Funbalancing Queue Update?

Unknown

pasa_ wrote:

Polares wrote:

The problem with spidey (a part from 230 lvl characters) is that with him you allmost allways win all matches in PvP, it is the same witch characters you use for defense, it is not important. Maybe you will need more time, but it is irrelevant.

I thought everyone "allmost allways win all matches in PvP" with or without spidey. And time is more than relevant.

This is true, but only because most players pick their matches carefully. With Spiderman you just don't care who you fight. It also means that you will not see many attacks or retaliations since the opponents already knows you will get your points back from a retaliation which you just can't lose with Spidey.

Unknown

jozier wrote:

gahudahu wrote:

As I previously said, how many people know that healing increase scaling?

By the way, it is not completely related to Spidey. If I use boost, get lucky and wipe the other team and take few damages in the process, my scaling will go up as well.

Gee, you use boosts, and you don't expect your enemies to get boosted?

There's a very simple formula for not being scaled to death:

Don't use crutches.

I'm not complaining, I follow the forum, I know how to "tweak" the game in my favor, so I am not facing anyone over 140. Just thinking about the 99.5% of other people who do not know that.

Unknown

Two broader problems suggest themselves...

First, should difficulty in PvE really be so variable? Why should the challenge in a given fight be scaled to meet me without an appropriate scaling of rewards? Spiderman is aggravating scaling, but scaling is kind of ridiculous in the first place. If I'm too awesome for the challenges everyone else is facing, maybe I should face stronger challenges...but to expect me to face them uncompensated is unfair. So to the degree that scaling itself is kind of weird and currently counter-intuitive, I'm not pleased with it being used as justification for changing a character, especially in light of...

Second, the decrease in design space. If we write off stun-lock and healing and specialized tile creation (as in Mags' case) because they trivialize the challenge in the game, we are essentially restricting what characters can do and still be viable. Psylocke and Black Panther are fine and all, but their ability sets are not interesting, exciting, or new. (I mean, Bewilder pushes the boundaries of how unreliable an AP stealing ability can be, but that's not the same.) Direct damage, strike/attack tiles, protect tiles. Occasional countdown tiles. Boring.

Unknown

entropic01 wrote:

dolfanpescao wrote:

In the case of spiderman, he's the big equalizer in fights with lvl230 goons that can kill you with one shot, I don't have any character that can kill with a single shot and I face them all the time, soldiers, maggia, heroes and villains, spiderman at least gives me the chance to delay that certain death and compete.

I am so sick of hearing this argument. You guys have to come to the realization that Spiderman is the reason you are fighting a wall of 230s in the first place.

Spidey makes the scaling climb higher for multiple reasons:
1) Spidey allows teams to win fights they would have no other chance of winning increasing scaling across the whole community
2) You use Spidey to heal yourself which raises your personal scaling as well

In my observation, it is the people who don't understand how scaling works that don't want Spidey nerfed. It seems to me that most of the vets realize that Spidey needs to be changed. I'm not a big fan of nerfs in general but this one needs to be done. Spidey warps the game entirely by himself. He is a crutch that is making the game worse not only for yourself but for everyone.

The problem is not spiderman, the problem is the scaling system that is broken, and after they nerf spiderman and things keep being the same then the culprit is going to be obw because she's going to be the best healer and more people are going to be using her.

Yeah the vets understand that, after they already used spiderman to boredom to get where they are right now, everyone should have the same experience.

Unknown

I can't comment on what other people see or have to experience, but every enemy I fight is in the 90-140 range. With the highest levels topping out around the 200 range towards the end of the tourney.

I'm not sitting there and grinding out 4/4 on every mission. I join the event late(r) and I'm passing through all of them once every refresh and maybe hitting the highest point total mission a few times. It's not uncommon for me to have all my missions at 2/4 or 3/4 rewards with none completed.

I still reliably finish in the top 2-20 in every sub. Just depends on the end time.


--- // ---


The only people you hurt by nerfing Spiderman are those that haven't made the complete 2 star to 3 star transition. Those people that have already made the transition and have 4-8 useable characters don't really need him anymore.

Eddiemon

entropic01 wrote:

dolfanpescao wrote:

In the case of spiderman, he's the big equalizer in fights with lvl230 goons that can kill you with one shot, I don't have any character that can kill with a single shot and I face them all the time, soldiers, maggia, heroes and villains, spiderman at least gives me the chance to delay that certain death and compete.

