Next Shield Training's required 4* -- Capworth or Torch?

Yepyep

jamesh said:

Yepyep said:

Monsoon3 said:

Considering that I've only pulled 4 bonus heroes in my last 194 latest legend or 25 CP stores, it doesn't matter who I bonus. I'll never get enough to cover either.

Well, I understand but that condition is exactly what should be setting you up for a whole string of bonus drops...

That's not how independent random numbers work.  It's like flipping a coin: just because you've seen a streak of five heads doesn't change that the probability of the next flip is still 50:50.

I understand the concept perfectly (and have commented many times on random number generation). But I am convinced — but with no desire to convince you or anyone else — that MPQ uses a set of house-weighted generators (or, more likely, they have algorithms to massage real-world outcomes). They’ve admitted as much w/r/t cascades. And when was the last game you played that started with a spontaneous match? 

That said, house-weighting favors income generation, not necessarily more obvious house-favored outcomes. Again, cascades: too many cascades harming the live player is detrimental to morale, discouraging play, so the house collars the engine. In the instant case, BH droughts discourage addictive engagement with the opiate-drip of opening covers. I don’t believe they don’t place an algorithmic thumb on the scale here, too. Why wouldn’t they build a game that maximizes player engagement?

But that is me and this is a large, fraught topic best addressed in another, dedicated thread. 

Yepyep

Bowgentle said:

jamesh said:

Yepyep said:

Monsoon3 said:

Considering that I've only pulled 4 bonus heroes in my last 194 latest legend or 25 CP stores, it doesn't matter who I bonus. I'll never get enough to cover either.

Well, I understand but that condition is exactly what should be setting you up for a whole string of bonus drops...

That's not how independent random numbers work.  It's like flipping a coin: just because you've seen a streak of five heads doesn't change that the probability of the next flip is still 50:50.

It does in this game, though - Bonus Hero pulls are pre-determined, like 5* pulls.

So, eventually that bad streak WILL even out.

It migh take a few thousand pulls, though.

Predetermination does not imply non-randomness. It only speaks to the timing of the generation. It means that there is a temporal cushion between what players perceive as the event triggering the generation of a random result, e.g. opening a cover, and whatever it is that actually triggers that generation. 

DAZ0273

My original plan was to ignore Shield Training and crack on with bonus hero Juggernaut but that has resulted in a 1/1/7 Juggs. I should grab a green and red cover from Galactus so am now maybe thinking of switching as I am so very sick of blue. So remind me - is Torch actually any good? I doubt I can get him covered in time anyway so just switch to Captain Fifth Harmony (Worth It)?

Bowgentle

DAZ0273 said:

My original plan was to ignore Shield Training and crack on with bonus hero Juggernaut but that has resulted in a 1/1/7 Juggs. I should grab a green and red cover from Galactus so am now maybe thinking of switching as I am so very sick of blue. So remind me - is Torch actually any good? I doubt I can get him covered in time anyway so just switch to Captain Fifth Harmony (Worth It)?

Torch won't bring anything to your 5* game.
Juggs works well with Gritty, Cap is completely broken with Hawkeye, useless without.

bluewolf

Hey, don’t overlook Hammer/Carol/Rocket teams in 4 land. They can take out 500+ 5’s. 

Torch will be essential for another Spidey who you won’t really need other than to run a Spider team for fun. Seems like Worthy should still be the priority for people. 

bluewolf

helix72 said:

@bluewolf -- would you share your spreadsheet? I'd love to see it.

 I don't personally keep a spreadsheet, but on Discord they have been tracking the Essentials for years. (along with all PVEs that are run when etc.)

BigSoftieFF

bluewolf said:

Hey, don’t overlook Hammer/Carol/Rocket teams in 4 land. They can take out 500+ 5’s. 

This seems absurd but I have a feeling you’re telling the truth 😑

DarthDeVo

BigSoftieFF said:

bluewolf said:

Hey, don’t overlook Hammer/Carol/Rocket teams in 4 land. They can take out 500+ 5’s. 

This seems absurd but I have a feeling you’re telling the truth 😑

I had strike tiles buffed to 52.5K in one Sim match. That's with a 341 Grocket and 339 C4rol. Cap is like Bishop though, needs a healthpack just about every match. 

Also, I was a little disappointed to have not gotten a single wipe when I had that team out in Simulator. Only reds. Granted, probably not as many as any other pure 4* team would have gotten in 5* MMR, but I was beaten by a very basic Thorkoye Jones team, a Grittyshop team, and Thorkoye Chavez.

So as deadly as it *can* be, it's also apparently quite beatable. 

Yepyep

DarthDeVo said:

BigSoftieFF said:

bluewolf said:

Hey, don’t overlook Hammer/Carol/Rocket teams in 4 land. They can take out 500+ 5’s. 

