Are the new PVP changes working as expected?

Sm0keyJ0e

Would like to get D3's thoughts on this. I gave the new system a fair shake and it is not working for me at all, to the points where I'm likely just going to go to 16 wins/t10 and mail it in.

Here are my issues, and they point to problems with all of their changes:
1. MMR is completely broken. ALL I can q from start to finish, regardless of score, are champed 5* teams. Not the end of the world (also not fun at all) but the bigger issue is #2...
2. Gambit is a broken character. He has completely nerfed every other 5* and requires no skill to use and there is no defense against him. I have a well-champed 5* roster and I lose roughly 75% of the time to any team that has Gambit paired with HE/Bolt (which is 80% of the teams floating out there). Health packs be damned.
3. The slog to 40 wins is rather ridiculous and a curious counter to the quality of life improvement they made for PVE. There are times, particular weekday events, where... you know, I have to work and take care of family and such. I can play here and there, but this change no longer allows me to hit progression. PVE change was the exact opposite.

So I will continue to re-engage with PVE as I like the QoL changes there and D3 seemed to listen to the player-base. For PVP, I'm likely moving to 16 wins/t10 and out. It's just no fun anymore.

Magic

I thought it might work for me but it doesn't as well. I have two 5* champions and they are not great for PvP (OML and Strange - doing great in PvE with the pair and i have always preferred that part) and I have to skip a lot and use a lot of health packs. I get to 16-20 wins per event which nets my previous rewards (10 CP and a token that was there for 650). But getting to 40 wins? No, thank you. I would like to think I have a live. I think no 4* is worth it, especially when you are in 5* land already. Maybe if the next champion level would give me a LT or if it's a missing color to finish a 4* I will do it but for my part - 20 wins is enough.

The finish in top100-top50 remains the same as well. In most cases it gives me also a much higher score than before - around 700-800. But i doubt it will help me get a top100 alliance for the season. Too many people go for 40 wins so the scores are inflated.

Calnexin

I concur.  In some ways my experience is better than yours - I've only got one 5* champ so I'm mostly queuing similar teams of 1 5* champ and boosted 4 all the way down to Boosted 4 + a 3* (at low points).

In other ways it's worse.  Because I don't have a monster roster I get hit plenty, but after losing points the easier teams reappear.  There's an ebb and flow to my points - easy come, easy go.  But I'm not really capable of getting to the multi-thousand point area to ensure a T10 finish, so any cp I manage to earn from placement is 90% due to a lazy bracket.

At the same time, while my matches aren't impossible with 5* gambit everywhere (though they make up about 70% of my retal options), they take long enough that 40 wins is non-trivial.  So not only can I not reliably get cp, I also have difficulty reaching the 4* cover.  

Sidebar - there is a lot of complaining from 5* teams that they can't see anything but 5* teams.  This is demonstrably untrue, because I am getting hit by those teams at middling point values.  "Can't queue" is either hyperbole, or the ones complaining aren't skipping enough.  We're out there and we see your retal nodes.  You're welcome for the easy points.

Dormammu

Sm0keyJ0e said:

Would like to get D3's thoughts on this. I gave the new system a fair shake and it is not working for me at all, to the points where I'm likely just going to go to 16 wins/t10 and mail it in.

Here are my issues, and they point to problems with all of their changes:
1. MMR is completely broken. ALL I can q from start to finish, regardless of score, are champed 5* teams.

I have been getting defensive losses by teams with three champed 5-stars since the change, which is really unusual since I am a 4-star player (half of them champed) with no 5-stars above level 270. I don't see them in my offensive queues, but I'm certainly in theirs.

Avalancher

I have four champed 5 stars, and there is no way I would ever go past 16 wins unless I need the cover.  Like now, two events in a row.

The Ghost Rider black has long been one of the last covers I need, and Professor X blue will finish my dupe for Angels.  

I will be experimenting with lesser teams to try to avoid my usual MMR, I will report how it works here in this thread.

The rockett

You can't.  Mmr is locked in. You can try and start and event with 2* on the seeds and still will only see the same people as you would with your A team.  This has been done a ton already. Nothing breaks MMR unless people are shielded or you are high enough in the shard, point wise, then you can see almost everything. 

