Shadow wrote: Pylgrim wrote: Since you admittedly don't play competitively you don't know or cannot imagine how hard already is to place in the top 10. Who are you to say that we should work any harder? Why should you, the one who already played casually be rewarded with an even easier time at the cost of the people that have to put real effort into it? How would you feel if the change made your life more difficult in exchange of making it easier for the competitive players and we posted a post like yours disregarding the experience of the casual players because "they could use being more competitive"? So, the OP got shot down. I will contribute from the perspective of someone who always hits t5 for all non new release characters. Competitive enough for you? I hit t5 on this one for less effort than a regular pve. Most of the changes are good and beneficial to both the competitive players as well as the casual players. From my perspective, there is 1 thing that is a major issue. The scaling is based on boosted characters. If they change it to be based on non boosted character levels, this would be a major improvement to this new system. Considering that the boosted characters this round were the strong ones: iceman, cyclops, xfdp, the pve was still playable. However, imagine if this test had been the week prior where NF, Carnage were the boosted. It would have made the pve unplayable. So, fix the system to take out the boosted characters from scaling consideration and I am a supporter for this new system.
Pylgrim wrote: Since you admittedly don't play competitively you don't know or cannot imagine how hard already is to place in the top 10. Who are you to say that we should work any harder? Why should you, the one who already played casually be rewarded with an even easier time at the cost of the people that have to put real effort into it? How would you feel if the change made your life more difficult in exchange of making it easier for the competitive players and we posted a post like yours disregarding the experience of the casual players because "they could use being more competitive"?
Clamps2 wrote: It seems that a lot of people had similar experiences, but came to different conclusions. Conclusion 1: "The scaling was too hard, and the max progression was too high. But the new format was better, so it's a step in the right direction." Conclusion 2: "The scaling was too hard, and the max progression was too high. ABORT!! ABORT!!!" I think the biggest problem is that we don't know what the developer's intent is. I think they got the specifics of scaling wrong, but are on the right track. For instance, they never should have taken out trivial/easy nodes, at least for the first few clears. If you have 100 chars in your roster, the entire difficulty shouldn't only be based on your best ones. That's already what PVP is about. And progression may have just been a miscalculation with the increased difficulty and lack of rubberbanding. OR maybe it ends up just being like the championing system. "Oh, you realized that championed 3* are actually relatively less powerful than before? It's a feature!" tl;dr: I think it's better, but only if the devs are actually willing to fix the scaling and progression.
Pylgrim wrote: I'm curious, how did you take top 5 with less effort than normal. Did you join a late bracket? Or do you think it is a result of a big percentage of the playerbase quitting (or half-quitting) the event in the first couple days? Do you seriously believe that if this system become the new standard you will be able to keep top 5-ing with less effort, when the system is geared to reward the people who plays the most?
Shadow wrote: Pylgrim wrote: I'm curious, how did you take top 5 with less effort than normal. Did you join a late bracket? Or do you think it is a result of a big percentage of the playerbase quitting (or half-quitting) the event in the first couple days? Do you seriously believe that if this system become the new standard you will be able to keep top 5-ing with less effort, when the system is geared to reward the people who plays the most? I never ever join late brackets. Always join within a few hours of event start to maximize the amount of ISO / HP / CP that I can get. In a regular non new char release, In order to place #1 in a sub, one would have to play near optimal. For the EoTS test, I could leave so many points lying around and still get #1 in a number of subs by a couple thousand points. And I didn't even clear each node 6 times at the start of the subs to get their 24 hrs timers moving. So, less effort for similar placement. I cannot say for certain what other people will do for non new character releases. What I do know is that the impact will definitely be seen by the top 1% for a new character release. Whoever is able to grind 24hrs a day for 4 or 7 days continuously will win. There may or may not be an impact to t20. But I'm pretty sure there will be no impact to t100. Using punisher release as a reference, t100 is actually super easy. I was away for the Easter Weekend so I could only do some clears in the morning and some clears at night. This is nowhere near optimal. As I mentioned, I always join an event early. The only sub that I can afford a normal play is on the final sub and yet I'm sitting in a t50 spot for the main event. So, my view is that the new system will not have any negative impact to t5 placement for a non new char release. It will have an impact to the top 1% or perhaps 2% for new character releases. For everybody else, the new system is in fact an improvement over the existing one with the one thing that needs tweaking being that boosted characters should be taken out of the equation for scaling calculation. Not every week has a list of decently strong boosted characters and considering how high scaling under the new system goes, pve would be a disaster during weeks where the boosted characters are bottom tier. Take the week that NF and Carnage were the boosted for example. NF boosted is just so-so. And Carnage would actually work against you.
