In PvP, does choosing a lower SCL give you easier matches?

hstpctech

@HoundofShadow
Started God of Lies SCL7 4th timeslot. Started right on time, didn't see any seed teams.

Picked the matches very carefully for 3-stars combo, and then assemble my team as close as possible to their levels.

Won 3 rounds this way, 141 points ranked 47th, and then I got these matches:
lvl 390 Black Bolt 5* / lvl 391 Loki / lvl 375 Riri 4* for 23 points
lvl 262 Strange 3* / lvl 316 Loki / lvl 320 Blade 3* for 23 points (compared this to the previous team)
lvl 297 R4G 4* / lvl 412 Loki / lvl 303 Captain Marvel 4* for 45 points

It seems MMR not care what kind of team I assemble, I'm still matched with 4 and 5-stars combo, regardless of my very low wins, points, and rank.

HoundofShadow

I'm just jabbing around regarding seed teams. Did you select and join the PvP way before it started or did you select the timeslice when it is about to start?

Your current MMR will mostly show you champed 4* players MMR.  It won't change unless you sell away all those 3 5*.

The technique regarding beating seed team with 2* or 3* teams is to help you attract those 2* or 3* players to attack you. And then, you retaliate back. It's like baiting and catching fish.

So, you used 3* teams to beat three teams, right? In that case, wait for a few hours to seen if any 3* players attack you and defeat you. Then, you retaliate back and forth off those red nodes by those 3* players.

Just jump to SCL 9 for PvP. You get better rewards and it doesn't affect your MMR in PvP.

hstpctech

@HoundofShadow
I played daily since March, and I've only seen those seed teams a couple of times only. My routine was going for SCL6, last timeslice, and joined it right on time so I would have the maximum period of time to inch my way up. In my experience, joining and starting right on time would give a better chance at seed teams but alas it wasn't a guarantee. I've had those too, even when I was late for several hours on occasions.

Your playing style of baiting can work nicely for my goal of only getting the 25 wins, so I did attack the 2/3 combos with matching 2/3 of my own. But as I've experimented yesterday, even with only 3 wins and no retaliation, I'd already met stronger matches beyond 2/3 combo.

I was forgetting to stay in SCL9; will correct that in the next PvP, thank you. In the previous one, I ended up at 47th with a lot of skipping and health packs.

HoundofShadow

Maybe you would like to try joining the slice way before it starts (like 12 hours before it begins) and then start playing at the exact timing. I'm not sure if there is some kind of queue system. Again, I'm just guessing. 

The goal of using 2* or 3* teams to win is to "attract"  more manageable teams for you "artificially" so that your PvP matches to reach 25 wins would be easier and less iso-8 intensive for skipping teams. It won't prevent you from seeing those strong teams because the nature of your current MMR is that you will get matched with strong teams. 

hstpctech

@HoundofShadow
Guessing is all we can do since D3Go didn't share with us what is the criteria to get the seed teams.

Limiting myself to 2*/3* combo gives me easier matches, but as soon as I defeat one "easy" team, the match nodes  are usually 4* combos again. The skipping with ISO to get 2*/3* match is roughly cut to half compared to my previous PvP.

On the PvE front, it wasn't a smooth-sailing as I had hoped to be. Spent approx. 40 minutes to get 4 rounds on each node. On the third round of the last goon node, my fully healed team of 5-star Apocalypse/Logan/Yelena almost got beaten, with Apocalypse downed.

Question of the day: when a character is boosted they have an orange gem on the top left corner. But I also see there are red gem and purple gem, too. What is the difference? I remember only Legion had this purple gem.

update: maybe the ISO skipping isn't exactly half, but since the 3* refresh quicker, I can wait instead of skipping. Bottom line, roughly equal time to fight for 25 wins but with somewhat less skipping.

hstpctech

@OJSP
In the past couple of months, I've joined the last time-slice within minutes after it started. I think I only got the seed teams one quarter of the time. How do we check if a certain bracket is full? Also, I play on Steam. The phone's screen is too small for my eyes.

Thank you for the boost description ^^

Rod5

OJSP said

The only way to know if a bracket is full is by keep losing when our score is 0 and dropping our rank. Once we get down to 500, the bracket is full.

And if you are waiting for a flip, you need someone else to be in that bracket and do this so they can tell you.

