Scaling based on featured heroes (please don't!)

hesjingixen

I've heard several people mention in other threads that apparently the difficulty of nodes in a PvE scale up based on how high your featured heroes are. I can't see the code of course, but several people seem to think it's true. If it is, I'd like to suggest: STOP DOING THAT. Having the featured heroes should be a HAPPY thing. You should be REWARDED for having a roster diverse enough to include the featured heroes, rather than punished by having the difficulty of all the nodes increased. Otherwise, what's the point of even featuring a hero?

JamieMadrox

It's not true. Your initial enemy levels are based on your characters' levels, but scaling is based on how quickly and easily you defeat a node. As well, some nodes have built in modifiers so they scale faster/harder than others, but it still comes down to how quickly and easily you defeat the node.

Scoregasms

After all the threads and posts about this general topic, it's safe to say there is no clear answer. Per the OP's original question I think is actually regarding starting levels of a sub and NOT scaling. They are proposing that buff featured characters do not increase the starting levels for a player.

As has been stated in other threads, starting enemy levels =/= scaling (which includes personal and community).

I agree with OP if this is in fact true as it does suck to have a featured character who is not even used outside of essentials to have it impact the enemy starting levels.

I wish they just switched to Trivial/Easy/Normal/Hard/Deadly notation only and actual enemy levels are calculated based on the 3 man team selected instead. I am sure there are downsides to this, but it would be fun to actually try out my less used characters more outside of trivial/easy nodes. I can also get to see what 2* rosters face if I so choose.

hesjingixen

Jamie Madrox wrote:

It's not true. Your initial enemy levels are based on your characters' levels, but scaling is based on how quickly and easily you defeat a node. As well, some nodes have built in modifiers so they scale faster/harder than others, but it still comes down to how quickly and easily you defeat the node.

Well, that would mean it (sort of) scales indirectly. If you use all the featured heroes and thus defeat a node more easily, it will scale harder. This is similarly true for having a good roster.

What this essentially says is:
If you have lots of high level characters
If you have the featured heroes (because they are boosted)
If you play smart and try to take as little damage as possible

You are punished.

Now, I understand what the original reason to all this was.....if it was "too easy", the game would make it harder. That said, I think almost anyone that plays this game will agree.....it's NEVER "too easy".

JamieMadrox

hesjingixen wrote:

Jamie Madrox wrote:

It's not true. Your initial enemy levels are based on your characters' levels, but scaling is based on how quickly and easily you defeat a node. As well, some nodes have built in modifiers so they scale faster/harder than others, but it still comes down to how quickly and easily you defeat the node.

Well, that would mean it (sort of) scales indirectly. If you use all the featured heroes and thus defeat a node more easily, it will scale harder. This is similarly true for having a good roster.

What this essentially says is:
If you have lots of high level characters
If you have the featured heroes (because they are boosted)
If you play smart and try to take as little damage as possible

You are punished.

Now, I understand what the original reason to all this was.....if it was "too easy", the game would make it harder. That said, I think almost anyone that plays this game will agree.....it's NEVER "too easy".

Exactly. The easier it is, the harder it gets until you eventually scale out of nodes or win them, but by a slimmer margin.

Unknown

Scaling has never accounted for the boosted level of the featured heroes. Otherwise it'd be quite easy for someone to come up with an unwinnable situation (e.g. you have all 1*, and a 3* that's featured at 1/0/0 with +90 level boost, no possible way this is beatable if the game considers your roster to be level 130 strength) and someone would've already ragequit over this and let everyone know about it by now. One of the patch fixed the difficulty indicator (trivial/easy/normal/hard/impossible) to account for the featured hero's boosted level, but that's only a wording. From your point of view, just because that 3X300 encounter is now called 'easy' compared to 'hard' doesn't make it any easier, nor does it change your strategy to the event any.

