New feature: Shields

TheVulture

As a European, I welcome our new shield overlords.

I must say that it didn't take long for me to stop caring about the non-PvE non-lightning tournaments since they inevitably ended with going to be bed 2nd-4th and waking up to "congratulations you finished in top x hundred!", and don't recall the last time I went beyond 100 points (for 500 ISO + 2 tokens).
This does open up the possibility of blitzing for a day and then shielding up, with the hope of securing even 1 rare cover for a fraction of the HP a power upgrade costs.

Unknown

Currently, an award in the 1000+ range is pretty much completely unreachable. You'd need a healthy diet of opponents in the 600+ range to even contemplate making a push for that, and there simply aren't that many guys with that kind of points.

When you shielded yourself, assuming your MMR bracket is active, then people should be taking advantage of your generousity and beat you up for points. Let's say you shielded at 800 for 8 hours, then by the time you're done, it'd be reasonable to assume guys who are properly taking advantage of your generousity should have close to 800 points. This, in term, means you now actually have enough guys with high points to try for a high award. Sure, you're still subject to being retaliated and whatnot, but at least now the opportunity exists.

Of course, if nobody took advantage of your generousity then the effort will be for naught. I suspect there has to be some level of coordination on the community, e.g. before you shield yourself at high points you want to let everyone know you're doing so, so that they can hit you up for points and then you'd have guys with high points (that obtained them from your shielded status) when you're done. Getting the first guy to shield would be interesting, since that guy takes the most risk (if nobody hits him, then his shield is wasted).

I'm assuming that you can indeed gain points from a guy that's shielded. If not, this system is incredibly bad, which is why I didn't really consider the possibility.

Unknown

Kyosokun wrote:

What would you pay then? It's about as cheap as anything costing HP in the game can cost (I guess could be 25, be the only thing to be sold for that little). $5 would get you 12 shields. 6 if you wanted the 8 hour one, 3 if you opted for 24 hour.

There are a lot of players for whom that is a minor expenditure.

There are a lot of players who would flinch at paying that $5 _once_ for a consumable, let alone at regular intervals or in the burst-shield-burst-shield methodology I posted previously.

There are a lot of players whom, if they see that shields and other future updates significantly tilt the balance towards pay-to-have-a-chance to win, will quit. Before whales point and laugh and say 'good,' consider that any microtransaction game benefits from a larger player pool, not a smaller one. Players pay with time, effort, participation and feedback as well as with cash.

Unknown

You could also get 4 from $2. And as has been pointed out, every current tournament gives 50HP at 400 points, which would equal one free shield. These are cheap enough that they are available to everyone for free, if thats what they want to use their resources on.

MarvelMan

Phantron wrote:

Honestly the best use for the shield might be to shield when you're about 200 points below a particularly good progression reward (probably a *** cover). This allows people to beat you up to approach your points (or even surpass it), so then you can actually have enough high rated opponents to hit the rewards. Of course, this plan would be foiled if nobody was playing during the time you're shielded, but there's got to be risks.

Overall I think this is good because it'd also encourage people to play more at all times. That is, you want to be playing as much as you can and hit the shielded guys to bring the overall points up, because this is the only way you can possibly hit those 900+ progression rewards. Further, this would also combat the last minute sniping deal, in the sense that if you got a bracket where everyone is sitting at 1200 points in top 100, it'd be pretty much impossible for a guy to join at the last minute to come anywhere near the top just due to the sheer gap in between.

Dang it, youve gone and voiced what was to be my strategy for attaining the good progression rewards!

Plus, you hit the nail on the head of what I think they are doing. One of the devs (dont think it was IceIX) mentioned that they were looking at ways for the progression rewards to be more within reach and this definitely does that. By protecting gained points against reduction there are more high point targets, which does two things: increases the influx of overall points and maintains a reasonable size group of potential targets at moderate to high level points (otherwise why shield?).

Unknown

It is also possible that shields will be mixed in with the random daily rewards or be included in progression or even final tournament rewards. It seems like a no-brainer to me. The first taste is always free.

Personally, I would be intrigued to try these after I make a brief run in a tournament and exhaust my team's health and available healthpacks. I don't mind being hit with retaliations when I am also actively gaining points by attacking other players. It is when I take a couple of hours off and relaunch the app to see I lost 200 points that bothers me. With a shield, I can ensure I only lose points when I am actively playing. It gives me the opportunity to at least maintain the status quo.

