Getting too difficult for mid-tiers?

Unknown

Maybe I missed the discussion, but I haven't seen anyone talking about a couple of changes in mid-tier rewards:

1) Tournaments now give out only 1 2* cover for placing mid-tier instead of 3 (see last two PvP and Heroic Juggie). This is a huge change for those of us still struggling to pull together a complete 2* team. Adding to this the unpredictable nature of rewards (last OBW cover was almost 2 months ago, and Ares is only just now making a comeback), putting together a decent 2* team is going to take as long as the 3* transition.

2) The Hulk PvE event started out normal, but half way through, the 2* placement tokens switched from the event ones to heroic tokens. However small the probability difference, we probably needed it to catch up.

Adding to these the difficult issues of MMR management and getting into decent alliances, mid-tier playing seem to have suddenly gotten very difficult. Thoughts?

Unknown

The token thing was due to a bug that made event tokens vanish so the hotfix was to use heroics. In latest patch the bug was fixed and event tokens are back for good.

For thw ** covers we suggested many times to have multocolor covers -- look like a 1/1/1 or 1/1/0 character. Can be recruited as it looks, sold as a single cover or used for upgrade in any of the available colors, but only as one making it disappear. Trivial to implement and would cover your concerns to a fair deal -- while also go along with the probable " less covers out" change.

Beyond the prize the 700 progression would be a perfect opportunity for 3-color cover you could go for and not end with 13 red thors and zero others.

Unknown

I'm with you on the changes to the rewards. Beyond top 10 you can only win one cover these days in PvP. It's real sad for those of us that don't have enough 3* covers to make the transition away from 2*. I'm able to place top 20 but this rarely bags me more than one 3* so it's going to take forever to be competitive with the veterans that have their 3* maxed for covers.

I suppose the devs thought that player progression was too easy and fast with the more generous rewards.

I am so disappointed.

Putting in any effort into PvP now feels almost pointless.

KaioShinDE

I didn't even notice that change to 2* rewards since I'm only looking at the 3* ones nowadays. That is really a huge kick in the nuts for average players.

Unknown

Yup. It sucks to be a beginner/medium-tier right now. I know because most of my friends started to play last month, and can feel their pain struggling to keep up with the incoming events and new covers every week. It is a real challenge when they have to do PVP events against tankers and others well leveled teams

The game really needs to have more Prologue campaigns in order to strenghten new players with more ** heroes. Because if you are not an addicted gamer that plays at least 4 hours/day you will have a real hard time.

NotYou13

As one of those players who relied on the ** ranked rewards to build up my OBW, CStorm and Wolverine a couple months ago, this is a really awful change for those players. I would likely still be stuck in ** hell instead of finally making the transition from ** to *** around day 90 if not for the multiple ** covers from PvP tourneys.

Unknown

datmi wrote:

Yup. It sucks to be a beginner/medium-tier right now. I know because most of my friends started to play last month, and can feel their pain struggling to keep up with the incoming events and new covers every week. It is a real challenge when they have to do PVP events against tankers and others well leveled teams

I just never grokked why people think they should finish top10 with their halfleveled * or ** teams and get ahead of the veterans.

What the game really needs was suggested many times over: level-based separation of events with appropriate prizes. You can chose which arena to enter and you fight only there among peers. The evolving *s would be all in same group competing against each other to grab a blue OBW cover. While veterans could fight for a blue spidey or a random LazyCaptain.

HailMary

Milkrain wrote:

I'm with you on the changes to the rewards. Beyond top 10 you can only win one cover these days in PvP. It's real sad for those of us that don't have enough 3* covers to make the transition away from 2*. I'm able to place top 20 but this rarely bags me more than one 3* so it's going to take forever to be competitive with the veterans that have their 3* maxed for covers.

Are you actively managing your MMR at all?

I don't like the changes (well, actually, the Iso is nice), but my alliance has several people firmly in 2*-land (including me) who just placed Top 5 in Lord of Thunder.

Unknown

HailMary wrote:

Milkrain wrote:

I'm with you on the changes to the rewards. Beyond top 10 you can only win one cover these days in PvP. It's real sad for those of us that don't have enough 3* covers to make the transition away from 2*. I'm able to place top 20 but this rarely bags me more than one 3* so it's going to take forever to be competitive with the veterans that have their 3* maxed for covers.

Are you actively managing your MMR at all?

I don't like the changes (well, actually, the Iso is nice), but my alliance has several people firmly in 2*-land (including me) who just placed Top 5 in Lord of Thunder.

I'm with HailMary on this one, we are in the same alliance. While I saw other alliances post stringent roster requirements for entry, we did not. I would say of all twenty of us only maybe three are firmly in three star land, a few are transitioning while everyone else is playing the 2* game. But everybody manages to place top 5 in their brackets and many win them. It seems like it's a lot more about dedication than roster strength.

