Lightning Rounds

Unknown

panthroq wrote:

The mere fact that only a small amount of players can or are taking advantage of clearing their MMR is exactly what makes it abusive. It's quite easy to fix, new round new MMR, if what you are saying is true, this wouldn't affect the overall standings in the least, just allow people that don't have tons of extra covers lying around from taking time to force lose multiple times.

Yes, let's implement that idea. Brand new MMR every round. You realize that what you've just done is tank EVERY single player, right? You think it was bad before, you've just made the problem one hundred times worse. At that point just throw out ranking at all and have every match be a completely random pick. Because that's what it becomes. It would eventually sort out, but only in longer tourneys; not in Lightning Rounds.

But then that sorting out would be lost all over again when the next tournament started.

As for "tons of extra covers" -- it takes exactly two. Or three if there's no provided character. This isn't exactly a high barrier of entry. You only fight/yield once.

Unknown

Zathrus wrote:

panthroq wrote:

The mere fact that only a small amount of players can or are taking advantage of clearing their MMR is exactly what makes it abusive. It's quite easy to fix, new round new MMR, if what you are saying is true, this wouldn't affect the overall standings in the least, just allow people that don't have tons of extra covers lying around from taking time to force lose multiple times.

Yes, let's implement that idea. Brand new MMR every round. You realize that what you've just done is tank EVERY single player, right? You think it was bad before, you've just made the problem one hundred times worse. At that point just throw out ranking at all and have every match be a completely random pick. Because that's what it becomes. It would eventually sort out, but only in longer tourneys; not in Lightning Rounds.

But then that sorting out would be lost all over again when the next tournament started.

As for "tons of extra covers" -- it takes exactly two. Or three if there's no provided character. This isn't exactly a high barrier of entry. You only fight/yield once.

I fail to see how allowing a small number of players to do this is OK but giving everyone the opportunity is 100 times worse. It levels the playing field, everyone gets the free 150 points instead of just the people winning the rounds. Obviously the MMR is already meaningless since players can exploit the system in place to lower it.

I just tested this tanking in the "no holds barred" and I yielded about 15 times but I'm still pulling level 100+ teams, while I don't have a single cover over 90.

Unknown

panthroq wrote:

Zathrus wrote:

As for "tons of extra covers" -- it takes exactly two. Or three if there's no provided character. This isn't exactly a high barrier of entry. You only fight/yield once.

I fail to see how allowing a small number of players to do this is OK but giving everyone the opportunity is 100 times worse. It levels the playing field, everyone gets the free 150 points instead of just the people winning the rounds. Obviously the MMR is already meaningless since players can exploit the system in place to lower it.

I just tested this tanking in the "no holds barred" and I yielded about 15 times but I'm still pulling level 100+ teams, while I don't have a single cover over 90.

First, there's no evidence that yielding significantly changes your rating, and certainly not yielding to a team in your MMR. Being beaten by another player with a lower MMR does, at least in enough quantity. When I put my Bagman team in I typically get hit 30 - 50 times afterwards, depending on how many points I had when I stopped. If I only had 100 then it'll be on the low end of that. If I had 250 then it'll be at least 50, probably more. It nearly always pushes my score down to the "top 100,000" prize level.

Second, I never said it was OK. I've repeatedly stated that I'd like to see it go away. Do I do it? Yes. I'm playing the game they provided, not some fantasy game that's perfect in every way. And the devs have stated that it's not an issue in their opinion. If they decide otherwise then I'll stop it, but I'll also be sad that people cannot get easy points off me in rounds anymore. I did play the first half of the No Holds Barred tournament at full MMR and still placed #1 (which is what I wanted).

Third, and finally, it's an incredibly bad idea because for the vast majority of the user base the current matchmaking system actually does work mostly OK. Matches are not completely randomized. They are against teams that you can beat based on what teams you've previously beat. You can beat those teams that it's displaying, it's just not going to be a cakewalk. I beat teams with vastly higher levels all the time, going all the way back to when I only had 1* and low level 2* heroes. The AI is freaking awful. You have boosts. You can find match 5s/6s. You can use powers efficiently and repeatedly. You can even pick your target and (frequently) shield damaged team mates from attacks. The AI doesn't do any of that.

