Am I the only one (who enjoys competition)?!?

Unknown

I've read a lot of people around here recently complaining about making the transition to 3*, getting a lvl 100+ guy and all of a sudden facing teams that are much higher in level by comparison. Am I the only one who doesn't hate the competition?

I've been grinding my way into 3* land for a while as a completely f2p player. I've had a couple of lvl 100 guys for a while now and continued to face lvl 85 2*'s until I recently finished my punisher. So I can tell the rookies who fear the 3* transition from personal experience that leveling a 3* to 100 does not mean you will automatically start facing 141's all the time - that should rightly come when you get your own 141 as long as you remember to lose from time to time so your mmr doesn't go sky high. It's worked for me so far.

And now that I have a 141, I am rightly facing a lot more high level guys. Does it suck missing out on reaching 800 pts without major grind and shield hopping? Sure, but this is a game, and games are supposed to be challenging! When I get my new cover rewards, I enjoy them a lot more knowing how hard I worked to get them. When I get a 3* to a functional level and start using them, I enjoy it more because of the challenge it was to make it happen.

I understand that for some people it sucks having to work so hard to get the covers we all want, and it would be a shame to NOT have a max new character immediately after it was released, but let's keep things in perspective!

Yes, D3 has made a great many mistakes and I get frustrated with them too. And no, I'm not trying to bad mouth anyone who has complained about mmr hell or the recent stiff competition they receive when they progress. I just really wanted to post for the people who are unsure about getting stronger rosters that as a reminder that it is possible to progress (even as a f2p player) if you are patient, that the game can still be fun if you are up for the challenge, and that it's not all bad when you level a 3* above lvl 100.

I'm sure I've made my share of enemies with this post, but is anyone out there with me?

Unknown

I don't mind not placing well in PvP events but I do question the sense of futility when you see 20 guys who are exactly as strong as you with roughly the same score you last saw them 3 hours ago so you know they're also going in circles just like you. It seems to me shield usage is becoming more and more aggressive and you might as well just ask people to pay HP upfront for a certain PvP rating ahead of time. There's increasingly little point to play the game without shields. It used to be that you can finish in top 25 with a very strong team without needing to shield. Now you probably can't even finish top 50 without. Yes the 'strong' team is weaker over time as people catch up, but I think having to shield to hold top 50 is starting to get a bit excessive, and there's no sign of this trend slowing down. Are we going to hit a point where you've to shield to make top 100?

Dayv

I'm just replying to say that this is a useless and informative subject line and your thread is bad, whatever it's about. Have a nice day.

Unknown

DayvBang wrote:

I'm just replying to say that this is a useless and informative subject line and your thread is bad, whatever it's about. Have a nice day.

Thanks for stopping by buddy, you have a great day too

Unknown

Nope, definitely not with you. I don't know if hitting 100 automatically puts you against all 141s. I don't know what causes it. I do know though, from experience, that it does not "rightly come when you get your own 141." Still don't have my own 141, still face walls of 141 opponents. Does it suck to shield hop to 800? Wouldn't know. I got to 400 in the latest PVP, got attacked down to 300. Played a few more matches (and got attacked a few more times) in the last hour before running out of health packs at 329 points. Trust me, I lose a lot, and not by choice. More because after skipping a dozen times, I find the weakest team I can and they still outclass mine by many levels. I wouldn't mind the game being challenging. I went from competing for top 25 or top 10 in PVPs in season 1 to very rarely placing top 50 in season 2. If you aren't in the top 50, you're just spinning your wheels, because the rewards outside of the top 50 are basically...nothing.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

I don't mind not placing well in PvP events but I do question the sense of futility when you see 20 guys who are exactly as strong as you with roughly the same score you last saw them 3 hours ago so you know they're also going in circles just like you. It seems to me shield usage is becoming more and more aggressive and you might as well just ask people to pay HP upfront for a certain PvP rating ahead of time. There's increasingly little point to play the game without shields. It used to be that you can finish in top 25 with a very strong team without needing to shield. Now you probably can't even finish top 50 without. Yes the 'strong' team is weaker over time as people catch up, but I think having to shield to hold top 50 is starting to get a bit excessive, and there's no sign of this trend slowing down. Are we going to hit a point where you've to shield to make top 100?

