Is the PvE fair for everybody?

Bryan Lambert

BlackSheep101 wrote:

If what you want are progression rewards, and you can get a ton of them in every pve event, what do you care if others go for placement rewards? Get your iso, hp, covers and tokens, take whatever placement bucket you happen to land in, and stop worrying about how everyone else plays the game.

Because placement grants a unique reward unavailable through progression.

Plus, there's a weird relationship between progression and placement rewards in PvE that's led to a bit of a points arms race. I love the Legendary progression award in PvE, but it's drastically raised both the number of people playing each PvE and the amount they play. Which has raised the amount you have to play for placement by a hefty chunk.

Even with new, top 100, 4* placement rewards in the pre-Legendary era, it was possible to get top 100 just with some diligence on the full clears. People could skip nearly half the full clears in the event and still hit top progression, so three full clears was all you needed. Now it's a struggle at best, and damn near impossible at worst, if my Heart of Darkness bracket is any indication.

Any time the amount of play time goes up and the rewards stay stagnant, it's an issue, especially in a game like MPQ which is already on the stingy end of that spectrum.

BlackSheep101

Bryan Lambert wrote:

Because placement grants a unique reward unavailable through progression.

The unique reward of a single cover?

Bryan Lambert wrote:

Even with new, top 100, 4* placement rewards in the pre-Legendary era, it was possible to get top 100 just with some diligence on the full clears. People could skip nearly half the full clears in the event and still hit top progression, so three full clears was all you needed. Now it's a struggle at best, and damn near impossible at worst, if my Heart of Darkness bracket is any indication.

Heart of Darkness is a 4* release event, so it's a bad representation of pve in general. Alliances show up in droves to get the new character. I've read suggestions that using the pve model to release new characters isn't good, and I'm inclined to agree with that. Command points have also driven scores up a little more since people are grinding for those now. Nobody seems to like that either. Throw in 5* scaling frustrations, and it's understandable why people want to just scrap the model.

But don't base your opinion of pve on a 4* release event. Those are nutty.

madok

Is it bad that I wish they would just re-run Galactus V2 for all new character releases?

I actually enjoy working with my alliance to earn the covers as a team instead of banging my head against the luck of the slice/bracket.

Before the legendary token and CP additions, I was actually getting 1st or 2nd in PVE events that I needed a cover for without having to sell my soul to grinding. Now that isn't going to happen. I've scaled back and just try to hit T50 now for the

Bryan Lambert

BlackSheep101 wrote:

The unique reward of a single cover?

A single cover for a new character, who won't be in tokens for about a month since it's the start of a season, and who will be the 4* essential in the next PvE, and thus a way to get more Command Points and points towards the Legendary progression? Hell yes.

BlackSheep101 wrote:

But don't base your opinion of pve on a 4* release event. Those are nutty.

Yeah, well, not my first rodeo. I've played every 4* release PvE there's been and missed new characters a total of twice since they shifted to T100 prize from T50 - and one of those was Galactus 1, which doesn't count.

I know what's involved in winning a 4* during a new release PvE because I've done it a lot. I've had good brackets and bad brackets. And the grind's been creeping upward, and HoD is the absolute worst the grind has ever been. Non-release PvE's are more grinding than before for the LT, release ones are more than before for placement. They've adjusted things in the past when the grind's gotten out of control, and it may be time for another look.

BlackSheep101

I did miss that you said 3 full clears was good enough for top 100 in 4* release events. My comments were more directed to the original topic, though I did pick your post to quote, which was confusing.

Do you really think it's the legendary token that's driving scores so high this event? If so, things should trail off a lot at the end of the last sub, no?

Bryan Lambert

It's more complicated than that. What I think is that LT's pushed PvE participation and scores higher. CP's on the nodes pushed it higher still. Wo what a big chunk of the competitive playerbase is doing already in PvE's has been upped significantly because of that stuff.

So when everyone works harder for a release PvE, it's harder on top of that higher base level of effort. It's not so much that PvE placement is any more competitive than it used to be (to get back to the original topic), it's that the added grind from LT's and CP's in PvE have taken the amount of grind needed to stay in that competitive T150 or T100 for prizes you need to progress has been steadily creeping up.

