CareBearStare Alliance Thread

Unknown

Fellow Bears,
I just realized I haven't introduced myself.
My name is Howard D. And yes, I was into superhero ducks long before (and long after) it was cool.
I was slaving away in a candy crushing factory, until my cousin Decoy Duck, called me up to join the Stare for one final heist.
I've always admired the Bears, with all of their caring and their staring, so it's great to be a part of the team.
I've been playing for over half a year. I'm semi-serious, but I'm trying to also give a little quality time to my wife and infant. This game is amazing to play while strollering the baby to sleep!
I'm a big comic and sci-fi fan, and I'm very happy with Marvel Disney's winning streak. looking forward to taking the baby to Star Wars.
And, that's all I can think of, but I'm sure there's something else...
See you in the game.
- Howard D.

P.S.: As a reminder to the n00bs,
"Forest of Feelings, Care-A-Lot, and Earth aren't far apart.
They differ in some ways, some ways not, 'cause home is in your heart."

Unknown

Welcome to the team, Howard.

With the Classic Magneto change looming I've been thinking about who might be a good replacement for him alongside Patch. I've been playing around with Psylocke and she seems to be filling the role reasonably well. Both her red and black abilities are relatively spammable and if you're getting blocked on green AP you always have the option of getting some strike tiles out with her red, as opposed to saving up twice the AP for Patch's.

Anyone else have any good suggestions on who to pair with Patch?

orionpeace

Well, Fury is an obvious pair for Patch, but is unlikely to be covered enough to be feasible.

I like both Psylocke and BP with Patch. I know some players like Hulk and Punisher with him. I don't know how that plays out personally.

Doom is a consideration. Do his Demons stack with Strike Tiles like Psy's black? Would also be cool if they give Doom a green passive.

DecoyDuck

adamLmpq wrote:

Welcome to the team, Howard.

With the Classic Magneto change looming I've been thinking about who might be a good replacement for him alongside Patch. I've been playing around with Psylocke and she seems to be filling the role reasonably well. Both her red and black abilities are relatively spammable and if you're getting blocked on green AP you always have the option of getting some strike tiles out with her red, as opposed to saving up twice the AP for Patch's.

Anyone else have any good suggestions on who to pair with Patch?

I thought you were still doing your Hulk/Patch thing. Is the combo breaking down?

Also gotta hand it to adamL for taking the gold in Doctor's Orders (alliance rank 26 boo-yah!). We were leapfrogging each others' scores, each time promising that we were done with pvp and then leapfrogging and then adamL brings down the Doom gauntlet and leaves me behind 101 points. Game over, man, game over.

Unknown

DecoyDuck wrote:

adamLmpq wrote:

Welcome to the team, Howard.

With the Classic Magneto change looming I've been thinking about who might be a good replacement for him alongside Patch. I've been playing around with Psylocke and she seems to be filling the role reasonably well. Both her red and black abilities are relatively spammable and if you're getting blocked on green AP you always have the option of getting some strike tiles out with her red, as opposed to saving up twice the AP for Patch's.

Anyone else have any good suggestions on who to pair with Patch?

I thought you were still doing your Hulk/Patch thing. Is the combo breaking down?

Also gotta hand it to adamL for taking the gold in Doctor's Orders (alliance rank 26 boo-yah!). We were leapfrogging each others' scores, each time promising that we were done with pvp and then leapfrogging and then adamL brings down the Doom gauntlet and leaves me behind 101 points. Game over, man, game over.

Haha! I was surprised you actually called it a night 30 mins before the end. I had a couple of good battles lined up and always like to try to eek out a few extra points at the end. Worked out well for me this time, ended up rank #1 in my bracket

As for Patch, yeah I still use him alongside Hulk for shield hops, primarily against Sentry teams. For climbing, though, before getting to the point where I actually need to shield I liked to use Patchneto because it's consistently good against most teams and very good at conserving health packs for long play sessions. So I'm basically looking for a good replacement for that. Of course I can always just use multiple teams which becomes more of an option as I continue to add breadth to my roster.

Unknown

Falcon can be a nice partner for Patch. His yellow enhances Patch's strike tiles, his blue takes out the opponent's, and his purple is a good defensive skill. You might want to make sure Patch still covers yellow, though. Black Panther's the best third in that arrangement, because he makes it a rainbow team (even if his blue is mediocre) and his skills go nicely with the others.

DecoyDuck

I did what I could to keep the Bears representin' in this death bracket, but my WORD! People be wanting that Carol Danvers in a bad way!

danikalil

Hi Bears!

There was a representative of yours in another death bracket...



We couldn't keep in top ten...we made #11 with a score of 1135 (wowie!).

Congrats Tonzil! It's great to be in good company.

STARE STARE STARE!

Unknown

Hi Dani.

That sucked real bad. I saw you get bumped out of 10th with 5 minutes to go... That was not a cool evening.

DecoyDuck had it even worse.

Unknown

Yeah, DDs was clearly the worst of ours. Probably the worst I've seen ever. Mine was about on par with Tonzil's


Like I was saying last night, really surprised at the level of competition for Cpt Marvel considering how much she was smack talked on the forums. I guess there are a lot of people like me though that just want to collect everything available. I have her sitting at 4/5/3 now and will be getting that final red cover before her event is over. I'd prefer to have her spec'd 3/5/5 but that yellow seems elusive.

Unknown

I was also in the same boat as Adam and Tonzil, and thankfully nowhere close to the level of awfulness of DD's bracket. I'll post a picture when I get back home if the result page is still up.

