Colognoisseur said: It has taken six years but the top tier meta in PvP is the most open it has ever been. There are multiple top tier teams which allow a player to focus on specific covers to find the set that fits their play style.From the all offense no D Thorkoye to the all defense less offense BillyKitty.From the jump in front WorthyHawk and StrangeBishop to Gritty.DDBSSM and PXIce.Those are seven teams you could rise to any score you want. Gone are the days of the single overwhelming meta team.We finally have a broad meta.
Vhailorx said: I think there is a lot of merit to your argument colog et al.There are more viable pairings/triplets right now than over most of MPQ's lifespan. But I think the drawbacks of the current setup are also more significant than you are suggesting. While there is an unusually broad mesa of viable teams right now, the gap between viability and the rest of the game is arguably larger than ever (PvP with a suboptimal 5* bench right now is absolutely brutal). and the current meta is very rock-paper-scissory, where particular teams are very strong against some opponents and very weak against others. Flexibility is unusually valuable/important right now, which is very refreshing for those with deeper rosters. But it is also problematic in light of how difficult it is to target and make meaningful progress on specific characters while building a roster. Right now, JJ, Hawkeye, Thor, Okoye, Kitty, strange, Prof X, and BRB all have at least some place in the 5* PvP meta. That's legitimately great. More real depth in the 5* tier than it has ever had. But only 2 of these characters are readily available even by 5* standards (and X will be gone by valentine's day). covering a classic 5* from shards requires something like 2000 token pulls (and that is a assuming one or two lucky natural pulls). That's 40,000 CP for one character, and maybe 60-70k CP total for 2 (assuming some natural pull luck and duplication of effort).And even if you did spend however much it takes to cover X and BRB right now, those two are of limited value without the right partners, who are also buried underneath significant dilution. So it's pretty damn hard to enjoy the unusually broad current meta unless you were also a top tier player in this game ~2018.You might also say that the meta includes 4*s, specifically the stunner bros, which is both unusual and democratizing. And that's somewhat true. But how useful is a 271 bishop or worthy, really? In pure 4* land they are fine, but hardly dominant because of the low match damage. And in mixed 4*/5* play, it's mmr-dependent, but by and large the stunner bros don't have enough health to last very long, which makes PvP a massive healthpack sink. . .unless you get them up to 340+. And while getting 13 covers for a 4* isn't too hard for serious players, getting 70+ covers for a 4* starts to look a lot more like covering another 5*, which makes them more of a gatekeeper and less of a democratizing force.So I don't want to invalidate your observations. True high end play IS noticeably more diverse than it has been for a lot of MPQ's history, and there is a lot to like about that. But it doesn't mean that there aren't also significant problems with the current meta.[Edited for style]
OJSP said: fight4thedream said:3. "Professor X and BB are of limited value without the right partners." You do know that Professor X and Beta work well together, right? They may not be top tier but they are close enough to the top that a player shouldn't have too much trouble hitting at least the final progression goal in PvP. Additionally, they both work great with Bishop so hopefully if a player went to the trouble to champ both of them, they made the wise choice of selecting him to get bonus shards meaning said player would now have three viable options for regular PvP events: Prof X/BRB, Bishop/BRB and Bishop/Prof X. I think this shows the difficulty of assessing characters synergy in this game (and probably why the developers are having a difficult time ensuring no pairings are overly overpowered). Unless we have been playing around with the combinations ourselves or hear and read what people say about them, we won't know. I think it's the first time I see someone say they work well together. Personally I haven't faced them myself. At least on paper they don't appear to have any particular synergy, apart from BRB's protect tiles and Prof's damage reduction making matches prolonged and increasing the chance of making or getting hit by match 4s.