First and foremost, scour these boards and learn about MMR and how to manage it. Read people's opinions about tourney start times and bracketing. Figure out your optimum teams and focus all your efforts on those characters for a while. Play a lot and play smart. Just by reading the forums you have an advantage over the majority of people playing. Unless you want to shell out cash, though, it takes time. You won't transition in days or even weeks.

Unknown

pasa_ wrote:

datmi wrote:

Yup. It sucks to be a beginner/medium-tier right now. I know because most of my friends started to play last month, and can feel their pain struggling to keep up with the incoming events and new covers every week. It is a real challenge when they have to do PVP events against tankers and others well leveled teams

I just never grokked why people think they should finish top10 with their halfleveled * or ** teams and get ahead of the veterans.

What the game really needs was suggested many times over: level-based separation of events with appropriate prizes. You can chose which arena to enter and you fight only there among peers. The evolving *s would be all in same group competing against each other to grab a blue OBW cover. While veterans could fight for a blue spidey or a random LazyCaptain.

Never mentioned beginners deserved to be top 10. However if you are slow progressing with one ** cover per event, how long will it take to get the big prize? You will go against the flow, where the big players will remain big, medium will remain medium, and on.....

I agree that level-based separation is needed, even for alliance events where you fight overnumbered teams. However like I said before, in the part not quoted: They need to invest more in the Prologue campaign. Marvel Puzzle Quest is becoming a hardcore grind game.

Unknown

HailMary wrote:

Milkrain wrote:

I'm with you on the changes to the rewards. Beyond top 10 you can only win one cover these days in PvP. It's real sad for those of us that don't have enough 3* covers to make the transition away from 2*. I'm able to place top 20 but this rarely bags me more than one 3* so it's going to take forever to be competitive with the veterans that have their 3* maxed for covers.

Are you actively managing your MMR at all?

I don't like the changes (well, actually, the Iso is nice), but my alliance has several people firmly in 2*-land (including me) who just placed Top 5 in Lord of Thunder.

I've been always been an active MMR manager, and this practice generally allows me to score top 5 in almost every tournament. That being said, with the recent changes of requiring top 10 for 2 3*** covers and tweaking of the PvP tourney rating system to gradually push scores higher, 3 x 85s are going to experience significantly harder difficulties in placing in the top 5, let alone top 10 because of power creep. In the bracket I was in for LoT, actively managing MMR, 4 of the top 5 spots went to teams fielding one if not more 141s. Over time, as more people obtain 141s through increased ISO payouts, top 10 finishes are going to be rather unlikely for anyone fielding 85s. As rating scores get tweaked higher and higher, the people feeding 3xx 85s are now running into the people fielding 141s at the top of the food chain at about 650-700 points. At 700, 85s are a tasty 15 point treat for the people with 141s sitting in the 800s.

Unknown

Lyrian wrote:

HailMary wrote:

Milkrain wrote:

I'm with you on the changes to the rewards. Beyond top 10 you can only win one cover these days in PvP. It's real sad for those of us that don't have enough 3* covers to make the transition away from 2*. I'm able to place top 20 but this rarely bags me more than one 3* so it's going to take forever to be competitive with the veterans that have their 3* maxed for covers.

Are you actively managing your MMR at all?

I don't like the changes (well, actually, the Iso is nice), but my alliance has several people firmly in 2*-land (including me) who just placed Top 5 in Lord of Thunder.

I've been always been an active MMR manager, and this practice generally allows me to score top 5 in almost every tournament. That being said, with the recent changes of requiring top 10 for 2 3*** covers and tweaking of the PvP tourney rating system to gradually push scores higher, 3 x 85s are going to experience significantly harder difficulties in placing in the top 5, let alone top 10 because of power creep. In the bracket I was in for LoT, actively managing MMR, 4 of the top 5 spots went to teams fielding one if not more 141s. Over time, as more people obtain 141s through increased ISO payouts, top 10 finishes are going to be rather unlikely for anyone fielding 85s. As rating scores get tweaked higher and higher, the people feeding 3x 85s are now running into the people fielding 141s at the top of the food chain at about 650-700 points. At 700, 85s are a tasty 15 point treat for the people with 141s sitting in the 800s, as they know the odds of people with 85s beating their teams of 141s are rather unlikely.

Unknown

What, you don't need another Red 2* Thor cover, when the optimal build is 3/5/5?? When it's not Red Thor, it's Yellow Capt, or Blue MN.Mags, both 3-cover abilities as well. The ABSOLUTE, VERY LEAST thing they could do is rotate the frikkin colors so that you didn't go months between getting a single relevant 2* cover for a particular hero.

With the change to a single 2* cover, I foresee having a competent 3* team before ever completing my 2* heroes. In fact, my Patch and Punisher, around 7-10 covers, have both been progressing at the same speed as my c.Storm and OBW for quite a while. I had 6 Patch covers before I got a SINGLE Astonishing Wolvie, and my Patch would still have more covers than A.Wolv, if not for a single tournament where I got a 3x 2* prize, which is now gone.

HailMary

Lyrian wrote:

tweaking of the PvP tourney rating system to gradually push scores higher,

I hadn't heard about this. Could you elaborate?

