Benchmarking 1300 progression with cool-downs in effect

FaustianDeal

I would love to try to get a sense of the 'path to 1300' looks in the cool-down world. The Hood event seems like a better index case for this than the previous event since it had a Blue Thor @1300.

Anyone out there willing to share how they "made it"? I would be curious to hear the following bits:
1 - demographics: what slice did you enter, where did you place, what was the #1 score (if it wasn't you)
2 - who was your 'A' team, don't include characters who rotated in for 2-3 fights during early activity - let's talk about who was in there doing the heavy lifting during the final pushes when the chips were down and your score was already > 1100.
2- what was the first score you bothered protecting
3 - from that point; how many shields were required, and of which types
4 - Time to reach 1300. Let's not start the clock if you started early and left a score <500 to be protected by scarecrows instead of shields; start the timer from when your first shield went down. If you did 3 8/3 shield cycles then the total time would necessarily be something > 16 hours.

Getting a sense of the commitment (time and HP) might help all of us level set.

I failed to reach 1300, but to give a flavor of the answers:
Personally:
1 - I entered slice 2. I was #4 in my bracket with 1,004. #1 was only 1,024. I was running XF/Fury/Hood (all maxed)
2 - the first score I bothered to protect was around 750
3 - I used 4 shields.. going 3/8/3/8 - total expenditure 450HP
4 - I left scarecrows to guard the score up to 600. But I started taking hits and needed to work, so my first shield went down with ~11 hours left to go in the event.

tanis3303

A couple of guys in my alliance got there, it cost one guy ~750 HP, but he already had a maxed 4-Thor, so im guessing scarecrow factor let him skip a few shield phases. The other gentleman got there with Hood/Xforce and 3* Thor, said it cost him ~1250, plus a little more for a pack or 2 of + All Boosts.

Also, this needs to be stated: Neither of these people were likely to achieve this without MASSIVE OUT OF GAME COMMUNICATION, the very thing D3 said they wanted to remove the advantage of by making this change.

rkd80

Just cost me 1200 HP to get 1300 in the Hood PVP. Brutal.
Required coordination, alliance help, etc.

Sadly, as I looked into the roster of the top 10, most had fully covered 4thor. Which means they were fighting for purple doom and/or season placement. The irony is that without max XF/4thor, it is almost impossible to get up there.

The rich get richer, the poor get poorer. This is the side effect of the cooldown feature IMO.

CaptainFreaky

By my count - about 51 people from the top 10 scoring alliances achieved 1300+ pts on the Hood PVP. This compares to <20 on the previous (Cage) PVP.

So, likely some combination of a better reward incentive, better planning, and perhaps a better boosted essential (Hood) this time around increased the # of people getting the top progression award.

This is still an incredibly small amount of the user base, and while I haven't looked at all 51 rosters, everyone that I did look at had a very established 4* roster already. So, the point stands that you can't really transition to 4* with the current game mechanics unless you already have an established 4* roster (which means no real transition for non-4* players at all).

So, after 2 PVP sessions, it's clear to me that more mechanics changes are required to make good on the Dev's plan to "make the transition to 4* easier than the transition has been from 2* -> 3*". So far, it is not easier. It is, in fact, essentially impossible without an already established 4* roster.

tanis3303

CaptainFreaky wrote:

By my count - about 51 people from the top 10 scoring alliances achieved 1300+ pts on the Hood PVP. This compares to <20 on the previous (Cage) PVP.

So, likely some combination of a better reward incentive, better planning, and perhaps a better boosted essential (Hood) this time around increased the # of people getting the top progression award.

This is still an incredibly small amount of the user base, and while I haven't looked at all 51 rosters, everyone that I did look at had a very established 4* roster already. So, the point stands that you can't really transition to 4* with the current game mechanics unless you already have an established 4* roster (which means no real transition for non-4* players at all).

So, after 2 PVP sessions, it's clear to me that more mechanics changes are required to make good on the Dev's plan to "make the transition to 4* easier than the transition has been from 2* -> 3*". So far, it is not easier. It is, in fact, essentially impossible without an already established 4* roster.

THANK YOU!! I could not possibly agree more. And for the record, an "established 4* roster" means Thor and Xforce. I don't care what anyone says, Fury doesn't count. He was decent until 4-Thor showed up, now he's pretty much useless.

Dayv

I thought about going for 1300. Got to 950, looked at my shield cooldowns, and said "forget it".

Unknown

All the stats will do is prove the system does work because D3 probably doesn't want to hand out 4* covers for cheap. It probably should cost close to 2500 HP to get a 2500 HP cover in the first place since you get some side benefits (doing well in that event + seasons).

