Update to Progression Rewards in Story Events (5/18/17)

Jaedenkaal · May 2017

Brigby said:

Hi Everyone. Apologies for the confusion.

Beating every non-repeatable mission once and every repeatable mission 5 times (3 times for Join Forces missions and 2 times for Wave missions) will get you the top Progression reward. Mission regeneration does not factor into the equation.

Also, is this different for 48-hour sub events?

slarti · May 2017

sh81 said:

slarti said:

For me, this is clearly the most horrible change they did in a very long time: You get more rewards, but you need to play much more to get any CP.

Hitting each node 4 times was already not interesting and time consuming. Doing it 5 times each day is just not fun and sustainable. I already stopped playing two years ago for 6 months because pve was getting too demanding.

I am really considering to play less again and stop renewing VIP.

@Starfury This is exactly my point.

slarti is prepared to walk away because it doesnt work for him/her. Completely legitimate choice to make.

It's still not wise from d3 to force casual/semi-casual players to take this decision. They also need to retain the players that are not willing to spend 2-3 hours each day playing MPQ. Many of these players are still contributing to their income (e.g. as VIP's). Any paying customer they lose is bad for their business...

DapperChewie · May 2017

Brigby said:

Hi Everyone. Apologies for the confusion.

Beating every non-repeatable mission once and every repeatable mission 5 times (3 times for Join Forces missions and 2 times for Wave missions) will get you the top Progression reward. Mission regeneration does not factor into the equation.

Thank you for the clarification! While I may not like having to do another full clear for these rewards, the extra rewards are nice, and we never really had a solid "to get full progression, you must do X clears" statement before.

I assume that 48hr nodes do not factor into anything, as they never did before either. Am I correct here?

Starfury · May 2017

sh81 said:

Not intended that way at all.

Its a simple, logical statement.

As in so many fields, you have the choice to participate or not.

If that participation brings you nothing but grief/stress/no enjoyment move on to something that is a more positive experience.

I have no doubt that will be a choice I make with the game at some point.

Either the game changes, or I do, and its no longer "doing it" for me, so Ill move on.

And "This place" has a lot to do with it. Ive participated on many forums, and this one has by far the most negative, moaning, ready to get enraged community Ive seen.

I have no doubt that you didn't have any intention to offend the other posters.

But again, telling people that "if they don't like it they can leave" sounds like either

you think they don't realize that they're not contractually bound to play the game
you don't want them to lobby for changes to the game.
you think what they're lobbying for is so unlikely they might as well quit now (which would be absurd, since they're lobbying for the status of last week and it's something the devs have changed repeatedly in the past)

Again, I'm not suggesting that 1 or 2 was what you meant by your comment. I'm just explaining why "take it or leave it" is not an argument but a conversation-ender.

As for me personally: Since I still like the fundamentals of the game, I don't intent to just walk away from it. However, I see no reason not to voice my dissatisfaction with some of the recent changes. And if the time should come where I don't think the game's worth the time I spend on it, I certainly don't need anyone to remind me of the option to quit.

DrDoMe · May 2017

To everyone saying "you can just quit' : duh. Everyone knows that. We actually each have many options:

1) embrace the change
2) reluctantly accept the change and whine to our friends
3) adapt the way we play the game to compensate for the change
4) keep playing but stop spending money
5) talk/complain to the devs in the hopes we can help save the game we love from bad decisions/changes.
6) cheat, farm or in some other way try to circumvent the system.
7) walk away.
8) some combination of some of the above.

I personally choose 4 and 5 because I like the game and want to see it get better. That means advocating for choices that increase fun and against those that decrease fun. I personally know people who chose 2 and 3, and I know two people who chose 7.

You pointing out that we have the option to leave is not productive. We have many options. Each of us is pursuing the one they think is best. Quit complaining about my choices just because they are not the same as yours.

aa25 · May 2017

Brigby said:

Hi Everyone. Apologies for the confusion.

Beating every non-repeatable mission once and every repeatable mission 5 times (3 times for Join Forces missions and 2 times for Wave missions) will get you the top Progression reward. Mission regeneration does not factor into the equation.

@Brigby

Is this correct ? It sounds contradict to the quote in the OP which implies that the one-time nodes are not counted.

Edit: Additional questions for clarity and completeness.

What about weird nodes like one of the node in the second sub of DP vs.MPQ where it has a loaner 3* Deadpool but its points regenerate like non-loaner nodes (4 clears to start the clock). Or one of the node in the main sub of Prodigal sun which is not a loaner node, but its points regenerate like loaner nodes (one clear to start the clock)

vinsensual · May 2017

Brigby said:

Hi Everyone. Apologies for the confusion.

