Operation Pay Harder: A Debrief

Colognoisseur

Phaserhawk wrote:

one simple fix is to not allow changes to alliances at certain times. Once a PvP starts I would suggest a 24 hour window to adjust alliance lineups and then you are locked in. Being able to jump back and forth here and there, this has to stop, it's why they don't allow it in any major sport, it's called the trade deadline, you implement this and it instantly stops the manipulation. Then you can start working on sharding and MMR.

If anything came out of this that the devs implemented; fixing you to an alliance for the duration of an event would be the thing I would like to see most.

Unknown

Budget Player Cadet wrote:

I did. I made the choice, and I played as hard as I could once I figured out how and got my tools sharpened. 'Course, now that's not an option. And I'm not the only one transitioning. How do you get 4* covers without having 4*s?

I totally agree with all that you said. And I understand your concern reading your explanations.

Your situation is not as desperate as I thought though and I apologized if I seemed judgmental.

Now, it may seem very simplistic/easy, but if you can't make it to 553 with winning the covers when Sentry is nerfed, maybe buying the missing covers will help you ? If there's one character to invest money on, it's him.

I don't know if you spent some money in the game already, but strategywise, it seems obvious D3P will make everything possible to make players invest in the game one day or another.

What do you think ?

Unknown

I like the timeslots. Don't get rid of them.

Or shift the end times by 8 hours so the US Players have PvP regularly ending at 7am.

Unknown

I'm extremely fortunate that I happen to live in the east coast time zone, so the 1am ending time works best for me most times.

I chose the traditional time slot (time slot 4) for the first PVP, Smash Hit.

But if I had chosen to go with another time slot, just out of convenience, and missed 1300 and missed my 5th black Xforce cover, I would have been furious.

This system is so flawed it is crazy.

I have a few members in my alliance who live across the pond, and for them to choose one of the terrible time slots and then fail to find any valuable fights past 800....that is incredibly unfair and unfortunate for our season score.

This whole test was supposed to make it better for people who the traditional ending time did not work for but, in an exceedingly ironic twist, it has only made it worse for them.

And for those that favor the time slot 4, we are glad that we are not experiencing the same problems getting the points we need for progression rewards. But we will suffer in that there is no way I'll ever make top 5, when my top 10 is a range from 1691 (rank 10) to 2381 (rank 1).

That is insane.

So, this entire test has made just about everyone except for the highest scorers basically have to choose between progression rewards and event rewards.

That is just tragic.

Unknown

I guess I was in slot #4 with all the high scorers. I was able to get over 1000 without needing to shield once, first time for that. However, that only got me T25 in my bracket, which was much lower than I typically like to rank, but none of the rewards this time really motivated me to put any more effort in.

I hope this scoring doesn't continue to be outrageous when actual desirable rewards are on the line.

Adam12

Phaserhawk wrote:

one simple fix is to not allow changes to alliances at certain times. Once a PvP starts I would suggest a 24 hour window to adjust alliance lineups and then you are locked in. Being able to jump back and forth here and there, this has to stop, it's why they don't allow it in any major sport, it's called the trade deadline, you implement this and it instantly stops the manipulation. Then you can start working on sharding and MMR.

I agree, an alliance swap cooldown period should be in effect. That's probably the simplest solution from a technical side.

Alternatively, make it so you can't take your alliance score with you when you swap.

lukewin

I like the concept of what was done. Something was needed to focus attention on a problem (matchmaking within time slice for low value matches) that was created by a solution (time slices) to a problem that has been around for a long time (end times). Forum posts and outrage on the forums don't normally get enough attention drawn. The only time I can recall is when the Cancel Juggernaut Heroic thread caught fire and got a response.

I am in favor of time slices, for the same reason everyone else is in favor of them. I do think it is unfair that people that weren't in the 4th slice, had to expend more HP and ISO to get less than they did before because of the inability to find matches worth fighting. Most of these folks are trying to get progression rewards, and were unable to do so without a lot more HP, ISO, time and effort. It does help people get higher placement, but if their focus was on the progression rewards, they were out of luck. It also created placement problems for those in the 4th slice, that were just going for Top 100 placement, requiring a lot higher score to do so.

