grifman wrote: atomzed wrote: If it's other wise.... Then why should I level or upgrade my characters? Why do you level up your character in an RPG when your enemies are also increasing in abiliies/difficulty? What's the point there? Yet people still play those games. Because it's fun, collecting stuff is fun, whether it's characters, new magic spells, new weapons, etc.
atomzed wrote: If it's other wise.... Then why should I level or upgrade my characters?
uncle hobo wrote: What I find interesting is that we don't really seem to play against the others in our bracket. Currently in TexMex I have not seen anyone in my bracket as targets. Granted I can only see those within 10 places of me, it still seems as though I should be seeing those that I am playing against more often that I do.
mrnohnaimers wrote: grifman wrote: Let's not delude ourselves here, MPQ is a pretty simple match 3 game in which "skill" is of almost trivial importance. Success in battle boils down to mainly roster strength, whether boosts were used and luck in no particular order. Also even in PVP we are not fighting against another player, we are fighting against a dumb as a brick but fairly lucky AI while having the important advantage of being able to selectively target a particular character and always having 1st move. This game is not a test or competition of skills, ability etc.
grifman wrote: Let's not delude ourselves here, MPQ is a pretty simple match 3 game in which "skill" is of almost trivial importance. Success in battle boils down to mainly roster strength, whether boosts were used and luck in no particular order. Also even in PVP we are not fighting against another player, we are fighting against a dumb as a brick but fairly lucky AI while having the important advantage of being able to selectively target a particular character and always having 1st move. This game is not a test or competition of skills, ability etc.
bonfire01 wrote: Phantron wrote: -snip- Let's say X Force beats the average 3* team 90% of the time and the average 3* team beats X Force 50% of the time. -snip- I don't get even CLOSE to 50% defensive wins vs 2x166 3* teams... maybe 10% or thereabouts (probably less) which tends to depend if the featured hero is any use since mine is often higher level than theirs. So in Sentry for example I got more like 20% defensive wins (vs 3* only teams) whereas it'll be less than 10% if Beast is featured . You are massively overestimating his impact TBH.
Phantron wrote: -snip- Let's say X Force beats the average 3* team 90% of the time and the average 3* team beats X Force 50% of the time. -snip-
MaskedMan wrote: Obviously this is true. What I have trouble with is that you seem to go straight from fighting 94's to fighting 166's with only 1 or 2 fights against teams inbetween, but as far as I can see most players HAVE team members in between you just don't ever fight them.
MaskedMan wrote: Contrary to what some others have said I am going to claim that the LONGER you wait to start an event the worse it is. If you start an event right away you fight the silly bad teams and I have been able to get to 700 and reach 1st place in the event without hitting a 166 before I am pummeled into the dust and left bleeding to desperately crawl in the last hours of the event into the top 100. (not that I'm bitter )
Phantron wrote: Just because X Force does get beaten doesn't mean it's fair. It seems like people believe all the Sentry during his prime was just some sort of freak accident even though he was the fastest character in recent MPQ (2 devastating moves at 3 matches, X Force is 3/4 matches). Let's say X Force beats the average 3* team 90% of the time and the average 3* team beats X Force 50% of the time. There's no way this should be considered fair and it's probably not even this bad. If an X Force team with 40 points shows up, your expected gain is (0.5 * 40) - (0.5 - 10) = 15 points, so that's still a favorable outcome. You can be pretty sure whoever gives you 40 points on a match won't retaliate but if he does that's even better because you just do the same thing again until he stops. On the flip side, the same match viewed from the point of the X Force guy has an expected outcome is (0.9 * 10) - (0.1 * 40) - 35 (expected value of the retaliation) = negative 30 points, so he shouldn't take this game even with a 90% chance to win. The overpowered guys eventually becomes fat enough for even a weaker team to take a chance, but the reason they get so fat is because they're beating other teams easily in the first place. Balance shouldn't be wait until whoever is overpowered to become so fat from stomping everyone else that you can finally beat them (at least probabilistically). By the way, if you want to talk boosts, there's no rule that says the team with the most powerful character can't use them, and the most powerful character tends to benefit more than anyone else from the boosts.
