Veteran Thoughts...

rawfsu

I've seen a lot of back and forth on the forums in regards to the new PVP and incoming PVE changes. From what I've gathered, it appears that "rookies" are benefitting, but that "veterans" are paying the price due to stronger and/or improving rosters. I don't recall seeing any "whales" part of the conversation. I decided to start this thread for the veteran group to be able to express themselves. I think we are the biggest voice on the forums and wanted to make a place for only us to be heard. It seems in the other topics, we get sandwiched between people raving about the changes due to limited experience playing the game. For the sake of argument, I'll define "veteran" as any player with a year (+) experience in MPQ. Thank you and fire away!

MaxxPowerz

I don't think it is really a matter of veteran vs. rookie. The problem with the game as I see it is you can max out some 4 stars to compete in PVP and get some more covers for your character, but then you are breaking PVE which is your main source of iso. I am coming close to my year, and while it is tempting to max out a few of my 4* to compete in PVP I am reluctant to do so because then I will have to deal with the outrageous scaling in PVE.

westnyy2

I'm a veteran with 3 champed 5's and 20 or so champed 4's. I have no opinion on the pvp changes as I didn't really notice any. I still the same 5 or 6 people on my way up to 1k. If only 2 are not in my check room then guess who is getting multi-tapped. It sucks but there aren't many options. Letting me beat up on 4 star teams isn't the answer either so I guess it will remain the same.

PVE is a whole different story. The new format is terrible. While the strength of the opponent is clearly an issue, my main concern is the additional time I need to play to compete for top honors. I suppose I'm not locked in to playing at a certain time of day, but with 8 hour timers that was never an issue. If I had a meeting then I'd play a little earlier. Not a huge deal. I always chose my shard based on when I needed to do the final grind. That still hasn't changed. Nothing sounds better than grinding for two hours only to have to grind again to begin a new sub or event. Boy that sound awesome! Once these changes are permanently applied then my competitive PVE days are over most likely.

So to answer your question, no I am not ecstatic over the change. If anything they are taking away a part of the game while adding nothing.

san

Day 620 - so vet... I guess. I don't consider myself one. In any case, my view of the changes is that they've simply increased the difficulty. Again, 8h grind was a non-issue for someone who only goes for top progression in PVE, but going from level 150ish to 300 as a base is an issue.

Once the changes are in, I may play the odd PVE, but I will carefully pick which ones, and mostly for the ISO.

SandsTheMan

I'm too tired to elaborate much, but essentially I feel my experience is punished with difficulty spikes which those players without 4* characters aren't going to see.

SangFroid

I am on day 850+ and a fairly hardcore PVE and PVP vet for at least 2yrs+

So the scaling and balance of the nodes still really takes away from the fun of the game and adds a ton of time spent. The new format is just so unenjoyable and cuts down on both the earning of rewards as well as any free time you would hope to have. Taking away the trivial/easy nodes is a huge mistake as it adds tons of grinding for very minimal rewards and therefore further reduces a fairly easy source of ISO for every player at every level of the game which in an ISO starved game is just exacerbating the situation.

I posted this in the PVE thread but it is very easy to get a good idea lost in the multiple pages..

My solution

1-No Refresh timers
2-Old format 3 easy 3 hard 3 essential
3-The nodes scale up very slightly each time you beat them
4-Easy nodes and Hard nodes give 0 points after you claim all the rewards
5-Essential nodes give you 20pts(4*), 5pts(3*), 1pt(2*) after all 7 rewards earned and continue to scale up indefinitely

People can now 100% play whenever they want and not be tied to a grind window All of the rewards are achievable with the same effort as before Roster diversity continues to be important but stronger roster should have a more favorable chance of placing better The system can be played casually but the top 10 grinders will still be able to separate themselves based on how much they are willing to play The targets for each top end reward should be very easy to calculate and people will be sure each event how much they have to grind (i.e. if I grind all nodes 3x I will get the 25cp or whatever multiple D3 chooses)

Daiches

My views about this fiasco has been expressed in other posts and abundantly to CS.

