SCL changes should lead to PVE placement changes

MarkersMake

Right now, the stated reason for not implementing SCL9/10 is that there are not enough players to fill those brackets. Clearly this is only an issue because players in those hypothetical half-empty brackets would have a placement advantage over players in full brackets (I can't think of another reason, but I'm open to suggestions ). Removing placement rewards should therefore remove the only obstacle to implementing SCL9/10.

In light of that, the SCL/PVE changes (assuming they tune the rewards structure for SCL8/9/10 properly*) could very well be a step on the path to removing placement rewards from PVE (or possibly downgrading them so that they are not a major issue - eg. offering only ISO for placement: 10k for 1st, 5k for 2-10th, 2k for 10-100, and 1k for 100th+).

Is that a tradeoff you would make, or is the competitive aspect of PvE too important to you to give up? 

DaveR4470

Would make that tradeoff in a second, if the covers currently in the placement were worked into the progression rewards.  

But that would devalue PvP, so it probably won't happen....

Wumpushunter

I would totally get rid of placement (this is pve) if they would improve progression rewards to compensate for the loss of placement rewards.

acescracked

If said rewards are hard to get via placement...

Why in the world by just switching to pure progression would now make those rewards easier to get by a ton of more people?

The game has given us two progression only pve game modes. Gauntlet - which gives very little in the way of rewards for effort. Alliance boss battles - Side nodes scale like nuts to where only few can get to the last two (sometimes 3) reward levels.

So please if you convince D3 to remove placement, all players are gonna get multiple 4* covers with medium effort? C'mon man!

amusingfoo1

MarkersMake said:

Right now, the stated reason for not implementing SCL9/10 is that there are not enough players to fill those brackets. Clearly this is only an issue because players in those hypothetical half-empty brackets would have a placement advantage over players in full brackets (I can't think of another reason, but I'm open to suggestions ). Removing placement rewards should therefore remove the only obstacle to implementing SCL9/10.

It isn't a placement advantage in those smaller brackets.  The people most wanting to move up will be the people who are used to, say, top-5 in cl8.  Staying in PvP, right now, for instance, s3 has five to six scl8 brackets per event. Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that everyone getting top-5 right now moves up.  If you only have one bracket for scl9, the majority of those people are taking a significant step down in placement.  The prize difference better be a lot bigger than the one for scl7 -> scl8, or you're going to have some very unhappy players.

I don't have numbers for PvE, but the same issue applies.  Plus there's the issue of start time, if you're not a prejoiner.

SpringSoldier

I'm not too concerned by the competitive aspect of PVE. I get frustrated sometimes, but that's not a good reason to deprive more competitive players of their rewards. I think a good step would be to implement SCL 9 first and than see whether or not people join in- and what to do if they don't join in. I have a much bigger problem with PVP in this regard- about how hard it is for a new-ish player to get even some decent progression reward, not to mention placement rewards.

Bowgentle

sh81 said:

MarkersMake said:

Is that a tradeoff you would make, or is the competitive aspect of PvE too important to you to give up? 

I like the competitive nature, and I think if you finish higher you do deserve more rewards.

I think the current placement rewards are flawed and certainly need an overhaul.

4* covers should be rewarded to top 50, if not top 100.


I also think the idea of slices themselves, or at least the placement rewards being within a particular slice needs work.

For example, The Hunt, My Alliance finished top 50.  Within the alliance I finished 2nd, with a lot more points than some immediately below me.

They finished top 10 in their slice, and are now enjoying their 4Cage covers.
I finished 12th in mine, and so added a few champ levels to Black Panther.

While I readily accept a degree of RNG being part of the game, I feel when something as easily quantified as a points total at the end of the tournament doesnt really stack up against other players when it comes to rewards, something is wrong.

I play the slice I do because its the only one I can fit into my day to day life, and I feel right now as though I have been penalised for that.

Im not sure what the answer is exactly.  I guess looking at the top 10% over all once the tournament is finished perhaps, as opposed to the T10 within a slice?  Im not sure, but something should be done to keep things fair.

