Is there a change in how people approach PVE

simonsez

carrion pigeons wrote:

I was the one who said that, not colwag.

No, he basically chimed in with a "me too"

TxMoose

well, the 7/7 has apparently changed things for me. I went into hulk planning on just farming cp and iso. problem is, it take 6/7 or 7/7 to get the cp/500/250 out most of the time. if you get to that point, you're ranking some and on pace for the LT. so I guess I'm playing this on through. I just can't leave the 500/250 isos out there (or the cp obviously)

edit: FYI - playing suboptimally, but getting all the cp/500s/250s out (usually 6/7 or 7/7) and getting 7/7 on trivials has put me t50 2 of the 3 subs so far and currently 36th overall. not everyone is getting 7/7 on all of them in my bracket. sucks with px boosted though.

Phumade

aesthetocyst wrote:

A change? Yeah, guaranteed 7x node rewards. Now farming brings 2 choices:



Or 2., if you're going to clear it 7 tiems to get all the rewards, ya may as well play it optimally (if life allows) and get decent placement too. So 3x 8-hourly clears, and a quad-clear at the end. Gets top 100 every time, often top 50.

But here is why the 20 iso change is such a brilliant change (and Honestly I'm not so sure if they deserve credit for thinking about this).

You can either play it optimally just like always and compete for top 10 rankings or.

You can play the nodes 7x at your convenience (to farm iso) and generally still make top 100.

So its your choice now on.

1. Double grind before work
2. 7X quick grind at the start before scaling.
3. 1X before work, double grind after work, 4 X before sub end.
4. Any other combination of clears that allows the timer to do some form for refresh.

In getting rid of something that was just percieved as a "F you" to the player, they actually gave us alot of flexibility in play with a only a minor loss in rankings and rewards.

Think about this from the perspective of someone who comes from outside the game and has played Candy crush.

Once they get to PVE. All the game requires is:

Just play 9-10 nodes 7x in 24 hours and you will get all the progression rewards and most like make top 100. This sounds very reasonable and achievable when compared to.

Play each node 1 every 8hrs and with 3hrs left in the game, grind to 1.


The reward structure makes it very easy for the same group of players to compete with very different strategies and allow both groups to achieve their goals without alot of conflict between players.

Phumade

aesthetocyst wrote:

Phumade wrote:

aesthetocyst wrote:

2. 7X quick grind at the start before scaling.

"... before scaling"?

Is this a reference to community scaling?

The change is great and as you say makes PVE far more attractive and rewarding for many more players, beyond those who are able to play for high placement.

But playing early to avoid scaling is not a concern. Clearing nodes will drive scaling, regardless of when they are cleared. You can game it a bit (save the essentials for last!), but the nodes aren't sitting their scaling while you aren't playing.

Or at least ... they shouldn't be ...

Since points aren't the driving factor in this strategy, you can absolutely use the scaling to your advantage.

Under optimal strategy its always low points to high points (and we accept that the hard nodes can and will get harder) but now you can go high to low to get the lowest possible scaling on the hard nodes. I.e. Do the hard nodes and get the CP rewards before doing the easy nodes.

The change is still very recent and its probably too early to draw final conclusions about how lazy you can be and still make top 100. But I'm fairly confident, that if you did a 7x clear at the very start of the sub, and didn't touch it the rest of the way, you would still make top 100 and the worst case scenario for that strategy would be:

1. Do a 7x clear at the very start.
2. At hour 22, you look at rankings and see that your currently 110 and behind top 100 by 3K points.

You still have the option at hour 22 to try slide into top 100. At that level, people aren't watching scores as close and I'm positive that people have stopped playing the event.

I had already started Hulk, Amazon when I read this thread, but I'm certaintly willing to experiment and try out a 7x clear on the next fresh sub and see where I end up at the end of the sub.

Feel free to post a clear strategy and we can compare results.

I think most people are concerned about:.

1. Being able to have a 10hr break from having to load mpq.
2. Never having to play the game for more than 40 min in a row with a 1hr or 2hr break betwen session.
3. Maintain a top 100 ranking.

I think most casual players would be ecstatic about a pve strategy that could encompass those three conditions.

Unknown

Yeah, more people grinding for All Dem Rewards does mean you got to do more end-of-sub grinding if trying to play semi-optimally. Set aside 3 or so hours for it.

This game is one hell of a timesink. I set an alarm to wake up at 6 over the weekend, and I was done MPQing at like, 11:30, failing to get rewards I aimed for in the process because I didn't give it enough time.

This game is rough.

jordanix

When I start a round I usually grin the CP out of the nodes and then walk away, never to return.
Meaning that yeah in that first 90 minutes I'm usually top 50. After that I plummet like a lead zeppelin.

TxMoose

even with lower levels, I've usually found if the essentials are weak, like hulk pve, the essentials are harder than the top nodes many times, especially the 326 hulk - that one's easy peasy. the essentials you take in a good pair, but have no support available (i.e. im40/hood/witch). towards the end, when some scaling has kicked in, I find those are harder for me than the end of the mainline nodes.

SnowcaTT

I used to rarely farm, wasn't worth the time with all the 20 iso rewards.

Now I farm all the easy nodes to 7/7 as soon as I can, and often the CP nodes (when winfinite is working). This puts me in the "top 10" often early on, but rarely in the T400 by the end of each sub.

TLCstormz

I thought that the rule to get the most points as well as the least scaling was always to hit the hardest nose first, which always paid the most points, and then work your way down?

That's what I used to always read people saying for the past two years...........

Phumade

TLCstormz wrote:

I thought that the rule to get the most points as well as the least scaling was always to hit the hardest nose first, which always paid the most points, and then work your way down?

That's what I used to always read people saying for the past two years...........

There are few things to consider.
1. There are three different scoring phases in pve that will dictate overall scores:
a. The first grind: This pass is important because you want to hit the hardest (available) node 1st and work your way down to easiest (available) node in as short of a time as possible. You are essentially starting the timer reloading points to the highest value nodes first. (Math wise, you will see that high value nodes recover points sooner than low point nodes, so its better to have those high value timers working before low value timers.) However each pve has a different node unlock order that changes what you can consider the hardest (available) points.

In hulk pve, the essentials and starter nodes open at the same time. So in Hulk always go essentials (medium points), starter, then easy (least points) to hard (max points).

In other pves like Heart of Darkness, the starter node opens first and then unlocks essentials and the main path. Here do, starter, essential then main path.
.
b. After the first pass (0hrs) but before the final grind (approx 21hrs) is what I call the two maintenance passes. The only thing to remember is to play each pass in the same order as your first pass while waiting for each timer to fully refresh.

c. Once the final grind starts. You will always want to grind lowest value to highest value nodes. Scenario c is different because you no longer have enough time to allow counters to fully refresh like you did in scenario B. Many people often ask if they should grind each stack to 1 or go from stack to stack. The better question to ask is:

I can only play 1 of 9 accessible nodes and the longer I wait the more valuable the node becomes.

From that perspective, you can see that its always better to hit the lowest value node until it runs out of points. This is assuming that you have enough time to beat all nodes to 1.

slidecage

carrion pigeons wrote:

My approach to pve is basically do the nodes once per sub. This takes me about90 minutes per sub, is good for about 400th place, and by the end I'm so sick of the game that I want to throw my phone out the window, so I snipe events until DDQ is too boring and then I try again.

I realize my lone 5* cover is ruining my scaling, but I still don't understand at all how people clear subs three times a day. That seems like it would be just a ludicrous amount of time.

it should be 30 mins per clear then 2 to 3 hours at the end of the cycle... if your taking longer then this then your doing something wrong