Upcoming Versus Matchmaking Test

SnowcaTT

Joey Jellico wrote:

simonsez wrote:

Joey Jellico wrote:

HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE????

Bracket placement isn't random. Yes, as you guessed, you do get punished for having a better roster.

Guess I should have sold all these 3* covers and stayed happy in 2* land. What kind of game is this where you get punished for playing more/doing well????

It's a game where they are hoping the new players (half of all players, they've said) put money in.

At least PVP you still have a chance as you get higher rankings. PVE dooms you and puts all the small rosters ahead based on scaling for some reason. Their recent change hurts the good rosters even more - now your boosted characters are considered at their boosted level rather than their natural level.

How dare you - having the characters that are required for this PVE! You'll be punished for that!

PuceMoose

Demiurge_Will wrote:

We’d like your feedback on any changes you notice and how you feel about them - please let us know which event and ending time you’re in. It also helps to see the first page of your roster, how many points you have in the event, and your in-game name if it’s different from your forum name.

I thought I'd post some early impressions from Divine Champions (I assume this is one of the possible MMR-changed events). I picked the first time slice, and fought my way up to 526. In-game name is the same as my forum name.

So far the experience has been great; I have fought lots of not-quite-maxed 2-star teams, and even a few 1-stars when I had less than 300 points. I have not been using the skip feature (It could be confirmation bias, but in previous events it seems like the more I skipped fights, the sooner I hit the horrible 166/270 wall.) Team diversity has been MUCH better than previous events; levels all over the place, and more varied team construction. My poor downed Patch was also reminded that eating all three powers of a heavily injured level 141 Ares in one turn is a quick way to go from "barely a scratch on me" to "pushing up daisies." I have not yet experienced what I usually do at around 500 - the sudden shift from 2* to maxed 3/4*, which has been a nice change of pace. When I have a chance to play more I will update with further impressions.

Primary Climbing Team: 173 3-star Thor, 166 Lazy Daken, 122 Loki.
When Thor got too banged up, I switched to 166 Patch, 166 Lazy Daken, 122 Loki.

Out of curiosity (and just in case it's of any use), once I hit top 10, I did a quick check of the top players' X-force and TGT levels. Here's what I found:
1st:
X: 5/5/3, level 250
T: 3/1/2, level 103

2nd:
X: 1/4/3, level 172
T:

---

3rd:
X: 0/1/0, level 70
T:

---

4th:
X: 3/1/2, level 70
T:

---

5th:
X: 1/5/3, level 170
T: 1/0/0, level 70

As requested, here's the first page of my roster.

Just in case it helps, here's the top 10 list currently in my bracket.

UPDATE:

When I woke up this morning I noticed that I'd been hit seven times over the night, and had two defensive wins. I think it was a net seven point loss. I hit my first 270 Thor / 270 X-Force at 580, and thought "uh-oh, here comes the wall." However, I skipped that one, and the next one was an unusual match-up - 60 Loki, 94 Wolverine, 148 Luke Cage. I beat that node (barely - Luke Cage is a monster! The player's Loki was set up without a black power I got hit with the Jab-Jab-Cross TWICE while his countdown was out. Eating an Adamantium Slash when Wolverine was at < 300 health didn't improve the team's mood very much either. I finally won with only Patch standing at about 2500 health.) The next node after that one was a 141 Storm / 141 Ares / 141 Thor.
Currently, at 602 points, my nodes are as follows:
218 *** Thor, / 141 Storm / 166 Captain America
141 Storm / 141 Thor / 94 Daken
141 Thor / 122 Blade / 94 Daken

Unknown

Slice 1. About day 450. My top 28 people are all 166th level. Climbed up to a little over 300 points using a variety of teams - was trying to keep my 3* Thor healthy for PVE, so only used him on the last couple.

Seeing mainly 2* teams; there were a handful over (mostly ~105-110), and a handful of slightly under 2* max (~85th level). Probably lower levels than I usually see around now by a fair margin; and the point values I'm seeing are quite a bit higher than usual - first 3 real person matches all over 40 points, though that might be luck.

Unknown

In Game Name: MiWill
Time Zone GMT-8

Out of respect for the test I will not be leveling my team in the off season

My unboosted first roster page

Divine Champions

Boosted First Roster Page

Time Slot: Last
Time Joined: 0620HRS 2/2/15
First Fight: 2020HRS 2/2/15
Final Point Total: 713
Final Placement: 16
Notes: This has been far more enjoyable. At no point did I hit a huge wall of maxed/buffed teams. I hit a few, but as I'm writing this I'm in the top 25 so that's to be expected. It's not been easy. Starting at around rank 100 teams with strong maxed characters appeared, but not *all* maxed characters. Perhaps the best part of it all is how safe I feel unshielded. This allowed for continuous unshielded stretches of play even at the higher end. I shielded overnight to be safe, 12 hours later only 2 had attacked me.

