PVE Scaling Feedback & New Test : Prodigal Sun

Darknes21

Here is an idea....d3 loves money, why don't you charge a fee (25-100 HP) to reset scaling. This way people have somethings to spend their HP on instead of packs! Thank god I'm done with PVE, you guys killed it!

joaoleal

Vhailorx wrote:

...

I never tried hitting the max reward by playing whenever I wanted, but you're probably right that it should be possible doing the same.

As for the rest I agree with what you wrote. I feel for this event that I'm playing all day, I'm not fully focused, but it's about 6-8 hours to finish the 6 times per node. Not sure that's a good thing, it works now because I'm not that busy. But when I am I just focus on PVP. I always feel like PVE is too much of a grind old system was a new system is even more.

I do like the Galactus one, that was fun.

WelcomeDeath

So....again, question. What was wrong with the level caps per node under the old system? Did i miss something? Again I ask, who asked for this change specifically? So the enemies scale slower than my roster, great, but isnt the point of leveling to get to the point that some parts of the game are (truly) easy? Its like a classic rpg, level up like crazy and go back to the first areas and lay waste. Not very challenging, sure, but it's FUN. That's the key. Do I want all nodes to be trivial like before? No, then theres no challenge. However, there should be a point where my roster "graduates" from those nodes and I can lay waste, even if I do 90 clears. Sure, there are those that say the scaling is "not too bad this time." What does that mean? If I get run over by a car and then, weeks later, get punched in the face then getting punched isn't "too bad", but it still sucks. Bring back level caps and the new scaling would be fine. And for god's sake, make ALL rewards progression, not placement!

Vhailorx

Welcome Death wrote:

So....again, question. What was wrong with the level caps per node under the old system? Did i miss something? Again I ask, who asked for this change specifically? So the enemies scale slower than my roster, great, but isnt the point of leveling to get to the point that some parts of the game are (truly) easy? Its like a classic rpg, level up like crazy and go back to the first areas and lay waste. Not very challenging, sure, but it's FUN. That's the key. Do I want all nodes to be trivial like before? No, then theres no challenge. However, there should be a point where my roster "graduates" from those nodes and I can lay waste, even if I do 90 clears. Sure, there are those that say the scaling is "not too bad this time." What does that mean? If I get run over by a car and then, weeks later, get punched in the face then getting punched isn't "too bad", but it still sucks. Bring back level caps and the new scaling would be fine. And for god's sake, make ALL rewards progression, not placement!

5*s and boosted 4* champs are the "problem" with the old scaling caps.

325/395 level caps are pathetically easy with a level 380 Iceman, let along a level 450 OML. And while players might think that leveling our rosters was something we did so that we could have a powerful lineup and make formerly difficult parts of the game easy, it was ACTUALLY something we did to donate money/time to demiurge/d3 via playing constantly to achieve the various digital goods that built our high-level rosters. . .

jokes on us, I guess?

Mawtful

My scaling has definitely gone up for this event compared to previous tests. Now I can't even beat the first node on Thunderbolts mountain.

Great Job!

dlegendary0ne

The scaling is fine, but the time required to get rewards is not. I'm used to spending 30 - 45mins per clear and getting pretty far along, with maybe a grind session at the end if I wanted top placement.

Now, grinding is required, with no additional rewards and a much larger time commitment, which was my biggest problem with pve to begin with. And to top it all off, grinding is so. freakin. BORING!

Grinding is probably the one thing I hate doing the most in any video game, and the fact that you're making it a REQUIREMENT for progression (and not fun at all to do) is a huge turn off for me. I really hope ya'll do something to address that - I think you risk losing players as a result if you don't.

Linkster79

Question that hopefully an administrator can answer, will any decision be made factoring the feedback provided here or will any and all decisions be made soley on data collected in game?

apmonte

I'm in 3-star land with six championed 3-stars, and three one-cover 5-stars. Overall, scaling was good for me. I didn't have too many problems with opponents, and did occasionally get beat up if they got nice cascades or I couldn't manage timers. That said, I used Luke Cage, Iron Fist, and Sam Wilson a lot, so that may have artificially put things in my favor. Also, these weren't the toughest or most annoying opponents that we've faced in events. I put a lot of effort into this event, and managed to get the CP at the end of the 6th day. Overall, I'm satisfied with this scaling for PVP events and would like to see it implemented across the board. I do love that the new format allows me to play when I have time, instead of every eight hours. That said, there's still work that could be done for rewards (mission & placement). I see that as a separate issue though, that could be addressed down the road.

Halleck

To focus just on the scaling, this event seemed good. It might have even been a little low; however, if I roster a 5* or against other types of opponents, it might be just right. I have several max 3*s, no 5*s, no useful 4*s.

