42 replies to this topic

[Nodnarb]

I dont know about you guys, but I think you should get more exp for higher MP levels.  For instance I can zoom through 4-5 runs on MP2 and get way more exp then when I do 2-3 MP8 runs.  Point is, I think they need to scale up the Exp at least double if its gonna take you 10 extra mins to kill elites and what not.  On a side note.  I really dont notice that much difference in MF and quality of items either.  I found a level 58 Legendary with 5 buffs in act4 MP8 last night...very disappointing !!

[Zera]

It's not supposed to be mandatory to increase the mlvl which blizzard stated so this will never happen.
This would just be rewarding the better geared people who can smash through higher mlvls and they allready benefit from better gear which is fine cause thats how the game is supposed to be but blizzard have  stated so many times that mlvl isn't supposed to be the only way to play the game.
For instance it takes me what 3min to kill a boss on mlvl 10 which for farming purposes is far from worth it but it's fun for a change once in a while.
So if you don't want the chalenge or so farm on the lvl thats most efficient which is kinda the point you shouldn't be forced to go for higher mlvls.

[_Kannon]

also no one has ever said that mp lvls gives better loot. mf will never make legendaries better if u got the same legend to drop with no mf. for rares it only affects the number of affixes you can get but will not affect how high/low the rolls are.

[Bagstone]

There are people playing MP0 and people playing MP10. The balance couldn't be any better as it is now. If you make higher MPs drop even more stuff and reward more XP, everyone is forced to go on insane MP levels and 99% of the people (essentially everyone who's not as awesome as you) will be pissed off and not have fun anymore because they're dead all the time. Btw, if you're doing key/uber runs, you have to go on a high MP level anyways, it's already a big incentive to bump your MP level up.

[Emberos]

It shouldn't be a penalty to run higher MP -- which is essentially what it amounts to right now.  At least make it so that is even -- right now the most efficient way to play is no-challenge, face-roll at low MP.  If they bumped XP/MF bonuses on higher MP levels, it wouldn't make it mandatory, it would just make playing at higher MP levels equitable to playing at lower levels.  Right now, the reward system is anti-progression / anti-challenge.  I wouldn't say to skew it too far the other way where people feel left out if they can't run higher MP but at least scale the reward system so that you aren't penalized for playing a more challenging monster power.

[Nodnarb]

Emberos, on 13 November 2012 - 04:09 PM, said:

It shouldn't be a penalty to run higher MP -- which is essentially what it amounts to right now.  At least make it so that is even -- right now the most efficient way to play is no-challenge, face-roll at low MP.  If they bumped XP/MF bonuses on higher MP levels, it wouldn't make it mandatory, it would just make playing at higher MP levels equitable to playing at lower levels.  Right now, the reward system is anti-progression / anti-challenge.  I wouldn't say to skew it too far the other way where people feel left out if they can't run higher MP but at least scale the reward system so that you aren't penalized for playing a more challenging monster power.

+1 agree 100%

[Zhaph]

I think the point of the MP levels is what a lot of you have said: a challenge. Where most people differ, however, is whether that challenge is mandatory or optional. Bilzzard has stated over and over that they want it to be optional, for players who really want to face  the worst the game can throw at them. Now that we have MP levels, if you want the challenge you can have it, but that doesn't mean you necessarily should get a reward.

As a compromise, Blizzard gave the "rewards" of slightly increased MF, GF, and experience, but if they make those rewards too good, everyone will feel like they "have" to run higher MP levels to make the game "worth" investing time in, hence you only get a slight increase.

To me, this system is perfect. You want to play the game at the "original" or "intended" difficulty? Go for, you still have a great shot at great items. That's too easy for you? Bump up the challenge and you still have a great shot at great items. Don't want to do that? Then don't! Monster Power is a totally voluntary system, so if you don't like the way it works, just don't use it.

[Emberos]

Zhaph, on 13 November 2012 - 05:00 PM, said:

As a compromise, Blizzard gave the "rewards" of slightly increased MF, GF, and experience, but if they make those rewards too good, everyone will feel like they "have" to run higher MP levels to make the game "worth" investing time in, hence you only get a slight increase.

