New Event - Support Circuit Updated (1/28/19)

Brigby

Support Circuit

Hi Everyone,

For those of you that have been staying updated on changes to Supports, you’re likely already aware of the upcoming new event: Support Circuit. For those of you that aren’t, please take a look at the Updates to Earning Supports article HERE

We’re taking a deeper dive into this event in this post, so check out the full event details below!

 

 

General

• Each instance of this event lasts 24 hours and recurs weekly. (4 total in 4 weeks)
• Each Leaderboard holds 1,000 players.
• This event is not available during the 1-week-long Pre-Rotation / Post-Circuit period of time.
• Each instance of the event features a different set (or combination of sets) of Minions and enemies.
• There is no designated Buff list for this event.
• Much like most other Story events, this event will have S.H.I.E.L.D. Clearance Levels and Ending Time options.
• Available only to players who have completed the Supports tutorial after acquiring a 3, 4 or 5-Star character

Mission Structure

There are 9 standard Mission pins, unlocked in sequential order, and slightly escalating in difficulty each time. Difficulty range is determined by S.H.I.E.L.D. Clearance Levels and will be in-line with most other Story events.

This event does not feature “Join Forces” missions like a typical Story event though, and there are no “Required Character” missions either.

In addition to the standard Missions, there is also a brand new Mission pin: Large Pins

Large Pins
Once players complete all 9 of the standard Mission pins once, the Large Pin becomes available. Large Pins are a hybrid of Boss pins and Crash of the Titan pins in the sense that your team is up against a single non-boss character, however there are a few special rules:

• Enemies in these pins cannot be Stunned
• Once players complete a Large Pin, that instance of it becomes hidden and a new Large Pin then replaces it.
• Once the third pin is completed, the Large Pin becomes locked and finished.
• These pins will feature different characters each time the event is run.

Large Pins are designed to be a challenge, so they will be difficult for your respective S.H.I.E.L.D. Clearance Level. There is significant reward to beating these pins though, so be sure to choose your team carefully!

Reward Structure

  

Freelancer

So, the only guaranteed Support token is a Top 3 finish...

Richyyy

Okay, so there are placement rewards - how are you deciding placement? Is this like a normal PvE sub where you can do each 'pin' four times before the timer starts, then three more at the end? Are they all one-offs, so it's just whoever finishes them all first in your group of 1000? Would appreciate a bit more info.

JHawkInc

Part of it looks exciting. Progression rewards, plenty of chances to earn tokens, the Large Pin fights should be fun, time slices and SCLs so it's like our typical events, good stuff.

But parts of it are utterly disappointing. Still not one Support Token in progression, anywhere at all. Meaning we have an event designed to give more Supports, and it's entirely possible to get unlucky RNG and get none at all. Not just low level or duplicate supports that aren't very useful, but you can come away with none at all.

A t200 SCL9 player should be able to get 5 vault tokens each week, and that's a decent number of pulls to have a shot at some Supports, but after all this, still nothing is guaranteed. We get guaranteed 3* and 4* covers from progression multiple times a week, form multiple event formats. Supports of equal or LOWER rank should be available as well. The devs seem to be treating Supports as something you chase and build after you're already at high-end gameplay with characters, and they really should be things you advance together. High-end players shouldn't be able to waltz through a Support event with 5* characters and then not even have hopes of getting 1* and 2* Supports. That's just bonkers. It's weird that solely through perseverance and progression rewards you can accumulate the resources required to champion a 5* character, but the idea of letting us have equal access to Supports. I mean, we can't even hoard tokens from Circuit to Circuit in hopes of eventually guaranteeing a few good rewards from the Vault. You can hoard Tacos, 3/day, 15 for each vault type over a 10 day period, and keep going, and eventually you can clear out a 300-item vault and guarantee that Legendary Token, even with the worst possible odds. But like hell are you going to give us equal opportunity to do so with Supports.

That said, seeing Master Support Tokens is exciting. I mean, they might as well not exist because they're only for the highest placement, which is only attainable by the top players, so it's a bit of a "rich get richer" scenario, but the fact that someone will be earning them is better than nothing.

Really, I guess, it'll depend on the token distribution in the vaults, and how lucky we can get with them over the duration of a Circuit. Some good RNG might make it easier to suffer through the fact that you're trying to make Supports more available while also limiting that as much as possible.

Really, the exciting thing about this is that the Large Pin sounds like it might be fun, and there's 10 extra CP a week in it. Can't even get excited about Support Stores being reduced to 16 supports to make it easier to acquire certain ones because there's no guarantee you'll even get to pull from such a store, and we can't hoard resources to attempt to put the odds more in our own favor. Feels like a great big pile of "why bother?"

Maybe that'll drive enough people away that I'll stumble into better placement rewards by accident. That's a silver lining, right?

(or maybe someone can point out where I've got some details wrong and it's actually better than it appears? that'd be nice, too)

Punter1

Freelancer said:

So, the only guaranteed Support token is a Top 3 finish...

And looking at the support vault odds it's not like we're all going to be swimming in supports any time soon!  Another underwhelming update TM!

Brigby

Richyyy said:

Okay, so there are placement rewards - how are you deciding placement? Is this like a normal PvE sub where you can do each 'pin' four times before the timer starts, then three more at the end? Are they all one-offs, so it's just whoever finishes them all first in your group of 1000? Would appreciate a bit more info.

