On Bracketing and SHIELD Training

IceIX wrote:

Rajjeq wrote:

Ice:

My son started playing exactly two days after me. My roster is somewhat better because I got into the awesome Djangos! Yet since this change, he has in every PVP been placed in a significantly easier bracket, where his scores allow him to easily place top 10 with 600-700, while in my brackets I'm falling outside top 50 with 800s, since my Top 10 is always over 1000.

Are you saying this is merely coincidence? Or is there some other parameter happening as well?

More likely coincidence than not. I'd have to look at precise data in each case to make 100% sure. But overall within statistical variances (because random is indeed random), it's working out how we want.

IceIX you know i love ya man and what im about to say next is nothing personal at all but if the part i highlighted is in-fact true then you're soon to have alot of pissed off players who quit the game because this "gentle push" isnt all that gentle. I also have had the past few pvp events be pretty much just not worth the effort and headaches due to these brackets.
I think a major thing that needs to be remembered is that all it takes is 2% of a bracket to have the top end have completely ridiculous scores compared to the average masses.

Ugh this can easily go into TLDR even for myself sooo the long of the short is simply:
This change like many others recently have been contributing to player dissatisfaction, and plenty of us are really starting to resent the feelings of being punished for playing and progressing in this game.

IceIX wrote:

mags1587 wrote:

IceIX, can you share the reasoning for why there's any weighting at all? I guess I'm not understanding the purpose of newer players being grouped together when the rewards are the same across brackets.

Players that haven't been playing as long tend to not be able to progress as easily or as quickly due to lack of tools (in characters/levels). Coming in to a bracket for the first or second time and seeing that the top score is 1200 to get into 10th is a bit of a shock, then they see that they get 25 points per win in a Tournament. Top this off with the fact that they only have 4-5 characters and a limited number of Health Packs and it comes as something akin to sticker shock. These new players often stop playing not because they can't compete in theory, but because they don't think they can even attempt to compete. Being put into a bracket that tops out at 600 is less likely to induce this. However, putting *only* new players against one another is bad as well, since as noted, only the newer players will win against other newbies and the older players fight tooth and nail for the same prizes. That's not fair to anyone. The new players can't really make use of the 1-2 3* covers they got and the older players have too hard a time competing for the prizes in comparison.

the solution to this is providing a juniors tournament. for people who are under a certain number of days in their shield resupply.

Clintman wrote:

Now is the time I hope the development team is having a serious conversation about risk versus reward. Fights against veteran players take longer, much longer and are more dangerous. If you have truely broken the code on getting the veterans grouped together, then increase the reward structure for that population. Give us some incentive for excellence... The perception that the veteran players are being punished needs to be combatted.

+100

IceIX wrote:

At this very second and with the understanding that we continue to noodle with it, it's random with some slight weighting so that newer users will tend towards brackets with other newer users and vice versa. It doesn't by any means preclude a Day 200 user from dropping into a bracket with 999/1000 Day 5s, just that weighting gives a gentle push to the RAND function when the event server looks at which shard to give a player to. It's FAR more likely that you got "unlucky" than anything nefarious from the sharding tech shoving you into a bracket full of hardcores.

I don't think you know what the word "slight" means. There is a massive change in bracketing which has massively increased the points levels for top 10 in some brackets and massively reduced the points levels for others with the EXACT same reward. While you seem to have enormous interest in new players you seem happy enough to continually piss off your longest serving customers between mindless scaling and now punishment bracketing and it is literally a punishment. Harder, longer matches with a lot more competition for LITERALLY nothing in return.

Also... you claim that the points totals put off new players in one breath then say SHIELD needed to be bracketed because of ALL THE NEW PLAYERS in another. Completely contradictory.

IceIX wrote:

mags1587 wrote:

IceIX, can you share the reasoning for why there's any weighting at all? I guess I'm not understanding the purpose of newer players being grouped together when the rewards are the same across brackets.

Players that haven't been playing as long tend to not be able to progress as easily or as quickly due to lack of tools (in characters/levels). Coming in to a bracket for the first or second time and seeing that the top score is 1200 to get into 10th is a bit of a shock, then they see that they get 25 points per win in a Tournament. Top this off with the fact that they only have 4-5 characters and a limited number of Health Packs and it comes as something akin to sticker shock. These new players often stop playing not because they can't compete in theory, but because they don't think they can even attempt to compete. Being put into a bracket that tops out at 600 is less likely to induce this. However, putting *only* new players against one another is bad as well, since as noted, only the newer players will win against other newbies and the older players fight tooth and nail for the same prizes. That's not fair to anyone. The new players can't really make use of the 1-2 3* covers they got and the older players have too hard a time competing for the prizes in comparison.

