Don't level your cards if you want to PvP

Unknown

I have a 141 widow (spent some $ on covers) and was leveling up hood (spent some $ on covers). when they were 141/118, PvP was fine. Mid Daken I leveled Hood to 120, and suddenly every enemy is a pair of 141/141 normally with an overboosted 212 to contend with.

Key takaway: dont spend money or level your cards or you will be punished.

Unknown

Well, something seems to be changed in the matchmaking rules, as I was not leveling chars but still see significant increase in enemy difficulty since last daken PVP

Used to cruise against level 85s or low 100s or at most only 141, now I start seeing full 141 teams

With only punisher at 140, I'm royally screwed

Unknown

I'm actually seeing levels go down as I get closer to 1000. Maybe they ran out of guys to match up.

mags1587

Phantron wrote:

I'm actually seeing levels go down as I get closer to 1000. Maybe they ran out of guys to match up.

During the Daken tourney, I was seeing high-level or max 3* teams up until I hit about 750 points. Then it was all 20-point 2* teams. Very strange.

Unknown

I had a similar experience... I was getting 2* teams (I've got a 2* roster) all the way up to 700, but beyond that I started seeing and getting hit by 141 teams.

I got knocked back to 698 and I didn't get hit by any 141 teams over the course of a day.

My interpretation of my experience is that I got matched with people near my MMR up to 700, and then got matched with a wider (open?) range of people with far superior rosters past 700.

Unknown

dongtackler wrote:

I had a similar experience... I was getting 2* teams (I've got a 2* roster) all the way up to 700, but beyond that I started seeing and getting hit by 141 teams.

I got knocked back to 698 and I didn't get hit by any 141 teams over the course of a day.

My interpretation of my experience is that I got matched with people near my MMR up to 700, and then got matched with a wider (open?) range of people with far superior rosters past 700.

I'm guessing they expand the opponents since there are far less players with a 700+ rating so they got no choice unless you want to just play the same 3 guys over and over (and this would usually ensure you never get anywhere).

Unknown

vayhle wrote:

I have a 141 widow (spent some $ on covers) and was leveling up hood (spent some $ on covers). when they were 141/118, PvP was fine. Mid Daken I leveled Hood to 120, and suddenly every enemy is a pair of 141/141 normally with an overboosted 212 to contend with.

Key takaway: dont spend money or level your cards or you will be punished.

It seems we live in a world where people want everything to be easy and where rewards should just be given out for free. It seems the days when hard work and conquering challenges were in themselves reward enough to a man/women to feel good about their existence.

GO PLAY FARMVILLE!

With Punisher 141 and OBW 85 I can take down ANY team. I crushed Maxed DAKEN/THOR/C.MAGS and I felt good about it. As long as your team stays below maxed characters you will get hit by people from multiple tiers. Once you've got maxed characters a lot of people will skip you unless they also have maxed characters. Besides, it feels like a real accomplishment once you start seeing the big forum whales showing up on your nodes.

I don't play games in order to crush everyone without effort. I play games to overcome challenges and use my brain to solve problems. When facing maxed out teams you have to play real smart, because bad moves will end the game.

over_clocked

Pun/oBW is a very good strong team, but the Hulk is often problematic for me without cMags' board control. You don't want a single Anger to proc unless they have only 0-3 green.

Unknown

Milkrain wrote:

vayhle wrote:

I have a 141 widow (spent some $ on covers) and was leveling up hood (spent some $ on covers). when they were 141/118, PvP was fine. Mid Daken I leveled Hood to 120, and suddenly every enemy is a pair of 141/141 normally with an overboosted 212 to contend with.

Key takaway: dont spend money or level your cards or you will be punished.

It seems we live in a world where people want everything to be easy and where rewards should just be given out for free. It seems the days when hard work and conquering challenges were in themselves reward enough to a man/women to feel good about their existence.

GO PLAY FARMVILLE!

