Argument for removing refresh timers in PvE

JVReal

Buret0 wrote:

JVReal wrote:

But if it's whoever clears the nodes to 0 'first'... then it isn't playing on your own timeframe... it's a race. Same problem, different skin.

Tell me how to get to 0 when NextClear = 0.65PrevClear?

The points are not linear, you do not get to zero.

Assuming that the game rounds anything >0.5 up to 1 point, you can grind a 500 point node 18 times and be at 0.3 points... rounding down to 0 if they allow it. Otherwise it hits 1.2 at 15 clears.

If 1 point is the deterring point, then that still has people believing that optimal is clearing it 15 times before it's stagnant at 1 point. Much worse than a stack of 6.

I'm not knocking your idea, it's interesting, but needs some work. I have no better suggestions, so I cannot help you.

Unknown

Buret0 wrote:

Sure, but if you do add a clearing multiplier to the difficulty, each time you clear it is going to get harder for fewer and fewer points.

Plus, if you look at how the total score for the entire event increases, you'll see that you are barely moving your total score for the whole event even by the tenth grind through. If scores carry over to the next event, those last twenty clears you did for 400 points won't make much of a difference if the first clear on the next round is higher than a single clear of the first round.

And do you /really/ think that people will actually play for 24/7 to get placement in a 24 hour sub event only? Do you really think people would continue to do so?

Having witnessed (and participated) in the bloodbath that was Meet Rocket and Groot for TGT covers, yes, yes I do. Maybe not every person every PvE, but the top 10 will be filled with the people who play the most.

It does not matter that the next sub is worth 2x or 5x or 10x the previous sub, you can never get those previous sub points back once it ends. So whoever was in first at the end of sub 1 is likely to be in first the entire way if they put in the work, so YES the 40 points you can get at the end of sub 1 matter. They matter a lot. And your "difficulty curve" maxes out at 395, something the top PvE'rs are already familiar with. That curve increase would not scare them.

The system you propose is good in it's flexibility for time schedules. Play when you can and whoever plays the most will win. The problem is some people don't have time schedules, they just have MPQ. All day, every day. Those people will win at this PvE system. Just because you wouldn't play 24/7 doesn't mean they won't.

Buret0

Lerysh wrote:

Having witnessed (and participated) in the bloodbath that was Meet Rocket and Groot for TGT covers, yes, yes I do. Maybe not every person every PvE, but the top 10 will be filled with the people who play the most.

It does not matter that the next sub is worth 2x or 5x or 10x the previous sub, you can never get those previous sub points back once it ends. So whoever was in first at the end of sub 1 is likely to be in first the entire way if they put in the work, so YES the 40 points you can get at the end of sub 1 matter. They matter a lot. And your "difficulty curve" maxes out at 395, something the top PvE'rs are already familiar with. That curve increase would not scare them.

The system you propose is good in it's flexibility for time schedules. Play when you can and whoever plays the most will win. The problem is some people don't have time schedules, they just have MPQ. All day, every day. Those people will win at this PvE system. Just because you wouldn't play 24/7 doesn't mean they won't.

Again, how is your suggestion for how things would be any different than what we have now, except that the game tells you when you have to play?

TxMoose

I think what they're trying to say is the current system gives you 7 hours between your ~1hr clears. with the proposed system, there are some that could literally play all day and be far ahead of anyone who could not. currently if you can fit in your scheduled clears and have a chunk of time for the sub flip, you have a chance. I think in the proposed system, the only the people that have all day could place 1 or 2, because there is likely 1 or 2 out of 1000 in every bracket that could go at it more than everyone else.

Buret0

TxMoose wrote:

I think what they're trying to say is the current system gives you 7 hours between your ~1hr clears. with the proposed system, there are some that could literally play all day and be far ahead of anyone who could not. currently if you can fit in your scheduled clears and have a chunk of time for the sub flip, you have a chance. I think in the proposed system, the only the people that have all day could place 1 or 2, because there is likely 1 or 2 out of 1000 in every bracket that could go at it more than everyone else.

Right, but assuming you have six nodes per clear, each clear gets harder, and each node's clear's total value is reduced (especially important if they fix progressions), you aren't going to really be able to do infinite clears. At this point, how many people actually hit all of the progressions every eight hours and then grind every node to 1?

And when you get to the end of a sub-event, how many clears do you need to do to get a full point node down to a one point node? I guess the question is why reward those who log in three times a day to do X number of clears versus rewarding those who do X number of clears on their own time?

