On Bracketing and SHIELD Training

bat_239

Did they introduce bracketing for PVE as well? Or it's just me being paranoic?

Unknown

So I just noticed something the other day in my alliance chat. I don't think days played really has anything to do with the brackets. I think it's more season points than anything (I know a lot of people were speculating on this). Here is a quick example. This first bracket is of one of our members who has multiple 141's and is on day 190 This second one is of another guy in our alliance who is around the same amount of days and has 141's but actually a lot less than Danny. The difference? Danny only has 5000 points in season while entropic has 13000. It seems that they are putting all the grinders into the same brackets to form these crazy death brackets to (I assume) get more spent on boosts and shields. This change is just so dumb. Everyone is already burnt out as it is but to then lump all your most loyal players into impossible brackets is just stupid. We need the time based bracket back! Come on Ice, you have been way too quiet lately. All of the evidence is showing this is straight manipulation of brackets and not just simple "bad luck" or "gentle push". If you aren't going to revert back at least own up to the change and give us exact specifics instead of random speculation. Stop punishing progress before we all quit.

Unknown

sms4002 wrote:

So I just noticed something the other day in my alliance chat. I don't think days played really has anything to do with the brackets. I think it's more season points than anything (I know a lot of people were speculating on this). Here is a quick example. This first bracket is of one of our members who has multiple 141's and is on day 190 This second one is of another guy in our alliance who is around the same amount of days and has 141's but actually a lot less than Danny. The difference? Danny only has 5000 points in season while entropic has 13000. It seems that they are putting all the grinders into the same brackets to form these crazy death brackets to (I assume) get more spent on boosts and shields. This change is just so dumb. Everyone is already burnt out as it is but to then lump all your most loyal players into impossible brackets is just stupid. We need the time based bracket back! Come on Ice, you have been way too quiet lately. All of the evidence is showing this is straight manipulation of brackets and not just simple "bad luck" or "gentle push". If you aren't going to revert back at least own up to the change and give us exact specifics instead of random speculation. Stop punishing progress before we all quit.

They probably have it go by the weighted day count, or weighted season score, whichever is lower. So if you're a new player they want to get you "used" to winning / progressing so they can start charging you an arm and a leg later. And if you're an older, less active player, they want to encourage you to start playing more, on premise that you'll spend more if you're more "engaged".

One solution would be to not play most PvPs (and PvEs) unless you like the rewards. The difficulty in doing that is most PvE's are set up to introduce new characters, so you do need to have those covers if you want to keep getting the new 3-stars, assuming you actually want them. Then again, if we collectively stop playing as much to drive down their "user participation numbers", it might no longer be necessary to be able to have access to the essential nodes to be competitive, and then they might listen if participation drops, though I'd be highly skeptical if us forumites are anything more than a drop in the bucket, in terms of overall player population.

DD-The-Mighty

sms4002 wrote:

So I just noticed something the other day in my alliance chat. I don't think days played really has anything to do with the brackets. I think it's more season points than anything (I know a lot of people were speculating on this). Here is a quick example. This first bracket is of one of our members who has multiple 141's and is on day 190 This second one is of another guy in our alliance who is around the same amount of days and has 141's but actually a lot less than Danny. The difference? Danny only has 5000 points in season while entropic has 13000. It seems that they are putting all the grinders into the same brackets to form these crazy death brackets to (I assume) get more spent on boosts and shields. This change is just so dumb. Everyone is already burnt out as it is but to then lump all your most loyal players into impossible brackets is just stupid. We need the time based bracket back! Come on Ice, you have been way too quiet lately. All of the evidence is showing this is straight manipulation of brackets and not just simple "bad luck" or "gentle push". If you aren't going to revert back at least own up to the change and give us exact specifics instead of random speculation. Stop punishing progress before we all quit.

I purposely don't grind, and aviod top results to avoid this nonsense. This is the 1st game i have ever played that made me actively not want to ever do well. I play mobile so its easier to just get a couple matches here and there and a session in the afternoon. I find it interesting and a little sickening that they are using anti-cheat tactics to filter out perceived "grinders" and shove them in a sandbox. All for the same rewards as the "non grinders" and the hopes that they can get them to buy/bleed out their HP.

and you may want to readjust that number, as I am in death brackets but seasonally i only have 6607 points. My PVE scaling is right at the reasonable threshold in individual battle levels, but my leader-board bracketing puts be up against some of the meanest grinders this side of the hemisphere. So there may be a lesser unknown PVE scale that is in there as well. Or the range for death brackets may be wider than you think.

