New Mission Difficulty For All Story Events *Updated

OneLastGambit

LordXberk wrote:

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.

Yeah I can concede on some points I do think it's slightly harder hitting t10 Now but still doable (I'm a 4* transitioner) the scaling is the cause of that though not the system. If my scaling maxed at 300 instead of 356 then I'm confident I could still hit t5 No problem. T5 as it is now will not be possible unless you spend money and burn through health packs.

Also agree on the timer too... Play anytime! The devs said while whispering (as long as it's in line with the new timer)

Remove timer - change to progression only. Its the ONLY way to make it play when you like either commit to play anytime or don't bother changing it

an1979

OneLastGambit wrote:

T5 as it is now will not be possible unless you spend money and burn through health packs.

Excellent!

Just As Planned!

dsds

I've played through the first sub and finished my 4 clears on the second sub. The difficulty is definitely higher. Also essentials is higher. But like all changes, there will be positive and negative ones. Some people will lose out more and some people will benefit more. That's just how change goes.

People complained about essentials because they didn't have the essential characters. How do you fix this? Make it hard so people with essential can't grind the tiny kitty out of it to gain a massive advantage over those who don't have the characters. I think that's fair.

Top 5 or top 10 is rarely achievable by most. There are literally only 10 people that can make it per bracket. With so many goon nodes, of course it's gonna be more grind.

The developers said that they don't want new players with small rosters to out rank the ones with big developed rosters. So weaker players shouldn't expect to get the highest rank or to grind as much. The previous versions of the PVE were broken and skewed towards new players. This is fixing that. You are supposed to lose if you don't have the roster. CP will not benefit new players very much anyway because you shouldn't be getting the shiny 5* right away.

The difficulty might be a tad on the difficult side. Luckily it is goons and we should be able to control it better. I hope when we do other pves with actual characters, they should lower the scaling. With goons or other characters that don't get a move, I think the difficulty is fine the way it is.

OneLastGambit

dsds wrote:

Luckily it is goons

Yes..luckily THIS pve sub is goons. Gauntlet is not gonna be much fun anymore.

Venom bomb (THE worst pve in my opinion) is likely to be unplayable. I'm just gonna pray to rngesus that a new release never lands on venom bomb

Vhailorx

OneLastGambit wrote:

dsds wrote:

Luckily it is goons

Yes..luckily THIS pve sub is goons. Gauntlet is not gonna be much fun anymore.

Venom bomb (THE worst pve in my opinion) is likely to be unplayable. I'm just gonna pray to rngesus that a new release never lands on venom bomb

Set venom bomb aside for a minute; the last sub in r&g has doom + feeder nodes, right?

Nick441234

Vhailorx wrote:

OneLastGambit wrote:

dsds wrote:

Luckily it is goons

Yes..luckily THIS pve sub is goons. Gauntlet is not gonna be much fun anymore.

Venom bomb (THE worst pve in my opinion) is likely to be unplayable. I'm just gonna pray to rngesus that a new release never lands on venom bomb

Set venom bomb aside for a minute; the last sub in r&g has doom + feeder nodes, right?

Yep it does. I am not looking forward to the overscaled Doom. He previously maxed out about 210 for me in past runs. I'm expecting him to max out around 245 now. This is going to be hell for my roster.

DTStump

I would actually like more essential characters per event. This would reward roster diversity and the gotta catch 'em all mentality. And motivate people to buy more roster slots.

By doing this, you could actually reduce difficulty and/or grind requirements, because you would have an alternative means of separating players and avoiding ties.

Ram51

Why do the 2* essential nodes get only the Easy loot table, same as the three Trivial missions, as if it has the same difficulty? The 2* essential node is actually the hardest of the 3 essential nodes; that node is essentially a two-character fight, especially once the "slight" scaling kicks in. It deserves to have the Hard loot table at the very least.

ZootSax

OneLastGambit wrote:

Yes..luckily THIS pve sub is goons. Gauntlet is not gonna be much fun anymore

Gauntlet will be interesting to see in the new system. Yes, the difficulty cap is higher in the new system, but the starting levels are lower. There's the potential for the progression to actually be easier because the first clear has lower scaling, but farming the nodes for rewards could be brutal as scaling quickly rises. ...or it could scale different than other events and just start at a brutal level. We shall see....

Nick441234

It is a bit insane that they consider a battle against level 200's (for me) equivalent to a battle against level 40's.

elusive

After having the chance to actually play it for a little bit, I can already tell I'm going to hate the difficulty leap. I didn't like it in the test PvEs, and while I should say I'm surprised they decided to put it into the permanent system, I'm also not surprised that they'd want to make things more painful and less fun.

rbdragon

If you're going to increase the difficulty as much as you did with no cap, there absolutely should never be feeder goons in those high level nodes. Have one or the other, but having both is just too much.

