"The Gauntlet" is wonderful

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Comments

  • Ryz-aus wrote:
    I just don't understand the complaint from others with strong rosters that they are facing a challenge that is unfairly hard - it's supposed to be a challenge, that's one of the things that I find enjoyable. It's not like this event is offering rewards like a new character - they are covers that those with established rosters already have and if the difficulty isn't your cup of tea then "oh noes", you lose out on a bit of ISO.

    FYI - every node is beatable without boosts as long as you have the required characters. I was able to make it through each one, and another member of my alliance was able to beat the final node of 395s with a couple of 2*s. You might lose out to a cascade, or get frustrated that hood seems to be the answer to the toughest nodes, but if you are constantly losing maybe it's an indicator that you should mix up your teams and try some new combinations.

    My roster is in the 2 to 3 star transitional stage. I still need the covers on offer. I'm having to fully boost to beat teams past node 25. I'm stuck on node 34 with my boosts exhausted and teams decimated. I guess I'll just have to pray that I get lucky on a massive cascade but all the mean while I'm neglecting the PvP and other events which I didn't have to do in the previous PvEs. So compared to normal PvE where I'd get a 3 star cover or 2 from progression and a couple from rewards without using much boosts to using all my boosts, not playing any PvP because of dead chars and no HP. Net return of 1 hard fought panther cover. Didn't think I'd be saying this but I'd still prefer the old format...
  • atomzed wrote:
    Unfortunately, they are not going to make it a walk in the park where everyone breeze through it. They HAVE to ensure that covers are only given to top performing players, so they need to make it hard to differentiate players.

    I don't expect them to make it easy. I think it's a good thing for it to be competitive and challenging. There is a difference between competitive and challenging and impossible and they haven't hit the right levels yet.mThe problem is, at its current difficulty level, the only people who are capable of completing it are people that almost certainly don't need the covers. The people who need the covers are people who are transitioning from 2* to 3* and thus they are incapable of completing it.

    That's the biggest issue with the game once you pass 2* maxed - the people capable of winning needed rewards are people who don't need those rewards. The people who need them are getting trounced by the pool of death players.

    The simplest solution (and this applies more to pvp but could be worked into PVE as well) is to put players who already have the reward characters maxed out into a separate pool. Let them compete with each other for the bragging rights and the alliance boost that they are after and leave the competition for the reward cover to those who actually need it (and thus, almost certainly, aren't members of the pool of death...). For PVE, they simply need to decide are they using PVE as a means by which players can advance their rosters or is it solely for bragging rights for pool of death players? Obviously, I think it should be the former - a means for players to advance their rosters and thus the rewards should be attainable. As it is currently, as a player with 2 maxed 3* characters and a remaining roster of transition characters, it is not attainable. Short of extreme luck, I have no chance of beating it and thus no chance to earning the reward cover and thus no chance of advancing my roster.

    If they want to give the pool of death players a venue to challenge themselves and earn bragging rights, give them that but leave the reward path for the majority of players attainable rather than impossible.
  • The scaling is pretty bad unfortunately, and I am not sure I am going to complete the 3rd board given the time that is left.

    I'm not motivated to kill my entire roster and boost for unworthy rewards. There is a balance to be found on this Gauntlet which is a very good idea initially.
  • kidicarus
    kidicarus Posts: 420 Mover and Shaker
    Ryz-aus wrote:
    I just don't understand the complaint from others with strong rosters that they are facing a challenge that is unfairly hard - it's supposed to be a challenge, that's one of the things that I find enjoyable. It's not like this event is offering rewards like a new character - they are covers that those with established rosters already have and if the difficulty isn't your cup of tea then "oh noes", you lose out on a bit of ISO.

    FYI - every node is beatable without boosts as long as you have the required characters. I was able to make it through each one, and another member of my alliance was able to beat the final node of 395s with a couple of 2*s. You might lose out to a cascade, or get frustrated that hood seems to be the answer to the toughest nodes, but if you are constantly losing maybe it's an indicator that you should mix up your teams and try some new combinations.

    Like you I agree it has to be hard. I've made it up to sim 40 without boosts and right now jugs/mbw/im35 are kicking my ****.

