To the devs...

Unknown

jozier wrote:

The issue has many problems - if you don't scale, you have a few options:

Make the difficulty really high - only high level teams compete.
Make the difficulty static but low - trivial for high level teams, leads to an all out grind fest since a lot of people can do every mission (think some of the earlier PVE events).
Make the difficult scale based on team strength - (basically Oscorp Heroic/TaT) - unfair to high level players who have to work much harder than new players
Variable scaling - low teams can compete but will eventually hit a wall, high teams have more challenge but are not punished as extensively.

That's the reality. Get rid of scaling and you have a lot of other crummy issues. Simulator Basics rewarded advanced teams the most and yet low/mid level teams could still compete. That was the best imo.

Sim Basics let low/mid level teams who happened to be playing at the right time compete. That was terrible.

Scaling isn't great, but we may be stuck with it because of how the game's various rewards systems interact. Community scaling is cripplingly bad design and should be removed asap.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

Based on my observation, the major boosted characters are roughly equivalent of 100 levels higher than their level, and the minor boosted characters are about 50 levels higher.

For example a level 85 Moonstone is basically a level 150 3* (because 2* roughly have stats equal to a 3* 15 levels higher) and her stats matchup favorably against say a level 141 Iron Man 40 (roughly same class of tanky but not tank). A level 15 Dr. Doom is equivalent of a level 115 nonboosted version of himself.

What this means is that it does favor the low end and the high end, because the guys on the high end are likely to have all the characters developed. A level 85 Moonstone is better than a level 141 IM40 in stats, so you might as well use her. Conversely, on the lower end, you might be looking at the difference between a level 10 Moonstone or a level 20 someone else, and it's easy to see Moonstone's stats are much higher while boosted so you might as well use her as an equivalent of level 75 3*, who is more than a match for the PvE enemies faced by the low level player. But mid range players are likely to ignore their roster depth because they're trying to pump a few guys up, so you're sitting here with a level 85 OBW, level 85 Thor, and a level 10 Moonstone. Well level 10 Moonstone doesn't beat level 85 Thor, but level 85 Thor isn't really adequate for the enemies you'd be fighting too.

Still, even mid range players should diversify their roster. It's always a good idea to level whoever is currently featured anyway, if only to avoid you from being an attractive target when someone sees your level 15 loaned hero. For example in the Daredevil tournament you'll see that most high end teams have him around level 40-50. While Daredevil is a weak character, you'd still pass up a team with level 141X2 + level 40 Daredevil if you've seen a level 141X2 + level 15 Daredevil earlier. In fact, due to the overall dominance of Spiderman, having a weak featured character is very dangerous. You don't want a guy with only 1K HP that can be killed immediately and let Spiderman begin his stunlock that much quicker (way easier to stunlock 2 guys than 3 guys), so even though Daredevil doesn't do jack, he still needs to be alive to slow down the opposiong Spiderman.

The problem with this is that what I consider "mid-level players" are trying to move from 2-star to 3-star teams, so they generally don't have even three "solid" 3-star heroes, and unless you're fighting mooks a lvl 200 2-cover Moonstone isn't going to help you. I think way more mid-level players simply don't have the covers to diversify, rather than are "choosing" not to diversify.

kensterr

gamar wrote:

Phantron wrote:

Based on my observation, the major boosted characters are roughly equivalent of 100 levels higher than their level, and the minor boosted characters are about 50 levels higher.

For example a level 85 Moonstone is basically a level 150 3* (because 2* roughly have stats equal to a 3* 15 levels higher) and her stats matchup favorably against say a level 141 Iron Man 40 (roughly same class of tanky but not tank). A level 15 Dr. Doom is equivalent of a level 115 nonboosted version of himself.

What this means is that it does favor the low end and the high end, because the guys on the high end are likely to have all the characters developed. A level 85 Moonstone is better than a level 141 IM40 in stats, so you might as well use her. Conversely, on the lower end, you might be looking at the difference between a level 10 Moonstone or a level 20 someone else, and it's easy to see Moonstone's stats are much higher while boosted so you might as well use her as an equivalent of level 75 3*, who is more than a match for the PvE enemies faced by the low level player. But mid range players are likely to ignore their roster depth because they're trying to pump a few guys up, so you're sitting here with a level 85 OBW, level 85 Thor, and a level 10 Moonstone. Well level 10 Moonstone doesn't beat level 85 Thor, but level 85 Thor isn't really adequate for the enemies you'd be fighting too.

