What would make you play PvE? - Player engagement discussion

mohio

I've been thinking of ways that d3/demiurge can incentivite more player engagement, since I think that's something that they actively want, and there's nothing players want more than good rewards, so I thought the 2 would go hand in hand. However, rather than turn it into a suggestions post which would never get read or commented on by anyone, I figure why not see if the general forum population even WANTS to be more engaged where PvE is concerned.

So, for those of you who don't even bother to play enough for the 25cp, obviously that is not a good enough reward to get you to play PvE. Is there something that WOULD make you play it though? Or you've just had enough of overscaled dark avengers and ridiculous goon-feeding villain nodes and nothing could bring you back to playing? For those of you that do get the cp but maybe bracket-watch or join as late as you can while still getting progression (full disclosure - this is me more often than not), what might encourage you to join earlier, maybe play every sub several times instead of joining midway through the event and grinding out the last couple subs for progression?

I'm going to provide a couple reward tweaks and you guys can comment on if it's something that might make you play more or if it just encourages too much grinding or what.

1) Move 4* placement rewards all or partially to progression. This would likely put one or more 4* covers PAST the current 25cp progression, which many people do simply for alliance rewards and trying for placement in early/very competitive brackets. Personally I could see this making me want to join early for the good 4* rewards, but I could also see this quickly leading to burnout.

2) Offer better sub-event rewards. Maybe more iso in sub-event placements? Maybe even so far as having cover rewards in sub events? I'm not sure this is "enough" to get a substantial amount of people engaged in an event earlier, but it could entice people to join sooner rather than bracket shopping for a new one late.

3) A 4* progression-style reward that requires you to play every sub a certain amount. At the lowest limit it would be something like a useless trinket you obtain after finishing all nodes in a sub once. Collect all 3,4,6,7, etc. and cash them in for your 4* reward at the end! At an upper limit they would be set to be point progressions for each individual sub, so that the only way to win them all would be to put in 3 full clears for EVERY sub. Once again, miss out on one and you won't have enough trinkets to assemble your contraption or whatever to obtain the 4* reward. I like this idea, it seems to really encourage joining early and playing a certain amount to achieve the desired rewards.

Anyway, I'm interested to hear what the forum has to say about what would make them play PvE more often. I remember really loving PvE for the first year+ that I played this game, but as my roster improved the scaling got to the point where it was a bit too grindy and not quite worth the rewards available. Adding some additional 4* covers to placement rewards, as well as the 25cp progression has increased my desire to play PvE lately, but I'm still not usually excited to jump in early and get playing right away.

bpcontra

I'm incentivized to play pve because I have no shot at good rewards in pvp

mpqr7

Iso, Iso and maybe some more Iso

Tatercat

bpcontra wrote:

I'm incentivized to play pve because I have no shot at good rewards in pvp

Ditto to this. I've got a good 4* roster now and even I don't bother with high end PVP play much. PVE may be a grind but its one I can plan for. I can get most of the 4DDQ's at this point and the CP rewards from PVE may be slow but they're steady. With PVP I just try for 500 pts each event until it adds up for the Heroic 10 pack. Going for the 1300 or even the 1000 rewards are just too much hassle, involving shielding/hopping/spending HP/using LINE, etc. More effort than I'm willing to expend for this. (Which is the same viewpoint most PVPers have towards PVE).

At this point though, if you want a PVPer to engage in PVE or vice versa, its gotta be an ISO incentive. Its the one thing both sides need.

TxMoose

3 reasons I play pve (edit added 4th and 5th). but I play currently, so I may not be the target here.

1) iso, iso, iso. its the only way my roster advances. and my current need is about 8 million.
2) cp - nodes and progression is nice, but can't pull until I get some thing set up...with iso.
3) hp. since I've very likely bought my last hp (some time ago), keeping my hp from slowly dwindling is nice. if I play enough and they refrain from any more 'tests', I can remain hp positive (t50 most subs and t10s sprinkled here and there)

4) (added) 3* covers for champs, but half of those turn into iso anyway.
5) its the only place I can play with my newer, lower characters before I finally get down to their spot on the iso priority list. normally i'll use anywhere from 40-60 characters over a normal pve event. I wish the core and meta of the game encouraged more of that type of play. that's actually what I find fun. on non-release events, this should probably be my #1.

the only thing that will disengage me at this point is implementing the changes that have been tested. the time it would take to make it worth it would exceed my available play time for the game. additionally, new style takes all the fun out of it for me.

