The ChaHulk meta

Timemachinego

@HoundofShadow said:
@Timemachinego my top 3 highest level average is 361 while top 5 is 337. Let me increase my mmr to 360 and I'll try again.

Edit: I've increased my top 5 average mmr to 366 now and these are my opponents after skipping for 50 seconds.

https://streamable.com/y2l9k1

Well, I have to give you credit for that. I don't know how you're dodging all the chasms (and various hulk) I see, but good on you for doing the science. My MMR is around 385 and I do see a few of those players regularly so I know we're dealing with the same sample at least.

HoundofShadow

I already have an account with over 50 5* champed, so it's pointless to have another account with multiple champed 5* mmr. It's not a case where this single champed 5* mmr is my main.

Daredevil217

Some random thoughts.

First, the “take your emotions out of it“ argument is hilarious to me, because this is first and foremost a game. You’re not winning any lifetime achievement awards, or getting advanced placement for beating chasm. Your only reward is yet another match with chasm. The game is about enjoyment, or one’s emotional experience. I know that can be a hard concept to grasp , but if people are subjectively
not enjoying a form of entertainment, that is problematic. So I would encourage people when talking about chasm to absolutely put their emotion into it.

Who are the players who are asking for “plug and play” characters? Again, chasm is the definition of plug and play, and he is getting lots of moans and groans (I get not everyone hates him, but many do). Shang Chi is the opposite of plug and play. He actually requires thought to use unlike chasm. And guess what, he is almost universally loved (again, there are a few who hate him as well). This leads me to believe that most players don’t actually want mindless plug and play characters and actually want characters that require thought to use. I imagine this is why people who don’t like chasm from a gameplay perspective. 1) he requires, no thought to use and 2) he nerfs the active portion of the game which creates a subjectively unfun experience for people who don’t want to just run passive characters all day.

Finally, I am interested in the developers data. When looking at chasm/hulk win/loss record, is it just players or the AI that they look at? Because many people are hitting that team with a mirror, and so obviously the win loss record will be around 50% in all of those matches, perhaps skewing the data. Does the data look at skips and float points? Does the data look at diversity in the meta? Does the data encompass all players or is it broken down by MMR? I think it was reported that chasm is a “problem” for a small circle of players. How small is the circle? Is it mostly 5/endgame players? That would make sense as they are the smallest percentage of players in the game, and are those most likely to be affected since he is an endgame/5 character. I think it is important to define what they are calling “a problem”. Is it that players struggle to beat chasm, that they don’t enjoy playing/facing chasm, is it that at a certain point all they see is chasm in their queues, or something else entirely? All of these “problems” would look at different data to see if these are in fact, problems, and whether or not a solution is necessary. I think the arrival of Hit Monkey and Riri so soon is an indication of how prevalent and dominant this meta is. I’m glad that they are looking at counters. With our past developers, they always look at counters before nerfs. That is the right way to do it. Hopefully, these characters will be enough to shake up the meta bring diversity back (at least in my small circle). If not, maybe nerfs will be back on the table. Too soon to tell.

My hope is since hulk/chasm are not a fun team to play on offense, the fact that there is a character that can cut through the revive, will make it harder to float, and people will move on to other teams. But, I can see it going either way.

Bad

@acescracked said:

@Bad said:
The one where players are bored of chasm.

Can you stop posting as if you were nominated as spokesperson for all players?

Your opinion that Chasm is not good is just that... Your opinion. It's not a fact.

I enjoy not getting hit by every random player using shang cheese & Valkyrie. And when the boost list is good you don't see chasm. It's a shame your PVP experience is diminished. Please understand for many of us it's not.

As I said before on this thread there are clearly 10 players against chasm. If you are defending him that would be 10 vs 4.
That's a fact.
I think nobody nominated me as a spokesperson. It happened to you?

Borstock

The ChaHulk meta is so prevalent in Sim, I had to dump 300 points just to queue up some non-ChaHulk teams. And I was floating at 1860 and 44 wins with my She-ChaHulk team that no one ever attacks.

entrailbucket

Passive, repeatable AP drain is just a terrible idea in a game like this. (It's why they had to change Gambit years ago.) Active abilities are already so far behind passives in the metagame that competitive players rarely cast anything at all. All the most used characters have very strong passive damage abilities, and it's pretty obvious why -- why would I save up 10ap of some color to do 20,000 damage once, when there are characters who can do 20,000 damage every turn for free?

Chasm just pushes the metagame even further toward passive damage, which is a strange choice in a metagame that was already totally dominated by passive damage. He'd actually be a fun counter if all the top characters had to accumulate AP and cast stuff to win. Sadly, MPQ hasn't been that game for many, many years, so I'm not sure why the designers thought we needed him.

helix72

After taking 25 minutes to lose all 3 of the Chasm/iHulk mirror match fights I tried in Sim and being unable to climb past 1700 with anything other than Chasm/iHulk teams to fight, this is the first time I can remember that I will not be hitting progression in Sim. Yes, they're beatable, but at 8 minutes a fight I'm not going to spend the 136 minutes I need to win 17 more matches with a team that is going to get destroyed as I go.

So I guess if the intent of Chasm was to get me to like the game less and play it less, mission accomplished. At least I got lots of shards this year to go with this lump of coal.

