Plea to address pve scaling

Unknown

This is the problem with scaling in a nutshell to me.

I've had a covered XForce since 'right' after the buff. Pre-buff he was floating around 110 or so, just random ISO here and there. After the buff, I took him to 166 for a long time, and didn't even think of going beyond that. (He's at 177 now, I'll explain in a moment)

Essentially, I was mortified that if I leveled up my XF, I would instantly 'prevent' myself from doing PvE, there are others in my alliance who have their XF at 166 for similar fears. About 2-3 months ago, as a collective, my alliance said 'screw PvE'. that's why I've periodically put ISO into XF since then, but between STUPID scaling, and frankly rewards that don't measure up to the work put in, PvE has become a joke. I do PvE when its 'not time' to do PvP yet, I'll clear al lthe grey and yellow nodes, then cherry pick red nodes that I can clear without getting hit or that don't have Ares.

Something major has to change for PvE. The reward structure needs an overhaul, if you are fighting lvl 300 goons or 200+ Venom and Ares, then 95% of the rewards are 'just ISO' and usually not enough ISO to warrant the level of effort. If I have to boost and bring my A team, then hope for a good board and good luck in order to get past a node, then '70 ISO' is pretty much an insult.

Either fix scaling, or change the rewards based on the 'color' of the node. If I can get a 3* cover, then it might be worth putting on the A team (which I assume for most people isn't even their fun team).
- Unreall

TxMoose

I'm not sure I believe the claim that character levels don't affect scaling. Up until recently I only had a roster up to 94s. The second half of last season I took a couple of *** guys (that I hardly ever play) to 104 and started pushing Lthor and loki higher, but only for pvp - have never played them in pve. I have never seen opponents as high as 200 and SY VII is currently 237. How I'm supposed to take that on with my 94s is beyond me. It would be one thing if some of the top ** guys were buffed, but mags cap and torch don't get it done. I don't even have cap and torch fully leveled. Further complicating things is the *** characters buffed here are either recently released or recently unvaulted (and **** slow anyway), so my *** options are 2 cover kk or 3 cover cyc. Sorry but those 2 nodes (VI and VII) are stupid. Even my 140 Lthor would be dicey against them.

Nick441234

Must agree that the scaling is bad. In the current Scotland Yard VII event I haven't even fought it once yet and they are all levelled at 237. The max level of any of my characters is 128. I'm all for making it tough to win, but I simply have no chance with such a difference in levels that I wont even bother fighting them.

dkffiv

I've got 4 maxed 4* and 24 maxed 3* and I don't see a too much of a problem with scaling. Capping scaling at 230 is too low, at that level I can use any team I want and win quite easily. I wouldn't mind seeing it capped at 300, at 395 I have to bring one of my 4 or so top tier PvE teams to win.

The only problem with scaling is characters get broken at certain levels with Hood and Jugg being the most obvious, Iron Fist is fairly obnoxious too. Daken and Ares are close, Moonstone seems about perfect. OBW is probably just past the border of what I would consider fair (especially if the team is setup in such a way to allow her to use espionage).

MarvelDestiny

puppychow wrote:

Ah! But how will D3 sell heal packs otherwise? you can't expect to walk into a difficult node and leave unscathed. That's simply bad for business from D3's perspective. So chin up, support D3, and buy health packs!

Buying health packs is one thing, but when the nodes are unbeatable? Why play at all?

MarvelDestiny

Scoregasms wrote:

...currently questioning their future play in this game as my definition of fun is definitely not the same as the developers.

Yeah, I think I remember having fun playing mpq too...

slidecage

LOL those two last goon nods in the 2nd stage of the PVE this time. Even without playing them they GO UP. So used my WOLV . Ares and Black to play them down to 1 day 18 hours . took them from 150 to 280/ They jumped from 110 to 150 today without even playing them so thought Might as well Play them and grind them to get at least some points out of them. 10K + goons are no fun. HITTING them with ares is though

if you have black widow 2 star you always got a chance against no matter what level an all GOON sqad is , that is if your lucky and get tons of blue what keeps Pushing the counters up

Eddiemon

Azoic wrote:

I kmow this keeps coming around, and we have yet to get a response. First off, why in the world is there community scaling??

