PvE... Is it time yet?

Shadow

I get that the developers wanted to focus on building up the PvP aspect of the game first and that their time went to working on alliances and then seasons. Given that there is a limited amount of time, it is understandable that PvE would be neglected in the process other than changing some variable parameters and bumping scaling up to 400 for some players so that it balances out for everyone else. PvE has been neglected in the process of improving the PvP part of the game. But there are people who like to play PvE without having to face level 400 opponents. Surely it is time that the developers spend their time beefing up this aspect of the game.

Unknown

Unfortunately their analytics probably show how PvP is a money maker for them, and not PVE.

Think about how much HP is spent during PvP tournaments. Everything has been driving towards us (players) spending HP, hence money. The new Seasons means those of us in alliances and competing can't take a break. Think about how many times you've shielded in a recent PvP event not because you needed the 3* covers, but because you wanted to preserve your high score for the Seasons meta. Events you would have passed on in the past because you didn't need any of he rewards you now find yourself spending precious HP.

Meanwhile, how do they make money on the PVE end? Mainly through cover packs, when people need certain featured heroes. This is more "spikey", as spending probably goes down as the tournament grows long. As fewer new people join the game and as veterans realize the poor value from these 10x and 40x packs, I think they will see the revenue go down from this source.

Maybe make PVE ridiculously hard so people spend HP on heal packs....who woulda thunk it?

I see the game long term as Demiurge trying to get as many people into the alliance hook, then using that to get people to spend money to compete in PvP moreso than PvE.

What saddens me is that this game I love so much feels like it has turned into some sorta weird Skinner box experiment where Demiurge is just looking at numbers trying to figure out how to make the game more profitable, instead of trying to figure out how to make the game more fun. Almost every single recent change addresses the former, but not the latter.

Unknown

I dunno about others, but I compete in PvP only to get covers that I can use in PvE. For me PvE has always been much more interesting than PvP and even though at the moment PvE sucks monkeys tinykitties I still consider it to be more important and appealing than PvP. Because at the core I'm not that competitive person and I love stress-free playing. Why on earth am I playing MPQ then? Good question...

When o when do we see truly CO-OPERATIVE PvE? You know... Hero teams actually helping each other out to reach a common goal? In one Hulk event I remember there was a Hulk cover as a community progression reward. Now that was something! We need more rewards that bring us more together as players and community. PvE would be great to create that spirit. Let the PvP be the only event mode for pure competition as it should be.

Unknown

Ariakos wrote:

I dunno about others, but I compete in PvP only to get covers that I can use in PvE. For me PvE has always been much more interesting than PvP and even though at the moment PvE sucks monkeys tinykitty I still consider it to be more important and appealing than PvP. Because at the core I'm not that competitive person and I love stress-free playing. Why on earth am I playing MPQ then? Good question...

When o when do we see truly CO-OPERATIVE PvE? You know... Hero teams actually helping each other out to reach a common goal? In one Hulk event I remember there was a Hulk cover as a community progression reward. Now that was something! We need more rewards that bring us more together as players and community. PvE would be great to create that spirit. Let the PvP be the only event mode for pure competition as it should be.

One big issue is that, over the last few months, we have only had 1-2 New events (we find that magneto is working with hood, and more recently we go around with mags destroying facilities). We have also, to the best of my remembrance, only repeated one of those events and only once while we have had heroics and the hunt xbuzzlightyear. The pve is stale if its basically the hunt or heroics every single time. They have shown in some of thier analytics that the hunt is thier best and biggest money making event. They are sticking with what they know. It's better than running a bad pve, but right now I think ppl need the next pve to be new story, a new character, and just...more new to keep them engrossed. I am much more willing to fight a harder battle if I get to see some story, receive a nice little bonus reward, and then receive the normal 4 reward roll than if its just the same token/500/250/kittylitter or worse that normally run.

A lot of ppl started because they love marvel, and they wanted to see a story. The prologue does that very well. If the point of pve is to further the story, then I don't k ow if one every month and a half is really a good enough pace. At the very least, I am sure new dialogue or something could be added for minimal effort.