I am so sick of hearing this argument. You guys have to come to the realization that Spiderman is the reason you are fighting a wall of 230s in the first place.

Actually it is your grinding habits. I have a Spiderman and have yet to hit the wall of 230s.

Spidey makes the scaling climb higher for multiple reasons:
1) Spidey allows teams to win fights they would have no other chance of winning increasing scaling across the whole community
2) You use Spidey to heal yourself which raises your personal scaling as well

1. shows no understanding of scale. The minority who have a complete Spiderman are causing scaling for the majority who don't? How does that work? 10 of us failed or skipped the mission but one of you 'Spidey-elites' succeeded so the system ignored our actions or lack thereof and only paid attention to you because you have a Spidey? Does that pass for logic?
2. Is true but is the same for any character I use to win. Delete Spidey from the game and you can rant about OBW. Delete OBW and you can rant that my C Magneto helps me win battles. Delete him and you can blame Patch. And so on. Any of my top 3 characters helps me win with minimal damage taken. And so increases my personal scaling.

In my observation, it is the people who don't understand how scaling works that don't want Spidey nerfed. It seems to me that most of the vets realize that Spidey needs to be changed. I'm not a big fan of nerfs in general but this one needs to be done. Spidey warps the game entirely by himself. He is a crutch that is making the game worse not only for yourself but for everyone.

In my observation it is the opposite. People rant about Spidey because they don't understand how their own actions affect teh scaling of their opponents. Actually watch S.H.I.E.L.D playing the tournament. They skip the first 1-2 refreshes to minimise their scaling while maximising their points gained. I haven't seen their members complaining about the scaling or demanding Spidey get his kneecaps broken.

The people who demand Spidey be nerfed are those who blame him for their levels scaling to 230 when the single biggest contributor to your scaling is how much grinding you have done in the event. Doesn't matter if you use Patch, Daken and C Storm or a team with Spidey.

There is a level with Spidey and a blue generating minion that you really need to use Doom's attack tiles to kill spidey while he webs your team up. Nobody is using Spidey to win that one. How is it scaling for you? How does that fit into your world view that scaling is all Spidey's fault?

Unknown

Moon 17 wrote:

Two broader problems suggest themselves...

First, should difficulty in PvE really be so variable? Why should the challenge in a given fight be scaled to meet me without an appropriate scaling of rewards? Spiderman is aggravating scaling, but scaling is kind of ridiculous in the first place. If I'm too awesome for the challenges everyone else is facing, maybe I should face stronger challenges...but to expect me to face them uncompensated is unfair. So to the degree that scaling itself is kind of weird and currently counter-intuitive, I'm not pleased with it being used as justification for changing a character, especially in light of...

Second, the decrease in design space. If we write off stun-lock and healing and specialized tile creation (as in Mags' case) because they trivialize the challenge in the game, we are essentially restricting what characters can do and still be viable. Psylocke and Black Panther are fine and all, but their ability sets are not interesting, exciting, or new. (I mean, Bewilder pushes the boundaries of how unreliable an AP stealing ability can be, but that's not the same.) Direct damage, strike/attack tiles, protect tiles. Occasional countdown tiles. Boring.

You nailed it. I like scaling much better than the previous system where we had to grind to death, but it is far from perfect. A reward linked to the scaling would be awesome. And +1 to your entire second paragraph.

Unknown

Moon 17 wrote:

First, should difficulty in PvE really be so variable? Why should the challenge in a given fight be scaled to meet me without an appropriate scaling of rewards? Spiderman is aggravating scaling, but scaling is kind of ridiculous in the first place. If I'm too awesome for the challenges everyone else is facing, maybe I should face stronger challenges...but to expect me to face them uncompensated is unfair. So to the degree that scaling itself is kind of weird and currently counter-intuitive, I'm not pleased with it being used as justification for changing a character, especially in light of...

The challenge of a fight is scaled so as to equalize the players. Because there is no primary or secondary markets for this game, a player can't "catch up" to the veterans. The only hope a newer player (even just 1 PVE event behind) has for competing is through scaling. That is the primary purpose of scaling. To try and create a level-ish playing field on which people can compete.

Moon 17 wrote:

Second, the decrease in design space. If we write off stun-lock and healing and specialized tile creation (as in Mags' case) because they trivialize the challenge in the game, we are essentially restricting what characters can do and still be viable. Psylocke and Black Panther are fine and all, but their ability sets are not interesting, exciting, or new. (I mean, Bewilder pushes the boundaries of how unreliable an AP stealing ability can be, but that's not the same.) Direct damage, strike/attack tiles, protect tiles. Occasional countdown tiles. Boring.

