Your experience in the Unstable ISO-8 Event...

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  • Milk Jugz
    Milk Jugz Posts: 1,122 Chairperson of the Boards
    sh81 said:
    Milk Jugz said:
    sh81 said:
    Milk Jugz said:
    Your know what would solve this, a maximum shield rank in each clearance level as well as a minimum. I. E., CL7 could be ranks 32-46, thus locking out big rosters.

    That being said, does anyone else think those numbers are too low as it stands? How do they figure that? I'm a rank 95 and that's still gonna raise my scaling 15-20 levels at hardest on CL8.

    Who is a rank 50 that can compete with 400 enemies? 
    I dont think shield rank is actually a decent rank of a player at all.

    Im in the 4* transition, 8 champs (and not much useable after that) and no useable 5*s.

    Thanks to a lot of grinding and a 2* farm I go up a shield rank every 10 days (approx) and am at shield rank 82 (soon to be 83).

    All it really represents is time and effort, not strength or ability.  


    If you want to partition players based upon rank there effectively needs to be a scoring mechanism for rosters.
    5* at X level = Y points 
    5* at Z level = A points .... kind of thing.

    If there was a "score" relevant to a characters rarity and level, then you could reliably rank a players roster and where it would be appropriate for it to play.

    Shield rank most certainly isnt that in my opinion.



    I certainly agree with you that shield rank is not a completely accurate way of measuring roster strength based on all the ways to earn xp. But, I will also point out that I am rank 95 with 22 champ 4s compared to your almost 83 with 8 champ 4s. So there is some correlation there.....
    There is, but not enough to be relied upon for my liking.

    That said, were there a reliiable roster score/evaluation measure then I would be more than happy for it to be used to "sort" players into levels to compete.
    I agree. I think you shouldn't earn xp for pvp wins or clearing pve nodes. Additionally, you earn xp only the 1st time you roster a character, why not only when you level a character up the first time? That eliminates xp from farming. Also, how about xp for every level you add, including from iso? And get rid of xp from opening tokens. Then it is only based on roster strength from the first copy of characters you roster
  • Brigby
    Brigby ADMINISTRATORS Posts: 7,757 Site Admin
    aa25 said:
    Brigby said:
    Hi Everyone. This is definitely some great feedback following the test in Unstable Iso-8. I'll be sure to include this thread in my report to the developers for next week.

    Just to add to the conversation though, how does everyone define an appropriate SCL? An example of what my question means is the following:

    How do you determine whether an SCL is appropriate for a certain roster / shield rank:
    • An SCL where enemies are all easy, and I can casually breeze through node completion.
    • An SCL where it can get a bit tricky at times, but allows for an overall comfortable completion pace
    • An SCL where I feel constantly challenged, and forces me to think strategically to win
    • An SCL where enemies are all difficult, and I know I'll lose matches once it reaches high difficulty
    • Other (Please explain)
    Forgive me if I sound a bit rude. I think you miss the main point here. The point is NOT SCL vs Difficulty.

    The problem is Effort vs Rewards.

    You can set the difficulty for each SCL anyway you want. At the end of the day, players will pick the one that has the best Rewards per effort ratio or develop a strategy for that. As I posted in the thread announcing this change, I don't think this test will mean anything without touching the rewards.

    If you want players to fight with lv 400 enemies, the rewards must be significantly better than fighting lv 260 enemies. In addition, the scaling (difficulty) in this game is exponential, the rewards have to follow the same trend too.

    @aa25
    I appreciate the feedback! I am certainly aware that there is concern in the ratio between effort and rewards, however there are two reasons why I am only mentioning SCL vs Difficulty in this thread.
    1. The development team is already planning on evaluating SCL rewards after they evaluate the impact of SCL-tied scaling.
    2. This thread is specifically focusing on the Unstable Iso-8 testing of scaling tied to SCL. I wanted to hone in on this single point in order to provide the development team with concise details to aid in their review, when I present this discussion to them.
    Effort vs Rewards is certainly an important topic though, and if you'd like to address that topic specifically, then I encourage you to start up a new discussion thread that analyzes what kind of rewards would warrant what kind of effort to achieve them.
  • bluewolf
    bluewolf Posts: 5,848 Chairperson of the Boards
    One thing that makes feedback harder for me is that the scaling didn't match the announced increases at SCL8.  The nodes increased 15, not 25 levels.  So we had a lower level after final increase than was announced.  I do not know if this was an error in implementation or if the announcement was incorrect.  Until there is some word, true evaluation is difficult.

