Thank god cupcakes are gone

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Comments

  • Vhailorx
    Vhailorx Posts: 6,085 Chairperson of the Boards
    simonsez wrote:
    Vhailorx wrote:
    Also, demi's now on the record saying there aren't enough vets to populate CLs 8-10.
    The game is 3 years old. If there aren't enough vets now, there never will be.

    I agree. That's why I wanted the interviewers to ask some followup questions on this topic. Seems very unlikely to me that CL 8 will be possible anytime soon if Demi is waiting for more vets to move into advanced 4* land.
  • ruyen
    ruyen Posts: 60 Match Maker
    Vhailorx wrote:
    simonsez wrote:
    Vhailorx wrote:
    Also, demi's now on the record saying there aren't enough vets to populate CLs 8-10.
    The game is 3 years old. If there aren't enough vets now, there never will be.

    I agree. That's why I wanted the interviewers to ask some followup questions on this topic. Seems very unlikely to me that CL 8 will be possible anytime soon if Demi is waiting for more vets to move into advanced 4* land.
    If they keep this PvP format, they will lose vets. Or, at the very least, their progression has been stunted in half now to get that lucky chance at a 5* - which gets worse every time a new one comes out and Classics get diluted even more.
  • Magic
    Magic Posts: 1,199 Chairperson of the Boards
    Absolutely. With the slowness of 4* progression (cover are less of a problem - ISO cost is the main one) and randomness of the 5* progression there will never be as many vets as there are now. Newcommers are discouraged by the sheer number of characters to collect and develop. You don't need an MIT degree to see that your ISO and HP gains won't allow you to max all the heros in a reasonable time even if you get the covers for them. Saddly the third anniversary might be the last one for this game icon_e_sad.gif
  • jobob
    jobob Posts: 680 Critical Contributor
    Magic wrote:
    Absolutely. With the slowness of 4* progression (cover are less of a problem - ISO cost is the main one) and randomness of the 5* progression there will never be as many vets as there are now. Newcommers are discouraged by the sheer number of characters to collect and develop. You don't need an MIT degree to see that your ISO and HP gains won't allow you to max all the heros in a reasonable time even if you get the covers for them. Saddly the third anniversary might be the last one for this game icon_e_sad.gif
    If only there were a way to speed up newcomer progression... Maybe some sort of system where vets with strong 5* rosters could raise scores across the player base by distributing points to lower rosters... ?

    Hopefully D3 can come up with some sort of mechanic for this.
  • Tee
    Tee Posts: 231 Tile Toppler
    jobob wrote:
    Magic wrote:
    If only there were a way to speed up newcomer progression...

    You mean the Deadpool Daily?
  • cyineedsn
    cyineedsn Posts: 361 Mover and Shaker
    jobob wrote:
    Magic wrote:
    Absolutely. With the slowness of 4* progression (cover are less of a problem - ISO cost is the main one) and randomness of the 5* progression there will never be as many vets as there are now. Newcommers are discouraged by the sheer number of characters to collect and develop. You don't need an MIT degree to see that your ISO and HP gains won't allow you to max all the heros in a reasonable time even if you get the covers for them. Saddly the third anniversary might be the last one for this game icon_e_sad.gif
    If only there were a way to speed up newcomer progression... Maybe some sort of system where vets with strong 5* rosters could raise scores across the player base by distributing points to lower rosters... ?

    Hopefully D3 can come up with some sort of mechanic for this.

    I snorted my coffee. But yeah, 4*->5* transition at its max potential means hitting top pvp progression. The potential is still there, it's just so hard now that few 4* teams will get there without coordination.
  • Magic
    Magic Posts: 1,199 Chairperson of the Boards
    If there is mechanic that I can use as well without the out-of-game coordination and at my time, not at the time convenient for slice 4 players I am all for it icon_e_wink.gif
  • ruyen
    ruyen Posts: 60 Match Maker
    So apparently this thread here is the one the mods/devs have directed all comments on the new PvP changes... as biased as the OP is, lacking any request for what players think about it, such as this one had: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=52215

    Here's what I sent to CS, when it asked for feedback on the Update Notes:
    Message:
    Feedback on Change: Your Defensive team will always be one of your strongest teams.

    Simply put, this has ruined PvP and I am not enjoying Vs Mode, AT ALL anymore.

