Unstable ISO-8: Fix the incentives and offer an alternative

Unknown

Cshack27 wrote:

TLDR: maxed out players SHOULDN'T be the ones winning PVE

At the risk of going against the majority opinion, let me provide a different perspective.

PVE is vital for the long-term sustainability of MPQ in that it hooks new players and keeps transitioning players engaged. If the scales weren't tipped to favor newer players this game would die pretty quickly. If max players like the ones on this forum won PVE all the time then the new players would never experience the rush of competing and doing well, and would likely quit early on. Scaling is d3's tool of doing this.

I started playing in July during the Ms. Marvel PVE. I was running IM35 and 1* Hawkeye. I didn't have Ms. Marvel, so I couldn't do the essentials until I hit the progression reward for her. But I took second in my bracket and won IW and 3 Hood covers. My roster was utter newbie garbage, but I felt a big sense of accomplishment and decided I really liked this game.

I'm still playing, and now provide 2* --> 3* transition fodder for all you big boys. You need people like me to keep hitting your high scores, and we all in turn need the new players. They need an incentive to play, and PVE is just that. Complaining that you're not winning PVE on top of your regular dominance of PVP is shortsighted and elitist. Think about the bigger picture.

But the designation of PvP and PvE is arbitary in terms of prizes and conseuqently desireability. Let's say they just switched the relative performance of PvP and PvE (maybe 2* starts getting BaconMagic teams at 2000 PvP rating to help them out) is this somehow more or less okay? Unless PvP is an effort to quarantine relatively low profit guys in a corner the same way people swear MMORPGs quarantine the problematic players on PvP server, it's hard for me to see there being any kind of incentive to purposely mess with people like this. If having a strong roster doesn't get you an advantage, why bother building the roster in the first place? And right now in PvE it's not even an advantage. It's a significant disadvantage to have a strong roster in PvE.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

Focusing on any particular character or even the subs is missing the root of the problem. Since scaling is linear to your roster strength it gets amplified as the nodes get harder. What starts out as a 20 level extra scaling on the first bracket of Gauntlet becomes an 80 level difference at the end. Now resetting the level helps to prevent this from getting too bad, but it was never fair in the first place. Likewise if the character you fight that's got a significant level over you is Spiderman or Falcon you don't feel the effect of their extra levels as much compared to Daken, but it's still never fair. Fight the 395 Thug + Muscle + Hitman a few times and you'll notice no matter how strong your CD denial team is, something's going to slip through at some point. A Threaten leads to cascades doing 4000+ damage. Pistol will hit easily in that range too, and Sniper Rifle is pretty much instant kill at that level. A weaker roster might have weaker CD denial, but when you don't have to worry about any move the opponent does taking at least half of your health (and often more like 100%) you got considerably more room for error. Using the numbers I collected from Gauntlet and other events, having a level 270 character means you start out with about a 20 total level deficit (your enemies start out +20 levels for a total +60 levels, but I'd guess X Force fights at best as well as a level 200 3*) and it gets bigger as the event progresses, but why should you start out with any deficit for having a high level character? Maybe it's greedy to ask for a level advantage for having a maxed out character, but you should never be penalized for having a high level character.

LCap + OBW + HawkStorm with +3AP beats any current goon squad, no exceptions. Without 3AP boost it's a little bit of a gamble, but usually doable if not 3 Thugs. If you don't have covered LCap, use Cap**. If you don't have HawkStorm, use MStorm. Even if they leveled to 1000 goons would still be 100% defeatable.

Scaling of non-goon enemies and mixed teams is a much different problem. For many evil characters like Yelena and Venom, they still suck after being leveled. Daken or Juggernaut become really painful. That Fury, GSBW, green feeder at the end of the first Deadpool sub was impossible after scaling without sentry bombing.