I did come across 2 opponents I felt I really shouldn't have. I didn't mind taking the points though. At rank 100 or higher around 500 points is and after losing a match, these 2 opponents appeared back to back. Anyone know if these are seed teams?

Category-5

Boosted First Roster Page
Time Slot: 2nd to last
Time Joined: 2/4/15 0939hrs (21 minutes before start)
First Fight: 2/4/15 1616hrs
Final Point Total: 71
Final Placement: 506
Notes: I didn't want to upgrade in preservation of the test, but I used a green and black 3* storm cover I won in divine champions after starting cat5. Still refusing to level up though.

On my first overnight I was top 50 and only got attacked once. The first night is usually safer, but not this safe. Woke up the next morning and still top 100.

I didn't push very hard as real life got in the way. What I did play though was more enjoyable and what I felt to be a better pace.

alaeth

In Game Name: Alaorath
Time Zone GMT-7h
A solid 2* transition player with 7 maxxed characters and (just now) one 3* with room to grow (go Thor!). Passing 150 days played. I play every PvP event, but my focus is PvE - I only to PvP for the 400 point (25HP award), after reaching the 4000 season reward (10-pack), I stop PvP entirely since I cannot ever get a 3* cover. I have tried starting late, different time slices, none of which has ever given me a chance at a 3* cover. The only 3* covers I get are from PvE events where I'm lucky enough to have the "essential" character, or from tokens.

Just started the "Divine" event, this will be a placeholder for my results.

My unboosted top 8 roster

(leveled up Thor to 104 to match damage of 94's between Devine and Category events)

Divine Champions event breakdown

Boosted top 8 roster:
Ares - 141
cStorm - 141
mThor - 141
mStorm - 117
gotThor - 105
oBlackWidow - 94
DA-Daken - 94
M-Hawkeye - 94
Time Slot: First (ends 8:00PM MST)
Time Joined: 1d 4h 15m remaining
Start Players: 142
Final Point Total: 566 (with 4 attacks)
Final Placement: 95
Final Players: 500

Event notes:

Display/Math bug right off the bat - first fight at 25 points was fine, but second fight (also displayed at 25 points before starting):
* bar showed starting from zero to 25 points (so completely empty)
* final point total showed 48 points instead of 25 + 25 = 50
Through 5 fights average points remained 25 before starting to drop off. Took a break once I reached 200 (51st place)
200-300 lack-luster opponents, nothing higher than 12 pts. ground through to 300 before breaking off for PvE - will try again tomorrow morning (score: 300, rank 186)
300-408 (rank 104) - saw my first XForce 250 with 140 Mags, and 213 Thor, skipping showed boosted 2* team (3 @ level 141). Only one team over 20 points (166 Cap America with Daken and someone else)
408-502 (rank #53) - getting tougher, but still no hard wall. Hit twice for ~ 18 points (once by XForce 220-ish, once by my exact team). The last fight to 500 (for 28 pts) they got "Call he Storm" off which caused my Storm to Raging Tempest them - still very close! health all low, no heals - waiting for a few hours to try and push to 600 - if I make it, I'll shield there and wait it out.
566 - final point score (ranked 70th with 1h to go)

It may be confirmation bias (or the specific event), but it certainly seems easier to climb. I'm at 450 points (ranked 75th) and still seeing "doable" opponents with only slight hints at "the wall" (the odd XForce, or 166 Patches with buffed 2* Thor for example). I did tank _hard_ after reaching 4000 pts (3 or 4 days ago) - and have not PvP'd at all until this event... no idea if that has any effect.
Shielded for the remainder of the event - first time I've seen 600 points within reach - if I had another 30 minutes to play, I'm sure I could have finished north of 600 points.
Only got attacked 4 times, so I picked a quiet shard - but the top 10 were all north of 1000.


Category-5 event breakdown

Boosted top 8 roster:

Time Slot: First (ends 8:00AM MST)
Time Joined: 1d 19h remaining
Start Players: 14
Final Point Total: 663
Final Placement: 30
Final Players: 500

Event notes:

climb to 161 pts. (14th place): 3rd & 4th fights worth over 35 points... haven't seen that before.
Wasn't able to play as much as I would like... most of the opponents where extremes, 2* team or Xforce. The ones I could tackle were worth ~20 points each.

In Conclusion, I think the changes made are:
* effective
* beneficial
* worth keeping

lokiagentofhotness

DaveR4470 wrote:

simonsez wrote:

Instead of pissing off the majority in order to placate the 2* people who seem to think they should be able to rank higher than people with 3* teams, why not run regular BoP and CA as non-season events, concurrently with the normal seasonal PvPs? This will put them on an even footing for a portion of events, and would hopefully ease the complaining.

