The Hunt for the Falcon - April 18 - 27

Unknown

I played in Alaska some yesterday, and actually hit first in it for a while, even though I haven't done all the nodes. I think I was still in like third this morning.

I'm all in place maintenance to aim for top 20. The next progression award is a cover I don't need, and nothing I want that much is going to be reachable. Plus, there's plenty of other new shiny stuff to do.

Dreylin

Vinny J wrote:

yet another vaguely related pseudo random comment....

Last night at ~9pm MST - I stopped playing the Hunt for the evening - I was in 8th overall.

This morning at (almost) 9am MST - 12 h later - I was in still in 8th. Usually in (my) overnight span I drop 20-50 ranks.

That smacks of a great deal of PVE induced apathy, IMHO. never a good sign.

*** note - I just dropped to 10th.

Agreed, there does seem to be less movement in my bracket as well.

Based on the remaining time and the brackets currently underway, here's my prediction for the remaining (all times Central US):

Alaska3(Active): end Thursday 11pm
Florida3(Active): end Friday 11am
Savage3(visible): start Thursday 11pm - end Saturday 11am (36hrs)
Alaska4: start Friday 11am - end Saturday 11pm (36hrs)
Florida4: start Saturday 11am - end Sunday 11am (24hrs)
Savage4: start Saturday 11pm - end Sunday 11pm (24hrs)

Unknown

Vinny J wrote:

That smacks of a great deal of PVE induced apathy, IMHO. never a good sign.
.

I noticed the same thing. I joined on day one, but was unable to play for 2-3 events. That left me in quite a hole. Without global rubberbanding I didn't think I could catch up.

When I would complete a sub (and finish in the top 20) I was still in 400-500th place overall. But slowly I began to creep up and up and now when I finish a sub, I am in 100th place. I'm only at 41000 points, which isn't really a lot. So, it speaks to a lot of people quitting or not trying very hard.

KaioShinDE

This showcases another big problem with 9 day events. If they don't work, it really hurts the game and they can drive people off completely. If it's a 3 day event? People shrug and hope it'll get better next time.

9 day events are just terrible in every respect and D3 needs to step away from them.

Unknown

KaioShinDE wrote:

This showcases another big problem with 9 day events. If they don't work, it really hurts the game and they can drive people off completely. If it's a 3 day event? People shrug and hope it'll get better next time.

9 day events are just terrible in every respect and D3 needs to step away from them.

Yes... and no.

9 day events are not terrible if they offer fresh content on subsequent subs. The Simulator is a good example of this.

The problem with the Hunt is primarily the scaling. Players would grind the content, if they weren't hitting the brick wall that most have already have halfway through the event.

I believe one of two scenarios is occurring here:

1) D3 badly misjudged the scaling algorithm for the event by failing to account for the abnormally high number of nodes in subs in the Hunt. As a result, the scaling at the end of Wave 2 is likely what the scaling at the end of Wave 4 should have been. As a result, the majority were locked out by the subs 5 and 6. As noted by others, this is easily seen the current subs 7 and 8, where the points in each sub are barely even being claimed. By subs 9-12, at this pace, the event will barely possess a heartbeat.

2) The scaling is intentional and D3 is observing and collecting data on players' pain tolerance level. Just how far are players willing to push themselves in the name of event points and Falcon covers?

Unknown

Lyrian wrote:

2) The scaling is intentional and D3 is observing and collecting data on players' pain tolerance level.

<gasp!> HYDRA DID take over D3 ! long suspected, and the evidence accrues...

"ve are on ze verge of discovering limits of der rumoured 'super' soldiers"

over_clocked

Murphy's law applied to MPQ:
if you boost for a fight, you'll get the most ridiculous board ever so as to make the boosts look silly.

Unknown

locked wrote:

Murphy's law applied to MPQ:
if you boost for a fight, you'll get the most ridiculous board ever so as to make the boosts look silly.

I love the suggested move.

Unknown

Why are people complaining about some relative stability in the overall bracket? Is it really a good thing to have an event like Unstable Isotope where you literally have no idea what your final placement until the last day?

In my bracket it now looks like the top 2 will finish with a runaway margin (at least 1K). Unfortunately due to the structure of this event it's impossible to see this until almost the end of the event, since if this was known earlier I can certainly play a lot less (will easily finish top 10 but top 2 seems out of the question). Going for the kill early seems to be a very effective strategy in the current PvE. The scaling pretty much ensures nobody will have a chance to break away later, even with increased points on missions because you just can't break away when all the highest point missions are out of reach for everyone.

ZeiramMR

In my opinion, it ain't over until it is over as weekend play and scaling can both make a difference.

I am in a main bracket which has pasa, myself, walkyourpath, and a few others hopping around at the top. Unfortunately, I am helping with a friend's event this weekend, so I expect to have unoptimal playing for the last Alaska and Florida brackets. If I end up in the top 2, awesome, but I am just trying to front-load my score for a good shot at both Falcon covers.

