PVP Recommendations & Fixes

LuciferianX

Good morning, team;

This is going to cover a few topics, so I won't go into a great deal of detail on the surrounding pieces, as most of this is scattered around the forums. However, it seemed -- especially with Red Shift -- that I've finally hit "the wall" and PVP is no longer fun. No, it isn't just the odd Green Goblin fortifying Scarlet Witch's countdown tile every single... wait.

Yes, that was definitely part of it.

The first challenge, and another thread as well, how do we retain relevance for 2 & 3 stars going forward? If we had locked PVP brackets, that would take care of it. This is the long complex part, so feel free to ask questions, offer feedback and so on.

PVP 2.0

Instead of rolling out a single 3 star event (Krakadoom, Red Shift, etc), create a new 5 day track with three events running at once; a 2 star, 3 star, and 4 star. There's one cover table -- just as there is now for PVE. So let's say the first "Heat" is 2 Hawkeye, 3 Wanda, 4 Hawkeye. Your draw pack has increased odds for those characters, with the 4 star being the usual 5.5% (or whatever it is), the 3 star being 6%, and the 2 being (what, 12?). Now you have a regular opportunity for people to draw who they want. Let's also (for the sake of discussion), make the following changes to those brackets:

* Keep the usual Current/Season Score, but create a new track, "Total Score," which would function for PVP as Event Score does for PVE now. Yes, you'll still be winning and losing points and trying to place in a given bracket, but the total allowable time gives you an opportunity to go through each track. The Total Score is not subject to your losses; if you play enough, and win enough, you will get to the final total, say, 6,000 total points, and get one of each cover and 25 CP.

* In addition to shields, players now get a new, free option: "Lock." Lock means exactly what it says; your score is locked for that event. You can never go back to it, you can't get better, and it never degrades. I expect this would get some resistance, as it rewards people who join early. Yes, it does, but if you lock a cycle, and are short points for the Total Score, you can't go back there and earn more points. Additionally, without a function like this, people won't bother joining until later anyway for placement, where the objective is to create a more holistic, approachable PVP experience that doesn't just reward people with cranked 4 stars.

* Lock each bracket to its ranking and lower. So the two star bracket will (boring as it may seem) be teeming with OBWs, Hawkeyes, Thors, Ares, and so on, which is fine. You don't have to play in every bracket to get the reward. You'll likely be facing teams of full 144s eventually, which is totally expected and totally normal.

* Rank 3 means you don't suddenly have Green Goblin backing up Wanda.

* Rank 4 means you aren't surprised when a full 4 star team is bearing down on you. You went into the Rank 4 tier, if you can hang with your rank 3 team, they are welcome. If you get stomped because Hulkbuster and Iceman are both buffed that week, no crying allowed.

This sets the playground so everyone is where they WANT to be. You want to bring you 2 star team Mags/Storm team because you have the featured four star? Go nuts, man. This does a number of things:

* Allows 2, 3 & 4s to remain truly relevant outside of just the required node for an event
* Creates tighter, clearer lines of progression among the easiest thing to manage: PVP
* Puts in a regular cycle of availability for four stars how the devs want it: Through cover packs, but with increased odds for the player base
* Deactivates the stress level of having my Scarlet Witch ((Champ)/Daisy (215)/Tony (185) (pre-buff)) team getting mulched by a level 370 OML & Champion Iceman. Seriously, that fight sucked.
* Creates a blank page for the devs to develop and roll out new 2 & 3 star characters without them rolling into instant irrelevance, as they are good for new players, and interesting designs can now see play in their respective bracket of a given heat.

In all of this, the simulator remains the same, the shields, and the ranking/knock down mechanic of the leaderboards is the same. All there. But under it would run an engine designed to invite consistent play, not punish it. Give people a chance to get covers they want, and if you recycle a hero, who cares? The player base is so wildly divided right now, in terms of "haves and have nots" with a bunch of folks in the middle, this is only ultimately good for the game.

LuciferianX

Self serving bump. A few notes:

* You could implement this with a 4 day clock; 1 day per track + 1 for clean up/late players.
* As a veteran, I don't worry about 2 stars, but the game does need a way for new players to engage and something to aim for. With that said, I'm proposing the adjustment:

* 2 star track allows 1, 2, 3 star characters (yep, that's some nasty combinations)
* 3 star track allows 4 stars (seriously, I should have thought of this before)
* 4 star track allows epics (thus not locking out the people who have them and sank XP into them, but keeping it playable for those who haven't, including me)

What? I said it was self serving.

Cover packs now release appropriately, events still have cool names, but are part of an event bundle, and the rest of the things I posted still stand. This would create clear lines, reward people with built rosters, and give a fighting chance to people who are new without getting all twisted up in the current matching mechanics as badly.

zodiac339

Perhaps the 4-star track should have a vault rather than a modified heroic token/event token. Just reduce number of 2-stars in it (or eliminate them, since this is not the level you're playing at), include a legendary token and 1 of each featured 4-stars, and don't allow it to be reset (so whales won't abuse it).

LuciferianX

Sure, makes sense.