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My review and opinion of the new PvP system after just 1 day...
blureel
Member Posts: 163 Arc User
Background -
I've played about a dozen matches so far since yesterday covering the "night time" crowd and the "day time" crowd. I'm in the same time zone as PWE.
I've played with 2 of my chars - a CW and a TR. On the CW, I converted the old T2 PvP gear to the new T2 Grim PvP set and I played with the old T2 PvP gear on my TR.
Current results after just 1 day -
1) The queue times are significantly longer.
2) Only 1 match where 1 player left - YAY!!!!
3) I have been consistently at the top of the leaderboard in every match with my CW
4) In the night crowd, my TR was at the top of the leaderboard.
5) In the day crowd, my TR was mid to top of the leaderboard
6) In the day crowd, I faced a team with 2 OP GWFs. My team got owned.
7) In the night crowd, more than once, my team got a blue armor gear player.
Changes that I like -
1) I like that the Daily PvP AD bonus is for only 1 match now, but I'm on the fence that I have to win that match lol
2) Leaver penalty has kept a lot of players from leaving "unbalanced" matches
Changes that I fail to see have an effect -
1) Skill level matchmaking doesn't appear to be working, but that could be because the database is still growing.
2) Players not wanting to play in an unbalanced match can still leave (not as bad as before), but now they just sit AFK at the campfire. So it's still 2 or 3 v 5 which is still not fun.
Opinion -
If I didn't have the "good" success with my CW, I would think that the new PvP was worse than old based on my experience with my TR.
My fear is that the new skill level matchmaking is only going to pigeon hole all the players in the long run and allow for lopsided matches as players upgrade their gear and enchantments and the system "takes its time" rebalancing the matchmaking.
Wishlist-
1) I wish the skill level matchmaking would hurry up.
2) I wish the queue times could be shortened.
3) I wish I didn't have to "sacrifice" my current gear set in order to get the new tenacity gear set right away.
4) I wish there was more detailed information about the new PvP ecosystem so I didn't have to learn the hard way (wasting glory) about what gear was upgradeable to the new grim set and what gear isn't (T1 PvP). In all the excitement, I bought a few T1 pieces thinking they could get upgraded. In hind-sight, obviously not.
5) I wish Lvl 60 PvP matches could be split into at least 3 levels. One for the newly arrived at Lvl 60 players (blue armor working on their first T1 set). One for the OP players who have their T2 sets, Greater enchants and gear stats that are OP. And the middle level for everyone else with this new skill level matching system.
I've played about a dozen matches so far since yesterday covering the "night time" crowd and the "day time" crowd. I'm in the same time zone as PWE.
I've played with 2 of my chars - a CW and a TR. On the CW, I converted the old T2 PvP gear to the new T2 Grim PvP set and I played with the old T2 PvP gear on my TR.
Current results after just 1 day -
1) The queue times are significantly longer.
2) Only 1 match where 1 player left - YAY!!!!
3) I have been consistently at the top of the leaderboard in every match with my CW
4) In the night crowd, my TR was at the top of the leaderboard.
5) In the day crowd, my TR was mid to top of the leaderboard
6) In the day crowd, I faced a team with 2 OP GWFs. My team got owned.
7) In the night crowd, more than once, my team got a blue armor gear player.
Changes that I like -
1) I like that the Daily PvP AD bonus is for only 1 match now, but I'm on the fence that I have to win that match lol
2) Leaver penalty has kept a lot of players from leaving "unbalanced" matches
Changes that I fail to see have an effect -
1) Skill level matchmaking doesn't appear to be working, but that could be because the database is still growing.
2) Players not wanting to play in an unbalanced match can still leave (not as bad as before), but now they just sit AFK at the campfire. So it's still 2 or 3 v 5 which is still not fun.
Opinion -
If I didn't have the "good" success with my CW, I would think that the new PvP was worse than old based on my experience with my TR.
My fear is that the new skill level matchmaking is only going to pigeon hole all the players in the long run and allow for lopsided matches as players upgrade their gear and enchantments and the system "takes its time" rebalancing the matchmaking.
Wishlist-
1) I wish the skill level matchmaking would hurry up.
2) I wish the queue times could be shortened.
