Unstable ISO-8 Rerun 4/1 - 4/7

Unknown

Riggy wrote:

Missions just got replaced. So it's just like last time. Full point refresh after 12 hours, new nodes after 24. Cool.

Do new nodes start as full point stacks again? So refresh time isn't relevant for new nodes the first time around? Still learning this optimal PvE thing...

Unknown

Amatyr wrote:

Riggy wrote:

Missions just got replaced. So it's just like last time. Full point refresh after 12 hours, new nodes after 24. Cool.

Do new nodes start as full point stacks again? So refresh time isn't relevant for new nodes the first time around? Still learning this optimal PvE thing...

Yes. New nodes have all their stacks.

fedlex20

jozier wrote:

Amatyr wrote:

Riggy wrote:

Missions just got replaced. So it's just like last time. Full point refresh after 12 hours, new nodes after 24. Cool.

Do new nodes start as full point stacks again? So refresh time isn't relevant for new nodes the first time around? Still learning this optimal PvE thing...

Yes. New nodes have all their stacks.

Does that mean i should do them as soon as the new nodes pops ups or still wait 12 hours?

Unknown

ichijuan wrote:

jozier wrote:

Amatyr wrote:

Riggy wrote:

Missions just got replaced. So it's just like last time. Full point refresh after 12 hours, new nodes after 24. Cool.

Do new nodes start as full point stacks again? So refresh time isn't relevant for new nodes the first time around? Still learning this optimal PvE thing...

Yes. New nodes have all their stacks.

Does that mean i should do them as soon as the new nodes pops ups or still wait 12 hours?

if ur relatively close to the leader in ur bracket u could easily do them later and let the rubberband kick in assuming u have a good enough team where u dont care about the community scaling

Bowgentle

Well that gamble on 24 hours turnaround on the nodes worked out well.
Rubberbanded my way from 330ish to 3 in the last 30 minutes.

Going to do my full run later tonight and then again 30 minutes from the end tomorrow.

Hopefully they won't screw us over with end times - with an extra 12 hours in the event the nodes _might_ start to last longer than 24 hours.
Or there might just be new nodes for the final 12 hours, which would mean an easily playable 6 days.
But then us Europeans would have perfect end times for the whole event, which is too good to be true, something is bound to happen there

Unknown

I'm actually doing surprisingly well. Though that could have just been the first round with mostly Goons and less Marvel Characters.

Since they've boosted, I've been using

Lv60 Thor (Marvel NOW!) - 4/5/4
Lv59 Storm (Classic) - 5/4/4
Lv47 Black Widow (Original) - 3/4/2

I really need to get Blue covers for Storm and BW as well as Black BW Covers. And I have a Red AND Green cover for Thor. Thinking I should use Red since Greens usually go to Storm's Lightning Storm power. What do you think?

Unknown

Bowgentle wrote:

But then us Europeans would have perfect end times for the whole event, which is too good to be true, something is bound to happen there

Guess that holds for Europeans on social care... for me the 1800 endings are the worst as that is work time.

Unknown

ichijuan wrote:

jozier wrote:

Amatyr wrote:

Riggy wrote:

Missions just got replaced. So it's just like last time. Full point refresh after 12 hours, new nodes after 24. Cool.

Do new nodes start as full point stacks again? So refresh time isn't relevant for new nodes the first time around? Still learning this optimal PvE thing...

Yes. New nodes have all their stacks.

Does that mean i should do them as soon as the new nodes pops ups or still wait 12 hours?

Same. Lazy Shieldbro (I'm keeping that name, dammit!) was the first character I really pushed for in PvE. I really want both of the progression covers. Is the last progression (Red Lazy Shieldbro)reward achievable or a lost cause?

Is the timing of the PvE 'node swaps' known? Is it noon EST?

