I'm noticing a trend with PvP

Arondite

locked wrote:

Not really sure what works currently, but you should try and see what works for you. Some tank in SHIELD Sim only, some tank every PvP event. Tanking = losing to adjust your match-making ranking (MMR). Losing while shielded counts. Losing can be active (when you go and lose on purpose) or passive (when people beat your team).

It seems like it could really hurt you, too though.

For instance if I were at, say, 2400 season points and for the next event I put up 400 to get the hero points, that'd put me at 2800. If I then tanked myself back down to as close to 0 as I could, wouldn't that put me back at 2400 season points, effectively wasting an entire pvp?

Unknown

locked wrote:

Not really sure what works currently, but you should try and see what works for you. Some tank in SHIELD Sim only, some tank every PvP event. Tanking = losing to adjust your match-making ranking (MMR). Losing while shielded counts. Losing can be active (when you go and lose on purpose) or passive (when people beat your team).

(offtopic) Wait, so your shield doesn't break until you win a match? I thought it broke as soon as you started a new match, regardless of outcome. Or are you talking about defensive losses? (/offtopic)

Anyway, I'll have to try the tanking thing, I came back from a long break (with presumably zero MMR) and won my Season IX bracket with ~4.5k points, which has (again presumably) rocketed my MMR skyhigh. After that, I started seeing nothing but XF for a while, when before I was facing 1/2's.

If I had to guess, I'd say there's a "high MMR" bracket and a "low MMR" bracket for each slice that you are sorted into when you join, regardless of current player count. Furthermore, I'd guess the "high MMR" brackets fill slower, so a late-join strategy is likely as not to land you in an established bracket as an empty one.

Unknown

Arondite wrote:

It seems like it could really hurt you, too though.

For instance if I were at, say, 2400 season points and for the next event I put up 400 to get the hero points, that'd put me at 2800. If I then tanked myself back down to as close to 0 as I could, wouldn't that put me back at 2400 season points, effectively wasting an entire pvp?

Well, yes, but that's why you tank in Sim where you can stay around 0 until near the end of season. Alternatively, some people swear by going up to X points, deliberately losing down to Y points, then climbing again; they say that you lose more MMR when you lose than you gain when you win, so it ends up working out in your favor. My experience has been mixed.

GothicKratos

Arondite wrote:

they say that you lose more MMR when you lose than you gain when you win, so it ends up working out in your favor

I only tanked a few times awhile back, and it did seem to help some. I took all my semi-covered 3* that I couldn't use and would join and retreat them games (making them lose a ton of health) in Shield Sim and then join and game and throw it. After killing off a team or three in Shield Sim, my PvP would give me reasonable matches after a few skips.

All that aside, this was three seasons ago now, so I dunno how well it works now, but technically speaking, that's how MMR is supposed to work. They (i.e. the folks that originally designed the MMR scheme) designed the slope in the algorithm to punish a person for loser much harder than they are rewarded for winning to encourage winning streaks and to weed out the lucky players from the truly skilled.

Arondite

Alarron wrote:

locked wrote:

Not really sure what works currently, but you should try and see what works for you. Some tank in SHIELD Sim only, some tank every PvP event. Tanking = losing to adjust your match-making ranking (MMR). Losing while shielded counts. Losing can be active (when you go and lose on purpose) or passive (when people beat your team).

(offtopic) Wait, so your shield doesn't break until you win a match? I thought it broke as soon as you started a new match, regardless of outcome. Or are you talking about defensive losses? (/offtopic)

Anyway, I'll have to try the tanking thing, I came back from a long break (with presumably zero MMR) and won my Season IX bracket with ~4.5k points, which has (again presumably) rocketed my MMR skyhigh. After that, I started seeing nothing but XF for a while, when before I was facing 1/2's.

If I had to guess, I'd say there's a "high MMR" bracket and a "low MMR" bracket for each slice that you are sorted into when you join, regardless of current player count. Furthermore, I'd guess the "high MMR" brackets fill slower, so a late-join strategy is likely as not to land you in an established bracket as an empty one.

Seems to me he meant defensive losses. I'm pretty sure the shield breaks when you start a game.

_RiO_

GothicKratos wrote:

We were in the same slice, like I said, we both joined late, so we were lumped into a pissing pool bracket of mostly new players.

Not so hot for season score, but neither of us are in a big Alliance, so we don't really care.

Worked out ridiculously well for me in the Army of One PVP as well; ~580 pts got me a top 10 finish by joining at the right time and ending up in a bracket of newbies.

