Structural analysis, PvP model (long)

MacEifer

Pants1000 said:

PVP can be tough for anyone with a lopsided roster.  Even in 5* land, today the people with multiple champed 5’s (but no Gambit) are struggling.

My advice:

Keep the DD, but don’t level him any more.

Focus on PVE, and try for 575 in PVP.  In PVP use DD and your best boosted 3.  

Spend your CP on classics for now.  You’ll get more 4’s, and covers for the classic 5’s that you’ll want when you’re ready for CL7 PVE.

I think if you do that, before long you’ll have some level 200+ 3’s, you’ll be starting to champ some 4’s, and then your 5’s won’t affect your PVP MMR anymore.

The problem at this point is tat my best bet on covering DD now is to keep pulling LL until he leaves LL and hope to get him to 13 covers while I could still swap his yellow. After that I'm not sure if I should hoard or not, I'll make that dependant on the amount of Gambit I get before they cycle LL. I might just now be stuck in a loop of being forced to pull LL or be stuck with a wealth of useless 5* covers that will die on the vine. I don't have the roster slots to go wide in 5* and I don't think it's effective to use my HP that way at this stage.
The only alternative would be to wait for DD's Heroes for hire to come up once he goes to classic, but obviously I need the CP more for 4*s right now. 

Either way, there is no clear path out of this hole that doesn't involve some sort of significant loss in resources.

The rockett

MacEifer said:

Pants1000 said:

PVP can be tough for anyone with a lopsided roster.  Even in 5* land, today the people with multiple champed 5’s (but no Gambit) are struggling.

My advice:

Keep the DD, but don’t level him any more.

Focus on PVE, and try for 575 in PVP.  In PVP use DD and your best boosted 3.  

Spend your CP on classics for now.  You’ll get more 4’s, and covers for the classic 5’s that you’ll want when you’re ready for CL7 PVE.

I think if you do that, before long you’ll have some level 200+ 3’s, you’ll be starting to champ some 4’s, and then your 5’s won’t affect your PVP MMR anymore.

The problem at this point is tat my best bet on covering DD now is to keep pulling LL until he leaves LL and hope to get him to 13 covers while I could still swap his yellow. After that I'm not sure if I should hoard or not, I'll make that dependant on the amount of Gambit I get before they cycle LL. I might just now be stuck in a loop of being forced to pull LL or be stuck with a wealth of useless 5* covers that will die on the vine. I don't have the roster slots to go wide in 5* and I don't think it's effective to use my HP that way at this stage.
The only alternative would be to wait for DD's Heroes for hire to come up once he goes to classic, but obviously I need the CP more for 4*s right now. 

Either way, there is no clear path out of this hole that doesn't involve some sort of significant loss in resources.

Well, you could buy a Stark and get more roster slots. This will set you up for a bit. 

MacEifer

Bowgentle said:

MacEifer said:

I'm not some statistical outlier

Yes.
Yes, you are.

Usually people only get that amount of 5* covers from champ rewards.
Your roster is one of the weirdest outliers I have ever seen, and I've been playing for over 4 years.

Sorry, the math clearly disagrees with you.

I have a slightly higher amount of 5*s for the amount of LLs I have pulled.
On average the covers I pulled would have gone a bit more to spiderman and less to DD. I pulled the majority before Thor went to rotation. DD now is overrepresented by about +3 or +4 covers, which out of a pool of 4 choices, one of which is underrepresented due to the roster shift, is 1, maybe 2 covers outside standard deviation. If my LL pulls between DD / Gambit / Spidey were 7/7/6 instead of 11/7/2, nobody would bat an eye.

RNGs don't spread out according to median, they generate clusters. I'm not a statistical outlier based on the math. You can't say I'm not a statistical outlier based on the rosters you've seen because all things considered, you would have very little incentive to look at the roster of a guy who can't play competitive PvP in the current system.

Please don't think I don't appreciate the input, but I spent the last 9 years of my life explaining random number generation and the morphology of expectation vs reality of random reward systems to people who have a practical but not a formal understanding of the underlying mechanics and the assumption you could view and assess enough rosters from memory to make a statistically meaningful assumption doesn't quite apply.

