PVE Scaling Feedback & New Test : Unstable Iso-8

The Viceroy Returns

Azoth658 wrote:

If this is the case it would be better to let yourself get hit a fair bit then win for lower levels overall, which would be a weird mechanic.

Actually, this is exactly how PVE nodes increase in levels in the current system now that rubber-banding is gone (thank God for that at least).
There have been many posts about it in the history of this forum to determine the best way to keep levels low by taking a certain amount of total damage intentionally per fight.
Which frankly, is completely nonsensical design.

CrookedKnight

After an hour of bashing my head against these fights with the lousy-as-hell boosted roster, I'm just using my A-team of 4Clops, Jean Grey and IM40 for everything because there is no fight in the event that's reliably winnable with less. Great job, guys.

SnowcaTT

DuckyV wrote:

Unless the difficulty is ramped WAY down, I don't see myself playing PvE competitively anymore because the biggest issue is the MASSIVE time sink for optimal play in the new format. Please, please, please, reconsider it.

And for those who say it wasn't a problem during EotS, just wait until a new character is released with the 24 hour CD format and see your placement plummet compared to what it was for the test events.

I was already done with the PVE grind, but still hit them for CP/ISO. I mentioned in the first test and it stayed true this time - this only slows any transition even further.

If D3 wants 5*'s everywhere in PVP and long, difficult grinds in PVE they should just move to a non-health pack economy. The only way I could see salvaging this constant grind of hard nodes would be to have all your characters at full health going into every match.

Who had last time "Need at least one: Good Rewards, short length, easy nodes"? I fully agreed that time, and it has reared it's head again. No one wants to take the time to grind this for the rewards that are there.

80 easy nodes: length + poor rewards - I'd play it.
Great rewards: Length + Difficult (test but with much better rewards) - I might play it.
10 hard nodes with less grind: Hard + poor rewards (pretty much before test, I don't play it but some do)

TEST - Length + difficulty + poor rewards - who wants to play that?

dokiy

So far so good for me. Scaling hasn't been an issues through the first day. We shall see how things continue.

Smudge

I haven't joined the new test PvE yet (probably joining slice 4), but my concern is that they will take the play time stats that were "positive" from the EotS test, the current ISO test, and the intervening Venom Bomb and Heroic events, and say...

"We saw positive increases in playtime for Enemy of the State and Unstable ISO-8, and we saw a marked drop in the playtime overall for both the Venom Bomb event and the Heroic event. As such, the new system will be implemented as is."

This despite announcements of another test to follow, simply because the two intervening events were every bit as horrendous as the test events. That is what worries me - Venom Bomb is tough enough as it is, and the Heroic with its limited roster... they both discourage a lot of people from playing based on forum feedback, so I hope they are not collecting data on the events between the tests for comparison.

TxMoose

I won't jump in until tomorrow, but I'm really enjoying the heroic and I actually enjoyed VB compared to EotS. why? because I could play less and get decent rewards. I have an upper limit on my available play time and the old pve system pushes that limit. the new one completely obliterates it, making pve undoable for me. it sounds like this adjusted one is more of the same, with a 1% lower difficulty. since there's no waves to extend the time further and what looks like a reasonable progression, i'll see what I can do - but I don't expect it to be very enjoyable.

seshoma

I really dont see any changes , its the same as eots.
My easy node was at lv 292 .
The changes are just making pve worse.
I rather have the normal pve than than these horrible test changes

carrion_pigeons

If it's possible to make progression in one (say, 2-hour) sitting per day, then that sounds fine to me. Anything beyond that can start the timer and let people grind out placement. I really hope that's where this is going.

thanos8587

my opening levels in this event were 177. in eots it was 190. 13 lvl drop, not even 10%. now technically they did lower the difficulty, but seriously. and oh yeah they went up 16 lvls on the first fight. i think i can hit progression reasonably at 8250 pts per day, but placement in top 100 is out of the question. have fun all.

my essentials are 177, 187 and 198. grind grind grind.

mpqr7

My easy node was still way too hard. Not too hard for me to beat, but too hard for me to want to play it multiple times. In the past, easy nodes were fun because you could rip through them quickly and earn a decent amount of iso for the low challenge. But now, each node feels like the final advanced node, so when I realize that it's a lot of work for a pittance of points and rewards, it just doesn't make me feel excited to keep playing it.

Again I must ask, why am I being punished for having a good roster? Why do I have to fight endless battles for the same prizes that people with bad rosters get, when they get to fight easy battles for them?

