Ridiculous ramp-up in PvE difficulty

Oldboy

The AI is also 'smarter'. Moonstone's Gravity Warp now moves your special tile somewhere that Has a very high chance of being matched or eliminated by a Match 4 in that same round. I've seen it happen enough times to disbelieve that it's confirmation bias.

Also the AI tends to get Match 4s during their turn either from cascades or from end of my turn. And these are from tiles that drop from offscreen so there's no way to plan for those.

I bet the devs tuned up the AI in one of their ninja updates.

(And no i still don't believe it's confirmation bias. I've been watching my games long enough)

Unknown

Somewhere in the last couple months the AI did become smarter. Moonstone and Ares wait to use Onslaught/Photon Blast until I've got cStorm in front. Gravity warp moves mHawkeye or Mags cd tiles into a match more often.

Unknown

jackswift wrote:

Somewhere in the last couple months the AI did become smarter. Moonstone and Ares wait to use Onslaught/Photon Blast until I've got cStorm in front. Gravity warp moves mHawkeye or Mags cd tiles into a match more often.

Agreed. The AI has become smarter in it's play. And in it's matching. It now randomly denies you matches that would give you an AoE, even though no one on the their team uses that color and there were stronger, more damage dealing options for them.

Warning: Off topic but still about MPQ:

Also, the cascades have significantly increased over the last month or two.
And I don't want to hear any tiny-kitty tinykitty about "bias confirmation", cascades HAVE increased, and they HAVE increased enough to notice. For both sides. I honestly believe that the RNG is not as random as it used to be.

Although it sure does seem that the AI gets the more convenient ones. Match this morning, AI's first turn, 39 AP collected. AI's second turn, blast me into oblivion. I don't buy into the **** that you only lose 10% of your matches. That number is NOT EVEN CLOSE with this new MMR in PVP

Unknown

Just to add my 2 cents:

Health pack usage is definitely up with 1 in 3 matches cascading me for 6k damage at least.
I don't remember cascades being all that hurtful in themselves & 1st time ever I've had to take a break from PvE because it was too hard
Tough stuff!

SAVE PHANTRON

Unknown

DFiPL wrote:

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.

Ive seen people claim this before and yet not one screenshot has been shown, ever.

Unknown

Chungachangas wrote:

Just to add my 2 cents:

Health pack usage is definitely up with 1 in 3 matches cascading me for 6k damage at least.
I don't remember cascades being all that hurtful in themselves & 1st time ever I've had to take a break from PvE because it was too hard
Tough stuff!

SAVE PHANTRON

The cascades are doing more damge because there is almost always a goon in every node, who has elevated match strength and equal strength in every color. While a lot of the AI things is confirmation bias, you are indeed taking significantly more match damage on those new streamlined nodes.

Unknown

ArkPrime wrote:

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.

Ive seen people claim this before and yet not one screenshot has been shown, ever.

I saw this happen in Simulator Hard once. It was in the conversation with Dffiv when he was saying how his account has essentials at 210 and I noticed mine are at 250 even though he usually beats me in PvE so there's no way his scaling should be less, and then the node suddenly dropped to 210 and then 170, and after one game it went back to 210 and then back up to 250. I'm thinking there is really supposed to be a mechanism that lowers the scaling but it's broken for the highest scaling guys and it only very rarely unbugs itself leading to those "I know this guy who claim his scaling went down once" urban legends.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

ArkPrime wrote:

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.

Ive seen people claim this before and yet not one screenshot has been shown, ever.

I saw this happen in Simulator Hard once. It was in the conversation with Dffiv when he was saying how his account has essentials at 210 and I noticed mine are at 250 even though he usually beats me in PvE so there's no way his scaling should be less, and then the node suddenly dropped to 210 and then 170, and after one game it went back to 210 and then back up to 250. I'm thinking there is really supposed to be a mechanism that lowers the scaling but it's broken for the highest scaling guys and it only very rarely unbugs itself leading to those "I know this guy who claim his scaling went down once" urban legends.

Did you take screenshots? Until I see one I'm gonna go with "You read it wrong the first time".

If this kept happening we'd have found a way to force it to happen by now. I've never seen it happen.

Unknown

ArkPrime wrote:

Did you take screenshots? Until I see one I'm gonna go with "You read it wrong the first time".

If this kept happening we'd have found a way to force it to happen by now. I've never seen it happen.

Consider I only saw this happen once in all the time I've played MPQ I doubt it's something easily reproducible. It's also possible that it just coincided with a server error. I know one morning when there were a lot of posts about how the server is messed up like usual (people show up with no alliances), I was doing The Hulk and all my nodes are minimum level (40 for 3* and 15 for 2*). I had my alliance but I saw no PvP events available and didn't even notice the levels are totally wrong until I knocked out Bullseye in 2 turns with Exquisite Technique. So it's clear a server glitch affects our scaling too, so I can definitely see how all these cases of reported scaling goes down just happens to be when the server is messed up.

