PVP Supports: Feedback Thread

entrailbucket

@JoeHandle said:

@entrailbucket said:

@The_Boogie said:

@Tony_Foot said:
Pve is more PvP than the actual PvP.

OMG preach - This is the truth! To the majority of the most vocal and willing to spend MPQ players, Story mode is where the real competition exists in the game, to the point where Player A will ask their alliance mates to hit Player B in PvP during their closing hits of PvE so the pop-ups in game will screw up Player B’s chances of finishing optimally.

Versus mode is a place where you can (mostly) only succeed at the highest levels if you cooperate with a large group of like minded people.

For those of us who embrace the “Versus” element of it…we love supports in PvP. Allows us to easier protect the small piece of turf in MPQ where we put our flag in the ground.

Someone in another thread suggested breaking coordination by hiding player names. That wouldn't work -- there are a bunch of ways to get around it.

The nuclear bomb that (basically) stops coordination is "disable the skip button while you're shielded." I don't think they'd do it, but it's a pretty easy change.

"Hiding names" .... the Big Brains have been dragging that one out since 2015. They don't understand how players coordinate, the range of possibilities.

"Disable slips while shielded" .... another dud. Not only does it undermine the value of both game features, it dings those not coordinating along with those who are.

D'oh.

I'm dumb -- you'd just coordinate it so you set all your qs while you were still out. It'd be a bit of a mess but they'd figure it out pretty fast.

Hey, at least it'd kill hopping for everybody who wasn't in a BC!

658_2

I just took down a level 664 Phylla with 555k health on my turn 2 (and a champed Kaine). Is this what the devs intended when they added supports?

658_2

Btw, I’m seeing 672 Phyllas have 472k health. What support gave this one 83k extra!?

BriMan2222

@658_2 said:

Btw, I’m seeing 672 Phyllas have 472k health. What support gave this one 83k extra!?

Omnipitence city gives a percentage based HP boosts. The more HP they have, the more the boost is noticable.

658_2

Ah, thanks. One more thing. My roster is reasonably big but not monster big. I have two natural 5s in the 540s, all the 5s champed but Kaine, all the supports that matter at rank 3 or above. I’ve never hesitated in the past to hit 672s or anything less. If I’m going to be taking 200k+ hits from the monster rosters I’m going to shift my play style. In the ten years plus playing the game I’ve doubled opponents a handful of times, unless they did it to me first. I don’t like playing that way. I’m not looking to ruin anyone’s experience. Given how infrequently I get doubled, I’m guessing most players are similar, or at least the majority. If I can’t get to 25 wins playing gentlemanly, or whatever you want to call it, I’m going to start HAMMERING the baby champed rosters who pop up, just like the monster rosters will hammer me, which I’m already starting to see. I don’t want to play that way, but if it gets me to my goals while allowing me to conserve resources, I will. I’m not writing that as a threat. It’s going to be the natural and obvious progression of top level play.

dianetics

@obikenobi12 said:
Yeah i just ocnfirmed this. Maybe the devs should make it so supports don't trigger when the supported character is stunned at the start of a match. I had thought this was happening but it was just because the other enemies didn't proc their starting ap stuff because the % chance didn't go. My bad...sorry if i mislead anyone. Even still, i think Chasm is still a good character to use against teams with the start of battle AP gains since he drains enemy AP and you can use supports that also drain enemies AP too

We don't want this at all. Either supports are in or out, and we don't want 1 single character able to bypass that. Then we are stuck back to a year ago.

DAZ0273

@JoeHandle said:

@DAZ0273 said:

@JoeHandle said:

@entrailbucket said:

@The_Boogie said:

@Tony_Foot said:
Pve is more PvP than the actual PvP.

OMG preach - This is the truth! To the majority of the most vocal and willing to spend MPQ players, Story mode is where the real competition exists in the game, to the point where Player A will ask their alliance mates to hit Player B in PvP during their closing hits of PvE so the pop-ups in game will screw up Player B’s chances of finishing optimally.

Versus mode is a place where you can (mostly) only succeed at the highest levels if you cooperate with a large group of like minded people.

For those of us who embrace the “Versus” element of it…we love supports in PvP. Allows us to easier protect the small piece of turf in MPQ where we put our flag in the ground.

