How to deal with the tediousness of PVE?

2

Comments

  • shardwick
    shardwick Posts: 2,121 Chairperson of the Boards
    The game in its current state is burning out a ton of people, myself included. A move to progression only with a better reward structure would fix most problems that people have. No more tapping, no more need for people to snipe brackets, not having to worry about your internet going out and costing you a shot at top placement, which happened to me yet again recently, because all you need to worry about to get the best rewards in an event is doing a certain amount of clears. I mean if it was me I would just completely knock out a pve event as fast as I could and then chill for the rest of the event. Maybe play pvp more.

    Otherwise you could just divorce your wife, quit your job and your podcast to free up more time to play MPQ.
  • Borstock
    Borstock Posts: 2,700 Chairperson of the Boards
    I find that if you just don't care about placement, the game becomes more fun. You don't feel the need to do a full clear. You can use more than just the boosted heroes, dropping down if necessary. Answers are out there once you give up the obsessive need to compete. 
  • NotBAMF
    NotBAMF Posts: 408 Mover and Shaker
    Here's the thing, though... I'm not married to placement. I'm not at all a T10, optimal playing player. I fight for T50, but that's it. I always choose the last time available (for me, it's the 2am EST option), and I generally play the first four clears in the morning before work and then the last three in the evening on the treadmill before bed. I imagine if I was playing for T10, I'd find the game insufferable, but even playing it more relaxed, it's too much. I play when it fits my schedule, and i'm STILL feeling burnt out from just playing so much. 

    I really probably should move to just playing for the 22 CP and leaving it at that more often. But even 5 clears a day is a bit annoying. Ah well. 
  • Borstock
    Borstock Posts: 2,700 Chairperson of the Boards
    NotBAMF said:
    Here's the thing, though... I'm not married to placement. I'm not at all a T10, optimal playing player. I fight for T50, but that's it. I always choose the last time available (for me, it's the 2am EST option), and I generally play the first four clears in the morning before work and then the last three in the evening on the treadmill before bed. I imagine if I was playing for T10, I'd find the game insufferable, but even playing it more relaxed, it's too much. I play when it fits my schedule, and i'm STILL feeling burnt out from just playing so much. 

    I really probably should move to just playing for the 22 CP and leaving it at that more often. But even 5 clears a day is a bit annoying. Ah well. 
    Playing for t50 is still playing for placement. 

    You must unlearn that which you have learned, Padawan. 
  • jredd
    jredd Posts: 1,387 Chairperson of the Boards
    hope you have the required 5* champed, use gambit and america chavez. end nodes quick with critical matches.
  • Quebbster
    Quebbster Posts: 8,070 Chairperson of the Boards
    jredd said:
    hope you have the required 5* champed, use gambit and america chavez. end nodes quick with critical matches.

    I find GladiaThor and Chavez works better as long as Thor starts the match below the 50% Health threshhold. That's easy enough to accomplish by bringing him and Thanos to the easy nodes though.
  • Alsmir
    Alsmir Posts: 508 Critical Contributor
    DDQ and done.
    Sorry but when I have to choose between rl and MPQ, the choice is easy. I'd gladly play a couple of difficult matches, trying to best counter strong teams, but the current slogfest of 50+ matches/day? Nope.
  • Calnexin
    Calnexin Posts: 1,078 Chairperson of the Boards
    Manage your expectations.

    It is testament to the game that people feel the need to compete the way they do.  The rules and mechanics in play allow and enforce that sort of behavior to create an almost Pavlovian response in the players.

    E.g. - that one cover in SHIELD Training.  You feel the burn to get that cover.  You hoard or spend to get the previous character covered and leveled so you can get it.  You may hoard or spend more to try to get additional covers to allow you to do more of the botttom row.

    But it's one cover, for a character that does not matter.  Outside their event, have you seen any Shuri in PvP?  P4nther? Kraven?  If you don't get that once cover, does it matter, even a little bit?  When they go into tokens, you will get the covers, and that one on the front end meant maybe a little extra Iso and a couple CP, if that.

    It's tough to break out of the mindset of getting everything all the time.  It requires you to take a step back and evaluate your cost/benefit, and then just have the willpower to avoid the trap.  Find an easier schedule that works for you.  Don't worry about top placement so much.  Take a breather and enjoy what you want of the game without worrying about falling behind (whatever that means in a game with perpetual content additions).

