PVE Scaling Feedback & New Test : Prodigal Sun

Astralgazer

Firstly, the scaling on enemies' level is more on the right track right now. First clear is way easier, and early nodes don't require Top 3 heroes anymore.

That said, there are still several grievances:

1. Goons are mean, boring and deadly. If I had to lose against three villains, it will be because I play bad. If I had to lose against goons, it will be because the goons cheat. That is not nice. Some goons like Muscle, or nearly the entire set of symbiotes, need rework. You can rework the rate at which they create AP, or lenghten the CD on their placed tiles, or the condition on which their passives trigger. Especially when you pair a couple of Muscles with any villain; even 3rd rate characters become deadly with free APs and monster strike tiles. Scale down the goons please.

2. Both progression awards and placement awards are still too hard for casual players. However flawed the old PVE system was, I would still be able to reach at least the 3* cover in progression. In better days, where I had a lot of spare time, CPs were always within reach. Now, I would have to grind my RL away if I want that 3* cover--and this time, the 3* is DocOck. Not very desirable.

3. My lone 5*, the OML, still causes havoc on my scaling. And this time, I have to choose between OML and the boosted 2* Wolvie. Both 5* and 2* wolvie are in the top 3 roster, thus both contribute to my scaling yet I can't use both in battles. Please reconsider how you would factor 5* into scaling; and what happens when two (or even three) of the top 3 roster are of the same hero (which means you can't use top boosted heroes in your battles).

SnowcaTT

wymtime wrote:

SnowcaTT wrote:

Sub Node 1 trivial: 87/87/88 goons. (+9 after clear, 96/97/97)
Sub Node 2 trivial: 101/101/102 (+10 after first clear, +11 after 2nd clear)
Sub Node 3 trivial: 117/117/117 (+12 after a clear)
Sub Node 4 trivial: 117/117/117 (+12 after a clear. First non-goon, had to deal with Sentry first - muscle tommy gun means -2000 for entire team here first time through.)
Sub Node 5 trivial: 135/135/136 (+14 after a clear)
Sub Node 6 trivial: 156/156/157 Pun (+16 after a clear)
Sub Node 7 trivial: 180/180/181 Pun (+18/19 after a clear, this is the CP node)
Essential 1 trivial (Ares): 139/139/140 (+14 after a clear)
Essential 2 trivial (ock): 147/148/148 (+15 after a clear)
Essential 3 trivial (Rhulk): 156/156/157 (+16 after a clear)

I have a championed HB and a championed RHulk and the nodes you are seeing at least gives me hope that I can actually play PVE. So far on the past 2 tests I have been so scaled out of my roster I could only use 3-5 characters. The issue will be how will the nodes look after 6 clears and that might be scary

Since CP was easy, I ran a few of these farther in for examples:
Sub Node 1 after seven clears: 158/158/158
Sub Node 2 after seven clears: 182/183/182
Sub Node 3 after seven clears: 210/211/211
Sub Node 4 after seven clears: 242/243/243 (All four of these nodes were goons only, easy winfinites)
Sub Node 7 after three clears (got cp): 241/242/241
Essential 3 after four clears (got cp): 230/231/231

[Roster: 363 HB, 350 Rhulk, 300 Pheonix - used almost all winfinite and cage/fist/other]

mpqr7

I've started the first sub, and boy, it's a doozy. The scaling is a bit high but it's okay.

The real problem is that it's just so many clears!!! You honestly expect us to do 7 x 9 = 63 clears, plus a massive grind at the end????

In the past, I could do 9 clears, 3 to 4 times per day, which is still a lot, but it was reasonable. Now, I do clear after clear, spending all evening working on it, but feeling like I'm going nowhere.

Devs, you may succeed in getting people to play more pve, but what does that accomplish, other than burnout??

For instance, I have the time to play right now, but instead, I'm spending it writing this lengthy post.

If anything, pve should be updated to make it shorter and LESS repetitive. I was to feel a sense of accomplishment, not hopelessness.

Dauthi

Has this been done yet?

mazerat

Your system--regardless of difficulty--is very confusing. Most players care about progression. How much do I need to do on Day 1 so that I'm on track for CP when days 6 and 7 roll around? We have nodes that give full points for six clears but have four or seven rewards. Should I be clearing everything six times? Seven? Only four on those couple nodes?

Make PvE more intuitive.

edgewriter

A step in the right direction except for one thing.

1. Rewards should increase with difficulty. When the enemies get tougher, bonus ISO. Like each time you beat a node, either add +50 to the rewards or just have an ISO bonus like in versus when you get a bonus for not skipping.

