Question about Scaling

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
1

TaT is the first event for me to have the CP node tops at red label, which would be titled Deadly in the old days. Opponents in the first two subs top at lv 307, and in the last sub 359.

I wonder how this could be. My top four for this event are SWitch at 277, CMag 276, Thoress 271 and 4Cyke 270. I have been in a similar situation where my top 4 for an event are all above 270, but they were all 3* champs. Are the two maxed 4* make a difference in scaling? Does the game now count me as a 4* player needing a 4* scaling? What gives?

Anyone can enlighten me on this?

2

short answer

yes you are now considered a 4* player in the same way that 2 5* champs rosters are considered 5*mmr.

Long answer.

You have 2 4* champs. By definition the game will assume you will always run your 4* champs and scale accordingly.

While most people complain the most about 5* scaling. Its just a real and common at the 4* level.

3

I think the OP is confused about the last sub of Thick as Thieves in particular. It has higher scaling because there are two enemies, instead of the usual three (not that it’s any easier for there being only two).

4

Ouch. The game holds me higher in regard than even I do. And, no, I’m not confused because the red label came as early as the 1st sub. Overall, TaT is harder for me than previous events. I can still handle it but I guess I have to prepare for life in the 4* realm, ready or not.

5

I have experienced this for a while now, and it still confuses me. Once i started to champ my 4* (I now have 5 characters this way), my final nodes reached “red” level difficulty after 3 or 4 completions. Since I have all 3* champed, the boosted 3* are definitely higher than any 4* character I have. This means that right now, my 4 highest characters on any given sub are all boosted 3*. On top of that, I have 2 more boosted 3* characters that are right under champ 4* level (3 cyc is boosted to 267, switch is boosted to 267). This means, in my mind, my scaling shouldn’t have changed much when I champed my 4*, unless one of them is boosted for an event which is not the case right now.

So I also have this same question. If my top 4 characters are boosted 3’s, same as before I champed my 4s. Then, my champ 4’s come in. then two more boosted 3’s… why has my scaling gotten so hard?

For this event, my top of the roster is:

Boosted Doc Oc, level 296
Boosted Mags, level 289
Boosted 3 Daken, level 274
Boosted Fist, level 272
champ 4clops, 271
champ 4thor, 271
champ iceman, 271
champ ant man, 271
champ cho, 271
boosted 3cyc, 267
boosted switch, 267

So, the addition of the 4* champs should not have changed my scaling much at all, but it definitely has. My only guess is that the code weights 4* characters more, so if you have them up to champ level, the scaling goes much higher. Basically, an unboosted 4* champ, even though it is at a lower level than the boosted 3*, affects scaling much more.

6

Don’t think of it in terms of stars. Just look at the numbers. The game is calculating you ast 3x 280ish. So expect your hard nodes to avg over 300+.

Everytime you see the words “5* scaling” just replace it with level 450+ scaling.

If they took out the level caps on 2*, 3*, 4* you would have just as many scaling issues as the 5* players. The only difference is the the 5* chars have match damage and powers to deal with Level 400+ enemies. If your 2* / 3* werent level capped at 144, 266, you would eventually see Level 450+ scaling, but you’ll be relying on 2*/3* match damage and abilities to win those fights.

7

Solo Hulk is a funny node. The scaling is incredibly high, but if you play against him with the right characters, such as ones that will stun him or easily tank against his damage, then he’s no big deal.

8

He just takes forever and a day to kill.

I enjoyed fighting a 75K Magneto and 25K Hood this morning. It was very refreshing. Right up there with repeated kicks to the groin.

9

I thought that as well, but in this case it doesn’t make sense. Adding in my unboosted 4* champs, my average level shouldn’t be much higher than if I never champed any of those 4*. However, ever since I did champ those 4*, the nodes have been harder. Not hugely harder (I can still complete 4 clears of every node), but harder nonetheless. I now use up probably 9 healthpacks every sub just to complete the 4 clears of every node, I used to use maybe 3 or 4.

with my 4* champs, my top 5 for TaT averages out to be 280.4
without those champs, my top 5 is 279.6

This is not a complaint, I just believe stars have some extra weight to them in the scaling code, otherwise, my unboosted 4* wouldn’t really affect my number right now… but they clearly are, since I have been seeing “red” difficulty nodes ever since I champed them, and I never used to. It is what it is, like I said I can still beat the levels. It is just a noticeable difference, even though the numbers say it shouldn’t be.

