Skip Tax - There Shouldn't Be One (Right Now)

Eddiemon

ToxicIntent wrote:

Eddiemon wrote:

I can't agree with you more, and that's why they should pair you up with someone that matches the sum of the levels of your current 3 covers. Might even make me use that level 40 BW again.

It's a nice idea but we'd abuse it. Throw in a level 6 M Storm with two 3* maxes. Chew through people who are still on max 2* covers. Or take a freshly minted 5 blue spidey and two other characters around level 30 and chew through the new player pool.

If you build a simple metric we will break, tank or otherwise abuse it. We're min-maxers and it is our nature to solve problems in our favour. Even if you find a more complex metric involving star level, covers invested and level there will still probably be ways to bend it to your advantage.

Unknown

Eddiemon wrote:

ToxicIntent wrote:

Eddiemon wrote:

I can't agree with you more, and that's why they should pair you up with someone that matches the sum of the levels of your current 3 covers. Might even make me use that level 40 BW again.

It's a nice idea but we'd abuse it. Throw in a level 6 M Storm with two 3* maxes. Chew through people who are still on max 2* covers. Or take a freshly minted 5 blue spidey and two other characters around level 30 and chew through the new player pool.

If you build a simple metric we will break, tank or otherwise abuse it. We're min-maxers and it is our nature to solve problems in our favour. Even if you find a more complex metric involving star level, covers invested and level there will still probably be ways to bend it to your advantage.

Is fancy matchmaking even necessary? Why can't we fight people who have the same amount of points regardless of their past performance or level of heroes? It should balance itself out naturally, should it not?

Unknown

Eddiemon wrote:

ToxicIntent wrote:

Eddiemon wrote:

I can't agree with you more, and that's why they should pair you up with someone that matches the sum of the levels of your current 3 covers. Might even make me use that level 40 BW again.

It's a nice idea but we'd abuse it. Throw in a level 6 M Storm with two 3* maxes. Chew through people who are still on max 2* covers. Or take a freshly minted 5 blue spidey and two other characters around level 30 and chew through the new player pool.

If you build a simple metric we will break, tank or otherwise abuse it. We're min-maxers and it is our nature to solve problems in our favour. Even if you find a more complex metric involving star level, covers invested and level there will still probably be ways to bend it to your advantage.

At least this way, some of my older covers will see the light of day in an un-boosted match. Not like that can be said currently. There may not be any way to truly fix the way we are currently matched up with someone. I do believe that if we are forced to play against players in a rotating manner (win match one against easy opponent, win match two against equal opponent, lose match 3 against better opponent, win match 4, lose match 5...) we will just get snarly. The more I think about it though, a skip tax sucks, but makes sense. Don't for a second think it will fix our MMRs though, as you said yourself, we're out to out-game the system from the onset. As long as the lost (of ISO) justifies the win (another "optimal" match) we will still be taking advantage of the system, just to a lesser degree.

Unknown

ihearthawthats wrote:

Eddiemon wrote:

ToxicIntent wrote:

Eddiemon wrote:

I can't agree with you more, and that's why they should pair you up with someone that matches the sum of the levels of your current 3 covers. Might even make me use that level 40 BW again.

It's a nice idea but we'd abuse it. Throw in a level 6 M Storm with two 3* maxes. Chew through people who are still on max 2* covers. Or take a freshly minted 5 blue spidey and two other characters around level 30 and chew through the new player pool.

If you build a simple metric we will break, tank or otherwise abuse it. We're min-maxers and it is our nature to solve problems in our favour. Even if you find a more complex metric involving star level, covers invested and level there will still probably be ways to bend it to your advantage.

Is fancy matchmaking even necessary? Why can't we fight people who have the same amount of points regardless of their past performance or level of heroes? It should balance itself out naturally, should it not?

It would be nice. I believe it's their attempts to let newcomers get some wins.
I think it could be solved by the whole splitting pvp into beginner and advanced categories in some way.
Then you could definitely toss out the fancy mmr and base it on event performance

DD-The-Mighty

IceIX wrote:

As for your questions Typhon:
Thor/Wolverine wasn't a mistake and we're seeing very good fallout from it in regards to roster diversity and player engagement. Boost changes were explained in the announcement thread and we've acknowledged that there were communication issues there.

