Is PVE Broken ?

iamxzo

what do you think about PVE system ?

1 - is current PVE kind of another PVP because you have to grind and fight for placement ?
2 - will You agree with me that current PVE system is the reason why players are leaving this game ? (burning out)
3 - would you like to reduce placement rewards and increase progressive rewards ? ( ally rewards )

Punisher5784

OJSP wrote:

iamxzo wrote:

what do you think about PVE system ?

1 - is current PVE kind of another PVP because you have to grind and fight for placement ?
2 - will You agree with me that current PVE system is the reason why players are leaving this game ? (burning out)
3 - would you like to reduce placement rewards and increase progressive rewards ? ( ally rewards )

Also, this might upset people who like to farm 20 iso from the trivial nodes..

Are there seriously players who farm 20 ISO? Sounds like a waste of time to me. Even if it only took 1 minute to beat an easy node that's only 1200 ISO. No thanks!

As per the OP, I would like to see a Progression only PVE with maybe only Alliance placement rewards.

JVReal

All PVE needs is smaller brackets. Making the brackets smaller distributes more rewards, and eases the pressure to grind because it eases the competition.

It would always be a good thing to expand the progression, NOT MOVE the current final progression cover, but expand and put some ISO or HP or Tokens for increments past the current "final progression".

Unknown

We need to make every map a gauntlet style pve. 24/48h to clear one map, then changes map. Giving some tokens and hp for sub and move to the next part.

Scaling based off roster and not anything else as you can only beat a node once. All rewards are given on spot as you progress and ends with a 4*.

The cool thing about this is to make the given 4* essential for next pve, unlike the current pve that rewards very few people with a 4*.

TheOncomingStorm

The current system would be a reason for getting tired of pve, not burning out entirely.

The real culprit is the same one that has been around for a long time. Steady stream of new characters, trickle of new pve content.

I do think pve and pvp have changed over that time as well. Pve used to be almost strictly based on who played the smartest. One hour final grinds were viewed as long.

Now pve is not just who plays smart. It's who makes the fewest mistakes that result in playing the most possible fights for the most possible points. In short, it is a battle of timing and endurance.

That said, as difficult as t10 is to get, it's almost just as difficult to not make the t150 or even t100. In other words, you would have to really put effort into not doing well.

So players can typically get 1 or 2 (alliance) for the fraction of the work done by the t10.

simonsez

TheOncomingStorm wrote:

Now pve is not just who plays smart. It's who makes the fewest mistakes that result in playing the most possible fights for the most possible points. In short, it is a battle of timing and endurance.

I would add "roster building" to that as well. EotS really highlights how scaling can literally make it impossible to compete. In these wave nodes, I'm seeing opponents with 6-7k health and 10-13k health. In order to kill them, I have to hit them with LCap's red 2 and 3 times respectively. Meanwhile, I'm trying to compete with folks who are seeing opponents that are 4-5k and 8-9k, who only have to hit them once and twice respectively. So for a 5 node wave, averaging 4 opponents per wave, and grinding it 6 times, on this one node alone I've got to fling my shield 120 more times than the guys I'm trying to keep pace with. And this is just one node out of nine. There's no way to overcome that much of a time disadvantage.

slidecage

JVReal wrote:

All PVE needs is smaller brackets. Making the brackets smaller distributes more rewards, and eases the pressure to grind because it eases the competition.

It would always be a good thing to expand the progression, NOT MOVE the current final progression cover, but expand and put some ISO or HP or Tokens for increments past the current "final progression".

how can this be , right now 1000 top 50 get hp. when it was 200 only top 10 got hp meaning a hell of a lot more grinding

Smaller brackets they will just drop how many get rewards. i love how they go we will not add stuff to PVE cause we want all to get all the rewards, Yet they add stuff to PVP where tons of people can not get.

iamxzo

ShionSinX wrote:

We need to make every map a gauntlet style pve. 24/48h to clear one map, then changes map. Giving some tokens and hp for sub and move to the next part.

