PVE Scaling Testing - Enemy Of The State (03/17/16)

David [Hi-Fi] Moore

Hello everyone,

Beginning tomorrow (Thursday, March 17, 2016) we will be testing out some new scaling adjustments during the Enemy of the State event.

Here’s word from Anthony at Demiurge:

“Mission Difficulty Adjustment Test

We will be running a one-event test for the mission difficulty adjustment feature for the story event Enemy of the State this Thursday. We are making a big change to the difficulty and how missions re-play. The main things we are trying to accomplish with this change are improving how mission difficulty is calculated and making missions more about completing challenging-but-fun missions rather than playing missions quickly, at set times during the day.

Mission Difficulty
The first thing I want to talk about is how the difficulty of the missions are changing. Previously, the system presented you with opponents based on your characters’ levels. There was a couple of quirks with this system. In some circumstances, it could be disadvantageous to level characters, or to add a high-level character to your roster. Now, the game will take into account both your heroes’ power levels and heroes’ levels into account when establishing the difficulty of the mission.

Playing When You Want to Play
The next big change we are introducing is how missions are re-played. Previously, after beating a mission, the strictly optimal strategy was to wait 8 hours and play it again. We wanted to update the system to give you more freedom about when you play the game.

In the test event, missions will be worth the same amount of points the first six times you play it. Missions get harder each of these times. Once a mission is beaten six times, the difficulty stops increasing.

After that, each time you beat a mission, it will be worth less points, similar to the old system. The amount of times it takes for a mission to be restored to full points after one play is 24 hours (up from 8). A mission can be beat 5 times (down from 6) until you reach the minimum amount of points a mission is worth, 20 points (up from 1). Our goal with this change is to make Story events more about beating challenging missions rather than having to beat missions quickly at set intervals during the day.

What’s Next?
The event after Enemy of the State will return to the original difficulty system. We will be looking at how people did and listen to what everyone is saying about it. Once we are comfortable with our findings, we will touch base with everyone again and let everyone know how it went and what we are planning on doing in the future.

We’re all pretty excited about the new changes and hope you enjoy them as well. As part of a thank-you for helping us with testing this system, we will be rewarding users who participate in it. Just for playing in the event, you will get three extra Enemy of the State tokens. If you place in the top 50 of your leaderboard you will also receive 10 Command Points. These will be gifted to everyone that participated the day after the event ends.

Addition info:

* Mission Difficulty Change (commonly referred to as scaling)
o Mission difficulty

- We have changed the way the game determines which level enemies you should go against to be more accurate. Instead of basing difficulty solely on heroes’ levels, it takes your heroes’ power levels into account as well. - Previously, missions increased in difficulty based on your performance within the event. Mission difficulty is now set at the start of the event and does not change for the duration of the event. - In the old system, some players saw a big jump in difficulty between the easier missions in a chapter and the harder ones. That's been smoothed out. - Players at higher levels will begin to see enemies higher than 395. - As your roster gets stronger, you'll see enemies that are relatively easier. (Their levels will still increase, but more slowly than yours do.) - The amount of Power levels an opponent has is based on their level.

· Opponents at base level or under will only have a single power level for each of their powers. This scales up to the max level which is 13 power levels. · Opponents shouldn’t have more than 13 Power levels at any point.

o Missions increase in difficulty after beating them

- After completing a mission, a screen is shown showing how many levels the enemy has gained. - Each mission will increase in difficulty six times. - Typically, Join Forces missions do not increase in difficulty.

o The amount of points a mission is worth

- The amount of points you earn while playing a mission no longer changes based on other players’ scores. (This was commonly referred to as rubber banding.) - The first six times you beat a Mission will be worth the same amount of points. - After the seventh time you beat a mission, it will be worth less points.

· Each time you beat the mission after the seventh completion will increase the time it takes to receive full points by 24 hours · The amount of times it takes for a mission to reach the minimum amount of points it is worth is five times (down from six times)

- The minimum amount of points a mission is worth is now 20 (increased from 1). - Typically, Join Forces missions decrease in points immediately after playing it once.”