Dark Avengers: Heroic - Sept. 25 - Oct 1

Ludaa

I decided my lvl87 5/5/3 IM40 sucked for this event, so I looked in my stash and there happens to be 1 yellow and 1 blue IM40 awaiting isoification...
My new 0/1/1 IM40 is infinitely more useful, and has curbed the difficulty of these nodes quite a bit by feeding Psy.

Unknown

The difference between The Gauntlet level scaling and DA Heroic level scaling is DA Heroic ALSO has community scaling. So what start out as "man this is going to be tough" quickly becomes unbearable. I am really OK with roster based scaling and leaderboard rubberbanding. Games are not fun if they are not challenging and if they are grind fests to get a decent score. I am totally NOT OK with community scaling (or variable scaling of any kind really) placed on top of roster scaling. Nodes that get ground down the hardest the fastest have their level raised for people that haven't even played them once? What?

Change is currently happening, and that's good. I"m willing to see where we land here, D3 has been pretty good about change and communication lately, up to and including a first ever monthly ask the devs in a few weeks. I will adopt a wait and see approach here, but if PvEs don't see some improvements soon, I will be skipping most the new character PvEs for a while. Get those covers in the PvP.

Unknown

Ludaa wrote:

I decided my lvl87 5/5/3 IM40 sucked for this event, so I looked in my stash and there happens to be 1 yellow and 1 blue IM40 awaiting isoification...
My new 0/1/1 IM40 is infinitely more useful, and has curbed the difficulty of these nodes quite a bit by feeding Psy.

I wish very much I could pull covers off my existing IM40. Instead I must wait for another yellow cover to start the alt IM40. Until that his other covers are better served leveling other guys, but man I want a 0/0/1 IM40.

Unknown

Community scaling is needed because the game has a tendency to lowball the difficulty level for weak rosters, but since community scaling serves as some kind of floor independent of your roster it eventually raises the level to something acceptable. As long as the game does not use the boosted level of characters you'll always have this problem. In fact if we assume a newbie somehow has the same number of boosts as an established roster (doesn't happen but that's technically not an advantage for having an established roster), you'd have the weak roster winning almost all the heroic events. To see this, let's say we scale such that the enemy level is just equal to your highest level usable character, which certainly sounds pretty fair. So if you have a max roster your enemies are 166 with 5/5/5 covers. If your highest level character is a 1/0/0 level 40 Psylocke your enemies are also level 40 and probably in some kind of 2/2/2 configuration (can't say for sure, because I can't rollback my roster but you definitely get less covers too). So far so good, but your level 166 Psylocke is really a level 256 Psylocke against level 166 5/5/5s, while the newbie's level 40 Psylocke is really level 130 versus level 40 guys. Even if the level 40s are 5/5/5, and they're probably not, a level 130 1/0/0 can easily beat down 3 level 40s with match 3 alone.

So while community scaling does suck, without it you'd never have a way to get out of bad initial scaling. Or, rather, it's not that your scaling improves but that community scaling eventually makes everyone else's scaling almost as bad as yours so then you can compete instead of just going to a corner and cry.

lukewin

Ben Grimm wrote:

lukewin wrote:

I just noticed in the leaderboards, a name I recognized that finished one ahead of me in another event, where I didn't think they had the roster to score that high. In Facilities, they only have 2 characters, a Lvl 91 Thor 355 and a Lvl 42 Hawkeye 214 and has managed to score 8873 points so far. I've got 6 characters, and got 9787.

This comes up a lot.

Certain people who only have a handful of the required characters are probably facing VERY low-leveled opponents. As a result, they're having a very easy time of things, and able to clear nodes easier than the rest of us. There are always a handful of people like that on the top of the leaderboards.

Thanks for the explanation. I've got a Hulk and Sentry at 104, and I don't think I'll be upping anyone past that, if I ever get the covers. Might change my mind in the future, if I ever strive to score more than 650 pts in PVP.

Unknown

lukewin wrote:

Ben Grimm wrote:

lukewin wrote:

I just noticed in the leaderboards, a name I recognized that finished one ahead of me in another event, where I didn't think they had the roster to score that high. In Facilities, they only have 2 characters, a Lvl 91 Thor 355 and a Lvl 42 Hawkeye 214 and has managed to score 8873 points so far. I've got 6 characters, and got 9787.

This comes up a lot.

Certain people who only have a handful of the required characters are probably facing VERY low-leveled opponents. As a result, they're having a very easy time of things, and able to clear nodes easier than the rest of us. There are always a handful of people like that on the top of the leaderboards.

