PvP Drafting - Sneak Peek

News & Announcements
61

There have been a lot of great of input so far of the potential opportunities and pitfalls for PVP draft. I agree to most of the comments above. What I really do like is the idea of a PvP brawl tournament as described, would be fun to compete with basically the same tools available for all, a true strategic and skilled tournament.

I would also like to point out the fact that HotHead is thinking out of the box to help solve some of the issues many of us have talked about for months regarding PvP. This might not end up as the solution but asking the community for input early on in development, way before its too late just as a big change is about to be pushed out, will surely help them take decisions and directions accordingly!

A big thank you to the devs for doing it this way!

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62

I don’t see this changing anything. The meta for draft will simply be to put forward the three heroes that tell your opponent virtually nothing about your comp (Nightingale + Caine + Heimlock is a good example).

Unfortunately this game doesn’t offer enough “counters” for drafting to even make sense. Lots of healing has been the metagame for a while (yes, even during Panzer’s reign of terror in July) and yet the only two heal-blockers barely see any play because neither is strong enough. The Devs justify a draft by saying that blind matchmaking forces us to use a bland “can handle anything” team, but they’re missing the point that a “beats everything” team should never exist in the first place.

I still see plenty of diversity on my enemy’s teams. Yet even when I’m running 0 energy heroes and hit an all-bio team, I still win easily because Panzer can chew through bio faster than they can kill her.

Adding bans would have at least made things MUCH more interesting and you’d see a 10x increase in the strategic thought required. 1 ban each before the 1st pick, 1 ban each before the 2nd pick - suddenly you have to be awake during the draft and use your brain. Instead this system has the same flaw as the current one, you pick the same 3 heroes every game that form your “core” - your opponent does the same - then you go to pick the 2 other heroes you always do because there isn’t any “counter-pick” available for something like Heimlock + Caine + Nightingale.

The real solution is bringing balance to the DPS scene and making it so that AI DPS are as effective as AI healers. In balancing the DPS scene you could give buffs to the dozens of useless DPS heroes that would increase their depth and open up the possibility of actual counter-picks. Then when we have that, it might be fun to have a Draft mode, but until that happens it’s going to be a lot of work that solves none of PVP’s underlying problems.

63

Hi,

I just wanted to drop by and say thank you to everyone for taking the time to post your thoughts here. We are very well aware of the concerns that have brought up and have taken them/will continue to take them into consideration.

Do note that the Brawl is just that for now-- a Brawl. It is a way for us to test some of our ideas out and involve the community. It’s not and won’t be the final implementation of anything, so don’t panic if it does not live up to expectations – please give us your thoughts and feedback after trying it out instead.

More details will be revealed closer to the Brawl!

-Elu

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64

@miclowgunman
I understand what you’re saying here, but a lot of people, myself included, see it differently. To answer your question regarding how long has it been since we played a pvp match just for fun; my answer: Not since pvp was actually fun. PVP wasn’t a grind until the last major health/healing change and the move toward rez/heal/shield. It used to be fun. I liked the 30 second fights and apparently I’m not in the minority. They were more visceral. People burned through their primary teams and eventually got to their scrubs, which was even more fun. I haven’t finished my whole pvp lineup in over a month, because it’s a beatdown. It became a grind because HHG made it unfun. Please give credit where credit is due. We all look forward to enjoying a fun pvp match again. I sincerely applaud your efforts to wave the pom pons; the world needs more people like you. I also hope you’re right about this “fix”, because there’s lots of us here about to wave the white flag.

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65

Here is a wild idea for PvP. How bout you revert back to pvp before the last update. Healing and revive are a joke and your just making a tedious PvP even worse. The healing and revive are out of control and all you need to win if panzer, dogface, ifrit, hemlock and nightingale. If you have those 5 you’ll win about 90% of PvP, if you don’t have them, you will win about 15%. It’s a complete mess and not worth the time for the few prizes you get

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66

If you have those 5 you’ll win about 90% of PvP, if you don’t have them, you will win about 15%

90% + 15% = :thinking: :thinking: :thinking:

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67

It was supposed to be a joke but I guess it’s lost on some people

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Sing I applauded what they’re doing in response to the PvP issues-it’s something.
I also applaud you for elaborating on the predicative narrative you invoked due to the reality of what this could mean . Amazing post you did.

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69

I’m not sure why everyone is dancing around the real issue, which is a few OP heroes ruining the game.

Min/maxing? It’s only possible because of a handful of super powerful heroes. Almost every min/maxer team uses Panzer and/or Dogface as DPS. Doesn’t that tell you something? When I see a team of all 4-7* silver/golds and a 10* Matador they get absolutely trashed with a “normal” team. I never have issues with min/max teams using other DPS like Maven, Clyde, Hecklar, etc. The couple of super powerful healers/support (Heimlock, Mandrake, Caine, Nightingale, Ifrit/Flatlin) just add to the problem.

I know no one wants to nerf heroes and would rather buff all the others, but if it’s done carefully it would just make the game better as a whole. Give Panzer 14 shots in her shotgun. Maybe reduce the damage on Breach and Clear slightly. Tighten up her shotgun spread to help compensate. Suddenly she is still a great burst DPS, but can’t be run at 10* silver and decimate 3 heroes within 15 seconds when you min/max with her. She also can’t be the ONLY DPS in the current Ifrit/Flatline meta.

Next look at Dogface. Instead of allowing him to do insane burst when his silver and bronze pop, maybe lower the damage on them, or further reduce his clip size to 16. Again, this will keep him from being used in min/maxing teams where his 2 skills pop and he kills half a team of weaker opponents. To compensate slightly reduce the shields on Caine, Showtime on Ifrit, and maybe the healing on Heimlock and Nightingale.