Someone in another thread suggested breaking coordination by hiding player names. That wouldn't work -- there are a bunch of ways to get around it.

The nuclear bomb that (basically) stops coordination is "disable the skip button while you're shielded." I don't think they'd do it, but it's a pretty easy change.

"Hiding names" .... the Big Brains have been dragging that one out since 2015. They don't understand how players coordinate, the range of possibilities.

"Disable slips while shielded" .... another dud. Not only does it undermine the value of both game features, it dings those not coordinating along with those who are.

There is likely to be a vast difference between the amount of skips a co-ordinating player needs to make to find specific targets as opposed to a non co-ordinating one, so limit the amount of skips you can make when shielded. If you want to make unlimited skips, put your head up above the surface and take the risks that go with the reward.

Ah, the voice of experience, ha.

Nothing "likely" about it; one of the most powerful aspects of coordinating is skipping less.

Think about it. Take two players taking a roughly equally aggressive approach to an event. Who's going to skip more ... a player that's working 'blind', with no firm knowledge of when there's anything there to find, or a player that knows exactly when to look and what they are looking for?

It's not the latter. The former is relying almost entirely on luck; the 'almost' representing possibly having enough experience to know roughly when the fishing might be better. The latter is pulling from a marked deck in a rigged game, when the dealer signals him to pull

So basically co-ordination is unstoppable? You are probably right, I mean how long has it been the basis of top level PvP now for? Anyway the Devs are fine with it so none of this is ever happening.

DAZ0273

@dianetics said:

@obikenobi12 said:
Yeah i just ocnfirmed this. Maybe the devs should make it so supports don't trigger when the supported character is stunned at the start of a match. I had thought this was happening but it was just because the other enemies didn't proc their starting ap stuff because the % chance didn't go. My bad...sorry if i mislead anyone. Even still, i think Chasm is still a good character to use against teams with the start of battle AP gains since he drains enemy AP and you can use supports that also drain enemies AP too

We don't want this at all. Either supports are in or out, and we don't want 1 single character able to bypass that. Then we are stuck back to a year ago.

Returning to a situation where Chasm is the answer is no answer at all.

Tony_Foot

@entrailbucket said:

Then maybe they should focus on making it fun, rather than making it easy to ignore/skip/autowin?

And you think a PVP is fun when a vast majority of the game know nothing about how these scores are racked up and why they couldn't get near competing? And then people state that PVP has a much lower engagement, I wonder why!

Also people keep stating removing names would make no difference, yet every time I bring it up people get mad and state it makes no difference. Well if that was the case let it happen, hell you could even remove the alliance scoring element and distribute those rewards across PVP.

DAZ0273

One way to drive engagement in PvP would be to address the gaping holes in rewards after you reach a certain point - after 25 wins and in Season too there are yawning gaps filled with non delicious nothingness. Fill 'em up!

Tony_Foot

@Domitronas said:
This doesn't fix any fundamental issues with supports - no reliable ways to get the support tokens, red iso being scarce and many supports being imbalanced. Same old as with most of the ideas. Great ideas on paper, but implementation is lackluster.

Oh there's a very reliable way. A way to get every support you would want for minimal pulls, another exploit like coordinated score boosting. I guess that must be ok too. People have been doing this since day one. Another loss to those poor guys and girls playing the game properly without using Line or some other co-ord app.

entrailbucket

@Tony_Foot said:

@entrailbucket said:

Then maybe they should focus on making it fun, rather than making it easy to ignore/skip/autowin?

And you think a PVP is fun when a vast majority of the game know nothing about how these scores are racked up and why they couldn't get near competing? And then people state that PVP has a much lower engagement, I wonder why!

Also people keep stating removing names would make no difference, yet every time I bring it up people get mad and state it makes no difference. Well if that was the case let it happen, hell you could even remove the alliance scoring element and distribute those rewards across PVP.

I'd be fine with removing names, it just wouldn't do the thing you want it to do. It'd make life a little more difficult for the coordinators but wouldn't come close to stopping them. It really wouldn't affect the way I play at all.

My point was: if you (or others) don't find PvP fun, the devs should spend their efforts on changes that would make it fun for you, rather than making it easier for you to not engage with it. Something like this is just a cop-out.

