How much effort do you need to hit 2000-4000 points per pvp?

Phumade

really simple actually

economic Collusion implies that any one room or even a combination of room has enough market power to actually control the flow of points.  Even in "pop culuture sense"  collusion requires communication between powers who can "set the market"  I won't even bother trying to quantify a legal definition of mpq point marketplace because we don't even need to get to that threshold analysis.

These academic/economic/legal defintions fails for the simple reason. that any 4 players can hop to 1200, or 1500.  Repeat ANY four players can climb to whatever personal point threshold base their speed and efficiency of play will support.

You make the basic assumption that scoring requires assistance and large numbers of people.   This is far from what actually happens in the game.  

Any 4 players can "collude" (in your definiton) to build ques from 700.  (Thats called fore running).  Not 200 people, not 40 people, literally 4 people can create the shield hop dynamic. and if those 4 players are expert tier 5* players they can do it efficently and quickly enough to create 150-200 point swings, a big enough differential that they can consistently give each other 50point + ques ad nausem.

For that same reason the pop culture defintion will fail.  because 4 players don't have the economic power to set the market for points for all players.  In fact any 4 experienced players can "collude" to 1200 from 0 in a 3/8/24 shield hop.  

Once people are willing to admit they are misusing the word, we can now look at dynamics of the mmr and what are the hallmarks that people can look for so they can take advatage of how mmr and float points change dynamically in response to the rosters and scores  that go from shield to unshielded status.  In that way,  we can make you more efficient and knowledgeable players who play within the boundaries that you self define for your playstyle.

edit.

You can certainly make an argument that 5 high level experienced rosters can "shut down" a shard.  but the truth is 5 players will struggle to enforce over a 3 day event and their success rate any deny one specific person from 1200 is probably what 1 in 10 attempts?  Hardly market setting or defining.  I've certainly seen and agree that point suppression can occur,  but its for a limited time duration and it really points out how hard it is to achieve true "collusion" as SEC or DOJ would define it.  

Spudgutter

Tony Foot said:

I wish they would end this collaborative cheating and score inflation. Give PVP one node or force refresh queues every 5 minutes or a max skip number then you have to fight who is in your queue. Yeah we all benefit from trickle down but tit for tat back scratching is awful. Play it properly and if the scores are so low people aren't getting the rewards tweak the rewards.

It's been suggested before just to remove names.  That would basically have a similar impact.  I like the idea but can you imagine the outcry?  During wins based, iirc, there were possibly 50+ people per event that were not getting the cp after 1200.  The kind of shake up you suggest would be even more, and those "at the top" would not ne silent about that kind of impact.

But i do agree with you, it would make it a little more fair.  I play when i want and when i can, and accept the rewards i get.  If they change to wins based, or no names, or whatever other change, i will still play with that attitude. 

Tony_Foot

Spudgutter said:

It's been suggested before just to remove names.

I like that idea, a lot!

LifeofAgony

Removing names would then cause you to hit your own teammates and eliminate this whole spirit of cooperation.  It’s a bad idea.

Phumade

Tony Foot said:

Spudgutter said:

It's been suggested before just to remove names.

I like that idea, a lot!

Honestly I dont think it would make that much of a difference.  AT that tier,  they all know what teams they use and what teams can be constructed.  Almost inevitably,  players will just say.  I'm going with with XYZ team thats instantly recognizable. etc..

in a day an age when players can predict doubles and triples with alarming reliablity they'll just have assigned play times to tell each other what teams they are going out with.  Not that many level players thats it ever becomes anything more than peusdo anonymous.

entrailbucket

The current situation is the way it is because players value progression rewards over placement rewards.  The placement rewards in PvP are pretty good really, but for whatever reason nobody cares about them.  The players who work together to build those huge scores are able to do it because, in general, anybody who can beat their teams is friendly to them, so they rarely lose points.  There isn't any actual competition among them.

The devs have tried to address this many times (limiting number of shields used, fixing the "cupcake" exploit), and nothing really works because, for the most part, players seem determined to find any way they can to not compete in PvP.  (By the way, it continues to strike me as odd that in high level MPQ, the "player vs enemy" mode is super competitive and cutthroat, and the "player vs player" mode is friendly and cooperative.)