3) I wish I didn't have to "sacrifice" my current gear set in order to get the new tenacity gear set right away.
4) I wish there was more detailed information about the new PvP ecosystem so I didn't have to learn the hard way (wasting glory) about what gear was upgradeable to the new grim set and what gear isn't (T1 PvP). In all the excitement, I bought a few T1 pieces thinking they could get upgraded. In hind-sight, obviously not.
5) I wish Lvl 60 PvP matches could be split into at least 3 levels. One for the newly arrived at Lvl 60 players (blue armor working on their first T1 set). One for the OP players who have their T2 sets, Greater enchants and gear stats that are OP. And the middle level for everyone else with this new skill level matching system.
Post edited by blureel on
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Comments
Rogue Day 2
Today's match, I owned. Did the Skill Level Matchmaking system finally get enough data and place me in the right match?
Will play more later today and see if the trends continue.
Read this news bulletin
http://community.arcgames.com/en/news/neverwinter/detail/3033863-pvp-improvements_-matchmaking-_-penalties
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics
What was crazy, the losses got worse with each match. In the second match, I had a leaver. On the third match, it got so bad that about 3/4 of the way to end of the match, one of my team members told the rest of the party to give up. It's not worth playing. So they all sat down at the spawn. The last match we got blanked. scored 0 as a team. Not a single cap point. With the leaver penalty, it became very unfun for both teams. Each match was a different pug team.
but the 5th match, I won.
Hopefully, this is not how it's going to be in the long run as the skill matching system balances out our play against better and not as good players.
I really think they need to open up dedicated pvp servers for guild vs guild play, OP players vs OP players, non OP players vs non OP players, and a "special" server for OP vs non OP (sort of a proving ground to see how well your build is going). This is in addition to the new skill level matching they're doing.
Played my GWF today for 4 matches.
match 2 - my next pug got spanked: no one seemed to want to cap a base on my team, just focused on fighting...off base.
match 3 - my pug had a player with all blue armor gear: long and slow loss
match 4 - finally won a match, but it was a reverse lopsided match.
I guess I can say overall I might be seeing a improvement. From day 2, on another character, I lost 4 straight lopsided matches before winning the 5th match, also lopsided victory.
And on day 3, it was done in 4 matches.
If the trend continues, maybe Day 4 will be a victory in 3 matches, but all lopsided victories.
old PvP T2 set - no tenacity. Not Vanguard(?) - so noThreatening Rush (at-will).
match 1 - slow painful loss, but mainly do to players not playing the basics of PvP in this game...cap bases. Played against 2 other gwfs, one of which I could take, but the other was stronger than my build.
match 2 - win - flip side of match one. slow painful win. the other side team didn't play the basics of the game. I led the leaderboard for most of the match. 0 deaths for the first 3 quarters of the match.
CW - played 2 matches
won both matches easily. CW has tenacity T1 PvP armor.
TR - played 2 matches
Old T2 PvP gear - no tenacity
match 1 - long and reasonably close. won and at top of leaderboard
match 2 - not that long, not really close but not a blowout. also won and at top of leaderboard. I'm not a complete perma stealth build. Only used Shadow strike to recharge stealth, but that ability alone was enough to make an opposing GWF lose his cool.
Other results
No leavers today. Yay!
Queue times relatively consistent today - not immediate like before the patch, but neither super long like the initial couple of days.
Other thoughts
Not sure if today's results are more the result of weekday play and non-event play - less players overall, but game play today was overall much better than the first 3 days meaning it was less painful and frustrating to me.
Not sure if the majority of "bad" players will ever learn the basics of winning PvP in Neverwinter. Too many of the "good" players just bad mouthing their frustration about the apparent lack of strategic play and basic tactics instead of stating some basic strategy/tactic that could help the team team play better. Also, too many players with attitude belittling the few players that do offer basic strategy advice. This is a problem that's not addressed by the new ELO system directly. Remains to be seen if the win/loss skill matching will have an actual affect on the overall "learning" of the players. Will it actually be motivation for players to learn how to play better than where they're at? So, this is another facet of PvP I will also monitor in the coming days.
match 1 - had an afk that eventually timed out. did well for the first 1/3rd of the match considering, but 4v5 finally took it's toll and we lost.
match 2 - underpowered team against overpowered team. wasn't close from the beginning of the match. eventually one of the players just sat down in the second half of the match. 472 to 93 match score around the half way point.
match 3 - ended at the top of the leaderboard. long and slow match. Never was behind. Always had a comfortable lead.
still not like the win/loss pattern that seems to be emerging. Do really well, then you go into consecutively harder matches, then do really well.