Case in point. Three months or so ago, I'd have happily sat out Meet Rocket and Groot, just poking at the nodes a bit when I was bored or on the bus for the ISO and the HP progressions. That means anyone else in my bracket who wanted the placement rewrds would have an easy time beating me. But PvE's are my only consistent source of the LT's and command points I need to progress, so now I'm gonna score at least 55,000 points. Anyone who needs a Gamora cover is going to have to grind at least that much to beat me.

cletus1985

Some of the complaints I'm reading seem more directed at a change from the "newbie" bracket to the "vet" bracket. That will change your concept of PvE very quickly, more people are playing for the LT but most stop once they get it, so if you're also going for placement it should be easy after the LT progression.

Eddiemon

D4Ni13 wrote:

If a player with all required characters and all nodes completed have no chance for the top 100 rewards, then what chance does the other players have?

A much better chance as they are apparently completing the nodes more than once.

So my question is: how is this fair to everybody? What king of people have the necessary time to play like this for max points?
I, for instance, can play only once a day. And I'm sure as hell (pun intended) that others are in the same situation as myself.
Is a guy who played 4 times in 24h better than one who played only once ?

How do you define the word 'fair'? If you play often enough you get good prizes. If you don't then you don't. Everyone is presented with that same situation. That's fair.

The fact that your life may not permit you to play as often doesn't make it unfair. I went on a cruise for a week where I had no internet and that didn't make the game suddenly unfair that everyone else could play and I couldn't. The rules and rewards are consistent, therefor it is fair. (Scaling is another issue which is unfair, but that isn't what your rant is about)

Well in PvP he should be. But in PvE he shouldn't. PvE is mission type content, in which everybody has a fair change of getting what they need as long as they complete the mission. PvE should not be about who played most the same missions over and over again.
In my opinion the only fair PvE event was the kind of the last Gauntlet. You have a certain time to complete the missions, and you get the rewards regardless of the fact that you played a mission only once, and others played it 5 times.

By whose rules? Yours? Who made you the boss of everything? PvE has always been the timesink around here and PvP has always been the quick hitter. If you have time you rule PvE, if you have a roster you rule PvP.

Yeah the Gauntlet was great. Weren't the rewards just as good as the current PvE? Oh no, no legendary tokens, no 3 4* covers for the top reward. Just progression rewards, no placement rewards. I'm not sure how your masterful system even handles placement rewards.

My solution looks like this:
The main event rewards should not be ranked based, but ladder based. You complete all the mission you get the rewards. Period.
If you want more, then compete with others in side events, where you can earn extra tokens, and extra covers, and whatever other rewards you want, based on rank in that specific side event.

That's great. So you only get the progression rewards and not the placement rewards. Well done you have reduced the amount of rewards everyone gets from PvE.

In this way, everybody who completes a PvE event would at least have a piece of the reward. If they got the time and motivation to earn more, then even better.

And how is it any different to today? Just for turning up you get placement rewards, as well as placement rewards from the subs. And then you get progression rewards from completing the events. If you have the time and motivation to earn more, then even better.

You have changed nothing in that regard.

Cover scarcity is an important part of the game, both in giving people worthwhile rewards and progression goals, as well as funding the game through whales. If you did scrap the placement rewards, D3 wouldn't start giving everyone 3 covers just for clearing the nodes. The Gauntlet event is the clearest illustration of this. Yes you got guaranteed rewards which were guaranteed to be worse than any competetive event.

You also earn less recruitment tokens, HP, ISO and legendaries doing gauntlet. But yes we should scrap all the better rewards because you don't have the time to earn them. Everyone else should suffer because you don't get rewards that you wouldn't get under your new system either.

donietsche

a 1-1-1 new 4* would be a glorified loaner, hardly breaking the game in terms of rarity (of covers).

I too believe that a less demanding way of releasing 4* would be optimal: gauntlet, awarding 1 cover for each sub, or galactus; the former would be better, because it allows players to play on their own schedule.

Whales are going to whale - or not whale - nonetheless (usually they fully cover good characters as soon as they get 1 cover for each color; or they simply buy 3-4 covers for "meh" characters).

And this is coming from someone who placed t10-t2 in every pve event for new characters since (at least) the release of Jean Grey.