Phumade

@DAZ0273 said:

@JoeHandle said:

@entrailbucket said:

@The_Boogie said:

@Tony_Foot said:
Pve is more PvP than the actual PvP.

OMG preach - This is the truth! To the majority of the most vocal and willing to spend MPQ players, Story mode is where the real competition exists in the game, to the point where Player A will ask their alliance mates to hit Player B in PvP during their closing hits of PvE so the pop-ups in game will screw up Player B’s chances of finishing optimally.

Versus mode is a place where you can (mostly) only succeed at the highest levels if you cooperate with a large group of like minded people.

For those of us who embrace the “Versus” element of it…we love supports in PvP. Allows us to easier protect the small piece of turf in MPQ where we put our flag in the ground.

Someone in another thread suggested breaking coordination by hiding player names. That wouldn't work -- there are a bunch of ways to get around it.

The nuclear bomb that (basically) stops coordination is "disable the skip button while you're shielded." I don't think they'd do it, but it's a pretty easy change.

"Hiding names" .... the Big Brains have been dragging that one out since 2015. They don't understand how players coordinate, the range of possibilities.

"Disable slips while shielded" .... another dud. Not only does it undermine the value of both game features, it dings those not coordinating along with those who are.

There is likely to be a vast difference between the amount of skips a co-ordinating player needs to make to find specific targets as opposed to a non co-ordinating one, so limit the amount of skips you can make when shielded. If you want to make unlimited skips, put your head up above the surface and take the risks that go with the reward.

You will be surprised. The coordinating players know when to be skipping. The non coordinators are the one who run the auto skippers and text to speech.

I will guarantee that placement level players skip less than their non coordinating counterparts. In fact you could argue the biggest players 670 skip the least since they just go straight down their ques to shield.

DAZ0273

Yeah fair enough, I can see what you guys are saying.

slidecage

Love supports didn't think I would but did

I get up to the 10 cp or the 160 hp and quit

Don't really care about placement

Scofie

I think there are 2 schools of thought here: Playing for placement and playing for wins. It seems the first group are in general, unhappy with supports in PvP and the second group are, generally happy, though this is based upon one event.

My view - I was never competing for anything other than T25 at best or T50. For the Trenchcoat event I finished 51st after dropping 2 places in the last seconds. My score was not great, I got hit way more than before, but wins were easier and quicker. I played an extra few matches as a result.

Overall it was pretty much the same for me. I can see the need for more shields now though and understand how it could be very expensive HP-wise. But the extra rewards from shielding aren't worth the HP to me, so I'll not bother much and I'll take the hits and lost points and hit back a bit more. It's added a bit more thinking and a bit more trying to beat the team in front of me rather just playing with my best characters.

slidecage

@Scofie said:
I think there are 2 schools of thought here: Playing for placement and playing for wins. It seems the first group are in general, unhappy with supports in PvP and the second group are, generally happy, though this is based upon one event.

My view - I was never competing for anything other than T25 at best or T50. For the Trenchcoat event I finished 51st after dropping 2 places in the last seconds. My score was not great, I got hit way more than before, but wins were easier and quicker. I played an extra few matches as a result.

Overall it was pretty much the same for me. I can see the need for more shields now though and understand how it could be very expensive HP-wise. But the extra rewards from shielding aren't worth the HP to me, so I'll not bother much and I'll take the hits and lost points and hit back a bit more. It's added a bit more thinking and a bit more trying to beat the team in front of me rather just playing with my best characters.

How is shields very expensive hp wise
Unless I'm so out of it. Don't you just shield in the last 8 hours (most peoplle
Unless you don't get hammered as I'm thinking

How I play
Day 1 normal
Day 2 to end normal shield last 8 hours

Now maybe I'm wrong but if you played day 1 say you got to 900 pts and shield for 8 hours. .. you come up for hits and play wouldn't you be hit faster then you could play

meaning if say i was 1200 came out of shield. Played a game won 49 points I would think you get hit so many times it wouldn't be worth it

Or do people play like crazy first day then just apply sheild after shield till the last 8 or less hours and play (then again I would think you be hit faster then you could play (

Then again maybe I'm wrong and probably are im so wacked out sm at a target and should be working at a meijers

Shield would cost what 2400 max per event

I only do like 8 hours on Sunday and don't think I use any rest of week

Top 100 or top 50 good enough

Pills are fun 😊

Spelling mistake and Grammer nightmare due to cold and nokia 100

O how I hate this Nokia 100 phone

JoeHandle

@DAZ0273 said:

@JoeHandle said:

@DAZ0273 said:

@JoeHandle said:

@entrailbucket said:

@The_Boogie said:

@Tony_Foot said:
Pve is more PvP than the actual PvP.