Bacon Pants

Ben Grimm wrote:

I played in Alaska some yesterday, and actually hit first in it for a while, even though I haven't done all the nodes. I think I was still in like third this morning.

I'm all in place maintenance to aim for top 20. The next progression award is a cover I don't need, and nothing I want that much is going to be reachable. Plus, there's plenty of other new shiny stuff to do.

I played two nodes in Alaska last night and that put me in first. Played a few more just for the hell of it. I'll bit it again tonight and should end up back in the top 50 or so.

As for the overall ranking, I think I've dropped one place today. The difficulty must be hitting some folks real hard, I'm just starting to experience it.

Unknown

KaioShinDE wrote:

This showcases another big problem with 9 day events. If they don't work, it really hurts the game and they can drive people off completely. If it's a 3 day event? People shrug and hope it'll get better next time.

This happens after every event

Unknown

The opening node welcome to the North increased to 70? What the eff? I thought those were level locked in the 40s.

I do not predict I'll be happy when I start these.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

Why are people complaining about some relative stability in the overall bracket?

relative stability is one thing; that assumes everyone is progressing at a similar pace. no issues with that. The initial observation is that NO ONE progressed at all over a 12h period.

That's not relative stability - that is stagnation (which is not a country full of male deer).

mags1587

Chimaera wrote:

The opening node welcome to the North increased to 70? What the eff? I thought those were level locked in the 40s.

I do not predict I'll be happy when I start these.

Uh-oh. Mine's at 70, too. That's not a good sign.

Unknown

ClydeFrog76 wrote:

I honestly don't understand the logic of running these repeat events for NINE **** days, when all that happens is the same three brackets get repeated over and over.

I agree nine days is too long, but I think it's a problem with content generation, i.e. it takes a lot of manhours to create new/different content, so instead of releasing two 5-day events, for example, it's easier to create a single 9-day event that gives them more time to work on something else.

I don't know which is the lesser evil.....having a 9-day event that is too long and gets extremely boring and tedious towards the end, or having a 5-day event and then not having another event for the next 4 days so there is nothing to do. We've had that situation before and people complained as well.

Given the new "Seasons" trainer maybe that's solved some of the issues, because if there isn't a new event, people can always farm ISO in there.

Unknown

ZeiramMR wrote:

In my opinion, it ain't over until it is over as weekend play and scaling can both make a difference.

I am in a main bracket which has pasa, myself, walkyourpath, and a few others hopping around at the top. Unfortunately, I am helping with a friend's event this weekend, so I expect to have unoptimal playing for the last Alaska and Florida brackets. If I end up in the top 2, awesome, but I am just trying to front-load my score for a good shot at both Falcon covers.

I just entered the insane scaling land. If we have only this triplet of subs it's yet okay, but 3 more puts me mostly out of business for good. Not to mention how silly and boring it is to have so many repeats what was interesting not even to the end of first savage.

Unknown

I am uncertain if many people are getting scaled out or just apathetic about the event..probably both. Points are so close yet most are afraid to grind themselves into 300-400 level foes or cannot beat their current nodes that keep rising due to community scaling. One day D3, make a pve only progression based. Hit xxx points to open next sub, which opens next sub upon clear, etc... until you beat an end boss (individually or as an alliance) and you get your covers. Forget having to time it and play optimally. If you go ballz to the wall, you get it in 6 or 7 days, otherwise a majority of players can hit it by day 9.

Unknown

EvilSonGoku wrote:

I am uncertain if many people are getting scaled out or just apathetic about the event..probably both. Points are so close yet most are afraid to grind themselves into 300-400 level foes or cannot beat their current nodes that keep rising due to community scaling. One day D3, make a pve only progression based. Hit xxx points to open next sub, which opens next sub upon clear, etc... until you beat an end boss (individually or as an alliance) and you get your covers. Forget having to time it and play optimally. If you go ballz to the wall, you get it in 6 or 7 days, otherwise a majority of players can hit it by day 9.

People will get tired of doing the same nodes for 9 days even if it didn't scale, though the scaling sure isn't helping here.

Honestly I thought Heroic Oscorp worked quite well if it wasn't limited to 5 days. Allegedly there are some people who are close to the Wolverine X Force rewards so I guess they'd have hit it in 1-2 weeks and that's good for them. I was on pace to get them about a month. Joe Average might need 3 months. As far as I can tell the event really didn't scale (most of the nodes never went up after a certain point) and it could have been fine if there was a lot more time to do it. Sure you probably don't want an event to last 5 months, but having something that vaguely resembles the kind of ratio people were doing in Heroic Oscorp over say 2 weeks would be fine.

Nonce Equitaur 2

I'm actually finding I enjoy the high-level nodes -- but only with a Cap / Hood / OBW team. To borrow a line from the Joker:

"You have nothing, nothing to threaten me with. Nothing to do with all your strength." (youtube)

I hate corralling high-level teams with Spiderman. But Cap/Hood/OBW, they just get stronger and stronger when a game goes long. Sometimes there are 5 countdown tiles on the board by the time the last over-leveled opponent is taken out.