[Brainstorm] Ideas for improving PvE?

Infrared

More non-competitive PVE content is needed, but I get that D3 wants to keep competition in the game. I would like to have a PVE mode where instead of competing on how many times we can grind down the same nodes over and over again, we compete on how well we play each node.

First, there needs to be a way of awarding variable points depending on what went on during the fight. Take less damage, get more points. (Finally, a reason to play well instead of purposely getting beat up to manage scaling.) Win very quickly, get more points. Don't use boosts, get bonus points. SpicyToro's idea for bonus ISO from challenges could also be applied to points here. Other ideas in my old suggestion.

Second, when you repeat a node you get to keep the highest score out of all the times you played it, rather than the sum of all the times you played it. So grinding is no longer necessary. Replaying a node still has value because you could maybe play it better for a higher score. As a bonus, cooldown timers and rubberbanding are also not needed anymore.

Xenoberyll

The Timeslice option is far from optimal for people who can't just play whenever they want. You select an end time that fits your schedule but the subs still may end and start in the middle of your working day.

If it has to be competitive and still less time consuming maybe put a timer into play:
- select a timeslice that gives you a 12 hour window of time to play in
- in this window of time you get to play X hours (x=1-3), the timer runs whenever you enter a match and stops when a match is finished. if you need a break in between the timer will pick up where you left it whenever you start a new match as long as you're in the selected window of time.
- players get only 1 of these windows of playtime per day.

Xenoberyll

I actually like the idea of heroics because it makes you go away from always using the same top guys on your roster. They're just giving us too little options. When you need at least 3 out of 6 buffed characters a lot of people have to run with undercovered characters or are unable to play at all.

slidecage

Make PvE non-competitive (i.e. more like Deadpool Daily or Gauntlet)

that will kill the game making many people leave who can not get that high in the PVP. Though i think this is the way this game is moving more and more toward it everday, that is the main reason i stop putting money into the game. They are just making the game from a fun game to play to a PAY TO WIN game only.

they turn the PVE into something like daily time to find a new game to play and many will follow. Look how many games out there that is only PVP and see how long they last.

They are going to change it so they dont have that many people online

Unknown

Xenoberyll wrote:

I actually like the idea of heroics because it makes you go away from always using the same top guys on your roster. They're just giving us too little options. When you need at least 3 out of 6 buffed characters a lot of people have to run with undercovered characters or are unable to play at all.

I agree. It would be nice if you could use your existing roster, but got bonuses if you used the characters they choose as featured. Maybe you can only get full points if you use their featured characters.

I also like the idea of having bonuses being offered. This encourages you to use more than just a few key characters. The all female teams is a great idea. They could have done something like an all green ability team gets an extra amount of ISO during St. Patrick's.

On a broader note, after being between 30 and 50 in the hunt for the first 3 days and then falling out when the weekend came and I had too many other things to do I am over the grind. You can devote an insane amount of time to consistently get a cover on its arrival, or you can become a laid back player and grind for the progression rewards. It's a much slower process, but I am enjoying the game much more focusing on finishing DA Herioc when I get to MoStorm.

Unknown

Infrared wrote:

More non-competitive PVE content is needed, but I get that D3 wants to keep competition in the game. I would like to have a PVE mode where instead of competing on how many times we can grind down the same nodes over and over again, we compete on how well we play each node.

First, there needs to be a way of awarding variable points depending on what went on during the fight. Take less damage, get more points. (Finally, a reason to play well instead of purposely getting beat up to manage scaling.) Win very quickly, get more points. Don't use boosts, get bonus points. SpicyToro's idea for bonus ISO from challenges could also be applied to points here. Other ideas in my old suggestion.

Second, when you repeat a node you get to keep the highest score out of all the times you played it, rather than the sum of all the times you played it. So grinding is no longer necessary. Replaying a node still has value because you could maybe play it better for a higher score. As a bonus, cooldown timers and rubberbanding are also not needed anymore.

You described my dream PVE. I want to elaborate a little bit on that. I would have each node in Normal and Hard Mode. Player can replay any node in any mode at will. Normal mode would give standard ISO/token prizes and Hard mode would give progression awards - event tokens, covers, HP, extra ISO. So top progression award is for clearing final node on hard. No grinding required.

I understand that developers want to keep a competitive aspect to encourage some spending. So scoring system should be based on how good is it played. And only keep the highest score per node. Competitive prizes can be awarded to overall best scorers and to best performers on each node. This way hardcore grinders can grind all the way they please trying to improve their score.

Also it would be very nice to have secondary objectives. Some additional things to do that award a prize - win using certain characters, win in under 5 turns, make 3 cascades in a row and so on.

Trisul

shurak wrote:

You described my dream PVE. I want to elaborate a little bit on that. I would have each node in Normal and Hard Mode. Player can replay any node in any mode at will. Normal mode would give standard ISO/token prizes and Hard mode would give progression awards - event tokens, covers, HP, extra ISO. So top progression award is for clearing final node on hard. No grinding required.

I understand that developers want to keep a competitive aspect to encourage some spending. So scoring system should be based on how good is it played. And only keep the highest score per node. Competitive prizes can be awarded to overall best scorers and to best performers on each node. This way hardcore grinders can grind all the way they please trying to improve their score.

