The great days of Po(op)laris

KGB

entrailbucket said:

I hear about rock/paper/scissors all the time but they've never managed to do this.  Right now, on offense you can just throw rock every time and win every time.  They're close though...they could accomplish it by, say, changing Thor so that he always beats SW, on offense and defense. (Please don't buff Thor, this is theoretical).

It'd set up like:

Hulk always beats Thor (and Thor cannot ever beat Hulk)
SW always beats Hulk (and Hulk cannot ever beat SW)
Thor always beats SW (and SW cannot ever beat Thor)

If you did this (such that 'Hulk always beats Thor' on offense AND defense) then what you've accomplished is giving players an auto-win on offense. All they have to do is see what character the other team uses and they use the other character and 'poof' instant win, no skill required and no threat of a loss.

I doubt the Dev's would ever want that and players would become quickly bored too.

KGB

entrailbucket

KGB said:

entrailbucket said:

I hear about rock/paper/scissors all the time but they've never managed to do this.  Right now, on offense you can just throw rock every time and win every time.  They're close though...they could accomplish it by, say, changing Thor so that he always beats SW, on offense and defense. (Please don't buff Thor, this is theoretical).

It'd set up like:

Hulk always beats Thor (and Thor cannot ever beat Hulk)
SW always beats Hulk (and Hulk cannot ever beat SW)
Thor always beats SW (and SW cannot ever beat Thor)

If you did this (such that 'Hulk always beats Thor' on offense AND defense) then what you've accomplished is giving players an auto-win on offense. All they have to do is see what character the other team uses and they use the other character and 'poof' instant win, no skill required and no threat of a loss.

I doubt the Dev's would ever want that and players would become quickly bored too.

KGB

Here's the problem: (and you may not be aware of this depending on where you're at in the game).

It's like that now.

Once you've reached a certain roster level, you don't lose on offense, unless something goes terribly wrong.  High level players wipe like 1-2% of the time, at most.  Wins are already basically instant and guaranteed in this game, as long as you bring a team with a certain power level.  There's no skill required, and no real threat of a loss.

dianetics

I can’t believe this conversation is still going on.
certain toons have hard counters that reduce downtime.
polaris is countered by morbius. Ihulk is countered by 5witch.
nobody is saying you can’t beat those teams. But there are certain characters that make downing them more efficiant.

you could always take your 500+ roster and slap down a 5* champ baby. That’s not the point.

It’s giving options and tools to let people move up and feel like that have worked for something.

entrailbucket

dianetics said:

I can’t believe this conversation is still going on.
certain toons have hard counters that reduce downtime.
polaris is countered by morbius. Ihulk is countered by 5witch.
nobody is saying you can’t beat those teams. But there are certain characters that make downing them more efficiant.

you could always take your 500+ roster and slap down a 5* champ baby. That’s not the point.

It’s giving options and tools to let people move up and feel like that have worked for something.

Polaris is not countered by Morbius, because if I bring Polaris to fight Morbius, I will win.  (Just stun him.) In fact, I can bring Polaris to literally any fight, against any opponent of any level, and win.  That means she has no counter.

This isn't about Polaris, I couldn't care less about her specifically, it's about overpowered characters and counterplay in general.  The same sentiment applied to Bishop, when he existed, to Okoye, Gambit, Apocalypse etc. 


You should not be able to win any fight in the game by using one character or one team 100% of the time.

Akoni

entrailbucket said:

KGB said:

entrailbucket said:

I hear about rock/paper/scissors all the time but they've never managed to do this.  Right now, on offense you can just throw rock every time and win every time.  They're close though...they could accomplish it by, say, changing Thor so that he always beats SW, on offense and defense. (Please don't buff Thor, this is theoretical).

It'd set up like:

Hulk always beats Thor (and Thor cannot ever beat Hulk)
SW always beats Hulk (and Hulk cannot ever beat SW)
Thor always beats SW (and SW cannot ever beat Thor)

If you did this (such that 'Hulk always beats Thor' on offense AND defense) then what you've accomplished is giving players an auto-win on offense. All they have to do is see what character the other team uses and they use the other character and 'poof' instant win, no skill required and no threat of a loss.

I doubt the Dev's would ever want that and players would become quickly bored too.

KGB

Here's the problem: (and you may not be aware of this depending on where you're at in the game).

It's like that now.

