Season XIII Matchmaking - Discussion

Unknown

For reference:

Heavy Metal
Slice 1
Roster: no usable 4*, 4 3* at lvl 114, 9 max 2*, 40 slots
Playing for 170+ days
My usual placement is t200 as I only aim for the 400 pt progression.

After my seed teams, these are the opposing teams:
Loaner IM, 55 2* Mags & 55 ares. 30 pts
Loaner IM, 66 Luke cage, 94 2* daken. 20 pts
Loaner IM, 114 blade, 94 ares. 30 pts

Surprised to see maxed 2*s and a 3* above lvl 100 so early.

Phillipes

This is increnible how incompetent they are.
I Have seen maxed Thora + Xforce + almost maxed Iron man from 200 points.
I have only one explanation: D3 is very tiny developer - less than 5 people, with no vision, knowing that our support of the game may stop everyday, so they are just trying to grab as much money as possible and and fast as possible, they want every veteran leave the game - afterall, it is true what Phoenix Down (one post above me) wrote. It is not veterans who need to spent on this game. It is newcomers who need to spend on this game. Every change made by developers is in favor of newcomers, to give them feeling, that they compete with everyone. Honestly, I can understand developers point of view, but it is still unfair to all of us, who play this game for a year or so.

Im in slice 2, I have 2 270 4 *, several maxed 3 *, other 3 almost fully covered.
I used to be top 25, sometimes top 10, my goal was to score 1000, which was doable.

I suppose I can score 600 in this new system.

Unknown

now that they have broken pvp for alot of people, which can now go beside my incredibly grindy grindfest of pve with added insane scaling, which makes me throw up in my mouth a little at the thought of, all I have left to enjoy is deadpool daily.

So I guess that's a Yay?

No?

Least I tried. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go rock myself to sleep and hope this has all been a bad dream. Please don't make me pee the bed again.

Unknown

Name: phunco dan
Event: Heavy Metal
Slice: 1
Roster: 270 xforce, 233 4or, 10 166s, most everyone else fully covered
Usual PvP Placement: Top 5-10
Experience: same as other vets here with strong rosters. wall of 166s straight out the gate. currently at around 400pts and wall of 270/166s.

my thoughts: first, i totally agree with what a ton of other posters have expressed...that the devs are clueless. without direction. without aim. without consciousness of their own game. whether or not any of these interpretations of the current state of this game are TRUE, we'll never know since we cant get inside the devs minds, assuming they have minds. but the FACT that these interpretations EXIST at all, and come from a variety of different players..is condemning enough. nevermind that revolution is near impossible within a capitalistic society, let alone in a society that is VIRTUAL and conducted and mediated via a constant stream of misinformation from so-called 'authorities' (e.g. D3). lets not kid ourselves, we dont have the means to dictate any sort of change in such an environment. we can quit, we can complain but nothing changes in the end. and this last sentence just reflects the absurdity of it all. the illusory nature of progress. ykno' 1 step forward 2 steps back. they give us a forum. they give us a means to communicate with the members in red (oh the divine red letters!). this is only an illusion of progress. they give us representatives. who dont represent our interests, as much as they do theirs (i mean this functionally, not personally). and when they descend from their heights to disseminate the divine D3 word from above, we rejoice at their mercy, grace and kindness (sarcasm in case you're not catching it). sometimes, this forum is just too phucing entertaining. anyways, not sure i have much of a point to make other than how we're pretty much all clueless. the devs clearly are, and their cluelessness only perpetuates the feeling that we're all hamsters eternally running in our wheels. and i'm clueless in the sense that i have no clue where this game is heading and why i'm still playing it. its like the entire experience is out-of-body, pure id, unconscious mess of chaotic forces engulfing my already pitiful existence further into the void that represents my iso flow. and this brings me to my final point, that this feeling of meaninglessness (maybe other than the mantra of 'gotta catch 'em all!' for those into collecting) more or less has to do with the utter lack of organization or structure in this game.

