PvP Matching - Nothing but a joke

saskdaddy

This is an issue that many people before have spoken about, and continues to be broken. Cryptic either cannot or will not address the issue, but as new gear gets introduced to the game, it becomes more and more impossible to go to PvP unless you're a credit card warrior.

Below, are but two of the many many examples of whom I'm 'matched against... keep in mind I have the following for gear...
2 pcs of Grim PvP gear, the rest is all pve
I do not own a single artifact that is at maximum rank
Neither my main hand nor my off hand are maxxed (orange) - or anything close to it for that matter
I do not own a single pc of artifact gear, never mind maxxed out artifact gear
My guild does not have access yet to even a level 3 marketplace.
I do not own a single maxxed out enchantment.
I do not have the crafting level (yet) to be able to craft my own pvp accesssories.
I do not have (yet) the black ice level in order to upgrade pvp gear.

With these stats, the 'Matching System' decides these are 'fair' matches for me ... I have removed the player names, so as not to break any forums rules.




Quite obviously, I have absolutely no chance to kill these players. They can (and have) stood absolutely still and done nothing, and I am still not able to even cause serious damage to them.
So Cryptic, how long do you continue to let this obviously broken issue continue? It's only been, what.... several months? Over a year? That players have informed you of this broken instance, and it still remains unfixed. And yet, you have PLENTY of time to work on Underdark, a module which will, no doubt, add all new bugs you will completely ignore.

Continue to ignore your player base, and soon enough, you won't have a player base. That is the history of MMO's.

saskdaddy

Every single time, there is at least 2 players that so badly outgear everyone else, there is virtually no chance to kill them. This is not 'on occasion'. This is not 'the exception'. This is what happens every single match. And as new gear becomes available that not every player has access to, the imbalance becomes worse. There's no chance to win, and there's no chance to gain seals or glory to try to improve your own gear.

Are you paying attention Cryptic?

zibadawa

There's a very simple way to win when you're outclassed: be on their team.

saskdaddy

zibadawa said:

There's a very simple way to win when you're outclassed: be on their team.

Which is a bit tough to do, when they join 5 at a time, hmmm?

saskdaddy

This is what I have to face EVERY time I go to pvp.... making it impossible to gain any glory or seals. So tell me Cryptic, how exactly DOES one gain and improve their pvp gear?
Wonder how many of these I have to post, before I get some sort of lame excuse reply from those that should be fixing the problem.

schietindebux

They won't hear you i fear
The moment they should have fixed matchmaking is gone, after last ncl
Only way to deal with the situation is, "outsmart your opponent" "use skill" like some
ppl wrote in older threads...lol
The discussion about brackets in PVP is dead because noone cares anymore

suicidalgodot

PvP matchmaking is like Russian Roulette...

...just, depending on weekday and daytime, 3-5 chambers are filled.

Honestly, this topic is, understandably, brought up over and over again - and...

zibadawa

You could also try Gauntlgrym. It's pretty easy to get the minimum points necessary for glory, and you always get 3 coins as a minimum (which can be traded in for more glory). Curbstomps still happen, but it takes a little longer before it becomes virtually impossible to do anything but die. Also, you could have put more time into PvP before you hit 70. There are still twinks using overpowered gear ruining everything, but it's not as common.

saskdaddy

I appreciate the replies, thanks to all that took the time to do so.

saskdaddy

zibadawa said:

You could also try Gauntlgrym. It's pretty easy to get the minimum points necessary for glory, and you always get 3 coins as a minimum (which can be traded in for more glory). Curbstomps still happen, but it takes a little longer before it becomes virtually impossible to do anything but die. Also, you could have put more time into PvP before you hit 70. There are still twinks using overpowered gear ruining everything, but it's not as common.

I go to every pvp available, including IWD. They must have made changes, because being awarded 3 coins is not automatic. Although you are right about one thing, I've actually won a few matches there because more people seems to mean a better chance that someone on my team will be just as overpowered, therefore cancelling out those on the other team.

And I pvp'ed a fair bit before level 70, I just never saw a point to it, since it doesn't award glory or seals. All the skill in the world will not help you against people that have 10 times your stats from their gear. While I do agree that skill > gear... it's only to a certain point.
For example, the paladin shown here, literally sat down at a node. With all 5 members of our team attacking him, he sat down. He used no skills, not even the HP boost. He relied solely upon his gear to survive and all 5 of us attacking were unable to do any significant damage. And yet the 'matching system' considers this a fair match.... absurd.

