After three events with, and one without the new MMR.

Unknown

When we got the new MMR with Heavy Metal I said I'd wait until after Teenage Riot to make any judgments. Then Teenage Riot went back to the old MMR (and it was glorious, and an incredible amount of fun). In Heavy Metal I had a slog to get up to 1k, and used more shields than I typically do, and still didn't quite get it. In Teenage Riot, I made nearly 1100 before shielding and used only a 3 hour shield to do so. Maybe that's too easy, but Heavy Metal was quite frankly, not fun. I was on the verge of quitting during that since it was an unjoyful mess, but I said I'd wait it out.

So since then we have had Smash Hit and Blind Justice under the new MMR.

I have finished top 5 in each of these four events.
Heavy Metal – 3, 8, 24 hour shields used. Couldn't break 1000.
Teenage Riot – 3 hour shield, over 1000 before shielding, broke 1100 at the end.
Smash Hit – 3 and 8 hour, couldn't break 1000, had to hop to cross 900.
Blind Justice – 3 and 8 hour, couldn't break 1000, had to hop to cross 900.

Placements in the 12 PVPs prior to Heavy Metal (not counting Rags pvp which I sat out the end of since season placement was set):
T1 – 0
T5 – 9
T10 – 1
T25 – 3

Two of the top 25 finishes were without shielding at all since they were off season or the score I got was good enough for my season average that an extra shield for top 5/10 would have lost me HP.

Prior to the MMR switch (and with the old MMR in Teenage Riot), I could usually approach 1000 for the 4* reward prior to shielding. If I didn't make it, I could generally get it done with 1 hop, so 2 shields for 1k. Maybe that is less shielding and shield hopping (which I thought many of these changes were meant to discourage, but have instead increased the necessity of) than the devs would like.

So overall, while my scoring has been reduced, my placements haven't really changed. When the devs stated that generally the same players are taking most of the same rewards, I've found that to be true as well. They have lots of data and can find a players average placement, average score to that placement, average fights for a score, average number of shields used, average number of fights with boosts, and all sorts of other cool things. They can compare that for these new MMR pvps, against all of the data from last season, and even further back. The data can probably show a lot of interesting info. With no sarcasm intended, I would honestly love to see some of that data, as it's probably fascinating stuff.

Unfortunately, what that data can likely not tell them is whether their players are having fun. I'm having some fun, but a whole lot less than before. I understand that if I'm consistently finishing in the top 5, I'm in the 1%. Of the harder brackets. I get that. I know that means most content, changes, etc, will not be designed specifically for me, and in some cases it will be designed to counter the way I play. These MMR changes feel that way to me. They actively discourage me from playing the game. It is not fun to only be allowed to play against maxed opponents from the time I clear the seeds. It is not fun that I can't match up with people in my bracket with weaker rosters and better points to defeat them. It is not fun that because we're all segregated and only allowed to fight with each other, I can be targeted from 70 points when I'm at 900 because the player pool of available matches is limited by roster.

At this point if the MMR changes stay I can not see myself playing pvp on a competitive level, or to the level I previously have, after this season ends.

PVE has always been a grind in order to be competitive at the highest end. There has been some progress on that front. The 8 hour refreshes, moving toward many subs being 24 hours instead of 12 or 36, time slices, additional buffed heroes in subs for Heroics, wave nodes, The Gauntlet, expansion of 4* alliance rewards to the top 100 alliances (would still like to see individual rewards go to at least 75, preferably 100/150 for their pve release). While there is still some work that con be done, I feel that overall, PVE really has been improved.

Aside from the grind aspect of PVE and feeling the need to hit everything optimally every 8 hours, there are some nice aspects of PVE. You start off with nodes at whatever difficulty they are, and throughout the event they get tougher. There are also varying difficulties in the nodes themselves. You have some that start at level 40, some that start at level 200. You can use a wide of teams

PVP feels like the opposite of that now. There is no longer any progression in difficulty. Everything is expert mode from the beginning. You do not begin the event fighting easier teams and working your way up to the harder teams as you get to the top of the standings. You begin on teams at your highest level of difficulty (or often harder than that, and it never gets easier), and it simply stays that way.

PVE has progression. It gets harder as the event goes on. It's not only a case of "can you beat it once?", but can you beat it 5 times when it gets harder each time. Varied fights allow varied roster usage. Having a wide array of teams you can throw at those nodes rewards a deep and developed roster. The scaling, which does rightly get some complaints, can serve to restrict who makes it to the finish, which I believe was the intent (even if the execution may need tweaking).