"you should never be penalized for having a high level character." The line at which we call adjustments 'penalties' is blurry. We have bracketing/sharding, which most people end up being ok with. There has to be some scaling otherwise a 4* team could just trounce level 30 goons over and over. Like I asked in my last reply in the other thread a month ago, what is appropriate? You're going to get complainers on either side. I don't agree with the scaling problem being limited to the 4* roster; with this event I bet you see it even at the 1* level.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

Cshack27 wrote:

TLDR: maxed out players SHOULDN'T be the ones winning PVE

At the risk of going against the majority opinion, let me provide a different perspective.

PVE is vital for the long-term sustainability of MPQ in that it hooks new players and keeps transitioning players engaged. If the scales weren't tipped to favor newer players this game would die pretty quickly. If max players like the ones on this forum won PVE all the time then the new players would never experience the rush of competing and doing well, and would likely quit early on. Scaling is d3's tool of doing this.

I started playing in July during the Ms. Marvel PVE. I was running IM35 and 1* Hawkeye. I didn't have Ms. Marvel, so I couldn't do the essentials until I hit the progression reward for her. But I took second in my bracket and won IW and 3 Hood covers. My roster was utter newbie garbage, but I felt a big sense of accomplishment and decided I really liked this game.

I'm still playing, and now provide 2* --> 3* transition fodder for all you big boys. You need people like me to keep hitting your high scores, and we all in turn need the new players. They need an incentive to play, and PVE is just that. Complaining that you're not winning PVE on top of your regular dominance of PVP is shortsighted and elitist. Think about the bigger picture.

But the designation of PvP and PvE is arbitary in terms of prizes and conseuqently desireability. Let's say they just switched the relative performance of PvP and PvE (maybe 2* starts getting BaconMagic teams at 2000 PvP rating to help them out) is this somehow more or less okay? Unless PvP is an effort to quarantine relatively low profit guys in a corner the same way people swear MMORPGs quarantine the problematic players on PvP server, it's hard for me to see there being any kind of incentive to purposely mess with people like this. If having a strong roster doesn't get you an advantage, why bother building the roster in the first place? And right now in PvE it's not even an advantage. It's a significant disadvantage to have a strong roster in PvE.

The difference, Phantron, is that PVE generally rewards older or less desirable characters. Not always the case, but generally yes. Also, PVP runs more frequently, so top players are getting more covers there. Lots of these PVEs take a week, and you get two PVPs in the same timeframe. Also, PVE requires hours of grinding, whereas top PVP players can coast up to 600 or 800 at their leisure before shield hopping at their leisure.

The general point is that PVP rewards more covers and is less onerous, so that's a big incentive for older players. I don't see how throwing a bone (PVE) to newer players gets the vets all riled up.

Unknown

daibar wrote:

LCap + OBW + HawkStorm with +3AP beats any current goon squad, no exceptions. Without 3AP boost it's a little bit of a gamble, but usually doable if not 3 Thugs. If you don't have covered LCap, use Cap**. If you don't have HawkStorm, use MStorm. Even if they leveled to 1000 goons would still be 100% defeatable.

Scaling of non-goon enemies and mixed teams is a much different problem. For many evil characters like Yelena and Venom, they still suck after being leveled. Daken or Juggernaut become really painful. That Fury, GSBW, green feeder at the end of the first Deadpool sub was impossible after scaling without sentry bombing.

"you should never be penalized for having a high level character." The line at which we call adjustments 'penalties' is blurry. We have bracketing/sharding, which most people end up being ok with. There has to be some scaling otherwise a 4* team could just trounce level 30 goons over and over. Like I asked in my last reply in the other thread a month ago, what is appropriate? You're going to get complainers on either side. I don't agree with the scaling problem being limited to the 4* roster; with this event I bet you see it even at the 1* level.