A proposed solution could be to have a slice solely for the folks trying to score high for points, progression/season rewards or whatever reason, so they can hop off each other, and generate enough revenue to cover the other slices. Maybe even a small HP cost to enter to deter the casual/less hardcore players who are in it for the placement rewards, to not have to understand the logic behind it. If they see an entrance fee, they'll just avoid it.

kidicarus

The whole point of being in an Alliance is about working towards a common goal. Time slicing does not allow that, I'm an Asian player in Shield - racial stereotypes not withstanding I do wish this game was less hardcore than it currently is. With the score discrepancies between the different time slices, if I choose a time that's convenient for me (I'm +8GMT, and pre time slicing, there was only really 1 time that was convenient for me - the midweek pvp) I'm going to contribute less to the alliance than if I were choosing a more inconvenient time. This means I can't work towards the common goal that I mentioned above if I valued convenience.

What i'm trying to say is, the time slice you enter shouldn't effect the score that you get.

Unknown

About Alliance swap : there could be a limit (let's say 1 member can be in and/or out) but the option should not be blocked during a PvP. Some guys may have personal issues and not be able to play.

We had an example recently when a team mate could not be reached at all, and was not playing. We had to kick him out (we never heard from him after he was kicked).

Sometimes Top 10-9-8 is very tight pointwise, and you can screw the whole thing if you are missing 100 points.

Another thing : isn't Alliance swapping part of the strategy ? Many big Alliances have sister Alliances so that they can do that.

Unknown

Dear all,

if I read between the lines on what you all wrote, it seems that we have the following main lines:

1) the time shard is a good mechanism as it allows people to play at their own pace
2) the current shard mechanism does not work

I must say that I like the general idea about the time shard. One of the biggest disadvatages is that one cannot queue anymore any player, but only the ones in their shard. Another point is that people can freely move to an alliance till the last shard has ended. Then what if the following would be proposed

1) one should be able to queue any player in the game regardless in which time shard this a player would be
2) once the shard of a given player has finished, this player cannot be queued by any player, thus player for which the pvp is over will not contribute with points for the remaining players for which pvp is still active
3) once the shard has ended, all the players in that shard are not able to apply to any alliance untill the end of the last shard

I guess these three points would please not only top players, but also the players that prefer a game corresponding more to their normal life rythym.

And I would add: though the time shard is creating some discussion in pvp, my opinion is that it is much more important in pve, specially when you have big chars coming out. This is the main source of burn out and have main events and sub events that end in a better time for me would be a greater gain than pvp. One can still shield in pvp for 8 hours once, but in pve there is no way to stay in the top and get cover if you do not become a pve-zombie

Unknown

WorldRunner wrote:

Now see if you would have said the reason behind this was to take the top spot away from X-Men it would have made sense.

What exactly are you trying to prove or as you say 'get d3's attention' ?

I don't know about you but if I am dissatisfied with a business my first thought isn't to give them more money.

If I wanted to complain to Best Buy/Walmart/Target that I didn't like their new store hours I don't think I'd include a stack of cash with my complaint

This whole thing might as well read 'Players demands changes or they'll continue to outspend XMen.'

Unknown

Jamie Madrox wrote:

I want to clear up a few things about OPH that have obviously been lost on a good number of people:

1. This was never about beating the X-Men. It was about highlighting how the current time splitting of events is creating disparity amongst the player base. That said, the best way to make a statement was to beat the X-Men who have been the dominant force in MPQ since season 2.
2. It took a ton of coordination across multiple top alliances to do this and it was close up until the last hours and it couldn't have been done without a ton of work from two OPH members that I won't publicly call out, but they were instrumental in making this happen.
3. Yes, time splitting is a great feature and we do need it in the game. We all recognize this and we all agree that something needs to be done for the player base as a whole to make it easier on them.
4. Time splitting as it is now is broken. Anyone not in the X-Men time shard is basically tinykitty for season placement awards as they'll only score about 1/2 of the points for the same or more HP.
5. In order for this game to last and thrive, it needs to be fair for everyone. Top players, bottom players, Europeans, Americans, etc
6. Beta testing during the season needs to stop. If they need more than a week to do it, then extend the off season or run a second event that uses the beta test separate from the main season events.

This is literally the craziest reasons for this plan ever. Like WorldRunner said earlier, if someone provides you w **** service as a business, the ONLY two responses to get them to change are:
1) stop using that business
2) start paying a lot less money per visit

This was not accomplished at all. All that was accomplished was giving D3 their MOST SUCCESSFUL EVENT EVER by scores & hp usage.

"I don't like what you are doing so I will pay MORE MONEY THAN NORMAL to protest" - said by no one ever before last night

If your true goals were to get D3 to change things, then get "the band" back together & SKIP AN EVENT or DON'T USE HP FOR ONE EVENT AT ALL. They will notice that. Anything else is just an attempt to beat the Xmen w a convenient cover story to get the necessary numbers.

