Shield Training with Rogue

Killians8

Hello,

As noted by the many complaints about the design of this event, I will present my suggestion for a more appropriate gating of rewards.

First off, I understand the usefulness of giving rewards based on a players roster progress so I do not disagree with some progression in this event based on that.

What I do have a problem with is not even being able to play certain nodes due to the level requirements of Prof X, XWolvy, and 4Cyke. These three characters specifically are all now considered Vintage Heroes and were just recently released from several months of vaulting where any cover and level progress were severely limited to anyone just starting to cover those characters as I was when they were vaulted away. I feel that being unable to even try those nodes with my severely underleveled characters is unfair due to D3's choice to return to vaulting for a period months ago. My limitation was not about choosing not to collect and use their covers, but due to D3's choice to limit their availability. I will have the same problem if other Xmen are used on any future runs of this event. Teen Jean and others are also very lowly covered due to vaulting.

Solution: I think your intention could be solved by simply making those nodes hard enough to reflect the difficulty of not have your characters high enough. You would at least be able to take a crack at it with your pathetic characters. Kind of like the Crash of the Titans where I can at least take a shot at Beast with my two covered, level 90 Cho. I still can't beat it, but every once in a while you can play and luck your way into a win in those fights. 

It would still be pretty gated away simply by using difficulty, but with perseverance and some luck, you might be able to progress further if you at least have them rostered. In addition, players may use health packs as their attempts fail which could lend itself to paying money to replenish those needed for further tried, PvP, or other reasons.

Summary: Not upset with some gating, this has always been part of the design in a good way, but it could have been in a better way I think.

With much respect,

Killians

Ezrius

I came here to post similar thoughts.  I have Cyclops at 3/3/5, Wolverine at 5/3/3, and Professor X at 5/1/0 (honestly, it's more like 8/1/0, but that's another discussion entirely).  It may be the case that if I tried the final node, I'd be unable to complete it because my Prof X is too weak, but I can't know for sure, can I?  It seems ridiculous to me that I am prohibited from trying nodes for which I have not one, not two, but three required 4* characters, just because one of the three is not 5/3/2 or better.  If this node rewarded a 5*, I might understand, but it doesn't; it's one cover at the same tier as the required characters.

It's bad enough I need to have 5* characters to compete for 4* character in the regular PVE, now; the limited events for 4* characters have to require three specific 5/3/2 or better vintage 4*s?  I mostly stepped away from this game for the past several months because of the lack of progress I was feeling, only logging in for my daily resupply and not doing events.  I got very excited to learn that the X-Men were finally coming back, and it drew me back to the game, but to immediately see that the barriers for 4* progression have seemingly gotten worse is not helping to convince me I made the right call.  I truly hope that you reconsider these level restrictions on top of the character requirements moving forward, especially if the reward is at the same tier.

firethorne

It also sets up a ridiculous catch 22, continually perpetuating itself.  Your roster will not get any better simply because your roster is not good enough to get any better.  So, because you can't level Professor X enough this time, you can't get Rogue.  So next time, you won't have 209 Rogue to get Nightcrawler.  And no 209 Nightcrawler for Cabel or whoever.

It's the quintessential rich get richer, poor get poorer setup, and it's **** garbage.

Anyway, back to Hearthstone.  Blizzard can have some of my money.  I certainly won't be putting it into MPQ.

Michaelcles

The OP mentions other complaints, where are they at?  I put mine in my Old players vs new players thread.   Would be good for D3 to see that there are many complaints on this topic.  The ones that post about it are a mere fraction of those who feel similarly.

When you aliennate new players, that will also impact the veterans as the player base and the $$$ dries up, the game won’t be supported anymore and eventually no longer be supported.  Then all of your accomplishments will have been for nothing.

Jaedenkaal

firethorne said:

It also sets up a ridiculous catch 22, continually perpetuating itself.  Your roster will not get any better simply because your roster is not good enough to get any better.  So, because you can't level Professor X enough this time, you can't get Rogue.  So next time, you won't have 209 Rogue to get Nightcrawler.  And no 209 Nightcrawler for Cabel or whoever.

It's the quintessential rich get richer, poor get poorer setup, and it's tinykitty garbage.

Anyway, back to Hearthstone.  Blizzard can have some of my money.  I certainly won't be putting it into MPQ.

Ah, the classic slippery slope argument. And combined with a strawman, no less.

Killians8

Michaelcles said:

The OP mentions other complaints, where are they at?  I put mine in my Old players vs new players thread.   Would be good for D3 to see that there are many complaints on this topic.  The ones that post about it are a mere fraction of those who feel similarly.

When you aliennate new players, that will also impact the veterans as the player base and the $$$ dries up, the game won’t be supported anymore and eventually no longer be supported.  Then all of your accomplishments will have been for nothing.

The other complaints are 11 pages long in the General Discussion Forum. I started this thread because a moderator suggested posting suggestions here...so I did.

JumboSaltPretzel

This was the first time in my MPQ playing life where I've audibly said, "Oh what the hell is this?"  No one wants a facerollingly easy game.  That's why we like the harder difficulty levels.  Requiring characters for a mission is fine if it fits the story, but how does "your characters all must be X level in order to play it" fit into the story?

