PvP is stagnant

Unknown

Bowgentle wrote:

The PACman wrote:

Not having to spend HP in tournaments sounds great to me! Honestly, what part of the player base is that bad for?

The problem is: it's not about the playerbase. It's about D3's revenue.

And judging from the points total in this PVE, there are a _lot_ of people who are willing to grind all day if it's possible, so I'm afraid there will be wayyyyy more people than the usual crazies grinding like mad in PVP with the proposed changes :S

And thats where they have it backwards, revenue would come from providing a great and playable game, the reverse is not true. If they were to focus on what would make it better for the player base before they think about how to implement more money grabbing mechanisms people would feel alot happier about spending cash on the game.

You may be right about more people grinding all day, you may not. We would only find out if things were changed, even for a while to see what happened. And in any case I think not having shields and defensive losses would certainly solve the OPs point about PVP being stagnant, it would certainly shake things up a bit.

Unknown

To BelligerentGnu

Wow, you have clearly put loads of thought into that! I have to say I was confused on first reading, but now i think it sounds interesting. Maybe the only tweak I would make is not 'spending' your chance to fight a player if you skip them. that way you can skip a low level team to start with, but if you see them later on and they have managed to climb the rankings and are worth more points you still have the chance to fight them.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

I see a lot of posts about how MMR is screwed up but I think this is missing the real issue. PvP in this game is completely stagnant at the top. ...

How we miss the issue? Of course it is stagnant and all the rest as you describe. It all stinks from the base MMR idea. It would all work in normal healthy way if pairing was just simple random from all opponents -- what is the fair thing considering the whole setup (same points, prizes, etc).

That would restore all the balance and make the progression worth the while -- if your team has top 5% strength why on earth you only fight the same top 5% instead of all the field having 95% chance to get lesser opponent?

Unknown

Ive been finding PVP pretty fun. Ive actually been amused watching Franckynight use what seems like 5-6 shields in the last 8 hours lol. He tried to jump to 1200 at one stage but got dropped to 950. And now is 1195.. i assume he made it to 1200 lol. Good times. Wish I had a good team to make the jump. I guess ill be happy with top 10 or 25... depends how many pass 914 points.

The worst part for me, is that Francky has X wolverine 5/5/3 I guess u need that extra yellow in case the buff makes the yellow card better than red or green lol. I would of tried for 1st place if it wasn't for you haha.

Game isnt stagnant. I think its just grindy. I also have to use alot of boosts to make it to top 10. I basically don't make any ISO in pvp.

franckynight

Vexed wrote:

Ive been finding PVP pretty fun. Ive actually been amused watching Franckynight use what seems like 5-6 shields in the last 8 hours lol. He tried to jump to 1200 at one stage but got dropped to 950. And now is 1195.. i assume he made it to 1200 lol. Good times. Wish I had a good team to make the jump. I guess ill be happy with top 10 or 25... depends how many pass 914 points.

The worst part for me, is that Francky has X wolverine 5/5/3 I guess u need that extra yellow in case the buff makes the yellow card better than red or green lol. I would of tried for 1st place if it wasn't for you haha.

Game isnt stagnant. I think its just grindy. I also have to use alot of boosts to make it to top 10. I basically don't make any ISO in pvp.

let me explain how i do.. i join pvp in the early stages.. make a climb up to 800 pts on first day.. stay unshielded all night.. then make it a little more serious with shield hoping.. normally i could climb back to 1000 without having to shield just with retals .. then i used 4-5 shields until 1200 (1300 if i really feel it).. then shield for the last 8 hours or so.. do the maths.. 5x75 +150= 525 hp.. if i want to buy a 3* cover its 1 250hp.. thats 1950 hp gain i f i count the 3* at 1100.. i know i dont need first place and if you have asked me i will have gladly let you grab this wolvie cover..
Edit: this time i confess cause of pve and Lr i put a 8 hours shield yesterday that i let expired..