I hammered it out in Excel (spoiler tagged to hide ugly table):

Round/Points/Total/# of Nodes/Max Level
1/20000/20000/6/150
2/13000/33000/12/160
3/8450/41450/18/171
4/5492/46942/24/182
5/3569/50511/30/194
6/2319/52830/36/207
7/1507/54337/42/221
8/979/55316/48/236
9/636/55952/54/252
10/413/56365/60/269
11/268/56633/66/287
12/174/56807/72/307
13/113/56920/78/328
14/73/56993/84/350
15/47/57040/90/374
16/30/57070/96/395
17/19/57089/102/395
18/12/57101/108/395
19/7/57108/114/395
20/4/57112/120/395
21/2/57114/126/395
22/1/57115/132/395
23/0/57115/138/395

So, using integers and a 0.65 multiplier, the most points you could get is 57,115 (well... actually less since that is a cumulative score over many nodes, so the sum of the integer values is probably going to cap out at 1 point a lot sooner than this table shows, you would actually need to show each node and do a sum of all nodes, which I don't feel like doing).

The combination of the reduced point values per clear and the level scaling would make repeated clears less useful.

Again, it is going to be a risk/reward scenario and a question of what D3 values for placement rewards. Does D3 want to continue to reward people for being hamsters on a wheel, coming to MPQ to work every eight hours? Do they want to start rewarding skilled play? Do they want to reward a sheer volume of clears?

The answer is of course, "what will bring the customer to the game and make them spend the most money while there?" Whatever system they design needs to be rewarding enough to bring people back, without being too rewarding to make it so that there's never an incentive to pay, and they need to make it so that people play it often, but not so often that their player base burns out and quits playing.

Stax the Foyer

If you use the code tag

[code][/code]

, you get a fixed width font and you can use spaces to format.

Behold:

1/20000/20000/  6/150
 2/13000/33000/ 12/160
 3/ 8450/41450/ 18/171
 4/ 5492/46942/ 24/182
 5/ 3569/50511/ 30/194
 6/ 2319/52830/ 36/207
 7/ 1507/54337/ 42/221
 8/  979/55316/ 48/236
 9/  636/55952/ 54/252
10/  413/56365/ 60/269
11/  268/56633/ 66/287
12/  174/56807/ 72/307
13/  113/56920/ 78/328
14/   73/56993/ 84/350
15/   47/57040/ 90/374
16/   30/57070/ 96/395
17/   19/57089/102/395
18/   12/57101/108/395
19/    7/57108/114/395
20/    4/57112/120/395
21/    2/57114/126/395
22/    1/57115/132/395
23/    0/57115/138/395

TxMoose

ok, then it is just who has the best roster and the most time - that is not what pve is for. it is to ease **s and transitioners into *** land. with that system the elite win. I'd take the current system over that one. it bothers me less than some that some game the scaling system by having rosters of 94. I'm hitting 1K in pvp - they can have their pve covers. that part of the game needs to be there for the transition. your system would take that away from a ** player.

GrumpySmurf1002

Buret0 wrote:

So, using integers and a 0.65 multiplier, the most points you could get is 57,115 (well... actually less since that is a cumulative score over many nodes, so the sum of the integer values is probably going to cap out at 1 point a lot sooner than this table shows, you would actually need to show each node and do a sum of all nodes, which I don't feel like doing).

The combination of the reduced point values per clear and the level scaling would make repeated clears less useful.

Unless nodes are literally rounded down to 0, there is no maximum. After X number of clears, the node will be worth 1 point each time, and the advantage will go to whoever can clear those nodes repeatedly for 1 point.

So this is a system where the advantage is whoever logs in the most amount of hours and clears nodes, which is well worse than having to be there a couple times at a specific time of day.

Buret0

TxMoose wrote:

ok, then it is just who has the best roster and the most time - that is not what pve is for. it is to ease **s and transitioners into *** land. with that system the elite win. I'd take the current system over that one. it bothers me less than some that some game the scaling system by having rosters of 94. I'm hitting 1K in pvp - they can have their pve covers. that part of the game needs to be there for the transition. your system would take that away from a ** player.

How is that?

You still get to face level 50s instead of level 150s (or whatever) based on personal scaling.

If you want to play at rollover and go until you run out of packs and come back later, you can do that without being punished.

If you want to do one clear at rollover and then do another clear before breakfast and another clear after work and then do a grind before you go to bed, you have that option (which is exactly what we have now). How does the new system harm the transition player? It just gives you more options to play optimally.

If anything, it gives transitioning players who have fewer roster options a better chance, because they don't have to play through 50 nodes in the final hours of a sub-event to get their clears.

Hell, you can even make the tie-breakers completely random so that you don't favour those who just grind the event to 0 at the start of the event.

Again, why have we decided that we have to be bound by 8 hour timers:

(a) "or the n00bs will lose"; or
(b) "or people will grind the same node 1,000 times, even if it is only worth one point each time" (even with clear scaling)?

...when actual current gameplay and human psychology just doesn't support that.

Again, it is currently possible to play the same node over and over and get one point each time. Why would you attribute behavior that currently isn't happening in the 8 hour system to "will certainly happen" in the 24 hour system?

