• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Marvel Puzzle Quest: Dark Reign |OT| Welcome To Marvel [5m23s]!

kswiston

Member
I didn't mind it too much in the previous event, but the enemy scaling is ridiculous in this event. Last night, all battles were in the level 35-80 range. I wake up this morning, having not fought a single battle since last night around 10:30, and everything is level 90-190 in Sudan, and not much better in Romania.

I am using a lvl 65 classic storm, lvl 60 Marvel Now Magneto, and either a level 55 MN Thor/one of the forced characters. I can regularly take some of the 80s-90s Dark Avengers teams with a couple of boosts, but level 150 Moonstone/Ares/Venom/and Juggs each have a move that will one shot my Storm/Mags, and attack/def stacking moves by Bullseye and Daken are too OP'd for me at that level as well...

Does the enter battle/forfeit battle trick for lowering enemy levels still work, or did they patch that out? Is there any way to lower the encounter levels? I'd like to remain in the Rank 1001-3333 bracket for the overall event, but it is hard if I can barely crack the top 250 on today's sub events.

As for the talk about the hulk on the previous page, he was super easy with a Classic Storm/MN Magneto team. I just kept him stunned 95% of the time. If I was able to use my Thor as well, I could chain together Storm and Thor's abilities to get extra damage between stuns. I had no problem on any of the Hulk solo battles, even when he was level 250+
 

animus82

Banned
I didn't mind it too much in the previous event, but the enemy scaling is ridiculous in this event. Last night, all battles were in the level 35-80 range. I wake up this morning, having not fought a single battle since last night around 10:30, and everything is level 90-190 in Sudan, and not much better in Romania.

I am using a lvl 65 classic storm, lvl 60 Marvel Now Magneto, and either a level 55 MN Thor/one of the forced characters. I can regularly take some of the 80s-90s Dark Avengers teams with a couple of boosts, but level 150 Moonstone/Ares/Venom/and Juggs each have a move that will one shot my Storm/Mags, and attack/def stacking moves by Bullseye and Daken are too OP'd for me at that level as well...

Does the enter battle/forfeit battle trick for lowering enemy levels still work, or did they patch that out? Is there any way to lower the encounter levels? I'd like to remain in the Rank 1001-3333 bracket for the overall event, but it is hard if I can barely crack the top 250 on today's sub events.

As for the talk about the hulk on the previous page, he was super easy with a Classic Storm/MN Magneto team. I just kept him stunned 95% of the time. If I was able to use my Thor as well, I could chain together Storm and Thor's abilities to get extra damage between stuns. I had no problem on any of the Hulk solo battles, even when he was level 250+

Same thing happened to me as far as teh scaling. I think they are trying to slow down some of the people who play a lot. Hopefully it refreshes before the subs end today.

I broke through 140,000 and the game is like.... thats probably enough for you.
 
Does the enter battle/forfeit battle trick for lowering enemy levels still work, or did they patch that out?
Yes, it works. However...
Same thing happened to me as far as teh scaling. I think they are trying to slow down some of the people who play a lot. Hopefully it refreshes before the subs end today.

I broke through 140,000 and the game is like.... thats probably enough for you.
The trick to tanking is to not let it balloon up in the first place. If it reaches a point like this, it may take a lot of effort to get back to a good place in scaling.
 

kswiston

Member
Yes, it works. However...

The trick to tanking is to not let it balloon up in the first place. If it reaches a point like this, it may take a lot of effort to get back to a good place in scaling.

I'm not sure how I am supposed to do that when I don't play the game, and some fights still jump 70-80 levels.
 
I'm not sure how I am supposed to do that when I don't play the game, and some fights still jump 70-80 levels.
I don't think personal scaling vs community scaling matters when tanking. Tanking will drop levels regardless. But like I said, you can't let it baloon up. 70 levels is quite a lot. Tanking requires hurting characters so you'll end up having to use packs to speed up the process if you wait too long.

