New Mission Difficulty Test: Enemy of the State *Updated

David [Hi-Fi] Moore

*Update (06/14/16)

Hello,

Thanks for all of your feedback so far on the current testing. We're aware that some players are reporting tied scores and a few scoring anomalies (which are being investigated). Here's word from Anthony at Demiurge:

"We intentionally set up this run of Enemy of the State so that there was a finite number of points - meaning there's an absolute top score, and multiple players can hit it. When looking at previous runs of events with the new mission difficulty, we did not think that there would be many ties as almost no one played all missions until they were all drained out of points. Once the event has finished, we will look at how many ties there are and how well people performed in general."

***

(Original message (06/09/16)

Hi everyone,

We’ve got another mission difficulty test coming up in the Enemy of the State event beginning June 09, 2016. Here are the details from Demiurge:

“During the Meet Rocket & Groot event, we saw that people were playing less overall and higher-level rosters were performing better than low-level rosters. However, we saw that people were still playing according to a schedule and some players were grinding the Easy missions a lot. In Enemy of the State, we will be running the new mission difficulty again but with a few changes to help address playing at specific times and players grinding Easy nodes.

No More Points Regeneration - In both versions of mission difficulty, the amount of points you can gain in a mission goes down the more you play them. Once a mission is worth less points, it takes some time for the points to regenerate back to the full amount. We have removed that system so that once a mission is worth less points, it will never be worth more points again. There is now a finite amount of times a mission can be played where you will gain points from beating it.

More Missions....and More Rewards! - Because there is a finite amount of times you can play a mission, we bumped up the amount of missions that can be played for Hard and Required Character missions to six (from four). We haven't changed the starting difficulty for any mission but we did raise the end difficulty for Hard missions (Required Character missions will end slightly harder than before). We also increased the amount of rewards that can be earned from a mission to match how many times a mission can be beaten for points. There won't be a time where you are gaining points for beating a mission but do not receive a reward.

Updated Mission Difficulty Details:

• Missions are Worth a Finite Amount of Points

o Once a mission reaches its maximum difficulty, the mission begins to be worth less points. o Every time a mission is beaten while it is at maximum difficulty, the points the mission is worth is reduced by 25% of the maximum amount of points the mission is worth (to a minimum of zero points). o The points a mission is worth no longer regenerates over time.

• More missions (and more rewards!)

o Each sub-chapter has a minimum of nine repeatable missions: Three Easy, three Hard and three Required Character missions. o In one-day sub-chapters, Easy missions increase in difficulty 4 times and are worth points the first 7 times they are beaten. Hard and Required Character missions increase in difficulty 6 times and are worth points the first 9 times they are beaten. o In two-day sub-chapters, Easy missions increase in difficulty 8 times and are worth points the first 11 times they are beaten. Hard and Required Character missions increase in difficulty 12 times and are worth points the first 15 times they are beaten. o Each mission has rewards equal to the amount of times they can be beaten for points.

• Difficulty Changes

o No changes have been made to Easy missions. o All missions start at the same difficulty as Meet Rocket & Groot (the last event to use the new mission difficulty). o Hard missions have a maximum difficulty higher than Meet Rocket & Groot. o Required Character missions have a maximum difficulty slightly harder than Meet Rocket & Groot."

Thanks, as always, for participating in the tests and providing your feedback!

mpqr7

So... we have to grind more this time?

How about better rewards for harder mission difficulty? Or if I have to face lv 300+ enemies, do I still get the same rewards that someone gets if they only need to face lv 100 enemies on the same node?

jffdougan

Question: will you again be rewarding participants for helping out in this test?

TxMoose

this should REALLY be a double iso event....

wvblueandgold

This sounds terrible.

thanos8587

sounds like a nightmare...again.

thanks for the week off....again.

Ducky

This sounds like placement is going to be a nope, or is it just me?


Mod Edit: Language

Coltsjustwin

I thought tie breaker was based on the original.order of joining the event

Merrick

Wow. So no point regeneration. So the max points will be identical for everyone. And speed on the initial runthrough will determine placement. (1-50 will all finish, some in an hour some in a day, but the points will be the same).

It doesn't seem that the developers actually play the game or even have a firm grasp on how it is played.

Ducky

Coltsjustwin wrote:

I thought tie breaker was based on the original.order of joining the event

Nope, it's whoever reaches said score first.

DrStrange-616

Where do progression rewards stand with this event? Is it the 3 clears per sub again? Or do we have to grind until the cows come home?

I've given up caring about placement completely.

JamesV

DrStrange-616 wrote:

Where do progression rewards stand with this event? Is it the 3 clears per sub again? Or do we have to grind until the cows come home?

I've given up caring about placement completely.

I was just about to ask this.

mindsuckr

"David wrote:

Moore"]

“During the Meet Rocket & Groot event, we saw that people were playing less overall and higher-level rosters were performing better than low-level rosters. However, we saw that people were still playing according to a schedule and some players were grinding the Easy missions a lot.

I knew two people who would grind the one easy node hundreds of times a sub to get first place, and I'm sure there were quite a few more out there as well who did the same. Even with those players adding thousands of extra plays, you still saw less playing. Crazy.

JangoLore

For those high performers, this may be an issue, but I have to wonder if the devs are looking more at how the more casual player (greater distribution) experiences the event, even though it is counter intuitive to change a game to suit the preferences of those who do not financially contribute to the longevity and profitability of a game. Maybe they are trying to net the amazon adopters!

TxMoose

so the optimal play here is play tap all nodes as fast as possible at sub start. one solid ~5-hour play session. meh. i'll grab some iso and hope, again, that this never, ever, gets implemented. grocket was barely tolerable. this sounds worse.

Merrick

And upon further thinking, this is the stupidest thing ever.

Assuming you finish days 1-6, the entire event and placement will come down to who finishes day 7 the fastest.

Pongie

If rubberbanding is in place I think it will be the opposite, whoever can clear 6 times the latest will top the leaderboard. Question is, does rubberbanding calculate against main score or just individual subs? If main score, would it not suck to be in the lead only for people below to be able to earn more points? If just sub, then it's entirely different.

It's early but I still prefer this test over all previous ones. Play when you want and just ignore the placement

Vohnkar

You keep doing this tests... you see people grinding easy nodes forever and what you extrapolate fron there is that you need to do more dificult nodes!!! NICE!!!! maybe people with lower rosters doesn't like to be destroyed in every node.

You keep punishing us for leveling our characters, scaling sucks. If I have to fight lvl 200-300 I should be rewarded acordingly... but nope, shittty rewards everywhere. I really tried to grind some of those tests to get at least a 3* from progression, but I can't, its too boring and requires too much time.

I'll give it a try again, just so you get more of your stats that says I play only the easy nodes....

vcorsac

How does alliance placement work with regards to ties? If it follows the same rules as individual ties, then does that mean the optimal alliance strategy would involve all alliance members being in slice 1 to get max points first?

Uninspired

I'm curious how failed attempts at wave nodes will work (especially since this is enemy of the state). Will it only count as a clear once you finish all waves (and presumedly get only one full clear worth of points after a full clear, kind of like DDQ), or will a failed attempt count as one attempt and give partial points like before, and thus reduce your max possible score?

Also, are there nine or so rewards for wave nodes, or are those still one and done on the rewards? I guess we'll find out soon...

Malcrof

Multiple rewards each clear on the wave nodes?