Heroic Venom PvE Feedback Thread

DrNitroman

I voted OK.
Scaling was hard... but it didn't go insane for me, probably because I died regularly
Rubberbanding made it impossible to reach top100 without playing the last hours in round1... but round2 ending was more convenient for me
It could have been 'meh', but I found it enjoyable, playing only torch nodes (x2) and avoiding excessive grind.
Limited roster was a challenge but interesting.

So once in a while I'd like this type of event but not more frequently

Unknown

Horrible. Started out at L 187 on the first node in deadly, in the 70s on normal. With limited roster provided, I could only play the first half dozen nodes on "normal". Ironically, "community scaling" pushed the first deadly node down to L 131 for me - and by using all the "+50%" boosts in one go, I got past the first deadly node. One completion, and I finished ~380th out of 1000.

I played to make a meager contribution to our Alliance, but for me, this event was not fun - It was sadistic. or was it an exercise in masochism? Not quite sure how those work....

On the other hand, with all the downtime away from MPQ, I found out we have had a cat for the past six weeks, my hockey team is out of the playoffs, and that

SHIELD has been taken over by HYDRA

Wow.

Unknown

I found the battles tedious and boring. I thought that the available roster was subpar, although I understand that if I had a better leveled BP or Psylocke the event would have been more enjoyable.

I'm hoping if they run an event like this again they will update who we fight, even the addition of Ares would have made this more fun.

TheVulture

I'll have to vote "meh".

+ I really don't object to limited rosters to shake things up & shine the spotlight on other characters...
- But not this limited, this skewed towards the very worst characters (as acknowledged by D3 themselves), and forsaking all the established 3*s.
- Progression rewards again out of reach, which basically made each 3 day round on par with 60-90 minutes of PvP (in terms of pure ISO and reaching 300 points for an heroic token).
- Was a bit sadistic to give opponents their dream henchmen 'feeder' combos while giving players a single buffed character and (as mentioned above) a roster D3 acknowledge as in need of buffs/beyond help.

I do think Heroic Mode can work, but it needs:

1] Better rewards/obtainable rewards.
2] Broader rosters e.g. half the roster with an eye given to covering each role in some way.
3] A mix of 3*s, not just the last x number released.
4] Slightly more buffs - even just a single 3*, 2* and (maybe) 1* more, as buffing whomever happened to be released a day before is a] a bit annoying and b] vulnerable to horrible misfires (will Dare-Devil ever recover from being forced on everyone in an event which made him look absolutely useless?).

Unknown

I personally don't find the Heroic roster selection interesting or creative at all.

Being that these events usually include 2 out of the 4 available 1* heroes, 3 out of the 7 available 2* heroes, and the latest 1/1/1 3* hero, the limited roster for Heroics is fairly predictable. In fact, based on the last three Heroics, you can usually expect an Iron Man, a Storm, a Black Widow (except this time), a Hawkeye, and a Wolverine in these events, usually determined by story cutscenes as well.

So the real variable is which 2 out of the remaining 14 3* and 4* heroes they'll pick and how they'll work with your limited choices. Add to the fact that your general PvE rating/scaling can pit you against lvl 100-400, your 1* and 2* characters are barely going to cut it, so your success in these events almost comes down to whether you have these 2 particular characters leveled or not.

Unknown

The problem with these events is that scaling makes the event a totally different experience for everyone. You probably have a guy fighting level 300 guys and the other guy is wondering what's all the commotion when his enemies are level 90 and there doesn't seen to be any consistent to pattern as to why two guys with almost the same roster strength end up with vastly different enemies.

I think scaling got a bit out of hand at the end. Scaling plus rubberbanding together just doesn't work. If you only have scaling but not rubberbanding, there would be no advantage to play less, as in to get X points you always have to beat Y missions so you might as well try to do it as early as you can, and the guy with the higher scaling will also always have considerably more points and that's totally fair. I'd suggest in the future we should seriously consider no rubberbanding, scaling, and server-time based mission (e.g. all missions refresh at a preset server time, as opposed to your time) as a model. There is simply too much timing/gaming for rubberband now that I think we need to move from it. This is like the third event in a row where the top prizes for progression was never reached because nobody is willing to grind to hit the max, and it's actually been getting worse. In Simulator Basic nobody got close to 300K (though we got to about 270K). In Heroic Jugg nobody got close to the first Captain America cover (93333, top score was 55K maybe?). In this event, we barely got the first heroic token (25K?) on deadly on round 2 even though the top progression was what, 85K?

