To answer the first part - almost every event before this, Punisher wasn’t buffed. I believe shortly after he was released, he was buffed, and as of the last PvE event, and now, I don’t recall any other PvE events where he was roid raging (I have him seriously maxed and would have noticed before now, given how I was often having to put him aside in favor of heroes like Patch).
About that free Hulk cover. That thing happened last time when they ran the Hulk event too. For those not quick enough you will get your hulk cover later in the event and people who did manage to get the early hulk you will not be able to get a second hulk later on. At least that is what happened last time.
Scaling defintely reduces the number of times I had to clear. As the whiny bitches got louder, my rank got higher, with less effort. I want more scaling if anything.
Oh look, another relic of the old hulk event. I didnt join yet and it seems like rubberbanding is off of the main event like it was before. Have fun never winning subs if youre at the top of the main event leaderboards everyone!
More scaling is great if you want to fight nothing but an endless stream of 230s across the board every single event. Maybe you have fun doing that, personally I’d rather not fight enemies that can wipe my team with a single ability.
I think he’s speaking from his pov. For me, it was also definitely both less time and effort involved. For the average midlevel player, sure it hurts them.
But this keeps the main bracket more interesting. In the recent PvE events the only thing of interest is the guys fighting for the cutoff points (e.g. #2 vs #3) because a lot of those places are settled halfway through the event. Given the main bracket is unbracketed, it’d be pretty bad if you knew you had no chance of hitting top 200 3 days into the event. That doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed to finish top 200, but The Hulk event means you at least always have a chance.