Thanks for the explanation. I've got a Hulk and Sentry at 104, and I don't think I'll be upping anyone past that, if I ever get the covers. Might change my mind in the future, if I ever strive to score more than 650 pts in PVP.

Heroic events generally do not take account of characters that aren't even usable for scaling.

Keep in mind Thor 2* is a very strong character and likely much stronger than the 3*s you can use except HT (better offense but way less durability) relative to enemies of the same level, and if Thor is his highest level character then he won't have to worry about level shift rending the 2*s obselete.

Nellobee

Lerysh wrote:

Ludaa wrote:

I decided my lvl87 5/5/3 IM40 sucked for this event, so I looked in my stash and there happens to be 1 yellow and 1 blue IM40 awaiting isoification...
My new 0/1/1 IM40 is infinitely more useful, and has curbed the difficulty of these nodes quite a bit by feeding Psy.

I wish very much I could pull covers off my existing IM40. Instead I must wait for another yellow cover to start the alt IM40. Until that his other covers are better served leveling other guys, but man I want a 0/0/1 IM40.

I can only presume IM40 is close to the top of the devs' "must balance" list. Not only is he terrible in terms of where other ***'s are, but the "I wish I could remove covers" aspect is the opposite of their intended design, where gaining a cover is always good.

GrumpySmurf1002

scottee wrote:

I'd hate to burst your bubble, but that strategy doesn't work as well as you think it does. I've always thought trying to manipulate roster levels and MMR is dumb. I have a level 200 X-Force and multiple 166's. My Getaway Plan is at 174, and Hood is at 155. So by underleveling your roster, you're having to fight well above your weight class. And I'm fighting around or below my weight class. I have no problem making a full clear, and am doing so with minimal health packs.

TLDR: Manipulating your roster levels to face lower level enemies doesn't work.

All that's telling me is that the personal scaling is weak in this event, or as Sandmaker & Phantron said, for Heroics it is based on the limited character mix and not the entire roster.

We know your Torch is lower than mine (everyone is unbuffed 94 for me except the guys. What's your IM40? Do you have IM35? What levels were your final Gauntlet nodes?

Unknown

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

Ryz-aus wrote:

Ben Grimm wrote:

lukewin wrote:

I just noticed in the leaderboards, a name I recognized that finished one ahead of me in another event, where I didn't think they had the roster to score that high. In Facilities, they only have 2 characters, a Lvl 91 Thor 355 and a Lvl 42 Hawkeye 214 and has managed to score 8873 points so far. I've got 6 characters, and got 9787.

This comes up a lot.

Certain people who only have a handful of the required characters are probably facing VERY low-leveled opponents. As a result, they're having a very easy time of things, and able to clear nodes easier than the rest of us. There are always a handful of people like that on the top of the leaderboards.

Some people even build their rosters to take advantage of it - grumpysmurf on Fun Police looks like he's mastered this.

I have just about every character worth having (roster is 45 deep). All I've done is refuse to level anyone above 94 until I'm ready for all of them that I want to get there. (I could probably go to 100 or even 110, but 94 is more fun). When the devs have basically said that scaling is based on that, there's little reason for me to have a single 166 screw over the rest of my roster. Yes, it does help, but I still get scaled out fairly quickly.

The hard nodes for me right now are Getaway plan ( ) is level 156. I can beat it but not repeatedly in a pass (so final clear is one and done at best). + is 137, which is beatable if I can get Hood down quick, otherwise it's a death sentence.

In the more general sense though, yes, I've built my roster for PvE, and have had good success with it.

just to add

I have a L158 Lkaden, L140 Sentry and L130 Lthor and the rest are 2* and yet my bullseye/daken/moonstone node is also level 157. seems keeping everything at 94 appears to not affect the scaling, it may solely base on past event performences

FierceKiwi

silverrex wrote:

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

I have just about every character worth having (roster is 45 deep). All I've done is refuse to level anyone above 94 until I'm ready for all of them that I want to get there. (I could probably go to 100 or even 110, but 94 is more fun). When the devs have basically said that scaling is based on that, there's little reason for me to have a single 166 screw over the rest of my roster. Yes, it does help, but I still get scaled out fairly quickly.

The hard nodes for me right now are Getaway plan ( ) is level 156. I can beat it but not repeatedly in a pass (so final clear is one and done at best). + is 137, which is beatable if I can get Hood down quick, otherwise it's a death sentence.