I'm not really sure why they offer 4* progression covers in the first place because they obviously don't like it when you can get it for 250 HP but now that it's closer to 2500 HP (it might cost you 1K but it's also not 100% guaranteed so there's some risk involved that increases the cost) it's pretty pointless too and obviously out of reach for the people who might need it. It's almost like the covers are now a side effect from spending a very large amount of HP but you could just spend a very large amount of HP on the covers themselves.

tanis3303

Phantron wrote:

All the stats will do is prove the system does work because D3 probably doesn't want to hand out 4* covers for cheap. It probably should cost close to 2500 HP to get a 2500 HP cover in the first place since you get some side benefits (doing well in that event + seasons).

I'm not really sure why they offer 4* progression covers in the first place because they obviously don't like it when you can get it for 250 HP but now that it's closer to 2500 HP (it might cost you 1K but it's also not 100% guaranteed so there's some risk involved that increases the cost) it's pretty pointless too and obviously out of reach for the people who might need it. It's almost like the covers are now a side effect from spending a very large amount of HP but you could just spend a very large amount of HP on the covers themselves.

Yep! ~90% of the people hitting that 1300 progression are people that don't even need it, so what did y'all fix exactly?

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

All the stats will do is prove the system does work because D3 probably doesn't want to hand out 4* covers for cheap. It probably should cost close to 2500 HP to get a 2500 HP cover in the first place since you get some side benefits (doing well in that event + seasons).

I'm not really sure why they offer 4* progression covers in the first place because they obviously don't like it when you can get it for 250 HP but now that it's closer to 2500 HP (it might cost you 1K but it's also not 100% guaranteed so there's some risk involved that increases the cost) it's pretty pointless too and obviously out of reach for the people who might need it. It's almost like the covers are now a side effect from spending a very large amount of HP but you could just spend a very large amount of HP on the covers themselves.

It creates yet another situation of "Why am I playing?"

You pay money to buy ~1500 to ~2500 HP to use shields and coordinate with friends, timing etc to get 1 4 star cover.
Or you just buy 2500 HP and buy that same cover.

Before, it felt good to get a 4 star cover for 250 HP of shields. It felt like you accomplished something. Like you got it at a discount due to your skill.

Now it's just completely and utterly pointless.

Unknown

onimus wrote:

Phantron wrote:

All the stats will do is prove the system does work because D3 probably doesn't want to hand out 4* covers for cheap. It probably should cost close to 2500 HP to get a 2500 HP cover in the first place since you get some side benefits (doing well in that event + seasons).

I'm not really sure why they offer 4* progression covers in the first place because they obviously don't like it when you can get it for 250 HP but now that it's closer to 2500 HP (it might cost you 1K but it's also not 100% guaranteed so there's some risk involved that increases the cost) it's pretty pointless too and obviously out of reach for the people who might need it. It's almost like the covers are now a side effect from spending a very large amount of HP but you could just spend a very large amount of HP on the covers themselves.

It creates yet another situation of "Why am I playing?"

You pay money to buy ~1500 to ~2500 HP to use shields and coordinate with friends, timing etc to get 1 4 star cover.
Or you just buy 2500 HP and buy that same cover.

Before, it felt good to get a 4 star cover for 250 HP of shields. It felt like you accomplished something. Like you got it at a discount due to your skill.

Now it's just completely and utterly pointless.

You feel good because you got 90% discount for no particularly good reason. There's no skill involved in hitting skip a lot of times when it's not even very hard to find multiple 30+ opponents without any coordination during the good old days.

That said spending 1250 HP to have a 50% of hitting 1300 is not the same as spending 2500 HP for a cover. There's too much uncertainty involved to risk that over just spending outright. Even if it was say 1000 HP for 50% it'd still likely be too much.

M1Lance

Happy to help.

1. Entered Slice 5, currently in the top 5 with 1318 (event ends at 4PM EST). Top player in my bracket, LAWYER from Xmen has 1477.

2. My A team was a max lvl 5/5/3 Hood, Lvl 221 5/5/3 Xforce, and a (then) 5/3/3 Lvl 221 4*Thor. Without a max 5/5/3 hood and 5/5/3 xforce of at least lvl 200 it would be impossible.

