PVE suggestions

Nemek

Bugpop wrote:

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.

Yeah, it's still somewhat true. There is a maximum amount of points during every refresh/sub-event/whatever. Technically, if you joined Unstable ISO on the first day, didn't do any missions, and just did the last refresh on the last day, then you wouldn't have caught up. In events with larger point spreads, it's way more true.

For the topic as a whole, I think that you'll find if the PvE structure switched to a pure grind with your rank explicitly tied to the number of hours played, you'll see a significant drop off in player participation, and that is why it's not the current system. While such a system sounds more "fair", placing emphasis on amount of time spent on an event will most certainly lead to rapid player burnout at the top end and players in the low and middle section of competitors 'giving up' on events due to the futility of it all.

I'll agree that an entire event probably shouldn't hinge on a 1-2 hour block of time that's especially poor for our EU players, but I don't know if there is a particularly great solution out there.

Unknown

Nemek wrote:

For the topic as a whole, I think that you'll find if the PvE structure switched to a pure grind with your rank explicitly tied to the number of hours played, you'll see a significant drop off in player participation, and that is why it's not the current system. While such a system sounds more "fair", placing emphasis on amount of time spent on an event will most certainly lead to rapid player burnout at the top end and players in the low and middle section of competitors 'giving up' on events due to the futility of it all.

This is no more futile than dealing with weird, frustrating scaling and always being stuck in the middle, out of the rare covers. A purely progression based PvE experience without scaling could also easily cap off early. It doesn't need to be pitched so that the best rewards are only available to those who play for eight hours a day.

Unknown

I wouldn't mind if you have buy-in events similar to elite PvP tournamet, like pay 300 HP up front for a month long PvE event with no rubberbanding, no placement award and the only reward is progression based. In other words, Heroic Oscorp but actually enough time for you to reach the top rewards while playing on a somewhat sane schedule.

Unknown

Nemek wrote:

Bugpop wrote:

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.

Yeah, it's still somewhat true. There is a maximum amount of points during every refresh/sub-event/whatever. Technically, if you joined Unstable ISO on the first day, didn't do any missions, and just did the last refresh on the last day, then you wouldn't have caught up. In events with larger point spreads, it's way more true.

For the topic as a whole, I think that you'll find if the PvE structure switched to a pure grind with your rank explicitly tied to the number of hours played, you'll see a significant drop off in player participation, and that is why it's not the current system. While such a system sounds more "fair", placing emphasis on amount of time spent on an event will most certainly lead to rapid player burnout at the top end and players in the low and middle section of competitors 'giving up' on events due to the futility of it all.

I'll agree that an entire event probably shouldn't hinge on a 1-2 hour block of time that's especially poor for our EU players, but I don't know if there is a particularly great solution out there.

@Nemek: You are probably right about the participation drop off but i still think the need for a push in the last 2 hours as having maximum important is wrong from a design and practical point of view. I liked the suggestion of ending times being based on zones, but that means bracketing based on time zones or something else with stranger consequences. I don't know what the best solution is, but I would imagine further refinement of the algorithm is needed. The best solution i have heard is to weight the rubberbanding in a diminishing fashion, so that you get minimal rubberbanding the last 2 hours of the last day.

@Dormammu - I really don't care if you are tired of people "****" about a design feature. This is a suggestion forum and thread, so if your suggestion is to suck it up then save it. I don't need to take "pity" on the poor developers doing their best either. I have a right to suggest improvements and they have the right to address them or ignore them if it isn't feasible.

Dormammu

klingsor wrote:

@Dormammu - I really don't care if you are tired of people "****" about a design feature. This is a suggestion forum and thread, so if your suggestion is to suck it up then save it. I don't need to take "pity" on the poor developers doing their best either. I have a right to suggest improvements and they have the right to address them or ignore them if it isn't feasible.

So you're saying that a suggestion for the developers to fit the game around your vacation schedule is a valid one?

Fair enough.

Unknown

As an observation, people do realize that suppose rubberbanding is reduced or simply removed by the last refresh, all that does is repeat what people currently do on the second to last refresh? After all, if there is no rubberband, and you're #1 before the last refresh started, then you definitely already won, but the second to last refresh would still have the full rubberbanding rules, so it's basically the same as just having the torunament end one refresh earlier, with the final refresh being a victory lap for the guy who was #1 when the final refresh started.

Logistically, having to play the second to last refresh to decide the tournament is likely to cause more timezone problems, and is certainly more tricky to time as well.

Unknown

Dormammu wrote:

klingsor wrote:

@Dormammu - I really don't care if you are tired of people "****" about a design feature. This is a suggestion forum and thread, so if your suggestion is to suck it up then save it. I don't need to take "pity" on the poor developers doing their best either. I have a right to suggest improvements and they have the right to address them or ignore them if it isn't feasible.

So you're saying that a suggestion for the developers to fit the game around your vacation schedule is a valid one?

Fair enough.