D3 won't change time sharding as an event mechanism. What they are VERY LIKELY to do is allow people to attack people outside of their time shard. That is still a sticky wicket because that means players who are literally finished can be attacked which may cause CHAOS on the servers. How many of you have noticed that shields run even after an event ends? The server keeps your status for that. Attacking someone off a shield who is done is quite likely a programming nightmare (seems pretty obvious if one stops to think about it).

As far as the argument for season placement, sure some people's scores may go down. The best response for that is to: SWITCH TIME SHARDS. Yeah, if your last time shard wasn't a "good" time, then try a different one. This is no different than the old starting time question "start at 2-4a est for the easiest brackets" or "never start from 4-7p est unless you want a death bracket". Everyone learned from that WHAT WORKS BEST FOR THEM by trial & error. Same thing here

Beta testing "in season" can & should be expected unless people want off seasons that last 7-14 days so they can get enough testing in. Don't forget that "off season" always has the lowest participation rates. They CAN NOT USE THAT INFO for season matches because it's not the same. It's like trying to test solar cell capacity at night. Sure there is energy stored up but without the sin being out, you'll never the true nature of solar cells. Just like here, D3 won't know how things work "in season" unless they get tested as such.

Meanwhile congrats on beating Xmen, I'm sure that tons of self congratulations & kudos were passed around lol

Unknown

biomarvel wrote:

And I would add: though the time shard is creating some discussion in pvp, my opinion is that it is much more important in pve, specially when you have big chars coming out. This is the main source of burn out and have main events and sub events that end in a better time for me would be a greater gain than pvp. One can still shield in pvp for 8 hours once, but in pve there is no way to stay in the top and get cover if you do not become a pve-zombie

Absolutely. But maybe it was easier for D3 to test time slices with PvP first since there are no subs ?

The whole test/work has to start somewhere.

One day we will be proud to have made history being part of this major beta test That's also one good point of being a veteran.

Flare808

Allowing people to attack out of shard would still cause trouble, even if a finished shard is off limits. The first shard would have to grind it out to reach decent scores. The second shard would have an easier time as they would be able to feed off of what shard one did. The third would have an even larger pool of targets to start out from and higher value targets. It compounds even more when you get to shard 5, as they benefit from all 4 previous shards. Not completely shooting the idea down for cross-shard attacks, but there are downfalls as well.

Unknown

Attacking another time shard would be the same as being able to queue up players who are shielded since that's exactly the same thing once a previous shard is done and it'll just lead to runaway inflation of scoring, and if the guys from the previous shard can lose points that'd mean you better put a 24 hour shield before the event ends if you're in the earliest shard.

For the alliance manipulation problem all of that existed in the past. Having max size alliance slots means instead of convincing one guy (the commander) to let you in, you can convince 19 guys to leave their alliance instead. Even if you're a master salesman it's probably easier to do the former than the latter. Of course alliance manipulation is a pretty serious problem but nothing meaningful new was enabled by leveling the roster size playing field.

Raekwen

biomarvel wrote:

1) one should be able to queue any player in the game regardless in which time shard this a player would be
2) once the shard of a given player has finished, this player cannot be queued by any player, thus player for which the pvp is over will not contribute with points for the remaining players for which pvp is still active
3) once the shard has ended, all the players in that shard are not able to apply to any alliance untill the end of the last shard

I was going to suggest the same thing. I don't understand why the matchmaking wouldn't be global. It was at first, then they said "Oops, that's broken." and changed it, so I know it's possible.

Flare808 wrote:

Allowing people to attack out of shard would still cause trouble, even if a finished shard is off limits. The first shard would have to grind it out to reach decent scores. The second shard would have an easier time as they would be able to feed off of what shard one did. The third would have an even larger pool of targets to start out from and higher value targets. It compounds even more when you get to shard 5, as they benefit from all 4 previous shards. Not completely shooting the idea down for cross-shard attacks, but there are downfalls as well.

You're basically describing the way PVP worked up until this experiment. People who started earlier had less targets and had to grind harder, and people who started later had an easier climb. I don't see the problem.

I'm a west coast player, so times have never been an issue for me. The people who I feel really bad for are the non-US players in top alliances who still can't choose the end times they want, because the scores are so low they can't stay competitive and it hurts the alliance. We have a few people that were like that.

Like people have said, don't scrap the system. Improve it.

