Varied Metagame?

Brendover

Bowgentle said:

That's better than 5* land.
Nodes there consist of nothing but Thanos / Panther / other champed 5.

Thanks, devs.

At least they nerfed OML! /s

GurlBYE

Bowgentle said:

That's better than 5* land.
Nodes there consist of nothing but Thanos / Panther / other champed 5.

Thanks, devs.

What would you have them do to solve this?

Beat up on players lower than you who can't retaliate? 

Bowgentle

GurlBYE said:

Bowgentle said:

That's better than 5* land.
Nodes there consist of nothing but Thanos / Panther / other champed 5.

Thanks, devs.

What would you have them do to solve this?

Beat up on players lower than you who can't retaliate? 

What? No.
Give us more chances to cover older 5s so I see more teams out there.

Starfury

bbigler said:

Enjoy this time before everyone starts champing the new Rocket & Groot, then you'll see R&G + Medusa + Carnage.  That team will strike fear into anyone that sees it, and destroy anyone who fights against it.

1st Turn AI - 7 Strikes Tiles + Medusa tile + 4 Carnage attack tiles = approx 1150 match damage + 2000 end of turn.

Even if you match away the enemy special tiles, Carnage just makes more and Medusa heals the team every time!  So, the auto-damage never stops and the auto-healing prolongs the game.  Even if you win, you'll need health packs.

I'm not exactly surprised that we'll see more and more teams with special tile damage getting completely out of control. How many new characters with a focus on special tiles have we seen in the last 12 months?

As for variety: Once I've gathered the necessary ISO to champ all the lastest 12 4* and plunder my hoard, they'll be my eternal Simulator team, as there's likely no past or future 4* who's going to reach those levels within their time in the sun.

mpqr7

Now that I have three championed 5*s, it's basically impossible for me to get to 2000+ points in SIM. Or possible but would require massive amounts of health packs. But it's only for a random 4* cover, so it's not even worth the health pack drain. Maybe when I'm down to 10 health packs, I'll go for it.

zodiac339

It feels like the PVP system specifically aranges for five players with three or more 5* Champions are in a bracket. Almost invariably, the top five have at least three Epic Champions, and it looks like no other player in sixth place or lower have Epic Champions. 

GrumpySmurf1002

I don't believe vaulting was designed to vary the PvP meta, I think it was built to ease transitions between tiers and give players more options for PvE.

PvP will always devolve into the top couple teams that can be potentially assembled.  It's happened with every single change to the mechanics of this game.

GrumpySmurf1002

mpqr7 said:

Now that I have three championed 5*s, it's basically impossible for me to get to 2000+ points in SIM. Or possible but would require massive amounts of health packs. But it's only for a random 4* cover, so it's not even worth the health pack drain. Maybe when I'm down to 10 health packs, I'll go for it.

Unless those 3 are Banner, Cap, and I don't even know how to list 3 bad ones, this shouldn't be the case.  

Days of doing it in a couple hours on the last day are probably gone, but 2k itself should still be plenty doable.

Fightmastermpq

zodiac339 said:

It feels like the PVP system specifically aranges for five players with three or more 5* Champions are in a bracket. Almost invariably, the top five have at least three Epic Champions, and it looks like no other player in sixth place or lower have Epic Champions. 

Many of the top players actually coordinate with each other to make sure this happens.  I know there are at least 2 bracket rooms in S5 to try and split rewards among BCs and I know there are some in other slices as well.

Fightmastermpq

GrumpySmurf1002 said:

I don't believe vaulting was designed to vary the PvP meta, I think it was built to ease transitions between tiers and give players more options for PvE.

PvP will always devolve into the top couple teams that can be potentially assembled.  It's happened with every single change to the mechanics of this game.

I think changing the meta was a small part of it though.  Didn't they actually say this was part of the reason they picked the newest 12 - to keep the game constantly evolving with the latest in character design?

zodiac339

Fightmastermpq said:

zodiac339 said:

It feels like the PVP system specifically aranges for five players with three or more 5* Champions are in a bracket. Almost invariably, the top five have at least three Epic Champions, and it looks like no other player in sixth place or lower have Epic Champions. 

Many of the top players actually coordinate with each other to make sure this happens.  I know there are at least 2 bracket rooms in S5 to try and split rewards among BCs and I know there are some in other slices as well.

Grrr. Couldn't they coordinate to not play PVP? Leave the top 5 rewards to people building Legendaries? Ah, the dream.

Phumade

I think the vault will drastically change the meta.  If your in the 50cpe range,  you will probably be able to MaxChamp a new 4* like C&D before they leave the Latest 12 pool.  

After 350, 4* champs have similar powers to 5*.  They only lack the match damage.

5* rosters will climb much longer with their boosted max champed 4* before transitioning to 5* hop teams.

New Char PVE will be devalued because over the life of the vault, 5 pve covers won't be very significant.

