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

Unknown

I am excited. I am one where the 5* has been screwing me. I have slowed playing due to this. hope it works well.

Xenoberyll

I don't know how making PVE more time consuming, less rewarding and more of a pain to play was a great idea in the dev's mind but I don't think i'll keep playing pve much if that's the future.

The opponents level is way too high in general. A few challenging nodes are fine but overall i'd prefer to have fun matches that don't take too much effort - especially if i'm expected to play this 7 times and without getting rewards on the later repeats.

Btw. why do we have to repeat hitting the nodes that often anyways? Is that the dev's idea of fun?

I get that you don't want to make winning covers too easy for us. But this is ridiculous.

Progression rewards only, and a high score required to get all 3 covers if you must - that's the only change we need.

STOPTHIS

I wanted to give the new PvE a shot before saying anything about it and now after my first clear I can say, I hate it. It took longer (even for EotS), I used less characters than I normally do, and more health packs. This isn't challenging, it's just frustrating. There's some good intentions in there, but they just aren't clicking for me right now. I think I might sit this one out.

Now I find myself in a position of having a nerfed 3* roster that hits a wall quickly in PvP thanks to rostering 5*s and now a 7 day PvE that took some of the last fun out of the game. I guess there's always DDQ, though you even messed with that too.

Crowl

nwman wrote:

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.

The problem with this suggestion is that it still limits player flexibility, the two aims for any changes to how the nodes refresh should be to decouple them as completely as possible from any schedule outside of the 24/48 hour one of the sub itself while still providing some means of splitting up the places for those going for progression rewards as well.

Ralph-Wiggum

For someone like myself who is more interested in the progression rewards than the placement rewards, this seems like a pretty bad change if the required progression rewards are increased. Now, I can do 3 clears of each node and get the 25 CP without a problem. If I now need to do 4/5/6 clears to get those same progression rewards, that has potentially doubled the amount of time I need to spend. That doesn't sound like much fun to me.

nwman

Crowl wrote:

nwman wrote:

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.

The problem with this suggestion is that it still limits player flexibility, the two aims for any changes to how the nodes refresh should be to decouple them as completely as possible from any schedule outside of the 24/48 hour one of the sub itself while still providing some means of splitting up the places for those going for progression rewards as well.

Okay but your not suggesting anything specific. Outside of a shift to progression only rewards, what else can they do? With this it looks like the devs are going for a method that can please some casual players but messes the competitive nature up completely.

The method I suggested is an attempt at a compromise to both without requiring as long of grinds for those that are going for placement.

Casual players have flexibility in they can hit nodes once a couple times spaced over 12 hrs or 2-3 times all at once for the same score.

Competitive players wouldn't be penalized as much by needing to grind as hard at once.

SnowcaTT

The more I think about this, the more I realize I enjoy playing the game - this is why I played so much Puzzle Quest 1, Puzzle Quest 2, Galactus.

And this change is just another one to get you to stop playing the game - or pay for the "privilege" to play. Wait, pay to play?

High level matches everywhere, forcing you to use your highest level characters. As soon as you are out of health packs, you are out of play time.

If you want me to play your game for a long time to succeed - give me 70 different nodes that are all different and easy, so I can play lots of different characters and have a great time choosing which node to play with which characters. I would play that! It would take a long time. It would still be fun!

Don't give me ten super hard nodes that I have to play seven times each with my best characters and stop when those characters die. I won't play that. It takes a long time...and it is not fun.

GrumpySmurf1002

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:

NOTE: These are all numbers you'll be able to see tomorrow when you see the event for yourself. I am just giving you the information a little early ;)

2* Roster (all 2 Star characters at max level)
Easiest Mission
Starts at 71
Caps at 120

Hardest Mission
Starts at 107
Caps at 179

3* Roster (all 3* characters at max level)
Easiest Mission
Starts at 125
Caps at 209

Hardest Mission
Starts at 186
Caps at 295

4* Roster (all 4* characters at max level)
Easiest Mission
Starts at 193
Caps at 299

Hardest Mission
Starts at 285
Caps at 350

5* Roster (all 5* characters at max level)
Easiest Mission
Starts at 362
Caps at 427

Hardest Mission
Starts at 413
Caps at 478

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

I do think this idea could work, at least in theory, but there needs to be a significantly larger spread in the scaling.

A system where nodes start laughably easy and then ramp up swiftly would make roster diversity a lot more prevalent, as players could opt to use the bottom of their rosters to clear the 1st pass or three of these nodes.

Of course, the competitive will still plow through them with their 4* characters, but it would at least be more enjoyable for most than having bleep you nodes from the word go.

simonsez

aesthetocyst wrote:

Lastly, seeing the developer using completely different lingo—"power levels" instead of "covers" and "join forces" instead of "loaner"—demonstrates that the developer is isolated from the community and working somewhat in a bubble.

