PVP progression rewards need tweaking, again

sinnerjfl

Consider the following changes PVP has gone through:
health buff to a lot of chars, nerfs to X-Force/Thoress, multiple powered-up chars, the new MMR *shudders*, and especially this "you can be seen by EVERYONE after a certain treshold" which makes it hard to climb past 800.

The progression rewards need to be looked at again. Reaching 1000 feels very hard to reach unless you use shields (a lot, something the devs don't want us to do, go figure that one out). It needs to be lowered again.

This is about the only reliable way to get 's and since you don't seem to want that to change, lower the 1000 prog reward to something that accounts for all the changes.

Unknown

The overall PVP situation would be better if there were a few throwaway battles at the start (*cough* seed teams *cough*) so that everyone could start on a winning foot, even casual players and those with not a lot of time.

Instead, they've killed the overall ecosystem, but killing all the fodder.

MarvelMan

Why do you want the s? They have made it ABUNDANTLY clear those are just trophies. Use them and they will get nerfed.

Unknown

I don't mind the MMR but I think the games should be over a longer period of timeframe now. Now that you're matched with appropriately strong players, having to discard everything every 2.5 days seem kind of excessive. Seriously, I didn't forget everything I know about this game in the last 2.5 days and neither did the same 25 guys I usually get matched up with. Of course the reward structure will have to be revamped to accomodate for less frequent events. Can you imagine if another competitive event they expect to sort everyone out on 2.5 days? Yes a lot of competitive event only last that long, but they go through a rather lengthy qualifying process to make sure the 50 guys they have are pretty close to the top 50 guys in the world and then 2 days is enough to settle that.

GrumpySmurf1002

1000 is certainly too high right now, but 800 isn't all that difficult. 900-925, something like that would probably work best.

Shield Sim is a way bigger problem. I found it almost impossible to break 1600 last season, whereas before I was consistently between 1900-2100, depending on time devoted. Further, I was still roughly top 25 in my sim bracket, whereas before I was lucky to be top 50.

Somewhat anecdotal evidence, but the rewards there with the new MMR are completely out of whack.

MarvelMan

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

Somewhat anecdotal evidence, but the rewards there with the new MMR are completely out of whack.

Just about everyone I talk to (chat, line, RL, forums) says they enjoy PVP less so is it possible that its not really the MM (although roster strength is linked with MM in the broad view) but just fewer people playing?

simonsez

The problem is more shards, and the way alliances play PvP, moreso than MMR. If you're in the shard where all the heavy hitters went, 1000 is actually, dare I say, easy. If you're in a different shard, it's basically impossible, unless you find a few people with whom to coordinate intensively, and do it 25 points at a time, instead of 45.

Unknown

The ELO is designed to be a pyramid scheme as it takes a large number of people with less points to support one guy with a lot more points. While the game's implementation distorts some of that, the basic premise hasn't changed. Let's say you need 100 guys at 800 for 1 guy to hit 1000 in a no shield environment (e.g. one of those guy is going to be lucky enough to somehow avoid all the hits while climbing). Does this mean only 1 guy can hit 1000? No, because the guy who hit 1000 and then drop back down to being one of the guy at 800 and let someone else hit 1000, and people can just keep on pass the 1000 rating around even if there are no shields. Maybe not every one of those 100 guys will hit 1000 but most of them will. Of course since we have shields the first guy who hit 1000 doesn't even have to give up anything. He just puts up his shield and the other 99 guys benefit from his 1000 rating if they're lucky enough to have him queued and it's all good from there.

But what if you only have 10 guys with 800 points? You don't have the critical mass to even push to 1000 nor is there a motivation to push since in this shard the guy with 800 is probably at least #5 and #6 is probably at 500 points. Sure, that lead might not hold up like that all the way, but if your bracket looks like 810 805 801 500 450 450 there's just no reason why you'd suddenly break a shield and hit 3 guys worth 10 points. The only way you'd be able to push for 1000 is if all 10 guys with 800 points agree, and they're taking a relatively large amount of risk since they'd obviously immediately get lit up by the 500-600 point guys, and when you have only 10 guys with 800 points it's far more likely any particular individual gets lit up compared to 100 guys at 800.

esoxnepa

Phantron wrote:

I don't mind the MMR but I think the games should be over a longer period of timeframe now. Now that you're matched with appropriately strong players, having to discard everything every 2.5 days seem kind of excessive. Seriously, I didn't forget everything I know about this game in the last 2.5 days and neither did the same 25 guys I usually get matched up with. Of course the reward structure will have to be revamped to accomodate for less frequent events. Can you imagine if another competitive event they expect to sort everyone out on 2.5 days? Yes a lot of competitive event only last that long, but they go through a rather lengthy qualifying process to make sure the 50 guys they have are pretty close to the top 50 guys in the world and then 2 days is enough to settle that.

