Yeah, PVP competition is a joke. Looks to be more about how well you can buff yourself through bonuses and such to protect yourself from your team's horrible AI than actual competition when you play. It is nice to have something to do with all that extra gear though. I'm almost 5,000 on both my bonus slots :-D
If someone hasn't started PVP yet and entered the Silver league, they're not a valid target yet for you to fight. Which means there are very few "real" people to fight at this point, and a number of "CPU placeholder" teams - or else the first few players would NEVER have been able to get in battles. I'm a bit worried about the inability to 'switch out' old gear in the armory at this point. This first season is guaranteed to be a train wreck, so you'll probably be stuck with whatever you throw in there. I invested in a few Team Stamina Boost Pack IIIs just so I'd have something in there (+98 ATK / +197 DEF), seems to be okay for being an okay item at low levels without breaking the bank or using lots of SP. And at the moment, winning or losing doesn't seem to affect your ranking, so until that gets squared away there's not much point in battling beyond the daily bonus. (If you "lose" energy because you can't find an opponent, just close the app and reopen. It comes back.)
You're doing something wrong then. I've seen people as high as 1,000 rank. I'm at 850 rank or so myself. Also I've seen some people with some vicious setups in the 70-80s range. All I can say is you need stealth attack and/or area attack. Any kind of extra attack capability is also going to be good. Your heroes also better be leveled up. There's a good variety of strong/annoying hero types. However the most annoying is black widow with her tactician costume. Read up on it and be sure you know how you'll counter it before you try pvp.
If going 12-0 so far is doing something wrong, I'd hate to be doing it right. But yeah, everyone I've encountered in battle has a ranking of above 800, and the ladder shows plenty of people higher. You're the first player I've actually seen on-line who's said their ranking has been increasing, though, whereas I've seen several others complaining how they're stuck at 800 like myself. Just one more bug in a somewhat buggie game. And it can't even SCREW UP in a way that's consistent for everyone.
I end up seeing records like this when I go into PvP. There's a few people who are able to access it properly it seems. Also bleeding is very OP in PvP since it procs off of any aggressive moves.
PVP ranks are all kinds of weird. I have one every match I've played and lost two the AI played for me and I somehow bounced down to the silver leak and the bottom 50%. Logged in just now and I'm in the top 1%. I think the thing is just broken for now.
No real surprise there. I think anyone who was paying attention knew that the first PvP would be a screw-up of colossal proportions. Reading back on prior history, the Facebook version wasn't much better. And unless they had the foresight to make the 2.1 patch include various ways they could update PvP WITHOUT requiring a future iOS patch, it could take hours or days for them to respond to any fatal flaws. Whereas on Facebook they could pretty much update and correct mistakes on-the-fly so most people would never see them. [Edit] For the moment, it looks like the issue has resolved itself for most people (myself included) as of this afternoon. Still have 34 Wins that I'll never get credited for, and I half-expect some NEW glitch to rear its head before the day's out.
Sad confession time. Since I downloaded the game on iOS (I played over a year on Facebook), I've spent more time downloading and trying out Tapjoy apps for the free gold than I have spent time playing this game. That may be a symptom of a deeper issue...
the fact each game is only 1 gold does take up allot of time. First I will get All characters then will get my self a niiice suit
Here's a glitch for you... I spent all night playing and moving up the ranks. At some point my game crashed at the beginning of a fight and it counted as a loss for me. Not surprised by that even though it sucks. Especially, since it's my only loss in 47 straight matches... What really sucks is I was on my way to break 1200 and then I got a weird 26 point game and then my points went back down instead of up. I don't get it. I should be ranked up in the top 50 somewhere but instead I'm like 300.
From a coding standpoint, it's more likely that your battle reports isn't picking up all your losses and placing it on the screen than it tallying stuff incorrectly.
That would make sense. Except I've never lost... 48 games now and I've never lost. That's why it's frustrating.
Nobody's said it yet, so I will: Five fights in and I'm already over PVP. Clearly the only winning strategy, just like the FB version, is "Buy $$$ worth of gold and spend on premiums and level-ups". I'm no purist -- I've spent maybe $30 on gold myself since the ios launch to hurry up and get the chracters I loved the most on the FB version. Also, I'm not being bitter over losses -- I broke even, even with the competitive balance being so ridiculously skewed towards premium spenders. To me, it defeats the purpose of the game. The strategy should lie in team-building and judicious use of items collected or "legitimately" bought during campaign. I'll spell out my point: I was four or five PVP matches in BEFORE I saw a non-90CP premium character. Each of which, to a character, had additional gold spent on a premium outfit. Not to mention the OG (Over Gold, not Original Gangsta - different movies) array equipped on each opponent's Agent. And I'm certain this was Playdom's goal. If you guys are cool with that, enjoy your Adamatium League bonuses. Personally, I play with the intention of outPLAYING my opponent, not having to outSPEND them. I'll stick to campaign and earn my way.