Unknown

This content has been removed.

mistran

If the other team aren't complete HAMSTER, they will trade a point whit you so you can at least get you're rewards.

solbergx

im cw lvl 70 gs 2.37 and still i get matches with gs 4k players, i remember when i started playing pvp i died a lot even if i had battlescarred items, all cause of bad matching!!

saskdaddy

I don't mind the 'dying a lot'. I've played enough MMO's to realise there's going to be growing pains.

MY problem is the ability to improve my own gear so that I can compete with these players just doesn't exist.
Fine... my guild does not even have level 3 market, so getting level 4 market lionsmane gear is out of the question. I accept that. I have NO intention of being one of those people that guild hops simply to access gear.
But I don't have the ability to even acquire seals and glory to get the Burning gear, because matches like this make it utterly impossible to even leave the SZ without dying instantly. There is NO possiblity for me to improve my gear at all.

There needs to be an overhaul - OR - additional ways to acquire seals and glory that does not require being 'pitted' against those that clearly out gear you. Squirmishes would be a perfect example of an additional way to earn seals and glory. Something along the lines of Damage Done = Reward Won.
Yes, those that outgear you would reap the lions share, but you'd still get something everytime you went, simply for being there and doing what you could.

Compare that to the numerous matches where entire teams are forced to sit in SZ waiting for the timer to expire, getting absolutely nothing for being there, because they literally don't have a chance at gaining any glory or seals.

zibadawa

saskdaddy said:

I go to every pvp available, including IWD. They must have made changes, because being awarded 3 coins is not automatic. Although you are right about one thing, I've actually won a few matches there because more people seems to mean a better chance that someone on my team will be just as overpowered, therefore cancelling out those on the other team.

The coins still require you to get the minimum 400 points to get rewards, same as in Domination. That's just a bit easier. One cap is virtually guaranteed at the start (it's not unheard of for a group to rush the opponent's base caps, but even still it's hard for them to get there before the cap is completed), and usually you can work in a second one, or get credit on 4 assists just because you drop an AoE that hit a few people, before it can devolve into futility.

And you get glory before 70. You don't get triumph seals (for reasons), but the glory's there. And if you have a cache of glory built up then you just roll the dice until you get your seal each day and within a week you'll have one to two pieces of burning gear, or an almost complete set of grim gear.

And if you think watching an OP tank an entire team is ridiculous wait until you see either (1) An OP making everyone on the team capable of tanking the entirety of the other team or (2) Normally squishy DPS machines being able to tank an entire team (literally no one else necessary). Yes, it's ridiculous, and yes, it will happen fairly often, and yes, there's pretty much HAMSTER all you can do about it (there's a small amount of strategy possible, but frankly people who tell you to just be more strategic are overselling the difference this makes versus vastly superior firepower--twinked out GWFs and such will run across the entire map before you can complete a cap and then kill your entire team). It starts getting a little better as your gear score goes up. You're chump city before 2k ilvl, and very much dependent on being carried by your other teamies (or the opponents' stupidity or bad luck). From 2k to about 2.5k (with pvp gear) you feel like you're actually contributing something, but in the presence of much higher ilvls it feels pretty paltry; you still get wrecked by the twinks, but you at least get to enjoy obliterating people much weaker than you every now and then. You don't really expect to be a serious force until you're over that 2.5-3k hump, and you're still going to need to pick good pvp weapon and armor enchantments. This varies a bit by class, mind you. GWFs can be extremely dependent on their gear, and may need higher ilvls to reach these levels of productivity, whereas TRs can do various cheesy perma-stealth style things almost independently of their ilvl (they won't be killing much at weak ilvls, and will die quickly when found, but they'll be mobile and hard to find). And if you want to be a real no-skill lameass, if you're in a guild with access to AP/stam drain marks then you can pick those up. I have zero respect for people who use those, but they do have a significant impact.

saskdaddy

zibadawa said:

saskdaddy said:

I go to every pvp available, including IWD. They must have made changes, because being awarded 3 coins is not automatic. Although you are right about one thing, I've actually won a few matches there because more people seems to mean a better chance that someone on my team will be just as overpowered, therefore cancelling out those on the other team.

The coins still require you to get the minimum 400 points to get rewards, same as in Domination. That's just a bit easier. One cap is virtually guaranteed at the start (it's not unheard of for a group to rush the opponent's base caps, but even still it's hard for them to get there before the cap is completed), and usually you can work in a second one, or get credit on 4 assists just because you drop an AoE that hit a few people, before it can devolve into futility.

