PVE Scaling Feedback & New Test : Unstable Iso-8

pheregas

Anyone else notice some of the nodes decreasing in value after being played? Top node (cold combat) after 4 wins is down to 377 points.

Thought they were supposed to remain static until after 6th win.

Bryan Lambert

scottee wrote:

I don't disagree that they should remove placement rewards from PVE, but to be fair, they have tried it once and that's how the Gauntlet came about.

Right, but the only real problem with Gauntlet is that the rewards are scaled proportionally downward due to the lack of grind. If the Gauntlet gave rewards equivalent to top progression and, say, top 100 placement in a new release PvE, it'd be the favorite event of 95% of the player base. And if there were alliance progression rewards to make up for some of the high-end competitive rewards, most of that last 5% would jump on board too.

Punatulkku

Starting lvl to me, 126 lvl enemies. me who doesnt have even one 4* hero fully covered and leveled, but who has some 3* with lvl 170+ and three 5* with two covers... umm thanks, but no thanks

veny

So far so good, BUT i have all covers available, 5* included. I dont know what would happen while doing last event (Dark Avengers) with same roster.
Maybe DEVs should think about difficulty decrease over time (enemies level will drop after few minutes up to default value).

fmftint

pheregas wrote:

Anyone else notice some of the nodes decreasing in value after being played? Top node (cold combat) after 4 wins is down to 377 points.

Thought they were supposed to remain static until after 6th win.

Is that a "Join Forces" node? Those decay immediately

roberts_2

Easy fights on beginning they say? Where?
The system maybe works on PVP but don't works on PVE. Stop ruining a strong-good game please, it's not funny play this PVE changes and one game without the fun is not worthy.

WelcomeDeath

"David wrote:

Moore"] In general, we saw better win rates and people were playing the event more.

Ok. What does playing the event more entail? More clears or more people entering? As far as better win rates...I know I played 3 nodes, won them, and quit the event. Does my 100% win rate factor in? I know many others that did the same, or just entered for free tokens. So does it measure by time played or just a yes or no participation?

"David wrote:

Moore"]However, we also saw that missions were too difficult and reaching particular progression rewards took longer than we’d like. We’ll be testing the new system again in the Unstable Iso-8 Story event with some changes. We’ve lowered mission difficulty...Every mission got easier. The easy missions more so, increasing the range of difficulty...

Ok...so here's a question. I saved my first non-teamup node for EOTS, it started with level 192 enemies. My first non-teamup node this event? Level 212. Does easier mean more/higher level enemies? I'm confused. Also, if it's a broader range, should I expect level 390 enemies on hard nodes instead of starting in 250 range? Again I got excited when I read the change...again disappointed. To contrast, my first node in Heroic event started at level 35...

"David wrote:

Moore"], and made it easier to earn progression rewards.

I guess this one depends on definition. Less clears? Seems it may be. Easier? Not if my enemies are starting at Higher levels. Either way, I'll never know. I won't be playing this event further.

"David wrote:

Moore"]Essential missions have a range of difficulty across the different star tiers. All are easier than the previous run of the updated mission difficulty. 2-Star Essential missions are the easiest and 4-Star Essential missions are the hardest.
Progression rewards for the 3-Star cover and Command Points have been lowered.

This actually makes sense, providing it makes exceptions for new characters. This will actually make it easier if your roster is better, assuming this works as intended. Progression rewards lowered makes sense as well, should take less clears than the awful EOTS test event.

Appreciate the second try, but you've missed the mark altogether. Missed the whole target actually. The main complaint with EOTS was the scaling...which appears to be WORSE this event. This is very important, and I believe I speak on behalf of the player base on this, so pay attention.

WE. LIKE. TRIVIAL. NODES.

We don't want every single node to be a challenge and we'd like some relatively easy to earn ISO. Any change that attempts to eliminate this will not be received well by the playerbase. We'll see what happens next time, I suppose. Third time's a charm right?

Keegan

pheregas wrote:

Anyone else notice some of the nodes decreasing in value after being played? Top node (cold combat) after 4 wins is down to 377 points.

Thought they were supposed to remain static until after 6th win.

Going for my fourth turn on "Freeze, Buddy!" the full points dropped from 395 to 391 right in front of my eyes.

Esheris

After doing a run through, it looks like they didn't change anything and the scaling is still miserable.

I'm actually not sure how they managed to fail this hard twice in a row. I'm really not trying to be mean...but I feel like D3 is being mean to us by wanting us to test out this awful system.

Also, if you want us to play Beta Testers it would be nice to have a few extra rewards in the mix of all this pain.

*Edit. I'm being a little harsh and it shows. It's only because (like most of you) I care a lot about this game and want it to succeed, as well as be the most fun it can be!

alphabeta

#fail

Not much else needs saying really - thanks for giving me my weekend back - your incompetence is my real life gain

elusive

Then it turns out that this is all a plot to get us to be content with the old PvE style. This is what you get when you ask for change, folks!

firethorne

tanis3303 wrote:

Bryan Lambert wrote:

2) The people making this game fundamentally misunderstand it's appeal.

