Simulator Basics part 2: Electric Boogaloo (Mar 21-30)

_RiO_

Phantron wrote:

There's no such thing as a mission that's impossible and you can use Spiderman. The last simulator did not have a single mission where you can use Spiderman that went down in difficulty, and the one that you can't use Spiderman (against Devil Dino) it indeed went down in difficulty because it was actually hard.

For all the whining people have of 230X3 being too hard, it's obviously not hard enough to cause people to actually lose enough to lower their difficulty.

There's no such thing as a mission that's impossible and you can use an overpowered cover that is rare and held by comparatively few players. The last simulator did not have a single mission where you can use this overpowered cover that went down in difficulty because lucky players owning this overpowered cover could still force a win and continue to hike up levels, and the one that you can't use this overpowered cover (against Devil Dino) it indeed went down in difficulty because no-one could use this overpowered cover to force wins and hike up levels.

For all the whining people have of 230X3 being too hard, it's obviously more than hard enough to cause people to just give up instead of wasting away hours of time in actively losing battles to lower their difficulty, because that is just no fun at all.

FTFY

Unknown

Eddiemon wrote:

Scaling was introduced to change the winner of events from the person with the most time on their hands to the people with better rosters, skills, luck and willingness to throw in a bit of coin.

If they got rid of it there would be mass desertions as most people do not want to grind 10 hours a day to win an event. Which is the model you are putting forward. Once you cannot win because you don't have the time to put in because of wife, job, kids etc then there is no point playing.

Also with time being the key factor to success instead of anything else they would lose paying customers. Why bother having a diverse roster or the boosted characters when everything remains grind able and it is all about grinding?

I'm also lost as to how it punishes people who 'play well'. What happens if you play badly? You don't win battles, you don't get points or rewards and you lose. Playing well seems to be the opposite of that. It seems to reward people who can overcome the harder battles and not reward people who cannot. In my book that is rewarding people who play well. It also rewards them because they can play well and win instead of having to play 10 hours per day to win.

As pointed out "play well" is a misnomer because it has everything to do with your character levels and nothing to do with how "well" you play

But even granted that d3p has a motivation to "reward" people who invest ($$) in character levels, that still doesn't justify the way scaling works -

you could either
A) Have rubberbanding and no scaling, and if a couple of people really feel the need to try to outrace the rubberbanding by endlessly replaying 1 point nodes god bless 'em
Have scaling kick in only after one or even two plays of a node, giving new players the chance to earn some iso and progression rewards but making it difficult for them to place high in the rankings

Pay-to-play and IAP games cannot sustain themselves by "rewarding" early adopters, they need to expand, and you can't do that when you're presenting barriers preventing lower-level characters from playing the events

Unknown

This game is not hard but there's still a difference between playing well and not. If skill is not a factor, the Devil Dino + Bagman fight would've stayed at 230, because it's a fight that's quite winnable if you played well. Obviously, it turned out that most people played nowhere well enough to beat that, especially at 230X3 since it plummeted to something like 180X3 if I recall, maybe even lower, from the repeated failures.

I know there are guys who just skipped The Hood on episode 4, which is a perfectly viable strategy, but beating The Hood at level 230 is not just a matter of luck either.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

Mizake wrote:

Phantron wrote:

Rubberband doesn't stop the guy grinding more from winning. Even if you make the assumption that the guy who plays last always wins, then the guy who grinds the most is the guy who is most often in the position to play last, because he'd usually be first and whoever is first is in the best position to play last.

Grinding doesn't matter at all. It's all about playing in the few hours before an event ends. Everything that comes before that is just posturing and positioning.

If you can't play the last few hours before an event closes, you will never get a high ranking (PvE I'm talking about. PvP it would be the same if it wasn't for shielding). That's the way things are set up currently.

Except the final stretch is decided by whoever has the better position.

This game is big enough that you'll usually luck out in an uncompetitive bracket where it takes very little to win, but in a highly competitive bracket saying the initial position doesn't matter and I'll show you someone you can never catch if you fell behind even a little bit on the positioning. Granted, you don't always need #1, but people way overestimate the effect of timing the system. Most of the time you're simply in a weak bracket that can be easily won, because the guy who grinded more than you is also timing the bracket, and he starts off with a huge position advantage.