In the more general sense though, yes, I've built my roster for PvE, and have had good success with it.

just to add

I have a L158 Lkaden, L140 Sentry and L130 Lthor and the rest are 2* and yet my bullseye/daken/moonstone node is also level 157. seems keeping everything at 94 appears to not affect the scaling, it may solely base on past event performences

Except Laken, Senty, LThor wouldn't increase your scaling in this event since they aren't usable.

Seasick Pirate

This is reminding me of the early PvE's when I barely had a 2* roster and had to face lvl +330 enemies. I usually became scaled out early on and was pretty much forced to sit the entire event out because I simply could not compete.

Several times I was on the verge of quitting the game completely. The thing that kept me hanging on was that every event was slightly different. Sometimes for the better, sometimes worse. My mentality was that the game was still young so they must have been trying different teaks seeing what worked best. "They'll probably have this all straightened out in another month or so," I kept telling myself.

10 months later, I'm still telling myself the same thing. For me, PvE has always swayed from being very difficult to impossible.
The pendulum has now swung back over to impossible.
But I'm sure they'll have this figured out in another month or so...

Unknown

silverrex wrote:

I have a L158 Lkaden, L140 Sentry and L130 Lthor and the rest are 2* and yet my bullseye/daken/moonstone node is also level 157. seems keeping everything at 94 appears to not affect the scaling, it may solely base on past event performences

They're 190 for me (I have a usable 166). This looks quite fair considering that the 2*s benefit more from major boosts on a relative basis. For whatever reason the community scaling actually works quite well in establishing parity between top end rosters and mid range stuff, and if not for boosts that technically aren't related to the calibur of your roster (anybody can max boost if they're willing to go negative in iso 8) these events would be awfully close. I certainly wouldn't mind taking a level 134 (94+40) OBW, 134 Thor, and a lower level 3* out of the list as that'd create a team with very good balance. You'd have someone who can really tank that also doesn't suck, and most importantly the closer the level between OBW and your enemies the easier everything is because OBW is easily one of the strongest character in the game is only limited because she can't be 100% protected by tanks no matter what due to Espionage and she definitely lacks HPs and the lower the enemy level is relative to her, the longer she can survive and a single AR can easily turn the game around.

Unknown

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

scottee wrote:

I'd hate to burst your bubble, but that strategy doesn't work as well as you think it does. I've always thought trying to manipulate roster levels and MMR is dumb. I have a level 200 X-Force and multiple 166's. My Getaway Plan is at 174, and Hood is at 155. So by underleveling your roster, you're having to fight well above your weight class. And I'm fighting around or below my weight class. I have no problem making a full clear, and am doing so with minimal health packs.

TLDR: Manipulating your roster levels to face lower level enemies doesn't work.

All that's telling me is that the personal scaling is weak in this event, or as Sandmaker & Phantron said, for Heroics it is based on the limited character mix and not the entire roster.

We know your Torch is lower than mine (everyone is unbuffed 94 for me except the guys. What's your IM40? Do you have IM35? What levels were your final Gauntlet nodes?

I'm not sure how the formula works but it looks like you started out with high personal scaling and community scaling is also high, then your nodes increase very little for winning. On the other hand, if your personal scaling is low and community scaling is still high, expect all your nodes to have significant jumps in levels for winning, and sometimes that happens even without playing. Things are pretty different if community scaling is low, but ever since they made it impossible to hit 395s by just grinding nodes I've yet to see an event not counting the Gauntlet (which had no community scaling) where the community scaling is low. I mean, if you wake up and see all your nodes went up by 50 levels, then you can be pretty sure community scaling is the dominant factor here. In Simulator Basic before Magneto was nerfed you could have nodes go up by 100 levels after you woke up!

GrumpySmurf1002

Phantron wrote:

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

scottee wrote:

I'd hate to burst your bubble, but that strategy doesn't work as well as you think it does. I've always thought trying to manipulate roster levels and MMR is dumb. I have a level 200 X-Force and multiple 166's. My Getaway Plan is at 174, and Hood is at 155. So by underleveling your roster, you're having to fight well above your weight class. And I'm fighting around or below my weight class. I have no problem making a full clear, and am doing so with minimal health packs.

TLDR: Manipulating your roster levels to face lower level enemies doesn't work.

All that's telling me is that the personal scaling is weak in this event, or as Sandmaker & Phantron said, for Heroics it is based on the limited character mix and not the entire roster.

