Why death brackets are killing this game.

Unknown

So It's been about a month now since we got these oh so wonderful "death brackets." and I wanted to get some feedback now that they have been implemented for a bit. I have and always will think its completely ridiculous to lump all the hardcore players into one bracket. I have said it before and I will keep saying it until this thing is fixed: "Death brackets are going to be what makes me and others quit this game." Period. It is simply not fair to have all the most loyal players have to fight each other for rewards while new players are coming in and winning brackets with 500 points.

Don't take this as whining but before the change, I was on a good 5-6 PVP win streak. I haven't won a single PVP since the change. I am still putting up the same scores as I was before, It's just now I am being purposely put into the super hardcore brackets. Take the last fresh cut tourney for example: I only ended barely top 10 with 1000 points. I used to WIN with these amounts of points. They were by no means easy wins though, it required a lot of last minute pushes and grinds but It was for sure doable. Now though, I can pretty much guarantee I will never win because of the guys at the top there. Nothing against them but I will NEVER play like they do. I will drop a maximum of 2 shields in an event. Usually a 3 and then 8 hour. These guys hitting these ridiculous numbers are spending ridiculous amounts of HP just for covers they don't even need. I can never beat them.

What was so great about the time based system was it was 100% fair. Luck of the draw. In the old system unless I got unlucky with my bracket I always had a shot at a win with my playing strategy. With the new system I know I can't win because I can guarantee 100% that there will be some of the super pushers in my bracket. This has caused me to score lower and lower and all it does is kill my motivation. You guys are trying to hook newer players in by giving them free wins and not having them get "sticker shock" by seeing scores of 1000+ in first but by doing so you have alienated your most loyal and senior player base. I don't see why a new player should expect to ever win coming in fresh going up against senior players with 141's. Knowing how the game works, I am the one getting shocked and demotivated here because I know how expensive and hard it is to get 1200-1500 points. Guaranteeing me to be put up against people who score that high is just killing my motivation to even try for 1st or to push myself because I know that unless I start buying boosts and HP for shields I will never beat them. It's the same as the alliances rewards. Unless my alliance has a shot at top 2, there is absolutely no reason to push anymore as long as you are in that 3-50 range. In the old system, I would push extra hard, using boosts and possibly burning an extra shield trying to get the win. With this new system, I just get pissed off and say screw this game as I watch my 1000 points give me top 25.

I see what the devs are trying to do here but it is simply not working. I know I saw Ice say in the Q&A thread that they wanted to tweak it more but honestly, we still haven't gotten scaling down right and that started how many months ago? I don't want to have 3 more months of this ****. With the removal of tanking and prologue healing It should be a lot more fair for newer players. I can't tell you the last time I saw a team of 2 stars. I am stuck in MMR hell and there is nothing I can do about it. To add me in death brackets on top of that is ridiculous. This game is run like some sort of reverse Ponzi Scheme. Instead of the older players doing better and getting more stuff than the new players, the newer players get everything handed to them for no effort while us veterans are grouped together and scaled out of events. We just need to get this time based bracketing back! Let us have this one thing! There is NO benefit to this! If you guys really want the new players to get free wins, sandbox them together until a certain point and then let them loose into the wild. This helps them out and doesn't screw everyone else in the process.

Nemek

Is that a death bracket? There's only 2-3 notable names on there. Fresh Cut scores were hyperinflated. For me, it seems like my brackets haven't been death-y in the last few tournaments, not sure if that's luck or a change in how they've been determined.

Unknown

I was in that bracket. Didn't care about the rewards,so I finished 51st.


My 2 cents is that the brackets seem a little less deathy since they first introduced it.

Unknown

IceIX did say in his q&a thread that the gentle nudging isn't working quite how they want, so there is a possibility it will be a little less ridiculous.

Or, on a more cynical note, management may have decided that churning through new players is where it's at. Time will tell!

HailMary

During Season 1, I was placed into death brackets without fail. Top 10 was almost always 1000+. I believe the sole exception was when #10 was in the 950s.

So far in Season 2, I've been placed in no death brackets, at least by S1 standards:
- I accidentally got Top 5 in Heavy Metal with a score in the mid-800s.
- I won my Fresh Cut bracket with 1268 with the help of server insanity. I believe only #1-3 were 1000+, and #10 was somewhere in the low 800s.

For reference, I have 5 L141s leading my roster.

Unknown

HailMary wrote:

During Season 1, I was placed into death brackets without fail. Top 10 was almost always 1000+. I believe the sole exception was when #10 was in the 950s.

So far in Season 2, I've been placed in no death brackets, at least by S1 standards:
- I accidentally got Top 5 in Heavy Metal with a score in the mid-800s.
- I won my Fresh Cut bracket with 1268 with the help of server insanity. I believe only #1-3 were 1000+, and #10 was somewhere in the low 800s.

For reference, I have 5 L141s leading my roster.

If you're in a bracket, HM, it's automatically not a death bracket. It's more like a gentle caress bracket.

kensterr

It's not by choice that I went above 1000. I was sitting happily at 900++ confident for a Top10 finish until others decided to push. I needed the covers badly so had no choice but to shield hop a bit to guarantee a Top10 finish for myself.

Bowgentle

It's really luck.

I had death brackets all through S1, Fresh Cut was still 1000+ for top 10, but in Starfall the cutoff for top 10 is 720 right now.

Of course that only means that I'll get put in a bracket with all the heavy hitters once I need the rewards again... so that'll be the upcoming PVP with Sentry rewards

Of course I'm lucky enough to have almost all my chars fully covered (I'm looking at you, Torch!), so I'm mostly playing for a target score of 950 - 1000+ (1100 if I need the progression cover/I don't get attacked).
I can see how it'd suck to _have_ to make top 10 because you need the covers, though.

