Benchmarking 1300 progression with cool-downs in effect

tanis3303

75 for a 3 hour, 150 for 8 hour, 300 for 24 hour = 525...how often they're doing it I have no idea, but to cycle thru the 3 shield types to (kind of) avoid the cooldowns, that's what your looking at spending.

*lol...I did say 575 tho, so you're totally right to question my **** math!

pmorcs

The basic addition was not the part that I was contesting, though I can confirm that it's slightly off as well. I was specifically addressing the words "575 hp every couple of hours" which is a rate of spend equal to 287.5 hp per hour. If that's not what you meant, I apologize for having accused you of doing math, but just adding up the cost of the three different types of shields isn't capturing the picture at all.

Bowgentle

pmorcs wrote:

The basic addition was not the part that I was contesting, though I can confirm that it's slightly off as well. I was specifically addressing the words "575 hp every couple of hours" which is a rate of spend equal to 287.5 hp per hour. If that's not what you meant, I apologize for having accused you of doing math, but just adding up the cost of the three different types of shields isn't capturing the picture at all.

I don't think anyone is crazy enough to think you'd spend 287.5 HP per hour, which would amount to 17,250 HP total in a 60 hour PVP.

There's no denying though that you're spending crazy amounts of HP - crazy enough that even Xmen and Raiders are stopping at 1300.

It's your HP, and you can spend it any way you like, and I'm sure you're having fun doing it - but please don't start another "play harder" debate.
Yes, coordination is the main thing, but it costs a ton of HP too.

franckynight

to be totally honnest on the costs and to bury any outrage about that, on a averarage pvp, we are on a 10 shields usage for the "locomotives" ie those who climb early.. some will only use 3hrs and 8 hrs.. others will add 24 hrs.. others will begin around the 8 hrs and leech off the high scores.. it depends on your play style.. i spent generally 4x 3hrs, 4x8hrs, 2x24 hrs and 3 full boost ap packs.. total expenditures.. 1800- hp earned in prog rewards and ranking (100+100+250).. so 1350 hp more or less.. its not that bad compared to the cost of a cover (1250 hp for a 3*, 2500 for a 4*) .. even when i was in shield i burnt that many in pvp on average.. sure its a lot but nothing compared to what i spent when we set up oppayharder or the 6k scores.. what makes scoring so high is not playing harder (who can talk about playing hard on a match 3 game btw) but its the optimized hops who did the trick (time slices and cooldown, of course, who dwindled down sniping).. on average its between 100-150 pts per hop after putting the first shield around 900.. i even saw maestro make a 519 pts hop in the last pvp.. and i managed to stay unshielded more than 1h30 up to 1400 last pvp (unfortunately the second time it happened i lost 600 pts.. lol).. so yeah out of game communication is needed but its not like it was a secret...

Bowgentle

Thanks for the cost breakdown, Francky

A net cost of 1350 is not _that_ bad, if you have 20K+ HP to burn anyway, but more than most will want to spend each PVP.

I know you guys are having fun too, so that counts for something as well.

tanis3303

Yea, I in no way meant to knock you guys for playing the game how you want, more power to ya. It's a game at the end of the day, and if y'all are having fun that's all that matters...I'm just hoping your dedication doesn't make d3 think that's where everyone is at and that everything is peachy keen. And even if they do, since I've stopped trying to push past where a single shield can take me, I'm saving a TON of hp, so before long I won't need to bother with 1300s anyway, I'll just be able to buy my covers with earned hp.

