Civil War: Post mortem

Polares

Now that a couple of days after the event have passed I think it is a good time to do a little bit of analysis of what went right and what went wrong.

Positives first:
-I think this is probably the boss battle event with best rewards ever. The 3 were meh, but the 4s and for the first time ever the 5s you could win were one of the highlights of the event. Really nice.
-Bosses were fun, specially on the first go. Cap on the second time was probably too much for people with 3 rosters, and forced the use of strategies dependant on receiving damage (most people was using GR or Xpool).
-Two different bosses at the same time with different rewards and enemies. That was also cool, and captured perfectly what CW was.
-Almost no server issues.

Negatives:
- Node scaling. Scaling, the same problem AGAIN. Why are scaling problems still affecting this game after 2.5 years !!!! On the first time, there was almost no progression they went from 20 to 300 in almost no time. On the second time it was something like 20-120-200-300-320-360 but the first steps went too fast (in one day it went from 20 to 200), then the difficulty for the last one was too much, even the previous one. This event finished with nodes with higher difficulty than what I usually have in PvE. NOT COOL. And I get that you were able to finish the nodes in either side, but it is ridiculous than after finishing one side, when moving to the other the boss was in round 2 (200 level ?) and the nodes already at 360 !!!!
- Changing IMHB for War-m as the buffed 4 in team IM. Team IM had on the second time the worst possible selection of buffed 4s, I didn't used any one of them. Quake is good but too new, Fury just meh, Reed is a joke, and War-m was just a few days old!!! Then IMHB was the only IM not buffed (?!?!?!), I get he is one of the best 4s but he is an IM !!!


In general I liked the event, more the first time than the second. I think the first time the scaling was less high and we had IMHB in team IM. This event has left a bitter sweet taste, it could have been the best one of the boss-battle events, it had all the ingredients, but scaling made the event very tedious and reduced the fun factor A LOT.

It has been great being able to win some 5s just playing though, so I guess I will still give it a Pass.


PS: After so many tests trying the new PvE format it is sad that the main thing they had to fix (remember that they were supposed to just fix the scaling?) is still plaguing and making this game much harder and tedious than what it should be. Forget everything else just fix the stupid SCALING ISSUE !!! I should never be afraid of levelling my chars!!!!

smoq84

From my point of view:

- scalling wasn't bad according to the great rewards, the bad things were: no cap on 2* essential nodes and no goons in a survival nodes. Those were really, really hard, almost impossible and at the end I was just whaling them with Deadpool.

- rewards were really great, during those two weekends I've got over 20 4* covers, that's more than I usually get in months! I have max covered my first two 4*'s and finally I can feel I'm progressing to the 4* tier.

- the negative one was again ISO shortage, with so many covers gained I can feel it even more, there should be more ISO to gain, especially from the insanely scalled nodes.

madsalad

smoq84 wrote:

From my point of view:

- scalling wasn't bad according to the great rewards, the bad things were: no cap on 2* essential nodes and no goons in a survival nodes. Those were really, really hard, almost impossible and at the end I was just whaling them with Deadpool.

- rewards were really great, during those two weekends I've got over 20 4* covers, that's more than I usually get in months! I have max covered my first two 4*'s and finally I can feel I'm progressing to the 4* tier.

- the negative one was again ISO shortage, with so many covers gained I can feel it even more, there should be more ISO to gain, especially from the insanely scalled nodes.

There were goons in the some of the survival nodes, they just weren't all goons.

Smudge

I agree with most of what you said, and I would add this...

Why are the node rewards giving out so many blasted critical boosts? The first run didn't feel so crit boost heavy, but the second run I swore I had the boss and sub-node battles give out 5 critical boosts in a row.

If you're going to give me boosts, give me boosts that I can actually have some reliable means of using rather than relying on RNG to make it happen. I'd much rather have 70 ISO at this rate than 5 packs of critical boosts. Otherwise... yep. The event was fun overall with some typical problems.

