New Mission Difficulty Test: Enemy of the State *Updated

donnel

While it is nice to have more iso rewards available for playing pve, the luck-based nature of getting the best rewards from each node prevents someone from playing casually to obtain them. One of the big concerns I've come back to time and again with these tests is pve is already too laborious to do consistently; why not try to address a root problem if you're going to change anything? Having to play repetitive matches for 2-3 hours is not most people's idea of fun. But then why do people do it? There are only a limited number of avenues to play for whatever goals people have in game (be it gaining covers, lvling heroes etc..). I think there's a misunderstanding here that if pve content were merely scheduled differently, everyone would be able to participate and enjoy the good time of grinding. This format and most of the previous tests are just iterations on the same chore of repeating the same task over and over till you lose conscious thought.

Make pve take less time than it does now and people will applaud you for it. If the developers truly see how placement works today as problematic, I would ask for a more thoughtful solution than a race to the finish while tweaking scaling. Bracket players by roster type (2* placement rewards, 3* placement rewards and so forth). Make people achieve goals that aren't purely about efficiently disposing of nodes (thus having to use the same heroes over and over). Take the weekly 4* clash for example. It's short, can be challenging based on the number of covers/levels you have, and has a nice reward at the end. Do I want to have to win clash 10 times in a row for the ltoken? Absolutely not. Why does pve have to be the same 2-3 hr obligation that most sane people will give up on sooner or later? Make it something else entirely please and thank you.

an1979

Day 1.
CP won on 12th and 15th(the last one) attempt.
EDIT. Essential node ~8th and 13th.

Anyway. So. Much. GRIND.

In 1-10 scale (where 10 is awesome and 1 - pure garbage) this event gets:
1.1

Won't play beyond CP grab.

seraphiel

Buret0 wrote:

seraphiel wrote:

Jwhitmire36 wrote:

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

Within an hour or so of me starting it (at 8pm my time), somebody had already gotten the maximum score. So I had barely had time to finish clearing 1 round of nodes and already I could tell it was going to be impossible for me to get a placement reward.

By the next day, a few more people had done it as well, but the joke's on them: they can't get the 1st/2nd anyway..

Wrong.

The score is cumulative, it is only a race to the finish on the final day.

Oh, did they also take out placement rewards for the individual mission sets? You know, the bonus command points, extra gold, etc...

Let me check!

Oh, wait, no, that's all still there. Do you want me to take a screenshot for you?

It makes every day a race to the finish, and it just makes the final day an even more stupid one. People who happen to live in the wrong time zone are screwed.

tizian2015

You are on a good way. Better than in the lasts tests. From a pure progression-perspektive its a good way, many rewards (but btw. just too many clears and to beat on sub2 the last wave 9 [out of 9] times for the event-token was a little bit hard, so please gave out the top-rewards for the first 3 clears and cut down the number of rewards [but not the ammount of them]). With so many goon-only-nodes i cannot say if the difficulty is better than before or not. From a placement-perspektive you have designed a very very hard grindfest. would it be possible to install two systems in a test? Give players an option to say "just progression" with the now-placement-rewards are going to pure progression-rewards and the other option might be "battle for placement" with progression PLUS some very good placement rewards. See what your players want in a pve.

And please give us an indicator how many points for total-progression is needed. Like a sub-progression, which gives an event-token for the ammount of points which is needed to get in the end the total progression.

madok

I would love to say something really witty and funny about how bad this test is but I got nothing. I've lost any interest in trying to compete in this event and I'm not even done with Sub 1. After 7 clears, wolvie and his ninja buddies are already 330 on that final node. A couple CP and ISO just isn't worth this ****.

Even if this is a precursor to them removing the rat race for placement rewards, I'm not sure it will be worth it. If they make you face this kind of scaling and number of clears to make new astronomical progression targets, thanks but no thanks.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for making me regret ever actually leveling my characters. Could you add a warning popup that can't be turned off telling people to never level their rosters if they want to have fun in "Story" events? Like many before me have said, this is the only game I've ever played where making your team better is the completely wrong thing to do.

So I'll take this opportunity to just farm a little ISO from easy nodes and call it a day. I guess a six day vacation won't be a bad thing. I can focus on PVP events I guess or maybe Shield Sim.

Sluggo

For the most part, I'm liking this test.

I'm used to finishing top 50, and the people in my bracket seem to be in no rush to do full clears. It took at least 18 hours for the top 10 in my bracket to clear the first sub, and six hours into sub 2, I don't think anyone has completed a full clear, so it's not like it's a super-hardcore race for the daily rewards. (Of course, the final day might be a different case with 4*s on the line). In any case, top 50 in my bracket shouldn't be hard to achieve, so having more flexibility in when to play without hurting my placement is a big win for me.