Unknown

franckynight wrote:

to be totally honnest on the costs and to bury any outrage about that, on a averarage pvp, we are on a 10 shields usage for the "locomotives" ie those who climb early.. some will only use 3hrs and 8 hrs.. others will add 24 hrs.. others will begin around the 8 hrs and leech off the high scores.. it depends on your play style.. i spent generally 4x 3hrs, 4x8hrs, 2x24 hrs and 3 full boost ap packs.. total expenditures.. 1800- hp earned in prog rewards and ranking (100+100+250).. so 1350 hp more or less.. its not that bad compared to the cost of a cover (1250 hp for a 3*, 2500 for a 4*) .. even when i was in shield i burnt that many in pvp on average.. sure its a lot but nothing compared to what i spent when we set up oppayharder or the 6k scores.. what makes scoring so high is not playing harder (who can talk about playing hard on a match 3 game btw) but its the optimized hops who did the trick (time slices and cooldown, of course, who dwindled down sniping).. on average its between 100-150 pts per hop after putting the first shield around 900.. i even saw maestro make a 519 pts hop in the last pvp.. and i managed to stay unshielded more than 1h30 up to 1400 last pvp (unfortunately the second time it happened i lost 600 pts.. lol).. so yeah out of game communication is needed but its not like it was a secret...

Here's the problem and most people have no issues with some climbing as high as they can and spending as much as they want:

D3 claims this change was to reduce high scores and make it more competitive for the lesser decked out players in addition to removing a requirement for out-of-game communication to score high. Unfortunately the change has the exact opposite effect for 99.9% of the player pool. Most are bored now because some genuinely enjoyed hopping. High scores now require much more hp than before so people who would still spend whatever now have a much better chance than the average player who might use 2-3 3hour shields prior. To jump to high scores there are many many 'battle chats' which basically are required if you want to achieve high scores. They still haven't lowered the progression awards which might take an entire season before they have their data but after stating that they wanted the 3-4* transition to be smoother than the 2-3*, makes us wonder how they'll go about this as many 3* maxed rosters who don't have FThor have a much harder time acquiring ANY 4* award covers now. Also most people are just bored with pvp - time slices already gutted the player pool points and shield cd change further removed a ton of points. Most players do not want to babysit their score for 60 hours with a slew of shields and timers on the phone to know when they can play.

This change would be perfectly fine as is with 2 fixes.

Lower progression awards to something like 1100 for 4* 900 for 3*
Remove season scores

PVE note:

Another more hopeful change is to remove alliance rewards from half the events, preferably starting with pve. The requirement for alliance players to participate in a week-long grind sludgefest just so they're not screwing their alliance drives many away from the game. Kudo's at least for the change to 8 hour CDs. Some I heard complain that this makes the top 10 harder - well perhaps more people will try for it now that it's not a ridiculous 3 hour cycle of boredom.

Anyhow scores are meaningless without progression levels reset and since no one who gets top 25-etc in season actually needs their tokens, just remove the season awards.

pmorcs

It should also be noted that 2k is not even remotely "the new normal".. we just wanted to try and see if we could do it, and have some fun.

No way am I signing up for that on a regular basis! The hp cost was trivial next to the round-the-clock time & attention required by the cooldown regime.

Unknown

LoreNYC wrote:

franckynight wrote:

to be totally honnest on the costs and to bury any outrage about that, on a averarage pvp, we are on a 10 shields usage for the "locomotives" ie those who climb early.. some will only use 3hrs and 8 hrs.. others will add 24 hrs.. others will begin around the 8 hrs and leech off the high scores.. it depends on your play style.. i spent generally 4x 3hrs, 4x8hrs, 2x24 hrs and 3 full boost ap packs.. total expenditures.. 1800- hp earned in prog rewards and ranking (100+100+250).. so 1350 hp more or less.. its not that bad compared to the cost of a cover (1250 hp for a 3*, 2500 for a 4*) .. even when i was in shield i burnt that many in pvp on average.. sure its a lot but nothing compared to what i spent when we set up oppayharder or the 6k scores.. what makes scoring so high is not playing harder (who can talk about playing hard on a match 3 game btw) but its the optimized hops who did the trick (time slices and cooldown, of course, who dwindled down sniping).. on average its between 100-150 pts per hop after putting the first shield around 900.. i even saw maestro make a 519 pts hop in the last pvp.. and i managed to stay unshielded more than 1h30 up to 1400 last pvp (unfortunately the second time it happened i lost 600 pts.. lol).. so yeah out of game communication is needed but its not like it was a secret...