Beating every non-repeatable mission once and every repeatable mission 5 times (3 times for Join Forces missions and 2 times for Wave missions) will get you the top Progression reward. Mission regeneration does not factor into the equation.

It is very important that this part of your statement is 100% accurate. I would wager it's gonna be quoted a lot in the future.

Jam_Adams · May 2017

sh81 said:

Its not 6 clears.

Its 4 clears at 100% available points and 1 clear at 66% available points.

So if you did 5 clears as soon as the sub opened you would get max progression.

Or, as Ive been trying to point out, if you do 4 clears when the sub opens and then wait for the points to regenerate - you should get away with that 5th clear not even being a full round of nodes.

From the opening post
"Normal non-wave, non-"Join Forces" missions: First 4 clears are counted in full. The fifth clear is counted 2/3rds of the full points. (we don't expect people to wait until it regenerates)"

ppl don't want to do more than 4 clears. This means 5 clears, 6 clears, ad infinitum

And by ppl I mean majority as evidenced by the overwhelming responses in this thread.

keitterman · May 2017

I guess i had just assumed that the 5th clear would be at full points, but if no. this is a very odd change. If you've ever preformed an optimal clear through an event attempting to get close to #1 in placement, you know what they are really saying is that it's gone from 4 clear for max progress, to 4.66, which really changes nothing for die-hards because they were gonna do 4, wait ~23 hrs, do 3 more. I thought the change was to get 5 clears at once, then only need to get 2 clears before final instead of 3, but this really changes nothing for optimal strategy. So this is ONLY changing things for people who aren't trying to get 1st on the leader board, squeezing one more clear out of them... but why? they can't be making a fortune off of health packs from 5th tier clears? If that were the case, why not just scale everything up and leave it at 4? Something like: "With all the champs, and stuff, game's too easy ya'll, we're starting nodes at +25 and increasing by 50 or so each clear. Have fun... Also, fixed a bug on Juggs where his red was damaging him instead of healing, ttyl"

Saeva · May 2017

sh81 said: I do struggle with the uproar at a little extra playing for a decent amount of extra reward. I cant help feeling if 4 and half clears is beyond you, or if you passionately resent it, then this simply isnt the game for you. The game is a grinder, it always has been. To complain about it being grindy seems somewhat futile to me.

There are so many great puzzle / match games out there that do not have these time demands. If this game upsets some people so much, they really should find one that suits them more than trying to bend this one away from what it is.

My issue there is simple. You keep asserting it's a 'little extra playing' but for someone who has 300+ level opponents it's not an extra fifteen minutes a day, it's an extra 30-45. I know exactly how long it takes me to do a 5th clear because I do play for placement about half the time, which means I do 4x clears at the beginning and 2x at the end. To do the 2x at the end I have to put in 75-90 minutes. Since the 5th and 6th clears are at the same difficulty level that means 35-45 minutes. In theory I can do just the four hardest clears at full points and get full progression, but that's still 30-40 minutes. The three easiest nodes only take about 10 minutes to green check total in most events, so I'm saving a whole 5 minutes by not doing them.

I'm glad for you that it'll only take ~15 minutes but at my scaling it takes more. And 30-40 extra minutes a day, a total of 1.5 - 2 hours every three day event, is not an insignificant amount of time.

Second, for those who do play for placement it's common to join in the 2nd day. That allows for full progression and placement in the old system. In the new system full progression isn't possible if you join the second day, even if you green check for optimal points. That means anyone who does play for placement, to get the 4* cover, will now have to join the first day. This increases competition, thus stress, and adds 2.5-3 hours of play to every 3 day event. That, too, is not an insignificant amount of time for what amounts to a slight increase in ISO, HP, and an extra 5-8 CP over the old system.

No one would have a problem if they'd simply added extra rewards on top to incentivize more play. That's not what they did. Instead, they're pushing people who do placement -- the sort of people who fight for 4* covers and, thus, are incentivized to also buy things with actual money because of their investment in the game -- to choose between spending an extra 3 hours per event or losing the equivalent of nearly one 4* cover/75% of a Latest 5* cover (17CP) compared to the old system. Deincentivizing the people who are most invested in playing your game is never a good business practice.

But, more than that, there aren't any match-3 games out there that have these same mechanics in terms of gathering covers to build characters. There's plenty of combat/fight style games like that but not any match-3. If you know of one, let me know. Further, a lot of people have years of investment in this game, in gathering the characters, creating a strong roster, etc. Just quitting after that sort of time and energy (and often money for hardcore players) investment isn't a good answer. It's saying 'Yes, you put a ton of work and time and effort (and money) into this game but, yeah, **** you if you think you actually deserve reasonable rewards comparable to other MMOs out there. We're going to make it even more time intensive for no reason and if you can't keep up? Well, sucks for you.' That's not a good business practice. It's not a good sign for longevity. When long-term players, who invest actual money in the game (sometimes to the tune of hundreds of dollars a month), quit then you're jeopardizing the economy of your game.