and here's my more substantive and less abstract point. in games, there are levels and hence a sense of progression. the illusory nature of progress in mpq has to do with the fact that the devs seemingly try in vain to balancebalancebalance. but their sense of balance is utterly imbalanced. what i mean is the overbalancing that the devs are dead set on eliminates what i was just referring to: game levels and an actual sense of progression. the way i saw mpq just a few days ago was that prologue and DPdaily were the 'beginning levels' for newbs. newbs could progress through these beginning levels and feel a sense of accomplishment and growth. however because they're noobs, they're not ready yet to compete in the higher levels- PVP. and PVE was this kinda middle transition ground where any range of noobs to vets could compete. and all this made common sense. even if all this was very unstructured, in theory or in game-play experience there was a certain flow to progression. the vets who have invested time and dollars into this game could easily beat the easier 'levels' of DPdaily and other easy/normal nodes in PVE and the first 500 points of opponents in PVP because they earned the freaking right to, because they had already beaten and mastered the earlier beginning levels of play. the health of this game doesnt depend on 'balance', it depends on FLOW. there needs to be a clear path of progression, a steady flow of difficulty and accomplishment. but what is currently happening with MMR is that this flow in PVP has been eliminated. its the experience of getting thrust into boss modes having just entered the game. its like only getting the most difficult questions from the get-go on the SATs that only academic professors could answer and thats all you get the entire test. you dont start with algebra, or geometry or whatever basic problems, you start with freaking trying to figure out the math behind MMR and then how to cure cancer. AND NONE OF THIS IS FUN. "phu kin el"!!! dont even get me started on whether or not any of this is phucin fun.

Unknown

Name: ephyzephy
Event: Heavy Metal
Slice: 3
Roster: Lvl 221 XF and 15+ lvl 166 3*
Usual PvP Placement: Top 25 - 800 -1000 pts per event. 9000 in the last season

I'll echo what pretty much everyone has said in this thread.

Previous experience:
Play through the seed and lvl 94 teams at my leisure up to about 600 points. At this point, I would almost never have been attacked.
Play through lvl 166+ teams up to about 800 and occasionally get attacked.
Make a final push in the final 12 hours to aim for about 1000 points depending on the reward, spending 200-300 HP on shields. Attacks come thick and fast.

New experience:
Play through the 3 seed teams.
Immediately greeted my mostly lvl 166 teams. Some teams slightly less and some with lvl 200+ 4*. IM ranges from lvl 70 - 200+.
Pick off the easier teams to get to 200 points or so. During this time I get an occasional attack.
Going upwards of 200-300, the <166 teams dry up and pretty much 90% of the teams have maxed IM and/or at least 1 maxed 4*.

I seem to be able to get to 500 points, but the attacks mean getting higher is nigh on impossible. Worse than that - many of the losses are against climbing teams and I get 37 points bitten out of my total.

I think we can all agree that Demiurge don't play the game in the way that most forum members do, and don't test thoroughly either. There seems to be a detached attitude that grates with us all. It's especially annoying, as they seemed to have stumbled into making MPQ the most playable in quite a long time.

So observations and thoughts...

1) Why make such a potentially contentious change at the start of the season with such a desirable cover on the line. Why not delay Season XIII a few days and trial this with Mohawk on the line? It's like they wanted to antagonise their users! It shows a lack of regard or understanding by the devs (yet again).
2) The only viable way to get high scores seems to be shield hop continuously. If I have to drop more than 300/400 HP on shields for an event then I'm not going to bother.
3) I think the scaling of the matches early on is extreme, but I don't think many of us have an issue with the principle of not freewheeling to 600 points through lvl 94 teams. The issue is that it is totally demoralising to be losing as many points as you gain. That's acceptable when you are at 800 points and fighting for top 25 spots, but it isn't acceptable when you are aiming for 800-1000 and you can't get beyond 500. If you insist on making everyone a target from a low point total, then slash the points you can lose. If I'm losing 5-10 points every so often then it is an annoyance, but if those losses are 30 points+ then it kills you.

