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

shusheshe

First off, I like the fact I'm not playing to an 8 hour (or close to) schedule any more.

Unfortunately, like everyone else I'm not enjoying the scaling. After 4 clears is about the maximum my chars can hit after the scaling goes up 4 times. While this works (somewhat) for 1 day subs (where I do 3 clears and call it a day), I lose out on 2 day subs.

My suggestion is:
1. Dial the scaling down by about 30%, and maybe I'll be able to do more than 3-4 clears per sub.

2. Give us the 2-3 trivial nodes back, where the scaling doesn't change. This will allow people to use their B/C teams or to test out interesting new combinations. The easy and above nodes can scan up 5-10 levels per clear as you intended, making it more and more challenging for people who want the extra iso/points.

3. Make PVE progression only. Then people can stop grinding so much and actually enjoy the game.

Tharos

ramoramo86 wrote:

My thoughts in the PVE changes that are being tested

The good

1) I like having the freedom of playing over a longer period of time before it resets. Hitting a node 6 times for full points throughout a 24 hour period is great for me
2) See # 1


The bad

1) The scaling is ridiculous, who the heck thought it was a good idea for the levels to jump up by 20-22 per clear?
2) How the heck does #1 that even make sense?
3) By increasing the level you have NOT made it harder you have simply made our luck worse and the AI’s luck better. When the level increase happens the AI should get harder, and by harder I mean smarter. Smarter to the point to where they actually become more of a challenge. During this PVE whenever the levels increase my luck decreases and the AI starts to get INSANE CASCADES. I have tested this out to make sure it wasn’t just me and my alliance is saying the something.
4) Staying on the toping of luck and cascades, I have noticed that not only does the AI get crazy lucky but my strongest colors seem to either stop dropping as much or always spaced so far apart that I can’t even match them


Anyone else having a similar experience?

Similar experience, but I must add another positive point: I am achieving a higher rank within this PvE, while playing less.
It could be because other players are bored with this format, or maybe because this format fits my playstyle. The old format clearly never helped me perform well.

My usual play habits (on old or this new format):
- Start a first clear on each node as early as I can (usually I clear about half of the sub)
- Do some nodes clear from times to times, when I have 5-10 minutes free
- Depending on the time I have, grind as much as I can near the end. Usually, I am doing this during 30 minutes to 1 hours.

Clearly not an optimal play schedule for the old PvE format. Depending on my time (and luck), I finished all PvE between 100-200 (sometimes way lower than that). The only time I went lower than #100 where when I could play longer, and near the "8-hours tick".

For this testing PvE, I am near #50, without chaning my habits.

In fact, I am playing less due to harder battles, having way less fun, but still achieve higher ranking...

Magic

So my feedback after 3 days of play. Coming from 600+ days Vet with two champed 4* and no usable 5* on the roster. I have not been really competitive in PvE for months now due to burnout and poor rewards. My usual target if CP progression reward for 3-4 day events, CP nodes for 7 day events and top 100 for new releases.

The good:
1. I can play a bit here and a bit there - not time pressure. I love this part.

The bad:
1. I actually have to play a bit more than usual to get the chance at CP progression award (cleared most of the nodes 6 times). The CP progression bar should be lower. We should know how many clears of each sub we need to get it (say - can I skip day one and make up on day 7?)
2. I am punished for playing the game 600+ days (and this is my red card for the devs) - i have to play long matches against opponents over lvl 300 and I am beaten by many players with 2* rosters in the placement table. This should never happen. They should not be able to compete with me. If that means i need the matches easier - fine, I have earned it by playing the game for a long period of time.
3. I am more limited in who I can use - hence I don't see me even starting a heroic "story event" or play when Prof X is boosted (as that takes away one of my two go to teams)
4. The rewards are nothing compared to the time investment needed and the difficultly
5. The scaling is rough but workable. I just don't see why I need that sort of "challenge" - i have PvP for that.

Overall:
I like the concept of the change but not the execution. I want a real PvE in this game - something I can play at my pace and win nice rewards. And the rewards should be achievable to all but noobs should have a problem with them compared to Vets (why - because nothing was given to us - we have ground our way to the rosters we have and now the game should be easier for us - like any other game is). The scaling should be less brutal, the starting level lower, the awards higher and the PvP aspect should not exist (no placement awards!!!).

Still - it is more enjoyable compared to the average "story event" that is just a mindless grind. So kudos to devs for that.

Dev93L

DayvBang wrote:

In my opinion, none of these changes address the real problem:

Competitive PvE always has been and always will be a bad idea.

