Diary of an insomniac UK player

Unknown

Infini wrote:

Awesome write up, thanks for the read man. I can't help but wonder after reading this (and being through a similar night a few times, though I'm a low tier player begging for any rares compared to you), are we, the people who play this, all insane ? This can't be the right way to play a game... yet we all do it and, gasp, enjoy it too.

It's an unhealthy obsession, for sure. My middle of the night playing had been shelved for several weeks until recently; I think much of this is down to the amount of new covers being released of late and wanting to snap them up while I can.

I can't say I enjoy early hours play per se, but surprise myself with how alert I am - it's a challenge to play optimally, when my mind and body is hell bent on fighting my impulse to stay awake!

Unknown

Nice write-up. You really help put into perspective my own addiction (I've stayed up late, but with a toddler in the next room, once I get to sleep I stay asleep).

I will agree with your brother about Galactrix. I loved what they tried to do - a lot of fun ideas - but it was too buggy. And iirc, it didn't feel like there was any real choices to be made in character development. Whatever you were given, you just took and added it in.

Unknown

Moghwyn wrote:

It's weird how you always seem to meet the same people over and over again in this game. For me it's TheLadder. Received a sound beating in some PvP event several weeks back, every time I clawed my way back up to the top 5 I would get laddered down. Somehow that name has been haunting me ever since, showing up when least expected.

Anyway, joined on Saturday, played a bit, nothing really scary in the top 10. Looked again on Sunday, great, TheLadder sitting around 500 points in the top spot. Maybe he's just in for Black Panther? Ugh, his X-Force is missing a yellow, snowball and hell. Not much activity though, let's keep an eye on his progress.

1am in the morning, five hours left to go, he's shielded close to 750. Now, any somewhat sane player would have the decency to stay at that spot and call it an event. But this is the guy who reshields between beating you up, right? With the uncanny knack of ferreting out anybody getting close to his position? Well, I'm going to get up for final hour of the PvE event, might as well creep up a little more and get up an hour earlier, just in case opportunity calls. Hello bed.

4am in the morning, two hours left to go. Goodbye bed, been nice almost knowing you. Oh dear, TheLadder moved up another 150 points. Not fair, unlike me that guy doesn't seem to need any sleep at all. Should probably report a vampire. Okay, try for a top 5 or ensure a PvE top finish? Rest of top 10 seem to be shielded, and knowing my luck TheLadder is still lurking, queueing me up as soon as I run into cannon fodder range. PvE has unlocked the 1000 ISO nodes, and with two other players gnawing at my heels, this promises a far better gain/pain ratio. Oh well, top 15 for PvP it is. And a good choice too, seeing how TheLadder scored yet another 50 points while I wasn't looking.

Grats on first place, well deserved. Hope you don't plan to build a second X-Force.

Love this... no, not your suffering, but hearing an account from one of the poor souls stuck in that bracket with me over the weekend. I do sometimes wonder what people think when they see people like me, Nemek, wyp etc in their bracket. There was somebody in the past on here that registered an account - just so he could tell everyone that he was in the same bracket as me!

Good luck in your future battles, I'll do my best to steer clear of your path.

Zifna

ZeroUnderscoreOu wrote:

BTW many ppl mention brackets, but aren't the events the same for all players? Is there some division?

Look at your "Events Rewards" page for a given competition. It will list what the top players get, all the way down to a given number. Maybe players 100 to 200 get 100 Iso as their reward, or maybe that's players 250 to 500. Whatever that number is for the worst reward, that's the number of people in your bracket.

When it says 1 person gets X-Force Wolverine, that's not 1 person in the entire game, that's 1 person in this collection of a few hundred players.

I am not 100% sure about this, but I believe your pool of competitors is determined simply by when you begin playing. So if you start at 2pm you'll get a different group than at 5pm.

Unknown

Zifna wrote:

I am not 100% sure about this, but I believe your pool of competitors is determined simply by when you begin playing. So if you start at 2pm you'll get a different group than at 5pm.

This is correct. The brackets fill up on a first come, first served basis. I usually hang back a day or two to get into a bracket, in an attempt to avoid the other heavy hitters; doesn't always work, but I've had decent success with this.

Unknown

Cool read. I feel bad now as someone in NA who specifically tries to exploit EU timings for better placement. Seriously, everytime I play I always ask myself what time is it in EU right now

Nemek

Wow, really nice post! Certainly makes me feel fortunate to be in the US time zones. The craziest thing I've ever done to my sleep schedule is wake up early for a 6AM Rag lightning round when those were still super new. Paid off, though - got top 2 and paved the way to glory for a long time.

Unknown

Enjoyed reading the post and makes me feel a little bit better about my addiction to MPQ too so glad I am in the US for most end times. I also like gleaning the competitive nature of some of you as I am a pretty competitive bastard in general but apparently I have a little ways to go.

Unknown

The Ladder wrote:

I do sometimes wonder what people think when they see people like me, Nemek, wyp etc in their bracket.