As does this "test". They basically took gauntlet and added timers and rank awards. In other words, it's the worst of both worlds. No one who's ever played PvE competitively for a high rank would have ever proposed this new format. People are going to be airing grievances for at least a dozen more pages, but what I'd like the real takeaway to be is that I'd like the devs to get out of their bubble and take advantage of the resources available here. Get feedback from veteran players like Colog before embarking down a road like this that's only going to piss people off.

Marty17

1st impression so far, even the easier (earlier) missions are MUCH more challenging (even on 1st pass).

Crowl

nwman wrote:

Okay but your not suggesting anything specific. Outside of a shift to progression only rewards, what else can they do? With this it looks like the devs are going for a method that can please some casual players but messes the competitive nature up completely.

The method I suggested is an attempt at a compromise to both without requiring as long of grinds for those that are going for placement.

Casual players have flexibility in they can hit nodes once a couple times spaced over 12 hrs or 2-3 times all at once for the same score.

Competitive players wouldn't be penalized as much by needing to grind as hard at once.

I made my suggestion a few posts ago, but will be happy to repeat it.

Basically I would have the first 7 clears give full points whenever they were done and then prior to the final 2 hours no points would be earned for clears (potentially you could even lock the nodes) and then once you got to that final 2 hours you would go into the decreasing points per node scenario and that would be plenty of time for it to act as a tiebreaker for those going for placements.

This would have the maximum amount of flexibility as you would have 22 hours to fit in the first 7 clears and even those going for placements would only have 2 hours of their time being fixed within the 24 hours of the sub. If they found an hour of grinding was long enough to act as a tiebreaker they could even reduce the required grind down from 2 hours.

Magic

I just don't get the number 7. Why not 4? or 5? No - it has to be 7.

I will join the event on my usual schedule (so slice 3) but I highly doubt I will grind it down and then some as the Devs are expecting. Couple of clears of CP nodes will probably be my max (normally I don't bother with full progression for 7 day events - not worth it).

Green83

I'm a player that had a hard time to fit clears in an 8 hour schedule, with the current slices it was just impossible for me. But still I do not like this change if this means I have to clear each node 6 times in order to hit max progression (which is my main goal for a pve event)

This increase means even more time that has to be spent on the game which already felt more like work then like a game to me. I want to do nice in the game, but the time effort just went up by a lot. Devs probably don't realize people have families to.

Will see how this goes, but if a lot of clears indeed are needed, I might be better of just clearing it once for the tokens in the nodes.

tanis3303

First off, to the mods: My apologies for my distasteful meme post last night...I have been sick, was hopped up on NyQuil and that was the most accurate description of my feelings while reading this thread that I could find.

Now, for a more constructive post...going off what the devs said, that they want to eliminate the need to play at specific times to maximize your points/placement: GREAT! That truly is amazing news, and a great step forward as well as a huge quality of life improvement. HOWEVER...this is 100% NOT the way to do it. All you have done here is make it worse for anyone seeking top placement. It's fine for the casual players, in fact, it's probably a huge improvement. But for anyone looking for t10 or better placement, this is our worst nightmare. Someone did the math earlier in the thread, and those numbers are beyond intimidating. Anyone seeking placement is now looking at a 4-5 hour grind EVERY DAY vs HARDER ENEMIES. (Insert inappropriate dinosaur-bird-flipping-nope meme here)

I think there is a basic disconnect here in what the development team is identifying as the problem vs what the players are identifying as the problem. The overall vibe I'm getting from reading this thread is that people want a non-competitive, progression based avenue of play, ala Gauntlet or Ultron/Galactus. These events are challenging, rewarding, mostly play-at-your-own-pace, and universally liked by the majority of players. If you're truly looking to remove the strict time requirements, why not more modes like this? Or, since you seem perfectly willing to really shake up the PvE model, how about something like what I suggested awhile back about a type of event currency that allows players to choose their own path thru an event as far as prizes are concerned? (Link below)

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=31383&hilit=a+new+way+to+PVE

Most people that play this game at a high level already spend too much time playing it. This change forces those people to play even more for the same rewards. We all appreciate that you're trying to do things that improve our gaming experience, but this, at least on paper, is NOT the answer we've been looking for. Removing the trivial nodes removes the ability to experiment with any undeveloped characters you may have on your roster, forcing your A-Teams on every node, and the new "optimal clear" schedule truly sounds awful. I'm going to give it a shot for Enemy of the State, but I'm not going to play it for placement. My roster is full of championed 4*s, so I expect to be scaled out of the event by the 3rd or 4th clear, when 2* Wolverine starts one-shotting my lvl 285 Hulkbuster. It may be that this new scaling is a blanket increase in difficulty for everyone, making the "optimal" schedule truly impossible, but again, I don't think increased difficulty is what people were asking for.