You're confusing bracket with slice.

Slice = Start/End time
Bracket = Your leaderboard of 1000 people.

Your alliance mates simply caught less competitive and/or later brackets, so they got better placement with lower scores.

NNCSavage

Rewards and their structure are both in definite need of overhaul. As are many things unfortunately. Part of the reason you see people with big rosters dropping to 6 or 7 is because there is little difference between 6/7/8 unless you are in that top 1%. Slices are also unbalanced, T10 in one might not get you t50 in another.

My opinion is that it is ridiculous that two people who do the same amount of work can get vastly different rewards and that difference is based on random chance that you can meet arbitrary time constraints and speed (part of which is random chance cascades for or against) [more RNG!]. If you and I clear the same 70 nodes we should get mostly the same rewards. I am fine with a small reward bonus to fast clearers (maybe t10, t50, t100 get some extra ISO, HP, CP, whatever) but their main benefit should be more time to do other stuff, in-game or out of game.

MissChinch

Rewards being easier to get because there are less people in a particular SCL just isn't how it works...  Bracket sizes are 1000 people, so long as there are at least 1000 people in a given SCL and slice population isn't an issue...  every SCL and slice combo can expect to have the final bracket be sub 1000 people, but every other bracket in that slice SCL is going to be maxed and have people competing against 999 other people for the reward....   I'll go out on a limb and assume there are many thousands of players with clearance levels above 47 or whatever the cutoff is...  So population is a poor argument against it...

That said it doesn't matter now if they tie scaling to SCL...   I don't think there should even be a minimum level required to select a SCL, let the difficulty completely dictate it.  Higher players can certainly handle enemy levels higher than the 300s (posts are flooding in about how much easier this fixed difficulty scheme will be for higher levels) so its clear that there is a place for a higher difficulty SCL (or several) with better rewards...   Its such an easy conclusion to draw that I'm assuming its on D3/Demi's roadmap provided this testing period doesn't go completely sideways. 

Starfury

sh81 said:

MarkersMake said:

Is that a tradeoff you would make, or is the competitive aspect of PvE too important to you to give up? 

I like the competitive nature, and I think if you finish higher you do deserve more rewards.

I think the current placement rewards are flawed and certainly need an overhaul.

4* covers should be rewarded to top 50, if not top 100.


I also think the idea of slices themselves, or at least the placement rewards being within a particular slice needs work.

For example, The Hunt, My Alliance finished top 50.  Within the alliance I finished 2nd, with a lot more points than some immediately below me.

They finished top 10 in their slice, and are now enjoying their 4Cage covers.
I finished 12th in mine, and so added a few champ levels to Black Panther.

While I readily accept a degree of RNG being part of the game, I feel when something as easily quantified as a points total at the end of the tournament doesnt really stack up against other players when it comes to rewards, something is wrong.

I play the slice I do because its the only one I can fit into my day to day life, and I feel right now as though I have been penalised for that.

Im not sure what the answer is exactly.  I guess looking at the top 10% over all once the tournament is finished perhaps, as opposed to the T10 within a slice?  Im not sure, but something should be done to keep things fair.

I thought of something along that line when I tried to come up with a system where we could have hourly slices and just group everyone together in one big pool. (after all, everyone gets 24 hours, it doesn't really matter if they start at 05:00 or at 20:00)

The main problem comes down to how you can see where you currently stand while the event is going on. That's very simple in the current 1000 people system, but quite a bit more complicated in some kind of merged pool.

broll

Bowgentle said:

sh81 said:

MarkersMake said:

Is that a tradeoff you would make, or is the competitive aspect of PvE too important to you to give up? 

I like the competitive nature, and I think if you finish higher you do deserve more rewards.

I think the current placement rewards are flawed and certainly need an overhaul.

4* covers should be rewarded to top 50, if not top 100.


I also think the idea of slices themselves, or at least the placement rewards being within a particular slice needs work.

For example, The Hunt, My Alliance finished top 50.  Within the alliance I finished 2nd, with a lot more points than some immediately below me.

