Nefarious Foes - Matchmaking Test - Discussion

Spoit

Pylgrim wrote:

EpicBeastmode wrote:

Why....would...you...change...it...back...now....?

I could really care less about which mmr system is used quite honestly. Its a bit annoying that you changed it back to the old system of "wait til the last few hours and hop your way past everyone to the top," after players had to deal with the 20-30 point range for nearly 2 days.. but whatever.

I found the new system more challenging but who wants that.

THIS THIS THIS THIS

An update on my experience throughout the event, which had been positive until now:

As I said previously, I was finding the event challenging and slow-progressing BUT fair. Only players with "easy" teams for me to beat handed out less than 20 points. Teams that would reward 30-40 were at my best team's level and above. Progressing was a strategic combination of hitting the "difficult" teams when my guys were fully healed to get more points, then attack the weak teams for few points until my guys definitely needed healing, rinse and repeat. This was fair on the people with strong teams as they don't get attacked that much, AND fair on the weak teams as when they get attacked they are only losing a handful of points. Indeed, I myself didn't get attacked much by teams that would steal more than 10 points from me (as I would be too "hard" for them) so most of my attacks came from people with much stronger teams than mine but many more points than me, so I lost very few.

All in all, it worked as a slow, but methodical and sure progression. I got 800 points playing regularly through the event and I I remained top 5 the whole time.

Then, I woke up to find that they had "fixed" the MMR back to the old ways. Sure enough, the status quo was restored and where the top 5 had been comprised of players with all kinds of rosters (though, admittedly more on the top side) with 800-950 points, now the top 5 looks like every other top 5 in the recent history of the game: Whales with fully maxed rosters and over 1200 points. Unshielding in a vain attempt to climb got me attacked for 70 points in the time I got 22. In other words, BACK TO THE WORLD WHERE AGGRESSIVE SHIELD-HOPPING AND SENTRY BOMBING ARE THE ONLY WAYS TO BE COMPETITIVE. Back to the world where whales can ignore an event for its duration, have a quick an easy climb to 900 points in the last few hours on the backs of much weaker teams from whom they steal 40 points a pop, then drop $20 to shield hop and Sentry bomb their way into the 1300s+. Joy!!

Cannot help to think that the very vocal group of players that raged against these changes were precisely those who found their winning "strategy" no longer as effective as before.

uh...what? Even before they reverted it, there were tons of x-men who were above 1.3k. This pvp was built to pay hard with sentry bombers, and if you were willing to pay that much anyway, the enemies don't matter a whit

Unknown

I see no indication anyone had an easy MMR at any point. The crazy scores is just Sentry working his magic and why should anyone be surprised that a character that can win nearly 100% of the time when you sacrifice money in his honor can still get you through PvP just fine? It seems to me each game played now is far more meaningful even if you play a lot less games due to significantly increased difficulty. I'm guessing since it is hard to hit the 1K range to begin with people are more weary about burning HP boosts since it sure doesn't seem like a good idea to be using AP+3 all boosts at 700 PvP rating even if 80% of the teams you see there are maxed teams at that point. This won't stop the Sentry bombers, but I don't think anything ever stopped those guys.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

I see no indication anyone had an easy MMR at any point. The crazy scores is just Sentry working his magic and why should anyone be surprised that a character that can win nearly 100% of the time when you sacrifice money in his honor can still get you through PvP just fine? It seems to me each game played now is far more meaningful even if you play a lot less games due to significantly increased difficulty. I'm guessing since it is hard to hit the 1K range to begin with people are more weary about burning HP boosts since it sure doesn't seem like a good idea to be using AP+3 all boosts at 700 PvP rating even if 80% of the teams you see there are maxed teams at that point. This won't stop the Sentry bombers, but I don't think anything ever stopped those guys.

When Sentry gets nerfed, it might slow them down a bit. Some may even stop funding the game. Then, as the leading scores decrease, 40+ matches will become harder to find. And fewer points means more shield hops to reach the same scores, which means more HP spent. Not to mention riskier shield hops and the absolute need to use all AP boosts with a slower Sentry.

I felt like this PvP was a preview of things to come. I hopped 3 times to hit a grand total of 1220 - just wasn't able to find a single node worth over 40 points. When I watched my leaderboard, it wasn't uncommon for people to only do 30 point battles on their hops.

