New Mission Difficulty For All Story Events *Updated

Vhailorx

Adam, your airport story must have taken place in the single day (unless you had a very long layover). And you only talked about grinding all nodes to green checks in a single sub. But no pve event has fewer than 2 subs. You story is incomplete without knowing what you did in the other sub.

However. You are correct that achieving max prog in the current system with sub optimal play requires a bit more effort. If 3 optimal clears gets max prog, then 4-5 sub optimal clears will do the same. So that's a 30-60% additional work at most (depending on how sub-optimally you play, and you also get extra node rewards too). No matter how you do it, max prog requires 1-2 hours a day of playing minimum, so 'casual' players are outside the scope of the conversation.

I would suggest that making life a bit better for non-optimal players who also want max prog is not worth making life much much worse for competitive players. (note that I have not played pve competitively since xpool!s release event.)

BlackSheep101

Yes, your story is either inaccurate or you cherrypicked an event that's not representative of the scoring structure in general. If you pick an event with a 20% higher progression threshold or 40℅ fewer rewards and hold to that as proof that pve without 8 hour timers will be so much better, I've got bad news for you.

I played the previous two events just taking nodes to 7/7, and max progression came early on the last day.

__Adam

Vhailorx wrote:

Adam, your airport story must have taken place in the single day (unless you had a very long layover). And you only talked about grinding all nodes to green checks in a single sub. But no pve event has fewer than 2 subs. You story is incomplete without knowing what you did in the other sub.

However. You are correct that achieving max prog in the current system with sub optimal play requires a bit more effort. If 3 optimal clears gets max prog, then 4-5 sub optimal clears will do the same. So that's a 30-60% additional work at most (depending on how sub-optimally you play, and you also get extra node rewards too). No matter how you do it, max prog requires 1-2 hours a day of playing minimum, so 'casual' players are outside the scope of the conversation.

I would suggest that making life a bit better for non-optimal players who also want max prog is not worth making life much much worse for competitive players. (note that I have not played pve competitively since xpool!s release event.)

I don't want to get too bogged down in my specific experience; at the end of the day it's anecdotal evidence. The point was I got to experience the the least and most optimal grinds back to back and the difference was quite marked.

My entire gripe is exactly what you stated: "If 3 optimal clears gets max prog, then 4-5 sub optimal clears will do the same". That's complete and utter ****. The fact that placement and progression are bound by the same mechanic, that favors a specific audience, is infuriating. Take the current event for example; the sub optimal player caps out at 1k iso vs 25 CP for the optimal player... despite the same effort. That's insane!

I find your last comment to be incredibly selfish. It's not 'a bit better'; it entirely blocks progression beyond 3* for the player who can't schedule play sessions 8 hours apart. 25 CP literally takes me weeks to acquire 1 CP at a time clearing nodes. That same effort could be near 30 CP per event instead of < 10 if my schedule allowed it. You'll never convince me that kind of disparity is fair; it's straight up broken.

By definition there are far more 'casual' players getting **** than 'competitive' players benefiting from the current system. It totally makes sense to change the system to benefit the majority. The new system benefits everyone going for progression and favors a different group for competitive play. For anyone that isn't benefiting from the current status quo, that's a win.

If you consider progression AND placement rewards, the new system is objectively better.

Vhailorx

--Adam wrote:

I don't want to get too bogged down in my specific experience; at the end of the day it's anecdotal evidence. The point was I got to experience the the least and most optimal grinds back to back and the difference was quite marked.

My entire gripe is exactly what you stated: "If 3 optimal clears gets max prog, then 4-5 sub optimal clears will do the same". That's complete and utter ****. The fact that placement and progression are bound by the same mechanic, that favors a specific audience, is infuriating. Take the current event for example; the sub optimal player caps out at 1k iso vs 25 CP for the optimal player... despite the same effort. That's insane!

I find your last comment to be incredibly selfish.

I don't think my statement was particularly selfish. As I stated, I am NOT a competitive PVE player. When I play PVE, I only care about the 25 CP (or occasionally top 100 if I want a new release and don't want to wait for the PVP event). So I don't understand why you think I am acting purely out of self interest.

It's not 'a bit better'; it entirely blocks progression beyond 3* for the player who can't schedule play sessions 8 hours apart. 25 CP literally takes me weeks to acquire 1 CP at a time clearing nodes. That same effort could be near 30 CP per event instead of < 10 if my schedule allowed it. You'll never convince me that kind of disparity is fair; it's straight up broken.

c'mon adam, 'entirely blocks progression'? That's a nice looking straw-man there! As discussed by myself and others, and conceded by you in prior anecdotes: no one is absolutely barred from progression in the old system. They might have to grind a bit more if they play sub-optimally, but the only barriers are time and roster strength. (you are also making an assumption that three straight clears in the new system will result in a max prog reward. That might be true, but also may not, depending on where demi sets the prog. there is no particular connection between the scoring format and the level at which the max progs have been set.)