There's no such thing as no exceptions. Even pre nerf Classic Magneto occasionally lost some games. In your scenario you have to hit 3 red matches or 3 blue matches to have board control, so if a Pistol hits on turn 2 and you can't find your 3 blue matches then you take a Pistol, and if Pistol hits when Captain isn't in front, one of your support likely dies. Even if you use Anti-Grav for emergency CD control that's 2 blue matches in the first 5 turns, and sometimes the board can simply refuse to give you that and it doesn't take even a particularly bad board to do that and you likely can't repeat that 4 turns later.

The 'how hard can X possibly be', compounded with the 'well I can beat X if I really tried' is reinforcing the problem. The fact is that if X is level 395 it is quite possibly a lot harder than you can imagine, and that you really can't beat X even if you tried if X turns out to be level 395. The level 395 guys are originally introduced to defeat pre nerf Magneto and pre nerf Spiderman, and if you recall the first time they're introduced in The Hunt, that's exactly what they did. There is nothing in the current game that matches the power of either of those two characters back in their glory days, and even those two were brought down by the level 395s. It seems to me people get lucky on these 395s a few times and think they know how to do it, but all you did was got lucky. If you played in the first iteration of the 395s where half of the nodes are 395 you'll find that beating those guys aren't nearly as repeatable as you thought, and that was with characters who are on another league in terms of power compared to anyone right now. All nodes are likely beatable, but winning 10% of the time isn't a sustainable model.

Unknown

Cshack27 wrote:

The difference, Phantron, is that PVE generally rewards older or less desirable characters. Not always the case, but generally yes. Also, PVP runs more frequently, so top players are getting more covers there. Lots of these PVEs take a week, and you get two PVPs in the same timeframe. Also, PVE requires hours of grinding, whereas top PVP players can coast up to 600 or 800 at their leisure before shield hopping at their leisure.

The general point is that PVP rewards more covers and is less onerous, so that's a big incentive for older players. I don't see how throwing a bone (PVE) to newer players gets the vets all riled up.

PvP wasn't exactly this haven of easy stuff prior to Sentry bombing inflating score to a point where hitting 1100/1300 becomes trivial. Right now of course you get stuff easier in PvP just from the progression covers but I doubt that was ever intended. When Sentry nerf hits there will likely be a massive deflation of scores which takes away the easy progression rewards.

Unknown

I'm not suggesting it's easy in PVP, but if you have two maxed characters you should be able to get top 50 if not top 25 with one or two shields. Vets with better rosters can hit the progression covers as you said. New players and transition players have no chance and get trounced once they pass 500.

New players would quickly get discouraged if this were the only way to get covers. A brand new player struggles to get 300 points in PVP. The game has to give new players a means to feel some sense of accomplishment and keep playing. They will then buy roster slots and eventually shields and boosts, and will help fuel the future of this game. If older players can reliably win both PVP and PVE this game dies.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

daibar wrote:

LCap + OBW + HawkStorm with +3AP beats any current goon squad, no exceptions.

There's no such thing as no exceptions. Even pre nerf Classic Magneto occasionally lost some games. In your scenario you have to hit 3 red matches or 3 blue matches to have board control, so if a Pistol hits on turn 2 and you can't find your 3 blue matches then you take a Pistol, and if Pistol hits when Captain isn't in front, one of your support likely dies. Even if you use Anti-Grav for emergency CD control that's 2 blue matches in the first 5 turns, and sometimes the board can simply refuse to give you that and it doesn't take even a particularly bad board to do that and you likely can't repeat that 4 turns later.

The 'how hard can X possibly be', compounded with the 'well I can beat X if I really tried' is reinforcing the problem. The fact is that if X is level 395 it is quite possibly a lot harder than you can imagine, and that you really can't beat X even if you tried if X turns out to be level 395. The level 395 guys are originally introduced to defeat pre nerf Magneto and pre nerf Spiderman, and if you recall the first time they're introduced in The Hunt, that's exactly what they did. There is nothing in the current game that matches the power of either of those two characters back in their glory days, and even those two were brought down by the level 395s. It seems to me people get lucky on these 395s a few times and think they know how to do it, but all you did was got lucky. If you played in the first iteration of the 395s where half of the nodes are 395 you'll find that beating those guys aren't nearly as repeatable as you thought, and that was with characters who are on another league in terms of power compared to anyone right now. All nodes are likely beatable, but winning 10% of the time isn't a sustainable model.

