PvE scaling with featured heroes

Unknown

I was looking at the top of my bracket for heroic Jugg, and the #1 guy's highest character is level 15, but it's a lazy Thor.

Now this isn't a post about why guys with weak rosters shouldn't win. But just think about this for a moment. A level 15 lazy Thor is equivalent of a level 105 in this event, and he's also the highest level character in this guy's roster. So his scaling gives him opponents that are designed for a level 15 roster, except he has a level 105 equivalent character to use. One would expect a level 105 lazy Thor can trivially smash level 15 opponents by just doing match 3s which would explain why this guy is at #1.

I understand the point of these event is to get you to invest in the featured character, but this is an example of way too much advantage in favor of the featured character. I don't actually know how to fix this (because D3 clearly wants to promote the featured characters), but a guy with a level 15 lazy Thor is not fighting anything remotely fair relative to his roster's actual strength when the level 15 lazy Thor is treated like just a level 15 instead of a 105. I'm pretty certain this is not the case, since if the lazy Thor is treated as a level 105, then it becomes a miracle whether this guy can even beat anything at all since he literally only have match 3s as his primary method of doing damage.

IceIX

The game doesn't do scaling like that. When you win, it doesn't look at which characters were used or what levels those characters were. It sees that you won, looks at the performance in the match itself, and scales accordingly while passing some of that info over to the community scaling portion. A level 105 Thor most definitely enables lower tiered players to compete in this PVE Event though as scaling was tuned down to a larger extent in order to dial things in better. What that means though is that they don't hit scaling as much as someone with a fully built out roster since as you say, they're doing most of their damage through matches as opposed to abilities and the like from a team of 85s or so. As a result, the newbie tends to have worse performance match per match and won't scale as quickly/as hard as someone that's been playing for longer. They'll still start running into matches where match threes aren't that great to win with, like Imposter or Guilty By Association in this round.

Unknown

This guy has been #1 by a pretty comfortable margin, and since his roster consist of heroes with 1 or 2 covers, I'm pretty sure he's still fighting guys that can simply be killed by effective level 105 Thor's match 3s because there's literally no other way he can win.

I'm not saying newbies shouldn't have a chance, and this scenario could apply to a well developed roster that maxed out Thor (at effective level 231, he'd also be considerably stronger than enemy designed to be challenging for 141s). I know you guys want to promote people to have the featured characters, but giving level 15 enemies to a hero that is actually level 105 seems like way too much of an advantage for those who are in the position to take advantage of it. I imagine the average guy just have a level 15-30 Thor and level 100 other heroes, so adding 90 levels to Thor doesn't distort your roster's strength considerably. But it does when level 15 is the highest character you have and that guy happened to be Thor, who is really level 105 in this event.

Unknown

I do remember joining lighting rounds when I was but a babe. Seemed having a buffed level 15 gave me power beyond my wildest dreams compared to my level 6 guys.

Not sure how he is keeping that Lazythor so healthy bound to be taking some beating if he is completing enough matches to be in first maybe he is a brand new whale spending hundreds on health packs over and over because he doesn't know better

Unknown

Cryptobrancus wrote:

I do remember joining lighting rounds when I was but a babe. Seemed having a buffed level 15 gave me power beyond my wildest dreams compared to my level 6 guys.

Not sure how he is keeping that Lazythor so healthy bound to be taking some beating if he is completing enough matches to be in first maybe he is a brand new whale spending hundreds on health packs over and over because he doesn't know better

If your highest hero is level 15, your enemies will be most likely around level 10-20 and their ability will do like 100-200 damage. Thor at 15 is effectively level 105 and has about 6000 HP and can easily shrug off these hits.

Puritas

IceIX wrote:

It sees that you won, looks at the performance in the match itself, and scales accordingly while passing some of that info over to the community scaling portion. As a result, the newbie tends to have worse performance match per match and won't scale as quickly/as hard as someone that's been playing for longer.

So basically what you're saying is the best team to minimize scaling would be daken + two characters that damage self like Ares

I seeeeeeee

Unknown

Puritas wrote:

IceIX wrote:

It sees that you won, looks at the performance in the match itself, and scales accordingly while passing some of that info over to the community scaling portion. As a result, the newbie tends to have worse performance match per match and won't scale as quickly/as hard as someone that's been playing for longer.

So basically what you're saying is the best team to minimize scaling would be daken + two characters that damage self like Ares

I seeeeeeee

I seem to recall a dev saying that having flawless victories with Spiderman does count harshly against your PvE scaling.

Unknown

That would probably explain to some degree why scaling was mostly tame in this event, I think?

If healers were not allowed, and we all know Juggernaut was Headbutt crazy, all of the accumulated damage players were receiving actually slowed down scaling of the nodes, if this logic holds true.

Unknown

Scaling seemed okay in this one imo. As a prolific tanker, I didn't feel it helped here at all.

Jathro

IceIX wrote:

The game doesn't do scaling like that. When you win, it doesn't look at which characters were used or what levels those characters were. It sees that you won, looks at the performance in the match itself...

Sounds like I'd be better off making sub-optimal matches and letting the AI get some abilities off, while still maintaining a position to win at any given time; as opposed to trying to finish as efficiently as possible.

