S.H.I.E.L.D. Clearance Level: Event Rewards Preview *Updated

Sidlon

slidecage wrote:

so there are no longer time slices?

There are still time slices. Once you pick a level for an event, it'll prompt you to select a slice before you're actually put in a bracket.

Magic

Punter1 wrote:

Magic wrote:

Interesting table, thanks. It looks like I should try CL6 as I will get the same amout of HP, CP and 3* covers. A bit less ISO (including 1k for the Venom green I have 5 already but he is undercovered in other colors). So with the price of roughly 2k ISO i should have less competition in CL6 compared to CL7. Not sure what to do but I might give it a go.

You also lose ISO in event and sub-event ending both from Alliance and personal placement.

I think the drop in ISO is more than 2k for sure (not got the numbers to compare yet) but I'd put it closer to 4k I think, just from CL6 to CL7 given regular play and reasonable top 100ish placement.

It is all relative i guess but 4k could be correct number. However what I am hoping (if I decide to try) is I can place higher on each day and overall with the same effort (i kind of doubt it as the scaling is not touched - this is the biggest omission for vets in the new system) and therefore I would get better awards than I normally get. With 4 clears of each node I usually place just outside of top 100. If the SC6 gives me top 50 finish it might be worth it. I just need to calculate some data. Anyway - not sure I will have time for that so might as well go in as usual.

MPQ_Daywalker

oBrokeno wrote:

Just started deadpool event. Up way early to try it out. All the top scoring rosters right now in cl 5 are way above mine. Why is anyone with a 5* championed in cl5? Looking at top rosters made me kind of sad. I thought maybe if I start early and put in the work I could have a better shot at placing. But now I am competing with huge rosters still and my progression is very little help. My only useful prize to get is cp. Which I need to save for late game rister building. Again I don't get how this will help me make the 3* transition. My best prize is a long term investment and I may get 1 3* cover if I get lucky on tokens.

I have no idea why someone with a championed 5* would have chosen CL5. Maybe they mistakenly thought it would affect their scaling? That player is going to have to do all the same work they would have done in CL7, get a lot less ISO for progression & placement, and they are aiming for three covers of 3* Luke Cage for placement?

I still say that you're best off gaining XP and getting to higher SHIELD Ranks so you can start choosing CL6 -- you'll be back to getting two 3* covers per event (from progression) plus more ISO and HP.

Legasher

oBrokeno wrote:

Just started deadpool event. Up way early to try it out. All the top scoring rosters right now in cl 5 are way above mine. Why is anyone with a 5* championed in cl5? Looking at top rosters made me kind of sad. I thought maybe if I start early and put in the work I could have a better shot at placing. But now I am competing with huge rosters still and my progression is very little help. My only useful prize to get is cp. Which I need to save for late game rister building. Again I don't get how this will help me make the 3* transition. My best prize is a long term investment and I may get 1 3* cover if I get lucky on tokens.

From everything I'm reading, I can't see a reason why different CLs couldn't be in the same bracket. I mean, take what they said about the alliance ranking. The alliance gets a score, those who used CL3 get CL3 prizes and those who chose CL6 get CL6 prizes. Maybe the slices are exactly as they were, just with prizes more appropriate to your place in the game. Afterall, the CL doesn't affect scaling, points earned or anything, just the prizes, so why not lump everyone together?

CrookedKnight

Maybe because there are excellent reasons to have different PvP brackets for different CLs, and branching whatever code underlies the brackets was deemed too time-consuming/bug-inviting?

wymtime

DanBenZvi wrote:

wymtime wrote:

On another note how are new character releases going to work since you have dropped the rewards in PVE to be top 5 instead of top 10. In new releases it was top 100 got a cover. Will this be the same or different with clearance levels?

Given the progression rewards layout for CL 7 (and the unknown progression layout for 8-10), I'd be very surprised if a new character didn't end up being a progression reward in the following PVE for the appropriate CLs.

