Changes Coming In Season XIII

morgh

Demiurge_Will wrote:

(Players with maxed 3-star teams will see maxed 2-star teams and stronger, for example.) If there's a shortage of opponents worth a meaningful number of points in this band, you can be matched with easier teams than that

Either you guys somehow misimplemented the changes or it simply is not true... a roster of about 10 166s + maxed XF and I have not seen a 2* for the whole event, I managed to get to 790 with 2 shields (and one retreat by a friendly player), but it was all due to out-of-game communication and hitting targets who were high thanks to RETREAT BOOSTING - which once again should not be required at all.
Also - from about 680 I could Q only about 4-5 same players for ~10-18 points... the cherry on the top is usually getting the same person I just skipped... feels great to just throw away 10 ISO

The climb feels much more tedious now and the 1k progression should be lowered by at least 200 if you really REALLY want this new matchmaking thingy to remain in effect...

Unknown

The PVP changes are a total disaster. They've made it a completely unplayable gamemode. There's a lesson here in implementing changes on a holiday weekend that they should have learned last time they tried it. They've made changes that made the game less fun before, but none that made it unplayable, before this.

Arondite

Demiurge_Will wrote:

(Players with maxed 3-star teams will see maxed 2-star teams and stronger, for example.) If there's a shortage of opponents worth a meaningful number of points in this band, you can be matched with easier teams than that

I have to ask, do you guys test any damn thing before you roll it out to make sure it works as you intended?

Unknown

Im not having as much trouble as others it seems. I haven't hit a wall of maxed everything, a few 166/130/150 teams and had little trouble climbing to 720. Points are not coming easy though.

lockness

Roswulf wrote:

The one suggestion I would make, considering the rethinking of lower-level rewards for PvP, is to similarly reassess the reward structure for SHIELD Simulator. In its present form, you are giving away 1* covers well above the level a 1* roster can conceivable reach. That does nothing for nobody, other than discourage newbies. Even something as simple as giving away standard tokens would be a real improvement.

First off, thank you. It seems like the changes will be an improvement, especially for transitioners. Though, I know that everyone won't like the changes, it shows good business practice that you're trying to make efforts to improve the game and make it as fair as possible for everyone. The increased drop rate for the 3* will definitely help, in addition to winning additional 3* covers in DDQ.

Though, I do think Roswulf makes an excellent point. The SHIELD Simulator progression rewards seem very 1*, and even to a certain extent 2*, heavy.

If you look at the odds: there are 7 - 1* characters, of which 16 covers are awarded up to 1600 points. There are, at present, 14 - 2* characters, of which 6 covers are awarded from 1600 to 2200 points. Now going into the 3*.... With the introduction of Kamala Khan, there are 36 - 3* characters, and probably more to come, I assume from the recent trend. However, there are only 2 - 3* covers awarded at the last two progression and no 4*.

With the ease of winning 1* through the prologue, PVP matches, and standard tokens, the 1* covers awarded as progression really should stop at a much lower points, say 200-300 and begin awarding 2* and more 3* successively, and finally making the last two spots 4* covers. 2* covers are also very frequent and with only 14 characters, are easy to max out. I hope I don't sound like I'm complaining. I know DDQ and the increased probably in 3* drop rate will make it better, but I've come to a point that I'm not going to own all the 3*, and have to just pick which covers I would like to play for. Just think it's worth thinking down the road as more 3* and now, 4* are coming out. Thanks for reading and cheers!

lockness

Lerysh wrote:

+4 AP is fine, but +6 is not. +3 is still doable, just bring a rainbow boost if you are so worried.

Goons should stop generating AP all together tho. Just stop, it's ridiculous to have villians farming off their goon AP to hit abilities. As mentioned, it's basically a clock on the match. Kill this guy in 5 moves or you will be getting Twin Pistols to the face for 10,000 damage. Not cool. Instead, lets make all goons into that sniper goon who's power costs 0 AP. All goon powers get to cost 0 AP now, and either bump the CD by 2 turns or just make them not cast anything until turn 3, or just flood the board with CDs if you want them to be slightly more dangerous. And no more goon AP.

The goons definitely needed to be tweaked. They get easy AP generated each turn, while our AP generation is based on whether we have a good board or not.

Unknown

why the constant need to fix what isn't broken? I've heard nothing about how boosts being unfair. The boost is the only real edge we can have, and it is our resources we are choosing to use. All you did was make the matches longer, which enables you to get attacked more, keeping one from hitting 1000 as much, saving you in four star covers, which people will hopefully in turn, purchase. There is too much greed in this game, and if you don't start BALANCING the game in favor of the users, not D3 profit margins, people will leave, and find a game where they don't get raked over the coals.

