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

Druss

No one seems to have made this point so here goes:

Having a few maxed 4* my starting Levels are going to be 200 odd increasing with each clear. PvP requires your best A-Team for speed & to stop 100 retaliations a minute.

Where does this leave my nerfed 3* tier?

I wont be able to use them in PvP (as now) & they will be cannon fodder in PvE.

JordanFromJersey

Druss wrote:

No one seems to have made this point so here goes:

Having a few maxed 4* my starting Levels are going to be 200 odd increasing with each clear. PvP requires your best A-Team for speed & to stop 100 retaliations a minute.

Where does this leave my nerfed 3* tier?

I wont be able to use them in PvP (as now) & they will be cannon fodder in PvE.

This may be a dumb question(I'm currently just starting to champion my 3* characters), but wouldn't your 3* and below characters still be useful when boosted?

Or have you progressed to a level where, even when boosted, those characters would be useless under this new/test system?

wade66

Since there will be much more grinding involved, are the rewards per node being increased past the 7?

Demiurge_Anthony

wade66 wrote:

Since there will be much more grinding involved, are the rewards per node being increased past the 7?

There are currently no changes to the amount of rewards a mission has.

ZeiramMR

Whatever else, thanks for taking time to answer questions Anthony, and we'll find out how this experiments goes tomorrow.

Pylgrim

Anthony, this is decidedly off-topic, but I must ask, given this precious chance of interacting with a developer. Moreover, it has already started creeping into the conversation because it's such a wide-effecting issue: Have the developers seen our feedback about our experience with the nerf for the boosted levels of 3*s and how adversely it is impacting players' ability to compete for the very rewards that would allow them to progress to the 4* tier?

Starsaber

Here's something I just thought of that will be particularly relevant to this event. Currently, as long as you clear one wave in a survival node you're looking at reduced points for the next 8 hours, whether you cleared the whole node or not. Will a partial clear of a survival node still count as a full one of your 6 runs at max points?

Bryan Lambert

Demiurge_Anthony wrote:

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.

Why wouldn't you know at this point what it's at, at least for the Enemy of the State test? We know the top progression reward is set higher than before. So, either the base points per node have been increased, or more clears than before will be necessary, at least for this next event.

In general, as someone who puts hours into this game each day and yet am nowhere near a top competitive player, with any change, my main interest is, is the design intent behind the changes to make players play the game more, less, or about the same for the same rewards? If it's more for top progression, it may be balanced out by not being yoked to the eight hour windows and being able to spread out the total number of clears (more for the easier nodes, less for the tough ones), but I really don't need to be playing this game any more than the borderline unhealthy amount I'm playing it now.

JordanFromJersey

Demiurge_Anthony wrote:

wade66 wrote:

Since there will be much more grinding involved, are the rewards per node being increased past the 7?

There are currently no changes to the amount of rewards a mission has.

Honestly, that doesn't bother me, EXCEPT when it comes to waved-based/gauntlet(I forget the official name) nodes(something EotS has a lot of, IIRC).

I recognize that there tend to be decent rewards for those nodes the first time you beat them(often an event token, for instance) but after that first win it would be nice if there were 6 additional rewards, even if was just 70ISO for beating all the waves for attempts 2-7. Something to make it feel worth taking on that time-suck other than just progression.

Future me wants that progression, but current me really wants an ISO snack.

Starsaber

Bryan Lambert wrote:

Demiurge_Anthony wrote:

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.

Why wouldn't you know at this point what it's at, at least for the Enemy of the State test? We know the top progression reward is set higher than before. So, either the base points per node have been increased, or more clears than before will be necessary, at least for this next event.

In general, as someone who puts hours into this game each day and yet am nowhere near a top competitive player, with any change, my main interest is, is the design intent behind the changes to make players play the game more, less, or about the same for the same rewards? If it's more for top progression, it may be balanced out by not being yoked to the eight hour windows and being able to spread out the total number of clears (more for the easier nodes, less for the tough ones), but I really don't need to be playing this game any more than the borderline unhealthy amount I'm playing it now.

Valid point. I think I'm likely to play PVP less with this change and as it is, I usually only go to the 650 progression on the 2.5 day PVP events.

Demiurge_Anthony

Pylgrim wrote:

Anthony, this is decidedly off-topic, but I must ask, given this precious chance of interacting with a developer. Moreover, it has already started creeping into the conversation because it's such a wide-effecting issue: Have the developers seen our feedback about our experience with the nerf for the boosted levels of 3*s and how adversely it is impacting players' ability to compete for the very rewards that would allow them to progress to the 4* tier?

/looks at internal task tracking software.

Yep! we are definitely looking at it. Nothing to report though.

Crowl

fmftint wrote:

This sounds terrible, new optimal will be, hit all 7x, walk away, grind the last 2 hours

It should mean you can fit the game around your life and not vice versa, which seems like the ideal scenario since this is a mobile game.

Druss

This may be a dumb question(I'm currently just starting to champion my 3* characters), but wouldn't your 3* and below characters still be useful when boosted?

Or have you progressed to a level where, even when boosted, those characters would be useless under this new/test system?

