Please cancel losing points in tournaments

Unknown

The lack of defense isn't a big deal if there was a way to inflict permanent damage on your attacker. Currently there isn't. Pretty much all my attacks end with my characters at 100% health, and I'm sure the reverse is also true when I am attacked. Heals need to be reworked for PvP.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

The lack of defense isn't a big deal if there was a way to inflict permanent damage on your attacker. Currently there isn't. Pretty much all my attacks end with my characters at 100% health, and I'm sure the reverse is also true when I am attacked. Heals need to be reworked for PvP.

Hmm, do you have any ideas about that? I've been thinking about it for a while now and the only things I can come up with that actually make sense thematically will just make defense and retaliations worse.

Or bring everything to a standstill considering how mmr works right now.

Unknown

To put my two cents in, I think if they just added a diminishing returns formula into the mix that it could solve a lot of issues.

Example
1st defeat in a given 10min period gives 100% point gain/loss
2nd 80%
3rd 50%
4th 30%
5th. 20%
6th no point loss

Unknown

beezer37_84 wrote:

Phantron wrote:

The lack of defense isn't a big deal if there was a way to inflict permanent damage on your attacker. Currently there isn't. Pretty much all my attacks end with my characters at 100% health, and I'm sure the reverse is also true when I am attacked. Heals need to be reworked for PvP.

Hmm, do you have any ideas about that? I've been thinking about it for a while now and the only things I can come up with that actually make sense thematically will just make defense and retaliations worse.

Or bring everything to a standstill considering how mmr works right now.

The easiest fix I can think of is make heals function as damage absorption in PvP, and once a character is used in PvP it cannot be healed in PvE either until he reaches full HP somehow (time or heal pack), since without this people will simply take their character to a PvE mission to heal instead. So instead of Spiderman healing everyone for 5000 HP, he will instead put a shield that absorbs an equal amount of HP. That way, all damage done in PvP is permanent and can only be healed by time or heal packs. Regeneration would function as a constant absorption of X HP each turn whenever applicable, so Wolverine with regen maxed will absorb a maximum of 5% of his HP each turn (Daken would probably need some help here since he'd suck in this scheme, maybe his penalty is simply waived in PvP). This alone probably isn't enough for balance, because a character like Ragnarok is still too potent on offense in general, but if you can't possibly heal you're at least punished for playing poorly. Right now playing poorly just means you bring in Spiderman to sub the next game, if he's not already part of your team, and then everyone will be back to 100% again. Nobody would possibly be afraid of attacking a comparably strong team when you can be confident of starting and ending every fight at 100%.

Unknown

MTGOFerret wrote:

To put my two cents in, I think if they just added a diminishing returns formula into the mix that it could solve a lot of issues.

Example
1st defeat in a given 10min period gives 100% point gain/loss
2nd 80%
3rd 50%
4th 30%
5th. 20%
6th no point loss

Problem with that is in that case now the winner becomes the guy who was lucky enough to get hit by someone much higher than him to trigger the immunity, so now it's just a different kind of luck. In particular, whoever triggered this immunity with 10 minutes left to go on a PvP tournament will have an extremely high chance of winning the tournament, and there's nothing particularly fair about that.

Crazze47

I agree with KholdStare88, I don't want to see losing points taken away completely but there does need to be some kind of limit on how many points you can lose. I've had KholdStare88's example happen to me several times and it is probably the most frustrating thing about this game. Going from top ten to 60 something in a matter of minutes isn't fun or winning a fight that gives you 30 points and once you finish it you've actually lost that 30 plus an additional 30. It's insanity. Really glad the Dev's realize it is a problem and are working to fix it. The only other major improvement I could hope for is a respec option.

Unknown

I posted in general but my idea is that you can only lose points to 20 distinct players over a period of 8 hours, and this limit resets with 90 minutes left to go on any tournament. The numbers are somewhat arbitary but the idea is that it should be possible to somehow weather the storm of negative points in the final stretch, and this also means building a cushion is important. Suppose you're ahead by 100 points going into the final 90 minutes, then it's basically like you only have to worry about 17 hits in the final 90 minutes (assuming 3 hits for a total of 100 points). Of course retaliation would have to be reworked (otherwise two guys can just retaliate each other forever for free points) so there's a lot of work to be done.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

MTGOFerret wrote:

To put my two cents in, I think if they just added a diminishing returns formula into the mix that it could solve a lot of issues.

Example
1st defeat in a given 10min period gives 100% point gain/loss
2nd 80%
3rd 50%
4th 30%
5th. 20%
6th no point loss

Problem with that is in that case now the winner becomes the guy who was lucky enough to get hit by someone much higher than him to trigger the immunity, so now it's just a different kind of luck. In particular, whoever triggered this immunity with 10 minutes left to go on a PvP tournament will have an extremely high chance of winning the tournament, and there's nothing particularly fair about that.