What, 98,99% isn't good enough for you? No red or blue? Go for Pink to steal it, go for yellow to shakeup the board, or go for green to destroy the board and get ap. If despite all that a pistol might hit, you try to save a red/yellow/team-up/(blue if lcap*) match for cap. So for nodes that are a challenge, would winning 20% of the time be sustainable? Even at those odds, I'd probably skip the node unless I really wanted the challenge/points.

I laugh at the 10% remark, because that's exactly what it feels like to have a 2* roster going against a 3* roster.

Unknown

A 2* roster versus a 3* roster is nothing like a 3* roster versus 3 level 395 guys. For that matter a 3* roster versus 315 is nothing like a 4* roster versus 395 either. I don't like to tell people they got to play at a certain level to know what it's like, but if you didn't fight guys at level 395 repeatedly you really have no idea how insane they are. You're talking about enemies that were intended and did defeat the original Spiderman/Magneto here. They're not just sort of harder. They're designed to beat characters that can do infinite combos. What would be an acceptable winning % against these guys? Even 90% is too low to be competitive because your chance to win declines exponentially as you start out with a battered team. Let's say you somehow start with a 90% chance to win against those guys (would be pretty incredible odds even with max boosts) and you beat them in 10 turns, and since those guys average around 20K HP that means you somehow did 6000 damage per round. In those 10 rounds, a 1* at 395 does about 200 damage per tile, so that's 6000 damage on match damage alone if they made no chains/moves whatsoever. A team that can beat those guys probably has The Hood, and The Hood certainly doesn't have 6000 HP. Let's say you were somehow able to make none of the damage on The Hood and spread 3K/3K evenly on two other guys with 10K HP, so you start next fight with 7K/7K and a full health Hood. Even in this unbelievably lucky scenario, 7000 HP is not enough to take even a weak move from 395s. A match 4 can do close to 2K. Your chance of winning the next fight even while taking as few as 6000 damage (10 match 3s from 395s) is greatly reduced and you probably have to use 2 health packs on the guys who took damage. In all likelihood The Hood probably takes a few hit and of course he has to get healed to full (losing Hood generally means no hope of beating them), and anyone taking more than 3K damage (5 match 3s) should get healed as well just because 7K isn't anywhere enough HP to fight those guys, not that the 395s would need much help to bring your HP to a very low number even if you win. The only format this might even make sense is Gauntlet. There's no other format I can think of where using 2 health packs per fight is considered acceptable, and you'd be lucky if you only need 2 health pack per fight against 395s.

SunCrusher

If PvEs were completely and absolutely geared to the new and transitional players, then EVERY TRANSITIONAL PLAYER OUGHT TO BE SITTING IN TOP 10 RIGHT NOW AND IN EVERY SINGLE PVE...

and especially the Transitional Players from this forum...

BUT THAT ISN'T THE CASE.

Newbies - and whoever manages to fall into that category - get a leg up I'm sure as I got to watch a newbie in real life sail through their first few PvEs with little effort and with the dinkiest roster I've ever seen since I myself was a newbie and boy don't I wish MY newbie phase was oh so easy.

But general transitional players - at least the players who missed the 'newbies get a leg up' phase?

NO.

Who's sitting in the top places if it isn't the newbies?

Well, hmmmmm.

Looking at it from the sum of my brackets over the time that I've been playing, I'd say it's the people who either grind until their fingers go numb or those who game the meta by either knowingly exploiting the rubberbanding or game the scaling and MMR to their favor or all of the above.

Where are the newbies and transitional players in MY brackets? Shouldn't I, as a person stuck in Transitional Land, get matched against THEM instead of YOU guys?

