Very Frustrating: No good queues after 1100

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
1

This was S4, which I had thought was the best for hitting 1200. Maybe there’s a better one now?

There’s basically no reason to score above 900 in PVP, unless you have a champed 5* roster who’s unafraid of being hit.

When I make it to 900, there are plenty of queues, and I get the 4* character. Yay.

After 900, there are minimal queues. I couldn’t get from 9xx to 12xx in one hop, so I happened to find two 75 point grills and made it to 11xx.

But then while shielded at 11xx, I spent well over an hour and lots of 10 iso penalties cycling through numerous queues, and they were all for less than 10 points. Even in three battles, I wouldn’t be able to hit 1200. There are just no queues. Okay, there was one queue for a double-champed 5* team that would have simply beaten me after a lengthy battle. But nobody remotely my level.

So basically after I hit 9xx this morning, I spent the rest of the day stressing out, wasting my personal time and my in-game resources (iso, boosts) for no reason. Even with the extra personal and alliance rewards at 11xx, it basically just evens out, compared with all the iso I spent.

There has to be a better way. Otherwise I just won’t bother going past 900, because it makes me feel worse to actually try and fail, instead of simply not trying at all.

It’s really too bad, because while I love all the extra ISO, HP, tokens and covers from SCL, in the end, you’ve made it far too difficult to get the 15 cp at the end of PVP. So in the end, it’s a net loss.

2

I suspect there was a stealth change, I had similar frustrations. I couldn’t find anything over 40 points above 800. Then I lost almost 300 points, which took me well below my equilibrium despite 2 maxed, buffed 4 stars. So, once again it was 900 and done for me after re-climbing and 1 shield.

This was for both, A.Venom and Dr.Ock events.

3

Could have been any number of factors, but I’ve gone hours without finding a good Q in plenty of slices. It just depends when you’re playing and what the hop schedule of the main pack is.

4

I reject your reality and am starting a quitting thread.

5

They’re there, you just need to know when

6

Dual champ 5* teams still take hits…anyone that says differently is just wrong. Also, this is the new model pvp. 3* rosters can earn 3* rewards, 4* can earn 4*, and 5* can earn 5*. I suppose anyone that can hit 575 can earn 5*, but even pulling latests at 5% drops, you’d have to pull about 260 times to cover one 5*, assuming perfect rates. That’s only 6500cp. At 10 cp per event, thats only 650 events. So just hoard for the next 4 years, 3 months and you’ll likely cover one 5*. Do some pve and you can cut that time in half (or less!) By that time, the 5* will have moved on to 6*!

7

Alternate theory, there was no stealth change, I suspect a lot of people have given up on hitting 1200 altogether and just stop at 900 therefore a lot less points available.

8

This is so insanely true. Bakers today have evolved their tactics and playstyles. Removing “traditional” cc removed a “mini game” that many high level rosters played. Now different schedules and playstyles enjoy an advantage in play. It will shake out over time, but definitively give yourself time to adapt.

I’ll guarantee that the way you played 1 year ago is pretty different than 6 months and how you played differently.

9

While I’d prefer the word “cooperate” to “collude” icon_e_wink.gif
I think Aesthetocyst is absolutely right: targets are people too. You can take my points, or we can work together and I’ll make sure you know when my points will be available to you without losing them myself. Above a certain level, it’s a zero sum game unless you are striving to hit shielded opponents. If only there was a way to know… shield check room

There are tons and tons of Qs and points available in S4, which I play in. You just need to look in the right places. I was 8th place in my alliance and still found 3500 in this last one. Good luck!

  • Quibbles
10

If you’re in a shield check room, it’s pretty easy to find opponents at any point level. If you’re not in a shield check room, it’s pretty frustrating, but I think your best bet is to stalk to the now-scrollable (THANK YOU DEVS) leaderboard and see when the people above and around you aren’t shielded so you can queue them up.

11

I truly don’t understand this idea that I should “climb early”.

So you’re saying that I should play up until 300 points (which is all that’s available), and then drop a bunch of 24-hour shields? What is that supposed to do for me, other than cost me a lot of unnecessary HP? I don’t need to shield at 300. I’m happy to just float and take losses that bring me down to say 250.

There are no decent queues available until the last 12 hours of every PVP. And those queues are rare after 900 points, and basically completely dry up after 1100 points.

Trust me, if there were other ways to get to 1200, I would do it. I am happy to start climbing at the very beginning of the PVP. But there’s nothing there or anywhere. The whole system is messed up, man!!

And I know that queues are people. That’s why I pretty much only hit them once, even the juicy, point-filled easy queues. Or I at least wait a few minutes until hopefully they have shielded. And when I see grills while I’m shielded, I wait 5-10 minutes before unshielding and attacking them.

