Upcoming Test: Powered-Up Characters in Versus

daveomite

aesthetocyst wrote:

simonsez wrote:

aesthetocyst wrote:

Seriously, so long as shields are impenetrable, you can rant, rave, kick sand, wave fists all you like; unless the targeted player screws up, you can't touch him.

Given how much forum complaining we see about getting sniped, a lot of people must be screwing up.

Yep.

Fact is - the way the match making works, to those actually skipping - if a person unshields, they will appear in nodes almost immediately. Some people don't "wait" at all, and just instantly hit you during your first match out of shield. That player may have broken shield to hit a 21 point target, for instance, but gets sniped for -41 to -49. Do the math.

That is not because of a "screw up" on the player who broke shield's side... that is a problem with the system itself, and why many complain about snipers as some people just gun for it... and/or sit low in point purposely trying to snipe people even though they themselves are not climbing.

There is no "grace period" once you unshield... you're either active, or your not. Once a player is high in points in a shard, sometimes they are the highest point value target in it, meaning, they become a lightning rod as soon as they unshield.

aesthetocyst wrote:

mohio wrote:

... there's 0 chance those guys would take the time to attack you back.

If all players were rational and pursued optimal strategy, that would be true. But some players are impulsive, and emotional. I've been hit for single digits; haven't you?

If I was at 1k points, and you sniped me from 2-300 points - you would be a 1 point node. If you think I would hit you back, forget it. All that would do is open me up to you having a retal to hit me back again. So, you could snipe me and strip away 49 points in an instant, but my only "retal" is for 1 point, that's it.

Does that sound overly fair to you if/when you are high in points? And, given the way the game has changed now... as mentioned earlier in this thread... imagine spending 2 days to get to 1k - only to get sniped by some person low in points - taking almost 50 points away faster than you can manage to make it back up.

esoxnepa

Are you getting feedback from the 2* players?

I felt like the 2* teams I was passing were even less significant than before. Are 2* players enjoying this, or getting more frustrated than ever?

puppychow

daibar wrote:

If you attack someone as soon as you queue them, chances are they'll still be active, and so you'll have a chance of getting hit right back.
If you attack someone a little after you queue them, chances are they'll be shielded, and can't hit you back because there's no retaliation node.

It only makes sense to hit someone immediately if
A. you're going to shield immediately after the battle or
B. you think the target is too juicy and will be hit by other players, lowering the value or
C. you think that someone will hit you while unshielded if you take a different battle and you'll lose the node.

You can start gambling, but it doesn't always go as well.

It's not so much a silent pact as it is smart playing which happens to work out for everyone.

Well, how about when you're trying to land top 5 to grab the blue rag cover? Wouldn't you try to hit someone above you in your bracket to knock him down if he's unshielded, and hopefully jump head of him to land top 5?

daveomite

aesthetocyst wrote:

You have helpfully highlighted many of the ways in which players screw up, Daveomite, thanks. As you suggest, they should do the math, in particular, play the %ages, and the clock.

And yes, it has been stated in this thread that it supposedly takes 2 days of hopping to reach 1K. Well, with the max progression award at 1K, does that imply that it is supposed to be easy? Recall it used to be at 1300. Was reaching it easy for many players?

Everything about the PVP system is designed to draw players to the middle, almost like a black hole. Almost anyone can get 200pts, thanks to seeds and MMR, and the fact that (rational!) players scoring higher won't bother with them, and they don't risk much for taking a shot at high point matches. Players with some roster development can get to 500. On the high end, all factors work in concert to make piling up more points harder and harder.

But 2 days to reach 1000? I watch a lot of people play, and I'm telling you, much of the difficulty is self-created. By greed and ill-advised thrift.

For instance, in this event, I am at 1395. You are currently a bit higher. I have yourself and an alliance mate of yours queued, and will clear those nodes later today (thanks in advance!). Did it take you 2 days to reach 1000? I have hopped several times, have not and will not lose points on a hop*. I get attacked a lot (a lot!), but not sniped. It's all about time. Sure, of course, you're served up into queues as soon as you break, but it's a footrace—and this game gives you a headstart! All you have to do, is keep it.

