SCL changes should lead to PVE placement changes

broll

Spudgutter said:

@Brigby

I don't think very many would view this as a negative, because if someone in SCL5 (rank 20 minimum) wants to try out a 4 star, they are probably pretty close to SCL6 (minimum rank 27) and could just play there. Plus, any negative side of roster limitation would be outweighed by the fact that, competitively, everyone would be forced to utilize the same rosters, so that would level the playing field even more. The last thing I would want to be is a person at rank 24, comfortably in the middle of scl5, to consistently be out placed by someone with a far superior roster.

As for the higher end rosters, i think they would love it. We see posts pop up all the time from vets requesting they bring back heroic restrictions. 

I see it as a giant negative, 3 or 4 steps backwards.

Nepenthe

Spudgutter said:

Nepenthe said:

Brigby said:

KGB said:

They could fix the problem of people going to lower clearance levels by simply turning every CL into a form of Heroic.

SCL1 : 1* characters only + the 2,3,4* essential
SCL2-3: 1&2* characters only + 3,4* essential
SCL4-5: 1-3* characters only + 4* essential
SCL6-7: 1-4* characters only
SCL8: any characters

Now if you want to drop down to SCL7 you can only use your 4* and below so all those champed 5* won't be blowing through the nodes that are capped at 270. The boosted 4* champs will still have a relatively easy time on most nodes and be challenged after 4 clears in the top nodes.

It also means if you don't have good boosted 4* characters or want to take a break from higher level PvE you can drop down to CL5 for an event and just bring out your 2&3* teams again for nostalgia.

KGB

@KGB
That's certainly an interesting idea. Are you suggesting this to be applied on top of scaling being tied to SCL, or in lieu of that implementation?

In addition, would this not potentially be viewed as a negative change, since it restricts the choices players have when creating rosters? (For example, maybe someone in SCL 5 has a 1/1/1 4-Star they want to try comboing with some 3-Stars)

@Brigby, I think this restriction would definitely be seen as a negative, and it's wholly unnecessary because of the reward structure.  Everyone's afraid of people dropping down CLs, but apart from 7-8 not having much difference in rewards there's very little chance you'll see many players who are after 4*s drop down to CL 1-6 to compete for placement. 

Once I accidentally picked CL1 and CS wouldn't move me. I got #1 from doing 6 clears because I had the essential characters. My reward was a shiny 2* Thor cover, iirc.  Not eager to do that again.

@Nepenthe

I think you missed the premise of kgb's post.  KGB was trying to fix the scaling by making scl7 unattractive to 5* players, because the 5*'s would be locked out. Sure, you dont have many people who qualify easily for scl7 going to scl6, but scl7 has plemty of people who could easily do scl8 but choose not to because they can steamroll the competition with much better rosters. 

I don't think it is fair to judge the idea because you accidentally choose the lowest level by accident, one time.

@spudgutter Ignore the anecdote I put at the end for amusement value.  He posted a suggestion about limiting which characters could be used at all the lower CLs. My point is that nobody with 4 or 5 star rosters wants to drop below CL7 anyway, so those restrictions are unnecessary.

The concern about CL8 players dropping down to CL7 is best addressed by increasing the rewards in CL8 so the increase in payoff is similar to the increase in difficulty, relative to CL7

fmftint

The problem with increasing the rewards in SCL8, either placement or progression is the enrty bar is too low. They have to raise the bar and or open CL9

Spudgutter

Nepenthe said:

Spudgutter said:

Nepenthe said:

Brigby said:

KGB said:

They could fix the problem of people going to lower clearance levels by simply turning every CL into a form of Heroic.

SCL1 : 1* characters only + the 2,3,4* essential
SCL2-3: 1&2* characters only + 3,4* essential
SCL4-5: 1-3* characters only + 4* essential
SCL6-7: 1-4* characters only
SCL8: any characters

Now if you want to drop down to SCL7 you can only use your 4* and below so all those champed 5* won't be blowing through the nodes that are capped at 270. The boosted 4* champs will still have a relatively easy time on most nodes and be challenged after 4 clears in the top nodes.

It also means if you don't have good boosted 4* characters or want to take a break from higher level PvE you can drop down to CL5 for an event and just bring out your 2&3* teams again for nostalgia.

KGB

@KGB
That's certainly an interesting idea. Are you suggesting this to be applied on top of scaling being tied to SCL, or in lieu of that implementation?

