The Real Problem With The X-Force Nerf - The PvP Grind

SnowcaTT

I'll post this over here as well. I tried to track every single match in Hulk PVP: what I attacked, what I skipped, who attacked me, what rank I was, how long between matches, how long left in event.

I ran the seed teams with 2*'s. After that, every matchup afterwards was 166 (290) Hulk, 250 5/5/2 X-force, 166 DP. I only have five 166's, boosted Hulk to that specifically for this event/test. This "best team" is pretty much forced upon everyone - if you are fighting against everyone with their best team, you have to bring your best team. [Noted two exceptions vs. Hood, when it was 290 Hulk/250 XF/166 Hood followed quickly by a DP match to keep that team on defense.]

Wall of text under spoiler tag.

A note on how I play (and how I have played for months and months), when you think: why not attack? D3 might want to pay attention to what at least THIS player enjoys. I like NOT being attacked and losing points - so regardless of how much a team that I can beat is worth, I usually won't attack a team that is likely to attack me back until near the end of the event. I'll also often skip matchups that are worth less than 20 points.

290/229 XF/153 (20, skip)
222/156 XF/111 Fury (28, hit) : four wins, zero losses, 99 points, rank 158: waited until rank 212.
290/94/94 (storm/mags - hiding 270's behind them) (23, skip)
269/159 cap/153 spidey (18, skip)
268/94/94 (Thor/Widow, 140 3* thor hiding). (22, hit) : five wins, zero losses, 121 points, rank 169.
290/223 XF/140 (23, skip)
182/188 XF/142 (21, hit): six wins, zero losses, 144 points, rank 120: waited until rank 167.
182/153/114 (28, hit): seven wins, zero losses, 172 points, rank 137
268/94/153 (17, skip)
290/270 XF/192 GT (24, skip)
290/129/166 (22, skip)
164/140 Hood/166 (24, hit with Hood instead of DP): eight wins, zero losses, 205 points, rank 100
194/153XF/127 (24, hit): eight wins, zero losses, 226 points, (still) rank 100, 46 hours remain (waiting)
[No hits overnight, rank 135, 30 hours remaining.]
250/153/153 (17, skip)
194/94 (OBW)/140 (11, skip)
290/166/166 (27, skip)
290/270/209 (29, skip)
206/213 XF/166 (26, hit): nine wins, zero losses, 255 points, rank 107
290/166/166 (25, skip)
290/166/166 (21, skip)
290/166/156 (24, skip)
290/270 XF/166 (26, skip)
173/153/114 (25, hit): ten wins, zero losses, 282 points, rank 90
290/270 XF/166 (18, skip)
173/151/150 (15, skip)
198/270 XF/270 (26, skip)
276/94 MMN/94Thor (21, hit): eleven wins, zero losses, 308 points, rank 57, 32 hours remaining (waiting)
290/269 XF/166 defensive loss (-8 points, skipped 25 point retribution)
219/140/94 (Daken) (24, hit): twelve wins, one loss, 325 points, rank 48. 30 hours remaining (waiting).
290/270 XF/166 defensive loss (-11 points, skipped 22 point retribution). twelve wins, two losses, 314 points rank 64.
219/270 XF/166 (27, skip)
290/166/166 (36, skip)
222/117/88 (daken) (22, hit): thirteen wins, two losses, 339 points, rank 46th.
290/270 XF/166 (44, skip)
290/166/141 (35, skip)
222/140/153 (21, hit): fourteen wins, two losses, 366 points, rank 30th.
[No hits overnight, 10 hours remain, 366 points, rank 59th. Almost all of the double 166's on final day include max LT.]
290/270 XF/166 (19 points, skip)
290/166/131 (19 points, skip)
290/270 XF/166 (29 points, skip)
245/148 XF/108 (25 points, hit) fifteen wins, two losses, 392 points, rank 46th.
290/166/140 (32 points, skip)
290/166/166 (25 points, skip)
166/166 (grocket), 142 (26 points, hit) sixteen wins, two losses, 417 points, rank 35th (waiting).