    Killing baking (the reason for this change) means that, even if I have 2x championed and featured/buffed 4*s, i get hit once on Defense for every win. And since players of any score seems to be able to queue and kill me quickly, I lose points between shields now, when only taking 2 quick and easily winnable matches.
    Note: Examples at bottom...

    So there's essentially no way for me to hit the 1200 point progression without starting shielding 36 hrs before end or more. If us spending more HP on shields for the same results was your plan with this change, it worked. And it reeks of a money grab and exploitation of your players, especially those trying to transition to 5* by using CP to gamble with the terribly luck-based system of Legendary Tokens.

    If I choose to put out an easier team and take the risk of getting hit by lower strength players, that should be my prerogative. Taking this away achieved nothing good from what I (and 95% of players I've talked to) have seen.

    Examples of hops this event:
    4* player with both 4*s champed and buffed:

    1st shield hop: 2 matches, one harder than the other for 70pts and 60pts, respectively. Coming out of the 2nd match I see that I've been hit and drop another shield. A couple minutes later, a 2nd hit comes in, faulty shield apparently. Result was a 25pt hop. Not good, not fun, very frustrating.

    2nd hop: Similar situation but 2nd match was as easy as the first. Finished the two matches faster, but was still sniped for nearly as many points (a lot) as I gained. Another 25pt hop.

    - These players hitting me usually have at least one Championed 5*, like OML or Phoenix. These are teams that can beat mine 3x in the time I could beat them once.

    Another example,
    Mate of mine has similar roster but started shielding earlier in the event. He was hit 4x on his latest shield hop, BY THE SAME Player, who's roster is much higher than his.

    In short, after all the great work you've done for the game recently, destroying an entire game mode for an entire player-base (4*s trying to earn CP and get lucky pulling 5s to improve their rosters) is a terrible decision.
    I wrote that as Fist was ending, and my feelings haven't changed.

    The game experience from 900 to 1200 is terrible unless you have champed 5*s.

    The majority of players on this thread are disappointed with the changes, the question is what to do about it. I don't like to just complain without offering solutions:

    - Undo the change. Easy enough, just as you reverted this changed when it was "a bug" some days ago. Clearly this change didn't lower high end scores as you intended, and the 4* players who just went for 1300 are having a very hard time reaching 1.2k

    - If you have to keep this flawed rule about the best (highest combined level, which is not working as intended) defensive team is out, consider these suggestions:
      1. Drastically lower the points you can lose on Defense, to compensate for the fact that multiple players can hit you, while you can only hit one. 2. Add Cooldowns on how often you can lose, perhaps once every 5 mins max. 3. Shield-break delay before being queuable. Maybe 5 mins after a shield drops before others can see you. 4. Add another Shield, a short-term, like a 30min # for 10hp, with a 30 min cooldown. Having 3hr shields have 8hr cooldowns is lame, change that to 3hrs too. 5. Make MMR use Shield Ranking, with strict rules to ensure far stronger/weaker teams aren't queuing each other. As a 4* player, I am tired of getting crushed by 5* players who decide to play late in an event to save HP on shields... because they don't need to. Likewise, a 5* player who is shield-hopping shouldn't be able to be sniped by 3-4*s who happen to have a specific boosted character that lets them hit above their class (4Thor + IM40). 6.
    Make AI teams available for moderate point values. Crazy Idea, I'm sure, but honestly we need more targets. Especially if the pool of real players is below 10, which happens A LOT and will continue to get worse if people start quitting because they don't like the new PvP.

    7. ... What else you got guys?
  • jobob
    jobob Posts: 680 Critical Contributor
    Magic wrote:
    If there is mechanic that I can use as well without the out-of-game coordination and at my time, not at the time convenient for slice 4 players I am all for it icon_e_wink.gif
    ...Sounds like you need a cupcake, my friend.
  • fmftint
    fmftint Posts: 3,653 Chairperson of the Boards
    simonsez wrote:
    Vhailorx wrote:
    Also, demi's now on the record saying there aren't enough vets to populate CLs 8-10.
    The game is 3 years old. If there aren't enough vets now, there never will be.
    That pretty much confirms my assumption of why CL7 extends down to rank 32, the playey base would be too fragmented.

    The solution however should be, shrink bracket sizes, even just for CL8-10, to 200, not keep CL8-10 closed
  • dsds
    dsds Posts: 526
    ruyen wrote:
    So apparently this thread here is the one the mods/devs have directed all comments on the new PvP changes... as biased as the OP is, lacking any request for what players think about it, such as this one had: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=52215

    Here's what I sent to CS, when it asked for feedback on the Update Notes:
    Message:
    Feedback on Change: Your Defensive team will always be one of your strongest teams.

