Season XIII Matchmaking - Discussion

Ebolamonkey84

Ebolamonkey84 wrote:

Name: Ebolamonkey84
Event: Heavy Metal
Slice: 4
Roster: Level 221 5/5/3 XForce, 8 max 3*, 12 max covered 3* over 133, 9 max cover 3* over 111
Usual PvP Placement: Top 10 or top 25, 890 average last season
Experience: Got past 3 seeds, saw maxed level 166s with lower IM40s (<150), or underleveled 3* with 200+ IM40. Started with XF/max LDaken no boosts. Skipped any team worth less than 25 as all of them could beat me in a retal. Had one or two matches before bad board caused me to get hit with Ballistic Salvo. Went to Prologue heal. Health pack on IM40. Two more matches before I had to prologue heal again. Stopped PVP for a PVE pass. Decided to switch to XF max Hood with G/B and R/Y boosts. Played randomly throughout the day and got to about 550. I have been attacked more in this event before hitting 500 than I usually am in any other PVP where I broke 1000.

As an alliance commander, the other two commanders and I agreed to remove our PVP minimums for this event (usually 700/800) to prevent our members from pulling their hair out. We still have at least two members that will probably quit if it stays like this.

I have a full time job, a wife and a toddler. My usual play style is to play a few random matches throughout the first two days when I get a few spare minutes until I get to about 650 or so. I could typically stay at that point until I was ready to push. Then I would push as far as I could until I either ran out of health packs or hits start coming in, which typically gets me around 800 or so. That style of play does not seem feasible for me anymore.

I only need 21 total 3* covers among 8 characters before they are all cover maxed. I need 36 4* covers. The only reason I play the majority of the PVPs at this point is for the 4* progression and because I have enjoyed being in my alliance for 6 seasons.

Update: I'm shielded for the rest of slice 4. Currently in 1st at 1015 with 6th place at 858, so feeling secure in top 5. This morning I had been knocked back down to about 425. Climbed up to about 650 or so. Then I started shield hopping every couple hours and ended up using 3-8-24-3-8 for shields. That was hopefully the only 24 hour shield I will ever buy again.

I have a mixed reaction to this new matchmaking. The initial climb was relatively horrible and my equilibrium point (the point where I can safely sit unshielded) dropped from about 650-700 to 450-500. I spent more on shields than I would usually have to in order to reach the 1000 progression (I know I missed the boat on 4Thor, but she is now 5/2/5). On the other hand, I am first in a bracket for new character rewards with just over 1000 points. With the old system, I would probably be near top 25.

Unknown

I joined heavy metal an hour ago and climbed to 185 on seed teams then had easy teams to 300. From that point it was maxed teams to 700. I was able to get a ton of 40-50 point nodes the entire climb. Not a fan of it.

The fact that I joined late and had more seed teams than I typically see in LR's is flawed. Followed by being able to take out guys at 900 points from 300 level makes me not want to ever join early again if this continues.

simonsez

Ebolamonkey84 wrote:

I spent more on shields than I would usually have to in order to reach the 1000 progression (I know I missed the boat on 4Thor, but she is now 5/2/5). On the other hand, I am first in a bracket for new character rewards with just over 1000 points. With the old system, I would probably be near top 25.

But if you did 3-8-24-3-8 in the old system, you'd have way more than just 1,000 points.

Omega Blacc

Barring some unusual kink in my daily schedule I always pick the first time slice.

I can usually nab top 25 with a 3 hour shield followed by an 8 hr shield at the end of the event. The sheer HP required to reach 1K progression is not a price I'm willing to pay at this point.

This was the way it was for me ever since they introduced cooldowns. It's no longer this way because of the new MMR.

I entered "Heavy Metal" in the first time slice. I got to maybe 300-400 points (Top 15 at that point in the comp) and not only was I met with a wall of tough opponents...I was attacked constantly throughout the event. It was so bad that I had to burn an 8 hr shield to make Top 100! I can usually crack Top 50 without shielding.

Now I'm doing "Teenage Riot" and reaching 500pts doesn't even put me in the Top 30. I'm hoping to ride an easy wave of points to reach decent progression before I risk heavy attack to place high. I have a 166 Hulk already, but I want that Iso and HP.

I have no way of knowing if this sudden climbing ease is due to people not going for Hulk or the new MMR. I'm running 166 LThor and 220 XForce with a 75 Kamala Khan. Last event I ran the same two characters and a 75 IM40 and got ransacked by a bunch of 200 level IM40's who just got dusted off for that event.