[No hits during wait, 6 hours remain, 417 points, rank 46.]
213/153/153 (16 points, skip)
236, 250 XF/166 (23 points, skip)
115/166/166 (30 points, hit) seventeen wins, two losses, 446 points, rank 34th.
[This is the smallest Hulk I see the entire event]
201/150/166 (27 points, hit) eighteen wins, two losses, 472 points, rank 29th
290/166/166 (21 points, skip)
290/270 XF/188 PX (41 points, skip)
290/188 XF/166 (20 points, skip)
290/166/166 (24 points, skip)
268/166 Hood/166 Doom (34 points, hit with XF/Hood) nineteen wins, two losses, 509 points, rank 25th (waiting).
[Just over three hours remain - something came up so I have to push a bit earlier and shield.]
290/166/166 (22 points, skip)
147/270 XF/166 (41 points, skip)
135/270 XF/176 Fury (19 points, skip)
290/270/166 (34 points, skip)
215/209 XF/140 (17 points, skip)
290/192 XF/166 (23 points, skip)
290/166/166 (26 points, skip)
245/166/192 GT (22 points, skip)
290/270 XF/166 (27 points, skip)
290/270 XF/192 (26 points, skip)
290/270 XF/166 (31 points, skip)
290/166/166 (26 points, skip)
290/166/166 (26 points, skip)
290/166/166 (22 points, skip)
290/270 XF/166 (24 points, skip)
142/270 XF/270 (45 points, skip)
142/270 XF/270 (same 45 points, skip)
276/250 XF/166 (23 points, skip)
290/270 XF/166 (27 points, skip)
290/270 XF/166 (32 points, skip)
290/270 XF/166 (37 points, skip)
219/245 XF/166 (30 points, skip)
245/192 GT/166 (22 points, skip)
290/250 GT/166 (30 points, skip)
282/270 XF/166 (23 points, skip)
290/270 XF/166 (29 points, skip)
290/270 XF/192 dino (28 points, skip)
[That's 27 skips between battles after 509 points. 19 had 275+ Hulk. 18 had 250+ 4*.]
236/270 XF (4/4/5), 94 Storm (24 points, hit) twenty wins, two losses, 535 points, rank 22nd.
290/270 XF/166 defensive loss (-14). Twenty wins, three losses, 521 points, rank 25.
290/270 XF/166 (27 points, skip retribution)
268/270 XF/166 (29 points, skip)
290/242 XF/236 GT (24 points, skip)
290/166/166 (22 points, skip)
268/166/140 (23 points, hit) twenty-one wins, three losses, 544 points, rank 27. Three hours remain.
283/229 XF/166 (20 points, skip)
217/270 XF/250 GT (35 points, skip)
290/166/166 (23 points, skip)
290/166/166 (23 points, skip)
163/238 XF/166 (20 points, hit) twenty-two wins, three losses, 562 points, rank 20.
290/229XF/166 defensive loss (-18 points, skipped 22 point retribution, over-wrote a 290/270/270 I would have skipped.)
227/250XF/250GT (24 points, skip)
201/250XF/166 (26 points, skip)
290/166/166 (25 points, skip)
220/166/166 (26 points, skip)
262/200XF/141 hood (25 points, hit with hood) twenty-three wins, four losses. Hood dead.
229/166/166 defensive win (+20). Twenty-four wins, three losses, rank 19, 589.
290/260/166 (22 points, skip)
236/269 XF/166 (18 points, skip)
285/166/166 (21 points, skip)
290/262 XF/166 (28 points, skip)
262/166/132 (19 points, hit) twenty-five wins, four losses, 610 points, rank 18, two hours remain.
290/270XF/166 (25 points, skip)
290/250XF/166 hood defensive loss (-21 points, skipped 18 point retaliation) Twenty-five wins, five losses.
290/269XF/166 (34 points, skip)
290/270XF/166 (28 points, skip)
290/270XF/166 (25 points, skip)
290/220XF/140 (30 pints, hit) Twenty-six wins, five losses, 619 points, rank 18th, 1 hour 52 minutes remain.
[DP died this round, out of health packs, three-hour shield. I have never, ever shield-hopped in this game (and only twice purchased 8 hour shield).]
278/166/166 Defensive win (+18).
290/220XF/270GT defensive loss (-0)
Finish: 19th.

