Fixing scaling / Tiered PvE

philosorapt0r

After spending a bit of time with Demiurge's new match-3 game, I'm convinced that MPQ should adopt some of its PvE event conventions wholesale, ASAP.

Current: PvE scales based on the top end of your roster, as well as adjusting continually upward based on how "well" you play.
Cons:
*Incentivizes intentionally-suboptimal play (taking unnecessary damage at the end of each fight reduces scaling up-ticks), making less fun play help achieve better rewards.
*Makes playing with the middle/bottom end of your roster nearly impossible if you want to win (apart from trivial nodes).
*Fully levelling characters or even acquiring 5*s at all can make the game much harder for developing rosters, effectively forcing one into a higher difficulty level permanently (until the roster catches up), and making levelling a 3/4*, or getting SS/OML a potential trap.

Alternate system: Upon joining an event, choose a difficulty tier, with fixed levels. Higher difficulties come with better prizes, both for progression and placement. Low tiers have no/few rewards of interest to veteran/competitive players, allowing casual/developing players a place to compete against one another; the higher tiers have either higher-tier rewards, expanded placement rewards, or both.

Pros:
*Dial-your-own difficulty ensures everyone faces the level they find fun.
*No more gaming of scaling through soft-capping rosters, intentional bad play, etc..
*Competitive parity: Within a given event, everyone is playing against the same level opposition.
*Escapes the paradigm of top players winning rewards they can't use (2*s for 3* rosters, 3*s for maxed 3* rosters), and developing players being unable to progress through placement, since rewards can be set to be appropriate to the sort of roster able to succeed at that difficulty.
*Helps with burnout, since players can choose to alternate between 'hardest-they-can-handle' difficulty events and easier difficulties to relax.
*Could make PvE more about skill/ability to handle difficult nodes (ala Gauntlet) if the max difficulty is hard enough, rather than simply being a contest of who can play for an hour every 8 hours. Whenever the top difficulty becomes that, Demiurge can create a new tier .
*Getting a 5* can only help/cannot hurt a roster.

Honestly, is there any good reason *not* to implement this?

WelcomeDeath

So...how do alliances get paid out in this system? Do total points still count towards your alliance rank? Are higher level pves scored the same (progression-wise) as lower level? What about when new characters are released? Do all tiers get a shot? If not, how do players expand their rosters with new characters at a lower level? Also, if not, what about essential nodes? They almost always include a brand new character, is it programmed separately for different tiers?
I'm not trying to be difficult, I actually don't mind the idea of difficulty brackets, just seems like there would be a lot of adjusting to do to the format and I don't know if it would be worth it from d3s end.

Lee T

Intereting, I'd like to see that in MPQ, is that from MtG ?

Dudemon

This wont happen. It's probably a bad idea ... financially speaking.

They wont do a lot of work to make the game better if it hurts the bottom line.

It's not about fun... its about people acquiring characters faster then they can roster them so they have to buy slots.

Hence the bigger and better "carrots" and getting characters you cant really use.

Lee T

Dudemon wrote:

It's not about fun... its about people acquiring characters faster then they can roster them so they have to buy slots.

A tiered system could provide that and even increase this number.

Whenever there is a new 4* to win only the top players have to add a character. When I was an early transitioners I even missed out on the t150 3*. I was pushed out of the fight by those vying for the new 4*.

Nowadays it's even harder with the legendary token fight every PVE and many players are complaining that they no longer get to the 3* reward period. Now add a 3* tiered PVE running alongside and even the common rabble will have to add a new character to their roster.

Crowl

The main things they really need to do with pve scaling are to take into account more of your roster than the first three or five (or whatever it is) and at the same time they should exclude 5* characters from the calculation as they could very easily be 150+ levels beyond the rest of your roster.

Does scaling take into account boosted levels of characters or their real level, it should be the latter with the boosted ones just being a nice bonus for having them in your roster.

Personal scaling probably needs reworking, ensuring people are challenged is one thing but being penalised simply for playing well seems a little unfair.

Unknown

I do kinda get the feeling it'd go like "Newbie" servers in shooters tend to go.

By putting "Easy" on the label, you'll attract the veterans who want to win to it.

Why fight tooth and nail to get a t100 on a hard level PVE when it's WAY easier to get the final progression node 3* on Easy, plus a chance to Be A Winner and win the entire bracket?

I think it'd end up ironicly bad for the newbies, honestly.

Unknown

My idea for PVE would go as follows:

Allow for a smoother transition. Retain essential nodes. Create a tiered system.

Tier 1 - Characters between Levels 1 - 50
Tier 2 - Characters between Levels 15 - 94
Tier 3 - Characters between Levels 40 - 166
Tier 4 - Characters between Levels 70 - 270
Tier 5 - Characters between Levels 255 - 450


Your tier would be determined by your most commonly used players. The most commonly used characters would account for the top 25% of your characters used. You could potentially join any of the tiers given that you had the correct characters leveled.

OK, so how does this work?
Let's sat you are in the 2-3 transition. You probably have multiple 94 two stars but your threes are 40, 66, and 53. Well you could play your 94 2 stars in Tier 2 for 3 star covers.

So what's the progression?
Tier 1 - Moonstones for everybody! Well two stars anyway. Some Heroics, ISO, and small amounts of HP.
Tier 2 - 3 star covers throughout the progression, Heroics, some Event tokens, and HP of varying amounts.
Tier 3 - ISO, Heroics, more Event tokens, and Legendary Tokens awarded. 4 star covers throughout the progression.
Tier 4 - Large amounts of ISO, Legendaries, good bits of HP.
Tier 5 - ISO, HP, Legendaries.

What about Alliances?
Alliance placement awards would be retained and points given per node would remain the same across all tiers.

So can a 2,3, and 4 star still be on the same team in the same tier?
Yes if they meet the level requirements.

So if I wanted to take on Tier 4 with my 2 star 94's?
Yes but due to scaling when Gorgon Level 395 clears you in 5 turns, that's on you.

It's not perfect, but I believe transitions would be a lot smoother.

philosorapt0r

colwag wrote:

I do kinda get the feeling it'd go like "Newbie" servers in shooters tend to go.

By putting "Easy" on the label, you'll attract the veterans who want to win to it.

Why fight tooth and nail to get a t100 on a hard level PVE when it's WAY easier to get the final progression node 3* on Easy, plus a chance to Be A Winner and win the entire bracket?

I think it'd end up ironicly bad for the newbies, honestly.

Nah, in practice in Puzzle & Glory, the veterans go for the highest tier they can handle, since the progression rewards are worth it there if you can clear (you get more resources at the same point thresholds). I mean, would you trade down from the current events for an easier-to-win version if the prizes were 2*s?

What you would get would be people competing for the prizes they are looking for, rather than everyone lumped in together like now, which makes it difficult to tune rewards to be, well, rewarding.