By definition there are far more 'casual' players getting **** than 'competitive' players benefiting from the current system. It totally makes sense to change the system to benefit the majority. The new system benefits everyone going for progression and favors a different group for competitive play. For anyone that isn't benefiting from the current status quo, that's a win.

If you consider progression AND placement rewards, the new system is objectively better.

Yes, there will probably always be winners and losers in any format change. (And it always sucks to be the loser.) But I would argue that casual players are absolutely not getting **** in the old system. (and for the sake of clarity, I am thinking of a 'casual' player as someone who plays the game for 60 minutes or less per day, may be quite skilled/experienced, but isn't particularly concerned with achieving a target placement or prog result. I honestly think that any passtime on which a person spends 60+ minutes a day is hard to characterize as casual, but I am trying to err on the side of caution)

For lack of better method, I think it's good idea to make proportionate changes (so it's not a good idea to really screw some people over in exchange for a small benefit to others. But it might be a good idea to make life a bit harder for some people if it will produce a large benefit to others).

Under the new system optimal scores require players to grind every node 4ish times at the end of each sub, and then turn around and grind the new sub nodes 5ish times as fast as possible. That is both a pretty grueling grind and also a heavy strain on healthpacks (but $$$$ for demi, maybe?). That's a significant down side for an admittedly small group of people (maybe 30-100 per bracket, depending on the perceived value of the rewards). And what is the benefit? players can hit nodes 4 times for max points whenever they want during a sub. Yay! That's a good thing (don't misunderstand me, I would prefer a true play-when-you-want format, like the gauntlet). But how many people actually benefit from that change? I think the number is vanishingly small. Here is my reasoning:

(1) As discussed above, the competitive players at the top of each bracket are worse off (no benefit)
(2) The people who want to grind the nodes down to green check marks to mine for iso are going to hit progression anyway, and they might grind even if that weren't true because iso is their motivating factor, not placement (no benefit)
(3) The casual players who play a match or two here or there throughout the day aren't going to hit the max prog reward under either system because they just don't play enough matches (no benefit)
(4) the semi-hardcore players who care about max progression, but don't to do any more (ie the people who would grind each node once every eight hours but would not do an end-of-sub grind, nor mine for iso or cp) will have an easier time fitting the game into their schedules. (seemingly a real benefit for this group)

I think those broad descriptions more or less describe everyone (though it's obviously a generalization). I submit that my group #4 is the smallest group listed above. There are very few people interested enough in the game to put in several hours a day but NOT so interested in the game to mine for extra resources. Maybe you are one of those people, I don't know. But it seems to me that this new format will create a significant downside for some players without actually offering much benefit to everyone else.

Jabrony_Geoff

"David wrote:

Moore"]Greetings!

Here's word from Anthony at Demiurge with details on the new mission difficulty system for Story events:

o Each mission has 7 rewards. (Note: we are still reviewing Wave Missions and their loot tables)

I'm actually fuming right now and here's why.
I remember the Rocket and Groot test event like it was yesterday and you guys seemed to have missed it's most appealing and salient point.

Each mission only had 4 or 5 rewards to each mission/node.

It reduced grinding, it allowed us to sleep and importantly it allowed more people to reach 25 cp.

I think 7 rewards is to high as highlighted by an alliance member who quit recently blaming time constraints.

It seems like you have your test events mixed up. I urge you to seek out the feedback from the Rocket and Groot test event and find out why people liked it.
I guarantee you it was because of the reduced amount of time to hit 25cp.

7 rewards is just another grindfest , we dont want to grind anymore.

Please reduce this for the of all players, please.

Peace out

DFiPL

Jabrony Geoff wrote:

"David wrote:

Moore"]Greetings!

Here's word from Anthony at Demiurge with details on the new mission difficulty system for Story events:

o Each mission has 7 rewards. (Note: we are still reviewing Wave Missions and their loot tables)

I'm actually fuming right now and here's why.
I remember the Rocket and Groot test event like it was yesterday and you guys seemed to have missed it's most appealing and salient point.

Each mission only had 4 or 5 rewards to each mission/node.

It reduced grinding, it allowed us to sleep and importantly it allowed more people to reach 25 cp.

I think 7 rewards is to high as highlighted by an alliance member who quit recently blaming time constraints.

It seems like you have your test events mixed up. I urge you to seek out the feedback from the Rocket and Groot test event and find out why people liked it.
I guarantee you it was because of the reduced amount of time to hit 25cp.

7 rewards is just another grindfest , we dont want to grind anymore.

