Versus "Progression"

ZeroKarma

sh81 said:

sinnerjfl said:

Helen keller said:

Win based progression was good for the community overall, it was not good for the top 5%, maybe 10%, whatever the percentage of people with viable 5* rosters are who spend money and are active on the forums, the squeaky wheel got fixed, but frankly if the squeaky wheel is what pays the bills, it can't be ignored, it is what it is.

It was not good either for people with good 4* rosters, sorry to burst your bubble. Its not only the 5* players who had a problem with grinding 40 wins.

Its simply too many matches, I was hitting above 1200 in ~27 wins, should I have just lost on purpose to be able to get the remaining 13 wins?

More and more Im convinced MMR is just completely broken.

Im a 4* player and it was a cruise.  And I regularly hit key rewards at lower point totals than under the point based system.

And, on balance, I was getting more reward for less effort.

How can it be so different for you?

Or were you trying to play under old rules and chasing only high value matches?

I am in Welcome Death’s MMR, so let’s compare your experience as a 4* player with ours. There are two options.

1) The easiest way to progression for a 5* player is to start immediately. Hopefully, you get 7-8 seed teams. Then you need to hit 3-4 5* teams. If you do so quickly enough you can break MMR and start hitting 3* and 4* teams as quickly as possible, staying ahead of the MMR wave and coasting to 40+ wins in a little over an hour.

2) You don’t start right away. You get 3 seed teams. The next 37 matches for me will be 470+ Black Panther and Thanos. That’s it. Doesn’t matter the point value at this point. It’s just time consuming and boring. Additionally, limitations on MMR may be such that you are hitting the same 4-5 players repeatedly. In this situation I am hoping to find someone I generally don’t like so I don’t feel bad about hitting them 10 times.

I assume that this all revolves around available rosters to hit, so maybe Sinnerjfl simply doesn’t have the same number of rosters available to hit.

[Deleted User]

Ordinarily I found I started early, playing a handful of games here and there.

Up to 20-23 matches are fun.  Lots of variety, and relatively straight forward.  Enjoyable.

Then from 20-23 onward it became more like "normal" PVP whereby every team is a selection of the same 4 or 5 characters, and it is more grindy.

That being said, taking it a few matches at a time, it didnt drag for me at all.

In the last event I found being ready at the event start meant I had something like 10 seed matches, which was effectively a free head start and made things even easier.  I think I actually hit 40 matches the same day (it was the weekend!)

All the while, while I wasnt bothered about points, I found I consistently made the various prog rewards at lower point thresholds.

granne

With the wins-based system, I found that even when hitting any and every team with no skipping, I was still getting to 900+ without even reaching the 3* cover. That was immensely demoralising for me.

In Divine Champions, I kind of forgot to play, and ended up climbing late. I finished climbing at over 1000 points and only 31 wins. I didn't get a single T10 while wins-based PvP was in operation.

I'm a 4* player with no useable 5*s.

I just finished Army of One with 1225 on about 30 wins. 

Just as in PvE, you can't get full progression until your roster is developed enough. Unlike PvE, you also have to learn techniques, and that only comes with time, practice, and listening to advice from people who have ALL been at the stage where PvP seems like an impossible, impenetrable task.

Wins-based PvP has its merits, many of them, but it caused as many, if not more, problems as it solved - just for a different portion of the player base.

Please, please rid yourselves of the ideas that only 5* players like points-based PvP, and that you'll never be able to compete. I used to think I couldn't, then I champed Peggy and got my first 900. I've never looked back.

sinnerjfl

sh81 said:

sinnerjfl said:

Helen keller said:

Win based progression was good for the community overall, it was not good for the top 5%, maybe 10%, whatever the percentage of people with viable 5* rosters are who spend money and are active on the forums, the squeaky wheel got fixed, but frankly if the squeaky wheel is what pays the bills, it can't be ignored, it is what it is.

It was not good either for people with good 4* rosters, sorry to burst your bubble. Its not only the 5* players who had a problem with grinding 40 wins.

Its simply too many matches, I was hitting above 1200 in ~27 wins, should I have just lost on purpose to be able to get the remaining 13 wins?

More and more Im convinced MMR is just completely broken.

Im a 4* player and it was a cruise.  And I regularly hit key rewards at lower point totals than under the point based system.

And, on balance, I was getting more reward for less effort.

How can it be so different for you?

Or were you trying to play under old rules and chasing only high value matches?

First thing, I never get 10 seed teams, most of the time I get 3 seeds and that's if I get any at all. I try joining early and it didnt seem to matter.