TL, DR: Players didn't want a more challenging PvE that takes longer to play. We want a more balanced PvE, preferably one that is progression based, not competitive.

Crowl

Green83 wrote:

I'm a player that had a hard time to fit clears in an 8 hour schedule, with the current slices it was just impossible for me. But still I do not like this change if this means I have to clear each node 6 times in order to hit max progression (which is my main goal for a pve event)

I would bet that clearing in the 3-4 per node range is still going to be enough for max progression, the total has gone up because people will tend to be scoring more points per node.

Polares

I am really in shock. As someone said they took the worst part from Gauntlet and PvE and they merged them together !!!!

This is nuts, first raise the difficulty of all the nodes (?!?!?!? we have the Gauntlet for that!!!), you 'force us' to play just at one time (basically just 1-2 hours before end of slice and then for 4-5 hours in one go), for a lot of time in one go, so then we will run out of health packs 100% sure, and for the final punch you set the completions in 7!!! 7 clears man!!! Each one with bigger difficulty!!! And you test that in an event with survival nodes!!!! (where we can't use OML most of the time but his level will be used for setting the difficulty level).

Man I am really really pissed/'depressed', this will basically kill PvE for me. It is going to be impossible to compete. I hope that at least we can get progression rewards with just 3 clears... (and not 7)


PS: Yeah it is great not having to play when I wake up.
PS: Is this the final push that will make me quit this game?

Chief270

"David wrote:

Moore"]
Playing When You Want to Play
The next big change we are introducing is how missions are re-played. Previously, after beating a mission, the strictly optimal strategy was to wait 8 hours and play it again. We wanted to update the system to give you more freedom about when you play the game.

Ooo.. sounds good.

wrote:

In the test event, missions will be worth the same amount of points the first six times you play it. Missions get harder each of these times. Once a mission is beaten six times, the difficulty stops increasing.

Even better.

wrote:

After that, each time you beat a mission, it will be worth less points, similar to the old system. The amount of times it takes for a mission to be restored to full points after one play is 24 hours (up from 8). A mission can be beat 5 times (down from 6) until you reach the minimum amount of points a mission is worth, 20 points (up from 1). 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.

OH. So close.

So by "play when you want", you mean play to play optimally you have to spend even more time precisely at the sub transition(so not actually when we want) instead of throughout the day. Its the constant feeling of grinding with no guarantee of reward that really grates on people.

How about a true play when you want setup. When an event/sub opens, you have x hours to complete y number of clears(as you said), for every clear it gets harder(also as you said), then the nodes drop to 20 and stay there(points and difficulty wise) for the rest of the time.. so no increase on a timer. Where it differs is the reward structure goes to primarily progression based, where the top prize is(say) the same amount of points as x times y(essentially clearing all nodes down to the 20 point value for the entire event, or you can replay the 20 point nodes if you need to make some points from earlier).

If you want to still do placement rewards, make them ISO/CP/HP/cover based, something that is nice, but not so heartbreaking for you to spend 3/4/7 days grinding out only to be overtaken just slightly and miss out on the reward you were working for.

PVE already is a slow paced(1-2 events a week) compared to PVP(~3 per week), but requires a considerable amount more time/work. My suggestion(or a variant of it) would give people something to shoot for and not feel like their time is wasted for little in return, see the prize they are working towards and plan accordingly, leading them to actually "play when they want".

Polares

In fact my question for the devs now is how can I provide some data that will make them scrap all these changes and go back to the design phase? Do just 2-4 clears and abandon the event and not play more? What should I do?

amusingfoo1

Without reading past the first page of the thread, a couple of things.

First, major kudos for communicating this in advance with explanations. This is the sort of thing we've been clamoring for.

Second, I'm cautiously optimistic that this will be better for almost everyone. Basically, everyone that isn't trying for first. Since I've deprioritized PvE this season, I think this will work out pretty well. Absolutely, for those with 9-5 jobs, this will be a god-send. For those aiming for first, it's definitely going to be painful.

I am far from sure this event is a good test-bed, though. Being a week long, and having tons of wave nodes, it's far from a typical event, so I have my doubts about how useful any data gleaned will be.

Crowl

Polares wrote:

In fact my question for the devs now is how can I provide some data that will make them scrap all these changes and go back to the design phase? Do just 2-4 clears and abandon the event and not play more? What should I do?

Here's hoping that they do not draw too many conclusions from the amount of people playing this event and will seek more direct feedback from here or via another ingame survey.