points per PVP match... is it just me?

h4n1s

Hey guys, 3 hours to go in PvP, I am on 450pts (rank around #200) and the only opponents I see are worth less or exactly 21 pts. I've spent few hundred ISO on skipping and still the same. It's not the first time I've seen this, I experienced this already in last 2 PVPs that I found it very hard to find matchups worth more than 25 pts as soon as I have more than 300 pts.

The last skip I did was at 578 pts, it was maxed Hood, Xforce and Thoress lvl 229; worth 21 points...

Anybody having the same issue?

Unknown

The game prefers to give you matchup in the 15-25 range if at all possible, and if you only have 450 points, it is almost always possible for the game to give you such a match. The exceptions you see are:

1. When your points is extremely low (0-100), the game sometimes throws you a bone because you've no points.
2. When your point is extremely high (1000+), the game sometimes cannot find anyone in its preferred range and will give you whoever happened to show up.
3. When the game already queued up an opponent that's relatively high points for you and you took a drastic fall, after you eventually see that guy, it'd appear the game is giving you very high points. For example, let's say you have 450 and the game decided to give you someone that's worth 25 (also 450 PvP) and that's the 7th guy on your queue that you clearly cannot see. Disaster strikes and you lost 200 points. However since that guy was already queued up, assuming you were unable to recover your points, you'd have 250 and you'll eventually see the guy the game queued up for you a long time ago, who is likely worth 40 points or so to you now. Note that the reverse can also happen (game queued up someone worth low points, you climbed significantly before you even got there), which is why you'd see guys worth 5-7 points when the situation is reversed even though the game prefers not to give you someone so low if possible.

h4n1s

Phantron wrote:

The game prefers to give you matchup in the 15-25 range if at all possible, and if you only have 450 points, it is almost always possible for the game to give you such a match. The exceptions you see are:

1. When your points is extremely low (0-100), the game sometimes throws you a bone because you've no points.
2. When your point is extremely high (1000+), the game sometimes cannot find anyone in its preferred range and will give you whoever happened to show up.
3. When the game already queued up an opponent that's relatively high points for you and you took a drastic fall, after you eventually see that guy, it'd appear the game is giving you very high points. For example, let's say you have 450 and the game decided to give you someone that's worth 25 (also 450 PvP) and that's the 7th guy on your queue that you clearly cannot see. Disaster strikes and you lost 200 points. However since that guy was already queued up, assuming you were unable to recover your points, you'd have 250 and you'll eventually see the guy the game queued up for you a long time ago, who is likely worth 40 points or so to you now. Note that the reverse can also happen (game queued up someone worth low points, you climbed significantly before you even got there), which is why you'd see guys worth 5-7 points when the situation is reversed even though the game prefers not to give you someone so low if possible.

Thanks. The point is I am experiencing this newly. In the last year I never had an issue to find pretty quickly matchups worth 25-30 pts at least disregarding my rank or points. But now it seems nearly impossible...

Unknown

h4n1s wrote:

Phantron wrote:

The game prefers to give you matchup in the 15-25 range if at all possible, and if you only have 450 points, it is almost always possible for the game to give you such a match. The exceptions you see are:

1. When your points is extremely low (0-100), the game sometimes throws you a bone because you've no points.
2. When your point is extremely high (1000+), the game sometimes cannot find anyone in its preferred range and will give you whoever happened to show up.
3. When the game already queued up an opponent that's relatively high points for you and you took a drastic fall, after you eventually see that guy, it'd appear the game is giving you very high points. For example, let's say you have 450 and the game decided to give you someone that's worth 25 (also 450 PvP) and that's the 7th guy on your queue that you clearly cannot see. Disaster strikes and you lost 200 points. However since that guy was already queued up, assuming you were unable to recover your points, you'd have 250 and you'll eventually see the guy the game queued up for you a long time ago, who is likely worth 40 points or so to you now. Note that the reverse can also happen (game queued up someone worth low points, you climbed significantly before you even got there), which is why you'd see guys worth 5-7 points when the situation is reversed even though the game prefers not to give you someone so low if possible.

Thanks. The point is I am experiencing this newly. In the last year I never had an issue to find pretty quickly matchups worth 25-30 pts at least disregarding my rank or points. But now it seems nearly impossible...

I think they may have lowered the threshold where the 25+ stops showing up if possible, and given the greatly crunched scores, it's pretty much always possible to not give you the 25+.

h4n1s

Phantron wrote:

I think they may have lowered the threshold where the 25+ stops showing up if possible, and given the greatly crunched scores, it's pretty much always possible to not give you the 25+.

