New Mission Difficulty Test: Enemy of the State *Updated

Wooodd

TimGunn wrote:

what are the ties like in your brackets? mine there are only 6 people with a perfect score, but i'm guessing mine ended up being a not very competitive bracket. i'd like to hear what other people are seeing.

In the first 2 day sub I did all clears down to 0 and finished in 51st. Since that I've just picked away at the event for CP and tokens. So demorilising to finish 51st after so much effort it put me off the rest of the event.

DFiPL

"David wrote:

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."

Two things.

1) I'm reasonably sure this is the first time that the number of rewards and the number of possible point-earning clears was the same. In the past, with four rewards, you could grind any given node down to 1, but several of those clears would be for no reward. When there was a refresh timer, that was yet another disincentive to do that.

2) with no timer, "optimal" play went out the window, and the way the tiebreak system has worked for YEARS now meant that the first person to a given score got the placement. Once you get rid of the timer, people who might otherwise have missed an 'optimal' clear time because of sleep, or kid-to-school wrangling, or anything else no longer has that pressure, and has the ability to get the same score as the dedicated schedule-player. Once THAT happens, it's a race to the top score, because whoever gets there first gets the rewards.

I mean...I'm not a placement chaser - I'm firmly in the "progression rewards only plz" camp, and if I happen to earn placement rewards, bonus - but I saw this coming a mile away.

This may not have been what Demiurge was aiming for, but "we did not think" probably applies on multiple levels, no offense intended.

Polares

simonsez wrote:

"David wrote:

Moore"]*Update (06/14/16)

When looking at previous runs of events with the new mission difficulty, we did not think that there would be many ties

I swear to god, your conclusion had better not be, "We believe we can solve this problem by ramping up the difficulty even further".

Man I thought just the same!

The good news is that now I know OML was not being considered in the previous subs when he was locked, the bad news is that now he is!

My 3 most levelled chars in the event are OML 415, Jean 369 and IMHB 363, so my average is 382. My next-to-last node has reached a difficulty of 420, so I guess that if the hardest one was not a survival it would reach a difficulty of 440-450 (!!!!!).

How is that fair? Gorgon at 420 has more than 47k hitpoints!!! and the ninjas have more than 30k. If instead of Jean and switch it was another 4 the one buffed it would be impossible to clear the nodes before any countdown goes off!!! And at this level shurikens do 4k damage and SiN 5k+5k for each member, I don't want to know the damage at 450!!! This is nuts!!!

Man, why keep playing?!?!?! I could level my SS and Phoenix to the OML range, but I know if I do it I wont be able to play PvE anymore!!!! So, why keep playing, if there is no point in upgrading my chars!?!?!? We have always had this problem, but now is worse than ever, much worse than when going from 2->3 or 3->4

FIX THE STUPID SCALING DEVS !!!!


PS: It is obvious that all goons need to be revised for the 5 era, because they are greatly overpowered...
PS: I don't even want to talk about last dev comment. Again, it really looks like they don't have a clue about their own game

kramer2410

I'm not sure if this has been said or at least explained properly, so hopefully the devs will pay attention.

While I like this new format, when you get the 25 CP there's no point in continuing to play. I think the best idea would be to do away with rankings, and give us more progression nodes. Kind of like when we have to fight those mega bosses (IE Ultron or Galactus or even that civil war event).

Instead of having 25 CP be the main goal, have that be the halfway goal. Then those who continue to play, reward them with more 3 stars with the last three progressions be the three (+1) Covers for whoever is the major prize for the particular event.

For example, the prize for top 1-2 is X-23, iso, HP etc. Keep the ISO and HP in as the progression prize, and also make it so the people that actually do end up grinding to the very end, the points would in the end get them the same reward (IE 4 X-23 covers, 5000 ISO, HP, CP etc).

For the sub nodes, do the same thing. I think the best way to put it is similar to what you have for the gauntlet, where winning all the nodes gets you extra prizes.

