Two major issues on which we NEED to be updated

Phase
Phase Posts: 157 Tile Toppler
edited May 2017 in MtGPQ General Discussion
Hey @Brigby @LakeStone @Hibernum_JC - I have seen you guys post here and just wanted to call your attention to the two massive, disruptive bugs/issues that have been causing a lot of bad feeling among organized players. This is NOT a whining post- I just want to present what my coalition and I have discovered. I would like to know if what we have discovered about patch 2.0 is being investigated, and the rough timetables on the resolution of the issues described below. These are major, major issues to the entire community and I am attempting to get the feedback on them in one place.

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1) PVP eEvent matchmaking is using the level of the last-played planeswalker to match the player up with their next opponent, regardless of the level of the selected planeswalker when the match is found. This has been a terrible experience for many of us and most all of the major coalitions have been able to successfully reproduce the issue, including myself. If you complete a match with a level 60 planeswalker, then claim a match with a level 20 planeswalker immediately after, then the opponent will nearly 100% of the time be a level 60 walker. Not only does this create extremely unfair matchups to the player, but this can be exploited on a single-match basis by playing with your level 60 walker AFTER your level 20 walker, to be matched against an opponent 40 levels lower than you. In any case, please let us know if the devs are on to this, and if not, let them know what we have discovered. This is particularly brutal on the new players who have one or two level 60 walkers (presumably who this patch is for!), but not enough max level walkers for all nodes.

It is worth noting that support tickets on this issue are being closed with "tough break, we don't matchmake based on level". This is preposterous, of course. I played 39 breaking points matches with walkers level 36-40 and I never once played against a level 25 or a level 60 walkers. Have a chat with your support staff please and inform them that yes, you do still matchmaking based on level and there is a major issue in play that needs resolution.


2) Leaderboard tiebreaker placement is no longer first come first served at the completion of the 5th charge, but at the time when either the player scores a single point, or when a player joins the leaderboard by joining the event. (thanks @Ohboy). Many of us have been asking for a better tiebreaker system, but the one we have now in 2.0 is even worse than usual. Currently, at the end of any given event, if 8 players have the top score, they will be ranked in the order in which they completed their first charge in the event. The priority of ranking players between 4th and 5th charge completion cannot change- if players A, B, and C are ranked 1st, 2nd and 3rd with perfect scores at the completion of the 4th node, when the final 5th node is completed, if they all continued to stay perfect, then the order will be retained after the 5th node as well. MANY of us were unable to even try to wake up at 4am to compete for the **** mythic prize because it would have been pointless. If you weren't the top 6 or 7th player, because there are 20 perfect scores, you were completely out of the running before the node even unlocked. This removes nearly all the tension from the competitive experience and is extremely demoralizing. At least in the old system of first-come first-served, we had a chance up until the end. Why bother having partially filled nodes at all at event start if we are just giving the competitive advantage to those who can finish the first charge (or tap "join event") as soon as possible?

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All I am asking from you guys is that you follow up with us on these two key issues. I understand the devs are hard at work on Amonkhet and many of us are looking forward to the new release! But these two bugs are fairly major and are causing a lot of folks to take steps away from what I still think is a great game. PQ is really a lot of fun when it is working right but these two issues are taking a pretty good chunk of that fun and converting it to major frustration.

Thanks and have a great day.

If anyone wants to contribute constructive additional feedback on these, please do so below. 

Comments

  • Ohboy
    Ohboy Posts: 1,766 Chairperson of the Boards
    I think you're wrong about the placement priority. 

    I think it's the time you click join event. 

    I joined really early yesterday, and only played my first charge late into the event. I was second last I checked. 
  • Beutimus
    Beutimus Posts: 9 Just Dropped In
    The PvP match making feels really broken. I can understand with events that there is a limited number of opponents that they can choose from, but in the training grounds, it's incredibly broken right now.  I only have 1 level 60 PW and 1 level 59 PW, the rest are below 50 for the most part, and feel really useless in any kind of PvP event.
  • DumasAG
    DumasAG Posts: 719 Critical Contributor
    Now that we have matchmaking within the event (matched against other event decks specifically in this event) why can't tie-breaking lean on strength of opponent. If the people you beat also did well, in theory you beat better decks and thus deserve a better placement. It didn't make sense before because you could be matched against any random deck.
  • shteev
    shteev Posts: 2,031 Chairperson of the Boards
    1000% this
  • tfg76
    tfg76 Posts: 258 Mover and Shaker
    How about just getting rid of the leaderboards altogether? I feel like we´re not really competing against each other anyway - my win is not your loss, so to speak. This is also why a tiebreaker based on your opponents doesn´t make sense - since you´re playing random opponents and not people who have approximately the same # of points as you, your opportunity to gain a good tiebreaker would be totally random. In real Magic, you typically use Swiss pairings, which means that your opposition gets harder over the course of the tournament (if you do well). Not sure if Swiss pairings are possible for an "asynchronous" game like this.

