Tournament Points - Split from Patch Preview: R41

IceIX

ccseifert wrote:

I do want to say that though I'm pointing out what I consider to be shortcomings of the game and may appear to be contrarian, it is not meant to be disrespectful, I actually very much enjoy the game and am very thankful that someone representing the developers is as engaged with the players as you are, Ice. That was one of the biggest knocks against Avengers Alliance, that suggestions/complaints often fell on deaf ears. So I do thank you for that and for a very fun game to play.

No problem at all, I hope I didn't come across as attacking you either in my response as that certainly wasn't my intent. One of the funny things about playing devil's advocate or being contrarian in general though is that while the idea or thought in question may be unpopular, bringing it up as a point of conversation with other people willing to discuss it can only add to the discussion. This board has been shockingly good for creating that sort of discussion compared to many other borderline cesspits of official boards that I've seen and participated in for other games.

Unknown

Domino wrote:

I think I like this idea, but (I'm actually not sure about this, correct me if I'm wrong) wouldn't this severely limit how many points you're able to earn to a degree that would make it even harder to get the progression rewards.

Only if you are one of those people that like to attack teams that are significantly higher up the ranks than you. It would depend on the limit that was set. I think maxing out at 20points per battle is fair, 5 battles to reach the next reward, provided you're not attacked. It would in turn though ensure you couldn't lose more than x amount of points for losing a battle, making it easier to hold your ground and keep climbing the ladder.

Maybe a two score system would also work. A Current Score and Base Score (which is a percentage of your current score). Your base score can only increase and never decrease and your current score can't fall below your base score. As a rough example:
At the start of a tournament both your scores start at 0 points. Say you win a match worth 20points. Your current score increases to 20 and your base score is now 12. If you are attacked by multiple people then your current score will never drop below 12. If you kept winning rounds and reached 1000 points then your base score would be 600 and you can go to sleep happy that night knowing that you will at least be able to resume from 600points the next day if you happened to be attacked a million times in the night. Ranking and progression rewards etc uses your current score as normal.

Unknown

As a winner/top finisher of a few tournaments what changes I'd like to see:

1) Charge ISO for skipping : Force players to clear out there 5 opponents before getting new ones.
2) Diminishing returns for attacking the same players after the first retaliation. I rather not waste my last hour getting revenge back and forth 20 times to keep my 25ish points.
3) Let us give boosts to our Defensive teams, giving us a chance to actually win our defenses.

In situations like these the solutions are fairly simple to find by testing the different alternatives. Run some different tournaments with different matchmaking and choose the ruleset that provides the best results. Tinkering the current rulesets with minor changes won't accomplish real change until you can see the results of the extreme alternatives, when you discover these results is when you can create a tournament that satisfies most player's desires.

Luckily IceIX, your team has an easy way to test the settings by hosting a 24 hour tournament with the different ideas and choosing what works best for you and your players.

Unknown

Ohmar wrote:

As a winner/top finisher of a few tournaments what changes I'd like to see:

1) Charge ISO for skipping : Force players to clear out there 5 opponents before getting new ones.
2) Diminishing returns for attacking the same players after the first retaliation. I rather not waste my last hour getting revenge back and forth 20 times to keep my 25ish points.
3) Let us give boosts to our Defensive teams, giving us a chance to actually win our defenses.

In situations like these the solutions are fairly simple to find by testing the different alternatives. Run some different tournaments with different matchmaking and choose the ruleset that provides the best results. Tinkering the current rulesets with minor changes won't accomplish real change until you can see the results of the extreme alternatives, when you discover these results is when you can create a tournament that satisfies most player's desires.

Luckily IceIX, your team has an easy way to test the settings by hosting a 24 hour tournament with the different ideas and choosing what works best for you and your players.

I prefer random matchmaking (dont show team composition, just show their point value and maybe the sum of their heroes' levels) over suggestion #1

Unknown

same frustation here. couple times manage to rank 1 with 800+ points, aaaaaandd.....it's gone!
bashed to rank 20+ with 200-300 loss point. the milestone reward is impossible. many times i try to search opponent with high reward. at top10, u re hardly find whorty reward point. only 10-14 max with risk getting retaliated losing 10-30+ point for being in top 10 rank

at least reduce the loss point please. rarely we can defend against 3 try, except u got one hell of a ultra high level maxed skill team [to make the opponent skip ^^]

Unknown

I want the 3 try thing gone. I don't see what purpose it serves.

Unknown

DumDumDugn wrote:

I prefer random matchmaking (dont show team composition, just show their point value and maybe the sum of their heroes' levels) over suggestion #1

Ooh, that sounds like a fun idea.

Unknown

DumDumDugn wrote:

I want the 3 try thing gone. I don't see what purpose it serves.

