Simulator questions

Unknown · March 2014

Does anyone know if the simulator gets harder after you use your loot you've won on missions to level up your characters? Idk it seems that way to me, I could be wrong though.

IceIX · March 2014

No. Scaling does not take into account character levels or boosts, so you're not gaining anything from not leveling up. Not leveling also puts you at a further disadvantage in PVP events too, so it's a double whammy.

Unknown · March 2014

IceIX wrote:

No. Scaling does not take into account character levels or boosts, so you're not gaining anything from not leveling up. Not leveling also puts you at a further disadvantage in PVP events too, so it's a double whammy.

By boosts, I assume you mean character buffs as opposed to our stackable boosts which seem to impact scaling, no?

IceIX · March 2014

jozier wrote:

By boosts, I assume you mean character buffs as opposed to our stackable boosts which seem to impact scaling, no?

Yes to both. Boosts as in the items indirectly affect scaling because it affects performance, but the mere fact that you used a Boost on a battle doesn't do anything to it. There's nothing in the scaling algorithm that takes using Boosts into account.

Unknown · March 2014

IceIX wrote:

jozier wrote:

By boosts, I assume you mean character buffs as opposed to our stackable boosts which seem to impact scaling, no?

Yes to both. Boosts as in the items indirectly affect scaling because it affects performance, but the mere fact that you used a Boost on a battle doesn't do anything to it. There's nothing in the scaling algorithm that takes using Boosts into account.

I see. More so that you end up with collecting a lot of AP (because you start > 0) and probably take less damage and deal more total damage?

IceIX · March 2014

jozier wrote:

I see. More so that you end up with collecting a lot of AP (because you start > 0) and probably take less damage and deal more total damage?

Exactly.

Eddiemon · March 2014

IceIX wrote:

jozier wrote:

I see. More so that you end up with collecting a lot of AP (because you start > 0) and probably take less damage and deal more total damage?

Exactly.

I may be reading too much into this but does 'total damage dealt' actually have any bearing?

I may need to deal 18,000 damage to win, but if I overkill by 5k does that in some way harm me?

Unknown · March 2014

IceIX wrote:

jozier wrote:

I see. More so that you end up with collecting a lot of AP (because you start > 0) and probably take less damage and deal more total damage?

Exactly.

Interesting. So if I'm right, it's probably more beneficial (scaling wise) to have a team with rainbow abilities so that you can actually make use of all your collected AP, rather than being dinged for having accumulated, I dunno, 60 AP in in colours you'd never use...

Unknown · March 2014

jozier wrote:

Interesting. So if I'm right, it's probably more beneficial (scaling wise) to have a team with rainbow abilities so that you can actually make use of all your collected AP, rather than being dinged for having accumulated, I dunno, 60 AP in in colours you'd never use...

Umm, no. He's just saying if you start with more ap because of boosts the match will likely be shorter and you would have taken less damage. Obviously, that's not always the case, but on a percentage using boosts increases your performance thus increasing scaling faster.

Unknown · March 2014

UncleSam wrote:

jozier wrote:

Interesting. So if I'm right, it's probably more beneficial (scaling wise) to have a team with rainbow abilities so that you can actually make use of all your collected AP, rather than being dinged for having accumulated, I dunno, 60 AP in in colours you'd never use...

Umm, no. He's just saying if you start with more ap because of boosts the match will likely be shorter and you would have taken less damage. Obviously, that's not always the case, but on a percentage using boosts increases your performance thus increasing scaling faster.

I was basing that off previous comments Ice made. I can't find them now but I'm pretty sure that Ice once mentioned AP collected as a factor the algorithm takes into account when deciding how to scale someone.

Unknown · March 2014

jozier wrote:

I was basing that off previous comments Ice made. I can't find them now but I'm pretty sure that Ice once mentioned AP collected as a factor the algorithm takes into account when deciding how to scale someone.

That's giving a lot of credit to the devs. I see your point though. If you throw in your high level team to purposely lose the game then you're likely not using your abilities with the ap collected and you're lasting longer so collecting more ap as a result. However, I don't see the devs coming up with a fair algorithm to calculate this. How does it know you weren't banking ap to lay the whammy on Daken so you could kill him in one turn?

Edit: I can see them putting in something to compensate for retreats (collecting zero ap) or putting in a level 1 team against level 230s and collecting 9 ap total or something. Still think it would have to be a pretty loose algorithm. Some high level matches really do only last a few turns because the AI gets a couple crazy cascades back to back.

