New Mission Difficulty For All Story Events *Updated

David [Hi-Fi] Moore
David [Hi-Fi] Moore Posts: 2,872 Site Admin
Greetings!

Here's word from Anthony at Demiurge with details on the new mission difficulty system for Story events:
    "Starting with the Meet Rocket & Groot Story Event on July 17th, every non-boss Story event will now use the new mission difficulty. Each previous run of the new mission difficulty has allowed us to work towards our underlying goal of making Story events fun and challenging no matter if you just started the game or are a seasoned veteran. To achieve this goal we set out to accomplish 4 things: reduce the negative impact of having 5-Stars characters with a few covers, reduce playing the game around a schedule, reduce how long battles take, and improve high level players' ability to perform well in events. Out of the previous tests we have run, the last iteration of Meet Rocket & Groot had the most positive results in these four categories. However, in that test, a minority of players were repeatedly clearing low level missions for points to obtain an advantage over players who tried out more challenging missions. We do not want encourage this, as it is in opposition to our stated goals. To solve this issue, the minimum amount of points a mission is worth will be reduced to 1 point (down from 20). We’ll also be testing out a new way to give out mission rewards. Each type of mission (Easy, Hard and Hardest) has its own list of rewards. Instead of earning the rewards in random order, the rewards will be awarded in a specific order (see the below loot tables). We hope that this system will alleviate frustration some players have who want specific rewards from missions. Thank you again to everyone who participated in previous runs of the new difficulty system. We are confident that this new system will improve Story events for most players. While we are going to roll out this system for all Story events, we will regularly examine the effects of this change and tweak the mission difficulty as needed. We encourage you to continue giving us your feedback as it has been instrumental in finding a system that works for players.
Mission Difficulty Details:

Missions
    o Non-Wave missions get more difficult the first four times you beat the mission. o Wave missions get more difficult the first two times you beat the mission. o Once a mission has reached its highest difficulty, it is worth 25% less points each time it is beaten until it reaches its minimum of 1 point. o Every time a mission is beaten past its maximum difficulty, it takes 24 hours for a mission to be worth the maximum amount of points again.

Overall Difficulty (in relation to the last run of the new mission difficulty)
    o Missions, in general, have a lower minimum difficulty. o Harder missions have a lower maximum difficulty. o Required missions have a slightly higher maximum difficulty.

Mission Rewards
    o Each mission has 7 rewards. (Note: we are still reviewing Wave Missions and their loot tables) o The order in which you receive rewards is fixed. o There are 4 different loot tables (see below)
     Three Trivial Missions and the 2-Star Required Mission use the Easy loop table.  First 2 Hard Missions and the 3-Star Required Mission use the Hard loot table.  The last Hard mission and the 4-Star Required Mission use Hardest loot table (there are different loot tables depending on if the Subchapter lasts one or two-days.)"


MPQ_Story_Mission_Rewards_July_2016.JPG

*Updated:
Anthony wanted to pass along some additional info and an image -
    "Starting with Meet Rocket & Groot on July 17th, enemies in Story missions will scale less significantly starting at level 287. I've attached an image to demonstrate the enemy attributes at level 500 in previous runs of new mission difficulty compared to the next run."

MPQ_Story_Missions_Minions_July_2016.jpg

Big thanks go out to everyone who joined in and helped with testing along the way. We know the ride was a bumpy one at times and we appreciate your help!