PvP Week 11 - Statistics and Discussion

[Nicko]

Week 11 ends with a Mayan theme to kick off Book of Souls tour part II and a new 5* Eddie...

Congrats to Enti! A well deserved first place victory.

Two weeks in a row that we've had a different winner - though it looks like Jofer is not quite ready to give up his top 3 position yet...

And this week is already off to a bang with the return of ShaolinLondo, who has already taken a very early lead. If he has the "attack bug" he could be quite hard to catch. If matchmaking has normalized it could be a pretty exciting week at the top.

Which brings me to a topic I've been hammering into the ground - the point system...

This is a topic that was discussed at the end of the week 10 thread, but because it was buried at the end I thought I'd cut and paste snips of a a comment I had made to start this weeks thread

The greatest predictor of success in this game is how hard you're willing to work. Jofer has a determination like no other. No matter how things were set up, he'd be number one - I loved his analogy about giving his account to another player - wouldn't make a difference. They wouldn't duplicate what he's done.

But the SECOND biggest predictor is defensive losses. When you're at the top it's 20 points a loss. And even 12 points is a big deal if you're getting attacked 450 times and your competitor is attacked 300 times while making the same number of offensive attacks.

Kind of like going to work, and while you're making the same as the guy next to you, he's paying 25% in taxes but you're paying 45%. Suck it up? Guess you could do that - but I doubt you'd be happy about it.

So my point was we know matchmaking has been a work in progress and up to this point broken.

So my suggestion was to make point losses for breaks in defense minimal - ex 0-5 points - and continue to reward holds. Players will STILL have to buy Ironite to compete - but from a psychological perspective you will go forward much more proportionate to your effort, defense will STILL matter, and if the match lists are still broken it wouldn't matter nearly as much.

Until we have great confidence that matchmaking is "fair" - and to be honest, it has seemed glitchy from the beginning of beta - I'm going to continue to ask the developers to rethink this system and encourage defensive holds to be a carrot, without making defensive losses a stick. Even once it's fixed - a system that rewards instead of penalizes would be better from a psychological perspective.

Another topic of the day I hear being discussed a lot is Visions Eddie. It seems that if he's in your roster, he's on your team. He's populating PvP like rabbits on fertility drugs.

He DID need an update - no question there - but is he now a 10* Eddie instead of a 5* Eddie? I'm using him myself and wouldn't even consider another Eddie in this talisman-heavy environment. He's kept my Holds at a very respectable level - and when I lose it's usually due to a crash or a VE team. But is he too much? Or would Holds be too low if he wasn't there? The developers have said they'd like more diversity in PvP. I think it's pretty safe to say Visions Eddie is the "new Mummy" and working against that goal.

On to stats - very similar to what I saw before the last matchmaking update (which caused those of us near the top to become Invisible)

Attacks: 561

Times Attacked: 373

Ratio: 0.66

My ratio almost doubled because attacks on me soared in the last few days. We've been assured that this is normal - those who weren't getting attacked are now being attacked more, and those who were getting heavily attacked are being attacked less to even things out. I don't think it will ever be "1.0" for the really active players because we attack so much.

This weeks stats will be a matchmaking system in flux - next weeks should be more revealing.

Thanks for posting - it's really the only way we the players have of seeing how the fixes that are being applied are working!

[Jofer16]

Grats Enti!

Great post Nicko, the rabbits on fertility drugs was hilarious hahaha. And yeah there's really no way around Visions if RNG runs wild against you. I think at one point yesterday I lost to your team 3 times in a row when he went first and cleared 75% of my buffs. It's hit or miss but no consistent way around it in those cases. Also the point system, in all honestly I feel like this game is STILL in beta. The devs don't really seem to know what they're doing and just change something, release it to us and then tweak from there. We are there testers and QA department, this isn't a full game.

Good luck to Shaolin this week, he's probably the next deserving for how much I messed with him in the past lol

[hold]

Another topic of the day I hear being discussed a lot is Visions Eddie. It seems that if he's in your roster, he's on your team. He's populating PvP like rabbits on fertility drugs.

He DID need an update - no question there - but is he now a 10* Eddie instead of a 5* Eddie? I'm using him myself and wouldn't even consider another Eddie in this talisman-heavy environment. He's kept my Holds at a very respectable level - and when I lose it's usually due to a crash or a VE team. But is he too much? Or would Holds be too low if he wasn't there? The developers have said they'd like more diversity in PvP. I think it's pretty safe to say Visions Eddie is the "new Mummy" and working against that goal.

Honestly I try to avoid teams with VE in defense if possible. The reason is that last week twice in a row I went 2nd and VE stripped all 4 of my toons buff clean and from that moment I watched autoplay until I was finished. "Stun, freeze, taunt" ... really the full blow. Not really funny at all.

Other things don't work when immunity is on (Loot, Magus CR stealing buffs ...) but it doesn't affect VE. I can cope with most other teams using my brain ... with VE I'm relying on luck and that sucks. I loose to other teams as well and quite often it is my fault making a mistake or simply underestimating the other team. I can live with that but VE is no fun at all. Even if he would strip only 2 toons clear of buffs and you loose them for round 2 you are more or less done already. If not it won't take long until he stuns your team for a full round and that's the end of your team.

Maybe I was incredibly unlucky against VE teams but I try not to challenge them. My 2 cent.

[Nicko]

Love reading the comments, but I'm going to be a pest and ask you guys to post your stats (just total #s, not your win/lose percentages) in addition to the comments ;)

Thanks!

[hold]

I'm going to be a pest and ask you guys to post your stats (just total #s, not your win/lose percentages) in addition to comments ;)

Thanks!

Oh sorry ... sure no secret on my side:

Attack 296 (92%)
Defense 269 (17%)

until the update I seemed to be more or less invisible.

[Jofer16]

I'm going to be a pest and ask you guys to post your stats (just total #s, not your win/lose percentages) in addition to comments ;)

Thanks!

