locked wrote: I'm not sure I got it, so to have optimal points (not a lead, just enough for a good main placement) it was enough to play essentials once (3 in normal, 3 in hard, 6 overall) every 2,5 hours for 5 times or what? Under the assumption that other people don't try to overcome you or anything? If there's no such assumption, then it's an astounding amount of missions and I don't think we ever saw anything like that before (starting after the first TaT which I believe was a grindfest).
Phantron wrote: I missed roughly 2 of the 2 hour 24 minutes refresh on round 3 and can't possibly catch up to leader because that's the time I can't play at all, and I'm not talking about a small lead either. I'm sitting at #20 in my hard bracket with 26K points, but the #1 has 31K! Someone who is doing this method consistently will have a lead that is greater than doing every mission to 1 very quickly.
Vairelome wrote: For what it's worth, I pulled #1 in my main bracket hitting every node once per sub, and then farming the essentials when they refreshed (plus 2-3 non-essential node hits at the very end of the last set of subs). My timing wasn't perfect, it slipped a bit here and there, but multi-hitting nodes is quite feasible to schedule around real-life concerns like sleep. Doing stuff for the next 5 hours? Hit the essential nodes twice instead of once. Sleep for 7.5 hours? Hit them 3 times before you go to bed. I also did not start the subs right when they opened, but waited a while for some rubberband to build up, and then timed my refreshes from there. Scaling was a non-issue, though I can't say how much of that was luck, just that my nodes started weak and stayed weak. Sorry to those who had a rougher experience with scaling; I don't know how to predict when it goes crazy and when it doesn't--I wasn't tanking or deliberately taking extra damage or anything. (For what it's worth, my roster is maybe in the last stages of the 2*->3* transition. I only have 1x 141 (Thor), but I've got 3x over 100 and 8x 3*s that are 85+.)
Phantron wrote: Note that while you can sort of cruise for now if people don't know about this strategy and get like #20 or so, provided you don't miss any refresh either. Though as more people find out about it you'd have to end up doing the same thing to compete. This is far worse than anything before because you sure didn't need to play every 2 hours 24 minutes to stay competitive even when there is no rubberbanding.
pasa_ wrote: Phantron wrote: I missed roughly 2 of the 2 hour 24 minutes refresh on round 3 and can't possibly catch up to leader because that's the time I can't play at all, and I'm not talking about a small lead either. I'm sitting at #20 in my hard bracket with 26K points, but the #1 has 31K! Someone who is doing this method consistently will have a lead that is greater than doing every mission to 1 very quickly. You did something wrong, in my estimates the miss can not create that much of a difference. Did you play the extra games before the missed refresh? If your next play is after 5h you shall play the nodes 2x, if 7.5 then 3x right on.
Bacon Pants wrote: I have been horribly lazy in this event. The grind hasn't been worth it, just playing nodes here and there is much more fun. After day 1 of this event it was pretty clear to me that I wasn't going to be competing for a good score in the main. There are some straight up psychopaths out there grinding every node into dust.
locked wrote: I'm not sure I got it, so to have optimal points (not a lead, just enough for a good main placement) it was enough to play essentials once (3 in normal, 3 in hard, 6 overall) every 2,5 hours for 5 times or what?
gamar wrote: Phantron wrote: Note that while you can sort of cruise for now if people don't know about this strategy and get like #20 or so, provided you don't miss any refresh either. Though as more people find out about it you'd have to end up doing the same thing to compete. This is far worse than anything before because you sure didn't need to play every 2 hours 24 minutes to stay competitive even when there is no rubberbanding. I played this one like usual - as if it had 12 hour refreshes - and got a comfortable top 20. From what I can tell, pros: Aside from the last couple hours (ugh), you don't get nearly as screwed for playing on your schedule instead of the refresh schedule cons: You really have to hit the bricks more to get top 10 That seems like a great trade to me. I have no problem with players having to really put in effort and grind to get 1st place. And if you think (assuming this system stays in place and players get used to it) every bracket is really going to end up with 50 players grinding subs every 2 hours, well, all I can say is god speed you crazy diamonds
Phantron wrote: Scaling is less of an issue because you get far more point with this method which means you have a higher score while doing less missions, which means less scaling. Let's say essentials are 100 points, you do it 3 times for 100, 80, and 60 = 240 points. But if you hit it at the beginning, one more 2h 24m later, and then one more again you get 300 points. That's 25% more point for doing exactly the same total number of mission. These extra points would either help you build a bigger lead, or do less missions later to help manage your scaling. However, this places too much importance on hitting the mission at the right time and I don't think this is good for the game at all.
Vairelome wrote: n the hard sub, all of the essentials were grey at the end (60ish, I think), and only the Devil Dino node was yellow--maybe around level 102. Considering that scaling ought to accumulate over the event and be worst at the end, these are *ridiculously* favorable numbers, and I have no idea how that happened. I've had several other PvE events where multiple nodes scaled to Deadly; this was the opposite extreme.
Vairelome wrote: At the end of the event, every single node in the easy sub was still grey, and the levels in the essential nodes were under 45. In the hard sub, all of the essentials were grey at the end (60ish, I think), and only the Devil Dino node was yellow--maybe around level 102.
pasa_ wrote: Vairelome wrote: At the end of the event, every single node in the easy sub was still grey, and the levels in the essential nodes were under 45. In the hard sub, all of the essentials were grey at the end (60ish, I think), and only the Devil Dino node was yellow--maybe around level 102. I so much love the fairness in this game -- I played the same way and my essentials went well over 200 and dino approached 300 by the end. At least we know form Ice that D3 is convinced that scaling is much better now and makes perfect sense too.
rbdragon wrote: Unless of course you HAVE to get that last progression reward. I accepted the fact that I wasn't going to get anywhere near the last two. I was stunned when I achieved the 2nd to last one.