MMR at 450 (and lack of diversity)

Malcrof

Jabrony Geoff wrote:

tanis3303 wrote:

SnowcaTT wrote:

Don't know how much longer I'll play the game with it looking like this. Honestly, why bother?

So if leveling 4*s is pointless, and leveling 5*s ruins the game experience...........why am I playing? This is my existential crisis in this game right now, and I don't think there's an answer. IMHO, the devs shot themselves in the foot by releasing the 5* tier before there was any real, meaningful 4* content, and now there's no going back. Oh, I know! I can re-champ all my 2*s!! Smoke and mirrors to distract from the real problems, and I'm not falling for it. My foot's off the gas, and when you start slowing down in a game like this, you might as well stop altogether...we'll see how I feel after another season, because at the end of the day, I do like the game's bones. But the way its going now, it just seems pointless...

Interesting post, I think every person playing mpq should read this. You guys have the best rosters and yet you are not happy.

No-one is forcing anyone to do anything.. get the chars you want, level the ones you want.. use whoever you want.. More 5*s are coming, so diversity is happening.. see my previous post about the beginning of the 4* era. If you aren't ready for the 5* meta, continue leveling 4*s, they are by no means irrelevant, especially when boosted. I am using my champ Nova over my 3/3/4 PNX, because Nova is fun, and i can still murder max 5* teams..

Heck, right now is GSBW pvp, and i am seeing loads of winfinite's, which can manhandle any 5* team, and that is made up of 2 3*s and an underleveled 4*....

Play your own game. 4*s are going strong, and PVP is not the only part of the game.

woopie

There was a period of 4* meta? Someone should tell the devs that. brb need to play 10 more 3* PvPs

SnowcaTT

Malcrof wrote:

No-one is forcing anyone to do anything.. get the chars you want, level the ones you want.. use whoever you want.. More 5*s are coming, so diversity is happening.. see my previous post about the beginning of the 4* era. If you aren't ready for the 5* meta, continue leveling 4*s, they are by no means irrelevant, especially when boosted. I am using my champ Nova over my 3/3/4 PNX, because Nova is fun, and i can still murder max 5* teams..

Heck, right now is GSBW pvp, and i am seeing loads of winfinite's, which can manhandle any 5* team, and that is made up of 2 3*s and an underleveled 4*....

Play your own game. 4*s are going strong, and PVP is not the only part of the game.

PVP is the only part of the game where you can progress into 4* and beyond with any sort of speed. Give me the guaranteed one cover at 1K for 4* three times a week over trying to grind for a guaranteed 4* once or twice a week.

I think the problem is you do end up getting forced into doing things - since D3 never tells you what the rules of the MMR (ie: the game!) are! If they simply said "Sit here and you'll see 3*'s...here and you'll see low 4*'s....here you see 4*/5* mix..."

And they further force you into it because once you make the "mistake" to "improve" your characters, there is no un-level button to get to where you actually want to be. And there is not alternate 3* only or 4* only events to make those characters relevant for you again, or give you a different play-style to enjoy!

I've read several times "more 5*'s coming, diversity coming". How? In two years? Everyone champed their 3*'s/4*'s early on, when OML had the highest draw % possible (5%!) - unless D3 changes something dramatically, there won't ever be that high of draw % again, nor will people be able to get the number of LT's (from initial champing) as quickly again! Instead, we are all stuck seeing the same character over and over and over for at least six months, if not longer!

I'd love to see more folks data-track this crazy play percentage. I've heard the "you can't nerf!" outcry...but every time we have seen one character appear -half- the amount of times that OML pops up, that character has been nerfed.

FierceKiwi

Really trying to earn that green name.

Malcrof wrote:

More 5*s are coming, so diversity is happening.

More 5* that won't hold a candle to the massively broken ones. Wow can't wait for that meta 'shake up'. /sarcasm

Malcrof wrote:

Heck, right now is GSBW pvp, and i am seeing loads of winfinite's, which can manhandle any 5* team, and that is made up of 2 3*s and an underleveled 4*.

Sure if that team can last the 4 turns it takes for a 5* to smash them to pieces with match damage alone...and you don't mind getting gangbanged into next Thursday since that team is basically a kick me sign to everyone.

