The Truth about PVE scaling and Roster Levels

Unknown

PuzzleN00b wrote:

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).

When I left 1* land, I learned one thing about this game and it always stayed true since (I'm on day 330 now):
Progression leads to punishment.
Therefore you need to game the game, put in a lot of time and/or spend some money. I still don't know why I'm doing this to myself, but it seems like I'm enjoying it.

Unknown

TL;DR of the thread:

Staff shows some biased info, with an unrealistic account in a glitched event, dont give any real info about how scaling works besides "it is affected by X more than Y" (and forget "oh, there's this Z here but its none of your business"). People KNOW its not how it works, or else everyone should be seeing way different results a long time ago.

Bottom line? Maybe "dont listed to the ones who hide the info they have, trust the ones that share every info they learned".

Spoit

808SpicyToro wrote:

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.

Again, this is great for people like bee, who've been able to maintain that kind of scaling, but once you're already in the hole, it's next to impossible to actually get it to go back down.

fmftint

Here is an A B comparison off my baseline scaling from the last time Thick As Thieves ran and this run. I had to wait till Scotland Yard because one of my kids tore up my notes from the first 2 subs
Last run my top 4 average level was 125, now it is 161

Scotland Yard:

1: 26/27/26______29/29/29
2: 34/35/35______36/37/36
3: 77/77/77______96/97/96
4: 43/44/43______46/46/46
5: 97/98/97______119/120/119
6: 151/152/151___175/176/176
7: 175/176/175___213/213/213
8: 77/77/76______97/97/97
9: 85/84/84______115/116/116

simonsez

fmftint wrote:

I had to wait till Scotland Yard because one of my kids tore up my notes from the first 2 subs

Why are your kids so hostile?

Do you happen to know how your roster advanced between then and now?

fmftint

simonsez wrote:

fmftint wrote:

I had to wait till Scotland Yard because one of my kids tore up my notes from the first 2 subs

Why are your kids so hostile?

Do you happen to know how your roster advanced between then and now?

Last running I restricted my roster 134/104/94. 4 star, 3 star, 2 star
Before PvP season XII I leveled 2 characters to 166 and a 3rd to 140, Patch, Hood, Loki. During that season I leveled Cage to 166 and Rocket/Groot to 140.
Current T4
Patch 166
Hood 166
4Thor 147
Loki 146

racanrpa

Jamie Madrox wrote:

Hey all. So I'm sharing this with permission of IceIX and therefore not really spoiling/leaking anything; more sharing information. On their testing servers, IceIX built a new account from scratch, gave it a PVP name, and populated the roster with at least one of every character at max level. In case you're wondering, it looks like this:

Man I love that layout on Steam.

This account has played no matches in PVE and therefore has base scaling. IceIX tool it in to the Hard side of the ISO-8 Brotherhood event and checked the ISO node. This was the base scaling for that node:

So there's how much the roster increases your scaling. 5 levels on a 1* character. The rest of what you see when you enter the node with your roster is based on your personal scaling and community scaling. So level up those characters and have fun.

I ve been playing this game for almost 500 days now, have a solid roster, x force maxed, i think almost 10 3 maxed as well and almost all others 3 in lv 100 or above.
Every time i started a PVP thought my scaling was insane. I couldn t win many nodes if it wasn t for xforce. but i thought, hey, big roster, scoring every single time, it s not that insane that the game gets harder every time
Then 4 PVP began... and they were too much for me. I played as usual and that got me from 60-100 position, and the scaling was still really high. but i thought, i m still playing hard, why would that go down?
And one day, about 4 PVEs back, i burned out. I quit my top 20 alliance, played a little now and then, manly DDQ, tried a PVP now and then and didn t even opened PVE. Not even one node. That s 4 PVEs without playing at all.
I saw this last PVE prog rewards and saw KK at the top. I thought, OK, why not? it wasn t hard to achieved that before, and i dont have KK. Enter the sub, of course i cant do essencials, and when i went to the highest points node i could play, i saw there are lvl 280 fights!
So either my scaling froze there, even it s been over o month i didn t play even a single fight, or roster levels ARE doing somethig to get this insane scaling

Wonko33

Roster strength component X another component that comes from playing

Roster strength X 0 (because has not played yet) = 0 - oh look roster has no effect guys!

