MPQ PVE has become a clicker game..

ejmus

,,,at least for 5* teams with Thanos (otherwise it's pretty much hopeless for placement), That's at least how I spent my morning. Clicking away with my shiny new Thanos at teams that didn't stand a chance of surviving more than a few moves against me, in order to have a few more points than the other poor clickers. Not that I enjoy a good click-fest any less than the other guy, but I feel like we're missing something here that's headed backwards, and I wonder if this was the devs' intent to go in this direction. 

  I'm disappointed, because previously I used to enjoy pve quite a bit for allowing me to do my favorite thing in the game, to run with new teams and find fun combinations of powers we don't have the opportunity to try in pvp, lest we get sent back to 300 points. I didn't expect to get to t10 this way, but it wasn't worth it imho, and I looked forward to it while picking up my regular rewards. That is all gone now, unfortunately, as even if I chose to ignore the placement, it's simply too easy to win to make use of solid strategy, and furthermore with the added competition I feel like I don't have much choice but try to keep up. So there I was clicking on 3-point nodes and sighing. 

  I want to say I appreciate the devs efforts trying to shake things up, but I had hoped we'd go in the complete opposite direction. My suggestion, to put it out there, would have been to bring the node clears back to 3 clears for progression, with actual (like previous) difficulty levels (easy, medium, hard), and a final clear with a super hard difficulty for placement. This or something similar I think would put the challenge at least somewhat back into actual game skill, instead of clickability. 

I apologize if I'm not making sense or repeating others' words, I just wanted to put it out there, and this is unusual territory for me. @Brigby, if you have any insight into these ideas from the devs I'd very much appreciate hearing them.

broll

Yeah, I'm shocked that they released this feature without SCL 9 and/or 10.  But don't worry it's coming soon (soon being sometime this millennia?)

Jarvind

In related news, I previously responded in the negative to "zomg nerf thanos" threads but unless SCL9 comes out real soon, he's a cartoonishly huge advantage for PVE now.

JHawkInc

broll said:

Yeah, I'm shocked that they released this feature without SCL 9 and/or 10.  But don't worry it's coming soon (soon being sometime this millennia?)

It'd be a nice Anniversary present. Just a thought. (not that I want to wait that long, but maybe they'll roll it out in a trial beforehand?)

broll

JHawkInc said:

broll said:

Yeah, I'm shocked that they released this feature without SCL 9 and/or 10.  But don't worry it's coming soon (soon being sometime this millennia?)

It'd be a nice Anniversary present. Just a thought. (not that I want to wait that long, but maybe they'll roll it out in a trial beforehand?)

I honestly expected at least SCL9 to come out sooner, a few more SCL based scaling test (some including 9) then SCL based scaling to become a thing at the anniversary.

I guess 2 months of practically free PvE progression and placement is a nice gift for the vets.... lol

Borstock

I think it's fine the way it is.

mpqr7

I don't get the big deal. Thanos3 is fine for me. I don't think it would be that hard for most people to champion a 3* character. Sure Thanos5 may make it even easier, but I don't have him at more than a few covers (currently lv 270), and I do just fine in PVE.

ejmus

I'd love to get cl9 as an option, and that would also help spread the competition over cl8, but cl8 is also too easy currently to provide interesting strategy (and, if the rewards are there, cl9 would be mean facing the horde...)

revskip

I think the whole 5* rosters running things narrative is overstated.  4* rosters have the equally dominant 4R&G with any GoG character and are finishing in the top 5 and 10 in the brackets I'm in since the new system went into place.  Plus clears for everyone are much faster.  Not sure why there is a pushback.  

ejmus

My point was more towards the general lack of difficulty / dumb competition in pve, irrespective of the team (Thanos just being the worst case).

shardwick

I prefer having health packs to not having health packs so outside of lightning rounds I rarely ever use Thanos. Even in pve R4G paired with another guardian and Strange has essentially become a more health pack friendly alternative to Thanos especially for those of us in 3-4* land.

For Anniversary I'm hoping that they implement a dual system (pts/wins) for pvp or add side content to pve. Or hell maybe test out a pve season. That and Rogue. I really want my Rogue.

Dormammu

shardwick said:

I prefer having health packs to not having health packs so outside of lightning rounds I rarely ever use Thanos. Even in pve R4G paired with another guardian and Strange has essentially become a more health pack friendly alternative to Thanos especially for those of us in 3-4* land.

With 140 characters it's not hard to buddy Thanos with a couple throw-aways that you won't use in other nodes. In the three easy nodes, for example, I just use my under-covered 5-stars for their match damage. Target the weakest enemy and in 2-3 matches the fight is over. If you luck into a match 5 or a cascade, sometimes it only takes one match. Those nodes take me roughly two minutes to complete 12 clears (3 nodes x 4 clears). I'll grab a couple boosted 3-stars or 4-stars and do the same thing for the first couple clears on the three hard nodes before I set Thanos aside.

Thanos is just that fast. It's the difference between a top 10 finish and a top 20 finish a lot of the time, and I never grind nodes for 1-3 points.

Nighthawk81

shardwick said:

I prefer having health packs to not having health packs so outside of lightning rounds I rarely ever use Thanos. Even in pve R4G paired with another guardian and Strange has essentially become a more health pack friendly alternative to Thanos especially for those of us in 3-4* land.

