Meet Rocket & Groot - COMPETITIVE players feedback

13

Comments

  • BigBZ32
    BigBZ32 Posts: 150 Tile Toppler
    I'm in slice 5 and started maybe 8 hours after start time. I did 4/4 in about 1.5 hours on sub 1. Had really nothing to do, so I decided to 20pt grind. It wasn't a constant grind. Maybe 10-20 clears an hour, which each clear takes seconds. About 3-3.5 hours left of sub, I finished rest of clears and noticed I was top 2. So, I grinded 20pt the last 1.5 hours for a top 2 finish.

    What I noticed is that there weren't many grinding the 20pt. I don't think I'll do it again. It's a lot of time needed, but at the same time there's nothing else to do so it sort of quenched my MPQ thirst. Progression was easily hit after the 4/4 clears in sub 2.

    Seems for the casual player only looking for progression this setup is ideal. I'm indifferent about what you need to do for top placement. Putting in extra time is fine if that's your model for top placement. I didn't mind playing this way, but it feels more fair the old 8hr way in a competitive sense. It's like someone mentioned above, what's the model they're going for? More effort, knowledge of timers, or better rosters?
  • SnowcaTT
    SnowcaTT Posts: 3,486 Chairperson of the Boards
    scottee wrote:
    No one still has answered the question:

    How should winning in PVE be determined?
    a) the player who's willing to grind the most
    b) the player who has more knowledge of optimal point strategy and carries it out most efficiently
    c) the player with the strongest roster who can beat harder nodes
    d) ?


    At one point in MPQ's history it was a). Then bounced back and forth with b). Lately it's been solidly b). This new test pushed it to c). Now with the tweaks it's back to a).

    None of these answers is correct over another, it's just a matter of how you want to design the game.

    I think their original designs (3 hour/8 hour subs) were a) (time spent) in part to get people into the game often. I've argued it should be c) - but I've also argued all rewards should be progression. I think b) is a fine (even great!) solution - if it was put on a progression scale.

    I'm in S1 and the top scores are near 40K - end grind of Sub2 hasn't started, still S3 to go. So progression was set really low, but folks are going to have to grind hard to try to get the only rewards that anyone cares about (T10). Another of my arguments is the 4*'s should be T100 already since there are so many, but set that aside...what would a progression format (with rubber-banding off) look like?

    30000 - 25 CP (devs said this is three clears this time)
    ??? (in between) - 1.5K ISO (rewarded to T20 currently)
    ??? (four clears) - greenflag.pngicon_quicksilver.png
    ??? (five clears) - redflag.pngicon_cyclops.png
    ??? (six clears) - 50 HP (rewarded to T20 currently)
    ??? (seven clears) - blueflag.pngicon_cyclops.png
    ??? (seven clears + grind) - yellowflag.pngicon_cyclops.png

    This would be rewarding strategy of clear times - and therefore insisting that players play every day, for a decent amount of time, at a specific time (ruling out some right away). Every reward you can get for T20 is still there. Rewards would be more abundant overall, but would still be relatively rare. Competition for these rewards would be out, it would be purely how much time you are willing to spend, how accurate you are with that time, and how much you can grind at specific times.
  • Bulls
    Bulls Posts: 141 Tile Toppler
    Okey, here's a bit more data after finishing 2nd sub and first 4 times clear in sub3:
    I've started final grind of 2nd sub 104minutes before end. At this point I was after 5 clears (4 at start, 1 more 24h later) with nearly refreshed all nodes. I was at 345 place in sub2 with 18345 points and 54th in general with 34664 points.
    4 clears of each node took me 62min, I was done 42min before sub end and here's my score and palcement at that time:
    5th with 26758 points in sub2
    4th with 43374 points overal.
    I've took a break for that 40min wondering how much I'll drop before end. I didn't drop at all. Here are overal top10 poits:
    1. 47517
    2. 44406
    3. 43886
    4. 43374 (me)
    5. 42757
    6. 42742
    7. 42593
    8. 41938
    9. 41911
    10. 41677

    I've started 3rd sub imidietly - it took me 49minutes to clear all nodes 4 times, after that I was 1st both in sub3 with 19614 and overal with 63188. Next playing sesion will be tomorrow, ~2h before event end. I'm more than confident that I'll end in top10, probably even top5.

    Again I would like to ask ppl from other slices to post top10 overal points just before start of sub3.
  • Bulls
    Bulls Posts: 141 Tile Toppler
    Ofcourse ppl that are ahead of me in slice one had those points 6h earlier anyway. Im not trying to prove that noone is farming node, my point is that competitive playing can guarantee top10 spot. so we will see how your bracket will looks like at the end icon_e_smile.gif
  • St1nkf1st
    St1nkf1st Posts: 127 Tile Toppler
    Bulls wrote:
    my point is that competitive playing can guarantee top10 spot.