My stats were almost identical to yours again, total attacks and defenses were only 10-15 apart from your numbers. We must be in the same list group :) Was tied to my attacks. After the change I could go like 8 hours with zero attacks if I just didn't play. As soon as I'd start attacking the floodgates would open. Needs better balance, it's either one extreme or the other.

[Nicko]

Oh sorry ... sure no secret on my side:

Attack 296 (92%)
Defense 269 (17%)

until the update I seemed to be more or less invisible.

Thanks Hold!

And to reiterate - feel free to post win/loss percentages if you want - but total numbers without percentages like I posted are also great to see how matchmaking is going

[Nicko]

My stats were almost identical to yours again, total attacks and defenses were only 10-15 apart from your numbers. We must be in the same list group :) Was tied to my attacks. After the change I could go like 8 hours with zero attacks if I just didn't play. As soon as I'd start attacking the floodgates would open. Needs better balance, it's either one extreme or the other.

Exactly. Will be interesting to see if this update achieves those goals...

[BadTaste]

Week 11:
Attacks: 417
Times attacked: 307
Ratio: 0,74

After some losses to VE teams (needed 3 attempts against Slaukis team b4 I won) I did some minor changes in my attack strategy and the result was for me amazing. 184 wins in a row and I stopped there because PVP had reset... I cleared my attack lists over and over. At least 97% of the players in my lists were ranked so much lower than me that almost every fight only gave 12 points. And during this period I was attacked/revenged so much that even if won fight after fight I bare moved upwards the point ladder because I lost 20 points every time the AI could not hold my defence. I think I saw a player ranked top 10 on every third or fourth attack list. I thought they would appear more often after the new update...
IMHO the point system may be ok for some players who can benefit from beating high ranked players, but I don't think this sytem is fair for high ranked players.
Anyway, I ended #6 after a very fun race against Gmac.

Just have to post this: :cool:

[Killhouse]

This week started looking pretty positive and ended just being a brutal mess. I had a free afternoon or two this week early on and knowing the current matchmaking in place, spent lots of that time climbing to #2 with about 4,500 points. That was the day of the update... at that time I think I was roughly around 300 attacks with maybe 150 defenses.

Then comes the update and suddenly the top players are all over the lists (this is a good thing but shouldn't have been done mid week). I had to climb to #2 at 12 points a match, never was there more rewarded since players over 2,000 points didn't show before the update. After the update, lost 20 points an attack against me and could only gain 12. On top of that, matchmaking seems have been trying to bring ratios towards the magic 1.0 ratio... man what a slog.

Final week stats were:

818 attacks
438 defenses

Even with a 98% win rate, i had to actually double the number of attacks coming in just to remain where I was. So I faced nearly 300 attacks at -20 points after the update (thankfully some held) and with every win only awarding 12 points unless I got lucky and Enti showed on my list (later Jofer passed me and was a welcome 20 pts too).

Two main thoughts before this gets too long -

1) Don't make sweeping matchmaking changes mid week, I agree that things needed to be fixed but players make choices to invest resources into the week based on the current state, be it good or bad. Doing changes to the formula can create a very negative experience. Again things needed to be fixed, but can't they preload the patch to take effect as close to the reset as possible? Pre warn players an update will be coming?

2) This week started as fun for PvP, I finally made a decent return to the competition since beta, however bugs were also dominating the scene and others have posted their frustration. Personally I'd rather have longer periods between updates if it means the devs have time to properly test the updates. The game always feels like it's in beta.

They fixed the matchmaking for top players to appear, but I constantly faced the same 6-8 people after each clear, sorry Blackbolt, Silentknight, Zdm, Deathdealer, Enkilol, Buddy, Bruce7... those are the ones that come to mind. They were always on my lists and just it makes me feel like crap to have to keep hitting the same people who were much lower on the lists. The player pool can't be that small.

Another addition to the matchmaking fix was people are back to being invisible again, maybe that'll be fixed with a fresh week but early results are saying otherwise.


I know this will come as a rant and it is. I've played since July and am at my lowest point with this game. Jofer and Nicko are much better at vocalizing these concerns than I am, but I wanted to vent a little myself.

Still hoping that they can focus on cleaning up the list of bugs that grows with each update and addition to the game (bugs with shaman Eddie, bugs with prisoner passive, bugs with the new talismans already).

Stop adding and fix what's already broken.

[PerthEddie]

Attacks: 93% (133/143)
Defence: 20% (26/128)
Ratio: 0.89

Conclusions/Thoughts:

After last week when I was everyone's punch bag (313 attacks) this week was a lot better. Earlier in the week I sacrificed a shitload of common souls and from that I gained a lot of SoW. I decided to try to make a run for top 100. I failed big time for the following reasons:

1) I am big enough and ugly enough to hold up my hands and say I suck at this game. I am just not a very good player

2) I still lack some of the "must have" PvP characters

3) Don't have the time/commitment. I have so much respect for Jofer/Nicko/Enti/Gmac and the rest for the effort they put in and each one fully deserves the rewards they get.

4) The points system, quite frankly is fucking wank. I stayed up till 02:45 (West Coast Australian time which is just over 5hrs till reset) working my way up. At that point I had 2094 points and was ranked 183. I had run out of SoW and decided against buying more as I needed to go to bed and I knew I wouldn't hang on to it. Woke this morning to 19 attacks where it looked like I lost every fight and dropped down to 1903 points and rank 703. Following reset I dropped to approx 1540 points (nothing we can do about that). Add to that I have been attacked 10 times today and lost 9 of them and dropped even further to approx 1480 points. Having sat and thought about things then really I just wasted my time last night trying to fight my way up. I may as well have gone to bed 2hrs earlier. I am totally disillusioned with PvP and am going to go back to being a casual player and just playing for coins. In fact I am issuing an open question to the devs and asking how on earth they think the present system will motivate players? Why should every player suffer by losing points from a piss poor AI (lol - there is no intelligence) and RNG? I don't expect an answer from any of them as from what I saw yesterday there are lots of lower ranked players who must be throwing lots of Ironite at PvP trying to get up that ladder.

