Broken MMR penalizes players for progress

Jwallyr

So I'm going to paraphrase/summarize the responses thus far and give my response to them.

"It gets better"

Ok, great, but is there a reason it has to get worse in the first place? The current, hidden, overly-simplistic MMR is completely unnecessary in a sane design where CLs and current event point total are used as the primary determinants of matchmaking, and they guarantee that players won't be penalized for doing one of the things the game pushes you hardest to do- improve your roster.

"These are your options...."

I wasn't really asking for help or advice, just trying to communicate in a thought-out and clear way how awful the experience is for players who don't pore over the forums to figure out how to work around the flaws that long-time players have sussed out of the opaque in-game matchmaking system. I would think that the game's designers might hope to incorporate this kind of feedback in refining the game for a better experience for the playerbase to encourage people to keep playing.

"MMR isn't broken" + "top 5 or so characters and only looks at levels"

In other words, MMR is overly simplistic, bases itself on the highest level characters which is exceedingly likely to not be representative of your actual roster unless you either 1) Recruit zero 5* characters or 2) are a 4* champ or higher player, and yet it's fine, it's not broken, less QQ more pew pew? So for a broad swath of the playerbase (not going out of their way to avoid 5stars and not yet at the higher echelons of 4* play) it is very likely to result in a numerical gauge of your roster strength that's completely divorced from your actual ability to compete, but it's cool?

Mkay.

"SCL matters only with rewards, it has nothing to do with who your matched against and shouldn't"

Right, because other than every single competitive organization ever, the subdivision of entrants by weight classes and skill with commensurate rewards is unprecedented.

I mean, really? The only purpose of Versus SCLs is to enforce worse rewards for lower players who can't yet compete (by which we mean simply "enter") at higher SCLs? In nearly every competitive sport and game, there are skill brackets that gradually increase, and players of sufficient skill/ability graduate up to higher brackets with higher rewards. What rationale is there for MPQ to avoid this well-known mechanism for grouping players roughly by ability, as expressed through results of actual play?

"Story mode used to suck too"

Sure, and they fixed Story mode. I'm agitating for them to fix Versus mode. Glad we agree!

"There's not that many people in your situation"

Maybe there are not a lot of players in my exact situation right this second, but virtually every player goes through this experience, probably multiple times at the various tier transitions. Fixing the broken MMR system is likely to improve the play experience for all players, because all players go through these transitions. I think that makes the ROI for such an effort exceedingly high in terms of player satisfaction and by extension revenue, as more consistent players leads to more paying customers.

"Obviously it's going to match you up with like players"

I mean, I feel like you didn't read the initial post, because i'm very much being matched against non-similar players. My single champed, boosted 4star against full teams of champed/boosted 4stars simply because I have a single 4star champ and several one-cover 5star bench warmers.

NeonBlue

The only way I see them revamping PvP and MMR in the near future is when they decide to include Supports in PvP. They will need to find a way to change how power is measured, since Supports would theoretically skew any matchup where both players' supports are vastly different (in terms of levels and rank). This may change how MMR is calculated, which might end up improving the experience across the board.

PenniesForEveryone

Jwallyr said:

"Obviously it's going to match you up with like players"

I mean, I feel like you didn't read the initial post, because i'm very much being matched against non-similar players. My single champed, boosted 4star against full teams of champed/boosted 4stars simply because I have a single 4star champ and several one-cover 5star bench warmers.

You missed my point - there ARE NO SIMILAR PLAYERS.  No one else has a roster with a single character at 370 and all the rest under 200.  And if there is another roster out there it's probably not playing in your PvP time slice.....at a similar score.....and continually increasing in score as you climb making it worth your while to continue hitting them over and over.

Transitions suck, most of us learned this when we transitioned to 3*.  Now we typically wait until we have 2 or more playable characters from the next tier before we pull the trigger and level them.  Live and learn.

Jwallyr

1) I am highly skeptical that there are literally no other players who, through the same luck of the draw as me, happen to have one well-covered 4star to champ and a bunch of low-covered 4stars that aren't worth a second look vs. my 3star tier. RNG is RNG, and maybe I just rolled really well for that one character (in my case Rogue) vs the general population, but... I'm skeptical.

