Is it me, or is the bracketing and MMR destroying the game

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
1

So Ive been playing this game since february, and for the most part have been a very dedicated and competitive player. I almost always place in the top 10 to ensure that I get all 3 cover prizes and max hp for shields for future events. Throughout my game play, I log into the forum every now and then whenever I feel like there is something wrong with the game and want to understand it more to overcome whatever it is I feel is wrong, like when I had only level 50 1 * roster, I used to get faced with lvl100 rosters after winning too many times, so naturally I learned about tanking and it fixed the problem. But now with the new bracketing and MMR system, I am very frustrated with the game to the point where I am ready to quite for 2 reasons, MMR and bracketing.

First of all MMR. To give a little background, I have 5 characters over 100. 141 pun, 129 C.mag, 120 hulk, 103 Psy, 100 Doom. This is a decent start to a *** player, but I am far from being a top tier player as I am missing a *** support player that steals, heals, or stun. My problem is that since the last major update, I have been pitted against nothing but the top tier players that have rosters of nothing But 141! And many of these guys even have maxed HT and *** thors, when the events hasnt even given out that many covers yet! Now I enjoy a challenge every now and then as much as the next guy, but I CANNOT sustain constant battles with 3 141’s in every match. I am literally having to use health packs after every single battle. This system has completely negated the point of upgrading characters. Let me explain in the best way possible. Lets say you are playing a FPS game. What’s the point of attaining that next level assault rifle or SMG that does more damage…to be able to kill the enemy with less shots! But what if every time you upgrade a gun by 10%, every single goon you’re shooting at also gains 10% life and damage output? THEN IT WOULD BE A COMPLETE WASH! THERE WOULD BE NO POINT IN UPGRADING! I can understand the end battles or the bosses of the game being harder when you upgrade, but to have every single goon on the board leveled up when you level up would completely negate the point of leveling up. I leveled up my characters so that I could beat the snot out of lvl 85 players, and have my challenges at the end as I try to hit the top 10, but since the change, I havent seen a single lvl85 team. I’m getting matched with 141’s from the very first match in every tourney. If I had known this was going to happen, I would have stayed at lvl 85 for all my characters. Basically, instead of feeling rewarded and gratifying for leveling my characters, I feel like I am being punished by getting pitted with only enemies that are higher than me. Throw me a freakin bone and let me fight some easy ones for the first half of a tourney and have me fight the hard ones towards the end, but dont have me fighting 141’s from start to finish. Its draining and just no fun.

2nd problem that makes me want to quite is the bracketing system. Instead of being a completely random bracketing system like it was before, where sometimes it was competitive and sometimes not so much so, as far as I can tell, apparently I am being “nudged” into certain brackets because of my play history and other factors. Because of this “Nudge” as IceX would call it, I HAVE NOT PLACED TOP 10 SINCE THE CHANGE! Since this change, the best I have placed is like 25th with over 900 points, with the top 10 all being over 1200 points, which is freakin retarded! and what pisses me off even more, is that some of those players dont even have a top tier roster! They are just running 85 OBW/Thor/Ares, but because of the MMR they are placed in, they are climbing the bracket much easier! How does a Top 10 player like me go to being a top 50 player with one software update overnight? How am I suppose to feel about that. Pretty Crappy I would say.

If this keeps, this game is going to lose a lot of players. I don’t want to quite, but honestly, I cant maintain this type of game play. It is not fun when you have to fight every single battle with players that are leveled up higher than you, and it is even more less fun to put that much effort into a tourney, and not get top 10 and watching those that are less qualified receive the prizes that you should be receiving… the prizes that you have always received in the past before the change.

Phaminator

2

You are 100% correct. There seems to be a disconnect with the developers right now. We give them feedback; then, they tell us what our feedback should be.

My biggest problem with the explanation given for the change was that they did not want new users to get discouraged and want them to get hooked on the game.

  1. I thought that was what the Prologue…errr…Story was for. This is where newbies are supposed to get hooked and begin the process so that they can compete.

  2. All the current veterans that built this puppy and have given them jobs had to go through PVE’s and PVP’s with the old format. Hello!?!?!?! We’re still here. Empirically, this should tell anyone that the old format was working! Why in the world would you make life miserable for the people (users) that have been the foundation of this game and your jobs by trying to overly placate new members?

I know what they are thinking. We don’t have to worry about the veterans. They’re hooked, and they have no other options to play our game. We need to worry about getting new customers and new revenue streams.