The "3 try thing" isn't that great, but I will say it isn't one of the more urgent things this game needs fixed.

Offhand, the top 3 things this games needs, IMHO:

1. Adjusting of points gain/loss in tournaments so the position swings are less wild (which renders the first 90% of PvP tournaments irrelevant, and everything to play for in the last hour). Tying in with this is the problematic tourney matchups that requires countless cycling to find opponents with good points.
2. Balancing of character abilities (I know suggesting Classic Storm is just going to bring on the hate, so I will refer to buffing of universally weak characters like Loki and Wolverine X-Force)
3. Introduction of abilities respec: With more and more cards introduced, and characters adjusted with patches, there will be new team balances. This will allow for players to set up new teams (for e.g I want to max Wolverine's green strike tile skill over his red skill, to pair with another damage dealer), as well as to correct skill leveling errors from days gone by.

Unknown

Bombul wrote:

DumDumDugn wrote:

I want the 3 try thing gone. I don't see what purpose it serves.

The "3 try thing" isn't that great, but I will say it isn't one of the more urgent things this game needs fixed.

Offhand, the top 3 things this games needs, IMHO:

1. Adjusting of points gain/loss in tournaments so the position swings are less wild (which renders the first 90% of PvP tournaments irrelevant, and everything to play for in the last hour). Tying in with this is the problematic tourney matchups that requires countless cycling to find opponents with good points.
2. Balancing of character abilities (I know suggesting Classic Storm is just going to bring on the hate, so I will refer to buffing of universally weak characters like Loki and Wolverine X-Force)
3. Introduction of abilities respec: With more and more cards introduced, and characters adjusted with patches, there will be new team balances. This will allow for players to set up new teams (for e.g I want to max Wolverine's green strike tile skill over his red skill, to pair with another damage dealer), as well as to correct skill leveling errors from days gone by.

thumbs up!! same in my mind
cause still no one ever want loki even buffed 200%

Unknown

You want it to even out by having players have teams that win defense and thus keep their points. This is killed by boosts. Even without them almost any team can be downed by a lower team. With boosts some teams are unstoppable.

Removing the 3 tries can help even things out. (Apart from boosts).

An option is to remove hp and lvl visibility from opponnents team that can make it interesting. Can you tell by lvl and team *and name) who to target. That could work together with the 3 tries.

Dunno if I am correct but it seems that counters do generate counters. If soo that should be removed.

And yes I like the game and we are able to grab the prizes. But the final ranking is made in the final few minutes I do not like that.

Only opponents in a range of 20% above or below your current points can help too. You gotta fight your way through the ranks then. And get to a point where all around you got same skill and it wunt stay easy.

Unknown

Can I sound a note of caution? Not directed at anyone in general, just a general request? Let's not design this just for the benefit of the top 5% of players and/or those that can afford to buy better covers.

While I agree that the churn of points at the top of the rankings and in the last hours of a tournament are not good, this churn is precisely what allows lesser teams of heroes to compete for participation awards and particularly for the 100HP award that usually pays out for 600 points achieved.

I'm currently testing a new, completely FtP account that I started around R40, specifically to test some theories on how to approach the game on a limited budget. What I've learned so far is that the strategies that annoy higher rated players, and in particular, being hit by Classic Storm teams for 30-40 points a hit - are the strategies that help players on a budget to get their participation awards. This is because a relatively new FtP account doesn't have a lot of options to begin with, and is likely to have a pool of "disposable" covers that they haven't levelled up much, which are perfect fodder for a Storm/Iron Man (and later, Storm/Thor) team to take on much stronger opponents and win. And once you hit around 400 rating, you're mainly going to be seeing much stronger teams. So you can either fight equal opponents for 10-15 points a pop, and risk retaliation, or take on stronger teams for 30+ points, who are less likely to retaliate as they risk you smacking them back for even more rating damage.

This is hardly a unique insight, and it doesn't mean that's how the game should work, but the risk is that any solution that severely restricts ratings "swings" at lower levels will also make it harder for those FtP players to earn the HP they need to earn more cover slots. This increases the risk that these players will leave in frustration, which means a much smaller tournament pool for all of us.

So, can we think of a way of selectively putting the brakes on, so that there is still a lot of movement at the bottom and middle of the ratings, but slowing it down as you approach the top? There's already a brake on forward progression as you hit the top, as you earn less points per opponent defeated. What would be nice is to see a brake of backwards progression too, maybe some sort of weighting function?

Unknown

Your right coulson. But playing the whole tourney shoild pay off a lil. Now you can be #1 and dominating all tourney. If yourbunable to attend last hour of tourney. You'll end up with scraps.

