The ChaHulk meta

Sekilicious

It seems to me that the end game has moved to 550s rather than simply champed. Once you have 13 you are 100 short of maxing out the character. They can hand out 5* shards like candy because people cannot champ all that they have without additional inputs of iso, and there has been no sign they are increasing that. Myself, I am sitting on 4 fully covered toons (Ultron, Gamora, iShulk, Emma) and around 50 4s with champ rewards waiting. Besides, if they stick to only classic characters they will hand out one additional cover per year for each, less with each release. It's a moot point anyways. As you originally posted, there has been no sign they will add 5* shards to PvP.

HoundofShadow

It's going to take ages to hit 550, unless you hoard for 2 years or so. Even then, it's only 3 550.

Anyway, to bring things back to topic, this was posted in reddit about a week ago by the dev regarding Chasm:

"UPDATE: Sorry for the delay on this (catching up following the Thanksgiving holiday and then was out ill for a bit). Analytics did a sweep on data concerning all things Chasm. The high level overview:

• Chasm is not as prevalent in PVP as some might think, although in certain PVP circles they do appear very frequently.
• Chasm's team compositions are repetitive and overwhelmingly lean into revive mechanics.
• Teams with Chasm have a greater than 50% win rate (though not as high as you might think)
• Overall analysis points to Chasm being a strong character, but not overly strong and not suggesting that action be taken.

That said, we did identify something very interesting: while the game manages lots of different data points, it does not track team compositions that are skipped. This was surprising, and something we aim to introduce so we have a better picture of how characters impact all angles of the game.

In light of that, we're working on introducing some things to shake up revive-centered team dynamics that we think everyone will enjoy. Cheers!"

Bad

@HoundofShadow said:

>

That said, we did identify something very interesting: while the game manages lots of different data points, it does not track team compositions that are skipped. This was surprising, and something we aim to introduce so we have a better picture of how characters impact all angles of the game.

>
But that is the most important point showing the impact of the meta.
If they don't know that then they are missing half of the data.
Particularly how the chahulk team can float until next day unshielded because no one wants to lose healthpacks in exchange on average points.

HoundofShadow

I'm not sure if tracking the number of skip is helpful. Generally speaking, for newer players like 3* players, they skip almost all teams whose level are ~100 higher than theirs.

At higher level, there are also different reasons for skipping. For example, I skip teams mostly not because they are unbeatable, but it's due to them giving low points. Players who play for points target high points opponents and skip those low point teams. There are players who skip teams because they're healthpack sensitive. There are players who rather skip teams even when there are counter teams. Notable examples are iHulkoye vs Britty or counter teams to Wanda/Colossus. And there are many other reasons.

If they simply put a tracker to each team composition and arrange them from the teams with the most skips to teams with the fewest skips, the data might be skewed because they are unlikely to be able to find the real reasons why players skip teams. I think this is better understand through in-game survey. Simply ask players why they skip teams in pvps and give them options to choose from. I'm not sure if allowing players to write their reasons is a good idea because the dev probably has to go through essays after essays to find the core reasons of why that player skips certain teams.

KGB

Not sure a survey will help. Not everyone fills them out. Even for those who do, they may not know the reason(s) they skip teams as not everyone speaks English or comes to the forums and reads about 'meta teams' etc. Plus some players may deliberately lie in order to achieve an outcome they'd like to see.

On the other hand, they could run a few PvP events in a special mode to see if it changes number of skips and which teams are skipped. For example they could run a couple events where the points was fixed at say 40 points for all teams regardless of what your current points were and see which teams get hit and which get skipped to eliminate skipping for high value. They could also auto-heal all teams after battle to eliminate fear of health pack usage and see if that affects things. They could do both those things at the same time etc.

KGB

killahKlown

"Teams with Chasm have a greater than 50% win rate (though not as high as you might think)"

Chasm isn't the issue though. It's Chasm with Hulk. Weve been saying this all along..

Alone, Chasm is strong but with Hulk that makes it the toughest combo to beat in the game. These guys should have looked at the win rate against Chasm Hulk teams, not just Chasm. Cuz ill targer Chasm Jane teams all day like candy

LavaManLee

@killahKlown said:

@LavaManLee said:

@Bad said:
Imo what is needed is more people engaging pvp. With the rewards per win decreased people trying to climb losed engagement.

Totally agree. I appreciate them lowering the number of wins for the 4* rewards down to 25. However, that creates a huge gap between win 25 and win 50 and, to be honest, the reward to get to 50 wins just isn't worth it.

There needs to be more incentive to get from 25 to 50 and then, as Bad says, more people would stay and play in PVP.

I disagree, CP is the most valuable commodity in the game. I'd trade all other pvp progression rewards just for the CP

Not sure where I said CP wasn't valuable. I didn't. What I said is that, for me, having to do 25 more wins in PVP isn't a great incentive to get 18 CP.

killahKlown

Which is what I disagree with

LavaManLee

@killahKlown said:
Which is what I disagree with

Cool. Then I disagree with your disagreement so we can just stalemate it. :-)

HoundofShadow

You don't need everyone to fill them up. All they need is enough players to do it. As for language barrier, I'm not sure if it would be translated automatically for them because some players use non-English version of MPQ.