Recently I've been testing various theories on personal scaling and I'm thinking on most events, it is no longer even possible to get enough personal scaling to overcome community scaling even if you always finished #1. If you've ever come back to an event and wonder why everything is suddenly way higher, you're not affected by personal scaling. The game takes the higher of the two (at least used to, no longer confirmable due to personal scaling no longer shown in any way) so if levels spontaneously go up on their own, that indicates community scaling is in control.

DaveR4470

Compounding that... Prodigal Son is just plain weird.

Take, for example, my current enemy levels in the China tab:

Iso-8 Lab Assault I: 1 Level 23 goon, 2 Level 22 goons
Iso-8 Lab Assault II: 1 Level 192 goon, 2 Level 193 goons
Iso-8 Lab Assault III: 1 Level 33 goon, 2 Level 32 goons
Iso-8 Lab Assault IV: Level 136 Psylocke and 2 level 137 goons
Iso-8 Lab Assault V: Level 148 Storm, Level 147 Mags, Level 148 goon.

("Goons" just means a non-superhero/villain bad guy. Not Maggia goons. Just FYI. I'm lazy.)

Um, yeah... that's a reasonable distribution. And Prodigal Son was like this last time, too: Hey, here's a couple of 30-40 level nodes, now here's a level 244 Sentry. Enjoy!

(For reference: my top leveled char is 127; I then have a 104, a 102, and a bunch of maxed 2* 94s.)

Unknown

DaveR4470 wrote:

Compounding that... Prodigal Son is just plain weird.

Take, for example, my current enemy levels in the China tab:

Iso-8 Lab Assault I: 1 Level 23 goon, 2 Level 22 goons
Iso-8 Lab Assault II: 1 Level 192 goon, 2 Level 193 goons
Iso-8 Lab Assault III: 1 Level 33 goon, 2 Level 32 goons
Iso-8 Lab Assault IV: Level 136 Psylocke and 2 level 137 goons
Iso-8 Lab Assault V: Level 148 Storm, Level 147 Mags, Level 148 goon.

("Goons" just means a non-superhero/villain bad guy. Not Maggia goons. Just FYI. I'm lazy.)

Um, yeah... that's a reasonable distribution. And Prodigal Son was like this last time, too: Hey, here's a couple of 30-40 level nodes, now here's a level 244 Sentry. Enjoy!

(For reference: my top leveled char is 127; I then have a 104, a 102, and a bunch of maxed 2* 94s.)

Based on history from Prodigal Sun, the game considers level 300+ enemies to be perfectly easy encounters for the strongest rosters, so extrapolate that back to your roster those numbers are totally inline with the opponents seen by the strongest players. Usually blames for personal scaling is misplaced. The game usually is not trying to single you out for doing well. The game simply hates everyone, though if your starting point is bad you might feel the burn more than others. If you wait a few hours most likely those numbers will go up even more, so obviously the game doesn't care whatever you were or were not doing.

DaveR4470

Phantron wrote:

Based on history from Prodigal Sun, the game considers level 300+ enemies to be perfectly easy encounters for the strongest rosters, so extrapolate that back to your roster those numbers are totally inline with the opponents seen by the strongest players. Usually blames for personal scaling is misplaced. The game usually is not trying to single you out for doing well. The game simply hates everyone, though if your starting point is bad you might feel the burn more than others. If you wait a few hours most likely those numbers will go up even more, so obviously the game doesn't care whatever you were or were not doing.

Acknowledged. My point is that Prodigal Son seems oddly designed. Most events have a more linear progression... i.e. someone at my level would ramp up from early 40ish nodes to the 120-150 level and only hit the near-200 level in the final nodes. Prodigal Son:China, in this case, has a 130-level node as an early gate blocking a series of 40-level nodes (as well as the expected higher-level end nodes). (Assault II is, of course, a stand-alone, and doesn't restrict you from progressing if you can't clear it.)

That, to me, is odd design.

EDIT: My bad - the 130 node isn't gating the other 30-40 nodes. I had two nodes mixed up in my mind. Carry on.... carry on.