HailMary wrote:

DD-The-Mighty wrote:

Apparently a lot of folks like the taste of the Kool-aid.
This is my bracket top 10 for tourney featuring a 3* minimum of easily the least desired Psylocke colour.

This #1 shielded X-Men member there has a 141 Daken amongst many maxed 3s and delightful a 250 IW and Xforce and a fully capped Psylocke.
As you can see he likes to start the party off with a bang.

And there are still 2 days left.

I... don't understand who you're referring to with the "Kool-Aid" line. You seem to be agreeing with me.

fluid_dance wrote:

Sorry about that, I try not to do that, but I really wanted to get lazy daken and two lazy thor covers. Hopefully you were shielded for at least one of my attacks?

Heh, no problem. I was shielded for all of your attacks. And yeah, the rewards for that PVP were great, so it's totes understandable.

Its a political line i always hear.
I meant that players don't like the system (the Kool-aid) but they continue to dominate even under increasingly adverse conditions, because -for whatever reason- the can't not compete and win/dominate (hence liking the taste of the "kool-aid"). Specifically to the image I posted; there is little to no reason -beyond a last few thousand points before the season ends- for the top player in my bracket to even be there. they literally don't need any of the covers offered, and i find at that level iso and HP rewards negligible. I assume they're 1# and shielded simply, because they can.

Subcore wrote:

DD-The-Mighty wrote:

~snip. (same quote as above)

I just checked mine and 4 of the top 8 are shielded as well. Number 1 being at 840 points. Never seen that amount so fast as well.

mine is now at 1284 and shielded with the next 4 underneath at a range of 750+ all shielded.

Unknown

theHappyDance wrote:

They probably have it go by the weighted day count, or weighted season score, whichever is lower. So if you're a new player they want to get you "used" to winning / progressing so they can start charging you an arm and a leg later. And if you're an older, less active player, they want to encourage you to start playing more, on premise that you'll spend more if you're more "engaged".

One solution would be to not play most PvPs (and PvEs) unless you like the rewards. The difficulty in doing that is most PvE's are set up to introduce new characters, so you do need to have those covers if you want to keep getting the new 3-stars, assuming you actually want them. Then again, if we collectively stop playing as much to drive down their "user participation numbers", it might no longer be necessary to be able to have access to the essential nodes to be competitive, and then they might listen if participation drops, though I'd be highly skeptical if us forumites are anything more than a drop in the bucket, in terms of overall player population.

I dont see it. You know, we are lumped in 2000 at a time (sometimes more) into a bracket where not everyone can get covers. If, they have 500,000 active (considering 2 million downloads), only a portion of that, after you factor in initial release rewards, roster space, alliance rewards actually have the "new cover" for the essential nodes. And those that do, are usually the "more competitive ones" to begin with.

So, they dont really have a choice.

Problem: New player wants to play, is motivated and if he/she is constantly locked out of rewards because the "essential nodes" are not available, interest goes down the toilet fast.

Solution: Group together the "hard core" and mke them compete (sometimes to the death) with each other. They (the hardcore/older/most competitive) will therefore lock themselves out of rewards. Group together the "new guys" and let them girly slap each other for rewards. This balances it out and allows others to compete in other tournaments, etc. This than creates a new set of problems.

The older players who feel it is owed to them to be able to pwn the tinykitty out of all events are now faced with:
A. Ridiculous Scaling in PvE, I.E. 3 x 395s
B. Completely unhealthy and unbalanced teams in PvP, I.E. Maxed 141s + maxed and buffed fetaured caracter.

This only leads to more frustration from the older player base, who are likely not spending as much money anymore, because they are easily farming ISO and HP in tournament after tournament...

Where the new people all wide-eyed and wanting to spend to "be one of those uber players with a decked out roster" until they see the other side of the coin... see points A and B above. Until, they themselves become the frustrated, burnt out players...

Unknown

Tonzil wrote:

Where the new people all wide-eyed and wanting to spend to "be one of those uber players with a decked out roster" until they see the other side of the coin... see points A and B above. Until, they themselves become the frustrated, burnt out players...

I have no problem for new people to want decked out rosters or even have easy brackets. One problem that I have is how can you give an easy bracket the same reward as a hard one. I don't think I've seen a game that a low level can win the same this consistently as a high level. There should to be some kind of continuity for progression.

If the success of a gaming company is to give everyone the same prize, most games would have failed because there is always some type of progression. Regardless if it's for a card, weapon, car or any other type of prize. Randomly get that deluxe prize, ok. But, having every tournament allow a low tier team win the same or better than a high tier team is very short sited.

