Season XIII Matchmaking - Discussion

puppychow

Ben Grimm wrote:

One question - part of the reason everyone's getting so upset about this is that they're valued rewards. What happens in the next PVP? Since I know I'm not getting the 3* cover at 800 - and I imagine a lot of other people are in the same boat - I'm going to start late and make very little attempt to seriously place if matchmaking is the same. No reason to set myself as bait for the 270 teams. I imagine a lot of people will do the same. What will that do to scoring, if no one thinks PVP is worth the effort anymore? I realize there will be people pushing, but scores are already seriously suppressed in a high-demand PVP. What happens with a low-demand on under these rules?

You're going to have veterans split into 2 groups: a) "pioneers" who fearlessly charge head first into battle, consequences be damned; b) "late bloomers" who will delay entry into the event to seek placement into an easier bracket. The pioneers are simply going to retal their way to the top of the bracket, and then slap a shield when they're satisfied w/ their placements. The late bloomers are going to exploit the bracket to get decent placement, albeit w/ a lower score than the pioneers and season scores will suffer as a result.

MikeG72

Name: MikeG72 - been playing 249 days.
Roster: I have a bunch of maxed- 2*s like Thor, Ares, Wolverine and Daken. Building up my 3s, including 127 Hood, 102 Mohawk Storm, 102 Hulk, 91 Magneto and 89 Mystique. Highest 4 I have is 115 Wolverine, rest are 74 or lower.

I'm not happy with this change with PvP - especially when I opened the first node for Simulator. I was all - they really need to reverse this or fix some things, because I'm going from getting a 10-pack in the last season to really struggling this one. It feels like more of a punishment than a reward for leveling up.

GothicKratos

I'm a 2* player (no leveled 3*s, highest level champ is 94). I opened with three seed teams and my following three nodes were;

75 3* IM/127 DD/94 2* Magneto
70 3* IM/94 2* Thor/94 oBW
96 3* IM/114 Patch/94 2* Storm

I'd normally see nodes like the second one around 200 points. I'd normally see nodes like the first and second around 300.

I'm okay with the way this change is laid out (because these nodes are completely out of my league and "winnable", but it'll take a much higher investment in Health Packs and time) but only if Progression Rewards are altered drastically.

This effectively kills people's abilities to join a new shard and clear for rewards in the last hour, unless things normalize after a couple events.

dr tinykittylove

dr tinykittylove wrote:

about 4 hrs from end. My score stabilised at about 400 late in the day. After finishing my sub-ending grind and new sub clear, I went back to climbing.

Got up to 600s uneventfully while taking breaks to prologue heal, got a defense win and started using iso boosts. Sorry to anyone I hit more than once - I tried to "wait" by taking other matches or going off to heal xf, but I kept cycling around the same targets, same as before the change.

Reached 700 and decided to not push my luck even though I had enough health to make it through another match or two.

My feeling so far is that an early climb is no longer viable because of the constant attacks, but if you have the roster for it and want to gamble on not being cascaded into a tinykitty smear on the floor, you can still go moderately high with a late climb and hope to hop later.

I might have considered trying for 1k still, but it's been a long day at work and I'm tired. Whatever rewards I want will cycle around again eventually. Unless they get vaulted first.

Final update. I gave it a try anyway. Used 3 shields 3-8-24 because of time constraints - the first event of the season has no convenient time for me. Made it to 940, but only because I got hit for 38+/- each hop and twice at the end. If I had time to do this properly, I would have managed to hit 1k as hoped.

In sum, the early climb is pretty much hell, but once you pass some magical threshhold, things are pretty much the same as before - lots of low value targets and some higher ones if you are patient and skip enough. Of course, it helps that this is a high demand pvp and I accidentally picked a high-scoring slice.

I'm willing to at least try out the next pvp and see how it works then.

optimus2861

GothicKratos wrote:

I'm a 2* player (no leveled 3*s, highest level champ is 94). I opened with three seed teams and my following three nodes were;

75 3* IM/127 DD/94 2* Magneto
70 3* IM/94 2* Thor/94 oBW
96 3* IM/114 Patch/94 2* Storm

I'd normally see nodes like the second one around 200 points. I'd normally see nodes like the first and second around 300.

