was to change starting lvl of 5*s from 250 (255?) to ... 150

EVERYBODY would be happy, but no, you just have to go the lets-make-ddq-better-troll route.

did ANY suggestion from the suggestions forum EVER make it into the game?
or is that board just there for fun when devs are bored and want something to laugh?

elwhiteninja

I like the change to s calling I don't think it's too difficult but I do think this change is even worse for grinding. Six times is just too much.
For optimal play through you have to start at the beginning of the block then play through each round 6 times. Let's assume optimal play through at like 4 minutes per round. Sure some are faster but some are slower. That is 8x6x4 or 192 minutes of straight play.

Sure you might run out of health packs but if you don't that is pretty nuts.

Perhaps a better way to scale the number of times before the 24 hrs would be the time of the evenrings in hours divided by 8 or even 12. So for instance tonight's block is 48 hours or 6 play throughs (current number) but shorter events would get 3 play throughs.

I think 12 would be better for the 48 hour nodes and maybe 8 for the 24 hour ones

ammenell

MaxxPowerz wrote:

No 5*? In terms of scaling it's not really going to hurt you if you're already running a maxed 3* roster...

Having an easier time than most, but it's most likely because I have iceman and cyc fully covered sitting at lol 150; they're my highest level 4*.

thats what i read everywhere, yes.

you know what else i read?
- ppl only finding matches with maxed 4*s and a buffed 3* after seed teams in pvp.
i see high (not maxed) 4* teams at around 700, 800
- ppl seeing lvl 250+ as starting level in most nodes in the new pve.
my last node has about the same level. after the 6th clear.

in terms of average level a 5* shouldnt really do any difference among boosted 3*s, you are absolutely right.
still, there are obvious differences in both pvp and pve

i dont suggest everone should sell their 5*s
just wanted to share my experience from a 3* roster.

MrTrix

I am actually quite happy with the scaling changes. I'm a fairly new player, my roster contains mainly 1* and a few 2* characters. But I have a couple of 3* characters (with 2-3 covers) and 1 4* character (1 cover). Before, those 3* and 4* characters used to determine my difficulty level, which meant I was hardly ever able to get very far in a PvE event, as it quickly got too difficult.
This time I was able to actually make it all the way to the end, though by the end, the fights did get considerably more challenging.

So yes, from what I've seen of it so far, this definitely is an improvement to what it used to be.

TheWerebison

Although I am enjoying the changes so far, I have to ask: since this first sub event is 48 hours, will the nodes reset after 24? Because if not, that would be a tremendous oversight, having to do another group of nodes with only the max level enemies to fight. That would definitely be a snag.

madsalad

simonsez wrote:

Polares wrote:

In fact, why is it that there is no one single red today trying to adress our prblems with these changes?

They shot their communication load last night. Give 'em another day to recuperate...

Dev communication refractory period?

DiscoStucat

I am currently on day 868 of my daily drop, and this will make me stop playing if it stays this way. I don't have the time to stay competitive. You blew the vs for me when you changed that, so that is no longer fun for me. I always defended the true health change, and the no more 20 iso8 is fine, but this is awful. If you want to change something work on the chat. it has never been reliable. work on giving alliance commanders some descent tools so we can take care of our alliances better. Get creative with the match ups. Everything has become very cookie cutter.
I am not threatening, just stating: This will be the end of me playing if it is kept.
Thanks for your time.

xdogg

I think this totally ignores the main problem with this game, the lack of Iso, in fact it makes it worse. It just doesn't seem there's any reward for playing this, if you don't use boosts, you're going to have to use up health packs, if you do use boosts, you end up losing Iso instead of gaining any, it really doesn't seem worth it

apmonte

Thanks for the good communication and effort to address the shortcomings in PvE. I'm just starting to champion a few (3) three stars. I'm not an overly competitive player, but I do usually finish top 50/100 and get all of the progression awards in most events with a little effort. I've played through the first set of missions, and several nodes multiple times. I like the concept, but at this point, I think I'm done. Here's my feedback on the event.

1. The formerly first three easy nodes have been replaced with medium, scaling to hard nodes with no upward adjustment in the prizes or points. In the old format, I never had to worry about my guys getting beat up in these nodes and could use any of my underdeveloped/leveled characters. Can't do that with this change.
2. Missions with waves need prizes for subsequent clears.
3. Scaling moves up too quickly. 10 levels per clear seems like a lot from the base level. Lower the base level, and/or reduce the number of increased levels.
4. It's unclear to me how many times I need to clear a mission to make the top progression. I'm hoping it's still 3x per day. If the expectation has moved up, then I can't dedicate that much more time to a game that I already spend too much time playing.
5. It may have been out of scope for this update, but **** you guys for not addressing goons feeding heroes/villains AP. I shouldn't have to deal with Wolverine hitting my guys with adamantium slash every 3-4 rounds, especially as he scales up. Either make it so heroes/villains can't use goon AP, or pair them with goons that don't share their color. After several attempts, I've given up on getting the CP for this mission. Too frustrating.
6. I'm unable to test the scaling that concerned me most - that of having my one cover OML, since we can't use any Wolverine. I've been holding off on burning additional LTs/CPs because I can't afford to roster another 5* (after having sold off three already).
7. I'm burning way too many health packs on clearing missions - it continues to get worse as scaling increases.

Again - thanks for the effort, but needs significant work before this gets rolled out.

Starsaber

apmonte wrote:

Thanks for the good communication and effort to address the shortcomings in PvE. I'm just starting to champion a few (3) three stars. I'm not an overly competitive player, but I do usually finish top 50/100 and get all of the progression awards in most events with a little effort. I've played through the first set of missions, and several nodes multiple times. I like the concept, but at this point, I think I'm done. Here's my feedback on the event.

