PVE Scaling Testing - Enemy Of The State (03/17/16)

simonsez

Now that the end is here, I'll formally toss in my 2 cents, just in case the devs are actually reading this:

Format change: I get what you're trying to do, but this change is just an illusion, if casual players believe they no longer have "timer pressure". If you're not spending hours doing 6 clears when the sub opens, and then hours grinding at the end, you're not playing optimally. The only difference with this format is that when the casual player sees "Full Points" in every node, it creates a false sense of security that they're not losing ground to players that are playing more optimally.

For competitive players, if your stated goal was true, that you didn't want PvE to consist of clearing as fast as possible at set times, this was a complete and utter failure. This format makes that requirement far, far more onerous by cramming more play into fewer time windows. Looking at the end of a sub into the start of the next, we' used to have: 2hr grind/ 20 min. clear/ wait 8 hrs/ 20 min. clear/ wait 8 hrs/ 20 min. clear; and now we have: 3 hr. grind/ 3 hr. grind/ wait 21 hours. Three hours of play spread over 3 play sessions became 6 consecutive hours of play. I can't believe that's what you want us to be doing. So don't have a format and prize structure that will encourage it.

Scaling change: Whoever thought this was a good idea should be forced to play this event with a 4*/5* roster and grind to 156k points. While pilloried.

GrumpySmurf1002

veny wrote:

I believe ballance and leveling up enemies is the only problem here. So far, people mostly like the absence of 8hr run...

For just farming the rewards, the timer change doesn't do much. Clear a node 7 times whenever you felt like it was good enough for max progression, so this system is actually less relative to number of clears/timers.

Biggest issue is the time requirement. Same number of nodes takes significantly longer, and it's only amplified by the wave nodes.

Give us a trivial -> easy (x2)-> normal (x2) -> hard -> deadly progression on every node, and I think it'd be ok. Those who want to grind for the top can earn it, those who want to farm have an easier time.

Still not a system I'll ever do optimally.

Edit: Oh, and one and done waves from now on. As I said before, if that means making a 500 pt node with 3 waves into a 2000 point node with 12 waves, fine. No more grinding waves for no rewards, please.

MissChinch

In regards to the format, an optimal clear in the old 8 hour refresh format involved hitting a node a total of 3 times for full points, then up to 6 times again with diminished point returns. My comment regarding the new format is that I'd like to see a similar per-node time commitment, I feel like this format increased clears per node unnecessarily.

Also, truly make it so that you can play any time during the sub without negative repercussions, cut out the idea of points refreshing over time, just make the first 3 clears for full points, subsequent clears subject to diminishing returns however the devs want to tweak it.

Scaling changes masked more useful feedback we could have supplied on the new format changes.

simonsez

MissChinch wrote:

Also, truly make it so that you can play any time during the sub without negative repercussions, cut out the idea of points refreshing over time, just make the first 3 clears for full points, subsequent clears subject to diminishing returns however the devs want to tweak it.

This still creates a problem so long as there are still going to be rank awards. Under this plan, the top-ranked people will be those who grind a trivial node for 1 point the most times for 72-96 hours straight.

MissChinch

This still creates a problem so long as there are still going to be rank awards. Under this plan, the top-ranked people will be those who grind a trivial node for 1 point the most times for 72-96 hours straight.

That falls under tweaking the diminishing returns, but even if they kept them the same as the previous PvE runs I'll gladly take that as the main issue.

Personally I'd like to see the attempt at a node count in terms of possible points even if you lose, but the effectiveness of something like that hinges on a much better scaling scheme.

simonsez

MissChinch wrote:

That falls under tweaking the diminishing returns

Unless you diminish the returns to 0 and accept massive amounts of ties, there will always be lots of people who will grind incessantly for 1 point, if that's the only path to a top rank. And there will be lots of people who will accuse the top of the leaderboard of using bots. It'll get ugly.

mpqr7

Quick feedback:

Scaling was too high. I could win, but it was too challenging to be fun.

I like having no timers for the first 7 clears. However I don't like that now more clears are required. I already play mpq quite a lot, don't want to need to play even more for the same amount of rewards.

