Tanking is making a mockery of lightning rounds

Unknown

Toxicadam wrote:

But in lightning rounds, which is (supposed to be) for higher level players in a single bracket, MMR should play no role. If you have 420 points and I have 310, I should be able to skip around until I find you. I shouldn't have to constantly cycle through the same 6 guys that have 210 points (and lvl 120+ buffed heros), giving me 20 points a win.

It's a broken-**** tournament that punishes people that play the right way.

I violently agree with all that, but that doesn't change a thing either. O,O

Sandmaker

I think a solution to prevent tanking would be to keep track of the average levels of the teams you've been using in pvp (not counting boosted heroes levels), and then adjusting how much MMR you lose relative to the max average level used. Example:

A player's pvp record might look like
Win-Avg Lvl 85
Win-Avg Lvl 90
Win-Avg Lvl 85
Lose-Avg Lvl 85
Win-Avg Lvl 90
Win-Avg Lvl 85
Win-Avg Lvl 15
Lose-Avg Lvl 15
Lose-Avg Lvl 15
Lose-Avg Lvl 15

In this case, the first loss, which looks legit, would lose you (85/90)*(Standard MMR Loss), which is ~95% and not much different from now. However, the second loss, which is clearly a player trying to drop MMR with a tank team, would only lose you (15/90)*(Standard MMR loss), about 15% effective.

If you want to penalize it more, you can make it an exponential weight, i.e., (85/90)^2 = 89%, and (15/90)^2 = 2.7%, respectively.

This means that in order to drop MMR with a low level tank team, you would have to lose around 35x more often than with your best team, to gain equivalent mmr loss. As you raise the level of you tank team, you would lose more MMR per loss, but chances are that you'll get hit less often as well, so it should balance out.

KaioShinDE

Making tanking impossible without first solving the underlying issues that make it mandatory would be extremely stupid.

Unknown

KaioShinDE wrote:

Making tanking impossible without first solving the underlying issues that make it mandatory would be extremely stupid.

What he said. I am frequently matched up in both PVE & PVP with teams that are 100% impossible for me to beat. If I can't tank to make it more manageable, then I can't play. I do not have the characters that make winning trivial (Spidey, Cmags). This situation is common.

nihilium

Rajjeq wrote:

KaioShinDE wrote:

Making tanking impossible without first solving the underlying issues that make it mandatory would be extremely stupid.

What he said. I am frequently matched up in both PVE & PVP with teams that are 100% impossible for me to beat. If I can't tank to make it more manageable, then I can't play. I do not have the characters that make winning trivial (Spidey, Cmags). This situation is common.

+1

Imho ppl should be able to choose what they want to fight:
easy teams for low points?
equal teams for fair points?
hard teams for awesome points?

not be stuck with whatever a broken system throws a at them for not sucking at the game and than be forced to pay to not fight either 1 point teams or impossible teams v.v

Unknown

nihilium wrote:

Rajjeq wrote:

KaioShinDE wrote:

Making tanking impossible without first solving the underlying issues that make it mandatory would be extremely stupid.

What he said. I am frequently matched up in both PVE & PVP with teams that are 100% impossible for me to beat. If I can't tank to make it more manageable, then I can't play. I do not have the characters that make winning trivial (Spidey, Cmags). This situation is common.

+1

Imho ppl should be able to choose what they want to fight:
easy teams for low points?
equal teams for fair points?
hard teams for awesome points?

not be stuck with whatever a broken system throws a at them for not sucking at the game and than be forced to pay to not fight either 1 point teams or impossible teams v.v

this is why in PVE i've suggested multiple times that they implement a static scaling system each win would scale untill you maxed that node
would look something like this

opponent lvl 10 awards 25 pts
opponent lvl 30 awards 50 pts
opponent lvl 50 awards 100 pts
opponent lvl 85 awards 250 pts
opponent lvl 115 awards 500 pts
opponent lvl 230 awards 1000 pts
opponent lvl 230 awards 1 pts

As for PvP if they just changed the system to your brackets based on MMR and matches based on points you'd generally keep everyone competitive and in a fair way.
Your last PVP point total would determine your MMR for the next shield training and LR's wouldnt count for the purpose of MMR.
This way if someone really did want to tank they would have to miss out on a actual multiday event.
Yes tanking would still be possible but the truth of the matter is that any system that someone can come up with will be able to be manipulated in some manner or another.