Avalancher

Cool, thanks.  I will climb as fast as I can then and break MMR for an easier path to 40 wins.

pheregas

The rockett said:

You can't.  Mmr is locked in. You can try and start and event with 2* on the seeds and still will only see the same people as you would with your A team.  This has been done a ton already. Nothing breaks MMR unless people are shielded or you are high enough in the shard, point wise, then you can see almost everything. 

The only minor way around this is if you field a weak team on your last seed hit and hope someone lower sees, beats you, and you get their retal.

I do this sometimes if I only want to clear seeds, but then don't want to clog queues for active climbers.

Calnexin

OJSP said:

Calnexin, visibility and MMR depends on a lot of factors. When you said you got hit by "those teams", what was your points, what was their points, what team were you using (5* and boosted 4*? what level was your boosted 4?) and what team were they using (one or 2 championed 5*?)?

Some people with high level championed 5*s will only see other 5*s, until more and more people decide to shield and the MMR gives them the next tier down. Perhaps you got hit when most people are shield hopping already, so you become visible to people who you are not normally visible to unless you score really high in an event.

I get hit by double-champed 5* as early as 100 points, but more as I climb higher with a major jump around 500-600 points.  Their points tend to be in the same area or a little above, since the retals are worth around 35-45.  I very rarely see one worth 60 or more, though it's entirely possible they'd be worth that if I retaliated and won (which is kind of a **** shoot for my roster, even if I'm aiming to drop whales - in a win-based progression wasting 3 health packs on a 50/50 shot is much less attractive than 3 matches that don't require any).

"High champed 5's" I don't generally see until 800+.  450-470 is normal up to that point.  I can see that 550 champs can't see 4* rosters, but I expect they would have as easy a time beating lv 450 5* as those lv 450 5*s have of beating my 4/5, in which case I don't see where the gripe is (Gambit aside).

hopper1979

I am in a very similar boat as you are I am seriously considering only doing the simulator and skipping all other pvp events.  It is a slog to get to 16 wins, I don't have enough 5's to counter the 5 star teams I am seeing.  My only worry is I am not sure I can get to the 10 pack reward doing only the simulator.  I am going to try, I can still find teams in there to beat but the rest of pvp is almost unplayable at the moment.

BoyWonder1914

Sm0keyJ0e said:

3. The slog to 40 wins is rather ridiculous and a curious counter to the quality of life improvement they made for PVE. There are times, particular weekday events, where... you know, I have to work and take care of family and such. I can play here and there, but this change no longer allows me to hit progression. PVE change was the exact opposite.

So I will continue to re-engage with PVE as I like the QoL changes there and D3 seemed to listen to the player-base. For PVP, I'm likely moving to 16 wins/t10 and out. It's just no fun anymore.

This continues to perplex me. Most people have been arguing that it's "easier" because they can spread this out over 2.5 days. MPQ IS NOT LIFE, so a change that requires you to pick up your phone and play MPQ more than you used to is not a "quality of life" improvement.....

Ruinate

005 3* Gambit has been a game changer for me.  If I had to tough through 40 Panthos vs Panthos matches I'd be having a bad time too.  Instead I've been trolling 5* teams with Loaner/3Gambit/DD or Loaner/3Gambit/Phx and it's a lot of fun.  I take plenty of hits which usually keeps me below the Gambit wall where I like to be during the win grind.  I don't even retal 4* teams because DD's power falls drastically when not fighting 5* characters.  After about 30 wins of this and not using a single health pack, its business as usual.  Not too bad.  

Infrared

Dormammu said:

I have been getting defensive losses by teams with three champed 5-stars since the change, which is really unusual since I am a 4-star player (half of them champed) with no 5-stars above level 270. I don't see them in my offensive queues, but I'm certainly in theirs.

Could those have been retaliations from trapcake teams that you beat previously?

madsalad

Working as intended.

Deeznutz1234

I couldn’t possibly agree with smokey’s assessment in his original post any more than I already do.  It seems like he has had the exact same experience I’ve had with this new pvp system and it’s unbearable 40 win progression mark.   Throwing the dumbest, most OP toon on top of all that was just salt in the wounds and then making him the first and only 5* with a month long 100 or whatever it was level boost was just pure evil hatred.  It’s like whoever is running the ship these days just wanted to let me know just how much they dislike me, don’t respect my time or the amount of money and energy I’ve invested in this game every day for over 3 years or so, and just thought it would be cool to suck out what little fun was left in the game, particularly pvp.  

