Planned Updates To Shields - New Start Date

Unknown

Sontar wrote:

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.

I don't think you understand how the ladder system works. If you have a level playing field that means no one is gaining points faster than they lose. Which also means PvP turns into PvE - whoever can grind the most in the least amount of time wins. The only difference is PvP doesn't have scaling and rubberbanding to help transitioners. Thus, the people with max rosters will still have the advantage - as they should. It also means placement is determined completely randomly in the final minutes.

I don't agree that the positions on this issue are neatly split. It's an uneven split, between those that understand the meta and dynamics of PvP scoring, and those that don't. You might see the 2k scores and feel "robbed" of top rewards due to P2W. But you have to understand that if top scorers were suddenly scoring only 1k due to shield hop limits, you STILL have ZERO shot at beating them. The top scorers are providing the points for the rest of the playerbase. If their scores go down, so will yours.

Finally, the case for leveling the playing field is flawed at best. The players with maxed rosters weren't magically gifted them overnight. They either put in a ton of time, or paid $. Why should those who either have not put in the time or the $ be able to run with those who have? (Referring only to PvP, as in PvE anyone can win, independent of roster strength, as long as you have the essential characters)

Dauthi

GothicKratos wrote:

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!

I agree with you. Here is the problem, people are so pessimistic about business' in general. If they dislike a change they look for connections for a "cash grab" and connect the two. Yes, business' need money, but only a fool would create cash grabs while purposely making instability for short term gains, unless they have little hope for the future of the business. The business will inevitably run itself into the ground. All the best games attempt to fix exploits/inequalities because that is what makes them money in the long term.

The 1% of whales do not fund this game nearly as much as the rest of the population. As shield hopping caught on, more people were using this exploit creating more points, creating more shield hoppers. If anything this makes them lose money in the short term, as all the players who normally would not use shield/shield hopping will now cease using it all together.

simonsez wrote:

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.

Do you really believe that only half the people using shields will stop? You think that only 50% of the people hopping were whales? I guarantee you, you are wrong. It will stop a great majority of players who started hopping, remember these forums are not indicative of the actual population of MPQ in the least.

Unknown

gobstopper wrote:

Sontar wrote:

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.

I don't think you understand how the ladder system works. If you have a level playing field that means no one is gaining points faster than they lose. Which also means PvP turns into PvE - whoever can grind the most in the least amount of time wins. The only difference is PvP doesn't have scaling and rubberbanding to help transitioners. Thus, the people with max rosters will still have the advantage - as they should. It also means placement is determined completely randomly in the final minutes.

I don't agree that the positions on this issue are neatly split. It's an uneven split, between those that understand the meta and dynamics of PvP scoring, and those that don't. You might see the 2k scores and feel "robbed" of top rewards due to P2W. But you have to understand that if top scorers were suddenly scoring only 1k due to shield hop limits, you STILL have ZERO shot at beating them. The top scorers are providing the points for the rest of the playerbase. If their scores go down, so will yours.

Finally, the case for leveling the playing field is flawed at best. The players with maxed rosters weren't magically gifted them overnight. They either put in a ton of time, or paid $. Why should those who either have not put in the time or the $ be able to run with those who have? (Referring only to PvP, as in PvE anyone can win, independent of roster strength, as long as you have the essential characters)

You misunderstood. I do not expect transitioners to suddenly be able to compete with developed rosters. The level playingfield aimed at players with compareable rosters having similar chances of success because fewer players can afford/feel it worthwhile to spent HP on shields after the change. I do not feel robbed by anyone and find even the idea quite strange. By refusing to use shields to hop I get the progression and placement corresponding to my roster strength and time spend (usually top 100, sometimes top 50)

Aa GothicKratos mentioned originally shields where used for breaks from the game. The meta involving hops developed later after the introduction of alliances. My point is the meta changes. Not aggreeing with the current one does not mean we do not understand it.

GothicKratos

I'm a liar. I'm going to go ahead and respond to this.

simonsez wrote:

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.