There's something wrong here if YOU are all seeing these players in your brackets and all I'M seeing is you or people who would fit your profiles in terms of roster strength.

These 'death brackets' I'm facing should be YOURS so why aren't they?

Why are you all slugging it out against the newbies while I'm - in Transitional Land - slugging it out with you?

That said, NO, it is NOT a cakewalk for me in any way, shape, or form.

Phantron, you keep talking about the level 395 whoevers and I've got to say that I'm getting confused; you have my sympathy that your scaling has gone out of control and I've been pushing for the scaling to get fixed (of course, no one seems to be listening), but there have also been plenty of people who are like you who encounter level 395 and are able to slug it through just fine. Additionally, I've seen you post plenty of times about how you're able to slug it through yourself without mention of difficulty. Not easy, I'm sure, but you've made it.

At this point, I'm confused as to your messages. -I- would be expecting your experiences to be pretty spot on for level 395s. Die some, win some, have to use a few Health Packs, move on. Unless, of course, you're expecting to slug it through such high levels and without dying, ever, and with taking minimal damage? That seems to be your message at any rate.

If that's the case, then I'm doing it wrong and have been doing it wrong all along and not because I'm a bad match-3 player! I've been taking regular damage from my nodes with bad boards and wiping spectacularly on my other nodes (bad boards and miraculous cascades) and using Health Packs as they regenerate. I'm guessing from what everyone keeps saying that this would be unacceptable, right? I should apparently be retreating from bad boards, joining late, and trying to get my MMR down to better levels, right?

But being that I'm not doing those things, maybe that's why I'm a 2* transitional player who's actually having difficulty! From the sound of it, I'm even having the experience that YOU'RE having where I'm being forced to use Health Packs after tackling a difficult node!

The fact that you keep dismissing the difficulty of scaling for transitional rosters -

What, you really think that a Flamethrower doing a third or more of your highest/Essential character's health damage per round while nearly killing everyone else if not outright killing everyone else isn't difficult? And where a single Silent Strike is enough to trigger Storm's passive damage ability because you took that much damage from a single hit? Oh yeah, and match damage alone can kill my characters within a few moves, too - especially if someone gets lucky! And where escaping out of a difficult node with even a single character alive but barely is considered doable?

- despite the fact that we have more than a few transitional player voices here saying otherwise makes me wonder.

Directed not just at Phantron, but at everyone else who seems to think 2* rosters are getting a full walk in the park:

Listen, it ISN'T easy for us.

Maybe in some of your brackets, you're seeing some newbie 2* roster climbing the ranks and I don't doubt that newbie-newbies get a leg up, but -I- haven't seen that in ages in my top leaderboards and I'M a 2* player. I SHOULD be seeing these same players and playing against them since I share a more similar roster to them than you do, but who am I seeing? I'm seeing YOU guys and being forced to play with YOU guys.

I've now seen almost every single one of you in my bracket for PvE and even for PvP. I have a roster strong with 2* and my 3* are barely covered in all three colors much less max-covered and for most of them, I only have 2 covers for them at max.

But I'm seeing all of YOU.

I'm also seeing you all skyrocket in points - some early, some late - and I've witnessed quite a few slugfests in the top of the leaderboards as well.

Seems to ME that PvE and most every other event in this game is working out fine; all the big boys and girls claim the top prizes while I as a 2* player follow behind.

But maybe, my experience is unique and I'm the only one in this position.