    For me, I just do this when I'm doing other stuff, mostly watching TV.  I play way off time, usually starting slice 1 around 8:30 - 9 pm. By that time I've lost a lot of points, but so has everyone else, and the competition isn't as fierce.  I can't make 4 clears at 7, I have to wait until at least 5:30 pm or so when I get home from work, and sometimes later.  But because everyone else in the slacker bracket is kind of on the same schedule, I'm usually able to manage T50.  That's enough, even in CL7, to maintain equilibrium with character releases, including HP, Iso, and covers.  I zip through 4 clears (CL7 only takes ~ 40 min) in the evening, go to 6 before work in the morning, repeat.  I'm still able to fit in my side job, take the kids to practice, cook dinner, play family games, and keep up with 3-5 television series.  But it takes breaking away from the game's clock and accepting less than the best prizes.
  • Slothkins
    Slothkins Posts: 58 Match Maker
    Work on accepting that you don't need to hit every node 7 times a day to advance. You don't need to be top ten to advance. I play to the 4* in progression, or maybe to the first cp reward if I have some extra time. It's not stressful, I don't get bent out of shape if I have a busy couple days and don't get to play as much as usual, and guess what? My roster is still progressing.

    Am I champing a new 4* every 1.5 weeks like some people? No, but that's ok. If you're playing PvE, this game isn't really a competition to have the best roster compared to everyone else, it's just to keep making your own roster a little better every day. 
  • BoyWonder1914
    BoyWonder1914 Posts: 884 Critical Contributor
    I was in a t10 PVE/t50 PVP alliance, and it gets old VERY fast. Yes the additional rewards are definitely awesome, but playing the game at it's absolute highest level for 7 days out of the week, multiple hours a day just burns you. You're definitely numb to it when you have rewards you really want that you're pushing for, but your roster eventually improves to the point where most of the time the t10 rewards are nothing but champ levels. As someone else pointed out before, you're going to get those 4-star covers anyway by just casually spending CP and pulling tokens, so getting top placement is definitely not worth stressing over. 

    Once I stopped caring about making t10, I stopped caring about how quickly I could do my clears. Once I stopped caring about how quickly I could do my clears, it no longer matter what the "fastest" team was to beat every node. I got to choose the teams that I just wanted to have fun with, or test out, or both. That's what keeps me on the perpetual hamster wheel willing to do the work, because I know I can make the work fun if I try. 
  • Qubort
    Qubort Posts: 203 Tile Toppler
    NotBAMF said:

    JackTenrec said:
    It's ridiculously tedious, which is why I've dropped down to playing SCL7 (even though my roster really should be used in 8) just to make things go faster.

    Oh, I've had access to SCL9 for months, but I won't play it. I actually won't step a toe out of SCL7 unless it's an easier story (I did actually choose SCL8 for Strange Sights because it's mostly so Goon-oriented, but I'm pretty sure I'll regret that because I forgot about Ultron and his bots).

    acescracked said:
    Is this the first free to play game you've played on a mobile device?

    The other way to get resources without investing time is spending money. Of course that has downsides as well.

    What I do... I play a pve or two really hard, get t10 and way above progression. Then barely or not play at all the next one or two pve's.


    I mean... I played Pokémon Go? And Angry Birds, I guess? They didn't require NEARLY the time that MPQ demands, and the time they required wasn't AS repetitive and scheduled? I played when I wanted, and that was that. It wasn't nearly as much of a "YOU HAVE TO PLAY THIS MUCH AT THESE TIMES!" demand.


    You complain that playing less nodes will cost you rewards but then stay two clearance levels low, costing you rewards. There is nothing wrong with playing casual, but don't expect them to alter the game for the rest of us so you can play less for the same rewards.
  • Punisher5784
    Punisher5784 Posts: 3,845 Chairperson of the Boards
    Brigby said:
    Sometimes what I like to do is pick characters that fit the theme or enemies of the sub-chapter. For example, if I'm on a desert sub-chapter, I'll see how I fare with Sandman and Vulture. (Usually not well. I don't have many covers invested in them :p )

    Facing off against Ultron's sentries? I'll recreate the Age of Ultron scene, where the Avengers are fighting hordes of them, by selecting any combination of the Avengers.

    Does Quicksilver die every time?
  • broll
    broll Posts: 4,732 Chairperson of the Boards
    What I do now?
    Focus on getting faster teams.
    Turn off animations.
    Burn through it as fast as possible while doing something else.

    I have to agree that the level of play required to be competitive in this game is ludicrous. The only games I've ever played that were more time consuming/tedious were games like Kings of Chaos or Bootleggers (not sure what you even call those kind of games, web clickers?), maybe Simpson's Tapped Out.

