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

Unknown

My feedback:

While I thought the 'grind at your own pace' concept rather than every refresh was appealing to start off with - I'm now feeling that I spent more time grinding this event. Perhaps the 8 hr refresh made it appear to take the monotony away.

The scaling was way too steep.

Not sure the progression tiers were miscalculated, but I'm not even half way through progression and there's only a day left. I play PVE for the progression rewards and not placement. As such, I wouldn't call myself a hardcore grinder. However, playing at the pace that I usually play hasn't even got me close to the final progression reward.

I prefer the old format.

Kilwrath

I'm going to post my feedback purely for my own catharsis, as I fully expect all the feedback to be ignored as usual.

I always thought that the old mix of 3-5 way too easy fights along side 3-5 hard to very hard fights didn't make much sense. I've heard a lot of players advocate for a smoother difficulty scaling system, and that's what I was hoping this change would be.

I enjoy a mix of nodes that start with easier fights and progress to harder ones. I like the idea of all nodes starting off on the easy side with the difficulty level increasing on each clear. This gives me the chance to play the easy nodes when I don't have a ton of time to devote to grinding the hard nodes. I'm not going to get a top ranking or full profession rewards that way, but I can still log in and play whenever I have a bit of free time and feel like I'm having fun and earning some ISO to slowly level up my team.

This, however, is stupid. There are no easy fights at all, they're all a grind and they go from somewhat hard to just outright ridiculous the more you play.

I find PvP frustrating as I live a busy life and don't have the time or flexibility in my schedule to be able to play at the right times and shield hop my way to 1k. But PvE was still fun for me, and I really liked the changes that allowed me to repeat nodes when I have time and get all the victory rewards. I'm still not winning full progression or top ranking rewards that way, but I'm getting something for my efforts and having fun doing it.

Now I hate PvE almost as much as I hate PvP. Nice.

I've really enjoyed this game at times and felt some of the recent changes were solid and geared towards increasing player enjoyment. I thought the developers were finally starting to really listen to us and focus on making the game more fun. Now I think those positive changes were just a fluke and we're back to the same old **** we've been putting up with for ages.

If these changes stick, I'm moving on to another game.

Gmax101

Just my 5 cents as someone who didn't get hugely stung on Scaling (no max 4 stars and only one 5 star with no additional levels)

Gonna Good/Bad/Ugly this...

GOOD
1. No countdown clock is awesome
2. I like the fact that the nodes get slightly tougher each clear, as a way of reflecting progress it works.

BAD.
1. SCALING: Although most nodes were doable, the increase from hit to hit was too steep, and missing the ability to use alternate teams for the first 3 nodes was a big pain... having said that I managed to use a couple of teams depending on the enemy line up

2. PLACEMENT GRINDING: only Bad cos I don't care, . It was always a feature of Placement Reward chasing, and I can see how that would be painful if you were constantly chasing it.... but then that would go away of the Placement element was simply removed to make it purely PVE.

UGLY
1. PROGRESSION: Just WTH???. Effectively adding 2 clears per node to progression reward was a kick in the jewels... so rather than hitting nodes 4 times sub-optimally in two batches I have to hit each one 5 times with rapidly increasing difficulty on every node each time... had there been some warning then I might at least have not left myself a mountain to climb in the final sub (I have to hit all nodes 6 times and then find 2,500 points... but at the same time there is no good reason to move it from 3 optimal clears to 5... Had you just said, 4 clears per node per day gets you the Progression then that would seem to be fair given the other changes.... I know EotS is tough to calculate with the survival nodes, but forcing us to hit them specifically 4-5 times is ridiculous.

2. REWARDS: I love vaults... but seriously, loosen the purse strings... ISO and CPs should be in there... and for the nodes themselves, having to hit a level 200+ survival node with 5 waves for no prize 5 times to hit progression is frankly an insult.



Thing is, I love the intent, and I actually like the increasing nature of the nodes (if it was slightly shallower)

But the good stuff is heavily outweighed by the Bad and Ugly...

