Is PvE Level Scaling Ruining The Game?

Unknown

I can't say either, so I didn't vote. I'm just glad I was able to do all the nodes once in deadly because at the start of event I wasn't sleeping. If I was, I doubt I would be able to do every node even once.

Vohnkar

Mid tier player here, with some maxed 2* and starting to get some 3* past lvl 60-70s. I hate the scaling system, I wouldn't mind the scaling if it was the same for everyone... so for example a player with a maxed roster of 3* will obviously have an easier time beating the content than me. I'm ok with that.

The thing is that on my alliance there are new players that doesn't have 1* caped yet that are doing far better than me on PvE events. That saddens me and frustrates me a lot.

LordWill

Lyrian wrote:

My personal opinion here...

Are players punished for using certain tools available to them to win matches? Absolutely.

Are players at fault for using these tools to win matches? No. The whole current meta in regard to PvE Scaling is to avoid using these characters and to incur damage. Is this silly? Absolutely. To me, the situation is analogous to placing a Band-Aid on a wound that needs a tourniquet and then smothering the wound with Limburger cheese in the hopes that the horrid smell will prevent anyone from looking in that general direction to notice that the Band-Aid is woefully insufficient to close the wound.

The core problem is that when the game originally launched, Gen1 (pre-Punisher) characters were not designed with any real balance in mind. Some of the most glaring issues were addressed (Rags, CStorm, Thor, Wolvie), but some of them still remain to this day (CMags, Spidey). Public backlash was so bad over the previous rebalances, that I believe the devs got cold feet over CMags and Spidey. With the game now in its 7th month, so many players possess CMags and Spidey at playable levels that any real change to either character is going to significantly impact many players in a very real way. These two needed to be rebalanced months ago to minimize the already significant balancing damage those two cause.

What ended up happening in response is "scaling". Instead of fixing the core issue, the devs implemented a system that punishes players for using these characters in PvE events. Again, Band-Aid on a decapitated limb. Spidey stunlocking was still viable at 230, so now the mooks scale to 400, in some sort of obscure attempt to scale match damage so high that a stunlock cycle cannot be reasonably started or the utter pain of needing to play a match for 20-30 minutes to win becomes so obnoxious that players throw away their Spideys.

Stunlock should never been allowed in the first place. Note that all of the stunning characters originated in Gen1 (MWidow, CStorm, Spidey, Cap). Stunning either should not have existed at all, or there needs to be some mechanism (such as a 3 turn immunity to stun after being stunned) to prevent lockdowns from occurring. If lockdowns cannot occur, then astronomical scaling is unlikely to occur and this whole mess becomes a non-issue.

From the PAX news thread, it sounds like that the devs are finally realizing that fixing the stunlock issue really does need to be a Priority 1 issue for the long-term health of the game.

I agree with most of of this. Although I don't think stunlock is really the problem. And the scaling in relation to stunning is an entirely different problem. Anyone that has used it knows the stunlock is slow and boring and sometimes the only way to get through a fight otherwise one wrong move and your whole entire team is toast. And its not 100% auto win. I can guarantee that if they change stun on spidey without fixing the underlying problem of why its even used in the first place, they are just going to create even more public outcry.

So thinking on some things today I was reflecting on the current issues...Then I thought, how about looking at this another way.

What benefits/rewards does Demiurge give to players that have invested time/money/effort into their roster? How does having a good strong built roster benefit me? Now I am talking about how the game/creators reward us NOT how it indirectly affects us.

I couldn't think of anything directly that they give us or reward us. Can you think of any way they reward high level players other than with frustration? Not trying to be sarcastic here, I am being serious. I'm having trouble verbalizing my thoughts today. I hope I am making sense even though I am sure it could be said better.

I am sure you could use the argument that you have more flexibility in terms of team composition which is true to a degree but then scaling kicks in and renders that argument useless. So roster size and strength in the end doesn't help because scaling can render your roster null via scaling. So a level 50 Iron Man can do just as good as a level 100 Iron Man.