My roster is entirely in order in every meaningful way you can look at randomised reward generation given the nature of the mechanics with which this game creates them. The problem isn't that I have this roster but what happens to people who do and how they got there and what D3 needs to do to fix that.

Bowgentle

MacEifer said:

Bowgentle said:

MacEifer said:

I'm not some statistical outlier

Yes.
Yes, you are.

Usually people only get that amount of 5* covers from champ rewards.
Your roster is one of the weirdest outliers I have ever seen, and I've been playing for over 4 years.

Sorry, the math clearly disagrees with you.

I have a slightly higher amount of 5*s for the amount of LLs I have pulled.
On average the covers I pulled would have gone a bit more to spiderman and less to DD. I pulled the majority before Thor went to rotation. DD now is overrepresented by about +3 or +4 covers, which out of a pool of 4 choices, one of which is underrepresented due to the roster shift, is 1, maybe 2 covers outside standard deviation. If my LL pulls between DD / Gambit / Spidey were 7/7/6 instead of 11/7/2, nobody would bat an eye.

RNGs don't spread out according to median, they generate clusters. I'm not a statistical outlier based on the math. You can't say I'm not a statistical outlier based on the rosters you've seen because all things considered, you would have very little incentive to look at the roster of a guy who can't play competitive PvP in the current system.

Please don't think I don't appreciate the input, but I spent the last 9 years of my life explaining random number generation and the morphology of expectation vs reality of random reward systems to people who have a practical but not a formal understanding of the underlying mechanics and the assumption you could view and assess enough rosters from memory to make a statistically meaningful assumption doesn't quite apply.

My roster is entirely in order in every meaningful way you can look at randomised reward generation given the nature of the mechanics with which this game creates them. The problem isn't that I have this roster but what happens to people who do and how they got there and what D3 needs to do to fix that.

You are an outlier.
Trust us on that.

MacEifer

The rockett said:

Well, you could buy a Stark and get more roster slots. This will set you up for a bit. 

I'm already 4 starks and as many VIPs in, I'm sure I deserve some kind of break with the spending. 

The rockett

MacEifer said:

The rockett said:

Well, you could buy a Stark and get more roster slots. This will set you up for a bit. 

I'm already 4 starks and as many VIPs in, I'm sure I deserve some kind of break with the spending. 

What are your 3* like?  Everybody that I have shared this with are all scratching their heads looking at the 5 Vs 4. 

MacEifer

All that being said though, I merely wanted to provide an update on what it's like when the game thinks you're somewhere where you're not. You don't need to be as screwed as I am to find the PvP dissatisfying, regardless of whether you like wins based progression or not.

It's not like I can just go "hey, @Brigby , mind unscrewing my roster for me?".

Rod5

MacEifer said:

Bowgentle said:

MacEifer said:

I'm not some statistical outlier

Yes.
Yes, you are.

Usually people only get that amount of 5* covers from champ rewards.
Your roster is one of the weirdest outliers I have ever seen, and I've been playing for over 4 years.

Sorry, the math clearly disagrees with you.

I have a slightly higher amount of 5*s for the amount of LLs I have pulled.
On average the covers I pulled would have gone a bit more to spiderman and less to DD. I pulled the majority before Thor went to rotation. DD now is overrepresented by about +3 or +4 covers, which out of a pool of 4 choices, one of which is underrepresented due to the roster shift, is 1, maybe 2 covers outside standard deviation. If my LL pulls between DD / Gambit / Spidey were 7/7/6 instead of 11/7/2, nobody would bat an eye.

RNGs don't spread out according to median, they generate clusters. I'm not a statistical outlier based on the math. You can't say I'm not a statistical outlier based on the rosters you've seen because all things considered, you would have very little incentive to look at the roster of a guy who can't play competitive PvP in the current system.

