Too high scaling makes PVE boring and random

Spoit

simonsez wrote:

Phantron wrote:

I'd propose make all the previously super high scaling node have an automatic 'no characters with multiple identities'. That is, you can't have Wolverine because he has more than one identity (2*, 3*, 4*), no Thor, no Storm, Captain America, Magneto, and so on.

Are you saying the nodes shouldn't use those characters, or we shouldn't be allowed to use any of them? This is either a fantastic idea, or the most preposterous thing I've ever heard.

It's phantron. It's almost assuredly the 2nd

Bowgentle

Spoit wrote:

simonsez wrote:

Phantron wrote:

I'd propose make all the previously super high scaling node have an automatic 'no characters with multiple identities'. That is, you can't have Wolverine because he has more than one identity (2*, 3*, 4*), no Thor, no Storm, Captain America, Magneto, and so on.

Are you saying the nodes shouldn't use those characters, or we shouldn't be allowed to use any of them? This is either a fantastic idea, or the most preposterous thing I've ever heard.

It's phantron. It's almost assuredly the 2nd

Yeah, those Heroics were totally awesome, and scaling was almost non-existent because we weren't able to use Xforce and other chars.

Unknown

Here's the thing for me - I usually like PVE. I enjoyed the last one, even if it was tough at times, because it was interesting, there was a really cool new mechanic, I didn't have to figure out a way to twist my schedule into knots to pick an end time, because everything ended at the same time, and the subs refreshed once a day, so they stayed fresh. I didn't play too intensely, but I got what I wanted out of it, even getting an Elektra cover from a token. I think I finished around 60th. I'm playing about the same number of nodes in this one and I"m currently #3 overall.

I said it in another thread, but I think scaling is a failed experiment. I think it hasn't served to do anything but make PVE either too grindy (when it's off or too low) or frustrating and random (when it's too high). I think they need to go back to where it used to be, where there were nodes that were all the same for everybody. And for those who think that would box newbies out, remember they're still clearly sharding these things. They wouldn't be competing against us.

The main fixes I think they need to do for PVE:
1. Adjust sub lengths: everything ends at the same time of day, and doesn't drag on too long. 24 hours is the best length for a sub.
2. Eliminate or revamp scaling: Eliminating would be my preference, but a revamp - maybe by setting scaling at the beginning and removing community scaling - would be better than what we have now.
3. Adjust old PVEs with new mechanics: Add survival nodes, add subs to anything without them, etc.
4. Fix the 20 ISO problem: There is little more frustrating than coming out of a grueling battle to 20 ISO. I'd recommend something like the consolation prize be changed to the average levels of the enemies: 3 50th level enemies gets you 50 ISO, 3 200th level enemies gets you 200, etc.

simonsez

Phantron wrote:

That was a very simple roster restriction I came up with to limit scaling because not having any of those characters means you wouldn't need stuff at level 395 to keep things interesting.

You can't expect people to not use any of the characters that pretty much everyone uses. There's a reason why everyone hates Heroics, and your roster limitation idea is harsher than anything we've ever seen in one of those.

And we've already seen that nothing has limited scaling despite some people's assertions that it absolutely would (eg true healing, spidey/cmag nerfs)

Unknown

Heroics don't scale to level 395 because you can't use everyone you have.

I'm not even sure if you guys even know what you want. If you want to use everyone you're going to have very high scaling because being able to use everyone gives you power. And if scaling is actually low it's just going to be super grindy and everyone complains about that. The only way scaling can be low is if you can't use everyone you have. Enemy of the State is relatively low on scaling precisely because you don't have Wolverine for the most of the event. Half of Thunderbolt Mountains was challenging only because you have Thor/Captain America/Wolverine locked out at various nodes. Are you looking for something that's challenging, casual, not grindy, and low scaling? Well these qualities are mutually exclusive.

evil panda

this is most assuredly, at least in my mind, D3's answer to the super grindy mechanics of previous pve's. i know a lot of folks make fun of their efforts, and they do go spectacularly wrong sometimes, but it's good to know that they are listening and trying to incorporate user feedback into the game.

it's not fantastic, but it's a bit better than the mindless grinding...i've wiped out on many nodes, but there is some challenge and excitement to trying to figure out how to beat a strong opponent team. i'm sure i'd feel a lot more frustrated if i lost every time, but right now i've been trying different combos of characters and have been losing about 30% of the time, winning but taking heavy damage 60% of the time, and very rarely winning with no significant damage (goon nodes).

