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

Demiurge_Anthony

Nellyson wrote:

So question and hopefully you're still around, but does this mean that all the nodes start with the absolute lowest one at 195 for you? If so, I'm kinda sad cause now I can't use my level 70 and below characters anymore. I used to use them for the first 3 as I gained covers just to play test them for myself. Is this disappearing now?

For this event, yes. That doesn't mean it wont change though!

And yes, I'll be sticking around for a bit. I'm on my last clear of simulator so I'll hop on between rounds

fmftint

Can you define "at max level"? does this mean cover max or champion max?

2* 94 or 144?
3* 166 or 266?
4* 270 or 370?

Demiurge_Anthony

fmftint wrote:

Can you define "at max level"? does this mean cover max or champion max?

2* 94 or 144?
3* 166 or 266?
4* 270 or 370?

Cover Max. I didn't have time to test with Max champion levels, sorry =/

Pylgrim

Thanks for participating in the discussion, Anthony. Do you expect that now that grinding was eliminated for all except the more competitive players, for whom it was made severely worse, that the rewards scheme will be reworked? Note that most of those who are competitive /have to be/ because they need the top 10 rewards and any placement below 10 is almost worthless for them.

atomzed

Hi Anthony, how will the points required for max progression be changed? In the current system, each sub required around 3-4 clears for all the nodes for top progression. Will this stay the same?

Demiurge_Anthony

Pylgrim wrote:

Thanks for participating in the discussion, Anthony. Do you expect that now that grinding was eliminated for all except the more competitive players, for whom it was made severely worse, that the rewards scheme will be reworked? Note that most of those who are competitive /have to be/ because they need the top 10 rewards and any placement below 10 is almost worthless for them.

This is one of those questions we do not have an answers for unfortunately and something we are hoping the tests to uncover. We spend a lot of time looking at player performance after each event. If the rewards don't work in this test, we will look at how to address it.

jffdougan

Regardless of anybody else's opinion, thumbs up for saying the second-hardest set of three words in English: "I/we don't know." (The only harder trio is "I was wrong.")

Dragon_Nexus

Hope you don't mind me asking a question not entirely related to the changes.

Are there any plans to add the 4* Required cover to the progression rewards, like what already exists for 2* and 3* characters? Since the meta has moved so far into 4* land now, having a 4* cover near the end of progression (instead of the last HP reward, for example, or between that and the CP) would be a very welcome addition.

As for the subject at hand, in case my first question is too off topic, have we got an ETA for the proposed PvP changes? I know this is probably jumping the gun a lot since you'll want to analyse the PvE data first, but I'm wondering more ballpark. This month or April, kinda thing

Demiurge_Anthony

atomzed wrote:

Hi Anthony, how will the points required for max progression be changed? In the current system, each sub required around 3-4 clears for all the nodes for top progression. Will this stay the same?

Not sure yet. This is something that the designers look at after every event. We will see how players did in the event and make changes accordingly. I am going to start to sound like a broken record but this is one of the reasons we are running this as a test.

fmftint

what if anything is being done for node balance? Previously there were Trivial survival nodes with enemies in the low 70s, now they will START in the 180s....

You can see the issues here, correct?

Bulls

Wouldn't it be better to set point cap for each sub at equal to 7 clears of each node? This way top places would be spread around ppl that decide to clear everything 7 times in a row but would prevent of needless farming at the end of the sub and then spending as much ammount of time for newly starting sub.
This would let competitive players pick a starting time that alows them to spend that 2-3h stright on farming and be decided by clear speed, less competitve players could aim for those t50/t100 placement by clearing all nodes 7 times whenver they prefer during 24h period and casual players could hit whenver for whatever number of clears and that would befine for them as well.

Demiurge_Anthony

Dragon_Nexus wrote:

Hope you don't mind me asking a question not entirely related to the changes.

Are there any plans to add the 4* Required cover to the progression rewards, like what already exists for 2* and 3* characters? Since the meta has moved so far into 4* land now, having a 4* cover near the end of progression (instead of the last HP reward, for example, or between that and the CP) would be a very welcome addition.

I don't have anything to say on that. sorry =(

Dragon_Nexus wrote:

As for the subject at hand, in case my first question is too off topic, have we got an ETA for the proposed PvP changes? I know this is probably jumping the gun a lot since you'll want to analyse the PvE data first, but I'm wondering more ballpark. This month or April, kinda thing

Stay tuned

JordonLee

Are essential character nodes still going to be slightly weaker than the hard nodes? I'm concerned theyre going to be a pain to clear with a few covers on the essential.

I could suggest that the essential nodes base their scaling on the essential character you require. I think that'd be fair. At least in my head lol.

Druss

Lets hope they get this right from a scaling point of view, as it is already becoming an issue that the "hard" PvE nodes are becoming Gauntletesque in difficulty from the start, forcing the use of the few combos (Angels, Fistbuster). Now that 3*'s are as strong as newborn kitties they are now obsolete.

Doing 5/6 clears in the final 3 hours of a PvE sub then a subsequent 6/7 clears of a new sub with only 3/4 viable characters sounds awful if facing Lv 300+ enemies throughout. Luckily I don't foresee this eventuality, as I don't have 6 hours straight every day to do this!

This may also mean that 2* rosters will dominate the leader boards as no developed 4* roster has a prayer of beating these nodes in a reasonable time frame.

I could be cynical & point out the increase need for health packs this whole change may warrant.

