Yeah, I feel the same. It's good to give new players a chance, but not at the cost of punishing high-level players for trying. At least there should be better rewards or larger reward tiers for higher-level brackets. If we're putting in way more effort for less reward, there's a problem. It's true that amateur swimmers don't compete with Olympic athletes, but they also don't win Olympic medals. There needs to be more incentive for high-level players; otherwise Gameloft is basically telling us not to try. Also, after a relative drought, there is suddenly way too much to do in the game at once, especially with the increasingly time-consuming multi-day event. I probably won't have time to complete all the current events, especially at this time of year. Overall, I hope they manage to refine the balance of the game a bit more; I understand that it's still finding its feet, and I'm still impressed at how much content and effort they're putting into it.
You said it all much better than I could or did. I had to use the 0 ISO-8 advance option to skip the final part of the "kill enemies" challenge yesterday, and I've already put in two full great runs in today's event and each gives less than 1/6th the total swinging distance needed for the final award, which is pretty ridiculous for a daily event. But new content is good. More, new content is good generally, but you're exactly right that they need to strike a balance. I joked with a friend that Spider-Man Unlimited is absolutely the most poorly-managed game that I've ever spent 600+ hours playing. (My total distance is almost 26 million... It's not that Gameloft is doing nothing right, clearly, but there are so many opportunities for fewer bugs and better decisions and just a better game overall, and I'm so tuned in to the game that I can't help but feel all of those things magnified 100x.)
I am finding the opposite - the rescaled brackets have helped me last night. Before the update, you needed like 4.7-5.0 million on iOs EST to be in the top 999. Last night I only scored 4.38 million and I still made it to top 999. I think Gameloft needs some appreciation that game updates can wait if they are not going to be 95+% quality. I think they need to hear that from players. Myself coming from the DOS generation where nothing was cloud-beta tested, I can wait for a quality product... and I think other people need to give them that kind of feedback. We can wait a week if that translates to better testing and execution. I still haven't gotten my #10 place award yet from the recently finished Ultimate Spider Woman event!
Good points in the above discussion. 60,000 swings is a ton. This is a super boring and grind heavy day. It would be nice to see better rewards if we're lumped into higher tiers. I didn't even bother competing in this last one. I may just switch to going for only progression rewards. My total distance is only 16 million, but still, that's a lot of time in a game.
The brackets don't apply to the Daily Leaderboard since there are no brackets: everyone on the OS/region is competing there. Unless you mean that by creating new competition for people like me in the events, they caused fewer people to participate in the daily leaderboard, which I guess is possible... But my thinking is that if they're going to make me compete against the best of the best anyway, I may as well do that on the daily leaderboards where the prizes are often better and are, well, daily. Still waiting on my award too. I hesitate to even contact customer support because I don't think they can help me with the lost Ultimate Spider-Woman... I've only ever gotten ISO-8 from them and the way these portals are going I'd need 500 ISO-8 to replace the lost rank-up for the Jessica I did already get from the portal. Maybe I'll hold out hope that these awards are just reeeeaalllly late for a little while longer.
I just noticed that the daily event says 60,000 times, but the description below talks about distance. Tested it out, and it looks like it's really just swing 60,000 meters, not swing 60,000 times. I'm going to test it again, but that makes the event way more fun. Still a grind, but at least my swinging can be beautiful and not choppy.
After also looking at the Gameloft forums, I guess it's just the distance when the web is extended. So, in the swinging sections, you get credit on upswings but not free fall. Someone theorized you also get credit when you jump and change lanes and when you connect your web to enemies, but I can officially confirm that is not true.
Just to check, did she drop at rank 3? Her profile in the portal roster only shows rank 1 (unlike the other legendaries) so I'm nervous to try the portal.
I pulled her at 3/7 from the portal yesterday. I think they're done with the 20% chance to pull featured, but with Stealth and Classic Superior in the mix too it's a decent portal to pull from. Landed a 3/6 Sonic I needed too.
