Heroic Venom PvE Discussion Thread 4/10 - 4/17

Unknown

DayvBang wrote:

Phantron wrote:

Leaving Human Torch out of the picture for now (though he greatly favors the lower rosters), having a level 85 Wolverine is probably better than having a level 100 Psylocke since it's not clear if a level 100 Psylocke is even stronger than a level 85 Wolverine but you'd also face stronger enemies with a level 100 Psylocke (because she's higher level).

That's not how scaling works. This has been stated again and again. It's performance-based, not level-based.

Please stop spreading this inaccurate info.

** Can I get clarification on this. I went back and reread Northerns response to my post and unless i am mixing something up. He stated that scaling would increase due to having a lvl 141 Punisher in your repertoire. I am still new to this game, so I want to make sure I have this information correct.

Northern - thank you for shedding some light on this. So my newbish side is going to ask a question. Why not stay at lvl 85 2*'s and level up 3*'s together so that your roster climbs at the same speed? Is there are drawback to that other than severely **** 3*'s until they get past the lvl 100 mark? Wouldn't that drop the level difficulty though? (Barring scaling is effected by char lvls). I understand that in tournaments you would have lackluster 3* and I also understand the rising cost of roster slots to try and keep all 1* and 2* would be high, but couldn't you make a case for creating a solid foundation through 1&2 stars and level your 3*'s evenly to reduce scaling?


Knock3r - Thanks for the continuation of your argument. I see the scaling of health and how that eliminates the 1*'s from your selection process. and maybe i was a little harsh on the BP/Psylocke you should know that they will be part of a future event since leveling to 141 is such a ISO-sink. Does it hurt or help you that you have a level 100+ HT to use? I guess my question is that having the sustained swipe damage of a HT available has to be good, but the loss of a strong special ability due to a lack of covers, does that also pile on? could that also be considered a drawback for you? I mean a new player is going to take a lvl 100+ char and be extremely happy about it, but a veteran might think this is a hindrance compared to other chars on his roster.

Dreylin

NorthernPolarity wrote:

Thanks for the data point! Out of curiosity, do you think my analysis (the really long one above) makes sense given your experience? I wrote that just purely based off of theory since I've been doing okay with my 141 BP, so I don't actually know how it feels to be playing with the 85 wolvie/1* team. 85 BP seems similar (if not stronger) than 85 wolvie so it seems like my theory is holding up for mid-tier players.

It'd be nice to hear everyone's experience (especially 1* players) to see how scaling is holding up overall.

Maybe I'm being overly positive, but I've not felt that I've personally had a problem with the scaling (well, since TaT - and I retreated my problems away then). This event is pushing me out to the bleeding edge of my roster/ability, but that's what it's supposed to be doing. It's definitely not fun to be hit by a cascade on the 3rd turn that leads to Thunderclap-Godlike Power-cascade-Devour to end my 4th (or was it 5th or 6th!?) attempt at that final node, but gosh darn it I'm going to beat the suckers (currently lvl86) and I think that with some planning and luck it will be possible - as it was on the "Regular" Heroic difficulty.

I definitely think that I've benefited from all of your collective experience such that I have been able to use Rubberbanding and timing refreshes to maximise scoring in previous events, so I guess my PvE rating is probably as low as it's possible to be for someone in my position. And of course it definitely helps that I am currently in Central US timezone so the vast majority of events end at 11pm and I can make the late/maximising push.

I do have a feeling that if you have to choose between the two, then Astonishing would be better than BP for this because his Strike tiles would compete with Daken's for Red and he has a regenerate as opposed to the delayed Protect, but the BP/ mStorm synergy is pretty strong. I never seriously leveled my A. Wolvie since I hit more Patch covers early and worked on him instead, but I might have enough ISO by the start of the next round to be worth pushing some levels into him to replace IM35 as my 3rd wheel. Or I might buy an extra BP Black and keep pushing his levels as a better long-term investment.

Spoit

NorthernPolarity wrote:

Phantron wrote:

NorthernPolarity wrote:

My mid-tier was referring to the people who had only 1-2 maxed out 3*s, like say Pun/C. Mags. Scaling carried over from last event was based off of their c mags/pun/X team, and now all they can use is 85 wolvie in the current event to deal with the current event.