10

As a player who is fairly new to owning champed *4’s and from my own purely anecdotal observations, I would suggest that boosted characters DO NOT affect scaling.

With only 5 champed *4, for most PvE events my top 3 characters are boosted *3’s. These top 3 will sometimes have a large different average level between each event. However, since I champed my 3rd *4, my ‘HARDEST’ non essential node has capped at Level 319 EVERY event, regardless of the different average levels of my top 3 boosted chars.

Of course, I may be utterly wrong and have missed some nuance of the mystical scaling algorithm, but this is just what I have noticed.

11

I recently leveled my first two 4 star heroes to their maximum level and noticed that the scaling for events is now much worse despite my 3 star characters almost always being boosted to higher levels than my two 4 stars. It’s made it to where I don’t really even play any more, as I’m looking at much tougher enemies even though I’m still almost always running my usual teams. All of my matches are taking much longer to finish, and with all of the Muscle goons running in Thick as Thieves, my team is getting wiped out before I even hit that fourth win and reach the maximum level! People told me that your scaling is based off of your maximum character level, but that’s clearly not the case. I really regret leveling my 4 stars now, even though I would have needed to throw away some covers of theirs if I hadn’t done so, as now I’m at day 1000-something and ready to quit completely.

12

When I made the original post, I thought that mine is a weird case. After several days, it seems clear that what’s weird is that no one ever said anything about stars affecting scaling.

Can anyone in red confirm that this is indeed the case? Is it something introduced in the new scaling scheme? Or is it a bug that must be squashed?

13

UPDATE:

For the Venom Bomb event, the CP node tops also at lv 307, which is now weirdly colored yellow (normal).

My top 4 for this event are Thoress (lv 367), Gamora (283), Dakken (278) and 4Cyke (unboosted, 271). This is wildly confusing for me. Clearly I have higher level average for my top 3/4 than the previous event, yet the scaling is the same. Yet again, because my average level is higher now, the level 307 opponents in the CP node is now colored yellow instead of red.

Oh, my. My head explodes.

14

The scaling in this game is really stupid. In TaT I had 2 boosted 4* champions, the hard nodes topped at level 305. In Venom Bomb I have no boosted 4* champions. The hard nodes are maxing at 320. How is my average top characters go down 50 levels, but my enemies go up 15 levels. You kind of need logical thought processes to program computers. I guess this scenario proves its possible to have no logic and still program. I am relying on nonboosted 4*'s and boosted 3*'s but its not as fun as boosted 4*'s.

15

I’m guess in TaT, the node your talking about was 3 active chars, and the venom bomb nodes are goon only. If that’s the case, I think its pretty typical to see the goons scaled harder than the regular chars.

16

My top nodes have been about 305 for about 6 months even when they have been all goon. The top node in venom bomb first sub is 2 charactors and 1 symbiot.

17

It does seem and sound like boosted levels don’t affect scaling. That would explain a lot of complaints from 5* players, since they’re never boosted.

18

On which levels goes the difficulty higher? Which are the levels we need to softcap?

19

Friends don’t let friends soft cap.

20

I recently champed my first 3 4* characters. Untill now I’ve never had more than one maxxed 4* boosted at the same time. In my experience seems like boost affect scaling. In pve when one of my maxxed 4* is boosted I have harder nodes compared to what i’ve seen before. I manage quite fine nonetheless, Jean and Switch have been owning everithing last week (they were both boosted).

I have 6 5* rostered, with 3 cover at most, so maybe my scaling was already in the 4 tier vicinity.

Now the question is, I have XForce and Thoress at 12 covers, planning to champion 'em both (to get to a grand total of 5 championed 4* the others 3 being JG, HB and IW).
Would than finally put me in 4* tier ruining my scaling (I’m PVP mainly)?