New Alliance Event - Sinister 600 *Updated (12/12/18)

gentgeen

Maybe someone already noted this... but I was just doing the math, and to get full personal progress you only have 2,600 points of "wiggle room"

9,900 a day ... time 4 days = 39,600   and full personal progression requires 37,000

Salacious_D

Putting a 5* essential in orange was a mistake. I'm in the early stages of 3* play with only Hood left to roster and six champions. I did most of orange yesterday with a 2-cover Iron Fist and 1-cover Domino and enjoyed the challenge, but have already dropped too many points for full personal progression. Have dropped to yellow to at least get to the Domino cover but the alliance rewards there are comical. Next time that sub should be 4/3/2 for essentials to give the earlier stage players a chance to contribute.

NotBAMF

The red Nebula covers but is infuriating to my 3/3/10 Nebula that already has 5 saved red covers. What a waste. I should have taken this event off. 

peanut_gallery

NotBAMF said:

The red Nebula covers but is infuriating to my 3/3/10 Nebula that already has 5 saved red covers. What a waste. I should have taken this event off. 

Indeed. I'm in the same boat.  D3 has been hawking nothing nut Red Nebula for a while, too.  I feel like this event is majorly trolling me.  For a boss event (and new 5* character launch), these rewards seems to be a big middle finger to players.

AtlasAxe

NotBAMF said:

The red Nebula covers but is infuriating to my 3/3/10 Nebula that already has 5 saved red covers. What a waste. I should have taken this event off. 

2/5/5 with 8 saved to start. Will be 12 saves when done. Highly obnoxious.

jamesh

So on the first day, my alliance mostly played the hard sub-chapter (except for a small number who didn't have the rosters for it) and we got within spitting distance of the 3* Blade cover reward.  It was a bit depressing, and felt like we were failures.

About an hour before the end of the sub, I happened to have a look at the alliance leader board for the sub-chapter, and we were ranked #54.  Looking at the top ranked alliances, it seems only ~ 10 would have got the Nebula cover.  That's a crazy low pay out if you want players to feel good about cooperating with their alliance.

HoundofShadow

I think they updated the game with pop-up about making your choice carefully and 5* Dr. Ock being required for hard mode. 

I don't remember seeing this on the first day. Does anyone remember seeing these pop-ups on the first day?

rixmith

I recall seeing those pop-ups on the first day,

HoundofShadow

I must have clicked too fast, or I need to include more Omega-3 in my diet 

Thanks for helping @rixmith

bluewolf

Depending on your alliance and how you do, where they go, etc, you can potentially collect a lot of tokens for the event vault.  They come from a couple nodes (I think 2, maybe 3), and each sub has one for the alliance, and one for personal progression.  That comes out to around 17 at least.  The point being that while no guarantee, its pretty likely you'll get the LT from the vault, and/or a good amount of 3's and maybe a 4.  That is a lot different than a boss alliance event where you only usually get maybe 3-4 tokens in the progression rewards total.

It's a bit of a boost in (RNG) rewards which is kind of nice.

Lebeau007

bluewolf said:

Depending on your alliance and how you do, where they go, etc, you can potentially collect a lot of tokens for the event vault.  They come from a couple nodes (I think 2, maybe 3), and each sub has one for the alliance, and one for personal progression.  That comes out to around 17 at least.  The point being that while no guarantee, its pretty likely you'll get the LT from the vault, and/or a good amount of 3's and maybe a 4.  That is a lot different than a boss alliance event where you only usually get maybe 3-4 tokens in the progression rewards total.

It's a bit of a boost in (RNG) rewards which is kind of nice.

So far my 9 tokens have yielded:

1 duplicate support token
3* Luke Cage
3* Blade
3* Cyclops
2 @* Dakens
2* Storm
2* Wolverine
2* Magneto

If we're lucky, my alliance will get 3 red Nebula covers.  My Nebula is currently 1-2-6.  Don't see redeeming those three new saved covers any time soon.

Since I don't have 5* Ock, I won't get Domino or the LT from personal progression.

All in all, these rewards are the worst I have ever gotten for any PVE event.  Not limited to worst boss event.  Any PVE.

