Player Tiers?

Unknown

With the game moving into 4* territory I wonder what the future of MPQ looks like. If I had creative control I would establish a Tier system for each event, PVP and PVE both. Each Tier would have different progression and event rewards, and variable levels of HP/iso/points.

Tier 1:
-only fight players who choose Tier 1
-no 3-4*s allowed at all
-lots of 1* covers given out
-some 2*s given out
-first place gets one 3* cover
-smaller iso rewards
-smaller HP rewards
-Only earn 60% number of points compared to normal

Tier 2:
-only fight those who choose tier 2
-No 4*s allowed
-Normal rewards
-Normal points

Tier 3:
-Only fight those who choose tier 3
-all characters allowed
-more 3*s given out
-more 4*s given out
-more Iso
-more HP
-Earn 140% number of points compared to normal

So you can choose to fight those at your level for level appropriate rewards, go down to remember what 2* days were like and still earn some iso, or go up to try to compete hard for chances at bigger rewards more glory etc.

The veteran shield hopping crowd usually only fight each other after a point anyways so why not let them fight for better rewards. Letting the Vets go up a tier opens up a ton of room for those building a 3* roster to shine at their level, and having a lower tier lets people have an easy mode for when they don't care about the rewards and just want to play and also the newbies can't be picked on by 166+ teams.

D3 has shown with time slicing they have the architecture to give us choices and separate us into groups based on those choices. Only fear here would be cutting the pies too narrowly, or people in tier two lamenting that the elite alliances all went to three and the big point targets are not there anymore. Can't tell how the latter would work out but could possibly reduce the number of time slices if adding slices and tiers makes some brackets 'TOO' soft.

Unknown

Done well, I think this could be good for everybody (or at least nearly everybody) and good for the health of the game. Done badly, though, it would be disastrous all around. I"m leaning no simply because D3's tendency to be incredibly tight-fisted whenever introducing a new mechanic could kill it. For this to work, the person picking the higher tier has to have the expectation that they'll get better rewards than how they'd do in a lower one, but that this also needs to factor in people jumping out of the lower one to a higher one.

Someone with all 166s might be able to clean up in Tier 2, but do middling in Tier 3, and the prizes for Mid Tier-3 need to be the same as the top of Tier 2. My fear is that D3 - cheap as they've been - will only extend the 4* prize to, say, top 5, and thus the people getting shut out of it will go down to Tier 2, which will push the people who belong in Tier 2 down to Tier 1, which might result in no one being happy except for a very select group of players.

Tier 3 would probably need to award 4* covers to something like the top 50 or 100 for this to really work, or, at the very minimum, Top 25. And I don't see them even doing top 25.

Unknown

You want different event types as opposed to player types. For example if you want something to help the new guy it should have rules like:

No boost allowed (this always favors the established guys)
No shields (same)
HP buy-in structure with no HP reward
All heroes capped at 3/3/3 and level 94 for 3*/4*.

Reward for this probably should be say a random 3*.

There's nothing stopping an established player from playing this mode but since the rules are setup to make existing roster strength ineffective it'd naturally favor the newer players. You can tweak around the rules to get whatever you're trying to establish. Most importantly there needs to be ways to artificially restrict/modify your roster on top of what the game already has. In fact any attempt at helping the new guy is going to require all the standard powerhouse 3*/4* magically tuned down at least for that type of event.

Nonce Equitaur 2

There is 1 very meaningful and simple-to-implement tier for any event.

1. Players that have 13 covers of the awarded character.
2. Players that have 12 or fewer covers of the awarded character.
3. Players that have 0 covers of the awarded character.

For an event with Hulk covers for a prize, the people that don't have the prize shouldn't be competing against the people that already have it.

Unknown

True implemented poorly this would not help anyone but that could be said of any plan, and I would expect it would require fine tuning post implementation as well, but would have 3 knobs to set things at the right levels for everyone instead of just one cartoonishly large knob to try to please everyone with.

Not sure what phantron is trying to say...this isn't a lets do something to help the newbies idea nor a new game mode idea. This could potentially benefit players at every level of competition, but would take reworking the entire system to do so. Adding it in as a once in a while diversion would do next to nothing.

Unknown

Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:

There is 1 very meaningful and simple-to-implement tier for any event.

1. Players that have 13 covers of the awarded character.
2. Players that have 12 or fewer covers of the awarded character.
3. Players that have 0 covers of the awarded character.

For an event with Hulk covers for a prize, the people that don't have the prize shouldn't be competing against the people that already have it.

If it's lucrative then you'd just see people have 12 covers or 0 cover just like how PvE has a lot of people with characters leveled in a weird way.

