GothicKratos wrote: No, you're definitely not alone on that, and I feel ya as far as transparency is concerned, but on the other side of the fence, if they give too much information, people just use that to game the system.
MyFeetStink wrote: My alliance mate sent a e-mail to MPQ support about PVE difficulty: Last night I attempted Maggia Assault IV 9 times. I lost 8 of those times when their levels were 222. I tried every roster combination available to me. When I woke up this morning their levels had scaled to 247-248. Why is the game making the nodes harder despite the fact that I cannot complete them on the lower levels? If it is some sort of community scaling, why choose that form when this is not a community game it is a single player game? I found the response he got back from MPQ support interesting: Thank you for contacting D3P Customer Support.When entering a PvE event/sub-event for the first time, the AI reviews your current Roster (including buffs/restrictions), and bases the initial mission difficulty based on your top three characters. Many (but not all) of the nodes in the easier missions are capped at a fairly low level, which means they appear artificially low to a high level team; somewhere between 30-50 usually. Then, when you make the jump to harder missions, it looks really stark because you are jumping up to the level you should be playing against, without the caps. The PvE mission difficulty is also adjusted in response to not only your overall PvE performance, but the overall PvE performance of all other players who have chosen the same event end time, or 'time shard'. These events are built for each individual player, enabling all players to encounter equally difficult foes. Due to this mechanism, opponent levels are based on that of the player's roster level and, as a result, even less robust rosters with fewer characters still have an opportunity to compete. Please keep in mind that if you enter a PvE event for the first time with a Roster, and then quickly make changes, that event is not going to re-calibrate to the new Roster. You will need to enter another, brand new event/sub-event to see your current Roster changes reflected in the missions. Does this explanation of the PvE event matchmaking system coincide with what you are experiencing? Interesting part is bolded. I found this interesting in light of the previous thread about PVE roster levels and difficulty http://www.d3pforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=26077. That thread left me with the take away of: PVE scaling is based on personal performance and community scaling. This means we can feel free to upgrade our 3* roster without fear it will impact PVE, just continue to use 2* in PVE. However as soon as you start using upgraded 3* in PVE, expect your scaling to go crazy to the point that you will likely be unable to use un-boosted 2* any longer. Based on the response my alliance mate received from support, my take away was 100% off. Your top three characters seem to have everything to do with defining your PVE difficulty, regardless of if you use them or not. Performance comes into play as well, but the previous plan of only using 2* in PVE so as to not impact scaling is obviously flawed. Regardless of how the system works, it I do find it very frustrating that MPQ does not authoritatively answer the question of what defines PVE scaling. If we agree with their process or not is besides the point, as it stands now as players we are not in a position to make educated decisions, impacting overall enjoyment of the game. Based on this response from support, if you play mostly PVE it sounds as if maxing out at 94 for all characters is the best thing to do, and understanding that you are not likely to do well in PVP. If you do want to upgrade past lvl 94 its likely best to wait until you can upgrade five or six characters at once so as to not get stuck playing with the same team over and over again.
Last night I attempted Maggia Assault IV 9 times. I lost 8 of those times when their levels were 222. I tried every roster combination available to me. When I woke up this morning their levels had scaled to 247-248. Why is the game making the nodes harder despite the fact that I cannot complete them on the lower levels? If it is some sort of community scaling, why choose that form when this is not a community game it is a single player game?
Thank you for contacting D3P Customer Support.When entering a PvE event/sub-event for the first time, the AI reviews your current Roster (including buffs/restrictions), and bases the initial mission difficulty based on your top three characters. Many (but not all) of the nodes in the easier missions are capped at a fairly low level, which means they appear artificially low to a high level team; somewhere between 30-50 usually. Then, when you make the jump to harder missions, it looks really stark because you are jumping up to the level you should be playing against, without the caps. The PvE mission difficulty is also adjusted in response to not only your overall PvE performance, but the overall PvE performance of all other players who have chosen the same event end time, or 'time shard'. These events are built for each individual player, enabling all players to encounter equally difficult foes. Due to this mechanism, opponent levels are based on that of the player's roster level and, as a result, even less robust rosters with fewer characters still have an opportunity to compete. Please keep in mind that if you enter a PvE event for the first time with a Roster, and then quickly make changes, that event is not going to re-calibrate to the new Roster. You will need to enter another, brand new event/sub-event to see your current Roster changes reflected in the missions. Does this explanation of the PvE event matchmaking system coincide with what you are experiencing?
PVE scaling is based on personal performance and community scaling. This means we can feel free to upgrade our 3* roster without fear it will impact PVE, just continue to use 2* in PVE. However as soon as you start using upgraded 3* in PVE, expect your scaling to go crazy to the point that you will likely be unable to use un-boosted 2* any longer.
Scoregasms wrote: GothicKratos wrote: No, you're definitely not alone on that, and I feel ya as far as transparency is concerned, but on the other side of the fence, if they give too much information, people just use that to game the system. This whole "game the system" response comes up a lot and I just don't buy it anymore honestly. There are always min maxers in successful games that lead the way for the rest of the pack. How exactly would one game the system? Take damage every battle? Some folks call that smart play. Use lower level characters instead of maxing? There are entire alliances that do this. The one valid reason I can think of is that the answer goes against their business goals, which is to not level all your characters. Unless you want to pvp of course, then by all means, but we're talking pve here. I need some concrete examples of what this statement means at this point, are folks worried they'll nerf the best characters? Pretty sure we know that answer, lol. Transparency is still more important, it's not like we can reduce character levels, I enjoy game more when I know how exactly they work and put more effort in personally. Unless someone gives a legit reason or way for one to game the system that isn't already actively being done, folks need to be more careful when using this response.
In security engineering, security through obscurity is the use of secrecy of the design or implementation to provide security. A system relying on security through obscurity may have theoretical or actual security vulnerabilities, but its owners or designers believe that if the flaws are not known, then attackers will be unlikely to find them. ... Security through obscurity is discouraged and not recommended by standards bodies. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the United States specifically recommends against this practice: "System security should not depend on the secrecy of the implementation or its components."