Shields in PvP are now the expectation?

yogi_

Not sure whether anyone else has picked up on this and I've seen it for the last few PvP's but don't recall seeing it earlier.

The "Event Rules" say "Protect yourself by raising SHIELDS and then fight back later". I think that's somewhat recent text.

So, there is now the expectation that you should be shielding, fighting again and repeat.

Which is **** for those who for whatever reason don't usually shield.

From one perspective, this is poor game design with the official suggestion of, you'd better buy one of these things or else because we can't quite seem to work out how to structure it or you aren't going to do well without you needing to hide yourself away for a while. With the recent (harsh) scaling changes (alongside PvE going crazy; I think they are trying to reduce the flow of 3* covers), do you now NEED to shield to get anywhere in PvP?

Unknown

Do you think PVP is there to have fun? No! It's there to teach you the futility and impermanence of all things in life. Shields are there to demonstrate you can only hide and protect yourself for so long before all the evils of the world gang up and attack you all at once.

emaker27

Another way to do well is to follow an IceIX recommendation of losing in order to lower your MMR. And then eventually you'll be in an easier bracket and won't have to shield to rank high.

So either buy a shield or start losing. Decide now!

Ryz-aus

yogi_ wrote:

Not sure whether anyone else has picked up on this and I've seen it for the last few PvP's but don't recall seeing it earlier.

The "Event Rules" say "Protect yourself by raising SHIELDS and then fight back later". I think that's somewhat recent text.

So, there is now the expectation that you should be shielding, fighting again and repeat.

Which is **** for those who for whatever reason don't usually shield.

From one perspective, this is poor game design with the official suggestion of, you'd better buy one of these things or else because we can't quite seem to work out how to structure it or you aren't going to do well without you needing to hide yourself away for a while. With the recent (harsh) scaling changes (alongside PvE going crazy; I think they are trying to reduce the flow of 3* covers), do you now NEED to shield to get anywhere in PvP?

I think need depends a lot on when you can play, what kind of roster you have, and what kind of placement you're looking for, but expect to need one shield if you're trying to place highly even with a good roster. This doesn't bother me too much as long as players who want can place pretty well and still earn more HP in a tournament then they would need to spend on shields- I think it's been hard to place in the top 10 unshielded for a while now and as more players get 3* rosters it gets more difficult.

I've got a very good roster (almost all the 3*s maxed that I want, and a higher level x-force to use) and in the most recent PvP made top 10 using a single 3 hour shield with a score in the 1200s. If I didn't want to shield at all I think scoring 800s-1000s is doable depending on how late you can play, and that generally should be good for top 25.

El_Dude

Of course this is not the expectation. You have two other fun and exciting options...

1) Finish in the 101-300 range and be happy with a little ISO and the 2* character cover you surely already have by now.

2) Play with maxed Sentry, Daken, Thor, Hulk, or XFW and scare off anyone considering an attack.

Nice ranking you got here. Probably took quite a bit of time to climb that high. Shame if anything were to happen to it, if you catch my drift. I mean, imagine you were winning a match for 28 pts that only took 3 minutes and at the same time 11 other opponents are taking you down for 19 pts each...209 pts gone in 3 minutes. No way to defend yourself. Hypothetically of course. But hey, you're in luck. We just so happen to sell a kind of security to protect game players like yourself from the very situation we create.

OnesOwnGrief

You gain enough HP from climbing to 800 to shield once and land a 25HP profit outside of rewards. 800 should be enough to hit top 50 for an HP reward normally and if your alliance can get top 100 that's more HP. You also gain HP in PvE. What exactly are you doing sitting on all that HP you should be making? I enter a PvP with 500 HP and I make it work. Even went down to 0 HP during this season twice and still managed to make it work without having to buy HP.

yogi_

OnesOwnGrief wrote:

You gain enough HP from climbing to 800 to shield once and land a 25HP profit outside of rewards. 800 should be enough to hit top 50 for an HP reward normally and if your alliance can get top 100 that's more HP. You also gain HP in PvE. What exactly are you doing sitting on all that HP you should be making? I enter a PvP with 500 HP and I make it work. Even went down to 0 HP during this season twice and still managed to make it work without having to buy HP.