I'm not exactly sure what happens in this case and I think it'd help if there's some clarification. I can't verify this myself since I leveled Black Panther to 141 for this event so the enemy scaling would be the same whether they used my usable roster strength (BP at 141) or historical roster strength (Patch at 141 prior to this event). My starting enemies are in the 90s range in Deadly and that doesn't strike me as unreasonably difficult, even though these fights are a lot harder than they appear.

I mean just consider a person in the same position as you but without a BP/Psylocke to level to a high level. It's perfectly reasonable for someone to have a 141 Patch like you before the event so that they could expect similar scaling to what you see now. They'd have to deal with level 90 nodes using most likely just an 85 wolvie / 50 im35 / 50 m. storm. I'm guessing that would be doable, but extremely difficult (and probably near impossible for the venom fed missions).

Exactly, I have a bunch of level 90-100 characters, but none are usable in this, so I'm continuously failing against level 50-70 enemies with my m.storm and like 50ish (2/2/2)BP/wolvie. Getting the extra black cover for HT from the PvP helped a bit, but it's still a crapshoot.

Meanwhile, none of the top 10 in either of my brackets have even halfway completed the 2* transition, much less started a 3* one

Unknown

Scaling isn't much of a problem for me this event. Mainly because I keep dying over and over on lvl 80 enemies so the game doesn't have a chance to scale.

Worst. Event. Ever.

Unknown

Spoit wrote:

I mean just consider a person in the same position as you but without a BP/Psylocke to level to a high level. It's perfectly reasonable for someone to have a 141 Patch like you before the event so that they could expect similar scaling to what you see now. They'd have to deal with level 90 nodes using most likely just an 85 wolvie / 50 im35 / 50 m. storm. I'm guessing that would be doable, but extremely difficult (and probably near impossible for the venom fed missions).

Exactly, I have a bunch of level 90-100 characters, but none are usable in this, so I'm continuously failing against level 50-70 enemies with my m.storm and like 50ish (2/2/2)BP/wolvie. Getting the extra black cover for HT from the PvP helped a bit, but it's still a crapshoot.

Meanwhile, none of the top 10 in either of my brackets have even halfway completed the 2* transition, much less started a 3* one[/quote]

But my enemies started out as level 90 on deadly, versus 70 for you, so it's still higher. I know you're in my last PvE bracket and I'm pretty sure you finished top 10, so if it's based on just performance we should both be seeing level 90s. I leveled up BP to 141 to prepare for the tournament, and it seems like I saw higher starting enemies than you (so in retrospect I should've leveled him up AFTER the tournament started). Now fighting level 90s with a 141 BP is likely easier than you fighting 70s with whoever you got, but it seems to me that the scaling clearly does take account of the fact that one of my usable heroes is level 141 while you have no usable hero above 100. Whether that makes up for the actual difference roster is anyone's guess.

As a sidenote I don't know why people continue to say that enemy levels don't depend on your roster. There has been many tournaments where we see guys with weak rosters winning now. Do you really think every time there's a guy with a 1* roster that's just a new guy who's never done well in the last tournament? And if it's only performance based, that means people who placed first last time for whatever reason will be facing level 90s on deadly at start, and that's likely to make anyone with a 2* roster immediately quit the game because that's way too much to ask. Your performance adjusts the level of the enemies you face, but the starting point is definitely influenced by your roster. If this isn't the case there must be guys with powerful rosters that just didn't do well recently in PvE events and they should be plowing through level 50 enemies due to their recent poor performance. Yet I have literally seen no example of such a case. If there is a powerful roster at the top, it almost certainly has a maxed BP and a high level HT in it.

Unknown

gamar wrote:

Just started my event and yeah, this rooster is wack

It's one thing to consider "Yeah, everything's RGB that's messed up" and another to see that Human Torch is boosted! Event to show off the Human Torch! and then realize that at 1/1/1 level 110 his Red is substantially worse than A Wolvie, Psylocke, or mStorm's, his Black is substantially worse than Panther's or Psylocke's, and his Green is substantially worse than A Wolvie or mStorm's

(A Wolvie and mStorm maxed, Psylocke and BP both 3/3/2 and level 69)

Seems weird to highlight the new character and then force the players to pair him with characters that (if not unplayable) make him obsolete

If you had a level 110 Spiderman or Magneto classic with 1/1/1 he'd be pretty much a joke too.