Let it be a challenge!  Let us fail!

I'm nearly at 900 days of this game.  Mostly a F2P player (dropped a few bucks to get more roster slots), but my championed X-Force Wolverine, 3/4/2 Classic Cyclops, and 3/4/0 Prof X leaves me well short of being able to play this event.  Seriously?  Are the devs that aligned towards pleasing the pay-to-play crowd that they'd alienate the majority of their play base?

Shame on them.

TheZeusBear

In the same boat as most people who haven't played for years. On day 242, played a short while before vaulting was introduced. The result? 
My 2/1/0  Cyclops and 1/1/1 ProfX don't allow me to even pass the second row. If the lvl cap was removed, would have at least a small chance to win with team ups, good boards and boosts after a few fails. 

Polarisgpg99

I haven't really been active at all in the MPQ forum, but after this Shield Training mission, I had to leave a comment about it. It's the first time while playing this game that I felt it's not only unfair to a vast amount of players, but that they completely dropped the ball in designing this. At first glance, I was really excited. Looked like a lot of fun and finally a new PVE mission. That is, until I got to the 5th battle (last one on the 1st row) and was blocked from going any further because I didn't have classic cyclops. Then I noticed that I couldn't play *any* of the bottom row battles because I didn't have the new Rogue. Then I saw people iny alliance talking about how you not only need her, but need her leveled up to continue the missions. ****??

My first thought was, they *just released* Rogue. How many players even have her yet, let alone multiple covers to level her up?? I'd imagine very, very few and only the extremely lucky or extremely wealthy will have probably just *one* cover of her yet. 

This is a legit and serious design flaw. Progression is based on having a charter that was only recently introduced and so far unless you're lucky to draw her with a token, the Hearts of Darkness offers her as a reward, and then only if you score a high enough rank, but that doesn't matter because that mission isn't over yet to give out those rewards. I'm just having a hard time understanding how this passed through multiple devs, qa folks, and then launched with *nobody* addressing this glaring problem. Or did they and simply not care?

The issue with needed cylops, PX or XFW is one thing. Rather terrible as well I feel and unfair to a lot of players. Particularly new to mid-ranked players who are only just starting to get multiple leveled 4*'s and their first 5* or two. They're completely screwed out of playing this mission. But I've got a fairly decent roster, been playing for almost 2 years, and even I'm barred frim playing beyond the first 4 battles because I didn't keep and level up classic cylops. 

Not to digress, but generally speaking I think the entire system of collecting and leveling up characters is very much broken. It's extremely easy to champion up 3* and lower characters but nearly impossible for 4 and 5*. The difference between 3* and 4* is far too drastic. Almost 2 years into this game, and I still havent been able to reach champion level with *any* of my 4*''s whereas all but 1 or 2 of my 3* and lower are champions. It's extremely unbalanced and really should be given a major overhaul. Sorry for digressing, but I feel that this is an underlying issue contributing to some of the issues with the Shield Training mission. If these characters were more common and easier to recruit, and not saying they need to be at 1 or 2* availability, but somewhere halfway between 3* and where they're at currently, then I feel fewer people would be blocked from playing this mission. It still doesn't solve the problem with requiring a character that was only just released and is hardly available yet, or the very idea of blocking mission's entI rely just because you're lacking a certain character. The whole idea of preventing players from *playing the game* is asinine. Make it hard, give "weaker" players a challenge for trying to step up to a level they're not at, do whatever you like to make certain parts difficult, but don't let us not play the damn game! Everyone, from day 1 players to vets with years behind them, should be able to play any mission out there, some exceptions every now and then is fine, but don't lock out a huge part of your player base, and discourage new players from continuing on. At least give everyone a fighting chance, and let skill and luck determine progression, not the whims of the devs. 

I hope my greviences were at least logical or articulate, and perhaps echoed others feelings and complaints about this Shield Training mission, and some of the underlining issues with this game that this particular missions seems to highlight and bring to attention. Besides the issues I've mentioned here, I still think MPQ is a really fun game, with its flaws, sure, but all together pretty damn good and a lot of fun. Thanks all.

(Not proof read, and typed out on my phone. Apologies for typos)

Throttler

I enjoyed the progression of the new shield training event until I was stopped by the level 209 requirement. I can't say it any better than killians8. Here's another vote for difficulty without strict level requirements. I support the game with occasional buys - it's important to support a game that's I have played daily for a few years. But to make the requirements so limited made me feel ripped off. Clearly, I am not alone in this.

Qazzy

I change my rating to 3 star because of the level limitation.

Red_phoenixx

Many similar thoughts Polarisgpg99. I the timing of the rogue sim felt like a money grab. I, like almost everyone in my slice, was stuck with 1-2 rogue covers. How can they feel it's good for the gamers to sit staring at an event for 7 days while you can't even progress in it. I don't like it one bit. I won't be spending money to buy more tokens only to draw more 2 stars. 

limonade

The kicker of it all is that without the level limitation, my team could have beat that node.