Planned Updates To Shields - New Start Date

simonsez

GothicKratos wrote:

You do realize how contradictory the bold is to the italicized, right? How is it a cash grab if less people are going shield hop?

You do realize this is basic math, right? If half as many people shield hop, but it costs them 3 times as much to do so, it's a cash grab.

I'm not saying this is what it is, but don't invalidate the guy's point by claiming there's a contradiction when there's not.

Unknown

I think a lot of the flaming and counter-flaming in this thread comes down to the fact that some peoe are using "shield hop" to mean "break shield, do a couple of quick battles, reshield" and some people (including d3p?) are using "shield hop" to mean "do that three times each hour"

Phaserhawk

It's very, very simple.

Too many people are getting high scores, aka getting top progression award. This isn't desirable for D3 when you think for at worst 500 HP after rewards and progressions you just got a 2500HP valued cover, so D3's response. "If you are going to do this it's going to cost you a lot more HP." With the veil of fairness they are saying, "we are going to make the top players pay for that cover that they are getting at a discounted price" So you limit people to 3 hops every 8 hours. What I really think you'll see happening is players gunning for that top reward then stopping, while D3 probably thinks this will make them more money I honest and truly beleive this will cost them a lot more in the end as some of those X-Men players even with coordination were easily dropping 1K worth of HP on shielding and now they will probably cut that in 1/2 so what they mean by testing is, if $ sales drop due to this we will say the testing didn't work and revert back to normal.

I say this to all the top alliances, don't give in this season to ridicoulous pushing of scores, make D3 regret their decision and that we the players hold more sway then they think. It's true with anyone in power, you mess with their cash flow and you bring them to their knees.

simonsez

Phaserhawk wrote:

This isn't desirable for D3 when you think for at worst 500 HP after rewards and progressions you just got a 2500HP valued cover, so D3's response. "If you are going to do this it's going to cost you a lot more HP."

I agree, but If they had just said "the 4* progression cutoff is now 1600", you wouldn't have seen 16 pages of complaining.

Unknown

simonsez wrote:

Phaserhawk wrote:

This isn't desirable for D3 when you think for at worst 500 HP after rewards and progressions you just got a 2500HP valued cover, so D3's response. "If you are going to do this it's going to cost you a lot more HP."

I agree, but If they had just said "the 4* progression cutoff is now 1600", you wouldn't have seen 16 pages of complaining.

You can't be serious

Unknown

gamar wrote:

simonsez wrote:

Phaserhawk wrote:

This isn't desirable for D3 when you think for at worst 500 HP after rewards and progressions you just got a 2500HP valued cover, so D3's response. "If you are going to do this it's going to cost you a lot more HP."

I agree, but If they had just said "the 4* progression cutoff is now 1600", you wouldn't have seen 16 pages of complaining.

You can't be serious

That would affect like 1% of the playerbase, maybe - the people who could get to 1300 reliably but weren't reaching 1600. This affects at least 5-10% of the playerbase, and arguably everyone who uses shields.

Phaserhawk

gamar wrote:

simonsez wrote:

Phaserhawk wrote:

This isn't desirable for D3 when you think for at worst 500 HP after rewards and progressions you just got a 2500HP valued cover, so D3's response. "If you are going to do this it's going to cost you a lot more HP."

I agree, but If they had just said "the 4* progression cutoff is now 1600", you wouldn't have seen 16 pages of complaining.

You can't be serious

yeah, I'll agree with gamar, if you push the Progression rewards even further out you are really making it pay to play and it's just a straight middle finger to the top players while the lower players see no hope of ever getting there. You need to make progression rewadrs hard but obtainable, but by hitting shield costs you can leave the progression rewards while making it more expensive for the people who use shields to get there. Do I think alliances who were scoring ridicoulously high scores were abusing the shield system, yes, but that could have been solved by putting a cap on points earned by a team from any one player. Say you made 1800 the cap, you would still score points past that, but only 1800 of your score will count for Season stats. This is an in your face screw you players we don't want you getting the progression reawards very easily, thus you must pay more in order to do so. But like I said, when D3 sees their revenue drop because of this it will quickly be swept under the rug and reverted.

simonsez

gamar wrote:

You can't be serious

Yes, I'm serious. 90% of the complaining in this thread is about how the changes don't make sense given the stated goals, or just the lack of logic in general. I'm not saying people would have LIKED the change to 1600, but it would've negated most of the discussion by making an unpopular decision that people could have at least understood because it would've been directly in line with the stated goal. If you think there would've been a reply of "I don't like this" followed by 16 pages of "me neither", maybe you're right, but I'd think that'd run out of steam quicker than that.

simonsez

Phaserhawk wrote:

by hitting shield costs you can leave the progression rewards while making it more expensive for the people who use shields to get there.

