PVP Supports: Feedback Thread

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  • JoeHandle
    JoeHandle Posts: 533 Critical Contributor

    @BriMan2222 said:
    So I guess supports can stop insta win powers from working as I learned tonight. Decided to just cheese a dual 672 jugg spidey team with purple ap boosts and some purple ap supports and just drop whales on them. I got enough purple ap, fired mega whales and to my surprise a support activated (I think it was leap frog) and instead of ending the match it left the enemy team still alive, though close enough to dead the I was able to finish them off easily enough.

    If the surviving character went invisible, with an invisibility tile, it was a Leapfrog support, 3* or higher. You put it on a key character so they can survive 1st-turn kills and use their AP.

  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 5,856 Chairperson of the Boards

    @AlexR we're in agreement. You described roster management in service of gameplay, which is exactly what I do, and what I understand.

    @JoeHandle "faux productivity" is basically the MO of clicker games, which is why I suggest them to people who enjoy that aspect. I don't want MPQ to become that to serve those players, though. Also no, I write the same post every time! (and probably will keep doing it forever!)

    Can we talk about supports in PvP again?

  • Godzillafan67
    Godzillafan67 Posts: 602 Critical Contributor

    I waited until I had participated in a few PvP events before tossing my two cents to the Witcher. I play PvP for progression awards, node awards, and Top 100 placement awards. The TLDR is that I'm digging them. 👍

    At the start, I hated supports in PvP. I, like many others, only had knowledge on a few of them and was often surprised by the board behaving oddly. In the first PvP, I lost more matches than I'm used to and had to stop playing when I ran out of health packs. Since then, I've learned more about supports -- only a handful are common and watching board/character behaviors are excellent indicators that research is needed. It would be a good feature if we could click on both the character and the support on the matching screen so that we can view underlying details before pressing FIGHT. Additionally, we need to be able to see details on the supports and to whom they're attached during the match as well.

    I'm using BRB & Polaris more now since they're getting true heals from their supports. Ironically, I rarely used MThor/Shang previously because the combo was too unpredictable for me; I pretty much always paired Shang with Valk or Agent May. Now, however, their supports give me much better control and continued playability, which means that they've now become a regular go-to team for me.

    Final thoughts: Keep supports in PvP; make it easier to get supports and power them up; and update the supports' UI with the myriad of suggestions already presented.

  • JoeHandle
    JoeHandle Posts: 533 Critical Contributor

    @entrailbucket said:
    @AlexR we're in agreement. You described roster management in service of gameplay, which is exactly what I do, and what I understand.

    @JoeHandle "faux productivity" is basically the MO of clicker games, which is why I suggest them to people who enjoy that aspect. I don't want MPQ to become that to serve those players, though. Also no, I write the same post every time! (and probably will keep doing it forever!)

    Can we talk about supports in PvP again?

    If we have to ... say something about supports :D

    No interest in 'clicker' games. MPQ is my procrastination of choice. The super-repetitive "fights' just pass the time.

  • captainheath
    captainheath Posts: 255 Mover and Shaker

    I wish the Simulator would have supports enabled also. It seems strange that it hasn't.

  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 5,856 Chairperson of the Boards

    So far the responses are still fitting the same pattern -- players who are able to use supports to get an advantage (because theirs are optimized and their opponents aren't) are in favor of the change.

    Players facing peers (ie those who aren't consistently punching down) hate it.

    A question for those who are enjoying this: how many times have you gotten wrecked by the AI due to free AP/free power casts/free cascades from supports?

  • Godzillafan67
    Godzillafan67 Posts: 602 Critical Contributor

    @entrailbucket said:
    A question for those who are enjoying this: how many times have you gotten wrecked by the AI due to free AP/free power casts/free cascades from supports?

    My mother once wrecked me with free AP and free cascades. ONCE.

    Which is to say that they don't continue to cause me harm because I don't play against those teams. My defensive team loses to them, but my offense simply nopes out.

  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 5,856 Chairperson of the Boards

    @Godzillafan67 said:

    @entrailbucket said:
    A question for those who are enjoying this: how many times have you gotten wrecked by the AI due to free AP/free power casts/free cascades from supports?

    My mother once wrecked me with free AP and free cascades. ONCE.

    Which is to say that they don't continue to cause me harm because I don't play against those teams. My defensive team loses to them, but my offense simply nopes out.

    How would you feel about this if you could ONLY play against those teams?

  • Godzillafan67
    Godzillafan67 Posts: 602 Critical Contributor

    @entrailbucket said:

    @Godzillafan67 said:

    @entrailbucket said:
    A question for those who are enjoying this: how many times have you gotten wrecked by the AI due to free AP/free power casts/free cascades from supports?

    My mother once wrecked me with free AP and free cascades. ONCE.