Unknown

I think a solution is to ignore placement for most rewards and focus on point totals. These are naturally competitive anyway since getting to a certain point total in PVP requires you to have a strong team that wins more matches than it loses against players with similar point totals (and using boosts/shields to supplement). Bracketing this out and competing for top slots just creates all kinds of unfairness by making one persons hard earned points worth less than someone else's purely because they've been assigned a different bracket.

With my lineup (lots of maxed 2* with every 3* sub-100) I tend to hit a soft-cap of about 900 points in PVP, I start seeing teams that I beat with less frequency and I get hit faster and faster as I get in range of people that can beat me quickly. I'm fine with this, I just feel like I am at the mercy of the bracketing gods as to whether that 900 points gets me a top 10 and a couple of 3* covers, or pushes me out of the top 50 which leaves me with just ISO.

If the developers just set more of the 3* cover rewards to come from point totals (or progression rewards) instead of ranking then all of a sudden I'd have a reliable progression target to aim for rather than just crossing my fingers and hoping for an easy bracket.

Bracketing and ranking is fine, just make it more about competition, ISO/HP rewards and alliance rank, and less about essential covers so we don't feel anywhere near as crippled by being put into a tough bracket.

I'd like to just enjoy playing the game and progress, rather than being frustrated and increasing the complexity of my tanking routine in order to get anywhere.

Unknown

dongtackler wrote:

I think a solution is to ignore placement for most rewards and focus on point totals. These are naturally competitive anyway since getting to a certain point total in PVP requires you to have a strong team that wins more matches than it loses against players with similar point totals (and using boosts/shields to supplement). Bracketing this out and competing for top slots just creates all kinds of unfairness by making one persons hard earned points worth less than someone else's purely because they've been assigned a different bracket.

With my lineup (lots of maxed 2* with every 3* sub-100) I tend to hit a soft-cap of about 900 points in PVP, I start seeing teams that I beat with less frequency and I get hit faster and faster as I get in range of people that can beat me quickly. I'm fine with this, I just feel like I am at the mercy of the bracketing gods as to whether that 900 points gets me a top 10 and a couple of 3* covers, or pushes me out of the top 50 which leaves me with just ISO.

If the developers just set more of the 3* cover rewards to come from point totals (or progression rewards) instead of ranking then all of a sudden I'd have a reliable progression target to aim for rather than just crossing my fingers and hoping for an easy bracket.

Bracketing and ranking is fine, just make it more about competition, ISO/HP rewards and alliance rank, and less about essential covers so we don't feel anywhere near as crippled by being put into a tough bracket.

I'd like to just enjoy playing the game and progress, rather than being frustrated and increasing the complexity of my tanking routine in order to get anywhere.

This was perfect with the time based entries I would say. Unless you got unlucky or joined right in the beginning maybe, 900 points was almost a guaranteed top 10. Now they feel the need to put all of us in the same brackets so 900 is barely enough for top 50 anymore. This problem does not need any sort of crazy new or complex solution, it just needs to be reverted back.

Unknown

If anything, this catering to newcomers is a sad statement on our society. Nowadays, people feel entitled to everything. Growing up playing the classic games, I expected to start out with a **** team and have to work to make progress. I wasn't bummed out that I couldn't win 3* characters, and I didn't play anything outside of the prologue for longer than I should have, as I believed those were the training missions you needed to get through to have a good enough team to compete in PVE/PVP. I'm not saying that new players should be completely locked out of the better rewards, but come on. You know they wouldn't be making it easier for low rosters if they didn't have this entitled mentality and jump ship if they aren't rocking events two weeks in. (Disclaimer, I know that not all of the newer players necessarily have this mentality).

Unknown

fluid_dance wrote:

If anything, this catering to newcomers is a sad statement on our society. Nowadays, people feel entitled to everything. Growing up playing the classic games, I expected to start out with a **** team and have to work to make progress. I wasn't bummed out that I couldn't win 3* characters, and I didn't play anything outside of the prologue for longer than I should have, as I believed those were the training missions you needed to get through to have a good enough team to compete in PVE/PVP. I'm not saying that new players should be completely locked out of the better rewards, but come on. You know they wouldn't be making it easier for low rosters if they didn't have this entitled mentality and jump ship if they aren't rocking events two weeks in. (Disclaimer, I know that not all of the newer players necessarily have this mentality).

When I was coming up as a new player, it was fine. I saw mostly 2* and mStorm teams in PvP, and I could push to get 2 or 3 2* covers I needed.

So, d3p changed everything to remove those rewards and now people can just see everyone, so new people saw lots of 3* teams waaaay above their capability level, and for that they could get ONE 2* cover?

