MPQ's New Normal?

Meander

This is more a commentary on the decisions made from a dev standpoint, and not necessarily about boss rush. One pattern that's starting to potentially emerge is that the dev's seem to be removing, either intentionally or not, our ability as players to help others. The initial case was the removal of cakes, which regardless of what how you feel about them has been documented as helping lower roster players. Now we have boss rush, which seems to be intentionally purely individual progression. Previously in Civil was runs, high level teams could run around 18 good players, and help along 2 needy players with high level covers. Do you think this trend will continue, and if so, what are the next steps? Will they find a way to remove alliance progression from PVE/PVP? Do you think there's a bias against these instances of charity, or are these isolated incidents? Personally, again, I am at a pretty high level, but have been assisted greatly to get here. It sucks I can't return the favor to others.

The Bob The

I asked something similar in the Boss Rush thread. I'm feeling like in the last month there has been a strong push for players to play alone. Maybe it's a reaction to those saying coordination is unfair since not everyone uses it (although the existence of in-game chat seems to weaken this argument). I don't know if that IS the reason, or if there's some fantastic next level that these changes herald, but I can say that a year ago, just after a **** anniversary performance by my casual alliance, I was ready to quit. I started looking into alliances through Line to see if there was any value there, got recruited, and added a level of enjoyment and performance to the game that kept me interested for another year. If that's being neutered, I'm back to how I felt about Puzzle Quest a year ago.

The Bob The

aesthetocyst wrote:

This will be a thing when you log in to discover alliances have been deleted.

I think thats scheduled for Nov 17th.

At risk of a ban, here's the flavor text that was mined for the next event: "By the Hoary Hosts of Hoggoth! Alliances have been revealed to be tools of Baron Mordo! Can you help Dr. Strange eliminate this threat from the game? Earn Mindless One Points for every alliance you crush!"

Roguewookie26

The alliance im in is one of the only reasons i have continued to play this game. I have consistently been frustrated by devs lack of communication, lack of caring what players actually want and the mandatory including of features that the majority of players spoke out against. I have never seen a game where it seems blatantly obvious that the game cheats (even though its denied) and the devs continue to do things just to upset and alienate their player base. Ive been telling my friends for months that it almost feels like they are just doing things to see how far they can go before killing their own game. I am solidly into the 4* transition with 10 champed and another 4 waiting on iso but even now it still feels like they are gearing this game towards elite players only and they have been doing so for months. I spent money last week (which i now regret) thinking maybe they had finally got something right with the anniversary events. Now im left wishing i had my money back and very secure in the knowledge that if i hadnt i would have just deleted the app today and walked away. Instead i will probably trudge along until i feel i have either gotten enough playtime in to justify my expenditure or reach the point where i just dont care anymore.

Meander

aesthetocyst wrote:

This will be a thing when you log in to discover alliances have been deleted.

I think thats scheduled for Nov 17th.

Players that can communicate are just to informed. Unplug the forum!

Then shutter FB, Line, Reddit....

Bonus points if you wrote this while listening to A Perfect Circle's "Pet"

Vhailorx

Meander wrote:

This is more a commentary on the decisions made from a dev standpoint, and not necessarily about boss rush. One pattern that's starting to potentially emerge is that the dev's seem to be removing, either intentionally or not, our ability as players to help others. The initial case was the removal of cakes, which regardless of what how you feel about them has been documented as helping lower roster players. Now we have boss rush, which seems to be intentionally purely individual progression. Previously in Civil was runs, high level teams could run around 18 good players, and help along 2 needy players with high level covers. Do you think this trend will continue, and if so, what are the next steps? Will they find a way to remove alliance progression from PVE/PVP? Do you think there's a bias against these instances of charity, or are these isolated incidents? Personally, again, I am at a pretty high level, but have been assisted greatly to get here. It sucks I can't return the favor to others.

I agree that this is clearly the result that has been achieved. I don't know that it's the intent. Hell, the splash page for joining Boss Rush still says this is an "alliance event"! Seems like a left hand not talking to the right hand problem within demi.