It's a freemium title with competition. You can't expect it not to have the option for players to buy currency to improve their characters. However that's not to say that you can't win without spending any money to play in PvP. There are a lot of ways to improve your character just through the campaign. The real key to playing the PvP is more in knowing what to aim for. Like knowing which characters you want to pick, which equipment will help you overall with your specific characters. How they mesh together in combat. Also knowing which items you will want or need. I haven't spent any money on this game and I still feel that I'm playing competatively. I have wasted a lot of resources earlier on in leveling random heroes that I doubt I would ever use now. I didn't know about a specific weapon that I find OP until I saw it on a high ranker in PvP and had to spend time after it started to get it for my agent. What mostly skews the player base in my mind is that people were able to exploit a higher drop rate from one of the bosses before playdom decided to tone it down resulting in some players having a large hero collection. Also even if you don't like pvp. There's still a bonus roulette that you can get every day for playing five pvp battles. So it's still worth it to play. I think I got the 50 CP reward yesterday from it or the daily spin.
This isn't completely true. I am 62 matches into the tournament and I have yet to lose. I haven't spent a single penny on gold. I've saved up gold through Tapjoy, which is free for everyone. I've purchased premium heroes and costumes, farmed for epic loot, researched online for best gadgets, purchased extra heroes for the pvp bonus, added items to bonus pvp slots, etc, etc... These are all things anyone can do that doesn't require real money. Just spend a little time. I've never played the FB version before this. In fact I had never heard of the game until it came to ios. If I can figure out how to own people in pvp it shouldn't be that hard to figure out for FB veterans.
I think you have to win to get the bonus roulette. My memory is bad, but I think that's how it was in the Facebook version as well (I quit playing that one about three months ago). So far, I am awful at PvP (just started the iOS version) and can't win against the OP opponents. To be fair, I've Tapjoy-ed my way to all but 6 of the characters, and I am spreading my SHIELD points way too thin. I could have a level 8 Iron Man right now if it wasn't for my army of level 2 characters.
The main winning strategy, really, is to learn from history. Specifically, the Facebook version - what was effective in that? What didn't work in that? What rules are different in this version, and how do you best work around those changes or limitations? A player who "hides" at a lower agent level, getting their daily Shield Points and leveling up their characters through Remote Operation flights will be more effective than someone who power-levelled their Agent. This is no different than it was over a year ago. A player who consistently acquired and used their 62 SP available each day will be stronger than a player who didn't. Proper resource management was key since day one. A player who has a large number of low-CP characters to boost their stats will be more effective than one who only bought all the 90 CP ones (depending on which two they're actually fighting with, of course). A player who actively used Tapjoy from the very beginning could have earned enough Gold for at least 500 CP of Characters and Costumes by now, without spending a dime. A player who also used that Tapjoy gold to get eight remote operation jets ASAP could have earned at least a couple million silver by now, giving them plenty of resources to train their characters, even to Level 11 or 12. A player who fills up their armory with the most cost-effective items for their level will be stronger than one who throws in whatever leftover garbage they have in their inventory (or worse, ignores the armory altogether). A player who kept up on bug reports would know which characters would be the best choice to have in their team and which ones to avoid due to defective skills or buffs from the Facebook version that they haven't grown into yet. A player who understands the CPU is as dumb as a brick would know to pick characters that are still effective in defense despite those limitations. Someone like Storm requires more "finesse" than the computer can handle, and is a liability on your team unless you're in direct control. Whereas it's hard for even the CPU to screw up Tactician WWII Captain America's effectiveness vs opposing Blasters. ... you get the idea. At the end of the day, of course you can be stronger if you spend more money to get more gold. But if you combine knowledge with the free resources that were available and planned ahead for PvP since day one, the difference in power between you and the Dollar Warriors would be minimal. The only real "unfair" part of the game right now is the players who were able to play since March. Anyone who played defensively during that time, stopping around Level 30-35 and just gathered SP and Silver for three months, would be pretty much unassailable, especially if they got things like the Magnetic Field Generator along the way.
Fair counterpoints to my weak testimony, all, and I shall apply some of your advice and insight. Suppose I could have sufficed it to say "I'm feeling disappointed that I'm learning this game will require a bit more commitment than I think I'll have the time or wherewithal to do." I'll get there, and my pace will be glacial. But I will get there!