Honestly, this doesn't feel any different than before the patch where I did really well, then I got owned. The only difference now is that there are far fewer players leaving the match early.
Match 1 - Won. nail biter to the last point. neck and neck the entire match. tactics and strategy prevailed..barely. 1 GWF, 1 DC, 1 TR and 2 HR. 2 players were blue armor geared.
Match 2 - Lost. behind the whole time. not too bad in the first half, but then the other team started pulling away. We did have a couple of players with less than T1 gear on, but loss mainly due to poor PvP tactics. Felt like we could have won if we played better. Players have got to learn to fight on base if they want to win. I'm hoping the skill matching will start weeding those players who don't fight on base out, but I guess that's hoping for too much lol
Match 3 - Lost. also behind the whole time, but close the entire match. lost mainly due to lack of good tactics and consistency in using the good tactics.
Queue pretty fast today. About as fast as pre patch.
First day that the reasons for win/loss are completely different from the previous days and entirely about strategy/tactics. Is this truly the skill matching system starting to take effect here on Day 5?
Match 1 - Won, 4 v 5 most of the match. Other team had an OP GWF, but we played better tactics and won.
Match 2 - Won, led the entire way, not close but not blowout. Opposing team gave up about 3/4 into the match.
Interesting day today. It would appear that the skill leveling is finally balancing out. Let's see how tomorrow holds up...
Remember the more matches not only you partake in but other players in general the better it will be which is part of the reason matches are getting better as time goes on. It's not all about your matches.
I'm keeping track of my progress to see if and when I see a pattern of game play changes across a period of time. I'm focused on me simply because that's what I can reliably track lol.
Hopefully others can use my track record as reference to compare with their own.
I was more or less pointing out why you were finding some oddities in your matches which you seemed confused about. I wasn't meaning that you should track other people's matches as that would be quite futile. Haha!
But...if you're not fighting on base, the opponent isn't either.
Tired of Dailies/Tyranny of Dailies/Timers of Doom/Tricked Or Duped/Tremendously Obnoxious Dailies/Try Otherwise, Devs
But...if they own the node, they're getting the points.
But if they don't?
By fighting on the node you're helping the opponent team.
I'm questionning the "always fight on the node, ****!" principle. Is it an universal truth or is it situationnal?
Tired of Dailies/Tyranny of Dailies/Timers of Doom/Tricked Or Duped/Tremendously Obnoxious Dailies/Try Otherwise, Devs
..And you have to say it with a pirate accent.
Owning a node is not as important as controlling/contesting a node. As such your team is better off suiciding and trying to contest the node while killing the enemies on it than trying to stand off the node and killing those on it.
As long as the enemy owns the node and is uncontested they win. Doesn't matter how many times you kill them if you fight off the node. Doesn't matter how many times you die trying to get it. If you don't contest that point they are laughing in victory.
Contesting nodes is more important than killing or living. Tricking enemies to fight you off the node you own is honestly the best strategy to win and works a scary amount of time because people are so concerned about not dying they don't consider that dying is a better course than losing.
It's situational, but that's hard to explain during a pvp match lol. It's easier to tell everyone to simply fight on base during a match. Here is a more complete analysis.
First, the simple game mechanics - solid blue base = you scoring. solid red base = opponent scoring. any other configuration = no one scoring from that base.
Second, the obvious thing to do when the base is red is to go and capture it which is what happens when you fight on base. And yes, if you own the base (it's solid blue) you want to draw the enemy away from the base. But, the common thing that happens is that everyone gets caught up in their fight while drawing away the enemy they engaged from the base that they don't notice that another enemy has appeared to capture that base that you just vacated. And usually they have an easy cap because the fight off the base has everyone's attention.
Lastly, a more complex solution.
