It's early, but...

DFiPL

so far I like what I see from community scaling being turned off. I still wiped against the hardest fight on the board, but my initial read on said fight was "challenge" rather than "NOPENOPENOPE".

We'll see what happens when the refreshes roll around and what future subs in the event look like, but for the first time in a LONG damn time I was able to play every node. Maybe doesn't matter so much with an event that's been re-run a half-dozen times or more, but it would be nice to be able to play all the nodes in a new event and get the entirety of whatever story they choose to pack in for flavor.

simonsez

I give the change two huge thumbs up. I feel as is I've been absolved for all my past PvE sins. The only thing that could possibly make this better is if they set difficulty based on who you're using, rather than who's in your roster. That would promote far more diversity and do a better job of rewarding deep rosters. But even if they were to keep PvE exactly like this, I'd no longer have any reason to complain about unfair scaling.

Linkster79

To add my two penneth worth.

I hate PvP, it is pure pay to win and if you are unwilling to spend any HP you have no chance of both obtaining progression and ranking awards only one or the other, so that leaves me with PvE.

Community scaling was completely pointless. All it did was to make the game unfairly harder, just because some were able to beat nodes with ease why should that make my own game that much harder? It actually led me to rage quit at a time I was top 50 in the Iso 8 Brotherhood. Then the news and change I had been asking for for a long long time, no community scaling! I re downloaded the game and gave it a whirl and yes after 2 clears of the first sub I am seeing more consistency and a more stable and enjoyable experience. It is as it should be which is fairly easy at first and getting steadily more difficult. I fully expect by the end of the event to be really struggling and needing to use the full 10 health packs but in my opinion that is the way it should be.

Now if only they were able to reset all scaling for each new PvE and scrap leaderboards that would be awesome.

Demiurge I am one of you biggest critics but with these two small changes you are going a small way to changing my mind about you.

Punisher5784

I would have much rather they stopped the Goon feeding instead. That is what normally makes the nodes harder than the scaling itself.

simonsez

aesthetocyst wrote:

To clarify, you're suggesting the node level (since in this game, "difficulty" is only about level *grumble, grumble*) change based on who you lineup, just as the AI's teamup is usually determined by your lineup?

Yes... and to be honest, I'd prefer it to be based on a combination of covers and level, since I don't want 13 cover lv120 characters to have an unfair advantage, but I figure it'd be best to start simple...

Megdar

Punisher5784 wrote:

I would have much rather they stopped the Goon feeding instead. That is what normally makes the nodes harder than the scaling itself.

I think you should try to beat Jugg / Ares / Hood node at level 250 when your hero are 150, you'll have a lot of fun.

TxMoose

Megdar wrote:

Punisher5784 wrote:

I would have much rather they stopped the Goon feeding instead. That is what normally makes the nodes harder than the scaling itself.

I think you should try to beat Jugg / Ares / Hood node at level 250 when your hero are 150, you'll have a lot of fun.

yep - so far they've only given juggs either red or green feeders, not both. on that one he and ares get everything every turn almost. fun times... ground that one twice on initial clear and didn't open it again.

Punisher5784

Megdar wrote:

Punisher5784 wrote:

I would have much rather they stopped the Goon feeding instead. That is what normally makes the nodes harder than the scaling itself.

I think you should try to beat Jugg / Ares / Hood node at level 250 when your hero are 150, you'll have a lot of fun.

Agreed but I think the goon feeding is more broken than scaling but we can all agree that they both need to be fixed. Yes I had plenty of fun versus that team THREE times yesterday in PVE. I tend to use Patch, Hulk and Loki with some damage boosts to beat them. Otherwise, it's not possible at all with Hood stealing then Juggs headbutting with Ares Sundering.. but play against Juggs and two goons feeding him green and red, it's no fun either.

Pylgrim

simonsez wrote:

I give the change two huge thumbs up. I feel as is I've been absolved for all my past PvE sins. The only thing that could possibly make this better is if they set difficulty based on who you're using, rather than who's in your roster. That would promote far more diversity and do a better job of rewarding deep rosters. But even if they were to keep PvE exactly like this, I'd no longer have any reason to complain about unfair scaling.

