New style PVE

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Daiches
Daiches Posts: 1,252 Chairperson of the Boards
in MPQ General Discussion
Can we get rid of the 3 point nodes in PVE? Right now they are the only glaring flaw in the new design (besides rewards). T1/2 finishes require you to grind these at the end (or entire day). And make the combo Thanos/Strange just overpowered for PVE.
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  • Daiches
    Daiches Posts: 1,252 Chairperson of the Boards
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    OJSP said:
    No complaints here about making all nodes worth 0 in the end
    And that's coming from someone that just beat me by having Strange to tap 3s faster than me (but not as fast as @Mercator).
  • Daiches
    Daiches Posts: 1,252 Chairperson of the Boards
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    OJSP said:
    Hehe. I edited my post because it probably read that i had no problem with that. We actually had a chat and we'd be happy if the nodes go down to 0.
    I was confirming that even people that win because of it would like to see it go :)
  • Brigby
    Brigby ADMINISTRATORS Posts: 7,757 Site Admin
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    (Disclaimer: I am not a designer/developer, so please consider my following comments as a fellow player)

    I can see why players might be concerned about continuously accruing the minimum points on those nodes, but wouldn't those points act as a kind of tie-breaker?

    If that's the case, then would people be ok with placement being a first-come-first-serve kind of system for those who played optimally?
  • cpeyton3535
    cpeyton3535 Posts: 256 Mover and Shaker
    edited August 2017
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    Wow.  All day?  Really?  That someone is willing to grind away at a 3 point node for countless hours like a pigeon in a Skinner box for top prize in a mobile game event is, ummmm.... alarming???  Gotta think someone that motivated is going to find a way to win no matter what you do.  Power to them, I guess.

    I like the suggestion.  Kind of a "save people from themselves" thing.

    Edit:  Sorry, re-read this and realized it might have come across as condescending.  I'm actually genuinely shocked.  That's a level of dedication I cannot possibly comprehend.
  • nitefox1337
    nitefox1337 Posts: 80 Match Maker
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    Faster clearance rewarded with higher rank is the logical way to go. It makes sense. Rewards the better team composition and the better player.

    Which is why devs absolutely won't do it.

    They rather serve the guy who has the best Alarm setting skills.
  • Phumade
    Phumade Posts: 2,477 Chairperson of the Boards
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    nitefox1337 said:
    Faster clearance rewarded with higher rank is the logical way to go. It makes sense. Rewards the better team composition and the better player.

    They rather serve the guy who has the best Alarm setting skills.
    hehe.  many would argue that the reason they have the fastest clearance time is that they have the best alarm setting skill.


  • Brigby
    Brigby ADMINISTRATORS Posts: 7,757 Site Admin
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    I think time zones play a factor into fastest clearance time as well. Slices help alleviate some of the issues from that, but if speed is the ultimate qualifier, then some time zones will have an advantage over others. (Presuming minimum node values were set to 0)

    Taking into consideration that having minimum values greater than 0 means it would be just a "tapping fest," what could be a way to address both of those concerns? 
  • Dotproduct
    Dotproduct Posts: 217 Tile Toppler
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    If they want to risk getting RSI from tapping a billion times just to get T1 placement go right ahead.
  • shardwick
    shardwick Posts: 2,121 Chairperson of the Boards
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    My fix to this would be that six clears gives you a green check and then the 7th to 10th clear of a node would give you a red check. This would still provide people some strategy if they are fighting it out in a close battle and need just a handful more points to overtake someone, or pad their lead a bit, while keeping people from grinding the same node for hours on end.
  • Rhycar
    Rhycar Posts: 107 Tile Toppler
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    Brigby said:
    I think time zones play a factor into fastest clearance time as well. Slices help alleviate some of the issues from that, but if speed is the ultimate qualifier, then some time zones will have an advantage over others. (Presuming minimum node values were set to 0)

    Taking into consideration that having minimum values greater than 0 means it would be just a "tapping fest," what could be a way to address both of those concerns? 
    @brigby no, having different slices means there is no time zone advantage. The slices are the equalizer; every player gets to pick the end time that best fits them. I can't picture a time zone that is unfairly treated since end times are spread out for everyone. I'm not sure why you think that any time zone has an advantage here.

    @TetsujinOni's suggestion is an ideal one that would probably be very tough to execute on your end, but I don't think it provides enough of an advantage over the existing slice format.
  • TetsujinOni
    TetsujinOni Posts: 181 Tile Toppler
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    I believe that @Brigby's point about time zones is that while slices do offer mitigation of the time zone issue, there are 5 slices and 24 time zones, and getting slices which are not during work or family/meal/other obligatory actions time for global deployment would require either 24 slices, or my "individual time trial" solution to provide a truly leveled field.

    Slices are an imperfect leveling, he's right.
  • Kolence
    Kolence Posts: 969 Critical Contributor
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    Not sure what to do about different time zones and slices, but tapping the easy node can be fixed by making any node recharge faster than anyone could clear them. Just adding 2 or 3 zeroes to all the node values as they currently are would do it?