I feel like I’m doing all the right things. I’m buying tokens. I’m doing multiple shield hops. I’m playing PVE to the fullest. But nothing matters because I’m mostly just either not pulling the covers I want or else pulling non-championed dupes (d’oh!). And due to this PVP change, I’m getting less CP than ever.

12

Also I don’t think I should be penalized for doing most of my rising late.

BUT I do agree that early risers should be REWARDED more than they are now. They should be given more of a reason to do that. Perhaps bonus prizes that can only be reached at the start of the PVP?

13

you have the basic tactics down, you just need to put it all together in 1 complete package. One thing you don’t mention is are your REALLY working with people or just sharing info?

There is a difference. For a change of play, partner up with 3 other similar players who will commit to the same hop schedule. Once your ACTIVELY coordinating play with 3 other similar players, you will see a major change in scoring.

In one pvp, I worked with 3 other committed players and we hit 1200 in the first 12 hours of the event. Thats when you see the real power of how players can coordinate.

14

Come on.. We all know you know how pvp works. Why aren’t you just joining the room?

We even used to be in the same t10 alliance.

15

Hard to disagree, Its still important to figure out other people’s play schedule. But higher level rosters and more knowledge players are much more common than in the days of hood/XFW et all…

People are much more intuned with how high they can float before they need to shield/protect points. Plus how we deal with each other now is very different from then.

We all remember the philosophical debates about snipers, bakers, alliance loyalty, mercs. In that day and age, it wasn’t as easy to merc and expectations on both commander and player sides were much higher. i.e. hard core hybrids were much more common, commanders were much quicker to cut, players just didn’t have the same kinda options that are available now.

16

The current system rewards taking as many points as you can and then hiding behind a shield. Until Versus mode is changed so that it no longer encourages you to not actively play during most of the event people will continue to have issues with it.

Incentivizing players to play early and often would be a good step in the right direction.

17

Replying to both comments. First, you can definitely get higher than 300 in the first hours, the more people are hit then, the higher the points due to the fact that hits less than 1000 points gain more than the person who is hit loses. I’ve seen 4* players get as high as 800 those first few hours. Doing so means your later climb to 1k should be a bit easier. You’ll take a few more hits early on because there are fewer targets, but its basically free iso/establishing a float point. Also, youre not being penalized for climbing late, but the points tend to try up as many hoppers will shield out 8 hours out. This has nothing to do with the game set-up, more on people’s habits when hopping. They’re trying to avoid the zombie horde at the end.
Next, you say you shouldn’t be penalized for late climbing, but that early climbers should be awarded more. Isn’t that basically self-contradictory? Or are you suggesting all prizes be raised? Early climbers have more of a chance at higher progression, yes, but event rewards and even progression rewards / event placement don’t change the later you join. If you got lucky and climbed the last 90 minutes of a pvp event in a new bracket and all the way to 1200 (entirely possible), you get the same rewards as people that have been playing the whole 72 hours. More, even, because you’ve spent far less hp to get there. Pve, on the other hand, you have absolutely no shot at progression if you start the last day. As far as bonus awards at the start of pvp, theres plenty. They’re called seals (anyone in the SSOLU will know what a seal is). Regardless, people are trying to steer you in the right direction, you seem reluctant to move/change your gameplay. If you keep getting the same results, youve got no right to complain.

18

I guess I dont 100% understand how this works. Seems like i barely see the people around me on the leaderboard when I’m skipping for points. How exactly do you work together with other players when its kind of random to find opponents. Do you guys trade hits and shields or attack the same folks? I used to get to 800 easily, usually 900 and 1 out of 4 1k. Now, after i hit 725 its nothing but junk for 20, 25 points.

19

Thats because people are shielding lower due to no cc. If more floated higher, 800 would be easy, but people are too scared now. As far as how it works, gotta have at least 3 people with similar rosters, climb as high as possible. Once you can find each other, youre high enough. One shields, the other two hit, he qs up the others, second shields, 1st and 3rd hit, second queues them. Third shields, first and second hit, etc, etc.

20

Alliance chat. Before there was Line there was in game chat. Players would organize their hops and shields inside the 20 man alliance. Some got pissed at how crappy in game chat was and we started using line and facebook chat. Eventually 2 alliances decided to work together and not hit each other and 40 seasons later, we are where we are.

But at its core, the first chat was about 3 guys telling each other when they are gonna break shield, who the targets are, who’s available to que, and when its safe to bounce off shield.

Modern day check rooms means we can work with a wider arrray of people, and for the most part people know each other’s play style and how they like to hop (edit: players are much more interchangeable) . its much more efficient now then when people had to organize through in game chat.

Edit: But 4 or 5 alliance players who closely coordinate can easily dominate a leaderboard and do it across different brackets and clearance levels.