Changes to Mission Difficulty

Nick441234

An ideal change would just be to take out point increase. So as the points start going down after 4 clears, they never increase. That way everyone can clear them as many times as they like through out the day.

hodayathink

nick_chicane wrote:

An ideal change would just be to take out point increase. So as the points start going down after 4 clears, they never increase. That way everyone can clear them as many times as they like through out the day.

Ties at the top. The whole thing becomes about who can clear it the fastest. Which would make, arguably, an even bigger grind than we have now (no breaking things apart, just all 7 clears at the start of the node).

The only reason most people weren't royally pissed off after the test where they did it is because they decided to award everyone tied at the top the #1 prize (3 4* covers).

Edit: Oh, and I almost forgot. Due to how health scales with levels, provides a benefit to the soft-capped rosters, since they'd be able to finish their nodes faster due to enemies with less health.

GrumpySmurf1002

hodayathink wrote:

Ties at the top. The whole thing becomes about who can clear it the fastest. Which would make, arguably, an even bigger grind than we have now (no breaking things apart, just all 7 clears at the start of the node).

7 clears at the start isn't any different than 3 clears at the end followed by 4 at the beginning of the next sub. All it does is shift what time you have to start grinding.

MrTrix

Just wanted to add my 2-cents, as a 2-star (with some 3-stars, and no playable 4-stars).
Contrary to the previous event, I'm doing quite well in this one (I'm back in the top 100)... not sure if it's because the difficulty was lowered a bit for my particular situation, or if it's because my level 75 Thor (2-star) is able to pull me through most of the difficult situations (my other 2 team members seem to be mostly there as punching bags )...

The Herald

MrTrix wrote:

Just wanted to add my 2-cents, as a 2-star (with some 3-stars, and no playable 4-stars).
Contrary to the previous event, I'm doing quite well in this one (I'm back in the top 100)... not sure if it's because the difficulty was lowered a bit for my particular situation, or if it's because my level 75 Thor (2-star) is able to pull me through most of the difficult situations (my other 2 team members seem to be mostly there as punching bags )...

Last event was a new character release, people play like crazy when they come up which is pretty good at squeezing people down the rankings O.o

hodayathink

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

hodayathink wrote:

Ties at the top. The whole thing becomes about who can clear it the fastest. Which would make, arguably, an even bigger grind than we have now (no breaking things apart, just all 7 clears at the start of the node).

7 clears at the start isn't any different than 3 clears at the end followed by 4 at the beginning of the next sub. All it does is shift what time you have to start grinding.

Which is why I said arguably. If for no other reason that 3 at the end and 4 at the start means you're starting the grind with high level nodes (the final 3 clears are at max level), and the other way means you're starting with lowest level nodes.

waywreth

Good changes!
Will the total amount of points required for the event be dropped to account for the number of points available?

Dragon_Nexus

Hoping to God that the scaling is drastically reduced. The PvE for Wasp murdered my desire to play the game too much. I've felt the one after to be such a slog. It's okay at first when I fight level 150-200 enemies, but once they max out at 250-300 it just feels like a brick wall I have to chew through to get anywhere. It takes forever, it's not fun, and this week's chosen boosted characters are so utterly terrible.

I don't have a champed Professor X, so my ability to hit hard and fast is utterly null.

eMaRDi

We would like to make a few tweaks to the system to improve high level roster performance and reduce overall playing time for everyone.

Improving high level performance is a good thing, as it rewards long time players.

Higher level rosters will experience easier enemies than before.

[...]the amount of points the 4-Star Required Mission has been increased.

In conjunction with an earlier announcement mid-July:

Starting with Meet Rocket & Groot on July 17th, enemies in Story missions will scale less significantly starting at level 287.

So essentially 4*+ was decreased in difficulty twice, its rewards increased.

Reduced the amount of times a mission can be played after it reaches it's maximum difficulty. Missions can be played three times (down from four) before being worth 1 point.

2-Star Required Missions now have a maximum difficulty (like easy missions).

The amount of points that the 2-Star Required Mission is worth has been reduced

Sounds like 2 star essential missions are worth around 200-300 points.
I would guess that a new 4* character is introduced about every 2 weeks. This character is a reward for Top 20 PvE players and afterwards a essential. This character is usually buffed for the next few events (dependent on new characters introduced afterwards).

By experience I can tell that reaching Top 20 now without the 4* featured character is ... tough. I would guess that reaching enough event points to get the 25 Heroic Points is today also difficult without the 4* featured character.

To summarize the changes:
- I get less points overall per (sub)event, as each node is only playable 3 times for full points
- Without the 4* character, one subnode is locked out (as usual) but would earn more points than before

As a consequence, chances to get a higher overall ranking will decrease if you do not have the required 4* character.
Therefore chances also decrease to get a 4* character for the next event (which might or might not be a new character).

As chances also decrease to reach the last tier (25 heroic points of an event), you cannot draw a 4*+ character.

