boosted 5* in pvp: how are you feeling about it after a few weeks

Phumade

Once we get into spider Dd Thor and beyon, pvp will go insane.  God gambit would still be broken,  but Polaris and brb can spam specials pretty fast.  A 600+ Dd is gonna have insane healing

jredd

I've decided i don't like this. i'm sure i'll adapt at some point. but there are now almost no soft teams in PVP anymore. especially when you start to get in the 900+ territory. i'm down about 3-5k and 100 spots in my season score. health pack use is waaay up.  if they are going to leave it the way hopefully they increase the base amount of health packs to 20 at least. and adjust the scoring to better reflect the difficulty of the team you're facing, rather than strictly based off current placement. 

HoundofShadow

I don't think they give free healthpacks but they are having 30 healthpacks for sales.

Borstock

Not looking forward to boosted iHulk, Apoc, or BRB.

Bad

New week with thor boosted. Hard week However samurai daken is boosted too. Great!

DAZ0273

God boosted Thor is quite hard to use at half health, especially now he tanks yellow which I want Apocalypse to tank but I wont lie - things are very fast and he is wrecking things. Thor has some time to rest up now and I suspect he will just about make it back to half health by time I can get back stuck into Mystique's PvP.

SnowcaTT

Diversity, yes!

...of players. So many players I've basically never seen before, and won't see again for 14 weeks. I still don't see how that's a good way to encourage old people to play, or do anything but discourage anyone who has mostly smaller/newer 5*.

I feel about it as I expected it to be in the "Suddenly...weekly boosted 5*" thread. I prefer fast matches to slow matches and godboost means you often see double 550 every single match. But after so many broke big for SW/Colossus/Knull.....the days of speed seem to be over anyway.

entrailbucket

SnowcaTT said:

Diversity, yes!

...of players. So many players I've basically never seen before, and won't see again for 14 weeks. I still don't see how that's a good way to encourage old people to play, or do anything but discourage anyone who has mostly smaller/newer 5*.

I feel about it as I expected it to be in the "Suddenly...weekly boosted 5*" thread. I prefer fast matches to slow matches and godboost means you often see double 550 every single match. But after so many broke big for SW/Colossus/Knull.....the days of speed seem to be over anyway.

It's *way* faster for me! 

Matches are probably also much faster for players who are using the boosted guys to fight high level Okoye/Hulk/Beta Bill/SW/etc.

SnowcaTT

BriMan2222 said:

I mean,  after a few weeks of these boosts the same 550 players that were taking the top spots in pvp and pve are taking the exact same top spots and players with high lvl older characters are placing maybe slightly higher than before, from what I've seen. 

This is what I've typically seen as well, in travels through several different timed slices.

The best 5*'s are the best....and folks tried to get them biggest....and they are the teams that are still getting the most points (be that through skips or wins).

Likely in part because the characters we've gone through are - for the most part - not the best, and therefore most people did try to get them big. Certainly more Thor than almost anything else this event. Soon there will be some other powerful characters that many people have at high level - PX/Okoye/BRB...I expect then the old characters will matter more.

In previous events I watched people move to ~600 teams and try them for awhile: and then move back to "same old whatever". I had a great time with a nearly 650 Thanos on the 3* Loki event.....and it was time to stop using it once that one-trick pony stopped working against bigger required characters.

entrailbucket

SnowcaTT said:

BriMan2222 said:

I mean,  after a few weeks of these boosts the same 550 players that were taking the top spots in pvp and pve are taking the exact same top spots and players with high lvl older characters are placing maybe slightly higher than before, from what I've seen. 

This is what I've typically seen as well, in travels through several different timed slices.

The best 5*'s are the best....and folks tried to get them biggest....and they are the teams that are still getting the most points (be that through skips or wins).

Likely in part because the characters we've gone through are - for the most part - not the best, and therefore most people did try to get them big. Certainly more Thor than almost anything else this event. Soon there will be some other powerful characters that many people have at high level - PX/Okoye/BRB...I expect then the old characters will matter more.

In previous events I watched people move to ~600 teams and try them for awhile: and then move back to "same old whatever". I had a great time with a nearly 650 Thanos on the 3* Loki event.....and it was time to stop using it once that one-trick pony stopped working against bigger required characters.