TheWerebison wrote: Pylgrim wrote: Since you admittedly don't play competitively you don't know or cannot imagine how hard already is to place in the top 10. Who are you to say that we should work any harder? Why should you, the one who already played casually be rewarded with an even easier time at the cost of the people that have to put real effort into it? How would you feel if the change made your life more difficult in exchange of making it easier for the competitive players and we posted a post like yours disregarding the experience of the casual players because "they could use being more competitive"? The hell? He was making a post that said he had a pleasant experience with the test. So did I. It's already been addressed that the grind is ridiculous for people who play competitively, the OP just wanted a place where people could share positive feedback, so it isn't lost among all the posts saying "if this changes, I quit." It will show BOTH sides of the story, and give more info to the developers. It already seems like there's more negative feedback for this style than positive, at least among forumites, as shown by the numerous threads and posts. I doubt it'll happen, at least not without radical change. But please, let's let some people have their positive threads. OP was just speaking from his own personal experience, which is all any of us should be able to do.
XandorXerxes wrote: Sorry you read it that way, it's very clearly not what I said. Competitive players are welcome to play however they like and I don't have anything against them. It is OK to make things more difficult for all of us, especially in a competition, as long as the rules are applied fairly. If the developers designed the new scoring to raise the maximum grind so that those who can play "better" (do more on the same number of healthpacks) for longer times, then I don't see anything wrong with that. What I couldn't (and still can't) comment on is how the new scaling affects that grind, because I don't play that way - which is what my original statement was supposed to acknowledge.
Pylgrim wrote: Shadow wrote: Pylgrim wrote: Thanks for sharing, but I don't understand why you draw such a conclusion for non-character-releasing PVEs. Top 10 in those PVEs is vital for 4* transitioners and, in fact, the "punishment" for failing top 10 is much harsher than for failing it in release PVEs. In the normal system, there's a ceiling of points that can be achieved by playing optimally and the top 10 players are the ones who get closer to perfect play. Under the tested system, not only "optimal playing" involves twice as many runs of a node, the 20 point reward for exhausted nodes means that there's no real ceiling. having no ceiling means that the more desperate top 9-15 are to place top 10, the more they will grind, the more everybody else will have to keep grinding to keep up. In the end, the top 10 will definitely go to those who played the most and that "most" will be quite a bit more than they would have had to play in the current system.
Shadow wrote: Pylgrim wrote: Thanks for sharing, but I don't understand why you draw such a conclusion for non-character-releasing PVEs. Top 10 in those PVEs is vital for 4* transitioners and, in fact, the "punishment" for failing top 10 is much harsher than for failing it in release PVEs. In the normal system, there's a ceiling of points that can be achieved by playing optimally and the top 10 players are the ones who get closer to perfect play. Under the tested system, not only "optimal playing" involves twice as many runs of a node, the 20 point reward for exhausted nodes means that there's no real ceiling. having no ceiling means that the more desperate top 9-15 are to place top 10, the more they will grind, the more everybody else will have to keep grinding to keep up. In the end, the top 10 will definitely go to those who played the most and that "most" will be quite a bit more than they would have had to play in the current system.
Pylgrim wrote: Thanks for sharing, but I don't understand why you draw such a conclusion for non-character-releasing PVEs. Top 10 in those PVEs is vital for 4* transitioners and, in fact, the "punishment" for failing top 10 is much harsher than for failing it in release PVEs. In the normal system, there's a ceiling of points that can be achieved by playing optimally and the top 10 players are the ones who get closer to perfect play. Under the tested system, not only "optimal playing" involves twice as many runs of a node, the 20 point reward for exhausted nodes means that there's no real ceiling. having no ceiling means that the more desperate top 9-15 are to place top 10, the more they will grind, the more everybody else will have to keep grinding to keep up. In the end, the top 10 will definitely go to those who played the most and that "most" will be quite a bit more than they would have had to play in the current system.