With the nerf - the boosted characters do waaay less damage than they used to - 25% less - in order to make a boosted 3* viable again you have to have near maxed championed Lv 266 - by the time most of us collect the 100 covers required for that we will be fighting ********.

There was a thread recently that showed even with 100 extra levels a 3* adds about 400 damage to its abilities now - against Ares/Jugs etc in the Lv 300+ range with 25k+ health this is meaningless - I think now panther (a top tier 3* imo) needs to cast ROTP 4-5 times to kill a 4* or a boosted Lv300 Dark Avenger - that 60 Black AP - He would be dead long since.

Demiurge_Anthony

Starsaber wrote:

Here's something I just thought of that will be particularly relevant to this event. Currently, as long as you clear one wave in a survival node you're looking at reduced points for the next 8 hours, whether you cleared the whole node or not. Will a partial clear of a survival node still count as a full one of your 6 runs at max points?

That's a great question. I will ask a designer tomorrow about that.

Crowl

mindsuckr wrote:

Do they expect us to play this a whole lot more? The points speak for themselves.
Last EotS, max progression: 114k
This EotS, max progression: 156k
That's a 38% increase in points required for maximum progression.

If you clear all 7 rewards in a node then that is potentially a 75% increase in the the amount of full value clears over the current system so they have split the difference between the systems to budget for the LT.

WelcomeDeath

So....just based on what I have now (4* maxed), easiest node starts in mid 30s, I believe tops off at 70. New system starts at 193, tops off at 299. That's roughly 160 levels higher on the low end and 220 levels at the high end. Hardest nodes are about the same. Not going to lie, this is what I expected when I saw the scaling would be "smoothed out". My question is, who asked for this?

When players complained about scaling in pve, it wasn't because we thought the low nodes were too easy, it's the ridiculous levels on the "normal" high nodes. The easy or trivial nodes were a nice way to get iso for not too much effort, a welcome break in the game.

To the developers: when the player base clamor for more opportunities for iso, that doesn't mean we want less opportunities for it or for it to be harder to get. It's easier for me to beat the easy nodes than a 2* player? Great. But one of the things I was happy with in my roster development was the ability to clear these nodes with ease and focus on the hard nodes. It felt like real progress. Now that's gone. You're on the forums, do you actually read what we want? Do you think we mean the opposite? Not to sound like an after-school special, but no really means no.

I do like the idea of no timers until excessive clears, fits my style in pve. But I don't remember reading a thread...ever...complaining about pve scaling being too easy. If the pvp changes are more like this, you will lose a lot of players. Nobody wants super high scaling. Nobody.

Edit: 4* roster easy nodes top off at 299, hard nodes start at 285, but the highest rewards pay out far less on the "easy" nodes in current format. Anything being done to address this? And no I don't mean less iso for hard nodes FYI.

Crowl

ruyen wrote:

Why can't you simply change how new characters are introduced?

I'd say give all 3 covers via progression rewards, like HB was introduced with.

Possible Balance Concerns..

If you're against giving 3 covers in progression because you feel it would be too easy, maybe raise the point reqs if you have to. But honestly, giving 1 of each cover to everyone who puts decent effort is not game breaking at all, it's just the equivalent to the free loaner you get to use in the subsequent PvP.

However you do it, please change it so it's not just an elite few who grind optimally with their magical abundance of free time. This format of new releases has pissed me off for ages. It burns players out, and is just not fun at all.

Given that people have to pay out for the new roster slot anyway and a character is only marginally less useless as 1/1/1 than 0/0/1 it does seem odd that they are so stingy with new covers, they could do something like give a cover at 80% of current LT score, 2nd at LT score and 3rd at 120% of current LT score and simply move CP over to the placement rewards for those events.

tanis3303

Nope

wymtime

Demiurge_Anthony wrote:

Hey everyone,

I am going to try and answer any questions about the new difficulty system that's in place for tomorrow's Enemy of the State event. A lot of questions people have asked are questions we don't have answers to yet. We are running this test to find what people think of it and get your feedback. Feel free to ask, but don't be offended if they go unanswered.

What level enemies will I encounter?

One of the biggest questions I am seeing is that people don't have an idea on while level enemies they will be playing against. Over the past week I have been testing this and are some of my findings:



My Personal account (1 level ~350 5*, 3 Championed 4* and a handful of championed 3-Stars and under)
Easiest Mission
Starts at 195
Caps at 300

Hardest Mission
Starts at 286
Caps at 351

This is where I am and here is the issue with this scaling. PVE is now requiring. To use your 4* or buffed 3* on all nodes instead if just the hard missions. What this scaling is potentially doing is it will really hurt transitioning players who want to play PVE and do well. Why do the Dev's feel starting battles at 195 because it is an even playing field. Now a lo more health packs will be used on what was the trivial nodes. A team PVP teams will be required for PVE too since buffed 3* will be at a disadvantage from the start. Why is this thought to be more fun?

TheWerebison

I'll at least say that I appreciate that you folks are constantly trying new things. As a long-time WoW player, I saw how every single decision Blizzard ever made to their game resulted in a giant flame wall. So I hope this works out. I do have to say, I agree with what some others have said, that it really will mess with the hardcore placement people, and that it would be a really good idea if PvE was only about PvE.