The unhealthiness of constant grinding

Warbringa

I think many of the devs recent changes have been bad for quality of life for many players: 5 clears for full progression, adding a 5* node, and the new PvP wins shift.  However, I will say that there are two things which have actually helped me play less without giving up any real rewards compared to how I was playing at the start of this year.  SCL scaling in PvE and 4* Grocket.  Now I can basically breeze through PvE SCL 7 with 4* Grocket, 4* Star Lord and any other character (Medusa in non-essential nodes) and complete 6 clears in about an hour of play.  I used to play SCL 8 before the change and the small amount of progression rewards I gave up are way worth the time saved.  I also clear DDQ in about 15 minutes per day and now even have a little of time to dabble in PvP, although the recent change to wins just made that less profitable.  I guess what I am saying is that you do have a choice to decide how to play the game or to not play it.  I agree that many of the recent changes have gone against the "quality of life" argument but SCL scaling (for PvE at least) now gives you the choice of how much time you wish to put into the game.  If you are primarily only a PvP player, your only hope is that they lighten up the MMR in the new environment so that 40 wins becomes a lot easier than it currently is.

elvy75

I was thinking of creating similar topics, so instead ill give my 2 cents here. What is the time developers of this game wants us to spend:
PVE - we have a choice how much time we want to spend, ranging from 50-120 minutes depending on CL you choose, and strength of the roster. 
DDQ - 10-15 minutes depending on the roster
PVP - 5 minutes per match X 40 = 200 minutes just for top progression. In order to have it more rounded for each day I will divide weekly 600 minutes (200 minutes X 3 PVP) with 7 days = 86 minutes per day
Simulator is 3 matches a day - 15 minutes

So in order to get all progression rewards on a daily basis you have to play at least 50+10+86+15=161 min, but if you want to play PVE in higher CL it can take up to additional 70 more minutes.  

I believe that spending more than 2 hours on the mobile game is too much, and i am not understanding why developers thought it was a good idea to make entire playing population spend more time.

In the old system i would spend max 2 hours playing simulator, and max 90 minutes playing pvp, and my total play time spent on pvp was no more than 45 minutes on average per day, comparing to what will be 100 minutes now, and i ask if it is really normal to add nearly an hour of play time ???? Do developers want lots of people just to stop playing one of two modes?

There were other ideas how this could have been implemented so that both big guys and little guys are happy, but developers decided to use highly inflated win based system. Someone suggested system where when you reach one progression reward you cant lose points below that and i think that was actually decent idea that would make more people wanting to try to get higher rewards. Another good idea was to have two counters, one for real points that include lost points that would count for placement, and another one that would have cumulative points that would count for progression. Both systems wouldn't increase play time, and would make everyone happy. If this is going to remain as it is, i hope that wins needed will be tweaked or people will burn out quite fast, which is not good for the longevity of the game. 

fanghoul

I've been trying out this system where I don't need to get every single reward offered, but do appreciate when I have some extra things to snag when I do have time.

Punisher5784

Brigby: ... we feel that this just isn’t a healthy way to play the game, and it isn’t fair to players who don’t want to grind trivially easy missions for a significant amount of time.

This is the key sentence from that article. The devs didn't want us to grind trivially easy missions for significant amount of time. They did not say nor do they care if we play a significant amount of time playing matches that result in sales for the following: healthpacks, power boost, AP boosts, shields, HP, or ISO. That's why PvE max increased to 5 and PvP max is 40 wins.. $$$$$. They don't know you, but they know your bank account

Dotproduct

elvy75 said:

I believe that spending more than 2 hours on the mobile game is too much, and i am not understanding why developers thought it was a good idea to make entire playing population spend more time.

Yes but I'm sure that you like me and many others on here have plenty of other mobile games we also play. If we didn't play 2 hours on MPQ then we would play those hours on another game. My total playing time is about 3-4 hours a day over the various games so saying that MPQ is making you play more than 2 hours is a furphy.

elvy75 said:

So in order to get all progression rewards on a daily basis you have to

You know you don't have to anything....

fanghoul said:

I've been trying out this system where I don't need to get every single reward offered, but do appreciate when I have some extra things to snag when I do have time.

Trying out... isn't that the default position so you don't lead to burn out?

Tony_Foot

I'd welcome progression being 4 clears again as a balance against the extra play time I require to get to 40 wins. An insane amount of game time, luckily my son at least does my ddq and trivial nodes.

I'd welcome them pulling the 10cp from 16 wins, it would help me ignore that tab completely

Vhailorx

Madsalad: it's not that hard to get:

When demi/de want to make changes that will result in less play, they trot out the line about wanting to save players from unhealthy grinding.

Whe, they want to make changes that will increase the amount of play, they trot out other spin about offering more rewards or making the game playable on any schedule.

As a general rule, don't believe either spin.  Demi/d3 now have quite a long track record of pushing marketing **** to explain changes that seem pretty $ driven.

killerkoala

Punisher5784 said:

Brigby: ... we feel that this just isn’t a healthy way to play the game, and it isn’t fair to players who don’t want to grind trivially easy missions for a significant amount of time.

This is the key sentence from that article. The devs didn't want us to grind trivially easy missions for significant amount of time. They did not say nor do they care if we play a significant amount of time playing matches that result in sales for the following: healthpacks, power boost, AP boosts, shields, HP, or ISO. That's why PvE max increased to 5 and PvP max is 40 wins.. $$$$$. They don't know you, but they know your bank account

it's always

"about the money"

Pongie

Since pvp is win based now, maybe they should make pve progression win based too (lock the nodes after all rewards are cleared). Then instead of having points where player can grind endlessly, make it based on time. Rank can then be based on wins and tie breaker using time. I’m sure seconds is enough, if not use milliseconds. Top ranks has always favored faster clears anyway