PVE Scaling Feedback & New Test : Unstable Iso-8

TLCstormz

Uthgarprime wrote:

once again everyone here is missing the whole point of these tests. They are intentionally making it harder, now the next "test" will likely be just a tad bit easier than the current one. The only data that will be used to determine the new PVE format and there will be one, is which one sold more health packs and boosts than the old pve. That is the only data that matters. If you think for one second they care that they are giving us the exact opposite of what 27 pages of the previous complaints said you are a fool.

^ That's probably all true. :+/

Hoho69

I'll chime in. I love the new test system in Unstable ISO-8. I like the current one and the new revised one, both can work side by side.

BigBZ32

I think for me having OML made things tolerable. I'm really feeling indifferent. Maybe I lucked into an easy vet bracket, but just literally clearing all nodes 7 times each sub landed me top 10. Even the 48 hour sub. Rubber banding probably helped.

hodayathink

TxMoose wrote:

one more thing: t10 filled with 3* players again. 7 of my t10 are 3* rosters. 1 is a 4* player with 2 high 5*s (lots of time and healthpacks on his hands - one of the top alliances), 1 is a 2* player and one is actually a 1* -> 2* transitioner in 8th place. that is nuts that his limited roster is able to keep up with the wide rosters of the 3* guys. you go little guy. its a messed up system that still punishes leveled rosters.

I'm gonna argue that this system doesn't punish leveled rosters as much as it punishes the people who play the PvP meta of only leveling up the best characters and leaving the other ones ISO starved. And evenly leveled roster has more options for node completion, meaning less health packs used and the ability to grind for longer, which is important when the optimal clear basically requires playing for a couple hours consecutively.

madsalad

Just popping back in to say that the new PVE is a huge time suck and should not exist in this format, especially with these rewards. The difficulty has increased exponentially and we are still getting 70 iso, AND CRITICAL BOOSTS!

Please:

Increase payouts Increase amount of rewards on the progression tree Get rid of placement Since you are stretching out the progression reward tree and getting rid of placement, fold those 3*, 4*s, HP, iso and extra CP into the progression tree. No placement rewards means no need for a timer. Maybe make each node only needs to be hit 3 times before it closes for good. That would really make for a "play any time you want" scenario because just about anyone can hit all nodes on a sub 3x in 24 hours, without needing to grind. 7 day PVEs should have double the amount of rewards a 3 or 4-day PVE has (since it is the equivalent time of a 3 + 4 day PVE).

Thank you.

Crowl

fmftint wrote:

Hitting LT progression mid way through sub 2 it's my opinion that progression is too low and difficulty too high. I'd rather a high progression bar and reasonable difficulty than low progression and unfun difficulty

I think that was intentional after the first test, the combination of a relatively high total and horrible scaling probably made quite a lot of people quit the event early, whereas the low total made them more likely to carry on.

Vhailorx

hodayathink wrote:

TxMoose wrote:

one more thing: t10 filled with 3* players again. 7 of my t10 are 3* rosters. 1 is a 4* player with 2 high 5*s (lots of time and healthpacks on his hands - one of the top alliances), 1 is a 2* player and one is actually a 1* -> 2* transitioner in 8th place. that is nuts that his limited roster is able to keep up with the wide rosters of the 3* guys. you go little guy. its a messed up system that still punishes leveled rosters.

I'm gonna argue that this system doesn't punish leveled rosters as much as it punishes the people who play the PvP meta of only leveling up the best characters and leaving the other ones ISO starved. And evenly leveled roster has more options for node completion, meaning less health packs used and the ability to grind for longer, which is important when the optimal clear basically requires playing for a couple hours consecutively.

Deeper rosters won't get hurt less, they are just able to leave some characters unhealed.

As some who had just leveled the best characters up, while leaving everyone else in a playable but not maxed state, this system has been punishing in both pve and PvP.

I currently have 3 4* champs. If I had 2 million more iso, I could have 5-7 more, but I spent all my iso and have been broke since February.

