Unhealthy PVE: Tap tap tap the whole day

Daiches

Something needs to be done about the point values of nodes in PVE. Someone in my bracket added 1500 points sub one over second place one tapping 3 point nodes. That's a minimum of 500 taps, closer to 600 or more to account for lost refresh.
Today he added another 1000 points the same way. Or 300-400 taps.
That's close to ONE THOUSAND taps of a hard node. At give or take one minute per tap (due to animations and clicks), that would mean 1000 minutes or 16+ hours (SIXTEEN HOURS) or 2 full working days spent tapping a node.

That person needs an intervention, true. But most of all the system needs a rework as one of the stated goals of the PVE changes was to prevent exactly this.
And we warned them it would happen. Are you listening now, D3/Demi?

@Brigby

Anon

Not trying to be a jerk, but I read your post like 5 times and still not clear on what exactly is the problem.

Rodolfo78

Because hard nodes never drop below 3 points, there is no longer a specific ceiling on available points in a PvE event. If someone is willing to play one of those nodes over and over and over and over and over and o.. (ahem), they can score many more points than someone that's playing only the seven clears necessary to optimally grind points down to minimum.

The problem is that the game makes it "easy" for someone to win an event by virtue of pouring dozens of hours into it. It's boring, and depressing, and pitiable, and there's no way to combat it without spending comparable time.

Anon

Also curious why my post was reported for spam.

Lol.

Rhycar

@Brigby this is exactly what I warned you about when CL-based scaling debuted. Somebody winning not by virtue of their play or roster or strategy, but just by tapping a node for hours on end. This. Is. Bad. Game. Design. I'm not sure what else you all need to understand this.

Rodolfo78

I should add: I like the solution (suggested elsewhere, by aesthetocyst I believe) of simply increasing the value of all nodes by a multiple of 100. This elegantly makes the grind approach points-negative.

As an example, if you beat a 500-point hard node four times when an event begins, its point value drops by a third to 333. It then refreshes those points over the next 24 hours, at about 0.116 points per minute. You can see where someone could get ahead of that by grinding a three-point node repeatedly, even at 2-3 minutes per battle. If that node were instead worth 50,000, the fourth clear drops it to 33,333, and the node refreshes 11.6 points per minute. Leave the floor at 3 points, and voila- can't keep up by sacrificing your friggin' life to a mobile platform match three game.

Lucifier

1- if someone really (real person) spend 16 hours +- just for tapping (not counting the clearing time), in my opinion he/she deserve the 1st place.
2-  why Anon post got flagged:

Anon said:

Not trying to be a jerk, but I read your post like 5 times and still not clear on what exactly is the problem.

just now i checked his profile, and this is his/her first flag/spam, I do not see any problem of what he/she said.
what is the reason:

1. is it "Not trying to be a jerk"
2. is it "i read your post like 5 times"
3. is it "still not clear on what exactly is the problem"

Lucifier

Rodolfo78 said:

I should add: I like the solution (suggested elsewhere, by aesthetocyst I believe) of simply increasing the value of all nodes by a multiple of 100. This elegantly makes the grind approach points-negative.

As an example, if you beat a 500-point hard node four times when an event begins, its point value drops by a third to 333. It then refreshes those points over the next 24 hours, at about 0.116 points per minute. You can see where someone could get ahead of that by grinding a three-point node repeatedly, even at 2-3 minutes per battle. If that node were instead worth 50,000, the fourth clear drops it to 33,333, and the node refreshes 11.6 points per minute. Leave the floor at 3 points, and voila- can't keep up by sacrificing your friggin' life to a mobile platform match three game.

good suggestion, or just easily remove the 3 points, or the 2 points (like the easy nodes go to 0 points), if we think about it, most likely these 3 points exists in purpose and i think this is its purpose to make players, taping, taping, taping, taping, taping, taping, taping, taping, taping, taping, taping, taping, taping, taping, taping, taping, taping, taping, taping, taping, taping, taping, taping, taping, 

and then more taping.

P.S. i do not tap, i try it for like 2 or 3 taps only, i found it very very very boring, if they give me 5* Thanos (13 covers) i will not tap for 16 hours (or 10 hours in one day).

Hyposphere6234

I may be remembering this wrong but I think there was an update from the Dev's saying they were concerned that people were investing too much time into the game and were looking into ways to prevent it.

Then they increased the number to complete nodes for maximum progression rewards by one. Then they made sure higher level nodes wouldn't remain permanently at 0 points when cleared.

I'm not competitive but during events where I had time to devote for more optimal progression, even with top 50 placement, there'd be a gap between 1k or 2k from the top spot because people could hit the nodes more efficiently than I could.

Right now in HoD I'm in the top 50 and the #1 spot is over 8k ahead of me. 8k! #10 spot is over 2k ahead of me, #20 is over 1k, I've taken screenshots to show this and the event is still twelve hours from ending.

Feel free to correct my horrible perceptions from reality.

ursopro

I bet they fix this after figuring out how to avoid 500+ 5* rosters dropping down to SCL6 brackets.

Almost there, sit tight.

The rockett

This has been an issue. We are not talking about going 5 mins early. We are taking about somebody just hitting one node 100+ times. This is insane and should be addresssed.  Either their is a default number of times a node can be played (let's say 10 times) before it will be locked out.  That way those extra clears very early will hurt you.  