I just hit whatever I could find that was beatable and I wasnt skipping much.

Number of wins is not a good indicator of success or progression in the current PVP format, it varies a lot from tier to tier.

[Deleted User]

I did that one time, following something posted on here.  I was there ready to play as the sub opened, and indeed there was 10 seeds before I started hitting other players.

Seems to prove out that MMR is a **** though.  Given you are a 4* played Id expect your experience to be more similar to mine that what 5* players have observed.

MpqTron

granne said:

With the wins-based system, I found that even when hitting any and every team with no skipping, I was still getting to 900+ without even reaching the 3* cover. That was immensely demoralising for me.

In Divine Champions, I kind of forgot to play, and ended up climbing late. I finished climbing at over 1000 points and only 31 wins. I didn't get a single T10 while wins-based PvP was in operation.

I'm a 4* player with no useable 5*s.

I just finished Army of One with 1225 on about 30 wins. 

Just as in PvE, you can't get full progression until your roster is developed enough. Unlike PvE, you also have to learn techniques, and that only comes with time, practice, and listening to advice from people who have ALL been at the stage where PvP seems like an impossible, impenetrable task.

Wins-based PvP has its merits, many of them, but it caused as many, if not more, problems as it solved - just for a different portion of the player base.

Please, please rid yourselves of the ideas that only 5* players like points-based PvP, and that you'll never be able to compete. I used to think I couldn't, then I champed Peggy and got my first 900. I've never looked back.


This. Firmly in the 4 star tier with 34 champs , and until wins based was introduced, have hit the the 900 cover every pvp for the last 3 or 4 seasons so my roster was progressing. Playing hybrid, I only hit the 4 star cover once or twice all season. Got my highest ever pvp score of 1150 and was still only at 30 wins.  40 wins was way too much. I'm glad we're back to points, wins was ridiculous for the 4 star players 

Jwallyr

CT1888 said:

The reward structure could do with a serious shake up - 3* cover at 800 made sense in an era when there were relatively few 4*s, but now it's just off putting for lower level players, as it is insane hard to reach ; shuffle things around a bit, drop it down several hundred points so 2* and 3* rosters have something more enticing to chase.

While I'm on this train of thought, why not squeeze the reward structure into fewer points in lower CL levels (CL1 tops out at 500, step up in 100s to 1000 at CL6, then 7 & 8 are 1200). It creates a curve by which players can hit high progression in their CL, but the driver to move up is then that the rewards on the next CL are shinier. In my head at least, this could get people playing more, as there isn't the disheartening gulf to the prizes in early play. Rewards might need tweaked to keep people from permanently sandbagging though.

So you're kind of sideways responding to one of the issues going on here- and that is that the wins-based system seems to clearly be better in a lot of ways for a lot of players, but that the pace of rewards became a problem for some players, particularly at the high end of play. For instance:

"It took too many wins to get the rewards" => If this is somehow a particular problem at high end play, then reduce the number of wins to get to the next tiers of rewards. There's no inherent advantage to point-based "progression" over win-based progression, but the choice of threshold for earning rewards could vary.

"They took CP out when going to win-based progression" => Why can't they put the CP back in? If they don't want it to be easy, require lots of wins for it maybe, but that's a SUPER easy problem to solve.

Ultimately the only plausible explanation I've heard for points-based progression being better is that you can't lose ground on number of wins, so there's no need for players to buy shields => there's no reason for players to buy HP with real money for shields. I consider this more a feature than a bug, but the game's management might not agree. That's a very different question than whether it's good for the players, though.

Jwallyr

Welcome Death said:

If you're playing cl4, your roster isnt ready to make full progression in pvp.  

What does this even mean? If I'm playing CL4 and remaining competitive (as measured by my point score vs. the other people in my same CL) why shouldn't I be able to expect full progression >>>within CL 4<<<?

As mentioned by another poster, the complete disconnect between CL and matchmaking (which is unutterably stupid, IMO) means that I'm going to be facing the same opponents (based entirely on my performance against the entire player base) with zero regard for the CL in which I'm enrolled. What does that have to do with it being functionally impossible for any significant percentage of players in CL4 to get the progression rewards in the CL that's the best match for their performance? Or alternatively, what's the point of CLs in PvP at all, other than to arbitrarily limit the rewards one is able to earn?

Much bigger question hidden in the details there, IMO, and that's "what's the purpose of CLs in PvP if matchmaking ignores CL", but that's out of scope here, IMO.

