Ridiculous ramp-up in PvE difficulty

throvolos

Finding similar posts to this, I thought I would start a new thread that hopefully does away with some of the name-calling.

I'm a recent player. ~3 months or so. I've spent way too much money on this game, WAY more than zero dollars.

I used to be able to compete in PvE. PvP was always a struggle, I don't have any maxxed-out characters, and only a couple of 13-covered 3-stars. I have tons of characters, just none of them maxxed.

In the past couple of weeks, PvE has gone from difficult to ****.

I'm currently trying to fight a level 120 Daken/Moonstone/**** in PvE. I have a lvl 180 Elektra and several 100+ characters. I have yet to successfully complete this node.

The reasons, from what I can deduce, are the following. I hope other people will chime in with their own observations.

NPC difficulty increase
1) Much higher increase in damage of NPCs (aka ****)
2) Much more frequent placement of countdown tiles
3) Much higher rate of *lucky* placement of countdown tiles (either tucked away in a corner, on top of my trap, etc)
4) Much higher rate of *lucky* cascades when countdown tiles expire

Enemy Hero difficulty increase
1) Much more frequent use of powers
2) Smarter use of powers (aka using powers right before getting killed)
3) Much higher rate of *lucky* placement of tiles
4) Much higher rate of *lucky* cascades when matches are made or powers are used
5) Cascades and powers are extremely *lucky* in eliminating player tiles
6) Much higher rate of multiple power uses in a row

Player difficulty increase
1) Much lower rate of *lucky* cascades compared to enemy
2) Extremely high rate of *unlucky* placement of tiles

*rant on* After playing constantly for the last two weeks, I've concluded there IS NO WAY the AI could possibly lucky in all aspects of the game. This MUST have been coded into the game behind the scenes. 90% of the time when I place a tile on the board it is gone within ONE turn. This is extremely aggravating for those of us who rely on characters who places tiles, rather than do direct dmg (e.g. Elektra vs Cyclops). The really telling thing is that I even get wiped on some of Deadpool's daily missions now, and that NEVER happened prior to a couple of weeks ago. There is just NO WAY, NO WAY the AI is getting constantly this LUCKY. If it isn't luck, it has to be code. *rant off*

The aggravation level, due to the recent changes, has gone from, I dunno, 2 out of 10, to now 10 out of 10. I'm to the point where I'm probably going to move on to a different game if doesn't get changed.

The AI intelligence increase and dmg would be acceptable, if they also increased the effectiveness of OUR heroes. But that is not the case.

The fact that the AI is constantly "lucky" while we are constantly "unlucky" just adds Hydrocholoric acid to the wound.

throvolos

Here's a prime example.

ISO-8 LAB: PERU. Nick Fury essential.

My roster:
Nick Fury, lvl 160 (boosted), 1 cover (blue), starting Health 7781
Iron Man, lvl 174 (boosted), 10covers (3red, 5blue, 2yellow), starting Health 10110
Hulk, lvl 144 (boosted), 8covers (5 green, 1red, 2black), starting Health 9937

Versus:
two lvl92 ****
lvl 91 Daken

Ending Health:
Nick Fury - 188
Hulk - 1987
Iron Man - 4856

So if the goal is to get players to buy more health packs, well, mission NOT accomplished.

I'm saving my Hero Points for covers. I refuse to spend money on health packs. I've already spent tons of money on this game, I'm not spending money on health packs.

Buret0

IM40 is terrible, you have 1 cover on Fury, and your Hulk is reliant on green, which his Anger is poorly covered to receive.

So you brought IM40, whose basic purpose in this game is to fuel other characters with Red and Blue AP, but then your only options to use the Red and Blue AP were...

For Blue:
Single cover Fury Demolition
IM40s 20 AP 5 Cover AoE

For Red:
3 cover IM40's red that drains your AP
1 cover Hulk's red, which 1% of people recommend using.

I'm guessing that you just threw your highest level characters into this battle regardless of whether they were actually any good.

