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

Saydie

Okay now I feel sheepish.  But relieved.  I can handle sheepish and relieved and maybe a bit of doh! type stupid that I missed that.  Thank you for helping clarify.

ammenell

so, difference in rewards between sl8 and sl9 is a bit iso, 8cp and the t50 reward?
did I miss anything? 
if not... thx, I guess? 

thedarkphoenix

I feel like a 5 star cover should ( one at least) should be in the T1 -5 placement to encourage higher roster players to play it.

purplemur

Rodolfo78 said:

I like your perspective, and generally agree that pushing some 5* players out of CL7/8 can't help but be a good thing. I'll disagree on "no real negative to the average roster", though, in that the extra high-level node is going to add 20-30 minutes per day for anyone playing for placement. I get my PvE done from 5:20-6:40AM pretty much every day, and already feel stupid for doing it... I don't need to get up any earlier or make my commute worse by playing later.

This time commitment could be almost exactly offset by making initial clear require only three battles per node.

" the extra high-level node is going to add 20-30 minutes per day for anyone playing for placement."
maybe 20 for 4 clears. 5min per match seems long. It's like best buddies mixed with every third match you can ACTUALLY fire your one cover OCgreen. combo+combo*+ (meatshieldwhighmatchdam) =the win.
"already feel stupid for doing it"
don't. Full respect for the ones working for the placement. I admire the discipline and dedication it takes to scrap for a top spot. your good at something that is fun(in varying degrees) and players shouldn't feel like being good at video games isn't good for themselves. 
" I don't need to get up any earlier or make my commute worse by playing later."
real talk. 
Your right in that it will add even more grind to anyone that's even considering slipping inside the bubble. but your not an average player, t50/1000 is exceptional.

shardwick said:

purplemur said:

1)Your lvl 65+ but you don't have 5*s to unlock an optional node?
-poor decision making skills or conflating a falsehood.


I miss the days of being called foolish for opening up legendaries and rostering the occasional 5*. Now 3s and 3-4* transitioners are somehow poor decision makers for not having every single 5* in the game rostered so we can better compete with guys that have champed 5s and are playing on CL7.

"3s and 3-4* transitioners are somehow poor decision makers for not having every single 5* in the game rostered"
I don't want to ridicule people that sold their 5's. I think it was/is not a good decision. one of the first things that i ever read on the forum was about what to do with a 5* in the 2-3* transition(what I was) one of the veterans said "anyone who tells you selling a 5* is a good idea is not helping you". 
-3's are not getting placement. not in 7/8/9. but now they get a crack at an event token a day! better than a taco imo
" better compete with guys that have champed 5s and are playing on CL7."
basically you can't compete with them. a 3star player has toons at 180ish/ If your a 3/4 trans than you'll be looking at high 200's into low 300's, how can it be expected they compete with 5*'s in the 500's?. Don't be discouraged by the disparity. If the next players up in the rankings has maxchamp5's then your pushing at the ceiling. and likewise 3* players shouldn't feel like they aren't doing really well if they get outranked by someone with more than half of the 4's champed. One should not have the expectation of fairness in competitive rewards. The system is flawed, and some players take advantage. 

vinsensual said:

purplemur said:
2)"ohh noes 5Starz taek all deh prizes in SCL7 nowz I cants ever haz wins!"
-so whats changed? YOU can get 7 cp extra a week! and 550 thanos will be getting the same placement as before. Better rosters get top placement: Still not an issue. 
3)meager rewards for scl9
-yes, for all but the T50
4)standard tokens for 5* node reward in SCL 9
-but you have a 1/70 chance of getting a pair of ***3stars, yay for farming..?.!?

No, I disagree.  Top placements are earned.  4* player here, and there's always a couple of 4* players who can crack into the top 10 of scl7 because they're grinding at the beginning and end of a sub just like everyone else.  Now it's RNG that decides whether they even have a chance to compete for top 10, because even a single daily 5* essential clear will be enough to create a gap in points that can't be overcome with optimal play.  

".....there's always a couple of 4* players who can crack into the top 10 of scl7...

