New Mission Difficulty Test: Enemy of the State *Updated

Ducky

Side note, how many bots were found to be grinding those 20 pt nodes last test event and how much did that factor into the decision to scrap that design implementation?

ThatOneGuyjp189512

"higher-level rosters were performing better than low-level rosters"

OH GOD NO! we can't have this! we can't players think they're progressing against the new people! it's not like they spent a bunch of time and money to get ahead of the game and make it seem like they're progressing! /sarcasm

The Bob The

Thoughts:
1) The great majority of this game's players don't use the forums or LINE or belong to competitive alliances.
2) Most of these players would consider the playing habits of those in (1) to be hardcore.

If you accept these two points, the concerns about a mad dash at the start of sub just aren't a factor for the vast majority of players because they're not in brackets where they're competing against those nuts (us). Jerry and Kim will play when they play, gain a few more points than usual, and maybe even have a better than typical experience.

I can understand the concerns, and maybe I even feel them myself, but the "how did they think this was a good idea" question assumes most players are like us. They ain't, and neither is their experience.

Pylgrim

CrookedKnight wrote:

You are so close to just getting rid of placement rewards altogether -- take the final step and do it! Please! Immediately! While eliminating the final grind is good, this is going to be an enormous clusterkitty for people who want top 10/100/whatever. Because now it's a flat-out race. Whoever finishes every clear of every node as quickly as humanly possible has ALL THE POINTS, and can never be surpassed for the rest of the event because the MPQ scoreboard breaks ties by who got there first. Hello, beginning-of-sub grind.

I believe that the devs have a highly empirical approach to testing. Assumptions, even ones clearly suggested by common sense, logic or previous evidence is eschewed in favour of hard, proven data from new testing. While normally I'd approve of such a strict use of the scientific method, I believe that a game like this doesn't require it. We don't need to test individual reactions to small changes in the variable components, we only need to know people's psychology when it comes to the constants, and that has been proven exhaustively: People who want the rewards will do WHATEVER it takes to get them, no matter how much you shift the goal bar or winning conditions. In the end, the rewards go to those that are willing to sacrifice the most, go the furthest and do the utmost, which is an entirely fine scheme for physical sports. In this game, where the only currency that can be spent towards winning and the only muscle that can be flexed is time, it is unfair and punishing.

That said, this is the test that has sounded better on paper so far. The removal of refreshing points and the sub grinds is huge. No replay without reward is really good as well. All that's left to do as the majority of players have been saying even from before the first test is to remove placement rewards. The proposed test is almost arbitrarily going to assign them!: The first people to join a sub will likely be the winners, unless they don't have fast characters or combos. Bizarre cascades on the opponent's side and unfair wipes will now hurt MORE because they will set you precious seconds or minutes back! In other words, all competitive players will be grinding just as hard, but the placement rewards will be assigned mostly by circumstance and chance.

Lordsynder

The Bob The wrote:

Thoughts:
1) The great majority of this game's players don't use the forums or LINE or belong to competitive alliances.
2) Most of these players would consider the playing habits of those in (1) to be hardcore.

If you accept these two points, the concerns about a mad dash at the start of sub just aren't a factor for the vast majority of players because they're not in brackets where they're competing against those nuts (us). Jerry and Kim will play when they play, gain a few more points than usual, and maybe even have a better than typical experience.

I can understand the concerns, and maybe I even feel them myself, but the "how did they think this was a good idea" question assumes most players are like us. They ain't, and neither is their experience.

LOL if you want to place t10.. hell top 20.. you will have to rush..If you dont see this you are blind

udonomefoo

The Bob The wrote:

If you accept these two points, the concerns about a mad dash at the start of sub just aren't a factor for the vast majority of players because they're not in brackets where they're competing against those nuts (us). Jerry and Kim will play when they play, gain a few more points than usual, and maybe even have a better than typical experience.

Agreed. Top 10 is going to be stupid, but past that? I'd be shocked if top 50 scores were all max points ties in more than one or two unlucky brackets, if it even happens there.

There will be 75 fights to clear on single day subs. That doesn't count any one time nodes. The hard missions will scale higher than they have before. My bet is that they are trying to mitigate the ties through difficulty. We will see how that plays out.

Roguewookie26

My favorite part of this post is the opening paragraph. They say they realize less people played. They say they realized that most of the people that did play only played the easy levels and that it was mostly the small amount of players with high end rosters who did well. And they say that most people played according to their usual schedule. So obviously they have a grasp on what they majority of players actually wanted: not ridiculously hard levels that are immensely frustrating for little to no reward, on the usual schedule. And yet they completely ignored all of that information said we dont care and altered the system to take away most of what the average player wanted. A few high end players will not keep this game going. It is the new players and the mid level rosters that will support and keep this game alive. Its almost like they are daring us to see if they can kill this game any faster.