Unknown

gobstopper wrote:

Phantron wrote:

I see no indication anyone had an easy MMR at any point. The crazy scores is just Sentry working his magic and why should anyone be surprised that a character that can win nearly 100% of the time when you sacrifice money in his honor can still get you through PvP just fine? It seems to me each game played now is far more meaningful even if you play a lot less games due to significantly increased difficulty. I'm guessing since it is hard to hit the 1K range to begin with people are more weary about burning HP boosts since it sure doesn't seem like a good idea to be using AP+3 all boosts at 700 PvP rating even if 80% of the teams you see there are maxed teams at that point. This won't stop the Sentry bombers, but I don't think anything ever stopped those guys.

When Sentry gets nerfed, it might slow them down a bit. Some may even stop funding the game. Then, as the leading scores decrease, 40+ matches will become harder to find. And fewer points means more shield hops to reach the same scores, which means more HP spent. Not to mention riskier shield hops and the absolute need to use all AP boosts with a slower Sentry.

I felt like this PvP was a preview of things to come. I hopped 3 times to hit a grand total of 1220 - just wasn't able to find a single node worth over 40 points. When I watched my leaderboard, it wasn't uncommon for people to only do 30 point battles on their hops.

But the lower score affects everyone else equally so if 1200 is now very hard for anyone who didn't spend significant money to get then what's wrong with that? Well the progression rewards is likely hosed, but I think the current gravy train where hitting 1300 requires a few hundred HP spent for something valued at 2500 HP was never going to last. Remember D3 didn't lower the requirements for hit 1300 back when there were no shields and hitting 1300 was basically impossible (heard someone did it, but I also heard someone almost got to X Force progression reward in the first Heroic Oscorp). Granted the rate D3 makes adjustment to progression means a lot of people will be shut out of 1300 for quite a while but we should have at least 2 months before Thor shows up on the 1300 and that should be enough time for them to fix it. For the new guys it sucks to miss the relatively easy 1300s but that's no different than missing out on Magnetic Field's utter domination of the game half an year ago.

Then again, we might have the points just collapse after Sentry is nerfed too.

Chrono_Tata

So here is my experience with the test. Probably gonna get buried in a sea of other discussions but oh well.

- As I understand, the MMR was changed twice during the event, once quite early after there were a lot of complaints that people were hitting very high level teams early, and then another one to revert the MMR to pre-event late in the event to the end. I started playing after the first charge.

- Good: First good thing I noticed was that normally, when I get to around 600 points, there is what I call an MMR valley where it is every difficult to find opponents at or over 25 points. This didn't seem to happen with this event and I could climb up the points steadily without needing too many skips.

- Mixed: It seems I was being matched against people with closer points to me than before, so I wasn't getting targets worth more than 35-40 points. This can be seen as bad as it takes longer to rack up points, but also a good thing since I am also not losing a lot of points from being hit by opponents with a lot less points.

- I wasnt playing my usual PvE team as the villains were buffed, and my usual team are heroes, so it's hard to judge against other events.

- Towards the end of the event, I was over 1k point and was getting absolutely HAMMERED by defensive losses. Several losses in only 5 minutes costing 30-40 points each, if I hasn't been shielding. I think the MMR reversion meant that low points players could see me and hit me as an easy high-point target.

All in all, if what I experienced was an intended effect and not just coincidences, I think I much prefer the new MMR. However, by changing the algorithm several times during the event, and only being able to test it on one event where I wasn't using my usual team, it's very hard to make an accurate judgement.

franckynight

Pylgrim wrote:

EpicBeastmode wrote:

Why....would...you...change...it...back...now....?

I could really care less about which mmr system is used quite honestly. Its a bit annoying that you changed it back to the old system of "wait til the last few hours and hop your way past everyone to the top," after players had to deal with the 20-30 point range for nearly 2 days.. but whatever.

I found the new system more challenging but who wants that.

