The New Normal for PvE Progression Rewards

Mawtful

Postive Feedback Thread Incoming!

Prodigal Sun had its final Progression Reward at 14K. I had Kingpin, Magneto and Loki from the start, so I was able to use both the Required Character nodes in the first sub, but if I recall correctly, I managed to get that Loki Green cover early during the second sub without any stress.

Meet Grocket has its final Progression Reward at 18K, which I think is going to be equally commendable. If you're hitting the nodes at the 8 hour refresh and then again in the last hour, even players without Quicksilver should be able to pick one up during the 2nd sub.

I really hope this pattern is continued going forward, particularly for introductory events. Players lacking the Required Character at the start are probably still going to miss out on earning all 3 covers, maybe even 2, but if you play smart you won't walk away empty handed.

Dragon_Nexus

Eh, I kinda hope it isn't. It's a psychological thing, if anything.

Perhaps have the required character at around that point mark, but still have other things to get later? I mean, it felt kinda meaningless (other than final rewards of course) to get lots of points after I'd already gained all of the progressional rewards within 36 hours of a, what, 4 or 5 day event?

DFiPL

Maybe. I like the looks of 18k, but then I see that in the first hub, the three essentials all require Quicksilver, with 1020 points or so available for them.

First mission after the 'here play with Quicksilver' mission: 100 points.

Grovel, peons.

oh wait that's me where's my groveling pants

DFiPL

Dragon_Nexus wrote:

Eh, I kinda hope it isn't. It's a psychological thing, if anything.

Perhaps have the required character at around that point mark, but still have other things to get later? I mean, it felt kinda meaningless (other than final rewards of course) to get lots of points after I'd already gained all of the progressional rewards within 36 hours of a, what, 4 or 5 day event?

Shrug. If you're able to get it that quickly, fantastic. If you have the required character, you can chase a placement reward. For those who don't have the required character because they weren't able to chase a intro placement reward, being complete jerks and locking out any ability to climb the progression ladder is just a nice way to cheese off part of your player base.

d0nk3y

Dragon_Nexus wrote:

Eh, I kinda hope it isn't. It's a psychological thing, if anything.

Perhaps have the required character at around that point mark, but still have other things to get later? I mean, it felt kinda meaningless (other than final rewards of course) to get lots of points after I'd already gained all of the progressional rewards within 36 hours of a, what, 4 or 5 day event?

Yeah, this. I finished the first sub of Prodigal Sun with 13.8k points. I really hope that if they're going to start setting the big progression reward that low in the points scale that they at least throw the heavy players a bone and give us some ISO progressions above that reward. By the time I finish Prodigal Sun in 5 hours, I'll probably have done 525% of max progression.

lukewin

I'd rather hit the final progression in the first day, and just play for rank for the next few, than have what happened when the KK green was the cover, at 65k points. I don't think D3 plans on making any changes, but if the only choice is between those 2 options, I'd choose the lower score final progression reward.

DFiPL

Event has just barely begun and I'm already effectively locked out of two of the "peon" nodes. Juggernaut at 91 with cheap red and green AP skill costs might as well be a giant middle finger to my roster, and the entire concept of scaling is pants-on-head loony. "Hey let's make it so if you use your stronger characters ever events will just keep getting stronger on you plus the community will make it harder for you and if you don't use your stronger characters you won't be able to beat these nodes so ha ha ha ha ha. Ha. Whoo."

I'm at 1k points already despite being locked out of the essentials so having the top of the progression ladder be 18k may still be doable, as long as scaling doesn't get unreasonable at the end of each sub-event. We'll see what it looks like in 18 hours.

Unknown

If you thought 65K for Kamala Khan was tough then you would never be in position to get anything decent had D3 added more stuff to get beyond the current progression scores because the top scorers still blew past 65K rather easily. TaT was around 60% of the maximum score while Prodigal Sun is more like 15% of the maximum score. The top range of progression is usually more like 30-40% and even that seems to be quite difficult for some people so I don't mind if they keep it easy.

puppychow

DFiPL wrote:

For those who don't have the required character because they weren't able to chase a intro placement reward, being complete jerks and locking out any ability to climb the progression ladder is just a nice way to cheese off part of your player base.

D3 is trying to convince you to buy cover packs. Try your luck w/ a 42!

In the past, the featured character had a 10% draw rate, and if you buy a 10 pack you'll have a very high chance of getting the featured. Of course, D3 realized a higher draw rate meant nobody buying the 40 cover packs, so they dropped the draw rate a LOT. Again, it's all about revenue.

AnonymousMPQ

If it were me deciding, I would place the final Progression Reward after the middle sub event worth of max clears depending on how many sub events there were.

The thought behind this is to give the people who placed well in the previous a head start but give last comers a chance to still get the placed well in the current event and earn the required character in the next event if they work at it.

DFiPL

puppychow wrote:

DFiPL wrote:

For those who don't have the required character because they weren't able to chase a intro placement reward, being complete jerks and locking out any ability to climb the progression ladder is just a nice way to cheese off part of your player base.

D3 is trying to convince you to buy cover packs. Try your luck w/ a 42!

In the past, the featured character had a 10% draw rate, and if you buy a 10 pack you'll have a very high chance of getting the featured. Of course, D3 realized a higher draw rate meant nobody buying the 40 cover packs, so they dropped the draw rate a LOT. Again, it's all about revenue.

Sure. It's a business, and I get that. But you're more easily going to part the userbase with their money if it happens willingly. If it feels like a shakedown or like this is something you HAVE to do, a non-zero portion of the userbase will just get more recalcitrant about spending money.

Scoregasms

I'm all for additional progression rewards, provided the previous pve reward isn't at the top, lol. Previous pve character reward should be somewhat reasonable to achieve and slightly after the first sub seems about right to me. There's no need to make this more difficult than it needs to be since those folks can now complete essentials going forward if they so choose.

There are many that only play for top progression simply because they don't want to deal with a week long grind fest, forcing them to do so like with the KK reward just seemed obnoxious (still think that was a mistake or oversight, lol).

If they really wanted to shake things up, move the 4* from top 2 placement to 4x current top progression and replace it with an additional 3* cover for top 2 instead like they do for 4* releases and have a bunch of random hp/ISO/tokens in between to fill the gap.

Guarantee you'll get more pve playing if that little carrot was put out there, it's not like the 4* are that much better now and the whole notion of buying them feels dirty at the moment...

DaveR4470

I'm fine with lower top progression awards.... but it would be nice if they threw those of us who grind away for position a small bone when, like in Prodigal Son, the top progression is in the rear view mirror by the second day. Something like an event token for every 5 or 10,000 points above the max, for example.

I won't die if that never happens, though. Would just be nice.

d0nk3y

DaveR4470 wrote:

I'm fine with lower top progression awards.... but it would be nice if they threw those of us who grind away for position a small bone when, like in Prodigal Son, the top progression is in the rear view mirror by the second day. Something like an event token for every 5 or 10,000 points above the max, for example.

I won't die if that never happens, though. Would just be nice.

I dunno... between your suggestion and mine, it's either a guaranteed ISO amount or a guaranteed 250 ISO with a 95% chance of utter disappointment immediately preceding the ISO. Decisions, decisions.

SnagglePuss

Complaining when it's too difficult is fine, but to complain when it's too easy??.... 1st world problems.

I think it's great, you can take a few days off and still get fair reward.
and surely the 50HP for placing in the top 50 for each sub enough for the grinders.
Enjoy it while it lasts.

Super grind mode is coming back