Or am I reading too much into this?

reckless442

Phantron wrote:

Puritas wrote:

IceIX wrote:

It sees that you won, looks at the performance in the match itself, and scales accordingly while passing some of that info over to the community scaling portion. As a result, the newbie tends to have worse performance match per match and won't scale as quickly/as hard as someone that's been playing for longer.

So basically what you're saying is the best team to minimize scaling would be daken + two characters that damage self like Ares

I seeeeeeee

I seem to recall a dev saying that having flawless victories with Spiderman does count harshly against your PvE scaling.

Which would explain why I'm so screwed on PVE. I generally have used Spidey, used blue boosts, done a lot of stunlocking to avoid damage, and healed at the end of matches in PVEs. My scaling in Heroic Juggs was insane. In the last clear I had level 173 opponents. That's what I get for not buying health packs.

Unknown

To be fair, if the game sees you're winning every fight in a flawless victory, it has no choice but to assume you're just that awesome.

Eddiemon

reckless442 wrote:

Which would explain why I'm so screwed on PVE. I generally have used Spidey, used blue boosts, done a lot of stunlocking to avoid damage, and healed at the end of matches in PVEs. My scaling in Heroic Juggs was insane. In the last clear I had level 173 opponents. That's what I get for not buying health packs.

Given your name, did you recklessly get your team killed in heroic J? Once I had done the missions I found possible I risked me team against C Mags and died a lot. I like to believe their sacrifices helped.

MarvelMan

Phantron wrote:

To be fair, if the game sees you're winning every fight in a flawless victory, it has no choice but to assume you're just that awesome.

I am.....but my heroes? Not so much. 150 Daken does BAD, BAD things to mStorm and lvl 15 CA.

Unknown

I had 3 lvl 141s but only psy was useable.
Except for the popular nodes like bullseye+2mob most of them were kept 50s and under, especially jugs nodes.
I'd like to think having no healer and repeatedly going to the prologue to heal after repeated headbutts kept the scaling at a great level for me.
Mostly cause my spidey was low level and couldn't stand combat situations without a buff and OBW wasn't allowed.
But I know soon, they'll definitely count all healing done in all modes, not just within the event itself.
*exhibit A, they replaced healing webhead in the missions with either of the other two covers*

Unknown

Jeremychen wrote:

I had 3 lvl 141s but only psy was useable.
Except for the popular nodes like bullseye+2mob most of them were kept 50s and under, especially jugs nodes.
I'd like to think having no healer and repeatedly going to the prologue to heal after repeated headbutts kept the scaling at a great level for me.
Mostly cause my spidey was low level and couldn't stand combat situations without a buff and OBW wasn't allowed.
But I know soon, they'll definitely count all healing done in all modes, not just within the event itself.
*exhibit A, they replaced healing webhead in the missions with either of the other two covers*

The game already does this:

Jozier wrote:

Sounds like you should be leaving your matches with damage and then healing in the prologue instead of at the end hm...

IceIX wrote:

It accounts for that somewhat. Pretty easy for the system to see that you went out of one match in the Event near dead then entered the next one pretty quickly at full without Health Pack usage.

http://www.d3pforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=4442

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

Cryptobrancus wrote:

I do remember joining lighting rounds when I was but a babe. Seemed having a buffed level 15 gave me power beyond my wildest dreams compared to my level 6 guys.

Not sure how he is keeping that Lazythor so healthy bound to be taking some beating if he is completing enough matches to be in first maybe he is a brand new whale spending hundreds on health packs over and over because he doesn't know better

If your highest hero is level 15, your enemies will be most likely around level 10-20 and their ability will do like 100-200 damage. Thor at 15 is effectively level 105 and has about 6000 HP and can easily shrug off these hits.

And coming out of battle he's having the 900 health with 90 lost healing up in a minute.

Unknown

reckless442 wrote:

Which would explain why I'm so screwed on PVE. I generally have used Spidey, used blue boosts, done a lot of stunlocking to avoid damage, and healed at the end of matches in PVEs. My scaling in Heroic Juggs was insane. In the last clear I had level 173 opponents. That's what I get for not buying health packs.

Yep, another braindead idea to ruin the fun with the game, and aligns well with a spend-more agenda.

And for this one I actually doubt the connection was even intended in that blatant way. A way of thinking seem to settle in designers brain and they come up with those schema in their sleep.

Unknown

Lyrian wrote:

IceIX wrote:

It accounts for that somewhat. Pretty easy for the system to see that you went out of one match in the Event near dead then entered the next one pretty quickly at full without Health Pack usage.

Thanks for pointing that out. This really bugs me. So many crutches and artificial hindrances and on top nowhere explained.

It's so easy to get into a vicious cycle. Upped scaling because of perfect spidey matches, unable to beat matches without him anymore. But if I buy some nice health packs it's ok to start every match full health?

Unknown

Cryptobrancus wrote:

Not sure how he is keeping that Lazythor so healthy bound to be taking some beating if he is completing enough matches to be in first maybe he is a brand new whale spending hundreds on health packs over and over because he doesn't know better

Buffed chars heal up like crazy in case you keep them at low level. Lazy Thor at level 15 just has a few hundred health outside the event, healing at one health every five seconds. It only takes a few minutes to get him from zero to top. Within the event his health gets boosted to level 105, which happens to be several thousand. No need for health packs, natural healing is good enough in this situation.

Unknown

1140 outside, boosted to 6kish within event.