So... what the hell is up with matchmaking?

_RiO_

Budget Player Cadet wrote:

No, it's like being 10, and your team just won the little league tournament, so your next match is against the New York Yankees. You can't tinykitty hit a 90-MPH fastball! You're 10!

QFT.
I mentioned this many times before, and it is always; always an established 3* veteran that shows up to complain about 'whining' and how you should just strategize better to climb to the top 100 for your 3* reward.
It's complete ****, because it's impossible to keep up the required winning streak against maxed 3* veterans when you're just a 2* player or a 2* -> 3* transitioning player.

Once your MMR climbs high enough you're plain screwed. The only thing that helps? Tanking. And that doesn't do a whole lot of good if maxed 3* players are doing it as well (and are probably doing it more).

Unknown

I'll be nice. You need to lower your MMR. I did not get so maxed 3*: till around 800.

There are also other strategies like when in the tourney you play, etc.

Lastly, not sure which day you are on, but most 3* veterans went through what you are going through now to get where we are now. We did not have alliances to assist with it. There's plenty of info on the forum to help you, but won't get there over night.

Edit

Two other notes.

1. If you tanked and MMR did not go down, I recommend contacting support.

2. I did suggest a better PvP system in the new PvP ideas thread. It would not your problem, but it would make getting to 600 or so more palatable.

Unknown

Fighting against much better teams was a lot less painful before the true healing change. Now, in a 3* transition, you typically have one team, so sure, you can beat a stronger team, and then you will not be able top play for 2-3 hours.

Unknown

I'm not sure how long or how hard to tank. I spend all of yesterday mulching my entire 35-man roster (including my "main" 2*s and any 3*s that are getting there) in the shield sim multiple times (retreat twice to take damage, then lose) and it didn't seem to do much. Am I doing something wrong? Is it a waste of time to tank with my lower-level characters?

squirrel1120

I'm no expert Budget Player Cadet. I've only done it twice, but the last time was recently. Just between the BP and Sentry events. Up over 4-500 points I see no difference. It really just allowed me to grind on seed teams till about 250, then lower level teams till about 450. After that, everyone is in my weight-class or higher again. I don't know if tanking more would help toward the upper end. I really hate it, but I was hoping to get into a less max 3* bracket for sentry. Really not even sure if that worked, since point still bleed off to those teams about what I've come to expect.

Hope that helps.

Unknown

squirrel1120 wrote:

I'm no expert Budget Player Cadet. I've only done it twice, but the last time was recently. Just between the BP and Sentry events. Up over 4-500 points I see no difference. It really just allowed me to grind on seed teams till about 250, then lower level teams till about 450. After that, everyone is in my weight-class or higher again. I don't know if tanking more would help toward the upper end. I really hate it, but I was hoping to get into a less max 3* bracket for sentry. Really not even sure if that worked, since point still bleed off to those teams about what I've come to expect.

Hope that helps.

If there is no one in your MMR range that is also in points range, then it will find higher MMR teams that are in your points range. In other words, if you have a 2* team at your at 560 points and there are no other 2* teams in that points range or if b there all shielded, you will be given 3* teams in your points range.

Unknown

Speaking of matchmaking being broken, how 'bout that process of giving you exactly the same set of matches over and over and over again? Like, how you can get stuck in a loop, skipping past the same 4 matches you can't win.

Unknown

Budget Player Cadet wrote:

Speaking of matchmaking being broken, how 'bout that process of giving you exactly the same set of matches over and over and over again? Like, how you can get stuck in a loop, skipping past the same 4 matches you can't win.

That part is not broken. In the end, the best roster should win. You would prefer to have an unmaxed 1* team beat you?

There's a similar discussion to this one going on on the last page of the True Heading thread. PVE are set up for chances to be equal to win. this is typically the best place for a lower roster to obtain 3*'s. Pvp's are set up for the best roster to win. If your have a lower roster, than , t100 is not bad. You get 3* cover, and if in a good alliance, another cover as well. If you are expecting to win a PvP, then, that's where the problem lies, your expectations. I couldn't tell you how many pvps I've played, but I know I got 1 exactly 1 time, which was a surprise.

When I had two * team, t25 was considered a great accomplishment for myself, but t50 was considered good, and t100 was the min I tried for.

I am not sure why your mmr has not decreased, which is why suggested contacting support. Someone in my old alliance has the same problem. Left before I could find out if the problem was ever resolved.

Unknown

So... glad I'm not the only one. I hit 600-700 and started seeing this mess. Besides... I shouldn't have to tank. How could I ever beat these teams and why should I even get matched with them? I did a bit of tanking in the SIM and it didn't help. I shielded for the duration mid 700 b/c the frustration wasn't worth it for me.