To quote another announcement (end July):

In addition, we will be increasing the 4-Star odds (30% more than before) in Heroic cover packs. We will be decreasing the 2-Star odds (2% less than before) to compensate for this change.

Heroic cover packs are rewarded in PvE for alliances in a certain subevent placement and for your own placement (300-400, as I recall), all other placement (as well as the tokens within the event) are not affected of this change.

From my point of view it seems this all leads to motivate players to pay for VIP (which earns two Legendary tokens) or pay for Heroic packs (as Heroic points are only rewarded for higher ranked players).

While I certainly see the logic in this step, I think this will widen the gap between new players who do not want to spend much money and established players.
Looking into the current top 10 subevent rankings, these are usually dominated by 5* players.
This is essentially fine, as these players have spent a lot of ressources (time and/or money) to reach that point.
I just see the danger that new players are essentially locked out (almost indefinitely) at a certain point in their progression without starting to spend money e.g. for VIP.

As I mentioned in a previous post I think the only way to reduce such things is splitting up the brackets into three instead of two. This way, you may adapt the brackets according to player base progress. With the correct bracketing, everyone feels challenged without locking out certain players.

Xzasxz

As a player with developing 3 roster I see each change worse. It's in favour for "rich" players. BRING BACK THE OLD SYSTEM!!
Now it's not "play when you want", but "play insane intensive at start then do nothing for 24 hrs". Other wise there is no chance for top 100, no chance for better covers etc. Rich get richer, developing ones stay far behind, stuck in 3 for ever.
O.K., I may exaggerate a bit, but what I see is: there were 3 (mainly) and 4 game a while ago. 5 characters are introduced for some time, far better than the previous ones, yet any new content for the new, higher positioned end-game was introduced. Instead D3 stretches the one existing already to fi much wider range of rosters. This is not gonna work. Someone has to suffer.
As a 3 developing roster owner I say: give me a content where I may be competetive!! After over 9 months playing this game I deserve it. Do not tell me that I have to grind another year to be able to compete for the better prizes.

The Herald

Getting final placement without the Essential 4* wasn't TOO bad this time out.

Clear everything four times, then I think it was four more clears across some of the last missions.

Cash in and get out. Not touching it again for "placement".

Not going to see if the latest rebalanced will hit that for a short while yet.

SnowcaTT

I love the changes so far - ground the 2* essential for all the rewards for the first time in a long time. Didn't have to use my best character in the first run of the non-trivial nodes for the first time in a long time: I can use non-buffed 4*'s again!

So I figured I'd actually grind those "normal" nodes, right? After 3rd clear, they are still 317's/332's [roster 450/393 XF (buffed)/369 KP (buffed)/297 HB (highest unbuffed)]

Apparently still being punished for having buffed characters - scaling shouldn't take that into account.
If that isn't the case, there are still no nodes I can use my not-best characters with after they scale up a bit.
Also, there are still no nodes where I should use my buffed 3* characters with - the "normal" ones required 4*'s right away. (Actually - this might be a character balance complaint - I used some SW and some Cmags, but never considered DD/Daken over unbuffed 4*'s.)

And the more I think about it, the more this is a have/have-not issue AGAIN. Either you have OML and all of these nodes are trival - you are never using health packs. Or you don't have OML, and you have to get lucky - I'm trying to use both Cmags and XF yellow to be able to grind these nodes.

Want to make a more equal world? OML heals in-match, but isn't true-healing; can't infinitely grind. OR all characters go into every node at full health, then this scaling won't matter as much.

tanis3303

SnowcaTT wrote:

Want to make a more equal world? OML heals in-match, but isn't true-healing; can't infinitely grind. OR all characters go into every node at full health, then this scaling won't matter as much.

Or...OR...Make nodes scale to the levels of the characters you take into the fight. Dynamic scaling that reacts and adjusts as you select different characters from your roster. Want to take your champed 5*s into the fight? Have fun vs these lvl 450 enemies that do 49 quadrillion damage for 5 Blue AP. Not for you? Take your 4* champs and fight lvl 300ish enemies instead. A fully champed 2* and a lvl 185 3* next to your unleveled but covered 4*? Here's some lvl 175 dark avengers for a fair challenge. I really don't think anyone is going to be happy until this setup is applied. Trying to base your personal scaling off your three best characters is ALWAYS going to result in you being practically forced to use said three characters or flail about pointlessly trying to defeat opponents far beyond your level.

I don't know jack squat about coding/game design etc, and I wont claim to. Maybe coding such a thing is an impossible nightmare. Maybe they are worried everyone will somehow game the system by recruiting a bunch of lvl 1 5/5 Widows and stun locking everything. I don't know why such a thing cant be implemented or wont be tried. But I feel like its the only solution that has a chance of making everyone, at every level, happy with AI scaling. Something like this would let all players, at all levels, play whomever they want at anytime in Story events, and facing lvl 450 Muscles would be a personal choice, not something forced on you simply because you made the mistake of investing in a stronger character.

hodayathink

tanis3303 wrote:

SnowcaTT wrote:

Want to make a more equal world? OML heals in-match, but isn't true-healing; can't infinitely grind. OR all characters go into every node at full health, then this scaling won't matter as much.