Unknown

I'm not going to say PvP is fair to the transition guys or that back when Magneto was not nerfed it was totally fair how the maxed roster guys totally cleaned up PvE, but two wrongs doesn't make a right. The game may have problem elsewhere unfavorable to the transition guys but PvE isn't one of them, and sure the transition guys vastly outnumber the max rosters but unless people are planning to quit the game once they get characters leveled up, you'll eventually hit the same issues here. On most events it is possible to stay competitive because scaling is reset often enough, or the event doesn't last long enough, to be a significant factor. Like I said, for a 270 versus 166 you started out with nodes that are 20 levels higher at the beginning of Gauntlet, and by the end of the Gauntlet that goes up to +80 levels, and this is an event that has no other source of scaling besides your personal. Did my X Force suddenly become stronger in the 3 days that the Gauntlet took place to warrant enemies going from level 120 instead of 100 (versus a 3* max roster) to 395 instead of 315? Of course not. There's a similar factor for 3* versus 2* and it only gets worse as time passes because it fundamentally make no sense. If my 270 is worth +20 levels of difficulty at the start of the Gauntlet why is he suddenly worth +80 levels at the end of the Gauntlet? For a very short event like Deadpool was MPQ it's manageable because nothing in the event gets past around level 300 no matter how hard you grinded and while that's still a disadvantage, it's within what can be made up with more playing and more boosts. But on events that do not reset often you quickly get to a point where the sheer levels outweight anything else. Besides, why should players put up with an inherently unfair mechanism just because it's reset before it becomes totally unreasonable? X Force is not worth +60 total levels over the strongest 3* (+20 levels on all enemies is +60 total), and just because you can handle it when it's 100 versus 120 doesn't mean it's fair. You're still operating at a significant disadvantage.

I'm sure it feels those nodes are hard as a transition player, but a level 395 enemy has a 200 level advantage over a minor boosted 3* (196) which is probably the limit of an effectiveness of a 4* as well. A 2* is likely running a minor boosted 2* (134), and if you're fighting guys who are level 334 with that kind of roster that's just crazy talk because it will be a one way beatdown facing that kind of deficit without The Hood (OBW is usable in this event because she's boosted, but in general you'd need The Hood).

Unknown

Right now my top 10 is 5 maxed 2* rosters, 4 maxed 3* rosters, and one transitioning 3* roster. That doesn't really support the "2* players have it SO MUCH EASIER than 3* players" whining.

As usual, the "veterans' " complaints boil down to "why can't I get top rewards easily and people without maxed 3*s get nothing" Which would make mpq a dead game really quick. And d3p doesn't owe you a dang thing.

SunCrusher

Well definitely two wrongs don't make a right for sure!

I guess what I'm having difficulty understanding is that I experience the same thing that you do, but obviously on a smaller scale if only because my characters aren't at that caliber and even AT that smaller scale, it sucks because even what appears to be a small change in level can make a big difference - especially if you're not running any HP-heavy characters and OBW and CStorm are squishy and my Steve Rogers is 2 covers only.

I personally think, though, that the situation on a whole needs a work-through and not just on the higher end of things. Problem is, I personally can't really think of a not-so-complicated way to tackle such an issue. There's the newbies grabbing top rewards, but there's also the late-joiners grabbing all the rewards for minimal effort. There's the scaling going crazy for people like you, but the scaling sure isn't doing me any favors, either, even though I'm transitional and I've been regularly wiping out and using the free Health Packs.

I honestly do NOT think that transitional players have it easier in PvE because otherwise, I ought to be top 10 all the time. Other forummites around my caliber ought to be top 10, but I don't think they are, either, unless they're playing the meta game heavily. As it is, I'm hitting just high enough to grab the lowest hanging 'needed for the next PvE/event character' and that's it and not from a lack of effort as my points totals usually square up pretty well.

So, really, I'm neither seeing nor understanding where everyone's coming up with the '2* rosters have it easy in PvE' idea.

Is it because everyone else is heavily gaming the meta and I'm not and so I'm stuck somewhere in this whole mess completely aside from everyone else? Is everyone else's MMR so low that they're getting stuck with the newbies while my MMR is so high I'm seeing you guys/guys of the full 3* roster caliber at the top all the time?

I've seen a transitional place in the top 10 maybe ONCE in a grand total of 5 PvEs and it was in the event where, as everyone said, the hardcore players were taking it easy.

