Is this sharding?

BrandonE

I've been playing 80 something days now, and had time in Season 2, 3 and 4. My placement has consistently dropped while my raw score has gone up. Being numerically inclinded, I tracked my placement and the look of my bracket from the first Season I participated in. Below is my ranking, score and the 1st, 5th and 10th score in my bracket.

Ranking	Score	Leader	5th	10th
78	     3511	 8621	 6052   5589
228	    5742	 13232	9672	9233
415	    7456	 23027	21616  17201

For Season 2, I was just beginning pvp play, with a low level stock 1* team, but was approaching max 1* by the end. For Season 3, I maxed my 1* and started on my 2*, but at most had 1 maxed (if any) by the end. This season (4), I finished maxing my 2* roster and collected a bunch of under-covered 3* chars.

Is this sharding at work? Will my next season just be worse until I can start maxing 3* and competing for more top slots in the season?

Unknown

I dont think it is so much about sharding.

You situation can easily be explain.

Season 2 you join late miss out on part of the event and end up in a relatively easy bracket. That would explain the high ranking despite the lower score.

Season 3 you start as every one start, end up in a normal bracket. Your placement is as expect of someone with your roster.

Season 4 you start like season 3 but because the increase in competitiveness due to reward restructure (top 5 get significantly better reward) people try a lot harder. (Also Xmen madness increase overall score for every one). So despite having higher score you end up with lower ranking cause everyone try a lot harder.

Despite what people say about sharding, i dont thinking there is any sort of sharding going on here. It just happen that if you join around the same time as some hardcore player you most likely get a tough bracket.

It's all depend on when you join an event. If you join very late you can end up with very soft/easy bracket.
If you really want good Season placement reward, i suggest skipping a few event in the beginning. Join after 2-3 event will most likely land you in an easier bracket allow for better season placement.

Unknown

Justdangit wrote:

I dont think it is so much about sharding.

You situation can easily be explain.

Season 2 you join late miss out on part of the event and end up in a relatively easy bracket. That would explain the high ranking despite the lower score.

Season 3 you start as every one start, end up in a normal bracket. Your placement is as expect of someone with your roster.

Season 4 you start like season 3 but because the increase in competitiveness due to reward restructure (top 5 get significantly better reward) people try a lot harder. (Also Xmen madness increase overall score for every one). So despite having higher score you end up with lower ranking cause everyone try a lot harder.

Despite what people say about sharding, i dont thinking there is any sort of sharding going on here. It just happen that if you join around the same time as some hardcore player you most likely get a tough bracket.

It's all depend on when you join an event. If you join very late you can end up with very soft/easy bracket.
If you really want good Season placement reward, i suggest skipping a few event in the beginning. Join after 2-3 event will most likely land you in an easier bracket allow for better season placement.

That's right sharding is a myth to scare noobs. The death brackets of season 4 were just in everyone's imagination. Just because you had to work harder and score more to get a lesser ranking doesn't mean anything, its just a coincidence. And the fact that mpq has stated several times on the record that there is sharding, just disregard that because it interferes with the whole sharding is a myth thing.

There's no need to go back to the fun brackets of seasons 2 and 3 since sharding did not get out of hand in season 4 due sharding does not really exist.

SARCASM.

Unknown

Justdangit wrote:

I dont think it is so much about sharding.

You situation can easily be explain.

Season 2 you join late miss out on part of the event and end up in a relatively easy bracket. That would explain the high ranking despite the lower score.

Season 3 you start as every one start, end up in a normal bracket. Your placement is as expect of someone with your roster.

Season 4 you start like season 3 but because the increase in competitiveness due to reward restructure (top 5 get significantly better reward) people try a lot harder. (Also Xmen madness increase overall score for every one). So despite having higher score you end up with lower ranking cause everyone try a lot harder.

Despite what people say about sharding, i dont thinking there is any sort of sharding going on here. It just happen that if you join around the same time as some hardcore player you most likely get a tough bracket.

It's all depend on when you join an event. If you join very late you can end up with very soft/easy bracket.
If you really want good Season placement reward, i suggest skipping a few event in the beginning. Join after 2-3 event will most likely land you in an easier bracket allow for better season placement.

This is definitely the case. There was people who took number 1 is some seasons with less then 20K in season 4 there were also people who were fighting with 23K. It all depends when you start the season. Plus Sentry hopping has increased score dramatically. Before him a 2K score in a PVP was unimaginable. Now it is and has occurred many times.

Unknown

Kippo wrote:

Justdangit wrote:

I dont think it is so much about sharding.

You situation can easily be explain.

Season 2 you join late miss out on part of the event and end up in a relatively easy bracket. That would explain the high ranking despite the lower score.

Season 3 you start as every one start, end up in a normal bracket. Your placement is as expect of someone with your roster.