Also buff all the crappy DPS in the game. Give Maven some sort of burst, and increase her health. If not make Vampirice Cloud do something else like have a chance to stun a few if it gets a tick off. As is it’s too easy to dodge Vampirice Cloud and Hallucinate and Maven has no burst damage. Miasma is random and her health is low making her a poor DPS choice in PVP. The same with Clyde, his hp means he dies nearly instantly and his skills are too luck reliant. Most of the DPS just need hp boosts and a little better burst damage and they would be great.

Of course on top of stopping the min/max problem, this would also solve the current heal meta. If Panzer and Dog are weaker they don’t kill energy heroes as fast. Combined with more hp, heroes like Heckler or Sapphyr could actually stay alive long enough to have a chance to kill Mandrake and Ifrit. You could run 2-3 DPS teams and they would have a chance to kill all healing teams +Panzer.

Then just add in the changes already mentioned (no more skill points increasing power, PVP giving xp, etc.) and voila, PVP is fixed!

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70

@Deathleech
Great post and very accurate. I also agree with you assertions about Maven. I’d just like to expand your point to include all grenadiers and bombers. Your odds of hitting with any thrown or lobbed shot is almost nil. The AI dodges every time. That severely impacts the dps of characters like Maven, Oracle, Ghoul, Pris, Operator, Yanlong, Chesterfield, Beck and Oro.(Probably missed a couple). Cutting back on the dodge rate relative to thrown/lobbed attacks would instantly improve the viability of these heroes for pvp use.

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71

Would you consider Hardscope to be a “super powerful hero”? Because every time I found a 10* star plat Hardscope surrounded with 4 lower supports, it ended in my heroes being unable to kill anything due to his drone, and he two-shotting my heroes.

And I personally don’t think Hardscope is OP.

Is true that heroes like Matador are useless when min/maxing, but this tactic makes average heroes way better.

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No, I would not consider Hardscope super powerful, but I honestly have never faced him in a min/max comp either. I am guessing his drone wouldn’t go down to your weaker heroes? I know his drone can be a pain, even in normal matches so I am guessing that was the issue?

Of course there will be some frindge cases like that, but overall most heroes are not an issue in min/maxing.

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That’s one point of view yes, but then there is the economic point of view too

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Yeh, inmortal drone (since it heals itself, for some weird reason). If I focused heroes instead the drone would heal them a lot. Hardscope is great for min/maxing since he can cover both roles, support and damage at the same time.

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Truth is no matter what changes happen most will adapt and game will move on - biggest reality most devs of most companies know is that players will play lol.

However - wont hurt to try - imo again try in vain - to say what should be done - best ive read in this post was the ideas of restrictions:

1- dont allow more than 3 grades difference between heros meaning if u put a platinum 3 bars hero - then lowest u can use on another hero will be platinum 0 bars
2- skill abuse - force skill upgrade based on hero level could work - but someone said to eliminate the skill from adding power to a hero so an ifrit lvl 70 plat with lvl 1 skills will have same power as an ifrit lvl 70 plat with lvl 70 skills.

As for the new health - imo stop wasting your time guys - they limited our farming abilities and we moved on.

Enjoy the never ending nerfing/boosting.

WAO

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Are you talking about PvP in general of the Drafting mode? In Drafting Heroes will be normalized so there wouldn’t be grade/skill discrepancy.

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Im talking about pvp in general and how to make it harder for people to abuse current system. By the way you should look into speed hack in pvp - some players have 3x or more speed of movement / reload / shooting / skills charging … and its the same individuals so it aint a bug or a one time glitch - i have no videos though to show it

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78

I’ve seen this a couple of times as well, but can’t recall it being from the same player, might be a bug/glitch, if not this is a very serious matter to flag!

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79

Ditto on the “speed hack”. I think it’s a lag related issue, where the heroes are catching up after a slow down, not so much an exploit. I’ve definitely seen it after a rez and after mandrake’s invisibility takes effect; their speed increases to 3x to 4x.

Edit: Fought a few more fights. I’m definitely seeing the speed boost immediately after rez. Anybody else confirm what they’re seeing?

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80

I know alot has been said sorry if I’m saying the same kind of stuff.

Overall I like the idea of a pvp brawl with a draft mode. However, this approach feels like it wont help in leveling the playing field nor will it change what people use much on their teams. Most know what works for them optimally and some of the weaker guys just wont see play this way. Thier roles are too specific or fall outside of pvp use so it makes little sense to try this format.

Personally I would like a true draft system. We enter a draft and are given random guys to create a team of 5 one by one. So for instance you get:

Gammond, Richter, or Cast in round 1. You pick one, then you get the next choice. The goal is to create a team of 5 from random offers and see how long you can go with 3 hearts on each guy. Do you pick the guys with high stamina to keep more hearts? Do you go dps to kill before being killed? Do you make sure your team has all elements in place? Or do you go traditional tank/dps/healer? It all depends on what you are offered. Rewards scale depending on how long you go. All heroes are the same level for all characters and nothing is based on what you have - its a true random draft.

It would likely need some cushion to allow a flexible/fair line up. It would need to give random options based on character power levels and star power (maybe one pick is all 5 star characters with a chance of offering one of the 7 star ones). Maybe give a couple extra characters to draft from too so you can drop a couple guys when you make your 5 guys for the run.

This would allow for alternate strategies never seen and allow us to see some characters we hardly ever see. It would also keep the queuing system quick. The only time consuming part is the draft, but hopefully that will feel strategic and less tedious.

I know this is very different from what you have shown HH and I know you guys are working hard to make great stuff. I just wanted to share what I thought in case it makes sense down the line.

1 Like