Introduction
I've seen quite a few threads about players complaining about the MMR system right now, so I want to recount some of my experiences as well as my general impressions of this system, as someone whose MMR has generally been in the 80-90 range for the past few weeks, and who has almost reached level 150.
Typically, I'm usually playing with friends in a group, rather than in solo queue or playing as an Antagonist, so most of my experience is in that setting. However, I've played a lot of games in solo queue with randoms, as well as some Antagonist invasions at a high MMR, so I can talk about my experiences there as well.
I'll split this post up into a few different sections, but to put it succinctly, under this current system, having a high MMR is extremely punitive in both a PvE and PvP context, as both a Raider and an Antagonist, and if you play with randoms or with friends. About the only thing one can do to make the system a bit 'fairer', and to reduce queue times, is to deliberately lose games to drop your MMR back to around the 50-60 range, where I imagine most of the playerbase is.
Furthermore, scaling the difficulty of the AI enemies using the differences in MMR between the Raiders and the Antagonist is not a very well thought out system. I've currently lost three matches to AFK Antagonists because the AI enemies were extremely overpowered, and have had quite a few matches where a low MMR Antagonist was basically carried to victory by the AI. On the other hand, if I invade when I have an MMR that's in the 80-90 range, not only do I have to wait about 30-40 minutes to find a match, but the AI are incredibly weak and are hardly a threat to the Raider team, and bosses and objectives have extremely low health as well.
PvE Experience
In Solo Queue
Matchmaking is somewhat random here, as I sometimes run into friends or other veteran players who know what they're doing, but oftentimes, I'm being paired with lower level players who really don't know what they're doing at all, both in general terms as well as completing the objectives of whatever map we're playing. On certain maps that require some coordination to complete objectives, such as Short Fused, Low Blow, In Medias Res, etc, I'm often the only player doing the objectives and gathering Aleph, whilst the other players are usually just running around aimlessly. Moreover, because of my higher MMR, the difficulty of the map usually increases into the 50-60% difficulty range, even with lower level/newer players on the team. Whilst this difficulty is fairly easy for me, newer players are usually not used to the increased enemy damage, and tend to die more often, which sometimes necessitates me to have to babysit them, lest they keep wasting lives.
I don't really mind carrying newer players through matches, although it usually requires me to go play Konstantin or Kuzmann and clear enemies constantly, or play a character that can handle the objectives mostly on their own, like Ginebra or Hans. Overall, playing with randoms somewhat limits my choice in characters, and can be quite stressful and/or frustrating. Queue times can also be quite long. Losing on a blueprint roll that you've been farming for for a while, after you've pretty much carried a whole team, is also rather annoying.
Playing with friends
Whilst you do get instant queue times when you're in a squad of four players, if your friends are also at a high MMR, the PvE difficulty becomes very challenging, if not downright broken at times. I've had matches on In Medias Res and Weapon from the Past, at around 75% difficulty, where the AI enemies had greatly enhanced health and damage, and were dealing 96-106 melee damage in one Strike, despite my having 50% damage reduction to Strikes from all enemies. Perhaps this was some sort of bug, but even so, the fact that both enemy health and enemy damage go up as the difficulty increases just makes matches last even longer, and places more emphasis on weapon upgrades. Prior to the Hades update, only enemy damage increased as the difficulty got higher, but now enemies are even bigger bullet sponges, and take even longer to clear.
I wouldn't mind this increased difficulty if it actually led to increased rewards, but I've not really noticed a huge change in rewards as my MMR, and the difficulty level, have increased. Perhaps more annoyingly, the recent patch has reduced the contribution of the difficulty level to the mission score. So now, even if my friends and I slog through a mission of extremely tough enemies, because it takes us longer and we oftentimes die more, our score is usually below 8, and our rewards are even less than they normally were.
PvP Experience
In Solo Queue, as a Raider
Matchmaking is, again, somewhat random here. However, I have still had plenty of matches where a level 100+ Antagonist in the 50-60 MMR range has invaded, whilst two or three of my teammates were obviously new players, whose levels were in the single digits. Whilst the AI enemies weren't ridiculously overpowered in these circumstances, they were still a moderate threat, and were usually not getting cleared very quickly by my other teammates, if they weren't just outright dying to them. Such games usually aren't very fun for me, as I mostly have to do everything; clear enemies, kill elites, gather Aleph, do objectives, look out for teammates, and hunt down the Antagonist. I'm sure the newer players weren't having much of a fun time getting beaten down by the AI or by a higher level Antagonist, either.
Oftentimes, the Antagonist player in these situations is hardly a 'bad' player at all, but the system seems to try to balance things out by making the AI more deadly to compensate for MMR differences.
With friends, as a Raider
Perhaps my biggest frustration with the game at the moment, is when an Antagonist invades when I'm playing with friends who also have a high MMR. Even if the Antagonist has an MMR in the 70-80 range, the AI enemies usually remain just as tough, if not even more so, than the ones you'll find at around the +75% difficulty range. In these situations, the Antagonist hardly needs to do anything to win a match, as the AI enemies are so deadly they'll quickly kill any Raider that is caught unawares. I've had matches where the AI enemies were doing anywhere between 100-200+ melee damage in one Strike, despite my having 50% melee damage reduction. Their ranged damage was also much higher than usual, with even one rifleman being able to take down a 5th Council character within one or two seconds of focused fire.