Despite its massive QA issues and tendency to take two steps back for every one step forward I like this game. I want it to continue existing, even if I play it less often because current development choices deincentivize me to play.

'Don't like it, don't play' isn't well-received because it minimizes/patronizes the fact that people have real issues with the development of the game and as customers they have a right to verbalize their complaints against a company's practices if they feel that company is making self-defeating business decisions. They also have a right to quit using the product as protest of the developer's practices, of course, but there's a wide range of acceptable responses between 'Demiurge can do whatever it wants and we should shut up about it because we don't own the game' and 'quit the game if you don't like it'.

This is not only a game -- it's a product. This forum is part of the various ways customers can make their voices heard. Reviews in Google Play are another way. Changing spending/playing habits RE a third. They're all equally acceptable. Please don't try to minimize other people's response to the product they're supporting.

Saeva · May 2017

keitterman said:

I thought the change was to get 5 clears at once, then only need to get 2 clears before final instead of 3, but this really changes nothing for optimal strategy. So this is ONLY changing things for people who aren't trying to get 1st on the leader board, squeezing one more clear out of them..

Not so much, actually. For people who try to get placement there's often a tendency to join in the 2nd day (or 3rd for 7 day events) so that they only have to do optimal clears 5 out of 7 days a week. Requiring 4.66 clears for max progression changes that, making it a choice between getting a specific cover(s) through placement or a full LT pull through CP. For those who do placement this reduces their CP or equivalent (i.e. 4* cover) by about half, slowing down their progression down 50%. Even if they choose to start joining in the 1st day now there's still only ten people who will get a 4* cover so they might not be able to compensate for this difference even if they're willing to put in the extra effort.

It means, overall, the number of people getting both placement covers and CP covers is significantly reduced as only the t10 winners who join brackets in the 1st day will get both. Prior to that anyone who joined in the 2nd day after a bracket flip and played optimally would get both if they placed t10. Since brackets continue to flip until the end of the event that's a fairly big change for those who play PvE most competitively.

But scaling things up would lead to an even bigger loss of engagement with top competitors and/or whales as for higher end rosters, with many 4* champs and/or 5* champs, already have scaling that slows down how long it takes to complete your clears. If they increased the scaling more it'd not only increase the play time but, in many cases, make it flatout impossible to manage the top scaling of Dark Avengers like Moonstone having 80,000 Health Points+.

keitterman · May 2017

Saeva said:

keitterman said:

I thought the change was to get 5 clears at once, then only need to get 2 clears before final instead of 3, but this really changes nothing for optimal strategy. So this is ONLY changing things for people who aren't trying to get 1st on the leader board, squeezing one more clear out of them..

Not so much, actually. For people who try to get placement there's often a tendency to join in the 2nd day (or 3rd for 7 day events) so that they only have to do optimal clears 5 out of 7 days a week. Requiring 4.66 clears for max progression changes that, making it a choice between getting a specific cover(s) through placement or a full LT pull through CP. For those who do placement this reduces their CP or equivalent (i.e. 4* cover) by...

Ah, good point about people ho join on day 2, i had forgotten. I wonder if that was the catalyst to this.

Also, i was joking about increasing the scaling, Kind of a "other bad ideas they could have done", which is why i threw that Juggs comment in too .

vinsensual · May 2017

Saeva said:

Second, for those who do play for placement it's common to join in the 2nd day. That allows for full progression and placement in the old system. In the new system full progression isn't possible if you join the second day, even if you green check for optimal points.

I was gonna give this a shot anyways, but you're comfortably certain of this?A late join, optimal clears and grinding to 1 pt won't be enough? In last week's system that was good enough to still 1.4-1.5x max progression. They really moved the goalposts back if that's the case.

Saeva · May 2017

vinsensual said:

Saeva said:

Second, for those who do play for placement it's common to join in the 2nd day. That allows for full progression and placement in the old system. In the new system full progression isn't possible if you join the second day, even if you green check for optimal points.

I was gonna give this a shot anyways, but you're comfortably certain of this?A late join, optimal clears and grinding to 1 pt won't be enough? In last week's system that was good enough to still 1.4-1.5x max progression. They really moved the goalposts back if that's the case.

@vinsensual: Since they don't give you specific point amounts and events are back-end heavy, no, I'm not entirely certain. It might be possible if you do a 7th playthrough. Let's find out! Given you asked I decided to do an approximation of the math using point values I chose in place of ones we don't have available yet.

It's worth noting that the reason you can get past max prog doing 2 days of 6x clears is because the third day is worth twice the point of the first day. That said, I was pretty sure, upon reading your comment, that you have to play all three days to get 1.4x progression and the math bears this out.