Lyrian wrote:

As rating scores get tweaked higher and higher, the people feeding 3xx 85s are now running into the people fielding 141s at the top of the food chain at about 650-700 points.

Yep, I definitely hit this in FD and LoT. Only got past it by eating about a dozen attacks.

Unknown

Lyrian wrote:

That being said, with the recent changes of requiring top 10 for 2 3*** covers and tweaking of the PvP tourney rating system to gradually push scores higher, 3 x 85s are going to experience significantly harder difficulties in placing in the top 5, let alone top 10 because of power creep.

This change was extremely bad as well. It REALLY concentrates rewards into the hands of high level players, making it significantly harder to climb. With the variability of event ranks, it was pretty darned difficult to score top 15. I predict that with a little bit of metagaming, it's going to become damned near impossible to get top 10 without a 3* team, once the lvl100+ crowd figures out the correct times to enter and shield. I strongly suspect the only thing allowing me to occasionally top 10 still is learning curve, and that window is rapidly closing.

Unknown

Lyrian wrote:

I've been always been an active MMR manager

What exactly does this mean? From reading these boards I've gathered that people lose on purpose in tournaments where they don't care about the prizes. I've done this a bit in the lightning round as I don't really stand much of a chance to win anything good anyway. Is there more to it than simply hopping into a tournament and intentionally losing?

Unknown

HailMary wrote:

Lyrian wrote:

tweaking of the PvP tourney rating system to gradually push scores higher,

I hadn't heard about this. Could you elaborate?

Lyrian wrote:

As rating scores get tweaked higher and higher, the people feeding 3xx 85s are now running into the people fielding 141s at the top of the food chain at about 650-700 points.

Yep, I definitely hit this in FD and LoT. Only got past it by eating about a dozen attacks.

These two go hand in hand; the former is causing the latter to occur.

I forget who pointed this out to me last week, but a change was made where full point deduction on losses north of 500 rating points was no longer occurring. The estimate was that somewhere between 10-15% of point loss reduction was being granted to losing defenders. As a result, more points in the mid-tier range are staying with players, which are inflating their overall scores. Previously, 500 was pretty much the wall that most players could not pass (especially semi-casuals). Now, with the ability to brute force up the ladder past 500, mid-tier players are directly running into the high-tier players.

Thus, the mid-tier game at the moment is now no longer about escaping the zombie horde of the masses, but rather evading the vultures at the top of the mountain for as long as possible before shielding.

Konman

ronnin wrote:

Maybe I missed the discussion, but I haven't seen anyone talking about a couple of changes in mid-tier rewards:

1) Tournaments now give out only 1 2* cover for placing mid-tier instead of 3 (see last two PvP and Heroic Juggie). This is a huge change for those of us still struggling to pull together a complete 2* team. Adding to this the unpredictable nature of rewards (last OBW cover was almost 2 months ago, and Ares is only just now making a comeback), putting together a decent 2* team is going to take as long as the 3* transition.

2) The Hulk PvE event started out normal, but half way through, the 2* placement tokens switched from the event ones to heroic tokens. However small the probability difference, we probably needed it to catch up.

Adding to these the difficult issues of MMR management and getting into decent alliances, mid-tier playing seem to have suddenly gotten very difficult. Thoughts?

I was considering starting a thread concerning your first point. I noticed this started a few events ago, but then I realized that it appears to be all the events with this reward structure now (except LRs). They keep making the transition into ** harder by continuing to add more of those rare characters, and now they are making ** covers rarer as well.

Unknown

Konman wrote:

I was considering starting a thread concerning your first point.

This is already being discussed in viewtopic.php?f=7&t=5029 as its own topic.

Although this thread and that thread are practically the same topic

HailMary

Lyrian wrote:

a change was made where full point deduction on losses north of 500 rating points was no longer occurring. The estimate was that somewhere between 10-15% of point loss reduction was being granted to losing defenders. As a result, more points in the mid-tier range are staying with players, which are inflating their overall scores. Previously, 500 was pretty much the wall that most players could not pass (especially semi-casuals). Now, with the ability to brute force up the ladder past 500, mid-tier players are directly running into the high-tier players.

Thus, the mid-tier game at the moment is now no longer about escaping the zombie horde of the masses, but rather evading the vultures at the top of the mountain for as long as possible before shielding.

Ah, got it. Thanks!

Unknown

I suspect the 2*s that do well are probably the guys who somehow have a roster that's just weak enough to not be forced into fighting 141X3s all the time but still slightly above just 3X85. I'm pretty sure there's a certain level range where you're effectively immune from being hit by level 141s, because there are plenty of level 141s that try to tank as well and if it was possible for them to see you, nobody would ever have a chance at 2* to get to the top because as long as a single guy with 141s can see them, those are just going to easy prey for him.

I don't know if there's a clean solution to this other than that I don't see what's the point to continue to have a weak roster while winning covers if you never leveled up your heroes.