IceIX · March 2014

Just to note, it's not that we're withholding information on how this works because we want to be all mysterious or anything. Although it is kind of cool watching you all work out systems. We're not giving out the info because it's constantly being revised so any information we give out would be invalidated pretty quickly.

Unknown · March 2014

If you arent against sharing the info as a policy then, at least giving us the "current as of today" info once a week (or at the start of an event), or even just giving us a simple one-time-only info sharing on how it all works might help us with figuring out the current situation, from which we can adjust better when we notice changes. You could, for example, give the info with a big disclaimer "THIS IS VALID AS OF RIGHT NOW, WILL CHANGE, AND PROBABLY HAS BY THE TIME YOU READ IT".

Unknown · March 2014

If the details is available you're likely to see some very degenerate playing style.

But then if knowing how to best succeed leads to degenerate playing style, that indicates there's a problem with the system itself.

Unknown · March 2014

I see giving out info leading to two things:

1) A lot more min-maxers
2) A lot of saved forum bandwidth

Unknown · March 2014

I only say this because Ice said that they arent withholding info because they want to keep is a secret. If they DO actually want to keep it a secret, I totally understand and have no issues with that at all.

Unknown · February 2015

Bumping due to ppl keep posting about scaling and character levels.

TheViceroy · February 2015

So does "damage taken" actually affect scaling anymore?
I know it did back in the day to try and combat team healing, but I thought they got rid of it once they implemented "True healing".

That always felt like a slap in the face.:
"You won convincingly and/or did well to avoid taking damage? Ok, the next node is now harder."
It's like you have to purposely take a set amount of damage, which in no way makes sense.

There are many places in this game where it feels like you get punished for doing well.
As soon as I heard that some part of PVE scaling is based on your roster strength (how exactly no one knows for sure), I stopped leveling characters completely and am hoarding ISO for 4 stars (or if I ever get Lazy Daken covers). I'm talking about those 3 stars with 7 to 9 covers, the borderline usable ones. Why level them up if they are still barely usable compared to my max 3 stars (Level 117 or so compared to 166) and also negatively affect half of the game?

IamTheDanger · February 2015

It could just be my imagination, but I do it anyway. (And if this is true, I'm only hurting myself by sharing this knowledge

)

I have played around with this quite a bit, and in doing so, I noticed a pattern, (keep in mind, it all may be coincidence). I tried using my A team on low level enemies to end the match fast with little or no damage taken. When I did that, my scaling would go up quite a lot, and fast. But I can say that I have not faced level 395 opponents in a long, LONG time now, execpt for one time several weeks ago when I used my A team to take out the nodes as fast as possible. ( a level 200 Xforce, level 200 Thorette, and either 160 Hulk, 166 Steve Rogers, or 166 Hood is my A team). That time was the first, (and last), time I've seen 395 enemies in quite a while.

So I tried using my base level duplicates. I have 2 of most characters. I cover max both, but only level one, keeping the duplicate at base level. Like Patch and Hulk. I have one Patch around 155 and one Hulk at 160. But my second Patch and Hulk are both still at level 40. With most 2*s maxed and the copies of those at level 15.

So, for example, I would use my level 40 Hulk, Patch, and Thor, instead of the ones I have around level 150. In the match I would make mostly TU and low damage matches of colors I didn't need. I would take as much damage as possible and let at least 1 character die, 2 if I can. By doing this, I noticed that my scaling would go up slowly by small amounts.

The matches take longer, but I'm not facing 395 Juggs, Daken, Ares, and Rags either. Again, keep in mind, this could all be in my head. Like I'm only seeing this pattern because I want too, not because it's actually there. But I do it anyway.

I'm so screwed up the head, there's no telling what I'm seeing half the time.

JJ

Unknown · February 2015

Honestly it feels like the missions just go up every 5-6 wins though I can't be sure if that just happens to be when community scaling kicks in too. You can definitely start with the hardest mission and beat it several times in a row and not see the level go up each time so that's probably most beneficial, though that might not be optimal for gaining points.

huskeebear · February 2015

IceIX wrote:

No. Scaling does not take into account character levels or boosts, so you're not gaining anything from not leveling up. Not leveling also puts you at a further disadvantage in PVP events too, so it's a double whammy.

can we safely assume there have been no game mechanics changes since this statement?

Simulator questions

Comments

Categories