So that the winner isn't the person who clears every node religiously according to a clock. As nodes become 'unbeatabale' for you you drop back in the placings. The idea is to prevent the game from becoming a pure time sink. Although if you are willing to waste the money on Health Packs the game won't actively try to stop you.

It also encourages people to play early and join brackets, because they can clear all the missions and get all the rewards, whereas leaving it til the last 3 hours and hoping to snipe placement rewards may leave very few nodes that can actually be cleared for ISO rewards.

simonsez

Eddiemon wrote:

So that the winner isn't the person who clears every node religiously according to a clock.

What? That IS exactly who wins.

MarvelDestiny

slidecage wrote:

LOL those two last goon nods in the 2nd stage of the PVE this time. Even without playing them they GO UP. So used my WOLV . Ares and Black to play them down to 1 day 18 hours . took them from 150 to 280/ They jumped from 110 to 150 today without even playing them so thought Might as well Play them and grind them to get at least some points out of them. 10K + goons are no fun. HITTING them with ares is though

if you have black widow 2 star you always got a chance against no matter what level an all GOON sqad is , that is if your lucky and get tons of blue what keeps Pushing the counters up

Yeah, I watched Scotland Yard VII scale from the 180s to the upper 220s since the sub-event opened; and I haven't touched them yet. When my max roster lvls are just under 90, that isn't fun, it's torture.

Some of the players in my Alliance agree with you and recommend I respec OBW (I have her at 535) and use her for all goon battles. I'm not against that but if I have to use her all the time why do I have all these other characters in my roster? It's like OBW is the junior pre-nerf thoress and if I want to compete with COMMUNITY scaling in PVE she'd better lead the charge every time.

dkffiv

MarvelDestiny wrote:

slidecage wrote:

LOL those two last goon nods in the 2nd stage of the PVE this time. Even without playing them they GO UP. So used my WOLV . Ares and Black to play them down to 1 day 18 hours . took them from 150 to 280/ They jumped from 110 to 150 today without even playing them so thought Might as well Play them and grind them to get at least some points out of them. 10K + goons are no fun. HITTING them with ares is though

if you have black widow 2 star you always got a chance against no matter what level an all GOON sqad is , that is if your lucky and get tons of blue what keeps Pushing the counters up

Yeah, I watched Scotland Yard VII scale from the 180s to the upper 220s since the sub-event opened; and I haven't touched them yet. When my max roster lvls are just under 90, that isn't fun, it's torture.

Some of the players in my Alliance agree with you and recommend I respec OBW (I have her at 535) and use her for all goon battles. I'm not against that but if I have to use her all the time why do I have all these other characters in my roster? It's like OBW is the junior pre-nerf thoress and if I want to compete with COMMUNITY scaling in PVE she'd better lead the charge every time.

If you want you can use 1* Storm 1* Hawkeye and a DPS instead. Captain America is great too. You don't have to use OBW, she's just very reliable at what she does. I don't use her anymore because I believe some 3*'s do it better but she is a very good character.

Unknown

If there is no community scaling then whoever plays last always wins. It's because nodes get harder over time that playing at the end is very dangerous because while it's advantageous play later in terms of points, they're also harder (sometimes much harder) to beat. Looking at the rate people climb it's pretty clear most people are still thinking they can get away with clearing at the end which only works if you have god mode. Of course the event involved matters too. THe worse the scaling the more it favors playing early because the quicker the nodes get to a point where nobody can reliably beat them. The same strategy would not work well for say Deadpool vs MPQ which has very low scaling. But really in general having points earlier is almost always better than having points later in PvE unless you're planning to buy health packs to make a run at the end when everything is at their highest scaling.