Twenty-seven wins, five losses, 637 points, rank 19th. (25 matches played, two D wins, five D losses, 83 skips).

Some interesting notes to take from this:
At least 58 X-force encountered (may not have written down a couple). Fifteen hulks encountered less than level 200, no loaners seen.

To Northern Polarity's points I totally agree. More time is being spent in the PVP's, it "feels" like PVE grind. You'll see all my "waiting" times in there. You absolutely have to run some, wait, run some more, continue.

Hulk may be the future of all these events, now that characters are buffed more than ever and they'll soon have more health points than ever. It's impossible to go through many rounds without needing health packs, since you are stacked up against nothing but the toughest opponents. Again NP is right: more health packs are needed, or perhaps a complete re-consideration of how PVP should be run (like full health after each match, or many fewer points lost for defensive losses).

And to the title: folks used X-force so they could run the events fast. But to the "hidden" meaning you can find in the title: the PvP grind was in part DUE to X-force. Fully half of the matches I ever saw this event had an X-force included in the lineup. That's Grindy, for certain.

Unknown

I am actually fine with all these changes. Keep them coming D3. One thing i am pissed off is drop the iso cost and increase the 3* drop rate.. Seriously? Come on, players need to put some effort into it. This is also one thing that is not fair to vets. We already maxed few 4* then you drop iso cost for others. Any return balance iso we invested earlier. Sell them all right? Then restart again?

Unknown

I've turned into a casual, so i can't really comment on 4* land, but the prospect of it sounds pretty lame tbh. The tier isn't really needed, or should be tied to exclusive end-game content. 1*s were very fun, as were 2*. This was a time where not everyone was a bullet sponge and low cost abilities made sense. The new health buff scares me a bit tbh, partly for similar reasons you describe. Number inflation should never be the sole solution to end game content.

GuntherBlobel

Once again NP, you've thought about this rationally while others are losing their heads. However, I'm not sure that your solution would be met with mass appeal. Players complain about the grind, but in a competitive landscape, players also create the grind. And veterans don't complain about the effort to place 100th, they complain about the effort to place 1st or hit the highest Progression reward, which is intended to be very difficult.

When the score equilibrium is low, players "force" other players to shield hop in order to win 1st.That means spending time not playing, but simultaneously obsessed with the Event to time hops. It reminds me of PvE refreshes, honestly.

When the equilibrium is high, players "force" other players into long repeat sessions spaced out over the entire Event. To do that every Event causes "burn out."

Everyone wants to win. So whichever is system is in play, you can predict the Forum complaint.

Here's the good news: the Devs are very aware of your solution. They've played around with it before. Do you remember "Hood-style" scoring that had an equilibrium around 400 pts? It could happen again, but I would think they moved away from that for a reason.

Unknown

With all these character reworks hitting more often lately, we should not only have the option to sell a character after a change, but the devs should also introduce the option to respec a character to any build we desire while keeping to total covers the same. Saying to players they have the option to sell any maxed 4* if they don't like the character any more is unrealistic at best. Who will choose to sell them for a fraction of what they paid? Usually, a change makes a different build the one you would prefer to have, if it doesn't kill the character outright.

It's true that XF needed a change, but this doesn't mean any change is acceptable/balanced. For me, green was fine as a 4* power, but if they had to change it they could reduce the damage to 2.5k and increase the cost to 9AP. His black is way worse after the change, despite that the max damage is buffed. No AP generation AND no AP stealing cripples this power and it is disappointing they took away what made him unique when at the same time they did all they could to keep the flavor of other characters even if their powers are terrible, like Elektra's Double-Double Cross or She-Hulk's Settlement. I was expecting a change to the max damage his black could deal by introducing a cap to the tiles he can destroy (maybe 6-8 at max level) which would also limit the max AP he could drain/generate. After the change, only his black is worth using but it is quite expensive (good luck using it with a Hood in the enemy team) and most of the time his yellow will deal damage to a specific enemy( the one making the yellow match) an the one you want to kill. I even consider changing my XF to 3/5/5 build because his green is completely unreliable as AP generation and the damage is quite low compared to what you would expect from a 4* with a total cost of 25k HP (after you get him to 1/1/1) and 400K+ ISO, but I don't think I will stay for much longer active.