Where ARE these transitionals you're all seeing dominating PvE? They're never in my brackets, that's for sure!

Unknown

And as far as "but I want the new Ms Marvel and it's not fair" goes - any veteran, if they wish, can skip every battle with characters over 250 throughout the entire event and crack top50 for two covers easily. I haven't touched Congo or Venezuela (right now at 395 and 340 respectively) since they appeared and I'm sitting in top 20 - for all THREE covers. Let some poor grinding sap have his freaking green Xforce and grab your 1000 iso from the next PvP

Unknown

With the way current PvE events are structured it'd be weird if max rosters do not dominate the top of the leaderboard if max roster indeed are facing the same relative difficulty as transition players. After all, if the difficulty is truly equal then the deciding factor would be time and extra resources (boosts mostly). Unless there's some secret movement for hardcore players to have other accounts, both of these factors are overwhelmingly in favor of the max roster compared to a transition player, so the fact that the leaderboard is not dominated says the relative difficulty is much lower for the transition player and it has to be significantly lower to overcome the rather significant advantage max roster wields.

While a game dominated by max rosters wouldn't necessarily be all that good, it doesn't mean you should try to achieve this through rather unfair mechanisms. PvP is heavily dominated by strong rosters, so what if BaconMagic randomly shows up at 2000 rating for anyone that's a transition player (say, anyone with no characters above level 100)? That'll certainly restore a lot of parity but that can hardly be considered a fair way to balance things. It should be noted that the max roster's advantage in PvP/PvE is supposed be an inherent part of the game. After all, if having characters maxed out offered you no advantages whatsoever, why would anyone spend money or even play the game for extended time? And it doesn't feel fair because the criteria used for the level is arbitary and nobody really knows who is right. It's probably safe to say having X Force at 270 doesn't deserve level 395 enemies, but does having pre nerf Magneto at 166 deserve level 395 enemies? Of course a lot of people will tell you it's way too hard but on the other hand he's also unbelievably powerful for PvE, and back in those days you might be only fighting low 300s (probably because there was no need to level a 4* to trigger additional scaling).

How can anyone, let alone a formula, possibly be able to tell that a max roster with pre nerf Magneto fighting level 300 is totally the same as a transition player running a level 94 Storm, 3/3/3 featured character, and 94 Thor against level 180 opponents? In this case the advantage could easily go to Magneto, but it wouldn't be impossible if the 2* had the edge too. The scaling formula was probably very favorable to the max rosters in the past and the leaderboard reflected that but now it's firmly in the other direction, and even if they swing it back again that doesn't somehow make everything okay because it's just a different group of people getting screwed. The underlying problem is that it's just crazy talk for anyone to try to look at all vastly different capability roster and say, "Level 300 against your roster is totally the same as level 173 against that guy's roster, trust me!"

Unknown

Well, back in the day all it took for a newbie to do great at PvE was to own at least one cover of the essential character and have a couple of the nodes be in the desert, so I can't imagine it's any BETTER for them now

And there's been sharding/deathbrackets so it's not like they aren't trying to make sure transitioning players get rewards in PvP also

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

It should be noted that the max roster's advantage in PvP/PvE is supposed be an inherent part of the game. After all, if having characters maxed out offered you no advantages whatsoever, why would anyone spend money or even play the game for extended time?

"Supposed" is a strong word there. IS it supposed to be an inherent part of the game? Says who?

The game depends on constant new blood, which means they have to design the game so that new players can progress. If it's significantly easier for veterans to get rewards than newbies, the newbies rarely get anything and don't progress, and the game dies. So they HAVE to find a way to level out the field for new players

Since you're the one making the claim that you don't get advantages from developing your roster, and indeed are DISADVANTAGED by doing so, doesn't that beg the question: so why ARE you still playing?

