Ranty placement topic. New releases need to change

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
1

Due to poor planning on my part, my contractual shift at work had me in when Saturday’s sub event was to close, so I had to do the final run through before 3pm. Friday, Sunday and Monday were all optimally cleared.

My finishing position was 21st with 93,622 points. Next guy up had 93,905.

Now, I’m not grumbling because work made me miss on getting top 2 placement or something. I’m grumbling because the difference between where I finished and 100th place in terms of rewards is 500 ISO.

New releases seriously need changing. I remember when CL8 rolled out I was surprised they didn’t alter the new release chances to give you two covers at top 50 or something. Now it’s REALLY feeling like a let down to grind the nodes every night but one and only get one cover. Placement for new releases needs to be made more lenient, especially in the higher clearance levels where 4* rewards are more in demand.

I’m not asking much.
1-2 is fine
3-10 is fine.
11-20 is kinda narrow Maybe change that to 10-50 and keep the reward the same?
Then have 51-100 as 1 cover. Or maybe make it more relaxed still and have 51-200.

Something has to change, guys. Even if you gave away three covers on release to the top 500s and then a fourth on the progression reward for the next event, it’ll still take a long-ass time to max her out through tokens alone. Something I’ve said a few times in the past…you’re not going to break the economy by being a little more generous.

I feel compelled to bump this because it just happened again.
Optimal completion on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, but today I had to work so I did the final run at 2:30pm, finishing just before 4 so it had 6 hours to go. I finished 23rd, mere 420 points away from 20th.

One cover.

Might as well not have bothered over the weekend and just half-arsed it because I’d have got the same reward.

Someone in my alliance had the same result, finishing 21st.

This needs sorting. It’s utterly preposterous.

2

The placement rewards are absurd. I went all-out in Carol’s event and I even aimed for (and seemingly hit) optimal clears. It was barely enough to get me into the top 100. On top of clearing every node six times at the perfect time of day, does everyone then also grind the green-checked nodes ten more times each for like 1-10 points per clear? If that’s what’s required to earn decent placement rewards, then yes, this needs to change. That’s not fun, that’s grueling.

3

It’s more like 40-120 points for that seventh clear, depending on the node, but yeah I’ve had to do that for new releases. 4 clears at the start, 3 clears at the end. Without that you got no shot at top 20.

4

Yep. I haven’t been able to hit all of the subs the second they open for “optimal” optimal clearing, because life, but have been hitting the 7th and 8th clear and been placing in the 20-50 range. It is absurd.

5

I’ve found the method above gets me into top 10 at SCL7-slice 5. Also have to clear that loaner node optimally if you want to sniff top 5. I try to do my 4x clear in less than 1hr and 45 min and my final 3x clear in less than 1hr 20. If I see the same certain names in the rankings above me thru out the event and I’m close, I know I’m doing something right.

6

Woah, that is rough.

Feeling pretty proud of myself for getting top 10 now!!!

7

As someone else pointed out, final clears are 3 clears for a total of 7 (on a 24 hr sub). So only doing 6 is not optimal. That is what gets them down to 1. As far as I know, there’s not many who grind out 1 pt nodes but there are some. For that, optimal is to actually grind the lowest cost node to 1 right away, and grind that out for hours. That will eventually get you a higher score than just the 7 clears.

8

I still maintain focusing on PVE is a bad time investment when trying to push progress through new covers. So I always enter late and don’t have a problem getting top 100. Of course that sacrifices the 15 CP progression.

So I agree, the placement rewards are dumb.

EDIT: Anecdotally, I entered 5.7 last night with over 450 people already in. I did exactly 4 clears of everything and ended the sub rank 17.

9

Yep nothing worst than grinding through 3-4 days and placing 21-50. 500 extra iso!!! Woo-hoo!!!

10

I’ve never understood why this isn’t the case. I generally only aim for the top 100 in a new release, because why bother when 21-100 is largely the same outside some small amount of iso or HP? I know D3 like to control the amount of digital nothing that get out in a game, but how does more covers for a character, especially a new one, hurt them? People still need HP to roster them, so they either have the HP (which means they’re committed to the game), have to work for it (which means more commitment to the game), pay money for HP, or sell it. And whales are always gonna whale. There’s no downside for them.

Someone will always come in 11th instead of 10th, but if they make 11th suck a little less it hurts no one and helps everyone.

11

Precisely why I only snipe new releases now. Join in the last 24 hours and you can stroll into top 100 without even trying. For Carol I worked a bit harder and, in 5.7, managed top 10.