You know as well as I do that roster has very little to do with pvp placement.  The people who occupy the top spots in pvp are there because they're in the right rooms and they try really hard.  I'm sure you could win a PvP bracket with 450s if you stared at a BC 24/7 and caught all the best cupcakes.

They could nerf all the meta characters into the ground at once and buff OML/Pnx into 6* and the same people would win pvps forever.

HoundofShadow

Depending on what outcomes the dev is looking at, seeing diversity of players may or may not be what they want.

In terms of increasing number of players in pvps, they've succeeded.

In terms of increasing variety on a monthly basis, they've succeeded as well: up to 8 different teams, compared to 1 or 2 teams per month. 

In terms of top placements, doing this won't change anything. LINE is necessary to get top 10 placement in season and most time slices. At least for slice 2 and 5, you don't have to join LINE to get T10. 

We can implement pvp version of "Tapping" where your score won't decrease, but will only increase. Players who have a lot of time on their hand can play 200 to 300 matches to get T1 in SCL 10, instead of coordinating in Line.

entrailbucket

HoundofShadow said:

Depending on what outcomes the dev is looking at, seeing diversity of players may or may not be what they want.

In terms of increasing number of players in pvps, they've succeeded.

In terms of increasing variety on a monthly basis, they've succeeded as well: up to 8 different teams, compared to 1 or 2 teams per month. 

In terms of top placements, doing this won't change anything. LINE is necessary to get top 10 placement in season and most time slices. At least for slice 2 and 5, you don't have to join LINE to get T10. 

We can implement pvp version of "Tapping" where your score won't decrease, but will only increase. Players who have a lot of time on their hand can play 200 to 300 matches to get T1 in SCL 10, instead of coordinating in Line.

You are dramatically underrating the degeneracy of MPQ players.  When we had tapping in PvE there were quite a few players who chose not to sleep in favor of tapping.  People who won those brackets often tapped a single node 10,000+ times over the course of an event.

If they did that in pvp, 200-300 matches wouldn't get you top 50 in a CL10 bracket.

Phumade

entrailbucket said:

SnowcaTT said:

BriMan2222 said:

I mean,  after a few weeks of these boosts the same 550 players that were taking the top spots in pvp and pve are taking the exact same top spots and players with high lvl older characters are placing maybe slightly higher than before, from what I've seen. 

This is what I've typically seen as well, in travels through several different timed slices.

The best 5*'s are the best....and folks tried to get them biggest....and they are the teams that are still getting the most points (be that through skips or wins).

Likely in part because the characters we've gone through are - for the most part - not the best, and therefore most people did try to get them big. Certainly more Thor than almost anything else this event. Soon there will be some other powerful characters that many people have at high level - PX/Okoye/BRB...I expect then the old characters will matter more.

In previous events I watched people move to ~600 teams and try them for awhile: and then move back to "same old whatever". I had a great time with a nearly 650 Thanos on the 3* Loki event.....and it was time to stop using it once that one-trick pony stopped working against bigger required characters.

You know as well as I do that roster has very little to do with pvp placement.  The people who occupy the top spots in pvp are there because they're in the right rooms and they try really hard.  I'm sure you could win a PvP bracket with 450s if you stared at a BC 24/7 and caught all the best cupcakes.

They could nerf all the meta characters into the ground at once and buff OML/Pnx into 6* and the same people would win pvps forever.

Lots of 460-480 players take T25 or better because they make lots of hops etc…

Winning 1st or 2nd pvp brackets (in any slice tbh) would be a real crowning achievement with just 2 450s.  It would need an experienced bake shop player using every technique developed ( catch every train, have enforcers tying up snipers,  3 hops every 8 hrs for 2 1/2 days.). To hold of lazy 550 late climbers.

it would be fun to see even if it’s mega whale trying to flex with his 3rd string okie.  

But it’s not gonna be a new to 5* land player who

Wins an SCL 10 pvp (1st or 2nd flip bracket) with 2 450-460 5*.

I look forward to seeing some go for this true achievement.  

entrailbucket

My point was that this boosted 5* thing isn't going to have any effect on leaderboards, because of course it's not.

