Enemy Of The State Test: Some Early Results

Druss

not sure this proves much.

I personally cleared the whole of the 1st sub in the manner it was intended - ie anytime i wanted over the 2 days - I was awarded with 64th place.

At that point saw that there was no reason to kill myself for the rest of the event as the "play when you want goal had been totally missed" & settled for reaching top progression & that was it.

I'm sure my experience wasn't unique.

amusingfoo1

abmoraz wrote:

I'm torn. I loved the fact that "First one done gets first place". That makes a heck of a lot more sense to me than the normal "whoever can grind the last 2-3 hours the most of every sub node wins". Everything about this event was light years better than the normal PvE set-up. Even the reward structure (if the devs are adamant about placement rewards, which is by far the worst thing about PvE) was better. Want the best rewards? Finish first. Want good rewards? Just finish.

I just wanted to point out that the "traditional" format is also "first to finish", if not quite as obviously so. You finish first, your nodes reset sooner and you can wait longer to start your grind. So your maximum possible points is higher.

amusingfoo1

Cycocivic wrote:

I finished in 7th in slice 5 with only 8 or 9 with max scores. Of the teams I had the least impressive roster 2 5*(1-2 covers), my highest 4* is fully levelled 3/1/3 xfw so powerful not, and 18 champed 3* (IF and cmags highest boosted characters). So even at my scaling (lvl 349 maxed enemies) it was challenging at times, but manageable with the right team composition and the right board (i retreated whenever i felt i had no chance of winning).

My top-10 had me (2-1/2 good 5*s; two to start the event), one other person with a single good 5*, and eight more with a collection of championed 4*s. It certainly did not feel like continuing to push your roster forward paid off. I wonder how representative that is, across the whole population, and how closely that cleaves to desired goals.

TxMoose

I hear a lot of people mentioning they casually completely cleared the first 6 days. I also see times to clear between 3 and 6 hours. 4 hours. 5 hours. 6 hours a day. casually? really? some people's definitions of casual is waaay different than mine. for less time than I manage to barely make t50 in EotS, I'm easily t20 in the 4* release event. I agree that if they take care of the tie issue at the top successfully, it is a play when you want thing, but using the analogy I used before, they took a 40 yard field goal that had to be kicked on a schedule and moved it to 60 yards...and added a 20 mph headwind. but hey, you can kick it any time you want. the scaling was awful and the time it took was really excessive. I know some made a perfect score, but most of those think its excessive too. not looking forward to this moving forward, although I have to say EotS is the longest event with the harshest time requirements anyway. may i'll feel different about a more normal event, but I'm not looking forward to the implementation of this.

Warbringa

The issue for me is that these tests are not going to produce data that is reliable. You can't take just one event and assume that is how it is going to play out in future events. What about the large part of the player base that probably doesn't want to waste time playing 7 day EoTS event. I understand that it makes sense to test on one of the "harder" events but it also causes issues because few PvE players like this event and many just skip 7 day events altogether.

This format is not great for casual players because in order to get the good rewards you have to grind nodes sometimes up to 9 times...nothing casual about that. For a casual player, clearing a wave node and getting the token or large iso reward after that first clear is way better. If you want any chance of ok (I'm not talking top 10) placement you need to grind way more hours than under the old format. As a casual player I care about total aggregate time I need to play more than when. I never thought I would have to say that because I originally wasn't a fan of the timed clears but in most of the tests I have had to play significantly more in actual time than I did under the 8 hour clear system.

I dabbled in this PvE slightly but more and more I am just deciding to skip long and extended PvE because the rewards vs. time spent just are not worth it.

The play as you want model works fine IF you take out the placement factor and simply go total progression. If you keep placement in, it is never play as you want. Honestly the issue is the devs being too cheap with rewards. You are still handing out 4* and 3* covers as the main rewards for high placement on these events (yes some iso, hp and a little CP too). We are now in a 5* meta for this game. Who cares if you hand out a ton of 3* and 4* at this point? You aren't making a lot of money from people buying tokens for 3* and 4*. People are looking for CP for 5* tokens. If you go to progression only and see way more people getting 3* and 4* tokens it is ok....in fact, it is probably better for the game as more people will become competitive quicker and sooner (if you ever increase the iso rate....ahem double iso rewards are needed going forward on all events). The more people see progression and the more competition you have, the more $ that these players will be likely to spend. As it is now, you are way to cheap on your rewards because what you offer for real $ doesn't really allow you to progress significantly, thus why many people including myself, don't spend money on the game ( I used to but that changed once HP for covers went away). The VIP package is an example where the rewards it gives is not worth $10/month. The progression I would receive by buying that is minimal over a years time but that is for another thread....

Philly79

Not going to rehash everything others have said, but the time it takes to stay competitive (T10) for rewards is/ was way too long. The placement aspect needs to be removed from PvE period, keep that for PvP season end etc...not much more to say that hasn't already been said 20x....

Just got my 3 X-23 covers and figured I would drop a thanks.

broll

It would be interesting see how many people would have tied if many didn't just quit early on in the test or not even play it at all.