In addition, would this not potentially be viewed as a negative change, since it restricts the choices players have when creating rosters? (For example, maybe someone in SCL 5 has a 1/1/1 4-Star they want to try comboing with some 3-Stars)

@Brigby, I think this restriction would definitely be seen as a negative, and it's wholly unnecessary because of the reward structure.  Everyone's afraid of people dropping down CLs, but apart from 7-8 not having much difference in rewards there's very little chance you'll see many players who are after 4*s drop down to CL 1-6 to compete for placement. 

Once I accidentally picked CL1 and CS wouldn't move me. I got #1 from doing 6 clears because I had the essential characters. My reward was a shiny 2* Thor cover, iirc.  Not eager to do that again.

@Nepenthe

I think you missed the premise of kgb's post.  KGB was trying to fix the scaling by making scl7 unattractive to 5* players, because the 5*'s would be locked out. Sure, you dont have many people who qualify easily for scl7 going to scl6, but scl7 has plemty of people who could easily do scl8 but choose not to because they can steamroll the competition with much better rosters. 

I don't think it is fair to judge the idea because you accidentally choose the lowest level by accident, one time.

@spudgutter Ignore the anecdote I put at the end for amusement value.  He posted a suggestion about limiting which characters could be used at all the lower CLs. My point is that nobody with 4 or 5 star rosters wants to drop below CL7 anyway, so those restrictions are unnecessary.

The concern about CL8 players dropping down to CL7 is best addressed by increasing the rewards in CL8 so the increase in payoff is similar to the increase in difficulty, relative to CL7

I know of several instances where people with 4* rosters have dropped to scl6 for various reasons, never say never.  But i will concede the number is probably pretty low, for sure.  

As for the rewards, see my other comment. I totally agree, I'm just trying to be realistic. Look at every test they run. They tweak levels, ranks, etc. but not once(that i can remember) have they tweaked rewards. Asking them to increase rewards is like asking them to stop releasing new characters every two weeks, or to stop releasing alternates: it's just not going to happen. 

lpearl

Spudgutter said:

I know of several instances where people with 4* rosters have dropped to scl6 for various reasons, never say never.  But i will concede the number is probably pretty low, for sure.  

As for the rewards, see my other comment. I totally agree, I'm just trying to be realistic. Look at every test they run. They tweak levels, ranks, etc. but not once(that i can remember) have they tweaked rewards. Asking them to increase rewards is like asking them to stop releasing new characters every two weeks, or to stop releasing alternates: it's just not going to happen. 

Huh? Didn't they tweak PVE rewards 2 weeks ago when the added rewards, but made full progression 5 clears?

Nepenthe

@Spudgutter They changed rewards 2 weeks ago with the increase in progression rewards, and sometime about 2 months ago (iirc?) they adjusted 7day event rewards to make the iso and covers more on par with a week of the two shorter events.  Both of those changes were in response to things players had been asking for, even!

Spudgutter

Nepenthe said:

@Spudgutter They changed rewards 2 weeks ago with the increase in progression rewards, and sometime about 2 months ago (iirc?) they adjusted 7day event rewards to make the iso and covers more on par with a week of the two shorter events.  Both of those changes were in response to things players had been asking for, even!

Sorry, i meant for tests.  I was speaking strictly in terms of testing new ideas to deal with scaling. I think we can all agree that any additions to rewards are never a bad thing. Ideally, we would want them to do both; address the scaling issues and make rewards more realistic.  One of those things they test, the other not so much so.

Jsh2014

@Brigby
there are several good point that have been made from yourself but many others from the rest of the forum that make good sense to at least consider trying. I chose level 8 d been getting my tiny kitty kicked I have a very healthy roster have every hero bout 2/3 of my 4*s champed but still got beat pretty bad. I like the idea to get rid of the timing, I love this game but like I said yesterday it's becoming a job no that's not fun I don't play any other game thy don't hold my attention for more than a day. But back to my point I AM 77th IN MY SLICE IM JUST UNDER 10000 from THE PROGRESSION AND IM NOT GOING TO BE ABLE TO REACH IT AND IT LOOKS LIKE I WILL FINISH TOP 100. my main point is that I gave up in the first day after I got spanked went thru all my 4s and a bunch of 3s by the time I gave up the enjoyment for that day WAS COMPLETELY GONE! Please please make a point to point of all the great ideas and let the Devs know they really are burning out the player base. 