Maybe the vault will be kinder in days 3 or 4.

Lebeau007

gentgeen said:

Maybe someone already noted this... but I was just doing the math, and to get full personal progress you only have 2,600 points of "wiggle room"

9,900 a day ... time 4 days = 39,600   and full personal progression requires 37,000

Oh I have noticed!  Not having Doc Ock is costing me big time!

HoundofShadow

I tried to do a comparison for rewards between typical alliance event and Sinister 600. It's not easy to compare for both events due to a lot of differences between both events. This is the maximum rewards for both under certain conditions:

Consolidated rewards (individual progression + alliance progression + side nodes & boss nodes):  Typical Alliance (Boss) Event vs Sinister 600 (14 in Hard Mode and 6 in Medium Mode) 

Typical alliance event vs Sinister 600

1. Event Token: 4 vs 17

2. Elite Token: 0 vs 9

3. Heroic Token: 0 vs 5

4. Legendary Token: 2 vs 1

5. 2-Star Comic Cover: 1 vs 13

6. 3-Star Comic Cover: 5 vs 6

7. 4-Star Comic Cover: 4 vs 5

8. Hero Points: 50 vs 45 

9. Command Point: up to 30 vs 21

10. Iso-8: up to 60,300 vs 61,170

11. Red Iso-8: 15,300 vs 17,850

12. Power Boost: 1 + up to 10 Mystery Boost vs 1

13. Health Pack: 1 vs 1

14. Stockpile: 1 vs 1

15. Recruit Token: 0 vs 16

Note: The medium node alliance progression rewards for 6 full clears over 4 days are: 4 Event Tokens, 4 Elite Tokens, 8 2-star Comic Covers, 5000 Red Iso.

If your alliance are doing Deadly + Hard nodes, you will get more Heroic Tokens, at least 40 CP,  and more 3* covers.

Differences between both Typical Alliance Event (TAE) vs Sinister 600 (S600)

1. Nodes Reset:
TAE: 8 hours refresh (10 refreshes in total). Might have to play every 8 hours to hit 6 boss node clears per refresh, depending on the strength of alliance.
S600: 24 hours refresh. 24 hours to finish all 38 nodes per day 

2. Points:
TAE: Points are reduced for wave nodes and boss node if you lose (?please verify) and boss nodes are locked if you lose. 
S600: you can retry multiple times if you lose without points penalty.

3. Rewards structure:
TAE: fixed
S600: more flexible

4. Number of nodes to clear (maximum)
TAE: 6 boss nodes + 6 side nodes * 10 refreshes: 120 clears
S600: 38 * 4 days = 152 clears

5. Difficulty level
TAE: increases every 8 hours(?) for side nodes and increases every round clear for boss nodes. Not much control or close to no control. No essential 5* nodes.
S600: the difficulty level range is fixed for each difficulty but players can choose a different difficulty level each day if they want. There are essential 5* nodes.

6. How do members in an alliance affect alliance progression rewards?
TAE: 3* or 4* players can make up point losses for new players or players without the essential. Not all members need to play if there are enough high level players. Can be cleared in 36 or 48 hours? by very high leveled alliance.
S600: makes full use of all 20 members in an alliance. 4 full days of play are needed.

It's really tricky to compare rewards for both styles of alliance events because it depends a lot on the strength of the alliance and the choices made.

Smart80

Lebeau007 said:

bluewolf said:

Depending on your alliance and how you do, where they go, etc, you can potentially collect a lot of tokens for the event vault.  They come from a couple nodes (I think 2, maybe 3), and each sub has one for the alliance, and one for personal progression.  That comes out to around 17 at least.  The point being that while no guarantee, its pretty likely you'll get the LT from the vault, and/or a good amount of 3's and maybe a 4.  That is a lot different than a boss alliance event where you only usually get maybe 3-4 tokens in the progression rewards total.

It's a bit of a boost in (RNG) rewards which is kind of nice.

