Scaling Tied To S.H.I.E.L.D. Clearance Levels (5/25/17)

RoboDuck

drayviper32 said:

This test is good for the lower class and higher class. Everyone else in the middle gets screwed. It's amazing that the people in 5* land are the ones that complain about scaling but yet they are first ones to finish clearing all nodes 4×. So let's make small amount of people that are in 5* land happy and make the larger group of players mad. Makes no sense! 

Nothing they've done this year has made sense.  This is just another bad decision in a long streak of them.

Bryan Lambert

The problem with this is that there are four key interconnected components at play and for some reason, the devs aren't connecting them.

Tying clearance levels to rewards AND difficulty makes perfect sense, or it would if the other two things weren't screwing things up.

The first thing, of course, is the lack of granularity and the weird calibration of SCL's, made even worse, inexplicably, by lowering the level requirement for SCL8. You can't offer an appropriate set of rewards and challenges for SCL8 when it spans nearly 80 levels worth of rosters. And since there can only be 10 SCL's ever, it's just going to get tougher and tougher to divide them into appropriate difficultyr/reward tiers as the difference between the least powerful and most powerful rosters grows.

And then there's placement. Individual and alliance placement means players won't be choosing their clearance levels based on a rational tradeoff between difficulty and rewards. Difficulty affecgt speed, speed affects placement. 

I suppose technically I'd be called a "softcapper" - I've chosen to basically ignore my 5* roster because until now, developing and leveling my 4* roster was a more rewarding and fun use of my ISO. So I'm level 97, but my strongest character is a L291 Hulkbuster. This change will probably make SCL8 unpayable for me - max levels before were in the 320's and without a strong boosted team I have to carefully manage my health packs to play well and usually hit T50.  The difference in progression rewards won't slow my progress much because the SCL8 rewards are so weak, but I'll be shocked if the placement competition doesn't but a serious dent in my sub rewards and the nice 3-star champ levels after the event.

They can tweak the numbers all they want, but you can't properly link up difficulty and rewards  unless you can make the rewards accurately reward the difficulty, and they still don't have a game that does that despite a year of baby steps in that direction.
 oh 

babinro

On paper I absolutely LOVE this change.

The fact that difficulty no longer scales with roster means that you can actually feel meaningful progress over time.  My 5*'s will get better by the enemy levels won't punish my improvements.

Likewise if I'm feeling the desire to play 4* tier I can just drop back a tier and relax with a completely different game play experience.  Sure my rewards will take a bit of a hit but that's an option I never had before.

I also like how this proactively encourages leveling your roster.  Soft capping was always an awkward and abnormal practice so its nice to see more things that encourage a players natural impulse to accept rewards and improve as they become available.

I will say there are some potentially valid criticisms to consider:
1) The rewards don't necessarily reflect the difficulty changes. 
I can appreciate that CL8 is the '5* tier' but the change of rewards don't reflect that well.

2) In PvE terms you could have easily rolled out CL9 and CL10 here. 
Especially with the enemy level caps.  I understand that you'll pretty much have just one bracket per shard when it comes to CL10 enemies topping out at level 550 but this opens up incentives for more players to push for those goals.  Especially if the rewards reflect the difficulty changes.   If you can't role out CL9 & 10 in pvp that's fine but in PvE it would work fine with this new system.  Doing this would also filter out players to their appropriate difficulties naturally.   No level 550 players rolling over CL8 unless they choose to compete for lesser rewards.

Bloody_Marvel

I applaud you for trying something new, and I see there will be multiple tests coming, but it seems like these numbers weren't given a lot of thought as they're very unbalanced.

I'm currently at Shield Rank 106 (which is close to the max), with my highest level (unboosted/boosted) character at 291/390. I'm just past the level where taking on lvl 400 characters is acceptable. There's no way Rank 47 players are going to be able to clear at that level.

The level jumps are unbalanced by both absolute and relative numbers.

The maximum levels for the hardest node in numbers for instance:

SCL 1:  30
SCL 2:  55 | +25 (+83%)
SCL 3:  84 | +29 (+53%)
SCL 4: 140 | +56 (+67%)
SCL 5: 180 | +40 (+29%)
SCL 6: 230 | +50 (+28%)
SCL 7: 260 | +30 (+14%)
SCL 8: 400 | +140 (+54%)

The numbers are all over the place, with SCL 8 being the most out of whack in any progression for as far as any progression may be discernible.

