Revised Event: Welcome to S.H.I.E.L.D.

Vhailorx

Palookaville said:

Not much point in trying the final level even with a champed OML when he can be easily one shotted by multiple characters on the opposing team.

In some ways, a high-champ oml is a detriment.  With valk, he will make bounty generate black rather than yellow ap.  That would be bad in this event where tike boosting is probably the best option.

Exray

Due to the difficulty of the 5* nodes and the relatively small shard rewards I personally prefer the old shield training. I'd rather be prevented from completing a node due to lacking a character or one which isn't high lvl enough than the trouble the 5* nodes are causing because it encouraged roster expansion. As I only have about 25% of 4* champed i understand I'm not supposed to always get every reward but just buying enough time to use mega-whales isn't very fun which is the strategy a lot of people are forced into.

Omegased

Mayo said:

ST original was a better deal.

no way. There's no way on earth the original was the better layout.

The 5star levels are comparable to the bottom row of the old shield training, that no one could ever complete because you needed 10 covers of the brand new character.

At least in this version, I have the opportunity to play more, just Patsy more, and effectively get more rewards.

shardwick

Welcome to SHIELD to be renamed Welcome to Deadpool's Monthly Mega Whales.

Jormagund

Long post coming up, sorry if I meander a bit; hopefully some good points buried somewhere and ideally useful for the Devs when they evaluate the release.

Day 3 5E node

Had a few minutes earlier so thought I'd try Welcome to Shield, did the 2-4 nodes and thought I'd try a quick clear with Deadpool and Whales.  I got the AP with about 1/3 health left on all characters and stupidly dropped a single whale rather than going for cetacean bombardment.  Their might have been some swearing, fortunately no-one was present so the truth will never be known.

After the PVE grind went back for some more tries and back to Valkyrie (275, mistakenly said 273 yesterday) and my un-levelled OML.

First try the AI got a bit lucky with cascades and got enough AP to finish me but even so I managed to take down Thing and Starlord and had Mordo on about 2/3 health.  Probably two moves away from victory.

Second try went well and all three characters survived with about two thirds health.  Same strategy as yesterday, chase the bounty to get Yellow and keep their AP in check and fire Patsy's yellow as soon as possible, just have to accept the Starlord CD at early stages.  Once the strikes start getting beefy all yellow will probably be covered so you can continue chasing the bounty and even if Thing gets some protects out they're insignificant compared to the number of boosted Strikes out.  By the time I realized I had enough red for Valkyrie it was worth 5*40K.  Thing was rubble and Valkyrie's damage allowed me to one shot Starlord (he was closer to firing powers) and take Mordo to have health. As I hadn't been tracking red closely I had enough left over for Patsy to fire and the row damage/power damage did the rest.

Key to me for this team is actually having the lower health OML, you want Patsy to have the strongest colour for the yellow.  If you've got the right support to boost yellow damage on a stronger OML I'm sure it would work even better.

Possibly a bit premature as we still have a day left but I think we've experienced enough of this to have a good impression of the event.

Communication.

Glad to see there was an announcement about the event but I think it would help a lot if there was a concerted effort for an official presence in the thread throughout the duration of the event.  This has been covered to death elsewhere though and isn't topic specific so I'll leave it there.

Accessibility.

@ArchusMonk I'm that four star player who feels this is more accessible.  When the old shield training was pulled I had about 25 four star champs and about 60 characters with ten covers.  I had only managed to have the three essential characters at a suitable level to participate for the four star cover three times, all in the previous two months.  I usually was able to complete one or two columns but either RNG meant the 3rd was a classic too low to target as a BH/with shards or it was a new character I didn't have a chance of having at the right level.

Now I'm at 41 champs and have a further 47 characters with enough covers to level to 209 so if the old style was still going I would probably be able to get the new 4* cover most times.  However in this event I'll probably be able to play all the nodes (missing three 5*s but otherwise have everyone rostered) every time and then it's up to me to find a winning combination or use whales.  Even if I can't complete it now, sooner or later I will when I start levelling 5*s.  Even six plus months ago I had most of the 5*s so would have been able to participate more often than not.  I definitely couldn't under the old format.

Challenge.