From memory, 1146 for top 10 and my personal best ever by a significant margin, 1380, was only good enough for 3rd. I was quite surprised that this was such a hotly disputed event.

Edited to add the screenshot:

DecoyDuck

Fantastic results Bears! Rank 25 in Real McCoy.
Yes, some of the brackets were bad. I don't begrudge them... I just more data. Curious about Ben Grimm's bracket. I wonder if it supports my theory of self-correcting bracket shards.

Unknown

Yeah, i made it up to 800ish with 3 hours to go and saw I needed 1200+ for top 5 so settled in for a restful top 25

Unknown

Just realized we're already in our final week of Season 5. Even without any particularly great Season reward or individual rewards I expect competition to ramp up a little this week. I'm personally going to take it just a little bit easier. (we'll see how that goes ) Of course this weekend I'll throw a lot of time at SHIELD SIM for those season points and whatever the final PvP is because I've got time on my hands on Sundays now.

Unknown

DecoyDuck wrote:

Fantastic results Bears! Rank 25 in Real McCoy.
Yes, some of the brackets were bad. I don't begrudge them... I just more data. Curious about Ben Grimm's bracket. I wonder if it supports my theory of self-correcting bracket shards.

Not as deathly as some:

Unknown

Hey Ben, what a nice bracket you got. Did you join late at event? Is there a way/tip to get easier brackets?? I was in Adam's one this time, couldnt get top 25 for first time in last 10+ events...with my best score ever on regular pvp...

DecoyDuck

xxMegadethxx wrote:

Hey Ben, what a nice bracket you got. Did you join late at event? Is there a way/tip to get easier brackets?? I was in Adam's one this time, couldnt get top 25 for first time in last 10+ events...with my best score ever on regular pvp...

I think with sharding, join time has a slightly lessened effect. Of course, when a bracket is full, it's full... but nevertheless, it seems that sharding is one of the more least understood concepts to this community. I don't have an answers either. It could be a combination of any bunch of factors... such as...
How well did you rank in your previous events.
How many points did you score in your previous events.
Your MMR level.
Your roster composition.
How many shields you've used previously.
How many boosts you've used previously.
How many letters are in your in-game name. Seriously, we don't know.

However, my theory is that a player who plays consistently will have Self-correcting shards™
Let's presume you play a consistent 1000 point game. You place first in your soft bracket.
The next event, the sharding algorithms bump you a bit higher. You score 1000 points again. But now, you're in the top5.
The next event, another shard bump. Your 1000 points gets top10 only.
Extrapolate until you're in a deathly bracket ranking in the 20s and then BOOM - the sharding algorithm retreats you into a less deadly shard. The algorithm corrected itself. And repeat.

Now that's a "trivial" case where you're scoring the exact same scores and everyone else in the game community is scoring the exact same scores for every event. The truth is, the players are not perfectly rational systems. Sometimes people get busy. Sometimes the rewards aren't worthwhile. Sometimes the rewards ARE worthwhile. Sometimes you mis-time that shield. But the assumption that the algorithm (has to) make(s) is that you're playing every event optimally. That is, as your score and ranks and rosters ebb and flow, the algorithm is convinced you are playing to your optimal ability and will adjust your shard placement accordingly.

Now for Grimm's case. I have, for no reason, surmised that Grimm is a hyper-efficient tactical genius. This is the kind of Bear that knows his roster composition without peaking. He knows what rewards are needed and which aren't. He has, in fact, hidden his true capabilities from the sharding algorithm. Do not misunderstand... his scores are high, but does not cross the line of foolishness (see: DecoyDuck) especially when there are unnecessary or junk rewards on the line. The sharding algorithm continues to shard him down into easier brackets. But then... when there is a prize he DOES want, the true bear nature is revealed and he can dominate his softening alliance. No one, but the sharding algorithm, knows what happened.

Now is this true? I don't know. There's just too few data points. Only the developers know for sure. And if a black van comes and hauls me off... it's because I've gotten too close to the truth. Does that mean we should ALL play suboptimally so we can find softer brackets? By no means! Cause then your alliance would suck. And no bear wants their alliance to suck.

Unknown

I think DD, while being perhaps overly complimentary, is right that - since I usually keep my scores fairly reasonable when I don't need the covers - the game is sharding me lower than I "should" be. That means usually "only" about 750-950, which usually gets me enough ISO, keeps me in-pocket on hp, and a finish in the low-mid teens. It also means that - when I really need the covers - I'm usually not in too bad of a bracket. I suspect I'll be in a worse bracket than usual for the current PVP because I did better than usual last time, but that's a conscious trade-off I'm okay with.

Time used to make a bigger difference than it appears to now. I've got a possibly meaningless tendency to try and start PVPs around 4 pm (eastern) when I can, but on work days it usually ends up being around 6:00 pm, and that's gotten me soft brackets and death brackets. Whatever determines it is still kind of mysterious. The one time I started really late (About 16 hours before the end) it blew up in my face and I ended up in a super-death bracket, though.

Unknown

Thx for the answers DD and Ben. I´ve got a suden grow on bracket difficulty, i was scoring pretty consistent around 750 and it was a sure top 25 for many, many events. And all of a sudden, top 25 was 864.

Guess theres nothing to do then. Lets see what happens next. Hope it was just bad luck.

Unknown

Looks like I landed a pretty soft bracket this event, or maybe it's just that nobody wants to put in much effort for Loki covers. Either way, unless things change drastically I'll be getting my Fury cover in addition to my 5th black X-Force cover which will have him at 5/5/3 which seems to be the best spec. I'm looking forward to dropping a bunch of ISO into him and actually using him