New Mission Difficulty Test: Enemy of the State *Updated

Keegan

"David wrote:

Moore"]*Update (06/14/16)

Hello,

Thanks for all of your feedback so far on the current testing. We're aware that some players are reporting tied scores and a few scoring anomalies (which are being investigated). Here's word from Anthony at Demiurge:

"We intentionally set up this run of Enemy of the State so that there was a finite number of points - meaning there's an absolute top score, and multiple players can hit it. When looking at previous runs of events with the new mission difficulty, we did not think that there would be many ties as almost no one played all missions until they were all drained out of points. Once the event has finished, we will look at how many ties there are and how well people performed in general."

Thanks, Dave. I know you're the messenger here

Anthony, this logic - we did not think that there would be many ties as almost no one played all missions until they were all drained out of points - does not make sense if you think it through. Almost no one played all the missions until they were all drained out of points because they did not have to for top placement. People are doing it now because they have to for top placement. You said that you did not expect people to grind the 20 point nodes the way that they did for top placement. People will do whatever they have to for top placement. Your team is setting the bar for top placement and you're surprised that people are hitting it, and going above it. These things should not surprise Demiurge at this point. The reasons that this is a pattern of surprise on Demiurge's part is quite curious.

to gun

Never have I lost sleep over this game until now.... Shame on me for joining a slice that begins / ends at 1 AM my time. That's my fault. However, the top ten finishers for each daily / 2 day sub are finishing around 5 - 6 AM. I'm currently in 5th overall, and obviously tied for first point wise (with the remaining top 20) so I'm very curious how ties will be decided. At this time, seems like the only option is to invest several hours at the beginning of the last sub to guarantee top placement. If that's the behavior this intends to drive, then congrats on denying me sleep the next couple nights and ruining PVE for me! If only I didn't want / need X23.

Please find something better than this for future tests

Pylgrim

"We intentionally set up this run of Enemy of the State so that there was a finite number of points - meaning there's an absolute top score, and multiple players can hit it. When looking at previous runs of events with the new mission difficulty, we did not think that there would be many ties as almost no one played all missions until they were all drained out of points. Once the event has finished, we will look at how many ties there are and how well people performed in general."

Tsk... if only... if only you could have had access to a massive group of beta testers, beta-testing your game for over two years, deeply in touch with the player's mentality and willing to provide several pages worth of warning that such a thing would happen the moment the test was first announced... oh wait! Turns out that you actually got that! So I guess the true "if only" needs to be "if only devs listened to us..."


"Your audience is good at recognizing problems and bad at solving them." -Mark Rosewater, Magic The Gathering's Head Designer for 20 years.

fmftint

As a commander of one of the longest runing PVE alliances in MPQ, all I can say is, really? You didn't think there'd be so many ties? There are players who score upwards of 90% of the theoretical maximum points every event, that's difficult, playing for green checks, EASY!

How do you know so little about your players, how do you not see issues that we see simply by reading your test write up?

Vhailorx

"David wrote:

Moore"]*Update (06/14/16)

Hello,

Thanks for all of your feedback so far on the current testing. We're aware that some players are reporting tied scores and a few scoring anomalies (which are being investigated). Here's word from Anthony at Demiurge:

"We intentionally set up this run of Enemy of the State so that there was a finite number of points - meaning there's an absolute top score, and multiple players can hit it. When looking at previous runs of events with the new mission difficulty, we did not think that there would be many ties as almost no one played all missions until they were all drained out of points. Once the event has finished, we will look at how many ties there are and how well people performed in general."

I appreciate that test data is valuable and that unexpected outcomes are, by definition, unanticipated and only show up in real world testing. But something about this statement from Anthony seems a bit off. There are years' worth of data that the top 20-50 PVE grinders will play every node down to 1 if the rewards are sufficiently tempting. Hell, during the last test with 20 pt. trivial nodes there were multiple posts on these boards that read something like "grinded the easiest node 170 times for the hell of it 'cos I had some free time." And there was even an earlier run of the gauntlet that functioned more or less identically to this event (except that each node required 1 hit rather than 6-15). So it was absolutely predictable that the top of the leaderboard would be crowded with max scores and the event would a be a race for the premium placement rewards.

