PVP: Time to make some changes

The rockett

For some time, PVP has becoming very boring and stale. A few seasons ago, they introduced the Win/Score based PVP system.  This has gone over very good and was something that was needed (not like the test version that was pulled after 1 season).  Other wise then adding in RISO, nothing much has changed.  Here are a few things that need to change. 

Baking:  It is time for this to die.  While I know first hand that this does bring the interactive side of PVP together and the player base, I think it is time for the game to shut this down in PVP/LR’s/SIM.  There is no reason to keep this around any longer with the Win/Score based PVP system.  The only thing is, that the way to do away with baking is tied to the next one. 

MMR lockout:  This needs to end too. I have a 500 Okoye but I am not allowed to Q up teams that are 520+. Why?  This is just a dumb system that is outdated and needs to be fixed.  If a 550 player can Q me from 0 then I need to be able to do the same.  Time to end the special, bought for, whale protection, whatever you want to call it MMR system that we have now.  There is no reason this system should tell me what matches I can and cannot do. It is THE most frustrating thing in PVP to a lot of higher end players. 

Rewards:  PVP is a joke compared to PVE.  The amount of time and political crud that happens with PVP is insane. PVE is very straight forward and their is no way to manipulate that and the rewards are great.  PVP rewards in comparison are just weak. I am not sure if they need to add another scoring level or just add more in.  Just something doesn’t feel right with this and should be looked at. 

What are your ideas? 

Ed_Dragonrider

Sorry, what is baking?

HoundofShadow

A while back, there was a survey related to PvP. Here is the link: 

https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/73688/pvp-survey-questions/p1

So, it seems they are working on something?

DAZ0273

Ed_Dragonrider said:

Sorry, what is baking?

Essentially a player (normally a fairly high end 5* one) will create a team that consists of a fairly easy to beat mixture of characters (Edit - this used to be even easier to do but Defensive teams were tweaked by the Dev's a while to try and combat this), beat another lower level team and leave it out as their defensive team. Then via a third party Ap (such as LINE) they will collude with other players to let them know that this "bake" is out so they can search it out, they will shield and the other players will then hit them for easy wins/high points. This method "adds" further points to the shard and allows players to artificially inflate their scores to more easily reach progression targets.

Most players will not see these "bakes" (or "grills" or "steaks") unless specifically directed to find them.

I am sure a proper high end player (not me) can explain much better and correct anything I have wrong.

Bowgentle

They tried very hard to kill baking over the years - it will never work because the high level players have a much better idea about how MMR works than the developers.
At most it might take half an event after a change, then grilling will be back.

Sm0keyJ0e

The rockett said:

MMR lockout:  This needs to end too. I have a 500 Okoye but I am not allowed to Q up teams that are 520+. Why?  This is just a dumb system that is outdated and needs to be fixed.  If a 550 player can Q me from 0 then I need to be able to do the same.  Time to end the special, bought for, whale protection, whatever you want to call it MMR system that we have now.  There is no reason this system should tell me what matches I can and cannot do. It is THE most frustrating thing in PVP to a lot of higher end players. 

While in theory this is a good idea for someone like you (an experienced player that can take on level 550 rosters), do you really think the vast majority of the MPQ community wants to constantly spend the skip tax skipping huge rosters they likely can't win over and over and over again?

I think for most players, queuing up matches of similar strength is highly desired. I don't think it's as simple as saying "everyone can now queue everyone". That would be FAR more frustrating, especially for newer players.

PVP would have to be re-worked entirely from the ground up to be fair and equitable for the entire player base and I think an option would need to be given for those who want to fight above their weight class, i.e. one node is lower MMR than you, but worth less points, one node is similar to how it works now, and the last node is for punching up and points are worth more. 

broll

PvP has always been stale and boring but glad to hear you come around.

I finally gave up PvP completely at the start of Christmas off-season.  The only event I played at all this entire season was Simulator which I started last night and finished in one sitting with 30 wins, yet to complete progression in the every 2 day events it takes either 75 wins, joining a battle chat and spending hundreds of HP on shields, or an extremely high leveled roster of 5*s that have a natural float point over 1200.  Shouldn't the event that you have all season to complete take much longer and the constantly changing events be much simpler?  This seems completely backwards to me.

