I've quite liked the sentry event

Unknown

Might be in the minority here but compared to almost every PVE event since Black Panther was introduced... the sentry one hasn't been absolute garbage!

Most of the opponents have been ranging from lvl 40 to lvl 100 except for this last round where it's ramped up to 135 ish but that's fine by me because as a mid-tier payer with mostly maxed 2* I've actually been able to finish all the nodes. Some were easy some were pretty tough but that's what I would expect without stronger rosters.

Also, there I haven't noticed that I am forced to connect environment tiles whilst I watch the enemy cascade thousands of tiles (i'm looking at you heroic modes!) and we haven't seen massive restrictions on rosters (i'm still looking at you heroic modes!)

Plus the story isn't just a re-hash... not that I really care but hey, it's a bit more interesting than normal.

The only complaint I do have is that the middle stages had pathetic points for each node - most likely in a blatent attempt to make it impossible for most people to reach the final rewards but that is just standard for MPQ. That said I have actually seen a handful of people with the top reward instead of finishing with 50% less than they needed.

Progress? or are the devs going to change this all around to make the game a chore again?

Unknown

Yeah, my opinion too, though I played lite after winning the first sub and just decided the last 9k points I'd need to reach daken not look like happening.

The overall structure is interesting, the enemy composition too except for the LAZY HAMMERs and the story works too. If they scrapped scaling (this allowing actually play the game instead of playing the system) I'd say this is simply great.

Too bad we missed the mayhem target on all the hard subs -- and will likely miss it on the final one too.

JamieMadrox

No I'm liking it too. I hit the last progression reward just after the latest Sub opened and even my hard nodes are manageable with boosts and careful strategy. My only complaint is that the scaling seemed to jump really quick and the progression rewards were low enough that a number of my alliance members and I are capable of hitting 1-3 more if they were there.

Unknown

Yeah I have enjoyed it more too. The scaling seems odd but I gave up trying to figure it out and I just play less now. Approaching it that way and with the story/character, I have had a good time overall.

Infrared

Me too. Having Daken as an achievable final progression reward is nice. It's not a giveaway, but looks like many will be getting it. And the reduced (or removed?) rubberbanding gives a bit more freedom to schedule when to play. Scaling seemed okay for me this time as well.

Playing from the villain side was great, as always fighting against Dark Avengers was getting a bit stale. Best of all, we didn't have to fight against any over levelled Dakens this time! Demoing Sentry as a loaner character before release is another plus.

Phumade

The points on the 1 1/2 day subs were super weird. I have no idea how the leaders got the points they did, but overall I've thought the design was spot on. I love how the paths on Mt thunder feel like a an actual mission to clear something and not just some squiggly line with nodes attached! Plus the idea of the mayhem meter to unlock more nodes, but with a hard stop has been great and forces people to have a new clearing strategy vs. just the basic 12 hour refresh and repeat.

Unknown

It was a bit meh to me.

Unknown

It's nice to not be fighting endless combinations of daken/Ares/venom/rag/bullseye. And there's whole new ways to see which abilities are painful paired with goons. The only problem I see is that the mayhem buildup requires too much buildup. The reduced rubber band makes playing at the end time less important, but extra nodes unlocking tosses that out the window. They should be timed so they're up for the entire last refresh.

Zirtak

I think this has been the best pve for me since, I dunno, the first Hulk event? I enjoyed this one as much as I loathed the previous four (and to compare: I'd rather make sweet, tender love to a limp goat than play those again).

New enemies, or at least new pictures of enemies, love the switch from good to evil and most importantly: I finally got out of pve mmr hell. Previous events were literally unplayable because of endless 340 Daken, Ares, Jugg teams. During this event some nodes went up to a point where the game starts being a challenge again (150+), where others are downright easy (40-ish). So goodbye second job, and welcome fun again.

I hope the devs keep this up for S2.

Tharos

For those who have a twitter account (and want to), do not hesitate to leave a note here https://twitter.com/CaseyMalone/status/468452416787349505, to show the devs that even if we complain a lot, we can be nice customers when we like their changes.

octagon69

I would just like the devs to know that I enjoyed this PVE event as well.

I really like the enemy mix in Thunderbolt Mountain.

Good structure. Tuff fights.

Unknown

I enjoyed this event HOWEVER. . .

Scaling has made it go from fun (early rounds) to tedious (later rounds)

Scaling is out of control even with minimal play. You really need to die alot for levels to no increase. Now what games do you know of that reward you for failing over and over?

I'd love to see how many people find the event enjoyable when enemies are more than twice the level of your top characters and allowing them to get 1 skill off basically ends in a wipe. The structure of this event is fantastic _IF_ there are level caps on the enemies at most 230 (which is already really high but atleast it's not like fighting 320+-400. Now that there's no real want to stun lock insta-death enemies (see human torch with green feeders) you need a ton of luck with using boosts to progress.