Tanking isn't really about "dropping levels", even though it is possible. Rather it is about maintaining levels. I tank quite a lot but even still, it's not unusual for the mobs to increase about 10-20 levels by the time the sub ends. The point though was that it could've gone up 70+ if I didn't tank at all.
 
This new boosted readout is really great. Never would have occurred to me to drop all boosted villains in Lightning (stupid I know) but seeing their levels in the 90s and hundreds it's like "oh. Duh."
 
I don't think personal scaling vs community scaling matters when tanking. Tanking will drop levels regardless. But like I said, you can't let it baloon up. 70 levels is quite a lot. Tanking requires hurting characters so you'll end up having to use packs to speed up the process if you wait too long.

Tanking isn't really about "dropping levels", even though it is possible. Rather it is about maintaining levels. I tank quite a lot but even still, it's not unusual for the mobs to increase about 10-20 levels by the time the sub ends. The point though was that it could've gone up 70+ if I didn't tank at all.

When the event started each team was at 45-60 for me, when I played a single game this afternoon they were 130+ in every single fight except one of the Punisher ones where they were are 105. I am seeing on average increases of 70-80, and it's no uncommon for me to see a 200% increase in the enemies level by the end of day.

I want to remain competitive in these events but it's just not possible with the inflation to their levels. I have been having great luck with The Hood event, sitting in top 15 right now, unfortunately I need to lock down top 10 for at least 1 Blue Model 40 cover. The Hood\Wolverine\Thor works surprisingly well, if I had a high level OBW I would probably use her over Wolverine like everyone and their grandmother is. Probably also helps that my Hood is level 58...
 
The problem is that the most rewarding missions were the Black Panther ones. There were missions of mandatory BP against l100 enemies that give more reward than missions without requisites against l200.

So I suppose that is quite difficult to get Thor if you don't have BP. Not impossible, if you have at least three good maxed 2-stars, but it requires much more effort than if you got a BP in the previous event.

And, in the next event, it will be quite difficult to reach the new character without playing the battles that require the new Thor.

D3 is going in a very risky way. They are making very difficult to the new players to close the gap with veteran players (that is a problem when most of the events are PVP).

Also, this new Thor is a very lazy effort, is a character that only exist to continue this new character requirement,
 

Askani

Member
My phone automatically locks after 60 seconds. The AI chained so many moves and abilities together that my phone locked because I hadn't touched it for so long. 60 seconds. C'mon son. lol
 
The problem is that the most rewarding missions were the Black Panther ones. There were missions of mandatory BP against l100 enemies that give more reward than missions without requisites against l200.

So I suppose that is quite difficult to get Thor if you don't have BP. Not impossible, if you have at least three good maxed 2-stars, but it requires much more effort than if you got a BP in the previous event.

And, in the next event, it will be quite difficult to reach the new character without playing the battles that require the new Thor.

D3 is going in a very risky way. They are making very difficult to the new players to close the gap with veteran players (that is a problem when most of the events are PVP).

Also, this new Thor is a very lazy effort, is a character that only exist to continue this new character requirement,

That was my other major complaint. The Black Panther pre-req is silly, because it basically gives tons of free points to people that got Black Panther from the last event. Punisher is fine because at this point tons of people have him, but Black Panther came out literally a week before this event started. I think rather than make it so you need that character to do it, they should make it like PvP events; if you have the character you can use a more powerful verson (your own) but they provide you with a bare minimum version so you could conceivably get it done anyway. If I recall that's what they did for the longest time, but it seems to no longer be the case.

The new Thor, I kind of understand, but he's definitely a reason I have minimal motivation for this Hulk event and am instead focusing on The Hood PvP one. Thor is a very popular character, both in the game and outside, and having him a 2 Star hero limits him greatly. But that being said, implementing the exact same hero, just making him 3 stars, is lazy as fuck. At least change up his skill set and use a variation from a different continuity or something. It's not too hard, there are 3 Hawkeyes, 3 Wolverines (4-ish if you count Daken), 3 Black Widows, and none of them are as uninspired as this new 3 Star Thor is. No thanks, my level 85 2 Star works fine, I'll keep chipping away at The Hood event and try and expand my Model 40 Iron Man (was in 8th when I last checked, really want top 10) since he offers something I don't already have.

