The Death Brackets Strike Back

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In the spirit of this new era of efforting better communication, could we get a little 411 on what seems to be tougher nudging/sharding? Even the World Cup only had one "bracket of death."

Can we get this eased off at least a little? You were nice enough to ease season stress with the break and a less desirable cover, which me and my stress level appreciate. However, if each pvp is going to be like Fresh Cut, I'll be honest, it undermines the other changes you have made. For this reason, if your intent continues to be to make seasons more fun, please work on reducing/eliminating these death brackets sooner rather than later.

edit - spelling

Comments

  • darthmental
    darthmental Posts: 104
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    I too noticed the death brackets this event. We were talking about it in alliance chat last night as we all needed 1000+ to get into top 10.

    Devs can you please either shed some light and/or ease this off. It was fine how it was working in Season 3. Especially since it should be a less hardcore season.
  • GrumpySmurf1002
    GrumpySmurf1002 Posts: 3,511 Chairperson of the Boards
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    I just figured I screwed up my join timing.

    I ended with 730, which has been about a 50% chance of top 10, 5-10% chance of top 5. Finished 30th in Fresh Cut.

    Really hope it was just an anomaly. Like all the heavy hitters getting their Season 4 points out of the way now so they can relax later.
  • wymtime
    wymtime Posts: 3,757 Chairperson of the Boards
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    My alliance saw a bunch of death brackets as well. in Balance of Power I think 800 was first place and now 900 wasn't top 10. It will be interesting to see if it balances out as the season goes on.
  • Unknown
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    880 would have scored me top5 in most of my season 3, but got me 13th in Fresh Cut. In all honesty, 13th is about all my efforts deserved as I wasn't really trying (I think I could have fully covered 2 Shieldbro's by now) so I'm not going to pass judgement straight away. I do wish they'd left things as they were from Season 3 but I can understand how newbies might have struggled to be competitive.
  • Unknown
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    I started much later than usual (Sunday morning) and was in the worst bracket I've been in since Season 1. My 917 was good for 13th place, worst I've had in a while. Luckily I didn't need any of the covers. Usually 800+ gets me top 5, including a recent one where I was the only person in my bracket over about 780 (which was flukey, but closer to typical lately than this).
  • h4n1s
    h4n1s Posts: 427 Mover and Shaker
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    Slightly below 600 points (no shielding though and got hit overnight heavily, I have to admit), 132th place. Worst placement since True Healing. I'd like to see if this event brought in more new/active players, therefore higher competition or really changed the MMR
  • Unknown
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    Ben Grimm wrote:
    I started much later than usual (Sunday morning) and was in the worst bracket I've been in since Season 1. My 917 was good for 13th place, worst I've had in a while. Luckily I didn't need any of the covers. Usually 800+ gets me top 5, including a recent one where I was the only person in my bracket over about 780 (which was flukey, but closer to typical lately than this).

    I think we were in the same bracket, my shielded 750 was mid 20's at two hours out but woke up to a top 50 finish.
  • Unknown
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    Ben Grimm wrote:
    I started much later than usual (Sunday morning) and was in the worst bracket I've been in since Season 1. My 917 was good for 13th place, worst I've had in a while. Luckily I didn't need any of the covers. Usually 800+ gets me top 5, including a recent one where I was the only person in my bracket over about 780 (which was flukey, but closer to typical lately than this).

    I think we were in the same bracket, my shielded 750 was mid 20's at two hours out but woke up to a top 50 finish.