So far my 9 tokens have yielded:

1 duplicate support token
3* Luke Cage
3* Blade
3* Cyclops
2 @* Dakens
2* Storm
2* Wolverine
2* Magneto

If we're lucky, my alliance will get 3 red Nebula covers.  My Nebula is currently 1-2-6.  Don't see redeeming those three new saved covers any time soon.

Since I don't have 5* Ock, I won't get Domino or the LT from personal progression.

All in all, these rewards are the worst I have ever gotten for any PVE event.  Not limited to worst boss event.  Any PVE.

Maybe the vault will be kinder in days 3 or 4.

LT from personal progression can be reached by every player though, also without 5* Ock. Just gotta drop a little lower

bluewolf

@HoundofShadow

I appreciate your attempt to make a comparison between 600 and other Alliance events.  A couple more points:

Time spent:
TAE:  Top level players will have at least one day of super fast clears with the trivial first day, and the second day is usually not that hard either.  And you're done by the time the difficulty ramps up in the 3rd day, in a top alliance.  This may be a negative for some players looking for a challenge, but others like the break from the game for a day or so.
S600:  IF you choose to maximize rewards (as most of us do), you will be playing longer every day without any super fast clears.

Stress:
TAE:  As you point out, boss rewards have enough flexibility that everyone gets all available rewards if you have a solid core (probably 12) who reach personal progression (which is already appealing with the Legendary store token), and some others coming in with more points will easily push your alliance to maximum progression.  Top alliances are done early and you have a lot of extra points available if things don't work as well as you hope.
S600:  If you set high goals for yourself within the available rewards, you will likely be waiting to see if people clear their nodes, meet their points etc.  We missed the day 1 Nebula by about 4500 points with someone not finishing his clears.  Is this because we are being too "greedy"?  If you don't spread out 20 people to different subs, you are definitely losing out on rewards.  So the choice could be made to reduce your stress and give your team flexibility by just putting everyone in one sub, but that seems a bit silly when every player must play every day, almost to full clears, to be able to reach personal progression.  So if everyone is interested in personal progression, it just makes sense to spread out to maximize alliance rewards for all the effort those players are putting in.  Which increases work and stress to make that happen, far beyond the boss events.

Lebeau007

Smart80 said:

Lebeau007 said:

bluewolf said:

Depending on your alliance and how you do, where they go, etc, you can potentially collect a lot of tokens for the event vault.  They come from a couple nodes (I think 2, maybe 3), and each sub has one for the alliance, and one for personal progression.  That comes out to around 17 at least.  The point being that while no guarantee, its pretty likely you'll get the LT from the vault, and/or a good amount of 3's and maybe a 4.  That is a lot different than a boss alliance event where you only usually get maybe 3-4 tokens in the progression rewards total.

It's a bit of a boost in (RNG) rewards which is kind of nice.

So far my 9 tokens have yielded:

1 duplicate support token
3* Luke Cage
3* Blade
3* Cyclops
2 @* Dakens
2* Storm
2* Wolverine
2* Magneto

If we're lucky, my alliance will get 3 red Nebula covers.  My Nebula is currently 1-2-6.  Don't see redeeming those three new saved covers any time soon.

Since I don't have 5* Ock, I won't get Domino or the LT from personal progression.

All in all, these rewards are the worst I have ever gotten for any PVE event.  Not limited to worst boss event.  Any PVE.

Maybe the vault will be kinder in days 3 or 4.

LT from personal progression can be reached by every player though, also without 5* Ock. Just gotta drop a little lower

My alliance wants the Nebula tokens.  They won't help me at all but I'm taking one for the team.

HoundofShadow

And that's why it's tricky to compare both alliance events rewards... There are plus and minuses depending on your alliance strength. 

The stress level for both are definitely different, as you pointed out. Typical alliance events are a walk in the park for strong alliances and they are done by the 48th(?) hour but I can see the stress level for this new structure because all or at least 14 members must be able to clear all 35 nodes to get the maximum alliance progression rewards each day. The stress level for TAE could be higher if your alliance need 10 refreshes to hit the last alliance progression rewards.

