New PVE Optimal Run

Steellatch

Am I missing something with the new system? The Devs say that we can play when ever we want and not every 8 hours but if I want the rewards I have to complete all the nodes 6 times each as fast as I can when the sub opens?

The system should be after the first completion of a battle the timer starts but only after the 6th win do the points start to drop. That would make it so I could take all day to play and still have a chance to rank high.

Or am I just crazy?

DTStump

No, you are not crazy.

The only people who enjoy this change are those guys who don't have the time to even consider placement rewards, and just want max points for each node, each time. The 8-hour timer appearing after 1 clear seems to bother them. They often argue that "they cannot fit their schedule around 8-hour time steps". They want to be able to pick a time and beat nodes several times without diminishing returns (however small those point reductions may be).

Everybody else agrees that optimal play demands significantly more time investment with the 7-clear-to-start-timer rule.

EDIT: just to complete the thought... in order to be able to truly "play whenever you want", the timers would have to be fully eliminated. This way, guys who play "optimally on schedule" do not have any competitive advantage. The obvious consequence of this would be that the guys winning placement rewards are those who manage to do the most clears (without rubberbanding or timers), which could be disastrous. Then one would have to consider making PvE actual PvE (i.e. no placement rewards at all...).

Steellatch

I fully agree with you. PVE should not have placement rewards. From the looks of it, that idea is not even on their radar. ( I think its cause of the money they get from health packs).

St1nkf1st

DTStump wrote:

The only people who enjoy this change are those guys who don't have the time to even consider placement rewards

That's not entirely true. For me (3* roster and more focused on PVP), I experienced during PVE test run that with about same time effort as before I got a reasonable placement (25 if I remember correctly) just without the 8 h schedule I hate that much, because I was never able to fit it 100% into my work/live/sleep cycle.

For the top 10 aiming guys this might mean even more grind, but apparently they "like" the grind anyway. And about how many people we are actually talking here in comparison to how many people play the events?

bbf2

Steellatch wrote:

The system should be after the first completion of a battle the timer starts but only after the 6th win do the points start to drop. That would make it so I could take all day to play and still have a chance to rank high.

That's a genius idea! I love it!

Bowgentle

St1nkf1st wrote:

DTStump wrote:

The only people who enjoy this change are those guys who don't have the time to even consider placement rewards

That's not entirely true. For me (3* roster and more focused on PVP), I experienced during PVE test run that with about same time effort as before I got a reasonable placement (25 if I remember correctly) just without the 8 h schedule I hate that much, because I was never able to fit it 100% into my work/live/sleep cycle.

I guarantee you that you and everyone else who thinks that they'll get easier placement with this system are in for a very rude awakening once this is run for a new character release.

DTStump

Bowgentle wrote:

St1nkf1st wrote:

DTStump wrote:

The only people who enjoy this change are those guys who don't have the time to even consider placement rewards

That's not entirely true. For me (3* roster and more focused on PVP), I experienced during PVE test run that with about same time effort as before I got a reasonable placement (25 if I remember correctly) just without the 8 h schedule I hate that much, because I was never able to fit it 100% into my work/live/sleep cycle.

I guarantee you that you and everyone else who thinks that they'll get easier placement with this system are in for a very rude awakening once this is run for a new character release.

Exactly. People are not necessarily motivated to play in these test events because (1) the placement rewards are not very exciting and (2) they're just not happy with the changes and are taking a break, but will grind again if such changes become permanent.

"Getting a reasonable placement" in a test event is not necessarily a reliable metric because a lot of factors influence the intensity of competition. It is more useful to understand how new rules impact optimal play to predict what happens when there is actually competition for placement rewards.

dr tinykittylove

[quote="DTStump"
"Getting a reasonable placement" in a test event is not necessarily a reliable metric because a lot of factors influence the intensity of competition. It is more useful to understand how new rules impact optimal play to predict what happens when there is actually competition for placement rewards.[/quote]

They're not even offering participation bonuses on the reruns. And the repeat tests suggest they're pretty determined to push this new format through. There's no way in smallcatland I'm going to grind for placement when the last node rewards are crit boosts or 70 iso, much less zero rewards. Even the appeal of new characters is starting to pall, seriously.

