PVE Fresh Brackets exploit & Optimal Grind exploit.

turul

Fresh Brackets exploit
So, as we know, if you join PVE in a fresh bracket, you can save a lot of time grinding the PVE nodes.
Sometimes it is even possible to get full rewards doing only the entering match, like when Spider-Gwen was released (shard4)

Not only that, but if you want to have a chance to score well, you need to join instantly or exploit the fresh brackets.

The game needs to stop punishing players starting PVE 8h-24h after their time shard opens, and should equally penalize players starting right after that.

Optimal Grind exploit
If we think about this, this could be treated as an exploit too.
Two players fight the exact same amount/difficulty of nodes. The player who knows the "flaw" can take an advantage on the other playerm who basically made the exact same effort.

The game needs to treat equally the amount of nodes cleared regardless of when they happen. Also, it should not penalize players who want to clear a node again "just for fun".

My suggestions

• Only one bracket / time shard
• Dynamic reward structure for the size of the time shard. (since each shard has different number of players)
• "Old school rubberbanding" or better system based on subevents. This way we at least dont have to play exactly 8 hourly for maximum points, but only the final clear.

Hope I see soem red-name reply here

Monged4life

As much as the last minute gamble to get placement rewards has worked for me... I will happily admit it's a broken system.

But one bracket per slice? so only 5 people in the entire game can get that 1st place spot, and there's gonna be a heck of a lot more competition for every other spot too...

My answer would be scrap placement rewards for PvE altogether, leave them for PvP. Instead as posted above, take the score timer off of nodes and pump a whole load of new progression rewards into each event. Let us work our way up through 3 3* covers and 1-3 4* covers depending on how much we play. You could even have a different progression reward tree for each sub, with a cover as the final prize for each one!

One of the main gripes against this game is that it essentially tells you when you have to play it to score well. This gets rid of that and lets people play it whenever they want, how much they want, actually rewarding those who play more.

simonsez

turul wrote:

"Old school rubberbanding"

That's where you lost me...

You started out complaining that people were benefiting by not playing, so your solution is to reward people for not playing.

turul

simonsez wrote:

turul wrote:

"Old school rubberbanding"

That's where you lost me...

You started out complaining that people were benefiting by not playing, so your solution is to reward people for not playing.

To be exact, I said rubberbanding, OR BETTER.

For me, that system was far better since you dont needed to clear every 8hr and abuse bracketing to rank well.

simonsez

turul wrote:

To be exact, I said rubberbanding, OR BETTER.

I'm not sure what "better" would mean in this context. They could scrap grinds and points and refreshes altogether, and completely reinvented what PvE is... But that goes far beyond a better version of rb... which is, as I said before, a reward for not playing.

turul

simonsez wrote:

turul wrote:

To be exact, I said rubberbanding, OR BETTER.

I'm not sure what "better" would mean in this context. They could scrap grinds and points and refreshes altogether, and completely reinvented what PvE is... But that goes far beyond a better version of rb... which is, as I said before, a reward for not playing.

Better means any fix that handles the described problems.

Btw, old school rubberbanding lets you play as many as you want, since 8 hr refreshes regenerated points to 100% regardless of number of clears.

ErikPeter

I'd like them to try having players compete with the 499 people who entered before, and 500 people who enter after.

Then you benefit from starting from the beginning (like you do now), but also aren't punished as severely for seeding 950th, e.g.

And if you jump in near the end, you would be competing with the 1000 people nearest to your entry time (so likely, not going to jump to top 20 so easily).

SnowcaTT

As someone who uses this "exploit" for....say, the last 30 releases or so (20+ successfully), I'd be a bit sad to see it go. The PVE grind is an awful thing.

That said, if every PVE was -not- a timed grind....say like Ultron and Galactus, where you can come in any time in eight hours, run a few nodes -once- and not down to one point, and you'll score high - that I would be all for.

"But how would you eliminate the intense competition for those T10 spots?!?" I hear you ask. Just like Ultron/Galactus - folks would earn their rewards though progression only. Would more rewards be divvied out? Possibly. Is that a bad thing to get new rewards out to people that play the event? Not at all.

Dayv

Monged4life wrote:

My answer would be scrap placement rewards for PvE altogether, leave them for PvP.

This, this, a thousand times this.

Dayv

ErikPeter wrote:

I'd like them to try having players compete with the 499 people who entered before, and 500 people who enter after.

Then you benefit from starting from the beginning (like you do now), but also aren't punished as severely for seeding 950th, e.g.

And if you jump in near the end, you would be competing with the 1000 people nearest to your entry time (so likely, not going to jump to top 20 so easily).

This sounds like an interesting method, but incredibly hard to manage on the backend. How do you figure scoring when all player's placements are relative to a slightly different set of players?

Monged4life

ErikPeter wrote:

I'd like them to try having players compete with the 499 people who entered before, and 500 people who enter after.

Then you benefit from starting from the beginning (like you do now), but also aren't punished as severely for seeding 950th, e.g.

And if you jump in near the end, you would be competing with the 1000 people nearest to your entry time (so likely, not going to jump to top 20 so easily).

Would this really be that different from them reducing the bracket size to 500? And the way I see it this would simply increase the desire to snipe a new half-bracket.

Warbringa

Yes for quality of life PvE should simply just be a much larger progression without needing to structure one's life around it. Reward the players willing to put the most time into it, not the ones who game the system by getting fresh brackets. Remove all placement rewards for PvE keep them on PvP though because they make sense there.

What exactly is the optimal grind exploit?

JVReal

I think on a 7 day PVE, no new brackets after day 4. Last brackets become bottomless.
I figure about halfway through a PVE, new brackets should stop.

Last bottomless bracket rewards could be set to % instead of set numbers. top 1%, top 2%, top 10%, etc. based on a normal 1000 person bracket reward structure. I'm too lazy to look up what the exact % would be right now.

Dayv

JVReal wrote:

I think on a 7 day PVE, no new brackets after day 4. Last brackets become bottomless.
I figure about halfway through a PVE, new brackets should stop.

Last bottomless bracket rewards could be set to % instead of set numbers. top 1%, top 2%, top 10%, etc. based on a normal 1000 person bracket reward structure. I'm too lazy to look up what the exact % would be right now.

Then you run the risk of having an ev int available that not all players can use. Even if you hide it from sight, you have less content. This seems fair to people who grind from then start, but is unfair to casual players and people who don't necessarily play daily.

Grinders get tons more ISO but must compete against each other for placement, and spend more time doing it. Casuals never expect to place that high in the first place. Bracket snipers get placement rewards moire easily, but miss out on all the rewards earned by grinders. It's not necessarily perfect (in my mind, it's still a flawed model to have place event in PvE), but there are strengths and weakness to being in each camp. The casuals probably have better complexions.