Well, guess what. I spent my time, my money, my sweat, and yes my tears (mostly of joy). And what is my reward? My opinion, my feedback is ignored and disregarded. I am told that their data shows my game experience is great. I hope their data can keep the game going and their employment. There is a breaking point.

I really hope they break out of their tunnel vision before the game reaches that point for the masses. If people are not having fun, and if people are being PENALIZED for playing the game, why would they continue??? The more you play, the more you spend money, the more you try, the more you are punished in the current format in the form of bracketing, scaling, mmr, nerfed tokens, nerfed event rewards, and broken progression rewards.

That should improved things. I feel better now. Back to grinding pvp and giving my money to MPQ.

3

I totally agree with you. And while I give credit to the devs that they may not be so happy to deceive us (it what I understand between the lines in IceIX answers yesterday), on the other hand, they have a lot of new players to welcome in the game. It is clearly stated: they needed to “improve” the servers and all this stuff because of the huge player number…

I understand that is is not an easy position to make old players and newcomers live happily in the same game/competitions. They are trying things they hope are for the best for everybody. They are clearly wrong, and I really hope they will try something else soon.
Give them a little time. It is what I did, going from 3/4h of daily play to less than 30 minutes. (And of course, no longer spending money in this game, event if they do not care with all these new players). But I hope to come back more intensively later, when/if the needed changes will be done.

4

Yeah there are a lot of things pointing to that direction IMO. The MMR is a bad deal really and its starting to effect more and more people. It hink burnout is happening more and more with those I talk to.

Honestly the issue of MMR is related to the biggest issue in the game. The fact that it only matter what your 2-3 best characters are. This is a game thats reward is more and more characters (that you will never use). IMO this should be handled with event brackets. In other words group similar leveled characters in matches. Similar to a WoW where only level 20-29 characters fight against each other. This would allow more of the characters we win as rewards to be useful. Plenty of games do this and IMo its the only solution to the issue. In a game like Forza Motorsport you are free to earn a Ferrari Enzo. But there isnt a structure where you race it against VW Bettles. The cars belong to a class, D- A, classes for instance. Cars with similar handling or power are given the same grade and you only race those cars within the same grade. A game like this is even easier because we already have levels on the characters. Just bracket the same ranges together. You’d have people with 141’s still using level 30s to mix it up.

The other issue is that they are doing character nerfs instead of fixing frame work. The idea of diminishing returns would easily fix characters like spiderman or magneto while leaving the abilities in tact. This fixes most OP characters now AND in the future as well. The character nerfs are so short sighted. It really give me pause to ever dump money into a game with a dev that thinks this way. They are going to lose people when they simply make characters people spent month(s) leveling up worthless.

5

I totally agree with you all.

Spent thousands of euros for a single game.
I could get a PS4 for that price, but for that I’m rewarded by kicks in balls.
I decided to play less from now on and see what happens, a friend already did.
If they keep doing sh**t like that i guarrantee that they wont see me giving them money again.

How about getting on strike all togheter ?

6

Lets say you are playing a FPS game. What’s the point of attaining that next level assault rifle or SMG that does more damage…to be able to kill the enemy with less shots! But what if every time you upgrade a gun by 10%, every single goon you’re shooting at also gains 10% life and damage output? THEN IT WOULD BE A COMPLETE WASH! THERE WOULD BE NO POINT IN UPGRADING!

Yup, u have right. What did most popular mod to TES:Oblivion? Turn of stupid lvl scaling. And what did te second most popular mod to TES:Oblivion? Ouu, turn of stupid lvl scaling. icon_e_smile.gif
I remember that game was very hard for newbie after OOO-mod to oblivion, world was unfriendly, dungeons dangerous (but with better reward) and (most important) game was VERY satisfying with OOO-mod. Reward me for progress. And if i need easy gold or exp to have resources for big fights, or to relax i always can go back closer to Imperial City for that. And what i do in Dungeons and Dragons sesion for my players if they are tired fighting with big badasses, and want to kill some… for example wolfs, or try to work as bard/smithy/whatever? I give them options, and they can do that in nearly any moment, and they have profits even from this easy tasks (exp, wolf pelts, wages, etc.).

I Play MPQ even with scaling, MMR, without story and normal campaing (after prologue), only becouse after nearly perfect PQ1, not so perfect but still nice PQ2, PQ:Galactrix and PQ:Kingdoms was hmm… “tinnykitty”. :b On PC it’s hard to find other good match-3 game, but… but MPQ is not so good game after scaling, new bracketing method - loses its whole charm. It’s not rewarding at all for players, so players can lost sense of accomplishment (like i lost after new bracketing system).

