New scaling in Unstable ISO-8 may be the worst thing this game has ever done

FranklynStreet

I say this as a player since launch, and a constant player for the last year plus.

Currently Shield Rank 62, with all 2*s and 3*s champed save the new 3* Quill.  Working primarily on 4*s and finishing collecting all chars (need 5 more 5*s, 6 more 4*s, and a few more 1*s I'll pick up on the back end).

Been playing Level 8 on all events for a long time now.  Yet I've been hung up on the "Freeze, Buddy" node of Arctic Circle all day, and have killed most of my roster, with all recharges, just trying to get rounds 2-4 completed of this node.

There's no reason to fix something that's not broken, and this example of a "fix" has been probably the most willfully stupid thing I've witnessed to date in this game.

Just add a Level 9 (perhaps a Level 10 as well) and scale it accordingly.  There's absolutely no reason to put level 300-400 characters in rank 8, particularly in the lower bouts of nodes.

My VIP membership is currently on hold, and will not be renewed if this garbage continues.  It's taking the fun out of the game, and making me not want to play it.  PVP is already kind of a wash for me, and not worth pursuing beyond the 400-600 point level without maxed 4* chars or higher-leveled 5*s.  Conserving my hero points as I do for new characters, there's nothing left to constantly throw away on shields, which are required for PVP to obtain any kind of solid final standing (the implementation of shields was a pure money grab that left a very bad taste in my mouth way back when).

That leaves me to focus on PVE with my league, and grab the low-hanging fruit from PVP.  I try to at least get the 400 point rewards on all PVP events, and enough points in the season for the heroic 10-pack.  I don't need the PVE to be a frustrating endeavor in addition to the PVP, or one that becomes pay-to-play like PVP.  On PVE Level 8, I'm always able to get all of the progression rewards, and place around 50-100, unless I decide to stupidly do a 7th and/or an 8th go-round to try to rank higher (playing extra rounds with no rewards other than diminishing point boosts in pursuit of a top 10 placement and decent rewards bothered me when it was first implemented a year into the game's release; it went far beyond that annoyance over time and is now almost a requirement for top 50 placement).

Hopefully this new scaling won't be the third strike that pushes me away from the game forever, because I actually like the game a lot without all of these parabolic difficulty-paywalls.  Take that for what it's worth, from one of your many customers.  Hopefully you'll get a lot of similar feedback and your path forward will be clear, or you'll learn to tweak and scale in a much more balanced and appropriate manner.  I've never understood when MMO devs and the like turn to the stick instead of to the carrot-- this is entertainment.  Win my $ with a fun, compelling product and added features... not by making me have to pay more for the same thing, or by turning a game into a trudge.

I understand that PVP/shields will never be fixed to my liking, nor will the now-requirement for 7-8 clears for top 10-20 placement in PVE.  But there's really no reason to add a third huge gameplay detractor to make max PVE progression rewards a major headache.  As other posters have said, if you want to reward the more hardcore players, I'm completely supportive of that.  I'm always down for more carrots.  But there's no reason to take rewards away from players, and for a player who typically does 6 clears on all PVE events and 400 points minimum on all PVP events, I'd hardly qualify as a casual, either.

At least in my eyes, this is a disastrous experiment, and one that could lead to my $ going bye-bye.  Cheers.

Magic

As one of the wisest people in the world said: You're going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view.

I absolutely love this change. And it fixes many things that were broken. I have 30+ 4* champions (no 5* leveled) and I play in scl7. When I stay there after the change the game is very pleasant and relaxing - exactly what it should be. It immediately stopped being a daily painful grind and the fun is back. Sure - I could clear Scl8 but it don't care for the negligible reward increase. Might change my mind when scl9 rolls out.

The change just shows that your roster doesn't belong in the scl8. Work hard on developing it and you will get there.

This change was designed for one purpose - remove softcapping from the game. I think it work well in that regard as players with softcapped rosters can't compete in scl8 (and some - even in scl7). Both thumbs up for this. 

greenglove

I agree with magic. GREAT change for those of us who have been holding back in levelling because of scaling issues. Noe if only they would fix pvp...