The phenomenon of people at low points (either weak rosters, or late climbers) taking shots at those with high scores is not new. I've been playing PVP competitively (>1000) since season 2 (took a couple seasons off, tho), and the spectre of the -50pt hit has always been there. The buffs this week have not increased this danger. Anyone who qs up anyone for 40+ may as well take a shot, particularly if they are at low score / not shielding, because they risk losing nothing beyond a few points and a couple health packs.

I like to work with aspiring PVP players. I enjoy watching their scores improve. It doesn't take them 2 days of hopping to reach 1K, unless they simply aren't ready ... or can't keep from screwing up.

_______________________________

* Having said that, I will probably wipe out spectacularly. Watch for it

1. No... it does not take me two days to get to 1k. But then, I've been playing a long time. So no, I'm not "screwing up".

2. If you are sitting here saying that you have me in a node, and an alliance mate - maybe offer up a specific heads up so you don't snipe us, unless you are one of those people who like doing that.

3. I appreciate that you seem to know it all and understand the complete inner workings of the system and players that play it - but I think that's complete **** too.

4. I play this game to help my alliance place as well as possible. That means I play for more than just me alone, specifically 19 other people, as do several others on our alliance. Many other players do the same on other alliances. I don't need the 1k reward, and I certainly don't have to prove anything by climbing any higher. However, we are at the end of the season, so every single point matters.

5. I'm really not a bad guy at all, so I don't understand why you would choose to try to start and/or continue an argument about something that you're missing the point on most of it. Great job with that by the way.

Good for you for working with players, I do the same and have done so since before Season 1 even. Yet, here you are stating how brilliant you are to snipe people because "you may as well", right? Is that honestly how you "coach" new players to be? Good luck.

Congrats on being smarter than everyone else in the room, lol. Have fun out there.

Unknown

aesthetocyst wrote:

esoxnepa wrote:

Are you getting feedback from the 2* players?

I felt like the 2* teams I was passing were even less significant than before. Are 2* players enjoying this, or getting more frustrated than ever?

The guys with Ares seem to love it!

And I am sure the new players are loving their buffed IM35.

That said, the buffs were really light on the low end of the spectrum. Game needs more 1 and 2 toons in general. Kinda silly to call them "Common" when there are so few, and "uncommon" when they are only slightly less so.

Yeah I'm not that sure. Ares ain't beating any teams with lvl200 patch and those started showing up real early.

Raffoon

So glad that I get to use Lazy Thor, the first 3* I fully covered, rather than the other version of Thor that I spent a hundred F'ing dollars on.

Thanks Devs

SkyFire47

it's awesome I spend all my time and effort on 4* and some random nobody gets a free boosted Ares with 10K health.

why should players who don't try as hard get rewarded by having their **** roster boosted as a flavor of the week. this experiment is proving there is no variety. boost Loki, Hood, Patch. all you see are Loki, Hood, Patch plus the featured character. they're 3*. they weren't meant to be stronger than the 4*. and the 2* weren't meant to be stronger than the 3*. that's the whole point of the supposed rarity and tiered structure.

you really wanna prevent everyone from having the same team. don't let people buy covers and don't sell ISO. make everyone earn their covers and save their ISO. everyone on equal footing and no more whining when you see someone put the time and effort into boosting heroes.

Unknown

esoxnepa wrote:

Are you getting feedback from the 2* players?

I felt like the 2* teams I was passing were even less significant than before. Are 2* players enjoying this, or getting more frustrated than ever?

I don't know about frustrated, but I feel PVP isn't a realistic option for earning covers anymore, at least if you're not sniping. I was able to get around 600 points and top 100 in the last two PVPs before this experiment started, but now I'm lucky to stay above 400 points. PVP also consumes more health packs, especially since you need to keep a buffed Ares on your lineup at all times and you can't switch to someone like Thor to let him heal. I feel there's less variety in 2* PVP new since only 2 characters are buffed and the buffs are so substantial you pretty much have to use them (or at least Ares).