Rewards aside, I see this as an "attempt" to address two feedbacks: 1) strong alliances have nothing to do on the 3rd or 4th day of a typical alliance event and 2) SCL in alliance events. Like any new experiment, there are always room for improvements... 

I think one interesting question to ask is:

What does alliance event mean?

1) Should all 20 members of an alliance work together to get the maximum alliance progression rewards for future new alliance events, leaving a small room for errors, and that is to say every member is important and crucial? (Sinister 600)

Or

2) Should the margin of errors be wider, and that is to say, the alliance can do without a few members to get maximum alliance progression rewards (TAE)?

3) others?

This could help the devs to finetune how future alliance points could be structured.

AlexR

HoundofShadow said:

And that's why it's tricky to compare both alliance events rewards... There are plus and minuses depending on your alliance strength. 

The stress level for both are definitely different, as you pointed out. Typical alliance events are a walk in the park for strong alliances and they are done by the 48th(?) hour but I can see the stress level for this new structure because all or at least 14 members must be able to clear all 35 nodes to get the maximum alliance progression rewards each day. The stress level for TAE could be higher if your alliance need 10 refreshes to hit the last alliance progression rewards.

Rewards aside, I see this as an "attempt" to address two feedbacks: 1) strong alliances have nothing to do on the 3rd or 4th day of a typical alliance event and 2) SCL in alliance events. Like any new experiment, there are always room for improvements... 

I think one interesting question to ask is:

What does alliance event mean?

1) Should all 20 members of an alliance work together to get the maximum alliance progression rewards for future new alliance events, leaving a small room for errors, and that is to say every member is important and crucial? (Sinister 600)

Or

2) Should the margin of errors be wider, and that is to say, the alliance can do without a few members to get maximum alliance progression rewards (TAE)?

3) others?

This could help the devs to finetune how future alliance points could be structured.

That's not that much of a question. Because only high-end/hardcore alliances will have 20 members who fully participate. Even solid semi-casual t250 alliances who fully clear boss events don't always make it to 14 people who reach boss full progression; it's not unusual that it's more like 10-12 with the top players overcompensating by going way beyond full progression + a bunch of lesser point totals varying from 3/4 points progression to 1/2 points to very token efforts.

If you decide you want all 20 members to work together and structure your event for that with a small room for error, you're essentially only making your event for a small subset of players - the most hardcore alliances and leave everyone else out in the dust, especially with super backlogged rewards like these. All other alliances, even those who do decently in placements and boss events, will generally always have some slackers and some people who don't play and some people who only play half-way. That's just how it is.

And that's only talking about solid semi-casual alliances that can clear boss events and not actual casual alliances.

So, imo, you need your margin of error to be wider to make alliance events be accessable and fun for most people rather than punishing. Or alternatively if you wanted to structure your alliance events for a smaller margin of error, then you'd at least need to take that into account and not backlog rewards so much. Otherwise your solution to "strong alliances have nothing to do on the third/fourth day" is "less-strong alliances don't even need to bother trying, because the rewards that matter are completely inaccessable".

Rebel

The worst event ever!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’m out of words

Theghouse

This event has been pretty demoralizing and really anything but fun.

As a player with only 4 4* champs - who played deadly in Places of Power with no issues - I got completely steam rolled in deadly.  After doing the math, I realized this single choice on day 1 had just thrown out any chance at the top personal progression reward for the entire 4 day event.

Our alliance has not missed a full alliance event clear since we started 2 years ago.  Over half of our alliance hits full event progression on alliance events, while the rest put up a good chunk of points to get us all to max alliance progression.  A majority of our members ended up with no chance of max progression from the first day's attempt at deadly in this event.  We were also nowhere near the max daily progression for the deadly sub.

Our strategy for day 2 was move down to hard because clearly deadly was not realistic.  Unless we get some sort of miraculous push, we will wind up short of max daily progression for the hard sub.

During alliance events there is normally a great energy and camaraderie as we're all working to beat the event together.  That is absent from this event, replaced by feelings of disappointment and defeat since early on day 1.

There were cool new features in this event like solo battles, but I've been unfortunately unable to fully appreciate them because of the overwhelming disappointment in how the event is turning out for our alliance.