Thanks D3 for making all of us getting 1Mil pts Reward

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
1

Ok, looks like they have increased Ultron health without telling us. And looks like we diligent people all can reach 1 mil progression reward without the locked-out issue anymore. Thank you D3…

But wait…

Round 6: New buffed Ultron has 5,500,000 health, with 19,760 pts per clear
In general case,
19,760 x 5 hits per member = 98,800 pts per 8 hours per member
20 members making full clear every 8 hours = 98,800 x 20 = 1,976,000
So they usually can clear Round 6 within 1 day (or 3 refreshes)

Round 7: New buffed Ultron has 11,000,000 health, with 23,010 pts per clear
In general case,
23,010 x 5 hits per member = 115,050 pts per 8 hours per member
20 members making full clear every 8 hours = 115,050 x 20 = 2,301,000
So they usually can clear Round 6 within 1 day 16 hours (or 5 refreshes)

Round 8 buffed Ultron..that we don’t know yet. But judging from the trend it may as well be 15+ million health or more
Which 26,260 pts per hit, it can easily take up to 2 whole days or more…

So what is actually happening here? Let’s sum the duration on the above up shall we?
1 day + 1 day 16 hours + 2 days = AT LEAST 3 days 16 hours to clear Round 6, 7, 8
But eh, this event has 4 days 12 hours for us to play… That leaves 20 hours for us to finish Round 1, 2, 3, 4, 5!
Ah and don’t forget that we are using an example of 20 alliance players here which every single one of them clearing 5 Ultron within 8 hours (means they have to have Scarlet Witch cover as well)

Is this the way to fix the problem of people not getting 1 mil pts progression reward? Instead, we are punished from not getting completion reward(s), which is now Hulkbuster cover 4*!

I know you guys have a lot to deal with right now, but it’s not too late to do something… before the event is over and the mass find out how much they are lacking on completion progress.

2

Of those 20hrs to clear 1-5 don’t forget it was wonky for the first hours and then Round 4 was broken for a couple of hours as well.

3

Round 6 = 5.5m Ultron health.
Round 7 = 11m Ultron health.

Following the numbers, does that mean Round 8 Ultron is 16.5m or 22m?

4

The only thing we can hope for is that round 8 is the same and the previous rounds were inflated to allow all the members to hit 1 million before round 8. From a design perspective it sorta makes sense because a lot of problems with the lower rounds was that some members were blowing through them and thus late comers were looking at round 5 off the bat. By gating people at round 6 + 7 it gives players more time to get their rotations in. That way they wouldn’t have to modify how the game runs after round 8 (which would be difficult).

If they really wanted to do that they should have made the early rounds last longer so my guess is they’re just giving the finger to their player base but who knows, we’ll see when round 8 rolls around.

5

You’re giving the Devs too much credit. These guys never fail to miss a chance to show their incompetence.

A couple of additional points to add to DreadLord’s post.

First, these calculations assume nobody wipes to Ultron. You only get 5 or 6 shots at him per refresh even if you lose. It is only if every member plays optimally (i.e., no wipes to Ultron and no glitches that skip the Ultron node as has happened before) that you can finish the rounds in the number of refreshes you list. If not, the entire alliance will have to wait another 8 hours to finish Ultron off.

Second, I doubt we were the only alliance that decided after the debacle with the first event cutting off before people reached progression rewards to proceed with smaller alliances this event. The Devs said nothing was being changed so it made sense to structure the alliance so that everyone in the alliance could hit the final progression. Given that many alliances finished the last event two days early and spent the rest of the time twiddling their thumbs, that seemed like a logical approach. In the early rounds, Ultron’s health was slightly higher than it was in the last event, increasing by approximately 33% per round, so it didn’t seem like the health increases were that significant. At round 7, that would mean Ultron would have 6.75 million health and for round 8, he would have 9 million health. However, suddenly, we hit rounds 6 and Ultron’s health is 45% higher and apprximately 60% higher in round 7. That is just completely messed up.

6

You can squeeze in 6 clears for Ultron in one cycle because the Ultron node itself refreshes within 8 hours. For example, suppose you can win arbitary fast due to having an autowin hack and let’s say Ultron starts out available. As soon as essentials refresh, you hit Ultron, hit essential 5 times and Ultron 5 times. At this point, it’d be 8 hours until Ultron node refreshes, so 8 hours later when the essentials refresh again you repeat the same thing for 6 more hits.