RebeccaQuan

Magic, your response is predicated on the concept that people who were playing at a level they were comfortable playing in up till now suddenly don't belong there.  I'd suggest the better solution would be to have increased rewards at level 8, not to tell people at a lower level than you that they somehow haven't worked hard enough to play at the same level and gain the same rewards they've been eligible for for many months now.  I'm sure you don't mean it that way, but it's quite an unkind thing to say to players who have not advanced as far as you and might suggest that you feel they're somehow not as deserving of an opinion about how the gameplay affects them.   I looked at FranklynStreet''s posts and they've been playing this game since 2013!  Telling someone who has been playing for three+ years that they need to develop their roster better  before they can play in a way they've been routinely playing is not really a viable solution. Rather than penalizing people like me, who suddenly aren't capable of keeping up at a level where I used to routinely feel good about my daily progress, why not ask for more encouragement and better rewards for the people who are further along in the game like you to play at a higher level? That seems like a much better solution. Changing the way levels are scaled-- which I do really think is a good idea and allows people to choose the challenge level they feel like playing on an event-to-event basis, which is a great option-- doesn't necessitate changing the difficulty people have become accustomed to at that level-- it would make much more sense for each level to retain a difficulty that feels comfortable to the people who previously had the lowest possible clearance for that level and expanding into higher clearance level numbers for people who need a more difficult gameplay, or changing the progression rewards for lower levels to match what people who were previously playing in the now higher-powered levels have been able to achieve until now. The game is currently at a standstill for me because I can't keep up, and moving down to a lower level isn't possible during the event-- and would mean not being eligible for the progression rewards I've always gotten up till now in the future, if I'm being told to move down a level.  

Crnch73

I agree with Magic, for myself as well as others.

If you don't have a roster that can fight against those higher enemies (which means at least multiple boosted 4's champed), then in reality you shouldn't have been playing SCL8 to fight for those rewards in the first place. Or, if you really wanted to try to earn those rewards, it needed to be a slug fest. We have to incentivize the people with amazing rosters to play at the highest available SCL. I have 16 champed 4's and I never felt the urge to play SCL8, and now my roster probably can't or shouldn't even attempt it.

Just because someone was punching above their weight class and doing OK doesn't mean that's right. A heavyweight boxer/MMA fighter never fights a welterweight, because that's unnatural and unfair. We don't schedule those fights and then say "we have to handicap the bigger guy, so let's make it fair by blindfolding him!" If you want to fight above your weight class, you take all the inherent risks. This includes getting beaten down mercilessly, hopefully showing you that you always belonged in the lighter class for now.

Scaling should at some point stop working, so that we reward those with awesome rosters. If someone with 5 champed 5's is still facing level 450 enemies, then what was the point in even getting that far? The reason to do this can't be "well, my stable of 3's was earning me better rewards in the past, so now I'm mad!" Everyone in that SCL fights the same enemies, regardless of your roster. You want the best rewards? Get ready to WORK for it. No one with Shield Rank 62 should ever be able to take rewards away from someone at level 125, unless the 125 player just didn't try (even if shield rankings are a tough way to measure rosters). This helps sort out the rosters into their proper SCL's. Now we need to make the rewards in SCL8 much better, and then release SCL9 maybe as well. This would help sort it out so that whales aren't playing in SCL6 or 7, thus trickling down the struggles of everyone. Stay in the lane that you enjoy/can compete in, stop trying to get rewards that are above you... thus hopefully stopping the whales from pounding you into oblivion.

LightningSnoop

First post on the forums and it's to chime in that I hate these latest changes.  I've been playing for well over a year, invested some good cash to get spots to have a great roster and was really having fun playing this game and completing the adventure quests on a daily basis.   Playing this modification has made me want to quit this quickly after the investment of time and money.   I understand they want the game to be harder for those who have really advanced in the game but find a different way...it's either way easy now (all 35 level guys) or way hard (250+ guys and way beyond).   It feels like the change is a money grab more than anything sadly, spend more to get through the quests.

Right now I'm fighting with 5 star guys and high level 4's and I still get crushed by a level 280 lieutenant and a 280 bullseye.   I mean seriously bullseye puts up protects and the lieutenant heals...it's nearly impossible to win.   Oh wait I can take specific characters to win who I don't have leveled up....part of the fun of the game was using all the characters I spent money to get slots for to win in different ways.  Now if feels like to win I must take certain characters.   Further to get the ISO I need to upgrade things I want to play at the higher levels that were fun and challenging before but now are impossible.   So now I'll struggle to level up and most of all I will not have FUN....fun is the reason for this in the first place and if it isn't fun why play?