Please don't think I don't appreciate the input, but I spent the last 9 years of my life explaining random number generation and the morphology of expectation vs reality of random reward systems to people who have a practical but not a formal understanding of the underlying mechanics and the assumption you could view and assess enough rosters from memory to make a statistically meaningful assumption doesn't quite apply.

My roster is entirely in order in every meaningful way you can look at randomised reward generation given the nature of the mechanics with which this game creates them. The problem isn't that I have this roster but what happens to people who do and how they got there and what D3 needs to do to fix that.

If that were true there would be a lot of rosters like yours. There simply aren’t.

MacEifer

The rockett said:

MacEifer said:

The rockett said:

Well, you could buy a Stark and get more roster slots. This will set you up for a bit. 

I'm already 4 starks and as many VIPs in, I'm sure I deserve some kind of break with the spending. 

What are your 3* like?  Everybody that I have shared this with are all scratching their heads looking at the 5 Vs 4. 

4 ready to champ once I got the ISO. 
1 @ 7 covers
3 @ 9 covers
1 @ 11 covers
8 @ 12 covers

Rest is champed. KK is the outlier at 197, rest is 184 and below.

Spudgutter

Bowgentle said:

MacEifer said:

I'm not some statistical outlier

Yes.
Yes, you are.

Usually people only get that amount of 5* covers from champ rewards.
Your roster is one of the weirdest outliers I have ever seen, and I've been playing for over 4 years.

Maybe other like him just dont post on the forums as much?  He has made a couple good points about the math, and the fact you would have no incentive to check junior rosters.  

Ive said this before in other pvp threads: 1000+ day vets shouldnt try to compare our experience to those with <400 days.  The game is literally not the same. Back then, you could check a roster for strength by how many 3* were all at the 166 wall.  Now, my kid has more 5* at 300 days then i had 4* at 400 days.

Can the advice for pvp be the same?  Sure, but the whole "we've all been there" falls flat for me these days.

I think it just points out yet another design flaw in the pvp part of the game. Early rosters should not even see 1200 as a possible progression reward, because under the current system it is an unrealistic expectation.  If cl6 showed top progression at 600-700 and he was able to hit it, he would not be questioning it as a whole.  

MacEifer

Thanks for everyone's input so far. As some people were curious about my roster I opened a thread if anyone has questions about it: https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/69731/roster-analysis-continued-from-other-thread
I don't want to give the impression that this is just a fluke and that everything must be fine for everyone else. I had awful matchups way before I got the DD and all the roster talk is taking away from the discussion we had before.

Thanks again to everyone for contributing.

sirwookieechris

shartattack said:

The whole thing is just about different perspectives:
some people think doing a 3 hop to hit a reward is exciting vs some people find that stressful

some people like the idea of progressing your roster over time vs some people want access to most of the rewards early in their gameplay

some people want a game that requires strategy and tactics vs some people want a game to play on the toilet at work

some people want to make pvp a linear progression system vs some people realize that game mode exists already in pve


that being said, top level pve is way way more hardcore than top level pvp.  I am a professional adult with 3 kids.  I can do a hop while drinking my morning coffee, while on lunch break, on the toilet ( the "plop hop"), and throughout the evening.   7 minutes at a time every few hours. I have t5 in pvp many times.

Top level pve is 2-3 hours straight at the same time every day. For 3-7 days straight. Not even including tapping.  I have t10 1 time, over the summer, for fantastic covers in a later bracket.  Those people are way more hardcore, and no one is trying to drastically make pve more casual.

That’s because the hopping format works in your favor if you can find small amount of time throughout the da to play. For others, having  period to play during the day is preferred. I am glad I can play pve in 90-120 minutes and move onto other things for the rest of my day.

sirwookieechris

I don’t understand people saying OP is just unlucky because he got too many DD covers. If the system penalizes you for playing, doesn’t that mean it is inherently broken? Isn’t that why so many 5* rosters complained about scaling pve? They didn’t want to be punished for having a deep, high leveled roster? What makes pvp any different? Anyone who thinks pvp is fine as is obviously is blinded by the fact it works for them and they don’t like change.

alaeth

sirwookieechris said:

I don’t understand people saying OP is just unlucky because he got too many DD covers. If the system penalizes you for playing, doesn’t that mean it is inherently broken? Isn’t that why so many 5* rosters complained about scaling pve? They didn’t want to be punished for having a deep, high leveled roster? What makes pvp any different? Anyone who thinks pvp is fine as is obviously is blinded by the fact it works for them and they don’t like change.

