Where has the competition gone?

Blindman13

I have a solid 4* roster and after the PVE scaling changes I chose to stay in SCL8 for the better progression rewards.  I don't play optimally at all, it's usually about halfway through the day before I finish my initial 4 clears, and I do two more later, but certainly not at the last possible minute.
Prior to the scaling changes I would typically get Top 250 placement awards but would be somewhere between 100 and 150.
Now I have finished in the top 100 in every sub and overall event since the change.

Did that many people drop to SCL7? Is the competition heavier there now than in SCL8? 

Calnexin

Maybe.  I used to go back and forth between 7 and 8 - 8 if I knew I couldn't make T20, 7 if I thought I had enough time to make a T10 or better.  I've dropped to 7 as my standard.  Not to escape competition, but it's freed up a lot of time.  8 now is right about where my scaling put me before, so the matches in 7 are significantly faster, and I have more time for other things.  The only time I intend to go back up to 8 is for 7 day events, and I'm even questioning that.

Daiches

Competition below t10-25 usually has a giant point gaps. This is nothing abnormal. If you 7 clear, you are pretty much guaranteed t100. Most players only care about progression (5 hits) or even 4star progression (4 hits).

Punter1

Feels like lots of people have moved to CL7 for the easier clears. 

I did lazy clears in CL7, but usually hitting 6/7 times was enough to easily hit top 20 and if I got a good late bracket I could hit top 10.  Now with my lazy clears I'm usually somewhere around top 50-100.  If I do 7 clears I can still place top 50, but no chance of top 20 anymore.

Beer40

Its quite possible that the perceived competition was based on the "roster based" scaling. With the new scaling I'm not surprised at all by a post like this. Two reasons:

1) Its likely lots of people only competed before because they had to. If you're facing level 300+ opponents (or whatever level, its an example) regardless of SCL you're going to likely take the SCL with the best progression rewards. That creates an inflation of people competing. 

2) Slice start times. More people can change slices now, because they have a lot more control over how long their clears will take. To take from point #1: Maybe you couldn't do slice 4 (10 pm for me) because 1 1/2 hours of "optimal clears" didn't leave you enough time to sleep or do whatever else you want to do. But now, if you choose (or if the levels just naturally dropped enough for you) you could do slice 4 because you can control, based on the SCL you choose, how quickly your clear times go. Maybe you want to do that slice but only have 30 minutes. Well, that's possible now.

Anyway, point being, I think we're going to see lots of slice migration and also SCL changing from people for the next few (or several) events while people find the sweet spot that works best for them. Its quite possible that you'll never experience the same competition you had before because others personal preferences just don't align with yours anymore.

Straycat

I don't know, I have always found that getting green check marks on all nodes got me top 100, and I don't play optimally either. I wait 4-5 hours before I join an event, but I don't try hard for placement any other way. I haven't gone below CL8 since the first scaling test.

Crowl

I was generally getting t10 under the older system, but having a 4* roster the chances of that were reduced a little so I have opted for the quicker clears of scl7 even with the slightly lower rewards, the extra time I gain for other stuff is more than worth it. 

Warbringa

Part of it is the migration to SCL 7 for time savings.  I am one of those players myself.  The other part of it is slice choice as mentioned above by Beer40.  I myself always used to play SCL 5 but in the last two events I tried slice 4 and now in Thick As Thieves, I am trying slice 1.  I do 6 clears and have hit top 20-30 in each event in SCL 7 since the change no matter what the time slice was.  I used to hit top 50 in SCL 8 under the old system fairly regularly. 

dramatist

I have never done optimal clears for a whole event. My job starts at different times throughout the week so trying for a top placement would just be an exercise in frustration for me. I love to play though so I usually do clears to the green checks on all except the sometimes 24 hr. refresh node. I almost always get top 50. Since the change I've done SCL7 twice and SCL8 once. I think I'll start using 8 almost exclusively unless I have a really unfavorable work schedule where I'll drop to 7 for less of a time commitment.

DarthDeVo

 Ugh. I really hope it's not the case that a lot of people are dropping to SCL 7, even though I'm sure it is. I was really hoping they would open SCL 9 sooner rather than later, but if they're looking at metrics and seeing that fewer people are playing in SCL 8, they may just adopt a "Why bother?" attitude. I don't know, I could be way off base. Just my initial reaction. 

DyingLegend

i don't play for placement, i play for progression rewards. Once i hit max progression, I am done the event. I always select SCL 8 irregardless of difficulty as i have team combos that make short work of any PVE team. ( I am a 3 to 4 star transition-er for the record). I started this style of play because no matter how optimally i play, I've never gotten T10 or even T20. Last event i did the standard optimal play. 4-3-2 x4, then hard to easy x4 ( took 40 mins to do) then wait til last hour to run the nodes dry and i still wasn't able to place in  the T20. 
 

jtsings

The other thing to consider too is that the people on the bottom end who were able to compete in CL8, because of scaling, probably don't have the rosters to compete in CL8 anymore.  Before the end of scaling began, I had just hit the ability to enter a CL8 level but my highest level character unboosted is 182 (with only one well covered 4 star character).  If scaling had stayed as it was, I would have been able to compete in CL8 even with my low level roster; as would many other low level rosters.  However now, I would be a madman and quite overambitious to think that I could compete with the level of enemy that's in CL8 now. 

shardwick

With the easier enemy scaling I dropped to CL7 and so clears that used to take me 60-90 minutes now I can do in roughly 45 minutes unless it's a bit heavy on Dark Avengers then add another 15 minutes (and a handful of health packs...grrr). So since I'm now able to finish sooner I figured why not move to slice 5 since that would free up my evenings more and I could relax a bit more and then I could crank out a grind before bed.

jamesh

I tried the new CL8 once: it was nominally about 10 levels higher than the hardest nodes I used to see (I've got a few low level champed 4* characters), so I could complete the nodes but it took a fair bit longer due to the hard nodes starting at higher levels.  I've dropped down to CL7 since then, where the enemies are around my own level.

I'll probably give CL8 a shot from time to time when one or two of my champed 4* characters are boosted, but in general it doesn't seem worth it.

The easiest way to tempt me back would be to expand the distribution of 4* characters through placement rewards.  Don't just increase the number given to people who finish top 10: give them to more people.

Tony_Foot

No different for me I've always got t100 in slice 1 with 5 clears let alone 6. 6 clears will usually get me firmly in t50 and I don't play anything like optimum. 

This event I dropped to 7 and that's similar, 6 clears and just outside t20.

granne

I'm in pretty much the same boat as @dramatist. My work schedule is unpredictable and varies through the week. I'm staying in 8 for now, as it's mostly the same as before and I'm loath to give up the better progression rewards, but it's nice to have the option to drop down if my schedule gets busier.

For the record, I'm placing roughly where I was - maybe slightly higher.

Blindman13

In hind sight, I am probably getting the full 6 clears more reliably in the last few events than I was before.  That may account for my higher finishes more than a major shift in where others are playing.

MaskedMan

Yes well getting 6 clears takes long enough, before many would get extra clears for extra points.  But getting extra clears against 330s can get time consuming especially for no reward.  This is why I'm another who ignores competition in PVE and personally I wish they would eliminate it.

There are much more fun ways to give recognition ingame than making everything a point system and the lack of competition reflects this and the winner take all reward system - No one cares.