Biggest misunderstanding about Shield Clearance Levels

Orion

Fightmastermpq said:

Starfury said:

The (irresolvable) conflict that's created by tying scaling to SCL is that anyone who's serious about placement rewards needs to drop down an SCL or two from the level he'd actually be able of completing.

You either have only trivially easy (and quick) fights, or you just won't get the same number of points as someone who does.

This leads to the somewhat strange situation where top placement rewards are totally out of reach of whatever rosters that specific SCL's difficulty level is meant for.

Edit:
The conflict is irresolvable because you can't make 8 SCL differ enough in their progression rewards to make dropping down for placement unattractive. (there's just not enough room without raising SCL 8 progression to absurd heights)
And you can't make placement rewards themselves unattractive enough for people not to want to drop down without making them completely irrelevant to anyone even in the lower SCL.


Of course if they would just get rid of placement... But then they'd have one hamster wheel less.

This is working as intended.  If you are dominating your current difficulty level then it's time to take your game to the next level where you will have to continue to work until you are dominating there and so on and so forth until you burn out or are dominating at the highest level.  This happens in all walks of life - from gaming, to sports, to even climbing the corporate ladder.

How long you slum it out at a lower level depends on the risk/reward of advancing.  Consider a highschool basketball player deciding whether he will go to college or go straight to the NBA.  The reward of moving up (progress) is huge, but the risk of not getting drafted (placement) is also big.  If he does go to the NBA but then doesn't do well it could set his career back indefinitely, but he could also do very well.  Or he could just go to college (stay in SCL7) where he knows he can dominate (T10 placement) and grow for 4 years (progress your roster for several events) until he is ready for the NBA (SCL8).  So he considers the likelihood of success in the NBA (estimates SCL8 placement) and makes the choice that will maximize his long term success (chooses the SCL that maximizes his progression + placement rewards).

Same thing happens to people at work - do you take a promotion that you maybe aren't quite ready for yet?  Do you take on a lot of additional responsibility for maybe not so much more pay?  What makes the most sense.

Life isn't set up for you to dominate everything as soon as you start doing it, and by the time you are able to dominate it's time for you to move to the next level where you can continue to grow.

Of course it's not just about the rewards of placement, but the time spent doing it as well. To continue with the real life examples, do you take a job paying $80k/year where you know you'll have to work 60-70 hour weeks, or do you take the job paying $65k/year knowing that you won't have to work more than 40 hours per week. If I can drop down to CL7 and only have to play 45 minutes of PvE a night and still get 85% of the reward, then that's worth it to me. The placement doesn't matter as much to me.

zodiac339

Orion said:

Fightmastermpq said:

Starfury said:

The (irresolvable) conflict that's created by tying scaling to SCL is that anyone who's serious about placement rewards needs to drop down an SCL or two from the level he'd actually be able of completing.

You either have only trivially easy (and quick) fights, or you just won't get the same number of points as someone who does.

This leads to the somewhat strange situation where top placement rewards are totally out of reach of whatever rosters that specific SCL's difficulty level is meant for.

Edit:
The conflict is irresolvable because you can't make 8 SCL differ enough in their progression rewards to make dropping down for placement unattractive. (there's just not enough room without raising SCL 8 progression to absurd heights)
And you can't make placement rewards themselves unattractive enough for people not to want to drop down without making them completely irrelevant to anyone even in the lower SCL.


Of course if they would just get rid of placement... But then they'd have one hamster wheel less.

This is working as intended.  If you are dominating your current difficulty level then it's time to take your game to the next level where you will have to continue to work until you are dominating there and so on and so forth until you burn out or are dominating at the highest level.  This happens in all walks of life - from gaming, to sports, to even climbing the corporate ladder.

How long you slum it out at a lower level depends on the risk/reward of advancing.  Consider a highschool basketball player deciding whether he will go to college or go straight to the NBA.  The reward of moving up (progress) is huge, but the risk of not getting drafted (placement) is also big.  If he does go to the NBA but then doesn't do well it could set his career back indefinitely, but he could also do very well.  Or he could just go to college (stay in SCL7) where he knows he can dominate (T10 placement) and grow for 4 years (progress your roster for several events) until he is ready for the NBA (SCL8).  So he considers the likelihood of success in the NBA (estimates SCL8 placement) and makes the choice that will maximize his long term success (chooses the SCL that maximizes his progression + placement rewards).

