Scaling stupidity

Unknown

Ok, i'm not going to beat the dead horse that is the general hatred of PvE scaling. Instead I want to point out some of the more mindless aspects of scaling.

First up, WHEN are you going to make scaling equal across rarity bands? It's just plain stupid that 1* and 2* heroes get SO MUCH more out of each level than 3* heroes and ESPECIALLY the almost non-scaling 4* heroes. This has 2 massive impacts on PvE.

1) If you're going to scale PvE off the levels of my roster then fine BUT there is a massive difference between, say, my lvl 166 3* heroes fighting lvl 166 2* bad guys and another roster's lvl 94 2* heroes fighting lvl 94 2* bad guys. Every level the bad guys get over 94 is worth a substantial amount more than every level my 3* heroes are getting over 94. I would MUCH prefer to see those being 3* bad guys because it would be significantly easier for me. If you offered me swapping 2* Daken for 3* Daken in all my PvE nodes i'd happily accept.

2) If you're going to boost heroes for PvE then it needs to be proportional to their level not a flat amount. Giving 30 levels to a 2* hero is worth substantially more than 30 levels on a 3* hero. Firstly they get more benefit per extra level than the 3*s and secondly it's a larger % of their total levels and therefore a lot more impactful.

Secondly what the hell is up with making a 2* hero required? Ok..... so it's potentially more inclusive (although the hero is, in the case of the current PvE, brand new) but forcing a relatively low level 2* onto people being scaled against their 3* heroes is stupid. Either reduce base level scaling for rosters on those nodes to take it into account or just don't do it.

Finally.... over scaling goons is just too much of a lottery. I suspect they are gaining the same amount per extra level as 1/2* heroes so they become stupid for 3* rosters. A good example (IMO) is a lvl 144 (from memory) sniper making his free deadly shot would one shot any basic 6.8k lvl 166 3* health hero with damage to spare which is just stupid.

Personally I think the challenge should be proportionally equal for everyone but the system is set up such that it won't be the case and that, IMO, needs fixing.

Unknown

From the Balance of Power events I think now 2* and 1* just scaled the same while 3* still lag behind. The 2* gets +40 levels while the 3* minor boost is only +30 levels, even though each level on the 2* is worth more stats than the 3*. Yes there's usually a 3* that gets +90 levels but that usually works in favor of the 2* characters too since getting a low level 3* +90 levels has a bigger impact compared to a 166+90. And no you can't really use the boosted 2* because level shift prevents that character from being useful against guys scaled against 166s if not 270s.

Beyond some overall balance issues, there are a lot of 1*/2* that are just never intended to be balanced if they're higher level than you. Juggernaut and Daken are obvious examples, but even Ares fits the profile relatively well. You can't have moves in the theme of 'mega damage with some drawback' when the enemy is level 240 and it kills you in one hit making the drawback irrelevent. Sunder is quite balanced for 94 vs 94, but not when he's 240 versus your 166.

MarcusGraves

Phantron wrote:

From the Balance of Power events I think now 2* and 1* just scaled the same while 3* still lag behind. The 2* gets +40 levels while the 3* minor boost is only +30 levels, even though each level on the 2* is worth more stats than the 3*. Yes there's usually a 3* that gets +90 levels but that usually works in favor of the 2* characters too since getting a low level 3* +90 levels has a bigger impact compared to a 166+90. And no you can't really use the boosted 2* because level shift prevents that character from being useful against guys scaled against 166s if not 270s.

man yeah, I think my *2 daken with max blue in the last BoP was doing a little over 5000 damage with all 4 strike tiles consumed. its no headbutt at that scaling but 5000 damage for 5 blue was scary as hell to unleash.

john1620b

bonfire01 wrote:

1) If you're going to scale PvE off the levels of my roster then fine BUT there is a massive difference between, say, my lvl 166 3* heroes fighting lvl 166 2* bad guys and another roster's lvl 94 2* heroes fighting lvl 94 2* bad guys. Every level the bad guys get over 94 is worth a substantial amount more than every level my 3* heroes are getting over 94. I would MUCH prefer to see those being 3* bad guys because it would be significantly easier for me. If you offered me swapping 2* Daken for 3* Daken in all my PvE nodes i'd happily accept.

I agree completely. I don't mind roster-based scaling, but the relative difficulty for those with developed rosters is crazy compared to people using 1*'s and 2*'s. I've always enjoyed PvE more because of the variety, but the new scaling requires luck to win any of the difficult nodes. Winning based on luck is not fun.

dkffiv

How to fix scaling in 6 easy steps:

1) There should be diminishing returns on scaling such that 1* and 2* are roughly in line with 3* in terms of power. Check ability to AP ratios for 1* 2* 3* at various level points and figure out what %'s are needed to make them roughly equal. 1's and 2's can be slightly more powerful but they shouldn't be drastically higher. This would also help PvE 395 nodes.

