Who complained about easy nodes being too easy??

mpqr7

This is what I don't get.

In this forum, you see complaint after complaint of the following:

Iso drought
Scaling out of control
No sense of progression
5* random draw frustration
Repetitively for people who've played multiple years


And yet the main objective they're focusing on is getting rid of the easy nodes in pve?????? What player requested this??? Who has been complaining about this? I've never seen any complaint about this, ever.

The easy nodes were one of the fun things about the game. It was saying "Sure there are 3 hard nodes in pve, and the 3 required nodes are medium challenge, but there will always be 3 FUN nodes that everyone can play and feel good about."

And now you've taken that away. Why???? What purpose does that serve??? All it's done is make every single level in pve that much more the same... endless, taking forever, more repetitive. And for terrible prizes and few points!! What's in it for us??

What player asked for this? I would love to engage this player in some thoughtful dialog.

JamieMadrox

Presumably because new scaling in PVE will make all nodes equally difficult for all people based on their roster/performance.

mpqr7

Why is that a good thing?

JamieMadrox

I didn't say it was. Leveling the playing field for everyone, regardless of roster, makes progression pointless. PVE is about the absolute worst thing in this game ever and nothing they've done to "fix" it has been good enough to make me want to play it regularly.

Calnexin

My Prodigal Sun Scaling seems to be on point. The easy nodes are now easy, compared to the previous tests. They get progressively harder, yes, but I'm still able to beat them with B-teams and experiments.

If your experience is radically different, they may need to radically rethink how they implement scaling. My roster is pretty even - my top 4*s are around the same level as champed 3*, and my 5*s are still at 255. If your roster is unbalanced, with a few powerful 4* that dominate your scaling equation, it leaves the rest of your roster practically unusable. That's not very fun.

chamber44

Calnexin wrote:

My Prodigal Sun Scaling seems to be on point. The easy nodes are now easy, compared to the previous tests. They get progressively harder, yes, but I'm still able to beat them with B-teams and experiments.

If your experience is radically different, they may need to radically rethink how they implement scaling. My roster is pretty even - my top 4*s are around the same level as champed 3*, and my 5*s are still at 255. If your roster is unbalanced, with a few powerful 4* that dominate your scaling equation, it leaves the rest of your roster practically unusable. That's not very fun.

yeah, but at the end of the day, what do the devs want? if they want a more diverse roster, then ISO and 4's need to drop at a way higher rate. do they really want casual to casual+ players never leveling their roster until they've grinded (ground?) 2.5 million ISO so they can level up three 4's to useable levels? How are the players going to obtain those mystical 4's in the meantime?

Calnexin

chamber44 wrote:

do they really want casual to casual+ players never leveling their roster

I'm taking you out of context, but this is my observation. It's a double incentive. Players who've maxed and incessantly rely on a handful of 4*s are being punished. Players who are maintaining a diverse but under-leveled roster still can't compete with them in PvP, but scaling allows them greater access to higher tier rewards in PvE. It evens the playing field a little bit. The big 4* players can still compete in PvE, it's just going to take them longer than a 3 (and especially 2)* roster. When the 3*s are pretty much done with being 3*s, then they start leveling their 4*s, and pay the price to gain access to the next tier of play.

The strategy I'm seeing is that they want to make PvE equally difficult at all levels, which requires more time commitment the higher up you are. PvP, on the other hand, is pure competition. You've never been able to take top prizes without the best characters and some out-of-game strategy, and the tweaks they're making now don't change that - at best it provides a few more viable options to midcarders before they hit a wall of 5*s.

hodayathink

Calnexin wrote:

chamber44 wrote:

do they really want casual to casual+ players never leveling their roster

I'm taking you out of context, but this is my observation. It's a double incentive. Players who've maxed and incessantly rely on a handful of 4*s are being punished. Players who are maintaining a diverse but under-leveled roster still can't compete with them in PvP, but scaling allows them greater access to higher tier rewards in PvE. It evens the playing field a little bit. The big 4* players can still compete in PvE, it's just going to take them longer than a 3 (and especially 2)* roster. When the 3*s are pretty much done with being 3*s, then they start leveling their 4*s, and pay the price to gain access to the next tier of play.

The strategy I'm seeing is that they want to make PvE equally difficult at all levels, which requires more time commitment the higher up you are. PvP, on the other hand, is pure competition. You've never been able to take top prizes without the best characters and some out-of-game strategy, and the tweaks they're making now don't change that - at best it provides a few more viable options to midcarders before they hit a wall of 5*s.

Basically this. Judging by the changes they've made, I think what they want the players to do, generally speaking, is level up their 3* roster while collecting legendary tokens (and not necessarily specific 4* covers, which would explain why they still haven't added them as a progression reward in PvE), and then working their 4* roster after that. This makes you very competitive in PvE, but not as competitive in PvP without a lot more work/shields, and I really think that they're fine with that. I might even go as far as to say that they want the meta for PvE and PvP to be completely different, so that the only way to have a roster that's great at both is to completely whale out the game.

halirin

My easy nodes have been trivial in this event. I don't think that they are trying to get rid of easy nodes.

