Had my first wipe with community scaling turned off...

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I haven't really noticed a massive change in difficulty, tbh. Levels might be a bit lower than before and they don't rise as fast, but it's certainly nothing drastic. If we didn't know community scaling was turned off, I think I wouldn't even have noticed.

I'm placing high with little effort (3 clears, no end of sub grind, comfortable top 50), but that is because of Beast covers and has nothing to do with the scaling.

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DFiPL wrote:

raisinbman wrote:

DFiPL wrote:

Dauthi wrote:

If they ever turn it off on a PVE that has a new character as a prize, prepare to have to grind down a lot more, which is crazy because you already have to grind a ton even with CS turned on.

And, as I said before, there's kind of a limit on how much grinding you can realistically do since there's only so much blood you can squeeze from the stone. You might be able to reach grinding it down to 1 on a node you previously might have only been able to beat once, but it's not like the nodes we couldn't beat before are worth infinity points now so you'll have to play it 24/7 until the sub ends.

I think the point is although the average player is gonna enjoy this, if there was a hypothetical "1st place gets 1,000hp + 9 4* covers" prize for PVE, you'd have to 100% grind it out to get it.

Previously, sure, you had to grind, but nodes just got too impossible.

Of course, who knows - haven't seen anyone reporting if top scorers are max/min-ing.

Maybe. But that was always true before. You were going to have to play the refreshes "optimally" time-wise have all three essentials available to you, and not waste time failing, since that would extend by the tiniest bit the amount of time you had to wait on a particular node to refresh.

Finishing first overall has never been for the faint-of-heart, grind-wise.

And there's STILL only so much blood the grinders can squeeze from the stone. What's much, much more important than "oh noes now that people can actually PLAY the event they might score more points" is "do my competition have all three essentials so they can grind THOSE down at the end?"

Always has been. Always will be. There's just more points in those and the scaling on them is always easier than what you'll find in the most valuable plebe nodes, with or without community scaling.

Folks afraid that turning off community scaling will make it harder for them to be the one person out of 5000 who walks away with the goodies are missing the point. 95% of the community was never in competition with them in the first place, and the 5% who were in competition were always going to matter exactly to the extent they could squeeze points from the essentials...which were never affected as much by community scaling because 100-X% of the community could even access them to begin with.

i mean yes - it's more of the same. It doesn't reinvent the wheel.

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DFiPL wrote:

shade_tree wrote:

I'm sitting out Prodigal, nothing I want in the progression or for awards, so I'm interested in hearing more about how this change works out for people. Logically it would seem that, along with 10 health packs, it will require a LOT more grinding at the end of each sub in order to place well.

Depends on your definition of "place well." I mean, there's an upper bounds on your ability to grind, right? You can grind a node down to 1, but there's only so much blood you can squeeze from that turnip. You've *always* been able to do that, it's just that some nodes, because of community scaling, that's been trickier. What's changed now is that the hardest nodes aren't (and I'm using my own numbers here) spawning at 230 instead of 150. So where before you might have been able to complete it once and then ha ha ha no, you actually have the opportunity to clear it. Maybe multiple times. But how many points is that going to give you? If it's a 400 point node, maybe you get, what, 1500 out of it before it's ground down to 1?

I don't know where you normally place in PVE but in my experience the "break points" - Top 100, 25, 10, and 5 - are often decided by less than 1500 points and Top 100 alliance placement is similar. Community scaling is what created the separation, letting those with deep rosters put a few more points on the board at the end of each sub.

Obviously a lot of people like this change, it's allowing them to play more nodes and score more points, but I'd like to know how it plays out in the end - do you have to work harder to get your usual placement? And I would think it'll be very different when they do this with a 4* on the line for Top 50 only - when more people can take nodes down to 1, how are you going to be able to create the separation other than to start grinding earlier and more often?

Please note, I'm not complaining about the changes, just thinking about how they might impact how I play in the future. My opinion will likely change when I actually play the next PVE.

Dauthi

DFiPL wrote:

Folks afraid that turning off community scaling will make it harder for them to be the one person out of 5000 who walks away with the goodies are missing the point. 95% of the community was never in competition with them in the first place, and the 5% who were in competition were always going to matter exactly to the extent they could squeeze points from the essentials...which were never affected as much by community scaling because 100-X% of the community could even access them to begin with.

Anyone shooting for top 50, typical for a 4*, is going to feel the increase grinding on the harder nodes. Those nodes always give substantial points and you could only do them once or twice since they were so ridiculously strong to hold your placement. Since they are easier they are going to be more nodes to grind down if you want to get a 4*

DFiPL

shade_tree wrote:

how are you going to be able to create the separation other than to start grinding earlier and more often?

This is where people are missing the point. GRINDING EARLIER OR MORE OFTEN ISN'T ANY MORE FEASIBLE NOW THAN IT WAS BEFORE THE CHANGE.

Ahem.

This isn't adding more points to pre-existing nodes. It's perhaps giving you access to a node you previously couldn't access because of difficulty, or letting you tackle it additional times where you couldn't before.