Nepenthe

Spudgutter said:

Nepenthe said:

@Spudgutter They changed rewards 2 weeks ago with the increase in progression rewards, and sometime about 2 months ago (iirc?) they adjusted 7day event rewards to make the iso and covers more on par with a week of the two shorter events.  Both of those changes were in response to things players had been asking for, even!

Sorry, i meant for tests.  I was speaking strictly in terms of testing new ideas to deal with scaling. I think we can all agree that any additions to rewards are never a bad thing. Ideally, we would want them to do both; address the scaling issues and make rewards more realistic.  One of those things they test, the other not so much so.

Ah, I see. I imagine if they tested different reward levels and ended up on anything that wasn't the max rewards tested, the uproar would be outrageous. So I can see why they wouldn't.

Brigby

Jsh2014 said:

@Brigby
there are several good point that have been made from yourself but many others from the rest of the forum that make good sense to at least consider trying. I chose level 8 d been getting my tiny kitty kicked I have a very healthy roster have every hero bout 2/3 of my 4*s champed but still got beat pretty bad. I like the idea to get rid of the timing, I love this game but like I said yesterday it's becoming a job no that's not fun I don't play any other game thy don't hold my attention for more than a day. But back to my point I AM 77th IN MY SLICE IM JUST UNDER 10000 from THE PROGRESSION AND IM NOT GOING TO BE ABLE TO REACH IT AND IT LOOKS LIKE I WILL FINISH TOP 100. my main point is that I gave up in the first day after I got spanked went thru all my 4s and a bunch of 3s by the time I gave up the enjoyment for that day WAS COMPLETELY GONE! Please please make a point to point of all the great ideas and let the Devs know they really are burning out the player base. 

@Jsh2014
There has been a lot of good feedback from many players after the Unstable Iso-8 test was completed. Rest assured that since it was a test, the development team will most likely be trying out some number tweaks here and there after they review the results.

In addition, a topic that players have brought up was that the rewards didn't match the difficulty of certain clearance levels. The development team is aware of this concern, and are planning on evaluating clearance level rewards after they have worked on the SCL-Tied scaling for events.

GurlBYE

I hope in that reconsideration, we use new levels of awards of greater value appropriate when needed, and not just using what's available now as the measure of what should be the top. 

KGB

Brigby said:

KGB said:

They could fix the problem of people going to lower clearance levels by simply turning every CL into a form of Heroic.

SCL1 : 1* characters only + the 2,3,4* essential
SCL2-3: 1&2* characters only + 3,4* essential
SCL4-5: 1-3* characters only + 4* essential
SCL6-7: 1-4* characters only
SCL8: any characters

Now if you want to drop down to SCL7 you can only use your 4* and below so all those champed 5* won't be blowing through the nodes that are capped at 270. The boosted 4* champs will still have a relatively easy time on most nodes and be challenged after 4 clears in the top nodes.

It also means if you don't have good boosted 4* characters or want to take a break from higher level PvE you can drop down to CL5 for an event and just bring out your 2&3* teams again for nostalgia.

KGB

@KGB
That's certainly an interesting idea. Are you suggesting this to be applied on top of scaling being tied to SCL, or in lieu of that implementation?

In addition, would this not potentially be viewed as a negative change, since it restricts the choices players have when creating rosters? (For example, maybe someone in SCL 5 has a 1/1/1 4-Star they want to try comboing with some 3-Stars)

@Brigby

On top of.

Truth be told, fixed scaling really means the Dev's can remove the clearance level requirement entirely. Obviously if the enemy levels are going to be 180-270 range in SCL 7 then no one with 2* rosters is going to enter more than 1 time because they aren't going to be able to beat any nodes anyway other than through sheer luck. So the fixed scaling will force everyone into the right clearance level for their roster.

 Also it would be very nice if the Devs would list what they consider to be a typical roster for a clearance level. For example what kind of roster do they consider to be average for SCL 7. Is it a roster that is mostly 3* champed (or near champed) around L150-166 range with some 4* in various levels of development (around or below L166)? Or is it a roster below that (say in the 120-140 range of mostly 2/3*) or higher than that (3* at 180+ with lots of 4* between 200-270+). That's what we are missing to figure out if the fixed scaling is appropriate for the clearance level.

