Redesigning the PvE Experience

fight4thedream

While I very much appreciate the ISO boost and the arrival of War Machine into the MPQ universe, I can't help but feel a little blasé about this run of ISO Brotherhood. I have been playing MPQ for more than 2 years (which is a testament to both the gameplay and my love for all things Marvel) but if I must continue battling the same Dark Avengers and NPC goons over and over again than I am afraid in the end the bad guys really do win. Persistence, after all, is the key to success as they say.

But I will not go quietly into that dark night.

My brother from another mother Stax asked some very pertinent questions in his thread The False Dichotomy of the "New" PvE System and I do hope someone takes the time to give us informative answers.

In the meanwhile, I have a question for my fellow forum comrades: If you were placed in charge of developing "Story Events" what kind of events would you create? What underlying design principles would you use when creating events? Do you think a drastic redesign is in order or simple tweaks here and there will suffice?

Not one to shy away from such mental exercises, allow me to go first if I may:

Fight's Ultra Radical Story Event Design v3.2

Design Principles

1. Instituting tiered difficult for all new events: No longer will player's sense of progression only be tied to the characters they own, but also they will be able to select a difficulty setting (beginner, normal, hard, deadly) before starting the event so that they can get a clear sense of how strong their roster is in terms of a predetermined set scaling system.

2. Increase in difficulty, Increase in Rewards: Each difficulty tier has a set amount of rewards.
For example:
Beginner: 40,000ISO, 75HP and three 2* covers and one 3* cover and 5 standard tokens
Normal: 75,000 ISO 150HP and three 3* covers and one 4* cover, and 5 heroic tokens and 5 CP
Hard: 130,000ISO 250HP and three 4* covers and one legendary token and 20CP
Deadly: 350,000 ISO 400HP and two legendary tokens, one 5*cover and 50 CP

*Note: These are arbitrary figures to just illustrate a point and honestly not a fan of the RNGesus determining 5* rewards but that's a topic for another time. And yes, a player can do all levels within the provided event time.

3. Variety is the spice of life: Different types of story events. Obviously it would be a waste to not use the old events like ISO Brotherhood and the Gauntlet but it is also important to branch out and try new things. One of my personal faves is random guerilla encounters, players will fight a villain one on one for a new character cover or more puzzle like battles that require you meet certain criteria (can't do damage to boss character unless five friendly shields are on the board). Believe me I have a boat load of ideas but oh so little time so on to the next principle!

4. Encourage thematic teams and events: Instead of randomly boosting characters, pick popular story events and have it boost characters related to that storyline. For example: Daredevil Shadowland: Daredevil and Bullseye are locked out of the event (Have a 5* Daredevil boss character), Spider-man, Punisher, Elektra, Ghost Rider, Iron Fist and Luke Cage boosted. Also, try to have an X-men month, Villains month, special holiday events, etc.

5. Allow players to play on their own time, at their own pace： Players should have the option to play all levels of difficult within a certain period of time. That does mean, however, that a 2* player will not be able to complete a hard difficulty setting, while a 4* player can breeze through easy mode, have a good time in normal mode, and have a challenging and sometimes frustrating time in Hard mode and cry for their mama in deadly mode (while coming to the forum looking for hints, tips and strategies to try and get that 5* lol)

*Note: Certain events should lock out star tiers characters depending on difficulty selected. So for example, easy mode will lock out 3* characters and above. Don't want people selling that 1* Spidey hehe!

My brain is running out of juice but I have one last brain fart left so I would also try to tier the enemies faced in each difficulty setting (this largely depends on the event) because I find it incredible ridiculous that Silver Surfer can be gunned down by a common street thug.

Tiered Enemy system

Beginner level: Maggia goons, H.A.M.M.E.R. goons, sprinkles of Dark Avengers as Mini bosses and Bosses and the occasional 3* Villain boss (here's looking at you Dr. Octopus)

Normal level: less Maggia/Hammer goons, more Dark Avengers plus Ninjas and Doombots in the mix with a sprinkle of symbiote and ultron droids here and there, 3* boss battles (Magneto, Dr. Doom, Mystique) with occasional 4* boss battles (Venom, Kingpin)

Hard level: No Maggia/Hammer goons or Dark Avengers, Ninjas and droids everywhere! Enter the scourge of mutant kind, the Sentinels, those pesky Symbiotes and Skrulls too! 4* boss battles (Carnage, Super Skrull, Dracula, etc)

Deadly: Bye bye ninjas, droids and symbiotes! Hello Marvel Zombies, chitauri, Celestials, demons, and major villains. Boss battles against 5* (Green Goblin, God Doom, Thanos, etc)

Additionally, boss characters like Magneto should have their own special set of goons (Brotherhood of Evil anyone? Where are Toad, Pyro and Blob anyway?) Make'em NPC or available for players to get, doesn't matter to me. Anything will be better than having to fight the DA crew for the umpteenth time. And obviously this system couldn't work for every event but I think for an event called a Quest event it would be perfect.