The change in enemy types is great and a nice mix of goon and non-goon fights but the scaling really has to go, especially without rubberbanding as you are required to "grind" if you want a chance at top 20/top 100

This reminds me alot of the first hulk event which was my favorite. I think it had almost exactly the same point scoring structure but it had tiered enemies like this last sub and had a hard cap on the hardest node of 230. At the time I couldn't even touch 230s as most people couldn't but that was easily the finest moment in MPQ pve. Please come full circle as I think we're almost there.

Unknown

Tharos wrote:

For those who have a twitter account (and want to), do not hesitate to leave a note here https://twitter.com/CaseyMalone/status/468452416787349505, to show the devs that even if we complain a lot, we can be nice customers when we like their changes.

Not sure if that is you, or you know him, but that dude seems allright.

Unknown

I liked the event if for no other reason then because the story was new, and a different point of view. I'd like to see how a Heroic event would look from the other side, hammer agents trying to bring in venom to their side and 3*bagman and his mean avengers friends are trying to stop them

Unknown

The thing i liked about the event is that outside the first sub the rubber banding - or lack of it - means I can do the nodes anytime I like within the 12 hours refresh window instead of having to do them at the end. I think its much better that I can pick my play time instead of the game mechanics.

Unknown

Sumilea wrote:

The thing i liked about the event is that outside the first sub the rubber banding - or lack of it - means I can do the nodes anytime I like within the 12 hours refresh window instead of having to do them at the end. I think its much better that I can pick my play time instead of the game mechanics.

There is a problem in the sense that the time you do refresh gets pushed further back, like say if you start at 9am and it takes you two hours to do stuff, then your schedule would have to look like 9am, 11pm, 1pm, 3am, and 5pm and probably at least one of those time isn't working for you and you might miss a refresh. Of course this problem always existed but with rubberbanding you usually only have to make sure you got the last two refresh. To be fair it seems like someone who misses no refresh isn't going to ever lose to someone who will miss a refresh under any system to begin with (the former guy is way too hardcore), but I do think it's a problem.

I don't know why we still don't have missions refresh on server time. Obviously the server does keep track of this stuff or you can just refresh your missions by setting your clock ahead. It should just be that all missions always refresh when the server hits 9pm/9am (or any other time they think is fine).

HailMary

The current PVE feels pretty good so far. That said, the only PVE I remember truly disliking was The Hunt with its 28 simultaneous and time-shifted subs.

Impulse wrote:

It's nice to not be fighting endless combinations of daken/Ares/venom/rag/bullseye.

I'm loving this. Even though Falcon is a PITA if he manages to get his purple off, I'm enjoying the novelty of the new enemy team comps. For me, the scaling is manageable so far, and it's actually refreshing to not have to think about rubberbanding.

Tharos

hermanbloom wrote:

Tharos wrote:

For those who have a twitter account (and want to), do not hesitate to leave a note here https://twitter.com/CaseyMalone/status/468452416787349505, to show the devs that even if we complain a lot, we can be nice customers when we like their changes.

Not sure if that is you, or you know him, but that dude seems allright.

No, I have nothing to do with them. But I saw this retweet on the Demiurge's CEO twitter a few days ago (link was on his blog). And seeing positive feedback about this event remind me of this message. And I know by experience that too often in game companies the developpers are way too disconnected from the players, even when you have forums, community links as IceIX and such. The main information going back to them are mainly complains, so a little happiness in this world of "no-fun" is always good to take.

Unknown

The best change imo has been to rubberbanding, even though it affects me adversely. No more logging in at the last possible minute to snag victory from the jaws of defeat

Now I feel people are rewarded as they should be, those who play (grind) the most end up on top. Also because rubberbanding is so weak now, we can all play more freely and not have to set alarm clocks etc to try and hit everything at the last minute. I think you can safely grind hours before the end of an event and not really lose too much ground. This is a good thing.

Because rubberbanding is now weak, I think this allows Demiurge to better predict what final scores are going to be. This is the first event in forever where the last progression award is actually obtainable. I think (and hope) we can expect to see more of this in the future.

Now they just need to work on scaling Since rubberbanding has been fixed, people are now rewarded for how much they grind. We get to actually play again instead of trying to game the system and play as little as possible! Except that scaling hurts high end players far more than new players, and this makes little sense given the current environment. Really if we are going to be rewarded for grinding, then the field should be level. Low level teams should face low level opponents, high level teams should face high level opponents....but enough of this scaling to oblivion where we can't/don't want to play anymore. Tune it so fights are difficult but never reach frustration levels. As an example, maybe average level of the top 3 heroes on your roster, then scale up to a max of +25% to 50% in levels....so if your top 3 average level is 141, then you will face max scaled opponents of lvl 185 to 210ish, while if you have a top 3 level average of 50, then you will face max scaled opponents level 65 to 75ish.

WilsonFisk

I agree with the OP. I've enjoyed this event quit a bit. Best part for me is the lack of rubber banding. Scaling is getting tough, but I don't mind. IMO there should be a few really tough matches. Just breezing through goon levels gets monotonous.

Unknown

It definitely has been refreshing to fight on the Dark Avengers side. Thunderbolt Mountain has been a nice challenge, but it illustrates the lack of strong Dark Avengers to tackle the Avenger Team. Just, Ares, LDaken... we need some more strength on the darkside!