Anyone who's got a passing familiarity with PvP knows that the people who win are winning because of who they know and how hard they try, not necessarily their roster.

HoundofShadow

A single node takes at most 15-20 seconds to complete. You hardly need healthpacks. 10 thousand times is a little exaggerating unless you are talking about over the course of 3-4 days. 150,000-200,000 seconds or 41.6 hours-55.5hrs over 4 days sounds about right. Over 3 days is a little extreme.  

In PvPs, each normal match takes about 90-120 seconds on average.  And you need healthpacks in pvps. There will probably be a long hour break. I can't imagine doing this over 1000 times. 

entrailbucket

HoundofShadow said:

A single node takes at most 15-20 seconds to complete. You hardly need healthpacks. 10 thousand times is a little exaggerating unless you are talking about over the course of 3-4 days. 150,000-200,000 seconds or 41.6 hours-55.5hrs over 4 days sounds about right. Over 3 days is a little extreme.  

In PvPs, each normal match takes about 90-120 seconds on average.  And you need healthpacks in pvps. There will probably be a long hour break. I can't imagine doing this over 1000 times. 

I mean...I was there.  People did 10,000+ taps over the course of an event.  There were people who tapped 24 straight hours.  I know, because I saw them do it. 

At first it was just the truly insane people, and then it sort of became normalized, and if you wanted to place at all you had to spend an insane amount of time doing it.

Phumade

HoundofShadow said:

A single node takes at most 15-20 seconds to complete. You hardly need healthpacks. 10 thousand times is a little exaggerating unless you are talking about over the course of 3-4 days. 150,000-200,000 seconds or 41.6 hours-55.5hrs over 4 days sounds about right. Over 3 days is a little extreme.  

In PvPs, each normal match takes about 90-120 seconds on average.  And you need healthpacks in pvps. There will probably be a long hour break. I can't imagine doing this over 1000 times. 

2/3 hours of tapping would be typical (length of a movie typically, or god forbid Netflix binge). There where several things at play. 1. efficient tappers had enough match damage power that they could reliable tap the 3*E in 3 moves or less. You could easily watch tv and tap ant the same time. 2. The comp tappers know how to translate point lead to mins ahead. This meant that the best tappers knew they had 1 hr leads walking into 3rd day. This meant they just watched for other known tappers and knew roughly when they needed to start to lock in t2. Don’t forget this doesn’t include monitoring time. So irregardless of when they started, they were actively watch the leaderboard at least 1hr or so ahead.

entrailbucket

I never really understood it, in much the same way that I don't understand people spending so much time watching for qs and hopping.  It just seems like a pyrrhic victory.  Sure, you won, but at what cost???

At some point, a sane person would just run a quick calculation of their hourly pay rate vs the rewards on offer and realize they're losing money.

It's the sort of thing you might do once to say you did it, or get a screenshot of yourself at #1, but to do it every event...

HoundofShadow

Yes, those matches were mainly easy. That's why it's easy to tap for hours. However, in PvP, your average players are likely facing meta teams once they reach the top until they break mmr. Come to think of it, it will be a battle of players in top alliance with top meta characters vs players with meta characters and a lot of time to spend.

So, expecting changes in top placement in SCL 10 and Season requires another method. Those players involved are probably your high spenders and coming up with something that dismantle the coordination efforts will likely see a big drop in HP usage and spending, and revenues. 

It is a futile effort to try to effect changes in T10 or even T5 in coordinating slices. 

Back to boost, I think they can reduce the number of boosted characters to 2 or 3 instead for future run. There are 52 weeks in a year, so there will be enough for 104 or 156 boosted 5*. If not, they can alternate 4 boosted 5* every 2 or 3 weeks. It will give players some breathing space.

Bad

entrailbucket said:

My point was that this boosted 5* thing isn't going to have any effect on leaderboards, because of course it's not.

Anyone who's got a passing familiarity with PvP knows that the people who win are winning because of who they know and how hard they try, not necessarily their roster.

They can win but to a certain point. They can go up and stay a bit in first places but towards the end of the event they cannot afford to compete with stronger rosters and those boosteds 5* require too much strenght for to take that risk.
To the end of the event the strongest rosters are staying on first places.
Also people who used to win all events have more resources, their alliance is top, things are easier in the end.