On the other hand, you were up against a double stack of goons and you brought nothing to take care of the CD tiles. If you started off trying to attack Daken, I'm guessing that he continued to heal himself back to full health. I'm also guessing that while he was getting strike tiles and hitting you with his claws, it took you forever to get a single AP move off and were probably chasing CD tiles and spent a bunch of time matching purple tiles.

Just because you outlevel a team doesn't mean that you are going to easily beat them if your team isn't configured properly. The best part about the 3* transition was the reduction in cost to get to level 120. Now I've got pages of 10-13 cover 3* options that are all level 120+.

Depending on who the mandatory character was in that level, you had options to craft the team better.

If IM40 is mandatory, you need to bring in someone that can benefit from his blue and red AP generation. Because you are fighting Daken, I find it necessary to bring in protect tile generators. Falcon, Cage, Bullseye, Squirrel Girl, and Magneto, etc. are usual options, but Magneto (or SG) isn't great for protect tiles if you are going to use IM40 to power up Magneto's Red and Blue... so you are better off with a Cage if you have him covered and leveled or Falcon (Bullseye is great for Daken if he's boosted) if he isn't. Since IM40 is slow, direct damage is going to be a problem... thankfully Daken doesn't have a ton of Health, so you can finish off a Goon with match damage and then down Daken in one or two shots (depending on who you are bringing).

Then you need someone who can deal with the CD tiles that are being generated. Board shake, direct destruction, or CD tile delays are all decent options. OBW can use the blue AP generated from IM40's battery to keep the team healed and the CD tiles from going off, while using the purple AP generated from chasing purple CD tiles to do AP steal to speed your team up. Loki is also decent, but Daken's strike tiles really aren't worth stealing and board shake is unreliable at dealing with a lot of tiles (especially if that color is depleted from the board). Grey Suit is a bit slow, but you would be able to use her purple/red/green to clean up the board.

Anyway, it just looks to me like you tried adopting the "the best team I can send are my three highest level characters"... that is sometimes going to work, but as you found out here, not always.

If you read the gauntlet thread, you will notice that team composition should almost always be shaped by what team you are up against.

Unknown

Those things are random. You notice them more when they screw you over. It's a perception bias. Same with tokens.
The AI is as dumb in the prologue as when they're lvl395.

Unknown

IN MPQ, having fully covered heroes will generally do you better than having over-leveled ones, especially if you're facing someone who's being goon-fed with inexpensive attacks.

Pylgrim

Levelling Elektra (a non-stellar 4*) up to 180 while the rest of your characters are under level 100 doesn't help your scaling either. And yeah, as others said you are bringing absolutely terrible characters to fights. Level is actually not as important when playing as bringing synergistic teams tailored to each battle. A good team of level 94 2*s can easily defeat level 250+ enemies. There are great guides in the tips and tricks subforum that can help you figure out which are the better characters, best combination and good strategy in general.

Unknown

When they 'streamlined' the events I noticed they double downed on the goons. Most nodes that feature a villian now also includes a goon. Keep in mind goons are godlike compared to almost any character you can have. For all this talk about IMHB/PX/whoever is overpowered, I'm sure most of us will instantly drop whoever you currently believe to be most overpowered to employ the services of a Maggia Muscle. Heck, I'm quite willing to drop my normal #3 guy for a humble Pyro or Lieutenant, though I certainly won't say no to Kishus or Ultron Fighters. Although their levels might not look like much, just having 2 goons means their team is way stronger than yours. In the introduction node I had quite a few game where even if I was able to take out Moonstone right away, the 2 goons putting Unstable Blast/Shadow Knives can easily eat away half of the loaner hero's HPs, and no way I'm going to risk my real heroes for that since even a max level version of all those guys aren't any better at defending against CDs and the damage I take definitely matters.

puppychow

Just to add to the idea of bringing the right team being more important than the character levels, for gauntlet sim 41 and 42, where the enemies were level 395s each, I used a human torch (buffed to 240), 141 loki, 166 hood and won my match without any character dying.

It is absolutely critical that you bring the right team to each match. Of course, what team you can bring depends on what you have in your roster. If you wish to do well in pve, you need to constrict your roster with an eye towards quantity---a mixed bag of 1,2,3,4* rather than a heavy tilt towards 3s and 4s.

