New Mission Difficulty For All Story Events *Updated

Square-Chopper

Timers aren't bothering me and I actually finished well in the first sub without trying all that hard. However, scaling is a bit extreme. I don't keep track of the levels, but I do know that the Juggs/Muscle/Muscle node had Juggs topped out at 64k health. So I guess that when they said they wanted higher level rosters to have an advantage, they meant they wanted to make in "fun and challenging" for everyone with a 5*. Situation normal, I suppose.

ZootSax

nick_chicane wrote:

Anyone else finding the essential nodes are maxing out ridiculously high? The 4* CP node with Muscle/Hood/Bullseye has maxed out at 262 for me. In previous events it would max out around 170. This is far too excessive.

My hardest fight did indeed top out at 288. Thats a good 40 levels higher than I'm used to. My roster wont be able to handle that in other, harder PVEs.

The 4* essential node really has goofy scaling. It's seems wrong that my two-cover XFDeadpool is matched up against teams 20+ levels higher than my max-champed CStorm and champed IM40...especially when both of them are only facing goons. I guess Deadpool needs to suck it up for the CP...

Vhailorx

Just want to double down on aesth's last comment. The essential nodes are only "slightly" higher if "slightly" means something completely different. Like "substantially," or "wildly."

Demiurge: no adult likes it when the doctor says that re-setting a broken arm might hurt "a bit"! Please describe upcoming changes accurately. More than 120 levels (i.e. an increase of more than 50%) is not a "slight" increase by any reasonable definition of the word.

fanghoul

I've been having a ton of fun figuring out how to take down some of the tougher nodes for this. I was just cruising along grinding through things with IM40, Black Panther and KK, when I found that I couldn't do that at the higher levels for the last nodes of Juggs and Hood. It took me a lot of tries to find something that worked there, and it turned out to mostly be Moonstone stealing all those horrible tiles, while Iron Fist fed he black AP. It was pretty dicey still, since they're both under level 200, but by the same token, it was hilarious to watch them dealing +4000 points of damage twice by the end of the battle. I'm sure there's people that would complain about losing healthpacks that way, but this has been ideal for me.

KrisPWales

simonsez wrote:

KrisPWales wrote:

If I can do 4x clears spread however I want throughout he day and get the 25CP I'll be more than happy with the change.

It's too bad that wasn't possible under the old system. Oh, wait....

Not if "however I want" happens to be "all at once" if that's how my free time happens to fall during a given event. I'll admit that I was still drawn to optimal 8 hour clears despite not pushing for top 10, but that's on me I guess.

fmftint

What it's like waiting to grind after clearing 4x last night and not having to play all day

PLAY WHEN YOU WANT!

hodayathink

fmftint wrote:

The couple times I've tried to pull that with during tests, I've needed to do three full clears, if not a little bit more than that. The top might play less, but it looks like the middle and the bottom play more.

No, they play the same, but get more points because the system fixed them full node points 4x

I knew someone would say that. IIRC, the points diminish by 1/6th each time you play the node in the old system. So even if you did two clears the most inefficient way (back to back) the difference would only be 1/6th of a full clear (which would be somewhere between 300 and 900 points depending on how early or late in the event the sub-event is). Which is usually about the value of about 1.5-2 extra clears of an essential, not nearly a full clear (which is the difference that I've seen). I don't know why some people don't want to accept that the loss of the timer has meant that at least some of the casual audience is playing more (even if it is just the psychological effect of not seeing the timer go down and go back up).

auralgami

Top scorer in my bracket, with over 13000 points, has:

Level 74 XFDP
Level 45 IM40
Level 41 3* Thor
Level 40 1* BWidow
Level 40 3* CMarvel
Level 40 3* Spider-Man
and a handful of 1 and 2 * characters, ranging from level 34 to level 2.

Meanwhile, I'm scarfing down healthpacks to deal with Level 296 Hood/Muscle and that insanely obnoxious Juggs/DoubleMuscle combo. I am just barely in the top 10.

Scaling problems solved!

OneLastGambit

aesthetocyst wrote:

auralgami wrote:

Top scorer in my bracket, with over 13000 points, has:

Level 74 XFDP
Level 45 IM40
Level 41 3* Thor
Level 40 1* BWidow
Level 40 3* CMarvel
Level 40 3* Spider-Man
and a handful of 1 and 2 * characters, ranging from level 34 to level 2.

Meanwhile, I'm scarfing down healthpacks to deal with Level 296 Hood/Muscle and that insanely obnoxious Juggs/DoubleMuscle combo. I am just barely in the top 10.

Scaling problems solved!

That guy could be sucking down heals and snorting boosts like a champ. Have you asked him?

All champed 3* amd 4* players in my top 10.

T10 in mine is all champed 4* and 1st must be a whale as he has a champed oml and Phoenix and cover maxed the other 5*s

OneLastGambit

I decided to try playing this event fairly lazyily to see if the complaints aimed at the New system are accurate (that competitive play <t10> is far longer and harder in the New systen)

I started sub 1 and did 4x clears throughout the day at random times (not all in one go which is optimal ) and then took all nodes except that juggs muscle node to 6 clears the following day (without waiting for full points) Finished sub in 11th place and 11th overall.

Obviously event is not finished yet so I may still end up lower than t100 sticking to these tactics but so far I'm now 10th overall after just finishing my first 4 clears of sub 2.

Now...

I will say this, scaling is outrageous and I have no doubt that playing for t5 or above will be both insanely hard and a massive health pack sink. However, so far, I have proved that t10 playing very sub optimally under the new system is possible. Meaning you don't HAVE to grind 5 hours in a row to make t10...above that and yes you will definitely have to play that sweet 5 hour grind.

