Updates to Story Event 5-Star Essential Missions * Updated (11/17/17)

TeamStewie

OK this is ridiculous. The 5 star node in the 2nd sub for HOD SCL7 is exactly the same as the 4 but the difficulty is higher and we're getting half the points? How is that fair?

GigerHR

Thanks for the update @Brigby!

Can you provide any insight into the reasoning behind making the hardest node (5* Essential) worth only as much as the easiest node? This goes well beyond "less than the 4-star node", down to "as few points as we can give based on the other nodes in the sub".

Still holding out hope that the extreme point reduction is an oversight that will be corrected in future events.

broll

Brigby said:

Rewards will not be impacted by these changes.

This needs an *.

*Personal rewards will not be affected, however alliance placement rewards will absolutely be affected.

Arphaxad

You want less people playing you game? Because this is how you get less players.

SkadenFrudee

I would assume people were "abusing" the five star node, using those points as a replacement for additional clears (I can top 50 while skipping the entire first day if I have the essential 5*), or in addition to place higher. Which is what I do, because why wouldn't I?

Rather than removing the node from SCL 7, they made it worth less.  If they thought that would push me to a higher level, they thought incorrectly. They just lessened the advantage; it's still an advantage though, so I will continue to take advantage of it. 

Brigby

@TeamStewiesaid:

OK this is ridiculous. The 5 star node in the 2nd sub for HOD SCL7 is exactly the same as the 4 but the difficulty is higher and we're getting half the points? How is that fair?

Would you mind explaining what you mean by "exactly the same as the 4"?

As of right now, the 5-Star Essential awards 132 full points, and starts with level 185 enemies. The 4-Star Essential awards 402 full points, and starts with level 150 enemies. This seems to match the announced changes.

Spoit

Brigby said:

@TeamStewiesaid:

OK this is ridiculous. The 5 star node in the 2nd sub for HOD SCL7 is exactly the same as the 4 but the difficulty is higher and we're getting half the points? How is that fair?

Would you mind explaining what you mean by "exactly the same as the 4"?

As of right now, the 5-Star Essential awards 132 full points, and starts with level 185 enemies. The 4-Star Essential awards 402 full points, and starts with level 150 enemies. This seems to match the announced changes.

He means that they're both kronan+2 muscles. And like you yourself said, the 5* node is a few levels harder, for a third of the points

penguiniffic

I think a lot of people misunderstood how this was going to work (myself included initially). After re-reading @Brigby 's initial post, I can see that SCL 7 was left off the post. So, it's just SCL 8 & 9 that still have the 5* req node's points and enemy levels higher than the 4* node. 

In SCL7, both the point value and enemy levels have been reduced much lower than the 4* req node intentionally. Per some alliance mates, it looks like it's been lowered to equal to the first node. 

ursopro

I mean, at this point it would be just easier to just drop the 5* essential node from SCL7 and be done with it, but what do I know.

Sluggo

penguiniffic said:

I think a lot of people misunderstood how this was going to work (myself included initially). After re-reading @Brigby 's initial post, I can see that SCL 7 was left off the post. So, it's just SCL 8 & 9 that still have the 5* req node's points and enemy levels higher than the 4* node. 

In SCL7, both the point value and enemy levels have been reduced much lower than the 4* req node intentionally. Per some alliance mates, it looks like it's been lowered to equal to the first node. 

For the record, that post was edited today; the original communication of this change did not specifically mention SCL8 and 9. It did say that SCL7's 5* node would be "much less" for HoD, but any reasonable person would have assumed that meant "lowered-further-but-still-not-below-the-4*-node." 
At best, this was really poorly communicated. (and I'm not blaming Brigby; this kind of half-baked communication from the devs has been going with MPQ for years.)  To be honest, dropping the 5* node so low to the level of the easiest easy node feels like such an absurd over-correction that I initially assumed it was a mistake. I'm still not convinced it wasn't. 

GigerHR

Just so everyone’s clear - only the points for the 5* node have been dropped to match the lowest node. The level is still matched to the hardest node. So you get 132 points for fighting level 245 enemies (after 4 clears), compared to 400 points and level 210 enemies for the 4* node.

If it’s not a mistaken over-correction, then it really must be just a half-baked attempt to push higher level players out of SCL7. The problem with this method is that it de-incentivizes everyone - higher level players leave so they don’t hurt their alliance scores, lower players don’t waste health packs on the hardest node for unreasonable points.

Reecoh

SkadenFrudee said:

I would assume people were "abusing" the five star node

I think you misspelled "playing the game as designed, tested*, and implemented".

As you point point out, lowering the advantage doesn't really change the math at all. Those that can do the 5* nodes will still have an easier time over the course of the game to place higher.

Moving to a higher SCL means the 5*s are worth more so maybe you can skip more of the nodes than in SCL7 to get that top progression, but I doubt the time spent doing the harder 5* node saves much time over doing easier nodes. So really it's about doing them for additional placement points.

Which means having the 5* will almost always get you higher placement. Which is what I thought they wanted to do - incentivize everyone to get & level their 5*s for better placement. And now they act surprised when people use them exactly as designed.

Want to incentivize me to move up to the next SCL? Change it so I can do fewer clears for the same rewards and/or 2) change the system so I'm not punished for how long it takes me to play or when I start & end. Otherwsie it'll wait until I slowly build up my roster enough to do the next SCL in reasonable time. Though with the ongoing dilution that timeline keeps getting longer.

Either that or this is an attempt to reduce the ease of getting the top progression CP.

* No play testers were harmed used in the design & implementation of this feature.

SkadenFrudee

Reecoh said:

SkadenFrudee said:

I would assume people were "abusing" the five star node

I think you misspelled "playing the game as designed, tested*, and implemented".


Want to incentivize me to move up to the next SCL? Change it so I can do fewer clears for the same rewards and/or 2) change the system so I'm not punished for how long it takes me to play or when I start & end. 

Sadly, I believe the devs find these terms  synonymous.

As to your other point, don't forget the option to actually incentivize us with rewards that make the move up an SCL worth the effort. 

jamesh

Reecoh said:

Want to incentivize me to move up to the next SCL? Change it so I can do fewer clears for the same rewards and/or 2) change the system so I'm not punished for how long it takes me to play or when I start & end. Otherwsie it'll wait until I slowly build up my roster enough to do the next SCL in reasonable time. Though with the ongoing dilution that timeline keeps getting longer.

I posted about something like this in the suggestions sub-forum:
https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/65514/suggestion-unified-progression-rewards-for-all-clearance-levels-in-story-mode

The basic idea being to have a single schedule of progression rewards shared by all clearance levels, but vary the amount of points nodes are worth so certain rewards are locked off from lower clearance levels.

This would also have the effect of making a partial clear of the next clearance level give somewhat similar rewards to a full clear of the current one.  This would mean moving to a clearance level that you can't complete doesn't necessarily mean you're worse off progression wise.  Of course, this requires a lot more than just scaling the points of the 5* essential node.

jamesh

After being worth less  than the first easy mission for the last few events, the 5* node in CL7 seems to be back up to being worth more than the 4* node in the current Deadpool vs. MPQ event.

Is this a change in policy, or just an oversight?