Ok, so we’ve all had a day to digest this new system, and well…yea. 
So I thought it might be a nice idea to sum up the overarching thoughts and suggestions in the 20 pages of hate so the Dev team has a place to see what everyone is saying without having to pick thru all the vitriol to get any useful feedback and (hopefully) comment and/or get a dialogue going with the player base about what worked, what didn’t, and what to do going forward.
Mod team: If this is in poor taste or needs moved, do with it as you will.
Forumites: If I missed any key points, please add them or let me know via pm and I will add them to the OP…but please, lets keep all of the hate, rage and negativity out of this thread. Use the existing 20 page thread for venting, lets keep this clean and helpful, and hopefully it can be a welcoming place for the team to interact with us and move forward.
What We Like About the New PvE Experience
1:) Communication of the change BEFORE it went live, so we knew what to expect
2:) Willingness to try something new
3:) Removal of strict timed clears to promote a play-at-your-own-pace experience
Great start, but this needs tweaked before it truly meets the intended goal (see below)
4:) Transparent enemy scaling and leveling
This is a neat idea, showing us the enemies gaining levels as we beat the nodes and capping them after a set amount of wins
5:) Enemy power levels being capped at 13/13 instead of 15/13
This is great, as facing opponents that had all three powers set to level 5 has never felt fair.
What We Don’t Like About the New PvE Experience
1:) Increased time commitment
We went from 3 clears at 8 hour intervals (roughly 40 minutes each) +1 grind down at subs end (~2 hours), followed by a clear of the new sub (roughly 40 miuntes) for optimal scoring to a HUGE grind of 6-7 clears at the subs start (5-6 hours maybe?) + 1 grind down at subs end (~2-3 hours or more) AND another HUGE grind of 6-7 clears of the new sub for optimal scoring. This is far too much to ask. If the reward tiers were vastly expanded, this wouldn’t be as big of an issue, as only the true hardcore would still try to do it. But as it stands, for a large portion of the player base, anything outside of t10 placement is nothing more than a few champion levels on a 3* and some ISO/HP. 100% NOT worth it for this level of time commitment required here.
2:) Removal of the easier nodes / “Smoothing” of difficulty curve
Many players (myself included) used these nodes to try out random teams for fun, collect some much needed ISO or just have gasp FUN playing the game. This is gone, and these nodes are now as difficult as any other node in the event, making clearing them a huge chore and honestly not worth the prizes offered.
3:) Over the top scaling and enemy levels
Challenging is one thing. Having literally every single node be one bad board or one cascade away from a wipe is a whole other, very unpleasant thing. Losing in this game is awful. You’re out time, resources, characters, sanity…if the system needs to be set up in such a way that losing becomes more of a regular thing, then losing needs to be less painful.
4:) Drastic increase in overall difficulty for the same rewards as before
If the difficulty ramps up after each fight, the rewards should also. Finally beat that node that was giving you fits? Guess what…they gained 20 levels, here’s 70 ISO for clearing it! That’s not positive reinforcement, that’s frustrating, and it does not foster repeat plays to any but the hardest of hardcore. If they gain 20 levels, any ISO payouts you haven’t yet won should gain +200 ISO, and by say the 3rd clear if you haven’t picked up the token, it should change to a Heroic or event token. The release rate and sheer cost of leveling characters means that no one but HUGE spenders are in any danger of running out of projects to work on for the next 5 years…loosening up the purse strings a bit in regards to in-game rewards is not going to break the game.
5:) Wave nodes offering nothing for repeated plays
I realize this is limited to certain events, and Enemy of the State is the worst possible case of this, but clearing a wave node multiple times while only getting prizes for the first time and each subsequent clear giving out absolutely NOTHING is no bueno. A possible way to mitigate this would be to have the wave nodes be worth 6-7x the points they are worth and then lock them out. One and done.
6:) by Forumite Request - Current scaling system makes it far easier for lower level rosters
A lot of players are observing that the leaders in their brackets are all players with either low-level rosters or intentionally gimped rosters. Low level rosters I kind of get, their scaling is naturally lower, but one of the things this change was meant to address was the intentional underleveling of rosters to gain advantage in Story events, so that seems to not have worked. The leader in my bracket has nothing better than a championed 2* character on his roster, and several others in the t10 have a few 1-2 cover 5s and nothing else better than unchampioned, mid-high level 3s, so I can echo this as well. While higher level rosters are being scaled completely out of the event, the scaling for lower level rosters seems to be much easier to clear, which, at the end of the day, really isn’t fair play. The challenge needs to be even across the spectrum of character tiers, not challenging but doable for 2-3* players bit nigh unto impossible for more advanced rosters.
:7) Players feel unable to use more than a few top tier characters
Sort of related to #2, the across the board increase in difficulty has made many of us feel forced to break out the A-Team for EVERY node. This gets repetitive quick, and makes us wonder what the point of having rosters full of cool characters is when we’re only using 4-5 of them with any regularity.
I know I missed some stuff here, please add it as you see fit, but this is the overall gist of the 20 page thread…it’s a lot of people saying the same things. Most of the vets are hating it, and a lot of newer players seem to be enjoying it…but eventually, those newer players will have the rosters the vets have, and they’re going to pick up their pitchforks and march right along with us. Overall, I’m happy they are trying something new, but this needs some work. Hopefully the Dev team is willing to hear us out on this and tweak it, because with a little work, this could be a great setup for Story events.
