'Boosted' Characters Rebalancing Post-Champions

Dragon_Nexus

Malcrof wrote:

so yah, i plan on using some Cmags and OBW, both are around lvl 180 + boost, i don't see it being an issue, once i get to 800, i can easily cake and bake all the way to 2k using 3*s.

How? HOW? I get to 850 and my progress slams to a halt. I can sometimes squeak my way up to 950 but more often than not now I can't hit 1000 unless I'm insanely lucky on my fight timing since I'll beat that 45 point fight that was hard as nails and get back to find I got hit for 150 points or more.

1000 has become quite unobtainable for me for some time now, despite my complete 3* roster. Funnily enough I've been stomping PvE with my IM40/Thoress combo, so I might give that a go in PvP and see how I fare. Though Thoress is only level 185, so even that might not be enough.

udonomefoo

Dragon_Nexus wrote:

Malcrof wrote:

so yah, i plan on using some Cmags and OBW, both are around lvl 180 + boost, i don't see it being an issue, once i get to 800, i can easily cake and bake all the way to 2k using 3*s.

How? HOW? I get to 850 and my progress slams to a halt. I can sometimes squeak my way up to 950 but more often than not now I can't hit 1000 unless I'm insanely lucky on my fight timing since I'll beat that 45 point fight that was hard as nails and get back to find I got hit for 150 points or more.

1000 has become quite unobtainable for me for some time now, despite my complete 3* roster. Funnily enough I've been stomping PvE with my IM40/Thoress combo, so I might give that a go in PvP and see how I fare. Though Thoress is only level 185, so even that might not be enough.

"Cake & Bake" = hitting cupcakes. In other words, get in on gaming the broken system or sit on the outside looking in.

Dragon_Nexus

udonomefoo wrote:

"Cake & Bake" = hitting cupcakes. In other words, get in on gaming the broken system or sit on the outside looking in.

Care to ellaborate a little further? I've heard those two terms before, but never seen them explained.

TLCstormz

udonomefoo wrote:

Malcrof wrote:

*snip

i have over a dozen 4*s fully covered

4* covers are not an issue at all, not even close, the 1 and only issue right now is ISO.

Wow. Again. Very troublesome to hear other adults ( ? ) talk like this.

Unknown

It would be really nice if nodes that I could beat before with a little work didn't stomp my teams flat every time I try them now. Fixing scaling at the same time would have been a really, really good idea.

Btw, why shouldn't characters of the same level be the same strength, regardless of what their stars are? The inherent difference IS that the higher the number of stars, the higher the level they can achieve. Actually takes away incentive to level the higher star characters to make them inherently more powerful at equivalent levels.

LLohm

I for one think the developers are farsighted and I thank them for the changes they have made.

For 3* players, I assure you that you will probably see progression if you just play more often and keep hitting that 800pts mark for the cover.

I make this post after seeing the stats on a boosted 465 featured 3* toon.

The devs have to balance and future proof. That boosted 3* could behave like an almost maxed 5*.

I know I may attract flames for this post and there will be many comments on how whales are dominating the game. My question is why not?

They're essentially supporting the game so we have a F2P platform.

Zix

Can somebody write a guide on how to cake & bake?

For a couple months or so, I used to hit 1k progression rewards every pvp with careful planning and a few shields. Lately I can't go 2 matches without using healthpacks on my whole team and shielding much, much earlier. It's too expensive and not as much fun as before. Now I'm collecting ISO and cp to make some 4 stars usable but at the rate it's flowing in I am months away from having a pair of decent 4 star champs.

Feedback: From my early/mid 4 star transitioning, no-line using perspective, champions made rewards seem more exciting until I realized how much more tedious my actual gameplay has become.

Lemminkäinen

Dragon_Nexus wrote:

udonomefoo wrote:

"Cake & Bake" = hitting cupcakes. In other words, get in on gaming the broken system or sit on the outside looking in.

Care to ellaborate a little further? I've heard those two terms before, but never seen them explained.

You leave one seed and climb to 800+. Then you tell on LINE that you're making a cupcake, beat the seed team with a two-star team or whatever that's trivial to beat, sit tight for a while and let your LINE friends queue you up. Then you shield and tell them. They climb to whatever, beat your cupcake with a similarly bad team, tell everyone, wait, shield, and repeat. Since the cupcakes multiply exponentially you can climb using only them. This is how this game is supposed to be played, apparently. And then you can climb to 2k+ easy.

Linkster79

Malcrof wrote:

800, i can easily cake and bake all the way to 2k using 3*s. BTW, every time i throw Black widow, she sniper rifles ^^.

