That would be interesting, so I’ll get it started.
In both the old and new PVE, I play slice 4 and join right at the start. I rarely play for long blocks of time, nor could I play on fixed, 8 hr cycles, so in both formats I played sub-optimally.
In the old system, for non-new character events, I’d expect 4 clears to put me in striking distance of top 100 and generally top 200 otherwise. In the new format, 4 clears is typically outside the top 300 and sometimes outside the top 400. For the first few of the new events I’ve played more than usual, but 6 clears has never gotten me in the top 100 of any sub and 7 has only got me in the top 100 of one sub. For the 48 hour sub last event, 7 clears was outside the top 300.
I’m sure others have different experiences, but this has been mine since the tests started. Even though my placement has suffered, the new format is generally still better for me, as 4 clears gets all the best prizes and progression. All this talk of “play on your own schedule” is a load of crap, though, as more people seem to grind each event to hell and back far more than the old system. I don’t understand why, but as long as their efforts don’t cause the progression target to rise, I don’t care…
I play slice 5 (2am EST) since it allows me to do all of my clears after getting home from work and just before bed. I almost always wait to sign up until noon the day the event starts which allows me to not worry about healthpacks on my final grind in the preceding PVE event. After I sign up I try to hit the 4 clears pretty quickly and then go back to finish whatever grinding I am going to do at around 12:30-1am.
I usually shoot for 5 clears of board movers on the hard and hardest nodes, 6 clears on the 4* essential and 7 clears on any other node or if a node is just goons. If a node is particularly painful and might eat up healthpacks sometimes I won’t wait for the end time grind and hit it earlier in the afternoon or evening to give my healthpacks a chance to recharge, especially if it is a node that drops 250+ ISO. On two day subs I do 4 clears of every node day 1, then hit it once on day 2 when the timer reset and finally hit it the final two times at around 12pm. Two day subs are the only ones I take to check marks everywhere.
I have not finished outside the top 20 doing this.
I disagree. The number of people able to make top 50 will always be exactly 50. What has changed now is that everybody (top 10, 50, 100, 200…) has to work more for it.
Fresh or prejoin? Sometimes I’ll prejoin sometimes I’ll wait for a flip or two.
Previous experience: Consistently a t10 pve player over the last 6 months.
Tactics: as the old system is gone there’s no use debating my new tactics vs old so here’s what I do now.
Do 4 clears randomly throughout the day. Come back next day and do 2 more without waiting for points to refresh. Do not grind.
Results : 9th in Meet Rocket and Groot
Currently 31st in Thick as Thieves
*note : as I only need iso and cp from thick as thieves I have only done 4 clears per sub and will not do more than that.
As expected more playing is needed for same rewards. In the old system I cleared all nodes (full points) and played cp-nodes in the end until I got cp. That got me to top 50, maybe even to top 20. This was in slice 1 after two or three flips. Now it would get me nowhere. Even clearing all nodes 4 times won’t get me top100 as everyone doing that will have exactly same points no matter when they played.
So I have played hardest and 4-star essential nodes 6 times and easy nodes maybe one or two times extra on top of that 4 clears. Other hard and essential (well, currently they are basically the same as hard nodes). Doing extra clears on harder nodes just isn’t worth the time, trouble or health packs when I know that reward is either 100 or standard token.
Now is the time to pull the plug on placement on PVE. I don’t know how long I have the motivation to put in the extra effort when I get no reward for it (compared to previous system). At least give a 500 or 1000 iso for every x thousand points earned after 25 cp award, so there would some incentive to continue playing after it.