Same thing happens to people at work - do you take a promotion that you maybe aren't quite ready for yet?  Do you take on a lot of additional responsibility for maybe not so much more pay?  What makes the most sense.

Life isn't set up for you to dominate everything as soon as you start doing it, and by the time you are able to dominate it's time for you to move to the next level where you can continue to grow.

Of course it's not just about the rewards of placement, but the time spent doing it as well. To continue with the real life examples, do you take a job paying $80k/year where you know you'll have to work 60-70 hour weeks, or do you take the job paying $65k/year knowing that you won't have to work more than 40 hours per week. If I can drop down to CL7 and only have to play 45 minutes of PvE a night and still get 85% of the reward, then that's worth it to me. The placement doesn't matter as much to me.

Gah! These complaints about the amount of time it takes to make those progression rewards! How much time do you spend on the table scraps of rewards in PVP? 2-3 hours maybe? You get so much more out of PVE, and you don't even have to bleed out your hero points on shields just to keep people from stealing what you've worked on. Put in some smolcat effort for the rewards!

Warbringa

Yeah the big issue is that the rewards between SCL 6/7/8 need to be a bigger difference.  Most of the overpowered rosters would then face the prospect of receiving significantly less rewards by moving down in order to play in the easier difficulty.  Right now, the difference between SCL 7 and 8 is paltry.  SCL needs to have significantly better rewards and that will then fix the majority of the problem. We have to keep in mind this is still a test so perhaps the devs are seeing this issue in the data.  

It is a problem though because you will demoralize your newer players (by newer, I mean those who are competing in an appropriate SCL for their roster like SCL 5,6 and 7 - with developed enough rosters to do so but not with champed 4* etc) if they realize they can never reach a decent placement.  Keep in mind too, as more people shift...everything runs downhill.   Someone who was in SCL 7 just trying to get top 100 for example now, probably can't crack that because of all of the SCL shifting. It is a bigger problem than some choose to recognize. I am someone who normally plays SCL 8 but have shifted to SCL 7 for tests due to time savings and the fact that my scaling increased in the tests if I stayed in SCL 8.  So yes I am part of the problem

Bowgentle

zodiac339 said:

Orion said:

Fightmastermpq said:

Starfury said:

The (irresolvable) conflict that's created by tying scaling to SCL is that anyone who's serious about placement rewards needs to drop down an SCL or two from the level he'd actually be able of completing.

You either have only trivially easy (and quick) fights, or you just won't get the same number of points as someone who does.

This leads to the somewhat strange situation where top placement rewards are totally out of reach of whatever rosters that specific SCL's difficulty level is meant for.

Edit:
The conflict is irresolvable because you can't make 8 SCL differ enough in their progression rewards to make dropping down for placement unattractive. (there's just not enough room without raising SCL 8 progression to absurd heights)
And you can't make placement rewards themselves unattractive enough for people not to want to drop down without making them completely irrelevant to anyone even in the lower SCL.


Of course if they would just get rid of placement... But then they'd have one hamster wheel less.

This is working as intended.  If you are dominating your current difficulty level then it's time to take your game to the next level where you will have to continue to work until you are dominating there and so on and so forth until you burn out or are dominating at the highest level.  This happens in all walks of life - from gaming, to sports, to even climbing the corporate ladder.

How long you slum it out at a lower level depends on the risk/reward of advancing.  Consider a highschool basketball player deciding whether he will go to college or go straight to the NBA.  The reward of moving up (progress) is huge, but the risk of not getting drafted (placement) is also big.  If he does go to the NBA but then doesn't do well it could set his career back indefinitely, but he could also do very well.  Or he could just go to college (stay in SCL7) where he knows he can dominate (T10 placement) and grow for 4 years (progress your roster for several events) until he is ready for the NBA (SCL8).  So he considers the likelihood of success in the NBA (estimates SCL8 placement) and makes the choice that will maximize his long term success (chooses the SCL that maximizes his progression + placement rewards).