Unknown

I don't think death brackets exist anymore, at least not in it's season 1 form.

In every Season 2 bracket so far I could have made top 10 with a score of about 900 had I bothered shielding. That's a far cry from season 1.

The bigger change, for me at least, is my MMR is permanently fixed to facing solid 141s to start. It may be a function of my season 1 score, I dunno. I've been keeping my score low this time around but it doesn't seem to be having an effect.

Unknown

Impulse wrote:

IceIX did say in his q&a thread that the gentle nudging isn't working quite how they want, so there is a possibility it will be a little less ridiculous.

Or, on a more cynical note, management may have decided that churning through new players is where it's at. Time will tell!

What he said actually implies they like it a lot and will stay for good. Only work on small tweaks. No going back to flat system on the horizon or even plans.

HailMary

dlaw008 wrote:

If you're in a bracket, HM, it's automatically not a death bracket. It's more like a gentle caress bracket.

I do love me some gentle caresses... hey, wait... ooooh, you are such a poopyhead.

Unknown

Two months ago I used to place in the top 10 for nearly every event. Sure, I had to shield up often but that's the trade off.

One month ago I found myself, like many others, struggling to get near top 10 and settling for top 25.

In the Sentry PvP I was getting matched with big hitting teams from about the 100 point mark and getting hit more often in the 'safe' 200-400 range than I'd ever been before. Once I got into the 300's then nearly every node was presenting me with 141 LThor's or (rarely) something almost as painful. I struggled finally to 680pts, my worst points haul for some time and sneaked inside the top 50 during the last minute of the tournament.

If this is 'easing off' then I'd rather they wouldn't. Sure, my roster has improved a bit over those 3 months (up to 1 x 141 Lcap and a couple of lower 100 3*) but if levelling is partly to blame for this then I wish I hadn't bothered.

over_clocked

But gentle nudging™ is mostly based on the number of days you play, not the roster levels.

Unknown

locked wrote:

But gentle nudging™ is mostly based on the number of days you play, not the roster levels.

It was at the start, Ice said they apply tweaking left and right, who knows what data is used most recently.

MarvelMan

I used to place top 10 quite regularly, winning about a dozen...but now its just brutal. The only 2* I have seen since mid Season 1 has been OBW....and that is with only two 141s on my roster, with 4 chars over 100 total. Its such a slog to get anywhere its beyond painful. I get that they want us to be fighting amongst ourselves when we have 1+ 141 and a bunch of days under our belts, but it seems WAY off to have new people winning brackets at 500-600 when 1,100 can be required for top 10 in a veteran bracket. There has to be some middle ground that doesnt punish people for having played.

Unknown

I hate the changes as well. I don't even bother trying to win anymore. I just make sure I finish in 48th or 49th place.

It also feels broken. It seems like every possible opponent in my current bracket is level 141, 212, 141. In every match, combined levels make me over hundred levels lower that my opponent.

Unknown

Brackets are 10x easier than they were in season 1.

Unknown

jozier wrote:

Brackets are 10x easier than they were in season 1.

Seems like a mixed bag. Mine are massively more difficult - averaged 850 to 950 in S1 without massive effort, now I'm struggling to 800 while being battered from all sides. Haven't yet made top 20 in S2 PvP compared to regular top 10's in S1.

Bowgentle

DrUnpleasant wrote:

jozier wrote:

Brackets are 10x easier than they were in season 1.

Seems like a mixed bag. Mine are massively more difficult - averaged 850 to 950 in S1 without massive effort, now I'm struggling to 800 while being battered from all sides. Haven't yet made top 20 in S2 PvP compared to regular top 10's in S1.

Brackets, not personal scores.
Your lower personal scores are directly connected to brackets being easier - less people at insane numbers, less points trickling down to the lower levels.
Scores at the top are lower, while competition may be fiercer if you just got introduced to facing 141s fom the start.
Most of us had that switch in MMR during season 1 and learned to cope.

Unknown

DrUnpleasant wrote:

jozier wrote:

Brackets are 10x easier than they were in season 1.

Seems like a mixed bag. Mine are massively more difficult - averaged 850 to 950 in S1 without massive effort, now I'm struggling to 800 while being battered from all sides. Haven't yet made top 20 in S2 PvP compared to regular top 10's in S1.

Agreed. The overall points total may have come down a bit, but the work necessary to get to 800-900 points has not. If anything I think they tweaked it again. I used to get matches worth 30+ points regularly. Now they all seem to be in the 20-30pt range. Once you do you achieve a fair score you lose it within hours unless you buy shields.

The pvp changes have caused me to pretty much quit. I'm sure I'm not the only one to have scaled back or quit because of recent changes, which is why the death brackets aren't as bad as the end of S1. So devs, you have been successful in chasing away the veterans. Gratz!

Unknown

UncleSam wrote:

DrUnpleasant wrote:

jozier wrote:

Brackets are 10x easier than they were in season 1.

Seems like a mixed bag. Mine are massively more difficult - averaged 850 to 950 in S1 without massive effort, now I'm struggling to 800 while being battered from all sides. Haven't yet made top 20 in S2 PvP compared to regular top 10's in S1.

Agreed. The overall points total may have come down a bit, but the work necessary to get to 800-900 points has not. If anything I think they tweaked it again. I used to get matches worth 30+ points regularly. Now they all seem to be in the 20-30pt range. Once you do you achieve a fair score you lose it within hours unless you buy shields.

The pvp changes have caused me to pretty much quit. I'm sure I'm not the only one to have scaled back or quit because of recent changes, which is why the death brackets aren't as bad as the end of S1. So devs, you have been successful in chasing away the veterans. Gratz!

The reason scores are lower is because those of us that used to push don't push anymore. There's less points trickling down as a result.