Most broken Tournament-System Ever.....

[TheGoodBadWeird]

Sorry for this kind of title, but I found no good words for the Tournament-Sytstem in Marvel Puzzle Quest (MPQ). The game itself is quite good for being a F2P. But the so called VS-System is the worst of it's kind.

I have never seen anything so broken and unfair before!

The pointsystem is ridiculous! To think that even if you constantly play the game you still losing more points than you gain ... who came up with this nonsense?


Explanation:

You would say, only fight those guys who have a possible high pointreward. Here beginns the sad story. The higher you climb the ranking, the more points you are worth for players below. In contrary you win less points for winning over "weaker" players.

My problem is with the ammount of points you lose. While you fight enemies with up to 25 points worth, you lose upt to ~50 if the attacker wins. In some cases you even get less than 20 per won game if they are way below you.

This results in constantly losing points, although you would play nonstop. Fighting higher ranked people gives you a huge amount till you reach a certain point. After that you are worth more and the "rubber banding" begins for you.

1. Win many games
2. Suddenly lose all progress and even more - points go massivly down
3. Start playing many games again
4. Back to 1

End of the day:
-Total Frustration

I have no problem with a win-lose system down right. But the way you lose points is way to crazy. There a occations when you rating drop several hundret points within minutes. That is equal to serveral hours of playing or even days. There is no control over this and as I may say .... I start to lose interest in MPQ because of this!

How do you handle this abomination of a system?

[TheGoodBadWeird]

Genocidal EF pilot původně napsal:

But if you're low ranked and attack those with higher ranking, then you're getting more points even with revenge. You should time your climbing well, that's not rocket science.

That doesn't work with every tournament at all! You don't see the problem, I think! it is not a problem to get up to a certain placement, more staying there is not. Once you hit a specific pointrange, everyone will kick you way back down.

Additionally to add would be that in the higher ranking you got no guys with enough reward there. In the Top 5 a player is lucky if he can skip for a few douzen minutes to meet someone higher or even from another bracked.

Everyone else is only worth 4-18 points per win, but they gain 35-50 for a win over you. How will you time that? Last minute attacks only work für LR. Don't let us forget the "SHIELD-Problematic".

Genocidal EF pilot původně napsal:

And if you're strong, then you won't be attacked. If you're losing many points, that means you're too weak for your place.

Guy again especially for you:
In the higher brackets there is no "too weak for your place". There is most of the time 2-3x facing each other. Often with one of them being "POWERED-UP". Sometimes there are weaker players but they are not worth the points. Sometimes there are guys with 100+, but they are not the problem!

Genocidal EF pilot původně napsal:

Ah, it seems you're not reading my posts at all. I've got first place in my bracket, got both IW and XF Wolv. You're saying it's impossible. I have screens. Can you explain this?

I can exactly explain this:
-First of your 2-Star Wolverine is way to leveled for your area. Most of your enemies will be matched around average Level 30-60 in your case. With some exceptions!

-You spam all abilites of Storm to feed Wolverine and clear the screen. Don't take this personal but even a trained ape can do this.

Once you lose your Level-advantage and can not use Storm anymore, you will hit a brick wall.

So you won some 4-Stars? Congratulation! Now they waste your Roster-Slots at a very low-lvl forever.

__________________________
@Pixie The Dude
You are first of all rude and have no clue what you talking about. The game is not hard - it is unfair!

[Its Pixie!]

your just complaining about the game being too hard, or "unfair" as you put it

some games are hard, deal with it

if you cant handle a game cuz its too hard, then dont play it : /

i just dont like seeing people b admouth a game, just because they dont wanna put in the time or effort

[Genocidal EF pilot]

First of all: your opponents decided by your MMR, not by your bracket, not by your team. If you don't know how to lower your MMR - go and learn about "tanking". There's no different groups based on average lv of team, since you can switch team members every battle.
Second: on high ratings (600+) I usually face teams like like lv85Wolv/lv100Spider or lv85Wolv/lv65oBW or lv85Wolv/lv85Thor etc. Doesn't stop me from gaining points from them.
Third: if you can't progress - make a break, shield with tanking team and let others climb to your level, thus making it easier to you in your turn to get higher. Or just start later, when there's good high stair out of players.
As I said, stop whining, start playing.

Upd: now that I think about it, you really could be in MMR Hell - meaning your MMR so high that you're fighting against only fattest and strongest possible teams (i.e. overpaying players). You really need to start tanking.

[TheGoodBadWeird]

Genocidal EF pilot původně napsal:

First of all: your opponents decided by your MMR, not by your bracket, not by your team. If you don't know how to lower your MMR - go and learn about "tanking". There's no different groups based on average lv of team, since you can switch team members every battle.

That is not entirely correct! The Match-making-record (MMR) is based on win-loss-ratio + the average level of the team you last used in tournament. Based on that and the results of your last tournament you get asignend to a bracked of most the time 2000 people. The better you are the better your bracked gets.

Some people consider this in the "Lightning Rounds" and place their weakest heroes (lvl 1-20) to get weaker ratings. With this they get weaker brackets asigned for the next one.

Genocidal EF pilot původně napsal:

Second: on high ratings (600+) I usually face teams like like lv85Wolv/lv100Spider or lv85Wolv/lv65oBW or lv85Wolv/lv85Thor etc. Doesn't stop me from gaining points from them.

Lvl 85s are standard in higher areas. Thor and Wolv are almost common there. Problem starts if they get a "powered-up" beast aside. In the Hulk-Tournament - Round 2 (PvP) an average Hulk in the higher rankings had 8000-18900 hitpoints and could kill you alone. Having power-houses like Thor and Wolverine aside they could wipe out your team in one turn.

That is the league I am facing and no, if you wanted to be on top you had to play those guys or your points were dropping even faster. Talk again if you are there!

