Planned Updates To Shields - New Start Date

Beast1970

Dauthi wrote:

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.

I respectfully disagree. I remember the time before shields, and this definitely was NOT the case back then. Yes, there is a large player base with points, but there is a large player base looking for points at the same time. Life back then was a **** shoot where the last few seconds determined if you were top 5 or top 50. Points actually DID fluctuate that much at the end, as you fought as quickly as possible popping health packs left and right just to try to get decent placement, not even top placement. While I agree that incessant shield hopping needs addressed, I believe a more urgent need is to address the model of points lost vs points gained, and nudge that system to allow a constant player to actually progress or at least break even.

Pwuz_ wrote:

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.

I'll address this with another quote:

"David wrote:

Moore"]R65 Update:

Gameplay

-

Event end times Beta testing is set to begin soon. Testing to get underway for improvements to Event end times with the Hulk Versus Event a few days from now.

Are we still in the testing phase, or have we addressed some of the issues with the end times Beta testing?

Unknown

stephen43084 wrote:

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.

It's almost like the good news about daredevil was...






...a trap /Caruso

Dauthi

gamar wrote:

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.

The only problem I can see with this is that if you started at a specific time you could still essentially still shield hop with 3 hour shields, just in 3 hour intervals. Eight hour intervals makes this much more complicated. I think they are trying to predict possible strategies that circumvent their intent.

Unknown

The only real concern for me is that scores will probably plummet and result in nobody getting anywhere close to 1300 if you're not in the US evening slice and even then it'd be a rare sighting to see a 1300 without shield hopping, and it'd take 5 months before the progression rewards are adjusted downward to reflect that reality. Everything else is a relative thing. If you suffer then so does everyone else, and the guys who spend a lot of money will still win. It's better for the guys who don't spend as much, but it's never going to be that the guys who spend money won't win either. There seems to be this plan to keep the scores more crunched together and that's fine, and if the scores are sufficeintly squished together it can be a perfectly viable strategy to hit 900 and shield for 24 hours because nobody is going to escape from the pack and that's fine too.

Dauthi

Beast1970 wrote:

Dauthi wrote:

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.

I respectfully disagree. I remember the time before shields, and this definitely was NOT the case back then. Yes, there is a large player base with points, but there is a large player base looking for points at the same time. Life back then was a **** shoot where the last few seconds determined if you were top 5 or top 50. Points actually DID fluctuate that much at the end, as you fought as quickly as possible popping health packs left and right just to try to get decent placement, not even top placement. While I agree that incessant shield hopping needs addressed, I believe a more urgent need is to address the model of points lost vs points gained, and nudge that system to allow a constant player to actually progress or at least break even.

Thats why I said:

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.

How is that **** shoot any worse than everyone shield hopping and a single attack or failed hop dictating you falling in/out of top X? Also, with more players having maxed characters may change things because the top end is much larger. Either way, a 3/8 hour shield will eliminate the crazy end fluctuations you describe and we don't have to shield hop.

GothicKratos

Formites: You should take the forum's advice!
Devs: Well, let's try it.
Forumites: This is horrible. How did you come up with this!?

Moral

Dauthi wrote:

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.

Unfortunately, you don't understand how the scoring system works. After 700, no more points are added to the system except through shields.

Example:
6 players hit an unshielded player for 30 points. They gain 6 * 30= 180 points, their target loses the same number (-30 * 6 = -180) so long as the target remains over 700. With each loss the target is worth less to his opponents as well.

Example B:
Shielded hopper is hit 6 times for 30 points each. The attackers still gain 180 (more because the shielded players score is higher for attackers 2-6) and the defender loses 0.

180 points were added to the system in B. If the hopper unshields, he is still worth big points to many players, adding more points to the system.

In example A, the points from the higher scoring player are gone, redistributed between attackers 1-6.

For a player to get ahead, someone else has to be beat down.

Unknown

Oh by the way - From then on the 11 hour mark of any pvp event will become an absolute bloodbath. You need to climb as high as you can until you zero your packs and shut down for 8 hours, come back and do it again, shield until end, break shield last few minutes. This will make pvp even more frantic than it already is.