Raekwen

Phantron wrote:

Attacking another time shard would be the same as being able to queue up players who are shielded since that's exactly the same thing once a previous shard is done and it'll just lead to runaway inflation of scoring, and if the guys from the previous shard can lose points that'd mean you better put a 24 hour shield before the event ends if you're in the earliest shard.

That doesnt make a bit of sense. The system works the way it's always worked, you queue people who are non-shielded, regardless of shard. If they are shielded, you can't see them, and they fall out of the system once their shard ends.

Ducky

Raekwen wrote:

Phantron wrote:

Attacking another time shard would be the same as being able to queue up players who are shielded since that's exactly the same thing once a previous shard is done and it'll just lead to runaway inflation of scoring, and if the guys from the previous shard can lose points that'd mean you better put a 24 hour shield before the event ends if you're in the earliest shard.

That doesnt make a bit of sense. The system works the way it's always worked, you queue people who are non-shielded, regardless of shard. If they are shielded, you can't see them, and they fall out of the system once their shard ends.

But once the event finishes in earlier time slices their shields will expire. That is what he is alluding to.

Unknown

Hi, I'm Seasong and for some context on my perspective, I'm one of the late/non-crazy scorers in X-men 2.

Firstly, congrats to OPH for some awesome scoring and for taking first! You guys did a great job! However, I don't think the ability to form such an alliance after slot 4 had ended implicates a new flaw in the system. As many have said, you can always manipulate placement by last minute switching. X-men could have similarly responded by switching people around though that's generally not our policy.

I think the real hypothetical flaw is one where you have a hard-gunning alliance who all go to slot 5, look at the scores already posted and then work together to outscore that. If X1/X2 were all in slot 4, we wouldn't have a way to come back legitimately by having our players score higher. But if this hypothetical alliance did exist, then I guess everyone would just have to go to slot 5 and be done with it.

Meanwhile, I think the real problem that needs to be addressed is the much smaller player pool in each time slot and its effect on the game. To me, the most pressing issues are:

1. Crazy sharding. When you have an over-concentration of top scorers in one slot, you're naturally going to have more competitive brackets, and the "gentle nudging" provided by the game becomes overkill.
2. Disparity of points between time slots. To make the system more viable, I think you should have at most two or three slots. This would give you a more robust pool of targets allowing those who wish to score higher to still find targets to hop off of while also increasing the chance of finding other high scorers who did not go with the herd.
3. Unfair skip tax. Not as important in the larger scheme of things, but when you're at 1900+ and continuously cycling through people who are at 0(!) points to 300 points, it does seem a bit unfair. Maybe when MMR is so weird, consider getting rid of skip tax.

Overall, I think my experience with time slots has not been as bad as some though I disagree with it from an even playing field standpoint. In PVP as opposed to PVE, where player choices directly impact each other, having which time slot you chose be a factor seems to take something away from the competition. I'm lucky to be part of a large, organized alliance group who can adapt to this change, but I feel for high scorers in smaller alliances who have to make their own way.

Finally, I've seen some people say, "Why should D3 listen to the top 1% of players when it makes the rest of the 99% player base happy?" I think the simple answer is that that 1% shoulders much more than 1% of the cost of the game. As Operation Pay Harder highlights, to truly compete requires a financial commitment. D3/Demiurge should be commended for making a very enjoyable game on the F2P level but on the other hand, the needs of the paying players who help sustain the game shouldn't be glossed over. Different end times offer a seemingly universal benefit in providing choice, but for top competitive players, there is still no real choice. Thus, top players are saddled with the negative effects without fully realizing the positive. I think D3/Demiurge should do more mitigate those negative effects.

Unknown

Raekwen wrote:

Phantron wrote:

Attacking another time shard would be the same as being able to queue up players who are shielded since that's exactly the same thing once a previous shard is done and it'll just lead to runaway inflation of scoring, and if the guys from the previous shard can lose points that'd mean you better put a 24 hour shield before the event ends if you're in the earliest shard.

That doesnt make a bit of sense. The system works the way it's always worked, you queue people who are non-shielded, regardless of shard. If they are shielded, you can't see them, and they fall out of the system once their shard ends.

The reason why being able to queue up shielded players led to runaway inflation is because shielded players can't ever fight back.

A player in a shard that has already ended also cannot fight back. What would happen is people would just pass around names of guys in an earlier shard and just keep on skip until they get them. Once enough people do this you won't get attacked anyway because people will be looking for the guys in the earlier shards because hitting someone who can't fight back is still the safest thing to do until you pass up the highest point guy from the shards that already ended.