[PVE] scaling [Merged Thread]

MojoWild · May 2016

PorkBelly wrote:

I've finished every previous run of the gauntlet.

I'm bailing out in the 2nd sub of this run.

Congrats D3/Demiurge- you managed to ruin my favorite event.

Ditto.

DaveR4470 · May 2016

This is the sort of thing that happens when you push out a 5* tier without developing any 4*-level game content.

/drops mic

hamsingame · May 2016

Does anyone out there have a "Gauntlet killing roster" of the three winfinity characters and maybe Iceman/Iron Man 3* (for the nodes where you're against a winfinity character)?

So far in a fair few nodes I've won with winfinity after losing convincingly with OML+SS+Phoenix all around 455. Would be great if my nodes were tuned to the winfinity rather than the 5*s...

tanis3303 · May 2016

hamsingame wrote:

Does anyone out there have a "Gauntlet killing roster" of the three winfinity characters and maybe Iceman/Iron Man 3* (for the nodes where you're against a winfinity character)?

So far in a fair few nodes I've won with winfinity after losing convincingly with OML+SS+Phoenix all around 455. Would be great if my nodes were tuned to the winfinity rather than the 5*s...

Yea, I do. I have a dupe Prof X capped at level 100 built 5/5/0 for Charlie's Angels shenanagins no matter who's boosted. I have champed Iceman, M40, Thora/XDP. I have a lvl 360 OML to use next to Iron Fist or Antman. I'm 98.5% sure I could beat this thing if I tried. Am I gonna try, for one single champ level on Iceman and a few Moonstone tokens? **** no. I'm going to continue distancing myself from the game and enjoying other games and endeavors as that seems to be what they want me to do (*gasp* enjoyment! I'd forgotten what that feels like!!)

BearVenger · May 2016

zulux21 wrote:

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.

I typically look askance at any suggestion thay is billed as "easy." They go right up there with "...are jealous of...don't want you to know about...this one weird trick" and the like. Simple solutions have unintented and game-able consequences and easy solutions require long-term discipline.

This proposal above would be great if the average player, winning a LT in a CW progression, vault draw or DDQ4* event, knew exactly the consequences of dropping that single ISO into the Well of Scaling.

All it takes is spending that 1 ISO and your existing 2*-3* roster is flogged and flayed in every node of every event, and many forumites will give you the kind and supportive, "You should have tinykitty known what was going to happen; there be no sympathy for you here!"

LordXberk · May 2016

tanis3303 wrote:

hamsingame wrote:

Does anyone out there have a "Gauntlet killing roster" of the three winfinity characters and maybe Iceman/Iron Man 3* (for the nodes where you're against a winfinity character)?

So far in a fair few nodes I've won with winfinity after losing convincingly with OML+SS+Phoenix all around 455. Would be great if my nodes were tuned to the winfinity rather than the 5*s...

Yea, I do. I have a dupe Prof X capped at level 100 built 5/5/0 for Charlie's Angels shenanagins no matter who's boosted. I have champed Iceman, M40, Thora/XDP. I have a lvl 360 OML to use next to Iron Fist or Antman. I'm 98.5% sure I could beat this thing if I tried. Am I gonna try, for one single champ level on Iceman and a few Moonstone tokens? tinykitty no. I'm going to continue distancing myself from the game and enjoying other games and endeavors as that seems to be what they want me to do (*gasp* enjoyment! I'd forgotten what that feels like!!)

Exactly this!!! While I'm not 98.5% confident I could win (maybe 80%) and I don't have a dupe PX (good idea, will build one), I find no reason to keep playing at it. I can handle an easy Gauntlet w/ 1 4* reward OR I can handle hard Gauntlet for better rewards, but no friggin' way am I slogging thru this **** event for the current rewards.

And, FWIW (possibly nothing), I had planned on buying a Stark after the first few Rds of Civil War as sort of a 'thank you' for making the event fun, but hesitated after the scaling ramped up on Day 2, and I am definitely not buying anything after the Gauntlet disaster. Fix the scaling, don't punish us for progressing, change the 5* progression away from RNG, and then I'll get back to buying.

