Access Granted: S.H.I.E.L.D. Clearance Level 9 *Updated (9/20/17)

Nick441234

Tiger Wong said:

Look, if you're gonna pump the difficulty/enemy levels up..... you can't just let the goons feed the villains so they can fire their powers off every 2 turns. 

Absolutely agree with that! Moonstone fires off Photon Blast every few turns in that 5* node. its ridiculous! 

Akari

I played CL9 with a champ Star Lord, and I'm not enjoying it at all. I'm still on par to place well, but I can't handle that the time spent is more than double CL8. An LT isn't worth that to me, I'll be moving down to CL8 next event most likely.

Bowgentle

Akari said:

I played CL9 with a champ Star Lord, and I'm not enjoying it at all. I'm still on par to place well, but I can't handle that the time spent is more than double CL8. An LT isn't worth that to me, I'll be moving down to CL8 next event most likely.

Same here.

I'll make T5 but that wasn't an enjoyable experience.

I'll take my T5 in 8 with WAY less effort, minus the theoretical LT and few CP less.

Jezequel

Personally, I'm extremely angry about the changes to CL7 and CL8. Adding a 5* required node to these levels completely changes who can and can't be competitive at those levels. Adding required 5*s to CL9 is totally fine, because it's a new challenge level, but requiring them for CL7 and 8 is unreasonable.

To me it feels like a massive slap in the face. 'Oh hey, you know the usual rewards you've been getting and working towards? Well screw you, you don't even get to be competitive any more'. 

There was also no announcement that this was going happen and secondly that this isn't even being labelled as a test.

To be clear, I have no problem with it being really hard; I played CL9 for Venom Bomb because I had the required character and wanted to see what the difference was. I will likely place well enough to get better rewards than I would have done usually at CL8. The problem is that 5* are now required for CL7 and CL8 which automatically disqualifies certain players from even being competitive.

This would be fine if there was a reliable way to get 5* characters (like there is from building and levelling 3* characters to get 4*s for instance), but there isn't. The game as it is rewards the hoarding of tokens in order to get 5* characters, but now this system means you can't compete well without using up your hoard. 

Dotproduct

Jezequel said:

The game as it is rewards the hoarding of tokens in order to get 5* characters, but now this system means you can't compete well without using up your hoard. 

If that's true then I'd say that the change is working as (the developers)intended then. I dropped about 50 ranks with the new change and I greened all nodes except for the 5* essential in SCL7. I also think it should only be in SCL9, SCL8 at a stretch. 

Hyoga

Character 5* required except SL8 ,SL9 = Killer of players

bluewolf

So far, it looks like SCL9 is becoming the ghost town. Uios8:  Slice 1 has flipped 3 times for 8, once for 9.  I'm in the third flip, t10 is full of 450+ 5's.

This thing is going to be shaking out for a while.

LucasCage707

This 5* node has me glad that i hoarded my deadpool Insta kill points.  Thats too many points for a 1 cover 5*

jgomes32

Finished 3.9 at #6 with 113138 points. Not bad for a 4* player but i went back to SCL8 for Unstable iso. 

I like the 5* node idea, but agree with some posts i've been seeing, keep the node as an "extra" that we can clear at any time. Adding that to clear/grind is what made me go back to 8.

WEBGAS

bluewolf said:

So far, it looks like SCL9 is becoming the ghost town. Uios8:  Slice 1 has flipped 3 times for 8, once for 9.  I'm in the third flip, t10 is full of 450+ 5's.

This thing is going to be shaking out for a while.

This is exactly the answer to the Devs.....The idea to open scl9 is great, the essential 5* node is good also, but the scaling for both is completely out of control.
No way a player that can do a complete clear in 30 minutes in scl7 or 50 minutes in scl8 will chose to spent 1h and15/30minutes to do the same in scl9 with the help of numerous kits and for basically the same poor rewards (few iso and cp are not worth it). 
So this change has been a completely bad move. Needs an instant fix!

Polares

I guess I am late to the party, but in my book SCL9 is another missed opportunity, as SCL8 was. With these rewards most people will continue SCL7 (which is a problem for newer players).

I guess there are not enough 5s to give one cover in progression for every PvE, but at least another Legendary token (not just for placement) would have been required to motivate players. Just the most hardcore players will choose SCL9 with the time requirements it has for the very few extra rewards.

Devs need to acknowledge that progression rewards are in general the main draw for PvE, so adding 2 or 4 LEs just for the top5 is like adding nothing for most players (obviously for the competitive players that are always top5 already this is great, but this are very few 5/1000). 

donnel

I'm surprised these changes went in without any communication or request for feedback. The addition of a 5* node drastically impacts competitiveness for CL7-9. While it's nice to have better rewards available for placing highly, there are almost as many drawbacks as to make me feel ambivalent.