Seconded. My roster and experience are very similar to yours. My 2* toons are the workhorses of my roster, as none of my 3* are well-covered enough to do the heavy lifting. I think I got one easy fight after the seed teams, and then straight into fights like yours that, while winnable, will almost certainly consume 1 or more health packs upon completion. Is it fun? Well.. I need these guys for PvE, too. 2* rosters aren't so deep that you can afford to have Ares, Thor, OBW constantly on the bench healing.

I'm okay with the way this change is laid out (because these nodes are completely out of my league and "winnable", but it'll take a much higher investment in Health Packs and time) but only if Progression Rewards are altered drastically.

Agreed. Shield Sim in particular looks to have taken a major step backward with this change. Last season I ended up with 800, maybe 900 points there. Junk progression rewards, but they got me over the top for the season 10-pack.

Just now in SS, with a measly 100 points, I saw a node with a 160'ish XForce. And I have nobody > 94. That's beyond ridiculous.

As for Heavy Metal, I barely cleared 300 points, whereas last season I could always clear 300 and finish around 350. I couldn't quite crack 400 last season but was hoping to develop my roster enough for that this season. Again, with this matchmaking, I don't feel confident in having a shot at 400.

Hopefully things sort themselves out after another event or two. It doesn't feel right so far.

Unknown

The new system worked okay for me. Previously I usually ended with around 300 points in PVP. In the Iron Man PVP, this time, I ended with over 500 points.

Unknown

Event: Heavy Metal
Roster: 270 XF and GT have about 7 3* maxed with a lot of other 4* and 3* 13/13 just not max leveled.
Placement: Usually top 5 sometimes in top 10 for pvp season events.

The current matchmaking in pvp is horrendous. I'm 7th in my bracket with 597 points. The 1st place player in my bracket is a 2* player so I cant even line him up when he unshields, which is pretty ridiculous. I can see how this new matchmaking change for 1* and 2* players is enjoyable but this is definitely a slap in the face to the high end players. Were basically being punished for being loyal and developing our characters. Having a maxed roster is actually a disadvantage now in pvp. I've never played a game where the developers continually screw over their competitive players like D3 does. I used to enjoy this game a lot but not anymore if the matchmaking system isn't fixed I'll be done with this game.

DrNitroman

DrNitroman wrote:

Name: DrNitroman
Event: Heavy Metal
Slice: 2
Roster: 250 XF and many max leveled 3*
Usual PvP Placement: Top 50; 500-700 pts
Experience: I entered a bracket around 48h mark. After beating the 3 seed teams I see teams with higher levels than usual. Mostly composed by 1 unleveled XF, 1 or 2 max lvl 3* while I was seing 94* teams at the start before. I made my climb over 24h, 2 or 3 fights in a row not more. The climb was tougher than usual but doable. Currently I'm sitting around 400 and have already suffered 4-5 attacks. I did a few fights only to stay around 400.
<snip>

Finally I settled just above 600 (with a generous use of boost. I secured a top 50 but gave up for top 25.
One interesting I have noted is the change for me concerning retal. Usually I rarely retaliate because it's not worth it and don't want to risk a retaliation war. This time was different: several attacks costed me around 15 pts and were worth 30 pts with unleveled XF + leveled 3*. So a net 15 pts gain against strong but beatable teams;

So this time I retaliated pretty often...

roberts_2

My experience:

Event: Heavy Metal
Roster: Thor 3* lv.153, Hulk lv.166 and IM m40 lv.102
Usual PvP Placement: 70-100, is enough for me.

I fight the first node and later 3 more fights, so i think i don't wanna fight more in PVP and going to PVE. Finally i have fight a couple of matchs in PVP, but don't like fight the same OP teams; x-force, devil dinosaur, starlord, m40 (270), again and again. Is boring, very boring to see the same teams skip after skip. I finnish in #280.
Also i don't have fight in SS and i don't have interest in done with this MMR system.

The new MMR system looks like a big fail. Important changes like this must be tested first.

MikeG72

Hmm. Right now it looks like they rolled stuff back based what I see going in on the Kamala Khan Teenage Riot . Maybe I got in the right shard, but the pairings are much more like last season than how Heavy Metal was.

Unknown

where is the option for "I haven't been playing and I feel great"?

Unknown

This is only my second ever post on this forum, and I'm making it to add to the chorus of people saying how much I loathe this change. I have a roster with 17 maxed 3*s, and I feel like I'm now being actively punished for investing all that time and energy in developing it.

