PVE Scaling Feedback & New Test : Unstable Iso-8

Keegan

wymtime wrote:

"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.

So my EASY levels are at 209 to start? I do not think that word means what you think it means

I understand the sticker shock. How did the level turn out when actually playing? Was it, in fact, easy?

aa25

"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.

Thanks for the info. Out of curiosity, how is this going to impact the test ? Is there any assessment made to prepare for any abnormalities due to this ? My understanding from your OP is that the goal is to fine tune the starting level and progress reward points. One thing I can see is that this rubber banding will definitely change how people optimally play the event.

Keegan

I'm about three-quarters through grinding the nodes down. Compared to the EotS event, I'm finding this vastly improved. The levels aren't breaking me after the third pass at each node like the first test, and aside from the accidental rubberbanding I'm appreciating being able to grind these down while I have time. Overall I find this improved over the 8hr/8hr/end-of-sub grind system, but there's a ways to go.

CyberVenom2001

I hope this wasn't a case of falling for the mistake, and we will see in the next section.

But I really liked this run over the last one. This was challenging but still alot of fun. The battles seemed fair and actually made me want to replay them to get all the prizes.

The only things I'd consider changing are the prizes themselves. If difficulty is getting bumped up, so should rewards. And I stand by the idea of getting progression rewards and not standings vs other players like PVP.

Overall, though, much better! Great job!

Unknown

Wait...so does that mean it's possible for someone to get more points for 6 clears than the first person that did them?

slidecage

"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.

Can you tell use what the pts were to be starting at.. At least the Ess nodes..

Killinstinct

Mau-- wrote:

Wait...so does that mean it's possible for someone to get more points for 6 clears than the first person that did them?

exactly..

MeatLoafX

Here is my roster:
https://mpq.gamependium.com/rosters/MeatLoafX

I have a few nodes to get down to 6/7 (daredevil is at 4/7 and one other is at the same I think and I can't do the captain falcon node) and I'm at 10th overall and 9th for the sub event right now with about 11 hours to go.

For me - and I'm sure this doesn't help - this has been pretty easy. Goons started at 30ish and are at 65ish right now. I've had to use maybe 4 HPs so far, mainly due to some bad cascades. A fun time, some challenge, and more freedom to play as I want.

For people at my level... Which you can see in my roster.... This seems to be easier and I really like not having to set a schedule to play.

And if it makes anyone feel better I still get killed at pvp.

Tryke

Hi David or Anthony,

May not apply to Unstable Iso-8, but were there any developments on wave nodes?

pabasa130

My reaction when I find that my first three 'easy' nodes were levels 130-160:



Seriously! We already have 6 nodes that scale! What's wrong with keeping the first three trivial and easy so that I can make use of my 1/0/2 5* spidey to grind? Keep the first three nodes as it currently is, and test the scaling on the other 6 nodes.

Sad thing is I don't know how to convey this frustration in-game, as I still need to do all the nodes to get the rewards, and the devs might reconstrue this as "people are still playing this game lots!".

One plus is that my hard nodes aren't increasing as difficulty as it used to. So far...

wymtime

I think meatloaf and pabasa make good points. Where meatloaf is currently in the game the new MMR is great he can take on all but one node. The scaling to his roster is appropriate.

For pabasa and vets because the first 3 nodes have gone up significantly in difficulty it is really limiting our usable roster. My 2* essential node was the easiest at 209 with a 1 cover 2*. My easy nodes are now over 225 after 1 clear. Having 9 tough nodes is not fun especially when the play style is to grind the nodes down. It is sad for a vet player I have not seen any real positives from this test. To grind a node down 7 times to start an event when I can only use 1/4 of my roster

GritsNGravy

Early look. Levels still start about 70-80 higher for me. Makes me want to play PVE even less...

Crowl

donnel wrote:

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.

It does seem so weird that they have chosen to try and fix stuff that wasn't broken in the first place, nobody was asking for them to make trivial nodes harder, people wanted to be punished less on the harder nodes and for those with lesser rosters to be able to keep 5* covers without trashing their entire game's playability.