Eddiemon

donietsche wrote:

a 1-1-1 new 4* would be a glorified loaner, hardly breaking the game in terms of rarity (of covers).

Then what's the big deal? If it's just a loaner. But wait, for any essential node or DDQ there is a massive performance difference from having at least one cover in an ability. The Thing node was even more difficult for me because I've never lucked on a green cover. Giving out all 4 stars with full covers removes that scarcity.

I too believe that a less demanding way of releasing 4* would be optimal: gauntlet, awarding 1 cover for each sub, or galactus; the former would be better, because it allows players to play on their own schedule.

So we've moved from fair to less demanding. Of course given that the key to regular PvE success is time investment and to gauntlet success is roster depth you are moving to a pure rich get richer model. But it is less demanding. Just giving everyone the covers for logging in would be less demanding again if that is the objective of this exercise.

Whales are going to whale - or not whale - nonetheless (usually they fully cover good characters as soon as they get 1 cover for each color; or they simply buy 3-4 covers for "meh" characters).

Have you thought that through? A whale gifted a 1/1/1 only buys 10 covers. A whale not gifted a 1/1/1 may buy 3 40 packs to get all colours, then still need to buy 6 or so covers to get a maxed optimal build.

Whales aren't going to whale if you just give them the stuff. Cutting whale revenue by 50%+ doesn't seem a smart strategy.

Dauthi

I have attacked 4* PVEs for almost a year now I think, they are a very dumb way to distribute new characters. I think the best solution is to scrap the whole idea and leave PVE to newer players all together, then use the Gauntlet to distribute 4*s, with each piece of the gauntlet awarding 1 4*. Just remove scaling to rosters, so that only top rosters can complete the entire gauntlet and obtain 3 covers for the new character, while most players can at least obtain one cover.

donietsche

Eddiemon wrote:

So we've moved from fair to less demanding. Of course given that the key to regular PvE success is time investment and to gauntlet success is roster depth you are moving to a pure rich get richer model. But it is less demanding. Just giving everyone the covers for logging in would be less demanding again if that is the objective of this exercise.

Well, cutting the time investment required to keep up with the releases, or at the very least adapt it in a fashion that doesn't require players to play the game as a second job (clear schedule etc.), wouldn't be a bad thing for a number of reasons.

donietsche

Dauthi wrote:

I have attacked 4* PVEs for almost a year now I think, they are a very dumb way to distribute new characters. I think the best solution is to scrap the whole idea and leave PVE to newer players all together, then use the Gauntlet to distribute 4*s, with each piece of the gauntlet awarding 1 4*. Just remove scaling to rosters, so that only top rosters can complete the entire gauntlet and obtain 3 covers for the new character, while most players can at least obtain one cover.

That would be great. And/or give the option to enter one event or the other, making the Gauntlet the (way) harder event, while keeping the classic rules for pve (which would still grant a leg token).

dr tinykittylove

aesthetocyst wrote:

Once upon a time, I posted somewhere on the forums that MPQ was a great game, until you decide to try to win anything. At that point, it goes from game to job, ordeal, obsession, utter madness.

If you're truly casual, and just play the events for the iso and token drops and can be satisfied with the rate of progress yielded thereby, oh, what a happy MPQ player you can be.

I agree. The top rewards are hard to get, and they should be, or what is there to strive for?

If you can't or don't want to put in the work, it's perfectly possibly to progress at a reasonable pace picking up ddq covers and whatever else from progression in pvp/pve. From there, once you have a strong 3* bench, you can try for 1k and have a reasonably good chance of hitting it.

To be sure, the pvp placement rewards are out of whack now, and the advanced 4* transition method needs some tweaking so that it is not 66% dependent on the legendary lotto. Cp is a small step, a tiny one because it still a part of the lotto system. I'm waiting for the promised new feature and hoping it addresses that better.

D4Ni13

Omega Red wrote:

D4Ni13 wrote:

So my question is: how is this fair to everybody? What king of people have the necessary time to play like this for max points?

This is more an issue of lifestyle choices than game design.

Lifestyle? Oh yeah, 'cause going to work is a lifestyle now. I should stay home and play games all day long. Duuh, stupid me.

