Trying to understand the difference in hitting 1200 vs 900

Beer40

I've seen a lot of great advice about how to hit 900 in PVP. I don't see much about 1200 though and that's what I posted to ask about. Here's how I think this works, so correct me in the places I'm wrong or just explain it better.

To get to 900 with my single champed 5* MMR, I'm supposed to do my climb, find my float point, sit at it awhile while my characters heal, push for 900. At that point, if hits start coming in I need to shield. If not, finish the climb to 900 and then shield. 

Here's what worries me: I usually have to shield up past 800 to find good points to get in the q. 1 shield burned. Then I can hopefully play 2 matches to get to 900. 

What do I do at that point? Do I need to shield every 2 matches? Is that how the march to 1200 works? And can I even do this with cool downs?

I feel like I have to be a pretty juicy target already because I get hit by dual champ 5* as early as 200+ points. I'm not sure how I'm going to quickly knock out roughly 300 points. Also, usually at 900 I see dual champ 5*, single champ 5* + 400+ level 4*, or dual high level 400+ 4*s. I'm running a 451 and usually a 380s 4*. I'm not sure I can actually find people to beat past 900.

Punisher5784

Don't quote me but my understanding is that to get to 1200, basically requires you to be on Line and setup peace treaties with players/alliances in the specific slice you're playing in. Players will setup Grills (new cupcakes) and let you know when they shield so you can attack them.

PenniesForEveryone

You got it.  The shields have an 8h cooldown so you can alternate between 3h and 8h shields until you hit 1200.If you can find two 70-pt targets each hop it's only 3 hops from 900.

Borstock

Shield rank 124, here. I've hit 1200 once the entire time I've played MPQ and it was when they broke 2* Widow so you could just steal all the AI's AP.

One important factor I know of is that you have to be in a specific slice or two so the points are there to be had. I've reported a number of times that in the slice I play, once I get to 900, I can't queue up any match worth more than 30 points. Sometimes, I've even found it difficult to queue up a match worth more than 10. I also don't get the 60-70 point matches at any point in time, as others do.

However, once I state this, I'm usually told by someone in the know that I'm just playing in the wrong slice. Now that I know that, I will go to slice 1 if I want to push, or just stay where it's more convenient if I don't care as much. Just knowing made me feel better about it.

evade420

Punisher5784 said:

Don't quote me but my understanding is that to get to 1200, basically requires you to be on Line and setup leave treaties with players/alliances in the specific slice you're playing in.

I was hitting 1200 and 1300 long before I even knew what line was.  All you have to do is understand that between 900 and 1200 points you are going to be visable to lots of players , so your moves need to be well calculated . Quick hops , if you are a 4* player probably should stick to no more than 2 matches between hops. 5* player can do 3. If your first match after unshielding goes on too long you should probably throw up another shield and wait it out a bit. Spend time finding the perfect matches to go against before you unshield. Also know your slice and scl brackets.  There are certain  places where you are just not going to be able to hit 1200 ever. Look at the leader boards if only one or 2 people have hit 1200 in you slice then it's unlikely that you will be able to get the points to do so either , s2 is notorious for this . Try a different slice , s4 has lots of points in it , and it doesn't really matter what time the event end, play it when you can.

ThaRoadWarrior

How much does time of day in the real world matter for those of you hitting top progression? I've found that I will occasionally have a super easy time knocking down points if I'm playing at what is for me a very odd hour of the day, say like 12:30am +, or potentially very early in the morning. I can't isolate whether it's the time of day or some other trick of MMR that leads to that situation, and I can't reliably figure out when that time is for a given PVP. As such, I've only ever hit top simulator one time, and the 900pt reward one time in points based, but I can typically get to 575 and out in a single session.

Ruinate

You got the gist of it.  Hop over and over until you get it.

Climbing to 900 is the hard part and hopping to 1200 is the easy part imo.  When climbing you're looking for targets on the fly and all sorts of things can stress you out.  Behind a shield you can take your time to queue who you want and form a plan.  The biggest concern for me when starting out was not being able to find at least 1 target within 3 hours.  It's never happened.  

Also don't listen to garbage like the second post. 

bluewolf

Lately I have been thinking about the reward structure at the top.  The developers set it up so that for many, 900 is a goal to hit and drop from (after all, many players don't shield).  The huge gap in rewards mean there is little incentive to keep going past 900 other than placement (a gamble, of course).  If there was a reward at, say, 950 or 1000 of 25 HP, then more players would keep climbing, making the people near 900 worth more as they keep playing instead of free falling, and allowing more players to get the 4* since targets would be worth more.  When people get to 900 and free fall, each person queing them afterwards gets less points for the hit as they fall lower and lower.  So it makes hitting 900 harder for everyone else after them.