Orion

I'm surprised that no one is complaining about the fact that hard missions will increase in difficulty 12 times. And they'll have a higher maximum level than normal. Those wave nodes are going to be impossible after a few wins, unless you have 3 champed 5*s or a working winfinite. I'm guessing that the devs don't expect anyone but the best of the best to even be able to finish all of the nodes the max number of times, so they aren't all that concerned about ties.

Who's going to be able to beat 5 waves of 400+ level enemies anyway? Hell, even champed 5*s will have a tough time with that.

Kolence

In case of tied scores throughout several subs, which is the tie-breaker - being the quicker one in the starting or in the ending sub?

DreadPirateW

My complaint is not with what they are trying to do. I approve of the goals.

It is not with the idea of testing. Testing is good.

My problem is that they state a goal of eliminating scheduling and then implement a system where it's obvious to any serious player that scheduling is ESSENTIAL for top placement. It's more of a grind race than any other previous method has been unless there is a factor they have yet to disclose.

The issue is not that they are trying to improve by trying new things, the issue is that they don't understand their own game well enough to foresee the obvious ramifications of what they are testing.

Non-serious players, those in the novice brackets, have never worried about schedules. This is irrelevant to them. It's only the serious players who care enough to figure out what optimum play would be and try to implement it.

A five minute conversation with a top 10 finisher on any veteran bracket would have been enough to bring to light the grind/race issues with this test as described. Apparently that was too much trouble for them to want to bother with.

Stop analyzing data and try PLAYING THE GAME the way your most dedicated players do and you'll save yourself months of testing. That's why companies use Beta testers. Let THEM show you where it's broken instead of rolling out test after test to the masses who have to slog their way through your misconceptions.

With all of that said, I'll still give this event my best effort... but this whole testing thing is getting old.

Mawtful

I've been warned that I'm not allowed to say anything more about the developers, but I can still say that I appreciate a lot of the other comments in this thread.

Anyway, just like every other test, I can leave my feedback in advance:
Scaling is bad; the new structure removes all the fun and makes the game feel like a chore. I wanted to participate in the event but felt as though I was being penalised for my time.

JCTthe3rd81 wrote:

I just had a thought but not sure if it would even work. So I'm asking all of those that are computer experts. Would it be possible to give all ties the same reward? For example......

As above, I'm obligated to say nothing disparaging about the developers, but it would definitely be possible to give equal rewards to tied scores. Sorting arrays is a very fundamental task, so I would endeavour to say that it would not even be difficult - from a programming perspective. However, from a business perspective, it's actually very nearly impossible. I think the suggestion that placement rewards be removed entirely is probably a much more likely candidate - although as users we should consider the implications of such a request, given the nature of the most recent Gauntlet event.

IamTheDanger

Please remember to keep your posts civil. I personally, would like to thank Hi-Fi for giving us this news in advance. As well as everything else he does for the player community. Remember David is the messenger, not the decision maker. Please be civil and DO NOT post insults. To anyone. Not David, the devs or other players. Insulting Hi-Fi, the devs or other players is a violation of forum rules and will result in warnings and/or bans. Insults and/or flamebaiting will not be tolerated. Thank you.

DreadPirateW

Orion wrote:

I'm surprised that no one is complaining about the fact that hard missions will increase in difficulty 12 times. And they'll have a higher maximum level than normal. Those wave nodes are going to be impossible after a few wins, unless you have 3 champed 5*s or a working winfinite. I'm guessing that the devs don't expect anyone but the best of the best to even be able to finish all of the nodes the max number of times, so they aren't all that concerned about ties.

Who's going to be able to beat 5 waves of 400+ level enemies anyway? Hell, even champed 5*s will have a tough time with that.

If what you're suggesting is true and that's the plan, to have only the best rosters be able to complete it all, then most players scoring placement rewards won't need the covers they get. If you need 5* characters to win 4* covers and 4* characters to score 3* covers, then forward progression is over.

Hope you're wrong!

Uninspired

Regarding the sprint, I suspect that ties are only broken in the last sub, just like now where first to score X is above the next to reach it, regardless of how they got there. So you can play at your leisure until the last sub (though you might miss out on sub rewards), but then the last sub will start and you'll need to block off your life for that time.

It seems like they got rid of daily 2+ hour grinds before the sub ends and replaced it with a massive (5 hour???) grind once per event at the open of the last sub. When you think of it that way, it does mean a lot less scheduled grinding. Plus, you know exactly when the last sub starts, so easier to plan around that one point in time (though EotS allows 7 days for plans to change unexpectedly).