12

I got t10 on Carol’s event. I beat the guy in 11th place by six points. SIX POINTS. I was legit doing 1-point clears until the event closed.

Yeah, this system blows, but I really don’t foresee it changing anytime soon since this has been a gripe for as long as I’ve been playing.

13

They definitely need to realise that going from 1-3 covers is not game or economy breaking, the whales will just end up with an extra couple of champion levels and indeed you could see some people spending HP who wouldn’t otherwise.

In higher CLs they could readily give out 3 covers quite deeply and just divide placements with iso/hp/cp/token rewards and even in lower ones they could readily do something like:

1-5 4 covers
6-50 3 covers
51-100 2 covers
101-250 1 cover

14

All the thumbs up.

Especially when it comes to alliance rewards. The T100 alliance reward system is choking the game to death by creating an elite class of players who are showered with extra covers and ISO, and everyone else who gets jacksquat. I am a radical on this point, as I would eliminate all alliance cover rewards entirely (with the covers that would have been awarded going to progression/placement rewards) and make alliance rewards exclusively ISO. But I don’t expect that to (a) happen, or (b) be a popular idea. So given that, expanding the range of alliance cover rewards is the next best option. I’d push the bottom down to 5000, personally. That’s 100,000 players eligible (in theory) for the cover rewards. And if you wanted to push it all the way to 10k… I wouldn’t object either.

Alliance rewards are not awarded based on how well you play, or how deep your roster is, or any other metric within your control. They’re ultmately awarded based on (a) whether you can get a T100 commander to admit you and (b) things other people who are not you do. When you effectively have made a handful of players the gatekeepers to high end play in the game independent of how you actually play the game… that’s tinykitty game design.

/rant off

15

If you are going to change the rewards, all the rewards should be increased. Even the top players and top alliances should get more love.

16

The silver lining is that the rewards structure means I can usually slack off on the last day, once I’m firmly in top 100 territory. At that point I’m usually around rank 30, and the break is nicer than holding the top 50 reward.

17

Progression Rewards only :This is the solution.
The first 20 players in mine (and I think in every other bracket) had people within 800/1000 points.
So it’s a matter of grinding fast at the beginning and at the end of each sub.
It feels like an all out war not like funtime. Everybody is forced to use the top team in order to clear fast
so it’s not fun anymore.
And if you get into a gamecrash or a phone call during one of your grinds, you will miss your good placement.

Yes, something has to change: Get rid of placement in PVE and give progression rewards only.
Rise the clears from 7 to 8 or 9 or even 10 clears, but if I can do them during the 24h of each sub regardless of grinding I’ll be fine. icon_e_wink.gif

18

I definitely don’t agree with changing placement for 10 clears a day. That’s WAY too grindy.

There are a few people here advocating for changes beyond the original scope of this topic, I notice. Seems the issue of PvE rewards is larger than just me grumbling about the difference between finishing 21st and finishing 100th.

I do still believe there should be a change in debut release for higher clearance levels, or maybe even all clearance levels (I don’t actually know if the placement reward structure changes on lower levels). Granting just one cover unless you’re in the top 1% is bonkers.
But there is definitely something to be said for alliance rewards, too. I’ve never really bothered to look at them because I’m in an exceptionally casual alliance. We just do what we want to do as we like. I don’t push anyone to do more than they’re willing to do though I do urge people to try hard in boss events and such since it’s a true joint effort.

I just looked at the rewards and…yeah, the difference between finishing 101st or 10,000th is just 750ISO. That’s insane.

Clearance levels should properly increase the reward depending on where you are in the game. Surely that was the point, yes? If I’m CL8 it’s fair to assume if I’m not fully into 4* land, I’m definitely making strides into it. So 4* covers, especially for new releases, are going to be covetted more. The idea of not wanting to give too much away seems strange to me. If someone got a handful of covers, like for example 5 and then a 6th from the next PvE, that person might even be more willing to whale up since they’re already half way there. But when you work hard, finish 21st and get one cover, I just find myself thinking “Yup, it’s a picture in my roster that’s going to be worthless until June unless I’m exceptionally lucky.”

19

This is my sentiment exactly. While I love nabbing every new character, it really sucks that I can’t use new Capt. Marvel, Medusa or Ironheart for a while. Currently in the 3*-4* transition.

20

Remember when the devs said that they “flattened out” the placement rewards? That means there’s a smaller difference in rewards among the different ranks. So, you can grind less and still get decent rewards. Grinding more just isn’t worth it anymore. An hour of your life isn’t worth 500 ISO.