Fights We need to be able to preview rift opponents

[Blooicus]

I've been grinding rift battles nonstop lately and I recently ran into the most obnoxious player possible, the problem was it didn't seem out of the ordinary from the boss node because it was a level 65 account thought. Instead of normal set of rift battles I was put through an endurance test by some random whale who decided he wouldn't level his account up but he'd spend thousands of dollars to have every defensive diamond fighter in the game maxed out with level 15 moves all refilled to have the exact same stats so that they all had endless amounts of health at their disposal, and take make it all worse every single node had maxed out gold catalyst. Why is it still possible for matches like this to show up on a rookie set of players? It just doesn't make sense that someone would have to randomly run into this because whales are allowed to do whatever they want in this game.

 

[Lunix Vandal]

* Level 65 account
* Rated Diamond 3, i.e. placed in the Top 400 worldwide in last week's season
* Boss node is 3 top-tier defenders, all Diamond-ranked with their Marquee and Prestige abilities unlocked
* "didn't seem out of the ordinary"

One of these things is not like the others ...

You can see (some of) your opponent's fighters before starting a Rift Battle -- tap the Profile button under the boss node preview to pull up a gallery of the defender's highest-scoring variant of each character. From there you can tap each of the highlighted fighters to pull up the same info box as in your first two screenshots to see what kind of mess you might be getting yourself into. Sure, this player is a whale, but barring some truly ridiculous spending, the Assassin's Greed, Plot Twisted, Dream Band, Model Leader, and Unholy Host should have all been visible (and depending on what else they have, the Biting Cold, Rose Tinted, Vaporwave Vixen, and Dread Locks might have been).

The "Rookie" placards on your other two opponents only indicates that those players did not participate in the previous week's Rift season. It has nothing to do with their actual strength, and does not update "live" as players gain or lose rating mid-season. Matchmaking is based solely on the players' current rating. Both other players were also in the mid-1400s, meaning they both finished the season in Diamond or high Gold 1. Additionally, the upper player has the Aeon avatar, indicating if nothing else that they were able to clear No Mercy Parallel Realms, which is flooded with max-level top-tier fighters that have up to 17 times their "normal" stats.

(If you haven't seen it yet, 100k is a low Fighter Score in the final area boss of NMPR. That's not per node. Per fighter.)