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

DAZ0273

From Brigby's announcement

"SCL 9 brings players at the highest level a new level of difficulty, while increasing the amount of rewards they can earn." would have been just fine if they had left the rest of us alone.

Starfury said:

Bowgentle said:

jamesh said:

veny said:

Bowgentle said:

veny said:

Steellatch said:

mexus said:

Steellatch said:

My placement rewards are now RNG based.....yay?

It's always been, have it not? There are 2*, 3* and 4* required nodes.

2*,3*,4* have direct means of earning them. But 5* is completely RNG with LT's and then getting the correct character.

First thing we should mention is the fact that the new node is optional, which means all pros (more rewards, CPs especially) no cons (seriously, what does this take from you?).
Second thing we should mention is the RNG thing. While i agree 5*s are fully random (and chance of getting specific 5* drops every time new 5* is released, since they share the same drop rate), as a free player i have almost all of them (with Daredevil missing i thing) WITHOUT using favourite champ on missing 5*s (favourite champ is cool feature which partially eliminates RNG and which works more frequently than new 5*s  are released).

It's only optional if you don't go for placement.

Do we already know how many point it gives IF it gives some?
And yeah, did not consider this perspective...i dont go for placement since i dont have 5+ hours each day for PvE and now changed PvP

From the original post:

• The amount of points the mission is worth goes down after the 4th completion
• The mission is worth points the first 6 times it is completed
• The minimum amount of points this mission is worth is 4 points

So presumably it is worth more than 4 points.  I wouldn't be surprised if it is worth more than the existing 4* essential node.

Yeah I'm guessing it'll be the highest value node.

It better be, after all it's going to be the most difficult node by far.

...which only makes its influence on placement even more problematic.

Which is why not restricting it to SCL9 (maybe SCL8 too) where it belongs seems a bit insane.

Doc L

DAZ0273 said:

Doc L said:

It feels as though they are saying that players who shouldn't be (in their opinion) in 7-9, should move down to 6, otherwise you won't get the new covers. Essentially, too many people are going for better rewards than the game developers think they should be aiming for.

This echoes the PvP changes - remove the top CP from progression, as too many people are achieving it (and give the 4* cover at an attainable target in exchange). Personally, it would have been better to level both PvP and PvE as they were, rather than starting to restrict or flip them.

So this brings up the question of what should the “average” SCL7 players roster look like?

Indeed! I would like the Developers to say what they think each roster should look like for each SCL, it would help understand their thought process, even if we disagree.

Kojubat

I'm still trying to do the math in my head at the moment, but I think the sticking point of this change is going to be alliance placement.

Individual placement is still a function of competing within your bracket, so regardless of whether it's a particular 5* required node or the overall difficulty level relative to your roster, you have a choice of where to compete. Even if the choices feel worse, it's still a choice, with perhaps a new option of "None of the above, I'm done".

As stated, you can only get a "best" score in clearance levels 7 through 9. Competitive PvE alliances will either need to require their members to select 7 or higher or accept an overall reduction in performance by allowing 6 or lower. Mercenary activity will also pay attention to this distinction as well.

Additionally, the alliance Legendary Token rewards only go to the top 10 alliances for members who select SCL9. However, the stated difficulty increase means that an alliance member who selects SCL9 is facing much higher health pools. This leads to longer fights, leading to lower optimal scoring. Which probably means the highest scores in a given event are going to be found in SCL 7 and 8, with perhaps a handful of SCL 9 players with increased resources (near max level 5* rosters, time to tap, or willingness to use boosts in every fight, as examples).

Maybe the point values will be trivial enough in practice - the current top alliance in ISO-8 Brotherhood has an almost 3000 point spread between the top three players. Still, I can't help but feel the SCL9 alliance award carrot is a little beyond the reach of those intended to pursue it.

mohio

Kojubat said:

I'm still trying to do the math in my head at the moment, but I think the sticking point of this change is going to be alliance placement.

Individual placement is still a function of competing within your bracket, so regardless of whether it's a particular 5* required node or the overall difficulty level relative to your roster, you have a choice of where to compete. Even if the choices feel worse, it's still a choice, with perhaps a new option of "None of the above, I'm done".

As stated, you can only get a "best" score in clearance levels 7 through 9. Competitive PvE alliances will either need to require their members to select 7 or higher or accept an overall reduction in performance by allowing 6 or lower. Mercenary activity will also pay attention to this distinction as well.

Additionally, the alliance Legendary Token rewards only go to the top 10 alliances for members who select SCL9. However, the stated difficulty increase means that an alliance member who selects SCL9 is facing much higher health pools. This leads to longer fights, leading to lower optimal scoring. Which probably means the highest scores in a given event are going to be found in SCL 7 and 8, with perhaps a handful of SCL 9 players with increased resources (near max level 5* rosters, time to tap, or willingness to use boosts in every fight, as examples).