Now, I'm not crazy about 9 clears for the essential / hard nodes, but find myself fantasizing that this might actually be a prelude to going progression-only and eliminating placement rewards. Because it just lines up too well:

3 clears = 25 CP
4 clears = 3* cover A
5 clears = 3* cover B
6 clears = 3* cover C
7 clears = 4* cover A
8 clears = 4* cover B
9 clears = 4* cover C

And then you just sprinkle in ISO and HP at varying other points.

For this test, 9 clears/day is total overkill for a top 50 finish, but considering the way the difficulty of the nodes ramp up in this test, 4* covers would be completely fair and appropriate rewards for anyone completing 7th/8th/9th clears. Would these forums really not rejoice if that happened? Not only would it remove placement rewards, but would make 3* and 4* covers far more accessible and would transform the process of improving your roster.

PLEASE PLEASE MAKE IT SO!

Buret0

seraphiel wrote:

buret0 wrote:

Wrong.

The score is cumulative, it is only a race to the finish on the final day.

Oh, did they also take out placement rewards for the individual mission sets? You know, the bonus command points, extra gold, etc...

Let me check!

Oh, wait, no, that's all still there. Do you want me to take a screenshot for you?

It makes every day a race to the finish, and it just makes the final day an even more stupid one. People who happen to live in the wrong time zone are screwed.

You choose your slice. And if you read my long post, I go into much more detail about it. You said it was stupid of people to keep up when the top scores are already taken, I explained why it made perfect sense to keep playing.

The Herald

There's an interesting PvE screaming to get out from underneath too much repetitive play.

You know.what the ideal number of clears is for a story event?

One.

The story should be followed. Not the same story beat replayed for hours to optimise it.

For replay value, how about a bronze/silver/gild progression? Three clears per node. Increasing difficulty with increasing rewards.

Drop placement. This race is dumb, the old 8 hour reset scheduling was dumb (even if a vocal minority have Stockholm syndrome due to familiarity).

spatenfloot

I think this would be fine if they removed the placement rewards, improved progression rewards, and add an alliance progression.

pabasa130

Feedback!

First off, ignoring the fact that I need to spend HOURS playing the game to get all rewards, I am, in fact, very happy that there are SO MANY REWARDS. Grinding those wave nodes and getting rewards for every single clear is magical!

Coming back to playing for hours, I'd like to suggest cutting down on the amount of clears needed to bring down points to zero. There's a fine balance between being rewarded for playing and making gameplay a slog.

As I had predicted, simply hitting all nodes is good enough for top 10. I joined late, waiting for a fresh slice, and came in with 11 hours to go before end of sub-event. Sure I had to sacrifice some bedtime to grind down the nodes, but if I want to be competitive, then it's the choice I'm making. I am now safely in the top 10 as long as I can play consistently.

With all my gameplay at the start of the sub-event, I predict I actually have more time to do other things for the rest of the day! No fear of being beaten because I needed to allocate two hours before end of subevent to keep scoring; if I make it into the top 10 when the subevent starts, that's where I'll be at the end of the subevent!

In short:

1) I like the reward system! Making each clear rewarding is an excellent change!
2) As a competitive player, I like how my position is locked once I do all nodes. If I failed to reach top 10 it's too bad, but that's on me for not being competitive enough.
3) Cutting down on the amount of clears to get full points would make the slice more competitive and less repetitive.

Not part of the discussion, but I'd like to echo the sentiment of swapping the progression and placement rewards. If I successfully hit every single node for every single slice, then I think I've earned 3 4* covers (and maybe once 5* are more ubiquitous, 1 5* cover for complete progression). If you are fast enough to get first place, you'll be rewarded with 10,000 ISO and 50 CPs, top 5 gets 7500 ISO and 40 CPs, etc. Sounds a bit less frustrating than the current scenario, IMO.

veny

Still dont understand whats so great about doing all nodes, getting, how much? 3 000 ISO per hour?
We need almost 400 000 ISO to max out ONE SINGLE 4* HERO!

Inferia

As a Player who is currently in the 3Star transition (3 3* champs), i think the scaling is far over the top.

On the Node with wolverine and the 2 ninjas i have to fight a Level 320 Wolverine with 17k hp. He hits for 7.2k with his des skill, which tears through my chars like a hot knife slices butter.

Honestly, why did you have to change the scaling AGAIN?

Those Nodes are just not possible. That takes the last fun out of PVE. I have already given up on placement fights in PVE, now you lock the (still poor) rewards behind nodes, which are just impossible.

Please for the sake of god, listen to your customers.
Get rid of the placement fights in PVE and stop punishing ppl for leveling their rosters.

There is nothing wrong about a challenge but it has to be possible to win to make ist worthwhile. And the poor rewards don't really motivate ppl to even attempt those fights.

The Overall Concept is good: Grind down Nodes on your own pace. Great Job there. Now stop that pseudo PVP in PVE and make the fights, so they are possible to win.

wymtime

Inferia wrote:

As a Player who is currently in the 3Star transition (3 3* champs), i think the scaling is far over the top.