Kolence

Sandmaker wrote:

I think a solution to prevent tanking would be to keep track of the average levels of the teams you've been using in pvp (not counting boosted heroes levels), and then adjusting how much MMR you lose relative to the max average level used. Example:

A player's pvp record might look like
Win-Avg Lvl 85
Win-Avg Lvl 90
Win-Avg Lvl 85
Lose-Avg Lvl 85
Win-Avg Lvl 90
Win-Avg Lvl 85
Win-Avg Lvl 15
Lose-Avg Lvl 15
Lose-Avg Lvl 15
Lose-Avg Lvl 15

In this case, the first loss, which looks legit, would lose you (85/90)*(Standard MMR Loss), which is ~95% and not much different from now. However, the second loss, which is clearly a player trying to drop MMR with a tank team, would only lose you (15/90)*(Standard MMR loss), about 15% effective.

If you want to penalize it more, you can make it an exponential weight, i.e., (85/90)^2 = 89%, and (15/90)^2 = 2.7%, respectively.

This means that in order to drop MMR with a low level tank team, you would have to lose around 35x more often than with your best team, to gain equivalent mmr loss. As you raise the level of you tank team, you would lose more MMR per loss, but chances are that you'll get hit less often as well, so it should balance out.

Wouldn't people then just tank every other or third tournament to be able to place better in the others? I mean tank as in lose on purpose with a stronger team to lower the MMR more effectively. Or even in the same tournament when it lasts 2+ days - get to several hundred points then lose some games (with a larger roster even more), use health packs, lose some more, go to sleep, tomorrow repeat. Until the final push of course.

nihilium

MTGOFerret wrote:

As for PvP if they just changed the system to your brackets based on MMR and matches based on points you'd generally keep everyone competitive and in a fair way.
Your last PVP point total would determine your MMR for the next shield training and LR's wouldnt count for the purpose of MMR.
This way if someone really did want to tank they would have to miss out on a actual multiday event.
Yes tanking would still be possible but the truth of the matter is that any system that someone can come up with will be able to be manipulated in some manner or another.

Imho they MUST give ppl a way to change to easier enemies o.o
Not everyone plays equally well and just because u had all the buffed chars in the last event doesnt meen u will also have in the next.
So being stuck in a strong bracket because u did well in the last event is honestly not a good idea, example:

1st PvP) Buffed chars using guns (muhaha): u have lvl 100 Punisher and a lvl 70 Hood and get Buffs on top of that = AWESOME

2nd PvP) Buffed Females: u have... Maxed MStorm and MWidow and another around 50 = Not awesome
But based on the result of the 1st PvP event ur probably be stuck with lvl 80s Widows/Storms/Moonstones AND NO WAY TO TANK DOWN!

Riiight.. lets so not do that o.o

Unknown

I haven't tanked in three months. I think it's a waste of time and you miss out on so much iso

Biggest hurdle for me in LRs is that they fall on weekdays, so I don't have the 90 uniterrupted minutes to play it out during the work day. I try to make sure I enter right when each LR starts so I can at least farm the seed teams while the boss isn't looking. Dependign on when I get home, I may only have a window to get one full LR in.

Just once I'd love a weekend LR so I could grind out to my heart's content.

akboyce

AsianInvasion wrote:

I haven't tanked in three months. I think it's a waste of time and you miss out on so much iso

Biggest hurdle for me in LRs is that they fall on weekdays, so I don't have the 90 uniterrupted minutes to play it out during the work day. I try to make sure I enter right when each LR starts so I can at least farm the seed teams while the boss isn't looking. Dependign on when I get home, I may only have a window to get one full LR in.

Just once I'd love a weekend LR so I could grind out to my heart's content.

Sounds like tanking would not take any time or Iso away from your during the day LRs. Do the seed teams like you do leaving the lowest level one available. Then once seed teams are done fight the low level seed with your low level team. You do the same number of fights you would have anyway but end up tanking. The only down side is the small iso reward difference from ending with 25 points compared to 100-150 points which is likely 0 to minimal.