Unknown

panthroq wrote:

I fail to see how allowing a small number of players to do this is OK but giving everyone the opportunity is 100 times worse. It levels the playing field, everyone gets the free 150 points instead of just the people winning the rounds.

I don't think you want a level playing field. That leaves you matchmaking either a) randomly or b) based on current score in the tournament. If the latter, it would make it impossible for newer folks to ever get any sort of decent rewards, because the higher their score the tougher the competition. It is my belief this problem was the precise reason that the existing system was put in to place, to allow people other than the top players to compete. But, as we are discussing, that system is not without its problems. An ideal system would give newer players some ability to compete, yet not punish people for playing well in such a punitive manner.

As Zathrus said, the existing system is ok most of the time, but there are certain situations where it can become a problem.

Just my 2 bits.

I_am_Zero

panthroq wrote:

I just tested this tanking in the "no holds barred" and I yielded about 15 times but I'm still pulling level 100+ teams, while I don't have a single cover over 90.

I'm not positive, but I think it only helps you in the next tournament. And like Zathrus said, it's not about the number of yields, it's about the number of losses. That's why people put in their lowest level teams up for "tanking". If you read back in this topic, you'll see people talking about tanking 1 tournament because they want to get covers for the next tournament.

An idea that could lessen this tanking issue would be to have counters for all the different tournaments, particularly lightning rounds. If you place 25th in the Hood Lighting round, then the counter would be set to 25. When you play another Hood Lightning round, you'll be matched up with other teams that finished around 25th. Maybe it takes in account everyone's average levels and then uses that number to match your team. That way, tanking will only have effect once per tournament. Since that counter will always be a minimum of 25, it doesn't help you at all to tank any other tournaments. You now have to grind against similarly leveled teams. If you then place 10th in the tournament, the counter is now set to 10. The 3rd Hood lightning round will be even that much harder since now you're fighting against other 10th place finishers.

Unknown

I believe it also takes into account your over all placement in the tournament you tank in. So you really want to have zero points by the time it's done.

Unknown

I am Zero wrote:

panthroq wrote:

I just tested this tanking in the "no holds barred" and I yielded about 15 times but I'm still pulling level 100+ teams, while I don't have a single cover over 90.

I'm not positive, but I think it only helps you in the next tournament. And like Zathrus said, it's not about the number of yields, it's about the number of losses. That's why people put in their lowest level teams up for "tanking". If you read back in this topic, you'll see people talking about tanking 1 tournament because they want to get covers for the next tournament.

An idea that could lessen this tanking issue would be to have counters for all the different tournaments, particularly lightning rounds. If you place 25th in the Hood Lighting round, then the counter would be set to 25. When you play another Hood Lightning round, you'll be matched up with other teams that finished around 25th. Maybe it takes in account everyone's average levels and then uses that number to match your team. That way, tanking will only have effect once per tournament. Since that counter will always be a minimum of 25, it doesn't help you at all to tank any other tournaments. You now have to grind against similarly leveled teams. If you then place 10th in the tournament, the counter is now set to 10. The 3rd Hood lightning round will be even that much harder since now you're fighting against other 10th place finishers.

The problem with this idea is that if I end up in an easy bracket of mostly low level people to start with and finish 1st in my first Hood tournament and I'm also low level. Then next time the Hood tournament comes up I get pounded by all the other 1st place finishers with high level rags and mags. Also, only works for lightning rounds. They don't repeat other tournaments fast enough otherwise.

I_am_Zero

Yeah, I guess this would only really work for Lightning rounds. But, if you placed first, even in a low bracket, you still placed first. Why would you get a pass the next time around? You were lucky enough to get a low level bracket, now you have to compete against the big boys if you want a shot at first again. Otherwise, you can just grind for the event prizes.

