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

kyo28

Mainly 2 roster player here, so pretty low on the power scale. Here are my findings so far:

Positive:
- No more 8 hrs waiting which as very annoying for people who have busy schedules and want to play when best it suits them
- Nice possibility to get 1 per sub-event

Negative:
- Progression rewards are not in balance with grinding needed. I really need to grind like crazy to get 250 or 2 cover rewards? That seems a bit unfair and unbalanced
- Very hard to get ... why not add one match per sub-event where you have a chance of earning 25 ? It's the resource I need the most even after having spent 40 EUR on the game already

So all in all it's a big improvement because there is no waiting time anymore; just need to tweak the rewards accordingly and I think you'll strike a good balance between effort/reward.

Pessi

Ive been hitting top 20-50 so far. I'm happy with that.

Hells kitchen is brutal though. Looking like one health pack per node minimum. I'll farm as much as I can but its ridiculous when you have Gorgon and Wolverine with red feeders. I have not played this subnode nearly as much as I would in the normal system, purely because the nodes get hard very fast. The low easy nodes are harder than some of the hard nodes, especially with wolverine. I'm going to farm the goon only nodes then wittle away my healthpacks and usable teams.

I'm slightly concerned I won't reach full progression now. I might just hit the beast cover by the end of Hells Kitchen, maybe. I know the points are inflated in the remaining subnodes but this is a considerable deficit. There are the wave nodes of nearly 3k points a pop, which I will farm but even then, losing out 25CP for this test is a big dissapointment.

Xzasxz

I was thinking about the new PvE format and came to the conclusion, that most of the people probably will not like. I see ONLY one big flaw in it. Let's forget about rankings for a while. I used to do 4 clears of all the nodes each sub. Maybe just a few additional goes. It took usually 3-4 hrs a day. I was earning 25CP almost every event. Within the proposed new format make it the way: 5 clears each node (except waves - should be less) each sub give all the progression rewards, including 25CP. I would say that this way one can get all the PvE rewards with demanding, but still acceptable level of playing time, health packs etc. I believe most of the people could be satisfied.
The ones that compete for ranking rewards would have to go for 6th and further clears. And they should be harder. The present scaling is O.K. (yes, I know, there will be probaly lots of hate below). Make being top 10 a chalenge (dufficulty wise), not a repeating hundreds times easy nodes. So I say - keep the format, keep the scaling, lower requirements for progression rewards.
Of course many things require tuning. Things like Wolvie feeded 4 reds each turn even at easy level should not happen. Also these Kishu ....
People are crying to give easy nodes back ... I ask: why? Now all (almost) the nodes start at easy level.
People are crying: I used to be t10, now it's hard to be t100 ... Why? You loose to other players, not to the game. You loose to the people that are better in clearing harder nodes more times. It's simple. Of course many have stock of tacos from before, they have advantage as they can get more health packs from the vaults. Some will spend real money to buy health packs - is it going to be real problem now? I don' think so.
Conclusion - i believe this format is a step in right direction, just requires improvements. (Lower grind requirements for progression rewards and most of complains will end).

dr tinykittylove

Another data point from someone who plays entirely too much pve.

Normal pve experience:

Typically I join on the first day, play the refreshes (give or take a few hours) and maybe a couple extra clears a sub depending on time and mood. This gets me to full progression a day before the end or at the start of the last sub, ranking between top 10 to top 50, top100 if I am feeling really lazy.

For new character releases I play to top 10 unless I fall asleep during/before a grind - missed getting 3 covers a total of 3 times total (PX, Venom, Gwen) got top 20 for all 3 anyway.).

Test pve experience:

As usual, I joined on the first day. For test purposes and because I need iso (shock! horror!) plus the progression Beast cover would give me a teen Jean cover for my newly champed Jean, I made the full set of 7 clears to drain the node rewards and additional clears of the waves nodes as and when I felt like it. (Spoiler: fewer and fewer with each passing day).

