Is pvp a massive waste of time?

Pongie

metallion wrote:

Also worth mentioning is 4* progression rewards cycle in PVP on a slightly quicker basis, so if you can make it up regularly you get to cover them faster than from PVE

In a week, pvp will net you 3 different 4* covers. Where as pve can net you 8 covers if you managed to top 5 in 2 events in scl 8 (2x 3 from placement and 2x 1 from progress). Even if it's a 7 days event, there are 4 covers up for grabs. Also means your characters tends to build up quicker by getting 4 covers at a time. In pvp, often the lone cover is the wrong colour.

Fightmastermpq

Dauntless74 wrote:

Isn't the time, money and effort I'm already putting in enough?

Quite frankly no. Others have put in more time/money/effort to get to a place where they are more competitive. PvP is a competitive mode where only the top 2% of players can finish T10 by definition. That means that you need to put in more time/money/effort than 98% of the playerbase if you want to be successful.

Quebbster

Pongie wrote:

metallion wrote:

Also worth mentioning is 4* progression rewards cycle in PVP on a slightly quicker basis, so if you can make it up regularly you get to cover them faster than from PVE

In a week, pvp will net you 3 different 4* covers. Where as pve can net you 8 covers if you managed to top 5 in 2 events in scl 8 (2x 3 from placement and 2x 1 from progress). Even if it's a 7 days event, there are 4 covers up for grabs. Also means your characters tends to build up quicker by getting 4 covers at a time. In pvp, often the lone cover is the wrong colour.

You can get fourstar covers as placement rewards in PvP too. If you are going to include top 5 placement in PvE in your calculations you should include top 5 placement in PvP too. Top 5 in SCL 8 PvP is another two covers, so That's 9 potential fourstar covers a week.

firethorne

Playing for the 10CP at 575 points isn't a waste of time. Rewards beyond that are more debatable.

nonnel

Pvp is a waste of time. It's why I never play it. I advise anyone who is thinking of playing it to just do DDQ and PVE at your own pace

Magic

Pongie wrote:

metallion wrote:

Also worth mentioning is 4* progression rewards cycle in PVP on a slightly quicker basis, so if you can make it up regularly you get to cover them faster than from PVE

In a week, pvp will net you 3 different 4* covers. Where as pve can net you 8 covers if you managed to top 5 in 2 events in scl 8 (2x 3 from placement and 2x 1 from progress). Even if it's a 7 days event, there are 4 covers up for grabs. Also means your characters tends to build up quicker by getting 4 covers at a time. In pvp, often the lone cover is the wrong colour.

Are you kidding here? Top5 in PvE is a 3 or 4 or even 7 day grind on a perfect schedule. It requires speed and dedication (like the 2 hours on the end/start of a day). We are talking about probably 7-8 hours of play on the schedule. You can't take it into account as a reason to say PvE is so much better.

I play PvE usually to top 50 (that means all cleared 4 times, some nodes made green). And that means I get 1 4* (from progression) in a 3-4 day event (2 if it's 7 but that happened only once so far). On top of that I get lots of HP (top 50 in each day) and decent amount of tokens. The effort required? Around 1-1,5 hour a day (so 3-4,5 hours for a 3 day event).

In PvP i usually go to 800-900 points and drop a shield to protect my score. The effort is about 1-2 hours maximum (in two or three sit-downs). So for a 3 day event I get the 4* in about half the time compared to PvE. I also get some tokens and HP (but less then PvE).

For me PvP is rather relaxed. I get what I can with minimal effort and take if from there. The only stress happens when there is a cover a badly need at 900 (but this is rare). The PvE is more time consuming (hence more stressful). Luckily to get top50 i don't have to play optimally.

GurlBYE

As a huge person who never liked pvp, and still doesn't but just uses it to grab some ISO and covers and 10 CP per event here's my advice.


1- Set a goal based on what your roster can achieve - Unless your roster is champed boosted 4's, you won't make much traction in placement. Champed 2s? Hit 300. If you only have champed 3's 575 is your goal. if you have boosted 4's and plenty of spare HP, 900. If you have consitent champed 4's, time, and organization, go for 1200.

2 - Pick the right bracket and time for your goal - Joining late will get you placement but NOT get you progression, which is always more consistent and plentiful. Some brackets are known to be super packed with lots of people with high points.

3- Discover your balancing point - Climb late with a weaker roster. When you're climbing notice how you aim for weaker targets worth the most points? Other people do too. If you can make it to 300 and notice people stop attacking thats the number your safe at. Thats the level where fighting you isn't worth the effort it'd take to clear your characters. When you have a 3 star roster, everything about 300 is pretty much a safe bet of you being attacked by people who can see you.

