Meet Rocket & Groot - COMPETITIVE players feedback

Bulls

I would like to request top10 final scores in each slice from veteran brackets

4th run of tests at, at least from scaling point of view, seems really good for most (every?) groups of progression (I'm deep into 4* - with 10 4* chars champed, rest of them nearly or fully covered but without any significant 5* - 6 covered oml, 7cov phoenix and less on others, all at lvl 270 or lower; I've also talked with ppl at 3 to 4 transition, deep into 3 or those that are on their transition from 2 to 3. Everyone seems to be happy with scaling in this run.I don't know how it looks like for ppl with 5* at 370+ and with champed 5*).
Biggest consern seems to be about that 20 points bottom line in easy nodes and how it will affect final scores if ppl start mindlessly farm them or even worse - start botting. I'm considering myself competitve pve player (going for top10 in every release of new character, top 10 or top20 in every other pve event) and I share those conserns as well so I've decided to test how far below in points will fall person who's playing in new model similar to how he was playing in old one. So I've decided that I'll do 4 fast clears of every node as soon as possible (just to start 24h timer) and then in less than 2h before end I'll do another 4 clears - that will take down every single down to 20 points and will be equivalent of someone who was playing clear at 0, 8, 16h and then 5 clears close to the end). This will allow me to see how many ppl actually farming that easy node and how far behind of top10 I'll end up.
After first sub end Im possitivly suprised (Im playing in slice one so now I'm already after first 4 clears of sub2.
My first 4 clears took me 72min yesterday (with ~5min of that was spent on a pvp as it was final fight before slice end) and put me on 2nd position. Today I've started with 100min until end of sub at position 185. 4 clears of every node (1 time over all 7 rewards, down to 20 points in every single one of them) took me 93min. Event tough I had that spare 7 min to farm a bit first easy node - I've decided not to. Here are scores of t10 at the end of sub1:
1st - 16610
2nd - 16520
3rd - 16016 (me)
10th - 15296
1st person had 600 more points so that's at least 30+ hits on easy node, 2nd one had to do that at least 25 times (assuming they've depleated every single node down to 20 as I've done). Rest of t10 probably done all 8 clears in a less optimal time or cleared less but instead decided to farm easy node. All in all this seems to be not so bad. One thing that I've noticed is that it's not worth to spend time on clearing 8th time harder or essencial nodes - they were awarding less than 80 points and took way longer than hiting 1st node 4 times in a row, not to mention health investment. If Im correct I've used 9 healthpacks during my final clear, didn't use any boosts.
After that I've started 2nd sub imidietly clearing in an optimal way - 2 into nodes (nonrepeatable), 1 hit on first easy node to unlock essencials, 4 hit on each essencial (thoress -> groot -> storm) to unlock their timers asap, back to main road and 1 hit on every node till the last one and then starting from hardest node up to 4 clears in every node on the road. Full 4 clears took me just 54 minutes so that was extreamly fast and put me on 1st position, next round of clears will be in 24h (reminder - just 1 run as it's 48h sub). Not a single healthpacks was used in this time.

Here's data after finishing sub2: click me
Here's data after finishing event: click me

Now some toughts - it doesnt look that scary from time investment point of view. Even tough I've done 8 clears in a row it still took less than 3h (compared to my usual ~2.5h in old model) and I was fine with healthpack as well (but I guess this one is a bit more luckbased, so it's worth to keep tacos around to open few and draw that additional 5 hps). If scaling will stay as it is in this test run it will be a pleasure to actually play those pve nodes. Now I just want to wait till the end and see how that 20 points in easy nodes will influence final scores and how many ppl will decide to actually farm them now - in 48h sub when there's plently of time to do so.

