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

Brigby

The rockett said:

Can there be a fix for the tappers Brigby ?  This will now cause even more of this in sl9

I will be sure to include this in my weekly report to the development team.

vinsensual said:

So the 5* fight will have points that aren't calculated for max progression, but will still be a factor in placements? 

Yes. You don't need to complete 5-Star Essential nodes in order to reach Max Progression, however players can still benefit from completion points, because they affect Placement.

Dragon_Nexus

I'd have been far more excited before they tied levels to clearance levels.
I stopped doing CL8 a month or two ago and found CL7 is a lot less stressful and just generally more fun. Get enough AP for your AoE and you win. Nice and simple. CL8 ended up with me having to fire Peggy's blue twice. Or Red Hulk's green twice. It got REALLY grindy for not much reward.

Sure the reward of a 4* cover for top 50 is welcome but honestly it should have come WAY sooner and in lower clearance levels. 8 should have a 4* at top 50 and 9 should have one at top 100.

Overall, sure...the rewards are nicer, but the increased difficulty puts me right off.

JHawkInc

More than I expected. Glad to see 4*s available at more ranks, I like seeing everything go up in general (whether it's the top placements that I never get anyways or the total CP/HP over the course of an event).

Definitely surprised to see a 5* required node! As someone who hasn't moved up to champed 5* gameplay, I'll be glad to see them going to use finally. I'd be curious as to how long between release of a new 5* and them getting included into Essential rotation.

Looking forward to moving up and increasing rewards, here's hoping things smooth out across other SCLs to improve things for those that don't move up.

Now we get to hope it doesn't take a full year to roll out SCL10, and that maybe SCL10 will finally do away with Standard tokens somehow. (the idea that I'm going to start earning another Standard token every day by using end-game characters kinda makes me want to kick someone in the shin, if I'm honest)

fmftint

Not very excited by the thought of 515 Carnage, Venom (Eddie), red/green feeder node

Punisher5784

Brigby said:

vinsensual said:

So the 5* fight will have points that aren't calculated for max progression, but will still be a factor in placements? 

Yes. You don't need to complete 5-Star Essential nodes in order to reach Max Progression, however players can still benefit from completion points, because they affect Placement.

Sooo basically 5* players can stay in SC7 and make it even easier for them to place above the 3 and 4* players. And why was this decided? I don't understand why we earn points for placement but not progression. Why not just remove points from the node? It would be just extra rewards to make it worth the wasted 1000 HP to slot a 1 cover 5*. Especially when it's still too rare to pull a 5*. 

iron-n-wine

As a CL7 player, I'm happy to see there's finally a use for my 15 5* characters with 1-3 covers

Unfortunately, Star Lord is not one of them so wont get it try it out in the first event

vinsensual

ShanePHallam said:

vinsensual said:

So the 5* fight will have points that aren't calculated for max progression, but will still be a factor in placements? 

My guess is it means that the points obtained aren't calculated when they set up progression rewards.  So, if you clear every other node 5 times, you'll get the top progression (30 command points).  If you do the 5* required node, then you can get top progression without 5 clears

I get that, Brigby specifically said max progression won't be affected in his initial post.  My question was about placing in pve.  To get consistent top 10 finishes in pve going forward, I would have to have been lucky enough to have pulled a cover of a specific 5* character.  

Sluggo

I don't understand why we earn points for placement but not progression. Why not just remove points from the node? It would be just extra rewards to make it worth the wasted 1000 HP to slot a 1 cover 5*. Especially when it's still too rare to pull a 5*. 

I suspect points from the 5* node will count towards both placement and progression, but they're not raising the progression targets, so they're "extra" points as far as making progression is concerned, but still very important in terms of placement. 

jamesh

I guess it is a good thing I held on to my 5* covers then, even if it was a pain under the old scaling system.

capt_edubble

Why are Standard tokens still a thing in SCL9?

Brigby

Punisher5784 said:

Sooo basically 5* players can stay in SC7 and make it even easier for them to place above the 3 and 4* players. And why was this decided? I don't understand why we earn points for placement but not progression. Why not just remove points from the node? It would be just extra rewards to make it worth the wasted 1000 HP to slot a 1 cover 5*. Especially when it's still too rare to pull a 5*. 

(Disclaimer: I'm not a designer, nor a developer, so please consider my following comments as just a fellow player)

Well then let's say that the 5-Star essential node doesn't award any points at all, so it affects neither progression nor placement. The only thing it awards is node completion resources, like CP or Iso-8.