Scaling based off roster and not anything else as you can only beat a node once. All rewards are given on spot as you progress and ends with a 4*.

The cool thing about this is to make the given 4* essential for next pve, unlike the current pve that rewards very few people with a 4*.

Agree With Ya Shion ! Gauntlet is the only fair pve in my opinion, you can get all rewards if u put effort, in another systems you can sweat your brain for nothing

Unknown

Currently PvP has more in common with what people generally associate with PvE. If you have a lot of know-how/skill/money/strong roster/connections, you can do quite well in PvP be leveraging your strengths. You'll probably not be beating someone who can beat you at where your own strengths are, but being good at one (or more) things, including being richer than the other guy, has a noticeable improvement on your overall finish.

This is not true in PvE where the field is so egalitarian that the only thing that really matters for a top finish is whether you can play on the exact schedule the game demands. Even throwing a large amount of money has no effect this, and it should be obvious just looking at the rosters that typically do well in PvE versus PvP. The point Simonsez brought up exists because of how equal (and perhaps trivial) the PvE game is. That is, you do one of your survival nodes and it takes you 10 minutes to complete it, while someone with a favorable scaling needs only 8 minutes to complete it. You'd think this doesn't matter, but it absolutely does because if you've to grind that node 6 times, then the guy with favorable scaling can afford to start 12 minutes later than you, which already translates to a likely insurmountable advantage if both players play on a similar schedule.

Of course, that guy also finishes his node 25% faster, so he can use that extra time to grind other nodes in, and being able to do this stuff faster also greatly reduces the chance fatigue kicks in because after your 25th shield throw you might have forgotten Gorgon is about to jump in and take a Debilitating Slash in the face.

The problem with PvE is that very few encounters are truly challenging. Even something with crazy scaling like Gauntlet you can classify at least 90% of the nodes as trivial or cheap. There just isn't very much thought that goes into the PvE encounters and I'd say most challenge is likely a complete accident. Way back in PvP you used to be able to take up to 3 attempts on a PvP match and the damage you do is persistent, and while it was rarely practical to do this, this does mean that you can conceivably beat a team much stronger than yours. I don't know why this isn't done in PvE. The Ultron node in Gauntlet would be quite beatable if you get 3 attempts at it with persistent damage even without Whales, while the standard model you'd need a miracle cascade, probably more than one, to beat it without Whales.

babinro

1) Yes it is. MPQ employs competitive PvE. Something that's not terribly common in gaming but is out there. Refer to Diablo 2 or Diablo 3's season leaderboards for example.

2) Sure? But I don't have the facts. For all I know even MORE people are quitting/burning out over PvP. I think it's fair to assume that most people who are hooked on this game and play it beyond casual seem to dislike the effort needed in PvE compared to PvP. Then again, that probably just accounts for 10% of the entire player base.

3) Absolutely! I'd do the exact same thing in PvP for what it's worth. Turn placement rewards into ISO/HP benefits but keep the desired covers for progression suitable for that tier of play.

Using PvP as an example you could have the 3* covers appear at 400, 600 and 800 points while 4* covers appear at 1000, 1300, 1600, and 2000 progression points. Apply this as appropriate for PvE scores for any given event.

What do you think about PVE system ?

To answer the question in general I think it's mostly fine.

Competitive PvE is actually a lot of fun for the first 3 or so clears per sub (for me). I don't mind revisiting the same nodes a couple times as they become more challenging. The final sub grind turns PvE from a fun activity to a chore and the lack of sustained rewards throughout the process (20 ISO again!) demoralizes the process even further.

Fix the 20 ISO issue and refer to answer 3) and I think you'd have a MUCH improved experience while still retaining the competitive aspects of the mode.

