Putting Test PvE Placement in Perspective

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Ducky
Ducky Posts: 2,255 Community Moderator
edited April 2016 in MPQ General Discussion
I just want to hammer this point across to everyone who is saying that placement in the new test environment is better than ever.

This is ONLY because it is a not an event releasing new characters. If (or more likely when) the devs decide to test out this system (or simply make it the new norm) on a new character release, you all will see grinding like there has never been seen in MPQ. Then you will be BEGGING for a return to the old format as you watch your placement plummet because you don't have hours to spend playing a match-3 game.
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  • fmftint
    fmftint Posts: 3,653 Chairperson of the Boards
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    At least they'll be able to hit progression, playing whenever they want!

    Oh wait, release progression is set even higher than normal...
  • wymtime
    wymtime Posts: 3,757 Chairperson of the Boards
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    DuckyV wrote:
    . Then you will be BEGGING for a return to the new format as you watch your placement plummet because you don't have hours to spend playing a match-3 game.

    I completely agree, but I think you mean people will will beg for the OLD system not the new system.

    The grinding to place in the new is going to be awful
  • Ducky
    Ducky Posts: 2,255 Community Moderator
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    wymtime wrote:
    DuckyV wrote:
    . Then you will be BEGGING for a return to the new format as you watch your placement plummet because you don't have hours to spend playing a match-3 game.

    I completely agree, but I think you mean people will will beg for the OLD system not the new system.

    The grinding to place in the new is going to be awful

    Yup, lol. Fixed! icon_e_biggrin.gif
  • Ram51
    Ram51 Posts: 117
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    Honestly it doesn't have to be a new character pve. A pve with a desirable cover that non-whales is unlikely to have fully covered will bring out the uber-competitiveness and uber-grinding in a lot of players who would normally have skipped the pve tests. A good example post-CP would be Nova.
  • revskip
    revskip Posts: 966 Critical Contributor
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    New character releases are always grindfests anyway. I'm fairly certain that the same names that populate the top 10 in the old system will be nearly identical to the ten names in the new system. The people who kill themselves for that sort of placement aren't going to stop because of a change to the way things roll out.

    Unless all of the "I'm gonna quit PVE if the tests become the new PVE" crowd actually quit, in which case there will far less grinding. icon_twisted.gif

    There will always be grinding when only 10% of the people in a bracket get the new character cover. No matter what system is in place.
  • MPQ_Daywalker
    MPQ_Daywalker Posts: 384 Mover and Shaker
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    aesthetocyst wrote:
    DuckyV wrote:
    .. you will be BEGGING for a return to the old format as you watch your placement plummet because you don't have days to spend playing a match-3 game.

    Another minor correction.

    I am already seeing some intense grinding in my bracket, on an event with little to get excited about.

    I have played each sub at a "farming+" level (nowhere near "optimally", but clearing all the nodes rewards, plus a bit more to pile up some points), am on track to hit max prog early in the 6th sub if not before ... and am not top 100.

    On a "real" event this will sucketh mightily.
    Oh, wow, that's even worse than I thought it would be. I've been playing it casually because that's all I have time for this week -- hitting most nodes once, but hitting the CP nodes until I get the CP (sometimes requiring 7 clears) and then hitting some lower "trivial" nodes if I have additional time, for the ISO.

    I haven't made the top 300 for any of the subs so far, but I was thinking if I was at least clearing each node 4 or 5 times I would get decent placement... Man, 7 clears plus and not top 100 in a completely un-exciting non-new character 7-day PVE. I've never been willing to put that amount of time into it... I always left that level of clearing to the Top 10 folk. When I wanted to place in top 100 (for a new character) I would join a late-opening slice with other like-minded people and do 3 clears and a little grinding.
  • KGB
    KGB Posts: 2,988 Chairperson of the Boards
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    aesthetocyst wrote:
    I am already seeing some intense grinding in my bracket, on an event with little to get excited about.

    I have played each sub at a "farming+" level (nowhere near "optimally", but clearing all the nodes rewards, plus a bit more to pile up some points), am on track to hit max prog early in the 6th sub if not before ... and am not top 100.

    On a "real" event this will sucketh mightily.

    Must be in a competitive bracket/slice. I've only got 58K (2 clears day 1 and only 3 so far today) and I'm 85th place in my slice.

    I've found the last time slice (which ends at midnight PST time) to be the least competitive / easiest to place in top 100 in. I always elect that slice even though I don't live in PST time.

    KGB
  • Bowgentle
    Bowgentle Posts: 7,926 Chairperson of the Boards
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    aesthetocyst wrote:
    DuckyV wrote:
    .. you will be BEGGING for a return to the old format as you watch your placement plummet because you don't have days to spend playing a match-3 game.

    Another minor correction.