My phone automatically locks after 60 seconds. The AI chained so many moves and abilities together that my phone locked because I hadn't touched it for so long. 60 seconds. C'mon son. lol

Some of the combinations for enemies are stupid for cascades, combined with my abysmal luck. I had one where they cleared 4, then 5 of their preferred color dropped straight down, then another 5 of their strongest color dropped again, and it started a chain reaction that killed one of my heroes and gave them enough AP to use roughly every move they had. It's fantastic.
 

Askani

Member
Update time:

Alliances
- S.H.I.E.L.D. has opened new available options for the Commander of any Alliance.
- Commanders may now increase the number of players in the Alliance via Hero Points
- Commanders may make Alliances Public or Private
- If it is private, Commanders may accept or deny applicants
- Depending on the Event, Alliance leaderboards will be available for S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents to peruse. These leaderboards will enable Alliance members to view their or other members' progress in a given event in a much more straightforward manner. These leaderboards and associated points may also be used for rankings that compare Alliances to other Alliances on certain Events or Tournaments.

UI
- As Iso-8 research continues, the ability to measure how much more powerful certain strains of Iso-8 make subjects has become more granular. As a result, Agents are now able to view the effective level of any Iso-8 powered up characters in an Event where they are more powerful. This does not result in a change in balance for those characters, it is simply a more straightforward way of viewing their assets' available skills.
- S.H.I.E.L.D. code hackers have fixed an issue where Agents downloading an update would sometimes have download percentages fluctuate randomly

Character
- Nick Fury has returned from a brief sabbatical at a day spa, returning with a new look. Even genius tacticians need a break every now and then.

Android Only
- Fixed an issue with logging into Google, preventing Google + Sign In and Achievements from functioning.
 

kswiston

Member
So, I am getting screwed over majorly right now in the Hulk Event. Since yesterday's reset, I have been unable to progress past the first fight, and therefore have not unlocked any sub events. Every time I try to access the second fight (where you team up with the hulk to fight 3 Dark Avengers), I get a message saying that the game cannot connect to the server. Other fights still connect no problem, including that first Hulk fight.

My game is updated to the latest version, and I have tried resetting the game and phone several times.

As a result of this, my global rank has dropped from 2900ish to 4200. If things don't resolve themselves, I might miss out on the Thor covers, instead of getting two as I was on track to do. Not impressed...
 

T.M. MacReady

NO ONE DENIES MEMBER
Just had a fight with Ragnorak where he used godlike power on every single turn. Including the first. The AI doesn't seem to be playing by the rules here.
 
Just had a fight with Ragnorak where he used godlike power on every single turn. Including the first. The AI doesn't seem to be playing by the rules here.

If/when he's higher level, his AP needs hit rock bottom to deploy, IIRC. Happens to me like every time I fight him.

Gotta say, I am so grateful I have Black Panther. I must have lucked out many events ago to snag whatever charac was new that time because now it's what keeps me in range of any new charac, every event. I have the guy I need at a decent enough level to hang in the exclusive missions.
 

kswiston

Member
If/when he's higher level, his AP needs hit rock bottom to deploy, IIRC. Happens to me like every time I fight him.

Gotta say, I am so grateful I have Black Panther. I must have lucked out many events ago to snag whatever charac was new that time because now it's what keeps me in range of any new charac, every event. I have the guy I need at a decent enough level to hang in the exclusive missions.

I have been lucky with drops in general lately. The last event that I was character restricted was the event where Patch debuted. Since then, I have managed to accumulate every 3 and 4 star character except Spider-Man. I ended up getting 2 BP covers out of the last event. His boosted form is pretty awesome during this event. It would be nice to have more useable 3 star characters though. The only two I can progress past level 40 are Hulk and Punisher.

