Season XXXII: Highlights & Changes

David [Hi-Fi] Moore

Hi folks,

Season XXXII is coming up soon and we wanted to provide you with details on what to expect in this "Mini Season," as well as provide info on some changes to how defensive teams function. Read on for the highlights from Demiurge:

"Season 32 will have a bunch of updates and we'd like to give everyone the heads up on them. To make room for the Anniversary season, Season 32 will be around 10 days long. The score to achieve the Progression rewards has been adjusted accordingly. S.H.I.E.L.D. Clearance Levels will also be coming to Versus events in Season 32. Fist Bump will be the first Versus event to have Clearance Levels. S.H.I.E.L.D. Simulator and the Season itself will also feature Clearance Levels. Season 32 marks the start of our rebalancing initiative. After the Thursday daily patch, The Hulk (Totally Awesome) and Silver Surfer (Skyrider) will receive a character update. Go here to find more information on what those changes are:

Season XXXII: Character Rebalances

The last change that is coming to Season 32 is a slight change to how defensive teams work. Starting with Fist Bump, your strongest team will remain your defensive team. If you win a match with a significantly weaker team, your defensive team will still be your last strongest team. We have also reduced the scores required to achieve progression rewards. We have also adjusted how points are gained and lost to reduce the amount of points lost from losing a battle or being attacked.

See below for more details:

• Mini Season

o From 9/22 8:00 PM ET to 10/3 3:00 AM ET. o Scores to reach Progression rewards reduced.

• New types of events with S.H.I.E.L.D. Clearance Levels

o Fist Bump is the first Versus event. o S.H.I.E.L.D. Simulator and Season 32 will also have Clearance Levels.

• Character Rebalances

o Hulk (Totally Awesome) does more damage and his powers are easier to activate. o Silver Surfer (Skyrider)’s powers cost less AP and do more damage.

• Your defensive team will always be one of your strongest teams.

o If you win a battle with a much weaker team, your defensive team will be your last strongest team.

• We have adjusted how points are gained and lost. Players should lose less points from losses than before.

• Updated scores to earn Versus Progression Rewards

o 850 Progression Score - More Iso-8 and now set at 825 points. o 900 Progression Score - Lowered to 850. o 950 Progression Score - Removed (reward was merged with the 825 Progression score). o 1000 Progression Score - Reduced to 900. o 1300 Progression Score - Reduced to 1200"

Thank you.

Bohemond

Farewell, bakers.

Ding

Define strongest team. Team of the highest levels or something else?

And good riddance to bakers

simonsez

"David wrote:

Moore"]• We have adjusted how points are gained and lost. Players should lose less points from losses than before.

But what about the "gained" part? Are you also saying that we will gain less from wins than before? Specifics please?

fmftint

Cool, now everyone will winfinite climb after crushing seed teams with their strongest characters

Akari

Goodbye old pvp style. I hope the decreased point loss makes up for this, but pvp is gonna be even more of a slog now.

GrumpySmurf1002

Significantly weaker needs a definition that isn't just that. Is a 4* roster using boosted 3s significantly weaker? 5s using unboosted 4s?

Vhailorx

Thanks for the updates.

Re defensive teams and scoring: this is obviously a massive change to the entire infrastructure of PvP. Can we get some more details?

What does strongest mean? What does weaker mean? Town will the scoring change? What is the design intent? What is new expected gameplay style? What is the target number of matches to .9? 1.2k? Match length?

DC1972

Climbing will also be harder if you are always facing another players strongest team. Winfinite only gets you so far when your toons can be killed by match damage in a couple of moves.

Pinko_McFly

Guess I need to build a proper winfinite team due to this short-sighted change.

Good luck to all you cupcake haters, I'm sure your score will be much better now.

Punisher5784

So basically when the players stated the defensive teams weren't working as normal, the devs were actually testing it.

Anyways we definitely need an indicator that shows who our strongest teams are, like a preview button of what our defensive team is. This will be interesting, especially for SHIELD Sim where I use a variety of different teams to climb to 2000.. it's going to be rough.