    Which is to say that they don't continue to cause me harm because I don't play against those teams. My defensive team loses to them, but my offense simply nopes out.

    How would you feel about this if you could ONLY play against those teams?

    Since I don't currently have any 0- or 1-turn win teams, I wouldn't play. Once I too was able to win before the AI could play, then I would get my desired rewards as I'm able to. Pre-supports, I never backed down from MThor teams because I could beat those as readily as many other teams in my "ok to engage" list.

  • JoeHandle
    JoeHandle Posts: 533 Critical Contributor

    @entrailbucket said:
    So far the responses are still fitting the same pattern -- players who are able to use supports to get an advantage (because theirs are optimized and their opponents aren't) are in favor of the change.

    Players facing peers (ie those who aren't consistently punching down) hate it.

    A question for those who are enjoying this: how many times have you gotten wrecked by the AI due to free AP/free power casts/free cascades from supports?

    I mark myself down as enjoying it ... facing peers, and not hating it.

    For context I have a full roster, everyone champed, several 5s at 550, ascended 1s at 550, and all supports at 3* or better, 15 of them at 5* and maxed.

    Supports bring more options on offense and more subtle variety in targets. Boosted characters can be even stronger and faster. More combos to explore.

    I usually climb quickly, early or with a day left, and try to break MMR to farm easy wins. To get full progression and farm covers (primary goal). Then shield, and punch up on a few or several hops to shore up placement (a secondary goal).

    I haven't had any "surprise wipes" due to enemy supports. I have taken on a couple that looked interesting (hmmm, will that do what I think it will? let's see...), and won some and lost some.

    But, I also have studied the supports for a long time, and know what they do. If I take a fight vs free AP, I assume they will get the free AP and plan accordingly. If I can't some up with a plan, I don't take the fight.

    None of this is different then w/o supports. The "surprise wipes" I have had are the same as before, picking on a troll-y team, like Kang or mThor something or another, and the cascades go there way.

    If I was obsessing over score or placements I might be frustrated, but I learned years ago that's one of several things to avoid in order to avoid burnout on this mess :D

  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 5,856 Chairperson of the Boards

    @JoeHandle said:

    @entrailbucket said:
    So far the responses are still fitting the same pattern -- players who are able to use supports to get an advantage (because theirs are optimized and their opponents aren't) are in favor of the change.

    Players facing peers (ie those who aren't consistently punching down) hate it.

    A question for those who are enjoying this: how many times have you gotten wrecked by the AI due to free AP/free power casts/free cascades from supports?

    I mark myself down as enjoying it ... facing peers, and not hating it.

    For context I have a full roster, everyone champed, several 5s at 550, ascended 1s at 550, and all supports at 3* or better, 15 of them at 5* and maxed.

    Supports bring more options on offense and more subtle variety in targets. Boosted characters can be even stronger and faster. More combos to explore.

    I usually climb quickly, early or with a day left, and try to break MMR to farm easy wins. To get full progression and farm covers (primary goal). Then shield, and punch up on a few or several hops to shore up placement (a secondary goal).

    I haven't had any "surprise wipes" due to enemy supports. I have taken on a couple that looked interesting (hmmm, will that do what I think it will? let's see...), and won some and lost some.

    But, I also have studied the supports for a long time, and know what they do. If I take a fight vs free AP, I assume they will get the free AP and plan accordingly. If I can't some up with a plan, I don't take the fight.

    None of this is different then w/o supports. The "surprise wipes" I have had are the same as before, picking on a troll-y team, like Kang or mThor something or another, and the cascades go there way.

    If I was obsessing over score or placements I might be frustrated, but I learned years ago that's one of several things to avoid in order to avoid burnout on this mess :D

    If you haven't had surprise wipes due to supports, it's probably due to the fact that you're skipping teams with powerful, optimized supports that you don't have a plan to handle.

    I'm not losing a ton on offense, but I am losing more. What I'm seeing is matches entirely determined by random support effects. Either my supports trigger and I win immediately (often without ever moving the board), or they don't and I immediately get wrecked by the AI's free AP/cascades/etc.

    Maybe I just haven't adapted enough. Maybe I should be skipping all the teams that are optimized to auto-destroy. I don't like the massively increased number of non-games this is generating, though. I don't like having to optimize my stuff to win turn 0 or 1, because not doing that means I lose turn 1 or 2.

    I suppose there's a third category of player in my classification scheme: players fighting peers (who hate this), players punching down (who like it), and those who just want every fight to be over as fast as possible/prefer non-games.