In other news, I am still having my same issue in the hulk event. Rank is now 4600 and dropping. I sent an email through support, but I have no clue if they will do anything. It's a real bummer to see 7 days worth of work go down the drain. When is the next reset? With some luck, I will be able to salvage a top 6666 finish and at least get one Thor cover...
 
I was in the mid 6000 range already, and now I'm 10k+. Sucks. It looks like there are other people complaining about it on the D3 forums, but no response yet.
 

zulux21

Member
I was in the mid 6000 range already, and now I'm 10k+. Sucks. It looks like there are other people complaining about it on the D3 forums, but no response yet.

i am in mostly the same boat... but i am fine with it as i see most of the matches are work 3k plus points for me... I am at 115k points or so and just want to get to 140 for that 8k iso... beyond that I don't care to much where i end up... I would like a new thor but at the same time it will be a long time before he replaces my current thor.
 

animus82

Banned
i am in mostly the same boat... but i am fine with it as i see most of the matches are work 3k plus points for me... I am at 115k points or so and just want to get to 140 for that 8k iso... beyond that I don't care to much where i end up... I would like a new thor but at the same time it will be a long time before he replaces my current thor.

...Ya'll are slacking I'm at 170,000 and top 1000.

Pay2win like me. <--- only spent 25$.... but still.
 

kswiston

Member
...Ya'll are slacking I'm at 170,000 and top 1000.

Pay2win like me. <--- only spent 25$.... but still.

I will admit to paying for box space. About the same amount as you.

When does the current round of Hulk battles reset? I would like to participate again, and don't have much faith in my issue with this round being resolved soon.
 

zulux21

Member
...Ya'll are slacking I'm at 170,000 and top 1000.

Pay2win like me. <--- only spent 25$.... but still.

I am trying to cut back a bit, I have only really done each match once and redoing maybe one match per round to get a top 800 in the area for the heroic tokens (i used to go for top 600 for the hulk tokens for a chance for panther but they stopped giving those out -_-)

if I had a panther I might be going for it a bit more... heck if I had a panther i would likely be up in the 170s myself even just doing what I am doing as he has been worth a ton of points.
 

shaowebb

Member
Welp... the Ragnarok +2 snipers all over lvl 100 is one team I dont have some clever wonder tactic to share with you guys on.

Best bet...load up on Purple boosts, pack Widow Storm/Thor and abuse Aggressive recon to strip the green from them within 2 turns to prevent the horror of the auto fed Ragnarok cascades. The green will fuel Thor/Storm...once. Better hope it gives you enough mileage to close in on the Thor/Storm combo before this team gets going. Ragnarok ruins chances at getting rid of sniper shots with him stripping the board so much that it ruins any setups to get rid of hard to reach countdown tiles. Just fish for the Thor/Storm and hope you pop the damned things.

If you got an insano crushinating hard hitting bastard in your deck you "might" alternatively get through via Black Widow 5 turn stun on Rags and then punching craters into the snipers. If you dont kill them in time though its a roll of the dice.

Good luck folks. Best I got for ya. This was a really clever team D3 put together on this one. Can't help but feel impressed.
 

zulux21

Member
Welp... the Ragnarok +2 snipers all over lvl 100 is one team I dont have some clever wonder tactic to share with you guys on.
.

i got nothing myself... i can't deal with rags period tonight doesn't matter if he is getting fueled or not, any time he gets his green move off he is chaining into 7 plus matches (multiple 5 matches droping crit tiles) and dealing over 10k damage to my team period.

and of course if someone survives... well after his single green move their team h as like 8 mana of every color even if it's the second turn of the match and can use all of their other moves to finish me :/

F this game so hard tonight -_-
 

shaowebb

Member
i got nothing myself... i can't deal with rags period tonight doesn't matter if he is getting fueled or not, any time he gets his green move off he is chaining into 7 plus matches (multiple 5 matches droping crit tiles) and dealing over 10k damage to my team period.

and of course if someone survives... well after his single green move their team h as like 8 mana of every color even if it's the second turn of the match and can use all of their other moves to finish me :/

F this game so hard tonight -_-

I never tried on this event. Too many responsibilities. But I enjoyed this fight for how challenging it was. I like creating new teams and doing strategy work. This team is one helluva good design and if nothing else the losses I got helped me stay outta hell since its about all I'd play.