Same thing happens to people at work - do you take a promotion that you maybe aren't quite ready for yet?  Do you take on a lot of additional responsibility for maybe not so much more pay?  What makes the most sense.

Life isn't set up for you to dominate everything as soon as you start doing it, and by the time you are able to dominate it's time for you to move to the next level where you can continue to grow.

Of course it's not just about the rewards of placement, but the time spent doing it as well. To continue with the real life examples, do you take a job paying $80k/year where you know you'll have to work 60-70 hour weeks, or do you take the job paying $65k/year knowing that you won't have to work more than 40 hours per week. If I can drop down to CL7 and only have to play 45 minutes of PvE a night and still get 85% of the reward, then that's worth it to me. The placement doesn't matter as much to me.

Gah! These complaints about the amount of time it takes to make those progression rewards! How much time do you spend on the table scraps of rewards in PVP? 2-3 hours maybe? You get so much more out of PVE, and you don't even have to bleed out your hero points on shields just to keep people from stealing what you've worked on. Put in some smolcat effort for the rewards!

This change is bringing the PVE time in line with the PVP time.
A good roster can do 1200 in PVP in 60-90 minutes, now we can do PVE in about 45-60 minutes per day.
Which is how it should be. Most of us spent the last 3 years treating mpq like a second, unpaid job, with 20+ hours per week - now we're getting our free time back.

If you're not there, put in time and/or money and you WILL get there.
Before the tests, all you had to look forward to in PVE was spending more time the better your roster got, which was absolutely idiotic and encouraged softcapping.

GurlBYE

Because of the not so brilliant idea to make shield level raise for so many things NOT directly related to roster progression, (sending team ups, pulling tokens, grinding nodes 6 times, repeatedly champing 2's etc) peoples shield levels fluctuate too wildly for them to be useful for determining contents difficulty or rewards. 

That was screwed from the get go.

Pla5yer99

I would suggest scl7 and 8 to be the same rewards so that 3 star rosters like me don't get trolled hard with level 400 enemies. It is not fair for us to compete with 5 star rosters which have the same levels? How is that fair 

Nepenthe

Pla5yer99 said:

I would suggest scl7 and 8 to be the same rewards so that 3 star rosters like me don't get trolled hard with level 400 enemies. It is not fair for us to compete with 5 star rosters which have the same levels? How is that fair 

If they had the same rewards, why would anyone of any roster pick CL8?  You'd just be competing against 5* rosters in CL7.

I'm sorry you didn't notice it this was another test of CL-based scaling and picked the wrong CL for your roster, but the solution for that is for you to pick CL6 or CL7 next time so you have nodes you can beat. Not to change the whole system around you.

Starfury

Nepenthe said:

Pla5yer99 said:

I would suggest scl7 and 8 to be the same rewards so that 3 star rosters like me don't get trolled hard with level 400 enemies. It is not fair for us to compete with 5 star rosters which have the same levels? How is that fair 

If they had the same rewards, why would anyone of any roster pick CL8?  You'd just be competing against 5* rosters in CL7.

I'm sorry you didn't notice it this was another test of CL-based scaling and picked the wrong CL for your roster, but the solution for that is for you to pick CL6 or CL7 next time so you have nodes you can beat. Not to change the whole system around you.

On the other hand you can't fault someone for being unhappy with being forced down a level by this change.

If the devs had been a bit smarter about it, they'd have coupled the progression reward changes with this change. Then you could say "Well, you'll have to play SCL 7 instead of 8 now, but SCL 7 now offers the same reward as SCL 8 did. And while you have to get a fifth clear now, those clears are going to be easier."

Instead they made people unhappy when they required another clear at max difficulty for slightly better rewards. And a month or two later they make people unhappy by forcing them down an SCL and thus lowering their rewards.

The net result is the same, but leave it to the devs to package in a way that generates twice as many negative reactions.

Starfury

Fightmastermpq said:

Starfury said:

The (irresolvable) conflict that's created by tying scaling to SCL is that anyone who's serious about placement rewards needs to drop down an SCL or two from the level he'd actually be able of completing.