Lastly, and just echoing prior comments, but a match-3 game is NOT supposed to be this difficult or time-consuming. If I spend some money regularly (>$1/day) and play for an hour per day, I should probably get 99% of the rewards and have a good time doing so.

Tatercat · May 2016

This doesn't feel like though like it's over inflated scaling from having a few 5* on the roster. I only have 4* maxed, highest at 274, with OML only 270 (1/2/2) and I'm hitting a wall of 360+ enemies in Alpine Tactics, all classified as "Deadly".

What Gauntlet feels like right now is they took a player with a fully maxed, lvl 450 five star roster, and then built the Gauntlet to be an appropriate challenge to them. And that's what the rest of us have to play now too. I know whales keep this game afloat (god bless them for it), but does the whole game experience have to revolve around them?

If so, this may be it for me, or at least to take long break of only doing DDQ when I'm bored. I really need that Iceman purple, but what's the point of chasing and leveling 4*"s characters, if the game is just going to raise a team with 1*'s to lvl 360 (the lovely Sim 26) and wipe them out? Why chase higher tiers if they give you no advantage? (Or lead to less enjoyment of the game?)

JVReal · May 2016

So... how many threads just got merged into this one giant mess of a thread now? Ugh. Can't follow a thought because they're bouncing all over... and I have ADHD, I'm used to bouncing all over.

mpqr7 · May 2016

Sim 27... rhulk does 7000+ aoe dmg with just 9 green, easily obtained from his purple. How is that remotely fun???

Smudge · May 2016

JVReal wrote:

So... how many threads just got merged into this one giant mess of a thread now? Ugh. Can't follow a thought because they're bouncing all over... and I have ADHD, I'm used to bouncing all over.

Agreed... "related" does not necessarily mean "equal and should be merged."

SnowcaTT · May 2016

tanis3303 wrote:

hamsingame wrote:

Does anyone out there have a "Gauntlet killing roster" of the three winfinity characters and maybe Iceman/Iron Man 3* (for the nodes where you're against a winfinity character)?

So far in a fair few nodes I've won with winfinity after losing convincingly with OML+SS+Phoenix all around 455. Would be great if my nodes were tuned to the winfinity rather than the 5*s...

Yea, I do. I have a dupe Prof X capped at level 100 built 5/5/0 for Charlie's Angels shenanagins no matter who's boosted. I have champed Iceman, M40, Thora/XDP. I have a lvl 360 OML to use next to Iron Fist or Antman. I'm 98.5% sure I could beat this thing if I tried. Am I gonna try, for one single champ level on Iceman and a few Moonstone tokens? tinykitty no. I'm going to continue distancing myself from the game and enjoying other games and endeavors as that seems to be what they want me to do (*gasp* enjoyment! I'd forgotten what that feels like!!)

I didn't have Winfinity set up until after championing - so my PX is 172 and was basically set from champion day 1. I ran through the whole thing with either Winfinite or 4* champed Cyc/3* IM (2nd to last node beat with that pair, probably could beat most nodes with luck).

But I mega-whaled way more than trying the 4* Cyc way when I couldn't winfinite, just to make it more reliable and less draining of health packs. I winfinited some really hard nodes, and it took forever (was boring).

This got me to a 4/4/4 IceMan (my 4* unicorn), so I ran it. Otherwise I wouldn't have bothered, I would have quit on Sub #1. If the reward was Cho, would -anyone- bother beating it? I am actually really upset that I went back and hit the medium nodes for Beast so I could get to 183 and champ into JG - what a waste of resources and time considering the zero resources and 5 minutes it took me to get that same reward in DDQ today!

jojeda654 · May 2016

Smudge wrote:

JVReal wrote:

So... how many threads just got merged into this one giant mess of a thread now? Ugh. Can't follow a thought because they're bouncing all over... and I have ADHD, I'm used to bouncing all over.

Agreed... "related" does not necessarily mean "equal and should be merged."

Thirded. I had already read some of the threads, so when I started rereading them after they were merged, it felt like a painful version of déjà vu.