In past survey's I've consistently been one of the people requesting to be able to play anytime without penalty. I'll remain in favor of that change, on principle. There was a practical component to that as well though - I'd not be handicapping myself point-wise if I did several clears in a row. If the goalposts of progress rewards are moved back at the same time, the practical benefit is strongly undermined, if not eliminated. (To those of you who track that sort of information, and those that posted it earlier in this thread - thank you!)

As such, I'm not up in arms about the new system. As someone who never played optimally, at this scaling there's no disadvantage towards my playing habits or roster. At the same time though, this alone is not going to increase how much I play, increase my engagement, or make me more likely to recommend the game to someone.

Jam_Adams

so now that the event is basically over, I want to mention (again) that I think scaling is pretty good. that may be just a characteristic of Prodigal Son, but this event was a little easier towards the beginning, and a little more challenging at the end. I believe this may be due to more goons up front, and more heroes on the back end.


as for the time requirement, you guys missed the mark by a mile. I hope the earlier poster was correct about it being due to testing (i.e. setting 6 clears as the standard in order to get us to test it all the way through).

that said, I WAS able to get final progression, even by missing almost an entire day (I think it was sub 2 or 3, I only had time to get in one full clear). HOWEVER, I will clarify this by saying I ended up having to play WAY too much for the rest of the event. way more than I was comfortable playing.


before LTs came out, final progression was pretty low, and demi responded to the requests for more rewards by adding onto the end of the progression. cool. I think we all benefited by this, and you guys should be commended. but in doing so, you set a new standard, one that required more time investment. I think most (if not all) were fine with this since, we were putting more in, but in return, we were getting more out of it. as a community, we figured this new progression number was set somewhere in the vicinity of 3-4 clears through any event.

now, the progression has been bumped to (at least) 6 clears. obviously, this requires way more time and dedication. however, the rewards have not been increased to match.

perhaps the solution is a mix of the two - keep the 25 CP at the current standard of 3-4 clears, then add (again) onto the progression structure. increasing rewards beyond the 25 CP, commensurate with the additional time requirement.

Bowgentle

Jam_Adams wrote:

now, the progression has been bumped to (at least) 6 clears.

It's not at 6 clears.
A little bit more than 4 clears in every sub gets you top progression.

Jam_Adams

maybe it felt like 6 because that's what I was doing the last 3 or 4 subs to play catch up.

I think my point still stands

Natsufan01

Posted this in a similar topic, and I realized most of it applies to feedback for the event.

I kept it at about 4 clears per node, sometimes less if it took more clears to get the CP. I hit progression doing that easily. If they keep the difficulty like it was for Prodigal Sun it becomes boring mindless stuff, with high rewards, kind of like how the DPDQ was before the change.

With a two cover OML tanking damage, Two cover BSS tanking the other colors just in case, and a champed IF, I cleared 95% of nodes without ever using a health pack. The final clear or two of the hard CP node I had to switch to a better team if it got to the 6th or 7th attempt to get the CP. Other than that, that was my team. Match OML's colors as often as possible and a 1 yellow cover OML heals all the damage taken just about every turn. It was a time investment, not an effort one. More health packs available let me focus on PVP more too, so I have been getting higher score.

Overall, I enjoyed the PVE this time around because of how it impacted everything else in the game too. The PVE itself wasn't anything special. The one down side for me was that reaching progression on a PVE is almost always good enough for a top 100, and often top 50 placement, unless it's for a new character. This time, I'm getting a top 200 reward. Oh well, no big deal anyway.

Thevipper

I am a 2* to 3* transtion player with my 3* having no more than 8 covers and thats only 5 of them on the last day i got a black oml just to try it out i rostered him after 6 clears on the final node i was facing 158 im 40 and cap with 120-130's before that kinda tough but worth it for a 5 star alot easier if you have the right boosted characters

HaywireII

I barely played the final sub. I was well past the 25 CP reward and solidly in the top 50 and no one was actively working to displace me out of it. I got the 2 CP and was done. Too much burnout from repetitive grinding.

Really looking forward to two back to back 48 hour subs. Nice spaced out clears for four days. It will feel like a vacation.

thesamuraipig

Just wanted to throw my 2 cents in and I'll make it short.

I thought the scaling was great. My bracket was also pretty good. I never felt like I had to push much past 7 clears of the nodes and I was placing well. Most days I really only cleared them 7 times without any extra grind. I loved being able to play on my own time and not restricted to certain hours or out of placement. Gave me a better shot at top 10 (placed 8 overall).

