Changes to Versus Matchmaking [Update]

TheOncomingStorm

Deleted by me.

http://www.d3pforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=27320

franckynight

My day-to-day life as a vet.. Finishing a pve clear with a 395 Cmag and hood node to begin hulk pvp with a 290 hulk/270 xf/166 LT as a first node. Oh joy to the world!!!! Thank you for balancing the game so much for us demiurge.. Thank you..
Edit: oh i forgot the excellent news of the releasing of a new 3* after a 13 days marathon for kk and kingpin.. I suppose It was a good day..

Unknown

TheOncomingStorm wrote:

I have a question. Why does MPQ hate vets?

Some players were scoring too many points, frightening noobs. The result, shield cool downs. The benefit of which came lower progressives. However, the cost is now people have to play on a schedule other than their own, and one bad hop, you probably will not hit the progressive you are after.

I was dumb and supported this change. I should have pointed out the fallacy of the original claim. Noobs are sharded and are not in the same brackets as veterans any way. However, I believed MPQ when they said the change was in the best of interest of the game. The reality is that the change penalized veterans overall and had no affect whatsoever on newer players.

X-Force (who has been in buffed form for about a year) and 4or (who was around for several months at the same power level) were allowing veterans to play while spending much less of their free time on MPQ than if they did not have these characters. Suddenly one day out of the blue, we were told 4or was too powerful. People can argue back and forth whether this is true, that is irrelevant. The problem is when the character was released MPQ felt that she was not too powerful. For months after her release, she was not too powerful. Then, one magical day, 4or was suddenly too powerful. Really? Just out of the blue?

I was dumb and supported this change. We should have demanded to know what had changed? Why suddenly now was she being nerfed? We got some glib answer that there may be other charged tile characters in the future. Okay, that's the future, so whey did she have to be nerfed now? I believe the answer was because they wanted to implement their new MMR and new buffed system. In other words, they did not want there to be a top tier of players. (What do you know, that would also fit in as the real reason to have shield cool downs.)

Old 4or could have wiped the floor with any buffed 2* or 3* characters. Therefore, their scheme for parity could not go forward until 4or was nerfed. So the newer players get their toughest adversary out of the way. What do veterans get? A much slower 4or and a meager offer of 3000 HP if you sell her.

This change by itself could be palatable. But then Demiurge_Will revealed that X-Force was now suddenly over the 4* power band. That's right, the character that had been out for almost a year, was now suddenly be teed up for a potential nerf. So after so much time, why suddenly now is X-Force above the power band. I would contend the same reason 4or was suddenly too powerful. Because 3* and newer rosters still fear that 4*. Think I'm wrong? No one has feared Fury, StarLord, or Dino. All of which are arguably more powerful than 4or now. If 4or was lowered to the 4* level which is what we were told (and not overnerfed as many have argued), then shouldn't that mean the other 4*'s are too powerful as well? If going by power yes. If going by who 3*'s and lower fear and complain about, then no, they're fine.

So here we stand getting ready seemingly to suddenly lose X-Force as we know it. What will veterans get? Another weaker character and more slower game play.

We have already lost stalwarts of the game to these changes. Many X-Men and Shield players are gone, as is forum legend MischiefMaker. Most companies would take a minute to consider why they are losing their best and most loyal customers. There is in reality only one reason, one would not worry. That reason is if that is an acceptable result of your ultimate goal: cater to newer and transition players at the expense of veterans.

The latest example is this MMR massacre. They have stated clear as day their goal is to make life easier and less discouraging for newer and transition players. What do veterans get? The big middle finger. I was dumb again (what can I say, I'm very slow learner). I believed them when they said they would tweak MMR so PVP would still be enjoyable for veterans. I waited, I tried the change. What change? Here were are in the middle of the season playing guinea pig once again. What do veterans get after the change, more of the same as before they supposedly tweaked MMR.

If you are veteran you get a slog fest from 0 to 1000. Why 1000? Because that's where they put the rewards most of us need. Most of us have the 3*'s, so placement in most pvp's would be totally irrelevant if not for season scoring. 1*'s they only have to play about to 300. 2*'s to about 500 or 600. Transition to about 800. So veterans have the furthest to go in PVP, but we also have a total grind to get there. A lot of us used to be able to use other characters up to about 500 to make the climb less cumbersome. Now, you got to break out your A team and push, scratch, and fight every minute. Your health packs will be depleted long before attaining any satisfactory type of score. If your don't shield, you'll get knocked back down and get to start the climb from 200-300 points back from the point where you ran out of health packs.

In a word, PVP has been made miserable for veterans. It did not have to be this way. There were other ways MPQ could have made changes to MMR or the point system that would have been greater for newer players without pummeling veterans.