More communication isn't a bad thing. I'm down with that. I'd even file that under one of those investments competitive players make to be competitive.

That being said, I feel like this will curb most people shield hopping and those that do continue to hop will not post the huge advantages they did before. I believe this first and foremost because of the evidence you keep flailing around like it supports your case; it's going to be expensive and time consuming. It's arguably not worth it already. Are those ten-packs worth it? Most people would say no. The 4* Thor cover? Not even. So now we're ramping up the cost and time investment more? I feel like a lot of people are going to take a step back and play differently from this point on.

The other side of it is I don't think it'll be nearly as effective as it is now as far as point gains is concerned. I simply feel like because you won't be able to do the 3-4 hops at the end of the event, those 50-point nodes are simply going to become a myth, except the very last hop.

lokiagentofhotness

GothicKratos wrote:

I'm a liar. I'm going to go ahead and respond to this.

simonsez wrote:

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.

More communication isn't a bad thing. I'm down with that. I'd even file that under one of those investments competitive players make to be competitive.

That being said, I feel like this will curb most people shield hopping and those that do continue to hop will not post the huge advantages they did before. I believe this first and foremost because of the evidence you keep flailing around like it supports your case; it's going to be expensive and time consuming. It's arguably not worth it already. Are those ten-packs worth it? Most people would say no. The 4* Thor cover? Not even. So now we're ramping up the cost and time investment more? I feel like a lot of people are going to take a step back and play differently from this point on.

The other side of it is I don't think it'll be nearly as effective as it is now as far as point gains is concerned. I simply feel like because you won't be able to do the 3-4 hops at the end of the event, those 50-point nodes are simply going to become a myth, except the very last hop.

Of course it's not worth it in the grand scheme of things - it's a game after all. But if I didn't want that Thor I wouldn't be playing this game, and if I'm willing to spend HP and time to achieve it, then D3 should say "oh no it's for your own good you should step back here we'll make you do it"?

Why don't we just tell everyone to stop playing if that's the case? Why even continue to release 4* covers that are hard to come by if we're not going to make it at all achievable for people who are willing to invest time and HP into it?

Breakking

I'm going to make this easy.

If I'm willing to buy a shield and you are not.....I'm going to beat you!

Everyone can post about a level playing field and blah, blah, blah but that one sentence sums up EVERY PVP result we will ever have unless shields are eliminated(which I do not want).

Tell me I'm wrong

GothicKratos

lokiagentofhotness wrote:

Of course it's not worth it in the grand scheme of things - it's a game after all. But if I didn't want that Thor I wouldn't be playing this game, and if I'm willing to spend HP and time to achieve it, then D3 should say "oh no it's for your own good you should step back here we'll make you do it"?

Why don't we just tell everyone to stop playing if that's the case? Why even continue to release 4* covers that are hard to come by if we're not going to make it at all achievable for people who are willing to invest time and HP into it?

Nobody is telling you you can't continue playing or playing hard. They're telling you that it's affecting a lot more people than you, and they, as the developers of this game, are saying they don't like the impact it's have on their playerbase. You act like all competitive play is out the window once this goes into place. It's not. As mentioned, people who want to hop will still hop and those people will still place at the top. Competitive play will evolve.

Unknown

Sontar wrote:

gobstopper wrote:

Sontar wrote:

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.

I don't think you understand how the ladder system works. If you have a level playing field that means no one is gaining points faster than they lose. Which also means PvP turns into PvE - whoever can grind the most in the least amount of time wins. The only difference is PvP doesn't have scaling and rubberbanding to help transitioners. Thus, the people with max rosters will still have the advantage - as they should. It also means placement is determined completely randomly in the final minutes.

I don't agree that the positions on this issue are neatly split. It's an uneven split, between those that understand the meta and dynamics of PvP scoring, and those that don't. You might see the 2k scores and feel "robbed" of top rewards due to P2W. But you have to understand that if top scorers were suddenly scoring only 1k due to shield hop limits, you STILL have ZERO shot at beating them. The top scorers are providing the points for the rest of the playerbase. If their scores go down, so will yours.