Overall I'm OK with the event.  2E-4E have been trivial but presumably have some challenge for beginner/3* rosters.  5E has been tricky but fun however I think that is mainly because Patsy seems to have a useful tool kit, particularly her yellow for damage amplification.  I can see this being a real challenge next time we have an Emma/Talos/Mysterio/Karolina/Northstrar.  However if it's too tough for my roster I can just aim to tough it out for whales (and hope the Devs forget about Nightcrawler/Quake).

What I would prefer to see is a bit more balance in the scaling of the nodes.  On Day 3 the 2E node only just gets to 2* champ level equivalence, nowhere near max champ level.  The 3E node doesn't even reach 3* champ levels.  Seems strange that the 4E and 5E nodes are then higher than max champ levels.  I think I'd raise the difficulty on the 2E and 3E and lower it a bit on the 4E and 5E.

Alternatively they can scale the challenge to your roster so why not do that?  Scale it so you're playing characters a set number of levels higher than your current roster to make it challenging but not prohibitive as it is now.  The idea is to showcase the new character and they've given us a sandbox but we can't try that many combinations, at least at 5E as the enemy is too strong and will not let you try that many different combinations/mechanics and still win.  I visualize something like the 2E having enemies your level on D1, 10 levels higher on D2, 20 levels higher on D3.  3E enemies D1 ten levels higher, D2 30 levels, D3 50 levels. 4E D1 20 levels, D2 40 levels, D3 60 levels.  5E D1 25 levels, D2 50 levels, D3 75 levels.  Obviously the numbers/levels could be play tested to find something more suitable than my initial feelings.

Why not try experimenting with the levels/scalings for a few events and see from feedback/participation whether there is a better way.  It seems to me that quite often you will release new content into the game but are then reluctant to listen to any criticism, hopefully mainly intended to be constructive and instead stick to the original format from stubbornness.

Rewards.

This is where I'm torn, as mentioned above I wasn't at the stage of regularly completing the old ST.  Can't really remember the other rewards aside from the new 4* and the LL token.  To be honest it's something extra to PVE/PVP and not time gated so I'm happy with a handful of ISO, tokens and CP.  The key difference is not getting a full cover for the new character.

On the one hand I'm not too bothered as the release events and PVE rewards while the character is in latest make covering characters so much easier.  I usually left the release event with 3-4 covers pre shards and if I was lucky had the character at 8-10 covers by the time they dropped out of latest rotation.  Now it is easy to champ them before they disappear into the abyss that is classics.  Looking at the most recent releases here's how the recent characters rate on my roster:

Spider-Man 2099 (pre shards): 10 covers

Wolfsbane (pre shards): 10 covers

M.O.D.O.K. (pre shards): 12 covers

Karolina Dean (shards roll out): 23 covers

Northstar (shards roll out): 15 covers

Karnak (post shards): 30 covers

Maria Hill (post shards): 13 covers

Super-Skrull (post shards): 15 covers

Hellcat (post shards): 6 covers

I did sharget Karnak to champ him as soon as possible but I think only for three covers worth of shards, they've just been generous with opportunities to earn him.

Therefore I'm not struggling to cover new characters so won't really miss 200 shards, however that also makes a case for the prosecution.

I'm in a reasonable but not top alliance and we normally get about top 250 in PVE so I don't get any 4* character tokens there.  Personally I'm usually 100-200 in SCL10 PVP and either top 50 or top 100 in PVE, almost always playing SCL 8 or 9.  I'm not racking up massive amounts of covers but get by quite well from the shards in PVE progression/placement to give incremental covers for new characters.  Competitive players are going to champion new characters very easily and even casual players will pick up covers faster.  So in the in game economy how important are those 200 shards?  The very fact that they're not important makes me question why the devs took them away.  It's come up time and time again on the forums but why do the Devs feel the need to take with the other hand every time they give us something.  Giving out 200 extra 4* shards once a month is hardly going to dent the in game economy and stopping this parsimonious clawback would go a long way towards building goodwill and customer rapport.  I'm sure some people are upset about the change in format and the challenge levels but why shoot yourself in the foot by reducing one of the two most obvious rewards from the event?  Why not generate goodwill/interest by making rewards better, even if only a small increment?

Fun.

This is where I think the event shines.  In the old ST yes you had one on one battles but I could only ever do the first 1-3 depending on how lucky I was.  Playing with an under-levelled and under-covered character did not really let you experience them to the full extent.  Here you get to play both as and against (nice touch) a full covered character in one on one.

