PVE suggestions

Unknown

So one of the issues I've noticed with these long PVE events that had extreme rubberbanding AI in place is that there is no way to secure a victory early. You have to play in the last 2 hours of the event or everyone else who does will pass you. Because it's always a set time when these events end, there are always people who can't be there to see events to the end. In the last two weeks I have heard of people driving while playing, waking up at 3am on a work week, or like myself, pissing my wife royally off while on vacation because I don't want to waste an entire week of effort by not playing when a sub-event or event ends.

I believe that the algorithm itself needs to be adjusted to accommodate the following goal: you should be able to mathematically grind enough points to win early (right now this is literally impossible barring an unlikely set of coincidences.) Right now once you hit #1 the nodes are nearly worthless so you can't create enough separation. You might argue that it's nice to keep things interesting and competitive, but you are creating an unfair playing field, because you can do better with less effort by simply delaying your start and playing at the right times. You guys can figure out the math to make this happen. I will tell you what I believe are the consequences of not taking this into consideration: It's only a matter of time before someone either gets hurt, divorced or there is a burnout rate so high that it produces an exodus away from the game. I would also suggest in general having 5 days as the max event length and rotating the end times more to accommodate more time zones and schedules.

JamieMadrox

A better option would be to use current location data to place people in ladders that open and close at relatively unobtrusive times for that time zone. Right now for me the events open/close at 1am or 1pm. Both are terribly inconvenient as I'm either wanting to be asleep or at work. A better option would be to bundle all players from three time zones in to ladders that end at 11pm in the middle time zone of the three. For example: Central, Mountain, and Pacific time zone players end at 11pm Mountain Time.

Unknown

charlesjbarry wrote:

A better option would be to use current location data to place people in ladders that open and close at relatively unobtrusive times for that time zone. Right now for me the events open/close at 1am or 1pm. Both are terribly inconvenient as I'm either wanting to be asleep or at work. A better option would be to bundle all players from three time zones in to ladders that end at 11pm in the middle time zone of the three. For example: Central, Mountain, and Pacific time zone players end at 11pm Mountain Time.

I like it! IceIX, any reason why this can't be implemented?>

Unknown

The rubber banding makes it unfair to people who play a lot. I understand the value in keeping casual players involved but any system that punishes the ones who play most at the expense of those who play a little is inherently unfair. As klingsor wrote it is especially punishing for people who can't play the last two hrs. This model for pve needs to be adjusted to allow players to get their points anytime w a much lower or totally eliminated rubber banding factor

Unknown

klingsor wrote:

you should be able to mathematically grind enough points to win early (right now this is literally impossible barring an unlikely set of coincidences.) Right now once you hit #1 the nodes are nearly worthless so you can't create enough separation. You might argue that it's nice to keep things interesting and competitive, but you are creating an unfair playing field, because you can do better with less effort by simply delaying your start and playing at the right times. You guys can figure out the math to make this happen. I will tell you what I believe are the consequences of not taking this into consideration: It's only a matter of time before someone either gets hurt, divorced or there is a burnout rate so high that it produces an exodus away from the game.

So if 2 people are playing at the same time, and doing the exact same number of nodes, how would either get ahead of the other in your system? Given that you are very likely to have more than 2 (and probably more than 50) competitive people in a bracket, then ultimately your solution would have the same problem as now, but with a fewer number of people.

What you - and most other people, I imagine, myself included - are looking for is a clear sense of order and progression so that people who put the time and effort into a tourney can distinguish themselves and have some comfort and security in knowing that their days of effort will result in something other than a mediocre finish without having to kill themselves in the final hour(s) of an event. I empathize with that b/c I just spent 6 days in first place of Unstable ISO-8 only to end in 13th after a frenzied race to the finish.

I feel the Hulk event was the best b/c everyone who made it through the race got a Hulk cover. I think every (most) event should make 1 cover an alliance placement reward, 1 cover an individual placement reward, and 1 cover a story/progression reward. That way, everyone wins. Those who want to run a half marathon get the goodies needed for the next PVE event; those who want to run most or all of the full marathon are rewarded via higher end progression rewards; and those who really want to prove themselves have that opportunity as well in the form of top placement rewards. It's a win for everyone.