Unknown

gamar wrote:

Phantron wrote:

It should be noted that the max roster's advantage in PvP/PvE is supposed be an inherent part of the game. After all, if having characters maxed out offered you no advantages whatsoever, why would anyone spend money or even play the game for extended time?

"Supposed" is a strong word there. IS it supposed to be an inherent part of the game? Says who?

The game depends on constant new blood, which means they have to design the game so that new players can progress. If it's significantly easier for veterans to get rewards than newbies, the newbies rarely get anything and don't progress, and the game dies. So they HAVE to find a way to level out the field for new players

Since you're the one making the claim that you don't get advantages from developing your roster, and indeed are DISADVANTAGED by doing so, doesn't that beg the question: so why ARE you still playing?

If leveling characters doesn't give you an advantage why even have levels or covers? If the goal is for everything to be fair then characters should be more like Street Fighter where everyone has the same stats regardless of when you played the game. Since the game clearly doesn't work like this and that it costs considerable time/money to get your characters one has to assume there has to be some kind of advantage to be gained. I don't subscribe to the theory that this advantage has to be significant because it's somehow really hard, but you shouldn't be at a disadvantage. As for why I continue to play the game? Maybe because it's a pretty good game and I'd like to see it better? This problem is usually disguised pretty well due to the constant resetting of the difficulty but it's still present so it is worth pointing out what the problem is just because it's less severe in other iterations of PvE.

For all the complaints about PvP and MMR, at least PvP the game doesn't create artifical level 395 teams for you to fight if you're doing particularly well in PvP.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

If leveling characters doesn't give you an advantage why even have levels or covers? If the goal is for everything to be fair then characters should be more like Street Fighter where everyone has the same stats regardless of when you played the game. Since the game clearly doesn't work like this and that it costs considerable time/money to get your characters one has to assume there has to be some kind of advantage to be gained.

Because people like to collect stuff, and collecting stuff keeps the game from getting stale. It's just a carrot, you don't get any more "powerful" for collecting all the flags in Assassin's Creed, either

I mean, all the veterans discussing this right now have a roster of maxed 3*s and 4*s including maxed sentry, maxed ldaken, maxed hood... you could get automatic first place in every event and not get any more "powerful." And the event under question is giving a freaking TWO STAR CHARACTER. And a BAD one at that. So if it's all about "gaining an advantage" why would you even care about winning ANY events at this point?

Unknown

Maybe someone can explain this to me, because for the life of me I can't understand why we don't have something similar to the following. (Numbers are arbitrary)

Take the Gauntlet, but remove scaling.

Node 1 - Level 10 guys
Node 2 - Level 20 guys
Node 3 - Level 30 guys
Node 10 - Level 100 guys (2* prize)
Node 20 - Level 200 guys (Mid Tier 3* prize)
Node 30 - Level 300 guys
Node 40 - Level 395 guys (4* or Top Tier 3* prize)

Your current roster only takes you so far, and then you just cant go any farther no matter how many boosts you use. But you just might make the next reward tier, so keep fighting.

Unknown

Paintsville wrote:

Maybe someone can explain this to me, because for the life of me I can't understand why we don't have something similar to the following. (Numbers are arbitrary)

Take the Gauntlet, but remove scaling.

Node 1 - Level 10 guys
Node 2 - Level 20 guys
Node 3 - Level 30 guys
Node 10 - Level 100 guys (2* prize)
Node 20 - Level 200 guys (Mid Tier 3* prize)
Node 30 - Level 300 guys
Node 40 - Level 395 guys (4* or Top Tier 3* prize)

Your current roster only takes you so far, and then you just cant go any farther no matter how many boosts you use. But you just might make the next reward tier, so keep fighting.

The difficulty of PvE should be static and the strength of your roster can be dynamically increased (like Balance of Power) to make up for roster strength, not the other way around. The worst possible outcome for Balance of Power is that you're no stronger than anyone else. But you're not weaker than someone else for having stronger characters, which is happening a lot in PvE now.