Esheris

Just got wiped out in by round 2 on a hard node in the Iso Brotherhood event.

This scaling isn't fun, do the devs even play this game? Just scale the PvE back to fun levels (not impossible and relying on luck to win).

By the way...please stop having us face the same characters over and over again (Ares, Moonstone, Venom, Rag).

simonsez

This is the first PvE I can think of where a) an essential was so hard, I wiped repeatedly on it and had to ignore it during grind; a non-goon feeder node that was hard enough that I even wiped with a "broken" combo. Good to see all our complaining about absurd scaling is having an impact. It's now harder than ever.

Marty17

Rescue Mission: Russia VII are level 258, bloody gruelling.

d0nk3y

Marty17 wrote:

Rescue Mission: Russia VII are level 258, bloody gruelling.

My Algeria VII is running 278 right now - I'll trade ya.

simonsez

d0nk3y wrote:

Marty17 wrote:

Rescue Mission: Russia VII are level 258, bloody gruelling.

My Algeria VII is running 278 right now - I'll trade ya.

Mine's 395. I'll trade you and throw in my VI at 352 to sweeten the deal.

puppychow

throvolos wrote:

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.

I've known players who quit because their "trophy" character ended up pushing pve scaling through the roof. But to add to the notion of scale based on your character level, I should point that scaling is based on character level AFTER CONSIDERATION OF FEATURED/WEEKLY BUFFS. In other words, if the event buffs a featured essential from 166 to 240, then the nodes will score based off that level 240 character. In addition, the same applies to the group of 1-4 star characters receiving a weekly buff.

If you're frustrated that you leave each node with your team members severely damaged, it is BY DESIGN. The developers want players to buy heal packs in order to keep playing.

puppychow

Oldboy wrote:

The AI is also 'smarter'. Moonstone's Gravity Warp now moves your special tile somewhere that Has a very high chance of being matched or eliminated by a Match 4 in that same round. I've seen it happen enough times to disbelieve that it's confirmation bias.

Also the AI tends to get Match 4s during their turn either from cascades or from end of my turn. And these are from tiles that drop from offscreen so there's no way to plan for those.

I bet the devs tuned up the AI in one of their ninja updates.

(And no i still don't believe it's confirmation bias. I've been watching my games long enough)

Yeah, I've noticed the AI getting more cascades, especially during lightning rounds. So I try to throw my lower tier characters at these events, and play against the seeds until my team members are dead.

Bowgentle

simonsez wrote:

This is the first PvE I can think of where a) an essential was so hard, I wiped repeatedly on it and had to ignore it during grind; a non-goon feeder node that was hard enough that I even wiped with a "broken" combo. Good to see all our complaining about absurd scaling is having an impact. It's now harder than ever.

I remember a time when you could hit the essentials, which were the easiest missions, two hours from the end of a sub, and still were able to rubberband your way into T10.

To offset rubberband, they introduced scaling.
Then somewhere along the way we lost rubberband, and scaling now starts where it used to end up after grinding stuff to dust.
I also remember a time when scaling noticeably decayed between events, even between subs.

Now we're stuck with insane scaling, without the rubberband that let us avoid grinding for the whole duration of a PVE.

I get it that some scaling makes sense - 395s at the start of a PVE for vets can't be the devs' idea of a level playing field.
If it is, I don't even know what to say anymore.

simonsez

Bowgentle wrote:

I get it that some scaling makes sense - 395s at the start of a PVE for vets can't be the devs' idea of a level playing field.
If it is, I don't even know what to say anymore.

Yeah, I've concluded that "leveling the playing field" isn't what they're going for. I mean, they don't even try to implement it sensibly. EG, here's your jacked-up scaling because your buffed HB is lv330... and here's an IM40 essential where you can't use him. Enjoy the ****-kicking.

Unknown

Scaling is like in Space Jam where the aliens planned to have Michael Jordan chained to a rock and it shows some little kid easily blow past by him and score while he's dragging some rocks. But while the aliens have a motive to do this since they plan to sell the right to beat up Michael Jordan for good $, I'm not sure who is exactly benefiting here in MPQ.

Polares

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.

You should have paid more attention in that thread.

Jamie Maddrox just demonstrated that they dont know their own game, or something worse. If you create a new account with a bunch of 166 without doing any fight of course your scaling has still not kicked in (this is what Jamie did). But once you start playing and winning the level of your enemies is determined by the level of your roster. Period.

And after they nerfed XForce and 4hor everything is far more difficult now. IMHB is very good but it is not as good as those other two were. THEY NEED TO LOWER THE MAX LEVEL FROM 395 to 300. They can keep the 395 in the Gauntlet because you just need to beat the node once but in the rest of pvE where you need to beat the nodes repeatedly scaling is too much.

At least I had the precaution of not leveling my 4 more than 223, so my nodes are bad but not as bad as some around here.