This seems absurd but I have a feeling you’re telling the truth 😑

I had strike tiles buffed to 52.5K in one Sim match. That's with a 341 Grocket and 339 C4rol. Cap is like Bishop though, needs a healthpack just about every match. 

Also, I was a little disappointed to have not gotten a single wipe when I had that team out in Simulator. Only reds. Granted, probably not as many as any other pure 4* team would have gotten in 5* MMR, but I was beaten by a very basic Thorkoye Jones team, a Grittyshop team, and Thorkoye Chavez.

So as deadly as it *can* be, it's also apparently quite beatable. 

Could you please explain what this means a bit? “Wipe?” (Does this mean a win with no damage...?) “Only reds?” (Hmm. Maybe a “red” is a loss against which you can retaliate?) And ”not as many” whats, exactly, as any other pure 4* team would have gotten in 5* MMR. (The last bit meaning you‘re a 5* player, which I know, playing the 4* Hammer/Carol/Rocket team.) 

Thanks 🙏🏼. Even if pretty standard jargon, I don’t know what it means. 

A bit later, writing this  and thinking harder about it, maybe this is 100% commentary on defensive results with the team, and speculating that a non-5* player might have better results on defense?

Anyway, thanks!

jamesh

Yepyep said:

jamesh said:

Yepyep said:

Monsoon3 said:

Considering that I've only pulled 4 bonus heroes in my last 194 latest legend or 25 CP stores, it doesn't matter who I bonus. I'll never get enough to cover either.

Well, I understand but that condition is exactly what should be setting you up for a whole string of bonus drops...

That's not how independent random numbers work.  It's like flipping a coin: just because you've seen a streak of five heads doesn't change that the probability of the next flip is still 50:50.

I understand the concept perfectly (and have commented many times on random number generation). But I am convinced — but with no desire to convince you or anyone else — that MPQ uses a set of house-weighted generators (or, more likely, they have algorithms to massage real-world outcomes). They’ve admitted as much w/r/t cascades. And when was the last game you played that started with a spontaneous match? 

That said, house-weighting favors income generation, not necessarily more obvious house-favored outcomes. Again, cascades: too many cascades harming the live player is detrimental to morale, discouraging play, so the house collars the engine. In the instant case, BH droughts discourage addictive engagement with the opiate-drip of opening covers. I don’t believe they don’t place an algorithmic thumb on the scale here, too. Why wouldn’t they build a game that maximizes player engagement?

But that is me and this is a large, fraught topic best addressed in another, dedicated thread. 

There are two main reasons I don't think they're lying about the odds in this game: (1) doing so would be fraud, and (2) most of the behaviour discussed on the forum is stuff you'd expect to see if the game was behaving according to the published odds.  The only behaviour I've seen that appears to be truly non-random is when you get a string of PVP matches rewarding the same cover, which is particularly memorable when it is Bag-Man: although that seems more like a bug than something intentional.

I think part of the problem is that people often look at sample sizes that are too small for the law of large numbers to reduce variance. Take bonus heroes from legendary tokens for instance.  When opening 500 tokens, while you'd expect 25 bonus heroes, the standard deviation is 4.87.  That means your 95% confidence interval is going to be ~ 25 ±10.  So while @Monsoon3's result is unlucky, it isn't improbable that someone would see a result like that.  You probably know people whose luck ended up at the other end of that interval.

If we move to a sample of 5000 tokens we'd expect 250 bonus heroes, but the standard deviation only increases to 15.4.  So now our 95% confidence interval is 250 ±31.  If you were still seeing a 3% pull rate over that many pulls, then you'd have more reason to suspect things had been fixed.

You could definitely make the argument that it would be beneficial to implement losing streak breakers to stop players from being discouraged, but it is not at all obvious that they have done anything like that.

DarthDeVo

Yepyep said:

DarthDeVo said:

BigSoftieFF said:

bluewolf said:

Hey, don’t overlook Hammer/Carol/Rocket teams in 4 land. They can take out 500+ 5’s. 

This seems absurd but I have a feeling you’re telling the truth 😑

I had strike tiles buffed to 52.5K in one Sim match. That's with a 341 Grocket and 339 C4rol. Cap is like Bishop though, needs a healthpack just about every match. 

Also, I was a little disappointed to have not gotten a single wipe when I had that team out in Simulator. Only reds. Granted, probably not as many as any other pure 4* team would have gotten in 5* MMR, but I was beaten by a very basic Thorkoye Jones team, a Grittyshop team, and Thorkoye Chavez.

So as deadly as it *can* be, it's also apparently quite beatable. 