As for the competition...we have seen pve progress rewards only don't work as they put the rewards too high. Heck, look how far off in this current pve ppl will be to the second ragnarok...that's the norm if its
progress only. Idea is fine, sometimes the requirements for implementation ruin the idea enough for it to be useless. This is one of those situations, as even in pve they need to be making money off something.

In one of thier tech talks someone linked to it said they started to try true boss battles (you know, 3 vs 1 special situation boss...like a floating head that moves every turn ...the type of things they have in Xbox live quality puzzle games)....something like that, which players such as myself have asked for specifically, would go a long way making the game more fun and making pve feel like more than just a long winded chore in order to get a cover of some 3*** you likely wont really be able to use for a month or more.

Unknown

I had heard they tried the boss thing, but I hadn't heard what the outcome was. I'm assuming it didn't work that well and that's why it hasn't been implemented. If someone knows more, please enlighten the rest of us.

Moral

PVP: pick a featured character, rewards and let the players beat on each other.

PvE: craft a story and add dialogue, editing in the hope that 98% of your fanboy base won't tear to shreds. Then come up with 3-4 sub events with about 9-13 different nodes each, adding the dialogue. Set point totals for each of the different nodes. Set the rewards for the main event and subs.

Assuming d3 isn't using a dartboard to create PvE nodes and choose buffed characters, there is a lot more time invested in crafting a PvE.

Unknown

Looking at the chart from the VentureBeat article I'm not sure how you can conclude whether PvP or PvE is more lucrative. Shields are a relatively small amount of total HP spending. Most of the HP spent is still for ability upgrade/hero packs, and I don't see why PvE inherently is less likely to lead to either of these events. If anything I'd argue that given major boosts in PvE is +90 levels (more than +72 levels on a maxed character in PvP) and that the best nodes in a PvE event usually requires a certain character, buying comic packs/upgrading abilities makes more sense for PvE than PvP. If you had a maxed HT he's dominant in 4 events (R1 and R2 of Heroic Venom normal/deadly). If you had a maxed HT in Hot Shots, people might pay more attention to your team, but it's nowhere as dominant as having a level 231 HT for Heroic Venom.

Twysta

Mizake wrote:

Unfortunately their analytics probably show how PvP is a money maker for them, and not PVE.

I can tell you why PvP is the bigger money maker than PvE.

BECAUSE PvE MECHANICS ARE @#&%£$# TERRIBLE.
[Forrest Gump] And that's all I have to say about that [/Forrest Gump]

Unknown

Twysta wrote:

Mizake wrote:

Unfortunately their analytics probably show how PvP is a money maker for them, and not PVE.

I can tell you why PvP is the bigger money maker than PvE.

BECAUSE PvE MECHANICS ARE @#&%£$# TERRIBLE.
[Forrest Gump] And that's all I have to say about that [/Forrest Gump]

You're talking as a disenfranchised player seemingly on their way out. If they offer a nice cover pack, then who cares whether it's from PvE or PvP. If I were a player that hated PvP but my favorite character was being offered, I'd totally pick up a PvP pack. As it is, I think the PvP mechanic is terrible and up until season 1, I only ever played PvE seriously. The mechanics can be cumbersome, but I still find it more enjoyable than the constant direct competition of PvP. I feel I have a better shot at level 300+ (though I rarely ever see them) PvE nodes than I do against the wall of player-made 141 teams (which are more repetitive than the PvE nodes given that I always see the same team composition).

Unknown

The major issue and a big problem for D3 in PvE is that in trying to put everyone on equal ground, they're killing the urge to play at all.

It's harder to do well as your roster gets better (counter-intuitive) because character boosts are the same for everyone but have much more insane effect if you have 1* or 2* rosters

It's not fun fighting against lvl 230-400 enemies because it's tedious among other things. Making scaling worse if you use healing is just ridiculous.