Additionally I propose that scalings hould be based on PvE event points. That is, if you got 5000 points it doesn't matter if it took one, ten, or 5000 missions to do so. It should have the same impact on your scaling, because your PvE points is what you're measured against for placement. Right now this is most definitely not the case.

Unknown

I voted for meh. It is still my least favorite event though.

Unknown

I see several flaws with this type of event.

•First of course is having the buffed, required character be the one that was just released. Clear money grab, but ok someone has to pay the bills

•Limited roster is fine as long as the enemies scale to the roster you are limited to, not just how many times you kill or wipe. Perhaps limiting the roster but not as severe and for people who are missing a majority of some of the allowable characters, open up a few more perhaps?

•Progression awards were still broken. Is this because the change to rubberbanding a few events ago that removes alot of the elasticity meaning fewer high scores are reachable? Now points are reduced from much further distance from the leader meaning there's no more slingshotting past people to push everyone potential scores higher.

•Rubberbanding allowed someone to just play the last hour of the entire event and win or finish in the top few of their bracket. Seems like a bad system to allow someone to do this and I'm sure many people don't like it although able to skip and event for 95% of this and just playing and the end to win does seem like free candy to the winner.

•Having 2 brackets is nice for double the rewards but why not just reflect the scaling better if we are keeping scaling. My harder mode was always about 20 levels higher than my normal mode the entire time. 20 levels higher is really nothing but double the grind. I'm sort of on the fence about the 2 brackets because if there was only 1, then I would just have 3 nodes to do about once/day instead of twice/day.

Having the same reward for both brackets for both runs of the event seems a little nuts unless, of course, everyone must have the captain maxed for the next event. . .

Unknown

The opinion of this humble little octopus:

1) The limited roster idea isn't a bad one, but the characters chosen were not particularly well suited to the event. Yes, absolutely, my roster was more than sub-par for this, but thankfully I was still able to compete (somewhat) with what I have. (Feel free to check it out in my sig, of course. It's not AWFUL, but akin to a kiddie pool - wide and shallow) Ended up running with my 53 Psylocke, my 1-1-1 Human Torch and an Amazing Wolverine who started the event in the low 30's but due to his usefulness ended up at 77 by the end of the event. So....the roster chosen was hard for me, but the good part is I leveled up a character I seldom thought about using and that will be useful in later events I'm sure. I'm looking at you, LazyDaken. Your daddy will probably be involved in your capture...

2) Scaling - because I managed to get my heroes slaughtered so many times during both heroic runs, my scaling was kept relatively low. This was good, considering that if it hadn't the limited roster I had would have been even more inept. They ARE superheroes, right? But for me, scaling didn't come into play. If point 1 had a more open roster, I'm sure it would have increased somewhat faster.

3) Progression awards - There was almost no point to even having progression awards for this set of events. I felt like Tantalus, starving and thirsty and forever doomed to have both food and water out of reach.


* This is, of course, based solely on my own personal experience.

Linkster79

I voted terrible.

1. Who ever invented community scaling really needs to have something nasty done to them.

2. Why limit my roster? Enemy levels are already increased, even more so with the dreaded scaling no need to handicap me further by giving me only 5 characters to use, 1 of which only had 1 cover as it is a fairly new release.

3. Deadly mode? What Heroic not enough? How about a Prison Rules mode next time too?

4. Did I mention scaling?

5. Overpowered goons feeding AP to Dark Avengers. Should not ever happen in a powered up environment.

Games should be fun, maybe Demiurge should put some of their much lauded ARPDU into researching what makes an event fun as they seem to have forgotten over the last 3 or 4 PvE events.

Unknown

LoreNYC wrote:

•Having 2 brackets is nice for double the rewards but why not just reflect the scaling better if we are keeping scaling. My harder mode was always about 20 levels higher than my normal mode the entire time. 20 levels higher is really nothing but double the grind. I'm sort of on the fence about the 2 brackets because if there was only 1, then I would just have 3 nodes to do about once/day instead of twice/day.

Having the same reward for both brackets for both runs of the event seems a little nuts unless, of course, everyone must have the captain maxed for the next event. . .

I think in the dev's ideal world, experienced players would only be restricted to compete in Deadly, and normal would be for new and mid players. I don't think they really want experienced players to win both tournaments... Problem is they probably have no clue how to draw that line as to how to determine who is restricted to which mode.

