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

Killians8

Frankly, I appreciated when I was just starting out and my roster could only get so far because the progressive nodes were out of my rosters range of completion. It gave me something to look forward to as my roster advanced and I have been able to comfortably complete them all now on regular basis. There's not a lot left to look forward to despite adding heroes and covers to currently rostered folks.

I like the idea of levels advancing on the nodes as long as the rewards also continuing advancing on those nodes or for further progression. I'm usually done with progression before I complete several of the last nodes on PvE events now and the only reason to continue is for some slight change in rank which may not add much in rewards. Improving the overall rewards system to encourage play seems important to keep players engaged in actually "playing" the game. Adding new events, bringing back Heroic event to limited rosters. Basically make some things a reasonable challenge so there it creates ongoing interest instead of the monotonous grind this game devolves into after about 6 months of regular play.

Elauric

Brigby wrote:

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.

I don't understand the reasoning behind this change.

PVE requires a good amount of time each day to be competitive in it. I'm sure most players have gone through burn out just trying to be competitive without grinding out nodes like that. How do you draw the line of what is "healthy"?

Also you mention that it isn't fair to players who don't want to grind missions. That's their choice if they want to, everyone has the choice and ability to do that, that is the most fair you can get. However, mobile players get Shield Intercepts bonuses and steam players do not, not by choice, how is this considered fair?

The Herald

Good job fixing nothing.

Let us know when and if you want to fix Story mode, as well as all the test data you've ignored from last time we all have plenty of suggestions you can look into.

I know the amount of yelling we can do makes it look like we think it's easy to fix when it's not, but we can flag problems for you and offer feedback.

GurlBYE

bbigler wrote:

This entire problem is solved by simply removing placement rewards in PVE (like DDQ). In order to offset the loss of placement rewards, you can increase the progression rewards. Do this and we will all be happy and avoid burnout.

To top it all off, it allows them to get as grimy and competitive and stingy with rewards as they want in pvp.

astrp3

bbigler wrote:

This entire problem is solved by simply removing placement rewards in PVE (like DDQ). In order to offset the loss of placement rewards, you can increase the progression rewards. Do this and we will all be happy and avoid burnout.

If they increased progression rewards, why would you object if they also added placement rewards on top of that? You could just ignore the placement rewards, do exactly what you did if they didn't have them, and get the exact same rewards you would have if they didn't have them (plus maybe a few low-level placement rewards to boot). Are you concerned that players who DID go for placement would get more rewards than those who didn't (personally, I think they should). If they got rid of placement rewards, I'd want them to make getting progression rewards much more difficult (right now, it's trivially easy to get them all in both PvE and DDQ).

It seems that a much simpler fix is just to lock the nodes after X clears or have them all reduce to zero and stop regenning once they did, but I may be missing something. It seems that ties would still be unlikely, since doing four clears as quickly as possible and the last three as close to the end as possible would still get you more points - though they could increase the base points and have a faster regen rate to make this more of a factor.

Then again, what do I know. I'd be curious as to what would happen if they had every PvE and every PvP running concurrently and ran them all over and over (staggered, with maybe a day off in between). That would force players (including me) to abandon the "I have to play every event" mindset. I'd imagine I'm the only one who feels this way, however, and I don't think they have anything remotely close to the player base for such a change - plus it would require a number of other changes as well (like possibly abandoning progression rewards entirely - or at least the covers). Similarly, I'd like it if they had like a thousand characters to force players (again, like me) to abandon the "I have to have every character" mindset.

GurlBYE

astrp3 wrote:

Similarly, I'd like it if they had like a thousand characters to force players (again, like me) to abandon the "I have to have every character" mindset.

It's less players forcing this mindset and more the game putting us in this position to make us buy more slots.

Behemoth burrito for example.
Crash of the titans as another
3star DDQ (I still refuse to roster about 6-7 3 stars)
Having to have at least 1 1 star for DDQ
2,3 and 4 star being required for nodes during each event
Boss events that force you to have specific characters in addition to at minimum 1 iteration of each.

vinsensual

This is a tangent, but if there was a person out there who was really hitting a node even hundreds of times, what situation and level of player would that be?

As stated earlier, half of the pve minigame is timing your last clears as close to the event end as possible. So a guy hitting even the easiest fight more than a dozen times, had a badly timed push, and it's almost a lost cause to keep up with most of the top 10 in a pve who had better timing. I just can't picture how a player finds themself (it seems themself might not be a word) with that much time but still thinks they have a shot at (I'm assuming) the 4* cover.

astrp3

GurlBYE wrote:

It's less players forcing this mindset and more the game putting us in this position to make us buy more slots.