Currently, I am at 76k in slice 3, ranked 20-something, top 50 every sub and giving serious consideration to stopping after I get Beast. With everything at similar levels of hard from high 200s to high 300s it's incredibly monotonous, and progression set to "new character release+" so you need to play more for nothing, it makes the hamster on a wheel aspect of mpq really egregious.

I have a pretty deep roster. For normal pves I enjoy using my unbuffed 3*s and underlevelled 4*s to clear the hard nodes for the heck of it.

Question: Can I use these same unbuffed 3*s and underlevelled 4*s in this event?
Answer: Sure.
Question: Do I care?
Answer: No. Every single node is the same difficulty, it takes too long, I have no time to fool around and I just want to get my clears over with.

And that's how I feel about this new format.

Meander

I haven't found this PVE too bad, but I'm not sure if it's the new format, or the benefit of the boosts. X-Force Deadpool's healing has been key to keeping the healthpacks lower than it would have been otherwise.

Thoughts:

Play Anytime- I really really enjoy the 'play anytime' aspect vs the 'I have to clear every 8 hours'. This helps, as now I can play when I get up, during lunch, whenever I find the free time instead of "OMG, I'M GOING TO LOSE RANK IF I DON'T PLAY AT X TIME, BETTER SET AN ALARM". For reference, on this event I've cleared out reward nodes 7/7 (save for a few instances where the last reward was the crit), and wave nodes I usually do the 6x clears until point reduction. At this point I don't want to go back to 8 hours, but would do so to get rid of the downsides of this.

Scaling- is the level increase necessary? The starting levels are usually high enough that they're a threat as is. I get you want to prevent endless grinding, but should you? That brings us to the next point

PVP- The need to rank to get covers is dumb for a supposed player versus environment. I'd be all for almost fully axing placement rewards (you can throw high rankers some minor / / , but nothing huge) and replacing them with progression rewards a la Ultron/Galactus. Also, lets do the same for Alliance rewards- minor ranking, majority through alliance progression. Lock the rosters at the start. This will make large tiered alliances re-evaluate how they distribute members across their tiers, and it will also make those that get pushed out of t100 due to mercing/shuffling feel a lot better. Also note, I say this having fully participated in all the above activities. Is it necessarily fair? Maybe not, but that's the game folks. Until they change it, I'll continue to do it.

Soapbox- While we're suggesting changes, can we finally put the crit boost to bed as a node reward? I mean, it's the hands down worst boost in the game. If you must keep it, can we vary it some? Have it cycle through other boosts, either damage or AP boosts, or both, I don't care. I just hate having to almost wipe on a 4* required node to see that **** Icon as my 'reward'. It's the veritable coal in my MPQ stocking.

LFChikarason

Whilst many above have much more detailed summed up my feelings, I can shorten it for me to this new test for PVE has resulted in me playing less than I ever have before. The risk (boosts and multiple health packs) versus the reward (160 points and 70 ISO) are not worth it. Hopefully the devs see how little others played during this test and adjust accordingly.

mrPuzzleQuester

So unlike many others I have actually been playing MORE during this PVE mostly because it was the weekend and I
had the time to hit up the nodes at my leisure. Ending up in top 10 after the first sub motivated me to keep on trudging along even though this is a HUGE time suck - way more than the old system. I can see myself playing this way for 4 day weekend events since it doesn't matter when I start as long as I can get 6 clears in.

The other reason I'm able to get so far and others don't seem to be able to is because scaling is not that crazy for me with my roster. I have 2 one cover 5*, 4*'s with less than 5 covers each, and 8 championed 3*. I think the scaling is tweaked just right for my roster where I'm still able to handle the enemies even after 5-6 clears - unlike better rosters which are seeing crazy numbers without a clear. This new system seems to benefit rosters in my zone or lower because the enemies are still OK and somewhat reasonable to defeat. Easier enemies would of course be better though.