This is one of the instances where Line/Discord adds a lot of utility to the game. PvE brackets too. It’s not impossible in-game but much easier if you are communicating with loads of people rather than just the other 19 or less in your alliance.

HoundofShadow

Use Thanos, Dr Strange and R4G (levelled as much as possible if you have the iso-8). It will be faster.

For PvPs, it'a going to be long road to build your 4*. Maybe someone can chime in to help. He has the latest 3* (iHulk, Apocalypse and Yelena) levelled to 360/330/315 and his mmr is like champed deep 4* land mmr. His only champed 4* is Invisible Woman. 

If you are comfortable sharing, you can share your IGN and alliance name, so that we can see your roster and see what else to recommend you. If not, you've to wait until you are out of that country to share your gamependium link.

Thanks everyone regarding the information about seed teams. 

KGB

Rod5 said:

OJSP said

The only way to know if a bracket is full is by keep losing when our score is 0 and dropping our rank. Once we get down to 500, the bracket is full.

And if you are waiting for a flip, you need someone else to be in that bracket and do this so they can tell you.

This is one of the instances where Line/Discord adds a lot of utility to the game. PvE brackets too. It’s not impossible in-game but much easier if you are communicating with loads of people rather than just the other 19 or less in your alliance.

I thought the way to tell when a bracket flipped was to have multiple alternate accounts and occasionally join with one of the alternate accounts to see when the bracket was full.

KGB

hstpctech

OJSP said:

KGB said:

I thought the way to tell when a bracket flipped was to have multiple alternate accounts and occasionally join with one of the alternate accounts to see when the bracket was full.

That’s another way to do it. The only problem with that method is we need either multiple devices with multiple facebook/Apple/google IDs to save the progress and the account to have the same SCL access as our main account. Not only that, for PvE, it means we have to keep checking the other account to see the bracket count and make sure we don’t miss the flip. It’s less of a problem for brackets that flip early. But, to wait for later brackets can be really time consuming. So, usually several people keep track of the flips instead. For PvP it’s less of an issue (missing when a bracket is full), because the only downside is missing the seed teams.

I know there are several ways to do this, such as getting a sandboxed account. But, I think such methods is beyond the scope of common gameplay and I’m not particularly comfortable talking about them.

I agree; it sounds like a lot of trouble for an entertainment purpose.

hstpctech

HoundofShadow said:

Use Thanos, Dr Strange and R4G (levelled as much as possible if you have the iso-8). It will be faster.

For PvPs, it'a going to be long road to build your 4*. Maybe someone can chime in to help. He has the latest 3* (iHulk, Apocalypse and Yelena) levelled to 360/330/315 and his mmr is like champed deep 4* land mmr. His only champed 4* is Invisible Woman. 

If you are comfortable sharing, you can share your IGN and alliance name, so that we can see your roster and see what else to recommend you. If not, you've to wait until you are out of that country to share your gamependium link.

Thanks everyone regarding the information about seed teams. 

I think you meant the previously latest 5-star instead of 3-star. Hulk, Apocalypse, and Yelena.

My alliance is Vishanti. Are you referring to ign.com? I don't mind at all to share my roster. Is there another way besides Gamependium?

Thanks to everyone who has already chime in.

hstpctech

Rod5 said:

OJSP said

The only way to know if a bracket is full is by keep losing when our score is 0 and dropping our rank. Once we get down to 500, the bracket is full.

And if you are waiting for a flip, you need someone else to be in that bracket and do this so they can tell you.

This is one of the instances where Line/Discord adds a lot of utility to the game. PvE brackets too. It’s not impossible in-game but much easier if you are communicating with loads of people rather than just the other 19 or less in your alliance.

I can definitely say this option is out of my hand. My team is at full capacity, but I only know one player. When I need to get in touch with him I got Discord for that. The team never communicates.

HoundofShadow

I see that your 2* Ares, Black Widow and Bullseye are max levelled. It seems like you are not doing 2* farming. What do you do with those extra covers of these three characters?

You have the following 4* at 10 or more covers:

America Chavez, C4rol, Cyclops, Nick Fury, Prof X

9 covers
Deadpool, Elektra, Rogue, Thor, Wolverine

Those bold ones are pretty good. So, you can work on them.

The following four 4* characters are considered top tier:

R4G: 2/3/1
Karnark: 1/1/0
Juggernaut: 0/4/1
Vulture: 2/1/3

They could be what you would want to work on next. 

