PVE Scaling Feedback & New Test : Unstable Iso-8

saj14saj

I agree with everyone who is saying that he starting node difficulty level and increase per clear remain far too high, rapidly increasing their difficulty to a point where--even if doable--it simply isn't enjoyable for the quantity of nodes that must be cleared to get placement.

If this new progression threshold is indicative, that is not as punishing as in the first test, but I imagine it is an aberration and will not be seen again in our lifetimes, especially when combined with a top placement prize more desirable than Totally Awful Hulk (which would bring out the grinders and power players).

One thing that has not been mentioned is the effect of the inexorable node difficulty increase on 48 hour nodes. On the first day, the nodes increase in difficulty from merely unpleasant to untenable. Then, on the second day, you start with the nodes already scaled up. This makes the second day either essentially unplayable or just irritatingly difficult depending on the roster one has.

....

I must agree with everyone who has advocated replacing the placement prize system with increased progression rewards.

This could also be used to completely eliminate the necessity of scaling but I imagine that is a subject for a post in the suggestion forum.

Polares

fmftint wrote:

Eddiemon wrote:

Bwanis wrote:

Maybe this was addressed in the previous 13 pages or EotS feedback but the elephant in the room for me seems to be why are the devs changing the scaling at all? Why not just eliminate the 8 hr point refresh and leave all other elements of traditional pve the same as they have been?...

It seems like this is the only positive part of the new system that players are universally enjoying so keep this and ditch the rest.

I just don't understand why the devs think anyone would want to play longer matches with a fraction of our rosters for the same (already) lousy rewards. We wipe more, get less ISO & CP just when we need it most. it's frustrating, it's salt in the wound when ISO is already so limited.

Devs, what is the logic here? Why do you think we will enjoy this? These changes do not make sense...

They already explained this. Current scaling encourages people to keep their rosters underlevelled and discourages the acquisition of 5 star characters. These are both bad things.

So they need to change the scaling algorithm to try and get a fairer difficulty curve for the millions of different roster combinations out there, and to stop people selling off their 5 stars or quitting because the game suddenly got too hard and they don't understand why.

Except both test events, encourages limiting your roster and severely punishes roster development

Yeah they have accomplished just the opposite, this new format encourages even more the soft capping. There are two main winners 94 soft cappers and 3 teams. If you are in the 3-4 screwed, if you are in the 4 land screwed, and if you are in the 4-5 even more screwed (I dont know for 5 players).

I dont know you plan to do something and accomplish the opposite. Common!, it is just a mathematical function with some inputs and one output, there are a lot of graphical plotters where you can easily see the different results for your functions! How can you screw that!?!?

Highdark

This is easier then Eots. It is playable, but what the hell are the brackets? 3 days left in unstable iso and I am about to get the 25 cp, but I am 200th in overall placement? People are triple over the max progression reward. I'm not saying make it harder I'm saying how did i get in this die hard group or is this standard?. There isnt a snowballs chance in hell that I will even get the 3* cover for this event(which i need to finish colossus). I find it mind boggling that so many are trying to get cho(the worst of the 4*)

To sum up. This is better then Eots, but mostly because of unit type.(goons are easier). Wtb more divisions i certainly cant compete with the one I am in. The top player doesnt have anything above level 100?. Fix it

MeatLoafX

For some of us, this is easier than it has been. Not a complete pushover, but playable at a leisurely pace - which I love not having th constant timer. I'm at 16 overall I think in my bracket with a two star roster. Only a few nodes left to get 7/7. I hit the max progression day 2.

I'd be interested in seeing the rosters at the top.

mazerat

Finished Mediterranean so here's my update:

My core roster is 4 championed 2s at levels 121/115/114/112, additionally I had a PMax and Daisy with one blue cover each boosted to 145 and a 110 2/5/2 boosted M-Storm for any scaling purposes, everything else is level 70 or lower.

My easiest node started at 68/69/69 and ended at 116/117/117.
My hardest node started at 77/78/77 and ended at 151/151/151.

I cleared every non-featured node 6 times and got 14621 points, which puts me at 25388 total for the event.

My review of Arctic Circle was fairly positive but I now have some serious concerns:

1) Points decrease on the nodes-as an example, Nights in Tunisia showed Full Points at 541, after I cleared the score screen gave me +524--similar to hitting someone in PvP whose rank had shifted since you queued them--and this repeated for every node through all six clears. Is this a bug? I don't recall any point shifting prior to the sixth clear being mentioned.

2) It feels like the new system was designed with no regard for sub-event length. Previously you would have cleared Arctic Circle three times in one day and Mediterranean six times over two days--the same amount of playing per-day. Now you need to clear Arctic Circle six times in one day and Mediterranean six times in two days--meaning you need to play twice as much on the single day sub-nodes. Additionally, point scaling seems very poor. Normally points ramp up over sub-events but one day of Arctic Circle gave me 10307 while "two days" of Mediterranean only gave me 14621 or 7310.5 per day.

3) The very easiest nodes ended around the level of my characters (tough, but okay) while the harder nodes were 30% higher level than my characters. That seems high.