I'm thinking there 'might" be a way to pull this off abusing Punisher's ability to drop a man if they get below 40% health. This essentially cuts the goal on this team to half as much. Problem is if you put in punisher you usually lose something vital for that tactic. Classic Storm, MN Magneto and Punisher have a chance at this and it can mass produce Blue for more stuns and damage and full screen wipe...buts its a frail on health team that needs to start with blue ISO or purple or a lot of BOTH to pull this off.

Idea is Go in madly swinging for a stun on Rags. Then shoot to wear him down enough for Punisher to down. Thing is you need Punisher's color to down them, to do a TON of damage in 3 turns on rags, to NOT get blown apart by a stray sniper tile you miss and ...well...its just shaky. I'd give it about a 40% chance of working. Trying to tighten it up though.

My backup strategy I'm trying to workout is Modern Hawkeye with Lvl 5 blue cover and MN Magneto. Idea is to fuel his Blue arrow, and go for stuns. Give it about a 30% though as I can't keep them alive and it involves timers vs a screen wiper like Rags.

Best bet...SPIDERMAN +MN Magneto. But Spiderman is yielding almost no covers these days because of how flat busted his stun locking is. He can do it. He can completely stop their battery off of the snipers and stun Rags as well. Good luck getting Spidey though.

I'll keep trying to figure out a "mortal" tactic that works, but for now Spidey/MN Magneto is it.
 

zulux21

Member
I never tried on this event. Too many responsibilities. But I enjoyed this fight for how challenging it was. I like creating new teams and doing strategy work. This team is one helluva good design and if nothing else the losses I got helped me stay outta hell since its about all I'd play.

I'm thinking there 'might" be a way to pull this off abusing Punisher's ability to drop a man if they get below 40% health. This essentially cuts the goal on this team to half as much. Problem is if you put in punisher you usually lose something vital for that tactic. Classic Storm, MN Magneto and Punisher have a chance at this and it can mass produce Blue for more stuns and damage and full screen wipe...buts its a frail on health team that needs to start with blue ISO or purple or a lot of BOTH to pull this off.

Idea is Go in madly swinging for a stun on Rags. Then shoot to wear him down enough for Punisher to down. Thing is you need Punisher's color to down them, to do a TON of damage in 3 turns on rags, to NOT get blown apart by a stray sniper tile you miss and ...well...its just shaky. I'd give it about a 40% chance of working. Trying to tighten it up though.

My backup strategy I'm trying to workout is Modern Hawkeye with Lvl 5 blue cover and MN Magneto. Idea is to fuel his Blue arrow, and go for stuns. Give it about a 30% though as I can't keep them alive and it involves timers vs a screen wiper like Rags.

Best bet...SPIDERMAN +MN Magneto. But Spiderman is yielding almost no covers these days because of how flat busted his stun locking is. He can do it. He can completely stop their battery off of the snipers and stun Rags as well. Good luck getting Spidey though.

I'll keep trying to figure out a "mortal" tactic that works, but for now Spidey/MN Magneto is it.
normally I don't have much trouble with that fight... I just need to live for 5 rounds or so and my team can easily take that match out and end at full life.... it wasn't even that match i was having issues with though it is a level 140 fight involving 3 normal people where they would just match some green and rags would use his green once and my team would die from the matches that happened from it.

the game seems to hate me less again now though as he finally stopped matching like crazy.
 

shaowebb

Member
normally I don't have much trouble with that fight... I just need to live for 5 rounds or so and my team can easily take that match out and end at full life.... it wasn't even that match i was having issues with though it is a level 140 fight involving 3 normal people where they would just match some green and rags would use his green once and my team would die from the matches that happened from it.

the game seems to hate me less again now though as he finally stopped matching like crazy.