I agree with you that the person grinding all the time is still going to win, assuming they play continuously until the end. That's not the point I was making, sorry I wasn't clear.

The point I was making is that none of it matters unless you can play in the last few hours.

Even the person who grinds throughout the entire event, if he/she doesn't play in the last 3 hours or so, he/she is going to lose first place. No lead is ever safe with rubber-banding.

Unknown

Mizake wrote:

I agree with you that the person grinding all the time is still going to win, assuming they play continuously until the end. That's not the point I was making, sorry I wasn't clear.

The point I was making is that none of it matters unless you can play in the last few hours.

Even the person who grinds throughout the entire event, if he/she doesn't play in the last 3 hours or so, he/she is going to lose first place. No lead is ever safe with rubber-banding.

Well, there's no way around that yes, and I think that's one of the bad parts of rubberbanding. Though if you can't play in the last 3 hours of the event, then grinding is still better than doing nothing, because you'd just fall even further behind if you didn't grind.

Exce1sior

How is that Thor can Call the Storm after only 1 green match?

Eddiemon

_RiO_ wrote:

Phantron wrote:

There's no such thing as a mission that's impossible and you can use Spiderman. The last simulator did not have a single mission where you can use Spiderman that went down in difficulty, and the one that you can't use Spiderman (against Devil Dino) it indeed went down in difficulty because it was actually hard.

For all the whining people have of 230X3 being too hard, it's obviously not hard enough to cause people to actually lose enough to lower their difficulty.

There's no such thing as a mission that's impossible and you can use an overpowered cover that is rare and held by comparatively few players. The last simulator did not have a single mission where you can use this overpowered cover that went down in difficulty because lucky players owning this overpowered cover could still force a win and continue to hike up levels, and the one that you can't use this overpowered cover (against Devil Dino) it indeed went down in difficulty because no-one could use this overpowered cover to force wins and hike up levels.

For all the whining people have of 230X3 being too hard, it's obviously more than hard enough to cause people to just give up instead of wasting away hours of time in actively losing battles to lower their difficulty, because that is just no fun at all.

FTFY

Except for it being a load of hysterical rubbish, sure.

You can buy covers for Spider-Man. That removes most of the luck from the equation. You can get a guaranteed one from hero lightning rounds. You choose not to, which is your choice. But it isn't 'luck'. I also find it rare to look at a player who isn't starting out and see them without a single Spider-Man cover.

And D3 go off their engagement and spending stats, not on forum posts to gauge things. And their earnings per player and player participation are increasing. Most people seem to be challenged and getting involved, not 'giving up'.

Eddiemon

Exce1sior wrote:

How is that Thor can Call the Storm after only 1 green match?

http://www.d3pforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=5296

Unknown

Twysta wrote:

That's the worst part about it. It punishes people who play well and rewards people for play poorly.
I know that that's not what the scaling is for or it's intent but in it's current form that's how it works.
Scaling has got mildly better over the course of each event but with the way the system works I'm not sure it will ever work as desired.

I'm inclined to just face the reality. A: That's what we have. B: Devs have control over what we have.

first run could be explained as mistake, next one harder and third time who believes we see anything uninteded really? We have the 5th installation with scaling, let's just call it the properly, they exactly desire the behavior we face. With this PVE scaling just like with all the other stuff.

They don't give a flying damn about those who play well. Or those who are around for more than some time -- that pack is either already stripped of the possible money or are addicted enough to stay through whatever shenanigans.

MPQ standing RULE #1: In this game you're supposed to suck and lose a lot to get better environment.

Time we learn or lesson.

Unknown

Mizake wrote:

What I do remember is I bit the bullet and bought HP and leveled my Spidey from 3 to 5 blue. Maybe this is what D3P wanted all along.

See? YOU, ser, are the one who bow to bullies and SUPPORT them. And enforces them to go that way whatever long as it WORKS fine.

No wonder the game gets ahead in that only direction.

If only people complained using their wallet, standing ground to NEVER support incompetent devs or foul tactics thay eventually would starve to death and be pushed toward friendly behavior.