Unknown

Its even worse for us EU players, I have been in and around the top ten of the tournament so far this week, but unless I decide to set an alarm for 3:30am I expect to finish around the #300 mark when the event ends.

Unknown

Some truth to that. The game is weighted pretty well as-is in NOT being a pay-to-win experience -- 3 Tries lets weaker teams have at least a chance of retaliating against even vastly more powerful attackers, the skill-level balance keeps rares from outclassing everything else immediately, and early leaders getting plinked down hard is a feature, not a bug. If you're in first place with three days to go, that's like leading your baseball division in June -- it's not a bad thing to be there, but all you've earned so far is the status of Biggest Target Around.

Likewise, I would argue that while 11th-hour attacks are frustrating, they _are_ a deliberate part of the PvP experience. They're like snipers in eBay; if you're not around for the end, you can't bid in the middle and be sure of coming out on top. My main concerns right now are:

* Lack of skill diversity. Right now, there is exactly one powerful reactive skill (Storm's Raging Tempest). There is exactly one healing skill (Web Bandages), which gives anyone lucky enough to have their own skilled Spidey a significant advantage. There are skills that do as much damage as Thor's, but in a strictly PvP context he's a tier above everyone else right now, in that his skills synergize together well, he hits like a truck and he has a ton of HP.

Now, there SHOULD be some characters better than others at different things, and thus some better suited for PvP. As I said in a different thread, Captain America being a PvE monster doesn't make him inferior, just different. But as more characters are introduced with useful skills, the free-for-all metagame will improve.

* Bunching. With a handful of useful common characters available, everyone's leveling/skilling up the same characters, so Free-for-All is an ocean of Thor 70 - Storm 70 - whoever.

This is already being addressed by the variety of tourney types -- things like 1* Only, Avengers Only, Dark Avengers Only, Venom Required required a little more planning, and I encourage further creativity in tourney design.

* Some variety in tourney end times. As an East Coaster, I can't always stay up 'til midnight to slog it out -- some of us work for a living.

MaTThZero

I have just quit this lightning tournament that is happening right now because what happened 1 minute ago does not make sense...
I started playing the tournament from the first 5 minutes.. and beating people , climbing up the ranks .. 7,8,10 points at a time.
I managed to maintain a 12ish place in the ladder because i wanted the heroic reward.. didnt hope for first places.
I was almost at the 250 point reward.. i had 246 and attacked someone for 5 points [was rank 12 here]
When i finished the round.. i was hoping to get the reward .... but now.. instead i got a message telling me i lost 3 battles.. 2 for 30 points and 1 for 36 points.. i was down 96 points .. back at 150 points and from rank 12 i got to rank 311 ... in.. 2 minutes

its not normal to lose 300 rank and 96 points in 2 minute and take like 7-8 fights to get those points back

Unknown

lightning battles always show the whole points issue at the topend since at the topend, you have multiple ppl slamming into each other for points. and since its the 'end' of the tournament, where the activity is the highest, you'll see more of these attacks.

not sure how to fix, without putting in a shield

brisashi

Right now it just isn't very fun.

I understand the logic of the point and matchup system, but the more you play the more it feels like you are sinking in quicksand faster than you can pull yourself up, and the top rewards are out of reach of even the best players.

Unknown

brisashi wrote:

Right now it just isn't very fun.

I understand the logic of the point and matchup system, but the more you play the more it feels like you are sinking in quicksand faster than you can pull yourself up, and the top rewards are out of reach of even the best players.

i know the feeling bro ^^
last night i mangae to breakhtru 963 point, trying to claim 1000, and got shot down to 850+ in just an hour couple times.

Unknown

Can I make a really random, dumb suggestion (before it gets shot down ) ?

As someone who has tried and failed to place in pretty much every tourney so far, one of the most overall frustrating things about how tourney points work overall is that right now, the main source of "progress" you can make is earning progression points, and you can lose every single one of those points the second you turn your back . Basically, you've been building this 12-story skyscraper, and a minute later, it suddenly only has 3 floors left.

What if there were a 3rd type of reward tier, let's call them "achievements," with much more modest rewards, that was given out for the number of victories you had in a tourney? e.g.:

1 Victory: 25 ISO
3 Victories: 50 ISO
5 Victories: 100 ISO
10 Victories: 200 ISO
etc.

These would be rewards that could not get taken away from you or make you lose whatever progress you've made against this goal. There'd be no way to take away a W from you...losing would just add 1 to your L column.

Unknown

yeah the loss point is greater than we got. manage through 993 point!! with 1 enemy battling worth 11 point. by the end of the match...smiling
end in 955 point
WTH
it's not worth it to retaliate cause the one who shot me down way below in rank.