Anyway the real fix for this is to make the top placement awards in PvP *really, really good*.  Like on the level of many legendary tokens/CP or multiple specific 5* covers for #1, and other good stuff for maybe #2 or #3, followed by an enormous dropoff for the rest of top 5/top 10.

The effect of that would be a dramatic reduction in cooperation among high level players, as they realize that being "friendly" with all of the other high level players and not attacking them is costing them huge amounts of resources.  Once players in the big rooms are forced to compete with each other those rooms will get much smaller and scores will decrease accordingly.

PenniesForEveryone

Phumade said:

really simple actually

economic Collusion implies that any one room or even a combination of room has enough market power to actually control the flow of points.  Even in "pop culuture sense"  collusion requires communication between powers who can "set the market"  I won't even bother trying to quantify a legal definition of mpq point marketplace because we don't even need to get to that threshold analysis.

These academic/economic/legal defintions fails for the simple reason. that any 4 players can hop to 1200, or 1500.  Repeat ANY four players can climb to whatever personal point threshold base their speed and efficiency of play will support.

You make the basic assumption that scoring requires assistance and large numbers of people.   This is far from what actually happens in the game.  

Any 4 players can "collude" (in your definiton) to build ques from 700.  (Thats called fore running).  Not 200 people, not 40 people, literally 4 people can create the shield hop dynamic. and if those 4 players are expert tier 5* players they can do it efficently and quickly enough to create 150-200 point swings, a big enough differential that they can consistently give each other 50point + ques ad nausem.

For that same reason the pop culture defintion will fail.  because 4 players don't have the economic power to set the market for points for all players.  In fact any 4 experienced players can "collude" to 1200 from 0 in a 3/8/24 shield hop.  

Once people are willing to admit they are misusing the word, we can now look at dynamics of the mmr and what are the hallmarks that people can look for so they can take advatage of how mmr and float points change dynamically in response to the rosters and scores  that go from shield to unshielded status.  In that way,  we can make you more efficient and knowledgeable players who play within the boundaries that you self define for your playstyle.

edit.

You can certainly make an argument that 5 high level experienced rosters can "shut down" a shard.  but the truth is 5 players will struggle to enforce over a 3 day event and their success rate any deny one specific person from 1200 is probably what 1 in 10 attempts?  Hardly market setting or defining.  I've certainly seen and agree that point suppression can occur,  but its for a limited time duration and it really points out how hard it is to achieve true "collusion" as SEC or DOJ would define it.  

Wow it is simple.  You're using an obscure economic definition even though we are talking about a mobile game, and everyone else in here was using the generic Webster's definition of "secret agreement or cooperation".  We've already demonstrated why BCs constitute secret cooperation as someone with a strong grasp on the fundamental meaning of words such as yourself can easily see, so I'll go ahead and play your game and show why you are still wrong using your own definition.....

Have you been to S2 recently?  I recommend you go there, and don't join any BCs.  What you'll find is that one room, a group of maybe 30 individuals from mostly a single alliance has enough "market power" to completely control the flow of points.  Those individuals all get T5, they all get 1200, and literally almost no one else in the entire slice will get 1200.  So you are wrong to suggest that a small group doesn't have enough market power to control points.

Secondly, you suggest that because a small group of outsiders can climb to 1200 or 1500 that collusion can't exist, which is absurd.  You also falsely claimed that I made the assumption that scoring requires assistance and large number....I made no such assumption as I am well aware of the ability for small groups to score high.  The poor assumption you are making here is that players colluding to score 4k+ points are necessarily ALSO colluding to keep other scores down, when that isn't always the case, nor does it have to be for collusion to occur.  In fact, multiple groups can collude to score 4k+ points completely independently of each other.

You really seem to be completely focused on points, and the ability to hit 1200.  Which makes sense - that's how you point inflation guys all seem to think.  And you think that if outsiders are able to come in and hit 1200 that somehow proves that the BCs don't have enough "market power" to be considered colluding.  But what you are missing is that PvP is not only about points, but placement as well - and this is where the BCs do have the power, as outsiders are rarely able to overcome the collusion from the BCs to score thousands of points and place in the top 5.

acescracked

Reading thru this thread is giving me a Life of Agony.

nonnel

Damn you @entrailbucket !!!!!    For posting on Line about this thread.   I can’t unsee what was shown here.  