Of course, after factoring in the time it takes to beat Ultron and its difficulty this scenario quickly becomes utterly unrealistic but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was designed assuming you can get 6 hits in every 8 hours.

7

The model is right up to a point through.

Assuming your team beats Ultron soon after an 8 hour refresh, for whatever round you are playing, you now have a full set to clear and 7 hours before the next refresh. Say you clear all 6 matches and their essentials in an hour, you now have 6 hours until refresh. When the essential missions reset Ultron still has 2 hours to reset, so you wait for that and clear 6 again. Next time round Ultron will reset 3 hours after the essentials refresh, and so on.

8

I had to talk myself off a ledge earlier cause I was starting to get seriously pissed about this points thing (for anyone not having read my other posts from earlier, mad about the lack of communication of the point changes, not that they were changed (although they went a bit too far there too)). At this point it’s just laughable, but at least we’ll get one or two covers and I’m pretty excited to have 3 more scarlet witch covers. Just have to think of this as anniversary style free stuff as opposed to more “normal” content. Was looking forward to getting my IMHB collection off to a great start, but I guess it wasn’t meant to be.

9

WARNING: LOTS OF NUMBERS!

There are 14 refreshes in the entire event:
108 hours total
Refreshes at 0, 8, 16, 24, 32, 40, 48, 56, 64, 72, 80, 88, 96, 104 hours

These are the “normal” points available per refresh (5 hits, 20 members) along with Ultron’s HP:
Round 1: 675000 (75000)
Round 2: 838500 (225000)
Round 3: 1001000 (500000)
Round 4: 1326000 (1500000)
Round 5: 1651000 (3000000)
Round 6: 1976000 (5500000)
Round 7: 2301000 (11000000)
Round 8: 2626000 (XXXXXXXX)

Here is where an alliance with these values can expect to be on each refresh:
Hour 0-8: Complete Ultron 1, 2, 3, and Ultron 4 damaged 1326000/1500000
Hour 8-16: Complete Ultron 4 and Ultron 5 damaged 1651000/3000000
Hour 16-24: Complete Ultron 5 and Ultron 6 damaged 1976000/5500000
Hour 24-32: Ultron 6 damaged 3952000/5500000
Hour 32-40: Complete Ultron 6 and Ultron 7 damaged 2301000/11000000
Hour 40-48: Ultron 7 damaged 4602000/11000000
Hour 48-56: Ultron 7 damaged 6903000/11000000
Hour 56-64: Ultron 7 damaged 9204000/11000000
Hour 64-72: Complete Ultron 7 and Ultron 8 damaged 2626000/XXXXXXXX
Hour 72-80: Ultron 8 damaged 5252000/XXXXXXXX
Hour 80-88: Ultron 8 damaged 7878000/XXXXXXXX
Hour 88-96: Ultron 8 damaged 10504000/XXXXXXXX
Hour 96-104: Ultron 8 damaged 13130000/XXXXXXXX
Hour 108-108: Ultron 8 damaged 15756000/XXXXXXXX

The only mystery is how many HP Ultron has on stage 8. If we see any value over 15 mil, stage 8 is impossible. Even pegged at 15 mil, alliances would be hard pressed to find 20 people who will hit every refresh on time. Now of course, there is the 6th refresh available (like phantron pointed out), but that would be nigh impossible to replicate on an alliance level every refresh.

Toss in the fact that many alliances (like mine) decided to split in the aftermath of Ultron Run 1 to allow everyone to get the progression rewards after being told that there would be no fix available for Ultron run 2. We all thought that the points would be limited again.

That leads to the crux of the problem. I like that they are trying new things and putting together new content, but if the event itself requires perfect play to attain the maximum progression as an alliance, it needs to be rebalanced.

10

While so many people bitch and complain about things without really trying their hand at them, my alliance has been putting good work towards Ultron and we’re now almost done with round 6. I don’t think we we’ll have much trouble beating the 8th round in time even with the increased health. Note that we’re not a super-hardcore alliance or anything. We’re just pretty much playing with the same intensity that we’d use in getting an alliance top 100 in a 4*-rewarding PVE which is pretty acceptable, taking in account that we’ll walk away with three 4* covers.

