scatter_add can be understood as an advanced indexing method.
Have a look at the docs with the example:
>>> x = torch.rand(2, 5)
>>> x
tensor([[ 0.3992,  0.2908,  0.9044,  0.4850,  0.6004],
        [ 0.5735,  0.9006,  0.6797,  0.4152,  0.1732]])
>>> torch.zeros(3, 5).scatter_(0, torch.tensor([[0, 1, 2, 0, 0], [2, 0, 0, 1, 2]]), x)
tensor([[ 0.3992,  0.9006,  0.6797,  0.4850,  0.6004],
        [ 0.0000,  0.2908,  0.0000,  0.4152,  0.0000],
        [ 0.5735,  0.0000,  0.9044,  0.0000,  0.1732]])

>>> z = torch.zeros(2, 4).scatter_(1, torch.tensor([[2], [3]]), 1.23)
>>> z
tensor([[ 0.0000,  0.0000,  1.2300,  0.0000],
        [ 0.0000,  0.0000,  0.0000,  1.2300]])

scatter_max isn’t a PyTorch method, if I’m not mistaken, but I assume it’ll use the max operation instead of adding the values.
I would recommend to print all tensors, which are used in these operations, and to check the output of the operations in question.
These operations won’t affect the weights or other parametes directly, but are most likely used for some indexing.