Does it really matter when 5th clear is done?

Felonius

I always play SCL8.  Sometimes I join Slice 4, sometimes 5, depends on my schedule that week.  I join my slice as soon as I see it's offered (I don't game the system to wait for a lower populated slice).  I'd say 60% of the time I end up being T50.  20% of the time I'll even place T10 or T20, (even on new character releases!), and the remaining 20% I'm only T100.  I've never been able to figure out why.  For Sandman I came in T10, and I didn't even make all 6 clears every sub and my play timing was REALLY wonky to do RL commitments (One sub I didn't complete 4th clears/start my clocks until mid-morning the next day!).

Say my sub starts at 11pm.  It takes me at most 2hrs to complete my four clears (really, it's closer to ~90mins, and sometimes as little as 1hr... just depends which event, how badly I want the given rewards, which characters are boosted, what I'm watching on TV at the time, etc... but for sake of the conversation, let's just say 2hrs).  So by 1am nodes are refreshing, and I'm done for now.

I know I should be doing my 5th clear at 10p the next night so the nodes have had 21hrs to recharge, and my 6th clear at ~10:30p, meaning it's had no recharge time between the 5th and 6th clears.

I did that for years, because that's what was preached as the Optimal Play.

But this last year, I've become less rigid...  Sometimes I'll do my 5th clear in the morning before work, say 8-8:30am.  That means my 5th clear only got 7hrs of recharge.  Does my 6th clear get any benefit by having ~13.5hrs of recharge between 5th and 6th clears?  I seems like it does as if the total recharge time remains the same... Sometimes I do 5th clears on different nodes, just randomly throughout the day as my schedule allows, so 5th-6th recharge varies.  This actually happens a lot lately.

But it hasn't changed my placement.  I'm still coming in T50 with occasional shifts to T20+ or "only" T100. 

So... Does it really matter when the 5th clear is done?  And if so, how/why does it matter?  Because, in my real-world experience, there seem to be so many other factors in placement, that it doesn't matter.

Thoughts?

TPF Alexis

I ran the math on it a while back, and I don't remember for sure, but I think it only really matters if you're going all the way to 7 clears. I know it makes a difference in that case. Wish I'd saved that calculation so I could double check.

EDIT: I remembered wrong. It's the value of the 6th clear that doesn't change depending on when the 5th clear is done. Thanks GrumpySmurf.

GrumpySmurf1002

Say you have a 720 point node.

After 4 clears it's worth 480.  Every hour it gains back 10.  

A)If you do your 5th clear after 8 hours, it's worth 560.  If you do the 6th clear immediately, it's worth 320.   880 points
B)If you do your 5th clear after 16 hours, it's worth 640.  6th clear then is worth 400.  1040 points.
C)If you do your 5th clear immediately it's worth 480.  If you then wait 16 hours, yes the 6th clear is still worth 400, same as above.  

So yes, it matters. There's a path worth the most points: B.  For casual T50 placement though, the margins aren't enough to matter most times.

aa25

Have you kept track of placement when you joined slice 4 and 5 ? Slice 4, as far as I can tell, is less populated overall than slice 5 and the amount of competitive players dies out quickly outside T10.

Daiches

For progression, no.

For placement, it matters when 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th clear are done and then when 5th, 6th and 7th are done.

mohio

If all you're doing is the 5th clear early, you only are "losing" the points from recharge for that single fight, but you'll still get "full" points for the 6th (and 7th if you do it) clear. Even in the last sub where points probably range from about 300 to 700 give or take, that's probably around 500 points total. Someone else trying to be optimal but running out of time and only doing 5 clears instead of 6, or 6 instead of 7 will lose out on way more points than that. 

cpeyton3535

GrumpySmurf1002 said:

Say you have a 720 point node.

After 4 clears it's worth 480.  Every hour it gains back 10.  

A)If you do your 5th clear after 8 hours, it's worth 560.  If you do the 6th clear immediately, it's worth 320.   880 points
B)If you do your 5th clear after 16 hours, it's worth 640.  6th clear then is worth 400.  1040 points.
C)If you do your 5th clear immediately it's worth 480.  If you then wait 16 hours, yes the 6th clear is still worth 400, same as above.  

So yes, it matters. There's a path worth the most points: B.  For casual T50 placement though, the margins aren't enough to matter most times.

Do nodes have different points per unit of time recharge ratios based on their value at the time you do your 5th clear? 

So a node worth 100 when I make my fifth clear will gain less points per minute towards my 6th clear than a node worth 1000 points when I make my fifth clear?

Or is the recharge a fixed point per unit of time value regardless of node value? 

Sorry if that's worded poorly!