TheOncomingStorm

Phantron wrote:

Currently PvP has more in common with what people generally associate with PvE. If you have a lot of know-how/skill/money/strong roster/connections, you can do quite well in PvP be leveraging your strengths. You'll probably not be beating someone who can beat you at where your own strengths are, but being good at one (or more) things, including being richer than the other guy, has a noticeable improvement on your overall finish.

This is not true in PvE where the field is so egalitarian that the only thing that really matters for a top finish is whether you can play on the exact schedule the game demands. Even throwing a large amount of money has no effect this, and it should be obvious just looking at the rosters that typically do well in PvE versus PvP. The point Simonsez brought up exists because of how equal (and perhaps trivial) the PvE game is. That is, you do one of your survival nodes and it takes you 10 minutes to complete it, while someone with a favorable scaling needs only 8 minutes to complete it. You'd think this doesn't matter, but it absolutely does because if you've to grind that node 6 times, then the guy with favorable scaling can afford to start 12 minutes later than you, which already translates to a likely insurmountable advantage if both players play on a similar schedule.

Of course, that guy also finishes his node 25% faster, so he can use that extra time to grind other nodes in, and being able to do this stuff faster also greatly reduces the chance fatigue kicks in because after your 25th shield throw you might have forgotten Gorgon is about to jump in and take a Debilitating Slash in the face.

The problem with PvE is that very few encounters are truly challenging. Even something with crazy scaling like Gauntlet you can classify at least 90% of the nodes as trivial or cheap. There just isn't very much thought that goes into the PvE encounters and I'd say most challenge is likely a complete accident. Way back in PvP you used to be able to take up to 3 attempts on a PvP match and the damage you do is persistent, and while it was rarely practical to do this, this does mean that you can conceivably beat a team much stronger than yours. I don't know why this isn't done in PvE. The Ultron node in Gauntlet would be quite beatable if you get 3 attempts at it with persistent damage even without Whales, while the standard model you'd need a miracle cascade, probably more than one, to beat it without Whales.

This is one if the reasons why I don't get they people complain about the Caltrops ability. Here is an element that breaks up the monotony of pve and actually calls for a little more strategy than other nodes, you would think people would be happy.

I think the real problem, which I don't know how you even improve, is balancing scaling that makes a node challenging vs a node overscaling by repeating the node vs having to beat a difficult node like carnage with 2 goons multiple times.

I always think back to that heroic pve that introduced 3* daken. The one where a player offered a reward if the developers could beat it. It took a lot of strategy to beat that node once (if you were lucky). I want more nodes like that which are more puzzle and harder to beat, but I don't want to play that node over and over or play it after the scaling makes that already difficult node too hard.

Unknown

TheOncomingStorm wrote:

This is one if the reasons why I don't get they people complain about the Caltrops ability. Here is an element that breaks up the monotony of pve and actually calls for a little more strategy than other nodes, you would think people would be happy.

I think the real problem, which I don't know how you even improve, is balancing scaling that makes a node challenging vs a node overscaling by repeating the node vs having to beat a difficult node like carnage with 2 goons multiple times.

I always think back to that heroic pve that introduced 3* daken. The one where a player offered a reward if the developers could beat it. It took a lot of strategy to beat that node once (if you were lucky). I want more nodes like that which are more puzzle and harder to beat, but I don't want to play that node over and over or play it after the scaling makes that already difficult node too hard.

