I want to discuss rubber banding in pve

Unknown

FaustianDeal wrote:

Phantron wrote:

What people don't get about rubberbanding is that the margin of victory is just as great back when rubberbanding was out in full force. People actually played less overall to get the #1 so the guy who is playing like a psycho now certainly can play at least that much if we go back to a heavy rubberband. What's going to happen is that the guy that plays like a psycho will win his bracket by 1000 points, which is a seemingly small but absolutely insurmountable lead in the heavy rubberband era. Now, most people don't know the system enough to see that it is indeed insurmountable, but 1000 points with heavy rubberband is just as insurmountable as 40K with weak rubberband. The only exception is if the guy that plays like a psycho missed the last 2 hours for whatever reason, but it's really hard to see that happening for a guy that is sacrificing sleep to right now.

Agree. Someone who grinds for 6 days and 8 hours of Prodigal Sun is not going to miss the last 2 hours of that event and see his Elekra covers go up in smoke. They will still show up and grind the last hour. Allowing me to pick from a variety of end times should have largely eliminated the fear of missing the end of an event. If I am not missing the last 2 hours, I have nothing to fear from rubber-banding.

Even in the old, heavily banded days, it was expected that you would have to grind out as much of the map as possible at the end to preserve placement. Then it became a question of how early you would be willing to commit to doing a scheduled clear every 2:24 to preserve placement. If you worked your schedule you couldn't be caught. the key was that just had to commit to the schedule earlier than anyone else in the bracket. We have finally entered the end-game phase of that logic, where people commit to the schedule of regular clears from the very beginning of the event.

These scheduled grinders cannot be caught, even with rubber banding turned up as high as I have ever seen it. All the banding would accomplish is a more generous distribution of progression awards, and keeping the interest level high in the general player base.

Rather than leaving people with the feeling of futility that comes from being 40k behind and only seeing 5k in total available on the whole map - that's the kind of thing that causes players to give up... a player who gives up doesn't play - and is less likely to pay as a result, that's a bad outcome for a 'for-profit' game. With rubber-banding turned up higher the player 40k back can see 39k with of points on the board and still be willing to show up to play. The player in the lead can still sign in and see 5k of points on the board; as long as he plays he's fine. His lead will diminish, but (given the way these people play) nothing behind them matters.

I'd argue false hope is just as bad. I see plenty of posts like "I was top 10 throughout most of the event but fell to #101 rubberband is messed up" back in the old days. Sure, this is from a guy who doesn't realize that hitting top 10 after you cleared all your nodes in a heavy rubberband environment is roughly the same as placing #101 all along and this is reflected on his final standing, but it seems to me this is equally likely to cause people to give up. At least with the current system there's no way you can somehow think you're supposed to be top 10 material if your placement is typically #101 during the event. There is no reason to assume anyone who is currently doing better than you (grind harder) will somehow do worse when you've to grind even less, so while in a heavy rubberband environment it may appear you've a better shot, you'd still expect all the guys who previously outgrind you to simply adjust and still beat you but you'd be under the illusion that you're always in contention for top X.

With progression reward being extremely generous to reach now, I don't think rubberband matters for progression rewards. It looks like you can easily hit all progression rewards at less than half of the overall leader's points and there is still some rubberband too when you're talking about that far behind.

Phaserhawk

Just aim for progessions and farming ISO in PvE the rest is a lot of work for very little reward.

FaustianDeal

It is an interesting predicament; even now, I am already, basically hosed in the latest PVE. The bracket best suited to my needs for end times is slice 4; which opened ~10 hours ago now. Unless luck or divine providence (Christmas miracle) opens a new bracket for me to shard into; being 10 hours behind means I could be as much as 3 map clears out of contention and already be out of the running...

I'm already in the 'farm ISO and progression awards' camp in most PVE events. I try to make sure the alliance stays top 100, but I have no illusions of being top 5 in a PVE ever again, unless things drastically change.