SCL 8 is active

mpqr7

I found that in non-new release pves, scl 7 was pretty relaxed. Around 4 clears could get me to top 50, and my casual alliance to top 500 per sub.

However in this current non-new release eots pve, I'm barely making top 100 with 6 clears, and my casual alliance is now top 5000 per sub. Which leads me to believe that scl 8 is quite active. Maybe because it's the first pve with scl 8.

But hopefully this is a great sign! SCL 8 is very active and filled up! Which hopefully means that there are enough users to relase SCL 9 and soon SCL 10? And hopefully have a noticeable increase in prizes?

Vhailorx

Sadly, i think it means the opposite.

Brackets remain 1k, but the pool of players gets thinner. Higher cls leave just a rump of hard core grinders.

If 4/6 clears is top 50 in cl7, but top 150 on cl8, then it will mean top 300 in cl9, and top 500 in cl10.

Given that the rewards from cl7-->cl8 went broader more than higher (ie they pushed rewards down to top 300 rather than giving better rewards to the top 100), jumping up to higher cls may just mean treading water. Decent rewards will externd further down the bracket, but the bracket will be full of hardcore grinders, so the same level of effort will end with worse placement.

Polares

Vhailorx wrote:

Sadly, i think it means the opposite.

Brackets remain 1k, but the pool of players gets thinner. Higher cls leave just a rump of hard core grinders.

If 4/6 clears is top 50 in cl7, but top 150 on cl8, then it will mean top 300 in cl9, and top 500 in cl10.

Given that the rewards from cl7-->cl8 went broader more than higher (ie they pushed rewards down to top 300 rather than giving better rewards to the top 100), jumping up to higher cls may just mean treading water. Decent rewards will externd further down the bracket, but the bracket will be full of hardcore grinders, so the same level of effort will end with worse placement.

We can easily assume that someone that is in scl8 is a dedicated player, and someone in scl9 (let's assume minimum Rank70) will be even more dedicated and because of that the pool of players will be much smaller so I agree with you that in scl9 is going to be much harder to be top100 than in scl8, etc. more veteran/dedicated players will be playing in the same slice so competition is going to be really hard.

The only way of solving this is giving more rewards in higher SCL, which is what we all expected. I think progression rewards will be very important for everybody to feel that higher SCLs are worth it.

Of course SCL8 has been a big disappointment. I chose it this first time to see if subs would have better rewards, but the only big difference is that you get more 3s, which I don't think is what SCL8 should be about (it should be about getting more 4s Devs!!!!), so I might go back to scl7 (maybe we will all go back there :S)

PS: It would be really nice if Devs would release statistics regarding how many players are in each Rank (or at least SCL)

Evilgenius_9

I am in scl7, and instead of 4-6 clears a day putting me outside top 200, I am in the 20-30 range so far. I am still not exactly sure of the trade off, but it feels good to be ranked higher and getting basically the same progression awards. (Sl 64 and 3-4* transitioner with some almost usable 5*'s).

TetsujinOni

I bobbled my 2-day sub points so I'm trailing, but still T100 in SCL8 in my slice. Bracket dependent whether you get really tough matchups or not. I'm in the 4-6 clears/sub trending toward green checkmarks because ISO....

Punisher5784

Polares wrote:

Of course SCL8 has been a big disappointment. I chose it this first time to see if subs would have better rewards, but the only big difference is that you get more 3s, which I don't think is what SCL8 should be about (it should be about getting more 4s Devs!!!!), so I might go back to scl7 (maybe we will all go back there :S)

I was disappointed too until I earned 2 Event tokens per sub for the Alliance T50 placement! That is huge for T50 PVE alliances. I have opened over 15 tokens for this event and acquired 3 4*'s from the vault. I also like the fact that I do not need to go crazy for T50 Individual placement since T100 gives you two 3*'s (as opposed to T50 for SCL7), and if I don't grind like crazy for an event I'll at least earn 1 3* and 3 Elites down to T300. Plus all the extra HP! Although SCL8 is still 3* reward heavy, it's much better than SCL7. However, SCL8 should have been what SCL7 is, and SCL8 should have T150 4* placement but maybe we'll see this SCL9.

I have been able to maintain T50 with 6 clears this event, possibly T20 so my experience is different than others. It's all about when you enter the event. I normally join the slice two hours after the event and it's usually less than 300 players. Regardless I do not see the benefit of dropping down to SCL7 even if SCL8 is more competitive because again you at least earn a 3* for T300 as opposed to just Elite tokens in SCL7. SCL8 still has been rewards than SCL7 overall and with less pressure for placement.

I am curious if the SCL8 Placement for PVP will extend to T300 because it's very difficult to finish in the T50 for PVP unless you enter late in an empty slice but then it hurts your progression points.

Smudge

Yep, I'm in the "hardcore casual" group in that I normally play at least the easy nodes to 6/6 and sometimes hit all nodes 6/6 for ISO/rewards, but never grind further than that for placement, and I just don't have time to grind PvP on top of that.

SCL8 is just brutal for placement. This strategy got me T200 in sub 1, T300 in sub 2, and T100 in sub 3 (slice 5). I think I'll stick to the mostly-similar reward scheme that still benefits me in SCL7 for now.

