CW scaling goes boom

JVReal

_RiO_ wrote:

JVReal wrote:

Timed scaling was ok to me. I was in one of our alliances that had some smaller rosters competing. They were able to contribute a whole lot more in the first 24 hours than they could the remaining time because of the scaling. This is where the Alliance part of the event happens. The stronger help out the weaker.

And now explain how that will work for an alliance composed of 3* players only of which most only started playing over the weekend because they have day-time jobs.
Right; IT DOESN'T.

I have a daytime job. I played first clear at lunch at event start 6 boss fights. I went home and ate dinner with my family, after dinner I watched netflix with my wife. When the refresh came around I played while I watched television, 6 more boss fights. After putting my daughter to bed and laying in bed chatting with with my wife over the day and saying good night and rolling over, I played some PVP. I got up Friday morning for work, did my 3rd clear before work 6 boss fights. At lunch time my nodes refreshed and I had to decide whether to play at lunch and miss that extra 6th clear of the boss, or wait until after work and get that extra clear in. I waited. Got home from work, had dinner with my wife and baby, and played my clear before the next refresh happened, 6 boss fights. They were more difficult, so I had to wait for some health packs to refresh. This is where I lost my first extra boss clear... weekend... etc.

18 boss fights in the first 24 hours with a work and family life, and super minimum scaling. x20 members of an alliance. How does that NOT work? So yeah, it DOES.

_RiO_

JVReal wrote:

_RiO_ wrote:

JVReal wrote:

Timed scaling was ok to me. I was in one of our alliances that had some smaller rosters competing. They were able to contribute a whole lot more in the first 24 hours than they could the remaining time because of the scaling. This is where the Alliance part of the event happens. The stronger help out the weaker.

And now explain how that will work for an alliance composed of 3* players only of which most only started playing over the weekend because they have day-time jobs.
Right; IT DOESN'T.

I have a daytime job. I played first clear at lunch at event start 6 boss fights. I went home and ate dinner with my family, after dinner I watched netflix with my wife. When the refresh came around I played while I watched television, 6 more boss fights. After putting my daughter to bed and laying in bed chatting with with my wife over the day and saying good night and rolling over, I played some PVP. I got up Friday morning for work, did my 3rd clear before work 6 boss fights. At lunch time my nodes refreshed and I had to decide whether to play at lunch and miss that extra 6th clear of the boss, or wait until after work and get that extra clear in. I waited. Got home from work, had dinner with my wife and baby, and played my clear before the next refresh happened, 6 boss fights. They were more difficult, so I had to wait for some health packs to refresh. This is where I lost my first extra boss clear... weekend... etc.

18 boss fights in the first 24 hours with a work and family life, and super minimum scaling. x20 members of an alliance. How does that NOT work? So yeah, it DOES.

Now do it on a PC without a mobile phone and without sacrificing sleep to get up early to play rounds before leaving for work.
I.e. like a regular joe playing a game, instead of a semi-pro dedicating an unnatural amount of his or her life to a game.

If you play in an organized semi-pro alliance with set play schedules, you are far from the norm.

JVReal

_RiO_ wrote:

JVReal wrote:

_RiO_ wrote:

JVReal wrote:

Timed scaling was ok to me. I was in one of our alliances that had some smaller rosters competing. They were able to contribute a whole lot more in the first 24 hours than they could the remaining time because of the scaling. This is where the Alliance part of the event happens. The stronger help out the weaker.

And now explain how that will work for an alliance composed of 3* players only of which most only started playing over the weekend because they have day-time jobs.
Right; IT DOESN'T.

I have a daytime job. I played first clear at lunch at event start 6 boss fights. I went home and ate dinner with my family, after dinner I watched netflix with my wife. When the refresh came around I played while I watched television, 6 more boss fights. After putting my daughter to bed and laying in bed chatting with with my wife over the day and saying good night and rolling over, I played some PVP. I got up Friday morning for work, did my 3rd clear before work 6 boss fights. At lunch time my nodes refreshed and I had to decide whether to play at lunch and miss that extra 6th clear of the boss, or wait until after work and get that extra clear in. I waited. Got home from work, had dinner with my wife and baby, and played my clear before the next refresh happened, 6 boss fights. They were more difficult, so I had to wait for some health packs to refresh. This is where I lost my first extra boss clear... weekend... etc.

