Planned Updates To Shields - New Start Date

Unknown

The truth is, if the vets stop scoring the 2k+ score, everyone will struggle to get to 1,300 because there is no target for you to hit, new players or not.

If cover drives revenue, most veteran players also spend heavily on covers and isos. Witness the 4 star Thor fully maxed the minute people received the Blue cover.

Veterans are people who also have spent a lot of money and continue to do so in order to stay competitive. If you are not spending as a veteran, you will not keep up. I mean, do you still use Sentry now?

Just look at the off-season event. Most top players are taking it easy and all of a sudden, everyone struggles to score to even get to the 1,100 cover, never mind the 1,300 cover.

Like every game, there are top players in there which sets the example for people to follow and aspire to. Driving them away is bad business but D3 seems to be good at doing that unfortunately.

simonsez

"David wrote:

Moore"]We asked ourselves this question: "Would you Shield hop if you didn't need to in order to reach a high score? If not, that's a sign that a change is probably needed."

Fascinating. You asked the right question, got the right answer, except you completely miss that it's the PvP structure that needs changing.

So, given that, as you say, people only shield hop because they have to in order to reach a high score, and now you're eliminating shield-hopping, you are therefore eliminating high scores. Can't understand how you can say "It's not clear at this point how much this change will affect the difficulty of earning progression rewards". It's completely clear that it will be more difficult.

Pwuz_

I don't think this change is as bad as some of you are saying, and I'm honestly a bit surprised how many people are this worked up over it.

1st. If you insist on still shield hopping, you can in a more limited sense.

2nd. They said they are TESTING an 8 hour cool down, we can expect this to change. Honestly even as little as a single hour cool down per shield type, could still be effective at changing the Meta-game to the point that shield hopping is NOT required to be competitive.

3rd. How many people shield hopping are doing so because they actually LIKE to shield hop and how many are doing so because they HAVE to if they want to be competitive? After this change IF it acts as intended, you will NOT have to shield hop to be competitive.

If you previously shield hopped to receive rewards, how does this change change ANYTHING for you going forward? You already received the rewards you hopped for. If you fear the MMR being higher for you to the point you can't compete without shield hopping, don't worry, a few events after this goes into effect, you'll stabilize.

Unknown

Pwuz_ wrote:

I don't think this change is as bad as some of you are saying, and I'm honestly a bit surprised how many people are this worked up over it.

1st. If you insist on still shield hopping, you can in a more limited sense.

If they really wanted to eliminate shield hopping, and if (and this is a big if) shields' purpose is to protect your points during times you're unable to play, like work or sleeping, they could instead make the change that you can't re-shield for 30 minutes after breaking shield

The rage would be extreme though

Unknown

Clearly, there's an idea here that has not been adequately explained. The purpose of shields is to protect a high-ranking player from all the other players who want to destroy him. A player ranked within the top 5 will lose that rank in less time than it takes for me to write this. There. 15th.

The PVP game is busted. All the points you earn go for nothing. You aren't even protected from attack while you're fighting. Even within the game, somehow your team, who were over here fighting these three were simultaneously in five other places, being dismantled.

Shields are of no use if they fall. You're shielded for X amount of time, and you're dogmeat in X plus fifteen. No exceptions. X-Force teams are the exception.

If X-Force teams are the exception, then you aren't protecting the free-to-players from the money-droppers. You're just telling the X-Force teams to say, "Come at me, bro." But we don't get an advantage over the previous system. We get chewed up.

If you're doing this to shields, it's because you've fixed the PVP so we don't need to shield as much. If you haven't fixed PVP, and you're putting a cooldown on shields, you're clearly not getting the picture. If the cooldown is longer than 15 minutes, the first shield won't have done any good.

You don't want us to shield hop? Give us a better way of earning more points. I've never scored higher than 800 without constant use of shields, and most of the time I have to settle on less than 800 because I didn't quite make a clean shield hop. That's the reality of the game. I'd love it if you could fix that. I don't really like shields. I'd rather have a fair game.

mags1587

I would be a lot less apprehensive about this change with a 2 hour or less cool-down timer for any shield type.