No, it's not about making it work on anyone's schedule, is about a system that is so intent on giving everyone a competitive chance at victory that is starts being illogical and robinhood-ish. if you play 100 hours, you shouldn't lose to someone who plays 10hrs simply because they hedge their schedule better. People who play harder should win, I don't think i'm breaking new ground here.

Dormammu

klingsor wrote:

...is about a system that is so intent on giving everyone a competitive chance at victory that is starts being illogical and robinhood-ish. if you play 100 hours, you shouldn't lose to someone who plays 10hrs simply because they hedge their schedule better. People who play harder should win, I don't think i'm breaking new ground here.

See, I disagree. I don't think someone who has nothing better to do all day, every day, should be the automatic winner. In an event like Red-Iso that person is certainly free to grind it out to the end and nab every node-award available. In fact, that will put that person ahead of the game - they will have more ISO/HP/tokens/boosts than the person who only plays at the end to place. But MPQ is a competitive game, and what you're suggesting removes the competition entirely. I get that you don't like it, but what you want is not what MPQ is.

Unknown

Dormammu wrote:

klingsor wrote:

...is about a system that is so intent on giving everyone a competitive chance at victory that is starts being illogical and robinhood-ish. if you play 100 hours, you shouldn't lose to someone who plays 10hrs simply because they hedge their schedule better. People who play harder should win, I don't think i'm breaking new ground here.

But MPQ is a competitive game, and what you're suggesting removes the competition entirely.

But that's his point as well. In a race, when the gun fires, and one racer takes off and the other goes to the bathroom, who is competing? While I may not like that PVE is competitive, it certainly makes sense that the guy who is playing the game should at least have a better chance than the guy in the corner pissing himself for 90% of the race, which is simply not the case in this most recent PVE.

Dormammu

Riggy wrote:

Dormammu wrote:

klingsor wrote:

...is about a system that is so intent on giving everyone a competitive chance at victory that is starts being illogical and robinhood-ish. if you play 100 hours, you shouldn't lose to someone who plays 10hrs simply because they hedge their schedule better. People who play harder should win, I don't think i'm breaking new ground here.

But MPQ is a competitive game, and what you're suggesting removes the competition entirely.

But that's his point as well. In a race, when the gun fires, and one racer takes off and the other goes to the bathroom, who is competing? While I may not like that PVE is competitive, it certainly makes sense that the guy who is playing the game should at least have a better chance than the guy in the corner pissing himself for 90% of the race, which is simply not the case in this most recent PVE.

I look at it like it's the best of both worlds. The node refreshes are there for the grinders, the rubberbanding is there for last-day competition. It's not like the grinders aren't being rewarded for their efforts.

Unknown

Dormammu wrote:

Riggy wrote:

Dormammu wrote:

klingsor wrote:

...is about a system that is so intent on giving everyone a competitive chance at victory that is starts being illogical and robinhood-ish. if you play 100 hours, you shouldn't lose to someone who plays 10hrs simply because they hedge their schedule better. People who play harder should win, I don't think i'm breaking new ground here.

But MPQ is a competitive game, and what you're suggesting removes the competition entirely.

But that's his point as well. In a race, when the gun fires, and one racer takes off and the other goes to the bathroom, who is competing? While I may not like that PVE is competitive, it certainly makes sense that the guy who is playing the game should at least have a better chance than the guy in the corner pissing himself for 90% of the race, which is simply not the case in this most recent PVE.

I look at it like it's the best of both worlds. The node refreshes are there for the grinders, the rubberbanding is there for last-day competition. It's not like the grinders aren't being rewarded for their efforts.

My previous post sounded a bit crude on re-reading that, more so than I intended at any rate. My apologies.

I agree that in the current event structure, rubberbanding is a necessary evil to achieve the developers' goals of a fair playing field. But as a systems analyst, I can't help but think that they are using rubberbanding to address a symptom of the problem as opposed to the problem itself. However, it's hard for us as outsiders to properly analyze the situation b/c they are tweaking the PVEs each and every time. In one event, it'll be scaling issues, in this past event it was the "near unlimited" rubberbanding, and in the next event it may be 8 hour refreshes with no rubberbanding (i.e. back to the grind).

While I agree that both rubber-banders and grinders should get rewarded, the balance of time and effort that each puts in isn't being rewarded properly. We saw that in this past event - the grinders had zero incentive, and so none of us got the high end progression rewards.

If the intent is that the rubber-banders should be able to compete for the top prizes, then make the high end progression rewards be available through actual gameplay. Random, off the top of my head suggestion, perhaps the progression rewards requires XX nodes to be completed for each tier of rewards, ensuring that the grinders who have played 70%, 80%, or 90% of the tournament (for example) are properly rewarded for their devotion. Or perhaps have gateway nodes in each sub that give you a personal progression bar and unlock once you personally have reached some goal (where your target number factors in your rubberbanding multiplier).