How does this require bigger people hitting you? 5 losses is pretty common from what I've heard and experienced.

Crazze47

Someone that has lower points than you gets more for winning than someone who is higher than you. Which also means you lose less points from someone who is higher than you. So you with the system you proposed you would hope that someone with more points than you attacked you first since the you would lose the full amount. Basically higher rating dude attacks you @ 100% you lose 10 points compared to lower dude which would take 30. So the guy who is getting attacked by the lower rating teams first is going to lose more points than someone being attacked by high ranking teams.

/sigh I feel like I just said the same thing in four different sentences... I need to get to sleep.

Unknown

MTGOFerret wrote:

Phantron wrote:

MTGOFerret wrote:

To put my two cents in, I think if they just added a diminishing returns formula into the mix that it could solve a lot of issues.

Example
1st defeat in a given 10min period gives 100% point gain/loss
2nd 80%
3rd 50%
4th 30%
5th. 20%
6th no point loss

Problem with that is in that case now the winner becomes the guy who was lucky enough to get hit by someone much higher than him to trigger the immunity, so now it's just a different kind of luck. In particular, whoever triggered this immunity with 10 minutes left to go on a PvP tournament will have an extremely high chance of winning the tournament, and there's nothing particularly fair about that.

How does this require bigger people hitting you? 5 losses is pretty common from what I've heard and experienced.

Let's say I got hit 5 times by guys who get 30 points from me, then I'd lose 30, 24, 15, 9, and 6 points for a total of 74. Another person with the same rating got hit 5 times from guys that would've gotten 10 points, so he'd give up about 25 points. The first person now has a 50 point lead while both characters enter the 'can't lose point' phase. All else being equal, it's actually extremely hard to make up a 50 point lead if both characters cannot lose points, and yet the only difference here is the ordering. Normally, if this scenario happened, the guy who got hit for small amounts would invariably get hit for bigger later for having a higher score so it evens out.

Unknown

A 50 point difference is still a hell of a lot better then what we have now, also as I mentioned the immunity would have a short timer so as you put it they could get hit for larger amounts later.

Sure this isnt perfect fit the final ten mins of a tourney but on that same note at least it would be ALOT harder if not impossible to crater from 1st to 200th in those final ten minutes as well.

Bottom line? There likely isn't any perfect solution but go ahead and try to find a better one that's still fair for all the casuals,the grinders, and the last minute snipers

Your idea heavily favors the grinders, more or less makes progression rewards trivial and then still requires people to deal with the last hour cratering of the rating they've built up over the past two days in a matter of minutes.
And let's remember its the cratering that the masses have been complaining about.

Unknown

Actually my idea just lets you actually grind these PvP progression rewards that are pretty much unobtainable right now unless nobody happened to be playing while you're grinding. If we've no concern for whether PvP progression rewards should be obtainable we only have to worry about the last 90 minutes or so of a tournament and can skip most of the mechanisms I described. I just think there should be an actual advantage for playing the game in the time other than the last 90 minutes of a tournament.

If immunity to losing points kicks in at such low threshold (5 losses), it must be disabled during the last part of a PvP tournament. Otherwise winning is literally just whoever happen to have their immunity up while they're being hammered (everyone would still get hammered, that part isn't going to change). I'd prefer having grind being a significant factor of the outcome of PvP tournament, because otherwise even if you somehow fixed the score plummeting in the end of a tournament, you'd still end up having a total gankfest. If you can't lose points, it'd instead be whoever can find the most juicy targets to attack that wins. That is, suppose 2 guys are both at 500 points and both hit the immunity at the exact same time. With the way matchmaking works, these guys will usually see guys with 300-400 rating, but once in a while they might see a guy with 500 or even 600. If both characters cannot lose points, the winner is almost certainly the guy who just happens to see the higher rating guy (he'd obviously boost to beat that guy in this crucial stretch, so the difficulty of the team is not a major concern).

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

Actually my idea just lets you actually grind these PvP progression rewards that are pretty much unobtainable right now unless nobody happened to be playing while you're grinding. If we've no concern for whether PvP progression rewards should be obtainable we only have to worry about the last 90 minutes or so of a tournament and can skip most of the mechanisms I described. I just think there should be an actual advantage for playing the game in the time other than the last 90 minutes of a tournament.