Seriously, this deserves more than just the single upvote I'm able to give it. The whole post is very well said and I agree 100%, but #2:) rings true in so many ways. It seems that the team that makes the game is playing a completely different game than the rest of us. Maybe it's even fun for them. But for us, the people that probably play the game the most out of their entire user base, WHAT YOU'RE DOING IS NOT FUN!! We don't want every fight to be so difficult that only our best teams have a shot at taking it down. We don't want every mode to be a battle vs the entirety of the player base.

This. So much this! The degree to which they seem out of touch boggles the mind. You have a poll on your forum right now asking if the game is fun, and only half of the respondents are saying yes.

This is a video game. Pretty much the only reason for its existence is that people have fun. If the dev team doesn't see that response as a profoundly troubling statistic, then they are wildly out of touch with reality.

fmftint

STOP penalizing us with BOOSTED characters that effect scaling. A boost should be a bonus not a handicap

donnel

I didn't post any feedback during the last pve test because I assumed the overall reaction was negative. Perhaps not enough given this new test, so I'll add my 2 cents. The current (non-test) format of PVE is the most accessible path for progression. Giving out a fairly generous 3 3*s to the top 50 and 1-3 4*s for top 10, it's the best possible way of adding covers to your roster, and without much pay to play (health packs and boosts optional). All in all, it is a fairly lengthy time commitment to stay in the top tier of PVE, requiring a minimum of 2.5 hrs each day, but perhaps that's the trade-off of a mainly free format (by contrast, PVP bears out an extreme form of pay-to-be-competitive). Even with the current benefits, many people don't play competitive PVE because of the required time commitment every single day of an event.

With time being the main deterrent to engaging in competitive pve, it seems awfully cruel to add to the total number of clears needed to hit minimum pts and simultaneously increase node difficulty to such an extent that all battles will take about as much time as the normal/hard nodes in the previous format. It makes top level PVE play a war of attrition, in the sense that the game is asking how many people in a bracket of 1,000 are willing to spend 4-6 hrs of their day on a measly sub prize and a shot at placement at the end? The only thing I think this accomplishes is lowering overall playerbase engagement in PVE. By making the optimal method of play such an incredibly large time commitment, you're forcing players to pick between living a balanced lifestyle (already questionable in the current format) and going for the top prize(s). As someone who's played a lot of PVE over the past several months, I can say for certain that the new format will make me choose progression over placement much more frequently.

wymtime

"David wrote:

Moore"]Hi everyone,

The MPQ dev team have been assessing user results and feedback gathered during the recent Enemy of the State Story scaling testing. We are now ready to run an additional test in the upcoming Unstable Iso-8 event.

Updated Mission Difficulty Details:
• Every mission got easier.

o The easy missions more so, increasing the range of difficulty.

via Imgflip Meme Maker

David [Hi-Fi] Moore

Hi everyone,

The dev team wanted to let players know that rubber banding was accidentally turned on for the event. This would account for unexpected behavior some players may be seeing with points going up and down when beating missions. Apologies for any frustration this may have caused.
(A small benefit from this error is that missions are currently worth more than what was intended.)

Thanks.

stowaway

"David wrote:

Moore"]Hi everyone,

The dev team wanted to let players know that rubber banding was accidentally turned on for the event. This would account for unexpected behavior some players may be seeing with points going up and down when beating missions. Apologies for any frustration this may have caused.
(A small benefit from this error is that missions are currently worth more than what was intended.)

Thanks.

Genuine thanks for letting us know. Did they also pull the wrong lever and plug in the settings from the previous test? Because it really doesn't feel very different.

fmftint

"David wrote:

Moore"]Hi everyone,

The dev team wanted to let players know that rubber banding was accidentally turned on for the event. This would account for unexpected behavior some players may be seeing with points going up and down when beating missions. Apologies for any frustration this may have caused.
(A small benefit from this error is that missions are currently worth more than what was intended.)

Thanks.

Why does this NOT surprise me?

Keegan

"David wrote:

Moore"]Hi everyone,

The dev team wanted to let players know that rubber banding was accidentally turned on for the event. This would account for unexpected behavior some players may be seeing with points going up and down when beating missions. Apologies for any frustration this may have caused.
(A small benefit from this error is that missions are currently worth more than what was intended.)

Thanks.

Appreciate the info. I was confused - lowering the points while increasing the level difficulty seemed *very* counterintuitive

Warbringa

Yes my "hard nodes" started easier by about 40 levels compared to EtS however the mix of boosted characters offered is worse in this event than EtS was for me so I am finding it actually harder after the first play through as far as damage taken. Even with Patch boosted! Why so many blue/red/purple boosted at once (2* Mags, 2* Hawkeye, Daredevil, etc.)? Just a random boosts that doesn't benefit my roster too much which I know happens from time to time.

Also the initial scenario with loaners that you first play took me forever!!! Got boards that wouldn't give me red and it took forever to win the match since that is the only offense that team gets. I would recommend a better selection of required characters next time and not have so much color overlap.