Rift battle general discussion

[Luke]

post whatever about rift battles

 

[Luke]

Ima start with
I want the option to search again if there is no suitable opponents at this moment. I’m not saying we choose whether to fight the opponent after its choosen. But maybe this way we can avoid being paired with opponents who are far stronger/weaker

Edited for typos

 

[infine]

Matchmaking

So far I did 7 battles total, out of them about 3 were more or less evenly matched, about the same amount of weaker opponents and one stronger opponent.
So far it feels like even 2 tier difference is pretty significant and makes boss node near impossible for the weaker party.

Nodes

There are 3(2) important nodes. The rest are just fillers. Single-fighter nodes are a joke. So far the "hardest" single-fighter node I had was 19K FS Diamond SK on immunity node. She was sekhmeted to death with a 6.5K FS Diva. It was a waste of a diamond SK honestly. I suppose something like diamond AF would fare better, but she would fare even better on the boss node. Single and double node main danger is treating them lightly and throwing your worst carries at them. Once I lost an immune node throwing a half-upgraded No Egrets on it against an opponent twice her FS. Forgetting there's the whole immunity thing.

Reactive stun node is so-so. There aren't many fighters that can make you slip into attacking a block. Probably Ms.Fortune (unexpected recovery and generally an epileptic moveset) and Squiggly (far reaching ground combo enders that push you out of range for fast punishing) are the most prominent. Without the modifier it's just your normal moderate PF streak.

Armour node is relatively hard depending on the defender setup. Normally it's weak to Rusty and BHD, but Bloodbath, SG and DoW can make it really annoying. I think I had someone put Bio on it, but IMHO it was a total waste. I also tried Purrfect Dark on offense, but tag in is hard. Honestly if I had 2 decent SGs, on attack I'd use Rusty with SG support here and one SG on Boss node.

Boss node is stupid. Eventually I decided to forgo elemental advantage and meter control shenanigans and went with pure damage and Val support. Dark and Light characters are currently completely immune to almost anything (reports are that Doom from Xeno works). Bloodbath takes reflected bleeds as bleeds, not heal. My lord and saviour is Poltergust with SG support because she feeds on buffs, lands 75K nukes with rage and can lock down enemies with long combos and daisy pusher. Apart from an impossibly high FS team the biggest problem for me so far was AF with SG support. Rusty hurts herself with reflected bleed, Doublicious is too squishy, SK is at elemental disadvantage against a walking brick. Poltergust was still the best choice with AF reactive buffs feeding Rage. I believe a BB3-equipped Bio would be the strongest defender on the boss node. Diamond Buzzkill is also bad news, especially with tainted blood. She does ridiculous chip damage (i took 20K chip damage with pinion dash) and due to the modifier has enough HP to reflect you to death.

General Quality Of Life

There's no interaction with the opponent. You can't talk to them, can't view their profile, you don't know their offensive performance against your nodes and thus don't have feedback for tuning your defense team. There should be a way to communicate with the opponent and a way to get feedback.

Battle duration is questionable too. Or, rather, the fact that it can only end with timeout. I believe that both sides should have other ending conditions - either clearing the whole rift or deciding to give up. And the rift should close when both sides reached an ending condition. Or we should have multirack drifting. The problem is "dedicated gaming hours". You need at least 2,5 of them to fill your daily drifting quota.

Also there's the bonus combo points. Parasoul, Beo and Bella are crying in the corner, especially on single and double nodes, where you can't even build enough meter for BB3 before everyone dies.

 

[TonyPartridge30]

I'd like to see incentive for playing even if you're matched against a vastly stronger opponent. Maybe a small award of Rift Coins for every node you complete for the first time. Or something along those lines. I don't know what would be fairest; I just know that right now, once you see the disparity between you and your opponent, there is no reason to even try if you're opponent is too strong.

I'd also like to see Gold tier rank rewards include small bundles of Diamond shards, and Silver tier rewards include small bundles of Gold shards, and Bronze rewards include small bundles of Silver shards. As it stands, the top players are only going to stay in the top, get Diamonds faster, upgrade them faster, and become even harder opponents. I'd like the rewards do a bit more to help everyone else get some noticeable progress towards that sort of strength, too.

 

[fanghoul]

Match Ups

I've done 6 Rift battles so far, and only one was really competitive, and even that one I won by almost 9,000 points. I thought maybe another one might have been competitive, but the person gave up right away.

Definitely, if matching is going to be this bad, there really needs to be some sort of compensation to people for trying, because at the moment I really don't see how we get lower tier players to keep playing in this mode. I mean, I think that giving people tokens or xp or something for trying would be a good choice anyway, but especially if things are going to be lopsided this often.