Unknown

r0cky143 wrote:

** Can I get clarification on this. I went back and reread Northerns response to my post and unless i am mixing something up. He stated that scaling would increase due to having a lvl 141 Punisher in your repertoire. I am still new to this game, so I want to make sure I have this information correct.

The development team has said multiple times that scaling is not based on the physical level of your roster. What I think Northern was basically saying was that a player with a max character tends to do well in PvE and hence his rating goes up. But in this event, you don't have access to those max characters and are left with mid-level characters that you haven't leveled up but yet are forced to battle the same PvE rating scale that you established earlier with your better characters. In this way, a long-time player is at a disadvantage again.

r0cky143 wrote:

Does it hurt or help you that you have a level 100+ HT to use?

This move is obviously a business decision to possibly make more money. Why would they host a PvE and a PvE event that highlights a character that only has a max of 1/1/1 lvl 20 in circulation? Your thought is supposed to be, "man I should just buy a few covers for the only buffed character so I can get a leg up on this difficult event." They're trying to get you to pull on the slot machine. So that said, I have no problems with this business technique but it's a little transparent. Heck, they've suckered me to pull on that slot machine plenty of times before.

As Gamar said above, lvl 110 HT is often eclipsed by other characters on the roster with better damage. This is similar to last Heroic where LazyThor's damage was really pitiful at buffed 110 but he was a nice meaty shield. So again, he's more useful as a filler for long-time players and a nice advantage for new players.

Unknown

gamar wrote:

Just started my event and yeah, this rooster is wack

It's one thing to consider "Yeah, everything's RGB that's messed up" and another to see that Human Torch is boosted! Event to show off the Human Torch! and then realize that at 1/1/1 level 110 his Red is substantially worse than A Wolvie, Psylocke, or mStorm's, his Black is substantially worse than Panther's or Psylocke's, and his Green is substantially worse than A Wolvie or mStorm's

(A Wolvie and mStorm maxed, Psylocke and BP both 3/3/2 and level 69)

Seems weird to highlight the new character and then force the players to pair him with characters that (if not unplayable) make him obsolete

+1 to this. The RGB overlap makes for awkard trade-off decisions of choosing between abilities that are only marginally different from one another (assuming equally leveled characters) when all I'm really looking for is someone with a freakin' usable BLUE OVERWRITE/STUN ability!!! And no I don't consider Psylocke stealing 15 useless yellow AP to be very helpful.

Spoit

Phantron wrote:

Spoit wrote:

Exactly, I have a bunch of level 90-100 characters, but none are usable in this, so I'm continuously failing against level 50-70 enemies with my m.storm and like 50ish (2/2/2)BP/wolvie. Getting the extra black cover for HT from the PvP helped a bit, but it's still a crapshoot.

Meanwhile, none of the top 10 in either of my brackets have even halfway completed the 2* transition, much less started a 3* one

But my enemies started out as level 90 on deadly, versus 70 for you, so it's still higher. I know you're in my last PvE bracket and I'm pretty sure you finished top 10, so if it's based on just performance we should both be seeing level 90s. I leveled up BP to 141 to prepare for the tournament, and it seems like I saw higher starting enemies than you (so in retrospect I should've leveled him up AFTER the tournament started). Now fighting level 90s with a 141 BP is likely easier than you fighting 70s with whoever you got, but it seems to me that the scaling clearly does take account of the fact that one of my usable heroes is level 141 while you have no usable hero above 100. Whether that makes up for the actual difference roster is anyone's guess.