I'm not seeing much of a difference between going to 1300 while paying 75/150/75/300/75/150 for shields, vs. going to 1600 while paying 75/75/75/75/75/75/75/75/75/75/75, but hey, that's just me.

Phaserhawk

simonsez wrote:

Phaserhawk wrote:

by hitting shield costs you can leave the progression rewards while making it more expensive for the people who use shields to get there.

I'm not seeing much of a difference between going to 1300 while paying 75/150/75/300/75/150 for shields, vs. going to 1600 while paying 75/75/75/75/75/75/75/75/75/75/75, but hey, that's just me.

right, but think about the player that starts getting to 1200 consistently albeit he's fighiting tooth and nail but doens't go crazy, then all of a sudden it's 1600, he's/she's like f*%$ that. For some like you it wont' matter, but I think a larger majority it would.

GothicKratos

simonsez wrote:

GothicKratos wrote:

You do realize how contradictory the bold is to the italicized, right? How is it a cash grab if less people are going shield hop?

You do realize this is basic math, right? If half as many people shield hop, but it costs them 3 times as much to do so, it's a cash grab.

I'm not saying this is what it is, but don't invalidate the guy's point by claiming there's a contradiction when there's not.

For one, it doesn't change what I said, at all; his statement, as it was stated, it contradictory.

But besides that, how is it their fault that the upper echelon (the 1%) are going to continue hopping to unnecessary point scores, even if it is going to cost them way more Hero Points than it's actually worth?

So many people act like the developers are Wall Street or something. They're not selling you penny stocks and lying to your face about their value or promising value down the road.

I'm just going to make this statement and I'm going to walk out of this discussion;

Shields are not meant to help you accumulate points. I don't care that people were smart enough to use it to gain points, that's fine, all's fair in competitive gaming (as long as you're not literally cheating/modding). If you're not familiar with my point of view on competitive gaming it's here, but to sum it up nicely; when you're playing to win, that's all that matter - it doesn't matter how, how much it costs you, how much time you have to invest. You're a winner. You find ways to bend the rules and gain an advantage. You find ways to give yourself an edge. You find ways to do tasks more effectively. You use only the best characters or equipment. That's how it rolls and that's 100% fine and dandy.

That being said, if something is warping the meta, the developers should, can, and in most cases, will step in and fix it. Is this the perfect solution? Maybe not. Give them a chance to see it needs some work before you grab your pitchforks. Realistically, we're all theorycrafting here until we have solid numbers and figures. We can assume how it will go, but we don't really know. Sit down and enjoy the ride. You competitive folks will find another way to get those huge gains, and those that are willing to make the jump and invest the needed time and resources will, and those that will not...well they won't. That's how the cookie crumbles.

Nerf Vergil!

Unknown

It's funny how many people either don't know or don't realize why shields were originally invented. Before shields, you would play PvP & have to play to a big score before bed & kinda hope that you wouldn't get totally slammed while you slept. This was back before true healing, so your whole team could get healed super fast, so during your waking hours you could retal nonstop. Things were ok while you were awake (kinda. Still too many attacks) but sleep was an instant rank #1-10 => rank #60-100. Shields were put in to stop that
The alliance S.H.I.E.L.D was among the first to realize the advantage of shield hopping (I believe Reckless, WYP & Beee were leaders of this w a few others that I can't remember anymore). This gave them a huge advantage at first because that alliance had TONS of stockpiled HP from winning nearly event early event. Venoms eventually caught up. By S3, the addition of Sentry changed things & xmen rose to dominance from P2W strategies involving sentry & HP

Now very few of these original people are left. Most everyone who shield hops now to a 1300+ level was either not playing then or played at a substantially lower level (yes obviously some of you were elite then & now. "Most everyone"). All of these people ONLY see shield as a means of scoring more points & not primarily protecting your "PvP work" while you sleep (which now plays a secondary role for most 1300+ players who just use a 8hr instead of a 3hr before bed)

