The Truth about PVE scaling and Roster Levels

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  • I didn't read every post, so maybe he did it already, but since he built the account, why doesn't he raise his scaling and then try to finish the current Gauntlet? It'd be interesting to see just how many hours (and with what cost like ISO/HP for boosts) a player has to spend in order to defeat all those nodes without using MNM/Storm.

    Since they are willing to try new things as we saw with the current pvp, why don't they test a few pve without community scaling? I bet it would be a pleasant surprise for everyone. And once the testing is finished, they should step away and not change it back.
  • (make sure you don't play the pve though or your scaling will increase!)
  • lukewin
    lukewin Posts: 1,356 Chairperson of the Boards
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    camichan wrote:
    lukewin wrote:

    How many times have I seen a 395 enemy? I'll let people guess before I answer.
    0

    I have a max XF and level 240 4herf, and 11 max 3* chars. How many times did I see a level 395 enemy in the Gauntlet?
    Simulation 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, Essential 16, 17, 18, for a total of 9 nodes.

    27 level 395 enemies.

    I haven't rushed thru the Gauntlet yet. Was playing it a little at a time. I didn't encounter a Hard node until 37. It was level 201, now 224/226/226, due to me beating the nodes after. I don't remember what 42 was when I beat it, but it is now Deadly at 268/269/269. I've beat Essential 16 and 17, and am waiting for healthpacks for Essential 18. I might just drop the whales on that node and be done with that node, and go back and finish the Essentials in descending order, to collect all my prizes. I have used boosts to help me thru, but boosts are cheaper than healthpacks, and I can always get ISO thru LR or just playing. Other than the speedrun thru the last Gauntlet 2nd sub for a 10 pk, I've never bought healthpacks.

    I have finished every Gauntlet that has come out, and I hope to finish all that continue to. I don't envy your 395s, so I think I'm gonna continue leveling how I have been. I do think the topic should be changed, because The Truth about PVE scaling and Roster Levels is not clear and nothing is proven, except that base levels for a new account will be low, even with 270 characters. I have seen enough people complaining about PVE scaling, and they just happen to have 270s or a bunch of 166s. Maybe it's just a coincidence, I don't think it is, but I'll repeat, that until we're given an option to de-level our characters, even if it costs ISO, I won't be leveling mine.

    I don't buy into this truth about PVE scaling and Roster Levels. I don't mind if others do, because if they raise their levels and get scaled out, it will make it easier for me in PVE. I don't advocate not leveling, and I definitely don't advocate leveling. I am telling people what I do, and why, and let them make their own decisions.
  • MarvelDestiny
    MarvelDestiny Posts: 198 Tile Toppler
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    Talahamut wrote:
    Maybe it's changed over time, but I know back in my transition days, I could see the opponents levels increase as I leveled up chars...

    I'm in my transition days, months, years...sigh...and I agree with Talahamut. My Easy PVE opponents are generally at or just under my max levels and Normal are generally a few levels above. These matches are winnable but I've watched the levels slowly rise over time and am worried there is no cap. All classes of matches used to be significantly easier and if they continue to rise at this rate most will become unbeatable.

    I also only get a few rounds out of PVP before before my opponents start outclassing me by several dozen levels. I'm lucky if I place in the top 200-300 let alone the T100 (or god forbid, the T10). I was able to place higher back in my early days. The scaling system doesn't give me a chance to be competitive.

    Maybe I'm doing something wrong. Anybody have any suggestions? I've tried the common solution of throwing a few matches with no result. The only way I place as well as I do is by entering a slice 60-90 minutes before it ends and even that doesn't work all the time. As it stands, I just grind until the system won't let me anymore.
  • dr tinykittylove
    dr tinykittylove Posts: 1,459 Chairperson of the Boards
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    i find the biggest problem with advice to use lower levelled characters in pve is that as i level up my roster, i have fewer and fewer lower levelled characters i can use.
  • Vankysher
    Vankysher Posts: 324 Mover and Shaker
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    i find the biggest problem with advice to use lower levelled characters in pve is that as i level up my roster, i have fewer and fewer lower levelled characters i can use.
    I'm starting to see that on my own purposely **** roster but since nobody but my 1* are maxed I haven't gotten to that point of a roster crunch.
    Until proven conclusively otherwise, my plan is to max my 2* and keep everyone within the same level range for PvE.
  • morph3us
    morph3us Posts: 859 Critical Contributor
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    I've only just acquired my own X-Force, who's level 200. I've never played him in PvE, so my next highest levelled characters are maxed 166s. I decided to do my Gauntlet playthrough with X-Force on the bench, and my highest level opponent was 277 (final node 42), make of that what you will.
  • lukewin
    lukewin Posts: 1,356 Chairperson of the Boards
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    I'm in my transition days, months, years...sigh...and I agree with Talahamut. My Easy PVE opponents are generally at or just under my max levels and Normal are generally a few levels above. These matches are winnable but I've watched the levels slowly rise over time and am worried there is no cap. All classes of matches used to be significantly easier and if they continue to rise at this rate most will become unbeatable.

