Why is my game different to the masses?

[Gmax101]

The following might be slightly controversial, and probably carries little weight due to two factors…

1. I rarely post in the forums (though I read it a lot)
2. I am not a competitive player (Which will become obvious)

My roster is not what you might call “Meta”,
I have 1 5

who has 5 covers but I have only invested in 1 extra level.
At 4
I have a couple approaching fully covered, but nothing above 174
and then 166

and then a few at lower levels
I have several 3
champions and then all the rest are fully covered and level 130…
My 2
lineup is limited but mostly championed and a couple are max or nearly max…

In theory current “meta” logic I should be saving up to max my
as he is 1 cover off of fully covered and tier 1. Instead I have been happily chunking along championing my 3
roster… and am about halfway…

Bearing all this in mind my experiences in PVP and PVE have been very different…

PVP - after seeds the only way to get decent points is to battle high 4
teams that might contain 1 fully boosted 3
, I cannot be bothered to spend the oodles of HP needed to shield hop to 1000pts and I don’t have the time. So I tend to jump in quite late and see where I can get to. I have even stopped reaching the 800 point reliably as I get too few points per longer match (thank you 3
nerf) to compensate for being smashed up by attacks… so I settle for maybe top 100 performance and be done with it. This is not “Fun” but does pass the time and fits around my daily schedule and time I have available… but is not in game rewarding and feels a little like grinding.

The exception is simulator… I love this… I mostly see max 3
teams, maybe 1 4
in with them, and I feel that I have a chance, and with my wide roster of 3’s I can mix and match teams to fit the opponent… admittedly I no longer see the big 70point matches… but I don’t actually care here

PVE (Old) - I can usually get the progression reward if I can devote the time to it… but weekends were tough due to being unable to meet the optimum grind times, and by not doing it optimumly you end up needing to do more battles… which takes more time… but during the week slice 3 usually works with trips to and from work where I can double tap each node and hit progression. I can usually clear all the nodes and only if I am grinding for CP on a specific node do I ever really start to hit battles I struggle with. However, because I have a balanced roster I can change teams, try stuff on trivial nodes etc. Even the Heroics are interesting because there are new and interesting teams to try (I admit that there are some events where I have no championed 3stars in the roster… and that can get a bit tougher lol).

However, because I cannot devote the time to it, I cannot grind efficiently and any form of performance is usually out… maybe top 100 just for hitting progression…

So between the two game modes, I was enjoyed PVE more, but PVP was my main source of ISO and progression rewards.

Then came the PVE (New) announcement…

I read the brief… and was interested. I liked what was being said. Granted the grind looked like hell, but actually for a casual player just hitting all the nodes when you want means you will be fairly competitive… in fact the main differentiator will be who can handle the increasing node difficulty, and for that you need a decent roster (according to the brief). Grinders will always grind, and I have no interest in competing against them…

Then I read the thread… and oh the horror… stories of horrific scaling, impossible nodes, health pack sinks… the fear was rising. But in amongst it were tales of people with similar rosters to mine having a decent time of it… sensible nodes, decent clear times… so I resolved to keep to my schedule and start it just to see what the facts were…

So with baited breath I joined slice 3 11 hours in…

only 700 players… odd. Maybe people have been scared off…
Did the first node with the provided characters (I never use my characters to save damage and Healthpacks) and that was fine. Levels looked ok…

Entered the Sub and took on the first node… again levels looked ok. Used the free characters and all was good.

So lets try the first node… usually this would be level 30-40(50)… ok… level 120ish… not ideal… but looking at my opponents I think I can take non-boosted 3’s… picked for synergy and effectiveness… hey, that was pretty easy. Minimal damage… cool.

First survival node… hmmm… starting levels are 99-130ish… Ouch… but again.. Unboosted but max level

(3
) and
make short work of it, with minimal pain…

and this goes on… levels increase but are nothing outside usually what I usually see, if anything slightly lower than Simulator Hard side… able to do it with no Heath Packs or 5
intervention…

My first health pack goes in the Beast Essential on the 3rd play through as
took a couple of adamantium slashes on the second run through… but levels wise it is straight forward still after 3 or 4 clears… even the
essential was probably slightly easier than normal for the 1st Sub.

