Now that tapping and supports are done...

Wumpushunter

can we do something about the convoluted PVP rules and systems?  I'm sure if we put together the brains of the developers, the producers, and the fans we can come up with a better system that still makes that ever needed moola.

Win based is out because you cant peeve off the top 10 who already pay to win, try something else, anything else.


How about picking win based or points at the start.

mega ghost

I'd like it if they separated the points into progression and placement: your placement score can go up and down as you win or lose, but the progression score can never decrease. 

HoundofShadow

Let's start the ball rolling with some conditions that would not tip the scale towards the players only. 

Note: Players include 1* to 3* players as well, not just 4* and 5*.

Conditions:
1) The system need to work for all players levels.
2) Put yourself in the shoes of the developers and of businessmen as well. 
3) Shield has to be relevant.
4) Matches have to be made more challenging as you progress up the rank or get more points.
5) It must not be opened to abuse from players or "outside interference".
6) The system must retain basic elements of a match-3. 
7) Every player need to have uniform experience in the sense that they are playing on level playing field. 

Questions:
1) How do you rework the MMR formula?
2) How do you prevent "outside interference"?
3) Should the AI be made smarter? For example, the AI is dumb enough to match its special tiles almost immediately or not deliberately making a match-5.
4) Should we have a choice to choose hard or or normal mode AI?
5) How are we going to re-work the reward system?
6) How does it affect Alliance rankings and rewards?
7) How do you ensure sufficient teams to play with?
8) How do you deal with losses?

Choosing between win and point based is not really good for players. If you insist, there should be counts for losses as well in win-based.  Minus 1 win for each loss. 

The rockett

I don’t see PVP as broken as others do, but I have been playing this game for 1421 Days and playing at a high level for almost 1200 of those days.  Have been around a long time but my one biggest issue is MMR.  At a level 493 5* I cannot see 510+ duel 5*.  In fact I can take down, and I do very regularly, 550 teams.  Only issue it takes a miracle, actually it takes them to hit me first/me being above them/not many people out, for me to see them.  I know the “rules of when and where I can see them, but it sucks that the system decides what matches I can or cannot see.  I joke with my ally mates and friends that this is called the speical paid for MMR.  Can’t be seen often but can see all.  That is my biggest issue beside the PVP rewards structure that desperately needs to be updated. 

Dormammu

I think they should remove progression from PvP entirely, just like I think they should remove placement from PvE. Shift those rewards to the other side.

So placement rewards in PvP would be more robust from top to bottom, while progression in PvE can add additional prize tiers and/or increase node prizes.

MaxxPowerz

I'd like to see them revisit shield clearance levels and develop a system that more accurately assess a player's progress and what prizes they are awarded.

I have over 50 4* characters champed, why am I fighting tooth and nail to get a measly  3* cover in SCL8? Why is it I have so many 4* champs yet I have barely scratched the surface on their champ rewards?

Because there is no way you're getting me to farm 3* characters. I'm sorry, I don't need the edge that bad. I'm nearing the point where I have maxed champed almost all of my 3*s, and when that point comes I will lose a significant source cp, iso, and hp. I won't be able to keep up with game progress and I will probably just stop playing.

Borstock

I liked the wins trial. I just think the number of wins were too high. Keep placement rewards, so shields stay important. And put back the CPs that were removed from the progression side, or at least spread them out as an addition to the placement rewards. Done and done. 

acescracked

Borstock said:

I liked the wins trial. I just think the number of wins were too high. Keep placement rewards, so shields stay important. And put back the CPs that were removed from the progression side, or at least spread them out as an addition to the placement rewards. Done and done. 

It doesn't matter how many wins. It just turns PvP into pve.

Pve has good rewards and I know exactly how many matches I need to get what I want. But that also makes it a mindless grind. Grind the hard nodes first on open, grind the low nodes first on close. Rinse/repeat. 

Don't make pvp like that. 40 wins (or whatever the number) get rewards, 40 wins get reward. MEH, both game modes a mindless grind..No Thanks!

It's not chess or anything but PvP at least it has a little more to it. 

VizMantis

Borstock said:

I liked the wins trial. I just think the number of wins were too high. Keep placement rewards, so shields stay important. And put back the CPs that were removed from the progression side, or at least spread them out as an addition to the placement rewards. Done and done. 

I totally agree with this!  Win-based pvp had a ton of strengths over the current system and the potential to be way better.  It most definitely needed some tweaking, but I wish they had addressed the issues instead of just bailing on it entirely.

carrion_pigeons

Getting rid of progression rewards in pvp would kill participation among casual players, which would reduce the number of brackets, which would push all the competitive players together, which would...probably end up being unpopular, when regular top 10 players are suddenly struggling to make top 50.

