Best Of

Phumade said:

bbigler said:

I haven't read all the posts, but has anyone mentioned that you can't get full personal progression rewards without 5*Ock in the Hard or Deadly nodes?  I assume the Easy and Medium subs don't require Doc Ock, but then you're sacrificing alliance rewards.  The point is that every other PVE event allows you to get full personal progression without the required 5*, except this one.

No you could have gotten the progression with 4 days of the medium as well.  

HoundofShadow said:

I think many are used to cruising or sleeping on most boss events and getting top rewards the past couple of years, and when reality (or true essence of alliance event) kicks in, everyone got a shock.

Past alliance events are the "reality".  If the sun rises and sets every day and sunlight is warm on every one of those days, when one day sunlight is cold, is that 'the true essence' or 'reality' of sunlight?  No it's just aberrant. 

What Sinister 600 has done is revealing the weaknesses (if any) of every single member in your alliance, something that most boss events didn't accomplish. It's simply because the top few players can cover up for a few weaker or newer players in those events and yet still get the final alliance progression reward. You can't really do that in Sinister 600 anymore.

If you define "weakness" as "hasn't spent a load of money or spent a load of time grinding".  As it is, individual with developed rosters get the lion's share of rewards at all SCLs (note championed 5* players playing at SCL 7, where players in the 2*-3* transition play).  Alliance with membership of players with developed rosters that also regularly put in time get the lion's share of top rewards.

As it was, alliance boss events were the one event in which players with lighter rosters could earn slightly better than normal rewards.  This event, though, has players with lighter rosters missing personal progression and/or alliance progression.  This event is a step in the wrong direction in that it incentivizes every alliance to push towards elite rosters - ignoring the other attributes currently necessary to successful alliances, including communication, administration, organization, and planning.

Newer players are thus increasingly marginalized, and even veteran players that haven't matched the money and/or time investment of other players are also marginalized.  This is a good way to get players to quit.

I respect the developers are trying different things, and that the game has to be monetized.  But what's the natural consequence of the current trend?  The players that can make important contributions outside of their roster strength are marginalized and earn worse rewards.  When such players rotate out of an alliance or leave, the burden of administrative tasks falls to other players that are less willing to do what needs to be done.  So alliances decline and fail without the necessary administration, when an alliance fails, some players lose interest and leave.  Further the new trend has alliance events, rather than bringing alliances together for a fun time, becoming more competitive events in which individual players can be detriments to their alliances.

"Detriments to their alliances" is a very specific issue.  As it is, a free player in the 2*-3* transition with about one month of play can still be a member of a top 100 PvE alliance, with PvE scores that regularly reach max progression.  However, such a free player with a relatively weak roster would *not* under this trend of alliance events, be a valued member of the alliance.  So where that particular player is, in practice (and this is verifiable by data that can be checked in game and in alliance recruitment boards regarding requirements to join actual top 100 PvE alliances) - where that player can typically be an asset to their alliance, that player is a *detriment* under the current trend of alliance boss events.

Stating such players can rotate out misses the point.  A player that regularly contributes to part of a team that has to be asked to sit out for an event that earns better rewards so the rest of the alliance won't suffer - does this actually strike people as being a *good* event that increases alliance cohesion?  We're not talking about mercing, with players being substituted for when they can't put in the time.  We're talking about active willing players having to be sidelined, for no other reason than the design of the event.  That's wrong.

Usually, the leader will sit down with his team on what went wrong and what went right. They will then come up with a plan to improve things so that next time when the same or similar event happens again, they are better prepared for it.

That isn't what Marvel Puzzle Quest is.  Nor do I think it should be.

As it is, there's a good deal of administrative work that needs to be done for a well-functioning top alliance - communication, organization, planning, monitoring and recording progress, scheduling different commanders to rotate players in and out, coordinating mercs, and so forth.

Typically these tasks are best allocated to a few members, with a top-down hierarchy of command.  Having more and more players involved in decision making processes slows reaction time, and increases the burden of communication for everyone.

You could say, with some legitimacy, that you like such organizations that require a lot of communication and time and effort, and that you think such organizations should be rewarded.  But I'll say again - first, administrators and communicators are not what is selected for with the current trend; the current trend of alliance boss events leans towards stronger rosters, and if players don't have such rosters, that's that.

Second, even though that may be your preference (and why not, people are entitled to their own opinions), in my experience, adding layers of communication and organization is tiresome to most players.

Third, consider the game itself.  The meta is relatively straightforward; the current design for characters and for events does not allow for benefits for planning, past a certain point.  So what happens when you have a game in which the norm of behavior is one thing (relatively low effort) then you have events that encourage a very different norm?  The conflicts don't serve to satisfy different parts of the playerbase; the conflicts simply divide the playerbase even more.

Over here, the solution, that I feel, seems to be "the devs need to make things easier while we continue to do things the same way so that we still can get the top rewards."

I know you don't like that idea.  But I think it's a good idea.

Think back on the forums and the discussions and the implemented features that players tend to say they like.  Things like 24 hour timers, champion rewards, saved covers.  All these things made the game easier.

Then think about how much effort, time, and possibly money a player puts into the game.  If you're a player in the early 3*-4* transition player, and a regular participant in PvE and PvP, you're talking about a time investment (for PvE) of two to three hours a day.  For PvP you're probably going for progression wins, so say another three hours to just get to the 4* cover at SCL 7+.  Plus Lightning Rounds if one plays.  So in a week that's fourteen to twenty-one hours for PvE, six to eight hours for PvP, plus another hour and a half for Lightning Rounds (depending on participation).  Call it twenty to thirty hours every week, that's a pretty sizable investment.

Considering the time investment, it's no wonder players burn out and/or leave the game.  It's not a question of just needing to relax and take it easy for a little while.  If a player lets up, they get lower scores, which means they also won't make the scores a top 100 PvP or PvE alliance looks for, which means even less rewards.  Further, if a player lets up they're not earning HP, while the number of released characters continues to grow.  So it really becomes a massive time and/or money sink.

So why NOT make things easier?  I am not opposed to additional events or options that will allow players with more developed rosters to earn more rewards.  (But consider this is already the case what with higher point values at higher SCLs in PvE, rewards for Essential Character nodes that players without Essential Characters can't earn, SHIELD training, and Essential Characters in Deadpool Daily quests).  Sure, have more such events, whatever.

But to make the grind harder for *everyone* simply strikes me as the wrong direction for the game to take.  The higher the barrier to entry, the lower the playerbase, the lower the monetization - unless the few players left all want to spend more and more, and regularly, and I don't see why they would.  (Do you?)

TPF Alexis said:

Phumade said:

bbigler said:

I haven't read all the posts, but has anyone mentioned that you can't get full personal progression rewards without 5*Ock in the Hard or Deadly nodes?  I assume the Easy and Medium subs don't require Doc Ock, but then you're sacrificing alliance rewards.  The point is that every other PVE event allows you to get full personal progression without the required 5*, except this one.

No you could have gotten the progression with 4 days of the medium as well.  

The point is, if you play Medium, there are no 4* covers in the Alliance Progression Rewards. So you have to give up those, one way or another, if you don't have Doc Ock.