I would really like to ask competitive players from other slices to help collect data about how many ppl from t10 and how many times are hiting that easy node for points.


top10 overal score at the end of sub1:

Slice 1
1st - 16610
2nd - 16520
3rd - 16016 (8 "optimal" clears without easy node grinding)
10th - 15296

Slice 2
1st - 20533
2nd - 17189
3rd - 16581
10th - 15598

Slice 3
1. 16831
2. 16805
3. 16706
4. 16279
5. 16097
6. 15564
7. 15560
8. 15353
9. 15273
10. 15169

1. 20200
2. 18092
3. 16933
4. 16288
5. 16135
6. 15858
7. 15665
8. 15644 (no additional grinding)
9. 15610
10. 15283

Slice 4
1. 16814
2. 16039
3. 15628
4. 15427
5. 15299
6. 15184
7. 15151
8. 15059
9. 15021
10. 14947

Slice 5
1. 21121
2. 20408
3. 16635
4. 15712
5. 15339
6. 14793
7. 14498
8. 14474
9. 14216
10. 14067

top10 overal score at the end of sub2:

Slice 1
1. 47517
2. 44406
3. 43886
4. 43374 (me)
5. 42757
6. 42742
7. 42593
8. 41938
9. 41911
10. 41677

Slice 3
1. 57298
2. 48200
3. 47533
4. 46012
5. 45610
6. 44356
7. 44254
8. 43774
9. 43355
10. 42671

1. 58503
2. 55683
3. 52760
4. 50523
5. 49549 (me)
6. 46155
7. 45742
8. 44435
9. 44008
10. 43883

Slice 5
1. 55620
2. 48390
3. 45622
4. 43537
5. 43233
6. 41975
7. 41869
8. 41399
9. 40252
10. 39996

top10 final score:

Slice 1
1. 80086
2. 77081
3. 76104
4. 75652 (me)
5. 75553
6. 75126
7. 73554
8. 73468
9. 73093
10. 73019

Slice 2
Slice 3
Slice 4
Slice 5

LXSandman

The easiest solution is just to make the easy nodes go all the way down to 1 like they used to.

Solves the bot issues and really doesn't effect the average player very much.

For the ultra competitive it would put the focus back on hitting the timing correctly.

xdogg

Even though I've been spamming the hell out of the easy 20 point node and I'm over 20k points already in time slice 2, I think they should return to the points bottoming out at 1. Its just too easy for someone like me who has the time to outscore everyone else

Daiches

OJSP wrote:

Personally, I've beaten the lvl 37,38,38 goons to go from around 9680 to 13500.. around 170 times? I was trying to catch up with the leader, before eventually I found out that maybe they weren't playing optimally.

I'll post again with your requested data, when my sub's finished (3rd slice).

I thought you were doing that, so I decided not to do it myself and hang around with KDN at 4 clear level. I'm looking forward to comparing our scores at the end of sub 1 so we can emphatically send this PVE test to the trash bin.

Malcrof

Not actually competitive in PVE, usually just go for the cp, and if close, will go for a t50 for champ covers.

Now, Meet Rocket & Groot.

Easiest PVE in a long while.. did 4/4 noon yesterday when it started.. then randomly this morning, farmed the iso.. so 7/7 on all nodes. I do this often, and it doesn't do much in the way of placement. But here i sit, with an hour left, ranked #3 with 14.8k (sub 1).

So either loads of people are taking the event off.. in which case, not a good test.. or i accidentally became optimal!

Bulls

aesthetocyst wrote:

Between rubberbanding and overgrinding, identifying use of this approach (hard to call it an exploit when it's just sitting there, plain as day ...) will be tricky until the sub is ending.

Unless someone is overdoing it. Look for players whose score is continually bumping up in multiple of 20. Right now, the leader in my bracket is doing so. 1k ahead of everyone else (even the apparent overgrinders) and pulling away.

The players aren't at fault, they are simply playing the game the devs have offered. We've been here before in 'Story' mode. Here being the state of enabling excess and obsession.

I'm not saying it's an exploit - that's working as "intended" but if it's wise or not it's actually different matter. Also my main goal is to compare points from end of each sub - mostly just to see how many people are willing to keep spaming single node for point advantage. And as much as we can't say it with 100% accuracy number of hits, we can use my scores to determine if it's a matter of tens, hundrets or thousands hits on that node.

So as we're 1h away from end of 1st sub of 2nd slice I would like to request scores of ppl from top10 in that sub and all other subs as well. When I've posted slice 1 scores I've looked at t10 on a main event page. Then everyone can actaully see if close to perfect 8 clears without any additional repetitions on easy node would grant them top10 in their slice.

Bowgentle

Players, days before the start of PVE: "It's a bad idea to have trivial nodes with 20 points as the lowest value. People will hit those for hours."
Devs: "We'll run this as planned."

