Structural analysis, PvP model (long)

24

Comments

  • shartattack
    shartattack Posts: 370 Mover and Shaker
    The whole thing is just about different perspectives:
    some people think doing a 3 hop to hit a reward is exciting vs some people find that stressful

    some people like the idea of progressing your roster over time vs some people want access to most of the rewards early in their gameplay

    some people want a game that requires strategy and tactics vs some people want a game to play on the toilet at work

    some people want to make pvp a linear progression system vs some people realize that game mode exists already in pve


    that being said, top level pve is way way more hardcore than top level pvp.  I am a professional adult with 3 kids.  I can do a hop while drinking my morning coffee, while on lunch break, on the toilet ( the "plop hop"), and throughout the evening.   7 minutes at a time every few hours. I have t5 in pvp many times.

    Top level pve is 2-3 hours straight at the same time every day. For 3-7 days straight. Not even including tapping.  I have t10 1 time, over the summer, for fantastic covers in a later bracket.  Those people are way more hardcore, and no one is trying to drastically make pve more casual.
  • The rockett
    The rockett Posts: 2,016 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited December 2017

    Top level pve is 2-3 hours straight at the same time every day. For 3-7 days straight. Not even including tapping.  I have t10 1 time, over the summer, for fantastic covers in a later bracket.  Those people are way more hardcore, and no one is trying to drastically make pve more casual.
    What if you play both PVP and PVE at a very high level?    :)
  • MacEifer
    MacEifer Posts: 45 Just Dropped In
    The reason I find PvE is not nearly off as bad as PvP is because it scales well on rewards, transparency and challenge level.
    You can look at your roster and say "I'll put in this much effort at a challenge level that suits me and I should get X out of it".
    PvP doesn't scale that way. You either go all in or get almost nothing at a challenge level you can not really gauge beforehand.
  • alaeth
    alaeth Posts: 446 Mover and Shaker
    I like your ideas, and think they might help.

    I agree the Ranks are messed up (and I think they know it too - hense the change to only gaining on "roster improving" things.

    But, it's still broken.  Re-rostering the same 2* character every couple months shouldn't increase my rank.

    Making the PvP brackets/arenas/dojos/whatevers purely based on roster (and then SCALING the entire roster to be competitive at that tier?!  Holy **** dude, that's crazy... but interesting.

    Would I like to face a 370 OBW?  hmm... interesting, but better than the sea of Panthos or Gambolts I'm facing now.
  • RedLion
    RedLion Posts: 70 Match Maker
    I like the idea of splitting to competitive/casual...I don't like the idea of 24-7 Balance of Power.
  • MacEifer
    MacEifer Posts: 45 Just Dropped In
    RedLion said:
    I like the idea of splitting to competitive/casual...I don't like the idea of 24-7 Balance of Power.
    Balance of Power was the "all characters boosted" event, right?

    It's not supposed to be like that, more like a limited rotation the way boosts work right now.

    You could argue that 4-8 characters on rotation would be enough to shake things up without just giving everyone a full competitive roster without having any actually qualified characters. If you could just field maxed 2* and 3*s you would run into real problems.
    Also your champion levels would carry over, but there's no actual boost going on. a 3* with 50 champion levels would scale to a 4* with 50 champion levels the 4* bracket. Champion levels for 2*s would obviously be just double when scaled up.

    The general idea is that unlike now, the roster capping would give you options for rewarding a wide collection as opposed to a narrow collection which you have now and greater variety.
  • RedLion
    RedLion Posts: 70 Match Maker
    That would function better, and I appreciate what it solves. I still like other facets of the original idea better. :)
  • MacEifer
    MacEifer Posts: 45 Just Dropped In
    Wanted to give an update on my current PvP situation to put all this in context, this is for Doc Oc.

    At the lowest CL I currently can select (CL6), I'm facing champed C4rol and DP (4*) and I couldn't pay my way out consistently. My Roster is literally a 300 Daredevil, then a few 255 5*s and then Kamala Khan at 196. My highest 4* are 4/0/1 C4rol at 131 and then a 127 Yondu and Coulson. I have no idea how this is supposed to work for me. If I could cap my roster to take out the Daredevil, I would be midfield in 3* land.

    I'm not going to pout and yell "mwaaah fix this!", but I'd be hard pressed to find someone to make a sound argument on how I'm supposed to get any form of enjoyment out of this.
  • The rockett
    The rockett Posts: 2,016 Chairperson of the Boards
    SL doesn't matter on who you see.   You see all in the slice you play.  SL only matters for rewards.  Also remember there is a major holiday and not many playing.  
  • WelcomeDeath
    WelcomeDeath Posts: 349 Mover and Shaker
    MacEifer said:
    Right now I would need to consider selling a 10 cover 5* to get placed more accurately, but even that is only guesswork.

    In a well designed system you would not have this kind of penalty and frankly just because it works for a selective and small group of people doesn't mean it's well designed, you just designed your workaround well.
    MacEifer said:
    Wanted to give an update on my current PvP situation to put all this in context, this is for Doc Oc.

