Changes To Scoring In Versus Events

Unknown

daibar wrote:

If you want to inject points, I think it's still faster to continually lose battles at 0, even if you are only putting in 13 additional points per loss.

Haven;t you heard? losing on purpose is a sin

Moon Roach

I see a match for 30 and think, oh good. Then I remember that parity is now 38 and I'm opening myself up to a net loss with a retaliation. This is going to take some getting used to, kind of like when max levels went up.

whitecat31

Moon Roach wrote:

Playing with my spread sheet, I found a few interesting things, but this one on retaliation I thought I'd share.

Starting with A and B, both on 500.

A attacks B and wins, gains 38, B loses 19, now we have 538 and 491.
B retaliates and wins, gains 44, A loses 23, now we have 515 and 525.
A retaliates and wins, gains 39, B loses 20, now we have 554 and 505.
B retaliates and wins, gains 43, A loses 24, now we have 530 and 548.
A retaliates and wins, gains 39, B loses 22, now we have 569 and 526.

To cut a long story short, after 14 retaliations both are above 600, after 30 they're over 700, 53 gets them 800, 97 gets them 900, then I lost the will to live, or at least the will to copy and paste.

Starting from 0, 18 mutual retaliations gets both A and B the token at 300.

Completely academic and unrealistic, and of no real value, but I'm sharing it anyway.

Darn it. You are showing off the next boost plan. The Dev team did not do the math, but basically, they are giving too many points for the wins to offset their patchwork fix to their last patchwork fix.
In the past, when they were correctly using the ELO, things would equalize. They are using a corrupted form of the ELO, and there are mathematic consequences for that.

Anyway the new boost method.
A and B attack and beat each other up and climb with the free points as you showed above, while enforcers C, D, and E triple team anybody who interferes with player A or B in call outs. Players C, D, and E, can now drop rapidly in points, thanks to this new system by donating to climbers A and B, and make sure whomever they hit for interfering with A and B suffer dramatically.

Welcome to
Age of Enforcer

Eddiemon

fmftint wrote:

One thing I haven't seen considered, what is this going to do to the 2* and transitioning player? Right now they are insulated from high level attacks, until they cross a certain point threshold. They too will be getting 50% more points, exposing them earlier and longer than before. A T100 finish may become impossible for them once again. But hey, they got 1-2 more progression rewards...

I don't believe it is a 'point threshold', but rather when you get into the top X% it can no longer be so choosy with your matchups and starts matching you more against people near your score and less against people with your MMR.

If everyone's score is boosted then it takes a higher score to get into that top X% where it is difficult to match purely on MMR.

whitecat31

MyNameIsRed wrote:

Just out of curiosity, has anyone come up with a better, universally accepted solution?

Not trying to troll, just wondering if anyone has any other ideas. I've given it some thought and every solution I think of is flawed.

Instead of pointing out the problems (which seem well documented) how about some discussion on solutions?

Yes, but it takes a competent programmer to implement it.
Basically, the boosting they are complaining about comes from somebody finding a partner in the queue and attacking them and retreating from them in a rapid fashion, while the partner did the same thing in turn. This was the large majority of the so called retreat wars boosting.
The easy solution would be to make a 2 minute timer occur that would prevent the targeting of the person that you "retreated" from. Simple elegant, and it directly targets the culprits of the retreat wars.

Yes there would be ways to game this system, but it would take coordination and patience most people just do not have.

Der_Lex

Well, the partial changes implemented in the Nefarious Villains event are a trainwreck so far. There are so few points at the top end that I think the amount of people that will hit 1k this time are about equal to the amount of people who finished the second Ultron run.

whitecat31

Der_Lex wrote:

Well, the partial changes implemented in the Nefarious Villains event are a trainwreck so far. There are so few points at the top end that I think the amount of people that will hit 1k this time are about equal to the amount of people who finished the second Ultron run.

Or...some of us broke 1K got our purple wheels prize and donated to others so they could get to 1k and so on and so on and so on.

Der_Lex

whitecat31 wrote:

Der_Lex wrote:

Well, the partial changes implemented in the Nefarious Villains event are a trainwreck so far. There are so few points at the top end that I think the amount of people that will hit 1k this time are about equal to the amount of people who finished the second Ultron run.