WelcomeDeath

So...here's a question. If i dont put in a significantly weaker team but put in a slightly weaker team, will that go out? Thinking Rulk week, lot of 5* guys will use rulk rather than their phoenix. I tend to wipe to rulk teams more often, so will this put their phoenix out? Also, what defines "best" team? If i have a 360 SS and 2 272 champed 4*, and the 4* have better abilities, does the game put out SS because he's a few levels higher as well as a 5*? Can we get the math on wins / losses?

an1979

1000 Progression Score - Reduced to 900.
1300 Progression Score - Reduced to 1200

I couldn't make 1000 before anyway without heavy shields use.
900 was passed during jump - no way in hell I could make there normally.

Never ever had I made above 1100. That would mean LINE, LINE, LINE.

Now without cupcakes I will be TinyKitty stuck at 700 at best.
So reduction to 900 won't make any difference.

Better INJECT much more starting points (seeds) than before into each bracket - because without cupcakes majority won't make over 300...

Hibbidy

Putting aside the death of baking this is quite hilarious. So we have this whole rebalancing of characters happening because people are sick of seeing OML and Phoenix all the time. But guess what happens when the game decides who your best defensive team is? More OML and Phoenix. Even if the players aren't using them in a particular PVP they are the most likely to have the highest health and damage of rosters with 5 stars.

#freejobob

fmftint

Punisher5784 wrote:

So basically when the players stated the defensive teams weren't working as normal, the devs were actually testing it.

Anyways we definitely need an indicator that shows who our strongest teams are, like a preview button of what our defensive team is. This will be interesting, especially for SHIELD Sim where I use a variety of different teams to climb to 2000.. it's going to be rough.

No, no, the server stopped saving defensive teams. Completely different

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=50747

dr tinykittylove

Welcome Death wrote:

So...here's a question. If i dont put in a significantly weaker team but put in a slightly weaker team, will that go out? Thinking Rulk week, lot of 5* guys will use rulk rather than their phoenix. I tend to wipe to rulk teams more often, so will this put their phoenix out? Also, what defines "best" team? If i have a 360 SS and 2 272 champed 4*, and the 4* have better abilities, does the game put out SS because he's a few levels higher as well as a 5*? Can we get the math on wins / losses?

I think it would be interesting to test out their boundaries, like what if I put my unboosted low level peggy out in sim with oml/phx? And how about what my opponent sees in their retal node? Climb with oml/phx +loaner?

Anyone willing to slug it out with me and see?

madsalad

Strongest team being combined levels? Do boosted characters count their boosted levels?

This seems very dubious. W/o cakes I can usually climb to 1.1k w/ a hop or two. That last 1k will be a stretch.

like1tiger

There needs to be so much more clarification on this. It seems you are making it so 3 star and below rosters will never be able to hit progression scores. This could totally ruin PvP and make it a place where people with 5* rosters are the only ones who can benefit and they wont even want the rewards.
People in 3* transition to 4* rely on being able to get the 4* cover to get anywhere and guys going into 3 star land want the 800 reward. if we are forced to battle through high defensive 4/5 star teams we will never make it.

The Herald

At least they're trying this in the short season

What they want is a system where just playing PvP is all you need, and no one should get to 3k+ points chasing placement rewards.

What they have is a PvP system that does not work AT ALL without LINE coordination, and cupcakes are a huge part of getting points into a slice.

Hopefully they can reconcile the two...

Vhailorx

Another question for demi: why are you consistently moving twards longer, harder matches?

You have designed a game that heavily favors quick, reliable victory. But then you seem disappointed when players notice this and emphasize fast, easy victory?

Between the health shift, scoring changes, shield cooldowns, 5* tiers, and massive champ boosting, the game has steadily movrd towards longer matches and competitive PvP scoresyrewards have gotten lower.

But why? Is there compelling evidence that this change is either more profitable for you or more enjoyable for players?

I broke this question out to its own topic here: https://d3go.com/forums/viewtopic.php?style=1&f=7&t=51460

The Herald

Vhailorx wrote:

Another question for demi: why are you consistently moving twards longer, harder matches?

You have designed a game that heavily favors quick, reliable victory. But then you seem disappointed when players notice this and emphasize fast, easy victory?

Between the health shift, scoring changes, shield cooldowns, 5* tiers, and massive champ boosting, the game has steadily movrd towards longer matches and competitive PvP scoresyrewards have gotten lower.

But why? Is there compelling evidence that this change is either more profitable for you or more enjoyable for players?

I wouldn't mind longer, more tactical matches provided I didn't lose 200 points while chasing just 30.