CNash

I've fallen back to only hitting the nodes to get ISO from them. I'm never going to hit the final progression reward - three clears a day plus grind is not enough any more. This is what hurts the most in this experiment - by loosely following the "optimal" method on the current PVE format, I can secure at least Top 20 for myself, perhaps even Top 10. PVE was the only way I was progressing in the game, since obtaining two 5*s messed up my PVP scaling and made it impossible to get more than 500 without running into a brick wall of OML and other 5*s.

Pessi

I've 6 hours left of this event, needing 13.5k to reach the 25CP reward. I have around 20 3* champs and 2 usable but not leveled 4*'s. I have all the essentials for this event also. I do have 2 5*'s, each with 2 covers (OML 2red and Spiderman 2 green) - though not leveled and unusable - this puts my average lvl around 180-190.

In principle I liked these changes. The anytime grind is great - I've been doing so before going to bed rather than at node refresh. I've consistently hit top 50 or higher in all subs (except hells kitchen because erm no?). I haven't ground all nodes to zero, I've definitely not hit each node 4 times, because when the 150 point node ends up scaling higher than the 500 point node, I'm going to use my health packs on the 500 point node.

These are my key problems -

Wave nodes - If we are going to hit them 7+ times please give us rewards for each run. These also need a counter of how many times completed Scaling - too hard to fast, dial that down a bit. Start the easy nodes as they were originally then scaling up to a maximum of the start of the first hard node Don't do a test on a 7 day event The progression targets were far to high, I'm going to barely reach it. There will be a number of top 50 people in my slice who don't make it - that's awful. I'm wiped out from doing as much as possible last night so I can grind the final 13.5k this morning. Because of the difficulty of the easy nodes, you can't use a diverse roster. I was using underleveled 3*s or 2*'s on the easy nodes before. Now thats no possible - sometimes you need to bring your A team

Overall I'm keeping an open mind. If they can tone down the scaling a little then great. All the nodes were doable at least!!

PeeOne

So waiting for the attacks but I gotta say.....


I LOVED IT!!!!

This is what I have been waiting for!!! Difficulty increasing to test out my mind!

Had to play around with teams and actually PUZZLE to get results.

I think I'm a mid range player - 9 champion 3*s, 5 champion 2*s... No maxed 4's (mostly 1 or 2 covers except Ant 3/2/2 at Lvl 136) and I avoid 5's like the plague and felt the increases were good - 'whack a mole' went to about 200 so stayed playable but needed to change things up.

Most pve I play GSBW, BP and SW this one I discovered that I had some other great allies in the mix

I missed the LT by 11,000 but I also didn't play strongly in the first few days so wasn't expecting to get there

My alliance of players weaker than my roster made it to 195 and I for one am stoked our highest ever ranking

More like this!!!!

PS How could you follow this with Venom Blast - I detested it with a passion *Shudder*

Dudemon

Anyone who likes this needs therapy. You have a gaming addiction!
This is way too time consuming.

The new change is simply ... NOT FUN. That's the worst part.
The motivation to play is gone.

Dudemon

HaywireII

My brain is a little numb after 7 days of trying to clear countdown tiles but the test format has some potential. I think the difficulty was too high for any player that wasn't a 2* or a softcapped roster. I liked being able to play whenever I wanted.

My big complaint about the test was that "whenever I want to play" had to mean "play every free minute you have" if you want to hit the progression. I think I probably played five to eight hours every day of the test just to get the 25 cp progression. That's too much time to invest and I won't do it again.

TxMoose

Dudemon wrote:

Anyone who likes this needs therapy. You have a gaming addiction!
This is way too time consuming.

I don't think it was bad to any 3* players and under. anyone with multiple viable 4*s was scaled out of the event. t10s are filled with 2* and 3* players. not sure about your roster, but if you have some 4s, yeah, it was miserable, but others had a different experience. I hope they don't see those few posts and think everything's aok.

edit: after fitzy's comments below, I looked again and he's right, mostly filled with 3* players with a couple of soft cappers in the mix (fully covered 4s at 166). the 1 2* player that was in my t10 earlier isn't there now.

y2fitzy

May just be me but my top 10 doesn't have any 2* players in it. This idea that PVE is somehow dead easy for those with weaker rosters is oft repeated but I'm not sure how accurate it actually is.