Or...some of us broke 1K got our purple wheels prize and donated to others so they could get to 1k and so on and so on and so on.

That's business as usual, but overall I'm hearing more stories of point droughts in all time slices so far. I hadn't expected X-Men or any of the other major alliance families to have any issues because you guys are well coordinated, but there definitely seem to be some issues for plenty of others. Could also be because it's an off-season event, but it still happens right after half their scoring changes were implemented.

simonsez

whitecat31 wrote:

Or...some of us broke 1K got our purple wheels prize and donated to others so they could get to 1k and so on and so on and so on.

For folks who choose the wrong shard, it's like the Hunger Games out there. The only way I managed to get the 725 HP prog award was to play with boosts at 5:30 this morning, and I still took 3 or 4 hits while trying to get the last 3 wins. Outside of S1, no one is playing this crapfest. You hit 650, you're chum for the handful of people who aren't in Gauntlet.

Unknown

Moon Roach wrote:

I see a match for 30 and think, oh good. Then I remember that parity is now 38 and I'm opening myself up to a net loss with a retaliation. This is going to take some getting used to, kind of like when max levels went up.

That's only if you're already at 1000. If you're at 500 and your target's at 400 after they retal, you should lose ~23, net gain of 7 points. Parity at about 650 vs 550.

ArkPrime wrote:

daibar wrote:

If you want to inject points, I think it's still faster to continually lose battles at 0, even if you are only putting in 13 additional points per loss.

Haven;t you heard? losing on purpose is a sin

I'll stop losing to start when the starting battles aren't ridiculous. Woo, 5 points into the system. I've definitely been spending more iso in skipping. Now, if I lose past 333 it takes points away from the system and doesn't benefit the randoms I'm losing to as much. I used to try to give the top top tier more points so I could settle higher under them.

dr tinykittylove

simonsez wrote:

whitecat31 wrote:

Or...some of us broke 1K got our purple wheels prize and donated to others so they could get to 1k and so on and so on and so on.

For folks who choose the wrong shard, it's like the Hunger Games out there. The only way I managed to get the 725 HP prog award was to play with boosts at 5:30 this morning, and I still took 3 or 4 hits while trying to get the last 3 wins. Outside of S1, no one is playing this crapfest. You hit 650, you're chum for the handful of people who aren't in Gauntlet.

I looked at the leaderboard in my bracket and the handful at the top that shielded at 600, and think they must really want Falcon. I'm just fooling around on and off, practising my match3 skillz against the hood/loki swarms, and picking up retals as they come in.

Wonko33

dr tinykittylove wrote:

simonsez wrote:

whitecat31 wrote:

Or...some of us broke 1K got our purple wheels prize and donated to others so they could get to 1k and so on and so on and so on.

For folks who choose the wrong shard, it's like the Hunger Games out there. The only way I managed to get the 725 HP prog award was to play with boosts at 5:30 this morning, and I still took 3 or 4 hits while trying to get the last 3 wins. Outside of S1, no one is playing this crapfest. You hit 650, you're chum for the handful of people who aren't in Gauntlet.

I looked at the leaderboard in my bracket and the handful at the top that shielded at 600, and think they must really want Falcon. I'm just fooling around on and off, practising my match3 skillz against the hood/loki swarms, and picking up retals as they come in.

According to the original post , only the defensive change is implemented in that PvP, the win point change starts with the new season.

aesthetocyst

Der_Lex wrote:

Well, the partial changes implemented in the Nefarious Villains event are a trainwreck so far. There are so few points at the top end that I think the amount of people that will hit 1k this time are about equal to the amount of people who finished the second Ultron run.

I wouldn't sound the alarm bells just yet. Yes, the reduction in defwin pts sucked pts out of the system, and the intended compensation for lengthening of matches (increasing offensive pts won/lost 50%) hasn't kicked in yet, but the biggest challenge to this event is lack of participation. It's off season, the rewards aren't too compelling, this partial change not exciting.

Looking at the alliance leaderboards, there's an awful lot of zeros, and a lot of scores <200. People starting late or skipping entirely?

I played up to 500 to get the ISO, and enjoy the novelty of yesterday's glitches. Server told me that Sweetevil hit me about 30 times in an hour yesterday, I think we were trading hits and gaining pts, but couldn't tell really! Sitting unshielded ever since, and it was really quiet. No hits for hours.