And you get glory before 70. You don't get triumph seals (for reasons), but the glory's there. And if you have a cache of glory built up then you just roll the dice until you get your seal each day and within a week you'll have one to two pieces of burning gear, or an almost complete set of grim gear.

And if you think watching an OP tank an entire team is ridiculous wait until you see either (1) An OP making everyone on the team capable of tanking the entirety of the other team or (2) Normally squishy DPS machines being able to tank an entire team (literally no one else necessary). Yes, it's ridiculous, and yes, it will happen fairly often, and yes, there's pretty much HAMSTER all you can do about it (there's a small amount of strategy possible, but frankly people who tell you to just be more strategic are overselling the difference this makes versus vastly superior firepower--twinked out GWFs and such will run across the entire map before you can complete a cap and then kill your entire team). It starts getting a little better as your gear score goes up. You're chump city before 2k ilvl, and very much dependent on being carried by your other teamies (or the opponents' stupidity or bad luck). From 2k to about 2.5k (with pvp gear) you feel like you're actually contributing something, but in the presence of much higher ilvls it feels pretty paltry; you still get wrecked by the twinks, but you at least get to enjoy obliterating people much weaker than you every now and then. You don't really expect to be a serious force until you're over that 2.5-3k hump, and you're still going to need to pick good pvp weapon and armor enchantments. This varies a bit by class, mind you. GWFs can be extremely dependent on their gear, and may need higher ilvls to reach these levels of productivity, whereas TRs can do various cheesy perma-stealth style things almost independently of their ilvl (they won't be killing much at weak ilvls, and will die quickly when found, but they'll be mobile and hard to find). And if you want to be a real no-skill lameass, if you're in a guild with access to AP/stam drain marks then you can pick those up. I have zero respect for people who use those, but they do have a significant impact.

My guild has only level 2 market, so I'm guessing I don't have access to the drain things... although with the 'matches' I've been getting, I don't see them making any difference.
At best, all I can do is avoid dying. I can't go near a node or I'm almost instantly killed. And I sure can't do any serious damage to players sitting on nodes.

The thing is... I'm at a virtual standstill, and it seems like the devs don't give a rats a$$. I can't buy/improve pvp gear, because I don't have a hope in hell of beating any of the people I am 'matched' with... and I can't even buy/upgrade my pve gear, because the damn dungeon chest keys don't work.

And yet, with all that is broken and badly needing attention... the attention is instead focused on yet MORE new stuff, that people would MUCH rather see delayed in favour of having current issues fixed first. Cryptic's whole way of thinking needs a major adjustment. They are completely out of touch with their player base, and surely going to drive away those that are left.

silverkelt

Game requires hundreds of players on all i levels, elo ratings to queue to work..

Since the game has lost thousands of players, the small amount left who pvp, does not offer enough to do this. During NCL with rewards at that time worth playing for, it worked really well actually. Last time it did imo.

schietindebux

Probably it would help making PVP more rewarding
But the moment you start doing so you have to take care of botters effectively

silverkelt

they need to gate pvp via tenacity.. this would stop the green bots from entering .. or do a pve quest to open up the queue.. nothing in particular.. just a one time thing. just another annoying feature.

They could do lots of things, to make it at least harder, but not so difficult to enter, (IE a real person spends a little of bit of time) but a bot wouldn't be doing those things .

subnocte

It just gets worse and worse as the credit card warriors and pvp guilds can farm matches for more and more stuff, while everybody else quits or stays stuck losing all the time.

One problem is how you can buy the best gear in the game outright and without any real skill kill pretty much anything (or be unkillable). For that reason we're not likely to see much to balance the game I think. PVP is very small now in Neverwinter, because of all the problems, but presumably the people who love to roflstomp are still willing to throw cash in.

namelesshero347

With the ability to buy way more gear than it is possible to obtain by farming alone, the joke is on the FTP player. They are like people who bring a knife to a gun fight. I doubt much can be done about balancing. It would be too complex, ineffective, and easy to circumvent. Anything they do will probably make it less fun for the whales who pretty much are financing the game.

zibadawa

silverkelt said:

they need to gate pvp via tenacity.. this would stop the green bots from entering .. or do a pve quest to open up the queue.. nothing in particular.. just a one time thing. just another annoying feature.

They could do lots of things, to make it at least harder, but not so difficult to enter, (IE a real person spends a little of bit of time) but a bot wouldn't be doing those things .