Design space is subjective. There are some abilities that shouldn't be in the game that are obvious (anything that literally says you win). What the devs are forcing us to discuss is the nature of the abilities that warp the meta-game. The difference between this game and the original PQ is that it is a directly and indirectly competitive game. Broken abilities in the earlier game were fine b/c multiplayer didn't give additional or special rewards. Abilities that warp the meta-game in this incarnation of PQ are bad b/c it significantly hurts people's ability to compete. I still think Wizards of the Coast sets the gold standard for meta-balancing. They've consistently banned or restricted cards in various formats for the overall health of the game, regardless of how much it hurts individuals. They've gone for the nuclear option before when they banned Arcbound Ravager and all the artifact lands from standard (e.g. the Rags nerf for us), and have even gone so far as to pre-ban a card before it was released - Mind's Desire would have destroyed standard at the time. The health of the meta above all.

In the digital world though, you have so much more flexibility and we should appreciate that they're trying to work with the flexibility so as not to restrict design space while still not preventing players with character X from dominating those who don't have character X (the special restricted nodes are your benefit for having character X - when X is stupid powerful, you're essentially benefiting multiple times over).

Personally, I feel that if spidey's stuns capped at 3 turns, or if the ability cost even 1 more AP, a significant portion of the content would not be so trivialized.

Unknown

Eddiemon wrote:

In my observation it is the opposite. People rant about Spidey because they don't understand how their own actions affect teh scaling of their opponents. Actually watch S.H.I.E.L.D playing the tournament. They skip the first 1-2 refreshes to minimise their scaling while maximising their points gained. I haven't seen their members complaining about the scaling or demanding Spidey get his kneecaps broken.

The people who demand Spidey be nerfed are those who blame him for their levels scaling to 230 when the single biggest contributor to your scaling is how much grinding you have done in the event. Doesn't matter if you use Patch, Daken and C Storm or a team with Spidey.

There is a level with Spidey and a blue generating minion that you really need to use Doom's attack tiles to kill spidey while he webs your team up. Nobody is using Spidey to win that one. How is it scaling for you? How does that fit into your world view that scaling is all Spidey's fault?

I definitely understand how scaling works and use the system to my advantage as well just as S.H.I.E.L.D does. I got 1st in both my subs with minimal grinding, 0 use of my 5 blue Spider-man, and fairly low level fights (not a single 230).


Like I said, I don’t use spidey and I don’t let scaling get out of control for me but that’s only because I know how it works. For the majority of people who don’t read the forum, spidey is screwing them over more than helping them and they don’t even know it.

I haven’t looked at that particular fight since I haven’t even started round 2 yet but during the previous simulator one of the only rounds that didn’t scale out of control was the Devil Dino fight. Guess who wasn’t allowed in that fight?

Eddiemon

Moon 17 wrote:

Two broader problems suggest themselves...

First, should difficulty in PvE really be so variable? Why should the challenge in a given fight be scaled to meet me without an appropriate scaling of rewards? Spiderman is aggravating scaling, but scaling is kind of ridiculous in the first place. If I'm too awesome for the challenges everyone else is facing, maybe I should face stronger challenges...but to expect me to face them uncompensated is unfair. So to the degree that scaling itself is kind of weird and currently counter-intuitive, I'm not pleased with it being used as justification for changing a character, especially in light of...

Your compensation is the event points that you get. If you can beat the harder challenges while others fall by the wayside then you get to win the competition. Look at it like weightlifting or the high jump. They raise the weight or the bar to knock competitors out so that the winner is the person who is best at the discipline on the day. They don't just keep having you lift the same weight and judge the winner on repetitions or something. They don't add on a second gold medal if you lift above a certain weight. Winning is its own reward.

At the start of each sub-event I end the first couple of refreshes in 8th to 12th place. It doesn't bother me because by the third refresh my competition has fallen away. Kind of like marathon runners who started out at a sprint because the objective is apparently 'to run as fast as possible' and not 'to win a marathon'. Then they complain that the course was too long and should be shortened to be fairer because they can run faster than me.

Second, the decrease in design space. If we write off stun-lock and healing and specialized tile creation (as in Mags' case) because they trivialize the challenge in the game, we are essentially restricting what characters can do and still be viable. Psylocke and Black Panther are fine and all, but their ability sets are not interesting, exciting, or new. (I mean, Bewilder pushes the boundaries of how unreliable an AP stealing ability can be, but that's not the same.) Direct damage, strike/attack tiles, protect tiles. Occasional countdown tiles. Boring.