Unknown

Eddiemon wrote:

You can buy covers for Spider-Man. That removes most of the luck from the equation. You can get a guaranteed one from hero lightning rounds.

You can not. Hero LR don't give covers at all, only drop 3-2-1 c.tokens. Which surely drop some hero cover but you're up to luck to get those desired from the RNG.

Eddiemon

pasa_ wrote:

Mizake wrote:

What I do remember is I bit the bullet and bought HP and leveled my Spidey from 3 to 5 blue. Maybe this is what D3P wanted all along.

See? YOU, ser, are the one who bow to bullies and SUPPORT them. And enforces them to go that way whatever long as it WORKS fine.

No wonder the game gets ahead in that only direction.

If only people complained using their wallet, standing ground to NEVER support incompetent devs or foul tactics thay eventually would starve to death and be pushed toward friendly behavior.

Or they would go broke and the game most of us love would no longer exist.

Take a look at how many people have chimed in in support of your game being mean and unfair rants and how we need to go back to the days where all that mattered was how much time you spent playing. Those days sucked, and a game that requires 10 hours a day play to succeed is unsustainable. The first Hulk had no scaling and was a horrible soul destroying grind.

Most people are approving using their wallets. You are the loud minority, not the majority. The Devs and everyone else aren't going to change just because you want the game to be different to what it is. Most people like being able to compete on 2-3 hours played a day.

Your strong desire to triple that time because you are unwilling to pay for a game but have more time than anyone else isn't compelling to most players, and it really isn't a business case the developers can get behind either.

Eddiemon

pasa_ wrote:

Eddiemon wrote:

You can buy covers for Spider-Man. That removes most of the luck from the equation. You can get a guaranteed one from hero lightning rounds.

You can not. Hero LR don't give covers at all, only drop 3-2-1 c.tokens. Which surely drop some hero cover but you're up to luck to get those desired from the RNG.

No you can BUY a guaranteed cover of each hero type in the hero rounds pack. And you only need one of each colour to BUY the rest. The RNG is meant to be challenging to those who want everything for free.

Unknown

pasa_ wrote:

Mizake wrote:

What I do remember is I bit the bullet and bought HP and leveled my Spidey from 3 to 5 blue. Maybe this is what D3P wanted all along.

See? YOU, ser, are the one who bow to bullies and SUPPORT them. And enforces them to go that way whatever long as it WORKS fine.

No wonder the game gets ahead in that only direction.

If only people complained using their wallet, standing ground to NEVER support incompetent devs or foul tactics thay eventually would starve to death and be pushed toward friendly behavior.

Guilty as charged.

The thing is, I get a lot of enjoyment out of this game, so I didn't mind paying. Getting my Spidey to 5 blue is the best investment I've ever made in this game, even knowing his nerf is incoming.

Again, I've played plenty of F2P games, and I've never spent a dime until now. Usually I hit the paywall and stop. This game is compelling enough for me to give them money so I can continue to enjoy the game. It didn't have to be Spiderman - at least with Spiderman I got something out of it. It could have just been a paywall of "hi, if you are enjoying this game, please pay $20 to continue!" and I would have paid it, unlike all those Big Fish Studios hidden item games I download and play until I hit the paywall and stop.

Unknown

gamar wrote:

Eddiemon wrote:

Scaling was introduced to change the winner of events from the person with the most time on their hands to the people with better rosters, skills, luck and willingness to throw in a bit of coin.

If they got rid of it there would be mass desertions as most people do not want to grind 10 hours a day to win an event. Which is the model you are putting forward. Once you cannot win because you don't have the time to put in because of wife, job, kids etc then there is no point playing.

Also with time being the key factor to success instead of anything else they would lose paying customers. Why bother having a diverse roster or the boosted characters when everything remains grind able and it is all about grinding?

I'm also lost as to how it punishes people who 'play well'. What happens if you play badly? You don't win battles, you don't get points or rewards and you lose. Playing well seems to be the opposite of that. It seems to reward people who can overcome the harder battles and not reward people who cannot. In my book that is rewarding people who play well. It also rewards them because they can play well and win instead of having to play 10 hours per day to win.