GothicKratos

_RiO_ wrote:

GothicKratos wrote:

We were in the same slice, like I said, we both joined late, so we were lumped into a pissing pool bracket of mostly new players.

Not so hot for season score, but neither of us are in a big Alliance, so we don't really care.

Worked out ridiculously well for me in the Army of One PVP as well; ~580 pts got me a top 10 finish by joining at the right time and ending up in a bracket of newbies.

Yeah, she did the slice that just ended an hour ago and got #17 with an hours effort.

Unknown

points 500- 600 166 wall points 800 270 wall

Unknown

Arondite wrote:

locked wrote:

Guys, you should tank. There's nothing wrong to it, we all had to tank before becoming the top dogs ourselves, roster-wise.

Could you explain for me, how to do so and the most efficient means? Is it just "go in shield sim and lose some", or do I need to lose a specific number of games...to specific opponents...etc?

I Would Like To Know This As Well. And Are We Needing To Tank Entire Events, Or Just Matches Within Those Events To Find Easier Opponents? If Entire Events, Just Tank Ones With Rewards You Are Not Interested In, OR Several. Will This Also Include Tanking PVE?

ClydeFrog76

GothicKratos wrote:

We were in the same slice, like I said, we both joined late, so we were lumped into a pissing pool bracket of mostly new players.

Not so hot for season score, but neither of us are in a big Alliance, so we don't really care.

I cannot recommend this style of PVP play enough if you don't care about Season score. You can easily break top 25 or even top 10 with only 1 hour of play.

Unknown

Deadpool-69 wrote:

Arondite wrote:

locked wrote:

Guys, you should tank. There's nothing wrong to it, we all had to tank before becoming the top dogs ourselves, roster-wise.

Could you explain for me, how to do so and the most efficient means? Is it just "go in shield sim and lose some", or do I need to lose a specific number of games...to specific opponents...etc?

I Would Like To Know This As Well. And Are We Needing To Tank Entire Events, Or Just Matches Within Those Events To Find Easier Opponents? If Entire Events, Just Tank Ones With Rewards You Are Not Interested In, OR Several. Will This Also Include Tanking PVE?

I'll tell you if you stop capitalizing every word in your sentence.

Unknown

locked wrote:

Guys, you should tank. There's nothing wrong to it, we all had to tank before becoming the top dogs ourselves, roster-wise.

Tanking does nothing for someone who's trying to crack top10. You'll still see all the same teams at the top. It just makes the climb easier.

Spoit

ark123 wrote:

locked wrote:

Guys, you should tank. There's nothing wrong to it, we all had to tank before becoming the top dogs ourselves, roster-wise.

Tanking does nothing for someone who's trying to crack top10. You'll still see all the same teams at the top. It just makes the climb easier.

Exactly, tanking only matters up to "the wall", which seems to be below 600 now, which might not even be enough for top 25 depending on your sharding

Unknown

Spoit wrote:

ark123 wrote:

locked wrote:

Guys, you should tank. There's nothing wrong to it, we all had to tank before becoming the top dogs ourselves, roster-wise.

Tanking does nothing for someone who's trying to crack top10. You'll still see all the same teams at the top. It just makes the climb easier.

Exactly, tanking only matters up to "the wall", which seems to be below 600 now, which might not even be enough for top 25 depending on your sharding

The last few PvP I just got into the top 25 with around 750 points. In Army of one 748 was needed - I finished 21st on 764.

over_clocked

Back in those days tanking helped me a bit before I could field an endgame roster myself. Early on it helped tremendously, and the better my roster became, the less it helped. But maybe for everyone facing the wall too early it could be of utmost importance.

Yes, I meant that defensive losses count while you're shielded (I'm also a she). Some people deliberately leave a weak team shielded at a good score, that way more people than usual will hit it and lower the shielded player's MMR (edit: not score, but MMR).

You don't have to tank entire events, you can join an event, lose some in it before acquiring any meaningful points (either get some points early and leave a very weak team to defend, e.g. cStorm/loaner/MMN, or just straight up join games and retreat/suicide until you start seeing reasonable matchups after skipping).

Try whatever works for you. I can't tell you what works and what doesn't, I don't have a need to tank atm, but if tanking were to be fixed all of a sudden, I'd expect rage threads by now. There had been attempts from the devs but not exactly successful ones and I feel that the game is not very good at adjusting players' MMR as fast as they need it; sure you face the wall and start doing poorly, or are frustrated to the point of quitting or skipping events, but that's still not nearly as fast as good old tanking.
I hear reports from alliance mates that tanking is not very helpful for them, but it may be indeed of no use to vets with good rosters.