Is it me, or is the bracketing and MMR destroying the game

kensterr

For FA I got into a bracket whereby #1 is a player who got to over 1100 points with 4 maxed ** stars - all the *** stars are below level 70. I don't know what to make of my bracket and MMR.

morgh

Changes are absolutely mandatory. Period.
I think that everyone agrees and I did not see a person who would think otherwise.
The thing that matters now is: how many people are actually going to stop playing before the devs finally do something that reasonable

Vohnkar

I've been more than a month without tanking, I stopped tanking before the changes made to the systems to see if I could place top 50 without having to tank. I was able to continually get to 700-800 points, sometimes it was difficult, but I managed to get there. using boosts from 700+ because 100+ started to appear and I'm 2x85. Since the changes I've been in brackets where top 10 was 1k+ and 700 points was top 150 or so with any luck, and not being top 50 is worthless for me, I can only progress if I get to top 50 and get the 3* covers.

Until now I had to grind and boosts sometimes, but I could manage to get top 50 and even top5 if I played a lot and ended in an "easy" bracket. I've been out of top 100 on the last events, using more boosts and shields than ever. Ok, I accepted that I can not always get to top 50, so I though after losing or getting bad results in some events I would be able to place well in some event... NOPE. On heavy metal I got to 600 points and started to get hit hard by 100+ teams. I played a match, won 25-30 points and lost 50. I lost more than 200 points in an hour. On dakens event is even more dificult, I did last night some matches to get me to 600 points, today I have 450 and half the teams that attacked me are 100+ so I can't retaliate without boosts, and even with boosts I'll have a hard time beating them just to be retaliated again.

I'll try to climb again and get to 700-800 points to see if I can get a single LThor cover, but I see I'm not progressing anymore and its getting more frustrating every event I play. I'm not asking to get covers for free, I'm playing A LOT! and see my **** handed to me on every event by maxed characters, I can't tank to get easier encounters, I've been consistently getting bad results top100 at most and my MMR seems to think I can win any decent reward being paired with those rosters. Then I see the top ladders and sometimes people without even maxed 2* are there getting 2 3*... awesome.

Arg, sorry for the rant, I'm just frustrated to see that the 2 hours climb of yesterday had been evaporated and I can't retaliate almost any team without boosts. I'm hoping they revert all this **** changes, the game was fine as it was before the MMR/brackets changes and everything else they did.

Unknown

Interruptor wrote:

SamBC wrote:

Have shields started affecting matchmaking? Lately I've been going a while without being attacked while shielded, I unshield and rapidly get attacked several times while making one attack myself. At times that used to be fairly quiet.

I think the way it works is when you shield, only players who already had you in their queue can attack you, like retaliations and saved nodes. Once you enter a match and drop shields you appear in people's queue again. Again if I'm wrong someone correct me.

Don't think that's the case with shields. I had the same player attack me 3 times while I had a shield in a span of 30 minutes. Before, you could get 2, maybe 3 fights in after you broke your shield. Now, you're lucky to get one in there and I have yet to get attacked by someone that takes less points than I just gained (ie, won a fight worth 20 pts but got attacked and lost 40).

If they had tiers of fighting, this would be controlled. In other words, If you only have 120 pts, you can't attack someone with 400 points. Seems most are upset at the I win twice but get attacked 7 times during that span and gain 40 pts for wins while losing 200 for attacks. The tier fighting at least would give you a better chance of breaking even, not getting smacked around. It would also prevent players with stacked teams making a run 6 hours before tourney ends since it would take quite a bit longer to get to top 10 while only getting 20 point gains per fight instead of 40+.

Unknown

PvP has gotten insane. This Daken PvP requires you to shield after every fight almost if you want to stay at the top.

Unknown

Subcore wrote:

Interruptor wrote:

SamBC wrote:

Have shields started affecting matchmaking? Lately I've been going a while without being attacked while shielded, I unshield and rapidly get attacked several times while making one attack myself. At times that used to be fairly quiet.

I think the way it works is when you shield, only players who already had you in their queue can attack you, like retaliations and saved nodes. Once you enter a match and drop shields you appear in people's queue again. Again if I'm wrong someone correct me.