Aidonis

From what I've seen, Elektra is the cause of your woes. Once upon a time, I leveled a 3 star character named punisher up into the 130's. My pvp opponents went from the normal fair I was used to, (Thor and OBW/Storm, ie 2star) to patch and other 3 stars. The shock was terrible! I went from top 5 in every pvp I played to unable to crack the top 50. This lasted for just over a month, until I gained enough covers to actually compete again.

I've not (and will not) make the same mistake in the 4 star world. My IW is fully covered and sits at 166, where she will always stay (Mainly because I will never have a maxed 4 star, but that's a different thread). I could be completely wrong about this, if anyone knows any different for sure, by all means let me know.

When my friends jump into the game, I tell them to leave all their characters at 94 until they have enough covered 3 stars to make a difference in the next tier up. Same deal with 3 star land, leave them all at 166. In your case, I haven't a clue as to what you should do. I do know, that it's a terrible system, and has been for far too long.

You should never be punished for progressing.

throvolos

Anyway, it just looks to me like you tried adopting the "the best team I can send are my three highest level characters"... that is sometimes going to work, but as you found out here, not always.

Nick Fury was required. I threw IM40 and Hulk in with him because
1) IM40 could feed NF's blue
2) Hulk can take a lot of dmg and is good at clearing the **** tokens on the board (if you get lucky)
3) And, because they were both boosted.
4) My Elektra was down (again), and many of my other characters were wounded
5) I didn't have lower-level characters that can take more than 2-3 hits of 1500-2000 dmg per hit, which is what the the goons are doing (plus all their bonus cascades)

I never use Hulk's red, for the same reason: it sucks. I focused on the goons first because as you said, Daken heals himself. No point in hitting him until you can hit him for a lot.

While I agree that you have to tailor your team to what you're fighting against (one of the best things about this game is you actually have to think strategy), this was just one example of how much damage I took from what should have been an easy clear. It does have some to do with team composition, I completely agree. But it also has to do a great deal with the recent increase in PvE difficulty.

I find it odd that you didn't respond to my main complaint, which is the massive increase in difficulty in PvE. My example was just one of dozens where I go into a fight and come out with three heavily bruised and/or downed heroes. Repeats of the same nodes with different team compositions leads to the same outcome.

It CAN'T all be team composition. There are many other people complaining on this forum about the same issue.

throvolos

Aidonis wrote:

From what I've seen, Elektra is the cause of your woes.

When my friends jump into the game, I tell them to leave all their characters at 94 until they have enough covered 3 stars to make a difference in the next tier up. Same deal with 3 star land, leave them all at 166. In your case, I haven't a clue as to what you should do. I do know, that it's a terrible system, and has been for far too long.

You should never be punished for progressing.

This is ridiculous!!!!! So basically I'm crippled because I have ONE character over level 166? So basically, I'm screwed until I can get more 4star character with multiple covers and level them up?

Gee, it sure would have been nice to have a warning somewhere that said: "WARNING: increasing any of your heroes over level 166 will lead to drastically increased difficulty".

Thanks for pointing that out. Wish I'd known it sooner.

However, it still doesn't explain the ridiculously increased luck the AI has now.

Unknown

throvolos wrote:

Gee, it sure would have been nice to have a warning somewhere that said: "WARNING: increasing any of your heroes over level 166 will lead to drastically increased difficulty".

Its the same in PVP. The changes to matchmaking means that you should always face like for like rosters and all we have is the illusion of progression until the endgame.

wirius

The idea that your leveled roster drastically affects scaling is a rumor that just won't die. Jamie Maddrox proved months ago actual levels affect your scaling very little. The majority of the effect is how you do.