Here's the problem and most people have no issues with some climbing as high as they can and spending as much as they want:

D3 claims this change was to reduce high scores and make it more competitive for the lesser decked out players in addition to removing a requirement for out-of-game communication to score high. Unfortunately the change has the exact opposite effect for 99.9% of the player pool. Most are bored now because some genuinely enjoyed hopping. High scores now require much more hp than before so people who would still spend whatever now have a much better chance than the average player who might use 2-3 3hour shields prior. To jump to high scores there are many many 'battle chats' which basically are required if you want to achieve high scores. They still haven't lowered the progression awards which might take an entire season before they have their data but after stating that they wanted the 3-4* transition to be smoother than the 2-3*, makes us wonder how they'll go about this as many 3* maxed rosters who don't have FThor have a much harder time acquiring ANY 4* award covers now. Also most people are just bored with pvp - time slices already gutted the player pool points and shield cd change further removed a ton of points. Most players do not want to babysit their score for 60 hours with a slew of shields and timers on the phone to know when they can play.

This change would be perfectly fine as is with 2 fixes.

Lower progression awards to something like 1100 for 4* 900 for 3*
Remove season scores

PVE note:

Another more hopeful change is to remove alliance rewards from half the events, preferably starting with pve. The requirement for alliance players to participate in a week-long grind sludgefest just so they're not screwing their alliance drives many away from the game. Kudo's at least for the change to 8 hour CDs. Some I heard complain that this makes the top 10 harder - well perhaps more people will try for it now that it's not a ridiculous 3 hour cycle of boredom.

Anyhow scores are meaningless without progression levels reset and since no one who gets top 25-etc in season actually needs their tokens, just remove the season awards.

I agree with a lot of what you said, but differ on what I see as solutions.

1. Lower 3* Progressive to 900, Move (or get rid of) the 1000 Iso reward to 950, and put the 4* progressive at 1000.
2. I think they should institute HailMary's idea of Smart Scoring for season scoring. Meaning if someone wins by 1 or 1000 points, they get 500 points (or something similar to this) for their season points. Second place, 499, etc.
3. In conjuction with #2, I would like alliance scores to be calculated the same way after each PVP. So if an Alliance got 1st, they'd get say 20,000 points, 2nd 19,999 points, etc. This way Season Alliance scores are done by alliances, not players. So if a player leaves at the end of a season, it does not affect the season score. This should result in less player swapping or alliances kicking members at the end of the season.

I'm not sure if the Alliance PVP score to determine placement would be done by tabulating players' Smart Scores for that PVP or players' actual scores. Of course the alliance placement would determine their Smart Score earned from the PVP event. I think it would be by tabulating player's Smart Scores earned, not their actual scores.

Nellobee

stephen43084 wrote:

1. Lower 3* Progressive to 900, Move (or get rid of) the 1000 Iso reward to 950, and put the 4* progressive at 1000.

The 3* progressive reward needs to be generally reachable for 2* rosters. The 4* progressive reward needs to be generally reachable for 3* rosters.

Those values do not do that.

Unknown

LoreNYC wrote:

(...) since no one who gets top 25-etc in season actually needs their tokens, just remove the season awards.

Speak for yourself. I fought hard for a top 25 place last season and this season and I want my lottery tickets.