Extending the total time for the PvP event won't address the issue that people will wait until late in the event to start. This, combined with no checkpoint or cumulative point progression system, or some other way to reward early climbers, creates a game of chicken. How late can you start PvP and climb to where the shield hopping begins.

The MMR change is another attempt to shoehorn in a short term fix, while creating other problems. Now people don't feel the sense of progression that Puzzle Quest games are known for. You advance your roster, for no visible gain. Now, PvP has become a chore about shield hopping ($$) and coordination (out of game communication.) The things they claim they want to reduce.

If they really make money from pack and roster slot sales, then allowing people to climb over weaker teams is needed to maintain the feeling of growth. You can change the "stick" of point losses on weak teams into a "carrot." Change what happens with a loss, allow the point loss, but reward the losses with ISO or other items that have new players feel like they are contributing to the whole of the community. By keeping these new players engaged in a positive way, they stay, and invest in the game and community.

Unknown

esoxnepa wrote:

Extending the total time for the PvP event won't address the issue that people will wait until late in the event to start. This, combined with no checkpoint or cumulative point progression system, or some other way to reward early climbers, creates a game of chicken. How late can you start PvP and climb to where the shield hopping begins.

The MMR change is another attempt to shoehorn in a short term fix, while creating other problems. Now people don't feel the sense of progression that Puzzle Quest games are known for. You advance your roster, for no visible gain. Now, PvP has become a chore about shield hopping ($$) and coordination (out of game communication.) The things they claim they want to reduce.

If they really make money from pack and roster slot sales, then allowing people to climb over weaker teams is needed to maintain the feeling of growth. You can change the "stick" of point losses on weak teams into a "carrot." Change what happens with a loss, allow the point loss, but reward the losses with ISO or other items that have new players feel like they are contributing to the whole of the community. By keeping these new players engaged in a positive way, they stay, and invest in the game and community.

Well, there's nothing that incentivizes you to play early period unless you're trying to run up the score with a methodical shield hop. I don't see a problem with longer event in this issue because even if playing at the end is somehow cheap, people are already doing that anyway and let's say instead of 3 events in one week we have 1 event in one week, at best running the same cheap tactic on one long event is as effective as running the same cheap tactics 3 times on events with 1/3 the length and if anything people might be able to save some time because you've to do it less frequently and that's better than nothing. Yes I do agree it's a problem that there should be a reason to play early, but it's not like having an event every 2.5 days accomplishes that.

I think at some point PvP progression has to be changed to some kind of 'quality win' system as opposed to a score because unless they made some fundamental changes to the scoring system, some numbers are just too easy and some numbers are just too hard and D3 seems to think eventually they'll set on the 'right' number but I don't think the magic number even exists. Something like say every day you get a special token for 10 quality victories in PvP. You can still keep the same scoring system for placement, but at least that way when you're spinning in circles you're still getting something.

Pylgrim

I actually have been hitting 800 points much more reliably in the latest weeks. Matches may be more difficult but spending thousands of iso in skips trying to find an opponent that gives you more than 20 points is a thing of the past. I'm reliable finding players that give me 30-40 points, 25 at worst. That not only makes the climb much quicker, it also greatly diminishes retaliations, as the guy that I hit for 37 won't want to hit me back for 15 or whatever.

If you are having trouble with the increased difficulty of the matches (what with the death of X-"8 green mana to win"-Force, increased health and extra buffed characters) and you find yourself running through your health packs quicker, the solution is to start earlier. Not only does that mean that the likelihood of other players playing exactly at the same time and attacking you is smaller, it also means that you have more opportunities to just put the phone down and wait for the packs to regenerate.

I believe that most of these changes were made to discourage people from the tried-and-true old way of playing pvps: wait until few hours left in the event, blaze through it until reaching the target amount of points and then shield, maybe repeating it a couple of times if you were aiming for a really high score. Now it's better to play through the full duration of the event.