How it changes things

Overall I've found it an interesting change up, because there's a lot more planning that needs to happen now for each fight, and having a diverse roster is suddenly a huge boon. I love that my Diamond Silent Kill is suddenly a star, and I feel like there's going to be more characters that now have a niche like that. I've been putting off evolving someone of the light element to diamond for over a month now because I didn't really have a huge use for any of them in Prize Fights, but now maybe I should do it to Doublicious to help counter some of the buffs and debuffs, or Diva Intervention because her drains and everything all work without debuff mechanics, which is now vital in sometimes.

I have to disagree with infine about the 1v1 nodes, which are really where I've had the most flubs so far. There's a weird fine line to walk where you need enough offense to win, but you don't want to use one of your characters that will just cruise to win, because you may need them elsewhere. Also, forgetting that one gives immunity is a real problem. But it's interesting to have to do more planning around who to use when, and who to hold in reserve in case something goes badly.

It's funny, I don't know if this actually has made defense characters really very valuable yet. I've gone up against a couple people now with a much better defense in places than I had, but still trounced them because I had enough offensive characters to actually clear all their nodes easily, while they didn't. I don't know if I've actually used all 5 of my diamonds in a battle yet. I mostly hold a couple in reserve in case something goes wrong in one of the harder battles. Also because my diamond Parasite Weave would absolutely murder herself in the boss node most times.


Overall

This mode is also fairly stressful for me, because except for the most blatant signs of "Oh, they didn't beat my boss node" there's really no way to know how it's going. And you have to wait 2 hours to find out.

I don't know. I have mixed feelings about Rift Battles, but it seems like a good addition. I just kinda wish it wasn't quite mandatory to play every single day. One of the things I've liked about this game is that I can take a week off if I get busy. I might miss out on some stuff, but I don't *need* that stuff. Now if I take time off, I could lose my Diamond 4 rank, and not have ready access to diamond keys any more. Rank points feel like they're quite hard to accumulate.


Edit: Took a page from infine and broke up my wall of text some.
Edit 2: Started another lopsided Rift Battle, and may have accidentally tricked the person into trying by completely ignoring it for over half an hour
Edit 3: And I still lost it by being a dope

 

[evilgordo]

Just finished the Rift Battle survey.
Hope it helps fine-tune the Rift Battle experience.

I just kinda wish it wasn't quite mandatory to play every single day. One of the things I've liked about this game is that I can take a week off if I get busy. I might miss out on some stuff, but I don't *need* that stuff. Now if I take time off, I could lose my Diamond 4 rank, and not have ready access to diamond keys any more. Rank points feel like they're quite hard to accumulate.

Yeah, the decay to rating due to inactivity is just an obvious ploy to force users to play it, even if they don't like it (or are not prepared for it after their initial experience). Win/loss is enough to impact rating. That's how ratings work. If I 'sit' on my rating and not play. Nothing happens. If I don't play 7 battles, I don't even get rewards. If I enter Rift battles just to lose and meet the requirements to get rewards, I lose rating anyway. Eventually, I'll have to play (to win) to increase my rating otherwise I get less rewards as more players gain rating.

I don't know how initial ratings/rankings were determined, but I feel way out of my league as a Silver 1 (partially due to poor matchmaking) and would like to revisit Rift Battles after the new year since Rift Battles already impacts my PF/Dailies progress not to mention the 8-day PF coming up. I'd like to acquire and train up fighters without having the mandatory Rift Battles to 'preserve' my rating competing for my time. (At the very least, Devs should have stated "Don't Initiate/Start Rift Battles unless you are ready to commit to them", if so, I would have waited.)

 

[infine]

Sooo. I just burned 300 theo on recharges while fighting 2 ranks up (G2 vs D4).

And I think it's not worth it.

I mean the results aren't here yet, but it's obvious the opponent would win. It was obvious when I still wasn't throwing theo around since he was doing a clean run. But I decided to clear the map just for the challenge (which I eventually did). And I don't think it was a good idea or an experience I would like to repeat.

I don't think I'll be doing uphill battles like this anymore since the outcome is pre-determined, and theo waste is not rewarded in any way. I think it would be sensible to make characters not burn out at least on the triple nodes if you are fighting uphill. There's almost zero chance that you'd win anyway, but at least that way it would not feel actively harmful trying to clear the enemy map.

EDIT:

There's a weird fine line to walk where you need enough offense to win, but you don't want to use one of your characters that will just cruise to win, because you may need them elsewhere

Yeah, I know that feel, it's the same for me. It's like not using powerful items in a game because you might need them later and ending up watching the final credits with an inventory full of unused doomsday devices.

That being said, it's a psychological problem, not an actual objective challenge. Objectively speaking single fighter nodes have less HP to grind through so you don't have to worry about timeouts (and can use "safe" characters that might otherwise timeout. Like various Elizas). They also don't do tag outs so you are more or less in control of the fight. They also don't have support. Generally speaking with single fighter nodes you know how the fight is going to progress, and your only problem is miscalculating the numbers (particularly meter gain and time to BB3) due to a lack of experience. Or slip ups.