Again with the disclaimer that this is coming from someone who generally sits top 5/10, PVP is now your best team from the very beginning, with little alteration.
I have not kept track in a spreadsheet of the number of fights I did in Heavy Metal, Teenage Riot, Smash Hit, or Blind Justice.
I did not keep track of what level each fight I had was.

I did keep track of how much fun I had. I didn't need a spreadsheet to do it either.
I had way more fun in Teenage Riot. And it's not because I was beating up on lowbies. It was because I was offered a wide variety of matches against an assortment of opponents. I was not locked into endless fights of XF/Goddess/Loki/Hood/Fist(and the occasional Cyclops in Blind Justice, and a stray Lthor or two), which are essentially the only opponents I saw in Heavy Metal, Smash Hit, and Blind Justice.
I'm ok with fighting those teams. That's always been how events finish. I have been fighting against the best teams since before I had the best teams, since that's how I progressed to the point that I had the best teams as well.
I had to do fight those teams in Teenage Riot once I crossed about 600. The rest of the climb from there until past 1000 was done against maxed “optimal” teams. I just don't want to play the entire event against that. Especially when there are unshielded teams near my scores who I can not find because they get invisibility against 3/4* rosters.

Again, the devs actually have all of the numbers and could comment on whether our anecdotal evidence is just an outlier or not. But I'm seeing many vets say they don't want to play this way, where it's a slog the whole time. I'm also seeing 2-3* transitioners quitting as well because they can't even hit 200 now without spending a fortune skipping to find targets, and they probably need the ISO more than I do. I thought these changes were to help that group at the expense of the vets. It sounds like they're not helping anyone at this rate. If the intent was to make it easier for lower tier players to reach the progressions, I'm not sure how all of this is doing it. Reduction of point losses seems to be a step in the right direction, but I'm hoping there is more planned to make this more enjoyable to all players.

TheOncomingStorm

Unfortunately, you made a lot of sense, so I cannot really argue with things that you said.

I will agree PVP is not as much fun. However, my problem more that the increased challenge, is the time commitment. Playing PVE competitively takes a big time commitment. I liked PVP because the time commitment was less and could fit it around my schedules. This got a little harder to do with shield cool downs, but it was not the worst thing in the world. Buffed week was just a horrible slogfest. I had fun most of the first PVP, but was miserable the last two. I like that in PVP the featured has one PVP, which usually just enough time for me to have fun with that character before I am ready to move on to the next featured one. Buffed week just felt like a weeklong PVP, which was not fun.

The new mmr has not been as bad as buffed week. However, I have not tried to go all out for T10 or 1000 because I did not want to use shields or put in the time required to do so. You can say it's a choice; however, there is a finite amount of time per week. If I am going to spend X amount of time on PVE, Y amount on DPDQ, X amount on LR's, that does not leave much available for PVP. And that's not counting Shield Sim (we still have that for some reason right?).

The 4or nerf seemed bad at the time because it came out the same time as buffed week, so she seemed much slower than she actually was. I have no problem playing her now, but matches are significantly slower. The new X-Force will probably also result in slower matches. The higher healths will also likely result in lower matches.

So, it is possible, PVP will become less fun. I will probably continue to compensate by playing the same or more amount of time, but less matches or lower points overall.

That said, I still like the change because it's important that PVP be fun for all players (even new and transition players). I just wish they could come up with some solution that would permit PVP to still be more fun for veterans.

Unknown

I have to agree that the time aspect certainly comes into it for me as well. With the changes to MMR meaning stronger opponents from the get go, the increase in health pools, and reduction in speed for Goddess and XForce, playing to a base score, and then maintaining that score, will take longer.

Of course, this is assuming progressions stay the same. I've seen a slight reduction in scores needed to achieve placement results, so it does stand to reason that if a smaller portion of the playerbase is meeting projections for distributing progressions, that progressions could be lowered again. Some of that also plays into what their view of the 4* game should be and how accessible they want the top progression to be. The 1st place prize is already an established number with 1/500 getting that via PVP. The 1000 points reward is a more telling number. If that's meant to go to 10 or more out of 500 then we are definitely not there currently. If it's meant to go to less than 1 out of 500, that's where we seem to have moved to.

With the stealth update today it seems there has been some slight widening of the available match pool. I've gone from maxed 4* teams to maxed 3* teams, and even had a match with a 200+ XF+OBW (which is a lot more punishing than it looks. She's tiny, but she is scary).

cyineedsn

Running into the same scenario. My general placement in PVP hasn't changed, between 50-100, sometimes top 50. But, generally seeing everyone using only their A-Team and using my own A-Team only has made it more of a slog to climb up the ranks.

Compared to before it used to be a quick sprint, that slowed down at my peak. Now its seed teams, then slow and steady slog all the way through.