As it is, others have articulated the problems better (Beast1970, davomite, Spoit, among others), but I think D3 just traded one problem for others and made things worse for the average veteran player.

Unknown

gamar wrote:

Pwuz_ wrote:

I don't think this change is as bad as some of you are saying, and I'm honestly a bit surprised how many people are this worked up over it.

1st. If you insist on still shield hopping, you can in a more limited sense.

If they really wanted to eliminate shield hopping, and if (and this is a big if) shields' purpose is to protect your points during times you're unable to play, like work or sleeping, they could instead make the change that you can't re-shield for 30 minutes after breaking shield

The rage would be extreme though

If you can't reshield for 30mins, you will never get to a high score as you will be slaughtered during this period. It is just like the current shield break scenario where a top scorer has the shield expired. Within 10 minutes your score will drop from 2k to 800, 100% and every time.

Unknown

Where to begin? Well, I applaud the continued effort to listen to feed back. Many players have been arguing that the PVP had become an event where whoever spent the most won. Many players were making a mockery of the progressive rewards levels themselves. I've shield hopped more than my share, but I can support ending and/or limiting shield hopping. However, this is one of the worst implementations I have seen.

1) I am aghast at how you refuse to learn from your errors. We just had a season where you implemented a new feature midway through. Have you really already forgotten how that turned out? Players that chose slices that were convenient for their schedule, but low on points, got the short end of the stick and were put at a huge disadvantage in season scoring. Those players never recovered.

Let's not forget how the season ended with the infamous slice 5 snafu. Which almost a week later still has not been fully resolved. To put it another way, we'll actually start the next season before the prior season is finally wrapped up.

P.S. Unless I missed it, I still do not see where the slice points disparity has been corrected. So the single most important part of seasons, which affects 100% of the player base) is going to be neglected, while you address the top 1% of players that shield hop. Really? I realize you have a new game mode coming out and lots of other changes. However, if you are going to have Season 9, after you messed up season 8, and you know going into season 9 something is broken, why would you not focus onf fixing the most important thing first?

2) Your own solution concedes that you are not precluding shield hopping, just slowing it down. As others (what's up NP?) have pointed out, you have just limited the amount of hops. So the people that have the money and HP are still going to hop. Because hops are being limited, points will be relative. This means the total points may be down, but because points are at a premium. So someone that can afford to do 3 hops every 8 hours for let's say 48 hours, will still have the same outcome as now. The only difference is they'll win by 300, not 800-1,000.

3) The absolute worst part is the unintended consequence. You intend to limit hops; however, this will not change the outcomes only the total points. You intend to make it more fair for all players; however, you are actually penzalizing 100% of the player base to affect a very small amount of uber shield hoppers. Most people use shields as a "pause" button so to speak. We have lives (especially during the weekdays). We have families, social activities, work, meals, etc. This in conjunction with the true healing change means that players play in shorter bursts where they find openings in their schedule. If I spend and hour getting to 300 points, and I have to run to the store, and do not want to waste the time I have put into the game, I'll buy a 3 hour shield. I do my errands, get back, and play another hour burst, or if something unexpected comes up, I can pause the game again. However, cool downs work in direct opposition to the justification that MPQ gave us for the true healing change. Instead of shorter bursts, you have to play much longer periods because if you use a shield you will essentially not be able to touch the game for 8 hours without having to use another one.

4) 3 hour shields are worthless. Why would I pay to pause the game for 3 hours, when 3 hours and 1 minute later I'll lose all of my hard work? Or if I'm playing the game and I have to run an errand, so I buy a shield, then then the errand gets cancelled, I can no longer go back into the game to play unless I want to pay a lot more for another shield if the cool down is not over.

Recommended Alternative: If in the end MPQ is set on implementing cool downs during the season (although it would be more responsible to fix time slice disparities first), I really think the shielding system should be tweaked not completely junked. If your intention is genuinely to have cool downs to limit hopping (and not to penalize the 90%+ of other players), then do something reasonable. For example, shields operate as they do now up to the point level MPQ determined hopping begins. If hopping begins at 1100 points for example, make shields operate the way they do now for any player under 1100 points. However, after a player reaches 1100 points or more let the shield cool down system begin at that level.

