Spoit wrote: The 166 wall is more a matter of the MMR, more than the point distribution. Even in the depressed scores of desert brackets, it's still around 600
bonfire01 wrote: I'm loving the people thinking this change makes the game less pay to win and less reliant on out of game communication to hop... you guys are somewhere between idealistic and naive. Lets look at the facts: There is an absolute limit to what score you can achieve unshielded. If you've never had a genuinely high score and been unshielded in the last 3 hours of PvP for any length of time OR in the last 30 mins for almost any length of time you wouldn't understand... Best example I have is the recent pvp where 4* Thor was the 1st place reward. In my bracket 3 ppl vying for first all tried to win ONE SINGLE MATCH in the last 10 minutes to try and get/secure 1st. They won their matches and all LOST over 100 points (highest 157). If youa re not shielded you get torn apart at higher scores full stop. This means shield hopping will ALWAYS beat people not shield hopping. If you don't shield hop you don't get to win, period. SO these changes remove shield hopping right? Err..... no.... Instead you can hop twice, wait 8 hours, hop 3 times, rinse repeat (assuming you want to). Even that first pair of hops means I get to beat you if you don't hop end of story. You still won't get to win. SO what is the real impact? Simple.... you need to use more expensive shields to hop (3 hour shields are actually kind of useless unless it's to hop and follow with an 8 hour or the last 3 hours of the event) which means *drum roll* the game just got MORE pay to win! Hooray! The best bit is those players who don't spend heavily on the game won't have the chance to splurge some saved up HP on a specific event to try and get to 1300 for a cover because it just got a LOT more expensive between needing to use longer than necessary shields AND those guys getting 1400, 1500, 1500, 3000 (crazy ppl) points won't be doing that with the increased cost and more to the point impossibility to hop as often so YOU won't be getting 45+ points when you hop. SO enjoy more expensive hopping for LESS points OR just sitting there behind the exact same people. It'll be by less points but that won't actually get you anything at all.... As far as communication outside the game goes when hops become that much more important with respect to points scored, being able to co-ordinate targets in an extended alliance will give an even bigger advantage than it does already. Outside communication will be getting a buff! Hooray!? Whole thing remains poorly thought out ****. As a side note. People trying to entirely remove the shield hopping effect in the hope it somehow levels the playing field entirely and they suddenly start winning I have this to point out: SOMETHING is going to differentiate who comes first. Remove shield hopping (and by extension HP spending) then it will have to be something else, probably relating to activity or co-ordination. Well those guys scoring 2k+ points are indeed spending to win but they ALSO co-ordinate better than you AND they almost certainly are more active and hardcore than you. If you think HP spending is somehow propping up people who otherwise do nothing and you'll obviously beat with your superior *something-or-other* if shields go then you're dreaming.
LoreNYC wrote: I feel like the analogy, 'It takes money to make money' fits in here somehow. Obviously you need to understand the game to compete at a high level. However you have no chance of competing out a high level if the other team has juiced balls. Shield CD's however should be shorter than the shield, - not the same or longer
DuckyV wrote: In regards to the outside the game communication aspect: isn't that something that they would want as it would increase the chances that their game is introduced to new people?
rbdragon wrote: It was mentioned in this (or a different) thread that shields were made to allow the user to step away from the game without being hit. If this is true, then there's an easy solution to remove shield-hopping: make shields free. Okay, before you down-vote this (and at risk of making my previous post sound bad since perhaps it came from someone clearly out of his mind), here me out a bit...IF shields were created strictly to give users a break, then once you click a shield (no timer necessary), it should take you immediately out of the tournament screen. Once you click the tournament to go back in and play again, a prompt would remind you that your shield will be broken if you enter, where you click enter or cancel.But won't this just make shield-hopping easier and cheaper? Well no, because you can't shield and then set up your queues for when you're ready to unshield since you are removed from the screen.But can't we just set up our queues before we play our last match and then shield - this way we have two set up still after we play the 3rd node? Hmmm...good point - guess we'll have to clear the queue when you shield as well, thus ensuring you a fresh queue when you re-enter.But that sucks! What if you're queue is filled with all low-point players, since matchmaking is based on MMR? Another good point Devil's Advocate Me...guess our queue needs to go by points as well as MMR - something like you cannot see players with less than x points below you, or y points above you....with the least a match is worth being 15, and the most being 50 (once y = 50 pt match, you don't see players above that, which keeps new entries from seeing 1500 pt players).But shields make D3 a lot of coin... Not my problem...if they value fairness, this could be an option maybe....besides, they can get much MUCH more cash from us if they would introduce skins or some other fun aspect of the game that is missing... I don't know if this is a good idea or a horrible idea - just a different one.....at least I think it's different...if someone else suggested it, my bad...