    As much as the game can be frustrating/time consuming ultimately at the end of the day for me I'm still enjoying it more than any of the others listed above.  This is by far the longest I've stuck with a game this tedious and time consuming, but in the end I do enjoy it (not every moment of it, but overall) and it scratches my OCD collector, planner, strategyzer itch which few things other than these types of games do.  At the end of the day you have to value if the game is worth it to you or not.  To me it is.
  • justsing
    justsing Posts: 507 Critical Contributor
    edited March 2018
    What’s helped me is finding something to listen to while doing my clears. Watching TV doesn’t work because I need to focus on my phone screen. But listening to a new album, podcast, or audiobook has made the clears feel less tedious for me. That way, I’m also doing something else I wanted to do while wasting 1-2 hours on a mobile game.
  • BoyWonder1914
    BoyWonder1914 Posts: 884 Critical Contributor
    justsing said:
    What’s helped me is finding something to listen to while doing my clears. Watching TV doesn’t work because I need to focus on my phone screen. But listening to a new album, podcast, or audiobook has made the clears feel less tedious for me. That way, I’m also doing something else I wanted to do while wasting 1-2 hours on a mobile game.
    I do this as well, though I do it to keep myself awake. It was hard staying awake for s5 to do a final grind/clears, and it was hard waking up and STAYING up for an s1 grind. 
  • udonomefoo
    udonomefoo Posts: 1,630 Chairperson of the Boards
    justsing said:
    What’s helped me is finding something to listen to while doing my clears. Watching TV doesn’t work because I need to focus on my phone screen. But listening to a new album, podcast, or audiobook has made the clears feel less tedious for me. That way, I’m also doing something else I wanted to do while wasting 1-2 hours on a mobile game.
    I keep forgetting that I can play music & podcasts on my phone while playing.  It really does make it better.  I think my brain is still stuck on the "one app at a time" mentality from iOS that was changed about six generations ago.  
  • animaniactoo
    animaniactoo Posts: 486 Mover and Shaker
    Qubort said:
    NotBAMF said:

    JackTenrec said:
    It's ridiculously tedious, which is why I've dropped down to playing SCL7 (even though my roster really should be used in 8) just to make things go faster.

    Oh, I've had access to SCL9 for months, but I won't play it. I actually won't step a toe out of SCL7 unless it's an easier story (I did actually choose SCL8 for Strange Sights because it's mostly so Goon-oriented, but I'm pretty sure I'll regret that because I forgot about Ultron and his bots).

    acescracked said:
    Is this the first free to play game you've played on a mobile device?

    The other way to get resources without investing time is spending money. Of course that has downsides as well.

    What I do... I play a pve or two really hard, get t10 and way above progression. Then barely or not play at all the next one or two pve's.


    I mean... I played Pokémon Go? And Angry Birds, I guess? They didn't require NEARLY the time that MPQ demands, and the time they required wasn't AS repetitive and scheduled? I played when I wanted, and that was that. It wasn't nearly as much of a "YOU HAVE TO PLAY THIS MUCH AT THESE TIMES!" demand.


    You complain that playing less nodes will cost you rewards but then stay two clearance levels low, costing you rewards. There is nothing wrong with playing casual, but don't expect them to alter the game for the rest of us so you can play less for the same rewards.
    Yes, they don't want to get even fewer rewards than they've already settled for as a tradeoff on being able to consistently play the game.

    I understand this completely. I made the same trade-off because the issue is about time crunch. How much time in your day do you have to actively dedicate to a game, every day, day after day, and particularly one extended block of time? Or 2 extended blocks of time?

    Not to mention that playing the same thing 6-7 times over in a 24 hour period is repetitive to the point of becoming mind-numbingly boring. Even more so when you increase the number of things you're doing like that.

    Nor is this issue limited to the OP - several people in this thread have talked about themselves or people they know burning out due to this, or their own adjustments around it, some of which are likely less than really satisfactory, they're just sort of "how can I keep this going because I'm not ready to give up, but I'm losing my mind".

    This has been and continues to be my prime criticism of the PVE mode. There's a lot of potential for it to be structured in a way that functions better for something that you are planning to do if not every day then at least most days. This is a thing that the devs should want by the way - if you're not interested in picking up the game to play it every day, or can't afford the time to do so, you're not very engaged in it, and you're a lot less likely to spend money on it.
  • CT1888
    CT1888 Posts: 1,201 Chairperson of the Boards
    When I want to get myself to chill out a bit in Pve, I pick a slice with the worst possible end time, so I feel no desire to go for position. I've also looked on the spreadsheet for an event already with 800+ players.
  • animaniactoo
    animaniactoo Posts: 486 Mover and Shaker
    My personal coping mechanisms:

    I took off events, but I didn't really like doing that much, because I was in somewhat of an eternal iso crunch. I ended up on a hamster wheel of always having somebody ready to champ and sometimes two or three somebodies. So stepping off the hamster wheel meant giving up something that might not come back around for 3 to 6 months, and that was too far out for me to feel like it was a "missable" opportunity.

    However, the last adaptation I made before I was forced out was to take the events I really wasn't looking forward to and do only the easy nodes on those. By doing those 6-7 times through on the optimal schedule, I was usually actually able to make full progression and enough iso income to be okay. Often I could still nab T50 that way, if I didn't make T50, then I absolutely made T100. Any lower than that and I would have been too annoyed to play at all. I had to work a lot to tamp down my natural competitiveness to be good with that outcome because I needed to not give up my life/all my free time to the game. Not sure how much longer that would have held off burnout without some game changes/restructuring, but it was helping.

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