Ok, congrats. you're seeing diversity and engagement. Is there a plan to address the overall offensive mediocrity of the 2* line of characters? As it stands now (not including glass cannons like 2* Storm) it feels as though anything short of level 50 and they have absolutely no bite.

Or is your plan going forth to relegate them to 3/4* support? Thorvarine was not popular just because. Maybe that way one can know if this is just how it is or weather there is something that is going to be addressed and we should wait?

Unknown

Newcomers don't need 3-stars. I'm not sure I agree with a system that rewards losing in such an impractical way.

dark jurai

I made a post about this and was redirected here.

So the skip tax... 10 ISO-8 per skip, and 70/140 rewards are increased to 70/100/140/200 in PvP wins... the average ISO-8 per win increases from 105 to 128. So in order for me to break even in the long term, I need to average two skips per win.

In the No Holds Barred tournament, I am currently fluctuating all over the top 20. In order to find a match worth 25 or more, I need to skip at least 10 times. AT LEAST. A majority of matches I see are worth 20 points or less... when I fight those lower point matches, it opens me up for retaliations, and I end up losing more points than I gained.

ISO-8 is extremely hard to come by. I started about a month ago, playing fairly regularly, and my roster is mostly 1* and 2* heroes in the mid 30s to 40s. I'm trying to catch up, and every little bit counts... Look, the issue is complicated, but the crux of it is simple - from a player's perspective, a skip tax sucks. It will just make me not want to play anymore.

Since we're talking in-game economy here... if the prices for ISO-8 and HP were reasonable, I'd consider paying more than the 20 bucks I've spent to open up roster slots. But seriously, to significantly level a single 2* hero up with in-app purchases, buying covers and ISO-8, it would cost around 300 bucks. That's utterly insane. In the week I've been playing Hearthstone, I've spent about 60 bucks, the price of a full triple A game, in in-app purchases... In MPQ, between heroes needing health packs, boosts, shields, random covers that you drop in order to actually level heroes, the game feels like its constantly trying to nickel and dime me, as if I have to pay just to feel less crippled. That really sucks. Hearthstone, on the other hand, is a joy to play without spending a dime, and consequently, I've spent a lot more on it in a much shorter period.

Eddiemon

ToxicIntent wrote:

At least this way, some of my older covers will see the light of day in an un-boosted match. Not like that can be said currently. There may not be any way to truly fix the way we are currently matched up with someone. I do believe that if we are forced to play against players in a rotating manner (win match one against easy opponent, win match two against equal opponent, lose match 3 against better opponent, win match 4, lose match 5...) we will just get snarly. The more I think about it though, a skip tax sucks, but makes sense. Don't for a second think it will fix our MMRs though, as you said yourself, we're out to out-game the system from the onset. As long as the lost (of ISO) justifies the win (another "optimal" match) we will still be taking advantage of the system, just to a lesser degree.

You should be able to win I'm guessing at least 90% against an opponent of similar success and capability as yourself because let's face it, the AI sucks. But 90% is still probably worse than you currently do because how often do you get a bad cascade?

Unknown

IceIX wrote:

ToxicIntent wrote:

Maybe you guys should change the 4 rotating rewards to include a boost against the current PvE content, not just the standard H.A.M.M.E.R. +20% damage boost. This current PvE would do well with a +20% Dark Avengers boost. My H.A.M.M.E.R. stockpile is full as i'm sure others are as well. Any thoughts?

Tell me about it, I'm perpetually at 10. I'll bring it up just in case it's not in the event designers' minds, although I'm pretty sure it is.

Any chance the cap on boosts could be raised, or maybe if you loot boosts that would be lost due to the 10-boost cap they could be converted into some small amount of ISO? I'm finding myself being a lot more selective with boosts since their recent changes, and it's pretty disheartening to loose two red/yellow boosts because I was already at 9. Getting SOMETHING out of them (either to keep them with a higher cap, or a small amount of ISO conversion) would be nice.

mouser

dark jurai wrote:

I made a post about this and was redirected here.