Insert25c

While I feel the pain for Team IM's lack of boosted IMHB, you did have boosted Vision WITH blue bug. And the same "war machines too new, why is he essential" happened to team cap when they had Winter Soldier essential and he wasn't offered until the Hulk PVE was resolved.

mpqr7

I liked it!! It was just the right amount of challenging, and it felt great to win lots of 4*s and even a 5*. I'd love more events like that, more often. We can do boss battles more regularly, especially now that we have 3 different boss battles available.

Malcrof

For 4 3* covers, 6 4* covers, and 2 5* covers in that short of an event.. scaling was on par with rewards i think, add in token pulls and iso etc.. one of the most lucrative events since Ultron 1 and 2.

If i could change anything, it would be the boss node unlocking on a new round, like in other events.

Polares

Insert25c wrote:

While I feel the pain for Team IM's lack of boosted IMHB, you did have boosted Vision WITH blue bug. And the same "war machines too new, why is he essential" happened to team cap when they had Winter Soldier essential and he wasn't offered until the Hulk PVE was resolved.

The difference is that team Cap had Thing and Antman as buffed 4s both times they run the event. Those are not as good as IMHB but they are quite good, and much better than any of the buffed in the second round (Quake is probably better than those, but most people had just 6-9 covers before the event).

Vision was quite helpful to the 3 players that is true. But because of the bug, so I don't think this was something Devs did on purpose...

Malcrof wrote:

For 4 3* covers, 6 4* covers, and 2 5* covers in that short of an event.. scaling was on par with rewards i think, add in token pulls and iso etc.. one of the most lucrative events since Ultron 1 and 2.

If i could change anything, it would be the boss node unlocking on a new round, like in other events.

I think you are assuming people won too many rewards, not everybody is in a top10 alliance as you are (how many people won both 5s? 10 alliances for 200 people out of 10.000?), you should say something like 4 3* covers, 3-4 4* covers and 1 5* cover, that is probably close to the average.

In the end, people in these top10 alliances, they completed one of the teams BEFORE the big ramp up in difficulty, so they had an easier time (at least for the first 5) that people in more casual alliances, which is not very fair. Thing is, the event should have known if you were in round 8+3 and then make the difficulty bigger adding the total number of rounds, that would probably have been more fair. So if you get to round 16 then nodes are super hard, but not if you just made it to round 8. People would also been able to chose if they want to get the 4s or the 5 with the easier difficulty. Difficulty should have been related to the total number of rounds, not to the current time of the event.

Oh, and LTs for the event should have been probably 25CPs, not 30. They were of course designed for the super whales, but it would have been great for the normal players to be able to buy some.

Malcrof

Polares wrote:

Malcrof wrote:

For 4 3* covers, 6 4* covers, and 2 5* covers in that short of an event.. scaling was on par with rewards i think, add in token pulls and iso etc.. one of the most lucrative events since Ultron 1 and 2.

If i could change anything, it would be the boss node unlocking on a new round, like in other events.

I think you are assuming people won too many rewards, not everybody is in a top10 alliance as you are (how many people won both 5s? 10 alliances for 200 people out of 10.000?), you should say something like 4 3* covers, 3-4 4* covers and 1 5* cover, that is probably close to the average.

In the end, people in these top10 alliances, they completed one of the teams BEFORE the big ramp up in difficulty, so they had an easier time (at least for the first 5) that people in more casual alliances, which is not very fair. Thing is, the event should have known if you were in round 8+3 and then make the difficulty bigger adding the total number of rounds, that would probably have been more fair. So if you get to round 16 then nodes are super hard, but not if you just made it to round 8. People would also been able to chose if they want to get the 4s or the 5 with the easier difficulty. Difficulty should have been related to the total number of rounds, not to the current time of the event.

Oh, and LTs for the event should have been probably 25CPs, not 30. They were of course designed for the super whales, but it would have been great for the normal players to be able to buy some.

In any other PVE, how many win t10? Or more than the 3* rewards? Even smaller alliances got a couple of 4*s and many at least one 5*.. pure progression, no placement, super easy trivials at the start, harder at the end.. this is exactly what everyone has been asking for from PVE for a very long time..