In the end, I probably prefer the current pve to the new one. Although maybe get rid of the timers for the first few clears. Just don't then require more clears than currently for the same progression prizes as previously.

Jam_Adams

mpqr7 wrote:

Quick feedback:

Scaling was too high. I could win, but it was too challenging to be fun.

I like having no timers for the first 7 clears. However I don't like that now more clears are required. I already play mpq quite a lot, don't want to need to play even more for the same amount of rewards.

In the end, I probably prefer the current pve to the new one. Although maybe get rid of the timers for the first few clears. Just don't then require more clears than currently for the same progression prizes as previously.

QFT

Kjempen

"Just for playing in the event, you will get three extra Enemy of the State tokens."

- Did anybody receive this reward?

Phumade

simonsez wrote:

Now that the end is here, I'll formally toss in my 2 cents, just in case the devs are actually reading this:
For competitive players, if your stated goal was true, that you didn't want PvE to consist of clearing as fast as possible at set times, this was a complete and utter failure. This format makes that requirement far, far more onerous by cramming more play into fewer time windows. Looking at the end of a sub into the start of the next, we' used to have: 2hr grind/ 20 min. clear/ wait 8 hrs/ 20 min. clear/ wait 8 hrs/ 20 min. clear; and now we have: 3 hr. grind/ 3 hr. grind/ wait 21 hours. Three hours of play spread over 3 play sessions became 6 consecutive hours of play. I can't believe that's what you want us to be doing. So don't have a format and prize structure that will encourage it.

I sorta disagree with this point.

One of the biggest issues with the old pve format was that the optimal grind strategy was pretty much perfected. So missing a clear by 20 min was basically giving up your shot at a top 1/2 placement. By changing the parameters of pve, people will have to spend some time re-evaluating their strategies and shards in light of the new time commitments.

In my bracket, I'm paired against 2 other guys who are also elite level mercs for WaG. What I saw was that the long grind made it impractical to play the game with the same precision that the old pve system required. As a result, while its definitely important to try and get the timers running ASAP, I could take some breaks to eat, let hp regen and still maintain my relative ranking with respect to the the other two players.

I fully agree that if this event was for an new character, all three of us would have played with more urgency. However, for this event, the pressure to clear in 20 min or less was gone. That was always the most stressful part of the old pve system. Knowing that being 10 min late would cost me top placement.

I will also conceede that in 6 months, the grind strategy will be re-optimized to the new parameters and that the pressure to speed clear with resume. Hopefully, we'll get another adjustment to pve to force players to re -evalute their strategies and that will create some more slack in the system.

Phumade

MissChinch wrote:

In regards to the format, an optimal clear in the old 8 hour refresh format involved hitting a node a total of 3 times for full points, then up to 6 times again with diminished point returns. My comment regarding the new format is that I'd like to see a similar per-node time commitment, I feel like this format increased clears per node unnecessarily.

I agree that the time commitments for this event are too excessive. One extra issue that became apparent is that the overscaled health on the wave opponents created a dramatic time suck. The regular hard nodes could be beaten in around 3-5 min. But when dealing with 5 level waves that approached 60k per level, matches easily exceeded 10+ min. So getting the timer started on that node would easily exceed 60 min on just that pin.

I would much prefer only having to hit the wave modes 1 time and focusing on the other overscaled nodes.

hodayathink

simonsez wrote:

Now that the end is here, I'll formally toss in my 2 cents, just in case the devs are actually reading this:

Format change: I get what you're trying to do, but this change is just an illusion, if casual players believe they no longer have "timer pressure". If you're not spending hours doing 6 clears when the sub opens, and then hours grinding at the end, you're not playing optimally. The only difference with this format is that when the casual player sees "Full Points" in every node, it creates a false sense of security that they're not losing ground to players that are playing more optimally.

I would argue that most casual players are playing for progression, not placement. So they don't have "timer pressure" because they aren't competing against other players. For those players, the bigger issue for this run wouldn't be the lack of "clearing optimally", it would be how high they placed the progression rewards (as someone else said, basically 5 clear per day instead of the 3-4 that it usually is, and that's including wave nodes).