All in all I am enjoying the new PVE… the new points structure works for me and the levels are not tricksy on first pass… but will get so after 2 or 3 completions, but that makes sense to me… I think I can get to progression with 4 passes… so hopefully that should be doable. But I can do that as and when I see fit. And given that people are struggling, I might have a shot at performance rewards too…

Two issues:

1. The loss of trivial does mean that anything much below level 140 is useless which is a shame… they only get used on DDQ now
2. No repeat rewards for survival nodes is a pain.

Having said that, I am not sure that I am the type of player D3 should be trying to please… I rarely invest and ultimately my PVE experience has not changed much… but I can see how the competitive players have been hit hard.

Most of all though, I am most confused on how the difficulty is being set…

Is it because I have not “optimised” my roster, that scaling is looking at my roster and determining that unboosted I am almost entirely sub 175 and hence set the levels accordingly…?

Are the people who are having to use the same 3 characters doing so because those characters arehead and shoulders above the rest of their roster…

genuinely confused… cause whether the roster is at 2, 3 or 4
level, if you have a reasonably balanced roster, you theoretically should get to use the different characters…

[Miztiq]

I have a roughly similar roster to yours, (two 5s at 255 that I just couldn’t bring myself to sell, no usable 4s, 20 champed 3*s) and am also finding the new PVE easier.

Guess we have the sort of roster that suffered most under the old system.

[Berserk_Al]

I have a similar roster, except without a 5*. I have to agree my scaling is not as bad as the one of some of the people commenting in the changes thread. Let’s see how things evolve during the weekend, when I will be able to play at almost any time.

[adamdivine]

I have a similar roster and have found the same thing, levels are similar to before. I have been clearing nodes all 6 times just to see how bad it gets. The last two get pretty brutal by the 6th time, but that is to be expected, no? The rest of the nodes are not noticeably more difficult, or more of a health pack drain in my experience so far.

[bluewolf]

I am just starting a play through (no rush) and agree, scaling not so bad if you have an evenly leveled roster. It seems to me (another player with no 5* and only 4-5 covers on some 4*) that PVE now echoes PVP:

1. It is very hard and/or expensive to create a broad roster of 4* high level characters. This is the game design. The eternal ISO shortage issue.
   2 . Therefore people can only really level up a few best 4 and 5* characters.
2. PVP has matched people with high level 4 and 5* against other 4 and 5*. Which seems to be the same characters over and over since you can only afford to level up the best characters. (This is what I read, I only have 2 champed 3* as my best characters now).
3. PVE is now making enemies so hard that it is forcing people with high level 4 and 5* to use those same characters over and over. Which I understand to be frustrating.
   We will see if things stand or change.

[PeterGibbons316]

My complaint is the time. I don’t typically play PvE for placement, I play for progression, and try to get it with as little time spent playing the event as possible. The time required to get that progression now has greatly increased.

I have the roster for this type of change with 8 champed 4s (6 of the top 7 per the latest rankings plus XFW and Carnage), and twice as many champed 3s. So I can get through clears with different team comps and have minimal health pack usage, but it just takes forever because the enemies are scaled so high. Outside of 5* characters, match damage doesn’t scale with level like abilities do. So when you have a team of 130s fighting against 170s your matches are actually doing meaningful damage. When you are fighting level 300+ enemies with 20k health and each match you make takes less than 1% of their health the fights really drag on, and you are really limited by the AP available for your hard hitting abilities.

[XandorXerxes]

My issue is also time. All 5 slots start / end at bad times for me - it is physically impossible for me to place or hit the 3x + some grind for progression in the old system. The new change in how nodes retain points means that I actually have a chance at progression this time, and I can do it on my own time instead of playing when the game tells me to.

[korenwolf]

I have a roughly similar roster as mentioned above: a few 5s at 255 with 1 colour, no usable 4s, (highest is around level 110), 18 champed 3s)
but i have 2 colours on the 5 Green Goblin and put a little iso in it so now its on level 268.

Comparing my final battles in a PVE with some teammates, it brought out that my enemies are about 30 levels higher then those who my alliancemembers encouter.
This said, i have not the best roster in our Alliance by far, but now i do encounter the more difficult PVE-teams.

Do i have to sell all my 5* to get reasonable targets again, or do i just have to sell my green goblin ?

[korenwolf]

Well, does anybody knows? Is level 255 a border for difficulty of enemy teams, or is my level 270 the problem and crossed some line ?