Time to balance PvE scaling?

Unknown · April 2015

Recently, there have been multiple changes to the game in order to promote "varieties/diversity in PvP team composition", "pleasant atmosphere for transitioners in PvP", "to bring some un-popular characters to the spotlight", and so on. I know that before this we just had the "8 hours cooldown change" in PvE and that was indeed one of the changes that got a lot of positive feedbacks from the community. However, there is still one concern that I, and perhaps many other veteran players still have in mind regarding the current situation of PvE in the midst of these recent changes to the game.

Yes, that concern is about the PvE "Scaling". I know that the actual scaling formula still remains mystery until now, but I've been checking with different sources and played with some numbers enough to finally have some gut to make this post and taking some smites.

As some (or most) or us here in the forum know that the main beliefs of the personal PvE scaling are generally:
- You first page of roster
- 3 of your highest level characters
- Level of the characters that you use to win the matches
- Other ideas or whatever that might be

Now some of you may strongly disagree with me, but there are some that seriously think that their 4*s are not much stronger than some of the 3*s now especially after these changes. Before this, many of the 3*->4* transitioners and the high lv players were working their hands off to max XF and Thoress since they were the ultimate duo in meta game. So obviously those who managed to complete Xhor combo will be using them in PvE as well to counter the brutal PvE scaling. They might lived through Thoress nerf and managed to get their hands on this parade of new characters, but what will happen to them after XF nerf on the D Day 4/17? The difference between enemies level in PvE of the players who have maxed 4* and other 3*s VS players who have maxed 3*s is big. I strongly believe that players who spent so much resources and time to attain lv270 characters did not expect to be put in disadvantages in PvE by the scaling function since they already suffer enough on the nerf(s) themselves.

What I would like to suggest might not be too difficult to do, so please hear me out on this, I hope it's fair enough.
I know it's almost impossible to do anything with the current scaling without creating an uproar (when you top the balance toward one side of the players, the other side will rise up), so how about you "reset" the starting level for personal scaling for once, and use the function of "Level of the characters that you use to win the matches" and other usual indicators (like battle performance, Hit point remaining and etc.) to determine the personal/starting scaling afterward. This way no matter what kind of roster that you have, if you use use lv94 characters, you shall have same scaling as 2* players. BUT you must be consistent on this, so if you suddenly use lv166 characters in the hope to get matches done faster than those 2* players, you may get off with it for a few games, but after the game pick up that "your average level" has increased, your scaling will go up as a result, so you cannot take advantage of that level of scaling anymore.

P.S. One note that I would like to add regarding my personal scaling is that my starting level in Prodigal Sun PvE are completely the same between the event on (Apr 8 -14) and (Feb 24 - Mar 3) (the first one I played during Dec 15 - 22 has lower level because I only have Thoress as my only 4* character). Please note that my roster has greatly improved within this month time frame (lv220 Xhor, 7 maxed 3*s, a lv166 Nick, and a few above lv115 in the beginning of April; lv220Xhor, 4 maxed 3*s and a lv120 3* in the beginning of March). What's remain unchanged between 2 events is the "average level on first page of my roster". However, since March 27 on the ISO Brother hood event, I've started to use only 3*s in PvE, only a few matches (can count and name them) I resorted to Thoress OR XF, this was done after I read NP's post about not using maxed 4* in order to maintain the scaling. It's been a few events since then and I'm enjoying using the 3*s so far. Please also excuse my language, as I'm not the native speaker. Thank you for reading and comments.

TL;DR I would like to suggest to "reset" the "starting PvE level" and let the game determine it later based on the characters that you use to complete the nodes. The main objective of this idea is to promote the fair ground between players who use similar level of characters in PvE, but their rosters have different "highest level characters".
With this suggestion, it can at least help the veterans who have lv270 characters and don't intend to use those characters in PvE to be able to compete with manageable scaling when they try to play with their 3* characters. And if they decide to constantly use those lv270s, their scaling will rise back up again as a result.

Unknown · April 2015

Dreadlord's suggestion about wiping the PvE slate clean following a major character update sounds fair to me. If the developer gets a do-over, so should the player.