Living in UK, I have always had to shield to place in PVP. As a result i have always considered it as so:
Every PVP I climb to 900 (within last 8 hours / 24 if needed) and shield once securely in top 3. This normally costs me 150hp for which I receive 3 x 3* covers, 100hp profit and some ISO thrown in for good measure. If I need to shield for 24hrs for some reason, it costs me 50hp total to get 3 3* covers and some ISO.
Each cover would have cost 1250hp to buy.
I have never tried sheild hopping as I know i will need to place a 8hr/24hr shield at the end of an event and dont see the point. Reaching 1100 is nice when it happens but not required as covers will come eventually.
I appreciate those in US have this completely different as used to be able to play without shielding and stockpile hp but I want you to appreciate that this is only bringing you in line with EU playerbase.

Unknown

To be honest I think you (the OP) have the same dictionary failure as D3's developers. There is nothing "challenging" about facing 2x141 + featured from point zero of PvP. The AI is so incredibly bad there is very little genuine challenge in it at all. Instead it is simply more time consuming and it makes progression in the game less fulfilling.

Lots of people have commented how MMR and "nudged" bracketing means progression isn't rewarded but in reality it's generally punished. All those 2* teams run OBW (as good as a 3* when facing 2* teams when her health doesn't matter) + Thor/Ares/A.Wolvie + loaner hero. It is massively more straightforward to blitz through equivalent teams than 2x141 + levelled featured hero. The loaner does nothing and has a very limited health pool, so you can run over the team much much faster with minimal risk and full health at the end.

On the other hand when you're up against a 212 3*, not only do they generally threaten a lot of damage but they can have a ridiculous health pool (212 sentry is a GREAT example). So it takes longer, you won't have a full or near full health pool at the end of it and you get NOTHING more for doing so. Someone who just ran over 85 OBW, 85 A.wolvie and a lvl 23 whatever got exactly the same thing you did.

Finally add the healing time being based on total health so some heroes take forever to heal up you only benefit from being able to survive better at >700 points than those other teams. A fact which ppl trying to transition are not happy about (at all).

So the system is upsetting just about everyone in one way or another (aside from the OP apparently ).

In short: I'm glad you are having fun but nothing in your post makes me change my mind about D3's **** PvP system (and I do perfectly well in it but that's not a reason to say it's good).

Unknown

I'm in the 2* bracket and after reading A LOT of posts and heard A LOT from my friends who are a lot higher than me, i can say the OP is a complete n00b when it comes to the realization of what a good PvP System should be, please take your time to read what bonfire01 has to say and rethink about this dumb thread in a corner

Slarow

bonfire01 wrote:

On the other hand when you're up against a 212 3*, not only do they generally threaten a lot of damage but they can have a ridiculous health pool (212 sentry is a GREAT example). So it takes longer, you won't have a full or near full health pool at the end of it and you get NOTHING more for doing so. Someone who just ran over 85 OBW, 85 A.wolvie and a lvl 23 whatever got exactly the same thing you did.

Honest question. Do you think nerfing OBW's healing would bring the 2* teams experience closer to the 3* teams? Would that make it so 3* teams would do better in their bracket compared to the 2* teams than they currently do?

I am currently on the edge of having viable 3* characters, and want to make sure the game is fun when I get there, and as much as I love OBW, if nerfing her healing meant a more diverse and therefore more strategic 2* experience (and therefore a better 3* experience), it would be good IMHO.

Seasick Pirate

bonfire01 wrote:

To be honest I think you (the OP) have the same dictionary failure as D3's developers.

Played since launch and I'm still wondering where the "puzzle" aspect comes in. Have they also confused "puzzle" with "match 3" gameplay? It's not like you can lose when you run out of moves on the board.
I've never played the other Puzzle Quest games so not sure if they do it any better/differently.