Vhailorx · May 2016

jojeda654 wrote:

Smudge wrote:

JVReal wrote:

So... how many threads just got merged into this one giant mess of a thread now? Ugh. Can't follow a thought because they're bouncing all over... and I have ADHD, I'm used to bouncing all over.

Agreed... "related" does not necessarily mean "equal and should be merged."

Thirded. I had already read some of the threads, so when I started rereading them after they were merged, it felt like a painful version of déjà vu.

Fourthed, thread merging has been a little too aggressive for a while.

LordWill · May 2016

I solved this problem like 2 years ago but they just didn't listen.

I think part of it is because Will doesn't want to admit that his scaling project just never really worked correctly, and still doesn't. I mean its been like what 2 years, and they haven't figured this out?

https://d3go.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=6219 (This was just the initial concept, I'm sure it could have been refined)

Anyway, enjoy.

I don't want to sound totally negative because I'm really not a negative person. They have made many improvements in the game and I do like aspects of the game.

firethorne · May 2016

Now, I apologize in advance. This will seem to contain a bit of flame. But, as someone having a bad experience, I would hope to give the developers a little more insight from where that stems. Since the thread seems to have been merged from a number of topics, I’ll address a few of them as well. Apologies if that goes off topic(s).

IcelX set off a powder keg with the the Galactus "You're supposed to lose." comment. But, as poorly received as this was, it felt honest. At the very least, it was a clear indication of the design philosophy. It was a simple statement that was clearly evident in the state of the game. And ultimately, people weren’t salty at the statement of truth, they were salty about the state of the game.

That's why I find "We will be doing all we can" and "if you are having a bad experience, that is not at all any of our intention" a bit disingenuous. To me, it seems like they took away the wrong lesson from the Galactus incident. They aren't doing much to alleviate the conditions making their player base into a powder keg, they're just being super careful with messaging, and frequently going with radio silence to try to avoid setting it off. But, there are many problems that exist, and they've existed for long enough that the only take away is that they are there by intention.

We have a massive shortage of ISO. In some threads people have calculated, given no additional characters added, they'd still need over a year at their average ISO income to level their current characters. And since we're flooded with new characters there's no way to keep up.

We've had rewards that no longer feel worth the effort, or that the meta has long passed by. The players with 5*'s dominate, but rewards are for the most part where they were when 3*'s were the meta. This problem just cascades. We've had week after week of Titan matches for these new characters. If you're lucky enough to have spent hours grinding for covers, you can see your 0/0/1 Spider Gwen or 1/0/1 Punisher get torn to shreds. How is having an event where the majority of players won't be able to participate, and of the ones that can being at an astounding disadvantage, a good experience?

We've had bad scaling since before the introduction of 5* characters. And we aren't asking for things to get harder as our roster gets better. We aren't asking to grind more nodes. The devs surely know that. But, it just keeps happening over and over. It is as if everything in the game is still designed for "You're supposed to lose." The rewards should only be attainable for .2%.

We've had a pay to win environment where even $100 won't max out a character. I'm all for throwing a little cash to games I play, but these feel so phenomenally stingy. I can drop thousands of dollars, and I still won't erase the aforementioned iso deficit. Now, maybe you've gone to catering only to the hedge fund managers and oil barons with money to burn. But, you do have players that might pitch in a few bucks if they felt it worthwhile. Maybe these amounts are so insignificant to you it isn't worth your time. I won't pretend to know your finances.

But, ultimately, everything in the game still seems completely in line with the statement, "You're supposed to lose." You may say that isn't your intention to have a bad experience, but “You're supposed to lose.” is a bad experience. That is a lesson you should clearly know by now.

Actions speak louder than words. These problems have existed for a long time, and no, they really aren't that hard to fix. Example: Double iso, across the board, permanently. Fairly simple, no? But, since they've existed this long, devs clearly must be aware of them. So, I don't have any other conclusion than they all exist, by intention.

Vhailorx · May 2016

I think people focus WAY too much on Ice's "you're supposed to lose" comment. In context all he way saying is that the design philosophy for galactus was "beating him should be rare, but ultimate victory in the event was possible even if you didn't beat him every single time. You could still chop away at his health." (unfortunately, this design was a bad one given how little fun it was to lose to to galactus every 4th round, and how limited healthpacks are).