So the skip tax... 10 ISO-8 per skip, and 70/140 rewards are increased to 70/100/140/200 in PvP wins... the average ISO-8 per win increases from 105 to 128. So in order for me to break even in the long term, I need to average two skips per win.

In the No Holds Barred tournament, I am currently fluctuating all over the top 20. In order to find a match worth 25 or more, I need to skip at least 10 times. AT LEAST. A majority of matches I see are worth 20 points or less... when I fight those lower point matches, it opens me up for retaliations, and I end up losing more points than I gained.

ISO-8 is extremely hard to come by. I started about a month ago, playing fairly regularly, and my roster is mostly 1* and 2* heroes in the mid 30s to 40s. I'm trying to catch up, and every little bit counts... Look, the issue is complicated, but the crux of it is simple - from a player's perspective, a skip tax sucks. It will just make me not want to play anymore.

Since we're talking in-game economy here... if the prices for ISO-8 and HP were reasonable, I'd consider paying more than the 20 bucks I've spent to open up roster slots. But seriously, to significantly level a single 2* hero up with in-app purchases, buying covers and ISO-8, it would cost around 300 bucks. That's utterly insane. In the week I've been playing Hearthstone, I've spent about 60 bucks, the price of a full triple A game, in in-app purchases... In MPQ, between heroes needing health packs, boosts, shields, random covers that you drop in order to actually level heroes, the game feels like its constantly trying to nickel and dime me, as if I have to pay just to feel less crippled. That really sucks. Hearthstone, on the other hand, is a joy to play without spending a dime, and consequently, I've spent a lot more on it in a much shorter period.

Please don't in any way take this personally, because it's not directed at you.

That someone can be around the top 20 of the No Holds Barred tourney with "mostly 1* and 2* heroes in the mid 30s to 40s" makes me wonder just how twisted the MMR formula must be.

Unknown

Skip tax makes perfect sense. Got no issues with it.

However, I think it should be free. Instead of rating your reward on who has the most reward it should be based on player levels. So if someone is a higher level you get more reward but less if they are below you. That way you can skip to the easier battles but you will need to do a lot more battling to get the better positions.

Unknown

IceIX wrote:

But 100 people ticketing over 10 Iso and 5 minutes per ticket for our team to research it means a ton of time used up for stuff that could go elsewhere.

Like responding on forums?

Unknown

Surely a better way to address skipping is instead of adding a tax, but to look at why people skip in the first place? We normally skip matches because the team we're put up against is worth less than 10 points, and if we attack them, they will then retaliate and take 40+ points from us. Why not cap the amount you can lose from a retaliation? If we could lose no more than we won (so if you win 10 points, that retaliation will cost you 10 points at the most), we would be less likely to skip those teams when we see them.

Doing this would have two good effects in my opinion. Firstly, it would stop people skipping constantly until they find a good opponent (or at least skipping would happen less). Secondly, as long as the person who retaliates can still win the correct amount of points (so he can win 40+ points from a retaliation, while you still only lose 10), it would put more points into tournaments in general. This could lead to teams gaining more points overall, giving us a better chance at winning those ever elusive top progression rewards. I think that's a win-win for everyone.

DD-The-Mighty

ihearthawthats wrote:

Newcomers don't need 3-stars. I'm not sure I agree with a system that rewards losing in such an impractical way.

