Tell me if I got this right..

Unknown

The upcoming shield cool down will no doubt change the game to some degree but my concern lies in whether or not it will be a big enough change to do what it was intended to do.

Pre cool down, shield hopping 4 times would cost 300hp using 4 of the tier 1 shields in this order

Post cool down, shield hopping 4 times will cost 450hp using a combination of tier 1 and 2 shields in this order

is 150hp really gonna slow anything down? I mean we're talking pennies when it comes to MPQ.

I just need to understand how this is gonna have any kind of impact on anyone but the players this move is suppose to be catering to because it sounds like it's just gonna hurt the guys who are just now trying to collect a decent 3* roster.

Unknown

This is going to hurt the f2p players the most. Even in a top 10 alliance and top 10 finish in pvp It will be a lot harder to stay hp neutral or hp positive on a pvp. That 150hp is huge to a f2p player. The stupid part is that they are saying that's who it's supposed to help yet it will hurt them the most. I am a day 1 f2p player and with my roster slots costing 800HP and climbing, i need all the hp i can get. This just makes it that much harder.

Unknown

Unless you can't get to 800 points in PvP there's no such thing as 'HP neutral' if you use a shield at all. It's not like they come back and take all your progression rewards away if you stay unshielded at 800 and lost 700 points at the end of the event. Likewise unless your alliance is exactly on the edge where amount of HP you get per event changes your points isn't going to matter either (and certainly not just your problem). A 75 HP shield has to allow you to go from top 100 (25 HP) to top 10 (100 HP) to be HP neutral and if you can do top 10 in one shield you're obviously not hurting in any way, and of course for people who really need the HP they don't have the roster to pull this off to begin with. Shield has always been a HP negative proposition. Now of course for the HP you lose, you get seasons placement + placement rewards which may or may not matter to you, but you never used shields to make more HP directly.

And if you can't get to 800 PvP points at all, I doubt you'll be hitting 800 in one shield either and even if you can, that's still a net loss (50 HP for hitting 800, 75 HP to get there). If you want to accumulate HP, don't use shields. If you want to accumulate covers, then do use shields, but make sure the covers are worth getting.

babinro

This is where the time gap shines.

Your example suggests that people space out their shield hops substantially and yet they don't.
Especially when going for top 5 or 1300 progression in an event.

In the current system it's not uncommon to do shield hops ever 30 minutes over the course of a few hours.
The new system limits the time in which you can re-hop. Somewhat leveling the playing field.

simonsez

3uphoria wrote:

The upcoming shield cool down will no doubt change the game to some degree but my concern lies in whether or not it will be a big enough change to do what it was intended to do.

Pre cool down, shield hopping 4 times would cost 300hp using 4 of the tier 1 shields in this order

Post cool down, shield hopping 4 times will cost 450hp using a combination of tier 1 and 2 shields in this order

is 150hp really gonna slow anything down? I mean we're talking pennies when it comes to MPQ.

4 hops isn't really a good comparison. For me, getting to 1300 takes more than 4 hops. And for the guys scoring 5k right now, I can't even imagine how many hops that is. So yes, it will slow things down a lot, depending upon where you're at right now.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

Unless you can't get to 800 points in PvP there's no such thing as 'HP neutral' if you use a shield at all. It's not like they come back and take all your progression rewards away if you stay unshielded at 800 and lost 700 points at the end of the event. Likewise unless your alliance is exactly on the edge where amount of HP you get per event changes your points isn't going to matter either (and certainly not just your problem). A 75 HP shield has to allow you to go from top 100 (25 HP) to top 10 (100 HP) to be HP neutral and if you can do top 10 in one shield you're obviously not hurting in any way, and of course for people who really need the HP they don't have the roster to pull this off to begin with. Shield has always been a HP negative proposition. Now of course for the HP you lose, you get seasons placement + placement rewards which may or may not matter to you, but you never used shields to make more HP directly.

And if you can't get to 800 PvP points at all, I doubt you'll be hitting 800 in one shield either and even if you can, that's still a net loss (50 HP for hitting 800, 75 HP to get there). If you want to accumulate HP, don't use shields. If you want to accumulate covers, then do use shields, but make sure the covers are worth getting.

Obviously, you play at a different level from most of us. There is a very important fact that you failed to consider.

Without using a shield, I will not score high enough to be in a top-100 Alliance.

There are 3 parts to growth in the game - hero points, covers, and iso. For purposes of this discussion, I will ignore iso differences. Being in a top 100 alliance is worth 50 hp and 1 cover each PvP, so it is worth using a shield to be a part of one.

In the current game design, I will earn 50hp for making 600 points, 50hp for alliance top100, and 25hp for individual top100, plus 2 covers, which is routinely accomplished for the cost of 1 shield. This means for a standard event, I score around 650 points and gain 50hp and 2 covers. The variables are 50hp at 800 points (out of reach with time slicing and the lower 270 wall), 25hp for Individual top50, and 3rd cover for Individual top25.