Shadow wrote: Pylgrim wrote: Shadow wrote: Pylgrim wrote: Thanks for sharing, but I don't understand why you draw such a conclusion for non-character-releasing PVEs. Top 10 in those PVEs is vital for 4* transitioners and, in fact, the "punishment" for failing top 10 is much harsher than for failing it in release PVEs. In the normal system, there's a ceiling of points that can be achieved by playing optimally and the top 10 players are the ones who get closer to perfect play. Under the tested system, not only "optimal playing" involves twice as many runs of a node, the 20 point reward for exhausted nodes means that there's no real ceiling. having no ceiling means that the more desperate top 9-15 are to place top 10, the more they will grind, the more everybody else will have to keep grinding to keep up. In the end, the top 10 will definitely go to those who played the most and that "most" will be quite a bit more than they would have had to play in the current system. The thing is, you are assuming that people like pve and that they like to grind. My comments regarding placement was based on what was observed during EoTS. And I finished VB in 29th spot after non optimal play on the first 3 subs. This to me is an indication that people actually won't be playing that hard for t10 in a non new release. If people aren't playing that hard on a new release, no way that they would do it on an older char. Especially after the format change means that there are no easy nodes. From the experience of EoTS combined with my being out of town during the Easter weekend, I believe that I now have a feel of how hard people are playing PvE. And seriously, I do not see it changing with the new format. Thus, I still stick by my original assessment. The new format will only make things harder for the 1% of the player base during a new character release. For everybody else, the new system is actually an improvement. Thus far, what you have mentioned is that it should theoretically get harder. I'm not going to argue with this theory because by right, it should get harder. But what was experienced contradicts this theory and I'd rather go with what was experienced.
Pylgrim wrote: Well, the only thing I'm assuming is that some people desperately need the top 10 rewards as they are, other than 1k progression in PVP, the only way you can certain 4*s in the game. The trickle of 4*s is so low, that transitioning players /need/ to get their hands on as many (or little) 4*s as there are offered. I agree with you though, that most people won't bother and that probably placing 100 or 50 is not going to get harder (or maybe, even get easier). However, every bracket will have X people that really, really want the top 10 reward (and you can be sure that X will always be higher than 10 by quite a bit). These X people will have to play their arsses off, much more than before, to get top 10 for the reasons I explained in my previous post. And the most saddening, if not baffling, thing is that this tier of players is the one more urgently needing relief (you can find threads stating that the 4* transition is terribly slow and difficult dating over 6 months). The fact that they are the ones hindered the most by the new system is mindboggling and adds to the pile of other disadvantageous changes such as the nerf of boosted 3*s.
Shadow wrote: Pylgrim wrote: Well, the only thing I'm assuming is that some people desperately need the top 10 rewards as they are, other than 1k progression in PVP, the only way you can certain 4*s in the game. The trickle of 4*s is so low, that transitioning players /need/ to get their hands on as many (or little) 4*s as there are offered. I agree with you though, that most people won't bother and that probably placing 100 or 50 is not going to get harder (or maybe, even get easier). However, every bracket will have X people that really, really want the top 10 reward (and you can be sure that X will always be higher than 10 by quite a bit). These X people will have to play their arsses off, much more than before, to get top 10 for the reasons I explained in my previous post. And the most saddening, if not baffling, thing is that this tier of players is the one more urgently needing relief (you can find threads stating that the 4* transition is terribly slow and difficult dating over 6 months). The fact that they are the ones hindered the most by the new system is mindboggling and adds to the pile of other disadvantageous changes such as the nerf of boosted 3*s. If people are really wanting to get t10 that much, I'm certainly not seeing it happen in the old system either. I've been getting 2 extra covers per pve to champion my characters with relative ease. People always love to complain and hope for an easy ride. They want to be spoon fed. You'd think that there'd be much more intense competition for the old format since there are actually easy nodes. This isn't happening in the old format and will unlikely happen in the new format. A lot of what you're mentioning is very theoretical in nature and going by theory I'd say you are definitely right. Unfortunately, what's right in theory is not always right in reality.