I think the new character will be in the following PVE but what about when they are the reward for there release PVE. What will the rewards structure look like then. Before clearance levels top 100 got 1 cover, top 20 got 2 and top 10 got 3. Now is it only going to be top 50 gets 1 cover?? They have moved the 1 cover from competitive reward to progression which I liked, but now when a new character is released it will be harder to win that character who will be essential the next PVE when they are the progression prize. This will make it harder to progress without that character.

MPQ_Daywalker

Legasher wrote:

oBrokeno wrote:

Just started deadpool event. Up way early to try it out. All the top scoring rosters right now in cl 5 are way above mine. Why is anyone with a 5* championed in cl5? Looking at top rosters made me kind of sad. I thought maybe if I start early and put in the work I could have a better shot at placing. But now I am competing with huge rosters still and my progression is very little help. My only useful prize to get is cp. Which I need to save for late game rister building. Again I don't get how this will help me make the 3* transition. My best prize is a long term investment and I may get 1 3* cover if I get lucky on tokens.

From everything I'm reading, I can't see a reason why different CLs couldn't be in the same bracket. I mean, take what they said about the alliance ranking. The alliance gets a score, those who used CL3 get CL3 prizes and those who chose CL6 get CL6 prizes. Maybe the slices are exactly as they were, just with prizes more appropriate to your place in the game. Afterall, the CL doesn't affect scaling, points earned or anything, just the prizes, so why not lump everyone together?

But... that doesn't make sense. If that was true, how would you ever know your placement? Your current ranking is 125 but 75 of those people may be in a different CL? The only way I can see it work is that once you join and participate, the people that you see in your rankings are the people who chose the same CL as you did.

Punter1

And Individual placement rewards in a table format.

Quick check, HP is fairly consistent between 6 & 7, so you can get a bit more if you think placement in lower CL is going to be easier.

ISO you need to be up at least 2-3 rank groupings to match, so pretty confident that dropping a CL will be a net ISO loss.

Mainly looking in my usual placement range of 50-200 groupings. As is I'm entering CL7 to get the ISO bump and 4* cover (lower tier but still a 4*).



Alliance Rewards, change in top 50 from levels CL6 to CL7 just 500 ISO

51-100 - 3* reward as opposed to 2x Elite and 500 ISO

Top 250, only 250 ISO

Legasher

_Daywalker_ wrote:

Legasher wrote:

oBrokeno wrote:

Just started deadpool event. Up way early to try it out. All the top scoring rosters right now in cl 5 are way above mine. Why is anyone with a 5* championed in cl5? Looking at top rosters made me kind of sad. I thought maybe if I start early and put in the work I could have a better shot at placing. But now I am competing with huge rosters still and my progression is very little help. My only useful prize to get is cp. Which I need to save for late game rister building. Again I don't get how this will help me make the 3* transition. My best prize is a long term investment and I may get 1 3* cover if I get lucky on tokens.

From everything I'm reading, I can't see a reason why different CLs couldn't be in the same bracket. I mean, take what they said about the alliance ranking. The alliance gets a score, those who used CL3 get CL3 prizes and those who chose CL6 get CL6 prizes. Maybe the slices are exactly as they were, just with prizes more appropriate to your place in the game. Afterall, the CL doesn't affect scaling, points earned or anything, just the prizes, so why not lump everyone together?

But... that doesn't make sense. If that was true, how would you ever know your placement? Your current ranking is 125 but 75 of those people may be in a different CL? The only way I can see it work is that once you join and participate, the people that you see in your rankings are the people who chose the same CL as you did.

Sure it does. Your placement would be based on your points. The points for progression match completely for CL3 and 6. So if you have 15000 points and someone else has 15001, you might be in 11th place CL6 and get Two Luke cage tokens. They are in CL3, make 10th place and get two Black Widow tokens. I can think of reasons why this may seem lousy, but from a practical standpoint, there's no reason I see why they couldn't have it set up this way. As long as the opponents are on the same scaling they were before and everyone is getting the same points for the same nodes like before then what reasons, practicality speaking, would prevent it from working this way?