    There is also community scaling, so the slow creep could also be accounted for by that. That would also explain why some people see their levels rise when they level someone mid-PVE, both the leveling and community scaling just happened to occur around the same time.
    I also only get a few rounds out of PVP before before my opponents start outclassing me by several dozen levels. I'm lucky if I place in the top 200-300 let alone the T100 (or god forbid, the T10). I was able to place higher back in my early days. The scaling system doesn't give me a chance to be competitive.

    Maybe I'm doing something wrong. Anybody have any suggestions? I've tried the common solution of throwing a few matches with no result. The only way I place as well as I do is by entering a slice 60-90 minutes before it ends and even that doesn't work all the time. As it stands, I just grind until the system won't let me anymore.

    PVE scaling, is what the thread is mostly about. This discussion really doesn't pertain to PVP enemy levels. That has more to do with MMR. That's a larger mystery than PVE scaling. But the few things we think we know are; get seed teams at first, then teams that are around your MMR level. 25 pts based on teams around your score and MMR. The higher the match is worth, the higher that other team is above you in score (the same for lower). You will eventually get to a spot where MMR is less of a factor, and scores play more of a factor, normally around 600 pts. If you are below that, you're only seeing teams that are available and unshielded, meaning you'll spend ISO to skip and only see the same names over and over. You can be matched only with people in your time slice. Don't think I've missed anything, but ask any questions, and I'll try to give you what I think the answers are.
    Vankysher wrote:
    i find the biggest problem with advice to use lower levelled characters in pve is that as i level up my roster, i have fewer and fewer lower levelled characters i can use.
    I'm starting to see that on my own purposely **** roster but since nobody but my 1* are maxed I haven't gotten to that point of a roster crunch.
    Until proven conclusively otherwise, my plan is to max my 2* and keep everyone within the same level range for PvE.

    An extra benefit to having everyone around the same level for PVE, is you have a deeper bench to go to, without having a huge drop in damage level output. If one of your 166s is locked out, you have options.

    Analogy time. If I had 2 270s (50 cal bullets) and a few 166s (9 mm bullets), if my 270s don't take out my enemy, then my 166s stand a lot less chance of taking out the enemies that the 270s couldn't take out. But if I'm facing enemies that my 166s could take out, then my 4*, even underleveled at 166 (but well covered), could take them out too.
  • Vhailorx
    Vhailorx Posts: 6,085 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Anecdotally, past performance does seem to be a much larger component of pve scaling than raw character level. I know that I have seen significantly lower scaling in this most recent gauntlet than several of my alliance-mates who have comparable rosters.

    I currently have a 4/5/3 Xforce at 166, 5 x cover-maxed 3*s in the 153-165 range, 3 x un-maxed 3*s in the 110-153 range, and several more 3*s at or near max covers at various levels from 55-95. To date I have not used Xforce in pve.

    I haven't been crushing pve recently, but have finished in the top 50 in most of the 2015 events, with an occasional foray into the top 20 or top 10. Sim 42 in the most recent gauntlet for me was (I think) ~260. Global Domination overall started in the 150s (classified as "normal") and only the last 3 main-line nodes were classified as "deadly."

    As far as I recall, the only times I have ever seen a non-goon 395 in pve are the Hulk-only nodes in the early subs of the Hulk event. Goon teams would occasionally get up into the 300s after many grinds, but that was more of an issue back in the days of 2:24 hour reset timers. So overall, my position is similar to Lukewin's (though I don't grind out pve events nearly as hard as he/she does!).

