[PVE] scaling [Merged Thread]

John Wayne74

So you're saying it could possibly work with the current server configurations if it were just one event per time slot/difficulty level with no maximum player cap. So progression only and not placement. I would love that system myself. Play when you want and for how long you want without a timer or a keeping up with the Jones' and at the difficulty level you chose based on the rewards you wanted and the roster you have. Excellent in my book but a total rework of what is in place. It would allow for people to actually enjoy the story as it is currently lost on the need for speed. I myself skip every cut scene in order to keep the pace for t1 or t2. Which makes the storylines useless to me. At least a person could take time to read them and enjoy them if they so chose to do so. Excellent suggestion I think.

mouser

The problem with MPQ PVE design remains that they've created a system to handicap player difficulty levels while retaining a competitive leaderboard that ranks players of vastly different roster levels against each other for the same rewards. No matter how much work the devs put into tweaking the formulas for which players get which difficulty levels the concept is fundamentally flawed from the start. There isn't going to be an equitable formula.

The main fallout from trying to do this is that the game starts scaling difficulty levels to the level of your roster. Which means most benefits that should be achieved in almost every other sort of game by improving your roster are lost in MPQ due to scaling.

While Gauntlet is one of the rare non-competitive PVE's, I think the scaling issues we're seeing here are a carryover from the same issues that plaque PVE.

Bryan Lambert

Cthulhu wrote:

We do playtest, and we aren't asking our players to playtest. I have been getting destroyed since I do not own any 5 star characters and only own one 4 star antman cover
cthulhu

And this is the point. You are getting destroyed trying to earn a single 4* cover because you only have one 4* character. That's exactly how you know things are out of whack.

BumpoTheClown

I think it's called "Gauntlet" because they want you to feel like you've been fisted.

revskip

Early 3 transition here. I made it to Sim 13 before throwing in the towel. #13 wiped me twice before I finally beat it and then a quick wipe in #14 pretty much ended the event for me. Last event with a much weaker roster I at least made it halfway through the second sub.

I finally champed my first three 3 this past week. I have a wide roster of champed 2 with a couple of them boosted. My highest 3 characters (Beast, 2 Daken and 2 Wolverine) are 225, 215 and 212. Sim 13 featured enemies at around 15 levels higher than that. Sim 14 around 20 levels higher than any of my boosted featuring a Green Goblin who can nearly 1 shot any of my guys with Goblin Glider.

I actually am in the camp that usually defends more challenging play but this is way beyond the pale. The first event in sub 2 starts with enemies at 243, over 30 levels past my weakest boosted character. I like challenging, and don't necessarily think I should be able to clear all three subs of the Gauntlet with my roster as is but I think that making some progress on my roster should allow me to at the very least make small advances on my finish last time. This time I look to finish a full sub below where I did last time.

Pylgrim

aesthetocyst wrote:

John Wayne74 wrote:

Curious question from someone who has been out of the networking circle for many years.

With the multi time slots and multiple events because of the total numbers of players capped per event, could the servers handle three sets of that as opposed to the one set we currently have?

I love the idea, truly. Just curious if it could actually be accomplished. I have pondered if that very issue is the reason we still don't have 4* pvp events. Too many things running concurrently?

If things weren't competitive, that it in TRUE PVE events, it wouldn't matter how few people were in a pool.

PVP needs a certain minimum population to make it work, but if that became a problem, provide each pool with a min pop of bots. Like stocking a pond. Seed teams, next step.

Yep. And a progression-based reward scheme would also remove harsh timing restrictions and "optimal" grinds, meaning that you'd need not to worry about joining a bracket that fits your daily schedule.

Dragon_Nexus

Cthulhu wrote:

We do playtest, and we aren't asking our players to playtest. I have been getting destroyed since I do not own any 5 star characters and only own one 4 star antman cover (in civil war i couldn't beat iron man level 3). I'm discussing how hard it is for people in my situation. But as with everything it will take a little time to figure it out so there is a good balance for all players.