Lystrata

Ben Grimm wrote:

Is anybody actually enjoying this?

Nope. I think that's evident from player involvement alone - or lack thereof. With a day to go on the second 'normal' sub, I've done a full run-through once, and cleared the essentials twice more each. And I'm Top 10. That's absolutely ridiculous. I played the second hard sub once through and haven't bothered with it again. And I'm still Top 20 in main. Also ridiculous.

Seems like even the allure of Lady Thor isn't enough to entice the majority of players to put the effort into this one - likely for all the reasons OP posted.

On the plus side, it's been an incredibly relaxing week. Unfortunately for MPQ, all this has done is serve to remind me how enjoyable life is without grinding day in, day out for digital goods. This is my last T100 alliance season, for sure. Casual or nothing from next season on.

It's so odd, because last PvE was great. Survival nodes, longer refresh times, etc. I really enjoyed that one - and that was playing for someone I already had. Even a new character can't convince me this PvE is interesting.

heroguy35

Capping scaling would make things more of a grind from some aspects but it would also bring back some of the fun to the event and lessen the stress. There are times when the scaling gets ridiculous that I dread doing these hard nodes. It's not fun at all taking the team you worked hard to build and watching it get decimated time after time. It makes you lose your will to play as it feels like no matter how far you progress it's never enough.
When scaling was broken and everything was trivial in a couple events it was more of a grind but I didn't even mind. I wasn't going into it dreading the outcome and it only took a few minutes to clear them.

Now I'm not implying that every node should be trivial because that becomes monotonous but cap scaling based on a rosters highest level. You have a max 4* then scaling is capped at 270. So on and so forth. It will still keep things challenging as a max 3* team with the right mix of characters is difficult to beat with any roster. It's challenging but not stressful enough to make you not want to play it which is the point of a game. To be played. Right now the system is designed to force people not to play in order to allow separation in points. It's silly.

Get rid of boosts and let a 166 team face a 166 team straight up for hard nodes. Maybe 130 - 145 for normal. D3 will still sell plenty of health packs and eliminating boosts will keep iso in our pockets. Raise refresh timing to 6 hours to reduce grinding and shorten the subs. There will still be separation as some won't be able to clear all the nodes each time without using health packs even with facing 166 competition with a 166 team.

simonsez

Phantron wrote:

Enemy of the State is relatively low on scaling precisely because you don't have Wolverine for the most of the event.

I had 395s there too, so I didn't share your experience.

Phantron wrote:

Are you looking for something that's challenging, casual, not grindy, and low scaling?

No I'm not. If I want "challenging" and "not grindy", I'll play gauntlet, which I don't. There's no reason for them to turn normal PvE into gauntlet where you have to play the damn nodes over and over again.

Unknown

If overscaled subs with too many nodes means I won't tumble down the ranks for having a normal sleep schedule, then I'm actually more for than against the setup. However, 60-hour subs without the option to choose when to enter the sub is fairly nonsensical.

atomzed

Ben Grimm wrote:

PVE has turned into a game of chance now.

*sniped*

This PVE has been a major step backwards for D3. The subs are too long, the scaling is too high, the refreshes are too short, and the result is a game that's too dull. It's all grinding in place to maintain position. Is anybody actually enjoying this?

I don''t know.

For someone who is in an alliance with no PVE requirement, the sims is turning out to be pretty good for me. Reason is that i could afford to miss 2 to 3 refreshes per day, and i am still able to keep my ranking. (In fact, last night I had a great night out with my friends, missed about 6 to 7 hours of refresh, and i'm still top of the Hard node!)

In the other PVE, my refresh misses would mean that i tumble out of top 50, and i will be struggling to keep up. I always dread the PVE, because to get a good placing, i absolutely have to wake up once in the middle of the night to grind the essential nodes.

My personal opinion is that there are 3 factors in the equation of PVE enjoyment:
1) Grind - how much grinding you have to do to get good placing.
2) Scaling - the difficulty of the nodes.
3) Your rewards - this is also affected by the shards you choose and the bracket you are in.

If you could afford to grind hard (i.e. play every 2.5hr), then you would prefer nodes with minimal scaling. Because your time is your competitive edge.

If you could afford to deal with Deadly nodes or 395 enemies 'comfortably' (more so than others), then you would prefer nodes that are difficult, as it means that the others can't do those nodes. If they can't do those nodes, they can't gain points. So your great roster is your competitive edge.