The Quest

A Quest event would last 15 days and run once every two months. In this event, you have roster restrictions depending on difficulty mode and have more unique puzzle challenges and tasks to clear nodes than the beat-your-enemy-to-a pulp paradigm we live under. A storyline, either adapted from the pages of Marvel or created inhouse for the sake of our entertainment (like the Howard Event) will be provided. And of course, non-competitive.

For example:

True survival nodes: the goal is not to kill the enemy but rather to last a set number of rounds.

Special board conditions: You have to meet a requirement regarding the board, for example there must be 15 TUs on the board (hint hint Ms. Marvel) to clear this node.

Special feat conditions: You have to meet a requirement regarding power/ability usage, you have to have all members on the team invisible so you can sneak into Dr. Doom's castle.

Anyway, my brain juice tank is empty so I will end it here as I must prepare for my PvE clear (picked the wrong time slice lol) What kind of things would you like to see in Story Events?　

P.S.-And random stuff like Double Iso events every now and then is always nice!

tl; dr: Fight is tired of fighting Dark Avengers. What kind of PvE story events would you like to play? .*o_ _)oﾊﾞﾀｯ

Philly79

I was wondering where you went man, you were holding strong in t10 with us then poof! you disappeared, I am guessing due to the reasons mentioned above. Anyway to the op, I think you have very good ideas and hopefully some of them get implemented into the game that we all love, upvote given, see you around....

Edit: would love to see marvel zombies in the game even if it was a once a year deal for Halloween or something and absolutely love #2...after rereading it there are too many good ideas to list them all, nice work.

fight4thedream

Philly79 wrote:

I was wondering where you went man, you were holding strong in t10 with us then poof! you disappeared, I am guessing due to the reasons mentioned above. Anyway to the op, I think you have very good ideas and hopefully some of them get implemented into the game that we all love, upvote given, see you around....

Edit: would love to see marvel zombies in the game even if it was a once a year deal for Halloween or something

Yeah, mixed my PvE slice with my PvP slice lol Having to wake up at 4am to hit a clear, wake up again, roll out of bed and do my final grind plus the monotony of fighting Dark Avengers and the knowledge that I have schedule conflict on Wednesday which pretty much guarantees T10 is a no go and the fact that 5* characters have made most 4* characters obsolete before birth has knocked the wind out my sails Ce'st la vie! But still stoked about having War Machine in the game!

Good luck to you and everyone else in our death bracket hehe Might have one or two more good rounds left in me but for now I need to get some sleep! ｵ(o･0･o)ﾔ(o･ｪ･o)ｽ(o-ｪ-o)ﾐｨ(o_ _)o.zZ

And yeah, they should definitely think about doing a Halloween Marvel Zombies thing!

AaronTheLuigi

Wonderful concept.

A couple of other unique scenarios I've thought of while playing would be things like reducing collateral damage-type matches. Say a mission takes place on a S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier, but one of the engines has been blown by Sentry or Moonstone or what-have-you. The match would start with four 6-10 turn CDs for your team which would represent S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel repairing the engine, and you need to protect at minimum 2 of them until they go off (may need a stipulation like disabiling fortifying effects).

Or, you could do boards with a special condition like, all tiles that drop during the match have a 10% chance of being Charged tiles, etc.

emaker27

Having environment or stage goals for an effect would be cool. For example:
1. Getting 4 matches on a single turn, charges 4 tiles of the that team's strongest color.
2. Get a match 5 in your team's weakest color to randomly destroy 5 tiles.
3. Puzzle type goals - Get a black tile to the bottom left corner on your turn to grant 200 Iso.
4. Escape the match taking less than 1000 total damage to earn a bonus 100 Iso.
5. Character specific goals for roster diversity - Swap two tiles by using a power to earn an item. Or create a web tile for some bonus.

The stage goals would be random each time and add variety with new goals for every match (in PvE only).