It's the same as a normal Story Event sub where you can repeat missions.

broll

Really?  You had to stick some CP and actual useful stuff in here?  Couldn’t have been all RISO and support junk so I could pretend it doesn’t exist like I do with everything else support related?

SNKAllen

Will the slice times be the same as regular PvE?  It’s difficult enough to find time to grind in slice 3 and if the slices are the same that’s not good for QOL reasons.

Pr0spect0r

Brigby said:

Richyyy said:

Okay, so there are placement rewards - how are you deciding placement? Is this like a normal PvE sub where you can do each 'pin' four times before the timer starts, then three more at the end? Are they all one-offs, so it's just whoever finishes them all first in your group of 1000? Would appreciate a bit more info.

It's the same as a normal Story Event sub where you can repeat missions.

How many times? I don't want to do another 66 clears

DyingLegend

Great another event I can avoid

sinnerjfl

Soooo...  the vault has 240 items in it, only 30 of those will actually give you a Support.
Also, you can earn 4 tokens from progression a week...

And then you must hope to beat the horrendous odds of those tokens too...
Could you just seriously make the vault 100 items? 140? Something more reasonnable.

Punter1

Can you please provide ALL the information first time when updating.  Really obvious stuff like number of clears, sub timings etc is missing.  

Will this run concurrently with other PVEs, or is the aim to run 2x 3-day PVEs in 1 week etc so that this is squeezed in between regular PVE schedule.  I really hope it's the latter as I have zero desire to do double PVE duty on one day.  

This should be a great addition like DPD.  But the addition of placement and lack of actual support rewards means this could be the straw that broke this camel's back.  

MoonKnight

First thing, I really like the fact this is an option, and I like that there are real rewards in this thing, especially the CP. I appreciate the effort to make this an option. 

In regards to the supports side, if a player in SCL7 or higher gets top 100 placement and gets all three large pins, they get 5 tokens to a 240 token vault. That equates to around a 2% chance of getting a real support token in the vault each week. That’s a rather disappointing solution to the problem IMO. The player base gets an improvement, but a very slight one and that stinks. 

fmftint

Are the 9 small pins repeatable for points? How many times?

Dlanning

Brigby said:

Richyyy said:

Okay, so there are placement rewards - how are you deciding placement? Is this like a normal PvE sub where you can do each 'pin' four times before the timer starts, then three more at the end? Are they all one-offs, so it's just whoever finishes them all first in your group of 1000? Would appreciate a bit more info.

It's the same as a normal Story Event sub where you can repeat missions.

So are there time slices like regular pve? Will this basicaly play like a one day pve event? 4 clears and grind at the finish?

Phumade

Can you post a outline of what the event schedule looks like?  I'm having a hard time envisioning the start and end dates.

1.  If the event runs from Monday to Monday.  Does this mean we can play the sub anytime during the 7days?
2.  Correct me if I'm wrong,  but does the entire player base play the same 24hr period?  I.e. Is this a weekly recurring event like LRs ?
3.  Is this really just a series of 1000 player leaderboards?  I just want to know if when we join a bracket has an effect on how we place in the bracket?

I'm not gonna comment on the prizes, because its reasonable to let number crunchers decide prizes,  but I'm still confused on how the event starts and stops

HoundofShadow

For SCL 6 and 7 players, you will get 3 + 1 Support Vault Token from progression each week. That's a total of 12 tokens for 4 weeks, which is 5% of the vault.

For placement, top 1 get a total of 12 Support Vault Tokens. This bring us 24/240, which is 10% of the vault.

Anon

broll said:

Really?  You had to stick some CP and actual useful stuff in here?  Couldn’t have been all RISO and support junk so I could pretend it doesn’t exist like I do with everything else support related?

Pretty much this.

Although I'm still not sure I want to bother...

Brigby

fmftint said:

Are the 9 small pins repeatable for points? How many times?

Dlanning said:

Brigby said:

Richyyy said:

Okay, so there are placement rewards - how are you deciding placement? Is this like a normal PvE sub where you can do each 'pin' four times before the timer starts, then three more at the end? Are they all one-offs, so it's just whoever finishes them all first in your group of 1000? Would appreciate a bit more info.

It's the same as a normal Story Event sub where you can repeat missions.

So are there time slices like regular pve? Will this basicaly play like a one day pve event? 4 clears and grind at the finish?

Missions are repeatable, and there are "time slices." Regular Missions have 6 Mission rewards each, just like a regular Story event, but you only need 4 clears of each to reach max progression rewards.

Phumade said:

Can you post a outline of what the event schedule looks like?  I'm having a hard time envisioning the start and end dates.

1.  If the event runs from Monday to Monday.  Does this mean we can play the sub anytime during the 7days?
2.  Correct me if I'm wrong,  but does the entire player base play the same 24hr period?  I.e. Is this a weekly recurring event like LRs ?
3.  Is this really just a series of 1000 player leaderboards?  I just want to know if when we join a bracket has an effect on how we place in the bracket?

I'm not gonna comment on the prizes, because its reasonable to let number crunchers decide prizes,  but I'm still confused on how the event starts and stops

The first run of this event will start on Monday, 28th, and run for 24 hours. It will run once per week, except during the Pre-Rotation week. Yes, each of these events are 1,000 player leaderboards.

Merrick

This new event will only be available on Monday?

Will there be regular PVEs running at the same time?

Bubba3210

So even more grinding...where are the quality of life changes?  I was playing two to three hours a day until I decided this game was interfering with life.  Why not add the rewards into an existing pve?