Tedium and annoyance only ever incentivizes bots. That's exactly what they're designed to deal with: all the HAMSTER you don't want to do. The more you make the game too annoying to actually play, the more people will either bot or leave.

suicidalgodot

namelesshero347 said:

With the ability to buy way more gear than it is possible to obtain by farming alone, the joke is on the FTP player. They are like people who bring a knife to a gun fight. I doubt much can be done about balancing. It would be too complex, ineffective, and easy to circumvent.

While I agree that less-than-succcess is the most probable outcome of any balancing effect, it's not an excuse to do nothing at all. Don't see "ease of circumvention", but so what...

...also, where's it a joke when people take the label at face value? BTW the difference between F2P and P2W-BiS has four to five RL currency digits per char in here...

namelesshero347 said:

Anything they do will probably make it less fun for the whales who pretty much are financing the game.

O rly? I'd think they want at least _some_ challenge. When all the F2P crowd gives up PvP apart from hapless newcomers, only the Captain Credit Card and Private PayPal teams are left in, which then deprives them of the "fun" part...

...coz then it's a skill thing again. Ouch!

tyrtallow

Sorry to burst your bubble, but there's a LOT of old F2P players running around with ~4k and higher iLvL.
Everyone I know who plays at least 12 hours a week for the last 8 or so months now has legendaries. The resourceful ones and the ones who spend RL money now have mythicals.
So you can take your F2P/P2W arguments and shove it where the sun don't shine or just play another game.

The persons who are really screwed here are the relatively new players like the OP (based on his/her post count), because leadership AD is gone and your average gamer is now forced to do the old slow-and-steady. Passive weekly leadership AD gains at least gave you the sense that you were making progress regardless of how badly your week went. With that gone, something must be done about all PvP/PvE frustration that newer players are being forced to deal with on a daily basis.

I would ignore old players who are still doing the whole F2P/P2W thing. The whole leadership=AD thing was relatively easy to figure out, so if they're still whining and complaining now they'll keep whining and complaining later.
You devs really need people who can sort this kind of thing out.

silverkelt

We all know costing.. its just too high. What lack of AD really means for me, isnt even about progression , though thats a big part of it, its also about removal of fun.

I used to spend millions of AD on cosmetic items.. and this last event highlighted my frustration, I cant stand to do these events really, but I like the masks, I always traded my leadership AD to new players , they earned some coin and I had a blast changing my toons around.

Now that its removed.. spending 50k on masks is really not realistic..
There just is too much costing involved.. and not enough ways to make AD just to have fun really.

The balance isnt there.

Poor new players.. I have no idea why they even bother. A perfect enchant (ALONE) will take them 62.5 days or so to get.. and its not like they can just SAVE all their AD just for that one item.

Older players at least can spam run DDS and if you have vip.. you can make a good 60-70k a day with a few toons at least if not more. Depending how much time you have in a day. But it takes up all of your time and again its frustating to just have to farm AD every day just to get some coin to play the game.

vladious1977

silverkelt said:

We all know costing.. its just too high. What lack of AD really means for me, isnt even about progression , though thats a big part of it, its also about removal of fun.

I used to spend millions of AD on cosmetic items.. and this last event highlighted my frustration, I cant stand to do these events really, but I like the masks, I always traded my leadership AD to new players , they earned some coin and I had a blast changing my toons around.

Now that its removed.. spending 50k on masks is really not realistic..
There just is too much costing involved.. and not enough ways to make AD just to have fun really.

The balance isnt there.

Poor new players.. I have no idea why they even bother. A perfect enchant (ALONE) will take them 62.5 days or so to get.. and its not like they can just SAVE all their AD just for that one item.

Older players at least can spam run DDS and if you have vip.. you can make a good 60-70k a day with a few toons at least if not more. Depending how much time you have in a day. But it takes up all of your time and again its frustating to just have to farm AD every day just to get some coin to play the game.

What I use to do before all the changes was spam blacklake terror during the skirmish event on a low level toon. When I hit the daily cap switched to another low level toon and wash rinse repeated. Not sure if this can be done anymore because it appears the event has been removed and so I have not wasted my time even checking it out. If you got with a good group it was only 5 or 10 minutes to do it and you got like 1k AD if I remember right. 1k was refined the rest you had to refine. Hit your cap switch to another low level toon wash rinse repeat. It was HORRIBLE doing the same skirmish over and over and over but grindable at least. After you surpass the level to do it you just transferred the AD to another char and wash rinse repeat profit.