In a nutshell, pvp awards haven't been updated. You need 4's to even reach the 3's reliably and it all takes a very good chunk of HP to get to higher scores.

It's tougher and way more roster based than pve already is, it benefits people who've played longer.

It's not the primary source of XP ISO or HP, it's just a way to supplement those.
It is however worth it simply for 10 CP per PVP.

GurlBYE

Pongie wrote:

metallion wrote:

Also worth mentioning is 4* progression rewards cycle in PVP on a slightly quicker basis, so if you can make it up regularly you get to cover them faster than from PVE

In a week, pvp will net you 3 different 4* covers. Where as pve can net you 8 covers if you managed to top 5 in 2 events in scl 8 (2x 3 from placement and 2x 1 from progress). Even if it's a 7 days event, there are 4 covers up for grabs. Also means your characters tends to build up quicker by getting 4 covers at a time. In pvp, often the lone cover is the wrong colour.

Placement in PVE is far from a guarantee if you have people dependent on you, a job or other hobbies. People literally grind nodes down to 1. I've gotten 1st in one event, it was draining unfun and not something I could do weekly. or multiple times a week. It was actually miserable and shows the worst parts of this game. In pvp placements even harder as 5 star people usually sit with a 300+ point gap from the rest of top 10.

It's not at ALL worth using as a primary progression method.

metallion

Magic wrote:

Pongie wrote:

In a week, pvp will net you 3 different 4* covers. Where as pve can net you 8 covers if you managed to top 5 in 2 events in scl 8 (2x 3 from placement and 2x 1 from progress). Even if it's a 7 days event, there are 4 covers up for grabs. Also means your characters tends to build up quicker by getting 4 covers at a time. In pvp, often the lone cover is the wrong colour.

Are you kidding here? Top5 in PvE is a 3 or 4 or even 7 day grind on a perfect schedule. It requires speed and dedication (like the 2 hours on the end/start of a day). We are talking about probably 7-8 hours of play on the schedule. You can't take it into account as a reason to say PvE is so much better.

I play PvE usually to top 50 (that means all cleared 4 times, some nodes made green). And that means I get 1 4* (from progression) in a 3-4 day event (2 if it's 7 but that happened only once so far). On top of that I get lots of HP (top 50 in each day) and decent amount of tokens. The effort required? Around 1-1,5 hour a day (so 3-4,5 hours for a 3 day event).

In PvP i usually go to 800-900 points and drop a shield to protect my score. The effort is about 1-2 hours maximum (in two or three sit-downs). So for a 3 day event I get the 4* in about half the time compared to PvE. I also get some tokens and HP (but less then PvE).

For me PvP is rather relaxed. I get what I can with minimal effort and take if from there. The only stress happens when there is a cover a badly need at 900 (but this is rare). The PvE is more time consuming (hence more stressful). Luckily to get top50 i don't have to play optimally.

What he said. Every PVE sub takes me 1.5 hours for the initial 4 clears, that's 10.5 hours for a weeks worth of PVE. In that same week probably 3 PVP events will run. The time that takes me to climb to 900 for the 4* progression? Not more than 4 hours per week. That's more than half the time I would spend on PVE in a week. Not everyone has the ability to do perfect clears on every PVE, and as GurlBYE said it's extremely draining. I tried it myself for Medusa release event, got T2 and my 4 Medusa covers, and swore never to do it again.

If you have the ability to perfect clear every single sub then good for you, since that's what you need to do for a T5 or T10 in PVE, but for me I don't have the ability to devote extremely specific timings in my everyday life for a match-3 game, nor do I have the time and energy to devote so many hours per day to this. My style of PVP play totally fits into my daily schedule, so PVP is the best way to continue building that 4* roster. Plus, I get a much needed break every other day to make a stress-free climb up simulator for more rewards while waiting for that PVP timer to trickle down to the final day before starting. Nothing for me to not like about this.

mohio

Quebbster wrote:

Pongie wrote:

metallion wrote:

Also worth mentioning is 4* progression rewards cycle in PVP on a slightly quicker basis, so if you can make it up regularly you get to cover them faster than from PVE

In a week, pvp will net you 3 different 4* covers. Where as pve can net you 8 covers if you managed to top 5 in 2 events in scl 8 (2x 3 from placement and 2x 1 from progress). Even if it's a 7 days event, there are 4 covers up for grabs. Also means your characters tends to build up quicker by getting 4 covers at a time. In pvp, often the lone cover is the wrong colour.

You can get fourstar covers as placement rewards in PvP too. If you are going to include top 5 placement in PvE in your calculations you should include top 5 placement in PvP too. Top 5 in SCL 8 PvP is another two covers, so That's 9 potential fourstar covers a week.