I need a safe place now....  Where the heck are the cat memes?  

WelcomeDeath

nonnel said:

Damn you @entrailbucket !!!!!    For posting on Line about this thread.   I can’t unsee what was shown here.  

I need a safe place now....  Where the heck are the cat memes?  

From what I understand there's a super secret SSOLU room for PvP that posts a bunch of cat memes.  Maybe ask around and someone can invite?

Phumade

PenniesForEveryone said:

Phumade said:

really simple actually

economic Collusion implies that any one room or even a combination of room has enough market power to actually control the flow of points.  Even in "pop culuture sense"  collusion requires communication between powers who can "set the market"  I won't even bother trying to quantify a legal definition of mpq point marketplace because we don't even need to get to that threshold analysis.

These academic/economic/legal defintions fails for the simple reason. that any 4 players can hop to 1200, or 1500.  Repeat ANY four players can climb to whatever personal point threshold base their speed and efficiency of play will support.

You make the basic assumption that scoring requires assistance and large numbers of people.   This is far from what actually happens in the game.  

Any 4 players can "collude" (in your definiton) to build ques from 700.  (Thats called fore running).  Not 200 people, not 40 people, literally 4 people can create the shield hop dynamic. and if those 4 players are expert tier 5* players they can do it efficently and quickly enough to create 150-200 point swings, a big enough differential that they can consistently give each other 50point + ques ad nausem.

For that same reason the pop culture defintion will fail.  because 4 players don't have the economic power to set the market for points for all players.  In fact any 4 experienced players can "collude" to 1200 from 0 in a 3/8/24 shield hop.  

Once people are willing to admit they are misusing the word, we can now look at dynamics of the mmr and what are the hallmarks that people can look for so they can take advatage of how mmr and float points change dynamically in response to the rosters and scores  that go from shield to unshielded status.  In that way,  we can make you more efficient and knowledgeable players who play within the boundaries that you self define for your playstyle.

edit.

You can certainly make an argument that 5 high level experienced rosters can "shut down" a shard.  but the truth is 5 players will struggle to enforce over a 3 day event and their success rate any deny one specific person from 1200 is probably what 1 in 10 attempts?  Hardly market setting or defining.  I've certainly seen and agree that point suppression can occur,  but its for a limited time duration and it really points out how hard it is to achieve true "collusion" as SEC or DOJ would define it.  

Wow it is simple.  You're using an obscure economic definition even though we are talking about a mobile game, and everyone else in here was using the generic Webster's definition of "secret agreement or cooperation".  We've already demonstrated why BCs constitute secret cooperation as someone with a strong grasp on the fundamental meaning of words such as yourself can easily see, so I'll go ahead and play your game and show why you are still wrong using your own definition.....

Have you been to S2 recently?  I recommend you go there, and don't join any BCs.  What you'll find is that one room, a group of maybe 30 individuals from mostly a single alliance has enough "market power" to completely control the flow of points.  Those individuals all get T5, they all get 1200, and literally almost no one else in the entire slice will get 1200.  So you are wrong to suggest that a small group doesn't have enough market power to control points.

Secondly, you suggest that because a small group of outsiders can climb to 1200 or 1500 that collusion can't exist, which is absurd.  You also falsely claimed that I made the assumption that scoring requires assistance and large number....I made no such assumption as I am well aware of the ability for small groups to score high.  The poor assumption you are making here is that players colluding to score 4k+ points are necessarily ALSO colluding to keep other scores down, when that isn't always the case, nor does it have to be for collusion to occur.  In fact, multiple groups can collude to score 4k+ points completely independently of each other.

You really seem to be completely focused on points, and the ability to hit 1200.  Which makes sense - that's how you point inflation guys all seem to think.  And you think that if outsiders are able to come in and hit 1200 that somehow proves that the BCs don't have enough "market power" to be considered colluding.  But what you are missing is that PvP is not only about points, but placement as well - and this is where the BCs do have the power, as outsiders are rarely able to overcome the collusion from the BCs to score thousands of points and place in the top 5.

and yet I have seen no sort of proof that you've done any sort of numerical analysis that shows backup for your theory of how small groups control the point scoring of other people in the shard, beyond basically you complaining that you can't compete in s2.  Part of competition analysis in anti trust law is specifically concerned with market power and ability to exert powers over small or limited markets.