DaveR4470 · April 2015

Interesting concept... but at first blush, I think this would be too easy to game. The purpose of scaling is so that everyone is competing on a level playing field for the placement awards from a difficulty/chance of defeating the node perspective (other than the nodes that are capped at a certain max level). If I'm a vet, under your system I use my lower-level characters during the first part of the event, then later on I switch to my powerful characters and grind away at nodes that are not scaled up to the proper relative difficulty. Meanwhile, the non-vet players are facing scaled-up nodes.

That's probably an imbalance that the devs would not want to insert into the game.

An alternative to fix this would be voluntary "withdrawal" of characters from PvE, such that you can't use them but they're also not factored into the scaling. Ultimately, that only helps people with one or two disproportionately scaled-up character(s). Vets with broad rosters would still face a choice of either using strong chars and facing strong scaling, or using lesser characters and facing proportionately strong scaling.

I agree that scaling needs to be re-evaluated at some point, though.

MarvelMan · April 2015

DaveR4470 wrote:

Interesting concept... but at first blush, I think this would be too easy to game. The purpose of scaling is so that everyone is competing on a level playing field for the placement awards from a difficulty/chance of defeating the node perspective (other than the nodes that are capped at a certain max level). If I'm a vet, under your system I use my lower-level characters during the first part of the event, then later on I switch to my powerful characters and grind away at nodes that are not scaled up to the proper relative difficulty. Meanwhile, the non-vet players are facing scaled-up nodes.

His proposal would factor that in. If someone was choosing to use only 2* chars to beat the nodes, their scaling would reflect that of a 2* player. If they used a 4* to beat a fight, their scaling would immediately start to rise to the level of a 4* player (since they would effectively be playing as one).

It would require finesse so that it would be harder to game, as I can see people fighting with 2*s the entire time then pulling out their 4*s for the last hour and leaving the other people in the dust.

simonsez · April 2015

They need to do two things that are really easy to do:

1) lower the level cap significantly from 395. That became the cap back when people had pre-nerf Spidey and CMag. It's absurd to think the game is anything like that anymore.

2) Get rid of nodes where goons feed usable AP to active characters. If the devs think magstique is an "exploit", how in hell is it not an exploit on the AI side when goons can enable Hood to hit Twin Pistols every 4th turn?

MarvelMan · April 2015

simonsez wrote:

They need to do two things that are really easy to do:

1) lower the level cap significantly from 395. That became the cap back when people had pre-nerf Spidey and CMag. It's absurd to think the game is anything like that anymore.

2) Get rid of nodes where goons feed usable AP to active characters. If the devs think magstique is an "exploit", how in hell is it not an exploit on the AI side when goons can enable Hood to hit Twin Pistols every 4th turn?

Yet people still see 395s.....and its fun when the AI does it. No?

Unknown · April 2015

Seriously, if they want more PVP diversity, the penalty for someone attacking you needs to go down even more. I have tons of characters that I would use in PVP, but I don't do it because I know the second I use them I am going to get attacked by a hundred people at once.

babinro · April 2015

Wouldn't reducing the impact of scaling make things too EASY for vets?

I'm not sure about you guys but when I look at the top 10 brackets of any given new character PvE I'm frequently left seeing SEVERAL 4* tier players (5 out of 10 in my Prodigal Sun bracket).

That seems kind of dominant for what accounts to a tiny fraction of the player base if you ask me. What makes you think we need things even EASIER?

By it's current design PvE is intended to be a mode where all tiers of play can compete and have a chance. Making life even easier for vets through scaling reduction isn't the answer. If you scale it back for EVERYONE then you run into the problem where we now all have to grind down nodes longer to accomplish the same thing. It's a battle of time investment more than ever before and therefore not a positive change in my opinion.

Stax the Foyer · April 2015

rooter wrote:

Seriously, if they want more PVP diversity, the penalty for someone attacking you needs to go down even more. I have tons of characters that I would use in PVP, but I don't do it because I know the second I use them I am going to get attacked by a hundred people at once.

