Story events: end stale brackets' terror reign

over_clocked

Dear developers, you have the power! I've suggested this already in the Enemy of the State bracket (Ant-Man's release) thread and will again, with this Jean Grey's release.

Preface:

MPQ has become much better in all aspects. PvE has improved dramatically when going away from 2,5 hour long refreshes. But... Level 395 scaling still exists, and veteran players still hate how grindy most Story events are, and they WILL game the awful sharding system so as to avoid the grind at all costs.
Who in their right mind has time to plug away for 7 days for one single new character? That's at least 4 hours spent every day if you want the best rewards. Sometimes you have to spend as much time to just keep up and receive a measly cover or two. Or none at all because real life likes to intervene and mess up your tight MPQ-sanctioned schedule.
Okay, me, some other loonies do have time for this insanity on a regular basis, but not so for the absolute majority of loyal players who otherwise love the game dearly and are willing to support it as much as they can, if not for The Grind.
Most good players I know who have quit, taken an extended break, grown disappointed in MPQ, started outright hating it, have done so for one reason only: the Story grind.

Of course, 7 day events are just evil the way they are currently.
But the bigger evil is the draconian bracketing and allowing stale brackets to exist.
Yes, veteran players shouldn't have their cake all the time when they already dominate Versus and season leaderboards, but the vicious cycle of vets trying to procure fresh brackets and making the stale ones only staler just leads to lower player engagement overall and more and more players turning to the mindset of 'game the system and win big'.
They are fully prepared to miss out on rewards completely in case of a failure, simply because The Grind is so merciless, so soul-crushing, and the risk/reward ratio is so satisfying.
I do not blame fellow MPQ players but the cycle is getting worse and worse in longer events, preventing many from playing at all when they are otherwise fully eligible for good rewards with adequate effort.

Suggestion: How about releasing the leash on Story bracketing? Kill stale brackets that are open for several days on end, once and for all?
1) Force-close all brackets that are open for more than 24-48 hours (24 for shorter events, 48 for longer ones).
So that's not too inviting for last minute entrances,
2) Do not open any new brackets with less than 24-48 hours left in an event (24 for shorter events, 48 for longer ones).
3) Always include a progression reward of the new 4* cover that is only achievable with completing at least 75% of the event.
Numbers subject to change and testing.

This way constant bracket filling and player engagement are ensured since everyone would know they should never get a 5 day old bracket with no hope for any worthwhile placement, and veteran players would be much less inclined to game the system via trying to snipe last hour and even last minute brackets.
Less gamble, more stability for your loyal players, a fairer system for all, more 4* covers being rewarded overall without the rich getting richer. With 4*s being the new 3*s, they shouldn't be as hard to get upon release and should never require a week of dedicated grinding.

Unknown

As someone who just rode a stale bracket (opened on day 3, never filled) to a nice Jean cover with 3 clears per sub (no end of sub grind whatsoever), I really don't like the idea of ending their reign.

What I do approve of, is the 4* progression cover. It's such an obvious change, I'm shocked the devs haven't included it yet. You could put it at twice the current 3* progression. That's not a major hassle, but still requires some real commitment, either by starting on day 1 (playing semi-casually with 3 or 4 clears per sub), or by grinding those nodes down like a boss if you start a bit later. I have seen people suggest 3 times the 3* cover as the mark for a 4*, but I feel that requires way too much effort already, compared to the fairly easy 1000-cover in pvp.

over_clocked

WolfmanX25 wrote:

As someone who just rode a stale bracket (opened on day 3, never filled) to a nice Jean cover with 3 clears per sub (no end of sub grind whatsoever), I really don't like the idea of ending their reign.

What I do approve of, is the 4* progression cover. It's such an obvious change, I'm shocked the devs haven't included it yet. You could put it at twice the current 3* progression. That's not a major hassle, but still requires some real commitment, either by starting on day 1 (playing semi-casually with 3 or 4 clears per sub), or by grinding those nodes down like a boss if you start a bit later. I have seen people suggest 3 times the 3* cover as the mark for a 4*, but I feel that requires way too much effort already, compared to the fairly easy 1000-cover in pvp.

You are clearly not a vet, what I mean is you didn't get a vet bracket for this event, extremely likely. Even if you did, you got a 'lazy vet' bracket.