Unreallystic wrote: Phantron wrote: Just because X Force does get beaten doesn't mean it's fair. It seems like people believe all the Sentry during his prime was just some sort of freak accident even though he was the fastest character in recent MPQ (2 devastating moves at 3 matches, X Force is 3/4 matches). Let's say X Force beats the average 3* team 90% of the time and the average 3* team beats X Force 50% of the time. There's no way this should be considered fair and it's probably not even this bad. If an X Force team with 40 points shows up, your expected gain is (0.5 * 40) - (0.5 - 10) = 15 points, so that's still a favorable outcome. You can be pretty sure whoever gives you 40 points on a match won't retaliate but if he does that's even better because you just do the same thing again until he stops. On the flip side, the same match viewed from the point of the X Force guy has an expected outcome is (0.9 * 10) - (0.1 * 40) - 35 (expected value of the retaliation) = negative 30 points, so he shouldn't take this game even with a 90% chance to win. The overpowered guys eventually becomes fat enough for even a weaker team to take a chance, but the reason they get so fat is because they're beating other teams easily in the first place. Balance shouldn't be wait until whoever is overpowered to become so fat from stomping everyone else that you can finally beat them (at least probabilistically). By the way, if you want to talk boosts, there's no rule that says the team with the most powerful character can't use them, and the most powerful character tends to benefit more than anyone else from the boosts. You know, popular opinion or not, I don't care. X-Force is a *currently* END GAME CHARACTER. This isn't OBW who was handed out like snickers on Halloween. This isn't a character that you can max out in a week. What would be the POINT of having a character that requires so much work to cover AND level if he was on par with a 3*? He SHOULD feel tinykitty stronger than 'Patch' or even LThor. The REAL tragedy is IW, and to a lesser extent Devil Dinosaur. They need to be close to the same level of effectiveness as XForce or Fury. But no one is saying "OMG IM40 beats my IM35" or are mad that LThor hits so much harder than Thor, because logically they are of a lower star tier. 4 Stars SHOULD be top of the food chain. As for PvP in general, I'm torn. It works as it should, better roster, better performance. I think the real issue is that PvE is so slow for roster building, and the only other options are PvP events or the nigh useless Simulator. Maybe this Survival thing will help fill in that space. do I have issues with some thigns in PvP - sure, I abhor how many points I lose because someone with a good roster started later than me, or someone with a weaker roster boosted themselves to victory. I abhor feeling at though I am stuck using an underleveled 'featured' character with two real characters, that doesn't make me want to diversify my roster, just make sure my 'duo' is as strong as possible. Current tier rewards feel too high to me as well. I'm not saying 1300 should be easily accessible, but the rewards feel too thin for the difficulty of attaining some of them. - Unreall
Sword user wrote: This is all well and good, but a free-for-all where the prizes are the ability to advance in the game and only those who already have them, get more, doesn't make for a very fun game. If your high school basketball team had to play NBA all-stars each and every time that they went to a particular tournament, you wouldn't expect them to continue returning, would you?
Wouldn't you say that contest would be unfair in design?
Didn't the NBA all-stars work hard to be where they were? And don't the high schoolers want to get better, too? Bracketing would make more sense than a free-for-all, the only trouble is, the NBA players should get more prizes, and how do they deliver that? More ISO, HP and covers, maybe. Better covers, 4* or such. Make each bracket valuable in its own right, tiered. Or, they have to extend prizes down, giving iso and a 2* cover for transitioners pushed against the 166 wall is the recipe for people quitting.
grifman wrote: Eddiemon wrote: You're not so special that you deserve to be #1 even though you cannot beat every or even most opponents. Please don't make up arguments that I never made. I never said that I deserve to be #1. But I believe that I ought to have a fair shot at it.
Eddiemon wrote: You're not so special that you deserve to be #1 even though you cannot beat every or even most opponents.
So the matchmaking is designed to match you with harder and harder challenges until you cannot advance and then that rank is a proper reflection of where you are compared to others in your shard. Sure, but that's a case of the rich getting richer. It's self perpetuating. The better rosters earn the prizes and they continue to get better because they have the better rosters. That's not "fair" in most people's minds.
So the matchmaking is designed to match you with harder and harder challenges until you cannot advance and then that rank is a proper reflection of where you are compared to others in your shard.
I'm not sure why this concept baffles so many people. I'm not sure why it escapes you either.
I'm not sure why this concept baffles so many people.
It's player vs player. In order for you to advance ranks people have to drop ranks. And that should only happen if you can or would be able to beat them. You have no right or entitlement to be #1 over players with 166 teams that you don't have a hope of beating. Again, please do not attribute arguments to me that I did not make. I never said that I have a right or entitlement to be #1. Read what I said, don't make stuff up. it doesn't make you look very good.
It's player vs player. In order for you to advance ranks people have to drop ranks. And that should only happen if you can or would be able to beat them. You have no right or entitlement to be #1 over players with 166 teams that you don't have a hope of beating.
It's a competetion, points matter, rosters don't. Actually rosters do matter, they are all that matters.
It's a competetion, points matter, rosters don't.
It is set up so the best win and those who aren't the best don't win. Pretty much like most competetions everywhere. Actually, it's not set up for the "best" to win. It's set up for the best rosters to win. I could be a much better player than you if we were matched equally. You could have just spent your way to a better roster. A great roster could have very little to do with whether you are a better player or not.
It is set up so the best win and those who aren't the best don't win. Pretty much like most competetions everywhere.
The matchmaking algorithm doesn't give a rats about your roster. Its aim is to be actually fair, unlike your aim which is to be unfair.
Fair is the people who win the most matches getting the best prizes.
Unfair is where you take the best people and tell them that even though they have the best rosters and have put time into the game, they can only fight each other and get one prize, while people who couldn't possibly beat them get the exact same prize.
Fair is everyone fights everyone and the people who win the most win.
Unfair is where people are prevented from winning because you want to cause some subgroup to win on attributes other than their ability to beat everyone.