Still, even mid range players should diversify their roster. It's always a good idea to level whoever is currently featured anyway, if only to avoid you from being an attractive target when someone sees your level 15 loaned hero. For example in the Daredevil tournament you'll see that most high end teams have him around level 40-50. While Daredevil is a weak character, you'd still pass up a team with level 141X2 + level 40 Daredevil if you've seen a level 141X2 + level 15 Daredevil earlier. In fact, due to the overall dominance of Spiderman, having a weak featured character is very dangerous. You don't want a guy with only 1K HP that can be killed immediately and let Spiderman begin his stunlock that much quicker (way easier to stunlock 2 guys than 3 guys), so even though Daredevil doesn't do jack, he still needs to be alive to slow down the opposiong Spiderman.

The problem with this is that what I consider "mid-level players" are trying to move from 2-star to 3-star teams, so they generally don't have even three "solid" 3-star heroes, and unless you're fighting mooks a lvl 200 2-cover Moonstone isn't going to help you. I think way more mid-level players simply don't have the covers to diversify, rather than are "choosing" not to diversify.

Yup - I am currently moving up to *** but my covers ain't too strong.

Eddiemon

gamar wrote:

[

Sim Basics let low/mid level teams who happened to be playing at the right time compete. That was terrible.

Scaling isn't great, but we may be stuck with it because of how the game's various rewards systems interact. Community scaling is cripplingly bad design and should be removed asap.

Community scaling is fantastic design. Community scaling can be summarised like this.

You have a problem with a level 95% of the community can pass. Tough, most people can beat it.
95% of the community are having difficulty with a mission you find easy? We'll make it easier.

If enough people are beating it at 230 then it stays at 230. If they can't then it comes down. It's impartial and it adjusts based on the majority and performance, and not on people pleading special circumstances.

Unknown

Eddiemon wrote:

If enough people are beating it at 230 then it stays at 230. If they can't then it comes down. It's impartial and it adjusts based on the majority and performance, and not on people pleading special circumstances.

Levels should come down once spider-man stops being able to stun-lock entire team for entire match + more people start to lose. That hasn't happened yet though, so we're stuck with level 230 fights. An entire board of 230s takes AGES to clear due to high health enemies. It sucks to have to spend 6-8 hours clearing a board to compete for top prizes when other people can spend 2-4 hours to clear the same board as they are fighting low levels.

Unknown

Eddiemon wrote:

gamar wrote:

[

Sim Basics let low/mid level teams who happened to be playing at the right time compete. That was terrible.

Scaling isn't great, but we may be stuck with it because of how the game's various rewards systems interact. Community scaling is cripplingly bad design and should be removed asap.

Community scaling is fantastic design. Community scaling can be summarised like this.

You have a problem with a level 95% of the community can pass. Tough, most people can beat it.
95% of the community are having difficulty with a mission you find easy? We'll make it easier.

If enough people are beating it at 230 then it stays at 230. If they can't then it comes down. It's impartial and it adjusts based on the majority and performance, and not on people pleading special circumstances.

Except that it has nothing to do with the majority of players. It just depends on the number of times it's beaten. One guy can beat a level 100 times and it would screw everyone else just as much as if 100 people played it once. And 230 is its max out point. The few that can beat it do so to keep it there, and the majority who can't aren't stupid enough to try.

Unknown

Eddiemon wrote:

gamar wrote:

[

Sim Basics let low/mid level teams who happened to be playing at the right time compete. That was terrible.

Scaling isn't great, but we may be stuck with it because of how the game's various rewards systems interact. Community scaling is cripplingly bad design and should be removed asap.

Community scaling is fantastic design. Community scaling can be summarised like this.

You have a problem with a level 95% of the community can pass. Tough, most people can beat it.
95% of the community are having difficulty with a mission you find easy? We'll make it easier.

