Updates to Story Mission Minimum Points (3/28/17)

Brigby

Hey Everyone,

We’ve recently noticed some players have been repeatedly playing missions (upwards of 1,000 times!) in order to gain higher placements in Events. While this immense amount of dedication is certainly impressive, we feel that this just isn’t a healthy way to play the game, and it isn’t fair to players who don’t want to grind trivially easy missions for a significant amount of time.

Due to this, starting with The Hulk Story event, there will be some changes to the minimum amount of points a mission has. We will be monitoring player behavior over the next couple of events, and updating the system as necessary.

Here are the changes:

• Join Forces missions will be worth a minimum of 0 points. • The first three easiest missions will be worth a minimum of 0 points. • The 3 harder missions will be worth 1, 2, and 3 points respectively. • The 2-Star, 3-Star, and 4-Star missions will be worth 1, 2, and 3 points respectively.

Thanks for understanding!

firethorne

Has there ever been any serious consideration on going to a progression only rewards structure for PvE? Something like this happening seems like a stellar example of why such a structure could be superior.

Dayv

I don't think this is going to work that well. Some 1-point grinders will be leveled out of being able to do this, while others will just figure out which node gives them the best ratios of points-to-time/healthpacks.

JHawkInc

Okay, so I get making the easiest nodes drop to 0, because you can't farm them forever (though theoretically they'll eventually recharge to 1 point). But I wonder what's the reasoning behind some of them having a minimum of 2/3 instead of 1? If you can clear one of the harder nodes in 1/3rd the time of one of the easy nodes, it'll be worth it for the 3 points, and thus people will still do this, just on different nodes.

Like, if people are getting too much sugar from sodas, you don't introduce a diet soda with reduced sugar, AND a "deluxe" soda that has bonus sugar. Kinda defeats the point, don't you think?

fmftint

So instead of grinding a trivial node they'll grind a still ridiculously easy 2 essential

You guys REALLY need to get some input from the top pve players before making blind changes

Merrick

Why not just increase the point values of all nodes (and the points needed for rewards obviously).

If the point regeneration is equal to or higher than the time it takes for a person to grind 1 point nodes, they won't do it.

alphabeta

And you hand competitive pve to soft cappers who will have scaling to grind hardest node forever while the rest barely clear those nodes the required 6/7 times

Give up on competing PVE has been the call since you went to this system - this just makes the system less equal

entrailbucket

Great news guys!

Now if you could just make scaling the same for everyone, so it's not optimal to keep your entire roster at level 70, pve would be perfect. I recommend static scaling by CL, so people who want an easier time or couldn't handle difficult enemies could just choose a lower CL. If the minimum enemy level in CL8 was, say, 450, that would go a long way towards making the game fairer for all of us.

Xenoberyll

So many things that could be better if only the devs would talk to high end players or better yet, try to be one themselves and actually EARN the covers.

Dayv

I still long for the idea of not having to play a weird metagame of timers and score regeneneration as you repeat the same nodes over and over again, but make certain that your pace and timing of repretition is more optimal than the next person's.

Oh, and no cover vaulting.

Crowl

fmftint wrote:

So instead of grinding a trivial node they'll grind a still ridiculously easy 2 essential

You guys REALLY need to get some input from the top pve players before making blind changes

They don't even need input from 'top' players, they just need enough awareness that if they are having to make this change due to people grinding the trivial nodes then leaving any other nodes available for interminable grinding will result in people finding the next easiest option to use instead, it is not like the 2* essential is significantly harder.

killerkoala

so D3 is penalizing peeps for playing the game? if they want to grind nodes over and over again, isn't it their choice to do that.

Crowl

DayvBang wrote:

I still long for the idea of not having to play a weird metagame of timers and score regeneneration as you repeat the same nodes over and over again, but make certain that your pace and timing of repretition is more optimal than the next person's.

Oh, and no cover vaulting.

They should make all 7 clears worth full points and then drop them to 0, if they need a tiebreaker for placements then time the last 3 clears for that purpose. This would have the added bonus of disconnecting specific timings from clearing entirely, thus allowing people to play the odd game here and there without harming their pve scoring.

Vhailorx

I have to agree with many of the other posts here. These changes seem intended to resolve 1 specific problem while incidentally exacerbating three or four different problems. People will STILL grind the 2* essential node, and softcappers may even be able grind the 3-point nodes very quickly (especially when the top node is a goon node).

And all of this is a band-aid on the larger problems of PVE (it's competitive, and requires a grueling playschedule and squeezes the top prizes into very narrow bands of a few dozen points over the course of a full week).

whitecat31

We warned the development team on this forum that players would grind over and over again certain nodes to win. Since the difference between first place and 20th place is usually less than 300 points in competitive brackets, it is to be expected. Oh and as long as people have a five star thanos, they will grind the easiest to destroy node over and over again. Just do a minimum of zero on all nodes, and be done with it.

DrDevilDinosaur

Crowl wrote:

They should make all 7 clears worth full points and then drop them to 0, if they need a tiebreaker for placements then time the last 3 clears for that purpose. This would have the added bonus of disconnecting specific timings from clearing entirely, thus allowing people to play the odd game here and there without harming their pve scoring.

Emphasis mine.

Honestly, I think they could time each clear (either in minutes, or rounds to complete) and award points/bonus points in that way. Alternatively, for a change of pace, they could award points based on the amount of health remaining on your team - this would increase the value on Protection & Healing, and players would generally want to use different characters between PvE and PvP. That last bit is probably the most important, since it effectively promotes the idea that players should keep diverse rosters (which means more roster slots and levelling more characters, etc. which is good for D3/Demiurge).

GrumpySmurf1002

whitecat31 wrote:

Just do a minimum of zero on all nodes, and be done with it.

Minimum of zero will still recharge.

6 clears, lock the nodes. Period.

Crowl

DrDevilDinosaur wrote:

Crowl wrote:

They should make all 7 clears worth full points and then drop them to 0, if they need a tiebreaker for placements then time the last 3 clears for that purpose. This would have the added bonus of disconnecting specific timings from clearing entirely, thus allowing people to play the odd game here and there without harming their pve scoring.

Emphasis mine.

Honestly, I think they could time each clear (either in minutes, or rounds to complete) and award points/bonus points in that way. Alternatively, for a change of pace, they could award points based on the amount of health remaining on your team - this would increase the value on Protection & Healing, and players would generally want to use different characters between PvE and PvP. That last bit is probably the most important, since it effectively promotes the idea that players should keep diverse rosters (which means more roster slots and levelling more characters, etc. which is good for D3/Demiurge).

I suggested only the final three as those would be after the level increases had stopped and also not all of them as it would allow people far more flexibility in the teams they pick, unlike now where it is all about speed and little else.

As far as remaining health as a tiebreaker, it seems like it would favour true healers far too much and if you based it on damage taken instead, this just seems like your score would be too rng dependent, under the current circumstances scraping out a win after a ludicrous amount of ai cascades would slow you down slightly, whereas scraping a win in the suggested format could easily knock you down several places.

Dormammu

If some fool wants to grind a node 1000 times, I say give em the win.

killerkoala

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

whitecat31 wrote:

Just do a minimum of zero on all nodes, and be done with it.

Minimum of zero will still recharge.

6 clears, lock the nodes. Period.

they tried that once and had to give high placement prizes to like 250 places for 1000 peeps, if i rememeber right

Crowl

Dormammu wrote:

If some fool wants to grind a node 1000 times, I say give em the win.

Given the sensationalist tabloid headlines you get when people die after playing video games for x amount of hours, it is somewhat understandable that they don't want to encourage such play in their game.