Mixed messages from D3 - don't we all want to feel heroic?

Zifna

I've been thinking a great deal about one part of DaveCazz's eloquent departure post recently:

If you don't manage your MMR you will eventually go up against 395 level baddies, if you do manage your MMR, you have to take damage on every single fight which is incredibly unrewarding. I don't want to just idly make matches until the enemy fires off 3 to 4 good shots against me and then kill them off. I want to crush them. and I want to crush 10 more teams after that.

Right now, I feel like we're getting very mixed messages from D3. We're playing a superhero game. We're supposed to be super! Awesome! Intimidating! You're supposed to work your way up from the scrappy little guy or gal to the invincible badass. But, if you actually play like an invincible badass, you can't win PvE reliably.

I feel like this is what D3 is saying:



Intentionally holding back from your full power may take skill, but NEVER BEING ABLE TO LET LOOSE is just stifling. Carefully playing each match, getting to a winning point, and then allowing my characters to take damage may take skill, but it feels dumb, unheroic, and completely not fun.

Would it be so unreasonable to scale nodes based on the quantity and level of available characters? For example, a player with a solid roster of 85s might face a maximum level of 125. A player with a few 141s might face a higher maximum (200?), which would slightly increase as you maxed more characters to represent the strength gained in flexibility of roster.

Even if my suggestions are off-base (either in numeric values or general bent), something needs to be done. Let's let people "run at full speed" and be proud and happy of the characters they level - don't make us level a 141 only to intentionally get her punched in the gut.

Unknown

You can run a maxed team in pve, go nuts with your skills and still deal with scaling in the current 2.5hr refresh time. I've been using hulk, daken and psylocke. It's a wicked fun team to run and with his buff my hulk is basically the normal maxed lvl. This team means I can't overwrite enemy tiles, so goons hit me once and a while. I try to make sure hulk gets the hit and trigger anger. Psylocke gets a mad cheap red and her black is awesome imo. Anyway, i've been using this team in almost every node, doing a couple of nodes each refresh and scaling has been minimal.

Now if you just run patch and cmag and decimate because you're in a hurry, your scaling will probably be worse. But head my advice, experiment in pve, try some teams you think might be fun (though not perfect) try out new things, just don't try to get through a match without taking a hit. And finally don't grind too much it's a lot of work and can mess with your scaling.

Unknown

Some of the nodes I just take whoever is currently buffed and throw them at the encounter. Wolverine + OBW + HT? Sure, why not?

reckless442

Shamusyeah wrote:

You can run a maxed team in pve, go nuts with your skills and still deal with scaling in the current 2.5hr refresh time. I've been using hulk, daken and psylocke. It's a wicked fun team to run and with his buff my hulk is basically the normal maxed lvl. This team means I can't overwrite enemy tiles, so goons hit me once and a while. I try to make sure hulk gets the hit and trigger anger. Psylocke gets a mad cheap red and her black is awesome imo. Anyway, i've been using this team in almost every node, doing a couple of nodes each refresh and scaling has been minimal.

Now if you just run patch and cmag and decimate because you're in a hurry, your scaling will probably be worse. But head my advice, experiment in pve, try some teams you think might be fun (though not perfect) try out new things, just don't try to get through a match without taking a hit. And finally don't grind too much it's a lot of work and can mess with your scaling.

That's great, Shamus. I've been running that same team and carving through opponents. My scaling has been rising steadily. I switch Daken out occasionally for Falcon on goon nodes and sometimes toss in Lazy Thor for Psylocke too. I still can't overwrite tiles, but unless I deliberately go out of my way to take damage, I don't take very much. I will try tanking PVE and sending out teams with high health to get killed by level 270 Mags/Hood. But that might, at best, drop the levels by 10 -- and they go right back up after one victory.

The OP's point is well-taken. Avoiding damage should not be a sin. It takes a smart player using optimal strategy to avoid damage in many battles. That doesn't mean the battle is not a challenge, but the game fails to understand that escaping unscathed is not the same as escaping unchallenged. It's crazy that you get punished for playing optimally.

HairyDave

The last couple of PVEs I've been playing a metagame with myself - how many nodes can I get through without healing and just using whoever is super-buffed. Laken, Ares & Moonstone were actually a load of fun and did surprisingly well at not getting too mangled.

Hulk, OBW & AWolvie it's not really an issue

Shadow

If this post was actually in prior PvE events, I would agree with the OP.

However, in the current PvE, what I've noticed is that scaling has become adaptive in nature. It scales to the point that it thinks you can handle. Sometimes, it overshoots but when it does, it goes back again pretty soon. You just have to be able to manage it. The way people are grinding now, the previous scaling mechanism would have ballooned to the point of everything being becoming deadly. Now, other than the mags/hood node, the rest are classified as "normal".

With the recent changes to PvE - the removal of community scaling, adaptive personal scaling, 2.5 hr refreshes, the updated client, it seems that the devs want people to grind PvE and they have removed the biggest obstacle that prevents grinding which is the scaling. The effect of rubberbanding has also been reduced such that if you aren't consistently grinding, then it will be quite hard to catch up with the leaders. Are these changes good or bad? I have no idea.

Twysta

Shadow wrote:

the devs want people to grind PvE and they have removed the biggest obstacle that prevents grinding which is the scaling.

Are we playing the same game?

hurcules

I would say it's "working as intended", because with great power comes great responsibility

Sure you can harness the power of a Hulk and smash a few baddies' heads in, but do you want to level a city while doing that? Remember, power is nothing without control, so take some damage, jump in front of a high speed truck and protect the innocent people! </s>

Unknown

My scaling from the very start of this event has been stupid, lost many a fight in an attempt to lower nodes. Presently I've taken to going in and doing countdown nodes with my 1* black widow, 1* storm and hulk, man it's working out a treat!! Still use my 2* black widow on the combat nodes but I am limiting the healing. it's such a shame that for playing well you are punished but if this and previous events have taught me anything, it is to be versatile with the team you take in!!

Zifna

hurcules wrote:

jump in front of a high speed truck and protect the innocent people! </s>

I know you were being sarcastic, but this just made me think... I feel like the only thing we are protecting is Ares' ego.