To paraphrase your own argument back to you in it's inverse:

when they make those rewards too weak, everyone will feel like they "have" to run lower MP levels to make the game "worth" investing time in

That's current state.  That is what is broken.  If they scaled the bonuses correctly, when you considered the choice to be more challenged by playing a higher MP level, you wouldn't be thinking to yourself, "yeah that'd be more fun but the price for more fun is LESS reward."

Honestly, being penalized for progression is counter-productive to game design and I don't think intended.  No, Blizzard did not want people to feel playing at higher MP levels was mandatory . . . but I'm pretty sure they didn't intend for people to feel playing at higher MP levels was a penalty either.  

Monster Power was put together fairly quickly in game terms -- they've already adjusted it once after the fact and I don't think it would be beyond them to adjust it again.  The math or assumptions were just wrong and not tested thoroughly enough to realize that XP/MF aren't scaling to match the extra time required to complete higher MP levels.

Edited by Emberos, 13 November 2012 - 05:18 PM.

[Ashes]

I like the way it is now. If anything I would prefer if they increased monster damage a bit with MP level so higher levels actually get 'harder' not just slower.

[Talys]

While there are legitimate points that MP rewards don't scale enough to offset the difficulty, there are some myths I would like to dispel:


Myth #1 - nobody plays high MP because it's not rewarding enough

Actually, a lot of peple play high MPs for ring runs.  Many people typically farm Act 2 keys at MP7 or MP8, and do the ubers at MP10.  Act 3 keys aren't an issue because they appear during xp runs.  Because Act 4 is so annoying, and you need the Plans only once, I do the Infernal Machine Plans always at MP10.

So, there are rewards.  They're just not necesarily of the XP/MF variety.  But really -- XP comes so fast now...


Myth #2 - Higher MP doesn't give you more legendaries per kill

This is totally bunk.  First of all, from the technical side -- a randomly item attempts to roll a legendary first; if it fails, it tries for a 6-affix rare, then 5-affix rare, etc.  This is all described in the official game guide.  Note that the guaranteed rare from an elite/champion/boss kill is an extra drop and cannot be legendary -- it's a guaranteed rare.

Now, from hard numbers: I'm level 97, and I've done hundreds of A3 solo runs in every MP from 1 to 8.  I can tell you without equivocation that the higher your MP, the more legendaries per kill you will get on average.  At MP6, which is an "easy" setting for me, I will get at least 30 legendaries a day.  I commonly have runs that have 6+ legendaries.

At MP1, which I can basically just run through, I'll get 1-2 legendaries per act 3 "mostly full clear"; the odd run will yield no legendaries.  I can't recall the last MP4+ run that I did (I clear everythng but skycrown, south of bridge wp, and keep1) that didn't yield at least 1 legendary.

When I do Ubers -- which are MP10 runs that consist of 5 stacks + 3 ubers + A1 keywarden -- one of the four people in our group, sometimes two, will get a legendary.

Personally, MP4 is probably my favorite, even though MP6 is yields better drops per hour.  Why?  MP4 is just much less stress, particularly on Reflect + Desecrator/Molten, and especially on mobs that have built-in shielding (like Blood Clan Occultist).  I don't really like to kite, and I hate dying and running back.


Myth #3 - MP1 is still the most efficient even if you have endgame gear

This is just plain not true.  Once you do enough damage AND have enough survivability, the higher MPs are better.  It takes me almost exactly the same time to clear any monster power between MP1 and MP4 (I have a monk with 240k unbuffed dps).  MP5-MP6 take perhaps 10-20% longer, most of that difference being slightly longer shielding trash mobs and the occasional death.

Clearly, for me, MP4 is better XP / hr than MP1.  However, this was not always the case.

When we are in group, MP6 goes as fast as 24-35% runspeed allows.  Packs that don't shield die as quickly as trash.  In a group of 4 with very good gear, MP7 and even MP8 goes really quickly.  An MP 10 ring run takes less than 20 minutes (5 packs, 3 ubers 1 warden).

If your combined effective dps for a group of 4 is around 8 million or more, you will be doing a higher monster level (To check this, solo MP10 Ghom.  If you can kill him in 60 seconds, you do a little more than 2 million damage per second).