This information is useless, tell us how scaling works or don't but don't give us insufficient piece of isolated data that lead people to draw wild conclusions

Unknown

I really have no idea on what they are trying to accomplish by sending the playerbase in a wrong direction while knowing what they are doing. They have the info, the data and the means to do the right thing and yet they choose to hide but not only that, but also to LIE.

fmftint

Back again with more truth.
The last time Meet Rocket and Groot ran the average of my top 4 characters was 125, this current run my top 4 average is 166.
Here are the results


Sight Seeing
33/34/34______32/33/33

Criminal Enterprise
43/43/43______41/42/41

King of New York
102/103/102___128/129/129

A Rocket and a Hard Place
117/117/117___149/150/150

Disorganized Crime
55/55/55______54/55/54

A Tree Groots in New York
96/97/97______123/124/124

A Talking What?
71/72/71______93/93/93

Shoot Out
70/70/70______86/86/86

All in the Family
75/75/75______95/96/95


Surprising to me, trivial nodes started lower than previously, all other nodes were significantly higher

LEVELS MATTER

Unknown

Would it be possible to get a mod to delete this thread or something since it's just spreading false data and claiming it as official truth?

fmftint

Cayasha wrote:

Would it be possible to get a mod to delete this thread or something since it's just spreading false data and claiming it as official truth?

Ironically a mod posted this!

Unknown

But there is hidden truth in the post even if the conclusion is wrong: mainly community scaling and past performance affects your scaling more than levels. Even when at 2* level I saw 395 goons several times, and that was generally when I had been competing hard in the past 2 or 3 PVEs, and/or community scaling was absurd in general.

Last PVE seemed easy with regards to scaling. I think people phoned it in as it was the 3rd consecutive character release and Quicksilver's not much of a prize.

TimGunn

What does community scaling mean?

For performance scaling...could you lose a bunch of nodes and have it scaled down? Like purposefully let your underpowered characters die a few rounds so your scaling becomes more reasonable?

Unknown

TimGunn wrote:

What does community scaling mean?

The more people beat it, the harder it gets for everyone.

TimGunn wrote:

For performance scaling...could you lose a bunch of nodes and have it scaled down? Like purposefully let your underpowered characters die a few rounds so your scaling becomes more reasonable?

Yes, but takes a lot of time doing that to slighly reduce the enemie's level.

Pongie

As an example. I was having a hard time with the final hood and mag node where both were over level 200. After 4 losses (12 character sacrificed), their levels dropped to 180. After I beat it on that level, it immediately went back up to over 200. After I let my roster healed, I tried tanking again, but it took more than 4 losses to bring the level back down again.

OnesOwnGrief

I'm of the mind that if you're going to try losing to lower your own difficulty, throwing underleveled characters at it isn't going to do much of anything. You gotta go out there and wipe your best characters. Not retreat, but actually lose legitimately. That's just how I've always thought of it and my scaling has never been all that crazy or my PvP MMR either. I go in a fight and win or lose, it's whatever. I haven't purposely attempted to lose since the ONE TIME Spidey covers were given for PvP way way WAY back when... with IW being first place. Before they gave you 2nd place rewards as well.

Spoit

OnesOwnGrief wrote:

I'm of the mind that if you're going to try losing to lower your own difficulty, throwing underleveled characters at it isn't going to do much of anything. You gotta go out there and wipe your best characters. Not retreat, but actually lose legitimately. That's just how I've always thought of it and my scaling has never been all that crazy or my PvP MMR either. I go in a fight and win or lose, it's whatever. I haven't purposely attempted to lose since the ONE TIME Spidey covers were given for PvP way way WAY back when... with IW being first place. Before they gave you 2nd place rewards as well.

Nah, losing doesn't count either. You need to win with only a sliver of health left on your one living character

Bowgentle

Spoit wrote:

OnesOwnGrief wrote:

I'm of the mind that if you're going to try losing to lower your own difficulty, throwing underleveled characters at it isn't going to do much of anything. You gotta go out there and wipe your best characters. Not retreat, but actually lose legitimately. That's just how I've always thought of it and my scaling has never been all that crazy or my PvP MMR either. I go in a fight and win or lose, it's whatever. I haven't purposely attempted to lose since the ONE TIME Spidey covers were given for PvP way way WAY back when... with IW being first place. Before they gave you 2nd place rewards as well.

Nah, losing doesn't count either. You need to win with only a sliver of health left on your one living character

About 50 times in a row.

dr tinykittylove

Spoit wrote:

OnesOwnGrief wrote:

I'm of the mind that if you're going to try losing to lower your own difficulty, throwing underleveled characters at it isn't going to do much of anything. You gotta go out there and wipe your best characters. Not retreat, but actually lose legitimately. That's just how I've always thought of it and my scaling has never been all that crazy or my PvP MMR either. I go in a fight and win or lose, it's whatever. I haven't purposely attempted to lose since the ONE TIME Spidey covers were given for PvP way way WAY back when... with IW being first place. Before they gave you 2nd place rewards as well.

Nah, losing doesn't count either. You need to win with only a sliver of health left on your one living character

wondered if that might be something like this. I don't care for tanking in either pvp or pve (too lazy), but I also tend to let my characters wade in without healing and come out barely alive or mostly dead. My pve scaling and pvp mmr have never been a problem.