As a sidenote I don't know why people continue to say that enemy levels don't depend on your roster. There has been many tournaments where we see guys with weak rosters winning now. Do you really think every time there's a guy with a 1* roster that's just a new guy who's never done well in the last tournament? And if it's only performance based, that means people who placed first last time for whatever reason will be facing level 90s on deadly at start, and that's likely to make anyone with a 2* roster immediately quit the game because that's way too much to ask. Your performance adjusts the level of the enemies you face, but the starting point is definitely influenced by your roster. If this isn't the case there must be guys with powerful rosters that just didn't do well recently in PvE events and they should be plowing through level 50 enemies due to their recent poor performance. Yet I have literally seen no example of such a case. If there is a powerful roster at the top, it almost certainly has a maxed BP and a high level HT in it.

I did pretty bad last heroic, so going into the last event, my PvE rating was pretty bad, and then I was pretty lazy playing it, so my enemies only went above 200 during the last hour push. Whereas you ground out all the missions, so if PvE scaling from performance isn't wiped out between events, your scaling is starting higher to begin with. And yeah, my scaling doesn't seem to have moved at all despite having total party wipes every few hours when my characters heal.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

gamar wrote:

Just started my event and yeah, this rooster is wack

It's one thing to consider "Yeah, everything's RGB that's messed up" and another to see that Human Torch is boosted! Event to show off the Human Torch! and then realize that at 1/1/1 level 110 his Red is substantially worse than A Wolvie, Psylocke, or mStorm's, his Black is substantially worse than Panther's or Psylocke's, and his Green is substantially worse than A Wolvie or mStorm's

(A Wolvie and mStorm maxed, Psylocke and BP both 3/3/2 and level 69)

Seems weird to highlight the new character and then force the players to pair him with characters that (if not unplayable) make him obsolete

If you had a level 110 Spiderman or Magneto classic with 1/1/1 he'd be pretty much a joke too.

But at least in those cases, you would actually use their blues (unless paired with BP) and their purples, even if they didn't do much. With this setup it's not just that he's weak, it's that all of his abilities are entirely subsumed

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

As a sidenote I don't know why people continue to say that enemy levels don't depend on your roster.

Because IceIX said so. Personally, I'm wary of it. I keep my levels low and face low level enemies. Whether the connection is coincidental, I don't want to jynx it as levelling is irreversible. My personal experience has lead me to believe it does, and as long as I'm able to still land top 2, I won't level up.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

As a sidenote I don't know why people continue to say that enemy levels don't depend on your roster. There has been many tournaments where we see guys with weak rosters winning now. Do you really think every time there's a guy with a 1* roster that's just a new guy who's never done well in the last tournament? And if it's only performance based, that means people who placed first last time for whatever reason will be facing level 90s on deadly at start, and that's likely to make anyone with a 2* roster immediately quit the game because that's way too much to ask. Your performance adjusts the level of the enemies you face, but the starting point is definitely influenced by your roster. If this isn't the case there must be guys with powerful rosters that just didn't do well recently in PvE events and they should be plowing through level 50 enemies due to their recent poor performance. Yet I have literally seen no example of such a case. If there is a powerful roster at the top, it almost certainly has a maxed BP and a high level HT in it.

I think that is the case though. The reason being, even though these low level players are all ranked highly in these kinds of tournaments....how often do you hear from them again? Look at the top 10 alliances in the normal Venom bracket....I haven't heard of 9 of them, and the only one I recognize is #10 (Ace of Blades). Even the heroic bracket is largely filled with unknown alliances. Now, write down the top 9 alliances, and see how they rank during the next event. My guess is very few, if any, of those 9 are going to show up. Same with the top 10 people in your bracket (although I realize that is a LOT harder to track because chances are you aren't going to end up being in the same bracket again). The point being, they may do very well right now when they are just starting, but soon because of their success they are going to scale their way towards difficulty and poorer finishes. Then the next wave of newbies are going to come in and place highly. Maybe that's Demiurge's way to entice new players, by giving them an early false sense of accomplishment and success.

As for your second point, the one I highlighted, that was my exact predicament. During the heroic Juggs event, I could barely play at all. It was the first event I've participated in since I started playing this game that I couldn't complete even 1/2 of the nodes (and I'm on day #170 played). For the past few months, I have been fed a steady diet of lvl 230 mobs, mainly because of my Spidey abuse before it was revealed how healing affects MMR.