I mean, you could make the rewards a *lot* more robust, but I don't actually think you could make them enticing enough to keep casual players as interested as progression keeps them, no matter how high you went.

Here's a thing I've been thinking about that doesn't ultimately seem *that* hard to implement: develop a system that aggregates a "quality" score for teams based on representation in the meta, and level, and win rate, and match speed (measured in number of turns), etc.  Then use the quality of teams as aggregated by this metric as a score multiplier when those teams are on defense.  So less popular, lower level, or slower teams will be less popular targets in pvp, while popular ones will be bigger targets.  This makes it easier to climb creatively without getting punished for using subpar characters, it makes it less awful to transition between tiers, it makes it easier to find high point matches if you want them, and it greatly reduces the effect of grilling on the strategy of the game.  And since its input is player data rather than dev opinion on the meta (at least in a direct sense), it would be self-correcting.

JHawkInc

mega ghost said:

I'd like it if they separated the points into progression and placement: your placement score can go up and down as you win or lose, but the progression score can never decrease. 

That won't work because you could game the system. You intentionally lose a couple matches to keep your score low, which would make it easier for you to find higher value targets. You could sabotage your placement in order to make progression super easy to achieve.


Personally, I'd like them to take some notes from PVE changes recently. Rewards have been standardized across 3-4 day events, then 7-days, and they've recently added the essential 4* to Boss rewards, etc. I'm not sure how much individual PVP events need for an overhaul, but Season rewards haven't been touched in ages (not since CP was added, right?) 

But from a bigger standpoint, they've made efforts to make Shield Rank more directly reflective of roster strength, then established Clearance Level as a difficulty selector, where rewards scale to the difficulty. As your roster grows, your Shield Rank increases, allowing you to tackle greater challenges for greater rewards.

PVP just doesn't really do that. Difficulty of matches is more about your MMR, regardless of your Rank or chosen Clearance Level. It would be nice if difficulty were linked to clearance level of both PVE/PVP, so they are more comparable.

And to be honest, I'm not really sure how to make that happen. It's one of those things where every time you make a small change, you'd need to make a dozen other changes to make it all fit together, and then it becomes this big monster of a change. (I have an example, a simple idea that becomes a complete overhaul of PVP in an attempt to make it work, if anyone wants to hear when I have more time to type it out.

fight4thedream

Although I would prefer they re-build PvP in a more dramatic fashion, in keeping with the parameters set forth by @HoundofShadow, I think the simplest solution would be to introduce a new mechanism that prevents further point loss for the event, what I would call "S.H.I.E.L.D. Base" or "Base" for short.  Unlike shields which remove the player from nodes, a base would allow other players to still hit said player for points but that player would not dip below the established "base point".

I think this would address the biggest complaint with PvP: i.e. massive points loss during a shield hop.

Now, before you go jump the gun, I am well aware that such a mechanism would be exploitable if not implemented well. If, for example, players were given the freedom to "set up base" whenever they liked, there would be a massive point explosion by those players who enjoy the practice of building points in a shard.

To prevent this, I therefore propose that the "base system" be set at predetermined points along the progression path: mainly at 500 and 800. When a player reaches these point thresholds, a pop up should appear asking the player if they would like to "set up base" here to prevent them from going any lower than that point during the event.

The intention of this system is to address the frustrations of lower rosters. By "setting up base" they can continue playing towards the next reward point without fear that they will lose hundreds of points. It should put them just in range that the struggle will seem worthwhile and they may use Shields if they want to play it safe.

I don't think there should be a third base point as 1200 is the current final progression goal and should be more challenging.

I don't know how much a base should cost, but it should be set at a price point that does not devalue shields.

ZootSax

aesthetocyst said:

Scoring overall will inflate, and that always brings a crackdown of some kind. We've already had so many.

While in general I agree with most of your points, scoring at the top has been inflating for several seasons now without any meaningful crackdown.  In the most recent Falcon PVP, you needed 3,008 for top 10 in my bracket even though 575 pts was good enough for #65 and (at least with an hour to go) 200 pts was good enough for ~150.  

In most brackets I am in, just clearing three seeds for 101 pts is generally good enough for Top 250, if not Top 200.  Even if the specific answers here aren’t implemented, for the average player PVP might as well not exist, which probably should be addressed...

Stax the Foyer

I’d rather not see effort being put into the PvP side of things at this point.  I’d much rather see changes to a new or revamped PvE mode to make interesting fights that don’t rely on repetition or speed, and give meaningful rewards based on difficulty.

Seeing the same old patch pvp that we’ve been playing for years, and a pve that we’ve played over and over again, where we have to slog through 4 easy clears of the same node, some absolutely trivial, is a really good incentive to go play a different game.  