I'm not too worried about enemy levels (although we'll see what gets thrown at me in the final sub-node) but the decreasing points is egregious and you really need to look at this "six clears" model and figure out what you want to be doing because time required and point scaling are all out of whack.

Chipster22

MeatLoafX wrote:

For some of us, this is easier than it has been. Not a complete pushover, but playable at a leisurely pace - which I love not having th constant timer. I'm at 16 overall I think in my bracket with a two star roster. Only a few nodes left to get 7/7. I hit the max progression day 2.

I'd be interested in seeing the rosters at the top.

You can see the top ten in your bracket within the game.

I have my top character at level 307 and have a total of twelve characters over level 270.

In my bracket the top player currently has a top character at level 131.

4th and 5th in my bracket have tops at 105 and 111 respectively.

It really makes me wish I could take on those players one on one somehow.

Why should someone like me who has played since March of 2014 have a harder time reaching the top ten than those with all of their characters at such low levels?

Crowl

Chipster22 wrote:

In my bracket the top player currently has a top character at level 131.

4th and 5th in my bracket have tops at 105 and 111 respectively.

It really makes me wish I could take on those players one on one somehow.

Why should someone like me who has played since March of 2014 have a harder time reaching the top ten than those with all of their characters at such low levels?

Only 3 of the top 10 in my bracket are sub 166 rosters, but 2nd place in the bracket doesn't even have a level 94 on their roster.

It is so bizarre that they decided to rerun this test without making more 'fixes' to the issues in the first test.

udonomefoo

OneLastGambit wrote:

have any of you tried .... Not grinding?

I think that the purpose of this change is to stop people grinding. They're making it so unpleasant to grind that I can't see it as anything other than a disincentive to have this play style.


I joined late, I've done one clear of sub 2 (missed sub1) and hit the cp node 6 times and I'm in 71st I think playing very casually and still hitting t100 is a positive change

I agree that this may be the design goal behind the changes. Making the top progression much lower would help that goal too. Once most people reach that progression, they don't play much more. After a few events, when everyone realizes you only need a couple clears per day to hit it, the bar drops for everyone but 10 per 1000.

Main problem I have with the new system is that the TRIVIAL rewards are still trivial, but the nodes aren't trivial anymore. They need to pick one. Trivial nodes with trivial rewards or harder nodes with better rewards.

RyanL24

I think the 7 clears system could work the way they intended; play at your leisure. Have the nodes give full points all 7 times, then lock. If you could manage to dedicate 4-6 hours a day for PVE, you would get the full amount of points. There would be a lot of people tied for 1st place, but who cares? It would make a lot of people feel good and like they've really accomplished something special. When in reality, now that the game has shifted to 5* land... The prizes aren't that great anyway.

Another suggestion I was thinking of, it's neat that they lowered the amount of points needed for the top progression prize, but geez... I have 2 days and 4 hours left and there is nothing else to earn. Except for the tiny rewards from grinding the nodes. It would be nice if they added more progression rewards after the 25 CP. Some Iso is what I was thinking. 1000 here, 2500 there. I don't understand why the Devs love to watch their players starving for Iso. Cruelty for kicks, I suppose.

Another idea I had, they should take off the cap on critical boosts, let us collect as many as we want for a month, then do one of those surveys. Q: How many critical boosts do you have? A: 1,273 Q: Have you used any critical boosts in the last month? A: No. Q: Are critical boosts the worst reward ever? A: Honestly I didn't think of them as rewards. I thought I was being punished for something.

Seriously, any other prize would be better. 20 Iso. Any of the other boosts. A nice compliment; "Good game!". I would find any of those preferable to endless, countless, useless critical boosts. Maybe it's just me.

Ryudoz

I'm grinding the essential nodes right now, and it turns out that all three of the nodes have been giving less points when I clear them before the timer hits. In fact, they're giving less points than they advertise. In PVP I get it, that changes a lot, but this should be a static number since it's PVE. So I'm being penalized for... well nothing.

firethorne

OneLastGambit wrote:

have any of you tried .... Not grinding?

I think that the purpose of this change is to stop people grinding. They're making it so unpleasant to grind that I can't see it as anything other than a disincentive to have this play style.


I joined late, I've done one clear of sub 2 (missed sub1) and hit the cp node 6 times and I'm in 71st I think playing very casually and still hitting t100 is a positive change

Yep, I do often when the reality of life outside the game makes it impossible or not worth it. [sarcasm]And getting a Thor is super duper awesome and rewarding. So totally worth continuing to play this game continuing to spin my wheels indefinitely making absolutely no progress whatsoever. [/sarcasm]

This is one big problem that has been simmering for a while. For 490 out of 500 players, the rewards no longer match the meta. Even if I do relatively well, I get what, one or two champion levels for some 3* I'll only use when he gets boosted? Whoopee

There is no progress unless you grind. Grinding isn't fun, but neither is a perpetual income of mediocre rewards.

Druss

I'm putting the whole thing down to a simple misunderstanding.