EDIT 2:

Results are in, and it was a magnificently sensless loss with no consolation prize for trying to headbutt a brick wall. Nope. Never again.

 

[evilgordo]

Sooo. I just burned 300 theo on recharges while fighting 2 ranks up (G2 vs D4).

And I think it's not worth it.

I mean the results aren't here yet, but it's obvious the opponent would win. It was obvious when I still wasn't throwing theo around since he was doing a clean run. But I decided to clear the map just for the challenge (which I eventually did). And I don't think it was a good idea or an experience I would like to repeat.

I don't think I'll be doing uphill battles like this anymore since the outcome is pre-determined, and theo waste is not rewarded in any way. I think it would be sensible to make characters not burn out at least on the triple nodes if you are fighting uphill. There's almost zero chance that you'd win anyway, but at least that way it would not feel actively harmful trying to clear the enemy map.

I've been tempted to refresh during a RBattle, like you said, just doing the basic math any loss is a huge set back, and spending Theo does not guarantee a return on investment.

Refreshing/drained fighter mechanic was on the Survey. 1 use of fighters sounds good, but players (especially new & casual) are used to getting 2-3 fights out of a 'strong' card and don't necessarily have more than their 'go-to' team of 3-4 trained-up fighters. Obviously 'end game' players have a larger/stronger stable of cards.

Rift Battles is just a Daily map with player generated PF defense nodes with none of immediate rewards. 7 battles over 7 days is a long time to wait for rewards (and IMHO the rewards below Diamond Tier certainly are not worth the time/effort).

 

[infine]

I've been tempted to refresh during a RBattle, like you said, just doing the basic math any loss is a huge set back, and spending Theo does not guarantee a return on investment.

Refreshing/drained fighter mechanic was on the Survey. 1 use of fighters sounds good, but players (especially new & casual) are used to getting 2-3 fights out of a 'strong' card and don't necessarily have more than their 'go-to' team of 3-4 trained-up fighters. Obviously 'end game' players have a larger/stronger stable of cards.

Well, refreshing is a meaningful thing when, say, doing an even matchup, slipping on a boss node and seeing the enemy having failed attempts too. I used it once to a pretty good effect. It's useless as a way to compensate for the lack of a good roster or rank difference though.

Overall I don't really have a problem with refreshing here. I do have a problem with zero incentive to tryhard on difficult matchups, since you don't get (more like do lose) points for tryharding and lose time, effort and theo in the process for pretty much guaranteed zero gain.

(and IMHO the rewards below Diamond Tier certainly are not worth the time/effort).

Nah, they still award drift coins, and drift coins are the only sensible way to get diamond keys. And you'll need diamond keys since you are eventually going to get natural diamonds just by playing normally. In fact you'll most likely be getting natural diamonds at a faster rate than diamond keys required to max them.

 

[fanghoul]

Rift Battles is just a Daily map with player generated PF defense nodes with none of immediate rewards. 7 battles over 7 days is a long time to wait for rewards (and IMHO the rewards below Diamond Tier certainly are not worth the time/effort).

Rift Battles are a Daily map with player generated PF defense nodes with none of the immediate rewards, AND you don't know whether you're even doing well or not till an hour after most of the fights are done.

There's things I like about Rift Battles, but it's also a bit of a frustrating mess.

 

[evilgordo]

Well, refreshing is a meaningful thing when, say, doing an even matchup, slipping on a boss node and seeing the enemy having failed attempts too. I used it once to a pretty good effect. It's useless as a way to compensate for the lack of a good roster or rank difference though.

Overall I don't really have a problem with refreshing here. I do have a problem with zero incentive to tryhard on difficult matchups, since you don't get (more like do lose) points for tryharding and lose time, effort and theo in the process for pretty much guaranteed zero gain.

Refreshing has always been situational if doing so is in your best interest. And I'm agreeing that there is no incentive/reward for soldiering on w/refreshes through a RB map like there is for an Expert Daily map. We're seeing that now. Players are doing the math either from an overall score perspective or from Fight Score comparison and just stop trying/playing. Hell, gaining XP would be enough to tryhard and win on difficult nodes worth it. I might lose the battle, but at least my fighters gained some XP for the next one.

Nah, they still award drift coins, and drift coins are the only sensible way to get diamond keys. And you'll need diamond keys since you are eventually going to get natural diamonds just by playing normally. In fact you'll most likely be getting natural diamonds at a faster rate than diamond keys required to max them.