Similarly, creating a greater incentive to shield (perhaps an increased number of valuable placement rewards - top 25 get 4*s for example) would also help others climb from high value shielded targets.  But we have the rewards we are offered by the devs, and 3* covers are not a great incentive for many.

The developers must realize that making the reward gap huge at the top creates a zone of scores where only the most competitive players are there and hitting each other, desperate for scores that will advance them to the CP.  So it creates a must-shield environment.  So spending HP is required (unless you have spent $$$$ and rock 550's, so they already got your money anyway).  I'm sure someone will say even 550's need to shield, but I'm sure they can climb to 1200 pretty easily.  

I suppose the shortest answer to how to get to 1200 is, as is often the case, money.

Rod5

Line will help you find high-point qs, anything up to 75pts each. If you’re # at 900, you only need to hit 4-5 more big qs to get to 1.2.

Kolence

And if you find 70+ pts easier targets (grills), you could manage 3 per hop and save on one shield. That is if you can win fast enough. Hard to say as it might depend on which 5* you have champed. You do need to climb to a certain point threshold before you can queue grills, I think. Usually over 800 or 900 pts.

It helps if you can pick a slice where there are lots of high point targets.

Also, you don't need to be on Line (though it helps for me personally), you just need to get a feeling when people are hopping, and who is grilling and scoring high regularly. When you queue someone like that (say, with 1000+ pts), just keep skipping them until their grill shows up instead of the top team. 

Oh, and when hopping, don't be stingy with boosts. See what type of boost can speed the matches you have queued the most, when planning for the hop, so you spend the least amount of time between the actual matches and unshielded overall.

And finally, don't hit the grills you find right away. Unless you're trying to make long lasting "friends" ...   

Jarvind

It's not the Herculean feat people would have you believe without LINE. You just need to be judicious about when and how you hop, and be OK with using a few extra shields.

Queue up good matches before you unshield, so you don't waste precious time skipping. Once you break MMR you get a big old target painted on your back, so every second counts.

Probably max out at 2 matches per hop after 950-1k. In the last 12 hours, don't do more than one - the zombie horde is out there looking to last minute climb and use minimal shields, so it becomes a bloodbath. 

It helps a lot to learn what times of day your slice is most active. If you climb when everyone else is asleep you can get away with using fewer shields. I went from 800-1200 in one shot once on a particularly sleepless night.

Also check the t20 leaderboard often and learn who the big hitters are in your slice. If one of them hits you early on, you can save the retal node for a later hop and hit them for a 75-pointer when it counts.

Your team matters too. When I was stuck using Phoenix and Banner I got pummeled even at 300 points, like you. Now that I'm using Gambit and Parker Spidey I find I can generally hover around 600 without much trouble.

Personally I don't do it very often, because my schedule doesn't usually work out such that alternating 3- and 8-hour shields is feasible for me. But if you can swing it, 1200 is very doable without any outside assistance.

PorkBelly

I run non-optimal (i.e., non-Gambit) 5* teams and I can't reliably hop for more than a single match over 900.

I can queue 75 point teams but it is still too much investment in shields for it to be worth it for me.  Seems like I would require an additional 525 hp for shields (at least) to go from 900-1200 and that is too much for me.

And I don't use Line for reasons that are too complicated to go into in this post.  Might be easier if you had access to shield check rooms with a cohort of players who were not going to immediately target you when you unshield.

Phumade

ThaRoadWarrior said:

How much does time of day in the real world matter for those of you hitting top progression? I've found that I will occasionally have a super easy time knocking down points if I'm playing at what is for me a very odd hour of the day, say like 12:30am +, or potentially very early in the morning. I can't isolate whether it's the time of day or some other trick of MMR that leads to that situation, and I can't reliably figure out when that time is for a given PVP. As such, I've only ever hit top simulator one time, and the 900pt reward one time in points based, but I can typically get to 575 and out in a single session.

Think Carefully about what your asking.  The answer is always 1 of 2 reasons.

either its a natural congragation time where people naturally play.  lunch time somewhere in the world etc..

or a group of players scheduled a hop time to go out an exchange cupcake ques.

read the post from evade that explains the mechanics of pvp and consider that ques are only available when top tier players make themselves available to be qued.  Once you understand the reasons why players are choosing to unshield at high points tells you when they are most likely to play.

Borstock

aesthetocyst said:

Why not so much about hitting 1200?

Because once you figure out how to hit 900 (which is indeed currently a big milestone in PvP development), however you got to 900, just do more of it to hit 1200. 