Unknown

stephen43084 wrote:

LoreNYC wrote:

franckynight wrote:

to be totally honnest on the costs and to bury any outrage about that, on a averarage pvp, we are on a 10 shields usage for the "locomotives" ie those who climb early.. some will only use 3hrs and 8 hrs.. others will add 24 hrs.. others will begin around the 8 hrs and leech off the high scores.. it depends on your play style.. i spent generally 4x 3hrs, 4x8hrs, 2x24 hrs and 3 full boost ap packs.. total expenditures.. 1800- hp earned in prog rewards and ranking (100+100+250).. so 1350 hp more or less.. its not that bad compared to the cost of a cover (1250 hp for a 3*, 2500 for a 4*) .. even when i was in shield i burnt that many in pvp on average.. sure its a lot but nothing compared to what i spent when we set up oppayharder or the 6k scores.. what makes scoring so high is not playing harder (who can talk about playing hard on a match 3 game btw) but its the optimized hops who did the trick (time slices and cooldown, of course, who dwindled down sniping).. on average its between 100-150 pts per hop after putting the first shield around 900.. i even saw maestro make a 519 pts hop in the last pvp.. and i managed to stay unshielded more than 1h30 up to 1400 last pvp (unfortunately the second time it happened i lost 600 pts.. lol).. so yeah out of game communication is needed but its not like it was a secret...

Here's the problem and most people have no issues with some climbing as high as they can and spending as much as they want:

D3 claims this change was to reduce high scores and make it more competitive for the lesser decked out players in addition to removing a requirement for out-of-game communication to score high. Unfortunately the change has the exact opposite effect for 99.9% of the player pool. Most are bored now because some genuinely enjoyed hopping. High scores now require much more hp than before so people who would still spend whatever now have a much better chance than the average player who might use 2-3 3hour shields prior. To jump to high scores there are many many 'battle chats' which basically are required if you want to achieve high scores. They still haven't lowered the progression awards which might take an entire season before they have their data but after stating that they wanted the 3-4* transition to be smoother than the 2-3*, makes us wonder how they'll go about this as many 3* maxed rosters who don't have FThor have a much harder time acquiring ANY 4* award covers now. Also most people are just bored with pvp - time slices already gutted the player pool points and shield cd change further removed a ton of points. Most players do not want to babysit their score for 60 hours with a slew of shields and timers on the phone to know when they can play.

This change would be perfectly fine as is with 2 fixes.

Lower progression awards to something like 1100 for 4* 900 for 3*
Remove season scores

PVE note:

Another more hopeful change is to remove alliance rewards from half the events, preferably starting with pve. The requirement for alliance players to participate in a week-long grind sludgefest just so they're not screwing their alliance drives many away from the game. Kudo's at least for the change to 8 hour CDs. Some I heard complain that this makes the top 10 harder - well perhaps more people will try for it now that it's not a ridiculous 3 hour cycle of boredom.

Anyhow scores are meaningless without progression levels reset and since no one who gets top 25-etc in season actually needs their tokens, just remove the season awards.

I agree with a lot of what you said, but differ on what I see as solutions.

1. Lower 3* Progressive to 900, Move (or get rid of) the 1000 Iso reward to 950, and put the 4* progressive at 1000.
2. I think they should institute HailMary's idea of Smart Scoring for season scoring. Meaning if someone wins by 1 or 1000 points, they get 500 points (or something similar to this) for their season points. Second place, 499, etc.
3. In conjuction with #2, I would like alliance scores to be calculated the same way after each PVP. So if an Alliance got 1st, they'd get say 20,000 points, 2nd 19,999 points, etc. This way Season Alliance scores are done by alliances, not players. So if a player leaves at the end of a season, it does not affect the season score. This should result in less player swapping or alliances kicking members at the end of the season.

I'm not sure if the Alliance PVP score to determine placement would be done by tabulating players' Smart Scores for that PVP or players' actual scores. Of course the alliance placement would determine their Smart Score earned from the PVP event. I think it would be by tabulating player's Smart Scores earned, not their actual scores.

The problem with your 2nd point is then newbies that only need 200 points to get #1 in their bracket suddenly become a hot commodity in the high ranking alliance game and it just complicates things further.