But if they did get rid of them, I would support that! To me, an easy node is just a node that someone with more time and less ability than me will grind to oblivion. I know some people want to get rid of placement awards, but until they do, the main cause of your pve placement grind is other peoples' willingness to grind. I'd love it if we had more events that were supposed to be super challenging but relatively fast. "Supposed to lose some" isn't bad in my book.

Pylgrim

Jamie Madrox wrote:

I didn't say it was. Leveling the playing field for everyone, regardless of roster, makes progression pointless. PVE is about the absolute worst thing in this game ever and nothing they've done to "fix" it has been good enough to make me want to play it regularly.

It also makes rewards ridiculous. If a 5* player has the same trouble beating a node than a 1* player why do both of them receive 100 iso (or similar) when they clear it? The 100 iso will be a level for one of the new player's lowest leveled 1* characters but an insignificant fraction of a level for the 5* player's characters.

Daiches

Calnexin wrote:

My Prodigal Sun Scaling seems to be on point. The easy nodes are now easy, compared to the previous tests. They get progressively harder, yes, but I'm still able to beat them with B-teams and experiments.

If your experience is radically different, they may need to radically rethink how they implement scaling. My roster is pretty even - my top 4*s are around the same level as champed 3*, and my 5*s are still at 255. If your roster is unbalanced, with a few powerful 4* that dominate your scaling equation, it leaves the rest of your roster practically unusable. That's not very fun.

So what you are saying is you have a level capped roster (by choice or not), and you are having an easier time than most?

When the entire point of the tests is to make it so that levelling your characters is the best option always? And to do away with the advantage capped rosters have?

Test failed. Yet again.

Daiches

Calnexin wrote:

My Prodigal Sun Scaling seems to be on point. The easy nodes are now easy, compared to the previous tests. They get progressively harder, yes, but I'm still able to beat them with B-teams and experiments.

If your experience is radically different, they may need to radically rethink how they implement scaling. My roster is pretty even - my top 4*s are around the same level as champed 3*, and my 5*s are still at 255. If your roster is unbalanced, with a few powerful 4* that dominate your scaling equation, it leaves the rest of your roster practically unusable. That's not very fun.

So what you are saying is you have a level capped roster (by choice or not), and you are having an easier time than most?

When the entire point of the tests is to make it so that levelling your characters is the best option always? And to do away with the advantage capped rosters have?

Test failed. Yet again.

puppychow

Calnexin wrote:

The strategy I'm seeing is that they want to make PvE equally difficult at all levels, which requires more time commitment the higher up you are. PvP, on the other hand, is pure competition. You've never been able to take top prizes without the best characters and some out-of-game strategy, and the tweaks they're making now don't change that - at best it provides a few more viable options to midcarders before they hit a wall of 5*s.

You make a fair observation. Game devs may look at a player grinding with 550s compared to one using 270s, and think the fairest approach is to have both spend similar amount of time grinding nodes comparable to their roster strengths. Previously, the highest level players spend maybe 1/2 the time of regular players in grinding, and perhaps the devs think this should not be the case. Of course, making the super whales spend more time grinding pve could result in turning them off from pve altogether.

simonsez

mpqr7 wrote:

The easy nodes were one of the fun things about the game. It was saying "Sure there are 3 hard nodes in pve, and the 3 required nodes are medium challenge, but there will always be 3 FUN nodes that everyone can play and feel good about."

And now you've taken that away. Why???? What purpose does that serve???

Demiurge: Proudly fixing problems that don't exist since 2013

revskip

mpqr7 wrote:

Why is that a good thing?

From the devs perspectives I am sure it is a very good thing. New players can progress at roughly the same rate as veterans allowing them to get hooked to the game. Additionally those new players will progress quicker getting more 3* covers which means more money spent on HP to be able to roster them.

When I first starting playing a few months back it took a significant time before I could complete anything but the first couple of nodes in any PVE and PVP was completely cut off to me since 1* characters could rarely get past anything other than seed teams. These changes allow even 1* rosters to complete PVE events which accelerates the earliest part of the game and encourages spending since so many more covers are given out.

HxiiiK

Once again the people who actually PLAY the game the way it is intended gets punished for playing. What happened to the supposed 'fix' causing it to be detrimental to soft-cap or **** your roster? How come they are having an easier time while those who are playing the right way gets the shaft?

As one opinion above mentioned, if higher levelled rosters were supposed to compete in pvp instead of pve, why are the rewards not similar? Only t1 in pvp gets a 4* cover, the rest gets measly 3*s, while pve new releases gives out 4*s to t100, and t10 to non new releases, making vets have to grind pve as well, at a more difficult rate

I don't think players should be punished for playing, why do we play and spend money then? Might as well **** our rosters, close up our wallets and sail through the game. Devs should look into fixing this, people who have played longer while gimping their roster should be punished, not the vets who work hard. We should get the easier nodes because we earned it

Smudge

puppychow wrote:

Calnexin wrote:

The strategy I'm seeing is that they want to make PvE equally difficult at all levels, which requires more time commitment the higher up you are. PvP, on the other hand, is pure competition. You've never been able to take top prizes without the best characters and some out-of-game strategy, and the tweaks they're making now don't change that - at best it provides a few more viable options to midcarders before they hit a wall of 5*s.