Caltrops is a fine ability, but when it's on a level 395 Kishu doing something like 3000 damage to everyone for stepping on it there's nothing challenging about it because it's just plain cheap. But without the HPs conferred by having level 395, it's actually possible to put some really high powered offense that quickly gets rid of the Kishu to bypass the difficulty. I think the problem is that difficulty in this game has too much blind faith on a 'one size fits all modifier'. I'm guessing a Kishu is meant to be a pest that puts down Caltrops that either adds up to significant damage over time or force you to bring a protect tile guy/healer, and you still have to watch out for your protect tiles since the Kishu can steal them. Instead, a low level Kishu is just something that gets downed immediately while an overleveled Kishu is a walking nightmare. Kishu should have very high health (so that they can do their annoying thing) while having relatively low ability values, but that'd require having custom stats for them instead of just one base template multiplied by whatever the scaling factor is. Note that what absolutely won't work is say you design Kishu with base HP of say, 4X that of Juggernaut and 1/3 of their current ability damage and plug in the current scaling factor, because you'll get newbies that start off with a relatively weak roster not able to even do enough damage to beat it realistically. If we assume there are 3 tiers of difficulty, call that newbie, veteran, and whale. Those 3 tier of difficulty should not look like 'veteran = newbie stats X 3' at all. In fact, at the whale level the encounter shouldn't even look the same, as I'd imagine you almost certainly need everything with Ultron's 'immunity to stun' as a standard ability on a 'whales' difficulty. Maybe the 'whales' difficulty needs every enemy having 5 abilities to justify having a reward that'd be of use for a whale (say, 3 heroic tokens). As long as D3 thinks you can just take one baseline character and multiply his stats by a magic number and everyone will be satisfied, there's no hope for PvE being better.

I beat the 395 Daken 3* node quite a few times during the first time that node was introduced. It wasn't easy but I doubt there was any special intention beyond just throwing the most powerful characters with the highest scaling factor on it. That said, since challenge clearly can occur due to sheer accident, it must also be possible to create challenge by design. There is usually a node that is clearly meant to be the 'boss' node in most PvE events, and currently they're just designed by tacking on the biggest scaling factor and usually the cheapest characters that are themed with that event, and that's just a very stupid way to design challenging encounters. In Prodigal Sun, the node you get the red Sentry cover is Thor (3*), Captain America (3*), and Wolverine (2*) (which locked out X Force, the dominant character of that era) and it's certainly a top of the line Avenger lineup without a goon and it obviously has the highest scaling, and it'd be good if more nodes are setup like that where it is hard but not outright cheap and you only have to do it a limited number of times. I had a lot of fun with that node, but no way I'm going to look forward to grind it 6 times in the last 3 hours, which thankfully isn't an option.

Dayv

PvE is what burned me out the first time I quit, and it could be what burns me out a second time if I'm not careful. I maintain my view that competitive PvE is a bad idea that -- in any version -- prioritizes metagaming, time-consuming grinding, and extremely careful scheduling over actually being able to win matches or beat in-game challenges.

Competitive PvE needs to go away and not come back, IMO.

TheOncomingStorm

Phantron wrote:

TheOncomingStorm wrote:

This is one if the reasons why I don't get they people complain about the Caltrops ability. Here is an element that breaks up the monotony of pve and actually calls for a little more strategy than other nodes, you would think people would be happy.

I think the real problem, which I don't know how you even improve, is balancing scaling that makes a node challenging vs a node overscaling by repeating the node vs having to beat a difficult node like carnage with 2 goons multiple times.

I always think back to that heroic pve that introduced 3* daken. The one where a player offered a reward if the developers could beat it. It took a lot of strategy to beat that node once (if you were lucky). I want more nodes like that which are more puzzle and harder to beat, but I don't want to play that node over and over or play it after the scaling makes that already difficult node too hard.

