Major problem with the Hunt - very very upset!

Unknown

DumDumDugn wrote:

More people playing would increase rubberbanding, not weaken it.

If other people are scoring points at the same time you are, you would move up fewer spots with each mission. So not weaker from a points standpoint, but in terms of standings.

Unknown

kripton wrote:

Sooty wrote:

walkyourpath wrote:

Nemek wrote:

I'll break the circlejerk here, but it was very very obvious that repeatables went down to zero. It was also very obvious that running through all of your repeatables early was a very bad idea. In 10 days, we all had plenty of opportunity to learn the best tactics, given the situation. The people at the top of your bracket understood that and played accordingly.

I don't think the rubberbanding was very good this tournament, and there is a lot to improve with it. But, you play with the cards that are dealt, and you likely played them poorly if you were 1st with 6 hours left (or whatever) with your repeatables exhausted.

I waited until the last possible opportunity (90 mins before the event ended) to begin clearing my repeatables, and have applied the strategy you outlined above throughout the entire event. I stayed within striking distance, then cleared to move into the top ranks, then waited for point values to rise. This worked until the very last push. I'm not demanding restitution or anything silly like that, but to play it right for 9 days and still get bumped is a big letdown.

That's the problem here, is that even with applying optimal strategy it still punished many players arbitrarily (or failed to Punish, as the case may be). I'm sure that many people complaining failed to play optimally, but many didn't. Not sure that "learn to play" is the best rebuttal here, as plenty who played it right still were left out.

No matter how you slice it, these are placement rewards. Even if every one knew the optimal strategy, there'd still be only a few people who'd get those placements. The real criticism should be levelled at the bracket and placement system for PvE, but the rubberbanding has been made the scapegoat.

Wrong. Nobody complained about the other pve placement events. The problem is rubber band and diminishing returns, although everybody is lumping them together.

I can see you haven't been around the forums much... people complain all the time

Honestly though, I've always been critical of the lack of transparency for PvE events (if you check out my thread in the suggestion forum), but the reason The Hunt was so unexpected for people was because, depending on your bracket, you have no idea how well you are doing vis a vis other players because rubberbanding always shoots you someplace high, and everyone can rubberband at their own leisure. It did create an illusion for many people that they were ever going to have a chance, but as this eruption in forum activity has clearly demonstrated, it was definitely possible to 'play it wrongly'. Even if you play the event 'correct' (as Ranzera says he did) if you're unlucky and your bracket turns out to have lots of people who were able to do similarly, then you're more likely to be screwed. Rubberbanding isn't not making the playing field unfair because everyone is working around the same system. What's screwing with people's heads is the fact that the system is so **** opaque.

So yeah, rubberbanding is a problem that way.

But this attitude you see where everyone thinking they should get a Punisher, despite the fact that the entire tourney has already been giving out tons of free stuff to lots of people? People saying that they spent this much effort so they should have gotten this much prizes? This as far as I'm concerned is either 1) a criticism of the bracket and placement system or 2) being incredibly presumptuous about how much effort the other people in your bracket spent.

Unknown

I'm not asking for compensation for their mess, but plenty of us saw it coming and it's a major disappointment they didn't address it.

Unknown

Misguided wrote:

DumDumDugn wrote:

More people playing would increase rubberbanding, not weaken it.

If other people are scoring points at the same time you are, you would move up fewer spots with each mission. So not weaker from a points standpoint, but in terms of standings.

Yea that's true.

Unknown

This event really upset me. It seems that you really have to calculate when to play which mission for how many times. But even then you are not certain that you will have a satisfying result.

My overall place during the week was usually in the top 10; at night i dropped several places and reclaimed them in the morning. Sometimes the repeatable mission in Alaska would give 1600+ points. But today in the morning after not playing for several hours the Devil Dinosaur Mission gave only ~300 points while I had dropped to ~250th place. There was just no chance to regain these ranks with the available points in time because the available missions dropped very quickly to ~16 points. There were still 1200 points missing to the top10, so there was just no chance for me to get a Punisher Cover.

While this "rubberbanding" system should be fair for all players, it is certainly very irritating and uncalculable.

If you are lucky, you win, if not, you just don't
If you have spare time at the right time, you score much more points; if you play two hours earlier or later, you might loose lots of points.
If you don't play for one day, you make up the missing points in two or three matches; others had to play maybe 20 or more times to get the same points.