Bad

@helix72 exactly the same as me.
Everything is chahulk with Shulk awarding 50 points to the very most.
If I go with a hit monkey team trying to get ~8 teams someone happily will hit me.
If I go with a mirror match... the agony won't end soon. Let's say that a 4* cover doesn't worth all that effort.
So for the second time after winning always all progression on SIM, I will let it go.
Still waiting for a character hard countering 6* chasm, the character who counters all, the character who drains all AP on first power, and if there is zero on first power drains on second or on third, while negates AP matched with his tiles. Great idea!
There is no more broken character right now.

mani82

This thread just keeps on giving ,monkey or not lol 😂

acescracked

@Borstock said:
The ChaHulk meta is so prevalent in Sim, I had to dump 300 points just to queue up some non-ChaHulk teams. And I was floating at 1860 and 44 wins with my She-ChaHulk team that no one ever attacks.

I climbed to 2040/31 wins (then floated) with 12 hours left got hit 9* (updated) times

acescracked

@helix72 said:
After taking 25 minutes to lose all 3 of the Chasm/iHulk mirror match fights I tried in Sim and being unable to climb past 1700 with anything other than Chasm/iHulk teams to fight, this is the first time I can remember that I will not be hitting progression in Sim. Yes, they're beatable, but at 8 minutes a fight I'm not going to spend the 136 minutes I need to win 17 more matches with a team that is going to get destroyed as I go.

So I guess if the intent of Chasm was to get me to like the game less and play it less, mission accomplished. At least I got lots of shards this year to go with this lump of coal.

I did the same exact climb to 2k. Went in with a slightly wounded chasm. Loaded black/green, blue/purple damage boosts & always brought a 5* prof x tu. Had to use the team up 3 matches.

People are used to match strong color, match strong color, fire power, win. Win 99.9% of the time. Chasm/ihulk doesn't let you watch TV and barely watch the sim match. Have to manage your and AI chasm health and watch what you do.

edit: didn't time my matches but apoc/colossus/Wanda sim matches were always dreadfully slow unless I burned an MBW tu.

atomzed

I managed to champ Riri with the 5* covers from boss PVE. I then brought her out in sims. With a team of Riri-DrJane-Colossus, it’s a breeze fighting chahulks. Not sure how it would be like in pick 2, but I think pick 3 is fine with Riri.

Sekilicious

Riri was used unchamped in the simulator to get to 2000pts in both the last two seasons by members of my alliance using either Electro or Colossus as the third. Shang-Chi is fun with them as well. Riri and Thor should be fine offensively in Pick-2. Probably not a good defense team so won’t be meta though.

Borstock

@acescracked said:

@Borstock said:
The ChaHulk meta is so prevalent in Sim, I had to dump 300 points just to queue up some non-ChaHulk teams. And I was floating at 1860 and 44 wins with my She-ChaHulk team that no one ever attacks.

I climbed to 2040/31 wins (then floated) with 12 hours left got hit 9* (updated) times

Only 9? With 12 hours left, in the past, I would've been hit 9 times by one dude.

The ChaHulk meta is unlike any we have ever had.

acescracked

@Borstock said:

@acescracked said:

@Borstock said:
The ChaHulk meta is so prevalent in Sim, I had to dump 300 points just to queue up some non-ChaHulk teams. And I was floating at 1860 and 44 wins with my She-ChaHulk team that no one ever attacks.

I climbed to 2040/31 wins (then floated) with 12 hours left got hit 9* (updated) times

Only 9? With 12 hours left, in the past, I would've been hit 9 times by one dude.

The ChaHulk meta is unlike any we have ever had.

Number went to 11. Christmas Eve I'm sure less were playing.

The real point is people can and do hit chahulk, I did it too. However not every shang cheese team, afraid to burn health packs, use boosts, lazy random player will hit. They will skip which is fine by me.

If I could've Q'd and worth at least 40 points... Well double double!

Bad

Indeed, less people were playing.
But not because of christmas eve, it's just because of this meta, like I've been saying many pages ago.
Many of you are so grateful for chasm and so worried about SC hitting you.
However SC actually moves points. The points he takes out, someone easily will eat them right away.
This meta stales and prevents moving points.
I had 1750 points on SIM and I was t200. Someone getting the 2000 points should have been at least t50. For to be t50, being unshielded and being hit 12 times, that's plain shameful.
Not only that. This season I've been hitting 750 points on pvp except 1 time I got 1200 points. With 9904 points I am t48. That's just wild crazy.
This meta is totally selective, only a handful of teams can fight it. Riri and the monkey will help no doubt, and as a champ em all player soon I will aim for 1200 again.
But because of not releasing a character hard countering chasm, A GREAT AMOUNT OF PLAYERS HAVE BEEN AND WILL BE OUT OF THIS PVP META.

Sekilicious

I’m pretty sure it’s the off-season again, like last time you made this argument. Up to 500 pts it looks the same as every event, random teams everywhere. But above that is barren point wise because most of the early pushers are taking a break. Lots of Chasm/iHulk. Lots of Wanda, Thanos, and Doom though.

Bad

I did this argument on off season and after that, in season. They were identical results.
9904 points obviously are in season.
An extremely low amount of points for to be t50.

HoundofShadow

I remember seasons ended earlier with one fewer pvp for the last two seasons, which will cause a drop in total points.

Bad

Whatever.
Before chasm meta I was hitting 1300 points in all pvps without fail, and at the end of season I usually was struggling on SIM in order to score ~ 2200 points for to be t100.
Right now I score 750 in all pvps, I can't complete SIM and I am t50.
It should ring a bell, certainly. I know if you struggle to find more arguments you will get the evidence that this isn't caused by the chahulk meta, of course.