THIS THIS THIS THIS

An update on my experience throughout the event, which had been positive until now:

As I said previously, I was finding the event challenging and slow-progressing BUT fair. Only players with "easy" teams for me to beat handed out less than 20 points. Teams that would reward 30-40 were at my best team's level and above. Progressing was a strategic combination of hitting the "difficult" teams when my guys were fully healed to get more points, then attack the weak teams for few points until my guys definitely needed healing, rinse and repeat. This was fair on the people with strong teams as they don't get attacked that much, AND fair on the weak teams as when they get attacked they are only losing a handful of points. Indeed, I myself didn't get attacked much by teams that would steal more than 10 points from me (as I would be too "hard" for them) so most of my attacks came from people with much stronger teams than mine but many more points than me, so I lost very few.

All in all, it worked as a slow, but methodical and sure progression. I got 800 points playing regularly through the event and I I remained top 5 the whole time.

Then, I woke up to find that they had "fixed" the MMR back to the old ways. Sure enough, the status quo was restored and where the top 5 had been comprised of players with all kinds of rosters (though, admittedly more on the top side) with 800-950 points, now the top 5 looks like every other top 5 in the recent history of the game: Whales with fully maxed rosters and over 1200 points. Unshielding in a vain attempt to climb got me attacked for 70 points in the time I got 22. In other words, BACK TO THE WORLD WHERE AGGRESSIVE SHIELD-HOPPING AND SENTRY BOMBING ARE THE ONLY WAYS TO BE COMPETITIVE. Back to the world where whales can ignore an event for its duration, have a quick an easy climb to 900 points in the last few hours on the backs of much weaker teams from whom they steal 40 points a pop, then drop $20 to shield hop and Sentry bomb their way into the 1300s+. Joy!!

Cannot help to think that the very vocal group of players that raged against these changes were precisely those who found their winning "strategy" no longer as effective as before.

I quit sentry bombing a long time ago but im still part of those"whales" that allow you to keep playing this game for free and lamenting on the forum every single day about those darned whales..

Unknown

franckynight wrote:

Pylgrim wrote:

EpicBeastmode wrote:

Why....would...you...change...it...back...now....?

I could really care less about which mmr system is used quite honestly. Its a bit annoying that you changed it back to the old system of "wait til the last few hours and hop your way past everyone to the top," after players had to deal with the 20-30 point range for nearly 2 days.. but whatever.

I found the new system more challenging but who wants that.

THIS THIS THIS THIS

An update on my experience throughout the event, which had been positive until now:

As I said previously, I was finding the event challenging and slow-progressing BUT fair. Only players with "easy" teams for me to beat handed out less than 20 points. Teams that would reward 30-40 were at my best team's level and above. Progressing was a strategic combination of hitting the "difficult" teams when my guys were fully healed to get more points, then attack the weak teams for few points until my guys definitely needed healing, rinse and repeat. This was fair on the people with strong teams as they don't get attacked that much, AND fair on the weak teams as when they get attacked they are only losing a handful of points. Indeed, I myself didn't get attacked much by teams that would steal more than 10 points from me (as I would be too "hard" for them) so most of my attacks came from people with much stronger teams than mine but many more points than me, so I lost very few.

All in all, it worked as a slow, but methodical and sure progression. I got 800 points playing regularly through the event and I I remained top 5 the whole time.

Then, I woke up to find that they had "fixed" the MMR back to the old ways. Sure enough, the status quo was restored and where the top 5 had been comprised of players with all kinds of rosters (though, admittedly more on the top side) with 800-950 points, now the top 5 looks like every other top 5 in the recent history of the game: Whales with fully maxed rosters and over 1200 points. Unshielding in a vain attempt to climb got me attacked for 70 points in the time I got 22. In other words, BACK TO THE WORLD WHERE AGGRESSIVE SHIELD-HOPPING AND SENTRY BOMBING ARE THE ONLY WAYS TO BE COMPETITIVE. Back to the world where whales can ignore an event for its duration, have a quick an easy climb to 900 points in the last few hours on the backs of much weaker teams from whom they steal 40 points a pop, then drop $20 to shield hop and Sentry bomb their way into the 1300s+. Joy!!

Cannot help to think that the very vocal group of players that raged against these changes were precisely those who found their winning "strategy" no longer as effective as before.

I quit sentry bombing a long time ago but im still part of those"whales" that allow you to keep playing this game for free and lamenting on the forum every single day about those darned whales..

You fund MPQ not the players who play for free,but you're entitled to feel entitled.

franckynight

MikeHock wrote:

You fund MPQ not the players who play for free,but you're entitled to feel entitled.

