This Game Isn't Fun Anymore

Unknown

ZenBrillig wrote:

daveomite wrote:

By day 2 or 3 of the Hunt, I now had a leveled Torch, and had leveled Spidey. Up to that point, things seemed about normal, challenging nodes, but not every one "Deadly". By day 4 though, that changed, a lot. I saw nodes start changing immediately after playing them, watched as what was a 100+ node jump to a 200+ node. By day six, I got my first 395 node, then day seven, two of the Bullseye nodes were 395, and the other 300+, and Ares and countless other ones were now 300+. On day eight, all of the Bullseye nodes were 395, the Ares node 395, and a couple of others, virtually every other node were now 300+.

At that point, I had no choice but to use Spidey. None. There was no way my normal team of Torch/mThor/OBW could cause enough damage fast enough to a 300 team, much less a 395 one. Not to mention, the constant lucky tile drops of the AI, within 3-4 turns, I was dead. Regardless, I still made it through the Hunt, was 21 in my overall bracket, in and out of the top 20 constantly, and had over 115k in the end. That was purely because I was unwilling to give up, and just put more and more time in trying levels, dying, prologue to heal, trying a again.

Look, presumably you're aware that not everyone has this scaling issue. This means that you're doing something that makes the computer want to smack you down, and you know it.

So, when faced with a 395 node, you had two alternatives:

1) Try to figure out what you're doing that the system doesn't like and adapt.
2) Continue to work through the 395 nodes with mechanics that you know are broken.

If you chose #2, why would you expect the system to do anything but try even harder to crush you? It's not that you had no choice, it's that you consistently made choices that led to 395 nodes, and then continued to perpetuate them.

Patient: Doctor, it hurts when I do this.
Doctor: Then stop doing it.

Wow, thanks for your really constructive input there. I bet that helped a lot.

P.S. Glad you're in the MINORITY of people in this thread who don't seem adversely affected by scaling. Bully for you. Any particular reason you don't feel able to let those who are discuss it without sarcastic replies?

Patient: Doctor, doctor, have you got something for a headache?
Doctor: Yes, take this hammer and hit yourself on the head.

over_clocked

The major thing that annoys me is that the game provides you with these 'broken' mechanics and then promptly punishes you for using those.
Um, I'm SO happy the brilliant mind behind that scheme wasn't upbringing me - I would be just as broken and random! That's Psychology 101 if I'm not mistaken.
Prologue is there to teach you to play optimally: try not to take too much damge or your precious heroes will die. Why the same can't be applied to other stages of the game, is beyond me. Healthpacks only provide like less than 5% of their revenue anyway *pout*


Meanwhile sales of reskins for the characters would help the revenue skyrocket.
Spidey, in the BLACK SUIT! Wolverine - in a movie leather jacket (omgsheesh fangasm)! DAKEN SHIRTLESS WOOOO <--- lol forgot the gals, but there:
Malice IW!!!!!! I WOULD PAY FOR THAT IF I COULD

^ I would actually draw some FOR FREE if they just removed the silly damage taken mechanic altogether

Unknown

locked wrote:

TheUnwiseOne wrote:

I didn't say anything or mention prizes at all in any of my responses so that point is null and void. My topic is about scaling and how its completely different across the board. I play the game an hour a day. Never more than two.i don't care fir the prizes nor where i finish. I am happy getting 700-800 points. If that makes me top 10 then great, if not then no biggy.

My issue is that the developers need to explain how the scaling works to its users. Clarify it. Nothing more. Not about how i must win every cover under the sun.

Pretty sure that information won't be disclosed - while I am sure of your motives, TU1, many others will try to game the system or something for their personal benefit (no blame here, just stating the fact). E.g. we know already that amount of damage taken matters a lot. So the best you can do is suicide your Hulks/BPs/buffed Ares and Thor/LT/IM 40/whoever. And not just by retreating, but by being beaten by lvl 300 one stars - humiliating but what gives. I hear that people that have the patience to do that get great results scaling wise.
And probably do that several times per sub as well. No healing, just none - unless you're losing a critical match otherwise. No City hot dogs for you!
I think stunlocking is fine if you don't heal to full at the end of the match. Just play as bad as you can and take as much damage as you can after you basically won the game to fool the system.
There, the devs won't tell that to you, but they actually want you to play poorly and compensate with money instead.