The 40 wins change is a bust on so many levels, but mainly bc it requires me to spend at least 3 times the amount of time than I ever wanted to spend grinding boring and tedious pvp matches.  Pvp was already getting pretty annoyingly boring as 1 of the 3 toons for every match is already the same inconsequential 3* for every team but, as MMR is completely broken these days or just intended to be this lame - as smokey so clearly pointed out above, the other 2 toons every match just ends up being one of the same couple viable 5* champion teams that you end up just seeing over and over again.  And then, as if it weren’t bad enough already, they make someone miles and miles OP such as gambit ensuring that everyone that has him championed will use him every match over and over again and that’s not even taking into account the really ridiculous bright idea of boosting him and only him in that 5* tier, and there you have it.  You end up with the same boring teams and same boring match ups over and over, every single node. And the designers think we should have to slog through that mess at least 40 times every 2 1/2 days?!?!?!  It’s just the worst.  

The only fun thing about pvp used to be the placement reward race for the leader boards and having your hits count as far as having a higher score than your other bracket buddies.  I guess that’s still an element of the event but it is now greatly diminished by having to stay out and net 40 wins if you want the final placement reward.  I’ve found myself every single event having to play well beyond what’s needed score-wise for 1st place only to find that I’ve been beaten back off the top 10 entirely while trying to chase pretty much worthless placement rewards because I’m sitting un#d as such a high point target.  It just seems like the event is currently designed where you have to choose between final progression or top placement or just mindlessly grind away endless numbers of matches in order to get both.  No matter what though, it’s just not fun for me anymore. 

So, count me in with ole smokes as far as this new pvp is concerned.  16 wins and top 10 placement and Im out. At the most.  If the designers’ intent was to make us play more pvp, then they have sorely missed the mark as far as I’m concerned. This change will have me play much less. Much much less.    

I guess maybe that’s a good thing at the end of the day - way things are headed. 

Uncletas

Playing less. Previously I could reach 900 with some good play or timing. It made me feel good that my roster was getting better. Now i can’t even motivate myself to get 40 wins. Tried the first one and got to 26 and just felt burnt out. Shield sim I have 33 wins and 1600 points. Don’t feel like playing 40 more matches. Pve was a grind and now this is too. It is not fun anymore 

Jaedenkaal

I suspect we won't get any official commentary on this for an entire season at minimum.

Qubort

Sm0keyJ0e said:

Would like to get D3's thoughts on this. I gave the new system a fair shake and it is not working for me at all, to the points where I'm likely just going to go to 16 wins/t10 and mail it in.

Here are my issues, and they point to problems with all of their changes:
1. MMR is completely broken. ALL I can q from start to finish, regardless of score, are champed 5* teams. Not the end of the world (also not fun at all) but the bigger issue is #2...
2. Gambit is a broken character. He has completely nerfed every other 5* and requires no skill to use and there is no defense against him. I have a well-champed 5* roster and I lose roughly 75% of the time to any team that has Gambit paired with HE/Bolt (which is 80% of the teams floating out there). Health packs be damned.
3. The slog to 40 wins is rather ridiculous and a curious counter to the quality of life improvement they made for PVE. There are times, particular weekday events, where... you know, I have to work and take care of family and such. I can play here and there, but this change no longer allows me to hit progression. PVE change was the exact opposite.

So I will continue to re-engage with PVE as I like the QoL changes there and D3 seemed to listen to the player-base. For PVP, I'm likely moving to 16 wins/t10 and out. It's just no fun anymore.

Gambit isn't broken, he's boosted.

I agree with your other two points.

Daredevil217

Jaedenkaal said:

I suspect we won't get any official commentary on this for an entire season at minimum.

This.  I think we need to finish out the season (at a minimum) to begin questioning whether or not it is working as intended,

PorkBelly

I don't need a season to think about it.

The changes have greatly diminished my desire to play PvP. 

MMR is the same as previous seasons and, as someone in 5* land without Gambit or Thanos champed, it is terrible.

I get my 10cp and am done.  Usually puts me around 1k.  It's way too much effort for too little reward.

Steellatch

I have been playing significantly less. Used to be able to reach 900 in around 1 1/2 hours to grab the 4*. Its not even close to how long I have to play to get 40 wins. Plus the daily 7 clears in pve. Plus the DDQ. Plus LR's for the ever growing need for iso.