I think you got my point.. But you re free to think you re smart when you re not..

_RiO_

Place me in the camp that is thoroughly displeased at the last minute reversal back to the regular MMR.

While the changed MMR was still kitty, it did lead to slower point movement and slower retaliations.
For someone playing from Europe that particular behavior is a god-send, as it slows the impact of both point-loss and accrued points being overtaken in the last few hours of the game.
While my rank didn't climb anywhere near as fast as it does under normal MMR PvP, atleast whatever rank I did get, more or less held overnight...

When I stopped playing last night, I was stable at around rank 40 with about 6hrs left on the clock. If the same MMR had been kept, that would've likely been a top 50 finish. Now I get to enjoy a blue Hawkeye at rank 105 instead.
The way I see it, after public declarations that Nefarious Foes would run under the new MMR rules and no ingame received messages to the contrary, and after valid assumptions that the event would continue to expose the same behavior, Demiurge owes me atleast a top 100 Mystique cover.

simonsez

Pylgrim wrote:

Sure enough, the status quo was restored and where the top 5 had been comprised of players with all kinds of rosters (though, admittedly more on the top side) with 800-950 points, now the top 5 looks like every other top 5 in the recent history of the game: Whales with fully maxed rosters and over 1200 points.

Wait, are you trying to tell me that because the matchmaking went back to normal, the best teams won?! What a f'ing travesty!!

KrisPWales

As a relatively new player, I thought the new MMR was fantastic. I have a L60 ish 2* team currently, and this PVP seemed to work as I thought it should: The teams slowly getting harder as you got more points. Usually it's easy matches, then suddenly ALL maxed 3* teams. I don't usually feel there's a good fight for me in the old MMR - it's either all level 20 or all level 100+. While I agree the best teams should win more often than not, it should still be possible to give ALL players some relevant matches.

Pylgrim

franckynight wrote:

Pylgrim wrote:

EpicBeastmode wrote:

Why....would...you...change...it...back...now....?

I could really care less about which mmr system is used quite honestly. Its a bit annoying that you changed it back to the old system of "wait til the last few hours and hop your way past everyone to the top," after players had to deal with the 20-30 point range for nearly 2 days.. but whatever.

I found the new system more challenging but who wants that.

THIS THIS THIS THIS

An update on my experience throughout the event, which had been positive until now:

As I said previously, I was finding the event challenging and slow-progressing BUT fair. Only players with "easy" teams for me to beat handed out less than 20 points. Teams that would reward 30-40 were at my best team's level and above. Progressing was a strategic combination of hitting the "difficult" teams when my guys were fully healed to get more points, then attack the weak teams for few points until my guys definitely needed healing, rinse and repeat. This was fair on the people with strong teams as they don't get attacked that much, AND fair on the weak teams as when they get attacked they are only losing a handful of points. Indeed, I myself didn't get attacked much by teams that would steal more than 10 points from me (as I would be too "hard" for them) so most of my attacks came from people with much stronger teams than mine but many more points than me, so I lost very few.

All in all, it worked as a slow, but methodical and sure progression. I got 800 points playing regularly through the event and I I remained top 5 the whole time.

Then, I woke up to find that they had "fixed" the MMR back to the old ways. Sure enough, the status quo was restored and where the top 5 had been comprised of players with all kinds of rosters (though, admittedly more on the top side) with 800-950 points, now the top 5 looks like every other top 5 in the recent history of the game: Whales with fully maxed rosters and over 1200 points. Unshielding in a vain attempt to climb got me attacked for 70 points in the time I got 22. In other words, BACK TO THE WORLD WHERE AGGRESSIVE SHIELD-HOPPING AND SENTRY BOMBING ARE THE ONLY WAYS TO BE COMPETITIVE. Back to the world where whales can ignore an event for its duration, have a quick an easy climb to 900 points in the last few hours on the backs of much weaker teams from whom they steal 40 points a pop, then drop $20 to shield hop and Sentry bomb their way into the 1300s+. Joy!!

Cannot help to think that the very vocal group of players that raged against these changes were precisely those who found their winning "strategy" no longer as effective as before.

I quit sentry bombing a long time ago but im still part of those"whales" that allow you to keep playing this game for free and lamenting on the forum every single day about those darned whales..