If so, it feels like this event is a bit different. In the past, doing 2 refreshes was considered "optimal" playtime. The first refresh could really be any time prior to the end of the subevent, but refresh time + clear time (say 12 hr + 2 hr) was considered 'optimal' to get the most rubberbanding from the first clear.

If I'm reading this right, your ideal would be to end one clear by 10pm EST the night before, so by 10am EST it's all reset up, you clear it near the node-reset for max RB points and you could theoretically play again right away (but probably should wait until 8pm for the first clear of the next node). Is this correct?

If it is correct - how screwed am I having to work during the days then? The RB'ing may catch me up mostly to get top 50 for HT covers, but I'll probably be behind enough that the last prog reward is out, right? Or is it too hard to say as it's dependant on node values?

Actually - do the new nodes just 'cycle' (A/B/A/B etc) or is every day unique and with different point totals? If the former, we can predict the achievable point total. If the latter, we have no idea.

NorthernPolarity

I think the most efficient way to go about doing this event is to just do each node set once as soon as they pop up. Rubberbanding means that any grinding you do really doesn't really matter until the last few node sets. This means that you can basically spend 3-4 days being super lazy doing each set once just for the first completion rewards and naturally ride rubberbanding up to the top 10-20 by just doing 8 missions a day. Once there are only a few refreshes left, thats when you go back to the optimal strategy of waiting until there are 13 hours / 1 hour left in the event and grinding then. Until then, I think its a waste of time (unless you're going for mission rewards) to do each node set more than once, unless you're going for mission rewards. That might be a bad idea too as that will increase your PvE MMR. I guess increasing your PvE MMR/avoiding community doesn't technically matter when the nodes are all this easy, but I personally like to save time by fighting 110 enemies instead of 230.

Unknown

If points don't increase, a lot of rewards will be unachievable.

Bowgentle

pasa_ wrote:

Bowgentle wrote:

But then us Europeans would have perfect end times for the whole event, which is too good to be true, something is bound to happen there

Guess that holds for Europeans on social care... for me the 1800 endings are the worst as that is work time.

Depends on the job, I guess.
I start at 7am, so I'm usually done by 4.

Unknown

WolfmanX25 wrote:

If points don't increase, a lot of rewards will be unachievable.

I think they will. At this rate we will barely get past the 66,666 50 HP reward.

over_clocked

RichHurtz wrote:

I'm actually doing surprisingly well. Though that could have just been the first round with mostly Goons and less Marvel Characters.

Since they've boosted, I've been using

Lv60 Thor (Marvel NOW!) - 4/5/4
Lv59 Storm (Classic) - 5/4/4
Lv47 Black Widow (Original) - 3/4/2

I really need to get Blue covers for Storm and BW as well as Black BW Covers. And I have a Red AND Green cover for Thor. Thinking I should use Red since Greens usually go to Storm's Lightning Storm power. What do you think?

As long as Thor has 5 in Yellow, you're good. I personally prefer the 3/5/5 build because Thor's green isn't shabby for a 2* at all.

Unknown

Riggy wrote:

Missions just got replaced. So it's just like last time. Full point refresh after 12 hours, new nodes after 24. Cool.

So at what time left in the event will the new missions pop up then? I woke up and they were changed so not sure on the exact time.

Unknown

I'm assuming the points on the missions has to go way up or most of the rewards aren't obtainable, so whatever effort you put in now is at best marginal. And if it turns out the points never get bigger, you at least saved yourself a lot of time from trying to achieve the otherwise unobtainable progression rewards.

That said the 230X3 goon fights are really easy to do, I usually just do them a few times to make sure I didn't fall too far behind beyond the once per all node routine.

Unknown

NorthernPolarity wrote:

Ghast wrote:

I snuck in an hour ago to get a bracket without much competition.

Got stuck with the Ferret. No free ride this time.

I'm lurking in the shadows of your bracket as well.

