In preparation for the post-Ultron v2 backlash, a suggestion

Dauthi

san-mpq wrote:

shade_tree wrote:

You are entitled to your opinion, but 60-90 minutes every eight hours is actually less than many people spend playing "regular" PVEs and is not crazy at all, IMO (see how I qualified that?).

I updated my numbers to add the side nodes - a whopping 65K per player from essentials assuming all were giving points but I was seeing maybe three out of five - and as I posted, we had one guy get that total without playing any of Round 8. So again, entirely possible for a dedicated alliance as I originally stated.

And you sir, are entitled to yours. However, according to the DSM (the diagnostics manual for mental health disorders) that level of play is actually at levels for an addiction, which is a mental disorder. As in, it is crazy.

See what I did there? Logic.

This argument is all over the place, but I found this particularly amusing. You can't really diagnose a disorder based on someone enjoying a form of entertainment, if we did we would have a lot of crazy people based on the fact that the average amount of television watched is 4-5 hours a day ... lol.

Unknown

MarvelMan wrote:

shade_tree wrote:

Edit: Hey MarvelMan, down-vote all you want but the fact is that there were enough points available despite all your lame excuses.

Never said otherwise, never made "excuses". What Ive ALWAYS said (see above) is that to get those points requires an insane dedication/coordination, and that the issues associated with the first run and the misleading post (which people read into what they want due to lack of clarification) meant that people unknowingly shot themselves in the foot. Not to mention that the server issues exacerbated the other issues.

The fact that you don't see them as excuses is interesting; most people would see losing out on something because of decisions you made, regardless of the drivers for those decisions, as being at least partially your responsibility.

I don't consider playing once per eight hours as "insane dedication" but maybe you don't play PVE that often - I assure you that the Ultron event took less dedication than many regular PVEs.

san

Dauthi wrote:

This argument is all over the place, but I found this particularly amusing. You can't really diagnose a disorder based on someone enjoying a form of entertainment, if we did we would have a lot of crazy people based on the fact that the average amount of television watched is 4-5 hours a day ... lol.

My initial comment was meant to be for the sake of amusement, as the OP had claimed that it's not "crazy" to spend exorbitant amounts of time on a game - I wanted to point out that it actually can be from a mental health perspective. You are correct that you cannot diagnose it as a disorder, at least not immediately. People do things for all sorts of reasons, and for many, it's not a problem. Grief is similar in this way, in that it can't (or at least shouldn't) be diagnosed as depression. Nonetheless, the level of behaviour is equivalent to addiction in many cases (much like symptoms of grief are equivalent to depression), or at the very least, concerning. Not as a one off thing, or even on a week to week basis, but I'd argue if you play 365 days per year at 4-5 hours per day, it's a problem.

To address the point of TV watching, that too, is too much. I know that we all watch TV at various points in the day, but I'd probably argue that is also diagnosable if done as a daily thing and interferes with functioning in other areas of your life, which at that level of time commitment, certainly does. Your argument is that of a hard drug addict who points out that the smoker also uses a drug (tobacco in this case), daily. One does not make the other go away . Both are not so great for your overall well being.

Turbosmooth

I'm in an Alliance that placed in the top 100 of Heroic Oscorp and is currently placing around 75 in Enemy of the State. We focused on Ultron 2 previously, but we did not complete Round 6. We got close, and would have completed it if we had one more node reset.

Rough translation: Not even a top 100 PvE Alliance got through Round 6 of U2.
We are now relying on finishing in the top 100 to get Hulkbuster.

We got 4 Ultron packs plus 100HP for compensation, but no one pulled a Hulkbuster. Most got 4 2* covers. Many also got an extra Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, but not sure why I didn't.

So Ultron health needs to be scaled way back next time. Similar to U1. Also do not run other PvE events at the same time as Ultron. It's too much; as much as I love MPQ, you do not want to burn people out. If you want something for people to do while waiting for Ultron, open up another individual permanent storyline for people who collected all the rewards of the main storyline that can be done at a personal pace. Each chapter could have a final award: 3 covers of a 3* character.

