Challenge of Changing PVE

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
21

Simulator Hard in the last bracket has about 6000 base points and there are 10 cycles per day, so 25 cycles total. We can set a ‘hardcore’ meter that has certain objectives like ‘clear every node at least 10 times’. There are in theory 6000 X 25 = 150K points in hard

I’d be curious how close to ‘optimal score’ people actually come in each event. All told in Simulator there were 20250 points per cycle, 25 cycles per sub (plus final clears). so cal it 27 cycles. That’s 546750 points. As best I can tell, the global leaders were around 300k, but how many were really around 300k? 50 people maybe?

If I had to guess, Simulator has the lowest top score/optimal score ratio of all the events. To me, that’s why it’s my favorite non-Gauntlet event. The scaling is in place to directly counter optimal play, but then people get angry that the scaling won’t let them play optimally when they don’t even need to. It’s a weird dynamic that happens, presumably because you’re so programmed to play every 144 minutes.

As far as PvE in general, I think the biggest issue is still the competitive nature of the players, not the PvE itself. 1, 3, 4, 8, 12, 24, 36, 123501236 hours of refreshes means there’s an optimal path. As others have obviously pointed out, all the number dictates is how easy it is to be optimal. And rest assured, someone will always gun for optimal.

Hypothetically, if D3 were to launch six simultaneous PvEs, available to everyone, with similar rewards in all, you’d still have people playing optimally across the six events. Then, there would be complaining that it’s D3’s fault for launching six events, both from the those playing six events simultaneously and those claiming it’s unfair that they don’t have time to do so.

22

Can somebody please explain to me what is referred to when you talk about refresh rates? It’s weird, I’ve been playing the game for about half a year and have been on these forums for a few weeks, but I still don’t know what some of the things players refer to are. Please tell me what refresh rates are.

23

In the past, several of my alliance mates will ride on RB to reach top 50, sometimes top 10. Yes, you can’t beat someone who has grind optimally with Rb, but it is possible to catch up to top 10 and then grind till the end.

By riding on RB, you play less but gain more points per game.

At least that’s what happened in the past. Now I know they dial down the RB points so you can’t catch up to top 10 with fewer days of playing.

Refresh rates refer to the amount of time the nodes take to reach full score potential.

You will see the refresh clock after you beat the node. There’s a clock that counts down and the points of the node will increase. Once it reaches zero the scores will not increased anymore.

24

The length of time for a pve node to be worth maximum points after playing it. To maximize your score you would play each node as soon as it reaches its max point value (without considering rubberbanding)

Playing a node multiple times in a row is worse for your end score than waiting for the points to refresh - if you are trying to max your score you would only do multiple plays if you can’t play when the node has finished it’s refresh (so before sleep, work, or the end of a sub). When the rewards are good enough, some of the most compulsive players will do thing like interrupt their normal sleep so they can hit those refreshes.

25

i am someone who has openly advocated for 24 hour subs and 8 hour refresh times but i feel i should clarify my position. Actually, the 8 hour refresh time proposal was more a response to the devs comment about why shield cool downs are all set to 8 hours:

  • Some folks have asked why the cooldown on the 3 hour shield is 8 hours instead of 3 (or less). A cooldown that short would mean that the best way to get the most shields for the fewest Hero Points is to come back and play every 3 (or less) hours, through the night. That’s not an ideal situation.

original post: https://forums.505go.com/discussion/20202

i actually have no major qualms about refresh times being set to 4 hours as it would only require doing two rounds of nodes for a proper night’s rest and if it is as you say that grinding would actually increase with 8 hour refreshes then i of course would like to avoid that.

You also make up a good point about being able to play catch up with shorter refresh times but i feel anything less than 4 hours will leave a player with less breathing space to go about their day. There are quite a few forumites who have openly admitted to taking long bathroom breaks much to the concern of their co-workers and bosses and this can easily be avoided by keeping refresh times at 4 hours.

As for sub lengths, as has already been pointed out the original purpose of implementing time slices was to give players convenient times to play the game so it seems counter-intuitive to use a system that only offers some sub endings at an optimal time. But as the OP has stated 36 hour sub times allow for different optimal times for different sets of players and this is particularly true in my case. Usually one of the slice times for pVe work at optimal for me, they either end an hour after i finish work which in a grind battle could be costly as your fellow competitors have more time to get points from the last grind or end at times i’m sleeping or end at times i’m working. With 36 hour subs i usually get at least one sub i can optimally grind if i have to.

Be that as it may, i rather they be 24 hours long simply for the sake of simplicity. Considering my familiarity with pVe i doubt i will ever be in a position where i will have to worry too much of dropping out of Top10 for rewards i want. But that really depends on how strong the rubberband is for these events. i understand why the rubberband exists but i’ve grown to dislike the concept of it since it basically is an unfair mechanism meant to keep casual players interested in playing the event.

i do not like the idea of 48 hour subs since subs lose their luster after about the third or fourth round of doing them and increases the grind.

i do think Phantron’s idea about unlocking ultra hard core nodes is something worth giving thought too but it also brings up the problem of “what about 2* players?” pVe is the bread and butter of 2* players and by introducing nodes that in theory they should have no business unlocking much more playing we are swinging the pendulum back in favor of vets. The reason scaling exists is to prevent vets from dominating every aspect of the game. By offering ultra hard core nodes, sure there will be those that don’t want to bother having their rosters obliterated but if the prizes are good enough, you will see more than a fair share taking the chance.