Most people decided playing as little as possible is better (Do you want people playing your game less and less because it's not fun?)

Every time we have a long event, people are so freaking excited that it's almost over because it's almost over, not because of any new cover.

Surely these signs are something that needs addressing?

Unknown

Yup. The most direct effect the scaling changes have had on me is that I am playing much, much less. Rather than doing many refreshes, I am now doing two or even only one run per sub. And not even complete runs. That is 100% purely because I am terrified of scaling.

Working as intended? Only if the intention is to drive off their playerbase.

Unknown

In my overall bracket as of the end of R2 I got Davecazz from SHIELD at #1 with a 300 point lead over me at #2, and #3 is some guy whose highest character is level 65.

Is this a sign of the 3* always winning everything? Weak rosters unfairly at the top? And what about someone in the 85-100 range? If the previous #3 guy passed me up at the end, is this because scaling is messed up or that hard work pays off even at low roster? I guess it depends on whether you're asking me or the guy who passed me up.

Unknown

Rajjeq wrote:

Yup. The most direct effect the scaling changes have had on me is that I am playing much, much less. Rather than doing many refreshes, I am now doing two or even only one run per sub. And not even complete runs. That is 100% purely because I am terrified of scaling.

Working as intended? Only if the intention is to drive off their playerbase.

It's interesting to see the wider effect of this mentality (b/c it seems to be fairly widespread, at least among the hardcore). As fewer people play the "leapfrog for first place" game, then the less effect of rubberbanding we see, which means that progression rewards seem further out of reach. Whether this is an accurate representation of the mechanics or not, I'm not sure - it's just my impression of how they work. So now I find that I play just enough to make sure I get all 3 covers from the PvE event.

Although, to be fair, I'm not sure if I'm playing less b/c the game is more of a chore, or rather if it's because I have more chores to be doing outside the game. The warm weather brings lots of things that need done outside, plus the wife's at 31.5 weeks for the twins, which means there's a whole ton of things to get ready.

Unknown

The major issue and a big problem for D3 in PvE is that in trying to put everyone on equal ground, they're killing the urge to play at all.

It's harder to do well as your roster gets better (counter-intuitive) because character boosts are the same for everyone but have much more insane effect if you have 1* or 2* rosters

It's not fun fighting against lvl 230-400 enemies because it's tedious among other things. Making scaling worse if you use healing is just ridiculous.

Most people decided playing as little as possible is better (Do you want people playing your game less and less because it's not fun?)

Every time we have a long event, people are so freaking excited that it's almost over because it's almost over, not because of any new cover.

Surely these signs are something that needs addressing?

Unknown

Progression rewards and their reachability have very little to do with scaling. By now anyone who can actually overtake the overall sub leader even momentarily has figured out that if you can score that kind of points, you most certainly can just do that on the last refresh and save you the time. The only way you're going to have significant rubberbanding increase is if the missions are so easy that everyone's accidentally beating them all. Right now to hit the highest progression rewards you'd have to gather the 10 greatest grinders of MPQ and have them agree on an exact playing schedule, and it'd have to go like guy A plays all his missions to 1, then guy B plays all his missions after guy A lets everyone know he's done, and so on. And if even a few guys wimp out you'd still have wasted everyone's time for nothing, not to mention you're pretty much asking the 10 guys who almost certainly have everything to grind for what amounts to community service.

Nemek

Phantron wrote:

Progression rewards and their reachability have very little to do with scaling. By now anyone who can actually overtake the overall sub leader even momentarily has figured out that if you can score that kind of points, you most certainly can just do that on the last refresh and save you the time. The only way you're going to have significant rubberbanding increase is if the missions are so easy that everyone's accidentally beating them all. Right now to hit the highest progression rewards you'd have to gather the 10 greatest grinders of MPQ and have them agree on an exact playing schedule, and it'd have to go like guy A plays all his missions to 1, then guy B plays all his missions after guy A lets everyone know he's done, and so on. And if even a few guys wimp out you'd still have wasted everyone's time for nothing, not to mention you're pretty much asking the 10 guys who almost certainly have everything to grind for what amounts to community service.