I think someone needs to go and buy the developers a new tool set. Maybe something with a bit of precision. At the moment it appears they've employed a team of clumsy blind guys and given them sledgehammers.

simonsez

Name: ryesteve
Event: Heavy Metal
Slice: 5
Roster: One maxed 4*, 2 other usable 4*s, 15 or so maxed 3*s
Experience:
Beat a seed team. Next battle was a lv290 IM40. Thanks. Beat it, took severe damage, went to sleep. Woke up and found I'd been attacked while sitting at 50 points. Thanks again. Did some skipping and tried to find something that passed for an easy battle. Ended up winning it with 2 characters down, and the third at half health. At this I must now say "No Thanks". You can take PvP and shove it. I'm out.

wymtime

Name: Wymtime
Event: Heavy Metal
Days played 467
Roster: 205 Xforce 16 maxed 3* 14 additional 3* max covered also IW Max covered at level 70.
Experience: I beat the first seed team with a 2* roster and got a 2* team to face which I beat with a 3* team. After that I got 3* teams, with Max or close to max level. 1 was 270 Xforce 166 Hood. I am abl to beat the teams preety easy just went to 200 points, but it feels like this is now A team V A team for vets. The real decesion D3 has to make is it going to be diversity in OVP or is going to be matching people up against similar levels. I would vote for more diversity where D3 buffs more characters on the week. Maybe not as big of a buff as they did, but it did encourage me to play with different teams a lot more than before.
I think the reason people are complaining so much about PVP is there is no incentive to to build a 2* roster. With the drop rates of 2* you can build 3-4 2* in no time and once you have your A team you are looking to get your 3* characters. Now 2* players are fighting for 3* and becuase there are so many new characters comming out there is more incentive to dump you lower level characters to keep your 3* who will eventually be usefull. If 2* players could develope a really deep 2* roster while still being able to afford to open up space for 3*/4* on their roster this could help. (A 2* players opinion would be welcome).
My solution, (yes roster slots again) charge roster slots by rarity rather than by spot. It would look something like this:
1* 500 ISO to recruit. This is a lower level character and should not cost HP to recruit to you team.
2* 1000 ISO and 100 HP. 2* drop like candy from a piñata. I have gotten 13 covers of one 2* in a week. For this price would make it easier for 2* players to load up on 2* characters early and make it more viable to keep them around to compete in PVP and PVE.
3* 400 HP. Yes this is a larger jump, but is still very reasonable. This will make players choose who they want on their roster.
4* 700 HP. Another kick in the teeth, but will make people make choices about who they want to recruite.
Last but not least is if you want to sell a character you do not get the roster slot back but you get the ISO and HP back. So if you sell a 2* to get open up room for your 3* you get 1000 ISO, 100 HP and the percentage of ISO you put into him. This way players won't be as quick to dump 1 and 2* for 3 and 4* becuase it will still cost 400 HP to recruite them. You will need to sell 4 2* to earn 1 roster spot.
Yes this will slow down the 2-3* transition, but in my opinion will make 2* players develope a deeper 2* roster before starting the transition.

Vohnkar

Name: Vohnkar
Event: Heavy Metal
Slice: not sure, I ends this event at 1 a.m. Monday (Spain time) sorry for not being more specific
Roster: 4* wolv 166, thor 3* 166, punisher 155, spidy and hood 150, the rest 140 or less
I usually go for 400-600 points, got to 4500 last season and didn't played the last 2 events actively (100-200 points only).

Experience:
clear the seeds and then I get 166 teams, with the ocasional lvl 100. I managed to climb until 300 after a ton of skips and fighting a mix of 130-166s mostly. now I'm seeing some 4* 200+, and after not having any more healthpacks I stoped playing.

Just my 2cents in case is usefull

Unknown

Name: CoolB
Event: Heavy Metal
Slice: 1
Roster: One almost maxed 4*, 6 maxed 3*
Experience:
I joined with about a day and a half remaining and was oddly the first person to join that bracket. I was alone in 1st place with no other players showing in the ranking screen. Just me by my lonesome. Played the first 3 easy matches and was immediately hit with the 290/270 wall. Put the phone down for about an hour after the first 3 matches. Came back and still in top 20. Not a lot of people playing is the feeling I'm getting. As of this morning I'm in first with just under 600 points and less then one day to go. I'm up by about 100 points right now but for most of yesterday evening and overnight I was up by 200. I'm still getting the feeling that no one is playing. I'm mixed on this because the first place yellow xforce is my only missing cover (5/5/2) so I'm happy to be cruising so far to a hopeful, easy win but on the other hand it seems like the competition is lacking in this event.

