Oscorp: Heroic Update (1/13/17)

fanghoul

I'm not a 5* player, and I do like the experience of trying to get things to work within the confines of a limited roster in heroics. There's so many reasons to take Dr. Strange these days, it's interesting to try and come up with alternate strategies. But I'm not going to do that if there's already an obviously best strategy I could be using. This might be particularly true after a new release. I don't know that I would have used 4* Carol in nearly every node if I had more choices to work with.

That said, I do appreciate the developer's desire to experiment.

blargrx

so..... basically just another pve event....

BigRussian

Dormammu wrote:

It seems the only ones complaining are five-star players. Further motivation, for me, not to worry about making that transition. I'm thinking the game is a lot more fun down here in three & four-star land.

This.

If the game basically de-incentivizes you to further your roster, then why would i spend any ISO in the first place on a 5* character? I feel bad for lower rosters who have put (stupidly) iso into a 5*.

This game is starting to fade real quick. I bet when they close to doors to the office, it will also be 5pm on a friday without any notice. Why would you want me to spend money on your game? It really panders to those with thousands of $ to burn while the rest of us get to wait years (yes, years) to fully cover characters.

Oh well, it was fun while it lasted MPQ.

Chrono_Tata

If the variety in the mechanics of Story events are going to be removed, maybe add more variety by at least launching more new stories? We've been playing the same dozen stories or so for ages and it must have been months since the last new story was released.

hodayathink

Chrono_Tata wrote:

If the variety in the mechanics of Story events are going to be removed, maybe add more variety by at least launching more new stories? We've been playing the same dozen stories or so for ages and it must have been months since the last new story was released.

3 months (technically, 2 and a half, but who's really counting). Strange Sights. Give or take, they make/introduce a new event about every 3 months or so, with some more successful than others (Boss Rush was the last new event before that). People have really short memories around here.

Twysta

Does this mean you might implement the "heroic" limited characters into ALL PvE's every so often instead of the prologue events?
That would be an interesting change.
As a 4* player I don't mind heroics and think of it as a nice change every so often.

Crowl

This seems like an oddly timed change, didn't they only just expand the roster and reinforcements we get in a heroic anyway? This could be an idea to mix things up though, sometimes treating them as a regular pve and sometimes as a heroic.

Heroics needed more synergy in the available rosters rather than dropping the idea entirely, if it is being done to help lesser roster, why not allow all 1* and 2*?

Marty17

stochasticism wrote:

So there is zero distinction between heroics and any other event now? I liked having to be creative with teams and trying combos I might not otherwise. Not a fan of this at first glance.

Ultimately I agree. When I first started MPQ, I enjoyed Heroic events as it created an interesting dynamic where you have to use certain characters for the missions. A year or 2 later, I finally understood other gamers struggle when transitioning to 3-4 characters either without sufficient covers or hugely underlevelled. Now I'm at the point where I pretty much maxxed out all the characters (either from max level or to their soft cap), started to get my starter nostalgia back, & now potentially no more character restraints.

broll

Not sure why everyone is complaining. I for one think this is a great change.

El Satanno

Is there still room on the Hate Train for me to get on? Maybe in the caboose?

Hi! I hate the 5* tier. I hate just about everything about it. Apart from Taco Thing, Heroics are...or were I suppose...the only escape I had from the prison that developing my 5* roster has me jailed in. I'm closing in on 40 champion 4* characters who almost never see the light of day except in their essentials.

After this event closes, and the post-mortem complaint threads blow up, please reconsider this decision. Assuming you guys will insist on futzing with the formula, the best/easiest option would be to just lock out the 5* tier for Heroics.

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After that, you ought to consider locking out the 5* tier from everything except SHIELD sim.

Fightmastermpq

I haven't read all 3 pages, but I'm sure by now you recognize how terrible this idea is - just wanted to add my 2 cents......

I'm "only" on day 825 or so, but thinking back on my play over the past couple years I can say without a doubt that the most fun periods have been ones where I had a lot of diversity. Having about half the 3*s maxed before moving on to my 4* transition. When I got to 9-10 4*s maxed and I could actually select my PvP team based on who I was up against. And right now that I have 6 5*s champed. For a very long time PvP was incredibly boring - the same OML/PHX against every other OML/PHX, but whatever I still had PvE. The PvE scaling got crazy and I was forced to sue the same OML/PHX duo there as well, but whatever I still had heroics....... Now that's potentially gone too.

I get it. Heroics are incredibly frustrating for beginners and even vets when the boosted characters for the week lack synergy. I've complained about them in the past as well. But now that 5* scaling is so awful, and my 4* roster is really filling out (I think I'm closing in on 30 of them champed now), Heroic's have been a nice change of pace. Just this past one I finished 1st in both subs I was able to play competitively in....something I very rarely do with 5* scaling. So please don't make this a permanent change.

I do applaud the effort, and taking a stab at a change that has been asked for.....but the meta has changed since that ask, and as you can see is not quite as desirable as it once was. Why not take a stab at 5* scaling instead???

Infrared

I'm fine with the change. Being a 4* player with one usable 5*, this doesn't particularly affect me one way or another. I can see how newer players would like it, and how 5* players would hate losing the one reprieve they have from their insane PVE scaling.

I like the idea of making heroic restrictions optional. Should it be tied to the SCL? (I.e. lower SCLs have no roster restrictions) That would keep the game's user interface a bit simpler, but give less choice to players. What if a higher SCL player wanted to actually use their 5* characters all the time? What if a lower SCL player actually enjoys the challenge of a limited roster?