    I am already seeing some intense grinding in my bracket, on an event with little to get excited about.

    I have played each sub at a "farming+" level (nowhere near "optimally", but clearing all the nodes rewards, plus a bit more to pile up some points), am on track to hit max prog early in the 6th sub if not before ... and am not top 100.

    On a "real" event this will sucketh mightily.
    Bad bracket, not the norm.
    Going 7/7 on all subs has kept me in t20, I'll end up t50 at worst.

    Which doesn't change the fact that I will not be going for my usual t10 if this format is used for a new release.
    I don't have time to play this close to optimal, and I don't want to, either.
  • ZootSax
    ZootSax Posts: 1,819 Chairperson of the Boards
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    _Daywalker_ wrote:
    aesthetocyst wrote:
    DuckyV wrote:
    .. you will be BEGGING for a return to the old format as you watch your placement plummet because you don't have days to spend playing a match-3 game.

    Another minor correction.

    I am already seeing some intense grinding in my bracket, on an event with little to get excited about.

    I have played each sub at a "farming+" level (nowhere near "optimally", but clearing all the nodes rewards, plus a bit more to pile up some points), am on track to hit max prog early in the 6th sub if not before ... and am not top 100.

    On a "real" event this will sucketh mightily.
    Oh, wow, that's even worse than I thought it would be. I've been playing it casually because that's all I have time for this week -- hitting most nodes once, but hitting the CP nodes until I get the CP (sometimes requiring 7 clears) and then hitting some lower "trivial" nodes if I have additional time, for the ISO.

    I haven't made the top 300 for any of the subs so far, but I was thinking if I was at least clearing each node 4 or 5 times I would get decent placement... Man, 7 clears plus and not top 100 in a completely un-exciting non-new character 7-day PVE. I've never been willing to put that amount of time into it... I always left that level of clearing to the Top 10 folk. When I wanted to place in top 100 (for a new character) I would join a late-opening slice with other like-minded people and do 3 clears and a little grinding.

    For the previous two test events, going 3-4 clears plus grinding the CP nodes, as needed, never put me in the top 200 for any single sub, much less the overall event. It didn't even keep me in the top 300 for every sub and put me outside the top 400 for at least a couple. This event because of other time constraints I've only done 1 or 2 clears plus the CP and I'm still outside the Top 800 for the overall and never in the Top 600 for any sub. This is all well outside what I would expect for similar levels of effort based on the "old" format.

    Unless I've been particularly unlucky in my test brackets, I think anyone who thinks people won't grind the new format WAY harder than the old one once the placement prizes get more desirable is completely fooling themselves.

    I've only even gotten a placement cover for a new character release three times ever (and I was in weaker-than-normal brackets in each case), so on one hand this really doesn't affect me directly. Indirectly, however, it depends on what they settle on for the progression on new events where the sky seems to be the limit for grinding potential...
  • TxMoose
    TxMoose Posts: 4,319 Chairperson of the Boards
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    ZootSax wrote:
    ...once the placement prizes get more desirable...
    ugh. I can see it now. just when I'm ready to pull back to just farming the cp and big isos, they go and up the prizes. that's when I'll really develop a love/hate relationship here. currently lots more love than hate, but that might shift things.
  • Mawtful
    Mawtful Posts: 1,646 Chairperson of the Boards
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    I pointed out in the other thread ("how much do the devs play? ") that this is already too late.

    These tests aren't being used to trial a change to see if it works, they're being used to find our breaking point.

    If you don't like it, vote with your wallet - that's the only feedback they'll react to.
  • KGB
    KGB Posts: 2,988 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Mawtful wrote:
    I pointed out in the other thread ("how much do the devs play? ") that this is already too late.

    These tests aren't being used to trial a change to see if it works, they're being used to find our breaking point.

    If you don't like it, vote with your wallet - that's the only feedback they'll react to.

    Or its possible they need us to complete 6-7 clears of all the nodes in order to get enough data to see if they have the scaling right (recall the progression reward was VERY easy to reach in the last test and players stopped playing once they hit it). If you could get the max progression reward after 3 clears then lots of players would be doing 3 clears only.

    Remember we are rats in a maze during this tests icon_lol.gif

    KGB
  • Ruinate
    Ruinate Posts: 528 Critical Contributor
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    revskip wrote:
    New character releases are always grindfests anyway. I'm fairly certain that the same names that populate the top 10 in the old system will be nearly identical to the ten names in the new system. The people who kill themselves for that sort of placement aren't going to stop because of a change to the way things roll out.

    Unless all of the "I'm gonna quit PVE if the tests become the new PVE" crowd actually quit, in which case there will far less grinding. icon_twisted.gif

    There will always be grinding when only 10% of the people in a bracket get the new character cover. No matter what system is in place.