After that event, my MMR plummeted, because the very next event my mobs were starting at lvl 40! I literally had not seen level 40 enemies since probably January.

While I agree I don't see anyone leading my bracket with a high level BP or HT, my bracket is only a small sample size and those people may certainly exist out there.

LavishDragoon

I'm in the transition from 2* to 3* as my main team is usually Thor/OBW and whoever fits/required at the time. I'm at 67 days 36 slots and most of my 2* are cover capped. I only use the OBW to heal if I get beat up pretty bad in a level otherwise I'll just keep the damage I took and only use her to steal AP.


I rode the Unstable ISO event to place high enough to get all three HT cover (think top 50). I usually only cleared each node once or twice a 12 hr period. I let rubber banding do the heavy lifting and purposely took damage on easy fights to hopefully stave off scaling. During off times I threw heroes at hard nodes to drop their levels. It seemed to pay off and I never really got hit with any scaling or it was so minor I didn't notice it. The only problem nodes were the ones that had community scaling. Usually all goon nodes, which were like +40/60 levels higher than my avg 40-60 nodes.

This event I started with like 30-50 on the easy and 40-75 on the deadly. I was able to breeze through the easy one and purposely took CD damage from goons and took extra damage from easy hero fights to hopefully keep them low. I haven't noticed any real serious scaling so far. Maybe +5/10 levels on both boards.

I'm not sure if purposely taking damage is helping, but it certainly seems to be keeping them inline before it hits the point where I take a hit and my whole team dies. I hope I never have to face 230/400 level goons and heroes....

Unknown

You know you've just been on the receiving end of a serious beating when your phone screen goes into standby before it's your turn...

reckless442

This is purely anecdotal, but I decided to put together a list of the top-10 in my "deadly" bracket. Other than me, only two people have a single cover over 85 -- and that's a level 115 IM40 and 90 Hulk, who aren't eligible in this event. Only one player has a Human Torch over level 18.

Here's the current top-10 and their four highest eligible characters:

1. 141 BP/141 Psylocke/89 HT/75 A. Wolv (also have maxed M. Storm and IM35) [That's me, if you didn't guess]
2. 85 A. Wolv/80 M. Hawkeye/50 IM35/15 HT
3. 85 A. Wolv/50 IM35/50 M. Storm/15 HT
4. 50 IM25/50 M. Storm/39 M. Hawkeye/30 A. Wolv.
5. 85 M. Hawkeye/85 A. Wolv/20 Black Panther/15 HT/15 Psylocke
6. 63 A. Wolv/47 IM35/38 M. Hawkeye/32 M. Storm
7. 85 A. Wolv/50 IM35/50 M. Storm/28 Psylocke
8. 85 A. Wolv/18 HT/15 BP/15 Psylocke
9. 85 A. Wolv/38 M. Hawkeye/38 BP/25 HT
10. 85 A. Wolv/50 IM35/50 M. Storm/28 BP

All but tenth place have scores over 12,000 in "deadly" mode.

I think the question that needs to be asked is should players with rosters like those be able to place so high in what is supposed to be the harder event, when players with much more highly developed rosters are struggling to survive against scaled-up opponents. Now maybe all the players with level 100+ rosters are sitting back and waiting for rubber-banding to take effect, but even if they are, those scores are very high for rosters that should be getting slaughtered in "deadly" mode.

reckless442

BIGTOE wrote:

You know you've just been on the receiving end of a serious beating when your phone screen goes into standby before it's your turn...

Let me guess? Venom?

Unknown

Like reckless said:

How many competitive online games do you know of that new players are supposed to be able to compete for top rankings? Not many cause they are supposed to be able to compete for their next level of achievement. In mpq the competitive aspect of pve is completely broken atm.

Oh and for me, the scaling is usually in the ok but challenging zone at the start of events but despite my efforts, it's the community scaling that kills me in the end. Except for the req char nodes mostly, which I always grind way more.

