New MMR means 20% less points lost, but 1000% more attacks

Vhailorx

To me this is the most damaging aspect of the all of the recent game changes.

As many others have pointed out, this recent package of changes has radically transformed MPQ. The nerfs/buffs and health changes have been discussed elsewhere, and it's hard to say what their full effect will be until they take effect.

But the MMR changes are already in place and they are basically terrible (obviously, this is subjective to my experience. I am basically a 3*-->4*, with a deep but not complete 3* roster and a fledgling 4* roster). Losing fewer points when attacked is nice. But the attacks start coming below 300 points now, and they only get more intense above 500.

Being in a top 100 pvp alliance prior to these changes usually meant averaging PVP score of 650-700. That was relatively straightforward with a good 3* roster: play to just under 600, sit while health packs recharged, then rush up for an hour or so and shield (then hop if necessary for 1k). It took a reasonable amount of time and effort, but was reliable and doable. In the new system, it is basically necessary to shield from 400+. sitting there for even 30 minutes unshielded means several hits and 60+ points lost. Obviously pvp scores are way down, so the minimum scores for top alliances will likely go down too, but that just leads to another problem:

Basically this new MMR undoes any player benefit achieved by the revamped PVP prog reward structure (or alternately, one could argue that the revamped prog rewards were intended to keep the rewards stable when the new MMR went into effect). So the 1k 4* cover has now effectively been raised back to 1300.

I don't have a clear sense of what demiurge thinks the ideal pvp system would entail, but it seems pretty clear that their stated goals have not been achieved.

Personally, I have not found it fun at all. If this system is the new normal, then I don't think I will remain with a competitive top 100 alliance. I will almost certainly continue to play the game sporadically, but pvp just isn't enough fun like this to justify the time/effort necessary to be in a top alliance.

thbrown81

The good news is, 4* covers are irrelevant.

Arimis_Thorn

Yeah I'm mixed. I'm no high end player (on the later part of the 2->3 transition), but before the change I could usually hit around 600 pts for progression rewards and typically score in the top 100 for a single gold cover. My alliance isn't competitive. It's just a casual group of friends, so our alliance rewards are always at the bottom of the list.

But in the new system, while I'm experiencing the same rash of attacks and high end teams right after the seed teams clear, I'm also placing much higher than I ever have. In Smash Hit, I think I was rank 36, which I don't think I'd ever done before. Right now in Blind Justice I'm shielded at 46 and expect to slip down to the 70s or 80s by the end. However I'm also seeing much lower overall scored. The #1 in my slice right now is sitting at 925.

I thought the point of shuffling the progression rewards and making losses less painful point-wise was so that it would be MORE likely to score higher? While I feel like my point rankings are going to be better, progression has slipped quite a bit.

snlf25

You'd think this is worse for 2 stars now. I found one late out of all the mess of high level teams and /i hit him over and over again, just kept skipping til I found him again. I hit him so many times I actually dropped his score so low I couldn't see him anymore. Still looking for another to savage but I can't find one. Good job guys. They thought they had it tough before? Absolute feeding frenzy now.

RoryQ

I was top 100 finisher before and I'm still top 100, way more attacks but the people I'm being matched with offer me way more points. 90% more than 20pts and at least 50% offer more than 25. Love the new changes, way more fun than the rinse, dry, repeat.

Unknown

I dunno about 1000% more. In Hulk and in Daredevil I am seeing way less attacks than in Heavy Metal. That might have something to do with a 290 featured but maybe not.

It is more, and the point loss reduction is supposed to help with that a bit, but ultimately it comes down to hours played. More matches for more points is better rank.

I finished 26th in Hulk due to time constraints, I feel like I could have gotten my top 25 easily if I had put forth effort.

Phumade

I think top ten competitive scores are down all around by around 100 points. I check top alliance standings and their avg points are way off. Hard to say if I like this or not. My scores are down, but my avg placement rank is actually better. So IDK, is it more fun to score over 1K or place in the top 5?

Unknown

Vhailorx wrote:

Personally, I have not found it fun at all. If this system is the new normal, then I don't think I will remain with a competitive top 100 alliance. I will almost certainly continue to play the game sporadically, but pvp just isn't enough fun like this to justify the time/effort necessary to be in a top alliance.