If enough people are beating it at 230 then it stays at 230. If they can't then it comes down. It's impartial and it adjusts based on the majority and performance, and not on people pleading special circumstances.

That's not a summary of community scaling at all. Try "Even IF they nerfed Spider-Man, high level players will always have some kind of chain combo/stun/protect tile strategy that will make them nigh-invulnerable as long as they can live long enough to reach AP threshold to pull it off, meanwhile people who don't have a prayer against lvl 230 teams aren't going to attempt the missions so most people playing them will beat them. So, levels will rapidly scale during the first few hours of the event and then stay scaled forever. Unless you have a high level team you'd better able to play during that narrow window of the first few hours of each subevent or you're locked out of most of the event."

Which is asinine.

Unknown

Typhon13 wrote:

Eddiemon wrote:

gamar wrote:

[

Sim Basics let low/mid level teams who happened to be playing at the right time compete. That was terrible.

Scaling isn't great, but we may be stuck with it because of how the game's various rewards systems interact. Community scaling is cripplingly bad design and should be removed asap.

Community scaling is fantastic design. Community scaling can be summarised like this.

You have a problem with a level 95% of the community can pass. Tough, most people can beat it.
95% of the community are having difficulty with a mission you find easy? We'll make it easier.

If enough people are beating it at 230 then it stays at 230. If they can't then it comes down. It's impartial and it adjusts based on the majority and performance, and not on people pleading special circumstances.

Except that it has nothing to do with the majority of players. It just depends on the number of times it's beaten. One guy can beat a level 100 times and it would screw everyone else just as much as if 100 people played it once. And 230 is its max out point. The few that can beat it do so to keep it there, and the majority who can't aren't stupid enough to try.

I don't think there are too many people who have the patience to grind a 230*3 100 times just to keep the scaling up. And if they do then they are both a jerk and a master of discouraging competition so good for them they are trying to win. If they keep that behavior up for 10 days they have rightfully earned their top placement.

What I noticed though was these extra challenging missions caused some extra creativity and persistence and luck. My highest character is 53, yes I'm a noob and i diversify too much and all those things but I beat the IW/Analyst/Hulk mission 3 times, at 215, 230, 230 respectively.

This is what the simulator was good at, finding new things that work and trying them in many situations.

Unknown

Cryptobrancus wrote:

Typhon13 wrote:

Eddiemon wrote:

gamar wrote:

[

Sim Basics let low/mid level teams who happened to be playing at the right time compete. That was terrible.

Scaling isn't great, but we may be stuck with it because of how the game's various rewards systems interact. Community scaling is cripplingly bad design and should be removed asap.

Community scaling is fantastic design. Community scaling can be summarised like this.

You have a problem with a level 95% of the community can pass. Tough, most people can beat it.
95% of the community are having difficulty with a mission you find easy? We'll make it easier.

If enough people are beating it at 230 then it stays at 230. If they can't then it comes down. It's impartial and it adjusts based on the majority and performance, and not on people pleading special circumstances.

Except that it has nothing to do with the majority of players. It just depends on the number of times it's beaten. One guy can beat a level 100 times and it would screw everyone else just as much as if 100 people played it once. And 230 is its max out point. The few that can beat it do so to keep it there, and the majority who can't aren't stupid enough to try.

I don't think there are too many people who have the patience to grind a 230*3 100 times just to keep the scaling up. And if they do then they are both a jerk and a master of discouraging competition so good for them they are trying to win. If they keep that behavior up for 10 days they have rightfully earned their top placement.

What I noticed though was these extra challenging missions caused some extra creativity and persistence and luck. My highest character is 53, yes I'm a noob and i diversify too much and all those things but I beat the IW/Analyst/Hulk mission 3 times, at 215, 230, 230 respectively.

This is what the simulator was good at, finding new things that work and trying them in many situations.

Okay, 100 times was just an example to prove a point, and I meant hitting it 100 times to GET IT to 230. And anyone that can 9/10 beat 230s will get in the top ranks anyway, so why does it have to screw everyone else. And I didn't mean they did it intentionally, that's just the way it happens.