Jaedenkaal

Jwallyr said:

How am I "by definition" progressing when I play for a bit, get to (let's say) 700 points, and have to go do something else, and I come back and have been attacked and lost over a hundred points? Am I "progressing" on the several games that I have to play just to get my points back up to their previous range? How can I "progress" to the 1200 point reward when I will constantly be losing points due to being a high-value target for other players?

You won the 650 point progression reward, so you clearly "progressed" that far.

There are lots of other threads in this sub-forum and others that can help you with the strategy required to win the 1200 point reward. Spoiler Alert: You may have to change the way you play.

Jwallyr

Jaedenkaal said:

Jwallyr said:

How am I "by definition" progressing when I play for a bit, get to (let's say) 700 points, and have to go do something else, and I come back and have been attacked and lost over a hundred points? Am I "progressing" on the several games that I have to play just to get my points back up to their previous range? How can I "progress" to the 1200 point reward when I will constantly be losing points due to being a high-value target for other players?

You won the 650 point progression reward, so you clearly "progressed" that far.

There are lots of other threads in this sub-forum and others that can help you with the strategy required to win the 1200 point reward. Spoiler Alert: You may have to change the way you play.

So is there any inherent meaning to the "progression" rewards scheme? Because you could just as easilyi say that you "progressed" to top 3 in ranking, but then you regressed out of top 3. Tying it to a specific point value instead of ranking doesn't change the fact that it's about relative performance with points, and not individual effort in time commitment. Making superficial semantic comments doesn't really address whether there's intended to be any significant difference in the underpinnings of the progression and placement rewards schemes.

Jaedenkaal

Jwallyr said:

So is there any inherent meaning to the "progression" rewards scheme? Because you could just as easilyi say that you "progressed" to top 3 in ranking, but then you regressed out of top 3. Tying it to a specific point value instead of ranking doesn't change the fact that it's about relative performance with points, and not individual effort in time commitment. Making superficial semantic comments doesn't really address whether there's intended to be any significant difference in the underpinnings of the progression and placement rewards schemes.

I'm not convinced I'm being overly semantic here, considering that the thread began with a definition of progress, and an argument that, given that definition, you feel like you should be making progress, although the game 'tells' you that you are not.
 
So, clearly if you're aiming for top placement, you're also likely to get the top progression rewards. (You're certainly going to get or tie for the highest progression rewards of anyone in your bracket, whether or not that's literally the final 1200 point reward).

So that leaves us with the question that you're presumably asking, which is

"Do the designers of the game intend for [me] to get all the progression rewards in a PVP event if I don't care about placement?"

Although no one here can say definitively, I believe the answer is, in theory, "yes". There's nothing designed in the game that flat-out prevents you from achieving that goal.

In practice, of course, it's not that simple, because the actions of other players have an impact on your own score.
I haven't looked into the finer points of high score PVP, as it doesn't interest me, but I strongly suspect that it is not practically possible for all 1000 players in a bracket to reach 1200 points. (I'd love to see that screenshot, though). That's not to say that progression and placement are always the same, of course, as anyone who gets the 2000 point Simulator reward can tell you; you only need to get 2000 points for long enough for the server to recognize it and send you that reward, after that you can abandon your score all you like (season placement notwithstanding, I suppose)

So given all of that, why isn't a time commitment enough to guarantee progression? Since the game essentially matches your time commitment against the time commitment of other players, sheer quantity may not be enough. The quality of that time spent also becomes important, and even the timing of that time spent. I believe this was intentionally made different than the "progression" in PVE, where it is very possible for all 1000 players in the same bracket to get the final 'progression' reward.

WelcomeDeath

Jwallyr said:B27

Welcome Death said:

If you're playing cl4, your roster isnt ready to make full progression in pvp.  

What does this even mean? If I'm playing CL4 and remaining competitive (as measured by my point score vs. the other people in my same CL) why shouldn't I be able to expect full progression >>>within CL 4<<<?

As mentioned by another poster, the complete disconnect between CL and matchmaking (which is unutterably stupid, IMO) means that I'm going to be facing the same opponents (based entirely on my performance against the entire player base) with zero regard for the CL in which I'm enrolled. What does that have to do with it being functionally impossible for any significant percentage of players in CL4 to get the progression rewards in the CL that's the best match for their performance? Or alternatively, what's the point of CLs in PvP at all, other than to arbitrarily limit the rewards one is able to earn?

Much bigger question hidden in the details there, IMO, and that's "what's the purpose of CLs in PvP if matchmaking ignores CL", but that's out of scope here, IMO.