Taking the well known phrase "If it ain't broke don't fix it" to "If it's broke don't fix it"

madsalad

The scaling seems a little better this time around but it might also be because I don't have Ninjas riding me every step of the way and I can use my 6 cover OML as Meatshield.

A few things: this feedback thread is about scaling and not specifically about the new PVE structure or the non-changed reward structure that totally doesn't fit at all with the new PVE structure.

However...

This structure sucks. I don't care if you are trying to make it unpleasent to grind or whatever, but as long as there are PLACEMENT rewards, people will grind.
Remove placement rewards and add a TON more progression rewards and it'll be good.

While we're at it, I'm pretty sure you guys must just pick a number out of a hat at what to put top progression at. I'm not even at the 2 day mark and I already have 25cp. I'm in the top 30 or so of my slice. This is bad. Now the only thing I'm playing for is farming and placement which is non-optimal.

Pit a long tail on those progressions, add substance (how about some CP, more 3* and maybe a 4* along the way) and actually do some math or something to figure out what the best progression structure actually is based in the points given out per node per sub, etc...

This whole thing still feels wrong and you only took the scaling feedback (and top progression feedback) into account after EotS and none of the feedback about the new structure or the lack of rewards / placement rewards, rewards don't fit difficulty, etc...

Also, for roster diversity.... I've used 3 characters this entire time... OML, SWitch and OBW. Every node. I used SWitch and OBW on the essential nodes. If you want roster diversity, time to stop using all goons with all dark Avengers. I guess you're a I'll sticking with that due to the storyline but dear God is it boring.

MaxxPowerz

I do appreciate the dev's attempts to improve the gameplay experience however I also realize the point of these tests is to collect feedback so allow me to be brutally honest...

While the old format may have presented a challenge in juggling the game around our schedules, the increased play time of the new format is a much bigger obstacle to overcome. I just don't have the sheer amount of time it takes to clear all of these nodes. While I used to be able to compete for top 50 regularly I now find myself struggling a lot more to do so.

I've always thought that PVE was a crucial component of the MPQ experience because it allows people a place to develop their roster without being crushed by the competition in PVP (the people who just went out and maxxed out their 4* the second they had a chance instead of balancing their roster). It's sort of a safe haven for beginners, however with these new changes it will make their life a lot more difficult.

I wouldn't mind seeing a combination of both formats, where some nodes are allowed to refresh while others can be grind down immediately. I do think some of the new additions are for the better, but the new format does seem to promote more mindless grinding.

MaxxPowerz

Also, I hope people aren't being blind sighted by the fact that the current PVE features so many easy-to-clear goon nodes. This won't always be the case when we get to the more health pack draining non-goon nodes in other PVE's.

simonsez

OneLastGambit wrote:

have any of you tried .... Not grinding?

Not all of us are part of the participation trophy generation.

Keegan

Just a snip to clarify:

madsalad wrote:

While we're at it, I'm pretty sure you guys must just pick a number out of a hat at what to put top progression at. I'm not even at the 2 day mark and I already have 25cp. I'm in the top 30 or so of my slice. This is bad. Now the only thing I'm playing for is farming and placement which is non-optimal.

In a post somewhere around page two, it's announced that rubber banding was accidentally turned on for points in this event. The negative is that "full points" progressively decrease, the positive is that we ended up progressing a lot faster than was intended, and a lot more people are going to clear all progression awards than usual. OTOH, that's a negative because - as you mentioned - we get bored.

I dunno, I'm still in 2* land, so the CP is just going into a pile that I hope I can use in about a year. Of course at that point, it's value will have changed

simonsez

Devs, do us a favor and take your nose out of the play metrics and just listen to what we're saying.

Yes, we're playing longer. AND HATING IT. Please don't tell me this is the goal. If I weren't stuck in a hotel room 500 miles from home with wi-fi too slow to stream porn, there's no way in hell i'd have had the time to clear these nodes down to the timer. The last thing i'd want to contemplate is this kind of a slog becoming the PvE norm. NOT INTERESTED. When the hell are we supposed to use the rest of our roster? Having to use the same three characters over and over again is boring as ****.

I don't even see what the point of this second test is in the first place. The response to the first was overwhelmingly brutally negative. I see no difference in this one. Are you hoping we'll just get worn out from complaining??

veny

So far i can tell this:
- Scalling is better
- Progress rewards require less grind
- No-8hr limit is good as it was in EotS
BUT!
- Game still dont reflect rising amount of 4* and 5* chars. After 2 years, after 1000+ hours in game, my best 4* hero is... Wolverine level 140... hurray!!. No, i am kidding. When i am suppose to max all my chars? Well i am sure i wont handle it until the end of this decade.

Give us XPs directly from missions (i saw it on some console or PS version and it was good). Give us more ISO. Give is something that will motivate us to play and enjoy it. 70 or 100ISO as reward? I need 300 000 to max out ONE (from 27) of my 4* characters. Hell, even 500ISO in not enough.
PS: I am using 5* chars (255 level) and maxed 3*s again and again. Why should i use 4*? They are weak, and they will be weak without more ISO or XP-from-fights system.

Keegan

veny wrote:

When i am suppose to max all my chars?

You're not supposed to