New Feature - Champions 2.0 (Live with R287)

bbigler

3 Points:

1. Ascension helps new players in PVE! Battles are tough in PVE when you're new. Ascension also helps new players get more CP and LT rewards, so that they can get 5* champs sooner.
2. Ascension can certainly mess up your MMR, giving you really tough fights, so I think the devs should scale the MMR for 1/2/3 star ascended characters.
3. The devs should also explain somewhere in the game how PVP matchmaking works so that all players understand it.

On a side note, I'm so sick and tired of fighting Mthor in PVP! Her endless turns and cascades are really annoying, she costs me health packs and sometimes wipes my team. Yeah, yeah, I know she's been boosted this past week, but she's still really annoying! Pair her with Riri and your team gets stun locked for the whole match. I would rather fight the new Chasm or anyone else.

entrailbucket

@Bowgentle said:

@entrailbucket said:

@LavaManLee said:
I think the biggest issue is that MPQ (both with D3 but also BCS) don't every fully lay out what happens as you strengthen up. It is up to the myriad of Forum/Reddit/Discord to help. We (as vets) have figured it out and help each other. But I can't help "Brad from Delaware" who just started last month and is helplessly confused.

For one, if Brad from Delaware has a character at 550, he didn't just start last month. But again, why SHOULDN'T players of the same level be matched against each other? If he buys a 550, why would he expect to continue beating up 1* players forever?

Let's flip it around -- I have a competitive 10-year vet's roster, with a big pile of 550s. Should I be able to take 500 points off you in PvP? Would you think that was fair? Or would you complain that I was beating up on weaker players?

If you expect to be protected from me (and you should -- I want to fight peers, not speed bumps) why shouldn't weaker players be protected from you?

I mean you do take 500 off lower rosters once they're visible to you, but that's neither here nor there.

Ehhh, depends how much lower. Generally if I'm attacking a non-5* player, they're worth 5 or less points to me, and they're losing 1 or 2 every time I hit them. Taking 500 points off them really isn't possible.

ThaRoadWarrior

I would go so far as to say most "new" or junior roster or casual players, however you want to describe them, probably have no idea this feature even rolled out because nothing notable hit the game information wise to describe it. there's that vault, and the character deal in the store, but I don't recall really seeing a popup about it.

Bowgentle

@entrailbucket said:

@Bowgentle said:

@entrailbucket said:

@LavaManLee said:
I think the biggest issue is that MPQ (both with D3 but also BCS) don't every fully lay out what happens as you strengthen up. It is up to the myriad of Forum/Reddit/Discord to help. We (as vets) have figured it out and help each other. But I can't help "Brad from Delaware" who just started last month and is helplessly confused.

For one, if Brad from Delaware has a character at 550, he didn't just start last month. But again, why SHOULDN'T players of the same level be matched against each other? If he buys a 550, why would he expect to continue beating up 1* players forever?

Let's flip it around -- I have a competitive 10-year vet's roster, with a big pile of 550s. Should I be able to take 500 points off you in PvP? Would you think that was fair? Or would you complain that I was beating up on weaker players?

If you expect to be protected from me (and you should -- I want to fight peers, not speed bumps) why shouldn't weaker players be protected from you?

I mean you do take 500 off lower rosters once they're visible to you, but that's neither here nor there.

Ehhh, depends how much lower. Generally if I'm attacking a non-5* player, they're worth 5 or less points to me, and they're losing 1 or 2 every time I hit them. Taking 500 points off them really isn't possible.

Not seals, 480+ people who are shielded from you until they break MMR.

entrailbucket

@Bowgentle said:

@entrailbucket said:

@Bowgentle said:

@entrailbucket said:

@LavaManLee said:
I think the biggest issue is that MPQ (both with D3 but also BCS) don't every fully lay out what happens as you strengthen up. It is up to the myriad of Forum/Reddit/Discord to help. We (as vets) have figured it out and help each other. But I can't help "Brad from Delaware" who just started last month and is helplessly confused.