My climb in "Riot" has been a smooth curve thus far. Seed teams followed by 94 teams followed by low level so far. I expect to make a push and run into maxed 166's and some . This kind of escalating competition is perfect in my book. I guess I'll wait until the next event to see how it gets played.

"Heavy Metal" was completely out of wack.

MaskedMan

The new system doesn't take into account people in the middle. I have 3 166s (Iron Man, Thor and Hood) and while they are very useful I can't fight teams of 166s. I now can fight like 4 battles and I have to quit playing.

Healing system stinks. The only reason it is needed it so make money and because they can't balance characters. Other games don't make you stop playing why does this one?

Unknown

Thor/Hood/Featured is totally capable of fighting 166s. You even had the featured in the last one of IM40. No reason you could not have placed.

whitecat31

GothicKratos wrote:

Yeah, my Shield Sim is horrendous. My starting nodes were; 68 2* Magneto/80 Ares/78 2* Storm, next was Ares and Moonstone @ 94 paired with a 168 X-Force, and the last was 117 Hulk/111 X-Force/102 Daredevil.

Like with the PvP, these are playable (less so the last one), but they're much higher than the mark I would usually see.

Jamie Madrox wrote:

Update to my previous post:

I was premature with my analysis of the changes and ultimately my words were wrong. My experience with this event now that it's almost over can be summed up in two words.

I'm done.

Enjoy what time you have left on the Titanic and go easy on IceIX and David; they're the only two that are actually on the players' side.

Legend out.

You know a change is bad when the moderators are bothered so much by this change that they show displeasure, and one is basically on the road to quitsville.

In other news my girlfriend who plays this game and has a subpar roster was basically invisible to everybody and danced happily to over 500 points and placed much higher than some players who have uber rosters who quit in frustration. Reminds me of that commercial of the girl who walks around through a crowd invisible. Some of the players who quit, decided not only to quit the event, but the game itself. This was saddening. But can you blame them, with many losing 200+ points within a matter of 5 minutes before they even got to 800 points?

As for me I got top 5 but it was a struggle. Lots of shielding even though I started late. During my climb up, I was constantly facing teams that would give me 40+ points. I actually felt so bad that I was hitting 700+ point teams before I was even at 350 points. I was skipping a lot just so I would not cause too much grief to get lower point teams. They were still tough teams, and I did pick and choose, but I was happy I was not causing so much grief. I could not really use my climbing team, because I had to go to max teams to avoid brutal retals. Not once did I face any 94* teams or anything that did not have at least one character over 200 level. Yet I could see in the rankings that there were teams I was in direct competition with and who had 2 star rosters, but could not be queued up. I don't know if they could see me, but I was running the perfect IM40 at 5/5/2 with high end x force and Disney Princess Thor. 4Nerf actually did ok with the IM40 red blue feeds. I am quite sure most people want to skip a team like that with an average level of over 250.
I hope people enjoyed their Easter break. I am truly saddened by the loss of long term players that this change caused.

CNash

My Heavy Metal event finished last night, and I managed to place in the top 10 with only 381 points. Number 1 in my bracket scored 597 points. My team of choice was Hulk/Patch/IM40 (153/153/70), and I was seeing a mixture of maxed 2* and non-maxed 3* teams.

This wouldn't be terribly unusual - I often get this kind of result when jumping into a partially-filled bracket with less than an hour to go - but in this case, I joined with 12 hours still on the clock, and the bracket filled to 500. So I had a much easier event, with more time to take advantage of it, and placed highly while barely having to play at all.

As for attacks - maybe once every couple of hours.

simonsez

CNash wrote:

My Heavy Metal event finished last night, and I managed to place in the top 10 with only 381 points.

Maybe it's because their servers can't handle it, but I wish they'd do away with shards and brackets and just run every event like a lightning round, and set the rank awards to correspond to the larger pool of players. It gets really frustrating when players have such vastly different experiences. I've benefited from this in the past myself, but I'd much rather know that rank awards will be based solely on how well you do, and not how lucky you were in stumbling into a bracket with no grinders.

Unknown

CNash wrote:

My Heavy Metal event finished last night, and I managed to place in the top 10 with only 381 points. Number 1 in my bracket scored 597 points. My team of choice was Hulk/Patch/IM40 (153/153/70), and I was seeing a mixture of maxed 2* and non-maxed 3* teams.

