Are people seeing sharding to the extreme or is it just me?

Unknown

So they're doing this **** again? I was in nice relaxed brakets all of last season, played casually whenever I had a few minutes to spare and made slow but steady progress that was in relation to the effort put in. Starting with this season, the brackets of doom are back, I put in more effort than all of the last two months and make ZERO progress. Damn it all, D3/Demiurge. The former is what players want. This insane grind for zero bloody reward is what no one wants. I almost quit the game once, if this nonsense doesn't stop I will quit it for good.

WilsonFisk

I concur. A 1217 got me 6th, and was seeing similar and worse all through my alliance. One guys bracket was mid 1300s to break top 5.

But... We also have a guy who has had 3 PVPs in a row where he has dominated a cupcake bracket. He put up a 1237, 2nd place was a 646. He's got far less days and played than anyone else in our group, I'm still not convinced that doesn't have something to do with it.

Also, I played around on my son's tablet, he's running a non maxed cStorm, lvl50 im35 and loaner featured. I got 19th with 313pts

Unknown

I'm finding that not only am I in much tougher brackets but also that the level of opposition I'm getting is far tougher from the start, so MMR and Sharding are having a double effect. However, it also seems that at least this impact is being felt by most people so I'm still getting top 5 or 10 if I really push (and have a decent level featured char)... it's just far harder than it was in S3.

Unknown

I think competition in general is becoming more fierce. There seems to be more players willing to grind like crazy to get into a top 10 spot.

Unknown

I have never, not once, been able to break 900 points. Why am I in brackets where the top 25 are all over 1300?

Yesterday I had to shield in 156th place just because I didn't want to lose points and hose my alliance even more. That's pathetic.

NotYou13

Expecting 1300 for Top 5 is just not reasonable.

Unknown

I'm seeing a lot of sharding as well but mine is "mild" to a degree.

I keep seeing the same people like Juggernought in each tourney this season but a top 5-10 finish has been in the 900 range, give or take heavily contested tourneys like Starfall, which isn't bad compared to the true death brackets other people are getting where the top 5 have about 1200+

Unknown

daibar wrote:

I think competition in general is becoming more fierce. There seems to be more players willing to grind like crazy to get into a top 10 spot.

Although that's true to some extent it's certainly not the reason for these brackets, it's just that the most competitive players are being put in the same bracket. I think 7 of the top 10 in my Fresh Cut tourney were XMen or Deadly Venoms. It makes sense for the dev's because in S3 I bet profits from buying shields dropped dramatically.

Unknown

well competitiveness also drops a ton when there's nothing to compete for. This week happened to offer Sentry covers (totally OP) followed by a new 3* (most non-whales needed all the covers)

Some people shield hopped because there's basically nothing else to play for most of the time

Unknown

daibar wrote:

I think competition in general is becoming more fierce. There seems to be more players willing to grind like crazy to get into a top 10 spot.

Some of this may be true, especially on one like Sentry PVP as it was giving out a new character. Captain Marvel PVP will likely have some high brackets but not because of the prizes, but due to the free cover at 1100.

The problem however is that many of the players driving up the scores so high, making it so that top 5 is 11/12/1300, are doing so because they are used to placing at that level. If they were not herded together quite so hard, they'd likely score a little less and get the same placement.

So while there are some nice soft brackets of fluff where 6/700 will get you first, many people who would likely win those brackets with a 900 score are being pushed together into the same brackets. And essentially being asked to put up even bigger scores, while the people in the brackets they might have otherwise been in, are still only being asked to score 6/700.

From watching how long it takes my brackets to fill up on the last ones, it seems about 20 minutes is standard. I've retreated into a bracket so I could sit at 0 and measure how long it took to fill, and each one (done it for the last 3) has taken about that. So assuming my brackets (which have had rather high top 5/10s) took that long to fill, it could be inferred that there are inverse brackets being filled simultaneously where the tops are a lot more friendly looking. Which means the 'nudging' really is not as gentle as it was toward the end of season III.

That's really the problem people have. It's not that getting those crazy scores is something that can't be done. It's just that the metagame is being warped to require those herculean efforts for rewards, but not for all players. The rewards are the same for everyone, but the work necessary to achieve those same rewards is not, depending on how hard you get nudged.

Unknown

This, and every point was a fight and a half in itself.

I had to catch some of the people in my bracket when they would hop or some other Xmen. Point values above 45 - only to finish a battle to have been hit for 38 or 39 points. Netting a Big 7 or 8 points per hop. Between hops, I would see 8 - 9 hits in 1 minute each worth between 35 and 50! points.

I hate that someone coming in with 1 hour left, having < 200 points can see me and hit me for 50 points. Thankfully they are shield bounces.

Deimos12

Expalphalog wrote:

I have never, not once, been able to break 900 points. Why am I in brackets where the top 25 are all over 1300?

Yesterday I had to shield in 156th place just because I didn't want to lose points and hose my alliance even more. That's pathetic.

While I think we can all agree sharding is making some death brackets lets not get too crazy. There is no possible way that you were in a bracket where it took 1300+ to break top 25. Top 5? Sure. Top 10? Unlikely. Top 25? No, no way ever.

Unknown

Deimos12 wrote:

Expalphalog wrote:

I have never, not once, been able to break 900 points. Why am I in brackets where the top 25 are all over 1300?