The combination of seed teams and duration make the LRs feel almost DESIGNED for tanking. If you are ONLY farming the seed teams (which many people do) there is almost no reason not put a tank team in for the last fight.

Unknown

Imo best way to fix mmr is to remove it. No other game I've played I can think of uses it.

Unknown

Tanking rubs me the wrong way. I don't mind others utilizing it, especially if they're still building towards a strong roster. But for those people with maxed out three stars tanking their way into two star territory, I consider that to be a pretty cowardly tactic and only exacerbates the problems with matchmaking.

I'm perfectly content taking on all comers. What's the point of maxing out my characters if I'm just going to pick on mid-level teams below my weight class.

Sandmaker

Kolence wrote:

Wouldn't people then just tank every other or third tournament to be able to place better in the others? I mean tank as in lose on purpose with a stronger team to lower the MMR more effectively. Or even in the same tournament when it lasts 2+ days - get to several hundred points then lose some games (with a larger roster even more), use health packs, lose some more, go to sleep, tomorrow repeat. Until the final push of course.

If you mean using retreat, then yes, that'd need to be fixed as well. You'd have to scale the MMR loss relative to % of health lost during the battle. Actually, I have strong suspicions they already do this.

If you mean actually playing through a game until you lose, then yes, that'd still be possible, and probably unavoidable, since you can't tell if someone lost intentionally, or just got really unlucky. However, it definitely won't be as fast or as easy as it is right now with low level teams. Under what I proposed, you'd be forced to use your strongest characters to do this, which will cause the amount of time required to intentionally throw a game to skyrocket. In addition, as you drop your MMR you'll start facing easier teams, which means it'll take you even longer to lose to the AI. (Is it even possible for a 3x141 team to lose to 3x85?)

So under that system, to win a tournament using this strategy, you'd have to spend probably 1.5-2x as much time in game as someone that's playing without tanking. In addition, while you're doing this, you can't be competing in other events, since you've knocked out your character roster and health packs.

Will people still do it? Probably.. but the amount of effort is probably not that far from just playing normally.

Unknown

the question is how to tank with seeds level 100+. I can't remeber the last time I saw seeds level 2.

Unknown

AsianInvasion wrote:

What's the point of maxing out my characters if I'm just going to pick on mid-level teams below my weight class.

Winning matches faster...

EDIT: ...than the guy who's fighting in his weight class.

Unknown

wathombe wrote:

AsianInvasion wrote:

What's the point of maxing out my characters if I'm just going to pick on mid-level teams below my weight class.

Winning matches faster...

EDIT: ...than the guy who's fighting in his weight class.

Whatever works for you.

I'd rather actually play the tournament and earn thousands of iso then put in Yelena and Bagman and have them get ransacked over and over. covers don't get you very far if you don't have the iso to level up. It may be slower and more difficult but at the end of the day I still get my top placement and significantly more iso than a tanker.

Unknown

ihearthawthats wrote:

Imo best way to fix mmr is to remove it. No other game I've played I can think of uses it.

Have you ever played a multiplayer game before?

Unknown

I don't get the point of tanking to win faster if you're running a high octane offense, which you should be if you have 141s. The difference between Hulk and OBW against Patch is usually 2 turns, and it's probably safer to face Hulk than OBW anyway.

Unknown

Asian:

I don't understand your ISO argument. Are you saying that someone who tanks a couple rounds of LR would otherwise be playing those particular rounds and raking in the ISO? I think that's very rarely the case. Usually, a player picks the 1-3 LR rounds that they will perform well in, and tanks the rest. Further, most people don't have the time to play 90 minutes out of every 120 for 48 straight hours, so why not grab the 50-pt rewards and tank the ones you're not playing?

Phantron:

I actually agree with you here. Frankly, I think the much larger factor in LR score disparity is the seed teams. Players who start playing quickly and immediately each round easily build a 250- to 300-point cushion in the first 30 minutes before they ever face an actual team.

Unknown

bonerang wrote:

ihearthawthats wrote:

Imo best way to fix mmr is to remove it. No other game I've played I can think of uses it.

Have you ever played a multiplayer game before?

Name one. Btw, when I refer to "mmr" I specifically mean mpqs implementation of it. Of course there's matchmaking in mp games.