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

Malcrof

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.

They did some toying around with progression a while back, The original target for the LT in EoTS was 170k (easily hit), then it was lowered, and now, with more points available then ever before, the put it at a midlin point between the old and the new.

I am 100% on board with this (viewtopic.php?f=20&t=34281 for reference of the old EoTS scores)

Now, as a non-competitive PVE player, i think the changes look amazing, progression will be loads easier to hit, pve overall for ME, will be less time consuming, as i am only in it for the iso and cp. I see where this could be frustrating for competitive PVE players, but only time will tell on that.

boldfacedfemme

So far, I am NOT a fan of this setup. So many health packs. I miss having those first few nodes easy.

Plus, only having one essential for this, so I think I'm sitting it out. Which sucks, because I love this event.

Tatercat

Lot of good points here and valid concerns here, but I like that they're trying something. I'm going to try it for a few days and see how it plays. I don't mind losing "easy" options if the result is fun and I feel like I'm progressing.

I do like the suggestion on here of making PVE challenge based tho, not player competition based. Vying for placements just makes me lose sleep, not spend more money. And that leads to burnout and no more playing. There's a reason I don't bother with high end PVP.

rawl316

D3, I'm going to help solve all your pve answers.

If you truly want to make pve play when we want, you'll make all the cover rewards a progression. You can even figure 8 clears for each node, close them off when they are played and then give covers based on that.

This also solves the problem of people waiting until the end to snipe a fresh bracket.

Your welcome.

Malcrof

I just want to add a little something, if this in fact does become the new normal, Heroic PVE's will need to allow for more characters to be used. They already upped the number of boosted 4*s, it may be time for heroics to become wide open roster-wise.


Edit: Just something i thought of.. it now no longer matters which slice i enter.. Finding a good start time to get enough points was always problematic because i have a very long commute to and home from work, so i would usually choose the 5pm EST start time, and do my first clear around 7pm EST, still made some t10's, but mostly i am farming iso and cp.

Now, who cares? i can join whichever i want, points will be there for me when i can do them, progression will be available no matter what time i can start playing, or how busy my day is..

Absolutely loving this change now.

Philly484

I can't say if this will be a good or bad change. To me it looks like they have just catered to the Rabbit players, who complained about people doing the optimal grind and they lose their top spots. I don't see this scaling being even beneficial for Veteran players who play PVE optimally. Unless the rewards for harder challenge benefit us, I don't see this as the change that was needed. Like some have already said if I have to face a lvl 500 Juggernaut because I have some 4*'s champed I get the challenge behind the idea, but unless the reward is worth the effort why put myself through the torture of wasting health packs?

fmftint

Have any soft cappers started yet? Curious to see what level enemies someone with max covered 3/4☆s but all in the 120-150 range

In theory they shoukd be seeing the same levels as a champion 4☆ player

ammenell

fmftint wrote:

Have any soft cappers started yet? Curious to see what level enemies someone with max covered 3/4☆s but all in the 120-150 range

In theory they shoukd be seeing the same levels as a champion 4☆ player

im interested in that, too
this deserves a thread of its own, everyone posting their roster and opponent levels

Polares

Malcrof wrote:

...

Edit: Just something i thought of.. it now no longer matters which slice i enter.. Finding a good start time to get enough points was always problematic because i have a very long commute to and home from work, so i would usually choose the 5pm EST start time, and do my first clear around 7pm EST, still made some t10's, but mostly i am farming iso and cp.

Now, who cares? i can join whichever i want, points will be there for me when i can do them, progression will be available no matter what time i can start playing, or how busy my day is..

Absolutely loving this change now.

It doesn't matter if you don't care about placement, what are you going to do when you are playing for new 4s? (And you play PvE competitively for new chars). Then you need to play A LOT when the sub opens, and A LOT when it closes, so the time is even more important!

Soooo....

STOP REGENERATING THE POINTS !!!

Let us do 7 clears any time we want without caring for when it is the best time to do it (as someone said, leave the nodes with 50-100 points, so people that want to be top10 have some grinding to do there for the very top positions).

GrumpySmurf1002

Malcrof wrote:

Just something i thought of.. it now no longer matters which slice i enter.. Finding a good start time to get enough points was always problematic because i have a very long commute to and home from work, so i would usually choose the 5pm EST start time, and do my first clear around 7pm EST, still made some t10's, but mostly i am farming iso and cp.

Now, who cares? i can join whichever i want, points will be there for me when i can do them, progression will be available no matter what time i can start playing, or how busy my day is..

Absolutely loving this change now.

For progression this is probably true, but it's also true in the current system. As long as you get the green checkmark on every node, you'll hit the 25CP progression, doesn't matter when you play them.

For placement, the slice time matters more than ever.

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.

Just want to re-emphaize that this change does nothing for this goal. All this does is move the interval. For top placement, you still need to be there at a game-dictated time, and play as quickly as possible before returning at the next system-dictated interval. But now it takes even longer because there are more clears to be done.