2) Even if there are "no similar players" to my roster, wouldn't a more reasonable expectation be that I would be getting a mix of high-3star-roster opponents and low-4star-opponents than that I be facing 95% full-champed-4star teams, which are no more similar to my roster than the champed-3star rosters? Does it not represent a failure of another sort for me to be clumsily rounded up from the top of one arbitrary MMR tier to another?

Either way, the fact that the MMR system is so clumsy that it can't allow for a graceful increase in player roster strength without resulting in these jarring mismatches is my point. I'm not sure why you think it's more appropriate for a 3.5star tier player like myself to be clubbed in the face with nonstop 4star champ teams rather than being presented with a mix of 3star and 4star teams. It gives the player (me) the distinct impression of being penalized for progressing as directed by the game's UI, and is a hugely negative experience, which I would hope the game design team would want to correct.

NeonBlue

PenniesForEveryone said:

Transitions suck, most of us learned this when we transitioned to 3*.  Now we typically wait until we have 2 or more playable characters from the next tier before we pull the trigger and level them.  Live and learn.

Unfortunately, he's right. The theoretical "best" way to advance into 4* is to leap far enough in to get both feet across. What I mean is to essentially "skip" early transition by saving up enough ISO, CP, and HP to go from having no 4* champed to having 2-3 champed (which is tricky, but possible with enough tokens, CP, and bonus hero procs). Also, making sure that the 2-3 you do champ can carry you through PvP (and to some extent PvE). Growth within tiers is linear, but growth between tiers is meant to be exponential.

Of course, you won't know this unless you're a researcher, and whether this game should punish non-researchers is a topic I already rebuked earlier. Although I will say that this isn't the only game where preparation is encouraged, and given that it takes several months to get to the 3-4* transition, I think the devs assumed that if you are transitioning into 4* land, you would have armed yourself with some knowledge within the months you have been playing. 

I guess the best way to recover is to make sure your second 4* is one that can pair well with rouge (which is a lot of people), but you might consider Vulture or M4rvel. 

Sm0keyJ0e

Jwallyr said:

2) Even if there are "no similar players" to my roster, wouldn't a more reasonable expectation be that I would be getting a mix of high-3star-roster opponents and low-4star-opponents than that I be facing 95% full-champed-4star teams, which are no more similar to my roster than the champed-3star rosters? Does it not represent a failure of another sort for me to be clumsily rounded up from the top of one arbitrary MMR tier to another?

So you want to beat on smaller rosters and then they're going to come here and post exactly what you did to start all this...

I'd like to see the exact teams you're being faced with that are so godly you have to skip every one of them (and what score you're seeing them at). Rogue is a bad ****. She could probably single-handedly take most of them down.

Lastly--you only played one event. Come on man, give it a chance. Try a few other events and try different slices and different times to climb. I know very experienced players that have a bad event here and there all the time. You have to give it more of a shot and get past Rogue's boosted week to make an informed "MMR sucks" post.

Jwallyr

Sm0keyJ0e said:

So you want to beat on smaller rosters and then they're going to come here and post exactly what you did to start all this...

I'd like to see the exact teams you're being faced with that are so godly you have to skip every one of them (and what score you're seeing them at). Rogue is a bad tinykitty. She could probably single-handedly take most of them down.

Lastly--you only played one event. Come on man, give it a chance. Try a few other events and try different slices and different times to climb. I know very experienced players that have a bad event here and there all the time. You have to give it more of a shot and get past Rogue's boosted week to make an informed "MMR sucks" post.

1) I'm not asking to "beat on smaller rosters", but to have a reasonable mix of opponents presented to me. If, as the person to whom I was responding claims, there are literally no opponents in the entire pool of participating players who have basically a bunch of 3stars and a single champed 4star like I do, the next closest thing is being presented with a mix of high-3star-champ teams and low-4star-champed teams. Being presented with 90% champed 4star teams is not any less inappropriate than being matched against low-to-mid 3star teams with my roster. It's just that the in-game MMR is clearly too clumsy to handle my situation with any intelligence.