Finally, the case for leveling the playing field is flawed at best. The players with maxed rosters weren't magically gifted them overnight. They either put in a ton of time, or paid $. Why should those who either have not put in the time or the $ be able to run with those who have? (Referring only to PvP, as in PvE anyone can win, independent of roster strength, as long as you have the essential characters)

You misunderstood. I do not expect transitioners to suddenly be able to compete with developed rosters. The level playingfield aimed at players with compareable rosters having similar chances of success because fewer players can afford/feel it worthwhile to spent HP on shields after the change. I do not feel robbed by anyone and find even the idea quite strange. By refusing to use shields to hop I get the progression and placement corresponding to my roster strength and time spend (usually top 100, sometimes top 50)

Aa GothicKratos mentioned originally shields where used for breaks from the game. The meta involving hops developed later after the introduction of alliances. My point is the meta changes. Not aggreeing with the current one does not mean we do not understand it.

Right, so by leveling the playing field you want to create pandemonium and draw names out of a hat to determine the winners. In a game without true PvP and where you can beat the AI 99% of the time, leveling the playing field simply does not work.

It is always worthwhile to spend HP on shields to earn covers that are 1250 to 2500 a piece. If you can't afford to use shields to get the covers at a discount, I don't know why you feel entitled to get the covers over people that do spend $.

"By refusing to use shields to hop I get the progression and placement corresponding to my roster strength and time spend"
FYI, your current progression and placement vs time spend ratio is made possible due to the shield hopping system in place. Progression/time spend will decrease with this change, while placement will more or less stay the same.

lokiagentofhotness

GothicKratos wrote:

lokiagentofhotness wrote:

Of course it's not worth it in the grand scheme of things - it's a game after all. But if I didn't want that Thor I wouldn't be playing this game, and if I'm willing to spend HP and time to achieve it, then D3 should say "oh no it's for your own good you should step back here we'll make you do it"?

Why don't we just tell everyone to stop playing if that's the case? Why even continue to release 4* covers that are hard to come by if we're not going to make it at all achievable for people who are willing to invest time and HP into it?

Nobody is telling you you can't continue playing or playing hard. They're telling you that it's affecting a lot more people than you, and they, as the developers of this game, are saying they don't like the impact it's have on their playerbase. You act like all competitive play is out the window once this goes into place. It's not. As mentioned, people who want to hop will still hop and those people will still place at the top. Competitive play will evolve.

So who are these mythical creatures you speak of who are suffering because of shield-hopping? FYI I'm not even one of those regular high scorers my PVP score for the past few seasons has been 600-700. But I like being able to step away from the game for a half hour, play a while and then shield again to do other stuff I have to do without coming back to see I've lost 200 points. How exactly will this help me again?

Unknown

Somebody, think of the children!

Beat j to it.

AxeVirtuoso

The solution is simple. Just remove the game mechanic which allows that players get retracted points for losses caused by the CPU. If I myself screw up and lose a match, it's fine that I can see points being retracted. But not when the CPU loses on my behalf.

So players could simply progress until they hit some kind of wall. Hopefully it's just a soft wall, so one can get a few more wins at that point with boosts, luck etc. if one wants to reach the next progression reward.

Shields wouldn't even be needed anymore. As a matter of fact they only represent a very small fraction of income for the devs. Players will simply spend the HP elsewhere.. It's a win win situation.

Am I dreaming? Probably..

Unknown

gobstopper wrote:

Right, so by leveling the playing field you want to create pandemonium and draw names out of a hat to determine the winners. In a game without true PvP and where you can beat the AI 99% of the time, leveling the playing field simply does not work.

It is always worthwhile to spend HP on shields to earn covers that are 1250 to 2500 a piece. If you can't afford to use shields to get the covers at a discount, I don't know why you feel entitled to get the covers over people that do spend $.