CyberVenom2001

First I'd like to.say a big thank you for communication! That is great!

Just played the event. Absolutely hated it. While I have a really big roster, for the most part I don't play competitively. I play for fun and collecting characters. I'might also in the 800 day range.

I am always enjoying the scrub fights, as it let's me use teams I wanted to try or characters I hadn't used in a while, along with getting some (basically free, yet sorely needed ) iso.

This test did 3 very, very bad things.

1. I found myself scrambling to tried and true teams instead of testing waters, due to difficulty. The very first node after the survival mode had goons hitting me for thousands of damage. They are goons for a reason.

2. The rewards didn't justify the difficulty. When you look at your roster after the first fight, and 2 are down and the third is withered to a lump of meat, all for 70 iso, it discourages you to go through again. Should I waste 3 health packs on a chance of getting Critical Boosts or a grey token? Sorry, we already have vaults for prizes.

3. (And worst of all.) It just wasn't fun. It's tedious and monotonous. Not only are those the words of the day in my New Words Calendar, but words I don't want to use while playing a game. And that's what this is, a game. Games should be fun AND challenging. The previous simulator was both. Galactus version 2 was both.

Instead of "fixing" scaling, how about new game types. When survival was introduced, that was fresh and exciting. DDQ brought about something new to fight for. Galactus gave our alliances a reason to be allied.

Maybe instead of competitive PVE, make it progression based prizes. Maybe, if you want it to stay competitive, make it a way for alliance members to compete versus each other instead of the whole world. (Yes, I know that could very easily manipulated, just it's just the start of an idea I just had. Lol)

I love this game. Let's not play with my heart. Lol

WelcomeDeath

I just played a "trivial" node and lost 16000 health on my 4 cyke. And then watched the animation where the levels go up next time. No thank you. I'm done. What a horrible, horrible idea. Who comes up with these ideas? I picture someone at a board meeting saying "You know, I really like slamming my car door shut on my tinykitty, what can we put in game that feels like that?". Thanks...but no thanks.

GrumpySmurf1002

One more note about these changes...this 'test' is assuredly like previous tests. This will be the structure at some point in the near distant future.

The test aspect is likely only to tweak the values of scaling/rewards going forward so that they fit more closely to expected results based on previous iterations.

So absent the meme, brace yourself, more grinding is coming.


I'll be happy to be wrong about that, but haven't seen too many tests in this game that haven't become the norm at some point.

nwman

What about a mixed solution.

Something like this for a 24 hour sub

You clear a node 2-3 times and it locks out for 12 hours. Galactus style. After 12 it opens again and you can clear 2 times full points. Then it decays in points on a 12 hour refresh timer but only say 3 clears to 20 points.

So the first half of a sub you can play the 2-3 times whenever.

Then after 12 hours optimal is something like play the full points and let counter start. Near event end grind it to 0 w 2-3 clears and done.

firethorne

fmftint wrote:

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

Precisely what I was thinking. I have a life outside this game. Placement was rarely a thing for people like that, and clearly won't be possible going forward.

Crowl

Dauthi wrote:

While I agree we should be getting more ISO, I prefer puzzle quest, not grind quest. Mindlessly destroying easy nodes was in no way a "puzzle" or fun, and hard gauntlet style nodes bring skill, strategy, and a full rosters into PVEs.

Getting some quick rewards as a break from being hammered by the rest of the game is actually fun, you could bring weird or different teams with synergies that wouldn't work on higher scaled nodes or just go for a side to blast through those as fast as possible without the need to go into your meager supply of health packs before hitting the harder nodes.

The idea that hard gauntletesque nodes bring in full rosters is pretty much a complete fallacy for probably the majority of people playing this game, hard nodes mandate better teams and boosted characters only for most.

johnnyzero

General Fury, can I get your thoughts on the new PVE format?

CrookedKnight

"Join Forces" refers to the loaner fight.

Crowl

rbdragon wrote:

If I had my way, here's how I'd implement PvE (assuming the competitive aspect HAD to stay as part of it):

• The 24hr countdown starts as soon as the sub begins. You still get the first 6 clears at full price, but they can be done anytime without a penalty of a countdown after the 6th. Anotherwards, if your sub begins at 2pm, and you clear your 6th time at midnight, the countdown would be at the 14hr mark. This truly allows players to play when they want with no penalty.

The obvious option seems to be to only give points for the first 7 clears and then no points for any other clears until you get to the final 2 hours and then you introduce the decaying points for those who wish to battle for placements.

This approach would give real flexibility for the players with no need to get your clears in as fast as possible, they could be done at any time during the day. It would still have a time period when those who wished to compete for placement would have to grind, but it would only be at the end of a sub rather than the start and the end and people would just need to choose the ending time for their sub to fit a block of free time if they intended to grind the nodes.

nwman

CrookedKnight wrote:

"Join Forces" refers to the loaner fight.

It should be all nodes w a yellow ring.