WalrusBrigade

Clearly ISO would be of value. As a 3*-4* transitioner, getting more 4* covers would be great, especially if they were prescribed ones and not just tokens. I like the idea of getting something if you go through all of the nodes in the whole event.

I doubt they would do something like this, but what if you got a "prize" for completing all of the nodes in a whole event and the type of prize depends on which of the essentials you complete. For example, if you complete all non-essential nodes you get an extra event token. If if do that and also complete all of the 2* essentials you get a free Heroic Token. For all 3* essentials you get a free Legendary Token and for all 4* essentials you get 10,000 ISO. All of these are tiered so you can't get the 3* essential "prize" unless you also did all of the 2* essentials, etc. This would ask people to keep more of their characters and use more roster spots (money) and would also serve each participating player by giving them more of what they "need" at that level.

As a person that often does PvE anyway I would be down for this, but I think if you only required people to go through each node once to get the end of event "prize" even some people who don't think it is worth it to grind for 25 CP might do this. Imagine if you could net an extra event token, heroic token, legendary token and 10,000 ISO for doing the nodes once in a 24 hour period. That might seem like too much, but you only get that set once per event and in order to get all of it you would need to have all essentials.

That is my bad idea . . .

ShadowX1984

for those of you who don't even bother to play enough for the 25cp, obviously that is not a good enough reward to get you to play PvE

You set this question up with the assumption that more reward will equal more engagement, but that's not true for everyone. It's not that 25 CP isn't worth the "bother" -I would LOVE to have 25 CP for a PVE - I just don't find grinding fun or interesting and I'm not going to spend my time that way. If "engagement" in the game is multiple clears of every sub every day to reach a top tier or progression goal, there literally is no reward that will make this consistently worthwhile to me. I enjoy PVE stories and I will play every node of Webbed Wonder once, but I'm not going to do multiple clears. After they've run it a few times I won't even do that anymore. I'm engaged by new content and new play experiences; the first times they ran Galactus and Ultron I set aside whole days to play those events. PVP does this for me because every few days is a new set of characters to use and play against (since I rarely get above 700, I don't see the all the high-level hulkbuster teams that seem to get so repetitive).

TLDR: I'd be engaged by fresher content with less grinding.

jgomes32

More ISO and the 4* essencial reward after the 25CP.

Linkster79

A challenge, and I don't mean just overscaled enemy AI, making things overly artificially hard is not a challenge or fun. Let the nodes have the same awards as they do now (minus critical boosts) but add win conditions for a one time bonus award. Something like win the match with x amount of (insert colour) AP remaining, or use less than x amount of active abilities. Give these win conditions some big ISO or token awards and seeing as they are a one time deal they will not be farmable or break the game economy.

SnowcaTT

If it used more than the top 10% of my roster over and over.

If it wasn't timed so I have to hit it at specific times three times a day.

If it wasn't a vs. by another name - if rewards were all on progression rather than ranking.

Nellyson

Linkster79 wrote:

A challenge, and I don't mean just overscaled enemy AI, making things overly artificially hard is not a challenge or fun. Let the nodes have the same awards as they do now (minus critical boosts) but add win conditions for a one time bonus award. Something like win the match with x amount of (insert colour) AP remaining, or use less than x amount of active abilities. Give these win conditions some big ISO or token awards and seeing as they are a one time deal they will not be farmable or break the game economy.

I REALLY like this suggestion. Make the game about some skill and strategy and not just use OML. Make a node have a 5K Iso reward, but in order to win that iso, the player must use Chulk, Star-Lord, and Yelena! It would encourage roster diversity, leveling up characters and makes players have to really think of how the team can beat that node.

I also like the idea of limited power usage. Beat the node without using any character's powers! Maybe even have another set where you can't use passive abilities either! The possibilities would be pretty much endless and you can even get community involvement by asking which challenge they'd like to do next! It would be great!

PS....get rid of PVE placements, get rid of the grind.

carrion_pigeons

I don't currently play for progression, and the only thing that would make me play is if they lowered the amount of time required to get there.

This is my normal PvE experience:
1) Choose a slice, play the loaner node. I enjoy this part.
2) Realize I don't have all the required characters and can't get any of the easy points. I don't enjoy this part.
3) Play the first three easy nodes. This is dull but at least reasonably rewarding.
4) Grind out 2 or 3 of the harder nodes. I doze off during this part every time.
5) Do something dumb, lose a match, realize I wasn't having fun anymore anyway, or even staying awake, and quit.
6) Never come back to the sub, realize I have no shot at progression anymore, and don't bother even opening any of the other subs.

