PvE Guide v1.1 (Updated January 2016)

Unknown

Noob question here, apologies in advance. I've read about the rubberbanding and scaling but I'm even more confused. What is the optimal approach? Finish each mission once, wait 12 h, repeat or finish every mission until melting the mission completion reward to 1, then move on to next mission, do the same, complete all the missions this way, THEN wait 12 h and get at it again?
Thanks!

Eddiemon

Yeggy wrote:

Eddiemon wrote:

(...) 1* characters scale better than 2*s who scale better than 3*s and so on.

Yeah, ok.

Eddiemon wrote:

Even better, a 2* with only 2 abilities is designed to scale even better because their maximum level is lower again that a tricolour 2*.

No. I disagree and I see no proof indicating otherwise.

All 1* 2* and 3* two-powered characters have the exact same scaling when it comes to tile damage compared to their three-powered counterparts. A Juggernaut has the same base tile damage as an Iron Man 35 at level 40 (in different colours of course). That's a very good indicator of how a character scales. I would argue that's the only indicator of how the character scales compared to others of the same rarity. All other scaling is done on a case by case basis. This includes Hit Points and how their abilities.

I deleted the rest of your comment just for post length, not because of any perceived importance.

Juggernaught, Venom, Doom, Daken, Ragnarok all have above average HP for their Tier/level combined. Most of the other 2 powers are average with the exception of Hawkeye,Loki and Bullseye. 1* tournaments were dominated by Venom/Juggernaught teams and evil LRs by Doom/Rag teams because there are just so many HP to chew through. Rag got his Nerf but Doom's powers are still top shelf. A 230 Juggernaught will 1-shot most of your team with headbutt.

Now I concede that this is becoming less true every event with power creep. Doom used to be the premiere attack tile dealer to balance his 2 abilityness but now along comes the Torch with a much more powerful attack tile in both power and quantity. It is also arguably cheaper in that the up front cost to activate is less. Sure it depletes other reserves if you have them, but once you have 1500+ damage of attack tiles on the board you aren't too worried about the next ability.

The same goes for the others who used to be health beasts especially at 230, but now Lazy Thor, Hulk, Shieldbro and Black Panther are raising the bar. And where 230 Jug coudl instakill one character, Panther and Thor can instakill your whole party.

Eddiemon

sorcered wrote:

Noob question here, apologies in advance. I've read about the rubberbanding and scaling but I'm even more confused. What is the optimal approach? Finish each mission once, wait 12 h, repeat or finish every mission until melting the mission completion reward to 1, then move on to next mission, do the same, complete all the missions this way, THEN wait 12 h and get at it again?
Thanks!

Optimal depends on what you are trying to achieve, the strength of your roster and the time you are willing to put in.

If you have unlimited time and a roster (or cash) to beat everything thrown at you, then the optimal strategy is to start completing two hours before the sub ends, having completed them a refresh time before that and so on back to the start.

If you have a poorer roster and aren't willing to throw cash at the problem then there will be a point where community scaling will drag a sub out of your reach. This might mean you want to complete what you can 4-5 hours before the end of the sub. So you don't get swamped by the community scaling that comes when everyone does their last minute rubberband dash.

If you have a good roster but are time limited then save it all for the last 2 hours and use the rubberband to the best of your ability.

In most events the point rewards for subs increase as the evnt progresses, so sub1 is sometimes worth half the points of the 4th sub. To get the most value out of personal scaling you would want to complete more missions in sub 4 and less in sub 1 if you want to place better. If you want sub rewards then sub 2 and 3 seem to be easier to win.

So you need to complete your last round of missions as late as you can in a sub where community scaling hasn't caused you issues. You need to manage your personal scaling over the course of the event because later missions are generally worth more and within those constraints you need to complete as many missions as you have time for.

One other factor is choosing your main bracket and sub bracket. If you start really early, you will generally end up in a very competetive bracket of people who grind. If you start really late then you may also end up in a competetive bracket of people who rely on rubberbanding. There are sweet spot brackets in the middle, but you may be giving up refreshes to get into easier brackets. This is a consideration if your priority is progression rewards and not overall placing.

