The Hulk was my most favorite event, but....

Eddiemon

mechgouki wrote:

Anyway, I'll like to ask.

To those PVE missions prior to Thick as Thieves. Do any of you actually have a problem with the chosen levels? For the 2 Hunt Events, the 2 Hulk Events, Red ISO. All these events. Did any of you have a problem with the chosen levels?

I know I didn't. Some battles were at 240s. But even then, while they offered a good reward in points, they were optional, and certainly weren't carbon copied in every single battle.

My point is, it wasn't broken. At least to me. It was fine that way.

The devs suddenly decided to fix a system that wasn't broken. By adding a scaling system. The objective in that is probably trying to lower difficulties for newer players, while ensuring that it isn't too easy for experienced players. The first part, accomplished. The second part, over-done.

Something is clearly wrong when a Lv 100 player keeps facing walls of over 100 levels above him.

So many guys say, this is being tweaked, and will be tweaked even more. What I can say is, for 4 whole long missions, hasn't it ever occured to the devs that having every battle at 230 is not what we want? Shouldn't they take it out first, tweak it outside, make sure that it doesn't happen, before putting it back in?

It is what you want. You are still here. You still play. The devs look at that and know that there is no issue. You claim there is an issue and cry a lot but your actions which are truer than your words say there is no issue. They value the stats from the game over the echo chamber on here.

The scaling system is to avoid having to grind everything. A grind is fantastic for people who don't have jobs. The same people who don't pay anything towards the game. That's why they are putting in scaling, so short bursts of quality play are more value than constant grinding.

Eddiemon

DaveyPitch wrote:

I thought it'd been a few days since a mechgouki moan thread, so I guess we were about due one.

I'm happy to moan as much as anyone when things are obviously wrong, but how about this radical idea - why don't you wait and see how it actually turns out before moaning? If the devs put scaling on the event and it's broken for you, moan away to your little hearts content. It may however, work out just fine and you're moaning for nothing.

You can get more moaning in if you preemptively moan. And you can moan after the event too. You can get 10 days moaning for an 8 day event.

Value for moany!

Unknown

Eddiemon wrote:

You can get more moaning in if you preemptively moan. And you can moan after the event too. You can get 10 days moaning for an 8 day event.

Value for moany!

10/10, very good

Unknown

Eddiemon wrote:

You can get more moaning in if you preemptively moan. And you can moan after the event too. You can get 10 days moaning for an 8 day event.

Value for moany!

That just made my afternoon thanks!

Unknown

Wouldn't a simple solution be to cap the enemy levels at a decent point, like say 130-140 or so?

I mean, you could obviously have some missions that have higher caps, for those that genuinely enjoy the challenge of those fights (I'm not one of them, but to each his own), but most missions could probably be capped well before that to avoid enemies getting far too strong as to be annoyingly tough to fight.

stowaway

The scaling system is a work in progress, and it's getting progressively better. Why not give them the benefit of the doubt? To me, the bigger problem is the way rubberbanding has worked. If someone wants to grind every node down to a nub and sacrifice real-world concerns to do so. . . good for them? If someone wants to game the system and calculate the best value per refresh and achieve maximum result for time played. . . even better for them! But someone swooping in at the last minute and placing well without doing much of anything? That doesn't really make sense. In the last event my highest placement was in the sub I played the least.

akboyce

There was some discussion a few pages back about the antithesis of fun. Some say grinding some say its 230 drag on fights. I propose a different antithesis of fun... not being able to play.

With grinding you are making the choice. Your hand may be forced but at least you are choosing to engage with MPQ.

With 230 fights they may be slow and tedious but at least you are getting rewarded for it in the end.

However if you lose a fight after using your health packs that is 1.5 hours where you can not play. Unless your roster is super diverse that is 1.5 hours where you can not engage with the event without HPs. THAT imo is the antithesis of fun.

230 fights are the bigger culprit to creating that situation. One good cascade and you are FORCED to run away or eat the wipe. They also further enhance the spiderman/widow problem. In order to avoid the no play scenario you are basically forced to have these heroes so you can run away from bad fights and go heal up. Grinding at least lets you go do the easier fights with your B-Team if you lose to the harder fights. When the "easier" fights are also 230 this is not an option.

I agree nothing but 230 fights are bad but I think they actually expose the biggest problem in MPQ and that is the huge penalty for defeat. Yes you need to suffer for a lose and yes they need to sell health packs but 1.5 hours of not being able to play makes these 230 fights overly punishing and all but requires the use of Spidey/Widow.

In short atm I prefer the grinding non scaling version simply because it creates less of the huge penalty for lose situations but addressing the lose penalty problem would be a bigger step in the right direction.