Unknown

Slarow wrote:

bonfire01 wrote:

On the other hand when you're up against a 212 3*, not only do they generally threaten a lot of damage but they can have a ridiculous health pool (212 sentry is a GREAT example). So it takes longer, you won't have a full or near full health pool at the end of it and you get NOTHING more for doing so. Someone who just ran over 85 OBW, 85 A.wolvie and a lvl 23 whatever got exactly the same thing you did.

Honest question. Do you think nerfing OBW's healing would bring the 2* teams experience closer to the 3* teams? Would that make it so 3* teams would do better in their bracket compared to the 2* teams than they currently do?

I am currently on the edge of having viable 3* characters, and want to make sure the game is fun when I get there, and as much as I love OBW, if nerfing her healing meant a more diverse and therefore more strategic 2* experience (and therefore a better 3* experience), it would be good IMHO.

In a word, not really (2 words ). The triviality of beating 2* teams does indeed come partly from OBW BUT IMO an equally large, if not larger impact is the featured hero system. I like NOTHING about it AT ALL and IMO it's simply a way to try and get ppl to buy cover packs/covers, which is probably rather unsuccessful.

The reason I say this is as follows:

Featured heroes are always 3* heroes so 2* players don't have them, or have barely usable versions.
Lvl 23 (boosted to) loaned 3* heroes have no match damage, health or damage output to speak of making it basically a 2 vs 2 match.
The AI can't even get the loaned hero out to soak damage removing any value it has at all.
2 vs 2 is a lot quicker than 3 vs 3, especially if one of those 3 is lvl 212.

IF there is a themed PvP (the gods one, DA one, avengers one, Lonestar etc etc) at least people can field entire teams. Ideally (for me) featured heroes would be boosted in your bog standard PvP but NOT mandatory. So at least it's 3 vs 3 all the way up and you get a benefit to using a boosted hero if you own one. This allows for a bit more diversity in heroes and a more even playing experience at 1* through 3*. Not going to happen though

Having said that some 3* heroes are so underwhelming i'm not sure boosting them to 212 is even enough to merit a place over more useful heroes, so maybe it would cause less variety in opponents from PvP to PvP... I dunno....

Unknown

Seasick Pirate wrote:

Played since launch and I'm still wondering where the "puzzle" aspect comes in. Have they also confused "puzzle" with "match 3" gameplay? It's not like you can lose when you run out of moves on the board.
I've never played the other Puzzle Quest games so not sure if they do it any better/differently.

The puzzle aspect comes from trying to figure out the MMR/PvE scoring system.

noobprime

Jonstalnaker209 wrote:

Am I the only one who doesn't hate the competition?
...
that should rightly come when you get your own 141 as long as you remember to lose from time to time so your mmr doesn't go sky high. It's worked for me so far.

So what you're saying is that you hate competition, and that's why you tank your mmr.

Unknown

noobprime wrote:

Jonstalnaker209 wrote:

Am I the only one who doesn't hate the competition?
...
that should rightly come when you get your own 141 as long as you remember to lose from time to time so your mmr doesn't go sky high. It's worked for me so far.

So what you're saying is that you hate competition, and that's why you tank your mmr.

Not really, I lose because I will attack teams without boosts that I have a possibility I will lose to, because it's a game and the challenge is fun. I don't go in expecting to lose or play with the intention of losing, but it happens. It's a game, and I just try to enjoy it.

Live and learn I guess - suggest that the game can still be fun and get blasted. Good to know.

Unknown

Jonstalnaker209 wrote:

Not really, I lose because I will attack teams without boosts that I have a possibility I will lose to, because it's a game and the challenge is fun. I don't go in expecting to lose or play with the intention of losing, but it happens. It's a game, and I just try to enjoy it.

Live and learn I guess - suggest that the game can still be fun and get blasted. Good to know.

Wasn't intending to blast you, was trying to suggest your cause and effect don't match up properly.