    Simply put, this has ruined PvP and I am not enjoying Vs Mode, AT ALL anymore.

    Killing baking (the reason for this change) means that, even if I have 2x championed and featured/buffed 4*s, i get hit once on Defense for every win. And since players of any score seems to be able to queue and kill me quickly, I lose points between shields now, when only taking 2 quick and easily winnable matches.
    Note: Examples at bottom...

    So there's essentially no way for me to hit the 1200 point progression without starting shielding 36 hrs before end or more. If us spending more HP on shields for the same results was your plan with this change, it worked. And it reeks of a money grab and exploitation of your players, especially those trying to transition to 5* by using CP to gamble with the terribly luck-based system of Legendary Tokens.

    If I choose to put out an easier team and take the risk of getting hit by lower strength players, that should be my prerogative. Taking this away achieved nothing good from what I (and 95% of players I've talked to) have seen.

    Examples of hops this event:
    4* player with both 4*s champed and buffed:

    1st shield hop: 2 matches, one harder than the other for 70pts and 60pts, respectively. Coming out of the 2nd match I see that I've been hit and drop another shield. A couple minutes later, a 2nd hit comes in, faulty shield apparently. Result was a 25pt hop. Not good, not fun, very frustrating.

    2nd hop: Similar situation but 2nd match was as easy as the first. Finished the two matches faster, but was still sniped for nearly as many points (a lot) as I gained. Another 25pt hop.

    - These players hitting me usually have at least one Championed 5*, like OML or Phoenix. These are teams that can beat mine 3x in the time I could beat them once.

    Another example,
    Mate of mine has similar roster but started shielding earlier in the event. He was hit 4x on his latest shield hop, BY THE SAME Player, who's roster is much higher than his.

    In short, after all the great work you've done for the game recently, destroying an entire game mode for an entire player-base (4*s trying to earn CP and get lucky pulling 5s to improve their rosters) is a terrible decision.
    I wrote that as Fist was ending, and my feelings haven't changed.

    The game experience from 900 to 1200 is terrible unless you have champed 5*s.

    The majority of players on this thread are disappointed with the changes, the question is what to do about it. I don't like to just complain without offering solutions:

    - Undo the change. Easy enough, just as you reverted this changed when it was "a bug" some days ago. Clearly this change didn't lower high end scores as you intended, and the 4* players who just went for 1300 are having a very hard time reaching 1.2k

    - If you have to keep this flawed rule about the best (highest combined level, which is not working as intended) defensive team is out, consider these suggestions:
      1. Drastically lower the points you can lose on Defense, to compensate for the fact that multiple players can hit you, while you can only hit one. 2. Add Cooldowns on how often you can lose, perhaps once every 5 mins max. 3. Shield-break delay before being queuable. Maybe 5 mins after a shield drops before others can see you. 4. Add another Shield, a short-term, like a 30min # for 10hp, with a 30 min cooldown. Having 3hr shields have 8hr cooldowns is lame, change that to 3hrs too. 5. Make MMR use Shield Ranking, with strict rules to ensure far stronger/weaker teams aren't queuing each other. As a 4* player, I am tired of getting crushed by 5* players who decide to play late in an event to save HP on shields... because they don't need to. Likewise, a 5* player who is shield-hopping shouldn't be able to be sniped by 3-4*s who happen to have a specific boosted character that lets them hit above their class (4Thor + IM40). 6.
    Make AI teams available for moderate point values. Crazy Idea, I'm sure, but honestly we need more targets. Especially if the pool of real players is below 10, which happens A LOT and will continue to get worse if people start quitting because they don't like the new PvP.

    7. ... What else you got guys?

    They will keep the rule about taking out cupcakes. The scores now are not inflated. They are the real scores. Yes there is a big gap in points between 4* and 5* players but that just reflects how much more powerful a 5* is. To get top 100, most of the time you no longer need over 1000pts. That was what they were talking about in terms of inflated scores. Also how is it fun, when you are just using cupcakes to progress. There is no skill to beating a cupcake team. With great reward, there should be great risk. That's what makes the reward worthwhile.