For a top player with a decent roster in a leading alliance that receives good bonus stuff all the time, this is fine.

Otherwise, it would involve actually getting to 800 (and getting past the now 500-600 point threshold where teams far above yours are now pushed upon you on mass and you get attacked just as frequently) and being in an alliance that gets HP and having any HP left after buying roster slots that you actually need to have to have, to hold your characters to attempt to keep up with the constant releases.

Regardless, the issue is far broader than this.

Unknown

Shields aren't required.

As long as you don't care about getting top 25.

NorthernPolarity

Ryz-aus wrote:

yogi_ wrote:

Not sure whether anyone else has picked up on this and I've seen it for the last few PvP's but don't recall seeing it earlier.

The "Event Rules" say "Protect yourself by raising SHIELDS and then fight back later". I think that's somewhat recent text.

So, there is now the expectation that you should be shielding, fighting again and repeat.

Which is **** for those who for whatever reason don't usually shield.

From one perspective, this is poor game design with the official suggestion of, you'd better buy one of these things or else because we can't quite seem to work out how to structure it or you aren't going to do well without you needing to hide yourself away for a while. With the recent (harsh) scaling changes (alongside PvE going crazy; I think they are trying to reduce the flow of 3* covers), do you now NEED to shield to get anywhere in PvP?

I think need depends a lot on when you can play, what kind of roster you have, and what kind of placement you're looking for, but expect to need one shield if you're trying to place highly even with a good roster. This doesn't bother me too much as long as players who want can place pretty well and still earn more HP in a tournament then they would need to spend on shields- I think it's been hard to place in the top 10 unshielded for a while now and as more players get 3* rosters it gets more difficult.

I've got a very good roster (almost all the 3*s maxed that I want, and a higher level x-force to use) and in the most recent PvP made top 10 using a single 3 hour shield with a score in the 1200s. If I didn't want to shield at all I think scoring 800s-1000s is doable depending on how late you can play, and that generally should be good for top 25.

I hit 1345 yesterday with 0 shields used just by pushing in the last 20 mins from 950. Granted, this was with the most intimidating team for the tournament (maxed LCap, XF, Hood), but once your roster reaches a certain point, as long as you're able to play in the last 20 minutes, you don't really need to shield for top 25 at all.

Obviously, the people who don't have maxed rosters have it a lot tougher though.

Unknown

I almost always use a 3 hour shield. Some of the reason is because half the PvPs end at 7 am. The other thing is that that I am lazy and PvPs are VERY unpredictable. Shields allow you to target a certain score and lock it. You don't want to go to 900 and then hit 5 times down to 700. You can definitely not shield but you'll need to play during the last minutes of the Event and your score will vary widly depending on if you get hit or not.

I can't really complain about that since the PvPs pay out more than enough HP to cover my measely 3 hour shield. I make a point to get to 800 for the HP always, so thats a net win of HP every event anyway.

Unknown

yogi_ wrote:

Not sure whether anyone else has picked up on this and I've seen it for the last few PvP's but don't recall seeing it earlier.

The "Event Rules" say "Protect yourself by raising SHIELDS and then fight back later". I think that's somewhat recent text.

So, there is now the expectation that you should be shielding, fighting again and repeat.

Which is **** for those who for whatever reason don't usually shield.

From one perspective, this is poor game design with the official suggestion of, you'd better buy one of these things or else because we can't quite seem to work out how to structure it or you aren't going to do well without you needing to hide yourself away for a while. With the recent (harsh) scaling changes (alongside PvE going crazy; I think they are trying to reduce the flow of 3* covers), do you now NEED to shield to get anywhere in PvP?