All this does is create a new model for "optimal play". A new metagame for placement that has little to nothing to do with how good a player is at winning matches.

PvE can be fun without a leaderboard. Look at The Gauntlet concept (perhaps not its punishing difficulty for minimal rewards), or the Ant-Man and TAHulk special events, or even DDQ.

Stop turning repetition into a game and start rewarding people for passing new challenges. Add in some elements of choice (e.g. branching hard or easy paths where the player may only choose one path to complete). If repetition is to be a factor, do more events in the Galactus model where you play for progression only, and it doesn't really matter whether you arbitrarily did "better" than another player.

But not this. Not the new way or the old way.

Progression based PVE, please.

Dev93L

denouement wrote:

The fundamental problem with PvE in this game, and why it is so onerous, is the fact that it is not truly PvE at all. The base assumptions baked into the event structure is that key rewards MUST be distributed on a competitive (ranked) basis. All of the problems and complaints from the players flow logically from that base assumption.

Since players must be ranked, there must be some means of differentiating between players -- in other words, a difficulty scale. Since the devs have determined (fairly so, I might add) that players of all levels should be able to be competitive within the "PvE" event structure, roster strength is eliminated as a differentiating factor. The only other reliable differentiators left are speed and endurance. Speed is part skill and part roster strength, and at the very high end (Top 10 placement) it is the primary differentiator.

For the rest of the bracket, endurance rules. Can you hit your clear marks every 8 hours? Can you invest the time to hit those marks 3 times, then spend 2-3 hours grinding at the end? Is it the investment worth your time?

This is why any PvE revamp that doesn't eliminate the competitive structure is doomed to fail. The fact is that the only differentiator that really matters to 99% of a bracket is endurance. The devs realize this, which is why there is a convoluted refresh timer structure AFTER the nodes are cleared seven times. If you eliminate the grind, placement simply becomes a speed race -- who can grind down the seven stacks fastest? This will almost always favor the advanced roster and goes directly against one of the stated priorities in Anthony's post, the desire to let people play PvE as they like.

The only way to have lasting, meaningful change in PvE events is to change to a progression-only model. In this context, several stacks of a set of nodes with increasing difficulty starts to make sense. It makes endurance MUCH less of a factor and instead shifts to the ability of your roster to overcome the nodes, aka the environment... aka, PvE.

Reiterating. Squeaky wheel and all that.

Unknown

Once again missions became to difficult for me to win, even with my most powerful featured characters and boosts.

Unknown

I still don't agree that to have a 5star mono cover character raise so much the level of enemies in PVE (and also in PVP I suppose).
They' re almost useless and much less powerful than a 166lvl 3star, so you should find a system that modulates the power of a character also based on the amount of covers.
270lvl 5star = 160lvl 3star, more or less.
Kind regards

Jam_Adams

after several days of thought and reading this thread:

1. scaling must drop significantly
2. trivial nodes must return
3. number of full-point hits must drop from 6
4. eliminating competitive nature of PVE is preferable (progression only rewards)*


*as a consequence to this, I feel the nature of the alliance will be devalued. as currently constructed, the primary value of the alliance is grounded in the competitive nature of PVE. yes, you get a measly +10 ISO for every member that played that day, but that is only secondary to the alliance rewards you get for PVE placement. by taking away the PVP aspect of PVE, we lose alliance rewards. however, I think by implementing galactus/ultron style alliance rewards in lieu of the current system would be a net win. I think most people here enjoy that style (i.e. the group effort involved with getting an aggregate score, and the commensurate rewards, NOT so much the node lock-out system that those events use)

Unknown

My biggest gripe honestly is that there is no justification in the magnitude of scaling to reward the exact same seven rewards.

Or do the Testers sincerely believe it is as easy to obtain a CP from level 150 opponents as it is from level 220 opponents (pardon the sweeping generaliztion)?

thanos8587

Jam_Adams wrote:

after several days of thought and reading this thread:

1. scaling must drop significantly
2. trivial nodes must return
3. number of full-point hits must drop from 6
4. eliminating competitive nature of PVE is preferable (progression only rewards)*


*as a consequence to this, I feel the nature of the alliance will be devalued. as currently constructed, the primary value of the alliance is grounded in the competitive nature of PVE. yes, you get a measly +10 ISO for every member that played that day, but that is only secondary to the alliance rewards you get for PVE placement. by taking away the PVP aspect of PVE, we lose alliance rewards. however, I think by implementing galactus/ultron style alliance rewards in lieu of the current system would be a net win. I think most people here enjoy that style (i.e. the group effort involved with getting an aggregate score, and the commensurate rewards, NOT so much the node lock-out system that those events use)