To be sure your not making a novel analysis in terms of competition / market power.  Its the same tired complaint that occurs when only 2 gas stations exist in a small towrn or when two movie theaters split a movie distribution in a region or when a small local book store competes against a barnes and noble chain vs amazon.com

And yet you don't hear about collustion or anti cometitive effects in these contexts because in almost every legal review of that scenario,  acceptable market substitutes like netflix, hulu, S1, S3, S4 can be found.  in the gas station context pricing analysis probably shows prices are higher but not 3x the price of gas in the nearest local big market.

The point is using "collusion" in its legal context i.e. the strongest version of the word is incredibly rare because its next to impossible to show.  I.e. you shouldn't throw around big words if your not going use them in the same way that the law, or science actually uses the word.

if your using collude as short hand for "communicate/cooperate" then don't make the inference that your word has any sort of legal, regulartory, ethical, "fairness" basis beyond your commentary on how the game should be played.

As a final aside.
It seems you've made the concession that small groups can in fact self generate points beyond 1500 (so they can exceed progresson, and satisfy alliance obligation) to whatever level their roster power and speed of play can dictate.  So lets really consider the issues of placement.

Can high level rosters who don't tradtiionally play s4, band together in small unit teams of 4/5 players and still be viable in T5/T10?  Yes.  That happens quite consistently in s4, S3, S1.   Ask any member of Big room chat whether invader parties come in and fight for placement.  most will say yes invaders can win placements despite concerted efforts to snipe enforce/ dry out / whatever tactics to be devised to prevent that

and informally we have concrete examples of s4 players going to s5 dramatically inflating scores and fighting for placements.  The point is there are enough real examples of  players going cross shard and competing very successful in an unfriendly shard.  Enough that no one can say that the feat is impossible or even improbable.

All you can prove is the little c version of colluion (ie. players communicate and cooperate to the benefit of some and detribment of others)

certainly not the Big C version of collusion (i.e. actually collecting the data and long term proof that little c collusion actually has anti competive effects on either a small shard sample (i.e. 2),  normal shard sample (choice between two time convient shards, or the mpq population as a whole.

Spudgutter

Oh, they weren't using the capital C for collusion at first, so it wasnt ok, but now that you have typed all that out, it is.  Got it.  

I just reread the very first post and the very first response. (Paraphrasing) "How do they get that high score?"  "Players collude to inflate their score."  I'm glad we had this discussion, where you finally agreed that is indeed the case.  I know i feel better.

bluewolf

Just a small addition. Could the devs somehow stop the practice of coordination?  Yes, although obviously it would require reworking systems, which has major risks and might not be possible on the fly, but require a whole new app.

But:
1.  For a significant number of players, coordination is part of the overall social appeal of the game.  It helps create and feed a community of players that are engaged with and through the game.  Any online game like this lives and dies with the community.
2.  The people coordinating for higher scores are also spending money on the game. More money than a lot of other players. The developers know this and are, I’m sure, hesitant to upend a play style that is practiced by some/most of the high spenders.  
3.  If, somehow, the system was altered, the high level players would probably figure out some way to work around it anyway to secure high rewards.

The game itself is pretty mundane. Match 3, find some good teams, launch powers, play nodes over and over.  It is not surprising that players try to find ways to play that keep them interested and allow them to “beat the system”.   Even just visiting the forum is a way to try to gain an advantage over other players by gleaning information, trying to predict what’s next, trying to make the best roster improvements, etc.

Spudgutter

All great points.  But to add a point that straddles the line between 1 and 2, they have to have a system that is fair and fun enough that newer players want to join that community and become a paying member.  i do not envy the devs for trying to find that balance.  All too often we hear about people who hit a low goal (300, 400, 575) and quit because pvp isn't "fun."

Rod5

Spudgutter said:

All great points.  But to add a point that straddles the line between 1 and 2, they have to have a system that is fair and fun enough that newer players want to join that community and become a paying member.  i do not envy the devs for trying to find that balance.  All too often we hear about people who hit a low goal (300, 400, 575) and quit because pvp isn't "fun."

Given the people who play and stop aren’t prepared to spend HP on shields, you can understand why the devs aren’t necessarily in a rush to appease them. And why players who use plenty struggle for sympathy.