My advice to the devs is to lower the max level enemies can scale up to (300 max maybe?) regardless of roster. Those with better rosters should be able to roll through PVE with no problems because they spent a lot of time and probably $$ to get where they are, why not let them reap the benefits instead of beating down their morale and having them stop spending $$ to support the game.

optimus2861

apmonte wrote:

Yea, pretty much what the two posts above me stated. I had two different teams wiped out on the first clear of the second (easy) mission in Hell's Kitchen. All I can say, is go tinykitty yourselves. I finally made it to the end with a lot of health packs to attempt the command points (didn't get it). I won't be doing another pass, and I'm not even going to attempt the essentials. I've had enough.

Seconded, or thirded, or whatever number we're on now. That "Easy" (HA!) mission kicked me in the teeth too. Hood dead, Blade crippled, eating THREE overscaled Adamantium slashes in the first ten turns. Only Psylocke got out relatively unscathed because she was only tanking red.

No freaking thanks. I'm done with this garbage.

This particular sub of EOTS has always been unpleasant to say the least, because of the abundance of Wolvie + feeders and Gorgon + feeders nodes, and no survival nodes to make up for all that junk. Combine it with this tinykitty new scaling, and it's No. FREAKING. FUN! Which is supposed to be the point of a game, is it not?

mega ghost

I've actually noticed very little difference between this version of PVE and the version we're accustomed to. I don't know what that means about what bracket I am in and/or how scaling has been affecting me. The one thing that was noticeable to me was the lack of difficulty progression. There were no painfully easy nodes building up to challenging nodes. At the same time, the most challenging nodes weren't much more challenging. It feels more like there was an evening of difficulty across all nodes, that's stayed roughly the same day to day. In any case, I'm fine with it.

I should note that I don't play PVE events for rank/placement. I feel like sinking about an hour into this game each day is already decadent, and I just don't have the time or interest to grind over and over. I make exceptions for big events or instances where I'm really trying to secure a specific award, but when it comes to PVE my goal each day is to get all gold recruit tokens in the nodes (typically just one, if any), the command point, and if I have the free time a recruit token from placement (usually being in the top 200-300 to make the cut.) In each event I usually only reach the first gold/heroic token in the progression awards.

That said, if the level of challenge has been increased and evened/balanced, the rewards need to be as well. I was overjoyed when they removed 20 ISO rewards from the game, but they honestly need to do the same with 70 ISO and 100 ISO. The lowest reward should be 250 ISO. And gold/heroic recruit tokens need to be more frequent. One per daily event is already low, and we only even get that when we're given a good event. Today's set of 'Enemy of the State' nodes (Hell's Kitchen') don't even include one. Had I known that before playing through, I probably would have skipped playing it today.

Xzasxz

I have just finished 6th clear of the last Hell's Kitchen's node: The Gorgon. To give You a background: my tops for current event:
lvl 204 Captain Marvel, lvl 198 (2/5/3) Beast, lvl 191 OBW, lvl 181 Thor, lvl 169 GSBW, lvl 169 Hulk. Next ones rather poor quality. Not much to achieve with the top 3, yet the scaling based on them. So I decided to go with the next three: Thor, GSBW, Hulk. Very simple, obvious idea. 6th clear enemy was lvl 241. So levels 181, 169, 169 against 241. let's start to complain about scaling ... But You know what? It was FUN!!! Real FUN. It was not easy, completely opposit. Very challenging. But fun. It was not the game: "doesn't matter what I do on the table, my team will do the job". Every single move made with caution, planning ahead, using Konron self healing to my advantage. And when my whole team is almost dead, when I have enough green, purple and yellow, unleash the wrath, just devastate enemy from nearly full health to annihilation. This is FUN. I will not go for the 7th clear - 262 lvl of the enemies is too high for me. What I encountered at clear 6 should be maximum. So about the scaling I would say:
1. I needs tweaking, but is not that bad as most people complain.
2. I would say, that bigger problem is with some enemies teams compositions rather than their level in general (see nodes, where Wolvie is fed with 4 for free each turn or with crazy Kishus).
3. As i wrote before: less points should be needed to get progression rewards. Lower the ammount of required grind to the previous level.
One thing I would like to add. The current format increases demand for health packs. Is it possible to increase the limit for stored health packs from 10 to, let's say, 14? The maximum ammount of free packs is ca 40. per day. Pls let us make a better use of them. This should stop complaining about their increase use.
Hope to see the suggested changes and anjoy the new PvE.

veny

Well, its not fun to fight level 300 Wolvering and his friends (with same level) knowing, he has 13 000HP and his adamantium slash can kill everyone in my team of noobs (noobs = maxed 3* but barelly winning).