Caltrops is a fine ability, but when it's on a level 395 Kishu doing something like 3000 damage to everyone for stepping on it there's nothing challenging about it because it's just plain cheap. But without the HPs conferred by having level 395, it's actually possible to put some really high powered offense that quickly gets rid of the Kishu to bypass the difficulty. I think the problem is that difficulty in this game has too much blind faith on a 'one size fits all modifier'. I'm guessing a Kishu is meant to be a pest that puts down Caltrops that either adds up to significant damage over time or force you to bring a protect tile guy/healer, and you still have to watch out for your protect tiles since the Kishu can steal them. Instead, a low level Kishu is just something that gets downed immediately while an overleveled Kishu is a walking nightmare. Kishu should have very high health (so that they can do their annoying thing) while having relatively low ability values, but that'd require having custom stats for them instead of just one base template multiplied by whatever the scaling factor is. Note that what absolutely won't work is say you design Kishu with base HP of say, 4X that of Juggernaut and 1/3 of their current ability damage and plug in the current scaling factor, because you'll get newbies that start off with a relatively weak roster not able to even do enough damage to beat it realistically. If we assume there are 3 tiers of difficulty, call that newbie, veteran, and whale. Those 3 tier of difficulty should not look like 'veteran = newbie stats X 3' at all. In fact, at the whale level the encounter shouldn't even look the same, as I'd imagine you almost certainly need everything with Ultron's 'immunity to stun' as a standard ability on a 'whales' difficulty. Maybe the 'whales' difficulty needs every enemy having 5 abilities to justify having a reward that'd be of use for a whale (say, 3 heroic tokens). As long as D3 thinks you can just take one baseline character and multiply his stats by a magic number and everyone will be satisfied, there's no hope for PvE being better.

I beat the 395 Daken 3* node quite a few times during the first time that node was introduced. It wasn't easy but I doubt there was any special intention beyond just throwing the most powerful characters with the highest scaling factor on it. That said, since challenge clearly can occur due to sheer accident, it must also be possible to create challenge by design. There is usually a node that is clearly meant to be the 'boss' node in most PvE events, and currently they're just designed by tacking on the biggest scaling factor and usually the cheapest characters that are themed with that event, and that's just a very stupid way to design challenging encounters. In Prodigal Sun, the node you get the red Sentry cover is Thor (3*), Captain America (3*), and Wolverine (2*) (which locked out X Force, the dominant character of that era) and it's certainly a top of the line Avenger lineup without a goon and it obviously has the highest scaling, and it'd be good if more nodes are setup like that where it is hard but not outright cheap and you only have to do it a limited number of times. I had a lot of fun with that node, but no way I'm going to look forward to grind it 6 times in the last 3 hours, which thankfully isn't an option.

I do like in iso8 brotherhood that the iso nodes are usually tough, but non-repeatable. I'm not sure if that would translate to other pves. In fact, I still think that is one of my favorite pves bc there seems to be a feeling of progressive character diversity in each sub. You work your way up to hood and jugs instead of DA and headbutts for the entire pve.

I think I'd be interested in knowing which pves players like most and why. My hunch is that freshest and best rewards structures would be the determining factor.

TheOncomingStorm

DayvBang wrote:

PvE is what burned me out the first time I quit, and it could be what burns me out a second time if I'm not careful. I maintain my view that competitive PvE is a bad idea that -- in any version -- prioritizes metagaming, time-consuming grinding, and extremely careful scheduling over actually being able to win matches or beat in-game challenges.

Competitive PvE needs to go away and not come back, IMO.

I do think this would be one of those things where MPQ would be saving players from themselves. I just don't think it would happen. MPQ has the data. It seems funny they wouldn't scratch or minimize competitive pve if their data didn't show this what players wanted (with their actions, not words).

I think the grinding in pve is exacerbated by the very slow (glacial for hardcore players) transition of the game into an established 4* tier. The reward structure for individuals and alliances have been extended, as well as additional progressives in pvp. However, that is still a far cry from the current 3* reward structure of t150 individual pve, top progressive in following pve, T100 pvp, t100 alliance pve, and rotating covers in dpdq.

This means there are few opportunities to obtain 4*s compared to 3*s. Imo when the tier is established, pve will be relatively more pleasant, especially for veterans.

Concerning the 4*, I think we have enough 4*s (taking seasons into account) to have 4* rewards like 3*s. However, imo it's being delayed. I don't say unnecessarily delayed because I think there is a benefit to it. With a new tier, it seems sort of like a reset. The longer the delay, the less disparity there should be. A lot of players should be able to complete the 3* transition before the 4* pvps start.