Unknown

Clearly not a vet? LoL. I suppose johnny1punch, who was in the same bracket, isn't a vet either.

A lazy vet bracket, maybe. I feel it's mostly people seeing the "bracket is at x people"-thread on this forum, seeing that slice 1 is at 200 people so nobody dares enter the bracket.

dr tinykittylove

The only time slice I can fit into my schedule is s2, and as far as I know, there has never been a fresh bracket after the first day. The Hulk ended in the 900s. So it's grind all or nothing.

Not sure about how your idea of force-closing brackets would work - you'd get brackets with maybe 100 people, and that's not going to happen unless they switch to ranking on a curve or something like that?

But yes to progression rewards please.

hurcules

WolfmanX25 wrote:

As someone who just rode a stale bracket (opened on day 3, never filled) to a nice Jean cover with 3 clears per sub (no end of sub grind whatsoever), I really don't like the idea of ending their reign.

Not sure how force-closing stale bracket would affect your final standing. In fact, it's beneficial to you since it is less likely that a grinder would join later and ground harder than you thus pushing your ranking down.

Seantw05

dr tinykittylove wrote:

The only time slice I can fit into my schedule is s2, and as far as I know, there has never been a fresh bracket after the first day. The Hulk ended in the 900s. So it's grind all or nothing.

Not sure about how your idea of force-closing brackets would work - you'd get brackets with maybe 100 people, and that's not going to happen unless they switch to ranking on a curve or something like that?

But yes to progression rewards please.

Slice 2 always has at least 3 vet brackets I believe. One at the start, one that fills within an hour or two, and one within 8 hours. I believe we were in the third bracket this event. My assumption is that people still join before the event starts. I haven't done that in about 6 months so I'm not sure if that actually fills one or not.

I agree with tinykitty on having to adjust the rewards in those situations

I've been wishing for a 4* progression for a while. I'd like it to be somewhere that only the top 10-20 players in a bracket get it. In the case of the hulk, around 140k maybe? I'd be okay with 130-150k in this situation. So just factor in the effort there to adjust from event to event.

Seantw05

hurcules wrote:

WolfmanX25 wrote:

As someone who just rode a stale bracket (opened on day 3, never filled) to a nice Jean cover with 3 clears per sub (no end of sub grind whatsoever), I really don't like the idea of ending their reign.

Not sure how force-closing stale bracket would affect your final standing. In fact, it's beneficial to you since it is less likely that a grinder would join later and ground harder than you thus pushing your ranking down.

Making up for 2 days of grinding is pretty hard to do

Dekliko1978

How about never ever making a 7 day PvE grindfest event ever again and just have them the same length as PvP events? Maybe If it's a release for a new 4*, make 2 consecutive different PvE events. There will always be players that will have difficulty grinding in the weekends and others during the week, so just have 1 of each.
If they don’t want to hand out too many 4* covers, give players only the ability to enter 1 instead of both. But to be honest with the rate 4*’s are being released at the moment that few extra covers aren’t a real problem.
And also a big yes to the featured 4* characters cover as a progression reward.

BillyBobJoe

Disagree with everything except your last suggestion: Make a 4* a progression award.

PVE is such a drag I wouldn't grind it for a 5* cover for top 100. However, if you put a carrot out on the progression that would intice me to hit a certain point level for a 4*, I may just put in the effort because it's a guaranteed cover for the amount of work I would put into it.

TxMoose

I jumped in the slice 5 at the end of the next-to-last sub. ground that to 200s, made 2 clears yesterday and ground to 200s again. not optimal, but I made the psylocke progression for a day and a half of play. if they put a **** cover at 2 or 2.5X current progression, I guarantee i'll play more in at least half of the events.

simonsez

over_clocked wrote:

player engagement are ensured since everyone would know they should never get a 5 day old bracket with no hope for any worthwhile placement

Am I supposed to feel bad for people who sat on their thumbs for 5 days and didn't get the rewards that went to people who were grinding hard that whole time?

simonsez

Dekliko1978 wrote:

How about never ever making a 7 day PvE grindfest event ever again and just have them the same length as PvP events?

This is the best idea I've seen lately in any of these PvE gripe threads...