    As executed, I found the scaling to be just normal (perhaps easy) for my champed 4* roster.  I ran Cyke, Medusa, and Star Lord.  They made the almost all goon enemies neglible, mostly, and clears were fast; but I had to pay attention to countdowns nonetheless.  In Webbed Wonder, I am taking longer with Cage, Teen Jean, and Mr F, but using almost no health packs.  So often, difficulty is dependent on the boosted roster for the events, at least for those without 5* rosters.
  • rixmith
    rixmith Posts: 707 Critical Contributor
    Brigby said:
    Hi Everyone. This is definitely some great feedback following the test in Unstable Iso-8. I'll be sure to include this thread in my report to the developers for next week.

    Just to add to the conversation though, how does everyone define an appropriate SCL? An example of what my question means is the following:

    How do you determine whether an SCL is appropriate for a certain roster / shield rank:
    • An SCL where enemies are all easy, and I can casually breeze through node completion.
    • An SCL where it can get a bit tricky at times, but allows for an overall comfortable completion pace
    • An SCL where I feel constantly challenged, and forces me to think strategically to win
    • An SCL where enemies are all difficult, and I know I'll lose matches once it reaches high difficulty
    • Other (Please explain)
    With the current system, for me the correct answer is:
    • An SCL where it can get a bit tricky at times, but allows for an overall comfortable completion pace
    But that is because of the need to do nodes 6 or 7 times in a row (the last 2- 3 clears of one sub followed by the first 4 of the next sub) in order to get Placement Rewards.I think the game would be more fun if I was doing less clears where:
    • I feel constantly challenged, and forces me to think strategically to win
    And ideally where the precise timing of the clears did not factor into my ability to do well in the event. The way I see the more difficult nodes is that it would be okay to have the first clear of the node be a chance to see how the enemy team operates together, the second clear gives me a chance to try a different team, and the third clear can then be at the maximum challenge level for that node. And that's probably the right number of times to do a node for me.

    I don't mind losing a fight if I've made a poor choice in putting my team together or the other team has a painfully lucky cascade, but I don't think that losing fights should be the norm. The basic challenge is asymmetrical: I have to manage the risk of going into fights with damaged characters and determine the best use of health packs, but I will play any individual match better than the AI. Once fights reach the difficulty level where I am frequently losing, the game feels totally random as to who gets better matches, or worse like I just had no chance (see Phoenix during Boss Rush).
  • halirin
    halirin Posts: 327 Mover and Shaker
    @Brigby
    in terms of appropriate difficulty for a CL, my main consideration is how many times I'm going to have to play it. I played to max progression in SCL5 with a semi 5* roster, because pretty much every fight was a breeze, so I didn't mind just doing five or six clears at half attention. 

    I would prefer the last two choices as a gameplay experience, but it'd be a little disappointing to have to play at that level of difficulty and concentration over and over again in a short periods in order to get the exciting rewards. Six clears at full attention = skipping pve. 

    I do think it would be very fun to have an event with placement rewards where things just get crazy difficult and the challenge is in seeing how far you can get. I DO NOT recommend that they try that though, because an extremely vocal subset of players will go bananas about "supposed to lose" for the rest of their natural lives. 
  • Skrofa
    Skrofa Posts: 388 Mover and Shaker
    Brigby said:
    Hi Everyone. This is definitely some great feedback following the test in Unstable Iso-8. I'll be sure to include this thread in my report to the developers for next week.

    Just to add to the conversation though, how does everyone define an appropriate SCL? An example of what my question means is the following:

    How do you determine whether an SCL is appropriate for a certain roster / shield rank:
    • An SCL where enemies are all easy, and I can casually breeze through node completion.
    • An SCL where it can get a bit tricky at times, but allows for an overall comfortable completion pace
    • An SCL where I feel constantly challenged, and forces me to think strategically to win
    • An SCL where enemies are all difficult, and I know I'll lose matches once it reaches high difficulty
    • Other (Please explain)
    @Brigby
    If pve stays competitive I would go with option number 2.
    However! If the "faster roster wins" mentality is scrapped from pve I would certainly LOVE option number 3 or even 4 for that matter.
    More difficult matches that will require more strategic thinking would actually inspire more diverse teams. Slower teams, but diverse! 
    I yearn for the opportunity to use other characters from the 121 I already have. At the moment I only use 3!!!! Both pve and pvp it's carol wasp medusa.