...therefore delaying progression, increasing required time to achieve, BREAKING the game

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

h4n1s wrote:

Phantron wrote:

The game prefers to give you matchup in the 15-25 range if at all possible, and if you only have 450 points, it is almost always possible for the game to give you such a match. The exceptions you see are:

1. When your points is extremely low (0-100), the game sometimes throws you a bone because you've no points.
2. When your point is extremely high (1000+), the game sometimes cannot find anyone in its preferred range and will give you whoever happened to show up.
3. When the game already queued up an opponent that's relatively high points for you and you took a drastic fall, after you eventually see that guy, it'd appear the game is giving you very high points. For example, let's say you have 450 and the game decided to give you someone that's worth 25 (also 450 PvP) and that's the 7th guy on your queue that you clearly cannot see. Disaster strikes and you lost 200 points. However since that guy was already queued up, assuming you were unable to recover your points, you'd have 250 and you'll eventually see the guy the game queued up for you a long time ago, who is likely worth 40 points or so to you now. Note that the reverse can also happen (game queued up someone worth low points, you climbed significantly before you even got there), which is why you'd see guys worth 5-7 points when the situation is reversed even though the game prefers not to give you someone so low if possible.

Thanks. The point is I am experiencing this newly. In the last year I never had an issue to find pretty quickly matchups worth 25-30 pts at least disregarding my rank or points. But now it seems nearly impossible...

I think they may have lowered the threshold where the 25+ stops showing up if possible, and given the greatly crunched scores, it's pretty much always possible to not give you the 25+.

Not only that, after the 750-800 threshold they start trowing in the bunch people in the 10-15 points range, thus lowering even more the chances to get a good matchup... If said chances weren't already screwed by the fact that when skipping you keep cycling the same 5-6 names, as if the whole players pool was made only by you and those 10 poor souls.

orbitalint

I think time shards have made the issue you describe worse. It artificially cut the mmr pool by 80% because player pools don't cross shards.

Fewer people to possibly queue in your MMR and I've seen people shielding in every screenshot of my ranking from 100 on up. We're probably talking about a handful or so of people that are unshielded in your mmr range. Put in the requirement of being ahead of you in points to be able to offer 25+, and you likely keep shrinking because of increased use of shields as you climb.

Stinks but it likely means we have to climb earlier and shield because that is likely a bigger player pool.

Unknown

I've been forced to climb with below 20 matches for the past few PVPs as well. As soon as I hit 5-600 it's nothing but 17-19, with 20+ being all maxed 4* teams.

Above 700, the maxed 4* teams become the 17-19 and above 20 is non-existent for me.

h4n1s

orbitalint wrote:

I think time shards have made the issue you describe worse. It artificially cut the mmr pool by 80% because player pools don't cross shards.

Fewer people to possibly queue in your MMR and I've seen people shielding in every screenshot of my ranking from 100 on up. We're probably talking about a handful or so of people that are unshielded in your mmr range. Put in the requirement of being ahead of you in points to be able to offer 25+, and you likely keep shrinking because of increased use of shields as you climb.

Stinks but it likely means we have to climb earlier and shield because that is likely a bigger player pool.

I am not sure if shielded person is 'removed' from queue. You still can be attacked while shielded, you just don't lose points, you can only gain them in case of defensive win. Unless this has been changed with some recent update...

GrumpySmurf1002

h4n1s wrote:

orbitalint wrote:

I think time shards have made the issue you describe worse. It artificially cut the mmr pool by 80% because player pools don't cross shards.

Fewer people to possibly queue in your MMR and I've seen people shielding in every screenshot of my ranking from 100 on up. We're probably talking about a handful or so of people that are unshielded in your mmr range. Put in the requirement of being ahead of you in points to be able to offer 25+, and you likely keep shrinking because of increased use of shields as you climb.

Stinks but it likely means we have to climb earlier and shield because that is likely a bigger player pool.

I am not sure if shielded person is 'removed' from queue. You still can be attacked while shielded, you just don't lose points, you can only gain them in case of defensive win. Unless this has been changed with some recent update...

If you already have them queued, then yes, a shielded person is still there. Otherwise they're gone.