We have had a lot of great conversations and will be doing all we can. All I can do is say we are sorry if you are having a bad experience, that is not at all any of our intention.

cthulhu

This I like to see...someone who actually seems sympathetic.
A lot of the time we get fairly bland responses that feel almost robotic, devoid of any emotion or empathy. Just like there was a sigh of resignation "Oh great, I have to talk to THOSE guys again. You know they hate all of us, right?" and so they log in, post something that feels like it's enough, then log out before they get yelled at.

It's refreshing to see one of the team not only talk and chat like a human being but also go so far as to sympathise and agree.

If you'd missed my personal experience, my alliance went from excited and really involved with the Civil War event to utterly apathetic once the ludicrous scaling kicked in. We found the going was way too hard on Team Cap so we switched to Team Iron Man where the minions were SO high levelled they were much harder to beat than the boss itself. We ended up pretty much giving up on the last day, getting a few points but not trying nearly as hard. We were beaten down and disappointed. I can't imagine that was an experience felt by just us.

Yes the nodes should have increased in difficulty as you progressed through the rounds, but good lord who thought it was a good idea to make me face six level 300 characters before fighting a level 200 boss? Look at my roster and subtract Hulkbuster from it, because I only champed him and got him to the right spec today. Do I look like I can survive two waves of level 300s without whaling it?

Thevipper

my input with seeing the gauntlet for the first time all events a 5 day event 3 bracket events to do
bracket 1
starts at level 1 and goes to lvl 50 maybe lvl 94 (either half + a little or maxed 2* level) and needs a specific 2 star for all rewards and needs the req to move on
bracket 2
starts 10 levels higher or maxed 2* level ends like bracket 1 but at 3* level maxed or half + alittle and needs a specific 3*
bracket 3
just like bracket 1 & 2 but needs a 4 star

rewards
3 of the req char in every color, bracket 1 gets 2* and so on. you make it where by the time you got through the first half of every bracket you are awarded the first char but you get stuck after if your roster cant handle it
1000 iso +1000 for every bracket if able to fully finish you get 6000 iso
1 event token in every bracket
100 hp through the whole event bracket 1+2 gets 25 hp each 50hp for bracket 3
a super hard node at the end of bracket 3 for 100 hp for you to be creative and awards the points needed for 25 cp
15 cp is awarded through full progresion points

when you feel you have released enough 5* (maybe 10) you add another bracket but it wont reward any 5* covers just iso and a token at the end

another cool thing to do is you have a option for after party for every event which gives you 2 days to farm all mission rewards for more iso but you are going into the next event days (unable to even start it) and it also gives people more time to do the super hard node

and you also can have 1 main event bracket that's 2days where its just for new character releases that will allow you to release new 2 and 3 * characters along with 4* and everyone (that can particapate) gets 1 cover from a super hard node of that * level with personal scaling in mind. they start the bracket event scaling at the req star level and placement awards (along with point refreshes) are back for new char releases. also you are placed in super vet-noob point bracket placements according to your most covered character of the * level given out when it sees 3 champions of that * level it autos to the next level.

Mawtful

Not to discount your post - because it's a good one; well written and eloquent - but I recall this idea being proposed over two years ago. I know, because I proposed it (and in the wise words of David Brent, "a good idea is a good idea forever").

Curating the content and level of each node will mean more work for someone at Demiurge, this is true. However, I think that it would ultimately produce a more enjoyable PvE experience for players, and I also think that it could still be leveraged to promote sales for D3/Demiurge, which would make this a win-win solution.

rakesh14021983

My reaction whenever I beat a node in this Gauntlet

fmftint

Someone explain this because I just don't get it

HARD


EASY?

Pongie

fmftint wrote:

Someone explain this because I just don't get it

HARD


EASY?