Results are bad though. My enthusiasm for playing is way down as result of the recent changes. Ranks and CLs are a nice quality of life improvement, but the PVE/PVP format changes make everything more tedious.

Punisher5784

Roguewookie26 wrote:

The alliance im in is one of the only reasons i have continued to play this game. I have consistently been frustrated by devs lack of communication, lack of caring what players actually want and the mandatory including of features that the majority of players spoke out against.

I agree with this 100%! My Alliance is the reason I continue to grind and play these annoying events such as Venom Bomb, so to see this Boss Rush not have us work in Alliance is really disappointing and insulting. The point of boss events is that everyone works as a team but now it looks like Boss Events will be structured just like any other PVE except this will be more difficult than a standard PVE! I am really hoping that a mistake in the coding has been made and it's not purely Player-based.

monsieurmojo

Vhailorx wrote:

Results are bad though. My enthusiasm for playing is way down as result of the recent changes. Ranks and CLs are a nice quality of life improvement, but the PVE/PVP format changes make everything more tedious.

Not to mention that we seem to get SCLs about one week per month between new release events, the following new release Heroic, and such.

Vhailorx

monsieurmojo wrote:

Vhailorx wrote:

Results are bad though. My enthusiasm for playing is way down as result of the recent changes. Ranks and CLs are a nice quality of life improvement, but the PVE/PVP format changes make everything more tedious.

Not to mention that we seem to get SCLs about one week per month between new release events, the following new release Heroic, and such.

Yeah, it's REALLY hard to spot the pattern: we still don't get SCLs for release events, or post-release events.

So I guess demi still hasn't realized that the best solution is to put a single cover as the max prog reward for release events. everyone who plays a lot get the new toy. And then have additional covers got to the top 10 or top 20 finishers. The best part is that because everyone will have to roster the new character, this change might even be revenue positive for demi/d3.

Crnch73

I am just bummed because the scaling is already getting super hard and I am only in round 3. I am a 3* player trying to make the jump to 4*, and I could really use 2 of the 3 peggy rewards (I have her at 2/0/5). A lot of my alliance mates are high up players, so they are able to help carry me to the end of the boss battles to get all the good rewards when it gets to be too hard for me to even dent the boss. With this change... I will be tapping out pretty early and be pretty bummed about not getting a single Peggy cover. Thanks for the help getting out of the 3* tier!

Dauthi

You could compare it to Galactus/Ultron, but it can also be compared to The Gauntlet with added rewards and a more engaging social structure. It seems to be a hybrid of these events.

To be honest I was pretty dissapointed when it seemed like another Ultron/Galactus event re-skinned. It turns out it is different mechanically, notably internal alliance competition, which is a nice change. I am enjoying it.

Vhailorx

Dauthi wrote:

You could compare it to Galactus/Ultron, but it can also be compared to The Gauntlet with added rewards and a more engaging social structure. It seems to be a hybrid of these events.

To be honest I was pretty dissapointed when it seemed like another Ultron/Galactus event re-skinned. It turns out it is different mechanically, notably internal alliance competition, which is a nice change. I am enjoying it.

No criticism dauthi; like what you like!

But are you at all concerned about scaling? Ultron with 33k health in round 3? And more total boss health in round 3 than in round 8 of previous fights? Seems like a potential scaling problem in later rounds (like that gauntlet run when the ai hit level 300 in the first sub).

Also, if it is a single player event, that's fine, but don't expressly state in game and on the forums that it's an alliance event!

Dauthi

Vhailorx wrote:

Dauthi wrote:

You could compare it to Galactus/Ultron, but it can also be compared to The Gauntlet with added rewards and a more engaging social structure. It seems to be a hybrid of these events.

To be honest I was pretty dissapointed when it seemed like another Ultron/Galactus event re-skinned. It turns out it is different mechanically, notably internal alliance competition, which is a nice change. I am enjoying it.

No criticism dauthi; like what you like!

But are you at all concerned about scaling? Uktron with 33k health in round 3? And more total boss health in round 3 than in round 8 of previous fights? Seems like a potential scaling problem in later rounds (like that gauntlet run when the ai hit level 300 in the first sub).