Making PvE more Gauntlet style imo is not a bad idea (current format makes little sense with PvP & a PvE/PvP hybrid) but I personally never touch the gauntlet as the difficulty is crushing (I see Lv250+ by the end of "easy") & you have to beat 50 odd nodes for 1 4* cover (just not worth the effort imo).

Demiurge_Anthony

JordonLee wrote:

Are essential character nodes still going to be slightly weaker than the hard nodes? I'm concerned theyre going to be a pain to clear with a few covers on the essential.

I could suggest that the essential nodes base their scaling on the essential character you require. I think that'd be fair. At least in my head lol.

Looking at the data for Enemy of the State, required nodes tend to scale closer to the easier missions. This isn't a hard-fast rule but only what I am seeing for this event. If these missions end up being disproportionately harder, we'd love to hear that!

JordonLee

Demiurge_Anthony wrote:

JordonLee wrote:

Are essential character nodes still going to be slightly weaker than the hard nodes? I'm concerned theyre going to be a pain to clear with a few covers on the essential.

I could suggest that the essential nodes base their scaling on the essential character you require. I think that'd be fair. At least in my head lol.

Looking at the data for Enemy of the State, required nodes tend to scale closer to the easier missions. This isn't a hard-fast rule but only what I am seeing for this event. If these missions end up being disproportionately harder, we'd love to hear that!

Thanks for the response and that seems fair. For what it's worth I'm optimistic this is headed in the right direction even if it's not the final product. Good job!

fight4thedream

First and foremost, I want to thank the development team, especially Demiurge Anthony, for giving us a heads up with what is going on and their design goals for this test. It is really appreciated.

As many have already pointed out, this new system will be a boon for casual players but only adds more pressure to competitive play. From personal experience, under the current system, doing a clear takes about 30 minutes and a final grind ranges between 2-3 hours. Add in the next 30 minutes for the start of the next sub, and a competitive player is generally spending around 4 hours a day playing just the PvE event. (depending on sub length of course)

I imagine under the new test system the amount of time to perform optimally will only increase.

Not that I recommend anyone do so, but if some brave soul wants to try and do an optimal sub clear, please keep track of the amount of time, resources and level of enjoyment you had and report here.

Additionally, I am in full agreement that the bane that plagues PvE is competitive play. While I appreciate that the development team is looking to improve the PvE experience, I too, recommend they look at designing a purely progression based system. Dayv's idea about choose your own path (found here: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=41414&start=40#p497485) is one good way to try to cater to the vast variety of players. The harder the challenge, the better the rewards.

While this news that the development team is looking at new ways to improve the PvE experience is much appreciated, as long as a level of competition exists in PvE, it will boil down to a game of one-upmanship that encourages a style of play that is not healthy or the type of fun Demiurge should be encouraging.

As always, thank you for your hard work. Hope this test is just another step to a better MPQ.

A true believer,
fight4thedream

Unknown

The fundamental problem with PvE in this game, and why it is so onerous, is the fact that it is not truly PvE at all. The base assumptions baked into the event structure is that key rewards MUST be distributed on a competitive (ranked) basis. All of the problems and complaints from the players flow logically from that base assumption.

Since players must be ranked, there must be some means of differentiating between players -- in other words, a difficulty scale. Since the devs have determined (fairly so, I might add) that players of all levels should be able to be competitive within the "PvE" event structure, roster strength is eliminated as a differentiating factor. The only other reliable differentiators left are speed and endurance. Speed is part skill and part roster strength, and at the very high end (Top 10 placement) it is the primary differentiator.

For the rest of the bracket, endurance rules. Can you hit your clear marks every 8 hours? Can you invest the time to hit those marks 3 times, then spend 2-3 hours grinding at the end? Is it the investment worth your time?

This is why any PvE revamp that doesn't eliminate the competitive structure is doomed to fail. The fact is that the only differentiator that really matters to 99% of a bracket is endurance. The devs realize this, which is why there is a convoluted refresh timer structure AFTER the nodes are cleared seven times. If you eliminate the grind, placement simply becomes a speed race -- who can grind down the seven stacks fastest? This will almost always favor the advanced roster and goes directly against one of the stated priorities in Anthony's post, the desire to let people play PvE as they like.

The only way to have lasting, meaningful change in PvE events is to change to a progression-only model. In this context, several stacks of a set of nodes with increasing difficulty starts to make sense. It makes endurance MUCH less of a factor and instead shifts to the ability of your roster to overcome the nodes, aka the environment... aka, PvE.

Dayv

madok wrote:

I applaud you for giving us something different to try but I think you have already gotten PVE almost perfect with Ultron and Galactus.

Those events are all about working as a team towards a larger goal. I would love it if all PVEs were like that so we don't have the grinding stress.

One of my favorite aspects of that is that it brings the community together to share strategies as the fights get harder. With no competitive aspect, you don't worry about giving away your ideas and just share and collaborate.

Uthgarprime

This is exactly as I thought it would be, way harder for 3*'s. They nerfed us to the ground now they are scaling the nodes so we have to buy more health packs. This is all a push to make us want to buy ISO so we can level our 4*'s faster. D3 can jump in the lake, I will never buy a health pack or ISO. I will also never recommend this to anyone. If I wind up being wrong, I will say so. How do you justify making it harder overall after nerfing 3*'s into the dirt. I use to do clears at 8 hours then final grind the easy nodes for the rewards, I guess I won't find that as easy anymore.