Unknown

Level 85 Moonstone was my go to tank when I didn't have a high level major boosted hero (Doom, Loki for me). Level 85 Moonstone was stronger than every 3* in the game besides Magneto on offense in the simulator (Spiderman, despite his broken status, contributes nothing offensively). Daken is probably even stronger but I didn't have him leveled so I sticked with Moonstone. I finished 2nd overall and I have never seen a fight that wasn't 230X3 in the hard bracket, and Moonstone participated in at least half of them when it's not Magneto/Hulk major boosted (those are my high level heroes).

It's not the game's fault that you're not using the guy with the boost icon over their head and wonder why your nonboosted guys are getting spanked. My Punisher is only level 40, and he's doing pretty good in this tournament too when he's required. It's one thing you might not have the major boosted hero and that is a huge difference, but the minor boosted hero makes a huge difference if you don't have a level 50 Psylocke sitting around for this event.

Unknown

Exactly this, I was using a 53 Daken and he made every fight much much more manageable, and yes I used venom to devour 230 hulk and others, and modern storm in every desert stage. These guys were *useful* and should be things low level agents have some access to and allowed them to do well. That being said, they should be things mid and high level teams should have access to and allow them to do even better.

I can see why some people would refuse to level some toons like daken or moonstone and save all their iso and char slots for people they think are going to be the best all around in every event, but have a well rounded roster and being able to take advantage of the boosts given can lead you to do even better than someone with a good mid level team that is not taking advantage of event boosts.

Unknown

Typhon13 wrote:

Just a general question to the devs with no necessary response from anyone else. Comment if you like though

Why would you scale an event while everyone is complaining about scaling? You didn't take any time to think about it, since the psylocke event literally ended only a couple hours before this one. So why do you do it? Is there some necessity to scaling I don't get? And saying its to give the beginners a better chance isn't a valid answer. They shouldn't get a better chance than they deserve, and they don't deserve high ranks until they get stronger teams.

The devs work weeks to months ahead. While we are here dealing with the current event, they are likely creating and dealing with events to be released next week or even further down. Due to this, It is precisely the fact that these 2 events are so close that not much can be done about this event without outright pulling it midway.

In addition, since they are in a work setting and they are a group, every decision will require some amount of meetings and discussions before it can be made, something which also requires time. Time which they will unlikely have a lot of from when one event gets panned in the forums till the next event needs to go "live". A lot of the posts made here and there makes me think that people seem to think that implementing changes is a matter of one person snapping his/her fingers, say some magic words and things instantaneously occur but it isn't.

I like to say that in massive multiplayer games like this, every player plays and sees a different game. While we are all playing MPQ, due to what we have and what we do, each of our experiences are different but that is more than enough for us. The devs though, have to try to understand and cater as much as possible to all these different views and experiences in order to maintain the amount of players within the game to ensure the game can survive. For every person that wants the game to have some difficulty, there will be another that wants the game to be playable and winnable by a blindfolded monkey tapping/clicking on a screen with it's foot. For every person that wants to be able to competently compete in an event playing just a few hours a day at their own leisure, there are others that feel being glued to a screen grinding non-stop for days and very little sleep is the proper way to go. Is it easy to try to cater for all the camps? No but you can see them trying very hard to do so and improve with every event. And they don't even need to, they could jolly well cater to just whichever camp pays the most, deal with this game for a month or so before pulling support to another new game and letting this one live and die on it's own but they didn't. Yet unfortunately for them, things don't always work out for them and every time one of their attempts fail, it's there to be spat on and complained about for at least the duration of that event, often much longer.

Is there some necessity to scaling I don't get? And saying its to give the beginners a better chance isn't a valid answer. They shouldn't get a better chance than they deserve, and they don't deserve high ranks until they get stronger teams.