We know your Torch is lower than mine (everyone is unbuffed 94 for me except the guys. What's your IM40? Do you have IM35? What levels were your final Gauntlet nodes?

I'm not sure how the formula works but it looks like you started out with high personal scaling and community scaling is also high, then your nodes increase very little for winning. On the other hand, if your personal scaling is low and community scaling is still high, expect all your nodes to have significant jumps in levels for winning, and sometimes that happens even without playing. Things are pretty different if community scaling is low, but ever since they made it impossible to hit 395s by just grinding nodes I've yet to see an event not counting the Gauntlet (which had no community scaling) where the community scaling is low. I mean, if you wake up and see all your nodes went up by 50 levels, then you can be pretty sure community scaling is the dominant factor here. In Simulator Basic before Magneto was nerfed you could have nodes go up by 100 levels after you woke up!

To keep up with the times, I've done 3 clears now, plus a break overnight where they went up +15, and Moonstone/Daken/Bullseye is 178 now, Hood is 156. I've wiped on Hood twice, haven't wiped on Moonstone yet. So I'm +22/+19 in about 15 hrs. My other nodes have increased at about the same pace. The easy ones from 34ish->49, the essentials from 84ish->101.

DrStrange-616

Seasick Pirate wrote:

This is reminding me of the early PvE's when I barely had a 2* roster and had to face lvl +330 enemies. I usually became scaled out early on and was pretty much forced to sit the entire event out because I simply could not compete.

Several times I was on the verge of quitting the game completely. The thing that kept me hanging on was that every event was slightly different. Sometimes for the better, sometimes worse. My mentality was that the game was still young so they must have been trying different teaks seeing what worked best. "They'll probably have this all straightened out in another month or so," I kept telling myself.

10 months later, I'm still telling myself the same thing. For me, PvE has always swayed from being very difficult to impossible.
The pendulum has now swung back over to impossible.
But I'm sure they'll have this figured out in another month or so...

Relative newbie here and this post is exactly where I am. My roster is fairly small and definitely underdeveloped. I'm trying not to fork over a lot of moola and just "win" covers/iso/etc, but it's a slog. I end up sitting out most events after just a few hours because I can't compete. It's frustrating and I wonder if I'll ever be able to play a whole event.

Unknown

My Hood node is lvl 260
Bullseye/Moonstone is lvl 283

And I have to grind every 3 hours to stay in the Top 10...

The last night will be fun...

Unknown

arktos1971 wrote:

My Hood node is lvl 260
Bullseye/Moonstone is lvl 283

And I have to grind every 3 hours to stay in the Top 10...

The last night will be fun...

That's my big giant fear for this event.

Given the recent trend to heavily weight the highly scaled nodes in each sub with high point values, depending on how much of tinykitty Demiurge wants to be here, one of three situations is likely to occur:

-- Main map nodes are repeatable in the last round, but are scaled to very high difficulty levels. (Essentially, a flash sub; most unlikely event to occur)

-- Main map nodes are NOT repeatable (similar to the last iteration of the event), highly scaled, and are worth a fairly highly number of points because of points multipliers between subs and the backweighting of points onto harder nodes. (8 nodes, 10-15K points available; what happened last time this event was ran).

-- Main map nodes are NOT repeatable, highly scaled, and are worth a highly disproportionate number of points (8 nodes, 30-45K points available)

The last option is the one that I personally fear will likely occur when the final nodes open. That would hit all the right "tension" checkboxes for an end of a 7 day PvE, while fully enforcing the Gauntlet system introduced last PvE. Falling all the way out of the top 20 because a player can't complete that final node worth 5000 points alone would definitely cause some table flips, at the very least.

EDIT: Bonus thought: Think of all the chaos of the third option extended out to the Alliance level: 5000 points times 20 members could very easily cause enough variance to cause whole alliances to fall out of the top 100 simply because they could not clear that one node... Hrmm...

NorthernPolarity

Is everyone really having it that rough? I'm sitting in 3rd at 63k, first is at 73k, 10th is at 54k. I grinded the first sub optimally for a 4k lead over 10th, and I only did 3 clears of the second sub. I'm not seeing this "grind every 2.5 hours or die" type of deal: either you guys are joining way too early and getting into death brackets, or I lucked out into an easy bracket.

OnesOwnGrief

I skipped the first sub to join a bracket tonight. Sitting in top 10.

Thanos

OnesOwnGrief wrote:

I skipped the first sub to join a bracket tonight. Sitting in top 10.

Is your bracket full yet?