If they're anything like me, it's usually "oh ****, there goes my chance of winning!" I personally use you guys as my ultimate goal though. I look at the rosters you all have and it helps me in my levelling decisions. I'm lucky enough that the characters I've chosen to put a lot of ISO into are the same ones you all use, so I know I'm at least making the right decisions! Hopefully one day I'll end up with a roster similar to you guys and other people will think "oh ****" when they see me in their bracket

Unknown

Fun read - you are a beast, sir. My condolences for your lost REM cycles! Count me as another one grateful to be in a US timezone. Most events end 11pm or 11 am for me. The Ladder was the first player I "heard" about through the forums. I took it as a sign that I had finally hit the big time when I started to see him in my matchmaking. Now I know the legends of his craziness were understated.

Unknown

I am glad you are not a surgeon or race car driver - you do not endanger the lives of anyone else with your MPQ insomnia. Thanks for the very entertaining read.

mytisbrewin

Great read.

I completely messed up the end of these 2 events. I am going to put it down to sleep deprivation, but my game showed 10 hours left to play at 23:00 last night. I thought I was good to get up in plenty of time to do a last sweep and push into the top 5.

4:30 am when I first looked at the time thought I was fine. 5:30 am fully awake log on and rewards start coming in Then realised how stupid I had been and that I have a 1-1-1 panther instead of 2-2-2 and missed the 8K iso reward by about 3,000 points. I was surprised by how zen I felt about the whole thing today.

Unknown

I just found it. I'm pretty happy to know that there are people who are much more insane than me. I only play till midnight, then wake up at 5AM (Poland, so I get to sleep 1hr more than the UK) and just like You - keep on checking PvP and PvE.

I hope we will get some more write-ups from You, as it was a real pleasure to read. Like a report from a sportsgame.

Unknown

Nice post TheLadder.
Dutch guy here.
And been in your or nemeks bracket numerous times.
Ya dunt scare mr though I know I wunt get to you.
I now kbow that not paying is not the thing.
But not using shields or boosts might be.
I missed a day or 2.
So no black panthers for me.

MaxCavalera

Great post missed it when it came up a while back. For the last three PvE events I kept saying to myself im going to take it easy and farm out some easy ISO and rewards but then it happens i start grinding out ever reward and the thought of finishing and getting one cover for the new character seems stupid. I think im not going to buy a roster spot for this one cover and i know i wont just sell it so i better start cracking sleep be damned.

Unknown

Missed this post first time round, The Ladder. Great read. You don't mention if you have kids (I'm guessing not, but maybe you do). I'm in the UK too, however, I've recently resigned myself to not being able to compete for top spots for precisely the reason that I cannot commit to doing what you do. So I've had to reconcile myself with that, and with that comes the realisation that I'm unlikely to pick up the covers I need through anything other than token pulls. I'm still trying to decide what that means for me - it has certainly taken a little of the lustre off the game for me.

Not being able to progress at the rate I'd like means I'm finding the game losing a lot of its appeal. I seem to be stuck in that 2* hell a lot of people have been referring to recently. I managed to get two red covers for Hulk in the past two weeks, taking him to 5/4/1. I've been pumping ISO into him like mad (he's at 123, with a max of 128 in sight), as my only 3* option, not counting my lvl 105 IM40. I don't have enough covers to take any other 3* over lvl 50. However, in PvP I regularly face rosters exactly as you describe yours, and in PvE I find the scaling is making the challenge a little too tough for my liking. E.G. Lvl 161 Venom / Hulk / Rags to open West Sahara proving far too much for my max OBW / Thor / random third to replace my Hulk which I can't use! So I struggle to reach cover progression rewards in PvE, and I can only dream of 90 sec matches in PvP (I don't know if Spidey would help. I don't have him, so I carry OBW as a healer to be able to move from match to match without relying on health packs. But it ain't fast.)

Sadly, I find myself not enjoying MPQ as much any more. I know what I want / need from a game, and as much as I love Marvel and the match three mechanic of PQ, I'm realising perhaps this game isn't aimed at me (the casual hardcore gamer) due to it being set-up almost entirely to suit the dedicated gamers who can commit multiple hours per day. I'd love to be able to do that, but at my stage in life it's just not possible. Unfortunately, that leaves little in the game to appeal to me as it stands today.

Clintman

This should go Necro-Green as it is a true classic, and we will miss TheLadder.

You know, this post was only made a few months ago, but it seems like forever. It is funny to think of how much has changed in the game since this post was made. I certainly feel differently about the game now than I did when I read this.

This was posted pretty close to when the first Elite tournament was held if I remember correctly.

Ahh the good old days of yester-March.

Unknown

Don't you know, you are not allowed to drag up old posts from months back Clint? Now your gonna get this locked and taint TheLadder's name. Shame on you.

Clintman

I will tell them that you put me up to it.

Unknown

Clintman wrote:

I will tell them that you put me up to it.

And you think people will believe you? I don't have that power....yet. But one day i will, and everyone will do as i say. Just wait.