One of the most frustrating things about the SHIELD training is grinding to hit a few progression rewards and then coming back the next day to see I lost most, if not all, of my progress. That means I have to grind past those same levels (without any rewards this time) to accomplish anything. With a shield in place, I might not feel as much like Sisyphus.

Unknown

I can confirm you can attack people with a shield.

Unknown

Microtom wrote:

I can confirm you can attack people with a shield.

Do you gain from points from winning? It'd seem like a no brainer, but have to make sure.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

Microtom wrote:

I can confirm you can attack people with a shield.

Do you gain from points from winning? It'd seem like a no brainer, but have to make sure.

I haven't attacked the person cause my black widow is dead atm, but I searched for a while to find one of the two people with a shield in my bracket. I'll attack him in a moment.

Unknown

Microtom wrote:

Phantron wrote:

Microtom wrote:

I can confirm you can attack people with a shield.

Do you gain from points from winning? It'd seem like a no brainer, but have to make sure.

I haven't attacked the person cause my black widow is dead atm, but I searched for a while to find one of the two people with a shield in my bracket. I'll attack him in a moment.

Attack... for science!

Unknown

funny russkie wrote:

Microtom wrote:

Phantron wrote:

Microtom wrote:

I can confirm you can attack people with a shield.

Do you gain from points from winning? It'd seem like a no brainer, but have to make sure.

I haven't attacked the person cause my black widow is dead atm, but I searched for a while to find one of the two people with a shield in my bracket. I'll attack him in a moment.

Attack... for science!

I attacked the guy without problem, same as it was before. His position didn't move either.

Unknown

essentially this means we all push up the brackets as a group.

edit: strategy being put up shields after long pushes and take it down when ppl overcome u in the brackets. ( also you'll know when you pass someone with a shield they won't be beating u anytime soon until their shield goes down)

Unknown

This is good then, as it rewards people for playing in a time other than the last 60 minutes of a PvP tournament. Now the question is who is going to be the first guy that uses a shield to take one for the team!

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

This is good then, as it rewards people for playing in a time other than the last 60 minutes of a PvP tournament. Now the question is who is going to be the first guy that uses a shield to take one for the team!

Thanks for volunteering, Phantron!

Unknown

What I'm wondering now tho is if you have a shield, do you lose it when you start an attack or end one? If you lose it at the end then you can do a last attack at the last minute and have almost no chances of getting attacked.

Unknown

Seems like another Pay To Win method...

So not really excited about this.
I'm interested to see wether or not people can win tournaments without paying money (g coins).
Sorry to say that this kills the game for me.

Unknown

For everyone complaining about P2W...it's 50 cents people. Is every player here on food stamps?

Unknown

WilliamK99 wrote:

So in other words, wake up at 3am, play 3 hours, get lots of points...Put up Shields and call it a day?

That could be the optimal playstyle. Everyone else would already be high up, so you can get the maximum rating/battle efficiency. That would make it easier to get to 400+, leave you less vulnerable to retaliations until the magic hour, and you can get one more juicy hit right before the event ends while everyone else that shielded early is freaking out that so many people passed them (which causes them to fight back, which leaves them able to be retaliated, causing them to attack more, etc.). I can't wait to see how this system actually works in practice rather than theory.

Unknown

DumDumDugn wrote:

For everyone complaining about P2W...it's 50 cents people. Is every player here on food stamps?

Sure, it STARTS with fifty cents... then another fifty cents, then another fifty cents, and before long this is the future of gaming.

MarvelMan

DumDumDugn wrote:

For everyone complaining about P2W...it's 50 cents people. Is every player here on food stamps?

And you get 50 HP for the 400 progression reward, plus it brings the 1000 level HP reward into something that could be doable for even mediocre players (especially if you are playing "off" hours! Maybe that one takes some luck as to not getting hit/retaliated, but with the general boost this will give it seems possible now. I know I used to play off times when there was the 500 HP reward and, with luck, several times peaked at 1200 with a mid 70s Thor, lvl 50-ish Wolvie (4/5/3 even!) and a 80-ish IM40.