Yes I want to see a bigger uglier meta. More abilities. I want IW covers badly because she is radically different from anyone else out there. I don't even care if it is a character who I wouldn;t choose to play like Daredevil, because opposing him in PvE or having him forced upon your team in PvE changes the game enough that it is a new experience.

And I don;t know how many people who talk Spidey's stunlock up actually play him. You either spend a fortune on boosts to have it regularly reliable, or you take your chances that the board you hit won't be blue deficient. It takes 6AP to stun a team for a round. It takes 10AP to stun that team for 3 rounds. Even if you do spend up on the +3AP All and Blue/Purple, you still need two easy matches to have a 3 round lock.

I'm not saying he isn't my best character, he just isn't the automatic win people claim.

Unknown

entropic01 wrote:

Eddiemon wrote:

In my observation it is the opposite. People rant about Spidey because they don't understand how their own actions affect teh scaling of their opponents. Actually watch S.H.I.E.L.D playing the tournament. They skip the first 1-2 refreshes to minimise their scaling while maximising their points gained. I haven't seen their members complaining about the scaling or demanding Spidey get his kneecaps broken.

The people who demand Spidey be nerfed are those who blame him for their levels scaling to 230 when the single biggest contributor to your scaling is how much grinding you have done in the event. Doesn't matter if you use Patch, Daken and C Storm or a team with Spidey.

There is a level with Spidey and a blue generating minion that you really need to use Doom's attack tiles to kill spidey while he webs your team up. Nobody is using Spidey to win that one. How is it scaling for you? How does that fit into your world view that scaling is all Spidey's fault?

I definitely understand how scaling works and use the system to my advantage as well just as S.H.I.E.L.D does. I got 1st in both my subs with minimal grinding, 0 use of my 5 blue Spider-man, and fairly low level fights (not a single 230).

Please note that Jozier is also in S.H.I.E.L.D and is saying spidey is a problem so not sure where you are pulling that from.

Like I said, I don’t use spidey and I don’t let scaling get out of control for me but that’s only because I know how it works. For the majority of people who don’t read the forum, spidey is screwing them over more than helping them and they don’t even know it.

I haven’t looked at that particular fight since I haven’t even started round 2 yet but during the previous simulator one of the only rounds that didn’t scale out of control was the Devil Dino fight. Guess who wasn’t allowed in that fight?

Huh? Spidey is not a problem at all. But if you use him, you should expect scaling. That's all I'm saying. I think everyone asking for Spidey to be nerfed is an idiot.

Unknown

Riggy wrote:

Two players, one with Spidey and one without, are competing in a tournament. With all other things being equal, the player with spidey will always win the tourneys b/c his roster can survive longer due to timely stuns/stunlock and healing.

If you talk about PVP as we have now, it's not so. For starters the winner will be decided by who tanked better, and the less is mostly irrelevant. And if they are similarly well tanked the winner will be the one with better DPS. Especially if shield-jumping is involved.

Stunlock indeed allows you a win over "impossible" teams, but it's way easier to just avoid them and fight possibles. And you gain more points by winning more in shorter time. And teams without spidey will likely have better DPS. It also makes healing more irrelevant and you kill faster than get hurt. And can heal up outside the game.

If you talk about PVE the picture it's even worse, what count most is to play battles in proper order and start at proper time. On the player part. And the game adds its weirdo based on rosters so the guy with no spidey, and best thig a lvl30 IM35 but a 1-cover boss in collection will win hands down.

Riggy wrote:

In an attempt to equalize the amount of effort expended between these two players, they have implemented scaling. You're not being penalized for playing well, you're being equalized so that your veteran status (i.e. more developed roster) doesn't marginalize other players and / or roster choices.

It's not so much a question of "penalized for playing well" so much as it is "keeping the competitive environment as equal as possible".

Nice play with words, how about just calling it the proper name. "Equalizing" by taking away and giving it to others is "penalizing" alright.

In some arenas thing like "handicap run" exist, but it is hardly the norm and is really ruin to fair competition. Where separation is applied by skill or ability (say weight groups) they are never tabulated as a mix and get different prizes too.

Otherwise it's like me going against Mike Tyson in the ring. But for sake of fairness I can use Twin Pistols.

Unknown

jozier wrote:

If you face a wall of 230s, it's your own fault, like I said.