    One system I would have enjoyed:

    - On Monday, Terror in the Shadows Part I starts. I qualify in Gold, and play for appropriate progression awards. Maybe there are only 3 charges per node here - it should be fairly hard to get all progression rewards.
    - If I´m in the top 100 (and here I would break ties so that everyone who has the same point as #100 applies), I advance to Tuesday´s **** Gold Part II. 
    - In **** part II, I play for even better progression awards. But remember, now I´m only playing against decks of the previous round. Maybe the top 25 qualify for Part III (same tiebreaker as before)
    - In Wednesday´s **** Gold Part III, the reward for full progression is really good, perhaps a mythic or masterpiece. And remember, you only play against the very best decks.

    You´d have similar tournament structures for Bronze, Silver and Platinum of course, with different prize structures.

    Those part II´s and III´s would have interesting metagames, in that you would have some idea of what the top players were playing and could adjust accordingly.

    Also, you could award tournament points for participating in parts II and III. These points could be the basis for your tournament status (silver, gold, platinum).


  • Phase
    Phase Posts: 157 Tile Toppler
    Ohboy said:
    I think you're wrong about the placement priority. 

    I think it's the time you click join event. 

    I joined really early yesterday, and only played my first charge late into the event. I was second last I checked. 
    If so (which could very well be true!) then it is still the same frustrating end result for the players, except now you have to be ready to join events at 6am local time in Central US just to win tiebreakers. I will add your finding to my OP. Thanks!
  • babar3355
    babar3355 Posts: 1,128 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited May 2017

    You know its almost as if they decided to fix some long term issues

    -> Players exploiting low level PWs in platinum brackets

    -> An unfair tie breaker system that advantages time zones and more flexible schedules 

    However, their fix was really shoddy and the methods would only work if the community was dense and couldn't figure out what was happening.

    Now some idle speculation... perhaps the "join fast" prioritization was intentional to incentivize people to join events early rather than waiting until near the end and trying to ninja a new bracket.

  • Phase
    Phase Posts: 157 Tile Toppler
    The problem with the "join fast" thing is that you are still screwing people who aren't in the convenient time zones, just like before. PvP events come up for me at 6am local time, 6 hours before the start. On the west coast, that would be 4am. Should I wake up at that time just to claim a potential tiebreaker, having played zero charges yet to see if I even would want that advantage? The old system was better in this case.

    Tiebreakers don't impact second brackets as heavily as the first (notably, second brackets have been easier due to less intense competition) so I don't think there's a meaningful impact being made there.
  • babar3355
    babar3355 Posts: 1,128 Chairperson of the Boards
    I don't think its a good system.. I think its an awful system.  I am just speculating that perhaps it was an intentional awful change =)
  • Dologan
    Dologan Posts: 145 Tile Toppler
    edited May 2017
    If it's not actually an unintended bug, but a deliberate (and undocumented) change, the new system absolutely sucks. It has been very frustrating to rush to quickly finish the final three nodes and place #3 in **** with a perfect score, only to see my rank mysteriously sink lower and lower as other people, who apparently just happened to click the "Join Event" button earlier, finish their own nodes and eventually cut me out of the top reward. 

    The time zone discrimination of the original tie-breaking system was definitely problematic, but one based on the order of joining doesn't solve anything, only shifts it to a different timezone. It actually makes it worse, since previously at least there was some skill and merit involved in finishing the nodes before the others, whereas this would be all down to who just happens to be available to click a single button sooner at whatever near-random time you choose to announce the event. Moreover, it's also bloody confusing, since now, even with a perfect score, your ranking can move unpredictably out of your control. Before, you could always tell (within the limits of the viewable window) what your ranking would be given your points.