Maybe the point values will be trivial enough in practice - the current top alliance in ISO-8 Brotherhood has an almost 3000 point spread between the top three players. Still, I can't help but feel the SCL9 alliance award carrot is a little beyond the reach of those intended to pursue it.

I'm curious though, how much difference the extra play times will really make? If the fastest players could clear CL7 in 30 minutes and grind in 30 minutes, but in CL9 that now becomes 60 minutes and 60 minutes, how many points are lost with that 30 minutes - 1 hour change in refresh times? Without doing the math I would guess 300-500 points in any given sub at the absolute maximum. So maybe 1200 points total over a 3 day event and more on a 4 day event. Unless the merc market goes totally nuts (which might be fairly likely to happen actually), I don't think most t10 teams are going to be jettisoning their usual members for scoring 1k less than "optimal". I guess we'll have to see how it plays out.

DAZ0273

Doc L said:

DAZ0273 said:

Doc L said:

It feels as though they are saying that players who shouldn't be (in their opinion) in 7-9, should move down to 6, otherwise you won't get the new covers. Essentially, too many people are going for better rewards than the game developers think they should be aiming for.

This echoes the PvP changes - remove the top CP from progression, as too many people are achieving it (and give the 4* cover at an attainable target in exchange). Personally, it would have been better to level both PvP and PvE as they were, rather than starting to restrict or flip them.

So this brings up the question of what should the “average” SCL7 players roster look like?

Indeed! I would like the Developers to say what they think each roster should look like for each SCL, it would help understand their thought process, even if we disagree.

We now have 3 identifiable "higher level" brackets, it shouldn't be too hard to explain the reasoning behind the selected enemy levels and what sort of roster they would expect to be able to manage. Of course the 5* node in SCL7 still skews this as if your 5* has 1 cover then you will need to bring along boosted 3's or Champ 4's to have any chance at the first attempt.

bluewolf

I guess if I was a T10 alliance player, (I've hit T10, but just a casual alliance) I would be highly motivated to be going for more LL tokens vs some 4* covers.  Other than Brocket and Carol.  All that matters is more 5's.

The other question is how SCL will change bracket sniping.  The (relatively small) pool of competitive players will be diluted among 3 SCL's.  And how many people will jump into SCL9 unless they already have 5*s ready to go?  The highest level nodes sound pretty tough at max level.  How many early 4* rosters are going to play up?  I see slow (I mean really slow) filling SCL9 brackets which could mean scores being hurt if you try to wait out a fresh bracket. 

Brackets are filled by a vast majority of I-don't-or-can't-care-about-placement players, who won't be excited about facing 400+ level enemies.  This is going to shake up the meta in a big way.  

Starfury

mohio said:

Kojubat said:

I'm still trying to do the math in my head at the moment, but I think the sticking point of this change is going to be alliance placement.

Individual placement is still a function of competing within your bracket, so regardless of whether it's a particular 5* required node or the overall difficulty level relative to your roster, you have a choice of where to compete. Even if the choices feel worse, it's still a choice, with perhaps a new option of "None of the above, I'm done".

As stated, you can only get a "best" score in clearance levels 7 through 9. Competitive PvE alliances will either need to require their members to select 7 or higher or accept an overall reduction in performance by allowing 6 or lower. Mercenary activity will also pay attention to this distinction as well.

Additionally, the alliance Legendary Token rewards only go to the top 10 alliances for members who select SCL9. However, the stated difficulty increase means that an alliance member who selects SCL9 is facing much higher health pools. This leads to longer fights, leading to lower optimal scoring. Which probably means the highest scores in a given event are going to be found in SCL 7 and 8, with perhaps a handful of SCL 9 players with increased resources (near max level 5* rosters, time to tap, or willingness to use boosts in every fight, as examples).

Maybe the point values will be trivial enough in practice - the current top alliance in ISO-8 Brotherhood has an almost 3000 point spread between the top three players. Still, I can't help but feel the SCL9 alliance award carrot is a little beyond the reach of those intended to pursue it.

I'm curious though, how much difference the extra play times will really make? If the fastest players could clear CL7 in 30 minutes and grind in 30 minutes, but in CL9 that now becomes 60 minutes and 60 minutes, how many points are lost with that 30 minutes - 1 hour change in refresh times? Without doing the math I would guess 300-500 points in any given sub at the absolute maximum. So maybe 1200 points total over a 3 day event and more on a 4 day event. Unless the merc market goes totally nuts (which might be fairly likely to happen actually), I don't think most t10 teams are going to be jettisoning their usual members for scoring 1k less than "optimal". I guess we'll have to see how it plays out.

If you're doing 7 clears, the 30+30 guy will earn slightly over 2% more points than the 60+60 guy.

Rodolfo78

Two points I haven't seen mentioned yet:

• The 5-star node will make bracket sniping much more profitable, as it will be possible to hit max progression by waiting until much later in an event.
• SCL9 does have an additional 8-point CP difference (from SCL7, 4-day event) based on the 5-star node giving 3CP rather than 1. That does add up over time.

