On Bracketing and SHIELD Training

Unknown

mohio wrote:

theHappyDance wrote:

You shouldn't need to take a vacation from a casual game.

Playing devil's advocate here (and hopefully nicer than the next person would have been about it). You can play the game casually any time you want to, you just won't be able to compete for the top rewards. It's totally up to each individual player whether they want to play competitively or casually. You're asking for too much if you want to be able to play casually AND progress your roster at a decent pace. Can't have your cake and eat it too (and numerous other cliches that apply here).

End devil's advocate - I actually liked your post a lot and agree with most all of it.

I think it's partly a question of expectations. Outside of MPQ, match-3 is a casual format. Most people are coming to MPQ from other match-3 games. Maybe some of them are hardcore, and the devs seem to be pushing the game in that direction, but at least originally, it was a casually playable game. There are plenty of vets who've played the game casually since the beginning or pretty near it and have strong *** rosters. Partially, I think there's a difference in perception of what casual means. I think to most established vets, casual means being able to play the game without constantly grinding, being able to take a day or a week off without screwing your alliance (my alliance is awesome and don't push us, but we still try to make sure everyone gets their covers), or feeling like you've fallen so far behind that you have to grind for another month just to catch up.

And to reiterate, I have spent money on this game, and in this format, the way that it's SUPPOSED to work (caps for emphasis, not emotion), is that if you spend a bit of money, you rapidly advance your progress.

Before the sharding system, I'd spent some money on the game to help my progress along, and was just starting to get to the point where I could win PvP's without constant shield swapping, with a ~lvl 130 *** and supporting **'s. I put down some money into the game (a stark salary) at this point, and bought covers for a few of my ***'s, and here's the thing. Soon after, they implemented this sharding system. Now, even running 2 >100 ***'s I can no longer hit top 10, and usually only place top 50 playing the same amount that I was before the change. If I started shield swapping like crazy, maybe I could start hitting top 10 again, but I don't particularly want to spend all day babying my PvP ranking instead of focusing on real-life stuff.
I dropped a sizable amount of money on this game specifically so I could get up to speed quicker, and play more casually, and finally get to that *** promised land. And I was basically there. The change was pretty clear and I could finally play the game the way I wanted to and still progress. Then they implemented weighted sharding, and I haven't finished in the top 25 since, with scores that would've been sufficient to win me PvP's in first before. I have to grind more for a much worse ranking.

So while I agree with you that you can't have your cake and eat it to, I do think as a casual game they need to be slightly more accommodating to people who don't want to be pro or semi-pro gamers, and just want to maintain steady progress while they play for fun. We should be able to take a few days off or a week off, without losing significant ground. Every change so far has been to make it so that you have to grind increasingly more, and get less for it. Unless they want to pay people to play the game instead of the other way around, they need to stop trying to turn this into a full-time profession. We shouldn't have to play this game constantly, at all times of day, and schedule our lives around it, if we want to make any meaningful progress.

Unknown

I get what happened and why, but I'm sick and whiney and just want to bemoan the fact that I can't place at a decent rank with over 900 pts. I mean, D3 changed the rewards ranking too, let's not forget that. I don't know how I'm supposed to progress now. I spent $$ in a short amount of time so that's not happening again for a while and while I'm making ISO to level the covers I won before the change, it's slow going. Also I mean, I miss the endorphin rush from all the cool winnings. Y'all got me hooked on the hard stuff and then switched it out for baking soda.*

WHAR R MY ENDORPHINS?!

* That's a terrible analogy. Apologies. I'm not at my best tonight.

tbighead21

Close to being "burnt out" like the someone else said ^^^. Lost 120 pts in the middle of just one match. Finished with over 800 and still couldn't finish in the top 50. I probably have a better chance by starting over. Smh...

Unknown

As someone who is 100 days today - and still feels somewhat like one of the newcomers these updates are supposed to help - I just want to say that my last 5 or 6 brackets have been zero fun.

I spent my first month or so just playing the story mode, so I guess I got a little bit of a late start, but until recently I didn't feel that had held me back too much. Since starting multi-player I have played religiously; I've played smart and learnt the game’s ins and outs; I joined a good alliance that has reached cover tiers in every event; I have gotten in a pattern of waking in the middle of the night to finish events: I have even dropped money in to attempt to gain some ground on the veterans – something I seldom do on FTP games.

I think my progress has been pretty fast, but my roster is still pretty small and weak compared to most. My setup for most PVP is max LazyThor, OBW and whatever the third is. Since I concentrated on a few key chars and these are 2 of my only maxed characters, whatever the third is, is usually in the 20’s-40’s, level wise.
This paints a massive target on my back when I get to the 700+ zone and anything above 900pts is an absolute slog during which I’m getting attacked and losing points nearly as fast as I’m gaining them.

This was okay before the update. Getting to 950+ and shielding is just about doable, it always guaranteed me 3 covers, and sometimes a little extra iso/hp by being top 5. I felt like I was still progressing. Now, however, I feel I’m making the opposite of progress.

