PointGrinding in PVE still seems to be widespread?

animaniactoo

I've been keeping an eye on this for the last few events. Particularly the ones where I was well setup and able to get in and out of first clears in under an hour and then able to get in and out at the end in under an hour.

The 2 day subs on DP vs MPQ have pretty much proven what I'd thought I'd been seeing - there are still people who are grinding like mad, and most of them are in the top 10 in my brackets. By the 2nd day of the most recent sub, the top person in my bracket had 3000 more points than everyone who had waited for the full refresh. As of this afternoon, they were over 7000 pts ahead. Most of the rest of the top 10 are not far behind them.

Is anyone else looking at or seeing this?

I know that for myself, when one of the "hard" or "essential" nodes is full of goons, it's become relatively easy to beat (stick a couple of powerful characters and Strange in there and you can usually get out pretty quickly with relatively little damage) but I just don't have the time to grind the 3 pts for hours on end. I'm wondering if the grinding changes have actually been neutralized or made it easier to do in those situations.

Borstock

Honestly, I know the company claims to not want people to grind, and that's fine and lovely if true, but if someone wants to beat 1-3 pt missions 3,000 times over the course of 2 days, they are more than welcome to the placement rewards that comes with it. Maybe I'm in the minority, but I say let 'em have it.

And yes, I do understand that if this became widespread it would be widely discouraging to the rest of the fanbase. I do get that part of it, too.

animaniactoo

No, I've looked at that - it goes beyond it, and it's too many people. I'm in SCL 8 - at this point, people know how to clear optimally, and the top players usually have scores that are too far ahead of mine at the end for them to be getting there simply by clearing faster than I am.

FokaiHI

If means they have less health packs for PvP, I'm cool. Either way though, it's really up to the player if he or she wants to spend all that time grinding. 

Basepuzzler

Come back and tell us if this person actually wins the bracket.  Seems much more likely they are just clearing early and don't care about being optimal.

Jarvind

Yeah, this just sounds like somebody cleared early, either because they knew they wouldn't be able to at the "right" time or because they just don't care and want the green checkmarks. There are always a bunch of these in every slice and I'm usually one of them.

Beer40

animaniactoo said:

No, I've looked at that - it goes beyond it, and it's too many people. I'm in SCL 8 - at this point, people know how to clear optimally, and the top players usually have scores that are too far ahead of mine at the end for them to be getting there simply by clearing faster than I am.

I can't say this is widespread or anything but I think I've seen this too. I wish I could remember the exact details but I didn't really care that much. I kind of felt sorry for the person at the time because I couldn't believe they would want to keep grinding like that. No placement is worth that to me.

Edit: It was not at the top either, but near one of the cutoff lines in between rewards.

shardwick

I'm hoping that this could lead to a solely progression based system for pve. Each node has six clears and each clear is worth one point, and zero after the green check. If you green check all missions in the event then you get a 4* cover and you also unlock a bonus sub. The bonus sub is set up similar to ddq where each node gives a reward like a cover, iso, hp, cp and event tokens. The boss node (think Doc Ock for Webbed Wonder) gives the second 4* cover of the event and completing all of the bonus nodes would award a final 4* cover.

And the only element of time would be that you have the length of the event to complete all missions so instead of having seven one day subs on an event like The Hulk you would really have one really freaking long seven day sub but you would need to complete the last non essential node of each part to unlock the next part of the event. Has your internet ever cost you decent placement? How about a server issue? How about a game crash? Imagine leading an event 3 out of the first 4 days and then your internet goes down on you in the final thirty minutes of the event and costs you your 1st place finish. Do you think that would suck? It has happened to me and it sucks more than fighting Bl4de on a heavy red board. But a pure progression based system would solve a lot of issues including people getting burned out easily.

animaniactoo

@shardwick My job almost just cost me the placement I'd been in the running for! After 4 days, they finally brought my new computer up and I had to hurry up and get it setup with them to get them to leave so I could finish the final grind down in peace! lol.

To others: The person who was on the very top didn't win (but they were top 20) for the sub, however 2 of the other  people who I saw doing it placed T10.

I just ended up with a bunch of work, so I'll have less time over the next week, but after that I guess I'll start tracking names of the top 10 to see who's ending up placing where.