4) Can someone highlight why VE is supposed to be so good and classed as OP? I must be doing something wrong as I put my fully maxed one into my defence on Wednesday and I think I made things worse. Again, this might be down to me being shit at the game and not knowing what the hell the best chars to team him with are.

I think that today I have had a massive lightbulb moment and am asking just what he fuck I am wasting my time for on this. I grind every day and apart from giving my Troopers (who are all awesome) badges I get no reward from this game at all. I hope this post doesn't target me as a "cry baby" or someone being "entitled" but as an average run of the mill player I am trying to convey my honest thoughts on the state of things right now. I am not going to quit yet but the way I feel right now "the sands of time, for me are running low" with it all :( :( :(

[Thedarkness]

Attacks: 392
Defenses: 333 (all at once lol)

I just ran into something weird. Fought caretakerii and his red rockets have the new strike talismans. After my turn those things just kept attacking about 8 times in a row, wiped out my whole team. He has the red bat too so there must be some sort of glitch there.

That guy is a genius at finding bugs. He wisely assumes the programmers will screw up and then finds the problems. NF should hire him.

Edit: fought him again. Attacked with two players. Rockets went 4 times midturn, killed one toon. Took my last shot. Then the rockets attacked twice. Tailgunner fury. Game over. Hahahahaha. Thats awesome.


Sid-2370

[Hypnos]

# of attacks: 226
# of times attacked: 226

rank: 18

Hold percentage was better than usual - thanks to F'N visions. A bit gutted I missed most of the dire minutes but congrats to Enti on a well deserved rank 1!

[blackbolt]

For me:

Attacks: 93% (148/160)
Defense: 16% (25/155)

Finished at 192, it was my best run, i rightfully place myself in the casual gamers box =D

[Monte47]

Eskiggalu-8063

I attacked 210 times
Was attacked 198 times
94%

Finished 60, which pleased me. Tho, I'm still sans a Shaman Eddie, and that is sad.

I wasn't attacked for two days after the update, only had four or five attacks yesterday morning/afternoon. I had a flurry of attacks the hour before the reset, but I think most of my attacks came pre-update.

[OdoyleRules]

Attack: 88% 159/181
Defense: 26% 65/248


Counter strike with the prisoner....prepared for your entire team to get stunned. I better switch up to some single attack guys (Nomad).

[Aristo4]

Attack: 96% (226/236)
Defence: 25% (64/255)
Rank 20

The most weird week I had on PVP so far, with my best result so far too...was butchered with around 230 attacks on me till the update being around 2k pts and then someone turned the switch off: not 30 attacks on me Wednesday to Saturday with most of them being at the last hours. I literally had my defence tab usually say last attack '19h ago' '22h ago' '1 day ago' :cool:

Even if I almost covered the 100 more attacks on me I had midweek (~100 attacks/~200 defences), still no one attacked...a complete ghost thus how I ended with almost 3k pts without someone bothering me.Something totally wrong, and I certainly wouldn't be there to collect a G/A soul to get my Gunner rockets No500 otherwise.

As for the rest:

- VE is VEing
- Artilerry dog not working is fooked up
- pts system whatever McBrain and the rest of guys said
- up the irons.

[tex-0775]

Realized too late that i had become invisible to take advantage of that, but the numbers show whats wrong with the arena pointsystem. This week i had more points that my earlier best, but it was done with half as many attacks. Anyway, i'm done with the arena for now and will only go there for the coins, maybe experiment a little :cool:

I believe that most of my troopers are from the forum, so huge thanks for the badges and for lending me your champions ;) (off topic, but needed to be said....)

2827

Apparently the game go for points when showing my best, would rather have it show my ranking, warlord 1 and ranked 30+ \,,/

[Silentknight]

They fixed the matchmaking for top players to appear, but I constantly faced the same 6-8 people after each clear, sorry Blackbolt, Silentknight, Zdm, Deathdealer, Enkilol, Buddy, Bruce7... those are the ones that come to mind. They were always on my lists and just it makes me feel like crap to have to keep hitting the same people who were much lower on the lists. The player pool can't be that small.
No worries bud,most of us know the deal!

[Tridimensionale]

Week 11:
Attacks: 417
Times attacked: 307
Ratio: 0,74

After some losses to VE teams (needed 3 attempts against Salukis team b4 I won) I did some minor changes in my attack strategy and the result was for me amazing. 184 wins in a row and I stopped there because PVP had reset... I cleared my attack lists over and over. At least 97% of the players in my lists were ranked so much lower than me that almost every fight only gave 12 points. And during this period I was attacked/revenged so much that even if won fight after fight I bare moved upwards the point ladder because I lost 20 points every time the AI could not hold my defence. I think I saw a player ranked top 10 on every third or fourth attack list. I thought they would appear more often after the new update...
IMHO the point system may be ok for some players who can benefit from beating high ranked players, but I don't think this sytem is fair for high ranked players.
Anyway, I ended #6 after a very fun race against Gmac.

Just have to post this: :cool:

LoL crazy win streak here !

Congratz Enti, Jofer and Nicko 4 the top, and thanx for your costant forum feedback.. it really help minor players and the community to improve ! :)

Here my stats:

98 attacks (94% win)
85 defences (19% win)

It was a strange week.. first part i was attacked like 2x times my attacks.. then after the update i became invisible i think and only defences on revenge.
I always avoid VE teams.. hopefully when devs will fix viking, artillery dog & immunity bugs i will have a chance

[CanyptianFit]

Rank: 17
Attacks:203
Defense:196
No Gimp

Was a punching bag for a couple weeks, then went invisible after update. Glad the update went in. Sucks how many bugs are evident, especially immunity dogs ones.