Unknown

Why do people keep on perpetuate the myth that levels do NOT matter? Do you think those PvE alliances that dominates with a large amount of low level rosters just happens to do 'not so well' despite always coming out comfortably at the top? Or that those guys just somehow mastered the art of sucking at this game that no player with max roster was ever able to figure out, even though it's actually quite trivial for a strong player to pretend to suck at the game? After all, if you can beat any encounter, you can also lower your performance to any arbitarily low level after the game is effectively decided. The only thing we don't quite understand is how fast using lower level characters can unwind your scaling, or if it's even possible never mind that it can very well be logistically impossible, as nobody is going to be beating a level 300 node reliably with 3 level 100 guys that is necessary to undo your scaling. I seem to have some limited success last week when I have all my low (relatively) characters boosted and they're guys relatively insensitive to levels (Magneto MN, Mystique, Prof X) and it does look like my scaling reduced some, but it's still in the high 200s and I sure won't be attempting to beat high 200s enemies with a level 100 character that isn't Mystique (Mystique only contributes by via Infiltration so her levels do not matter).

grunth13

wirius wrote:

The idea that your leveled roster drastically affects scaling is a rumor that just won't die. Jamie Maddrox proved months ago actual levels affect your scaling very little. The majority of the effect is how you do.

Actually, that whole **** about levels not mattering was not proven. The devs have consistently said they don't matter if you level them for that sub, but have never said that they don't matter for the next sub. When they pulled that crazy max level group to show us what the levels were for the first node, which is always trivial, without paying a single match means absolutely nothing. If they had played it for a week or better yet a month and then showed us the scaling I would believe it.

Unknown

I used to like pve. Then I got covers and levelled some up and the scaling went haywire and now I dislike pve, and the game in general at this point.

What if pve had 3 event choices, hard, normal and easy.

Each event had different rewards.

I know I would choose easy, I want to relax and enjoy a superhero tile matching game. I say this to the devs, these are superheroes, we should be able to dominate, particularly levelled up. We obviously should not be getting wiped out by the AI and have bad cascade luck.

I know when I have protect or timer tiles they will be destroyed immediately. Nothing like casting out xforce heal onto a yellow tile nowhere near a match chance and then watch the cpu cascade into a match 4 that fires across the board to eliminate the heal tile.

Meanwhile the cpu loves to drop a 3600 empiricist damage tile when I have no ap to pull a move off to eliminate it. They always stick it somewhere where no match is.

Maybe if we could vote on what AI skill level we wanted it could show the devs how we feel.

The last thing I want to be is angry at this game and feeling like I should delete it. But more and more I feel that way.

Zen808

throvolos wrote:

This is ridiculous!!!!! So basically I'm crippled because I have ONE character over level 166? So basically, I'm screwed until I can get more 4star character with multiple covers and level them up?

I'm failing to see how exactly you're "crippled." You gave one example of a node that was lvl 91, which is a perfectly reasonable level of scaling for an advanced 2* roster.

That node should not give you any problems whatsoever. Throw 2* Thor and OBW at it. Fury will tank yellow, Purple, and Blue, which are all critical colors, allowing you plenty of time to save up enough AP to wipe them out. Long term cost will be the 1 healthpack to revive Fury when he valiantly takes one for the team. And actually, since he only has 1 cover and is only essential for that one node, you could make the argument to leave him down until he picks himself back up.

Unknown

Worldrevolver wrote:

I used to like pve. Then I got covers and levelled some up and the scaling went haywire and now I dislike pve, and the game in general at this point.

What if pve had 3 event choices, hard, normal and easy.

Each event had different rewards.

I think you can even code it like on easy it is impossible for the AI to get better than say a 2 chain cascade from new tiles (there might be cases where existing boards forces miracle cascades from existing tiles), normal would be 3 chain, and hard is obviously anything goes. I noticed that even while fighting trivial nodes, I don't exactly like it when the AI pulls off a miracle cascade even if the result is generally inconsequential. If my guys are level 240 240 360 and the enemy are 40 40 40 I do expect the AI to not waste my time with a 75 AP cascade.

