Question about PvP matchmaking.

Palookaville

I am sure this has been answered somewhere, but I can't seem to find it anywhere.

So I am trying to play the Grocket event in PVP, but every team I try to face is Grocket + Kitty + Medusa. And I mean every team, I skipped 25 different players (not the same 6 or so over and over again) which I can understand. That is a good team.

Problem is, I have a couple of 450 characters and one at 452 (OML, SS and Thanos) my Medusa and Grocket are level 301
but in PvP, I am getting matched against people with 500+ Grocket, 480+ Medusa and 460+ Kitty. Is this right?

I feel like I am completely out of my depth, I just can't win. What I mean is, I do not think it is possible for me to win a match. Pretty much with three moves (plus the Medusa *poot*) my team is dead. 

I don't mind a challenge, I don't mind facing people who are around my level, but I feel like my opponents are way better than me. 

Am I going crazy, is the matchmaking wonky or is it my 450 characters that are causing me to face 500+ opponents?

bluewolf

Matchmaking is based on a factor known as MMR, but is the specific mechanics are unknown.  We have educated guesses, however.  You in general are matched against rosters with the same average top 5 (we think) levels.  So usually you will see champed 5's with your roster once you clear the seeds.

Note: Boosts are not factored into your teams or the teams you see; people with just champed 4's (none boosted) will be shown teams of champed boosted 4's.

The other factor for teams you see is their scores.  The game does intend to provide you with teams that will give you maximum points while not being too high above your roster (you won't see 550's).  So if you happen to start playing and people with leveled but unchamped 5's are out, you'll see them first (probably) as people that are above you in score and have teams that are close to your strength.

This tinykitty event, however, has two things going:  A featured (mega boosted) Rocket and a boosted Medusa.  Many vets with champed 5's have bonused these characters to very high levels (along with the vaulting which also pushed them up).  And their mechanics/synergy make them extremely difficult to beat once you throw a champed Kitty in with them.

A 500 Rocket in this event is probably a baseline 360-370 and the Medusa you mention is also in that range.

So everyone is running that team and floating, and they are presented to you because they are (in the game's view) a group of beatable characters based on their relative levels.  Normally you'd probably be happy to face a team made up of one champed 5 and two boosted 4's.

This event sounds good in theory (run Rocket PVP, it ties into Endgame/IW, you can get a cover for Rocket) but the state of the game, with many mature rosters that have chased Rocket and Medusa and Kitty, makes it a horror show to play.

DyingLegend

The grocket pvp event is basically everything wrong with the current meta on the center stage. It's a grueling, tedious skip fest that tests your insanity.

I hit 650, got my 2 star from both tokens and quit the event. 

HoundofShadow

How PvP MMR works 

1) The game seeds PvP with pre-generated teams. This is where most of the points come from. 

2) you generally see opponents with a minimum difficulty of roughly one star level below you. Players with maxed 3-star teams will see maxed 2-star teams and stronger.

3) If there's a shortage of opponents worth a meaningful number of points, you can be matched with easier teams than that. And if you climb high enough in the event, anyone can see you as an opponent, even if they're much higher level. 

4) the upper bound on how difficult a team you are being matched with gradually increases as it becomes harder to find good matches for you, so you can still expect matches to get harder as you climb higher in the PvP.

Dormammu

Don't worry about it. The Grocket PvP event is a slaughterhouse for everyone, due to the fact that Grocket is featured and boosted, Medusa is boosted, and everyone can bring Kitty.

Southside84

I don't have anyone, even boosted, over a 360.  I can't get a fight without at least 2 for star champs against me.   My reward for losing five straight fights?  Enemies in the 400s. I get attacked?  Enemies in the 380s.  I know you can fight weaker teams, since much stronger rosters keep pounding me every event.  Makes you not want to even bother with pvp

Rod5

It’s a tough event, even if you have high-level everything. You are always one cascade from losing a match...rarely seems to work the other way though.

littlevamp78

I just skipped the event as I was never offered a fight I could even have a 1% chance of beating. 

Projectus2501

Unfortunately be ready to face gritty in all pvp events. Gritty is so unbalanced and hard to counter that it ruins the game.

Dormammu

Projectus2501 said:

Unfortunately be ready to face gritty in all pvp events. Gritty is so unbalanced and hard to counter that it ruins the game.

