skip tax didn't help mmr...

Unknown

jozier wrote:

If you're getting fights at those levels, you're obviously placing higher and winning above your objective "level."

Well, I have a secondary account that I was messing with on the PC since I have no idea how to transfer or link that and my mobile one, and there's no way that is possible. My place in the shield area is 101,887 with my highest as a level 24 Iron Man, a level 22 Storm and a level 6 Moonstone. Right now my matches are:

30 Iron Man
20 Black Widow
38 Storm

35 Iron Man
6 Storm Classic
16 Black Widow

31 Iron Man
25 Storm
25 Black Widow

30 Black Widow
22 Storm Classic
25 Venom

26 Black Widow
20 Iron Man
16 Storm

Again, if I get totally, utterly perfect matches and can just stomp through the fight using Storm's and Iron Man's powers near continuously as I can when I get super lucky with Lightning Storm, Mistress of Storms and cascades, I could take a couple of those matches. However, if even one thing goes wrong, any of those matches can smash me to pieces, forcing me to lose. I don't mind taking on groups of low to mid 20's, but I don't have the points to level any of my other covers up to join my other two 20's right now. I was getting it from grinding the first scenarios but it's ridiculously long.

Eddiemon

Pawkeshup wrote:

level 24 Iron Man, a level 22 Storm and a level 6 Moonstone. Right now my matches are:

30 Iron Man
20 Black Widow
38 Storm

35 Iron Man
6 Storm Classic
16 Black Widow

31 Iron Man
25 Storm
25 Black Widow

30 Black Widow
22 Storm Classic
25 Venom

26 Black Widow
20 Iron Man
16 Storm

Again, if I get totally, utterly perfect matches and can just stomp through the fight using Storm's and Iron Man's powers near continuously as I can when I get super lucky with Lightning Storm, Mistress of Storms and cascades, I could take a couple of those matches. However, if even one thing goes wrong, any of those matches can smash me to pieces, forcing me to lose. I don't mind taking on groups of low to mid 20's, but I don't have the points to level any of my other covers up to join my other two 20's right now. I was getting it from grinding the first scenarios but it's ridiculously long.

Apart from the fourth they all seem like really easy fights. Though I would be using whatever Black Widow I had in preference over Moonstone. You should have enough Blue covers from Prologue that you can lock up Iron Man once you have taken down his buddies.

The computer player is dumb. Really dumb. And you can tank with Iron man while targetting their low HP Storm and Widow and focus on denying Iron Man's colours. The computer has to hit your tank.

Unknown

Perhaps they should reset everyone mmr.

reckless442

MarvelMan wrote:

Phantron wrote:

That's because there are likely very few players who have comparable points as you. Whenever I start playing I hit a point where I'm top 5 in my bracket very quickly. Assuming my bracket isn't some kind of aberration compared to the norm, that means I have more points than 99% of the players. Of course it'd be pretty hard to find guys even close to your points when you're already above 99% of the players.

Good point. I feel (I dont have hard data) that this starts well before I get to the top 10, maybe somewhere around 50-20. Plus, I generally start late (the night of/before the end) so I would expect other brackets to be more advanced than mine. I find my brackets top out lower than what I see others on here talking about as well.

ITA. I have it start way before I reach to top top in smaller events and, in NHB, it's been the case since I hit the mid-200s. I've been hovering around top 100 and can barely get a fight worth more than 25 points. Probably 90% of the fights that are appearing are worth less than 15 points, 5% are worth 16-20 points, 4% are worth 21-24 pts, and 1% are worth 25-28 pts. I want to at least end up in the top-100, so I broke my shield to fight two battles -- one worth 26 pts and one worth 20 pts, won both. During the first battle, I took a net loss, because I was hit for a 28-pt loss. But, hey I was actually lucky. I managed to finish the second fight and re-shield before I was hit for a 33-pt loss. Now my fight options are worth 21, 11, and 9 points.

The other thing about the skip tax that sucks is that the MMR keeps pairing me with the same opponents. It seems really wrong to have to keep paying 10 ISO to skip the same people. I already complained to D3 about the fact that in the last few hours of Lone Star, I kept getting paired with the same six opponents. I counted over 100 pairings where I only had one of the same six names come up. And of course, they were all worth virtually nothing and, of course, they all had Juggernaut, which meant breaking shield to fight them would expose me to a long battle where I would lose more points than I could possibly win -- which is exactly what happened. I finally just bought a new shield and held on for third in my bracket.