I decided PvP is no longer worth the effort.  I'm missing out on resources but I don't care.  I was spending a few hours a day playing a mode I don't like that has bad scoring designs when I could be doing better things.

Though TBH the way the game seems to be going the rest of the game may not be far behind.  The fun has been drained out and all signs of things to come seem bleak with every new system being horrible for a while now.

fmftint

You missed one thing, retreat, retreat imo should be fully removed from the game

Bowgentle

broll said:

PvP has always been stale and boring but glad to hear you come around.

I finally gave up PvP completely at the start of Christmas off-season.  The only event I played at all this entire season was Simulator which I started last night and finished in one sitting with 30 wins, yet to complete progression in the every 2 day events it takes either 75 wins, joining a battle chat and spending hundreds of HP on shields, or an extremely high leveled roster of 5*s that have a natural float point over 1200.  Shouldn't the event that you have all season to complete take much longer and the constantly changing events be much simpler?  This seems completely backwards to me.

I decided PvP is no longer worth the effort.  I'm missing out on resources but I don't care.  I was spending a few hours a day playing a mode I don't like that has bad scoring designs when I could be doing better things.

Though TBH the way the game seems to be going the rest of the game may not be far behind.  The fun has been drained out and all signs of things to come seem bleak with every new system being horrible for a while now.

ROFL.
Play S1 any time in the last 8 hours with a barely champed Thorkoye and cash in an easy 1200.
No need to have a gigantic roster.

Dormammu

I just wish they'd get rid of that ridiculous skip tax.

Phumade

Instead of those stupid event boosts that don't really make the 3* usuable.  Can we have exclusive locked out events.

Only Avengers
Only Xmen
Only Villain
Only Defenders etc...

Lock out all other chars.

Spudgutter

Bowgentle said:

broll said:

PvP has always been stale and boring but glad to hear you come around.

I finally gave up PvP completely at the start of Christmas off-season.  The only event I played at all this entire season was Simulator which I started last night and finished in one sitting with 30 wins, yet to complete progression in the every 2 day events it takes either 75 wins, joining a battle chat and spending hundreds of HP on shields, or an extremely high leveled roster of 5*s that have a natural float point over 1200.  Shouldn't the event that you have all season to complete take much longer and the constantly changing events be much simpler?  This seems completely backwards to me.

I decided PvP is no longer worth the effort.  I'm missing out on resources but I don't care.  I was spending a few hours a day playing a mode I don't like that has bad scoring designs when I could be doing better things.

Though TBH the way the game seems to be going the rest of the game may not be far behind.  The fun has been drained out and all signs of things to come seem bleak with every new system being horrible for a while now.

ROFL.
Play S1 any time in the last 8 hours with a barely champed Thorkoye and cash in an easy 1200.
No need to have a gigantic roster.

Can confirm, 455 okoye and 453 thor, started at 1159pm with 160 pts, threw up a 3 hrs shield at 1242am with 1179.  I always seem to get hit on that last jump, so it is worth the short shield to be safe. 

For me, personally, i am in a chat, but i dont use it for baking, more of a friendly truce.  The only difference in my pvp play since joining a chat last year is that i avoid hitting certain people on my climb, and now i dont have to worry about being hitting by them.  That's it.  Maybe I hold off on jumping on an easy match (possible bake) or if i see someone pop out that wasnt there a minute ago, i hit someone else and come back to them, in case they are on a hop.  But both of those are more "do unto others" so i hope karma spares me in return.

Back to OP, i dont see them fixing any of this.  Why would they?  I would love better rewards, but i hit 1200 in about an hour.  Some pvps require more time, some less.  Any additional time and energy spent due to political crud are of your own making.  We are talking about a team that increased the amount of play in pve for higher end pve players when they made it easier (just 4 clears!) to reach progression.  If anything, they should increase rewards for the first 5 or 6 CL to help them catch up to the rest of us, since they are more likely going the 40/75 route.  

Dragon_Nexus

They just need to bring back the three-attempts thing from when the game launched. Problem solved.

broll

Bowgentle said:

broll said:

PvP has always been stale and boring but glad to hear you come around.