Actually your idea makes getting 1400 points a non issue at all. Where as mine still allows for general flow of the first few days to remain mostly unchanged with some rare exceptions since its typically only the final day that cratering tends to happen in a short period of time

Phantron wrote:

If immunity to losing points kicks in at such low threshold (5 losses), it must be disabled during the last part of a PvP tournament. Otherwise winning is literally just whoever happen to have their immunity up while they're being hammered (everyone would still get hammered, that part isn't going to change). I'd prefer having grind being a significant factor of the outcome of PvP tournament, because otherwise even if you somehow fixed the score plummeting in the end of a tournament, you'd still end up having a total gankfest. If you can't lose points, it'd instead be whoever can find the most juicy targets to attack that wins. That is, suppose 2 guys are both at 500 points and both hit the immunity at the exact same time. With the way matchmaking works, these guys will usually see guys with 300-400 rating, but once in a while they might see a guy with 500 or even 600. If both characters cannot lose points, the winner is almost certainly the guy who just happens to see the higher rating guy (he'd obviously boost to beat that guy in this crucial stretch, so the difficulty of the team is not a major concern).

You're missing the point that you can still make attacks yourself during this time of immunity and its a short time frame. So lets say that you can make 1 attack per min that give you 10 attacks vs the 5 losses you should in theory still be able to net points and climb up the rewards ladder. Not to mention that the immunity would be short term thus in the last hour alone you would be open for attack at least 5 or 6 times ( 30 attacks is still a hefty amount of points lost) Im not saying that My solution is in any way perfect but it wouldn't completely alter the landscape of how the pvp tournies are played other then to maybe make the first few days a little more important becase the last minute grab and smashes wouldnt AS much of a total luck fest they currently are.

Overall I just don't see your solution doing anything other then strongly encouraging one style of play, flat ignoring the customers primary complaints,making the point values for the rewards irrelevant when you can just grind for 2 days with no risk or retaliation what so ever. and still having the primary flaw you accuse my idea of (being luck based in the final hours)
Infact I'd even argue that your method does nothing at all to prevent final placings being luck based since losses would be exactly the same as they are now but with swings in the top brackets being even more pronounced, because the fact that these people would have hugely inflated scores and would be getting hit for maximum value each time while only having extremely low point value targets themselves.

Unknown

MTGOFerret wrote:

To put my two cents in, I think if they just added a diminishing returns formula into the mix that it could solve a lot of issues.

I would be happy if the penalty for an attack was halved every time. For example somebody strikes you and earns 20 points -> you lose only 10. That might also help people to more easily reach the higher ranked prizes beyond the 700-800 point limit. Nowadays it just seems almost impossible to reach 1000 point rewards since somebody always pulls you back thanks to the rubber band effect of the current system.

Unknown

Demiurge_Will wrote:

Thanks for this feedback, y'all. I don't post here often, but I read a ton of the posts here and I really appreciate the insight of this community.

tl;dr: We're not happy that progression rewards are so unattainable, and we're making some changes in the next update that should help a bit. But the fact that high-end PvP uses a competitive rating system means that, ultimately, at some point your rating will level out until your team gets better or you come up with new strategies.

long: We want the top end of most PvP events to be more about player skill, team composition, and character advancement than about the amount you play (it's about both, but initially, our PvP events skewed towards playtime too strongly). This means that at some point, we want the score to work like a rating system. Until / unless your characters or your skill change, you'll eventually arrive at a rating that roughly reflects your team and you, and from there things will feel "zero sum".

We're finding the balance between a rating system where backsliding is difficult and you get to progress no matter what - like things work when you have a low rating - and one where skilled players with superior teams can find success in a reasonable amount of time.

It's not cool that the progression rewards are so unachievable, though, and I'd like to fix that. I expect that upcoming changes to PvP events in the next major update will both give you more options for protecting your rating and raise the average score for everybody. After I see how that plays out, I expect to revisit the progression reward thresholds and make sure the best rewards are within reach.

So... after seeing how it plays out, far end progression prizes for tourneys are stretched out by 400 more points, and shield training HP high end reward mysteriously chage from 500 to 100. And a well timed, delayed retaliation can still make you lose 49 points in one fight.
Way to go!

Feyda

Easiest way to make progression rewards obtainable would be to separate your progression total from your current rank total. That way, you can be attacked, lose your ranking spot (keeps number 1 spot competitive), but still keep the points for progression rewards. You could tweak how many points it takes for the best rewards, but that way you could actually grind them out without the whole one step forward three steps back nonsense that starts happening as soon as you get into the 500s.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

Right now the only thing that distinguishes how good a player is the amount you play. It's just not that hard to win your game and still have full health due to healing powers, so the only thing that separates two players using a turtle strategy is the speed they kill (which usually isn't going to be very different if both turtle) and how often they play. The point total fluctuate so much precisely because just about everyone can win decisively almost all the time. There's no skill involved in protecting your rating or obtaining your rating when everyone wins with nearly full health on all their characters. The only distinguishing factor is who plays more, and who is lucky enough to not get retaliated as much (or have the most intimidating team, even though you still won't win on defense). The fact that your rating is relatively static is not a bad thing. The fact that your rating pretty much only depends on how many player's screen your name showed up on in the last 60 minutes of a tournament is a very bad thing.

