Strange Sights Placement

Dragon_Nexus

I finished 6th because the event was on my weekend off.

Finished 1st, top 3 and then 1st in the sub events.

HoundofShadow

@shardwick

Idea one sounds good and workable, but how would it work for essential?

Idea two would be tricky to handle because if you put the top 1 placement reward into progression for everyone, then it's not going to happen. However, if top players are getting fewer rewards in a purely progression PvE than the current format, they won't be happy and we could see a lot of quitting happening. 

shardwick

@HoundofShadow Essentials? Let's say we just unlocked Story and we play in cl1. 1* characters only allowed there. But the 2*, 3* and 4* essentials are in cl1. You could treat pve in a similar way that you do with pvp in a character focused event and provide everyone a loaner character and if a 3* player has the 3 and/or 4* characters then their characters could be locked out and they would also have to use the loaner characters for those nodes. However, on a higher clearance level more focused at the 3* level then that same person would be able to play with their nice champed 3* character.


 As for top players quitting the only ones that I could see quitting are those that in the current system will seek out brackets in the very last few hours or day of an event to jump into so they have the easiest and fastest way of getting the top placement rewards for very minimal work. And honestly I think that most players would embrace a more open way of playing the game with a more progression focused system. I think back to when they still ran the gauntlet, I was like an early to mid 3* player and honestly I got my butt whooped on the last sub of the gauntlet. I was a lurker on the old forums and remember a poll asking people how fast they finished the gauntlet. Some took their time the whole event and others finished it right away so that they could take a mini break from pve. I'd be inclined to do the latter. I'd love to just tear through an event and then relax and maybe play a little pvp here and there until the next pve event.


Oh, for your other comment about putting the top prize into progression people would still have to work for it. They gave people the chance to get the 4* via wins in pvp progression and many still stop when they get to the 10 cp at 575. Hell I remember how furious people were when devs moved the 20 cp in pve from 4 clears to 5. Everyone has their own goals. I think a fairly decent amount more will be able to get the placement rewards via progression but those are still going to be more hardcore players that are already doing most or all clears of all nodes, they're just not doing it "optimally" like the guys currently taking top 10 rewards.

LifeofAgony

I always go left to right.  I finished t2 in cl9 after being in 3rd place overall after first 2 subs.  I was 4 points behind second place (who happens to be a 550 roster).  I ended besting them by 15 points, so 3rd sub grind was a 19 point swing (he did not do door 3 last).  Yet he cleared/grinded faster for final day than me.  Door order matters, node order matters.  Roster size can be overcome knowing how to squeeze out the most possible pointsz

HoundofShadow

@shardwick

Moving placement rewards to progression will likely affect the top players in PvE, unless everyone gets top 1 placement rewards. As you move into higher SCL, it's very unlikely to happen. The top players are getting 4* covers, LTs, so I'm not sure how you are going to ensure a fair distribution of placement rewards to full scale progression rewards only in PvE. Putting LTS, multiple 4* covers in a 3~4 days PvE sounds unlikely. We have Shield Training and Boss events which fits this model of PvE play. So, players will request for even better rewards for boss events as well if this were to take effect?

Quebbster

kk3thess said:

With me happened something similar, but the opposite at the same time. I finished #6, #7, and #6 and ended up in the top 5 overall. I guess some sub choices must have been sub optimal for some people.

Huh, interesting. I suppose it is possible that some of the people who got better scores than you in those Three subs got worse scores in the other two subs - maybe they didn't manage to finish all nodes in time or something when they weren't sharing a bracket with you. It's definitely an anomaly though.

broll

Quebbster said:

kk3thess said:

With me happened something similar, but the opposite at the same time. I finished #6, #7, and #6 and ended up in the top 5 overall. I guess some sub choices must have been sub optimal for some people.

Huh, interesting. I suppose it is possible that some of the people who got better scores than you in those Three subs got worse scores in the other two subs - maybe they didn't manage to finish all nodes in time or something when they weren't sharing a bracket with you. It's definitely an anomaly though.

It just means that there were at least 2 other players that did well in individual subs but had at least one bad sub.  The scenario below shows 4 unique players but it could just be two with each having a single bad enough sub.