With Punisher 141 and OBW 85 I can take down ANY team. I crushed Maxed DAKEN/THOR/C.MAGS and I felt good about it. As long as your team stays below maxed characters you will get hit by people from multiple tiers. Once you've got maxed characters a lot of people will skip you unless they also have maxed characters. Besides, it feels like a real accomplishment once you start seeing the big forum whales showing up on your nodes.

I don't play games in order to crush everyone without effort. I play games to overcome challenges and use my brain to solve problems. When facing maxed out teams you have to play real smart, because bad moves will end the game.

If you are in MMR hell, no one will skip you if you worth the points. At this level you only fight 3x141 teams (or 2x141 + über featured character), than means tons of HP and slow fights. When you are at the top, you are an easy target for more than your 500 bracket and in the time you win a match you can be hit several times. Thats why the last day of tourneys its a blood bad and there playing smart (at a slower pace) you lose more point that you are able to obtain.

This needs to be changed because it encourages people to not play and shielding becomes a must if you expect to place top 10.

Unknown

vayhle wrote:

I have a 141 widow (spent some $ on covers) and was leveling up hood (spent some $ on covers). when they were 141/118, PvP was fine. Mid Daken I leveled Hood to 120, and suddenly every enemy is a pair of 141/141 normally with an overboosted 212 to contend with.

Key takaway: dont spend money or level your cards or you will be punished.

same here, by a lucky normal token, my LT maxed cover so I level him to 121.... and now my PVP had to vs 141 team, all are lv141 with one buffed lv1xx to 212... this is not right.

Unknown

Milkrain wrote:

vayhle wrote:

I have a 141 widow (spent some $ on covers) and was leveling up hood (spent some $ on covers). when they were 141/118, PvP was fine. Mid Daken I leveled Hood to 120, and suddenly every enemy is a pair of 141/141 normally with an overboosted 212 to contend with.

Key takaway: dont spend money or level your cards or you will be punished.

It seems we live in a world where people want everything to be easy and where rewards should just be given out for free. It seems the days when hard work and conquering challenges were in themselves reward enough to a man/women to feel good about their existence.

GO PLAY FARMVILLE!

With Punisher 141 and OBW 85 I can take down ANY team. I crushed Maxed DAKEN/THOR/C.MAGS and I felt good about it. As long as your team stays below maxed characters you will get hit by people from multiple tiers. Once you've got maxed characters a lot of people will skip you unless they also have maxed characters. Besides, it feels like a real accomplishment once you start seeing the big forum whales showing up on your nodes.

I don't play games in order to crush everyone without effort. I play games to overcome challenges and use my brain to solve problems. When facing maxed out teams you have to play real smart, because bad moves will end the game.

I beat nearly every 141 team i go against. The problem isnt whether I can win against a "big forum whale", it is whether I can win enough matches in a short period of time to rank for rewards, help my alliance. I went from competitive overnight to unable to rank, unless of course I want to spend a fortune on health packs to heal up after every fight, and shield constantly to deal with the fact that my defense gets matched with the same 141s that are frankly better cards than mine and lose on D constantly. For example, last night I was at ~100 rating and was hit close to a dozen times.

Take your "I'm so smart I can beat a good lineup" talk elsewhere, use your brain to figure out that challenge.

Unknown

They are constantly tweaking MMR from event to event, so it's really impossible to get a read on what 'your actions' are having on your matchups.

So, I wouldn't stress about it and just keep playing/leveling like you normally are.

The way this game is going, those with the biggest roster of useable characters are going to have the greatest advantage in collecting the most rewards. So, it does you little good to keep half a dozen characters purposely under-leveled in an attempt to improve your matchups slightly.

Unknown

Toxicadam wrote:

They are constantly tweaking MMR from event to event, so it's really impossible to get a read on what 'your actions' are having on your matchups.

So, I wouldn't stress about it and just keep playing/leveling like you normally are.

The way this game is going, those with the biggest roster of useable characters are going to have the greatest advantage in collecting the most rewards. So, it does you little good to keep half a dozen characters purposely under-leveled in an attempt to improve your matchups slightly.