It just seems like there's 1 or 2 levels missing between SCL 7 and 8. It's almost like you're trying out SCL 10 levels for SCL 8 players in this trial.

This would've been a more appropriate progression:
SCL 7: 260 | +30 (+14%)
SCL 8: 300 | +40 (+15%)
SCL 9: 350 | +50 (+17%)
SCL 10: 400 | +50 (+14%)

Punisher5784

What I don't understand is Shield Rank 47 qualifies for SCL8, yet that roster would not be able to compete against 200-400 enemies... Time to start over, instead of adding onto something you did not fully plan out in the first place. I agree with everyone that suggested SCL9 and 10 be released along with this major change

Dauthi

ursopro said:

Dauthi said:

Wait, veterans are getting an advantage in pve for their dedication/time spent playing? Usually we get nerfed. I honestly don't know what to say, I have been asking for static levels for years and we actually got it.

If they are gonna hand out advantages then don't make it a competition and remove placement rewards, easy.

I should correct myself, it isn't so much an advantage to veterans so much as taking away an advantage soft cappers/lowbies had on veterans since the implementation of scaling to roster (in the way they currently do). In any game you could point out how ridiculous it would be to get stronger yet not have that reflect on how well you can do in a competition with other players because you get handicapped. That isn't a competition at all.

In any case, I have pushed your idea also because I don't like competitive PVE (it is almost a contradiction). Either way, players should be winning prizes relevant to their progress otherwise progress is jumbled across the board.

Bloody Marvel said:

It just seems like there's 1 or 2 levels missing between SCL 7 and 8. It's almost like you're trying out SCL 10 levels for SCL 8 players in this trial.

I hope this is the case. I can see why they would group strong 4* and 5* rosters together since they are probably a really small population. However the gap between 5*s and 4*s is enormous and it isn't very fair to lump them together.

If they could find a transition from 4* to 5* this would seem more acceptable.

Pongie

May be obvious but this is likely the breakup of scl compared to your roster progress

SCL 1:  30 - building up 1*
SCL 2:  55 - 1* maxed (40-50), building up 2* (<94)
SCL 3:  84 - 2* championed (94+), building up 3* (<166)
SCL 4: 140 - 2* maxed (144), 3* championed (166+)
SCL 5: 180 - 3* championed (166-266), building up 4* (<270)
SCL 6: 230 - 3* maxed (266), 4* championed (270+)
SCL 7: 260 - 4* championed (270+), building up 5* (255+)
SCL 8: 400 - 4* championed (270-370), 5* championed (450+)

Having boosted characters means you may be able to keep up with the scaling within your SCL

MarkersMake

Perhaps this post on PvE scaling might be useful? 

https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/59795/scaling-in-6-easy-pieces-with-minimal-comment

sirwookieechris

Shield Rank 54 here.
Currently, my hardest node (GSBW,Fury, PX) is sitting at levels 267 after 4 clears. This would absolutely force me back to SC7, where I would not be facing against 5* players clearing in <1 hour. Can't say I'm a fan of the change.

snlf25

If this stands I'm out. I can't hack it with level 400 fights with my roster at SCL 89 and couple that with the wretched decision to force us to do 5 clears to get max cp......I'm just done. Games are supposed to be fun not a second job you hate.

I will not be playing this event.

Crowl

sirwookieechris said:

Shield Rank 54 here.
Currently, my hardest node (GSBW,Fury, PX) is sitting at levels 267 after 4 clears. This would absolutely force me back to SC7, where I would not be facing against 5* players clearing in <1 hour. Can't say I'm a fan of the change.

Actually, SCL7 is most definitely going to see 5* players dropping down too, given the small differences in rewards, why wouldn't they take the 30 min clears of SCL7 instead.

Dauthi

Pongie said:

May be obvious but this is likely the breakup of scl compared to your roster progress

SCL 1:  30 - building up 1*
SCL 2:  55 - 1* maxed (40-50), building up 2* (<94)
SCL 3:  84 - 2* championed (94+), building up 3* (<166)
SCL 4: 140 - 2* maxed (144), 3* championed (166+)
SCL 5: 180 - 3* championed (166-266), building up 4* (<270)
SCL 6: 230 - 3* maxed (266), 4* championed (270+)
SCL 7: 260 - 4* championed (270+), building up 5* (255+)
SCL 8: 400 - 4* championed (270-370), 5* championed (450+)

Having boosted characters means you may be able to keep up with the scaling within your SCL

There should be a slight correction thanks to vaulting in SCL 8. 

