PVP Supports: Feedback Thread

My highest is 479 and I see 550s often enough. Sometimes I forget to check and get rolled by a maxed Red, those are the worst. Anyone other than red is still quite disposable Bustapup if you champ the right characters and supports. The team I mentioned earlier of Darkveil and Shang with Fantasticar can easily avoid all non team damage and combo boosted 550s down. I reckon MThor can do the same, especially with a medium to high level Riri.

@entrailbucket said:

@WhiteBomber said:
My highest is 479 and I see 550s often enough. Sometimes I forget to check and get rolled by a maxed Red, those are the worst. Anyone other than red is still quite disposable Bustapup if you champ the right characters and supports. The team I mentioned earlier of Darkveil and Shang with Fantasticar can easily avoid all non team damage and combo boosted 550s down. I reckon MThor can do the same, especially with a medium to high level Riri.

That's very interesting. Are you playing at odd times or in depopulated slices? Does this only happen when you're at a very high point total? Or only early or late in events?

There are conditions where the matchmaking algorithm breaks down but it really shouldn't be showing you those teams if it can be helped.

I join PVP at totally random times, sometimes right at the beginning, sometimes the final day. Since they turned on supports though it's usually earlier since I enjoy playing it now. There are usually still at least a few hundred people, but after that I can't tell since I can't see behind me. Usually the final slice and level 10. I usually see at least a couple of them per tournament... when I'm paying attention. I usually don't look at the level until I accidentally choose to fight a 550 Red or boosted 550.

That's a LOT of "usually".

@WhiteBomber said:

@entrailbucket said:

@WhiteBomber said:
My highest is 479 and I see 550s often enough. Sometimes I forget to check and get rolled by a maxed Red, those are the worst. Anyone other than red is still quite disposable Bustapup if you champ the right characters and supports. The team I mentioned earlier of Darkveil and Shang with Fantasticar can easily avoid all non team damage and combo boosted 550s down. I reckon MThor can do the same, especially with a medium to high level Riri.

That's very interesting. Are you playing at odd times or in depopulated slices? Does this only happen when you're at a very high point total? Or only early or late in events?

There are conditions where the matchmaking algorithm breaks down but it really shouldn't be showing you those teams if it can be helped.

I join PVP at totally random times, sometimes right at the beginning, sometimes the final day. Since they turned on supports though it's usually earlier since I enjoy playing it now. There are usually still at least a few hundred people, but after that I can't tell since I can't see behind me. Usually the final slice and level 10. I usually see at least a couple of them per tournament... when I'm paying attention. I usually don't look at the level until I accidentally choose to fight a 550 Red or boosted 550.

That's a LOT of "usually".

You might have better luck in slice 1 or slice 4. There are many more players in those time slices, so the game should have more options to show you from players in your level range.

@WhiteBomber said:
For what it's worth, I have zero issue with the matchmaking, I almost never lose and since supports have been implemented my teams win an astonishing amount on defense. I just noted I also encounter 550's along with my character levels since Entrail seemed so interested in it, then he asked questions, so I answered. The only 550 I avoid is Red and Chasm.

I do appreciate the trying to help though

Thanks for the information.

They used to tinker with matchmaking quite a bit behind the scenes, so if someone is seeing something weird, it could be a symptom of some sort of change.

In your case I'm pretty sure this is normal behavior, you've just got some slightly odd play patterns causing it.

@LavaManLee said:
One more data point on adding supports to PVP.

Many alliances that used to have minimum PVP scores for events are either starting to lower them or drop the minimum all together for their alliance because of frustration from some of the members.

Don't know whether that is good or bad for the game in the long run but thought it was an interesting tidbit and shows the affect that supports is having on PVP (looking at you Leapfrog).

Good.

As a commander I've never had alliance minimums and as a player I'd never tolerate them. All they do is force players to play more than they want to. Our alliance "minimum" is (and has always been) "have fun."

@Pottsie1980 said:
I have wiped a few times because of leapfrog/fantasticar, but am still favouring using ap generators for quick wins. Will see how it develops

Pretty much the entire top end of the PvP metagame has switched to defensive supports 100% of the time. Generally this is leapfrog + Eros arrow.

I'm not sure why so many players tend to favor defense over offense (we saw this with slower teams like sw/Colossus, and also with the immortal bros team), but for whatever reason they do. Both of these can be annoying and sometimes slow you down, but I've mostly learned how to play around them.

One fun offensive combo I've found is fantasticar + Thanos copter, with match damage characters. Things can get crazy pretty fast!

@dianetics said:
Leap - Arrow - DPS/Utility support is probably where it is going.
Like if you have **** luck and Arrow + the deadpool give you **** luck you will likely lose because you wont be able to do dps for 3-7 turns.

There are ways around this (for example, bring enough DPS that you can win a 2 vs 3 match with any two of your three characters), but getting a roster that level isn't easy. There are also stuns, AoE, targeted board destruction...but these supports tend to act like always-on passives and the counterplay is often active.

I suspect they're going to be under a lot of pressure to do... something...about some of these supports, as their usage expands -- and MPQ is a copycat metagame, their usage WILL expand.

I don't know if they'll act or how they will act in response to that pressure.

@dianetics said:
Supports really change how you assess the game, but you can't check the opponents supports live. You need an ipad or open website to check what your opponents have to even judge your attack.

Please clarify ... you can't see the supports targets are using, or you're not familiar with the details of those supports?

@dianetics said:

@JoeHandle said:
Please clarify ... you can't see the supports targets are using, or you're not familiar with the details of those supports?

You cannot click on your opponents supports in the game and bring them up to look at them and assess their value.
So you have to know what every support does at every rank.
If you want to know you need to either back out of the battle screen then go to your supports and look it up there or have another device or web browser to have them on a secondary screen.
You could also click on one of your heroes and click support swap support then read the description, but only your hero can equip the support and you have it.

Like, I use Omnipotence City, but I really don't even know what it does. Something beneficial I guess.
What does Helicarrier do at rank 3? What is the condition for Leapfrog to send an ally away? What does Battleword do at rank 5?
Plus the Synergies. Does the opponent get the synergy from the support?
There is just too much going on with these things.

Ohhhh, you were referring to in-match. Yeah, when they bolted these things on to PvP, they didn't add that to the UI ... but it's a shortcoming that's always been there, have never been able to see them in-match in PvE, either. Not a new problem but one that shoulkd have been resolved.

It's always a relief when the enemy carrying Leapfrog goes down

I thought you were saying you couldn't see them before going into a match. That would really suck.

As for knowing what they do ... game has lacked from birth in-game references. There should be an in-game "encyclopedia", a reference for looking up all in game constructs at every level and configuration. Hovering over characters / supports should bring up their details. Should, should, should.

I have a handle on what all the supports do ... and it helps in PvP that players typical use a small subset ... at least they do in my MMR where most everyone has most everything so we're all taking the same minmax'd approach ... but I also play way too much and obsess over such things. To a casual player, this must seem like a big mystery box full of chaos!

Thanks for expanding your thoughts.