Increasing levels for events

Unknown

I'm a newer player (only been playing a couple weeks), and have almost maxed out my 2* team. (Darn you, purple OBW covers - drop!)

I had a question regarding the levels during events such as the Hulk event currently going on. When the tournament begins, it's doable, but over time, the levels of the same fights that I have done (or not yet done) increase dramatically. At the beginning, for example, one fight would be three level 60 opponents, but twelve hours later, that same fight has three level 90 opponents. This is just an example, and I'm ballparking the numbers.

What causes the jump in enemy levels? Is it designed to increase? Am I doing something that triggers it? I'm a grinder at heart and love to replay again and again, but this is really prohibitive. Maybe that's the point, but they already had diminishing returns built in on the point rewards, eventually landing at 1 point, so it's not like it would be abused.

Thanks for any information the community has to help me out!

Unknown

Cause: the braindead idea of 'community scaling'. We all (except jozier) complain about it. since it first hit 4 PVEs ago.

Twysta

Yeah sadly a lot of people get the impression that the devs seem intent on punishing people for playing
The levels scale on how well the community and you are doing in teh events.
So grinding through missions as they refresh will cause a great increase in enemy levels.

I used to do multiple reps of missions, now with the level scaling I just do 1.

Unknown

Basically every time someone completes a given node it adds one to some hidden counter which will, at intervals, increase the level of the encounter for everyone. The best proof of this one is that the black panther nodes are my lowest level ones in each sub, presumably because enough people lack the hero entirely that the community can't super scale it up.

Also... every time you complete a node it starts increasing levels for you personally. One of Ice's posts suggested that if you complete the node without taking much, if any damage then the effect is much greater.

Finally, it seems that if your roster is **** then your levels stay lower, or lots of ppl are cheating their way to high points totals with garbage rosters. One or the other.

Unknown

Thanks so much for the quick response(s)!

So basically, if I want to do any grinding whatsoever, I need to get in at the very front end of an event and blitz through the levels as quickly as possible before the community can catch up and trigger the upscaling?

Unknown

BeanRoaster wrote:

Thanks so much for the quick response(s)!

So basically, if I want to do any grinding whatsoever, I need to get in at the very front end of an event and blitz through the levels as quickly as possible before the community can catch up and trigger the upscaling?

This will help you early on, but sooner or later in a 9 day event, the scaling catches up to everyone. There is some amount of carry-over from one sub-event to the next, so while the beginning of a given sub-event might be lower-levelled than the end of the previous one, you should still expect to see continuous creep up as the event wears on.

mischiefmaker

Also, missions tend to increase in point value over time, due to the mechanic known as rubber banding -- the farther away from the leader you are, the more the points are worth. So if you only do missions in the beginning, you're almost guaranteed to not place very highly.

Unknown

pasa_ wrote:

Cause: the braindead idea of 'community scaling'. We all (except jozier) complain about it. since it first hit 4 PVEs ago.

Complaining about it isn't the same as not wanting it. I complain about it when it goes off the wall crazy. Otherwise I am somewhere between indifferent and liking it. When it works properly, it helps to keep the lead for those who get in early and work for it. Latecomers get the first effects of rubberbanding, early players get better initial scaling.

Unknown

Riggy wrote:

pasa_ wrote:

Cause: the braindead idea of 'community scaling'. We all (except jozier) complain about it. since it first hit 4 PVEs ago.

Complaining about it isn't the same as not wanting it. I complain about it when it goes off the wall crazy. Otherwise I am somewhere between indifferent and liking it. When it works properly, it helps to keep the lead for those who get in early and work for it. Latecomers get the first effects of rubberbanding, early players get better initial scaling.

75% of the time it feels broken (level 230 enemies across the board - yawn), but the other 25% of the time is okay. If it had scaling, but the max levels of fights were 180, 190, 200, 210, 220 & 230 then even if you were at max difficulty it would feel like there was more variety, and that the first mission on a board was easier than the last.

Unknown

bughunt wrote:

Riggy wrote:

pasa_ wrote:

Cause: the braindead idea of 'community scaling'. We all (except jozier) complain about it. since it first hit 4 PVEs ago.

Complaining about it isn't the same as not wanting it. I complain about it when it goes off the wall crazy. Otherwise I am somewhere between indifferent and liking it. When it works properly, it helps to keep the lead for those who get in early and work for it. Latecomers get the first effects of rubberbanding, early players get better initial scaling.

75% of the time it feels broken (level 230 enemies across the board - yawn), but the other 25% of the time is okay. If it had scaling, but the max levels of fights were 180, 190, 200, 210, 220 & 230 then even if you were at max difficulty it would feel like there was more variety, and that the first mission on a board was easier than the last.

I agree that when it fails, it's miserable. But I think I can see what they're trying to achieve with scaling + rubberbanding, so I can be patient (helps that I have a soft spot for Marvel and for the PQ franchise, and I don't have any other mobile games I'm interested in right now).