I couldn't disagree more. Against 3 active tile-matchers they are a real gamble when you can't bring the 3rd you want , which is in 98.7% of PvP events. The fact that one of them is the required character in this grocket event is why Gritty is everywhere - because people can now bring Medusa (or Thanos or Bishop or whoever).

In all other PvP events I rarely see Gritty being used outside the very beginning when players use them to clear seeds.

CT1888

Dormammu said:

Projectus2501 said:

Unfortunately be ready to face gritty in all pvp events. Gritty is so unbalanced and hard to counter that it ruins the game.

I couldn't disagree more. Against 3 active tile-matchers they are a real gamble when you can't bring the 3rd you want , which is in 98.7% of PvP events. The fact that one of them is the required character in this grocket event is why Gritty is everywhere - because people can now bring Medusa (or Thanos or Bishop or whoever).

In all other PvP events I rarely see Gritty being used outside the very beginning when players use them to clear seeds.

It's maybe more of a 5* problem then.

I loved seeing Bishop alongside Gritty this event - I don't think he ever lasted past the first turn. 

Dormammu

CT1888 said:

It's maybe more of a 5* problem then.

I'm a 5-star player. Thor/Okoye are still the dominant PvP duo.

CT1888

Dormammu said:

CT1888 said:

It's maybe more of a 5* problem then.

I'm a 5-star player. Thor/Okoye are still the dominant PvP duo.

Huh. I tend to see them right through my climb in S1. Plenty of Thor/Okoye as well, and higher percentage at the top, but still plenty of Gritty teams are there. 

helix72

I actually found the event easier than most. I have no champed 5's at all and my Kitty is barely usable (1/1/1). So I brought Grocket, Gamora, and Bishop to the fight. I also made Grocket 5/5/3 instead of the usual 3/5/5 so his blue could be used if I gained enough (and the fights never lasted long enough to get enough of his green).

I think I lost a total of 1 fight when there was a really bad cascade that downed my Bishop turn 1. It probably cost me 1 healthpack every 1.5 battles, but otherwise I had no problem hitting 900. The fights were fast and strategy was simple.

DAZ0273

helix72 said:

I actually found the event easier than most. I have no champed 5's at all and my Kitty is barely usable (1/1/1). So I brought Grocket, Gamora, and Bishop to the fight. I also made Grocket 5/5/3 instead of the usual 3/5/5 so his blue could be used if I gained enough (and the fights never lasted long enough to get enough of his green).

I think I lost a total of 1 fight when there was a really bad cascade that downed my Bishop turn 1. It probably cost me 1 healthpack every 1.5 battles, but otherwise I had no problem hitting 900. The fights were fast and strategy was simple.

I had a similar experience. One thing I found was that having one half of Gritty boosted seemed to enbolden players who would not normally have much of a viable R4G and so I actually got to feed on quite a few Gritty teams where R4G weren't pumping out enough strike tiles or they couldn't really boost high enough to down me before I can destroy them. Killing Kitty was child's play in most cases and Medusa and Gamora were there to steal, heal and stun as needed (I didn't even bother with using Bishop).

Waddles_Pines

helix72 said:

I actually found the event easier than most. I have no champed 5's at all and my Kitty is barely usable (1/1/1). So I brought Grocket, Gamora, and Bishop to the fight. I also made Grocket 5/5/3 instead of the usual 3/5/5 so his blue could be used if I gained enough (and the fights never lasted long enough to get enough of his green).

I think I lost a total of 1 fight when there was a really bad cascade that downed my Bishop turn 1. It probably cost me 1 healthpack every 1.5 battles, but otherwise I had no problem hitting 900. The fights were fast and strategy was simple.

Yeah, weirdly I also had a similar experience.  I lucked out, and basically hit every non Medusa team I saw.  I didn't get hit once getting to 900.  Only used 2 hp the whole event.  I think a lot of people skipped it because of Grittydusa.  Most events I see tons of Gritty, but this one I was able to mostly avoid Grittydusa and saw tons of 3* boosted characters.  Weird... 

ThaRoadWarrior

Drop me in the "had a horrible time, could barely win a match" camp. I was 16 wins and out, not even 575. My Medusa and 4ocket are base-level 293 and 290 respectively, but I was only ever seeing Kitty-based teams that were significantly higher than mine. I tried a little bit to use the loaner 4ocket and let my GE Doom get killed early (my "good" rocket tanked too many colors), but I ended up leaning on Okoye/Vulture or Okoye/Medusa for wins.