SCL10 Mission Changes

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Comments

  • DeNappa
    DeNappa Posts: 1,396 Chairperson of the Boards
    DarthDeVo said:
    grunth13 said:
    Changed mission node rewards to 4 (from 6) and re-scaled rewards so they give out roughly the same rewards as before overall.

    Does this mean we still have to do 6 clears for optimal points,  but we get rewards for only 4 of those clears?   Or will end clear grind also be reduced by 1 to make it 5 total clears to get optimal points? 
    Hopefully it's this, because if we go from 4 clears on initial and 3 on grind to 3 clears on initial and 3 on grind ... I'll say I appreciate the gesture, but losing a clear on the front end while still needing to grind 3 times on enemies with maxed levels really won't be moving the needle much. 

    Our grind times would still need to remain the same, and we would save maybe 5-10 minutes on a clear (depending on the event).

    Hopefully we'll get an answer before S1 beta testers have to do their grind and find out if they need to hit each node three times or only twice. 
    It's hard to judge this change without them giving full details because of these considerations... Although I gotta say that any movement in the general direction of reducing the abysmal grind times in SCL10 I gotta appreciate.
  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    Instead of clearing 7 times, it's 6 times now. It's easily 10-15 minutes per day for competitive players. 10 minutes in total for 3 day pve seem to be an underestimation. However, it will vary depending on roster strength.
  • y4747
    y4747 Posts: 165 Tile Toppler
    this is not enough of a change to make me go to scl10.

    right now, i play 8 and occasionally 9, with 15~25 minutes for clears/grinds, i.e. 35~45 minutes of play per day. whenever i try 10 it's more like 45~50 mins clears and 55~1:05 grind (at best, since i only go there with a good champed essential 5*), so that's 1:40+ per day - more than double. this change will bring it to ~1:30+, not a huge difference.

    i can't place in scl10, that's reserved for the people who invested more than me in this game and have 500s or 550s, as it should be.

    so to get me to scl10, i'd need time spent to be reduced to the 1:00~1:15 range, and the (scl10 progression + t100 placement) rewards to be about 20~50% better than the (scl8/9 progression + t5/10 placement) rewards, to reflect the extra time invested.

    personally, i think you need to add to that reduction of clear missions a reduction of grind missions to 2, and make the challenge node a 1-time clear for points and the rest just for rewards.


  • MadScientist
    MadScientist Posts: 317 Mover and Shaker
    What about wave nodes? Are the points reduced after the first clear or after the second as before?
  • Projectus2501
    Projectus2501 Posts: 218 Tile Toppler
    bowla33 said:
    3 and 3 doesn't seem like major reduction in time. 
    Agree. Mb what? 10% of the total time. Mb less. The final grind really takes more time.
    But it's an improvement
  • AXP_isme
    AXP_isme Posts: 809 Critical Contributor
    With my tinfoil hat firmly in place, consider this: is it just coincidence that this change is happening when fight for wakanda is running - where people are less familiar with the points - and strange sights - where ranking is much more difficult to judge during the event? Also, if you wanted to try and measure how much of an effect this has, why introduce it on the event with the least (non-zero) comparative data points? The second question alone makes this seem pretty fishy to me. 
  • BagPuss
    BagPuss Posts: 73 Match Maker
    HoundofShadow said:
    Instead of clearing 7 times, it's 6 times now. It's easily 10-15 minutes per day for competitive players. 10 minutes in total for 3 day pve seem to be an underestimation. However, it will vary depending on roster strength.
    10 minutes save on a 110 minute open and close (avg)  does not match the 60 minutes (avg) cl9 open / close they reportedly want to take.

