PVE Scaling Feedback & New Test : Unstable Iso-8

mazerat

Finished with Arctic Circle, here are my thoughts:

I'm currently working on transitioning to 3-stars, 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.

I did 6 clears of the loaner node and all the non-featured nodes.* Along with DDQ, this took me about two and a half play sessions worth of health packs and I wiped on Enchilada once.

My featured nodes start at 52/53/52, 55/55/55, and 59/60/59. I forgot to record what my easiest and hardest nodes started at, but I assume Cold Combat started where Hawkeye starts and Freeze, Buddy! started where Faptain does. My easiest node ended at 89/90/90 and my hardest node ended at 116/117/116.

After finishing, I have 10307/33000 progression towards CP. I've never done this event before but since other events are back-loaded, this one seems to be very generous with progression and I anticipate no problems hitting CP. I am currently ranked #88 but I will probably drop as people grind. The top ranked person in my slice has 18k and the next 5 have 16k+. Just kind of eyeballing the top five rosters, there's one 2-3 transitioner and the rest are a mix of 3-4/5 or 4-5.

Overall thoughts after one day: The event seems very doable. Muscles are Muscles--sometimes you'll get good matches and sometimes you won't and suddenly the board is filled with strike tiles and you get murdered--but it never felt frustrating. As noted, I'm on track to CP after 3 of the 4 days without doing any featured nodes. I started to record my time spent and then forgot but a full clear under the old system usually took around an hour and I don't think I spent much more than 4 hours so it's not much more of a time sink at this point and it's nice being able to do it on my schedule.

I enjoy the experiment so far. The only thing I can ask for is better direction. I.e. Sub-events are so disproportionate that you generally have very little idea of whether you're on track for progression. Under the old system you could do three-ish clears and have faith that you would hit CP. Six clears here looks like it's going to be quite a bit of overkill so it would be nice to know what the developers' intent is as far as clears and playtime needed.

*I don't keep Hawkeye, Daredevil, or Faptain on my roster normally and ideally I'd like to build the team I want to build and be able to reach CP with rostered featured characters being a bonus or something I can use for hard placement pushes rather than "gotta catch 'em all". I don't know how that meshes with the developer view but I'm keeping Hawkeye and Daredevil in reserve unless I need them to hit CP.

Lukoil

I have only one question..... Why points are decreasing when you win?????
First attempt - 501 points. Second attempt 485 point.....**** is this?? Increased difficulty = decreased rewards???

Now it is 467....451....435...419...24 hours start (335)
That is some **** game design.... rewards shoul increase with increased difficulty, not decrease...

I am talking about last node right now..

abmoraz

Keegan wrote:

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?

TINYKITTY NO, it wasn't easy. Easy levels should be ... EASY. They should be something I can use my 'B', 'C' or even 'D' teams on. Something I can throw my lower end characters in my roster at, or my single covered that I made the mistake of rostering, or the multi-covered chars that are languishing at level 70 cause I am forever ISO starved.

And joy... I see they left the "You now have to commit 5 contiguous hours in order to even hope of finishing with a decent reward" setting on... [sarcasm emoji]

Ok, time to ask million dollar question: "Why the [blank] are there a PvP reward system in a PvE event?"

That is the core problem with Story Mode. NONE of the problems people are complaining about would be a problem if they didn't feel the need and the pressure to preform in a PvE environment like it was a PvP event. Whether we are talking about the old system or the new test systems, The first complaint is "The scaling sucks; It rewards softcappers; It punishes people for getting better rosters; etc..." The reason this complaint exists is because of the 2nd complaint "I need to do too much mindless grinding because the best rewards are the placement rewards, and to get those, I have to out-grind other players..." People think the scaling sucks because it means they can't grind enough to get the good rewards, not because it actually sucks.

If there were no placement rewards, just progression rewards, the time (8hr vs 24hr) would be utterly irrelevant. You could grind when you had time. You could play the nodes that were fun and skip the ones that make your throw your phone through the wall. It wouldn't matter at all *WHEN* you played, just that you actually played. Did you get enough points to reach a certain reward? CONGRATULATIONS! You earned that reward. Did someone else score higher than you? WHO CARES??? This isn't a PvP event.