Philly79

completely understand the pve/ pvp timing issue, people need to sleep from time to time ... although when I finished my last clear I see you crept back into the t10, hang tight man, War Machine incoming...

Marine8394

Preeeeeeach oh enlightened one. Hallelujah!!!!

TheWerebison

I would welcome any new PvE content. Specifically looking for Sinister Six, but I've enjoyed the stories of the new stuff they've come out with.

Maybe to avoid burnout, they can add some game modes that do different things. Like if every day, you got a challenge to complete a randomly generated puzzle. The challenge would be issued by one of the smartest people in Marvel, such as Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, Hank Pym, Amadeus Cho, etc). The reward would have to be fairly small if it's just one puzzle, but it could offer a brief reprieve.

I've also been trying to think of a way to make a story mode that involves a court case between Daredevil and She Hulk.

OneLastGambit

I think you stole all the good ideas fight. Great post.

What about a scenario mode?

Pick a scenario based on comic book stories to earn rewards. E.g.

Civil war : cap attacks punisher after he kills two of his recruits but punisher refuses to fight back - survive caps attacks for 3 minutes without using any abilities.

Stuff like that.

Also your pve suggestions pretty much fix the entire thing.

I'd also like to see in-game achievements which boost how much iso you earn or lower how much iso you earn.

Example : penalty-used same team 3 times in a row reduce iso won by 50%

Reward used all character abilities in one match increase iso won by 50%

Brings the puzzle back into this quest, breaks up the same old teams , encourages rostering more characters, allows a modicum of control over your rewards and gives people an extra challenge.

I often try to beat juggs with match damage alone just because it's a good challenge (my record is level 290) would L0VE to earn extra iso for doing it

JamesV

Completely on board with the original post, but with this part:

1. Instituting tiered difficult for all new events: No longer will player's sense of progression only be tied to the character's they own, but also they will be able to select a difficulty setting (beginner, normal, hard, deadly) before starting the event so that they can get a clear sense of how strong their roster is in terms of a predetermined set scaling system.

2. Increase in difficulty, Increase in Rewards: Each difficulty tier has a set amount of rewards.
For example:
Beginner: 40,000ISO, 200HP and three 2* covers and one 3* cover and 5 standard tokens
Normal: 75,000 ISO 350HP and three 3* covers and one 4* cover, and 5 heroic tokens and 5 CP
Hard: 130,000ISO 500HP and three 4* covers and one legendary token and 20CP
Deadly: 350,000 ISO 700HP and two legendary tokens, one 5*cover and 50 CP

*Note: These are arbitrary figures to just illustrate a point and honestly not a fan of the RNGesus determining 5* rewards but that's a topic for another time. And yes, a player can do all levels within the provided event time.

I think there's a more elegant way of handling tiered play, IMO. Instead of having selectable tier's, just make everyone join and playthrough until they cannot any more. Eliminate the timer for subevents.

For example, Rocket and Groot is a 4 day event with 3 subs.
In a revised system the event still lasts 4 days, but all three subs are visible from the beginning.
Sub 2 opens when Sub 1 has been completed. And when sub 2 opens, sub 1 locks.
Completing the third sub completes the run and the difficulty is bumped up.

Each run through would correspond with different difficulties.
Run 1 = Trivial (let 1 star players with some two stars enjoy the content)
Run 2 = Beginner (2 star transitions)
Run 3 = Easy (Two-Three star transition players)
Run 4 = Normal (Three Star players pre-four star transition)
Run 5 = Difficult (4 star transition/4 star players)
Run 6 = Hard (4 Star to 5 star transition players)
Run 7 = Deadly (5 star players)

And you would just use something similar to the difficulty tier rewards you described for each progression point.

Two additional notes:
1) Node rewards would have to be rebalanced and would no longer be random. 70 ISO for clearing the node on Trivial or beginner, all the way up to 2000 (or more) at the high end. Stick the CP in Run 4.
2) Essential nodes would not count in terms of completing the sub. This means that a Trivial player who is missing say Quicksilver and 4* Cyclops would still be able to unlock the next run and with some luck hit their Run 1 progression point. This helps smooth the transition between difficulty tiers. You would still need the essentials in order to hit max progression mind you.