I think people who focus on the Latest 12 will be very competitive with Vet 4* rosters in about 4-6 months.

dr tinykittylove

mpqr7 said:

Now that I have three championed 5*s, it's basically impossible for me to get to 2000+ points in SIM. Or possible but would require massive amounts of health packs. But it's only for a random 4* cover, so it's not even worth the health pack drain. Maybe when I'm down to 10 health packs, I'll go for it.

What are you using? I just did my climb  with OML/PHX/BSS, closing with Im46/BSS/Surfer. Just do your climb in steps - I ran up maybe 4-500 pts at a time, left it alone to let people take potshots, then climbed again later. Finished from a final starting point around 1.5k+.

And since I was going for roster depth rather than high levels, my 5*s range from levels 451(BSS) to 463(OML). 

I did hit mostly Thanos/BP teams on the way up...  I like facing them much better than say Bolt/Strange. 

Also had a brief intermission where I tried out my level 255 Hawkeye with Coulson/Carol on 5*champs. It was fun.  

Fightmastermpq

dr tinykittylove said:

mpqr7 said:

Now that I have three championed 5*s, it's basically impossible for me to get to 2000+ points in SIM. Or possible but would require massive amounts of health packs. But it's only for a random 4* cover, so it's not even worth the health pack drain. Maybe when I'm down to 10 health packs, I'll go for it.

What are you using? I just did my climb  with OML/PHX/BSS, closing with Im46/BSS/Surfer. Just do your climb in steps - I ran up maybe 4-500 pts at a time, left it alone to let people take potshots, then climbed again later. Finished from a final starting point around 1.5k+.

And since I was going for roster depth rather than high levels, my 5*s range from levels 451(BSS) to 463(OML). 

I did hit mostly Thanos/BP teams on the way up...  I like facing them much better than say Bolt/Strange. 

Also had a brief intermission where I tried out my level 255 Hawkeye with Coulson/Carol on 5*champs. It was fun.  

Wondering this as well.  OML/PHX/XFDP still remains the best Sim climbing team that gets the job down and isn't a health pack suck.  Honestly 2k is pretty easy with damn near any two 5s and a decent support character.

SnowcaTT

Daiches said:

You mean it's all only BP/Thano5 teams

Bowgentle said:

That's better than 5* land.
Nodes there consist of nothing but Thanos / Panther / other champed 5.

Thanks, devs.

QFT.

Sim used to be OML -every- -single- -match-. Multiple reasons - he was early good 5*, he let people have near infinite climbs.

Now It's Thanos (or Bolt) in every single match. Same multiple reasons - 3*'s started paying out to vets like myself, hoards finally were opened. Most I talk to don't believe he is as good as OML was - but he has highest health. If something happens to Thanos, or another higher health 5* comes along, new hoards will be cracked and you'll see that one in every single match.

Trying to flatten the characters through buffs/nerfs hasn't helped. 4*'s I see have moved from Rulk to Peggy to Carol, as vaulting increases newer ones first....but notice it doesn't move to Spider Woman, it's still the "best" always out there (most powerful or highest health/longest lasting).

The only way to fix monotony is fix the system. Give players -reasons- to play other characters, rather than reasons only to play the "biggest/best".

Borstock

I wonder how hard it would be for them to create a PvP matchmaker where your opponent options are based on the team you want to fight with. So if I'm a 5* tier player but I choose a 2* team, the matchmaker would only draw me 2* opponents. 

Then again, that might enable players to literally play the game nonstop all day long. Not sure they want that. 

MarkersMake

If you want to encourage variety, then one way to do it would be through Bonus pvp Points. 

Characters accumulate a +2 point bonus per 24hrs since the last time you won a match with them, capped at +20. And it's -10 to that character's bonus every time you win a match with them (minimum of zero, obviously). No defensive bonus values - this would be a strictly offensive bonus system. 

It would add a level of roster management to pvp strategy, make shield hops a bit different,  and increase the variety of teams everyone would see. 

Phumade

MarkersMake said:

If you want to encourage variety, then one way to do it would be through Bonus pvp Points. 

Characters accumulate a +2 point bonus per 24hrs since the last time you won a match with them, capped at +20. And it's -10 to that character's bonus every time you win a match with them (minimum of zero, obviously). No defensive bonus values - this would be a strictly offensive bonus system. 

It would add a level of roster management to pvp strategy, make shield hops a bit different,  and increase the variety of teams everyone would see. 

How would you apply the bonus?  +20 to each color or just their strongest?  Its an interesting idea for sure

MarkersMake

Sorry, I meant the value of the pvp fight, not matching each tile. 

See here for more details: https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/64892/pvp-team-variety-incentive-pvp-bonus-points#latest

... Although a match damage bonus would also be an interesting idea too.  

Crowl

sambrookjm said:

Yeah, I was thinking that the auto "7 strike tiles" at the start of the match would be really bad with passive damage dealers...  I was thinking Medusa and Carol for auto-buffing, just because that's who I've seen the most of recently.  Carnage is even more evil, though.

I think I'll be sticking with Carol over Carnage in such teams, her black will be ready by the time some of the initial strikes have been whittled away, R&G's blue will be great for Carol's passive and her other passive generates so much ap or damage against the ai since it doesn't alter it's tactics to account for it.