Yesterday I had to shield in 156th place just because I didn't want to lose points and hose my alliance even more. That's pathetic.

While I think we can all agree sharding is making some death brackets lets not get too crazy. There is no possible way that you were in a bracket where it took 1300+ to break top 25. Top 5? Sure. Top 10? Unlikely. Top 25? No, no way ever.

Plus if you can't break 900 (I'm in that same boat, so feel your pain), you can only see the top 10 and 5 places above you, so your story falls apart.

Cragger

Tonzil wrote:

This, and every point was a fight and a half in itself.

I had to catch some of the people in my bracket when they would hop or some other Xmen. Point values above 45 - only to finish a battle to have been hit for 38 or 39 points. Netting a Big 7 or 8 points per hop. Between hops, I would see 8 - 9 hits in 1 minute each worth between 35 and 50! points.

I hate that someone coming in with 1 hour left, having < 200 points can see me and hit me for 50 points. Thankfully they are shield bounces.

Sorry I was hitting you relentlessly last night. That was a tough bracket in a tough event. I had a real tough stretch of luck with my tablet rebooting on me three times in a row while unshielded. You ended up beating me by 6 points. It makes for exciting gameplay, but unsustainable resource expenditure.

It seems like the devs heard the X-Men rally cry and turned to the rest of us with a megaphone and starting yelling "PLAY HARDER"

Unknown

Wow, you caught me in an exaggeration for effect. Clearly that makes me a filthy tinykitty liar. Fine, you want exact numbers - Top 10 all had over 1K, top 5 over 1300.

Spoit

LoreNYC wrote:

well competitiveness also drops a ton when there's nothing to compete for. This week happened to offer Sentry covers (totally OP) followed by a new 3* (most non-whales needed all the covers)

Some people shield hopped because there's basically nothing else to play for most of the time

People keep saying this, but the brackets have been fairly consistent regardless of the rewards for me. Hell, the bracket was a hell of a lot more death-y for this recent one that gave LC than the one that gave Laken

jojeda654

Expalphalog wrote:

Wow, you caught me in an exaggeration for effect. Clearly that makes me a filthy tinykitty liar. Fine, you want exact numbers - Top 10 all had over 1K, top 5 over 1300.

On one hand, it is a little unfair to be picked on when you are just trying to vent your frustrations.

On the other hand, you know someone is gonna take this literally and use it to proclaim that the game is dying/devs are incompetent/Also:Money/Four Legs Good,Two Legs Bad.

Deimos12

Expalphalog wrote:

Wow, you caught me in an exaggeration for effect. Clearly that makes me a filthy tinykitty liar. Fine, you want exact numbers - Top 10 all had over 1K, top 5 over 1300.

I would suggest trying to alter your start time then. You probably caught a couple of really tough brackets. I know we've been discussing scores and start times in my alliance and for the last 4 tournaments it seems about 75% of my alliance mates have top 10's starting in the low 900's, and top 5's around the 1100 mark. This is obviously going to vary depending on the rewards (anything with sentry/a new character (Miss Marvel) are gonna be really ugly).

So I'd say work on being able to score 900 consistently and play around with when you enter tournaments and you should be able to land some top 10's without too much pain and start building your roster a little quicker.

Really wasn't trying to call you out for anything just wanted to stem the tide of what jojeda got at above me.

Unknown

Cragger wrote:

Tonzil wrote:

This, and every point was a fight and a half in itself.

I had to catch some of the people in my bracket when they would hop or some other Xmen. Point values above 45 - only to finish a battle to have been hit for 38 or 39 points. Netting a Big 7 or 8 points per hop. Between hops, I would see 8 - 9 hits in 1 minute each worth between 35 and 50! points.

I hate that someone coming in with 1 hour left, having < 200 points can see me and hit me for 50 points. Thankfully they are shield bounces.

Sorry I was hitting you relentlessly last night. That was a tough bracket in a tough event. I had a real tough stretch of luck with my tablet rebooting on me three times in a row while unshielded. You ended up beating me by 6 points. It makes for exciting gameplay, but unsustainable resource expenditure.

It seems like the devs heard the X-Men rally cry and turned to the rest of us with a megaphone and starting yelling "PLAY HARDER"

No worries about the smacks, mostly shield bounces. Me too, I got caught shield hopping with a badly timed phone shutdown... Eesh, it was not "too bad" but it hurt.

Spoit

Deimos12 wrote:

Expalphalog wrote:

Wow, you caught me in an exaggeration for effect. Clearly that makes me a filthy tinykitty liar. Fine, you want exact numbers - Top 10 all had over 1K, top 5 over 1300.

I would suggest trying to alter your start time then. You probably caught a couple of really tough brackets. I know we've been discussing scores and start times in my alliance and for the last 4 tournaments it seems about 75% of my alliance mates have top 10's starting in the low 900's, and top 5's around the 1100 mark. This is obviously going to vary depending on the rewards (anything with sentry/a new character (Miss Marvel) are gonna be really ugly).

So I'd say work on being able to score 900 consistently and play around with when you enter tournaments and you should be able to land some top 10's without too much pain and start building your roster a little quicker.

Really wasn't trying to call you out for anything just wanted to stem the tide of what jojeda got at above me.

This last one was the first tournament since krakadoom back in season 3 where you didn't need 1k to be in top 10. varying the start time only does so much when the sharding is holding brackets open in the first place