    The problem is, it's not equally hard for everyone. In my bracket the #1 has only one character with maxed covers and at level 94. So it's not unfairly hard, it's unfairly unequally hard.
  • Highdark
    Highdark Posts: 75 Match Maker
    Love this new concept, but gd it gets hard. I blew 4 medpacks clearing sim 37. Currently on 40. EYES ON THE PRIZE
  • quadiak
    quadiak Posts: 177 Tile Toppler
    arktos1971 wrote:
    The scaling is pretty bad unfortunately, and I am not sure I am going to complete the 3rd board given the time that is left.

    I'm not motivated to kill my entire roster and boost for unworthy rewards. There is a balance to be found on this Gauntlet which is a very good idea initially.
    Exactly, gimme a 750 HP reward upon completion and I will give this event kudos. Otherwise its just a complete waste of time.
  • _RiO_
    _RiO_ Posts: 1,047 Chairperson of the Boards
    atomzed wrote:
    However, I want to say that the gauntlet appears to be created because people want pve to be PURE pve. It was fixed, according to what ppl want.

    Uhhmm.. no?

    Whenever the concept of a pure PvE came up and whenever the idea of gradually increasing node levels within such a PvE came up, invariably multiple posts would surface that explicitly talked about the balance aspect and the fact that it would be critical to properly manage the risk vs. reward balance as well as difficulty across roster types. What Demiurge delivers is an event that was obviously designed with callous disregard for those warnings, or they'd have been more conservative with the level scaling for the initial run. Better to give your players too many rewards one or two times while tuning difficulty than to have players run face first into brick walls.

    (I almost wonder if this level of screw-up is intentional, so that Demiurge can later cite lowered metrics for player engagement as a basis for an argument to not run a 'pure' PvE again.)
  • quadiak
    quadiak Posts: 177 Tile Toppler
    _RiO_ wrote:
    atomzed wrote:
    However, I want to say that the gauntlet appears to be created because people want pve to be PURE pve. It was fixed, according to what ppl want.

    Uhhmm.. no?

    Whenever the concept of a pure PvE came up and whenever the idea of gradually increasing node levels within such a PvE came up, invariably multiple posts would surface that explicitly talked about the balance aspect and the fact that it would be critical to properly manage the risk vs. reward balance as well as difficulty across roster types. What Demiurge delivers is an event that was obviously designed with callous disregard for those warnings, or they'd have been more conservative with the level scaling for the initial run. Better to give your players too many rewards one or two times while tuning difficulty than to have players run face first into brick walls.

    (I almost wonder if this level of screw-up is intentional, so that Demiurge can later cite lowered metrics for player engagement as a basis for an argument to not run a 'pure' PvE again.)
    Or strictly a cash cow?
  • Just wanted to say i really enjoyed this event.

    However, I am stuck on node 39. As much as I'd like to continue I dont see myself going forward. I'm up against a deadly node comprised of lvl 200, 200, and 201 enemies (deadpool, OBW, and Ares). My punisher is 156, and magneto and storm are 130. This is the closest i can get level wise to this node. I've got 1 toon 128 (patch) rest of my toons are 94 and under. I've already gone through all the boosts am willing to spend and the bootmline is that i dont see a way through this node. So i'm pretty much stopping here and i'm ok with it. Would have loved the Psylocke cover, but will backtrack to work on getting the OBW and black Panther covers.

    Couple of issues:

    1. My main issue, and its been mentioned here is the scaling. Its gotten pretty far out there, that I dont see how i can go forward. I'd urge D3 to recalculate how they do their scaling in terms of this event.

    2. My alliance mates were hard pressed in this event. We dont have well developed top 100 rosters. Quite a few quit midway through the heroes sub, citing an inability to go forward due to the lack of a viable punisher.

    re: rewards -i think they're ok to be honest. Would be nice to see a bit more along the way, namely another gold token. Outside of the 20 ISo reward for repeating, i've got not issues here.