PLus the matter of luck in brackets affecting your season score doesn't seem all that fair. Think if you join a bracket at 12 hours and you're placed with 10 Xmen. Meanwhile someone else joins a bracket at a similar time and, for one reason or another, is placed in a bracket where first place wouldn't even have made the top 10 in the first bracket.

I don't see anything wrong with the bracket system as it stands now. I have complete control of how many points I get and how high I can climb in my season bracket.

mohio

Nellobee wrote:

stephen43084 wrote:

1. Lower 3* Progressive to 900, Move (or get rid of) the 1000 Iso reward to 950, and put the 4* progressive at 1000.

The 3* progressive reward needs to be generally reachable for 2* rosters. The 4* progressive reward needs to be generally reachable for 3* rosters.

Those values do not do that.

The sick truth of PvP is that if you can reach 750-800 (i.e. past the floor of max 4* teams EVERYWHERE), then you can reach as far as your HP/coordination/scheduling/etc. will take you. It's all a matter of how many shield hops and how much time you're willing to put into it. So yes, 900 is too high for 2* teams to reach, but 1100 was also too high for 2* teams to reach. Also, anyone willing to go to 1100 could generally get to 1300, it just took an extra 2-3 hops (depending on speed, luck, time slice, etc.).

This imo is the big problem with progression rewards and tuning them correctly. If you want 2* teams to be able to reach them, not only will you be giving out way more than you were under the old scheme, but you'd have to put it at maybe 700 (which frankly is still not easy for 2* teams, but maybe with a hop or two is reachable). The 4* reward is just as tough of a challenge to place correctly. In high scoring slices I have been able to reach 1000+ before shielding when starting in the last 3 hours. That makes me think that 1000 may be too low. However I have seen many brackets in the "off" time slices where the top scores were in the 900s, and it took several shield hops to even get that high. It's not really different from pre-shield cool downs cause there were slices where 1300 was practically impossible, and others where 1300 was comically easy.

I think why it's taking them a while to figure out the new levels for rewards is how to handle ALL the progressions, not just the 1100 and 1300 rewards that a lot of us are most interested in. Shield cool downs have made it so that 1*, 2*, and transitioning teams score more or less about the same as they were scoring before. Their average scores are probably lower, but maybe 50 points (for 1* teams probably not lower at all)? I'm seeing a lot of 550-650 instead of 600-700 I was seeing before from the same guys. As you get higher the point differences stretch out, so you might see something like 500=500 (new score = old score), 550=600, 650=725, 700=800, 750=850, 800=950, 850=1000, 900=1100, etc. (All numbers guessing and approximate of course - this is just what it seems like to me).

Unknown

Nellobee wrote:

stephen43084 wrote:

1. Lower 3* Progressive to 900, Move (or get rid of) the 1000 Iso reward to 950, and put the 4* progressive at 1000.

The 3* progressive reward needs to be generally reachable for 2* rosters. The 4* progressive reward needs to be generally reachable for 3* rosters.

Those values do not do that.

Any lower and it trivializes the covers.

The 3 star cover shouldn't be generally reachable by 2 star rosters anyway.

Was the 1100 reachable for 2 star rosters even before all the shards?

The only reason to adjust the progression rewards is to make it like it was before they **** everything up.

esoxnepa

onimus wrote:

Nellobee wrote:

stephen43084 wrote:

1. Lower 3* Progressive to 900, Move (or get rid of) the 1000 Iso reward to 950, and put the 4* progressive at 1000.

The 3* progressive reward needs to be generally reachable for 2* rosters. The 4* progressive reward needs to be generally reachable for 3* rosters.

Those values do not do that.

Any lower and it trivializes the covers.

The 3 star cover shouldn't be generally reachable by 2 star rosters anyway.

Was the 1100 reachable for 2 star rosters even before all the shards?

The only reason to adjust the progression rewards is to make it like it was before they tinykitty everything up.