The game should not try to distinguish players based on their roster. The players should be distinguished by the event type itself.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:

There is 1 very meaningful and simple-to-implement tier for any event.

1. Players that have 13 covers of the awarded character.
2. Players that have 12 or fewer covers of the awarded character.
3. Players that have 0 covers of the awarded character.

For an event with Hulk covers for a prize, the people that don't have the prize shouldn't be competing against the people that already have it.

If it's lucrative then you'd just see people have 12 covers or 0 cover just like how PvE has a lot of people with characters leveled in a weird way.

The game should not try to distinguish players based on their roster. The players should be distinguished by the event type itself.

Or the player could be given a choice about what type of risk/reward they want in each event.

Unknown

Cryptobrancus wrote:

Phantron wrote:

Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:

There is 1 very meaningful and simple-to-implement tier for any event.

1. Players that have 13 covers of the awarded character.
2. Players that have 12 or fewer covers of the awarded character.
3. Players that have 0 covers of the awarded character.

For an event with Hulk covers for a prize, the people that don't have the prize shouldn't be competing against the people that already have it.

If it's lucrative then you'd just see people have 12 covers or 0 cover just like how PvE has a lot of people with characters leveled in a weird way.

The game should not try to distinguish players based on their roster. The players should be distinguished by the event type itself.

Or the player could be given a choice about what type of risk/reward they want in each event.

Yep. This was from way back when 2* covers weren't given out like candy, but I stand by the principle of what I suggested in this post: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=6767&p=130783#p130783

Unknown

Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:

There is 1 very meaningful and simple-to-implement tier for any event.

1. Players that have 13 covers of the awarded character.
2. Players that have 12 or fewer covers of the awarded character.
3. Players that have 0 covers of the awarded character.

For an event with Hulk covers for a prize, the people that don't have the prize shouldn't be competing against the people that already have it.

One potential problem - I've got a few people at 13 covers who need respec, and others (like Doom and Loki) who will be there before long. They can't completely box people with 13 covers out of getting covers.

Nonce Equitaur 2

Ben Grimm wrote:

One potential problem - I've got a few people at 13 covers who need respec, and others (like Doom and Loki) who will be there before long. They can't completely box people with 13 covers out of getting covers.

You'd be competing against other people who have 13 covers. You wouldn't be prevented from winning them.

Nellobee

Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:

For an event with Hulk covers for a prize, the people that don't have the prize shouldn't be competing against the people that already have it.

This. I don't mind trying and losing. I do mind being shoved out of a reward by someone who is going to immediately destroy it for a trivial amount of ISO.

Unknown

Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:

Ben Grimm wrote:

One potential problem - I've got a few people at 13 covers who need respec, and others (like Doom and Loki) who will be there before long. They can't completely box people with 13 covers out of getting covers.

You'd be competing against other people who have 13 covers. You wouldn't be prevented from winning them.

But that undermines a lot of the benefit of this arrangement, which is awarding people who don't need the covers more ISO/HP in their place.

scottee

Affirmative Action for MPQ. Just like in other instances, it's somewhat necessary, but is only a bandaid and doesn't address the systematic issues. In this case, the systematic issue is competition.

Unknown

1st tier:
-first place gets one 3* cover

There's nothing wrong with 1* players getting 3* covers once in awhile, particularly people who will become future whales. This distribution is far too low. Further, you'd have one vet who just wants to come in first who will go down to 1st tier for the lulz.

D3 has shown that they want to create more mid-tiers by slowing the number of people who have full 4* (and 3*) builds. Although the top 1% doesn't see it, it is actually a pretty big success at the 2*-3* transition level, with there being a large gap between the 94 and 166 walls now with plenty of half-built 3*. I don't think the same can be said at the 166-270 level.

With a tier system like this, you'd hear even more complaints of 'rich get richer'.

Nellobee

scottee wrote:

Affirmative Action for MPQ. Just like in other instances, it's somewhat necessary, but is only a bandaid and doesn't address the systematic issues. In this case, the systematic issue is competition.

If you play board games, there has been a massive trend toward game mechanics that make it easier to catch up than extend a lead.
Or competitive video games, for that matter (see: Mario Kart items, bonus meters in fighting games that fill as you get hit, etc.)...

Darmock13

I like the basic ideas being proposed here, but I cant help thinking 3 tiers is a little unnecessarily complex.

Wouldn't it be simpler to instead have just one "junior PvP" event that runs concurrently with normal season events, but with modified rules:
- Each event features a 2* character, boosted to something like level 141.
- 4* characters are NOT allowed
- Top Progression/Placement awards give out either a specific 3* cover or at least a token pack with greatly increased probability of a 3* cover
- Event does NOT count toward season point totals.


