Ranking the various PvE event difficulties

helix72
helix72 Posts: 995 Critical Contributor
in MPQ General Discussion

I was wondering if folks thought it would be a worthwhile exercise to try to categorize each PvE event into progression difficulty tiers. For example:

Tier 1: Harder than hard. Consider dropping an SCL from your normal. (possible example: Simulator)

Tier 2: Average difficulty. Play where you normally play. (possible example: The Hunt)

Tier 3: Easy street. Consider going up an SCL for more rewards. (possible example: Honor Among Thieves)

My question for the community before trying to undertake this exercise: is this too dependent on the boosted list, featured characters, and everyone's individual roster to have value? Or would it make more sense to put it in a 3x3 grid that has the PvE difficulty tier down one side (hard, normal, easy) and the boosted list across the top (meta, average, nothing but duds)?

Comments

  • Phumade
    Phumade Posts: 2,495 Chairperson of the Boards

    It’s less about being harder and more about being slower. There are definitely events than play slower than normal. but I wouldn’t say it’s harder

  • RentedPanda
    RentedPanda Posts: 95 Match Maker

    I mentally categorize them as goon events (strange days, honor among thieves), non-goon (deadpool vs mpq, the carol and thanos events, sim) and mixed. For me, goon are easiest regardless of boost list (because strange and thanos at 3star level, gritty at 4star), the others are pretty dependent on boost list. May be very different for 5star rosters. Not sure if this helps answer the question, but it's all I got

  • Vhailorx
    Vhailorx Posts: 6,085 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited February 2020

    I have always grouped the events by opponents.

    There are all the classic, dark avengers events, which is basically everything through early 2015. Lots of goons, lots of DA villains.


    Then there are the events that offer hero opponents, prodigal sun, do v. Mpq, simulator hearts of darkness.


    Then there are the "newer" events from 2015-2017, which often have unique mechanics and/or goons. Venom bomb, strange days, enemy of the state.

    Finally, there are the newest events that have a revised node structure (important because it can be harder to get max prog when jumping in late) like cosmic chaos, the Thanos event, etc.

    In general, the events where you fight heroes are harder (with a few exceptions), because most of the nastiest synergies in the game involve at least one hero, and newer events are harder than older ones because they include newer characters and power creep is real. But the challenge nodes don't seem to respect these old rules of thumb, as they have all been set very recently and can apparently Include any character released through 2019.

    And for someone with my roster strength or above (12x 5* baby champs and 60+ 4* champs, most meta teams available), none of the events are particularly hard overall, though a few individual 5e nodes are standouts for difficulty (royal family is always one that people mention). I imagine that a few challenge nodes (like BRB/carnage in venom bomb) will become similarly notorious for their difficulty, but by and large cl10 will just take a bit longer without actually being much more of a challenge.

  • wymtime
    wymtime Posts: 3,758 Chairperson of the Boards

    It will come down to the challenge nodes and the 5* nodes for what is the difficult PVE’s.


    for me I only have a couple of 5* not champed BW, Captain America First Avenger, BRB.

    i am debating playing CL10 this event with BW essential more from a time perspective rather than a challenge perspective.


    if they would put Sinister in packs I would actually pull my hoard and try and champ him since I would have a 100 level boost and I do think his black will work well on the CL10 challenge node

  • Yepyep
    Yepyep Posts: 952 Critical Contributor
    https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/comment/914340#Comment_914340

    It’s both. These are your XY axes.

  • itsuka7
    itsuka7 Posts: 109 Tile Toppler
    edited February 2020

    I tried to make a list, but I have a problem with order when it comes down to moving between scls. I switch between scl7 and scl8. Some events that I found to be equally easy on scl7 were different in difficulty in scl8.

    Mostly dependent on waves, on how well my usual clearing team fares and how nasty the 5* essential gets when goons there have more health (Maggia not a big problem, mindless ones much more so)

  • sambrookjm
    sambrookjm Posts: 2,157 Chairperson of the Boards

    My roster has 1 dozen 5-star champed including Thor, Okoye and Kitty, but not Prof X (7/1/1), Jessica Jones (3/3/3) or Doom (1/3/2) , and most of the 4-stars champed.

    My least favorite PvE is probably Venom Bomb. Symbiotes are my second lest-favorite type of goon (see Below for #1) and they're everywhere, plus they give Venom/Carnage a green feeder. I am glad the Devs took Carnage's Red ability off of him, as with two red feeders Symbiote Scythes every couple of turns was no fun at all. They still give us Carnage with two Guard Dogs, which is just plain evil. (I guess I need to specify 4-star Carnage now. Can't wait until 5-star Carnage gets a red feeder in this event...)

    Hearts of Darkness gets an gold star for their Royal Family Node on the final day, but otherwise it's not that bad.

    Simulator is just bad from a time perspective, as having just about every fight against tile movers makes it a very long event. I'll be shocked if one of the Challenge Nodes for SCL10 in that isn't be Bishop+Gritty the next time it's run.

    If we're adding Alliance Events, I'd have to say that Ultron is probably my least favorite, as the "goon" nodes are all Ultron Bots, and they're my absolute least favorite type of "goon" to fight. They have board shake and special tile creation, both of which help them stay ahead of Kitty's circuit breaker, and they can actually make moves on their own, despite not needing AP for anything. The number of cascades they get from "Destroy the bottom five tiles in one column" is astonishing. Boss Ultron himself is much more dependent upon board luck than the rest of the bosses; sometimes, the bombs just come one right after the other in the same column, and there's not a whole heck of a lot you can do about that.

    Meet Rocket and Groot and Unstable ISO are two of the easier ones in my mind. Lots of goon fights.

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