I see no downside.

Punatulkku

Only 2* guys from tokens... I would call it semi fail event. Tier rewards were ok, but its saddening to play over a year and still get 99% of cases 2* heroes...

BlackSheep101

I love seeing folks turn up their nose at Nick Fury. Boosted demolition, with IM40 acceleration and one target to down was the perfect ability for Cap boss fights.

smkspy

I didn't like the alliance choosing side factor. I get it, civil war, but it really screwed up my alliance both times either by people going rogue or wanting to switch sides halfway through because scaling got so hard they just gave up on finishing round 8 first go round and round 7 in the second.

I don't care how good the rewards are, any event that pretty much makes you stop playing with a day left because the scaling is nuts is a failure in my book. My entire alliance basic just f it at the end because it was just too damn hard. That's not fun.

And I do love looking at the rosters at the people loving and praising this event. I certainly see why they're doing it.

broll

I thought the scaling was a lot better, but probably too steep at the tail end.

I'm annoyed at the major issue where no one could advance on Friday night for like 3-5 hours with no communication about the issue.

Linkster79

Our semi casual alliance got scaled out on R7 do switched sides, only to then be scaled out on R1. None of us could beat the side nodes reliably to not have to use 3 health packs after every battle then 3 more after the boss battle so we gave up with a day left to go. Any event that makes folks give up is not a success in my opinion.

I've taken a sabbatical from the game so frustrated I am with scaling issues. The game should he getting easier not harder.

OneLastGambit

I didn't mind the scaling so much except on wave nodes.

Fighting 6 level 300+ characters in a row is **** especially when wave 2 has 20ap to instantly wipe you out and the reward you get should you complete it is a crit boost

PeterGibbons316

I mentioned this in the new content thread, but the CW addressed 3 complaints that I see all the time:

1.) A desire for non-competitive PvE - All the rewards were given based on individual and alliance progression regardless of how other players did.
2.) Lack of ability to acquire 4* covers - This has sort of been addressed with the recent reward tiering in PvE but only the top 10 get 4* covers, in CW a total of six 4* covers (7.8 if you count the LTs w/draw rates) were available.
3.) Luck based progression into 5* tier - This was an opportunity to earn known 5* covers - the only other place you can get known 5* covers is in the daily resupply.

So overall a lot of great things coming from CW.

The biggest negative was with the node scaling getting out of hand and ultimately I think this is a consequence of being able to complete nodes on one team to unlock the boss on the other team. I don't think you can have one without the other. A lot of alliances finished one side and then began playing on the other with crazy scaled nodes and it seemed silly for me to have to fight six level 387 guys to unlock a level 250/300/350 boss. But honestly it would have been just as silly if I could have fought level 50 nodes on the fresh side to unlock a level 450 boss on the other side. So it makes sense to me to scale all nodes based on the highest round completed on either side.

It sucks to get scaled out of an event, but in an event where known 5* covers are given as rewards.....shouldn't people kind of be required to have a roster that can handle that to be able to earn the reward?

Ultimately I don't really think anything needs to change to run it again. Even though I have all the essentials rostered, I think the event is better if players have the ability to use either essential character to unlock the boss they are fighting, as opposed to "fixing" the scaling issues seen near the end of the event. Honestly beating round 8 on one side shouldn't reset the nodes to easy mode to start on the other side - it should continue to be just as challenging if not moreso to complete both sides.

It would be nice to see more detailed information on node/boss values from D3 ahead of time for these alliance events. Trying to coordinate with 20 guys to finish both sides was very difficult because it was unclear exactly how much time was going to need to be committed to from each individual. Based on boss health (acquired through players from first run, not from D3) it was looking like virtually everyone was going to have to do perfect clears AND get some extra clears throughout the entire event to complete both, but the node values actually scaled up pretty high near the end making it easier to finish both. If those node values were known ahead of time it would have been a lot easier to coordinate and get people to sign up for slightly less insane levels of commitment.