I've come to realize the problem with this game is that the AI is too good. Here, good is both a function of their skill (which they're surprisingly decent) and the quality of their teams (usually way above anything you can have). It feels stupid even on trivial enemies if you're being sloppy and the AI pull off a miracle cascade, and if they're level 300 you just wasted 3 health packs. Given the AI's massive advantage in terms of levels/team composition, they really should not be allowed to play remotely decently in terms of skill. They shouldn't even be able to make match 4s when they're running with guys that do 1K match 4 damage with moves that instantly KO just about anyone. Well, it'd be better if the AI does not need to resort to having such lopsided advantages in the first place. I know they do this because the game used to be very broken so you need all that crazy stuff but most of the crazy stuff is now gone.

Azoic

Yah I lost all respect for Jammie Maddrox after that post. Way to lie to people and present falsehoods.

DFiPL

Phantron wrote:

Why do people keep on perpetuate the myth that levels do NOT matter? Do you think those PvE alliances that dominates with a large amount of low level rosters just happens to do 'not so well' despite always coming out comfortably at the top? Or that those guys just somehow mastered the art of sucking at this game that no player with max roster was ever able to figure out, even though it's actually quite trivial for a strong player to pretend to suck at the game? After all, if you can beat any encounter, you can also lower your performance to any arbitarily low level after the game is effectively decided. The only thing we don't quite understand is how fast using lower level characters can unwind your scaling, or if it's even possible never mind that it can very well be logistically impossible, as nobody is going to be beating a level 300 node reliably with 3 level 100 guys that is necessary to undo your scaling. I seem to have some limited success last week when I have all my low (relatively) characters boosted and they're guys relatively insensitive to levels (Magneto MN, Mystique, Prof X) and it does look like my scaling reduced some, but it's still in the high 200s and I sure won't be attempting to beat high 200s enemies with a level 100 character that isn't Mystique (Mystique only contributes by via Infiltration so her levels do not matter).

I've been seeing some weirdness with scaling. I'll be commenting to my friend that 'hey wow this one is 3x170 nope nope nope," go fight another node, and then 'wait why did that 3x170 drop to 3x120.'

There's some weirdness going on, for sure.

Unknown

DFiPL wrote:

I've been seeing some weirdness with scaling. I'll be commenting to my friend that 'hey wow this one is 3x170 nope nope nope," go fight another node, and then 'wait why did that 3x170 drop to 3x120.'

There's some weirdness going on, for sure.

I strongly suspect there's some kind of 'lever is stuck on up' bug that is happening with people with highest scaling. Back when scaling first started, it worked in both directions. Even the dreaded community scaling can go down if enough players wiped to something. For example one of the Heroic Jugg node is The Hood + Juggernaut + Muscle and I think it starts at around 100 for a decently high scale player, and you can always see that node steadily dropping from its initial because it's frankly insane to beat it at all (this is when you only have 3 3*s to choose for Heroic too so good luck getting anything that resembles a good team). In Simulator Hard, during the pre nerf Spiderman days we can see all the nodes quickly scale to 230 (that was the cap), but there was one node that was Bagman + Devil Dino (uber version) + someone else, and you can see the level on that goes down over time because without Spiderman, people were definitely unable to beat Devil Dino who can KO almost anyone with 6g. Sure, the levels don't come down very often, probably because there's always the guy with pre nerf Magneto or pre nerf Spiderman propping up the scaling, but you can see it is working most notably when Magneto/Spiderman is unavailable.

After the revamp to scaling where they fixed how you can lower your scaling by just taking excessive damage, scaling seems to just go strictly up, at least for the highest scaling players. It seems to me the game assumes the highest scaling players must be just trying to trick the system when they're getting utterly wiped out, so you take 10 of your best guys and get slapped silly on say some level 300 node, and the game is saying, 'you can't fool me I know you can beat this node easy! In fact I'm gonig to add another 50 levels to it!' I also suspect that lowering your scaling involves some kind of 'quality loss', as in the game seems to be looking for losses where you did a lot of damage to the enemy before ultimately failing as a way to distinguish that from someone simply starting a game and get rolled over. However, once your scaling is high, most of your losses is just going to be the enemy steamrolling you and you don't get a say in this. Now I guess you can always win a game and then lose on purpose. However, since nobody knows the exact details and winning at all is hard enough with high scaling, it's just not something you'd randomly try.