    The bottom line though is that I really, really enjoyed this event and would love to see it come back; despite the issues i've mentioned. I think this is a great first step and really look forward to the next iteration of the gauntlet.
  • Oldboy
    Oldboy Posts: 452 Mover and Shaker
    Now i'm in a situation where i'm thinking against leveling my 3* characters until i get max covers for most of them cos who wants to be penalised for future PVEs with a scaling that works against developed rosters?

    Just a thought
  • Oldboy
    Oldboy Posts: 452 Mover and Shaker
    NCSTL wrote:
    Just wanted to say i really enjoyed this event.

    However, I am stuck on node 39. As much as I'd like to continue I dont see myself going forward. I'm up against a deadly node comprised of lvl 200, 200, and 201 enemies (deadpool, OBW, and Ares). My punisher is 156, and magneto and storm are 130. This is the closest i can get level wise to this node. I've got 1 toon 128 (patch) rest of my toons are 94 and under. I've already gone through all the boosts am willing to spend and the bootmline is that i dont see a way through this node. So i'm pretty much stopping here and i'm ok with it. Would have loved the Psylocke cover, but will backtrack to work on getting the OBW and black Panther covers.

    I used similar roster of pun storm mnmags to defeat them. My punisher's at 4/0/1 lvl 168(buffed) and storm and mags at lvl 134. . It can be done. Cant remember if i used boosts though. Enemy levels at 200-210+

    First attacks to Deadpool. Collect purple for Polarity shift.
    Wind Storm Ares to stun
    Molotov Cocktails everywhere. Wind storm even better. Magnetic flux if u can get the red.
    And hope u get a good board. The kind that lets u match 5s and cascades without trying.
  • There's no way you're beating this event without boosts on the highest difficulty for roster unless you've some insane luck or you have 100 health packs. There's no skill involved in level 395s and anyone who was doing them prior to the Magneto nerf should know this. Even with Magneto there's a lot of time you simply died to a decent chain from their match damage alone. If you face OBW, Espionage does around 580 damage per match, so all the color OBW gets for Espionage does over 1000 damage per match 3. The Hood can only take 5 of them. Even a sturdy character like Black Panther can only take 10 of them, and this is a normal match 3! Given the later missions have almost no weak match colors at all, you pretty much have to hope they make TU matches since that's the only color they can't kill you with match damage alone.

    Now I know everyone at all stages will claim the encounters are impossible, because they're meant to be hard. But a level 94 roster fighting 200 is not nearly as impossible as a level 270 roster fighting level 395s, given the level 270 fights at best like a level 200 character. I've used level 200+ characters in PvP (boosted) and they sure can't kill a 2* team by just matching tiles, but the level 395 guys sure can kill all my 3* and X Force by just matching tiles. In some cases the 2* roster may have a lack of character or cover and find the matchup especially hard, but if you have the right personnel it's always doable. This is not the same for a 3* facing 395. No matter who you got, you still need a ton of luck to just not die to their match damage let alone any moves they can use.
  • BearVenger
    BearVenger Posts: 453 Mover and Shaker
    So, just to address the "level 166s have it sooo easy" argument, does observation show that enemy levels correspond to your highest levelled character?

    If that is so, then the people who are "luckiest" are those with a broad roster of over-covered, under-levelled characters.

    Now that I'm near the end, I'll post my roster and the level of opposition I face in each node tonight.
  • BearVenger wrote:
    So, just to address the "level 166s have it sooo easy" argument, does observation show that enemy levels correspond to your highest levelled character?

    If that is so, then the people who are "luckiest" are those with a broad roster of over-covered, under-levelled characters.

    Now that I'm near the end, I'll post my roster and the level of opposition I face in each node tonight.

    Having only level 166 characters will result enemies being about 80 levels lower on average compared to having a level 270 character by the final bracket, though since at that point some of the enemy nodes are level 350+ for the 3* max roster, adding another 80 on that doesn't make it exceed 395 so it's sort of even again.