Polares

SnowcaTT wrote:

Edit - it's also not "you have to fight against high level 5* enemies". It's "you have to fight against a SPECIFIC high level 5* enemy....every single time. Hope you have your own copy!"

Well, I think very early you are going to start seeing another one, maybe even two. I think that with the new chances, people that win most of the CPs is going to start covering GG and IM46 quiet fast. And then you will see a little bit more variation (OML is still going to be the king while climbing, but GG will probably be the king over 1000).


In the end I think that SS being so bad compared to other 5s and scaling in PvE doesn't help diversity. We have almost all been opening just classic LTs, so most of us have OML,SS and Phoenix as our most covered 5s, but most of us just level OML, because Phoenix depends A LOT on the number of purple covers (so much for powers just depending on level ), SS is so bad is not worth levelling, and then levelling a second 5 can make your life in PvE really difficult (this should be fixed by the devs).

In my particular case I could level both Phoenix (405) and SS (450), but I don't want to screw up with my scaling in PvE, so levelling OML to 420 is enough to get to 1300 in PvP and have a reasonable level of difficulty in PvE. If I had a 10 cover GG or 10 cover IM46 I would probably level them right away (and after them the other two), because they are powerful enough to make my life easy in both PvE and PvP. If I had a 5 purple Phoenix I would have also levelled her already, but mine is 5/1/5 sigh

As devs add more 5s we will slowly see more diversity in the 5 space... (At first we could also see XForce and 4hor in the 4 space, even after the nerf, until IMHB was created)

amusingfoo1

SnowcaTT wrote:

Also: it was really frustrating to see 3*'s at my same ranking in PVP when I had the 350 character. Now that it's 450...how is that remotely fair to have the same players competing in the same brackets for the same rewards...when you can't see them due to MMR?

Separate PVP's now please!

You've still got a huge advantage on them. It might not show up at that point, but your float point is somewhere in the 1000-1300 point range, while theirs is more like 5-600. It might be slightly frustrating early in the climb (and I agree; it is), but look at what happens when there are only a few 5*s unshielded at your score or higher. Suddenly you can queue those 3*s and climb ridiculously fast. It might not last long, but it doesn't have to.

Colognoisseur

FWIW the meta shift for 5* has begun.

5* Iron Man is by far the most diverse 5* yet. He can be used with almost any of the characters for devastating effect.

Hate OML/PHX? IM/BSSM just kills them. I just played SG PvP against dozens of OML/PHX. Know what happens when OML casts black? I get a free turn. IM blue into im red followed by bssm green leaves one dead and one with a four turn stun and the ability to just match damage what's left.

Pair IM with PHX turns PHX purple plus IM blue into ridiculous board destruction and one-two what's left with im and phx red. So much fun to play.

Pair IM with Green Goblin. This is the next power couple. Black, purple, blue, red, yellow put out huge damage. If you add bssm in ssim you have a rainbow of death where at level 450 every active does at least 9K.

In a pinch because ss is team im he isn't half bad with im. Not the best but in Venom Bomb I'm using im phoenix ss and just one-shotting carnage before I eat endless scythes.

Yes OML is still a beast but he is no longer the apex predator in 5*-land there are others now.

Vhailorx

Malcrof wrote:

With more 5*s released and more coming, the diversity will happen in time, forever it was XFW/4Thor everywhere. If you decide to move to the 5* tier, you will fight 5*s. Gobby/IM is the next 5* power combo, and having fought it a couple times, i will gladly fight OML/PNX lol.

I think that's a bad analogy malcrof. Demiurge completely reshaped the meta to break the thorverine duopoly (both of them for nerfed hard AND character health was bumped up across the board, AND weekly buffs were added).

As for the prevalence of OML, he's not especially overpowered relative to other 5* (like GG) in a single match. And I think other teams will become the standard shield hopping combos. But true healing is fundamentally broken in a game that effectively charges players money or time to generate health for other characters. This is a game that heavily favors constant, grinding play. And OML is almost as strong as any other character in the endgame meta, but also allows for constant play without use of healthpacks. Of course he is in 85% of nodes: he saves people real world money.

jobob

So... OML is the most useful in some situations, but not others? In the 3* game, some characters were better for climbing, others packed the higher 1-match damage. Same with 4*. And now same with 5*. Maybe there's some imbalance, but it's not a huge issue.