OneLungDave

The recharge is a fixed percentage of the maximum point total for each node as @GrumpySmurf1002 said without saying.
That being said, a 100 point node will drop to 66; whereas a 1000 point node will drop to 666. So if you can't clear all the nodes all the time, get to the bigger ones first.  

Felonius

GrumpySmurf1002 said:

Say you have a 720 point node.

After 4 clears it's worth 480.  Every hour it gains back 10.  

A)If you do your 5th clear after 8 hours, it's worth 560.  If you do the 6th clear immediately, it's worth 320.   880 points
B)If you do your 5th clear after 16 hours, it's worth 640.  6th clear then is worth 400.  1040 points.
C)If you do your 5th clear immediately it's worth 480.  If you then wait 16 hours, yes the 6th clear is still worth 400, same as above.  

So yes, it matters. There's a path worth the most points: B.  For casual T50 placement though, the margins aren't enough to matter most times.

mohio said:

If all you're doing is the 5th clear early, you only are "losing" the points from recharge for that single fight, but you'll still get "full" points for the 6th (and 7th if you do it) clear. Even in the last sub where points probably range from about 300 to 700 give or take, that's probably around 500 points total. Someone else trying to be optimal but running out of time and only doing 5 clears instead of 6, or 6 instead of 7 will lose out on way more points than that.

Let me see if I can work this out, using the above numbers...

• If I do 5th after 8 hours, it's worth 560.  Then wait 8hrs and do 6th, it's 400, my total is 960, and I'm losing overall 80pts on that node (compared to your Optimal B example)...

Hmm... Am I understanding that right?  In which case, yeah, like both @mohio and @GrumpySmurf1002 are saying, it probably isn't affecting my ~T50 play, and when I place higher or lower, it's more likely other factors.  And I'm perfectly satisfied with T50, so I'm good.  Thanks.

aa25 said:

Have you kept track of placement when you joined slice 4 and 5 ? Slice 4, as far as I can tell, is less populated overall than slice 5 and the amount of competitive players dies out quickly outside T10.

I agree, S4 generally seems easier/more relaxed outside T10, though not always.  There was a recent new release where I placed 99th in S4, and I was as optimal as I could be on clears 1-6, and even did many 7th clears (something I don't normally do), because I was barely staying in T100 in the subs...  Can't remember which toon... G4mora, maybe.  And that wonky-played T10 I mentioned for Sandman was S5.

cpeyton3535

OneLungDave said:

The recharge is a fixed percentage of the maximum point total for each node as @GrumpySmurf1002 said without saying.
That being said, a 100 point node will drop to 66; whereas a 1000 point node will drop to 666. So if you can't clear all the nodes all the time, get to the bigger ones first.  

Perfect, thanks for clarifying.  Don't need to adjust my node clearing strategy!

bluewolf

One factor you are not perhaps considering for new releases:  how good the character looks.  Sandman was expected to be *not good* and he was.  Gamora excited folks.  Consider your placement for those releases.  People play harder for more exciting toons.

Bruinsfan17

I've started wondering this myself. It always seems that after the first 4 clears there's a large group that stops and all have the same score but then there's like 5 to 10 guys that have 1 or 2K more points and they always seem to be the same guys that have the top overall score throughout the event. I keep asking myself "they aren't doing what I thought was an optimal clear. how do they always finish at the top?" Now I'm not the kind of guy that grinds nodes down to 0(and I'm sure the guys at the top are doing exactly this), and I'm quite happy with just progression rewards, but I feel like there's a trick I'm missing that could help me finish in the top50 instead of top100.

aa25

Bruinsfan17 said:

I've started wondering this myself. It always seems that after the first 4 clears there's a large group that stops and all have the same score but then there's like 5 to 10 guys that have 1 or 2K more points and they always seem to be the same guys that have the top overall score throughout the event. I keep asking myself "they aren't doing what I thought was an optimal clear. how do they always finish at the top?" Now I'm not the kind of guy that grinds nodes down to 0(and I'm sure the guys at the top are doing exactly this), and I'm quite happy with just progression rewards, but I feel like there's a trick I'm missing that could help me finish in the top50 instead of top100.

Those top players are doing 1-3 pts nodes grinding. Meaning, they grind chosen node down early and keep hitting it for 1-3 pts throughout the day. (Some nodes have the minimum points of 1, 2, or 3)

The so called optimal clear is optimal as in the amount of point earned vs. number of clears. (In this case, maximum point from 6 or 7 clears)

One way to improve your placement is that you have to distinguish yourself from the crowd. Most players set the maximum progression as their goals, so if you follow them you will end up with the pack. You more or less need to consider doing extra clears to stand out and start getting better placement..

aa25

OJSP said:

A top player would be unlikely to have 2k over the next player without being obviously seen (because the points would rise every minute or so and it's too noticable). If they move away from the pack quite soon after everyone else is done with 4 clears, it's likely they are not clearing optimally and will fall behind at the end of the sub.