Unknown

pasa_ wrote:

Phantron wrote:

I see a lot of posts about how MMR is screwed up but I think this is missing the real issue. PvP in this game is completely stagnant at the top. ...

How we miss the issue? Of course it is stagnant and all the rest as you describe. It all stinks from the base MMR idea. It would all work in normal healthy way if pairing was just simple random from all opponents -- what is the fair thing considering the whole setup (same points, prizes, etc).

That would restore all the balance and make the progression worth the while -- if your team has top 5% strength why on earth you only fight the same top 5% instead of all the field having 95% chance to get lesser opponent?

But wouldnt that result in lower level players losing more points as they get picked off by a pack of higher level teams repeatedly and make their progression even more difficult? I agree with you about removing MMR and having a clear shot at everybody but what about the resulting points losses from attacks that you have no hope of winning even you were controlling your team let alone the AI??

Unknown

franckynight wrote:

Vexed wrote:

Ive been finding PVP pretty fun. Ive actually been amused watching Franckynight use what seems like 5-6 shields in the last 8 hours lol. He tried to jump to 1200 at one stage but got dropped to 950. And now is 1195.. i assume he made it to 1200 lol. Good times. Wish I had a good team to make the jump. I guess ill be happy with top 10 or 25... depends how many pass 914 points.

The worst part for me, is that Francky has X wolverine 5/5/3 I guess u need that extra yellow in case the buff makes the yellow card better than red or green lol. I would of tried for 1st place if it wasn't for you haha.

Game isnt stagnant. I think its just grindy. I also have to use alot of boosts to make it to top 10. I basically don't make any ISO in pvp.

let me explain how i do.. i join pvp in the early stages.. make a climb up to 800 pts on first day.. stay unshielded all night.. then make it a little more serious with shield hoping.. normally i could climb back to 1000 without having to shield just with retals .. then i used 4-5 shields until 1200 (1300 if i really feel it).. then shield for the last 8 hours or so.. do the maths.. 5x75 +150= 525 hp.. if i want to buy a 3* cover its 1 250hp.. thats 1950 hp gain i f i count the 3* at 1100.. i know i dont need first place and if you have asked me i will have gladly let you grab this wolvie cover..
Edit: this time i confess cause of pve and Lr i put a 8 hours shield yesterday that i let expired..

Yeah, you are a good player. Its okay, I was just watching the leaderboard and noticed the fluctuation in your points. I find it a bit harder since i sold spiderman when the nerf occurred for 20 defense (I used to rely on the purple tile for defense). I like to watch the leaderboards for movement; to see if there's any activity lol.

Unknown

I seriously can't be the only person who finds this absolutely priceless can I?
Phantron you keep crying for nerfs to "balance" characters the second that a new one is released.
What did you think was going to happen in a well balanced world? ( in no way am i saying its perfect, but its balanced enough pretty much any 3 141's can beat another on offense)
Bottom line people are always going to find that 1/2% edge and use it. What did you expect?

Unknown

Phantron invited me over to eat steak one night and he gave all his guests butter knives.

Unknown

I've gotten to the point where my "seed" teams are all lvl 100+ characters. I don't even own a lvl 100+ character myself, so PVP has become nigh impossible. I've tried tanking and that doesn't seem to do anything. I guess this is what MMR Hell feels like.

Unknown

MTGOFerret wrote:

I seriously can't be the only person who finds this absolutely priceless can I?
Phantron you keep crying for nerfs to "balance" characters the second that a new one is released.
What did you think was going to happen in a well balanced world? ( in no way am i saying its perfect, but its balanced enough pretty much any 3 141's can beat another on offense)
Bottom line people are always going to find that 1/2% edge and use it. What did you expect?

Ever play League of Legends? "Nerf the strong guys at any given time" is pretty much their philosophy, and it works pretty well. It makes it easy to keep heroes relatively balanced, and it also means that the game can avoid power creep.

MPQ is power creeping pretty hard right now, there's no two ways about it.