I finally gave up PvP completely at the start of Christmas off-season.  The only event I played at all this entire season was Simulator which I started last night and finished in one sitting with 30 wins, yet to complete progression in the every 2 day events it takes either 75 wins, joining a battle chat and spending hundreds of HP on shields, or an extremely high leveled roster of 5*s that have a natural float point over 1200.  Shouldn't the event that you have all season to complete take much longer and the constantly changing events be much simpler?  This seems completely backwards to me.

I decided PvP is no longer worth the effort.  I'm missing out on resources but I don't care.  I was spending a few hours a day playing a mode I don't like that has bad scoring designs when I could be doing better things.

Though TBH the way the game seems to be going the rest of the game may not be far behind.  The fun has been drained out and all signs of things to come seem bleak with every new system being horrible for a while now.

ROFL.
Play S1 any time in the last 8 hours with a barely champed Thorkoye and cash in an easy 1200.
No need to have a gigantic roster.

ROFL
Thanks for mentioning the other biggest problem with the game, time slices... I want to play when I want to play.  It's not fun to schedule your life around a video game either.  The last 8 hours of the S1 is often when I'm sleeping through the first 4 hours of work or so.  I already get up an extra hour earlier for PvE slices, not doing another extra hour early to play PvP.

And even if I was to schedule my life around a game PvP shifting the time slices by 12 hours every event makes that very difficult to do constantly.

I'm so glad it works so well for you though....

Bowgentle

broll said:

Bowgentle said:

broll said:

PvP has always been stale and boring but glad to hear you come around.

I finally gave up PvP completely at the start of Christmas off-season.  The only event I played at all this entire season was Simulator which I started last night and finished in one sitting with 30 wins, yet to complete progression in the every 2 day events it takes either 75 wins, joining a battle chat and spending hundreds of HP on shields, or an extremely high leveled roster of 5*s that have a natural float point over 1200.  Shouldn't the event that you have all season to complete take much longer and the constantly changing events be much simpler?  This seems completely backwards to me.

I decided PvP is no longer worth the effort.  I'm missing out on resources but I don't care.  I was spending a few hours a day playing a mode I don't like that has bad scoring designs when I could be doing better things.

Though TBH the way the game seems to be going the rest of the game may not be far behind.  The fun has been drained out and all signs of things to come seem bleak with every new system being horrible for a while now.

ROFL.
Play S1 any time in the last 8 hours with a barely champed Thorkoye and cash in an easy 1200.
No need to have a gigantic roster.

ROFL
Thanks for mentioning the other biggest problem with the game, time slices... I want to play when I want to play.  It's not fun to schedule your life around a video game either.  The last 8 hours of the S1 is often when I'm sleeping through the first 4 hours of work or so.  I already get up an extra hour earlier for PvE slices, not doing another extra hour early to play PvP.

And even if I was to schedule my life around a game PvP shifting the time slices by 12 hours every event makes that very difficult to do constantly.

I'm so glad it works so well for you though....

You can cruise to 1200 in an hour in any slice except 2 or 5 in the last 24 hours.
Stop whining about time slices, they don't work for any of us.
There's plenty of ways around them.

AardvarkPepper

@Sm0keyJ0e @broll:  Yeah.

@Spudgutter:  The OP's point, as I read it, is collusion is tinykitty.  When you have to resort to out-of-game behavior to manipulate your in-game score, you end up having to do things that are not-of-the-game to influence your progress in game.

Players can't just "opt out".  Even if you personally want to opt out, others are doing it so yu put yourself at a competitive disadvantage by not doing it.  The fact the system works as it does is what's being criticized (as I read the OP).

I like your point about increasing rewards for the first 5/6 CL btw.

==

@The rockett

I think you have some real good points.  But I think also

1)  Please provide specific solutions if at all possible.

2)  Please don't call things "dumb".  I understand you're outraged (or at least I read your OP as being outraged) and even if you wouldn't call it outrage I'd say sure okay, why not be outraged?  There's some crazy stuff that happens.  But calling stuff "dumb" and "outdated" encourages conflict rather than productive discussion.

==

@ posters in general:

I could be wrong in the following.  But as I read the OP:

1)  MMR lockout.  If you have a developed 5* team at high champion, you can queue up whenever, and grab points.  But because of the way the MMR works, you won't be hit back even without shields, because some players just can't queue into you.