They finished top 10 in their slice, and are now enjoying their 4Cage covers.
I finished 12th in mine, and so added a few champ levels to Black Panther.

While I readily accept a degree of RNG being part of the game, I feel when something as easily quantified as a points total at the end of the tournament doesnt really stack up against other players when it comes to rewards, something is wrong.

I play the slice I do because its the only one I can fit into my day to day life, and I feel right now as though I have been penalised for that.

Im not sure what the answer is exactly.  I guess looking at the top 10% over all once the tournament is finished perhaps, as opposed to the T10 within a slice?  Im not sure, but something should be done to keep things fair.

You're confusing bracket with slice.

Slice = Start/End time
Bracket = Your leaderboard of 1000 people.

Your alliance mates simply caught less competitive and/or later brackets, so they got better placement with lower scores.

Slice times are also a problem.  If getting top placement is so tightly tied to playing at particular time frames, then if none of the 5 times they give you work, you're tinykitty.  I'm in this boat.  If there were an 8pm EST slice I'd probably hit top 10 most of the time if not better, however I'm resigned to 20-50 because I recognize that work/my family/sleep are more important that a mobile game.

MissChinch

Starfury said:

sh81 said:

MarkersMake said:

Is that a tradeoff you would make, or is the competitive aspect of PvE too important to you to give up? 

I like the competitive nature, and I think if you finish higher you do deserve more rewards.

I think the current placement rewards are flawed and certainly need an overhaul.

4* covers should be rewarded to top 50, if not top 100.


I also think the idea of slices themselves, or at least the placement rewards being within a particular slice needs work.

For example, The Hunt, My Alliance finished top 50.  Within the alliance I finished 2nd, with a lot more points than some immediately below me.

They finished top 10 in their slice, and are now enjoying their 4Cage covers.
I finished 12th in mine, and so added a few champ levels to Black Panther.

While I readily accept a degree of RNG being part of the game, I feel when something as easily quantified as a points total at the end of the tournament doesnt really stack up against other players when it comes to rewards, something is wrong.

I play the slice I do because its the only one I can fit into my day to day life, and I feel right now as though I have been penalised for that.

Im not sure what the answer is exactly.  I guess looking at the top 10% over all once the tournament is finished perhaps, as opposed to the T10 within a slice?  Im not sure, but something should be done to keep things fair.

I thought of something along that line when I tried to come up with a system where we could have hourly slices and just group everyone together in one big pool. (after all, everyone gets 24 hours, it doesn't really matter if they start at 05:00 or at 20:00)

The main problem comes down to how you can see where you currently stand while the event is going on. That's very simple in the current 1000 people system, but quite a bit more complicated in some kind of merged pool.

I'd be fine with them waiting for personal rewards until after all slices end, calculating the top .1% threshold and awarding the first place prizes to all those people, calculate the top 1%, anyone over that gets top10 prizes etc... 

If not that then I'd be all for splitting a current bracket in half (even numbers get dumped into a new bracket) anytime a new bracket is necessary instead of just opening up a clean one and having everyone play the bracket sniping game...  It would benefit the people that were actually playing, in that each time a bracket split they would jump rank halfway up to the top.

Beer40

I play at level 8 with a 3*/4* transition roster. That's probably not ideal, but I don't do ideal clears either, because for me its about progression and not placement. The luck of the bracket and all that...I'd rather just take my chances on placement because I feel I'd be doing that in any level.

So when they open up 9, if I'm eligible, I'm moving up.