Well, excuse me for believing that the game should not be Pay-2-Win and that everybody should have a fair go at winning. I don't have anything against P2W games, but Devs have stated once and again that MPQ is not one of them, and I want to believe it.

You know what was really sad? Seeing some players atop of the tournament with bought-in fully covered Mystiques, winning all those covers just to be cashed for 500 Iso, while the people who could actually use them, didn't get them.

franckynight

Pylgrim wrote:

Well, excuse me for believing that the game should not be Pay-2-Win and that everybody should have a fair go at winning. I don't have anything against P2W games, but Devs have stated once and again that MPQ is not one of them, and I want to believe it.

You know what was really sad? Seeing some players atop of the tournament with bought-in fully covered Mystiques, winning all those covers just to be cashed for 500 Iso, while the people who could actually use them, didn't get them.

I know many savyy vets who score 1300+ on a regular basis with completely f2p roster.. Time.. Effort. Dedication.. Will get you there.. But you cant expect having the best roster.. The best rewards.. The highest score and not drop a single dime.. High end play is also a question of money.. Its like that.. Live with it..or play candy crush..

Mikaveus

This matchmaking was interesting. It seemed like really hard match-ups from the get-go... but there was more of a mixture as I went on. And I wasn't attacked as badly as I normally am.

Then again, it could be my maxed Magneto/Doom/(high) Sentry that kept people at bay. Not really sure.

Unknown

franckynight wrote:

MikeHock wrote:

You fund MPQ not the players who play for free,but you're entitled to feel entitled.

I think you got my point.. But you re free to think you re smart when you re not..

I understood your point. Did you understand mine... Or were you too blinded by your entitlement all on the basis that you spend money?

::: Oh thank you super special francky for allowing me to play this game with your daddy Warbucks::

_RiO_

franckynight wrote:

But you cant expect having the best roster.. The best rewards.. The highest score and not drop a single dime.. High end play is also a question of money.. Its like that.. Live with it..or play candy crush..

You cannot expect or you should not expect? And should you have to expect; when the dev has gone on record multiple times as not wanting to run this game in a pay-to-win fashion?

Unknown

Pylgrim wrote:

franckynight wrote:

Pylgrim wrote:

EpicBeastmode wrote:

Why....would...you...change...it...back...now....?

I could really care less about which mmr system is used quite honestly. Its a bit annoying that you changed it back to the old system of "wait til the last few hours and hop your way past everyone to the top," after players had to deal with the 20-30 point range for nearly 2 days.. but whatever.

I found the new system more challenging but who wants that.

THIS THIS THIS THIS

An update on my experience throughout the event, which had been positive until now:

As I said previously, I was finding the event challenging and slow-progressing BUT fair. Only players with "easy" teams for me to beat handed out less than 20 points. Teams that would reward 30-40 were at my best team's level and above. Progressing was a strategic combination of hitting the "difficult" teams when my guys were fully healed to get more points, then attack the weak teams for few points until my guys definitely needed healing, rinse and repeat. This was fair on the people with strong teams as they don't get attacked that much, AND fair on the weak teams as when they get attacked they are only losing a handful of points. Indeed, I myself didn't get attacked much by teams that would steal more than 10 points from me (as I would be too "hard" for them) so most of my attacks came from people with much stronger teams than mine but many more points than me, so I lost very few.

All in all, it worked as a slow, but methodical and sure progression. I got 800 points playing regularly through the event and I I remained top 5 the whole time.

Then, I woke up to find that they had "fixed" the MMR back to the old ways. Sure enough, the status quo was restored and where the top 5 had been comprised of players with all kinds of rosters (though, admittedly more on the top side) with 800-950 points, now the top 5 looks like every other top 5 in the recent history of the game: Whales with fully maxed rosters and over 1200 points. Unshielding in a vain attempt to climb got me attacked for 70 points in the time I got 22. In other words, BACK TO THE WORLD WHERE AGGRESSIVE SHIELD-HOPPING AND SENTRY BOMBING ARE THE ONLY WAYS TO BE COMPETITIVE. Back to the world where whales can ignore an event for its duration, have a quick an easy climb to 900 points in the last few hours on the backs of much weaker teams from whom they steal 40 points a pop, then drop $20 to shield hop and Sentry bomb their way into the 1300s+. Joy!!

