Updates to Story Event 5-Star Essential Missions * Updated (11/17/17)

Thanks for the update @Brigby!

Can you provide any insight into the reasoning behind making the hardest node (5* Essential) worth only as much as the easiest node? This goes well beyond "less than the 4-star node", down to "as few points as we can give based on the other nodes in the sub".

Still holding out hope that the extreme point reduction is an oversight that will be corrected in future events.

You want less people playing you game? Because this is how you get less players.

I think a lot of people misunderstood how this was going to work (myself included initially). After re-reading @Brigby 's initial post, I can see that SCL 7 was left off the post. So, it's just SCL 8 & 9 that still have the 5* req node's points and enemy levels higher than the 4* node. 

In SCL7, both the point value and enemy levels have been reduced much lower than the 4* req node intentionally. Per some alliance mates, it looks like it's been lowered to equal to the first node. 

penguiniffic said:

I think a lot of people misunderstood how this was going to work (myself included initially). After re-reading @Brigby 's initial post, I can see that SCL 7 was left off the post. So, it's just SCL 8 & 9 that still have the 5* req node's points and enemy levels higher than the 4* node. 

In SCL7, both the point value and enemy levels have been reduced much lower than the 4* req node intentionally. Per some alliance mates, it looks like it's been lowered to equal to the first node. 

For the record, that post was edited today; the original communication of this change did not specifically mention SCL8 and 9. It did say that SCL7's 5* node would be "much less" for HoD, but any reasonable person would have assumed that meant "lowered-further-but-still-not-below-the-4*-node." 
At best, this was really poorly communicated. (and I'm not blaming Brigby; this kind of half-baked communication from the devs has been going with MPQ for years.)  To be honest, dropping the 5* node so low to the level of the easiest easy node feels like such an absurd over-correction that I initially assumed it was a mistake. I'm still not convinced it wasn't. 

SkadenFrudee said:

I would assume people were "abusing" the five star node

I think you misspelled "playing the game as designed, tested*, and implemented".

As you point point out, lowering the advantage doesn't really change the math at all. Those that can do the 5* nodes will still have an easier time over the course of the game to place higher.

Moving to a higher SCL means the 5*s are worth more so maybe you can skip more of the nodes than in SCL7 to get that top progression, but I doubt the time spent doing the harder 5* node saves much time over doing easier nodes. So really it's about doing them for additional placement points.

Which means having the 5* will almost always get you higher placement. Which is what I thought they wanted to do - incentivize everyone to get & level their 5*s for better placement. And now they act surprised when people use them exactly as designed.

Want to incentivize me to move up to the next SCL? Change it so I can do fewer clears for the same rewards and/or 2) change the system so I'm not punished for how long it takes me to play or when I start & end. Otherwsie it'll wait until I slowly build up my roster enough to do the next SCL in reasonable time. Though with the ongoing dilution that timeline keeps getting longer.

Either that or this is an attempt to reduce the ease of getting the top progression CP.

* No play testers were harmed used in the design & implementation of this feature.

Reecoh said:

Want to incentivize me to move up to the next SCL? Change it so I can do fewer clears for the same rewards and/or 2) change the system so I'm not punished for how long it takes me to play or when I start & end. Otherwsie it'll wait until I slowly build up my roster enough to do the next SCL in reasonable time. Though with the ongoing dilution that timeline keeps getting longer.

I posted about something like this in the suggestions sub-forum:
https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/65514/suggestion-unified-progression-rewards-for-all-clearance-levels-in-story-mode

The basic idea being to have a single schedule of progression rewards shared by all clearance levels, but vary the amount of points nodes are worth so certain rewards are locked off from lower clearance levels.

This would also have the effect of making a partial clear of the next clearance level give somewhat similar rewards to a full clear of the current one.  This would mean moving to a clearance level that you can't complete doesn't necessarily mean you're worse off progression wise.  Of course, this requires a lot more than just scaling the points of the 5* essential node.