I suck HARD at PVP (what am I doing wrong?!)

Help me out! I keep losing at PVP…like, I haven’t won since the first day I started playing this game (it’s been a week now). And not only do I lose, but I rarely kill anyone on the other team (even if my overall Team Power is higher).

Observe:

My team + intended use:

  • Ryker : damage (mechanical)
  • Butter : damage (energy), absorb damage
  • Maven : damage (bio-chem), self-heal
  • Nightingale : heal, focus on enemy healer
  • Operator : heal

Here’s my basic strategy (listed by priority):

  1. Kill any enemy healers
  2. When the enemy healers are gone, overwhelm the player-controlled enemy so they can’t get headshots or take-out my healers
  3. Periodically switch to any characters low on health and have them hunker down until they get healed

Anyway…I keep losing! What should I do?! Any tips on team composition would be helpful. Here’s who I have (and level they’re currently at):

Baron (6)
Bolt (13)
Butter (34)
Cross (8)
Hardscope (32)
Matador (27)
Maven (34)
Nightingale (34)
Operator (34)
Odachi (5)
Oro (32)
Pris (32)
Ryker (34)
Savage (6)
Sentry (27)

First off, i will say i feel your pain. PVP is very hit and miss for me too. Fortunately you have some good stuff to work with to make it better.

You need to focus some time on matador. Get him to 3 stars (shouldn’t take too long with dailies and pvp frags), get him to silver, and lvl him up best as you can. Hes a great front liner who has a great team heal and provides a lot more for the team than operator IMO.

Having matador and nightingale should give you some flexibility to add more dps and odachi is a solid choice.

Lastly, Maven really shines when she hits gold from what i understand (havent used her much). So until then, you may want to use someone else. Savage is one I would consider. Hes a solid dude and with him, butter, and matador at the front, your other 2 should be well protected in the back.

Just my 2 cents though and what I would try to do. You should also check out the latest ranking post for pvp from Rygel: Rygel's Rambles: PvP Tier List [PATCH 1.0]

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Thanks a lot, that helps! I saw that post, as well as your “Quick Guide”…definitely going to bookmark both of those!

As for leveling up Matador or any other characters, my other problem (aside from losing PVP) is that that my flow of $$$, gold, tickets, and energy has suddenly dropped to barely anything, and I don’t feel like I’m making any progress:

  • In the campaign, I can’t get any further in Normal 4-7 and Hard 2-8 because my team will get annihilated.
  • I can’t level up my characters because I don’t have any $$$ or gold
  • I can wait for my daily bonuses (crates + 30 gold), but that doesn’t go far
  • Wins from Gauntlet and Co-Op raids don’t go very far
  • As mentioned, I lose every time in PVP, and can’t upgrade my characters

So it seems like I’m in the position where I FEEL like the only way to progress is pay real money, or grind levels I’ve already beaten to get $$$ and then wait for my minuscule gold drop each day (which sounds horrendously tedious). I’ve also started doing some Tap Joy stuff, but…I want to play THIS game, not other games.

The point is, I want to be able to enjoy the campaign and keep unlocking characters without being cornered to where I can only move forward by shelling out real money. Am I missing something here, or is that the reality of the situation?

Regardless, I’ll take a look at your guides and see if I can form a better team with what I have, and maybe find some more success that way.

Games like this are designed to have slow points as you grind unless you buy more to speed it up so what you feel is natural. However, I get it; the slow down sucks.

For me personally the big difference was tap joy and specifically one quest for the final fantasy game. Took me a few days to complete it, but it alone gave me 2900 gold which was immediately used for a 10xhero crate. I highly recommend doing that if the tap joy quest is available.

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Yeah, I gotcha…I’m familiar with this type of game, although some are less grindy than others. For me, it wouldn’t be so bad if I wasn’t stuck in the campaign and didn’t get annihilated in PVP. The game was reeeally fun to start, though, so I’m hoping I can get back to that soon.

As for TapJoy, I’d never used it before until yesterday and I think I already screwed up! I thought I could stack the Final Fantasy ones (get the 289 gold reward, then the 565, 1267, and finally 2827 for a total of 4948 gold) but I think that, by selecting the 289 reward, I locked myself out of the other rewards…correct me if I’m wrong!

Hmmmm…not totally sure on how it works with tapjoy although I know they honor the last offer you selected. But if it’s based on your progression; meaning you do the 289 gold one first, then get to the 2800 gold one you might be fine. I’m quite unclear and some quests have not fulfilled for me. But I assume ya something you can address with tapjoy.

If you do, I would take screen shots to prove completion if needed

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Here’s what I found…

  • In the GOLD DEPOT, I went to TAPJOY and then found a “REWARD DETAIL” menu tucked away in the top left of the screen. This shows the status of all of your TAPJOY offers

  • I took the 289 gold reward for Final Fantasy XV: A New Empire, but the 565 gold reward was still listed there (level up the Citadel to level 10). I thought “wow, it’s still tracking this quest!”