Starting up Deadpool...felt like handcuffs were on. I know others here say...well, you can still clear all the nodes on your own time, but with the 8 hour timers...if you don't play optimally, your placement rewards are null. I felt the new system gave me a shot at good placement, on my own time without losing placement rank. And tons more time to hit those nodes for the ISO and not just in the last two hours before the end sub.

Out of the two systems...I prefer this newer one. Even without a few tweaks which I think it could still use...progression rewards mainly.

Lboogie

For your test results:
In the off chance you are still reading 20 pages later. I played slice 3 ending at 5pm for me. I reached my 25 cp before the end of my first clear of the last sub...I continued to the free sentry cover. I have not played a single node since...that's almost 24 hrs of no pve....a first for me. i am settling for a 2* black widow cover for the event and a few std tokens for the last sub just as a protest. In the whole 7 subs I never finished in t100 not once. I'm always t100 at min...t 50 if im close. The test is once again in my mind a total failure. Please make this the last one, and never implement it...thanks for the awesome game now to win some drax

WelcomeDeath

Scaling is still off for final clears (6th time), too high on easy/ezsential nodes. Plus my highest level charavter (OML) was locked out, but it seemed to scale including him, otherwise there should have been a drop in tje levels for those nodes. If i cant use a character, i shouldnt be penalized for his levels. New scoring/clears, old scaling please. 3 tests, same **** feedback. Its still higher than before and nobody wants that. What theyre doing is lowering it slightly til its tolerable and where people accept it, but its still higher than before. Now, conspiracy theory time: I think they started with the ridiculous increase only to lower it to a smaller increase so it wouldnt seem as bad when they roll it out. All just to sell more health packs, im sure. If theyd just said they were going to blanket increase scaling after blanket nerfing boosted characters, at least it would be honest. Still a **** move, but honest.


Edit: Just finished...just short of CP. Missed early on. Normally can make it up later in event, especially in a 7 day event. Not so this event, and i cleared 8 times each the last 2 days. 102k. 2k short. So...higher scaling and tougher progression rewards. Thanks d3. Thanks.

fmftint

I think this test failed at, "Increased spread of difficulty", IMO the Easy track scaled too high and the hard track did not go high enough

Soma

Finally reached the CP progression today on the last sub (slice 4) and just felt an overwhelming sense of relief that I didn't have to do this anymore. I did 4 clears plus ground for the CPs (had all 3 essentials) on all the nodes but one in the middle when I did the unthinkable PvE sin...I fell asleep when trying to do a clear. Therefore, I had to grind heavy on the last sub to make sure I reached the CP and it was miserable. It was an odd feeling that I don't normally experience when playing a game...it felt great to know that I was finally done and could stop playing.
There have been myriad pages comparing the new vs old style of play, so I want to hit the highlights for me:
My scaling wasn't too bad and it seems to me that it's because my roster is relatively evenly leveled. I have the majority of 3*'s champed and have all of my 4*'s at lower levels...thank you iso drought? Even when the levels maxed out, it still wasn't too bad, but I accredit that to the fact that IF and Cage were boosted...which leads to my next observation.
People have commented that they would like to use a larger portion of their rosters (myself included), but as long as efficiency and speed are part of the PvE experience, there is no incentive to use any other characters except those that will finish each battle quickly and while taking the least amount of damage. So even though the scaling was ok for me, I didn't really use any other combo besides IF/Cage/SW because I just wanted to steamroll each battle.
I would love for there to be more 'puzzle' in the puzzle quest...where there was more emphasis on strategy compared to brute strength/speed, but I can see the flip side to that. The matches would be increasingly long and RNG-dependent (like a just-barely-covered/leveled enough 4* DPD match) and that would increase the time spent on clears and that would make the CPs more and more unattainable...and boy that would make PvE even more miserable.

I love the idea of making PvE Gauntlet-esque where there were different progression points for each stage of roster development before the individual node matches become too difficult to complete. There would be no increase in enemy levels for each node so you could still grind each node for the 7 rewards, help a little with placement, and for CP attainment purposes, but like I said, eventually there would be a subsequent node that your roster just couldn't complete consistently. The rewards would be progressive, so that could solve the reward/iso/cover reward disparity that occurs in the later stages of development. Also, since the later nodes would be worth more points, this would solve the frustration of having underdeveloped rosters managing to hit the highest placement rewards (a vet complaint that seems very justified in my opinion - there should be inherent rewards for time/money spent on a game).

tl;dr - if this is the final version of the scaling, I can tolerate it...God, I wish the CP progression was lowered so I don't feel relieved to not have to play the game (symptom of burn-out)...I would prefer a Gauntlet-esque style of PvE briefly described above.

Lastly, the most fun I've ever had in this game was during the last Galactus event - it felt so rewarding to chase and achieve a team-based goal.