MPQ_Daywalker

Legasher wrote:

Your placement would be based on your points. The points for progression match completely for CL3 and 6. So if you have 15000 points and someone else has 15001, you might be in 11th place CL6 and get Two Luke cage tokens. They are in CL3, make 10th place and get two Black Widow tokens. I can think of reasons why this may seem lousy, but from a practical standpoint, there's no reason I see why they couldn't have it set up this way. As long as the opponents are on the same scaling they were before and everyone is getting the same points for the same nodes like before then what reasons, practicality speaking, would prevent it from working this way?

That still doesn't make sense. For one thing, it isn't how D3/Demiurge says the leaderboard works for Clearance Levels in the original announcement as well as the FAQ you can read in-game:

"David wrote:

Moore"]Who am I competing against for these rewards?
When you enter an event you join a leaderboard comprised of other players that have selected the same Clearance Level and End Time that you have (event leaderboards still have the same maximum capacity as before). You will be competing against players in this leaderboard for Placement rewards.

Your leaderboard is what the game uses to give out placement rewards. If you finish in 101st place in an event, after the event ends, you can see that you're in that place in the leaderboard and you receive rewards based on that placement.

CrookedKnight

Legasher wrote:

practicality speaking, would prevent it from working this way?

The main thing that would stop it from working that way is that you absolutely do not want players at different CLs competing in the same PvP brackets. Put CL5 and CL7 players in the same PvP bracket, and you might as well not have any CL5 placement prizes above 100th place because almost none of those players are going to rank highly enough to win them (unless they're in slice 2). Moreover, the few who do place that high shouldn't be getting worse placement prizes than the people they beat, since unlike in PvE it's not like they're facing differently scaled enemies.

So if you accept that PvP is going to be divided up by Clearance Level, then not dividing PvE that way would require severing the two game modes' bracket-making code. Hands up, everybody who thinks that would go well and not get super bug-ridden!

slidecage

sucks i joined level 7 and it pushed me into level 6 hopefully ticket will get it fix but doubt it... only thing i miss is the vemon right

Legasher

_Daywalker_ wrote:

"David wrote:

Moore"]Who am I competing against for these rewards?
When you enter an event you join a leaderboard comprised of other players that have selected the same Clearance Level and End Time that you have (event leaderboards still have the same maximum capacity as before). You will be competing against players in this leaderboard for Placement rewards.

Ok. I can accept that... Assuming they didn't change their minds when they saw how bracket sizes were going to shake out, or just forget and code it wrong.

CrookedKnight wrote:

Legasher wrote:

practicality speaking, would prevent it from working this way?

...Put CL5 and CL7 players in the same PvP bracket, and you might as well not have any CL5 placement prizes above 100th place because almost none of those players are going to rank highly enough to win them (unless they're in slice 2). Moreover, the few who do place that high shouldn't be getting worse placement prizes than the people they beat, since unlike in PvE it's not like they're facing differently scaled enemies.

So if you accept that PvP is going to be divided up by Clearance Level, then not dividing PvE that way would require severing the two game modes' bracket-making code. Hands up, everybody who thinks that would go well and not get super bug-ridden!

You mean... basically the way it's been forever? I have a single champed 4*, and all but six 3*s champed, but I've only gotten a 1000 progression prize twice, and absolutely never come close to top 100. Part of that is the sick feeling I get from coming out of a node that was supposed to give 38 points, getting 15 and losing 79, so I don't play very often at all (I get my token, maybe two, then I go do something else). But we've all been lumped into the same events for forever, why would the prizes one gets being different cause bugs in the system? I accept that it's not going to work that way because David said so (I'll keep my skepticism to myself), but again, your MMR isn't changing, the points you get for each match isn't changing. ONLY the prize payout from your efforts is, so how would it really be that different? Really, if you don't have at least one foot well into the 4* transition, top 100 doesn't exist anyways. Also, I was actually suggesting this would be the case for both PVE and PVP, not two separate systems. I'm completely unconvinced they've done anything that will make PVP any better. It's broken beyond repair.

tizian2015

I see another matter in this reward structure.

