Elspeth Event (Leveling Issues)

babar3355

I am making this an anonymous poll.  I want to get an idea of what the crowd is actually doing when it comes to dealing with the leveling issue.

For those unfamiliar, Hibernum (presumably) structured match making so that the last match you played in an event dictates the level of the next opponent you fight.  So if you enter with a level 60, you will fight a level 60, and the next match you take (even on a different node) will be 60.   If you enter with a level 25 you will get a roughly level 32 opponent, and the next fight you take will also be a lvl 32ish opponent (even in a different node).

This leaves players four pretty terrible options.

A) Level all new heroes immediately to 60 (Impossible for newer players or those without copious amount of runes.  A waste for players who don't really care about the new PW and don't plan on using them after the event.)

 B ) Constantly face high level opponent vs. your new under-leveled planeswalker  (Unfair for newer players and causes them to get discouraged with the game)

C) Manipulate the matchmaking to always give you a lower level opponents despite running some higher level planewalkers. (Clearly an exploit but one the developers practically force many users to engage in to be competitive)

D) Leave all of your planeswalkers at low levels (Basically Smurf mode, which causes a lot of resentment from newer players who genuinely can't compete with the card power of veteran players running low level PWs with strong card collections.)

HypnoticSpecter

What do "higher level" and "low level" mean to you?

babar3355

HypnoticSpecter said:

What do "higher level" and "low level" mean to you?

Anything where your opponents won't be level 60s.  So if you level her to 45 so all of your fight are against low level 50's I would consider low level.  If you level her to 50 and fight 60's I would probably pick option A or E

Adjunct

"smurfing" is a real issue that most top competitive players are exploiting.
this is why there are so many "perfect" scores.
most top players only have a small number of matches that are level appropriate.
when you do it right you only face 2-3 level 60 vs level 60 matches when the rest are your level 60 vs whatever level your lowest pw is.

wereotter

I'm not having this issue with Elspeth considering she's a favorite planeswalker of mine on paper, I bought her for $ immediately and started to work on leveling her. BUT I did forget about this last PvP event and had a level 40 Nissa selected as one of my decks because her skill set worked and the deck I made worked. Only once it was too late and registered level 60s on every other node.

However, I did notice that once you get into the mid 40s as far as level is concerned on most planeswalkers, the difference, especially considering the expertise level of the AI, the matches aren't too bad. Your mana might be a little lower depending on what planeswalker you're using, but you shouldn't be at too much of a disadvantage. Once you get to that level, it seems more about what cards you put in the deck than what level your planeswalker is.

Gilesclone

I played the last ToS with a level 30 Lilliana 3.  I was worried about the level 60s but managed to beat all 3 I faced.  The extra hit points made her secondaries easier to accomplish. 

The AI is pretty lame sometimes

octal9

There's a method/5th option which isn't present here that allows you to always play vs PWs of your level, no matter which PWs you have assigned. It's similar to option C.

That's the one I choose.

Adjunct said:

"smurfing" is a real issue that most top competitive players are exploiting.
this is why there are so many "perfect" scores.

actually a lot of that is because of option C, not D

babar3355

octal9 said:

There's a method/5th option which isn't present here that allows you to always play vs PWs of your level, no matter which PWs you have assigned. It's similar to option C.

That's the one I choose.

Adjunct said:

"smurfing" is a real issue that most top competitive players are exploiting.
this is why there are so many "perfect" scores.

actually a lot of that is because of option C, not D

Oh... interesting. I honestly didn't know that that was possible until I saw your comments.  Seems kind of crazy to have to work that hard to get the matches to be fair, but I guess it's an option.

shteev

There's a sixth option too, which is to not buy Elspeth, and join the event very near the end hoping that you'll be put in a new and relatively unpopulated bracket.

Theros

Another option for people like me who were unable to level up to 60 due to hardess or runes acquisition.
I did not level up to 60, dont have enough runes and I got so many PWs under-leveled. I miss QB. Story is paintfully slow and boring

Skiglass6

shteev said:

There's a sixth option too, which is to not buy Elspeth, and join the event very near the end hoping that you'll be put in a new and relatively unpopulated bracket.

This could be solved by changing the rankings to percentages instead of individual placement. But I have fell into top 50 placement in events I had decided not to play on a couple of occasions.  