It has nothing to do with "feeling entitled," it has to do with d3p making a willful decision to block them from progressing. And then, surprise, new players got frustrated that they couldn't progress. And d3p, misinterpreting what is happening in true d3p fashion, decided that what the new players need is an easier way to get 3* covers that won't do them any good anyways

Unknown

fluid_dance wrote:

If anything, this catering to newcomers is a sad statement on our society. Nowadays, people feel entitled to everything. Growing up playing the classic games, I expected to start out with a **** team and have to work to make progress. I wasn't bummed out that I couldn't win 3* characters, and I didn't play anything outside of the prologue for longer than I should have, as I believed those were the training missions you needed to get through to have a good enough team to compete in PVE/PVP. I'm not saying that new players should be completely locked out of the better rewards, but come on. You know they wouldn't be making it easier for low rosters if they didn't have this entitled mentality and jump ship if they aren't rocking events two weeks in. (Disclaimer, I know that not all of the newer players necessarily have this mentality).

Yeah you're right. They reverse the logic, zero is hero and hero is zero... The longer I play the more difficult to win anything (and last few weeks impossible). It's natural only in hollywood movies where after 1-2days of training someone kill well trained soldiers like flies.

Unknown

Only been playing for a few months, very casually - maybe an hour or two a day, some days I don't play at all. I am working on my 2*s and grabbing the random 3* when I can (which is almost always as a token reward). I have no 85s, but my Aries and modern Storm (I think, the one with the blue AOE) are staples right now, and they are up around 70.

A couple weeks ago, I felt I was being fairly competitive. I could shoot up to #1 early, depending on when the event started, and then I would start getting knocked back. I could usually finish around 30th, or if I pushed hard before it ended maybe in top 20, 10 if I'm really lucky.

Now - I burn through all my health packs and get to maybe top 50, then within an hour I've been hit for over 100, sometimes more. This probably ain't jack for you veterans who I assume are burning through matches (maybe?), but for me, I can't even regain the position by burning through my health packs. I usually finish somewhere in top 200, in every single event. Even on days where I have the time to push, I am super lucky to break the top 100. I don't use shields - and maybe that's the key also. But why am I going to shield up if I'm currently ranked 75th?

I certainly don't expect to be "handed" my ranking, please don't assume that - I'm just pointing out how the experience has changed for someone who maybe isn't as hardcore as many of the others here, who are (as with every game), the more vocal players.

I still consider myself a newb, so please take my comments with a grain of salt

Unknown

So this is what is happening...
I dont have any 3 stars maxed out ... Did 901 points in krak for the #23 spot ... had to use 2 shields. In the psylocke pvp I cant even attack people because they are all 141 ....
A friend of mine that plays way before than me (more than 100 days ago) but plays like 20 minutes a day just said he got #4 in krakadom event ... He didnt shield nor he played in the last 4 hours of the event ... also he did 544 points ....
He is on day 150 btw ...
My 2 cents ...
either you sum the maximum level of the top 2 chars + the level of the pvp char (lets say 100 for steve rogers , 100 for hulk and 23 for psylocke) and get 223 and match people with 223 or less , or you will make hardcore people sad and newbies happy

Unknown

Dinaek wrote:

Only been playing for a few months, very casually - maybe an hour or two a day, some days I don't play at all. I am working on my 2*s and grabbing the random 3* when I can (which is almost always as a token reward). I have no 85s, but my Aries and modern Storm (I think, the one with the blue AOE) are staples right now, and they are up around 70.

A couple weeks ago, I felt I was being fairly competitive. I could shoot up to #1 early, depending on when the event started, and then I would start getting knocked back. I could usually finish around 30th, or if I pushed hard before it ended maybe in top 20, 10 if I'm really lucky.

Now - I burn through all my health packs and get to maybe top 50, then within an hour I've been hit for over 100, sometimes more. This probably ain't jack for you veterans who I assume are burning through matches (maybe?), but for me, I can't even regain the position by burning through my health packs. I usually finish somewhere in top 200, in every single event. Even on days where I have the time to push, I am super lucky to break the top 100. I don't use shields - and maybe that's the key also. But why am I going to shield up if I'm currently ranked 75th?

I certainly don't expect to be "handed" my ranking, please don't assume that - I'm just pointing out how the experience has changed for someone who maybe isn't as hardcore as many of the others here, who are (as with every game), the more vocal players.