The old reward structure was able "to trap" me in this game, because i got with a relative weak roster very good rewards (because low scaling results in high placement) so i bought hp to get slots etc., I´m sure many of you know this story. If CL6-7 represents the old rewardstructure, how a new player with cl1 can get in touch with any kind of a good roster? The time a new player needs to build up a roster is even prolongued, so here is my thought: If I want new players to get "trapped" in this game, they need high rewards, if I will not grant them (because they are not cl6-7), one possibility is: The game is definitely not designed for new players anymore. How long a new player should play to get to 4*land? Three years? When the whales are already in 7* land?

From my perspective CL1 should represent the old rewards structure and every level above should grant much more and better rewards. That would make more sense to me than what we have now.

CrookedKnight

Yes, the same way it's been forever....except that with the Clearance Level system coming online, suddenly the useful prizes get even farther away for transitioning players. A system where lower-level players have to finish in the top 50 for guaranteed 2- or 3-star covers doesn't work if they're being forced to compete directly against CL7 players' scores.

DFiPL

CrookedKnight wrote:

Yes, the same way it's been forever....except that with the Clearance Level system coming online, suddenly the useful prizes get even farther away for transitioning players. A system where lower-level players have to finish in the top 50 for guaranteed 2- or 3-star covers doesn't work if they're being forced to compete directly against CL7 players' scores.

Except they don't. There are guaranteed 2- and 3-star covers in the progression, and some of those are covers that used to be reserved for top 100 finishes (or higher) now being given out to everybody who plays a minimum amount.

That's the fundamental flaw people grousing over the placement rewards are making here: people finishing top 100 or top 50 aren't getting less than they used to, cover-wise. They're seeing that cover shift into the progression and other rewards replace that cover.

Now, for the sake of discussion, let's examine the argument that that perhaps the rank 51-100 reward isn't as good as it used to be because it substitutes RNG for what used to be guaranteed.

"Isn't as good" will be a little more subjective. Maybe you value the placement cover more highly than whoever is essential during the event. But hey, good news, that cover will be available in early progression in the next event. But if you look at the prize as straight-up "worth"? The ISO value of a 3* guaranteed cover is, generally, 500 ISO. Yeah, champion levels can result in other prizes if the timing is right, but in general if you sell a 3* cover, you're getting 500 ISO. If you apply a champion level, your baseline prize is, on average, 500 ISO. If you're getting 3 Elite tokens for a 75th place finish, your worst case scenario in terms of value is 750 ISO (and those covers may yield champion levels themselves). Your best-case scenario, from an ISO-value standpoint is 1500 ISO. In neither of those circumstances are you 'losing' value. If the prize had been a 2* cover, three standard tokens still yields, worst case, 300 ISO worth of fodder (and could go up to the same 1500).

There is a reasonable argument to be made over one's agency in roster progress, with the introduction of RNG, but if you're finishing top 100, you're grabbing an extra 2* or 3* cover in progression and you're getting tokens with an ISO value greater than the previous reward (and that ignores the boost to the ISO reward for top 100).

Lower level players *are* sacrificing some control in the new setup. I'm not sure I'd agree with "useful prizes being further away."

Legasher

DFiPL wrote:

CrookedKnight wrote:

Yes, the same way it's been forever....except that with the Clearance Level system coming online, suddenly the useful prizes get even farther away for transitioning players. A system where lower-level players have to finish in the top 50 for guaranteed 2- or 3-star covers doesn't work if they're being forced to compete directly against CL7 players' scores.

