Changes Coming In Season XIII

snlf25

I've been in my bracket a full 12 hours, I have 304 points and I'm in 5th place. Dynamics have changed big to say the least.

Vinmarc43

Phaserhawk talk about MMR was reset , but I don't think that MMR exist anymore, not like it used to anyway, but I intensionaly lost 27 straight games in shield sim and those 166 to 270 teams still keeps coming.
So no MMR. The pouch is srewed on this one.

simonsez

simonsez wrote:

The other thing I don't get is, the last time they wanted to change matchmaking, it was done as an off-season test, and was an unmitigated disaster. And now we have a change that appears to be far more substantial than those attempted tweaks, and it's just going to be full-steam ahead. Based on history, why would anyone be greeting this news with blind optimism?

I'm like Nostra-f'n-Damus...

Azoic

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!!

DrNitroman

Moon Roach wrote:

fmftint wrote:

Has there been a change to point loss? I've been hit several times for -6 and i just can't see someone wasting their time in a 6 point target, I know I wouldn't

I got hit for a loss of 0, and wasn't shielded. I haven't lost more than 10 points per defeat, at least in the ones I can see in the big list of defeats while I was out.

Could it be real? If the point loss had actually been reduced, then the strategy to enter early, climb slowly and not care to retaliations might be viable?
I mean if I did not lose many points from attacks I wouldn't worry too much about the difficulty of the fights or the time taken by the whole climb...

...don't get me wrong though, when possible I like when it's easy. But it's a serious game, you have to work for it!

Azoic

Not losing pts would be awesome, or at last not many. That would make the progressions viable for a lot more folks. But then ppl wouldn't shield, and hp would be floating around

Unknown

Who cares, all that HP will be going to roster slots soon anyway.

They don't have to make you lose zero points, but they should probably cut the point loss quite a bit so that 2 players attacking each other can actually gain points overall. It doesn't have to be a large delta, like maybe 5-10 points, but there needs to be positive expected value for scores to climb, especially if matches are going to start taking more resources.

Unknown

They'll never implement the positive climb. Why? Simple. The progression rewards would become meaningless - everybody would reach them.

morgh

Removal of MMR and fighting maxed teams pretty much after seeds is plain... imperfect intelectually to say the least
This plays much worse and 1k rewards seem to be terribly out of reach... well unless you shield really early and use many shields... and/or have people retreat-boost you ;-P (which BTW should not be the correct way to play)

gruffbear

Not sure what you did, but I hit a hard wall before I even got to 100 point in the first Season XIII PvP event. After my third fight I was up against three teams with all characters (except for IM40) at least a hundred levels higher than me. There's no way to go any further, even with maxed power-ups.

Frank NewCastle

It's different - I haven't had a single gimme in Heavy Metal. Granted I've not got a soft roster, with a few maxed 3*s, but nonetheless having to skip through XF after one victory until I get to easier targets (still lvl 100+ 3*s).

That said I've soldiered on for a while, taken one series of lickings but have got to 361 pts and I'm ranked 4 in my bracket. Still a day and a half to go, so will be curious as to how it will pan out.

Was horrified at Shield sim, all big 3* from the off. Seems to be softening though, and I think everyone who's moaning should just hold back while everything recalibrates. Let's give the guys a little credit, and a little time.

donietsche

The idea of creating two separate events - a "hardcore" one (heavily focused on iso rewards), and a "normal" one (same rules as usual) - still seems to be the best solution (yes, the new mmr stinks).

As someone who has most of the 3 star characters fully covered (and I'm not exactly in a rush to complete beast, doc ock, colossus or squirrel girl...), I feel that, more often than not, I'm somewhat stealing 3 star covers awarded in the pvp events from the transitioning player-base, while experiencing - at the same time - the unavoidable iso shortage...

The hardcore event could have slightly different rules: remove the buff for the featured character (so that matches can really become focused on the 4 star meta-game), and the cover/token placement rewards, with the possible exception of the four star at 1k (and/or introduce at 800/900 pts. a "special" token with slightly higher chances for 4 star covers, but lower chances for 3 star covers... a 2/4 star tokens, so to speak; or a 4 star/iso token).

I think that the four star placement reward could be safely expanded, in the veteran event, to the t3.

I really don't see how this could backfire (though I understand that the last proposal could negatively impact on cover sales): veterans and transitioning players could freely choose to enter one event or the other on the basis of their different medium/long-term strategies and needs; besides there would be some interesting risk/reward ratio involved (keeping in mind that season score will be influenced by these different choices).

Unknown

I kept getting drawn against the same 5 people, so I put up an 8 hour shield at 650 points, when I came back I'm still getting drawn against the same 3 people (the other 2 must have shielded) , in a loop for 15 hours now. I'm sorry if you are one of the those 5 people who are seeing my name in a list on your retaliation screen, but there is literally no one else I can hit.



Your game is broke

Vohnkar

My father and me finally started the Season XIII, I have to tell I was quite worried about the changes, I was trying to stay positive because the recent changes were ok for my playstyle (PvE still sucks for me, but at least now its 8h refreshes, so if I decide to enter I could try to stay competitive if I'm ok with grinding for 5+ days, even with the sucky scalling system).

After clearing the seeds I was automatically at the 166 wall... I'm in full 3* land, I have 4* wolve and 3* thor at 166, the rest of my 3* roster goes from 100 to 155, I usually go with the featured, wolve + thor, and I throw 150 apidy, punisher or daredevil if needed to change something or counter any spicific team.