For one, if Brad from Delaware has a character at 550, he didn't just start last month. But again, why SHOULDN'T players of the same level be matched against each other? If he buys a 550, why would he expect to continue beating up 1* players forever?

Let's flip it around -- I have a competitive 10-year vet's roster, with a big pile of 550s. Should I be able to take 500 points off you in PvP? Would you think that was fair? Or would you complain that I was beating up on weaker players?

If you expect to be protected from me (and you should -- I want to fight peers, not speed bumps) why shouldn't weaker players be protected from you?

I mean you do take 500 off lower rosters once they're visible to you, but that's neither here nor there.

Ehhh, depends how much lower. Generally if I'm attacking a non-5* player, they're worth 5 or less points to me, and they're losing 1 or 2 every time I hit them. Taking 500 points off them really isn't possible.

Not seals, 480+ people who are shielded from you until they break MMR.

480+ people are like the top 1% of the top 1% -- they absolutely deserve to get crushed if they're up there, those players aren't really protected from me in general, and shouldn't be.

Do you really consider someone with characters that high to be "weak" or "new?"

Bowgentle

No, but your point was that you can't punch down - you absolutely can.

entrailbucket

@Bowgentle said:
No, but your point was that you can't punch down - you absolutely can.

I don't think the game (or the developers themselves) would actually consider that "punching down."

I'm not sure I consider it punching down, half the time! Players with 480+ "meta" characters generally have no problems beating anything I can run out there.

bbigler

Well, there’s a difference between beating someone using boosts and health packs and not using them. If they fight and barely win, they probably won’t fight you again.

entrailbucket

@bbigler said:
Well, there’s a difference between beating someone using boosts and health packs and not using them. If they fight and barely win, they probably won’t fight you again.

Nah, I'll war back and forth with these types of players all the time. I don't think they'd do that if these fights were too hard. Sometimes I barely win, myself! The difference between 550 and 480 (especially when you're talking about the stronger characters at 480) is just not that big. These are peers.

Daredevil217

I see both sides of this. But if Entrail is warring backing at forth, they are getting +75 points (to his +5) for their boosts and health packs which may be worth it to them. As a person running characters around that level it often is worth walking away battered to reach a higher point threshold.

entrailbucket

@Daredevil217 said:
I see both sides of this. But if Entrail is warring backing at forth, they are getting +75 points (to his +5) for their boosts and health packs which may be worth it to them. As a person running characters around that level it often is worth walking away battered to reach a higher point threshold.

The point is that the matchmaking algorithm prevents me from doing this sort of thing to lower-tier, new, and weak rosters. They're isolated, and they should be.

It doesn't prevent me from doing it to the lower tier of the top 1%, nor should it -- the algorithm rightly considers those players to be my peers.

TheXMan

Can people with 480s see dual 550s before they break MMR? I thought dual 550s often fought each other until a certain point level. If that is the case, I would not call them peers.

entrailbucket

@TheXMan said:
Can people with 480s see dual 550s before they break MMR? I thought dual 550s often fought each other until a certain point level. If that is the case, I would not call them peers.

I play in s2 at weird times, my experience is not typical or (probably) replicable.

Seriously, you guys are completely missing the point though. Yes, I can beat up players with 480 or 500-level rosters. That is because those players and I are all in the top fraction of a percentage of all rosters in the game. The game doesn't see a ton of difference between you and me because there isn't a ton of difference between you and me.

This started with concern about "new" or "weak" players potentially getting beaten up by me. Matchmaking exists to prevent that. It's the same reason you aren't allowed to beat up on these players, and you shouldn't be.

Players with lvl480 characters are neither new nor weak, despite what they appear to think. You don't get protection from me, and you shouldn't. I swear, only MPQ players do this kind of stuff. The gap between you and me is tiny compared to the gap between either of us and a new player.

revskip

@bbigler said:
3 Points:

1. Ascension helps new players in PVE! Battles are tough in PVE when you're new. Ascension also helps new players get more CP and LT rewards, so that they can get 5* champs sooner.
2. Ascension can certainly mess up your MMR, giving you really tough fights, so I think the devs should scale the MMR for 1/2/3 star ascended characters.
3. The devs should also explain somewhere in the game how PVP matchmaking works so that all players understand it.