This wouldn't be terribly unusual - I often get this kind of result when jumping into a partially-filled bracket with less than an hour to go - but in this case, I joined with 12 hours still on the clock, and the bracket filled to 500. So I had a much easier event, with more time to take advantage of it, and placed highly while barely having to play at all.

As for attacks - maybe once every couple of hours.

I had 641 and was barely in the top 50. But people are assuring us this affected everyone equally, so that can't possibly be true.

simonsez

Ben Grimm wrote:

I had 641 and was barely in the top 50. But people are assuring us this affected everyone equally, so that can't possibly be true.

My score/rank was almost exactly the same, so at least they're right as far as you and I are concerned...

Alucard_I_Am

Name: Alucard_I_Am
Usual Score: on main account 725-900 (Depending on how many shields I use I can sometimes break 1k)
Roster: 5/5/3 xforce @ 166, BP, Patch, cMags, IM40, Luke Cage @ 166, all other 3*s @ 140 except Squirrel Girl @ 130, Iron Fist @ 117, Colossus @ 76, and Kamala Khan @ 43 at time of event, also have 4thor at 140 3/1/3 and Nick Fury at 140 5/2/2.
Usual Experience: Normally dont get attacked until I get to about 650 points. I make my first push and if I am running low on time or health packs because grinding pve I stop at 300-450 without shielding and then once health packs or time permits I push to about 725-800 before using my first shield. If I want the 3* or 4* cover I will use between 2-4 shields so I have to make sure I have to have time for shields to cool down. Between shields I can normally do 3-7 fights for 100-200 points.

Experience with this pvp. Got to 400 using more health packs than normal and switching between teams to save on health packs. Sat at around 400+ for a few hours and started to push again. Started getting attacked at around 500+ and was able to make it to 648 before running out of health packs so used a 3 hour shield. As soon as I shielded I got hit about 3 or 4 times for what would have been more than 100 points lost. After shield expired I pushed to 755 in about 3 fights and shielded because I was already running low on health packs and running into a wall. When I had some time and my 3 hour shield had gone off of cool down I broke my shield and pushed to about 806 and did one more fight for about 40 points. When I finished that fight I come out to see 4 or 5 losses for a total of -122 and was back down to 724 and I had to shield for a total loss of points. Next hop again I tried to raise my score above 800 to try and stay in top 10. Won a few fights but got knocked back down to 760 and shielded. Last 2 minutes I broke my shield for a 30 point fight wasnt able to finish in time and got hit for 20- so ended at 740.

I ended the event rank 34 so I didn't even get 2 covers with all the shield hopping I did. No where near the 1000 points I was going for to get the blue thor cover. There is definitively something wrong with the pvp system now that a fully covered 3* maxed has a hard time making it to the 3* progression reward and staying at the point range. You shouldn't need a high leveled 4* team to be able to easily get 3* rewards and be able to start getting 4* covers from progressions using that many shields.

I may end up just doing a last hour push and not even shield to get 600-725 points and forget about trying for the 3* or 4* cover rewards.

Secondary account is most 2*s @ 94 with a bunch of 3*s with 3-11 covers leveled between 45-69. IM40 at 66. Got to 456 and finished in 9th got attacked 2 or 3 times on the way up but won those and did not shield.

Obviously you can not take away def loss points because then there will be no incentive to shield but maybe lower the amount of points that you can lose to each fight or within a certain amount of time. Or even if when you come out of a fight and you get out to see that you were attacked 4 or 5 times it gives you the option to use a shield to negate those points.

Unknown

simonsez wrote:

Ben Grimm wrote:

I had 641 and was barely in the top 50. But people are assuring us this affected everyone equally, so that can't possibly be true.

My score/rank was almost exactly the same, so at least they're right as far as you and I are concerned...

My suspicion, based on the accounts here, is that they created roster bands, and we're in the same band. With the exception that you've got a 270 and I only have 180s, our rosters are very roughly comparable. My guess is that everyone with a single 167+ is in the same roster band, and it's the highest one. Which means people at the bottom of the band (like me) get stomped on.

dr tinykittylove

Ben Grimm wrote:

simonsez wrote:

Ben Grimm wrote:

I had 641 and was barely in the top 50. But people are assuring us this affected everyone equally, so that can't possibly be true.

My score/rank was almost exactly the same, so at least they're right as far as you and I are concerned...

My suspicion, based on the accounts here, is that they created roster bands, and we're in the same band. With the exception that you've got a 270 and I only have 180s, our rosters are very roughly comparable. My guess is that everyone with a single 167+ is in the same roster band, and it's the highest one. Which means people at the bottom of the band (like me) get stomped on.