Granted, it hasn't been handled perfectly... but I think everyone overvalues OML in the 5* meta, because he was everyone's first beastly character. OML's true imbalance is in how good he is at low cover levels, vs some of the others. Take OML vs Phoenix for example... a 2-2-2 OML is excellent, a 2-2-2 Phoenix is "meh." That's why everyone sees him as a god, because he's the first 5* that makes you feel like you've turned on god mode. But in terms of damage output, I'll take a 450 Phoenix over OML. Her sustainability is excellent as well with the revive.

OML is a great meat shield... but he also has lower health and you are seeing characters now who can take him out in a single turn with just 2 powers. He's also slow, and requires a lot of AP to transform to murderbot, which the AI very, very rarely gets anyway, which makes him weak on defense.

I haven't champed all the 5*, just SS, OML, Phx, BSSM, GG, and IM. I think the 5* game is improving, and, as Colognoisseur said, the meta is shifting. But, more than that, it's starting to feel more balanced because other characters are coming into play. Finally, every PVP isn't just OML/PHx... there are other options to consider. I change out my PVP team depending upon the feature character AND the enemy team. A Phx/OML team is becoming more and more of a target. BSSM/IM really takes the bite out of them. Another fun combo is to take your own OML along with GG... because once you throw out OML's black strike tiles, GG purple will 1-shot a lvl 450 OML.

OML is a great character, and I think leveling him should be a priority. But he's not the only way to compete in 5* land any more. He's a useful character among multiple useful characters.

SnowcaTT

amusingfoo1 wrote:

SnowcaTT wrote:

Also: it was really frustrating to see 3*'s at my same ranking in PVP when I had the 350 character. Now that it's 450...how is that remotely fair to have the same players competing in the same brackets for the same rewards...when you can't see them due to MMR?

Separate PVP's now please!

You've still got a huge advantage on them. It might not show up at that point, but your float point is somewhere in the 1000-1300 point range, while theirs is more like 5-600. It might be slightly frustrating early in the climb (and I agree; it is), but look at what happens when there are only a few 5*s unshielded at your score or higher. Suddenly you can queue those 3*s and climb ridiculously fast. It might not last long, but it doesn't have to.

This made me chuckle.

My floating point hasn't changed from about 600 for the last 8 hours of the event since I was 3*. Their MMR makes sure of that. When I was 3*: above 600 would get hammered. When I was 4*: same. Now with one 5*: Yep, I get whomped the minute I cross 600 without a shield.

jobob

SnowcaTT wrote:

amusingfoo1 wrote:

SnowcaTT wrote:

Also: it was really frustrating to see 3*'s at my same ranking in PVP when I had the 350 character. Now that it's 450...how is that remotely fair to have the same players competing in the same brackets for the same rewards...when you can't see them due to MMR?

Separate PVP's now please!

You've still got a huge advantage on them. It might not show up at that point, but your float point is somewhere in the 1000-1300 point range, while theirs is more like 5-600. It might be slightly frustrating early in the climb (and I agree; it is), but look at what happens when there are only a few 5*s unshielded at your score or higher. Suddenly you can queue those 3*s and climb ridiculously fast. It might not last long, but it doesn't have to.

This made me chuckle.

My floating point hasn't changed from about 600 for the last 8 hours of the event since I was 3*. Their MMR makes sure of that. When I was 3*: above 600 would get hammered. When I was 4*: same. Now with one 5*: Yep, I get whomped the minute I cross 600 without a shield.

I didn't see a huge change in my floating point until I champed the 2nd 5*. Then it will jump up over 1000. You will be able to late climb to 2k without a shield.

PeterGibbons316

SnowcaTT wrote:

amusingfoo1 wrote:

SnowcaTT wrote:

Also: it was really frustrating to see 3*'s at my same ranking in PVP when I had the 350 character. Now that it's 450...how is that remotely fair to have the same players competing in the same brackets for the same rewards...when you can't see them due to MMR?