For me, formerly trivial nodes are now starting at 195+ even before I start beating them. That's a massive increase in time commitment (before even considering that this new system requires extra clears).

Demiurge: I already play more than enough of your game. If you require more time for the same rewards I will just stop playing.

P.s. it's harder and harder to see these changes as anything but a backdoor attempt to rachet up the difficulty of pve (and if I can indulge in an "I said so'" moment, THIS is why I was so concerned after the first test. Everyone seemed to be distracted by 'no more 8-hour cooldown' when the bottom line was that demiurge wanted us to play much more for the same rewards. Don't fall for the distraction!). I had thought that too many CPs were being won from prog. The rubberbanding mistake in this event made the cp very easy to reach, but that was a mistake. Let's see what happens in round 3.

bluewolf

How do we assess this? Rubber banding made it very easy to hit progression with late clears. This test seems like it failed at the beginning since it had this extra variable.

This scaling and difficulty level doesn't seem like the end goal, though. Look at the opening statement. They liked the higher win rates and play time. But they wanted a more developed roster to provide a greater advantage.

I think they are trying to make a system that allows newer players to complete nodes. I recall how hard it was to complete the last 3 nodes before I moved to 3* land. If newer players can have some success, then they will probably play more and not quit. (Assuming a lot of new players quit out of frustration. And assuming success leads to more playing leads to paying for roster slots, etc.)Getting that 2* level going can take a loooong time. At the same time, I suspect the Devs want the difficulty to ramp up for lower level rosters to the point where they mostly stop after some clears, but higher level ones could press on for better prizes as they want.

If one assumes that the Devs have a strategy for player progression then they want to discourage a level 70 roster from winning (say, fourth place as in mine) as much as a level 170 roster. You will get rewards that do you the most good, ideally. So hitting t300 ain't bad for a 2* roster, really.

I think placement was hard for vets because the event was too easy for low level rosters. If you are someone who enjoyed success with a few champed 2*s you may find the future tests less enjoyable.

Just my interpretation, trying to read between the lines.

JackTenrec

The Unstable ISO-8 test was slightly less annoying than EotS, but I can tell right now that if this system gets applied to all events, Heroic Juggernaut will be completely insufferable.

TxMoose

hodayathink wrote:

TxMoose wrote:

one more thing: t10 filled with 3* players again. 7 of my t10 are 3* rosters. 1 is a 4* player with 2 high 5*s (lots of time and healthpacks on his hands - one of the top alliances), 1 is a 2* player and one is actually a 1* -> 2* transitioner in 8th place. that is nuts that his limited roster is able to keep up with the wide rosters of the 3* guys. you go little guy. its a messed up system that still punishes leveled rosters.

I'm gonna argue that this system doesn't punish leveled rosters as much as it punishes the people who play the PvP meta of only leveling up the best characters and leaving the other ones ISO starved. And evenly leveled roster has more options for node completion, meaning less health packs used and the ability to grind for longer, which is important when the optimal clear basically requires playing for a couple hours consecutively.

leveling evenly is not an option in 4* play. just to level 15 characters 'evenly' to max will take a year or so. taking that kind of time just isn't happening with anyone I know of. if you want to evenly level all characters, you'll hit a point probably around level 220-230 where you're just leveling new characters and never have enough to progress the entire group. that's where you fall behind and never catch up. we get new characters every 2 weeks and the vast majority of players cannot make enough iso in 2 weeks to max a 4 (only ones who can have a great FB group). that's where the current system breaks down.

huktonfonix

Some context for my feedback: I'm a day 140, 2*>3* transitioning player. I play a few hours a day, and typically place top 50 or top 100 in PVE depending on life commitments during a particular event, and how my roster lines up with the challenges of that event. I'd consider myself to be on the border between a casual and semi-competitive player. In both PVE tests, I've hit max progression and placed in the top 50.

Max progression was set way too high the first time, way too low this time (probably due to rubberbanding).

In both cases, the actual game play was miserable and unfun. Ever-increasing difficulty for the same node is not fun. The nodes still start much too high, forcing me to use only the top end of my roster. I like having a handful of nodes where I can try out poorly-covered/new characters and experiment with new roster combinations.

