Death brackets in PvP?

ruinedcause

Why is that I had an easier time placing Top 100 before my 's were maxed than I do now? I have alliance mates who claim to place in the Top 50 with half of the score that I will normally put up in any PvP event. I've corroborated their assertions by going into their roster and taking a look at them. I can't remember the name of the event that gave out The Punisher, it may have been Army Of One but at any rate we had a new member garner about 250 points and still place Top 25 where I posted about 625 and still placed a paltry 120. I had the same experience with the Hotshot event. I used all three shields to protect the 600 that I put up. I stopped the event with about two hours left at 84. When I woke up, I was at 124, missing out on a much needed Captain Marvel cover.

I realize there is a lot of moving and shaking even when shields are put up. I am cognizant of the fact that it only protects your score and not your rank. Scaling doesn't apply in PvP, so why is that people who don't even have half of my roster can place so favorably whereas I scratch and dig just for a sniff at 100. I've tried various time slices and it doesn't seem to do me any good. Can my luck possibly be that bad?

Just to give you a little background on my roster, I have all of the important 's maxed and have Blade and Sentry close to cover maxed (very minimal ISO invested). I have all of the and with the exception of LThor, CMags, Squirrel Girl and Punisher. Looks like I'll likely miss out on LThor covers since my events are no longer showing up in either Story or Versus. That's another story for another time and I've posted in the "Bugs and Technical Issues" forum about this.

Thanks for listening.

wymtime

It all has to do with Sharding, end time slices, and when you enter.
End time slices and Sharding: First is when you pick your end time you are placed into a bracket and you are sharded into an open group based on your roster and on what brackets are available. So if you enter slice 4 and the only available brackets are the one's with X-men you will go into a bracket with high end players.
When you enter. So if you enter the PVP right away you are most likly to get into a bracket with more high end players becuase it takes a lot longer to shield hop to 1100-1300 points, and the bracket has a lot longer to fill up. For your alliance mate if he joined super late he could have gotten into a new bracket which limited the amount of people in the bracket and then was able to score higher.

The best thing to do is to try a different time slice to place higher. If you can enter slice 1-3 your 600+ points will give you a better chance at top 100. Also with shield cool downs scores are clumping a little more so the difference between top 100 and 150 will be a lot closer as well as top 50 to top 25.

Unknown

I'd stick with the big shards.
As a 2* transitioner, I too have noticed this huge change after the shield cooldown was implemented. Changing times only lowers the required score, but is incredibly hard to get the same 600 points in some of the other time shards. Competition against a 2* roster is more fierce in these zones where there are less people. You might only need 500 as opposed to 700 to get top 100 in these time shards, but you hit the wall at 350,400 as opposed to 550 or so. I've tried a bunch of different time shards, but the main ones are the only ones big enough for a 2* to do well, as there's more unshielded 2-3* fodder to climb off of.

In the hotshot PVP, top 100 was about 650 in my bracket in time shard 1.

ruinedcause

Thank you both, that helps. This inherently brings up another quick question that I hope you'd be able to shed some light on. I'll use yesterday's situation as an example. I saw that Fly-Fight-Win was starting in the next couple of hours. The event said something to the effect of "event starts in 2h 38m". My question is a bit multi-faceted. If I wait to pick a time as you've suggested, will it automatically place me in Slice 1 completely negating my choice in start time? How long should I wait to click on the event before I make my push?

Thanks again. Your input is appreciated.

Unknown

Also, something to keep in mind - getting 250 and top 25 is the cupcakeyest of cupcakey brackets. You're only going to see that with a very new player. Don't use it as a guide to normal.

Unknown

You can join an event at any time before it is over. Other brackets may already have finished and you can still join the later brackets. A lot of players use this trick to try to place quickly without much effort, but it takes a lot of luck/multi-player coordination to get into a fresh bracket; I've rarely tried it myself as I aim for progression hp, and it hurts alliance rank to not really compete.

ruinedcause

Ben Grimm wrote:

Also, something to keep in mind - getting 250 and top 25 is the cupcakeyest of cupcakey brackets. You're only going to see that with a very new player. Don't use it as a guide to normal.

Oh I haven't. Just a little pissed and honestly a little jealous that someone can put that little effort into getting a cover that I've wanted for the past 97 days I've been playing. So in summation, join Slice 1-3 and wait as long as possible before actually entering, right?

wymtime

ruinedcause wrote:

Ben Grimm wrote:

Also, something to keep in mind - getting 250 and top 25 is the cupcakeyest of cupcakey brackets. You're only going to see that with a very new player. Don't use it as a guide to normal.

Oh I haven't. Just a little pissed and honestly a little jealous that someone can put that little effort into getting a cover that I've wanted for the past 97 days I've been playing. So in summation, join Slice 1-3 and wait as long as possible before actually entering, right?

That is just about right. This is also the advice I give people trying to break into a new placement either top 100, 25, 10, 5.
Climb as high as you can at either the 8 hr mark or 3 hr mark and shield. After you shield for the duration line up 3 opponents and with 5-7 min left break your shield and try and win 2 final matches. You need to boost AP to do this, but you should be able to sneak into the next placement or next progression. It can somtimes backfire if someone has you lined up, but it is a good way to get higher placement. On the last event I was 9th so I broke shield with 6 min left won 2 matches and had 1 min left. I had gotten into 4th place, but unfortunatly someone had me lined up and I fell to 7th. I still got top 10 and hit the 900 progression with only 1 shield, and if I waited 1 min before I started could have been top 5. I win more than I lose this way If I can be on MPQ when the event ends.

ruinedcause

I'll give this strategy a try in the Fly-Fight-Win event. Thanks.

ruinedcause

Thought I'd provide an update. I started Fly-Fight-Win with about eight hours to go (12 P.M. PST end time) and climbed up to about 550 points. I'm currently shielded and I'm still barely Top 100. I'll have to break the shield I'm currently in and find a juicy opponent before the event is over. I'm finding it exceedingly difficult to place while other alliance mates of mine score a lot lower and easily acquire rewards. I always enter in Slice 1-3 and try my best to enter the event as late as possible.

This sucks.

Unknown

Same position here. Ever since I got a top 25 I've been in death brackets.

Just get 100 points in lightning rounds and put in a tank team. It doesn't make much sense to have to intentionally lose to get into brackets you actually have a chance in, but welcome to MPQ.

Apparently the game thinks that with a high w/l you'll magically be able to compete against 4*'s with a 2* roster.

over_clocked

Instead of joining late, try joining early. Try pre-joining by picking a time slice well in advance and letting the game find a more adequate bracket for you. When you join late you often run into people with better rosters while newbies usually begin events as early as possible.

Vladdy

locked wrote:

Instead of joining late, try joining early. Try pre-joining by picking a time slice well in advance and letting the game find a more adequate bracket for you. When you join late you often run into people with better rosters while newbies usually begin events as early as possible.

I have never pre-joined a tourney yet. Just out of curiosity I will try that in an upcoming tourney to experience it myself. Thanks for the reminder that this is even possible.

ruinedcause

I just have to resign myself to the fact that the - transition is a brutal process and roll with the punches in the meantime. I tried the late start suggestion and although I was pretty optimistic about it, still came up short. The competition for a highly sought after cover was too much for my transition roster to bear.

As another poster suggested here, I started the Coversquirrel event fairly early and am hoping to yield better results. I may have to pay some HP to hop a little bit, but I'm so close to cover-maxing my Blade that I can taste it. The Double-ISO and Blade covers aren't helping my placement at all but I'll do what I can to obtain a good finish.