Unknown

Eddiemon wrote:

Apart from the fourth they all seem like really easy fights. Though I would be using whatever Black Widow I had in preference over Moonstone. You should have enough Blue covers from Prologue that you can lock up Iron Man once you have taken down his buddies.

The computer player is dumb. Really dumb. And you can tank with Iron man while targetting their low HP Storm and Widow and focus on denying Iron Man's colours. The computer has to hit your tank.

I did manage to down two that remained... And now I have all level 40-50+'s staring at me...

Tannen

champion9782 wrote:

Perhaps they should reset everyone mmr.

uh... Are you really sure that you want the people with 6+ 141s with the same MMR as newbies (or for that matter, yourself)? That seems like a disaster in the making for me.

Unknown

Tannen wrote:

champion9782 wrote:

Perhaps they should reset everyone mmr.

uh... Are you really sure that you want the people with 6+ 141s with the same MMR as newbies (or for that matter, yourself)? That seems like a disaster in the making for me.

I just wish that they'd scale it based on your TEAM level not MMR. I find myself getting roadblocked constantly. My point with my first post is that the teams are already outclassing me and I'm very, VERY low down the ladder. I got a few more wins, a couple hard fought, and now I face teams sporting level 30 and 40 characters. Sure, the AI can be ****, but that's a ton of HP to whittle down, and some vicious hits to survive. Right now I could play more of the Prologue, but that's eating up ISO that I cannot remake. Playing in the events and PvP are the best ways to keep drawing in new ISO, whereas the Prologue is a great resource to delve when you are closing in on completion so you can get those sweet 500's and Hero Points.

Eventually I'll have to struggle my way forward, but it's just a pain in the **** knowing that they could just base it on your actual team levels and at least keep it competitive.

Kelbris

Why can't we bring the points system back to what it was in November/December

I see no reason why that wasn't working. We don't need shields. Shields are stupid. They're a knee jerk reaction to people disliking hood round scoring which had become the norm a couple weeks before shields came in.

People want ISO. We're more likely to skip less if we won't hit someone for 15 fearing that they'll retaliate and take 28.

If the issue is that less point loss makes tanking easier, then don't factor defenses into MMR. I honestly have NO idea why that hasn't implemented yet.

Eddiemon

Kelbris wrote:

Why can't we bring the points system back to what it was in November/December

I see no reason why that wasn't working. We don't need shields. Shields are stupid. They're a knee jerk reaction to people disliking good round tinykitty which had become the norm a couple weeks before shields came in.

Shields are terrible if you don't have a job/family commitments or are in a really accommodating timezone. They remove your ability to prey on people who can't fight back because of the above reasons in the last 2 hours of any event.

Unknown

Eddiemon wrote:

Kelbris wrote:

Why can't we bring the points system back to what it was in November/December

I see no reason why that wasn't working. We don't need shields. Shields are stupid. They're a knee jerk reaction to people disliking good round tinykitty which had become the norm a couple weeks before shields came in.

Shields are terrible if you don't have a job/family commitments or are in a really accommodating timezone. They remove your ability to prey on people who can't fight back because of the above reasons in the last 2 hours of any event.

Yeah, the problem isn't shields, the problem is that, between the time/reward tradeoff and the risk of a huge retaliation, you're penalized so severely for attacking down the ladder.

Unknown

gamar wrote:Yeah, the problem isn't shields, the problem is that, between the time/reward tradeoff and the risk of a huge retaliation, you're penalized so severely for attacking down the ladder.

Yeah, that's exactly my problem, I keep getting matches that are down the ladder and I have to pay to find one up the ladder now.

Kelbris

Eddiemon wrote:

Kelbris wrote:

Why can't we bring the points system back to what it was in November/December

I see no reason why that wasn't working. We don't need shields. Shields are stupid. They're a knee jerk reaction to people disliking good round tinykitty which had become the norm a couple weeks before shields came in.

Shields are terrible if you don't have a job/family commitments or are in a really accommodating timezone. They remove your ability to prey on people who can't fight back because of the above reasons in the last 2 hours of any event.

The only reason people get preyed on is because of how many upper point valued people use shields which limits the search pool. This was never brought up as frequently as it is now that we DO have shields. One win could easily negate three or four losses, and I don't remember ever getting hit 26 times in one hour just because I had 600 points.

Tournaments also went for 5 days instead of 2.5. Might have been a factor since there was a lot more people getting to 800-1000 points. Double Shot was a unique thing (and not just the name of the IM40 tournament) which became the norm to accomodate time zones (which is fair).