This change will make the game MUCH BETTER
People on this forum complain about EVERYTHING before it happens & most of the time stuff balances out
"True healing will kill the game" - it didn't. In fact how bad would 4hor PvE have been if everyone could've healed nonstop. Would've been every 2.5 hr MAYBE gets a single 4hor cover since everyone could constantly recover instead of providing incentive for players to play smart
"Sentry & hood NERF will kill shield hopping/giant scores" - didn't happen either

Shield cool downs will make the game more competitive imo

Unknown

as another idea, if protecting one's pvp work while asleep is the original idea, why cant they design shield that lets you pick a certain time every day until it ends for 3 8 or 12 hrs that will automatically come up so that you can plan your pvp climb during the day and truly pay for shielding when you sleep. everyone should be able to figure out when they want to hit the sack and for how many hours. The key to preventing shield hoping is that once you pick the time slice, you no longer can buy any more shield but granted the shield will come alive during the time you selected each day until event ends.

Unknown

JoshBot3000 wrote:

It's funny how many people either don't know or don't realize why shields were originally invented. Before shields, you would play PvP & have to play to a big score before bed & kinda hope that you wouldn't get totally slammed while you slept. This was back before true healing, so your whole team could get healed super fast, so during your waking hours you could retal nonstop. Things were ok while you were awake (kinda. Still too many attacks) but sleep was an instant rank #1-10 => rank #60-100. Shields were put in to stop that
The alliance S.H.I.E.L.D was among the first to realize the advantage of shield hopping (I believe Reckless, WYP & Beee were leaders of this w a few others that I can't remember anymore). This gave them a huge advantage at first because that alliance had TONS of stockpiled HP from winning nearly event early event. Venoms eventually caught up. By S3, the addition of Sentry changed things & xmen rose to dominance from P2W strategies involving sentry & HP

Now very few of these original people are left. Most everyone who shield hops now to a 1300+ level was either not playing then or played at a substantially lower level (yes obviously some of you were elite then & now. "Most everyone"). All of these people ONLY see shield as a means of scoring more points & not primarily protecting your "PvP work" while you sleep (which now plays a secondary role for most 1300+ players who just use a 8hr instead of a 3hr before bed)

This change will make the game MUCH BETTER
People on this forum complain about EVERYTHING before it happens & most of the time stuff balances out
"True healing will kill the game" - it didn't. In fact how bad would 4hor PvE have been if everyone could've healed nonstop. Would've been every 2.5 hr MAYBE gets a single 4hor cover since everyone could constantly recover instead of providing incentive for players to play smart
"Sentry & hood NERF will kill shield hopping/giant scores" - didn't happen either

Shield cool downs will make the game more competitive imo

Yes, shields were implemented as a band aid to deal with PvP point losses, but you're neglecting to mention the REAL reason they were implemented..... another source of revenue for D3.

MaskedMan

My problem is the same issue many have with shields old and new. Progress vs PvP. Making PvP more bloody and preventing exploits makes some sense (everyone is under the same limitations). Making progressional rewards even harder doesn't. You currently have to have high level characters AND lots of shields to progress to the higher ranges.

That said they said very specifically in the announcement that after the first couple events they will check and see what players progress with new shields becomes. The results could be very different from expectations (tier 2* to 3* ers could get pounded by people trying to stay in the upper tiers reducing their already low scores or players may start picking their battles rather than try to win every event or it could go like True healing with some griping and then forgotten).

So I am willing to wait and see, provided they are prepared to make good on revising progresional rewards for current season (as well as future events) if it turns out everyone is getting **** on scoring.