Yes, obviously, Rift Coins are the only value at any tier below Diamond. Everything else you can earn outside of rift, some items, faster than 7 battles over 7 days. Again, IMHO, not worth it. I'm sure I'll get to the level someday where RiftBattle is worth my time/effort, it's just not this week.

 

[fanghoul]

Oh boy! I discovered a bug! The map and pre-battle screen are telling me I'm going to fight two completely different groups! How the heck am I supposed to plan what team to bring to this mess?

 

[evilgordo]

Oh boy! I discovered a bug! The map and pre-battle screen are telling me I'm going to fight two completely different groups! How the heck am I supposed to plan what team to bring to this mess?

Yeah, it's been reported in the bug thread.

I was able to fight the correct team eventually, by toggling between "My Base" and Battle maps several times (though, it doesn't always work and the number of times to 'fix it' is in consistent.)

 

[fanghoul]

Yeah, it's been reported in the bug thread.

I was able to fight the correct team eventually, by toggling between "My Base" and Battle maps several times (though, it doesn't always work and the number of times to 'fix it' is in consistent.)

Thanks for the tip. Added my data point to a thread on the bug.

Arg, I'm so annoyed

 

[FriendlyWolf]

Anyone know the milestones ratings when you get a rank up? I've gotten to 1971 and I'm still gold 1. A few fighters I've faced a few diamond 4 fighters and they were lower rating than me. (I'm guessing I have to get 2000 for diamond 4?)
As for the battles, I usually depend on the strong defense teams to stop my opponents due to my limited offense characters. The battles gets difficult very quick, I didn't think ICU would be good on valentine until fighting a diamond SK valentine with icu and lost against it. (Thankfully I'll be able to diamond my wulfsbane soon, then again, I have to start putting effort into all my diamonds if I wanna get far)

 

[fanghoul]

Anyone know the milestones ratings when you get a rank up? I've gotten to 1971 and I'm still gold 1. A few fighters I've faced a few diamond 4 fighters and they were lower rating than me. (I'm guessing I have to get 2000 for diamond 4?)

I'm at 1975 right now and Diamond 4. I don't know when it updates. I have a feeling it'll be at the end of the event, unless I've been really skating right on the edge of dropping to Gold 1.

 

[FriendlyWolf]

I have a feeling it'll be at the end of the event, unless I've been really skating right on the edge of dropping to Gold 1.

Oh, that makes sense. Though it would be nice to see where my standing is, I'll hope for the best!

 

[Veeko]

So far this mode is pretty hokey at times, but I think it really has a lot of potential. Once the matchmaking has been honed, and once things like non-debuffable Resonant Evils on boss nodes have been toned down a bit, I think Rifts will be pretty great. I think the unique modifiers give more niche fighters a chance to shine, and it’s a good way to both fight each other more directly and earn more “specialized” rewards than what can be bought with coins.
Aside from the matchmaking and that Sacrosanct modifier (I’m aware it’s not permanent) I guess my only complaint is the lack of experience, which is another thing I’ve seen a lot of people say. It seems a little unfair that we can only use each fighter once without spending Theonite, and then they don’t even get any experience from it whatsoever- especially for people who have a pretty small selection of leveled fighters they feel confident using.
I think there should also be a notification once you’ve been matched against someone- either an exclamation point where Rift Battles are like how you get notified for someone fighting your PF defense team, or a direct phone notification saying you’ve found an opponent, or that no opponent was found and your ticket wasn’t spent.

 

[Luke]

Anyone know the milestones ratings when you get a rank up? I've gotten to 1971 and I'm still gold 1. A few fighters I've faced a few diamond 4 fighters and they were lower rating than me. (I'm guessing I have to get 2000 for diamond 4?)
As for the battles, I usually depend on the strong defense teams to stop my opponents due to my limited offense characters. The battles gets difficult very quick, I didn't think ICU would be good on valentine until fighting a diamond SK valentine with icu and lost against it. (Thankfully I'll be able to diamond my wulfsbane soon, then again, I have to start putting effort into all my diamonds if I wanna get far)

I think the rift raising (the number) and the rift rank (gold/silver/diamond) are two things. I think the initial rift rating is based on your rank and your rank is based on your collection, but the railing will change as you win/loss/not play and rank will change as you have stronger fighters.
I’d like to know more about how we are ranked and how the rift raising is generated according to the rank.

 

[Luke]

The consensus is the lack of reward for challenging an opponent stronger than me when I will lose for sure because I had more attempts than my opponent. Sure I get a challenging fight and feel good after the win, but what about my theonites I spend for refreshing my top three fighters? Yes we do get rift coins. For me 15 on a loss, 51-57 on a win. Then why do I want to spend theonites on refreshing when I can not play AND still get that 15 rift coins?

Maybe this problem is here because the match making needs some fine tuning. I just don’t know. I’m feeling a little down after the few days of rift battle.