On the Node with wolverine and the 2 ninjas i have to fight a Level 320 Wolverine with 17k hp. He hits for 7.2k with his des skill, which tears through my chars like a hot knife slices butter.

Honestly, why did you have to change the scaling AGAIN?

Those Nodes are just not possible. That takes the last fun out of PVE. I have already given up on placement fights in PVE, now you lock the (still poor) rewards behind nodes, which are just impossible.

Please for the sake of god, listen to your customers.
Get rid of the placement fights in PVE and stop punishing ppl for leveling their rosters.

There is nothing wrong about a challenge but it has to be possible to win to make ist worthwhile. And the poor rewards don't really motivate ppl to even attempt those fights.

The Overall Concept is good: Grind down Nodes on your own pace. Great Job there. Now stop that pseudo PVP in PVE and make the fights, so they are possible to win.

If it makes you feel better I am a 4* player and my olive has 27k health and still hits like a tank. Stunners and big AOE's help SW was key for me to generate enough AP to fire a big AOE. You can also bring a TU stun. DD works great since his stun keeps going.

Alkyoneus

So I encountered my first big, big issue with this event:
Survival Nodes and wiping beyond the first wave.

I accidentally lost Scarlet Witch in the Iron Fist essential today in sub 2. I was unable to finish the waves, and wiped on wave 3. This lost me 40 points.

How much is 40 points worth? Well that depends on the competition. If enough people fully complete every sub, I am officially out of top 10, top 50, top 100 maybe. I can NEVER recover those lost points, due to one bad board on day 3.

I find that more than unfair, it's plain idiotic.

Xrethx

Alkyoneus wrote:

I can NEVER recover those lost points, due to one bad board on day 3.

I find that more than unfair, it's plain idiotic.

Maybe I'm missing something here, but you can just play again, and when you beat it you'll get the points.

Xrethx

This event inspired me to create an account in the forum to leave feedback.

I like the idea of fixed amounts of points per node, and the nodes not regenerating.

However I think the amount of clears needs to be cut by half.

Also if it weren't for hulk buster and scarlet witch, the nodes would have been a lot harder for me to beat.

Also screw boosted kishu and thirty their caltrops.

smkspy

Just way too many clears, I'm sick of playing because of the repetition. And then to top it off, the final two nodes completely out scale me after the seventh or eighth clear. So much for decent placement.

Phumade

Alkyoneus wrote:

So I encountered my first big, big issue with this event:
Survival Nodes and wiping beyond the first wave.

I accidentally lost Scarlet Witch in the Iron Fist essential today in sub 2. I was unable to finish the waves, and wiped on wave 3. This lost me 40 points.

How much is 40 points worth? Well that depends on the competition. If enough people fully complete every sub, I am officially out of top 10, top 50, top 100 maybe. I can NEVER recover those lost points, due to one bad board on day 3.

I find that more than unfair, it's plain idiotic.

You can keep replaying the node to regain the points. It will cost you an extra clear and some time, but you will end up with the exact same score as everyone else.

firpo22

First comment: We have long been promised that scaling would be fixed. I don't see any real difference. Yes, you start lower. However, the difficulty for the harder nodes and even some of the Essentials increases much beyond the levels of my characters after just a few rounds. I don't see that as a scaling fix.

Second comment on grinding and time: Under the old system, I would play 3 times, 8 hours apart and then finish a fourth round a couple hours later. Then I would take on a few nodes here are there, so that some nodes would be played 5 times, some 4. This would usually place me in the top 100 for most events, top 150 for the "new releases". I could live with that. I don't need to be top 10. It was some time spent, playing here and there, but not an enormous time suck.

Now, with the amount of clears needed to be competitive and the rate at which the difficulty increases, this has become punishing. I wish the people who were making these changes would realize how demoralizing it is to be "rewarded" for winning a node by a slim margin only to see the scaling ramp up another 50 levels. You just want to quit. And according to their post regarding the last test run, they were wondering why people weren't playing more? Don't they understand human nature?

If the incentive for trying to tilt at that windmill was a bigger reward, I might take a shot at it. I almost always try the 4* battle a once or twice during the day when it comes up in the DPD event, even though I have only won it once. I can accept getting my head handed to me because the reward of an LT is substantial.

I can understand not wanting to give out more rewards, but how's this for a solution: Once the max difficulty is reached and the points awarded start to go down, why not just decrease the difficulty each time instead of leaving it at max. At least then you can look forward to each round getting a little easier.

Oh, sorry, but I just have to throw this in, just in case anyone that works on the game actually reads any of this - what do you think I am going to do with all those critical boosts? It seems like there is one in every node. They are rarely useful. How about mixing it up and adding some other boosts in the mix or just skip it and give out more ISO?

OneLastGambit

The scaling has jumped in sub 2.

Sub1 my max levels were 312 hard but doable and felt like a fair challenge.

Sub is 401 Thats 101 levels above my highest level character, which happens to be oml...guess who's unavailable for this sub?