Also this COMPLETELY **** people transitioning from 2* to 3*. Say goodbye to the possibility of closing with 600-800 points, folks. Less shields means people transitioning from 3* to 4* will use you guys as guaranteed points instead of risking going for the 50 pointers. You will get absolutely mowed down at the 11 hour mark, then again at the 3.

mjh

wow, just wow.

Is shield hopping broken? Yes

Is this the answer? Absolutely not.

I am far from a whale and have only recently been able to reach the 1300 pvp reward to progress in this game. This is solely because I could shield hop to get there. It has allowed me to see progress in my roster in the last 2 seasons. Now what?

Dauthi

Moral wrote:

Dauthi wrote:

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.

Unfortunately, you don't understand how the scoring system works. After 700, no more points are added to the system except through shields.

Example:
6 players hit an unshielded player for 30 points. They gain 6 * 30= 180 points, their target loses the same number (-30 * 6 = -180) so long as the target remains over 700. With each loss the target is worth less to his opponents as well.

Example B:
Shielded hopper is hit 6 times for 30 points each. The attackers still gain 180 (more because the shielded players score is higher for attackers 2-6) and the defender loses 0.

180 points were added to the system in B. If the hopper unshields, he is still worth big points to many players, adding more points to the system.

In example A, the points from the higher scoring player are gone, redistributed between attackers 1-6.

For a player to get ahead, someone else has to be beat down.

That is quite an assumption. I understand how it works fine.

So in your scenario attackers 1 - 6 magically disappear? I don't think so. Attackers gain points and additionally contribute to the pot when they top out. Or in your terms, there will be more players to beat down. Like I said, leaders will have to work hard, but if anyone watched the Thor PVE, there are plenty of people who will push.

Phantron wrote:

There seems to be this plan to keep the scores more crunched together and that's fine, and if the scores are sufficeintly squished together it can be a perfectly viable strategy to hit 900 and shield for 24 hours because nobody is going to escape from the pack and that's fine too.

You make a good point, there will be a place even leaders will top out at, and if it can be predicted it will make things easier on everyone too like you say.

lokiagentofhotness

Okay so looking on the bright side maybe this means we won't get a top five who had to spend 2000HP for 1300 points, but then shouldn't progression rewards be adjusted at the same time? There's no point dangling a prize that you just made impossible to achieve. This includes Season progression rewards as well.

GrumpySmurf1002

The reason for an 8 hour cooldown as opposed to something more obviously related to the 3 hour shield is pretty simple. Say you have a 3 hour cooldown:

Buy 3 hour shield. Break after an hour.
Buy 8 hour shield. Break after an hour.
Buy 24 hour shield. Break after an hour.
Cooldown is expired on the first shield.....repeat ad nauseum.

Having something like that means there's no change to shield hopping except the cost. That's no solution to the (perceived) problem.

Now truth is, 8 hours doesn't really solve it either. The gap is just 2 2/3 hours in that sample. Accounting for the time it takes to play matches in the post-Sentry apocalypse, and you can probably cut that to a lean 2:30. This is why the claim is that hopping is possible. It is, but it would be incredibly slow under this time frame.

I don't know how it will affect the current meta, but I get the sense that those already spending will just grin and bear it, it meaning the increased cost of hopping post-update.

Unknown

another thing i forgot to mention in my last post:

Lately this game is receiving a LOT of tweaks, many of them a hit or miss ( five tourneys time slices is too much ) turning great heroes in garbage ( Sentry RIP )
and some others like this shield issue, totally unnecessary.

Unknown

I shield hop sometimes.
While i think it can be one of the most exciting aspect of MPQ, i can accept that it gets removed or limited.

However, this change could very well herald the end of my 1 year MPQ addiction.

Indeed, i have a busy life and i need those 3 hours shields in order to keep my progression score and put in a few play session during the last 12 hours of PVP events.
With the proposed cool down period, i will not be able to adapt my play time (too busy) to have decent progression rewards.
To be clear, it will hurt me not because i will not be able to shield hop but because i need the shields to play this game while being very busy.