Genocidal EF pilot původně napsal:

Third: if you can't progress - make a break, shield with tanking team and let others climb to your level, thus making it easier to you in your turn to get higher. Or just start later, when there's good high stair out of players.

Your tanktaktik is worth nothing on high-level. As long as characters are not "Powered-Up" the difference in hitpoints is only a few thousand. With burst-teams you just cleave through such teams.

Getting the riduculous try asside, shields are very expensive. You can only use them maybe once a tournament and that is often near the end. Maybe you don't earn your Hero-Points in F2P but with your wallet ... then there is a difference.

You forgot the most important fact:
-PvP-Tournaments have a highly limited factor: "TIME".
An average Tournament is lasting for maybe 2 days. Even if you are shielding, losing points is hitting very hard. And I promise you, as you play you will lose points while doing so.

Genocidal EF pilot původně napsal:

As I said, stop whining, start playing.

Level up first, then we talk again! Come if you have at least 3x Lvl 85 2-Star Heroes or a 3-Star at Lvl 50+.

[TishToshTesh]

Please pardon my intrusion... how does one tank in this usage of the word? I have understood that the last team you fight with is the one that plays defense while you are away... but that means you have to fight with that team once. Do you just tackle a weaker target with it, and then even if you lose, they stay up on defense?

[Genocidal EF pilot]

Yup, you just need to initiate battle with that team. After that you can just retreat. LRs are best for that, since they have many battles in compressed period of time.

http://www.d3pforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1702 - here's topic on official forum on MMR and tanking. As you can see, it doesn't take in account your roster.

[TishToshTesh]

Interesting. Thanks for the info! It seems like it is less like what I would think of as tanking from, say, an MMO (a meat shield taking hits that it can absorb), and more like... intentionally throwing fights. I was thinking of it as putting up a strong defensive team, but it sounds like putting up a really poor team and letting them get pounded on repeatedly.

[Genocidal EF pilot]

Ah, yes, same word with different meaning.

[TheGoodBadWeird]

Genocidal EF pilot původně napsal:

Ah, yes, same word with different meaning.

Oh, I thought it was coming from the RPG-corner ... so sorry then! But "tanking" as you mean it is a double-edged sword. I know people doing it, because I always stomp those Level-one-setups. After 1 or 2 of them then I am back in my old league with similar or most of the time better heroes.

Still, tanking would be one proof that the system is horribly broken at the moment! I always hit the ELO-Hell adequately. Only in this game it is not skill that is lacking!

[Genocidal EF pilot]

Well, devs said that they're working on it (changing? fixin?), so there's hope.
I'd guess it was due to too low expected win\lose ratio - you rarely select enemy that you cannot beat, so your ratio goes high unproportionately to actual progress. Add to that boosts - and you can easily get stuck with too high MMR. And since AI is too handycapped to defend well - especially if team needs to go into ability-using loop (initial mStorm|mBW combo, for example), you start bleeding too fast.
For now I'd recommend to use current LRs to tank as much as possible - this helps in offense (your opponents become more adequate) and in defense (you'll be going under radar of high MMR monsters).

[TheGoodBadWeird]

Genocidal EF pilot původně napsal:

Well, devs said that they're working on it (changing? fixin?), so there's hope.

I don't trust in the devs much. Just recently they bugged out keyboard-controls like SPACE and ESC after a patch. They not do not work any more.

Genocidal EF pilot původně napsal:

I'd guess it was due to too low expected win\lose ratio - you rarely select enemy that you cannot beat, so your ratio goes high unproportionately to actual progress. Add to that boosts - and you can easily get stuck with too high MMR. And since AI is too handycapped to defend well - especially if team needs to go into ability-using loop (initial mStorm|mBW combo, for example), you start bleeding too fast.

The MMR is only part of the whole desaster!
At maxed out Level 85 you often need boosters to even beat enemies with the same level-range. Some combos are way to overpowered. Forget about mStorm|mBW! There is the league of the bursters.

At Lvl85 they are even more devastating:
Take for example Wolverine's Adamantium-Slash@SKL5 (= 10 red) + Thor's Thunder Strike@SKL5 (= 11 yellow) do over 4k damage instant-burst in one round. After that follows the normal attack and maybe additional skills. The whole sequence is enough to instant-kill any 2-Star there is.

Thor and Captain Amerika have both arround 4.4k health and are the highest HP-Tanks in their class if I remember correctly. If you add other champions like Dr. Doom, GS-Widow or the new Ares, there is a serious threat to your maxed out roster.

If the AI is getting a run, you lose the match. Considering there are broken chars like Thor/Hulk who can create new tiles or just mass-clean the screen, the "accident" can happen fast.

Even with OP-Healers like original Black-widow or Spiderman (classic) you can keep your guys hardly alive. In case the tiles are not in your favor, your team is toast. For the rare situation you survive and win, you have to heal up in seperate games, that slow your progress even more down. This or the massconsumption of health-packs.

Genocidal EF pilot původně napsal:

For now I'd recommend to use current LRs to tank as much as possible - this helps in offense (your opponents become more adequate) and in defense (you'll be going under radar of high MMR monsters).

As I see it the actual "Lightning Rounds" have become an open warzone. Most of the players are hitting the LvL85-wall and are in need for 3-Star cards to overcome it. I have never seen anything like this, but you don't even need to tank. Your best champions are just getting wiped out there. No need to tank because your setup in the high-lvl will lose many games anyways!

The high-MMR monsters like you called them are not to be avoided because you have to overcome them and the normal players.

[gojtron]

Shields are both a blessing and a curse, they work wonders but it's another way to prompt people to spend real money. I don't want to have to pay more for something so literally disposable(and yes, I have paid some because I enjoy the game)