JamesV

And I could not agree about NPC goon villains any harder if I wanted to. I don't care if I ever get to play as The Spot or Stilt-man (that's a lie, of course I do) but I understand that heroes sell better than villains. But having villains adds flavor sooooo....

djeternal

JamesV wrote:

Completely on board with the original post, but with this part:


Two additional notes:
1) Node rewards would have to be rebalanced and would no longer be random. 70 ISO for clearing the node on Trivial or beginner, all the way up to 2000 (or more) at the high end. Stick the CP in Run 4.

Sorry I have a problem with. If they were to go to this kind of setup it would screw over the 1* to 2* transitioners and 2* to 3* transitioners because they wouldn't have the roster to complete the higher difficulties. So the higher iso amts would be locked out for them. Iso is in such a shortage even those ppl need it not just those that have 4* & 5* rosters.

JamesV

djeternal wrote:

JamesV wrote:

Completely on board with the original post, but with this part:


Two additional notes:
1) Node rewards would have to be rebalanced and would no longer be random. 70 ISO for clearing the node on Trivial or beginner, all the way up to 2000 (or more) at the high end. Stick the CP in Run 4.

Sorry I have a problem with. If they were to go to this kind of setup it would screw over the 1* to 2* transitioners and 2* to 3* transitioners because they wouldn't have the roster to complete the higher difficulties. So the higher iso amts would be locked out for them. Iso is in such a shortage even those ppl need it not just those that have 4* & 5* rosters.

Is the issue that it locks those rosters from being able to farm the nodes for additional ISO? The values I used were just place holders, but if you move to a progression based system you have to lock in set structured rewards. ISO is just spendable XP points so the amount of XP points need to expand as you move higher up.

djeternal

JamesV wrote:

djeternal wrote:

JamesV wrote:

Completely on board with the original post, but with this part:


Two additional notes:
1) Node rewards would have to be rebalanced and would no longer be random. 70 ISO for clearing the node on Trivial or beginner, all the way up to 2000 (or more) at the high end. Stick the CP in Run 4.

Sorry I have a problem with. If they were to go to this kind of setup it would screw over the 1* to 2* transitioners and 2* to 3* transitioners because they wouldn't have the roster to complete the higher difficulties. So the higher iso amts would be locked out for them. Iso is in such a shortage even those ppl need it not just those that have 4* & 5* rosters.

Is the issue that it locks those rosters from being able to farm the nodes for additional ISO? The values I used were just place holders, but if you move to a progression based system you have to lock in set structured rewards. ISO is just spendable XP points so the amount of XP points need to expand as you move higher up.

The issue is going from currently random 70 iso to 1/2k iso for a node to your suggestion that the iso values be set based on the progress of difficulty. I'm currently in the 1 to 2 transition and already have an iso deficit in the hundred thousands. In my current spot I can't farm DDQ (don't have the roster for most of the nodes) and definitely can't farm PVP effectively. So my best source of iso is PVE. Based on your suggestion here's what I could see being the setup:

Run 1 = Trivial (let 1 star players with some two stars enjoy the content) - 70 iso
Run 2 = Beginner (2 star transitions) - 140 iso
Run 3 = Easy (Two-Three star transition players) - 200 iso
Run 4 = Normal (Three Star players pre-four star transition) - 400 iso
Run 5 = Difficult (4 star transition/4 star players) - 600 iso
Run 6 = Hard (4 Star to 5 star transition players) - 800 iso
Run 7 = Deadly (5 star players) - 1k iso

In this setup ppl like me would take forever to get to full blown 2* territory since we could only clear run 1 and maybe run 2. Say 10 nodes per run (just an easy # for maths sake) I'd be looking at 700 iso in run 1 & 1400 for a full blown run 2. 2100 iso is a drop in the bucket if you are needing almost 70k to max a 2* and another 5k for champ. With the current random (not in double iso) I can do multiple clears and get sometimes 1k - 1400 per node depending on what random rewards are set for the node. I get most forumites have been around a long while and passed the early stages of their rosters a long while ago; but, there are newer ppl too or ppl like me that started a long while ago & left for an extended period of time only to come back.

JamesV

I completely understand that. I think the difference -- and I did not articulate this as I was spring boarding off of the original post so that's my bad -- is that you would still have the progression reward ISO. So I was still working with the original numbers (40,000 iso for the beginner progression). So while the actual ISO per node grinding would decrease, the overall ISO would increase.