But the same blood that was always in that stone before is there now. You just have access to more of it. There is zero benefit to grinding 'more often' because each time you hit the node, you push the refresh back 8 hours. Grinding earlier doesn't matter either. If you're already playing "optimally" or as close as makes no difference, or otherwise timing things so that your refresh lands before the sub ends, all you accomplish by moving things back to grind earlier is to give yourself time to hit the nodes that you previously couldn't...but the time savings from not having to tackle overscaled nodes may be doing that for you already.

Seriously, I don't know how else to say it: to the extent that grind necessity is a thing, it always has been. Complaining - I know YOU aren't complaining, I'm generalizing here - that either you've lost an advantage because others can now grind nodes you couldn't before, or that it's somehow going to be harder to finish top 50 because other people are gaining access to the same previously-overscaled nodes you've gained access to is missing the point.

The key is, was, and will be essential nodes. If you have all 3 and play anywhere close to optimally, you're going to finish top 50. That's not new. If you have 2 of the 3, you have to work a little bit harder in the plebe nodes to finish top 50. That's not new. I have 2 of 3 in ProdSun, and I'm sitting juuuuust outside the top 50. In other words: business as usual. I'm placed about where I would be had community scaling not been turned off. If you've only got one, you're probably a 2*->3* transitioner. If you just flat don't have the essentials, you're probably a new player and being grouped in a bracket of similar players, so that doesn't affect your ranking as much.

Turning off community scaling is a benefit for everybody, and people afraid that it's going to lead to more work for placement are people who are missing the boat on what dictates placement finish ability in the first place.

DFiPL

Dauthi wrote:

DFiPL wrote:

Folks afraid that turning off community scaling will make it harder for them to be the one person out of 5000 who walks away with the goodies are missing the point. 95% of the community was never in competition with them in the first place, and the 5% who were in competition were always going to matter exactly to the extent they could squeeze points from the essentials...which were never affected as much by community scaling because 100-X% of the community could even access them to begin with.

Anyone shooting for top 50, typical for a 4*, is going to feel the increase grinding on the harder nodes. Those nodes always give substantial points and you could only do them once or twice since they were so ridiculously strong to hold your placement. Since they are easier they are going to be more nodes to grind down if you want to get a 4*

And I fail to see how that changes anything. Let's say that before, four of six nodes were accessible to the median player for grind purposes due to scaling.

133 points, 175 points, 200 points, 400 points and then a couple at 500 and 600 that you previously couldn't hit, or couldn't hit more than once.

If you show up to start the grind, where are you going to start? Unless the 500 and 600 are at the periphery of your ability even with the scaling reduction, you're going to start there. Of course you are. And you're going to get diminishing returns as you hit the others. How is that any different from before when you might have started with the 400 and worked your way down to the 133? Yes, there are more nodes to grind. Yes, accessibility means higher scores. No, those higher scores aren't going to significantly impact your finish because a) the nodes are essentially fungible and b) anybody chasing top 50 is probably playing in a reasonably rational manner - i.e. they're hitting the expensive targets first and cleaning up whatever's left. You're doing the same thing everybody else is and everybody else is doing the same thing you are. To the extent you're going to lose any points, it's not going to be at the high end, at the 600 or 700 point or whatever target, because EVERYBODY is going to grind that down. The points you miss out on, if any, will be because your schedule precludes you from hitting the 133 point target before the sub ends. The points you get from grinding a 700 down to 1 at the end of a sub will render the points from the 133 node trivial.

TL;DR: if you've been competitive for T50 finishes to earn 4* covers in the past, that isn't going to change. Your ability to do so has been and will continue to be predicated on roster depth and essential accessibility, since that will give you separation that even the juiciest plebe node can't catch up to. If you've been accustomed to finishing just outside the top 50 because you usually are missing an essential character (comme moi), that's not going to change either.

To the extent that rankings get shuffled, it's going to happen from 101-whatever more than inside the top 100. That's going to be where access to those pointsier nodes is going to make a difference, among transitioners who don't yet have the ability to hit the essentials with any kind of regularity.

Unknown

DFiPL wrote:

shade_tree wrote:

how are you going to be able to create the separation other than to start grinding earlier and more often?

This is where people are missing the point. GRINDING EARLIER OR MORE OFTEN ISN'T ANY MORE FEASIBLE NOW THAN IT WAS BEFORE THE CHANGE.

That's true only for those that are already grinding every node on every sub down to 1 - those two or three guys in each bracket who are 10-20K higher than everyone else at the end because they are willing to play at an insane level aren't going to feel any impact from the changes.

Under the old system, I could put in an hour of final grinding on each sub for Top 25 or 90 minutes for Top 10 and there were plenty of points left to harvest if I started even earlier. It's logical that with more nodes open because of lower scaling and more health packs available to play longer, that many people are going to extend the final grind a bit to take advantage of the points. Within the top 5% of players, where everyone is playing optimally, the deciding factor will be who grinds more, maybe to the point where it requires grinding most or all nodes on every sub to 1 just to get Top 25.