PVP - should CL9 be exclusively for 5-stars + the Essential? Or maybe CL10?

JSP869

Kitty is not the problem. It's when you pair her with 4* R4G that she becomes a problem. And they become a really big problem if you add in 4* Bishop. One 5* plus two 4*s will get a skip from a vast majority of players, including if not especially 5* players.

The 5* in that trio is not a problem except when she's paired with those two 4*s.

But if CL9 was to be exclusively for 5*s plus the Essential, you'd never have to worry about your Champion 5*'s match damage triggering Bishop's Overclocked, because nobody would be able to run Bishop in CL9. And you'd never have to worry about Kitty boosting R4G's Strikes through the roof because you couldn't run Gritty in CL9.

Given that this would be a massive change to the PvP landscape, maybe we can get CL10 for 5*s only.

TPF Alexis

Given that your Opponents are chosen from among all SCLs, I'm not sure how much difference that would really make.

JSP869

If this change were implemented, the game would only pull your opponents from those also playing CL9, or CL10.

TPF Alexis

OK, so, yeah, there would need to be further changes besides just that restriction.

jamesh

I could see the appeal of having tier based restrictions for clearance levels even without splitting the player population into smaller groups.

At present, the first six clearance levels are restricted based on SHIELD rank, but I don't think there is anything preventing those players from targeting CL7+ players or vice versa.  It would be kind of interesting to see what would happen if they instead restricted the rosters: so e.g. you might play a clearance level where you're restricted to a 4* roster and are competing for placement with other 4* rosters, while still being able to hit and be hit by 5* teams.

It wouldn't be perfect, since my level 266 3* roster would likely steam roll someone who has just entered the 3* tier, and similar would be true for a high level 5* player dropping down to play with their level 370 4* characters.

ErikPeter

I am in the "to fix Gritty, just tweak R4G" camp. One recommendation I read was for Welcome to the Team to create traps that count as Strike tiles--this is a lateral tweak, generally better except for breaking up Gritty. Traps won't be matched away as fast by an opponent who can't see them, but could be overwritten, so devs could maybe even strengthen them.

The first nerf Kitty should get, if any, is to make her repeater not be fortified. A "if you match it, it relocates" clause would make that a lateral tweak; seems like the fortification is overkill that's only there to prevent the disappointment of having to match it away (i.e. when you could've simply matched away the enemy special tile). 

The second nerf I'd approve of is for her repeater not to overwrite fortified tiles; if it tries to, it un-fortifies them instead.

Anyway, to address the OP, adding more restricted matchmaking won't improve the game. By my estimation the game is already matching you to rosters roughly 25 levels higher than yours. Limiting that to only 5-star rosters makes transitional rosters (like mine, level 430) forced to deal with only higher level opponents, much higher in some circumstances. And it makes the "punching up" ability of characters like Bishop (who is inarguably OP and frustrating and could use a nerf) less essential or interesting; he's far less speedy and effective (and inarguably much more balanced) against 4-star rosters. If you've moved to 100% 5-stars, why get excited about 4-star characters at all?

And it'd ruin high offense, low defense characters like XFDP used for quick hops. And many other similar match-ups.

It's possible that more restrictions would improve PvP but the difference in HP and match damage is already supposed to account for tier differences, beyond power creep of a few 4 stars. I recently suggested one alternative, rotating restriction in a different thread. tldr: in each season (in CL10 only), one color of power is disabled for all characters. By "temporarily nerfing" half the characters you'd open up lots of new possibilities for team composition.

JDFiend

jamesh said:

I could see the appeal of having tier based restrictions for clearance levels even without splitting the player population into smaller groups.

At present, the first six clearance levels are restricted based on SHIELD rank, but I don't think there is anything preventing those players from targeting CL7+ players or vice versa.  It would be kind of interesting to see what would happen if they instead restricted the rosters: so e.g. you might play a clearance level where you're restricted to a 4* roster and are competing for placement with other 4* rosters, while still being able to hit and be hit by 5* teams.

It wouldn't be perfect, since my level 266 3* roster would likely steam roll someone who has just entered the 3* tier, and similar would be true for a high level 5* player dropping down to play with their level 370 4* characters.

It shouldn't be locked in rarity but character level.

If the developers put a limit on level. So you know, maximum character level for scl 7 would be 300 just as an example. 

And then they should let anyone choose to enter SCL 7, on the condition that thier characters are regressed to that level for the duration of the event.

This would solve a lot of problems. People that enter brackets for easier placement would still get that, and still have an advantage - every character at max level. But it would also level the playing field a little more for the smaller rosters.

You wouldn't have to worry about champing weak fives that would be steam roled, as the SCL you choose would have to decide your MMR.

Bored of teams of running your fives and want to play fours for an event. You can do it.

Means the players aren't locked out of anything, but are forced to play more fairly at that level.