Turbosmooth

shade_tree wrote:

I don't consider playing once per eight hours as "insane dedication" but maybe you don't play PVE that often - I assure you that the Ultron event took less dedication than many regular PVEs.

Ultron alone was not too bad. Adding other PvE events concurrently put the rest of my life on hold if I want to keep up with my Alliance. Because daily play time doubles from 2.2 hours to 4.4 hours. Not healthy. I do need to do other things even though I wish MPQ was my job.

Unknown

Turbosmooth wrote:

shade_tree wrote:

I don't consider playing once per eight hours as "insane dedication" but maybe you don't play PVE that often - I assure you that the Ultron event took less dedication than many regular PVEs.

Ultron alone was not too bad. Adding other PvE events concurrently put the rest of my life on hold if I want to keep up with my Alliance. Because daily play time doubles from 2.2 hours to 4.4 hours. Not healthy. I do need to do other things even though I wish MPQ was my job.

I'll let you in on a strategy for staying sane when there are multiple desirable events: late-start. There is no reason to start PVEs the minute they pop up or to play more than half the total time - I'm not going to start EotS until tomorrow or early Wednesday.

MarvelMan

shade_tree wrote:

Turbosmooth wrote:

shade_tree wrote:

I don't consider playing once per eight hours as "insane dedication" but maybe you don't play PVE that often - I assure you that the Ultron event took less dedication than many regular PVEs.

Ultron alone was not too bad. Adding other PvE events concurrently put the rest of my life on hold if I want to keep up with my Alliance. Because daily play time doubles from 2.2 hours to 4.4 hours. Not healthy. I do need to do other things even though I wish MPQ was my job.

I'll let you in on a strategy for staying sane when there are multiple desirable events: late-start. There is no reason to start PVEs the minute they pop up or to play more than half the total time - I'm not going to start EotS until tomorrow or early Wednesday.

Just be aware that this often screws your alliance if rubber banding is weak (which it has been recently). You cant pull enough points to catch up to those who started early.

But it does save some sanity. Check Line for updates on bracket fill rates.

El Satanno

MikeHock wrote:

Pretty good post, I must say. Let me try to remain positive..... oh, but i can't, and here's one of the many reasons why.

Yesterday, after a month long break from PvE, I had some time to kill, so I figured I would join the Enemy of the State event. I open MPQ, click on EotS and choose my end-time.... and then, the screen re-loads and the event isn't open and I need to choose an end time again. I did this a handful of times before I gave up and said EFF this. I can't even join a PvE event!

Here are a few more attempts at being positive:

I'm positive I'm sick of the various bugs and problems
I'm positive I'm sick of facing maxed teams upon joining any PvP event
I'm positive I'm sick of 20-Iso
I'm positive I'm sick of watching characters I've built up for months getting nerfed

Call me a debbie downer; I don't care. I have nothing truly positive to say.

Yeah, I've noticed that last bit. It's pretty sad, too. I remember seeing your name as a rather prominent one when I was just lurking around here and getting my 2* roster together. How times have changed... At any rate, thanks for the compliment, and also for staying on topic. Funny how easy it is to get people talking about something completely tangential. Anyway...!

I'm positive I'm sick of most of the points you've lobbed there. I'm just not seeing the benefit of banging on about it with every post. This isn't to imply that you in particular are guilty of such behavior, but it sure is common. Maybe it's just my disposition, or maybe it's because I seem to be one of those strange people that still actually enjoys the game(!), but I just see constant, repetitive complaints and insults as both dull-witted and counter-productive.

Unknown

MarvelMan wrote:

shade_tree wrote:

I'll let you in on a strategy for staying sane when there are multiple desirable events: late-start. There is no reason to start PVEs the minute they pop up or to play more than half the total time - I'm not going to start EotS until tomorrow or early Wednesday.

Just be aware that this often screws your alliance if rubber banding is weak (which it has been recently). You cant pull enough points to catch up to those who started early.

Not having to worry about total points anymore and just going for placement is one of the main reasons that we switched our alliance over to casual scoring and the only difference is that we're Top 250 now instead of Top 100. Plus we aren't hemorrhaging members from burnout which seems to be a problem for some alliances based on recent posts.