2) Do away with additive scaling and make it multiplicative only. Gives incentives to actually level characters.

3) Balance of Power should be scaled to a 200 maximum. Do not automatically raise levels to 200, multiply 4* by 74%, 3* by 120%, 2* by 212%, 1* by 400%. They can decide if they want to scale characters with 2 abilities to 200 or leave them with a lower level cap. The difference won't be as drastic with diminishing returns.

4) Heroics should have all characters scale to an equal maximum level with the essential character gaining an additional 50 or so levels. Can use the same numbers I listed above with the featured 3* gaining 150%. I would love a chance to occasionally use 1*s again.

5) For regular PvE the boosted character should probably be along the lines of 100% more levels for 1*, 66% for 2* and 33% for 3*. 50% for featured 3*.

6) For new characters I would recommend an additive level boost of (13-number of covers) * 10, then apply the multiplicative scaling. Change that to * 7 or so for new 2*s.

Unknown

The scaling is multplicative and that's why it's a problem. Otherwise when the max roster is facing 395s the guys with 2* should be facing 295, which is pretty much unbeatable with that level of characters. It's precisely because you start with say 2* fight level 100 and max roster fight 200, and then scaling doubles all the levels so you get 2* fight 200 versus max roster fight 395, and that's where the problem is because those two scenarios are definitely not equally difficult. A 2* with minor boosted character is using level 134 fighting level 200 enemy, which is tough but doable. A max roster is using level 196 characters (166+30) fighting level 395, which is an incredible disadvantage. Of course if the scaling was additive it'd likely be too hard for the weaker roster. In particular since the level is capped at 395 this means you can have the max roster scaling go up to say, 495 and it'd still appear as 395 because it can't go up any higher, while the 2* fight (495-100) = 395 which of course isn't any easier than the level 495 version due to level cap.

There's also a fundamental with some ability that cannot possibly work when an enemy has a significant level advantage on you. Let's say your character has 10K HP and you've an enemy that's got an ability that is:

1. 6r for 1000 damage.
2. 6r for 2000 damage, 1000 damage to self.

At a rough glance these seem balanced. It's probably not quite balanced but it's good enough. Now as this guy gets stronger, eventually it's going to look like:

1. 6r for 5000 damage.
2. 6r for 10000 damage, 5000 to self.

Now at this point #2 is unquestionably stronger than 1, and it'd only change if the numbers get even bigger (because in that case #2 is overkill), but since level 395 Juggernaut does slightly less than 10K damage on Headbutt, that scenario never occurs either.

This game's ability was never intended to be balanced when an opponent can be more than 200 levels higher than you. The imbalance can go either way though it's currently in favor of the AI. It can easily be the other way and it'd still be just as messed up.

Unknown

Whilst I agree with all the comments, it does seem to be improving. Scaling from roster is better than the semi-persistent personal scaling we used to have - which literally made it impossible to compete. And levels are not rising anywhere near as fast as they used to, I''m not seeing much over 300.

Maybe its just my bracket but I'm able to keep top 10 with presumably maximum personal scaling so It appears to have got tougher for the 1 and 2 star guys too. I still have to suicide hulk with xforce to beat daken at 300 but Its possible whereas at 395 even boosted patchneto was pot luck.

Even the grinding is slightly more doable when weak rubberbanding means I don't have to be awake for a 4am sub finish....

Unknown

Why do we even have scaling up to level 395 anymore? Wasn't the point of that to combat Spidey/CMags abuse when they were completely broken? News flash: they've been nerfed. We don't have stunlock and infinite turn loops anymore. Slogging through the hit points of super boosted enemies is really boring, more so considering the number of nodes one has to hit in order to be competitive in PvE, and some of the fights just become incredibly cheap. The time is long overdue to bring the ceiling on these overleveled bad guys back down to something substantially more reasonable.

Spoit

mikeydollar7 wrote:

Whilst I agree with all the comments, it does seem to be improving. Scaling from roster is better than the semi-persistent personal scaling we used to have - which literally made it impossible to compete. And levels are not rising anywhere near as fast as they used to, I''m not seeing much over 300.

Maybe its just my bracket but I'm able to keep top 10 with presumably maximum personal scaling so It appears to have got tougher for the 1 and 2 star guys too. I still have to suicide hulk with xforce to beat daken at 300 but Its possible whereas at 395 even boosted patchneto was pot luck.

