Leaderboard compression

lukewin

Spoit wrote:

And this is exactly why the people suggesting that they make smaller brackets are crazy. Imagine this kind of score compression if you needed top 5 for 3 covers, or probably top 2 if it's a 4* release. You're not competing against all 1k people in your bracket, just the 9, 19, 49, or what have you for the reward bracket you're aiming for, which wouldn't be drastically effected if the bracket sizes were cut in half

I agree with you. Even if they divide up the brackets and rewards, it doesn't do anything about the distribution of grinders in a bracket. It would be a lot of work, where the payoff isn't worth the work required to get it to happen, to the devs. There are plenty of more pressing issues for them to focus on, and those wanting smaller brackets, would be in the same boat they're in now. Everyone would be biased based on their bracket luck. You're gonna get grinder brackets, you're gonna get laid back brackets. No science or easy way to determine which one you'll land in, so leave it to luck, and enjoy the times you get those laid back ones, so that you have the energy to go, when you land in the grinder ones.

Unknown

Assuming the % for the cover awards are the same, smaller bracket would just mean more variance. Sometimes they run smaller subs compared to main you can see that sometimes you can sleep walk to #1 in your 200 man sub with a #10 overall score in the 1000 man main, and then sometimes the #1 to #5 guys in your main bracket are all in your 200 man sub and it really sucks. You might see even more bracket timing games because in a smaller bracket avoiding even a single particularly crazy guy could have rather significant ramifications.

Unknown

simonsez wrote:

You guys are all reacting like "Of course the scores are closer together with a longer refresh", but we were shown pretty graphs that claimed this wouldn't be the case... remember when they tested the 8hr refresh in an event half of us didn't care about? I guess I should have just bumped that thread instead of starting a new one.

I think they also did that with The Hunt, where some of the nodes were next to impossible. Most of the nodes in this event are quite beatable, so we're seeing much tighter races, more relying on timing than ability to complete the node.

GrumpySmurf1002

simonsez wrote:

bonfire01 wrote:

PvE is always pretty luck dependent on brackets. In case you were wondering why it's often painful for you.... there is pretty hardcore sorting of players in PvE. In the 4Thor PvE some of my alliance mates were waiting for the last 71 places to fill in a bracket so they could get a fresh one and it was taking FOREVER. So I grabbed my phone and joined with the basically unused account I had on there and ended up in a bracket with 83 ppl in it. I then downloaded MPQ on my spare steam account, joined and now it was a bracket of 84. That bracket reached 481 before the "vets bracket" filled up.

The way you describe it, it sounds like it's not really luck at all. They managed to put all us psychos into one bracket. 4th sub just ended, and 2nd thru 4th are 56,098 , 55,964, 55,936. After days of crazy grinding, it's pretty nuts to see scores so close.

I'm just catching up on this thread, but yeah, I think it's just us. Last I looked I was leading my alliance, and those guys are consistently reporting they're in their top 10.

Keep in mind it's also a holiday weekend (at least in the US), which makes it much easier to hit 12 hour subs so consistently. Today's the only set of subs I actually had to balance around work, and not coincidentally will be the first set I'm truly sub-optimal (i was sub-optimal on Sunday, but still cleared to 1, won't have that luxury today)

I think there's enough of a gap on 10th now at least where I'm not sure the last sub matters except if you really want that Elektra cover for reasons unknown.

Unknown

Just for point of reference, here's my (just completed) bracket finish for ISO Brotherhood:


To me, it looks more or less like the kind of spread we'd see before: nearly a 30% spread between #1 and #10, a top two that broke away from the pack, and no one else super close. And this was a new character PVE with beatable nodes; it was the first in ages I didn't skip a single node on. Granted, it's just one example, but others might want to post their brackets and we can see how well the others compare.

Scoregasms

My bracket in first slice ended as well, here's how it broke down:

1. 163,096
2. 161,136 **
3. 150,344
4. 142,705
5. 141,623
6. 140,727
7. 135,923
8. 135,101
9. 134,668
10. 132,809

I ended in second and was never going to catch first, lol, so I didn't even bother playing the last 9 hours and just did my final grind the night before. It is crazy how different brackets are in final scoring for placement, @BenGrimm, 1st in your bracket would've finished 9th in mine. Really goes to show that if you get stuck in a bracket full of grinders, it can get crazy, but separation definitely happens around the 60% - 75% point of the PVE it seems (same as it's always been).

GrumpySmurf1002

Didn't have time to snapshot it, but last sub just opened (slice 4). End of sub prior, OP was leading with around 134k, I was 6th around 127.5k, and 10th was around 120k. First and second both distanced themselves a bit that sub, I had temporarily passed both last night but could only manage about 2-2.5 clears worth of points, they obviously did more. I was not many points out of 3rd (maybe 2k tops).

simonsez

As of right now, squirrel and I are within 41 points of each other. Crazy. But finally there's a little more separation down to 10th. Not like the other brackets are seeing, but still...

Unknown

Here is the data from my main at the start of the final sub.



Its reasonably tight around the 10th spot but they still a good 15% behind the leaders. I will only be doing enough to hold position in the last 2 hours so will not be getting the final score of 160K like those people above - (there about 25K up for grabs in the final set of subs)

Unknown

You people realize this is just an app game? On your mobile device? Designed to make money off of you?

Phaserhawk

It' exactly as I thought. The top 10 would be competive instead of top 5, but grinders are still going to win out, they just have to earn it even more, and non-grinders have less work to do for same results.

The only problem occurs is when people who didn't bother grinding start to do so because of the 8 hr block, but assuming everyone still plays the same as before, the top grinders can't lock out as many people as before, but they will still lock out 99% of their bracket instead of 99.8%

Ludaa

Bigger gap, but this was a later bracket that opened pretty late at night.

