Prevalence of MThor and could she be the target of a rebalance?

entrailbucket

@Timemachinego said:

@entrailbucket said:

The fun, competitive multiplayer game that is MPQ PvP is completely by accident and has nothing at all to do with the game the devs were attempting to build. I don't believe they even anticipated its existence, and I certainly don't think they could ever have created such a fun game on purpose.

They used to talk about making an alliance war mode -- the problem with that is that there's a 0% chance that the official alliance war mode would be anywhere near as fun as the one we created for ourselves. In fact, we'd probably just repurpose their alliance war mode into something more fun.

The fun here is all hidden behind 10 years of shorthand in chats, tactics, social norms, and grudges. It only exists because the MPQ devs managed to accidentally create the perfect platform for it, but none of that is documented or explained anywhere official, nor could it be.

It's funny how often you go on about this glorious secret PVP game because it's largely gone extinct; You're making arguments in favor of an "extra" part of the game that very few are still playing.

I'm going to have to run some fuzzy numbers but we can estimate that at least 40k players are interacting with seasonal PVP play to some extent, 15~ of these at the highest tier (info taken from recorded bracket flips).

Of those 40k+ there are at most 1k unique players amongst all the various pvp slice rooms and the majority of them are there because working together in that way is a reliable method to generate a lot of points.

Of those 1k, how many are actually taking part in the dump/snipe/grudge behavior you relish in? I'm in an alliance family of over 200 active players(I know). Of those 200, I can name like 6 whole people that actually go hard on hunting specific players or alliances.

If we're the 1% you're speaking for an even smaller subset of subsets.

The competitive PvP game has gone extinct, largely -- that's correct. I guess I'd ask you, how many of the 4000 players in your "alliance family" actually enjoy playing PvP the way they currently do? How many of them instead view PvP (and/or PvE, which we won't even get into here) as a chore that must be done to earn rewards, an un-fun slog where time spent must be minimized, in order to get to the fun part? How many of them prefer a metagame where one best team exists, and is weak on defense, so you can always use the same guys to beat the same guys, and quickly get PvP over with?

I'm not arguing that the way I prefer is "right," because there is no right way to play a game. I'm arguing that it's more fun. A lot of players have never played PvP this way and have no desire to, but why? If you don't like what you're doing now, why not try something different? If you find the way you play PvP fun currently, then why are you trying to spend as little time and energy on it as possible? If you've never played competitively, how do you know it's less fun than what you do now?

Bad

@entrailbucket said:

I'm not arguing that the way I prefer is "right," because there is no right way to play a game. I'm arguing that it's more fun. A lot of players have never played PvP this way and have no desire to, but why? If you don't like what you're doing now, why not try something different? If you find the way you play PvP fun currently, then why are you trying to spend as little time and energy on it as possible? If you've never played competitively, how do you know it's less fun than what you do now?

If you really need an answer I can give you mine.
This game already demands an excesive amount of real life schedule in all competitive events, I don't want to increase that commitment at all even if it's more fun.
The other game I'm playing also has guild events, I don't want to take time off in that game for playing more mpq pvp.
Also I refuse to play mpq pvp using line. The other game needs discord in order to coordinate and I can't manage increased messages. Plus working.

entrailbucket

@Bad said:

@entrailbucket said:

I'm not arguing that the way I prefer is "right," because there is no right way to play a game. I'm arguing that it's more fun. A lot of players have never played PvP this way and have no desire to, but why? If you don't like what you're doing now, why not try something different? If you find the way you play PvP fun currently, then why are you trying to spend as little time and energy on it as possible? If you've never played competitively, how do you know it's less fun than what you do now?

If you really need an answer I can give you mine.
This game already demands an excesive amount of real life schedule in all competitive events, I don't want to increase that commitment at all even if it's more fun.
The other game I'm playing also has guild events, I don't want to take time off in that game for playing more mpq pvp.
Also I refuse to play mpq pvp using line. The other game needs discord in order to coordinate and I can't manage increased messages. Plus working.

So...like..."demands," "excessive," "commitment." Are these the sort of words you use to describe a completely optional activity that you do in your free time for fun? This sounds like a job, not a hobby.

If someone enjoys, say, fishing, or hiking, would they complain that those hobbies demand too much of their time? Could you imagine someone who goes fishing for fun (not for sustenance) complaining that they just want to go to the lake and catch 50 fish as quickly as possible, so they can move on to some other activity they actually like?