Unknown

Your performance obviously influences how much the enemy goes up by, but the baseline still has to be established by your level. If all it takes is doing poorly in a PvE event, it can't be that hard to find someone with a good roster that is just doing terrible recently. That is, you should have some guy who have level 100+ characters that barely played in the last few events because it's too hard or not enough time, and then that guy will be like 'hey guys all my deadly enemies are level 30!' As far as I can tell an event like that has never happened. Level 70 seems to be about the lowest you can expect for the starting level for deadly in this event. Now, for whatever reason it is entirely possible the scaling takes them to level 400. That part is somewhat of a mystery, but I don't see how it can be below around 70 for anyone with a level 100+ character, simply because if it can be, there must be some guy out there that has been doing bad enough recently to easily match whatever poor performance another weak roster guy can do.

On the other hand, we also know people with weak roster can't even be seeing enemies comparable to a high end roster that's doing poorly. Spoit said he saw level 70 guys, and I'm sure everyone has seen plenty of those 'how did this guy win my bracket???' screenshots. There's almost no way a guy with say a level 15 HT + level 50 IM35 + level 20 Hawkeye can even beat 3 level 70 guys reliably, so they must be seeing even weaker enemies for those guys to lead your bracket. Some of these guys don't even have a Spiderman or OBW, which means going to prologue to heal is not an option at all. Even if you've a level 141 HT and you're seeing level 70 base enemies, it really doesn't take long for the guys to chew through his health. The starting level 90 guys had no problem eating a significant part of my level 141 BP's 7K health. And of course we know these guys with the weak roster most certainly don't have a level 141 HT either. Even if you assume their HT has 5K HP, that simply doesn't last very long against even level 70 opposition, so the only way these guys can be winning their bracket has to be that their opponents are way below even what the poorest performance high level roster guy is seeing.

TazFTW

Does it scale easier if you only have two characters?

There is someone in the Top 5 of my deadly bracket with a 9 character roster. Only 2 of those can be used in this event; a lvl 45 modern Storm and a lvl 15 green Human Torch.

Kikujiro

Phantron wrote:

But my enemies started out as level 90 on deadly, versus 70 for you, so it's still higher. I know you're in my last PvE bracket and I'm pretty sure you finished top 10, so if it's based on just performance we should both be seeing level 90s. I leveled up BP to 141 to prepare for the tournament, and it seems like I saw higher starting enemies than you (so in retrospect I should've leveled him up AFTER the tournament started). Now fighting level 90s with a 141 BP is likely easier than you fighting 70s with whoever you got, but it seems to me that the scaling clearly does take account of the fact that one of my usable heroes is level 141 while you have no usable hero above 100. Whether that makes up for the actual difference roster is anyone's guess.

As a sidenote I don't know why people continue to say that enemy levels don't depend on your roster. There has been many tournaments where we see guys with weak rosters winning now. Do you really think every time there's a guy with a 1* roster that's just a new guy who's never done well in the last tournament? And if it's only performance based, that means people who placed first last time for whatever reason will be facing level 90s on deadly at start, and that's likely to make anyone with a 2* roster immediately quit the game because that's way too much to ask. Your performance adjusts the level of the enemies you face, but the starting point is definitely influenced by your roster. If this isn't the case there must be guys with powerful rosters that just didn't do well recently in PvE events and they should be plowing through level 50 enemies due to their recent poor performance. Yet I have literally seen no example of such a case. If there is a powerful roster at the top, it almost certainly has a maxed BP and a high level HT in it.

I´m looking at your roster right now and you have 2 characters at level 141 where I have one and a slightly advantage in levels overall. As for the current featured 3 stars ...

Black Panther: 141 yours - 100 mine
Psylocke: 89 yours - 100 mine
Human Torch: 20 both

I ended 13th (I think) on Unstable ISO. Used Spiderman once or twice in the last 5 or 6 PvE events and didnt heal with him before end of match, OBW maybe 4 or 5 times in the same number of events to steal AP and heal 2 or 3 times. In those events I did one initial clear and one refresh the last hour, except for simulator where I did the inital clear to open all nodes and collect the ISO and later I only hit the special nodes 2 or 3 times every 12-15 hours. I havent seen a node at 1 point value since December.

My enemies started at level 164 on deadly ... I havent started deadly yet.

I thought I understood scaling, now I´m totally lost.