What would be the benefit of taking the time to complete the 5-Star nodes, as opposed to any other node?

kidicarus

How about that 125 level cap for clearance levels?

sirwookieechris

Brigby said:

Punisher5784 said:

Sooo basically 5* players can stay in SC7 and make it even easier for them to place above the 3 and 4* players. And why was this decided? I don't understand why we earn points for placement but not progression. Why not just remove points from the node? It would be just extra rewards to make it worth the wasted 1000 HP to slot a 1 cover 5*. Especially when it's still too rare to pull a 5*. 

(Disclaimer: I'm not a designer, nor a developer, so please consider my following comments as just a fellow player)

Well then let's say that the 5-Star essential node doesn't award any points at all, so it affects neither progression nor placement. The only thing it awards is node completion resources, like CP or Iso-8.

What would be the benefit of taking the time to complete the 5-Star nodes, as opposed to any other node?

I agree. There needs to be incentive. But there is also the issue with how hard it is to get 5 stars. It's one thing to introduce this to new CLs, but to add it to existing CLs is adding salt to the wounds of some players. Us 3 to 4* transitioners were already recently hurt with the switch to set levels in PVE. Adding this on top will make it even harder to maintain placement if enough 5* players find the ease of playing at SC7 a better investment than going up to 8/9.

Hopefully the SC9 rewards are tempting enough for them, but since it mostly was put at the placement level rather than progression, the worse of the 5* players will move back down when they realize the few extra goodies isn't worth 3x the time investment.

Maybe make the 5* required node at SC7 a loaner node similar to pvp? Give one of each color. It will give you the benefit of letting us newly entering 4* territory what 5* we might actually want to play with.

shardwick

It should have been set up like the Doc Ock node in Webbed Wonder. Boss fight on the last sub of an event that's worth a fixed amount of points for a one time fight and it could reward event tokens or a nice chunk of iso (Kaecilius). 

You want to go to SCL9? Fix 8 first to encourage people to go up instead of staying on 7. Top 20 in 8 needs to guarantee a 4*. For 9 introduce a legendary as a progression reward after the cp at the end. This way even if people can't get the legendary for top placement or even the 4* for top 50 they could at least get a legendary from progression.

smkspy

Very underwhelming, and especially disappointing that there is no 5 star fix. Adding an essential 5 star node is the cherry on top.

babinro

Love the CL9 reward changes...I have to say this is genuinely more rewarding than I would have guessed.  Kudos!

I feel the 5* requirement node was a MISTAKE in terms of making it a requirement for CL7 and CL8 players (CL9+ is fine).   I say this because the time it takes to get a cover for each classic 5* character is going to be absurd especially for any newer players.

One possible solution to this problem would be to make 5* Bonus Heroes FAR more generous than they currently are.   Newer players and vets alike could assign missing slots to help meet requirements without just playing the RNG slots with literally several thousand CP.

This change will come with a LOT of kickback and I can genuinely understand why players will be mad about this.  There's a lot of good things that come from this long term as well but those GOOD things would still exist if this was a CL9 and CL10 exclusive PvE feature.


Note:  Not that it matters but this feedback comes from someone whose actually fortunate enough to have all 5*'s covered so I'm trying to look at this in terms of whats best for everyone...rather than best for myself.

Merrick

Really hating the 5* essential.

Another node to grind is more time played. Just when we finally had it to a reasonable level. 

And requiring a character that that can't be gained except through a lucky pull is wrong. 

DFiPL

Brigby said:

Punisher5784 said:

Sooo basically 5* players can stay in SC7 and make it even easier for them to place above the 3 and 4* players. And why was this decided? I don't understand why we earn points for placement but not progression. Why not just remove points from the node? It would be just extra rewards to make it worth the wasted 1000 HP to slot a 1 cover 5*. Especially when it's still too rare to pull a 5*. 

(Disclaimer: I'm not a designer, nor a developer, so please consider my following comments as just a fellow player)

Well then let's say that the 5-Star essential node doesn't award any points at all, so it affects neither progression nor placement. The only thing it awards is node completion resources, like CP or Iso-8.

What would be the benefit of taking the time to complete the 5-Star nodes, as opposed to any other node?

...extra resources, it seems to me?

champg0951

I can't believe the amount of complaining on here about the release of SCL9 we have all been clamoring for since it was revealed that there was going to be a new SCL.

Come on people, it's new game play content! Give it a chance, play it or don't play it be fore you rip it!! I know I will even thou I have no 5 star champs. Luckily, I do have all 5 stars rostered.

SCL9 here I come!!

Ducky

Do 5* essential nodes mean we're getting better odds for classic LTs coming to help players gain access to those covers?! Perhaps that increase we saw "accidentally" not too long ago?!