It means exactly what it says.  If your roster is such that you're playing cl4, you're not getting 1200.  It is incredibly stupid that progression changes at all with cl.  It should be exactly the same from cl1 - cl10.  Like it is in shield sim.  Make placement rewards more appealing for stepping up.  If your roster is good enough you should get whatever the best progression reward is for getting to that score.  If they want to make mmr cl dependent, that's fine too. I'll just go to cl4 and hit the hell out of 3* guys all day long.  

WelcomeDeath

Jwallyr said:So you're kind of sideways responding to one of the issues going on here- and that is that the wins-based system seems to clearly be better in a lot of ways for a lot of players, but that the pace of rewards became a problem for some players, particularly at the high end of play. For instance:

"It took too many wins to get the rewards" => If this is somehow a particular problem at high end play, then reduce the number of wins to get to the next tiers of rewards. There's no inherent advantage to point-based "progression" over win-based progression, but the choice of threshold for earning rewards could vary.

"They took CP out when going to win-based progression" => Why can't they put the CP back in? If they don't want it to be easy, require lots of wins for it maybe, but that's a SUPER easy problem to solve.

Ultimately the only plausible explanation I've heard for points-based progression being better is that you can't lose ground on number of wins, so there's no need for players to buy shields => there's no reason for players to buy HP with real money for shields. I consider this more a feature than a bug, but the game's management might not agree. That's a very different question than whether it's good for the players, though.

Cause why would the company that makes the game want to make money off of it?  I know when I go to work I do it all for free, and I'm sure you do as well, which is awesome.  But seriously, game is free to play, not free to play and win all the things with no effort at all.  You want higher progression?  Buy a shield or two.  This isn't Marvel Charity Quest.

Spudgutter

Welcome Death said:

But seriously, the game is free to play, not free to play and win all the things with no effort at all.  You want higher progression?  Buy a shield or two.  This isn't Marvel Charity Quest.

And this is the crux of the discussion. The devs have to find that fine line, between giving away SOME things for free (otherwise true ftp players will quit) and gating rewards so that is isn't too easy.  The problem is that we are all arguing where that line should be, with absolutely zero facts about the actual money making properties of the game.

And just to play devils advocate, your scenario can be flipped around. Want higher progression? Play more matches.  Careful what you wish for...

WelcomeDeath

Spudgutter said:

Welcome Death said:

But seriously, the game is free to play, not free to play and win all the things with no effort at all.  You want higher progression?  Buy a shield or two.  This isn't Marvel Charity Quest.

And this is the crux of the discussion. The devs have to find that fine line, between giving away SOME things for free (otherwise true ftp players will quit) and gating rewards so that is isn't too easy.  The problem is that we are all arguing where that line should be, with absolutely zero facts about the actual money making properties of the game.

And just to play devils advocate, your scenario can be flipped around. Want higher progression? Play more matches.  Careful what you wish for...

I think it's mostly in a good spot now, aside from the progression structure in pvp making no sense at all.  There's no way 10 cp should be so low, and it doesn't make sense anymore that the 3* reward is so high.  It never made sense to have cp before the 3* in the first place.  That nonsense broke the game overnight for 3* guys.  But pve is really easy, anyone can play pretty much any cl and make progression at least, as long as they've got solid 3*.  The 5* node isn't possible in cl9 for 3*, but that's gating placement for bigger rosters, which is fine.  The game should reward you for improving your roster.  I dont really see the big deal here.  I mean, there's a lot of talk of not wanting to shield or adapt playstyle or whatever, but if you wont do that then why should you place better or score higher?  They're never gonna set the game up so you beat one seed and get a 550 5* out of it, and i dont know why youd want to.

RayElwood

Amen to this thread. I agree 100% that the points based system does not at all feel like progression while the wins based system made me feel like I was progressing! I am in the same boat that I play in fits and spurts because I have a full time job and family. Taking 12 hours off in the points system can absolutely kill me with the progression rewards. Therefore, I have a point that I hit in PVP at which point I leave the event and never look back. The wins system let me take time off without feeling like I was losing out. At the same time, I played more because I felt like I was reliably earning rewards and not slogging past numbers that I had already hit before I got sent back.

Addaran

Welcome Death said:

Spudgutter said:

Welcome Death said:

But seriously, the game is free to play, not free to play and win all the things with no effort at all.  You want higher progression?  Buy a shield or two.  This isn't Marvel Charity Quest.

And this is the crux of the discussion. The devs have to find that fine line, between giving away SOME things for free (otherwise true ftp players will quit) and gating rewards so that is isn't too easy.  The problem is that we are all arguing where that line should be, with absolutely zero facts about the actual money making properties of the game.

And just to play devils advocate, your scenario can be flipped around. Want higher progression? Play more matches.  Careful what you wish for...