I think that the rewards for higher MP could be slightly buffed, but really, it's a good system.  Most people feeling that they "have" to run lower MPs for efficiency just don't have the gear to efficiently farm the higher MPs.  Remember: gear is NOT just dps.  Survivability is very important because dying dramatically slows down run speeds.  An "end game geared character" doesn't just have high DPS; it is nearly indestructable, too.

When my character is where I want it to be -- about 350k unbuffed dps (3 million+  actual dps output), 50k life, 750 resists -- I expect I will be able to run MP7 very quickly, and snooze through MP6.

I don't think MP8-10 will hit the sweet spot in the efficiency curve, for me. But that's ok, because when I look at diabloprogress and see top-in-the-world characters at 480-500k+ unbuffed dps -- I imagine that in a group of 4 with that type of gear, the last couple of MP's will be pretty darn fast.  And there has to be something to strive for, right?

Edited by Talys, 13 November 2012 - 05:59 PM.

[Emberos]

#1 Yes people run higher MPs for Wardens and Ubers because for those, it is more time efficient.  The reward aligns well with the progression here.

#2 I don't think anyone is arguing this but, sadly legendaries per kill is a bad metric.  Legendaries and XP per hour played -- that is how people measure it and here is where the reward doesn't align with higher MP.

#3 Yes, depending where your damage is, a higher MP level *may* give you more benefit.  However, for everyone right now, there is a breaking point where farming any difficulty higher is a penalty -- you say yours is at MP4 and I'll take your word for it.  For me it's between MP2 and MP3.  Anything higher is a penalty.  I can, you can, many of us *can* farm higher MP levels and be more challenged but the rewards do not encourage us to do so -- in fact they discourage us from doing so.

Right now, the reward system is built so that unless you can steamroll the content at a given MP level, it is not efficient to run it.  If you want challenge, great, but expect to be penalized.

Also, don't fool yourself, even if/when you do get to 350k dps, you will still be getting penalized because HP pools, XP/MF, DPS, etc. do not align well especially at very high MP levels to reward you for doing so in their current state.

Edited by Emberos, 13 November 2012 - 06:21 PM.

[Bagstone]

Emberos, on 13 November 2012 - 05:10 PM, said:

Zhaph, on 13 November 2012 - 05:00 PM, said:

As a compromise, Blizzard gave the "rewards" of slightly increased MF, GF, and experience, but if they make those rewards too good, everyone will feel like they "have" to run higher MP levels to make the game "worth" investing time in, hence you only get a slight increase.

To paraphrase your own argument back to you in it's inverse:

when they make those rewards too weak, everyone will feel like they "have" to run lower MP levels to make the game "worth" investing time in

Okay, so you're saying that those people who like to do a challenge get double reward (insane loot/xp from high MP plus the challenge they're looking for), while people who can't play high MP and don't want a challenge get nothing (crap loot on low MP, less xp on low MP)? That's just... ridiculous. As was mentioned - high MP are an optional challenge for players. You want to force everyone into playing high MP.

Talys, on 13 November 2012 - 05:53 PM, said:

Once you do enough damage AND have enough survivability, the higher MPs are better.  It takes me almost exactly the same time to clear any monster power between MP1 and MP4 (I have a monk with 240k unbuffed dps).  MP5-MP6 take perhaps 10-20% longer, most of that difference being slightly longer shielding trash mobs and the occasional death.

Clearly, for me, MP4 is better XP / hr than MP1.  However, this was not always the case.

Here's a perfect example, someone for whom the sweetspot isn't MP1, but MP4. There are probably people out there who are so insanely geared that they are most efficient on MP5+. I don't think these people would complain about the higher MP levels not to be rewarding enough. It's nice that you can always step it up a notch and get another challenge, but it's also nice that you don't *have* to do that every day. Once a challenge doesn't becomes a daily necessity, it's just not the same feeling anymore and the game experience will decrease, at least for some people.

Edited by Bagstone, 13 November 2012 - 06:31 PM.

[Talys]

Emberos, on 13 November 2012 - 06:12 PM, said:

#1 Yes people run higher MPs for Wardens and Ubers because for those, it is more time efficient.  The reward aligns well with the progression here.

#2 I don't think anyone is arguing this but, sadly legendaries per kill is a bad metric.  Legendaries and XP per hour played -- that is how people measure it and here is where the reward doesn't align with higher MP.