No, it's not. If the devs give people the characters that can help them win easily, is it reasonable to suggest that players shouldn't use that character? The players and community are being punished because the devs gave them a character that can win matches easily, and are using him to do so. Furthermore, rather than fix the issue with the character, the devs have introducing this stupid community scaling which a lot of people don't understand, which means they are unaware that their use of Spiderman is only making the scaling worse.

None of this is the players fault, and it's plain wrong to suggest it is.

Eddiemon

entropic01 wrote:

I definitely understand how scaling works and use the system to my advantage as well just as S.H.I.E.L.D does. I got 1st in both my subs with minimal grinding, 0 use of my 5 blue Spider-man, and fairly low level fights (not a single 230).

Please note that Jozier is also in S.H.I.E.L.D and is saying spidey is a problem so not sure where you are pulling that from.

Like I said, I don’t use spidey and I don’t let scaling get out of control for me but that’s only because I know how it works. For the majority of people who don’t read the forum, spidey is screwing them over more than helping them and they don’t even know it.

I haven’t looked at that particular fight since I haven’t even started round 2 yet but during the previous simulator one of the only rounds that didn’t scale out of control was the Devil Dino fight. Guess who wasn’t allowed in that fight?

Really? I read Jozier as saying that scaling is your fault for the way you choose to play, not the fault of a particular card that only some people have. Obviously we interpret him differently.

And what majority are getting screwed by Spidey? The majority who don't have him and who would have the weight of stats for community scaling or the majority of the minority who have a full spidey who are inflicting it on themselves by overgrinding?

Unknown

DaveyPitch wrote:

None of this is the players fault, and it's plain wrong to suggest it is.

If 'the system' or 'a character' was the cause, then we would all be experiencing the same thing.

We're not.

Unknown

DaveyPitch wrote:

jozier wrote:

If you face a wall of 230s, it's your own fault, like I said.

No, it's not. If the devs give people the characters that can help them win easily, is it reasonable to suggest that players shouldn't use that character? The players and community are being punished because the devs gave them a character that can win matches easily, and are using him to do so. Furthermore, rather than fix the issue with the character, the devs have introducing this stupid community scaling which a lot of people don't understand, which means they are unaware that their use of Spiderman is only making the scaling worse.

None of this is the players fault, and it's plain wrong to suggest it is.

The Devs did you give you characters to play with and win easily in these subs. None of them are Spidey . Use them and you'll see the same scaling I'm seeing instead of scaling worth complaining about.

Unknown

Toxicadam wrote:

DaveyPitch wrote:

None of this is the players fault, and it's plain wrong to suggest it is.

If 'the system' or 'a character' was the cause, then we would all be experiencing the same thing.

We're not.

That's because not everyone uses Spiderman. That could be by choice, or simply because they don't have him. That doesn't negate the fact that the players who use him are being punished for it. That's not their fault at all. If we shouldn't be using him, take him out of the game. If we're allowed to use him, don't punish us for it. It's really not that difficult.

Unknown

Really what it sounds like is you want an easy path with zero effort to the top position. Just be honest instead of couching this as a complaint against the system.

Unknown

I think the Devs are taking their time to roll out the new changes. There was a big upset after rags we nerfed without warning and enough uproar happened that they are really thinking it through. In the meantime we got 2 gold (lazy) characters to supplement. the list sent out are still all in the queue for a "change' either buff or nerf. So...use them for fun but know they will experience changes.

Unknown

jozier wrote:

The Devs did you give you characters to play with and win easily in these subs. None of them are Spidey . Use them and you'll see the same scaling I'm seeing instead of scaling worth complaining about.

Two points....

1. I'm not complaining about the scaling I'm seeing. I'm only using Spidey sparingly, so the scaling isn't affecting me too badly.

2. Not everyone is lucky enough to have a well developed roster capable of tearing through the opposition. I have a level 100 Patch, Mags and Lazy Thor, so I'm happy. Others aren't so lucky. Other people have a 5 Blue Spidey and are more reliant on him. Why should they be punished for using a character the devs gave us?

There are a couple of issues here that only the forum goers will be aware of and not the wider community...

1. If you constantly beat teams with high levels, your opponent levels will increase

2. If you come out of matches with virtually no damage, your opponent levels will increase

Spidey helps people do both of these things at the same time, yet nowhere does it say we'll be punished for using him. We know it because we're on the forum, we read what the devs say and are aware of how scaling works. Not everyone is so lucky, yet they will be punished for that. Please explain to me how that is fair.