Unknown

JoshBot3000 wrote:

The rubber banding makes it unfair to people who play a lot. I understand the value in keeping casual players involved but any system that punishes the ones who play most at the expense of those who play a little is inherently unfair. As klingsor wrote it is especially punishing for people who can't play the last two hrs. This model for pve needs to be adjusted to allow players to get their points anytime w a much lower or totally eliminated rubber banding factor

Agreed. There has to be a more intelligent way of playing than "let's see who can block out the final 2 hours to grind the nodes to oblivion". Especially for the last PvE (Unstable Iso-8), any-and-every thing you do for the first 6 days is essentially meaningless. And so it punishes inordinately the player who misses out on the final hours of an event.

Either re-work the rubberbanding algorithm (so that there's no way that those who missed out on the first few days of an event can ever catch up to the front runners), or create timezone brackets to make it possible for people to start and end events at reasonable hours. Or both.

Unknown

klingsor wrote:

So one of the issues I've noticed with these long PVE events that had extreme rubberbanding AI in place is that there is no way to secure a victory early. You have to play in the last 2 hours of the event or everyone else who does will pass you. Because it's always a set time when these events end, there are always people who can't be there to see events to the end. In the last two weeks I have heard of people driving while playing, waking up at 3am on a work week, or like myself, pissing my wife royally off while on vacation because I don't want to waste an entire week of effort by not playing when a sub-event or event ends.

I believe that the algorithm itself needs to be adjusted to accommodate the following goal: you should be able to mathematically grind enough points to win early (right now this is literally impossible barring an unlikely set of coincidences.) Right now once you hit #1 the nodes are nearly worthless so you can't create enough separation. You might argue that it's nice to keep things interesting and competitive, but you are creating an unfair playing field, because you can do better with less effort by simply delaying your start and playing at the right times. You guys can figure out the math to make this happen. I will tell you what I believe are the consequences of not taking this into consideration: It's only a matter of time before someone either gets hurt, divorced or there is a burnout rate so high that it produces an exodus away from the game. I would also suggest in general having 5 days as the max event length and rotating the end times more to accommodate more time zones and schedules.

They introduced to current system to keep people from securing an early victory. People (me included) would grind out 2, 4, or 8 point nodes for hours. There's probably discussions in the forums back in october.

Unknown

Even if all events ended on a time favorable to you, this still doesn't solve the underlying problem where if someone didn't play in the last 2 hours they pretty much had no shot.

The only way I see this can work is if you turn off rubberbanding in the final refresh. In that case it wouldn't matter when you did your last refresh. The points can be made more valuable for the final refresh to add a bit more uncertainty, though in this system whoever was #1 that simply did every mission would always win. However, I don't think that's a bad thing, because whoever can do every mission that started out as #1 should always win anyway.

Unknown

I wonder if a declining rubberbanding rate would work - something like it's 100% for the first half of the event, but then gradually declines as the event goes on (say down to 80% when the event is at 60%, 60% at 70%, 40% at 80%, 20% at 90%, down to no rubberbanding at all at the 0 marker. That way people could start late and not totally miss out, but not completely blow the event off and still compete with the people who played the whole time.

Unknown

Bugpop wrote:

klingsor wrote:

So one of the issues I've noticed with these long PVE events that had extreme rubberbanding AI in place is that there is no way to secure a victory early. You have to play in the last 2 hours of the event or everyone else who does will pass you. Because it's always a set time when these events end, there are always people who can't be there to see events to the end. In the last two weeks I have heard of people driving while playing, waking up at 3am on a work week, or like myself, pissing my wife royally off while on vacation because I don't want to waste an entire week of effort by not playing when a sub-event or event ends.

I believe that the algorithm itself needs to be adjusted to accommodate the following goal: you should be able to mathematically grind enough points to win early (right now this is literally impossible barring an unlikely set of coincidences.) Right now once you hit #1 the nodes are nearly worthless so you can't create enough separation. You might argue that it's nice to keep things interesting and competitive, but you are creating an unfair playing field, because you can do better with less effort by simply delaying your start and playing at the right times. You guys can figure out the math to make this happen. I will tell you what I believe are the consequences of not taking this into consideration: It's only a matter of time before someone either gets hurt, divorced or there is a burnout rate so high that it produces an exodus away from the game. I would also suggest in general having 5 days as the max event length and rotating the end times more to accommodate more time zones and schedules.

They introduced to current system to keep people from securing an early victory. People (me included) would grind out 2, 4, or 8 point nodes for hours. There's probably discussions in the forums back in october.