VE rocks and is the new mummy, especially after mummy Nerf. VE changes the landscape. Nice to see new talismans. Congrats Enti! Back to watching hockey.

[mk ultra]

last week

attacks: 234/274 - 85%
defense: 28/243 - 12%

finished 73 with 2379 points.

funny thing with with strike talismans set. it happened twice today, when attacking another toons equipped with strike set the skill keep triggering until one of the toons dies.

[Kris-0707]

2828

My stats for week 11, ratio 1

Still using the same team with my favourite Viking Eddie, no ironite used for SoW, I lost only 3 battles: 2 with overpowered Visions Eddie, 1 battle was a strange bug - I lost the game getting 1 hit from my opponent at the beginning of the battle and all my toons died, don't remember who it was, forgot to take a screenshot.

[Tritium]

Another week, another bug infestation to combat (can someone call Terminix already?).

Started off the week receiving so many attacks that I nearly all but gave up on PVP. Then, after the update, I became invisible (seems like this was a trend for many of us this week).

Attacks: 139 (Most of my losses were due to game freezes or being raped by teams that my HH would otherwise protect me from >.<)
Defends: 200 (I like even numbers like this :cool:)

Had my best defensive ratio yet with 34%, but I attribute most of it to being around the mid-ranks where not many players are veterans of the game just yet. The same defense isn't holding at half that percentage now after reset. :(

Most, if not all, of my attacks after the update (I believe I had 189 attacks right at the time of the update) were revenges.

Finished 43rd with 2641 pts.

Can agree with everyone who says that VE is the new Mummy. That fucker is all you see at the top now haha. He doesn't like Nomad too much, but one has to be very careful in pitting the two against each other if you end up going 2nd. Nomad has crap survivability when VE strips him of everything.

[BG840]

ATK-203
DEF-161

Seemed to be mostly evened out give or take a little. Almost finished in my normal tier, so no gripes this week 🤘

[Ian]

Attacked: 187
Defended: 236

I should add that before the update, I was already at 200+ defences, so I did benefit from minimal attacks and just a few revenges post-update. Sadly my artillery dog was then useless so I didn't attack as much as I could have to take advantage. Wanted to try loads of different strategies with my teams but don't have the luxury of loads of spare shards. Figured out something workable and used a refill to make a climb up the ranks but ran out of time before the reset.

I did see quite a few top players on my list. After being annihilated by Bradata despite going first, I figured to save my points I would avoid trying to hit Jofer, Nicko etc and held onto my top-100 position.

[Chaosego888]

Congratulations to Enti on the Eternal, glad you didn't get robbed by the mid-week update

Attacks 384
Defenses 292

On tuesday morning Attacks were around 200 to 50 defenses. I like the system better when you can work your way forward and maintain your position through the week a lot better. I got pissed by the timing of the update and didn't play too much until Saturday. It wasn't as bad as it initially seemed though. I thought I was getting attacked a lot more because the number on the arena tab just kept getting higher, don't know what was going on there. Attack lists are different now but there are always at least a name or two from the previous list. I also noticed the top five all showed up on my list at the same time the last hour and a half before reset. I just refreshed because at that point I was just trying to maintain a top 50. I am usually somewhere around the top 10 so I know how annoying it is being attacked by someone that is not contending for anything. Some are low enough to revenge holds as well which should be made impossible if not just get rid of revenges completely. A lot of this is caused by this ignorant point system which something needs to be done about as soon as possible just not in the middle of the week. How hard is it to just run the updates after refresh?

[Sparton_LOTB]

The greatest predictor of success in this game is how hard you're willing to work. Jofer has a determination like no other. No matter how things were set up, he'd be number one - I loved his analogy about giving his account to another player - wouldn't make a difference. They wouldn't duplicate what he's done.

But the SECOND biggest predictor is defensive losses. When you're at the top it's 20 points a loss. And even 12 points is a big deal if you're getting attacked 450 times and your competitor is attacked 300 times while making the same number of offensive attacks.

(Emphasis mine.)

In general, the main thing we've continued to try and refine is having attack:defense ratios more equal, because if that ratio is close to 1 for all players, it means your participation in raw number of attacks is rewarded (because most people will have a higher attack win rate than defensive loss rate) while your win rate (attack and defense) is what makes the difference for climbing against your peers. While the end of week rush will definitely skew things, it seems like that maaaay be holding better this week? Definitely time will tell... reports so far seem a bit closer to what I'd expect, at least.

That said...


So my suggestion was to make point losses for breaks in defense minimal - ex 0-5 points - and continue to reward holds. Players will STILL have to buy Ironite to compete - but from a psychological perspective you will go forward much more proportionate to your effort, defense will STILL matter, and if the match lists are still broken it wouldn't matter nearly as much.

Me and Kaz have been discussion how we could change handling defensive results to still encourage having both a high attack and defense win rate, while also not letting someone just out-participate everyone else and hit the top with a much weaker attack and/or defense win rate. Rewarding based on defensive holds may be a bit technically trickier to make work properly, but we're looking into adjusting how many points are lost on a loss (tunable separately for attack losses and defense losses) in an upcoming update.



Anyways, I won't have time to stay on top of and respond to a lot of things in this thread as well, but I figured I'd chime in on this:


1) Don't make sweeping matchmaking changes mid week, I agree that things needed to be fixed but players make choices to invest resources into the week based on the current state, be it good or bad. Doing changes to the formula can create a very negative experience. Again things needed to be fixed, but can't they preload the patch to take effect as close to the reset as possible? Pre warn players an update will be coming?

Were it technically feasible, we would, but the sort of change here was a fundamental logic bug that needed to be fixed, and for operational reasons it's not feasible to deploy things like that on a weekend when we don't have people in the office. Changing matchmaking logic is not the same as scheduling items for the store, sadly.