This sounds super hard to configure right. For example, let's say that we set a base +50 levels over your team's average level for a certain expected difficulty, then let's say that the enemy team is Juggernaut, Moonstone and Hood. For someone with a good 94 2*s team, that node would be laughably easy at levels 144. That same node, at levels 216 is not going to be anywhere that easy for teams of 166 3*s. /Then/ people who complain about being forced into a soft cap would be righter than ever.

To make it right, a crapton of variables would have to be considered:

-Rarity of each of your characters
-Level of each of your characters
-Rarity of each of your opponents
-Level of each of your opponents
-Buffs, if any
-Level of difficulty that the node is supposed to present (trivial, etc.)

I think a better solution is to come up with a reasonable system for personal scaling and then make it widely and easily available for everybody to know, stopping theorising about soft-capping and other (working or not) folky countermeasures, and allowing to be completely in control of one's scaling at one's chosen pace.

babinro

I'm still in the first sub of slice 4 but I as far as I can tell nothing has changed.

The first sub or prodigal Sun was always very easy save for the Punisher node that could sometimes get out of hand. D3 could post that they forgot to remove community scaling for this event and I'd believe them. Maybe I'll start to notice something around the end of the sub or as the pve goes on.

Vhailorx

Pylgrim wrote:

simonsez wrote:

I give the change two huge thumbs up. I feel as is I've been absolved for all my past PvE sins. The only thing that could possibly make this better is if they set difficulty based on who you're using, rather than who's in your roster. That would promote far more diversity and do a better job of rewarding deep rosters. But even if they were to keep PvE exactly like this, I'd no longer have any reason to complain about unfair scaling.

This sounds super hard to configure right. For example, let's say that we set a base +50 levels over your team's average level for a certain expected difficulty, then let's say that the enemy team is Juggernaut, Moonstone and Hood. For someone with a good 94 2*s team, that node would be laughably easy at levels 144. That same node, at levels 216 is not going to be anywhere that easy for teams of 166 3*s. /Then/ people who complain about being forced into a soft cap would be righter than ever.

To make it right, a crapton of variables would have to be considered:

-Rarity of each of your characters
-Level of each of your characters
-Rarity of each of your opponents
-Level of each of your opponents
-Buffs, if any
-Level of difficulty that the node is supposed to present (trivial, etc.)

I think a better solution is to come up with a reasonable system for personal scaling and then make it widely and easily available for everybody to know, stopping theorising about soft-capping and other (working or not) folky countermeasures, and allowing to be completely in control of one's scaling at one's chosen pace.

The problem with systems is that there is always some jerk looking to game them. So revealing the scaling mechanics may just lead to more problems.

Also, pylgrim, I don't know that That 216s are harder for 166s than 144s would be for 94s. My own recollection of my experience from 2* land was that stormneto didn't even blink until pve enemies hit 220 or so.

Unknown

I agree - so far so good. I was able to complete all my nodes and come back at my own convenience for the refresh and actually the complete them all again. I think they scaled at most 10 levels after completing everything a 2nd time.

tanis3303

babinro wrote:

I'm still in the first sub of slice 4 but I as far as I can tell nothing has changed.

The first sub or prodigal Sun was always very easy save for the Punisher node that could sometimes get out of hand. D3 could post that they forgot to remove community scaling for this event and I'd believe them. Maybe I'll start to notice something around the end of the sub or as the pve goes on.

I think what you're seeing here is simple lack of interest. Why they would use this event, a 7 day run of an already difficult PvE, with **** Beast rewards, right after everyone pretty much killed themselves for 7 days in a 4* release is beyond me. Is anyone even playing this thing?

Unknown

tanis3303 wrote:

babinro wrote:

I'm still in the first sub of slice 4 but I as far as I can tell nothing has changed.

The first sub or prodigal Sun was always very easy save for the Punisher node that could sometimes get out of hand. D3 could post that they forgot to remove community scaling for this event and I'd believe them. Maybe I'll start to notice something around the end of the sub or as the pve goes on.

I think what you're seeing here is simple lack of interest. Why they would use this event, a 7 day run of an already difficult PvE, with **** Beast rewards, right after everyone pretty much killed themselves for 7 days in a 4* release is beyond me. Is anyone even playing this thing?

I need that magneto progressive so until I get that I'm playing.