A more fundamental problem is that the "play when you want" philosophy this was supposed to fit is still an utter failure. Instead having to do one clear every 8 hours, players now need to rush through 6 clears, wait 23 hours, rush through another clear, and then do it all over again. This is much worse than the old system, unless the intent was to significantly increase the amount of grinding people have to do for the same rewards.

As long as the placement rewards exist, some players will still push for "optimal play" no matter how miserable you make that experience. You've just made that worse by making that a race to complete 11 clears per sub instead of 8, and packing all of those into a very short period of time. Instead of 3 ~7 hour periods where I couldn't play if I wanted to place well, now I have a 22 hour period where I can't play. How is that more fun?

If you truly want to allow players to play when they want (a worthy goal, and one that would probably increase my MPQ time), I would suggest either:

1) Remove all placement rewards from PVE, and make all rewards progression based (with extremely high thresholds for the top rewards like 4* covers)

or

2) Remove timers/point regeneration entirely and find a way to rank players other than speed/timing of clears. I'm not sure this is a great option, and I freely admit I don't have any great ideas for what this looks like (point deductions for wipes? charge event points instead of HP for health packs? I'm sure both have negative unforeseen consequences), but I suggest it because there seems to be no appetite to embrace the above option supported by the overwhelming majority of players, and because it's hard to do worse than the system being tested here.

Merrick

The only good thing about the test is that they left rubberbanding on.

It seems obvious that these changes will be permanently implemented in some form or another. By cherry picking the data and feedback that you like and ignoring anything that doesn't fit with your ideals. I hope I am wrong. But how similar the second test was to the initial, proves that 30+ pages of mostly negative comments meant nothing. I assume these negative comments will fall on the same deaf ears.

If you are intent on making these changes permanent, the only plea I can make is to leave the rubberbanding on and to give us a few trivial nodes back (even if they lock after 7 completions).

El Satanno

Like the previous test, I hated this event, and for largely the same reasons as practically everyone here. I'll expand if only for the sake of ensuring my opinion is not misinterpreted in any way.

Pros:

• Max progression was much more reasonable. Easy, in fact. There is nothing wrong with this in my book. This stays, I'll be a happy camper.
• Hand in hand with the first point, full point timers for multiple clears is a big positive.

Cons:

• Scaling, scaling, scaling. My roster can handle it no problem (given that my Logan isn't locked out for the harder nodes) but I would really like to be able to give my phone to my son so he can steamroll a bunch of mooks for me. I mentioned this last time, and it is the most important for me. Listen guys, not everything in this game has to be a challenge.
• Spending twice or thrice the time for the same rewards is really unappealing. This time around I ended up working the nodes opposite to my usual MO: Grind for CoPs, then go hard-to-easy until I hit progression. After one clear to open the remaining nodes, I skipped the "easy" ones altogether. If it takes the same time as the "hard" nodes and the rewards are identical, what's the point?

I checked out of any sense of competitive PvE ages ago and if this stays the way it is, I may opt out of it altogether. It'll be huge hit to my Iso gains and CoP/legendary token gains. That will suck. But honestly speaking, this setup for PvE has sucked whatever little fun was left out of it.

Zombionicdoom

I didn't find this one as frustrating as EotS but that's literally only because I got a relatively easy 25 Command Points. If the top progression award stays at that point then I guess I'm ok with it.

However this is only because my 3* roster is full and I'm after 4* covers.

As for placement in the rankings this system is a complete waste of time for me I simply don't have the time to put in the ridiculous amount of snore inducing grinding. It's incredibly frustrating going from being a competitive player to somewhere in the 300's

GrimSkald

I'm going to reiterate what a lot of people said here - this is Not Fun. I like using a lot of my roster while playing - despite the fact that I'm a 4* player (11 max 4* characters,) I actually enjoy using 3*s. This scaling completely locked me out of that - my unboosted 3*s were meat for the nodes, and even my boosted 3*s were problematic unless they were really good.