*sigh*   Can't make everyone happy I know but if this 'sticks' I'm likely done with the game and that blows. 

BartyMcDougal

Also agreed, from a longtime paying player. The scaling may have been fixed for some extremely high level players, but it has ruined the game for many more. Suddenly I (and many others in my alliance) have to drop two or more clearance levels to even compete in PvE, which makes it that much more difficult to grow our rosters to get to a point where we can reach a higher SCL.

So far all I've seen in support of the update is "neener neener, you don't belong in SCL 8 scrub". Seems like instead of dropping everyone a few pegs, you should have finally unlocked SCL 9 and 10 for those max level players.

This update has utterly destroyed this game, to the point where it is unfortunately not worth playing anymore.

Crnch73

I am merely trying to shed some light on the situation, respectfully. I understand it's rough to suddenly not be able to compete at certain levels. In all honesty, we should have never been able to compete with 5 star rosters, otherwise why even own them?

I am, in a sense, an outsider to the group. As I mentioned, I don't play at SCL8. That doesn't make me or anyone else a scrub, it means other people have better rosters. That is just a fact. If you have a good roster, you can earn better rewards... period. That should always be true, but instead they had created a world where 5 star rosters faced such hard competition that even 3 star rosters could place higher. That is a load of garbage... and this comes from someone who is middling in the 4 star tier. Trying to make a system where a 5 star roster (possibly earned via money or by playing everyday since inception) is not rewarded as much as a 3 star roster who is maybe the equivalent of one year playing? This is "participation trophy" written all over it.

Also, 5 star rosters need higher rewards to progress than a 3 star does. Sure, 20 CP means a lot more to a 3 star roster, but a 5 star roster actually needs that. I do agree that introducing SCL9 would have helped, but in all honesty, I am agreeing with the change. Note, that does not mean I enjoy the change, but I do agree with it. I want "earned" to mean something. All this change should mean is... your roster will get there someday, but today is not that day.

If you have a buick and you bring it to a street race, you probably are biting off more than you can chew. If the other guy's engine blew and you won by default, consider yourself lucky... but don't think you actually deserved to win that race. And definitely, take your winnings and stop racing that buick! Wait until you have a fast car that can beat other fast cars! Or stick to races with other buicks! But please don't tell me that just because you won that one race, that your buick deserves to be in the same class as a ferrari. (Apologies to all buick owner's... not meant as a diss on the cars. Just an easy/short car name to type that isn't known for racing)

BartyMcDougal

Lol luckily I own a Dodge. 

Fact is, if you have cleared the rank requirement for SCL 8, you should be able to compete in SCL 8. If not compete, then at least not be completely blown out of the water, which is why it would make much more sense to have added a clearance level instead of spitting in the face of lower level SCL 8 players by telling them their hard work to get to SCL 8 suddenly has to be doubled to compete there. Maybe it's not as widespread a problem as I think, but it's certainly a problem for most of the players in my alliance. Our daily activity has already decreased dramatically since the change.

Note that I'm not disagreeing with the purpose of the change, I get it. The implementation is a disaster. It's not a participation trophy problem...I'm absolutely not saying somebody with a 3* roster should earn the same rewards as somebody with a 5* roster, but D3 has needlessly crippled the rewards for early SCL 8 players to achieve that balance.

DyingLegend

I actually did better selecting SCL8 this time then in the past. Im in the top 100 and I normally sit around top 300 for the amount of effort it put in. I think mainly because there are less people in the slice or people gave up on the event. The difficulty really wasn't that bad in retrospect , and I have mainly 3 star roster w/ a few 4 stars maxed. Certain combinations of teams make the nodes super easy. Overall not a horrible experience for me, and I got the same rewards for the same amount of effort in past events but now at a higher placement reward.

Magic

Should you really be able to compete in rank 8? It is open for players with rank 49 (or something like that). This is a big mistake for devs. How come you think a player in rank 49 should be able to compete with a guy at 98? They shouldn't. But they were able to due to scaling. This change takes away the field leveling. I guess it would make more sense to open scl8 for 80+.