To be crystal clear:

Player A has 800 points. Player A can buy and use as many shields as they want.

Player B is at 1101 points. Player B can buy any shield; however, each of those shields at that point level would come with a cool down.

This way MPQ gets what they want, but the majority of players you are trying to help with this change are not unintentionally punished.

ALSO, please do not make the change in the middle of the season. MPQ really needs to learn from and correct its past mistakes (time slice points disparity) at some point.

Unknown

daibar wrote:

Perhaps they should offer variable shield lengths with a sliding scale

I'd be happy if they at the very least make a shield available between 8 hours and 24 hours, like a 12 hour or something. Something that allows you to get 8 hours sleep, plus eat a meal or two and take a shower in-between. Somehow I end up having to wake up (set an alarm) at odd hours in the early morning due to shield expirations, in cases where a 24 hour cosmic is overkill.

A 12 hour shield would allow me to play PVP until say 9 or 10 pm then shield and lock in my score until the end of time slice 3 at 9am the next morning. (It turns out the 9am slice is surprisingly the best time slice for me. The other time slices are inconvenient for me due to sleep/work hours, etc). As it is, I need to shield before bed, wake up at like 4-6 am in the morning, and either buy a second 8 hour shield, or play a little more and buy a final 3 hour shield, kind of a hassle.

~~~
My take on shielding cool downs:
a. it would prevent 3 hour shield hops, the "shield hop" as we know it. That's fine. Shields are a good idea, but shield hopping was never intended to be required to compete even though it was actually surprisingly fun and competitive. Under this system you can still shield break in the last 2-3 minutes to hop once and potentially jump up a reward bracket (something I often do) which is nice.
b. it would still allow people who want to lock in their score at 16 hours left to buy 2, 8 hour shields and finish out their game. This preserves the most legitimate purpose of the shield -- to allow players to play at more convenient times, and still have a decent shot at competing and finishing with a decent score.
c. it is evidence of intent, in my opinion, that the dev's focus is on making the game more balanced and fun -- not on making money. Limiting shield purchases through cool downs reduces the amount of HP that can be spent on game play per event. I was never sympathetic to arguments that game changes were ever focused on making money -- other than the basic general philosophy that making the game more fun will lead to more people playing and enjoying it.

Edit: typos...

Accident-eLe

I am not entirely understanding how this is meant to benefit newer players. The 2-3* transitioned this will do almost nothing for if not make the game worse. I am currently just finishing my transition and if I don't hit shields after passing the 600 point mark I will inevitably be crushed down 50 to 100 points. Now let's examine the 3-4* transitioners. Before this goes live it was possible to hop to the 1300 pt reward even with weaker lvl 166 characters. It was costly but you were at least given the option to spend your hp on covers you wanted. This does not really seem possible if the game is devolving to a brawl fest. This is probably the intention as paying 3 to 600 hp for a 4 star is not what d3 wants to happen. This means that a new larger gap appears between the 3 and 4 star players. This makes me question my incentive to transition.

I do understand this should prevent death brackets since less people will be willing to hop. However does this mean the new death bracket is where ever the xforce 4hor teams are. I have been told that team didn't majorly change the meta. It is just annoying to play against. Well 4hor has the desired game breaking impact when you can't shield.

I understand it appears hopping will still be possible just more expensive by rotating the costs. I feel like doing this is an even bigger advantage to those willing to pay as it will not really be conceivable to f2p hop the events you want to place well in when it costs you 3x as much.

If you actually like this idea, as any level of player I would love to hear why.

Unknown

This total b.s man just so they could get more money

Unknown

Oh. I'm slowly transitioning from a 3* roster to a 4* and was planning on getting xforce covers by reaching 1300, guess I'm sh1t out of luck. My xforces need to come out of tokens now. Meanwhile everyone at the top has fully covered xforces and 4thors.

Unknown

tomuser wrote:

gamar wrote:

Pwuz_ wrote:

I don't think this change is as bad as some of you are saying, and I'm honestly a bit surprised how many people are this worked up over it.

1st. If you insist on still shield hopping, you can in a more limited sense.

If they really wanted to eliminate shield hopping, and if (and this is a big if) shields' purpose is to protect your points during times you're unable to play, like work or sleeping, they could instead make the change that you can't re-shield for 30 minutes after breaking shield