Another sign that MPQ has no idea/doesn't care about high level play.
It would have been SO easy to prevent that, too.
Oh well, let's just have another 5 PVE tests.

LXSandman

aesthetocyst wrote:

.... and that can be seen as contravening the stated goal of letting players play when they want. This 'option' could be completely intentional. Lets players 'make up' for being unable to play on the game's schedule. Let's them play whenever they want, as much as they want, and still rack up some points.

I don't think that goal has ever really been for the ultra competitive players. Letting players play when they want is all good when you are dealing with people who are not playing for Top 10. When you are at the top no change will ever let you "play when you want" and still compete.

The change I suggested would definitely be a step back for those top players though. I'm not sure what the best solution would be.

fmftint

LXSandman wrote:

The change I suggested would definitely be a step back for those top players though. I'm not sure what the best solution would be.

Best solution, lock nodes after 7/8x, the play when you want crowd can get all rewards whenever, competitive play will be a game of chicken.

Twoslot

Easily the best way to make it competitive but still allow us to play when we want would be with nodes that never decrease in value, but continue scaling infinitely. Makes it about skill plus roster, as it should be.

bataglia

Slice 2
1st - 20533
2nd - 17189
3rd - 16581
10th - 15598

GrumpySmurf1002

fmftint wrote:

Best solution, lock nodes after 7/8x, the play when you want crowd can get all rewards whenever, competitive play will be a game of chicken.

The bolded is a really weird way to spell "scrap competitive PvE"

GrumpySmurf1002

If someone wants to sit there and grind trivial nodes, for no rewards, all day long, then god bless them. Doing it once for an hour during a 48 hour sub was enough to make me question my life choices. I can't fathom doing it all day.

Endless grinding should also show up in the data the devs are farming from these tests. If it bothers them, they'll address it, otherwise they won't. Given the history of the game, however, expecting them to be proactive on this stuff is silly.

BlackSheep101

I did 4/4 this morning in s5 starting around 4 hours late, and am 15th but tied with 4th place. Number 1 is only 405 points ahead, so either they did some early grinding or mistakenly took the loaner node to 4/4. So I've apparently lucked into a sane bracket of saneness. Here's hoping the whole event stays like this!

Bulls

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

If someone wants to sit there and grind trivial nodes, for no rewards, all day long, then god bless them. Doing it once for an hour during a 48 hour sub was enough to make me question my life choices. I can't fathom doing it all day.

Endless grinding should also show up in the data the devs are farming from these tests. If it bothers them, they'll address it, otherwise they won't. Given the history of the game, however, expecting them to be proactive on this stuff is silly.

That are exactly my toughts. I really doubt there will be a lot of ppl willingly and mindlessly farm those nodes. As we can see for now slice one had place for 6 more regular optimal clears, in slice 2 few of them probably would make it to t10 as well. And that's an easy event with top 4* chars covers. I'm waiting for scores from other slices and then for rest of scores through entire event but I feel like it won't be as bad as some ppl picture it. In fact I feel that with this model grinding all nodes 7 times for all rewards without paying attention to clear times still would set up points for solid top50 and that's more than enough for me to feel satisfied.

Smudge

Twoslot wrote:

Easily the best way to make it competitive but still allow us to play when we want would be with nodes that never decrease in value, but continue scaling infinitely. Makes it about skill plus roster, as it should be.

The problem with this is that the people who have the rosters will get all the rewards, which is not really how "it should be" if you ask me. Just because we've all "worked for" our rosters more than casual players doesn't mean that someone out there with a lesser roster "deserves less" and we "deserve more" for playing harder.

Although someone in the 2-3* transition doesn't "need" 4* covers right now, they will before very long. Someone in the 3-4* transition needs 4* covers. Someone in the 4-5* transition arguably "needs" 4* covers for champion levels to accumulate more LTs to play the RNG lottery for 5* covers.

If you push scaling such that no one in the lower tiers can hope to obtain the rewards, you will immediately be alienating a lot of the player base and will see a corresponding drop in player engagement and ultimately purchasing.

Everything we see on the forum these days seems to continue to validate the need to move to a reward structure that is progression-based only, and it also argues for a tiered reward system. Give us the harder scaling, but allow us to opt into it, and make the rewards scale appropriately to the effort.