MarvelMan

We want, and need, scaling but right now its pretty darn broken for the mid range player. I have one char over 100 (a 101 Cmag that isnt fully covered) plus three maxed 2* but I was running into 3x 210 chars even in most of the "easy" subs for the last event. I was putting in the time to end in the earlier events (Hunt, Hulk, Red Iso) to be top 25 overall and even won one of my subs due to grinding...but I think I placed top 25 in one of the subs during the last three events and generally only jump in to play a few matches for the iso. I can sometime win the 200+ with a favorable board and some work, but usually it requires some health packs....and that means I just avoid them. I have a couple friends with similar rosters (although fewer 3* covers) and their playtime/enjoyment in PVE has dropped. I dont mind difficult missions and losing is part of the game. But getting your best three chars wiped every other fight plus only having 5 health packs just isnt a lot of fun. Then add in how disheartening it is to see people with no char over 45 often among the top 10, it gets ridiculous. At one point I checked my main in the last PVE and of the top five there were four people without a char over 65 and the fifth had 4+ maxed 3*s.

Giving the new player good covers (ie winning in PVE) may get them hooked initially, but its doing a disservice to those players and the community as a whole. The new player who does well in a PVE event (or two) gets some nice covers and feels the excitement to keep playing, but they generally dont have enough of those 3* covers to have them be viable, or the iso to level them. Because they got those 3*s they missed out on 2* covers making actual progression to the mid tier more difficult, not to mention they start getting the shaft that is currently liberally applied to mid level players.

Another nasty side effect, although it is possibly intended, is that they have covers they cant use but dont want to lose so they need to fork out HP for their roster spots early. Think about how much HP it takes to get 20 roster spots, and that is barely more than half the available chars. The capital to start is a bit daunting and Im sure that there are quite a few people who quit because it requires cash to really get going.

Unknown

I agree that the scaling needs some adjustment (I think the devs would as well) but overall I have to admit that I think it's a good thing. I also remember the original Hulk event fondly, but after reading a post from another user recalling how he had to grind everything down to 1 point.. well, yeah... Things sometimes appear better in memory than they were in real life.

While I didn't necessarily enjoy fighting 231s non-stop during the last event, I still managed to score in the top 5 in every "hard mode" PvP by just popping in occasionally (well, my version of "occasionally"). I didn't use a system, I didn't time my clears -- basically I didn't go nuts min/maxing the entire thing. Every few hours I would take a break and complete either the highest pointing mission again, or one that still had a good reward. I think we are moving in the right direction.

EDIT: Akboyce made some good comments while I was writing this and I'd like to add my thoughts

I'm not arguing about the abundance of 230 fights being a bad thing for the exact reasons you mentioned . However, I'm thinking back to the first and second events for "The Hunt". Alaska was typically the "easy" level, but there was always a sidebar on the right -- the only repeatable missions -- and it typically contained 241 fights. ..and in some cases, those battles included a 241 pre-nerf rags. Those caused the same issues, if not worse. They seemed designed intentionally to be impossible, rather than character-strategy based like we've seen recently.

Ideally, the scaling system will give an opportunity for people to complete more missions and more of the story. Before, you would hit a wall, and that was the end. I realize it isn't working this way for a lot of people right now, but it's certainly improved a great deal over that awful Daredevil event. During the first Hulk event, there were entire subs I couldn't compete in because they were just out of my league at the time. Hopefully this time around, a larger group of people will be able to complete the content at least once.

Unknown

Eddiemon wrote:

The scaling system is to avoid having to grind everything. A grind is fantastic for people who don't have jobs. The same people who don't pay anything towards the game. That's why they are putting in scaling, so short bursts of quality play are more value than constant grinding.

Highlighted above would make sense IF the "value" rewards for "short burst of quality play" were better than 20 ISO rewards and **** placement in tournies.

Unknown

georgesaviour wrote:

Eddiemon wrote:

The scaling system is to avoid having to grind everything. A grind is fantastic for people who don't have jobs. The same people who don't pay anything towards the game. That's why they are putting in scaling, so short bursts of quality play are more value than constant grinding.

Highlighted above would make sense IF the "value" rewards for "short burst of quality play" were better than 20 ISO rewards and **** placement in tournies.

The value rewards are 3 covers of a new character (at least for the last tourney) and a **** ton of ISO.

Unknown

Eddiemon wrote:

It is what you want. You are still here. You still play. The devs look at that and know that there is no issue. You claim there is an issue and cry a lot but your actions which are truer than your words say there is no issue. They value the stats from the game over the echo chamber on here.

Selective hearing, basically. Thanks for telling.

Surprising as this might seem, I am not the only person who has expressed discontent at the scaling system. When many people agree on the same thing, could there actually be a legitimate concern?

Eddiemon wrote:

The scaling system is to avoid having to grind everything. A grind is fantastic for people who don't have jobs. The same people who don't pay anything towards the game. That's why they are putting in scaling, so short bursts of quality play are more value than constant grinding.

Correct me if I am wrong here. But wasn't that what rubberbanding was for? And bracketing too, most likely putting you in the same leaderboard where the same people have the same grind time.

Feel free to correct me if I am wrong anywhere here. From what I know, scaling doesn't directly help you with not grinding. What it does is effectively wipe out the middle ground of the player group. The ones left behind are those low-tiers, the high levels, and those middle-tiers with Spider-man or a lot of dedication.

Your competition is reduced to the new players, the top players, and those who have the heart and means to battle those endless 230 mobs. Those stuck in the middle, will probably have to use Spider-man, burn a lot ISOs on boosts, and possibly spend no less than 15 minutes on every single battle as well. The end result is a lot less people to compete with you. Thus you grind less.

