Global PVE Event

windfallstar

I'm sure we all appreciate the ability to choose time slices and to jump into fresh brackets so we can compete with others on a relatively even footing, but perhaps once in a while it would be fun to mix things up a bit and throw everyone together into a giant global bracket. If the prizes weren't anything too serious, say just give out lots of tokens instead of covers, it would interesting to see where people end up.

Trisul

Nah, this screws euro/asia players.

JVReal

Make it one big bracket, with progression giving 1000 Iso every 2.5K and an Event Token every 5K with no top progression.

Rank Rewards can be a badge next to your name showing your rank status (silver, gold, bronze). You get your rewards as you play, rather than at the end, I bet nobody would be mercing at the end of that event.

I don't know much about global boss battles, that would be interesting, Alliance bosses or global bosses that everyone has to challenge bits and pieces of, maybe fight for 2 mins, then you can switch out your team, fight again, then collect your split of the spoils, etc. I don't know. Just throwing stuff out there, this seems like a neat brain storming thread.

windfallstar

Trisul wrote:

Nah, this screws euro/asia players.

With the current refresh timers at 8 hours, it wouldn't make too much of a difference where people are in the world. There just isn't enough time to fit in many clears before the final grind and end of the sub. If anything the subs could have delayed starting times to be catered towards specific regions.

john1620b

Trisul wrote:

Nah, this screws euro/asia players.

If they still did five time slices, it seems like it would be fine. It would technically be five global brackets, but I'd like it. It'd be nice to have some non-Gauntlet variety once in a while.

jim1200

Maybe there could be a PVE season sim like the PVP shield sim where you can go in play for progression and there wouldn't necessarily be a placement reward structure. But I guess that is already the sim they do.

Trisul

windfallstar wrote:

With the current refresh timers at 8 hours, it wouldn't make too much of a difference where people are in the world. There just isn't enough time to fit in many clears before the final grind and end of the sub. If anything the subs could have delayed starting times to be catered towards specific regions.

Actually, the final grind is one of the most important aspects of scoring well.

windfallstar

Trisul wrote:

Actually, the final grind is one of the most important aspects of scoring well.

Staggering the subs to have different end times would allow players in different regions to have the same opportunity to grind. Since the current time slices are relatively acceptable for players, have each sub match one of the current time slices along with a day of downtime separating each sub. Or to be even more fair, have 6 different subs that have a 4 hour difference in end times. The downtime between each sub would artificially lengthen the event, but I certainly wouldn't mind being able to finish a sub and have some downtime before having to start the next sub. It would also allow people more time to focus on pvp between subs which is nice.

john1620b wrote:

If they still did five time slices, it seems like it would be fine. It would technically be five global brackets, but I'd like it. It'd be nice to have some non-Gauntlet variety once in a while.

Perhaps the main bracket could be global while the individual subs are separated into different time slices. It really shouldn't be a problem to have no repeatable nodes in the main. Everyone gets a chance to play the same amount of time by the end. If rubber banding was kept to a minimum it really wouldn't be all that different from the way things are ran now. Just that at the end of the day everyone would be grouped in one giant bracket.

Unknown

windfallstar wrote:

Trisul wrote:

Actually, the final grind is one of the most important aspects of scoring well.

Staggering the subs to have different end times would allow players in different regions to have the same opportunity to grind. Since the current time slices are relatively acceptable for players, have each sub match one of the current time slices along with a day of downtime separating each sub. Or to be even more fair, have 6 different subs that have a 4 hour difference in end times. The downtime between each sub would artificially lengthen the event, but I certainly wouldn't mind being able to finish a sub and have some downtime before having to start the next sub. It would also allow people more time to focus on pvp between subs which is nice.

john1620b wrote:

If they still did five time slices, it seems like it would be fine. It would technically be five global brackets, but I'd like it. It'd be nice to have some non-Gauntlet variety once in a while.

Perhaps the main bracket could be global while the individual subs are separated into different time slices. It really shouldn't be a problem to have no repeatable nodes in the main. Everyone gets a chance to play the same amount of time by the end. If rubber banding was kept to a minimum it really wouldn't be all that different from the way things are ran now. Just that at the end of the day everyone would be grouped in one giant bracket.