    I do agree that the defensive point loss is a bummer. I would suggest that if they could just let one person attack your ai defense team at a time. That should help a lot! But then I guess the pool of available players to queue would be much less.
  • The Herald
    The Herald Posts: 463 Mover and Shaker
    If they could work out some sort of combo damage reduction...

    Got smashed 4 times at once?

    Each does a quarter of the loss.
  • Meander
    Meander Posts: 267 Mover and Shaker
    The Herald wrote:
    If they could work out some sort of combo damage reduction...

    Got smashed 4 times at once?

    Each does a quarter of the loss.

    Interesting thought, but "At once" may be hard to define. Often players complain about coming out of a match to 4 losses or more, but they weren't necessarily at once. First, there is the server lag question in there (did the losses actually occur during your match, or were they earlier and the server is just reporting them now?). Then, there's the question of timing. What if you did a 5 minute match, and the hits came at the 1, 2, 3 and 4 minute mark?
  • fmftint
    fmftint Posts: 3,653 Chairperson of the Boards
    dsds wrote:

    They will keep the rule about taking out cupcakes. The scores now are not inflated. They are the real scores. Yes there is a big gap in points between 4* and 5* players but that just reflects how much more powerful a 5* is. To get top 100, most of the time you no longer need over 1000pts. That was what they were talking about in terms of inflated scores. Also how is it fun, when you are just using cupcakes to progress. There is no skill to beating a cupcake team. With great reward, there should be great risk. That's what makes the reward worthwhile.

    I do agree that the defensive point loss is a bummer. I would suggest that if they could just let one person attack your ai defense team at a time. That should help a lot! But then I guess the pool of available players to queue would be much less.
    An easier fix than fundamentally changing defensive teams would be OPEN CL8-10

    The issue there is, they don't have a large enigma player base to support 10 CLs across 5 time slices
  • Stax the Foyer
    Stax the Foyer Posts: 941 Critical Contributor
    fmftint wrote:
    simonsez wrote:
    Vhailorx wrote:
    Also, demi's now on the record saying there aren't enough vets to populate CLs 8-10.
    The game is 3 years old. If there aren't enough vets now, there never will be.
    That pretty much confirms my assumption of why CL7 extends down to rank 32, the playey base would be too fragmented.

    The solution however should be, shrink bracket sizes, even just for CL8-10, to 200, not keep CL8-10 closed

    That's a really good idea. Make smaller brackets, where even the last place awards in the bracket are worthwhile, so that you have an incentive to go as high as you can go. Plus, smaller brackets will be great for dry slices and inspiring competitive play by a large number of people. I'd go even smaller than 200, maybe 100 person brackets.

    And if they were worried about people just joining and fighting seed teams for solid rewards event after event, that can be addressed in a few ways. (1) Putting a good share of the attractive rewards as progression rewards, or (2) having a minimum score in the prior event required to join the same CL the next event. Sort of a relegation system. Although, don't have that in place for the first event of the season, or for offseason events, so that the offseason really is an offseason.
  • TxMoose
    TxMoose Posts: 4,319 Chairperson of the Boards
    Tony Foot wrote:
    Exactly this, which is why I can now see a huge gap between the scores of the bigger spenders and the rest. You can now clearly see why the huge spenders didn't really like cakes. They can win by a mile with little effort. As you say cakes aren't gone, they are just helping now to increase the gap from solid 4 star rosters and above to 3 stars rosters trying to transition. My 4 star transition has been stopped or slowed to a crawl. I only caked for a season and a bit but to be honest I wish I'd started earlier. With the number of 4 star toons now I'm now questioning bothering with pvp at all. I only really played it because it was faster progression.

    I really don't mind having no cakes if the separate us by levels properly. Having 2 fully covered 4 stars climbing to 800 and then only seeing a wall of boosted 4 stars or one boosted and a 5 really isn't going to get me anywhere in a game where I need 4 star covers to grow.

    Every time there is a survey they ask about would you recommend this game to a friend. I almost bulked at 50 odd toons when I started when I did the maths for roster slots. Let alone 100+.
    I've heard so many say that the huge spenders hate cakes (not just tony here). some of the biggest spenders in the game (not all, but lots) were/are the biggest bakers in the game that provide points for everyone else via trickle down. those biggest spenders who front run and spend thousands of hp in shields every event who take on champed 5s for 35 pts each, just to turn around and bake and put their pts at jeopardy for the benefit of others. just because they spend lots and score lots doesn't make them bad guys or snobs. some people would really benefit themselves from some understanding.
  • cyineedsn
    cyineedsn Posts: 361 Mover and Shaker
    TxMoose wrote:
    Tony Foot wrote:
    Exactly this, which is why I can now see a huge gap between the scores of the bigger spenders and the rest. You can now clearly see why the huge spenders didn't really like cakes. They can win by a mile with little effort. As you say cakes aren't gone, they are just helping now to increase the gap from solid 4 star rosters and above to 3 stars rosters trying to transition. My 4 star transition has been stopped or slowed to a crawl. I only caked for a season and a bit but to be honest I wish I'd started earlier. With the number of 4 star toons now I'm now questioning bothering with pvp at all. I only really played it because it was faster progression.