And yes okay, another poster brought up the point that other players don't *want* to have to cycle through loads of teams they can't beat, and that's a valid point.  But unlocked team strictures could be applied to teams that are over level 500, or 480, or whatever.  Or there may be other ways to address it.  At any rate my point is though there may be other considerations, if there's a real identifiable problem, there's probably a real solution that can be implemented.  (Though I'd mention there are real costs attached to making changes).

I mean really.  If you're talking championed 5* matchups, 20-40 levels I'd think really doesn't make much a difference.  The win comes from a synergistic championed team.

2)  Political crud.  Other players might be like "ah, well, nobody wants to be a tinykitty" or "well that's just how things work".  But really think on it.  One member hits a "cupcake" or whatever you want to call it because they didn't know how it worked.  Then every member of the alliance comes under attack in PvP by concentrated attacks by not just the 20 players in the "offended" alliance, but maybe 80-100 players in associated family/allied alliances.  I mean really!  That might not happen *all* the time but it only needs to happen once to scar a player.  "You play by our rules or you don't play."

I'm no saint myself.  If my alliance commander asks me to hit XYZ alliance, that's exactly what I'm going to do.  And more, if I were more involved in PvP, I'd set up a collusion system if one didn't already exist (provided reviewing the Terms of Service didn't specifically prohibit such behavior).

But just because I'd push for advantage doesn't mean it's "right".  Even if it's not immoral or unethical or against terms of service, the fact that you're doing out-of-game activities to advance in-game progress is tinykitty.

Imagine if before every game, you had to watch a 15 second advertisement.  Just 15 seconds.  Can you imagine the outrage?  How dare the people that keep the lights on and pay for the servers and pay for the license and pay for the development monetize their product at the expense of player time?  Outrageous!  Yet it's okay when players have to play by out-of-game rules and take personal time to coordinate or suffer the consequences because of an oversight?  How is it really any different?  Because it affects only a subset of players?  Because it's free?  Okay, let's have 15 second commercials for all the players with championed 5*s and donate the proceeds to charity.  That doesn't sound good to you?  And if you say "well that's different", well that's my point.  It's a matter of perspective.  If you don't think it affects you, okay, just let players and developers make decisions based on the current structure, and eventually you *will* get to the point that it affects and offends you, just give it time.

As to PVP - yeahhhh I'd be interested in seeing metrics regarding time spent in game for players at different levels matched to rewards.  As I see it, PvP's kind of screwy.  Apart from the whole collusion thing, 40 wins for a 4* is high.  75 wins to get the CP reward?  Ugh.

==

Say you have a PvE event.  Three subs totaling nine easy nodes (which don't count because they're whatever), nine hard nodes, twelve Essential nodes, five to seven clears of each.  But the individual nodes are typically filled with non-character goons that fire powers that have no immediate effect, so the matchups aren't necessarily that punishing.  So though you're doing 105-147 node clears over a period of three days (counting the hards and essentials) at SCL 7 it's not really a big deal; players with championed 3*s can handle it (rough for some events but even so); players with championed 4*s can handle it (provided the 4*s are at least sort of good), championed 5*s just trample it easy peasy.  Those matches are fast and easy.

Now let's say you have a PvP event.  You get 8-10 matches against easy peasy seed teams assuming the game doesn't reset (which it may).  And maybe you set up a few easy matches to try to pull easy retaliations, MAYBE.  But once you hit a certain point level, all your matchups are fairly difficult so you need to cycle through matches which is a painstaking process.  If you want to win a 4* on score, sure that's great if you have a developed 5* roster, but if you're using a 3* roster and happen to have a few 1-cover 5*s?  Too bad for you!  Gonna need to grind (though I hear the dev team fixed this, it's still true if you have just a few championed 4*s and are facing synergistic enemy boosted 4*s)  The matchmaking system again is going to feed you a bunch of really really nasty matches, the match count might be a lower, even a lot lower, but the difficulty and time investment is much much higher per match.

And I'd bet examining the metrics would support my point.  For the players with developing rosters that do PvP, I'd bet they're generally using a load of time and healthpacks and not getting the same sort of rewards they would for time spent as they would in PvE.  Even for players with developed championed 5* rosters, I'd say again the amount of time spent to earn a 4* cover is nowhere near as high in PvE as it is in PvP - and PvE generally has more rewards up through the sixth clear of a node anyways.