I agree - I've been playing since Season 2, and every change to MPQ makes it more like an unpaid job than a pastime. I'm leaving my t50 alliance after Blind Justice - might merc occasionally, but the need to play for hours a day every day isn't for me.

Unknown

It's difficult to get a sense of the new MMR system, and it will likely be yet another different experience after the 17th, but my experience in the last couple events (Hulk and DD) is,

a. that with a high level roster I can still score between 800-900 with a bit of shielding provided I have a strong version of the featured character.
b. the climb is longer, grindier, because I'm facing comparable teams the whole event after the seeds.
c. I need to boost pretty much every fight (yes, even with max 4* chars) to ensure a win.
d. I get hits (defensive losses) starting from a lower score compared to before. I even got hit below 200 prior to finishing seed teams in the Kingpin event today. (I was like... for reals? o.O)
e. I get more defensive wins than compared to before. This is great except that...
f. I often get defensive wins for very low points, like +3 to +5 points. While a defensive win is nice, it kinda p1sses you off that some punk 500 points below you is able to wager a +40 win on a -3 point loss. This seems to happen especially when you are in the 700-900 point range. It's not like you don't have enough competitors in the 700-800 range, but you have to worry about the bottom feeders too... just feels off...
g. Shield hopping is riskier because the fights are longer. I see more snipes, and more people getting sniped on climbs in the top 10 ranking list (which I monitor real time often near end of events). Shield hopping may only be safe at this point by going a single fight. Two fights is riskier than before in a hop.
h. It does seem to me that going for 1k prog is quite a bit harder now. In the last couple PVPs, I've only seen one player in my bracket top10 reach 1k. That's very different from last week where the full top10 would sometimes reach 1k (if it was an attractive cover). Now, I can score top10 with a score around 850 (I finished 2nd and 7th in the last two events with 880, 840ish respectively). That's remarkably lower than it was last week and last season, and in the Khan event where the MMR apparently was reverted. This may be in part because I run in slice 1 and 3, which tend to be a bit dryer than others, but I'm not sure.

My sense is that the 1k prog is quite a bit harder than previously. I feel it would be equivalent to before if it were lowered to say 900. I don't think this system is totally broken, but I preferred the previous system (with all its flaws) to this one. But, then again, next week will be something totally different yet again, so it goes...

Unknown

Terrible changes to PvP events causing many it seems, me included, to just avoid playing them. I may not have consistently played to top ranking nor furnished huge scores but was able to work my way to 3-400+ point range for every event. This would translate to ending well enough to earn Heroic 10 pack progression reward for that Season. At least I would earn the PvP event token and 25 HP without getting much, if any retaliation attacks. In fact just posting this reply I got attacked and I only played the first 3 low level filler teams for Blind Justice. I just had 70 points, well now 68. I just don't want to face a 270/166/166 superior team and have my roster decimated, losing points and going backwards in these events.

Unknown

Its safe to say that nearly all of us are having a harder time with the new MMR, both the vets and the rest of the community. It almost feels like the devs lowered the 4* progression reward to 1000 Points and then realised that it might have become a bit too easy for the vets and 3* rosters to hit that progression. So they tried to make the climb a little bit harder but ended up way overdoing it like they do with nerfs and stuffs.

OnesOwnGrief

To me, player habits have changed. When to push has changed. There is still not enough evidence to support that it is harder to climb besides that. Top 5 alliances still have people posting scores higher than 1300 points after they brought the progression down and added cooldowns to shields. For a while now have I been of the understanding that the last 8 hours of a PvP would become the worst time to even attempt to climb because all your top scorers would be shielded and you wouldn't be mooching off their points. They adjusted to things quite well it seems and throwing money at it just isn't going to get you those type of scores without any sort of planning.

Vinmarc43

This change is pure GARBAGE.

Unknown

For seasoned players with solid rosters, I'm sure it's still quite a challenge. However, imagine new players trying to get into this game. They'll just give up. D3 is ruining their future by alienating newcomers to their once fun game.