That has been there for quite awhile. Several months if not longer.

wymtime

I remember when there were no shields and you had to grind the last hour of PVP to get solid placement. That was not fun when you would be loose twice as many points as you gained and had to heal your team in the prologue in order to get back the points you lost. Shields are one of the best things that happened to PVP. I spend 75-150 HP in order to be top 25 or top 10 depending on the bracket I am in. Without shields I would have quite when they moved the end times to 1 EST because I would not be able to stay top 50. Euro players can also keep there score with shields and even though it costs them a little more it is better falling out of the top 100.
For the OP if you don't want to shield you don't have to. To score high you just have to grind through the last 1-2 hours of the event and hope your 5 health packs hold up. I for one am very happy to go to sleep with 2 hours left in the event knowing my score is safe, and having a good idea of where I will place.

OP good luck with your choice.

over_clocked

yogi_ wrote:

OnesOwnGrief wrote:

You gain enough HP from climbing to 800 to shield once and land a 25HP profit outside of rewards. 800 should be enough to hit top 50 for an HP reward normally and if your alliance can get top 100 that's more HP. You also gain HP in PvE. What exactly are you doing sitting on all that HP you should be making? I enter a PvP with 500 HP and I make it work. Even went down to 0 HP during this season twice and still managed to make it work without having to buy HP.

For a top player with a decent roster in a leading alliance that receives good bonus stuff all the time, this is fine.

Otherwise, it would involve actually getting to 800 (and getting past the now 500-600 point threshold where teams far above yours are now pushed upon you on mass and you get attacked just as frequently) and being in an alliance that gets HP and having any HP left after buying roster slots that you actually need to have to have, to hold your characters to attempt to keep up with the constant releases.

Regardless, the issue is far broader than this.

I don't think we are supposed to be able to F2P and keep ALL the characters while they keep releasing new ones. No offense; it really looks that way with the slot bundling, not making slots any cheaper past, say 30-40 slots, etc. At least many existing characters and new releases are bad enough that you can just keep new characters for a few weeks until you need the slot for someone else, while working on the core team of 2*s and few selected 3*s.

PuceMoose

emaker27 wrote:

Another way to do well is to follow an IceIX recommendation of losing in order to lower your MMR. And then eventually you'll be in an easier bracket and won't have to shield to rank high.

So either buy a shield or start losing. Decide now!

I've had mixed luck tanking recently; it seems to help for the first few hundred points (facing two stars, etc.), but once you hit 600 points it's a vertical cliff face. In the current PvP I tanked from 450 down to 130, and it helped greatly initially. Once I hit 600 points though, it was the 166/166 wall (or 270/270). I haven't seen a Doc Ock over level 99 yet though, so perhaps I'm not in complete MMR hell. I've probably spent over five hundred iso on skips this tournament, just trying to find something *not* 166 sentry/166 Ldaken or 166 LThor/166 5-black Hulk. There's a thread on this PvP phenomenon: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=16899

Regarding shield usage, I usually do my best to hit 700 (or as close to it as I can manage) at the 5 hours left to go mark, and throw out an 8 hour shield. That's often enough for a top 25, and almost certainly a top 50, and there seems to be a lot less viciousness in the competition, compared to the last one to three hours of the tournament.

Unknown

Well, for one, shields are now requirements to get even single 3* cover if you are transitioning from 2*. It used to be that you could hover near 600 and be fine w/o shield, but now at 500 you are open to maxed teams and they will push you out of top100 (I'm *this* close to writing a full rant topic on not being able to progress if this doesn't change, but so far last 5 pvp it was exactly like this).

yogi_

Nivrax wrote:

Well, for one, shields are now requirements to get even single 3* cover if you are transitioning from 2*. It used to be that you could hover near 600 and be fine w/o shield, but now at 500 you are open to maxed teams and they will push you out of top100 (I'm *this* close to writing a full rant topic on not being able to progress if this doesn't change, but so far last 5 pvp it was exactly like this).

Yes - whatever changes they made a few rounds a go, started this trend. With a bit of effort, I used to usually be able to get 1 3* cover (rarely a second) if I had enough time to play, which though not amazing is reasonable. Last 5 or so, 1, no more than 2 covers in total, have had to put a lot more effort in and most placements JUST outside the top 100, which made it even more frustrating. You should write.