Am I happy about how scaling is at the moment, no but I for one see a need to provide players with a challenge as steamrolling opponents causes boredom to set in very quickly. As for the the comments on beginners, how does one draw a line on what constitutes a beginner and what doesn't? How strong is strong enough? What type of chances are the chances that they should deserve? A part of an online game's success is measured by the amount of players they can attract and retain. Think back to the time where you first started out and started joining events. Did you join events thinking I will just go for that standard token, that bit of ISO, that 1 Captain America/Thor/Wolverine cover etc. and nothing else or were you gunning for as much as you can get while expecting only to receive 1 2* cover? If you discovered that from the start of the event, even if you tried your hardest, your reward will only be topped at 1 2* cover, how many event will it be before you give up on the game? Does this mean I enjoy or feel that it's fine for players to do better than me with much lesser effort put in? No, but do I have a better solution that won't outright cut a significant subset of players out of ever attaining a certain level of rewards? No as well, so what I (and pretty much everyone else) can do is just try my best and hope they get it right the next time.

Unknown

Eclypse, your post is mad long so I'm not gonna quote it. First off, the fact that they have time to think it out is even worse, since they obviously don't care that we hate the current scaling because they did it anyway. For the comments on beginners, which I figure is anyone who runs all one stars, yes, they should expect to get low rewards right off the bat because they haven't gotten good enough teams to earn good stuff. That being said, it isn't that hard to get maxed covers for two stars, so it won't take them long to move up the ranks. And the devs shouldn't cater to the new guys at the great expense if everyone else. I understand attracting more customers, but giving them unfair advantages is insane. For your other comments, I realize things don't happen instantly, but they need to happen faster. For example, it been nearly a month since thorverine was nerfed, but we haven't gotten a respec, and they should've expected we'd want one. They get spat on when they mess up? They mess up consistently, we have the right to complain at this point. For your comments on scaling, we don't necesarily want it made easier, we want it to be made fair. I thought of scaling based on team strength, but with a max level the enemy can hit based on your team (or when you lose it decreases the difficulty slightly, maybe not as much as it would increase when you win), and the points are based on the difficulty of the enemy. And the community's wins have no effect on each individual player.

Unknown

I'm one of the guys with a 53 as my highest level and no 2* with maxed covers yet. I placed top 50 in the main and got two Psylock covers.

Some argue that I should not be competitive because my team isn't as good as theirs

Some argue that scaling is horrible and makes it impossible for mid to low level teams to do anything

Others argue that some fights are impossible without a 5 blue spidey

I'm scratching my head because something doesn't add up. Seriously can anyone help me with this?

Eddiemon

Typhon13 wrote:

Except that it has nothing to do with the majority of players. It just depends on the number of times it's beaten. One guy can beat a level 100 times and it would screw everyone else just as much as if 100 people played it once. And 230 is its max out point. The few that can beat it do so to keep it there, and the majority who can't aren't stupid enough to try.

In the real world with community scaling, the Hard mode Devil Dinosaur mission was dropping because not enough people were attempting/beating it. The few who could beat it couldn't keep it at 230.

Because it was scaling according to the community, not some statistical outliers.

NorthernPolarity

Cryptobrancus wrote:

I'm one of the guys with a 53 as my highest level and no 2* with maxed covers yet. I placed top 50 in the main and got two Psylock covers.

Some argue that I should not be competitive because my team isn't as good as theirs

Some argue that scaling is horrible and makes it impossible for mid to low level teams to do anything

Others argue that some fights are impossible without a 5 blue spidey

I'm scratching my head because something doesn't add up. Seriously can anyone help me with this?

You are still considered a low tier player (no offense!). People are mostly complaining about "mid" level teams getting screwed over by scaling, which refers to people who have maxed out 2*s but haven't transitioned into 3* characters yet. These people had to face level 230 opponents during the simulator with their balanced level 85 guys, which is really hard. Since your roster is low, scaling benefited you since your enemies were significantly easier than other peoples, which explains why you didn't find the battles to be very challenging. In my hard mode for instance, all of the enemies scaled up to 230, which made some fights extremely difficult without a level 5 blue spidey (luckily I have one so it's fine).