Hopefully I've made myself clear and didn't ramble too much, and hopefully the devs will pay attention.

OneLastGambit

If you want to stop people grinding for max points d3 then move the 4* cover rewards into progression and fill placement with iso and hp.

If the event was constructed that way I would have done 3 or 4 (easy and relaxing ) clears per sub.

Since the covers were the prize for maxing every node quickest I played like a madman and ground for maximum points in every sub , something I've never done before.


I've vocally supported every previous test (though your 20 point min test was just a silly idea ) but this one has to go down as a fail I'm afraid, it didn't help me play less or to my own schedule. Sprint through every node getting 6/9 prizes then let health packs regenrate then Sprint through the rest it takes about 4-5 hours to do this.

Also...stop increasing scaling every sub, my max cap has increased every time

madsalad

"David wrote:

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."

Ponderous. Tinykitty ponderous.

You clearly underestimate your player base.

My only hope is that this whole testing things is a clever ruse and run-up to a progression-only PVE scenario and you are trying to figure out the perfect way to make that happen.

Malcrof

Posted this in worst day as well


Finishing every node, collecting every single point , including the opening repeatable in EotS, while maintaining t3 and yesterday somehow 90 points below the leaders.. and no-one can figure out how.. losing any chance at t10

Have screenshots of everything.. but it isn't just me, others have shown me screenshots of magic extra points, missing 10 - 30 points from nowhere, etc..

So, they found a way to break some of the ties.. with a glitch..

madsalad

Malcrof wrote:

Posted this in worst day as well


Finishing every node, collecting every single point , including the opening repeatable in EotS, while maintaining t3 and yesterday somehow 90 points below the leaders.. and no-one can figure out how.. losing any chance at t10

Have screenshots of everything.. but it isn't just me, others have shown me screenshots of magic extra points, missing 10 - 30 points from nowhere, etc..

So, they found a way to break some of the ties.. with a glitch..

Well, that certainly is one way to go about it.

Bowgentle

Malcrof wrote:

Posted this in worst day as well


Finishing every node, collecting every single point , including the opening repeatable in EotS, while maintaining t3 and yesterday somehow 90 points below the leaders.. and no-one can figure out how.. losing any chance at t10

Have screenshots of everything.. but it isn't just me, others have shown me screenshots of magic extra points, missing 10 - 30 points from nowhere, etc..

So, they found a way to break some of the ties.. with a glitch..

One of the nodes had an additional clear even though it showed a green check mark.
I was about to go to sleep after securing T2 (I thought) then noticed the leader was about 90 points ahead of me.
So looked at every node and found points in one.
Don't ask me how that worked.
Everyone else found the node too though so no harm done... unless you're first to clear, then never look at the sub again, which is a definite possibility when you see green checks everywhere.

mpqr7

The scaling is getting out of control. In the final node of this sub, "Strength In Numbers" takes away 13000+ hit points!

And since a new one is created every turn, even my OML/JG team didn't last long

It was extremely frustrating... not at all fun and challenging.

halirin

mpqr7 wrote:

The scaling is getting out of control. In the final node of this sub, "Strength In Numbers" takes away 13000+ hit points!

And since a new one is created every turn, even my OML/JG team didn't last long

It was extremely frustrating... not at all fun and challenging.

Try matching countdown tiles. Or bring a character/teamup that can neutralize them. You're not supposed to block them with your face.

tanis3303

simonsez wrote:

"David wrote:

Moore"]*Update (06/14/16)

When looking at previous runs of events with the new mission difficulty, we did not think that there would be many ties

I swear to god, your conclusion had better not be, "We believe we can solve this problem by ramping up the difficulty even further".

