DA Heroic PVE vs The Gauntlet PVE

Unknown

I'm genuinely at a loss for words. MPQ goes from the best PVE format to the worst, and they do it for a new character. We went from an event with gradual scaling, no rb, an event that could you play on your schedule, and a time zone friendly reward system to the exact opposite.

I just do not understand why MPQ could not take what they learned from a successful event and apply it to this heroic pve. Why could the rewards all have been made into progressive instead of a system in which only a small percentage of play time will determine who gets covers for this event?

I really do not know how I should feel or the reason for this regression.

NorthernPolarity

stephen43084 wrote:

I'm genuinely at a loss for words. MPQ goes from the best PVE format to the worst, and they do it for a new character. We went from an event with gradual scaling, no rb, an event that could you play on your schedule, and a time zone friendly reward system to the exact opposite.

I just do not understand why MPQ could not take what they learned from a successful event and apply it to this heroic pve. Why could the rewards all have been made into progressive instead of a system in which only a small percentage of play time will determine who gets covers for this event?

I really do not know how I should feel or the reason for this regression.

Because it doesn't make sense to throw away literally all of the PvE events you've done in the past year. This structure also allows them to give out better rewards (relatively speaking): remember all the complaints of people saying that gauntlet rewards sucked and wasn't worth fighting through all the nodes for? A large majority of players got most of the rewards from the last PvP based off of what I saw in my brackets, and they can't just give away 3 doc ock covers to everyone in the game. Variety is good, so I'm fine with them keeping heroics / normal PvEs around.

Oldboy

Yeah well the scaling is terrible. My Ares node starts out at lvl 144. Essential Node with Yelena is at 80+. Even with a buffed Psylocke the juggernaut and sentry nodes are horrible to play. Psylocke doesnt help much and unfortunately my Torch is only 2/1/2. At least give us more characters to play with. At least they buffed tiny Thor and OBW.

Unknown

I don't want them to get rid of other pve's, I like the variety. My only thought is it would be nice to make rewards progressive until they solve the time zone issue. I don't think players should be punisher BC MPQ does not have that mechanic.

I just really feel bad for other players. I live in US central time. I will not have a problem making t10. It just seemed they had a great opportunity to take what worked from one event apply it to another, at least until better alternatives are developed.

NorthernPolarity

stephen43084 wrote:

I don't want them to get rid of other pve's, I like the variety. My only thought I'd it would be nice to make rewards progressive until they solve the time zone issue. I don't think players should be punisher BC MPQ does not have that mechanic.

I just really feel bad for other players. I live in US central time. I will not have a problem making t10. It just seemed they had a great opportunity to take what worked from one event apply it to another, at least until better alternatives are developed.

How do they make rewards all progression based? They can't give out 3 doc ock covers to everyone because that destroys their entire business model. They also can't give out only 1 doc ock to everyone because people are going to complain "****, why did they change this from the old structure?". I get what you mean with other players being screwed, but I just don't see a solution like this being possible. Gauntlet worked because they were giving relatively old covers out, and small amounts of them, this is completely different since its the release of a new character.

OnesOwnGrief

My only complaint is that it's a Heroic. I'd have taken anything besides a Heroic but this seems to be thier way of introducing a new character.

Unknown

NorthernPolarity wrote:

stephen43084 wrote:

I don't want them to get rid of other pve's, I like the variety. My only thought I'd it would be nice to make rewards progressive until they solve the time zone issue. I don't think players should be punisher BC MPQ does not have that mechanic.

I just really feel bad for other players. I live in US central time. I will not have a problem making t10. It just seemed they had a great opportunity to take what worked from one event apply it to another, at least until better alternatives are developed.

How do they make rewards all progression based? They can't give out 3 doc ock covers to everyone because that destroys their entire business model. They also can't give out only 1 doc ock to everyone because people are going to complain "****, why did they change this from the old structure?". I get what you mean with other players being screwed, but I just don't see a solution like this being possible. Gauntlet worked because they were giving relatively old covers out, and small amounts of them, this is completely different since its the release of a new character.

Fair enough. How do you suggest they make it fair till they can solve the time zone issue?

mags1587

OnesOwnGrief wrote:

My only complaint is that it's a Heroic. I'd have taken anything besides a Heroic but this seems to be their way of introducing a new character.

I really wish they wouldn't use heroics to introduce new characters. It just doesn't seem fair since there's a limited roster.