As far as the question "How do you distribute the current Placement rewards into the Progression rewards if Placement rewards go away?" I see a lot of people posting that "just intermix them with the current progression rewards" and that is not a good idea. The reward distribution would be thrown WAAAAY off. Progression rewards are cumulative. if you get progression reward #8, that means you got numbers 1 through 7 already. Placement rewards are not (for the most part). If you get the tier 8 placement reward, you do NOT get rewards 1 through 7 as well. Under the current placement scheme, each 1000 person bracket gives out, split across 13 ranks, a total of:
16x covers (roughly 1 cover per 60 players)
350x covers (roughly 1 cover per 3 players)
200x covers (1 cover per 5 players)
700x tokens (roughly 2 tokens for every 3 players)
6250 Hero Points (6.25 Points per player)
385,000 ISO (385 ISO per player)

These could be split and put into a separate event vault, one that you cannot buy extra pulls or resets for. Because vaults work on random draws, they can be set up so that the rewards come out to the same odds stated above so that the overall rewards stay the same throughout the game. The size of the vault would be determined by how many sub-events there are. Why? I'll explain that in this next section.

They could add an optional 'Final Clear' button to each node that does not provide a loaner character. The final clear is a big jump in difficulty (I'd say +50% from the current level would be good start) and since each clear raises the level, the final clear gets much bigger. If you lose, nothing out of the ordinary happens. You can go back to grinding that node or try the final clear again. The fun comes when you beat the 'final clear'. When you beat it, you get a pull from the "(re)Placement Rewards Vault" BUT the node locks for good. You can no longer grind it. You can no longer get points for it towards progression rewards. The Number of tokens available for each event would then be 9x the number of sub-events. That would be the maximum number of tokens one could get for the vault draws.

This would add a nice bit of strategy to the game. Do you grind for progression points, increasing the levels along the way but possibly making the final clear impossible thereby ruining your chance at pulling the ... or do you do the final clear earlier, guaranteeing a pull from the vault, but forgoing future points from grinding and the remainder of the rewards for that node? Do you grind for points and the guaranteed progression rewards, or take your chances for the potentially bigger (and smaller) vault rewards? Will you be unable to grind for placement rewards... just do the "final clear" on the first pass and collect the vault draws.

Thoughts?

Lukoil

wait a minute....to add to my last post... ALL NODES are decresing in points after each win....i don't get it... is it a bug or intentional **** design?

Milamber42

Sorry developers, I'm done with testing. This new format just isn't worth the time and effort to grind away for ranking.

I do appreciate that the "multiple times to trigger the 24 hour timer" works better when stages in the event are only 24 hours, but it still strikes me as a cynical grab for health packs from players grinding for ranking. This may not be the case, but it certainly *feels* that way.

I might jump in and do a few stages for crystals, and may contemplate going for the CP cumulative points reward, but I'm not wasting my time in trying for the position rewards.

Can people explain to me what is so wrong with the current format? I can appreciate that playing at your own pace may be better than the 8hr cycle, but nothing about these changes appeals to me as a solution - it's still grinding and is even less fun, with the only plus perhaps being more rewards.

My preference would be PVE ranking events to stay as is, and have an event to the side following this sort of format - increasing difficulty, multiple hits in a 24hr period, node rewards and cumulative point stage rewards... Just no ranking rewards.

Back in earnest for the next event in 4 days.

dkffiv

Posted how to fix pve, every point was ignored.

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=41677

I'm not playing for 5 hours straight to clear 18 nodes 6 times each. Every node started at 300 before scaling even kicked in. The nodes that were originally low level are still awarding the lower tier of rewards (70 iso, best node only 200).