Maybe, but I personally don't feel like I need to roster every 3* and 4* (and certainly not every 5*) to succeed at the game. If I didn't have the bottom tier (say bottom third) 3s and 4s, I don't think I'd suffer any major setback. True, I wouldn't be able to compete for top 10 placement in PvEs where I didn't have the required characters, but I rarely place top 10 anyway (though that may change as I develop my roster) and top fifty is easy, even when missing a required character (you could just keep a couple of rotating slots for the ones you're missing to use at the end of PvEs). Plus, if they ran every PvE concurrently, it would be difficult to be competitive in all of them anyway, so having to be less competitive in some wouldn't be as big of a deal.

True, you'd miss out on doing the 3* DDQ missions 1/3 of the time, but you'd "only" be missing some ISO, taco tokens, etc. plus a cover for a character you didn't want anyway. Missing Behemoth Burrito would "only" cost you 2 CP and a taco token (neither of which were available before the latest changes), but that would all just slow your progress down, not stop it.

Maybe you wouldn't be able to compete in PvP if you didn't have the boosted 4*s, but my experience with 3*s is that I seem to do as well, or better, with an unboosted top-tier character than with a boosted bottom tier one.

In my case, the main reason I want to roster (and champion) every character IS my mindset. If I can collect every character, item, spell etc. in a game, I'm going to do it whether I need to or not. Building a roster to me is much more fun than getting top placement. The only reason I shoot for top placement is so I can pull tokens and build my roster, which I suppose is kind of bass-ackwards, but that's how I roll and I don't expect D3 to cater to such.

Yes, there are numerous benefits to a deep roster, but I don't know that it has to be deep enough to encompass every character in the game.

astrp3

vinsensual wrote:

This is a tangent, but if there was a person out there who was really hitting a node even hundreds of times, what situation and level of player would that be?

Well, if you played all except for first easy node optimally and grinded that one node over a thousand times, the points you got from grinding would more than offset those you lost from not playing it optimally. I'm not sure how many points the first node is worth, but my guess/vague memory is that you'd get about 300-350 points by doing the last three clears optimally.

NewMcG

astrp3 wrote:

Maybe, but I personally don't feel like I need to roster every 3* and 4* (and certainly not every 5*) to succeed at the game. If I didn't have the bottom tier (say bottom third) 3s and 4s, I don't think I'd suffer any major setback. True, I wouldn't be able to compete for top 10 placement in PvEs where I didn't have the required characters, but I rarely place top 10 anyway (though that may change as I develop my roster) and top fifty is easy, even when missing a required character (you could just keep a couple of rotating slots for the ones you're missing to use at the end of PvEs). Plus, if they ran every PvE concurrently, it would be difficult to be competitive in all of them anyway, so having to be less competitive in some wouldn't be as big of a deal.

True, you'd miss out on doing the 3* DDQ missions 1/3 of the time, but you'd "only" be missing some ISO, taco tokens, etc. plus a cover for a character you didn't want anyway. Missing Behemoth Burrito would "only" cost you 2 CP and a taco token (neither of which were available before the latest changes), but that would all just slow your progress down, not stop it.

Maybe you wouldn't be able to compete in PvP if you didn't have the boosted 4*s, but my experience with 3*s is that I seem to do as well, or better, with an unboosted top-tier character than with a boosted bottom tier one.

In my case, the main reason I want to roster (and champion) every character IS my mindset. If I can collect every character, item, spell etc. in a game, I'm going to do it whether I need to or not. Building a roster to me is much more fun than getting top placement. The only reason I shoot for top placement is so I can pull tokens and build my roster, which I suppose is kind of bass-ackwards, but that's how I roll and I don't expect D3 to cater to such.

Yes, there are numerous benefits to a deep roster, but I don't know that it has to be deep enough to encompass every character in the game.

Nobody needs to have every character, but it's hugely beneficial to have everyone rostered if you want to build your roster. Don't like, say, Venom? Well, sure it doesn't hurt to not have him, as he isn't that great. Until he's required in an event that gives out a top tier 4*, when you're instantly locked out of fighting for a top end spot (and the 4* cover/covers that come with it) because you don't have even 1 cover to play his nodes. Then the missing character is also negatively impacting the really good ones you may want.

carrion_pigeons

Changing the way people achieve points is a band-aid, regardless of how it's done. The real problem is the level of incentive placed on certain breakpoints in competitive ranking. A huge majority of competitors would stop most of the grinding if the top 100 players got a 4* instead of the top 10. Even more would stop if the Iso incentive were removed and spread among node rewards, where it belongs.

ZeroKarma

hodayathink wrote:

ZeroKarma wrote:

Not to beat a dead horse again, but we all know the answer to this damn problem. It's progression PvE.

I still want all the prizes, so continue with the requirement of hitting a node 6x. Once all nodes have green check marks, you unlock the next sub.

Maybe you clear the whole event in one day. Who cares?

No stress. No timers. Use difficulty as the gate to the rewards, and base the difficulty on the Clearance Level.

Done. Everyone loves it unless you have the tinykitty rewards provided by the Gauntlet now.

So you lose revenue on health packs, but you gain goodwill. Hell, I would bet you that people would pay an entry fee for those events if you want a way to replace the revenue.