    I have submitted a ticket to support about the ranking issue, since by the original system I should have earned the top reward in my bracket, and I am still hoping it is actually a bug. If it happens to be a deliberate yet unannounced change and support declines my request with some absurd excuse, mark my words, I will finally quit this bloody game, which I have been on the brink of doing since all the cash-grabbing, competition- AND cooperation-stifling changes D3 has been implementing.

    //Removed Profanity -Brigby
  • Gideon
    Gideon Posts: 356 Mover and Shaker
    Why aren't these things identified during the extensive testing they should be doing? Oh wait that's right we are the testers.
  • Irgy
    Irgy Posts: 148 Tile Toppler
    I'd just like to point out wrt #1, there is a workaround, which I already posted in the other thread. You can lock in a match for a planeswalker but not play the game, by selecting the node they're on (at which point you see your opponent) and then going back out.

    Using this you can ensure the correct level opponent while still playing the nodes in whatever order you like, by locking in your next opponent on the same node immediately after you play each game. Only thing is it requires you to have at least one available charge at all times (until you play the last game of course), for most events this isn't a big problem.
  • AngelForge
    AngelForge Posts: 325 Mover and Shaker
    @Irgy
    But even better, you can lock in your match with your lowest PW and then get matches for your other PWs realted to your first locked in PW. Then you start playing the highest level PW and work down to the lowest.
    Once done, you lock in matches again from low to high level and play from high to low. And so on...

    With this, there is no need to save a charge.
  • Irgy
    Irgy Posts: 148 Tile Toppler
    Yes, true, but then you also need to play the games in a particular order, which isn't synergistic with the (admittedly almost entirely irrelevant) PW healing mechanic. My approach lets you play games in any order. Whatever approach works for you I guess. You can probably mix the two approaches for the best of both worlds I imagine as well.
  • Phase
    Phase Posts: 157 Tile Toppler
    Thanks so much @Brigby for your response! Hoping to hear about the hotfix coming soon. Definitely do what you can about the matchmaking bug if you can. Recreating it should be trivial for your testers.

  • THEMAGICkMAN
    THEMAGICkMAN Posts: 697 Critical Contributor
    Just remember "soon" may not mean what you think it means...
  • MTG_Mage
    MTG_Mage Posts: 224 Tile Toppler
    Matchmaking is now just based on your PW level, and you are matched up to the level of the last PW you played. This is problematic if you run different level PWs on each node.

    Can we have matchmaking not be based on tier or level and instead on DECK CONTENT (please see link)
    This way you will always be paired against a deck comparable to yours in power. I should be easy to do (ai assigns point value to each card based on rarity then adds the total plus your PW weight and pairs you according to that number)
    Other factors can be considered as well such as your running record in this event, or event point totals, or even look at paper mtg tournament matchmaking logic

    Also

    Can we have it so each node always shows its max charges and the timer is always displayed to when the next charge will be added.

    It would be really simple to display. For example, Breaking Points started off at max charges of 5 with a recharge of 1 every 6 hours for 2 days, so instead display it as "5/5 - 5:59:59" In fact @Brigby can we put full timers on everything that can have a timer attached to it? What I mean by that is make all timers show exactly downt to the minute instead of 'ends in 1 day'.

    I had one issue with Breaking Points I would like to get an answer for, it did start at 5 charges, but during the event it would cap out at 3 as I did the math and I am sure I 'lost' a round of charges when I left my PWs at 3 charges during the middle of the day since I could not play until evening. So why is the max charges per node 5 at the start of the event, but only wont take a charge if 3 or over?
  • AngelForge
    AngelForge Posts: 325 Mover and Shaker
    @MTG_Mage
    You cannot weight rarity of cards in decks against each other because they are so different in power. This would shelf some cards even more.

    In addition, you are now able to change your deck before you play against an opponent.
    I could create a deck with common cards, lock in my opponent and then change to a more powerful deck.
  • MustangC83
    MustangC83 Posts: 15 Just Dropped In
    How about it's done like golf scoring? Yes, technically more people could potentially get better rewards, but that's not really a down side in my eyes. I realize the game needs to make money to be free-to- play, but the rewards for placing 999 isn't​ that far off from 300

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