A closer look at Jug Heroics and Reward Structure

atomzed

There are some discussion on scaling in the Jug Heroic thread, and this post from Phantron got me thinking.

Phantron wrote:

The arguments for scaling is always difficult to tell because you don't get to ask the guy who passed you up what are his levels. For all you know his levels could be higher than you and he just outplayed you. Additionally in these heroic events you tend to get a lot of weird thing going on with the guy whose highest character is a level 40 Thor 3* which the game conveniently forgets is really level 130. Yes your level 166 Thor is really level 256 too, but 256 versus enemies scaled for 166 is far less dominant compared to 130 versus enemy scaled for 40. As far as I can tell for equal strength roster your score appears to be part of the scaling factor too which makes it pretty hard to leapfrog someone with any scaling trickery. There's all kinds of problem with heroic events when the roster are uneven but maybe it's done to balance the fact that non heroic events are almost always dominated by maxed rosters. Normally even heroic events are fairly max roster dominated but this one the roster is so bad that having everyone maxed out would have very little impact because you got no one useful to use besides Thor.

So i decided to take a look at the roster of the top 10 in my bracket, to see how good their roster is. For simplicity sake, i will only mentioned their levels for Lthor, Hulk and Falcon (the only 3* in the Jugs event). I understand that levels mean less than the covers (i.e. its more impt to have falcon at 5 blue, than to have him at lvl 120), but as there may be too much data to type out, i will use their levels as proxy of the covers instead.

#1 Aythem, 67k, Lthor (153), Hulk (55), Falcon (165)
#2 Jon65, 67k, Lthor (166), Hulk (95), Falcon (111)
#3 LoreNYC, 65k, Lthor (166), Hulk (166), Falcon (166)
#4 Flume, 65k, Lthor (166), Hulk (111), Falcon (95)
#5 Ghast, 65k, Lthor (166), Hulk (166), Falcon (166)
#6 atomzed, 64k, Lthor (166), Hulk (166), Falcon (74)
#7 Andreyophanes, 64k, Lthor (53), Hulk (78), Falcon (66)
#8 Cardo5150, 64k, Lthor (166), Hulk (166), Falcon (64)
#9 Kaito Ngai, 64k, Lthor (66), Hulk (153), Falcon (115)
#10 SciKop, 64k, Lthor (40), Hulk (N.A.), Falcon (N.A.)

Observations

The PVE event does balance out the difference in roster strength, enabling new players to be able to 'compete' for pve. A key case in point is SciKop, who has only 1 green Lthor (which i assume he gotten from the progression reward), no Hulk, no Falcon. In fact, his max level character is a max IM35! His scaling must be very, very low, but kudos to him to be able to grind to a 10th spot with such a limited roster. Granted, there's no way to know how many health packs he has spend... but it is impossible to discuss this if we factor in health packs and boosts

Another thing that was complained about was that the number 21th player is getting the same cover as 150th player. So I wanted to compare this with the typical PVP reward structure.

3 covers - Top 1% in Jugs PVE - Top 1% in PVP
2 covers - Top 2% in Jugs PVE - Top 5% in PVP
1 cover - Top 15% in Jugs PVE - Top 20% in PVP

Observations
[list=2]In terms of percentage, it seems that the numbers are very similar. The top 1% continue to get 3 covers, but the % seems to be more stringent for PVE, with the players needing to get into the higher percentile to qualify for the covers. However that the absolute numbers of people getting the covers is greater in PVE, because the bracket size is bigger.[/list]

So in summary, it does seems like the PVE is 'working as intended', as it allows people with poorer rosters to compete for covers. Veteran players have it tougher, because of having to deal with tougher scaling. In terms of reward structure, the % are comparable.

One suggestion would be to change the PVE reward structure to Top 1%/ 5%/ 15% for the reward of 3/2/1 covers respectively. Yes, i know that D3 has tried to differentiate the different tiers by having HP and ISO rewards... but really, people are only interested in the covers. Making it top 5% for the 2 cover rewards will make it more of an achievement when they are in top 50, instead of the current structure of top 50 being the same as top 150.

Sandmaker

atomzed wrote:

However that the absolute numbers of people getting the covers is greater in PVE, because the bracket size is bigger.

It's actually the opposite. Larger bracket sizes give less total rewards if the placement requirement is the same.

Assume 1000 people. Top 25 in a bracket of 500 would mean two groups of 25 people getting 2 covers. So 50 people total. Whereas in a bracket of 1000, Top 25 means 25 people total would get 2 covers.

atomzed

Sandmaker wrote:

atomzed wrote:

However that the absolute numbers of people getting the covers is greater in PVE, because the bracket size is bigger.

It's actually the opposite. Larger bracket sizes give less total rewards if the placement requirement is the same.

Assume 1000 people. Top 25 in a bracket of 500 would mean two groups of 25 people getting 2 covers. So 50 people total. Whereas in a bracket of 1000, Top 25 means 25 people total would get 2 covers.

In your example,the % are different. Top 25 in bracket of 500 means top 5%. Whereas top 25 in bracket of 1000 means top 2.5%. Hence, that means that the % requirement is stricter in your example.

You need to compare between the same %. I.e. top 5% for bracket of 500 and top 5% of bracket of 1000. Which comes up to 50 people receiving rewards in a population of 1000.

