Co-op PvP seems somewhat scarce of real players and most matches are against bots from my experience. There’s rare moments where I’m matched against real players, and those matches are usually unfair (e.g Ruby, minmaxing). This leads to me losing hero lives very fast and requires me to spend gold or to wait the rest of the day for the next reset.
In my opinion the hero lives should be made unlimited (in Co-op Free Play), so we can play more matches for longer, and therefore encounter more players. This increase in players playing more frequently would give more of a power spectrum in matchmaking, and matches would become more fair.
This would also overcome wrongly losing lives because of unfair matchmaking, as you could simply play again without the need to spend gold or to waste time to reset for something that shouldn’t have happened.
Some could see this as a way to farm infinitely, but that would require a partner that’s also willing to spend a lot of time with you and have a similar power level. This could be overcome with a win limit with specific players or something of the sort, with more frequent resets to balance it out.
An alternative could be to place more resets during the day and extra lives per hero, but that would still be subjected to the unfair matchmaking. That has and always has been the main issue of co-op PvP up to now, aside from the random disconnections and crashes.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the co-op PvP addition and I think the developers did an amazing job at giving the community something very desirable and fun. However, there needs to be a change done so it’s more fair to everyone and enjoyable again.
The only reason why hearts are in pvp is to force players to diversify their teams and not rely on a meta to win. If you find yourself only using 2-3 heroes for pvp, you may need to work on your team compositions and learn the ins and outs of your heroes.
Pvp matchmaking will never be perfect, since it’s statistically not impervious to bad matchups. Sometimes you just get a teammate with a bad team or come across an enemy with a clutch combination, but don’t confuse this with having a team that doesn’t work together.
Diversity in PvP isn’t the biggest luxury to have when it comes to Co-op PvP. On the lower end of the scene, I often encounter min maxing with Shivs or Kurtz with power far beyond my total amount. What’s the point of diversity for weaker players when you get obliterated anyways?
On the higher end of the scene, ruby heroes are the common ones, with the likes of Serial, Lancer, Sapphyre etc. This isn’t because people think it’s diverse, this is because every team wants to win and those are very powerful heroes that almost always guarantee a win. I’ve played both alongside and against them, and currently they’re the most popular choices to go if you want to stand a chance in Co-op PvP against virtually any opponent.
If hero lives were to be removed, this would encourage different comps to be used as you wouldn’t have to worry about your heroes being dead and rendered useless until next reset or spending gold. The 3 life limit is what holds back experimentation as it takes more than just 3 losses to test a new team. Instead, people mainly use what they’re comfortable with and know they work.