People are excited about Medusa

thanos8587

Polares wrote:

I guess we need to draw the line somewhere but finishing 11 just by 200 points sucks.

I chose SCL7 though so I wonder if things would have been better or worse in SCL8. My final score was 77279 - top11, slice 3, SCL7

Interesting statistics of my top10:
All except one are clearly SCL8 players
These 9 people are all except one 4 rosters. #9 has one champed 5s, and one 435 level 5.
I was the first one with 3+ champed 5s.

Now, one slice is obviously not enough to get conclusions, but someone might say that 4 rosters dominate and have an easier time in PvE now and that SCL8 rewards need to improve so SCL8 players don't chose to play in SCL7 making things much harder for SCL7 players.

it really only applies to new character event structure where the difference in scl7 and 8 is only a few hundred iso and both allow for top 100 placement personally and alliance to get new covers. the reduced competition in 7 from 8 makes the drop down worth it.

all other events placement isnt as important and i personally just go for scl8 and satisfy myself with top 200 overall, top 100 being a bonus.

maybe scl 9 will provide the increased incentives were all looking for to justify the feeding frenzies that take place for placements. many in my alliance family report scl6 is a cakewalk for them in terms of scoring repeated top 10 plus event after event. that i wont do.

Polares

thanos8587 wrote:

Polares wrote:

I guess we need to draw the line somewhere but finishing 11 just by 200 points sucks.

I chose SCL7 though so I wonder if things would have been better or worse in SCL8. My final score was 77279 - top11, slice 3, SCL7

Interesting statistics of my top10:
All except one are clearly SCL8 players
These 9 people are all except one 4 rosters. #9 has one champed 5s, and one 435 level 5.
I was the first one with 3+ champed 5s.

Now, one slice is obviously not enough to get conclusions, but someone might say that 4 rosters dominate and have an easier time in PvE now and that SCL8 rewards need to improve so SCL8 players don't chose to play in SCL7 making things much harder for SCL7 players.

it really only applies to new character event structure where the difference in scl7 and 8 is only a few hundred iso and both allow for top 100 placement personally and alliance to get new covers. the reduced competition in 7 from 8 makes the drop down worth it.

all other events placement isnt as important and i personally just go for scl8 and satisfy myself with top 200 overall, top 100 being a bonus.

maybe scl 9 will provide the increased incentives were all looking for to justify the feeding frenzies that take place for placements. many in my alliance family report scl6 is a cakewalk for them in terms of scoring repeated top 10 plus event after event. that i wont do.

Yes sure, I was talking specially for new events (most people, me included, just plays normal PvE events for max progression, so it is a bit harder to know if it is affecting lower SCLs on those events). But in the end, all of us where basically blocking SCL7 players from getting three covers (or even two) of the new released char.

I think this is basically wrong, and defeats the purpose of SCLs.

Phumade

Last nights new char finish was intense! Alliance cut lines were through the roof! watching the real time merc shuffle on LINE coincide with the finale of westworld made me think about motivations on why players feel the need to compete and what that reveals about ourselves.

To set the stage, the avg score at the T100 cutline was easily over 65k and far above the expectations of players and commanders alike. And it forced everyone to redefine what sucesses really meant to the players and commanders. There were no easy cut decisions.

edit: My alliance has a theory. In this event, prejoiners who would play optimal strategy vastly outnumbered late bracket snipers. Plus the short length of the event compressed the differrences between elite scores and avg scores. that made balancing prejoin and late bracket snipers extremely hard. I.e. In new char event, alliances need prejoiners who can stay close to optimal much more than they need high level players who are late joining for bracket snipes. I think we saw this same phenoma happen when the top 10 alliances started using mercs. It surprsing that we are see this occur so far down the alliance leaderboards

MPQ_Daywalker

Polares wrote:

I guess we need to draw the line somewhere but finishing 11 just by 200 points sucks.

I chose SCL7 though so I wonder if things would have been better or worse in SCL8. My final score was 77279 - top11, slice 3, SCL7

Interesting statistics of my top10:
All except one are clearly SCL8 players
These 9 people are all except one 4 rosters. #9 has one champed 5s, and one 435 level 5.
I was the first one with 3+ champed 5s.

Now, one slice is obviously not enough to get conclusions, but someone might say that 4 rosters dominate and have an easier time in PvE now and that SCL8 rewards need to improve so SCL8 players don't chose to play in SCL7 making things much harder for SCL7 players.

I was in SCL8, slice 3 (joined about 4 hours after event had started). Your 77,279 score would not have made the top 20 (20th in my slice had 78,356) so I think you made the right call with SCL7.

I wasn't aiming for Top 20, so I'm fine with my 36th place finish (75,488 points). I was just doing 6 clears a node (4 on the waves), played non-optimal. On the last day I did do extra clears of nodes just because I had the time, but I didn't have time on the other 2 days to do so.

Vhailorx

_Daywalker_ wrote:

Polares wrote:

I guess we need to draw the line somewhere but finishing 11 just by 200 points sucks.

I chose SCL7 though so I wonder if things would have been better or worse in SCL8. My final score was 77279 - top11, slice 3, SCL7

Interesting statistics of my top10:
All except one are clearly SCL8 players
These 9 people are all except one 4 rosters. #9 has one champed 5s, and one 435 level 5.
I was the first one with 3+ champed 5s.

Now, one slice is obviously not enough to get conclusions, but someone might say that 4 rosters dominate and have an easier time in PvE now and that SCL8 rewards need to improve so SCL8 players don't chose to play in SCL7 making things much harder for SCL7 players.