Vhailorx

over_clocked wrote:

WolfmanX25 wrote:

As someone who just rode a stale bracket (opened on day 3, never filled) to a nice Jean cover with 3 clears per sub (no end of sub grind whatsoever), I really don't like the idea of ending their reign.

What I do approve of, is the 4* progression cover. It's such an obvious change, I'm shocked the devs haven't included it yet. You could put it at twice the current 3* progression. That's not a major hassle, but still requires some real commitment, either by starting on day 1 (playing semi-casually with 3 or 4 clears per sub), or by grinding those nodes down like a boss if you start a bit later. I have seen people suggest 3 times the 3* cover as the mark for a 4*, but I feel that requires way too much effort already, compared to the fairly easy 1000-cover in pvp.

You are clearly not a vet, what I mean is you didn't get a vet bracket for this event, extremely likely. Even if you did, you got a 'lazy vet' bracket.

Wolf only said he/she got 1 Phoenix cover. Its very doable to get 1 cover with 3 clears per node in a vet bracket as that's just top 100 now.

I don't see any way to get top 20 without doing a mega grind at the end of at least a few subs. Also, with several hundred vets waiting for last minute brackets, the full 7-day vet brackets may be getting a little easier. . .

TxMoose

Vhailorx wrote:

Also, with several hundred vets waiting for last minute brackets, the full 7-day vet brackets may be getting a little easier. . .

that number seems to be ever increasing...

Unknown

just logging into the game should net three covers of the newest 4*.

why bother with updating the PVE at all? that'd be easier to do.

Punisher5784

I've proposed this before in a similar discussion, the best way to implement a 4* release is to remove 7 day event entirely (we hate them for numerous reasons) and simply have two 3 or 4 day back-to-back events to win the 4*.

I loved when they reran Carnage, despite it being because of technical issues, but it gave us another chance to win Carnage. With all of the 4* releases, having a 7-day grindfest to win 1-2 4* covers, only for the 4* to disappear behind the scenes for a new 4* to come 1-2 weeks later is just ridiculous. Especially when the 4* release is followed with a PVE rewarding old characters most players already want or don't need (Doom and Psylocke).

Unknown

TxMoose wrote:

Vhailorx wrote:

Also, with several hundred vets waiting for last minute brackets, the full 7-day vet brackets may be getting a little easier. . .

that number seems to be ever increasing...

And the increasing number of people adopting this strategy is probably going to be the thing that effects change to PVE. Like a lot of things in MPQ world...they only get addressed when things get out of hand.

easy...marc

TxMoose

Punisher5784 wrote:

I've proposed this before in a similar discussion, the best way to implement a 4* release is to remove 7 day event entirely (we hate them for numerous reasons) and simply have two 3 or 4 day back-to-back events to win the 4*.

I loved when they reran Carnage, despite it being because of technical issues, but it gave us another chance to win Carnage. With all of the 4* releases, having a 7-day grindfest to win 1-2 4* covers, only for the 4* to disappear behind the scenes for a new 4* to come 1-2 weeks later is just ridiculous. Especially when the 4* release is followed with a PVE rewarding old characters most players already want or don't need (Doom and Psylocke).

there'd be a lot less complaining and a lot more playing those from day 1. maybe not event start, but I'd try and catch the first fresh bracket on day 1 and wouldn't regret it. as is 7 days is just too much.

Cymmina

simonsez wrote:

over_clocked wrote:

player engagement are ensured since everyone would know they should never get a 5 day old bracket with no hope for any worthwhile placement

Am I supposed to feel bad for people who sat on their thumbs for 5 days and didn't get the rewards that went to people who were grinding hard that whole time?

I understand the sentiment, but it is a royal kick in the pants to sit there and grind for the full 7 days and only end up with a single cover while those guys sitting on their thumbs get lucky and have a fresh bracket open up with <30 minutes left on the clock and score the same or better. It makes me feel really stupid for not doing the same.

Omega Red

I like the system as it currently is. You want certainty? Join a bracket early, grind optimally and you will get your covers, plus progression rewards, plus iso, plus event tokens that include reward character, plus an extra cover from alliance ranking; all this provided you have the roster to compete of course. You want to speculate and gamble with bracket size? Fine, but you might not win anything at all, higher risk/higher reward. I have no issue with this. Good for the guy who gambled and won three covers in fifteen minutes, I still got the same plus iso, HP and an extra cover.