Even the grinding is slightly more doable when weak rubberbanding means I don't have to be awake for a 4am sub finish....

It's partially the layout of the subs too. At a day and a half each, they reset often enough that it doesn't get too out of hand

Polares

I just want give a thumbs up to this thread. Scaling is broken and it needs to be fixed.

And as someone said, we were supposed to fight 395 lvl enemies because of Spidey and CMags but now they are nerfed, so why don't we go back to fight 270 lvl nodes max as before ?

Unknown

Thugpatrol wrote:

Why do we even have scaling up to level 395 anymore? Wasn't the point of that to combat Spidey/CMags abuse when they were completely broken? News flash: they've been nerfed. We don't have stunlock and infinite turn loops anymore. Slogging through the hit points of super boosted enemies is really boring, more so considering the number of nodes one has to hit in order to be competitive in PvE, and some of the fights just become incredibly cheap. The time is long overdue to bring the ceiling on these overleveled bad guys back down to something substantially more reasonable.

Because D3 looked at the data and found a good percent of the people with lvl 200+ 4 star characters can still beat lvl 395 teams - I know I was facing them the end of the last PVE does not look like they get anywhere near those levels this one as ares in Florida and Bullseye III in Savage land are only hard. Why not look at it this way when they reach that level they cannot get any harder

All joking aside it is about time they went back to square 1 and decide what they want to do with enemies levels and character boosting as it sure does not look like a level playing field to me.

Unknown

The 395s themselves aren't the problem. The insane part is to fight a 395 and then look at someone with a 2* fighting say 220 and expecting that to be the same difficulty, and I'm not even saying it's necessarily harder versus the 395. Those are just such different scenarios that nobody could possibly know if they're even in the same ballpark in terms of difficulty. I don't care about the 395s but I do want an even playing field versus everyone else. Depending on who is boosted and who is currently overpowered the 395s with 3* can be easier than a 2* fighting 220, though it's usually the other way around, and I'd be surprised if it was ever balanced for either at any point of MPQ.

Unknown

Very frustrating when you're a player, need to do a **** PVE event and then OH HEY!!! Guess what!?!?! Blade, one of your favorite characters is the reward for the next PVE event!!!! Welll.... Didn't get that **** because I already have a ton max covered, non lvl'ed on my bench so why waste the slot?? Oh that's right! Because if we don't have them, then we have ZERO chance at getting ANYTHING in the next event... Throw that in to over the top scaling and I barely clearing a few nodes... This isn't fun anymore... Day 367 might have been my breaking point!

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

The 395s themselves aren't the problem. The insane part is to fight a 395 and then look at someone with a 2* fighting say 220 ...

With full lvl 94s and no 3* above level 94 I would never see PVE enemies above 180. Even The Gauntlet, the very last node enemies where at ~195. Now that my Lcap is at lvl 127, my enemies have just jumped to 280+. Makes sense right? Riiiiight!

simonsez

Firebat86 wrote:

Didn't get that **** because I already have a ton max covered, non lvl'ed on my bench so why waste the slot??

Were people really surprised that she was the required character in this PvE? Aside from anticipating it based on how things always work, it was specifically mentioned in the articles about the new Blade character.

babinro

I can feel for the OP's frustration.

I have an established roster...translation...over 20 characters maxed out in levels with just about every character fully covered. The BENEFIT of having this massive roster diversity in PvE is almost non-existent. If I bring in Punisher / Mohawk and Human Torch against level 320 daken/hawkeye/goon then I'm dead, period. My 'reward' for having an established roster is that I cannot compete in PvE without sentry bombing while using boosts.

So again, I get the OP's frustration.

That said...is this really so bad?

I can dominate in LR's, Shield Sim, Season Scores and PvP's...all venues where 1* and 2* transitioning players cannot possibly compete with me. Should I really be upset that I'm not king at everything in this game?

It sucks that I have no chance at all the new PvE blade covers but then again I'm pretty much guaranteed top 5 if not top 10 in the next 2 Blade PvP's. My performance in LR's and season will grant me far more cover tokens to potentially find Blade tokens when he's rotated in sometime next year.

I guess what I'm saying is that this sucks....but it's that good kind of suck. It's nice to know that there's room for success in this game as a non-top tier player. I think if D3 tried to make this perfectly fair for all we'd just have an even greater problem of keeping new players interested in this game.

Raffoon

The problem is that they introduce the new characters as rank rewards. They should be introduced as progression rewards. This is PVE we're talking about, not PVP. Why are we competing against each other for these new covers?