Stax the Foyer

The flipside of the argument that someone who spends hours tapping a node deserves first is that the person pushed out of a reward band by a tapper got screwed by bracket luck.

Bracket luck / manipulation remains the worst aspect of this game, several years running.  Changing the way brackets are populated, or getting rid of brackets altogether, would do so much good for the game. 

Lucifier

Stax the Foyer said:

The flipside of the argument that someone who spends hours tapping a node deserves first is that the person pushed out of a reward band by a tapper got screwed by bracket luck.

the thing is if someone spend 10 hours tapping (and should be continues to be effective) (and not using some kind of bot software), well let him/her have the 1st placement reward, the question is how many days will be able to do that, eventually will realize it is not worth spending such much time, eventually will realize having 1st placement reward will not make that big difference for him/her in the game.

getting rid of brackets altogether, would do so much good for the game. 

I can not agree with that (or at least till we know what the new system looks like) because:
as we know there are 5 time slices per each Clearance level, so for CL8, there are 5 time slices, and lets assume each slice have 5 brackets (could be more):
5 x 5 = 25 different groups of placement rewards, that mean only for CL8:
end of event rewards:

• 25 players will get the 1st placement rewards
• 100 players will get the 2-5 placement rewards
• 125 players will get the 6-10 placement rewards
• 250 players will get he 11-20 placement rewards
• 750 players will get the 21-50 placement rewards
• and so on.....................

same idea apply to the event daily rewards
same idea apply to the alliance daily/end of event rewards
same idea apply to others CL level like 7,6, ................

putting all players in one bracket (even tho there are 5 time slices) will decrease the number of player that can get the high placement rewards (which i do not think that will encourage players to play more).

Kevmcg

My understanding is that there needs to be tie breakers. That is why the "hardest" nodes still maintain 1-3 points. Just reinforcing what is mentioned above - the point scale increase suggestion is the best way to make "tapping" a losing strategy.  Increasing node point scaling by a factor of 30 would make it close to break even. Tapping can get 3 points per minute.  The PVE Events also have to make sure that no node worth under 500 points ever allows for a constant 1 point value. My experience is that tapping is most rampant for new releases (as expected) and on the final sub when one of the nodes has a small value and the regen. cost to tap is at its lowest.

I'll also add that this is a byproduct of CL based opponents that are too easy (in my opinion) and the ability to use teams such as Big Thanos with 2 of our 100+ roster deadweight, or using Dr. Strange against goons.  Tappers can use those teams to win in a few matches without taking their eyes off the Football game they are watching.

shardwick

My solution would be to have a green check at six clears and give a red check at ten clears. This way people can still do some extra clears in a close competition and it prevents just grinding away on the easiest hard node for hours on end.

bluewolf

Tiebreakers are needed.  But is the goal to reward early grinding?  That is what this does.  Is the goal to allow making up for mistakes in timing?  I would argue that is not a good goal.  If you can't make the schedule work out, too bad.  Do the devs want someone to grind to victory?

If the values won't be increased as suggestsed, the refresh rate should be a lot slower.  Perhaps nodes are worth 0 for an hour, then goes up.  Maybe.  If endless grinding is to be discouraged, that might be a solution.

Blergh

Stax the Foyer said:

Bracket luck / manipulation remains the worst aspect of this game, several years running.  Changing the way brackets are populated, or getting rid of brackets altogether, would do so much good for the game. 

I think this game without brackets would be pretty miserable. The reward structure for placement is pretty bad and this would make it worse, unless they made it all progression based, - which they won't do as they seem to think a 4* is a top 10 reward only. So they'd disappear or be placed so high that you'd have to become a tapper to get them. 

The developers most probably know how many brackets are open during an event on average and could open all brackets at the start. Players then would be randomly assigned evenly throughout the event or something. That punishes the people who are joining late due to life and stuff though. Brackets may never reach a thousand either... dunno if that be a negative on some scale or not. But it would stop bracket counting dead. Think it'd be very unpopular with players though as they'd lose choice and power. 

NMANOZ

Get rid of placement rewards (but leave them for alliances) and instead give much better progression rewards including new characters (at least give people an option to choose to be in placements or not).

j0nats

i would suugest adding difficulty levels by 50 after the 6th clear.  that way people could still grind,  but pay heavily by fighting level 600 opponents

Phumade

j0nats said:

i would suugest adding difficulty levels by 50 after the 6th clear.  that way people could still grind,  but pay heavily by fighting level 600 opponents

That is a pretty interesting idea. It appropriately favors the 5* rosters who can absorb 50 level jumps fairly easily, while encouraging 4* players to not softcap their rosters. It really creates an incentive for top tier rosters to come back to pve

Dax317

One of the, if not the biggest problems is not the tappers at all, but the whales. I define a whale as anyone playing outside their Clearance Level. CL were set up to level the playing field. Now I am not commenting on the validity of the cl set-up because there is too big a difference in cl gap in cl 8. With that being said when you see rosters of championed 5 stars playing in cl level 5 of new character events instead of cl 8. That is the true problem. Tappers are just adjusting tactics to have a fighting chance when out matched by superior rosters that have no business playing on any cl other than 8. Until they open 9 and 10 and restrict any from playing more than than one cl below their level then whales need to stop their tinykitty about lesser rosters adjusting tactics to have a fighting chance. For the record, I have a shield rank of 101 and have only played cl 7 2 times so yes, I listen to my own words.