"By refusing to use shields to hop I get the progression and placement corresponding to my roster strength and time spend"
FYI, your current progression and placement vs time spend ratio is made possible due to the shield hopping system in place. Progression/time spend will decrease with this change, while placement will more or less stay the same.

My relative placement is independent of the positions of shieldhoppers, though you are right that my absolute score might be lower.

There are different ways to level the playingfield. Removing shield hopping is one. Another would be to make shields in their current form free (yeah not going happen). I do not feel entitled to get covers over someone who spents money. However I think money should not factor into the decision whether to play comeptitive or not. That is an oppinion, nothing more. Is this that hard to understand? I believe in giving everyone the same meta tools and let PvP be decided by roster/time and skill Some might lack the proper coordination, others might screw up hops but competition should not be dictated by a willingness to throw money at a problem at least in my oppinion.

Unknown

Sontar wrote:

My relative placement is independent of the positions of shieldhoppers, though you are right that my absolute score might be lower.

There are different ways to level the playingfield. Removing shield hopping is one. Another would be to make shields in their current form free (yeah not going happen). I do not feel entitled to get covers over someone who spents money. However I think money should not factor into the decision whether to play comeptitive or not. That is an oppinion, nothing more. Is this that hard to understand? I believe in giving everyone the same meta tools and let PvP be decided by roster/time and skill Some might lack the proper coordination, others might screw up hops but competition should not be dictated by a willingness to throw money at a problem at least in my oppinion.

The part i've highlighted is the root issue with everything you've been posting..... you're actually playing an entirely different game and ended up on this forum by accident!!!

In the game you've been playing your roster makes a real genuine difference but in MPQ any sensible pairing of maxed 3*s with a loaned featured hero can beat a fully maxed enemy team with a maxed featured hero consistently if you just lob a decent TU and a few boosts at it. If people try their luck vs you with a team that's only winning 50% of the time you STILL LOSE OUT if you have a good score because for every person who loses to you you will receive 3-4 points and every person who beats you steals 45-50.

In the game you've been playing you can actually constructively use your time at high scores in PvP whilst unshielded whereas in MPQ you WILL LOSE POINTS if you are significantly ahead of the pack (or even slightly ahead of the pack) no matter how much time you are willing to dedicate to your efforts. In fact, because of the janky node system which doesn't update scores in real time you'll continue getting slapped about when you're score is no longer worth people's efforts because your now much lower score hasn't updated in their nodes.

In the game you've been playing skill is involved, but in MPQ you are beating a brain dead ai which means you only really need the absolute minimum ability to win a match. If you are losing out to someone because of a lack of skill then... err....

Bottom line is you don't seem to have any experience of scoring highly and therefore have no even remotely reasonable frame of reference with which to comment on it.

Unknown

Pity I would have liked to upvote your post if it was not for the personal attacks inthe last two paragraphs. I actually agree completely with the rest of your post. I am aware of these issues and made an effort to get people involved in brainstorming altwrnatives that might get picked up by D3, see "Improving PvP Design" thread.

Unknown

Ok fine, my post is a bit spiky but it's frustrating that people are saying a change that makes the game MORE pay to win is somehow "leveling the playing field". It means you either don't know how top end (by which I mean high scoring) PvP works at the moment to be able to extrapolate the impact of the changes OR you don't understand the changes proposed.

People have been repeatedly explaining the changes do NOT remove shield hopping they just make it more expensive and limit the total number you can achieve and they do NOT reduce the effectiveness of out of game communication and co-ordination but in fact ENHANCE it yet still people keep posting about it being a good change that "levels the playing field".

Now I don't mind if you think it's a good change.... don't personally see how but that's my opinion. I just take exception at the silly claims about what it's going to do for free-to-play players' ability to compete and all this talk of leveling anything. As i've said previously, you just get to have a lower score yourself and lose by less but you're still losing to the people who are spending and co-ordinating.