Edit: I'm fine with not getting top 10 or top 20 as long as I get the essential covers, so will try to do just that and stick to lesser ISO/HP rewards in PvE.

I appreciate that you're giving advice here locked, and being helpful.

However, surely you have to agree that there are a couple of crazy things going on now. TU1's original complaint was barely being able to win a node, the scaling for him is so bad. Can we agree that's broken? It can't be what the Devs intend - removing the fun from the game so people don't want to play (which is what this thread was about, after all).

Also crazy is the strategy you're suggesting. It might work - but are we really so accepting of the game being fundamentally broken that we will deliberately play to lose, in the hope that later we might be able to play to win? That's getting quite surreal. Again, back to the topic - this game isn't fun any more. That is just not fun. It's not. And I think it's right and fair that the active, vocal forumites call that out to the Devs and ask them to consider changes.

We used to enjoy the game, and we want to again. Some recent changes have nerfed that enjoyment, so presumably future changes can buff it again. The Devs just have to listen, and care. But, ZenBrillig, if we don't take the time to tell them in the first place, how will they ever know?

scottee

I think the devs' goal is to for everyone to have challenging matches that they sometimes win and sometimes lose. I've never tried the game, but I hear Candy Crush had levels that it took many tries for people to pass. I'd think they want something like that. When players beat levels too easily, they did the only thing they could do to make it more challenging without actually changing the mechanics: scaling.

I do think part of this might have come out of a lack of desire to change spidey's stun mechanic, which made some levels beatable no matter how high the levels. I wish they would have balanced that mechanic instead of making crazy scaling. Simple scaling, maybe personal scaling that starts relative to your roster level, and then adjusts depending how well you do, would be perfect.

The community scaling seemed like it was put in to counter all the players (forumites) who figured out rubberbanding and were only playing at the very end of events and sub-events.

But I agree with locked that divulging the scaling mechanic would only serve to have people gaming the system more, not less.

Unknown

locked wrote:

There, the devs won't tell that to you, but they actually want you to play poorly and compensate with money instead.

But what's especially confusing to me is that in addition to all this junk being unfun, I don't see how it makes anyone more likely to spend money?

Before, if you were missing an essential or featured hero, the event token pack was very attractive: Guaranteed hero and probably at least one or two others you need. Now, even though they're cheaper, they are likely to not have that immediate value.

With scaling, boosts just make things worse for you so there's no reason to buy them. Health packs don't help when community scaling causes an insurmountable wall.

ISO needs to be SEVERELY marked down to be worth considering buying.

The only change I can see actually increasing their revenue is the change to only giving out one 2* cover in rewards

If d3p wants to encourage people to spend money to progress faster, fine, that's the whole point of this game existing. But it's not just that these changes make the game more unfun and less rewarding, it's that I can't see how they encourage people to spend, either

Unknown

I started playing when it was released on Steam, since I like Marvel and liked the Puzzle Quest game for the DS. The good thing about the F2P model is that you can just try the game if you feel like it, no strings attached. But then there are the downsides to the model.

With the ol' "pay upfront for the finished product" model, devs had to make you buy the game, and if they had any forethought, make it good enough to make you buy the next.
With MMORPGs you could have subscriptions, where retention is key. Devs keep players satisfied, players keep paying the subscription.

Now with this trend of the F2P model, you don't have a fixed price or a fixed subscription, the money you get is determined by how much can you make players pay. That's what I don't like about micro transactions, it's less about costumer satisfaction, more about metrics. Less about making a great game, more about making a game that pushes the right buttons in people. Devs go where the money is. New players are paying more? Cater to them. Veterans got a foothold and are not spending anymore? Try to make them. And considering the game is free, it needs to be in constant development for people to keep paying for it.

So it always feels to me when playing F2P games like there's this tug of war between players and devs, where costumer satisfaction is more of a compromise they are willing to make. With every little tweak in the game, I have to see if it's to make the game better and/or more profitable.

Disclaimer: Even though I'm over 100 days in, I just recently started being more active, joining alliances and such, so I'm just starting the transition to 3*. I can't say anything about the scaling issue in PvE because it rarely gets out of hand for me, only if I don't have the featured hero things start to get nasty.