CT1888

Day 614, >20 3* championed, 1 4* championed.
In general, I have zero interest in playing pve for position, far too much time required for me, so I use it for iso farming when I feel like it and have the spare time. The new style actually makes things a bit more interesting for me and is encouraging me to play a bit more (plus I suffer like everyone from the great iso drought). It's maybe psychological, the feeling that I amn't being 'penalised' for hitting the one node several times in quick succession for the CP or 500 iso.

I do sometimes bracket snipe for new characters <36 hours out though, amd normally the 8 hour schedule done sub optimally gets me top 100; this system might turn me away from that, given the time for x7 clears or greater.

As for pvp, to date the difference has been slightly positive if anything. Hasn't changed how I play.

Xenoberyll

D3 seems hellbent on making every fight a challenge but if i want constant challenge i wouldn't be playing a match 3 game.

You ever play a RPG and went back to the starting grounds to show that ugly cavetroll your new lvl 100 magic battleaxe? Fun! That area was challenging in the beginning but you've outgrown the mobs there and went on to different areas with different and stronger monsters. MPQ keeps you in the starting ground always but your surroundings constantly grow stronger as you improve, so it's getting harder to kill the monsters instead of easier.

The easy nodes were the only nodes in the game were you feel like your roster got better. With MPQ it feels like improvement gets punished: opponents scaling grows constantly harder, and if you score well you get harder brackets until you don't win anymore.

Eddiemon

Xenoberyll wrote:

The easy nodes were the only nodes in the game were you feel like your roster got better. With MPQ it feels like improvement gets punished: opponents scaling grows constantly harder, and if you score well you get harder brackets until you don't win anymore.

There's this whole DDQ game tab where the opponent levels never adjust, maybe you should try playing it?

As a veteran I'm loving the changes.

Xenoberyll

Eddiemon wrote:

There's this whole DDQ game tab where the opponent levels never adjust, maybe you should try playing it?

As a veteran I'm loving the changes.

Very gracious of you to grant me the smallest part of the game

Linkster79

westnyy2 wrote:

I'm a veteran with 3 champed 5's and 20 or so champed 4's. I have no opinion on the pvp changes as I didn't really notice any. I still the same 5 or 6 people on my way up to 1k. If only 2 are not in my check room then guess who is getting multi-tapped. It sucks but there aren't many options. Letting me beat up on 4 star teams isn't the answer either so I guess it will remain the same.

PVE is a whole different story. The new format is terrible. While the strength of the opponent is clearly an issue, my main concern is the additional time I need to play to compete for top honors. I suppose I'm not locked in to playing at a certain time of day, but with 8 hour timers that was never an issue. If I had a meeting then I'd play a little earlier. Not a huge deal. I always chose my shard based on when I needed to do the final grind. That still hasn't changed. Nothing sounds better than grinding for two hours only to have to grind again to begin a new sub or event. Boy that sound awesome! Once these changes are permanently applied then my competitive PVE days are over most likely.

So to answer your question, no I am not ecstatic over the change. If anything they are taking away a part of the game while adding nothing.

Firstly, congratulations on obtaining a great roster. I wanted to get that out of the way so as not to sound too snarky. Now for my question. With a roster like that why, apart from new character releases do you feel the need to take top honours in story events? Surely max progression and top 50 would suffice? I'm really not trying to sound like an **** just really curious as story events have long offered a lesser return on tine/effort than versus events.

Daiches

Linkster79 wrote:

westnyy2 wrote:

I'm a veteran with 3 champed 5's and 20 or so champed 4's. I have no opinion on the pvp changes as I didn't really notice any. I still the same 5 or 6 people on my way up to 1k. If only 2 are not in my check room then guess who is getting multi-tapped. It sucks but there aren't many options. Letting me beat up on 4 star teams isn't the answer either so I guess it will remain the same.