My own top 10 is entirely populated by players who at worst have championed 3*, if not 4*

pheregas

Anybody know when these bonus covers and CP are supposed to be delivered?

My s1 is done and I haven't received them yet. I was really hoping they'd arrive before the event vault reset. Not sure I can stomach another 2* Miss Marvel after pulling 8 of them from the currently active vault.

fmftint

TxMoose wrote:

Dudemon wrote:

Anyone who likes this needs therapy. You have a gaming addiction!
This is way too time consuming.

I don't think it was bad to any 3* players and under. anyone with multiple viable 4*s was scaled out of the event. t10s are filled with 2* and 3* players. not sure about your roster, but if you have some 4s, yeah, it was miserable, but others had a different experience. I hope they don't see those few posts and think everything's aok.

I'm a 5☆ transitioner, scored over 200k, maintained 3rd place the entire event until the final sub. I don't need XFW covers so I didn't 6x survivals.

T10 has: 1 5☆, 2 4☆, 5 3☆, 2 2☆

My only real issue was, survival nodes were worth full points too many times

Edith09

I finished EoTS few hours ago and it wasn't very funny experience. I won't repeat everything written here but I'll repeat that main problem for me was how time consuming this event was. I'm not top10 player but I went this way for this PVE just to know what expect if they will implement those changes in future. From "play when you want" I soon got to "play every second you can". For top10 you had to clean essentials and wave from 8~10 times!
I'm glad that devs tried something new but right now I say: blessed 8 hour cycle.

madok

I really do hope part of the results review includes the percentage of roster actually used in the event. Anything past the first or second clear pretty much requires me to use IM40/Iceman to give myself a chance of clearing without wiping or needing 3 healthpacks.

Since IM40 is one of my newer champs, I get to scroll through the rest of my 3* champs and know that if I tried using them it wouldn't be pretty against 300+ level nodes.

yaoz86

I have to admit, as a working adult, I like this PvE as compared to the previous style.

Reason Being:
1. I don't have to go through the hectic of 8 hours run through. I can just play at my own pace and need not worry about the points gap.

2. Although every single fight off, opponents will gain an additional 11 levels, but I just feel its quite manageable. Maybe D3 can just lower down the level to balance it up. Maybe say gain by 5 levels instead.

That's all from my views on this new PVE system.

veny

yaoz86 wrote:

I have to admit, as a working adult, I like this PvE as compared to the previous style.

Reason Being:
1. I don't have to go through the hectic of 8 hours run through. I can just play at my own pace and need not worry about the points gap.

2. Although every single fight off, opponents will gain an additional 11 levels, but I just feel its quite manageable. Maybe D3 can just lower down the level to balance it up. Maybe say gain by 5 levels instead.

That's all from my views on this new PVE system.

I believe ballance and leveling up enemies is the only problem here. So far, people mostly like the absence of 8hr run...

TxMoose

veny wrote:

I believe ballance and leveling up enemies is the only problem here. So far, people mostly like the absence of 8hr run...

if they readjust the progression, sure I'm fine with it. but if they insist on keeping progression at 5+ clears per day over 3.5 clears per day, I prefer less clears to get to where I want to go, timer or no timer. timer only is critical to those for those who really want to place well. most just want to get the cp progression and move along. and not only did they move the goalposts way further, they're also making you kick into a stiff headwind. but you can kick it whenever you want to - gee thanks!

GritsNGravy

Playing through almost all of this event I'm mixed on this. I think my scaling started too high, and mainly I don't feel like the first 3 nodes which are generally in the 70-90 for me starting at 180-200 was fun, low rewards should have low requirements.

Conceptually I like the idea of beating the node and seeing it get stronger.

The other problem IMO is 5 straight being optimal? That's way too much of a grind...

Maybe there is an in between where this makes sense, but for now this seems like a step that makes me less likely to want to play PVE (to be honest though I haven't been PVE focused for a while).

winter37

What I liked: the difficulty increases after node clears felt fair. I like the idea of being able to play from full points without waiting for refreshes. However........

What I didn't like: I had to play a lot more nodes for a lot less payoff , at least in terms of the progression rewards. Because of this, I really dislike the tested changes versus the usual PvE scenario.

Druss

Best bit of Eots: Its ended!

Yeah!