Omega Red wrote:

D4Ni13 wrote:

I, for instance, can play only once a day. And I'm sure as hell (pun intended) that others are in the same situation as myself.

It's too bad that you can play only once a day, but this is not a problem caused by the game design. There's nothing the devs can do about your busy life and your limited time. Again, lifestyle choices.

The devs can make a system to be fair to everyone based on the concept of PvE, which is clear some of you don't know. The concept of PvE is solo mission progression. You reach a number of points or accomplish some goals, you earn the rewards. If you don't believe me take a look at most of the PvE games out there. PvE is solo play and means Player Versus Environment, and has nothing to do with the time invested, but the rate of accomplishment of mission goals.

Omega Red wrote:

D4Ni13 wrote:

Is a guy who played 4 times in 24h better than one who played only once ?

Well in PvP he should be. But in PvE he shouldn't. PvE is mission type content, in which everybody has a fair change of getting what they need as long as they complete the mission. PvE should not be about who played most the same missions over and over again.

This is a competition, not an evaluation. The best is the one who can gather the most points given the rules set. Do you think that having all the required characters and clearing a sub makes you good? special? Hundreds of guys are in your position. Just clearing a mission is not an accurate measure of one's ability to beat the game.

Really? And time is an accurate measure of one's ability?
On the same system: who is better? A guy who passes an exam in his first try, or the one who passes it in his 3rd try?
In the same note: If I pass an exam once, why should I take it again?

The X wave missions are in fact measures of one's ability to survive and win. Completing a mission like that should unlock your progress or suspend it if not.
Like I said already PvE is about solo play and ladder climbing. You are competing with no one other than yourself in PvE. If you want to compete with others, you play PvP. That's how things work. This are old concepts implemented by older games,

Of course MPQ devs can do whatever they desire and find suitable for their profit, and we can't complain about a free to play game. If you want more you can always pay-to-win (not wanting to pay-2-win can be a lifestyle/game-style. Time involvement, as you stated above, is not).

But in terms of definitions and concepts, like it or not, the PvE in MPQ is not really PvE.
I'm not complaining or anything. I grinded a little and I managed to earn my Ghost Rider cover, so I'm happy with that. But objectively speaking, this system is not fair for everybody.

TxMoose

D4Ni13 wrote:

Lifestyle? Oh yeah, 'cause going to work is a lifestyle now. I should stay home and play games all day long. Duuh, stupid me.

pretty sure we all have jobs here. getting a clear in in the morning. around lunchtime. and playing in the evening is absolutely a lifestyle choice.

D4Ni13 wrote:

The devs can make a system to be fair to everyone based on the concept of PvE, which is clear some of you don't know. The concept of PvE is solo mission progression. You reach a number of points or accomplish some goals, you earn the rewards. If you don't believe me take a look at most of the PvE games out there. PvE is solo play and means Player Versus Environment, and has nothing to do with the time invested, but the rate of accomplishment of mission goals.

actually, what you're looking for is an expansion of the prologue and more antman/chulk/gauntlet content, which everyone would welcome.

D4Ni13 wrote:

Really? And time is an accurate measure of one's ability?
On the same system: who is better? A guy who passes an exam in his first try, or the one who passes it in his 3rd try?
In the same note: If I pass an exam once, why should I take it again?

The X wave missions are in fact measures of one's ability to survive and win. Completing a mission like that should unlock your progress or suspend it if not.
Like I said already PvE is about solo play and ladder climbing. You are competing with no one other than yourself in PvE. If you want to compete with others, you play PvP. That's how things work. This are old concepts implemented by older games,

Of course MPQ devs can do whatever they desire and find suitable for their profit, and we can't complain about a free to play game. If you want more you can always pay-to-win (not wanting to pay-2-win can be a lifestyle/game-style. Time involvement, as you stated above, is not).

But in terms of definitions and concepts, like it or not, the PvE in MPQ is not really PvE.
I'm not complaining or anything. I grinded a little and I managed to earn my Ghost Rider cover, so I'm happy with that. But objectively speaking, this system is not fair for everybody.

ability absolutely does not equal performance in nearly any walk of life. there are athletes and businessmen who have much less talent than others but perform much better because they put time and effort into their craft. gaming is no different.