Bowgentle

AardvarkPepper said:

@Sm0keyJ0e @broll:  Yeah.

@Spudgutter:  The OP's point, as I read it, is collusion is tinykitty.  When you have to resort to out-of-game behavior to manipulate your in-game score, you end up having to do things that are not-of-the-game to influence your progress in game.

Players can't just "opt out".  Even if you personally want to opt out, others are doing it so yu put yourself at a competitive disadvantage by not doing it.  The fact the system works as it does is what's being criticized (as I read the OP).

I like your point about increasing rewards for the first 5/6 CL btw.

==

@The rockett

I think you have some real good points.  But I think also

1)  Please provide specific solutions if at all possible.

2)  Please don't call things "dumb".  I understand you're outraged (or at least I read your OP as being outraged) and even if you wouldn't call it outrage I'd say sure okay, why not be outraged?  There's some crazy stuff that happens.  But calling stuff "dumb" and "outdated" encourages conflict rather than productive discussion.

==

@ posters in general:

I could be wrong in the following.  But as I read the OP:

1)  MMR lockout.  If you have a developed 5* team at high champion, you can queue up whenever, and grab points.  But because of the way the MMR works, you won't be hit back even without shields, because some players just can't queue into you.

And yes okay, another poster brought up the point that other players don't *want* to have to cycle through loads of teams they can't beat, and that's a valid point.  But unlocked team strictures could be applied to teams that are over level 500, or 480, or whatever.  Or there may be other ways to address it.  At any rate my point is though there may be other considerations, if there's a real identifiable problem, there's probably a real solution that can be implemented.  (Though I'd mention there are real costs attached to making changes).

I mean really.  If you're talking championed 5* matchups, 20-40 levels I'd think really doesn't make much a difference.  The win comes from a synergistic championed team.

2)  Political crud.  Other players might be like "ah, well, nobody wants to be a tinykitty" or "well that's just how things work".  But really think on it.  One member hits a "cupcake" or whatever you want to call it because they didn't know how it worked.  Then every member of the alliance comes under attack in PvP by concentrated attacks by not just the 20 players in the "offended" alliance, but maybe 80-100 players in associated family/allied alliances.  I mean really!  That might not happen *all* the time but it only needs to happen once to scar a player.  "You play by our rules or you don't play."

I'm no saint myself.  If my alliance commander asks me to hit XYZ alliance, that's exactly what I'm going to do.  And more, if I were more involved in PvP, I'd set up a collusion system if one didn't already exist (provided reviewing the Terms of Service didn't specifically prohibit such behavior).

But just because I'd push for advantage doesn't mean it's "right".  Even if it's not immoral or unethical or against terms of service, the fact that you're doing out-of-game activities to advance in-game progress is tinykitty.

Imagine if before every game, you had to watch a 15 second advertisement.  Just 15 seconds.  Can you imagine the outrage?  How dare the people that keep the lights on and pay for the servers and pay for the license and pay for the development monetize their product at the expense of player time?  Outrageous!  Yet it's okay when players have to play by out-of-game rules and take personal time to coordinate or suffer the consequences because of an oversight?  How is it really any different?  Because it affects only a subset of players?  Because it's free?  Okay, let's have 15 second commercials for all the players with championed 5*s and donate the proceeds to charity.  That doesn't sound good to you?  And if you say "well that's different", well that's my point.  It's a matter of perspective.  If you don't think it affects you, okay, just let players and developers make decisions based on the current structure, and eventually you *will* get to the point that it affects and offends you, just give it time.

As to PVP - yeahhhh I'd be interested in seeing metrics regarding time spent in game for players at different levels matched to rewards.  As I see it, PvP's kind of screwy.  Apart from the whole collusion thing, 40 wins for a 4* is high.  75 wins to get the CP reward?  Ugh.

==

Say you have a PvE event.  Three subs totaling nine easy nodes (which don't count because they're whatever), nine hard nodes, twelve Essential nodes, five to seven clears of each.  But the individual nodes are typically filled with non-character goons that fire powers that have no immediate effect, so the matchups aren't necessarily that punishing.  So though you're doing 105-147 node clears over a period of three days (counting the hards and essentials) at SCL 7 it's not really a big deal; players with championed 3*s can handle it (rough for some events but even so); players with championed 4*s can handle it (provided the 4*s are at least sort of good), championed 5*s just trample it easy peasy.  Those matches are fast and easy.

