Suggestion: unified progression rewards for all clearance levels in story mode

jamesh

With all the discussion around fixed scaling based on clearance level for story events, and how this might encourage high level players to drop down many clearance levels to play easy matches, I had some thoughts about how this could be mitigated by changes to the progression rewards and the way points are acquired.

It basically comes down to two changes:

1. Make it so nodes are worth more points in higher clearance levels
2. Switch to a single set of progression rewards shared by all clearance levels

The idea here is that moving to a higher clearance level would allow a player to acquire the same progression rewards by playing less matches.

And by varying the points a node is worth by clearance level, there would be progression rewards that would be impossible to acquire at low clearance levels.  This could be used to ensure that e.g. a 4* cover reward is only available when you reach a particular clearance level.

This system could also help smooth out the jumps in difficulty as a player moves up clearance levels: if a player finds that they can't complete the hardest nodes as many times in the new clearance level, they might still manage to score a similar number of points to what they achieved in the lower clearance level, and in turn get the same progression rewards.

It would also encourage alliances that are competing for top rewards to play the hardest clearance levels.  An alliance where every player drops down to CL5 to try and place first would end up with a much lower score than an alliance where every player played CL8 and only managed a top 100 finish.

Since the "end point" on the progression rewards list would be different for each clearance level, the rewards would need to be evened out a bit rather than concentrating them all right at the end.  This might mean that high level players might get some HP or command points earlier than before, but it could be optimised so that similar rewards are received for similar effort under the current scheme.

Elric_VIII

This would be pretty cool, but I see two problems here:

1) Regardless of whether or not the actual progression rewards are left unchanged for a given clearance level, seeing that you did not reach "the end" will make people unhappy. This is just like the difference you see when you've got overpriced things on perpetual sale vs. normal prices. It's about the perception of the consumer.

2) Based on the glacially slow development on events (making new ones and fixing old ones) I assume this would require way too much effort on the part of the dev team to properly balance. I mean, the PvE section of this game is still 90% Dark Avengers. If they can't be bothered to shuffle characters, how can you expect them to sit down and develop a new scaling system and create nodes of dynamic difficulty?

jamesh

I don't think setting point values would be that difficult: they already set node point values so that players will receive certain progression rewards after completing all the nodes a set number of times.  To set particular end points for each clearance level on the progression rewards list, you'd essentially end up with a simple fixed multiplier for each clearance level.

I'm definitely not suggesting that individuals playing in the same clearance level would see different point values for the same node: that would completely break placement within a bracket.

broll

I've thought of this idea as well.  I don't like that it kinda steps back from the SCL system.  

Also unless this came with a removal of placement rewards this would pretty much ensure that only alliances packed with top SCL players could compete for progression rewards.  That would lead to more elitism in alliance recruitment.

jamesh

broll said:

Also unless this came with a removal of placement rewards this would pretty much ensure that only alliances packed with top SCL players could compete for progression rewards.  That would lead to more elitism in alliance recruitment.

Presumably you mean alliance placement rewards here?  Aren't most of the top alliances composed of veteran players who could handle the top clearance level already though?

With the clearance level based scaling tests as currently implemented, the best thing you can do to help your alliance is to play in CL1 where the matches are the shortest, in order to get as close to an optimal score as possible.  This will severely reduce your personal rewards, but will help everyone else in the alliance.

With my suggested changes, playing a higher clearance level is both better for you personally and better for the alliance as a whole (even if it means you can't play optimally).  That adds social pressure to play at an appropriate level and not snipe on new players.