Buret0

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

Unless nodes are literally rounded down to 0, there is no maximum. After X number of clears, the node will be worth 1 point each time, and the advantage will go to whoever can clear those nodes repeatedly for 1 point.

So this is a system where the advantage is whoever logs in the most amount of hours and clears nodes, which is well worse than having to be there a couple times at a specific time of day.

Case in point. Have you EVER seen someone grind single point nodes over and over in the current game?

Let's say that the first node in the sub-event is worth 150 points. You could, in theory, clear all of the nodes once and then go back and play that first node 750 times before you need to go back and clear the other nodes after eight hours. Has that EVER happened?

OnesOwnGrief

Just reading the first point I can safely say this is a terrible idea. I don't know if the topic creator was around when this happened but one day D3 decided to run Gauntlet with player rewards. If you're familiar with how Gauntlet works, I'm sure you're wondering just how would that work. It was literally a first to full clear race...

Now let's take this idea and apply that to all PvE. You just locked out a bunch of people from ever even placing well if they get into an already active bracket and the top already cleared all nodes down. It would do nothing more than to infuriate players more so than PvE already does now.

My personal thoughts on everyone's suggestions is that all these ideas to try and change points, refreshes, etc do not change a damn thing when it comes to actually doing well in PvE. If you want an even playing field, you currently have one. No matter how you change it, as long as the same basic setup is around that highest score wins, you will never be satisfied with how PvE is played. You will get burned and you will be back to trying to figure out what to do to fix your mistake with the system.

The best thing I've read is honestly this idea from Tanis here:https://d3go.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=31383. If you guys want the devs to seriously the format then I suggest you upvote post that are thought out and continue to discuss/modify it until it becomes agreeable with the community in their respective threads. Be serious about this stuff and show the devs you are serious in wanting a new format for PvE.

Unknown

Turning PVE into a race to clear 138 level 395 missions as fast as possible sounds way more painful than even a 10 day event with 2.5 hour refreshes like we use to have. The only thing that matters is that the number of points goes up each clear until then, the fact that they go less up doesn't matter when you are directly competing against other players.

GrumpySmurf1002

Buret0 wrote:

Case in point. Have you EVER seen someone grind single point nodes over and over in the current game?

I've never seen anyone play the game or followed the leaderboard that closely. But I would hazard a guess that those that clear early are grabbing every point they can.

Buret0 wrote:

Let's say that the first node in the sub-event is worth 150 points. You could, in theory, clear all of the nodes once and then go back and play that first node 750 times before you need to go back and clear the other nodes after eight hours. Has that EVER happened?

I have no idea what this means, but I'm assuming you mean current state. It's not optimal to do the first clear and then clear anything again until the end, so no, this doesn't happen.

People time their clears such that they're down to 1 at the last possible second so that the refresh gains back points. If they're early, they're going to keep clearing to eek out a few more points.

But this isn't apples to apples anyway. The current system doesn't require you to farm points because the points aren't static and you can gain an edge via timing.

Your system, points are static, so the only edge now is to get more of them once they're at one, so that's what people will do.

People will flock to the optimal strategy, always.

Buret0

Goobady wrote:

Turning PVE into a race to clear 138 level 395 missions as fast as possible sounds way more painful than even a 10 day event with 2.5 hour refreshes like we use to have. The only thing that matters is that the number of points goes up each clear until then, the fact that they go less up doesn't matter when you are directly competing against other players.

Like I said, I'm not stuck on requiring the tie-breaker to be first come, first place.

Nor do I believe that rewarding people for optimally clearing based on working MPQ into their schedule every eight hours is optimal.

Instead we have a system where:

person X does 15 clears and gets 50,000 points.
person Y does 15 clears and gets 100,000 points, because person Y did his clears on the eight hour hamster wheel and was available to grind just before the event closed.

Why are we fighting for a system that tells us when we should play?

Buret0

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

Buret0 wrote:

Let's say that the first node in the sub-event is worth 150 points. You could, in theory, clear all of the nodes once and then go back and play that first node 750 times before you need to go back and clear the other nodes after eight hours. Has that EVER happened?

I have no idea what this means, but I'm assuming you mean current state. It's not optimal to do the first clear and then clear anything again until the end, so no, this doesn't happen.
...
People will flock to the optimal strategy, always.

No, see that's where you are wrong.

First replayable node is always worth some meager amount of points, like 150 points. The current theory is that "optimal" play requires clearing all of the nodes once and then waiting for the points to refresh. This is very close to the truth, but in fact the "optimal" way to play is actually to do your first clear and then [only the first node that caps at ~150 points] clear that first node again and again and again and again.

