Story Difficulty Scaling - New Test: Meet Rocket & Groot

David [Hi-Fi] Moore

Hi, everyone.

We will be running a new difficulty scaling test for Story events this Sunday, 05/15/16, in the Meet Rocket & Groot event. Here are details from the devs.

Demiurge_Anthony Quote: "With the Prodigal Sun Story event we were aiming to improve the performance of people with more developed rosters. We found that these players performed better than previous runs but we would like to improve that further. We would also like to make each mission more impactful to the player's performance in general. We will be doing two things in order to achieve these goals: reduce the amount of times a mission is worth full points and reintroduce low-level missions.

Each Mission has a Large Impact on Your Total Score - We changed the amount of times difficulty changes from six to four. Once a mission has reached its max difficulty, the mission starts losing points until 24 hours have elapsed. The difficulty will start as low as it did in the previous run but it will get slightly harder after the fourth completion. Because the spread between the easiest and hardest missions are high, you will notice a more significant change in difficulty between each successive completion of the mission.

Low Level Missions are Back! - We heard that a lot of you were missing the low level missions. These missions will function similarly to normal missions in this system but the opponents levels will not increase past a set low level.

Updated Mission Difficulty Details:

• Each Mission is more impactful to your overall score

o Changed the amount of times it takes for a mission to get more difficult from six to four o Missions are worth less points after the fourth completion of the mission o Low-level missions are back

• The first three missions of each Sub-Chapter have opponents with very low levels

o Starts and ends at a low level o Follows the same points-draining model that was introduced in this run."

David [Hi-Fi] Moore

Demiurge_Anthony is hoping to be able to schedule some time to join in the thread and answer a few questions tomorrow.

stochasticism

Decreasing the number of clears to start the timer is good. We still have the issue that there are 6 clears per node before the points go down to 0. That means we go from 7 in the old sub changeover system (6 to grind to 0 and 1 to start the timer) up to 10. That still seems like too much to me.

This seems like a definite step in the right direction, though.

Pylgrim

aesthetocyst wrote:

Not sure why increasing to a higher difficulty level is needed (seriously, ****?), but reducing from 1/6th reduction to 1/4th reduction is promising (assuming that's implied by the above...). For competitive players, that means 7 clears per 24hr sub. A lot less than the 11 in previous test, and less even than the 9 in the current system. Good.

Are you sure it would only be 7? I'm pretty sure that with points almost totally restored in the node, you can grind more than 3 times before they are reduced to 20.

This is an improvement but it still means that competitive players need to do ALL the playing in one chunk during the day. That's easily 3-4 (or more) hours of continuous playing, grinding the same nodes over and over. It was always bad with the normal method, but at least 3 of those times were interspersed through the day, alleviating the monotony.

I sincerely don't see myself playing competitively PVE anymore if this method is finally established. It sure is great for casual players but it would be demanding one degree of obsession to high for me to do the competitive thing. I'm sure there are some that will, and their endurance (or madness) will be rewarded and I salute them.

Stax the Foyer

Time for Stax's Follow-Up Questions™!

"David wrote:

Moore"]"With the Prodigal Sun Story event we were aiming to improve the performance of people with more developed rosters. We found that these players performed better than previous runs but we would like to improve that further.

When you say "performance," what do you mean? Final ranking? Victory rate? Participation?

And is better measured relative to other players in the same event, or themselves or other players in previous events?

"David wrote:

Moore"]Each Mission has a Large Impact on Your Total Score - We changed the amount of times difficulty changes from six to four. Once a mission has reached its max difficulty, the mission starts losing points until 24 hours have elapsed.

Has any change been made to the amount of points lost per clear (as a percentage of maximum points) once points start being lost. Do points still increase over time once they begin being depleted, so that the timing of the later clears still matters? Or once points begin going down, do they stay at or below that level for the remainder of the sub?