Perhaps that's the solution? Separate rewards for the grinders (progression rewards) vs the rubber-banders (placement rewards)? I have no idea, honestly. It seems like half the community argues for one thing, while the other half argues against it. And next event, we'll all switch positions and start over.

Unknown

Heroic Jugg was something of an anomaly with no sub events. Usually the sub events serve as checkpoints since any lead you've built up when a sub ends is permanent as the next sub event uses the new event's points. In Simulator Basic I never quite made up the 1K difference NoMistake had over me (and 2K for Bughunt) for top 2. 1K might not look like much in an event where people finished with 260K points, but that's also what separates the #2 and #3 in my bracket.

Dormammu

Riggy wrote:

While I agree that both rubber-banders and grinders should get rewarded, the balance of time and effort that each puts in isn't being rewarded properly. We saw that in this past event - the grinders had zero incentive, and so none of us got the high end progression rewards.

I agree with you that the high-end progression awards were unattainable (that's an entirely different discussion), but zero incentive to grind? Each one of those nodes had 750 ISO, a recruit token, and boosts - and they refreshed every day.

Unknown

Dormammu wrote:

Riggy wrote:

While I agree that both rubber-banders and grinders should get rewarded, the balance of time and effort that each puts in isn't being rewarded properly. We saw that in this past event - the grinders had zero incentive, and so none of us got the high end progression rewards.

I agree with you that the high-end progression awards were unattainable (that's an entirely different discussion), but zero incentive to grind? Each one of those nodes had 750 ISO, a recruit token, and boosts - and they refreshed every day.

Most of the nodes only had about 350 ISO - a 250, a 100, a token, and a boost - and maybe three nodes per refresh actually had a 500 ISO reward. And grinding led to scaling. So I'd completely agree there was no real incentive to grind.

Unknown

Yeah, scaling really skews this discussion. Because the grinders get rewarded with small (not insignificant, mind you, but small) prizes attached to huge spikes in successive difficulty. The people who more effectively meta-game trade in some ISO-8 and standard recruit tokens for much better chances at scoring in the top prize brackets and (in this case) absolutely no reduction in their overall score and potential progression rewards.

They should add 10 or 20 HP as a reward on some of the PVE nodes. You would see those nodes ground down to 1 at every refresh in the interest of picking up a few Herobucks. Then I wouldn't feel like grinding was a waste, and the people who try to (meta) game the system would be missing out on something demonstrable.

And, for the record: Heroic Oscorp was a good idea. A PVE event where placement was significantly less relevant but progression was seemed like a great idea. But in addition to wacky scaling, there were no prize refreshes for any of the nodes and the progression rewards were set at super-human levels. It ended up not really paying off for anyone, and they abandoned the model...but the model was good, I think, in principle. At the very least, it bears re-visiting.

Unknown

The scaling on the last set of heroics seems normal and balanced. Is this a result of them adjusting or just from there being no healers?

Unknown

klingsor wrote:

The scaling on the last set of heroics seems normal and balanced. Is this a result of them adjusting or just from there being no healers?

Scaling on this round seems mostly community, because nobody is beating Deadly enough to have a huge increase in personal scaling. Though community scaling can still be pretty brutal on missions like Interference. It was level 260 at the end of round 1 and I can't even reach it on round 2, not that there's even a reason to get to that mission because there's no way I can beat it.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

klingsor wrote:

The scaling on the last set of heroics seems normal and balanced. Is this a result of them adjusting or just from there being no healers?

Scaling on this round seems mostly community, because nobody is beating Deadly enough to have a huge increase in personal scaling. Though community scaling can still be pretty brutal on missions like Interference. It was level 260 at the end of round 1 and I can't even reach it on round 2, not that there's even a reason to get to that mission because there's no way I can beat it.

On easy or hard? I've cleared everything on easy, just had to use boosts on the last mission to make sure everything was kosher...

Unknown

klingsor wrote:

Phantron wrote:

klingsor wrote:

The scaling on the last set of heroics seems normal and balanced. Is this a result of them adjusting or just from there being no healers?

Scaling on this round seems mostly community, because nobody is beating Deadly enough to have a huge increase in personal scaling. Though community scaling can still be pretty brutal on missions like Interference. It was level 260 at the end of round 1 and I can't even reach it on round 2, not that there's even a reason to get to that mission because there's no way I can beat it.

On easy or hard? I've cleared everything on easy, just had to use boosts on the last mission to make sure everything was kosher...

Easy levels seems to be capped at some point for scaling. In R1, Interference was around level 70 on easy but 260 (and still climbing) on Hard. That's clearly far beyond any base difference between the two difficulties.

Unknown

I think there should be a way to fix both rubberbanding and scalinging in one swoop. make it so the longer you wait the higher the enemy. for example if you do not have one single battle until the last 2 hours and then grind for 2000+ points per node to jump into the top 10 every enemy should be 230-400 for you. making it so that those who play early arent hurt by scaling and are rewarded for constant play.