    At the lowest CL I currently can select (CL6), I'm facing champed C4rol and DP (4*) and I couldn't pay my way out consistently. My Roster is literally a 300 Daredevil, then a few 255 5*s and then Kamala Khan at 196. My highest 4* are 4/0/1 C4rol at 131 and then a 127 Yondu and Coulson. I have no idea how this is supposed to work for me. If I could cap my roster to take out the Daredevil, I would be midfield in 3* land.

    I'm not going to pout and yell "mwaaah fix this!", but I'd be hard pressed to find someone to make a sound argument on how I'm supposed to get any form of enjoyment out of this.
    Maybe I'm the only one that noticed this.  How is it possible that you have a 10 cover 5* daredevil and your best 4* is at 5 covers....and your best choice for 3* is a level 196 KK?  I'm assuming that's 196 before boosts because otherwise this *really* makes no sense.  Just really want to clarify.
  • MacEifer
    MacEifer Posts: 45 Just Dropped In
    edited December 2017
    Bane of my existence. I just got really lucky. I put him as a favourite after I got my first cover. Started pulling LL after Ock went off circulation. Got 2 Spider man, 2 Thor, 7 Gambit and 11 DD so far. I got more 5* bonus covers than 4*.
    But here I am, put in this dead end by the luck of the draw and the absence of a warning sign that says "Hey, if you actually level your shiny new toy, you will regret it for the next 18 months."



    In case you thought I'm making this up. My highest possible 4* is 140-ish for a 5/0/1 Sandman and the Yondu caps out at 147.



    The BP Panther is from the Gambit buyback, had a 0/1/0 Gambit split off because I wanted the 5* to battery red and shoot purple.
  • Rod5
    Rod5 Posts: 585 Critical Contributor
    Wow, that is some interesting roster. Not it sure what to say really, other than that is unfortunate. 

    What I would say though is that you can’t proclaim that PvP is broken in the back of your bad luck and lack of research.
  • Rod5
    Rod5 Posts: 585 Critical Contributor
    Your best bet is probably to keep on pulling Latest and hope you get enough Gambit to make him functional, then you at least have a team that is usable at lvl 300. Stop pulling after that, or pull Classics to get cheaper 4* covers. 
  • The rockett
    The rockett Posts: 2,016 Chairperson of the Boards
    That is truly insane. Not even 1 champed 4* but almost a champed 5*.  I have to be honest, I have not idea what to tell you.  Your roster and 5* pull rate is insane.  In fact if you would have a champed 5* and no champed 4*, there is more than a few people that would report you to see if you were cheating. To comment PVP is broken, as Rod stated above, your roster is doing that to you and it seems like you do not have enough time in the game to see and work through some of the mechainces.  
  • Pants1000
    Pants1000 Posts: 484 Mover and Shaker
    PVP can be tough for anyone with a lopsided roster.  Even in 5* land, today the people with multiple champed 5’s (but no Gambit) are struggling.

    My advice:

    Keep the DD, but don’t level him any more.

    Focus on PVE, and try for 575 in PVP.  In PVP use DD and your best boosted 3.  

    Spend your CP on classics for now.  You’ll get more 4’s, and covers for the classic 5’s that you’ll want when you’re ready for CL7 PVE.

    I think if you do that, before long you’ll have some level 200+ 3’s, you’ll be starting to champ some 4’s, and then your 5’s won’t affect your PVP MMR anymore.

  • MacEifer
    MacEifer Posts: 45 Just Dropped In
    edited December 2017
    Yeah, I'm perfectly aware that I'm not quite the statistic median, but not quite as much as you would think.
    I did a quick count and I have about 185 4* covers so far. at 1/7 draw rate, that should put me somewhere between 20 and 25 5* covers. The only anomaly here is the clustering on two characters out of a pool of 4. This is not freakish, except for the fact that I had more 5* BHs than 4*. With 60-ish 4*s the average covers per character should be 3, weighted towards latest releases, which also checks out in my case.

    So yes, the roster looks weird to someone playing for a longer time, but the numbers check out for someone moving into LL pulls at this stage after champing about 60% of their 3*s.

    One of the major complaints here is that the system is not learnable and makes no attempts to compensate for it.

    There are significant differences between having to read strategy guides to improve progress and the situation you have here where people have to actually read up on third party information to not break their stuff.

    Frankly, all this would be fine if you could cap your roster for PvP, which is the aim of the proposal.

    You don't even get a popup telling you "You will face significantly stronger opponents in PvP if you go past level 270 on this character" or such.

    And so, yeah, there are significant design flaws in the game and chiefly its challenge ranking. I'm not some statistical outlier, I just don't think people like me come to the forums often or know enough about game systems in general to see where this game put their pants on wrong.
  • Rod5
    Rod5 Posts: 585 Critical Contributor
    Dude, I’ve been playing a long time and I’ve never seen a roster anything like yours.

    If anything is broken in the game it’s allowing newbie rosters access to enough to CPs/tokens to do this to a roster.



  • Bowgentle
    Bowgentle Posts: 7,926 Chairperson of the Boards
    MacEifer said:
    I'm not some statistical outlier
    Yes.
    Yes, you are.

    Usually people only get that amount of 5* covers from champ rewards.
    Your roster is one of the weirdest outliers I have ever seen, and I've been playing for over 4 years.