There is no ladder anymore either, just jump right into the frying pan, which sells more health packs for you, I'm certain.

If it isn't broke, don't fix it! Instead, please fix what is broke!

Unknown

Since the original thread I posted in got locked, I'll post it here with an expansion on my thoughts.

Wheeeeeeelp there went any incentive I may have had to invest actual money in the game for extras like boosts. Not if they're going to turn around and nerf it later in an effort to balance the game instead of buffing.

To be frank it lessons my interest in playing the game at all.

I'm just talking about the boost cap change here because I hardly ever play pvp; I prefer pve. (Which would be why I liked it when they started putting out more pve events.)

As others have noted, any character with a 9+ AP special got screwed by this cap.

I'm not a 1* player, have no 1* characters on my roster (or even any 2* for that matter). Mostly 3* with a handful of 4*, none of them maxed yet, most low, but I've been doing decently on the pvm events and slowly building levels with the rare 3* and 4* covers.

But now? It seems impossible. Before, only a few of the fights for each mission were easy/quick wins; the others I had to work for, but I still had mostly wins (some bad beats, but hey that happens when cascades rain down on the NPC team like candy). And then the really hard ones (about half of each mission, for my current roster level) I would use AP boosts for, as they were mostly unwinnable for my current roster without them. (And it goes without saying that yes, I'm using my strongest characters for each match, taking into account the NPC strengths and weaknesses.) Now with the new boost cap, those are pretty much unplayable for me; if I can't win them any of the time instead of some of the time and I just bleed out my HP when I try, why the heck would I even bother? And since that's half of each of the missions right there, meaning that I'll never climb the player ranks high enough to get a decent reward to keep leveling my roster, then - why bother with the game at all?

I know pve players like myself might be a minority of the players, but this change just made the game pretty much useless to play for us.

Unknown

NightStar I'm surprised you don't have any essential 2* heros since each one gets rotated and boosted for each new PVE. I can't imagine I'd ever sell any of my "essential" 2* heroes because of the amount of work I've put max leveling them. There are some two star heroes that work very well with 3* and 4* characters. Maybe if you have time you can restablish a set of 2* heroes that will help you so you won't be completely dependent on boosts in times when you don't have enough health packs and need to utilize as many different heroes for grinding at PVE. Also you need at least Juggernaut 1* to get the full benefits of Deadpool's daily. Interesting though that you have ran a high caliber team without 2*.

Unknown

Anyone know when we will get the original art replaced for rocket and groot,spiderman etc because I know it was women's month but the original art covers were much better!

AE_Fios

Fighting level 270s at 170 points...just another slap in the face to the players that sunk time, money, and effort in the game to appease the players that started a month ago and don't feel like putting the work in.

Unknown

Rowie - maxed out 2* characters do not guarantee an AP boost-free mission run, at least not in my experience. Not to get into team building in this discussion (and yes I've considered all the different team combos available to me at the time, please don't try to lecture me on my teams, you don't know my full roster, especially if you're going to try to lecture me on my teams in defense of the AP boost cap reduction), but even when I had maxed-out 2* Human Torch paired with 3* Black Panther and 4* Wolverine (my two strongest characters atm with the most levels, and I pair those two a lot anyways for better boards as well as liking their specials, and lately I've been pairing them with 3* Hulk, but they weren't the only two characters I was pairing with 2* Human Torch and the 2* Human Torch was not the only maxed-out 2* character I was putting into the mix when I still had them) I was still using AP boosts in the harder matches to max out my runs/minimize HP loss.

Being able to do just 2-3 matches even with full health packs per run because you're bleeding HP each match still doesn't get out out of the bottom ranks...so again what would be the point...I am not going to start spending on health packs simply to make the game worthwhile to play, that's ridiculous. That takes spending on extras from a game bonus to a game necessity...which equals bad free-to-play game mechanics. It's taking a game built on the free-to-play model and turning it into a pay-to-play model. Which really, really rankles. The core game should not depend on payment, or they should start marketing it in the first place as pay-to-play.

Maybe if I had maxed out some of my 3* characters before the change, I might be doing better, but...they should have nerfed the AP charging of the NPCs and their specials at the same time as nerfing the AP boost. Because as is the change unbalanced pve in the NPCs' favor.