    I also agree with some earlier posts suggesting that if the devs want to expressly tell the community that leveling characters will not directly affect pve-scaling (I say directly because higher level characters will affect player performance, so levels almost certainly do have an indirect effect on scaling), I think that it would be better to do in a stickied announcement thread.
  • I think what people are missing is that scaling is inherently nonsensical. There's no way the game can distinguish the difference between you having a level 270 IW or a level 270 X Force and scale appropriately, because if they do that'd imply they already know exactly how powerful every character is and how much you got to nerf/buff every character so that the overall difficulty is preserved (and then they should just nerf/buff these characters instead of applying a scaling factor). Likewise, there's no way the game can possibly know what's a fair scaling for a level 250 X Force, level 166 Loki, and a level 75 Professor X versus someone running a level 94 Thor, level 94 Magneto, and a level 80 The Hood. It is just a guess, and right now the game tends to favor guys with lower rosters. It can easily be the other way around and then we'd all be talking about how you got to level all your characters ASAP or you get hosed in PvE. I guess due to a lack of truly challenging content it sort of works as a stopgap and it sort of just works out that the guys with all the high level characters can already do PvP for their stuff so maybe they don't care as much being screwed elsewhere, but this is by no means a permanent solution. As DDQ shows it is quite possible to create appropriately challenging content geared toward a certain audience. That's what the game's future should look like, not hoping that you can magically guess what's 'equally difficult' for two rosters that aren't remotely similar. We shouldn't be trying to figure out how to beat the system, and even if the balance goes the other way like they already do on some events like Prodigal Sun/Simulator Hard (because enemy levels can't scale past 395) that doesn't mean the problem is solved. It's something I'm willing to put up with for now but I'm really not interested in how to beat this system because this system is no good in the long run.
  • MarvelDestiny
    MarvelDestiny Posts: 198 Tile Toppler
    edited March 2015
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    Phantron wrote:
    I think what people are missing is that scaling is inherently nonsensical. There's no way the game can distinguish the difference between you having a level 270 IW or a level 270 X Force and scale appropriately, because if they do that'd imply they already know exactly how powerful every character is and how much you got to nerf/buff every character so that the overall difficulty is preserved (and then they should just nerf/buff these characters instead of applying a scaling factor). Likewise, there's no way the game can possibly know what's a fair scaling for a level 250 X Force, level 166 Loki, and a level 75 Professor X versus someone running a level 94 Thor, level 94 Magneto, and a level 80 The Hood. It is just a guess, and right now the game tends to favor guys with lower rosters. It can easily be the other way around and then we'd all be talking about how you got to level all your characters ASAP or you get hosed in PvE. I guess due to a lack of truly challenging content it sort of works as a stopgap and it sort of just works out that the guys with all the high level characters can already do PvP for their stuff so maybe they don't care as much being screwed elsewhere, but this is by no means a permanent solution. As DDQ shows it is quite possible to create appropriately challenging content geared toward a certain audience. That's what the game's future should look like, not hoping that you can magically guess what's 'equally difficult' for two rosters that aren't remotely similar. We shouldn't be trying to figure out how to beat the system, and even if the balance goes the other way like they already do on some events like Prodigal Sun/Simulator Hard (because enemy levels can't scale past 395) that doesn't mean the problem is solved. It's something I'm willing to put up with for now but I'm really not interested in how to beat this system because this system is no good in the long run.

    I'm shooting from the hip here, but I think this is what the last round of nerfing was all about. In the last update video Will, Miles, and Kabir talk about molding characters to within acceptable limits of a statistical 'power band'; they want them to 'match the curve'. By doing so they should theoretically be able to better manage PVE and PVP scaling regardless of character powers and this should result in a more balanced gaming experience (assuming the math is solid). Look for this trend to continue.

    Unfortunately, this is flawed logic and creates a lackluster game. If every character has to be equal with every other character within their class the game flattens out and becomes colorless. The outliers are what creates the sense of excitement and fun. I'd be jazzed to earn PX covers (he's a little above my pay grade at the moment, but give me time). Now imagine if PX was 'power banded' to be equal to, say, Electra or Fury. It's just not the same. He'd still be powerful, but the excitement would drain away. This concept is vaster in scope on the 3* frontier and if implemented universally would break the game. All interest in MPQ would evaporate.

    Anyway, I could drone on but I'm way off topic. My point is that the Devs are actively working on thIs issue -- I think.
  • MarvelDestiny
    MarvelDestiny Posts: 198 Tile Toppler
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    lukewin wrote:
    I'm in my transition days, months, years...sigh...and I agree with Talahamut. My Easy PVE opponents are generally at or just under my max levels and Normal are generally a few levels above. These matches are winnable but I've watched the levels slowly rise over time and am worried there is no cap. All classes of matches used to be significantly easier and if they continue to rise at this rate most will become unbeatable.

