Respectful feedback on PvE

wirius

This is the first time I've committed to pve for a top 4 cover, and I'm giving feedback to the developers about the experience.

I'm in college, and I just finished the semester. I'm unable to find a temporary job, and I have no one else in my life besides seeing friends here and there. For the last few days I have done every single pve reset, barring 8 hours of sleep. I can barely hang in the top 50.

I don't want the devs to take from this, "Oh, he has a hard time, he wants it easier." I want them to see the greater reality. The only way to compete for these covers realistically is to be unemployed, and have no other committments in your life. And if you do have a job and committments in your life, you need to be an irresponsible person to compete.

Is that the type of game you guys want? If I had a job, wife, or more readily available friends, there's no way I would play this game. And as you need employed people to buy in your game, that's a big problem. As further reasoning, I would look up a gaming situation 9 years ago in one of the most popular games in the world, World of Warcraft. Look up their pvp system in which you needed to play almost 24-7 to get the best rewards at the end. It was a horrible system born out of good intentions by the developers. Once the developers actually played their system, and realized the amount of sustained effort involved, they realized they needed a change.

I am confident that the developers wish this game to improve and be a success. I think they've made great strides, and the game has gotten significantly better. However, your pve setup is a serious long term problem for your game, and before you're motivated to change it, you have to realize how much of a problem it is.

Unknown

wirius wrote:

I would look up a gaming situation 9 years ago in one of the most popular games in the world, World of Warcraft. Look up their pvp system in which you needed to play almost 24-7 to get the best rewards at the end. It was a horrible system born out of good intentions by the developers. Once the developers actually played their system, and realized the amount of sustained effort involved, they realized they needed a change.

Pffff, you could easily get High Warlord with just 20 hours a day

Unknown

For PVE, there are two very important aspects for winning:
1. How much time you put into it.
2. When you start it.

If you started the second the PVE opened...yea you're not getting in the top 50. Starting right off the bat is reserved for people who have not learned this lesson yet and the truly addicted.

And by truly addicted, I mean the people who run the full node every 2 and a half hours. They set alarms to wake up the minute before their next grind, they probably don't have a job or maybe work from home. They don't have a spouse or anyone really relying on them for anything.

Those are the people you're competing with if you start as soon as the PVE opens.

I started 2 days into the event. I'm sitting right outside of the top 50 having only cleared the full node and hitting the essentials maybe once every 2 cycles (5 hours).

18966 points.

As I play a little more, I'll get into the top 50 relatively easily, I believe.

When you start is just as important as how much you play.

The same goes for PVP. If you're starting PVP before 24 hours left in the event, you're also playing against yourself.

wirius

Well Ominus, that makes me feel a little bit better. Still, I don't know your roster. My number 1 is currently around 100k points right now, I'm at around 75k and 56th place right now. If its a better setup for other people, that's a good thing. I suppose it was my mistake since I had some time off this week.

esoxnepa

Starting early seems to make hitting the progression reward easier, but makes placement harder.

They still change the rubber banding system around, so you never know if starting later will let you hit the top progression reward by riding the rubber band or not.

For future events, you may want to decide which you are looking for.

fmftint

the biggest issue with PVE in MPQ is D3P has made it a competitive game mode.

FaustianDeal

I am amazed that they have allowed PVE to degenerate to the level it has gotten to. The P2W crowd (the bread and butter of a freemium game) are not presently in possession of the necessary tools... sure they can buy boosts and health packs to 'play'... but this isn't a 'pay 2 play' game... how do the whales pay their way past someone else's willingness to overcommit their time?

The old PVE countdown timer for node points was set at 2:24 allowing 5 full clears in a 12 hour window, and ~300% of a given node's value if they play 5 times back to back (100% + 80% + 60% + 40% + 20%). This event has the countdown set at 3:00 allowing only 4 clears in a 12 hour window, allowing only 250% of the nodes value to be earned by either pre-grinding a node to allow time to work or sleep, or grinding at the finish. (100% + 75% + 50% + 25%).

If anything this change has almost destroyed the potential of players to 'come back' from missing a refresh.. you play every 3 hours, and grind 4 times at close, or you are out. PVE has become a grinders-only event. Casual players need not apply. The cyclic nature of PVE (where the prize in one event is the essential character in the next) makes failing an event very painful.

PVE was supposed to be the event where less-established rosters and transition players still had a chance of being competitive against the vets... but now its turned into a grinders-only event where no one who is even semi-casual should bother...

If the veteran rosters keep transition people out of PVP, and the grinders can make them give up on PVE then they have nowhere to play... and no reason to spend... and then its bye-bye MPQ (and they don't have a 'sad panda' smilie to drop in there.)