Also, for a little Turn back time, before cupcaking, before i knew about line, before i even had any 4*s, barely had max 3*s, i hit my first 1k. Page 4 is when i finally did it, page or 2 before was my first 2k in SSim. All with 3*'s, and this accidental guide that was made, simply by me asking for help, is still useful!

viewtopic.php?f=33&t=30912

Try going a whole season using nothing but 3* characters and not using Line to coordinate queues and shield hops. This is how I imagine the vast majority of the player base plays. Using these techniques is far from cheating but it is gaming the system and all done in the name of "The Greater Good".

Evilgenius_9

I am completely ok with 3*'s and 4*'s being separated in power - IF as a 3* transitioner I NEVER see a max level / champed 4* in my pvp bracket. I honestly believe the problem is not match-making but bracketing. 3* and 4* land are different (and this post tells us that's what the developers want), don't make them compete with each other.

madok

I was thinking about this nerf this morning and did come up with one positive side. In theory, this should be making the 4* DDQ easier than it was the first go for those matches where it is a boosted 3*.

Of course, that still requires that you have a halfway decent roster of 4*s but does lower the floor a bit.

CaptainFrugal

Malcrof wrote:

udonomefoo wrote:

And with the introduction of the 20cp token, for every 4 25cp's you win, you get 5 pulls. Now with the 80 item vaults, more 4*s will be flooding out.. and none of the includes the rare happy accidents from non LT tokens.

Really, does it just show up? I should be getting one soon if that is how it works.

CaptainFreaky

madok wrote:

I was thinking about this nerf this morning and did come up with one positive side. In theory, this should be making the 4* DDQ easier than it was the first go for those matches where it is a boosted 3*.

Of course, that still requires that you have a halfway decent roster of 4*s but does lower the floor a bit.

Yep - I thought of that too this morning during the new Crash of the Titans. Of course, my 2/1/1 Carnage was still no match for a lvl 270 Doc Ock. So yeah, it still requires a a strategic advantage (like IW invisibility) or a pretty well covered 4* to beat that node. Which just adds to my frustration that the dev's keep pushing the game to 4* while at the same time slowing down the 4* transition - of course, that's their goal.

I think they went for the cash grab that resulted from Champing, and then perhaps after that dust settles they may come back and loosen the grips on 4* covers a bit - but I think they don't really understand the full impact of these changes and it will just push more people to skip 4* transition completely and try to get a live 5* or two.

In the meantime, those of us with full 3* rosters just have to compete for scraps - which sucks for someone like me who has 2+ years of playing time. They really didn't need to nerf lvl 167 to level 290. They could have reduced ability damage above level 290 and people would have understood much more readily. But of course, that would require more thought and insight and time than I think the devs have.

Dragon_Nexus

Lemminkäinen wrote:

Dragon_Nexus wrote:

udonomefoo wrote:

"Cake & Bake" = hitting cupcakes. In other words, get in on gaming the broken system or sit on the outside looking in.

Care to ellaborate a little further? I've heard those two terms before, but never seen them explained.

You leave one seed and climb to 800+. Then you tell on LINE that you're making a cupcake, beat the seed team with a two-star team or whatever that's trivial to beat, sit tight for a while and let your LINE friends queue you up. Then you shield and tell them. They climb to whatever, beat your cupcake with a similarly bad team, tell everyone, wait, shield, and repeat. Since the cupcakes multiply exponentially you can climb using only them. This is how this game is supposed to be played, apparently. And then you can climb to 2k+ easy.

That sounds...bonkers.
That's a lot of coordination and timing and planning and execution and hopeful collaboration to achieve that. It seems to assume a lot, too.
1) People won't jerk you over.
2) You don't get sniped to hell by people not on Line in the mean time.
3) You don't end up losing what would normally be easy matches, or even taking too long, because of a bad board.

Not to mention I feel kinda icky "manipulating" the game, so to speak, to advance. I'm happy if everyone else does this and fights amongst the top while I sneak in for the paltry 1000 prize (which used to happen but...somehow doesn't any more). I don't know if it's something I'd want to devote so much time and effort into...

Phumade

Dragon_Nexus wrote:

That sounds...bonkers.
That's a lot of coordination and timing and planning and execution and hopeful collaboration to achieve that. It seems to assume a lot, too.
1) People won't jerk you over.
2) You don't get sniped to hell by people not on Line in the mean time.
3) You don't end up losing what would normally be easy matches, or even taking too long, because of a bad board.

Not to mention I feel kinda icky "manipulating" the game, so to speak, to advance. I'm happy if everyone else does this and fights amongst the top while I sneak in for the paltry 1000 prize (which used to happen but...somehow doesn't any more). I don't know if it's something I'd want to devote so much time and effort into...