You are right, having a large roster of usable characters is the advantage. Just dont get 141s, max level to 110 or so, and get **s done for support. Then you can compete. if you make the mistake of leveling a couple of *** you are screwed, that is my point. I'm being punished for actually spending money on the game to do that.

I don't think going from 85/120/90 to 141/141/212 is slight. it makes it impossible to compete in the pvp events unless and until i also have the same, with depth. the fact that it changed from doable to impossible in the middle of an event, and carried over to shield/lightning/pvp sucks.

Unknown

vayhle wrote:

I don't think going from 85/120/90 to 141/141/212 is slight. it makes it impossible to compete in the pvp events unless and until i also have the same, with depth. the fact that it changed from doable to impossible in the middle of an event, and carried over to shield/lightning/pvp sucks.

I had the exact same experience as you. In the last half of season one PvP events, I was facing all lesser/equal teams until I hit a certain point threshold (sometimes 1000, sometimes 800). Then I would face the highest level opponents. Then in the last 3-4 PvP's it has changed and I get those opponents right out of the gate.


But it was nothing I did that changed it. It was their tweaking of MMR that was the cause. (I suspect they saw the metrics and were giving away too many 1100-1300 prog. rewards. So they reeled it back)

Unknown

the problem from my pov seems to be we all have an inherent expectation. We make our rosters stronger, we expect to be able to be more effective in PVE and PVP events. However the current system is not rewarding us imo for making our rosters stronger.

RIsk to reward becomes a problem in PVP very fast. I have a very high risk very quick with my matchups and very small reward for taking the risk. So the current system tends to stall my team at lower levels of points than before and I either have to shield just to stay in a lower spot than normal or I can just get beat on to lose more and more points.

a few things I'd prefer to see. I'd like to see some sort of limit on how many points we can lose. It is not encouraging as a player to lose huge chunks of points and then you look at your opponents that just took 40 points away from you, go I can probably beat that roster if I play it well, but it's only worth 8 points to me, so it's not worth the time/risk. And let's not forget there is luck involved too between colors needed, cascades from hell granted the AI, etc. Recently ahve also seen AI get fed points without color matches when they have a hero on the team who then uses the AP to power his hero skill even though you did the best you could to block them from acquiring the AP with defensive matches which don't always help you, but then in addition they fire the skills off anyway from non hero turn by turn based free AP generated. ./really?

Why dangle the 1100 point rewards to those of us playing without sandbagging (I don't like the idea of trying to cheat the MMR system even if gen pop of players thinks it's ok) if you keep making it more and more difficult for me to even hit 600 points in pvp matches. My reward for making my roster better and better over time seems to be that it's even harder for me to compete. It seems the weaker lower level teams have it easier overall by far. So IDK what the incentive to level my covers and have a strong roster in this game are anymore.

The pace of the games in general are almost too fast now and if u want to take a break and you miss certain opportunities for covers, you are now handicapped for the next event, etc.

The game was a very fun casual game that seems to be trying to push itself into a less casual mode. I think this will only drive players away especially coupled with a lower reward based on risks taken factor that I feel has been the trend of late.

Unknown

vayhle wrote:

I beat nearly every 141 team i go against. The problem isnt whether I can win against a "big forum whale", it is whether I can win enough matches in a short period of time to rank for rewards, help my alliance. I went from competitive overnight to unable to rank, unless of course I want to spend a fortune on health packs to heal up after every fight, and shield constantly to deal with the fact that my defense gets matched with the same 141s that are frankly better cards than mine and lose on D constantly. For example, last night I was at ~100 rating and was hit close to a dozen times.

Take your "I'm so smart I can beat a good lineup" talk elsewhere, use your brain to figure out that challenge.

