New Mission Difficulty Test: Enemy of the State *Updated

GrumpySmurf1002

DuckyV wrote:

Except in the old system levels are capped at 325. Mine maxed at 444 this sub. That makes it take a lot longer...among other things.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to justify the rest of the nonsense.

Just saying from a strict "how many times you have to do it" standpoint, there's less to complete than there would be typically. People complete the higher number all the time, so there's little reason to believe they won't do it now. Easier nodes would just make it even more likely it'd be completed early and often, and emphasize doing so on a schedule and more importantly quickly.

nick_chicane wrote:

Well, for me, under the old system, I could finish top 50 with 6 clears and a grind at the end on a 2 day sub. I've already hit some of the nodes 10 times and I'm 95th. This is not better.

Bracket placement is a separate argument, in that it shouldn't exist in this system. That said, they could make the nodes 50 clears each, and I assure you people will still do it.

thesamuraipig

Here's what I would like to see to fix this grinding problem, because everyone can grind...and this was in some cases a hellish one. (Especially with the wave nodes though you were at least getting something for clearing them again.)

I think that the points for clearing the nodes should go up as the difficulty goes up and everyone starting node difficulty should start in the same place. Maybe it's slightly adjusted for roster size but not by much. And the difficulty and points just keep going up until they eventually outclass your roster. This at least rewards a better roster and leveling your characters. You structure out progression with a reasonable tier of points....the higher you go the better rewards. Same as now.

You could keep your placement rewards as they'd actually mean something more than playing as fast as you can. You could really play whenever you wanted because there would be no real race that everyone can achieve...the sky is the limit on that in so far as your roster isn't getting demolished and you don't run out of health packs. And if you beat a really tough node with level 400+ characters...it feels like a big win and helps in your placement.

I'd love to see a test of this.

mazerat

I wanted to give this a good faith effort but I've completely cleared a few of the easy and essentials nodes and it's just too much--especially with wave nodes involved.

Your game is already a ridiculous time sink compared to every other game ever, I don't see why you want to make it more-so. Throw four rewards on non-wave nodes, one reward on wave nodes, call that good enough for progression, and give out infinite points like in Grocket & Root and let the people who want to spend a million hours fight over placement.

mazerat

Dark Nova wrote:

I think the aim of this test is not to gauge player enjoyment, but to see what lengths players will go to for the top rewards. Hopefully it's an indicator that progression-only rewards are on the way. I'll explain...

From the devs' perspective, before they can introduce progression as the qualifier for top rewards, they have to know where to set the points benchmark to maintain the 'economy' that only six 4* covers will be given out for every 1000 players (as it is now). I can just imagine the development meeting - "let's give them 15 chances per node to gain points and see how far they get - no-one will ever beat them all - then we can set progression rewards levels based on the top 0.6% of scores achieved." A nice theory, but it underestimates the competitiveness of many players - I know some who currently have max points available but are only ranked 180. That's some crazy grinding going on! If this test ends up showing that the top 200 from every slice achieved the highest possible score then clearly the difficulty level is too low and the next test will have to increase scaling to separate the top players. It's like setting an exam - it serves no purpose if the majority score 100%.

So, to all the grinders out there who intend to clear every node as many times as possible, as quickly as possible, I think you're shooting yourselves (and the rest of us) in the foot.

That doesn't make sense because trying to make "unwinnable" games has been proven to be a stupid idea over and over and over whether it's the Sleeper or C'thun or Galactus.

Stax the Foyer

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

DuckyV wrote:

Except in the old system levels are capped at 325. Mine maxed at 444 this sub. That makes it take a lot longer...among other things.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to justify the rest of the nonsense.

Just saying from a strict "how many times you have to do it" standpoint, there's less to complete than there would be typically. People complete the higher number all the time, so there's little reason to believe they won't do it now. Easier nodes would just make it even more likely it'd be completed early and often, and emphasize doing so on a schedule and more importantly quickly.