JVReal

Steellatch wrote:

Am I missing something with the new system? The Devs say that we can play when ever we want and not every 8 hours but if I want the rewards I have to complete all the nodes 6 times each as fast as I can when the sub opens?

The system should be after the first completion of a battle the timer starts but only after the 6th win do the points start to drop. That would make it so I could take all day to play and still have a chance to rank high.

Or am I just crazy?

If the timer starts after the first battle... but no points drop until after the 6th clear... what's the timer for? Is the timer supposed to be for the 7th clear but starts after the first clear?

So clear 1 starts the timer... clears 2-6 do not reset or add to the timer... clear 7 and onward adds to the timer and diminishes points? If that's the case, just have a timer that starts when you join the slice instead of when you beat the first node... then you have 24 (or 12 or whatever number they choose) hours from joining the slice to complete your 6 clears at full points before the 7th clear is worth the full points again. But on a 24 hour sub, it would be the same as having no timer, just diminishing points to the end. I don't know. Any time you put a timer in, you are going to have an "optimal" grind which will always counteract the "play when you want" concept.

HaywireII

Having to grind the nodes repeatedly until it's not fun is a good reminder that there is no skill involved in Muscle nodes, just luck. You either have a board that lets you match away the first few tommy gun tiles or you die. Doesn't matter if the node is easy or normal.

Dragon_Nexus

DTStump wrote:

(2) they're just not happy with the changes and are taking a break, but will grind again if such changes become permanent.

Ehhhh....honestly, speaking only for myself, but if the test PvE becomes perminant in any of the forms we've seen thus far, I'd seriously consider not doing PvE again.

I mean, I've participated in the last two tests and both times I felt I was climbing a huge vertical cliff. Like...at some point within 24 hours I'd have to complete each node 6 times.
Know what's daft? In the old system, I'd do three clears and then do the required nodes 4 times each and the trivial nodes 4 times each to get all the rewards. That's virtually the same thing, really. but the point is the psychology is different. I'm not just doing a casual 30-60 minute clear here and there with some grinding at the end if I feel like it. I'm doing 6 clears right at the start, all at once.

The difference, if you want a metaphor, is between eating your meals at breakfast, lunch and dinner time...or just eating all of the meals in one go at 9am and not needing to eat again the rest of the day. Sure, it's the same thing, but you'll feel damn sick doing so.

Crowl

Ideally, the new system should have flexibility and grinding being reduced to a minimum, so surely the ideal setup should be something like this:

Lock the nodes after 5 clears (drop crit and increase rewards so net iso remains the same) - people have 23 hours to complete those 5 clears
Unlock the hard and essential nodes for the final hour so that people can grind them to provide the tiebreaker for placements.

Doing the above gives as much flexibility as they can and removes the need for a double grind if chasing placement rewards.

Max progression should be set at 4 full clears so that people without an essential can make up for it with an extra clear.

Jam_Adams

aesthetocyst wrote:

So here, the devs are thinking you can "play whenever you want" and still make the max progression—which they apparently believe is the primary concern of most players—because you're still getting full points (for the first 6 clears).

But if playing for placement ... then this new system is worse. Much worse. Instead of clearing once as edarly as possible, and and again every 8 hrs, and then grinding down in the closing hours of each sub, you now have to clear the sub 6 TIMES at the opening, as fast as you can, then grind down at the end .... and then immediately roll in to the next sub and clear it 6 times.

And the difficulty is higher, making every clear longer than under the old system.

Under the old system, competing meant playing 3-5hrs total throughout a 24hr period. It was already a lot and insane.

Under the new system, you can only play once a day ... but for 6-8hrs to maximize your score.

QFT. now that scaling is fixed (or at least pretty close), I think this is the big problem left to figure out. unfortunately, I don't think grind/play time can be fixed without tossing the new PVE out altogether. the grind/play time issue is part and parcel of the new PVE.

that said, I'm OK tossing the new PVE if it meant getting rid of this new optimal play style (which is now required if you want to even sniff decent placement rewards).

Jam_Adams

Steellatch wrote:

Am I missing something with the new system? The Devs say that we can play when ever we want and not every 8 hours but if I want the rewards I have to complete all the nodes 6 times each as fast as I can when the sub opens?