I was in SCL8, slice 3 (joined about 4 hours after event had started). Your 77,279 score would not have made the top 20 (20th in my slice had 78,356) so I think you made the right call with SCL7.

I wasn't aiming for Top 20, so I'm fine with my 36th place finish (75,488 points). I was just doing 6 clears a node (4 on the waves), played non-optimal. On the last day I did do extra clears of nodes just because I had the time, but I didn't have time on the other 2 days to do so.

Joining time can have a significant effect on the top scores in any particular bracket. I joined a s5.7 bracket with about 8 hours left in Sub 1 (bracket had 740 when i joined, so it was maybe a few hours old). My 77k was good for top 10 (#1 had 78.6k, 11th had 76.9k, and 20th had 71.9k). the top score represents more or less optimal play for the time available. I am sure scores would have been a few k higher all around if it was a full 72 hour event instead of the 56ish that most people played.

In terms of composition: 8 of the top 10 in my bracket had multiple 4* champ rosters (i.e. a real 4* bench with 6+ champs). 2 of those 8 had 5*s leveled up above 300. the last 2 players had some low covered 255 5*s + 3* champ roster (1 of them had a 6 or 7 cover OML @255 that presumably sees heavy use).

bpcontra

For the record as the OP...I had 6 optimal clears sub 1 and yes...it was over before I posted. I ended up doing a little more than 6 clears eah and came in 91st...got the cover so I guess I will take it.

And I am SCL8...I'm shield rank 60. I dont have any champed 4* (althogh IW is on her way as my first fully covered 4*) I basically used OML lvl 315, IF 185, and either Strange 5* (285) or Ant Man (boosted to 326)

I joined first minute of the first slice

revskip

Polares wrote:

I guess we need to draw the line somewhere but finishing 11 just by 200 points sucks.

I chose SCL7 though so I wonder if things would have been better or worse in SCL8. My final score was 77279 - top11, slice 3, SCL7

Interesting statistics of my top10:
All except one are clearly SCL8 players
These 9 people are all except one 4 rosters. #9 has one champed 5s, and one 435 level 5.
I was the first one with 3+ champed 5s.

Now, one slice is obviously not enough to get conclusions, but someone might say that 4 rosters dominate and have an easier time in PvE now and that SCL8 rewards need to improve so SCL8 players don't chose to play in SCL7 making things much harder for SCL7 players.

If it makes you feel better that score would have gotten you 13th in my SCL8 bracket. 10th had 78079. I joined 12 hours in for what it is worth and didn't grind super hard missing the covers completely at 135 but did get a cover from my alliance. Missed a half of a day and 1 final clear when the internet in my hotel acted like a jerk.

Pongie

Medusas Lair hit a new personal (alliance?) best at #2. We do not merc and our members did pull out all stops for this event. Several, (including myself) even resorted to hours of farming the easy node for 1 point in sub 2 and 3 to maintain #1 in our respective brackets. A number of us also pre-joined the event (to squeeze every little bit of available score possible) instead of waiting for a couple of brackets to flip. The results shows it, as the highest we ever achieved in new release was #3 (not counting the only other time we got #1 duing a regular pve that was simultaneous running along side Ultron). We held #1 for some time as I assumed Groot and/or aXe were shuffling mercs.

Brigby

I used to play PvE here and there just to give it a try. For Hearts of Darkness though, I really gave it a committed effort.

I played for several hours straight until I was too tired and fell asleep when I was rank 48. I woke up the next day to find myself at rank 158.

Vhailorx

Brigby wrote:

I used to play PvE here and there just to give it a try. For Hearts of Darkness though, I really gave it a committed effort.

I played for several hours straight until I was too tired and fell asleep when I was rank 48. I woke up the next day to find myself at rank 158.

That sucks!

When players gripe about high placement requiring demanding and highly specific play schedules, this is what we are talking about. If you had played exactly the same amount on a closer-to-optimal schedule you would likely have finished higher.

Pongie

Polares wrote:

Now, one slice is obviously not enough to get conclusions, but someone might say that 4 rosters dominate and have an easier time in PvE now and that SCL8 rewards need to improve so SCL8 players don't chose to play in SCL7 making things much harder for SCL7 players.

The only way to prevent this is to introduce scl 9 with a requirement higher than most 4* rosters can obtain. But this is a short term fix, since eventually, they will earn enough xp to pass whatever threshold is set and the problem recur.

Moon Roach

I always join slice 5, because right now it ends at 8 pm for me. I do a leisurely 4 clears with interruptions for eldest child / bed scenarios, usually finishing by 10, and I'm generally around #25. I often do another clear at around 5 on the bus home, then a 6th clear and maybe a grind down to 1 as close to 8 as possible, taking into account real life things like food, family, youngest child / bed scenarios.

I usually manage top 10, in this case it was #7 with 77463. #1 was 80326, #10 was 75323, #11 was 74490.

The disturbing thing is, I no longer think of this degree of time commitment as exceptional. I think I'll take a break from PVE. Next event. Or maybe the one after. Can't the devs make it easy on me and give us another impossible to complete broken event for Christmas?

mpqr7

Brigby wrote:

I used to play PvE here and there just to give it a try. For Hearts of Darkness though, I really gave it a committed effort.

I played for several hours straight until I was too tired and fell asleep when I was rank 48. I woke up the next day to find myself at rank 158.

The struggle is real!!! Welcome to our world of never ending placement worries