Unknown

scottee wrote:

I do think part of this might have come out of a lack of desire to change spidey's stun mechanic, which made some levels beatable no matter how high the levels. I wish they would have balanced that mechanic instead of making crazy scaling. Simple scaling, maybe personal scaling that starts relative to your roster level, and then adjusts depending how well you do, would be ...[Super smashing great]

Doh, I was too heavy on the delete key when snipping that quote.

Anyway, yeah, I agree. Also, as other people have suggested, level caps on nodes. So, even if you are awesome at MPQ and Sim10 scales to 395, Sim01 still tops out at 100 so that if you want to play easier games for some casual fun, you have that option. It's when EVERY node is "teh crazy" that it all gets a bit silly.

scottee

I think easy mode and hard mode for PVE's was an attempt to address this, but the problem is that high level players are still allowed to play easy mode.

I thought about making the suggestion in the suggestion sub forum that they should make easy mode capped to something like 2* and lower. They should also make two PVE events simultaneously, one limited to 2* (or even 1*) and then an unlimited one. That way, top players can still play in lower events, but they'd be restricted to the same rosters as others.

Unknown

allorin wrote:

Wow, thanks for your really constructive input there. I bet that helped a lot.

P.S. Glad you're in the MINORITY of people in this thread who don't seem adversely affected by scaling. Bully for you. Any particular reason you don't feel able to let those who are discuss it without sarcastic replies?

It's clear to see why you're having trouble anyway.

Adapt or die, tiny kitty. <-- that was sarcastic. I note this as a public service because you apparently have a problem detecting it. <-- that was also sarcastic. But true.

P.S. This is a forum, a place for exchanging ideas. If you can't deal with people with ideas counter to yours, I recommend staying off the Internets. If you're going to try to make it seem like scaling is some kind of epic disaster that's crippling the entire population of the game, well, I'm going to come in and point out how it's mainly self-inflicted, and not really that big a deal at all.

daveomite

ZenBrillig wrote:

allorin wrote:

Wow, thanks for your really constructive input there. I bet that helped a lot.

P.S. Glad you're in the MINORITY of people in this thread who don't seem adversely affected by scaling. Bully for you. Any particular reason you don't feel able to let those who are discuss it without sarcastic replies?

It's clear to see why you're having trouble anyway.

Adapt or die, tiny kitty. <-- that was sarcastic. I note this as a public service because you apparently have a problem detecting it. <-- that was also sarcastic. But true.

P.S. This is a forum, a place for exchanging ideas. If you can't deal with people with ideas counter to yours, I recommend staying off the Internets. If you're going to try to make it seem like scaling is some kind of epic disaster that's crippling the entire population of the game, well, I'm going to come in and point out how it's mainly self-inflicted, and not really that big a deal at all.

how does playing a game 2-3 hours a day usually "self inflict" high scaling then? Please, by all means, explain.

Unknown

TheUnwiseOne wrote:

So he,i and countless others are "doing something the computer doesn't like"?

Sure makes perfect sense. I don't know how others play, but me, i do the essential nodes and that's it. That means i do a total of 18 games every 24 to 30 hours in the 2 subs combined. There are a total of 10 nodes in each sub and most people would do them 3/4/5 times to get their rewards. Which if they did them just 4 times and had amazing luck to get all 4 rewards you are still looking at 80 games. And then most people would hit the refresh too.

So if my 18 games every 30 hours which most games take on avg 8 minutes which makes a total of just over 2 hours playtime is enough to drive up scaling then hell i may as well not bother playing the game cause that makes absolutely no sense when others do the exact same tactic and have no massive jump in scaling. That's why people are annoyed, because 100 different people could do the exact same thing and have completely different outcomes for reasons unknown. Not cause we are "doing something wrong with the game"

The highlighted is completely untrue. No one has shown any evidence that the system is anything but deterministic, i.e., not random. So if 100 different people did the exact same thing, they'd have exactly the same outcome. The fact that you think that it's possible just means that the behavior that's problematic is something you're currently not considering.

Puritas

All this bickering about how scaling works is irrelevant, because nobody here knows the exact details anyway.

Sure spending some time looking through the forums would probably give you some ideas on how to bring it down, but that doesn't change the fact that

a) some people are struggling with nodes that are either uncompletable or require ~10 minutes of gameplay that is anything but fun
b) the entire system, how it works, and even the fact that exists is incredibly opaque to the vast majority of the population

Unknown

ZenBrillig wrote:

allorin wrote:

Wow, thanks for your really constructive input there. I bet that helped a lot.

