Changes in rank rewards

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Unknown
edited November 2014 in MPQ General Discussion
I really question the logic behind this recent "T5 gets 3 covers".

Gradually through the past 2 months covers are squeezed higher and higher in PVP and PVE. While before I could go for T50 and get 2 covers, now I have to be T25 for 2 covers and T5 for 3 covers.

I find this problematic because my T10 is already filled with people with 2k+ points. I have checked all their roster and they all have max covered LThor (Which is the top reward for this PVP). I know that these people only compete for the Season score, because there is nothing else there that they need from the rewards you offer.

Now, how am I, the guy that need the covers and has a full max 2* roster and few 3* at 5-10 covers, supposed to go for the 2 or 3 LThor covers? I find it impossible because all I can do is try for 600 and maybe if I am lucky 700. That will secure me T100 or maybe T50, but T10 and T5 are completely out of the question.

Conclusion, the ones that need the covers are actually forced to fall back because of Season score interference. While I respect the vets that want that Season Thoress reward, I really do not like the fact that they fill in all top spots and get all covers just to sell them right after the event.

I can't even P2W with my roster, because there is no way for me to pass 700 without hitting The Wall or getting stomped by attackers because I went too far.

Any dev would like to share the logic behind these changes done to this mechanism?
Thanks
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Comments

  • atomzed
    atomzed Posts: 1,753 Chairperson of the Boards
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    See this thread for a discussion on the rationale behind the reward structure.

    viewtopic.php?f=7&t=16420
  • You can get 2 covers with 700 points. I get 2 covers pretty reliably with 800 points all the time. It's all about when you bracket. If your top 25 is covered in people with 2000 points, you are joining the event too early. Wait for all the "OMG NEW EVENTS PTS PTS POINTSSSS!" people to join right after the start. Give it a day, then start your event. You should be able to place top 25 with 700-800 points in events that are giving away old covers. If you take your 700 points to the alliance recruitment board you can probably get 3 covers with them.

    A lot of those people with 2,000 points want the 1100 Blade and 1300 Fury. They probably don't care about Thor (although they might, some people have 2 thor's ya know). Any time it's new guy PvP scores will be higher.
  • Lerysh wrote:
    You can get 2 covers with 700 points. I get 2 covers pretty reliably with 800 points all the time. It's all about when you bracket. If your top 25 is covered in people with 2000 points, you are joining the event too early. Wait for all the "OMG NEW EVENTS PTS PTS POINTSSSS!" people to join right after the start. Give it a day, then start your event. You should be able to place top 25 with 700-800 points in events that are giving away old covers. If you take your 700 points to the alliance recruitment board you can probably get 3 covers with them.

    A lot of those people with 2,000 points want the 1100 Blade and 1300 Fury. They probably don't care about Thor (although they might, some people have 2 thor's ya know). Any time it's new guy PvP scores will be higher.

    I thought when you joined was irrelevant thanks to sharding?
  • wymtime
    wymtime Posts: 3,757 Chairperson of the Boards
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    OP might not know this but the reward structure is actually better than it was before. It use to be top 50 got 1 cover and 50-100 got 2* covers. At one point in time you could not get 3 covers unless you were in a top 100 alliance.
    I would also look at this in PVP. If they made top 10 get 3 covers what would be the difference. Right now if people are at 11 they might not shield hop becuase it will cost them 25 HP plus Iso to boost for a top 10 placement. They earn the Iso back but it is not that much gain. Now if top 10 got you a 3rd cover it would definatly be worth the hop becuase you gain the 3rd cover for 25HP. People who are close to top 10 and who are in the top 10 will make the hop for the covers driving scores up which will make it harder for transitioning players to score even top 25. If you want to help transition players the Dev's would need to make it so top 50 gets 2 covers, or top 150 alliances gets a cover, or increase drop rates on Tokens. I think the Dev's should increase drop rates on tokens and make top 150 alliances get a cover rather than giving out more covers for top 10 as that will just drive scores up more and make the transition harder.
  • Flare808
    Flare808 Posts: 266
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    Just my 2 cents-Even without Season scores factoring in, vets will still push for T5. Many of us are used to ranking well and won't give that up easily. The ISO boost from being T5 makes a big difference. You still see the same people scoring high for the PVPs between seasons. An unfortunate byproduct of that is we do sell off most 3* rewards immediately.
  • adamLmpq wrote:
    Lerysh wrote:
    You can get 2 covers with 700 points. I get 2 covers pretty reliably with 800 points all the time. It's all about when you bracket. If your top 25 is covered in people with 2000 points, you are joining the event too early. Wait for all the "OMG NEW EVENTS PTS PTS POINTSSSS!" people to join right after the start. Give it a day, then start your event. You should be able to place top 25 with 700-800 points in events that are giving away old covers. If you take your 700 points to the alliance recruitment board you can probably get 3 covers with them.