There can be only 5 people in the top 5... That seems obvious, but think about it. That leaves 995 other people sitting around wishing that they had more covers for the new character. And how should those other 995 people have gotten more covers? In some cases the answer isn't to play more or to get a better roster, the answer is simply that those people hit a bad patch in their scaling and they really had no chance at the rewards to begin with.

If the new covers were introduced as progression rewards instead, then poor scaling would still be an issue for some, but they could still complete the easier nodes regularly to get the new covers. In that case, they probably wouldn't care so much that people with 2 star rosters were bringing in the big ISO rewards for top finishes. The people with 2 star rosters need that ISO anyway, and they need a good place to compete where they won't top out against a wall of 3-4 stars that they can't hope to beat.

Unknown

Raffoon wrote:

The problem is that they introduce the new characters as rank rewards. They should be introduced as progression rewards. This is PVE we're talking about, not PVP. Why are we competing against each other for these new covers?

There can be only 5 people in the top 5... That seems obvious, but think about it. That leaves 995 other people sitting around wishing that they had more covers for the new character. And how should those other 995 people have gotten more covers? In some cases the answer isn't to play more or to get a better roster, the answer is simply that those people hit a bad patch in their scaling and they really had no chance at the rewards to begin with.

If the new covers were introduced as progression rewards instead, then poor scaling would still be an issue for some, but they could still complete the easier nodes regularly to get the new covers. In that case, they probably wouldn't care so much that people with 2 star rosters were bringing in the big ISO rewards for top finishes. The people with 2 star rosters need that ISO anyway, and they need a good place to compete where they won't top out against a wall of 3-4 stars that they can't hope to beat.

The format or the mechanics of the event does not dictate the overall distribution of the covers. The distribution is dictated by D3. Back when you can hit shielded opponents in PvP, the 4* was raised to 2600 to accomodoate the ease of hitting 1300. Even the Sentry bombing only works because D3 allows it. If they don't like it, they can simply raise the 4* back to 2000+ again. Similarly, for PvE the distribution of the covers is something set by D3. They are not in the plan of giving away extra stuff for no reason and if they wanted to, there's no need to change anything to begin with because they can simply give you more covers for just showing up in a PvE event if they're inclined this way. If PvE is changed to progression based it'd probably look a lot like Gauntlet and it'll just be set at a difficulty such that only 15% of the people can clear even one bracket and only 1% of people can clear all 3 brackets in the allotted time. Yes they may screw up the difficulty but that's nothing new. There used to be quite a few PvE events where you got a 3* cover for just showing up because the progression reward was set way too low. I think TaT had a case where the final top score was more than 10 times the highest progression reward (which was a 3*).

Unknown

One thing I noticed is that if scaling is supposed to make sense then out of combat healing has to scale as well. Let's say perfectly balanced scaling means the hard encounter costs you 80% of your strongest character's health to beat. Even if we accept this is balanced, the character with the lowest HP characters as his strongest character will still have a huge advantage because regen is static. Over time, the ability to recover your characters sooner will give the lower level player a decisive advantage. A 3* takes around 3 hours (The Hood) to 7 hours (Thor) to recover from 1 HP to full health (Hulk should take longer but he has double regen), while the 2*s take considerably less than that. It's not as bad as when it used to take 12 hours for Thor to regen to full but it's still pretty bad. Even if everything else about scaling is fair, the regen issue alone makes it unfair.

reckless442

Not only did they make a brand-new 2* the required character for every essential node in each sub, they also made it so that her most useful power -- red -- was only available to the top-10 in the last bracket. In the past, you would get that cover from the alliance if you were top-30 in your bracket, so it didn't hurt as much. Not getting red also meant that it was impossible to level Ms. Marvel fully without buying or pulling a red cover. Net result -- more damage (including regular Ms. Marvel deaths) and more health packs required.

Spoit

reckless442 wrote:

Not only did they make a brand-new 2* the required character for every essential node in each sub, they also made it so that her most useful power -- red -- was only available to the top-10 in the last bracket. In the past, you would get that cover from the alliance if you were top-30 in your bracket, so it didn't hurt as much. Not getting red also meant that it was impossible to level Ms. Marvel fully without buying or pulling a red cover. Net result -- more damage (including regular Ms. Marvel deaths) and more health packs required.

Especially since she's bugged to have a 1 hour revive timer like a 3* instead of the 2* revive timer.

Also, they used to have the top reward bracket cover as a progression reward, but now they're tripling up on the reward cover. If they really HAVE to make it impossible to buy in if you wanted, they could have at least doubled up on the middle cover