    Are there enough T10 sopts for all competitive players? (I am not one btw)
  • Bulls
    Bulls Posts: 141 Tile Toppler
    St1nkf1st wrote:
    Bulls wrote:
    my point is that competitive playing can guarantee top10 spot.

    Are there enough T10 sopts for all competitive players? (I am not one btw)

    Are there enough "victory" spots for competitive players in any sport? icon_e_smile.gif
    Answer to both is no.
    Even now if you're unlucky you can get to bracket with way more competitve players than places each one of them would like to achiev. Some of them will slow down during the run, others will fight to the end, most of them will finish happy, some will take that 11th/12th spot by just a few points (I still remember what in nowa release event I've ended up 11th losing by single digit points becuase I've oversleep on one of my clears).
    Whole point of this data collecting is to see if actually there's that many ppl willing to mindlessly farm 20points nodes over and over again just to push out of t10 all competitive players. If at the end of it I'll see that there's no single slice where my scores wouldn't be enough to finish in top10 then new system will be totally fine for me.
  • Philly79
    Philly79 Posts: 422 Mover and Shaker
    The grinding for 20 points adds up but as another member posted"

    "The 20-point grinding needs to go, though. If it was available only for the hardest nodes it could be alright, but having them on the trivial nodes makes it way to easy to for people to no-life their way to top placement."

    I am always a t10 finisher when I am playing for the rewards, usually t5. The slice times are a minor inconvenience compared to losing placement to someone that has nothing but time to grind 20 pt nodes for hours and hours. An alliance mate of mine has gotten over 7k from 20 pt nodes alone, that is almost 6 hours worth of hitting the same node over and over again...no thanks, does not sound like fun to me. With my current set up I start an event usually at the beginning 11pm Eastern do a clear and go to sleep. When I wake up for work, nodes are refreshed, do a clear. Clear again at 3pm, start grind 6-7 hours later and do a clear on the next sub, rinse and repeat. With the current set up I would need to clear 4x, grind the next night only to turn around and grind 4x again before bed. My health, career, and family are much more important than trying to stick to a lame **** schedule like this. I vote thumbs down....

    As I posted in another thread:

    make it true pve like boss events. Take the current event for example:

    - 25cp at 30k, 3* covers at 40k, 60k, 80k, 4* covers at 50k, 70k, 90k with a bonus cover for an alliance achievement amount, given this model it would be somewhere around 200k.

    Obviously I am just spitballing numbers as there would be no way to hit these amounts in this event, unless you have the time to do 20's 16 hours a day. Let's keep in mind that this is a game and should be fun, not a constant grind that we should put life on hold for to ensure you obtain certain digital content. Keep that for PvP...
  • Stax the Foyer
    Stax the Foyer Posts: 941 Critical Contributor
    St1nkf1st wrote:
    Bulls wrote:
    my point is that competitive playing can guarantee top10 spot.

    Are there enough T10 sopts for all competitive players? (I am not one btw)

    In some vet brackets, yes. In some vet brackets, no
  • Lopan15
    Lopan15 Posts: 225 Tile Toppler
    I was driving cross country so I missed the start of the second sub. I was in 21st after the first as I stopped at 7/7 and finished those 5 hours before the first sub ended. I started second sub 8 hours after it opened and after 4/4 I was just in the top 100 but obviously behind on the points curve by 8 hours. I was curious how much I would have to grind/exploit the easiest node for 20 at a a time. I don't have a job so don't judge me as being too crazy. I ground that node off and on for the next 36 hours and after about 7 hours and 7500 pts gained I was in second. Finished the 48 hour sub (ground all to 20) and was in third when the last sub started. So, old PVE, if you were late or missed one 8 hour refresh, it wasn't huge as you could grind and catch up some. With this new PVE, if you can't get that 4 hours in at end of one sub/start of next sub, you will have a hard time getting back in to decent placement without a massive time investment. Of course if they take away the 20 pt thing (which I think they should) then you are pretty much out of luck unless you find an easy bracket. I think it took me about 4000 points just to get back into top 50 so still a huge time sink to get back into decent rewards (which still aren't great).
  • Bulls
    Bulls Posts: 141 Tile Toppler
    Stax the Foyer wrote:
    St1nkf1st wrote:
    Bulls wrote:
    my point is that competitive playing can guarantee top10 spot.

    Are there enough T10 sopts for all competitive players? (I am not one btw)

    In some vet brackets, yes. In some vet brackets, no
    Yeah. But you can say exactly same now, right?
  • Stax the Foyer
    Stax the Foyer Posts: 941 Critical Contributor
    Bulls wrote:
    Stax the Foyer wrote:
    St1nkf1st wrote:
    Bulls wrote:
    my point is that competitive playing can guarantee top10 spot.