Warbringa

Well the people who are really going to get the raw end of this deal are the people who generally play in SCL 6 and 7 currently.  I am a 3* to 4* transition player who has played in SCL 8 ever since it opened.  I will not however do so if the nodes reach level 400 as that is just far to difficult for me with my current roster.  Right now, my most difficult nodes normally reach in the low 300's (around 330 or so depending on boosts).  While this change would actually make it easier on me based on the chart to go to SCL 7, I would be giving up some rewards, most notably that newly introduced 3rd 3* cover, which ticks me off.  This will put downward pressure on SCL 6 and 7 as more people like myself flood into them and reduce placement rewards for many of those players. I doubt that most of those players in SCL 6 and 7 would look at moving down due to the disparity in rewards once you go under SCL 6.  On the other hand it will help placement I imagine for well developed 4* players in SCL 8.  The other issue is that you will probably have a ton of players that should be in SCL 8 still just zip down to SCL 7 in order to get all of the good placement rewards there with no effort since their difficulty will be ridiculously lower.  I don't see how this works out because there is no way that the people who should be in SCL 7 with this change can compete against someone who decides to play lower than they should.  At least before, those players still had to face nodes based on their roster and not SCL.  The only option to prevent this would be to restrict SCL based on roster somehow.  If you have more than X champed 4*, you can only play in SCL 8 or higher and if you any 5* at X covers or level, you must play SCL 8 or higher. 

SpringSoldier

Starfury said:

sh81 said:

I thought of something along that line when I tried to come up with a system where we could have hourly slices and just group everyone together in one big pool. (after all, everyone gets 24 hours, it doesn't really matter if they start at 05:00 or at 20:00)

The main problem comes down to how you can see where you currently stand while the event is going on. That's very simple in the current 1000 people system, but quite a bit more complicated in some kind of merged pool.

It's still complicated due to the time zones. I'm on Eastern Europe time and I've often number 1 when I go to bed, then wake up at number 120. But I can't cancel out time zones so that's that. But one player with a certain amount of points should never be awarded less than another one with the same amount- that's just not fair.

MissChinch

Warbringa said:

Well the people who are really going to get the raw end of this deal are the people who generally play in SCL 6 and 7 currently.  I am a 3* to 4* transition player who has played in SCL 8 ever since it opened.  I will not however do so if the nodes reach level 400 as that is just far to difficult for me with my current roster.  Right now, my most difficult nodes normally reach in the low 300's (around 330 or so depending on boosts).  While this change would actually make it easier on me based on the chart to go to SCL 7, I would be giving up some rewards, most notably that newly introduced 3rd 3* cover, which ticks me off.  This will put downward pressure on SCL 6 and 7 as more people like myself flood into them and reduce placement rewards for many of those players. I doubt that most of those players in SCL 6 and 7 would look at moving down due to the disparity in rewards once you go under SCL 6.  On the other hand it will help placement I imagine for well developed 4* players in SCL 8.  The other issue is that you will probably have a ton of players that should be in SCL 8 still just zip down to SCL 7 in order to get all of the good placement rewards there with no effort since their difficulty will be ridiculously lower.  I don't see how this works out because there is no way that the people who should be in SCL 7 with this change can compete against someone who decides to play lower than they should.  At least before, those players still had to face nodes based on their roster and not SCL.  The only option to prevent this would be to restrict SCL based on roster somehow.  If you have more than X champed 4*, you can only play in SCL 8 or higher and if you any 5* at X covers or level, you must play SCL 8 or higher. 

SCL4 is attractive if you can forgo the 4* progression cover, especially if you would be looking at one turn wins in a lot of the matches...   its the lowest SCL that still gives a good amount of CP.

MissChinch

sh81 said:

MissChinch said:

Starfury said:

sh81 said:

MarkersMake said:

Is that a tradeoff you would make, or is the competitive aspect of PvE too important to you to give up? 

I like the competitive nature, and I think if you finish higher you do deserve more rewards.

I think the current placement rewards are flawed and certainly need an overhaul.

4* covers should be rewarded to top 50, if not top 100.


I also think the idea of slices themselves, or at least the placement rewards being within a particular slice needs work.

For example, The Hunt, My Alliance finished top 50.  Within the alliance I finished 2nd, with a lot more points than some immediately below me.

They finished top 10 in their slice, and are now enjoying their 4Cage covers.
I finished 12th in mine, and so added a few champ levels to Black Panther.

While I readily accept a degree of RNG being part of the game, I feel when something as easily quantified as a points total at the end of the tournament doesnt really stack up against other players when it comes to rewards, something is wrong.