IF they ever moved to strictly progression based pve awards they could simply do alliance progression awards as is done for galactus/ultron.

i just dont see it happening. the lust for competitive awards drives people to spend money to better their roster, buy health packs, yada yada yada. speaking cynically, thats the grease that turns the wheel. they know it, we know it.

whoami

So after 4 days I thought there was a chance--a chance!--that I might make the final progression reward, if points scaled up enough in the last few days like I thought they did. But then Hell's Kitchen hit, with multiple Wolvie and/or Gorgon nodes and no waves (hence lower points). Anyone recall how many points are possible in the last two days? I'm trying to decide whether to just give up at this point or to keep slogging through...(I suspect there's no chance at this point--I only have 65k points at the start of Hell's Kitchen.)

GrumpySmurf1002

I finally joined and been through 2 subs so far, so here are my less theory crafted, more game play experience thoughts:

Note: my main characters here are Champed boosted 4Cyc, XDP, Blade. Level 200 Iceman. OML 285 (no black, so don't really use him). Champed IMHB, Jean, Fury, Carnage, Switch.

- The hard nodes hardest levels are in a good place to discourage grinding. They're not unbeatable, so they won't discourage grinding because people are animals in this game, but it'll make it a pest to do. That's good, given the stated goal.

- The easiest nodes hardest levels are laughably difficult. There's no reason for the 100 pt node to start at level 200 and hit level 300+ This needs to be massively dialed back. They can (should?) be non-trivial by the finish, but the first few go rounds should be wayyyyyyy easier.

- Clearing waves the 2nd through infinite times for no rewards is awful. Actually, awful is too kind, but I'm not awake enough yet to come up with a better adjective. Dumpster fire maybe? Crime against humanity? I dunno, someone else can fill in the blank.

-My recommendation here. Waves become one and done. If you have to take a 3 waves, 500 point node and make it a 12 wave, 2000 pt node, then do that. We shouldn't have to clear them more than once.

- Thank god for bracket shopping. While one of the dumbest concepts in MPQ, it's benefiting me greatly so far. So yay this time.

- I will never, ever, ever play this system optimally. Ever. The crazy people with 90k after sub 2 or 3 can have the new characters.


Fix the scaling, lock the wave nodes, and maybe PvE will be ok for Iso farming again, which at this stage is the best case for future PvEs. Competitive play is nuts.

fmftint

The survival nodes are the biggest issue with this test. They are wroth too many points too many times. Having them wroth full points 6x had inflated the total points available, which has increased the progression target, 65% of total points available iirc.

Second win or lose, if you pass wave 1, SCALING INCREASES!
They need to either, 24 hour recharge after 1 attempt, or lock after successful completion

smoq84

The biggest issue in my opinion is no easy/trivial nodes anymore.

All fights are now time and health packs consuming. After 1 full clear I'm already tired.

slowej25

Couple of my thoughts after a few days of the new system.

EotS used to be one of my favorite PVE events. Wave nodes for big points and I can try a bunch of different teams. Fun. But I don't even want to play this event except for the CP. I will not be getting progression for the first time since Legendary Tokens were introduced.

It's absolutely not grindable. I like the idea of giving us freedom to play when we want, but it's really clear once, grind for CP and wait for next sub. You run out of health packs after that 1 clear and small grind.

The only true PVE events are my favorite because they do not require grinding. Gauntlet, Growth Industry, etc accomplish your mission. Challenging, beatable, and doesn't require grinding or a ton of time commitment. Make all PVE truly PVE. These kind of PVE events with placement rewards are even more PVP than PVP.

TL;DR I hate the new system.

Ouroboros9999

I thought I would enjoy this new format not having to play at certain times, but the scaling has made this an unfulfilling slog. Uses too much health packs, and I don't look forward to the next go around. I actually think I will play less with this system unless major changes occur. Most of it has been thrown around, but the "easiest" node doesn't need to start at 140 or so, getting worse from there. I detest the level "ramping" that happens after a win. Maybe I don't have 8 hrs to use to grind these 6 clears out like some folks do. I felt I did better and progressed more with the old system.