DFiPL

mango_sentinel wrote:

tanis3303 wrote:

babinro wrote:

I'm still in the first sub of slice 4 but I as far as I can tell nothing has changed.

The first sub or prodigal Sun was always very easy save for the Punisher node that could sometimes get out of hand. D3 could post that they forgot to remove community scaling for this event and I'd believe them. Maybe I'll start to notice something around the end of the sub or as the pve goes on.

I think what you're seeing here is simple lack of interest. Why they would use this event, a 7 day run of an already difficult PvE, with **** Beast rewards, right after everyone pretty much killed themselves for 7 days in a 4* release is beyond me. Is anyone even playing this thing?

I need that magneto progressive so until I get that I'm playing.

Likewise am after the Magneto progression reward. But at the same time, too, I just enjoy MPQ and PVE is more fun to me than PVP. So, from that perspective, about the only thing that makes me go full 'nope' is the Enemy of the State event. **** off, ninjas.

stowaway

I think Beast rewards might secretly have been a genius choice for this test. I would even go so far as to speculate that they actually put some thought into it. An old character who was probably #2 on the "most likely to be sold for the roster space" list, recently buffed. Sure, they could have run Iron Fist rewards and drawn more attention. But that wouldn't have been any kind of break at all after the hell of last week.

As the first sub draws to a close, I'm liking the changes a lot so far. But there seems to be more than a change to community scaling going on. In Iso-8 Brotherhood, I had nodes that started 50 levels higher than my highest boosted character. At the end of this first sub, my hardest Punisher node is 241, 19 levels lower than boosted CMags. Which is great. . . I'm not complaining!

TxMoose

stowaway wrote:

I think Beast rewards might secretly have been a genius choice for this test. I would even go so far as to speculate that they actually put some thought into it. An old character who was probably #2 on the "most likely to be sold for the roster space" list, recently buffed. Sure, they could have run Iron Fist rewards and drawn more attention. But that wouldn't have been any kind of break at all after the hell of last week.

As the first sub draws to a close, I'm liking the changes a lot so far. But there seems to be more than a change to community scaling going on. In Iso-8 Brotherhood, I had nodes that started 50 levels higher than my highest boosted character. At the end of this first sub, my hardest Punisher node is 241, 19 levels lower than boosted CMags. Which is great. . . I'm not complaining!

interesting that if the next pve is for carnage again like they indicate, beast will be essential.

Unknown

I guess I'm used to fighting guys way over my level so it feels weird to fight guys under my level now. It's a little liberating, since I can experiment with weird teams instead of being forced to use my optimal teams. Here's the my sub 1 data for comparison. Some nodes are revamped in difficulty so there's no comparison.

Maggia Assault 34 (was 111 > 174) Maggia Assault II 43 (was 141 > 199) Maggia Assault III 55 (was 160 > 255) The Arrival 70 (was 30 > 20) Uneasy Alliance 35 (unchanged) Hail of Bullets 136 (was 31 > 22?) Crossfire 157 > 168 (was 177 > 268) Maggia Assault IV 127 > 138 (was 165 > 264) Bullseye 101 (essential 2 98 > 104 ) Carnage 89 > 104 (essential 1 85 > 91) Magneto 92 > 109

The new levels are mostly following the new "standardized" format, so that the front of the sub is trivial and gets harder, instead of the old weirdness where The Arrival and Hail of Bullets were the easy nodes but farther back in the mission path. I also learned that personal scaling is almost negligible when the nodes haven't scaled up in the first place.

I have mixed feelings about the lower difficulty. It's nice that I can clear the sub with 9 out of 10 health packs remaining, but I can imagine that the competitive advantage that I had with a deep roster is greatly lessened. I think winning PvE will now be about better timekeeping more than anything.

DFiPL

Davyx wrote:

I have mixed feelings about the lower difficulty. It's nice that I can clear the sub with 9 out of 10 health packs remaining, but I can imagine that the competitive advantage that I had with a deep roster is greatly lessened. I think winning PvE will now be about better timekeeping more than anything.

Nah. I mean, timekeeping is going to be more important than it was before, sure, because people who were right on the margins might now be able to grind nodes they were previously scaled out of, but a deeper roster will still get you access to essentials which others may lack, and if the increased point values in PVP draw more users over there, having a deep roster will mean you can get the most out of both PVP and PVE even with the increased health packs.