As mentioned, you have to decide whether to sell your top 3 highest levelled 5* to lower down your MMR, or work on Chavez and see if she's helping you to win fight more easily.

hstpctech

OJSP said:

hstpctech, I think looking at your roster, there's really no easy answer. 

Depending on how hard you are finding PvP at the moment and how much rewards are you missing from the events because you can't beat the opponents offered to you, it might be simpler to sell your lvl 360 iHulk to fix your MMR. Unfortunately, you've been progressing too fast and your roster is imbalanced because of your 5*s and lack of 4*s. With your roster, you should be relying on your 3*s to build up your 4*s and the 5*s are not developed enough to be useful. Unfortunately, it's the worst aspect about 5*s that was never mentioned in the game at all. Having Invisible Woman as the only 4* champion is also tough. Luckily America Chavez and Captain Marvel are not that far behind.

I know it is probably not you want to hear, but selling your lvl 360 5* would drop your MMR significantly to allow you to look for 4* teams to beat. Selling the lvl 330 Apocalypse after that would probably drop your MMR to look for more 4* teams. Whatever you do, even when you get more 5* covers, don't level them further. Keep them at 255.

With regards to being matched against teams that are too strong, it is also possible that you're playing too early in the event. If there are no teams similar to you yet, then you'd be offered stronger teams. So, you could experiment with the seed teams for the next few events and see how it goes. But, try to skip and look for different opponents every 8 hour or so to get a feel of when everyone else around your MMR is playing. To reset the skip tax and the cache, reset the app. That way you won't waste any iso. If you don't want to sell your 5*s, then you might have to concentrate on PvE for the time being. It's not ideal, because you'd be missing out on the rewards from half of the game. But, it's probably better than wasting time and effort in PvP. You'll be able to play PvP again when you have more 4* championed.

If you haven't read it before, try this guide from reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/MarvelPuzzleQuest/wiki/new-player-advice

I don't think we have any sort of roster building guide like that in the forum, that would be useful for your current situation. But, that one could have some tips on how to make the best out of it.

I completed the 4-star roster by pulling all of my 2,500 legendary tokens. I also spent 10,000HP for the latest 4-stars addition from the tokens. Invisible Woman was probably the lucky pull that I made it to the champion level. In my simple thought, spending all the tokens on the 3 latest 5-stars would give me a much better shot at complete covers instead of pulling classic legendary. I understood that my focus should be leveling the 3-stars, so before the unfortunate pull I was using the 4 and 5-stars to get a little advantage in matches. The plan was to get every character so I wouldn't be denied entry from any events. I don't need to win big, just a participation.

If I sell the top 3, then I'd be forfeiting my precise goal of getting a rather complete character. That is equal to years of setback in progress. The nicest solution would be a reset by D3, but their support said it couldn't be done. Couldn't or wouldn't? I found this as a flaw in the game design, where a blind luck could actually ruin the gameplay experience. It's very easy for beginners to purchase hero packs, and got lucky getting the latest legendaries, then only to be clubbed with unbalanced MMR.

I've learned my mistake the hard way, so no further leveling for now. And I'm out of CP anyway.

For the past years, being a casual player, I usually join the last timeslice. When I can, I start within minutes of that slice. Unfortunately, I don't think I can clear cache and app because I play on Steam.

If this MMR thing is confining me to PvE, I would still continue farming and enjoying the game. But I am dismayed today when I found out even PvE is quite unbalanced for me at SCL6. The AIM goon were at lvl.208, while on my phone it was only lvl.67 after my first hit on the node. The account is lvl.17, while my Steam account is lvl.83. The lvl.208 goons managed to decimate my team, even though I brought the 5-stars. Should I go SCL5 or even lower? Things were much more manageable before.

Thank you for the Reddit link; I will check it out later when I have returned home. Reddit is firewalled abroad, I couldn't access it now.

hstpctech

HoundofShadow said:

I see that your 2* Ares, Black Widow and Bullseye are max levelled. It seems like you are not doing 2* farming. What do you do with those extra covers of these three characters?

You have the following 4* at 10 or more covers:

America Chavez, C4rol, Cyclops, Nick Fury, Prof X

9 covers
Deadpool, Elektra, Rogue, Thor, Wolverine

Those bold ones are pretty good. So, you can work on them.

