The "supposed to lose" Galactus event

KGB

@Zalasta said:
Honestly, I’m not sure what people think is broken here, or what needs to be fixed. Not every roster should be able to finish the same event. You’d just about have to do SCL levels on boss events (with corresponding different rewards) to facilitate that.

I think the idea is that the Boss events are too easy for higher end rosters. Hence asking about a tougher boss for stronger rosters.

The regular Boss side is fine as is so that newer weaker rosters can contribute. But the Heroic Boss could be made more challenging in some manner (ie restrict usage further, maybe 4* characters max or even 3* characters max).

KGB

DAZ0273

@Bowgentle said:
I'm doing every hit on ever refresh, side nodes are trivial even at full scaling for big rosters.
How do you define "big roster"? A 520 Wasp and the rest at 450?

I can't even define "big" because as you say it is relative with no size fits all in this game. All I can say is that one of the things that makes Boss Events different is the scaling and the Heroic version doesn't address that in terms of difficulty.

Bowgentle

Well they tried to do that one heroic where Scorpion was the MVP, with a very restricted roster.
Since we've never seen that again I guess it didn't go over well.

DAZ0273

Was that the Dark Avengers one? I liked that one! But yeah, I remember the hate.

Bowgentle

Yes, that one.

JHawkInc

One thing I think we overlook about the "Supposed to Lose" mentality wasn't just that it was difficult, but that failures in individual fights were still meant to advance event progress as a whole. So if you drop 60% of his health and lose, you were still getting 60% of the points, and theoretically a string of losses (or, rather, partial completions), could add up to success for an alliance as a whole.

It's not a bad idea, but it definitely didn't work out for MPQ. The big thing being that the game is designed around winning tons of matches (DDQ, PVE, PVP, extra things like Welcome to Shield, Lightning Rounds, etc, you could reasonably push 100+ wins a day across all game types). So losing to a boss felt wrong. And the round progress gained for a partial completion was never enough to make up for it. (and that's before you consider things like the health pack drain, as losing fights required health packs to reattempt with the same team, which could just cause further losses if you were forced to field less optimal teams from your roster)

It wasn't just about Galactus being difficult, "You're Supposed to Lose" was a mismatch between game design (partial completions contributing to an alliance score) and expectations/experiences (it felt bad for players, so it wasn't fun).

KGB

@JHawkInc said:
One thing I think we overlook about the "Supposed to Lose" mentality wasn't just that it was difficult, but that failures in individual fights were still meant to advance event progress as a whole. So if you drop 60% of his health and lose, you were still getting 60% of the points, and theoretically a string of losses (or, rather, partial completions), could add up to success for an alliance as a whole.

This is still true today. Most of us just don't realize it because we always kill the boss easily. But you definitely get partial rewards for partial damage (ie 50% of the points for 50% damage). The newer / weaker rosters in my alliance have to do this and they know that rather than let all 3 character die it's just better to retreat and only take the 10% health loss for retreating (this is esp important for Apoc who heals to 100% after every round which means you get 0 points so you have to time the retreat right after firing as many powers as possible).

KGB

entrailbucket

@JHawkInc said:
One thing I think we overlook about the "Supposed to Lose" mentality wasn't just that it was difficult, but that failures in individual fights were still meant to advance event progress as a whole. So if you drop 60% of his health and lose, you were still getting 60% of the points, and theoretically a string of losses (or, rather, partial completions), could add up to success for an alliance as a whole.

It's not a bad idea, but it definitely didn't work out for MPQ. The big thing being that the game is designed around winning tons of matches (DDQ, PVE, PVP, extra things like Welcome to Shield, Lightning Rounds, etc, you could reasonably push 100+ wins a day across all game types). So losing to a boss felt wrong. And the round progress gained for a partial completion was never enough to make up for it. (and that's before you consider things like the health pack drain, as losing fights required health packs to reattempt with the same team, which could just cause further losses if you were forced to field less optimal teams from your roster)

It wasn't just about Galactus being difficult, "You're Supposed to Lose" was a mismatch between game design (partial completions contributing to an alliance score) and expectations/experiences (it felt bad for players, so it wasn't fun).

I agree that the event defied players' expectations -- that's why I loved it. Our alliance was one of (I think) 3 overall that completed it, and we completed it first. It was a massive achievement to figure out how to do it, and it felt awesome every time I beat him. It didn't feel bad to lose to Galactus because I knew I could beat him eventually with the right strategy (most of us used 3* Hulk and Storm, I forgot who the third was).

There's nothing left in the game that feels that way, and that's sad. I wish there was a way they could make optional or extra things that don't appeal to everyone, but apparently they can't figure out how to do this without making somebody angry.

DrClever

@JHawkInc said:

It wasn't just about Galactus being difficult, "You're Supposed to Lose" was a mismatch between game design (partial completions contributing to an alliance score) and expectations/experiences (it felt bad for players, so it wasn't fun).

Yeah, it needed some sort of wrapper around it - something to tell you that progress was being made, that a bit more effort would bring rewards - and some sort of graphic payoff at the end, not just a notification that a millstone had been reached.

It's not quite the game for that as you say, but it could have been made to feel more exciting than it did.