So beat it first time, no bonus. Second time, enemies tougher, reward +50. Third time, reward +100. Seventh time no more regular rewards but keep getting bonus. If enemies stop improving so does bonus. Maybe there is a +300 bonus cap or something, but it makes continued play rewarding and worth it.

TheOncomingStorm

Malificant wrote:

Will rubberbanding be on again? I actually really liked having it back with this new system on the Unstable ISO 8 run.

Actually, great idea. This would be a nice compromise. If mpq won't do progressive rewards,it would be a nice consolation gift to have rubber banding.

Players wouldn't have to play a significant amount over a 4-7 day period. They could join the last day and still hit all progressives.

Before ppl get the idea this is too generous, these players would be missing out on all the cp, iso, and tokens from previous subs. The rubber banding should also not permit those players to attain scores equivalent to the global t100.

The progressive points needed may need to be lowered, but it would be a great feature barring the implementation of a true pve--progression rewards based.

Quebbster

TheOncomingStorm wrote:

Malificant wrote:

Will rubberbanding be on again? I actually really liked having it back with this new system on the Unstable ISO 8 run.

Actually, great idea. This would be a nice compromise. If mpq won't do progressive rewards,it would be a nice consolation gift to have rubber banding.

Players wouldn't have to play a significant amount over a 4-7 day period. They could join the last day and still hit all progressives.

Before ppl get the idea this is too generous, these players would be missing out on all the cp, iso, and tokens from previous subs. The rubber banding should also not permit those players to attain scores equivalent to the global t100.

The progressive points needed may need to be lowered, but it would be a great feature barring the implementation of a true pve--progression rewards based.

Unfortunately I suspect the devs feel a change like this encourage people even more to just play towards the end of the event. They want engagement throughout the event, not just at the end.

Daiches

"David wrote:

Moore"]Hello all,

The devs wanted to let everyone know about an unintended issue which should be fixed later today:

"In the Prodigal Sun event, 2 nodes per chapter only had 4 rewards instead of 7. This has been fixed in Chapters 2 through 7 and will be part of today's daily Patch."

Apologies for the inconvenience. Thank you!

Will this patch also fix the starting levels of nodes to the promised easy/hard split? Because what people are reporting does not correlate with the announcement.. again. Easy nodes still start way high.

AsylumTKJ

First observations after starting this new test:
The scaling is better than in the two first test.
But scaling wasn t the major problem I had with this pve format.

My real problem is it asks WAY TO MUCH grind to play optimally, or at least for a decent placement.
I see in this first sub that this test will prevent me from playing pvp again, as all my time and ressources have to be dedicated to the multiple clears needed in pve.

Same problem as the previous tests, same conclusions: FAR LESS iso won, FAR LESS HP and covers won, FAR LESS fun for FAR MORE playtime required.

I belong to a top 50 pve alliance where I feel really well. But if you make pve a second full time job, I won t continue this part of the game. It means I will have to leave mates that I like and drop half of the aspect of the game. If it happens, it really SUCKS.

Polares

aesthetocyst wrote:

babinro wrote:

... the added effort required to win a node is compensated through rewards for that node. The single best feedback out of these tests in my opinion has been the idea of reward scaling based on enemy levels

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.

... the reward system has to be revamped to keep players from burning out or outright quitting the mode out of play.

A-freakin'-MEN, Babs.

I haven't touched Prodigal Sun yet, but based on the description from Demiurge, my response will be the same. Fiddling with the knobs a bit ain't gonna magically make PVE into an amazing, player-engagin', participation metric balloonin' machine.

So I will flog my ideas again. Maybe making the type large will help?

Scale rewards to difficulty. Are we not capitalists? This game is intended to turn a profit ... would it care to operate on a business model along the lines of the existing PVE model, that is always doing more for the same return?

Rework the scoring model, and truly allow players to play on their own time. Y'know, take a hint from just about every other match-3 game ever made?

I was going to write something long and boring, but this two posts sumarize quite well some of the points I wanted to make.

So, yes scaling is better, but we still need to do A LOT of clears, getting the same **** rewards, so I need to invest double the time for the same rewards (?!?!?!?!)). And still 3 players dominate (because of course you can have much more chars championed, and much more useful chars).

In Computer Science there is a say (not the reboot one), DON'T FIX SOMETHING IT IS NOT BROKEN, PvE as is right now works quite well for almost everybody. Scaling needed a fix? Well if you still want 2 players to get 5s, then yeah, but why all the other changes?