I know my place in this game. I am ranking 97 and I don't have championed 5*. So I don't expect to do well in scl8 (but I can clear it, it is just a grind). I do ok in scl7 and I could probably dominate  (to a degree) in 6 and below. I am not interested in doing that so I stick to 7. And this change is exactly what I needed. 

I mean no disrespect to anybody. Just pointing out that the field leveling was not a fair system. Sure - the rich will get richer but not only they. All the player who take the scl  they are happy with will do better. It just means that some will have to do worse than they were doing so far. 

Nepenthe

Part of the issue here is SHIELD Rank is a pretty terrible judge of roster strength.  There's a lot of ways to get xp that don't correlate with your roster improving at all. So people with 3* rosters were previously able to play in SC8, which was great for them but not really what the SC levels were intended to be.

I don't have any 5* champs yet (though there's 2 I could champ if I had a million iso laying around) but I stayed in SC8 for the test. I'm currently on track for a top 10 finish, though.  It's not always going to be 5* rosters winning everything.

I'm delighted that now when I do start leveling up my 5*s, it's not going to ruin my game by making scaling harder. I hope they add a SC9 soon so I'll have something to aim for next, too.  The best part of this system is that making progress on your roster will actually mean something, instead of just being a treadmill that gets steeper as you get stronger.

DyingLegend

So I don't understand why people are having an issue with this event. Yes it's tougher, or so I thought at first. I'm shield rank 72 with 4 max 4 star characters, the rest are mainly over 190 three stars minus 5 of them and underdeveloped 4 stars. I beat this event using one team and minimal health packs with a simple strategy. Peggy on left/ patch middle/im40 on right. Patch then covers all the colors as he is boosted. Quick strategy is to get yellow. Once yellow goes off match over. Peggy stuns, patchs red deal 20k and then his green puts tiles to destroy the team while stunned, then Peggy's blue goes off for over 20k. Very simple and could have won at higher levels. It's not tough you have to use some strategy in a puzzle game. As for the bulleyes defense plus lieutenant healing, come one that hurts for a few waves but bulleyes takes a bit of ap to get rolling and any character that stuns can dismantle that combo. I mean most nodes were 1 ai plus 2 goons. Im40 and patch combo plus whoever is enough to win. I dunno I don't see an issue with the event other than the scl7 rewards are too similar to scl8 so really why even select scl8, you know what you getting into, they showed you the levels when you selected the event or was that extra psylocke cover worth the pain? Plus it was a test, next event looks like it's business as usual.

 The real pain point in mpq is pvp, I feel everyone knows that and has accepted it haha 

finlanderboy

I agree with magic on the concept but disagree what it takes to finish scl8.  I just hit level 100.  I have no 5stars worth using and 36 4 star champs.  I went through SCL8 easily.  My 280+ champs easily won max progression on this.

TPF Alexis

I think a large part of the issue is where they chose to put the cutoff for SCL 8. Especially that they moved it down 5 Ranks for this test. Almost no one at Rank 47-52 is going to have a Roster that can handle the trial SCL8 Scaling, but the way they set the cutoff, it's a strong implication that the Devs think they should be able to. That sets players up for disappointment.

Starfury

Magic said:

This change was designed for one purpose - remove softcapping from the game. I think it work well in that regard as players with softcapped rosters can't compete in scl8 (and some - even in scl7). Both thumbs up for this. 

Absolutely agree.

However, the devs need to be careful that they find a way to limit the impact of "intruders" in lower SCL ranks.
Or just get rid of placement, because after this change, PvE absolutely won't happen on a level playing field anymore.

moss04

As others have already stated, SC ranks are a horrible way of gauging roster strength.  If they are going to have node difficulty/level be fixed by SCL's they should instead determine access to the SCL's by averaging the level of your top 5 or 6 characters.

So if SCL 8 is level 300-400 your top 6 characters (including weekly boosts) should have an average level of perhaps 300 (for example, not sure what the best numbers would be).

orbitalint

moss04 said:

As others have already stated, SC ranks are a horrible way of gauging roster strength.  If they are going to have node difficulty/level be fixed by SCL's they should instead determine access to the SCL's by averaging the level of your top 5 or 6 characters.