This is going to be wildly inaccurate, but I'm going to take a stab at quantifying these things, since I wanted to basically write exactly what quebbster did. Instead I'll go a little deeper and look at some numbers. As I said, these are going to be couched in some big assumptions. Feel free to chime in if you think they're WAY off. Just for reference, I tend to PvE and PvP in s5, so my estimations may be skewed by that vantage point.

T5 PvE estimations:
Time : 1.5 hrs initial clear + 1.25 hr grind per day
Rewards : 2 3*, 1 4*, 25 cp in progression - 3 4* covers, 4 3* covers in placement (incl. alliance 3* reward), 2 cp per day in nodes

T5 PvP estimations:
Time : 1.5 hr initial climb + 4x 0.5 hr hops (time to find queues and hop)
Rewards : 1 3*, 1 4*, 25 cp in progression - 2 4*, 4 3*, 1 cp in placement

Alternate PvP - T25, 900+ pts :
Time : 1.5 hrs initial climb + one .5 hr hop
Rewards : 1 3*, 1 4*, 10 cp in progression - 4 3* in placement

Casual PvP - 600+ pts, placement varies:
Time : 1 hour
Rewards : 10 cp progression, placement varies

So in a week of PvE, assuming 2 PvE per week (which isn't exactly accurate, but they just adjusted rewards for 7 day events to be slightly more in line with that so we'll roll with it), you can earn 8 4*, 12 3*, and 64 cp, which in my estimation should take you around 2.75 hrs a day, coming out to 19.25 hours per week.

A week of PvP is more cut and dried since there's always 3 per week. There you will earn 9 4*, 15 3*, and 78 cp, and you will spend somewhere around 10.5 hours.

In "noncompetitive" PvP mode, you cut your PvP time down to only around 6 hours a week and you are only earning 3 4*, 15 3*, and 30 cp per week instead.

Now those of you who start hopping in PvP on the first day will be up in arms saying I'm grossly underestimating the time it takes. I freely admit that's true. However for some I am overestimating, so I'll just say YMMV. In s5 I can sometimes climb to 1200+ in one go over ~2 hours, hop once and be done and still place t5. In s4 I would expect to have to hop many times over to ensure t5 (and honestly I wouldn't even bother). The PvP numbers also assume you have the roster to compete for t5 in the first place. If you don't, follow the alternate PvP schedule outlined above and adjust your expected rewards accordingly.

As you can see, if you're competing for t5 in both event types, you actually pull in more rewards (covers + cp) for generally less time spent. This is not looking at iso of course, where you can pull in significantly more in PvE than PvP. I'm also not accounting for tokens, etc. (I also didn't account PvE sub event rewards, but if you're t5, you are pulling in additional cp there as well, which helps balance things quite a bit). Even if you are only able to reach 900+ and place t25 in PvP, you still get close to half the rewards in PvE for about a third of the time spent, so it's well worth your time.^

^ - If you hate playing PvP (or alternately, PvE), then of course it's not worth your time, because you will be miserable doing it. Do what you enjoy doing in the game. But if your goal is to improve your roster and keep progressing through the game, then I think my advice holds.

carrion_pigeons

I really do wish they would shrink the sizes of PvP brackets, and/or limit attacks to players within a bracket.

I mean, I realize that those design choices have problems of their own, but at least they would make PvP into a competition against a manageable number of players, instead of against the whole world.

Fightmastermpq

mohio wrote:

T5 PvE estimations:
Time : 1.5 hrs initial clear + 1.25 hr grind per day
Rewards : 2 3*, 1 4*, 25 cp in progression - 3 4* covers, 4 3* covers in placement (incl. alliance 3* reward), 2 cp per day in nodes

IME you need to clear in under an hour to T5 PvE. But I play S4 which I hear is more competitive than the other slices.

mohio

Fightmastermpq wrote:

mohio wrote:

T5 PvE estimations:
Time : 1.5 hrs initial clear + 1.25 hr grind per day
Rewards : 2 3*, 1 4*, 25 cp in progression - 3 4* covers, 4 3* covers in placement (incl. alliance 3* reward), 2 cp per day in nodes

IME you need to clear in under an hour to T5 PvE. But I play S4 which I hear is more competitive than the other slices.

That's probably true - these are close to my times and I can compete for t5-t10 if I can keep with the schedule. I also join a later flip, which usually is slightly less competitive.

One other thing to note is it will definitely depend on the PvE. Some subs only take an hour to clear x4 and 45 minutes to grind which obviously cuts down on time quite a bit. Anything with a wave node will likely take longer. I tried to pick times that were roughly "average" but I may have overestimated.