I don't know about others, but I played a fraction of what I would have otherwise. Enough to milk a decent amount of Iso and to get the CP. If they hadn't set the CP bar so low, I wouldn't have gone for that, either.

I'd say this test was only marginally better than EotS, personally. Both were horrible experiences.

Vhailorx

In addition to all of the other problems that I and others have mentioned, we shouldn't forget that the new system also requires multiple grinding before the refresh timer appears. That means that the absolutely max score requires players to perform a massive grind as soon as possible after the sub opens. So it's worse for casual players (who have to play more, harder matches to get the same rewards) And even worse for competitive players (who now have to complete massive grinds at the beginning and end of each sub back-to-back).

It's lose-lose (unless you are selling healthpacks and cps). . .

Jaedenkaal

I found it very discouraging on a node with a CP reward when I played the node 3-4 times and still didn't get the CP, meaning I probably wouldn't be able to obtain it at all from that node, or not without blowing all my healthpacks. At least with the current system it's possible to grind the node out 7 times; as they get more difficult the valuable rewards get further out of reach, only because I randomly didn't win them the first few times. This is true of all nodes with one reward that is disproportionately more desirable than others, but it's most obvious with CP nodes.

Reminator

I don't know what everyone is talking about. It was much easier placing top 50 for me on this event. In fact, I played more or less the same amount of time with the old system. The only difference was that I was able to play when I wanted to instead of waiting for a timer. I'm still developing my 3*s; I'm no 1* mook. I agree that maybe the scaling for each node should be way below your roster strength so that at least til the fifth run it gets really challenging.

But honestly I love this new system, even if I had to play more to get a better placing. I'd rather have to play more than have to play during certain times. Freedom to play when I want is way more valuable to me.

Vhailorx

Reminator wrote:

I don't know what everyone is talking about. It was much easier placing top 50 for me on this event. In fact, I played more or less the same amount of time with the old system. The only difference was that I was able to play when I wanted to instead of waiting for a timer. I'm still developing my 3*s; I'm no 1* mook. I agree that maybe the scaling for each node should be way below your roster strength so that at least til the fifth run it gets really challenging.

But honestly I love this new system, even if I had to play more to get a better placing. I'd rather have to play more than have to play during certain times. Freedom to play when I want is way more valuable to me.

Scaling might have been significantly different for 2*-->3* transitioners.

And placement is hard to judge since its just a measure of how much you played relative to everyone else. And if you had an easier time in an event with lackluster rewards, then it's easier to finish higher.

Broadly speaking;

(1) if you care about optimal scoring, this new system is worse. It slightly increases the total number of matches that need to be played. And it changes the optimal schedule to 2 highs grinds, one each at the beginning and end of each sub.

(2) if you just want to play whenever you have the time, this system is still worse. Matches take longer, are noticeably harder, and more matches are necessary for prog rewards. Placement isnt really a factor, since it is determined by other people, not the system, especially outside the top 20.

Don't get this as some fervent defense of the old system. I wasnt much of fan. But removing one irritant (the refresh timer) and adding in several new ones (massive. Start and finish grinds, higher scaling, higher prog rewards, etc) is just a bad deal for players.

Unknown

I have a well developed 3* and underdeveloped 4* roster, playing for over a year. But my time is also severely limited due to work, kids and life in general. I like the change in format overall. I haven't been able to play PVE optimally for 6 months and rarely can complete a full grind. But the ability in these tests to play the nodes when I could without feeling like I'm wasting points was a god send and something I have severely missed since the test ended.

Clearly, kinks need to be worked out. I like the rising difficulty, but the presence of so many 70 and 100 iso prizes make it feel less rewarding. If the number of prizes were cut from 7 to 5 and the optimal number of clears cut to 4 rather than 6, with all the progression numbers changed to match, I think that might be a nice medium.

As for the difficulty scaling, I didn't have a problem with it in either case, but unless it was a CP node, I never did it more than 3 times. It was nice to be reminded how much of a bastard Bullseye backed by Muscles could be.