Unknown

Name: Kriegerbot9000
Event: Heavy Metal
Slice: 1
Roster: 166 thor, 147 patch, 141 hood and 130 loki all optimally covered
Usual rank: T50, hit pvp1000 for xforce black

I could usually exhaust my healthpacks and climb to 800 without shields, now it's about 600.

Are there any 40 point targets past 600?

Top 3 (with less than 24 hours) in my bracket are
MennoKnight 707
sutty 682
Peteybro33 669

They could all use thoress and have been shielding, but it doesn't look good for them. I was going to try for pvp1000 too, but suspect it is a futile effort.

The devs had the right hunch that scores would be a lot lower, but now it looks more like 4* progression should be at 700-750.
I think the change is great for lowbie rosters, so they actually have a chance at T100, but progression rewards definitely need a tweak for everyone 3-4*.

dr tinykittylove

Name: tinykitty
Event: Heavy Metal
Slice: 2
Roster: xf/fury at 155, 15 fully covered 3* at 153, assorted others at various levels between 153-94.
Experience:
Usually get 800-1000. Had 11044 last season.
Normally I play a fairly large selection of my roster against the rabble of 2-4* transitioners and maxed 3* teams up to about 600, then rest and rush the high level 3-4* teams I get matched with from that point before shielding at about 800. Then it's shenanigans with shields.

This event, I cleared the seed teams. Then it's maxed 3*/200+ 4*s all the way, with occasional transition and 2* teams for 18 points.
Played on and off up to 400, since there's pve grinding to do and fighting 290/270/166 teams does tend to do a lot of damage. Lots of retals all the way, even from higher value targets. I guess my squishies are a tinykitty sight more appealing as an option than other 290/270/166 teams.

Like someone said earlier, pvp is now pve. Except you can lose points! Lots and lots of points! All day! SO FUN. YAY. Yeah, no.

SnowcaTT

SnowcaTT wrote:

Name: SnowcaTT
Event: Heavy Metal
Slice: 4
Roster: 250 X-force, four 166's, 13x 140 (including IM), 12x 127 (almost all the 2*'s maxed)
Usual PvP Placement: Top 50. Never, ever have I T10'd. Never, ever have I cracked 900 points. Never, ever have I shield hopped.
Experience: Three seeds, skipped a bunch to find a non-166 team to beat. Four matches, 102 points, 113th: have to skip many times to find around level 150 teams rather than all 166, seeing occasionally 270's and often 220+.

That was a lovely surprise. Sounds fantastic just like BoP - any single person I attack can easily beat me back. No way to push deep at the end without paying $$$ for health packs.

D3: you want this type of system, you need to completely remove loss point-losses. I have no idea how I'll get anywhere near 600 in this unless I pay $$$ for shields over and over.

So that is the plan I guess - pay money to play PVP or don't play. Like Lerysh mentioned - playing X-force/IM/166 EVERY SINGLE TIME through the event is going to get massively boring. They had already chased me out of PVE with scaling and constant grind, my guess is this will chase me out of the game for good at long last.

Update: Ran to 250 last night and 350 (10th, sadly) this morning, always with 5/5/2 X-F, max Hood, 140 max covered IM. I have never seen a 2*. After a few skips I could generally find a sub 200 IM/166/~150: that's the average opponent I've played the whole way. Each match takes a health pack, if not two. Once I passed into the T20 range it became much more rare to find any opponents without a max 4*, if not two of them.

killerkoala

as per, this is a discussion, 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?

Unknown

CoolB76 wrote:

Name: CoolB
Event: Heavy Metal
Slice: 1
Roster: One almost maxed 4*, 6 maxed 3*
Experience:
I joined with about a day and a half remaining and was oddly the first person to join that bracket. I was alone in 1st place with no other players showing in the ranking screen. Just me by my lonesome. Played the first 3 easy matches and was immediately hit with the 290/270 wall. Put the phone down for about an hour after the first 3 matches. Came back and still in top 20. Not a lot of people playing is the feeling I'm getting. As of this morning I'm in first with just under 600 points and less then one day to go. I'm up by about 100 points right now but for most of yesterday evening and overnight I was up by 200. I'm still getting the feeling that no one is playing. I'm mixed on this because the first place yellow xforce is my only missing cover (5/5/2) so I'm happy to be cruising so far to a hopeful, easy win but on the other hand it seems like the competition is lacking in this event.

