A fight to the death in the segregated jungle...

Carnage_78

I am looking at the next set of boosted characters & once again I don’t seem to be at much of an advantaged with these picks. It might actually be a very tough last week or so of the season on my side of things as I will be able to level one good boosted character but won’t be able to form a truly good pair.

The new MMR reality will match my team against other rosters, many of which will have some better boosted characters. As usual, since I won’t have the better character pair of the week, I will be an easier prey than those around me & will get hit by players that barely have points in the event with retaliation almost inexistent in terms of value but still will get only matched against similar teams rather than easier one to give me a break.

Now, I don’t mind getting hit by more powerful teams than mine. After all, that's the jungle’s law & I am good with it. As a roster, I fought through it, got better & stronger to get ahead of the pack, to get an edge over the average player pool.

Recently, this advantage has been erased by the new MMR. What advantage do I still have? Weekly boosted characters? That's a random thing that is there one week & gone the next. I am not too bad off to be honest since I am a character hoarder & have most of them so I usually am able to find one character to build my week's strategy around. The thing is though that not all of them are usable even once boosted or not levelled up properly which leaves me in a not so good situation depending on the weekly picks.

So what did my 9 months of efforts playing this game amount to then if I don’t have an edge over the average MPQ player which are now isolated from my circle of possible match making & still stuck trying to fight more established rosters than mine? An endless struggle seems to be the answer to that. I was keen on fighting my way up & I did but should I not now reap the benefits of all those hours of building up my roster? I got hit countless times by maxed teams over the many months outside of the transitioned land & survived it. Why can’t I be the aggressor now that I am a stronger beast in the jungle?

From the word go in every single event, I need to fight against other rosters never to find any ones to get some type of a decent push, especially at the beginning of events. Usually, after using my health packs, I will stand around the 200 points mark and then over the course of the event I will get hit randomly here & there while going up either all the way to the end or until I shield. Even during my shield hops I seem to be targeted a lot more than I used to. Don't get me wrong, I still manage some good scores but it is much harder & time consuming than it used to be. Heck, I feel like while I was a maxed roster it was easier for me to hit the 500 mark than it is now. Granted, then I could not go much higher than that & now I eventually reach the 700 – 800 mark but still, why is this such a struggle?

Right now my time spent on this game seems to amount to not much at all as I still get hit by rosters but can’t hit ones anymore. The jungle is not an actual food chain anymore but some type of fake divisions or enclosures in which we all get thrown in to fight within that smaller pool of similar foes that are in our time slice. It is not survival of the fittest anymore, just a big bloody fight to the death between somewhat equal foes.

Are rosters isolated between themselves as well? Surely a few of them should pop on my radar once in a while because they have the boosted characters that week or did better than most at their level? I do see some boosted teams here & there but not enough to make this thing sustainable in my opinion. The problem here is that fighting intensely like this for entire events one after the other without a break while doing some initial climbing becomes really heavy.

Now, this is not a rage quitting post or anything. I am addicted to this game & still very much enjoy it overall so I will carry on playing it but I am trying to understand the inner workings of this new system that does not seem like a sustainable environment to me.

I’d actually like to hear from the rosters out there on how the PvP experience is at that level since the MMR changes? Maybe that would help me understand what was the targeted objective in introducing such a system...

EDIT: For reference & to put this into context I've been playing for just over 250 days so I joined sometime before Season VII & made my transition before Season XII.

ballingbees

I believe the weekly buff rotation, combined with MMR, is to create a new tier of 3* player.

Previously, as long as you have a handful of top notch 3* characters, you are effectively a 3* player, this same handful can carry you in every single PVP event, bar having the featured. Now with the buff rotation, those who have a whole stable of 3*s will stand out against those with just the same handful, so it is creating a new tier within the 3* land, rewarding those who have built up a bigger roster.

For better or for worse, I do not know, but if roster diversity is the aim, it sure is working

Carnage_78

ballingbees wrote:

I believe the weekly buff rotation, combined with MMR, is to create a new tier of 3* player.

My thoughts as well...which is fair enough I guess...the bigger & more established the roster, the better chance you get to be boosted for a week.

Hopefully I will get a good pair at some point rather than just one each time...

Roster diversity from week to week, yes I agree & I enjoy it as I get to use different parts of my own roster...but within an event it seems to settle on the pair of the week that you see more than any other combination...so overall probably still good I would say.

The only thing is the getting an event under way that does not allow you to feed off the food chain...but maybe roster suffer just as much which am I curious to know about & also see what type of scores they achieve under the new system compared to before.

Ludaa

When you do get the boosted guys, you'll just have to fight others at the same level. I suppose that's less of an uphill battle.....................................fun, right?

Unknown

I usually go into every PVP and purposefully lose a dozen matches while gradually climbing to 200, waiting until the system gives me achievable nodes. Losing only sacrifices a couple points at a time. After that, the MMR becomes much better for me. PVP has become an effort... to get started! At the end of the PVP, I'm hitting higher and harder rosters, not intentionally losing, so my MMR gets set high for the next round again, setting off the cycle of having to purposefully lose again when the next one starts.

It'd be nice if PVP didn't want to maul you just to get started. I'm ok with getting mauled a little into the jungle, not after I take the first step.