2) I did not play one event, I've played at least two events, and indeed in the Shield Sim I went from 90% 3-star-champ teams to 90% 4-star-champ teams in a single day, with no significant Versus play time involved. My MMR couldn't possibly have been impacted by my play because I didn't play Versus at all during that time. Ergo, the MMR is keyed directly off of roster levels, with zero (or very little) basis on my actual versus performance. This is bad design, and leads directly to play experiences like mine where players are penalized for upgrading their teams.

If being penalized for upgrading your characters is an intended part of the game design, I'd REALLY love to hear an official comment to that effect, and I can just save myself the $100 in iTunes gift cards that I had been considering spending on a Stark Salary to clear up my backlog.

Jwallyr

P.S. I find it really amusing that it's somehow being held against me that it's Rogue's boosted week. Like, if Rogue is boosted, and that's supposedly such a huge factor in my ability to be competitive, shoulidn't I be blowing through the non-boosted 4star teams with Rogue single-handed? That was obviously not my experience. Additionally, I ran into that brick wall of Grocket/Medusa/G4mora at ~1950 in Shield Sim, where nobody is boosted, and therefore Rogue being boosted shouldn't matter for my MMR. If it does count Rogue being boosted against me in an event where she's not boosted, that's yet another failure of the MMR.

RedLion

Jwallyr said:

1) I am highly skeptical that there are literally no other players who, through the same luck of the draw as me, happen to have one well-covered 4star to champ and a bunch of low-covered 4stars that aren't worth a second look vs. my 3star tier. RNG is RNG, and maybe I just rolled really well for that one character (in my case Rogue) vs the general population, but... I'm skeptical.

2) Even if there are "no similar players" to my roster, wouldn't a more reasonable expectation be that I would be getting a mix of high-3star-roster opponents and low-4star-opponents than that I be facing 95% full-champed-4star teams, which are no more similar to my roster than the champed-3star rosters? Does it not represent a failure of another sort for me to be clumsily rounded up from the top of one arbitrary MMR tier to another?

Either way, the fact that the MMR system is so clumsy that it can't allow for a graceful increase in player roster strength without resulting in these jarring mismatches is my point. I'm not sure why you think it's more appropriate for a 3.5star tier player like myself to be clubbed in the face with nonstop 4star champ teams rather than being presented with a mix of 3star and 4star teams. It gives the player (me) the distinct impression of being penalized for progressing as directed by the game's UI, and is a hugely negative experience, which I would hope the game design team would want to correct.

1) I remember when I had a soft-capped 3* roster (lvl 120 and no higher) to avoid the broken MMR and the equally broken roster-based scaling...I remember sitting on a fully-covered Invisible Woman, thinking, but she's a 4-star...obviously I should level her? right? I waited to champ Hulkbuster, and I couldn't stop there, the game won't let you. You aren't alone, and you're not wrong. The game does little to prepare you for how leveling your roster will impact your gameplay experience, but that experience is designed to drive you out of that 3* tier and into your 4* future. 

2) MMR is constantly pairing you with players who are ahead of you in the game. I run in 5* circles now (about to have my 6th champed 5*) and even though I can bring Thor and Gambit to the table, I have to be willing to go against Thors and Gambits 15 to 20 levels above mine if I want the big points out of each match. I've always chalked this up to the inherent imbalance between player and AI, if the MMR matched me with a roster similar to mine, I would NEVER* lose, and I would rarely even take significant damage because the AI is just that ineffective. 

The PVP MMR is harsh and not user-friendly. If it feels like the game is moving the goal posts on you, it is. It's a rare mobile game that won't make you feel that way. Even so, the PVP structure, SCLs and all that, need a rework so that climbing the ladder doesn't make you want to jump.


*the cascade of death is real...any match can be lost when the AI stumbles into that near infinite cascade

Spudgutter

Sm0keyJ0e said:

Jwallyr said:

2) Even if there are "no similar players" to my roster, wouldn't a more reasonable expectation be that I would be getting a mix of high-3star-roster opponents and low-4star-opponents than that I be facing 95% full-champed-4star teams, which are no more similar to my roster than the champed-3star rosters? Does it not represent a failure of another sort for me to be clumsily rounded up from the top of one arbitrary MMR tier to another?