The devs are completely unreliable and are unable to release a balanced character; even failing to balance properly after the release. I'd go one step further and say that the recent mass changes to the game touch fraud territory because they follow a pattern. Make characters too strong to boost sales and some time later "balance" the characters by making them irrelevant to the game. Essentially, you buy something which loses value after you bought it.

simonsez

GothicKratos wrote:

NorthernPolarity wrote:

2. Increase the number of health packs given to a player.
...one every 15 minutes.

I'm on board with changing up how many Health Packs we have available, but 32 an hour sounds pretty over-the-top.

Not sure where you are, but here we only have 60 minutes in an hour, not 480.

wymtime

When I take a look at the changes, hours later since I was ragging and ranting, I stood back and looked at the Dev's view to see what they really want in PVP. The Devs want to eliminate shield hopping. They first placed shield cool downs which greatly decreased the ability to shiled hop, but players have started shielding 2 days early to score over 1000 points and 2* players are not placing well enough to shield hop and open roster slots so they are getting killed in PVE and really struggle to transition. So the Devs Nerf 4Thor and Reduce AP boost to 2. No change Xforce is just too fast still. Now they Nerf Xforces green, and give a major buff to the 3* characters health except the super AP generator Hood. Battles will now take much longer because there will be super fast Xforce, and characters with so much more health will take longer to kill. When you decide to unshield it will be really hard to get 2 battles in because it will take 10-15 min and you will be way too exposed. This will lower scores and give 2*-3* players more of a chance to place well.
The reality is they need to look at how hard it is to go from 800 up and realize this is where the game is broken. Shield hopping is out of necessity because trying to climb that last 200 points in one run will now be almost impossible.
From the spoiler page it does look like they are comming out with more game play, but at the heart of MPQ PVP is what keeps veterans playing and they need to find a way to make high end PVP playable. If not they should just do away with placement and make PVP all about progression and make each 200-300 points higher and higher levels aka the Gauntlet.

xellessanova

Agreed, basically. PVP takes too much time now because you have to fight teams at the same level or higher, which don't necessarily always do more damage but always take more time to kill. I can drop a team of 2s in a couple of minutes, but a team of 4s takes 3 times as long. I refuse to play PVE because matches against overscaled 2s take too long.

With the fastest 4* being nerfed, boosts being limited, and 30% increases in character health coming through, the devs are clearly trying to rebalance the game towards the meta they designed IW, GSBW and IM40 for - harder, longer matches where Protect tiles become important and bigger hits can turn the tide of battle.

The problem is that players overwhelmingly chose to build for a meta that was FAST. Sentry/Hood ate healthpacks like candy, but they killed FAST. XForce has low HP and his Yellow doesn't go off half the time, but with the correct support he's fast enough to kill the opposing team before they can get off a high-damage power. They look at the characters and intuitively understand or logically derive that faster characters mean they have to spend less time on each fight, take less damage, and they can play more or alternately, finish and spend time with their families.

Everyone complains about the Hulk PVP because Hulk is a giant pain in the tinykitty solely because of his health -- and now everyone who's not top 10 is going to have more health?

I think that the floor for general visibility should be raised and the MMR needs to be adjusted; maybe shields need to be cheaper if you're not going to be able to play as many matches.

I'm not super certain about the math either, but it seems reasonable to ask - if characters have 30% more health, and matches are going to take longer, the points gained for winning a match should go up by 50%. Just having more points in the system would make it feel like you were progressing at the same rate.

GothicKratos

simonsez wrote:

GothicKratos wrote:

NorthernPolarity wrote:

2. Increase the number of health packs given to a player.
...one every 15 minutes.

I'm on board with changing up how many Health Packs we have available, but 32 an hour sounds pretty over-the-top.

Not sure where you are, but here we only have 60 minutes in an hour, not 480.

Yeah, my bad. I read it as '8 every 15 minutes', but really, nice way to nitpick and try and make me look like a big baddie, when I said it was a good idea to adjust the amount of Health Packs needed.