Ps. As always - sorry for my engrish :b

7

I’ve cut way back on the game because I’m having the same problems. I have two 125 cards and the rest are 85 yet I’m constantly being matched with 141. Worst part is if I shield, I’m lucky if I can get 1 match without being attacked a number of times (after breaking shield). Makes it useless to fight since for every 2 fights I have, I get attacked 5-7 times.

One thing they should do is have tiers. In other words, if you are starting a tourney (having zero points), you can’t get matched up with someone with 500 points. If they make you fight in point tiers, it will greatly cut back on the ones with a bunch of 141’s jumping in 6 hours before ending and blowing through everyone getting 40+ pts / fight while you just spent two days and only getting 20. If anything, they will make more money on shielding.

The way it is now, at least for me, I can’t even bother trying to move up because for every win I get, I’m attacked 2-3 times. I’m trying to figure out how shielding works because when I break it or it runs out, I get slammed. Yet when shielded, it doesn’t happen as much. I do know for a fact that you don’t get out of cue with a shield, just don’t know why the attacks come with a flurry as soon as shield comes off.

Also, instead of constantly creating new characters that nobody is going to use, they should fix the ones they have. Give characters abilities that negate other ones. Like the 3 star Daken could have an ability that makes all other wolvies unable to heal. Just something that would make you want to lvl the character because of the match up instead of always fighting against the same characters every time since they are the obvious best ones by far.

8

The upper tier is very wide. I spent the the last two tournaments fighting completely decked out teams, when I am nowhere near that.

I keep hoping for more hood/magneto tournament prizes, so that I can get something that resembles a good 3* support.

9

I really think one thing that isn’t helping this game is them constantly making new, 3-Star characters. There are already so many of them, and they’re hard enough to actually get as it is. Constantly introducing more and more 3-Star characters just makes it more and more difficult to actually get covers for specific characters. And if you aren’t constantly getting Top 25s in tournaments by yourself and you aren’t in one of the top Alliances that get the extra covers, then you pretty much have to rely on either getting REALLY lucky with packs or spending a lot of money on HP. And then you get in the cycle where not having those 3-Star characters makes it harder and harder to actually reach the level in the PvP events where you can get those 3-Star covers. It seems like you could look through a lot of the 3-Star characters and make them 2-Star.

10

this seems like it would be better for those making the transition to 3 stars but what about the veterans? they already have the old characters maxed, they want new stuff to keep them playing.

11

I have to disagree here. From my perspective, MMR tends to average out over time, so it’s a consequence rating. You doing good or better shows that you can take on those higher difficulties. And if you can’t, then just take the loss and move on. It’s a representative number of your skill. As you play more, your skill is judged more accurately. It’s a large hump that everyone eventually reaches at some point or another. I know I was there, and now I am not. (Actually, considering my opponents now, I have become part of the hump for them.)

As far as bracketing goes, I personally haven’t noticed any difference myself. As you say, MMR plays a big role in how you climb the ranking ladder. That’s not really a bracketing fault at all.

Playing since day 1, I have come to figure out that this game isn’t about winning every single time, at every event. You end up screwing yourself over more and more because you are trying extremely hard to beat everything thrown your way. As this affects your MMR for PvP, it may not be a bad idea to lay low on occasion from events, and take the losses when they come. It’s the same for PvE and it’s PvE rating. It’s why many people get the ridiculous scaling while others of the same relative roster strength do not. Because they have done exceptionally well, the system throws the greater challenge at them. Both rating systems aren’t a punishment, but a balancing factor.

Just have to pick and choose, literally and figuratively, the battles and events that you want to win, and it all will balance out in the end. Intentionally tanking isn’t viable anymore, but taking the losses as they come are gonna be helpful, even though it doesn’t appear like it.

12

Considering youve been playing since day 1, most likely you are one of those people that are on top of the food chain and have at least 8-10 141 characters, and maybe over a couple of lvl 200 x force wolvies and IW laying around somewhere, so to someone like you, there is no possible change that the dev can do to really screw you (except nerfing your characters) because of your roster, you will always face an opponent at your level or below…You will never have to face an anfair opponent stronger than you because you ARE the strongest. This new system mainly affects those in transition, particularly from ** to *** trying to get over lvl 100. Those of us in that position with only 2-3 *** over 100 cannot sustain multiple battles with teams like yours. Guys like u, if you get a little damage, fine rotate to another team and let them heal. People in transition dont have that luxery, and should NOT be forced to fight these types of battles over and over again. Its draining. Give these people a little variety, some easy, some even, some hard, but DO NOT CRUSH THIER SPIRITS, by making them fight 141 over and over again. In my case, in heavy metel, i had to face 212 im40+ 2 141’s every time and it sucked donkey doo doo.