If it was roster bands as you say, then your grouping up to 167+ is probably too generous. My 155xf/153whatevers were getting matched with a whole lot of 220-270 matches with the occasional 166 roster thrown in too. Guess who's for dinner?

Was already not a fan of pvp, so all said it was a singularly unpleasant experience. Only reason I'm not all rage-quitting!rar! is because I was expecting it thanks to the early warnings on the forum.

corytutor

I liked the old system better

sc0ville

ark123 wrote:

Multiple people in my alliance reporting getting hit by people with 200-300 points while hopping at 850+. Tons of screenshots of evidence gathered.

This isn't just bad, it's straight up broken. It doesn't work. As in someone f'd up really badly and coded the mmr like the back of his ****.

I just hopped at 864, won two fights and came out of it at 858, after being hit by two people sub 400 points. I'm placing my ticket.

I'm one of the people Ark referenced in this post. I started a late yesterday afternoon because of the negative reactions towards this event I had been reading. I figured I would minimize my exposure to it as much as possible.

I ran level 200 IM/166if/222xf for pretty much the entire event and sailed up to 800 or so relatively unscathed. I initially thought maybe the issues had been resolved. My problems only began after I attempted hops from 800 on, it was one of the most frustrating experiences I've had in MPQ. I received a couple of defensive wins while shielded so I broke my shield at 840 about 2.5 hours until the end of the event. I had two ~30 point queues lined up and broke shield, due to boosts and a lucky board I finished my first fight in under two minutes so I assumed a second fight would be okay before I shielded again. Second fight was about as quick as the first, but when I came out I had been hit twice for 40ish points each. I ended up at 825 when I shielded.

I started watching the attacks coming in more closely and multiple times I was attacked by people with 200 points or less, it made breaking my shield a losing proposition and attempted only single hops from then on because the risk wasn't worth the reward. I got pushed out of top 5 and down to 12th place and spent the rest of the night fuming.

cosm0naut

Very new to forums, figured I'd share my experience

Name: Cosm0naut
Event: Heavy Metal
Slice: 4?
Roster: No useable 4*, 1 fully covered 3*, several kinda covered 3*, 4 covered and maxed 4*
Usual PvP Placement: Top 200
Experience: I usually hit a wall around 200-300 points, but I didn't this time. It felt really weird. I think I got attacked once. Ended up taking 15th with about 475 points. Saw teams that were about even with me almost the whole way up. I personally loved it, I didn't get slaughtered after I passed 300 points. My alliance is about the same place as me and we're all loving the new system.

From what it sounds like however, it's not so great for everyone else.

udonomefoo

Name: Udonomefoo
Event: Heavy Metal
Slice: 5
Roster: Half dozen 3s at 104, bunch of maxed 2s
Usual PvP Placement: 200ish, if I even play
Experience: I got in pretty early out of curiosity, it started out really bad, hitting 110-130ish teams right after the seeds so I played a couple matches and quit. Came back last night with about 3 hours remaining and with a little skipping found some 28-34 point matches against teams of 94s. It took longer than normal to climb, but I didn't hit the 166 wall at 350+ like normal. I just kept climbing and reached about 525, good for 99th place. That's the first time I have ever reached top 100 without doing the "join with one hour left and hope to get lucky" thing. No shields used.

The matchups were interesting, there seemed to be sections where i'd break through and have easier matches for a while, but that may have just been luck of the draw.

famousfoxking

This is just bizarre. I was seeing 235+ level teams right out of the gate in Heavy Metal, and started to rack up heavy point losses on defense at 150-200. Now, in Teenage Riot, I've hit 500+ points on the backs of underleveled 2*s, and I've taken a total of 1 hit on defense.

Unknown

Postmortem commentary:
1) One of my favorite strategies used to be to climb to 600 the night before event end, stay unshielded, and then climb to 900 mostly on juicy retals. Somewhere along the course of Alliances/Seasons, that stopped working because I no longer got hit below 600. This event I got hit for about -100 overnight for 150ish in retals, so that might start working again

2) The climb to 600 was a lot harder, the climb above 600 a lot easier. Assuming that wasn't a fluke, I might like the new system better, for my playstyle at least.

3) I finished around 800 pts, would've made 1000 or at least 900 if back-to-back awful cascades didn't ruin my last hop. 800 wasn't enough for two covers so people are obviously able to make their points under the new system.