Yup, the structure of the game forces you to use the best available team in PvP if you're planning to do anything other than coast. Nerfing the top two characters just means that the next two characters will step into that role.

PvE could offer a respite from that, but the crazy scaling forces you to either use the best team available or to tack on even more time to the hours and hours of grinding it takes to be competitive.

Unknown · April 2015

babinro wrote:

Wouldn't reducing the impact of scaling make things too EASY for vets?

I'm not sure about you guys but when I look at the top 10 brackets of any given new character PvE I'm frequently left seeing SEVERAL 4* tier players (5 out of 10 in my Prodigal Sun bracket).

This wouldn't be easier for vets at all, if they used their 94s they would have same scaling as any other 2* player. None of their 4* stuff helps until they use it and then it immidiatelly switches levels up. In fact, I would really love to see that idea since it really levels playing field and if someone think that lower levels have easier time with PvE they can do it themselves without demolishing all their 3* and 4*. As a huge bonus, it rewards people with rosters so deep they still have those leveled 1* and 2*, most of them are unique to that level and once you get high scaling you would never use them. This would allow you to fully utilize them and any new 2* they would add in.

Stax the Foyer · April 2015

babinro wrote:

Wouldn't reducing the impact of scaling make things too EASY for vets?

I'm not sure about you guys but when I look at the top 10 brackets of any given new character PvE I'm frequently left seeing SEVERAL 4* tier players (5 out of 10 in my Prodigal Sun bracket).

That seems kind of dominant for what accounts to a tiny fraction of the player base if you ask me. What makes you think we need things even EASIER?

By it's current design PvE is intended to be a mode where all tiers of play can compete and have a chance. Making life even easier for vets through scaling reduction isn't the answer. If you scale it back for EVERYONE then you run into the problem where we now all have to grind down nodes longer to accomplish the same thing. It's a battle of time investment more than ever before and therefore not a positive change in my opinion.

Those 4* teams aren't on top because of scaling, they're on top despite scaling. PvE with high scaling just tests luck and willingness to spend resources in terms of ISO, HP, and time.

You're conflating results with opportunity. Just because you've seen leaderboards dominated by 4* rosters doesn't mean that the playing field isn't currently level, or even tilted in favor of new players. Those same players would likely be on top of the leaderboard regardless of roster, because of some combination of time, resources, and/or not sleeping through an alarm.

simonsez · April 2015

Stax the Foyer wrote:

You're conflating results with opportunity. Just because you've seen leaderboards dominated by 4* rosters doesn't mean that the playing field isn't currently level, or even tilted in favor of new players. Those same players would likely be on top of the leaderboard regardless of roster, because of some combination of time, resources, and/or not sleeping through an alarm.

Exactly. You need to be kinda nuts and obsessive to have maxed out 4*s, which are precisely the traits you need to do well in PvE.

Eddiemon · April 2015

DreadL0rd wrote:

As some (or most) or us here in the forum know that the main beliefs of the personal PvE scaling are generally:
- You first page of roster
- 3 of your highest level characters
- Level of the characters that you use to win the matches
- Other ideas or whatever that might be

Why are beliefs relevant? If you believe scaling is based on the first letter of your account name does that mean that D3 should be making changes to the game?

Personal scaling is mostly based on your performance in previous events and on your performance in the current event. I've put the game down for a couple of months at a time and my scaling has gone through the floor each time.

Even now I don't see 300+ opponents and I aim for top 50/100 in most events. I don't get involved in the ridiculous grind for top 3. And the first page of my roster is 166s and a 220+ X Force. And of course there is the test they ran with an inexperienced account with an empty and fully stocked roster that generated a whole 5 levels of difficulty increase.

So if your personal scaling is mostly personal performance, why should they reset that? Are you saying that the character changes somehow change how you performed or the rewards you pocketed? Did you suddenly not grind religiously as required? And as that is the defining contributor, they will just scale back up to those levels again once you have run the board on 4 or 5 PvE events.

