Story Difficulty Scaling - New Test: Meet Rocket & Groot

MarcusGraves

So what is the optimal way to do this new system, just hit the nodes until the timers show up and wait some?

seshoma

So far what ive seen is that the lvls of the enemy are around the same as the normal pve. So that is a good sign.
But 4 times to clear a node before the timer starts?
Thats ridiculous ,that just means you're grinding more.
The 24 hour timer is really awesome andcause of that you dont need to play mpq after 8 each hours ( if you're playing for the ranking).
Didnt yet grind down a node but already read that it will always give 20 points not like the usual 1.
That is just so wrong and should be removed just leave the 1 point.
Don't see any improvements in the pve test just more grinding.
I'll rather have the normal pve as it is

Oldboy

I'd rather have the normal/old pve rather than this new system.

Too many clears in the beginning of the sub. Make it 2 clears and it should be ok.

Ground down nodes should remain at 1 point instead of 20 points.

wymtime

So I did my first 4 clears. I did one clear then waited a couple of hours and did 3 more s is such a grind and I am only in 48th place. Having the levels keep going up will make this a big health pack suck. What it also tells me is this PVE style is not play when you want if you want placement it is play for 3 1/2-4hrs straight if you want to do well. Can you imagine 7 day PVE trying to grind PVE for 3-4 hrs in one sitting while still trying to do well in PVP.

I am good with the scaling and with the way the levels increase after each win, but please bring back the 8hr timer. One 2hr grind per sub is long enough the new system is two 2hr grinds back to back.

carrion_pigeons

I'd much rather do all the grinding in one sitting as opposed to scheduling my life around it, but honestly, I'm still never going to do either.

From a competitive standpoint, I think this is a better design, too. Making it so the optimal strategy is to do everything at once makes it more rewarding to play well. There are a lot of people who particularly benefit from the 8-hr cooldown that might complain, but those people don't deserve that advantage at the expense of better design.

Of course the real best design would just be to abandon the concept of competitive PvE since it isn't fun or fair and adds nothing to the game. Once that's gone, it should hopefully become painfully obvious how overshot the progression reward requirements are: making people play each sub 3 ( or more) times in order to reach progression is still 2 more than should be necessary.

As for the increasing levels, they feel okay? I still think it's a little demoralizing, and I'd prefer if if all the levels went up together after a full clear as opposed to each node individually, but I don't mind it.

I think the trivial nodes might be a little too trivial now. I was expecting level 30-40 characters and am seeing level 12-20 characters.

Electrovirus

Leadggb wrote:

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?

These concerns are not issues. Difficulty is relative to your roster so your opponents scale with your own level. The effort of beating your opponent is the same, low level rosters fight low level opponents and high level ones fight high levels. So it takes on average the same number of moves. They want it to take longer to level up your characters is you go, it is not linear progression. If they start handing out more rewards for higher level placements then in a few months you will be seeing six star heroes.

sinnerjfl

carrion pigeons wrote:

From a competitive standpoint, I think this is a better design, too. Making it so the optimal strategy is to do everything at once makes it more rewarding to play well. There are a lot of people who particularly benefit from the 8-hr cooldown that might complain, but those people don't deserve that advantage at the expense of better design.

I'm sorry, what, it's a better design that people have to grind for up to 5 hours in a row? really? That's better?

...

Oldboy

Just tried grinding down the easiest trivial non-loaner node and then hitting it further for multiple 20 points. After checking the boards, i think a number of people are doing this. Surely this can't be intended? If it's a design flaw, i'm surprised the devs would still let this continue. If it's intended, then it's just **** design.

There is no way such a flaw would actually help to reduce game time. It only increases it.

Electrovirus

Vhailorx wrote:

Just a comment on the tone of player responses in this thread.

We players strongly expressed several complaints about the previous tests. The 20 point minimum was not (as I recall) one of the top complaints (though it was mentioned a bit). We spent much more time pointing out the problems with scaling, too many clears being necessary for optimal scoring, the lack of trivial nodes, and the overly high prog rewards.

It remains to be seen if this new test is successful, but all of those complains have theoretically been addressed if not solved.