I wont lie...the game has been producing FAR more cascades than normal after tiles are cleared lately. Its almost a given to see at least two to three more sets of colors get popped per shot from the computer every turn right now in my matches. Not really cool with how after a Ragnarok blast the hole filled in with not one but 2 four in a row side by side going in. thats a bit much.
 
As soon as I make space for Daredevil, I get a Punisher AND a x-force Wolvie...I think I'm gonna have to throw $5 at this game for my sanity. Only other rare cards that might be enticing are the 3-Star black widow and Invisible Woman...but I don't think I want either.
 
As soon as I make space for Daredevil, I get a Punisher AND a x-force Wolvie...I think I'm gonna have to throw $5 at this game for my sanity. Only other rare cards that might be enticing are the 3-Star black widow and Invisible Woman...but I don't think I want either.

I paid $5 to buy roster space back in October and I haven't regretted it. I don't play nearly as much as I used to but if you're going to lose cards then just buy the space. Don't ever ditch a character.

Except bag man. Fuck him.
 
I paid $5 to buy roster space back in October and I haven't regretted it. I don't play nearly as much as I used to but if you're going to lose cards then just buy the space. Don't ever ditch a character.

Except bag man. Fuck him.

Yeah I had him and sold him twice. I don't really like Moonstone either. I think after the punisher and x-force I'm through with new cards.
 

zulux21

Member
Heh... you say that now, but tomorrow they'll be like Deadpool! Thanos! Cable! Squirrel Girl!

unless the moves were really interesting/useful for one of them... the only one I would likely collect would be squirrel girl :p
\
yay
7u6a7.jpg
I am a little sad though that the one time they screw up the rankings so badly that I can get to the end with basically only clearing the matches and missing the most important required character... there is the punisher, one of the only 3 stars I don't need anything for :/

it would have been nice if one of the high rewards had been a panther instead of something I will just sell for 500 iso (i miss getting hp for 3 stars)
 

Gotchaye

Member
I haven't cared about any of the recent characters and so I've been playing pretty casually. Should cruise to 2 Modern Thor covers off of playing all the missions once a day. I've now got 210k ISO waiting for a purpose; I've kind of run out of characters to spend it on. Patch and OBW are maxed, and Magneto, Hood, and Spider-Man don't need levels to be effective.
 

Fjord

Member
I'm enjoying this game so far. It seems to have some of the best retention gameplay around. However lately I feel like my real opponent is the hidden game mechanics outside of matches. How the heck does scaling and matchmaking work? I've tried researching it and half the theories seem like superstition. Is PvE event scaling based on community play? Are you put in a bracket at the start of an event? Am I ok winning as much as I want in the Hulk event or is it my fault that all the fights jumped to three times my highest character's level? Am I correct in rotating through the bottom 12/15 of my roster and getting them knocked out to 'tank' my rating each time? Does retreat work just as well as a loss?
 
A lot of it is on the official forums. It's not superstition as quite a bit of it either has consensus among players or dev confirmation.

Also, tanking got obliterated during the last few days. It worked prior, but afaik a recent update killed it.


So, next event will have exclusive alliance awards. Who's gonna bite the bullet and make one?
 
I thought someone already did?


Also, I'm ready to be rid of the Hulk event. I haven't been able to play it since Tuesday thanks to that glitch that affected some people. I was on pace to get one or two nu-Thors, now I'm all the way down to the 18k's... I'll be lucky to even get a single Wolverine.
 
A lot of it is on the official forums. It's not superstition as quite a bit of it either has consensus among players or dev confirmation.

Also, tanking got obliterated during the last few days. It worked prior, but afaik a recent update killed it.


So, next event will have exclusive alliance awards. Who's gonna bite the bullet and make one?

We have one but it's full (five people limit so….)

Edit: 600 GOLD TO ADD ONE SPOT. WOW.
 
Top Bottom