HailMary wrote: Lyrian wrote: a change was made where full point deduction on losses north of 500 rating points was no longer occurring. The estimate was that somewhere between 10-15% of point loss reduction was being granted to losing defenders. As a result, more points in the mid-tier range are staying with players, which are inflating their overall scores. Previously, 500 was pretty much the wall that most players could not pass (especially semi-casuals). Now, with the ability to brute force up the ladder past 500, mid-tier players are directly running into the high-tier players. Thus, the mid-tier game at the moment is now no longer about escaping the zombie horde of the masses, but rather evading the vultures at the top of the mountain for as long as possible before shielding. Ah, got it. Thanks!
Lyrian wrote: a change was made where full point deduction on losses north of 500 rating points was no longer occurring. The estimate was that somewhere between 10-15% of point loss reduction was being granted to losing defenders. As a result, more points in the mid-tier range are staying with players, which are inflating their overall scores. Previously, 500 was pretty much the wall that most players could not pass (especially semi-casuals). Now, with the ability to brute force up the ladder past 500, mid-tier players are directly running into the high-tier players. Thus, the mid-tier game at the moment is now no longer about escaping the zombie horde of the masses, but rather evading the vultures at the top of the mountain for as long as possible before shielding.
Phantron wrote: I suspect the 2*s that do well are probably the guys who somehow have a roster that's just weak enough to not be forced into fighting 141X3s all the time but still slightly above just 3X85. I'm pretty sure there's a certain level range where you're effectively immune from being hit by level 141s, because there are plenty of level 141s that try to tank as well and if it was possible for them to see you, nobody would ever have a chance at 2* to get to the top because as long as a single guy with 141s can see them, those are just going to easy prey for him. I don't know if there's a clean solution to this other than that I don't see what's the point to continue to have a weak roster while winning covers if you never leveled up your heroes.
starsrift wrote: I don't know about 'too difficult', but because of the soft cap others have mentioned, I just don't have the time to get so many points. Sorry, I really don't want to spend three hours a day or more grinding out tourney/event positions with a match three game. It's not like I have a big roster of high-level 3-star characters and can quickly toss off a few combos, my characters have to work their butts off to eke out wins. The game is getting too much like work. I log in and play a couple matches, PvE if an event is running, and logout. It gets me like no character progression, though. I think the only cover I've managed to get & upgrade with in the last three weeks was a blue Psylocke, IIRC, out of maybe 15 covers or so. Oh, I got a few two-star covers, but just ones I couldn't use.
Milkrain wrote: Do people from different regions play on separate servers or something? Otherwise I have no idea how sleeping hours are an issue. If I play in the middle of the night here in EU then all of NA is awake which feels more like a deficit since I suspect they might have more players. When NA sleeps, EU has morning and Asia has evening. My best guess at a timezone sweet spot would be when either NA or EU afternoon as people are going home from work. Although you just know those teenagers will play every waking hour Back to the conversation: I'm seeing my 2* rooster get hit by the occasional 100+ rooster, but not yet any 144 teams. But I am finding that the top of the leaderboards have at least 100 points more than they used to. At 600 you used to be able to get top 5, now it won't even get you top 10. But maybe that is just cause my MMR has improved and I've been placed in a "higher division" or something.
Phantron wrote: Milkrain wrote: Do people from different regions play on separate servers or something? Otherwise I have no idea how sleeping hours are an issue. If I play in the middle of the night here in EU then all of NA is awake which feels more like a deficit since I suspect they might have more players. When NA sleeps, EU has morning and Asia has evening. My best guess at a timezone sweet spot would be when either NA or EU afternoon as people are going home from work. Although you just know those teenagers will play every waking hour Back to the conversation: I'm seeing my 2* rooster get hit by the occasional 100+ rooster, but not yet any 144 teams. But I am finding that the top of the leaderboards have at least 100 points more than they used to. At 600 you used to be able to get top 5, now it won't even get you top 10. But maybe that is just cause my MMR has improved and I've been placed in a "higher division" or something. Because meaningful progress can only be made if you're not being hit back. The best way to do this is playing when most of your opponents are likely to be asleep. Being more powerful doesn't make progressing any easier because your opponents are more powerful too.
Phantron wrote: I don't really see how 2* can be avoiding the 141s by just having a few points. I don't recall seeing a 3X85 team in months when roster is not limited. Maybe one shows up at the very early part of a bracket but certainly nothing after you're above even 300 points. If I see a guy with 3X85s of course I'll hit him because I'm pretty sure he won't be retaliate and free points is still free points. You can't do anything about people attacking you, so minimizing retaliations is about all you can do and a 3X85 is about as close as it gets for avoiding retaliation. People with 141s must be effectively quarantined against characters who possess no characters higher than a certain level (at least up to 85). Now, sometimes I see people with strong rosters that chooses to use a lower level character. I see OBW all the time, and I saw a Magneto MN + Spiderman. But I'm pretty sure those guys are picked for their synergy, not because 85 is the 3rd highest level character they have.
Milkrain wrote: Back to the conversation: I'm seeing my 2* rooster get hit by the occasional 100+ rooster, but not yet any 144 teams.
Shadow wrote: I got hit by unwise when my highest card is only lvl 77. I had 700+ pts. So, it is possible for a mid-tier to be bullied by someone much stronger if the mid-tier has too many pts.
HailMary wrote: I run L85 AWolv + L77 Thor + L77 OBW, and I've gotten hit by BubbleBoy's 3xL141 team in three different events, multiple times per event (at least 7 times in Fearless Defenders). In FD, I think I got hit by at least 3 SHIELD members.
BubBLeB0y1977 wrote: No hard feelings I hope. Fish gotta swim, bird's gotta eat. It is unfortunate that you were in my MMR range for so long. If our ratings don't change between events then the chances of us seeing each other are pretty high. I haven't seen you as of late, so it seems that our ways have parted. At least for now. You are right in your observation though, there is a crossing point every couple hundred points where target availability/diversity changes. It could be due to a smaller number of players across all brackets that are able to progress pat these points.
HailMary wrote: I'm more amused that MMR Hell works both ways (MMR Heaven?). While I was getting pummeled by you, I was consistently getting trapped in situations where all three nodes would cycle between 10-12 players total, with the occasional random thrown in maybe once every 15 skips. I imagine that you were probably in a similar situation when my name kept popping up?
BubBLeB0y1977 wrote: Indeed you name kept repeating. I did feel a little bad. I have spent several thousand ISO on skips since the bonus/tax was implemented. I feel like the bonus vs the tax balances out, so i just take the blue pill and pretend it's not there. It is frustrating when you skip so many people to avoid hitting the same person just to end up hitting them anyways because they're the optimal target. Ah well. Back to the grind. Happy gaming!