Another factor was implmenting this without adding another 3* cover tier to the rewards level (so the same people have to fight harder for the same resources). Devs (are you even reading this?) - Can we please get positions 100 - 150 as a 3* cover and 500ISO which fits in between the 100 and 101 drop we have now and then move every other tier down the corresponding amount? If not, can you add 25HP to the first tier (or 50) of the 2* cover, so that those who don't get a 3* cover get at least something of use.

atomzed

Nivrax wrote:

Well, for one, shields are now requirements to get even single 3* cover if you are transitioning from 2*. It used to be that you could hover near 600 and be fine w/o shield, but now at 500 you are open to maxed teams and they will push you out of top100 (I'm *this* close to writing a full rant topic on not being able to progress if this doesn't change, but so far last 5 pvp it was exactly like this).

I don't think the dev changed anything to their algorithms... I just think that the competition has become stiffer.

As the game reach it's one year mark, more and more people are getting 2 max characters. Even more people has one max character. So for those who don't, it's harder to compete now.

Unknown

atomzed wrote:

I don't think the dev changed anything to their algorithms... I just think that the competition has become stiffer.

As the game reach it's one year mark, more and more people are getting 2 max characters. Even more people has one max character. So for those who don't, it's harder to compete now.

That would be true if it was gradual change. But it was very sharp turn in PvP for me. It both came in same time as new season and me leveling single 3* to 91 so 'maybe' it was always that stupid to begin with, but now I'm fighting trash teams up to 400 (unmaxed, 3* lvl40 etc.), some same level stuff to 500, then I'm getting full 3* teams of minimum level 120+, often maxed, the only weaker stuff comes if I refresh enough to get opponent with <400 total. And they see me too because in minutes my 2* get beaten below 500 and attacks stop. I can't even get to 600 because the closer I am, the more 3* teams I get when skipping. This was case before, but the treshhold it happened was 600 (and I don't remember so many terrible teams when climbing). That 100 point difference means if I don't shield (for 8h, Europe) then without doubt I will not score 3* cover, even if that cover is Loki.

And with the harder competition, I would assume that's what brackets are supposed to be for? Because if more and more people have better rosters, you will face point where they would block any possible transition possibilities from new players. Hell, I'm blocked right now, all my HP is spent on slots for new heroes they keep adding, so my only source is rng from token pulls and whatever progression reward is in PvE.

y2fitzy

Up until a couple of weeks ago I could score 500 plus and hold on for a top 100 spot without a shield.

But since the new season, my puny 2*s get absolutely buggered the moment I pass 400/450, which means shields have become essential. I think I'm going to take a bit of a break from PVP, as I'm ending up paying more out in HP for shields than I get back, even if I do ok with PVE. And that's no fun

Unknown

y2fitzy wrote:

Up until a couple of weeks ago I could score 500 plus and hold on for a top 100 spot without a shield.

But since the new season, my puny 2*s get absolutely buggered the moment I pass 400/450, which means shields have become essential. I think I'm going to take a bit of a break from PVP, as I'm ending up paying more out in HP for shields than I get back, even if I do ok with PVE. And that's no fun

Have the exact same experience. I think the overall roster strength has gone up, as many people have covers in the loaner 3*s now. Further, more people seem to be playing in the last hours before the final.

yogi_

daibar wrote:

I think the overall roster strength has gone up, as many people have covers in the loaner 3*s now. Further, more people seem to be playing in the last hours before the final.

I can't agree with this. I don't know of any factor that has changed the overall player base roster strength, if anything there less new 3* covers than previously and there is no evidence to to suggest people are playing any differently to before - it's always crazy towards the end. It may be worse now due to something changing.

Something definitely got shuffled around in their scaling or algorthims or buckets or whatever they use, a few weeks ago. There is a much larger thread about this somewhere with some much deeper discussion. This has been the only thing that has changed but given they don't tell us about this stuff, it just stealth nerf appears and then people starting wondering what they are doing wrong.

The average day to day player matters little in this sort of context - the devs fidget with the knobs and dials to try and get the structural outcomes that they want and we just have to adapt.