But what i am seriously worried about is how i get 25CP for 156 000 points.
I was able to get this reward from every previous event, but this time? I am at 74 000 pts, 2 days before the event ends, and guess what- i am 70th so far

If this system persist, i cant imagine doing PvE anymore... constant points is very good idea, but scalling* of enemies? No, thanks...

* Whats the point of scalling? We play to become stronger. Scalling is the best way how to tell players "dont bother with playing, there is no progress, our scalling will beat you down anyway".

You know what, DEVs? Bring new feature - custom difficulty for nodes. Let players themselves decide, whether they want easy mission, medium or hard one with small bonus to ISO and event points. This could help semi-advanced players (those who have maxed 3* and need to max their 4*) to get ISO they need.

Calnexin

veny wrote:

But what i am seriously worried about is how i get 25CP for 156 000 points.
I was able to get this reward from every previous event, but this time? I am at 74 000 pts, 2 days before the event ends, and guess what- i am 70th so far

That's probably why they offered the "3 free EoS tokens" for the test. They may not have been sure the new scaling would allow most players to collect on the progression. I'm in the same boat - I'm around 65k right now. But if there are survival essentials in the last couple rounds, they're going to be awarding around 2k per go, so there's hope.

Me, I'm just looking forward to my 3 useless Hawkeye covers!

madok

Calnexin wrote:

Me, I'm just looking forward to my 3 useless Hawkeye covers!

Come now, you know we are going to get all the Ms. Marvel covers from the vault. I look forward to completing the collection since that has been 90% of my pulls.

CaptainFrugal

The scaling is very poor, I have said that in other threads as well. Taking your top level characters is not the best way to go. If you have a 2 star majority and you get a 5 star you are forced to get rid of it or suffer from ridiculous scaling for the nodes.

IFORANI

Me personally I found it just as unenjoyable as before. Sorry I dont feel that I can offer any good advice since the problem with PVE is that I still feel that most of us are still used as feeder fish in a tank with whales. Just filling in as numbers with no real upwards mobility or chance to compete to make any improvement that's is equal in time given.

Problem 1: Bracket Size to large. Simple half it but don't change rewards at all.

Problem 2: Champion 3 and 2 stars Rosters are too weak against soft capped 4 stars. In terms of damage delt. I'm still using to many health packs in order to deal with new super grind mode installed.

Problem 3: GRIND GRIND GRIND now added to RNG! Refresh rates needed, try 4 hrs. Enough said.

Problem 4: Snooze fest for petty amount of ISOs.

Problem 5: Still no incentive for 90% of alliance to play togeather due to weak rewards for 90%.

I don't have answers but I am not satisfied with new attempt which means it will be accepted by D3 and Whales.

Various38

Okay, now that we are in the low point sub, here are some thoughts:

I like the no timers thing since I can't optimally hit the refresh all the time. I think that's been said enough.
I like the guaranteed rewards that was introduced earlier.
I like the level up of enemies reminder/screen.

I don't like the competitive aspect of PVE.
I don't like that alliance play is not promoted properly.
I don't like to have a double 6 clear grind.
I don't like the insane scaling...just needs to be tweaked better.

I saw earlier that someone mentioned alliance achievements as a way to promote alliance play. Why not have that stretched to specific goals for the PVE? For example: X amount of people in the alliance achieve some special feat during the PVE and that translates into an alliance reward. This may be achievements based on scaling, rosters, whatever but it allows those who are well developed to help gain rewards for those who may not be and vice-versa.