In the last 5-6 brackets, 900+ has landed me way outside of the top 10. On the loki event, since I'm fairly new and don’t have a Loki, and because I couldn't devote the usual 3-4 hours to the event, I only managed 840ish points and consequently didn't even make top 50. This meant I only got the 1 alliance IM40 cover, which, as these were the first IM40 rewards I've seen since starting, is now my only IM40 cover. This, in turn, meant that in the just finished heavy metal event I was also at a massive disadvantage and barely squeaked top 50 (#46), even though I shield hopped to 950ish.

It is incredibly depressing to stare at a top 10 that consists of 1100+ veterans - very few of whom actually need the covers being rewarded. It feels like I’m on a slippery slope in which these people pull ever further ahead, while in every event I do a little bit worse meaning I’m less prepared for the next. It feels, at this point, that the only way I can possibly compete is to put more money in - which I am not willing to do for a game that I am seriously considering quitting.

I came to this game for something to do in the odd half hour between work, but I enjoyed it enough to devote more time at getting good. I had set aside £10 a month for the game, because I figured my enjoyment was worth that much, but it will lose its appeal very fast if things continue as they are

Zifna

scottee wrote:

That's my point though. People figured it out and, therefore, were not in limbo. The announcement that it happened didn't change anything. The forum was 100% certain a change had occurred, even before the announcement. People just want an official notice, that doesn't change anything about the game, so they can feel better about themselves. "Aha! I knew it!"

It's very important to receive an official announcement, because until you get one you don't know if it's going to say:

"Looks like we made a mistake in our bracketing code! It's meant to do X, but it's instead doing Y, which is causing that effect you see - it should be back to normal next patch."

or

"This is completely intentional, get used to it."

Linkster79

I habe been thinking, and I have come to a stark realisation. These changes would be making a better more challenging amd more fun game if just one more thing was added. Player vs Player amd not Player vs Artificial Low Intelligence. That would also alleviate several other common complaints like losing 200+ points while you win a match worth 20. Sadly this system would make shields a thing of the past so probably not a great idea. The guy who came up with the concept of getting players to pay money to NOT play their game has paid his or her own salary several times over.

over_clocked

Nah getting everything to work for actual PvP costs money. And no one would want to wait 5-10 minutes for their match to end.

Unknown

I really like this game, but this change very well could get me to quit. It's not like I'm super pissed or anything, I'm just discouraged. Since the bracketing changes I haven't been able to place top 50 in a PVP event. Since I have a complete 2* roster that is my only possibility to advance. If I can't advance playing is no fun.

I've never been a top 10 player (I think I have gotten top 10 once, that was before seasons for prizes most people didn't care about), but I'm happy with slow progress. Getting 1 3* cover a tourney is fine by me. But scores that used to land me in top 25 range haven't even been getting me in top 100 lately. It's really discouraging, I can't really push to make up that difference.

Someone commented above that you can just play for 2 hours to get 900 points then shield. That doesn't work for me, I don't play in bursts like that, I play when I have a few minutes here and there throughout the day. That has worked fine as long as I had modest goals in the past, but no more. It seems that at this point the only way for me to do better is to rearrange my real life stuff around so that I can play more, I'm not going to do that.

I know that game mechanics change all the time, hopefully they will either revert this to the old system or tweak it so it isn't quite so punishing. I'll give them a bit more time to get it right, but if too many more tourneys go by where I get nothing out of it I'm just not going to feel like logging in anymore. It's not like I'm trying to make some statement or something, but I enjoy this game in the collecting/roster building aspect. If I can't progress at all in that direction I will have no motivation to play.

IceIX, if you are seeing this, please reconsider the new bracketing. I'm sure it was intended to be a slight nudge, but it clearly is not. I have been in enough painful brackets to discard the idea that I have just been unlucky, and I also find it hard to believe that everyone started pushing way harder for season 1 at exactly the same time that this change happened. The change was clearly more than was intended. These things happen, I don't see it as that big of a deal that things were screwed up for a bit, but it needs to be fixed.

over_clocked

It seems like things have changed yet again, or have gone to 'normal'. Seeing tons of 2x 85 teams in the current tourney (not that they have any points to speak of though lol). My bracket itself looks fairly normal, I only see one forumite I know there.

Unknown

locked, I don't know, my top 10 starts at 815 and with 17h to go, I expect it to rise to almost 1k again...7 players are in lvl 141 land, one is getting there and two more (me and another one) have lvl 85 rosters - I'm not shielded, I only wanted to get 900 points progression rewards, so I'll drop out of it within the hour no doubt. In my earlier rankings I also saw more transitioning 3* players and zero 1* or 1*->2*. I'd say I'm still in a bracket with (only?) mostly 2* and 3* players.

Unknown

Well with 16 hours to go my bracket runs from 900 to 1165 for the top 10. It would be harder to comment on this bracket though because it is getting close to season one end and people are probably more keen for the 1100 reward than normal. That said I imagine a 1k score will end well outside the top 10 when all is said and done. Assuming you're still getting going to get brackets with winning scores in the 800s there's no way that so many 1k+ scorers would end up in 1 bracket with none at all in another by "slight" weighting...

