Did new MM kill the game, skills and gear no longer relevant

Replaced a
boa:thunder-tulu
With a
Leo:thunder-pinata

That change somehow pushed me up a tire. Facing lot of WSP stuff now.

Oh hithere.
Since you are obviously a dev and have all the hard facts about the new MM - please enlighten us.

Only change I saw by now is more balanced teams and an occasional Gep Clubber who finally was put where he belongs = in front of my lvl10 Tridents.

People are complaining because anyone with a bronze/silver hangar gets forced losses shoved at them if they win too much. When your win rate goes up, the game gives you hangars which you can absolutely not compete against.

Some people don't understand that this affects normal genuine players too and that it's not a solution to seal clubbing but rather a shift towards a new higher level seal clubbing norm which will benefit Pixo's bottom line more than $5 seal clubbers.

To anyone saying "git gud lol", well I invite you to make a normal bronze and silver hangar and show everyone how "gud" you are when the game throws hangars 4-6 levels higher than yours at you.

We'll see if this lasts though.

It's also possible that things will be this way for a while and then eventually some sort of boundaries will develop or be forced server-side. In the long run, this system *could* make for a much more interesting, balanced, dynamic, fun game for everyone involved, with less disparity and more emphasis on skill. We may even get to a mythical Shangri-la where our team mates will understand what beacons are for. Whether or not this will be the case will be Pixonic's decision, mostly on whether to force player progression to TT or preserve some sort of non-penalised competitive game play in different weight categories.

I "think" the new mm is forcing us to upgrade our hangars.  I for one run a full 5 bot hangar at low Gold (Lvl 8 bots and 8wpns) and the change is noticeable.  The games have gotten a lot more challenging and competitive and although I have seen maxed out hangars on both sides, I've also seen 3 bot hangars with pilots that have overextended themselves.  Its almost as if the mm is trying to force each and every player to make a meaningful contribution to the match.  Just my experience.  

I started playing this game on Friday. On Saturday before the initial sale offer expired, I bought it granting me premium for 3 days and a Gepard. I reached level 20 by Monday morning. I have no clue what my hangar tier is, both with the gepard, 2 corssacks, and a Patton all sporting level 5 weapons, I can't say match making seems much different between when I started and the past night/day.

I have seen some higher level mechs such as the 4 legged beasts and the one with stealth in the past day. I have also been in a few matches where my side was wrecked but that seemed to stem more from the enemy squad working well together. Still, I have seen just as many crap opponents who were using stock for heavies and other setups that seemed against the typical vet advice given here.

So honestly, I'm not finding things unplayable nor am i beaten so often it's frustrating. I am curious to see how the week develops as I acquire better weapons but I really haven't seen any major problems or loss streaks yet.

Thanks for the lengthy and good replies people, I'll keep my hopes up.

I was in the exact situation on Android after Halloween update. Now I only play low gold.

I've tried every combination of low/high silver Ag bots every few weeks since. Still, I see same matches with 3/8 Golem/Boa hangers that I do with my 9/10 Galahad/Lancelot/Rhino hanger.

I just committed to low gold and moved on.

I've noticed this, I play droid, and I've noticed overall the stability of my high Silver/TG matches has mostly increased. I've noticed very even teams in terms of total power. Yes I see a heavy mix, which is new. Putting 1 or 2 optimized hangars with a mix of tiers filling the rest of the teams spots. But when I look at each side, Ithe looks like the MM actually put more "thought" into the teams. So while sometimes if you're a weaker player and Co tinuaously meet that optimized hangar on the field, you will get shredded. This REALLY pushes teamwork, and REALLY pushes picking your battles and using your bots specifics to their advantage more. So far in HS on droid I am loving the MM. Less lopsided battles so far, a win that's too fast is just not as fun.

Man...

On one hand, I observe and comprehend the animosity towards "clubbers", while I disagree with the practice for personal motivations/goals for play, I do not hold it against them. They have been deliberate and adaptive in their efforts to achieve that which they value, based on the previous game perimeters. From a behavioral standpoint, those same persons, will eventually adapt to the new system and causality will occur once again. Perhaps not as bad, but is the dynamic inherent to PEOPLE. Furthermore, as much as the anticlubbers want to take umbrage in their construct of fair play, the same behavioral impetus resides within them as well; as evidenced here in the forums with the glee in "come-uppance" comments.