ErikPeter

Unfortunately that logic only really holds for maxed players. I'd love to make the 4* transition but I've just got XFW and Fury at 8 and 9 covers, respectively. I can win battles with blue and black, but I'm a pretty easy target; 800 points is pretty much out of reach for me unless I spend a lot of HP on shields, and 1000? No way. I start getting attacked, a lot, around 350 points and spend a lot of time and energy getting to 5-600. That's a lot of work for a tinykitty Beast cover, or whatever it is I'm shooting for. Post 500 at the end of the event? Lucky if I can even tread water boosting matches as fast as I can.

And I don't know where you're finding matches worth 35. Unless I'm jumping in late (as I am currently incentivized to do), it's hard to find anything over 25 (and they'll probably just retaliate to get the points back).

Maybe next week, when more of my maxed 3*s (or my two usable 4*s) are powered up, it won't sting as much, but logging into "You've been attacked! -150 points" has been turning me off of PvP.

sinnerjfl

Pylgrim wrote:

If you are having trouble with the increased difficulty of the matches (what with the death of X-"8 green mana to win"-Force, increased health and extra buffed characters) and you find yourself running through your health packs quicker, the solution is to start earlier. Not only does that mean that the likelihood of other players playing exactly at the same time and attacking you is smaller, it also means that you have more opportunities to just put the phone down and wait for the packs to regenerate.

I'm just gonna tell you right away that you're wrong about starting earlier = less retaliations. I tried that several times and it is actually worse because as soon as you reach the magic treshold that makes you visible to everyone, you just get smashed with -100 every 30 minutes. And that is with max featured char/ maxed characters. Shield you say? Oh sure, let me shield with 36 hours left in the event

To me that is the biggest problematic change they made, it makes no sense that someone just starting can hit me for -38 and the retaliation is worth 1. That actually favors people starting late so I don't buy that their changes were meant to squash late joins.

Pylgrim

sinnerjfl wrote:

Pylgrim wrote:

If you are having trouble with the increased difficulty of the matches (what with the death of X-"8 green mana to win"-Force, increased health and extra buffed characters) and you find yourself running through your health packs quicker, the solution is to start earlier. Not only does that mean that the likelihood of other players playing exactly at the same time and attacking you is smaller, it also means that you have more opportunities to just put the phone down and wait for the packs to regenerate.

I'm just gonna tell you right away that you're wrong about starting earlier = less retaliations. I tried that several times and it is actually worse because as soon as you reach the magic treshold that makes you visible to everyone, you just get smashed with -100 every 30 minutes. And that is with max featured char/ maxed characters. Shield you say? Oh sure, let me shield with 36 hours left in the event

Isn't the threshold above 800 or so? When I say "start early" I don't meant "get all the points you want in the first hours of the event. I meant get 1-200 points every 6 hours or so until there's a good time to start shielding and you are close enough to do a good push before shielding and be almost there. You have to strike a balance of getting points but not becoming the biggest target.

ErikPeter wrote:

Unfortunately that logic only really holds for maxed players. I'd love to make the 4* transition but I've just got XFW and Fury at 8 and 9 covers, respectively. I can win battles with blue and black, but I'm a pretty easy target; 800 points is pretty much out of reach for me unless I spend a lot of HP on shields, and 1000? No way. I start getting attacked, a lot, around 350 points and spend a lot of time and energy getting to 5-600. That's a lot of work for a tinykitty Beast cover, or whatever it is I'm shooting for. Post 500 at the end of the event? Lucky if I can even tread water boosting matches as fast as I can.

And I don't know where you're finding matches worth 35. Unless I'm jumping in late (as I am currently incentivized to do), it's hard to find anything over 25 (and they'll probably just retaliate to get the points back).

Maybe next week, when more of my maxed 3*s (or my two usable 4*s) are powered up, it won't sting as much, but logging into "You've been attacked! -150 points" has been turning me off of PvP.

Yeah, sounds to me that you haven't entirely finished your 2-3* transition so you shouldn't worrying about your 3-4* status.