Now let's say you have a PvP event.  You get 8-10 matches against easy peasy seed teams assuming the game doesn't reset (which it may).  And maybe you set up a few easy matches to try to pull easy retaliations, MAYBE.  But once you hit a certain point level, all your matchups are fairly difficult so you need to cycle through matches which is a painstaking process.  If you want to win a 4* on score, sure that's great if you have a developed 5* roster, but if you're using a 3* roster and happen to have a few 1-cover 5*s?  Too bad for you!  Gonna need to grind (though I hear the dev team fixed this, it's still true if you have just a few championed 4*s and are facing synergistic enemy boosted 4*s)  The matchmaking system again is going to feed you a bunch of really really nasty matches, the match count might be a lower, even a lot lower, but the difficulty and time investment is much much higher per match.

And I'd bet examining the metrics would support my point.  For the players with developing rosters that do PvP, I'd bet they're generally using a load of time and healthpacks and not getting the same sort of rewards they would for time spent as they would in PvE.  Even for players with developed championed 5* rosters, I'd say again the amount of time spent to earn a 4* cover is nowhere near as high in PvE as it is in PvP - and PvE generally has more rewards up through the sixth clear of a node anyways.

You can easily opt out if you have a developed 5* roster and only want 1200.

Spudgutter

@AardvarkPepper

I appreciate your enthusiasm, but i have you muted because you type too much.  To each their own, you may think you are helping, and some may like your long posts, but it comes down to communication 101: Know Your Audience.

There is a time and place for lengthy discourse, but the forum for a free to play, match 3 puzzle game based on marvel characters, imo, is not it.

broll

Bowgentle said:

AardvarkPepper said:

@Sm0keyJ0e @broll:  Yeah.

@Spudgutter:  The OP's point, as I read it, is collusion is tinykitty.  When you have to resort to out-of-game behavior to manipulate your in-game score, you end up having to do things that are not-of-the-game to influence your progress in game.

Players can't just "opt out".  Even if you personally want to opt out, others are doing it so yu put yourself at a competitive disadvantage by not doing it.  The fact the system works as it does is what's being criticized (as I read the OP).

I like your point about increasing rewards for the first 5/6 CL btw.

==

@The rockett

I think you have some real good points.  But I think also

1)  Please provide specific solutions if at all possible.

2)  Please don't call things "dumb".  I understand you're outraged (or at least I read your OP as being outraged) and even if you wouldn't call it outrage I'd say sure okay, why not be outraged?  There's some crazy stuff that happens.  But calling stuff "dumb" and "outdated" encourages conflict rather than productive discussion.

==

@ posters in general:

I could be wrong in the following.  But as I read the OP:

1)  MMR lockout.  If you have a developed 5* team at high champion, you can queue up whenever, and grab points.  But because of the way the MMR works, you won't be hit back even without shields, because some players just can't queue into you.

And yes okay, another poster brought up the point that other players don't *want* to have to cycle through loads of teams they can't beat, and that's a valid point.  But unlocked team strictures could be applied to teams that are over level 500, or 480, or whatever.  Or there may be other ways to address it.  At any rate my point is though there may be other considerations, if there's a real identifiable problem, there's probably a real solution that can be implemented.  (Though I'd mention there are real costs attached to making changes).

I mean really.  If you're talking championed 5* matchups, 20-40 levels I'd think really doesn't make much a difference.  The win comes from a synergistic championed team.

2)  Political crud.  Other players might be like "ah, well, nobody wants to be a tinykitty" or "well that's just how things work".  But really think on it.  One member hits a "cupcake" or whatever you want to call it because they didn't know how it worked.  Then every member of the alliance comes under attack in PvP by concentrated attacks by not just the 20 players in the "offended" alliance, but maybe 80-100 players in associated family/allied alliances.  I mean really!  That might not happen *all* the time but it only needs to happen once to scar a player.  "You play by our rules or you don't play."