Separate PVP's now please!

You've still got a huge advantage on them. It might not show up at that point, but your float point is somewhere in the 1000-1300 point range, while theirs is more like 5-600. It might be slightly frustrating early in the climb (and I agree; it is), but look at what happens when there are only a few 5*s unshielded at your score or higher. Suddenly you can queue those 3*s and climb ridiculously fast. It might not last long, but it doesn't have to.

This made me chuckle.

My floating point hasn't changed from about 600 for the last 8 hours of the event since I was 3*. Their MMR makes sure of that. When I was 3*: above 600 would get hammered. When I was 4*: same. Now with one 5*: Yep, I get whomped the minute I cross 600 without a shield.

What slice? Today I climbed from 200-1300 in S5 and then dropped a 8h shield through the end. I "got hammered" maybe 2 or 3 times for anywhere from 40-70 points each during that time, but that was it. I never found myself even having to rush my fights to get points before I lost them.

RWTDBurn

SnowcaTT wrote:

amusingfoo1 wrote:

SnowcaTT wrote:

Also: it was really frustrating to see 3*'s at my same ranking in PVP when I had the 350 character. Now that it's 450...how is that remotely fair to have the same players competing in the same brackets for the same rewards...when you can't see them due to MMR?

Separate PVP's now please!

You've still got a huge advantage on them. It might not show up at that point, but your float point is somewhere in the 1000-1300 point range, while theirs is more like 5-600. It might be slightly frustrating early in the climb (and I agree; it is), but look at what happens when there are only a few 5*s unshielded at your score or higher. Suddenly you can queue those 3*s and climb ridiculously fast. It might not last long, but it doesn't have to.

This made me chuckle.

My floating point hasn't changed from about 600 for the last 8 hours of the event since I was 3*. Their MMR makes sure of that. When I was 3*: above 600 would get hammered. When I was 4*: same. Now with one 5*: Yep, I get whomped the minute I cross 600 without a shield.

The floating point actually got much worse with 5*s for me. Prior to 5*s, I could float around 700-800 up until the last 13 hours before I made my run to 1K+ and shielded. I found once I had a 5* at 350 through 420 this floating point decreased drastically to the point that I would float between 450-500, anything above that and I'd get slapped right back down. I even had to start making my run at 16 hours left as by 13 hours I was near 400. I'm hoping that now that I have a championed 5* I can start to float at 800 again but that's likely wishful thinking. Being able to float at 1k - 1300 with a 5* worked for the whales early on but those days are gone unless you have multiple championed 5*s.


I've heard malcrof state twice on here that there are more 5*s on the way, but with the current system to earn them it will take 6+ months for all but the biggest whales to get one to a usable state. That's a heck of a long time for us to be fighting the same OML + Pheonix or SS over and over and over again.

Great post BTW SnowcaTT. You did a great job of documenting the repetitiveness and punish success MMR we see in PvP.

TxMoose

I agree that leveling 5s does nothing to raise your 'hover' or 'float' point. at 405, sometimes I can float in the 600s (slice 1 on the weekend I was able to). sometimes not (squirrel slice 4 was not able to). climbs are similar, but against stronger teams understandably. during climbs much more hits come in with my 405, so you just kinda have to get over letting that frustrate you - gonna happen. didn't really happen much with boosted 4s. however, health pack usage is much lower and you can play many more matches without packs, so, so far (2 events), I've climbed to slightly higher than normal point totals at my first shield (but took longer to do so due to the hits that came in) - I may be able to climb higher before shielding but haven't had the extra time to attempt (war machine made it to 1300, squirrel about 1150). very limited data points there, but it feels like that will be the norm. at a pure 4* roster, your mmr group usually would just rather not deal with a good pair of boosteds. my current mmr group, everyone hits everyone (slice 4 anyway) and nobody is safe to 'float' with a 405.

my conclusion - leveling oml helps with health packs, makes LR seeds very fast, makes alliance boss events much easier, and helps in pve. tangible raise in scoring ability is minimal. its there, but not huge. really after CW2, its nearly worth it just for those events. you always have an option with xpool now.