Unknown

NightStar I wasn't trying to lecture you as obviously you are a high caliber player. I could care less with what you do with the game. I just found your post interesting. but I do agree with everyone that d3 is making so many changes so fast without even thouroughly and carefully testing them out.

Unknown

Unknown

Rowie that bit wasn't specifically at you, just a pre-emptive because you would not believe, in this game of chance (the obtaining of covers/addition of characters to your roster and leveling them is also based on chance), how many people have told me "oh why are you using such-and-such team when instead you should be using this team" and I'm like "yeah that would be nice if I had that team/those characters on my roster, but I don't." (Obviously not on here, new to these boards, but elsewhere it seems to be the stock answer to any complaint and it makes me .) So I wasn't specifically directing my frustration with that at you.

And maybe I'm a minority, maybe it's just players transitioning from a 2* to 3*/4* roster that got caught like this, but then the criticism of turning it into a pay-to-play model still stands, because that would mean anyone wanting to transition from a 2* roster to a 3*/4* roster would have to pay for extras to do so...

And wasn't the AP boosts meant to help balance against the NPCs anyways? Anybody know? When I started playing the game they were already around and the cap was 3 so I could be wrong. Maybe when the NPCs got buffed this last time it wasn't as noticeable because of the AP boost 3 cap but now it's noticeable since the cap was reduced...

In either case, I still feel like it's unbalancing pve in favor of NPCs...which goes right back to making "extras" necessary to worthwhile play instead of an extra.

snlf25

Azoic wrote:

It sounds like a lot of ppl complaining about hitting the wall are the folks running with 166+. You guys are the wall. These changes were meant so even the folks with owning pvp with 5 166s couldn't prey on all the 94s. Now you have to fight equal teams to do your climb. I just said to my wife the other day how annoying it is that every retaliation opportunity I get is against 166-270s, so I habe to skip.

I am going to enter pvp in awhile and will update if I hit the wall, too. My max is profx at 112, and I dont have any fully covered 3* yet.

Ok, I entered. Mainly using my 107 cage/IF combo. One team after the seed had a 220 xf for some reason, but others were all 94s. I skipped that one and another pair of 94s. I climbed to about 200 and ran into some 130s. I can handle that.

Really didnt see 166s until 400+, but could still find 94 teams worth good pts anyways. So I am liking the changes. I honestly don't see how you all complain just because you don't have it easy anymore...equal teams. I think this could address the annoying sniping, too, since you can't quickly hop on the 94s.

Good job, devs!!

Great job indeed Devs! Enjoy never being able to better your roster knowing that doing so will put you in the same boat as the rest of us Azoc. Maybe you like treading water so you wont be punished but I don't see the fun in it!

dstann

In my experience the changes to matchmaking have been the opposite to what was intended. I am a transition player (only 1 fully covered 3*) and 4 matches in and I already hit the wall for maxed out 3 stars. Even in the simulator I have started off with hard matches rather than the usual lower level start.

fmftint

Demiurge_Will wrote:

slidecage wrote:

We will see but they should of held this test off for MID SEASON just like other the other test

We like to do that where possible, but it doesn't work for this test. We're trying to shake up the standard Versus format, so the test needs to be run in the environment of a standard Versus event in order for us to get useful information. And we're not sure enough about the effect this will have to run the test for a full season.

Couldn't test boosted rosters at the start of a season, but can throw this untested turd at us and call it a feature

Spiritclaw

The experience of suddenly hitting a wall and seeing much harder teams is reduced. The upper bound on how difficult a team we match you with gradually increases as it becomes harder to find good matches for you, so you can still expect matches to get harder as you climb higher in an event.

This is not my experience in the Heavy Metal tournament. The wall is bigger, stronger, and quicker to show up as far as I can tell. My top 4 average 148.25 and I'm seeing mostly teams with two maxed 3 stars and a 4 star at 200+. As I write this, I have about 200 points in the tournament. Previously, I tended to get to 400 or 500 before my opponents became this tough.

Unknown

fmftint wrote:

Demiurge_Will wrote:

slidecage wrote:

We will see but they should of held this test off for MID SEASON just like other the other test

We like to do that where possible, but it doesn't work for this test. We're trying to shake up the standard Versus format, so the test needs to be run in the environment of a standard Versus event in order for us to get useful information. And we're not sure enough about the effect this will have to run the test for a full season.

Couldn't test boosted rosters at the start of a season, but can throw this untested turd at us and call it a feature

Next thing u know they're gonna test randomly matching u vs someone and you have to fight them