On a side note, I'm so sick and tired of fighting Mthor in PVP! Her endless turns and cascades are really annoying, she costs me health packs and sometimes wipes my team. Yeah, yeah, I know she's been boosted this past week, but she's still really annoying! Pair her with Riri and your team gets stun locked for the whole match. I would rather fight the new Chasm or anyone else.

Get used to it. They neutered Chasm so she is now the most OP thing around. Of course folks are gonna use her. Until they neuter her next.

DrClever

@jsmjsmjsm00 said:
non-casual players can be expected to know that video games match you against similar players to yourself. This idea that we need some sort of detailed explanation on how PvP works is such a manufactured problem.

Bollocks is it. The game does not match you against similar players, it matches you against players whose top few highest level characters are around the same level as your top few.

It doesn't tell you this and it doesn't tell you that overpromoting the wrong characters can break PvP for years.

It's not a made up problem, it's a huge flaw that is slightly mitigated by the community.

entrailbucket

@DrClever said:

@jsmjsmjsm00 said:
non-casual players can be expected to know that video games match you against similar players to yourself. This idea that we need some sort of detailed explanation on how PvP works is such a manufactured problem.

Bollocks is it. The game does not match you against similar players, it matches you against players whose top few highest level characters are around the same level as your top few.

It doesn't tell you this and it doesn't tell you that overpromoting the wrong characters can break PvP for years.

It's not a made up problem, it's a huge flaw that is slightly mitigated by the community.

How is this a problem at all? If you promote characters of the next tier, you should expect to see opponents of the next tier. That's how every competitive game works.
This isn't "broken" unless you expect to be able to punch down 200 or 300 levels forever.

jsmjsmjsm00

That's literally similar players. You play a match with at most 3 of your own characters. They match you with others that have comparable top 3 characters.

This is such a fake problem to sit on the forums and complain about.

LavaManLee

@entrailbucket said:

>

Players with lvl480 characters are neither new nor weak, despite what they appear to think.

New players can buy a 450 IM right now for like USD$4 (or something like that). They absolutely can be new and weak.

entrailbucket

@LavaManLee said:

@entrailbucket said:

>

Players with lvl480 characters are neither new nor weak, despite what they appear to think.

New players can buy a 450 IM right now for like USD$4 (or something like that). They absolutely can be new and weak.

Matchmaking is based on top 3, not top 1, so buying and levelling up that Iron Man won't immediately throw them to the wolves.

But what is the alternative here? How should it work? What do players expect when they build up their rosters? How can you prevent players from bullying smaller rosters without giving tougher opponents to bigger rosters?

If you want to be protected from me, then why shouldn't smaller rosters be protected from you?

meadowsweet

@entrailbucket said:
Matchmaking is based on top 3, not top 1, so buying and levelling up that Iron Man won't immediately throw them to the wolves.
But what is the alternative here? How should it work?

It's probably not realistic, but I keep wondering how different would be if the game's PVP was based on an Elo or chess-style rating system: every player has a score / ranking. When you win, it goes up. When you lose, it goes down. The amount it goes up or down is based on your opponent's ranking (so an underdog upset matters more than a coin-toss competition between equals.)

Levels of top characters isn't a terrible approximation, but in reality someone who has Level 550 Chasm, Thor, Beta Ray Bill, Okoye, Hulk, etc. is not the same as someone whose only Level 550's are Wasp, Rescue, Loki, Archangel, Jeffrey, etc. The first player would have a much higher Elo (because they almost always win) while the second player's Elo would go down (because they often lose against teams with a better meta / synergy.)

So your match-making would be based on your actual performance, skill, or win-loss records. Not just based on the fact that you impulsively decided to level up Mysterio, Northstar, and Talos prematurely...