The Grind and Scaling relationship is something that Phantron pointed out too. If D3 dial the knob down on Scaling, then Grind becomes the absolute determining factor, and the competition is determined by how much time you have. If D3 dial the knob up on Scaling, then Grind becomes less of a factor, and you can afford to take it easy on the Grind..... as long as you can deal with the Deadly nodes.

And finally, sometimes it doesn't matter how bad the grind is, or how deadly the scaling becomes.... as long as you get all the covers you want (1 - 4, depending on your expectations), you would probably enjoy the PVE more.

While i don't like getting wiped by AI (that Jugg node looks terribly scary at Deadly), I recognised that its a balance that D3 has to do. Some of our community members suggested taking out Scaling altogether... if that happens, watch every PVE turn into a grind fest. As someone who has fully transited into 3* land, I won't like that.

But of course, i recognised that 2* players may like the Grind, because without a mature roster, it is too difficult for them. My preference is that the PVE varies in the degree of Scaling; some PVE should be designed to favour the 2* players, whereas other PVE can have the Scaling increased so that it favour the 3* players.

My 2 cents...

Unknown

I find it somewhat amusing some people are keen on saying this event isn't fun because no one is playing. Maybe true, maybe not... but one thing you can't discount is the time of year... Just after Christmas/New year one of the most stressful times of the year especially if you're working and/or are a parent, I doubt many in those category are going to be playing anything much because there is so much to do as a result of work or family. Heck and there is that wonderful thing that likes to hit you just right after you been financially hit by steamroller called "bills!" Heck some people may also be coming back from an holiday overseas!

Now that aside, does this current event have problems? yes it does, but just cause not many people are playing at the moment or so it seems may not be the result of just the game but other factors too... Now if this was happening at any other time of year, yea then you can attribute it a lot more o the problems described earlier in this thread.

Heck for myself I'm just worn out by the sheer number of new characters that have come out in the past two months, and Luke cage just isn't someone I find particularly interesting or really want. Hence why personally I'd been taking it very easy, but as said elsewhere before the idea of 5* characters coming out or 4* becoming the norm has more or less delivered me a knockout punch! I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in this view either

Unknown

I do understand the sentiment, I feel like the scaling on the hard sub puts nodes out of people's reach far too early in the sub AND certain hero combos are silly at double the level of your best heroes but they still appear in nodes, almost like the people setting up the nodes have no idea how those combos will work.

Having said that....

As i've said a bunch of times SOMETHING is going to have to determine who "wins" in PvE. That is to say only a certain number of people will receive each reward and until tht changes (which it won't) there has to be a determining factor.

Your options are very limited. You can either have people win because they were willing to mindlessly grind more than anyone else or you can have people win because they are able to complete PvE content that other people aren't able to.

If you ever made node refreshes long enough to not be a grind then how do you expect to separate people? If everyone can easily fit in clears then there's no room to rank people, so there really is no answer to the much hated grinding beyond simply making it impossible for some people to complete a portion of the PvE nodes, which is what this has done.

A good example of this is, in my bracket there's a 2* player who spent the entire first sub grinding the easy node to death but couldn't muster much of a hard sub score and ended outside the top 10. In prior PvEs he'd be first because grinding was the main factor in determining your score.

SO which is better? From my point of view this PvE has been better (for me) than the standard grind-a-thon PvE content. I can play on a more sensible schedule and do well because I have a better lineup than the next guy for doing this PvE (my fully covered lvl 106 mystique helps me win nodes rather than being a handicap for example). I still think that it would be better if the level range in the hard sub was more spread out and everyone could actually play the damn thing a bit but I still think a system by which people are separated by their ability to complete content is better than separating people by how much they can arrange their life around the game....

Cypr3ss

Ben Grimm wrote:

Is anybody actually enjoying this?

No, not at all. I would really like the new char though, so it's become a 'grind the nodes to keep my spot' game once a day or so. The teams we're facing in the different subs haven't even changed. It really is simply a case of "is it a good board" or not, if its not, well that's 3 health packs i'll need

Regards,
Cypr3ss.