That's just not true.

dudethtsawesome

I have hit 1200 several times without any coordination with Line. I've just went as high as I was able, usually in the 950-1k range and just use a few shields to reach 1200. line just makes it easier to find the targets, it's not Impossible, just takes more time to keep skipping. 

GrimSkald

Being in a LINE based truce has two great benefits:

- It gets you a whole set of people (sometimes 100+) who will not snipe you while you're hopping.  It can still happen (happened to me once, I think,) but it's not supposed to and that's kind of the point.  This reduces your chance of getting hit while hopping quite a bit, and makes your climb a little smoother.

- It lets you know when people are "grilling" so you can q up the easier to beat teams.  Since they killed cupcakes it can still take you time to eat a steak (what they're called,) but it's still a hell of a lot quicker than to 5*s and a boosted 3*.

Neither of these things are absolutely essential - for example I only have access to LINE when I have wifi, and still find grills when I just have my phone.  Hunt for the grills (like Kolence said, getting a feel for the right time will help,) and don't sweat the skip tax.  Pop in every so often to hunt.  Learn who often grills in your slice and if you see them out there for a lot of points, keep checking to see if they grill.

There are drawbacks too, of course.  The main one is you have to keep checking when you climb to make sure you don't hit someone in the truce.  You get a feel for it for a while (particularly for alliances,) but you often have to keep checking as people come and go.  This can make your climb longer and harder.  It's a trade off.

The upshot of this is that being is a truce is fantastic for hops, but a bit of a pain for climbing.  In the long run I don't think it's necessary, and it all depends on your play style.  Someone who always climbs at the last minute and rarely hops probably doesn't want to be in a truce, but other people will probably find it more helpful than not.

Tiggida

To get to 1200 you basically want to break mmr so that all targets become visible to you. This usually happens for me personally somewhere between 850-950 pts depending on the pvp. 4* essential pvps can sometimes have wonky mmr, but in 3* essential pvps that's usually when it breaks for me. Once you can see everyone, hopping is much easier.

ZeroKarma

Tiggida said:

To get to 1200 you basically want to break mmr so that all targets become visible to you. This usually happens for me personally somewhere between 850-950 pts depending on the pvp. 4* essential pvps can sometimes have wonky mmr, but in 3* essential pvps that's usually when it breaks for me. Once you can see everyone, hopping is much easier.

This right here is correct. You will have a hard time finding teams with very high scores that are above your level until you get to the 850-950 point. The positive aspect to this, is that generally teams larger than you will not see you either. 

It really is two different worlds there, whether intended or not by the developers. The gate to the final progression point has always been a different degree of difficulty because it becomes a real shoot-out when everyone sees each other. If you only have a single 5*, you will be a target and there isn't much you can do except shield more and hop more. 

thedarkphoenix

Tiggida said:

To get to 1200 you basically want to break mmr so that all targets become visible to you. This usually happens for me personally somewhere between 850-950 pts depending on the pvp. 4* essential pvps can sometimes have wonky mmr, but in 3* essential pvps that's usually when it breaks for me. Once you can see everyone, hopping is much easier.

This right here.


I often wonder if this is intentional. 

Tiggida

thedarkphoenix said:

Tiggida said:

To get to 1200 you basically want to break mmr so that all targets become visible to you. This usually happens for me personally somewhere between 850-950 pts depending on the pvp. 4* essential pvps can sometimes have wonky mmr, but in 3* essential pvps that's usually when it breaks for me. Once you can see everyone, hopping is much easier.

This right here.


I often wonder if this is intentional. 

No idea if it is or not. I always thought it was weird.

 To add to my initial post, when you get caught in the loop of only being able to q 4-6 targets or so, that's a sign that you're really close to breaking mmr. You're usually 1 or 2 matches away from breaking it at that point. You'll know you've broken it when you start seeing q's that are way higher or way lower than usual. If it's the first time you're doing it, this is a good time to shield and skip through targets a bit so that you can get a feel for what it's like when mmr opens up for you. You may even find some tasty treats if you skip enough.  

Kevmcg

The other key point is that once you can reach 900 and see all players when MMR opens up, you can score much higher than 1200. It is the same process to score 2000+. You just need to hit 900 earlier and do more shield hops over the event. In S1, better rosters go for 4-5 matches and 200-400 points a hop. 4* rosters can try 2-3 matches reliably and 100-225 points a hop.

The scores will rise as the front-runners work off of each other to raise the ceiling. WIthin the last 8-12 hours you should see many high point qs - if you are over that 900 point barrier. The trade-off is that there will also be many other players with decent rosters climbing from below.