Personally I think there needs to be some inequality in the game. It shouldn't be a level playing field. One of the biggest reason I put a lot of time into the game in the early days was Rags. He was awesome, He was beastly, He was POWER. I wanted that. I wanted to be powerful and wield that power. He was my goal.
Now he is a moot point. So now there really isn't a goal in the game other than to collect every character and level them up which is going to take time and my incentive for doing that is to face harder mobs instead of making the game easier.

Maybe they just need to work backwards and see how they can reward the people who put in the hours and hours and time to build their team up.

Carrot is better than the stick.

Unknown

walkyourpath wrote:

I just have to say I'm really confused as to why people are still saying that Spidey and C. Mags are the cause of PvE scaling issues. We've had 2 Heroics now where neither character has been allowed and scaling still smacked everyone in the face. Mid-tiers are being punished just as much with or without them in the mix. High-tiers have it second worse, and low tiers are running away with the top spots in this one if they have any HT covers at all.

People who never had or never relied on the broken characters are being punished in both types of PvE. The problem is the rate of scaling in all roster compositions.

Mid-tiers are worse because it is arguably easier to obtain and execute the CStorm + MN Mags combo or the Thor + MStorm chain combo much easier than a player can obtain a 5 Blue Spidey or a 5 Red/Blue CMags. I would also argue that the majority of mid-tiers are not power gamers and do not know how to play the scaling "game". As a result, they blindly scale themselves into oblivion (as well as everyone else through community scaling).

On the high-end, scaling is a problem because the scaling curve is not linear.

From the PvE scaling change thread:

IceIX wrote:

Player 1 sees that a couple of his Hard pins went to Deadly 200s from 180 as a result of being near the top of scaling while his bretheren is knocking down 230s like nothing. Player 1's game just got harder even though it shouldn't have, but the system has little way of knowing that without adding in much more complexity to the scaling system. Player 3 sees their nodes go from 180 to 185 since their rating isn't as high, so they're affected fairly little but still hit. A theoretical player 4 fighting 90s may be fighting 91s, so no big deal there.

From my observations from the high end of the curve, scaling appears to occur in +5% increments. At low levels (<60), this movement is almost unnoticeable. At the mid-levels (60-120), the growth rate becomes very noticeable and worrisome, and after 120 or so, the scaling rate "feels" like it heads straight up to infinity.

Some math quickly points out the issue here. Let's say for example there are three players, with base scaling levels 25, 60, and 110, to represent a 1*, 2**, and 3*** player. For the sake of argument, suppose that over the course of an event, 10 increasing community scaling adjustments occur and each of the players are crafty enough somehow to eliminate personal scaling completely.

What we end up with is (results are presented rounded, calculations are precise):

1* (Level 25) --> 26 --> 28 --> 29 --> 30 --> 32 --> 34 --> 35 --> 37 --> 39 --> 41
2* (Level 60) --> 63 --> 66 --> 69 --> 73 --> 77 --> 80 --> 84 --> 89 --> 93 --> 98
3* (Level 110) --> 116 --> 122 --> 129 --> 135 --> 142 --> 149 --> 156 --> 164 --> 172 --> 181

The 1* Character sees nodes eventually creep up 16 levels, while the 2** sees the same nodes walk up 38 levels, and the 3*** player sees nodes jump up a massive 71 levels.

I would think that in a given event the number of community upscalings is higher than 10, especially in the final refresh of an event.

For the sake of the 3***, let's continue the trend a few more scalings higher: 181 --> 190 --> 199 --> 209 --> 220 --> 230 (231 technically). So, by uptick 15, that level 110 player is now looking at a wall of 230s. Not fun at all.

When IceIx is talking about character "growth" in the PvE scaling thread, he is talking about removing the 230 cap and allowing community scaling on the high end to continue to grow organically. In theory, the logic is sound on paper. If the high-end player can legitimately beat 230s continually and without any significant problems, then yes, this is a problem because the 3*** winning causes the levels to go up for the 1* and 2** players as the nodes never scale high enough to be a "challenge" to the 3*** player.

Now, the 64 million ISO question is this: Are there 3*** players who can legitimately straight-up (no crowd control, ability spamming) beat 230 villain nodes? (230 mooks are another story, as already discussed by others in this thread). If the answer to this question is "Yes", then the change is warranted to avoid screwing over the 1* and 2** players. If the answer is "No", then this example shows how infini-turn combos and the "cursed" characters completely break the scaling system for all. (This is a design issue, not a player issue.)