Vhailorx

The Bottom Line that a lot of players seem to be missing is that that this new format increases the number of matches per day necessary to achieve the same level of placement and progression.

It's a "more grinding" wolf in "less pressure to play optimally" sheep's clothing. Players should ask for (and get) more than this.

CNash

OJSP wrote:

Kjempen wrote:

"Just for playing in the event, you will get three extra Enemy of the State tokens."

- Did anybody receive this reward?

Slice 4 is not even finished yet. We need to wait until slice 5 is finished.

But wait, once slice 5 closes, the vault resets on every token pull...!

simonsez

Phumade wrote:

I sorta disagree with this point.

The basis of your disagreement is that the optimal strategy was so difficult, few were inclined to actually do it. But the fact remains, 6-7 hours consecutive play IS the optimal strategy. And you can be sure that if this were a new character event, a lot more people WOULD be doing it. Your observation that you could deviate from optimal and not lose much ground had more to do with the lack of strong incentive for people to do it.

simonsez

hodayathink wrote:

I would argue that most casual players are playing for progression, not placement. So they don't have "timer pressure" because they aren't competing against other players.

I would like to think so too, but casual players THINK they have timer pressure, because we keep seeing complaints that the timer makes it too hard to hit the LT... even though other folks constantly point out that you just need to do 3-4 clears WHENEVER to get the LT, a lot of people still insist on making the timer the villain.

cardoor

I played to final progression in this event to compare it to other events and people are right about it being too slow. I think they have a point about easier scaling early on too.

I hope the takeaway from all of this feedback is that the scaling/rewards need to be adjusted, but that having full points available anytime you want to play (up to 7x) is a keeper.

Vhailorx

simonsez wrote:

hodayathink wrote:

I would argue that most casual players are playing for progression, not placement. So they don't have "timer pressure" because they aren't competing against other players.

I would like to think so too, but casual players THINK they have timer pressure, because we keep seeing complaints that the timer makes it too hard to hit the LT... even though other folks constantly point out that you just need to do 3-4 clears WHENEVER to get the LT, a lot of people still insist on making the timer the villain.

That right. That's why this new format is a "more grinding" wolf in "less pressure to play optimally" sheep's clothing. It cosmetically improves a few minor issues, and then makes everything worse for everybody. Players should ask for (and get) more than this.

Cardoor: do you really want pve to require 5-7 clears a day just for the prog reward? That's an awful big time commitment.

fmftint

Vhailorx wrote:

simonsez wrote:

hodayathink wrote:

I would argue that most casual players are playing for progression, not placement. So they don't have "timer pressure" because they aren't competing against other players.

I would like to think so too, but casual players THINK they have timer pressure, because we keep seeing complaints that the timer makes it too hard to hit the LT... even though other folks constantly point out that you just need to do 3-4 clears WHENEVER to get the LT, a lot of people still insist on making the timer the villain.

That right. That's why this new format is a "more grinding" wolf in "less pressure to play optimally" sheep's clothing. It cosmetically improves a few minor issues, and then makes everything worse for everybody. Players should ask for (and get) more than this.

Cardoor: do you really want pve to require 5-7 clears a day just for the prog reward? That's an awful big time commitment.

A new character release would be even worse in this format since LT progression is set even higher, somewhere around 70% of points available. Majority would never get anything close to max progression

BigrussX5

The scaling seems fine, but i really wasn't having a problem with the scaling before this test either because i never level my cards pass lvl 70 besides the one legendary character that i got. this method makes it impossible for me to do PVP however, but i have a BIG problem with this new point system that they are also using. I don't know if this is just temporary or not, but points you are able to earn aren't reduced after you clear a stage anymore like they were before. This might be okay with some, however because of this feature people are able to run up the scoreboard like CRAZY even on the first day. I really started to enjoy this game because even with my busy schedule and with work i could still find time to clear stages in between and remain competitive with other players on the scoreboard in pve, but now that seems impossible....