Unknown

BelligerentGnu wrote:

MTGOFerret wrote:

I seriously can't be the only person who finds this absolutely priceless can I?
Phantron you keep crying for nerfs to "balance" characters the second that a new one is released.
What did you think was going to happen in a well balanced world? ( in no way am i saying its perfect, but its balanced enough pretty much any 3 141's can beat another on offense)
Bottom line people are always going to find that 1/2% edge and use it. What did you expect?

Ever play League of Legends? "Nerf the strong guys at any given time" is pretty much their philosophy, and it works pretty well. It makes it easy to keep heroes relatively balanced, and it also means that the game can avoid power creep.

MPQ is power creeping pretty hard right now, there's no two ways about it.

Actually I have and also if you play LoL you know that they WAY more characters and tweak multiple characters constantly each season, then add in the pick/ban phase and you have a constantly adaptive game.

So far the only thing and D3/Demiurge has shown us they have the desire to do is nerf characters into the ground and make our pockets bleed

Unknown

MTGOFerret wrote:

BelligerentGnu wrote:

MTGOFerret wrote:

I seriously can't be the only person who finds this absolutely priceless can I?
Phantron you keep crying for nerfs to "balance" characters the second that a new one is released.
What did you think was going to happen in a well balanced world? ( in no way am i saying its perfect, but its balanced enough pretty much any 3 141's can beat another on offense)
Bottom line people are always going to find that 1/2% edge and use it. What did you expect?

Ever play League of Legends? "Nerf the strong guys at any given time" is pretty much their philosophy, and it works pretty well. It makes it easy to keep heroes relatively balanced, and it also means that the game can avoid power creep.

MPQ is power creeping pretty hard right now, there's no two ways about it.

Actually I have and also if you play LoL you know that they WAY more characters and tweak multiple characters constantly each season, then add in the pick/ban phase and you have a constantly adaptive game.

So far the only thing and D3/Demiurge has shown us they have the desire to do is nerf characters into the ground and make our pockets bleed

Can't argue with you on that one. Just saying that Phantron's not wrong about the new characters being comparatively OP.

Unknown

I think that's the problem in these kinds of discussions. Instead of comparing, just judge a character on his/her utility alone.

For instance, GSBW is not the strongest offensive character (especially now) but she still has utility. You can still win matches against strong opponents with her. So, there is no need to 'bring her up' to the newer characters or hold other characters back based on her established abilities.

Parity should be done through abilities. If a new character is powerful, there should be one (or more) other characters that have abilities that can temper that power.

Unknown

I don't know if what i'm about to say was already said in previous posts but, whoever is defending ELO/MMR system is completely wrong, those metrics only work when playing conditions are the same, in chess everyone has the same pieces, in tennis well, the rules don't change, hence the only diference in the game is player skill, in this case it doesn't really matter how good i am if i'm fighting 2 141 and 1 212 with 2 1* lvl 50 and 1 lvl 23 featured character, it simply doesn't work.

One solution that might work (not now, rosters need to be more extensive) is to allow multiple type of brackets like 1* brackets, 2* brackets and 3* and beyond? brackets, of course with different types of rewards for each, only when establishing standard playing environments can you start using and developing MMR and ELO metrics, until then we have to stay with this mess a little longer

Unknown

SquallTiofae wrote:

I've gotten to the point where my "seed" teams are all lvl 100+ characters. I don't even own a lvl 100+ character myself, so PVP has become nigh impossible. I've tried tanking and that doesn't seem to do anything. I guess this is what MMR Hell feels like.

This I think is the biggest issue. My brother is in the same boat right now... his highest is an 89 and he's been sending me screenshots of nothing but 141/141/212 teams. I'm trying to help him tank his MMR down, but after the past 2-3 tourneys, no real change. PvE is just a constant grind and PvP becomes impossible... leads to burnout. It makes this game **** for the people in the 2* -> 3* transition.

Unknown

Toxicadam wrote:

I think that's the problem in these kinds of discussions. Instead of comparing, just judge a character on his/her utility alone.