The rage would be extreme though

If you can't reshield for 30mins, you will never get to a high score as you will be slaughtered during this period. It is just like the current shield break scenario where a top scorer has the shield expired. Within 10 minutes your score will drop from 2k to 800, 100% and every time.

That's... the point.

IF d3p wants to eliminate building your score through shield-hopping and create a meta where your team build and sustained play determine rankings, not who spends the most on shields, while allowing people to protect their points while asleep or at work (and note that I'm not claiming that's a "good "goal!), making a short-ish cooldown after BREAKING the shield makes more sense than a long cooldown after activating one.
(although your scenario would never happen if there was a 30-minute cooldown because nobody would ever GET to 2k)

And either way, it's possible a cooldown mechanism might even ease the "lose 60 pts in the time it takes to win 20 pts" and "skip to the same three people" problems because when fewer people are shielded there's a wider pool of people to hit so you'll get hit less

GuntherBlobel

I'm interested to see how this works, but it does sound a bit unintuitive. Please make the UI on this new system clear. Otherwise there is going to be massive complaining by people who shield and then try to re-shield, only to be bewildered by the new rules.

pmorcs

This seems like a pretty good change. We're three pages into the thread and no one has whipped out "slap in the face" yet!

Dauthi

Finally, an end to shield hopping. Please continue to eliminate the parts of the game that are not fun D3! There are so many variables that I agree with D3 on seeing where this goes first too.

There is so much complaining that we won't have enough points to get to the high scores, but people aren't stopping to think that there will be more players to attack. Instead of shield hoppers virtually never being accessible, they will be sitting open most of the time with points to hand out.

How will this effect MPQ? It will mean to be competitive you will have to play more to offset lost points, but you won't lose points like there is a giant gash in your point totals since there will be a large player base with points to target. As long as there is an entire player base sitting unshielded with you, you won't lose that much points. I imagine attacks will be infrequent depending on your points vs roster, obviously 4* rosters will top out later while 1* will top out quicker. It will be hard for leaders to push leading totals, but as long as it is not impossible they will push point totals.

I think the next problem will be changing how others rubberband in PVP, because with this new style it will be a lot easier to join late and rubberband off of others hard work with little risk.

Regarding the 3 hour shield, it is obviously useful for shielding for the last few hours of an event after you top out your points. Before I shield hopped it is the only shield I used, and it is very useful. C'mon people...

Unknown

Lerysh wrote:

Um... why?

Is there even a purpose to a 3 hour shield that you can't buy again for 8 hours?

Sigh. It looks like we need to send them another math book. it looks like they lost the other one. We better get one that has how to calculate days, hours, and minutes.

P.S. The season ends when slice 5 ends, not 3 hours before that.

Unknown

pmorcs wrote:

This seems like a pretty good change. We're three pages into the thread and no one has whipped out "slap in the face" yet!

We're only acting calmly because we know all the best words will get tinykittied out.

Unknown

Vertigozooropa wrote:

pmorcs wrote:

This seems like a pretty good change. We're three pages into the thread and no one has whipped out "slap in the face" yet!

We're only acting calmly because we know all the best words will get tinykittied out.

That and they announced the change at 7:30pm est on a Thursday in the offseason. Was midnight not available? I'm sure the outrage will come tomorrow when people find out what they are trying to do again in the middle of a season.

Unknown

"David wrote:

Moore"]
• This change helps level the playing field. Players that don't have the Hero Points to spend on Shields, either through being in a top 100 Alliance or purchasing currency, will not need to worry about someone simply outspending them by using hundreds of Hero Points to Shield hop for a win.

David, its so naive think that way... the truth is:

Players that don´t have Hero Points to spend on Shields will continue to be doomed because they can´t pay for a full maxed Lady Thor and X-Force. The same thing already happened in the pre-shield era when some guys dominate the pvp with full maxed Ragnaroks. Now this will be back, just with different heroes. But now with the large userbase of top players the gap between top scorers and the others will continue to be money based. In my opinion , the limitation of shields prejudices even more the mid - lower players.