On Bracketing, you dont think its broken because you probably have a roster that can carry you to 1200 points every time so you dont realize how unfair it is. An example of how this “nudge” is f’ed up. Just out of curiosity, i picked up my wifes account to play to see what its like at the 75-85 level on account that doesnt have a history of winning. In her bracket, i ended up getting her top 10 with 700 points, and i started to realize this is the type of bracket she is always “nudged” into because of her non aggressive play history, whereas in my last 4 brackets, i have never seen a #10 spot less than 1100. If the brackets are completely random, at least i would have some sort of hope of getting top 10, but because i am purposely put into these brackets, my days of winning 3 covers per tourney are numbered. Thanks D3 for making this game suck for me

13

Normally, I would brush these kinds of assumptions off, and chalk it up to mild annoyance. The tone of your response, however, is heavily making the assumption and implying that anyone that has played before you extending back to the start of this game must be at max level already and so wouldn’t be affected. The following is my roster to “enlighten” you on how much different you think we are:
http://i1059.photobucket.com/albums/t43 … 631f07.png
http://i1059.photobucket.com/albums/t43 … d47527.png
http://i1059.photobucket.com/albums/t43 … 9fcbcf.png
http://i1059.photobucket.com/albums/t43 … 45ac4e.png
http://i1059.photobucket.com/albums/t43 … fbe45a.png
http://i1059.photobucket.com/albums/t43 … c7f570.png

My highest as you can see is not 141, and my xforce is just barely stronger than a level 85 2* at that level, let alone IW. Most of the assumptions you make are highly inaccurate as well. I do face teams higher than me. I have faced full teams of level 141’s, and faced off against them using 2* characters in the team comp, because of strategies that I employ. The smattering of covers that you see is ones that I have gotten through tokens, with maybe psylocke, daken, and iirc, one LT cover being won through events. I used to go hardcore at winning, but once I realized what I explained to you, it gets much better. This isn’t a game that means you must win at everything the game throws at you. The reason it may appear easier to me is because my MMR has had the time to figure out my skill. I hit that wall, figured it out, and kept trucking.

Trust me when I say that we all have hit that point and experienced the same frustration.The timing may seem suspect because of D3’s decision to shard the servers, but nothing has actually changed. I don’t hit 1200 points in pvp. I’m lucky to hit 700, if at all. Not because of the MMR, or what the bracket is, but because unless the reward is something really worth adjusting my rating for, it’s not worth pushing for it. Could I get that high? Maybe. If I spent money on shields, and wanted to grind my head into the wall constantly, but what’s the point?

In the end, you have to realize that you are gonna be the one that affects your rating. If you push into oblivion everytime, don’t be surprised when you start seeing the max level teams. Even then, if you do have characters over 100, as you say, then 141’s shouldn’t be a big deal to begin with. The difference is maybe an extra 1.5k health on average, and the abilities will still suck to get hit by them whether they are same level or maxed. Now, if it was pitting your 1* character team against a max 3* team, then there would be an issue.

If nothing else, please, don’t make assumptions based off what you think others are at without knowing the actual facts of the matter. You know what they say when you assume, right?

14

My bad dude (Skyedyne). It was bad of me to make those assumptions, but i do stand by what i say that D3 should not change the game over night like this where all of a sudden, people have to make twice the amount of effort to earn less prize. Im not the only one experiencing this cause my whole alliance has been hurt by this and moral is at an all time low where half my team has threatened to quite the game. Maybe we shouldnt be taking this game that seriously, but at the same time, its this competative nature that has made my alliance a contender throughout our gameplay, and its why i have mad pride for my team and hate to see these sentiments growing within this community. I just want the game to get back to being fun and rewarding.

15

I understand that sentiment completely. Believe me, there are few things that I would like to see changed as well. The unfortunate thing is figuring out how to make it work for you, to make it fun and rewarding for you, because I think a lot of the changes we have seen are the direction and course that the devs are heading. But all of that takes time. It’s a case of “we just play in their world.”

16

@skyedyne

Does intentionally not doing well in a PVP help with lowering my MMR? I’ve been pushing myself to go over 900 points for the 50HP and then maybe to 1000 and 1100 for the extra ISO and cover - but now am finding myself in very competitive bracket and also having harder enemies. For Fatal Attraction I wanted to push for the Lazy Daken cover, but for every 2 games I win, I get hit 3-4 times and lose 100 points for every 50 points I get (after I pass the 700 point mark). Will this lower my MMR?