So you want to beat on smaller rosters and then they're going to come here and post exactly what you did to start all this...

I'd like to see the exact teams you're being faced with that are so godly you have to skip every one of them (and what score you're seeing them at). Rogue is a bad tinykitty. She could probably single-handedly take most of them down.

Lastly--you only played one event. Come on man, give it a chance. Try a few other events and try different slices and different times to climb. I know very experienced players that have a bad event here and there all the time. You have to give it more of a shot and get past Rogue's boosted week to make an informed "MMR sucks" post.

How many "mmr sucks" posts do we have to read every year?  Can we not agree that it does, because we all know it does?  

As to getting clubbed by higher rosters, i feel like most times we see these threads (not this one, so i hope i am not putting words in their mouth) the OP states that they would trade off being hit by higher rosters, *as long as it trickles down.*  I rarely see posts making this complaint, so it always bugs me when this is used as a counter arguement.

PenniesForEveryone

Jwallyr said:

Like, if Rogue is boosted, and that's supposedly such a huge factor in my ability to be competitive, shoulidn't I be blowing through the non-boosted 4star teams with Rogue single-handed? T

No.  If that were how it worked for you then it would be how it worked for everyone else as well.  We would all constantly be getting wailed on by larger rosters, and it would be a miserable experience for everyone.  The AI is stupid, and it's easy to punch above your weight.  The system is much better removing the seals from your queues and forcing you to hit larger teams to progress.  

PenniesForEveryone

Spudgutter said:

Sm0keyJ0e said:

Jwallyr said:

2) Even if there are "no similar players" to my roster, wouldn't a more reasonable expectation be that I would be getting a mix of high-3star-roster opponents and low-4star-opponents than that I be facing 95% full-champed-4star teams, which are no more similar to my roster than the champed-3star rosters? Does it not represent a failure of another sort for me to be clumsily rounded up from the top of one arbitrary MMR tier to another?

So you want to beat on smaller rosters and then they're going to come here and post exactly what you did to start all this...

I'd like to see the exact teams you're being faced with that are so godly you have to skip every one of them (and what score you're seeing them at). Rogue is a bad tinykitty. She could probably single-handedly take most of them down.

Lastly--you only played one event. Come on man, give it a chance. Try a few other events and try different slices and different times to climb. I know very experienced players that have a bad event here and there all the time. You have to give it more of a shot and get past Rogue's boosted week to make an informed "MMR sucks" post.

How many "mmr sucks" posts do we have to read every year?  Can we not agree that it does, because we all know it does?  

MMR doesn't suck because it won't allow me to use my shiny new boosted 4* character to club 3* rosters.  MMR sucks because I keep queuing the same 6 players over and over and over.  MMR sucks because because even though I can see the 4* roster at the top of my leaderboard, my 5* team can't queue it.  MMR sucks because it won't ever let me queue 550 rosters even when I want to hunt them.

Jwallyr

I'd appreciate you either quoting where I said that I want to "use my shiny new boosted 4* character to club 3* rosters" or quit accusing me of such. Being disappointed when I field a 3/3/4 team and expect to see maybe some other 3/3/4 teams but instead am matched against 90% 4/4/4 teams is not the same as hoping that I can stomp 3/3/3 teams, and I don't appreciate you repeatedly misrepresenting my intent and distracting from the issue being discussed.

Spudgutter

PenniesForEveryone said:

Spudgutter said:

Sm0keyJ0e said:

Jwallyr said:

2) Even if there are "no similar players" to my roster, wouldn't a more reasonable expectation be that I would be getting a mix of high-3star-roster opponents and low-4star-opponents than that I be facing 95% full-champed-4star teams, which are no more similar to my roster than the champed-3star rosters? Does it not represent a failure of another sort for me to be clumsily rounded up from the top of one arbitrary MMR tier to another?

So you want to beat on smaller rosters and then they're going to come here and post exactly what you did to start all this...