That's EXACTLY what they're going to do. My belief is that this is a test run of a progression-only format, and the dev team was testing the waters to see what they would have to do to keep their precious covers diluted to 10/1000 players. And we all shot ourselves in the foot. Way, way, waaayyyyyy too many people cleared this event to max scores, so now the only way for them to accomplish that ratio is to either increase the number of clears to a point where everyone says "kitty that!" or increase the difficulty to even more absurd levels. Worst case scenario, they do both. Can't wait...

firethorne

simonsez wrote:

"David wrote:

Moore"]*Update (06/14/16)

When looking at previous runs of events with the new mission difficulty, we did not think that there would be many ties

I swear to god, your conclusion had better not be, "We believe we can solve this problem by ramping up the difficulty even further".

Of course they will. Did you forget the core design philosophy? You're supposed to lose.

mpqr7

halirin wrote:

mpqr7 wrote:

The scaling is getting out of control. In the final node of this sub, "Strength In Numbers" takes away 13000+ hit points!

And since a new one is created every turn, even my OML/JG team didn't last long

It was extremely frustrating... not at all fun and challenging.

Try matching countdown tiles. Or bring a character/teamup that can neutralize them. You're not supposed to block them with your face.

Lol, I'm not trying to block them with my face, but when it's a bad board, I don't have a lot of other options.

TxMoose

was only the first run, but antman really helps on that last node. fist/oml/antman hardly took any damage. antman is only level 145, so more clears and he'll be in caltrops danger. but that first clear was a blast.

PeterGibbons316

TxMoose wrote:

was only the first run, but antman really helps on that last node. fist/oml/antman hardly took any damage. antman is only level 145, so more clears and he'll be in caltrops danger. but that first clear was a blast.

Nice. I've been using Quake for Kishu heavy nodes and trying to think of someone to use on Teisatsu nodes and I think Ant-Man is the way to go. If only I had him built with 5 blue instead of 5 purple and yellow.

TimGunn

Lukoil wrote:

TimGunn wrote:

what are the ties like in your brackets? mine there are only 6 people with a perfect score, but i'm guessing mine ended up being a not very competitive bracket. i'd like to hear what other people are seeing.

i totally forgot that first main node with 4 clears is going to perish after first sub-event and so i am missing those points. but even without those point i am at 20-24th place

I did the same exact thing. So no way I could get top placement. But luckily my bracket was not too competitive.

It would suck to do the event perfectly and all that time grinding, and then only get top 50. They will have to recognize this and do something.

I like getting rid of the timers, but it results in too many ties, with the tiebreaker feeling arbitrary. I was thinking:

-no timers
-perfect clear for entire event gives you prize of the four star cover (new top progression reward)
-placement rewards are iso, HP, and CP which vary somewhat for top 1, top 10, top 20 etc.
-placement rewards for top 100 and up are the three star covers, all the same
-placement rewards for individuals are structured similarly to the alliance placement rewards
-scaling and number of clears per node are up for debate

Everyone who puts in the grind time is guaranteed the big prize (four star cover). However, there is still a competitive element (which I know some people like). The competition though is for ISO, HP and CP all of which are not crazy rare/can be won in all manner of events. So you will be pretty stoked if you win the competition, but if you lose the competition, it is NBD, move on to the next event.

Not sure what you would do on new char releases (with a perfect clear do you get all three four star covers? one four star cover?) Maybe you could do three PVEs in a row for the new char. Perfect clear on first PVE gives you the first color for new char, perfect clear on second PVE gives you second color for new char, and so forth.

GritsNGravy

In general I like the direction, but I feel it's too much of a grind for someone who is also playing PVP. Also the difficulty ramping isn't fun when you are in the 5* transition land.

Optimal play still being based on quickly grinding is still a bummer. If this is the direction, I would prefer top placement be determined randomly (maybe a shard vault or something with the right proportions).

I appreciate that you guys keep trying and moving closer to a good rebalance.

nyck1118

Just finished the 5 wave and 6 wave nodes on the final day of EotS. Standard Token and Critical Boosts. WOW THANKS.

this has to be adjusted. the best part of this horrible PVE event is the event tokens scattered thru out. those need to be made as the first prize won on the first clear at least.

Psuwildthing

The prizes need to be scaled
Completed ties get 1st
Then 2-10
11-50
Etc