How to do non-competitive PvE

broll

So  I came up with this in a https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/74758/quality-of-life-improvements and I really like the idea.  How to do non-competitive PvE

- Nodes only give points 1 -2 times, but can be cleared infinitely for fun if one so chooses.

- Clearing just those nodes only get's you to half progression at best.

- A new node is added that unlocks after all other have been beaten at least once.  This node is a survival / infinite wave node.

- The survival node would be infinite waves of enemies that get harder each wave.

- In order to get max progression you have to get a certain number of waves in (which would translate to a certain team/level strength by SCL)

- There should be a notification in the wave node once you have enough points for max progression.  This would give you the option to quit early vs keep going till you die if you only care about rewards.  Continuing on would just be for fun or to stroke your epeen on all the points you can get.

Benefits:

- You're competing only against yourself / the game vs other players (AKA true PvE)

- More variety of playstyles

- You can play as you want

- Devs can still gate the best rewards (those that would be placement now) behind really strong difficulty walls to ensure too many rewards aren't given out.

- Add the long asked for ability to just play for fun / have open nodes to try teams out in.

Negatives:

- Infinite waves might not be technically feesable

- If wave scaling/team selection is bad it could ruin the entire PvE experience / ability to get decent rewards.

KGB

Infinite Wave scaling absolutely can not be tied to SCL.

For example in SCL 7 if the waves started at a flat 220 and increased by 20 per level then by level 3 you face 260 enemies. For players in 4* land with 270ish level characters 3 waves of those enemies (assuming plenty of tile movers mixed in) is a fair challenge. But someone slumming down with champed 5* rosters in the 450+ range might not have even had to look up from the TV program they were watching.

Instead the wave node would have to start based on the TEAM you used (not roster scaling or SCL). So if you decided on a team of characters that averaged level 200 (say 3* champs) that's where your wave scaling starts (around 200) and that's what you are measured against even if you are in SCL9. Thus it would be an entirely new MPQ experience.

KGB

broll

KGB said:

Infinite Wave scaling absolutely can not be tied to SCL.

For example in SCL 7 if the waves started at a flat 220 and increased by 20 per level then by level 3 you face 260 enemies. For players in 4* land with 270ish level characters 3 waves of those enemies (assuming plenty of tile movers mixed in) is a fair challenge. But someone slumming down with champed 5* rosters in the 450+ range might not have even had to look up from the TV program they were watching.

What's wrong with that?  The biggest problem people have with slumming is they take rewards away from others.  This is non-competitive so it doesn't matter how many people slum you can still get the rewards you're skillful or persistent enough to earn.  Also as stated a bazillion times bigger jumps in rewards would discourage that.  While not having to contend with 2 types of rewards (placement and progression) I think it would be easier to make bigger gaps in rewards and tie them closer to what should be earned around that level.

Dormammu

broll said:

- Devs can still gate the best rewards (those that would be placement now) behind really strong difficulty walls to ensure too many rewards aren't given out.

What if the wave node wasn't infinite, but finite, and you got points for however far you went - whether that was one wave or all the waves.

Then there was a 'store' for those points with different prizes that cost different amounts of points. You could either spend your points or save them. Maybe 1 day's worth of max points (for example) would buy you a Heroic Token, 5 health packs, and 5k ISO. But if you saved up your points for more days you could buy more expensive things, like maybe a rotating 4-star cover, or a Legendary Token, or a couple of Support Tokens.

This would allow players some flexibility and save points for a rainy day. Like... if a 5-star release vault shows up and a player decided they like it; they could go over to the PvE STORE and buy some CP. Or they are pushing for 2000 points in SHIELD Sim on the last day and they just ran out of health packs. Or they just need 10,000 more ISO to finish champing that 4-star...

KGB

What's wrong is you are tying max progression to this infinitely harder wave node. So you *have* to do it to complete progression. Unless it's going to start so trivially low and ramp up very slowly so max progression can be hit in 2-3 waves it's going to make is really hard for rosters legitimately in a particular CL to reach progression.