I try to respect the programmers who do a great job providing a great and entertaining game, but this is really raising the question for me whether I want to continue playing. The game punishes me (pun intended) for playing too much.

Hopefully this annoyance with rubberbanding can be resolved.

Unknown

I am, however, posting in the rage threads with a hope they'll at least address the issue with a statement or maybe apology for what was a poor decision

Unknown

kripton wrote:

I'm not asking for compensation for their mess, but plenty of us saw it coming and it's a major disappointment they didn't address it.

Perhaps, but not sure how they could have addressed it in the middle of the tournament without someone crying foul. I think the changes to the formula need to be more incremental. This was a drastic change from the last event. I don't blame people for being frustrated and I hope folks will take a deep breath and realize that despite the way this ended, everyone benefitted a lot from the event in other regards.

Unknown

... or just have shorter events to test their scoring/rubber banding algorithms.

Unknown

Fangel wrote:

... or just have shorter events to test their scoring/rubber banding algorithms.

Fair point.

Spoit

I liked the suggestion in the other thread to just get rid of placement awards for the PvE event and put them in progression instead

Unknown

Misguided wrote:

Fangel wrote:

... or just have shorter events to test their scoring/rubber banding algorithms.

Fair point.

Well said.

Unknown

The rubberbanding -- in and of itself -- is not the problem here. While the Unstable ISO rubberbanding was absurdly extreme (first place = 15 for a mission, second place and beyond = 300 for the same mission), it still allowed those who had been overtaken to do the same and climb back up. It required some understanding of how the rules worked but it still hit both targets -- those who played more could keep earning more, and those who didn't play 24/7 still had a chance to catch up.

The Hunt system worked all right for the first nine and a half days, to an almost equally absurd degree -- almost anyone could play every sub-event and end up in the overall top 10 at least temporarily. I found myself playing all the mission packs with similar amounts of diligence, and due to rubberbanding being based off the overall score I had consistent results: top 20 in Alaska, top 200-400 in Florida, top 600-ish in Savage. I was beating the 230/230/230 events easily, but I simply didn't score as many points in the later sub-events because I had a higher placement going into them. I'd get just enough points to put me in the overall top spot and that's all.

Fair enough. So what happens on the last day when just about everyone, thanks to rubberbanding, has a very similar score and a finite pool of missions remaining? The prizes go not to those who have the strongest teams, the smartest gem-switching strategies, the most diligent grinding or the most efficient clears, but to those who had the opportunity to play at a specific time of day. In a direct PvP tournament like Doctor's Orders or a Lightning Round, that's more logical -- if you're not there you can't fight other players and you can't score points, so if you're not around at the end you take the chance of getting plinked down without the ability to retaliate. This situation was different. It was two players doing the same PvE missions the same number of times and the second player gets more points for it simply because he played them 20 minutes later. Worse, player one running Devil Dinosaur 50 times instead of 8 and still losing because only the first eight counted, and they counted less because of nothing but their timing. THAT's why many people are crying foul.

Is it consistent with the way the tourney had been set up? Somewhat. Is it a good model going forwards? No. D3P is experimenting, and this is a step towards more equitable events down the road, but if nothing else they need to lay the rules out much more explicitly.

Unknown

Nice post, DC. Agreed.

Unknown

Nemek wrote:

I'll break the circlejerk here, but it was very very obvious that repeatables went down to zero. It was also very obvious that running through all of your repeatables early was a very bad idea. In 10 days, we all had plenty of opportunity to learn the best tactics, given the situation. The people at the top of your bracket understood that and played accordingly.

I don't think the rubberbanding was very good this tournament, and there is a lot to improve with it. But, you play with the cards that are dealt, and you likely played them poorly if you were 1st with 6 hours left (or whatever) with your repeatables exhausted.

Sorry bro, but that's horse ****. I went to bed 10th and woke up 35th. My points dried up after about 30 minutes. This was poor programming or planning and only served to piss off heir core player base.

Unknown

dmendro wrote:

Nemek wrote:

I'll break the circlejerk here, but it was very very obvious that repeatables went down to zero. It was also very obvious that running through all of your repeatables early was a very bad idea. In 10 days, we all had plenty of opportunity to learn the best tactics, given the situation. The people at the top of your bracket understood that and played accordingly.

I don't think the rubberbanding was very good this tournament, and there is a lot to improve with it. But, you play with the cards that are dealt, and you likely played them poorly if you were 1st with 6 hours left (or whatever) with your repeatables exhausted.