So if SCL 8 is level 300-400 your top 6 characters (including weekly boosts) should have an average level of perhaps 300 (for example, not sure what the best numbers would be).

Completely agree. SCL's open up way too fast for even a modestly dedicated player in the first 3-6 months of starting. And unless you are putting in vast amounts of money, 3-6 months of play probably gets you somewhere in the early end of the 3* progression with a smattering of 4*'s. 

I don't buy "get a better roster" because the devs have total control over when these SCL's open up for people and they give out XP like candy. I just farmed my 90th OBW? Here, have some more XP, even though it is a terrible gauge of roster strength and ability to play in something like the test SCL8 scaling. Why dangle new "better" prizes in SCL8 only to make them a competitive speed bump in the bracket because their roster is nowhere near ready for 300+ scaling to be able to do full clears, maybe not even hit most progressions.

I've played pretty consistently for 3 years and this the last few months tell me they don't have a firm grasp on their entire game anymore and the incentives they built into it. They just layer one solution on another problem and hope it fixes 50% of the issues. They've lost their way and I'm convinced they are in full blown whale catering to get them engaged for a bit longer as the player base has crumbled. Getting more top-end rosters to play PVE again is a way to do it. 

KC_Hammer

I am currently in the middle of the 3*  to 4* transition and I was able to get full progression in SCL8 just fine, but now am suddenly not able to get the same level of rewards because I can't compete with level 400 enemies. I have most 3* and two 4* champs, and my only reasonable avenue to 4*s is through command points. I do not like this change, and will not renew my VIP if it stays.

Crnch73

KC_Hammer said:

I am currently in the middle of the 3*  to 4* transition and I was able to get full progression in SCL8 just fine, but now am suddenly not able to get the same level of rewards because I can't compete with level 400 enemies. I have most 3* and two 4* champs, and my only reasonable avenue to 4*s is through command points. I do not like this change, and will not renew my VIP if it stays.

 Again, just because you were able to unlock SCL8, it wasn't right of them to make it easy enough to compete for placement with people with multiple champed 5's. You might have been playing SCL8 and only seeing enemies at what? Level 250? They were also playing SCL8 and facing level 450 enemies? This was punishing people who had great rosters while also rewarding you, thus making roster "progress" pointless. If 2 people play for 2 hours a day, the better roster or better strategist deserves to win... period. I am sorry you are having to play to a lower amount of CP, but you were earning rewards that you shouldn't have been. This change is the most fair (even if unpopular) change I have seen for all players. It was unfairly tilted towards the lower rosters, now they fixed it... sure it stings but it was very unfair before.

Better rosters win more, simple as that. Their only misdeed was ever allowing for someone who is essentially a 3* player to ever play SCL8 in the first place, because now it feels like things were taken from you. In reality, you were being allowed entry to a club you really didn't belong being in. You were getting the best rewards... but you haven't earned that right yet because you haven't spent the time/money required to get the best roster. The highest SCL available should be gated behind roster strength, which it now is. Those people who can handle the harder nodes now get the best rewards... That is extremely fair. They either worked hard/long or paid a lot of money to get a great roster, they deserve to reap some sort of benefit from that in PVE.

You (and me as well) belonged in the minor leagues, they belonged in the majors. We were allowed to play with the big boys for a small amount of time, but we need to go back to where we belong.

Sim Mayor

I really just don't understand the complaint here. I have ZERO champed 4* characters, my best 5* character has 4 covers (Civil War Iron Man), and my Old Man Logan just got nerfed, and I play SCL8 every time.

Do I get frustrated when something I'm doing isn't working? Yep.

Do I give up? Nope. I look at what's beating me and build a team around beating it. Muscles dropping too many high-level strike tokens? Spider-Woman. Opponent with a mega-damage move? Get a protector on your team. CPU gets a super-drop with 6 crit tiles in a row? That sucks. Heal up and try again, what are the odds it'll happen twice?

Look, I'm not a "Git Gud Bro" type. I recognize that it's upsetting when you aren't winning the way you expect to. But seriously, challenges are fun because they're hard. If you don't want to do something hard, play at a lower level and enjoy a chill game. But don't blame the developers for giving those of us who want to enjoy a challenge something new to play against.