You're either underestimating the competitiveness of players and/or misunderstanding optimal PVE play. Time slices are designed so that everyone conceivably has the same chance without sleep schedule and other events interfering. With this implementation, competitive players would complain about having to wake up at 3 in the morning to do their final grind for a sub or worse, main event; this is exactly what time slices were designed to prevent.

We had global pve events before (Hulk release). Demiurge has sacrificed this type of event for the ability to have time slices. If you ran a vote between the 2, I don't think there'd be any doubt as to what people prefer.

windfallstar

daibar wrote:

You're either underestimating the competitiveness of players and/or misunderstanding optimal PVE play. Time slices are designed so that everyone conceivably has the same chance without sleep schedule and other events interfering. With this implementation, competitive players would complain about having to wake up at 3 in the morning to do their final grind for a sub or worse, main event; this is exactly what time slices were designed to prevent.

We had global pve events before (Hulk release). Demiurge has sacrificed this type of event for the ability to have time slices. If you ran a vote between the 2, I don't think there'd be any doubt as to what people prefer.

Newsflash, even with time slices, people are still resorting to changing their sleep schedule in order to do final grinds. Let's say the distribution of ending times is 6am, 12pm, 3pm, 9pm, 12am. Then let's have 12 hour subs which run back to back non stop for the duration of the event. Which of these would allow a player to not disrupt their schedule in order to play?

6pm? Well that sounds good except for this slice half of your subs will end at 6am which would require getting up at 4am-5am to grind.
12pm? This appears to be doable, but then the grind on half the subs would have to start at 10am-11am. Perfectly reasonable if there wasn't work, school, or other obligations and commitments in life which doesn't allow for a 2 hour break before lunch.
3pmHalf of these subs require getting up at 1am-2am to grind.
9pmThis ending time is definitely the most reasonable in regards to sleep schedule. Do clears around noon and midnight, grinds in the morning and late evening. Definitely a contender to be chosen as long as you don't have a morning commute.
12amSame problem as the 12pm ending time sub only with the other half of the subs causing problems.

All of this isn't even taking into account the difficulty in scheduling in time to clear the nodes in time for them to be refreshed for grinding. 24 hour nodes would help in the grinding aspect but it would also make it more troublesome to fit the extra clear into your schedule. Time slices haven't really solved the issue of the events being disruptive to a normal schedule. The thing that helped the most in that aspect is the change in refresh timers.

Trisul

windfallstar wrote:

people are still resorting to changing their sleep schedule in order to do final grinds

windfallstar wrote:

Time slices haven't really solved the issue of the events being disruptive to a normal schedule.

I woke up at 5am to grind a slice 1 finish in The Hunt, but I chose it. I could easily have chosen one where I didn't have to sacrifice any sleep.

Imagine that I didn't have that choice. Every PvE. That's European players pre-slices. Things are way better now with slices. I don't see how this is arguable.

Some people bring up that slice choices are not really that great currently (looking at you, Ben). That's a legitimate concern. What's not legitimate is suggesting that things haven't improved at all for the overall userbase. "Making things interesting" is not a good enough reason to go back to global events.

Unknown

I agree there's still a problem, and that the 24 hours alignment is the best solution. If the refresh doesn't align with your sleep schedule, hopefully you can do an extra clear an hour or 2 early OR miss an hour or 2 before you do the next clear; probably costs 10% of a cycle clear. Otherwise you have to put off bed an hour or go to sleep an hour early. Won't please everyone, but I don't see how it could be improved beyond that.

The current implementation is better than what we had before. It doesn't make sense to throw away progress because it doesn't solve everything. There's only so much a game can do to accommodate people with real lives, and MPQ has actually been far more generous than most games. Otherwise we'd still be on 2.5 hour refreshes and waking up twice at night.

Unknown

Instead of a global bracket, how about a global enemy?