...even a single daily 5* essential clear will be enough to create a gap in points that can't be overcome with optimal play"
your right. some of the few very best players can be in contention for top spots against maxchamp5*'s, and if you don't have the req'd the whole event is moot. 
but the 4* players grinding into t10scl7, will have been around long enough to most likely have had an opportunity to roster them all(mostly, mostly) if not even have them at complete coverage or better. even if you were missing the optional5* it would save you a lot of time and energy because you would already know what was capable and surf t20 instead of grinding so hard.

As usual the mechanics are vague:
-Do the points regenerate?
-How to they regenerate? like a loaner node(slow) or a regular node after 4(fast)? 
-When does this optional sub-node unlock?
-Will event tokens be linked to the special LTvaults (i.e Cosmic) going forward? So If your progression reward of an event token yielded the 1/80 purple CosmicLT you would have a 4% chance of starlord?

Bowgentle

purplemur said:

As usual the mechanics are vague:
-Do the points regenerate?
-How to they regenerate? like a loaner node(slow) or a regular node after 4(fast)? 
-When does this optional sub-node unlock?
-Will event tokens be linked to the special LTvaults (i.e Cosmic) going forward? So If your progression reward of an event token yielded the 1/80 purple CosmicLT you would have a 4% chance of starlord?

There's no reason to suspect that the extra node will behave any differently.
They go up in levels, so it's not behaving like the loaner node.

4 Clears to start, normal regeneration, like any other node, unlocked along with the 3 other essentials.

CyberVenom2001

As a collector player (who only pays for VIP, so I'm not a whale) that has EVERY character to date and most 4*s covered, I cautiously optimistic about SCL9! I can't wait to try it and get to toss around my 5*s!

firethorne

An extra node (extra grind), required 5*, with no guaranteed path to acquiring 5* covers.

Nope.  **** that noise.

 

Bowgentle

I'm looking forward to 4* players' reactions to the 515 node.

BoyWonder1914

Bowgentle said:

I'm looking forward to 4* players' reactions to the 515 node.

That's what will prevent me from bothering with CL9. I have all the 5s, but only 2 are fully covered, The rest are at 6 or lower. Can't take a two-mean team against those kinds of levels. Even 405 could be steep for a 4* roster without boosted champs. 

Nick441234

Early observations suggest people are definitely making the shift to CL9. The first bracket of Venom Bomb hasn't even flipped once yet in SCL8 while SCL9 is closing in on flipping twice. 

veny

nick_chicane said:

Early observations suggest people are definitely making the shift to CL9. The first bracket of Venom Bomb hasn't even flipped once yet in SCL8 while SCL9 is closing in on flipping twice. 

Yeah, and i bet they regret this choice as i do.
Loot difference is really small and if we consider rewards from missions (that are main source of ISO and remains unchanged across SCLs), there is really no reason to do more than SCL 7 (unless you have plenty of time and fully champed 4*s or even 5*s).

RemoDestroyer

Might make me a bad person and it might not be good for the game but I'm a little amused at how soft cappers and those who were/are so against the 5* game got hit by cl scaling and now a 5* essential.

They thought they were such hot stuff for placing well with no rostered or low level 5*. Now they almost can't compete for placement.

It feels like justification for rostering and leveling my 5*s. And now I'm enjoying pve more than ever before.

Warbringa

Well SCL 8 may become the wasteland if you think about it.  So most 5* (and fully champed 4*) rosters who can easily do 8 will move to 9 for the t50 placement plus additional iso/cp.  Most players in SCL 7 are there for time/reward factor and won't move up to SCL 8 and especially SCL 9. Some SCL 8's who were right on the edge may move down to SCL 7 now with the new 5* essential node.  Less players may mean bracket snipers will move towards SCL 7 or 9 if that is where more players and rotating brackets end up being.  

broll

Warbringa said:

Well SCL 8 may become the wasteland if you think about it.  So most 5* (and fully champed 4*) rosters who can easily do 8 will move to 9 for the t50 placement plus additional iso/cp.  Most players in SCL 7 are there for time/reward factor and won't move up to SCL 8 and especially SCL 9. Some SCL 8's who were right on the edge may move down to SCL 7 now with the new 5* essential node.  Less players may mean bracket snipers will move towards SCL 7 or 9 if that is where more players and rotating brackets end up being.  