Daiches

In 5 days only 300 players joined the only flipped bracket in my slice. And SCL7 is also going very slow.

And the 10th player imb is already 10k behind. So not really seeing that "activity" you are reporting.

carrion_pigeons

Well, for everyone who actually belongs in SCL 7, having all the grinders move away is really nice.

Maybe when they release SCL 9 and the grinders move there, SCL 8 will be nice, too.

Figure15

SCL 8 is pretty unforgiving in terms of optimal clears. I'm rank 74 but think I'll drop back down to 7 for next event.

GrumpySmurf1002

Daiches wrote:

In 5 days only 300 players joined the only flipped bracket in my slice. And SCL7 is also going very slow.

And the 10th player imb is already 10k behind. So not really seeing that "activity" you are reporting.

My bracket's not quite that good, but yeah, I'm not having problems keeping pace.

But not only that, let's put the OP in perspective. T100 still means there are 900(!) players in that SCL8 bracket that aren't doing 6 clears. That's a lot of inactivity, well more than I'd have expected for Rank 52 and higher.

Vhailorx

Well, it means there are 900 peopke not clearing 6/6 as optomally as OP. That's not quite the same thing. . .

GrumpySmurf1002

Vhailorx wrote:

Well, it means there are 900 peopke not clearing 6/6 as optomally as OP. That's not quite the same thing. . .

I cleared the sub super late yesterday, my first clear didn't come until T-6 hours left in the sub. I was ~300th after doing so.

So maybe not 900, but there's a whole onslaught of people not doing the clears, and still well more than you'd expect from a Rank 52+ player.

mpqr7

Don't forget, many rank 52 players have been playing for over 2 years and may very well be a bit tired of doing 6+ clears for every single pve... just in it for the progression prizes and not as worried about placement--

OneLastGambit

Hmmm interesting...

My experience is the opposite. I took cl8 for this one expecting to not even make t100 but am t40 with very lazy 4 clears per sub. Granted I did miss the whole of the first sub but still that's impressive for absolutely no grinding at all

DFiPL

mpqr7 wrote:

Don't forget, many rank 52 players have been playing for over 2 years and may very well be a bit tired of doing 6+ clears for every single pve... just in it for the progression prizes and not as worried about placement--

As a rank 52+ player who plays for progression, I am unabashedly in this camp.

udonomefoo

DFiPL wrote:

mpqr7 wrote:

Don't forget, many rank 52 players have been playing for over 2 years and may very well be a bit tired of doing 6+ clears for every single pve... just in it for the progression prizes and not as worried about placement--

As a rank 52+ player who plays for progression, I am unabashedly in this camp.

Rank 70 and I'm currently in 355th place because I needed a break and have mostly just been playing for cp nodes and wave node tokens, I won't even come close to full progression. That means there are almost 650 people in this bracket that are even lazier than me. I started late though, so most brackets should be more competitive.

fruinjuice

I did a count in a Line chat of how many flips there have been in each Slice of the PVE for SCL 7/8 as well as the current counts (as is known). I think it's relatively accurate and gives a bit of an idea of numbers.

I know there are a lot of people skipping EOTS as it is a 7-day, but it appears to be about 50/ 50 between 7 and 8.

Note - There is no data that indicates if any of the slices filled pre-event, so there could be extra 'thousands' depending on pre-joins

SCL 7 - 15950

Slice 1 ~ 4040
Slice 2 ~ 2700
Slice 3 ~ 3200
Slice 4 ~ 2400
Slice 5 ~ 3610

SCL 8 -14540

Slice 1 ~ 2540
Slice 2 ~ 2340
Slice 3 ~ 2340
Slice 4 ~ 2710
Slice 5 ~ 3610

vinsensual

I said this in the EOTS thread, but it seems to achieve top 10 you're not only gonna need to clear optimally and grind down to 1 each sub, but you'll need to start your timers in under 1.5 hours (arbitrary number) and in the right order.

I hope SCL 9 comes out soon because this current level only makes SCL 7 more appealing. I'm only shield level 54 so maybe SCL 7 is my natural place. However it seems speed is gonna be the deciding factor for placement in the upper SCLs.

El Satanno

The greatest thing I ever did for myself in this game was to completely forget about placement in Story events. I just play 6/6 whenever and where I place is where I place. I enjoy Story, and the game in general, so much more this way. CL has made my progression much more satisfying with better rewards along the way. I encourage everyone to take a similar attitude. You'll thank me for it.

monsieurmojo

Smudge wrote:

Yep, I'm in the "hardcore casual" group in that I normally play at least the easy nodes to 6/6 and sometimes hit all nodes 6/6 for ISO/rewards, but never grind further than that for placement, and I just don't have time to grind PvP on top of that.

SCL8 is just brutal for placement. This strategy got me T200 in sub 1, T300 in sub 2, and T100 in sub 3 (slice 5). I think I'll stick to the mostly-similar reward scheme that still benefits me in SCL7 for now.

This. Exactly this. I am a very similar type of player, and I stayed in SCL7; the rewards getting shifted down don't interest me at all for a minimal ISO bump. The same play style that always netted me a top 50 finish before SCL8 opened has been good for top 15 so far. Think I'll just stay put for a while.