Picture this:
Galactus, no "star" rating, skill power levels at above the 4 star mark though, and...lets say ten BILLION health. You cannot beat him. Nobody can. We willl wipe, constantly. But that's okay because his health is stored on the servers and registers his damage taken at the end of each match. Everyone gets to attack him, any time they want, over a 5-7 day period. If we get him to zero health, he retreats and we all get awards for participating. No metric measurememt - if you fought him, you get a prize.
If we don't get him to zero, we get nothing.

Next week, he comes BACK...


This, I feel, would be a neat way to have the "superheroes and villains of the world" come together to battle a truly global threat.

Any thoughts?

windfallstar

Trisul wrote:

windfallstar wrote:

people are still resorting to changing their sleep schedule in order to do final grinds

windfallstar wrote:

Time slices haven't really solved the issue of the events being disruptive to a normal schedule.

I woke up at 5am to grind a slice 1 finish in The Hunt, but I chose it. I could easily have chosen one where I didn't have to sacrifice any sleep.

Imagine that I didn't have that choice. Every PvE. That's European players pre-slices. Things are way better now with slices. I don't see how this is arguable.

Some people bring up that slice choices are not really that great currently (looking at you, Ben). That's a legitimate concern. What's not legitimate is suggesting that things haven't improved at all for the overall userbase. "Making things interesting" is not a good enough reason to go back to global events.

I don't understand why you are so vehemently against a PVE that would be extremely low stress and low impact compared to what we have now? It would have no covers as rewards, only tokens, and subs with staggered starting times spread out with ample down time in between so players have plenty of opportunity to dedicate their attention to PVP events during the duration. The choice of time slices is great because yes, we do get to choose when our schedules are interrupted, but they are not the end all be all solution so it's not a reason why we should never have anything different.

Honestly, it sounds like you think I'm suggesting that time slices should be completely eliminated from here on out.

Unknown

dearbluey wrote:

Instead of a global bracket, how about a global enemy?

Picture this:
Galactus, no "star" rating, skill power levels at above the 4 star mark though, and...lets say ten BILLION health. You cannot beat him. Nobody can. We willl wipe, constantly. But that's okay because his health is stored on the servers and registers his damage taken at the end of each match. Everyone gets to attack him, any time they want, over a 5-7 day period. If we get him to zero health, he retreats and we all get awards for participating. No metric measurememt - if you fought him, you get a prize.
If we don't get him to zero, we get nothing.

Next week, he comes BACK...

This, I feel, would be a neat way to have the "superheroes and villains of the world" come together to battle a truly global threat.

Any thoughts?

Lots of people have called for this because it would be a great idea. You could even have a build up fighting some minions first, eg Silver Surfer. 10 billion health is not enough, 10 quadrillion maybe?

Additions:
High score board: Single match, (possibly showing team composition?), total damage.
Damage progression rewards.

Problems:
Stunlock creates infinite matches. Cap America with 24 blue, or Daredevil.
Hackers?

Trisul

windfallstar wrote:

I don't understand why you are so vehemently against a PVE that would be extremely low stress and low impact compared to what we have now? It would have no covers as rewards, only tokens, and subs with staggered starting times spread out with ample down time in between so players have plenty of opportunity to dedicate their attention to PVP events during the duration. The choice of time slices is great because yes, we do get to choose when our schedules are interrupted, but they are not the end all be all solution so it's not a reason why we should never have anything different.

Honestly, it sounds like you think I'm suggesting that time slices should be completely eliminated from here on out.

I think you just need to clarify your ideas. Your main idea (global bracket) sounds unfair to European players if it's a competitive environment, regardless of how trivial rewards are (look how much grief people generated from the recent Gauntlet). If there are placement rewards, it should be fair to all players.

You added the staggered sub times suggestion, but I don't see how that's much of an improvement at all from the current slice system. If your point is that the bracketing system sucks and we should all use global rewards (like how alliance rewards), then that's a whole other issue.

In the end, it's just my personal opinion that your suggestion doesn't improve the game. Maybe others will feel differently.

jackstar0

daibar wrote:

dearbluey wrote:

Instead of a global bracket, how about a global enemy?