    A lot of those people with 2,000 points want the 1100 Blade and 1300 Fury. They probably don't care about Thor (although they might, some people have 2 thor's ya know). Any time it's new guy PvP scores will be higher.

    I thought when you joined was irrelevant thanks to sharding?

    Either I have had super easy shards since the dawn of sharding or no, it's not irrelevant. A shard might contain 5,000+ players (to fill a season bracket), the event only has 500. Getting grouped in with 500 where only 5 score in the 1100s is due to event timing, nothing else.
  • Phumade
    Phumade Posts: 2,493 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Flare808 wrote:
    Just my 2 cents-Even without Season scores factoring in, vets will still push for T5. Many of us are used to ranking well and won't give that up easily. The ISO boost from being T5 makes a big difference. You still see the same people scoring high for the PVPs between seasons. An unfortunate byproduct of that is we do sell off most 3* rewards immediately.

    I'm with flare here, rosters with 6+ 166 chars are actually quite common. It's becoming fairly standard actually. What would you like us to compete for? Most of us actually like playing the game so it's not like we would just stop playing. The only thing left is to fight for top 5.

    Once you max out a few chars your perspective completely changes.
  • The above statement is an example of sharding clearly not working out for anyone. If you are a transition player why are rosters with 6 166 players even in your shard to begin with?

    We need to move towards roster based bracketing and match making. Let the top 10% win the best prizes, but let the fight be fair at least.
  • I'm in the minority, and will say that sharding works for me. When there is a PVP with a 3* reward that I'm not interested in, I push to 400 or 600 for the hp and go home, letting myself drop out of the ranks. When there are 3* rewards I'm interested in, I'm in soft enough brackets that I can usually rank top 50, maybe top 25 if I shield, though I still see the 166s.

    If you push hard every round, (perhaps because you are in a competitive alliance), then the game will treat you as a hard-core player and put you in a hard bracket every round. If you slack off and completely ignore the game for a bit, it rewards you for coming back, making it easy for you to rank again.

    Since you're probably in a competitive alliance, or push yourself competitively even though you say you semi-retired or quit, you still remain in highly competitve brackets.

    I haven't ranked top 10 in a pvp since before seasons started, and that was without any maxed 2*s.
  • atomzed
    atomzed Posts: 1,753 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Lerysh wrote:

    We need to move towards roster based bracketing and match making. Let the top 10% win the best prizes, but let the fight be fair at least.

    Roster based bracketing *could* be one of the solutions, but the details are as difficult to adjust.

    Some points on factors in a roster based bracketing and possible "complaints".

    1) We bracket based on number of max levelled 3*. Say 6 3* gives you in one bracket and 3 3* in another. "damn you D3, my 3* are gsbw, im40 and daredevil. Look at their rankings! How is it fair that I'm competing against a player with lthor, sentry and hood?! Change the system!"

    2) We bracket based on average level of the roster. Say 10 characters with average of 120 lvl puts you in one bracket whereas someone else with average of 166 gets put in another. "tinykitty, the other guy average is lower because he has freaking paid for 100 roster spots and filled it with 1*! Whereas poor me only can scrimp and save and has only 50 slots of all essential 3* characters! This is P2W! I'm going to quit!"'