What i believe should be done is that old competitive pVe’s should be used to give out older rewards while simultaneously occasionally non-competitive but difficult pVe’s, especially for 4* characters, should designed for vets. Events that require a strong roster and a better understanding of the strengths and short comings of characters and yes maybe even a little bit of luck to complete. For example a 6 day event, with a story and new goons or at least new goon skins where the first sub would be mildly difficult and reward you with the “lowest” cover of a character upon completion, the second sub would be difficult and give you the second cover and the third sub would be ultra hardcore and reward you with the final cover. As for the alliance reward cover, they could run a boss like event where your alliance has to achieve certain amount of points to get the alliance cover.

That’s just one idea.

Do i think they should get rid of competitive pVe entirely? No. There are those that do enjoy the grind, bless their hearts. Everyone has their own tastes and pace to play this game. But seriously, as the game currently exists, there is no longer any overarching story line, limited character introductions, and a lot of recycled event material. The grind of pVe wouldn’t be so bad if:

1.) the refresh times weren’t so low
2.) we didn’t have to do it every pVe
3.) we actually got new story material

Proposed solutions:

1.) increase refresh times to 4 hours
2.) switch up pVe content between competitive and non-competitive, offer older rewards in competitive pVe
3.) occasionally offer different pVe events at the same time, especially for new 4* characters but make 4* events non-competitive (otherwise we will have issues similar to sharding in pVp but this time the crazy grind version of it)
4.) subs should sometimes be 24 hours long and sometimes be 36 hours long, giving everyone a chance at doing reasonably well in a pVe

those are my thoughts. obviously i am no expert and i am sure i am overlooking things the same way i didn’t fully consider the consequences of 8 hour refreshes but i am glad we agree that the current pVe format isn’t the most ideal icon_e_smile.gif

26

I think it would be nicer if they added a challenge to each node or map to gain additional points. Eg, +50% points if you use only ladies, +50% points if you use only x-men, etc. This would provide all levels of player (except very beginner) with additional levels of challenge as opposed to cheesing each node with the same combo, would reward a diverse roster (+ for demiurge), and provide some additional separation at the top 25.

Another possibility would be adding points for each feature character you use, eg +25% for each char. It’d be like a heroic done right (or at least better): your roster isn’t locked down, but you get a bonus for using lesser used characters.

27

We have the chance to choose slices now, which should allow the game to be played in this timeframe called ‘life’. You should be able to play “optimally”, they should allow for things like, say, sleep and work/school. 2.5, and even 4.0 refreshes don’t allow for these.

Why punish those with jobs? They are the ones that can pay you money.

And if everyone can run the event “optimally”? Fix that by fixing scaling! I mentioned last PVE make the lowest nodes levels 30-94 (somewhat clearable by 1*, totally clearable by 2*) and hard nodes level 100-166 (somewhat clearable by 2*, totally clearable by 3*), whatever the best level set is. Don’t scale these depending on the player.

Then the only way it could be optimally done is by those with the optimal roster. Everyone would have equal chance time-wise: the overall rankings wouldn’t depend somewhat on hitting every refresh and grinding them down, but would be more heavily weighted to roster rather than time available.

28

People are able to sneak past others with rubberband becase of timezone differences that can prevent even a very hardcore person from finishing the event if the time simply didn’t work out. With the time slices you’re just going to end up with something where you only need to play the last 12 hours if the rubberband is strong because you presumably would never choose a time slice where you can’t play at the end and that’d be pretty pointless to have an 4-7 day event where you only need to play in the last 12 hours.

Grinding should yield an advantage, but not an insurmountable one when grinding requires a rather unrealistic/unhealthy schedule. But you got to have a plan to deal with the top 5 if you ease back on the grinding requirement, because they’ll just be virtually tied and in this case whoever played first would own the tiebreaker for getting a score first. From my experience the virtual ties are usually broken by speed, because if it takes me an hour to finish all my nodes and it takes you 90 minutes to finish all your nodes and we’re grinding the same schedule, it’d only take 2 cycles for me to have an hour lead on you in terms of refresh time and there’s no way you can catch up from that point, but in that case such tiebreaker should be built into the game, as in you should be able to see the guy who appears to be in virtual tie with you is beating his nodes in 10 less turns than you which makes the game rate him higher so you know what you’re going up against.

29

I say 8-12 hour refreshes with rubberbanding and scaling all combine and wins instantly increase difficulty.

For sake of simplicity, lets just say one node exists.

Starting is 1000 points and all guys are lvl 100. Once you beat it, refresh is 8 hours and points do not go up in between, If you choose to grind on this node, it’s now worth 500 points and the enemies are now 110. You play it again, 250 and guys are 125, you play it again, 125 guys are 140 until you get to 1 or 0 points. At refresh time, the game assess place, scaling etc and at 8hrs lets say the 1000 pts are back but now guys are starting for you at 125.

Essentially this is gauntlet with point refresh and obviously more a point of discussion then actual applicability but you can see there could be a balance from grinding and roster strength etc where you are sort of capping points on a node, but making it significantly harder to get all the points.