So you want the return of "You're supposed to lose" then? Because if they're going to gate rewards based on difficulty, then that's what's going to happen without a doubt.

Not at all. But if you want progression only with decent rewards you are going to have to gate it somehow. Not every event has prizes that should be accessible to all, or perhaps better put, not every clearance level.

You absolutely should have to play difficult matches if you want 3-4 4* covers from an event. We already accept an insane level of difficulty for 1 cover in the Gauntlet and many people finish it.

Wouldn't Gauntlet be awesome if it gave out 4 4* covers? Yes it would. But if everyone at all cl levels could get those rewards it would be the equivalent of a participation trophy.

By the way, this is a game. You ARE supposed to lose sometimes. You ARE supposed to face challenges that you can't yet overcome. That makes you come back for more.

The problem in this game is not that you may lose, it is that a single loss in a Boss battle or on a quick PvP hop is incredibly devastating. Winning 100% of the time is often the only path to success, which is an incorrect way to design a game.

dlegendary0ne

My problem with this is the only way to make it to the top is to be the fastest. This is where scaling, which is a much larger problem, comes into play. Weaker rosters are often faster than stronger rosters because scaling for them is easier. This means that a player's speed isn't a reflection of how good their roster is. That's unfair to the stronger rosters - especially considering how much it takes to gain the stronger characters.

I wish the scaling problem would've been addressed first before they did this. Now it just discourages stronger players from even trying to be competitive.

Brigby

Hi Everyone. Thanks for all of the feedback. Rest assured that this isn't necessarily the final iteration of changes, as the development team will be monitoring player behavior during this event, and making adjustments as necessary.

jgomes32

Brigby wrote:

Hi Everyone. Thanks for all of the feedback. Rest assured that this isn't necessarily the final iteration of changes, as the development team will be monitoring player behavior during this event, and making adjustments as necessary.

Heard that one before.... Heroics are still unrestricted.

DaveR4470

I honestly don't see how this solves the stated problem in the least.

royalflush95

Holy tinykitty!!!! 1000 times, that's quite impressive even if it's the first trivial node. I was expecting this post to be about nodes, that these things will be reduced from 4 to 3 cleans (or even less). I suppose I'll continue to be full casual.

JHawkInc

Brigby wrote:

Hi Everyone. Thanks for all of the feedback. Rest assured that this isn't necessarily the final iteration of changes, as the development team will be monitoring player behavior during this event, and making adjustments as necessary.

I'm not trying to "shoot the messenger", I know a large part of what you do is bridge the gap between us and the devs, and we really appreciate that, because communication has gotten much better during your time here. Like, seriously, a LOT better.

But "monitoring player behavior during this event" is basically code for "ignoring forum suggestions and never talking about it ever again."

I know things in reality aren't that black and white, but it certainly appears that way from the forum's side of things (Vaulting, 4* Captain Marvel Lightning Rounds, the last big PVE change we went through last fall, the subpar improvement from SCL7 to SCL8 when it was released, etc).

If the devs would make an effort to share some of this information, things they looked at, what their goals are, what they learned, what they'd like to adjust/change, etc. Not even like a copy of the data, but just a summary of the process, so we can understand what's going on, what's changing going forward and why, maybe even a chance to pitch in what we think along the way, it would go a long way for community goodwill.

Because with complete silence, "we're going to monitor player behavior" might as well say the devs are going to consult the green rock that sits near the fire escape, praise be unto the rock, may it be satisfied by our decisions and stop draining our life force. It's really hard not to be cynical about dev intentions when the only response we ever get is indistinguishable from a smokescreen used to dodge an actual response.

fmftint

Why not make those nodes worth a ton more points? Make them impossible to outpace point regeneration. If those nodes have a base value of lets say 1000, there'd be no way to grind them enough to get ahead.



Just as ridiculous and half baked "fix"

Pants1000

It seems a lot of people don't see this was being abused, and how this really does fix it.

To abuse this, you need to do optimal clears on all but the easiest node, then grind that easiest node hundreds of times before the final grind. There is opportunity cost, you lose out the points you could get from optimally grinding the easy node. It depends on the sub, but let's say it's 200 points. If you could grind the easiest node in 30 seconds, it would take 100 minutes of grinding it to make that up. Spend 200 minutes doing it and you're 200 points higher than an "optimal grind".

Now doing it with the 2* essential, the opportunity cost is higher because it's worth more points. Again it depends on the sub, but let's say it's worth 400 points. Because it's the 2* essential, you can't really use the Thanos/healers strategy. It would take too many health packs. 1 minute per round is probably more realistic, so now it takes 400 minutes of grinding instead of 100 minutes to match an optimal grind.

Some people are willing to spend a few hours to do this, but 8+ hours is another story.

If anyone actually did this and wants to correct my numbers, feel free, but I think they're in the ballpark. I'm sure some subs would be easier to abuse than others, particularly subs with 2-3 point minimum goon-only nodes.