Updates to Story Event 5-Star Essential Missions * Updated (11/17/17)

Brigby

Hi Everyone,

We recently made some changes to the 5-Star Essential missions in Story Events. Starting in Unstable Iso-8, the amount of points a 5-Star Essential mission awards will be different for each S.H.I.E.L.D. Clearance Level that mission exists in. 5-Star Essential missions in SCL 8 & 9 will always be worth more than the 4-Star Essential mission, but it will be worth more points the higher the S.H.I.E.L.D. Clearance Level is.

Starting in Hearts of Darkness this Thursday though, the difficulty of the 5-Star Essential mission in S.H.I.E.L.D. Clearance Level 7 will be reduced (starting at level 185 enemies, instead of 255) and that mission will also be worth less points than the 4-Star Essential mission.

Rewards will not be impacted by these changes.

//Updated Specific SCL Details -Brigby

evade420

Interesting , i think this will probably only really affect alliance placement .
Possibly incentive to get competitive alliances to move up to scl8 and 9

irwando

Glad to hear I'll lose fewer points when I don't have a 5* character I can only get through random pulls or by hoarding CP and waiting for the rotation. yay.

Punisher5784

So basically in order for my alliance to maintain T50, everyone will need to move up to CL9.. of course next event is not only the hardest event but also a new release.. wonderful! Any other good news? 

bowla33

Can we get actual numbers on this? 

Mustache1

I like that this is the off season change the developers thought we needed.

NotBAMF

Laaaaaaaaame

thedarkphoenix

Sigh...

TeamStewie

Great. It's bad enough that the 5 star essential makes it hard for lesser players to find a decent alliance and improve their roster but now it's even going to with people who want to play in SCL7 and 8. 

//Removed Profanity -Brigby

TheXMan

Why not just remove the 5 star mission from CL7 like many asked 

Dartmaster01

TheXMan said:

Why not just remove the 5 star mission from CL7 like many asked 

Because doing something reasonable would ruin their reputation. They have a image to uphold.

broll

Trying to force people to do SCL 8 vs 7 this way instead of better rewards is tinykitty... but it’s gonna work...

wymtime

I will say this I do not disagree with the change to keep big 5* alliance from dropping down to CL7 and dominating PVE to get top placement.  In fact it will take players who grind down the node in CL7 and make it not as profitable as CL9.  The problem is they just change things d don’t take the opportunity to also build good will through the community.  They could do a simple post on reddit, discord, or even the forum and simply ask what would make you want to play at the highest SCL.  The players could then give some great suggestions and feedback for demiurge and it would also give them a lot of ideas.  All demiurge would have to do is choose 1 thing the players suggested and implement it with this change.  As it stands now demiurge made the change without even telling their community manager at D3 and it just popped up in game.  Communication has been and continues to be the biggest issue which demiurge with this game.  This is just another example of a necessary change that could have had a great positive spin but because of poor communication Venom will be spewed from the playerbase.

so sad demiurge

Borstock

I like the change. Reward those who take on the extra challenge.

Punisher5784

Borstock said:

I like the change. Reward those who take on the extra challenge.

But punish those who want to take it easy and spend time with family.. right.. the player's on SCL9 already receive additional rewards for the extra challenge but now it clearly affects Alliances.

Sluggo

I accidentally noticed this while doing my 4x clears today. For people asking for numbers: 

sub 1, 4x clears, SCL7: 10948
sub 1, 4x clears, SCL8: 11068 
sub 1, 4x clears, SCL9: 11248 

For sub 1, SCL9 gets you +300 points vs SCL7 for initial clears, and you can usually add on another 50% for end clears, so that's about +450 for sub 1.

I would take a wild guess that number will grow to about +700 for day 2 and +1000 for day 3, so my napkin math says maybe about 2000-2500 extra points for going SCL9 over SCL7 for the duration of an event, for one player. 

I think this could potentially affect alliances going for T10, but not much beyond that. If your alliance has 17+ people playing SCL7 but all hitting progression, you're likely already cruising to T50 and probably T25. 

The rockett

So I know this is gonna go off the deep end, but since you get more points in SL9 vs SL 8 vs  SL7 and so one. So you need less clears to get progression in SL9 then 8 and 8 then...you get my point.  If we apply this logic to the new WIN system for pvp would this mean you need less wins for progression if you are in SL8 vs SL7 vs SL6.... Yes I know I know crazy connection. 

broll

The rockett said:

So I know this is gonna go off the deep end, but since you get more points in SL9 vs SL 8 vs  SL7 and so one. So you need less clears to get progression in SL9 then 8 and 8 then...you get my point.  If we apply this logic to the new WIN system for pvp would this mean you need less wins for progression if you are in SL8 vs SL7 vs SL6.... Yes I know I know crazy connection. 

It’s not crazy. The same thing occurred to me. 

Hoser

I played scl 9 the first event it came out and it took me almost 2 hours to do a grind.  Compared to just under an hour for scl 7.  I dont want to lose too many points, but i also dont want to spend 5 hours / day on a game.  I know scl 9 is harder but you also get better rewards.  Shouldnt that be enough?

STOPTHIS

Usually the changes made to the game are 1 step forward, 2 steps back. But the devs seem to be moonwalking these days.

fmftint

I assume this is meant to equalize points vs time 
For competitive alliance slots a CL7 player could score higher than a CL9 player on point regen time alone, I'm not sure changing to point value on ONE node will significantly change things.