    However, proper scl is not just about difficulty. I know you said that rewards will be looked into at another time but they do go hand in hand.

    A lot of people are at a point where they feel that they should be transitioning into 4* land. Scl7 does a poor job at this transition. If scl8 becomes too difficult for this then you are actually hampering a good chunk of players' progress. Open scl9/10 with 5* covers to t5 and let scl8 to 4*s
  • bbigler
    bbigler Posts: 2,111 Chairperson of the Boards
    @Brigby
    Let me summarize the main issues here.  You must also realize that you can't separate the issues of SCL difficulty vs Roster Strength and Effort vs Rewards.

    Issues with PVE
    1. For competitive players, PVE is a mindless grind using a small set of characters for super fast clears.  It's exhausting and demanding on our time in order to get top 10 rewards. The problem is getting burned out and not enjoying the game, but we force ourselves to do it for the rewards.  This certainly is not a health way to play.
    2. As for the Unstable ISO 8 event, this test proved that 5* rosters can take advantage of the scaling and easily get top 10 rewards by going down to SCL7 or 6, which isn't fair to those other players with weaker rosters.  The good thing about the test though is that 5* rosters had an easier time clearing in SCL8 than before, which encourages people to level up their 5*s instead of softcapping them to 360. 
    3. The rewards in SCL8 are not good enough to encourage 5* rosters to play it regularly, because they could go down to SCL7 for nearly the same rewards, but with much less effort.  So, part of the problem is that there's not a big difference in rewards between SCL7 and SCL8.
    4. The enemy levels in the Unstable ISO 8 event were either super easy or hard, there was no middle ground. 

    Good Things about PVE
    1. Overall, there are far more rewards playing PVE than PVP.  I think this reflects the lack of rewards for playing PVP though.  I play both modes competitively and get about 75% of my rewards from PVE.
    2. The enemies change (more or less) from event to event, giving some variety.  The required characters also force some variety in the gameplay, but both of these attempts to add variety are overshadowed by the fact that you have to clear these nodes super fast and repetitively in order to get good rewards. 
    3. DDQ is the small beloved part of this game.  It's quick, easy, forces character variety, gives great rewards and doesn't require you to play at a specific time of the day.  It doesn't have placement rewards either. 

    Possible Solutions to PVE
    1. Change it to be like DDQ, but longer.  Remove placement rewards & Upgrade progression rewards.  Remove point refresh counters and make the max progression reward require clearing all nodes to a check, but no more.  Keep the enemy scaling up with each clear and make it hard enough that you have to think about it and form a good counter team to the enemy team.  Required characters are good too since you have to incorporate them into your strategy.  The end result would be an event that we can play at our own pace and feels more like a puzzle than a demanding grind.  I believe we all would prefer playing a few strategic battles instead of many mindless ones.
    2. If the devs are not willing to go with the change above, then at least make scaling based on SCL and lock out higher rosters from lower SCLs, and improve the rewards with SCL8.   
  • WalrusGooner
    WalrusGooner Posts: 62 Match Maker
    Spidurman27 said:
    I like that idea.   

    4x clears nets the traditional level of rewards
    5x nets the current level of rewards we are seeing
    6x nets roughly what t10 awards now
    Maybe have 7x for t1/t5 level

    Have difficulty keep ramping up each clear, no timers and a hard zero after 6 or 7.  Players will get good solid rewards without the placement sprints.  Elite players will face higher level challenges for elite level rewards, the top rosters and players will continue to get the rewards they are accustomed to, and more casual players won't feel the clock pressure as much.  


    Love everything here with particular emphasis on the bolded line. Reset 4x to what it was previously, add everything else suggested, and call it a day. I would really like 4x to get me the same as what it got me a couple of weeks ago, with some serious gravy available if I decide to do more. This would be phenomenal, and would just about make me ready to spend money on this game again.
  • aa25
    aa25 Posts: 348 Mover and Shaker
    edited June 2017




    bbigler said:
    @Brigby
    Let me summarize the main issues here.  You must also realize that you can't separate the issues of SCL difficulty vs Roster Strength and Effort vs Rewards.