You either have only trivially easy (and quick) fights, or you just won't get the same number of points as someone who does.

This leads to the somewhat strange situation where top placement rewards are totally out of reach of whatever rosters that specific SCL's difficulty level is meant for.

Edit:
The conflict is irresolvable because you can't make 8 SCL differ enough in their progression rewards to make dropping down for placement unattractive. (there's just not enough room without raising SCL 8 progression to absurd heights)
And you can't make placement rewards themselves unattractive enough for people not to want to drop down without making them completely irrelevant to anyone even in the lower SCL.


Of course if they would just get rid of placement... But then they'd have one hamster wheel less.

This is working as intended.  If you are dominating your current difficulty level then it's time to take your game to the next level where you will have to continue to work until you are dominating there and so on and so forth until you burn out or are dominating at the highest level.  This happens in all walks of life - from gaming, to sports, to even climbing the corporate ladder.

How long you slum it out at a lower level depends on the risk/reward of advancing.  Consider a highschool basketball player deciding whether he will go to college or go straight to the NBA.  The reward of moving up (progress) is huge, but the risk of not getting drafted (placement) is also big.  If he does go to the NBA but then doesn't do well it could set his career back indefinitely, but he could also do very well.  Or he could just go to college (stay in SCL7) where he knows he can dominate (T10 placement) and grow for 4 years (progress your roster for several events) until he is ready for the NBA (SCL8).  So he considers the likelihood of success in the NBA (estimates SCL8 placement) and makes the choice that will maximize his long term success (chooses the SCL that maximizes his progression + placement rewards).

Same thing happens to people at work - do you take a promotion that you maybe aren't quite ready for yet?  Do you take on a lot of additional responsibility for maybe not so much more pay?  What makes the most sense.

Life isn't set up for you to dominate everything as soon as you start doing it, and by the time you are able to dominate it's time for you to move to the next level where you can continue to grow.

So if we go with your analogy: How many well established NBA players go play in the NCAA for a season just so they have an easier time winning a trophy?

Would it make sense for them to do so? No.
Does it make sense for them in MPQ? Yes.
Why? Because the reward structure in MPQ incentivizes it.

Nick441234

The difference between rewards in SCL7 & 8 are very minimal. I've never understood the rage. The amount of time saved from going in CL7 makes up for that. 

Starfury

Warbringa said:

Yeah the big issue is that the rewards between SCL 6/7/8 need to be a bigger difference.  Most of the overpowered rosters would then face the prospect of receiving significantly less rewards by moving down in order to play in the easier difficulty.  Right now, the difference between SCL 7 and 8 is paltry.  SCL needs to have significantly better rewards and that will then fix the majority of the problem. We have to keep in mind this is still a test so perhaps the devs are seeing this issue in the data.  

It is a problem though because you will demoralize your newer players (by newer, I mean those who are competing in an appropriate SCL for their roster like SCL 5,6 and 7 - with developed enough rosters to do so but not with champed 4* etc) if they realize they can never reach a decent placement.  Keep in mind too, as more people shift...everything runs downhill.   Someone who was in SCL 7 just trying to get top 100 for example now, probably can't crack that because of all of the SCL shifting. It is a bigger problem than some choose to recognize. I am someone who normally plays SCL 8 but have shifted to SCL 7 for tests due to time savings and the fact that my scaling increased in the tests if I stayed in SCL 8.  So yes I am part of the problem

You're not part of the problem, you're acting rationally in a system that hasn't been adapted to this change.

Skrofa

nick_chicane said:

The difference between rewards in SCL7 & 8 are very minimal. I've never understood the rage. The amount of time saved from going in CL7 makes up for that. 

1. Placement is a significant factor for a lot of players.
2. Speed and optimal clears are essential for good placement.
3. As the difference between scl7 and scl8 rewards is minimal, then a lot of 5* rosters drop to 7 for a much MUCH easier scaling and a lot less grinding time.

This creates a problem for those who were used to being in scl7 (and should be there IMO. 