    Of course this are fictional examples and we can tweak the factors much more to.make it fair. My main point is that the details of the solution is not that easy, and many people will be upset with the changes. So until we can get it perfectly right, I think it's better to maintain status quo.
  • Nellyson
    Nellyson Posts: 354 Mover and Shaker
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    atomzed wrote:
    Lerysh wrote:

    We need to move towards roster based bracketing and match making. Let the top 10% win the best prizes, but let the fight be fair at least.

    Roster based bracketing *could* be one of the solutions, but the details are as difficult to adjust.

    Some points on factors in a roster based bracketing and possible "complaints".

    1) We bracket based on number of max levelled 3*. Say 6 3* gives you in one bracket and 3 3* in another. "damn you D3, my 3* are gsbw, im40 and daredevil. Look at their rankings! How is it fair that I'm competing against a player with lthor, sentry and hood?! Change the system!"

    2) We bracket based on average level of the roster. Say 10 characters with average of 120 lvl puts you in one bracket whereas someone else with average of 166 gets put in another. "tinykitty, the other guy average is lower because he has freaking paid for 100 roster spots and filled it with 1*! Whereas poor me only can scrimp and save and has only 50 slots of all essential 3* characters! This is P2W! I'm going to quit!"'

    Of course this are fictional examples and we can tweak the factors much more to.make it fair. My main point is that the details of the solution is not that easy, and many people will be upset with the changes. So until we can get it perfectly right, I think it's better to maintain status quo.

    Death brackets should be implemented! Hahaha...but they should run 2 tourneys of the same event. One is how it is now. Top 100 get a 3 star.png and all that jazz, but the second one should have a buy in. All people entering are guaranteed a 3 star.png. The cost could go accordingly with what D3 thinks would make the most sense. That way you have more veterans entering the buy in and wanting something more. It leaves the regular tourney to mostly transitioners and therefor they aren't seeing these ridiculous scores unless a vet just wants to do the regular one. But why would they when the top prize is something great like three 4 star.png covers?? Maybe cost 500 imcoin.png or maybe even 1000. Yeah it seems like a cash grab, but you aren't getting bamboozled. You're gonna get actual good rewards!
  • fmftint
    fmftint Posts: 3,653 Chairperson of the Boards
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    I suggested the other day that they need sub-brackets. Either separated by character rarity or level
    This is the first game I've ever played where PVP didn't have some sort of sub-bracket, low-mid level players shouldn't be in the same arena as the top tier players
  • Spoit
    Spoit Posts: 3,441 Chairperson of the Boards
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    The REAL issue isn't the number of covers awarded, but how they shifted both the alliance AND progression rewards to the lowest tier. Making top 5 a lot more important, and also coincidentally leaving some of the more important covers (like blade purple) massively undercovered until like 2-3 seasons later when they finally get around to the 3rd or 4th time a new character is the rewards
  • Also, I am not competing. I just needed LThor cause I had 5 covers on him. So I figured I'd make them 6-9 covers. Unfortunately, even though I have completely not played any PVP in SVII, my bracket was still crazy and I ranked #49.

    Tough competition out there and squeezed rewards. One of the reasons I decided to go for events that only give covers that I can use.

    I still try for the Season 10-pack anyway. Too much OCD to not go for it icon_twisted.gif
  • Spoit wrote:
    The REAL issue isn't the number of covers awarded, but how they shifted both the alliance AND progression rewards to the lowest tier. Making top 5 a lot more important, and also coincidentally leaving some of the more important covers (like blade purple) massively undercovered until like 2-3 seasons later when they finally get around to the 3rd or 4th time a new character is the rewards