The reason that I ask is that some people will do optimal clears, especially for new releases. It's not the case for most brackets, but it's the case for the veteran brackets that many of your loyal and paying customers are squished into. If you're adding clears to an optimal grind, that outweighs any other benefits that the new PvE system might provide, unless people are truly being scaled out.

Leadggb

These all sound like great changes to the new system.

However, it is still advantageous to NOT level up your roster for PVE. You face easier opponents, and get the same rewards. You also get put into a weaker bracket, giving you greater rewards for less effort. Fundamentally, I would think players shouldn't be punished for progressing through the game.

As your opponents scale up, making each match more difficult, the rewards for beating them should also increase.

Competitive PVE is PVP, and the current rewards system is leftover from the 3* meta. The rewards system needs a complete revamp. (IMO to 100% progression based, but also with an alliance progression like in boss events.)

Is there any plan to address these issues?

Ducky

Just as an aside, can we stop calling these scaling tests as they are also testing new PvE formats. Essentially everything is being tested except the rewards scheme.

an1979

EDIT. (Q gone as most are answered here and at the page #3.)


This one stays as it seems it will be true:
Going from day to day ~11 clears for optimal play. 4+ hours of play in one sitting! Huzzah!

TL:DR: IMHO - new test = more and more grinding incoming.

Ducky

Also, if the new trivial nodes are still extremely low level, I sincerely hope they don't stop at 20 pts and continue to 1 point. Otherwise the optimal strategy will to be to hit them as often as humanly possible.

BearVenger

aesthetocyst wrote:

EDIT: WAIT WAIT. "Once a mission has reached its max difficulty, the mission starts losing points until 24 hours have elapsed." So you hit it 4x for full points, then it just starts draining in value? So you can just hit it over and over and over??? Chasing it down the drain?

That can't be right .... but that what he said ...

I agree that this is more ambiguous than specific. Would you clarify whether this is or is not the same type of regenerating score "countdown to full points" timer system we're used to playing in PvE?

Also, what counts as a "developed" roster? Number of characters? Number of rare characters? Number of covers (AKA "power level")? % completion to max level? Number of levels above Champion?

seshoma

No
No
NO
Stop with the testing, just leave the old pve (test) as it is.
I rather have that than a new pve that will definitely be bad.
There have been 2 ,3 pve tests?
All have been horrible wrong so just stop it.
In place of pve testing why dont you do some iso testing and icrease the iso rate for a while and see how that effects the game .

Ducky

"David wrote:

Moore"]Demiurge_Anthony is hoping to be able to schedule some time to join in the thread and answer a few questions tomorrow.

Could you let us know when exactly (if you can) so we can be around when he is?

pabasa130

YESSS!!! Thank you!

These are the changes that specifically addresses the concerns of top 10-20 players. The previous 6-hits-before-timer-starts was wayyyyyy too time consuming. 6 hits after subevent opens and another 6 hits before end to maximise points? A new 4 + 6 isn't as nice as 4 + 4 (there are only 7 rewards after all), but I suppose there is a need to differentiate the top players.

Also thank you for keeping low level missions. It's the only place I am able to use my otherwise-deadweight 5*s. It's nice to have some casual nodes to hit before starting the intense grind.

Thank you, sincerely, for listening to our feedback on this.

fmftint

What is the stack total? 6x or 4x to 1 (20)?

Stax the Foyer

pabasa130 wrote:

A new 4 + 6 isn't as nice as 4 + 4 (there are only 7 rewards after all), but I suppose there is a need to differentiate the top players.

Only because the game groups players together in brackets based on prior performance, and awards the best rewards based on ranking within those brackets.

If they're not willing to reconsider either of those fundamental design choices, they're just spending a whole lot of developer time figuring out what shade of lipstick would look best on Porky.

jackstar0

Sounds like positive steps. I appreciate the 6 -> 4 change a lot as that will lead to fewer times someone will hit a node and receive zero reward. As infuriating as Crit Boosts are, something is better than nothing.

ngoni

Stax the Foyer wrote:

Time for Stax's Follow-Up Questions™!