For Anniversary I'm hoping that they implement a dual system (pts/wins) for pvp or add side content to pve. Or hell maybe test out a pve season. That and Rogue. I really want my Rogue.

I used this combo this morning when I started TaT and it didn't take me near as long as usual to clear my sub. And my R&G and Gamora aren't quite maxed yet. No health packs used at all. It was a lot of fun too.

Beer40

Jarvind said:

In related news, I previously responded in the negative to "zomg nerf thanos" threads but unless SCL9 comes out real soon, he's a cartoonishly huge advantage for PVE now.

And those + OML (nerfed for other reasons) are the reason I haven't spent 720 CP a pop to put 5 covers on 5* Thanos black. If I dropped nearly 3,000 CP to watch Thanos get nerfed I'd walk away and never look back.

irwando

You know you don't have to use Thanos right?  You presumably have a large roster of characters that you can use if you find running Thanos not fun?

These "My Roster is Too Good" threads always amuse me.  There are a lot of things the Devs should fix, but if you want to make the game more challenging, why not simply play with other players?

Everyone has a choice:

1) I want to go for placement - I will use the fastest team I can because time = placement
2) I want a challenge - I will use a variety of non-optimal teams to challenge myself in different ways

The best part - with SCL based scaling - you can pick and choose per event!  Scaling is the same, so you can choose to go with easier enemies to experiment with different teams, or go with your dominant team for the best rewards!

Lytes420

Irwando,your exactly right.for yondu release I used thanos on every node and finished easily in top ten.i realize that I would be consuming many healthpacks but that's what it takes for new releases.in latest pve I haven't used thanos once and haven't needed to use any healthpacks.cuttently sitting in top 30,but I'm not chasing top ten so placement doesn't really matter.being able to use my full arsenal of characters has been very satisfying.not having to deal with level 440 enemies has made pve fun again.using the same 3-5 characters had gotten extremely boring

GuiPerdigao

I'm new player and probably what I will say may not be right.

I have a 3* Thanos, not fully covered and playing on SCL4 right now is like @ejmus said. You just put it in your team, rush the first and last hour of the event and it's top 10 placement garanteed.

To be honest I like to do it, beucase I don't like to play forever and spend a lot of time of my day clearing nodes. However if there is a point later in the game, for the high level players, where "who has the best thanos wins" then the game gets boring. If you must play a certain character to do well, the game becomes bad.

From my point of view, his black ability needs a rework. I think he could be trimmed down a bit. Something like 3*Deadpool red, wich has a limit to his damage. Something like:

"When you down an enemy deal X% of their current health in damage to the enemy team (Maximum of Y damage), and Z damage to your allies."

or

"When you down an enemy deal X damage to the enemy team (Maximum of Y% of ther current health in damage) and Z damage to your allies."

I think balancing those X, Y and Z  somehow could work. He wouldn't be able to KO, but could still be useful depending on the balancing.

But again, I'm new to the game and I might be wrong.

shardwick

To be fair in SCL4 there are so many people that don't play anywhere close to optimally so as long as you do your grind in the last few hours then you'll finish in the top 10. I remember one time a lot of guys had started their grind with like over twelve hours to go and I just shook my head. Then my main competition did his with like six hours left and I thought "Well, as long as my internet doesn't go out on me or I don't have a heart attack then that's an easy first place."

Daredevil217

irwando said:

You know you don't have to use Thanos right?  You presumably have a large roster of characters that you can use if you find running Thanos not fun?

These "My Roster is Too Good" threads always amuse me.  There are a lot of things the Devs should fix, but if you want to make the game more challenging, why not simply play with other players?

Everyone has a choice:

1) I want to go for placement - I will use the fastest team I can because time = placement
2) I want a challenge - I will use a variety of non-optimal teams to challenge myself in different ways

The best part - with SCL based scaling - you can pick and choose per event!  Scaling is the same, so you can choose to go with easier enemies to experiment with different teams, or go with your dominant team for the best rewards!

Given the current system/meta you are absolutely correct! However...

He can also give feedback and ask for improvements to the game so it doesn't have to be either/or.  I'm not a 5* player but I can just imagine how boring that must be.

ejmus

@irwando, please see my earlier response saying I wasn't specifically talking about Thanos, but the simplistic ease (for 4-5*s) in general. Thanos is just the best example, and the biggest cause of click competition. I said first that I did use different teams previously, ignoring placement somewhat, but currently it's just too easy, not just with Thanos but with any boosted 4 or 5*, making it pointless to try new teams. 
Furthermore, I don't think a player should ever be forced to choose too handicap himself in order to enjoy the game, that's just not good design. I hope that cl9 would at least give more difficulty options, but again, it shouldn't be the only option for us to have fun with the game.

Starfury

revskip said:

I think the whole 5* rosters running things narrative is overstated.  4* rosters have the equally dominant 4R&G with any GoG character and are finishing in the top 5 and 10 in the brackets I'm in since the new system went into place.  Plus clears for everyone are much faster.  Not sure why there is a pushback.  

How are clears for 4* rosters much faster than before?

I topped out at 325 before, now it's 300 / 330. First few clears are a bit harder, last few clears are a bit easier. Easy nodes are still 3* Thanos fodder (but slightly faster), while the 2* essential is significantly harder.

Overall, it's a wash, certainly no noticable decrease in time required.