Once you've reached a certain roster level, you don't lose on offense, unless something goes terribly wrong.  High level players wipe like 1-2% of the time, at most.  Wins are already basically instant and guaranteed in this game, as long as you bring a team with a certain power level.  There's no skill required, and no real threat of a loss.

I think the win rate is a core component of the game's design, not just character design. There have been countless studies that found that how often a player wins highly impacts their satisfaction with the game. Devs must be careful when designing characters to make sure players are winning roughly 60% of the time or more. This is why the AI in PvE doesn't seem to hit as hard as they would at the same level in PvP. Numbers are manipulated to increase player win percentage which drives player satisfaction. For this reason, I don't think a true Rock Paper Scissor scenario will ever exist. It will throw off the win percentage for players whenever they use a specific character.

entrailbucket

Sure, but players wouldn't lose on offense if they brought the "right" team to the fight.  If the enemy is Rock, you don't attack them with Scissors, you attack them with Paper. 

The match would be unwinnable if they didn't have the Paper team rostered at all, of course, but that's what the devs should want. 

Right now, you could have a roster with two slots and win every fight in PvP as long as those two were the right characters at the right levels.  That's very bad, in a game where the business model is selling roster slots, and it's 100% fixable. 

If they don't want to reduce the power of the overpowered guys (And players hate nerfs!  They want counters!) then they need to give us effective defensive counters.

HoundofShadow

Don't forget that AI is pretty dumb. And the dev are not willing to make them smarter. So, players will will most of the time. And MPQ is largely a pick 2 in regular pvps. So, you will still be able to counter your anti-meta.

KGB

entrailbucket said:

Sure, but players wouldn't lose on offense if they brought the "right" team to the fight.  If the enemy is Rock, you don't attack them with Scissors, you attack them with Paper. 

The match would be unwinnable if they didn't have the Paper team rostered at all, of course, but that's what the devs should want. 

Right now, you could have a roster with two slots and win every fight in PvP as long as those two were the right characters at the right levels.  That's very bad, in a game where the business model is selling roster slots, and it's 100% fixable. 

If they don't want to reduce the power of the overpowered guys (And players hate nerfs!  They want counters!) then they need to give us effective defensive counters.

But no one cares about the defensive meta other than the 1% of players who are Stone chasers. Most players just want to reach 900 or 1000 or 1200 points and shield out / get beaten down if they don't care about placement. I regularly climb early and get beaten down and do a 2nd climb to 900 before shielding out. I don't care 1 whit that I always leave Polaris/Grocket out (even though I could leave better teams sometimes depending on who is boosted) and they get curb stomped at will. I just don't care about defense at all or losing points because it's trivial to win them back in short order.

Players love winning 99% of the battles without any serious effort. The fact they've been able to do this for 7+ years now and the game is going strong is proof that players like winning without much effort and winning virtually every battle. The Dev's know this too which is why players get every advantage (endless skips, 3 TUs, boosts, always move 1st, dumb AI etc) to ensure they continue to win like this.

Despite needing only a handful of characters, I still see virtually every player rostering every character. Maybe not all at once but inevitably they always do in order to play PvE etc. The fact the game is still alive after 7 years proves the model is working.

KGB

entrailbucket

KGB said:

entrailbucket said:

Sure, but players wouldn't lose on offense if they brought the "right" team to the fight.  If the enemy is Rock, you don't attack them with Scissors, you attack them with Paper. 

The match would be unwinnable if they didn't have the Paper team rostered at all, of course, but that's what the devs should want. 

Right now, you could have a roster with two slots and win every fight in PvP as long as those two were the right characters at the right levels.  That's very bad, in a game where the business model is selling roster slots, and it's 100% fixable. 

If they don't want to reduce the power of the overpowered guys (And players hate nerfs!  They want counters!) then they need to give us effective defensive counters.

But no one cares about the defensive meta other than the 1% of players who are Stone chasers. Most players just want to reach 900 or 1000 or 1200 points and shield out / get beaten down if they don't care about placement. I regularly climb early and get beaten down and do a 2nd climb to 900 before shielding out. I don't care 1 whit that I always leave Polaris/Grocket out (even though I could leave better teams sometimes depending on who is boosted) and they get curb stomped at will. I just don't care about defense at all or losing points because it's trivial to win them back in short order.