First, that's a good idea.

Second, please don't dismiss the 2* complaints so cavalierly. I don't think I should rank higher than people with 3* teams. I do think that I should rank at an appropriate level. But in practice, what happens is (a) I get to 500 points and the heavy hitters (like, I assume, yourself) start to see me in matchups, (b) I get slaughtered by maxed 3* or 4* teams and drop back to 385 points or so, and -- here's the problem -- (c) because of how the matchup system is currently working, I do not see any teams that aren't maxed-out 3* or 4* teams and I functionally can't earn my lost points back. (Unless one or more of my losses was to a comparable 2* team or weaker 3* team that I have a realistic chance of defeating.) I don't want to outrank 3* teams -- I just want to be able to STAY at the point level I arguably should be at. And right now I can't, solely because of how the matchmaking seems to be working. That's a legit complaint that isn't an "I'm special and I should be ranked above the older better-covered players" whine.

And if the answer is "shields"... well, that should be ONE option, not the ONLY option. You should have two choices to make: either shield yourself and be able to walk away from the game for 3/8/24 hours without losing your spot, or keep on playing as much as you can and earn back any points you lose. Right now, the latter option isn't available, so your choices are (a) shield, or (b) start the event right before it ends and run the table as high as you can go so that there's no time for others to defeat you and trap you in the no-earn-back zone. Which, functionally, is a choice between spending money or having your play times rigidly decided by the mechanics of the game itself. Neither of which is a particularly attractive option.

The thing is...shields are very often the ONLY option if you want to remain competitive. Maybe some people don't get attacked at 500, but at some point you become irresistible, and you will get knocked down. I let my shield expire once because I fell asleep and woke up to minus 100+ points. When I'm shielded I've received "You've lost points to (long list of folks) + more!" which would probably mean a 2-300 point drop in points. This is the same whether you're a transitioning player or someone with a 270 maxed roster - someone with a 270 max roster will tell you they will get attacked at some point, no matter what.

Ronfar

I've got a few maxed 3* characters (C. Mags, Patch, Spider-Man, Punisher, Hulk) and I, too, have been hitting this "Wall" at 500-600ish points. Every opponent would either be a 2-star team that I'd slaughter or a 4* team that I'd have a very hard time winning against. It might be my imagination, but right now I seem to be seeing more "fair" fights against fellow 3* players that don't have a level 270 X-Force Wolverine to kick my **** with.

Also, I found myself in a couple of really easy brackets recently, making 1st place with about 700 or so points...

MojoWild

Once I hit over 700 I started hitting the big wall of maxed 3 and 4* characters, but still for around 20 points.
I'm at 735 points in the event, first time shard.
Ing: MojoWild2
Can't see how to add a screen shot from this tablet, but first page roster is maxed x force, black panther, lazy cap, Deadpool, daredevil.

CrookedKnight

I'm definitely hitting the 166/270 wall much later than I usually do. At nearly 600 points, I have so far seen just a single maxed three-star character (Blade, around 400 points), and no four-stars at all. Normally I would be seeing a majority of opponents with at least one level 166 character by this point, and frequent X-Forces/Goddesses of Thunder in the 166-250 range. In slice 1.

IGN: CrookedKnight

Roster:

Unknown

I didn't start to see seriously leveled 3* teams until I crossed 700, but then the 166/270 wall started. Pretty much all 2* (with the occasional <120 level 3*) prior to that.

Demiurge_Will

Many thanks to those of you who have started to post your impressions of how the matchmaking is for Divine Champions. Looking forward to reading more reports from Divine Champions and the upcoming Category-5.

Quebbster

Demiurge_Will wrote:

Many thanks to those of you who have started to post your impressions of how the matchmaking is for Divine Champions. Looking forward to reading more reports from Divine Champions and the upcoming Category-5.

Man, I was so hoping the next event WOULDN'T be Category-5... Oh well. Guess we can look forward to a Star-Lord event starting the season.

Cabol

Here's my breakdown of Divine Champions at this point:

In Game Name - Cabol
Joined the Feb 3rd - 10P time slice (slice 1) with about 9 hours to go in the event
Front Page Roster *couldn't get the photo to post*:
LVL 104 Hulk 4/1/3
LVL 94 Ares 4/4/5
LVL 94 oBW 3/5/5
LVL 94 Daken 5/4/4
LVL 94 Tiny Torch 5/5/3

Character Selection *couldn't get the photo to post*:
LVL 141 Ares
LVL 141 C.Storm
LVL 141 2* Thor
LVL 104 Hulk
LVL 94 oBW
LVL 94 Daken
LVL 94 Tiny Torch
LVL 94 MNMags

Currently sitting at 38th place with 348 points, 6 hours to go
I haven't hit any sort of evil 3*/Xforce-4hor wall yet, most battles have either been on my level or a step below. I'm seeing mostly 2* battles with the occasional unleveled 3* cover (similar to my Hulk cover). This is the first time in a while that I've been enjoying a PVP event more than PVE event due to the diversity of teams I'm seeing.