Pants1000

Don't post names, but what were the top scores?  I play in SL8 and I don't think I've seen more than 2-3 people per slice doing it.

Pongie

I agree and I don't see a problem with this. It's a lot of effort and the impact is limited to those 1000 in the bracket. Is it healthly to play that way? Definitely not but if the option is there, someone is bound to try it. 

animaniactoo

Pants1000 said:

Don't post names, but what were the top scores?  I play in SL8 and I don't think I've seen more than 2-3 people per slice doing it.

48098, 48094, 48005, 47969, 47942 was the spread across the top 5. 

Pants1000

animaniactoo said:

Pants1000 said:

Don't post names, but what were the top scores?  I play in SL8 and I don't think I've seen more than 2-3 people per slice doing it.

48098, 48094, 48005, 47969, 47942 was the spread across the top 5. 

Those are not scores of players overgrinding, that's just optimal scoring.  My slice just ended and the top 3 were over 48200.  I finished with 48024 and I was 30 minutes off optimal on quite a few nodes.  Perfect grinding was 48250 or 48300.  If you see players in this event with 48300+, then they probably hit a node hundreds of times.

robertbah

Like many have mentioned, the situation described by OP are those early grinders. They are mostly going for max progressions only.

TPF Alexis

Pants1000 said:

animaniactoo said:

Pants1000 said:

Don't post names, but what were the top scores?  I play in SL8 and I don't think I've seen more than 2-3 people per slice doing it.

48098, 48094, 48005, 47969, 47942 was the spread across the top 5. 

Those are not scores of players overgrinding, that's just optimal scoring.  My slice just ended and the top 3 were over 48200.  I finished with 48024 and I was 30 minutes off optimal on quite a few nodes.  Perfect grinding was 48250 or 48300.  If you see players in this event with 48300+, then they probably hit a node hundreds of times.

I went to check what my bracket was like for another comparison point, and was surprised to see it exactly as you described. Then I noticed your name a few spots above mine and realized we were in the same bracket

Pongie

None in the top 20 alliances are over 48300. Highest was 482xx.

DarthDeVo

Just my opinion, but I don't think Deadpool vs. MPQ is the best event to gauge this sort of thing. It's always been notorious for really narrow point spreads, and thus more prone to people grinding for placement.

Of course, now we're in a release event, so I wouldn't be surprised to see some grinding for placement in this event, either. 

BoyWonder1914

"Overclearing" has been running rampant in release events lately. I finished my clears at 20th yesterday when I joined 1.8, and within a few hours I was down 52 because so many people had jumped the gun. Most of the time I just laugh at them as I pass them up during the grind, but every so often I see one of those names stick around in the T10. 

Qubort

animaniactoo said:

To others: The person who was on the very top didn't win (but they were top 20) for the sub, however 2 of the other  people who I saw doing it placed T10.

I just ended up with a bunch of work, so I'll have less time over the next week, but after that I guess I'll start tracking names of the top 10 to see who's ending up placing where

So 3 people overgrinded in your bracket and got T20. I'm confused what's the issue here. Tracking the one slice and bracket you are in won't give you a sample size of anything.

animaniactoo

Thanks for the comparative numbers all. I expected that some people were doing less than optimal clears (because life), but a few do seem to be doing the grinding *enough* to get T10, T20 placement - whereas others are trying it and it isn't making as big a difference as they'd thought it would. For the few actually managing to significantly affect their placement... that's okay, I don't want to invest that much of my life in this game. 

animaniactoo

Qubort said:

animaniactoo said:

To others: The person who was on the very top didn't win (but they were top 20) for the sub, however 2 of the other  people who I saw doing it placed T10.

I just ended up with a bunch of work, so I'll have less time over the next week, but after that I guess I'll start tracking names of the top 10 to see who's ending up placing where

So 3 people overgrinded in your bracket and got T20. I'm confused what's the issue here. Tracking the one slice and bracket you are in won't give you a sample size of anything.

A) I didn't know how many it was when I started who were actually getting anything significant. Tracking my slice and bracket consistently will get me info as to whether it's happening as regularly as I think it is or how much its affecting even my one slice/bracket over time - which would let me come back here (if it's more significant than this) and say "this is what I'm seeing, is anyone else up for keeping an eye out and seeing how far it goes?".