How Does Bracket Placement Work? (i.e. Beginner vs Vet)

Sluggo

I have a general understanding of how MPQ places you in a beginner brackets vs. vet brackets: perform well in enough beginner/"noob"/"casual" brackets, you get bumped up to the harder "vet" brackets. Perform poorly (or skip enough events), you get bumped back down.

I'm wondering, however, if there's more specific info known on how that system works. Is there an FAQ or thread here that already covers it? If not, here are a few questions I have:

• Does that system look at event score, rank, or both? If I join a beginner PVP bracket at the end of an event and finish 10th in a bracket of 80 people, will that bump me up to a vet bracket next time? Or do you need to score some amount of points (300? 500?) to get bumped up?
  
• Does bracket placement only look at your performance in the most recent event, or multiple events?
  
• Are PVE and PVP linked in terms of bracket placement? In other words, say you perform well enough in PVE to end up in a vet bracket, does MPQ label you as "vet" for PVP as well, even if you rarely PVP? Or is PVE and PVP placement handled independently?
  
• Is there any difference between scoring low in an event vs skipping an event altogether? If I'm trying to maintain vet status but missed most of an event, is there any merit to putting up a few points at the end of the event? Could poor performance actually do more damage than skipping?

The impression I get is that each player has some kind of nebulous, invisible rating that's affected by any or all of the factors above, and that's how bracket placement is determined. Is there more definitive info floating around on the subject?

Marine8394

I believe if you go to the FAQ thread by fightforthedream, you will find more definition. Otherwise i can say what you posted is essentially the way it operates.

I must have been doing well recently because the PVE bracket I am currently in, is a meat grinder for me. Top place has an individual with a fully covered OML. Good bye Quake cover maybe next time.

Marine8394

To add on I don't think there is a sync between PVE PvP success. I don't PvP much so I cannot testify to that. With certain pve events I do play little, like only scoring maybe top five hundred, in order to avoid a major vet bracket. Like the one I am in now. Usually that works for me. What I have noticed though is that only works to cycle me downward if I do poorly two PVE events in a row. I tanked isobrohood because it's a 7 day and I am busy. It looks like because I am still busy and because of my bracket i may tank again and hopefully get out into a more even bracket for my roster to compete.

tph_james

I finished first in the beginner bracket in brotherhood. I thought I would be in the vet when I joined thick as thieves and it's not.. I'm still in the beginner bracket.. Weird huh? Not really sure how the mechanism goes.

Warbringa

Does anyone know if you don't participate in a PvE (don't join a slice) do you get an effective 0 score etc? Or do you have to join a slice and get a really low score to have it impact your placement? I have taken a break from PvE as it is too time intensive but should I still be joining slices and rank at 980 for each event or simply not join any slice? I would prefer to have it benefit me when (if) I return to PvE some day to be placed in a lower bracket for at least one event!

hodayathink

Warbringa wrote:

Does anyone know if you don't participate in a PvE (don't join a slice) do you get an effective 0 score etc? Or do you have to join a slice and get a really low score to have it impact your placement? I have taken a break from PvE as it is too time intensive but should I still be joining slices and rank at 980 for each event or simply not join any slice? I would prefer to have it benefit me when (if) I return to PvE some day to be placed in a lower bracket for at least one event!

The last time I got placed in a beginner bracket, I quit halfway through one PvE, and then completely didn't play the next 2 or 3 (and then got lucky because the two after that were Gauntlet and Galactus, which don't have slices or rankings). So I think you should be able to skip completely and be fine.

Sluggo

tph_james wrote:

I finished first in the beginner bracket in brotherhood. I thought I would be in the vet when I joined thick as thieves and it's not.. I'm still in the beginner bracket.. Weird huh? Not really sure how the mechanism goes.

Assuming every player has an invisible rating that determines whether they get placed in "vet" or "beginner" brackets, it seems plausible that, depending on how far below the "vet" cutoff you were, it might take several good results in beginner brackets to climb back into "vet" range.

So I would enjoy the beginner brackets and high results while you can.

GurlBYE

Marine8394 wrote:

I believe if you go to the FAQ thread by fightforthedream, you will find more definition. Otherwise i can say what you posted is essentially the way it operates.

I must have been doing well recently because the PVE bracket I am currently in, is a meat grinder for me. Top place has an individual with a fully covered OML. Good bye Quake cover maybe next time.

Because everyone takes part in this, it's not as fool proof as it was. I might pop my head in every 4 pve events to do my 1 node clear for a **** placement and have consistently seen people with 5's and 4's in top 5 while the person below usually is thousands behind and has nothing but 2 stars.

amusingfoo1

I'm pretty sure that it looks at several events before moving you up or down. I'm positive that PvE bracket-type and PvP bracket-type are unrelated (I moved up in PvE long before PvP). Beyond that, I just don't know.

Sluggo

I've been doing some experimenting the past week. While I haven't arrived at anything conclusive, I'll share what I've done so far.

I have two accounts that I play on. The first is my main, with a modest 3* roster, that I usually place between 20-60th with in most in PVE events, so I expect to be placed in vet brackets for every PVE event. However, after finishing season 24 with 8000 points, I've tanked three straight PVP events and am still getting placed in vet brackets. So I'm not sure what to make of that. Maybe I have to tank a few more events, or maybe it would be more efficient to skip them altogether, or maybe there's some link between PVE and PVP placement where my PVE performance is so good my PVP will never get bumped back down. No idea.

My second account is on a separate tablet that I only dabble with on and off. That roster is only a handful of 2*s around 50-60, and bounces back and forth between vet and beginner brackets for PVE events. I'll place 80th in a beginner bracket, get bumped to vet, finish 600th, get bumped back down to beginner, etc. If there is an invisible rating that determines which bracket you get placed in, it seems this account is hovering right around the cutoff and continually drifts above and below it.

Worth noting, however, that this second account was in a beginner bracket for the ISO-Brotherhood PVE, got bumped up to vet for the Thick as Thieves PVE, and was simultaneously placed in a beginner bracket for the Blade PVP. I almost never PVP on this account, so if there are separate ratings for PVE/PVP, it should take quite a bit of work for this account to work its way up to a PVP vet bracket.

I think I'm going to keep experimenting for another week or two, and maybe start a separate thread in the Theory forum, since that seems more appropriate for speculation-type stuff.