Unknown

slidecage wrote:

LOL those two last goon nods in the 2nd stage of the PVE this time. Even without playing them they GO UP. So used my WOLV . Ares and Black to play them down to 1 day 18 hours . took them from 150 to 280/ They jumped from 110 to 150 today without even playing them so thought Might as well Play them and grind them to get at least some points out of them. 10K + goons are no fun. HITTING them with ares is though

if you have black widow 2 star you always got a chance against no matter what level an all GOON sqad is , that is if your lucky and get tons of blue what keeps Pushing the counters up

The reason they keep going up is because everyone can beat these nodes very easily. They could be level 999 and it'd only be marginally more difficult (mostly from you not seeing a CD somewhere because you've been on the node for the last 35 minutes).

simonsez

I don't know what kind of brackets you guys are getting into if your winners are the people who clear early because they're afraid of scaling; because that has never happened in any PvE I've ever played in.

Vankysher

simonsez wrote:

I don't know what kind of brackets you guys are getting into if your winners are the people who clear early because they're afraid of scaling; because that has never happened in any PvE I've ever played in.

Doing this would technically leave points on the table if they were grinding everything early right?
Or is that a new strategy - grind like mad hoping to scale people out as early as possible? I'd think this would be a highly inefficient method as scaling cuts both ways.

NighteyesGrisu

Phantron wrote:

slidecage wrote:

LOL those two last goon nods in the 2nd stage of the PVE this time. Even without playing them they GO UP. So used my WOLV . Ares and Black to play them down to 1 day 18 hours . took them from 150 to 280/ They jumped from 110 to 150 today without even playing them so thought Might as well Play them and grind them to get at least some points out of them. 10K + goons are no fun. HITTING them with ares is though

if you have black widow 2 star you always got a chance against no matter what level an all GOON sqad is , that is if your lucky and get tons of blue what keeps Pushing the counters up

The reason they keep going up is because everyone can beat these nodes very easily. They could be level 999 and it'd only be marginally more difficult (mostly from you not seeing a CD somewhere because you've been on the node for the last 35 minutes).

..which is one of the main reason why scaling based on the damage taken is silly (they're still doing that, right?). take that muscle node...I can usually beat it with no damage no matter what level the guys have...but if one of those cd's triggers a match...goodbye to one of my guys, more if it's a cascade. so it's usually either I beat it with no damage at all or I lose. same with most other high scaled goon nodes as well.

Unknown

Good grief! In Scotland VII, the mobs have now gone up to level 303.

And i haven't attacked since the first wave, days ago. They jusy keep increasing, but why? I am not attacking them, and have used the same teams against the other battles. My roster has not increased much since this event started, and there is no way I can take on level 303s with a transitioning roster, so isn't this scaling getting out of hand, now?

Trying to get to 65,000 for Kamala is going to be pretty tough if scaling occurs in battles I have not even fought. Please sort out what is clearly not designed to be correct gameplay.

Unknown

Lvl 94's
VS
Lvl 290+Goons
Nerf Boosts
****?!?!
Win?
29 ISO
*QUIT*

Unknown

Ha ha, it went from level 303 to 309 while I made a mug of tea.

This is supposed to encourage me to attack, or drink more tea? If I am not attacking at 250, do you think I will when it gets to 350? Cough.

Moon Roach

Right now Scotland Yard VII is 308/309/309 for both my accounts, one's got X-Force level 200 and 9 level 166 3*, the other has X-Force level 156 but no 3* over 105. It doesn't look like it cares what my roster is when it comes to levels.

Wolveroach managed a win with 1/5/1 level 156 X-Force, 2/5/1 level 104 Doc Doom, and 3/5/5 level 94 OBW. Bit of a slog though, and some lucky cascades.

I prefer the all-goon nodes to Ares / Bullseye / Moonstone / Venom / Juggernaut. At least I have some control over the board.