    Are there enough T10 sopts for all competitive players? (I am not one btw)

    In some vet brackets, yes. In some vet brackets, no

    Yeah. But you can say exactly same now, right?

    That statement is true under both systems but that doesn't mean they're equivalent. Under both systems, some brackets will have too many people willing to play competitively to have them all finish T10. That's because of the vet brackets which severely penalize people in terms of effort/reward ratio as soon as they start getting slotted into them.

    In the new system though (especially if they're silly enough to leave the 20 point floor in place), the performance ceiling will be even higher, and the experience will be even worse for those players than it is now, which is saying something.
  • Bulls
    Bulls Posts: 141 Tile Toppler
    Tbh if someone would like to waste such big amount of time to farm node over and over again - let that person do so. Aside of rewards this game should be mostly about enjoyment from playing it, right? I simply don't belive it would have huge impact on me if they would leave it as it is in this test. Sure, I see some solutions that in my opinion would be better (put bottom line at 5 or even 10 points to discourage farming them for hours but leave an option for players that are missing small amount of points for their targets; leave 20 points farmable only on essencials/last node, etc. Heck, I would love them to close nodes after 7th clear - that would reward fastest players with best time management). But all those are just my personal opinions.
    I dont say that what we have presented in this test is best, but I definitly wouldn't mind if it would stay like that.
  • Daiches
    Daiches Posts: 1,252 Chairperson of the Boards
    The sub winner in mine and OJSP's bracket ended with 10k over second and 14k over normal play.

    THAT'S 700 20-POINT MATCHES!!!!

    7 HUNDRED.


    Is this what you want, D3?
  • Bulls
    Bulls Posts: 141 Tile Toppler
    7 hundred - that's like 350min if it takes him 30s each time... 6h to get that insignificant reward for such a mind numbing activity... if anything I would just pity that person...
    And yeah guys, your bracket doesnt look too friendly... would I get at least 10th spot in it? Wonder if it will go deeper at the end or rather slow down (mind it those crazy farmers had 48h now without any other interesting activities).
  • wanghiking
    wanghiking Posts: 24 Just Dropped In
    I am in favor of the four times of refresh and play at your own pace thought, however, for those competitive players (I was, but when seeing repeating 20 points nodes again and again, I just let it go), it's just pathetic to do this.
  • ClydeFrog76
    ClydeFrog76 Posts: 1,350 Chairperson of the Boards
    Daiches wrote:
    The sub winner in mine and OJSP's bracket ended with 10k over second and 14k over normal play.

    THAT'S 700 20-POINT MATCHES!!!!

    7 HUNDRED.


    Is this what you want, D3?

    "How do you kill that which has no life?"
  • revskip
    revskip Posts: 1,005 Chairperson of the Boards
    Start of sub 3 overall scores, vet bracket slice 5

    TMurphyNYC 55620
    Merrick Keys 48390
    generalTsobot 45622
    GRUDGEKEEPER 43537
    Adrono88 43233
    Akira2K5 41975
    Sledge 41869
    BlackMamba007 41399
    Sparked 40252
    TxMoose 39996

    #60 El Skipo 31862

    I don't have Thoress and didn't grind any of sub 2 past check marks. I did grind a little at 20 points on day 1, no more than 8 or 9 times though. I'm already ~1900 past progression before the third sub starts which is nice since I don't think I can make top 50 so I'll just go for check marks again and should be fine to end top 100 without any crazy grinding.

    Most of the names in that top 10 are very familiar names.
  • SnagglePuss
    SnagglePuss Posts: 702 Critical Contributor
    Not much new to add other than.
    Sub 2
    I was second person to finish 4x clears.
    Hit the 24hr mark perfectly.
    Completed final grind with 20 minutes on the clock, i find myself in 6th place on

    32958
    28829
    28478
    27488
    27028
    26765 - me

    I might expect someone behind to overtake in the last few minutes but instead i find myself down the leaderboard a few hundred to thousand points behind people.
    pretty much everyone has been hitting those 20 pt node. I'm clinging onto T5, as the Cyke blue is the only one i need. Perhaps i should join the masses, but no i refuse that route.
  • madsalad
    madsalad Posts: 815 Critical Contributor
    Dear God D3, get rid of the 20pt min. Get rid of timers. Get rid of placement. Extend Progression out to infinity. Do something other than this. Players are getting 20 times the amount for grinding the end of a node than they used to; of course this will be abused. Or was this your intention all along?
  • Bowgentle
    Bowgentle Posts: 7,926 Chairperson of the Boards
    madsalad wrote:
    Dear God D3, get rid of the 20pt min. Get rid of timers. Get rid of placement. Extend Progression out to infinity. Do something other than this. Players are getting 20 times the amount for grinding the end of a node than they used to; of course this will be abused. Or was this your intention all along?
    But they couldn't see this coming!!!!!!!!!11111111111111

    Except we've told them this would happen days before the start of the PVE.

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