Hooray the Hunt is OVER

BearVenger

I don't want to duplicate all of the comments above, but after a week of traveling for work and running in an obstacle race on the weekend, I really want this:

For all PvE events of x days (x being 5 or greater), take the top x-2 scores for your overall event score.

If I want to grind and grind and pick up every node's prize, great. If I have another commitment or am just bone-tired, I can drop out for a day without screwing myself and my alliance for the rest of the event.

(FWIW, I did work heavy shifts, got sub-par sleep, drove 4 hours each way to my race, had two 8-hour flights, and still made top 100 each node and top 20 overall in my bracket. That said, there were tons of days that playing for my alliance was the only thing that kept me from saying "forget this noise; I don't need Falcon that bad.")

DirigiblePilot

I just want to throw in my two cents and say that I strongly disliked this event, too. I really, really did.
And the sad thing is that I remember the Hunt that introduced Ares, which was before scaling was introduced. That time around it was AMAZINGLY fun. And this time around, it was just a slogfest...
That second run of the Hunt might be my favorite PvE ever, though it has to compete pretty strongly with the Hulk before scaling.
But this run? Possibly my least favorite PvE ever, though TaT and the Heroics (specifically Oscorp) sucked pretty bad, too.

Unknown

pasa_ wrote:

Ben Grimm wrote:

Riggy wrote:

I thought about making a post on day 1 titled something like "friends don't let friends use a boosted OBW" and then write up a dissertation on how the boosted healing would cause unchecked scaling, and now I kind of regret not doing it. I bet she was ridiculously overused and was a huge factor for the community and personal scaling.

I avoided using her, even though mine is maxed, and my scaling stayed reasonable for the most part - the essential nodes never got above about 115, and that was virtually all I was doing the back half of the event.

I didn't use her still essentials went from 100 to 220 and other enemies to like 370. This braindead game that is supposedly "strategy" brand actively punishes good play, in order to be rewarded with stable levels you're supposed to waste turns, company health, time. As if you finish too fast or no wounds or opponents were denied their action -- all things good strategy is about, you get more and more levels of them. Obviously for the same points and prizes.

Sure one can adopt to that kind of play and start wasting resources to keep the game happy but that takes away the small drop of remaining fun completely.

Time to admit I was fool enough to play along in this charade, but it reached the limit for good. Time to get back to my other games where smart play is the aim rather than doing the stupid things either out of ignorance or intentionally.

Or they could make PvE actually PvE instead of competitive. The game world won't end if more than 2% of the player base comes out of an event with all 3 covers for a new character.

PorkBelly

It was truly the forced death march of PvE events.

Unknown

My comments:

I finished 15 in main bracket, 2 Falcon covers. I did that by only doing the three essential nodes about a total of 4 x per day (100%, 80% refresh). (Okay, I did more on Savage Land, I do like Devil Dinosaur) I saw a lot of 230+ opponents, up to L371 Daken on last day. Didn't even touch those missions.

I ran with Punisher, Lazy Cap, OBW all the way, except when forced to use a team up. I healed everybody up at every opportunity within the matches I played. Highest levels I faced were 178 or so - nothing over 180 that's for sure. I played a bit more the last two hours, with boosts to speed it up, to secure top 20.

Scored well, ended most matches fully healed, avoided the insanely scaled nodes, and got me bird man. Who will most likely collect virtual dust.

them's my thoughts.

farlus

I wouldn't have had a chance without C.Mags 5 blue this event. It wasn't a grind as I never played a node more than once or twice, but it was just plain not fun. I enjoyed the ISO and the token luck was kind to me, but I loved the Ares Hunt far more. This was just a chore.

mouser

PorkBelly wrote:

It was truly the forced death march of PvE events.

I hear the code name for the next upcoming event is the La Brea Tar Pits. Can't imagine why.

Unknown

I agree, I liked the ones where we got to around the world and new stuff opened up, with new fresh battles, I think this event was the poster child for two things.

1. How not to do a event and

2. Proof we need new villains.

Vinmarc43

Could have been worst , like locking everything good but the scaling makes it very annoying and I tend to lose the will to play. BORING

Knyghtmare

There was another reason this was so much worse than last time. Now that you have alliances, you feel the need to play this whether you want to or not for your alliances sake. Between this and lv 400 characters, I say this was easily the worst event ever.

PS: Do like Falcon though.

Spoit

Psykopathic wrote:

GumisK wrote:

Worst. Event. EVER. Need rest and comforting.

And obviously you never participated in heroic Oscorp or thick as thieves.

I don't think anything will ever even touch the level if awfulness heroic Oscorp Managed to reach.