I still consider myself a newb, so please take my comments with a grain of salt

So you only play an hour or two a day? That is relatively casual, yeah. Unfortunately, Devs have made it clear that casual has no place in this game anymore once you leave 1* land. Your choices are either pony up $, shut up and accept it, or leave

Unknown

gobstopper wrote:

So you only play an hour or two a day? That is relatively casual, yeah. Unfortunately, Devs have made it clear that casual has no place in this game anymore once you leave 1* land. Your choices are either pony up $, shut up and accept it, or leave

Correct. I work full time and have a family. I get to play maybe 30 mins when I come home to unwind, then I don't get to play again, usually until around 10:00pm, and then it's for an hour, two tops. Weekends I get more time if I don't have family/yard stuff to do - but I usually do have things to do.

I dropped my first $50 a few weeks ago during one of the sales, and did "ok". Certainly not $50 worth - but I figured, this is the only game I'm playing right now due to time constraints, and it works great for something I open up and play a few rounds and then go on about my day.

Prior logic meant even though I didn't play all day long, I could still be competitive, but I would never expect to see a top 5 finish unless I was in very weak bracket. If I happened to be a in bracket with some vets, then I would drop some.

And now, on the few times I can actually grind up to spot 50 or so, I am then stuck skipping through teams of all 141s. My highest level char is Aries I think, at like level 75. come on..really?

I think there is a definite issue with the bracket assignments. How can I even have a shot at anything except **** 1*, or the very rare 2*s if the top 50 is all 141s and just constantly farming the "lowbies", like me.

I see the same thing happening in the reverse on my second account (on my phone). have a few level 25 1*s and I'm constantly fighting against teams with all level 6s. It's easy for me, but I imagine those new players are getting just as frustrated as I am on my main account.

Unknown

I play my son's account once in a while to help him out and he has only one 3* above 85 (Shieldbro) at 105. He has a pretty strong 2* team, but he's getting into brackets with top 10 being >1000. I managed in Krakadoom to get him to about 850 which was enough to get him to about #40. I had to shield hop to do it, though. He would get matched up with 141s about half the time I was skipping and when unshielded he was getting hit by 3* teams so retals were difficult. His account is more casual and yet his MMR is matching him with some very tough teams and getting top 10 would be very costly with shield hopping. Which I expect is D3's intent. They're trying to squeeze every last hero point out of us they can.

They used to be pretty generous with rewards, but they've cut those valves off now. I don't know what was wrong with the old bracketing. Top 5 might have had high scores, but at least a player felt they could reach top 10 or top 25 with reasonable effort. Now...forget about it. Unless you're willing to go hardcore on an event expect to be out of 3* reward territory unless you're a green player.

kalex716

What bugs me most about this is, i'm in no way hardcore.... I've been a 2* guy trying to transition to 3* for an incredibly long time now and I have to focus my efforts accordingly...

When an event comes up with a 3* that i'm about 4-5 covers away from max, I need to be able to try my hardest in these particular events to pick at least one of them up. With the way things are now, if I 'randomly' enter a harder bracket, I can't guarantee success even if I go all out. It does me no good.

This happend to me in the last Psylocke event, who I'm desperately trying to max cause i'm about 4 covers away (she is a poor mans punisher, if you happened to have been picking up her covers instead of pun). Got put in one that was way too difficult. I'm getting disillusioned with this game, and if I can't even reliably pick and choose when to push hard for a meaningful reward from time to time, it just hastens my declining interest.

Vinmarc43

THIS GAME WILL FAIL EVENTUALLY, USELESS TO GO ON, YOU ARE ALWAYS TO WEAK EVEN WITH 141`S, ITS A BULLY SYSTEM, IF YOU PAY YOU WILL HAVE THE ADVANTAGE, IF NOT, YOU WILL GRIND UNTIL YOUR MENTALLY BURNOUT OR LIKE ME, DESTROY MY MOUSE, PHONE,DESK....NEXT IS TO DELETE THE MF.

Bowgentle

Vinmarc43 wrote:

THIS GAME WILL FAIL EVENTUALLY, USELESS TO GO ON, YOU ARE ALWAYS TO WEAK EVEN WITH 141`S, ITS A BULLY SYSTEM, IF YOU PAY YOU WILL HAVE THE ADVANTAGE, IF NOT, YOU WILL GRIND UNTIL YOUR MENTALLY BURNOUT OR LIKE ME, DESTROY MY MOUSE, PHONE,DESK....NEXT IS TO DELETE THE MF.

Well, your caps lock still seems to be working.

Unknown

After suffering through this gameplay change for the past 2-3 weeks, I can safely say that sharding is the worst decision they've made thus far.

At least with nerfs, rubberbanding, mmr, Hood-style point systems, enemy level scaling etc etc you could 'play around' those decisions and lessen the frustrations. This one you have no choice but to sit in the shite and like it.