Could you please explain what this means a bit? “Wipe?” (Does this mean a win with no damage...?) “Only reds?” (Hmm. Maybe a “red” is a loss against which you can retaliate?) And ”not as many” whats, exactly, as any other pure 4* team would have gotten in 5* MMR. (The last bit meaning you‘re a 5* player, which I know, playing the 4* Hammer/Carol/Rocket team.) 

Thanks 🙏🏼. Even if pretty standard jargon, I don’t know what it means. 

A bit later, writing this  and thinking harder about it, maybe this is 100% commentary on defensive results with the team, and speculating that a non-5* player might have better results on defense?

Anyway, thanks!

So when I was around the 800-900 mark in this shortened Anniversary Season PvP Sim, I put out a team of Level 341 Grocket/ Level 339 C4rol/Level 270 Hammercap.

My hope was people running 5*s would see a pure 4* team and think it was an easy win, but then find it to be a much harder fight once they were in it, possibly even losing. 

So when I say I'm disappointed I didn't get any wipes, it means that my team never successfully defended an attack. Nobody "wiped out" trying to beat my team. Defensive wins are also sometimes referred to as "blues" because of the notifications you get in the game when you get a defensive win and the lines showing the wins are blue. 

Likewise, when I say I "only had reds" is due to the notification in the game you get when your team is beaten and you lose points. The lines showing the losses are red. Also, the retaliation node that pops up is red. 

Lastly, while I did get only reds, it was just a handful, all things considered. At my MMR, floating that close to full progression, if I would have put out any other pure 4* team, even my old A team of Grocket/Gamora/Medusa, I probably could have been knocked back down to the 500 point range, maybe lower. So what I was getting at was that, even though I got only reds, it was likely a lot fewer than any other pure 4* team, and I imagine a number of people skipped the team outright. I have no real way of proving that, of course, just a hunch. 

However, the teams that did beat me were not extraordinary. I don't think the 5* champs were much past the 450 mark. So while I was having pretty good success running that team offensively, it wasn't quite the defensive trap team I was hoping it would be. Maybe it will be once I get Hammercap to higher levels so he can endure a few more hits. 

I'm seeming to get more defensive wins with my Level 468 Jessica Jones, 5/2/1 Level 375 5* Hawkeye, Level 270 Hammercap, FYI. And it's pretty fun on offense, too. Cap just needs a healthpack every few matches. 

Yepyep

DarthDeVo said:

Yepyep said:

DarthDeVo said:

BigSoftieFF said:

bluewolf said:

Hey, don’t overlook Hammer/Carol/Rocket teams in 4 land. They can take out 500+ 5’s. 

This seems absurd but I have a feeling you’re telling the truth 😑

I had strike tiles buffed to 52.5K in one Sim match. That's with a 341 Grocket and 339 C4rol. Cap is like Bishop though, needs a healthpack just about every match. 

Also, I was a little disappointed to have not gotten a single wipe when I had that team out in Simulator. Only reds. Granted, probably not as many as any other pure 4* team would have gotten in 5* MMR, but I was beaten by a very basic Thorkoye Jones team, a Grittyshop team, and Thorkoye Chavez.

So as deadly as it *can* be, it's also apparently quite beatable. 

Could you please explain what this means a bit? “Wipe?” (Does this mean a win with no damage...?) “Only reds?” (Hmm. Maybe a “red” is a loss against which you can retaliate?) And ”not as many” whats, exactly, as any other pure 4* team would have gotten in 5* MMR. (The last bit meaning you‘re a 5* player, which I know, playing the 4* Hammer/Carol/Rocket team.) 

Thanks 🙏🏼. Even if pretty standard jargon, I don’t know what it means. 

A bit later, writing this  and thinking harder about it, maybe this is 100% commentary on defensive results with the team, and speculating that a non-5* player might have better results on defense?

Anyway, thanks!

So when I was around the 800-900 mark in this shortened Anniversary Season PvP Sim, I put out a team of Level 341 Grocket/ Level 339 C4rol/Level 270 Hammercap.

My hope was people running 5*s would see a pure 4* team and think it was an easy win, but then find it to be a much harder fight once they were in it, possibly even losing. 

So when I say I'm disappointed I didn't get any wipes, it means that my team never successfully defended an attack. Nobody "wiped out" trying to beat my team. Defensive wins are also sometimes referred to as "blues" because of the notifications you get in the game when you get a defensive win and the lines showing the wins are blue. 

Likewise, when I say I "only had reds" is due to the notification in the game you get when your team is beaten and you lose points. The lines showing the losses are red. Also, the retaliation node that pops up is red. 