Unknown

Would the unmaxed 1* team win? Just by being able to cycle through more available matches rather than getting stuck on the same 4 it cannot possibly fight (hence why it's skipping in the first place)? No, it'd find just about ****-all it could win that's worth a decent amount of points past, say, 500, and end up... top 25'ing the event anyways, because for some reason, when your roster is around that point, the people winning your brackets often do so with under 800. Oh, irony - exactly what you say would be the downside of this happens already anyways, and changing the matchmaking so that when I start skipping the impossible fights I don't end up seeing an endless parade of repeating Hood, Daken, and Thor wouldn't cause the problem in the first place!

The point is that, past a certain point, I have two choices:
- Stop playing
- Run into a fight which I stand zero chance of winning

That's not reasonable. That's fundamentally broken, and if it's working as intended then the devs need to seriously think about what effect that has on players. And the fact that I can tell that I'm never going to run into a fight I can win because every time I skip it's the same names is just salting the wound. Especially when there are plenty of people not far below me which would be hard but realistically doable fights (oh, and any time I attack someone below me, they can retaliate for considerably more than the fight was worth to me).

Unknown

Obviously your mind is predetermined. The two irrefutable points are the best roster should win, which means at dinner point weaker rosters will run out of viable fights. Second, the people you railing against for having to face, went through the same process and now they can go higher.

Everyone knows MMR is broken. But there's a difference between being upset at MMR and running out of viable fights because you reach the appropriate point total for your roster. Just like unmaxed 1* rosters have a ceiling of how far v they go, so do 2* and unmaxed 3* rosters. If bet you're doing better now then before, but for dinner reason you decided that magically you're current roster should have more viable fights because you're not patient enough to build up your roster like EVERYONE your complaining about facing had to do.

scottee

For the record, I've been saying the same thing since I was a 2* player, 2*->3* transition player, and now a 3* player.

Another way to view the dilemma is this: Of the 500 players in any given bracket, let's say 50 players field maxed 3* teams. (That's not even realistic, but I'm purposefully using a giant number to make a point.) That leaves 50 spots open for 2* and 2* transition players to earn a 3* reward.

Who among all the 2* players should get those 50 available rewards? All have similar rosters. All will face the same MMR issue around the same points. *SOME*one is winning those 50 leftover covers. How are they doing it? Timing their runs differently? Saving some HP for a specific cover they want so they can shield hop? Using their 2* team to defeat a 3* team? Saving up boosts and using them at an opportune time?

A couple ways to progress: ask people who have made the transition how they did it. Ask winning 2* players how they're currently doing it. Come up with an awesome new strategy on your own.

A lot of players want to succeed, and to do that, it means out-performing other players. There's not a cure all strategy though. It takes make lots of small improvements over time to eventually distinguish yourself from others in a similar spot. And there are MANY other players in a similar spot. I suggest continually asking advice and trying to implement it into your game.

If you are convinced that it is impossible to make the transition, then that will probably be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Saying you have "0 change" against 3 star teams means you don't attempt to face them, which means you never gain those valuable points at the upper ranks of PVP. Or saying that 50% of matches end in losing to random cascades will put you in the mindset that there is no hope. Many are saying there's a chance. That there's hope. It's not easy, and it's not quick. But it's possible.

_RiO_

stephen43084 wrote:

Everyone knows MMR is broken. But there's a difference between being upset at MMR and running out of viable fights because you reach the appropriate point total for your roster. Just like unmaxed 1* rosters have a ceiling of how far v they go, so do 2* and unmaxed 3* rosters. If bet you're doing better now then before, but for dinner reason you decided that magically you're current roster should have more viable fights because you're not patient enough to build up your roster like EVERYONE your complaining about facing had to do.

Yeah, it's sooo-- simple: all you have to do to get enough viable fights to win a few 3*s and build up a roster, is break the laws of causality and first ensure you have a built up roster.

Look; fact of the matter is that with the increase in the 3* pool, the odds of pulling enough of a 3* to make it a viable pick for your team has diminished greatly. Sure, I can win and collect the occasional 3* cover at the top 100 mark. However, that inevitably leads to a roster of 20 low-level, useless 3*s collecting dust until they've ended up being the featured prize for a few dozen times more. Yes, a few dozen: as a transitioning player, you cannot expect to hit the jackpot on every occurence. Especially not if faced with an unfavorable timeslot. (Hello Europe.)

stephen43084 wrote:

Obviously your mind is predetermined. The two irrefutable points are the best roster should win, which means at dinner point weaker rosters will run out of viable fights. Second, the people you railing against for having to face, went through the same process and now they can go higher.

Another irrefutable point is that the developers give jack about non-US players. Try competing at 5 or 6 AM in the morning for each and every event of any significance. Doesn't sound like the best roster winning; sounds like US players being given a leg up on everyone else. Also; we are not railing against other people. We are railing against the game's system, which is something completely different.