Lol eh you guys should be pretty safe as I dont intend to bust my **** too hard for a yellow x-force even if i dont have any yet.
the way they have things set up this time around reminds me way to much of the mess that was TaT

Unknown

NorthernPolarity wrote:

I think the most efficient way to go about doing this event is to just do each node set once as soon as they pop up. Rubberbanding means that any grinding you do really doesn't really matter until the last few node sets. This means that you can basically spend 3-4 days being super lazy doing each set once just for the first completion rewards and naturally ride rubberbanding up to the top 10-20 by just doing 8 missions a day. Once there are only a few refreshes left, thats when you go back to the optimal strategy of waiting until there are 13 hours / 1 hour left in the event and grinding then. Until then, I think its a waste of time (unless you're going for mission rewards) to do each node set more than once, unless you're going for mission rewards. That might be a bad idea too as that will increase your PvE MMR. I guess increasing your PvE MMR/avoiding community doesn't technically matter when the nodes are all this easy, but I personally like to save time by fighting 110 enemies instead of 230.

I think you're spot on there, polarity.
There really is no advantage at this point to being a few hundred points ahead by grinding nodes multiple times. The winners of this event will be those who can perfectly time the last 2 refreshes imo. And realistically even if your second-last refresh is poorly timed, if you can manage to be playing when the event ends, you're golden.

I am enjoying this event, but I think it's also the best example yet of how rubberbanding
1 - can eliminate grinding for the majority
2 - penalizes those who cannot play at prescribed event end-times. Bad time-zone? At work? Sorry, YOU LOSE AT MPQ.

Unknown

MTGOFerret wrote:

Lol eh you guys should be pretty safe as I dont intend to bust my **** too hard for a yellow x-force even if i dont have any yet.
the way they have things set up this time around reminds me way to much of the mess that was TaT

In my mind, TaT only stumbled on 2 points:
1 - scaling was introduced -poorly. people were sending in their rosters to suicide-tank. it was stupid.
2 - when the 'main event' in TaT opened up, the points and rubberbanding went insane, rendering all previous points completely irrelevant. usually, in other events, your prior lead was at least slightly useful. not so here. also - too many missions on screen

I feel that the anti-grinding points setup they had was the best implemented of all events yet. Max points first clear per node, then less (?half) on second clear, then 1 point thereafter. I don't see why this hasn't been implemented again; I felt it worked really well.

Unknown

volos wrote:

MTGOFerret wrote:

Lol eh you guys should be pretty safe as I dont intend to bust my **** too hard for a yellow x-force even if i dont have any yet.
the way they have things set up this time around reminds me way to much of the mess that was TaT

In my mind, TaT only stumbled on 2 points:
1 - scaling was introduced -poorly. people were sending in their rosters to suicide-tank. it was stupid.
2 - when the 'main event' in TaT opened up, the points and rubberbanding went insane, rendering all previous points completely irrelevant. usually, in other events, your prior lead was at least slightly useful. not so here. also - too many missions on screen

I feel that the anti-grinding points setup they had was the best implemented of all events yet. Max points first clear per node, then less (?half) on second clear, then 1 point thereafter. I don't see why this hasn't been implemented again; I felt it worked really well.

I'll just toss it out there that for plenty of us TaT scaling is tinykitty throw the litter box out broken. 230's across the board the second you opened up the event.
needless to say its a nightmare i hope we never repeat as it just was plain unfun.

Unknown

MTGOFerret wrote:

I'll just toss it out there that for plenty of us TaT scaling is tinykitty throw the litter box out broken. 230's across the board the second you opened up the event.
needless to say its a nightmare i hope we never repeat as it just was plain unfun.

I spent hours of my life killing off my team...I hated it. Fights were reasonable though because of it. Didn't even win an x-force stupid rubber band 4th place.

First in the event for all it matters, now I know the dance ill play "optimally" and see what happens. Should get the progression token at 15000 in the morning before the boring **** training I need to go on. I would get more out of MPQ than listing to that nonsense but thats what it is.