ElfNeedsFood

Well, level 59, but within range that lvl 60 opponents are the rule.

naphomci

I don't have the runes to continually level up all of these PWs. N3, L3, and Elspeth are all 35-40, I only recently got Nahiri and Saheeli to 60. I see no problem with "exploiting" the match making system--how it is materially different from taking advantage of Nicol Bolas with a creatureless deck, or utilizing the poor AI in other ways?

Kinesia

The match making needs to change, but not just for level it should _also_ take into count rough numbers of mythics/masterpieces. I find I can beat higher level people far more easily than I can deal with someone with tons of myhthics/MP.

Ohboy

naphomci said:

I don't have the runes to continually level up all of these PWs. N3, L3, and Elspeth are all 35-40, I only recently got Nahiri and Saheeli to 60. I see no problem with "exploiting" the match making system--how it is materially different from taking advantage of Nicol Bolas with a creatureless deck, or utilizing the poor AI in other ways?

You're equating good in game strategy with systematic abuse.  That's the difference. 

This is like saying what's the difference between using rock to crush scissors and taking advantage of playing with a blind guy. 

hawkyh1

I'm going to agree with ohboy on this one.

I used a level 40 elspeth for her event node.
The other planeswalkers I used are either level
40 or level 46. I was consistently matched with
level 56 and under, which is correct with my
understanding of how the system works. if I
remember correctly I totalled one suitable mythic
from all 3 of my decks. this imo is fair
competition for anyone in my gold bracket that
faced my decks.

I used the locked game in hand technique to keep
each node matchmaking separate.

HH

Brigby

Hi everyone. I just wanted to let you all know that this matchmaking issue was something the Hibernum was working on fixing, so I will be sure to inform the new team of the progress they had made prior

naphomci

Ohboy said:

naphomci said:

I don't have the runes to continually level up all of these PWs. N3, L3, and Elspeth are all 35-40, I only recently got Nahiri and Saheeli to 60. I see no problem with "exploiting" the match making system--how it is materially different from taking advantage of Nicol Bolas with a creatureless deck, or utilizing the poor AI in other ways?

You're equating good in game strategy with systematic abuse.  That's the difference. 

This is like saying what's the difference between using rock to crush scissors and taking advantage of playing with a blind guy. 

I disagree. Both take advantage of the system in one way or the other--whether with match making or the static decks. How you do you feel about playing against cycling decks? Should we just concede, or wait until they play a few creatures? If this is the hill you chose to die on for this issue, that is your choice, but you don't get to decide the hill for everyone. Regardless, this game is not hard, so any difference is not that substantial.

Your point also belays one of the issues--without QB's, runes come in much slower, so players cannot level the every 3 week new walker to max. Your stance is that players should jump through hoops to "fix" a bug. The choices are make it more tedious, have messed up match making, or once per set of nodes set you matches (eschewing the tedium of having to lock a match and back out, and hoping that you don't screw up on your low lvl walker).

Ohboy

I'm not saying that match making isn't buggy now. 

I'm saying you're wrong to say abusing it's bugginess is the same as abusing a deck flaw. Yeah I'll choose too die on the "system abuse is not the same as exploiting a flaw in opponent's deck" hill any day. Are you one of those who defended the apk cheating as well?

If you're going to change topics on me for no reason, at least admit that wasn't a logical thing to say.

//Removed Insults -Brigby

TheDragonHermit

Brigby said:

Hi everyone. I just wanted to let you all know that this matchmaking issue was something the Hibernum was working on fixing, so I will be sure to inform the new team of the progress they had made prior

Poor new studio, we are already giving them tinykitty regarding the game. So does this mean I won't be facing level 60s while leveling new PWs up in a few months. Cause facing level 60s with my level 30 was a bit of a nightmare.

Brigby

TheDragonHermit said:

Brigby said:

Hi everyone. I just wanted to let you all know that this matchmaking issue was something the Hibernum was working on fixing, so I will be sure to inform the new team of the progress they had made prior

Poor new studio, we are already giving them tinykitty regarding the game. So does this mean I won't be facing level 60s while leveling new PWs up in a few months. Cause facing level 60s with my level 30 was a bit of a nightmare.

Hibernum actually anticipated finishing and implementing the fix last week, however as you can imagine, there were some unfortunate occurrences that prevented its development from concluding.