I don't know. I remember things working smoother and there being less panic at the end of a tournament. It was more of a "Man, I hope I don't get hit twice in the last couple of minutes. Better do one more fight to make sure I keep my rating where it is now." atmosphere compared to "**** **** GOTTA UNSHIELD ATTACK AND RESHIELD **** I GOTTA DO THIS FAST **** I MIGHT GET HIT A BUNCH **** IDK IF IT'S EVEN WORTH IT"

Unknown

I'm not sure how you weren't getting hammered before there were shields back in the era where it's common for most people to start with 6 AP in 4 colors. Unless you had a pre nerf Ragnarok, absolutely nobody had any qualms about attacking the highest possible point value team. The attacks probably do stop because you fall down so spectucularly when you're hammered that the attacks cease after you lost 250 points in 10 minutes because you're no longer worth much to the pack. Right now the point loss is slower than before, enough that you can actually try to get back up and knocked down constantly instead of just free fall to #200 and then you'd be left alone, but not in a good way.

Nemek

Kelbris wrote:

Eddiemon wrote:

Kelbris wrote:

Why can't we bring the points system back to what it was in November/December

I see no reason why that wasn't working. We don't need shields. Shields are stupid. They're a knee jerk reaction to people disliking good round tinykitty which had become the norm a couple weeks before shields came in.

Shields are terrible if you don't have a job/family commitments or are in a really accommodating timezone. They remove your ability to prey on people who can't fight back because of the above reasons in the last 2 hours of any event.

The only reason people get preyed on is because of how many upper point valued people use shields which limits the search pool. This was never brought up as frequently as it is now that we DO have shields. One win could easily negate three or four losses, and I don't remember ever getting hit 26 times in one hour just because I had 600 points.

Tournaments also went for 5 days instead of 2.5. Might have been a factor since there was a lot more people getting to 800-1000 points. Double Shot was a unique thing (and not just the name of the IM40 tournament) which became the norm to accomodate time zones (which is fair).

I don't know. I remember things working smoother and there being less panic at the end of a tournament. It was more of a "Man, I hope I don't get hit twice in the last couple of minutes. Better do one more fight to make sure I keep my rating where it is now." atmosphere compared to "tinykitty tinykitty GOTTA UNSHIELD ATTACK AND RESHIELD tinykitty I GOTTA DO THIS FAST tinykitty I MIGHT GET HIT A BUNCH tinykitty IDK IF IT'S EVEN WORTH IT"

You and I have very different recollections of those times. The last 15 minutes of a tournament were brutal, you had to play as many matches as you possibly could as fast as possible. With shields, tournament end times are way less stressful, you don't even have to be playing at all.

Unknown

Nemek wrote:

Kelbris wrote:

Eddiemon wrote:

Kelbris wrote:

Why can't we bring the points system back to what it was in November/December

I see no reason why that wasn't working. We don't need shields. Shields are stupid. They're a knee jerk reaction to people disliking good round tinykitty which had become the norm a couple weeks before shields came in.

Shields are terrible if you don't have a job/family commitments or are in a really accommodating timezone. They remove your ability to prey on people who can't fight back because of the above reasons in the last 2 hours of any event.

The only reason people get preyed on is because of how many upper point valued people use shields which limits the search pool. This was never brought up as frequently as it is now that we DO have shields. One win could easily negate three or four losses, and I don't remember ever getting hit 26 times in one hour just because I had 600 points.

Tournaments also went for 5 days instead of 2.5. Might have been a factor since there was a lot more people getting to 800-1000 points. Double Shot was a unique thing (and not just the name of the IM40 tournament) which became the norm to accomodate time zones (which is fair).

I don't know. I remember things working smoother and there being less panic at the end of a tournament. It was more of a "Man, I hope I don't get hit twice in the last couple of minutes. Better do one more fight to make sure I keep my rating where it is now." atmosphere compared to "tinykitty tinykitty GOTTA UNSHIELD ATTACK AND RESHIELD tinykitty I GOTTA DO THIS FAST tinykitty I MIGHT GET HIT A BUNCH tinykitty IDK IF IT'S EVEN WORTH IT"

You and I have very different recollections of those times. The last 15 minutes of a tournament were brutal, you had to play as many matches as you possibly could as fast as possible. With shields, tournament end times are way less stressful, you don't even have to be playing at all.

Same here. I ashamedly recall the old days of being up at 4am, frantically scrambling around in the last hour of events to preserve my rating... just to win Captain America and Moonstone covers. Kind of ridiculous, when you think about it.