1. The formerly first three easy nodes have been replaced with medium, scaling to hard nodes with no upward adjustment in the prizes or points. In the old format, I never had to worry about my guys getting beat up in these nodes and could use any of my underdeveloped/leveled characters. Can't do that with this change.
2. Missions with waves need prizes for subsequent clears.
3. Scaling moves up too quickly. 10 levels per clear seems like a lot from the base level. Lower the base level, and/or reduce the number of increased levels.
4. It's unclear to me how many times I need to clear a mission to make the top progression. I'm hoping it's still 3x per day. If the expectation has moved up, then I can't dedicate that much more time to a game that I already spend too much time playing.
5. It may have been out of scope for this update, but tinykitty you guys for not addressing goons feeding heroes/villains AP. I shouldn't have to deal with Wolverine hitting my guys with adamantium slash every 3-4 rounds, especially as he scales up. Either make it so heroes/villains can't use goon AP, or pair them with goons that don't share their color. After several attempts, I've given up on getting the CP for this mission. Too frustrating.
6. I'm unable to test the scaling that concerned me most - that of having my one cover OML, since we can't use any Wolverine. I've been holding off on burning additional LTs/CPs because I can't afford to roster another 5* (after having sold off three already).
7. I'm burning way too many health packs on clearing missions - it continues to get worse as scaling increases.

Again - thanks for the effort, but needs significant work before this gets rolled out.

I agree with most of these points. I think part of the problem is that they're trying to test too many changes at once. I think the new point system has potential, but it's tough to judge on its own merits when it's combined with the ill advised general increase in difficulty.

roberts_2

I follow a simple equation:

not funny system = don't play the event

and that's changes on PVE are not funny.

bataglia

My team has a lot of 2* Champions and some 3*, so let me give my 2 cents:

- The scaling is killing me. I used to use a team on the trivial nodes, a 2nd team on the 4th node and my strongest team on the last two. Now, I need to use a 2nd tier team in the first nodes, and my strongest team on the rest of the nodes. After the second cleaning, I need to use my main squad on every node and probably die once or twice. Didn't try after it, anyways, but my score sucks and I probably wont make the CP.

- The health packs are bottlenecking my advances. I completely stop playing pvp, because there are no Health Packs left to heal my heroes.

- The time spent on a single event increased a lot.

Come on, make it easier. I dont want to devote my life to a game just for 25 cp.

Philly484

Yeah after playing the 6 clears to get the 24hr timer reset here is my opinion. I understand what D3 was trying to do, but the reward factor does not make this change worth the effort. It makes the task dulling to say the least. Plus for the nodes I have that I get no reward for clearing 6x Id rather you bring back the 20iso so I get something for my effort. I feel for the lower lvl roster players as well. This did not benefit them in anyway. If they don't have the essential node characters, plus once they have played 4x on each node they probably are having a harder time clearing then they way it was before. This was not a good way to fix the scaling issue. Just because it sounds good on paper, doesn't mean its something that is going to work in reality.

Another thing is this is forcing me to basically use the same team over, and over, and over, which makes this a chore rather than fun play. If I didn't have a Champed Iceman, this new system would have def royally messed up my PVE play style. I can only Imagine what a lvl 400 Gorgon is going to be like later on during this event, but then I'll get no good reward for defeating him. Basically this will be like a Clash of Titans battle with no reward. Unless D3 gives beneficial rewards after clearing the Node 7x rather than nothing, or a measly 70iso, then this system indeed is not worth the time and effort. I don't need the glorification of being number 1 if the reward doesn't help me in any way.

HaywireII

I don't know if anyone has brought this up yet but having fixed points and scaling (which I think can be a good thing if done right) seems like an issue for 2 day subevents. If you did spend the time to do your 6 clears on the first day you're not doing much on day 2. With the regular system you still had your clears every 8 hours.

Ythik

SteveTheTurret wrote:

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.

I think this is really important because it speaks to the flaw in the intended design, not just the current lackluster implementation of it.

Previously, I could play on my schedule as long as I made room for a clear every 6-8 hours (8 being the most ideal of course), and chose a slice that gave me some time to grind at the end.

The intended system where I'm challenged by increasingly difficult nodes makes health packs the limiting factor which means I must burn through those health packs every 6 hours in order to not be "wasting" any resources. This means I either need to be playing a lot in six hour intervals or I need to repeatedly play near-constantly throughout the day. This also means the game is more egregiously Pay to Win than ever, since buying more health packs with cash quickly becomes the best route to scoring the maximum number of points (whereas the old system allowed players to play smart and overcome any disadvantage they might have from paying less).

waywreth

I typically end up around 100th. Sometimes a bit lower, sometimes a bit higher. I've hit max progression + a bit on every event for the last few months. My highest character is 3* SW at 168, my next highest is 2* Magneto at 140.

Here's my review:

• First few clears weren't a problem. After that it simply turns into a grind, and uses every health pack I have. That simply isn't fun running the same characters into the same events again and again. I miss the trivial nodes where I got to try out fun combinations. I can't do that now, since I simply just lose.
• I want more prizes for wave clears - even if it's not the initial prize, clearing for nothing isn't fun.
• Scaling seems much harder too fast. By the 2nd or 3rd clear, I have no shot with my roster.
• I have no clue what I need to do to hit that CP goal - I see it was increased almost 40% since the event was last run, but I can't tell if I'm on pace or not even close. I suspect the latter given the amount I'm dying.

At the end of the day, in this current state, it's just not fun for me. It feels like work. And I already got a job.