Progression rewards need to be reachable for players looking to progress. Otherwise, why call them "Progression Rewards?" Max 2*/Transitioning rosters should be able to reach the 3* cover, without spending a ton on HP. Full 3* teams should have an ability to reach the 4* progression reward without massive shield hopping.

Right now you have more chance as a 2* roster to get a top 100 placement for a 3* cover than you do to reach the "Progression" reward. This makes it very frustrating for people trying to progress.

As you improve your rosters, you should see some progression rewards become more and more reachable. Right now, PvP has a wall that prevents progression by compressing all the 4* and full 3* teams at the 600 pt wall.

Preventing reasonable progression causes player frustration and burnout. Progressing should be balanced and fun, where players become encouraged to spend some real money on the game, so they can gain entertainment, and not get hit with the stick of 270.

Unknown

Nellobee wrote:

stephen43084 wrote:

1. Lower 3* Progressive to 900, Move (or get rid of) the 1000 Iso reward to 950, and put the 4* progressive at 1000.

The 3* progressive reward needs to be generally reachable for 2* rosters. The 4* progressive reward needs to be generally reachable for 3* rosters.

Those values do not do that.

I agree with Onimus.

What 2* rosters were hitting 1100 that cannot hit 900?

The target percentage of players were previously hitting the progressives. If too many were hitting them, they would have raised them and vice versa. The discussion of MPQ lowering progressives is because the shield cooldowns have resulted in lower scoring. Therefore, if the target percentage of players are not hitting the 1300, 1200, 1100, etc. progressives; then, MPQ will lower the progressives (based on their data) to a point range where that quota of players can hit that number.

Hence, if you were not hitting the 1100 progressive (3* cover) before the shield change, you will not be hitting the progressive number after the change. They are not lowering the progressives so that more people can reach them. They are lowering them so that the same percentage of players that were hitting them before can continue hitting them.

In other words, if they lower the 3* progressive too much and 2* rosters start hitting hit, they will rework the progressives and raise it to where the percentage of players attaining the 3* progressive is lower.

Unknown

esoxnepa wrote:

onimus wrote:

Nellobee wrote:

stephen43084 wrote:

1. Lower 3* Progressive to 900, Move (or get rid of) the 1000 Iso reward to 950, and put the 4* progressive at 1000.

The 3* progressive reward needs to be generally reachable for 2* rosters. The 4* progressive reward needs to be generally reachable for 3* rosters.

Those values do not do that.

Any lower and it trivializes the covers.

The 3 star cover shouldn't be generally reachable by 2 star rosters anyway.

Was the 1100 reachable for 2 star rosters even before all the shards?

The only reason to adjust the progression rewards is to make it like it was before they tinykitty everything up.

Progression rewards need to be reachable for players looking to progress. Otherwise, why call them "Progression Rewards?" Max 2*/Transitioning rosters should be able to reach the 3* cover, without spending a ton on HP. Full 3* teams should have an ability to reach the 4* progression reward without massive shield hopping.

Right now you have more chance as a 2* roster to get a top 100 placement for a 3* cover than you do to reach the "Progression" reward. This makes it very frustrating for people trying to progress.

As you improve your rosters, you should see some progression rewards become more and more reachable. Right now, PvP has a wall that prevents progression by compressing all the 4* and full 3* teams at the 600 pt wall.

Preventing reasonable progression causes player frustration and burnout. Progressing should be balanced and fun, where players become encouraged to spend some real money on the game, so they can gain entertainment, and not get hit with the stick of 270.

You are confusing progressive and progress. Keeping it simple, you can hit all the progressives in PVE with out progressing your roster level. The two terms refer to two completely different concepts.

Unknown

esoxnepa wrote:

onimus wrote:

Nellobee wrote:

stephen43084 wrote:

1. Lower 3* Progressive to 900, Move (or get rid of) the 1000 Iso reward to 950, and put the 4* progressive at 1000.

The 3* progressive reward needs to be generally reachable for 2* rosters. The 4* progressive reward needs to be generally reachable for 3* rosters.