11

Really?

We’re on the same pace and I figure we might finish 7, if we push hard. Consider this - once you finish the first 6 rounds, you’ve completed less than you will face in round 7 alone.

12

Might well be. What I am trying to say is that we are going to put the effort first and then, if it turns out that it was actually impossible, there may be warranted bitching and complaining to do.

13

I’m in a big pve alliance and am worried round 8 might not be possible, particularly due to wiping on Ultron–really need to remove match damage. I really wonder if they increased the health because they didn’t want folks getting HB, or if it was to enable more people to get progression awards…and they over compensated.

So while we had a lot of tickets submitted about not being able to reach progression, if the rates continue, there will be many tickets demanding the covers for them giving Ultron an absurd amount of health. Even more so since they also released EotS at the same time, also awarding HB. In all honesty, for the amount of effort and how easy it is to take dmg on Ultron, EotS might have more value for alliances to push for. If you score T10, you get 3 covers plus a 4th for alliance.

14

It’s nothing nefarious or trying to screw us over - I think it’s just their inability to comprehend that getting three covers for the release of a 4* char shouldn’t be more work than a regular job.

They simply multiplied the health by 1.5, cause, you know, oooooh, 4*s should be hard to get.

It’s just Demi being Demi.

I fully expect Django to fall short of getting 3 covers, because of course the servers will be down for the final 8 hours, and the time will be needed this time.

15

If they only increased Ultron health by 1.5, it wouldn’t be so bad. In round 7, they more than doubled his health. My alliance will be opening round 7 by no later Han a few minutes after the next refresh, but it has no chance of finishing round 8. Even playing round 7 absolutely perfectly with 20 people (which we don’t have). To complete round 7 absolutely perfectly takes four refreshes with 8 hours between every clear (so you get six Ultron nodes per clear) and no wipes. The earliest a 20-person alliance in our situation could possibly finish round 7 is mid-day Saturday. That leaves insufficient time to finish round 8.

16

I also want to point out that this is a HUGE Sports weekend. NFL Draft. Kentucky Derby. Paquio Mayweather fight. NBA Finals.

That is a very broad spectrum of sporting events for one weekend. I’d venture that more than a few of our respective alliance mates are going to be interested in AT LEAST one of these.

Good luck to all alliances that have a shot @ clearing round 8. Tacos will clear round 7…whether we clear round 8 will depend on his health. It’s going to be close either way.

easy. marc

17

The real kicker is, my alliance finished the last round with 48 hours left, you know time to kill. Round two opened and the first few waves were identical to the previous run, so what did we do? We intentionally slowed down so people could get a few hits in each round and earn some extra tokens and tried to spread the points out a little more, based on what we knew about the first round, that strategy made the most sense to us. Once it became clear there was more HP in later waves we had “wasted” a ~lot~ of time. We didn’t go back to full attack mode till round 5 and if round 8 now requires optimal play from the onset then we are simply out of luck on that last one. But yes, everyone should be able to get all 3 SW covers but looking at 2 HB at most now, not necessarily because we couldn’t have gotten there, but because they altered the necessary strategy and didn’t even give a tiny heads up a simple “hey this round will be harder, good luck” would have sufficed.

18

Thanks everyone for doing the math, and for that one team that hit round 7 last night for sharing the info.

The rest of us will be able to make a more informed choice about how much effort is reasonable to maximize getting HBIM and when to cut our losses.

19

And if I am being honest, part of me wants that 8th round to be impossible so I can relax and take it easy a day sooner.

20

I am in Pylgrim’s alliance and I must disagree with my illustrious commander in at least 2 counts: (1) there is no way we are finishing round 8 in the currently available 60 hours. We just didn’t clear the first 4 rounds fast enough; and (2) there have been some significant errors in this ultron rollout. I don’t mean to suggest that demiurge is incomompetant or malicious or anything like that. But the combination of technical/logistical issues and incomplete/inaccurate communication has been less than ideal, and has made the event less fun than it should have been for many players.
I applaud demiurge for creating new content and new game play styles. But I think it’s also important to provide feedback on what hasn’t worked.

Things like (1) the server issues and other technical problems, and (2) making a cooperative event competitive by not having enough points to go around, and (3) saying the second run would be the same as the first when the second run actually has more than 100% more health are not good.