I also have not received my reward. I was 5th, so I was really excited to see if I got bumped or not. Ugh.
Some transparency around how the matchmaking is taking place would put my mind at ease. Right now it feels like those who have been crushing their brackets au natural without performance enhancing drugs (boosts) are now being thrust into a scenario where they are now constantly surrounded by players on steroids. I had all 3 featured Spideys maxed (multi somewhere around 144) for the last event and still ended up 12th after a solid Great Run. I don't think an event should be handed to me and I don't expect to win every one, but if I am now stuck in a bracket where boosting is the only way to ever crack top 5 in an event this game may have become a bit pay to win for my tastes. I don't understand what was wrong with the old bracketing - sometimes you got a cake walk, sometimes you got rolled by a bunch of veterans, but it never felt like you were being punished for performing well. I get that you want new players to feel rewarded, but this game already had a great progression curve - I've paid $2 or so maybe once a week to support the devs, but that ISO has never given me any discernible edge. I had no problems growing my roster by just playing more. There's no need to reduce the high-end prize pool for high-end players. The low-end players aren't ready for legendaries yet anyway. And with the great addition of the multi-day events there's plenty the lower scoring players can do to advance without the need for unfair matchmaking at the high end. I guess what I'm saying is, steroids shrink your genitals and I don't want to take them. Please don't make me.
Thanks for the info. Took me 11 tries but I got her. With the new portal rates, it's not really worth trying for more than one. Gameloft is really hurting themselves with the reduced rate; I spent way more on event portals back when there was a 20% chance. (I've still never pulled a Stealth. Ever. That guy lives up to his name.)
Wow i accidentally press the button and she spawned with the first. By mistake i spawen her looool. Inwas never in any game so lucky.
Combos and Meters. Combos and Meters. I keep going back and forth between the two events. It's mildly mind numbing. Don't get me wrong, I still love the game, and I'm really glad there is a lot of stuff to accomplish right now. But I feel like I need a break after this Daily Event. I hope there's a least a day or two before another starts up. In other news, I think my portal luck ran out. My final record for Stealth was like 0/10. My final record for Gwen was something like 0/16. And, at this point (and why am I still using the portal???) my record for Ultimate Spider-Woman is 0/18. And I'm planning to pull at least 6 more times. Mostly because I also still need Stealth and 1 more Classic Superior (to be fair, I did pull one of those from this portal). And there's some Epics in there I haven't finished out yet, so why not?! Oh portals. Oh Spider-Man.
Sorry to be a dirty double poster, but it's been five hours, so whatevs. Finished the 400,000 meter slog, and now onto beating Morlun 25 times! Just so everyone knows, it takes 60 (yep, sixty, as in six times ten) hits to defeat him each time. Buckle down for that. But the reward is finally Ultimate Black Widow III and 50 ISO-8!
I'm currently slogging through the 25 Morlun KOs now. I hate this so much... But it will be worth it.
I... I just beat him 7 times in one run without using any continues. It lasted over 70,000 m. It was like some terrible form of purgatory. ...I'm going to go pass out now.
Lol! I just beat him once and suicide and go again, it's way faster than wading through all the "boss is already dead so what am I still doing here?" part of the zone, and a full start->kill->suicide loop takes less than four and a half minutes. And this way I avoid the park haha. FWIW I kinda like the ridiculously long boss fight against Morlun, if only because it's true to Spidey's first encounter with him during the truly excellent JMS "Coming Home" arc.
Finally pulled an Ultimate Spider-Woman on try 23! So much ISO-8 spent. Does anyone else dislike playing with the female characters because they look so weird in motion? It sort of looks like they have hunchbacks when they run, or are just bending forward in a way that no one runs. I feel like they tried so hard to sexualize the characters that they forgot to make them look like people. If only artists understood how athletic builds look and how spandex actually works. Also, Spider-Girl is supposed to be a 15 year old, so that's inappropriate. Okay. That's my rant.