  • 658_2
    658_2 Posts: 235 Tile Toppler

    Iron Patriot pvp should be fun. Can’t wait for Colossus with rank 5 Cuckoos giving him 6.9x crit multiplier and IP dropping five crits turn one. 😂

  • JoeHandle
    JoeHandle Posts: 533 Critical Contributor

    @entrailbucket said:

    @JoeHandle said:

    @entrailbucket said:
    So far the responses are still fitting the same pattern -- players who are able to use supports to get an advantage (because theirs are optimized and their opponents aren't) are in favor of the change.

    Players facing peers (ie those who aren't consistently punching down) hate it.

    A question for those who are enjoying this: how many times have you gotten wrecked by the AI due to free AP/free power casts/free cascades from supports?

    I mark myself down as enjoying it ... facing peers, and not hating it.

    For context I have a full roster, everyone champed, several 5s at 550, ascended 1s at 550, and all supports at 3* or better, 15 of them at 5* and maxed.

    Supports bring more options on offense and more subtle variety in targets. Boosted characters can be even stronger and faster. More combos to explore.

    I usually climb quickly, early or with a day left, and try to break MMR to farm easy wins. To get full progression and farm covers (primary goal). Then shield, and punch up on a few or several hops to shore up placement (a secondary goal).

    I haven't had any "surprise wipes" due to enemy supports. I have taken on a couple that looked interesting (hmmm, will that do what I think it will? let's see...), and won some and lost some.

    But, I also have studied the supports for a long time, and know what they do. If I take a fight vs free AP, I assume they will get the free AP and plan accordingly. If I can't some up with a plan, I don't take the fight.

    None of this is different then w/o supports. The "surprise wipes" I have had are the same as before, picking on a troll-y team, like Kang or mThor something or another, and the cascades go there way.

    If I was obsessing over score or placements I might be frustrated, but I learned years ago that's one of several things to avoid in order to avoid burnout on this mess :D

    If you haven't had surprise wipes due to supports, it's probably due to the fact that you're skipping teams with powerful, optimized supports that you don't have a plan to handle. (1)

    I'm not losing a ton on offense, but I am losing more. What I'm seeing is matches entirely determined by random support effects. Either my supports trigger and I win immediately (often without ever moving the board), or they don't and I immediately get wrecked by the AI's free AP/cascades/etc. (2)

    Maybe I just haven't adapted enough. Maybe I should be skipping all the teams that are optimized to auto-destroy. I don't like the massively increased number of non-games this is generating, though. I don't like having to optimize my stuff to win turn 0 or 1, because not doing that means I lose turn 1 or 2.

    I suppose there's a third category of player in my classification scheme: players fighting peers (who hate this), players punching down (who like it), and those who just want every fight to be over as fast as possible/prefer non-games. (3)

    1. Well, yes, of course. But to also answer your ? above, "What if you had to fight such teams all the time?" ... PvP has had that problematic possibility for a long time. You can play your way into being matched with a small # of q's, all of them sporting the same optimal, maxed out team. This has been a problem since the days of "sentrybombing". Big boosts had alleviated the problem a bit ... still frequently run into a wall of "clone" optimal targets, but at least what's top dog optimal changes week to week (usually) and there is a higher chance of having something to counter with. Adding supports can further break up the sameness ... until / unless enough people have the same maxchamped characters and the same maxleveled supports most or all of the time ... then we'll be back to the same old problem.

    I also try to keep in mind that I'm at the edge of the envelope, an extreme of the system possibilities. Unless level caps are ripped off, or boosts are shaken up somehow, there will be a ceiling to run into.

    1. Matches entirely determined by RNG% support effects ... the sourse of the match heavily influenced by, sure. I used to run Batons and Quantum with Shang in PvE for a while, and it turned each map into a die roll, almost certainly starting on the path to victory, or having to scramble if not. And the latter was less fun as the scaling ramped up. If you're very competitive that's frustrating and why bring that frustration into the "other" game mode. But the offense gets to go first? I have seen people proactively complain about this very thing regarding the threat of supports in PvP for years, and it strikes me as focusing solely on the negative. Which is a human tendency.

    I note they rebalanced several very old supports, and made them more certain, less random. Expect that to continue? More definite AP at start, no chance of getting lucky? But also no chance of yours falling flat... and no chance of easy wins due to yours working and theirs not.

    1. Maybe? I spent mid 2014 - early 2022 punching up in PvP, and have been used to skipping a LOT for most of that time, esp since I dropped LINE. Even when I was using LINE I was playing obsessively and usually (trying) to run ahead of the pack. I would expect those who ARE at The Top, and have been for a long time roster-wise, to resent a new injection of uncertainty after so many years, particularly since the source of the uncertainty is a harder to obtain pile of game constructs that were orphaned for so long, supports. I don't know how I got so lucky with supports, having looked around it seems my collection is darn near "fantastic" ... i don't have everything up to their key levels, but I'm only missing a few. If I hadn't been so lucky I may be more frustrated.