And just to add to my number 3 point. Not only 5* rosters have dropped to scl7 but many 4* as well! I am also guilty of the drop. I have consistently played scl8 for quite some time and always finish somewhere in t10. I didn't budge for the first test because it was mostly goons and I knew my roster could handle them even at lvl400. This test? I didn't feel like risking it.

The result? At the moment, in my bracket of s1.7 the top 5 all have champed 5*s. I am 6th in second sub with a 40 minute grind.

If this is the future, I don't like it. 

Fightmastermpq

Starfury said:

Fightmastermpq said:

Starfury said:

The (irresolvable) conflict that's created by tying scaling to SCL is that anyone who's serious about placement rewards needs to drop down an SCL or two from the level he'd actually be able of completing.

You either have only trivially easy (and quick) fights, or you just won't get the same number of points as someone who does.

This leads to the somewhat strange situation where top placement rewards are totally out of reach of whatever rosters that specific SCL's difficulty level is meant for.

Edit:
The conflict is irresolvable because you can't make 8 SCL differ enough in their progression rewards to make dropping down for placement unattractive. (there's just not enough room without raising SCL 8 progression to absurd heights)
And you can't make placement rewards themselves unattractive enough for people not to want to drop down without making them completely irrelevant to anyone even in the lower SCL.


Of course if they would just get rid of placement... But then they'd have one hamster wheel less.

This is working as intended.  If you are dominating your current difficulty level then it's time to take your game to the next level where you will have to continue to work until you are dominating there and so on and so forth until you burn out or are dominating at the highest level.  This happens in all walks of life - from gaming, to sports, to even climbing the corporate ladder.

How long you slum it out at a lower level depends on the risk/reward of advancing.  Consider a highschool basketball player deciding whether he will go to college or go straight to the NBA.  The reward of moving up (progress) is huge, but the risk of not getting drafted (placement) is also big.  If he does go to the NBA but then doesn't do well it could set his career back indefinitely, but he could also do very well.  Or he could just go to college (stay in SCL7) where he knows he can dominate (T10 placement) and grow for 4 years (progress your roster for several events) until he is ready for the NBA (SCL8).  So he considers the likelihood of success in the NBA (estimates SCL8 placement) and makes the choice that will maximize his long term success (chooses the SCL that maximizes his progression + placement rewards).

Same thing happens to people at work - do you take a promotion that you maybe aren't quite ready for yet?  Do you take on a lot of additional responsibility for maybe not so much more pay?  What makes the most sense.

Life isn't set up for you to dominate everything as soon as you start doing it, and by the time you are able to dominate it's time for you to move to the next level where you can continue to grow.

So if we go with your analogy: How many well established NBA players go play in the NCAA for a season just so they have an easier time winning a trophy?

Would it make sense for them to do so? No.
Does it make sense for them in MPQ? Yes.
Why? Because the reward structure in MPQ incentivizes it.

You completely missed my point.  This is a necessary evil because you have to keep lower SCLs open to people that have unlocked higher ones because (as we have seen in these tests) simply unlocking an SCL doesn't necessarily mean that you are ready for that level of competition.

Pla5yer99

Nepenthe said:

Pla5yer99 said:

I would suggest scl7 and 8 to be the same rewards so that 3 star rosters like me don't get trolled hard with level 400 enemies. It is not fair for us to compete with 5 star rosters which have the same levels? How is that fair 

If they had the same rewards, why would anyone of any roster pick CL8?  You'd just be competing against 5* rosters in CL7.

I'm sorry you didn't notice it this was another test of CL-based scaling and picked the wrong CL for your roster, but the solution for that is for you to pick CL6 or CL7 next time so you have nodes you can beat. Not to change the whole system around you.

Precisely the point, top players with 5 star rosters champ are also dropping to scl7 to rank high with fast clears as well. At this point only scl6 is doable for ranking high for players with 3 star champs. This test will force 3 star players down to scl 6 instead since 7 and 8 are not possible to do for ranking 

Phumade

Pla5yer99 said:

This test will force 3 star players down to scl 6 instead since 7 and 8 are not possible to do for ranking 

I think this is actually the goal the Devs are striving for.  They want 8 for the biggest rosters in the game,  7 for the Champed 4* crowd, 6 for the 3* crowd.