This. My 1st week i got 1 measly im40 cover and assumed 3star was a logical and clear upgrade over a slightly leveled im35. so i sold it to make room. biggest mistake i have made in this game. and i STILL only have one cover for that useless level 15 blue im40.

all the more reason that these "tournaments" need to be bracketed and rewards doled out accordingly. As it stands now its like a Martial arts/fighting tournament with no weight class restrictions. You got fly weights competing for the same prizes and middle and heavy weighs.

entry level that rewards mosky 1* tokens, 1* covers and a grand prize of 2*
mid level that rewards mostly 2* tokens/ 2* covers with a 3* grand prize
lastly upper level that gives 2* themes packs (or 3* tokens if we have them) with a grand prize of 4*
-Mid may be a problem with greedy maxers cherry tapping to complete thier OCD collection, but that's no different than it is now,-

let the reward desires plus character roster based matching determine it. as a mid level player i could care less about 1 or 2 random 3* covers that i have no io or cover ranks to actually make viable. what i need is io and 2* covers to actually build a solid lineup. why do i have to (on top of fighting with my own level of players) be chum for all the low ranked hi level players coasting his way to the top ten?

Unknown

MMR should be based on the last 3-5 matches you won and the team you used to win those matches. That way your mmr can allow someone to use lower lvl characters for enjoyment if they so want. Right now once you decide to build up a 3*** and get your mmr too high you can never use * and some ** ever again. Matches should prioritize players near your point value. Seed characters should be in there for the added purpose of letting ppl basically decide before a tournement what type of lvled character they want to fight since the bots are so weak. That said, if you decide to fight hipdude and his friends with lvl 50s and right after whip out lvl 141 teams you will...after 3-5 matches...be shifted to a More appropriate mmr. That way nobody should be fighting ppl outside thier range of play up or down.

You should not have hood scoring..it simply never should have happened....scoring should be a value based on on thier point level compared to yours and then subject to a point modifier based on the level difference of the team you use vs the team they use. That is, player 1 has 500 points and player 2 has 700 points. Let's say the value given for a +200 pt difference is 30. So now player One is using 85 thor 85 obw and 130 punisher while player 2 is using lvl 120 punisher lvl 120 grey suit and lvl 110 hulk. So the lvl diff is 300 vs 350. That 50 points is divided by a chosen value, let's say 10, and that how many extra points you gain for using a lower lvled team. So player 1 in this situation would gain 30+ (50/10)= 35 pts. The lower lvled player gets the bonus points while the higher lvl just gets the base value but no negative. So if the rolls were reversed player 2 attacked player 1 then player 1 would gain no bonus point for level differential.

Losses and def victories should only take/earn a fraction of the point value (let's say 80%) to allow ppl to at least TRY and progress despite being

Also, you should gain a trivial bonus, let's say +3 points per a match, if you play it unboosted.


And yea, I got the skip tax earlier, due to some of thier wonky coding with patches working wrong or whatever it is. -10 ISO. Refreshed the ap so it would turn off and it did. So the coding for this CR@P is certainly already on our phone/tablet/comp.

Unknown

Just some data for the skip tax issue, dunno if it's at all helpful or not - I saw the skip tax earlier today, and then in the middle of looking for targets to pvp in the tourney, the game restarted, complete with initial loading bar.
I run the steam PC version.

Unknown

ihearthawthats wrote:

Newcomers don't need 3-stars.

They do if you want to make money off of them by encouraging them into buying HP to expand cover slots.

MNKromann

I would not mind a skip tax if the ISO went to the skipped player

Unknown

MNKromann wrote:

I would not mind a skip tax if the ISO went to the skipped player

And if we didn't lose points for losses.

Unknown

IceIX wrote:

Marquoz wrote:

No, I'll let it slide in hopes that your efforts are better spent elsewhere. Here's my number 1 concern, as I've said in another thread. The change to boosts is fine, and the apology for not communicating it and the rationale in advance is appreciated. HOWEVER, the last 2 PVE events have been impossible because the huge number of super high leveled enemies cannot be beaten without the same boosts that you're trying to reduce. You can't have it both ways. If boosts are being made more expensive, there have to be fewer missions with maxed out enemies. Not zero, but far less. Otherwise, the fun is gone.

Agreed, and the last two PVE events have definitely been substandard. We've put changes into play in the Heroic event to fix things up a bit, but it's unfortunately not something we can do retroactively without an actual reset. And given that a number of players are able to progress at a decent rate it'd be unfair to a portion of our player-base to do so. What we can do is use the improved methods in the next PVE events and look into a re-run of Heroic Chapter 4 with a better start.

Thank you.