The season event will be the true test. It takes participation to pump points into an event. And the devs said they would adjust progressions if need be .... which is fine, but lowering expectations doesn't feel like progress, particularly since they were already lowered in March.

aesthetocyst

whitecat31 wrote:

Moon Roach wrote:

Playing with my spread sheet, I found a few interesting things, but this one on retaliation I thought I'd share.

Starting with A and B, both on 500.

A attacks B and wins, gains 38, B loses 19, now we have 538 and 491.
B retaliates and wins, gains 44, A loses 23, now we have 515 and 525.
A retaliates and wins, gains 39, B loses 20, now we have 554 and 505.
B retaliates and wins, gains 43, A loses 24, now we have 530 and 548.
A retaliates and wins, gains 39, B loses 22, now we have 569 and 526.

To cut a long story short, after 14 retaliations both are above 600, after 30 they're over 700, 53 gets them 800, 97 gets them 900, then I lost the will to live, or at least the will to copy and paste.

Starting from 0, 18 mutual retaliations gets both A and B the token at 300.

Completely academic and unrealistic, and of no real value, but I'm sharing it anyway.

Darn it. You are showing off the next boost plan. The Dev team did not do the math, but basically, they are giving too many points for the wins to offset their patchwork fix to their last patchwork fix.
In the past, when they were correctly using the ELO, things would equalize. They are using a corrupted form of the ELO, and there are mathematic consequences for that.

Anyway the new boost method.
A and B attack and beat each other up and climb with the free points as you showed above, while enforcers C, D, and E triple team anybody who interferes with player A or B in call outs. Players C, D, and E, can now drop rapidly in points, thanks to this new system by donating to climbers A and B, and make sure whomever they hit for interfering with A and B suffer dramatically.

Welcome to
Age of Enforcer

Retals have always been profitable under 800, recently changed to 1000. Of course that effect tapers off as the ceiling is neared, the effect only really noticeable up to 2/3rds of it. The 50% boost to pts won/lost will further magnify the effect. The only pitfall is if your "retal partner" loses pts before you can retal, but, esp at the low end, they should have gained if anything.

No reason to limit the fun to only 2, larger crowds can trade hits.

Unless the retals are too much to keep up with (would be a problem for weaker rosters), this effect certainly helps people get up to 500 or 600 right now, even without the pts won/lost being boosted.

Problem with the enforcer concept .... with the profitability of trading retals tapering off (almost nothing at 800, gone at 1K), and pts lost on defense being discounted at the same rate, those enforcers would have to stay really low, like below 200, to hurt anyone who is "interfering". And those trying to retal-boost should avoid retaliating against outsiders, don't want to give them the benefit of a profitable retal...unless you really don't mind inflating the slice as a whole, contributing to a rising tide.

Transition to bouncing off each other's shields by 800.
________________

Of course, the idea of making PVP anonymous would cripple all of these ideas by making it much harder to coordinate with friendlies. It would still be somewhat possible, by telling everyone what your lineup is (chars and levels), but if everyone has maxed everything...it would be anonymous indeed.

As weird as anonymous PVP would be—I think it would be lonely, and lack a sense of engagement—I like the idea a lot. Would pre-empt a lot of the nastiness that results. For all it would take away, it would convey the reality of the system, that we are all in the same boat and trying to make the best of it.

Another idea to pre-empt retal-boosting, and personal nastiness, would be to cut retals to one time. You get hit, you retaliate, that's the end of it. The first player who hit you doesn't get a retal node, no chance to start a continuous cycle.

Ebolamonkey84

aesthetocyst wrote:

Of course, the idea of making PVP anonymous would cripple all of these ideas by making it much harder to coordinate with friendlies. It would still be somewhat possible, by telling everyone what your lineup is (chars and levels), but if everyone has maxed everything...it would be anonymous indeed.

As weird as anonymous PVP would be—I think it would be lonely, and lack a sense of engagement—I like the idea a lot. Would pre-empt a lot of the nastiness that results. For all it would take away, it would convey the reality of the system, that we are all in the same boat and trying to make the best of it.

