Understanding the PvP ecosystem in Versus events

Rod5 said:

Below 1,000 points the amount of points you lose when you get hit is less than what the opponents gain. Hence points are always added to the shard at lower levels. In terms of really adding points to the shard though, it is much more efficient to hit an opponent 2-3 times when they are already shielded.

Bowgentle said:

Welcome Death said:

Rod5 said:

Below 1,000 points the amount of points you lose when you get hit is less than what the opponents gain. Hence points are always added to the shard at lower levels. In terms of really adding points to the shard though, it is much more efficient to hit an opponent 2-3 times when they are already shielded.

It's actually zeroes out at closer to 1200 now.  It used to be 1000, but that line was moved when they changed defensive setups (aka removed cupcakes).  There's been no official statement that I'm aware of on the magic number, but some players testing it shortly after this change to scoring noticed it went even at around 1200.  

And yes, there's a lot of misinformation in this thread, both in the OP and in several comments.  Someone should clean up the OP and maybe put it in tips and guides or something. Yeah.  Someone....

Sorry, I don't have the mental capability to read through TWO garbage wall of text posts about PVP from "experts" in the same week.

Jaguar said:

Hello.

I have been a semi-pro gamer in the past and played at the top level of multiple MMOs. 
I have studied game design, game theory and mechanism design at a basic elementary level.
I am fairly new to MPQ(~300 days total, a couple of weeks # checking), and this is my understanding of the current PvP ecosystem. 

All this was not immediately obvious to me in the beginning. I am highlighting this information and my point of view in a post to hopefully propagate the knowledge and increase the level of understanding among the broader player base.


Terminology

Shard - The time slice a player chooses among the 5 options available when joining a Versus event
SCL - Shield Clearance Level
Bracket - Groups of 500 people who compete for rankings with each other. Brackets are created on a first come first serve basis of people joining the event
Seed nodes - These are computer generated very low-level nodes which assume an enemy point value of 0 points.  The value of points gained from these nodes goes down as your score goes up.  The purpose of seed nodes is to establish defensive teams for the first players to join an event in any given shard, as defensive teams are only established by winning a match.
Queueing - Placing a player as a target in one of the 3 nodes one has, but not attacking them, saving it for later.
Dumping - Going into a battle and intentionally losing to a low value opponent so that your score goes down.  This tactic results in a net loss in points in a shard.

Facts 1 - Basic pvp mechanics

1. All players joining a Versus event get put into a bracket with 499 other players
2. Every player in a shard can potentially see every other player in the same shard regardless of SCL or bracket
3. One can only see opponents that are un-shielded
4. Factors such as roster strength and your current point score in the event determine your chances of seeing or being seen by a particular player in the same shard as you
5. Players joining in the first few minutes of an event can get multiple seed nodes, up to about 10 or so.  These can be used to climb up to about 245 points or so (some players use this technique in Lightning Rounds, as it's a fresh event every 2 hours, to farm iso)
6. Players joining later in an event will sometimes get 3 seed nodes. One can climb to 101 points from these. It is unknown by the playerbase what affects getting 3 seeds vs not 3 seeds.
7. When player A successfully attacks player B while player B is unshielded, player A gains points and player B loses  points (more on this later)
8. When player A successfully attacks player B while player B is shielded, player A gains x points and player B loses 0 points
9. Player A can queue player B while player B is un-shielded but as long as the attack on player B ends after player B puts up a shield, player A gains x points and player B loses 0 points
   
10. The top progression reward is at 1200 points

Assumptions
(Snip).  Not really accurate and already reviewed above 


Inference derived from the facts and assumptions above

1. There are 3 ways to add points to a shard. Seed nodes, attacks on shielded opponents, as well as attacks on any opponent under a score of roughly 1200 (it used to be 1k but that figure was adjusted in September 2016 and hasn't officially been released.
2. Attacking unshielded opponents builds points in a shard up until the person taking the hit is over 1.2k.  Then the points are just exchanged.
3. If nobody in a shard took attacks while being shielded, it would be very difficult for most players in the shard to reach 900-1200 points. Since there are simply not enough points to go around.
4. Attacking shielded people is an excellent and effective way to add points to the shard, but so is attacking anyone unshielded under 1.2k.
5. The greater number of attacks on shielded targets -> the greater number of points added to the shard -> more high-value targets -> higher the chances for people to hit 900-1200 points