Oh and my opening level for the first "easy" node was around 270. Ugh.

fmftint

mpqr7 wrote:

My easy node was still way too hard. Not too hard for me to beat, but too hard for me to want to play it multiple times. In the past, easy nodes were fun because you could rip through them quickly and earn a decent amount of iso for the low challenge. But now, each node feels like the final advanced node, so when I realize that it's a lot of work for a pittance of points and rewards, it just doesn't make me feel excited to keep playing it.

Again I must ask, why am I being punished for having a good roster? Why do I have to fight endless battles for the same prizes that people with bad rosters get, when they get to fight easy battles for them?

Oh and my opening level for the first "easy" node was around 270. Ugh.

Too hard for 70
Rewards need to scale with node level

Uthgarprime

All this is, is a fishing mission by D3, how hard can we have it be and still rake in money on more health pack sales. I don't have a problem with them making money but this is just a bad way to fish for it. I don't understand why nothing in the game can be easy any more. Not everything, just something. Their are still no easy nodes in this test, every single node is a 5 minute slog through the battle. You nerf my 3 star roster and then make the game harder for me. I don't find this fun or challenging, I find it VERY BORING. Every other game you play has some part of it that is rather easy in case you want to take a break from the grind. Are they trying to win over the Asian market, that is the part of the world that love to just grind games. I think they are trying really hard to slow down progression for some reason, that and make more money off health packs, that is the only reasonable explanation for these changes. I would like to know if anyone at D3 plays the game and do they find 5 minute plus slogs every single battle fun.

Dark Nova

OK, I've tried it. I hate it.

The issue was never the 'smoothing' of first/last node difficulties, it's the ridiculous ramping up of levels after you clear each node. What happened to "enemies get stronger, but not as fast as you do"? So when the opposing team all jump 20 levels, how exactly am I supposed to get all my guys to a higher level than that using the scrawny 70-ISO reward that I just got? Or better yet, with Crit Boosts?

If the number of people playing the event is a measure of success then I'm getting out early. Devs, please take note. Good luck to whoever gets the Chulk covers - think of it as 3000-ISO and it doesn't sound quite so bad!

tanis3303

mpqr7 wrote:

Again I must ask, why am I being punished for having a good roster? Why do I have to fight endless battles for the same prizes that people with bad rosters get, when they get to fight easy battles for them?

Couldn't say it any better myself. I will never understand the need they seem to think there is for EVERY battle to be blisteringly, phone thowingly difficult. Why?? Who is that for? It's a game. Let us play around a bit and have some fun FFS!!

Lopan15

Just started and don't like it. Looks like cp only for me since the placement rewards are ****.

Unknown

ammenell wrote:

EstherC wrote:

As someone reaching 2 years on this game, id say don't bother with your feedback.
What's going to happen is (a) they are just going to assess it based on their data (b) pick and choose what changes they like best (c) go with it anyway and bear the initial brunt /tirade until we get fed up screaming at the wall.

Rinse and repeat.

this, absolutely.
this was clear after two months reading the forums.

We can give a bunch of feedback to explain how to make the game more fun, but as long as the "Data" shows we are still playing the old way it wont matter. Data shows the player base is going to play no matter how broken the game gets.

Malcrof

My subs are starting out much higher than in EoTS.. Easy nodes at the level of the 2nd clear of the hard nodes in EoTS.. In EoTS i had 2 champed boosted 4*s, this event i have none.. and levels are still pretty insane.

The only saving grace is that there are lots of goon only nodes

MeatLoafX

I'm pretty new to the game... Still playing champ two star characters ... But the waves started much lower than my level... 30-40 primarily and after a few clears, up in the 60s. I cleared one full run of all but one essential because I didn't have the captain America and used maybe one health pack. Now, that was only one hit on each node and a few on the lower ones before I ran out of time but at was my experience.

(Just to be clear, I hit each node once and some a few times... Never got out of hand)

What triggers the timer now? Sorry if already answered elsewhere.

fmftint

MeatLoafX wrote:

What triggers the timer now? Sorry if already answered elsewhere.

6x full point clears

CrookedKnight

Recommendation: The next test of this scoring system should include no changes at all to the baseline enemy level scaling used in Heroic Oscorp, Venom Bomb, etc. Demiurge, you're implementing two changes here and one of them is universally reviled, which is going to make it tough to get feedback or data on the other. You know what we think of the new scaling setup - it's terrible and makes the game not fun. Give us a chance to see what the "play when you want, as long as you're not going for top 10" scoring is like when we want to play at all.