OMG preach - This is the truth! To the majority of the most vocal and willing to spend MPQ players, Story mode is where the real competition exists in the game, to the point where Player A will ask their alliance mates to hit Player B in PvP during their closing hits of PvE so the pop-ups in game will screw up Player B’s chances of finishing optimally.

Versus mode is a place where you can (mostly) only succeed at the highest levels if you cooperate with a large group of like minded people.

For those of us who embrace the “Versus” element of it…we love supports in PvP. Allows us to easier protect the small piece of turf in MPQ where we put our flag in the ground.

Someone in another thread suggested breaking coordination by hiding player names. That wouldn't work -- there are a bunch of ways to get around it.

The nuclear bomb that (basically) stops coordination is "disable the skip button while you're shielded." I don't think they'd do it, but it's a pretty easy change.

"Hiding names" .... the Big Brains have been dragging that one out since 2015. They don't understand how players coordinate, the range of possibilities.

"Disable slips while shielded" .... another dud. Not only does it undermine the value of both game features, it dings those not coordinating along with those who are.

There is likely to be a vast difference between the amount of skips a co-ordinating player needs to make to find specific targets as opposed to a non co-ordinating one, so limit the amount of skips you can make when shielded. If you want to make unlimited skips, put your head up above the surface and take the risks that go with the reward.

Ah, the voice of experience, ha.

Nothing "likely" about it; one of the most powerful aspects of coordinating is skipping less.

Think about it. Take two players taking a roughly equally aggressive approach to an event. Who's going to skip more ... a player that's working 'blind', with no firm knowledge of when there's anything there to find, or a player that knows exactly when to look and what they are looking for?

It's not the latter. The former is relying almost entirely on luck; the 'almost' representing possibly having enough experience to know roughly when the fishing might be better. The latter is pulling from a marked deck in a rigged game, when the dealer signals him to pull

So basically co-ordination is unstoppable? You are probably right, I mean how long has it been the basis of top level PvP now for? Anyway the Devs are fine with it so none of this is ever happening.

Coordination will not be prevented by the simplistic bandaids that are always suggested on this topic going back to 2014.

Coordination is extracting maximum benefit from features all players wanted. Getting rid of the stupid 3 chances to beat this player thing, adding the option to skip.

If you see coordination as a problem--I don't--please recognize that the kind of systemic changes it would take to make extra-game coordination impossible will hurt everyone more than any perceived injury caused you right now by the coordination of others.

I'm not going to share specific possibilities on the devs platform. I do / have play(ed) other games with PvP where such coordination was not possible, and in each case, the pvp mode paled in comparison. Was less engaging, and community preventing birth control.

The previous management attempted to reign in "out of control" scoring once, not specifically reign in coordination but scores and coordination go hand in hand. That was when they added cooldowns to shields. It had an effect .... for awhile. An effect that was minimized in several weeks, but we ALL live with the constraints and inconveniences of those cooldowns all these years later.

Locking out coordinations would take much more draconian measures, with much more severe effects on all. If you think coordination is a problem, and don't or won't see how it benefits the game, at least accept that some cures are worse than going without.

I would have thought win progressions would have undercut the "concern". Progressions beat placement differences in every way. I mean a guaranteed path to fill progression beats what might be gained by placing a tranche higher. If anyone imagines that coordination disappearing today would mean they take top placement tomorrow, that's delusion.

FWiW, I have played MPQ single player mode for several years now. I'm usually in S1, so long as life allows; hit me any time!

Phumade

@slidecage said:

@Scofie said:
I think there are 2 schools of thought here: Playing for placement and playing for wins. It seems the first group are in general, unhappy with supports in PvP and the second group are, generally happy, though this is based upon one event.

My view - I was never competing for anything other than T25 at best or T50. For the Trenchcoat event I finished 51st after dropping 2 places in the last seconds. My score was not great, I got hit way more than before, but wins were easier and quicker. I played an extra few matches as a result.