So what did Anthony mean when he said "we did not think there would be many ties"? Specifically, what constitutes many? I will happily concede that in bracket of 1000, 15-20 ties may not constitute "many" in an absolute sense. But in a world where the only meaningful eldergame rewards in PVE are for top 10 finishes, 15-20 ties is a fairly big deal.

Overall, I again applaud demiurge for trying something significantly different from the earlier tests, and I applaud them for providing substantive communication to the players both before and during the test. I don't know that this system is a good long-term solution; but accepting the idea of finite points is potentially a step in the right direction.

Personally, I would like to see significantly better progression rewards, and much worse placement rewards, especially if the difficulty curve is going to remain this high. If I have to grind lvl 390+ nodes 4 times each (after they hit max scaling) ever node, then I sure as hell want more than 25 CP and a 3* cover. I think that demiurge should increase its target 4* rewards for PVE events. Rather than giving out covers to 10/1000, they should target 100/1000. Switch to a prog-only system, and then adjust the scaling difficulty until only the top 10% of players can actually hit the top prog rewards. They should have some idea of how much difficulty will gate out weaker rosters by looking at gauntlet and civil war data. there is some risk that too much difficulty will anger the player base. But I think that people don't mind being gated out by challenge when the rewards are still sufficient. Look at civil war. 3* only alliances had a REALLY hard time finishing round 8. But not too many people cared because they were still earning multiple 4* covers.

DarkGriffen

I really don't like this version. I did the first wave and grinded to the end and wondered why I was still doing badly. I looked at the scores and everyone had the same score. So its basically a race to see who can get it all done first...Im not crazy about it at all. I ended up not playing the rest because of how dissatisfied I was.

veny

1 CP missing, 6/7 rewards looted - fighting against 20k HP Gorgon and his friends? All i have are maxed 3*s... GG

Pylgrim

Vhailorx wrote:

I appreciate that test data is valuable and that unexpected outcomes are, by definition, unanticipated and only show up in real world testing. But something about this statement from Anthony seems a bit off. There are years' worth of data that the top 20-50 PVE grinders will play every node down to 1 if the rewards are sufficiently tempting. Hell, during the last test with 20 pt. trivial nodes there were multiple posts on these boards that read something like "grinded the easiest node 170 times for the hell of it 'cos I had some free time." And there was even an earlier run of the gauntlet that functioned more or less identically to this event (except that each node required 1 hit rather than 6-15). So it was absolutely predictable that the top of the leaderboard would be crowded with max scores and the event would a be a race for the premium placement rewards.

So what did Anthony mean when he said "we did not think there would be many ties"? Specifically, what constitutes many? I will happily concede that in bracket of 1000, 15-20 ties may not constitute "many" in an absolute sense. But in a world where the only meaningful eldergame rewards in PVE are for top 10 finishes, 15-20 ties is a fairly big deal.

Yep. I once placed 21 (in a new character PvE) after grinding like crazy. 20 people simply grinded far beyond the all-greeen ticks. I really cannot fathom how at least that many people tying at highest points would be anything less than expected.

Ctenko

veny wrote:

1 CP missing, 6/7 rewards looted - fighting against 20k HP Gorgon and his friends? All i have are maxed 3*s... GG

Nah. I have a largely three star roster, I have only one max covered 4 and that is X-force. He's level 200. Most of my roster is level 175 by average, except the five stars that give me level 370 guys.

I can use a 265 Fist, 251 Switch and 248 C.Mags, and clear every node. It sucks, but it is completely possible to do.

Though if I can reiterate a point likely made a Million times. Getting a completely perfect score in this event, within 12 hours of day refresh, and only being top 50.

I'm a little annoyed.