Dankaminari

GandalfWhite wrote:

Vhailorx wrote:

Personally, I have not found it fun at all. If this system is the new normal, then I don't think I will remain with a competitive top 100 alliance. I will almost certainly continue to play the game sporadically, but pvp just isn't enough fun like this to justify the time/effort necessary to be in a top alliance.

I agree - I've been playing since Season 2, and every change to MPQ makes it more like an unpaid job than a pastime. I'm leaving my t50 alliance after Blind Justice - might merc occasionally, but the need to play for hours a day every day isn't for me.

I've been playing since before season 1. For the first time ever, I was sniped six times during a shield hop while I was in the 700-800 point range. I can't see myself playing this game anymore under the current MMR regime. I have nothing to add to what others have said, the game is worse than a chore now.

Unknown

The new "new MMR" fix for Kingpin has drastically lowered the number of attacks I get. That could be because I'm not immediately top 5 with a score of 600 this time, or it could be because people are actually seeing 166s so hitting 270s is less attractive, or it could be extreme luck. Either way, no more 1000% more attacks, at least in my experience.

rednailz

OnesOwnGrief wrote:

To me, player habits have changed. When to push has changed. There is still not enough evidence to support that it is harder to climb besides that. Top 5 alliances still have people posting scores higher than 1300 points after they brought the progression down and added cooldowns to shields. For a while now have I been of the understanding that the last 8 hours of a PvP would become the worst time to even attempt to climb because all your top scorers would be shielded and you wouldn't be mooching off their points. They adjusted to things quite well it seems and throwing money at it just isn't going to get you those type of scores without any sort of planning.

Um yeah tehre's evidence to support the climb is higher:

- getting hit after you finish seed teams
- harder matches from the start after seed teams, so every match is harder and takes more health packs. I'm facing teams twice as levelled nearly from 75pts on.

Maybe the guys at the top are putting up the same type of scores, but some of us in the middle are finding it much harder. I'm not saying it's "unfair" becuase we are all a part of it, but I clearly have enough evidence, and enough data playing for well over a year to assertain that it's harder.

After last MMR change i noticed it was a lot harder to stay in top 25, but that's life, what I'm talking about isn't placement, it's points. points are harder to get, and once I decide if I'm over all these changes enough to care about going about 500 pts, I'll figure out if it's harder to keep them or not, so far below 500 pts it certainly is.

Unknown

Marvelfreak wrote:

For seasoned players with solid rosters, I'm sure it's still quite a challenge. However, imagine new players trying to get into this game. They'll just give up. D3 is ruining their future by alienating newcomers to their once fun game.

Actually, I don't think that's the case. If you're a newcomer, your MMR based on your roster and past performance is incredibly low. They'll get put into brackets with easy teams corresponding to their weak rosters and lack of past performance. When they reset the MMR before Heavy Metal, I was put into a super easy bracket for Khan's event, having missed Heavy Metal due to Easter, despite having a 50 character roster.

If you're consistently a competitor, eg top 10, you'll get put into a hard bracket no matter how low your roster.

Lidolas

Can you imagine if everyone joined and played at the beginning of each event? Most people would be scoring 600+ simply because of the extra points being generated with the extra fights. You can retal the same person back and forth and you both keep climbing. This is the change that very few forumites seem to understand. MPQ is giving away points now. Just take them!

rednailz

Lidolas wrote:

Can you imagine if everyone joined and played at the beginning of each event? Most people would be scoring 600+ simply because of the extra points being generated with the extra fights. You can retal the same person back and forth and you both keep climbing. This is the change that very few forumites seem to understand. MPQ is giving away points now. Just take them!

I might be confused but that's always existed in some form.

Druss

PvP has now become a grind just like PvP. As stated by OP used to casually climb to 600 then push in the last day to whatever was required.

Now facing maxed teams throughout can only do 2 battles then need to stop or use health packs. By the time my A-team is back to near full health I've lost whatever gained.

Now impossible to put in sub-optimum teams as a) no guarantee of winning vs maxed top-tier 3* teams or better, b) even if you win, painting a target on your back & will lose even more. Been an absolute chore to get to 400.

I'm now moving out of top 100 Alliance also, as not prepared to grind this way. Pretty much going to hit DDQ daily & whatever else I feel like playing without the stress.

Well done D3, **** off message received loud & clear!