    Issues with PVE
    1. For competitive players, PVE is a mindless grind using a small set of characters for super fast clears.  It's exhausting and demanding on our time in order to get top 10 rewards. The problem is getting burned out and not enjoying the game, but we force ourselves to do it for the rewards.  This certainly is not a health way to play.
    2. As for the Unstable ISO 8 event, this test proved that 5* rosters can take advantage of the scaling and easily get top 10 rewards by going down to SCL7 or 6, which isn't fair to those other players with weaker rosters.  The good thing about the test though is that 5* rosters had an easier time clearing in SCL8 than before, which encourages people to level up their 5*s instead of softcapping them to 360. 
    3. The rewards in SCL8 are not good enough to encourage 5* rosters to play it regularly, because they could go down to SCL7 for nearly the same rewards, but with much less effort.  So, part of the problem is that there's not a big difference in rewards between SCL7 and SCL8.
    4. The enemy levels in the Unstable ISO 8 event were either super easy or hard, there was no middle ground. 

    Good Things about PVE
    1. Overall, there are far more rewards playing PVE than PVP.  I think this reflects the lack of rewards for playing PVP though.  I play both modes competitively and get about 75% of my rewards from PVE.
    2. The enemies change (more or less) from event to event, giving some variety.  The required characters also force some variety in the gameplay, but both of these attempts to add variety are overshadowed by the fact that you have to clear these nodes super fast and repetitively in order to get good rewards. 
    3. DDQ is the small beloved part of this game.  It's quick, easy, forces character variety, gives great rewards and doesn't require you to play at a specific time of the day.  It doesn't have placement rewards either. 

    Possible Solutions to PVE
    1. Change it to be like DDQ, but longer.  Remove placement rewards & Upgrade progression rewards.  Remove point refresh counters and make the max progression reward require clearing all nodes to a check, but no more.  Keep the enemy scaling up with each clear and make it hard enough that you have to think about it and form a good counter team to the enemy team.  Required characters are good too since you have to incorporate them into your strategy.  The end result would be an event that we can play at our own pace and feels more like a puzzle than a demanding grind.  I believe we all would prefer playing a few strategic battles instead of many mindless ones.
    2. If the devs are not willing to go with the change above, then at least make scaling based on SCL and lock out higher rosters from lower SCLs, and improve the rewards with SCL8.   

    I totally agree with you except the last part. (I'm a 4* player too.) I don't think there should be a lock-out for higher rosters to do lower SCLs. If a player have a busy week or feel like to go casual, they should be able to choose to drop to lower SCL. I think rewards should be the driving force.

    One possible solution for this is to expand the placement rewards for SCL 7&8. Give the 4* covers to more than 1% of the players. As many people have pointed out, 3 quarters of 4* have been vaulted already. Including them in the PvE rewards maybe a possible solution to both. You don't need to have to keep one specific 4* character as a reward. You can mix two or even three for each PvE. They are there just as reward. No need to feature them in the next event or anything.

    Edit: Add details here and there.
  • Pants1000
    Pants1000 Posts: 484 Mover and Shaker
    I'm probably in the minority, but I like a challenge.  I'd rather see the top placement going to those who can manage to beat very difficult nodes, not who can grind easy nodes to 1 the fastest.  If difficulty did get increased to that point, rewards would need to be adjusted to compensate.

    I have about 30 champed 4's, no champed 5's, and previously I was able to place t10 in CL8 if I really tried hard.  With this change I can't compete for t10 in CL8 because people with champed 5's are faster than me.  I'm ok with that, but I do think I should be able to compete for t10 in CL7.