3. Pushed to ~700 almost immediately after starting the event 3 hours after it first became available and then started protecting. Then used a combination of 3 hour and 8 hour shields having to perfectly time the hops. Last evening I also used a full day shield for an extra hop. During the times that I was shielded I would constantly cycle through nodes to queue up 3 matches of at least 25 points. After 1000 I would only do two matches per a hop and used +3 green/black, +3 red/yellow and +3 all for each match (I had 30 of the +3 all saved up and had to spend an extra 100 hp on another set). Was hit about 3 times total during my hops and didnt lose once. Overall it cost me about 1100 HP. I cant estimate how much iso I spent no boosts and skips but it was probably around 3-4k.

5. I reached 1300 at about 10am EST this morning with 6 hours to go in the event. I will have an extra 3 hour shield and 1 day shield before the event ends.

Overall I'd say this was a very frustrating experience. I had to time my life around the 11 hour shield increments for over 48 hours. I couldn't see this being done without 1000hp, a max cover Xforce or TGT of at least lvl 200, and any life obligations within the 48 hour period of shielding that could prevent a missed hop. I don't plan on doing this again anytime soon.

Unknown

The problem with these progression benchmark is that D3 seems to be a bit too obsessed on a simple and elegant solution when none exists. Previously hitting 1300 for maybe 3X75 shield hop is obviously way too easy, but now spending 1K HP and not even totally sure if you'll hit 1300 is clearly too hard. D3 seems to think that by messing around with perhaps MMR or shield cost or something you can hit some magic level, and sure that is possible but people don't like being guinea pigs especially when the experiment is not favorable to them. On the other hand no amount of testing or simulation could possibly predict what values you've to set your MMR/shield cost/etc to approximate a real environment so there's nothing D3 could do on their end. But there does not need to be a simple and elegant solution. You can have a complicated and dumb solution that works. Let's say we all agree that it'd be acceptable for a 'moderate' amount of work plus 1000 HP to get a 2500 HP cover. Instead of hoping you can magically adjust the shield costs and whatever else to hit this target, I propose a very dumb solution that will definitely work:

1. You can purchase an empty star fragment for 250 HP in an event.
2. By winning 5 'worthy encounters' in an event you fill your star. What 'worthy encounter' means is up to negotiate, maybe something like defeating a team that has at least 90% of your character's total levels and average level is at least 150, or something more fancy.
3. Getting 4 filled stars lets you trade that for the equivalent 1300 prize. Unused, filled stars convert into event tokens at the end of the event (so you don't totally waste your HP if something really bad happened).

Now is this system good? I don't know, but it will definitely hit the goal of '1000 HP + effort for 4*'. Is it complicated? Yes. In fact it's very contrived to specifically try to hit the goal of 1000 HP. And it sure is anything but elegant. A lot of time I think D3 guys are saying 'but our solution is simple and elegant' and neglecting the fact that their solution also doesn't work. My solution is needlessly complicated and anything but elegant but it definitely hits the benchmark I originally sat out to hit. While I'd hope an actual implementation would be something not quite as ugly as this, if the choice is to have an ugly system that works or an elegant system that does not, I'll still take the ugly system.

Kavel

I am in Slice 5 and made it (baaaaaarely) for about 975 HP total expenditure. Hops were planned out for approximately the 28 hours before event ending.

1. Slice 5, currently 5th @ 1266. Leader is Mr Maestro at 1557
2. A-Team was 249 Hood (5/5/3), 270 XF (5/5/3) and 166 LThor (3/5/5). I used CMags as the third for 800-1000 or so. I like that team better once it gets going, but I think his lower HP just invited too many hits.
3. First shield was around 850 28 hours out.
4. Used following shields at following times, starting Tuesday around 11CST: 3 hrs @ 11AM Tues/8 @ 145 /3 @730 /8 @ 1030/ 24 @ 1130 /3 @ 930 / 8 @ 12
5. 28 hours total

I hit terrible luck late night for the 24 hours shield when I both lost my first match of the break and took a hit at the same time for a -65 or so "hop" that I then had to throw down 300HP to "protect". I had two extremely lucky hops of 100-120 or it wouldn't have been possible to make up the ground. As it was, I got hit during the second match of my last hop but still somehow manager to get credit for passing 1300 before the hit registered, so I got the 4hor before reshielding at 1266.

Overall, easily the most frustrating and discouraging MPQ experience I've had in my 446 days played. One second slower on my last win and I wouldn't have made it without spending another 300 HP on a 24-hour and having one chance for a win without getting hit. I cannot imagine any scenario where this system remains unchanged for any longer than the season, and I'd be surprised if its not changed at some point before the season is over.

Without having a maxed featured, XF and 4hor, I wouldn't recommend gunning for 1300 without at least a cushion of 1500 HP and I would start scheduling precise windows for your hops 24+ hours in advance.