With that being said, just remember Pix runs this game, not for your enjoyment or actualization or even to be "fair". In that last instance, exactly the opposite and the new MM is in effort towards their primary goal: revenue. I have a pretty good idea what the prospectus looked like for Mail.ru when they bought Pix. Also, If you've ever read any interviews of the current CEO, you know he's good at what he does and that is growing business and maximizing ROI.

One of the main driving dynamics of monetizing F2P games is advantaging the drive to win. With the old system, some players spent a little, got to a place where they won at a sufficient level to be comfortable, or attain actualization of effort. A player was able to sequester at a level of competition where they no longer needed to spend money to tickle the hind brain. With the new system designed ESPECIALLY to never allow this level of satisfaction to ever be attained again, most players will be driven towards micro transactions as a supplement.

In the end, Pix knows that the greatest majority of their player base (~96%) are ultimately, fundamentally irrelevant to their (Pix's) goal of montization and revenue and do not much care. They are, however, very much interested in gisting/identifying and hooking, those ~4% of players who will result in 70-80% of their earnings, and ultimately prod these whales to spend, spend, SPEND!!!!

We are moving towards the status of many free games of having to pay to play, and soon, win.

www.tnellen.com/westside/harrison.pdf

electronics.howstuffworks.com/free-to-play-games-make-money.htm

www.psychologyofgames.com/2015/08/when-the-pay-to-win-button-backfires/

www.pokerology.com/lessons/understanding-tilt/

www.slideshare.net/mobile/emily_greer/dont-call-them-whales-freetoplay-spenders-virtual-value-gdc-2015

On the surface this is exactly what it feels like, a system to make sure everyone wins so they don't feel left out which only punishes good players in the end

This is EXACTLY what I've been thinking since the X-mas event.

I've been in a few other mobile games from their very start to the evolution of a heavy whale-exploiting economy down the line. I've spent inordinate amounts in some of them. I've seen it coming more than a few times over the space of months or sometimes over a year; but ultimately these games always started out benign, f2p friendly and focused on user acquisition for a long while before eventually getting enough users hooked and then dropping the bomb.

In practice, this would look like:

There's an event with a balanced exclusive robot available for event currency/cash today. But tomorrow you'll have a Lancelot on steroids in that same event, available for event points and additionally awarded to 0.0001% of players spinning the wheel (because they know perfectly well that giving a top tier item to one out of xyz thousand players means that those remaining 99,999 will try and/or pay that much harder to get it too. The lucky winners are the best marketers of the lottery and all that). And that first overpowered bot will stay overpowered for a while. But then as the player base dwindles under the disintegration of the previously free-to-play-friendly model, the whale hunts will intensify and you'll have new events and new even more power-creeped items thrown at you around the clock. Until eventually the whole system collapses and the servers get shut down and you never play it again. Those profits will get reinvested into an even better optimized/researched game which will repeat the same cycle all over again and so on.

I've seen this so many times firsthand and otherwise I can't even count them. I can think of one (yes, one single) mobile company which had relatively successful games and didn't succumb to this. I'd hope Pixonic wouldn't, but after reading through their blog posts talking about their monetization ideas and corporate strategy I'm not so sure about it.

True at least for me. I have not noticed any difference. if anything, i am being put with competent piolets and wining most battles. It seems to affect me for the better.

Seems victory% is the determining factor as far as I can tell, looking at the profiles after each match if they're below 45% wins then they generally have 5/5-6/7 bots and above 55% mostly hangers like mine running 2/5ish. So pretty much what op said that they're gonna keep you around 50% and will keep throwing bigger bots at you until you lose :/

Edit: one silver lining is I have heavy bot meat shields for my gep now...

Android player here.. There's definitly some new stuff going on, and I'm having to hard-carry alot more matches than before in HS. Having said that, the games are much more engaging. I'm either losing hard because it's a 4v6 60 seconds into a match, or its coming down to the wire with (usually) just me remaining as the only blue. I've had more 1mil+ games these last couple days than I've had ever before.

Or maybe no changes ever happened, and this is just a coincidence