Don't think that's the case with shields. I had the same player attack me 3 times while I had a shield in a span of 30 minutes. Before, you could get 2, maybe 3 fights in after you broke your shield. Now, you're lucky to get one in there and I have yet to get attacked by someone that takes less points than I just gained (ie, won a fight worth 20 pts but got attacked and lost 40).

If they had tiers of fighting, this would be controlled. In other words, If you only have 120 pts, you can't attack someone with 400 points. Seems most are upset at the I win twice but get attacked 7 times during that span and gain 40 pts for wins while losing 200 for attacks. The tier fighting at least would give you a better chance of breaking even, not getting smacked around. It would also prevent players with stacked teams making a run 6 hours before tourney ends since it would take quite a bit longer to get to top 10 while only getting 20 point gains per fight instead of 40+.

I'm pretty sure it didn't used to be the case, but it would be one explanation for the behaviour I'm seeing now. Except it's more like you're more likely to go into someone's queue if you were shielded recently, compared to never shielded.

Unknown

Milkrain wrote:

PvP has gotten insane. This Daken PvP requires you to shield after every fight almost if you want to stay at the top.

Yup. I didn't have access to the game and couldn't reshield for about 20 mins. That cost me 100 pts. They really need to give more shield info (how it works, why you get blasted when it comes off) and at least offer you the ability to reshield any time you want so you don't have to fight or set a timer to do so.

I actually sent an email to see if they can lower my 2 cards that are at 125 to 85 because this is insane. This limbo stage makes it very difficult to get cards and the ISO that you get, you spend it on boosts just to try to win a match. At lower lvls, you at least had time to think in a match. Now it seems like a race to finish because you're worried about getting attacked 3 times during that match.

On a positive side, friends that are starting to play the game, I'm telling them to not lvl past 85 until they have enough ISO to max out at least 3 cards they would play with.

morgh

It might not be a good move... it seems that with the "going up only MMR", also players with only 2* who are winning too much, too often will at some point find themselves fighting against 3*... and if you are at that point without the option to switch to at least 2*141... well I guess you're out of luck...

Unknown

Simply put, PvP has become P2W

Vohnkar

I really don't understand the new mechanics of bracketing. I've been trying to enter events in diferent days/hours with my brother and a friend. We've been entering on brackets where people already had 900-1k points in the top 10. Another friend of us enters an hour later and he gets a fresh bracket. Our roster are similar, mine is the one a bit stronger with spidy at 95 and puni at 89, but we are basically 2* roster getting our first 3* to lvl 85-100.

On the daken event I started yesterday so I could at least try to climb the rankings by grinding and retaliating. I've been attacked for over 200 points while unshielded. I've been shielded for 3 hours and no attacks... did another push of 10 matches aprox and shielded again. No attacks, no retaliations. I don't understand why as soon as I unshield myself I get destroyed and when I'm shielded noone attacks.

One of my friends just started the daken event now and is on a fresh bracket, at top 20 with less than 100 points and climbing. I would like to know how the system works so at least I can try to plan my event and try to get top50... if I can't do that events are worth only for grinding iso.

Well, I'll break my shield soon to do another short push and see if I can secure the top50 spot.

elusive

I think I'm going to take a break from the game (and leave my alliance so I don't screw them up) after season one ends. I'm in the transition between a two and three star roster right now and I'm having trouble even hitting top 100 after they changed how MMR/bracketing worked. I feel like I have to spend a few hours every other day just to stay even somewhat competitive and not let the rest of my team down. It's just not fun any more, and no, I'm not going to spend money on shields and such just to get even one three star cover.

I know a ton of people have already said the same thing, but I like being heard, too.

Unknown

When I first started playing I did not expect to win a 3* cover as a brand new player in a tournament. If I came out with a 2* or 2 or 3 I was happy. Now, getting a 2* cover out of a tournament is a complete waste, it is of no value since I have all of them already. And, since I'm being "nudged" into very difficult brackets, I have to either play hours on end to try and win anything or just don't. I'm leaning towards don't. I've spent hundred of hours playing this game, and, until recently, enjoyed them. It's not fun anymore unless you're new and getting the royal treatment. It takes far to much effort to achieve anything worthwhile for a veteran player with this new mmr/bracketing.