One of the problems in this game is the severely broken health pack system. The original PQ games encouraged you to seek challenging matches by not punishing you if you lost. In this game, you're encouraged to fight tough matches and buy health packs (the game seems to start cheating in the enemy's favor if you win too many times in a row w/o using health packs), or else be unable to play for as many as 8 hours while your heroes revive (and then potentially wipe all over again). The effect of this is that most people seek less risky matches that they know they can win, in order to place and earn rewards. Getting new heroes is fun, but at some point, I'm sure I'll lose interest even in that as well. PvE in theory offers a reprieve by swapping things up, but in practice suffers from the same intrinsic flaw. You're discouraged from playing the hardest matches you can find because you're punished heavily for losing, unless you want to spend a lot on health packs. And if you don't lose enough, the game starts giving you crazily volatile boards to wipe you.

Same way it seems to feed you into people's bubbles more the closer you get to a reward tier (and skimping points off the top so that you come up just short).

This game is only part skill based. A large portion of it is strength of roster, and whether or not you're willing to spend HP / real money in order to advance (which it also punishes you for doing), and not just a little. It wants you to spend a lot of money. Getting around that (even if you spend some money, but aren't some kind of millionaire) is pretty tricky.

For a game that's so fun on the surface of things, it's surprising how it manages to have so many things about it (and its underlying systems) that are just totally broken outside of their ability to generate revenue for the devs (no matter the cost to player experience).

Unknown

Sauron2112 wrote:

the problem from my pov seems to be we all have an inherent expectation. We make our rosters stronger, we expect to be able to be more effective in PVE and PVP events. However the current system is not rewarding us imo for making our rosters stronger.
...

The pace of the games in general are almost too fast now and if u want to take a break and you miss certain opportunities for covers, you are now handicapped for the next event, etc.

The game was a very fun casual game that seems to be trying to push itself into a less casual mode. I think this will only drive players away especially coupled with a lower reward based on risks taken factor that I feel has been the trend of late.

It does seem like they've been trying to turn it more into a sport lately. They seem to have eased off a little bit this season, but the jury's still out on that one. One thing problematic about this is that in normal sports/ competitions, sticking with it and getting better (e.g. leveling your characters) either makes it easier for you to compete or make you eligible to compete for better prizes. In MPQ, the whole system of this is screwed up. It keeps making things harder the more you level your characters, but doesn't offer you any better reward. In fact, it makes it more difficult to win even basic rewards.

Going with the sports analogy, this game does the equivalent of separating all players based on skill / ability, and making them compete for trophies, but then not distinguishing between what the trophies are. Basically, it makes it so that everyone gets a World Series or NCAA trophy even if they're in minor league or even little league. Part of the problem here is that their priority generally seems to be what makes them the most money, and fostering a healthy competitive environment where players feel appropriately rewarded for the effort put in comes in as a distant second.

That said, they do seem to have scaled back death brackets slightly, and this last PvE was a big improvement (if a lot more grindy) in terms of achievable rewards, but it's still problematic.

Unknown

I'd like to see more of the risk-reward balance that previous posters mentioned. I think instead of/in addition to the random ISO and Cover drops after each fight, there could also be an ISO "bounty" reward based on the levels of the three opponents. Fighting a team with a combined level below your team's would yield no bonus or a small bonus, fighting a team at approximately your team's level would yield a moderate bonus, fighting teams at higher levels than yours drops a big bonus. Give us an incentive to pursue challenge - more carrot, less stick!

gambl0r312

AnubisUltra wrote:

Milkrain wrote:

vayhle wrote:

I have a 141 widow (spent some $ on covers) and was leveling up hood (spent some $ on covers). when they were 141/118, PvP was fine. Mid Daken I leveled Hood to 120, and suddenly every enemy is a pair of 141/141 normally with an overboosted 212 to contend with.

Key takaway: dont spend money or level your cards or you will be punished.

It seems we live in a world where people want everything to be easy and where rewards should just be given out for free. It seems the days when hard work and conquering challenges were in themselves reward enough to a man/women to feel good about their existence.