Except they don't. There are guaranteed 2- and 3-star covers in the progression, and some of those are covers that used to be reserved for top 100 finishes (or higher) now being given out to everybody who plays a minimum amount.

That's the fundamental flaw people grousing over the placement rewards are making here: people finishing top 100 or top 50 aren't getting less than they used to, cover-wise. They're seeing that cover shift into the progression and other rewards replace that cover.

Now, for the sake of discussion, let's examine the argument that that perhaps the rank 51-100 reward isn't as good as it used to be because it substitutes RNG for what used to be guaranteed.

"Isn't as good" will be a little more subjective. Maybe you value the placement cover more highly than whoever is essential during the event. But hey, good news, that cover will be available in early progression in the next event. But if you look at the prize as straight-up "worth"? The ISO value of a 3* guaranteed cover is, generally, 500 ISO. Yeah, champion levels can result in other prizes if the timing is right, but in general if you sell a 3* cover, you're getting 500 ISO. If you apply a champion level, your baseline prize is, on average, 500 ISO. If you're getting 3 Elite tokens for a 75th place finish, your worst case scenario in terms of value is 750 ISO (and those covers may yield champion levels themselves). Your best-case scenario, from an ISO-value standpoint is 1500 ISO. In neither of those circumstances are you 'losing' value. If the prize had been a 2* cover, three standard tokens still yields, worst case, 300 ISO worth of fodder (and could go up to the same 1500).

There is a reasonable argument to be made over one's agency in roster progress, with the introduction of RNG, but if you're finishing top 100, you're grabbing an extra 2* or 3* cover in progression and you're getting tokens with an ISO value greater than the previous reward (and that ignores the boost to the ISO reward for top 100).

Lower level players *are* sacrificing some control in the new setup. I'm not sure I'd agree with "useful prizes being further away."

Actually, I think he was responding to me, agreeing with you. I was saying 3* prizes are out of reach for a 2* transitioner anyways under the old system, it doesn't make a difference if they are lumped together or not. He was saying that the new system will let them at least get the appropriate prizes for their rank and that if they were lumped, then they might be way down the latter and getting even worse prizes than before. I really don't think it matters much. Lower tiers might hit placement easier, but they're going to miss out on the points that higher rosters inject into the bracket and lose out on progression. Higher tiers are going to have a bunch of points, but for each lower level player you lose, you're more likely to be put with yet one more OML/PH player. People were complaining about monotony before, it's about to get just a little worse... Really, I like the CL system they've set up. I just think an entirely separate issue is just how bad PVP is, and I don't think this makes it better in any way, shape or form.

DFiPL

Legasher wrote:

Actually, I think he was responding to me, agreeing with you.

Okay. Fair enough.

I was saying 3* prizes are out of reach for a 2* transitioner anyways under the old system, it doesn't make a difference if they are lumped together or not. He was saying that the new system will let them at least get the appropriate prizes for their rank and that if they were lumped, then they might be way down the latter and getting even worse prizes than before. I really don't think it matters much. Lower tiers might hit placement easier, but they're going to miss out on the points that higher rosters inject into the bracket and lose out on progression.

The points stronger rosters inject doesn't matter for PVE, and I don't think we've yet seen an example of what PVP prizes are going to look like in each rank, have we? Until we do, it's hard to be definitive about the quality of prizes people at lower levels are going to see. I also tend to suspect that if CL1-4 are going to have fewer points up for grabs because people are playing at higher tiers, PVP's progression rungs would be adjusted appropriately. For PVE, the points available are the same for everybody regardless of SCL, so you can require 36k for max progression from a CL3 roster same as you would a CL7. If there are fewer points in the bracket at CL3, though, you're going to have to tighten the progression ladder to account for that. So, again, not entirely sure we can say definitively that they'd lose out on progression.