I think it's mostly in a good spot now, aside from the progression structure in pvp making no sense at all.  There's no way 10 cp should be so low, and it doesn't make sense anymore that the 3* reward is so high.  It never made sense to have cp before the 3* in the first place.  That nonsense broke the game overnight for 3* guys.  But pve is really easy, anyone can play pretty much any cl and make progression at least, as long as they've got solid 3*.  The 5* node isn't possible in cl9 for 3*, but that's gating placement for bigger rosters, which is fine.  The game should reward you for improving your roster.  I dont really see the big deal here.  I mean, there's a lot of talk of not wanting to shield or adapt playstyle or whatever, but if you wont do that then why should you place better or score higher?  They're never gonna set the game up so you beat one seed and get a 550 5* out of it, and i dont know why youd want to.

The problem is that most of the things you have to do to get better at PVP have nothing to do with actually improving yourself at the core game. There's all about "cheating" the system by joining late to compete vs less people, or get more points for the same target that someone only got half as much earlier. It's about not being able to play when you want, clubbing seals or throwing money at the game to win.

If people who love PVP so much really wanted competition, there would just be one huge bracket. Placement would be vs all the players in the entire game, then we'd really see who's better (not who managed to compete vs weaker players). 

Your comment about going to CL4 and clubbing weaker player (if they changed the system)? That's kinda what i have to do. The first few progression don't change much between CL, so i seem to actually be better at SCL 1 (progression + placement) then my real SCL of 6-7 (progression + placement). I'm probably not the only one, cause there was only 2 real lower player in the T10, the others were all with 4* or maybe even one-two 5*.

aesthetocyst

RayElwood said:

Amen to this thread. I agree 100% that the points based system does not at all feel like progression while the wins based system made me feel like I was progressing! I am in the same boat that I play in fits and spurts because I have a full time job and family. Taking 12 hours off in the points system can absolutely kill me with the progression rewards. Therefore, I have a point that I hit in PVP at which point I leave the event and never look back. The wins system let me take time off without feeling like I was losing out. At the same time, I played more because I felt like I was reliably earning rewards and not slogging past numbers that I had already hit before I got sent back.

Then the points game is perfect for you Ray, as the shields enable you to take breaks (of up to 3-, 8-, or 24hrs, as frequently as every 8hrs!) and play in burst of only a couple min each. On the whole it's quite a time saver, once you get the hang of scheduling the game around your life. Or the other way 'round. Or both?

Spudgutter

@Welcome Death

It is super easy to turn that one right back around.

I don't see the big deal, if they want placement or progression, they should adapt to play the whole event and get their 40 wins in that way.  The game should reward you for putting in the work for it.

That said, i do agree the rewards need tweaking, but i dont exactly know the best solution. I agree that 800 is too high for a 3*, but the 10cp at 575 is a nice compromise.  

At this point, i think MMR is a monster that has grown outside of their control, and any attempts to fix it are going to come at a cost to a certain portion of the population.  If they could get that thing under control, so that you are fighting comparable *opponents*, not rosters, i think wins based wouldn't be so bad. Taking Panthos out for a spin is fun. Taking them out 40 times, isn't. 

RayElwood

aesthetocyst said:

RayElwood said:

Amen to this thread. I agree 100% that the points based system does not at all feel like progression while the wins based system made me feel like I was progressing! I am in the same boat that I play in fits and spurts because I have a full time job and family. Taking 12 hours off in the points system can absolutely kill me with the progression rewards. Therefore, I have a point that I hit in PVP at which point I leave the event and never look back. The wins system let me take time off without feeling like I was losing out. At the same time, I played more because I felt like I was reliably earning rewards and not slogging past numbers that I had already hit before I got sent back.

Then the points game is perfect for you Ray, as the shields enable you to take breaks (of up to 3-, 8-, or 24hrs, as frequently as every 8hrs!) and play in burst of only a couple min each. On the whole it's quite a time saver, once you get the hang of scheduling the game around your life. Or the other way 'round. Or both?

As if players like me have enough gold to keep spending on those. Anyways, using shields doesn't get at the crux of the problem. Whether using shields or not, you will keep getting hit back down and the higher you get in the "progression" rewards, the worse it is. It makes striving for the higher rewards nearly impossible as @Jwallyr notes. In the points system, if I get 40 wins in less than a day, then great, I may reach pretty high "progression" in the points system, but if those 40 wins are spread out over 2 days, then I'm going to have suffered significant set backs. In the wins system, I can play those 40 wins at whatever pace that I want. In the points system, you don't have a choice on pace.