[The Educated fool]

we're looking into adjusting how many points are lost on a loss (tunable separately for attack losses and defense losses) in an upcoming update.

This sounds very promising indeed! :cool:

[slauki]

(Emphasis mine.)

Me and Kaz have been discussion how we could change handling defensive results to still encourage having both a high attack and defense win rate, while also not letting someone just out-participate everyone else and hit the top with a much weaker attack and/or defense win rate. Rewarding based on defensive holds may be a bit technically trickier to make work properly, but we're looking into adjusting how many points are lost on a loss (tunable separately for attack losses and defense losses) in an upcoming update.

glad to hear, that you are considering changes, because they are really needed. this system demotivates players and the only thing we gain is frustration, when all of you effort vanished over night. i feel dumb writing that again, but since this seems to be the toppic of the week, i figured, chances are better that something might change. aside the whole bugs, this is the biggest problem in PVP imo and many people would enjoy the arena way more without this constant and massive punishment. so the psychology behing PVP is bugged ;) We need less sticks and more carrots (rewards) for the midrank and lower guys.

still positive that time will bring more good changes, but this is basicly another extended beta phase i feel. at least matchmaking seems to work as intended now, but too early to celebrate and draw conclusions, but thigs looks promising so far.

Rank: 10
Attacks:332
Defenses 281
Ratio: 85%

I was invisible the first half of the week and everyone took a stab at me after the update, which makes sense. Curious to see the results next week, since this could be changing the dynamics a bit.

[hold]

Another topic of the day I hear being discussed a lot is Visions Eddie. It seems that if he's in your roster, he's on your team. He's populating PvP like rabbits on fertility drugs.

He DID need an update - no question there - but is he now a 10* Eddie instead of a 5* Eddie? I'm using him myself and wouldn't even consider another Eddie in this talisman-heavy environment. He's kept my Holds at a very respectable level - and when I lose it's usually due to a crash or a VE team. But is he too much? Or would Holds be too low if he wasn't there? The developers have said they'd like more diversity in PvP. I think it's pretty safe to say Visions Eddie is the "new Mummy" and working against that goal.

And just for the record: In my attack list there are 6 out of 10 using VE as defense. Almost midnight here and I'm not up for that shit just before bed. Finishing my glass of Talisker Whiskey and calling it a day I guess ... the one poor guy left without VE in defense will get bashed though :)

[Zapathusara]

Tried a top 50, but stopped at Friday.
Got some bugs, played a bit more. Nothing new under the sun.

2830

[Ubajoa]

rank 7
Attacks 339
Defenses 292
ratio 0.86

I was attacked a lot at the beginning of the week and my ratio were really above 1 almost 2, so when the update went live I became invisible. But when my attacks exceeded my defenses I started to recieve a lot of attacks specially on saturday. I was trying the 5th (I'm gathering G/A souls for a little project) but the attacks were insane, there was a moment when I received 12 attacks in 1 min so when I ended the match I saw 228 points lost in 1 min o.O (12-(20*12)) that made me stop the race (let gmac and badtaste run between them I'm out).

[Silentknight]

Think they have the matchmaking fixed so ratios should be 1:1 next week. Hopefully the attack list names vary.

[Askora]

Finished up the week with Attack Wins 80%(154/193), Defense Wins(23/163) and final points of 1730, rank of 2,314. Not great, but kind of screwy as it originally was showing my rank as 751 (got the screenshot to prove it). Not sure how my rank changed on week that was already finished.

Did somewhat of an experiment today. Tried to take as many screenshots as possible to track how many points on average I gain vs how much I lose on defense. This over about 50 battles. Only playing the extra battles for the iron coins, since there's no telling when there'll be another opportunity to get the talismans.

I managed to climb from 1470 points to a high of just a little over 1800. Offense isn't terribly fantastic with only an 78% win ratio (partially attributable to crashes and the prisoner, but I'll take the blame for part of it as well). Defense is doing pretty well and currently at 29%. I attribute part of that to playing in the lower ranks, but since I've even seen a bigger name or two fall, I hope that means they're playing better. Yes, Visions is leading them because it sounded like a good idea.

Despite the surprisingly good defense ratio I'm barely 100 points over where I started. Rounding things off, it makes it roughly 2 1/2 points gained for each battle that I win despite a good defensive ratio. At the end of the week, I'll most likely be dropped back to whatever point it was I started. Not sure what the 1470 was initially as I'd already defended twice successfully before I logged in. Overall it looks as though my average win is for about 15 points and my average defensive loss costs me about 15 to 17 points. With a better offense I might be able to climb a little faster, but I don't think defense gets a whole lot better than 30%. If it does, I definitely don't have the right toons to pull that off.

Sorry this post was kind of long, but wanted to share a view from the bottom. If you get caught below the cutoff and get nerfed to a much lower points level then climbing back up is pretty much impossible. On the plus side, iron coins are much easier to farm for at that level. Wish I could forgo gaining rank and just stay where the farming is easy.

Almost forgot, I'm currently about 10 attacks over defenses. So, assuming I keep the same defensive ratio, my 80%/30% ratio over nearly 70 battles will have netted me a sum total of maybe 5 to 10 points if I'm lucky. Even with a 90% win ratio it still wouldn't be pretty. I understand NFs concern over people just spending to win, but when even a good offensive/defensive ratio doesn't move you up the ladder there's not much incentive. Last I checked, over 24 hours after the reset FallenAngel was still holding about 69th and from another forum post my understanding is he quit playing. Ivanbig is also at 1900 points and doesn't look like he's played either. So, almost sounds like Wargames (some of you may have to look up that reference, sorry I'm old).

[MoonShadow]

My stats for this week:

A: 136/157 (87%)
D: 40/151 (26%)

So, like most of us here, I've dropped from the 358 defenses of the previous week, to a "normal"(?!?) 151, after the now in(famous) update... and I’ve maintained my number of attacks, from 156 to 157.