Well Bugpop, I'd say that if you did that, you deserve the covers, the iso, the hp. and a crown.

Unknown

What if there were 3-6 nodes at the beginning of an event and each one corresponded to a different end time staggered say 4 hours apart over the last 24 hours of the event. Nodes 2-6 may need a staggered delay start time so no one has a longer event than anyone else, but once a node is selected you are put in a bracket with everyone else who chose the same node. Pick your start time, pick your end time, smaller global brackets for sure but is there really a downside to a system like this?

Unknown

Lycra wrote:

Well Bugpop, I'd say that if you did that, you deserve the covers, the iso, the hp. and a crown.

Thank you
The Ladder, Nemek, Polkio and Beee are much more deserving. Some notable posts from S.H.I.E.L.D members during first Unstable ISO-8 run

Polio Aiming for Purple Spider-Man Cover - (spider man used to have only yellow and blue)
viewtopic.php?f=20&t=165&start=120#p1236

The Ladder, talking about grinding Greenland Mission - Taking 5 minutes per go.
viewtopic.php?f=20&t=165&start=100#p1208

Apparently I was in a less competitive bracket
viewtopic.php?f=20&t=165&start=140#p1327

Nemek comments on 6 point repeatable Yelena and Moonstone
viewtopic.php?f=20&t=165&start=220#p1804

LOL at The Ladder - 69 Bullseye, 69 Daken, and 150 Muscle - I wish they were that easy now
viewtopic.php?f=20&t=165&start=280#p2192

Nemek mentions Beee. 5 S.H.I.E.L.D members accounted for.
viewtopic.php?f=20&t=165&start=400#p2775

non-S.H.I.E.L.D member here, commenting on spider-man/ venom strategy. This was pretty awesome strategy, back then level 5 devour eliminated entire team with 8 web tiles.
viewtopic.php?f=20&t=165&start=400#p2790

LOL at Nemek - Event was awesome. Actually it was, at the time.
viewtopic.php?f=20&t=165&start=460#p3079

Nemek finishes in top 15 in his bracket
viewtopic.php?f=20&t=165&start=480#p3289


Wow, takes me back.

Unknown

I still think that PvE should be entirely built around progression rewards, and PvP built entirely around competitive rewards. Forget the rubberbanding and scaling nonsense, just give us PvE that anyone can complete if they put in the effort, and straight up competition in PvP.

Unknown

Bugpop wrote:

klingsor wrote:

So one of the issues I've noticed with these long PVE events that had extreme rubberbanding AI in place is that there is no way to secure a victory early. You have to play in the last 2 hours of the event or everyone else who does will pass you. Because it's always a set time when these events end, there are always people who can't be there to see events to the end. In the last two weeks I have heard of people driving while playing, waking up at 3am on a work week, or like myself, pissing my wife royally off while on vacation because I don't want to waste an entire week of effort by not playing when a sub-event or event ends.

I believe that the algorithm itself needs to be adjusted to accommodate the following goal: you should be able to mathematically grind enough points to win early (right now this is literally impossible barring an unlikely set of coincidences.) Right now once you hit #1 the nodes are nearly worthless so you can't create enough separation. You might argue that it's nice to keep things interesting and competitive, but you are creating an unfair playing field, because you can do better with less effort by simply delaying your start and playing at the right times. You guys can figure out the math to make this happen. I will tell you what I believe are the consequences of not taking this into consideration: It's only a matter of time before someone either gets hurt, divorced or there is a burnout rate so high that it produces an exodus away from the game. I would also suggest in general having 5 days as the max event length and rotating the end times more to accommodate more time zones and schedules.

They introduced to current system to keep people from securing an early victory. People (me included) would grind out 2, 4, or 8 point nodes for hours. There's probably discussions in the forums back in october.

My friend, if you defeat me because you grinded 8 point nodes for hours you deserve to win! if you spend 8 hours grinded 8 point nodes, lets say one a minute, that would give you 3840 points for 8 hours of effort. 2 PVE's ago when I was in the thick of my vacation and hadn't played for 2 days, the nodes were up to 5950 per match! So one minute of my lazy effort is greater than 8 hours of your grinding. That doesn't seem fair at all. Those who play more on pve should win, not those with the most adaptable schedule.

Unknown

TishToshTesh wrote:

I still think that PvE should be entirely built around progression rewards, and PvP built entirely around competitive rewards. Forget the rubberbanding and scaling nonsense, just give us PvE that anyone can complete if they put in the effort, and straight up competition in PvP.