As pointed out "play well" is a misnomer because it has everything to do with your character levels and nothing to do with how "well" you play

But even granted that d3p has a motivation to "reward" people who invest ($$) in character levels, that still doesn't justify the way scaling works -

you could either
A) Have rubberbanding and no scaling, and if a couple of people really feel the need to try to outrace the rubberbanding by endlessly replaying 1 point nodes god bless 'em
Have scaling kick in only after one or even two plays of a node, giving new players the chance to earn some iso and progression rewards but making it difficult for them to place high in the rankings

Pay-to-play and IAP games cannot sustain themselves by "rewarding" early adopters, they need to expand, and you can't do that when you're presenting barriers preventing lower-level characters from playing the events

I don't think scaling is a barrier to beginners. If you look at the top finishers in all events since scaling was introduced, it would probably tell you that beginners are doing quite well for themselves.

Unknown

Funnily enough , I hear a lot of people complaining about the wall of high levels due to low roster levels, lack of iso to level event boosted ones etc. But if they didn't spend the iso to buy boosts constantly to finish the node with no damage, wouldn't they have the iso to level the character then?
Seems like a catch 22 to me, not sure even if the 3 tokens you get is worth all that Iso, they'll turn out to be a. Wolv, c. Storm or m. Hawkeye anyways.

Spoit

Jeremychen wrote:

Funnily enough , I hear a lot of people complaining about the wall of high levels due to low roster levels, lack of iso to level event boosted ones etc. But if they didn't spend the iso to buy boosts constantly to finish the node with no damage, wouldn't they have the iso to level the character then?
Seems like a catch 22 to me, not sure even if the 3 tokens you get is worth all that Iso, they'll turn out to be a. Wolv, c. Storm or m. Hawkeye anyways.

Well, being able to place reasonably well is essential to actually getting one of the new covers, which in turn is essential to even play nodes in the next event. And back before they boosted it to 200 iso for 5 AP, you'd easily be iso positive even boosting 4 colors to 6.

Also, when people are playing well, what definition are they using? Grinding mindlessesly against 230x3s? Maximizing rubberbanding to keep the levels low? Tanking?

Unknown

It might make sense to boost some of the time if you're on the edge of some great 3*, but even then, 3*s take a long time before they're better than 2* if you're new, so having levels still help more in general. A 3/3/3 3* can only be raised to level 89, and unless that guy is Thor, Spiderman, or possibly The Punisher he's going to be better than any 2* (and The Punisher is questionable as he gains a lot in his final covers too).

I haven't used boosts in a long time and only use it to clear my inventory really. There just aren't that many prizes worth fighting for. If it's like TaT where #1 of sub bracket gets 3 Patch covers, or The Hunt where the #1 in sub bracket gets 500 HP, maybe it's worth it. But for 3 chances at getting Hawkeye like right now? You're better off saving your iso.

Unknown

That was my point, save the iso for leveling. Just rely on rubberbanding to get to 1 token range within 1 clear and save the additional boost iso for leveling to 141. The only difference is getting 1 new cover compared to 3, do the other 2 really help if your only using it for node unlocks?
They usually run a pvp event with the new cover as prizes right after, so all that iso you saved, immediately usable in a 141 team so you can do well with minimal effort.
Unless for some reason you want a fully covered roster of max leveled of Lazy cap as early as possible, then go right ahead.
Paraphrasing from farcry 3 but the definition of insanity: doing something exactly the same way over and over again expecting a different better outcome after each try.
All you insane people can go grind down 230s to 1 pt then and enjoy continuing to swim in the sea of 230s the next event too.

Bowgentle

Jeremychen wrote:

All you insane people can go grind down 230s to 1 pt then and enjoy continuing to swim in the sea of 230s the next event too.

I'm pretty sure that most people with high level rosters play like me - I don't grind, and I don't swim in 230s, despite winning the last two subs plus the last couple of PVEs.
We just time our refreshes to maximize rubberbanding and concentrate on the high value nodes - that's usually enough for a top finish.

Really, the better your roster, the less need to grind.

I haven't had any major scaling issues since Thick As Thieves.