PvE on a Schedule - What’s the fix?

broll

TetsujinOni said:

broll said:

animaniactoo said:

ZeroKarma said:

I wanted to create a separate thread to discuss this topic since it is derailing the related but separate discussion on tapping fixes.

There have been several suggestions. Let’s keep them here so they don’t get lost.

My biggest concerns are:

1. That the introduction of too many more time slices will dilute and fracture the player base and leave dead slices with little to no participation.

 2. That D3 will restrict rewards to ensure that they aren’t opening the vault.

3. That the fix to eliminate time slices will take a long time and a decent amount of man hours to make happen and

4. That there is no monetary incentive for D3 to do so since they have to justify said resources.

Thoughts?

Line by line here...

1) The player base is already diluted and fractured by living in different time zones. Both globally, and within the US where the playerbase is the largest. One of the biggest things pushing me out of playing (before I was forced to stop) was the fact that I don't have a time slice that actually works for me - certainly not once work moved out of famine mode back into feast mode (and this is true of other professions as well, teachers, etc.) Neither does most of the rest of the East Coast who works or does anything regularly on a fairly 9-5 schedule. 

Given that I believe that a lot of the player base would shift into an additional slice, but there would be more than enough to cover the rest. I also think it would gain more players who would be willing to play the PVE side, but currently don't because they don't like working against the disadvantage. So basically, I think this is a negative nelly concern which is actually creating more fracturing and diluting than if they instituted a more even distribution.

2) I agree that this is possible, but I hope that they would be willing to test it before enacting it.

3) Potentially.

4) More players and happier players are more sources of income. If they're going to step over the dollar to pick up the dime, that's a shortsighted view on their side of what the monetary incentive would be to create that fix *if* it were deemed to be the most player-friendly and workable.

----------------------------------------

Personally, I would like to see 6 slices, with a 4 hour distribution spread between them. This should be a very very simple thing to do unless there is something significantly wrong with the code that underpins the entire game. I believe that would give most players something that worked well for them at some point along the day.

I would also like to see a difference in how the refreshes are handled. My push would be:

Sub opens: Have 8 hours to complete the first 2 clears for full points. At the end of that 8 hours, have another 8 hours to complete the next 2 clears for full points. After that 4th clear, points refresh as usual until the end of the sub, with only 1 or 2 additional clears possible.

My thinking around this is in terms of breaking up the play and the repetitiveness and not having to be glued to it for a large block of time every day in order to be somewhat competitive, which I believe is the other biggest roadblock that keeps people from engaging in the PVE mode.

TetsujinOni that every 8 hours was the old way and people didn't like it.  It was mostly before my time, but my impression is the move to the new system is what caused the time slice problem (or at least made it much worse).  So i would think either fix the time slice problem to where the majority/all players have a reasonable window to spend 1-2 hours grinding concurrently or spread the clears back out.  I don't think both makes sense, though I do see your point. 

Ideally if points didn't recharge it wouldn't matter when people did them.  That would be the ideal so people could choose, but the only ways I can think to do that is A. Get rid of placement.  B.  Totally new way of determining placement.

Think you're only responding to @animaniactoo above...

My analysis and @Bowgentle 's are in alignment that the Animaniactoo proposal creates a play pattern of play, wait almost 8 hours, play, wait almost 16 hours, instead of play, wait almost 24, play. 

This does not seem to be an improvement.

Correct.  I have "I would rather see an either/or here.  I agree with @" that all cut cause this forum is bad...

Hadronic

I got some radical ideas here:

point regeneration: remove it completely (you can play whenever you want now, easy fix)

now, new problem arises ties galore.
solution: remove cap on # times you can play a node
let scaling increase to infinity (give increasingly better node rewards too)

redesign SCL scaling around this
the goal is to make it so players of all levels have an SCL where they should start to scale out of nodes that become unbeatable somewhere around the 6th time you beat it

SCL 1 all nodes start very low and scale up to the point that 1* players should start to struggle around 6th clear (level 50ish)
SCL 2 players would start something like 3 scaling levels above SCL1 and get scaled out maybe around level 75ish (1* -> 2* transitioners here)
keep this trend going for the varying types of players.


new problem arises with this model, high level players flooding into lower SCLs to do more easy rounds of clears before being scaled out.

Obviously, you would have to limit people flooding down to lower SCL similar to PvP currently, except using Shield Ranking is the complete wrong way to go about it. It should be based off your roster (I know thats what Shield Ranking is supposed to be, but its tinykitty). 