Also it would be very nice to have secondary objectives. Some additional things to do that award a prize - win using certain characters, win in under 5 turns, make 3 cascades in a row and so on.

The hard part is actually making it clear what constitutes a good score. If health remaining is important, true healers would have a scoring advantage. Damage taken? Favors Cage and other defensive tile characters. If it's timed, then the fastest team would win.

Tough to make that fair for everyone.

Unknown

Trisul wrote:

The hard part is actually making it clear what constitutes a good score. If health remaining is important, true healers would have a scoring advantage. Damage taken? Favors Cage and other defensive tile characters. If it's timed, then the fastest team would win.

Tough to make that fair for everyone.

Actually, these are just details that can be worked out. The key here is the rules should be made clear to players so they know what helps the score and what injures it. For example, put it in front:

every matched tile scores points
every tile destroyed by powers get half points
every red tile destroyed gets double points
every enemy special tile destroyed get double points
50% bonus for hard mode
25% penalty for each boost
20 points penalty for each turn (this means the faster you win the higher your score)

Even if the rules they choose are not perfect (and let's face they will never be for everybody) that still removes the need for grinding and rubberbanding and won't penalize casual play style (as it does now because for best results you have to coordinate with cooldown schedule)

Blergh

The hard part is actually making it clear what constitutes a good score. If health remaining is important, true healers would have a scoring advantage. Damage taken? Favors Cage and other defensive tile characters. If it's timed, then the fastest team would win.

Tough to make that fair for everyone

Well, if they wanted to go down that road they don't need to rely on one category - they could do a devil may cry assessment sheet after a match that relies on a number of factors and grades each one before giving them an over all rank. Time, health, tiles match, critical used, boost used, heals, level of enemy faced/node difficulty ect. Not all of them have to add points.

The thing I'd find hard about it is, that you'd have to grade each node separately for a score - especially in something like the gauntlet that has a lot of different kind of nodes and team ups - as it natural that facing certain teams are going to take long - more health - and more abilities then other teams. Or have some sort of average for every player on all those categories and base the score off that. Either way, it'd be a lot of work most probably.

Trisul

Yeah, variety of goals sounds pretty interesting. I pointed some problems in the previous post, but I actually feel like that would be a really fun change of pace.

I just started playing some PAD casually, which is 100% PvE. One interesting factor there is the drops... lots of dungeons have drops that you'll attempt to run over and over to get.

It would be nice if MPQ similarly buffed their end-of-node drops for PvE. Having that recruit token at the end of survival nodes in EotS was pretty awesome, but imagine if you could continue to get tokens or even (omg) 3* covers from certain nodes or events? Assume progressions and placement rewards are gone, but running heroic Juggs gives you a chance to drop a certain subset of 3* characters. Higher percentage chance for higher difficulty nodes. People would actually look forward to heroic Juggs if it's a cover they need!

Unknown

What about a system where you get a set prize for merely completing each node once and have progressions like normal but then instead of placement awards they have a weird system that increases your % chance of getting a cover reward the more points you get.

brainstorming now but how about this, depending on your placement in an event you get a certain number of "reward points" that you can allocate into different columns. First place would get a lot, essentially enough to guarantee a 4* 3x3* some HP and ISO.

10th place however would have to decide how to distribute their points and can choose where to put them. Do you have the 3* reward maxed? Is forfeiting all of those covers worth a 25% chance at a the 4* reward? Are you iso starved and would rather put all your points into the iso column and get no covers but get the equivalent of a 1st place finish in iso? Do you give up all the rest of your rewards for a little more HP to spend later? Each column would be capped so you could never get more of any one item than the first place winner gets now.

150th place would have the points equivalent to one guaranteed cover but could choose which color to put the points into, or even roll the dice and give themselves a 33%? chance at each and on a very lucky day win all three but on a unlucky day win none of them.

Thing is now those below "cover tier" can still put their points into a "chance at" getting a 3* cover, don't make it scale linearly 151st place shouldn't have a 99% chance at one cover, but they were so close they shouldn't have a zero either. They can also sacrifice points from other columns to try to maximize their chances if they want.

The thing about a system like this is, if each placement is given a different number of points. Every player will want to do as well as they can, every step higher earns you more reward points and has value. With Tiers you can say, well comfortably top 100 but will never make top 50 so why keep trying. This would remove that and every ounce of effort would be rewarded accordingly.

Iso and HP would be easy to do this way. Add points till you move up a tier (25 -->50-->100 for HP; 250--> 500--> 1000--> 1500--> 2500--> 3000 for iso) if you add points above a certain tier you have a % chance of earning the next tier up.

Covers would have to have an odd sliding scale where "100 points" is 100% chance at one cover, but 90 points would likely need to be less than 90% chance at that cover, maybe something vaguely logarithmic.

I would be excited to have a system like this, where effort is rewarded and prizes are customizable towards each player's needs.

Trisul

The downside to your (cool) idea Crypto is that it takes a giant wall of text to explain, and it would be a considerable challenge to explain the system to newbies. I get the feeling that if the devs change up PvE, they'll probably want it a little more intuitive to the beginners (who are naturally drawn to PvE more).

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As an aside, seeing Demiurge willing to change up the PvP system makes me more optimistic that they'll consider significantly changing up PvE as well. Here's hoping!