For example CL7 tops out at 220ish since 3* rosters are meant to play here regularly to get 4* cover from progression. So max progression has to be easy for them to achieve.

At the same time I presume you want to offer some extra rewards (a 2nd or 3rd 4* cover) if you go say 6 or 7 waves deep when it would ramp up to 300ish level. But that would mean those same 3* rosters can't access those rewards because they have almost no hope of beating those nodes. In the current format those 3* rosters at least have a chance at extra 4* if they do optimal clears and finish T10 (I was able to do this when I was first entering 4* land).

If you go with scaling based on team chosen then everyone has fair access to those extra rewards.

KGB

broll

Dormammu said:

broll said:

- Devs can still gate the best rewards (those that would be placement now) behind really strong difficulty walls to ensure too many rewards aren't given out.

What if the wave node wasn't infinite, but finite, and you got points for however far you went - whether that was one wave or all the waves.

Ultimately due to software limitations I doubt it would be infinite regardless.  There would be some point where it scales up to impossible levels, so this IMO is somewhat semantics.

Dormammu said:

Then there was a 'store' for those points with different prizes that cost different amounts of points. You could either spend your points or save them. Maybe 1 day's worth of max points (for example) would buy you a Heroic Token, 5 health packs, and 5k ISO. But if you saved up your points for more days you could buy more expensive things, like maybe a rotating 4-star cover, or a Legendary Token, or a couple of Support Tokens.

This would allow players some flexibility and save points for a rainy day. Like... if a 5-star release vault shows up and a player decided they like it; they could go over to the PvE STORE and buy some CP. Or they are pushing for 2000 points in SHIELD Sim on the last day and they just ran out of health packs. Or they just need 10,000 more ISO to finish champing that 4-star...

That's a pretty cool concept, I wouldn't be opposed to that.

KGB said:

What's wrong is you are tying max progression to this infinitely harder wave node. So you *have* to do it to complete progression. Unless it's going to start so trivially low and ramp up very slowly so max progression can be hit in 2-3 waves it's going to make is really hard for rosters legitimately in a particular CL to reach progression.

For example CL7 tops out at 220ish since 3* rosters are meant to play here regularly to get 4* cover from progression. So max progression has to be easy for them to achieve.

At the same time I presume you want to offer some extra rewards (a 2nd or 3rd 4* cover) if you go say 6 or 7 waves deep when it would ramp up to 300ish level. But that would mean those same 3* rosters can't access those rewards because they have almost no hope of beating those nodes. In the current format those 3* rosters at least have a chance at extra 4* if they do optimal clears and finish T10 (I was able to do this when I was first entering 4* land).

If you go with scaling based on team chosen then everyone has fair access to those extra rewards.

KGB

What you've described is exactly the point.  If someone with a roster of 3* champs comes into SCL9 or SCL10 they shouldn't be able to get all the rewards, it's not scaled to them.  Conversely if it was scaled to team vs roster, then anyone could bring 3 1* or 2* teams and win regardless of that the roster is.  The entire point of having this wave node is how do you make it so that a non-competitive progression doesn't just drop the placement level rewards, but also doesn't make them so easy everyone get's them all and breaks roster progression.  If the goal was for everyone to get max progression I wouldn't suggest this and we'd just stick with what we have.

bbigler

There's 1 big problem with this idea: everyone would use (or try to obtain) the best winfinite team to pass the infinite wave node.  That takes away gameplay variety and allows everyone to pass it (unless the infinite wave node included a level 600 Dr Strange).  Here's my suggestion to improve PVE:

1. Merge placement rewards into progression rewards, which makes progression rewards really, really good, but.....
2. Restrict roster choices to only the boosted list, increasing gameplay variety and difficulty, and rewarding players with deep rosters.
3. Gradually increase the difficulty of each node to the highest level allowed in the SCL, instead of having 3 easy nodes and 6 semi-hard ones. 
4. Reduce the number of clears to get full progression rewards from 5 to 2.  PVE should not be a grind fest!  It should be a puzzle. 

bbigler

KGB said:

What's wrong is you are tying max progression to this infinitely harder wave node. So you *have* to do it to complete progression. Unless it's going to start so trivially low and ramp up very slowly so max progression can be hit in 2-3 waves it's going to make is really hard for rosters legitimately in a particular CL to reach progression.