Yes, eventually that first node will only be worth 1 point. Doesn't matter, keep grinding that node over and over and each win will be worth 1 point. Don't touch the other nodes until they are back up to full. Then do your clear. Then go back to grinding that first node for a single point.

Those first nodes are a joke. Usually fighting some level 15 to 20 goons. You can clear that node in a minute, easy. That's 60 clears an hour, easy. That's 480 points in eight hours before you need to go back and do your eight hour clears. Then go back to getting another 480 points. And then another 480 points.

Sure, everyone else who waits for the timer to refresh is going to get 150 + 150 + 150 + grind = 450 + grind out of the first node and you are only going to get 150 + grind + 480 + 480 + 480 = 1590 + grind.

So yeah. That's Optimal play... and no one is doing it because that would make them crazy people.

Unknown

Buret0 wrote:

Goobady wrote:

Turning PVE into a race to clear 138 level 395 missions as fast as possible sounds way more painful than even a 10 day event with 2.5 hour refreshes like we use to have. The only thing that matters is that the number of points goes up each clear until then, the fact that they go less up doesn't matter when you are directly competing against other players.

Like I said, I'm not stuck on requiring the tie-breaker to be first come, first place.

Nor do I believe that rewarding people for optimally clearing based on working MPQ into their schedule every eight hours is optimal.

Instead we have a system where:

person X does 15 clears and gets 50,000 points.
person Y does 15 clears and gets 100,000 points, because person Y did his clears on the eight hour hamster wheel and was available to grind just before the event closed.

Why are we fighting for a system that tells us when we should play?

No one is fighting for that, we are simply pointing out the system you outline has it's own flaws. All systems do. To advocate a change in the current flawed system you need a less flawed system to replace it and this ain't that.

GrumpySmurf1002

Buret0 wrote:

Those first nodes are a joke. Usually fighting some level 15 to 20 goons. You can clear that node in a minute, easy. That's 60 clears an hour, easy. That's 480 points in eight hours before you need to go back and do your eight hour clears. Then go back to getting another 480 points. And then another 480 points.

Sure, everyone else who waits for the timer to refresh is going to get 150 + 150 + 150 + grind = 450 + grind out of the first node and you are only going to get 150 + grind + 480 + 480 + 480 = 1590 + grind.

So yeah. That's Optimal play... and no one is doing it because that would make them crazy people.

That's a pretty optimistic world view of timing, and you're also ignoring that you have to clear the other nodes, so it's not 480 per 8-hours, especially at the end. But fair, no one (to my knowledge) is truly playing optimally, you can find 800 points by playing 24/7. Of course now that this math is posted, someone will either try, or is angry than you posted it because they've been doing it.

But current system you can still win sub-optimal as long as you're less sub-optimal than someone else. With static points, most optimal wins. And optimal is more obvious in a static system.

Kolence

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

Buret0 wrote:

Those first nodes are a joke. Usually fighting some level 15 to 20 goons. You can clear that node in a minute, easy. That's 60 clears an hour, easy. That's 480 points in eight hours before you need to go back and do your eight hour clears. Then go back to getting another 480 points. And then another 480 points.

Sure, everyone else who waits for the timer to refresh is going to get 150 + 150 + 150 + grind = 450 + grind out of the first node and you are only going to get 150 + grind + 480 + 480 + 480 = 1590 + grind.

So yeah. That's Optimal play... and no one is doing it because that would make them crazy people.

That's a pretty optimistic world view of timing, and you're also ignoring that you have to clear the other nodes, so it's not 480 per 8-hours, especially at the end. But fair, no one (to my knowledge) is truly playing optimally, you can find 800 points by playing 24/7. Of course now that this math is posted, someone will either try, or is angry than you posted it because they've been doing it.

But current system you can still win sub-optimal as long as you're less sub-optimal than someone else. With static points, most optimal wins. And optimal is more obvious in a static system.

This at least can be fixed easily by increasing all the nodes values by say 10. Then, that easiest node is worth 1000 points, and clearing it in 30 seconds for full 8 hours once it is worth 1 point, would still net less than if waiting for it to refresh to full.

Unknown

Would this result into more of a grind fest ? With the timer, all I need to do is do 3 full clears, pretty much I am set for top 100, if I want to rank higher, I just grind more at the end... With your system, it will eliminate bracket and the element of luck, also probably gonna take more time to rank well. With current system, I get to spend smaller amount of time to gain full points in a manageable timeframe and I gain points by not playing. With yours, I need to grind hours straight to rank well, sound like a full time job to me... Maybe it just me, just my opinion.

Unknown

DCUDCU wrote:

FWIW, I did a clear of Hulk sub 2 today in 22 minutes. So this 1 hour thing I don't know what is with that.

I realize this is going to be shocking and likely a bit confusing, but perhaps it's because everyone else in the world doesn't have the same roster you have?

I know, I know, insanity.

DBC