(Edit: I have 144870 points. My slice ends at 9 pm. I got my all greens, by 3 am. Within six hours. I am in 29th, and even the 32nd guy has max points right now. The 33rd guy doesn't, but he's only 152 off. One clear of 'The Gorgon' Node. They didn't think there were going to be ties?)

Buret0

"David wrote:

Moore"]*Update (06/14/16)

Hello,

Thanks for all of your feedback so far on the current testing. We're aware that some players are reporting tied scores and a few scoring anomalies (which are being investigated). Here's word from Anthony at Demiurge:

"We intentionally set up this run of Enemy of the State so that there was a finite number of points - meaning there's an absolute top score, and multiple players can hit it. When looking at previous runs of events with the new mission difficulty,

we did not think that there would be many ties as almost no one played all missions until they were all drained out of points. Once the event has finished, we will look at how many ties there are and how well people performed in general."

You guys need to trust your users more.

Not only did we predict this as soon as the event was announced, the reason we were so quick to predict it was because we had already had the discussion long before it was ever announced:

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=31626

Buret0

Buret0 wrote:

You guys need to trust your users more.

Not only did we predict this as soon as the event was announced, the reason we were so quick to predict it was because we had already had the discussion long before it was ever announced:

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=31626

Please read this discussion we had about a year ago... I loled pretty hard before the first page was even done.

seraphiel

"Hand Fortress" opened for me less than 90 minutes ago.

Someone in my bracket is already at 28000 points, which I would guess is close to the maximum if not there already.

So we're competing against people with dramatically different roster levels as well as people who started far earlier on the missions, and whoever gets the maximum first is the winner.

In what way is this supposed to fair, fun, or interesting?

simonsez

"David wrote:

Moore"]*Update (06/14/16)

When looking at previous runs of events with the new mission difficulty, we did not think that there would be many ties

I swear to god, your conclusion had better not be, "We believe we can solve this problem by ramping up the difficulty even further".

Mawtful

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Bowgentle

*sigh*

Step 1: Bracket all PVE monsters into the same bracket and make them fight tooth and claw for T10 for 18 months, showing them that they have to clear down to 1.
Step 2: Set a max score than can be reached my getting green check marks, with no 1 point missions to break ties.
Step 3: Be surprised that there are ties because the crazies do what they've been shown what they need to do for 18 months.

Smudge

Bowgentle wrote:

*sigh*

Step 1: Bracket all PVE monsters into the same bracket and make them fight tooth and claw for T10 for 18 months, showing them that they have to clear down to 1.
Step 2: Set a max score than can be reached my getting green check marks, with no 1 point missions to break ties.
Step 3: Be surprised that there are ties because the crazies do what they've been shown what they need to do for 18 months.

Step 4: ????
Step 5: Don't profit.

edgewriter

I like most of the changes. The thing I think is missing is rewards scaling to the difficulty.

If I play a node multiple times and the levels of the enemies are higher, I shouldn't receive a scant 70 or 100 ISO. Also critical boosts and standard tokens should go away for higher nodes.

The majority of us can't put in the time necessary to break into the top 100. Playing the same nodes over and over just to get a two star as a reward at the end of the event is lame. Make the rewards for the individual nodes worth our time.

TimGunn

what are the ties like in your brackets? mine there are only 6 people with a perfect score, but i'm guessing mine ended up being a not very competitive bracket. i'd like to hear what other people are seeing.

Lukoil

TimGunn wrote:

what are the ties like in your brackets? mine there are only 6 people with a perfect score, but i'm guessing mine ended up being a not very competitive bracket. i'd like to hear what other people are seeing.

i totally forgot that first main node with 4 clears is going to perish after first sub-event and so i am missing those points. but even without those point i am at 20-24th place

Bowgentle

TimGunn wrote:

what are the ties like in your brackets? mine there are only 6 people with a perfect score, but i'm guessing mine ended up being a not very competitive bracket. i'd like to hear what other people are seeing.

In every sub there have been at least 25-50 people who cleared with full points, probably even a lot more.

My T10 is full of people with max points, can't see below but I expect at least 25 people tied.