For example CL7 tops out at 220ish since 3* rosters are meant to play here regularly to get 4* cover from progression. So max progression has to be easy for them to achieve.

At the same time I presume you want to offer some extra rewards (a 2nd or 3rd 4* cover) if you go say 6 or 7 waves deep when it would ramp up to 300ish level. But that would mean those same 3* rosters can't access those rewards because they have almost no hope of beating those nodes. In the current format those 3* rosters at least have a chance at extra 4* if they do optimal clears and finish T10 (I was able to do this when I was first entering 4* land).

If you go with scaling based on team chosen then everyone has fair access to those extra rewards.

KGB

Ummm....I have a 3* roster and I can beat level 330 enemies. 

bbigler

There's other ways to increase difficulty (to restrict top rewards) without an infinite wave node.  How about a restricted roster with higher than normal enemies?  Like being restricted to 3*s against level 400 enemies?  Or be restricted to 4*s with level 500 enemies?  That would be difficult and a real puzzle to win. 

KGB

bbigler said:

KGB said:

What's wrong is you are tying max progression to this infinitely harder wave node. So you *have* to do it to complete progression. Unless it's going to start so trivially low and ramp up very slowly so max progression can be hit in 2-3 waves it's going to make is really hard for rosters legitimately in a particular CL to reach progression.

For example CL7 tops out at 220ish since 3* rosters are meant to play here regularly to get 4* cover from progression. So max progression has to be easy for them to achieve.

At the same time I presume you want to offer some extra rewards (a 2nd or 3rd 4* cover) if you go say 6 or 7 waves deep when it would ramp up to 300ish level. But that would mean those same 3* rosters can't access those rewards because they have almost no hope of beating those nodes. In the current format those 3* rosters at least have a chance at extra 4* if they do optimal clears and finish T10 (I was able to do this when I was first entering 4* land).

If you go with scaling based on team chosen then everyone has fair access to those extra rewards.

KGB

Ummm....I have a 3* roster and I can beat level 330 enemies. 

Impressive (unless your using winfinte in which case yeah, it's winfinite. LOL)!

But are you talking goons or tile movers and single node or wave? For example how do you fare in the 'The Rider Awakens' wave node (3 waves of 3 tile movers) in Heart of Darkness PvE and what level are they. I find that to be the single hardest PvE node in CL 7 due to every character in every wave being a tile mover and they scale no where near 330 in CL7.

KGB

HoundofShadow

Reset player's aps and the board, but not reset enemies' aps for each wave. I think this should be challenging enough?

Colognoisseur

I think there is a framework for non-competitive PvE already- SHIELD Training.

The gating of nodes dependent on character levels works from many perspectives I think.

bbigler

KGB said:

bbigler said:

KGB said:

What's wrong is you are tying max progression to this infinitely harder wave node. So you *have* to do it to complete progression. Unless it's going to start so trivially low and ramp up very slowly so max progression can be hit in 2-3 waves it's going to make is really hard for rosters legitimately in a particular CL to reach progression.

For example CL7 tops out at 220ish since 3* rosters are meant to play here regularly to get 4* cover from progression. So max progression has to be easy for them to achieve.

At the same time I presume you want to offer some extra rewards (a 2nd or 3rd 4* cover) if you go say 6 or 7 waves deep when it would ramp up to 300ish level. But that would mean those same 3* rosters can't access those rewards because they have almost no hope of beating those nodes. In the current format those 3* rosters at least have a chance at extra 4* if they do optimal clears and finish T10 (I was able to do this when I was first entering 4* land).

If you go with scaling based on team chosen then everyone has fair access to those extra rewards.

KGB

Ummm....I have a 3* roster and I can beat level 330 enemies. 

Impressive (unless your using winfinte in which case yeah, it's winfinite. LOL)!