Linkster79

PeterGibbons316 wrote:

It sucks to get scaled out of an event, but in an event where known 5* covers are given as rewards.....shouldn't people kind of be required to have a roster that can handle that to be able to earn the reward?

For a regular run of the mill story event I would agree 110%, however for a marquee event designed and publicised to be bringing new players to the game I would argue that it should have been much much easier. For the 2 or 3 events of the year would it really be that much of a tragedy that tokens , covers, ISO, whatever is almost given away? Experienced alliances get an easy time and newer players get to feel like they may want to continue playing and maybe start paying.

Yes some will bring up its not fair newbies get good stuff, 4* and 3* covers will break their scaling yadayadayadda, who cares? Imagine coming to this game for this event, would you stay for long after? This forum is not representative of the masses. The majority of this forum comprises the top 1-10% and as such I get a real sense of elitism. This isn't a statement aimed at anyone in general it's just that most forget how hard it was to be new when the end game was just a couple of 4*'s compared to now when 4*'s are the bread and butter.

PeterGibbons316

Linkster79 wrote:

PeterGibbons316 wrote:

It sucks to get scaled out of an event, but in an event where known 5* covers are given as rewards.....shouldn't people kind of be required to have a roster that can handle that to be able to earn the reward?

For a regular run of the mill story event I would agree 110%, however for a marquee event designed and publicised to be bringing new players to the game I would argue that it should have been much much easier. For the 2 or 3 events of the year would it really be that much of a tragedy that tokens , covers, ISO, whatever is almost given away? Experienced alliances get an easy time and newer players get to feel like they may want to continue playing and maybe start paying.

Yes some will bring up its not fair newbies get good stuff, 4* and 3* covers will break their scaling yadayadayadda, who cares? Imagine coming to this game for this event, would you stay for long after? This forum is not representative of the masses. The majority of this forum comprises the top 1-10% and as such I get a real sense of elitism. This isn't a statement aimed at anyone in general it's just that most forget how hard it was to be new when the end game was just a couple of 4*'s compared to now when 4*'s are the bread and butter.

You know, I almost mentioned this exact thing in my post, but decided not to. I completely agree that an event coinciding with a #1 blockbuster movie release could benefit from appealing to the masses, which means everyone plays, no one gets locked out, and it can be used as a tool to grow the player base. But I still maintain the belief that 5* rewards should NOT be easily attained by these new players. And so the "solution" would have been to not have released these new 5*s as they did, and instead of a dumbed down scaled version of the event so that new players would be attracted to the game and want to stay.

Looking at the event as a standalone it was a success. But how to launch it with the movie, and it's intent for growth is more of a marketing strategy and honestly not something any of us on here are equipped to make a judgement on.

smkspy

If I had just started this game, that event would make me want to quit. It already has taken a lot of enjoyment out of the game going on a year now.

As an alliance commander, I wanted to blow my brains out during it.

halirin

smkspy wrote:

If I had just started this game, that event would make me want to quit. It already has taken a lot of enjoyment out of the game going on a year now.

As an alliance commander, I wanted to blow my brains out during it.

I don't know the specifics of your situation, but I feel confident recommending that you join a new alliance. You can only have a limited effect trying to coordinate with an uncooperative or casual alliance. If you want to play with people who play "correctly" (e.g., Picking a team and all hitting that side), it's a million times easier to find and join a group of people who already think like you than to mold a bunch of randos.

Akari

During the first run, my alliance easily cleared r8 on one side and got to r7 on the other, but half the alliance got scaled out near the end. I only got through because of boosted HB. In the second run, my alliance restructured and was able to clear both sides, but I very nearly got scaled out at the end due to terrible boosted characters, none of which I had leveled.

Ultimately, I enjoyed the event. The bosses were very doable with XDP and GR (I used OML 360, XDP 250, JG 280 for IM and OML, XDP, GR 130 for Cap), and the nodes could be scaled down a bit. I get that they jump every 8 hrs, but they really need to not go higher than every character in my roster.