- There are obvious issues with a 5* required node. The only ways of obtaining one are luck and more luck (i.e. spend). A very small percentage of the total playerbase will even have a single cover, let alone enough covers to make the character usable in a match against lvl 500s. So basically, you designed a node where it will be very common to have no assistance from the essential, and set it's difficulty to be harder than most pvp encounters. 

- Having done one event at cl9, it feels like the jump from 8 is roughly equivalent to double the amount of time needed to grind nodes down to 0. 25-30 min will now be 55-65 min. This change + the pvp tests indicate to me that there are no qualms about drastically increasing the amount of time spent in game to be at a competitive level. 

I like the fact that the dev's are looking for ways to improve the game, and the cosmic store is one truly good change without any drawbacks. In the big areas though, like how pvp and pve will be played at a high level, I have big concerns about where we're going. 

Nick441234

I've stayed in SCL8, despite my complaints in the previous event. I cannot clear that 5* node 6 times, so 4 will be my limit for the foreseeable future. Still glad SCL9 is here though. Clearly more people have returned to 8 in this event, but theres still a whole bunch of people who have stayed in 9 meaning they aren't competition for me in 8. 

Starfury

One thing people are kinda forgetting: If they didn't add the 5* essential into SCL 7, it would've screwed a lot of players out of a big chunk of points for their alliance.

Until last week, it didn't matter if someone played SCL 1 or SCL 8, as long as they played optimally, they got the same amount of points. Now a SCL 7 player will be worth more points than a SCL 6 player.

If that cut had happened in SCL 8, a lot of really dedicated newer players would've been in a precarious position. (if they aren't already due to having not lucked into every 5* released over the last two years)

animaniactoo

After the first event, which turned out to coincide with a last-minute getaway weekend with my in-laws, I came away feeling slogged. After dropping down to SCL7 because I didn't want to face higher on the 5 star node when my 5 star characters are 2/2/0 or 1/2/1 at best. With no leveling because I'm still working on 4* transition. 

Ultimately this meant that I spent about the same amount of time I would have if I'd been in SCL8, but it felt sloggier. To the point that I opened Unstable ISO-8 this morning, took a look at the essential nodes and put it back down. I don't know if I'm just taking a break today or I'll be taking off the entire event.

In figuring out what's gone wrong for me, I think a major key is the repetition times even more now. I don't care if I've found a combination that means getting through the 3 easy nodes in 2 moves max (even though I'm loving having found such a non-Thanos combo). I still don't want to play the game 40 times in a row. Every. Single. Day. 36 was already stretching it for me, and I'd pulled back a few events ago from doing 7 clears as part of rescuing my sanity and desire to continue to play and enjoy the game. Those last 4 clears to do the 5* essential are breaking this camel's back. Even if I can get all 40 done in an hour and 15 minutes. 41 if you're in an event with a feeder node.

Top that with playing 20 times in a row if you're finishing out one sub and then starting the other and ugh that's 61 times in a row.

I want the 5 star essential, I think it's a promising direction for the game. But the overall number of clears has tilted towards the overwhelming side for a daily play game. The getaway affected my experience somewhat but not as much as my growing need to reclaim my life on a daily basis.

I would like to qualify that I know I don't have to play them all at once. And I've been fine recently with dropping back to not clearing the very moment they open (particularly as the time slots really suck for my ability to do that). But I would like at least a shot at some decent placement (I'm happy with T50 at this point), and even playing non-optimally that does mean not waiting TOO long to get to it.

Edited to update numbers of clears because I can't add. Well, I can, but not when I don't total all the nodes properly.

Bloody_Marvel

I hope everybody abandons SCL9. They'll have data on how many tried it, and how many gave up on it right away.

I moved back down to SCL8, and I don't have a moment's worth of regret. I'm far happier clearing every node 7 times in SCL8 and accumulating points for my alliance than spending double the time in SCL9, and if I'm lucky beating the 5* node 3x.

Akari

I dropped to CL8 for Unstable ISO8 and my goodness, the 5* essential node is just worlds apart. It's seriously 1/3rd the total HP!!!

Yeah, not going back to CL9. The 2 LTs weren't worth the extra time spent, I can land t5 with no effort in CL8.

mpqr7

Hey, folks. I don't post much these days because I'm very busy working at an exciting new job. However I did want to drop by in order to take all of the credit for requesting the 5* required node 

https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/62865/5-required-node

BlackBoltRocks

mpqr7 said:

I'm very busy working at an exciting new job. 

Please tell us it's the dev department at MPQ, and y'all gonna implement 25% rates for 5* in LTs soon 

mpqr7

I'll be happy to tell you whatever you'd like to hear.