    1 Improve the drop rate from token.
    There are over 30 3 star.png + character it is extremely difficult to get a same character 13 times in current bad drop rate and **** PVP system !
  • bdksni1
    bdksni1 Posts: 103
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    Any of the above would at least give us 2*-3* players a shot to get some much needed 3* covers. I personally am getting a bit frustated as i play ALL day long (usually PvP top 50-100 PvE top 10-25 depending on chars buffed/needed) and -especially pvp- good rewards still not appearing.
    Seems like who's already strong will always get stronger regardless of the effort/time spent playing.
    Especially in PvP there's people who don't even shield once and can still reach top 10! Last 3 events i had to shield once or twice to get top 100 -at high stakes didn't even get there- and not get bombed by -who else- XF-Sentry. I find it hard to understand how this promotes player development.
  • bdksni1
    bdksni1 Posts: 103
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    Any of the above would at least give us 2*-3* players a shot to get some much needed 3* covers. I personally am getting a bit frustated as i play ALL day long (usually PvP top 50-100 PvE top 10-25 depending on chars buffed/needed) and -especially pvp- good rewards still not appearing.
    Seems like who's already strong will always get stronger regardless of the effort/time spent playing.
    Especially in PvP there's people who don't even shield once and can still reach top 10! Last 3 events i had to shield once or twice to get top 100 -at high stakes didn't even get there- and not get bombed by -who else- XF-Sentry. I find it hard to understand how this promotes player development.
  • yogi_
    yogi_ Posts: 1,236 Chairperson of the Boards
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    I have not read this thread in it's entirity but some months ago (3 - 4?), the decision was obviously taken to cut back on the giving out of 3* covers as a whole. This was particularly noticeable in PvE.

    People must have been getting characters near completion faster than the rate they could push them out, so reducing giving them out solves that problem.
  • Polares
    Polares Posts: 2,643 Chairperson of the Boards
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    The biggest problem for most people is how Seasons/Alliances work. Seasons were implemented in a way that all Alliances members need to play in ALL events if you want to score suficiently high in each season so you could win the biggest prices (Furys, Thoress, etc.), so now, people who are not interested in a older 3* has to participate, and play for a really good score so they could win Season prices. And what is even worse is that new 4* are awarded as Alliance Season rewards ONLY, so ALL alliance members have to push together to win these covers, so there is more presure to score high.

    Before Seasons existed, most players participated in events just if they needed the 3* or the 4* or just to get to the 400 reward, to get some iso, etc. so it was easy to be T10 with 600 points because there was a lot less competition. Of course with new characters it was more or less like now, but for players transitioning from 2 to 3 it was far easier at that time.

    So D3 has succeded in making all their players play way a lot more than before with Seasons and Alliances, but now there are a great number of players that feel burnt because now the game is more difficult for them (at least in PvP).
  • Season score/Alliance score are the only culprits to vets scoring up there so much. I need something in maybe 1 or 2 pvp events a month but I usually score in the top 5 because the alliance rewards require it and the alliance season reward sort of requires it (top 100 isn't hard with 20 people who actually play)

    The iso really is no factor since 3k iso for top 5 vs 10 is like half a lazy LR in rewards - just doesn't matter

    Another issue is F2P vs P2W

    if you're F2P you're not going up to 1500-2k just because . . .
    P2W go up to 1500-2k because they want to win a season score and usually don't even care about the covers

    Would be nice to have some meta system set up where you could decline cover rewards in place of iso and let the covers trickle down a rank etc. Granted some people would just be mean and take the cover to sell for iso instead but it could be one solution for cover distribution

    Another option is to allow for max points applied to a pvp regarding pvp rewards but then allow non pvp points to continue after and give the rank rewards a point ceiling. IE - everyone who gets 1600 points is entitled to first place rewards, everyone who hits 1100 can get top 10 - 700 points top 25 etc. etc.

    I understand that it sucks for 2* teams losing covers to a 3* team that just needs season points. - Perhaps rotation of covers every appearance helps with that too or make the top 5 cover the alliance cover again as another solution to help.

    PVE is also a place where 2* teams already have a big advantage over 3* teams when you factor in the boost % vs enemy level, 2* teams frequently face enemies below their level while 3* teams face enemies 2+ times their level.

    Was there a best reward structure in the past for pvp that we should remind devs of? I can't remember one tbh