Yeah, I wasn't around for Oscorp, but TaT was what got me to quit. Walls of 230s the 2nd day, which was managable the first few days with bugged patch, but then he was fixed. And then the boost cost silliness. And IIRC, it didn't really have that strong rubberbanding, so you had to grind all the nodes?

Unknown

They really need to change these PvE system so that playing more doesn't end up hurting yourself. I'm fine with playing more giving you minimal advantage, but right now it might be possible to do worse by playing more. I'm not quite convinced it's true because it's simply impossible to verify what exactly everyone did, but you shouldn't even have to question such a thing in the first place.

Unknown

Spoit wrote:

Psykopathic wrote:

GumisK wrote:

Worst. Event. EVER. Need rest and comforting.

And obviously you never participated in heroic Oscorp or thick as thieves.

I don't think anything will ever even touch the level if awfulness heroic Oscorp Managed to reach.

Yeah, I wasn't around for Oscorp, but TaT was what got me to quit. Walls of 230s the 2nd day, which was managable the first few days with bugged patch, but then he was fixed. And then the boost cost silliness. And IIRC, it didn't really have that strong rubberbanding, so you had to grind all the nodes?

TaT had 100%/50%/1 point structure on all the missions so while the rubberbanding mechanism is the same, comparatively each mission is worth a lot less.

There was a nerf to goon damage probably because of TaT. Back in there you had Tommy Gun that did like 5000 damage to everyone. Now they're actually surviveable even at high levels.

Spoit

Oh was it? All I remember was that it was a huge pain in the **** to try to keep placement, and that it was the start of the 1* top 10 placement thing

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

TaT had 100%/50%/1 point structure on all the missions so while the rubberbanding mechanism is the same, comparatively each mission is worth a lot less.

And that was a really good thing too. I guess they reverted to the 5 repeats to allow play some nodes over and ignore the rest -- what sounds good in theory but turned out bad in practice. Especially at end of last Hulk event, but all other PVEs too.

I'd welcome that schema augmented with node prize handout: chance for 20 ISO should be dropped considerably until something can be gained. For prologue it's okay the way it is but for events it is not really.

Unknown

Spoit wrote:

Oh was it? All I remember was that it was a huge pain in the **** to try to keep placement, and that it was the start of the 1* top 10 placement thing

By now we saw the old events run infested with the new ideas (like scaling).

It would be interesting to see the new ones like TAT using the old schema.

Unknown

Riggy wrote:

I thought about making a post on day 1 titled something like "friends don't let friends use a boosted OBW" and then write up a dissertation on how the boosted healing would cause unchecked scaling, and now I kind of regret not doing it. I bet she was ridiculously overused and was a huge factor for the community and personal scaling.

I think the mecahnics of the meta-game are nifty, but unless they work in perfect harmony they end up causing a lot of friction to the playerbase. Sort of like how cogs or bearings wear out faster when they're just the tiniest bit out of alignment. So progression rewards provide an incentive to grind, but scaling provides a dis-incentive to grind. Rubberbanding was in great shape, so I felt like I wanted to grind a lead whenever I was in first, but every time I saw the levels jump, I stopped immediately. I would look at the lackluster rewards b/w say 110K and the HT reward and say to myself "Nah...."

That said, the match 3 mechanic as a whole doesn't alter, so I don't mind having repeated nodes/maps. My strategies rarely ever do massive shifts, I just tweak based on the opponents. And there were a lot of good things about this event. I got a ton of tokens, enough so that I was able to get a 4th green for IW, several 3*'s and a ton of ISO to play with. I like any event with subs.

dearbluey wrote:

I truly hope the developers understand that relief and exhaustion are not things one should be feeling after playing their events. That's just kinda sick.

Ever run a marathon before? It feels about the same way, really.

Prohibiting healers from pve would help community scaling stay at more manageable levels. The bigger problem is the repetitive nature and length of these events. I am probably not going to compete in the next one since it adds too much stress instead of being fun.

Unknown

klingsor wrote:

Riggy wrote:

I thought about making a post on day 1 titled something like "friends don't let friends use a boosted OBW" and then write up a dissertation on how the boosted healing would cause unchecked scaling, and now I kind of regret not doing it. I bet she was ridiculously overused and was a huge factor for the community and personal scaling.

I think the mecahnics of the meta-game are nifty, but unless they work in perfect harmony they end up causing a lot of friction to the playerbase. Sort of like how cogs or bearings wear out faster when they're just the tiniest bit out of alignment. So progression rewards provide an incentive to grind, but scaling provides a dis-incentive to grind. Rubberbanding was in great shape, so I felt like I wanted to grind a lead whenever I was in first, but every time I saw the levels jump, I stopped immediately. I would look at the lackluster rewards b/w say 110K and the HT reward and say to myself "Nah...."