More play, more damage / kits, less rewards (per time invested at least). Explain how this is beneficial

ammenell

didnt jump in yet, but from what i read i rather repeat my playstyle from the last pve - open the sub, play the 4* essential seven times throughout the day, get the cp and wait for the next sub to open.

joining late for a fresh bracket?
nah, no use for that placement rewards.

playing to top 300 for the event token?
yeah, sure.

beside the 4* essential node, i will play a node here and there when im bored, shielded in pvp, done with ddq and no LRs are up.

how can i be already done with a game mode without even playing?

babinro

I'm a 5* tier player with Surfer and Phoenix at 450 and OML at 420.
I also have all 3*'s championed and 17 4*'s championed.

My experience with the first sub has been essentially identical to the last event. As a result I'll simply post my feedback from before in the spoiler below:

babinro wrote:

Figured I'd give my feedback even though it's been echoed by other players plenty of times now.

My 7th clear on Hell's Kitchen "The Gorgon" Node contains level 473 goons including:
- Konran at 62,146 health
- Gorgan at 74.626 health
- Wolverine at 57,075 health
Total Health: 193,847

A couple of facts about the PvE:
- Kishu's have been dealing nearly ~4800 AoE damage with their Caltrops.
- I've put more time into this event than I do a new character release and rather than comfortably finishing in top 20 I'm struggling to hold on to top 50.
- My brackets top 10 overall are all 3* tier players with either no fully leveled 4*'s or under three 4*'s fully covered (seemingly random ones at that...not your typical powerful JG/HB/Rulk groups)
- I've gone from using 2-4 or so health packs per full 7 round PvE clear to using around 15-20+

My Opinions on the new format:
The new format is not fun. Health pools like the one posted above all but prevent the existence of roster diversity. Assuming I could survive with a 4* team it would just be absurdly time consuming. Match lengths with 5*'s have increased dramatically. The challenge feels unfair at times and we have absolutely no improved rewards to show for any of this.

Even if the scaling numbers were adjusted so leaderboards reflected more variety I wouldn't enjoy the changes because optimal play means grinding subs immediately and then doing so again at the end of the sub. The old system was flawed but much better than the new one.

Suggestions for a better Competitive PvE:
1) Remove timers entirely.
Timers are to blame for this whole clear early or clear at the end mentality for optimal play. Removing them is the only way you achieve a sense of 'play on your schedule'.

2) Start nodes at a much lower level but scale them up faster.
This lets people take advantage of roster diversity which is a large part of the fun for me. This also lets people feel a sense of natural progression for their efforts. I don't want to play for 2 years and yet instantly struggle for wins.

3) Add a reward multiplier based on scaling.
This is the MOST important lesson I've learned from this test.
Simplified Example: Level 40 node for 2* roster is worth 70 ISO. That same scaled node for my roster is going to be level 340 and should be worth 3 times more thus rewarding me with 210 ISO. When my node scales to level 440 it's now worth 280 ISO.
This just fixes so many problems.
- It rewards players for leveling their roster.
- It targets increased ISO to the players who need it most for higher tier characters.
- It doesn't devalue the natural progression or lower tier players by giving them so much ISO that they skip tiers to quickly.

Note: None of these changes would address the fact that placement in a competitive PvE is an incredible grind that requires FAR more time than similar rewards in PvP. As such I strongly recommend the following...

Switch over to a Non-Competitive PvE:
1) Add a reward multiplier based on scaling.
For the same reasons mentioned above.

2) Roll most if not all placement rewards into progression.
You can already calculate how much effort is needed for the typical player to make top 10 in the old PvE system. Emulate that amount of effort in an entirely progression based system. If you don't want to give out so many 4* covers then so be it. I'm sure people could live with a compromise that's more rewarding than the Guantlet but less rewarding than competitive PvE.

3) Incorporate Alliance progression into the rewards system.
Have an overall alliance reward like we do in competitive PvE because this is a social game and it should promote co-operative play. It could be as simple as giving out tiered rewards based on the number of players reach the CP point of progression. If 5 out of 20 player make this they unlock ____. If 10 out of 20 players reach it they get a greater alliance reward. Maybe one of the 4* covers could be given out as a top prize for the equivalent of 15 players reaching the CP progression point.