1st is hard because gsbw is locked out. That's why second is easy

ZeiramMR

ZeiramMR wrote:

My highest characters for Gauntlet are my three 4* champions and two boosted characters (all ranging from levels 274-278 post-boosts). By node 11, I am looking at level 310 enemies.

Clearly a bug with scaling and not an intended choice.

I was originally really concerned by the large increases in Wilderness Survival and made the quoted post earlier in this thread. Seeing that the difficulty flattened down to about 3 levels for each successive node made this a little more tolerable. As such, I want to note that I have cooled down on that attitude with the caveat that I'm only at Node 21 and things could change again.

BUT I'd still prefer a gradual difficulty increase which is more evenly spread out like the previous runs than a quick rise to over my roster levels followed by a near-plateau.

carrion_pigeons

Demiurge_[bagman] wrote:

Thanks for the (many) comments and observations. Mission difficulty is constantly being debated and changed. It's a hard problem (but you probably inferred that by how much tuning happens).

We're taking the feedback in, thanks for your posts.

On what basis, exactly? The sort of communication we really need to see is what the reasoning is behind the design choices we see getting made. You tell us that mission difficulty is being debated but you don't tell us what the debate is about. Are we allowed to know?

Here are the arguments I see:
1) Cranking up the overall difficulty makes players resent the game for moving the ball. Doing this often makes people want to quit.
2) Increasing difficulty at a constant rate makes the game feel bland and fails to use difficulty as an indicator of importance.
3) Gating rewards behind difficult content creates a value judgment for players: is spending more time on this than I want to worth anything to me? Making players consciously make that choice (in either direction) has a cost in terms of goodwill and player investment, and so you have to budget how often you let it happen.

Ducky

Pongie wrote:

fmftint wrote:

Someone explain this because I just don't get it

HARD


EASY?

1st is hard because gsbw is locked out. That's why second is easy

No, the second one is easy because they are goons and the game sees goons as easier opponents than tile movers, even if it isn't always the case.

zulux21

I still feel like some of the scaling issues could be fixed with one really easy change.

Start 5* heroes at level 100 or so and have it cost a single iso to bring them up to 255.

if that isn't easy to implement then how about start at 100 and then a single iso per level and add an add 10 levels button, as an add 10 levels button in general would be amazing @_@.

It's silly that I have to still sit here and debate if I want to sell the rarest characters in the game, because all they do is make the game harder and lock out more of my roster while not being usable themselves.

Vhailorx

Thanks to all of the red names for commenting in this thread. We players don't always get the news we want to hear from you, but I think the vast majority of us are happy to hear from you whenever something significant happens in the game, good or bad.

(1) Re: dialing back the flames to simmer. I don't love this comment. I don't think it should ever be acceptable to attack the devs personally, or otherwise engage in vicious or mean-spirited comments on a forum like this one. So to the extent that this or any other thread contains that sort of invective, it should be tamped down. But having said that (and with the caveat that I have only ready maybe 60% of the comments in this thread), I don't feel like there is an unusual amount of mean-spirited flame in this thread. What I do feel is an unusual amount of player dissatisfaction (presumably because this Gauntlet scaling issue was completely unannounced, and comes quickly on the heels of the generally unpopular PVE scaling/scoring tests). But the scale of player uproar isn't necessarily connected to the viciousness of the forum comments. I certainly don't support mean, rude, or unconstructive ad hominem attacks. But I think it's entirely appropriate for the players to express dissatisfaction loudly and in very strong (but hopefully polite!) terms if that's how they feel.