Regarding the you shouldn't be competitive thing: people are just angry that a new player has a significantly easier time going through the missions than the veteran players, since your hardest battles are probably level 30-50 (which is a cakewalk if you have a buffed character, which is like having a normal character + 50 levels) while we have to face all 230s all the time, which is significantly harder. In theory a newbie shouldn't need 3* covers anyways since they can't place high enough in tournaments yet to get enough 3* covers to make them useful, but with the PvE events requiring these covers, I guess having 1 is actually necessary. I personally think that newbies should be able to be competitive, but they should work significantly harder than the veterans to get the same position (this can be done with a cap on how much scaling can be done so that higher level rosters can easily beat missions that would be challenging for newbies).

Unknown

Eddiemon wrote:

Typhon13 wrote:

Except that it has nothing to do with the majority of players. It just depends on the number of times it's beaten. One guy can beat a level 100 times and it would screw everyone else just as much as if 100 people played it once. And 230 is its max out point. The few that can beat it do so to keep it there, and the majority who can't aren't stupid enough to try.

In the real world with community scaling, the Hard mode Devil Dinosaur mission was dropping because not enough people were attempting/beating it. The few who could beat it couldn't keep it at 230.

Because it was scaling according to the community, not some statistical outliers.

Okay, now tell me. Why should it be that high in the first place for anyone but the few who can beat it? The fact that it was dropping is great, but it shouldn't be like that in the first place for most people.

Eddiemon

gamar wrote:

That's not a summary of community scaling at all. Try "Even IF they nerfed Spider-Man, high level players will always have some kind of chain combo/stun/protect tile strategy that will make them nigh-invulnerable as long as they can live long enough to reach AP threshold to pull it off, meanwhile people who don't have a prayer against lvl 230 teams aren't going to attempt the missions so most people playing them will beat them. So, levels will rapidly scale during the first few hours of the event and then stay scaled forever. Unless you have a high level team you'd better able to play during that narrow window of the first few hours of each subevent or you're locked out of most of the event."

Which is asinine.

And yet the Devil Dinosaur mission was dropping in level despite all the magical super powers that high level players supposedly have to win a statistically significant number of matches.

Easy mode levels were scaling higher than hard mode towards the end because more people were beating them. Not because of rosters or some guy having more 141s but because of sheer weight of numbers and community scaling.

But you're still stuck in the fantasy that high level rosters is why you couldn't succeed. The best characters last event were Daken and C Storm. 2 stars that any 'mid tier' player would have seen plenty of covers of. There was no secret up down up down a a b b start combo that these evil high level players have that they are hiding from you.

Unknown

One huge issue with community scaling is that if there is a fight that is difficult, we'll just use Devil Dino, punisher, bagman. People who COULD beat that did and increased difficulty for everyone else. People (like me) who noticed that two of 4 characters they had past lvl 65, who didn't have not been spreading around the iso so most of their roster consisted of people less than level 25 did not even attempt it. Why throw 3 health packs away? So theoretically we should have been fighting it and losing to lower the level, but if we know we are more than likely going to lose, we're not going to play that mission. Yes I realize that in hard mode it's level dropped to below easy mode for some (including me), but the difference between 230 and 190 isn't that huge. You can either beat it at either level, or you can't. If you feel you cannot, many people won't waste the health packs to try.

Unknown

Maggotbreath wrote:

One huge issue with community scaling is that if there is a fight that is difficult, we'll just use Devil Dino, punisher, bagman. People who COULD beat that did and increased difficulty for everyone else. People (like me) who noticed that two of 4 characters they had past lvl 65, who didn't have not been spreading around the iso so most of their roster consisted of people less than level 25 did not even attempt it. Why throw 3 health packs away? So theoretically we should have been fighting it and losing to lower the level, but if we know we are more than likely going to lose, we're not going to play that mission. Yes I realize that in hard mode it's level dropped to below easy mode for some (including me), but the difference between 230 and 190 isn't that huge. You can either beat it at either level, or you can't. If you feel you cannot, many people won't waste the health packs to try.

But that fight actually went down in difficulty. It started out as 230X3 and went down to about 200. It actually made my strategy not working because I was relying on Hulk to generate Anger for a massive amount of green and then try to infinite combo with it (or at least get many, many turns).

So the fact that the other stuff never budged from 230X3 means people in general didn't have problem with the encounter.