(Hint - it's the feeder nodes you should do away with)

Nick441234

The scaling is still obscenely unfair. The 4* essential fight is only 20 levels below my hardest fight! That is hardly fair when I have to use a horribly under covered and leveled Prof X.

They have to do something about this!

WEBGAS

Progression rewards IS the only thing that could save this game.
THE ONLY CHANGE THAT COULD MAKE STORY EVENTS WORTH OF PLAYING.
Why devs don't understand this?
Will it be a bad move to allow more players to obtain 4 stars covers?
I don't think so.
Instead they will have players more motivated to progress in the game and not players stuck in the middle of nowhere, with a constant release of new characters that they won't be able to use for a very long time, if not ever at all.
And do they think that these unsatisfied players (me enclosed) are willing to spend money in this broken game?
I would like to receive a reply from the devs, but I won't hold my breath

HaywireII

I don't know if it's the new difficulty or a scaling issue with my roster getting stronger but after hitting the muscle nodes on the first day I have no desire to play the Thick as Thieves event. Getting my CP and getting out, don't care about ranking.

Arphaxad

The difficulty of the new system needs to be addressed. After 4 clears two of my required, and one of the others, turned red. When the difficulty hits red it is no longer a challenge and becomes near impossible, which is not fun.

If they don't reduce difficulty soon I'll be reducing my game time. There are better options for my time and money.

revskip

Arphaxad wrote:

The difficulty of the new system needs to be addressed. After 4 clears two of my required, and one of the others, turned red. When the difficulty hits red it is no longer a challenge and becomes near impossible, which is not fun.

If they don't reduce difficulty soon I'll be reducing my game time. There are better options for my time and money.

I must be in a sweet spot for this. My hard and hardest are ending up yellow. The node that starts at easy ends up yellow after the first clear but still isn't awful after 4 clears. All of which leans heavily towards me continuing to just champ 3*s and softcap any 4*s low for the foreseeable future. Since my scaling is right in the sweet spot doing anything else will probably cripple my ability to place well. Right now I'm actually placing higher than I ever had in the new system. In the current event I have a decent shot at top 10 without grinding a single node past check marks.

amusingfoo1

Having now played a couple events with the new scaling, the difficulty is really terrible. It just takes forever to clear out nodes with 150k hp, even when the chance of losing is pretty minimal (which is not always the case).

Clears take me about twice as long in the new system as they did in the old.

What does this mean? Well, the end of sporadic top-1/2 and regular top-10 finishes, for sure. Combined with some real-life issues leaving less (maybe even a lot less) time to play, it might even be the end of me playing PvE. On the plus side, I'll get a lot more sleep.

WalrusBrigade

Nothing new to add, just want to get another +1 to the list in case anyone is watching.

The new PvE system is likely to reduce the amount I play the game. The difficulty spike isn't that bad, but when paired with significantly lower ranking scores I just can't find the energy to get more than 4 clears in a node. The first sub I did that for everything, the second I did for some, and now on the last sub I am just doing it for the CP and ducking out (having already made my progression).

I imagine that will be the route I take in the future. what is the most minimal number of nodes I can clear to get the 25 CP, and making sure that I get any other CP in the sub. That is going to be a pretty heavy hit on my ISO gains, which is unfortunate since I'm at the early end of 4* transitioning. But it seems like the game will be better for me if I round out my 3/2* roster than if I try to level up some 4* and increase scaling. C'est la vie.

Calnexin

HaywireII wrote:

I don't know if it's the new difficulty or a scaling issue with my roster getting stronger but after hitting the muscle nodes on the first day I have no desire to play the Thick as Thieves event. Getting my CP and getting out, don't care about ranking.

I have the notion that's the point.

The aim of the new PvE structure is to dissuade people from grinding the nodes. It scales harder each time to force you to consume health packs or quit. Grinding nodes to infinity is not how they want it to be. They want people to be finishing a node 4x and call it a day. If you do that, you're more or less guaranteed to get the 25CP progression prize. At that point, the clock comes into play and rewards are less enticing - the really devoted folks can grind for placement if they wish, but it's not the "natural order".

It seems like a strategy, but if it is they don't understand their players. There are plenty of people out there willing to grind those nodes to get top rewards. It was a move designed to ease pressure, but all it's really done is divide the base into insaniacs who will endlessly grind for placement and norms who are becoming increasingly disenchanted by their failure to earn anything of consequence for reasonable effort.