For example, let's say that the first day is worth 120 pts, the second day is worth 180 pts, and the third day is worth 240 points at 4x clears. That's 540 pts total for full progression in the old system. At 6x optimal clears it's then worth 170 (day 1), 254 (day 2), and 339 (day 3). That's 763 pts total, which is 1.4x full progression.

If you only do the last two days, then, you get 593 points, or about 10% over full progression. That gels with the scores I remember getting.

Now do it with the new scores/new max progression requiring an extra, partial credit play* per node. Using my numbers that means you need 120 + (2x10) or 140 pts on day 1, 180 + (2.9x10) or 209 on day 2, and 240 + (3.9x10) or 279 on day 3. That's a total of 628 pts for full progression, which is not achievable through 2 days of optimal play (593 pts).

Note: I got to 120/180/240 by simulating the idea that you needed to clear 10 nodes total, simply because 10 is easier to deal with than 9. From there, I picked an easily divisible number to start with (3), so that each node would be worth 3 pts per first play on day 1, 4.5 pts per first play on day 2, and 6 pts per first play on day 3.

That'd mean a 4x clear for each node in the first day would be worth 12 pts total. With optimal clears you'd have 5x full point clears and 1x 2/3rd point clear so 17 pts total. Obviously in the actual system nodes are not of equal value. That said, since that's true for each day and each day overall follows the 50% increase of point value over the previous day, that fact doesn't change the overall conclusion AFAICT.

* Partial credit refers to the fact that you don't need to wait for refresh so the 5th play is only worth 66% of the full points. 66% of 3 is 2, of 4.5 it's ~2.9, and of 6 it's approximately 3.9/4. Again, I simply multiplied these numbers by 10 nodes instead of the typical 9 used in events.

It's possible, however, that you could use the 1/3rd points you receive for a 7th play through to compensate for the gap. In the math above it would equal 43 points, which would put you just above full progression (593 for 6x plays + 43 for a 7th play = 636, or 8 points over full progression). That said, it'd depend on event and how early you joined in the 2nd day and how fast you can clear. The gap would be extremely tight but if you join very early in day 2 it might be possible, yes. That said, it might not work due to the fact that -- because you must start the end of the sub earlier to have time for 3 extra plays -- the earlier play time (giving the points less time to refresh for playthrough #6) might take away any advantage a 7th play gains you. Overall, I'm comfortable stating that even a 7th playthrough wouldn't give most rosters/players enough points, but might if you were lucky with the flip time and could do a final play v. quickly.

Unless they've changed the basic formula for how they backload points, yes, you must play all three days to reach full progression at only 6x plays, however. Like I said, we don't have the exact point totals and, obviously, my math heavily simplifies the points involved. However, for 6x plays the math follows, as far as I can tell, and if I've made a mistake that would discount that (which I'm hoping I have) anyone who notices should please point it out.

Seriously, please point it out. I really want my math to be wrong.

(Edited: To bring up the potential for a 7th playthrough to change the results. Final edit is 22 minutes after initial post.)

DrDevilDinosaur · May 2017

Tfw the new system is very straight forward and no one is confused about it at all.

[Imagine a picture of an Italian chef making a kissing gesture against the tips of his fingers here]

Pongie · May 2017

Saeva said:

But, more than that, there aren't any match-3 games out there that have these same mechanics in terms of gathering covers to build characters. There's plenty of combat/fight style games like that but not any match-3. If you know of one, let me know.

Haven't played these but I assume it would be similar:
1. Magic: the Gathering Puzzle Quest
2. Adventure Time Puzzle Quest

Bowgentle · May 2017

All this theorycrafting in here.

Why not just play the current event and see if you can easily make final prog with your normal playstyle?

If you can't, adjust next event.

Instead we get a million questions directed at poor Brigby who can't give any answers because, as always, the devs are very very bad with words.

Worst case you miss the 25 CP this PVE and can adjust for the next one.
Missing 25 CP once isn't going to kill you.

Nick441234 · May 2017

Missing the 25cp makes the 5 day event a waste of my time. So yes, it is important to know what we have to do to get it.

Bowgentle · May 2017

nick_chicane said:

Missing the 25cp makes the 5 day event a waste of my time. So yes, it is important to know what we have to do to get it.

Then just do 5 clears to be safe?

Daiches · May 2017

Brigby said:

@St_Bernadus

If you choose to wait until the points for the 5th clear are full, then you only need to complete each node's 5th clear to hit max progression. If you don't feel like waiting, then you can immediately full clear all nodes to hit max progression.

Ehm.. That's not what said in the announcement.

Update to Progression Rewards in Story Events (5/18/17)

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