Those values do not do that.

Any lower and it trivializes the covers.

The 3 star cover shouldn't be generally reachable by 2 star rosters anyway.

Was the 1100 reachable for 2 star rosters even before all the shards?

The only reason to adjust the progression rewards is to make it like it was before they tinykitty everything up.

Progression rewards need to be reachable for players looking to progress. Otherwise, why call them "Progression Rewards?" Max 2*/Transitioning rosters should be able to reach the 3* cover, without spending a ton on HP. Full 3* teams should have an ability to reach the 4* progression reward without massive shield hopping.

Right now you have more chance as a 2* roster to get a top 100 placement for a 3* cover than you do to reach the "Progression" reward. This makes it very frustrating for people trying to progress.

As you improve your rosters, you should see some progression rewards become more and more reachable. Right now, PvP has a wall that prevents progression by compressing all the 4* and full 3* teams at the 600 pt wall.

Preventing reasonable progression causes player frustration and burnout. Progressing should be balanced and fun, where players become encouraged to spend some real money on the game, so they can gain entertainment, and not get hit with the stick of 270.

If they put the 3 star covers at, say, 500 or 600 points, that would essentially flood the game with covers. Meaning actually acquiring those characters would mean almost nothing because everyone else has those characters as well.

The simple fact of the matter: The additional covers from progression rewards need to be difficult, but possible, to obtain.

They currently give the top 100 1 cover, the top 25 2 covers and the top 5 3 covers.

That means that 20% of the player base gets 1 cover. 5% of the player base gets 2 covers and 1% of the player base gets 3 covers.

A standard 2 star roster, with no 3 star covers, can't even reach the top 100 in many cases.

So why would they make the additional (read superfluous) cover that they give as a bonus for going above and beyond in the following PVP, available for the players that couldn't even get the 1 cover in the first place?

There is no pride in getting something you didn't work for.

That's what this game is all about. They want you to feel overjoyed when you see the gold icon when you open a token. They want your adrenaline to rush in the last few minutes of the PVP when you're ranked #99 with 2 people below you unshielded. They want you to spend 1250 HP for a single cover.

They would never make the additional covers readily available to whatever person wants them. It's just an unrealistic expectation.

esoxnepa

onimus wrote:

If they put the 3 star covers at, say, 500 or 600 points, that would essentially flood the game with covers. Meaning actually acquiring those characters would mean almost nothing because everyone else has those characters as well.

The simple fact of the matter: The additional covers from progression rewards need to be difficult, but possible, to obtain.
...

There is no pride in getting something you didn't work for.

I think we are pretty close to the same page on this, just missing the statistics we would need form D3, on who is scoring what.

I know D3 claims they have a percentage of players that reach certain progression rewards. I just don't trust that they properly account for a percentage of players where the progression reward is still relevant to their progression.

I would also rework the whole reward structure for final PvP placement, after tuning to make sure people have a realistic chance to reach the progression covers. I would be awarding more HP/ISO to PvP placement, and making the PvP placement covers more limited, with the extension of making the progression covers more attainable.

In my opinion, when they extended the cover rewards to the top 100, it was admitting that the progression rewards were failing, and they needed a jury-rigged fix to keep some 2*s being able to advance to the 3* world.

With the influx of new characters being released, they need a way to make the transitions more fair and less random for the entire populace of the game. This won't limit cover and pack sales. The excitement is still there.

Or they can just drop the name of progression rewards and call them "Chase Prizes" or something that admits they have nothing to do with the ability of a player to progress their way through the game.

Phaserhawk

At this point you should just start the game with all the 1*'s maxed, then 2*'s have the 1* drop rates, 3*'s have the 2* drop rates and 4*'s have drop rates of 4* and 3* combine.

In Heroic's, just get rid of the 2*'s so 3*'s have 2* drop rates and 4*'s have 1.4% drop rate.