Yes, fighting maxed 2* rosters for the first 500 odd points made my team feel OP - and so it should have. PVP was the only arena that allowed me to enjoy the strength of my roster, and now that's gone. If the change isn't reversed, I will definitely stop playing PVP and quite possibly stop playing the game altogether.

Vohnkar

Iron Man Event finished for me, I finished 40 with 650 points, shielded with 10 mins left cause I was being hit hard, in around 30 mins I've lost aroudn 40-50 poitns and had to climb again, so I decided to secure top 50 and don't bother anymore.

I've been fighting 166 for the most part, some 120s after a lot of skips and some 200+ fully boosted if they were worth 40+ points. I don't see 50 points anymore while climbing, almost every match was worth 25-30 points, so when the occasional 40+s points match appeared I risked to play with boosts. Sorry for the ones being hit. I've been hit by people that was worth 14 points as retaliation? I almost never got hit before if I was under 500 points, now I've been hit since the begining.

Overall the system is punishing me for having some high lvl 3* and its more dificult to climb, doable, but more time consuming.

Let's see how it goes with the next event.

Unknown

Roster - 270 XF and Thora, level 180+ fury, many 166s.

Typical performance - 950 to 1000 most of the past three seasons

This PVP - about 850


Don't let my score fool you... I was backsliding into the 430 range each of the past few days due to a refusal to shield. The only reason I did so well was that I had a good run of 30+ opponents with few retaliations before one 3 hr shield, another hop, then an 8 hour shield to end it.


The changes to shielding to limit shield hops already has an effect on scoring, which is why 4 stars are now awarded at 1000 instead of 1300. Making significant changes to the MMR without testing them propert means the average score goes down again but they aren't adjusting the awards to compensate for that. Yet.

Unknown

I have come the closest to destroying my phone in this PvP as I have ever come before. I usually try to offer only constructive criticism or thoughtful posts. I read the forums. I follow what you are 'supposed to do'. As of today, I am done chasing 4*'s or buying shields -- my blood was boiling when my PvP fate was sealed. I presumably did 'everything right' -- timed my shields and queued enemies so that I could climb and just barely peak out at 1000 before my slice ended. I didn't try to hop in the last hour, or even with three hours to go. I never tried to get in more than three fights, and i used +all boost and +green/black boost to speed up X-Force. Every hop all the way up to 940 I was able to get in three fights and then re-shield, and after a few minutes see retaliations come in on my shields.

Today on the mission that put me over 1,000, with my screen showing my score at 1012, i get the popup that says i have been attacked SIX **** TIMES for -160 points. WITH 1000 SHOWING.

In summary, and with consideration, **** this matchmaking, **** the piranha assault that is not being shielded, and **** this game.

JamieMadrox

Update to my previous post:

Jamie Madrox wrote:

See I'm not having this same issue as everyone else. I beat one seed team and the next match in that node was a max level 3* team. Beat that and my next match was a underleveled 2* team. From there the teams were all over the place. I climbed to 600+ on the health packs that were available to me and then stopped because I'd run out of targets worth more than 10 points.

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.

GothicKratos

optimus2861 wrote:

Just now in SS, with a measly 100 points, I saw a node with a 160'ish XForce. And I have nobody > 94. That's beyond ridiculous.

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.

wymtime

I started this PVP yesterday morning and I basicly ran Xforce hood the whole time. I got to 750 last night and shielded. I wanted to get to 1000 points for 4Thor and felt I needed to go early. I got to 750 in a day by slogging through max Xforce and max covered teams. Today as I tried to shield hop I was only able to climb 100 points because every time i unshielded I got spanked by other players. I got for 30 + points once before I won my first match on one hop. I ended up to spend 500+ HP to grt top 25 and under 900 points.overall this PVP was all about A-Team V A-Team, and it made for no diversity. I ran Xforce hood only and if this is where PVP is going I don't know why I would level any more characters as it will be pointless. This MMR promotes. 0 roster diversity, it promotes buying the best team you can and running that team the entire PVP. I prefer PVP to PVE and all I can say is this is a sad day for PVP plYers who have deep rosters because they o ly used 2 characters.

Unknown

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.

fmftint

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.

Yet I, at the time in 6th, couldn't queue my bracket leader while he was unshielded, all I see are the same 4 players for 15 points