New Mission Difficulty For All Story Events *Updated

David [Hi-Fi] Moore · July 2016

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.)"

*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."

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!

udonomefoo · July 2016

This sounds great to me, four clears gets you most of the best loot and the progression, but I had to laugh when I got to row 7 of the table and saw the crit boosts were still there.

tanis3303 · July 2016

Dude! You guys got it!! I only see one thing on there that needs to go and I think we're all set here.

*Hint* It starts with C and rhymes with Rit Boosts

nic13 · July 2016

If there is still placement award, this is incredibly stupid.

People can and WILL grind for 1 points to place.

Should have stuck with last iteration where matches cannot be tapped again after a certain number of times.

Nate7671 · July 2016

Looks like a step in the right direction.

Arphaxad · July 2016

I guess this means no progression only reward system in story mode. Meaning story mode is still player vs player in the rankings. Any chance of a real PvE mode coming in the future?

SolidQ · July 2016

We need progress PVE, not competitive

billsrule7 · July 2016

Can you please help me understand why critical boosts are still a reward? It seems as though you have received clear and consistent feedback that this is a utterly useless reward. Help us understand why you believe that this is a useful reward.

sinnerjfl · July 2016

RIP competitive pve.

Good job totally not adressing placement rewards and concerns over this new system!

Malcrof · July 2016

Love the way the node rewards are being done, CP will never again be the last clear! I like it. I only play for progression anyway.

veny · July 2016

billsrule7 wrote:

Can you please help me understand why critical boosts are still a reward? It seems as though you have received clear and consistent feedback that this is a utterly useless reward. Help us understand why you believe that this is a useful reward.

I use some crit boosts during DDQ with 4*s... its great boost if your 4* has low level. Otherwise they are useless... maybe we could craft SHIELD strike token from them - 3 crit boosts = 1 strike token. You could use this token to instanty win a PvE mission (cost will be based on difficulty, which would be possible with this new system)

Soma · July 2016

Great changes!
With the total points relatively capped, are there plans for max progression to be a static number of clears for each event going forward? (4 per sub since the CP is earned at that level)
Or will max progression still be varied each event?

Azoic · July 2016

Agreed. You implement a new system with insane grinding in the future with long periods of time to play. Any placement will be based purely on who is willing to grind 1 point at a time. RIP placement for no one willing to do so.

Epic fail, D3

JackTenrec · July 2016

I'm not sure whether to feel outraged or thankful that the best rewards now require four clears (but you're insulated from having to play seven), although with increasing difficulty per clear, I'm pretty sure it's going to be rage.

veny wrote:

I use some crit boosts during DDQ with 4*s... its great boost if your 4* has low level. Otherwise they are useless... maybe we could craft SHIELD strike token from them - 3 crit boosts = 1 strike token. You could use this token to instanty win a PvE mission (cost will be based on difficulty, which would be possible with this new system)

I speak with no irony when I say that I'd be glad if they introduced a feature by which you could exchange crit boosts for health packs at a ratio of 30 : 1.

Stax the Foyer · July 2016

I assume the scaling cap is officially gone. Will I be seeing level 500 enemies again?

Because that's a good way for me to decide to lock a big part of this game away in the No Thank You Cabinet, and that doesn't leave a lot of game left.

pheregas · July 2016

Stax the Foyer wrote:

I assume the scaling cap is officially gone. Will I be seeing level 500 enemies again?

Excellent point. What is the upper enemy level cap? And will it include characters who are not allowed to play (like the scaling going bonkers in the last sub of Prodigal Sub when my OML was factored in, but not allowed in any sub with the level 325 2* Wolverine)?

Phraeg · July 2016

nic13 wrote:

If there is still placement award, this is incredibly stupid.

People can and WILL grind for 1 points to place.

Should have stuck with last iteration where matches cannot be tapped again after a certain number of times.

Yes. In the end top ten will not be decided by skill, but who grinded the trivials more. I really hope this is not intentional and will be rectified either by locking the nodes after 7 taps, rewarding 0 points or better yet, making the covers difficult to achieve progressive rewards.

Vhailorx · July 2016

Thanks for the information d3 and demiurge.

I am curious to try the new system and see if it's superior to the earlier tests. (though I would still prefer to see dev energies focused on fixing the underlying economy problems (iso, transition rates, RNG-only progression, etc. And I would also love to see more progression-only PVE, but I just don't think that's in the cards as demi seems to think it's too hard to calibrate the difficulty) and doesn't want to risk giving out too many rewards.)

So what is the new optimal schedule?

I think it will be

(1) hit every node for max points as fast as possible
(2) hit every node at least 1 more time to start the 24-hour refresh counter as quickly as possible.
(3) grind nodes down until they are 1 hit away from 1 point at your leisure
(4) do a final grind on each node as late as possible, leaving the highest point nodes for last as they will regen points at the highest rate.

Am I missing something? If not, then there will still be a massive grind at the beginning of each sub, but the end of each sub will be a bit more leisurely.

LordXberk · July 2016

I can't wait to see how insane this gets in grindy brackets for new releases.

#getyourpopcornready

I actually thought you guys might've gotten it w/ the last test that locked nodes after a certain # of clears and then you decided to reward all perfect scores w/ the X23 (I think) rewards, so maybe we'd go all progression, but nope.

#devfail

EDIT: I do appreciate the reward schedule instead of RNG; however, please get rid of crit boosts. Since they are last, you know players don't value them, so why are they still there?

LLohm · July 2016

Wow! A solution to our ISO drought problem guys.

Looks like I'll be hanging up the gloves on competitive play so I can wait for the new toons to be added into tokens before having them! Which means I have absolutely no pressure now to earn so much ISO and spend more time and money elsewhere.

Because :

1. Fighting level 550+ enemy scaling is ****
2. Grinding for 4hrs at the start of the event is ****
3. I have to hit trivial nodes 24/7 to place well is ****

Don't think I'll be buying packs to get the new toons. I have plenty to max before they can become a concern since covers aren't going to drop with all these dilution going on.

Wooodd · July 2016

Vhailorx wrote:

Thanks for the information d3 and demiurge.

I am curious to try the new system and see if it's superior to the earlier tests. (though I would still prefer to see dev energies focused on fixing the underlying economy problems (iso, transition rates, RNG-only progression, etc. And I would also love to see more progression-only PVE, but I just don't think that's in the cards as demi seems to think it's too hard to calibrate the difficulty) and doesn't want to risk giving out too many rewards.)

So what is the new optimal schedule?

I think it will be

(1) hit every node for max points as fast as possible
(2) hit every node at least 1 more time to start the 24-hour refresh counter as quickly as possible.
(3) grind nodes down until they are 1 hit away from 1 point at your leisure
(4) do a final grind on each node as late as possible, leaving the highest point nodes for last as they will regen points at the highest rate.

Am I missing something? If not, then there will still be a massive grind at the beginning of each sub, but the end of each sub will be a bit more leisurely.

It says points regen. So optimal would be grinds at the start and end. Oh the joy, not that I ever play nearly as much as some will make even T200 a 5 clear min. Woohoo

New Mission Difficulty For All Story Events *Updated

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