JackTenrec

As nice as it is that they've finally decided to award 4* covers outside T10, it's already a **** shoot whether I finish T50 in SCL8.  Trying to do that in SCL9 with a 4* roster against increased scaling and players with better-developed rosters?  No diminutive feline way.

elvy75

So CL9, finally, now we need it in PVP as well!!!

5* essential in CL9 415-515? lol, this is gonna hurt!!!! Not to say that playing this node alone will take as much time as other 3 essentials together. As usual devs dont understand how insanely those dark avengers scale at anything above level 400

Starfury

elvy75 said:

So CL9, finally, now we need it in PVP as well!!!

5* essential in CL9 415-515? lol, this is gonna hurt!!!! Not to say that playing this node alone will take as much time as other 3 essentials together. As usual devs dont understand how insanely those dark avengers scale at anything above level 400

But at least the final 2 clears against lvl 515 opponents are going to reward you with a standard token and 140 iso

Felessa

rg72 said:

I don't see an incentive to move from SCL7 to SCL9.

I'm not excited about SCL9 either... any placement above top100 is unreachable to me, so that leads to progression, the one I cares the most, but the one that got almost no increase, not even an additional 4* cover 

StevO-J

I hate to be that guy, but in the reward list it shows 8 CP and 30 CP rewards while the summation total at the end shows 40 CP total being rewarded. By my calculation 30 + 8 =/= 40... (but I may be oldskool in my ways  )

I'm guessing the 8 CP reward may be 10 CP (CL8 has an 8 CP reward there) but I guess we'll have to see or I'm not seeing something. Or anyway, people who will play CL9 will find out... I will most likely not be one of them as I quite like the effort/reward ratio in CL8 myself. Carry on...

Magic

Rodolfo78 said:

Two points I haven't seen mentioned yet:

• The 5-star node will make bracket sniping much more profitable, as it will be possible to hit max progression by waiting until much later in an event.
• SCL9 does have an additional 8-point CP difference (from SCL7, 4-day event) based on the 5-star node giving 3CP rather than 1. That does add up over time.

Yeah. And the clear time is up from 30 minutes to 1 hour 15 minutes. That is 45 minutes without the final grind (let's say another 15-20 minutes). About 1 hour more per day of playing time. It does add up over time...

Rodolfo78

Magic said:

Rodolfo78 said:

Two points I haven't seen mentioned yet:

• The 5-star node will make bracket sniping much more profitable, as it will be possible to hit max progression by waiting until much later in an event.
• SCL9 does have an additional 8-point CP difference (from SCL7, 4-day event) based on the 5-star node giving 3CP rather than 1. That does add up over time.

Yeah. And the clear time is up from 30 minutes to 1 hour 15 minutes. That is 45 minutes without the final grind (let's say another 15-20 minutes). About 1 hour more per day of playing time. It does add up over time...

Oh, I'm with you. I sort of hope this change pushes me out... I can barely justify the time I put in already. If another optimal-grind node is introduced, it would make a ton of sense to either remove the trivials and spread out those rewards (as was suggested earlier in thread) or move the clear count from 4 down to 3 in the initial run.

byc

I always enjoy when the designers gives us things, but almost forces other things as well so we're not just getting things for free.

I was planning to skip Starlord and Doc Ock 5*s completely, but as they did with Tacos, they've kind of forced us to get them now to get maximum rewards.

This is not a big deal to veterans and since it's only for SCL 7, 8, and 9, newbies won't be "forced" into open Legends tokens, getting a 5 star, and screwing up their games.  Good thinking on that part, glad new players won't have to fall into that trap (although they will anyways because it's not obvious that getting a 5* early on screws you, not help).

Rick_OShay

Very interesting changes. Looking forward to the 5* essential node. I'm usually a CL8 T50 player with no champed 5's. So, I do worry about what will happen if large rosters chose to stay instead of moving up to CL9 (get moving up you bullies and laggers, haa!).  
However, if CL9 is a ghost town, and I can get T50 there for the same amount of effort as I'm facing in CL8 (counting the additional effort for the 5* node either way), and some decent reward increases, that's cool. 

byc

There's no way SCL9 will be a ghost town.  People have been crying out for it for months.

Rick_OShay

With all the complaining, it's hard to be sure about that. I do think you are right, and I plan to move up to test it out, even during Venom Bomb. 
Just by sheer player numbers alone, opening CL9 will help to reduce the number of huge 5* rosters in CL7, and to a degree in CL8. 
With the points difference including the 5* essential though, it doesn't exactly mean that 3*/4* rosters will have it any easier.

Bowgentle

byc said:

There's no way SCL9 will be a ghost town.  People have been crying out for it for months.

I haven't exactly been crying out for level 400 enemies for a measly 8 CP more.
Which means my PVE time requirement doubles again.