18 boss fights in the first 24 hours with a work and family life, and super minimum scaling. x20 members of an alliance. How does that NOT work? So yeah, it DOES.

Now do it on a PC without a mobile phone and without sacrificing sleep to get up early to play rounds before leaving for work.

Day 1, depending on timezone, when you wake up in the morning, when you get home from work and before you go to bed. If you chose NOT to play in the morning before work... that's on you, not the developer. Don't piss and moan about your own lazy tendencies. If the reward isn't worth the effort, then you have no reason for complaint upon not receiving the reward. For an event rewarding a 5*, i personally can wake up an hour earlier without disrupting my life. Thank you, good bye.

_RiO_

JVReal wrote:

Day 1, depending on timezone, when you wake up in the morning, when you get home from work and before you go to bed. If you chose NOT to play in the morning before work... that's on you, not the developer. Don't piss and moan about your own lazy tendencies.

Thanks for proving my point that this was only doable by going outside the norm of normal play and going into disciplined set play schedules like a semi-pro would.

Also, I'll take this opportunity to also point out that you're assuming a lot with counting on everyone in a 20-man alliance to be there and contribute. Putting in a lot of clears on the very first day from all across the alliance is the only way you'd clear into the 4* rewarding rounds before scaling would hit after 24h, as you cannot carry that level of hit-point damage to clear the boss health bars by yourself. If other people in the alliance don't share your get-up-at-the-crack-of-dawn semi-pro attitude, you're equally screwed.

Other than that, I can do without the holier-than-thou attitude you're displaying here: I'd rather play a game, than having the game play me. Thank you very much.

JVReal

_RiO_ wrote:

JVReal wrote:

If you chose NOT to play in the morning before work... that's on you, not the developer.

Thanks for proving my point that this is only doable by going outside the norm of normal play and going into semi-pro set play schedules.

As for the holier-than-thou attitude you're displaying here: I'd rather play a game, than having the game play me. Thank you very much.

So they have to give a 5* reward where you only play 1 time a day, and not challenge someone for fear they have to put forth some effort. Thank you for proving that some people are very entitled, and reject even minimum effort.

Edit for _RiO_: [So they have to give "insert reward being whined about here" reward where you only play 1 time a day, and not challenge someone for fear they have to put forth some effort.]

I am not a professional player, I play on my mobile device, I am a free player, and I've been playing for 588 days. Nothing I listed was out of line, nothing I listed was ridiculous. Nothing I listed was unusual. I'm not understanding your aggression outside of it being a fit. Logic has escaped you and you have gone into rant mode. I am no longer responding to your posts, as it no longer serves a purpose as there is nothing more to explain. If you find no joy in the game, it no longer serves its purpose, there is only one logical conclusion... stop playing the game. I applaud you for taking a firm stand against letting the game dictate your life, but with that stand comes the understanding that certain rewards will be out of reach for you. If that still bothers you, again, this may not be the game for you. I am not holier than thou, I'm answering your questions and you are angry and frustrated with my doing so.

_RiO_

JVReal wrote:

So they have to give a 5* reward where you only play 1 time a day, and not challenge someone for fear they have to put forth some effort. Thank you for proving that some people are very entitled, and reject even minimum effort.

You perhaps missed the point where I stated that I didn't give a damn about the top level rewards? It was right next to the part where I stated that atleast the bottom level rewards should be reachable.
Maybe look back up a bit and actually read before you decide to go ad hominem on someone, ey?

And for the record; if scaling had actually been normal, my alliance would've probably cleared round 4 and maybe round 5 and would probably have been happy with the one or two offered 4 star covers, since most of us are still building up from 3-star to 4-star turf.

JVReal wrote:

Edit for _RiO_: [So they have to give "insert reward being whined about here" reward where you only play 1 time a day, and not challenge someone for fear they have to put forth some effort.]

I'll point out that I actually cleared a lot of round 1 and round 2 together with two other early contributors in my alliance. And that I did infact play quite a bit more than "one time a day".
(I happened to be able to, because I had the day off. Which was a lucky coincidence with the start time of this event.) I continued to contribute to round 3 on the next day, and then mid-way through round 3 as I went back in for a second round of clears, the killer-scaling came down like a ton of bricks. My alliance basically took the remainder of the event to crawl at a snail's pace into round 4 where most of us were stopped dead cold and only those of us with more advanced rosters capable of beating the lvl 250+ essential nodes were capable of doing anything worthwhile.