#3 Yes, depending where your damage is, a higher MP level *may* give you more benefit.  However, for everyone right now, there is a breaking point where farming any difficulty higher is a penalty -- you say yours is at MP4 and I'll take your word for it.  For me it's between MP2 and MP3.  Anything higher is a penalty.  I can, you can, many of us *can* farm higher MP levels and be more challenged but the rewards do not encourage us to do so -- in fact they discourage us from doing so.

Right now, the reward system is built so that unless you can steamroll the content at a given MP level, it is not efficient to run it.  If you want challenge, great, but expect to be penalized.

Also, don't fool yourself, even if/when you do get to 350k dps, you will still be getting penalized because HP pools, XP/MF, DPS, etc. do not align well especially at very high MP levels to reward you for doing so in their current state.

Actually, MP6 is my sweet spot, not MP4.  MP4 is just easier, and if I'm doing 10-20 full act 3 clears a day, my brain turns to mush after a while.  Plus, I'm usually watching TV at the same time, and really just have one eye on the game.

I agree: Legendaries / hour is the most important metric.  I can't speak for other people, but for myself, MP6 yields more legendaries per hour than any other MP.  I'm going to ballpark it at somewhere around 20 legendaries per 5 full clears (of course, my MF is maxed; I can do this with any of the 3 followers).  This weekend, I literally filled two empty pages of stash with mostly-useless legendaries.

Also, I completely agree that the point at which you can faceroll mobs is the best MP to farm.  I'm just saying, as your gear gets better, that will go up.  I was amazed at how much faster the game was at 240k dps, compared with 210k dps -- for a monk.  Paragon levels also count, as the extra 200 vit and 300 primary stat are pretty great, towards the end.

I am an optimization player -- I don't seek challenge for the sake of challenge.  I want the most stuff in the least time.  At my current gearing level, and I've done spreadsheets and used a stopwatch to analyze this, I'm absoltuely certain it's not MP1/2.


Here is my profile: us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Talys-1767/hero/16576834

[Emberos]

Bagstone, on 13 November 2012 - 06:30 PM, said:

Emberos, on 13 November 2012 - 05:10 PM, said:

Zhaph, on 13 November 2012 - 05:00 PM, said:

As a compromise, Blizzard gave the "rewards" of slightly increased MF, GF, and experience, but if they make those rewards too good, everyone will feel like they "have" to run higher MP levels to make the game "worth" investing time in, hence you only get a slight increase.

To paraphrase your own argument back to you in it's inverse:

when they make those rewards too weak, everyone will feel like they "have" to run lower MP levels to make the game "worth" investing time in

Okay, so you're saying that those people who like to do a challenge get double reward (insane loot/xp from high MP plus the challenge they're looking for), while people who can't play high MP and don't want a challenge get nothing (crap loot on low MP, less xp on low MP)? That's just... ridiculous. As was mentioned - high MP are an optional challenge for players. You want to force everyone into playing high MP.

Tell me where I said this.  It's great if you want a strawman argument to fight against but don't put words in my mouth.  I think the bonuses should be scaled to where it is net-neutral.  You are neither rewarded nor penalized for playing a more challenging MP level.  

Right now with the way the bonuses are scaled you are penalized for choosing higher MP levels . . I don't want others be penalized for choosing lower levels -- why do you want to continue a system where someone else is penalized for choosing higher MP levels?

Edited by Emberos, 13 November 2012 - 06:51 PM.

[overneathe]

Emberos, on 13 November 2012 - 05:10 PM, said:

That's current state.  That is what is broken.  If they scaled the bonuses correctly, when you considered the choice to be more challenged by playing a higher MP level, you wouldn't be thinking to yourself, "yeah that'd be more fun but the price for more fun is LESS reward."

I don't agree. There will never be an equilibrium in any major gaming community about what is right as a reward and what is not.

I think bonuses to MF/GF/XP are good incentives and if you have the gear you're only going to do better going MP10. There are very overpowered combinations of gear + right build and when you find both of those and use them together the game difficulty becomes irrelevant below MP5. If you can one shot a skeleton up to MP5 then surely you won't mind 3-shotting it in MP8 while receiving lots of good benefits.

