This SHIELD training is worse than the last one!

Hellaluyeah1

This one is way worse than the first. It just helps create an even larger rift between the player base. All characters needed are 4 Stars. One of the characters needed is the last character to be published and that character blocks two columns. One character is the current character, which blocks the bottom row. Meaning: If luck screwed you recently or you are just not good enough to get into the top ranks, then you have to skip 60% of this event from the start. There are some 4 Star characters, that I have at 209, but neither of them is required here, so I could do a whole whopping 4 nodes!!! I've put a lot money into this game, but this event is just for really, really big spenders, I'm guessing in the thounds of dollars.......
So calling this event a "training" event is a real slap in the face. I'm not training anything. I got like 2000 gold and no tokens. I really like the concept of this idea to have a training module, but currently it is worthless to me. It should at least feel like I'm training something.....

firethorne

Sm0keyJ0e said:

For all those complaining about Rogue being too new to complete missions, wait until you get to the bottom row...

At least Rogue is in heroics now. Nightcrawler has no realistic way of being acquired currently.

Which was the exact same problem with Rogue last time around.  I agree that part of the design is also garbage.  I think what's astounding to me is that they found a way to make that garbage worse.  The last time around, getting enough Rogue covers to finish was unreasonable, just as getting enough Nightcrawler is this time around.  But, Prof, Cyclops, and X-Wolverine have been in the game for ages.  Though the level requirements are a **** addition, most people at least had the covers required to play.  This time, most people don't have enough Rogue to even get to Nightcrawler.  Basically, it is all the same problems as last time, with a new one, even more detrimental.

ammenell

I have the resources to cover and champ both Electra and IW.

buff them if you want me to champ them, that bait is an effrontery. then again, your player base is used to it, so... thx for the iso.

about that mpq rating... 

Hotnfresh

I used to respect this company... now I just chuckle and smh in derision as they regurgitate the same story events for years, come up with something shiny and new then lock it out for the vast majority of us.

Cornball moves like this are no surprise anymore. 

Beer40

Last time they ran Shield Simulator, I was waiting to take a poop to see what all the fuss was about. This time, I took my poop and forgot about Shield Simulator so I have to wait longer.

Maybe.

I ate meatloaf from the work deli today, so maybe I'll make it back in soon to see what the fuss is about.

smkspy

Also it's nonsense to dictate which characters to level. If the highest rank was 150ish, it wouldnt be so bad, but we are talking major iso if you fall on The wrong side of tracks for essentials.

At least pick the good characters for those who might not have champed them yet: Wasp, Riri, Gwenpool...Invisible Woman is kinda decent.

But two of the most unlikely leveled 4s really hurts many when iso is such a valuable and limited resource, especially after a double iso event.

These event is way too gated at every level. 

professorplum9

Trust me I groaned with the rest of player base when I heard IW and Elektra were the required characters for S.H.I.E.L.D Training. I begrudgingly champed Elektra months ago because I had covers dying on the vine. Personally despite her recent rework I find her still to be one of the worst 4* (but that's another topic). IW on the other hand I think got a lot better (at least on offense) after her rework even though she did lose some of what made her special (niche useful) with the now random placement of her bubbles. At any rate despite being arguably better than Nick Fury or Elektra, IW still remains in-champed in my roster just because I haven't accumulated a lot of covers for her since the rework or had a better ISO option when I did. So anyway I was disappointed (and felt a little bit trolled by Demiurge) that she should be a gate standing between me and a cover of a character I've requested on every character interest survey since I've picked up the game several years ago.


However, I personally welcome these type of events and hope Demiurge does more of them. I may have the required characters and the required levels I may not, but I view them as a bonus opportunity to get an extra cover when previously the only avenue for a new release character was a PVE or PVP placement reward.


Once you build out a roster and especially once you start transitioning into the 5s you can't help but think "what use is there for all these 4s now?" Why should I care about a new 4* or 3* character that isn't going to help me climb higher in PVP or be of any use when they are not essential or boosted? I'd love to see more events like this that offer some reward for rostering, covering, and leveling characters that aren't top tier.


I appreciated the fact that they required these essential characters to be only level 209 this time around. This is a huge concession on the ISO investment front (requiring only 150K vs 365K). Sure it still means putting a lot of ISO into a character you may really not want to, but at least you have the choice.