Unknown

I am Zero wrote:

Yeah, I guess this would only really work for Lightning rounds. But, if you placed first, even in a low bracket, you still placed first. Why would you get a pass the next time around? You were lucky enough to get a low level bracket, now you have to compete against the big boys if you want a shot at first again. Otherwise, you can just grind for the event prizes.

Because what if you ground it out in your low bracket? Someone who has been playing 2 weeks, put in tons of time and effort to get first against their peers. You want to throw them to the wolves against the likes of THE LADDER?!?!!? =P

Unknown

There aren't multiple brackets in Lightning rounds. Everyone is in the same one.

Unknown

Also, the reverse: The Ladder takes a day off from Tournaments, competes once just to get the lowest placement award as a freebie. Next tournament, he's placed against lowbies. It's like tanking, but easy mode. So, it doesn't really actually solve anything.

Unknown

panthroq wrote:

Zathrus wrote:

panthroq wrote:

OK, this explains why there is no competition anymore at the top, people who aren't abusing the system get trapped and bottlenecked at the bottom. I was informed Ice doesn't see this as abuse, but it most definitely is.

He stated it wasn't abusive because such a small portion of the userbase is doing it. I'd be all for eliminating it as a tactic, but that requires significant changes to the matchmaking system, and those are going to be long in coming. Changing such an important part of the game is non-trivial.

Ultimately the issue with the matchmaking system is that players can end up in a situation where the matches being offered are too hard (or they perceive them to be too hard; even in the Lightning rounds you can probably defeat any team you want because the AI is so bad; it may require more than one try, and your heroes will probably be pretty bad off afterwards, but it's possible), so they don't enter PvP, which means that nobody else plays them either, which means their rating can never go down... it's a poor cycle.

The mere fact that only a small amount of players can or are taking advantage of clearing their MMR is exactly what makes it abusive. It's quite easy to fix, new round new MMR, if what you are saying is true, this wouldn't affect the overall standings in the least, just allow people that don't have tons of extra covers lying around from taking time to force lose multiple times.

Exploit - the use of a bug or glitches, rates, hit boxes, or speed, etc. by a player to their advantage in a manner not intended by the game's designers.

It's clear this was not intended, more just not being fixed due to the relatively small population of players doing it. Hence why I deem it abuse.

IceIX doesn't think its abuse so just drop it.

Unknown

Zathrus wrote:

I just got ripped off in this Mags round. Spent most of the last 45 minutes at #1; got hit a couple times and knocked down to #2. Came out of a match to -20 at #3 with <1 min left.

Final scores:
Slimson 703
Ozkaros 653
Zathrus 653

...

Kudos to Slimson -- no idea how he rocketed up so fast at the end.

Just got a message from MPQ Support:

Hello!

We just sent the cover over to your device.

Thank you!

D3Publisher Support Team

I'm happy. Thanks again to the team!

Just came across with the text "Reward Earned!" "This is for you."

Spoit

Zathrus wrote:

Zathrus wrote:

I just got ripped off in this Mags round. Spent most of the last 45 minutes at #1; got hit a couple times and knocked down to #2. Came out of a match to -20 at #3 with <1 min left.

Final scores:
Slimson 703
Ozkaros 653
Zathrus 653

...

Kudos to Slimson -- no idea how he rocketed up so fast at the end.

Just got a message from MPQ Support:

Hello!

We just sent the cover over to your device.

Thank you!

D3Publisher Support Team

I'm happy. Thanks again to the team!

Just came across with the text "Reward Earned!" "This is for you."

Congrats. I hope they reconsider that tie system before the end of hulk though

IceIX

Spoit wrote:

Congrats. I hope they reconsider that tie system before the end of hulk though

There's no way we could update the tie system before the end of Hulk. As to tanking to lower MMR: It doesn't do as much as it used to since we've been tweaking the algorithm to account for things like that. Basically, if you lose more often in a sudden fashion when you weren't losing like that before, it starts putting the brakes on your MMR losses. So while you would drop a little, you're not going to be hitting a free ride for much more than a few matchups before you recover the MMR you had before. Lightning rounds as well have a lesser effect on MMR than any other Tourney We'll continue to change around the matchmaking system as people figure out neat ways to sidestep our current methodologies. We don't consider it an exploit to do what players are doing, but it *is* gaming the system. Sort of like counting cards.