Players love winning 99% of the battles without any serious effort. The fact they've been able to do this for 7+ years now and the game is going strong is proof that players like winning without much effort and winning virtually every battle. The Dev's know this too which is why players get every advantage (endless skips, 3 TUs, boosts, always move 1st, dumb AI etc) to ensure they continue to win like this.

Despite needing only a handful of characters, I still see virtually every player rostering every character. Maybe not all at once but inevitably they always do in order to play PvE etc. The fact the game is still alive after 7 years proves the model is working.

KGB

Except...you do care about the defensive meta.  The fact that you're able to reach 900 at all means that there are many, many players at lower tiers who can't win a fight against your team.  Otherwise you'd lose points much faster than you gain them, and you'd never reach 900 points (ask a 3* player how easy it is for them to reach 900).

If they introduced a 2* character who could trivially beat your team, your pvp experience would be much different.  Would that feel fair?

HoundofShadow

PvPs is largely about psychology, timing, understanding of the timeslice and choice of characters used.

KGB

entrailbucket said:

KGB said:

But no one cares about the defensive meta other than the 1% of players who are Stone chasers. Most players just want to reach 900 or 1000 or 1200 points and shield out / get beaten down if they don't care about placement. I regularly climb early and get beaten down and do a 2nd climb to 900 before shielding out. I don't care 1 whit that I always leave Polaris/Grocket out (even though I could leave better teams sometimes depending on who is boosted) and they get curb stomped at will. I just don't care about defense at all or losing points because it's trivial to win them back in short order.

Players love winning 99% of the battles without any serious effort. The fact they've been able to do this for 7+ years now and the game is going strong is proof that players like winning without much effort and winning virtually every battle. The Dev's know this too which is why players get every advantage (endless skips, 3 TUs, boosts, always move 1st, dumb AI etc) to ensure they continue to win like this.

Despite needing only a handful of characters, I still see virtually every player rostering every character. Maybe not all at once but inevitably they always do in order to play PvE etc. The fact the game is still alive after 7 years proves the model is working.

KGB

Except...you do care about the defensive meta.  The fact that you're able to reach 900 at all means that there are many, many players at lower tiers who can't win a fight against your team.  Otherwise you'd lose points much faster than you gain them, and you'd never reach 900 points (ask a 3* player how easy it is for them to reach 900).

If they introduced a 2* character who could trivially beat your team, your pvp experience would be much different.  Would that feel fair?

Neither you nor I know how many lower tier players (3 and under) there are in the PvP game compared to 4/5* tier players like myself. There may not be many such players.

Also MMR prevents them from queuing me up or me queuing them up until such time as we reach certain point thresholds as you well know. So it's unlikely they'd ever be able to see me or me them.

Lastly, again as you well know, when you play matters. There are definitely times when I play where I get hit as often as I win (essentially 1 for 1). I avoid playing at such times and play in off hours when I can play a full hour finish my climb and never see a single hit.

So I don't believe what you wrote is true at all. I am certain I could still reach 900 easily even if 2 and 3* players could queue and beat my team (because I'd also be able to retal them for points / wins).

KGB

entrailbucket

KGB said:

entrailbucket said:

KGB said:

But no one cares about the defensive meta other than the 1% of players who are Stone chasers. Most players just want to reach 900 or 1000 or 1200 points and shield out / get beaten down if they don't care about placement. I regularly climb early and get beaten down and do a 2nd climb to 900 before shielding out. I don't care 1 whit that I always leave Polaris/Grocket out (even though I could leave better teams sometimes depending on who is boosted) and they get curb stomped at will. I just don't care about defense at all or losing points because it's trivial to win them back in short order.

Players love winning 99% of the battles without any serious effort. The fact they've been able to do this for 7+ years now and the game is going strong is proof that players like winning without much effort and winning virtually every battle. The Dev's know this too which is why players get every advantage (endless skips, 3 TUs, boosts, always move 1st, dumb AI etc) to ensure they continue to win like this.

Despite needing only a handful of characters, I still see virtually every player rostering every character. Maybe not all at once but inevitably they always do in order to play PvE etc. The fact the game is still alive after 7 years proves the model is working.

KGB

Except...you do care about the defensive meta.  The fact that you're able to reach 900 at all means that there are many, many players at lower tiers who can't win a fight against your team.  Otherwise you'd lose points much faster than you gain them, and you'd never reach 900 points (ask a 3* player how easy it is for them to reach 900).