I was part of the few players in my alliance that actually were able to continue to score kills on the boss or that didn't give up in the face of the collosal difficulty increase and as far as points contribution went, I placed third overall. So yeah; maybe stop with the ad hominem now, ok? Before you come off as even more of an elitist shmuck?

Pylgrim

The truth is that regardless of the method used to set scaling, there will always be a subset of the player population that will be screwed by it and they will be very loud about it. Was time-based scaling perfect? I can see how those who missed it will complain. But for those who didn't? It was infinitely better than any other scaling method used before including the one of the recent "tests". So I'm sad to say that we will not find a common point of agreement here. A way of possibly solving this, if time-based scaling becomes a thing, would be combining it with the ability to choose a time bracket, so everybody could enjoy that first day of low scaling at their convenience.

revskip

_RiO_ wrote:

JVReal wrote:

Day 1, depending on timezone, when you wake up in the morning, when you get home from work and before you go to bed. If you chose NOT to play in the morning before work... that's on you, not the developer. Don't piss and moan about your own lazy tendencies.

Thanks for proving my point that this was only doable by going outside the norm of normal play and going into disciplined set play schedules like a semi-pro would.

Also, I'll take this opportunity to also point out that you're assuming a lot with counting on everyone in a 20-man alliance to be there and contribute. Putting in a lot of clears on the very first day from all across the alliance is the only way you'd clear into the 4* rewarding rounds before scaling would hit after 24h, as you cannot carry that level of hit-point damage to clear the boss health bars by yourself. If other people in the alliance don't share your get-up-at-the-crack-of-dawn semi-pro attitude, you're equally screwed.

Other than that, I can do without the holier-than-thou attitude you're displaying here: I'd rather play a game, than having the game play me. Thank you very much.

I'm in a Top 100 PVE alliance so I'm probably at that "semi-pro" level you suggest. We were able to get 19 of 20 people to hit three refreshes the first day on one side with a rogue agent hitting the other side all day. We ended up in early round 7 for day 2 on the main side and late round 2 on the other side with just one person hitting it.

Once the scaling went up it definitely slowed down our progress as a group since rosters like mine in the 3* transition were no longer killing the boss but we were still easily able to finish one side and get to level 7 on the other side. I made it to both of the 3* covers on the Iron Man side and was able to grab one of the 3* covers on the Cap side. In total I received five 4* covers, three 3* covers and a 5* cover. It's definitely been the biggest haul of covers I've ever received in an event. That haul didn't come without a fair amount of effort and an alliance that all pitched in. I'm sure if I was in a less committed alliance I would have ended up with far fewer covers and for certain if I hadn't personally grinded a bunch I would never have hit the personal progression I hit.

Shouldn't that extra effort and dedication by the alliance be paid off? Or is it your contention that everyone should have been able to hit the rewards?

This was personally my favorite event since I started playing MPQ. My alliance was communicating really well (with one exception) and we all pitched in for great cover rewards. The only thing that could have made it better for me would have been a little more in ISO department but all told loved this event because it was challenging but very rewarding.

KGB

revskip wrote:

Shouldn't that extra effort and dedication by the alliance be paid off? Or is it your contention that everyone should have been able to hit the rewards?

This was personally my favorite event since I started playing MPQ. My alliance was communicating really well (with one exception) and we all pitched in for great cover rewards. The only thing that could have made it better for me would have been a little more in ISO department but all told loved this event because it was challenging but very rewarding.

I'd like to see effort & challenges rewarded equally. Which it wasn't because the event was a 'beat the scaling clock' race. You were able to reach round 7 by day 2 because nodes were so low on day 1. Had you started fresh on day 3 you would not have been able to reach the same round with the same level of effort because the nodes would have been VASTLY more difficult.

I don't understand why they don't do something like:

Round      Boss    Node     Reward
    1       100     35      70 ISO
    2       150     70     140 ISO
    3       200    105     210 ISO
    4       250    140     280 ISO
    5       300    175     350 ISO
    6       350    210     420 ISO
    7       400    245     490 ISO
    8       450    270     540 ISO

Then regardless of when you played round 1, the Boss would be L100, Nodes would be L35 and you'd get 70 ISO per node (boss rewards would be as is minus critical boost). By the time you got to round 4, boss is L250, nodes are L140 and you get 280 ISO per node and so on.