    The close is unchanged and it is the close that is the main problem as you are x3 on full difficulty nodes.
  • NMANOZ1
    NMANOZ1 Posts: 128 Tile Toppler
    Moved the 4-Star Cover reward from T6 to T15

    I will never be playing SCL 10 again. I used to play it when I was short of time and clear the easy nodes quickly so I can pick up the 4 star cover. Now it will be much quicker for me to get the same reward for playing SCL 7 and I will also get a better placement rewards. I don't care about 5 star shards, I put all my Iso towards 4 stars.
  • DAZ0273
    DAZ0273 Posts: 10,273 Chairperson of the Boards
    I'm struggling to see the incentive myself and moving the 4* cover seems to me to be the opposite of encouraging more players to try and "punch up". I'm guessing too many players are just playing to that cover and then not bothering to play more. I admit that was my plan this event on my second ever visit to SCL10 but I ended up doing as much as I could manage including some clears of the 5E with my very weak Banner. But it seems clear that my plan was rumbled and the Devs have moved to foil a repeat! Sorry forum!
    Can't see much incentive to try again though unless it is one of my high covered 5* featured. With 90 gazillion 4* characters in game, it seems truly weird that the Devs would fret over having a fairly low hanging fruit but they have the data I guess.
    But if the changes helps out the existing SCL10 dudes and dudesses then cool.
  • Pongie
    Pongie Posts: 1,412 Chairperson of the Boards
    bluewolf said:
    LucasRaven said:
    killercool said:
    Sounds like a positive change.  To clarify - optimal play is now 3 initial clears, followed by 3 clears at the end, correct?

    Am I the only one that understood that it's 3 and 1? 
    For progression.  You can grind past the 1 clear for more points if you want.  
    The timing of that last clear will matter too. Before it didn’t since the 4th clear was still full points. Now the 4th is reduced and full progression may need a 5th clear. That means progression players will need to do 5 clears instead of 4 now. Unless max progression is adjusted to 3 clears. That will cause more issues for alliance since scl10 will score less than lower scl. Or will the points be increased so only 3 clears are required for max progress?
  • supergarv
    supergarv Posts: 410 Mover and Shaker
    The rockett said:
    Here is the thing.  They took the 4th hit off the clear not the grind.  What they said is they took the increase that you would see on the 4 clears and mad the same increase on 3.  So we will still, as of right now, have to do a 3/3 if you play at the top end while taking the rewards from 6 to 4.  1 less clear, which is 10 per sub, but that is off the clear not grind.  As a SL10 top end player, this will save me about 5 mins if that.  So I like this step in the right direction, just wish it was then 3/2 clear/grind that they were thinking of. Or as other people said, make the C node a full 650 char level fight from the beginning and spread the rest of the points out throughout the sub.  That would be a big difference.  
    ^^ This. 5-10 minutes shaved off 100-110 minutes per sub comes nowhere close to ~50 Mins compared to CL9.

    This is a very small step toward a much needed time relief to CL10.

    For prog-only players I‘m still not sure I understand - will they get enough points by 3x clear (instead of 4x) to reach prog? In that case, the players not pushing for placement are taking a real benefit, and it seems those are the indented audience of D3.
  • bluewolf
    bluewolf Posts: 5,816 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited July 2020
    Pongie said:
    bluewolf said:
    LucasRaven said:
    killercool said:
    Sounds like a positive change.  To clarify - optimal play is now 3 initial clears, followed by 3 clears at the end, correct?

    Am I the only one that understood that it's 3 and 1? 
    For progression.  You can grind past the 1 clear for more points if you want.  
    The timing of that last clear will matter too. Before it didn’t since the 4th clear was still full points. Now the 4th is reduced and full progression may need a 5th clear. That means progression players will need to do 5 clears instead of 4 now. Unless max progression is adjusted to 3 clears. That will cause more issues for alliance since scl10 will score less than lower scl. Or will the points be increased so only 3 clears are required for max progress?
    The general rule as far as progression seems to be hitting nodes at full points (4X in everything up to now) and then one more hit immediately (so another hit at 2/3 full value), with the 5E in 7/8/9 and the CN in 10 being "extra" points.

    As long as the initial node points are adjusted up accordingly from SCL9 values, then you should still hit progression with the 3 initials plus 1 more hit whenever you want.

    supergarv said:
    The rockett said:
    Here is the thing.  They took the 4th hit off the clear not the grind.  What they said is they took the increase that you would see on the 4 clears and mad the same increase on 3.  So we will still, as of right now, have to do a 3/3 if you play at the top end while taking the rewards from 6 to 4.  1 less clear, which is 10 per sub, but that is off the clear not grind.  As a SL10 top end player, this will save me about 5 mins if that.  So I like this step in the right direction, just wish it was then 3/2 clear/grind that they were thinking of. Or as other people said, make the C node a full 650 char level fight from the beginning and spread the rest of the points out throughout the sub.  That would be a big difference.  
    ^^ This. 5-10 minutes shaved off 100-110 minutes per sub comes nowhere close to ~50 Mins compared to CL9.