Orangecrush wrote: It seems to me that prior to shields being introduced, it was nearly impossible to get the 1000+ progression rewards because of the zero sum gain nature of the scoring. The question is do they want us to have a realistic chance at getting the 1000+ progression rewards without shield hopping. If so, perhaps they should consider changing the nature of the scoring.
Spoit wrote: Orangecrush wrote: It seems to me that prior to shields being introduced, it was nearly impossible to get the 1000+ progression rewards because of the zero sum gain nature of the scoring. The question is do they want us to have a realistic chance at getting the 1000+ progression rewards without shield hopping. If so, perhaps they should consider changing the nature of the scoring. They adjusted the progression reward tiers after shields were introduced. I don't recall exactly what they were, but I want to say that the 3* progression reward was at 800? Nope, I was wrong, that was the 500 HP prize, 3* covers were still at 1100 and 1300
whitecat31 wrote: rbdragon wrote: It was mentioned in this (or a different) thread that shields were made to allow the user to step away from the game without being hit. If this is true, then there's an easy solution to remove shield-hopping: make shields free. Okay, before you down-vote this (and at risk of making my previous post sound bad since perhaps it came from someone clearly out of his mind), here me out a bit...IF shields were created strictly to give users a break, then once you click a shield (no timer necessary), it should take you immediately out of the tournament screen. Once you click the tournament to go back in and play again, a prompt would remind you that your shield will be broken if you enter, where you click enter or cancel.But won't this just make shield-hopping easier and cheaper? Well no, because you can't shield and then set up your queues for when you're ready to unshield since you are removed from the screen.But can't we just set up our queues before we play our last match and then shield - this way we have two set up still after we play the 3rd node? Hmmm...good point - guess we'll have to clear the queue when you shield as well, thus ensuring you a fresh queue when you re-enter.But that sucks! What if you're queue is filled with all low-point players, since matchmaking is based on MMR? Another good point Devil's Advocate Me...guess our queue needs to go by points as well as MMR - something like you cannot see players with less than x points below you, or y points above you....with the least a match is worth being 15, and the most being 50 (once y = 50 pt match, you don't see players above that, which keeps new entries from seeing 1500 pt players).But shields make D3 a lot of coin... Not my problem...if they value fairness, this could be an option maybe....besides, they can get much MUCH more cash from us if they would introduce skins or some other fun aspect of the game that is missing... I don't know if this is a good idea or a horrible idea - just a different one.....at least I think it's different...if someone else suggested it, my bad... About making shields free. That's part of the revenue. I want to actually play this game for a while, and not have the developer go broke. In any case the end result of this is, Mister 1000 point comes back after shield break. First thing is he going to have the lag of the load up. Mister 1000 points looks at his node, and sets up. By then he has already been hit due to the delay for negative 40 points by the 700 point people because he has immediately popped up on somebodies node. As somebody stated before, if you are even remotely a high value target, you will be hit hard and fast by lots of people. I have watched people with over 1500 points have a shield break and lose over 500 points in a span of less than 20 minutes. What a lot of people seem to forget is there is strategy involved with shield hopping, there excitement and a rush involved. If you take that way, you have just turned the game into a giant lightning round.
Phantron wrote: Spoit wrote: Orangecrush wrote: It seems to me that prior to shields being introduced, it was nearly impossible to get the 1000+ progression rewards because of the zero sum gain nature of the scoring. The question is do they want us to have a realistic chance at getting the 1000+ progression rewards without shield hopping. If so, perhaps they should consider changing the nature of the scoring. They adjusted the progression reward tiers after shields were introduced. I don't recall exactly what they were, but I want to say that the 3* progression reward was at 800? Nope, I was wrong, that was the 500 HP prize, 3* covers were still at 1100 and 1300 I thought 500 HP is for SHIELD training in the 2000+ and they had really good prizes for hitting that because the highest SHIELD training score was probably 1200. I'm pretty sure anything above 1000 in PvP before shields was in the realm of "I heard this guy got to 1XXX but there's no proof". Not saying it wasn't possible, but I sure don't recall ever seeing scores that high so they must have been very ephemeral.
bonfire01 wrote: I'm loving the people thinking this change makes the game less pay to win and less reliant on out of game communication to hop... you guys are somewhere between idealistic and naive. etc. etc.
homeinvasion wrote: how can we squeeze more money out of the same peeps? Oh I know randomize the cost for each shield hop, the whales will keep paying but noone else will. Honestly if you are trying to be serious just remove shields, this is another blatant cash grab.