For example in this event the top levels of my enemies were about 30 levels higher than normal (270 vs 240). That doesn't seem like much but the fact they started around 200 instead of 100 means my initial 2 clears are dramatically harder. In this event that isn't so bad because it's mostly goons but in events with wave nodes (for example Rider Awakens where you face 4 waves of tile movers I wouldn't be able to complete that wave even once against L200 enemies instead of L100 enemies) or tile movers (simulator event) I'll be lucky to clear each node twice.

That's why I suggested making the clearance levels heroic in nature and restrict access to certain tiers of characters. Then it would be possible to lower the fixed scaling levels without removing all challenge for higher level rosters and so everyone would be competing on the same footing in terms of characters and levels.

KGB

P.S. As for someone wanting to try out Starlord on a lower roster you can always do Simulator battles in PvP or the Dev's could re-open the prologue again (no rewards, characters all exit with same health as they enter so you can't prologue heal OML and other true healers).

MissChinch

KGB said:

Brigby said:

KGB said:

They could fix the problem of people going to lower clearance levels by simply turning every CL into a form of Heroic.

SCL1 : 1* characters only + the 2,3,4* essential
SCL2-3: 1&2* characters only + 3,4* essential
SCL4-5: 1-3* characters only + 4* essential
SCL6-7: 1-4* characters only
SCL8: any characters

Now if you want to drop down to SCL7 you can only use your 4* and below so all those champed 5* won't be blowing through the nodes that are capped at 270. The boosted 4* champs will still have a relatively easy time on most nodes and be challenged after 4 clears in the top nodes.

It also means if you don't have good boosted 4* characters or want to take a break from higher level PvE you can drop down to CL5 for an event and just bring out your 2&3* teams again for nostalgia.

KGB

@KGB
That's certainly an interesting idea. Are you suggesting this to be applied on top of scaling being tied to SCL, or in lieu of that implementation?

In addition, would this not potentially be viewed as a negative change, since it restricts the choices players have when creating rosters? (For example, maybe someone in SCL 5 has a 1/1/1 4-Star they want to try comboing with some 3-Stars)

@Brigby

On top of.

Truth be told, fixed scaling really means the Dev's can remove the clearance level requirement entirely. Obviously if the enemy levels are going to be 180-270 range in SCL 7 then no one with 2* rosters is going to enter more than 1 time because they aren't going to be able to beat any nodes anyway other than through sheer luck. So the fixed scaling will force everyone into the right clearance level for their roster.

 Also it would be very nice if the Devs would list what they consider to be a typical roster for a clearance level. For example what kind of roster do they consider to be average for SCL 7. Is it a roster that is mostly 3* champed (or near champed) around L150-166 range with some 4* in various levels of development (around or below L166)? Or is it a roster below that (say in the 120-140 range of mostly 2/3*) or higher than that (3* at 180+ with lots of 4* between 200-270+). That's what we are missing to figure out if the fixed scaling is appropriate for the clearance level.

For example in this event the top levels of my enemies were about 30 levels higher than normal (270 vs 240). That doesn't seem like much but the fact they started around 200 instead of 100 means my initial 2 clears are dramatically harder. In this event that isn't so bad because it's mostly goons but in events with wave nodes (for example Rider Awakens where you face 4 waves of tile movers I wouldn't be able to complete that wave even once against L200 enemies instead of L100 enemies) or tile movers (simulator event) I'll be lucky to clear each node twice.

That's why I suggested making the clearance levels heroic in nature and restrict access to certain tiers of characters. Then it would be possible to lower the fixed scaling levels without removing all challenge for higher level rosters and so everyone would be competing on the same footing in terms of characters and levels.

KGB

P.S. As for someone wanting to try out Starlord on a lower roster you can always do Simulator battles in PvP or the Dev's could re-open the prologue again (no rewards, characters all exit with same health as they enter so you can't prologue heal OML and other true healers).

I agree that SCL should be unnecessary given the direction this is heading...  I think if the devs do a good job with rewards there wouldn't be a need for roster restrictions...  I'd go so far as to say that if they see rosters dropping down its actually a good marker that they don't have the rewards correct. 

Then again I think the way this system is headed I'd really like to see the completely elimination of placement rewards in favor of more (and more difficult) progression rewards (only this time add to the current set of rewards, don't move em back)