But everything firethorne says about the underlying problems in the game economy are correct. Rewards and iso distribution are all still about what they were when 3*s were the meta. But the game is in a 5* meta now. Its a huge dissonance that just hurts player engagement.

Additionaly, many recent changes have been advetised as "fun" and "challenging" but when implemented just seem designed to force players to grind difficult nodes more and buy more healthpacks.

The underlying factors are really starting to grate on the community and prime us to be skeptical and devs team communications and new gameplay changes. It's a positive feedback loop.

mpqr7 · May 2016

For me, I will never buy healthpacks. Now that I have well over 10 healthpacks, when my OML dies, and I'm not doing a final pvp hop, then I'll just stop playing and wait a few hours for him to heal. Which is nice actually.. I walked around during my lunch break with my head held high, looking at the world around me for once lol!!

BlackSheep101 · May 2016

SnowcaTT wrote:

I ran through the whole thing with either Winfinite or 4* champed Cyc/3* IM (2nd to last node beat with that pair, probably could beat most nodes with luck).

But I mega-whaled way more than trying the 4* Cyc way when I couldn't winfinite, just to make it more reliable and less draining of health packs. I winfinited some really hard nodes, and it took forever (was boring).

This got me to a 4/4/4 IceMan (my 4* unicorn), so I ran it. Otherwise I wouldn't have bothered, I would have quit on Sub #1. If the reward was Cho, would -anyone- bother beating it? I am actually really upset that I went back and hit the medium nodes for Beast so I could get to 183 and champ into JG - what a waste of resources and time considering the zero resources and 5 minutes it took me to get that same reward in DDQ today!

This is pretty much my Gauntlet experience. I don't have a viable Cyclops, so my non-winfinite team has been OML/4pool/IM40, and just trying to get through the match with one team member standing so I can progress. I'll finish, I'm already up to Sim 36, and I really need the Iceman cover, but if it were a lower tier 4*, I'd be taking the week off.

_RiO_ · May 2016

Vhailorx wrote:

(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.

Regarding that...

The reds have apparantly taken to actively removing "incendiary posts" that "add nothing to the discussion".
In my case, I had one such post removed overnight, shortly after

Demiurge_[bagman] wrote:

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

was posted. It even rolled into my private messags inbox as an official board warning. Ironically, my removed post highlighted exactly the propensity of the developer to give these kind of hollow "we're looking at it" / "we're tuning it over time" / "it's working as intended" answers in reply to criticism from users. And it did so without personal attacks, without threats, and without profanity. But with a healthy dose of strong, hardline language brought on by venting my mounting frustration with the past events.

If the developers, on the one hand, have taken to actively silencing users' venting their frustration with how this situation and communication with the playerbase in general is being handled, yet on the other hand are claiming they're taking in feedback, then I'm kind of left wondering what their game plan is here.

You're free to complain about issues with the game, but not about the (lack of) proper handling of those issues?
The developers continue to lag behind the facts or even actively choose to leave issues for what they are, and then don't allow you to call them out on it. So why complain in the first place then?

To me, this is setting a very, very dangerous precedent.

DeNappa · May 2016

It's been very frustrating. I'm trying to fight my way through Alpine tactics, and I'm on the brink of giving up. I'm getting stomped down into the ground time after time. I'm relying on a 3* roster. Highest? Loki boosted at 264. Then my two 5*s sitting at 256 (unusable except for match damage). Then a gap to... Wow, two boosted 2*s (Daken and Wolverine) at levels 219/212 respectively.

For reference, my alpine tactics started with level 260 goons. Now I'm up to level 300+ opponents. To be fought with mostly my chars in the level 166-180 range. (My 5* match damage isn't going to make the difference against opponents with 10-15k health, and Loki is a utility character, not someone who dishes out damage)

It's not just the losing that's a downer; there's also the fact that matches tend to drag out very long because of how much HP has to be chipped away at with 2* and 3* powers. This goes for both losing AND winning matches.

[PVE] scaling [Merged Thread]

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