I think this shows the difficulty of assessing characters synergy in this game (and probably why the developers are having a difficult time ensuring no pairings are overly overpowered). Unless we have been playing around with the combinations ourselves or hear and read what people say about them, we won't know. I think it's the first time I see someone say they work well together. Personally I haven't faced them myself. At least on paper they don't appear to have any particular synergy, apart from BRB's protect tiles and Prof's damage reduction making matches prolonged and increasing the chance of making or getting hit by match 4s.
fight4thedream said: Some of your counter points are inaccurate:1. "The gap between viability and the rest of the game is arguably larger than ever." How soon we forget the Gambit meta. That was a truly brutal meta for anyone not running Gambit. The same came be argued for the OML/Phoenix meta (although that was largely circumvented utilizing cupcakes). Or the era of Sentrybombing many moons ago. What we are currently seeing is a unique meta where no one team is able to dominate the entire meta. Yes, that means certain players won't be able defeat certain team combos. But as long as those team combos are not overly present and are balanced out with teams that can counter them, I don't see why that would be problematic from a design standpoint. If anything it is desirable because it encourages players to think more strategically and to build rosters with depth instead of just adding champ levels to the best team or characters.2. "It is difficult to target and make meaningful progress on specific characters." Kitty Pryde, who I think we both can agree is currently the best single 5* for anyone to enter the 5* tier with as long as they have a 4* Grocket, was featured in special stores five times last year. Thor and JJ both featured three times. And in the past 6 months Okoye has been featured twice. Additionally, I believe Prof X is set to take the record for being featured in Latest Legends for the longest period of time. So any player who was genuinely interested in improving their roster had plenty of opportunities to do so last year. And now, save for the newest 5* characters, all 5* characters have feeders and with the addition of shards, players should have an even easier time of completing characters they want. If anything, it's easier now than ever to target a specific character as long as a player is willing to do some hoarding and wait for the right opportunities. 3. "Professor X and BB are of limited value without the right partners." You do know that Professor X and Beta work well together, right? They may not be top tier but they are close enough to the top that a player shouldn't have too much trouble hitting at least the final progression goal in PvP. Additionally, they both work great with Bishop so hopefully if a player went to the trouble to champ both of them, they made the wise choice of selecting him to get bonus shards meaning said player would now have three viable options for regular PvP events: Prof X/BRB, Bishop/BRB and Bishop/Prof X. 4. "So it's hard to enjoy the current meta unless you were a top tier player from 2018." Really? Currently the most predominant team in top tier play is Kitty/Grocket and that is largely due to 1. how frequently she was featured in stores last year, and 2. her partner is a 4* character which is easier to chase so I imagine there were quite a few younger players who made the jump last year after acquiring Kitty and a lot of vet players who added levels to their champed Kitties. 5. "But how useful is a 271 Bishop or Worthy really?" This is very much roster dependent. Its akin to asking how useful is a 465 Okoye if a player has 500+ Kitty. But since you asked:There's a player in the slice I play running a level 452 Hawkeye/276 Worthy Cap who makes it a point to hit my 521 Thor/483 Okoye or 327 Bishop team every chance they get. I think they have wiped once out of their many attempts. Which is fine since I return the favor when I get the chance with my Thor/Surfer team (although I wiped once when I sent in a low health Thor and got rocked by 3* Magneto. Hawkeye/Worthy/Mags is not a team to be taken lightly). The problem here is while you have made it clear you prefer teams that avoid resource exhaustion that is not necessarily true for the player base as a whole. In fact, players playing at the highest level are most likely the ones most willing to use the most resources when you factor in shields and buy club participation. What drives a player is simple: the will to win. How much resources a player is willing to use to achieve that goal differs from player to player. 6. "Bishop and Worthy Cap are more of a gatekeeper than a democratizing force." Once again, you are arguing here from your own personal preference. Who exactly are they preventing from participating at the highest level? I will be the first to acknowledge that the current meta still is not perfect. And there are significant issues that need to be addressed, specifically the stun and jump-in-front mechanic and bringing older 5* up to speed. But the game has made great strides to ensure: 1. more variety at the top of meta, 2. more opportunities for players to be able to target specific A tier 5* characters and 3. players with younger rosters have opportunities to compete at the highest level of play.
Vhailorx said: So overall, I think I was not so much inaccurate as stating an opinion with which you disagree. We have both done that to each other a lot of late.