(2) re: the scale of these scaling issues (terrible pun intended). This Gauntlet problem would be, in a vacuum, a medium-big problem. It sucks that players are facing significantly harder challenges than we expected (or than is typically required of any player) in this event, and it's especially irritating given that the 4* reward is actually a pretty compelling iceman cover. But this problem is very much not in a vacuum. Between the ongoing, presumably soon-to-be permanent scaling/scoring changes in 'standard' PVE, the ever growing ISO gap, the decelerating pace of 4* transition as 4* land fills up, and the deluge of new releases for Civil War, the player base is feeling particularly squeezed at the moment. We are being asked to play more, harder matches to earn the same rewards (which were already insufficient to meet most players' needs), and the pace at which we can progress our rosters is slowing down as more and more 4*s (and 5*s) dilute the already small prize pools. It now takes more than 2 months for any given 4* to cycle through the 1k PVP cover rewards! There's no other way to actually build a 4* other than dumb luck or grinding out top 10 finishes in 1000 person PVE brackets. So to have this Gauntlet on the heels of all those other irritants (and with absolutely no prior announcement that new scaling would be live), I think it is entirely unsurprising that players are so upset.

(3) Re: the underlying cause. It seems clear to me that all of the recent scaling woes are the ultimate result of introducing the 5* tier last September. By introducing a new tier that was so wildly powerful compared to the existing playspace, it was inevitable that PVE difficulty curves would have to change to accommodate characters with literally 4x as much health and 6x as much match damage as the previous 'best-in-game' values. I get that balancing is hard, and there are very often hiccups on the path to getting everything right. And I believe that demiurge wants to reach a nicely balanced end result (though the player and dev perspectives of proper balance may well vary!). But I must say that I have been a bit surprised that demiurge both took a very long time to address day 1 5* scaling issues (including those that were obvious from the day 5*s were announced like the potential scaling problems for 2* players that rostered 5*s) and still seems to be having so much trouble hitting their scaling targets (as evidenced by the recent PVE tests). I could easily accept one or the other, but both? That suggests to me that the problem is much more significant than demiurge realized or anticipated, which is disheartening.

I am pretty confident that demiurge/d3 will take some steps to rectify the Gauntlet situation (Whether it's fixing the scaling mid-run, or offering some compensation afterwards), but I don't think that will address the underlying problem. Between the previous, long-standing issues, and this new Gauntlet debacle, it's pretty easy for us players to feel like the game is a constant stream of 'one step forward, two steps back.' Rather than very specific information (e.g. 'Here is the new boss battle fight,' or 'we are aware of problem X and are trying to fix it'), I would like to get info from the devs at a slightly higher level of abstraction. What do the devs view as an ideal transition path/timeframe for players? What changes are planned, if any, to address longstanding issues such as the glacial pace of 4* transition relative to the 'same as the 3* rate' 4* release rate, or the widening iso shortage that most players face? Will the uber-powerful 5* tier remain entirely RNG? With featured character PVP events continue to be almost entirely 3*s? I know that communicating too many details can set player expectations and create different problems, but the player community is feeling pretty tense about a lot of these long-term problems and there hasn't been really any roadmap-type information from the devs in months (about 100 days based on Colog's 'questions' thread last month). Can you give us anything along those lines demiurge?

Vhailorx

fmftint wrote:

Someone explain this because I just don't get it

HARD


EASY?

hahahahahaha at the idea that those symbiotes are easier to fight than three weak, over-leveled 1*s!

Electrovirus

You need more subs to play in Gauntlet. 3 Subs for the whole spectrum of levels and power is not enough. Set the scaling to the way it was but with one or two more subs. Have the last subs for high level 4 star and 5 star rosters with rewards suited for them. You have stretched out and increased the levels and power the heroes can get but kept the number of subs the same, trying to cater beginners and top end rosters with thre subs has made the difficulty increase way to fast. I was looking forward to maybe finishing gauntlet for the first time but after about 2/3 the way through the first sub I was like enough of that Im gonna go play some PVP.

Druss

Note to the Devs:

I have read the entirety of this post (took a while) & there is not a single positive comment.

Taking this into account, surely it must be assumed that the majority of your player base do not like the direction that PvE is going, ie more challenging (for same rewards).

Might be time to have a rethink?