Please end level scaling in PVE

warcin

I will admit that the most recent iteration is not nearly as bad as the previous ones but it still fails on the most basic level of game design. It just is not fun. I was playing hours of the event yesterday but now can not force myself to go in because while I can beat the levels, they are long drawn out slugfest that a single bad cascade can just ruin your day. You should be encouraging people to want to keep playing and level scaling does just the opposite.

Unknown

agree 100%

edit: and just to add. If this is your "vision" for this game then I won't be playing it soon. This game was fun and now it's just aggravating. There was nothing wrong with your game being simple and fun to play and having a challenging match thrown in that you could choose to try but this increasing level **** you're doing is garbage. I'd love to hear your reasoning for forcing this change.

Unknown

Quit yer whining and buy more HP to get more health packs.


(just kidding, dont get mad)

Unknown

The game is free to download, so they need to put ways to lure people into spending money through IAP.

It is as rough as that. And that is why I would have preferred for this to be either a proper game that I pay upfront or a mix of that and IAP, but not balanced out towards "we are only profitable if we make the users pay for funny money".

Unknown

i can still do most missions in the normal simulator but wont even go near the hard. what i dont understand is why couldnt they just scale the enemies in the hard mode and let the best of them duke it out while leaving the normal mode as it was for the others to do.

Unknown

Funny thing about that. I spent money before they made these changes and now I won't spend any.

warcin

georgesaviour wrote:

The game is free to download, so they need to put ways to lure people into spending money through IAP.

It is as rough as that. And that is why I would have preferred for this to be either a proper game that I pay upfront or a mix of that and IAP, but not balanced out towards "we are only profitable if we make the users pay for funny money".

I was much more willing to spend money when I was having fun in the game, as it is now I am not really all that interested in giving them more money if this is the direction they are going. The covers and the upgrades are always going to be a much bigger draw for money then health packs. Once I burn through my health packs I am usually frustrated enough that I need to take a break anyway.

Unknown

We asked it several times -- Will recently stated that is all by design and works as intended.

If you already don;t like it tough luck, he also said it carries over to the further sub events. So look ahead for what we got used to in previous two runs.



But at least we know they heard us just don't give a flying kitty.

Konman

warcin wrote:

I will admit that the most recent iteration is not nearly as bad as the previous ones but it still fails on the most basic level of game design. It just is not fun. I was playing hours of the event yesterday but now can not force myself to go in because while I can beat the levels, they are long drawn out slugfest that a single bad cascade can just ruin your day. You should be encouraging people to want to keep playing and level scaling does just the opposite.

There should just be a big red "You Win!" button you can click. Instead of having to "try".

Bacon Pants

If anyone else on the board can play the tiny violin please send me a message. I would like to get a group of us together to play for all of the whiners. Whine and cheese will be served and the Waaaambulance is on standby.

Unknown

Konman wrote:

warcin wrote:

I will admit that the most recent iteration is not nearly as bad as the previous ones but it still fails on the most basic level of game design. It just is not fun. I was playing hours of the event yesterday but now can not force myself to go in because while I can beat the levels, they are long drawn out slugfest that a single bad cascade can just ruin your day. You should be encouraging people to want to keep playing and level scaling does just the opposite.

There should just be a big red "You Win!" button you can click. Instead of having to "try".

Dude this got nothing to trying. The best PvE event i enjoyed was Hulk. No scaling level yet there were some super challenging fights against levels 230. I do not like this design they are using now and it is not due to challenge - it is due to lack of proper balance. Game should be on same level difficulty for everyone - and now it is easier or harder depending what rooster you got. Or maybe it isnt. Who the hell knows what is going on right now. I have exactly the same feeling as Warcin. I did spend some cash in game but now I'm not having as much fun as I used to. And it is not due to nerfs of chars, it is due to bad PvE design.

Unknown

The problem isn't just that it makes things hard, it's that it makes things unbalanced over time.

I enjoy a strategy where I'm playing the matching "game" itself, building teams, etc. I don't enjoy a strategy where my score is made or broken based on whether I stay up until 3 in the morning or sneak a break at work.

Unknown

The first PvE event I played in was the Hulk. It was loads of fun for me. At the start my highest character I think was 50, but through that I got Wolvie, Cap and HE-m covers (who were boosted). When I ran into fights I could not do, I ran to the prologue to gather some Iso (I hadn't finished it at that time) and level up. I want there to be hard fights (for me) in the game. It gives me a goal to strive for. I didn't have a chance in hell of placing really well, but we all got free hulks and it was still fun.

My issue with scaling, I get tougher, the enemies get tougher. I will run into fights I have little chance of winning, but no matter how high my characters get, the enemies will get stronger and become too much of a headache. I'm a grinder. It's what I do. I have no problem with getting 20 iso every 30 seconds or so from prologue 1 to build up to maxing out my Punisher (currently needs 1837 iso to get to lvl 102) if I feel that getting to higher level will make a difference. Right now in PvE with scaling, your roster level does not matter. I'd probably get more benefit from raising all my two stars up to 85 and keeping my roster around "mid tier."