This counted a LOT, as I was at the beginning of the week placed at a 2000 or something, and after the update, I went right close to the top 100!! And that is something, as I was usually in the 1000+ place at the end of the week, due to many defenses... mostly...

Also, this week I've got a new toon to play with: Viking Eddie. So, it went straight into defense trenches, but I'm keep searching for the best company for him..

[zdm-1083]

#76
258
245

Ratio: 94%

Beginning of the week I was attacked a lot, after update I was invisible time for attacks to reach defense figures.
My def is sooooo bad, when I saw people speaking about 20+% I'm quite jealous XD
But my attack is not that good too due to quite good defense team that I manage only under RNGesus protection XD
At one point I wonder if I could reach #50 but due to some loss in a row I give up!

Two things, one, revenge is a mess, why not a bigger list, and why a so small revenge amount against player that rush?
Killhouse attacks me (and other I assume :P ) almost 10 times in less than 2 hours!
He is just an example other guy has a tendency to show up very often in my defense list...

Second things, is about this week, I hope we will see the impact of ratio :P
But new talismans (red one) is already making Prisoner a lot lot more on the OP side AFAIC.

\../

[Enti]

Thank you all for the congratulations, highly appreciated :)

Attacks: 96% (847/883)
Defense: 30% (156/523) → 7340 points lost :)

Ratio: 0,5923

Mind you, my defense was at 120 before update on 19th with 40% hold rate; and I'm just careless about attack losses as long as the rate is 95+. I could play safer but that would mean a way slower pace.

Anyway, as I mostly burnt my ironite reserve, I'm again aiming for top 25 at max, something that I can achieve with relatively few refills (mostly 4-5).



4) The points system, quite frankly is fucking wank. I stayed up till 02:45 (West Coast Australian time which is just over 5hrs till reset) working my way up. At that point I had 2094 points and was ranked 183. I had run out of SoW and decided against buying more as I needed to go to bed and I knew I wouldn't hang on to it. Woke this morning to 19 attacks where it looked like I lost every fight and dropped down to 1903 points and rank 703. Following reset I dropped to approx 1540 points (nothing we can do about that). Add to that I have been attacked 10 times today and lost 9 of them and dropped even further to approx 1480 points.

Imagine my face when I couldn't play for 24 hours and saw 120 attacks once back to game, bringing me from 7.4k VP to 5.9k



4) Can someone highlight why VE is supposed to be so good and classed as OP? I must be doing something wrong as I put my fully maxed one into my defence on Wednesday and I think I made things worse. Again, this might be down to me being shit at the game and not knowing what the hell the best chars to team him with are.

I do not know what characters you are using, but remember, PvP is relying on a team, and not on one single pvp-must have. Find 4 toons which can work best together and may cover a wide range of attack patterns.



Congratulations to Enti on the Eternal, glad you didn't get robbed by the mid-week update

I'm not sharing the same view, but I managed to hold #1 with hard work and Jofer's reluctance to dethrone me.


In general, the main thing we've continued to try and refine is having attack:defense ratios more equal, because if that ratio is close to 1 for all players, it means your participation in raw number of attacks is rewarded (because most people will have a higher attack win rate than defensive loss rate) while your win rate (attack and defense) is what makes the difference for climbing against your peers.

Sparton, with all honest respect to you, this does not make any sense when 12 points are won per victory and 20 for a loss. 1:1 ratio will reward you with close to no VP gained. 100 attacks with 95% win rate against 100 defenses with 30% hold rate (considering top level players), applying the 12 points won 20 lost will leave you with exactly zero points gained. So technically top players are just going to waste ironite for nothing (if the pace of outgoing attacks are in line with incoming ones, time estimate is impossible to make only by my own experience).


there was a moment when I received 12 attacks in 1 min so when I ended the match I saw 228 points lost in 1 min o.O

Yep, we experienced the same with Jofer, and probably many other did the same too.



As I said in the update discussion too, being 6th on the ranking with only the regenerated SoW spent is showing a declining trend, as for now. Curious what the top threshold numbers will be this week (#1, #5, #10)

[RCarter]

129 attacks
144 defends

Went invisible after the update. Fucking loved it.

Made one attack after the reset, and woke up the next morning to 12 defends. Made a second attack yesterday, and got 2 more defends for it.

[PerthEddie]

Imagine my face when I couldn't play for 24 hours and saw 120 attacks once back to game, bringing me from 7.4k VP to 5.9k

That must have been horrific when you saw that. That was the point I was trying to make though. You would have worked 3 or 4 times harder than my own circumstances to get to that point and, through no fault of you own, it got wiped out. Good on you for not letting it demotivate you and Congratulations on getting top spot this week :)

[Nicko]

I was trying the 5th (I'm gathering G/A souls for a little project) but the attacks were insane, there was a moment when I received 12 attacks in 1 min so when I ended the match I saw 228 points lost in 1 min o.O (12-(20*12)) that made me stop the race (let gmac and badtaste run between them I'm out).


assuming I keep the same defensive ratio, my 80%/30% ratio over nearly 70 battles will have netted me a sum total of maybe 5 to 10 points if I'm lucky. Even with a 90% win ratio it still wouldn't be pretty. I understand NFs concern over people just spending to win, but when even a good offensive/defensive ratio doesn't move you up the ladder there's not much incentive.


Imagine my face when I couldn't play for 24 hours and saw 120 attacks once back to game, bringing me from 7.4k VP to 5.9k


Sparton, with all honest respect to you, this does not make any sense when 12 points are won per victory and 20 for a loss. 1:1 ratio will reward you with close to no VP gained. 100 attacks with 95% win rate against 100 defenses with 30% hold rate (considering top level players), applying the 12 points won 20 lost will leave you with exactly zero points gained. So technically top players are just going to waste ironite for nothing (if the pace of outgoing attacks are in line with incoming ones, time estimate is impossible to make only by my own experience).