I don't know if it's because of the changes but since I wrote this I've been attacked 6 times and defended 4 of them. That's not normal for me. I'm usually lucky to defend 1 or 2 attacks an event.

stowaway

CoolB76 wrote:

I don't know if it's because of the changes but since I wrote this I've been attacked 6 times and defended 4 of them. That's not normal for me. I'm usually lucky to defend 1 or 2 attacks an event.

Yeah, I don't know why either, but I've had three defensive wins so far and zero losses. And all three were teams that really should have beaten me. The fist one I was like, "Oh, he must've had an unlucky board." But after three I'm starting to wonder what's up.

Unknown

Also, since the changes I've opened 2 heroics and 2 heavy metal tokens and got 4 2* dakens. It's good to see the percentage changes have made a difference.......

Unknown

Roster: 4 - max 3*, several others around 100 - 120, unusable xforce. Lil

Previous: could score 800 & push 1000 with careful planning & some luck.

Now: beat the seed teams, fought mostly max 3*teams to climb to ~200. Still had to skip several max xf+ max 166 teams. Saw two 2* teams total throughout the massive amounts of skips. Even sitting around 200ish I was attacked 5 times by this morning, then climbed to 300 to get my token, already attacked again. Half the attacks are from highly unwinnable nodes ( 290im+250-270xf) Feeling like after 500 days in game and a ridiculous amount of play time the game shouldn't be getting harder. Honestly feel like if this is where we're heading I will be spending my time elsewhere. Kind of sucks because I was one of the suckers to spend money during the last sale, but I guess that can pay for the many previous hundreds of hours of enjoyment I got out of the game.

simonsez

stowaway wrote:

Yeah, I don't know why either, but I've had three defensive wins so far and zero losses. And all three were teams that really should have beaten me. The fist one I was like, "Oh, he must've had an unlucky board." But after three I'm starting to wonder what's up.

I'd say there are several reasons that could explain this. Previously, the players wouldn't see you until later on, when they were either hopping or getting close to their first shield. So they were probably choosing battles more carefully and perhaps boosting. Now, since PvP has become the hunger games, they're not boosting this early, there's less room to be selective, and they're probably going into battles with more damage than before.

Unknown

Been fighting maxed teams from 200 points on. Had to switch out my 141 iron fist 250 xforce team because since they're not 166/270 I was getting hit every few seconds by 290/270/270 teams.

If this change sticks, I will be retiring from this game.

Unknown

CoolB76 wrote:

CoolB76 wrote:

Name: CoolB
Event: Heavy Metal
Slice: 1
Roster: One almost maxed 4*, 6 maxed 3*
Experience:
I joined with about a day and a half remaining and was oddly the first person to join that bracket. I was alone in 1st place with no other players showing in the ranking screen. Just me by my lonesome. Played the first 3 easy matches and was immediately hit with the 290/270 wall. Put the phone down for about an hour after the first 3 matches. Came back and still in top 20. Not a lot of people playing is the feeling I'm getting. As of this morning I'm in first with just under 600 points and less then one day to go. I'm up by about 100 points right now but for most of yesterday evening and overnight I was up by 200. I'm still getting the feeling that no one is playing. I'm mixed on this because the first place yellow xforce is my only missing cover (5/5/2) so I'm happy to be cruising so far to a hopeful, easy win but on the other hand it seems like the competition is lacking in this event.

I don't know if it's because of the changes but since I wrote this I've been attacked 6 times and defended 4 of them. That's not normal for me. I'm usually lucky to defend 1 or 2 attacks an event.

This is getting stupid. 4 more attacks just since I wrote this and 4 losses this time. So the feeling I'm getting is there is no point in playing the last day. Still leading by 150 points so I guess it's time to shield for 24 hours and stop playing all together.