Maybe.  I know I for one play to stick it out in 8 for the time being.  I have 32 (33 by EOD) 4*s champed and am rapidly leaving 4* land, but while I have all but the 3 latest 5*s rostered only one of them is higher than L270 (Thanos @ 319 currently).  That roster won't be able to easily do L515 opponents on the 5* essential even if I have it (especially if I'm dragging along a 6 or less covered L255 5* that isn't very useful, which is likey as I only have 2 with more than 6 covers).  And from the sound of it missing the 5* essential is probably enough to knock you out of T50.  I was thinking about trying to do SCL9 when I really need whatever color is the T50 placement cover, but that seems less likely after hearing that.

Now I'll re-evaluate this position after I can finish my short-term goal of leveling Panthos to 360, but right now I'm under the constant rush of all ISO going to (fill in the blank) 4* before their 14th cover expires, so that might be a while.

I'll re-re-evaluate it in late November / early December which is when I hope to open 300ish Latest Legends and truly move into 5* land.

TL:DR - T50 seems unlikely for a 4* roster until they have at least 2 or 3 5*s mostly cover and mostly leveled.

elvy75

i prejoined cl9 to see how it will be. And after the initial opening grind here are my observations. I cleared it as 6th, #1 is 550 player, as expected, #2 is 500s player, 3-9 are all similar as mine, 450-470 area. Only 11 people did full 4 clears by now. For 5* roster this wasn't particularly hard as scaling was reasonable for all nodes except 5* node. I think that node should be lowered by at least 50 levels on all clearance levels, or people will deliberately choose lower clearance levels just to avoid super high scaling on 5* node. All in all i think PVE mode is on the right track, just needs to have this 5* node scaled down. 

Jesus Jones

Can a 3*-4* transitioner realistically clear all levels and earn all progression awards at SCL9 or should I stick to 8?  Those extra 10 CP are tempting me to try. 

mohio

Jesus Jones said:

Can a 3*-4* transitioner realistically clear all levels and earn all progression awards at SCL9 or should I stick to 8?  Those extra 10 CP are tempting me to try. 

The hard nodes are increased by 70 levels, which is not insignificant at those levels, you'll have to deal a lot more damage. If you're just scraping by in cl8, you obviously want to stick there, if you clear cl8 easily with minimal healthpack use then you'll probably be fine in cl9. In the middle and you might just have to try it out and see. One thing I will warn you about overscaled goon nodes, they can go south in a hurry. Sometimes just a few thousand health can make the difference between needing one set of abilities and needing two, and that can be huge. Lastly...the 5* node is very highly scaled, but if you can take it out a few times, that will alleviate the pressure to grind everything else to reach progression. 

edit: I'll also add...you may not find it worth your time... If CL8 is already taking you 1-1.5 hours to clear 4 times and another 20-30 minutes to clear it a fifth time, then CL9 is likely to take an extra 45+ minutes in total. At that point do you really want to be spending all that extra time just for a few more CP? 

Nick441234

I've just done my initial 4 clears in my usual CL8, and have to say, I genuinely fear that 5* node when we get an event where the opposition moves tiles. I dont want to have to drop down to CL7 because it will be too easy for me but that 5* node in CL8 will probably be too hard with tile movers. This is a sucky situation.  

fmftint

nick_chicane said:

I've just done my initial 4 clears in my usual CL8, and have to say, I genuinely fear that 5* node when we get an event where the opposition moves tiles. I dont want to have to drop down to CL7 because it will be too easy for me but that 5* node in CL8 will probably be too hard with tile movers. This is a sucky situation.  

Wait till it's a mover plus a feeder

Nick441234

fmftint said:

nick_chicane said:

I've just done my initial 4 clears in my usual CL8, and have to say, I genuinely fear that 5* node when we get an event where the opposition moves tiles. I dont want to have to drop down to CL7 because it will be too easy for me but that 5* node in CL8 will probably be too hard with tile movers. This is a sucky situation.  

Wait till it's a mover plus a feeder

That too. They really have made it too hard.