I'd think scaling has at least a small effect. If scaling weren't in place, I suspect you'd see everybody start going for all of the 500ISO prizes (and even some of the others), which would be likely to push the top score up, since those people in first won't necessarily be playing for points (but rather rewards.)

Unknown

Nemek wrote:

Phantron wrote:

Progression rewards and their reachability have very little to do with scaling. By now anyone who can actually overtake the overall sub leader even momentarily has figured out that if you can score that kind of points, you most certainly can just do that on the last refresh and save you the time. The only way you're going to have significant rubberbanding increase is if the missions are so easy that everyone's accidentally beating them all. Right now to hit the highest progression rewards you'd have to gather the 10 greatest grinders of MPQ and have them agree on an exact playing schedule, and it'd have to go like guy A plays all his missions to 1, then guy B plays all his missions after guy A lets everyone know he's done, and so on. And if even a few guys wimp out you'd still have wasted everyone's time for nothing, not to mention you're pretty much asking the 10 guys who almost certainly have everything to grind for what amounts to community service.

I'd think scaling has at least a small effect. If scaling weren't in place, I suspect you'd see everybody start going for all of the 500ISO prizes (and even some of the others), which would be likely to push the top score up, since those people in first won't necessarily be playing for points (but rather rewards.)

Yep. I used to grind for the 500 ISO reward and would do multiple clears per sub because why not, it was easy enough and there was no downside to doing so.

Now I have zero incentive to ever grind or push the bubble and those that do grind will eventually be scaled out from pushing.

Unknown

Nemek wrote:

I'd think scaling has at least a small effect. If scaling weren't in place, I suspect you'd see everybody start going for all of the 500ISO prizes (and even some of the others), which would be likely to push the top score up, since those people in first won't necessarily be playing for points (but rather rewards.)

Well scaling does prevent the case of the accidental grinder, namely the missions are so easy someone just grinded them all just because they can, though I suspect even without scaling you're never going to have missions so easy that this become prevalent. Besides, grinding 500 iso 8 is usually not enough to overtake the overall sub leader. I used to do that a lot, and I'm not always #1 in my sub bracket by the time I am done, let alone the overall #1. I think you need to do something like every mission at least 3 times to pass up the current sub leader, and anyone who can pull that off is never threatened for their overall positioning because you know that is pretty much going to guaranteed you a #1 at the end so why do extra work?

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

Is this a sign of the 3* always winning everything? Weak rosters unfairly at the top?

I personally think the PVE scaling distorts the game. First off why is someone with a mid level 2* roster (or worse yet max lvl 1* roster) in the same bracket as a person with a lvl141 3* roster? Had this mechanic been around when I first started playing I likely would have just hoarded my ISO and HP and waited forever to use it so I could keep beating those uber squishy mobs. IMO the current PVE model doesn't work. Sure newbies should have a chance but it should be a chance against other newbies and casual players not 3* max lvl hardcore players. I am not 100% on how the PvE MMR rating works but I can tell you that it really doesn't work.

In a normal PVE tourney its not a deal breaker but in heroics where most 3* are unavailable it straight up broken. Essentially the level of your characters or your MMR from playing with those characters shouldn't count against you when you can't use them. Playing lvl 300 goons with max level 1 stars, while a newbie plays level 40-50 goons with the same characters is broken.

The same thing used to happen to me in Hero's only PvP tournament. Here I am with the MMR I earned using almost exclusively bad guys fighting in a tournament with almost only max lvl 2* good guys. For me that basically me I will pass or tank. Less so now with Alliances.

IMO each of your Characters should have an MMR. Then in a tournament your competition is determined by the MMR of your available characters. This would also lessen the effect of tanking, as usually tanking is done with non-primary characters. Tanking would still have an effect but their would be a limitation as no character can have a negative MMR so unless your tanking with your mains too...........