Facts 2 - High-level pvp coordination

1. There exist coordination channels using 3rd party apps like Line, where players of a shard coordinate amongst themselves to attack each other while shielded, thereby adding tons of points to their shard And ensuring anyone in the "in" group gets top placement spots. Those that have top scores often create personal truces with so called "snipers" to ensure they end up being the top scores.  These are the "good guys".
2. They do this by queueing each other in the brief minutes they are un-shielded but holding attacks. They make the attacks after the queued opponents are shielded.
3. As a result, a far greater number of players in the shard are able to get to 1200 points
4. This also results in some very high scores (3-4k is not uncommon) of the top players.

      1A. There exist coordination channels using 3rd party apps like Line, where players of a shard coordinate  amongst themselves to attack anything unshielded that isn't in their group.  These groups will also dump points they have earned to ensure points in a shard stay very low and as few people reach 1200 as possible.  This makes placement easier with a lower score and conserves HP.  These groups tend to be smaller and also tend to make sure their players get top placement.  These are the "bad guys"

Facts 3 - Rewards

1. Versus event progression rewards (SCL 7): 1x Standard Token + 1x Elite Token + 3x Event Tokens + 1x 3* Cover + 1x 4* Cover + 3500 ISO + 100 HP + 25 CP
2. 100% of the players with at least dual champed 4* rosters and in a shield check room can potentially achieve these progression rewards
3. Versus event placement rewards (SCL 7  - Top 5): 3x 3* Covers + 1x 4* Cover + 4500 ISO + 100 HP + 1 CP + 1 Heroic Token
4. 1% of the players can achieve these top 5 placement rewards
5. Versus event placement rewards (SCL 7 - Top 10): 3x 3* Covers + 3500 ISO + 100 HP + 1 CP + 3x Elite Tokens + 1x Heroic Token
6. 1% of the players can achieve these rank 5-10 placement rewards
7. Versus event placement rewards (SCL 7 - Top 25): 3x 3* Covers + 2500 ISO + 50 HP + 3x Elite Tokens
8. 3% of the players can achieve these rank 10-25 placement rewards

Opinions

1. If in a shard, no attacks happened on a shielded player, it would be extremely difficult for most of the players in the shard to reach 900 - 1200 points. And very very few eventually would
2. From a rewards perspective, it is in the best interest of a low/mid/casual player to not make attacks on high point targets(50+ points) immediately. But give them time to shield up, while holding them in queue. Normally 10 minutes is a solid waiting period (Unless they're placed ahead of you or your alliance mate in a bracket, then hit as fast as possible and as many times as possible to make sure you can get ahead, if that's your goal.)
3. More the number of people are in # check rooms or other kinds of coordination channels, more the number of people that will get to the 1200 point score in any given shard (assuming that there aren't separate check rooms with separate interests and that groups are generally playing nice with other groups in the shard)
4. However this does require extra effort, and lazy/casual players could just follow Opinion number 2 above and still contribute to everyone(including themselves) benefitting from more points (I agree with the premise to a point, but if you're not in the room, you take more hits and need to be as fast as possible, so don't wait!)
5.   The progression rewards are far better than placement rewards. 
   
6. PvP in MPQ is not really PvP.  It is in fact designed in a way where the players would get better rewards by colluding/cooperating than they would get by fighting each other in a true pvp spirit (But this is also a far less fun way to PvP.  Like you could get a 1:00 kill death ratio easily in a FPS if you only played matches against your friends and agreed to have exactly the same amount of kills, but that would be boring. This is why many many players end up quitting check rooms or use them off and on)
7. The score suppressors do it so that they can assert their superior roster strength and get top ranks more easily
8. This happens to be detrimental to the majority of the players in a shard as fewer people are able to achieve 900-1200 points (of course, play under 900 is virtually the same in every shard, so it actually benefits people that can hit 900 to play in low scoring shards and get top25 instead of needing 1500 for top 50 in a high scoring shard)
   

PS: It is quite possible that some of the information here is inaccurate, and I hope the more knowledgeable and experienced folks will help me correct it.

PPS: Not sure if this is the most relevant forum for this post. Request the mods to move it to the relevant forum if there is one more suitable.