The only time a second shield is worthwhile is if the Top25 cover is useful and within reach (some brackets are crazy). With a second shield and top25 placement, I would now earn 3 covers and 0hp. Under the proposed changes, it would be 3 covers and a loss of 75hp. The biggest takeaway is that finishing 26th or 27th will be much more painful, as you will be negative hp for the event instead of neutral, while missing out on a desired cover.

Raekwen

Phantron wrote:

Unless you can't get to 800 points in PvP there's no such thing as 'HP neutral' if you use a shield at all. It's not like they come back and take all your progression rewards away if you stay unshielded at 800 and lost 700 points at the end of the event. Likewise unless your alliance is exactly on the edge where amount of HP you get per event changes your points isn't going to matter either (and certainly not just your problem). A 75 HP shield has to allow you to go from top 100 (25 HP) to top 10 (100 HP) to be HP neutral and if you can do top 10 in one shield you're obviously not hurting in any way, and of course for people who really need the HP they don't have the roster to pull this off to begin with. Shield has always been a HP negative proposition. Now of course for the HP you lose, you get seasons placement + placement rewards which may or may not matter to you, but you never used shields to make more HP directly.

While I wasn't making hp, up until the last two seasons I played hp neutral while placing top 5 regularly. I recently decided to invest a little money (not much, really) and go for it. But it is possible.

Unknown

People act as this was not discussed in length in the shield changes thread a few weeks ago.

In other breaking news, there are time slices in PVP and PVE.

Ebolamonkey84

Phantron wrote:

Unless you can't get to 800 points in PvP there's no such thing as 'HP neutral' if you use a shield at all. It's not like they come back and take all your progression rewards away if you stay unshielded at 800 and lost 700 points at the end of the event. Likewise unless your alliance is exactly on the edge where amount of HP you get per event changes your points isn't going to matter either (and certainly not just your problem). A 75 HP shield has to allow you to go from top 100 (25 HP) to top 10 (100 HP) to be HP neutral and if you can do top 10 in one shield you're obviously not hurting in any way, and of course for people who really need the HP they don't have the roster to pull this off to begin with. Shield has always been a HP negative proposition. Now of course for the HP you lose, you get seasons placement + placement rewards which may or may not matter to you, but you never used shields to make more HP directly.

And if you can't get to 800 PvP points at all, I doubt you'll be hitting 800 in one shield either and even if you can, that's still a net loss (50 HP for hitting 800, 75 HP to get there). If you want to accumulate HP, don't use shields. If you want to accumulate covers, then do use shields, but make sure the covers are worth getting.

I feel like you and I have different definitions of HP neutral. It seems like you are comparing HP gain without shields to HP gain with shields. To me HP neutral means that I put the same amount of HP into an event that I got out of it. I come out HP positive from most events using 1-2 shields.

Progression: 25 + 25 +50=100 HP
Personal rank: 50-100 HP (top 25 or top 10)
Alliance rank: 100 HP (top 50)
Total HP gained: 250-300 HP
Total HP spent: 75-150 HP
Net HP: 100-225 HP, although more likely 150-175 HP, assuming one shield for top 25 and two for top 10.

With new cooldowns:
Progression: 25 + 25 +50=100 HP
Personal rank: 50-100 HP (top 25 or top 10)
Alliance rank: 100 HP (top 50)
Total HP gained: 250-300 HP
Total HP spent: 75 or 225 HP
Net HP: 25-225 HP, although more likely 75-175 HP

Now, obviously things are different for transitioners, as they will probably get lower HP from potentially all 3 sources of HP in a PVP event.
Progression: 50 - 100 HP, assuming they can hit 800 occasionally with the right featured character
Personal rank: 25 - 50 HP
Alliance rank: 50 HP
Total HP gain: 125 - 200 HP

It is unlikely a transitioning player will be able to use 2 shield with new cooldown system and remain HP neutral or positive, but losing a little bit of HP is worth it if it can secure you a 3* cover that D3 values at 1250 HP.

The cooldown does concern me as someone who needs a little shield hopping to get to 1300 for 4* progression. Highest I've been able to get before first shield is around ~950. Assuming 2 40 point matches per hop would still even be possible, I would need three more shields beyond the first one for a total of 450 HP (75+150+75+150) at a minimum.

Unknown

I think most people's definition of HP neutral seems to be I started an event with 1000 HP and ended with 1000 HP so that's no net gain or loss. However, in the context of HP accumulation, the gains should be considered incrementally. The alliance part gets into alliance politics but if your alliance absolutely depends on every single guy to shield to stay exactly on some threshold then your alliance is likely to have some serious issues soon since turnover in this game is very high. I always hear this 'but my alliance needs me!' and then later I'd see the said alliance recruiting 2 more guys, so clearly they didn't really need you that badly. Or, even if they did, nothing you could've done mattered compared to 2 guys leaving later for whatever reason. It comes down to an issue of while alliance tend to have some power over a relatively weak player, any quitter ultimately has more power over any alliance he is in (because you're quitting) which does set back the alliance considerably so it's not so much as an HP expenditure game but rather a game of chicken.