GO PLAY FARMVILLE!

With Punisher 141 and OBW 85 I can take down ANY team. I crushed Maxed DAKEN/THOR/C.MAGS and I felt good about it. As long as your team stays below maxed characters you will get hit by people from multiple tiers. Once you've got maxed characters a lot of people will skip you unless they also have maxed characters. Besides, it feels like a real accomplishment once you start seeing the big forum whales showing up on your nodes.

I don't play games in order to crush everyone without effort. I play games to overcome challenges and use my brain to solve problems. When facing maxed out teams you have to play real smart, because bad moves will end the game.

If you are in MMR hell, no one will skip you if you worth the points. At this level you only fight 3x141 teams (or 2x141 + über featured character), than means tons of HP and slow fights. When you are at the top, you are an easy target for more than your 500 bracket and in the time you win a match you can be hit several times. Thats why the last day of tourneys its a blood bad and there playing smart (at a slower pace) you lose more point that you are able to obtain.

This needs to be changed because it encourages people to not play and shielding becomes a must if you expect to place top 10.

This is exactly why it won't change since this means people are forced to spend HP and/or $$$ for shields ( since HP is a scarce resource ). More $$$ in the short term seems to be exactly what the devs are going for so, "working as intended..." etc. I guess

ThatOneGuyjp189512

i've found that once i started using my first 141(punisher) i still had to deal with 2* max teams that i could beat, but more and more i leveled my second one up(Super Cap) i started seeing more and more even teams, comparable with mine. It seems my MMR is allowing my teams i'm going up against flow in a very nice natural curve. I still get hit hard by the 141's(getting hit by a member of SHIELD was a very oddly proud moment for me btw). i still occasionally get defeated by lesser teams(mostly MNMags/CStorm teams) but it's been nice. What i think needs to happen is giving someone a penalty if they use boosts or something to that effect. say something to effect of "Notice: if you use this boost your points earned will be less by XX amount" because for the most part, that's most likely what's happening. I know some people are in the camp of "nerf OBW!" but i think she's very well balanced, her power being balanced by being squishy as hell, 2 141's see that and it's basically a free lunch. the season and tweaking of the brackets has definitely been noticable to me, cause i used to be in brackets where anything over 900 was guaranteed a top 10 finish but now that i've got multiple 141's i've gotta get to 1000 to get top 10. I like the changes for the most part though, just the fact that i still get killed by level 85's annoys me, but not enough to quit this game.

Unknown

ThatOneGuyjp189512 wrote:

i've found that once i started using my first 141(punisher) i still had to deal with 2* max teams that i could beat, but more and more i leveled my second one up(Super Cap) i started seeing more and more even teams, comparable with mine. It seems my MMR is allowing my teams i'm going up against flow in a very nice natural curve. I still get hit hard by the 141's(getting hit by a member of SHIELD was a very oddly proud moment for me btw). i still occasionally get defeated by lesser teams(mostly MNMags/CStorm teams) but it's been nice. What i think needs to happen is giving someone a penalty if they use boosts or something to that effect. say something to effect of "Notice: if you use this boost your points earned will be less by XX amount" because for the most part, that's most likely what's happening. I know some people are in the camp of "nerf OBW!" but i think she's very well balanced, her power being balanced by being squishy as hell, 2 141's see that and it's basically a free lunch. the season and tweaking of the brackets has definitely been noticable to me, cause i used to be in brackets where anything over 900 was guaranteed a top 10 finish but now that i've got multiple 141's i've gotta get to 1000 to get top 10. I like the changes for the most part though, just the fact that i still get killed by level 85's annoys me, but not enough to quit this game.

I'm talking about something different. In all the PvP events (shield, psylocke, lightning), every enemy i get to choose to fight is a 141/141/[something close to 141 depending on the event]. This turned PvP from fun and sometimes challenging, to a complete slog and no fun at all. Alliancemates who have nothing close to 141 cards yet are getting the same draws, 141/141/x. It really sucks.