Feedback: I spend more time suiciding in PvE than playing it
Beginning from the last Prodigal Sun, through Deadpool vs MPQ, to the current Simulator event, I find myself spending more time tanking battles than actually fighting in them. Due to the way PvE scaling works, the optimal way to play right now appears to be:
Why does the personal scaling need to be so harsh? Players can already separate themselves in PvE rankings by clearing faster, more often, and with less health packs. There is really no need to have so much upscaling to frustrate players and prevent them from just playing the game.
PvE upscaling right now is fundamentally a punishment on good play, and that cannot be good game design. Increased difficulty must be matched by a corresponding increase in rewards. If upscaled nodes would produce more points, more Iso-8, or have a higher chance to drop team-ups and boosts, it would at least justify part of the frustration that it inflicts upon players.
- Start a few hours late and get a fresh bracket. Don't wait too long however or community scaling will stop you cold in the tracks.
- Clear nodes from highest value to lowest.
- If an essential character is damaged and needs healing, stop! Do not heal him right away. Grab two sacrificial lambs and suicide them all on an essential node before you apply the heal to the essential character instead.
- At the end of the clear, suicide your entire roster on the nodes, from highest scaling to lowest. If you have spare health packs, use them to suicide some more. Do not retreat, as you need to actually take damage for this to work.
- Come back in 4 hours and suicide your entire roster again.
- Heal up your A-team, and then suicide some more with any remaining health packs.
- Start your next clear in 8 hours.
Why does the personal scaling need to be so harsh? Players can already separate themselves in PvE rankings by clearing faster, more often, and with less health packs. There is really no need to have so much upscaling to frustrate players and prevent them from just playing the game.
PvE upscaling right now is fundamentally a punishment on good play, and that cannot be good game design. Increased difficulty must be matched by a corresponding increase in rewards. If upscaled nodes would produce more points, more Iso-8, or have a higher chance to drop team-ups and boosts, it would at least justify part of the frustration that it inflicts upon players.
0
Comments
-
When the day comes where my strategy to win is to purposely lose over and over, that will be the day I delete the game from my phone. I just play pve as it comes, when it scales too much and I can't win then thats my limit.0
-
This is a good sign that scaling is horribly wrong when a a fail strategy seems viable. I hope the devs take notice cause this might be the point where everything starts to go into its death spiral.0
-
There are actually people going to such lengths just to have Level 370 enemies instead of 395?
Personal scaling isn't the big problem in PVE, it's negligible most of the time.
The problem is starting levels (scaled to your roster in whatever way) and community scaling that drives up nodes while you don't play.
And there's nothing I can do about those factors - well, all those PVE-only alliances are gimping their rosters to avoig highly scaled starting nodes, but that it madness of a different sort.
It's totally absurd to waste my health packs and chars even AFTER a PVE clear just to keep nodes at 370 instead of 395 when there's always PVP to play, where those HP are of better use.0 -
I'm also incredibly curious now, can I see your roster, OP?0
-
Bowgentle wrote:Personal scaling isn't the big problem in PVE, it's negligible most of the time.
The problem is starting levels (scaled to your roster in whatever way) and community scaling that drives up nodes while you don't play.
To give you an example of what I am seeing, the last non-essential node in Simulation Hard round 3 (Dino/Colossus/OBW) started at level 142 for me. This is a harder than average node since one cannot use OBW to deny AP, but it is still doable with featured characters and some boosts. For each full clear of the subevent, personal scaling will typically increase this node's level by 10–15 two or three times, so that can account for anywhere from 20–45 additional levels. By repeatedly tanking battles at this node and others however, I can reduce its level to 158. This means that community scaling on this node accounts for only 16 levels, less if there was still room for more tanking, or more if the initial level already contained some community scaling. Compare that to driving up levels by 20–45 per full clear due to personal scaling however, and it is clear that community scaling is by far the lesser of two scaling effects.locked wrote:I'm also incredibly curious now, can I see your roster, OP?
Beyond the first page, the only characters that get any real play time are a level 66 Loki (1/2/2), a level 45 Blade (1/1/1), and a maxed Juggernaut.0 -
Vynyv wrote:In the current Simulator Hard subs for example, enemy levels can increase by as much as +14 for every battle or two I win, and there is no one with a higher base level than 90 on my roster.
The Hard branch isn't meant or designed to be easily playable by a team of maxed 2*s. It's designed (in theory) to present a legitimate challenge to 3*-4* teams. That sort of scaling is appropriate in the Hard branch -- that's why it's "Hard". It sounds like you're actually gaming the system by suiciding to make what (for you) shouldn't be an achievable set of nodes more achievable.
Which is fine... hey, if they leave the loophole in the game, I can't blame you for taking advantage of it. But I don't think it necessarily means there's anything fundamentally wrong here. If you're seeing excessive scaling issues in the Easy branch... well, that's certainly an issue given your roster. Ditto if you're seeing it in regular events, where early nodes with level 45 opponents suddenly become level 144 opponents after one win. But "I can't play the Hard nodes with my all-90 team without suiciding a lot, and then the levels jump way up when I win" probably isn't going to gain you a ton of sympathy, frankly.