A much simpler and appropriate solution would have been to limit the amount of shields per event (for example 5 shield per event).
That would have been much easier to implement for the devs, much simpler to manage and would have limited shield hopping as effectively if not more.
And i could have managed my play time effectively.

Well, maybe it's a good thing they made this bad design decision - i play this game way too much.

D

Unknown

If it becomes too hard to hold your rating in general then the dominant strategy would be to hit whatever your highest score is and then shield for 24 hours, and if this really works eventually it will become significantly easier to hold your rating because everyone else that is much stronger than you is likely shielded. Shields are fairly self correcting. The correct usage of shield is 'do whatever everyone else isn't' and trying to guess the dominant form of community strategy is part of the meta game. If the bloodbath is as bad as people predict then it'd be quite viable to try to sneak into 900-1000 early on and just be shielded and watch everyone else beat themselves up going nowhere.

Unknown

GothicKratos wrote:

Formites: You should take the forum's advice!
Devs: Well, let's try it.
Forumites: This is horrible. How did you come up with this!?

Can you link me to all the threads where people clamor to remove shield hopping?

In your opinion, please rank what you think the devs should be prioritizing: 1) Character balance, 2) New revenue streams, 3) New game modes, 4) New story content, 5) Fixing MMR, 6) Cover dilution, 7) Time slice scoring discrepancies, 8) Bugs, 9) Shield hopping.

Would you say forumites whine more about removing shield hopping, or any of the other items on that list?

franckynight

Shieldgate incoming season 9..

Unknown

Not totally related to this, but can we get a change so that your opponent's point on retaliation actually reflects whatever point they have? I don't expect it to be up to the second but often you're seeing a score that has no bearing on reality. With shield hopping weakened it should be viable to climb high early and take a bunch of hits on purpose, only to retal at the end and then shield. However, since all the scores are likely depressed after this change, you can't be quite sure if that strong looking character at 700 point climbed his way to 1000 and shielded or if he never quite escaped the pack. Sure you can try to figure this out by coordinating with your alliance members in other brackets but is it too much to ask to know your opponent's score is at least accurate to within say, 5 minutes?

Dauthi

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

Having something like that means there's no change to shield hopping except the cost. That's no solution to the (perceived) problem.

I don't know how it will affect the current meta, but I get the sense that those already spending will just grin and bear it, it meaning the increased cost of hopping post-update.

Maybe, but science has proven that everyone has a certain level they quit something after so much of any deterrent. For instance cigarettes and the price of. It is a proven solution, and I imagine with the fall of Sentry it just won't be worth it anymore. I'm sure a few people will try to do it anyways despite the cost vs worth.

gobstopper wrote:

GothicKratos wrote:

Formites: You should take the forum's advice!
Devs: Well, let's try it.
Forumites: This is horrible. How did you come up with this!?

Can you link me to all the threads where people clamor to remove shield hopping?

In your opinion, please rank what you think the devs should be prioritizing: 1) Character balance, 2) New revenue streams, 3) New game modes, 4) New story content, 5) Fixing MMR, 6) Cover dilution, 7) Time slice scoring discrepancies, 8) Bugs, 9) Shield hopping.

Would you say forumites whine more about removing shield hopping, or any of the other items on that list?

PVP is pretty important, and in order to do well you have to play an unfun and extremely stressful metagame called "shield hopping" that was in no way intended. Since I am forced to do this often, shield hopping is definitely a priority fix for me. I don't know why everyone wants to continue this, but there was a similar reaction with the removal of prologue healing. I think people just hate when the status quo changes at this point.

Unknown

You keep saying shield hopping is unfun and extremely stressful. How fun and stressful will it be when you get hit more often and have to double your grind? Maybe your idea of fun is an endless grind with a sprinkle of health pack purchases mixed in.

Shield hopping being a priority fix for you only reflects a selfish attitude, because as others have pointed out, the status quo will actually remain the same. Paying players will still do better - they'll just have to spend more $. However, the 99% that don't shield hop will have to play harder now for less rewards (at least until months down the line when they make progression reward changes).

If you've ever played in an elite tourney, that's what every PvP will turn into. Compressed scores and no one breaking ahead of the pack. This is where the term "zombie horde" originated.