ISO rewards scale up with level of difficulty. Low level rosters can contribute in early rounds and get some rewards but wouldn't be able get the top rewards (baring a strong alliance who can carry them for alliance rewards). High level rosters are rewarded with lots of ISO for doing much more difficult clears in higher rounds while at the same time having an easier time in lower rounds (the whole point of having an high level roster).

That's the Civil War I was hoping to get.

KGB

UncleSmed

^^^

All of this.
Because it's about consistency.
Scaling in other pve runs off which node you're up to with a small boost for which day's subnode you're up to with the highest scaling having the best points by the last day.. even above essentials.

The last node also has the best node rewards followed by the 4* essential.

The level of scaling attributed to the clock in CW was inconsistent with other pve events.
Similarly limiting challenge and soft gating of rewards and alliance progression can be easily achieved by the above method.

Nobody is asking to be given the same opportunity to win both 5* covers as a few very dedicated alliances who have the rosters to beat the final round.

What we are asking for is for scaling to make sense and allow alliances with rosters at several levels of develooment to be able to contribute when they are able and not be locked out because it's day 3.

I was around for Ultron, Galactus and Galactus 2 and now CW. My alliance is fairly casual and we all know at least two other members irl so we're not looking to merc or serious about progression.. we just want to have fun and the scaling jump made it not fun at all.

I can say without doubt i was looking at buying a Logan's or a Stark's out of day 1 because i wanted to buy into the vaults and put a few more roster slots onto my 83, i was enjoying the event and having fun.. but they killed that feeling straight up by cutting the legs out of 9 out of 13 of us who were participating and making it no longer an alliance event.

mouser

I think in hindsight it's pretty clear something went wrong with early CW scaling keeping the side nodes at trivial levels. Then someone at the HQ realized that and flipped the switch causing the side nodes to go up 10x or more.

Whatever switch that was, it carried over into the Gauntlet difficulty, causing ridiculous challenge levels.

I can't imagine the design team planned ahead the difficulty levels should all work out this way in two different events. Simple incompetence is a more realistic explanation in my experience. I'd feel more forgiving towards those programmers if this was the first time it happened, rather then a common occurrence in MPQ big events.

Dragon_Nexus

mouser wrote:

I think in hindsight it's pretty clear something went wrong with early CW scaling keeping the side nodes at trivial levels. Then someone at the HQ realized that and flipped the switch causing the side nodes to go up 10x or more.

Whatever switch that was, it carried over into the Gauntlet difficulty, causing ridiculous challenge levels.

I can't imagine the design team planned ahead the difficulty levels should all work out this way in two different events. Simple incompetence is a more realistic explanation in my experience. I'd feel more forgiving towards those programmers if this was the first time it happened, rather then a common occurrence in MPQ big events.

Honestly, I was happy with battling trivial minions.
It feels far too easy in the early stages because the boss is a cake walk too...so there's no challenge.
But by round 6 or 7, Iron Man was becomming quite difficult to beat. With the scaling turned on making me kill several level 300+ enemies before trying again, it was an exercise in frustration. But if I lost badly to a lucky IM with his tons of health and stuff but then only had to knock out a team of level 50 mobs before trying again it wouldn't be nearly as frustrating.

Player frustration is directly proportional to the time between failure state and getting back into the game.

Example - 2D Mario games on the Wii U. You die and you have to hear that "You died" music along with Mario's death animation. You wait while the game tells you which level you're on again on a black screen or something similar and then you go back to whatever checkpoint you last hit.
Conversely, Rayman Origins or Legends...you lose your health, you inflate, pop, "screen swoosh" for a quick load and you're back in about 2 seconds. You don't have time to get annoyed because you're already back in the fight.

Applying this to MPQ, there's nothing more frustrating than losing to a bad board against a boss, then healing up, going into a difficult mob fight, spending 5-10 minutes doing that and then losing to the mob fight. Healing up, trying again, winning and...losing AGAIN to a bad board. Oh, and I'm nearly out of health packs. Marvellous...no progress made.