Unknown

JoshBot3000 wrote:

It's funny how many people either don't know or don't realize why shields were originally invented. Before shields, you would play PvP & have to play to a big score before bed & kinda hope that you wouldn't get totally slammed while you slept. This was back before true healing, so your whole team could get healed super fast, so during your waking hours you could retal nonstop. Things were ok while you were awake (kinda. Still too many attacks) but sleep was an instant rank #1-10 => rank #60-100. Shields were put in to stop that
The alliance S.H.I.E.L.D was among the first to realize the advantage of shield hopping (I believe Reckless, WYP & Beee were leaders of this w a few others that I can't remember anymore). This gave them a huge advantage at first because that alliance had TONS of stockpiled HP from winning nearly event early event. Venoms eventually caught up. By S3, the addition of Sentry changed things & xmen rose to dominance from P2W strategies involving sentry & HP

Now very few of these original people are left. Most everyone who shield hops now to a 1300+ level was either not playing then or played at a substantially lower level (yes obviously some of you were elite then & now. "Most everyone"). All of these people ONLY see shield as a means of scoring more points & not primarily protecting your "PvP work" while you sleep (which now plays a secondary role for most 1300+ players who just use a 8hr instead of a 3hr before bed)

This change will make the game MUCH BETTER
People on this forum complain about EVERYTHING before it happens & most of the time stuff balances out
"True healing will kill the game" - it didn't. In fact how bad would 4hor PvE have been if everyone could've healed nonstop. Would've been every 2.5 hr MAYBE gets a single 4hor cover since everyone could constantly recover instead of providing incentive for players to play smart
"Sentry & hood NERF will kill shield hopping/giant scores" - didn't happen either

Shield cool downs will make the game more competitive imo

The way PvP was before shields was terrible. Shields made it less terrible but apparently that wasn't what shields were for (according to you) they were only there to protect your score while you sleep because, APPARENTLY, you either don't lose points when you are awake or you play literally constantly whilst not sleeping?

Shields are the only thing that currently stops everyone ending an event at 800-900 points and shield hopping is the only reason people can reach 1300. Why don't you try using shields "how they were meant to be used" and then come back and explain to me how you got a decent score out of it in the end?

As far as the changes making the game "MUCH BETTER" could you take a moment to explain why exactly or am I just taking your word for it?

As far as making it more competitive you are COMPLETELY WRONG. In fact it will simply make it so LESS people can compete. lets say, for arguments sake i'm willing to SPEND enough on the game to buy 2 3hr shields, 2 8hr shields and 2 24hr shields per PvP. I use those to make 5 shield hops of 2-3 matches and run out the end of the event shielded. HOW ARE YOU COMPETING WITH ME??? Do you have some magical tactic that lets you get 10-15 matches above the cut off where the horde hits without shield hopping? No? Didn't think so.....

Then along comes an extended alliance and they co-ordinate losses into shielded alliance members to accelerate their scores early, they then use the exact number of shields I did but by co-ordination they ensure the LITERAL best possible targets for their hits. How am I competing with them? Err.... still no answer?

The changes make it more expensive to compete so how the hell is that more competitive? Simply making it so more people than before can't break through the score ceiling that "normal" or "intended" play creates does not equal any form of competitiveness. In fact you'll be guaranteeing those that are willing to pay have absolutely no risk of their investment failing to pay off.

Katai

I can't imagine getting the top progression reward to be even feasible without shielding.

Shield cooldown basically means you commit to your score. If you have 700 points when you shielded, you're going to end with 700 points for the tournament. That's it. Breaking your shield means you're playing until the last minute of the tournament, in a never ending cycle of Gain 25 points, Lose 40 points.

That's assuming, of course, that you find anyone worth 25 points. As it is now, it's already really difficult to find a team that gives you more than 20, even if it's a full level 166 3* team. Without people at the high end of the points, gaining points becomes really difficult.

PorkBelly

I'm still not sure why a cooldown period equivalent to the time of the shield minus 30 minutes doesn't solve the speed hopping problems.

Unknown

I think the positions on this issue are neatly split along the line of those equating spending HP for hops with being competitive and those that do not.

For the former group this change threatens to destroy/reduce competition because fewer players are able to participate. For the latter the change will increase competition by bringing the portion of the shield hoppers that can not sustain hopping after the change down to a level playing field.

simonsez

GothicKratos wrote:

That being said, if something is warping the meta, the developers should, can, and in most cases, will step in and fix it.

You're still missing the point. Assuming by "warping the meta" you mean coordinated shield-hopping to get high scores, this change does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to fix that, except make it more expensive and make everyone have to start earlier. Do you think the multi-alliance battle chats are shutting down because of this impending change? No, they're expanding, because as has been pointed out many times in this thread, this change will require MORE communication, which is counter to the rationale stated in the original post.