But are you talking goons or tile movers and single node or wave? For example how do you fare in the 'The Rider Awakens' wave node (3 waves of 3 tile movers) in Heart of Darkness PvE and what level are they. I find that to be the single hardest PvE node in CL 7 due to every character in every wave being a tile mover and they scale no where near 330 in CL7.

KGB

I can't form a winfinite team until my 4*s are up and running.  I've faced some 330 Maggia and Moonstone with 20K+ health pools against my 3*s.  I may have used IM40 + Kamala + Strange OR Cage + Fist + Switch.  Both teams hit above their pay grade.  The Rider Awakens is certainly the hardest PVE node I've seen (but I think they recently made it easier by clearing the enemy AP pools after each wave).  Anyway, I was able to beat SCL 7 Rider Awakens.........I think I used Cage + Switch + 2*Widow, which is a defensive team to protect, heal and steal AP.  I believe without AP stealing I couldn't win, so I used 2*Widow because my Hood wasn't ready. 

Drlex

OJSP said:

bbigler said:

I can't form a winfinite team until my 4*s are up and running.  

Sure you can. It just depends which ones. All 2* winfinite is Thor, Magneto , Storm. All 3* winfinite is Hulk, Mohawk, KK.

I am curious how you set up the characters, and what exactly makes it winfinite? Once you get the right combo or whatever will it go on forever for sure, or can it get messed up. Nightcrawler with his purple can go on possibly forever, but there is still a chance the board could shake weird and mess him up. Is he considered winfinite?

Drlex

Thanks, I was wondering what people called winfinite.

bbigler

OJSP said:

bbigler said:

I can't form a winfinite team until my 4*s are up and running.  

Sure you can. It just depends which ones. All 2* winfinite is Thor, Magneto , Storm. All 3* winfinite is Hulk, Mohawk, KK.

My definition of winfinite is either: A) you can endlessly activate powers and abilities all in 1 turn, OR B ) you can continuously stun lock the entire team, giving you seemingly endless turns. 

2*Thor + 2*Mags + 2*Storm is not winfinite, it's a combo team.  Let's say you fire Thor's yellow to get green cascades, then fire Storm's Green for more AP generation, then fire Mag's purple for Blue and Red AP, maybe some other colors.  You could fire Thor's red once or twice, but if you don't have enough yellow and green to keep going, you're done.  Mag's Red power does generate AP, but it takes another turn to do it. 

Hulk + Mohawk + KK is not winfinite either, just a combo team.  Hulk requires getting hit hard by the opponent to work, therefore, this is not infinite.  Maybe Thor + 2*Storm + KK could form a true winfinite?

EDIT: Just tried 3*Thor + 2*Storm + Kamala  and it is winfinite.  It appears to be endless; I went in this order:

Kamala's Purple => replace 7 Black or Blue tiles with Green
Thor's Yellow => adds 9 green tiles
Thor's Red => adds 3 Yellow
Storm's Green => when green AP is between 24 - 30

Storm's Blue is the backup plan in case you get stuck.

Drlex

That was kind why I asked what winfinite really means, because I use Thormneto all the time, and while they are great together, I never had what I would call winfinite combo. 

JSP869

Drlex said:

That was kind why I asked what winfinite really means, because I use Thormneto all the time, and while they are great together, I never had what I would call winfinite combo. 

During the Wasp & Ant-Man mini-events (the one with the killer wave nodes) I was only able to beat them by going Winfinite with Nightcrawler, Professor X, and Scarlet Witch, who is really just there to make it easier to get the Bamfinite ball rolling.
Once there's enough purple on the board to make it the majority color you cast BAMF! and if it makes a match 5 Professor X does his floaty head of doom trick (if you still have animations turned on) and gives you more Purple AP, and now you have more Purple AP than before you fired BAMF. So you fire it again, and again, and again

Drlex

I meant I have never had a winfinite combo with them. I have done the bamf, although using Switch is a good idea to help. My Prof is covered but under leveled. My nightcrawler is champed and good to go.