Bad

Because it's a hobby, and not a job, I can freely play the amount of time I think it's fine and enough for me.

bbigler

Given how some people talk about this game I’m doubtful they’re actually having fun at all. If PVE is a chore and PVP is frustrating or just another chore, then how do you have fun? Opening tokens? Building new characters? What’s the purpose of that if you hate the chore of playing the game?

entrailbucket

@Bad said:
Because it's a hobby, and not a job, I can freely play the amount of time I think it's fine and enough for me.

That's great then!

You can choose how much time you spend, and so you enjoy all the time that you freely choose to spend playing MPQ? It doesn't sound like MPQ is demanding excessive amounts of your time if that's the case -- it sounds to me like this is the amount of time you're freely choosing to spend.

entrailbucket

@bbigler said:
Given how some people talk about this game I’m doubtful they’re actually having fun at all. If PVE is a chore and PVP is frustrating or just another chore, then how do you have fun? Opening tokens? Building new characters? What’s the purpose of that if you hate the chore of playing the game?

Lots of players hoard all tokens though, and I often see that new characters are just reward generators unless they're "meta," so both of those options are probably out. I honestly have no idea what the "fun part" is for some of these folks.

Timemachinego

@entrailbucket said:
The competitive PvP game has gone extinct, largely -- that's correct. I guess I'd ask you, how many of the 4000 players in your "alliance family" actually enjoy playing PvP the way they currently do? How many of them instead view PvP (and/or PvE, which we won't even get into here) as a chore that must be done to earn rewards, an un-fun slog where time spent must be minimized, in order to get to the fun part? How many of them prefer a metagame where one best team exists, and is weak on defense, so you can always use the same guys to beat the same guys, and quickly get PvP over with?

I'm not arguing that the way I prefer is "right," because there is no right way to play a game. I'm arguing that it's more fun. A lot of players have never played PvP this way and have no desire to, but why? If you don't like what you're doing now, why not try something different? If you find the way you play PvP fun currently, then why are you trying to spend as little time and energy on it as possible? If you've never played competitively, how do you know it's less fun than what you do now?

I've got to admit you've got some great questions that I have very few answers for, but I'll try!

I think part of it is how you define competitive in this context, players are absolutely shooting for first in event or season, it just happens that the best way to hit that mark now is via collaboration rather than slugging it out directly (which is challenging to do given the system anyways, is it fair your direct competitor can queue you 5 times and you can only catch them 3? but I digress...). If I had to guess at the general sentiment, a lot of people seem to genuinely enjoy catching qs and dropping grills and doing all the things that makes # go up for whatever reason.

As far as the specific metagame, well, I never saw people praising when the matches were needlessly long (scarlet steel, immortal bros, etc) so that's one thing. I see a lot of approaches, you have veterans that either through min/maxing or pure comfort stick to the same team no matter what. Others have their comfort picks but play the boost list when it's favorable. Personally, I do like to mess around with boosted teams and see what I can work out but sometimes the boost list really is just a total dud or I don't have the strong characters in working order that I'd need at which point I do start looking around for those mthor/shang or omega red or whichever other common team I do have the direct answers for so I can get on with things.

When we talk about enjoyment, I've at least dabbled in just about every style of PVP play there is, at least in the minor leagues. I had players moving their rosters up with me step for step and it was pretty inevitable that we'd have to trade some hits but I never went out looking for a grudge match or to make someone's day worse, it's simply not in my nature to enjoy that (knowledge gained from decades playing competitive games). On the far other side, those PVP rooms just take wayyyy too much time and availability to be of any use to me. So yes, outside of those first few enjoyable matches seeing if I can get a boost team to work, I find PVP boring at best but it's also a vital part of the reward economy so I grind out whatever will satisfy me.

My main mode, the one I enjoy and focus on, is PVE. I view it very much like speedrunning any other game and it's fun to try out novel solutions to certain situations be that new teams, different play orders, whatever. I'm not a full-fledged spreadsheet sicko but I do track my times and strategies and I'm pleased when I can put a few more points on the board than last time. I play the mode I don't much enjoy in hopes that I can improve at the one I do.

kuntilanak

Hmm, talking about "enjoyment', in PVP, it's largely an acquired taste. At least for me.