There was only one team battle and against fixed opponents, more often than not either the opponents or even worse your own team hamstrung the new character.  If that didn't happen more than likely they were dead weight while you won the fight with your other characters.  Here you get three nodes with a 4* and three with a 5* against different opponents.  You have the choice of the third so can try multiple teams or ideas (I want to test Hound's idea of using Prof XXXX) and even if you can't win can see how the character will interact.  I also like the fact that the loaner is boosted and not just level 270 so you're more likely to be chasing their colours and using their powers.

Overall it's a great sandbox for demonstrating the new character and will I believe promote more interest in chasing/using them than either the old ST or the complete lack of a release event.  Of course now it's on the Devs to make sure at the minimum for 3-4* players that the new releases are good or unique enough to warrant chasing...

The only complaint I have with the new event is the timing.  Release PVPs are basically the only ones where I have a chance of reaching the top prize by going on a win based strategy.  So if I'm trying to do 75 PVP matches, along with the normal PVE grinds, I have less time to play in the Sandbox.  Be great if they ran at the same time as Alliance events when there is usually more free time and an extra event like this might even be welcome.  (I realize the irony in spending all the time writing this when I could have been losing with various teams on the 5E node.)

A possible thought for an improvement would be to add another node, not necessarily with any progression or node rewards but where it will generate three random opponents at a set level, or even let you choose the opponents and you can take in the Patsy loaner plus two of your choice?  It's been mentioned before but giving us a bigger test area would be awesome.

So overall, I'm mostly positive about the new format of the release event and hope I don't eat these words tomorrow.  A couple of minor frustrations or negative points from my perspective but mainly happy, as a rating I'd say 7/10.

If any of you bothered reading this, thanks for sticking with me, I'm off to bandage up what's left of my fingers.

Feliz

Still loving rhis event, despiteinsane difficulty of last node lol

Bubba3210

My son told me to bring in deadpool instead of his teamup. Not paying attention, I started matching teamups until he told me to match purple! 

I can’t wait for tomorrow’s wave to see if Deadpool can get 28 purple or if I can get 28 teamups. 

I have six 5* champed but none of them could have taken one hit from Thing or Mordo and survived. I am assuming match damage chips away quite a bit before the end.  I’m definitely not a fan of this revised shield version. 

Vhailorx

Omegased said:

Mayo said:

ST original was a better deal.

no way. There's no way on earth the original was the better layout.

The 5star levels are comparable to the bottom row of the old shield training, that no one could ever complete because you needed 10 covers of the brand new character.

At least in this version, I have the opportunity to play more, just Patsy more, and effectively get more rewards.

These 5* nodes may (or may not) be more fun than the bottom row of 1v1s from old shield training, but at least those old nodes offered cp rewards.  Will there even be any cp rewards in welcome to shield?

edit: there are 4cp in the event.  so better than nothing.

HoundofShadow

I'm a 4* player, not a 5* player. 

I think what you want is full accessibility, rather than "more" accessibility as a whole. Also, it seems like we have different interpretation of what  "new players" mean. My definition of new players include 1* players to transitioning 4* players. On average, players take about 8-12 months to step into 4* land. 

In the old ST, the accessibility was designed in mind for purely long time (competitive) players and whales. That's why a lot of new players complained about being able to play only one loaner node and getting locked out of the rest. Even 5* non-competitive players were complaining about needing newer 4* essential levelled to 209. 

In this new ST, it's really obvious that new players were considered during their revision. If you are a 3* player, you can access up to 10 nodes or even 12 nodes, instead of only 1 node. This is totally impossible in the old ST.

I happened to play the game shortly after the old ST was released. I could play only one node in the second ST. As each new ST begins, I realised that I could play more and more nodes until I was able to play the entire 12 nodes without fail after a year plus or so of competitive playing. To me, that was one way of measuring my progress. What happens if I don't have OML? It's not any different from not having old or new character levelled to 209. I simply play the maximum number of nodes I could, and work on a plan to roster as many 5* as possible.

If the dev decided to give a low level 5* loaner in Day 2 and Day 3 5* nodes, please lock out 3* Deadpool and Whales teamup. This node is called Test of Skill, not Test of Whales. If not, you might as well change those 5 stars  into 3* Deadpool lying on side or an image of whale.

After this event ends, I hope they don't put it back in the freezer again because this is what happened to Fight for Wakanda. 