Test 1 clear number 7 goons were level 473.
Current Test 2 clear number 7 goons are level 449.

The gap between the 2* requirement node and the 4* requirement node was 14 levels.

While this stuff is technically an improvement it doesn't address ANY of the problems in the initial feedback. This is still a massive grind that completely restricts roster selection. The time commitment in substantially greater than before and there's no additional rewards to reward the effort.

If you intend to keep the severe difficulty on all nodes and the massive grind in PvE then you really need to amp up the rewards. 7 full clears in the current test would probably take me 5 hours of play. That's already more time investment than an entire PvP event. Individual sub rewards would have to skyrocket to justify this effort. No one wants to spend a lot more time playing to earn the same rewards as they did before. In most cases people are getting less rewards because they simply can't find the time to do as much as they could before.

The bottom line is that these changes are NOT FUN. PvE has been my favorite mode since the release of 5* tier and both of these tests would ruin that. I don't have it in me to grind out this event and that's sad coming from a player whose hit every single max progression PvE since 4*/LT's/CP's were made part of the progression.

ammenell

im wondering why people still post suggestions

Polares

I am a Player in the 4->5 transition (OML 370 lvl, 4s top 5 maxed), and this are my results:

This test for me is again a complete Failure/Disaster, my nodes are harder than last time !!!! I repeat devs HARDER THAN LAST TIME. And the only difference is that now I have one more OML cover. My easy node started at 215 and the hardest one at 365. That's around 10-20 more levels than in EotS (you made it easier, for who?!?!?! is this some kind of sick joke ?!?!?).

If what I am seeing in this thread is true it looks like nodes got easier just for 2-3 players but not for the rest. So thanks Devs, this format was already much more easier for 3 players and you made it even more easier for them. Again underdeveloped/less powerful teams perform better than maxed ones (in what universe this should be like that, that progression is punished ?!?!?!?).

Devs do you really want that much for me to stop playing this game ?!?!?!?

Really really angry at devs right now, I don't understand how they can mess their game so much

Nick441234

Much better for me in 3* land. Hardest fight is at 175 after 2 clears. A lot fairer than the 245's I was facing last time around.

AsylumTKJ

I said nothing on EotS, I tought 27 pages of comment were far enough.

But I want to say this: I. HATE. THIS. PVE. FORMAT

First, my scaling has nothing to see with what it usualy is.
Well, it's not impossible, but it's more more difficult for me.
So you ask me to grind harder nodes far more with this new format, burning all my healthpacks at the beginnig of the event, in the middle of the event (because I've been unable to clear all the nodes 7 times at the beginning), and again at the end of the event.
Conclusion: If I want to play as optimaly as I usualy do, I have to play around 3 or 4 times more...

And because I have to play more harder nodes, it burns my healthpacks everytime, so I can't do pvp at the same time, with the result of far far less ISO earned per day...
I don t want to have to chose between pve and pvp. Pve makes me earn CP easely (I'm unable to go to 1300 in pvp for now), while pvp makes me earn other ressources as ISO, HP and some covers.

So what does these changes give to me? ---> Far far less fun (we have to grind to much harder nodes for poor rewards), far far less ISO/HP and covers (lost in the pvp I can't do anymore), far far less time (I have to play way more to reach same result as before)...
Sincerely, I really hate this format of play...

Vinmarc43

Everything as been said the last test, you guys don't listen, it's still ridiculously to HARD and a MAJOR waist of time for FRIGGIN 70 iso.
Easy mean's EASY, not starting level 170+, no thanks, forget about it....leave it as is or DELETE the whole game, we are TIRED.

Starsaber

I admit, I played a lighter schedule than usual during the EotS event due to the blanket increase in difficulty and lack of rewards for extra runs of wave nodes, so this was the first sub of this format where I was putting in my usual effort. That being said, my usual effort was worth a lot less than it usually was. I'm usually in the top 50, but this time I ended up around 150 with a similar amount of node clears. While I don't have a problem with the difficulty this run, the fact that so many more clears would be required for the same placement makes this approach less than ideal.