You make a fair observation. Game devs may look at a player grinding with 550s compared to one using 270s, and think the fairest approach is to have both spend similar amount of time grinding nodes comparable to their roster strengths. Previously, the highest level players spend maybe 1/2 the time of regular players in grinding, and perhaps the devs think this should not be the case. Of course, making the super whales spend more time grinding pve could result in turning them off from pve altogether.

That's the problem here. If I level my roster and am playing in 5* land, it should take me half the time on the same node as someone with a roster strength that is comparatively half of my own.

I mentioned mpqr's precise complaint in the main test thread myself. The old trivial pve nodes were about half the power they are now for me at least, and they never scaled. Stop scaling them, period! If for some insane reason you want to scale them, scale my rewards, too!

Edit: to address Calnexin's greater point, the developers specifically said on this test that they're trying to remove the punishment for leveling rosters that we're seeing if I recall correctly, so your assumption doesn't really make much sense regarding making things harder for higher rosters.

Linkster79

HxiiiK wrote:

Once again the people who actually PLAY the game the way it is intended gets punished for playing. What happened to the supposed 'fix' causing it to be detrimental to soft-cap or **** your roster? How come they are having an easier time while those who are playing the right way gets the shaft?

As one opinion above mentioned, if higher levelled rosters were supposed to compete in pvp instead of pve, why are the rewards not similar? Only t1 in pvp gets a 4* cover, the rest gets measly 3*s, while pve new releases gives out 4*s to t100, and t10 to non new releases, making vets have to grind pve as well, at a more difficult rate

I don't think players should be punished for playing, why do we play and spend money then? Might as well **** our rosters, close up our wallets and sail through the game. Devs should look into fixing this, people who have played longer while gimping their roster should be punished, not the vets who work hard. We should get the easier nodes because we earned it

The problem is how do they differentiate between players who have deliberately soft capped their roster and players who have obtained the covers but not the ISO? I have maybe 6 or 7 3*'s championed but the same number at 13 covers but not max levelled due to lack of ISO.

HxiiiK

Linkster79 wrote:

HxiiiK wrote:

Once again the people who actually PLAY the game the way it is intended gets punished for playing. What happened to the supposed 'fix' causing it to be detrimental to soft-cap or **** your roster? How come they are having an easier time while those who are playing the right way gets the shaft?

As one opinion above mentioned, if higher levelled rosters were supposed to compete in pvp instead of pve, why are the rewards not similar? Only t1 in pvp gets a 4* cover, the rest gets measly 3*s, while pve new releases gives out 4*s to t100, and t10 to non new releases, making vets have to grind pve as well, at a more difficult rate

I don't think players should be punished for playing, why do we play and spend money then? Might as well **** our rosters, close up our wallets and sail through the game. Devs should look into fixing this, people who have played longer while gimping their roster should be punished, not the vets who work hard. We should get the easier nodes because we earned it

The problem is how do they differentiate between players who have deliberately soft capped their roster and players who have obtained the covers but not the ISO? I have maybe 6 or 7 3*'s championed but the same number at 13 covers but not max levelled due to lack of ISO.

One that comes to mind might be an overflow of iso stored, or maybe iso gained versus roster level, if you decide to spend iso a different way to drain it to soft cap

Another might be roster level versus days or time played, a regular player who played for 2 years but doesn't have a single championed 3*, for example. Many methods of tracking come to mind but I'm not sure which may be plausible and fair for everyone. A pretty normal progression such as yours shouldn't be affected

madsalad

Investors.

Crowl

HxiiiK wrote:

Once again the people who actually PLAY the game the way it is intended gets punished for playing. What happened to the supposed 'fix' causing it to be detrimental to soft-cap or **** your roster? How come they are having an easier time while those who are playing the right way gets the shaft?

As one opinion above mentioned, if higher levelled rosters were supposed to compete in pvp instead of pve, why are the rewards not similar? Only t1 in pvp gets a 4* cover, the rest gets measly 3*s, while pve new releases gives out 4*s to t100, and t10 to non new releases, making vets have to grind pve as well, at a more difficult rate

Hopefully they are still working on the scaling, it was a notable improvement in this event than the previous two tests, but still needs more work to account for events with worse boosted characters.

T1 is not the only 4* in pvp, you also have the far more readily available 4* for hitting 1k and you should also take into account time vs reward when comparing pve and pvp, the shortest pve events are 3 days and you need to put in a lot of time per day to get a 4* reward, whereas in pvp you can get a 4* cover in far less time.