And with 3 hours left in the new cooldown system, a large chunk of players that would be worth more to you are shielded. When I broke last night with about 2:30 left in the event, I was in 20th. Everyone I could see on the leaderboard (so top 10, 15-24 or so) was shielded.

h4n1s

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

h4n1s wrote:

orbitalint wrote:

I think time shards have made the issue you describe worse. It artificially cut the mmr pool by 80% because player pools don't cross shards.

Fewer people to possibly queue in your MMR and I've seen people shielding in every screenshot of my ranking from 100 on up. We're probably talking about a handful or so of people that are unshielded in your mmr range. Put in the requirement of being ahead of you in points to be able to offer 25+, and you likely keep shrinking because of increased use of shields as you climb.

Stinks but it likely means we have to climb earlier and shield because that is likely a bigger player pool.

I am not sure if shielded person is 'removed' from queue. You still can be attacked while shielded, you just don't lose points, you can only gain them in case of defensive win. Unless this has been changed with some recent update...

If you already have them queued, then yes, a shielded person is still there. Otherwise they're gone.

And with 3 hours left in the new cooldown system, a large chunk of players that would be worth more to you are shielded. When I broke last night with about 2:30 left in the event, I was in 20th. Everyone I could see on the leaderboard (so top 10, 15-24 or so) was shielded.

OK, wasn't aware of such feature, then this is really broken and requires attention

FaustianDeal

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

If you already have them queued, then yes, a shielded person is still there. Otherwise they're gone.

And with 3 hours left in the new cooldown system, a large chunk of players that would be worth more to you are shielded. When I broke last night with about 2:30 left in the event, I was in 20th. Everyone I could see on the leaderboard (so top 10, 15-24 or so) was shielded.

Playing slice 2 in the Hood event I saw the same 20 names for most of the event. No amount of skipping would get these 20 names to cycle out of my list. From where I was on the leaderboard I could see these players were shielded (and ranked below me). It was almost like the MMR algorithm had thrown its hands in the air and yelled "these are the only opponents you're gonna get so stop asking!".

and as a result of the miniscule MMR pool - I was sniped in 2 separate ladders by players within 5 ranks below me who could see my shield drop watching the leaderboard. 5 of the names in my MMR pool were in my bracket and all ranked in the top 15. It was impossible to score in that slice last night.

mohio

Here's my experience playing in high scoring slices in the last 8 hours or so of the event.

Generally up to 300 I can find very easy matches (I.e. 2*) for up to 40 points. From there I usually fight under leveled 3* teams worth 27-29 (found after a few skips) until maybe 500. Then it's not quite maxed 3* teams worth 20-24 until 700. From there I can skip around and find 40-point targets again with maxed everything.

Fwiw, this was happening previously although it was generally very easy to get up to 600 then the 20-25 pt slog to 800 then open the floodgates and find 45+ quite easily. So, to me it just seems like the low point targets start sooner and take longer to get through. I imagine for the low point slices there are no high point targets past 700 so it just stays <25 forever.

Unknown

The game only offers you opponents outside the usual range if it has no choice. You can't trick the game into giving you better matches, but with time slices that further restricts the pool of available players there can be a lot of weird situations you'll find yourself in a situation where the game gives up its usual effort to find someone in the 15-25 point range and just gives you whoever happens to be there. With scoring being as difficult as it is, it's not hard to imagine you can be sitting at say 800 and everyone within 100 points of you is shielded in a low activity time slice which makes the game unable to give you the preferred matchups, and at that point the opponent you get is pretty much random, for better or for worse.

Bowgentle

Phantron wrote:

The game only offers you opponents outside the usual range if it has no choice. You can't trick the game into giving you better matches, but with time slices that further restricts the pool of available players there can be a lot of weird situations you'll find yourself in a situation where the game gives up its usual effort to find someone in the 15-25 point range and just gives you whoever happens to be there. With scoring being as difficult as it is, it's not hard to imagine you can be sitting at say 800 and everyone within 100 points of you is shielded in a low activity time slice which makes the game unable to give you the preferred matchups, and at that point the opponent you get is pretty much random, for better or for worse.

It's never random - because that would imply getting a 40 pointer at some time.

What happens, without fail, is once you hit the upper echelon of points in a low scoring slice - say you're above 950 with 2 hours to go - you'll get matched with strong teams worth 3 points. Exclusively.
Unless someone unshields, then you'll be able to find them immediately.
Which is why it's a bad idea to break after your push, you'll get lit up for lots of points.

So best strategy: Push in the final two hours as high as you can, shield up, never look back.

Unknown

*actually happy to find a 21 pt match crew*