I agree with many of the posters here that the problem is that most of the "Story Mode" events are just PVP in another format (Grind PVP rather than direct PVP). I have some ideas for implementing a progression only system on the existing story events but I haven't had a chance to type them up yet. I'll try to do that over the weekend.

nwman

I agree with Polares. This test is horrible.

I have some max 5s but not max champed and 7 champed 4s and the usual rest.

My trivial nodes start in the 370s and the essentials are kind of different. 2*-365 3* 372 4* 379

I will not be playing this or any future
Pve that have trivial nodes at 370 to start
Combined with outrageous grinds. Choose one or the other please.

Please keep this in mind for next test. I know we were warned going into this test it was still too hard for higher rosters so what was the point?

wymtime

Dev's the big issue with this test has been the 4* and 5* players "easy" nodes. On these nodes there should be a cap on the level they go up too. Max 166 after the 6 clears.
From the feedback I have read the 2*players and the 3* players are seeing good scaling. With this new MMR. The bigger rosters are getting massive levels. My easiest node is level 298 and I have only done 4 clears. In PVP we players use the same combos a lot, but comes to PVE this is where a lot of players use different teams to try things out, or have specifics PVE teams for each level of difficulty. This scaling is saying bring you A+ team to every battle and pray you don't get an average board. Because with an average board you will need a health pack.

On a personal note getting rid of the refresh timer seems like a great quality of life change at first. Once you start playing with no refresh timers then you realize it has become so much more of a grind than ever before. Maybe it is the insane scaling but I think it is the fact that I am clearing the same nodes over, and over, over again to be able to place in the PVE.

Phillipes

Bryan Lambert wrote:

OK, after one clear, there are only two possibilities:

1) This change is a deliberate, malicious intent to slow down player progression and increase player use of resources.

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

If you think you're making a game that appeals to people because of it's challengeing, puzzle-based, match-3 RPG gameplay, then you've been making some very bad decisions over the past few years. Because you've built a game that not only penalizes players for losing, but penalizes them for taking damage while winning. Over the years, many of the player strategies for avoiding this penalty - true healing, various infinite combos - have been drastically reuced or eliminated. So when I win a tough fight, I don't feel like I've been challenged, I feel like I've been suckered into using three health packs.

The appeal of the game is the treadmill of progression. The gameplay is what we have to do to stay on that treadmill. You look at this forum and you will see people doing things they do not enjoy in the slightest because it's the only way to get the stuff they need to progress. People want more covers for their characters and more levels for their characters and unless you're deliberately looking to see how much you can ask of your hardcore players before they stop bothering, none of these tests are particularly helpful.

Was this first clear better than Enemy of the State? A little. It still took longer. It's tough to gauge the actual drop in difficulty, though, because goon nodes either go well and you take almost no damage, or go badly and you take all the damage. The lower progression total is nice, but if, in the end, I'm still playing more for the same rewards - more time, more health packs, more effort - then ultimately, my takeaway is that you're trying to hurt my experience, because I have to spend more time on "challenge" in a game that punishes the player for being challenged, and I'm not progressing any faster because of it.

But this kind of thing has been said over and over again with almost no response or reaction, so I have to assume that it's an intentional design choice.

Devs please print that post, put it on door and read it everytime when you go around it.

rastafari7

Man not again with this ****.
Think it's maybe time for a new game since this will become most likely the new pve format.

MeatLoafX

I hope the developers keep working on this new model. For those of us at lower levels, it's working out well. It's the upper end of players that definitely need more changes.

For me, the nodes start at about 30-50% of my level and top out at around 75%. It's perfect for my level ... Easy to start and more challenging later without being frustrating.

The best part is removing the time for most of the event. Not having to worry about playing at certain, often inconvenient times, is great.

Azoic

I already informed my alliance I was out for all pve events unless this changes. How long can pvp alone keep me around?