How are the hard-core PvP alliances handling the "new MMR?"

Unknown

Bowgentle wrote:

camichan wrote:

It seems I'm not alone. I'm ranked about 11th-14th in my season 13 bracket (without touching simulator yet and not breaking 850 in any PVP event, about 5k score atm), I used to typically be fighting for top50 season placement (in a death bracket where top 10 was 12k -17k season scores) throughout the past 3-4 seasons. Either I got a very lucky (dead) bracket this season, or lots of people have left, or have gone super casual like me.

Yes, you got very lucky.

My season bracket T10 ranges from 9500 to 8000, and my 5146 gives me rank 200.

Looks like you're right - I got a very lucky bracket this season (only top couple guys are from X-men, then a big drop off after that). A couple of my alliance mates got death brackets (fighting for top100 with 5k+) while others got dead brackets (placed top 10 with ~5k currently). The disparity in the brackets seems to be what is noteworthy... I can't recall seeing that kind of disparity previously. Hmm...

puppychow

Arondite wrote:

Oddly, the change hasn't impacted me too terribly. This is more due to my determination and the fact that I've always been punching above my weight class than anything else - I always sought 40 point matches even if they were 270's (and usually, matches of that value were). The fact that every match is 270's now hasn't changed that - I still just look for the 40 pointers.

I did a string of retals last nite against max gt/xf teams, none worth 40 points. Unfortunately, it's tough for me to find targets worth even 30 points nowadays.

puppychow

MarCr wrote:

I would like to get a look at their last two quarterly figures and see if their new model worked. I haven't spent money in about 3 months and there seems to be a lot of disenfranchised like me. While I don't disagree with your sentiment, I just feel that they took it too far and cynically ignored their customers.

There's a better way than looking at quarterly figures. All you need to do is to look at the rosters of your pvp matchups. Specifically look at the covers and levels of the newly released characters, like Hulkbuster and Vision. It is is almost IMPOSSIBLE for players to have 13 covers for these characters WITHOUT buying covers.

Take HB as an example. It was released this month via Avengers vs. Ultron event. If you're one of the TWO alliances in the game who managed to clear all 8 rounds, you get 3 covers. Enemy event gave you 4 for 1st placement or 3 for top 5, plus 1 for alliance. How many players fit that profile? out of the 40 players in those 2 alliances (Tacos and Best, if I remember correctly) placed 1st in enemy of the state pve event? I would say probably none. Yet, in the subsequent HB pvp event, I saw many guys with maxed out HBs. That alone tells me a lot of players purchased both covers and probably iso as well to have a 350 HB for that event.

I think the sales figures are fine for D3. There are too many newcomers willing to shell out money to play catch up right now in order to field a competitive pvp/e roster, and this more than compensates for any quitters from the game, or veterans who stopped spending money.

Dekliko1978

It has been made harder and harder to consistantly reach the 1k mark.

I'm in a very relaxed but hardcore crew. No hard requirements but everyone still tries to reach as high as possible, most will pass the 1k mark. But all the recent changes by d3 has resulted in the need to really manage your gametime around your rl.
Before shield cooldowns you could get away with climbing in your own pace and remain unshielded at the 7-800 point mark and do the last climb to 1300 in however much hops you were willing to spend and at the moment you wanted/were able to play.

Then shards were introduced. For people that want to reach the highest progression the biggest benefit of the shards was being able to choose between easy progression or easy placement. This of course only works when having 'inside' information of were the real high scoring alliances are. For people without this information and only selecting a shard based on convenient ending times you can get really screw yourself.
This still was somewhat managable, but the introduction of the new mmr and facing fully maxed teams from 0 onwards, unless you are in the high scoring shard, means reaching 1k is extremely expensive.

On top of all the MMR **** they pulled they added extremely buffed characters and increased health. Basically it means you have really plan your way to 1k with health pack regeneration, shields and investing ISO in the right characters.

Biggest downside of all these changes is not being able to play when you WANT to play, but more when you NEED to play to reach the highest progression. I do still like the game but I would love to get back to a situation where it was possible to just protect your score with a shield whenever your real life demanded your attention

Unknown

puppychow wrote:

There's a better way than looking at quarterly figures. All you need to do is to look at the rosters of your pvp matchups. Specifically look at the covers and levels of the newly released characters, like Hulkbuster and Vision. It is is almost IMPOSSIBLE for players to have 13 covers for these characters WITHOUT buying covers.

Take HB as an example. It was released this month via Avengers vs. Ultron event. If you're one of the TWO alliances in the game who managed to clear all 8 rounds, you get 3 covers. Enemy event gave you 4 for 1st placement or 3 for top 5, plus 1 for alliance. How many players fit that profile? out of the 40 players in those 2 alliances (Tacos and Best, if I remember correctly) placed 1st in enemy of the state pve event? I would say probably none. Yet, in the subsequent HB pvp event, I saw many guys with maxed out HBs. That alone tells me a lot of players purchased both covers and probably iso as well to have a 350 HB for that event.

I think the sales figures are fine for D3. There are too many newcomers willing to shell out money to play catch up right now in order to field a competitive pvp/e roster, and this more than compensates for any quitters from the game, or veterans who stopped spending money.

Whales will always be whales and new players will always rashly spend money on things they think will help (quite often only until they see their first bank statement), but I was wondering how much impact the disillusioned middle had on the total.

SnowcaTT

The whales that make me SMH are those that had max Vision. Max HB - I get it, you paid for the good. Max Vision....you must have had some burnin' money laying around.

Unknown

You know what would be interesting? An AMA with the commander of the top alliance. I am a fairly casual player and I have so many questions. How did you alliance get so good? How much money do you spend? Etc etc

Can this happen?

MarvelMan

Bowgentle wrote:

camichan wrote:

It seems I'm not alone. I'm ranked about 11th-14th in my season 13 bracket (without touching simulator yet and not breaking 850 in any PVP event, about 5k score atm), I used to typically be fighting for top50 season placement (in a death bracket where top 10 was 12k -17k season scores) throughout the past 3-4 seasons. Either I got a very lucky (dead) bracket this season, or lots of people have left, or have gone super casual like me.

Yes, you got very lucky.

My season bracket T10 ranges from 9500 to 8000, and my 5146 gives me rank 200.

So I'm not seeing a dropoff of high scorers - some people from the big alliances went casual, yes, but they were replaced by other high scorers immediately.

Points are lower across the board, yes. But the people going for 1K are still hitting 1K, and the guys going for 1800 are still hitting that, too. Although I have no idea why you'd want to spend upwards of 2000 HP per PVP doing that.

Django dropped the minimum to 600 now, and we're at least T50 all the time, most of the time T25, which is due to our crazies (and robots) hitting 1100+ most of the time.
It's probably crazy stressful in a constantly T10 alliance, but below that it's pretty cozy.

I think its more that you got unlucky. Im in a different season bracket (sitting 16th so I see full 1-20 atm) and top is 9k, but 5th is only 6k.....and cami is no where to be seen. Ive put up 200 in Sim, and if I stay top 25 that might be all I stomach.

stochasticism

simonsez wrote:

The biggest impact is being in a constant state of recruitment because more people have had enough. We were very stable for several seasons... no movement at all. Now we seem to be in a constant state of 18-19.

This has nothing to do with being in PvP. In PvE we had the same problem in a t50 alliance because of Ultron, the slew of new characters and the interminable grind for the last month. Today is the first day in about 2 weeks that we have had a full alliance of competent players.