Have loads of people stopped playing, as PVE has gone weird?

Unknown

So since, like, forever, as a UK player I would not get top 10/25 in events due to finish times. Last night I went to bed with seven hours left on the PVE event. I was in fifth.

I finished in the top 10.

Now I know that the nodes were not as "turn up with 45 minutes to go and we'll let you catch up with those who have played all week, in the blink of an eye" this time. But holy cow. In seven hours five players didn't overtake me? What on earth is all that about? Have people just left this game in droves? Every other PVE event I have played I have done similar, and ended up lucky to break into the top 100, normally I am top 200.

Don't get me wrong, I'll take my four x Sentry covers (I may even use him at some point), but I have never seen anything close to that before.

New PVE system? Tumbleweed instead of players? Something else?

Spoit

This last PvE didn't have rubberbanding during the last 12 hours, so they were limited to 2.2k per 2.5 hours, playing optimally, which really isn't if you built up a lead.

Unknown

Same for me.

I stop at #3, 7h before the end, and as a french player I was hoping a top 25, but expecting a top 50.

And I finished #8

I was on a late bracket (joined 48h before the end) and I think the last nodes in the main were too low in score to make a huge last push.

For example, the higher node in the last sub was around 1,5k for me (which allow me to grind easily to top 5/10, with around 38k in less than 2h of gameplay)
The higher node in the main was 400 points, dropping to 100~150 after 2 clear. With 0,5~1h of gameplaly, I've done less than 3k ...

So if you made a gap before the last sub ends, you were safe, but you didn't know it ^^

kidicarus

I'd echo the sentiments above and also add that for me at least, the top 10 in my main bracket didn't really move much after the end of the 1st sub. Maybe it's the effect of true healing?

Unknown

Hmm, well it's not as if I have grinded here either. Last night I did two goes on the Essential missions, and one go on the other ones that had appeared.

Just seems odd that in seven hours normally 100+ people would sweep past me, last night there was not even five. Huge difference.

HairyDave

kidicarus wrote:

I'd echo the sentiments above and also add that for me at least, the top 10 in my main bracket didn't really move much after the end of the 1st sub. Maybe it's the effect of true healing?

It's all down to the lack of rubberband at the end. There was very little movement at all that I could see.

I was 32nd when I went to sleep (about 11 hours out from the end) and I didn't get a chance to get back to it until about 2 hours to go - I'd moved down to 34th. One more pass through and I'd got my 32 back and that's where I stayed.

Unknown

I too saw way less movement in last leg. I guess the other times a number of climbers arrived from deeper ranges using rubberbanding. Now that was off so the population who could catch you was much more limited to start with.

Also those who understand the tech should be aware that lack of RB means one can't overtake anyone playing the same pace. Likely putting the few actual races on the tier borders. leaving more people alone and cutting more climbs short estimating resistance.

I for example was around #18 and was really just to defend t20 not seeing quite any hope to move into t10 with 10k points lead. But on the 2nd clear noticed those behind are hardly coming and the top looks passive. Then I looked closer at the rosters and found a couple of people with just 1-2 characters to fight with and more importantly no SH. And calculated I can just get to #10 unless all those keep making full clears all the way. And they didn't move either at all or just a little. so 2 clears later I was in properly defensible #9 (by the end even overtaking clintman at #7 who could not drop out of t10 by initial lead just paying attention.)

Unknown

A really good decision by the Dev team, let's hope they keep this format. Although it would have been nice to have known of the change ahead of time.

wymtime

Badlands wrote:

A really good decision by the Dev team, let's hope they keep this format. Although it would have been nice to have known of the change ahead of time.

I liked the change. I have always hated seeing the rRB huge at the end. I don't think the Dev's are telling us about the change because they don't know if it will always be that way. they are tweaking it each PVE to see what works best and gets played most. so this means we will get something different next PVE.

Wolarsen

Yes... and no.
I have always found rubberband a very bad concept, forcing player to schedule to play optimally; i would be happy to see it completely removed from the game.
But removing/modifying it (or any other mechanic) in the middle of an event is way worse imo; rubberband may force me to play in a way i would probably not do; mid changes without notification removes completely the choice from me.

Marty17

I can similarly compare, I completed all the nodes in one sub, overall ranked about #50. Left it for about 8hrs+ to work, came back, I'm surprised I barely budged, it was #60. I was just aiming to be in top #100. Normally within that time scale, I would've dropped off to about #150-200.

Unknown

hermanbloom wrote:

So since, like, forever, as a UK player I would not get top 10/25 in events due to finish times. Last night I went to bed with seven hours left on the PVE event. I was in fifth.

I finished in the top 10.

Now I know that the nodes were not as "turn up with 45 minutes to go and we'll let you catch up with those who have played all week, in the blink of an eye" this time. But holy cow. In seven hours five players didn't overtake me? What on earth is all that about? Have people just left this game in droves? Every other PVE event I have played I have done similar, and ended up lucky to break into the top 100, normally I am top 200.

Don't get me wrong, I'll take my four x Sentry covers (I may even use him at some point), but I have never seen anything close to that before.

New PVE system? Tumbleweed instead of players? Something else?

2 important things happened here!

1 - The Dev team never announces changes that happen to the way an event is going to happen. This was a pleasant surprise for once (happens every now and again, to give them some credit). Moving forward, I really hope they stick with this system. Also, a lot of people don't read the forums and did not know to expect this change, although it was discussed really early in the start of the final 12 hours.