If anyone has Nico Minoru, she works really well too. The only time I lost is when enemy cascades into multiple matches. This is what I did: collect blue and purple ap for Nico, yellow ap for Hellcat. Fire yellow, followed by purple and then stun Starlord for 5 turns (3 + 2 due to removal of his 2 CD tiles).

I'm looking forward to today's wave nodes. They are giving us max level 4* and 5* loaners, so Bishop and Whales might not save you. It's likely opponents are levelled 650.

Edit: These are the list of characters I used to beat Day 2 and Day 3 5* nodes:

3* characters
Blade
Mystique

4* characters
Karnak
Eddie Brock
C&D
Bishop
Valkyrie
Prof X
Gamora
Nico
Ronin
Wasp
Mysterio
America Chavez
Agent Coulson

Test of Skill is not your typical "make any matches, gain aps, fire powers and win the match" routine, like using Thorokoye or Juggernaut/R4G in PvE. If you are working with a one cover OML and championed 4*, you have to think who to tank/sacrifice for your next move, when to fire power, etc. It took me about five minutes to complete one match compared to my usual 1 minute/match win in PvEs.

axmoss

If the devs are keen on "Showing off the New Character" I think they could make a true "Danger Room". Where it is fully customizable including, but not limited to:

-Every Character available, with Cover/s and Level customizations
-Set team count: 3 v Wave(s), 1v1, 3v3, 1v3, etc.
-Aggressiveness of the AI: Standard vs DANGER! (where the AI can match any pattern 5-match--for those that complain about how AI misses L- and T- shaped 5-matches)
-Health Regen: Can be set to regen (both teams) after every round or when it reaches a certain % threshold, i.e. 50%, 40%, 25%, etc.
-Team-Ups and Boosts at your cost: have to keep asking for more TUs from your alliance members.

2 1v1 nodes can hardly show what the new character can do. I don't know how many people are using the Featured character for the 2-star and 3-star nodes, since she's a loaner, but not a forced team member. 

Mayo

HoundofShadow said:

I'm a 4* player, not a 5* player. 

I think what you want is full accessibility, rather than "more" accessibility as a whole. Also, it seems like we have different interpretation of what  "new players" mean. My definition of new players include 1* players to transitioning 4* players. On average, players take about 8-12 months to step into 4* land. 

In the old ST, the accessibility was designed in mind for purely long time (competitive) players and whales. That's why a lot of new players complained about being able to play only one loaner node and getting locked out of the rest. Even 5* non-competitive players were complaining about needing newer 4* essential levelled to 209. 

In this new ST, it's really obvious that new players were considered during their revision. If you are a 3* player, you can access up to 10 nodes or even 12 nodes, instead of only 1 node. This is totally impossible in the old ST.

I happened to play the game shortly after the old ST was released. I could play only one node in the second ST. As each new ST begins, I realised that I could play more and more nodes until I was able to play the entire 12 nodes without fail after a year plus or so of competitive playing. To me, that was one way of measuring my progress. What happens if I don't have OML? It's not any different from not having old or new character levelled to 209. I simply play the maximum number of nodes I could, and work on a plan to roster as many 5* as possible.

If the dev decided to give a low level 5* loaner in Day 2 and Day 3 5* nodes, please lock out 3* Deadpool and Whales teamup. This node is called Test of Skill, not Test of Whales. If not, you might as well change those 5 stars  into 3* Deadpool lying on side or an image of whale.

After this event ends, I hope they don't put it back in the freezer again because this is what happened to Fight for Wakanda. 

If anyone has Nico Minoru, she works really well too. The only time I lost is when enemy cascades into multiple matches. This is what I did: collect blue and purple ap for Nico, yellow ap for Hellcat. Fire yellow, followed by purple and then stun Starlord for 5 turns (3 + 2 due to removal of his 2 CD tiles).

I'm looking forward to today's wave nodes. They are giving us max level 4* and 5* loaners, so Bishop and Whales might not save you. It's likely opponents are levelled 650.

Edit: These are the list of characters I used to beat Day 2 and Day 3 5* nodes:

3* characters
Blade
Mystique

4* characters
Karnak
Eddie Brock
C&D
Bishop
Valkyrie
Prof X
Gamora
Nico
Ronin
Wasp
Mysterio
America Chavez
Agent Coulson

Test of Skill is not your typical "make any matches, gain aps, fire powers and win the match" routine, like using Thorokoye or Juggernaut/R4G in PvE. If you are working with a one cover OML and championed 4*, you have to think who to tank/sacrifice for your next move, when to fire power, etc. It took me about five minutes to complete one match compared to my usual 1 minute/match win in PvEs.