The following four 4* characters are considered top tier:

R4G: 2/3/1
Karnark: 1/1/0
Juggernaut: 0/4/1
Vulture: 2/1/3

They could be what you would want to work on next. 

As mentioned, you have to decide whether to sell your top 3 highest levelled 5* to lower down your MMR, or work on Chavez and see if she's helping you to win fight more easily.

Those 3 2-stars are my regular team for Deadpool Daily. I could make a quick work out of the goon with these, a mindless grind. When I was lacking 3-stars, Black Widow saved me lots of health packs by healing on the spot. I just spent ISO for the extra purple and blue gems. As for the extra covers, I feed them to the shredder for ISO, of course. In the beginning I was very lacking of ISO for even leveling up the 2-stars.

I loved Chavez at the first sight, and so was Rogue. I designated these two as my favorite for the bonus pull. C4rol is just a blind luck, and only lately I found out how to employ her properly. As for Deadpool 3-star, I'm still on the fence. I like Deadpool 4-star more. Before the unfortunate pulling of legendaries, I was focusing on Chavez and C4rol.

Your 4-stars suggestion is right on. I avoid them like plague during PvP.

Selling is probably out of the question since I've spent my 2,500CP on those. Chavez is the miracle worker when teamed up with iHulk, but I need to spend extra 160 ISO to stockpile 4 gems, otherwise Chavez's passive won't kick in soon enough. This is another ISO deficit.

The most painless way out would be for D3 to remove those top 3 and reimburse me with equal covers, but they wouldn't do the favor, would they? ^^ I still think this is a pay to lose situation.

hstpctech

@HoundofShadow
To be clear, I hadn't done any farming since I played years ago. I was being dumb reserving the roster slots to get every character. I thought that way I won't be wasting covers.

Only now I finally have a complete roster, minus the 5-stars, and ready to do the farming. Then suddenly, the MMR poop the party.

hstpctech

OJSP said:

hstpctech said:

1.If I sell the top 3, then I'd be forfeiting my precise goal of getting a rather complete character. That is equal to years of setback in progress. 

2.Unfortunately, I don't think I can clear cache and app because I play on Steam.

1.I agree selling the 5*s should be the last resort. But, if they are actually preventing you from getting more resources, then it’s better to sell them to fix your MMR. Only you can figure out how much you are missing out by keeping them.

2.Why not? I think it should work if you just quit Steam and re-open the game?

The other problem you mentioned about levels of PvE opponents in some events without Clearance Levels is scaling. The level of opponents in some events(like the side nodes for boss events and the current AIM HARD event) are determined by the levels of our strongest 3 characters. This is what we had to deal with before SHIELD Clearance Levels were introduced. Unfortunately it’s also another information that is never explained very well in the game (or even at all). I think you should be fine to play the other events where you could choose your SCLs. Their range of levels for these events are the same regardless of our roster strength.

I should've known if the MMR for PvP is broken, of course PvE is no different. As far as I know, D3 never bothered to explain their match-making and how an unbalanced roster could seriously harm the PvP portion, or even the simplest farming/grinding.

When people mention cache and app, I presume they are talking about the mobile version. I'll try to restart Steam. After the current PvE ended, I'd go even lower to SCL5. If I read correctly, the HP reward from 3 days of PvE is only 50 HP at 19,500 point? 

hstpctech

@HoundofShadow
Finished God of Lies PvP an hour ago, ranked 32. Brute force with all kind of boosts and burning through health packs did the trick.

I started For Victory SCL9, and this time I got the seed teams. Joined a timeslice (I forgot which one, but it's definitely not the 2nd nor 5th) hours before the starting time, and begun my match on time. So far, it kind of working, I could at least find 2/3 combo matches 50% of the time.

JackDeath666

@hstpctech If I were in your shoes I would have America Chavez as my only 4* favourited/bonus hero. Get her champed and rely on her criticals combined with the bigger match damage from your 5*s. I personally wouldn't sell your 5*s. PVP will be tough but you'll toughen up yourself facing bigger teams. Having AC then Carol champed will really help you. Also pretend PVP placement doesn't exist as it's giving you unrealistic expectations. Focus on progression rewards by points or wins but don't expect to get anywhere near earning all of these. For a long time Devil Dinosaur was my only 4* champ so I know its tough.

JackDeath666

Also, join a more active alliance.