    I try to keep in mind that this game has to be built for a wide audience. How's it going for newer players, 3* players, 4* players?

    While they say this is a test, I don't expect this to be rolled back completely. IME that just doesn't happen, human collaborations do not admit error, they will tweak and band-aid. So, no hopes on my part of this all going away.

    If you don't care about points or losses, can always just get the wins, farm covers ... but I know for many that means giving up all or part of what's engaging.

  • KGB
    KGB Posts: 3,247 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited 5 July 2024, 17:50

    @JoeHandle said:
    I try to keep in mind that this game has to be built for a wide audience. How's it going for newer players, 3* players, 4* players?

    Newer players in 3 and 4 star land don't have supports. Or if they do, they have 1-5 total and they are R1-R3 and seldom optimized for the teams they are running (looking at my step sons roster and battles since he's at that stage of having just baby champed Polaris and has maybe 30 characters total, half of them 5s with 3-4 covers). In other words, it's a nothing burger for them because they don't affect the battle much at all.

    It's really the end game players like you guys who it's changing things for: Players with all the supports, all the key ones at R5 and all the top characters at L500 plus and every character champed and lots of ascended characters.

    I'm somewhere between the newer players and the end game players. My experience has been that it's been far easier with 2 true healing supports on BrB/Polaris. I'm now able to fight far more teams who used to cost me a health pack with a bad cascade (looking at you MThor and Shang etc). Now unless they can one shot me, it doesn't matter because I'm healed to max in another turn or 2 and they are stun locked.

    My guess is that eventually they are going to limit supports in some manner. Perhaps something like 8 at a time for PvP event so that only those 8 can be equipped. Then next PvP it will be 8 different ones.

    KGB

    P.S. Has anyone tried running Ascended Peggy to increase AP costs by 4 so that the troll teams can't fire powers on turn 1? Does that make any difference if your own don't trigger AP gain? Or is she just not good enough to matter even ascended.

  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 5,856 Chairperson of the Boards

    Yep, newer players (except for highly-informed folks like vets starting over, or new players who are plugged in and optimizing) won't even have supports, but ALSO -- those players generally just don't play PvP at all. I don't think they'll start because of it, either, since they don't really have supports.

    Re: 4* Peggy, she's just not good enough in general. The best defense in this game is a good offense. Slowing the opponent down can be very useful if you've got a way to kill them while you're doing it, or if you can shut them down completely. Peggy doesn't have enough offense and she only shuts down active powers.

  • dianetics
    dianetics Posts: 1,648 Chairperson of the Boards

    KGB
    P.S. Has anyone tried running Ascended Peggy to increase AP costs by 4 so that the troll teams can't fire powers on turn 1? Does that make any difference if your own don't trigger AP gain? Or is she just not good enough to matter even ascended.

    She doesn't matter when you can get up to 15 AP on your first turn.

    I tried using her, but is trash. When we did not have supports she was not bad, but now she is useless.

    If you are able to get enough AP to stun her turn 1 or 2, then it doesn't matter. I literally have not seen her in any PvP game since ascension became a thing.

  • JoeHandle
    JoeHandle Posts: 533 Critical Contributor
    edited 5 July 2024, 18:15

    That was my point, not an issue (yet) for less complete rosters. So how is that usage data going to look. Probably more or less fine, no tmuch change?

    I don't assume players aren't playing PvP, we see them (3* players) asking questions about PvP all the time, on other platforms. (This one is pretty dead .....)

    Sorry to say but our girl Peggy is too dated. Fun to use in general, but not competitve enough :|

  • Tony_Foot
    Tony_Foot Posts: 1,817 Chairperson of the Boards

    Now the event has changed this one is much much harder for me. Even with the great supports I have. Not a lot I can do against dual 670 Colwanda. So I got my 12 wins against thor shang teams like I did before this all happened and bailed.

    As I said this would give far far more variety now with supports in some form and no god boost. My targets this pvp are now restricted to shang and thor teams. Wait to get punched down and decide if I can see more shang and thor teams.

    I still prefer this though, to have the option of mixing supports to get a stun or something going.

  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 5,856 Chairperson of the Boards

    @JoeHandle said:
    That was my point, not an issue (yet) for less complete rosters. So how is that usage data going to look. Probably more or less fine, no tmuch change?

    I don't assume players aren't playing PvP, we see them (3* players) asking questions about PvP all the time, on other platforms. (This one is pretty dead .....)

    Sorry to say but our girl Peggy is too dated. Fun to use in general, but not competitve enough :|

    Oh I've seen lots of new players asking questions about PvP!

    Those questions are generally stuff like "How did I lose 500 points in 30 seconds?" or "Why are seed teams the only winnable fights the game will give me?" or "What is the point of any of this nonsense?"

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