Overall it was pretty much the same for me. I can see the need for more shields now though and understand how it could be very expensive HP-wise. But the extra rewards from shielding aren't worth the HP to me, so I'll not bother much and I'll take the hits and lost points and hit back a bit more. It's added a bit more thinking and a bit more trying to beat the team in front of me rather just playing with my best characters.

How is shields very expensive hp wise
Unless I'm so out of it. Don't you just shield in the last 8 hours (most peoplle
Unless you don't get hammered as I'm thinking

How I play
Day 1 normal
Day 2 to end normal shield last 8 hours

Now maybe I'm wrong but if you played day 1 say you got to 900 pts and shield for 8 hours. .. you come up for hits and play wouldn't you be hit faster then you could play

meaning if say i was 1200 came out of shield. Played a game won 49 points I would think you get hit so many times it wouldn't be worth it

Or do people play like crazy first day then just apply sheild after shield till the last 8 or less hours and play (then again I would think you be hit faster then you could play (

Then again maybe I'm wrong and probably are im so wacked out sm at a target and should be working at a meijers

Shield would cost what 2400 max per event

I only do like 8 hours on Sunday and don't think I use any rest of week

Top 100 or top 50 good enough

Pills are fun 😊

Spelling mistake and Grammer nightmare due to cold and nokia 100

O how I hate this Nokia 100 phone

The main thing that has changed is that hp and shields are now cheap compared to their old scarcity. By this I just mean, the avg t50 player and certainly any t25 or better can afford near unlimited shield hops. No, people don't really play that way in general (3hops every 8hrs). But none of those players are under a strict shield budget and the flood of slots has really eliminated HP gold pressure.

While its true, ultimate min max strategy is minimize # of hops and end at 1200 with a t25 placement in 20matches or less.

But people like hopping outside of the "game rewards carrot" because they enjoy the sense of "special tactics" working with more experienced players. etc...

slidecage

@Phumade said:

@slidecage said:

@Scofie said:
I think there are 2 schools of thought here: Playing for placement and playing for wins. It seems the first group are in general, unhappy with supports in PvP and the second group are, generally happy, though this is based upon one event.

My view - I was never competing for anything other than T25 at best or T50. For the Trenchcoat event I finished 51st after dropping 2 places in the last seconds. My score was not great, I got hit way more than before, but wins were easier and quicker. I played an extra few matches as a result.

Overall it was pretty much the same for me. I can see the need for more shields now though and understand how it could be very expensive HP-wise. But the extra rewards from shielding aren't worth the HP to me, so I'll not bother much and I'll take the hits and lost points and hit back a bit more. It's added a bit more thinking and a bit more trying to beat the team in front of me rather just playing with my best characters.

How is shields very expensive hp wise
Unless I'm so out of it. Don't you just shield in the last 8 hours (most peoplle
Unless you don't get hammered as I'm thinking

How I play
Day 1 normal
Day 2 to end normal shield last 8 hours

Now maybe I'm wrong but if you played day 1 say you got to 900 pts and shield for 8 hours. .. you come up for hits and play wouldn't you be hit faster then you could play

meaning if say i was 1200 came out of shield. Played a game won 49 points I would think you get hit so many times it wouldn't be worth it

Or do people play like crazy first day then just apply sheild after shield till the last 8 or less hours and play (then again I would think you be hit faster then you could play (

Then again maybe I'm wrong and probably are im so wacked out sm at a target and should be working at a meijers

Shield would cost what 2400 max per event

I only do like 8 hours on Sunday and don't think I use any rest of week

Top 100 or top 50 good enough

Pills are fun 😊

Spelling mistake and Grammer nightmare due to cold and nokia 100

O how I hate this Nokia 100 phone

The main thing that has changed is that hp and shields are now cheap compared to their old scarcity. By this I just mean, the avg t50 player and certainly any t25 or better can afford near unlimited shield hops. No, people don't really play that way in general (3hops every 8hrs). But none of those players are under a strict shield budget and the flood of slots has really eliminated HP gold pressure.

Must be getting into sucky groups. I take top 50 without shield if I get around 600 or so

If I wasn't in a group that had a min of 4000 in pvp I doubt I ever use shields