I don't mind slugging it to 50 wins, as long as i can form fairly viable team(s) that can take me there without draining my resources (health packs and boosts) too fast. I believe most here will stick to the same team for reliability and consistent results. I do that most of the time.

If only they can re-code it as such that when we attack and lost/withdraw, we don't lose points... Then again, that also means the pool point for each subsequent opponents becomes smaller and smaller as you rack up wins... hmm...

Bowgentle

@kuntilanak said:
Hmm, talking about "enjoyment', in PVP, it's largely an acquired taste. At least for me.

I don't mind slugging it to 50 wins, as long as i can form fairly viable team(s) that can take me there without draining my resources (health packs and boosts) too fast. I believe most here will stick to the same team for reliability and consistent results. I do that most of the time.

If only they can re-code it as such that when we attack and lost/withdraw, we don't lose points... Then again, that also means the pool point for each subsequent opponents becomes smaller and smaller as you rack up wins... hmm...

Again, that's PVE, not PVP.
If you can't lose points, nobody will ever shield and the top scores will be in the 10000s.

Timemachinego

@Bowgentle said:

@kuntilanak said:
Hmm, talking about "enjoyment', in PVP, it's largely an acquired taste. At least for me.

I don't mind slugging it to 50 wins, as long as i can form fairly viable team(s) that can take me there without draining my resources (health packs and boosts) too fast. I believe most here will stick to the same team for reliability and consistent results. I do that most of the time.

If only they can re-code it as such that when we attack and lost/withdraw, we don't lose points... Then again, that also means the pool point for each subsequent opponents becomes smaller and smaller as you rack up wins... hmm...

Again, that's PVE, not PVP.
If you can't lose points, nobody will ever shield and the top scores will be in the 10000s.

I mean... PVE is the actual competitive player vs player mode. No one wins a stone on their own backs, the sheer amount of fixing involved is ridiculous.

entrailbucket

@Timemachinego thanks for that answer, really! I do think there are some folks who enjoy the mass coordination style, but I think any particular playstyle can become stale in this game when you do it for a long time.

During the, er, good old days, you'd have people switch back and forth between that and what I like all the time, when they got bored. I've actually played both styles pretty extensively. I've taught a bunch of players how to coordinate (including the original group of players that started one of the big alliance families that's still around today), and brought a bunch of them into various truce rooms over the years. For me, coordination breaks down when it's hundreds of players. It stops being teamwork and starts becoming an assembly line.

Ultimately, and obviously, you should do what's fun for you. If what you do now isn't fun for you, and you haven't tried the other styles, you should try them out and see if those ways are fun. Go play with those maniacs sometime! You might be surprised!

Bowgentle

I always recommend going to s2 or s5 for off season just to try something new.

dianetics

What you describe is not competitive at all.

It is a rich get richer situation. A small group of fat blokes can group up and punch down on everyone else. So they can keep others out of the best and most competitive gear.

"Screw you inferior rosters!"

It is clear that this has been happening for a while. The same type of thing entrail complains about and promotes at the same time.
I think it is wild that entrail mentioned people not playing competitively but also promoting a bracket sniping system.

This game does not have a competitive PvP system (accusing others of never experiencing it) like WoW Arena, Dota, Old school Starcraft, TF2, CS, CoD:MW, Super Smash, Halo, or any other competitive PvP game.

In this games PvP does not matter how good you play, you can be sent to the trash heap by the fat boys above you. They can out gear you, and because it takes so long to "level up" you will never catch up.
This game allows people to "out gear" you. Any other real competitive PvP will put you on par with other at a similar level. It does not happen here.

Hello up and comers, the Infinity stones will never be yours because the old heads will always cheat you out of them. Congrats!!!

THIS IS NOT a skill based game. This is a bracket based game, and any time there is a chance of a group of people pushing up into the top bracket, then top end players will push you down because they can. Not because they can beat you, but because they can bracket you down. Hooray. So fun, what a great competitive PvP system, where only the people in the IN group can win.

Bowgentle

So much salt.
You were never going to catch the people with better rosters anyway.
Go to s2, see if you can compete there.
There's no collaboration.

entrailbucket

"bracket sniping" is a completely different thing than what I'm describing, and something I think they should eliminate.

I have no particular interest in either competing with or directly hurting (in-game) lower rosters, and I typically avoid it.

kuntilanak

@Bowgentle said:

@kuntilanak said:
Hmm, talking about "enjoyment', in PVP, it's largely an acquired taste. At least for me.