PVE is a whole different story. The new format is terrible. While the strength of the opponent is clearly an issue, my main concern is the additional time I need to play to compete for top honors. I suppose I'm not locked in to playing at a certain time of day, but with 8 hour timers that was never an issue. If I had a meeting then I'd play a little earlier. Not a huge deal. I always chose my shard based on when I needed to do the final grind. That still hasn't changed. Nothing sounds better than grinding for two hours only to have to grind again to begin a new sub or event. Boy that sound awesome! Once these changes are permanently applied then my competitive PVE days are over most likely.

So to answer your question, no I am not ecstatic over the change. If anything they are taking away a part of the game while adding nothing.

Firstly, congratulations on obtaining a great roster. I wanted to get that out of the way so as not to sound too snarky. Now for my question. With a roster like that why, apart from new character releases do you feel the need to take top honours in story events? Surely max progression and top 50 would suffice? I'm really not trying to sound like an **** just really curious as story events have long offered a lesser return on tine/effort than versus events.

Because ISO drought is real for everyone and the bigger rosters need it even more. And the extra HP and champ levels never hurt.

westnyy2

Because like the above poster stated, its all about the ISO. Also, I'm competitive by nature so what's the point of having a nice roster and not use it?

Am I taking away rewards from people who may need them more? Perhaps, but blame D3 for lumping us all together.

As someone who has played the game for over 2 years and seen a lot of the ups and downs, I just simply don't enjoy the new pve structure but I am glad they are at least trying things.

beyonderbub

Day 817; not as vet IMO as the hardcore posters on here. Have all characters released. All 3s champed. i just use whoever is boosted for the event to get thru it. I liked new pve style for convenience of getting all rewards right away because I wasn't interested at all in placement but not happy with grind either, so effort to reward ratio is not satisfying. Based on responses here, I think I may change strategy: focus on pvp and lightning rounds to address ISO shortage. Then bracket snipe pve for top 25 placement to get 3 3* covers to level up my champs and get them past the 3* nerf hump.

nic13

Day 832 vet. 3x champed 5*, 22 4*, all 3*'s.

I play pve for iso, cp and most importantly new characters. I win most new char pves I play in and don't care about ranking for the rest.

The new difficulty.. OK I can live with it.

The new grind is ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. It is unreasonable to expect people to play 5, 6 hours at a shot. I will not do it, and I will absolutely not buy hp to pull packs to get the new char. The latter is something I do now to add covers more quickly.

hopper1979

850+ days here, I have leveled and championed all 3 stars and I am now putting iso into many of my 4-stars so this may change but, I am very happy with the new pve system. The first one was horrible the level jump was just ridiculous but now it is very manageable. I can play every node with regen characters, Draken, Groot and Patch, X-Force etc and get all the points and rewards in a night without worrying about waiting 8-hours or trying to squeeze in more play the following day when I am at work. Again, I have no maxed 4-stars even though I have them all, and even though I have multiple covered 5-stars I have not touched them. This may be making the scaling issue easier for me but this will be the first event all week that I should be able to get the CP reward at the end. It is virtually impossible the way it is now if you have a job. I cannot stress how happy I am with this change.

scottee

I'm on day 815 with 10 champed 4*s and horrible 5* luck.

As someone who decided a long time ago that PVE wasn't worth the effort, I like the change to full point clears. I only usually jump in for new character releases or if I have extra time, to grab CP. But scheduling life events around 8 hour clears is annoying so I try not to do it. So allowing play whenever is an improvement for casual PVE'ers like me.

The main problem is for those working for top progression prizes. I'm not 100% confident it's as bad as everyone is saying yet because we haven't seen the changes settle over time. It's possible that NO ONE will be willing to grind optimally for an entire event, meaning 1st prize will go to someone grinding suboptimally, but harder than everyone else in the bracket. But we're essentially back to the way it was with 2h24m timers. Back then, it was those willing to grind the most that would win. With 8h timers, it's whoever plays the most optimally that will win. The current test puts it back at whoever is willing to grind the most.