Now, I grind a bit when I want to, slap on a shield and generally leave it at that. Much prefer that, and not just because of timezone factors, it enables me to put my phone down once in a while and forget about the game!

Unknown

dlaw008 wrote:

Do people really skip opponents because they are too hard? I've never had that issue. I skip opponents because they are not worth many tournament points. Now I have to risk time unshielded to earn fewer points or spend iso. I kinda thought that was everyone's issue with the skip tax.

I DO see teams that are ahead of me in levels, but not all three nodes and not repeatedly. I guess I have just been lucky managing my MMR.

Of course people skip because matches are too hard, I certainly do! The problem isnt that I am scared of a challenge or even slipping down the rankings as i am not too bothered about placing high in every event.

The reason I tend to skip matches that I know I can win but that will result in my heroes being injured is the ridiculously long healing times. A couple of really unlucky cascades from the AI and Iron Man or whoever is out for 3 hours. Five health packs dont take long to burn through, well, not for me anyway but maybe I'm just **** at this! Having to wait up to half an hour in between some battles for my heroes to be healed or a health pack to regenerate is not fun - damn it i just want to play!

I want to enjoy myself and that seems to be an alien concept for the devs who seem to be moulding this game into something that you have to sit and wait to be able to play. So much is right about this game now, but the match making and healing times are doing my head in.

I actually dont understand why we all need an MMR rating. If they let us choose our team first and then gave us matches based on the levels and covers of that team surely that would work and be a fairer method than whatever they use now. This would also allow us to play with characters that arent necessarily our best and maybe still get some degree of progress in an event. I know I have a bunch of half levelled heores that at present i cant use for anything, it would be good to be able to play with them but maybe that would be too much fun!

Unknown

Turns out exactly like I expected. Skip tax included, matchmaking the same. On tournaments I care about I loose out on 10 ISO per fight because there is no way I'm gonna fight someone with <15 points value. Only positive side, on tourneys with bad rewards I can farm up that lost ISO again....

Unknown

Malkavian wrote:

wouldnt know, dont have a psylocke...

Uh, isn't this tourney a match-up, not a required? As in, you get to borrow a lvl15 psylocke. Most people in the tournament seem to be doing that.

Unknown

My experience with the skip tax (from playing for an hour or so in the Psylocke tourney yesterday):

Like I had expected, the skip tax makes tanking much more important. Luckily, lightning round start up again today, so we're good there. I had apparently really lowered my mmr in the 1* tournament - I didn't want Wolverine and wasn't getting attacked, so I retreated 10-12 times to drop to 211th place. As a result, I was getting matched against pretty easy competition in the Psylocke tournament. By the time I got to the 300 point range, the good matched - the 25-35 point teams in general - were drying up. Most of what I was finding - even after a few skips - was in one of three categories:

1. Evenly matched teams for 10-15 points
2. Relatively easy teams for 10-15 points
3. Tough teams for 10-25 points

There's no point in fighting no. 1 - they'll probably retaliate and probably leave me fairly beat up, so I'll end up net losing points and have to expend health packs or time healing. No. 3 is even worse, with the added chance that a bad cascade could mean I lose the match, and the likelihood that, even assuming I win, they'll definitely retaliate and cost me points. So I'm spending all my time punching down, which are not fights I would have done in the past, and to keep those fights coming up, I need to keep tanking.

The way things worked before, I would usually have gone hunting for a category that exists, but is relatively hard to find - any team over 25 points (preferably over 30). They didn't really come up, and I wasn't willing to spend 100 iso a match looking for them.

The options seem to be, now, either eat a ton of ISO, spend a lot of time getting retaliated against, or tank. Given the choices, tanking is probably going to move from something to do when my mmr seems too high to critical for participation in any tournament. I don't see any way around it. Absent a mechanic that guarantees us an opponent, any opponent, over 25 points, tanking seems like the only viable option.

Unknown

NorthernPolarity wrote:

It wont completely solve the problem but it will mitigate it. While you're still going to skip the fights that you really really don't want to face (high level hulks), there is significantly less incentive to skip teams that you know you can fight, but don't want to because you want to be lazy and stomp on even lower level teams. There is a far greater incentive to not skip and just fight the teams that you get matched up with.

It certainly not solve any problems completely or even in a small part. Just drain our ISO as we skip to compensate the same broken matchmaking and lack of filters we asked for.

And the primary use for skip in not finding lower teams but matches with more points to go upward in ranks rather than backward after retal.