Unknown

TheOncomingStorm wrote:

I do think this would be one of those things where MPQ would be saving players from themselves. I just don't think it would happen. MPQ has the data. It seems funny they wouldn't scratch or minimize competitive pve if their data didn't show this what players wanted (with their actions, not words).

Data doesn't mean much because you can't just load the universe with a different set of conditions. I've seen an analyst saying the LoL is making way less money than it should because it's not P2W enough and he gives some pretty convincing arguments, but obviously Riot isn't going to risk changing the game just because they could have even more billions of dollars because they already have enough and wouldn't risk it. MPQ does okay in terms of revenue from what I can see based on any revenue tracking sites, but that doesn't mean the current valid is good or not. It could be that they can make 5 times the money if they only listened, and it can also be that the current model is the only thing that's stopping the game from going belly up.

The reality is probably somewhere in between. There's a certain charm for how unbelievably hardcore PvE in MPQ can get when you've to play on an exact time for a top finish, but that also burns out people pretty fast. On one hand, this game is already hard enough that it's pretty hard for it to capture the major market, but just because the game tends to be self-selecting toward hardcore doesn't mean it has to be that hardcore. For example, virtually nobody thought the 2H 24M PvE refresh cycle was a good idea, so there's a limit to how hardcore hardcore can be. By the way, this doesn't have to be an either/or deal. Plenty of games have multiple modes that cater to different stuff. There's no rule that says you can't have two different type of PvE events going at the same time, one competitive and one non competitive. But given this game's inability to generate what appears to be fairly copy & paste new PvE storyline, maybe there's a reason why we don't have additional content. Yet, a game doesn't spontaneously improve itself by having nothing new, and that's kind of the crux of the problem. For the most part, MPQ doesn't have anything new unless consider a new character as new content. It might be doing a good job holding the fort, but it's certainly not doing anything to improve the game in terms of available content.

Omega Blacc

PVE is not broken because PVE does exactly what it was designed for...Dangling carrots in front of the playerbase.

It eats shields.

It makes characters essential, which generates character need, which generates more gameplay and/or token spending. If you don't have said toons you are at a severe disadvantage.

Nodes are specifically designed based on who they decide is eligible for the event (see Heroics).

When is It ever cool for goons to feed wildly scaled enemies their strongest attacks. 2* Wolverine's Adamantium Slash hits for 7K? Eff outta here! LOL

Let's not get into buffed Headbutts and Twin Pistols...

I'm not knocking their hustle...I just see it for what it is.

slidecage

DayvBang wrote:

PvE is what burned me out the first time I quit, and it could be what burns me out a second time if I'm not careful. I maintain my view that competitive PvE is a bad idea that -- in any version -- prioritizes metagaming, time-consuming grinding, and extremely careful scheduling over actually being able to win matches or beat in-game challenges.

Competitive PvE needs to go away and not come back, IMO.

competitive PVP needs to go away and not come back.



really though i have no clue why people with max out covers even play PVE hard. Top 50 is good enough to get coins in my bracket top 10 have cy max cover wise i mean you tell me your hurting this much for coins to play this much (talking 3rd to 10th and no there is no way to catch 1 or 2 when they got a 20k lead on them)

simonsez

slidecage wrote:

Top 50 is good enough to get coins

And top 10 gets you twice as much. Who wouldn't want that?

Unknown

simonsez wrote:

slidecage wrote:

Top 50 is good enough to get coins

And top 10 gets you twice as much. Who wouldn't want that?

Specially when we have two weeks between releases and slots cap at 1k which is still quite high.

slidecage

simonsez wrote:

slidecage wrote:

Top 50 is good enough to get coins

And top 10 gets you twice as much. Who wouldn't want that?

i would rather go for top 50 and not grind myself into burnout.

Funny thing is today i was rank 22 with 40 mins left and go easy 50 coins.. Come back with 5 mins left 61 spot and took 52 at end.. Must be low level grinders fighting cause even taking sub 50 my overall rank only fell 1 and my Lead over the next lower seed stayed the same ... Like 14k over 20th