Discuss.

Unknown

Well, with an hour to go, my Hard Mode has got 7 guys with multiple 141s in their roster, the other three with multiple 85s
.
Normal mode is 5-5 between high-level players and lvl<50 roster players (all of whom have torch covers)

LordWill

So my daughter wanted to chime in...

http://youtu.be/g2vxvKkuybU

Enjoy!

Tharos

My personal opinion: I really feel that scaling and recent decisions are ruining this game.

I am a mid-range player: a lot of maxed 2* characters, but no 3* above level 50. I once spend 50$ for more roster space, some "yeah another bagman token", and to say "thank you" to dev for this game.

At first, I didn't like pvp, and was really happy to do pve. When I had a low-level roster, I was able to clear the first nodes of pve event, then the level was too high, so I stoped here. But the first nodes were a lot of fun, which pushed me to level up my roster.
Little by little, I won a nice 2* roster. PVE events were always challenging, but doable.
And now, without changing anything, I am not able to do the same pve events. The fun has gone, and each attempt finished by a wipe with a lot of frustration.

The more I play this game, the less PVE fun I have. What's the point with this scaling?
I am not a big fan of the competitive aspect, all I want is having fun in this match-3 game with heroes powers.
My only way of achieving this now, is by playing PVP (whereas I never played it before a few weeks ago). Which is sad because I used to love PVE, and did nothing wrong to end up to this (no stunlock, no abuse or something).

I don't know what did the dev wanted to do with this, but one thing is sure for me: until the PVE "fun" come back (read: being able to win two pve games in a row without 3 full wipe in the process), I will spend a lot less time on this game, thus no longer spending money in it.
I feel punished for spending time on this game, where I should be rewarded. Note that "reward" doesn't have to be covers, HP or iso: the biggest reward now is to have fun instead of frustration.

Unknown

KevinMark wrote:

I can't say either, so I didn't vote. I'm just glad I was able to do all the nodes once in deadly because at the start of event I wasn't sleeping. If I was, I doubt I would be able to do every node even once.

To add to that, in the new round I can't do every node, cause I was asleep at the start and the scaling is too much for me.

Unknown

Anybody else get the impression that scaling received a minor tweak for the second Heroics round? I'm seeing several minor increments in levels now as opposed to the large jumps in the first round. The large jumps are still around, just less often, leading me to believe that community scaling now factors in slightly differently. It now seems to get added in as a flat extra on top instead of being multiplied by personal scaling progression. It also seems to react more aggressive, needing less community effort to increase node levels.

Unknown

Did anyone figure out why some poeple have level 170-400 enemies on their first Deadly node? I abuse the hell out of Spidey in both PvP and PvE and my first Deadly node is only at lvl 70. Is this really due to MN Mag + Storm, and other infinite turn combos? I never use this combo but someone I know does and his first Deadly node was lvl 230, preventing him from doing anything in the event.

Unknown

Moghwyn wrote:

Anybody else get the impression that scaling received a minor tweak for the second Heroics round? I'm seeing several minor increments in levels now as opposed to the large jumps in the first round. The large jumps are still around, just less often, leading me to believe that community scaling now factors in slightly differently. It now seems to get added in as a flat extra on top instead of being multiplied by personal scaling progression. It also seems to react more aggressive, needing less community effort to increase node levels.

This is probably due to less people playing the Heroic this time around. Lots of people already have Shield Bro maxed and since this Heroic is a pain to play, they just don't play.

LordWill

I posted something I think is relevant to this in another thread, and I hate double posting but I feel this topic is important enough

Just had a quick thought....maybe I should paste this in suggestions....

So what if you had like a choose your own difficulty? So you see the match of 3 enemies-You do not see their levels. Before you go into the match you select, easy, medium, hard, deadly or whatever. Then based upon what YOU select and what challenge YOU want, the rewards/points scale accordingly.

This eliminates the need for Demiurge to sufficiently challenge me because I can challenge myself and play how I want to play.