I think it's a lot more along the lines of "we're past that" (hundreds of days past that)... and most of us - myself included - can't recall the challenges.  I can remember my first max 4* character... Iron Man.  Back in the days when "Jean Buster" was king of PvP.  Sure it changed my PvP play, but I knew that going in (having received great feedback and advice on whether to spend *hero points* to finish him).

The problem newer players face (like OP) is two-fold...

1. New players aren't getting the same level of involvement and feedback from alliance-mates as we "vets" did... we all started out (roughly) the same time, so our rosters grew at roughly the same pace.
2. The game hasn't changed *enough*.  The changes are focusing on the end players - those folks willing to drop hundreds (if not thousands) in the Christmas sale that's ongoing. OP's roster is a perfect example... the rewards structure is geared towards us, and not those people starting out... and so MMR completely "breaks" the playing experience.


I would argue a newer player shouldn't even have the possibility of pulling a 5* cover until they have a championed 4...

OR

The method of match-making in PvP needs to lock out those 5s in the lower ranks... Say... below 7...?  PvE has already been tweaked - by applying fixed levels and caps based on SCL.  The same needs to be done for PvP (by restricting the player's available roster...?)

alaeth

Final parting thought...

The is the first game I have ever played, where getting the latest and "best" character actually makes your game-play experience irrevocably worse for a long time...

Bowgentle

alaeth said:

sirwookieechris said:

I don’t understand people saying OP is just unlucky because he got too many DD covers. If the system penalizes you for playing, doesn’t that mean it is inherently broken? Isn’t that why so many 5* rosters complained about scaling pve? They didn’t want to be punished for having a deep, high leveled roster? What makes pvp any different? Anyone who thinks pvp is fine as is obviously is blinded by the fact it works for them and they don’t like change.

I think it's a lot more along the lines of "we're past that" (hundreds of days past that)... and most of us - myself included - can't recall the challenges.  I can remember my first max 4* character... Iron Man.  Back in the days when "Jean Buster" was king of PvP.  Sure it changed my PvP play, but I knew that going in (having received great feedback and advice on whether to spend *hero points* to finish him).

The problem newer players face (like OP) is two-fold...

1. New players aren't getting the same level of involvement and feedback from alliance-mates as we "vets" did... we all started out (roughly) the same time, so our rosters grew at roughly the same pace.
2. The game hasn't changed *enough*.  The changes are focusing on the end players - those folks willing to drop hundreds (if not thousands) in the Christmas sale that's ongoing. OP's roster is a perfect example... the rewards structure is geared towards us, and not those people starting out... and so MMR completely "breaks" the playing experience.


I would argue a newer player shouldn't even have the possibility of pulling a 5* cover until they have a championed 4...

OR

The method of match-making in PvP needs to lock out those 5s in the lower ranks... Say... below 7...?  PvE has already been tweaked - by applying fixed levels and caps based on SCL.  The same needs to be done for PvP (by restricting the player's available roster...?)

The second you lock out 5s on pvp you will have a million people with 350+ boosted 4s eating all of the low players candy in lower CLs.

MacEifer

How's that different from now?

Bowgentle

That we have to fight other 5* teams.
Locking out the 5s should open up MMR so much that we can farm lower 4* teams for hours.

MacEifer

Funny, that wouldn't happen in the proposed system. Just saying...

Bowgentle

MacEifer said:

Funny, that wouldn't happen in the proposed system. Just saying...

Because?
Locking out 5* chars = 4* MMR.
Naturally they'd have to restrict MMR to your SCL and lower, because else this would be even more stupid than the usual Demiurge level.