Kikujiro

Zathrus wrote:

Zathrus wrote:

I just got ripped off in this Mags round. Spent most of the last 45 minutes at #1; got hit a couple times and knocked down to #2. Came out of a match to -20 at #3 with <1 min left.

Final scores:
Slimson 703
Ozkaros 653
Zathrus 653

...

Kudos to Slimson -- no idea how he rocketed up so fast at the end.

Just got a message from MPQ Support:

Hello!

We just sent the cover over to your device.

Thank you!

D3Publisher Support Team

I'm happy. Thanks again to the team!

Just came across with the text "Reward Earned!" "This is for you."

Did you send a ticket ? Because something very similar happened to me last night in NHB.

TheLadder was 1st with like a bazillion points, me landing in 2nd place was easy with 800+ points. Then he started tanking, so did I.

The last 10 minutes I was in 2nd spot with 721 points, the same amount as the 1st spot guy, with some other guy staring at us with 713 and below him people at 600+. In the last few seconds that guy jumped over us at 733-734 and I finished 3rd with the same points as the 2nd, so there goes my purple GBW cover

Unknown

IceIX wrote:

Spoit wrote:

Congrats. I hope they reconsider that tie system before the end of hulk though

There's no way we could update the tie system before the end of Hulk. As to tanking to lower MMR: It doesn't do as much as it used to since we've been tweaking the algorithm to account for things like that. Basically, if you lose more often in a sudden fashion when you weren't losing like that before, it starts putting the brakes on your MMR losses. So while you would drop a little, you're not going to be hitting a free ride for much more than a few matchups before you recover the MMR you had before. Lightning rounds as well have a lesser effect on MMR than any other Tourney We'll continue to change around the matchmaking system as people figure out neat ways to sidestep our current methodologies. We don't consider it an exploit to do what players are doing, but it *is* gaming the system. Sort of like counting cards.

I hope you are also looking into keeping us from winding up in situations where we have only a few people to fight, especially when they all have considerably fewer points. The matchmaking gets too restrictive at times.

I'm also a bit concerned that such a change could adversely affect people whose rating *needs* to drop legitimately. I guess we will see.

Unknown

Misguided wrote:

IceIX wrote:

Spoit wrote:

Congrats. I hope they reconsider that tie system before the end of hulk though

There's no way we could update the tie system before the end of Hulk. As to tanking to lower MMR: It doesn't do as much as it used to since we've been tweaking the algorithm to account for things like that. Basically, if you lose more often in a sudden fashion when you weren't losing like that before, it starts putting the brakes on your MMR losses. So while you would drop a little, you're not going to be hitting a free ride for much more than a few matchups before you recover the MMR you had before. Lightning rounds as well have a lesser effect on MMR than any other Tourney We'll continue to change around the matchmaking system as people figure out neat ways to sidestep our current methodologies. We don't consider it an exploit to do what players are doing, but it *is* gaming the system. Sort of like counting cards.

I hope you are also looking into keeping us from winding up in situations where we have only a few people to fight, especially when they all have considerably fewer points. The matchmaking gets too restrictive at times.

I'm also a bit concerned that such a change could adversely affect people whose rating *needs* to drop legitimately. I guess we will see.

Yeah I just get offered the same 8 guys over and over. When you're 200 points ahead of them and looking for that 30 pointer its rather annoying!

Unknown

Kikujiro wrote:

Did you send a ticket ? Because something very similar happened to me last night in NHB.

I sent in a kindly worded request along with point totals, and I had a screenshot available just in case.

And no, I didn't expect for there to be any change for Hulk, as changing the scoring for this kind of thing would require a decent bit of code change and a LOT of testing.

And it would've been entirely reasonable for them to say "Sorry, it is what it is". But I figured I'd try.

And, finally, this was a Lightning Round, so there wasn't any yielding to drop score involved (at least not at the top), and everyone in a single bracket.

Unknown

Their baaaaaaack