    yeah, Ben and crypto and I were in the same bracket with many other forumites I recognized. It did seem sharding was stronger in this one but I will have to see how the Cap pvp is before I can say its a new trend. With the later pvp s4 kickoff, I think the s4 bracket sharding had a little more impact than usual. Seems almost 1/3 of SHIELD got lumped into same s4 bracket even with nearly 16hrs of difference in joining.
  • Unknown
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    I'll chime in with another testimonial. Our bracket was insane. DuckyV was on top with 1300, which is pretty modest by today's inflated standards, but top 5 was 1150, 1000 for top 10. 850 was barely good enough for 20th place, a score that would almost certainly have gotten you top 10 most of last season, possibly top 5. I was thrilled not to need the covers and be able to take it easy, but while this one bracket could have been an outlier, there are way too many of these stories for the whole thing to have been an accident. I call shenanigans again.
  • Unknown
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    I personally believe all these death brackets are due to the fact Lazy Cap is the reward for this PvP. Before the The Hunt Event feat. Torchling that finished, he has been no where to be seen as a reward anywhere until now. So given the scarcity of his covers, he was in very high demand. I am sure this time around, it should be a little more manageable. BP is the reward and IIRC, he has been awarded in a couple of times during the past 3 Seasons, and is somewhat of a frequent PvE reward.
  • Unknown
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    I personally believe all these death brackets are due to the fact Lazy Cap is the reward for this PvP. Before the The Hunt Event feat. Torchling that finished, he has been no where to be seen as a reward anywhere until now. So given the scarcity of his covers, he was in very high demand. I am sure this time around, it should be a little more manageable. BP is the reward and IIRC, he has been awarded in a couple of times during the past 3 Seasons, and is somewhat of a frequent PvE reward.
    Desirable covers don't pack people into brackets together. And there were plenty of heavy action events last season that didn't have anything remotely like this. Maybe a top 3 or top 6 that got a little feisty here or there, but a top 20? And there wasn't just one or two of these brackets. Look around. There were a lot of them. This feels very artificial.
  • squirrel1120
    squirrel1120 Posts: 492
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    Everyone I checked out over top 50 had a 3* roster. How is that fair to someone with no 3*'s even near viable? The entire top 25 shielded up, and at least 50% between top 25-50 were also.

    I don't know if continuing to play is worth it if my fervent play style is only good enough to net me top 100 for one card. How long does the transition into 3* take if you can only get a card per event. *grumble*
  • Unknown
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    Pretty sure its a new sharding thing. No way on earth I would have joined a bracket with the leaders on 600pts+ at that stage of an event in S3. The only way to explain it is that the brackets are more heavily profiled and therefore take longer to fill up, and when they do you'll probably be in competition with players more similar to your own level of roster strength and pvp performance.
  • DD-The-Mighty
    DD-The-Mighty Posts: 350 Mover and Shaker
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    Death brackets in PVP are so bad i cant play them even remotely close to the 1st day. It feels like a punishment for having a "varied" roster. I'm at the stage where anything less than 3* is a gigantic waste of time. Its even spread to pve. this stuff needs to stop.

    The whole reward structure is built on the idea that "top" players fill the upper ranks, "endgamers" take the very top, and 1~2* transitioners get the 2* tiers. With casuals and relaxers filling the rest. If your going to segregate players pools based on roster strength and experience then they should do it properly and adjust the rewards to accommodate the fact that you are now competing in a bracket with primarily 3* transitions and 3* roster end gamers.

    The current system is like having both major league and minor league, and peewee league receiving the exact same rewards. And then D3 wonders why no one wants to level up their rosters.
  • trey9
    trey9 Posts: 102
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    Saw the same thing as you guys. Needed 1000 for top 10. Not fun.
  • Unknown
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    In my experience the more you score the harder it gets to be placed high in leaderboards. The opposite is also true. After scoring 100 and below for several PvPs, I was in top 25 in Fresh Cuts with 300 something score. I'm glad I'm not in an alliance icon_e_smile.gif
  • Pylgrim
    Pylgrim Posts: 2,296 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Agreed, I was used to get top 50 with 600+. This time I got almost 700 and couldn't break top 100.
  • Unknown
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    I've been seeing the same... my last Psy brackets top 10 were all over 1000+ points, and 740 points just managed to land me 25th spot, with only a few points between 20th and 30th position...
  • Unknown
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    The exact opposite happened to me ... with a level 166 patch 137 magneto and 117 (without the boost ) psyloke I got only 2* guys ...
    Had no problem whatsoever to go from 400 to 845 in like 20 ~ 30 minutes ... COuld have gone even further but didnt need the covers and needed to sleep (did you guys notice the events are ending 1 hour later ? )
    I think the game is being nicer to people that join earlier instead of later ... They probably changed something with mmr or something ... I just fought level 3 maxed guys at the very beginning of 800 points mark ....
    edit : points were high tho ... Got only 10th spot with 845...