For instance, GSBW is not the strongest offensive character (especially now) but she still has utility. You can still win matches against strong opponents with her. So, there is no need to 'bring her up' to the newer characters or hold other characters back based on her established abilities.

Parity should be done through abilities. If a new character is powerful, there should be one (or more) other characters that have abilities that can temper that power.

Eh - I think this is a stretch, honestly. GSBW has *some* utility, yes, but it's mostly green generation.The only characters that can actually make use of that utility are GSBW herself, LThor, Human Torch, and in a short time LStorm. Torch, Storm and GSBW are all squishy, so using more than one on a team is problematic. LThor comes with his own green generation. She doesn't seem to have much of a niche left.

More importantly: As long as MPQ is in its current state, your 'team' is really just your two most powerful characters. There's no incentive to use interesting characters over the strongest characters at any given time.

The whole way competitions are structured would need to change to see variety, but balance matters too.

Unknown

MTGOFerret wrote:

BelligerentGnu wrote:

MTGOFerret wrote:

I seriously can't be the only person who finds this absolutely priceless can I?
Phantron you keep crying for nerfs to "balance" characters the second that a new one is released.
What did you think was going to happen in a well balanced world? ( in no way am i saying its perfect, but its balanced enough pretty much any 3 141's can beat another on offense)
Bottom line people are always going to find that 1/2% edge and use it. What did you expect?

Ever play League of Legends? "Nerf the strong guys at any given time" is pretty much their philosophy, and it works pretty well. It makes it easy to keep heroes relatively balanced, and it also means that the game can avoid power creep.

MPQ is power creeping pretty hard right now, there's no two ways about it.

Actually I have and also if you play LoL you know that they WAY more characters and tweak multiple characters constantly each season, then add in the pick/ban phase and you have a constantly adaptive game.

The other reason LoL changes regularly is that you actually play against other people, not against a team of bots picked by another person. No matter what characters people use in MPQ, the actual opponent is always the same because we only play against the AI.

Kolence

Does MMR depends only on win percentage or it also takes roster strength into account?

Anyway, about being attacked multiple times in the time it takes to win a fight, needing shields, losing points on defensive losses. What if when you start a fight you'd get "invisible" for other players (or visible but not attackable, sort of "grayed out") for a few minutes (like a mini-shield). Now, if MMR can somewhat reliably represent a player's strength or skill or whatever you call it, you could have a choice of three nodes to attack someone of roughly your level, or slightly above/below your level. Based on the difference of opponents' MMR the mini-shield would have a slightly longer/shorter duration. You'd get randomly paired against someone with similar MMR and points (as much as possible). For retaliation, either none at all since the whole idea is to prevent you being attacked more than you can manage to win fights, or get the same "grace period" as when attacking to win back the points lost (not causing the attacker to lose any points) plus a little more (points not time).

One problem I can see with this is if you can prevent being attacked as long as you play (and mostly win therefore improving your score), you'd be more inclined to put up a shield when you stop, even on lower points. And when everyone is shielded, who do you attack? There are probably other holes in this too and it is really only half baked at best, though I tried to think it through as much as I could.

Unknown

Another thing that has to be considered is the fact that the AI is incredibly dumb, heck i'm going to admit that i've won some matches just because they decided to match environment tiles instead of farming a color to use an ability.

Now back to MMR and this AI defending thing, it still seems your MMR gets reduced when you get attacked.....why? you're not playing, how can that has a meaningful impact on the MMR? How about that if you get attacked you get a "pool" of points that are being challgened like this:

Player A attacks Player B - This match has a wager of 30 points, Player A wins, he has a guaranteed 15 points, now, if Player B retaliates and wins, then he gets the other 15 points, otherwise if he skips or loses Player A gets the full 30 points, there, everyone happy, no one loses points and player intereaction is present, also MMR should be calculated ONLY when there's a player interaction IF I WIN OR LOSE it's when my MMR should be changed, not when the AI wins or loses a match for me