There's good and bad with most systems, but it seems like forum majority thinks grinding to determine the winner is a step backwards, and I tend to agree.

sinnerjfl

scottee wrote:

I'm on day 815 with 10 champed 4*s and horrible 5* luck.

As someone who decided a long time ago that PVE wasn't worth the effort, I like the change to full point clears. I only usually jump in for new character releases or if I have extra time, to grab CP. But scheduling life events around 8 hour clears is annoying so I try not to do it. So allowing play whenever is an improvement for casual PVE'ers like me.

The main problem is for those working for top progression prizes. I'm not 100% confident it's as bad as everyone is saying yet because we haven't seen the changes settle over time. It's possible that NO ONE will be willing to grind optimally for an entire event, meaning 1st prize will go to someone grinding suboptimally, but harder than everyone else in the bracket. But we're essentially back to the way it was with 2h24m timers. Back then, it was those willing to grind the most that would win. With 8h timers, it's whoever plays the most optimally that will win. The current test puts it back at whoever is willing to grind the most.

There's good and bad with most systems, but it seems like forum majority thinks grinding to determine the winner is a step backwards, and I tend to agree.

The "new" optimal grind in these tests is ridiculous. You have to clear all the nodes 6 times as fast as possible (joy) then come back 24 hours later for a final grind. That is just... no, ugh. And you know people will put themselves through that for new characters, we already see people grinding down everything to 1 at optimal times as it is, no reason to believe anything will change.

If they would remove placement and keep their test system then fine, that makes sense. Otherwise it just kills any interest I had left in PVE, is that the goal, to just make PVE as unappealing as possible?

Dauthi

scottee wrote:

I'm on day 815 with 10 champed 4*s and horrible 5* luck.

As someone who decided a long time ago that PVE wasn't worth the effort, I like the change to full point clears. I only usually jump in for new character releases or if I have extra time, to grab CP. But scheduling life events around 8 hour clears is annoying so I try not to do it. So allowing play whenever is an improvement for casual PVE'ers like me.

The main problem is for those working for top progression prizes. I'm not 100% confident it's as bad as everyone is saying yet because we haven't seen the changes settle over time. It's possible that NO ONE will be willing to grind optimally for an entire event, meaning 1st prize will go to someone grinding suboptimally, but harder than everyone else in the bracket. But we're essentially back to the way it was with 2h24m timers. Back then, it was those willing to grind the most that would win. With 8h timers, it's whoever plays the most optimally that will win. The current test puts it back at whoever is willing to grind the most.

There's good and bad with most systems, but it seems like forum majority thinks grinding to determine the winner is a step backwards, and I tend to agree.

This is what I have been saying too. When you make the game a lot harder/grindier, more players will drop "optimal" grinds. There will always be a few that will go hardcore, but everything should stabilize if this becomes the norm, possibly becoming less grindy than the 8 hour refreshes.

I also still believe that when we see those levels tick up on the node when we win, we should see the ISO rewards tick up as well. This just seems like common sense.

scottee

sinnerjfl wrote:

The "new" optimal grind in these tests is ridiculous. You have to clear all the nodes 6 times as fast as possible (joy) then come back 24 hours later for a final grind. That is just... no, ugh. And you know people will put themselves through that for new characters, we already see people grinding down everything to 1 at optimal times as it is, no reason to believe anything will change.

If they would remove placement and keep their test system then fine, that makes sense. Otherwise it just kills any interest I had left in PVE, is that the goal, to just make PVE as unappealing as possible?

I'm just saying it's possible that the same amount of difficulty it took to get top 100 in a new character release might be the same difficulty if the changes stick. The changes don't make it so that 10% of the playerbase all the sudden get better and place higher than you.

It's also possible that some are doing optimally grinds right now specifically because it's a test and they want to see what an optimal grind is like. We don't know yet if people will do that for a regular event on a consistent basis. Nor do we know how many will do the optimal grind in new character release events moving forward.

Before, you had to play more optimally than 90% of the players in the bracket to get top 100. Now you have to be willing to grind more than 90% of the players in the bracket to get top 100.