Unknown

LoreNYC wrote:

•Having 2 brackets is nice for double the rewards but why not just reflect the scaling better if we are keeping scaling. My harder mode was always about 20 levels higher than my normal mode the entire time. 20 levels higher is really nothing but double the grind. I'm sort of on the fence about the 2 brackets because if there was only 1, then I would just have 3 nodes to do about once/day instead of twice/day.

Having the same reward for both brackets for both runs of the event seems a little nuts unless, of course, everyone must have the captain maxed for the next event. . .

They're not just 20 levels apart. Interference (second to last mission) is level 70 on normal for me but level 260 on deadly on the end of R1, and I played both brackets roughly the same amount.

The problem is that scaling varies so much from person to person that the same event can be totally different between one guy and another.

They need to eliminate advantages obtained by ordering/timing. That is, doing mission X then Ym versus Y then X, should have the same overall outcome on your score and scaling. Currently this is not true.

Unknown

The answer that I really want to hear from devs or from players is whether anyone saw their scaling go down, like IceIX said would be easier to do:

- Smoothed the route back down in PVE rating if you're losing in missions so that enemies will get easier quicker. We've put in brakes however so that you can't just retreat your way to easy-dom.

If so, how many missions did you have to lose until you saw this effect?

Nemek

Knock3r wrote:

The answer that I really want to hear from devs or from players is whether anyone saw their scaling go DOWN, like IceIX said would be easier to do:

- Smoothed the route back down in PVE rating if you're losing in missions so that enemies will get easier quicker. We've put in brakes however so that you can't just retreat your way to easy-dom.

If so, how many missions did you have to lose until you saw this effect?

At least a handful of SHIELD members had their levels go down. What the triggers for that were is a bit of a mystery.

Unknown

How did you get lvl40 HT?

I'm not sure willingness to spend HP should be a factor in how easy the event is. Of course spending HP should make it easier.

Also normal vs deadly, difference in lvl for me was about 5-10.

Unknown

LoreNYC wrote:

I see several flaws with this type of event.

•First of course is having the buffed, required character be the one that was just released. Clear money grab, but ok someone has to pay the bills

•Limited roster is fine as long as the enemies scale to the roster you are limited to, not just how many times you kill or wipe. Perhaps limiting the roster but not as severe and for people who are missing a majority of some of the allowable characters, open up a few more perhaps?

•Progression awards were still broken. Is this because the change to rubberbanding a few events ago that removes alot of the elasticity meaning fewer high scores are reachable? Now points are reduced from much further distance from the leader meaning there's no more slingshotting past people to push everyone potential scores higher.

•Rubberbanding allowed someone to just play the last hour of the entire event and win or finish in the top few of their bracket. Seems like a bad system to allow someone to do this and I'm sure many people don't like it although able to skip and event for 95% of this and just playing and the end to win does seem like free candy to the winner.

•Having 2 brackets is nice for double the rewards but why not just reflect the scaling better if we are keeping scaling. My harder mode was always about 20 levels higher than my normal mode the entire time. 20 levels higher is really nothing but double the grind. I'm sort of on the fence about the 2 brackets because if there was only 1, then I would just have 3 nodes to do about once/day instead of twice/day.

Having the same reward for both brackets for both runs of the event seems a little nuts unless, of course, everyone must have the captain maxed for the next event. . .

Last time I brought up how it was ridiculous to come up in the end and put a minimum amount of effort I got the nonsense police after me, led by Dormammu, who stated that this ridiculous system allows everyone to be competitive (everyone that plays the last hour that is!)

I do like the 2 brackets and no sub brackets. This is still a better system over having to keep track of all the sub brackets because you can literally wrap up a bracket in an hour or so of game time if you happen to have the characters they want at a high level.

But yeah, I started heroic easy on day 2, and heroic hard in the last 14 hours, and finished heroic hard top 10, but failed to maintain top 20 on heroic easy because I had to work the last hour of the event. Clearly if this event repeated I would not play at all on either until literally the last 2 or 3 hours and save myself the grief. Mind you, grinding the nodes allows you to get the rewards, but they were generally worthless. You want iso? It's easier to do LR or to drop your MMR to the bottom then use shield training to fight level 6 characters for super fast iso. The odd prizeof 250 iso is not an incentive to re-do a node.