I play the slice I do because its the only one I can fit into my day to day life, and I feel right now as though I have been penalised for that.

Im not sure what the answer is exactly.  I guess looking at the top 10% over all once the tournament is finished perhaps, as opposed to the T10 within a slice?  Im not sure, but something should be done to keep things fair.

I thought of something along that line when I tried to come up with a system where we could have hourly slices and just group everyone together in one big pool. (after all, everyone gets 24 hours, it doesn't really matter if they start at 05:00 or at 20:00)

The main problem comes down to how you can see where you currently stand while the event is going on. That's very simple in the current 1000 people system, but quite a bit more complicated in some kind of merged pool.

I'd be fine with them waiting for personal rewards until after all slices end, calculating the top .1% threshold and awarding the first place prizes to all those people, calculate the top 1%, anyone over that gets top10 prizes etc... 

If not that then I'd be all for splitting a current bracket in half (even numbers get dumped into a new bracket) anytime a new bracket is necessary instead of just opening up a clean one and having everyone play the bracket sniping game...  It would benefit the people that were actually playing, in that each time a bracket split they would jump rank halfway up to the top.

Holding back on rewards and calculating afterwards would work fine for me, though as Starfury says it would still be hard to keep track of where you stand as it is ongoing.

It would absolutely be hard, and to some degree impossible, that would be the tradeoff if you did it across all slices, you could still keep the slice structure and give rewards based around each slice where you would get real time tracking info..   just a thought there are probably dozens of better ones, I don't expect it to change.

MissChinch

sh81 said:

Neither do I, but I really think it should.  Its a real inequality in the game, which just doesnt seem right at all.

Though I can of course appreciate its a real tough one to find a solution to.

Well I think they go through more effort in creating these artificial constructs...  the tough part might be pushing a change through the process... sometimes the most annoying issues are the ones that seem to have a multitude of good alternatives that seem cheaply available, but just aren't prioritized..   I would love for this to change, but I don't imagine its high on their list...

Warbringa

MissChinch said:

SCL4 is attractive if you can forgo the 4* progression cover, especially if you would be looking at one turn wins in a lot of the matches...   its the lowest SCL that still gives a good amount of CP.

Well the 4* cover is a close second reason that I play so being in transition mode, they are fairly important but that is interesting that SCL 4 provides nearly the same CP, I will keep that in mind. 

Rethinking a part of my earlier post, even though many people may flee SCL 8, it may make it even tougher for SCL 8 if only hardcore and competitive vets stay, placement will be even more difficult for them since they will basically only be competing against players that are almost exactly like them as pointed out in other posts I have read since my post.

MissChinch

Warbringa said:

MissChinch said:

SCL4 is attractive if you can forgo the 4* progression cover, especially if you would be looking at one turn wins in a lot of the matches...   its the lowest SCL that still gives a good amount of CP.

Well the 4* cover is a close second reason that I play so being in transition mode, they are fairly important but that is interesting that SCL 4 provides nearly the same CP, I will keep that in mind. 

Rethinking a part of my earlier post, even though many people may flee SCL 8, it may make it even tougher for SCL 8 if only hardcore and competitive vets stay, placement will be even more difficult for them since they will basically only be competing against players that are almost exactly like them as pointed out in other posts I have read since my post.

Further emphasizing progression rewards over placement rewards in pve will make the whole issue of players playing at SCL levels other players don't want them to less and less impactful...

I've always thought having placement rewards you compete against other players for is quite stupid in pve...  being able to provide a specific challenge that maps to specific rewards I would think should obviate the need for any placement at all...  

Even if you want to give out a 5* for max progression in the highest bracket, you can now jack the enemy levels up high enough to where you're confident only rosters that are positioned correctly for a 5* reward can obtain it.

Wumpushunter

The real only way to fix the situation of placement is make more spots actually rewarding.  1-3 would get current 1st place reward, 4-10 would get next level,  11 - 24, and 25-50.  At least give 50 people out of 1000 something decent.