If you started at 1000 HP, hit 800 PvP rating, you now have 1100 HP. The game can't take that back from you regardless of how you finish. That 100 HP is money in the bank so if you went back to 1000 you lost 100 HP. Now if that 100 HP spent is needed for alliance politics, or to secure a certain finish, or hitting 1100/1300 for some progression reward then it's worth it. But there should be a good reason for that, and by the way, your personal seasons standing is really not that important unless you're sitting at somewhere between 5 heroic tokens/1X10 heroic pack, or 1X10 to 2X10, though for people in that range even getting another 10 heroic pack is of dubious value. The alliance season standing may matter more but a lot of times it still boils down to hiring the right mercs at the end so clearly your points didn't matter that much if you ended up needing 3 mercs at the end, unless you were the one who got subbed out for the merc.

Keep in mind while the cover is valued at 1250 HP, not all covers are equally valuable. A transition player doesn't even necessarily have the HP to pay for the roster slot so getting even someone who is fairly decent like Gamora that you don't previously have isn't necessarily very useful because that'll likely set you back 600 or so HP for the roster slot + shield needed to get her, and is a 1 cover Gamora likely to get you 600 HP later? Not unless she's the featured character in the next PvE event, and you can make an educated guess on how likely that is (not very high once the obligatory new character featured event is over).

Ebolamonkey84

To the OP, it isn't the cost of the shields that is intended to slow down the shield hopping. The cooldown will do that on it's own. There may only be a 150 HP difference between 4 3 hours shields and 2 3 and 2 8 hour shields, but there is a big time difference.

No cooldowns, waiting full shield length:
12 hours til end - First 3 hour shield used
9 hours til end - do 2-3 fights, second shield
6 hours til end - do 2-3 fights, third shield
3 hours til end - do 2-3 fights, fourth shield
few minutes before end - fight til the PVP is over

8 hour cooldowns:
19 hours til end - First 3 hour shield used
16 hours til end - do 2-3 fights, first 8 hour shield
11 hours til end - cooldown over for 3 hour shield, do 2-3 fights, second 3 hour shield
8 hours til end - cooldown over for 8 hour shield, do 2-3 fights, second 8 hour shield
few minutes before end - fight til the PVP is over

Now this is assuming that shield hoppers wait until they've almost gotten full value out of their shield to hop, which is not even close to true at the higher levels of the game. The people scoring 2000+ will typically just wait long enough for the retaliations to bounce off their shields before breaking again. An hour between hops is reasonably safe if someone isn't purposely sniping you. The cooldowns make this type of hopping impossible.

If the cooldowns were the length of the shield, it would not affect transitioners as much.

Unknown

Ebolamonkey84 wrote:

8 hour cooldowns:
19 hours til end - First 3 hour shield used
16 hours til end - do 2-3 fights, first 8 hour shield
11 hours til end - cooldown over for 3 hour shield, do 2-3 fights, second 3 hour shield
8 hours til end - cooldown over for 8 hour shield, do 2-3 fights, second 8 hour shield

3 hours til end - cooldown over for 3 hour shield, do 2-3 fights, third 3 hour shield

few minutes before end - fight til the PVP is over

You forgot one line in the new hopping system

Ebolamonkey84

papa07 wrote:

Ebolamonkey84 wrote:

8 hour cooldowns:
19 hours til end - First 3 hour shield used
16 hours til end - do 2-3 fights, first 8 hour shield
11 hours til end - cooldown over for 3 hour shield, do 2-3 fights, second 3 hour shield
8 hours til end - cooldown over for 8 hour shield, do 2-3 fights, second 8 hour shield

3 hours til end - cooldown over for 3 hour shield, do 2-3 fights, third 3 hour shield

few minutes before end - fight til the PVP is over

You forgot one line in the new hopping system

Ah good point, but I was comparing the OP's original 4 shield scenario.

user311

I think that you all have about the same ideas as me, climbing as high as you can by the 19-18 hour mark and start the shielding and spending 550-625. Im hoping that this will result in more people being shielded and 4-5 fights between hops instead of 2-3. I dunno. If the overall scores by the big hitters are negatively affected due to the whole cooldown issue, then 1300 is likely going to be really expensive both in time and HP. Less points per hop will require more hops and an earlier start to the shield hop action. It is going to be very burdensome to have to start PVP events earlier and then still grind out PVE and optionally LRs.

OnesOwnGrief

Oh? Forgot this was a thing. Back to climbing to 1100 then shielding if I go back to taking this game seriously.