acescracked wrote: EOTS - finished 10th with 159k. Scaling - final wave node started at 262-288 after 7th clear was 338 - 353. I have nine champed 4*S no leveled 5*s
JVReal wrote: You can't argue the new system with people who describe placement with the terms "need" and "require". These are the people that if you still had a 3 hour timer, would be complaining and grinding every 3 hours because they "need" to. If you keep the 8 hour timer will continue to grind it and complain that they "need" to be doing it. You put a 24 hour timer and they "need" to grind immediately until the timer appears then they will watch it like a hawk because it's somehow "required" of them. And if you take the timer away completely, would probably die of exhaustion because nobody is "making" them stop playing with a timer, because they "need" the rewards for top 10, and they are "required" to play 5 days straight because the developers allow them to... i mean "Made" them do it by allowing it to happen. Honestly, if you are a competitive player, what would you do if there was NO timer, and after 7 clears each node was worth 20 points and scaling stayed fixed after the 7th clear? How would you play? Would you sleep? Would you eat? If it was left up to you to moderate yourself (even though that is already the case) would you do it? Placement for top 10 is solely based on how far above max progression 20 people in each bracket of 1000 want to play.
TheOncomingStorm wrote: PVE litmus test. Are the rewards progressive? Any other measurements miss the point that matters the most. Pve should not be about endless grind fests. It should not be about only using your few best characters. These are all important, but are secondary concerns. However, by definition, it should not have placement rewards; it is pve, NOT pvp.
Pylgrim wrote: I don't know what you call "relative ease" or whether your experience is actually different from most people, but for me, to top 10 or better in PVE, I need to play almost close to perfect optimally, which means scheduling my life (and sometimes sleep) around MPQ, spending an average of 3 hours per day in it (not counting any other MPQ related endeavour). Still, I do it and I had not complained much about it before. But you'll have to forgive me if I don't jump of happiness if the new system will require of me to almost double my amount of hours playing PVE to stay top 10 and I don't see how wishing that difficulty and time expenditure doesn't go up is to "hope for an easy ride". Yes it's theoretical but you only have your own experience to make you think otherwise. My own experience, in which I actually have been out-grinded in the very last sub and lost the work of a whole week, tells me that desperate people can and will make of the new system a nightmarish grindfest if it is permanently established.
Pylgrim wrote: TheOncomingStorm wrote: PVE litmus test. Are the rewards progressive? Any other measurements miss the point that matters the most. Pve should not be about endless grind fests. It should not be about only using your few best characters. These are all important, but are secondary concerns. However, by definition, it should not have placement rewards; it is pve, NOT pvp. That change alone would make the tested system much fairer, but some considerations remain: If all rewards are given by progression (adding the current placement rewards in the scheme, somehow), the fact that scaling makes the event roughly equally difficult for people at all stages would mean that /everybody/ could possibly get all the rewards. However that's not a good thing. 2* and 3* transitioners don't need 4*s and in fact, in several cases I've seen starry-eyed inexperienced players roster useless 4*s instead of the much more relevant characters in their own tier, to give an example of why it is a bad thing. Rewards still need to be gated somehow and I think the best model we have in the game to follow is the Gauntlet, i.e. gating rewards by level-based difficulty. Scaling would have to be almost entirely abandoned, giving nodes a mostly static value according with points rewarded and a limited amount of replayable, untimed, full-points refreshes. That way, a 2* player would only be able to get so many points and the progression scale can be manipulated to give 2* transitioner-relevant rewards at that amount of points. And so on for each tier. Something like this:1* Tier 2 "trivial" nodes (level 20-60) Low grade (minimal grinding): 70 Iso, Standard token, 1* cover High grade (maximum grinding): 250 Iso, 2* cover, 25 HP, heroic token, 1 CP2* Tier 2 "easy" nodes (level 60-120) Low grade: same as previous tier high grade rewards. High grade (maximum grinding including previous tier nodes): 500 Iso, 3* cover, 50 HP, event's vault token, 3 CP3* Tier 3 "normal" nodes (level 120-240) High grade: 1k Iso, 4* cover, 100 HP, event vault tokens, 10 CP4* Tier 2 "hard" nodes (level 240-400) High grade: 5k Iso, 4* covers, 250 HP, Legendary token, 25 CP5* Tier 1 "insane" node (level 400-600) High grade: 20k Iso, Legendary tokens, 1k HP, 100 CP