This eliminates the needs for scaling because if I only do the easy, then I don't make a lot of points or iso. Just like how we can get 20 iso from a prologue mission. I'm in control of my scaling.

This eliminates people complaining about their individual PVE rating because they will be more in control of it. If they want to do deadly and get the 300 iso reward plus mega points, then go for it.

It would reward strong rosters without punishing the weaker ones. And it would give people something to strive for....

Also it allows EVERYONE to do the content to whatever degree they feel they can handle. So this way they don't miss out on the content/storyline.

What do you guys think?

NorthernPolarity

LordWill wrote:

I posted something I think is relevant to this in another thread, and I hate double posting but I feel this topic is important enough

Just had a quick thought....maybe I should paste this in suggestions....

So what if you had like a choose your own difficulty? So you see the match of 3 enemies-You do not see their levels. Before you go into the match you select, easy, medium, hard, deadly or whatever. Then based upon what YOU select and what challenge YOU want, the rewards/points scale accordingly.

This eliminates the need for Demiurge to sufficiently challenge me because I can challenge myself and play how I want to play.

This eliminates the needs for scaling because if I only do the easy, then I don't make a lot of points or iso. Just like how we can get 20 iso from a prologue mission. I'm in control of my scaling.

This eliminates people complaining about their individual PVE rating because they will be more in control of it. If they want to do deadly and get the 300 iso reward plus mega points, then go for it.

It would reward strong rosters without punishing the weaker ones. And it would give people something to strive for....

Also it allows EVERYONE to do the content to whatever degree they feel they can handle. So this way they don't miss out on the content/storyline.

What do you guys think?

Too much work for the devs to implement for too little benefit. Would be good for the playerbase, but I'm not seeing this at all from a business perspective.

Unknown

For the question on whether level 230 villians are beatable straight up (no ultra cheap tricks), the question is who and what combination. If it's Daken, that's not happening. Venom with purple generator is not happening. Moonstone with an analyst would still be borderline impossible. Ares would be extremely unlikely.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

For the question on whether level 230 villians are beatable straight up (no ultra cheap tricks), the question is who and what combination. If it's Daken, that's not happening. Venom with purple generator is not happening. Moonstone with an analyst would still be borderline impossible. Ares would be extremely unlikely.

It takes a bit of luck and I can't guarantee I'll beat them every time, but there's no shortage of ways to crowd red tiles and hamper daken, and getting enough blue for an early cStorm blue is usually enough to take down a 230 Daken or Bullseye before they become insurmountable, and you can often manipulate your team HP to pull off a massive Raging Tempest to boot.

And what counts as "ultra cheap"? Using Berserker Rage when you can eliminate all the purple? Having Hulk tank to get cascades into multiple Judgements or a LazyThor Call the Storm?

Unknown

gamar wrote:

Phantron wrote:

For the question on whether level 230 villians are beatable straight up (no ultra cheap tricks), the question is who and what combination. If it's Daken, that's not happening. Venom with purple generator is not happening. Moonstone with an analyst would still be borderline impossible. Ares would be extremely unlikely.

It takes a bit of luck and I can't guarantee I'll beat them every time, but there's no shortage of ways to crowd red tiles and hamper daken, and getting enough blue for an early cStorm blue is usually enough to take down a 230 Daken or Bullseye before they become insurmountable, and you can often manipulate your team HP to pull off a massive Raging Tempest to boot.

And what counts as "ultra cheap"? Using Berserker Rage when you can eliminate all the purple? Having Hulk tank to get cascades into multiple Judgements or a LazyThor Call the Storm?

I consider Spiderman, Magneto, and Storm on desert/forest as ultra cheap since these all allow you to take a ridiculous number of turns in a row and/or generating an almost arbitary large amount of APs. Everyone else is fair game. I assume you start with no boosts. You don't have to do that, but there has to be a baseline somewhere.

Daken is someone that you think you have a shot but 9 out of 10 times it just doesn't work and you die because his strike tiles are just so potent and there's no reliable way to deny them because it's usually a color you need badly for board control as well.