    There is also community scaling, so the slow creep could also be accounted for by that. That would also explain why some people see their levels rise when they level someone mid-PVE, both the leveling and community scaling just happened to occur around the same time.
    I also only get a few rounds out of PVP before before my opponents start outclassing me by several dozen levels. I'm lucky if I place in the top 200-300 let alone the T100 (or god forbid, the T10). I was able to place higher back in my early days. The scaling system doesn't give me a chance to be competitive.

    Maybe I'm doing something wrong. Anybody have any suggestions? I've tried the common solution of throwing a few matches with no result. The only way I place as well as I do is by entering a slice 60-90 minutes before it ends and even that doesn't work all the time. As it stands, I just grind until the system won't let me anymore.

    PVE scaling, is what the thread is mostly about. This discussion really doesn't pertain to PVP enemy levels. That has more to do with MMR. That's a larger mystery than PVE scaling. But the few things we think we know are; get seed teams at first, then teams that are around your MMR level. 25 pts based on teams around your score and MMR. The higher the match is worth, the higher that other team is above you in score (the same for lower). You will eventually get to a spot where MMR is less of a factor, and scores play more of a factor, normally around 600 pts. If you are below that, you're only seeing teams that are available and unshielded, meaning you'll spend ISO to skip and only see the same names over and over. You can be matched only with people in your time slice. Don't think I've missed anything, but ask any questions, and I'll try to give you what I think the answers are.

    Thanks for the info, lukewin. It sounds like there isn't anything more I can do but if I have any questions I'll be sure to shoot them your way. icon_e_smile.gif
  • What OP seems to be saying is that the levels of your characters do not effect scaling. At least not directly. If you have lots of high level characters, obviously you're going to do better than the rest... But that's what determined your scaling... That you did well. Or badly. Not the level of your characters.
    That is all.

    Post edited to remove insult.
  • Spoit
    Spoit Posts: 3,441 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Vhailorx wrote:
    Anecdotally, past performance does seem to be a much larger component of pve scaling than raw character level. I know that I have seen significantly lower scaling in this most recent gauntlet than several of my alliance-mates who have comparable rosters.

    I currently have a 4/5/3 Xforce at 166, 5 x cover-maxed 3*s in the 153-165 range, 3 x un-maxed 3*s in the 110-153 range, and several more 3*s at or near max covers at various levels from 55-95. To date I have not used Xforce in pve.

    I haven't been crushing pve recently, but have finished in the top 50 in most of the 2015 events, with an occasional foray into the top 20 or top 10. Sim 42 in the most recent gauntlet for me was (I think) ~260. Global Domination overall started in the 150s (classified as "normal") and only the last 3 main-line nodes were classified as "deadly."

    As far as I recall, the only times I have ever seen a non-goon 395 in pve are the Hulk-only nodes in the early subs of the Hulk event. Goon teams would occasionally get up into the 300s after many grinds, but that was more of an issue back in the days of 2:24 hour reset timers. So overall, my position is similar to Lukewin's (though I don't grind out pve events nearly as hard as he/she does!).

    I also agree with some earlier posts suggesting that if the devs want to expressly tell the community that leveling characters will not directly affect pve-scaling (I say directly because higher level characters will affect player performance, so levels almost certainly do have an indirect effect on scaling), I think that it would be better to do in a stickied announcement thread.
    I'm fairly sure that actual placement has nothing to do with scaling. I basically skipped like 3 pves before the SG release (barely top 150 in Eots, and then like not even the heroic token tier for the 2 ones following it), and my levels were still like 30 levels higher than polarities, even after he played optimally. grinding the nodes down for a few days into the event, before I joined a later bracket. IIRC, he didn't catch up to my levels until like the last 2 days of the event, with him grinding optimally, and me skipping like half the final clears
  • Sorry, I'm new here -- can I ask a naive question?

    I see a lot of uproar about the detriments of scaling based on roster levels, and I totally get it. If it's counter-productive to level your team, this removes tremendously from the fun and pride of having a "powerful" roster (and incentivizes *not* investing in the game).