The Viceroy Returns

My assessment is like many on here:

1) Scaling is stupid high. Weren't people complaining they were too high before? Significantly lower scaling:
With current values, I've only been using Charlie's Angles for every non-essential fight. You take way too much damage otherwise. So the one time goal of this game of "roster diversity" is completely trivialized. I've used 8 total characters this entire PVE, including the 3 essentials:
( GSBW Falcon)

Fixes:
a) Bring back the under 100 Level Easy nodes. They are needed for young rosters as well as a break to allow for more varied gameplay. In what reality is a node with Level 180+ enemies considered "Easy"?
b) There's topic here about "are we ever supposed to fight under levels opponents?" or something to that effect. I wholeheartedly agree that we should. PVE Easy Nodes are an example. After all, what's the reward in leveling up your team if it's power level is more or less identical every step along the way? Anyone remember Morrowind?
c) Using the exact same team almost all the time because of necessity is not that fun.
d) IMO, PVE nodes should only go significantly above your roster levels in specific cases, like the Gauntlet and only specific PVE Nodes. The average enemies level range should be within 20-30 levels of your roster average, excluding 5 stars. I'd have three Easy Nodes, Two Normal Nodes, and 1 Hard Node. Right now, all of mine are in the mid to high 200's. I think my average is

2) The time investment to get t50 let alone t10 is insanity.
It has more than doubled from an already demanding investment. I am in agreement that PVE should be REAL PVE with only progression rewards, but they will probably never do that. If they truly want "play any time you want" as a real goal, then competitive PVE with final placement rankings has to go.

3) Wave Nodes should be 1 & done (final progression points adjusted to take this into account).
They are already the most time consuming part, and arguably should have been one & done under the old system too. Survival Nodes not giving anything after the first completion is terrible, especially considering they are worth the most points. This would also fix not being able to tell how many times you've run a Survival Node before it's points deprecate.

This new format is not a total loss, but has serious issues that need to be addressed.

Wooodd

Posted my thoughts on the scaling test earlier in a separate topic, but figured this is likely to be the place that gets the most attention so thought I'd throw it in here too:

My Topic

Wooodd wrote:

So initially I was going to add this to the main stickied thread on the topic, but then realised that it is now 28 pages of hate and this would be lost.

With regards to the current EoTS scaling they have running I think they have gone the wrong way. Grinding for placement is more intensive than ever and more clears are required than before for progression too. The starting level of opponents is also way too high, and there are no easy nodes for anyone to dabble in. In addition to this you are all but locked into your A-team after your first clear or so, so why have 80+ roster slots?

I had an idea for a way to truly do away with the refresh timer once and for all, as this is the only way to give people the freedom to play whenever they want. I think that this idea will also give you the opportunity to play with your whole roster and also will benefit those who have spent the resources (time, money, sanity) to build a strong roster as they will be able to progress further, without locking out the newer players. Its a simple solution (in my eyes anyway) which I believe would work much better.

All 9 nodes in every sub start with 3 level 1 opponents, which once you beat jump up in levels. Then with each subsequent clear there difficulty increases on and on ad infinitum to the point where there is the potential to face 3 lvl 1000 opponents or more. Every clear should be worth 100 points (example figure) more than the last, and the rewards for completing nodes structured such that is starts with 70 iso and builds up to the CP (or the other highest rewards) on clear 7.

This method would give back the easy nodes as all nodes will be easy for the first 3 or 4 clears. It also completely strips away the timing element of PvE completely, giving people true freedom to play as they please.

In addition to this it also gives the placement rewards to the people most deserving. Placement rewards will go to the people who can climb the highest in the event, not those with the most spare time. Progression should be set so that 4-5 clears will get the job done (as it is now).

So in short, do away with Trivial, Normal, and Hard nodes and have all nodes equal. Starting easy and climbing as follows (again example figures):

1st Clear - level 1
2nd Clear - level 20
3rd Clear - level 50
4th Clear - level 100
5th Clear - level 160
6th Clear - level 230
7th Clear - level 300
etc....

So what do you all think? I'm sure that there would be flaws that I'm just not seeing in the above (please point them out if there is) but surely this would work much better than the current proposal, and is a more true PvE experience too. This mode would be more about how far you can push than how much time you could spend.

To the mods: I know there are a gazillion threads about the scaling already, but I would appreciate a little time on this for responses to gauge what other people think of this idea before merging. If you would be so kind as to stay your merge finger for a while it would be appreciated.

Redrobot30

Screw Hell's Kitchen!

Unknown

How does the song go again "it's all bout the money $$$$$$$$".

This actually is a test to see if income for the game will drop or increase seeing they chose a 7 day event that meaning they calculate money income based on ah 7 day period.Plus if the top big spenders are willing to spend more money on buying healthpacks.

Mostly likely if income is higher than usual in this test is justifiable to implement this new system it plain an simple to see that.