Those who want to compete for top place, either has to already have a strong team, a newbie team, or be willing to slug it out against enemies having much higher levels than them, burning a lot of boosts, using whatever cheap trick they can dig up (Spidey), and spend a colossal amount of time per battle, consuming almost every health pack they have.

You only need to grind a little more than the second highest player to get the highest score. Or, in the case of the Brotherhood Submissions, you only need to grind a little more than the 6th highest player. Basically, I believe the reason you didn't have to grind so hard was the lax in competition.

If somehow, miraculously, the top 6 players in your Sub bracket decide to slug it out and grind like hell, you're definitely going to have to grind like hell too to get in top 5. Same case for the top 10 in main.

Now this is just an observation and a hypothesis. Not a complaint. Feel free to correct me if I am wrong any where here.

Unknown

The problem is:
WE DON'T HATE THE OTHERS EVENTS....
WE HATE THE SCALING SYSTEM

Unknown

The problem is that a lot of **** people are claiming to speak for everyone.

"We" don't need you to speak up for us. I like scaling. It reduces grind and rewards high level players the most.

Unknown

jozier wrote:

georgesaviour wrote:

Eddiemon wrote:

The scaling system is to avoid having to grind everything. A grind is fantastic for people who don't have jobs. The same people who don't pay anything towards the game. That's why they are putting in scaling, so short bursts of quality play are more value than constant grinding.

Highlighted above would make sense IF the "value" rewards for "short burst of quality play" were better than 20 ISO rewards and **** placement in tournies.

The value rewards are 3 covers of a new character (at least for the last tourney) and a tinykitty ton of ISO.

I agree.

These lasts few PvE events have been difficult, especially for people with low to mid level rosters. At this point in the game, I'm fortunate enough to have a really solid team, so these events weren't that rough for me. They certainly weren't trivial, but I did have to make some choices. Either I could spend my hard earned (and invaluable) ISO on boosts so I could assuredly take down a 231 mega-team, I could try it unboosted and risk major downtime, or I could just not play it. For me, the ISO spent was worth the reward (3 covers of a character I really wanted).

I understand that I have the roster and resources in order to this, but that wasn't always the case. As I mentioned above, there used to be a lot of events I couldn't compete in. This encouraged me to work harder and build a better team. While I didn't always get what I wanted, my efforts ultimately paid off. If everything was easy, there is no competitive edge and no incentive to advance. Yeah, it sucks if you really want to place in a PvE but can't due to the mechanics, but that's something everyone has gone through at some point. You do what you can (and what is worth it to you) and eventually you'll earn what you've been after. Payout vs. Effort is a driving factor in progression, it's up to the individual to decide what they want to achieve.

Unknown

jozier wrote:

I like scaling. It reduces grind and rewards high level players the most.

jozier wrote:

My first mission is all level 230 bad guys. I haven't even attempted it. That's complete ****. I shouldn't have to work 10 x harder than a new player to get somewhere, I already put in the effort.

jozier wrote:

My first three soldiers are level 230. This tournament is awesome!!! (It sucks - great job Devs).

jozier wrote:

Guess we have proof you're full of tinykitty then.

mechgouki wrote:

Internet Superheroes like Jozier rule. He always speaks the truth, and he is never full of ****. He is always right. ALWAYS.

Unknown

Yes, it was entirely broken in TaT. They fixed it considerably since.

The problem with TaT is that the same grinding mechanics were present and the scaling was completely uneven across the board - especially since there was no community scaling. Community scaling is a huge change that has benefited the high level players and I prefer it to the original version of scaling.

Unknown

mechgouki wrote:

Internet Superheroes like Jozier rule. He always speaks the truth, and he is never full of ****. He is always right. ALWAYS.

People are allowed to change their minds (in fact it's recommended in situations like these).

I didn't like facing 230's every single fight at first either but now that I know it lets me grind less overall I'm in favor of it, assuming they keep tweaking and making things better overall.

For that reason I hope they continue with the scaling, collect more data, make it better for everyone (including them) and keep evolving the game.

A lot of people have forgotten how many people asked for scaling to begin with. Was the current implementation exactly (or even close to) what they wanted? No, but if it keeps improving then at least some of us think it's going in the right direction.

Before scaling there were so many complaints about rubberbanding, before that they were about grinding. I for one am willing to see where this goes, or in other words, I'm curious to see what people are going to be complaining about next.

Unknown

beezer37_84 wrote:

I'm curious to see what people are going to be complaining about next.

3* Characters that are exact copies of their 2* counterparts?

MarvelMan

jozier wrote:

The problem is that a lot of tinykitty people are claiming to speak for everyone.

"We" don't need you to speak up for us. I like scaling. It reduces grind and rewards high level players the most.

Little correction here, it rewards LOW players first and high level players second. Not sure I like agreeing with mech, but he is right that it wipes out the middle ground. My roster is nowhere near as high as yours: 3x 85 plus one over 100 (at 101) but Im getting 3x 210 in the EASY sub.