It is very true that the 20 point minimum may cause problems at the top of each bracket. Pve should not be a test of who can grind 20 point trivial nodes fastest. So if the final scores are all bunched up and trvial grinding is meaningful, then we should get agitated.

For now I think we should thank demiurge for at least trying to address our earlier complaints, and then point out the potential problem (like the 20 point issue) as points of interest to watch during the upcoming test. We shouldn't declare that the devs are idiots and the 20 point minimum shave broken the game.

They should put all those players in the same bracket and let them waste their lives trying to beat each other

Ducky

So for kicks I hit the lowest trivial a bunch of times for an hour while watching TV.

End result? 1,500 extra points. That's ridiculous.

MarcusGraves

DuckyV wrote:

So for kicks I hit the lowest trivial a bunch of times for an hour while watching TV.

End result? 1,500 extra points. That's ridiculous.

this would explain why I'm around 10k with the top people being around 13k in my bracket atm

Pongie

Just say you can beat a trivial node in a minute (this is already generous)

20 points x 60 mins x 24 hrs = 28,800 points per day

3 days event = 86,400 points
4 days event = 115,200 points
7 days event = 201,600 points

All without having to hit any other nodes. Should be easy to write a bot to do that

Kjeldbjerg

Like the new format. Just close the node after 7 clears and remove placement rewards, so the most competitive players don't feel forced to grind endlessly.

WEBGAS

Like the new format. Only one thing to add :
Remove placement rewards and change into a reward system based to a purely progressive system.
Put the covers at 1.20 - 1.40 and 1.60 the score requested for the 25cp progression.
Anyone will chose to play when and how much he/she wants without being forced by the actual competitive system.
Who likes to be competitive just got the PVP system.
Please, make this final change and the new PVE will be all we are asking for

P.S.: cut easy node points from 20 to 1 ...it s not fair to be rewardered with the same points as the hardest nodes

DTStump

With this new format, I've finally accepted that I'm not going to fight for placement rewards anymore. I have almost all 3* covers I needed and shooting for top10 could kill the game for me at this rhythm. New characters can wait, I still have old ones to roster.

So in this test, I'm targeting the node CPs and 7500 a day for all the progression rewards. In the first sub, this is somewhere between 3 and 4 full clears. I'm ok with that.

Oldboy

DTStump wrote:

With this new format, I've finally accepted that I'm not going to fight for placement rewards anymore. I have almost all 3* covers I needed and shooting for top10 could kill the game for me at this rhythm. New characters can wait, I still have old ones to roster.

So in this test, I'm targeting the node CPs and 7500 a day for all the progression rewards. In the first sub, this is somewhere between 3 and 4 full clears. I'm ok with that.

I'm thinking about this too. This new format will just encourage me to just play for CP/progression and node rewards. After that i'll just stop playing the sub. No way am i going to spend all my free time trying to play catch-up hitting a 20pt node.

Quebbster

I'm certainly glad I don't need Cyclops covers. Grinding the easy node over and over may not take that long, but it's not fun either.
If the 20 Point minimum stays PvE will simply become a matter of who can grind that node the most. That ain't fun.
So far the rest of the system seems very promising though. Did the first four clears with Little difficulty, will do Three more clears at the end of the phase to get all the rewards at least. Hopefully that should be enough for top 50.

Gmax101

I think the 20 point grind is a bit ridiculous...

But unless the developers finally see sense and do away with competition in PVE there has to be away of separating out the players that would clear all nodes 7 times...

as for the actual scaling, I think I am happy... granted I am getting a kicking from the final two nodes of this opening sub after 4 clears on each... but that seems about right, they have always been a nightmare... rest of the event is fine, but Hood protected by Bullseye and a muscle is just a pain when they are high level... you just cant kill the muscle fast enough to prevent those big tiles coming out...

And everyone loves overscaled Juggs and 2 Muscles

But over all I think the scaling is a nice challenge....

which means they can tick off that test and start working on the stuff we actually care about...

True PVE and Better Rewards

Lukoil

easy fix - make 3 trivial nodes minimal to 1 point. All other nodes keep at 20 points.

Quebbster

Lukoil wrote:

easy fix - make 3 trivial nodes minimal to 1 point. All other nodes keep at 20 points.

I like this idea.