17

I have reason to believe that scoring that amount of points does show the system and rating that you can indeed take the challenge, so I would think that event rating is a factor in it. But, I believe it will only factor in events that you actively participate in and cross a certain threshold.

Mind you, this is all conjecture on my part here, as ultimately I play what I want PvP wise, and if I lose a battle/battles or place bad in the event, oh well.

I think a very large part of your MMR is win/loss against enemy strengths, and with such a wide playerbase to pull from, it almost seems dynamic in supposed difficulty about who is shown to you. I don’t think that there is any value placed on when you lose on defense, since that for the most part is out of your control, but matches you lose while attacking is, which is why tanking is no longer the “cool” thing to do (I never did it myself).

Points probably has its own value attached to it, as well as the final spot in the event. I believe that each event has a certain point threshold that a player must cross in order for the event to affect rating (which would explain why the sub 300 ’ s are such juicy rewards then it goes to hell).

Whenever I hear “intentionally bad” I immediately think of tanking, which as has been found out isn’t quite so effective anymore.

When you cross that threshold in an event, I imagine that it factors in all battles prior to that, and if you played with say yelena, baggy, and oh, idk, DD and annihilated all the level 90+ teams being thrown at you and your highest is like 65, then while it may look like you are intentionally trying to do bad, you are seen as doing better because of relative strength of teams and you successfully winning.

However, and I would be willing to try this myself on a poor reward event, my theory is that if you took your 3 most played, and legitimately lose, and continue to lose, then the system will see and adjust accordingly.

In the end, I have had some retarded (apologies ahead of time for offensiveness!) losses with my three highest. Most often it’s against a 2* thor who just “happens” to get some lucky green placements and chain abilities my entire team down. I actually had a 2* Thor one turn kill my Patch from full life about a month ago!

Additionally, as something to remember, the MMR rating is there to gauge your current skill, but it’s also designed to push you higher in difficulty. If you lose, that stops the push and causes a “reevaluation”, but if you continue to win against it, then it just pushes back that much harder because you are “telling” it to do so.

Edit: As an example of where I am at opponent wise in SHIELD training, this is at 7:45 pm PST. However, I’m pushing high on this (against my better judgement, honestly). http://i1059.photobucket.com/albums/t43 … e970c3.png

18

I agree completely with this.

I think if I was to “nutshell” my problem, it’s that the game changed from ‘beta’ to ‘launch’ and set an expectation of stability with me. If anything, the game has been a lot more volatile since ‘launch’ with a lot more under the hood tinkering going on. I get that D3 are trying to create a mechanism where most (‘all’ is probably not possible) people can compete at some level. However, I think the level of volatility is too much, and is a hang-over from the beta days when they were still playing around with the mechanics for balance. Once your product is out to the masses in a ‘final’ build, changes to the under-lying functionality should be an exception, not a rule.

The driver, as so many have realised and called out, is monetisation. It’s the wrong driver. New players should be entering a stable Eco-system where they have to work hard for higher reward - the same as everyone else had to. Constantly shifting the balance to benefit one player group to the detriment of another can never be accepted from the players point of view - it just doesn’t make sense to us.

So, I don’t feel I have to win every time. I ‘get’ that the game has balancing mechanics. But good grief, D3, let the bleedin’ game stand still for five minutes before shifting the sand underneath everyone again.

19

Have shields started affecting matchmaking? Lately I’ve been going a while without being attacked while shielded, I unshield and rapidly get attacked several times while making one attack myself. At times that used to be fairly quiet.

20

I think the way it works is when you shield, only players who already had you in their queue can attack you, like retaliations and saved nodes. Once you enter a match and drop shields you appear in people’s queue again. Again if I’m wrong someone correct me.

As for reply to topic: yes, yes they are. Iceix admitted they want to give an unfair advantage to new players to get them hooked. For the record, I didn’t need such incentive to get hooked. I enjoyed the gameplay, and as I noticed I was slowly doing better in events, THAT was what got me hooked. All the while seeing some players in top with rosters I dreamed of having some day. And that was what got me to spend money in the game. Now devs pretty much took all that away. Now when I have developed my roster to some extent, I’m having harder time than in my 2* days. And I find myself even enjoying the gameplay less, as the ruined competitive aspects are constantly in my mind.

Sense of achievement is at least half of the game or more. So now the game is about 40% as addicting as it used to be..