Fightmastermpq

mohio wrote:

Fightmastermpq wrote:

mohio wrote:

T5 PvE estimations:
Time : 1.5 hrs initial clear + 1.25 hr grind per day
Rewards : 2 3*, 1 4*, 25 cp in progression - 3 4* covers, 4 3* covers in placement (incl. alliance 3* reward), 2 cp per day in nodes

IME you need to clear in under an hour to T5 PvE. But I play S4 which I hear is more competitive than the other slices.

That's probably true - these are close to my times and I can compete for t5-t10 if I can keep with the schedule. I also join a later flip, which usually is slightly less competitive.

One other thing to note is it will definitely depend on the PvE. Some subs only take an hour to clear x4 and 45 minutes to grind which obviously cuts down on time quite a bit. Anything with a wave node will likely take longer. I tried to pick times that were roughly "average" but I may have overestimated.

Depends on your scaling too. My final grinds often take longer than my opening grinds because of scaling. The earlier clears might have 60k health to get through with the later ones have 3x that and it just takes a long time.

In general though the time commitment for PvE is longer, but I think the rewards reflect that.

mrb

Even if you're t10 in PvP, aren't you going to need to burn HP to get there? How do you gain HP fast enough to sustain a shield-hopping strategy, unless you have the money to buy a Stark Salary every few weeks?

Fightmastermpq

mrb wrote:

Even if you're t10 in PvP, aren't you going to need to burn HP to get there? How do you gain HP fast enough to sustain a shield-hopping strategy, unless you have the money to buy a Stark Salary every few weeks?

No, not even close. I can usually T5 PvP with just one or two shields. Between champ rewards, 2* champ farming, and intercepts the HP is flowing much faster than I need to use it for roster slots and shields. At this point I could go completely F2P without negatively impacting my placement.

Astralgazer

I play PVE S1 because it starts in the evening, my time. I can do this or that while I play, no rush. Usually takes me 4 hours to do 4 clears, because I often have to put down my phone and do chores. But hey, it's PVE.

On my way to work, I do some PVP matches; get to 300, 400, 575. Will start using shields at 700+ if I have what it takes to push to 800. If not, I let it be after 575. Will use multiple shields if I feel I can push to 900.

Comes lunch time, I play my PVE 5th clears; and on my way home, I play the 6th clears. This way, I contribute big score to my alliance and gain 90 XP.

Playing this way, I gain best of both worlds: PVP and PVE; without stressing my life and my family's. Not optimally, ofc, but who cares? Consistent gain of 3*, XP, ISO, HP, and CP; with 4* here and there. That's good enough for me.

BoyWonder1914

I think for people at my level, which is the 3-4* transition, absolutely not. Even if the 3* and 4* covers are of no use to you, the HP, ISO, and CP on the way up are. The tokens are hit or miss in terms of what they get you, but even the 2-stars you get from those just lead to one of the aforementioned 3 resources.

PVP has become a much bigger staple in my roster development than PVE has. With them not releasing CL9 or 10, CL 7 and 8 have become a lot more crowded, so getting t10 in PVE is never a given anymore. PVP on the other hand, I feel like I as long as I start early enough and don't run into a wall of 2 boosted 4's that I can't beat (Looking at you RHulk - Kingpin and Medusa/Wasp), then I can always get the 900. I have A LOT of 4-stars now that are are between 10-13 covers, so I'm often looking to PVP to finish these people off.

I guess the bigger part of it is that PVP, I go into knowing what my expectations should realistically be. I know my roster isn't ready yet to consistently shoot for t5 or 1200 points, and that getting to 575-800 will be relatively easy. I have no qualms about putting up multiple shields, because not getting a cover you want will ultimately serve as a bigger source of frustration than you spending some HP that you will easily get back. I haven't needed the 4-star cover on the last 3 events, and still don't for the current and next, so I'm going into these knowing I can relax for the most part after I get the CP. PVE on the other hand I have alliance goals, so I always have to bust it even if I don't need the cover. Slacking or taking a break also hurts you, because recharge time makes all the difference in the world when it comes to how much nodes are worth on the end grind. These rewards also cycle less frequently, as a PVE event can be anywhere from 3 days to 7 days.

acescracked

PVE is a horrible time sink & death grind. Just a no fun play mode.

PvP is quick and fun. Unless you can't handle hits. Taking hits in PvP to personal is a bad idea. Shrug em off and keep climbing.

Dormammu

acescracked wrote:

PVE is a horrible time sink & death grind. Just a no fun play mode

I used to think the opposite and I enjoyed PvE's flexibility of progression vs. placement, but I'm starting to agree with you. The four clears for progression needs to be reduced. Even if it was just three clears it'd be a huge improvement.