Regarding those people though; a lot of them had it a lot easier with a smaller pool of 3*s making it a lot faster and easier to complete a few of them to viable/usable levels. Unless you have earned your 3* roster under the current rules of the game, you have no place projecting your own experience on the current 2* -> 3* situation.

killerkoala

MMR should be fixed to be based on team strength, points should be awarded and lost based on team strength not how many points ahead one person is in pvp. Max 3* should be fighting other max 3*, not roster that can't really have a chance about hitting back in pvp. if you attack under powered team you should only gain and the other team should only lose like 10 or less points. if you attack comparable teams (same strength) you should get 20-30 points. this would alleviate 3* not having points once they pass a certain threshold cause every team they would fight would be still be 20+, not under 10. and for 2*/3* transitional teams from losing 100's of point with no hope to gaining them back in retaliations cause the other team are max 3* and only worth 10 points if you retaliate.

Unknown

Budget Player Cadet wrote:

I'm not sure how long or how hard to tank. I spend all of yesterday mulching my entire 35-man roster (including my "main" 2*s and any 3*s that are getting there) in the shield sim multiple times (retreat twice to take damage, then lose) and it didn't seem to do much. Am I doing something wrong? Is it a waste of time to tank with my lower-level characters?

I believe it has been stated elsewhere in this forum that tanking in LRs and Shield sim don't do much (if anything) to your MMR). Next time, try killing your team in an "actual" PVP and see what that does to your MMR. May or may not work though, as I stopped tanking a while ago so I'm not speaking from first hand experience.

Unknown

It's dense to have to tank matches and tournaments in order to do well in later events.

Unknown

fluid_dance wrote:

I believe it has been stated elsewhere in this forum that tanking in LRs and Shield sim don't do much (if anything) to your MMR). Next time, try killing your team in an "actual" PVP and see what that does to your MMR. May or may not work though, as I stopped tanking a while ago so I'm not speaking from first hand experience.

I've been tanking my reserve teams (about 15 chars) all day in the Captain Marvel pvp and still seeing lv166 teams in my nodes right from the start (currently on 30 points) whereas in previous seasons I would almost certainly have been seeing the odd 2* team in there by now.

Unknown

fluid_dance wrote:

I believe it has been stated elsewhere in this forum that tanking in LRs and Shield sim don't do much (if anything) to your MMR). Next time, try killing your team in an "actual" PVP and see what that does to your MMR. May or may not work though, as I stopped tanking a while ago so I'm not speaking from first hand experience.

Well, considering I lost probably 75% of all my matches in Starfall, hopefully that means I'll be in a super easy bracket for Fly-Fight-Win.

A part of the problem right now is that people want Sentry, Patch, and Captain Marvel. This means that more people are competing and at a higher level. So yeah, to my fellow 2*s and transitioners - we're boned.

But soon we'll be back to prizes that people don't value as highly and we can stand a chance of breaking the top 100 again. This season has just been kind of rough on us because they've been requiring some of the best/newest characters (which we don't have due to afor-mentioned competitiveness) to win some of the best/newest characters (which we can't win because our requireds are either loaners or under-leveled).

Unknown

I do feel bad for 2*->3* transition players, OBW's healing was a huge help when I was transitioning so I empathize with how much of a pain true healing must be. Unfortunately, MMR is an odd monster and most don't know how it really works. Seemingly, what works for one person doesn't work for others.

One thing that worked for me when I first started seeing a wall of 166's was to beat a few of those teams, and then I started seeing some mixed teams, and even some 1* teams. This has happened to me very occasionally nowadays once I pass a certain point threshold. Unfortunately, this is unreliable, but it's worth a try when skipping is doing nothing for you.

Not the best option, but my wife got fed up with MPQ and hadn't played PVP for 1-2 months. To help entice her back in, I played with her account in Starfall, and she managed #35 with 313 points. Could have gotten top 25, but I wasn't going to stay up until 1am. Not sure how fast the lowered MMR will go away. Can anyone who has went through this shed some light?

If you haven't attempted shield hopping, you need to. Especially with the current state of things, I think shield hopping is necessary for 2* rosters. Also, depending on your ISO situation, appropriate usage of boosts may help a lot. Starting the round with a leg up means you can win more quickly AND take less damage. It's a slippery slope, as becoming addicted to boosts isn't the best idea, but speed is huge.

_RiO_

fluid_dance wrote:

If you haven't attempted shield hopping, you need to. Especially with the current state of things, I think shield hopping is necessary for 2* rosters.

I mean no personal offense and I understand it is well-meant advice but: screw that. We shouldn't have to resort to HP (and thus indirectly; money) guzzling tactics to progress just because D3P/Demiurge sucks at delivering an experience that has proper power progression. Spending boatloads of HP to compensate for that is like rewarding them for their incompetence.

(The worst part is that they've known the 2*->3* situation is a problem for months. Long before the true healing 'fix' landed. Yet they do nothing.)