Also, you could ignore the majority of the event. Just do enough to activate the 3 essential nodes and problem solved, you did not have to do a single Daken mission. My heroic hard was less than 2 hours, finished top 10 and it was the most relaxed pve event I've had since Hulk (original) Some of the fights were pretty challenging, although I appreciate the no spidey and no OBW, since I believe people need to break their Spidey Crutch.

The consensus is that this was a very boring PVE. I'm fine with it, because I'm exhausted from 10 day grinds to unlock the latest Lazy Character. This was short and profitable. The progression rewards were unreachable, and it's naive for them to blame it on the leaders. They have no incentive to grind because the nodes are worth **** thanks to the rubberbanding algorithm that permeates this game. It is punitive towards good players. You see it in pvp all the time. You are #1, and the nodes are worth 6, and if you grind them someone is going to come and hit you for 45. Keep the event, fix the rubberbanding.

over_clocked

Phantron wrote:

In Simulator Basic nobody got close to 300K (though we got to about 270K). In Heroic Jugg nobody got close to the first Captain America cover (93333, top score was 55K maybe?). In this event, we barely got the first heroic token (25K?) on deadly on round 2 even though the top progression was what, 85K?

I believe that lazyThor was rewarded as progression in Heroic Juggs as Steve Rogers only came out in the second and most recent Sim.

reckless442

Even though I did well in the both rounds, I hated this event. I don't mind heroics in theory, but more thought needs to go into the selection of characters.

As for scaling, a lot of the problems have already been addressed, but there is one that is overlooked. If you want to play the event, not rely on rubberbanding, and do well, you are effectively forced to grind the nodes. But that only results in you being penalized with increased scaling (on top of community scaling). As nodes get harder and even max-level characters get wiped out by goons, your options are pretty limited. If you want to do well, you need to rely on boosts, but that also results in increased scaling. So basically, you faced a choice of either sitting out the event, which now has the added impact of hurting your alliance, or you run the risk of killing yourself in the next PVE. Those +50% damage to all-enemies were the only way to beat level 280 Venom/Daken/Rags or Yelena/Hitman/Muscle when the Muscle's "threaten" was placing two strike tiles each worth an additional 679 per attack, and it was nice of the Devs to give them as rewards, but why bother if we're going to be punished for using them.

The whole system makes no sense. I still don't get why a good strategy that involves planning ahead to avoid damage means the game is "too easy," but running headlong stupidly into a battle without an effective strategy so that my characters die or walk out with only a few health left is "optimal" game-play.

Unknown

reckless442 wrote:

Even though I did well in the both rounds, I hated this event. I don't mind heroics in theory, but more thought needs to go into the selection of characters.

As for scaling, a lot of the problems have already been addressed, but there is one that is overlooked. If you want to play the event, not rely on rubberbanding, and do well, you are effectively forced to grind the nodes. But that only results in you being penalized with increased scaling (on top of community scaling). As nodes get harder and even max-level characters get wiped out by goons, your options are pretty limited. If you want to do well, you need to rely on boosts, but that also results in increased scaling. So basically, you faced a choice of either sitting out the event, which now has the added impact of hurting your alliance, or you run the risk of killing yourself in the next PVE. Those +50% damage to all-enemies were the only way to beat level 280 Venom/Daken/Rags or Yelena/Hitman/Muscle when the Muscle's "threaten" was placing two strike tiles each worth an additional 679 per attack, and it was nice of the Devs to give them as rewards, but why bother if we're going to be punished for using them.

The whole system makes no sense. I still don't get why a good strategy that involves planning ahead to avoid damage means the game is "too easy," but running headlong stupidly into a battle without an effective strategy so that my characters die or walk out with only a few health left is "optimal" game-play.

They need to simply change scaling to be based on your event points. Hypothetically let's just say every 10000 points = 10 levels for Heroic Venom. It doesn't matter how you actually grinded out those points, if you have 10K all your enemies are 10 levels higher. You can wait for the last minute or grind them early but the effect is still the same (well your first mission might be slightly lower if you waited long enough). This whole difficulty of the event changes depending on when you beat it simply makes no sense and it discourages people from playing. Yes rubberbanding still means someone start later have to do less number of missions, but at least you can guaranteed that by the time that guy caught up to you, his missions are exactly as difficult (at least relatively) as yours.

kensterr

I vote for Demiurge not to hire only game designers but game designers with background in psychology.