Also, if it is a single olayer event, thats fine, but dont expressly state in game and on tue forums that it's an alliance event!

It's a Guantlet with the scaling of an Ultron/Galactus event. I'm a fan of the Gauntlet, and I like static scaling. It locks the best prizes behind a level/dificulty barrier, and used to wish they would do something similar to PVE to segregate high end roster prizes from low end (clearance levels ended up being the solution though). I won't comment on how difficult it is until I go through it all and hit a wall, or don't.

It is an alliance event though isn't it? Not what we are used to, instead we are competing against each other.

Vhailorx

Dauthi wrote:

Vhailorx wrote:

Dauthi wrote:

You could compare it to Galactus/Ultron, but it can also be compared to The Gauntlet with added rewards and a more engaging social structure. It seems to be a hybrid of these events.

To be honest I was pretty dissapointed when it seemed like another Ultron/Galactus event re-skinned. It turns out it is different mechanically, notably internal alliance competition, which is a nice change. I am enjoying it.

No criticism dauthi; like what you like!

But are you at all concerned about scaling? Uktron with 33k health in round 3? And more total boss health in round 3 than in round 8 of previous fights? Seems like a potential scaling problem in later rounds (like that gauntlet run when the ai hit level 300 in the first sub).

Also, if it is a single olayer event, thats fine, but dont expressly state in game and on tue forums that it's an alliance event!

It's a Guantlet with the scaling of an Ultron/Galactus event. I'm a fan of the Gauntlet, and I like static scaling. It locks the best prizes behind a level/dificulty barrier, and used to wish they would do something similar to PVE to segregate high end roster prizes from low end (clearance levels ended up being the solution though). I won't comment on how difficult it is until I go through it all and hit a wall, or don't.

It is an alliance event though isn't it? Not what we are used to, instead we are competing against each other.

But they never say we are competing against each other. On the forums they said it will be a boss event like we are used to, but with wave boss fights. In game, the splash screen still says the event "pits you and your alliance against incredible odds. . ." Those statements are not compatible with the existing scoring system.

Re gauntlet scaling: I too used to like the Gauntlet. Less so now when it offers so much less iso and cp than normal pve events (and iso and cp are basically the only resources I care about since I have a decently deep 4* bench, but still no 5*s). I also hated the one gauntlet run with crazy scaling. It was miserable (not because it was impossible, I actually beat it before they down-shifted the scaling, but because it was no fun to slog through 30 straight level 400+ nodes. Overscaled that high, it's very hard to mix and match different characters to find fun new tactics. You basically just have to use the most powerful combos in the game or boost heavily.)

I don't mind locking prizes behind a level difficulty curve (I think civil war might be the best example of this yet. It was reasonable for 5*s, doable for 4*s with some clever tactics, and really hard for 3*s. But everyone could play high enough to reach a level that offered them meaningful rewards. It was well calibrated.) But through three rounds myself (and with reports coming in from up to round 5) it seems pretty clear that this event tips over from "a challenging and enjoyable difficulty level" to "too hard to be fun, and maybe even impossible in the final rounds."

GurlBYE

Dauthi wrote:

You could compare it to Galactus/Ultron, but it can also be compared to The Gauntlet with added rewards and a more engaging social structure. It seems to be a hybrid of these events.

To be honest I was pretty dissapointed when it seemed like another Ultron/Galactus event re-skinned. It turns out it is different mechanically, notably internal alliance competition, which is a nice change. I am enjoying it.

Wait what? There's less social engagement. This is the same engagement as any old pve event currently.

We're on our lonesome here.

This is the exact same event as galactus but with waves. Its a literal reskin with waves of 5 stars.

5 node layout that require characters the majority of the player base haven't won, and a boss node that unlocks.

Are you in a different version of the event?

3 star storm is the reward locked behind "difficulty" here (who can be obtained from DDW), along with peggy who i pulled from 2 legendary's, and at current scaling isn't meant to be a reward without a roster that isn't already well beyond her.

I'd love to understand your perspective here, but it doesn't seem based on what I'm seeing in game, I'd love you to elaborate however.