I'm not so sure, unless my quick math is wrong. If so, please correct me.

It seems worse on 48 hour nodes, for sure. For optimal clear under the old system, you'd get one clear at the beginning, one every 8 hours before the final grind (5 more), and then a final grind of 6. That's 12 clears. We're doing 15 clears on a hard node here.

We give up the grindless first day "break" of a 48 hour sub for node reward parity between 24 and 48 hour subs.

The 24 hour subs seem about the same. For 24 hour subs under the old system, you'd get one clear at the beginning, one every 8 hours before the final grind (2 more), and then a final grind of 6. That's 9 clears, which is the same.

We do get a break on the easy clears, in that we have to hit those two fewer times. That's 6 total hits on an easy node that we get to skip, which could save you as many as 5 minutes!

We also have fewer hits on the green node, which is nice. But overall it's virtually the same amount of clears as the old system, and the 48-hour subs got even worse. Pile the scaling delays on top of it for people who were capped out on scaling under the old system, and you can see why there are complaints.

GrumpySmurf1002

Stax the Foyer wrote:

It seems worse on 48 hour nodes, for sure. For optimal clear under the old system, you'd get one clear at the beginning, one every 8 hours before the final grind (5 more), and then a final grind of 6. That's 12 clears. We're doing 15 clears on a hard node here.

Yeah, you're right, I was comparing two 24hr subs to the 48 hour grind, saying that people will gladly clear 144 nodes over 48 hours. (and actually I was using final grind of 5, so it's really 162)

Comparing 48 sub to 48 sub it's worse yes. It's 123 nodes (test) vs 108 (old). My bad.

OneLastGambit

OJSP wrote:

OneLastGambit wrote:

Then played in 2 or 3 minute spells over the course of the next 6 hours so (very manageable and actually ideal for my life) and had all nodes at the point were they are no longer max points. Went to bed.
.....
You don't need to grind like a madman to place t10 in this new system.

I know what you meant, the 2 statements are accurate. However, playing for 6 hours arguably is worse than grinding like a madman.

Btw, if the players from the top PvE alliance aren't boycotting the event, I doubt you'd get t10.

I don't mind playing a game a lot of I like it (i played final fantasy 7 for 10 hours straight once) it's how that time is managed that I don't like.

I don't like having to set alarms for 4Am to clear on time so I don't lose points (my gf hates this too) I don't like dropping what I'm doing on my weekend to do a clear on time.

I like doing things when I have the free time to do it. I can't understand why people think that being forced to play to a schedule is better than choosing when to play? If someone can present a rational argument for this I'm happy to listen.

And I can place t10 in any event re gardless of its format. I've done it in non test pve and in test pve. In fact last couple of times everyone told me I was only placing t10 in these test pve because the prize was trash, now the prize is good people are using the excuse that everyone is letting me win by not competing?

bataglia

Now it's impossible for players who havent a full roster to reach good rewards, and thats my case. You just killed PVE for me.

I used to be a top 25 scorer on the old style, very good for a 2-3* transition. I am almost completing my 3* covers, but I'm not into 4* yet. Well, now I just finished all the nodes, I'm just standing 80th, and with 16 hours left, I will probably be lucky to finish top 100, having 2 of 3 featured chars.

Now, I wont get hp when the sub-events are done, but I wont need them, either, because I wont finish top 25 to get 3* covers. Also, I won't evolve anymore, since I won't have the 4* necessary for almost every PVE Event out there. So why would I destroy the same nodes about 100 times a day just to get a stupid 2* cover?

It's not feasible anymore for players who are still developing their rosters. PVP is already freaking difficult for us, and now PVE was turned to an impossible task, and it is not about to adapt, but a real impossibility due to the lower score we can get.

DFiPL

I've been on board with the difficulty tests up to this point, but I think this one might break me.