The system should be after the first completion of a battle the timer starts but only after the 6th win do the points start to drop. That would make it so I could take all day to play and still have a chance to rank high.

Or am I just crazy?

it's a Rabbit's world now (or will be soon). If you're not a Rabbit, then **** you.

mohio

Devs seem to want to encourage grinding more than before, so why replenish points at all? Just make first 5 or 6 clears full points (or 7 if you want to make the most sense since there are 7 rewards), then have maybe just 2-3 stacks after, so hit 8 is 66%, 9 is 33%, 10 is for 20 points. Then the guys who want to fight for first place can grind 20 point matches to their heart's content. They clearly love grinding cause they are going for 3 more covers for their champed Mr. Fantastic, so give them what they want! The rest of us can get our 7 clears if we haven't gotten good rewards, or just stop whenever we got the cp, 500 iso, etc.

BTW, I'm 80% serious. Anything to eliminate time being a major factor in placement/points is going to be good in my book. How many people are realistically going to devote enough time to grind 20 point nodes?

Crowl

Jam_Adams wrote:

QFT. now that scaling is fixed (or at least pretty close), I think this is the big problem left to figure out. unfortunately, I don't think grind/play time can be fixed without tossing the new PVE out altogether. the grind/play time issue is part and parcel of the new PVE.

that said, I'm OK tossing the new PVE if it meant getting rid of this new optimal play style (which is now required if you want to even sniff decent placement rewards).

There is no need to throw it out entirely, it just needs to be tweaked to remove the need to do that long grind at the start, quoting myself from an earlier post you just need to do something like this:

Ideally, the new system should have flexibility and grinding being reduced to a minimum, so surely the ideal setup should be something like this:

Lock the nodes after 5 clears (drop crit and increase rewards so net iso remains the same) - people have 23 hours to complete those 5 clears
Unlock the hard and essential nodes for the final hour so that people can grind them to provide the tiebreaker for placements.

Doing the above gives as much flexibility as they can and removes the need for a double grind if chasing placement rewards.

Max progression should be set at 4 full clears so that people without an essential can make up for it with an extra clear.

MissChinch

Re: OP

You're not crazy, but its actually a good order of magnitude or so worse, which I'm surprised that I haven't seen anyone mentioning (maybe they're just hoarding this disgusting secret)

Optimal path isn't to clear all the nodes 6 times and wait until the last possible minute to do your final burn down... Optimal path is to clear all but the easiest node down to the timer as fast as possible, but take that easiest node down to the floor and beat on it as many times as possible during the ~22 hours you're waiting for all the other nodes to regrow points. The floor is no longer 1 point, its a significant enough portion of the small point value node to make this net you far more points, unfortunately...

Incidentally here is where very high level rosters hold a massive advantage, providing they're sticking to their scaling cap on the newly re-trivialized trivial nodes...

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news...

j0nats

Yup once these changes become permanent, thats when im permanently done w placement in PVE. Ill just go for the CP from last node n 4* nodd and thats it.

Before, optimal 8 hr clears plus some selective grinding gets top 100. Now i have to grind everything to get to top 100.

Not worth it!

Even the 25cp prog doesnt seem worth it anymore

revskip

Pretty sure that if everyone who is threatening to quit if the PVE tests end up being the new format then grinding to the ground won't even be necessary by virtue of a large portion of the player base that was doing the grinding before simply not being there any more. If everyone quits then there wouldn't be any reason to grind in the first place since doing your 5-6 clears would be more than enough for both progression and placement in a world where all the grinders ragequit.

Of course maybe people are only saying they'll quit but when the time comes will still be grinding away and all of this will have been much ado about nothing.

I'm betting on the latter.

HxiiiK

revskip wrote:

Of course maybe people are only saying they'll quit but when the time comes will still be grinding away and all of this will have been much ado about nothing.

I'm betting on the latter.

Because how else will we let them know how important we are if we don't threaten to quit every once in a while?

amusingfoo1

I think that, until you're looking for top-10 or better placement, that this is a better system for placement. It's probably pushing me out of top-10, but that might be a good thing; I need to sleep more.

It's moving around the limitations; away from having set times available. And it's moving in the right direction towards having the gating be difficulty, but hasn't gotten there yet.