Has any change been made to the amount of points lost per clear (as a percentage of maximum points) once points start being lost. Do points still increase over time once they begin being depleted, so that the timing of the later clears still matters? Or once points begin going down, do they stay at or below that level for the remainder of the sub?

The reason that I ask is that some people will do optimal clears, especially for new releases. It's not the case for most brackets, but it's the case for the veteran brackets that many of your loyal and paying customers are squished into. If you're adding clears to an optimal grind, that outweighs any other benefits that the new PvE system might provide, unless people are truly being scaled out.

This is the central question for most of us. In order to play competitively, what time commitment are you asking from the players? Have you compared it to the current system? If the new system requires more time you must go back to the drawing board.

wymtime

The issue I still see is going from 1 sub to the next. You will need 90min to 2hrs to grind the nodes down 4 times at the end then grind 4 times at the start of the event so another 90 min to 2 hrs. This is setting up the game to be 4 hrs straight of PVE.

Why can't you runs the scaling test with with the normal 8 hr timers that we currently have? The scaling is getting better but having a set number of clears before the timer goes is making the system fundamentally flawed that causes significant PVE time commitment and puts more players at risk of burn out compared to the current system

hodayathink

wymtime wrote:

The issue I still see is going from 1 sub to the next. You will need 90min to 2hrs to grind the nodes down 4 times at the end then grind 4 times at the start of the event so another 90 min to 2 hrs. This is setting up the game to be 4 hrs straight of PVE.

Why can't you runs the scaling test with with the normal 8 hr timers that we currently have? The scaling is getting better but having a set number of clears before the timer goes is making the system fundamentally flawed that causes significant PVE time commitment and puts more players at risk of burn out compared to the current system

Because it looks like, psychologically, players are more likely to play more PvE nodes when they're still standing at full points than when they see the amount of points going down and have to wait until they get back to full. Sucks for the hardcore players, but I can easily see having the points stay the same meaning the casual player plays more.

westnyy2

I appreciate you guys continuing to try and tweak the events but one major issue exists for the high end roster. This issue is the lack of roster flexibility.

I have 3 championed 5 stars and about to complete my 25th champion 4 star. Unless they are buffed for the event, my 4's are useless. I keep hearing allies rave about IM30 and 4hor together or other good combos but I'm "stuck" using the same 3 or 4 characters the entire time because scaling dictates it so. There are so many great characters to use in 4 star land but in my world get very little use. I understand I may be in the 1% club and I'm not trying to sound smug but there is no area of the game I can enjoy these characters.

Please put the puzzle back in puzzle quest so that we can enjoy it again. OML Quest sounds terrible and doesn't have the staying power. Many great ideas have been presented on this forum but please take a look at what can be done to make it fun again. Thanks.

Pylgrim

aesthetocyst wrote:

Pylgrim wrote:

Are you sure it would only be 7? I'm pretty sure that with points almost totally restored in the node, you can grind more than 3 times before they are reduced to 20.

I said "competitive"...t100ers who might shoot for t20 ... not "psychonauts who insist on squeezing every point" in a quest to finish t10. Those guys would also be spending all day spamming a node for 20pts, over and over and over .....

But yes, should have been more specific, qualified how "competitive" I meant

You make it sound as though t10+ in PVE is a completely unnecessary and excessive endeavour only for maniacs... but the truth is that there are simply no better ways for a 3* player to transition to 4*s among the extremely few there are. I've top 10 a few times and it was not because I wanted, but because I really needed those covers because my tokens were only giving me IWs. If this new system is implemented, yes, definitely will be too manic for me and even needing the covers, I will decline to kill myself. (Admittedly it also helps that I'm finally on the other side of my 4* transition, so I don't need that many covers that badly.)