Cliff notes version - this point system sucks ;)

Giving credit where credit is due - the developers seem to be listening. For those who missed it - Sparton responded:


In general, the main thing we've continued to try and refine is having attack:defense ratios more equal, because if that ratio is close to 1 for all players, it means your participation in raw number of attacks is rewarded (because most people will have a higher attack win rate than defensive loss rate) while your win rate (attack and defense) is what makes the difference for climbing against your peers. While the end of week rush will definitely skew things, it seems like that maaaay be holding better this week? Definitely time will tell... reports so far seem a bit closer to what I'd expect, at least.

I'd ask you to read Enti's comment on the math. For the average player this makes it tough to climb.


Me and Kaz have been discussion how we could change handling defensive results to still encourage having both a high attack and defense win rate, while also not letting someone just out-participate everyone else and hit the top with a much weaker attack and/or defense win rate. Rewarding based on defensive holds may be a bit technically trickier to make work properly, but we're looking into adjusting how many points are lost on a loss (tunable separately for attack losses and defense losses) in an upcoming update.

Aren't we already rewarded on defensive holds?

Their is a deflated tone above and throughout the thread as many post their experience with this system. We realize you guys have your hands full getting things sorted out with updates and ever issues - so very appreciated you're weighing in here. And based on your comments above, not only weighing in - but taking action.

Looking forward to the changes!

2834

[Ignatius92]

ATTACKS -- 189
Times Attacked -- 161
Ratio -- .85

the past 2 weeks have been brutal. Before then i could regularly finish between 100 and 50 getting attacked weekly about 30-40 times with well over 200-250 attacks in. Sounds like i was in the invisible realm. Since then, times attacked went from about 35 to 140 and then the 161 of this past week. When battling up the lists from 200 to 100 to inside top 100, it would actively make me battle on Friday into Saturday, spending Ironite, to try and get higher. I know it has been said but maybe there is strength in numbers but when you wake up to 20 some attacks and it continues throughout the day/week, no motivation to battle.

[R1ck]

162 Attacks
163 defenses

Rank 35
2767 points


After the update I was invisible for almost 2 days till Saturday when top five started to attack me. Just made some rush revenges and went out to enjoy a beautiful Saturday with my family.

Not even spent all free SoW last week, the game really needs to be debugged asap.

[Browno]

ATTACKS -- 189
Times Attacked -- 161
Ratio -- .85

the past 2 weeks have been brutal. Before then i could regularly finish between 100 and 50 getting attacked weekly about 30-40 times with well over 200-250 attacks in. Sounds like i was in the invisible realm. Since then, times attacked went from about 35 to 140 and then the 161 of this past week. When battling up the lists from 200 to 100 to inside top 100, it would actively make me battle on Friday into Saturday, spending Ironite, to try and get higher. I know it has been said but maybe there is strength in numbers but when you wake up to 20 some attacks and it continues throughout the day/week, no motivation to battle.

We are many that have 200 attacks on us on a regular basis, and i have experiencing a little less since the update. My normal were 100-150 attacks done and 200+ recieved. Now its more 150-150 so it is better.

[RCarter]

Between the whack points system, self-damaging bugs, and the APMA victory stealing crashes, its hard to stay enthused with PVP.

And with BNW, and Night City "coming soon" for months, its hard to stay enthused about this game...

[DaveMurray]

NF's idea of PvP(let's forget all the bugs for a sec).
You start a fight and at the same time someone attacks you because they want a ratio of 1. Scenarios:
i) You win the attack and the reward is 12 points, at the same time you loose at defence and 16 points are gone, so you are punished because you wanted to play with loosing 4 points.
ii) You loose the attack and 18 points are gone, at the same time you loose at defence and 16 points are gone too, so you are punished because you wanted to play with loosing 34 points.
iii) You loose the attack and 18 points are gone, at the same time you win at defence and 14 points are rewarded, so you are punished because you wanted to play with loosing 4 points.
iv) You win both matches which is almost impossible and you get 28 points.

Now let's be honest, if it was just LotB and not Iron Maiden LotB how many people do you think would still play the game?
Also don't forget that you start PvP from were you finished the last time after the reset, with simple maths how can someone play that?

P.S. I am sorry to everyone that will loose from my defence team but i am using the bug with the new talis. I am sick of doing 200 attacks and end up before the reset with less points than what i had at the start.

[Chrismo]

Attack 144/157
Defense 59/221

[Enti]

NF's idea of PvP(let's forget all the bugs for a sec).
You start a fight and at the same time someone attacks you because they want a ratio of 1. Scenarios:
i) You win the attack and the reward is 12 points, at the same time you loose at defence and 16 points are gone, so you are punished because you wanted to play with loosing 4 points.
ii) You loose the attack and 18 points are gone, at the same time you loose at defence and 16 points are gone too, so you are punished because you wanted to play with loosing 34 points.
iii) You loose the attack and 18 points are gone, at the same time you win at defence and 14 points are rewarded, so you are punished because you wanted to play with loosing 4 points.
iv) You win both matches which is almost impossible and you get 28 points.

Now let's be honest, if it was just LotB and not Iron Maiden LotB how many people do you think would still play the game?
Also don't forget that you start PvP from were you finished the last time after the reset, with simple maths how can someone play that?

P.S. I am sorry to everyone that will loose from my defence team but i am using the bug with the new talis. I am sick of doing 200 attacks and end up before the reset with less points than what i had at the start.

Exactly, good points you raised here. Sparton said the current matchmaking will reflect your ranking based on the attack numbers, but based on your (and my - see earlier post) estimates/calculations, it is all dependent on your defense and who you are attacking.
Plain stupid imo

Frankly speaking I'm still playing the game only because of the eddies.