Update
About to break 500 points for only the 2nd time since playing MPQ (if I remember correctly). Currently sitting at 9th palce with 488 points. Starting to see maxed out 3* covers and X-Forces, but not full teams (example: lvl 153 Loki-Lvl 166 lazy Cap-lvl 203 XForce)

Update Final
Ended the event in 14th place with a total of 502 points. Last matches in my nodes featured multiple covered X-Forces and near max or maxed 3* covers that I couldn't beat.

AaronTheLuigi

In-game name: AaronTheLuigi. Time Zone: Eastern Standard Time




In Divine Champions, I just broke 400 PvP points for the first time in my MPQ career! (Yay!) However, the matchmaking felt similar. I got up to around 225 with seed teams and teams no higher than Lv. 50, then instantly hit a wall of maxed two-stars and beyond. That being said, the combination of me having buffed C.Storm/MN Thor and the fact that I got my first maxed characters (OBW, Daken, MN Thor and A.Wolvie) right before starting the event may have helped me beat up on the other teams floating out there. I still found maxed and in my queue I had no chance of beating, however, and I expect my points and placement to significantly drop by event's end. Right now I have 408 points, but I expect to finish around 300-340.

Also, I joined a slice a little ways after it started, and somehow am now sitting at 8th place, surrounded by Maxed /X-Force. Expecting a top 100 finish, although I've been surprisingly lucky in defense wins against other rosters.

EDIT: Lost 71 points overnight, but did get three wins on 27-ish point teams around my level. Finished rank 45, the best finish I've had in a PvP without joining at the end, with a whopping 380 points. (My bracket's top ten ranged from 486 to 632.)

CrookedKnight

To update my previous post, I only started seeing maxed teams after I crossed 650 points. Once I went above 800 I was seeing almost nothing but 166s and 300+ Thors. This matches up with the ceiling I've hit in the last three events (before that I had no 166s of my own and topped out at 600). So my maximum score was the same as under the old matchmaking system, but I had a smoother climb getting there, with much less skipping in the 500-700 range.

yogi_

I didn't get to play too much and not a lot of points, so can't add a whole lot to the discussion but I noticed nothing really different in my usual not getting a 3* character suckage fest, I mean PvP. Though, I guess there are a few other hundreds with me, so meh.

New PvE can't come soon enough.

simonsez

I'm in the shard ending at 4pm eastern, and if I'm in the group that was subject to the test, I'm very happy with it. If this was a "normal" shard, I'd say don't change anything. I've gone as far as I want to (725) and never hit a wall of maxed 3s and 4s. It was the most low-key, no-stress "gimmick" PvP that I've ever taken part in.

tanis3303

Yea, I had a pretty smooth climb in the Divine Champions event as well. Slice 1, my roster consists of 270 Xforce/Fury, 225 4Hor and a LOT of 166s. Didn't start seeing the de facto "Best Team" for this event of 4hor, Xforce, Loki until I reached 800+ points. If this was the MMR test, I'm all for it.

Unknown

I played the event very late (only for a little over an hour at the end of slice 1), so my experience was limited. I only climbed to about 700 (I think I ended at an infuriating 723), but got what I would consider a pretty typical expanse of opponents. Very few maxed teams (meaning I was still punching under my weight class), but that probably still has everything to do with my late play and relatively low score.

Importantly, the point values on my matches seemed a little better than usual; when you duck in to the end of the earliest end time of an event it's sometimes hard to find decent targets.

There it is: one isolated, anecdotal approval of the system from a person who played under unusual conditions.

GrumpySmurf1002

I finished Divine Champions last night. I made one mad dash from about 300 to around 750 or so in the last 2 hours of the event. I saw zero 405 Thors, and very little (possibly none) 249 heroes on the climb up. Felt like I fought a never ending brigade of cStorm 2*Thor Ares all the way, with a few mid-level Loki's sprinkled in. I'd gladly take that going forward, especially in events where I would actually hop past that.

Edit: I don't read. Slice 1, Divine Champions, 766 final score, IGN: grumpysmurf

1st Roster page: XForce 206, 3*Thor 166, Deadpool 155, Hood 151, Daken (3/5/4) 147, LCap 144, Sentry 144, Patch 134, Blade 128, Panther 124, Psylocke 124, Fury 124 (5/2/1), Marvel 114. All cover maxed unless indicated.