Sure Rogue at 209 is a tall order this close to release, but she is in the tokens. She is at least a character I want to put ISO into. I'm a f2p player and sure it took a little luck and a lot of play time, but a 209 is not solely in the realm of the whale.


Nightcrawler cover aside this event still offers easy ISO and I actually got something good with my Hunt tokens (not Nightcrawler good, but good). In the end, this is a bonus event. Something above and beyond the normal PVE and PVP experience. I'd like to encourage more of them. Sometimes, I may have the required characters at the required levels sometimes I may not, but something extra is better than nothing extra...


P.S.

40 wins is still too many for the 4* progression cover in PVP

Taganov

professorplum9 said:

However, I personally welcome these type of events and hope Demiurge does more of them. I may have the required characters and the required levels I may not, but I view them as a bonus opportunity to get an extra cover when previously the only avenue for a new release character was a PVE or PVP placement reward

I will respectfully disagree on this point. When Ant Man was released, there was a special event where you could earn a cover. Same with Chulk. The later nodes were difficult, so the challenge was based on overall roster strength, not your willingness to whale a new release.

I think buy imperatives are the ugliest way to implement this type of event. Don't have the character BUY PACKS. Don't have the required level? BUY PACKS & ISO. Heroics, which they ironically dropped, rewarded deep rosters and challenge.

Calnexin

abmoraz said:

vernr1 said:

Just putting my input in here as well.

total garbage, I hate whoever came up with this plan, feels like a big old kick in the junk while being flipped off... just WOW.. 

That's mighty sexist of you.  What about the women in the player base that are feeling this pain, too?

Is that better?

TetsujinOni

This event is very precisely and carefully designed - calling it garbage means you're evaluating it wrong.

The characters chosen were likely chosen because they are those often cited to not receive some of your precious commodity that gates progress more than anything even among long-lifespan players: 13/13 characters who are frequently cited as the ones which you shouldn't bother to level past the point that they can win their Crash are exactly the characters that it makes sense for a publisher to gate a new release "goody" behind.

Imposing scarcity and urgency on players of an F2P game encourages taking an action to relieve the urgent scarcity - that is, opening wallets.

Why would you think that *good* characters that are already leveled would be useful as a gating function on content that you want to be available but not achievable for all of your players?

Next month when we see Thor Ragnarok related characters, ProbablyLokiOrHelaButMaybeValkyrieOrSkurge(4*) will in all probability require Nightcrawler, Venom (Eddie Brock) and Sam Wilson (Captain America) as its SHIELD Training team. (though i'd also recommend hedging that bet in case I've picked the wrong unpopular characters - hold the Iso if you haven't leveled them  already, and make decisions once you're certain instead of my attempt at shrewd guessing).

Break up Iso hoards. Break up CP hoards. Make the hoarding window without paying more keenly felt progress costs a season, not 9 months... This is all /working/ judging by the complaints.

The "freebie" events were too freely available to have "nicer" rewards and the loss of Heroic Story events lost a drive toward leveling-the-roster-widely.

Kaazz

Uh, my rogue has ONE COVER - yellow. So, uh. Yeah, this event is completely worthless for me. Requiring a lvl 209 Rogue when the character is brand new is freaking ridiculous. 

It's **** like this that have left me mostly just doing DDQ each day. What a joke!

TetsujinOni

Kaazz said:

Uh, my rogue has ONE COVER - yellow. So, uh. Yeah, this event is completely worthless for me. Requiring a lvl 209 Rogue when the character is brand new is freaking ridiculous. 

It's tinykitty like this that have left me mostly just doing DDQ each day. What a joke!

Do you also find the Behemoth Burrito to be "worthless... freaking ridiculous" because it had the "only these three characters can play" restriction?

Straycat

I do kinda like the idea of them incentivizing leveling up non champed characters. I miss the days of dilution where I leveled an uncovered Kingpin and Thor to 200 since I wasn't champing someone every 2 weeks. Ok, I don't miss that, but I don't like how the bottom of my roster is base level 4*s. 
But I think 209 is too high, if think 9 covers is more fair, so level 188. My 6 cover Rogue still wouldn't have made the cut, but I think that would have been better.
I hope they have Shield Training running every week, not just for new releases. That way the bottom row wouldn't always be impossible to even try

cpeyton3535

If this event is intended to reward players with advanced rosters and an ISO surplus for all their past efforts, then bravo!  Mission accomplished!

Otherwise?  Epic fail.  Again.