[Emberos]

Anyone that has run a spreadsheet on runs over time knows that with current XP/MF bonuses, there is a breaking point where the next highest (and any higher MP level beyond that) is a penalty / less efficient option to choose.  If you are OK with that as a mechanic, clearly we'll just have to agree to disagree.

[Kaeron]

totally agree with the OP, doesnt feel rewarding at all experience wise.

[Talys]

overneathe, on 13 November 2012 - 06:43 PM, said:

Emberos, on 13 November 2012 - 05:10 PM, said:

That's current state.  That is what is broken.  If they scaled the bonuses correctly, when you considered the choice to be more challenged by playing a higher MP level, you wouldn't be thinking to yourself, "yeah that'd be more fun but the price for more fun is LESS reward."

I don't agree. There will never be an equilibrium in any major gaming community about what is right as a reward and what is not.

I think bonuses to MF/GF/XP are good incentives and if you have the gear you're only going to do better going MP10. There are very overpowered combinations of gear + right build and when you find both of those and use them together the game difficulty becomes irrelevant below MP5. If you can one shot a skeleton up to MP5 then surely you won't mind 3-shotting it in MP8 while receiving lots of good benefits.

One-shotting is actually a good point that you bring up.  One of the reasons MP0/1 is terrible for either my monk or barb is that one-shotting monsters just messes up resource regeneration too much.

On MP1, my sweeping wind field will kill most mobs before I actually get a swing at it, and if I'm lucky I get 1 swing.  This makes it take FOREVER to fill  up Spirit.  Ironically, at MP1, I have to use the much weaker 20 second Sweeping Wind ("Master of the Wind", first rune), because I can't generate enough spirit to keep up Cyclone.

At 2.58-2.63 APS, I like to take 2-3 swings to kill something.  It happens very quickly anyhow, and guarantees that after one group of monsters, I have at least enough resource to use a resource spender.  Once you hit 2+ APS on fast striking builds (like fot monks, cm/ww wiz) , two hits "feels" like one-shotting, anyhow.

[Nubtro]

Talys I´d like to know what you consider a "full clear" (areas) and how long it takes you to do such a run (solo). Wondering because I do almost full a3 clears (minus skycrown and) on higher MPs (most often 6) and 5 was the max number of legendaries I got in one run, like ever (well, twice lol). Most of the time, it´s 0-2. It´s not like you have more MF when we´re both maxed out.

Agreeing with most of your points as MF directly affects legendary drop rates, except that the NV elite pack drop can also be a legendary, has been proven.

Theorycrafters believed the legendary drop rate to be 1:2000 before 1.0.5, Blizzard said they doubled it so we assume it´s 1:1000 (drops not kills). This means around these drop rates (last column - max mf)

MP  HP/HP% DMG  +XP  +MF/GF  +ITEM MAX MF LEGENDARY
1) 1.5 150% 109.60%  10% 25%  1%  +400%  1:200
2) 1.5  225% 120.12% 20%  50% 8%  +425%  1:191
3) 1.45 326%  131.65%  30%  75%  17%  +450%  1:182
4) 1.4 457%  144.29%  45%  100%  26%  +475%  1:174
5) 1.4 639%  158.14%  60% 125% 36%  +500%  1:167
6) 1.4 895%  173.32%  75%  150%  47%  +525%   1:160
7) 1.4 1253%  189.96%  95%  175%  59%  +550%   1:154  
8) 1.4 1755%  208.20%  115%  200%  71%  +575%  1:149
9) 1.4 2457%  228.18%  135%  225%  85%  +600%  1:143
10) 1.4 3439% 250.09% 160%  250%  100%  +625%  1:138

Edited by Nubtro, 13 November 2012 - 06:54 PM.

[Zhaph]

I guess I didn't really make clear my final point in my first post here: to me, the challenge itself IS the reward. Emberos was right when he wrote "when they make those rewards too weak, everyone will feel like they "have" to run lower MP levels to make the game "worth" investing time in," but it really depends on what you consider the reward to be.

It seems like Blizzard wants players to feel that the "reward" is the challenge itself; so many people were decrying the game for being easy, so they gave those people the chance to make it harder.