I wish you good luck, though.0 -
DaveR4470 wrote:The Hard branch isn't meant or designed to be easily playable by a team of maxed 2*s. It's designed (in theory) to present a legitimate challenge to 3*-4* teams.
... "I can't play the Hard nodes with my all-90 team without suiciding a lot, and then the levels jump way up when I win" probably isn't going to gain you a ton of sympathy, frankly.
This snark is unnecessary, especially since I pointed out that the same personal scaling was observed in Prodigal Sun (possibly even worse) and Deadpool vs. MPQ (slightly less here). I suppose you could argue that both those events are designed for 3–4 star teams, but then running three consecutive PvE events for vets while making the game miserable for 2* players would seem like a rather unwise decision that should be worth complaining about.0 -
Vynyv wrote:This snark is unnecessary, especially since I pointed out that the same personal scaling was observed in Prodigal Sun (possibly even worse) and Deadpool vs. MPQ (slightly less here). I suppose you could argue that both those events are designed for 3–4 star teams, but then running three consecutive PvE events for vets while making the game miserable for 2* players would seem like a rather unwise decision that should be worth complaining about.
Sorry. No offense intended.
Prodigal Son actually does have two tiers for part of the event (where there are two different "areas" in play, one is Hard-level and one Normal-level, but they're not identified as such), and the single-area phases have easy and hard branches, and those hard branches ramp up quickly in difficulty. Deadpool vs MPQ is supposed to be a linear progression in each phase.
You say you're suiciding all the time -- have you tried playing things straight for an event, to see what happens? The problem might not be as bad as you think. I don't do anything special to change my scaling, and I've definitely seen ridiculous nodes (like the level 190 opponents you noted) from time to time. (I'm mostly 94s, with one 154 and a couple of 105ishes.) But it's not often -- in fact, it's almost always in new character introduction events, and I think it's due to community scaling issues as high-end players pound away easily-cleared (for them) goon nodes repeatedly while pushing for top individual/alliance results. The run-of-the-mill events are pretty reasonable. Not great, but reasonable.
You're clearly not enjoying things, and I'd hate for you to be doing all that stuff to solve a problem that only exists occasionally....0 -
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=23911&start=20#p298940
That's a link to a post by Colognoisseur, where he describes how he manages his scaling.
I employ a similar strategy, with the addition that I keep a lot of my roster underlevelled. So effectively, I have my A-team of maxed 3*'s, my maxed 2*'s, and a zerg horde of mid-level guys to deal with the Trivial nodes. I'm convinced that annihilating the Trivial nodes with one's A-Team is what causes the most egregious personal scaling.
To compare to your situation, my Simulator Hard Round 3, Node 7, with 8 hrs to go is currently 173. Granted, I built up enough points going for the HP bonuses for the subs in the first two rounds that I've been slacking this one, doing only once clear and a couple hits of the Essentials.0 -
DaveR4470 wrote:Prodigal Son actually does have two tiers for part of the event (where there are two different "areas" in play, one is Hard-level and one Normal-level, but they're not identified as such), and the single-area phases have easy and hard branches, and those hard branches ramp up quickly in difficulty.DaveR4470 wrote:Deadpool vs MPQ is supposed to be a linear progression in each phase.DaveR4470 wrote:You say you're suiciding all the time -- have you tried playing things straight for an event, to see what happens?DaveR4470 wrote:... I've definitely seen ridiculous nodes (like the level 190 opponents you noted) from time to time.DaveR4470 wrote:You're clearly not enjoying things, and I'd hate for you to be doing all that stuff to solve a problem that only exists occasionally....0
-
Vynyv wrote:I hope they will considering toning down the personal scaling a bit to keep the PvE experience enjoyable for all players.
I honestly think the devs are going at this from the other angle - trying to make PVE a miserable experience across the board for all players except the players on day 1-30.
Everyone else gets scaled into oblivion and has the most frustrating experience possible.
So your scaling is working as intended, I think.0
Categories
- All Categories
- 44.9K Marvel Puzzle Quest
- 1.5K MPQ News and Announcements
- 20.3K MPQ General Discussion
- 3K MPQ Tips and Guides
- 2K MPQ Character Discussion
- 171 MPQ Supports Discussion
- 2.5K MPQ Events, Tournaments, and Missions
- 2.8K MPQ Alliances
- 6.3K MPQ Suggestions and Feedback
- 6.2K MPQ Bugs and Technical Issues
- 13.7K Magic: The Gathering - Puzzle Quest
- 508 MtGPQ News & Announcements
- 5.4K MtGPQ General Discussion
- 99 MtGPQ Tips & Guides
- 424 MtGPQ Deck Strategy & Planeswalker Discussion
- 300 MtGPQ Events
- 60 MtGPQ Coalitions
- 1.2K MtGPQ Suggestions & Feedback
- 5.7K MtGPQ Bugs & Technical Issues
- 548 Other 505 Go Inc. Games
- 21 Puzzle Quest: The Legend Returns
- 5 Adventure Gnome
- 6 Word Designer: Country Home
- 381 Other Games
- 142 General Discussion
- 239 Off Topic
- 7 505 Go Inc. Forum Rules
- 7 Forum Rules and Site Announcements