    But why isn't their uproar over scaling based on performance as well? If there's one thing that's starting to put me off this game, it'll the suggestion that playing well doesn't help you. While roster management is fun, the thing that keeps me coming to this game is that the gameplay is so much more intellectually demanding than bejeweled and its compatriates. But if playing more skillfully than my peers does nothing but earn me harder enemies in the next node, thereby allowing my less skilled bracket members to perform just as well .... then what's the point in trying to play well? This seems to go pretty well with the comment earlier in the thread from the guy who used to intentionally take damage at the end of a fight so it appeared he played less well.

    (Edit: also sorry that this was a week-old thread bump -- didn't notice that when I posted).
  • GothicKratos
    GothicKratos Posts: 1,821 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Because it's an incentive building a deep roster of 2*, 3*, and 4* characters - rather than just building out the cream of the crop and not caring about anything else.
  • Spoit
    Spoit Posts: 3,441 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Because it's an incentive building a deep roster of 2*, 3*, and 4* characters - rather than just building out the cream of the crop and not caring about anything else.
    But if your scaling gets out of control, the roster depth starts to be of limited use. It's a incredibly frustrating positive feedback loop: levels get so high, so you need to use your A-team to clear the nodes multiple times on 5 health packs (and maybe not even necessarily with a good chance of clearing unboosted)-> taking less damage because you're using your A-team-> levels get higher, making B-teams even harder to use.
  • Zen808
    Zen808 Posts: 260
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    Spoit wrote:
    Because it's an incentive building a deep roster of 2*, 3*, and 4* characters - rather than just building out the cream of the crop and not caring about anything else.
    But if your scaling gets out of control, the roster depth starts to be of limited use. It's a incredibly frustrating positive feedback loop: levels get so high, so you need to use your A-team to clear the nodes multiple times on 5 health packs (and maybe not even necessarily with a good chance of clearing unboosted)-> taking less damage because you're using your A-team-> levels get higher, making B-teams even harder to use.

    This is more a reflection of how poorly built the 4* band is, where there's a huge performance dropoff from Team A with XForce, and whatever your Team B would be.

    If you just consider 3* characters, any node that you can beat handily enough with your A-Team to induce an increase in scaling, can probably be beaten with a B-team, C-team, maybe even a D-team, with a match performance rating low enough to not trigger a scaling increase.
  • Spoit
    Spoit Posts: 3,441 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Spoit wrote:
    Because it's an incentive building a deep roster of 2*, 3*, and 4* characters - rather than just building out the cream of the crop and not caring about anything else.
    But if your scaling gets out of control, the roster depth starts to be of limited use. It's a incredibly frustrating positive feedback loop: levels get so high, so you need to use your A-team to clear the nodes multiple times on 5 health packs (and maybe not even necessarily with a good chance of clearing unboosted)-> taking less damage because you're using your A-team-> levels get higher, making B-teams even harder to use.

    This is more a reflection of how poorly built the 4* band is, where there's a huge performance dropoff from Team A with XForce, and whatever your Team B would be.

    If you just consider 3* characters, any node that you can beat handily enough with your A-Team to induce an increase in scaling, can probably be beaten with a B-team, C-team, maybe even a D-team, with a match performance rating low enough to not trigger a scaling increase.
    Sure, but can you do that 5 more times without needing to use a health pack? Or ending up tens of thousands of ISO in the red?
  • Zen808
    Zen808 Posts: 260
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    Spoit wrote:
    Spoit wrote:
    Because it's an incentive building a deep roster of 2*, 3*, and 4* characters - rather than just building out the cream of the crop and not caring about anything else.
    But if your scaling gets out of control, the roster depth starts to be of limited use. It's a incredibly frustrating positive feedback loop: levels get so high, so you need to use your A-team to clear the nodes multiple times on 5 health packs (and maybe not even necessarily with a good chance of clearing unboosted)-> taking less damage because you're using your A-team-> levels get higher, making B-teams even harder to use.

    This is more a reflection of how poorly built the 4* band is, where there's a huge performance dropoff from Team A with XForce, and whatever your Team B would be.

    If you just consider 3* characters, any node that you can beat handily enough with your A-Team to induce an increase in scaling, can probably be beaten with a B-team, C-team, maybe even a D-team, with a match performance rating low enough to not trigger a scaling increase.

    Sure, but can you do that 5 more times without needing to use a health pack? Or ending up tens of thousands of ISO in the red?

    This is exactly the point. If the answer to your question is yes, then that player has both a deep roster, and also the knowledge of how best to distribute the pieces of that roster to achieve their goal. This is no small feat, and the gentler scaling that they experience is a justly earned reward.