Unknown

Frankly, I think d3p is and has been way more concerned with "what does it take to get 700-800 and what placement does that get you" than "how many people are getting 1300"

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

All the stats will do is prove the system does work because D3 probably doesn't want to hand out 4* covers for cheap. It probably should cost close to 2500 HP to get a 2500 HP cover in the first place since you get some side benefits (doing well in that event + seasons).

I'm not really sure why they offer 4* progression covers in the first place because they obviously don't like it when you can get it for 250 HP but now that it's closer to 2500 HP (it might cost you 1K but it's also not 100% guaranteed so there's some risk involved that increases the cost) it's pretty pointless too and obviously out of reach for the people who might need it. It's almost like the covers are now a side effect from spending a very large amount of HP but you could just spend a very large amount of HP on the covers themselves.

You are assuming that people are actually willing to pay $20 for 1/13 of a character.

CaptainFreaky

Phantron wrote:

All the stats will do is prove the system does work because D3 probably doesn't want to hand out 4* covers for cheap. It probably should cost close to 2500 HP to get a 2500 HP cover in the first place since you get some side benefits (doing well in that event + seasons).

I'm not really sure why they offer 4* progression covers in the first place because they obviously don't like it when you can get it for 250 HP but now that it's closer to 2500 HP (it might cost you 1K but it's also not 100% guaranteed so there's some risk involved that increases the cost) it's pretty pointless too and obviously out of reach for the people who might need it. It's almost like the covers are now a side effect from spending a very large amount of HP but you could just spend a very large amount of HP on the covers themselves.

You are right of course...except the Dec Q&A said "For starters, we’ll be releasing more 4*s this year, a lot more. We’re currently devoting a lot of thought to making that transition smoother than it was from 2*s to 3*s."

So, given the current system essentially makes it impossible to transition to 4* unless you've already transitioned (as numerous folks are pointing out - the only way to get a new 4* cover is to have a >200 fully or mostly covered XForce/4Thor), I would be VERY interested in hearing from Hi-Fi or a Dev on DATA or GOALS they have on what a good 4* transition should look like (time, process, etc).

Because, right now, the 4* transition for non 4* transitioned players has officially ground to a halt. This is 100% contrary to what they said in the December Q&A, so while we may not have seen "the other shoe drop" in terms of changes, at least we could hear at what rate do they expect players to actually transition to 4* in the coming year.

Unknown

I hit it through careful planning of shields (allow 1.5days of hops), some good interaction with alliance mates (and other vets) and a little luck. Probably could have ended on 1450ish but got greedy in the end and last hop cost me 100pts. The top 10 in my bracket all scored over 1300. I ran a maxed cover 4Thor, XF and max Hood so that helped me tripple attack during hops.

I don't think it would have been achievable in anything other than the high scoring slice, so that rules out a lot of people going 'blind' into their slice choice.

It felt good in the end, but the overall level of timing and planning needed was horrible.

Flare808

1. Slice 5- KittyChase was at 1525. My 1287 was only good enough for 11th.

2. Max 5/5/3 Hood, 5/5/3 X-Force, 5/3/5 Thor

3. I wanted to shield around 1000, but got hit so first shield started at 950ish.

4. I used a 3, 8, 3, 8 shield so 450 in HP expenses for shields.

5. The I had to schedule the shields around work and sleep so I started around 16 hours out.

I ended at 1287, but I could have done one more match before my last shield to break 1300. Decided not to risk it since I already maxed Thor.

Unknown

We were promised lowering of progressives as a trade off for cool downs. It would be nice if they delivered on their end.

This is why people are skeptical of proposed changes by mpq. If the changes are detrimental to players, they are implemented asap with limited testing. If it is something that would assist players (post event scores, buffs to characters, bugs for characters abilities, lowering progressives, new pves, etc.) these changes are always TBD. I don't understand the apparent contradiction in priorities.

tanis3303

Ok, I feel like someone's gotta ask: why are all you folks putting yourselves thru this for a 4* cover most of you don't even need?

mohio

I wish I knew so many people were going for it then I'd have started sooner and tried myself. As it is I started with just 3 hours left, climbed to 1020 in 2:20 and shielded out from there. Just in my bracket I saw at least 1 get it who needed it (jozier) and another was awfully close but not positive if he made it or not (deertylunatic - was going to retreat to you at the end if my alliance weren't exactly 100th). Of course they have maxed xforce though. He does seem necessary to win matches fast enough, but maybe there is an all 3* comp I'm forgetting (patch hulk?).