Too Many Secrets - Season V opener

Pwuz_

jobob wrote:

The dang "point-stealing" element of the PVP is really killing the fun of the game for me. I can handle that I might not end up ranked highly, and I can handle having to grind my way to 1300 for a cover, but losing points each time you're attacked basically makes both of them about ranking, not grinding, which kind of sucks. I liked what I EXPECTED the mechanic to be... put in your time, and get a decent reward, be the best and get icing on the cake. But it seems like both are about being the best... not necessarily a huge deal in PVP, but it would be nice if it wasn't presented differently.

I won a battle and LOST points overall 'cause 3 separate guys attacked me while I was doing it. I'm barely at 500 points (probably lower in the time I've spent typing this) and I know I've lost AT LEAST another 180 points. Boo.

This has been a factor since...well before I started playing in February. There are a few things you can do if you are not already to discourage these types of attacks, though, if you're aiming for that juicy Fury cover at 1300 someone who understands and uses shield hopping may be a better guide. I typically aim for top 100 placement with around 600-800 points depending on the event.

#1: Watch who you attack, both in the points they are worth to you as well as the roster they are not using. If you attack anyone for less than around 25 points (I'm not sure where this magical barrier is, but I do know it changes as you get higher), they actually receive more points for their retaliation than you earned for your initial attack. There is no sweeter joy than to see some idiot who attacked you for <10 points, who is worth 40+ points in your retaliation queue. That said, if you view their roster and their 6 highest covers are easy pickings for your current team, go hog wild, you might score some points for their failed attempt to retaliate. On the flip side, if you see some team that you can trounce, but the guy has 2 or more Max level 3* characters, he's sandbagging. There is probably a reason for it, and baiting someone weaker than them into attacking may be part of their strategy overall (especially if they are shield hopping.)

#2: Pick your best defensive team and stick with it. While the "Goal" of true healing is to encourage people to use more diverse teams, I find that only applies to PvE. Sure you COULD change teams to your defensive team after fighting a few rounds with everyone. However this leads to retaliations on sub-par teams. Not only the retaliations for the matches you won, but also those who queued you up before you got your defensive team back in position. Certain characters discourage retaliations (Hulk, Sentry, Daken, Hood) while others wear giant "ATTACK ME FOR FREE POINTS" signs (Daredevil, Bagman, Loki). I would go as far as to ask "What characters do you hate fighting the most? Which ones do you insist on attacking 1st because they can mess up your whole game if you let them live?" Place as many of those characters on a team that plays nice together to both discourage others attacks, as well as occasionally catch a few bonus points for the failed attack on your team.

#3: Shield hopping has become part of the meta-game #deal with it. While I'm saving my HP for roster spots in my alliance, as best I can tell, I'm an oddity in MPQ today. Most players have adopted this strategy to win. The higher your points are, the more juicy you look, even with a tough defensive team. Again, I'm a cheap skate, but some players actively spend 1000 Iso to queue up only the most juicy targets between shielding. While nearly 100% of top 10 teams are shielded for most of the last 3 hours of an event, if you glance at the top 10 list leading up to the end of an event (like right now) you'll see anywhere between 1 and 10 players all shielding to protect their points. This gets more into how players shield hop, but many of the "best" players will work together to climb the ranks, attacking one another while they are shielded, but then before reshielding waiting for their friends to queue them up. I've heard of two players piggy backing like this all the way up to the top progression rewards, but I suspect that teams of 4 or more players are more efficient since they can then queue up your 3 buddies while shielding, then attack them after they have shielded.

I hope this helps some.

HairyDave

I seem to have wound up in a very competitive, but low scoring bracket - 10th is only on 600 odd but 50th is only 150 behind that.

Unknown

Top 6 in mine is already hovering around 1100. Couple people at 1300 already. PolarCows, Daveomite, Talahamut, as well as a panda of doom, a carebear, an X3, and some others I don't recognize.

8th place is 941 with more than 12 hours to go.

I think I'm going to try for 1300 if I have the time today, but I'll be surprised if that's even good for top 10. Fortunately little punnyfoofoo is already maxed (albeit 535), so I don't really need the prizes.

Unknown

Puertorico of X-Men 2 has 1700 points with only a 166 Deadpool? How is he shieldhopping so far with that? Wouldn't he be hit a million times when he unshields?

I love how useless the loaner Fury is. The best strategy is probably to make him tank a ton of colors.

@jabob, when your team is bad there comes a treshold you can't cross. When I go over 750 I get hit a million times by all 166 teams. I'm assuming you have a 1 Star or unmaxed 2 Star team. So when you go over a certain point treshold you suddenly get matched with better teams and they are happy to take your points.
Plus as already mentioned you are probably attacking better teams. And after a climb they all retaliate and get their points back with interest.

jobob

Thanks guys for the tips. Yes, I'm playing with pretty much a 2* team.