Sorry bro, but that's horse tinykitty. I went to bed 10th and woke up 35th. My points dried up after about 30 minutes. This was poor programming or planning and only served to piss off heir core player base.

did you do savage land missions last night or this morning?

Unknown

DefectiveChicken wrote:

Fair enough. So what happens on the last day when just about everyone, thanks to rubberbanding, has a very similar score and a finite pool of missions remaining? The prizes go not to those who have the strongest teams, the smartest gem-switching strategies, the most diligent grinding or the most efficient clears, but to those who had the opportunity to play at a specific time of day. In a direct PvP tournament like Doctor's Orders or a Lightning Round, that's more logical -- if you're not there you can't fight other players and you can't score points, so if you're not around at the end you take the chance of getting plinked down without the ability to retaliate. This situation was different. It was two players doing the same PvE missions the same number of times and the second player gets more points for it simply because he played them 20 minutes later. Worse, player one running Devil Dinosaur 50 times instead of 8 and still losing because only the first eight counted, and they counted less because of nothing but their timing. THAT's why many people are crying foul.

This is the best assessment of the issue I've read thus far. Well said.

As for suggestions on how to tweak system:
1) capped mininum: so players aren't left totally helpless..
2) capped maximum: so no one's getting thousands of points per battle. If you took a day off, you should have to put in a bit extra effort to climb back, and not be able to simply slingshot back to the top in a few matches...

Unknown

DumDumDugn wrote:

dmendro wrote:

Nemek wrote:

I'll break the circlejerk here, but it was very very obvious that repeatables went down to zero. It was also very obvious that running through all of your repeatables early was a very bad idea. In 10 days, we all had plenty of opportunity to learn the best tactics, given the situation. The people at the top of your bracket understood that and played accordingly.

I don't think the rubberbanding was very good this tournament, and there is a lot to improve with it. But, you play with the cards that are dealt, and you likely played them poorly if you were 1st with 6 hours left (or whatever) with your repeatables exhausted.

Sorry bro, but that's horse tinykitty. I went to bed 10th and woke up 35th. My points dried up after about 30 minutes. This was poor programming or planning and only served to piss off heir core player base.

did you do savage land missions last night or this morning?

I played the last set of missions Sunday morning.

Unknown

Yea, from about an hour left I could tell I had no chance to catch the pack. After playing for so many days that really sucked. Now, I am happy with the amount of ISO I got during the event. I dont think I will work as hard in future long events. Enough to get the high ISO rewards but not enough to really try to win.

Unknown

MrMeer wrote:

DefectiveChicken wrote:

Fair enough. So what happens on the last day when just about everyone, thanks to rubberbanding, has a very similar score and a finite pool of missions remaining? The prizes go not to those who have the strongest teams, the smartest gem-switching strategies, the most diligent grinding or the most efficient clears, but to those who had the opportunity to play at a specific time of day. In a direct PvP tournament like Doctor's Orders or a Lightning Round, that's more logical -- if you're not there you can't fight other players and you can't score points, so if you're not around at the end you take the chance of getting plinked down without the ability to retaliate. This situation was different. It was two players doing the same PvE missions the same number of times and the second player gets more points for it simply because he played them 20 minutes later. Worse, player one running Devil Dinosaur 50 times instead of 8 and still losing because only the first eight counted, and they counted less because of nothing but their timing. THAT's why many people are crying foul.

This is the best assessment of the issue I've read thus far. Well said.

As for suggestions on how to tweak system:
1) capped mininum: so players aren't left totally helpless..
2) capped maximum: so no one's getting thousands of points per battle. If you took a day off, you should have to put in a bit extra effort to climb back, and not be able to simply slingshot back to the top in a few matches...

Essentially this is the happy medium. There were times I had time to play and purposely avoided playing to take advantage of the rubber-banding. That's counter intuitive.

Kelbris

so basically you never played the same mission enough to completely exhaust the amount of points given until the very last day? This was a 10 day event. you never played one of the Savage Land missions to the point where it exhausted its repeatable points while trying to get one of those 50 hero point rewards?

because I did. And the same thing happened to me that happened to you on the last day. Nothing had suddenly changed. Your vacuous assumptions are intellectually offensive. To say something change because you only enacted the scenario ONCE is egregiously illogical.

Actually, instead of trying things out on a casual 10 day event, keep doing this and just complain if you don't win. It raises my chances of winning tournaments.