    I don't like seeing champed 5's in CL6.  Others in this thread suggested a limit, so for example people over rank 100 couldn't play in CL7, and people over rank 75 couldn't play in CL6.  That could work, but I'd rather see the progression rewards increase so much that people would want to play in appropriate CL, rather than forcing them.  3CP and a 3* is nice, but it's not enough.  Make the difference a 4* or 10+ CP and I think that would do the trick.
  • Wumpushunter
    Wumpushunter Posts: 627 Critical Contributor
    I was on CL 6 and my 6/6 7/6 clears were challenging for my all 3 star roster.  I was still grinding on the first day first set of 4 clears when 2 scummers had dropped down with multi 5 stars and finished with max full point clears in 20 min took me far longer.   Roster scaling is pretty messed up but if all you do is give people in 8 more rewards you will create power creep never satisfying them and people who cant compete will still scum and take the very limited rewards on lower CL.  

    TLDR - scaling was great in CL 6 no adjustments needed but for the love of Galactus no one but scummers will place 1st ever unless you change something.
  • deadtaco
    deadtaco Posts: 409 Mover and Shaker
    Brigby said:
    Hi Everyone. This is definitely some great feedback following the test in Unstable Iso-8. I'll be sure to include this thread in my report to the developers for next week.

    Just to add to the conversation though, how does everyone define an appropriate SCL? An example of what my question means is the following:

    How do you determine whether an SCL is appropriate for a certain roster / shield rank:
    • An SCL where enemies are all easy, and I can casually breeze through node completion.
    • An SCL where it can get a bit tricky at times, but allows for an overall comfortable completion pace
    • An SCL where I feel constantly challenged, and forces me to think strategically to win
    • An SCL where enemies are all difficult, and I know I'll lose matches once it reaches high difficulty
    • Other (Please explain)

    I saw your other post where you said you wanted to keep reward vs. effort out of this because the devs will look into that.

    I don't think you can select from your choices though without rewards factoring in.

    If there are no differences in rewards then just give me the fastest route because recent changes have increased the grind (from 4 to 5 clears).  The more times I have to repeat a node the less hard I want it to be.  If clears were two, for example, then I would want the challenge.   As it is, I don't want crazy hard challenges of the same node 5 times over and over unless the amazing rewards warrant my attempt.

    If rewards are properly tiered then all four of your options will apply.  Do I want to go through the crazy scaling to try for the super rewards?  Maybe if I know my time is limited this week the appropriate route is the lower SCL with poor rewards but easily obtainable.

    In this test, SCL8 would be the max I would attempt.  My 'normal' enemies top out at 316 or so, SCL went well above that.

    SCL7 should be 6 or 7 with a level or two in between.
  • bbigler
    bbigler Posts: 2,111 Chairperson of the Boards
    Update to my final rank in the event: #11!  I worked really hard on this event, clearing as fast as I could in the right order, but still didn't get top 10.  What was the point difference between me and #10, you ask?  3 points.  Really, 3 lousy points!  All that work to fully cover my Coulson in order to champ him, but now I can't. 

    So, again, I didn't enjoy this event. 
  • Jaedenkaal
    Jaedenkaal Posts: 3,357 Chairperson of the Boards
    Brigby said:
    I appreciate the feedback! I am certainly aware that there is concern in the ratio between effort and rewards, however there are two reasons why I am only mentioning SCL vs Difficulty in this thread.
    1. The development team is already planning on evaluating SCL rewards after they evaluate the impact of SCL-tied scaling.
    2. This thread is specifically focusing on the Unstable Iso-8 testing of scaling tied to SCL. I wanted to hone in on this single point in order to provide the development team with concise details to aid in their review, when I present this discussion to them.
    Effort vs Rewards is certainly an important topic though, and if you'd like to address that topic specifically, then I encourage you to start up a new discussion thread that analyzes what kind of rewards would warrant what kind of effort to achieve them.
    I'm not sure that's fair to ask us, though (or possible to answer) since "difficulty" is really closely related to both effort and reward, as I think this test demonstrated. 

    For example, if SCL1 gave no rewards at all (mission rewards, progession, or placement), then the difficulty would be irrelevant.

    If SCL 8 was brutally hard to the point where I could only finish a few missions, I'd still think about it if every mission reward were a legendary token.

    Anyways I guess my point is, the difficulty of an SCL should be based on what rewards an average player is expected to obtain. Because the list of progression rewards is fixed (after you get the 30th reward, you're 'done'), no doubt many players naturally assume that the "correct" SCL for them is the SCL where it is possible for them to "complete" the progression while still obtaining rewards that are meaningful for them.

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