    As always the game never takes into the boosted level of any featured character around since any standard max 3* roster should have a max Punisher and if it uses his boosted level (256) there would not be such a huge parity between max 166 and max 270s. Under leveled, over covered characters have always been the key to winning in PvE though if you play PvP at all it doesn't make sense to have nobody at level 166 and all it takes is one character to bring your scaling up.
  • I did finish the whole thing and really enjoyed the challenge though I will admit to cheesing #42 and dropping the big whales on them with a team-up. Felt a little dirty to use modern storm hiding behind hulk and BP to get the team-up AP but it was quite satifying that it worked so well first try, and there was absolutely no need to 'go again' on that node.
  • GrumpySmurf1002
    GrumpySmurf1002 Posts: 3,511 Chairperson of the Boards
    I did finish the whole thing and really enjoyed the challenge though I will admit to cheesing #42 and dropping the big whales on them with a team-up. Felt a little dirty to use modern storm hiding behind hulk and BP to get the team-up AP but it was quite satifying that it worked so well first try, and there was absolutely no need to 'go again' on that node.

    Heh, I brought my 336 Call of the Storm into it with me, but didn't end up needing it. Mags/CStorm cleaned that one up just as easily as the others. Knowing they can beat handily beat 260+ enemies has suddenly made late game PvP a little more interesting.
  • Nope on the ridiculous OBW,Iron Man, and Juggs node. Over 300 levels. I am done with this.
  • I see players making the same wrong assumption on difficulty as the devs that tuned them in the first place with statements like "well XYZ worked on level 260 guys so you just got to be creative against level 3XXs". It's like this article I read where guys stationed in Antarctica would always get these question like 'how much colder can Antarctica be compared to (Canada/Minnesota/Siberia)?' and the answer is 'you'd know if you had to live here'. After stuff gets higher than 300 there's basically a clock that gets shorter the higher they go because you're talking about match damage that can kill your team. A level 395 OBW does about 600 damage on her colors and Espionage is 580 or so. This means she gets about 1200 damage on her primary match, and usually 900-1100 on any cascade of her color. Imagine you had a game where the enemy team just makes a black match 3 for the entire game and have no outlet for black. You'd still be taking about 1200 damage every turn. A tanky character can still only take 8-9 of those, and a support character like The Hood can only take 4-5. You can get lucky but a lot of time you won't even beat them even if the 395s somehow was unable to collect any AP the entire game and only had match damage, and of course just about any move they use will definitely kill you.
  • I'm not going to finish it, I imagine (I've gotten through about Level 35 - I hear the next two aren't too bad, but the next wall I hit will probably be my last), but it was interesting, and - while the scaling made it frustrating - it was frustrating in a much lower-stress way than most frustrating events have been. And since I didn't need any of the covers, and there were no alliance awards, there was pretty much zero pressure. I still enjoyed it more than any other PVE in at least quite a while.

    My recommendations for moving forward:
    1. Fix the scaling, obviously. Starting with about #34, they were at the "hope you get a favorable board or you lose" point. 2 or 3 like that is okay; ten isn't.
    2. Never use this for a new 3* release. You'll have people at the gate with torches and pitchforks, and I might be first in line.
    3. This would be a GREAT format for a 2* release - have a set of 3 covers for the new 2*, one each sub. Everybody could get 1/1/1 pretty easily, 2/2/2 would be tricky, 3/3/3 would be extremely difficult. If anyone thinks that's too many covers, keep in mind when Ares launched you probably could have built two fully covered ones from his launch event.
    4. Don't make the essential characters the same as the reward characters, unless there's a progression (BP is awarded in the first and essential in the second, for example)
  • Punter1
    Punter1 Posts: 718 Critical Contributor
    I've enjoyed it and got all the way through and passed 42 with 2* Thor, Wolvie & lvl 78 Deadpool! Purple boosted and got a favorable board to drop whales on them. Took me 3 attempts.

    I managed to get through it as I have a well covered and reasonably levelled PunPun, he was boosted to lvl 194. So though my scaling was bad thanks to my 166 Hulk, I at least had the one really boosted character to get me through a lot of the nodes. I was playing lots of different teams as I've a broad roster and only really started boosting about half way through the 3rd event.

    Anyway - one quick suggestion would be to run this with no boosted characters. This would help those in transition as they'd have no need for a specific character (PunPun this time making the event bearable for those us with a decent one)