Don't take this the wrong way, but while your playing your or even D3 interpretation of MPQ should be played, The top 100 alliances in the entire MPQ universe is playing a much deeper meta version of MPQ. Feel free to play the game in the fashion that makes the most sense and fun to you (Nothing requires you to participate in high level play). But don't be surprised, that other people don't see a need to limit their play in such a fashion.

That in a nutshell is why your advancement has slowed. At your stage of the game 800+ (vet brackets), the game becomes much more about coordination and cooperation with others.

And that is true whether you view role as: baker, CC eater, sniper, enforcer, blah blah blah.

Nellobee

Dragon_Nexus wrote:

Not to mention I feel kinda icky "manipulating" the game, so to speak, to advance. I'm happy if everyone else does this and fights amongst the top while I sneak in for the paltry 1000 prize (which used to happen but...somehow doesn't any more). I don't know if it's something I'd want to devote so much time and effort into...

This is my problem. The meta-game feels so wrong to me that I refuse to participate. There was apparently great disagreement within the dev team regarding whether it was a problem and if so, how big. I wonder if that is still going on and whether or not changes might come. But in the meantime, I am playing a game against people who, from my perspective, "cheat". It is making it significantly less fun to play.

CaptainFreaky

I'm actually fine with the cc bakers even though I don't partake. It boosts the total score within a bracket and makes it theoretically easier for more people to reach 1K when there are folks who are coordinating to get to scores of 2K and beyond.

My problem is that the "theory" part of this doesn't seem to be working, at least for me. Higher scores should make it easier for me to get to 1K in PVP, but I'm finding it nigh impossible without lots of shield investment and/or luck to take a mostly 3* roster that high - I get whacked for way more points than I can score one I get past about 700 points.

It seems to me that Demiurge shouldn't construct a game mechanic that almost requires out of game collaboration to progress into 4* land reliably. But with the nerf of all boosted 3* rosters, along with removing the HP option to buy covers (yes I know there is the CP option, but that's waaaaay more expensive) it has made my progress into 4* a process of token luck (much like the 5* transition) rather than directed grinding. And I really don't find that awesome at all.

Lemminkäinen

Dragon_Nexus wrote:

That sounds...bonkers.

You asked, I answered. That's how it is.

That's a lot of coordination and timing and planning and execution and hopeful collaboration to achieve that. It seems to assume a lot, too.
1) People won't jerk you over.
2) You don't get sniped to hell by people not on Line in the mean time.
3) You don't end up losing what would normally be easy matches, or even taking too long, because of a bad board.

All of these are mitigated by a simple fact: you don't get to those points anymore without knowing etiquette and being on LINE. Or rather, you might but not reliably and if someone is acting up, he gets onto a list and is dealt with harshly. Collaboration is a helluva thing.

You don't get to those points anymore without knowing etiquette and being on LINE.Not to mention I feel kinda icky "manipulating" the game, so to speak, to advance. I'm happy if everyone else does this and fights amongst the top while I sneak in for the paltry 1000 prize (which used to happen but...somehow doesn't any more). I don't know if it's something I'd want to devote so much time and effort into...

I certainly doubt that this was the intended PvP end game. But so it goes. This game seems to be mostly about prizes as opposed to playing the game (as you can see all over the forums, really) and that is the ultimate way of getting the prizes.

Dragon_Nexus

Phumade wrote:

Don't take this the wrong way, but while your playing your or even D3 interpretation of MPQ should be played, The top 100 alliances in the entire MPQ universe is playing a much deeper meta version of MPQ. Feel free to play the game in the fashion that makes the most sense and fun to you (Nothing requires you to participate in high level play). But don't be surprised, that other people don't see a need to limit their play in such a fashion.

That in a nutshell is why your advancement has slowed. At your stage of the game 800+ (vet brackets), the game becomes much more about coordination and cooperation with others.

And that is true whether you view role as: baker, CC eater, sniper, enforcer, blah blah blah.

Apologies if my previous post came across as holier-than-thou or anything.

I take no offense in your post, I do fully understand what you mean. Thing is, I felt my goals were quite obtainable before. Hit 1000, shield up and leave it at that. Didn't care about placement because it would just be a 3* I already had. PvP progression has become way harder now. It would be nice if they raised the vet floodgate to 1000+, assuming that's something programmed into the game and not simply a reality of how the queue system works.

I'm not decrying the cupcake system or anything, demanding it be removed or whatever. I'm not quite that petty. I guess I'm just saying it's not for me, I like to try to relax with the game a bit, but these days the previous push to 1000 which could be relatively straight forward, barring the occasional knock back, has become a lot harder.

Bryan Lambert

I think what's more important is that what participants consider a "deeper meta-game" should not be taken into account by D3 when determining things like reward structure and overall difficulty. If they want to allow cake-and-bake to proceed, fine, but using it as evidence that the current system makes it easy enough for people to get the 1K progression reward would be madness.