Unknown

When will there be an announcement that this little test failed? This new format is brutal. I'm al of a top25 team and I've last player each PvP as they can no longer compete. Essentially had the wrong powered up chars. I may have some of my 1000+ players just up and quit.

Just count this experiment as a fail. Good try. Good thought but in practice, a fail

Unknown

These buffs are ridiculous. I'm mostly a a PvP player and I'm only playing the deadpool daily now. Thanks for ruining the end of this season with silly testing.

esoxnepa

[quote="aesthetocyst"
A good question ... considering their stated objective ("encouraging lineup diversity"), I think they can say they succeeded. With that objective, failure would mean all top players still running the same team. There are a variety of lineups at the top. Not much variety, but more than before.
[/quote]

Sure there is more diversity at the top, but is there more diversity through the multiple * levels. Perhaps they meant they only wanted to increase diversity at the top, but it looks like diversity has been limited below max 3* players.

2* teams are basically Ares and filler. Even with the buff 2* Cap is still not PvP worthy (no matter how much I try to force him in.)

If they look at only the top 50 in each bracket, it will show diversity. If they look at 100-250, I bet it shows even less diversity. I'd love to know, but we won't ever see the numbers. What we will get is "Confirmation Bias" for the results of this test.

Unknown

There was already variety. Since they turned gt into complete garbage people were running hulkbomb, xforce IF, xforce profx, hood xforce, loki xforce, and I spotted even a couple dinos here and there. All this pvp did was showcase how broken patch and lthor become after scaled. I saw zero profx and like two furies in the upper teams. Rest was all loki patch and hood lthor, with the occasional maxed xforce.

mouser

Pro's:
- Increased variety of viable character teams.
- Increased variety of opponents.
- Rewards deeper rosters, at least in the longer picture.

Con's:
- Marginalizing value of 4*'s--the most expensive resource investments in the game.
- A lot more enemy health to slog through, causing matches to take longer.
- Increased damage to player teams, possibly offset by having more viable secondary teams to play.
- Ability to stay unshielded above the MMR threshold was worse then before--spend any amount of time unshielded above 650 and you'll find yourself even more quickly beaten back down to 600. Which leads to:
- Change caused shield hopping, hopping coordination, and hop timing to be even more important than before to reach progression rewards.


I applaud the idea behind the test of promoting both team and roster diversity. But I can't call the test a success. The resulting Cons outweighed the Pros in my opinion.

d0nk3y

mouser wrote:

I applaud the idea behind the test of promoting both team and roster diversity. But I can't call the test a success. The resulting Cons outweighed the Pros in my opinion.

I have the opposite opinion - this is one of the first times I've enjoyed PvP mainly because I didn't hit a 4* wall at 600. This may also be skewed because Fatal Attraction played directly into my roster, allowing me to run a maxed Patch/Ldaken/Hood team with unprecedented success - at least until the freight train of XForces parked in my tailsection in the last hour. Even with Krakadoom! I'm having more fun than ever before in PvP, although it will be significantly harder for me because of a color gap with Rags.

The new system is also better for me because of my roster - I have 18 characters above 140, so I've spent a lot of time building up my roster and maxing my builds. I have XForce where I can max him, but have avoided doing so because of worries about PvE scaling increases - yes, I know there's a tl;dr on that subject. I'm still skeptical.

One negative about the new system - I think the buffs given to the rest of the roster are *too* great. I mean, 280/290/280 3*s? Some of the 3* mechanics scaled to that level are just pants-on-head stupid. I mean, run the numbers on a level 5 Diabolical Plot at 280. Maybe something more along the lines of featured at 290, other 3*s powered up to maybe 225 or 240, but not all the way up to 280. You've gotta leave some room for the 4*s to maintain some advantage.

slidecage

since off season is still BOOSTED guessing boosted is here to stay?

Unknown

It's a nice try, but all it does is replace the pre-boost wall (X-Force/4hor) with Patch/Loki or Hood.