P.S. Glad you're in the MINORITY of people in this thread who don't seem adversely affected by scaling. Bully for you. Any particular reason you don't feel able to let those who are discuss it without sarcastic replies?

It's clear to see why you're having trouble anyway.

Adapt or die, tiny kitty. <-- that was sarcastic. I note this as a public service because you apparently have a problem detecting it. <-- that was also sarcastic. But true.

P.S. This is a forum, a place for exchanging ideas. If you can't deal with people with ideas counter to yours, I recommend staying off the Internets. If you're going to try to make it seem like scaling is some kind of epic disaster that's crippling the entire population of the game, well, I'm going to come in and point out how it's mainly self-inflicted, and not really that big a deal at all.

If you go back and look at the post I called you on, you weren't sharing an idea. You were telling davomite he wasn't playing the game properly. And being a ****. And I respect your right to be a **** on teh 'net - after all, you can't help it.

Also, given I called you on being sarcastic, I don't understand why you think I can't detect sarcasm. Oh, unless you're a bit thick of course. Then that would make sense.

That is sarcasm.

daveomite

ZenBrillig wrote:

TheUnwiseOne wrote:

So he,i and countless others are "doing something the computer doesn't like"?

Sure makes perfect sense. I don't know how others play, but me, i do the essential nodes and that's it. That means i do a total of 18 games every 24 to 30 hours in the 2 subs combined. There are a total of 10 nodes in each sub and most people would do them 3/4/5 times to get their rewards. Which if they did them just 4 times and had amazing luck to get all 4 rewards you are still looking at 80 games. And then most people would hit the refresh too.

So if my 18 games every 30 hours which most games take on avg 8 minutes which makes a total of just over 2 hours playtime is enough to drive up scaling then hell i may as well not bother playing the game cause that makes absolutely no sense when others do the exact same tactic and have no massive jump in scaling. That's why people are annoyed, because 100 different people could do the exact same thing and have completely different outcomes for reasons unknown. Not cause we are "doing something wrong with the game"

The highlighted is completely untrue. No one has shown any evidence that the system is anything but deterministic, i.e., not random. So if 100 different people did the exact same thing, they'd have exactly the same outcome. The fact that you think that it's possible just means that the behavior that's problematic is something you're currently not considering.

Since you seem to know so much about the complete inner workings of the game, again, please, elaborate us on what "behavior" you are so sure we do so differently from you.

Starting to wonder if you actually work for them. You seem to constantly tell us it's our fault because our behavior is obviously just so screwed up. Right. It simply can't be the system, it must be us. What are earth were we thinking?

Unknown

Puritas wrote:

a) some people are struggling with nodes that are either uncompletable or require ~10 minutes of gameplay that is anything but fun

This is where I try not to open the metrics argument again. But, some people were badly impacted by Demiurge dropping support for 1st gen iPads. This is arguably far worse than scaling, because those people haven't any recourse except to buy a new device! So, some people feel like they're getting treated badly. This is inevitable in any business with customers.

Meanwhile, there doesn't seem to be a lot of evidence that the scaling problem affects any but the "higher end" of the player-base, who might be expected to be a little savvier about banging their heads into brick walls.

Puritas wrote:

b) the entire system, how it works, and even the fact that exists is incredibly opaque to the vast majority of the population

How is that a problem, though? There are a great many systems in the real world that are incredibly opaque to the vast majority of the population, and we all seem to manage for the most part.

Scaling is a part of the meta-game, and I doubt that it would be sensible for Demiurge to disclose much about it anyway, because it's almost certainly constantly changing (witness the recent MMR changes, for example).

HailMary

ZenBrillig wrote:

P.S. This is a forum, a place for exchanging ideas. If you can't deal with people with ideas counter to yours, I recommend staying off the Internets.

<looks at what ZenBrillig wrote right before that bit>

You're just adorable.

ZenBrillig wrote:

If you're going to try to make it seem like scaling is some kind of epic disaster that's crippling the entire population of the game, well, I'm going to come in and point out how it's mainly self-inflicted, and not really that big a deal at all.

If you're going to pretend to take "exact same thing" in TU1's comment literally, you might wish to tone down the casual hyperbole in your own "interpretations" of other comments. I assume you have, at minimum, a passing familiarity with the concept of "hypocrisy."