Another variation on the idea: make heroic restrictions an option for all PVEs. Now 5* players can take a break from the 5* monotony whenever they like. And less advanced players can challenge themselves whenever they like. The downside is we would need to navigate yet another selection screen when entering a PVE. Choose SCL, choose time slice, and now choose roster restriction. Perhaps it could be made into a checkbox on the SCL screen. Or instead of SCL1-8, we now have SCL1, SCL1(heroic), SCL2, SCL2(heroic), and so on.

Punisher5784

At first I was surprised to see the amount of hate this change created, especially after seeing how many complaints I saw on here the past few years but after reading everyone's posts, I get it. I'm not a 5* player but the scaling is still slightly better for me.

The challenge of heroics is creating a decent team out of a handful of characters. I may have never tried using IF/QS or Rhulk/Cho without Heroics. Recently you made a great change to add additional 4* reinforcements which was a great change. This change.. idk, I agree that it will feel like every other PvE.

The other thing I liked about Heroics was the Point Score was much lower than the standard PvE, likely due to the character restrictions.. will the progression points for rewards increase? I hope not.

rbdragon

I've always felt the best solution to the Heroic problem was to allow us to draft our own roster from who we have and build the scaling accordingly:

Choose up to 4 characters from the 4*/5* tiers
Choose up to 7 characters from the 3*/2* tiers
All 1* characters available
The 2*/3*/4* essentials are pre-selected, and do not factor into the number chosen

This way, if a player chooses high level 5*s, then they have no one to blame but themselves for the scaling they receive.

Also, the selected are not automatically boosted, the boosted list stays the same. This plays a part in the strategy, as well as the scaling (even though it shouldn't, but that's a whole other battle).

mega ghost

DayvBang wrote:

mega ghost wrote:

I have a solution that could make everyone happy:

-Remove the character restrictions so everyone can participate, making them friendlier to new players.
-Add considerable bonuses to playing with a certain set of characters. i.e. "You aren't required to play with these ~5-10 characters, but if you use teams comprised of these members you get double ISO, better progression rewards, and better placement rewards."

I suppose this would require some sort of gating for the event though, in which you make your decision from the start. If that is too difficult to implement or creates problematic player pool sizes per SCL, the simpler option would be to implement bonuses based on the pre-met conditions going into the match (similar to how PvP offers +ISO bonuses for not skipping.) This can certainly be done with ISO, but I imagine doing it to add tokens or covers wouldn't be too much of a programming stretch?

I literally just discovered this week that Heroic events are fun for me now. As a 3* or 4* player I hated them, but now that I'm thoroughly in 5* territory I gave it a whirl and really enjoyed playing with some well-designed but dusty parts of my roster.

I like the idea of making the limited roster more optional, but instead of tracking whether you adhere to the limit, why not run the same event in two modes? Opt in to the limited roster with somewhat better rewards, or take the default version with total roster choice. But, and this is important, they need separate leaderboards and people should only be able to play one, not both. When they join one, the other version should disappear. Edit: I just noticed you suggested this in the second half of your post. Too quick on the trigger.]

That's definitely my preferred route! I also just started liking Heroics now that almost all of my 3* characters are champed and ~12 of my 4* characters are champed. I'm nowhere near 5* territory, but even I default to teams of roughly the same 4-6 champed 4* characters. I like it when the game forces me to play with a boosted Mystique. As useful and wonderful as he is, I'd rather not just rely on the spry, brute force of Red Hulk again and again to one-hit kill waves of goons.

I want new players and players in the 2* and 3* arenas to not hate Heroics as I once did, and I want them to become more fun for them. But I also want us to enjoy them too! If I had a choice between any team (no challenge, surefire victory) and a restricted team but with better rewards, I'd choose the restricted team every time: for the variety and fun in gameplay, and also for the better rewards.

mega ghost

Also, this is a separate issue, but I wish rewards weren't so tied to placement. The amount of grinding you need to do to even get into top 100 placement is absurd. Progression rewards are good as long as they don't require too much grinding and stamina. I'd love it if they just made certain nodes that were very difficult with excellent rewards. Even if it took 10 tries to beat and used all of my health packs or several different teams, I'd love the challenge and feel sated by a good reward.

Mechahamster

I'm not a 5* player but I can definitely see the problems with this for them. Limited roster availability and lack of synergy is what causes the general dislike for heroics in the first place, and this change fixes that for us, but also destroys diversity for them.

Limit heroics to all 3* and 2*.

Availability for all. Diversity for 4* and 5* players. Still feels special. All problems answered.

BIuebell

Mechahamster wrote:

I'm not a 5* player but I can definitely see the problems with this for them. Limited roster availability and lack of synergy is what causes the general dislike for heroics in the first place, and this change fixes that for us, but also destroys diversity for them.

Limit heroics to all 3* and 2*.

Availability for all. Diversity for 4* and 5* players. Still feels special. All problems answered.

And matches nicely with the content in Heroic tookens, to boot!

Pants1000

Wow, we are a tough crowd. I've been seeing complaints about Heroics for a long time, so they change it so they're more like regular PVE events, and the complaints roll in?

Personally I'm not sure if I like it or not. When I have good boosted characters they're fun, but the last one wasn't because the only 4* I had champed was Elektra.

SummerGlau

even if it had been a regular heroic i would have had my top 2 4's (Cyclops and X-23) boosted and five boosted 3 star champs plus MN Mags
Daken and Ares don't currently have max covers and are level 15
Even with Cyclops Storm and X-23 Boosted past 270 my scaling isn't off much