This at least would require less explanation to new players, since it more or less follows the template of current PvP events.

Unknown

daibar wrote:

1st tier:
-first place gets one 3* cover

There's nothing wrong with 1* players getting 3* covers once in awhile, particularly people who will become future whales. This distribution is far too low. Further, you'd have one vet who just wants to come in first who will go down to 1st tier for the lulz.

D3 has shown that they want to create more mid-tiers by slowing the number of people who have full 4* (and 3*) builds. Although the top 1% doesn't see it, it is actually a pretty big success at the 2*-3* transition level, with there being a large gap between the 94 and 166 walls now with plenty of half-built 3*. I don't think the same can be said at the 166-270 level.

With a tier system like this, you'd hear even more complaints of 'rich get richer'.

I would be comfortable offering a 3* to the top 10/500 in tier one, but keeping 3* and 4* characters locked out of first tier would at the least make the veteran there for the lulz do so armed only with his two star roster which seems fair enough to me.

Part of the idea behind this system would be to accelerate the 3*-4* transition. Veterans fighting veterans for multiple 4* covers and larger pools of iso and HP instead of veterans dominating brackets for rewards they don't need because points. and also gives D3 the flexibility to increase the flow of iso for those working on building 4*s but only for those willing to take on the challenge of a harder tier.

Unknown

Darmock13 wrote:

I like the basic ideas being proposed here, but I cant help thinking 3 tiers is a little unnecessarily complex.

Wouldn't it be simpler to instead have just one "junior PvP" event that runs concurrently with normal season events, but with modified rules:
- Each event features a 2* character, boosted to something like level 141.
- 4* characters are NOT allowed
- Top Progression/Placement awards give out either a specific 3* cover or at least a token pack with greatly increased probability of a 3* cover
- Event does NOT count toward season point totals.


This at least would require less explanation to new players, since it more or less follows the template of current PvP events.

I don't like the idea of making junior pvp's that don't count towards season/alliance points in any way. That means alliances would be forced to stratify and anyone who would take the easy road couldn't contribute at all.

I do like the plan of having featured 2*s instead of 3*s.

Instead of calling them Tiers each event could say pick one, Thor ** , Thor ***, or Thor **** and the rewards and competition is different depending on what you select. I have little doubt that new players would figure out quickly where they would do the best and the 166 wall could become a thing of the past.

fmftint

I think if you are going to sub bracket it should be by level not rating. A lot of players, especially when transitioning will use a combination of and characters

Unknown

If they made the AI harder in higher tiers than it would be a decent idea.

Tier 1: The biggest part that doesn't make sense is the locking out of characters. It turns people off especially as evidenced by heroics. People don't want to be told that the characters that they put time and money in can't be used at all. A player with a 1/1/1 X-Force is hardly a threat to most 2*'s.

The top of Tier 1 would be people with full 2* rosters that aren't ready to make their transition, or vets without alliances taking it easy.

Another problem is it lessens the reward for people who have taken breaks for coming back, as they're forced into more competitive tiers due to their roster.

It seems the entire point of this system is more for Tier 3: More and faster 4* covers for people in the 3* zone. However, you'd get It would people facing 166 and 270 teams off the bat, just like the last MMR change as opposed to a gradual ramp up. It's nice to have a few easy battles in PVP before the difficulty ramps up. Tiers would defeat the idea of current pacing, but with so many forumites in the 3* zone wanting 4* covers, I can see why the votes have gone the way they have. I really don't see this happening.

Otherwise, I don't see much of a positive change from this reward system to the current one other than cosmetic shifts in bracketing.

Unknown

fmftint wrote:

I think if you are going to sub bracket it should be by level not rating. A lot of players, especially when transitioning will use a combination of and characters

I can see the good and bad sides of doing based on levels. People could accidentally "outlevel" their characters and be really upset by that. Others could intentionally use max cover low level 3&4*s to have a huge advantage where the idea is a playground where anyone with some 2*s can compete with others at the same level. If sentry taught us one thing its that characters more powerful than others will always dominate the meta and I wouldn't want hard to get under leveled 3*s dominating what is supposed to be a place for 1-2*s to earn small rewards instead of forcing them to compete against 166's for their lunch money. Likewise tier 2 would become a place for 3* rosters to fight without also having to compete against 4Thor and X-force. And if there really are going to be several new 4*s this year there should be plenty of incentive for the top players to get their money's worth out of tier 3 and already have the perfect arena for the eventual coming of the 5*s.