Picture this:
Galactus, no "star" rating, skill power levels at above the 4 star mark though, and...lets say ten BILLION health. You cannot beat him. Nobody can. We willl wipe, constantly. But that's okay because his health is stored on the servers and registers his damage taken at the end of each match. Everyone gets to attack him, any time they want, over a 5-7 day period. If we get him to zero health, he retreats and we all get awards for participating. No metric measurememt - if you fought him, you get a prize.
If we don't get him to zero, we get nothing.

Next week, he comes BACK...

This, I feel, would be a neat way to have the "superheroes and villains of the world" come together to battle a truly global threat.

Any thoughts?

Lots of people have called for this because it would be a great idea. You could even have a build up fighting some minions first, eg Silver Surfer. 10 billion health is not enough, 10 quadrillion maybe?

Additions:
High score board: Single match, (possibly showing team composition?), total damage.
Damage progression rewards.

Problems:
Stunlock creates infinite matches. Cap America with 24 blue, or Daredevil.
Hackers?

If you were to limit each battle to some max amount of damage against Big G, like 50k, then that would short circuit those infinite stuns, but that aside, I'd say Galactus (or whomever) could just be immune to stun.

windfallstar

daibar wrote:

Lots of people have called for this because it would be a great idea. You could even have a build up fighting some minions first, eg Silver Surfer. 10 billion health is not enough, 10 quadrillion maybe?

Additions:
High score board: Single match, (possibly showing team composition?), total damage.
Damage progression rewards.

Problems:
Stunlock creates infinite matches. Cap America with 24 blue, or Daredevil.
Hackers?

They have mentioned that they don't like how global progress mechanics operate so a direct giant boss for everyone to fight is probably won't happen in this way. But I would love to see some sort of cooperative aspect to PVE. I think matches need to have some sort of end goal. As we saw from the survival node bug, it could be fun to fight an endless battle, but for the love of conserving health packs let's not throw our characters into endless grind.

Unknown

dearbluey wrote:

Instead of a global bracket, how about a global enemy?

Picture this:
Galactus, no "star" rating, skill power levels at above the 4 star mark though, and...lets say ten BILLION health. You cannot beat him. Nobody can. We willl wipe, constantly. But that's okay because his health is stored on the servers and registers his damage taken at the end of each match. Everyone gets to attack him, any time they want, over a 5-7 day period. If we get him to zero health, he retreats and we all get awards for participating. No metric measurememt - if you fought him, you get a prize.
If we don't get him to zero, we get nothing.

I like the idea of this, but I thought of something the other day that might be fun on a single player level. I think it would be fun to reverse the waves from DPD or EotS. Instead of you picking three heroes to attack say 3 or 4 waves of enemies, let's set a boss enemy with oodles of health, and you get to pick say 5-6 of your heroes to battle. The first 3 heroes go first, and when one of those first 3 heroes falls, the fourth joins in, then the fifth, etc. I think people would likely get a sense of accomplishment for having taken down such a huge foe, and it could be a lot of fun. You could have the X-Men buffed to fight a Sentinel, the Avengers buffed to fight Ultron, etc.

Tannen

Or, how about, you get X time period to do as much damage as possible. (Then Galactus notices you and swats you like a fly.) Possibly, you also enter with 30 in each colour.

Infinite combos : Allowed, but pointless, as your time is ticking, and he's not going to even acknowledge your presence until X time is over.
Stun : Allowed, but pointless, when the X minutes have passed, he swats you regardless of his status (or his defence systems kick in, whatever.)

At the end of those X minutes, all your currently active characters are downed, unless you run away. If you run away, you forfeit any dmg you'd make on that round (or lose a bonus mulitplier or something)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Another proposition :

Infinite waves of bad guys, levels increasing until your team is downed. You play until your team is dead, awards are given based on how long you survive. Possibly top out the "named" rewards at like wave 30 (however long it takes to get to 395 enemies) or something and then Y iso every level there after.

High score chart based on levels cleared, or something.

Possibly bonus prizes for using specific teams (1* only, 2*only, 3*only, Xmen, Avengers, etc) People can try for multiple bonuses.

Spoit

Regardless of all this other stuff, I still say that it's waaaaaaaaaaaay easier to be in the top 1/5% of the population than to cross your fingers and hope that there's only 1/49 other psychos in your bracket