JamieMadrox

There's no reason what they couldn't take the Gauntlet rewards system and adapt it to the PVEs that we already have. In fact, as soon as I have the time tonight I'm going to make a post about exactly how it could be done.

mjh

while I agree with the overall point of the OP they could not give out new character covers simply as progression rewards in opening week.

While the original point remains valid, just look at the UI design thread. They clearly have a lot of things to work out and they seem to be looking in the right direction at least...baby steps.

The limited roster is a very good thing. It promotes roster diversity which is a good gaming experience. Nothing worse than playing with the same characters over and over. I still remember the pre-true healing days of "Thor/OBW", it was bad. This limited roster promotes the idea of levelling your characters and keeping them. Collect 'em all.

The Heroic PVE is just bad in general because we have all played it in the prologue, continue to do so for new characters and nobody wants to fight Yelena, Bullseye, Daken and godamn Juggs headbutts for 6.5 days. Good & bad.

NorthernPolarity

stephen43084 wrote:

NorthernPolarity wrote:

stephen43084 wrote:

I don't want them to get rid of other pve's, I like the variety. My only thought I'd it would be nice to make rewards progressive until they solve the time zone issue. I don't think players should be punisher BC MPQ does not have that mechanic.

I just really feel bad for other players. I live in US central time. I will not have a problem making t10. It just seemed they had a great opportunity to take what worked from one event apply it to another, at least until better alternatives are developed.

How do they make rewards all progression based? They can't give out 3 doc ock covers to everyone because that destroys their entire business model. They also can't give out only 1 doc ock to everyone because people are going to complain "****, why did they change this from the old structure?". I get what you mean with other players being screwed, but I just don't see a solution like this being possible. Gauntlet worked because they were giving relatively old covers out, and small amounts of them, this is completely different since its the release of a new character.

Fair enough. How do you suggest they make it fair till they can solve the time zone issue?

The burden of proof is on the guys who are complaining about the existing system . It's a hard problem that I can't really answer because I don't know the deep, inner workings of how they generate revenue, and as such can't propose a solution that would work for them. All I can assume is that making new character covers easy to get = less revenue overall, but who knows. Maybe there could be some scheme where giving out more initial covers actually leads to more money made since people who have the initial covers could want to buy more covers, but anyone who proposes something like that and doesn't actually know the pure numbers on Demiurge's side probably isn't getting it right. You could argue "Oh, but all his points make perfect sense!" but the way to get money in the mobile game industry is obviously completely counter-intuitive to common sense.

Just as an example, I stlll see the occasional thread of people going "****, token drop rates are so low, they need to up these rates because its a complete ripoff and they'll lose their playbase, cashgrab, etc.". However, Demiurge wrote in a blog post that they made MORE money when they lowered the token drop rates of 3*s - completely counterintuitive to any logic or reason. The reason is probably because everyone knows buying packs is a bad deal anyways, so the only people doing so are the people willing to get a cover of the new character at any cost, in which case they make more money off of those specific guys, while everyone else is still playing and NOT buying packs to begin with.

SnowcaTT

I also liked the Gauntlet - saw it was nearly impossible for me, it didn't have alliance rewards, and I took the time off. It was fantastic, relaxing! And now this.

Six and a half day slug-fest for new character, no alliance rewards for nodes. Stupid change to same cover reward for personal/alliance unless you top 20. Only six characters are even usable in this heroic (don't fool yourself that it is eight with two 1*'s).

No thank you.

Nellyson

So, I've made a post about changing the PVE reward system. I stated handing out all covers through a progression. But thinking about it, I was wrong. It should be all the new characters in the progression. It should be either in the last node of the event, or a very high progression that you won't get until the last day. Then, leave the other covers in the current PVP mode of PVE. Because honestly, it's complete **** how they do new characters. They only give new characters to 150 out of a 1000 people, then make that new character an essential in the next PVE, "essentially" screwing over people. How are people expected to get the new character for the essential nodes?? I really feel just one single cover should be the reward for finishing ALL the nodes in the PVE or at least high end of the progression.

Sandmaker

Nellyson wrote:

How are people expected to get the new character for the essential nodes??

By opening your wallets...

Like it or not, having new characters be essential is one of their tactics for getting people to buy cover packs. It's is why only 15% of people can win the covers. It is why it will probably never be in the progression reward in the first event. And if it is, expect the progression threshold to be set so high that only about 15% of people can reach it.