  • I installed FFXV:ANE again, and leveled up the Citadel to level 10. Waited. Waited. Never got any reward.

  • I went back to the “REWARD DETAIL” page and clicked on “DETAILS” on the FFXIV:ANE reward for 565 gold and noticed the following blurb among the fine print: “Users will only be rewarded for completing one Final Fantasy XV offer (last clicked)”

…so, dammit, I’m missing out on the 2827 gold prize. Ugh. I guess I could contact TAPJOY and try and force them to give me the big reward, but since I already redeemed the 289 gold reward, it could be a lost cause.

man that sucks. So i assume its just one reward per game based on the last one you clicked?

Ill definitely have to check mine. I know i started a few and know i finished them, but never got rewards for it.

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Hey! I understand what your talking about as well, I constantly change lineups, but I think I found one that worked. Matador is essential, great healer and does decent damage, if you have Savage, use him. His Spray and Pray ability does wonders. I threw in Nightingale and Operator in for extra healing, and for your 5th, I suggest another front or back like hero( I use Richter for the armor shredding) I have only lost twice with this lineup in about 15 games… good luck!

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Thanks, I’ll have to try that! Actually, I’ve already been slowly upgrading Matador over the past couple of days. As I mentioned above, it’s an excruciatingly tedious and un-involved process because my teams keep losing in EVERY mode, so all I can do is grind old missions (using Quick Wins and the Auto-Play) if I want to earn any money or gold. Ugh.

I haven’t actually played this game in three days (unless you count claiming your dailies and watching Auto-Play matches, which I wouldn’t) and I’m about ready to move onto a new game.

I won my first PVP match in FOREVER…so, thanks everyone! It was even with Auto-Play on. The game-changer was adding Matador in (once I FINALLY had him leveled up), who I also noticed is in most of the enemy teams. I lost 4 games afterward, though, and haven’t won again since, so I’ll have to keep adjusting my team (still grinding to level up) but it feels good to sink in a win at long last.

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I play this game since 7 Feb, played more than 50 PVP and won for less than 10 games

The AI for opponents is great but my teammates sucks.
Heroes from opponents focused to attack on me / one of my teammates but my teammates would attack different heroes.

I thought this setting is quite hard to get satisfaction from this game.

Yeah, I wish there was more of a way to tell your AI squadmates what to do (who to attack, when to use abilities, etc). From a game design perspective, I understand why there isn’t more control (i.e. special attacks would never hit if the AI was smart enough to always move out of the way), but it does seem somewhat inconsistent. However, I’ve been using “auto-battle” a lot and it seems like the AI actually does a pretty good job of singling-out weaker enemies and finishing them off in PVP.

(SIDE NOTE : Nightingale has an ability called “Locked-In” which makes all of your squad focus fire on a single target of your choice. I’m not sure if any other characters have an ability like this)

Anyway, my problem is that I don’t know WHY I lose all the time in PVP. The other teams will have no clear advantage over me (i.e. power level the same, characters have similar levels and stars and abilities, etc), and yet I get ANNIHILATED. I don’t just lose, I lose by a landslide. It’s made me so angry that now I always just let the PVP run on “auto-play” and will cycle through the heroes and periodically take control of them if needed (i.e. to have someone take cover if they’re almost dead, or to focus fire on specific targets).

The other discouraging thing is that I don’t feel like spending more money on GOLD to upgrade heroes or get new ones will really fix anything since, like I said, level and character doesn’t seem to make much of a difference. I feel like I MUST be missing something here, but so far I’m not seeing any consistency to those who beat me (except maybe a lot of Matadors and Savages). Currently, I’m still trying to bring Matador and Savage up to par with my strongest heroes, but it’s taking a little bit (grinding)…hopefully that helps turn the tide for me in PVP, but I’d like to think there’s more to this game than relying on those two.

Last thing I’ll say is that, when I do win, it’s usually with my “C”-team, i.e. when my most powerful heroes (“A” and “B” teams, let’s call them) run out of lives and then I start using my less powerful leftover garbage characters…presumably, I start getting paired up with other people’s “C”-teams and so it starts being just a crapshoot of unleveled heroes attacking each other without any real thought to team composition or strategy. At that point, it’s anybody’s game and occasionally I’ll win!

Hey I’m feeling your pain with PVP. At first was a breeze, but now I get matched up against people with a little bit of a power score, but levels 5-10 higher and I get stomped. I am currently using
Heimlock 5* Fracoise 5* Phalanx 5* Matador 2*
Surge 4* but I get bursted down. Who would you suggest I use, I also have available.

Baron 3*, butter 3*, cast 2*, Pris2*, ryker2*, nightingale 3*, cross 1*, dogface1*, sentry1*, richter 3*, hivemind3*, ronin 3*, salvatore 3*, savage 3*

I feel like I have too many front liners. I see dogface recommended but at low stars is he worth the investment?

Thanks in advance from someone loving this game.

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I have a lot of similar guys to you; Heimlock, Fracoise, Phalanx, Matador, Baron, ronin, and Sal. Still waiting on my Savage.