This is where having a good team strategy and team communication comes into play and this is where PUGs usually fall apart. Without a basic understanding and agreement on the basic strategies, it's hard to have good team communication. This is where the guild teams really dominate the PUGs. They have a unified strategy and agree to it and stick to it throughout the match and they have great team communication and even voice communication. When I was fortunate enough to play with a guild with Ventrillo or Teamspeak (Voice chat programs), it was so easy to keep track of what the enemy was doing and where to send players next to minimize the enemies time on base (solid red). It was easy to shout it that the enemy was capping 3 and someone needed to break free and go contest it. It was easy to shout out that hey I need help at one because 4 of the enemy players have shown up. That also meant that there was only 1 enemy team member out there to defend 2 bases. So at least two of my team would go out to cap the other two bases while we kept the 4 enemy team occupied at one - an example of a not-so-basic strategy based on the simple strategy of fight on base.
And of course, when a guild team is geared out, it gets really ugly for a PUG. But that's what the new skill level matching is supposed to eliminate.
Having said this, I have played on a few PUG matches where beat a Guild team. By the "style" of their play, I could tell they didn't understand the basic strategies to win the game.
There are lots of variations to the rule based on the different situations that come up, but it all starts with knowing and understanding the basic strategies.
Haha that would be quite futile. thanks
Match 2 - win. not close at all. other team final score was below 200. I was on top of the leaderboard for most of the match and finished on top. Other team was undergeared and had no strategy or tactics.
So the pattern that's emerging for the skill matching at this point seems to be of alternating with being put into teams that I have no chance of winning with and then against teams that have no chance of beating my team. Interesting...
But at least it looks like that the win streak and losing streaks are getting much shorter which makes for more interesting game play. It's not boredom from too many easy wins and it's not frustration from too many impossible to win matches. And in my book, that's a great thing!
And the other situation that needs to be addressed is that when you do have a blue base and you lead the enemy away from that base yes, you are "defending" that base and getting score, but the situation that I commonly see is that while that one base is blue, the other two bases are red. Fighting off base in this situation is also counterproductive and will result in a loss.
Another common scenario is to fight for cap 2 where the side caps are captured by the opposing team meaning one blue base, one red base and one contested base. The common thought here is that everyone needs to just focus on the middle base and to forget about capping the enemy base. After all, both sides are scoring equally.
This is true under two conditions - both teams are tied when the scenario starts, and both teams are fighting on base. The moment the team that is trying to capture the base stops fighting on base (no players on the base), that base instantly starts scoring for the other team. So, eventually, the team not in control of that base initially starts to fall behind because all those instances are instances of 2 bases to 1 base scoring.
That is why the next "basic" strategy of PvP is to always have a teammate back cap (cap the enemies base). Just contesting that base nullifies the enemy team from scoring from that base. And if you're fighting for control of the middle base, that means your team is scoring.
Flip side, the other team is usually doing that to your team. If you don't send someone after them, then the enemy will start scoring from your home base until you send someone to recapture it. Remember, you are not scoring while capturing a base.
Sadly the only solution I have to that situation is going for Node 3 or running to the other side of Node 2 to split the enemy up because just killing them one by one while they merrily sit on Node 2 is not helpful at all.
If I am a Guardian Fighter I can normally get this done but any other class (since I don't play my GWF) it is quite a challenge.
This update appears to have fixed some things, but then broke a lot more. So I'm not sold on it. While I am sure some aspects were handled well, it appears it also broke a few other things balance wise.
Match 1 - lost. blue geared player on my team as well as a number of purple gear players with empty enchantment slots. Opposing team had an OP TR who also played strategy. Opposing team had OP GWF, but didn't play strategy. My team didn't play strategy. Never was close. Came in second on my team and 4th overall on the leaderboard. Team match up was clearly unbalanced from the get go.
Match 2 - lost. 1 leaver about 1/4 way into the match and we were in the lead. But we also had 9k purple gear players on my team. Other team and 2 good CWs. Don't see how this is balanced unless it's to compensate for my wins from yesterday - extreme pendulum swing. Was first on my team, but 5th overall on the leaderboard.