    I really don't mind having no cakes if the separate us by levels properly. Having 2 fully covered 4 stars climbing to 800 and then only seeing a wall of boosted 4 stars or one boosted and a 5 really isn't going to get me anywhere in a game where I need 4 star covers to grow.

    Every time there is a survey they ask about would you recommend this game to a friend. I almost bulked at 50 odd toons when I started when I did the maths for roster slots. Let alone 100+.
    I've heard so many say that the huge spenders hate cakes (not just tony here). some of the biggest spenders in the game (not all, but lots) were/are the biggest bakers in the game that provide points for everyone else via trickle down. those biggest spenders who front run and spend thousands of hp in shields every event who take on champed 5s for 35 pts each, just to turn around and bake and put their pts at jeopardy for the benefit of others. just because they spend lots and score lots doesn't make them bad guys or snobs. some people would really benefit themselves from some understanding.

    Huge spenders hate cakes? Huh? What?
  • Astralgazer
    Astralgazer Posts: 267 Mover and Shaker
    TxMoose wrote:
    Tony Foot wrote:
    Exactly this, which is why I can now see a huge gap between the scores of the bigger spenders and the rest. You can now clearly see why the huge spenders didn't really like cakes. They can win by a mile with little effort. As you say cakes aren't gone, they are just helping now to increase the gap from solid 4 star rosters and above to 3 stars rosters trying to transition. My 4 star transition has been stopped or slowed to a crawl. I only caked for a season and a bit but to be honest I wish I'd started earlier. With the number of 4 star toons now I'm now questioning bothering with pvp at all. I only really played it because it was faster progression.

    I really don't mind having no cakes if the separate us by levels properly. Having 2 fully covered 4 stars climbing to 800 and then only seeing a wall of boosted 4 stars or one boosted and a 5 really isn't going to get me anywhere in a game where I need 4 star covers to grow.

    Every time there is a survey they ask about would you recommend this game to a friend. I almost bulked at 50 odd toons when I started when I did the maths for roster slots. Let alone 100+.
    I've heard so many say that the huge spenders hate cakes (not just tony here). some of the biggest spenders in the game (not all, but lots) were/are the biggest bakers in the game that provide points for everyone else via trickle down. those biggest spenders who front run and spend thousands of hp in shields every event who take on champed 5s for 35 pts each, just to turn around and bake and put their pts at jeopardy for the benefit of others. just because they spend lots and score lots doesn't make them bad guys or snobs. some people would really benefit themselves from some understanding.

    The more I immersed myself in the debate, the more I sympathy with you big dollars. It seems that you got the sour end, both from the cake haters and fanboys. But thanks for making the game free for many to play.
  • Pinko_McFly
    Pinko_McFly Posts: 282 Mover and Shaker
    I do find it funny how everyone one is attributing their higher placement to the lack of cupcakes and in no way is the splitting of slices into 7 different groups a possible cause.
    Sure logic would dictate that everyone would play in their highest option, bit not really. Maybe top 50 finishers said hey, let's see what o can do in sl5 or sl6.
    I know during cage one person in my BC was in cl1 by accident. I'm sure all the low level players in that slice were in no way discouraged by his 2k+ score.
  • like1tiger
    like1tiger Posts: 76 Match Maker
    That was quite an effort reading all those pages to catch up.

    All i have to add is thanks to all the bakers who spent time putting out cupcakes, we know you didn't have to do it, i cant remember how many times i was stuck in a q hell and someone baked a match for me to get some points to jump out of it and shield.

    I cant thank you all enough you made the game fun and a lot easier to climb through the horrible match making that gets thrown at us so on behalf of all the 3-4 star transitioners that you guys helped every day i thank you! especially all you guys in S4 you are all a great bunch of people who always wanted to help when ever u were asked.