Has the rubber banding mechanic been changed?

Frailezim
Frailezim Posts: 68
edited June 2014 in MPQ General Discussion
Heya,

Not a moan thread, just a query thread.

I'm the type of player who tries to join PVE as late as possible as to me 8+ days playing is just not feasible for me these days. Previously, I could join events a few days late and still contribute to our alliance effectively, so not top 3 but at least the 4-10 range. This definitely worked in the last few PVE's like Storm's and Sentry's. However it seems that this is now not possible based on the scores I'm achieving in this week PVE. As an example, in previous events you could get 700-1k nodes quite regularly and currently nodes are at a maximum 500.

Am I the only one who has noticed a remarkable rise in the difficulty for late joiner to compete? It would be nice to get the opinions of a few fellow late joiners.

Cheers!

Comments

  • Spoit
    Spoit Posts: 3,441 Chairperson of the Boards
    It's because there are only sub nodes, which don't rb to the main leaders
  • mohio
    mohio Posts: 1,690 Chairperson of the Boards
    This late joiner joined a bracket full of late joiners, so it's still quite easy to remain in the top 20 or so. That doesn't really answer your question though so I'll try to do that. One issue is that there are no main bracket nodes, so there's no rubberband to the overall leaders, which means you really can't ever catch up to the guys at the top. Also, I have been finding 1000 point nodes in the "hard" subs, since I only join at the very end of each sub. They go down pretty quickly though, since the rubberband is the same weak rubber band we've had for the past 2 months. So, the combination of low base values, a fairly weak rubberband, and no main map nodes means that "late joiner" scores are going to be a lot lower than the guys who have been grinding out every sub from the beginning.
  • Frailezim
    Frailezim Posts: 68
    Cheers guys that makes sense. So a 8 day PVE with no way to catch up, crazy in my opinion.
  • mohio
    mohio Posts: 1,690 Chairperson of the Boards
    9.5 days actually icon_e_biggrin.gif. But I agree with you at least in this specific instance, since the subs are only 24 hours long. If you miss a day, you are pretty much screwed, or have to severely grind to catch back up. In general though, think about it from the other side. You worked twice as hard as the late joiners, only for them to catch up to you at the last minute. If I were in that group I would be pretty upset about it, so I can see it both ways.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    If you make a list of events that offer a catchup mechanism (generally would be rubberband off main leader at some point) versus not you'd get this chart:

    Allows catching up - The Hulk, Heroic Oscorp (2nd time), Heroic anything else (only one event), Red Isotope, Thick as Thieves
    Does not allow catching up - The Hunt, Simulator Basic, Prodigal Sun, Iso8 Brotherhood

    If you throw out the heroics which have only one whole event and thus obviously can only rubberband from the main, you'll get that it is slightly more likely the bigger events do not allow you to catch up versus those that do.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    Frailezim wrote:
    Cheers guys that makes sense. So a 8 day PVE with no way to catch up, crazy in my opinion.


    I'm not sure you necessarily should be able to catch up. At least not to the top tier of rewards, or winning a bracket. If you get **** and sharded into a main bracket that started a day or two earlier, that's a bummer. But if you join your main bracket on day 5, and everyone else joining that bracket did the same thing, then I really don't see why you'd need to get huge point nodes if no one else in your bracket gets them either. Who are you trying to catch up to in that example? The progression rewards that people who played the first five days are getting? That's nonsense.
  • Spoit
    Spoit Posts: 3,441 Chairperson of the Boards
    j12601 wrote:
    Frailezim wrote:
    Cheers guys that makes sense. So a 8 day PVE with no way to catch up, crazy in my opinion.


    I'm not sure you necessarily should be able to catch up. At least not to the top tier of rewards, or winning a bracket. If you get **** and sharded into a main bracket that started a day or two earlier, that's a bummer. But if you join your main bracket on day 5, and everyone else joining that bracket did the same thing, then I really don't see why you'd need to get huge point nodes if no one else in your bracket gets them either. Who are you trying to catch up to in that example? The progression rewards that people who played the first five days are getting? That's nonsense.
    His point is that even a single day would be an insurmountable barrier, and with sharding, at this point it could easily take a couple days for a bracket to fill

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