That was how Heroic Oscorp worked and almost no one liked that. Though to be fair Daken was way too hard with the roster available and the event was much better after he got dropped down to level 190 or so instead of 230, though that came on the last day so that didn't help very much.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

TishToshTesh wrote:

I still think that PvE should be entirely built around progression rewards, and PvP built entirely around competitive rewards. Forget the rubberbanding and scaling nonsense, just give us PvE that anyone can complete if they put in the effort, and straight up competition in PvP.

That was how Heroic Oscorp worked and almost no one liked that. Though to be fair Daken was way too hard with the roster available and the event was much better after he got dropped down to level 190 or so instead of 230, though that came on the last day so that didn't help very much.

I think the scaling was everyone's problem with Heroic Oscorp, and it tended to drown everything else out, because it flat-out wasn't working.

Unknown

klingsor wrote:

My friend, if you defeat me because you grinded 8 point nodes for hours you deserve to win! if you spend 8 hours grinded 8 point nodes, lets say one a minute, that would give you 3840 points for 8 hours of effort. 2 PVE's ago when I was in the thick of my vacation and hadn't played for 2 days, the nodes were up to 5950 per match! So one minute of my lazy effort is greater than 8 hours of your grinding. That doesn't seem fair at all. Those who play more on pve should win, not those with the most adaptable schedule.

I see the current system as a method of handicapping, so that a majority of players are able to play on equal terms, as schedules permit. The only real reason to play during the week is to obtain the various awards from each of the nodes.

Unknown

Well, as I understand it, the nodes did cap out on points, even with the multiplier. So if the leaders got far enough ahead of you, you wouldn't be able to completely catch up to them with just 1 refresh. Correct? Not that it really matters, more just curious.

Dormammu

I think what a lot of people would like to see is the removal of competition from PvE events, entirely.

We all grew up in the safe-like-home Prologue, and it was fun. We could take things at our own pace and the rewards were there waiting for us whenever we felt like playing. But like all children, we eventually wandered out into the real world and discovered a whole bunch of other people who wanted the same things we did. We had to learn the hard way that the 'events' tab is a viscous dog-eat-dog world, and not everyone can be #1. One of two things is going to happen: you're going to run home to mommy full of excuses of why you can't succeed, or you're going to steel yourself and do the best you can.

Is it fair? Nope. Them's the breaks, kid.

Set a goal. A realistic goal. For the red-iso tourney my goal, for example, was to finish in the top 50 for myself and for my alliance to finish in the top 250. This would give me all three colors for Human Torch. Sometimes you hit your goals, hell - sometimes you far exceed them. Sometimes you fall short. I happened to achieve my goal in red-iso, but had I failed I knew there would be more Human Torch covers in another future tourney for me to try again.

I'm tired of listening to the constant **** and complaining about scaling and rubberbanding. The developers are doing the best they can to make it fair for as many as possible. But they can't please 100% of the people 100% of the time. They continue to tweak these things as the game progresses, but changes are not going to happen over-night.

I truly hope they start doing non-competitive events in the future, where your progression and node awards are all there is, that way maybe we won't hear as much moaning and complaining on these forums, and the rest of us can enjoy the competitive tourneys in peace.

MPQ is a competitive game, people. And there can only be one winner (per bracket).

(Sorry if I sound harsh, but I meant to.)

Unknown

Fine, you like the game as it is. And nobody's asking for all PVP to be removed from the game. But I played the original puzzle quest, and it's what I hoped - and was led to believe by the prologue - that that's what this would be. I think there should be solo events and PVP events, and people can gravitate to what they like. There's nothing wrong with preferring solo play, and - for those of us with jobs or other responsibilities who can't play optimally all the time - I would like gameplay like I had for the first six weeks I had the game, which - coincidentally - is also when I spent most of the money I've put into it.

Unknown

Riggy wrote:

Well, as I understand it, the nodes did cap out on points, even with the multiplier. So if the leaders got far enough ahead of you, you wouldn't be able to completely catch up to them with just 1 refresh. Correct? Not that it really matters, more just curious.

I think that's true up to a point. For the most part, I ignored the nodes with the low points. I missed a round as well. I was able to push to the lead several times. I didn't finish #1 but had I started playing 1 hour sooner last night I would have had it. I was top 25 I think.