I have a challenge for Demiurge_Will. Feel free to take my roster for a spin. You have been down with the newer players far too long. Your choices of late illustrate such. I challenge you to tell me that the game for veterans is not worse than it was for newer people before the change.

Which leads me to my question: why does MPQ not value veterans?

We were loyal to you and supported you all this time through countless changes and bumps in the road. Many of stay now in the hope that you will still fix PVP so that it can be fun again. However, many others have left. It's hard to argue with them. What are the reasons for us to stay? You continue to make changes to help newer players, but mostly ignore our portion of the player base.

I trusted you in the past, more than I probably should have. So, I am sorry if I have run out of trust on this one. I do not want to be told that the MMR change will leave the game fun for veterans. I want one simple thing. I want to play this game and have fun.

I do not want to hear repeats of the straw man argument that 166's should not beat up on 94's. That's what up to 300 at most, and only for veterans who tank or have that MMR because they get attacked that much in PVP. I do not want to hear that eventually when your plan comes together the game will be better for veterans. I do not want any hollow promises. I do not want to be told that my experience with the new MMR should be fun. I have lived long enough to know what experiences that I consider to be fun.

All I am asking is for one reason to stay. One reason to believe that PVP, Shield sim, and LR will not be utter misery. One reason to find solace that I have not wasted the past year of my life supporting a product that I believed in. One reason to remain as all my friends leave in the aftermath of your changes. On reason to convince me that I do not care more about this game and its players than you. One reason to know at least on some level that you care and want veterans to be here.

I would love to know these answers as well because I am close to quitting as well. I will wait until the end of the season so I don't screw my alliance over, but this game as not been "fun" for weeks now. I went through the testing of multiple boosted, the faulty MMR, and the horrible scaling in PVE (I have only won Elektra as the 4* and it looks like I went from mid 30's to 60's because of the scaling plus this will be the 1st time I don't hit progression). This game feels more like a job or chore now and not something I can enjoy while relaxing. So they have 7 events left to fix this mess that the veterans are going through. Otherwise they will lose another vet. Have fun catering the newbs because they will soon be the vets who are leaving.

Unknown

Oh, I see the 15+ page thread where the vast majority of people were pissed off at how horrible the mmr change was had a significant effect on how d3 decided to go on this. Always nice to see a company give a huge middle finger to costumer feedback.

simonsez

ark123 wrote:

Oh, I see the 15+ page thread where the vast majority of people were pissed off at how horrible the mmr change was had a significant effect on how d3 decided to go on this. Always nice to see a company give a huge middle finger to costumer feedback.

But... but... Will said he listened to our feedback, hence the changes to the Hulk PvP.

I'm still trying to figure out which feedback was asking for this garbage we've got now...

Flare808

morgh wrote:

Flare808 wrote:

The glass ceiling for PvP now rests around 2,000 points as shown by the Crew. )

<sarcasm>

That is such a great idea I do not know where to start!
It's obvious we should be balancing stuff around one or two alliances who start shielding 2 days 5 hours into an event and burn all the shields (including 24h) whenever they are available!
It's such a splending thought to balance around people who coordinate and do retreat-boosting - after all this has to be the way devs want us to play!

</sarcasm>

See- reading part of a post and not the entirety means you lose context. I used the Crew as an example of the upper bound for my idea of decaying points carrying over between events. It was not a call to balance according to their level of play. In addition, I also said that the percentage of carryover could be adjusted based on D3's data that we do not have access to. Phantron added on and said that the carryover points could also be capped at around 500 to prevent abuse of the system. The point of my idea was not to push high scoring players farther, it was to save lower end rosters from being munched on as vets climb.

For clarity's sake- my original post:

Flare808 wrote:

Here's an alternate idea I've been thinking about recently. The devs are worried that vets picking on lower rosters will turn away potential customers. What if vets just started at a higher point total based on previous performance? If you scored 1,200 points in the last PvP, your points would decay 75% to 300. That is the total you would start with for the next PvP. You skip demolishing some easy rosters and get to save some time. Win-win for the newbies and vets. You could adjust the decay rate if 75% is too much or too little. The glass ceiling for PvP now rests around 2,000 points as shown by the Crew. That would make the maximum starting point total around 500. Anyone who can get to 2,000 has no problems getting to 500. Some might complain that it's unfair to start at 500, but those points would have been earned anyway- at least we save a few lower end players lost points by starting higher.

Vohnkar

The last changes made to the MMR on the Kamala Khan event, are more reasonable, at least for me. I managed to climb to 400-500 points fighting some 94s as before, then started to see low 100s and after that, I'm finally seeing 166s at 500+ points. I won't be able to place top, cause you need 900+ for that, but at least I can get some progression rewards and think about top 50-100 if I have the time to play enough.

Lets see how it works out, but for now, thanks D3 for listening and trying to fix the system, its quite discouraging being always the target of changes that punishes me for trying to lvl my roster.

