Rate of Ranking: too fast, too slow?

Vhailorx

The 1-time infusion of several hundred thousand iso was unexpectedly large and extremely welcome. But it's also not likely to be repeated anytime soon (well, except by those with multiple devices and minimal scruples! ). I think it's time to turn our attention to the ongoing improvements offered by the shield rank system.

Now that we have had a few days to see how quickly we all accrue Shield rank, do people feel like it is properly calibrated?

Personally, I have earned about 600 xp since the system went live. That's with more or less average play time (i have played a bit more pve than normal but also a bit less pvp, and have recruited and opened tokens at the normal rate). So I am looking at a new rank every 7-10 days or so (with maybe a 2 or 3 rank glut every few months when I open a taco horde or equivalent).

If we assume I will rank up every 10 days (a conservative estimate, but one that makes the math easier), then shield rank has added 3-5k iso/day to my intake. That's a decent improvement, but I actually don't know if it is "enough," at least given the current rate at which my iso "requirements" grow.

How is everyone else finding the system? Am I earning XP at a below average rate? I have a made a poll to gather some data. Please indicate how long you think it will take you to gain a shield rank in average, as well as whther you think the current rate is too fast, too slow, or just right.

(note, this is not necessarily a call for more iso or a complaint about the ranking system. I just want to see how it is affecting different players and what people think it will mean in the long term. And even if the rank iso rewards are a bit low, some of that slack may be addresses with r109 and clearance levels).

dr tinykittylove

The more you play the faster you level up. Seems decent.

optimus2861

Still too early to judge, I think. For me it's bound to be quite slow, since I've firmly relegated MPQ to 'casual play only' status, but when you play casual, you don't much care anyway.

notamutant

I am a little more than 3/4s through rank 65, but I had been stockpiling for the month leading up to this, so I got a ton of one time xp when they released the patch. Additionally, I was playing tons of PvE for Spider-Woman the first day of the patch. I think right now, considering each rank will likely cost more and more xp, it will be on average more than 10 days per rank, barring the additional features coming into play. That would mean around 1 year to reach the max rank (currently 100). I would guess even more for people that don't spend money. As long as I am not locked out of events, I am okay not ever reaching the max rank, but I don't think this adds much long term iso to the game. Around 30k extra every two weeks about is great, but when a new character costing 500k to max is released every two weeks, this barely makes a difference. We will have to see what the purpose of the SHIELD ranking system ends up being.

Stax the Foyer

It won't singlehandedly fix the ISO problem, but it's awful nice to have. I think the rate of progression (I'm in the once a week or so range, I think) feels about right. Steady progress.

The rate of distribution feels good, too. Small XP popups all the time. Even makes that Critical Node clear kind of fun.

It will be interesting to see if the Clearance Rankings, or other features down the road, provide additional ways to earn XP. I think it's too early to evaluate the effect of this, standing alone, without seeing what high Clearance Rankings do to ISO flow.

Plus, I feel like I'm several steps closer to the Win Conditions / Achievements that I've been wanting for years now, so I'm very hopeful that something like that could be implemented in the near future. Something like that would really invigorate my roster and gameplay going forward.

Vhailorx

Yes, this discussion is definitely incomplete without clearance levels and any other upcoming changes in place. Presumably clearance levels will offer better cover rewards (and maybe better iso/hp/cp rewards) at the price of higher scaling. But it's not clear if shield ranks will gate the higher clearance levels, or if they will interact in some other way. So this just meant as an analysis of the existing system.

pheregas

This is pure speculation, but I'd guess your shield rank will be some sort of multiplier when it comes to iso rewards. So a 65 might give you 6.5 times the base payout.

Only time will tell, but I'd be down with that.

Jarvind

I said every 6-10 days and about right. It adds some sense of progress to even the grindy bits of the game, which is really nice, and I'm hoping they add more ranks by the time I close in on 100.

Personally I'm curious to see who's gonna be the madman that hits rank 100 inside a month. You know he's out there.

mpqr7

I'll probably go up a level every 1 to 2 weeks. You can get a lot of XP playing PVE, not as much playing PVP.

Someone who hits every achievement can probably do around 2 levels per week.