I'd like to see the exact teams you're being faced with that are so godly you have to skip every one of them (and what score you're seeing them at). Rogue is a bad tinykitty. She could probably single-handedly take most of them down.

Lastly--you only played one event. Come on man, give it a chance. Try a few other events and try different slices and different times to climb. I know very experienced players that have a bad event here and there all the time. You have to give it more of a shot and get past Rogue's boosted week to make an informed "MMR sucks" post.

How many "mmr sucks" posts do we have to read every year?  Can we not agree that it does, because we all know it does?  

MMR doesn't suck because it won't allow me to use my shiny new boosted 4* character to club 3* rosters.  MMR sucks because I keep queuing the same 6 players over and over and over.  MMR sucks because because even though I can see the 4* roster at the top of my leaderboard, my 5* team can't queue it.  MMR sucks because it won't ever let me queue 550 rosters even when I want to hunt them.

Exactly.  It sucks for several reasons, and telling op to "suck it up butter cup" is not a solution.  If everyone stopped rolling over like beaten dogs, and posted every event about it(like was done with wins based), maybe something would eventually be done.  Instead, OP is asking for a re-evaluation of the system and it's labeled whiny entitlement, with the counter being "it sucked for us, so it should suck for you."  

PenniesForEveryone

Spudgutter said:

PenniesForEveryone said:

Spudgutter said:

Sm0keyJ0e said:

Jwallyr said:

2) Even if there are "no similar players" to my roster, wouldn't a more reasonable expectation be that I would be getting a mix of high-3star-roster opponents and low-4star-opponents than that I be facing 95% full-champed-4star teams, which are no more similar to my roster than the champed-3star rosters? Does it not represent a failure of another sort for me to be clumsily rounded up from the top of one arbitrary MMR tier to another?

So you want to beat on smaller rosters and then they're going to come here and post exactly what you did to start all this...

I'd like to see the exact teams you're being faced with that are so godly you have to skip every one of them (and what score you're seeing them at). Rogue is a bad tinykitty. She could probably single-handedly take most of them down.

Lastly--you only played one event. Come on man, give it a chance. Try a few other events and try different slices and different times to climb. I know very experienced players that have a bad event here and there all the time. You have to give it more of a shot and get past Rogue's boosted week to make an informed "MMR sucks" post.

How many "mmr sucks" posts do we have to read every year?  Can we not agree that it does, because we all know it does?  

MMR doesn't suck because it won't allow me to use my shiny new boosted 4* character to club 3* rosters.  MMR sucks because I keep queuing the same 6 players over and over and over.  MMR sucks because because even though I can see the 4* roster at the top of my leaderboard, my 5* team can't queue it.  MMR sucks because it won't ever let me queue 550 rosters even when I want to hunt them.

Exactly.  It sucks for several reasons

But OP's reason isn't one of the reasons why MMR sucks.

Jwallyr

PenniesForEveryone said:

Spudgutter said:

Exactly.  It sucks for several reasons

But OP's reason isn't one of the reasons why MMR sucks.

So is it your sincere belief that my 3/3/4 team is appropriately queued against 4/4/4 teams? That's considered a "fair match"? Clearly more fair than 3/3/4 against 3/3/3, apparently?

I'm semi prepared to concede for purposes of discussion that the AI is bad, and that as a result it's easier to punch up, but even then I'd expect to see more 3/4/4 than 4/4/4 opponents. No, I'm getting matchmade against significantly higher level teams, rather than being matched against slightly-higher teams, much less similar or lower teams.

Like, seriously dude, I guess you're welcome to believe that I'm just making this all up, and in reality I'm just whining because I couldn't curb stomp 3* teams with my new 4*. Would someone in that position be spending all this time and effort trying to critically dissect the situation and respond to specific arguments on a web forum like I have been, though? C'mon.

PenniesForEveryone

Jwallyr said:

I'd appreciate you either quoting where I said that I want to "use my shiny new boosted 4* character to club 3* rosters" or quit accusing me of such. Being disappointed when I field a 3/3/4 team and expect to see maybe some other 3/3/4 teams but instead am matched against 90% 4/4/4 teams is not the same as hoping that I can stomp 3/3/3 teams, and I don't appreciate you repeatedly misrepresenting my intent and distracting from the issue being discussed.