It's pretty much either an automatic loss if an Antagonist invades when I'm playing with friends, or a very long, grueling match that hardly gives any good rewards even if we do pull off a win, due to the number of deaths and how long it takes to complete the mission.
I've even had lower MMR friends invade me from time to time, players who are skilled enough to have reached Rank 16-18 multiple times prior to the Hade update, who've expressed great surprise about how deadly their AI compatriots were, and how they were getting less kills than the AI.
As I've mentioned before, I've also lost matches to AFK Antagonists because the AI had so much health and dealt so much damage we couldn't make any headway in completing objectives. These Antagonists usually had an MMR around the 40-50 range, or lower.
As an Antagonist
I've done a few Antagonist invasions when I've been at around 85% MMR. I'd try to do more, but in my experience, queue times to find a match were routinely 30 to 40 minutes, or even longer. Of the invasions I've done when I was at high MMR, the main thing I noticed was how the weak the AI enemies were, in terms of their damage, their health and their spawn rate.
Wardog and 5th Council enemies were going down in one Strike by higher level Raiders, and in two Strikes by lower level Raiders. So, I'd estimate their health to be less than 80. Moreover, their damage was very low. I've seen shotgunners shoot Alien characters at close range and only do about half their health in damage. The enemies' melee Strikes were also very weak, doing around 30 or so damage to low level Raiders, who don't have much passive damage reduction. Elite enemies were also doing far less damage and had far less health. I saw Hades Snipers shoot Raiders and weren't even able to wound them in one shot, and Hades Brutes went down in about four or five Strikes.
When I've been invaded by Antagonists, regular Wardog and 5th Council enemies would take three to four 80 damage Strikes to go down, with Hades enemies taking about five to six Strikes. They were also quite capable of killing Raiders very quickly by themselves, without any real interference from the Antagonist, if the Raiders made any mistakes.
Bosses and objectives also had far less health and were far easier than what I normally experience in PvE, both with or without an Antagonist being present. On Breath of Hope, a Sturzenegger Ginebra did about 30% of an Orb's health with five shots, despite not even hitting the weak point. A level 3 Mikah shooting at an Orb's weakpoint with her default weapon, did about 80% of the Orb's health in one magazine. There were also hardly any enemy spawns during the boss fight itself, although the riflemen were hardly a threat anyway.
On In Shock, Kuzmann got taken down in about two or three minutes, and the Raiders had about 120 seconds to pull the levers when Shae was being electrocuted. When I'm playing against an Antagonist on In Shock, I usually only get about 40 seconds to pull the levers. We also once had only 34 seconds to get to the extraction point on Hanging by a Thread, when playing against an Antagonist.
Enemy spawns were also less frequent and in lower amounts than what I normally experience when I'm playing as a Raider, with or without an Antagonist.
Overall, trying to win a match as an Antagonist when you have a high MMR is an uphill struggle, and the AI enemies hardly contribute at all. This is pretty much the exact opposite experience of when I'm invaded by an Antagonist when I'm at a high MMR, as the AI enemies there are still very deadly.
Conclusion
I don't really see the point of having an MMR system when the playerbase is this low. Player numbers on Steam have gone back to around 40-50 players at peak times, and it was only at around 120-150 players at peak times during the beginning of the Hades update. Moreover, I don't see how raising your MMR by winning matches as a Raider in cooperative PvE play, should affect the AI difficulty when you invade as an Antagonist or when you're invaded by an Antagonist. Being good at PvE or PvP in this game requires slightly different skillsets, and this 'one size fits all' MMR system doesn't really appreciate this nuance. I would much rather the MMR system be tied directly to PvP interactions, but even so, giving a huge crutch to low MMR Antagonists by providing them with deadlier AI enemies that essentially carry them to victory, is not how the PvP in this game should be balanced. Having a high MMR doesn't really help you at all in PvP, as the AI will do nothing for you if you invade as an Antagonist, and will be just as deadly, if not more so, when you're invaded. Having a high MMR in PvE just makes the game even more difficult, and increases the grind. Moreover, trying to introduce new players into the game becomes even harder for me, as the matches are usually stuck at around 60% difficulty, and these newer players are not having a fun time trying to learn the game when the AI enemies just cut them down in an instant.
I would very much like a developer response to these issues. Prior to the Hades update, there was a 'hidden' MMR system that increased the difficulty level as you won more and more matches. This was done to keep the game 'challenging', but seems more like a way for developers to prevent players from grinding or farming efficiently, and as a way to artificially lengthen and pad out the game.
As it stands now, post-Hades update, being 'good' at this game, and winning matches consistently, is something the MMR system punishes you with both in PvP and PvE, by trying to make you lose. I'm not quite sure why the developers would use such a system that essentially penalizes its most enthusiastic players. I have put up with quite a lot from this game since its release, but this system is severely trying my patience, and is probably pushing a lot of other players away.