Unknown

The nodes get too hard because devs do not appear to lock out rosters except they do. Do people think it's just an accident you see all those Thors and Wolverines in Simulator Basic/Gauntlet events? Neither are exceptionally strong opponents at level 395 but they get way more than their fair share of representation even counting their multiple identities. Did people forget that Bagman always showed up in Simulator Basic when Spiderman was broken so that you can't use Spiderman? For the most part if you had all your roster the scaling is quasi manageable but the devs actually know you need your Thor and Wolverine and Captain America and whoever is currently way overpowered which is why those guys show up way more often than (3/# of characters in MPQ)%. Loki is in 3 of the nodes on the hard sim and all 3 of them are borderline unplayable and this isn't some kind of freak accident. The problem is that they don't do this often enough so the overall scaling gets high and then you see a node that looks like pick 3 out of (Wolverine/Thor/Captain America/The Hood/Loki) that's scaled like the rest of the nodes you're left wondering if it's even possible to win. For that matter perennial AI PvE powerhouses like Juggernaut and Daken showing up isn't an accident either. Players keep on think they've some kind of advantage over the game but you do not. The devs own everything in this game and the way they get back to you is very subtle. You may think you've found some secret nobody knows and is on your way to winning easily and then the dev throws you a 'no Wolverine' node, or they throw you Juggernaut + Daken, or whatever. But it doesn't need to be this subtle/insidious. It's almost like this game is setup for you to do well so that a level 395 Juggernaut can crush your feeble dreams later. Why not just impose enough restrictions to make sure you don't need a level 395 Juggernaut serving as cleanup/failsafe duty?

atomzed

bonfire01 wrote:

A good example of this is, in my bracket there's a 2* player who spent the entire first sub grinding the easy node to death but couldn't muster much of a hard sub score and ended outside the top 10. In prior PvEs he'd be first because grinding was the main factor in determining your score.

Agree. Take a look at my Normal and hard brackets.




In normal mode, the first spot is around 25k. I am in top 10 with around 19k. In hard mode, I'm at first with around 25k.

My clear patterns are similar for both normal and hard nodes.

So the hard node is really differentiating those players with a 2* roster and those with 3* rosters.

Vankysher

atomzed wrote:

So the hard node is really differentiating those players with a 2* roster and those with 3* rosters.

Most likely oversimplifying on my part but the complaint of the "rich getting richer" can probably be thrown out here?
If those with established 3* rosters are given more weight in completing the event then I suppose this is another way for them to prolong the 2* -> 3* transition.
I think I'm just let down with this uninspired, lazy rerun after enjoying the new content of EoS.

simonsez

Phantron wrote:

Why not just impose enough restrictions to make sure you don't need a level 395 Juggernaut serving as cleanup/failsafe duty?

Because having a 250 jugg beat my crippled, restricted formation is no less frustrating than having a 395 jugg beat my ATeam.

Spoit

skydivearcher wrote:

I find it somewhat amusing some people are keen on saying this event isn't fun because no one is playing. Maybe true, maybe not... but one thing you can't discount is the time of year... Just after Christmas/New year one of the most stressful times of the year especially if you're working and/or are a parent, I doubt many in those category are going to be playing anything much because there is so much to do as a result of work or family. Heck and there is that wonderful thing that likes to hit you just right after you been financially hit by steamroller called "bills!" Heck some people may also be coming back from an holiday overseas!

Poppycock. Multiple people in the tanksgiving tournament were grinding every. single. node. optimally.

atomzed

Vankysher wrote:

atomzed wrote:

So the hard node is really differentiating those players with a 2* roster and those with 3* rosters.

Most likely oversimplifying on my part but the complaint of the "rich getting richer" can probably be thrown out here?
If those with established 3* rosters are given more weight in completing the event then I suppose this is another way for them to prolong the 2* -> 3* transition.
I think I'm just let down with this uninspired, lazy rerun after enjoying the new content of EoS.

Now, you are on the side of 2* transition, looking at how "advantaged" the 3* players are. Hence, your sentiments.

But, when you reached the 3* promised land, and you are planning to enjoy the fruits of your 9 months labour, you will also realised that D3 has put in place measures to give advantage to 2* players. Scaling is one of them. Bracketing is also one of them.

And touch your heart, if and when you reach 3* land, don't you want to "have it easier"? If you are not having it easier, then what's the purpose of levelling and getting covers?

Why do top players play if they already have most of the covers? To me that is the key problem of mpq, lack of end game content. Content that is not cover related and could differentiate new players and veteran players. Things like trophies, badges, costumes.....

Only when such end game content is released.... then it's possible that D3 will give more covers to transiting players.