That said, the match 3 mechanic as a whole doesn't alter, so I don't mind having repeated nodes/maps. My strategies rarely ever do massive shifts, I just tweak based on the opponents. And there were a lot of good things about this event. I got a ton of tokens, enough so that I was able to get a 4th green for IW, several 3*'s and a ton of ISO to play with. I like any event with subs.

dearbluey wrote:

I truly hope the developers understand that relief and exhaustion are not things one should be feeling after playing their events. That's just kinda sick.

Ever run a marathon before? It feels about the same way, really.

Prohibiting healers from pve would help community scaling stay at more manageable levels. The bigger problem is the repetitive nature and length of these events. I am probably not going to compete in the next one since it adds too much stress instead of being fun.

As others have said, the real problem is the competitive nature conflicting with the non-competitive nature of PvE. If healing only affected personal scaling (to create some sort of additional challenge for yourself) this would be far more palatable. But the proliferation of OBW and Spidey across all rosters made my game more difficult too. It was definitely irksome.

And all PVE content is repetitive and grindy. Every MMO banks on people enjoying the game mechanics. In this case the match-3; in the case of something like WoW it was the timing and strategy of the giant raid encounters. For over 5 years, I was raiding 2-4 times a week from vanilla WoW through Firelands. Talk about grindy. But even outside the raids, the generic pve was just as grindy and I had 4 or 5 characters who could raid at one point (though only 2 at the end).

I agree that the meta-game elements (personal scaling, community scaling, rubberbanding, refreshes, etc.) added to make PvE content competitive is creating a game that dilutes the enjoyment of the match-3 mechanic as a combat system. However, it does add something as well. I find it does entice my competitive side. But given how convoluted and indirect the competition is, I feel that it still lands somewhere south of a positive addition.

Unknown

Riggy wrote:

klingsor wrote:

Riggy wrote:

I thought about making a post on day 1 titled something like "friends don't let friends use a boosted OBW" and then write up a dissertation on how the boosted healing would cause unchecked scaling, and now I kind of regret not doing it. I bet she was ridiculously overused and was a huge factor for the community and personal scaling.

I think the mecahnics of the meta-game are nifty, but unless they work in perfect harmony they end up causing a lot of friction to the playerbase. Sort of like how cogs or bearings wear out faster when they're just the tiniest bit out of alignment. So progression rewards provide an incentive to grind, but scaling provides a dis-incentive to grind. Rubberbanding was in great shape, so I felt like I wanted to grind a lead whenever I was in first, but every time I saw the levels jump, I stopped immediately. I would look at the lackluster rewards b/w say 110K and the HT reward and say to myself "Nah...."

That said, the match 3 mechanic as a whole doesn't alter, so I don't mind having repeated nodes/maps. My strategies rarely ever do massive shifts, I just tweak based on the opponents. And there were a lot of good things about this event. I got a ton of tokens, enough so that I was able to get a 4th green for IW, several 3*'s and a ton of ISO to play with. I like any event with subs.

dearbluey wrote:

I truly hope the developers understand that relief and exhaustion are not things one should be feeling after playing their events. That's just kinda sick.

Ever run a marathon before? It feels about the same way, really.

Prohibiting healers from pve would help community scaling stay at more manageable levels. The bigger problem is the repetitive nature and length of these events. I am probably not going to compete in the next one since it adds too much stress instead of being fun.

As others have said, the real problem is the competitive nature conflicting with the non-competitive nature of PvE. If healing only affected personal scaling (to create some sort of additional challenge for yourself) this would be far more palatable. But the proliferation of OBW and Spidey across all rosters made my game more difficult too. It was definitely irksome.

And all PVE content is repetitive and grindy. Every MMO banks on people enjoying the game mechanics. In this case the match-3; in the case of something like WoW it was the timing and strategy of the giant raid encounters. For over 5 years, I was raiding 2-4 times a week from vanilla WoW through Firelands. Talk about grindy. But even outside the raids, the generic pve was just as grindy and I had 4 or 5 characters who could raid at one point (though only 2 at the end).

I agree that the meta-game elements (personal scaling, community scaling, rubberbanding, refreshes, etc.) added to make PvE content competitive is creating a game that dilutes the enjoyment of the match-3 mechanic as a combat system. However, it does add something as well. I find it does entice my competitive side. But given how convoluted and indirect the competition is, I feel that it still lands somewhere south of a positive addition.

I agree. Im definitely going to start scaling back time spent, none of the events or tournaments right now add any new content or fun. Falcon is not enticing, as a character or event. Im dissapointed in the recycled content. Didnt we just do army of one?