Making Rogue and 2 of the lowest-rated 4* characters the essentials?  I mean, you can't make this stuff up!  It's nonsensical!

Like many on this forum I have my ISO spend planned (up to a month out right now).  Having this kind of "spend to participate" event put before me is, well, not really very tempting.  

I'll just grind it out for my NC covers starting tonight like the majority of players.  Just like I did for my Rogue covers.  Just like I will the next time this ridiculous event is released.

At least until I myself have an advanced roster and an ISO surplus!

Sm0keyJ0e

TetsujinOni said:

This event is very precisely and carefully designed - calling it garbage means you're evaluating it wrong.

The characters chosen were likely chosen because they are those often cited to not receive some of your precious commodity that gates progress more than anything even among long-lifespan players: 13/13 characters who are frequently cited as the ones which you shouldn't bother to level past the point that they can win their Crash are exactly the characters that it makes sense for a publisher to gate a new release "goody" behind.

Imposing scarcity and urgency on players of an F2P game encourages taking an action to relieve the urgent scarcity - that is, opening wallets.

Why would you think that *good* characters that are already leveled would be useful as a gating function on content that you want to be available but not achievable for all of your players?

Next month when we see Thor Ragnarok related characters, ProbablyLokiOrHelaButMaybeValkyrieOrSkurge(4*) will in all probability require Nightcrawler, Venom (Eddie Brock) and Sam Wilson (Captain America) as its SHIELD Training team. (though i'd also recommend hedging that bet in case I've picked the wrong unpopular characters - hold the Iso if you haven't leveled them  already, and make decisions once you're certain instead of my attempt at shrewd guessing).

Break up Iso hoards. Break up CP hoards. Make the hoarding window without paying more keenly felt progress costs a season, not 9 months... This is all /working/ judging by the complaints.

The "freebie" events were too freely available to have "nicer" rewards and the loss of Heroic Story events lost a drive toward leveling-the-roster-widely.

Pretty much this. The power of a toon need not be his or her usefulness in combat. Some give out amazing team-ups. Some are only useful on certain teams. Some are required to unlock gated content.

Not sure why this is a surprise or some sort of evil.

statnut

TetsujinOni said:

Kaazz said:

Uh, my rogue has ONE COVER - yellow. So, uh. Yeah, this event is completely worthless for me. Requiring a lvl 209 Rogue when the character is brand new is freaking ridiculous. 

It's tinykitty like this that have left me mostly just doing DDQ each day. What a joke!

Do you also find the Behemoth Burrito to be "worthless... freaking ridiculous" because it had the "only these three characters can play" restriction?

I don't know, is there a level restriction on those three characters, or can a character with one cover participate. Seems like that's what this person is rightfully complaining about and you've missed the point.

Kahmon

This is a bonus event. If they didn't run it at all, there would be no complaints.

I just champed Sue yesterday, but my rogue and ekektra both lack, so I don't expect to get much out of this.

My plan is to just get as far as I can and accept that it's still more than I'd have gotten without the event at all.

I see no point in caring that others are getting more out of it than me. Every event there will always be people getting more out of it than me.

Pants1000

I don't have a problem with events like this having parts for whales, but I don't like where the line was drawn.  Veterans should be able to play most of the nodes, but in this case there are many people with 1000+ days played that can only play about half of the nodes.

There has to be some middle ground between this and older events like Growth Industry that were a cakewalk for most.

I'd like to see an event like this with 5 different 4's featured, where you could get the new 4* if you have 3/5 leveled enough, then additional CP/LT/ISO if you have 4 or 5 of them.

Zalasta

Agree with many comments that this was a poorly designed event. Day 777. I've got 35 championed 4 stars, with most of the others fully covered, but lacking ISO. My Rogue is at 1-2-1. It's ridiculous that I can't complete this event (at least to the point of the 4-star cover). If it was only intended for whales and 5-star rosters to complete this, then just award them the cover next time and don't frustrate the rest of your player base.

smkspy

We all know it's designed to generate iso sales, have us spend our iso and hoards, but the reality for everyone that isn't a whale or a Kyle Brovloski is that there is no real incentive to waste all that.

People waste more than they will earn.

A single four star cover 
A little iso compared to amount spent leveling them up (assuming your essentials are low level)
A couple of tokens that favor 2 stars 

That's not to even mention the crazy nightcrawler node and the dedication it takes to get him to 209.

The design and it's purposes are blatantly obvious, the question is are we folks zombified enough to fall for it.