Bullseye is quite beatable at 230 on a stand alone basis because he has no real offense so while you'll quickly be doing 1 damage, you can still collect tiles and setup the moves you need to break the clear the protect tile. I realize people seem to just associate Bullseye with Daken since those two are usually together, but Bullseye is nowhere as dangerous as Daken.

LordWill

NorthernPolarity wrote:

LordWill wrote:

I posted something I think is relevant to this in another thread, and I hate double posting but I feel this topic is important enough

Just had a quick thought....maybe I should paste this in suggestions....

So what if you had like a choose your own difficulty? So you see the match of 3 enemies-You do not see their levels. Before you go into the match you select, easy, medium, hard, deadly or whatever. Then based upon what YOU select and what challenge YOU want, the rewards/points scale accordingly.

This eliminates the need for Demiurge to sufficiently challenge me because I can challenge myself and play how I want to play.

This eliminates the needs for scaling because if I only do the easy, then I don't make a lot of points or iso. Just like how we can get 20 iso from a prologue mission. I'm in control of my scaling.

This eliminates people complaining about their individual PVE rating because they will be more in control of it. If they want to do deadly and get the 300 iso reward plus mega points, then go for it.

It would reward strong rosters without punishing the weaker ones. And it would give people something to strive for....

Also it allows EVERYONE to do the content to whatever degree they feel they can handle. So this way they don't miss out on the content/storyline.

What do you guys think?

Too much work for the devs to implement for too little benefit. Would be good for the playerbase, but I'm not seeing this at all from a business perspective.

I have more to add to it on how this would be a win win for everyone. I had to leave this morning before I could put everything down but wanted to get the gist of it up here.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

gamar wrote:

Phantron wrote:

For the question on whether level 230 villians are beatable straight up (no ultra cheap tricks), the question is who and what combination. If it's Daken, that's not happening. Venom with purple generator is not happening. Moonstone with an analyst would still be borderline impossible. Ares would be extremely unlikely.

It takes a bit of luck and I can't guarantee I'll beat them every time, but there's no shortage of ways to crowd red tiles and hamper daken, and getting enough blue for an early cStorm blue is usually enough to take down a 230 Daken or Bullseye before they become insurmountable, and you can often manipulate your team HP to pull off a massive Raging Tempest to boot.

And what counts as "ultra cheap"? Using Berserker Rage when you can eliminate all the purple? Having Hulk tank to get cascades into multiple Judgements or a LazyThor Call the Storm?

I consider Spiderman, Magneto, and Storm on desert/forest as ultra cheap since these all allow you to take a ridiculous number of turns in a row and/or generating an almost arbitary large amount of APs. Everyone else is fair game. I assume you start with no boosts. You don't have to do that, but there has to be a baseline somewhere.

Daken is someone that you think you have a shot but 9 out of 10 times it just doesn't work and you die because his strike tiles are just so potent and there's no reliable way to deny them because it's usually a color you need badly for board control as well.

Bullseye is quite beatable at 230 on a stand alone basis because he has no real offense so while you'll quickly be doing 1 damage, you can still collect tiles and setup the moves you need to break the clear the protect tile. I realize people seem to just associate Bullseye with Daken since those two are usually together, but Bullseye is nowhere as dangerous as Daken.

any time you see daken or bullseye and have access to loki, they're easy wins, regardless of level. people just don't take him for some reason (i know you can't in this pve, but with all the complaining for the last one, there was a really easy answer).

Unknown

bloodwars wrote:

any time you see daken or bullseye and have access to loki, they're easy wins, regardless of level. people just don't take him for some reason (i know you can't in this pve, but with all the complaining for the last one, there was a really easy answer).

They're relatively easy if you use +3 B/G and +3 all. Otherwise, you still have to pray to RNG gods for a friendly board

Unknown

Trickery doesn't help you do any more damage to Daken. You may already died long before you hit enough black to use it, and even if you do, if he's paired up with anyone who can consume AP they'd still be able to punch through the protect tiles. You also have one less person to attack, which matters a lot when you already rule out the totally cheap options.

Bullseye + Daken is a very weak combination because Daken sure doesn't need the protect tiles given his regen. It's basically having one less person on the team.