The problem is that there is always going to be a top tier pairing of characters. It doesn't matter who is buffed, people will settle on the most efficient, strongest characters. Positive thing for you of course is that you're forcing players to diversify which should reflect on your revenue. Although I'm guessing that you're about to reach the point where players feel that their investment into the game (time and money) is not in line with the return (fun) they get out of it and will start leaving for good.

Rough suggestion (obviously just a quick suggestion to give a sense of an idea): How about segregating PvP events similar to DDQ? Offer one event where 4*s can be used with something like a roster slot as a top reward. The other event could be limited to 3*s only with 4* as a reward and the last event limited to 2*s with a 3* cover as a reward. Players have to choose which "slice" to enter and cannot enter more than one "slice" for the duration of the PvP event.

And think about achieving parity within tiers. Why is Invisible Woman (or even Electra) a 4* when you have X-Force running around?

Unknown

While Human Torch pvp was fun, Rags' is awful.

So, a bit like previous pvps, a lame featured makes it hard to climb.

I don't like Loki as a character (even if I acknowledge he's good now), and having to play Patch or Lthor makes me feel old. No kidding. It's weird to play with "old" characters for a whole week.

I'm ok to play with them in PvE, but not consistently in Season PvPs.

mouser

d0nk3y wrote:

mouser wrote:

I applaud the idea behind the test of promoting both team and roster diversity. But I can't call the test a success. The resulting Cons outweighed the Pros in my opinion.

I have the opposite opinion - this is one of the first times I've enjoyed PvP mainly because I didn't hit a 4* wall at 600. This may also be skewed because Fatal Attraction played directly into my roster, allowing me to run a maxed Patch/Ldaken/Hood team with unprecedented success - at least until the freight train of XForces parked in my tailsection in the last hour. Even with Krakadoom! I'm having more fun than ever before in PvP, although it will be significantly harder for me because of a color gap with Rags.

The new system is also better for me because of my roster - I have 18 characters above 140, so I've spent a lot of time building up my roster and maxing my builds. I have XForce where I can max him, but have avoided doing so because of worries about PvE scaling increases - yes, I know there's a tl;dr on that subject. I'm still skeptical.

One negative about the new system - I think the buffs given to the rest of the roster are *too* great. I mean, 280/290/280 3*s? Some of the 3* mechanics scaled to that level are just pants-on-head stupid. I mean, run the numbers on a level 5 Diabolical Plot at 280. Maybe something more along the lines of featured at 290, other 3*s powered up to maybe 225 or 240, but not all the way up to 280. You've gotta leave some room for the 4*s to maintain some advantage.

I have 18x 3*'s above 140 as well (including all the boosted characters), and another dozen from 100-140. I wasn't disadvantaged by the test any more then the average player, and probably benefited more then average.

At first it seemed like fun to have all the boosted characters maxed. I switched around a couple different A team pairing and liked having more variety. Then after a couple PVP's the Cons I pointed out started to become more clear and overall left me feeling the new system was even more grindy, for reasons you point out as well including regularly fighting massively buffed opponents. Started feeling more and more like another PVE.

peteer01

SkyFire47 wrote:

why should players who don't try as hard get rewarded

It's a bit presumptuous to assume that just because someone doesn't have the same roster that you do that they haven't put in the same time and effort.

I've really enjoyed the change. I'm hopeful that D3 will provide some clarity around how long buffed characters are buffed. I'd gladly focus on leveling some of the buffed players that I have covers for, and get variety in both the teams I play and the teams I play against.

I know I'm not the likely to have the same background as most people posting in this thread, but I think this is a step in the right direction. For anyone who's interested in where I'm coming from, I wrote more about liking this change here: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=26535

LXSandman

I initially liked this "test" .. even without having an ares (I'm a 2-3* transitioner) I figured hey I don't have it this time, but next time I might. Well what happened? they decided to keep the same characters boosted.

I don't think there should ever be a 170lvl ares .. It's insane. More then one event with it made me realize that before you would come up against other 2* rosters and be able to compete, but now if you don't have the powered character you can't compete with other 2*s at all. It kind of made the event boring from my point of view. I just stopped playing because all I could find were buffed Ares.

If they are going to keep this test thing around they should switch the characters every event.