Versus Matchmaking Test - Magnetic Mayhem (3/22/16)*Updated

edgewriter

LeRoy wrote:

I'm probably missing something obvious here, so I acknowledge that upfront, but would love for someone to point it out to me. Instead of counting total levels, why not count levels above the initial starting point? So a 4 star comes onto your roster at level 70, don't count that, but instead count each actual level worth of ISO that a player puts into that character. So a maxed 4 star would count for 200 instead of 270. Characters (like the dreaded 1 or 2 cover 5 stars) that aren't ever leveled beyond their initial 255) wouldn't kill you. This way players aren't penalized for rostering a character, and they only experience scaling/match-making implications once they actually level up a character on their own. Using the number of covers seems like an absolutely bizarre mechanism for assessing roster strength. Again, I will count on the more mathematically/statistically inclined to point out any flaws in the suggestion, but, on the surface, it seems to make more sense to me than anything the devs have come up with so far. Thoughts?

I was saying we just ignore five stars, but this is even better.

Those of us that have championed a large roster of three stars would have more appropriate difficulty as well as those who have only two stars and a couple fives.

TheOncomingStorm

They say they read player posts and input.

They then make changes of which many don't seem to genuinely take into account player input.

Finally, they ask for input regarding the changes.

Too bad we can't send anyone back in time to break this cycle.

Pylgrim

So it's official. Everybody with underleveled, but max-covered characters will experience increased enemy levels. Level 100 or so with 10+ covers Invisible Women will start counting in the equation, whereas the previous system completely ignored her. I don't see how that can be a good thing.

Seriously, the only ones who will benefit from this are the 2* players whose 1-cover 5*s will stop factoring heavily in MMR. Much like the PVE test this is a change aimed to make life easier to the casual and beginner players, that comes at a great cost to the middle-ground players.

getterwing

JCTthe3rd81 wrote:

Who knows, this may actually make PvP better. I don't think it worked very well for PvE, but PvP is a little different. What works on one may not work on the other. And vice versa. I'm curious to see how it plays out myself.

JJ

I think so. It is too early to judge this system right now.

MaxxPowerz

New system doesn't seem too bad so far, but then again I have a fairly balanced roster. It just so happens that after boosting my fully covered ice man and cyclops level at 245. I can see how the results might fluctuate considering what characters are boosted that week.

TheOncomingStorm

getterwing wrote:

JCTthe3rd81 wrote:

Who knows, this may actually make PvP better. I don't think it worked very well for PvE, but PvP is a little different. What works on one may not work on the other. And vice versa. I'm curious to see how it plays out myself.

JJ

I think so. It is too early to judge this system right now.

I think the change will be minimal for most players. The point is this will not be the pvp change ppl have been hoping for.

There will still be cupcakes. There will still be unnecessary high scores.

There will not be 4* placement rewards to bring pvp up to date. 3* and 2* placement rewards will not be pushed lower to help newer players. There will not be more iso.

This change seems to be more about making the game more satisfactory for the developers, not the players.

inEden

TheOncomingStorm wrote:

getterwing wrote:

JCTthe3rd81 wrote:

Who knows, this may actually make PvP better. I don't think it worked very well for PvE, but PvP is a little different. What works on one may not work on the other. And vice versa. I'm curious to see how it plays out myself.

JJ

I think so. It is too early to judge this system right now.

I think the change will be minimal for most players. The point is this will not be the pvp change ppl have been hoping for.

There will still be cupcakes. There will still be unnecessary high scores.

There will not be 4* placement rewards to bring pvp up to date. 3* and 2* placement rewards will not be pushed lower to help newer players. There will not be more iso.

This change seems to be more about making the game more satisfactory for the developers, not the players.

I think that is an excellent point. The issue with the game is one of progression. Not scaling. If they made progression slightly more generous they won't have to necessarily fix scaling as people wouldn't need to place so high or score so many points unless they are competing for, say top 50.

I actually think the current progression status quo, in terms of covers and ISO, is one that the developers want to stick to. All these changes are perhaps just things that the devs wanted to do to update their system or streamline it.

Dauntless74

I'm getting matched with fully covered 3* champions right off the bat. My roster is nowhere near that kind of levels. This is supposed to be fair matchmaking right?

Wooodd

Is there the same compensation for taking part in this testing as with PvE?

3 x Tokens for showing face and 10 x CP for T50?

woopie

Only played up to 300 for the token in Slice 1 so far and it actually seems easier for me. Using champed XDP and Creepy Bobby. Either that or there are a lot more people running XDP/XFW this time around.

tiomono

Ok so far I am enjoying this. I have just over half of the 3 stars champed the rest are all fully covered and around 135.

My 4's are meh. I have none of them cover maxxed. 3 sitting at 152 and the rest with anywhere from 1 to 5 covers.

5's I have ss at 2 black, and phoenix at 2 covers. I have not put iso in either.

Before the test I would clear seeds and instantly see 4 stars. I am sitting at almost 500 points right now and have yet to see any 4 star.

I'm not feeling like the underdog right out of the gate and that's a good thing.

zabud76

tiomono wrote:

Ok so far I am enjoying this. I have just over half of the 3 stars champed the rest are all fully covered and around 135.