Sure thing......

Jwallyr said:

I figured that surely the single champed 4star wouldn't suddenly demolish any chances I have of playing predominantly 3* teams 

Jwallyr said:

wouldn't a more reasonable expectation be that I would be getting a mix of high-3star-roster opponents 

Jwallyr said:

shoulidn't I be blowing through the non-boosted 4star teams with Rogue single-handed? 

Clearly you believe that you should be matched up with weaker rosters......

HoundofShadow

The OP actually started a thread asking about PvP MMR mechanics a few months back and now he's a problem with MMR. Based on what the OP wrote, his top 3 characters look something like this:

270 (Champed Rogue), 255(5*), 255(5*). If we were to add in boosted 3*, it would be ~ 260 - 270.

That explains why he's seeing champed 4* (270).

Players are usually matched with teams similar or 10-50 levels higher than theirs. 

It's not champed Rogue alone that caused the shift in his seeing of 4* champed team. It's champed Rogue plus a few 5* rostered that caused him to see champed 4*.

In simulator without 5*, his top 3 should look something like this:

270, ~185, ~185.
Average top 3 = level 213

MMR did not "punish" him for progressing, but "punished" him for jumping too far ahead (from 3* to 5*).



 

Jwallyr

Wow. What a disingenuous set of selective quotes.

The actual quotes with some bolds to emphasize things you disregarded:

"I figured that surely the single champed 4star wouldn't suddenly demolish any chances I have of playing predominantly 3* teams with maybe other 3*/3*/4* teams like mine would be, right?"

"wouldn't a more reasonable expectation be that I would be getting a mix of high-3star-roster opponents and low-4star-opponents "

"shoulidn't I be blowing through the non-boosted >>>4star<<< teams with Rogue single-handed?"

That last one was a direct response to another poster, btw, saying that "[Rogue] could probably single-handedly take most of them down." I was not claiming that I actually expected to be able to use my boosted Rogue to take down weaker rosters.

Seriously dude, I have not once ever claimed that I expected to use my 4* to curb stomp weaker teams. Please quit alleging that I did. It doesn't add to the discussion.

Jwallyr

HoundofShadow said:

The OP actually started a thread asking about PvP MMR mechanics a few months back and now he's a problem with MMR. Based on what the OP wrote, his top 3 characters look something like this:

270 (Champed Rogue), 255(5*), 255(5*). If we were to add in boosted 3*, it would be ~ 260 - 270.

That explains why he's seeing champed 4* (270).

Players are usually matched with teams similar or 10-50 levels higher than theirs. 

It's not champed Rogue alone that caused the shift in his seeing of 4* champed team. It's champed Rogue plus a few 5* rostered that caused him to see champed 4*.

In simulator without 5*, his top 3 should look something like this:

270, ~185, ~185.
Average top 3 = level 213

MMR did not "punish" him for progressing, but "punished" him for jumping too far ahead (from 3* to 5*).



 

If you can point me toward the purchaseable token which would have allowed me to avoid 5stars while accumulating 4star covers, I will gladly admit to the fault being mine. However, to my knowledge outside of very limited (and unlikely) pulls from event vaults with event tokens, the primary purchaseable pulls for 4stars also award 5stars.

Are you suggesting that the expected, appropriate behavior of 3* players who are beginning to spend CPs on Classic Legends pulls is to sell the rare (implied to be valuable) 5star covers that they get 15% of the time to avoid having their Versus MMR boosted through the roof due to 5stars who remain largely weak other than match damage in Versus? Why then does the game strongly encourage players to save and roster these rare (implied to be valuable) 5star covers that are basically unavoidable during the 3* to 4* transition?

The end result remains that the MMR is factoring weak characters that happen to have a high level into the MMR, and placing me against players with 3+ strong characters at that level, which remains an inappropriate pairing. Explaining the mechanics of the badly designed system doesn't change that the system itself is faulty.