I don't mind slugging it to 50 wins, as long as i can form fairly viable team(s) that can take me there without draining my resources (health packs and boosts) too fast. I believe most here will stick to the same team for reliability and consistent results. I do that most of the time.

If only they can re-code it as such that when we attack and lost/withdraw, we don't lose points... Then again, that also means the pool point for each subsequent opponents becomes smaller and smaller as you rack up wins... hmm...

Again, that's PVE, not PVP.
If you can't lose points, nobody will ever shield and the top scores will be in the 10000s.

I'm talking about PVP here... and i didn't say we should never lose points. Only when we initiate the match. If we were attacked and lost, we still lose points. Like i said, i don't see it happening at all. Otherwise it would've been implemented long ago.

entrailbucket

@kuntilanak said:

@Bowgentle said:

@kuntilanak said:
Hmm, talking about "enjoyment', in PVP, it's largely an acquired taste. At least for me.

I don't mind slugging it to 50 wins, as long as i can form fairly viable team(s) that can take me there without draining my resources (health packs and boosts) too fast. I believe most here will stick to the same team for reliability and consistent results. I do that most of the time.

If only they can re-code it as such that when we attack and lost/withdraw, we don't lose points... Then again, that also means the pool point for each subsequent opponents becomes smaller and smaller as you rack up wins... hmm...

Again, that's PVE, not PVP.
If you can't lose points, nobody will ever shield and the top scores will be in the 10000s.

I'm talking about PVP here... and i didn't say we should never lose points. Only when we initiate the match. If we were attacked and lost, we still lose points. Like i said, i don't see it happening at all. Otherwise it would've been implemented long ago.

I'm not sure this would have a huge impact, good or bad, actually. Why is it something you want?

Timemachinego

@dianetics said:
What you describe is not competitive at all.

It is a rich get richer situation. A small group of fat blokes can group up and punch down on everyone else. So they can keep others out of the best and most competitive gear.

"Screw you inferior rosters!"

It is clear that this has been happening for a while. The same type of thing entrail complains about and promotes at the same time.
I think it is wild that entrail mentioned people not playing competitively but also promoting a bracket sniping system.

This game does not have a competitive PvP system (accusing others of never experiencing it) like WoW Arena, Dota, Old school Starcraft, TF2, CS, CoD:MW, Super Smash, Halo, or any other competitive PvP game.

In this games PvP does not matter how good you play, you can be sent to the trash heap by the fat boys above you. They can out gear you, and because it takes so long to "level up" you will never catch up.
This game allows people to "out gear" you. Any other real competitive PvP will put you on par with other at a similar level. It does not happen here.

Hello up and comers, the Infinity stones will never be yours because the old heads will always cheat you out of them. Congrats!!!

THIS IS NOT a skill based game. This is a bracket based game, and any time there is a chance of a group of people pushing up into the top bracket, then top end players will push you down because they can. Not because they can beat you, but because they can bracket you down. Hooray. So fun,
what a great competitive PvP system, where only the people in the IN group can win.

I'm not going to tell you you're wrong because you're not. I saw that system working from the outside once I became big enough to become a snack in my old slice (suddenly getting reds from a whole alliance at once, not fun). When I did finally join up with a solid group and proved myself for a few weeks (still a much younger roster but clearly trying) I got the invites to various pvp rooms... not my thing, but now I do well enough for myself outside of those rooms that I'm asked to join them every now and then.

In concept I like the rooms, they let people work together towards a goal as harmoniously as we can manage in a system like we have... in practice, yes, it's often a rich get richer situation. I got my **** chewed out hard earlier today for trying to get folks to work together so as **** as the room system is, I guess it helps? Bunch of damn savages out here.

As "new money" in this game I am absolutely aware of that, there really is no actual catching up to "your betters" whether it be by spending on your roster or increasing your skills, to a point. I outperform many elder 550 players in PVE but that's only because I work and scrape and try really hard (and hope they miss sometimes too, lol) but there's still that t5 that through whatever means seem to be unreachable for me.

bbigler

Because of ascension, “everyone” will have 550s in a few years, then everyone will have caught up with old players. Even 5-Star supports are a little easier to get now.

But I have some questions for the 550 rosters out there: why are you still playing? What’s the point? What are you trying to accomplish? Is the game still fun for you or has it become boring? Personally, I would get bored if my roster progression stopped or slowed to a crawl.