Fix things that are broken like: Variable Rewards depending on rooster, iso draught, 5 randomness, chulk and SS super lame, etc. There are a lot of things that need fixing or improving, concentrate on those please, PvE was not one of those

actarus76

not too bad this new scaling but you could make it better reducing the levels on banal nodes (40 on old pve, 160 in this one).

you request players to play a lot in you let nodes be unlocked on 7th run: most of us requested 4 or less

it's not possibile having nodes with 4 rewards when you have to do them more than 7 times: increase the rewards but not only the number!! substitute 70 iso with more and if a player clear a normal node you can get an additional 500-1000 iso.
as most of players said, several of us didn't upgrade characters cause of iso run off: personally i need over than 3 M iso to end the characters so increase the rewards or it would be unplayable for most of us

in the end remember that for us it is a game: if you think to change it to a work (for us), we will stop playing

seekie

Sub2 essential nodes give different points 431/152/233 for 4*/3*/2* respectively.

mpqr7

Pve used to be a quick way to farm some extra iso. Now, it's an endless slog. 50 battles in, I'm still at 150 placement and less than 1/10th the way to the 25 cp progression reward.

The nice thing about the 8 hour refreshes were that after you did all 9 nodes, you were caught up. Now, you do all 9 nodes, and the game says "Great. Now, do 54 more clears!"

And why can't we have actual easy nodes any more??? Why must I fight my but off for 90 points and 70 iso??? The easy nodes were fun because you could relax and beat them quickly and not need to waste health packs. Now, we just have hard nodes and slightly less hard nodes.

Again, it's not that it's too challenging for me to do it. It's just that I have no interest because it's drearily repetitive and not at all fun.

gravel

Adding my feedback, even though it seems like much of the same. This is the first test where I've tried to play optimally at the start. With 6 clears of most nodes, and 4 of the nodes that only offered 4 rewards, my initial play of the first sub took over two and a half hours. This is compared to about half an hour for normal PvEs. This is for the first sub, not the end of one sub and the beginning of a second. I typically attain the top progression, and depending on the rewards, I place anywhere from top 10 to top 100. With the new system, I don't see top placement as an option.

I won't make any proclamations about quitting PvE entirely, but it will greatly reduce my participation. I will most likely cap out at the top progression reward if difficulty is commensurate with the current test. The first test I did not make top progression, in the second I made it easily due to lowered expectations. I would most likely farm the command points from the subs, and play some to keep ISO flowing, but the increased time commitment required would decrease the amount of time I would invest. If I can't compete for the top rewards why would I put more time in for fewer or worse rewards?

While there have been repeated tests and tweaking, we haven't heard anything about the most consistent problems these tests have raised. The increased time commitment and difficulty for the same rewards, or fewer rewards due to the increase in the number of times to complete a node to play optimally.

xdogg

Although I did notice a slight decrease in scaling, I still hate this new system, in order to do well you have to grind for hours, its not worth it. And this will never work with Heroics or any story that limits your roster, that would be a nightmare, time to do away with the old story lines anyway.

nyck1118

I feel like the Scaling is much better this time around.

However the playtime has gone WAY UP. I havent used any Health packs and i feel the battles are competitive, but im not playing against the event for progression. I feel im battling everyone else. That system benefits the unemployed, the childless etc. I do not have time to Grind every node 6 times. I feel like I am playing a TON already and my current sub event has 7 hours left. Ive already cleared 4 times and im in 77th place. I STILL HAVE 7 HOURS. I can usually do 5 clears and hit top 50 in the old system. Now i need to dedicate much more time to it. time i don't have.

Making the Covers progression based is the solution. We should not have to battle others for rewards or have alliance mates who are 16K behind you in points finish 8th in their bracket and get 4* rewards when you played more, and finished 50th

WEBGAS

nyck1118 wrote:

I feel like the Scaling is much better this time around.

However the playtime has gone WAY UP. ....... That system benefits the unemployed, the childless etc. I do not have time to Grind every node 6 times. ........ Now i need to dedicate much more time to it. time i don't have.

Making the Covers progression based is the solution. We should not have to battle others for rewards or have alliance mates who are 16K behind you in points finish 8th in their bracket and get 4* rewards when you played more, and finished 50th

Completely agree..... The Devs need to make the PVE with rewards on progression basis. This is the only way to make people play this game with the new rules

CaptainFrugal

I agree, last event I had over 10,000 more points than an alliance member yet he finished in the top 10 and I was 238th.
The current system hardly seems fair.

xdogg

And of course they lock out the easiest node after one fight with plenty of rewards left in it