My 4's are meh. I have none of them cover maxxed. 3 sitting at 152 and the rest with anywhere from 1 to 5 covers.

5's I have ss at 2 black, and phoenix at 2 covers. I have not put iso in either.

Before the test I would clear seeds and instantly see 4 stars. I am sitting at almost 500 points right now and have yet to see any 4 star.

I'm not feeling like the underdog right out of the gate and that's a good thing.

Same here - solid 3 star roster with very early 4 star progression. It's very refreshing to not be seeing fully covered 4 stars right away. It was getting very discouraging to play pvp just to eek out 200-300 placement.

Warbringa

SnowcaTT wrote:

Would it really be so hard to have it take into account not total number of covers, but average number of your levels? Then scaling would look at your entire roster, not just the top ones - and it wouldn't be looking at all of those characters you have no ISO to level.

I am very concerned that if it is looking at number of covers, it may be looking at number of champion levels as well. So now if I was a 3* player that has a level 175 Magneto scale up to level 300, am I seeing nothing but 5*'s?!?

The issue with average roster level as a whole is it really, really benefits softcappers. Level up the three best characters in each tier and never invest in any other character and you will face much weaker competition with your dominant 3* or 4* team etc.

HaywireII

First Impressions: I hopped in and cleared out all of the seed teams to see what the matchmaker would offer me. All three nodes gave me level appropriate matches similar to what is on my roster. No 4*'s in sight to make my 2* to 3* transitioning roster sad.

The real test will be when I climb up to around 600 or so and see if this holds consistent.

Linkster79

Warbringa wrote:

SnowcaTT wrote:

Would it really be so hard to have it take into account not total number of covers, but average number of your levels? Then scaling would look at your entire roster, not just the top ones - and it wouldn't be looking at all of those characters you have no ISO to level.

I am very concerned that if it is looking at number of covers, it may be looking at number of champion levels as well. So now if I was a 3* player that has a level 175 Magneto scale up to level 300, am I seeing nothing but 5*'s?!?

The issue with average roster level as a whole is it really, really benefits softcappers. Level up the three best characters in each tier and never invest in any other character and you will face much weaker competition with your dominant 3* or 4* team etc.

Isn't that really the best use of iso? As much as the names in red would have us believe they do not want us a players to use the whole of our rosters otherwise the meta wouldn't have shifted so far towards the 4* tier and the latter 3* would not have been so overpowered compared to their earlier released peers. Who is seriously going to invest iso into Star Lord (despite many characters "playing well" with him), Elektra or Totally Awesome Hulk when there is Teen Jean, Ice Man or X-Force Deadpool needing iso too? The main issue that almost every player is facing is iso shortage but there doesn't seem to be any acknowledgement that this is going to be addressed. Until that shortage is resolved players will always have trash characters at higher "power levels" but lower levels compared to the cream of the crop characters.

firethorne

Well, I was hovering around 500 points, but then was hit by a fully covered Silver Surfer/Phoenix team, both over level 420. I'm only using champion Magneto, Hood and Punisher, and don't have any maxed 4*s...

The teams climbing have seemed maybe a bit easier than usual, but since I'm a ways from hitting progression, Things aren't usually too crazy under 600 on a normal event. I'll withhold judgment for now. Receiving a 5* best down this early in the climb makes me skeptical.

RWTDBurn

My first impressions of the early climb are surprisingly positive. After the feeder teams I faced various levels of 3* (some championed) and 4* (only 1 was championed) rosters as I did a quick climb to 300. I'm running level 360 OML, Championed Mags, and Championed XFDP and I only saw 2 teams that had a 5* on them and they were leveled below mine. The most important part to this is that I'm seeing names I've never seen before. That alone is a good sign as typically I recognize almost all of the names I see from 0 - 1300+ as I'm always matching up with the same people. I ran up to 300 and second in my bracket so I can sit there and see who hits me and what their rosters look like.

If the level of my opponents scale upwards as I climb to 1k+ then this will be a huge improvement. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Vhailorx

Others have said it already, but the problem with a scaling/matchmaking system that measures just covers is the same as one that measures just levels: it's doesn't accurate reflect roster strength.

It's easy enough to get a single 5* that completely destroys your scaling but is mostly useless with just one cover (still can't believe they didn't think of this problem before releasing 5*s and haven't fixed it in 6+ months). But it's also easy to have a fully covered 3* or 4* but nowhere near enough iso to level them (personally, i have an iso gap of something like 2.5mil.). So looking at just one factor is never going to work properly across all players. Even looking at both together can be problematic because it's possible to have weak, high leveled characters (5*s), and weak high covered characters (4*s without iso to level) on the same roster!

But they could significantly increase the iso flow, which would free more players to level their characters as they gain covers, and thereby make the existing scaling mechanisms work better.

TxMoose

I haven't seen much of a difference so far. just started though.

stochasticism

TxMoose wrote:

I haven't seen much of a difference so far. just started though.

Same. I'm seeing slightly fewer loaner teams and almost no 2* teams that I could usually find early in my climb. Other than those small differences the new matchmaking appears roughly comparable to what was there before.