I think this will be better than expected, though I still feel like this is a step in the right direction compared to the last test, but still not the final product.

pabasa130

Speaking as a usually top 10 player, I'd like to say that unless the PVE is for a new character, top 10 under normal circumstances is achieved simply by doing all nodes 7 times to get all rewards (wave nodes notwithstanding). No grind needed. I expect the same will be achieved under this test environment as well. Doing all nodes will get you top 10 or 20 at least. Not many players are willing to hit all nodes after all.

I do however concur with many suggestions already posted. A change in the reward structure would be excellent. Everyone who is willing to put the time to hit all nodes would get all 3 4* covers, and those that miss a few nodes would get less. Placement rewards would instead be higher amounts of ISO and CP.

I'm staying optimistic.

fmftint

"David wrote:

Moore"]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.

I'm confused, wasn't that one of the stated objectives of the Meet Rocket & Groot test?
Here it is
viewtopic.php?f=13&t=44179#p520715

Story Difficulty Scaling - New Test: Meet Rocket & Groot
Unread postby David [Hi-Fi] Moore » Thu May 12, 2016 6:25 pm

Hi, everyone.

We will be running a new difficulty scaling test for Story events this Sunday, 05/15/16, in the Meet Rocket & Groot event. Here are details from the devs.

Demiurge_Anthony Quote:
"With the Prodigal Sun Story event we were aiming to improve the performance of people with more developed rosters. We found that these players performed better than previous runs but we would like to improve that further.

wymtime

The Bob The wrote:

Thoughts:
1) The great majority of this game's players don't use the forums or LINE or belong to competitive alliances.
2) Most of these players would consider the playing habits of those in (1) to be hardcore.

If you accept these two points, the concerns about a mad dash at the start of sub just aren't a factor for the vast majority of players because they're not in brackets where they're competing against those nuts (us). Jerry and Kim will play when they play, gain a few more points than usual, and maybe even have a better than typical experience.

I can understand the concerns, and maybe I even feel them myself, but the "how did they think this was a good idea" question assumes most players are like us. They ain't, and neither is their experience.

You are right but with theses tests look at the casual player who when they decided to do a clear move no where on the leaderboard in these tests. You have to do 2-3 clears to make a small placement progress. In the old system if a casual player did 2 clears in a row they would fly leaderboard and that would cause engagement. They would see they are getting closer in placement. In this test the reason people play less is because when a casual player does a clear they don't move up the leaderboard so it feels worse because you don't feel like you are progressing.

If they just took old PVE and added in the new scaling that would be a great test!!

ZeroKarma

Orion wrote:

I'm surprised that no one is complaining about the fact that hard missions will increase in difficulty 12 times. And they'll have a higher maximum level than normal. Those wave nodes are going to be impossible after a few wins, unless you have 3 champed 5*s or a working winfinite. I'm guessing that the devs don't expect anyone but the best of the best to even be able to finish all of the nodes the max number of times, so they aren't all that concerned about ties.

Who's going to be able to beat 5 waves of 400+ level enemies anyway? Hell, even champed 5*s will have a tough time with that.

You're assuming that champed 5*'s will have any benefit here. I have seen some screen shots from previous tests. The levels for max champed 5* are absurd and broken as well. Level 500 Caltrops anyone?

carrion_pigeons

If I was a dev I'd honestly be interested to find out how much of the playerbase actually grinds everything all the way down, let alone all at once as each sub opens. So I can see why they're running this test.

Clearly the design intent is to push it to the point where 99.99 % of people never make it to the end of the grind, and I think they might be there. That said, this sucks any skill out of the game. I don't like grinding nodes much better than I like planning my life around the game. Isn't there some implementation that actually makes players' decisions about how they play strategically important, without forcing them to devote their life to it?

The Bob The

Lordsynder wrote:

The Bob The wrote:

Thoughts:
1) The great majority of this game's players don't use the forums or LINE or belong to competitive alliances.
2) Most of these players would consider the playing habits of those in (1) to be hardcore.

If you accept these two points, the concerns about a mad dash at the start of sub just aren't a factor for the vast majority of players because they're not in brackets where they're competing against those nuts (us). Jerry and Kim will play when they play, gain a few more points than usual, and maybe even have a better than typical experience.

I can understand the concerns, and maybe I even feel them myself, but the "how did they think this was a good idea" question assumes most players are like us. They ain't, and neither is their experience.

LOL if you want to place t10.. hell top 20.. you will have to rush..If you dont see this you are blind

But that's what I mean. Your casual player either has a casual bracket where placement isn't gonna change much, or he/she never cared in the first place (or gave up on it a long time ago). And there's a lot more of them. That's who's playing.