Season 4 you start like season 3 but because the increase in competitiveness due to reward restructure (top 5 get significantly better reward) people try a lot harder. (Also Xmen madness increase overall score for every one). So despite having higher score you end up with lower ranking cause everyone try a lot harder.

Despite what people say about sharding, i dont thinking there is any sort of sharding going on here. It just happen that if you join around the same time as some hardcore player you most likely get a tough bracket.

It's all depend on when you join an event. If you join very late you can end up with very soft/easy bracket.
If you really want good Season placement reward, i suggest skipping a few event in the beginning. Join after 2-3 event will most likely land you in an easier bracket allow for better season placement.

This is definitely the case. There was people who took number 1 is some seasons with less then 20K in season 4 there were also people who were fighting with 23K. It all depends when you start the season. Plus Sentry hopping has increased score dramatically. Before him a 2K score in a PVP was unimaginable. Now it is and has occurred many times.

Let's try this again with the direct approach. ICEIX has specifically stated that there is sharding. See below.

"by IceIX » Sun Jul 27, 2014 10:18 pm

locked wrote:
Surprised no one asked yet, but Ice, are you сontent with how sharding works at the moment? Seems same as S1 so far, not complaining as I bully lower level players enough to get my share of tough, but it may be unfair for those same lower lever rosters, too. Instead of 2-5 crazies in a bracket they may now get 10-15!

Edit: oh noes, he disappeared already

Nope, haven't disappeared. Trying to get a setup on multiple devices so that I can double check on that earlier question about Team-Ups appearing for enemies in Versus. Can't remember off hand if you need to keep it stocked or not. Pretty sure you don't, but trying to get the setup on the QA servers is taking a bit longer than I expected.

As for sharding, it's working better than it first was but not great yet. Still tweaking how people get shunted between shards to keep things
A) Even between shards for any given Event. Doesn't help to shard things if one gets overloaded and servers explode as a result.
Good feeling of opponent variety within each shard, especially if you rise or lower a bunch in scaling/rating during an Event.

We're definitely doing far better on A, still working on getting B in a place that we're happy with."

wuweird

The game is just beginning to feel massively unfair to me.

I earned 3 times as many points as a friend in Season 4. We both played for the full season, our alliance all started on the same PVE event at the same time. And yet he ranked ~900 in his bracket and I ranked ~1500.

So I played more, did better, and earned lesser rewards then him. ****?

Unknown

BrandonE wrote:

I've been playing 80 something days now, and had time in Season 2, 3 and 4. My placement has consistently dropped while my raw score has gone up. Being numerically inclinded, I tracked my placement and the look of my bracket from the first Season I participated in. Below is my ranking, score and the 1st, 5th and 10th score in my bracket.

Ranking	Score	Leader	5th	10th
78	     3511	 8621	 6052   5589
228	    5742	 13232	9672	9233
415	    7456	 23027	21616  17201

For Season 2, I was just beginning pvp play, with a low level stock 1* team, but was approaching max 1* by the end. For Season 3, I maxed my 1* and started on my 2*, but at most had 1 maxed (if any) by the end. This season (4), I finished maxing my 2* roster and collected a bunch of under-covered 3* chars.

Is this sharding at work? Will my next season just be worse until I can start maxing 3* and competing for more top slots in the season?

From looking at your season 4 bracket score, it is probably as hard sharding bracket will go for main season bracket. I think about 5+ or so brackets are like the one you entered in season 4. I think there are a few 'soft' bracket like the one you entered in season 3, and 1 or 2 newbie bracket like season 2.

Unknown

wuweird wrote:

The game is just beginning to feel massively unfair to me.

I earned 3 times as many points as a friend in Season 4. We both played for the full season, our alliance all started on the same PVE event at the same time. And yet he ranked ~900 in his bracket and I ranked ~1500.

So I played more, did better, and earned lesser rewards then him. ****?

Er what? PVE is not related to Season.

wuweird

Justdangit wrote:

wuweird wrote:

The game is just beginning to feel massively unfair to me.

I earned 3 times as many points as a friend in Season 4. We both played for the full season, our alliance all started on the same PVE event at the same time. And yet he ranked ~900 in his bracket and I ranked ~1500.

So I played more, did better, and earned lesser rewards then him. ****?

Er what? PVE is not related to Season.

Sorry, that was an unfortunate typo. I meant PVP.

Unknown

Here was my alliance story.

I was 2nd highest score at 10898 - finished in 145th place. Bracket won with 21780, 10th place was 17801.

Best score in my alliance was 12561 - finished in 2nd place.

3rd through 11th all scored over 10000 - mostly top 100 or better (including as high as 10th) with one at 253rd.

It really seems to be luck of the draw and with most serious players entering the first PvP of the season everybody gets into a Season bracket quickly. Best way to place well would be to skip the first event, but imagine that won't go over too well with most alliances. Otherwise just hope you get lucky with your join time.