What value does it have this new ST if even doing more nodes you can't get even the same rewards as the old system? How is more accesible if instead of one 4* character you need also a fixed 5*? Many players beat the difficult node with whales only... Is that a good strategy designed only for the high level players that can accesos that node? Where is the test in skill? Lmao

Btw, i did the hard node within 2 tries and still won't be spending hp for this event as it is. Too much trouble for so little reward. 

HoundofShadow

You are assessing the accessibility of ST based on where you in the game, whereas I'm assessing the accessibility of ST based on the entire playerbase as a whole. I do agree that that there are some group of players who might be at a slight disadvantage after the new change.

Looking at the change as a whole, majority of the players have access to more nodes in ST. Not only that, the pressure to level unpredictable choices of three 4* characters to 209 have been greatly reduced. Now, you need only 1 cover of 4* to play the node and 1 cover of 5* to play the node. I 

For 5* players, they do not have to whale the newest characters to win the LT in the last node. 

If you've noticed, the new ST was also balanced based on the entire resources available in the game. I think the 5* requirement was a tradeoff from the pressure from four 4* required characters.

You just answered your own question. They don't have the skills to beat the nodes, or they are simply too lazy to prove that they can do it, that's why they are relying on whales. I have beaten this node with 3* characters and 4* characters. Likewise, many players have done so. 

turbomoose

qandols said:

turbomoose said:

The 5* node took me a number of tries but I got it eventually, I think if it’s going to be that hard there should be a bigger reward than a few shards 

I suspect in future training events we can look forward to The Royal family and rocket/kitty fights if this is anything to go by 

was fun to have a challenge though 

What did you use to win?

Okoye I think and some plus points on red and yellow, 50% damage and 2 extra on team ups. Take out Riri first

mega ghost

The event is much better in terms of accessibility, fun, and challenge, and best of all the new character is properly showcased! My only complaint is the weak rewards. With the difficulty offered in some nodes, there's no reason we shouldn't see a full cover and then some.

EDIT: The Legendary Token in today's final node was a nice surprise, but I''d still like to see a full cover's worth of shards added to these in the future.

PuceMoose

To my shock I managed the "killer node" today on my first try (the board was very generous to me, with lots of the colors I needed). I used my 255 4/1/3 Logan and 274 Bishop. Bishop managed to stun the whole enemy team before dying, which gave me time to get two of Patsy's tile buffing repeaters out. By the time the enemy recovered I had 20k+ of strike tiles, and a few lucky cascades took care of the rest. I also felt rather smug when Starlord used his red with three countdowns on the board, taking out Bishop... who had 462 HP left. OML died pretty quickly after that, and Patsy popped Mordo and was left swaying on her feet with about 10k health left at the end of it. 

The rockett

Loved this event until this final wave.  It was way too easy verses the rest of it. Wish they would have kept it a bit harder for sure.  

halirin

That was anticlimactic. Did they forget 300 levels?

HoundofShadow

I think they nerfed the levels. I hope they don't put it into cold storage seeing how "unpopular" this new revision is.
It was really anticlimatic.

What can I trade the extra 150 points for? 

Omegased

Vhailorx said:

Omegased said:

Mayo said:

ST original was a better deal.

no way. There's no way on earth the original was the better layout.

The 5star levels are comparable to the bottom row of the old shield training, that no one could ever complete because you needed 10 covers of the brand new character.

At least in this version, I have the opportunity to play more, just Patsy more, and effectively get more rewards.

These 5* nodes may (or may not) be more fun than the bottom row of 1v1s from old shield training, but at least those old nodes offered cp rewards.  Will there even be any cp rewards in welcome to shield?

Huh? The far right row all have cp and the last wave node gave a LL. have you even played it before you complained?

Loosie

That was unexpectedly easy today. Not only do they give you a high-levelled Hellcat, you can also use high-levelled OML and Carnage, or anyone else you want. And it's only level 220-270.

They made it sound like this would be the most difficult node. Plus you get an LL.

Now..you do have to complete everything else, so it's possible they are making the other training sessions the gate, and this is just a fun...hey got this far. Play!