Progress Punished? Taking Rewards Punished?[Scaling]

saj14saj

The last time Gauntlet came around, I had a 2* roster. With a lot of healthpacks, and some whales, I was able to make it to the beginning of the third sub.

I was looking forward to my relatively much more powerful 3* roster being able to go further in Gauntlet, at least for fun, since the prizes are miserly.

Now that I have a three star roster, and some unfortunately useless 1-2 cover unlevelled 5*s, I cannot get past the penultimate node (Simulation 13) on the first sub. It is scaled at 240, and my best synergistic team (IM40, GSBW, Hulk) is around level 170-178--and they have been beaten down twice, and they weren't close matches. They were fast %##% whuppings.

Yes, I have a just a few characters boosted to 242, but they offer no synergy and are not terribly effective. Boosted tile defenders offer little help against nodes with no enemy tile users.

This node also offers as its very best reward the princely sum of 100 ISO.

But no--the scaling is beyond brutal.

Why is progress in the game punished?

Why is the best strategy in the game to often not take rewards:

* Don't open the legendary tokens you need for four star essentials lest you get 5*s and bork your scaling
* Don't open your tacos now, because you cannot save any healthpacks you earn and may need them later
* At higher levels don't open your tacos until you have at least 30 (by the math) to increase probability of success
* Don't open your regular tokens now until you have saved HP for the new character, or enough ISO and other covers to champ them lest you lose the covers after 14 days?
* Why is it better to not level your characters lest the scaling take its revenge?

It goes so far that the folks on Puzzle Warriors podcast folks recommend that 3* players never open their legendaries nor spend command points. How is that fun? And how are you supposed to cover essentials with that practice?

Even playing at the wrong time in this game is punished:

* In Story (so-called PVE), if you start late, you get fewer refreshes, and reduced point values.
* In Versus (so-called PVP), if you start to early, you face the duel punishments of fewer points being available to gain, and more opportunity for later players to beat you down. The optimal strategy becomes sniping in the last hours hoping to get lucky, rather than playing well over the course of the event. Why are they 2 days long or more when only the last 12 hours (and realistically, only the last 3 hours) really matter?

Finally, some of the factors required for success (which bracket you get into, and how competitive it is) are completely beyond the visibility or control of the player. A score that rates top 200 in one bracket might rate top 50 in another.

How exactly is a game that:

* Punishes progress
* Punishes taking what slim rewards are available;
* Punishes playing at the incorrect time; and
* Has factors neither visible to nor controllable by the player dictate success

supposed to be fun for the players once the shiny newness wears off, and the actual bones of the game and its requirements for success become evident?

wirius

Personal scaling in the gauntlet makes not sense. Its designed to get harder to the point where you need a certain roster level to progress. Very much a mistake on their part.

Frustrated1

"You're supposed to lose." - Literally what they have said about this game and its players.

wirius

Frustrated1 wrote:

"You're supposed to lose." - Literally what they have said about this game and its players.

This is true, its part of the game design. They only want a certain percentage of players winning upper cover levels each event. It keeps the covers valuable, and causes people to pay money for them.

However, the gauntlet should not be tuned by scaling as all the levers are there already. Obtaining the 2 stars should be a general challenge for 1*'s easy for full 2* rosters, and scale that on up for each star rewarded at the end. If more people get covers than intended, remove the event. Don't ruin it.

Frigs

you raise an abundance of valid points, its getting to a point where I'm just going to play peggle on my phone instead. Because at least peggle gives me the puzzle aspect of a game with a fair percentage to beat the next level. How do the devs not understand that if you unmercifully beat us into the ground then the game no longer has any appeal to it.

Kevin61

I started playing just to farm some ISO as the rewards for this round of the Gauntlet are absolutely nothing at all that I can use. I got past the Loki Essential nodes, hit a node with Muscle and two Teiatsu at 177 labeled as "Easy". Tinykitty tinykitty! Eventually beat it and went on to the next node and it is labeled "Normal" (I forget who the team is but they are all 240. From 177 one node to 240 the next? No tinykitty thank you. I will sit out the rest of the Gauntlet and just play DDQ and Simulator until the next event.

mpqr7

PVE scaling drives me nuts. The game should get easier as you build up your roster. It shouldn't get more brutal. That's just lazy programming. Instead of facing level 500 characters, they should build new characters that are actually fun and not just exhausting to fight.

And when the battles are tough, the rewards should feel greater!!! Rewards should scale when enemies scale!

Vinmarc43

Why do DEV not understand what all of us are saying about scaling ?

BECAUSE THEY DON`T **** CARE .

Money is what they care about, and it`s ok, it`s a " business " after all, but I have quit putting money in this game about 19 months ago and will never put another dime in this game until I quit or they pull the plug, and actually, I wish they would pull the plug !!!

SnowcaTT

This event scaled way higher than last one, regardless of what you had/have.

Last run I had 300 Phoenix and 350ish HB (champed, boosted). Those were my top two. Wasn't terrible!

This time I have 300 Phoenix and 350ish Cyc (champed, boosted). Still my top two. Was some terrible!

Unless it was looking at the levels I -could- raise my roster to (Did it think Ant-Man should also be 350? Because he's not...), the scaling should have been the same for me. It was not even close. I think I mega-whaled 5 times last go-around? Not sure if I had a "deadly" scaling? Mega-whaled at least 20 times this go, and 12+ nodes were deadly.

DeNappa

Oh wow, I see what you mean... The scaling seems really of the charts with the current gauntlet.

Last time they ran the gauntlet, I probably had somewhere around 6 maxed 3*s. I managed to complete it though.. with some perseverance, health packs, and a few nodes where I had to resort to whales, 2 or 3 or so. The difficulty started out okay, but in the second tier of nodes it really started to become more difficult. Still -- with a well chosen team, completing nodes was usually doable on the first try, even in 'tier 2'. In 'tier 3', winning was really hard in some cases.

Flash forward to today. My number of maxed/champed 3*s has increased to around 15. Number of 4* covers has increased a bit, but still nothing worth mentioning aside from maybe my 2/5/1 XFW. In the first tier I was frequently struggling, started losing in node 5 or 6... And lost multiple times to node 13, featuring 3 opponents that are already 10 levels or so higher than my strongest character (a boosted Loki).

My roster has improved. I have not become a worse player (at least not that I'm aware of ). Yet I seem to be performing way worse (both win- and healthpack wise) than last time.

Now, don't get me wrong, I like a challenge, but it shouldn't get ridiculous.

DCUDCU

Kevin61 wrote:

I started playing just to farm some ISO as the rewards for this round of the Gauntlet are absolutely nothing at all that I can use. I got past the Loki Essential nodes, hit a node with Muscle and two Teiatsu at 177 labeled as "Easy". Tinykitty tinykitty! Eventually beat it and went on to the next node and it is labeled "Normal" (I forget who the team is but they are all 240. From 177 one node to 240 the next? No tinykitty thank you. I will sit out the rest of the Gauntlet and just play DDQ and Simulator until the next event.

Gauntlet best strategy has always been to never grind a node or do any essentials until you go as far on main nodes as you are planning to...