Use to pop every 4 hours. 6 times a day. Each event stretch you can get 10 to 12k AD so roughly 60k AD per day.

saskdaddy

tyrtallow said:

Sorry to burst your bubble, but there's a LOT of old F2P players running around with ~4k and higher iLvL.
Everyone I know who plays at least 12 hours a week for the last 8 or so months now has legendaries. The resourceful ones and the ones who spend RL money now have mythicals.
So you can take your F2P/P2W arguments and shove it where the sun don't shine or just play another game.

The persons who are really screwed here are the relatively new players like the OP (based on his/her post count), because leadership AD is gone and your average gamer is now forced to do the old slow-and-steady. Passive weekly leadership AD gains at least gave you the sense that you were making progress regardless of how badly your week went. With that gone, something must be done about all PvP/PvE frustration that newer players are being forced to deal with on a daily basis.

I would ignore old players who are still doing the whole F2P/P2W thing. The whole leadership=AD thing was relatively easy to figure out, so if they're still whining and complaining now they'll keep whining and complaining later.
You devs really need people who can sort this kind of thing out.

While I agree it IS (or at least was) possible for F2P players to eventually 'catch up' to the credit card warriors... my entire point is that it is no longer feasible or even possible.
To buy/upgrade pvp gear requires you to gain glory and seals, and they cannot be had when you are constantly 'matched' with those you have absolutely no chance to compete with. It isn't 'on occasion'... it isn't 'the exception'... it is almost constantly an issue. Most days, I need 10+ matches before I am fortunate enough to get on a team that wins (because I've been lucky enough to have missed the 'pre-made' teams queue). The number of 'pre-made' teams entering with their maxed out gear is unbelievable. And yet the 'fix' is so simple, it's frustrating.

So how do you fix it? While it is certainly not a perfect solution, there IS never the less an easy answer. Make pvp queue single person only, no group entries. Meaning, you can't join as a 'pre-made' 5 person team. So those credit card warriors will have to face one another, ergo... people of equal gear, and the rest of us have a chance to get on a winning team in order to gain the seals and glory we need to 'catch up'. You eliminate 5 person teams that an average player has no hope of challenging, AND you make it a challenge for those that are maxed out, with the real possibility of having to face people of equal gear, rather then people they can mindlessly slaughter with even the weakest of their skills.

This makes it a much more even playing field, giving EVERYONE a better chance. Simple, yet effective, and therefore surely never to be implemented.

namelesshero347

tyrtallow said:

Sorry to burst your bubble, but there's a LOT of old F2P players running around with ~4k and higher iLvL.

By old players, you mean people who has been around long enough that

1) their leadership army has paid off handsomely
2) there were several opportunities to advantage of some early game exploits to get millions of ill-gotten AD
3) they were able to abuse the kick vote system to get more loot for themselves, or at least keep the loot within their group

Well, these people still have their assets. And the wallet warriors can still pay for whatever gear they want. What is left for the others and newer folks? Hours of grinding to try to get up to 24K AD per day. PVP can't be any more P2W at this point.

saskdaddy said:

Meaning, you can't join as a 'pre-made' 5 person team. So those credit card warriors will have to face one another, ergo... people of equal gear, and the rest of us have a chance to get on a winning team in order to gain the seals and glory we need to 'catch up'.

Such a logical solution. Problem is it will upset the whales. These people paid hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars to be god-like and be able to stomp on people. They have no interest in a fair fight.

saskdaddy

namelesshero347 said:

Such a logical solution. Problem is it will upset the whales. These people paid hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars to be god-like and be able to stomp on people. They have no interest in a fair fight.

A simple work around would be to have an alternating system, one on one off sort of thing. Where the ability to join as more than a single player is available every 2nd hour. Then, if the credit card warriors want to mindlessly mash buttons and 'stomp on people', they can do so. This would still allow newer non credit card warriors the opportunity to grind it out to acquire the necessary gear to compete.

urlord283

IMO the only thing they could do is split the queue, one for premades and one for single players.

It seems to have gotten a tad better.

Urlord

schietindebux

As lots if player stated premade is near not existent and boring as hell lasting for hours and noone is dieing
Thats why most prefer pugging ...cryptic destroyed the playground for BIS player and all have to suffer
There is not much sense of running BIS geared in this game except outgearing opponent for the easy kill and trolling hole matches being invulnerable
Lots of good player that are searching for competition and left as consequence ...others like the easy way stomping and go on discussing about scill and pump out sentences like: "do you know who i am?" to underline their great gameplay

Read that sentence too often last days and every time i do I can't decide if i should laugh or cry being confronted with that much ignorance