A top player who grinds extra, would stay behind the pack while leaving any extra non repeatable node untouched while grinding slowly from low ranks, then do the non repeatable node near the time of the grind. They might stay about 100-200 pts above the fastest player who doesn't grind extra. That already takes up a lot of time.

This strategy will work only for the first sub, won't it ? After that, you can't hide yourself in the main page anymore, since other players can look at the leader at the end of each sub to see competitors.

PS: I wasn't clear earlier. I said 'top player' as in players that the OP saw at the top of his leaderboard. Not top player as in top/high end PvE player.

Xenoberyll

In brackets like mine, were after 3 days 20 points decide if you're top 10 or not...yeah every minute detail matters. That's why I I'm asking for progression based PVE forever.

mpqr7

It doesn't matter for progression, but it makes a difference for placement. To score reasonable placement, you generally need to do at least 7 clears and really scrub for the final few points.

Myself, I generally do a bit more than 5 clears. I try to get to 6 for some of the nodes, to get that sweet PVE XP, but it's hard for me to get all the way to 7 in most cases, especially with hard node scaling being so dreadful currently... can't wait for SCL-based PVE scaling to become permanent.

So in the end, I generally get top 50 or top 100. Which is fine with me. I get all the covers soon enough.

Jarvind

It matters for placement, since letting nodes recharge longer makes them worth more points. I scraped into top 10 on a new release by 11 points once.

If you just want progression, you can blow through all 6 clears immediately and it won't matter. Personally, I do the first 4, then 2 more later if I have time - I usually end up getting the three 3* covers from placement which is a nice bundle of champ levels. Trying for top 10 just isn't worth it anymore, though - the grinders have it down to a science and new characters aren't that difficult to cover anyway.

Warbringa

I play slice 5 all the time and easily get t50 placement with 5-6 clears, depending on the event.  In this last Mockingbird event, I was 14th place.  My error was that I didn't optimally clear the first and second subs, otherwise I would have been top 10.  Competition was fairly weak in my bracket it seemed since usually 6 clears doesn't get you top 25 on a new release.  Of course new Riri was a beast and made the whole event a breeze, so I guess if people didn't have her champed, it may have been more difficult for them.  

Being a Steam player, I generally have set times during the day that I can play and I usually try to clear the essentials first 4 times and then move up the ladder, leaving the easiest nodes to last.  I then let the nodes regain until about an hour before the end and then do one (or two) more clears.  I usually am always top 50 with this strategy in my slice 5 brackets, and sometimes even top 25 if competition is light.  I also don't join my slice until there is about 12-15 hours left most of the time.  Nothing strategic there, it is that is usually the first time that I have the opportunity to play for the day.

Riguez

In my case, I normally play the first 4 clears immediately as fast as I can (starting with the hardest 3, then the 3 essentials and then the easiest 3), and then the next day about 2.5 hours before the event ends, I come back and do 3 clears (in the same order as before) before the time ends.  That means 7 clears for each one (4 as soon as it starts, 3 before it ends) and I normally end up Top 20ish... sometimes I get lucky and get Top 10 but it happens rarely...

Problem is, at least for me, I constantly feel I am "wasting" too much time on this game... I can easily spend 4-5 hours (2-3 hours on the first 4 clears, and a couple more on the last 3) considering you get interrupted, etc... which I feel is too much for a mobile game, but I guess it is what it is... if I really focus and don't get interrupted I can normally get it done in about 1.5 hours for 4 clears (which I think for most people is still too much, as I've heard people do it in 30 mins).

PS: Having 3* Doctor Strange champed and fully maxed is a huge help against goons, as every time they activate a power, they get hit for around 2k damage

JSP869

GrumpySmurf1002 said:

Say you have a 720 point node.

After 4 clears it's worth 480.  Every hour it gains back 10.  

A)If you do your 5th clear after 8 hours, it's worth 560.  If you do the 6th clear immediately, it's worth 320.   880 points
B)If you do your 5th clear after 16 hours, it's worth 640.  6th clear then is worth 400.  1040 points.
C)If you do your 5th clear immediately it's worth 480.  If you then wait 16 hours, yes the 6th clear is still worth 400, same as above.  

So yes, it matters. There's a path worth the most points: B.  For casual T50 placement though, the margins aren't enough to matter most times.

Is this new? I thought you should do the first 4 clears as quickly as possible, then wait until the final hour, or as late as you were comfortable leaving it, to do clears 5, 6, & 7...

TPF Alexis

Of the three options GrumpySmurf outlined, B is the one that involves leaving Clear 5 the latest. He just did them in 8 hour chunks to make the math easier, I assume. Leaving it even later generates numbers that are more annoying to work with, but are worth even more.