Unknown · April 2015

Several things have to be addressed in PvE/MPQ now that the MMR change has come into effect :

- PvE scaling (no need to reach lvl 395 to be annoyed by scaling),
- Regen time for characters (higher health, longer time to completely heal),
- Progression rewards in PvP and LRs.

Everything is intertwined that's why I am mentioning several aspects in this thread.

Health Packs :

It's become nearly impossible to play PvE and PvP at the same time (competitively I mean) because of Health packs. You need to play the same characters over and over again, because the rest of your roster is not useful in general (the change in Characters' health won't change the situation much). Since Health packs only heal 1 character at a time, it can become pretty expensive to play a PvE (and PvP if you need to play both at the same time).

Objection ? You don't need to get all characters.
Fair enough. What will happen when a "needed" character is being released ? (Like Iron Fist or Prof X) The situation has to be anticipated.

It's also become impossible to play LRs and PvP competitively either. If we agree that LRs can be more than Iso farming, then you need Health Packs to heal the Top Tier characters (because if you play other characters, you'll be attacked left and right, and can't progress anymore).

If scaling was lower, we could play several matches without using Health Packs (like we used to). Whether the game would become more boring because of a lack of challenge is not worse than draining everyone and lead them to leave because of burn out. It seems that the game can not find a balanced situation between boredom and burn out.

If characters could regen faster (and scaling was lower), the use of Health packs would be less of a concern and we could keep on playing consistently.

Progression Rewards

With the new MMR, people play far less, and scores have gone much lower. It's impossible to reach 500 in LRs (it was already quite hard before). 400 seems to be the Top, and 250+ to reach Top 25.
Same in PvP, 1000 has become harder and more costly shieldwise.

Many vets are quitting or going casual, because the situation is not sustainable anymore.

It's quite urgent to bring solutions to the new problems that arose with the recent MMR change and the XF nerf to come.

Thank you for your attention.

simonsez · April 2015

Eddiemon wrote:

I've put the game down for a couple of months at a time and my scaling has gone through the floor each time.
So if your personal scaling is mostly personal performance, why should they reset that?

Because they shouldn't reward people for NOT playing their game. That's awful, awful game design, assuming of course they're trying to make a game that people will want to play.

Unknown · April 2015

Stupid question:

Regardless of what magical algorithms are being used, shouldn't "Easy" pve nodes be, well, at least manageable for someone with 8 fully covered 2* characters and a few decently covered 3*characters?

DBC

Unknown · April 2015

Drummerboycroy wrote:

Stupid question:

Regardless of what magical algorithms are being used, shouldn't "Easy" pve nodes be, well, at least manageable for someone with 8 fully covered 2* characters and a few decently covered 3*characters?

DBC

Easy, Normal, Deadly etc. only describe diffrence in levels between your top heroes against node, not actual difficulty. Level 250 Bagman, IW, Venom will easier than level 100 5/5/5 Hood with 2 yellow feeders.

Doc L · April 2015

I can't upvote this thread enough. The scaling only came about from Spiderman-Magneto in the first place, and the use of boosts would drop massively if the PVE scaling wasn't so crazy. I'm sure with the alterations, a new set of characters will come out as the next best thing, but I'm tired of getting tanked by Ares doing ridiculous damage with any of his powers scaled up, or almost permastunned by Venom being fed purple AP.

Unknown · April 2015

Nivrax wrote:

Drummerboycroy wrote:

Stupid question:

Regardless of what magical algorithms are being used, shouldn't "Easy" pve nodes be, well, at least manageable for someone with 8 fully covered 2* characters and a few decently covered 3*characters?

DBC

Easy, Normal, Deadly etc. only describe diffrence in levels between your top heroes against node, not actual difficulty. Level 250 Bagman, IW, Venom will easier than level 100 5/5/5 Hood with 2 yellow feeders.

So it should follow that if I don't have anything above a 94 2*, easy nodes should at least be beatable by my "top heroes?"

I don't expect my characters to do much against a "deadly" node, but it's kind of funny that my best characters cannot pass even the "easy" nodes... and by funny, I actually mean frustrating. lol

DBC

Time to balance PvE scaling?

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