Create some new dynamic number called Roster Strength 
Problem with Shield Rank is that its not dynamic enough (cant go down is a major problem) and everyone's is skewed high because the previous version allowed us to rank up just from opening tokens. If I decided to sell everyone of my 4* and 5* off my account right now, my Roster Strength should drop as a consequence cause it dynamically updates to your current roster. Currently shield rank is just another avenue of distributing rewards that is very loosely connected to your roster.


Probably a pipe dream, but i want the people that win the top rewards to be people that use skill and their available roster to overcome a larger challenge. I like the harder more thought provoking matches we sometimes get (Royal Family). I don't like racing through easy trivial nodes as fast as I possibly can.

I fully expect someone to chime in and quote me and say something like "worst idea ever".

Dormammu

The rockett said:

They had no slices before.  Just ask @Bowgentle for a history lesson. Lol. I think he is a day 1 player.  Very few left. 

I'm a day 1 player and you don't want to go back to the way it was then, trust me.
(Rubberbanding still gives me nightmares.)

Bowgentle

Dormammu said:

The rockett said:

They had no slices before.  Just ask @Bowgentle for a history lesson. Lol. I think he is a day 1 player.  Very few left. 

I'm a day 1 player and you don't want to go back to the way it was then, trust me.
(Rubberbanding still gives me nightmares.)

Rubberbanding was awesome.
What was bad was everything ending at 6am CET.
I resent being called vocal lol.

broll

ZeroKarma said:

I had a discussion with alliance mates and the general feeling is that PvE now is better than it ever has been.

- Play time has dramatically decreased
- playing in a chunk once a day on a timer compared to 3 or even 8(!) times a day on a timer
- no rubberbanding
- no roster-based death scaling
- better rewards 

That isn’t to say it couldn’t be better. But the evolution has been step-by-step and has been very positive. I am ok with continuing that trend.

- Play time has dramatically decreased = My alliancemates have been complaining about how bad it's been since the move to 5 clears for max progression... so no here from us.
- playing in a chunk once a day on a timer compared to 3 or even 8(!) times a day on a timer = I would agree if I could do that chunk at 8pm.  Doing it at 7am, noon, 5pm, 11pm, or 2am are all horrible for someone who works 7a-4p, has a commute, and sleeps....  This is the crux of the problem.
- no rubberbanding = I wasn't around for this.
- no roster-based death scaling = Agree this is an improvement.
- better rewards  = Agree this is an improvement.

Spudgutter

Daredevil217 said:

"Clears should be spread out throughout the day"

No thank you!  I like having essentially one time a day where I sit down and do my clears.  I don't want 2-3 alarms a day, even if they are just 20 minute grind sessions.  That would be way worse than the current system.

That would be way worse *for you.*  Fixed it for you lol.

Aes' idea of shielding is growing on me.  Just like my issues with pvp, i would like to be able to play as i wish throughout the day, without penalty.  If we agree that speed is a determining factor for placement, then what is wrong with a clock running while you pve, and the fastest clears win?  This would also tie to brolls complaint.  People lose out because they have other time commitments, this could, theoritically, alleviate that.  Maybe.  Who knows 

Basically, if you dont like the idea just because it doesn't suit you, fine, as long as you admit that is the reason you dont like it.  But it isn't necessarily  a valid reason, because obviously some people don't like the current slices and system.  To each their own.

broll

ZeroKarma said:

Jrlrma said:

Just dump the slices and solo placement altogether, if an event is x days, you have x days from the start to finish the event. take the rewards from solo placement, put them in an alliance progression system like for bosses and everybody wins imo. This doesnt take money out of the devs pockets and makes alot of people happy which will in turn put money in the devs pockets. 

The recommendation that you have here would generate no revenue because you wouldn’t buy boosts or health packs at all. I realize that most people don’t do that, but the top end certainly does. I’ve reduced some of my consumption by rostering additional 2*, but I spent on roster slots instead.

Contest of Champions does something similar to what you suggest but every match costs “energy” and that means if you want to keep playing you have to buy “energy”. It’s an interesting model and you can completely skip that and play for free, but if you want to get the best rewards you have to pay for them. I would expect D3 to implement some system similar to monetize the change, especially with such a precedent. 

How many people are buying health packs in PvE?  Even running Thanos I rarely use more than 3-5.  I don't see how spreading out when it's done would affect boosts if it's still the same number of clears and no other free ways to get them are required, they don't regenerate on a clock.

ZeroKarma

broll said:

ZeroKarma said:

Jrlrma said:

Just dump the slices and solo placement altogether, if an event is x days, you have x days from the start to finish the event. take the rewards from solo placement, put them in an alliance progression system like for bosses and everybody wins imo. This doesnt take money out of the devs pockets and makes alot of people happy which will in turn put money in the devs pockets. 