Lastly, while I did get only reds, it was just a handful, all things considered. At my MMR, floating that close to full progression, if I would have put out any other pure 4* team, even my old A team of Grocket/Gamora/Medusa, I probably could have been knocked back down to the 500 point range, maybe lower. So what I was getting at was that, even though I got only reds, it was likely a lot fewer than any other pure 4* team, and I imagine a number of people skipped the team outright. I have no real way of proving that, of course, just a hunch. 

However, the teams that did beat me were not extraordinary. I don't think the 5* champs were much past the 450 mark. So while I was having pretty good success running that team offensively, it wasn't quite the defensive trap team I was hoping it would be. Maybe it will be once I get Hammercap to higher levels so he can endure a few more hits. 

I'm seeming to get more defensive wins with my Level 468 Jessica Jones, 5/2/1 Level 375 5* Hawkeye, Level 270 Hammercap, FYI. And it's pretty fun on offense, too. Cap just needs a healthpack every few matches. 

Awesome, thanks. Quite helpful. 

As a transitioning-to-5 player, I skip the bejesus out of JJ-Hawkeye-HamCap teams. I learned that lesson quickly in HamCap’s debut PvP; I believe my record was 1 and 4...

I think we’re pretty close to being able to say that Grocket teams are no longer meta. Which is great, because they’re still good teams. But I no longer always skip them given the many options I have to counter them. 

bluewolf

@jamesh
@Yepyep
@Monsoon3

The devs have stated in numerous places that there is no streakbreaking mechanic in the game.

On the podcast interview back in April, they were asked about it and they said they had no plans to do so.

Ice has posted here (I'm not sure where exactly, I just remember reading it) and on Discord about how if they were to implement a streakbreaker, the players would experience the counter-streakbreaker effect.  For example, in the FF store I have only pulled about 8 times, but I pulled 3 5's in a row (Strange and 2 Kitties).  If the game had a streakbreaker on normal pulls it would balance both negative and positive results and I wouldn't have gotten that.

The point being there is no streakbreaking mechanic.

Oh, this is despite the "helpful" CS people having told players that there is one in the past.  One hopes they have stopped since it is 100% false and gets 5 Pinocchios.

Now, it is possible they might do something with streakbreaking specifically around bonus heroes where your odds of getting 2 in a row are smaller than the odds of getting 2 5's in a row, and is probably something that is very rarely experienced anyway.  But there are plenty of players who's lifetime rates are far below the supposed 5%.  I don't think making bonuses work in a more fair fashion would upset many players.

HoundofShadow

I think one of the dev mentioned that implementing a streakbreaker without changing the current odds would be another matter. So, if they implement streakbreak, I would expect the odds to get worse.

Monsoon3

bluewolf said:

@jamesh
@Yepyep
@Monsoon3

The devs have stated in numerous places that there is no streakbreaking mechanic in the game.

On the podcast interview back in April, they were asked about it and they said they had no plans to do so.

Ice has posted here (I'm not sure where exactly, I just remember reading it) and on Discord about how if they were to implement a streakbreaker, the players would experience the counter-streakbreaker effect.  For example, in the FF store I have only pulled about 8 times, but I pulled 3 5's in a row (Strange and 2 Kitties).  If the game had a streakbreaker on normal pulls it would balance both negative and positive results and I wouldn't have gotten that.

The point being there is no streakbreaking mechanic.

Oh, this is despite the "helpful" CS people having told players that there is one in the past.  One hopes they have stopped since it is 100% false and gets 5 Pinocchios.

Now, it is possible they might do something with streakbreaking specifically around bonus heroes where your odds of getting 2 in a row are smaller than the odds of getting 2 5's in a row, and is probably something that is very rarely experienced anyway.  But there are plenty of players who's lifetime rates are far below the supposed 5%.  I don't think making bonuses work in a more fair fashion would upset many players.

Not really advocating for a streak breaker. I was just venting that bonus heroes are not always an easy way to fix your roster in a quick turnaround. It sucks to be on the wrong end of RNG. And knowing that past behavior from your pulls doesn't equal future results, it is going to take a long time for my results to hopefully reflect the 5% advertised rate. 

For full disclosure over the same period of pulls, I am running a 17.45% rate of 5* pulls.

DarthDeVo

OJSP said:

DarthDeVo said:

So when I was around the 800-900 mark in this shortened Anniversary Season PvP Sim, I put out a team of Level 341 Grocket/ Level 339 C4rol/Level 270 Hammercap.

Did you check with someone what team is visible as the defensive team? What team did you use to climb with?

Good point, I didn't actually do that. I should also clarify that my last several matches up to my float point were C4rol/Grocket/Hammercap. I basically used them until I was out of healthpacks.

So maybe my reds were from people who found a previous team, but C4rol/Grocket/Hammercap were out for a fairly long time, so I imagine the odds of people finding any of my other teams to be low.