PVP is still back and forth for me. At first it was easy, it gets harder in early silver since the power level difference between silver 1 and 3 isnt huge in power ranking so teams you seem close to feel like they crush you.

Also, I will say that having 2 to 3 healers helps quite a bit. Personally I have been using 2 front men I care less about like Richter, Cast, and Baron (Baron less as hes actually kinda squishy), then put Heimlock or Butter in the last slot. This usually put them in the mid or back line and allows them to heal and shield the team without taking as much heat. Mix in a couple mid/back line DPS guys and you have a better shot.

The other team comp i see a lot is a fully lvled gold Savage (lvl 50 and gold at least, sometimes gold 2 or 3) with a crap team. This allows Savage to just plow over easier teams. It doesnt always work if you have a decent DPS guy who can focus Savage down before he crushes your team, but its really only if you have the right element counter. I use Phoenix and manually control her against savage teams. Works fairly well, but it depends how quickly he lays down the pain.

Overall, the game needs to find a better rating system than just power lvl IMO. Maybe power level mixed with player level and overall PVP wins/rank. Power lvl seems too easy to manipulate; specifically like the mentioned Savage teams.

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I actually think the matchmaking is good but not great. If you use an uneven team you get matched with higher power than yourself. It is difficult to beat some of those teams but you learn after a while.
The big problem I see in my alliance is that some people prefer pve and only play a little bit of pvp. Some are the other way around and prefer pvp and learn to set up teams, tactics, counter tactics and get experience and practice since they face both less experienced players and bots 100s of times a day and rarely lose a fight and win most of those fights without loosing a heart.

Leagues would solve this is the obvious answer but the player base is still rather low (at some power levels you already face bots half of the time due to lack of human opponents). Nobody want to spend 5 min to wait for a matchup ± 500 your own.
And unless you pay $100s of dollars you can’t have multiple teams that all work equally good. Using different heroes and team compositions is one of the best parts of this game. Strict league matchups would make it less motivating for everyone to use any composition that isn’t you preferred one.

Adding a training arena where you play against players/bots and don’t use hearts and don’t gain rewards should be an option tho. Maybe even add the option of facing your in game friends in this.

I base much of my team selection on what Rygel suggested and what I have available and haven’t spent much($3) since global release and had 32 straight wins without any of the gold crate heroes(like savage, odashi, heimlock) at ~12k total power in my current favorite pvp team. In that I only use the ones you get for free from hard missions and pvp store + surge from last pvp events. And have now 4m points in the current tournament.

I’m not trying to brag or be a douche here but all you need to do is to understand the different hero strengths and weaknesses and use them in each pvp fight and you will start winning more. The Rock Paper Scissors system of color is more important than you think, swap who you control and attack the weak color.

See it as a challenge you can overcome and have fun doing it. Don’t forget that it’s only a game.

Good luck and happy hunting

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I feel you valu. PVP in this game definitely has a very different flavor than most others that depend on skill. I get it since power level of teams helps to define placement, but some heroes are clearly better than others and players can ‘cheat’ this ranking (take a gold 3 savage with lower level bronze guys to stomp weaker players).

I did find a few things that seem to make a difference for me:

1 - Make sure you have a solid connection. It doesnt matter how good you are or your team is if you lag. I have had matches where i lag; my guys take forever to enter the arena (walk in place), my guys seem unresponsive when i try to roll or use abilities, etc. This always nets in a loss for me. If you are lagging like this, you can either expect a loss or try putting it into auto battle in hopes that your guys will keep up and win the match.

2 - Certain power levels seem like sweets spots. For example, to me i find i do better in a 10-11k ranking then 12-14k. Maybe its my team comp, maybe its the difference between silver 1 and silver 3/gold guys - im not sure. However, each team is different so if you have 2 or 3 guys you think are key, try mixing them in with different power level teams to see if that helps you find a better ranking. Of course you still want a good team comp (good healing, front liners, dps), but adjusting your power level seems quite helpful to finding some better win/loss ratios.

3 - lastly, know where a hero tops out. By that I mean know when to stop upgrading them; some are better at lower levels, others at higher. For example, Beck is really only good because of her basic attack. She has great dps, but terrible abilities. So why move her out of bronze? Keep her low level for specific pvp match ups in lower power levels. On the other hand, Mandrake is really only useful once he hits gold. Before that hes an ok frontliner. His gold ability is key to what makes him awesome so get that dude to gold asap. To help know who is good and when, i recommend this dudes youtube channel, great reviews and help/tips overall: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCW7qmXnXhGi5PUqs3a3mWdQ

hang in there. PVP takes some time to get used to and you will lose. But hopefully youll find a nice niche that works for you.

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Amerzahi portative i need help plesae

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Thanks!

Try auto-ing the game and watch how the AI plays. It’s so bad. They shoot the enemies’ foot, hardly any headshots. They basically wait for the enemies to come near them. They don’t capitalize on the elemental weaknesses. They target enemies separately. Though they have good timing on skills selection, at times.

You generally don’t suck. The AI sucks.