I had to fight the token node THIRTEEN TIMES to get my freaking token. I'm at 9/15 on the Jean Grey node with no CP secured yet, and I don't even want to consider the non-essential CP node, after seeing that go 14 on the wave node is at 299-308, while that non-essential CP node starts for me at 136 for try #2.

Event and heroic tokens and CP are how my roster inches forward at this point in time, and I just saw a big ol' roadblock dropped in front of me.

I'm done for the rest of the event, I think.

Tryke

This is a 2-day sub, but 15 clears is absurd. Took me 15 runs to get all the cp out of the top node, 9/15 on the essential, another 10/15 for the event token (another 2 go figure) and I just had no patience left to keep grinding. Probably going to be the first event I don't make 25cp in months.

Jwhitmire36

22 hours into my slice 4 and the top 4 are at max points. What's everyone else seeing?

bataglia

Jwhitmire36 wrote:

22 hours into my slice 4 and the top 4 are at max points. What's everyone else seeing?

All top 10 maxed

can't check the rest

Vhailorx

This has been true since the champion system was released, but it's much more apparent with 12 consecutive difficulty jumps. The difference between level 300 enemies and level 3u5 enemies is massive. Much larger than the gap between level 150 enemies and level 300 enemies.

Presumably this exponential scaling is meant to keep whole system coherent, so lower level enemies scale up to the crazy high match damage of 5*s. But it create a a massive difficulty wall for certain rosters (when the ai scaling pushed into the exponential zone while the player's boosts don't, or when the player has a very limited boosted roster).

Bryan Lambert

Consistent with all previous tests, even more node clears than under the old system (took over a dozen clears to get all 4 CP) and I'm around 200th place. Old system I'd be 100 or higher depending on bracket luck.

Which honestly would be fine by me if it weren't for the one placement reward that matters to everyone regardless of play style - new character releases.

Smudge

My feelings after playing some on day one, slice 5:

"Better rosters are starting to perform better, but people were still grinding the easy nodes a lot."

Solution: Grind ALL the nodes a lot!!!!!!!



Apparently we still want casual players to play the game and have fun though. Casual Joe sees the test information and thinks, "Oh cool, I can maybe get some of those placement rewards without feeling like I need to play as hard now!"

Because people are insane at all levels, Joe sees...

#1 36490
#2 36490
#3 36490
#4 36490
etc

Joe: "Nope. Never mind."

What is the purpose of setting up a system that is perfect for only progression-based rewards without only progression-based rewards?

BigRussian

Smudge wrote:

My feelings after playing some on day one, slice 5:

"Better rosters are starting to perform better, but people were still grinding the easy nodes a lot."

Solution: Grind ALL the nodes a lot!!!!!!!



Apparently we still want casual players to play the game and have fun though. Casual Joe sees the test information and thinks, "Oh cool, I can maybe get some of those placement rewards without feeling like I need to play as hard now!"

Because people are insane at all levels, Joe sees...

#1 36490
#2 36490
#3 36490
#4 36490
etc

Joe: "Nope. Never mind."

What is the purpose of setting up a system that is perfect for only progression-based rewards without only progression-based rewards?

OH MY GOSH THIS

SLOW CLAP SMUDGE.. SLOW CLAP.... I couldnt have said it better myself.

My feedback is the same as above.

Tryke

36490 is a disheartening number. That pretty much means that you need to do almost all available nodes just to hit 25 cp progression.

116,000/7days=16,571/day
16,571*2=33,143

What happened to 3.5 clears/day getting you the 25cp?

madsalad

Tryke wrote:

36490 is a disheartening number. That pretty much means that you need to do almost all available nodes just to hit 25 cp progression.

116,000/7days=16,571/day
16,571*2=33,143

What happened to 3.5 clears/day getting you the 25cp?

Points go up on later subs so not every sub will be worth ~16.5k.

jgomes32

I'm at 11/15 on the last fight and i don't know how to beat that. Overall horrible test.

Thevipper

good I didn't participate people going nuts having to do that many clears who could've seen that well I'm off for a while longer more