I guess we'll have to see if anyone sees low scoring brackets still.

Unknown

Def not back to normal. I think its gotten worse tbh. I never got attacked so much in such a short space of time. That happened 3 times, and I'm only at 800. The game is getting worse by the day. I hate to think what the next change will bring. *shudders*

Unknown

TheUnwiseOne wrote:

Def not back to normal. I think its gotten worse tbh. I never got attacked so much in such a short space of time. That happened 3 times, and I'm only at 800. The game is getting worse by the day. I hate to think what the next change will bring. *shudders*

I really don't know, seems like all my hits were coming from Spidey teams. It's just odd. Why weren't those teams hitting me in every other pvp? I've routinely put out more squishy teams than a near max Daken and max Thor/Hood so something is up. Just weird.

Unknown

So this time around, I tried actually shielding again, just to see if it's still feasible with shield hopping. It isn't. I was unshielded for no more than 20-30 minutes while I got off a few matches, and was down ~80 points from where I started when I reshielded, and got hit another 5 times afterwards. Playing twice as many matches and getting no higher in ranking than I used to with weaker characters, is plain no fun. I'm almost certainly done with this game once season 1 is over. They want to restructure their game to make people used to tons of microtransactions, fine. That's their choice, but the ways things are, there's just about no reason for me to keep playing.

morgh

locked wrote:

Nah getting everything to work for actual PvP costs money. And no one would want to wait 5-10 minutes for their match to end.

Well Hearthstone works beautifully and it contains TRUE PvP (which sometimes could be faster, true, but it is definitely way more complicated then this game )

Unknown

All of you do realize that you're not going to get a response now because the conversation got relevant?

HailMary

Yep, this was the most annoying PVP I recall ever playing. Seeing Punpun + OBW from the outset is no longer a novelty, but my 141 LT + CMags team dropping from 800+ to 650 in 60 minutes is new. After grinding back up to 850, putting in max LT + Hulk slowed the onslaught: it took a whole two hours to drop back down to the 650s. Ugh.

kensterr

For people asking OBW to be nerfed - lets put it this way. LD/LT/OBW loses easily on defense. I only got 1 out of 10 defensive wins running OBW/LT combo with featured PVP character. So yeah, new bracketing and MMR sux big time.

Unknown

HailMary wrote:

Yep, this was the most annoying PVP I recall ever playing. Seeing Punpun + OBW from the outset is no longer a novelty, but my 141 LT + CMags team dropping from 800+ to 650 in 60 minutes is new. After grinding back up to 850, putting in max LT + Hulk slowed the onslaught: it took a whole two hours to drop back down to the 650s. Ugh.

Yeah, shield hopping like crazy, I was able to break 1k by a hair. Still missed top 10, and the Daken reward at 1100. !st time I broke 1k, but still not particularly pleased with the new system. These point scores I've been getting are in-line with what I would expect to have been getting before the sharding (e.g. - 800-950 or so only shielding at end, 1000-1100 with both ***'s burning through health packs and shields).

I really thought I was done shield-hopping when I started building my *** roster, and that it would just be a temporary thing to transition into *** land. So I have the capability if I drop a bit of hp on shields to place okay, with a lot of luck, but I'm not sure that's enough to keep me playing this game. It also means grinding about 15-20 extra matches vs the old way, where 800+ often got you top 10, and which I could comfortably do without grinding too hard or going nuts with shields. Probably would get better payouts by playing the lottery or slot machines...

HailMary

theHappyDance wrote:

!st time I broke 1k, but still not particularly pleased with the new system.

Congrats!

theHappyDance wrote:

These point scores I've been getting are in-line with what I would expect to have been getting before the sharding (e.g. - 800-950 or so only shielding at end, 1000-1100 with both ***'s burning through health packs and shields).

As of two PVPs ago, I was able to hit 1000+ with only a single concluding shield and a 2x141 team. Previous PVP: had to throw up a shield at 950. This PVP? 3 3-hour shields to cross the 1100 barrier, and I was apparently one of the luckier ones. Oy.

theHappyDance wrote:

I really thought I was done shield-hopping when I started building my *** roster, and that it would just be a temporary thing to transition into *** land. So I have the capability if I drop a bit of hp on shields to place okay, with a lot of luck, but I'm not sure that's enough to keep me playing this game. It also means grinding about 15-20 extra matches vs the old way, where 800+ often got you top 10, and which I could comfortably do without grinding too hard or going nuts with shields. Probably would get better payouts by playing the lottery or slot machines...

The new veterancy-based sharding is a total b----. This is the first time I've needed to legitimately shield-hop, first shielding in the 960s, then 1050, then a few defensive wins and a couple of quick wins later, shielding above 1100.

Just about every Djangolier was in a bracket where, at minimum, Top 5 was 1000+ -- most of their brackets ended up with Top 10 > 1000 (as did mine, where Top 5 was 1100+) Meanwhile, two of us have relatives with low/mid-tier rosters who had ridiculous newbie brackets: 763 was good for #1 in one, and high 600+ was good for #7 in the other. Utterly ridiculous.