    This is a very small step toward a much needed time relief to CL10.

    For prog-only players I‘m still not sure I understand - will they get enough points by 3x clear (instead of 4x) to reach prog? In that case, the players not pushing for placement are taking a real benefit, and it seems those are the indented audience of D3.
    As far as making SCL10 more appealing, the biggest bang for the buck is going to be making progression easier to hit.  In general in MPQ, hitting progression is usually equal to a T100 score, at least.  Green checks are T50, grinding past that and you are contending for T20 and up.  This will vary by bracket.

    I realize they may not be that concerned about the overall scores in PVE and what qualifies for a Top Alliance- worthy score, but making the final 2 hits on a node (past the 4 node rewards) points-only clears could have an interesting effect on how points shake out.  As in, what points will people chase or not?  How will they compare to lower SCL optimal points?  Etc.
  • DeNappa
    DeNappa Posts: 1,396 Chairperson of the Boards
    bluewolf said:
    As far as making SCL10 more appealing, the biggest bang for the buck is going to be making progression easier to hit.  In general in MPQ, hitting progression is usually equal to a T100 score, at least.  Green checks are T50, grinding past that and you are contending for T20 and up.  This will vary by bracket.

    I realize they may not be that concerned about the overall scores in PVE and what qualifies for a Top Alliance- worthy score, but making the final 2 hits on a node (past the 4 node rewards) points-only clears could have an interesting effect on how points shake out.  As in, what points will people chase or not?  How will they compare to lower SCL optimal points?  Etc.
    Dunno, hitting progression in SCL10 in my slice is usually only top200.
  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    The tradeoff for the supposed Saved Team has already been implemented: fewer support of different screensize.

    Saved Team is a UI change, and it's not something that affects the time/effort to rewards ratio. So, I won't be worried about reward nerf due to UI change. There are definitely many other features added (like bonus hero, shards, CP etc) after 2014, but I think the principle behind managing the economy wouldn't deviate too much.

    Marvel Puzzle Quest’s economy is pretty similar to the standard dual-currency free to play games. The two currencies in Marvel Puzzle Quest are:
    • Iso-8, which is essential XP that levels up characters. The currency scales a bit as players progress, but we attempt to peg this at a constant inflow per minute played. It’s a classic soft currency.
    • Hero Points, which are our hard currency. But unlike most free-to-play games, we’re pretty liberal in giving them out. We aim to regulate the inflow of these into the economy by engagement — regular daily play.



  • Jexy
    Jexy Posts: 52 Match Maker
    supergarv said:
    For prog-only players I‘m still not sure I understand - will they get enough points by 3x clear (instead of 4x) to reach prog?
    This is the question I'd like answered. My PVE SCL10 goal (which is what I play except on Sim) is progression, a little more if I have a spare moment, but the game is unfun past progression. 
  • Michael1957
    Michael1957 Posts: 630 Critical Contributor
    Just my luck I’m finally eligible for SCL 10 as of today and they go ahead and change it because they noticed that . :)
  • DyingLegend
    DyingLegend Posts: 1,208 Chairperson of the Boards
    Here is a crazy idea......

    What if they made the reduction to time and nodes first and left the reward structure the same, then accumulated all the data to justify the reward structure change later on.

  • krakenoon
    krakenoon Posts: 355 Mover and Shaker
    I would like to once again thank the devs for providing this information to us.

     I have yet to unlock SCL10, but this concerns me as (judging from the response here) I expect to see even more tier 5 players in SCL7-9. It’s already hard enough to get T10 placement & with more vets punching down, meaningful placement may become all but impossible for younger rosters. I fully expect T50 in all events to be reserved for vets & whales until there is a good enough reason for players to punch in their proper weight classes.

    Please fix this.

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