[DaveMurray]

Exactly, good points you raised here. Sparton said the current matchmaking will reflect your ranking based on the attack numbers, but based on your (and my - see earlier post) estimates/calculations, it is all dependent on your defense and who you are attacking.
Plain stupid imo

Frankly speaking I'm still playing the game only because of the eddies.

It's not only that, weak/new players have to be considered when making changes because you want them to stay.
Everyone will attack-revenge a weak player that is doing a few attacks per week and with the 1:1 ratio he/she will end with less points.
Not everyone will attack-revenge Jofer, Nicko, Enti, shaolin etc(random names) who are stronger so they won't have 1:1 ratio. Another unfair situation for weaker players.

Imho those changes would help:
i) point system must change because it's like a paradox at the moment
ii) revenge should be removed because it only hurts weak players, at least until we end up with a better PvP system and a larger player database that activily play PvP. Also it messes with the 1:1 ratio.
iii) after reset everyone starts with the same points(1000 f.e.). Yeah, someone was awesome and finished first, gratz, why start first after the reset again? Where's the reset then?

[Fister]

You revenge holds Enti? What a sport 😛

[Enti]

You revenge holds Enti? What a sport ��

I'm at currently 41% def hold rate, dunno how many of those were revenges. Though I have a screenshot from earlier this week after replacing Gimp with Nomad: 52% (14/27)

Nomad with strike talisman is ridiculously strong. I feel like bringing an Apache helicopter to fight. While I'm enjoying it, this definitely needs to be addressed.

Off topic - my pvp popup asks me to congratulate to Jofer, Nicko and FallenAngel for top 3 last week. GJ guys :D

[Silentknight]

Off topic - my pvp popup asks me to congratulate to Jofer, Nicko and FallenAngel for top 3 last week. GJ guys :D
Just another bug,happened b4. I saw u yesterday! Oh & congrats! Lol!

[CanyptianFit]

Enti, funny, I agree with you and put Strike on Nomad. Loving it so far.

Related note, was fun bringing Nomad into LoL today as it's Red today and the newborns have retaliate, so I brought Nomad in and have a void shielder;

so when Nomad attacks newborn, newborn retaliates, so Nomad retaliated back, then with voids up, hes retaliating the retaliating. Fun times!

Oh the simple things in life.

Dislike all the negativity on the forums against one another, we are all brothers and sisters and fans. Lots of other things to get worked up about IMHO. Passionate we are.

Cheers.

[Enti]

Enti, funny, I agree with you and put Strike on Nomad. Loving it so far.

Related note, was fun bringing Nomad into LoL today as it's Red today and the newborns have retaliate, so I brought Nomad in and have a void shielder;

so when Nomad attacks newborn, newborn retaliates, so Nomad retaliated back, then with voids up, hes retaliating the retaliating. Fun times!

Oh the simple things in life.

Dislike all the negativity on the forums against one another, we are all brothers and sisters and fans. Lots of other things to get worked up about IMHO. Passionate we are.

Cheers.

I can imagine you building the team, then just stare at the screen for 10 seconds, take a sip from your beer/wine, and launching a skill - or rather pushing the start button? - saying "let the fun begin". Or say "Aaaaaaaaand hiir vi goo" like Laurie from Hydraulic Press Channel :D

[Tritium]

Nomad with strike talisman is ridiculously strong. I feel like bringing an Apache helicopter to fight. While I'm enjoying it, this definitely needs to be addressed.



Enti, funny, I agree with you and put Strike on Nomad. Loving it so far.

Great minds think alike ─ I did the same thing! Now I just need to shard him up so his basic creates even more carnage. :cool:

Nomad with a strike set actually seems to be a decent way of dealing with F'n Visions Eddie, you just have to hope that VE doesn't strip him of the buff (but even if he does, Nomad may retaliate once at least).

[Thedarkness]

These strike talismans just seem to be a bad idea to begin with IMHO. Never mind all the bugs that came with it.

They seem to be slowly replacing passives and abilites with talismans. Cant wait for the rainbow colored passive aggression, immunity, shell, strike, perfect hit, loot, and invisibility talisman.

[Enti]

These strike talismans just seem to be a bad idea to begin with IMHO. Never mind all the bugs that came with it.

They seem to be slowly replacing passives and abilites with talismans. Cant wait for the rainbow colored passive aggression, immunity, shell, strike, perfect hit, loot, and invisibility talisman.

New talisman set in Arena Store - Chuck Norris Talisman

Only one type, +10k hp, +500 to all other stat
Gives wearer all in-game passives as well as 10 rounds of immunity+invincibility

[Thedarkness]

New talisman set in Arena Store - Chuck Norris Talisman

Only one type, +10k hp, +500 to all other stat
Gives wearer all in-game passives as well as 10 rounds of immunity+invincibility

Chuck Norris set. Fixes all the bugs.

Wait... Its the frogs that need this talisman set, not the characters.

[zdm-1083]

Frankly speaking I was a bit annoyed at first by Strike talisman as well as Sentinel harpy.

But that's break the habits.
That's so good to change from Mummy/SSD/Pyro/XXX!
Or GRE/AoP/XXX/XXX
I saw so many unusual teams that I need to learn to handle, that's great (or not when I lose ofc :] )

Even if it's need tuning, even if it's need to be refine, new ways of playing are fine.

Even more, using again my WickerMan Eddy is great, thanks guys :)

The only thing I want (other than bug free game XD ) is RNGesus on my side to get good toons to put in place
a 20+% defense :cool:

See you in arena!

[Enti]

Can someone send me a screenshot of last week's "Congratulate to Arena winners"? I want it for my ego :cool:

It rarely pops up and even if it does, it shows the result of the prior week.

[CanyptianFit]

Enti, an easy way is to go to their twitter account. They posted it there.

[Enti]

Thanks for the info, never used twitter since opening an account there xD

Edit: got the img, thx. I checked my notification today saying someone started to follow me on August 21st, 2014 xD