So that's good, in general, it will take around 6 months to 1 year to hit lv 100. And then we'll see what happens next!!

broll

Too soon to judge. It's looking like I'll probably be like a rank a week maybe based on the barely more than 24 hours so far.

DFiPL

Hard to say. I think it will accelerate some as I finish championing my 3* and DDQ turns into a minimum of one champion level per day added, but the XP needed to rank up will also increase over time. Will that balance out? Will it slow down? We'll see.

For now, though, between PVE play and DDQ, though, I've gained not quite 1/3 of a rank since Monday. Seems like that would average to about a level a week. An extra 22,500 ISO every week just for playing the way I already do? I can dig it.

And there's still another shoe to drop, so I think it's too early for me to judge the appropriateness of the feature overall.

TxMoose

I won't have a handle on it for a while. finishing up a second tanked pve, so last couple of days is slow, but LR heroic tokens are helping some. I imagine when I hit pve again, will be much faster. I'm probably still in the 6-10 day range, and I guess that's about right? but will get slower and slower as ranks go up.

veny

It reflects our efforts - how slowly or quickly you ascend, its only up to you.
Speed of progression is fine... what i would change are they ways how XPs can be obtained: I think we need some XPs for covers sold - yes, i am talking especially about 4*s and 5*s

TxMoose

veny wrote:

It reflects our efforts - how slowly or quickly you ascend, its only up to you.
Speed of progression is fine... what i would change are they ways how XPs can be obtained: I think we need some XPs for covers sold - yes, i am talking especially about 4*s and 5*s

yes. anything to ease the sting of selling 5* covers would be welcomed

Vhailorx

Great idea veny.

I am a long way from selling any 5* covers, but I remember how much it hurt when I had to start selling 4* covers.

westnyy2

I think as someone else posted, it doesn't matter too much. I will be rewarded based on how much I play. Can you whale to 100? Of course you can but what is the benefit? You likely don't need the iso in the first place. I understand this is just the first part but it was huge of them. I've seen more people leaving over the last few months than ever before. Hopefully the changes will allow future progression for both Vets and Noobs alike.

Pylgrim

Seems entirely fair to me. Just by playing the game minimally (DDQ plus opening a few tokens, etc) it's assured 100 XP per day. Play a decent amount and you easily double it. Play really hard and you more tha triple it. Buy stuff and you have uncapped growth. At my level of engagement (adequate but nothing crazy) and at level 65, I'll be ranking up once per week or so. 30k+ extra Iso per week is pretty sweet.

El Satanno

I reckon I'm going to be getting a level every 10 days or possibly longer assuming the XP requirement for leveling up rises. My progression is going to be rather lopsided, though. Many of you know that I hoard all my tokens from season to season. So when this went live, I almost immediately jumped from 65 to halfway through 66. I do generally hit 6/6 in Story events and always do my Taco Thing, so there's that.

At any rate, it seems to me that so long as this remains strictly a bonus Iso thing nothing needs to change. I like more Iso.

JeffCascadian

It's been two days and I'm halfway to level 54 from my initial 53. I'm betting that ranks happen much faster for lower level agents and that it takes much longer for most higher ranked agents. This is how it should be. In my opinion, there needs to be a difficulty curve on leveling up.

GrumpySmurf1002

I'm guessing 6-10 days, it's been just about 72 hours and I've gained about 600XP, w/o playing the current PvE

Using the unofficial numbers, from rank 66-100 each XP is worth about 13.7 iso. At 300 a day (me w/ PvE), that's 28770 per week, which is basically an extra 1.5 days iso for doing nothing different. I think that's sufficient.

Now the next step is to earn 1.5x or 2x XP for being a VIP. That's a way to get me to contribute to that program again.

Vhailorx

A few more observations after a full week of the rank system:

(1) 6-10 days seems like a reasonable ranking timeframe for regular players.

(2) opening tokens and leveling characters is WAY more rank productive than playing PVE or PVP. So the rank system will produce a rich-get-richer system for those to buy packs frequently. Not only will they get the covers and iso from the packs, they will also rank up faster.

(3) Since adding champ levels is an excellent source of XP, the rank system is yet another strong incentive to champ characters