PeterGibbons316

TxMoose wrote:

during climbs much more hits come in with my 405, so you just kinda have to get over letting that frustrate you - gonna happen.

One of the things that has really helped me is thinking of PvP events as ISO farms. Just hit what you can for the ISO, and it's easy to forget about the hits coming in. Even against other 5*s the match damage is so high that battles go quite a bit faster. Start early, hit as many people as you can, and just see where you can really float for a long period. For me I rarely fall below 800, but if I do there are enough retals that I can actually beat to get me back into cake range.

TxMoose

PeterGibbons316 wrote:

TxMoose wrote:

during climbs much more hits come in with my 405, so you just kinda have to get over letting that frustrate you - gonna happen.

One of the things that has really helped me is thinking of PvP events as ISO farms. Just hit what you can for the ISO, and it's easy to forget about the hits coming in. Even against other 5*s the match damage is so high that battles go quite a bit faster. Start early, hit as many people as you can, and just see where you can really float for a long period. For me I rarely fall below 800, but if I do there are enough retals that I can actually beat to get me back into cake range.

I've completely gone that route in simulator when I'm not pve'ing heavily - climb hitting anything that won't take much health off, get beat down, rinse/repeat. I can't (yet) mentally treat pvp events like that. plus they're so short and I rarely have loads of extra time (at the right time) to do that.

Druss

Re Diversity

It's not only OML that is the main problem but the power gap.

When in 2* land you could hit successfully 3* teams. The same for 3* land (pre-nerf anyway!).

However the gap between 4* & 5* is too large (match damage alone means that even if a 4* team is successful it's severely damaged).

Any 4* is cannon fodder for a 5* this is why there is no diversity in 5* land as you can only use 1 tier.

Pre-nerf & before championing even with a lv 270 4* there were some 3* combo's that could cause pain, but with 5*'s large health & large match damage all matches are over super quick against anything other than opponents in the same tier. With less than 10 characters in that tier & the stupid RnG system for building new ones don't expect diversity to improve soon.

After reading Snowcatt's post i'm glad I've left my 5* alone - not that I had a choice as I have pulled exactly 2 this calendar year so far!

jki_23

Hi all,

I just want to ask if I leveled my OML (5/3/2) and Phoenix (3/5/2), both at lvl390 at this moment, to lvl405. Will my MMR raised significantly? I am afraid I will be seeing a lot of 435 / 450+ 5 star duo in PVP once I level them. I rather stay at lvl390 if that's the case.

Thanks in advance for your kind respond.

tanis3303

jki_23 wrote:

Hi all,

I just want to ask if I leveled my OML (5/3/2) and Phoenix (3/5/2), both at lvl390 at this moment, to lvl405. Will my MMR raised significantly? I am afraid I will be seeing a lot of 435 / 450+ 5 star duo in PVP once I level them. I rather stay at lvl390 if that's the case.

Thanks in advance for your kind respond.

This is exactly the kind of question that should NEVER HAVE TO BE ASKED!! Devs: What the Actual Cat? How can you not see this as a problem?? Players are literally afraid to level their rosters because it might destroy their game experience. That can't be intentional design, and if it is, we all need to collectively jump ship and abandon this game, because it's never going to get better.

To answer your question jki, from what I've heard from everyone that has leveled their guys, I wouldn't do it. I don't know where the magic number is when everything goes to kitty, but if you're ok with your MMR as it is, I don't think I'd mess with it. 390 is plenty for them to do what they do, and a 5 black OML is going to wreck just as much face there as he does at higher levels without messing up your game experience.

laughingMAN

There's a weird tangential issue on the other side of the spectrum too. As more and more of the older player base transitions into the all 5* MMR, they are being removed from the lower MMR. Hitting 1300 used to be pretty easy for me, but more and more these days the climb to 1300 pts is becoming a desert of low point targets. I mean, I can see unshielded people at the top of my bracket, but they're all running 450 OML / Phoenix combos so I can't target them. It seems to matter less and less what time slice I choose now too (which was my old solution to this issue).

This is a really weird problem to have. Basically, the game is becoming more difficult for every reason other than the actual gameplay.