If they introduced a 2* character who could trivially beat your team, your pvp experience would be much different.  Would that feel fair?

Neither you nor I know how many lower tier players (3 and under) there are in the PvP game compared to 4/5* tier players like myself. There may not be many such players.

Also MMR prevents them from queuing me up or me queuing them up until such time as we reach certain point thresholds as you well know. So it's unlikely they'd ever be able to see me or me them.

Lastly, again as you well know, when you play matters. There are definitely times when I play where I get hit as often as I win (essentially 1 for 1). I avoid playing at such times and play in off hours when I can play a full hour finish my climb and never see a single hit.

So I don't believe what you wrote is true at all. I am certain I could still reach 900 easily even if 2 and 3* players could queue and beat my team (because I'd also be able to retal them for points / wins).

KGB

You've forgotten what it was like to be a player at a lower tier, or you never knew.  Those players often do one fight and return to find a -200 or -250, no matter when or where they climb.  They can't make progress over a certain point because they instantly lose much more than they can possibly gain.

Also, the few lower tier players who've posted here have said emphatically that Polaris teams are auto-skip for them.  You're benefiting from deterrence as well as the protection you get from matchmaking.

Bad

When I was a lower tier I fighted for wins, not for points. And if pve left me time for playing pve, so much time I needed to daily clearing the nodes.
A lower tier cannot dream on winning points on pvp, being there polaris or any other.
People loving enough the game will make their progress no matter what.
The game has enough mechanisms for granting that.

KGB

entrailbucket said:

KGB said:

Neither you nor I know how many lower tier players (3 and under) there are in the PvP game compared to 4/5* tier players like myself. There may not be many such players.

Also MMR prevents them from queuing me up or me queuing them up until such time as we reach certain point thresholds as you well know. So it's unlikely they'd ever be able to see me or me them.

Lastly, again as you well know, when you play matters. There are definitely times when I play where I get hit as often as I win (essentially 1 for 1). I avoid playing at such times and play in off hours when I can play a full hour finish my climb and never see a single hit.

So I don't believe what you wrote is true at all. I am certain I could still reach 900 easily even if 2 and 3* players could queue and beat my team (because I'd also be able to retal them for points / wins).

KGB

You've forgotten what it was like to be a player at a lower tier, or you never knew.  Those players often do one fight and return to find a -200 or -250, no matter when or where they climb.  They can't make progress over a certain point because they instantly lose much more than they can possibly gain.

Also, the few lower tier players who've posted here have said emphatically that Polaris teams are auto-skip for them.  You're benefiting from deterrence as well as the protection you get from matchmaking.

I've been playing ~6 years. Since before there were champion levels for characters.

I recall being a 2* player very well. I had to bracket snipe and pick the right times to play in order to sneak in and score a 3* placement cover which I badly needed at those times. I also do not recall ever queuing 4* teams because that was outside my MMR. All I could queue was much stronger 3* teams once I climbed high enough. I could at that time reach 1800 in simulator with a 2* team.

I don't doubt Polaris is an auto skip for 3* players. But at the same time there is no way they are ever able to queue me since mine is L320 and so are the bulk of my 4*s so that's outside where 3* players can queue unless they are foolishly leveling up their 5* (in which case that's on them). On the other hand, I'm regularly beaten by baby 4* rosters using the standard L270 counters like Sabretooth, Mantis, Morbius and so on so my Polaris is no deterrent to the class of rosters 1 step below mine (~50 levels). At the same time I can punch up at least 1  level of roster quality myself to handle L360-400 characters in PvP. Things seem fine in PvP in 4* land.

KGB

entrailbucket

If you can only "punch up" one level of roster quality with Polaris, you're doing it wrong. 

Polaris can quite easily punch up 300 levels or more.  I know this, because I get punched up at pretty frequently.  (This isn't really a huge problem for me... I'll dump and take back all of my points with interest, and I remember names.)

Players with sub-300 rosters use her to quickly win the challenge node in CL10 PvE, which goes up to lvl650.  No other 4* character can do this.

The most frequent response to this is, "who cares, I'm not competitive, I just want progression rewards." The problem is that it's impossible for you to opt out of competition in any mode of this game.  Whether you're competing with others or not, other players are competing with you.

If you're ok with "just" getting top 100 placement rewards, you need to be aware that there are players who are competing, who are trying to reach top 100 placement rewards, and who cannot get them.  You're competing with them whether you want to be or not.  You can't simply pretend that 4/5 or 9/10 of all the players don't exist or aren't trying. 