CrookedKnight

Does anybody actually do that, though? In the time I've been playing MPQ I've drawn the featured PvE character from the corresponding event token exactly never. I'd much rather put in the time to grind out the final progression reward in the obligatory PvE where the new character is featured, even without access to essential nodes, than spend real money on such terrible odds.

rixmith

I'm sure they've collected data to back up their methods. If you recall in the event Sentry was introduced every player did receive Sentry as a reward (assuming they played all the nodes). So I'm sure Demiurge has data on how giving out the new cover to all players affected their revenue. Since we haven't seen that happen again, I suspect it wasn't favorable.

NorthernPolarity

rixmith wrote:

I'm sure they've collected data to back up their methods. If you recall in the event Sentry was introduced every player did receive Sentry as a reward (assuming they played all the nodes). So I'm sure Demiurge has data on how giving out the new cover to all players affected their revenue. Since we haven't seen that happen again, I suspect it wasn't favorable.

Not necessarily true: no new PvE events have been released outside of the gauntlet (which has its own structure) since sentry pve, so this might just a legacy thing where because the rerun PvE events didn't have the new cover initially, so they don't have them now.

Trisul

Hulk was the first PvE to give out a free 3* to everyone, right?

Nellyson

Sandmaker wrote:

Nellyson wrote:

How are people expected to get the new character for the essential nodes??

By opening your wallets...

Like it or not, having new characters be essential is one of their tactics for getting people to buy cover packs. It's is why only 15% of people can win the covers. It is why it will probably never be in the progression reward in the first event. And if it is, expect the progression threshold to be set so high that only about 15% of people can reach it.

That makes sense. It's a very unfriendly model for players but i guess it does drive token sales.

Sandmaker

CrookedKnight wrote:

Does anybody actually do that, though? In the time I've been playing MPQ I've drawn the featured PvE character from the corresponding event token exactly never. I'd much rather put in the time to grind out the final progression reward in the obligatory PvE where the new character is featured, even without access to essential nodes, than spend real money on such terrible odds.

You have to remember that players like us who can grind out a cover consistently is actually a small minority. We're not the target customers for these sales. They're trying to hit the other 85% of players, particularly those who likes the game, want to compete, but don't have the time or effort to do so efficiently.

homeinvasion

NorthernPolarity wrote:

they can't just give away 3 doc ock covers to everyone in the game.

NP I highly value your opinion, and think you are one of the best contributors to the site but May I ask why not? Wouldn't it make sense to give everyone the three covers?

Firstly: If they can attain them by getting through the PVE they are in 3 star land.

Secondly: Wouldn't you want people to be able to try out a new character with all three abilities in the next featured PVP, to know if they want to spend iso on them etc.

Thirdly: Creating access to the character means closer scrutiny from the community, which should give incentive to create fun new balanced characters not rehashes.

Fourthly: Economically isn't it better to have people buying covers for new character? I am in no way getting into the whole free to play, pay to win model, but let's be pragmatic, D3 is a business, if they don't make money, no more game. If we are looking purely at the free to play model and creating an environment that invites welcomingly new players wouldn't you want to help people transition to three star land, my thinking is that the more players the better, if there were 70 million players like LOL, they would have a massive development team = much better game.

Fifth: They obviously acknowledged that the old PVE format was broken in favor of US residence by making the Gauntlet, why would they go backwards? However in favor of your argument, couldn't they just make say level 400 opponents, or harder again so less people gain the covers, so it was more like only the top 5% could win all three? As an Australian the last chance I get to clear a PVE is about 18 hours before the end, I always go from 1st in all nodes to about 300th. It's plain unfair. Why can't they have the PVE finish Sunday morning for us, which is Saturday night for you northern hemispherites

sixth. Wouldn't you want 3 Do Oc covers? I've been screaming for more bad guys, I know I do.

Seven: By showing the community they do listen and can produce a better product with the Gauntlet D3 are showing a lack of backbone by going back to the old model. Imagine McDonalds came out with a new burger that was healthy, damn tasty, and lowered cholesterol levels all in one and you really liked it, then they stopped making that burger and served up their old junk you would be miffed. One of the core principles of Bill Gates is "underpromise but overdeliver" which means don't promise stuff you can't deliver but do deliver stuff you haven't promised. Both of these things make consumers believe they are getting good value for money and one of the cornerstones of economics is that 'rational people think at the margin'