Please reduce this for the of all players, please.

Peace out

Maybe wait and see how many of those clears are needed to get the 25 CP? Pegging the CP rewards in the essential and 'hardest' nodes to the 4th clear suggests to me that around 4 clears/sub is what they're eyeing for max progression, with the rest being ISO farming for people who want more ISO.

mckauhu

This system will only lead to "who have most time to spend grind-fest" instead of it should be "who is the most skilled player"

hodayathink

mckauhu wrote:

This system will only lead to "who have most time to spend grind-fest" instead of it should be "who is the most skilled player"

The current system isn't about the "most skilled" either. It's a basic combination of board luck and a decently developed roster. And a progression only system absolutely wouldn't reward just the "most skilled" player either.

Nick441234

I do think this new system will make it easier to hit max progression, as long as D3 don't push up the total too far.

Under the current system, you could hit max progression in 4 clears everyday, even without allowing them to fully refresh everytime. I know this because its what I've been doing for months now. I'm in the 10pm slice. I do a clear at 10pm, another one before work around 8am, the 3rd clear around 1pm and the final clear at 5pm. The 3rd & 4th clears are not for maximum points and I still hit max progression.

Anyone saying you cant do it under the current 8 hour system without allowing them to fully refresh is talking nonsense.

Wjohnson992

simonsez wrote:

--Adam wrote:

it entirely blocks progression beyond 3* for the player who can't schedule play sessions 8 hours apart.

You're either bad at math, or incredibly lazy.

......20 seconds each.

I can't believe you've posted a tinykitty novel in this thread, 4 extra minutes a day.

I have doubts over this math tinykitty myself.....


This undoubtedly improves PVE and increases rewards. Not everyone is a 2 year player.

And those who enjoyed grinding for placement can still grind to their hearts content.

Halleck

As someone who prefers, and often needs, their leisure time to be concentrated at one part of the day, this significantly increases the event-points per hour-played I can earn. I'm grateful for the change.

The mission rewards being set by loot tables looks like a positive change as well.

Quebbster

I like that the "best" reward is placed right before the point decrease starts. I'll just play until I get the CP at the start of the sub, then decide at the end if I want the other rewards too.
Crit boosts at the very end is a nice touch too.

__Adam

There's also a 3rd option: your wildly off base math invalidates your entire argument.

In the current event, which has an almost offensive available roster, it's taking me 2-2.5 mins to clear a trivial node. Suddenly those 12 extra nodes are coming up on a half hour that I just don't have. It isn't reasonable to ask some players to clear ~39 nodes and others ~27 for the same reward. In this respect the new system is objectively better.

simonsez wrote:

advocating a system that completely breaks placement PvE

That is false; it simply favors a different population of players. From the dev PoV, it's not better or worse; it's just different.

The new system certainly isn't perfect but it has more pros than cons.

__Adam

Vhailorx wrote:

I don't think my statement was particularly selfish.

My apologies; that was uncalled for. I may have been drinking and adopted a more aggressive tone that was warranted.

You make some good points. I probably am in the minority of players who fall into the 'sweet spot' where their efforts would be rewarded if timed differently. But when that causes me to earn CP at 20-25% of the rate I would otherwise, you can probably see why I'm quite excited for the new system.

DTStump

I have been recording my efforts to get the 25 CP in the last PvEs (old system).

In each event, I do all my clears minus one in the evening, in one sitting, and then a single clear in the morning. In other words, my MO does not respect the 8h timers at all.

Here is some info:

Prodigal Sun - July - 7 day event - 23 clears - < 4 clears per day
Heroic: Juggernaut - July - 3 day event - 14 clears - < 5 clears per day
Deadpool vs MPQ - July - 4 day event - 12 clears - 3 clears per day
Unstable ISO-8 - June - 4 day event - 18 clears - < 5 clears per day
Simulator - June - 3 day event - 9 clears - 3 clears per day
The Hunt - June - 4 day event - 16 clears - 4 clears per day
Oscorp - June - 3 day event - 12 clears - 4 clears per day

So in total, in the last 28 days, I have done an average of 3.7 clears per day. In 3 of these events I had all essentials, only 2 essentials in the others. Each single time I reached the 25CP reward.

Evidently, one can easily get max progression with the current system, completely ignoring the 8h timers. I know it, I have done it very regularly.

In addition, no point decreases due to poor timing will certainly result in an increase in the points needed for max progression - OK, you're not faced with decreasing point rewards under the new system, but if you need more points in the end, it doesn't help at all.

Pylgrim

It seems to me that PVE players fall generally into two camps:

Camp A
"Eh, I cannot be bothered going (or simply can't go) for placement. I'll play here and there to get some Iso and the CP from the hardest nodes. Maybe if I'm feeling inspired enough or I have the idle time at hand, I'll push a bit harder than that to get the max progression reward".