Oh, and just in case you're going to soapbox about me simply going out of my way to goad the game into smacking me down (because we should clearly treat game mechanics as if they were a herd of nervous rhinos), I have wonderful scaling. I simply don't pretend that the seemingly arbitrary nature of the scaling algorithm isn't a problem.

ZenBrillig wrote:

How is that a problem, though? There are a great many systems in the real world that are incredibly opaque to the vast majority of the population, and we all seem to manage for the most part.

Yes, let's definitely draw parallels to major real-world systems: anyone who complains about an economic crisis brought on by the manipulation of complex financial derivatives (or LTCM) is just a whiner who brought it on himself by not simply stockpiling cash in his closet. That makes sense.

P.S. - In case you're wondering, I employ a strategy very similar to TU1's, and our roster strengths are comparable as well. His enemies are around 70-100 levels higher than mine.

Unknown

Please don't let this post descend into farce or the mods will lock it.

While i agree that everyone has opinion's, there is a way to state them without sounding like a ****. just because some aren't affected by scaling, doesn't mean others are not. Nobody knows the inner working of the game.

The point of this thread was to highlight mine and others problems with the game and discuss them in a reasonable manner. Just cause you don't have a problem with it does not give you the right to say "it's the users fault" As has been stated, scaling is affecting people with different rosters, gametime, grinding, rubberbanding. So it's clearly not the same.

Let others discuss the problem like it was for 8 pages without starting internet fights.

Unknown

I've been trying various lineups in this event and here's what I've found so far:

The game appears to use the higher of your personal scaling and community scaling. I was able to lower my personal rating at some point (hard bracket Simulator unlock mission went down by 12 levels), but the levels on hard bracket is unchanged. It later went back up and the levels are still unchanged. I noticed my mission went from 201 to 204 on the node I was using for suicide (Daken), so community scaling is increasing very slowly.

It appears to be pretty hard to tank your personal scaling when it's below community scaling, not that this actually makes any difference because the game will use the community scaling over your personal scaling if you managed to totally tank it. Based on what some people said in alliance I suspect tanking your personal scaling is easier when your personal scaling is above the community scaling but I haven't got my scaling above community scaling yet.

I was #2 in my overall bracket at the end of R1 and went up to #1 on both sub brackets for R2 after my usual preparation for sub bracket end so it's not like I'm doing an especailly low number of nodes.

You're allowed some flawless wins. On some of the essential nodes I couldn't figure out anything clever and just sent Magneto in and didn't notice any unusal spikes. It's a good idea to keep your broken characters staggered. For example if I used Magneto then I'd do the node where you have to fight Magneto next, which should balance out the previous easy win, and since Magneto can't even be used there, it's not like I have a choice in that node so you might as well do it after you used Magento (or Spiderman) to balance out your scaling.

You do not have to play poorly to keep scaling in check. Without using Spiderman or Magneto you'd never come close to what it takes for the crazy scaling to kick in. I ran Thor/The Hood/whoever as my primary team on the non essential nodes and it's easy to have pretty dominant wins, but The Hood can't prevent damage nor can he do any infinite combos and you'll still take a solid 3K total damage even when no special moves are ever used by the other side (3K is just 10 match 3s against level 230s).

What's unclear is what exactly is the amount of damage you have to take before significant scaling kicks in, and if this threshold is based on more than one game and if so how much are you allowed over a number of games.

Unknown

ZenBrillig wrote:

"higher end" of the player-base, who might be expected to be a little savvier about banging their heads into brick walls.

You see, this is what i mean. You don't know how each indivudual person plays the game. Some grind the nodes down while others maximize rubberbanding. Some play 5 hours and more a day, others play 1 or 2 and have similar scaling issues.

But nope, it cant possibly be the game's fault, just the ones who play it wrong.

scottee

Phantron wrote:

What's unclear is what exactly is the amount of damage you have to take before significant scaling kicks in, and if this threshold is based on more than one game and if so how much are you allowed over a number of games.

I have a theory that another way they could have accounted for "damage taken" in the scaling formula is to count how many rounds you won in, instead of how much damage was taken. Or it could even be the amount of AP gained by the end AI.

We know scaling is affected by more than just roster strength and previous ranking in events. It accounts not just for wins, but HOW you win. Again, it'd be much better if there just weren't OP characters like spidey and cmag, but they chose to deal with it the way they chose to deal with it.