2 - A lot of people were just expecting to come in at the last hour grind a few nodes and move up 100 spots... Which you can clearly see did not happen. Thank you Dev team for listening to the community (and especially not screwing the Euro players)

The Finn

Wolarsen wrote:

Yes... and no.
I have always found rubberband a very bad concept, forcing player to schedule to play optimally; i would be happy to see it completely removed from the game.
But removing/modifying it (or any other mechanic) in the middle of an event is way worse imo; rubberband may force me to play in a way i would probably not do; mid changes without notification removes completely the choice from me.

Couldn't agree more--the constant stealth changes result in making me feel like a lab rat to D3. I've tried really hard to not jump on the hate train and give the devs a benefit of the doubt but we need transparency into the change process!

I missed she hulk by 1.5k pts and missed top 10 by 1k thanks to this change. Pretty discouraging.

The Finn

Tonzil wrote:

1 - The Dev team never announces changes that happen to the way an event is going to happen. This was a pleasant surprise for once (happens every now and again, to give them some credit). Moving forward, I really hope they stick with this system. Also, a lot of people don't read the forums and did not know to expect this change, although it was discussed really early in the start of the final 12 hours.

With a playerbase that to your point is global and spans hundreds of thousands of players, sorry to say but 12 hours is still piss poor communications. Especially when it is well understood that the vast majority of players never visit the forums. Your particular use case works for you but it is very narrow and I think over this change process needs a ton of work still.

I like the change to the rubberbanding just BTW. But chaning it like this was terrible execution.

emaker27

wymtime wrote:

I don't think the Dev's are telling us about the change because they don't know if it will always be that way. they are tweaking it each PVE to see what works best and gets played most. so this means we will get something different next PVE.

This would be a very flawed strategy. Players are playing the game based on the established rules from the last event. So when you make an unannounced change like that, you can't accurately tell if it "works the best and gets played the most". If they keep any structure for two events in a row or just post the scoring rules ahead of time for the current event, you can gather accurate data. Communication is the keep to any good relationship.

Unknown

IMO experimenting with PVE formats and nuances in NOT a problem. And contrary to what some people claim it was not "
change in the middle" or whatever -- it's just the usual thing each PVE has different setup and part of the job is to figure out how it works.

And I definitely prefer experimenting out a better way than to get stuck with something we discovered to suck.

For this one the sub and main organization looked pretty good -- what remains to improve is lowering the point regen rate considerably and find out something to allow chance to those not around in the final hour (or ability to control it).

Unknown

It's quite clear the goal of PvE is to reward a mix of grinding and last minute action. There are extreme on both ends which is why they're constantly trying to tweak it. An event like Iso 8 Brotherhood where people could skip the last day and still be #1 is probably too unexciting, while an event like Thick as Thieves where you have no idea where you'll finish until the event ends is likewise far more exciting than it should be.

In my bracket if you missed 7 hours you'd have fell from #1 to under #10. People really should be thankful of getting lucky on uncompetitive brackets. The final main bracket had more points than any sub before it, so if there wasn't significant movement either people in your bracket took it easy and/or calculated their points wrong, or you had lead in the range of 10K at the top.

Spoit

Phantron wrote:

It's quite clear the goal of PvE is to reward a mix of grinding and last minute action. There are extreme on both ends which is why they're constantly trying to tweak it. An event like Iso 8 Brotherhood where people could skip the last day and still be #1 is probably too unexciting, while an event like Thick as Thieves where you have no idea where you'll finish until the event ends is likewise far more exciting than it should be.

In my bracket if you missed 7 hours you'd have fell from #1 to under #10. People really should be thankful of getting lucky on uncompetitive brackets. The final main bracket had more points than any sub before it, so if there wasn't significant movement either people in your bracket took it easy and/or calculated their points wrong, or you had lead in the range of 10K at the top.

Have you ever considered....that your playstyle might be the outlier, not what everyone else other than you is reporting?

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

The final main bracket had more points than any sub before it,

Not my experience at all. In the subs my Essential nodes were all worth 1500+ at full. In the final main bracket I didn't have a single node over 300 points.

Unknown

Spoit wrote:

Have you ever considered....that your playstyle might be the outlier, not what everyone else other than you is reporting?

My lead on #1 went down between the end of the last sub and the end of the event and it's not up to me to decide what the other guys in the bracket are doing. Even the #10 guy was usually within 2K for a good while before they gave up.

I keep on see people try to find easy bracket to join and then complain that competition isn't very high when you tried to avoid competitive brackets. Another guy in the alliance had like 110K and didn't even finish in top 2. Maybe sharding does work so that most people do avoid the craziest brackets if they don't have a history of being ultra competitive. It sounds like people want to actually lose 100 places for missing the last refresh.

Unknown

Expalphalog wrote:

Phantron wrote:

The final main bracket had more points than any sub before it,

Not my experience at all. In the subs my Essential nodes were all worth 1500+ at full. In the final main bracket I didn't have a single node over 300 points.

You only got those nodes once every 6 hours or so, versus the main bracket nodes that are 400X3 every 2H 24M. 40K can comfortably win the last sub and that's 10K/12 hours. Everyone in my top 10 main bracket beat 10K/12 hour very easily in the last 12 hours.