Increasing flexibility is a laudable goal that this game desperately needs on the pve side of things as the time commitments were already excessive, but making the optimal strategy for top placement in this new system being a double grind of a dozen clears in a row is idiotic.

pheregas

Well, my rubber banded top node that's 4/7 is now up to 446 points and has A COUNTDOWN TIMER FOR 45 minutes. How is that possible?

Theovo

So I just cleared my FalCap node 7 times and no CP yet. The 24-hour reset has started, but the main screen only shows I've cleared 6/7. Anyone else seeing this?

Otherwise, this go round seems much improved over EotS.

wymtime

After you 2nd clear I have 0 easy nodes. All my nodes are now showing normal. My EASY nodes are 242, 262, 280. How is this fun?

Warbringa

Ok, so since scaling is such a problem overall for many people (the new system is actually kinder to me being in 3* land) should boosts just be gotten rid of entirely in PvE so it lowers scaling and hopefully allows you to utilize more of your roster? I know I rarely use boosted characters outside of my maxed characters because they are usually sub-tier characters for that tier anyway. For example, Quicksilver is boosted to level 176 for me and I have him max covered but I would use about 20 other maxed champed 3* instead of him because they are better, hence why I never leveled him like I did with other 3* (although if I leveled anymore 3* he would probably be in the next 3 to be leveled). The only downside to this for me is that there are times with boosted 2* that I have found them useful since they can now go up to level 144 and over 200 with boosts.

Milamber42

I'm due to start the event in 70 minutes and came here to check if the "hit each node a ridiculous amount of times to start the timer" was still in. Looks like another break from MPQ (from a somewhat competitive PVE player, 13 in last event).

If this is the normal, I think I'm out. It just feels like a grab for competitive players being forced to get more health packs. The 8 hour timer before allowed time for health packs to replenish... Maybe the difficulty level sanity check helps, maybe not. It also feels like more of a time sink...

What is it that is so broken with the current system - beyond some timezones perhaps being more friendly to the starting times and 8hr intervals than others?

Cheers,
Milamber42

Redrobot30

Played the first node in the Arctic Circle and said screw it. I'm not spending a crazy amount of time grinding like I did in EotS especially for the joke placement rewards. Low total progression score to hit the 25CP wasn't even close to luring me in to help with this test run.

aa25

Thanks for the testing. Here are the numbers for me

Main:
Loaner node: Loaners Lv 176, 170, 154. Enemy Lv 110
Bullseye Lv 63
Relationship issues Lv 94

First sub
Cold Combat Lv 94 -> 102
Greenland ops Lv 100 -> 109
Winter Soldiers Lv 112 -> 123

Red Iso-8 on Snow Lv 122 -> 133
Too Cold for Comfort Lv 122 - 133 -> 145 -> 159 -> 173 -> 188 -> 205
Freeze, buddy Lv 122 -> 133 -> 145 -> 159(CP) -> 173 -> 188 -> 205

Hawkeye Lv 95 -> 103
Daredevil Lv 100
Flaptain Lv 106

My roster
Phoenix Lv 270
SS Lv 270
Hawkeye Lv 178
Groot Lv 166
Quake Lv 153
Ant man Lv 148
Quicksilver Lv 139
Ms Marvel 127
Switch Lv 127
Psylocke Lv 127

Overall, I like the scaling much better than the one in EotS. I am not sure if it is intentional though that my last three nodes start off the same. Gameplay-wise this is not a big deal. But reward-wise, this asks a question why only the last node gives a CP as a reward while the rests do not. (In this particular sub, only the last node has a non-goon character, but it is not always the case in other PvE.) Also, 205 is the level of the opponents in the second to the last node in the old system and the last node is like 220.

On a side note: I did get wiped out twice in the last node due to the "Mighty" Muscles' death-ray though.

Edit: I just want to add that I still don't like the idea of having to grind the node 7 times before get into tie-breaker or having to clear the node 7 times right away and let the point restored and do the final clear before the sub end for optimal point earned for competitive gameplay. I am fine with having a competitive element in the PvE, but not like this.

Edit2: Add more levels