The recommendation that you have here would generate no revenue because you wouldn’t buy boosts or health packs at all. I realize that most people don’t do that, but the top end certainly does. I’ve reduced some of my consumption by rostering additional 2*, but I spent on roster slots instead.

Contest of Champions does something similar to what you suggest but every match costs “energy” and that means if you want to keep playing you have to buy “energy”. It’s an interesting model and you can completely skip that and play for free, but if you want to get the best rewards you have to pay for them. I would expect D3 to implement some system similar to monetize the change, especially with such a precedent. 

How many people are buying health packs in PvE?  Even running Thanos I rarely use more than 3-5.  I don't see how spreading out when it's done would affect boosts if it's still the same number of clears and no other free ways to get them are required, they don't regenerate on a clock.

Boosts help you win matches faster, so in theory one might buy damage or AP boosts to finish their clears faster and place higher for more rewards.

edit: If you don’t need to clear quickly then there would be no need for boosts.

I might buy a 5 pack of health packs a day. 200hp isn’t much but it is something.

ZeroKarma

aesthetocyst said:

Dormammu said:

(Rubberbanding still gives me nightmares.)

Why?

 (Me still thinks rubberbanding was VERY misunderstood)

It’s true. Nobody understood rubberbanding. 

  

LavaManLee

I think the easiest fix, at least IMHO, would be to increase the max rewards past what they currently are for progression.  The problem is this : we WANT to play the game.  It's actually a fun game.  But, once you hit max progression, the only thing really left to go for is Placement.  And, to go for a really good placement, you have to play optimally.

But what if the rewards were increased so you could play as much as you want and not worry about placement as much?  I think that's all most people want.  Keep placement for those that want it.  That's fine.  But maybe, just maybe, the problem isn't the time slice itself.  It's that there is no incentive to play the game between max progression currently and placement.

And, as mentioned above, we want to play the game.  Just not on a fixed own darn schedule every day.

Anyways, longwinded, but if there were decent rewards past max progression, that would solve a lot of this (maybe I'm naive, but it would definitely make me happy).

TetsujinOni

Spudgutter said:

TetsujinOni said:

Jrlrma said:

This doesnt take money out of the devs pockets and makes alot of people happy which will in turn put money in the devs pockets. 

Here it is again.

Happy people buy things at a much lower conversion rate than just-slightly-unhappy-but-can-see-how-the-lootbox-could-address-their-unhappy.

Here it is again, an assumption  trying to outweigh another assumption. 

Unless you secretly work for D3 and are spilling the beans on the metrics that the rest of us forum goers aren't privy to, your guess is just as good as any other.  I have heard their were studies that show this, but when were they done?  What was the sample size?  Who paid for the study?  What game or games were used in the study?  Did it have major IP like star wars or marvel, or was it just "mobile games" in general?

Edit:  Heck, just look at the change to the steam users and them saying they wont spend just because of how it looks now.  People will stop spending for numerous reason, why not do things that encourage rather than discourage? 

Citing the common F2P model studies and publications. Seems you're at least as aware of them as I am. Absent D3 privy access, nope, just using the standard freemium monetisation model as the model for monetisation of a freemium game.

The Viceroy Returns

ZeroKarma said:

aesthetocyst said:

Dormammu said:

(Rubberbanding still gives me nightmares.)

Why?

 (Me still thinks rubberbanding was VERY misunderstood)

It’s true. Nobody understood rubberbanding. 

  

It may not have be understood very well, but it was not pleasant to come back after not playing for several hours and see the Enemy Levels on every node be much higher level.

Phumade

The Viceroy Returns said:

ZeroKarma said:

aesthetocyst said:

Dormammu said:

(Rubberbanding still gives me nightmares.)

Why?

 (Me still thinks rubberbanding was VERY misunderstood)

It’s true. Nobody understood rubberbanding. 

  

It may not have be understood very well, but it was not pleasant to come back after not playing for several hours and see the Enemy Levels on every node be much higher level.

thats not rubberbanding.  Thats roster based scaling.


Rubberbanding is when you open the game.  see the nodes start at X value,  then come back later and see that the node values have gone up in value, because your falling behind scorewise to the global or sub leader. 

but don't kid yourself.  rubberbanding won't help pass the leader unless they makes some sort of clearing mistake.

Nick441234

Got to be honest, I would prefer a progression type system. Say, an event starts at 12pm, and from then on you have access to every node for the event for the full 3,4 or 7 day event running. You could have them in tabs across the top of the screen and you can tab between each sub and clear the battles when you see fit over the duration of the event. Personally, I would love this. 

Daiches

Phumade said:

The Viceroy Returns said:

ZeroKarma said:

aesthetocyst said:

Dormammu said:

(Rubberbanding still gives me nightmares.)

Why?