I didn't try all that hard for this event; as such, the scaling went fine for me. Occasionally they topped 200, but they're mostly still hanging around the 180 mark. Very manageable. And even with not trying too hard, I still got all the progression rewards and will likely get 2 Thor covers (top 2500 right now). It only seems like those who are in the money spots (which I'll define as contending (not necessarily getting) for 3+ covers of the new character) really ever hit the wall of max level enemies. Which conceptually I'm ok with - if you want the top rewards, you have to earn them. Perhaps not your typical F2P mentality, but a valid competitive gaming mindset. It's when that doesn't hold true (as in past events) - where you had to fight a wall of 230's just to get the 2* rewards - that's where the issue with scaling is.

What I'm most curious about is whether the 3* Thor will be required for the next PVE event. That is their pattern, but at this rate, only 6% of the player base will have 1+ Thor covers. I like the "exclusive" nodes, but 94% exclusion is a bit on the steep side. Hopefully there will be a PVP event rewarding Thor (or they allow the 2* Thor to count) before the next PVE.

fedlex20

bonfire01 wrote:

Basically every time someone completes a given node it adds one to some hidden counter which will, at intervals, increase the level of the encounter for everyone. The best proof of this one is that the black panther nodes are my lowest level ones in each sub, presumably because enough people lack the hero entirely that the community can't super scale it up.

Also... every time you complete a node it starts increasing levels for you personally. One of Ice's posts suggested that if you complete the node without taking much, if any damage then the effect is much greater.

Finally, it seems that if your roster is tinykitty then your levels stay lower, or lots of ppl are cheating their way to high points totals with garbage rosters. One or the other.

whats that?

Unknown

The forums automatically replace swearwords and the like with the word 'tinykitty'. Though there's also a fair chance that the poster did it deliberately anyway.

fedlex20

Dayraven wrote:

The forums automatically replace swearwords and the like with the word 'tinykitty'. Though there's also a fair chance that the poster did it deliberately anyway.

**** off. Really??

edit: yep

Unknown

considering people keep telling you to wash your mouth with soap upon swearing, I wonder if D3 is encouraging it.
Washing your mouth with a tiny **** isn't a bad thing no?

Eddiemon

bughunt wrote:

Riggy wrote:

pasa_ wrote:

Cause: the braindead idea of 'community scaling'. We all (except jozier) complain about it. since it first hit 4 PVEs ago.

Complaining about it isn't the same as not wanting it. I complain about it when it goes off the wall crazy. Otherwise I am somewhere between indifferent and liking it. When it works properly, it helps to keep the lead for those who get in early and work for it. Latecomers get the first effects of rubberbanding, early players get better initial scaling.

75% of the time it feels broken (level 230 enemies across the board - yawn), but the other 25% of the time is okay. If it had scaling, but the max levels of fights were 180, 190, 200, 210, 220 & 230 then even if you were at max difficulty it would feel like there was more variety, and that the first mission on a board was easier than the last.

Are people facing a lot of 230s? This event, apart from select cases where i had double digits most of my opponents have been in the 140 to 190 range. I have had a reasonable amount above 190 and I have had a few hit 230s, but they haven't been the majority by any means.

My issue is with all the hyperbole people throw around on here, it is difficult to tell what is really happening and what is just an over exaggeration.

Now granted I am in 2 Thor cover land, so I haven't been grinding to the death and I found when I I'd make a push the game came back at me hard. When I was in top 1000 land it felt like fights were harder, but that was 4 sub event time so everything sucked at that point.

Eddiemon

ichijuan wrote:

bonfire01 wrote:

Basically every time someone completes a given node it adds one to some hidden counter which will, at intervals, increase the level of the encounter for everyone. The best proof of this one is that the black panther nodes are my lowest level ones in each sub, presumably because enough people lack the hero entirely that the community can't super scale it up.

Also... every time you complete a node it starts increasing levels for you personally. One of Ice's posts suggested that if you complete the node without taking much, if any damage then the effect is much greater.

Finally, it seems that if your roster is tinykitty then your levels stay lower, or lots of ppl are cheating their way to high points totals with garbage rosters. One or the other.

whats that?

Well it could be any profanity really.

Tinykitty, tinykitty, tinykitty, Democrat, or tinykitty.
Or more creatively tinykitty goat tinykitty tinykitty.
Maybe inserting tinykitty in a well lubricated tinykitty using your mother's tinykitty.

The options are endless.

Unknown

Eddiemon wrote:

Are people facing a lot of 230s? This event, apart from select cases where i had double digits most of my opponents have been in the 140 to 190 range. I have had a reasonable amount above 190 and I have had a few hit 230s, but they haven't been the majority by any means.

My issue is with all the hyperbole people throw around on here, it is difficult to tell what is really happening and what is just an over exaggeration.

Now granted I am in 2 Thor cover land, so I haven't been grinding to the death and I found when I I'd make a push the game came back at me hard. When I was in top 1000 land it felt like fights were harder, but that was 4 sub event time so everything sucked at that point.

Mine have been going up over the hulk event by about 10 levels each sub. Currently in the final main missions have started in the 160 to 220 range by the end of the 24 hours half will probably 230. All doable with my teams unless I get some unlucky boards or the AI lucks out on some lucky cascades. So for me at least this event nearly been perfect for scaling as I assume this is they type of thing D3 is looking for.