Higher tiers are going to have a bunch of points, but for each lower level player you lose, you're more likely to be put with yet one more OML/PH player. People were complaining about monotony before, it's about to get just a little worse... Really, I like the CL system they've set up. I just think an entirely separate issue is just how bad PVP is, and I don't think this makes it better in any way, shape or form.

PVP is goofy. I wish there were two separate point totals being tracked: progression and placement. Track the number of points you've won overall for progression prizes, and debit/credit that total as necessary to reflect your placement. If I win 30 PVP fights at an average of 30 points, I should be getting whatever progression prize is appropriate to that total. But if I'm getting beat 50 times along the way because my roster isn't as strong as others who are playing, that should impact my placement, not my ability to earn progression rewards.

And as someone who doesn't PVP much at all, I can tell you right now that I'd PVP a whole lot more in a system like that.

Crowl

DFiPL wrote:

Except they don't. There are guaranteed 2- and 3-star covers in the progression, and some of those are covers that used to be reserved for top 100 finishes (or higher) now being given out to everybody who plays a minimum amount.

That's the fundamental flaw people grousing over the placement rewards are making here: people finishing top 100 or top 50 aren't getting less than they used to, cover-wise. They're seeing that cover shift into the progression and other rewards replace that cover.

The real issue is that there is a clear discrepancy between the players and the devs as to how many rewards are actually enough, most people would suggest that the amount of rewards at the level they can fully use are woefully insufficient.

Take a new character release for example, outside of luck with event tokens, the devs think that 0.2% of the playerbase getting more than one colour of a character is enough, whereas they could easily afford to give out one cover to every player in that pve event, all 3 covers to the top 1% (t100) and slightly more to t20 and above. While they might lost out marginally on a whale who stops after max-covering that new release, most of those would simply be a few more levels into their newly championed character so no real loss there and at the lower end there will tend to be more small purchases as more people need more roster slots.

With new releases coming so frequently and the rng getting ever worse as far as getting the ones you need, they need to realise that shifting some rewards from placement to progression is not the answer, they needed to be adding rewards to progression while not reducing those in placements.

hodayathink

Crowl wrote:

DFiPL wrote:

Except they don't. There are guaranteed 2- and 3-star covers in the progression, and some of those are covers that used to be reserved for top 100 finishes (or higher) now being given out to everybody who plays a minimum amount.

That's the fundamental flaw people grousing over the placement rewards are making here: people finishing top 100 or top 50 aren't getting less than they used to, cover-wise. They're seeing that cover shift into the progression and other rewards replace that cover.

The real issue is that there is a clear discrepancy between the players and the devs as to how many rewards are actually enough, most people would suggest that the amount of rewards at the level they can fully use are woefully insufficient.

Take a new character release for example, outside of luck with event tokens, the devs think that 0.2% of the playerbase getting more than one colour of a character is enough, whereas they could easily afford to give out one cover to every player in that pve event, all 3 covers to the top 1% (t100) and slightly more to t20 and above. While they might lost out marginally on a whale who stops after max-covering that new release, most of those would simply be a few more levels into their newly championed character so no real loss there and at the lower end there will tend to be more small purchases as more people need more roster slots.

With new releases coming so frequently and the rng getting ever worse as far as getting the ones you need, they need to realise that shifting some rewards from placement to progression is not the answer, they needed to be adding rewards to progression while not reducing those in placements.

First thing, your math is off. T100 is the top 10%, not the top 1%.

Second thing, unless they intentionally break what they're doing here for the events after new releases (which is possible at this point), it looks like even if they shorten the amount of covers they give for new releases, CL7 will see the character end up as a progression reward for the next event (where they will be required).

Third of all, more than likely giving more covers to the top 100 won't make them more likely to spend money. Most of the people intent of whaling out a new release are already playing hard enough to get more than 1 cover during the release, and I don't think I see adding an extra 2-3 covers making much of anyone go "Hey, how about I spend a hundred bucks trying to get more covers now that I have 3/4 of them".