Unknown

Vohnkar wrote:

The last changes made to the MMR on the Kamala Khan event, are more reasonable, at least for me. I managed to climb to 400-500 points fighting some 94s as before, then started to see low 100s and after that, I'm finally seeing 166s at 500+ points. I won't be able to place top, cause you need 900+ for that, but at least I can get some progression rewards and think about top 50-100 if I have the time to play enough.

Lets see how it works out, but for now, thanks D3 for listening and trying to fix the system, its quite discouraging being always the target of changes that punishes me for trying to lvl my roster.

That was the old system brought back for 1 PVP. They are back to using the Iron Man one again for the Hulk. They didn't listen

Malcrof

You do realize that there are probably 1 million + -players (at least 2-5 million downloads), and probably under 20k users of the forum.. Most of my alliance have never been here, and probably never will, and judging by our alliance chat, the changes are rocking for them. We are not a competitive alliance by any means, some casual players, some just new, some friends and their wives etc.. but for the first time ever.. we are in the top 1000 in a pvp.. they know it is not epic reward time, but it has spurred quite a bit of excitement, and a couple actually decided to buy their first HP and get some token packs.

So for all those who only want to be #1, hate all you want. The little guys are loving it. This will be my 2nd PVP in a row with a top 100 reward! As a transitioner, this is exciting for me!

small edit: check out the thread for this current PVP, i love talking strategy with others struggling to get into the top 100 etc.. it is exciting. When i get to top tier, i hope i struggle just as much, there is nothing quite like the feeling of sitting at #80 shielded and wanting to check every few minutes to see if you are still high enough for the reward...

TheOncomingStorm

Malcrof wrote:

You do realize that there are probably 1 million + -players (at least 2-5 million downloads), and probably under 20k users of the forum.. Most of my alliance have never been here, and probably never will, and judging by our alliance chat, the changes are rocking for them. We are not a competitive alliance by any means, some casual players, some just new, some friends and their wives etc.. but for the first time ever.. we are in the top 1000 in a pvp.. they know it is not epic reward time, but it has spurred quite a bit of excitement, and a couple actually decided to buy their first HP and get some token packs.

So for all those who only want to be #1, hate all you want. The little guys are loving it. This will be my 2nd PVP in a row with a top 100 reward! As a transitioner, this is exciting for me!

small edit: check out the thread for this current PVP, i love talking strategy with others struggling to get into the top 100 etc.. it is exciting. When i get to top tier, i hope i struggle just as much, there is nothing quite like the feeling of sitting at #80 shielded and wanting to check every few minutes to see if you are still high enough for the reward...

That's great. You should be able to have fun. However, I am saying they should have found a way to accommodate you and your alliance friends without penalizing others. Newer players and veterans having fun is NOT a mutually exclusive concept. You can have both. Maybe it would take more engineering work than this current version of mmr. However, veterans have always been the ones asked to make sacrifices when changes are made. It is time that we get treated as part of the player base and not the scapegoat for flaws in the game.

Unknown

Ugh, all I know is that for me, seeing 290/166/166 right after the seed teams is extremely demotivating.....

Unknown

So is this system actually in place right now? Because my matches have only gotten significantly tougher. To the tune of I might not even be able to get the 300 points reward because of it. Compared to what I was just able to do for the first time in the kamala kahn and iron model 40 events where I got top 4 and 2 respectively. It matched me against lvl 94 opponents and that was fair for me. But now, all I'm getting is ridiculously high hulks paired with lvl 140's and such. I don't know if it's because of my hulk who is sitting currently at boosted lvl 115(I could level him up to 117) but I've been working on getting my first three star to level 166 so I don't want to do that.

Maybe it's just because i'm having difficulty actually finding a team to field with the hulk but i'm having a lot of trouble this event with these changes

heroguy35

I knew this was gonna be just as terrible as the heavy metal event. It seems that all was done here is equivalent to putting a ripped bandaid on a blood gushing open wound. It's useless. It's the same exact ****. First matches after seed teams are maxed xforce/ maxed 3*/ 200+ hulk which means I have to use xforce and a heavy hitting 3* in EVERY single match past 70 points. I can switch between 3 or 4 166s but xforce will have to be in every single match after seed teams. My roster is useless and any diversity I was able to use in my roster on my climb to 700 or so is now gone again. Facing these teams in every match also means that every single win I get is capable of retaliation wins. So every point I get is just precariously hanging in some empty void waiting to get snatched right back.Everyone will be getting attacked by everyone else constantly. Shields will be needed to maintain ridiculous numbers as low as 300 points.