Napkin math example

Sub 1:
1.  Player A - 100
2.  Player B - 99
3.  Player C - 98
4.  Player D - 97
5.  Player F - 96
6.  Player E - 95 (kk3thess)
##. Player G - 90
##. Player H - 60
##. Player I - 50


Sub 2:
1.  Player A - 200
2.  Player B - 199
3.  Player C - 198
4.  Player D - 197
5.  Player G - 196
6.  Player H - 195
7.  Player E - 194 (kk3thess)
##. Player F - 190
##. Player I - 170

Sub 3
1.  Player A - 300
2.  Player B - 299
3.  Player C - 298
4.  Player D - 297
5.  Player I - 296
6.  Player E - 295 (kk3thess)
##. Player F - 275
##. Player G - 250
##. Player H - 50


Overall:
1. Player A - 600
2. Player B - 597
3. Player C - 594
4. Player D - 591
5. Player E - 584 (kk3thess)
#. Player F - 561
#. Player G - 536
#. Player I - 516
#. Player H - 305

entrailbucket

Phumade said:

Once gigantic misunderstanding is

Optimal for you, does not mean most points overall.  Optimal only means you got the most points YOU can earn.  Another player with a bigger faster roster can always earn more points than you.


This is why smaller rosters will ALWAYS lose to bigger rosters.  Bigger rosters can reach more points than smaller rosters,  In fact they have less need to be optimal because their rosters are inherently faster.  90% effort is like 110% effort from your roster.

This is why giving up tapping basically guarantees you can never beat past the established rosters.

Just because I didn't see this addressed anywhere else, PvE is 100% how fast you can open and close subs.  The top CL9 players are opening subs in 25-30 minutes and closing them in 20-25.  You get the most points by opening as fast as possible and waiting as long as possible to start your closing grind.  This does introduce some risk, as you might wait too long to start and then not finish all the nodes.  But if you're not hitting near those open/close times you have no chance at a high placement rank.

I don't know what these times look like in CL7/8, but I would assume they are around the same or *even lower* because the enemy levels are lower.

Richyyy

Plus, with Okoye boosted, this most recent run of Strange Sights was the fastest set of clears I've ever done. Anyone with her champed - which obviously will include most of the top CL9 players - will have absolutely rocketed through this event. I finished 3rd, but that's unusually high for me.

shardwick

HoundofShadow said:

@shardwick

Moving placement rewards to progression will likely affect the top players in PvE, unless everyone gets top 1 placement rewards. As you move into higher SCL, it's very unlikely to happen. The top players are getting 4* covers, LTs, so I'm not sure how you are going to ensure a fair distribution of placement rewards to full scale progression rewards only in PvE. Putting LTS, multiple 4* covers in a 3~4 days PvE sounds unlikely. We have Shield Training and Boss events which fits this model of PvE play. So, players will request for even better rewards for boss events as well if this were to take effect?

The game already gives out a legendary to any player in DDQ that is able to beat the Crash once every five days. Do you think that the first person to complete all nodes in their bracket in DDQ should feel like they should get more rewards than the person that was the last person in the bracket that also completed all nodes? Hell I've gotten first before and I didn't care if like the 300th person got the same rewards that I did. However in the current system someone could join a cl9 bracket with minutes to spare, do one or two nodes with pretty much no competition and walk away with the exact same rewards as the guy that did every clear of every node of every sub in a 4-7 day event and played as optimally as possible. 

Boss events are a bit different because even though they're progression only and don't give out placement rewards you still have to be in a decent enough alliance to get to the later rounds so that you can get all of the 4* covers and the legendary plus the other legendary from your personal progression rewards. Either that or if some alliance commanders in a top alliance forgot to change the alliance to private and a 1* player snuck in and joined the event right before they locked it down. If someone is pretty much playing alone in their own one person alliance then I think that the furthest that they could get is maybe round four or five. I do think that boss event rewards could definitely be strengthened though like always give out 1k iso for side nodes and after you beat a boss eight times in a round then the rewards reset to better ones like more chances at cp or more iso.

bbigler

shardwick said:

However in the current system someone could join a cl9 bracket with minutes to spare, do one or two nodes with pretty much no competition and walk away with the exact same rewards as the guy that did every clear of every node of every sub in a 4-7 day event and played as optimally as possible. 

That isn't true.  The majority of the rewards from PVE come from clearing the nodes and progression rewards.  Placement rewards comprise a small part of the total rewards from playing PVE.  I would say placement rewards are around 15% of the total rewards available. 

shardwick

bbigler said:

shardwick said:

However in the current system someone could join a cl9 bracket with minutes to spare, do one or two nodes with pretty much no competition and walk away with the exact same rewards as the guy that did every clear of every node of every sub in a 4-7 day event and played as optimally as possible. 

That isn't true.  The majority of the rewards from PVE come from clearing the nodes and progression rewards.  Placement rewards comprise a small part of the total rewards from playing PVE.  I would say placement rewards are around 15% of the total rewards available. 

I was talking about placement rewards. People don't join bracket rooms or grind as optimally as possible for top 10 placement in a new character release event just for progression rewards. It's also why a lot of people will drop down to cl6 on new character events because they care more about the top 10 placement than a 4* progression cover or getting less cp.