Unknown

I'm stuck right now. This is the first time I've been able to grind down everything with no problem, and I got all but two down to a value of 1. Its been about 5 hours and nothing has regained its value at all. I want to earn more points, and I see others scores gaining as I'm dropping down the rankings. How do I get it reset? If I'm playing PVP while waiting, am i causing it not to gain the values back?

mohio

jbroce wrote:

I'm stuck right now. This is the first time I've been able to grind down everything with no problem, and I got all but two down to a value of 1. Its been about 5 hours and nothing has regained its value at all. I want to earn more points, and I see others scores gaining as I'm dropping down the rankings. How do I get it reset? If I'm playing PVP while waiting, am i causing it not to gain the values back?

Just relax man - did you read the whole guide? The part about 8-hour and 12-hour refreshes being the key part. You ground the stacks down so you're only seeing 1 point missions. You're getting passed because others either started earlier and have had their nodes refresh or more likely they are simply using rubberbanding to their advantage. The current PvE that you're asking about (and something like the last 4 or 5 large PvE events) is using a 12-hour refresh. That means from the second you beat a mission, it will refresh one piece on the stack 12 hours later. So, do something else for several more hours and come back when the stacks are all refreshed and you'll rubberband right back up near the top. The key is timing it so that your last play session is as close to the end of the event/sub-event as possible, even if that means waiting several hours past your latest refresh. This will maximize your rubber band and minimize the time others have to catch you.

edit: playing PvP is completely separate, so it doesn't effect refresh times at all

Unknown

I read the guide, but it didnt make sense till you just dumbed it down for me. lol. Thanks!

Unknown

Hi,

great guide but I'm still getting to grips with all of this. I've been following the guide for the hunt (first falcon cover reward event). However, I've no idea whether I've already messed up due to the sheer length and repetitiveness of the event! The three sub events just repeat and overlap so frequently its giving me a headache and genuinely feels like its becoming a complete and painful waste of time. I think this is the 3rd or 4th repeat of the same subs (maybe someone can correct me)? I'm pretty fed up already but unfortunately have invested too much time to quit...

My tactic has varied in regards to when i've entered these subs; sometimes i've started early just to hit a few nodes but not cleared all until maybe 14-16 hrs til the end so i can compete in last 1-2hrs taking advantage of the rubber-banding. Sometimes, 5-6 hrs in, maybe later, but always using strategy of clearing once, 12-14 hr refresh, then grinding in last 1-2 hrs. This has worked until now and I've actually been top overall in the main event at various pnts. This is mainly due to me being able to play within the last two hrs of both finishing times (early and late). something, i probably won't bother with in future

However, i've just opened my new sub mission and can already see i'll struggle to clear all the nodes once let alone compete in last hrs. I confess...I have used boosts...but only the free ones (I never buy boosts with hp or iso) and in the last 10-15 mins of event against lvl140-200 bots I would never beat! So we're talking 5/6 battles top... funnily enough, I actually lost twice (A loss should surely scale in my favour, shouldn't it?). Cascades on the cpu's first turn! Is this the simple answer, I used boosts? Or am I missing something?

My Roster isn't 3* yet (I have a 3* lvl 115 cap and 2*OBW/C.Storm/Thor)... My boosted Cap has really helped but am I just not strong enough yet to compete for top places in these events...Or have i just really messed up? Also, is the sheer length/repetitiveness of this pve a factor I haven't judged correctly? The sheer volume of finish times overlapping each other seems intense (inc. PVP and LR too). I mean, seriously, The venom event was boring and repetitive but this is something else! I've never done that well or put this much time into pve so have no idea if they're always like this or this particular one is more tedious than others.

Anyway, judging by time left in the event, these three sub missions will repeat once more. Would i be better off easing off this round, clearing what I can but excepting I'm not going to achieve top 10-50 (if i'm lucky!) in the hope it will scale me down for final push when the sub events repeat again in the next few days?

Thanks

Eddiemon

Hi Alex,

What do you mean by 'clear'? DOes that mean grinding each mission down to 1, or does that just mean completing every mission once?

For this particular event I generally just do the initial mission and the highest score missions once, with 24-16 hours to go. This generally gets me a bracket that doesn't have the late chargers and also doesn't have the addicted grinders in it.

Then I do as many missions as I need to get to top 10 starting with about 90 minutes to go.

Any more than that and I think scaling would start to burn me. As it is things are slowly ticking upwards.