Or...OR...Make nodes scale to the levels of the characters you take into the fight. Dynamic scaling that reacts and adjusts as you select different characters from your roster. Want to take your champed 5*s into the fight? Have fun vs these lvl 450 enemies that do 49 quadrillion damage for 5 Blue AP. Not for you? Take your 4* champs and fight lvl 300ish enemies instead. A fully champed 2* and a lvl 185 3* next to your unleveled but covered 4*? Here's some lvl 175 dark avengers for a fair challenge. I really don't think anyone is going to be happy until this setup is applied. Trying to base your personal scaling off your three best characters is ALWAYS going to result in you being practically forced to use said three characters or flail about pointlessly trying to defeat opponents far beyond your level.

I don't know jack squat about coding/game design etc, and I wont claim to. Maybe coding such a thing is an impossible nightmare. Maybe they are worried everyone will somehow game the system by recruiting a bunch of lvl 1 5/5 Widows and stun locking everything. I don't know why such a thing cant be implemented or wont be tried. But I feel like its the only solution that has a chance of making everyone, at every level, happy with AI scaling. Something like this would let all players, at all levels, play whomever they want at anytime in Story events, and facing lvl 450 Muscles would be a personal choice, not something forced on you simply because you made the mistake of investing in a stronger character.

Don't kid yourself, that's exactly what would happen. The most competitive people would throw out something like a level 1 fully covered MBW/Juggs/Spidey (or, if roster spots are a concern, just a fully covered Juggs), which would make every node trivial.

Bowgentle

So you reduced the mission rewards to six - but kept the critical boosts?
Is this some kind of twisted inside joke now?

CT1888

hodayathink wrote:

tanis3303 wrote:

SnowcaTT wrote:

Want to make a more equal world? OML heals in-match, but isn't true-healing; can't infinitely grind. OR all characters go into every node at full health, then this scaling won't matter as much.

Or...OR...Make nodes scale to the levels of the characters you take into the fight. Dynamic scaling that reacts and adjusts as you select different characters from your roster. Want to take your champed 5*s into the fight? Have fun vs these lvl 450 enemies that do 49 quadrillion damage for 5 Blue AP. Not for you? Take your 4* champs and fight lvl 300ish enemies instead. A fully champed 2* and a lvl 185 3* next to your unleveled but covered 4*? Here's some lvl 175 dark avengers for a fair challenge. I really don't think anyone is going to be happy until this setup is applied. Trying to base your personal scaling off your three best characters is ALWAYS going to result in you being practically forced to use said three characters or flail about pointlessly trying to defeat opponents far beyond your level.

I don't know jack squat about coding/game design etc, and I wont claim to. Maybe coding such a thing is an impossible nightmare. Maybe they are worried everyone will somehow game the system by recruiting a bunch of lvl 1 5/5 Widows and stun locking everything. I don't know why such a thing cant be implemented or wont be tried. But I feel like its the only solution that has a chance of making everyone, at every level, happy with AI scaling. Something like this would let all players, at all levels, play whomever they want at anytime in Story events, and facing lvl 450 Muscles would be a personal choice, not something forced on you simply because you made the mistake of investing in a stronger character.

Don't kid yourself, that's exactly what would happen. The most competitive people would throw out something like a level 1 fully covered MBW/Juggs/Spidey (or, if roster spots are a concern, just a fully covered Juggs), which would make every node trivial.

To counter that, put all the rewards into progression, and the points you score is equal (or scaled vs) the level of the opponents you beat. Big rosters can go further with less fights, capped rosters are encouraged to spend iso.
Feel free to rock out with the 1*s, but don't expect big prizes.

ZootSax

Bowgentle wrote:

So you reduced the mission rewards to six - but kept the critical boosts?
Is this some kind of twisted inside joke now?

Yeah, I just noticed that, too. The next time they release a joke character, like Devil Dino or Howard, they should give it a power which scales based on the number of critical boosts in your inventory. At least there'd be a fractional payoff for the joke...

GrumpySmurf1002

ZootSax wrote:

Bowgentle wrote:

So you reduced the mission rewards to six - but kept the critical boosts?
Is this some kind of twisted inside joke now?

Yeah, I just noticed that, too. The next time they release a joke character, like Devil Dino or Howard, they should give it a power which scales based on the number of critical boosts in your inventory. At least there'd be a fractional payoff for the joke...

That's the same thing as giving them a power that always scales based on a factor of 30.

simonsez

I wouldn't have cared that you removed an award from each node, if it had been the **** crit boost. Seriously, if you're not going out of your way to piss us off, explain your rationale please...

fmftint

Bowgentle wrote:

So you reduced the mission rewards to six - but kept the critical boosts?
Is this some kind of twisted inside joke now?

Curious as to why that little detail was omitted from the OP...