Bowgentle

OneLastGambit wrote:

I started sub 1 and did 4x clears throughout the day at random times (not all in one go which is optimal ) and then took all nodes except that juggs muscle node to 6 clears the following day (without waiting for full points)

Is that six clears total or 4 clears plus 6 clears in the end, for a total of 10 clears?

Figure15

I seem to be playing less but that's probably due to the relatively easy nodes. We'll see when it gets to sub 3.

OneLastGambit

Bowgentle wrote:

OneLastGambit wrote:

I started sub 1 and did 4x clears throughout the day at random times (not all in one go which is optimal ) and then took all nodes except that juggs muscle node to 6 clears the following day (without waiting for full points)

Is that six clears total or 4 clears plus 6 clears in the end, for a total of 10 clears?

6 clears total

philosorapt0r

No longer do I need to decide whether to commit to a PvE based on whether my schedule that week allows for playing on the 8-hour-refresh timer!
Top 10 is still crazy, but that's the nature of any competitive PvE---grinders gonna grind.
Now I can reasonably play for max progression with a long 1/day play session. 4 clears, all CP guaranteed.
All hail the new PvE.

MrTrix

It's great to see that others are doing so well with this new system, but for me, it's a huge leap back.

I'm still a fairly low-level player (several 2*s, some 3*s, average level around 70), and under the old system, the difficulty did get challenging towards the end, but I was usually able to make it, and sometimes I was even able to end in the top 50 and gain some greatly appreciated 3*s.
With this new system, after 3 clears the scaling already appears to be higher than it was after 7 clears in the old system, meaning that I now get my *ss kicked all over the place by the computer, and am unable to progress any further.
Which means I'm going to finish near the bottom of the list on this one.

So I do hope they make a few more adjustments for the low/mid-level players.

Harpuia

MrTrix wrote:

It's great to see that others are doing so well with this new system, but for me, it's a huge leap back.

I'm still a fairly low-level player (several 2*s, some 3*s, average level around 70), and under the old system, the difficulty did get challenging towards the end, but I was usually able to make it, and sometimes I was even able to end in the top 50 and gain some greatly appreciated 3*s.
With this new system, after 3 clears the scaling already appears to be higher than it was after 7 clears in the old system, meaning that I now get my *ss kicked all over the place by the computer, and am unable to progress any further.
Which means I'm going to finish near the bottom of the list on this one.

So I do hope they make a few more adjustments for the low/mid-level players.

Same here. Around level ~80-90 unboosted 2* and 3*s. Muscles generate around 30-40% higher strike tiles than I remember from previous events. And this is only the 4th clear. The only reason I could clear it was because I got lucky, and that the 2* power up for this event is really good (Storm, Mag, Ares). I can't fathom how bad it will be when there's no good boosted units. Things scale in level too fast, and there's no stat reduction since they don't break 287 yet. As a note, I don't have any 5* and haven't leveled any 4* to mess with the scaling.

LordXberk

OneLastGambit wrote:

Bowgentle wrote:

OneLastGambit wrote:

I started sub 1 and did 4x clears throughout the day at random times (not all in one go which is optimal ) and then took all nodes except that juggs muscle node to 6 clears the following day (without waiting for full points)

Is that six clears total or 4 clears plus 6 clears in the end, for a total of 10 clears?

6 clears total

I'm in the 5* transition and typically hit t20 or t50 in PVE. For sub1, I did the 4 clears within the first 2-3hrs (ie, somewhat optimal), then 1 clear w/ 3hrs to go, and about 45 minutes of grinding which took all nodes to 6/7, and then I hit a few 7/7. So, somewhat similar tactics in sub1 (maybe somewhat more optimally) and finished 33rd v. ~t10. Of course, like always, YMMV, but overall seems like the work to get t20 is going to be tougher.

Also, new releases are going to be nuts, which I'm not looking fwd to.

And, I agree w/ many others that there is still a freakin' timer, so the goal of 'play whenever you want' will never happen. In this case, instead of being able to play in healthy snippets over the course of the day, I have to play all at once. Better for some, worse for some, but still forces you to play when the devs see fit in order to hit placement.

SnowcaTT

I like these last couple tests because I hit progression playing the way I always played: grind it the one opportunity I have the chance to for ISO and CP.

It means I'm not playing -at all- on this third day (grinded the nodes of sub 2 a bit after they opened), but I'm 5K from progression with a real day still remaining. I never hit progression on the 8-hour refreshes.

That said...I also have gotten used to being able to hit the essentials with a bit of ease, and with the final nodes being pretty hard. I thought I read somewhere everything was starting easier but the essentials would get harder than they used to? I thought this meant:

Slightly harder essentials (previously they were difficult but not super hard - requiring occasional health packs)
Slightly easier final nodes (previously super hard, requiring nearly all health packs)
....so it would be an offset of difficulty.

Instead I've found about the same difficulty of final nodes (can't get out of them without taking tons of damage) and ALSO that difficulty on essentials (again, will take damage and need health packs). So the overall difficulty of the event feels like it has gone up significantly.

TxMoose

yeah, essentials no longer have the difficulty advantage that they used to. I'd like to see those revisited to provide some help to having a freaking 2* as dead weight, instead of exactly the same levels as the 4* node that you have champed, boosted to the 350s.

Bowgentle

TxMoose wrote:

yeah, essentials no longer have the difficulty advantage that they used to. I'd like to see those revisited to provide some help to having a freaking 2* as dead weight, instead of exactly the same levels as the 4* node that you have champed, boosted to the 350s.

What, you don't find taking a 2* against 372 Mystique fun and challenging? What's wrong with you?
It's especially nice that the Subjects do team damage, so it's a HP each time you miss a detonate, even though the other two chars can be OML and Xfool.