Unknown

No, by "clear' i just meant go through all the missions once so ALL missions are available later when i want to focus on the highest pt missions in last hr.In last hr I grind but missions never hit 1 due to rubber-banding, right? Basically exactly what you've just said...except i may have made the mistake of actually completing one mission asap (within 10 mins of event starting). However, if i do this i wont continue with other missions until rubber-banding has kicked in so that shouldn't effect me either, right? Perhaps the issue is me grinding too many missions during that last hr?

The scaling at the moment is starting some missions on lvl 141. without boosts these are unbeatable. is this unavoidable or have i over-played the event meaning its my own fault the bots are this strong or would these bots be this strong regardless of how much time i've put in? I'm actually more than happy with top ten but pushed for top spots (1-2)in all sub missions so far. Has this caused the scaling to go against me and ideally i want to play less... especially in that last hr?

Haha! Hope i'm not confusing you with my incoherent explanations. Not quite nailed the slang/abbreviations being used on this forum. Let alone this guide it might seen. lol

mohio

The devs seem to be fiddling with their scaling and rubberbanding algorithms over the last couple pve so it's hard for anyone to say exactly what the best strategy is. Certainly your push for top 2 and grinding at the end of each sub is increasing your personal scaling. However it's possible you would still be facing very tough enemies (i dunno 10-20 levels lower maybe?) simply due to community scaling, which obviously you have essentially no control over. If you're near the top of your main bracket and have been meeting your goals for each sub event so far, i would say you're doing well. It's about to get quite hard for almost everyone I think, so it might not be too difficult to remain near the top of your main bracket even if you can't do as well in each sub.

Unknown

Thx, Mohio.

I actually eased up a bit on the event and am still managing top 10 overall and top 10-50 in the subs. I realised, although some missions are still unbeatable (without boosts) often the bonus missions (with selected boosted characters) are still quite manageable right to the end of the subs. Also, due to putting a lot of ISO into Lazy Cap I'm actually able to defeat bots up to 180/190 which I'd had no chance against in previous events. I was probably over-playing the event and didn't realise quite how much rubber-banding helps you to minimise playing time if you get it right...and are also able to put the time in nearer the end times.

Perhaps, the sheer length of this event has been problem for me. Can't say it's been particularly enjoyable...

Once again thx for guide Eddie. Definitely works and hopefully I can push for my first top 10 finish in pve...as it stands I'm actually back in 1st.

Unknown

Some players have told me I shouldn't use Spiderman, Classic Magneto or Marvel Magneto, because the game penalizes you for using them since those characters have overpowered abilities. Is this true and does it help just to avoid using those characters? Are those three the only characters you should avoid? And why are you being penalized for just playing the game the way it's designed to be? Either the character is balanced, and then you could and should use it, or it is overpowered, but then the devs should balance it, , instead of giving you level 300 fights just because they think you use the "wrong" characters.

Unknown

Daige wrote:

(...) instead of giving you level 300 fights just because they think you use the "wrong" characters.

The mre victories you have, the stronger AI teams you'll trigger. It's not the characters themselves at fault, it's the scaling system. Use whatever heroes you want.

vudu3

Does simply retreating in PVE affect personal scaling? I just did this 8 times in a row in The Simulator and it doesn't seem to have affected anything. Do I actually have to lose the match for it to count?

Eddiemon

Daige wrote:

Some players have told me I shouldn't use Spiderman, Classic Magneto or Marvel Magneto, because the game penalizes you for using them since those characters have overpowered abilities. Is this true and does it help just to avoid using those characters? Are those three the only characters you should avoid? And why are you being penalized for just playing the game the way it's designed to be? Either the character is balanced, and then you could and should use it, or it is overpowered, but then the devs should balance it, , instead of giving you level 300 fights just because they think you use the "wrong" characters.

No it's almost complete tinykitty.

Your scaling goes up when you win a battle. It goes up more when you win a battle well. Winning 'well' means taking limited damage, or even incurring negative damage through starting injured and healing during combat. But whether you win 'well' with Spiderman, Classig Magneto and Falcon or you win well with Astonishing Wolverine, OBW and Psylocke, the game doesn't care. Only the results matter, and you are liable to get better results with better characters.