Very well said. The root problem is that my team is played by an overly stupid AI that is clueless on how to use it. And it (mis)plays with my offensive team. If at least I could set up a defensive team picked carefully to match its taste -- while I could use others with my intelligence.

But fixing/improving AI is hard and will not happen anytime soon, if ever. So the system should honestly take that into account and not turn the arena into dice-throwing. Also I honeslty don't understand why it is a problem if someone with most wins will win the tournament. Isn't that the most obvious measure of "skill" whatever that means?

While the new shields are better than nothing -- at least I could avoid the massive disappointment of the last-hour unavoidable dropdowns -- a massive improvement would be simply deduct way less points for "loss" to an attacker. say quarter. Or proportional to the remaining time from the tournamnent.

That would at least prevent the madness that I play the game for 2-3 minutes gaining ~20 points and arrive to announcement of 4 attacks, one taking 40 and the others 10-15 each. With additional insult some not even being in my bracket. WTH. If it happens midgame I at least have some chance to play up again (though dropping back from 400 to 109 and start over is less than encouraging also). At end I can only think to not getting here ever again. And it consistently happens.

On other forums people suggested that pairing happens measured on some win ratio, so one should put up a dummy team just to gain losses. Wow. If it is true than it is top insanity. Please cure it from the system. How *that* fits the best team composition idea?

Unknown

My 2 cents on a no brainer fix for the point loss issue.
Cap the point loss to a 15 per fight maximum.

No idea how it would affect overall scoring, but it's only fair for the player side. Losing 40+ points because AI is stupid is slightly disgusting

Feyda wrote:

Easiest way to make progression rewards obtainable would be to separate your progression total from your current rank total. That way, you can be attacked, lose your ranking spot (keeps number 1 spot competitive), but still keep the points for progression rewards. You could tweak how many points it takes for the best rewards, but that way you could actually grind them out without the whole one step forward three steps back nonsense that starts happening as soon as you get into the 500s.

+1, great idea

Unknown

Feyda wrote:

Easiest way to make progression rewards obtainable would be to separate your progression total from your current rank total. That way, you can be attacked, lose your ranking spot (keeps number 1 spot competitive), but still keep the points for progression rewards. You could tweak how many points it takes for the best rewards, but that way you could actually grind them out without the whole one step forward three steps back nonsense that starts happening as soon as you get into the 500s.

I completely agree with this. You effectively how two scores in a PvP tournament - your Overall score, and your Current score. Your Overall will always increase as you win matches, so the more dedicated players will be rewarded by having a chance to claim the top progression rewards. Your Current score is more fluid, going up or down depending on defeats and victories like it does now, and brings in some of the tactics about knowing when to attack or retaliate, etc.

I'd also like to see a cap brought in for how much you can lose when you're not playing the game. If you're playing the game and you're attacked, you can generally retaliate quickly enough to make your points back. If you're asleep however, and you're not shielded, it's not uncommon to wake up 8 hours later and find out you've been attacked 10+ times and you've lost 300+ points, dropping you from the top 10 into the low 100s somewhere.

If the amount you could lose was capped at say 200 points, when you're away from the game you have a decision to make about whether you want to shield yourself or not. As it stands currently, I'd imagine most players who are aiming to place highly in a tournament will shield themselves when they go to bed/work. This is fine generally, but it feels like we're being forced to pay to secure our hard work (I know we get HP as a progression reward, but that should be a reward IMO, not something used to protect yourself). If the point loss is capped, you have to decide if you're willing to lose 200 points or not. Do you feel you can get those points back quickly enough, while still being attacked as you play? There is a risk/reward system then and that's something I feel should be encouraged within the game.

Unknown

DaveyPitch wrote:

Feyda wrote:

Easiest way to make progression rewards obtainable would be to separate your progression total from your current rank total. That way, you can be attacked, lose your ranking spot (keeps number 1 spot competitive), but still keep the points for progression rewards. You could tweak how many points it takes for the best rewards, but that way you could actually grind them out without the whole one step forward three steps back nonsense that starts happening as soon as you get into the 500s.

As it stands currently, I'd imagine most players who are aiming to place highly in a tournament will shield themselves when they go to bed/work. This is fine generally, but it feels like we're being forced to pay to secure our hard work (I know we get HP as a progression reward, but that should be a reward IMO, not something used to protect yourself).

+1 to both points. I'm utterly disgusted by the fact that I have to use a premium currency (no matter how many means you have to procure it at no cost) in order to make a broken system somewhat playable by only SOME of the player base. The only people that can use shields effectively are experienced forum users and the people that had to waste HP to figure it out themselves (and that's if they even see the point of using them in the first place). This wasn't the "fix" I was excited for by any stretch of the imagination.