Starfury

Phumade said:

Pla5yer99 said:

This test will force 3 star players down to scl 6 instead since 7 and 8 are not possible to do for ranking 

I think this is actually the goal the Devs are striving for.  They want 8 for the biggest rosters in the game,  7 for the Champed 4* crowd, 6 for the 3* crowd.

Would be reasonable. However, they should then add more rewards to SCL 6 to help 3* players actually get 4*.

As it is, a 3* player dropping down to SCL 6 would get less than half as many 4* from PvE as he did before.

Spoit

Bowgentle said:

zodiac339 said:

Orion said:

Fightmastermpq said:

Starfury said:

The (irresolvable) conflict that's created by tying scaling to SCL is that anyone who's serious about placement rewards needs to drop down an SCL or two from the level he'd actually be able of completing.

You either have only trivially easy (and quick) fights, or you just won't get the same number of points as someone who does.

This leads to the somewhat strange situation where top placement rewards are totally out of reach of whatever rosters that specific SCL's difficulty level is meant for.

Edit:
The conflict is irresolvable because you can't make 8 SCL differ enough in their progression rewards to make dropping down for placement unattractive. (there's just not enough room without raising SCL 8 progression to absurd heights)
And you can't make placement rewards themselves unattractive enough for people not to want to drop down without making them completely irrelevant to anyone even in the lower SCL.


Of course if they would just get rid of placement... But then they'd have one hamster wheel less.

This is working as intended.  If you are dominating your current difficulty level then it's time to take your game to the next level where you will have to continue to work until you are dominating there and so on and so forth until you burn out or are dominating at the highest level.  This happens in all walks of life - from gaming, to sports, to even climbing the corporate ladder.

How long you slum it out at a lower level depends on the risk/reward of advancing.  Consider a highschool basketball player deciding whether he will go to college or go straight to the NBA.  The reward of moving up (progress) is huge, but the risk of not getting drafted (placement) is also big.  If he does go to the NBA but then doesn't do well it could set his career back indefinitely, but he could also do very well.  Or he could just go to college (stay in SCL7) where he knows he can dominate (T10 placement) and grow for 4 years (progress your roster for several events) until he is ready for the NBA (SCL8).  So he considers the likelihood of success in the NBA (estimates SCL8 placement) and makes the choice that will maximize his long term success (chooses the SCL that maximizes his progression + placement rewards).

Same thing happens to people at work - do you take a promotion that you maybe aren't quite ready for yet?  Do you take on a lot of additional responsibility for maybe not so much more pay?  What makes the most sense.

Life isn't set up for you to dominate everything as soon as you start doing it, and by the time you are able to dominate it's time for you to move to the next level where you can continue to grow.

Of course it's not just about the rewards of placement, but the time spent doing it as well. To continue with the real life examples, do you take a job paying $80k/year where you know you'll have to work 60-70 hour weeks, or do you take the job paying $65k/year knowing that you won't have to work more than 40 hours per week. If I can drop down to CL7 and only have to play 45 minutes of PvE a night and still get 85% of the reward, then that's worth it to me. The placement doesn't matter as much to me.

Gah! These complaints about the amount of time it takes to make those progression rewards! How much time do you spend on the table scraps of rewards in PVP? 2-3 hours maybe? You get so much more out of PVE, and you don't even have to bleed out your hero points on shields just to keep people from stealing what you've worked on. Put in some smolcat effort for the rewards!

This change is bringing the PVE time in line with the PVP time.
A good roster can do 1200 in PVP in 60-90 minutes, now we can do PVE in about 45-60 minutes per day.
Which is how it should be. Most of us spent the last 3 years treating mpq like a second, unpaid job, with 20+ hours per week - now we're getting our free time back.

If you're not there, put in time and/or money and you WILL get there.
Before the tests, all you had to look forward to in PVE was spending more time the better your roster got, which was absolutely idiotic and encouraged softcapping.

Like I elaborated on in an earlier thread, that's not necessarily true. People who missed the boat on thanos (and probably BP and/or strange) are going to be at a pretty drastic competitive disadvantage here, even if they're at the point where they are able to get multiple working 5*s. I didn't do the math, but I would guess even the biggest whales would balk on the kind of $$$ it would take to try to champ a 5* based on classics alone, even with the bonus heroes.