Match 3 - won. game was never close. finished top of the leaderboard by 2000. another mismatch, but in my favor this time. Opposing team had a leaver early in the match.
Match 4 - won. game was never close. finished 3rd on the leaderboard. another big mismatch. opposing team had a player leave early in the match and then had a player sit at spawn site for the rest of the match.
Match 5 - won. game was never close. finished top of the leaderboard and undefeated. We had one player dc a couple of times and reconnect, but ultimately dc'd. Opposing team obviously undergeared compared to my team.
Match 6 - lost. was close for first half of the match, but team never really played good tactics and eventually the other team took the lead and never let go of it. Other team did have good gear GWF and TR. GWF beat me easily if he got his at-will knockdown going first. I beat him if he missed. Was first on my team and third on the leaderboard.
So, the sixth match of the day was finally close. Not sure how balanced this is. The results feel like pre patch randomness with the main difference that not that many players are leaving early.
Also, I don't consider any of my characters to be OP. None of them have a greater weapon/armor enchants slotted. Highest gear score is 12k on my TR. Rank 8 is the highest enchantment slotted, but that's not enough to boost a single stat to OP status by any means.
Match 1 - won. Led the whole way. Close for the first 1/4 of the match until a team member shouted "FIGHT ON BASE" and it wasn't me lol. I was on top of the leaderboard for the majority of the match and finished 1st followed by the entire enemy team and then the rest of my team.
Match 2 - lost. finished 2nd on my team and 7th overall. had a leaver in the second half of the match. didn't notice when exactly. was close for the first half of the match, but my team played off base and the other team had a permastealth OP TR, at least OP compared to everyone else playing this match. Played a great strategy, my team kept trying to gang up and kill him, giving the other team time to cap the other bases and then join him.
Match 3 - lost. blowout. we got 18. I'm top of my team for most of the match. Our DC dc'd after 2 rounds. Our other GWF was all blue gear (8.7k gs) and started the match by saying "I'll tank. keep me healed". And yes, even I gave up at 480 to 18 to start typing this report. Sorry to my team for the AFK, but wow, this was a totally unbalanced match. So far, for my GWF today, it went from good to really bad. Finished 2nd because I was afk, but I had the only 2 kills on my team. sad.
Match 4 - lost. not even funny. played against a good guild with my pug. Not seeing how skill level matching is working here other than to make sure I have enough losses to stay in my place lol.
Match 5 - won. led the whole way. came in 2nd on my team and 3rd overall on the leaderboard. other team could kill us fairly easily but they kept fighting off base. So we let them...
Match 6 - won. led the whole way. not even close. 1000 to 283. first on the leaderboard. definite team mismatch.
Well, at the end of day 6, I'm still not seeing overall how this is better than pre patch other than it "fixed" the leaver problem. In the blow out matches, it's become really painfully long. In the handful of "balanced" matches, it's been fun. This was the same experience as pre patch. I guess, I should say I'm thinking it might be the handful of balanced matches may be occurring a little more often than pre patch. Don't know if that's because there are far fewer matches with leavers and so everyone is actually playing matches they previously thought was a waste of time. Or, if it's because the skill level system is actually working and getting more balanced matches to occur. Only time will tell.
So, I'm going to keep track for at least another week. I should have my new T2 tenacity gear by then as well.
This is all based on pug matches btw. Very happy generally, gfs and gwfs are a lot squishier than they were.
Tired of Dailies/Tyranny of Dailies/Timers of Doom/Tricked Or Duped/Tremendously Obnoxious Dailies/Try Otherwise, Devs
Queue time was quick
Match 2 - Won. evenly matched in scoring for first 1/2 of the match. then we pulled away. Didn't check all the players gear, but most of them were purple gear. One without armor enchant slotted. My opinion is that persistent backcapping by me broke the other teams desire to win, but probably more like a player dc'd on their team. 5v5 the whole time but it felt like we were only fighting 3 or 4 for the second half of the match.
Queue time was long compared to first match
Match 3 - Won. Wasn't close from the beginning. Other team never got out of double digits in scoring. My team was all purple gear with one player without armor enchant slotted. Can only imagine the other team being completely undergeared.
Lol I like this progression from loss to win to blow out win, but let's see how this pattern holds up.