I could be incentivized to try harder, if progression took little enough time that grinding hard in a later node was enough to make up for not bothering with an earlier node, but honestly, that's the only thing that would get me there and I realize cutting the effort required by 2/3 or more is just something they aren't going to do.

Calnexin

I already play PvE, because similar rewards in PvP are out of my reach at the moment.

What would make me stop playing PvE would be the new scheme as implemented in the last couple tests. Every node depleting resources and health packs (especially on a Heroic event with limited roster) is frustrating. Even if it's well balanced, I feel like I'm getting my butt kicked every match. I like a scaled challenge, but I'd like it to start easy and go to very hard, not start hard and scale to party wipe.

Jarvind

Just make it less time consuming and grindy. I actually think the rewards are fine and would love to play more, but the time constraints and grindiness pretty much prevent me from ever grazing top 10 and actually getting a solid prize. I occasionally get top 50 if I really go nuts, but I only do that on new releases and it's miserable.

In short, make the good stuff at least somewhat reachable for people who are employed and don't want to set alarms for 4 AM to wake up and clear.

Smudge

ShadowX1984 wrote:

for those of you who don't even bother to play enough for the 25cp, obviously that is not a good enough reward to get you to play PvE

You set this question up with the assumption that more reward will equal more engagement, but that's not true for everyone. It's not that 25 CP isn't worth the "bother" -I would LOVE to have 25 CP for a PVE - I just don't find grinding fun or interesting and I'm not going to spend my time that way. If "engagement" in the game is multiple clears of every sub every day to reach a top tier or progression goal, there literally is no reward that will make this consistently worthwhile to me. I enjoy PVE stories and I will play every node of Webbed Wonder once, but I'm not going to do multiple clears. After they've run it a few times I won't even do that anymore. I'm engaged by new content and new play experiences; the first times they ran Galactus and Ultron I set aside whole days to play those events. PVP does this for me because every few days is a new set of characters to use and play against (since I rarely get above 700, I don't see the all the high-level hulkbuster teams that seem to get so repetitive).

TLDR: I'd be engaged by fresher content with less grinding.

Count this as a second to your idea.

I can and do regularly hit the 25 CP progression in PvE events these days because I have a lot of the 4*s rostered with 1-3 covers, and I have a significant enough number of the 3*s championed to where I can trudge through enough node grinding to hit it. As soon as I hit progression, I'm done. The placement rewards, especially 4*s, would help me immensely at this stage. I would even take a Totally Awful Hulk placement award to boost my roster more for when he's the unfortunate required character.

There is not a single character in this game, not even OML, who is worth it to me to spend hours mindlessly grinding nodes into oblivion for a prayer at hitting top placement to get a single cover for that character for which I will not see another cover again for a long, long while.

Turn out a little new, fresh content besides these nauseating, mind-numbing slogs against Dark Avengers and freshen up the reward system some. I dunno, maybe make it actual PvE? Until at least a minor overhaul comes through, you can bet that I'm going to aim for top progression and then wave the white flag every time.

tl;dr: ShadowX1984, "Me too!"

TheRealJRad

I just can't carve out the time to play PvE the way you "have" to. At best, I can do a clear after work (~6pm central) and another before bed (usually ~10), but that doesn't really get me anything and burns all my packs (so no PvP). Currently, I join a sub around 9, hit it for CP and hope that gets me a placement token. If I could hit a node or two during the day when I'm not doing anything, that'd be great, but it's not "optimal".

Maybe if character health/health packs were separate for PvE/PvP, I'd be a little more inclined to do 2 clears a night, but that's still not going to get me any decent placement.

TxMoose

if you can't manage a clear in the morning and one at lunch, its really hard for anyone to pve very well. and some jobs just don't allow for free time at lunch. morning clear is more of a choice thing - you choose sleep over mpq. but its no big deal for me to take 45 minutes in the morning to do my clear. non-release events can still be done to typical progressions (the 3-4 clear level), but if all your clears have to be done in the evening, along with ddq and pvp - that would be overwhelming. if you could manage a grind and then flip to a double tap of all nodes, you could probably still manage t100 in non-releases, but that's a ton of time in one sitting.

wymtime

Another idea is an alliance style Progression reward that would mirror regular progression. Alliance progression rewards would be given at the end of the event to prevent people from alliance hopping to get multiple rewards.
This would encourage more play and give out a lot of loot.