Bowgentle

Spoit said:

Bowgentle said:

zodiac339 said:

Orion said:

Fightmastermpq said:

Starfury said:

The (irresolvable) conflict that's created by tying scaling to SCL is that anyone who's serious about placement rewards needs to drop down an SCL or two from the level he'd actually be able of completing.

You either have only trivially easy (and quick) fights, or you just won't get the same number of points as someone who does.

This leads to the somewhat strange situation where top placement rewards are totally out of reach of whatever rosters that specific SCL's difficulty level is meant for.

Edit:
The conflict is irresolvable because you can't make 8 SCL differ enough in their progression rewards to make dropping down for placement unattractive. (there's just not enough room without raising SCL 8 progression to absurd heights)
And you can't make placement rewards themselves unattractive enough for people not to want to drop down without making them completely irrelevant to anyone even in the lower SCL.


Of course if they would just get rid of placement... But then they'd have one hamster wheel less.

This is working as intended.  If you are dominating your current difficulty level then it's time to take your game to the next level where you will have to continue to work until you are dominating there and so on and so forth until you burn out or are dominating at the highest level.  This happens in all walks of life - from gaming, to sports, to even climbing the corporate ladder.

How long you slum it out at a lower level depends on the risk/reward of advancing.  Consider a highschool basketball player deciding whether he will go to college or go straight to the NBA.  The reward of moving up (progress) is huge, but the risk of not getting drafted (placement) is also big.  If he does go to the NBA but then doesn't do well it could set his career back indefinitely, but he could also do very well.  Or he could just go to college (stay in SCL7) where he knows he can dominate (T10 placement) and grow for 4 years (progress your roster for several events) until he is ready for the NBA (SCL8).  So he considers the likelihood of success in the NBA (estimates SCL8 placement) and makes the choice that will maximize his long term success (chooses the SCL that maximizes his progression + placement rewards).

Same thing happens to people at work - do you take a promotion that you maybe aren't quite ready for yet?  Do you take on a lot of additional responsibility for maybe not so much more pay?  What makes the most sense.

Life isn't set up for you to dominate everything as soon as you start doing it, and by the time you are able to dominate it's time for you to move to the next level where you can continue to grow.

Of course it's not just about the rewards of placement, but the time spent doing it as well. To continue with the real life examples, do you take a job paying $80k/year where you know you'll have to work 60-70 hour weeks, or do you take the job paying $65k/year knowing that you won't have to work more than 40 hours per week. If I can drop down to CL7 and only have to play 45 minutes of PvE a night and still get 85% of the reward, then that's worth it to me. The placement doesn't matter as much to me.

Gah! These complaints about the amount of time it takes to make those progression rewards! How much time do you spend on the table scraps of rewards in PVP? 2-3 hours maybe? You get so much more out of PVE, and you don't even have to bleed out your hero points on shields just to keep people from stealing what you've worked on. Put in some smolcat effort for the rewards!

This change is bringing the PVE time in line with the PVP time.
A good roster can do 1200 in PVP in 60-90 minutes, now we can do PVE in about 45-60 minutes per day.
Which is how it should be. Most of us spent the last 3 years treating mpq like a second, unpaid job, with 20+ hours per week - now we're getting our free time back.

If you're not there, put in time and/or money and you WILL get there.
Before the tests, all you had to look forward to in PVE was spending more time the better your roster got, which was absolutely idiotic and encouraged softcapping.

Like I elaborated on in an earlier thread, that's not necessarily true. People who missed the boat on thanos (and probably BP and/or strange) are going to be at a pretty drastic competitive disadvantage here, even if they're at the point where they are able to get multiple working 5*s. I didn't do the math, but I would guess even the biggest whales would balk on the kind of $$$ it would take to try to champ a 5* based on classics alone, even with the bonus heroes.

Competitive disadvantage yes.
But their clear times will STILL be about halved compared to what they have in the old system, which is the main point.

Free time >>>>> one more 4* cover.