I'm no saint myself.  If my alliance commander asks me to hit XYZ alliance, that's exactly what I'm going to do.  And more, if I were more involved in PvP, I'd set up a collusion system if one didn't already exist (provided reviewing the Terms of Service didn't specifically prohibit such behavior).

But just because I'd push for advantage doesn't mean it's "right".  Even if it's not immoral or unethical or against terms of service, the fact that you're doing out-of-game activities to advance in-game progress is tinykitty.

Imagine if before every game, you had to watch a 15 second advertisement.  Just 15 seconds.  Can you imagine the outrage?  How dare the people that keep the lights on and pay for the servers and pay for the license and pay for the development monetize their product at the expense of player time?  Outrageous!  Yet it's okay when players have to play by out-of-game rules and take personal time to coordinate or suffer the consequences because of an oversight?  How is it really any different?  Because it affects only a subset of players?  Because it's free?  Okay, let's have 15 second commercials for all the players with championed 5*s and donate the proceeds to charity.  That doesn't sound good to you?  And if you say "well that's different", well that's my point.  It's a matter of perspective.  If you don't think it affects you, okay, just let players and developers make decisions based on the current structure, and eventually you *will* get to the point that it affects and offends you, just give it time.

As to PVP - yeahhhh I'd be interested in seeing metrics regarding time spent in game for players at different levels matched to rewards.  As I see it, PvP's kind of screwy.  Apart from the whole collusion thing, 40 wins for a 4* is high.  75 wins to get the CP reward?  Ugh.

==

Say you have a PvE event.  Three subs totaling nine easy nodes (which don't count because they're whatever), nine hard nodes, twelve Essential nodes, five to seven clears of each.  But the individual nodes are typically filled with non-character goons that fire powers that have no immediate effect, so the matchups aren't necessarily that punishing.  So though you're doing 105-147 node clears over a period of three days (counting the hards and essentials) at SCL 7 it's not really a big deal; players with championed 3*s can handle it (rough for some events but even so); players with championed 4*s can handle it (provided the 4*s are at least sort of good), championed 5*s just trample it easy peasy.  Those matches are fast and easy.

Now let's say you have a PvP event.  You get 8-10 matches against easy peasy seed teams assuming the game doesn't reset (which it may).  And maybe you set up a few easy matches to try to pull easy retaliations, MAYBE.  But once you hit a certain point level, all your matchups are fairly difficult so you need to cycle through matches which is a painstaking process.  If you want to win a 4* on score, sure that's great if you have a developed 5* roster, but if you're using a 3* roster and happen to have a few 1-cover 5*s?  Too bad for you!  Gonna need to grind (though I hear the dev team fixed this, it's still true if you have just a few championed 4*s and are facing synergistic enemy boosted 4*s)  The matchmaking system again is going to feed you a bunch of really really nasty matches, the match count might be a lower, even a lot lower, but the difficulty and time investment is much much higher per match.

And I'd bet examining the metrics would support my point.  For the players with developing rosters that do PvP, I'd bet they're generally using a load of time and healthpacks and not getting the same sort of rewards they would for time spent as they would in PvE.  Even for players with developed championed 5* rosters, I'd say again the amount of time spent to earn a 4* cover is nowhere near as high in PvE as it is in PvP - and PvE generally has more rewards up through the sixth clear of a node anyways.

You can easily opt out if you have a developed 5* roster and only want 1200.

Would be great if that were true.  From my experience and others I know it's not.
Even if it were, it's a 2+ year process to do that, even more if you aren't opting in during those years.
IF that's the honest answer the devs intend, it's a pretty poor one...

ZeroKarma

Oh boy. Now that this is in suggestions and feedback it's sure to generate some thorough discussion. 

ZeroKarma

@Brigby I know that this may technically fit here, but this sub-forum spells death for any and all discussion on the listed topic since it is at the bottom of the forum listing, has fewer postings than the alliance thread of all things, and is more of a one-off comment box for the devs if they ever read it. 

The topic at hand is an important one and should elicit some real debate and input for the future of this part of the  game, which in my opinion and that of many others has grown incredibly stale after 5 years as one of only two regular game modes that looks about the same now as it did when I started playing. 

Please reconsider this placement @Malcrof unless you feel that Rockett only meant this as a post-it note on the devs' door