SCL 8: 400 - 4* championed (270-300), 5* championed (450+)

This is what I was alluding to in my other post, but I hope the developers see this. 4* champs are not in competition with 5*s because there will never be overlap thanks to vaulting, while in the other divisions shown there is. I hope they fix it soon.

Crowl

Dauthi said:

I hope this is the case. I can see why they would group strong 4* and 5* rosters together since they are probably a really small population. However the gap between 5*s and 4*s is enormous and it isn't very fair to lump them together.

If they could find a transition from 4* to 5* this would seem more acceptable.

Indeed, this new system wouldn't be so bad if the gap between 4* and 5* hasn't always been too wide (although arguably it wouldn't even be needed if the gap hadn't been there since scaling would have also been less idiotic) and once the 5* roster went beyond the first few characters they should have had a more reliable route to progression than rng, hoard for ages or spend a lot of money.

Phumade

Actually, for 5* vet players. Latest 12 vault speeds up maxchamped 4* by a significant amount.

For alot of vet rosters, the Latest 12 4* are already surpassing Ice / HB / Peggy etc...

I've won every Peggy cover available since her release and WASP and Spider Woman have already past her at 314.  I won't be surprised at all if max champed 4* become standards in pvp

Starfury

To me it looks like they plan on opening SCL 9 (+10?) in tandem with SCL bound scaling. So right now SCL 8 is a merger of future SCL 8 and SCL 9, with the rewards from SCL 8 and the difficulty of SCL 9

Of course, as per usual, it seems like noone gave any thought on how the combination of future difficulty with current rewards will be received.

The only reason for anyone to play SCL 8 is either pure curiosity or to speculate on easier placement.

WEBGAS

Punter1 said:

The problem with this is that PVE still has placement as well as progression.

If PVE was just progression (ie player vs enemies and not other players...) then a harder capped CL8 would make sense.  You want the harder prog rewards you work for it.

Want a slightly easier route drop to CL7 but you don't get the same rewards and so on down the chain.

Instead placement is still a big part of PVE which then means soft cappers, 5* clearing lower CLs for higher placement etc comes into play and most of the complaints above are about speed and difficulty affecting placement.

Totally agree : this change will be perfect if they could rid of the placement factor and give us only PROGRESSION REWARDS. 

Do you want better rewards? Then go fight harder nodes  in scl 8 ( and 9 when it will be released)

But with the actual structure of placement rewards and an insignificant increase of rewards from scl7 to scl8 (only a few iso end cp) why anyone (in a normal state of mind) would choose to fight very strong enemies when he could easily fight weaker ones and get almost the same rewards for a very lesser effort?

Wumpushunter

I like this but please do something about higher level people dropping into lower brackets and easily taking the very few good placements from those people in the correct clearance level. Having people with 5 five stars in CL5 or CL6 is stupid.

sirwookieechris

Crowl said:

sirwookieechris said:

Shield Rank 54 here.
Currently, my hardest node (GSBW,Fury, PX) is sitting at levels 267 after 4 clears. This would absolutely force me back to SC7, where I would not be facing against 5* players clearing in <1 hour. Can't say I'm a fan of the change.

Actually, SCL7 is most definitely going to see 5* players dropping down too, given the small differences in rewards, why wouldn't they take the 30 min clears of SCL7 instead.

Sorry, that's what i meant. SC8 will be impossible with the levels, and SC7 will suddenly be a lot harder to place given all the people who will wreck there.

Pessi

The data from this test will be completely flawed due to the recent changes to reach max progression. You can't​ instigate a test after a major change. It's a basic error.

Look at how many people just did one extra clear just to get the boatload of CP. The should have been done before those changes. 

As a scientist, this kind of thing really makes me mad. 

Bowgentle

Best change to PVE ever, right up there with the introduction of time slices.

Shaving 50 levels of my enemies will give me 45 minute clear times instead of 60-65, which is definitely a QOL change.

I don't see myself dropping down to CL7, BTW. Unless I really want to see how fast I can obliterate level 260s.