Another idea to pre-empt retal-boosting, and personal nastiness, would be to cut retals to one time. You get hit, you retaliate, that's the end of it. The first player who hit you doesn't get a retal node, no chance to start a continuous cycle.

Anonymous PVP would be boring as heck. It would be like PVE except you face the same teams over and over again plus you can lose points. Helping out friends and friendly competition with others is part of what makes the game enjoyable for many people, and making it anonymous would kill the sense of community for those people.

I enjoy giving someone points they need to hit progression if they ended up having to shield at 990 or so.
I enjoy helping someone keep first place by queuing 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place and hitting any of them foolish enough to pop out in the last 5 minutes.
I enjoy getting in a retal war with someone I recognize (as long as it isn't too close to the end).

aesthetocyst

Ebolamonkey84 wrote:

Anonymous PVP would be boring as heck. It would be like PVE except you face the same teams over and over again plus you can lose points. Helping out friends and friendly competition with others is part of what makes the game enjoyable for many people, and making it anonymous would kill the sense of community for those people.

I enjoy giving someone points they need to hit progression if they ended up having to shield at 990 or so.
I enjoy helping someone keep first place by queuing 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place and hitting any of them foolish enough to pop out in the last 5 minutes.
I enjoy getting in a retal war with someone I recognize (as long as it isn't too close to the end).

That's the drawback, loss of personal engagement, has positives and negatives. But since the devs need player engagement, even negative engagement (beats indifference!), I don't think you don't have to worry about anonymous PVP anytime soon.

I also regret that boosting of all kinds was swept up in this change. Who can condemn helping a friends get those last few points? (Other than the devs who may prefer to see that player buy another shield and do it themselves). You still can, just costs 3x as much now

sc0ville

aesthetocyst wrote:

That's the drawback, loss of personal engagement, has positives and negatives. But since the devs need player engagement, even negative engagement (beats indifference!), I don't think you don't have to worry about anonymous PVP anytime soon.

I also regret that boosting of all kinds was swept up in this change. Who can condemn helping a friends get those last few points? (Other than the devs who may prefer to see that player buy another shield and do it themselves). You still can, just costs 3x as much now

That's my biggest disappointment with this change as well. The community is the only thing that has kept this game fun, at it's core it's a slightly better than average match three game with comic book images slapped over it. Compelling gameplay isn't the thing that keeps me playing. Being able to engage with and help out a group of people has been the fun part for me over the past few months.

They keep chipping away at that with changes like this.

optimiza

Math mistake here, after the first match, A should have 538, and B should have 481, not 491. I think the final numbers would be more or less correct, except that A would have maybe only 558 points and B would have 519 as my guess without working back through the numbers.

Moon Roach wrote:

Playing with my spread sheet, I found a few interesting things, but this one on retaliation I thought I'd share.

Starting with A and B, both on 500.

A attacks B and wins, gains 38, B loses 19, now we have 538 and 491.
B retaliates and wins, gains 44, A loses 23, now we have 515 and 525.
A retaliates and wins, gains 39, B loses 20, now we have 554 and 505.
B retaliates and wins, gains 43, A loses 24, now we have 530 and 548.
A retaliates and wins, gains 39, B loses 22, now we have 569 and 526.

To cut a long story short, after 14 retaliations both are above 600, after 30 they're over 700, 53 gets them 800, 97 gets them 900, then I lost the will to live, or at least the will to copy and paste.

Starting from 0, 18 mutual retaliations gets both A and B the token at 300.

Completely academic and unrealistic, and of no real value, but I'm sharing it anyway.

thedarkphoenix

You know what really sucks, I would have my 1000 point progression reward if not for this stupid change, or at the very least in arm's reach of it. I've wonabout 5-7 defensive battles and I'm sitting at 687 points with 13 hours left.



I hope they play of compensation for this terrible hot fix. Starting to hate every change they make...

Tredo

thedarkphoenix wrote:

You know what really sucks, I would have my 1000 point progression reward if not for this stupid change, or at the very least in arm's reach of it. I've wonabout 5-7 defensive battles and I'm sitting at 687 points with 13 hours left.



I hope they play of compensation for this terrible hot fix. Starting to hate every change they make...

"Why use a scalpel when you have a chainsaw?" - D3