The other thing that sucks is that the beginning of PVP used to be when I would try out my new 1-3 cover characters and try to find combinations with them. I can still do that, but usually get destroyed before the character gets rolling, leaving me questioning whether the new character has any use at all. PVP has become too extreme, less fun, more work. MPQ repeatedly seems to be pushing me into more casual territory, where it really isn't worth spending money. I find this odd.

How I remember it:
In the first 8 hours of a PVP, there would be plenty of people climbing to hit 400 or 500 progression. Besides those looking for an early start, these would also often be 2-3* transitioners who were just aiming for progression rewards, but didn't feel it was worth the effort to maintain rank. There'd be plenty of people to climb up with if you were looking to climb at that time too.

I don't know if the average roster strength has gone up or matchmaking is far less forgiving.

woopie

Tanking has been removed from the MMR calculation so no real point in doing that anymore.

So what would be better, going back to having 1-2 power teams that would dominate until nerfed or the current method of rotating buffs and potentially being hosed for 3-4 events?

Malcrof

Bringing boosted IF into every PVP, even though he is only 2/3/5. You want to fight me, it is going to cost you health packs at minimum to take my points away

TxMoose

last season I had a much better time ranking. this season it seems very hard to stay t100 without shielding. I have 2 guys above the low 100s, 166thor and 142loki. I bought covers and got them high a little before they started the widespread buffs and it was easy then, now its work. it helps that I have almost half of my ***s at 104+ now, but very few are covered well and those aren't top tier that are worth the iso anyway. will be nice when they finish all the low tier characters here - scrapping for beast, doc ock, vision, and colossus is getting old.

SnowcaTT

ballingbees wrote:

I believe the weekly buff rotation, combined with MMR, is to create a new tier of 3* player.

Previously, as long as you have a handful of top notch 3* characters, you are effectively a 3* player, this same handful can carry you in every single PVP event, bar having the featured. Now with the buff rotation, those who have a whole stable of 3*s will stand out against those with just the same handful, so it is creating a new tier within the 3* land, rewarding those who have built up a bigger roster.

For better or for worse, I do not know, but if roster diversity is the aim, it sure is working

Carnage mentions the problem: it's a week-to-week diversity.

Without boosts, there was the problem that all you would see is the best five or so 3*'s (LT/IF/Hood). But you'd also see lots of 4*'s when you got into the upper ranges. So there was a (very) little diversity, but it was the same teams forever.

With boosts, I see almost all the best two boosted 2*'s. We were joking in-alliance this is Blade/Cmag week; that's pretty much all I see past 300 points. There seems to be less diversity than ever in any given week - but at least that top pairing changes every week.

I honestly am not sure if I'd rather see the same teams every week when they have a lower health tier, or the same boosted team all week long at a higher health tier. At least I don't have to worry about not having 4*'s anymore, that is the primary bonus.

dr tinykittylove

SnowcaTT wrote:

ballingbees wrote:

I believe the weekly buff rotation, combined with MMR, is to create a new tier of 3* player.

Previously, as long as you have a handful of top notch 3* characters, you are effectively a 3* player, this same handful can carry you in every single PVP event, bar having the featured. Now with the buff rotation, those who have a whole stable of 3*s will stand out against those with just the same handful, so it is creating a new tier within the 3* land, rewarding those who have built up a bigger roster.

For better or for worse, I do not know, but if roster diversity is the aim, it sure is working

Carnage mentions the problem: it's a week-to-week diversity.

Without boosts, there was the problem that all you would see is the best five or so 3*'s (LT/IF/Hood). But you'd also see lots of 4*'s when you got into the upper ranges. So there was a (very) little diversity, but it was the same teams forever.

With boosts, I see almost all the best two boosted 2*'s. We were joking in-alliance this is Blade/Cmag week; that's pretty much all I see past 300 points. There seems to be less diversity than ever in any given week - but at least that top pairing changes every week.

I honestly am not sure if I'd rather see the same teams every week when they have a lower health tier, or the same boosted team all week long at a higher health tier. At least I don't have to worry about not having 4*'s anymore, that is the primary bonus.

Conversely, thanks to the fact 4*s only get a minor buff in comparison, I can't really play with mine as much unless i want to dedicate my life to maxing them, whereas they were perfectly viable at 3* levels before.

MarvelMan

SnowcaTT wrote:

With boosts, I see almost all the best two boosted 2*'s. We were joking in-alliance this is Blade/Cmag week; that's pretty much all I see past 300 points. There seems to be less diversity than ever in any given week - but at least that top pairing changes every week.

Its micro diversity vs macro diversity. And youre right, I dont know which is better. With Blade/CMag this week, I see maxed versions from my first match (I typically dont join prior to the event starting so no seeds). Occasionally there is a Frank/CMag, but they are all 240s. I ran into a XFist....but that was just one. I will say, there is variation this week and last since there are fewer people with maxed IMHB/SheHulks.....so there is that.

dr tinykittylove

Malcrof wrote:

Bringing boosted IF into every PVP, even though he is only 2/3/5. You want to fight me, it is going to cost you health packs at minimum to take my points away

I find the image of IF as an angry poodle growling and chewing on the ankles of the enemy rather amusing. I frequently use him for that purpose - the damage adds up very quickly, especially if you have someone who makes strikes cheaply, like daken or blade.