I don't really agree with this. This is partially because of the rewards restructuring (i.e. Demiurge's own doing).

When I first started playing, I had terrible luck getting covers in prologue. Partially that was my own doing because I leveled the only character I had decent covers for (Modern Black Widow) to 30 which worked against me since it made drop chances near 0 for anything other 20 iso and matches were very tough since she's by no means a tank. Eventually I shifted over to PvP, coming back to prologue as ability to progress permitted. I'd pick up some covers from lightning rounds and pvp tokens. So anyway, back then the top rewards were 3 sets of *** covers, and there was a second tier of 3 sets of ** covers. It was a long time before I could actually win any *** covers, but I regularly managed to pick up the **s. It was hard (perhaps a bit too hard for a casual player), but I eventually progressed through **'s to start earning *** covers.

I also spent some money on this game for extra slots, some covers for my OBW, etc.. Recently, I purchased a stark salary, not to be #1, but so that I could fill out some of my ***s to be more competitive while still playing casually. Lately this game has increasingly been feeling like a chore/job than a game/ legitimate fun, so my idea was that I could finally stress a little less about reaching the top 10, and play this game as a game again. I have no expectation of winning 4-stars every PvP, but as soon as I bought my stark salary, you switched to this sharding system - so now, point rankings that would've yielded me 3x ***'s (factoring in my alliance cover) or a 4-star (if I was very lucky) occasionally place me in the top 25, but usually only top 50 now. I have to work twice as hard just to get into the top 50. I hardly see how this is fair.

New players should have the expectation of being able to progress (this was a big gripe for me when I started out, given how broken some of the balancing was, and the way covers were given out in prologue), but so should veterans. I don't want to win every PvP in #1, or compete with the ultra-hardcores in the top 10 alliances. I just want to keep getting covers, and being able to stay current while being casually competitive. Most of the recent changes have made the game both much more of a grind, and substantially tougher to be competitive.

So maybe the thing to do is bring back the better rewards for players who don't make the top 50, so newer players actually have something attainable to aspire to by competing in pvp. Bring back the 3 sets of ** covers in pve rewards so they can still feel they accomplished something even if they didn't have the required heroes. Expand the rewards given out a bit, more in line to how things used to be. This is a casual game after all (sorry if some think otherwise, but the primary target audience for match-3 games are casual or semi-casual players, not pro gamers).

Lately, all you've been doing has been restricting rewards, and making it harder to earn them, whether intentionally or not. I feel like anytime I've spent money on this game, you've just made it proportionally tougher and more of a grind-fest. If this continues, it won't encourage me to spend more money. It will just encourage me to quit. I've had fun this past Heroic tournament (a lot more fun than I've had in a while in this game, but that's only by fluke because getting 3 covers seems almost attainable this time without playing this game professionally), but to be perfectly honest, the only reason I'm still playing at this point is to help my alliance get their Fury covers and alliance rewards. Grinding like hell for minimal rewards/ progression isn't fun at all. I'll keep playing through the end of the season, but if nothing changes, I'm very likely out after that. I'm not the type of person who normally plays MMOs.

So to recap, new players SHOULD be able to expect to progress somewhat consistently without feeling like they're constantly being punished every time they level a character (actually this goes for higher levels as well), but new/ low level players should NOT expect to be able to place top 50 from the get go. This has more to do with problems you created by constricting the reward brackets and effectively eliminating meaningful rewards for players working on their */** rosters.

If you're doing any kind of weighting in your new sharding system, what you SHOULD be doing is weighting it so that there's an even spread of new players and veterans in every bracket, the way it used to be, and so that everyone has a solid shot at rewards that are appropriate for their progression levels. If I have a few high ***'s and medium *** / strong ** lineup, I should be able to regularly get new *** covers without grinding this game like it's a job. And again, note: I still spent money on this game to help me progress to a state where I finally thought it would be casually playable, but now it's just switched to "screw you" mode. If this was intentional, then you really need to rethink where you're going with this game or I think you'll alienate a large portion of your player-base, paying and non. If it was unintentional, then you need to fix it, like yesterday, so that your customers can have fun again.

On some partially related notes:

• While I love the idea of seasons, you really need to step it back a little. We shouldn't have to grind every single PvP if our alliance wants good rewards.
• In the same vein, you seriously need to add breaks between pve events - at least 3 days, preferably more like a week (especially if you're going to keep them as grindy as they've been for a while). If you want to give people something to do in the meantime, just run some shorter pve's that are a few days or so and don't have significant rewards other than iso. It's important for people to be able to feel like they can take time off this game and still be able to play.

The more you try to force us to play this game and grind the hell out of it, the less most of us want to have anything to do with it. Maybe some people feel different, but I am a paying customer, and that's my viewpoint.