Before the changes I was seeing 94-130 until I reached 300 points or so, then I started to see the 166s until around 450-500 where 4* started to appear in almost every node for me. I could find some 3x166 with some skips, but it was dificult. My father with a full 2* 94 roster was goign ok until 300-400 points, after that he started to face 130+ and couldn't climb much more, but it was ok.

Right now its being really dificult to climb past 300, I've been fighting 140+ since the begining, with at least 1 166 on almost everygame, and now I just get 4* at 300 :S I'm not a super competitive player, I have litle time to play and I've spent a long time today to get to 300, at this pace I won't be able to get to 3k this season, I can't play that much during the week.

I'm ok if you want to make the game slower, but adjust the rewards if you want us to get lower points. I can't see the logic behind making us play less the game, and punish us for evolving our roster. One of my favorite things about the game is the collection of covers, I like to have all the characters and lvl them litle by litle, but you are making it really dificult.

Well, I hope all this settle down with some time and eventually either the system works fine or you adjust it again.

evanbernstein

I appreciate the devs trying to fix issues in their game, and I loved the idea of them trying to fix "hitting the wall" but man do I hate the current match making in PVP right now. As with everyone else, I hit a wall immediately after beating all the seed teams (which I usually don't do). I believe my first node after beating a seed team was all 166 (except iron man was more). I only have 2 166 characters (and one of them I only just leveled: Storm). I can't compete against these teams, or at least not without boosts and many many health packs.

I appreciate that they want to fix the game for new players so they don't get stomped on. That must be incredibly frustrating, but you could change how much points you loose rather than not letting me fight them. If a 166 team stomps on someone who doesn't even have 1*s leveled, then give me points and have them loose 0. Hell, maybe you don't even tell them that I beat them. If I beat a 94 team, make them loose 1-5 points. Let them know I'm there but don't ruin their climb/day. Now, this towards the beginning, when we both have very little points. Later, if they start climbing real high, sure, let us take them down.

But one of the joys I was looking forward to (finally) having some 166 characters is doing a little stomping. I don't bring them out in PVE because of scaling (I stick to 2*s there) and now in PVP it is just so harsh.

I climbed to 250 points yesterday and overnight got beat back to 220. Bit by bit I try to climb, but for every move up, I go down at least as half as I climbed. I only have 278 right now. I hope they revert these changes and try again with something else. This is awful, and I am a big fan of the devs making changes.

killerkoala

they should return to old MMR. but the thing they should fix is losing points from rosters far superior to the than the one attacked. i've always advocated, 2*'s shouldn't lose points from 4*/max 3* teams. same as 3*'s shouldn't lose points from Max 4*. there should be tiered points lost system based on team strength not where you are points wise.

as an attacker you should get points from attacking lower, equal to or far superior teams; and lose points if you lose.
getting attacked from teams lower or +50 levels to yours, you should lose points like usual, but you have a chance to retaliate back to get your points back.
but you don't lose point from teams +50 level higher than your attacker; attackers will get points as usual, but "attackies" have a chance to retaliate back to get more points.

featured characters should be counted as base level not boosted. this will make everyone still get point from attacking whoever they want. but this will solve lower rosters losing morale from not being able to retaliate back yet losing 30+ points. what do you guys think of this solution?

GrumpySmurf1002

Yeah, so getting smashed for 50-60 points sitting on 450pts is an unwelcome change, as is getting hit early and often while climbing to 450.

I'm guessing my average matches won is going to climb from 40 to 55-60 trying to maintain my typical scoring. That's ridiculous.

Unknown

Ok about the latest changes. My score was right around 450 and then I started to take a beating. I was hit 6 times in a relatively short period of time. I lost around 100 points. Under the older system, I did not start to seriously get hit until about 600+. Now apparently if you want to maintain your progress, you have to start shielding well below the 700 point mark. Also, D3 has now changed the boost/stockpile system. Sometimes you want to knock out a quick couple of matches so you boost so the matches are quick and therefore you can protect your score. Most likely, you are about to hit someone who is already shielded. To do that, you would use the boosts that were common or could be purchased with iso8 (ones that EVERYBODY could afford to purchase). Under the new system, if you want to use more of a boost, you will have to use the seven color stockpile, the one you have to spend hp on. Anybody seeing a pattern? Net result is you have to spend more hp to play and stay competitive. Honestly, I was not seeing that many of the "easy matches" that D3 was talking about under the previous system. This new system is a nightmare! I prefer the older system, and from what I can see of the new system ( based on the current patterns) the days of being able to earn those 4* covers you can get by hitting the 1k mark are a thing of the past. It would have also been more helpful to have tested this out BETWEEN seasons, on events that had only one enhanced character, in order to test the mechanics and work out the bugs BEFORE dropping this new and "improved" system on us.

Also, why change boosts for PVE events?

Unknown

First - I appreciate that you guys try to make this game better, more balanced and also can live with the mid-season tests (although playing pvp competitively). But, that's second, the new matchmaking sucks. Why would you punish people who played the game from the start or worked their way through the 2*/3* transition (which is a lot faster now) by saying "hey, you have to shield 5 times now to reach the last progression reward" or players who played the game from day one which only can play on a limited time schedule who are paired against the big hitters now?
Why don't you have a longer break in between seasons, like ten days or sth, where you can test things and get a feedback from players instead of patching and repatching the game as often as you Do? Players tend to leave because of that, think about that!

beeatch

.The experience of suddenly hitting a wall and seeing much harder teams is reduced.

Seeing the opposite here. Finished the usual bot runs, and got hit by near capped teams out of my reach. Struggling to move above 200 points.