In the same vein as that, why not have complete roster levels. For example: X person has a roster with certain characters at certain levels with certain covers and that gives you an actual tangible roster level number. This level number then translates into a challenge such as defeat some node at a certain level with criteria to achieve some bonus. If you have enough bonus, then you get some prize.

I want to stress again that PVE needs to be non-competitive because this and every other version of it promotes life sucking grind fests. Leave the grind fest in PVP but just offer better rewards on that end. That way, you can play PVE to get some good rewards, but you are better off playing PVP to get those top rewards. Almost like it is now, but juiced up a bit.

In summary:
work on the scaling issues
ditch placement
expand progression to where you have to clear X amount to get the top prize..if the nodes don't lose value then this can be calculated
incorporate more alliance participation other than just score as much as you can
show PVE roster levels...this can even be event specific if you choose
ditch timers unless you want to make it like the prologue used to be
keep the guaranteed rewards stack but maybe offer some scaling bonus based on PVE roster level
keep showing the enemy level up screen, but also include it for wave nodes (maybe even show who is in a wave node)

Overall - nice attempt to try something new, but it still needs work.

firpo22

I have been playing for over a year and my roster mainly consists of fully covered 3* and 17 3* are championed. I have a bunch of 4* but the covers are spread out or I don't have enough ISO to level them, so at this point there is only one that does enough damage to be useful. I know this is only one event, but I don't see a huge difference in the scaling, but it is better. The easier nodes are much higher than I am used to. The lowest start in the 100's in this test event as opposed to the 40's in the "regular" version. On the other hand, the highest node starts lower - around 190-200 instead of the 230's that I usually see.

I would make one change to this new system that would make it more fun for me and perhaps others.

Each round usually consists of 3 essentials, 3 "easy" nodes and 3 "hard" nodes. (I know that sometimes there are more nodes or there are one shots)

I think that the developers did a good job on the essentials. I can beat them four or 5 times, if lucky, but the 6th is very difficult. I am ok with that. I don't have to win every time.

The new scaling on the hard nodes is good - maybe they should ramp up a little slower, but they are supposed to be hard. I am used to losing on the last one or even last two at times. Sometimes, under the old system, I just skip the hardest node, as I can't beat it, and even if I did, I would take massive damage. Under the new scaling, I can at least get a win or two before it gets difficult.

So, my change would be to have the easy nodes start maybe even a little higher and then as you defeat them they get easier until they are down to the levels that they were under the old system. So, in my case they would start in the 120 - 150s and go down to 40-70, depending upon the node.

In this way, if you had a casual player who didn't want to tackle all the hard nodes or did not have all the essentails, they could still throw their boosted guys at the three "easy" nodes and play them, with a reward that each win would make the next one easier. At least they would have something to do, instead of getting demoralized and giving up after playing through the first time and then thinking they have to do this all again and it will only be harder.

So overall, I would say that the developers did ok on the scaling change, but they should learn that you have to give people a reward for their time and effort now and then to keep them coming back.

Polares

Mmm am I remembering it wrong, or "Hand fortress" used to have a survival node worth 3k, and the essential survival for 1.8k? Now they are just 1.5 and 1.3 so getting to the final progression is gonna require serious grinding in this sub and the next :S

If after this nightmare of an event I don't get the 25CPs I am going to be really pissed at devs. Why the **** did they raise the score 20k from last time?!?! If you are doing a test, so you don't exactly know how things are going to go, don't make life harder for your players! Devs really hate us...

Nellyson

Ok devs, next time you decide to do a really difficult change to PVE like you have for Enemy of the State, please give rewards that are actually worth a lick. These pitiful rewards make everything about this PVE immeasurably worse. Just terrible. I like the idea of trying to change it, but give us something better as an incentive to actually test this. Command points for top 50 and 3 event tokens after the event ends are not great incentives. Maybe make like the values tripled their normal values. That's incentive to play a much harder PVE.

Marty17

I think this will be the 1st time in a long time that I'm unable to get all progression rewards. Barely scraping through to get