As for lying, they could look at the data to see if all 20-100 member alliances voted for the same reasons. Looking at past data of fan favourite characters, it's highly unlikely they can influence the polls greatly. If they could do so, Dr Strange wouldn't be appearing in fan favourite store frequently. We also won't be getting Abigail Brand as one of the T20 fan favourites.

1/2 Thor would probably hate full health after every match. This solution is merely solving perception problems or solving problems players with unusual requirements set for themselves. I've no problem using up all my healthpacks and then drawing from Taco vaults. Healthpacks are going to replenish every 36 minutes as long as you've fewer than 10. That's 6 hours. It's going to be rare for players to play 6 hours consecutively.

Maybe they could do a combination of both or more instead. They could hypothesise what those data about skipping teams are saying and use surveys to help iron out any discrepancies.

If all points are equal, players who play optimally or competitively are likely to target glass cannons first because they like to win matches quickly and hate dealing with defensive teams or teams that drain healthpacks. I'm sure they already have a list of teams optimal players dislike in 5* land.

In 4* land or below, it's more difficult to find out the most dislike team because they hate dealing with boosted 5* or 5* with much higher levels than them even if they have only a few covers. It's the match damage that kills their 23/4* teams. Also, many new players can't differentiate retal nodes and normal nodes, so they thought those 5* championed players are part of their mmr even though it doesn't make sense to them.

Bad

I'm pretty sure the chahulk team has a 70% skip ratio. And if a team has that ratio, something serious happens.
Personally I love to bully chahulks teams, however if I'm climbing I skip them because I can't afford to play chasm game for x minutes although they could worth 75 points (but generally don't worth that anymore). And also I need to change characters as chasm counters a wide range of them.

That data is what they should search because I'm sure it happens the same with all players.
If they had known that data the monkey would had been released earlier.

HoundofShadow

If skipping is the main factor use for such decision, it will be prompt to abuse. Those players with over 10 millions can afford to skip 1 million times.

I skip Chasm/iHulk team as well but it's largely because they are worth puny points. In the last pvp, I hit every 75 points Chasm/iHulk I can find and I want to say, it's difficult to find them.

LavaManLee

5* Hit Monkey shards/covers are out this morning. Will be interesting to see who can champ him and how that affects the Chulk meta.

Tony_Foot

@LavaManLee said:
5* Hit Monkey shards/covers are out this morning. Will be interesting to see who can champ him and how that affects the Chulk meta.

At the 450-470 5* champ level it will be months yet before anything changes. Myself when I pull for Monkey it will be Monkey + TBA +TBA, so what March before I can make a difference? I imagine there's lots out there in a similar position.

BriMan2222

@Tony_Foot said:

@LavaManLee said:
5* Hit Monkey shards/covers are out this morning. Will be interesting to see who can champ him and how that affects the Chulk meta.

At the 450-470 5* champ level it will be months yet before anything changes. Myself when I pull for Monkey it will be Monkey + TBA +TBA, so what March before I can make a difference? I imagine there's lots out there in a similar position.

Yeah, I'm in a similar situation. I have Emma and she hulk champed already so I won't pull until it's arcade, riri, monkey and then I will only pull enough to get arcade champed, who is already at 8 covers, so I probably won't get hit monkey champed until it's riri, monkey, tba at the earliest.

Sekilicious

How long did it take for iHulk/Okoye to disappear when Wanda was released? I was firmly in the Polaris meta so I don’t know for sure but my memory suggests it was very quick.

BriMan2222

@Sekilicious said:
How long did it take for iHulk/Okoye to disappear when Wanda was released? I was firmly in the Polaris meta so I don’t know for sure but my memory suggests it was very quick.

A Lot of people broke hoards when wanda was released. There were a slew of lvl 500 plus wandas nearly as soon as she went into the latest legends pool. I don't think people will break hoards for hitmonkey, especially when so many people already just broke hoards for mthor and chasm.

Bad

However SW was successful because cut down the main source of the problem.
The monkey doesn't.

HoundofShadow

A lot of top players broke for Colossus/Wanda/Knull or the March/April/May release. It should be somewhere in June 2021. Weekly boosted 5* happened in April/May 2021?

Since it takes about 1 year to build up to 550 again, and they just broke board for KK/Chasm/mThor or mThor/Chasm/She-Hulk, they are going to break 550 again somewhere in August 2023 or earlier due to Shardmas.

While digging, I found some nerf Hulkoye threads. After a quick read, this nerf Chasm thread isn't much different from those nerf Hulkoye threads. Next year, we could do a meta review to see which meta is the most hated. Previously, with about 80 votes in the poll, Bishop won with about 20+ votes followed by iHulkoye with ~ 15 votes.

revskip

The funny thing about nerf threads (and this one is no different) is that in the 26 pages here, there are a handful of very vocal folks asking for a nerf over and over ad nauseam and a handful of far less vocal who are fine with things as they are who have put in their .02 cents and then left it alone. I'm not seeing much Chasm/iHulk the past two weeks because they don't do well against the boosted lists from those two weeks. I imagine we'll see more this week because the boosted list benefits Chasm. If the meta is only the meta half the month is it really untenable? Group A will surely argue that it is. Group B will likely just go on with their business. Except Hound, he's been very vocal standing up for the no nerfs crowd.