Cannot help to think that the very vocal group of players that raged against these changes were precisely those who found their winning "strategy" no longer as effective as before.

I quit sentry bombing a long time ago but im still part of those"whales" that allow you to keep playing this game for free and lamenting on the forum every single day about those darned whales..

Well, excuse me for believing that the game should not be Pay-2-Win and that everybody should have a fair go at winning. I don't have anything against P2W games, but Devs have stated once and again that MPQ is not one of them, and I want to believe it.

You know what was really sad? Seeing some players atop of the tournament with bought-in fully covered Mystiques, winning all those covers just to be cashed for 500 Iso, while the people who could actually use them, didn't get them.

The developers seem to be trying to do their best to make it where MPQ is a legitimate F2P game. However....

1. If the game does not make money....then none of us will have the game period. Let's be honest, we all know this and no one argues this.

2. I know a lot of people having a tough time transitioning right now. I don't know anyone with with all the changes that knows what time frame transitioning should take any more. In order for this to be a genuine F2P game (not just in lip service), there should be a general expected period of time to transition and there should be a path that makes transitioning in that time period possible. To be honest, I'm not sure whether we have that or not right now. I'm also not sure if any thought on the matter has been given by the developers. It's one thing to say it's a F2P game in the sense any one can play and have fun. It's another thing to say the game has been set up so that in the current environment F2P's have the means within a reasonable time period (6 months? year? etc.?) to have the same success as P2W players (who can do so in a shorter time period).

mohio

_RiO_ wrote:

franckynight wrote:

But you cant expect having the best roster.. The best rewards.. The highest score and not drop a single dime.. High end play is also a question of money.. Its like that.. Live with it..or play candy crush..

You cannot expect or you should not expect? And should you have to expect; when the dev has gone on record multiple times as not wanting to run this game in a pay-to-win fashion?

Does it actually matter what the devs say when we can just tell you our experience of what the game actually is? Devs probably have a different definition of "win" as maybe a lot us (or maybe not) so we can't even say they're 100% wrong either. Bottom line is if you're looking to be #1 in your bracket (in pvp), then you're going to have to spend a lot of hp to get there (or get incredibly lucky with an easy bracket). Now as f2p you can save hp from a couple week's worth of events and go win one with all that hp, but there's no way you'd be able to really compete with those 1600+ scores every single pvp. Now, if your definition of "win" for MPQ is fully cover every character or just at least one of every character, then yeah, you certainly will not need to pay to get there.

SpaceBearPig

KrisPWales wrote:

As a relatively new player, I thought the new MMR was fantastic. I have a L60 ish 2* team currently, and this PVP seemed to work as I thought it should: The teams slowly getting harder as you got more points. Usually it's easy matches, then suddenly ALL maxed 3* teams. I don't usually feel there's a good fight for me in the old MMR - it's either all level 20 or all level 100+. While I agree the best teams should win more often than not, it should still be possible to give ALL players some relevant matches.

Had the same experience with this experiment. Sadly I doubt they'll look into this again after the reaction on this forum.

Unknown

Changes to MMR isn't ever going to address the transition issue because transition is a matter of cover dilution. Let's say there are 5 guys who are top tier, and the rest are a tier below. As you have more and more characters in the game the chance of pulling those 5 top tier is just going to be lower and lower regardless of how much competition there is. Imagine an year from now and we have 100 heroes and there are still 5 best ones. How would you ever get the 5 top ones even if you can win every event with some kind of hack when the chance of any of those 5 hero being offered as a prize is merely 1 out of 20? I don't think transition players are having problem getting 3* covers, but they're having problem getting the right 3* covers because you can't win what's never offered, and when someone like Sentry is offered you'd expect intense competition and you still have to deal with all the veterans who have a roster advantage and like to compete for the sake of competing. Yes balance can address some of it but it's hard to see more than 5 characters occupying the 'top tier' status at any given time, because otherwise none of these characters would really be top tier if too many characters are 'top tier'. The rotation on seasons character sort of helps it, but there doesn't seem to be any attempt to ensure the heroes chosen are the best ones. Thor is vaulted in season 8, and he's still a top 5 character especially after Sentry is nerfed since he's only used less because Sentry is better and have identical colors.