I have a couple questions about the feedback:

"Defensive Team" - So how does the game decide your roster when someone attacks you? Is it always the last 3 (or 2 + Fury) that you used in the event, or is it your highest level heroes? And if I go play a story or different event will it use those players, or keep the last ones from PVP?

"Retaliation Queue" - Alright I feel dumb but I have no clue what this is... Is there a way to attack players who have hit you for more points? I only see the 3 circles in the main event window, and they seem random... Should I be looking for someplace else?

Does being on a team affect personal score at all? And are there any good alliances recruiting? I just picked a random one, and I'm down to 391 points, but overall we only have 601 and are ranked 5609... I think it may be time to jump ship?


Thanks again for the help guys

Unknown

PPPlaya wrote:

Puertorico of X-Men 2 has 1700 points with only a 166 Deadpool? How is he shieldhopping so far with that? Wouldn't he be hit a million times when he unshields?

I'm not sure what team PR is using, but I'd guess that it's the 151 3/5/5 Hood with the 124 2/5/5 Sentry. Though not quite as strong as if those were both maxed, it's still going to deal 138+535 per world rupture tile, so up to 10,768 to each character if there were 16 tiles and they all survived. It's more likely that it's 10-12 tiles, plus Hood's intimidate, which will probably get the job done. If we were figuring 11 tiles to everyone, that means 7403 to the non targeted characters, and 9228 to the target. Still enough to kill most opponents, and whomever survives shouldn't be too tough to clean up.

Unknown

jobob wrote:

Thanks guys for the tips. Yes, I'm playing with pretty much a 2* team.

I have a couple questions about the feedback:

"Defensive Team" - So how does the game decide your roster when someone attacks you? Is it always the last 3 (or 2 + Fury) that you used in the event, or is it your highest level heroes? And if I go play a story or different event will it use those players, or keep the last ones from PVP?

"Retaliation Queue" - Alright I feel dumb but I have no clue what this is... Is there a way to attack players who have hit you for more points? I only see the 3 circles in the main event window, and they seem random... Should I be looking for someplace else?

Does being on a team affect personal score at all? And are there any good alliances recruiting? I just picked a random one, and I'm down to 391 points, but overall we only have 601 and are ranked 5609... I think it may be time to jump ship?


Thanks again for the help guys

A max level 2 Star Ares + Widow should get you to 700. Or maxlevel Torch maybe, havent tried him yet. If they are not max level, then you won't get past 500 since everybody who has maxlevel 2s will attack you when they see you. So concentrate on maxing them, that deters players from attacking you.

Your defensive team is your last used team. Make sure to put something scary up. Tons of people leave up Magneto and Storm, but I chew through them like nothing. Ares is much scarier or thor.

Whenever you hit someone, they can retaliate. When you have been hit by someone, they show up in your queue in a red circle. The normal ones are orange. Watch out for that.
So if you hit somebody and then gain 100 points, they will hit you and gain more than you won vs them since you are 100 higher now.

Look in the Alliance forum for alliances.

GTannen73

jobob wrote:

Thanks guys for the tips. Yes, I'm playing with pretty much a 2* team.

I have a couple questions about the feedback:

"Defensive Team" - So how does the game decide your roster when someone attacks you? Is it always the last 3 (or 2 + Fury) that you used in the event, or is it your highest level heroes? And if I go play a story or different event will it use those players, or keep the last ones from PVP?

"Retaliation Queue" - Alright I feel dumb but I have no clue what this is... Is there a way to attack players who have hit you for more points? I only see the 3 circles in the main event window, and they seem random... Should I be looking for someplace else?

Does being on a team affect personal score at all? And are there any good alliances recruiting? I just picked a random one, and I'm down to 391 points, but overall we only have 601 and are ranked 5609... I think it may be time to jump ship?


Thanks again for the help guys

Your defensive team is the team you last used to win a match in the event. The exception is if you defeated someone, and they are retaliating--your defensive team against that person will be the team you beat them with.

"Retaliation Queue"--When you are attacked and your team is beaten, you are given an opportunity to retaliate against that team. Whenever you have retaliations waiting, one or more of your nodes (if you have more than one) will turn red. Selecting a red node will give you a team that beat your team, and a chance to retaliate if you wish. You may fight or skip these teams as you would any other--the only difference is that it costs nothing to skip a retaliation.

If your alliance only has 601 points and 391 of them are yours, you're carrying the alliance. I'd recommend finding a new one, if you're interested in an active one.

Pwuz_

jobob wrote:

Does being on a team affect personal score at all? And are there any good alliances recruiting? I just picked a random one, and I'm down to 391 points, but overall we only have 601 and are ranked 5609... I think it may be time to jump ship?