I agree with what was said that if they deiced to award ties the same award I'd be OK with this system. It's still not as good as progression only, but it at least allows everyone who hits the max to get the first place reward regardless of when they play.

MarvelMan

TxMoose wrote:

I hear a lot of people mentioning they casually completely cleared the first 6 days. I also see times to clear between 3 and 6 hours. 4 hours. 5 hours. 6 hours a day. casually? really? some people's definitions of casual is waaay different than mine. for less time than I manage to barely make t50 in EotS, I'm easily t20 in the 4* release event. I agree that if they take care of the tie issue at the top successfully, it is a play when you want thing, but using the analogy I used before, they took a 40 yard field goal that had to be kicked on a schedule and moved it to 60 yards...and added a 20 mph headwind. but hey, you can kick it any time you want. the scaling was awful and the time it took was really excessive. I know some made a perfect score, but most of those think its excessive too. not looking forward to this moving forward, although I have to say EotS is the longest event with the harshest time requirements anyway. may i'll feel different about a more normal event, but I'm not looking forward to the implementation of this.

There is a chasm between "casual" and volume. I cleared everything, and I did it casually (outside sub 6). As in I played when I wanted. It happened to be a week where I had a bit extra time, so by playing when I wanted I got all nodes done. The volume still sucked...massively. But how I achieved my complete clears was casual, play when I want.

PeterGibbons316

broll wrote:

It would be interesting see how many people would have tied if many didn't just quit early on in the test or not even play it at all.

I agree with what was said that if they deiced to award ties the same award I'd be OK with this system. It's still not as good as progression only, but it at least allows everyone who hits the max to get the first place reward regardless of when they play.

If they had communicated ahead of time (I know right?) then I would definitely be sitting on several X-23 covers right now waiting to champion her instead of Quake. I got the max score in 3 subs just for the ISO and token rewards, and got close in 1 other - finishing them all out would not have been much extra work.

madok

PeterGibbons316 wrote:

If they had communicated ahead of time (I know right?) then I would definitely be sitting on several X-23 covers right now waiting to champion her instead of Quake. I got the max score in 3 subs just for the ISO and token rewards, and got close in 1 other - finishing them all out would not have been much extra work.

I know I would have been motivated to finish off the nodes that just had 70 ISO and Crit boosts if I knew I would have gotten those 3 covers. I just couldn't bring myself to clear them for those paltry rewards with the way the scaling was. It wasn't even a matter of for me. I was just not motivated to clear nodes when I clearly wasn't going to get top ten.

JangoLore

First: I loved having a more casual approach and being able to play whenever with the understanding that I would get as far as the time I dedicated to the event.

One thing that surprisingly no one has directly mentioned aside from maybe one poster is the connection between paying players and performance in the event. Understanding that not everyone is going to be going all out in a test event, I assume that the number crunchers can look at how much each of the 329 top finishers has spent in their lifetime playing the game.

I have to wonder how much those numbers will impact their decisions moving forward. We all know that not a single dev has ever acknowledged the underlying motivation for the game to be profitable as a driving faction in game development, but we can see it subtly in some of the choices that are made.

I know that whales pay a lot of money, but cannot necessarily assume that they are grind crazy monsters in events. However, if the majority of the top 329 finishers are free-to-play players, I wonder if their reactions will be given less weight when making decisions about the future of the PVE gameplay experience.

PeterGibbons316

JangoLore wrote:

First: I loved having a more casual approach and being able to play whenever with the understanding that I would get as far as the time I dedicated to the event.

One thing that surprisingly no one has directly mentioned aside from maybe one poster is the connection between paying players and performance in the event. Understanding that not everyone is going to be going all out in a test event, I assume that the number crunchers can look at how much each of the 329 top finishers has spent in their lifetime playing the game.

I have to wonder how much those numbers will impact their decisions moving forward. We all know that not a single dev has ever acknowledged the underlying motivation for the game to be profitable as a driving faction in game development, but we can see it subtly in some of the choices that are made.

I know that whales pay a lot of money, but cannot necessarily assume that they are grind crazy monsters in events. However, if the majority of the top 329 finishers are free-to-play players, I wonder if their reactions will be given less weight when making decisions about the future of the PVE gameplay experience.

This is where VIP comes in. The whales spend massive amounts chasing OML (and the super whales all the other 5*s too), and don't really play PvE very competitively. Changes to the PvE test aren't going to bleed any more money out of the whales. PvE is tailored to the F2P player, and anything they can do to get that F2P to spend just a small amount - say $10/month or so to be just a little more competitive in PvE - just enough HP to spend on healthpacks on those tough subs with wave nodes for example, or just a little faster regeneration so their 2* B-teams can get back up and running mid-grind - is going to increase their bottom line.

dr tinykittylove

Got my 3 x23s. Thank you, I was only playing for iso... spent more TIME than I would have liked, but this was an unexpected bonus.

mckauhu

I liked the own pace style but same time it was awfully painful to play so much. How about increasing difficulty faster and making it so that you can play maximum of 5-7 times / node and you get from harder nodes only good rewards (not some tinykitty std token or 70-100 isos)