    So... increase the grinding so that the grinders quit so that you don't have to grind as much.

    Or we could just not increase the grinding at all??
  • revskip
    revskip Posts: 966 Critical Contributor
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    My main point was that grinding is going to happen no matter what they do. And I am quite skeptical that there will be any real change in the composition of the top ten placement spots. The same names you saw in the last event using the old PVE style will be the same names you will see when they are done testing and enact the new system.

    Yes, there will be some minor placement movement until things settle in, but the very nature of this style of game is that the most competitive players will adapt to whatever the system is. So when they release a new character under the new system all the same old faces will spin the hamster wheel.

    There might be some small turnover in the top 20 but not nearly as much as the forums suggest. Remember that most of the people posting on this forum represent the top 5 percent of the people playing the game. The forums themselves are a bit of an echo chamber (and rightly so since they are spending the most time/money) for those people. I am in a couple of different facebook forums where the changes are very well received among players who aren't in that top 5%.
  • ClydeFrog76
    ClydeFrog76 Posts: 1,350 Chairperson of the Boards
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    aesthetocyst wrote:
    I am already seeing some intense grinding in my bracket, on an event with little to get excited about.

    There are some people who need to win no matter what.
  • bOmbast
    bOmbast Posts: 45 Just Dropped In
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    aesthetocyst wrote:


    I am already seeing some intense grinding in my bracket, on an event with little to get excited about.

    I have played each sub at a "farming+" level (nowhere near "optimally", but clearing all the nodes rewards, plus a bit more to pile up some points), am on track to hit max prog early in the 6th sub if not before ... and am not top 100.

    On a "real" event this will sucketh mightily.

    Similar here, I was on 90 000 points after sub 5 (clearing the nodes on every sub 6-ish times), which should make me reach the 25 CP midway through the 6th sub. Would normally place me well into the top 100, now I'm sitting at 140.
  • Gmax101
    Gmax101 Posts: 182 Tile Toppler
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    Thing that puzzles me is why usual performance in terms of grinding is apparently delivering worse placements in a PVE that has undesirable rewards...

    I fully understand that new character releases etc generate the extra focus... do I don't even try to compete, happy to simply try and get a very late bracket snipe (a practise I would rather wasn't feasible, but will attempt to abuse while it is)

    But if 6/7 clears per node is "too much" why are so many people obviously doing it...

    I have comfortably on track to get 25CP by end of Sub 6... but am roughly ranked 70-80ish at the end of the day if I hit the sub 5/6 times per node... which is way more than I ever would have done historically...

    Is this a symptom of the revised scaling?

    or is it event specific because people are better equipped to hit nodes multiple times (Great character selection: Iron Fist, Luke Cage, Hulk Buster, Red Hulk, etc)

    What is actually causing so many people to hit nodes 6+ times given that the grinding more than previous PVE events is possibly the single biggest complaint people make on the forums? (that and awful rewards lol)
  • Xenoberyll
    Xenoberyll Posts: 647 Critical Contributor
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    Gmax101 wrote:
    But if 6/7 clears per node is "too much" why are so many people obviously doing it...

    iso famine
    fun boosted characters
    lack of better things to play

    i don't know...mr failtastic covers sure ain't attracting that many people though, right?
  • DTStump
    DTStump Posts: 273 Mover and Shaker
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    Xenoberyll wrote:
    iso famine
    lack of better things to play

    Speaking for myself, this. At first I had decided to grind just for 500 Iso and 1 CP node rewards, then I realized that this didn't take a lot of time and started also farming the rest of the node rewards because I need Iso badly.

    Doing 7 full clears barely puts me in the top200 in my bracket in any given sub.

    I think I would need around 11 or 12 full clears to be in contention for top 50.
  • madsalad
    madsalad Posts: 815 Critical Contributor
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    aesthetocyst wrote:
    DuckyV wrote:
    .. you will be BEGGING for a return to the old format as you watch your placement plummet because you don't have days to spend playing a match-3 game.

    Another minor correction.

    I am already seeing some intense grinding in my bracket, on an event with little to get excited about.

    I have played each sub at a "farming+" level (nowhere near "optimally", but clearing all the nodes rewards, plus a bit more to pile up some points), am on track to hit max prog early in the 6th sub if not before ... and am not top 100.

    On a "real" event this will sucketh mightily.

    All of this.

    I'm hit CP Progression in my first few battles in the 6th sub. I've played at what you would call "farming+" (green checkmarks on all nodes, can't bring myself to grind down to 20). I even missed almost the entire first sub. I'm over 110K and I'm only in top 50.

    The only thing I can say is that it seems everyone else is wearing out at the same time as I am because my placement has barely moved even though I've stopped grinding. It's almost like everyone hit the 25CP wall and stopped.

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