Your score affects your alliance score, but the alliance score does nothing to affect your personal score. Depending on the group of players, some people wait till the last few hours of a tournament to enter, hoping to get into an easier bracket to get better rewards. This strategy used to be far more effective, but as of late my experience is that it backfires more than it helps. Keeping that in mind, if your alliance ends the event with you carrying your team, yeah, it may be time to find a more competitive group to join.

That said, if you actually know the other members of your group, or you just enjoy chatting with them, there is nothing wrong with sticking with a group of players that don't play at as high of a level as you either. Depending on the size of your alliance, getting anything more than Iso rewards can be impossible. It's only been in the last month or so that my alliance has risen to consistent HP rewards, and that was at around 13 members. A really competitive group of players may be able to push into that territory sooner, but with a growing number of 20 member Alliances, I wouldn't hold my breath.

The other factor that I keep in mind is how accommodating your alliance may be to going inactive for a day or simply not scoring high enough in events. I'm personally of the philosophy that life comes first, and I've built my alliance around that. I play as much as life allows, and only expect my alliance mates to play as much as their life allows as well. There are other alliances that set minimum required point thresholds for events (some PvP, some PvE, some are crazy enough for all events) and if you don't maintain the status quo, you will be booted. I'm not an expert on the workings of other alliances, but there are some serious groups who I could probably hang with for a few days, but not for any significant amount of time. Though what's the worst thing to happen if you do? Well, besides the possible ill will of your real friends who you abandoned to be more competitive in a game.

Unknown

j12601 wrote:

Top 6 in mine is already hovering around 1100. Couple people at 1300 already. PolarCows, Daveomite, Talahamut, as well as a panda of doom, a carebear, an X3, and some others I don't recognize.

8th place is 941 with more than 12 hours to go.

I think I'm going to try for 1300 if I have the time today, but I'll be surprised if that's even good for top 10. Fortunately little punnyfoofoo is already maxed (albeit 535), so I don't really need the prizes.

My mains shaping up that way too currently 9th has 1146 points. I can see the whole top 10 being over 1300 by the end.

Unknown

Sumilea wrote:

j12601 wrote:

Top 6 in mine is already hovering around 1100. Couple people at 1300 already. PolarCows, Daveomite, Talahamut, as well as a panda of doom, a carebear, an X3, and some others I don't recognize.

8th place is 941 with more than 12 hours to go.

I think I'm going to try for 1300 if I have the time today, but I'll be surprised if that's even good for top 10. Fortunately little punnyfoofoo is already maxed (albeit 535), so I don't really need the prizes.

My mains shaping up that way too currently 9th has 1146 points. I can see the whole top 10 being over 1300 by the end.

From the way the scores are looking, I think mine will end up being a top 8 with 5 getting better prizes, and the 2 people rounding out the top 10, getting prizes without having ground and shield hopped like crazy. They're probably smarter than us.

Unknown

In my bracket there's me and two others battling each other in top 3, I've been second steadily for a while now, first past 1300 and we other two approaching it. And then there's a big fat gap and then only people in the 800s and 700s in the top ten. Funny bracket.
(I don't care whether I end up #1 or #2 or even #3, or lower than that, I just want the Fury yellow progression reward.)

Unknown

Okay I done with this event current top 10 is as follows

Unknown

Why is everybody grinding so hard? Don't most people have Punisher Covers already?

I am not talking about the Fury Reward, but those people climbing up to 1000 to shield in 7th place. There are people sitting shielded at 800 points who already have a maxed punisher.Isn't that a waste of hp? Is it because the season started and everybody is hot for the XForce Alliance Reward?

Unknown

PPPlaya wrote:

Why is everybody grinding so hard? Don't most people have Punisher Covers already?

I am not talking about the Fury Reward, but those people climbing up to 1000 to shield in 7th place. There are people sitting shielded at 800 points who already have a maxed punisher.Isn't that a waste of hp? Is it because the season started and everybody is hot for the XForce Alliance Reward?

Anyone shielded at 1000 points has plenty of time to do the 4 jumps to get yourself to 1300+. This event for me was stop at 800 or spend the HP I had obtained in the PvE to hop to 1300 and I decided on the latter.

HailMary

jobob wrote:

"Defensive Team" - So how does the game decide your roster when someone attacks you? Is it always the last 3 (or 2 + Fury) that you used in the event, or is it your highest level heroes? And if I go play a story or different event will it use those players, or keep the last ones from PVP?