I enjoy "playing the game" but am getting increasingly fed up with the game systems. So I enjoy matching little colored gems, enjoy working out how to best use my AP and enjoy making progress. A lot of the stuff people are complaining about relates to things that interfere with that enjoyment which did NOT exist before.

For example, lets say I want to place well in PvP. That tends to require shield hopping because of the way D3 have implemented changes in who you can see to attack (no shielded targets), brackets (tougher for high end ppl so they all feel the need to shield more) and seasons (people feel they need to do well in EVERY PvP even if they don't need the cover). The upshot of this is when I drop my shield to attack I need to win REALLY FAST. If i'm too slow I could get hit multiple times and lose a lot more than I gain. So I can't sit there and mull over the board looking for the best match to potentially lead to more down the line and I can't sit and mull over abilities. I am making the most obvious useful matches and cursing animations for being too slow.

So, i'm not happy with changes they've made and I have this forlorn hope that explanations will be seen by a dev and they'll take it on board as feedback. That also means that when someone posts something I disagree with I post what I think to discuss it.

As I posted before though, glad you're enjoying yourself

noobprime

Jonstalnaker209 wrote:

when you get your own 141 as long as you remember to lose from time to time so your mmr doesn't go sky high.

Sorry but the fact that you say *remember to lose* means that you don't lose from the occasional death cascade, it implies that you are tanking. And that's fine, but tanking is not 'enjoying competition', it's managing it to your own levels. Which is for the most part what most of the forumites are doing, trying to work within a *broken* system.

bonfire01 wrote:

I do perfectly well in it but that's not a reason to say it's good

Unknown

While we've never directly interacted bonfire, I've seen your posts and have long respected your opinion - I took no offense to your comments, it's all good buddy. I was more referring to the general feeling in this thread. Whatever, it's the Internet, it's to be expected.

To your final point, I can see I was a little unclear. It was kind of late for me when I posted that, made more sense in my mind. I just ultimately wanted to pose an opposing view, to show that there are some people still having fun despite the numerous problems with the game right now and that it's not impossible to progress, just much more challenging. Thanks for your thoughts though, like I said, I have much respect for your opinions.

Unknown

Jonstalnaker209 wrote:

While we've never directly interacted bonfire, I've seen your posts and have long respected your opinion - I took no offense to your comments, it's all good buddy. I was more referring to the general feeling in this thread. Whatever, it's the Internet, it's to be expected.

To your final point, I can see I was a little unclear. It was kind of late for me when I posted that, made more sense in my mind. I just ultimately wanted to pose an opposing view, to show that there are some people still having fun despite the numerous problems with the game right now and that it's not impossible to progress, just much more challenging. Thanks for your thoughts though, like I said, I have much respect for your opinions.

I for one dont mind playing a more challenging part of a game then the guy next to me but generally in most games the extra difficulty is also accompanied by suitable rewards.

Unknown

@noobprime - I disagree. I don't throw in tank teams that I know for a fact will lose, I always try to win. But I won't try as hard as I usually do, if I win great, if not that's fine too. I don't personally view that the same as what I've heard to be considered tanking, but that's just my opinion. It doesn't matter that much. Also, telling someone to remember to tank is not the same as saying "I tank, you should too"

I'm also not trying to criticize anyone for how they choose to play or voice their concerns, just providing the other side. If I came across as critical of anyone who voices their concern over the game, my apologies to those who I've offended. I try to keep it positive, maybe I wasn't clear there. I hope that no one took my post as me trying to talk trash. Lol

Unknown

I'm not with you either. I have one 141 character and it feels like every single other players has 3-8 of them. Every single person in my bracket in the top 50 does anyway. It's not really competition when Daken is featured and I get put in a bracket with my level 23 Daken and every single other team has a level 141(212) Daken. Sure I can beat a lot of these players, but it will always be my team with less than all 141's that gets picked on and destroyed by everyone else, which in turns means that I will never get the three star covers I need to compete.

And the fact that I need to intentionally lose matches to keep my MMR down just goes to show how stupid the whole system is.

Cragger

Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.

Let go of your fear, embrace the puzzle.