Nellobee

If they want to kill shield hopping, here is my suggestion:
A 1-hour cool down on reshielding. This starts when your shield expires or is broken.
You can reshield while shielded. Buying a second shield extends the time your shield is up.

Done.

(And frankly, killing shield hopping is for the benefit of the game.)

Dayv

Nellobee wrote:

If they want to kill shield hopping, here is my suggestion:
A 1-hour cool down on reshielding. This starts when your shield expires or is broken.
You can reshield while shielded. Buying a second shield extends the time your shield is up.

Done.

(And frankly, killing shield hopping is for the benefit of the game.)

I don't think a mandatory amount of unshielded time is viable until they do something about how fast you lose points at higher scores while unshielded. But at this point, this whole thread is going around in circles.

Nellobee

DayvBang wrote:

Nellobee wrote:

If they want to kill shield hopping, here is my suggestion:
A 1-hour cool down on reshielding. This starts when your shield expires or is broken.
You can reshield while shielded. Buying a second shield extends the time your shield is up.

Done.

(And frankly, killing shield hopping is for the benefit of the game.)

I don't think a mandatory amount of unshielded time is viable until they do something about how fast you lose points at higher scores while unshielded. But at this point, this whole thread is going around in circles.

I don't think they need to do anything about it. While it's frustrating waking up to discover you've fallen a hundred places and hundreds of points (gods know, I've done plenty of that), I don't see why it's a problem that must be solved. Those are points being earned by other people who are playing too.The winner would be whoever is playing the hardest at the end or right before they shielded, instead of whoever dropped the most HP into shields.
Care to explain why losing lots of points is a problem other than frustration?

Unknown

gobstopper wrote:

Sontar wrote:

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.

I don't think you understand how the ladder system works. If you have a level playing field that means no one is gaining points faster than they lose. Which also means PvP turns into PvE - whoever can grind the most in the least amount of time wins. The only difference is PvP doesn't have scaling and rubberbanding to help transitioners. Thus, the people with max rosters will still have the advantage - as they should. It also means placement is determined completely randomly in the final minutes.

I don't agree that the positions on this issue are neatly split. It's an uneven split, between those that understand the meta and dynamics of PvP scoring, and those that don't. You might see the 2k scores and feel "robbed" of top rewards due to P2W. But you have to understand that if top scorers were suddenly scoring only 1k due to shield hop limits, you STILL have ZERO shot at beating them. The top scorers are providing the points for the rest of the playerbase. If their scores go down, so will yours.

Finally, the case for leveling the playing field is flawed at best. The players with maxed rosters weren't magically gifted them overnight. They either put in a ton of time, or paid $. Why should those who either have not put in the time or the $ be able to run with those who have? (Referring only to PvP, as in PvE anyone can win, independent of roster strength, as long as you have the essential characters)

Among the people that as you say "understand the dynamic of PVP scoring" I've seen arguments in this thread that this will (a) not prevent 2k scores in the slightest, (b) make the top scores much lower but lower everybody else's scores similarly, and (c) scrunch everyone's scores together as intended but that's bad

There might be a few alliances willing to spend and coordinate every 8 hours to do the necessary hopping. But as usual, you forget that 99% of players aren't going for 1300. There's HARD numbers in the game system - the "good" progression rewards, the post-600 "wall of 166"... If scores go down after the change (and I think they will just through the nature of disincentives) the guy at 600 or 700 points doesn't need people at 1500 to get his high point battles, and as top20 and top50 take lower scores those races will open up for him again

Dauthi

I had to fight hard for my 1300 in my time slice in First Avenger while another alliance member strolled up to 1300 unshielded in the privileged time slice.

The amount of shield hoppers, if not stopped, will continue to rise as it catches on. This could make the difference in time slices more extreme, if points created grows exponentially based on the amount of shield hoppers. The more there are, the easier it is to hop, creating incentive to hop or the idea to hop. Smoothing this major inequality could be their intention. It may not stop the top 1%, but it could straighten things out for everyone else.