Camp B
"I want the plcement rewards and I'll do what it takes to get them, even while acknowleding is an absurd and soulbreaking grind".

And this change seems to be the devs response to each camp. To camp A they have said, "Lo, hereby I have taken contentment in thee, blessed of my heart! Thus, upon thee I rain my boons and diminish thine weariness in which thee incur to gather this heavenly sustenance." As for camp B, they only chanted "dance, daaaaance my puppets! More! Harder! Dance, you blasted wretches, on lit coals and broken blades!"

The really curious thing is that engagement often correlates with expenditure. It is the most enfranchised subset (camp the one most likely to pour money into the game regularly. And yet, they are the ones that more often than are burdened with the hidden costs of the measures designed to help and improve the lives of the least enfranchised players.

Quebbster

Pylgrim wrote:

It seems to me that PVE players fall generally into two camps:

Camp A
"Eh, I cannot be bothered going (or simply can't go) for placement. I'll play here and there to get some Iso and the CP from the hardest nodes. Maybe if I'm feeling inspired enough or I have the idle time at hand, I'll push a bit harder than that to get the max progression reward".

Camp B
"I want the plcement rewards and I'll do what it takes to get them, even while acknowleding is an absurd and soulbreaking grind".

And this change seems to be the devs response to each camp. To camp A they have said, "Lo, hereby I have taken contentment in thee, blessed of my heart! Thus, upon thee I rain my boons and diminish thine weariness in which thee incur to gather this heavenly sustenance." As for camp B, they only chanted "dance, daaaaance my puppets! More! Harder! Dance, you blasted wretches, on lit coals and broken blades!"

The really curious thing is that engagement often correlates with expenditure. It is the most enfranchised subset (camp the one most likely to pour money into the game regularly. And yet, they are the ones that more often than are burdened with the hidden costs of the measures designed to help and improve the lives of the least enfranchised players.

I usually go for top 50 in each sub for the extra HP, but can't be bothered much about final placement. Is that camp A, B, C or Q?

Ducky

Jabrony Geoff wrote:

I remember the Rocket and Groot test event like it was yesterday and you guys seemed to have missed it's most appealing and salient point.

Each mission only had 4 or 5 rewards to each mission/node.

It reduced grinding, it allowed us to sleep and importantly it allowed more people to reach 25 cp.

IIRC, the reason it was so easy was because they forgot to turn off rubberbanding, so it was super simple to hit max prog.

drayviper32

Hello everyone first post from me here.
I would like to say thanks to D3 for this new format. Now I won't have to set my alarm again for a game. I miss sleeping in. But there will be problems with this format. The one that will affect me most is...... Well I easily get top 20 by beating every node 4 times a day. With this new format if I do the same play I will be lucky to get top 50. This format will force most people to play more that used to getting certain placement rewards.

My idea for a great PVE experience is.... and I think most people will like it.

1. Get rid of the ranking system in both personal and alliance for PVE.

2. For individual progression for you to get that 25cp. You should be required to hit each node 4 times at anytime within 24 hours. Keep all progression rewards as they are now.

3. For anyone that hits every node 4 times a day and gets the 25cp at the end will get a bonus prize package. In this prize package will be 1 4* cover for next essential, 3- 3* covers for next essential, iso like 2k-5k depending on the length of event, and 250 HP.

4. If it's a new release character event you'll get all the rewards as posted in #3 and if you clear every node 5 times everyday you'll get all 3 covers for that new character. After you get all prizes the node will be done with a red check mark.

5. For alliance rewards it will be set up as a progression like boss fight events. When alliance reaches certain points you'll get iso, hp, 1-3* cover or 1 new character cover.

6. So for non new release each node will have 4 prizes except 2 day ones that will have 8 prizes. (No Crits) For new character release each node will have 5 prizes and 2 day ones 10 prizes. (No Crits)

7. Levels will rise like it will be set-up for new format but there will be a cap on how high they go. For hard nodes and lower for essential nodes...... anyone with a average of 3 characters ranging in the 500s. The cap should be 400. 400s cap should be 375. 300s cap should be 300. And it goes down from there for lower leveled rosters.Essential nodes would be 50 levels less for a cap as stated above.

Thanks for reading all of this. If D3 ever did this it would welcome more PVE players. There's always room for improvement.

fmftint

Serious question for the devs, with the scaling cap removed, what will short handed nodes like the solo Hulk or Hood/Magneto look like? Right now the formula is sum of T3/enemies faced with a cap of 325

With my roster will I be seeing a 1150 Hulk and 575 Hood/Magneto?

I look forward to and fear your answer