 (Me still thinks rubberbanding was VERY misunderstood)

It’s true. Nobody understood rubberbanding. 

  

It may not have be understood very well, but it was not pleasant to come back after not playing for several hours and see the Enemy Levels on every node be much higher level.

thats not rubberbanding.  Thats roster based scaling.


Rubberbanding is when you open the game.  see the nodes start at X value,  then come back later and see that the node values have gone up in value, because your falling behind scorewise to the global or sub leader. 

but don't kid yourself.  rubberbanding won't help pass the leader unless they makes some sort of clearing mistake.

That's neither runner banding nor roster based scaling. That was the old community scaling. Where node difficulty increased for everyone relative to the number of times all players in the game had beaten the node. Also why we had to fight level
392 capped Maggia Thugs with Stormneto.

ZeroKarma

Nick441234 said:

Got to be honest, I would prefer a progression type system. Say, an event starts at 12pm, and from then on you have access to every node for the event for the full 3,4 or 7 day event running. You could have them in tabs across the top of the screen and you can tab between each sub and clear the battles when you see fit over the duration of the event. Personally, I would love this. 

See you can do that now and play suboptimally to get all the progression goodies. They could tack on some more at the end or in between reward tiers much like they should with PvP between 900 amd 1200

gmtosca

When I started out, I cleared everything in one sitting, not really knowing about the clearing strategy.  That was great because I could carve out an hour or two when it was just for MPQ, I long for that time again.

The Viceroy Returns

Daiches said:

That's neither rubber banding nor roster based scaling. That was the old community scaling. Where node difficulty increased for everyone relative to the number of times all players in the game had beaten the node. Also why we had to fight level
392 capped Maggia Thugs with Stormneto.

Community Scaling sounds about right.
Regardless whatever that was, it was terrible.  Sure, that was like 2+ years ago at least, so it's hard to remember exactly what that was.  All I know is I hated it.

Don't forget 3 Star Magneto's old Blue to get through those nodes without too much trouble... 
For those weren't around, for only 5 Blue AP, you could place 2 Blue tiles anywhere, including on top of any type of special tile (including either team's Countdowns) or Team Up.
Was fun as hell to play, but all of those Match 5's one after the other were probably a bit too powerful.

Also when Charlie's Angels was a thing.  I suppose it still could be to some extent, but the game has moved on in many ways since then.
Still have my Prof X purposefully left at Level 210 just in case I ever want to reminisce...

Jrlrma

aesthetocyst said:

Jrlrma said: ... If they changed it so slices were gone it wouldnt require daily play. Youd have x days to finish the event from the start. I get that it would be a dshift but imo its one for the better since you wouldnt feel like a slave to the slice time.  Some people who had a day off or during the weekend may knock out the event in a day, some may play an hour here or there as their life allows. The serious folks are gonna find each other some way somehow, and the serious alliances already play everyday to begin with

You just described the gauntlet! Haven't seen that in a while.

Progression-only play has problems when it butts against the devs need to restrict the flow of rewards.

They wind up either scaling the event drastically to winnow out the number of players toward the deep end, or, more distastefully, they make the untimed event a race. 1st finisher=first place, etc.

The kind of event you want only happens when they are OK with everyone winning the goodies.

For instance, even DPD is roster-gated. So is Shield Training, and Simulator (which is PvP, of course, but essentially untimed PvP)

My understanding, and correct me if im wrong cause im a new player-but my understaindg is that all the placement and tapping controversy and handwringing comes from how it affects scl 9 and the LT rewards.  I guess i see it differently when you say “restricting awards” since at least to me, once you get the 2*s champed and you are getting intercepts(for as little as 2bucks/month) the game is fairly liberal with small, but cumulative rewards. 

Like for a typical 3-day sub in scl 5 if i get t50(which is where i typically am) ill get 50hp, something like 1500iso and a token or two. I just dont see how taking those placement rewards out and putting them into progression is doing anything other than giving me more freedom to finsih the subs w/o being chained to a specific timeframe 3 days in a row (or 4 or 7).  That 150hp (over 3 days) that im chasing in placement isnt going to make me spend less to get it if it goes to progression since i dont need to spend money to get it in the first place.

But what is happening is that im slowly getting tired of having to rearrange stuff in Order to have the block of time required to play efficient enough to get it. 

Maybe im not smart enough to see it, but i dont see how pve placement rewards-especially at lower scl levels encourages spending money, and ergo, how moving them to progression would hurt the devs bottom line. 

Borstock

I would like placement rewards rolled into progression, but that would likely dilute those rewards into an average that hurts top scorers. Since top scorers also represent many of the most active on these forums, it would probably just result in even more toxic complaining.

I'm fine with the game as it is now.