    But seeing such inflated scores might not look as pretty as they are now, especially the alliance scores... :)
  • mega ghost
    mega ghost Posts: 1,154 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited August 2017
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    Issues with rewards aside, I've always hated the system for PvE placement. Anything that requires timed grinding is by default no longer fun, and it's certainly not challenging or strategic gameplay. I've always wanted a system that rewards performance (see here) and encouraged diverse play based on different goals.

    But if you don't want to commit to a complete overhaul, why not at least take a smaller step in the right direction. I'd prefer it if the PvE nodes became survival nodes. Keep the current scaling system for difficulty, but instead of making us have the same exact fight 6+ times for each node, and at the exact right times, why not give us one shot at it where we're faced with let's say four to six waves, each wave sees an increase in difficulty (even if the enemies are identical, but that's another conversation), and getting to the end gives us maximum points. You get halfway through, and you only get points for the waves you've cleared. After the first play-through points are no longer awarded, perhaps it becomes a single-wave match, but there are still ISO or CP or token awards, that way those interested can still collect resources.

    And we wouldn't have to worry about tie-breakers if more than one person could exist in a placement slot. Have twenty people tied for first? Great, they all get the first place award! The awards / rewards are digital, they don't need to be treated like finite objects.

    @Brigby As a somewhat newer player, how would you feel about this?
  • mega ghost
    mega ghost Posts: 1,154 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited August 2017
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    My above idea would also shift the balance of power a bit. Some characters would still be best for PvP, and some would become that much more valuable for PvE. Characters that have high AP costs and are slow to start get crowded out of single-wave conflicts, but in a survival node they might really shine when they're ready to go by the second or third wave.

    3* Cap would be great even without a battery — you wouldn't get his attacks out on the first wave, but after that he'll be rolling and a force. 4* Cage and Ant-Man would see increased value. Burst heal would become a solid ability for PvE again. Anyone character that encourages a long game, as at the moment MPQ almost never encourages you to use your marathon runners, so to speak, just sprinters.


  • Phumade
    Phumade Posts: 2,477 Chairperson of the Boards
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    mega ghost said:
    But if you don't want to commit to a complete overhaul, why not at least take a smaller step in the right direction. I'd prefer it if the PvE nodes became survival nodes. Keep the current scaling system for difficulty, but instead of making us have the same exact fight 6+ times for each node, and at the exact right times, why not give us one shot at it where we're faced with let's say four to six waves, each wave sees an increase in difficulty (even if the enemies are identical, but that's another conversation), and getting to the end gives us maximum points. 
    That sounds like Boss Rush. I know the real issue was tuning the scaling for that event. But every Boss event has reinforced this lesson to the devs. Players want an easy to complete event. They will accept many different versions of tie-breaking and scoring, but the community WILL NOT accept an event that can't be completed by at least 50% of the whole population..
  • Stick
    Stick Posts: 146 Tile Toppler
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    TetsujinOni said:
    Brigby said:
    I think time zones play a factor into fastest clearance time as well. Slices help alleviate some of the issues from that, but if speed is the ultimate qualifier, then some time zones will have an advantage over others. (Presuming minimum node values were set to 0)

    Taking into consideration that having minimum values greater than 0 means it would be just a "tapping fest," what could be a way to address both of those concerns? 
    The ultimate fix would be to have story mode be similar to Phased content in World of Warcraft - individual players join the event and have 24 hours from their individual start time to score as optimally and as progressedly as they can, with event start and end times that cut off your personal slice at the overall event time if you have started too late. 

    That seems like a pretty invasive change to both the client and the servers, but it would absolutely flatten the slice end time issue.
    I've been thinking about a similar idea for the past few days. I think they should do a test where they introduce what I've dubbed a "flex slice". The concept is pretty straight-forward. When the event starts, you join the "flex slice" at whatever time you like. That's when YOUR clock starts. The sub-events and everything is based off that clock. Obviously, the start time would be as early as the earliest existing start time, and the latest start time wouldn't be later than the latest existing start time.

    Basically, you could start at a time that's more convenient to you, helping everyone to optimize their clear times and get a competitive score for placement, since you could schedule the game around your life instead of scheduling your life around the game. For me it's like: s1: sleeping s2: start of work day s3: middle of work day s4: leaving work s5: end of my night just before bed s6: sleeping. Slice 5 has been good to me, although its meant choosing between having a social life and playing. I'd much rather have a slice where I can start as soon as I get home from work, and by the time I'm done my grind it's supper, then the rest of my night is free.

    Finally, placement, in case it wasn't obvious, would be against everyone else who joined the flex slice. It wouldn't be perfect, because you wouldn't *actually* know where you were placement-wise until the end of the first sub, presumably. Although I suppose if you felt like doing math, you could estimate where you'd end up and what you needed to do about it.

    I was considering making a thread about this idea to get a discussion going... should I do that? Is this a bad idea? Does it matter?

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