Coppertouret

I agree that pve reward brackets should change to at least the op's specifications. itis really frustrating grinding for days on end at top level scaling to finish 21st for one cover with a noob with a one cover feature can finish 20th for 2 covers. why reward the noob for getting free points and easier scaling when there are vet players who have worked the grind for hours on end since release? I understand sharding is screwed up for pvp, but for pve, put me in a bracket with people that have similar days played and adjust the rubberbanding to center around the bracket lead instead of a global leader. that way, I know I'm grinding and getting beat out against people who have at least had the opportunity to put in the same play time and probably have similar scaling.

Sandmaker

atomzed wrote:

You need to compare between the same %. I.e. top 5% for bracket of 500 and top 5% of bracket of 1000. Which comes up to 50 people receiving rewards in a population of 1000.

If you compare by % then the bracket size doesn't matter at all. In fact, by definition, you have to divide out the bracket to calculate the percent.

This statement

atomzed wrote:

However that the absolute numbers of people getting the covers is greater in PVE, because the bracket size is bigger.

is still not true.

atomzed

Sandmaker wrote:

atomzed wrote:

You need to compare between the same %. I.e. top 5% for bracket of 500 and top 5% of bracket of 1000. Which comes up to 50 people receiving rewards in a population of 1000.

If you compare by % then the bracket size doesn't matter at all. In fact, by definition, you have to divide out the bracket to calculate the percent.

[/quote]

Huh? I am looking at the percentile in which the rewards are given. I hope that D3 increase the percentile for the rewards.

I am not looking at the bracket size, which is determine by D3 (who varies between pve/pvp).

mohio

atomzed wrote:

Sandmaker wrote:

atomzed wrote:

You need to compare between the same %. I.e. top 5% for bracket of 500 and top 5% of bracket of 1000. Which comes up to 50 people receiving rewards in a population of 1000.

If you compare by % then the bracket size doesn't matter at all. In fact, by definition, you have to divide out the bracket to calculate the percent.

Huh? I am looking at the percentile in which the rewards are given. I hope that D3 increase the percentile for the rewards.

I am not looking at the bracket size, which is determine by D3 (who varies between pve/pvp).[/quote]
I think you guys are misunderstanding each other a little. Seems like Op is just saying that they're able to give out "more" in terms of top x, x being larger for larger bracket sizes. Sandmaker is correctly pointing out that that doesn't mean they're actually giving out more covers since the percentages are what really matters (assuming equal participation which is probably reasonable). So even if 2 covers were for top 30, that might seem better, but it's still just 3% which is worse than pvp where 25 of 500 get 2 covers or 5%.

Anyway, I think it's understandable to want more, but it's understandable for d3 to hand out prizes the way they see fit. I can't imagine the prize structure is worse for their bottom line than the event end time issue (not trying to derail thread) so I doubt we'll see a change. Also you'll notice each pve has different reward thresholds and I think most are usually better than this. I wouldn't assume this is a big change in rewards, just what it was a long time ago and they never bothered changing it.

Unknown

When you consider that the guys with maxed roster are probably far more willing to at least iso 8 boost every fight compared to a guy with a level 40 Thor, it might be even closer than the list appears since without boosts the maxed rosters guys would've been stopped quite early from scaling. At the very least, the bottom right is almost certainly off limits without boosts in this event. Yes of course a guy with level 40 Thor could use boosts too, but the maxed roster guy definitely has an advantage here because you don't even need to save iso for anything at this point.

Keep in mind that a very large % of all players got the Thor cover at 20K which is a better cover than any of Colossus's. Even if we don't assign any special value to each 3* cover, you're still having a very high chance of getting the progression 3* based on recent history, while getting 1100 in any PvP event takes way more effort. The distribution of this event seems pretty top heavy in terms of reward. Didn't 20-50 get 2 covers in the past?

Spoit

atomzed wrote:

One suggestion would be to change the PVE reward structure to Top 1%/ 5%/ 15% for the reward of 3/2/1 covers respectively. Yes, i know that D3 has tried to differentiate the different tiers by having HP and ISO rewards... but really, people are only interested in the covers. Making it top 5% for the 2 cover rewards will make it more of an achievement when they are in top 50, instead of the current structure of top 50 being the same as top 150.

They should really reevaluate that as well, at least of sub-less (or even sub-light) pves. You spend WAAAAAY more time grinding for a top placement in pve vs pvp, but the ISO and HP rewards for main placement are pretty darn paltry.

Pylgrim

As someone ho dropped from 18th to 21st in the last three minutes of event in spite of being playing for the whole last hour, I strongly endorse the suggestion. And for the love of God, make the alliance reward one other than the lowest rewarded cover. Getting 2 red covers of Colossus after a weekend of effort and hundreds of HP in health packs was very much not cool.

Polares

Pylgrim wrote:

As someone ho dropped from 18th to 21st in the last three minutes of event in spite of being playing for the whole last hour, I strongly endorse the suggestion. And for the love of God, make the alliance reward one other than the lowest rewarded cover. Getting 2 red covers of Colossus after a weekend of effort and hundreds of HP in health packs was very much not cool.

I finished 25, so more of the same here. Of course the line has to be set somewhere, but having the same reward as someone who finished 150 is discouraging (and I am not saying that the person in the 150 position should not have a cover reward, I am saying that people who finish 25 should have two )

Unknown

I joined with 20 hours of the event left and this was the first PvE I ever played where I didn't complete all the nodes. After 2 wipes on "Who is this clown" (lv206 ish) I quickly realised that the node was already scaled above a level that would make sense in terms of effort vs. reward. I'd say the rest of the map was just about right in terms of scale to give my roster a challenge (i.e. use 4 or 5 packs per clear) without being overly punishing.

avs962

I was that 21st finished too

I guess my luck caught up to me after sneaking into 49th in the Simulator last week.