All that being said, I haven't had time to play much since the event came out, so I'll be able to reliably report more later this afternoon (Central time). Based on what I'm reading and from what I saw at the top of my bracket though, this has me slightly more hopeful that I can stay competitive in this system. The removal of the 20 point bottom and dropping it back to a minimum of 1 seems to be best though... but there is always someone out there with more time and with the ability to grind more optimally than I can. Let the psychos be psychos. Making the system better for everyone is the better solution, IMO.

The Viceroy Returns

Summary:
I'm in Slice 5, in CST. Which means this slice and most subs end at 1 AM.
I do what I usually do, and wait until the following morning to join a bracket to I avoid the crazy grinders and let them fill up their own brackets.

It took me about an hour & a half to play all of the nodes 4 times. And this was with two very strong PVE team = a Level 335 5 3 4 OML + Iron Fist and an optimal Charlie's Angles team.
I was "only" top 20 when I finished, I think rank 17 in the sub.
We'll see where I end up when this sub ends. Prolly t50 at least (which is where I usually end up in non-test PVE's), but we'll see...

Don't like the idea that some people could sit there and play the easiest node over and over again for 20 points every time. Definitely seems like an oversight that should have been obvious.
Maybe yet another test will fix this...

maltyo9

I'm a new player, just starting to champ some 3 stars. I don't normally play PVE due to the fact that I work roughly 65 hours a week, and the break I get everyday is usually me eating for 10 minutes while standing (I manage a restaurant). With my work schedule, it's pretty much impossible for me to play "optimally." That, coupled with the fact that I'm in a pvp-focused alliance, has basically treated PVE as a way to get some iso.

When I read the details for the new test event, I thought, "Awesome. I'm finally going to hit max progression in pve for the first time," which after my first run through on sub 2, slice 1, I'm clearly going to do.

That being said, I can see that this is clearly the path the devs are going to take with pve going forward. They're going to look at the numbers of people playing the event, which I'm sure is going to include pvp-focused players like myself that can see a good reward by being able to hit max progression in 2 hours a day.

If I was a competitive pve player, that would absolutely infuriate me. You've played a certain way ever since the 8 hour refresh was introduced, and played it well. Now, I can't even imagine what it would take to t10.

To the devs, kudos for running multiple tests, with tweaks everytime, and appearing to listen to the players.

Now, allow me to take my turn in line to bang the same drum everyone else has been banging for so long.

Competitive pve is not pve, it is pvp. Please just make it progression based, already.

Sorry if this isn't what the op was looking for in the responses, just thought you guys might want to hear the opinion of a somewhat competitive, new player, who is definitely on the side of the pve vets.

Daiches

OJSP wrote:

Daiches wrote:

I'm looking forward to comparing our scores at the end of sub 1 so we can emphatically send this PVE test to the trash bin.

That was exactly my intention. At least between a few of us, we have some data to present to the developers. I'd still be happy if they decide to do a stealth fix now and remove all the 20 pts everyone's been accumulating or replace them with 1 pts.

I just wanted to prove that having a trivial node that is worth some points is not a good idea. It's definitely not something that I intend to do in the future if this becomes permanent (I've mentioned this before in another thread).

By the end of sub 1. I have done the normal grind. No extra hits beyond going to 20.

I'm in 6th place. A K behind some, and 3k behind OJSP.


We might as well pronounce this test a still birth.

CaptainFrugal

So far it has not been too bad, one thing that bugs me is the CP that you can earn for beating a node. Consider the CP being mandatory to win on the first few times, it sucks getting critical boost, then having to beat a node 7 times to get the CP. For some (myself included at times) it becomes impossible to get the CP because the opposition is too tough on round 6 or 7.

Second, get better rewards. Getting a CB or 70 ISO is a slap in the face, it is not a reward.

Third, consider reducing the times to beat a node,7 times is too much.

Fourth, the vault rewards are poor at best, they should have less two star characters. Seriously the last 4 events have gotten me nothing more than two star characters, how is that a reward? I get better results from general tokens than the vaults.

Fifth, why does the scale have to increase? I don't see the point in that, but it seems that you are bent on making this happen since you keep trying it.

With that said, it does seem better than the last few tests.

roberts_2

First event was funny. Second event is boring. Let's see how comes the next chapter.