For most PvE events if you time it right you can place fairly well by blitzing the highest scoring missions 2-3 times close to the end and stopping. You should be able to get top 10s in your subs and top 20s overall if you play this right. There is also value in dragging one of the later battles out so that you are beaten down and forced to use health packs instead of spidermans heals. This will slow the increase in scaling as much as is possible without actual tanking.

Eddiemon

vudu3 wrote:

Does simply retreating in PVE affect personal scaling? I just did this 8 times in a row in The Simulator and it doesn't seem to have affected anything. Do I actually have to lose the match for it to count?

Maybe. It used to have a strong effect but people abused it. Now you may need to lose outright, or it is possible that it only counts it after you make X amount of moves. I'm unaware of anyone actually studying the science of it.

ErikPeter

Eddiemon wrote:

One other factor is choosing your main bracket and sub bracket. If you start really early, you will generally end up in a very competetive bracket of people who grind. If you start really late then you may also end up in a competetive bracket of people who rely on rubberbanding. There are sweet spot brackets in the middle, but you may be giving up refreshes to get into easier brackets. This is a consideration if your priority is progression rewards and not overall placing.

This. I always wait until the second day of an event to start, and generally (not always) the competition is much easier. It's more noticeable in PvP, actually, where joining an event right when it starts (usually just after the last event ended, thus the hyper-competitive end-rushers are still playing) the top 10 scores might be in the 700s+... Whereas, if you first join an event at 6AM on a tuesday 18 hours after it started, you might be able to net a 1st place victory with only 550 points.

I keep forgetting to take careful note of when the 'easiest' brackets form, but I know that during the Heroic Oscorp event I was in 1st (woo!) with 39K points, with the top 10 starting around 37K, but an alliance member got stuck around 150th with 38K points. Not to mention reading about people who joined much later (but still before the first side mission completed, I assume) who were able to get first place with only 32K points.

Unknown

ErikPeter wrote:

Eddiemon wrote:

One other factor is choosing your main bracket and sub bracket. If you start really early, you will generally end up in a very competetive bracket of people who grind. If you start really late then you may also end up in a competetive bracket of people who rely on rubberbanding. There are sweet spot brackets in the middle, but you may be giving up refreshes to get into easier brackets. This is a consideration if your priority is progression rewards and not overall placing.

This. I always wait until the second day of an event to start, and generally (not always) the competition is much easier. It's more noticeable in PvP, actually, where joining an event right when it starts (usually just after the last event ended, thus the hyper-competitive end-rushers are still playing) the top 10 scores might be in the 700s+... Whereas, if you first join an event at 6AM on a tuesday 18 hours after it started, you might be able to net a 1st place victory with only 550 points.

I keep forgetting to take careful note of when the 'easiest' brackets form, but I know that during the Heroic Oscorp event I was in 1st (woo!) with 39K points, with the top 10 starting around 37K, but an alliance member got stuck around 150th with 38K points. Not to mention reading about people who joined much later (but still before the first side mission completed, I assume) who were able to get first place with only 32K points.

The only problem is that when someone can actually say with certainty "start at this hour to get into an easy bracket", that "science" has already become obsolete just by stating that, since lots of players will rush to the game at that hour, instead creating a tough bracket. So in truth, there can never be facts that are reliable enough to say "this bracket will be easy". However, you can almost be certain that the earliest and the latest brackets will always be extremely competitive, so it's probably best to avoid them.

Leugenesmiff

There's one thing I'm not clear on and I hope someone can help me out. Let's say the refresh is 12 hours. Does that mean the entire sub event starts refreshing all the nodes 12 hours after you began that sub event or is it per node played. For example, if I play one node at say 12o'clock am, stop playing, and play another node at 3 o'clock am, does that second node begin refreshing at 12pm or at 3pm? If there's 5 battles per node until the points are emptied and I played both nodes five times taking ten minutes per battle, then will both nodes be full at 12:50pm or just the first with the second node full at 3:50 pm?

Thanks, and thanks for the guide.

Unknown

So for the newest event I noticed if I play 1 node down all the way all other nodes go down in value and are worth less points. Is this a change?

for me the best method is to find the highest paying node an grind it down and keep checking other nodes and find highest again and repeat.

My first refresh one node was worth 650 points but this morning the highest node is worth 210 pts. So if I play as much as I can I won't be able to get enough points to first. Maybe it's longer than 12 hours for full refresh?