Another problem is health packs and the time involved to climb now. It would be a grind just to reach 600 with no attacks coming but they will be constantly making the grind that much worse. Packs will be eaten like candy on Halloween as well. I just nearly wiped on my 2nd match after seed teams due to some ai cascades. 2 matches and I need 2 packs to revive 2 wiped members of my A-team at just over 100 points. What? How is this fun? And I'm only at 100 points! I'm supposed to do this for 900 more points in order to progress in this game now? I don't understand the logic behind these changes at all. Vets are consistently punished in this game which is why they're dropping like flies. I don't see the trend lessening with this newest change that is supposedly better for everyone. It certainly isn't better me:/

roberts_2

Well, second round of seeds in Hulk event and mostly Hulks are lv250-270. Event is done for me.

puppychow

morgh wrote:

Flare808 wrote:

The glass ceiling for PvP now rests around 2,000 points as shown by the Crew. )

<sarcasm>

That is such a great idea I do not know where to start!
It's obvious we should be balancing stuff around one or two alliances who start shielding 2 days 5 hours into an event and burn all the shields (including 24h) whenever they are available!
It's such a splending thought to balance around people who coordinate and do retreat-boosting - after all this has to be the way devs want us to play!

</sarcasm>

Well, look on the bright side. While it sux having three Crewsaders in front of me for the Teenage Riot event, I was able to feed on Crewsaders for a few nifty 40+ wins. 1,160 for 4th place was a lot higher than I would expect after the disaster that was Heavy Metal event.

puppychow

platypusavenger wrote:

Has there ever been consideration to putting a cap on how many points you can lose from being attacked? When trying to get the 1000 4Thor during Heavy Metal, the mission that would have given me 1000 points instead resulted in a loss of 160 points because I was attacked 6 times. Rather than rally and try for it again, I nearly threw my phone out the window and instead gave up on the event completely.

I know that shields are part of your vision for depleting the HP economy, but being attacked that many times while out of shield only 5-8 minutes per hop is just cripplingly discouraging. That event alone has almost killed my desire to ever try for the 4* progression reward.

Some observations. For the last pvp event, I took on a Crewsader w/ 1860 pts while I was at 1100. So what did my win against a target w/ 750 MORE points net me? 49 points only. Apparently, that's the limit of point loss PER ATTACK. So there is a cap on point loss here.

HOWEVER, there is no limit to the number of other players who CAN and WILL target you. It doesn't matter what your defense is (I fought almost max Kamala/max gf/max xf team); if your point value is high enough for someone to try attacking you, they'll do it. The shield economy alleviates that to some degree. But if you're trying to make attacks between shield hops, you need to consider how much time someone else will need to attack you and finish his match before you reshield. Honestly 5-8 minutes is way too long between hops. Think 2-4 minutes instead. If that means you can only make 1 match between hops, then that's what you have to do to avoid being hit.

Unknown

lol I just got hit with the 166 wall after the 3 seed team. D3 hasn't changed anything. Made it worse again

MikeG72

I had to scratch and claw my way to 300 in the Hulk Versus, which was a decidedly different result from Teenage Riot. How bad is it? I consulted my Magic 8 Ball for my chances of hitting 400 and I got "Don't Count On It." Yeah... No. Not liking the changes and the decision to do so even from the outcry from Heavy Metal. After months of grinding and leveling to even be able to hit 300+ and get the 10-pack Heroic Tokens in PVP, I feel like I got the rug pulled out from under my feet.

Unknown

puppychow wrote:

Some observations. For the last pvp event, I took on a Crewsader w/ 1860 pts while I was at 1100. So what did my win against a target w/ 750 MORE points net me? 49 points only. Apparently, that's the limit of point loss PER ATTACK. So there is a cap on point loss here.

HOWEVER, there is no limit to the number of other players who CAN and WILL target you. It doesn't matter what your defense is (I fought almost max Kamala/max gf/max xf team); if your point value is high enough for someone to try attacking you, they'll do it. The shield economy alleviates that to some degree. But if you're trying to make attacks between shield hops, you need to consider how much time someone else will need to attack you and finish his match before you reshield. Honestly 5-8 minutes is way too long between hops. Think 2-4 minutes instead. If that means you can only make 1 match between hops, then that's what you have to do to avoid being hit.

The problem with this is that past 700, I might get attacked 2-3 times per fight and simply tread water or even lose ground. It takes time to find matches worth more than 14 points. If I spend my time actively playing and fighting against the tide of people pecking me down, I should be able to slowly move up -- as long as I am winning and still have health / health packs to climb. If the expectation is that I can only get one fight per shield hop every 8 hours, then I might as well just not play and buy covers with HP directly. At the point where I might as well not play...well, I might as well not play at all and save some dough.

MarvelDestiny

simonsez wrote:

DrUnpleasant wrote:

Getting beat up might put some off, but it'll make many others want to fight more to improve

Reminds me of the underlying theme of the movie Whiplash... maybe the devs should check it out.

Same with Secretary, some of us just aren't quite as masochistic as you'd like.