So if clearing 2 runs gets you 40K, we assume 20K per run of progression. So that would be 30K iso in progression + the node reward iso.

djeternal

Ok that makes much more sense. My apologies for not realizing you were adding to the OP suggestion and not suggesting a different setup to the one the OP laid out.

tanis3303

Great ideas Fight, especially the fun board-dependent challenges! Random grudge matches would be cool too! I'm right there with you in regards to never having to fight the same 6 vastly overscaled villians...it was old a year ago, now it's just become intolerable. Cleared a lvl 325 Moonstone/Daken/Ares node? Huzzah! Well played...your next challenge: A lvl 325 Daken/Moonstone/Bullseye node! Variety, we haz that...up to the upper limit of 5 different things

I still like my idea of "buying" your way thru a PvE with event currency (that I shamelessly stole from FFRK and several other mobile game structures). Beat a node, receive a quantity of Red ISO (or something) and use it to purchase prizes from an event "store". Move all progression, placement and sub even rewards offered throughout the whole event to the store, and let players play as much or as little as they choose to be able to buy the things they actually want. Hmmm...I wonder how many critical boosts would be purchased............

slidecage

really tired about people complaning about how PVE is ran. it ran this way for 2 yeas now people want it change so they can still get all of the rewards without doing the work. If you want PVE change then i demand that the 4 star in PVP be moved from 1000 down to 500.

2. Increase in difficulty, Increase in Rewards: Each difficulty tier has a set amount of rewards.
For example:
Beginner: 40,000ISO, 75HP and three 2* covers and one 3* cover and 5 standard tokens
Normal: 75,000 ISO 150HP and three 3* covers and one 4* cover, and 5 heroic tokens and 5 CP
Hard: 130,000ISO 250HP and three 4* covers and one legendary token and 20CP
Deadly: 350,000 ISO 400HP and two legendary tokens, one 5*cover and 50 CP


will never work with those items... 720 CP is needed for a 5 star cover and you think they are going to just give them out.


how about
Beginners 4 clears per day get you 25 cp
normal 3 clears a day get you the cp
hard 3 clears gets you CP + 1 4 star
next rank 3 clears gets you cp + 2 4 stas
Deadly 3 clears get you cp + 3 4 stars + some hp



Long story short though the game is not set up for either way... Its either going to be the way PVE is ran now OR how they are testing it.. They are not going to rewrite the entire game just to set up a new PVE.

Natsufan01

Something that I like from older Puzzle Quest games was special boards that had to be cleared within a certain amount of moves to unlock something. In MPQ, it could be an easy way to earn covers. 3 tiers, easy ones give 1* covers. medium ones give 2*. Hard ones give 3*. Complete any level with less moves than the requirement and you get a cover from the next tier up. Complete all of the missions for each tier gets you a cover of your choice from that tier. Complete all missions from a tier with less moves than the requirement and you get a cover of your choice from the next tier up.

Here's a pic of one of these from Challenge of the Warlords. This one you had to clear in 5 turns:

TheOncomingStorm

My recommendation is to go the South Park cartoon route. Typically, it takes a very long time for most cartoons to male one episode. SP on the other hand crank them out.

Instead of making every pve a work of art, they should make some special ones like these every few months, but they should also do a more stripped down version they can make at least once per month.

Instead of art and bubble conversations, just put a line or 2 that describes what's going on each node like they do now on the map. There should a few templates. This way, similar to dpdq, the nodes would just have be updated with the enemies, plus a small description as previously stated. May be a city template, a building template, etc. The placement and number of nodes for a template never change.

Each of these types of pve wold have simple themes like stop Doom's newest plot or take back the xmen mansion. Or mechanic themes such as cds, attack tiles protect tiles, stuns, Web tiles, etc. that would test and/or a player's skills taking on a certain mechanic of the game. Other challenge themes could be like player characters have less health, do less damage or certain abilities like regeneration won't work in that particular pve.

Pylgrim

Great bunch of ideas,thanks F4tD! However, allow me to be a bit more cynical (and perhaps realistic?): I very much doubt the devs will make such a paradigm shift of all their trusted methods and systems. It would be a better idea to leave those ideas for a future game (MPQ2?).

The way I'd fix the monotony of fighting the same villains over and over: Have a big new event, "Prologue: Chapter 0", showing Ozzy's inevitable ascension to power, preceding all the events seen in the game so far. Big twist! It is revealed that it was made possible because he hired/tricked/bewitched/charmed/forced an army of Skrulls! Dun dun duuuuun! Now every event and storyline can be retroactively retconned into using literally any character in MPQ. They can even rotate them around so each event iteration will be entirely different. Success!