The only time it seems to make a difference in having 141 characters is pvp which I mainly use for iso. PvE is why I play this game, it's casual (or should be imo) and low stress.

Eddiemon

Please don't turn the game into the grindy time sink the original poster desires.

Level scaling has significantly reduced the number of games you need to play to be competitive, and has made skill, roster and yes, luck matter more than just available time.

Loving your work Demiurge.

SandsTheMan

Co-signed. At least let each mission scale against itself... Let's not have the scenario where it's better to do the "last" missions first

IceIX

pasa_ wrote:

We asked it several times -- Will recently stated that is all by design and works as intended.

If you already don;t like it tough luck, he also said it carries over to the further sub events. So look ahead for what we got used to in previous two runs.



But at least we know they heard us just don't give a flying kitty.

No, that's not what was stated. There have been two separate misunderstandings there. Will's comment was:

Persisting across subevents - yes.

Scaling missions individually doesn't do enough to satisfy the design goals of this feature: making our events maximally interesting for the widest possible subset of players and reducing grind. We couldn't do rewards like the 5000 Iso-8 challenge mission reward in this event in a system like that. It would either be too trivial for top-end players to get or they would be the only people that had any hope of getting it.

All by design: Scaling is functioning, yes. Is it perfect? Probably not. This comment was somehow read as stating something that it doesn't state implicitly, much less explicitly. As well, this comment was towards the reasoning behind scaling nodes individually as opposed to event-wide, so it's a little different matter in any case.

Sub-events: Simulator, Round One. Simulator Round Two. The previous two runs were separate Events, not sub-events. So to say that you'll all be getting the same as the last two is not only incorrect, it's also actively not acknowledging the fact that those two Events had different scaling to one another, much less this one.

We've made changes to scaling to make it better. We'll continue to do so. Not only due to data, but also because of player feedback. To somehow say that we've listened and are ignoring any input, that's just not the case.

Unknown

My problem is not in the scaling itself, but the fact that the scaling is not dependent on me, and punishes me for being a living human being that needs to sleep and work. cause as time passes other people make the game harder for me

mischiefmaker

IceIX: I think what people are interpreting from Will's comment is that scaling will persist across future sub events of Simulator; that is, that simulator round 2 will keep the same scaling as simulator round 1. This is the correct interpretation, yes?

Since some people are already getting level 230s, pasa_ is saying that this will be just like the previous two Events (TaT and Oscorp), in that he predicts that many players will see nothing but 230s for the rest of the event, not that the scaling is persisting from the last Event to this one.

Also, for those that haven't been around long enough to remember, it's worth noting that the first couple iterations of the rubber banding mechanic didn't work so great either. Remember that Hulk event that everyone remembers so fondly? Rubber banding worked great on it. Give it time; I have confidence we'll all be happy with where level scaling ends up.

IceIX

mischiefmaker wrote:

IceIX: I think what people are interpreting from Will's comment is that scaling will persist across future sub events of Simulator; that is, that simulator round 2 will keep the same scaling as simulator round 1. This is the correct interpretation, yes?

That's pretty much exactly what was stated, yes.

stingdx

Is there really community scaling in this? It seems like that negates all the good effects of scaling if it's based on a community. It means events scale far past what people without time or good rosters can do. Individual player scaling is a great thing because it fights against grinding and provides a challenge while also encouraging people to take a break so nodes will scale down. It ALSO encourages people to spend money because if a goal feels obtainable and you want a reward (like a Psylocke cover) you are far more willing to spend a few dollars to buy a boost, health packs, or more ISO to level up if you think that little bit can make the difference and help you get those last few points. And, then, if you get your wanted reward maybe you spend more money to buy a roster spot or ISO to level her or her abilities up.

However, if it's community scaling the opposite happens. If you don't dive straight in everything scales past you and you can't reset it at all, and people grind more because they want all the points they can get while they can still get them. Without time and a great roster the divide just become insurmountable and very frustrating. Even worse for the developers, this fights against spending money. If you get locked out of the event because better rosters/grinders are scaling everything far past what you can do, you become disheartened and you are much less likely to spend money simply because you feel the gap is to far and the cost to cross that gap is absurd. If your roster is around level 40 and you have to face off with level 230s you don't feel like 5-10 bucks of health packs and boosts and ISO is going to cut it, so you simply give up and walk away.

If community scaling is in the game can I ask the reasoning for this because it just makes no sense at all to me?

Unknown

IceIX wrote:

mischiefmaker wrote:

IceIX: I think what people are interpreting from Will's comment is that scaling will persist across future sub events of Simulator; that is, that simulator round 2 will keep the same scaling as simulator round 1. This is the correct interpretation, yes?

That's pretty much exactly what was stated, yes.

and that's pretty much what people didn't want to hear, since most people already reached the point where they can barely play if it stretches out to the rest of the simulation event part it pretty much makes it unplayable therefor for large amount of people.
since after these 2 sub events are over and the next 2 sub events appear, half the people won't be able to participate in them due to the scaling, leaving the event as bad as TaT and heroic even if the scaling was much slower