I hope to not have to play anymore to keep rank.

Unknown

Scoregasms wrote:

It is crazy how different brackets are in final scoring for placement, @BenGrimm, 1st in your bracket would've finished 9th in mine. Really goes to show that if you get stuck in a bracket full of grinders, it can get crazy, but separation definitely happens around the 60% - 75% point of the PVE it seems (same as it's always been).

It may be at least partly a starting time thing. I joined my bracket about two hours before the first subs closed - partially to avoid the people who start as soon as the event does. I don't think that accounts for 30k worth of difference, but it was probably part of it.

sc0ville

Just checking in because I saw a couple of guys from my bracket commenting on this thread. I'm with orbilant and lukewin, and lead there pretty much from pillar to post.

From my perspective the 8 hours were a mixed blessing. It ended up interfering with work/daily stuff less than usual, but required way more grinding than normal. I think it was the fact that the 12 hour subs prevented the scaling from getting out of hand. I was forced to clear every node in every sub down to sub 20 pts to maintain my lead. If the scaling had a chance to let things get out of hand, I wouldnt have been able to do that either I would have run out of hp, or other people would have, and there would have been more separation.

I never felt I had a truly safe lead and with the ascending points I knew I'd have to play throughout. The only reason I finished with as big a lead as I did was because I stopped paying attention to my score and was grinding down nodes for their rewards (Which I wouldn't have done on a 24/36hr refresh).

I'm not complaining about 8 hour refreshes but I could definitely do without the 12 hour subs.

Gg to orb and luke, I definitely felt luke in particular breathing down my neck throughout.

Unknown

There's going to be a lot of grinding when you have 18 or so subs like Iso 8 Brotherhood. Unless playing at the end somehow doesn't matter, that's just way more opportunities where you need to grind to keep pace. It was a lot of grinding back when it was 24H too if you wanted to stay in top 10 for the 100 HP sub rewards, especially for the normal bracket.

rednailz

Hanomag75 wrote:

You people realize this is just an app game? On your mobile device? Designed to make money off of you?

golee-gee, the thought never occured! and here i was this whole time thinking I was kicking **** at this world or warcraft all the kids are talking about. appreciate the insight. oh the wasted hours!! no wonder why I can never seem to find any loot for an orc.

Scoregasms

sc0ville wrote:

If the scaling had a chance to let things get out of hand, I wouldnt have been able to do that either I would have run out of hp, or other people would have, and there would have been more separation.

Worth pointing out, haven't noticed personally as huge a jump in community scaling as I saw with shorter refreshes, even less with just 12 hour subs. I know some folks were seeing a somewhat big jump based on their roster, but I'm fairly certain that jump between the same amount of time would've been greater with shorter refreshes (pure speculation).

I never really saw nodes hit "Hard" until I grinded them down and at that point, I was done with them, so it didn't matter (never did I see Deadly). Though even a "Normal" Hood/Jugs/Whoever node was a PITA to deal with, lol. I'd almost rather face a Muscle in there than a Hood, that jerk... almost, haha.

Having Cage for the "Easy" sub was a blessing, never did need to reach for health packs during the final grinds and saved them for the "Hard" sub when I swapped in Loki for the non-goon nodes. I also only healed Deadpool when he was dead and only did so because I had to, lol.

Basically saying to those that think folks spent oodles of HP on this event, not really based on how scaling was, I did spend a good amount of ISO for boosts though. I've spent more HP in this gdamn CMags PVP event on Healthpacks and HP Boosts, a maxed, buffed CMags is no.freaking.joke. haha.

orbitalint

sc0ville wrote:

Gg to orb and luke, I definitely felt luke in particular breathing down my neck throughout.

GG as well. If this were a 4hor or xf green, you'd hav seen me up there but can't justify it for elektra. You kept a good pace, left little room for error for those that went after you like Luke. I didn't have the patience to grind all nodes to dust for 5 days. You earned that win. I left a lot on the table but got to forego the last grind down since I had top ten in the bag. Woo! Extra sleep for a day! Lol.

notamutant

Ludaa wrote:

Bigger gap, but this was a later bracket that opened pretty late at night.

I hope to not have to play anymore to keep rank.

I joined this bracket when it was at around 250 people, at 7 PM Eastern time on Saturday. Obviously this bracket had started during the second round of subs from the top point totals so I was really behind. I ended the 3rd round of subs somewhere in the 50s or 60s. I grinded the 3rd sub I joined in down to 1 for just about every node, but since I joined so late I couldn't catch up at first. I slowly pushed my way into top ten over the next two days, and now have just been holding on, with a 10k lead over 11th place now. Let this be a lesson to you people thinking that you can't make up for a bad start.

lukewin

orbitalint wrote:

sc0ville wrote:

Gg to orb and luke, I definitely felt luke in particular breathing down my neck throughout.

GG as well. If this were a 4hor or xf green, you'd hav seen me up there but can't justify it for elektra. You kept a good pace, left little room for error for those that went after you like Luke. I didn't have the patience to grind all nodes to dust for 5 days. You earned that win. I left a lot on the table but got to forego the last grind down since I had top ten in the bag. Woo! Extra sleep for a day! Lol.

Good game to you both. I knew I wasn't getting to 1st, but I thought I had a decent handle on 2nd. Until I slept thru the end of, Russia, I think, without grinding as much as I could. Lost my hold on it. Tried to crawl back, but wasn't able to. Then I slept thru the end of event, without grinding as much as I could. I'm with orbitalint, I would've gone a lot harder for a Thor or Xforce, but I didn't mind losing Top 2 for Elektra.