To add a bit more clarity/confusion about your defensive team, a "defensive" team is simply what other players see you fielding. Your "current" defensive/visible team in a specific event (the reason for the quotes will be explained in a bit) is updated whenever you win a fight in that specific event. Once you win a fight, your defensive team becomes whatever team you used for that victory. However, once you've been queued up in someone's node, what they see as your team doesn't change as long as they keep you in their node. So, let's say someone queued you up 20 min. ago when your visible team was Thor + OBW. 10 min ago, you won a fight with Ares + OBW. That guy who queued you up 20 min ago will still be fighting against your Thor + OBW team, regardless of when he actually enters that fight. To add even more complexity, node opponents are generally queued up in batches about three-deep. That is, even if you skip two people in your lower-left node, the new (third) person that appears could've been queued up the last time you skipped a bunch of people, because opponents are queued up maybe 3-4 at a time per node.

This is why you'll see people talking about "clearing your stack/queue."

Your opponents' scores (and thus, how much they're worth to you if you beat them) also stay artificially static once they occupy a node. Let's say you queue up a guy when he has a score of 400 (and say, is worth 21 points to you), and don't attack him until later. If you attack him when his score is at 700 points, your node will still list him as being worth 21 points (based on his old 400-point score), but the actual points you get for winning will be based on his new 700-point score (probably around 30 points?).

tl;dr - People will see a static snapshot of their opponents at the time of initial queueing, which doesn't necessarily reflect circumstances when they actually decide to fight a queued opponent.

jobob wrote:

"Retaliation Queue" - Alright I feel dumb but I have no clue what this is... Is there a way to attack players who have hit you for more points? I only see the 3 circles in the main event window, and they seem random... Should I be looking for someplace else?

People who attack you and win (i.e. making you lose) will turn a node red and overwrite the non-retal player that was originally occupying that node. The team you see them fielding will be the team they beat you with, no matter how many times they've changed their team comp since then. Anyone who hits you for less than 25 points had a higher score than you at the time of the hit, and assuming they didn't lose a lot of points in the meantime, will be worth more than 25 points to you if you decide to retaliate. People who attack you and lose (i.e. giving you a win and giving you points) will merely appear in the attack popup, and will not appear as a retal node (cuz that's just rubbin' it in ).

jobob wrote:

Does being on a team affect personal score at all? And are there any good alliances recruiting? I just picked a random one, and I'm down to 391 points, but overall we only have 601 and are ranked 5609... I think it may be time to jump ship?

Your alliance score is a simple sum of its members' personal scores. Its only utility is in determining alliance placement.

If you're looking for an alliance to get in touch with you, post here: viewtopic.php?f=16&t=5159&start=2120
It's best to list what you want out of an alliance (consistent Top 100? chattiness? PVP emphasis vs. PVE emphasis? Casual vs. casual-competitive vs. seriously competitive?) and lay out what you can bring to the alliance (current roster strength, amount of points you generally get in PVP, general PVE placement, level of consistency of play, etc.).

If you want to actively seek out alliances, look here: viewtopic.php?f=16&t=5159&start=2120

Spoit

Sumilea wrote:

PPPlaya wrote:

Why is everybody grinding so hard? Don't most people have Punisher Covers already?

I am not talking about the Fury Reward, but those people climbing up to 1000 to shield in 7th place. There are people sitting shielded at 800 points who already have a maxed punisher.Isn't that a waste of hp? Is it because the season started and everybody is hot for the XForce Alliance Reward?

Anyone shielded at 1000 points has plenty of time to do the 4 jumps to get yourself to 1300+. This event for me was stop at 800 or spend the HP I had obtained in the PvE to hop to 1300 and I decided on the latter.

Hell if you spend enough ISO to find 50s matches, 1000->1300 could be done in as little as 2 hops if you want to risk 3 fights. 3 hops for sure. And half an hour really does seem like enough time to wait for the queued ones to largely dissipate

reckless442

Have to commend flare808 for this amazing hop between shields.

At 4:54 left in the event, he was unshielded at 1612. At 4:53 left, he had jumped to 1655. At 4:52 left, he was at 1698. (I have screencaps with the time-stamps on them.) I assume he was using boosted Sentry/Hood, but, even so, 86 points in two minutes is pretty amazing.

Unknown

reckless442 wrote:

Have to commend flare808 for this amazing hop between shields.

At 4:54 left in the event, he was unshielded at 1612. At 4:53 left, he had jumped to 1655. At 4:52 left, he was at 1698. (I have screencaps with the time-stamps on them.) I assume he was using boosted Sentry/Hood, but, even so, 86 points in two minutes is pretty amazing.

I sense some sarcasm here

So he hit two of the 1900 point targets in one hop and the second fight was less than 2 minutes, if the server reported the first win to you promptly? (you don't know when he unshielded to start the first fight from what you said). Nice work but nothing unusual from a good player.

Amazeballs

Approached 800 last night, hit the 166 wall, and shielded up in the Top 10. I think I'm done for this event, as I could use Pun covers. 1300 Fury would be nice, but unrealistic with no maxed characters. If you happen to see me, feel free to attack.