True non-competitiveness would require you to tank your PvP score back down to 0 after you hit progression, to make sure you're not placing over anyone who does compete.  Being truly non-competitive in PvE is not possible.

Mr_F

The reason (singular) I managed to do all the clears in SCL10 PVE and can go straight for 50+ wins any PVP (does not mean I do) is Polaris. Sure, I have to bring BRB too but what makes it possible is she not he. Its BRB added to Polaris not the opposite which makes it possible. When the board is flooded with protect My BRB may be even dead and she can be the only one standing and i can pull this of.

So @entrailbucket is correct with statement that she can push you into almost everything the game can throw into you. That is the reason she is omnipresented. I am in a level of play when most common teams are Polaris/Kitty and Polaris/BRB. No matter who is boosted -  nothing is stopping players from using those two. And few others combos. It works: those two I only ones I skip*.

My opinion is that: her omnipresence is not the problem - cant blame people for using what is best for them to achieve their goals. And I do not mind that much. Its the fact that she allows players to jump way higher than they should.

* But ya know me - I go off meta so those two are to strong for me now. Sure I can beat fire with fire but I can burn myself too in the process.

Sekilicious

Mr_F said:

The reason (singular) I managed to do all the clears in SCL10 PVE and can go straight for 50+ wins any PVP (does not mean I do) is Polaris. Sure, I have to bring BRB too but what makes it possible is she not he. Its BRB added to Polaris not the opposite which makes it possible. When the board is flooded with protect My BRB may be even dead and she can be the only one standing and i can pull this of.

The synergy between Polaris and BRB lets you pull it off. Polaris does next to nothing by herself and you would be hard pressed to reach anything beyond simple progression in SCL10 with the 4* meta Juggernaut and Grocket as her partners. The Thugs get off their cheap shot before they can be killed or the muscle wipe the party with their tommy guns. And non-tile movers are the easiest to deal with. This was true in each (I’m currently on my 4th) the events I did at SCL10, even when Grocket and Polaris were boosted.

As for Polaris letting you do the challenge node, it’s true. Just today I got two clears in before I had to switch from Th4nos to 1* Juggernaut to spend ten minutes clearing the third. Fatpin killed off my lvl290 BRB in 4 or 5 moves before I could get the winfinite shenanigans going. The 4th and 5th generally are not possible to get going before a key component dies from match damage. But yup, I’m taking the place in the top 200 over more worthy players with 5* rosters.

entrailbucket

No one's saying you're not worthy.  You deserve the rewards you earn, because you competed for them.  You fought and defeated 80% of the players in your bracket, in the hardest CL in the game. 

Those other players all exist, and many of them would like to have more points than you, but they simply cannot earn that many.  You beat them.

hothie

Honestly, I'm looking forward to getting off of my Polaris dependence, even though that may not be for quite some time. A few weeks ago Silk was boosted, and I almost exclusively played her and Juggs in PvP that week, and rather enjoyed not running Polaris all of the time. It worked fairly well, as I recall. But when I do run Polaris against a non-Polaris team, more often than not I win quickly and easily. it's just...prudent to run her, as she saves me considerable time and health packs, although I do still get beaten badly on the revenge attacks. Though this week  in the Cap event, I've been seeing a ton of non-Polaris teams that are pretty strong teams, so that's good to see. If she does get nerfed, I think I would still play her, if for no other reason than to test her new effectiveness and see where she fits in my roster now. But until then, or until I can build myself a better roster, she will continue to be my crutch.

Polaris is the bane of 3* players, the crutch of 4* players, and the cakewalk of 5* players.

Captain_Trips88

Boosted 5* made PVP fun again for me personally as I could ditch Polaris and still get plenty of wins, rather than grinding through with kitty or BRB in every single fight. don't get me wrong, there is still an over reliance on them that would be nice to shift away from but its still highly efficient.

Having Polaris, kitty and BRB are the only reason I can complete CL10 because of the state of my 5* roster, slowly getting the meta teams up there but for now its Polaris all the way. so yes, she lets you shoot above your level with the correct pairings. with that in mind, I am guessing there are many 3* or low level 4* who have her and it allows them to punch above their weight in PVE and they would be pretty cheesed off to have to drop down several levels to win fights again