Unknown

Assuming you're not on a stranded time slice you can definitely make progress toward 800 or even 1000 by just playing a lot assuming your roster is indeed strong relative to your opponent. But the key word here is 'play a lot' and I'm not sure if I want to do that much playing every 2.5 days with other PvE events around. I guess D3 always wanted people to pick which events to do well but it just doesn't work out very well. Then there's also the fact that you've to worry about what if you ended up in a stranded slice and that you were just wasting your time because you're one of the 10 guys in your slice with a score of 800 and you'll never hit 1000 barring some kind of miraculous coordination with all other 9 guys with the same score as you.

Taganov

Pylgrim wrote:

Isn't the threshold above 800 or so? When I say "start early" I don't meant "get all the points you want in the first hours of the event. I meant get 1-200 points every 6 hours or so until there's a good time to start shielding and you are close enough to do a good push before shielding and be almost there. You have to strike a balance of getting points but not becoming the biggest target.

I can't recall when the threshold was ever as high as 800. After the recent change you're looking at 450 or so before you're visible. By 550, between hits and retaliations, I can't keep points on the board unless I engage in shield hopping, which I won't.

EDIT: I will say that was the PvP where SW was the prize. Just checked and I'm T50 in the one with Beast as the prize with 343 points. Thought I'd login to throw some points on the board, but looks like neither I nor anyone else can be bothered.

OnesOwnGrief

My roster got kneecapped by the XF Nerf and I'm still in the process of recovering. I can still reach 800 points. If my roster was a bit more competitive, I'm sure I'd reach 1K. I don't see why lowering the threshold any more would change anything. We got enough people to scares to hit High HP 4* rosters already. We don't need more.

MarvelMan

ErikPeter wrote:

Unfortunately that logic only really holds for maxed players. I'd love to make the 4* transition but I've just got XFW and Fury at 8 and 9 covers, respectively. I can win battles with blue and black, but I'm a pretty easy target; 800 points is pretty much out of reach for me unless I spend a lot of HP on shields, and 1000? No way. I start getting attacked, a lot, around 350 points and spend a lot of time and energy getting to 5-600. That's a lot of work for a tinykitty Beast cover, or whatever it is I'm shooting for. Post 500 at the end of the event? Lucky if I can even tread water boosting matches as fast as I can.

And I don't know where you're finding matches worth 35. Unless I'm jumping in late (as I am currently incentivized to do), it's hard to find anything over 25 (and they'll probably just retaliate to get the points back).

Maybe next week, when more of my maxed 3*s (or my two usable 4*s) are powered up, it won't sting as much, but logging into "You've been attacked! -150 points" has been turning me off of PvP.

There is NO 3->4 transition. There are no methods for reliably obtaining 4* covers, there is no real reason to get them (cost is WAY higher than 3* with almost no difference in strength) and any good 4* is likely to get beat down with a nerf bat, they are just too niche right now.

Unknown

Just thought I'd bump this topic in the wake of the most recent seasons. Thanks to health buffs across the board and the big band of buffed toons in each event, it takes far too long to finish a match. In the past two PvPs, I haven't been able to clear 2 matches without getting slammed after unshielding. So I can unshield at 900 and get through one match, but by the end of match 2 I've been hit for 100.

So...yay? I appreciate that 4* characters are apparently not supposed to matter, but 1000 points has become waaaay too hard to reach. Selectively rolling back some health buffs would help. Changing the boost cap back to 3 would help. Restructuring PvP scoring so that you can't lose 4 matches while you win one would help (a lot).

Or the 4* prize could drop to 900. But, seriously. The 4* prize has moved more or less out of reach. Again.

mouser

MarvelMan wrote:

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

Somewhat anecdotal evidence, but the rewards there with the new MMR are completely out of whack.

Just about everyone I talk to (chat, line, RL, forums) says they enjoy PVP less so is it possible that its not really the MM (although roster strength is linked with MM in the broad view) but just fewer people playing?

That would kind of be The Chicken or the Egg situation though wouldn't it?

Is the MMR worse because people aren't playing PVP as much, or are people not playing PVP as much because the MMR is worse?

Arondite

Current Reward Structure:

25. Standard Token
50. 100
100. +3 All Boosts
200.
300.
400. 25
500. 1000
575. 25
650.
725. 50
800.
850. 1000
900.
950. 1000
1000.


My Suggested Reward Structure

25. Standard Token
50. 100
75. +3 All Boosts
100.
150.
200. 25
300. 1000
400. 25
500.
550. 50
600.
650. 1000
700.
775. 1000
850.