The core gameplay is fun on difficult fights, and the character powers are great.  We just don’t have a mode, other than boss fights, where we can really enjoy those aspects of the game.  I have hundreds of characters, and it only ever makes sense to use a handful, because almost every aspect of this game is a speed-based competition with other players.  

fight4thedream

aesthetocyst said:

Fight, fight, fight.

That's still the equivalent of the same old gag, the 'visible' shielded player.

If a player is a juicy target at 800pts to someone (and even a 5* team at 800 looks great to other players just starting the event, as they would be worth 75pts to them!), they'll start taking hits.

And if they can't lose points, or remove themselves from the target pool, those hits will continue coming. Faster and faster as they are fed into more and more players' qs. 

They will effectively be pinned down to the base, and have to shield anyway, as they won't be able to earn point faster than they are losing them. They'll just keep rubberbanding right back to their 'basecamp'.

It will for some players be a worse experience than now.

This is a point players complaining about pvp don't seem to realize: losing points is a mercy. If you lose points, the beating will end; If you can't lose points, the beating will go on until the clock runs out.

Not to mention the effects on the point economy. A bunch of players that have to fight their way up to 800 now able to remain visible and protect that score? Great. Stepping stones for everyone! Stepping stones multiplying like mushrooms! 

Why bother hitting your peers when you can break MMR and go all Gene Krupa on one of these unintentionally generous souls who establish 'camp' well above their float. It'll be like the resurrection of tapping comes to PvP. Sure, they'll be worth less and less as you climb, but since they can't fall, they'll hold relative value as a q better than they do today, and hey, hitting them is practically free.

Scoring overall will inflate, and that always brings a crackdown of some kind. We've already had so many.

Yay.

Hmmm... you make a compelling argument. I was hoping that the magic that is MMR would make players who would actually use the "base system" somewhat invisible to the oncoming 5* hordes or at least with enough experience learn to figure out when it would be "safe" to make a go for it. But considering the tales I have read on here, I can see that being an issue, aye.

I guess it's back to the drawing board!

ZeroKarma

I’d like to see more 4* PvP to break things up. Even if you create two events with cl6 and below getting 3* events. 

It it will change the player pools significantly of course and season scoring would be a problem.

Orion

ZeroKarma said:

I’d like to see more 4* PvP to break things up. Even if you create two events with cl6 and below getting 3* events. 

It it will change the player pools significantly of course and season scoring would be a problem.

I think this is where the game needs to go.  Scrap the 3* PvP and move everything to 4*s.  Lower CLs will use the loaner anyway, so it's not like they can't participate.  There's so many 4*s that I never use and this would be a way to get them all in the rotation.

Shintok17

ZeroKarma said:

I’d like to see more 4* PvP to break things up. Even if you create two events with cl6 and below getting 3* events. 

It it will change the player pools significantly of course and season scoring would be a problem.

No were good. I have nine 4*'s champed so the game's MMR system puts me against 4* champed boosted teams. I would rather drag around a champed 3* because of the PVP event than have to fight teams of three 4* boosted champs. 

Bowgentle

Shintok17 said:

ZeroKarma said:

I’d like to see more 4* PvP to break things up. Even if you create two events with cl6 and below getting 3* events. 

It it will change the player pools significantly of course and season scoring would be a problem.

No were good. I have nine 4*'s champed so the game's MMR system puts me against 4* champed boosted teams. I would rather drag around a champed 3* because of the PVP event than have to fight teams of three 4* boosted champs. 

No, that's where the game should have gone two years ago.

The game should be going towards 5* PVP in CL10 by now.

ZeroKarma

Shintok17 said:

ZeroKarma said:

I’d like to see more 4* PvP to break things up. Even if you create two events with cl6 and below getting 3* events. 

It it will change the player pools significantly of course and season scoring would be a problem.

No were good. I have nine 4*'s champed so the game's MMR system puts me against 4* champed boosted teams. I would rather drag around a champed 3* because of the PVP event than have to fight teams of three 4* boosted champs. 

Which is why I suggest having tiers. I get that some people are just champing 4* and 3* PvP is still very interesting. 

But for a large swath of the player base it is growing very, very stale. We have played Patch’s event 10 or more times and are now to the point where:

1. His green barely makes a dent compared to R&G
2. His yellow can’t heal to keep up with match damage
3. He doesn’t tank anything so his red is useless (can’t use red with Gambit anyways)
4. His health is low enough even when champed that chewing through it takes no time at all.

I can go through just about every single 3* and make a similar case. They contribute nothing to the event at higher tiers for 5* players. At least with 4* their powers scale so they can impact the fight.