The effects of shield cool downs

ZeroKarma

Unreallystic wrote:

Honestly, I am OK with the new changes, but there are a few caveats to that.

1. Progression rewards, as it stood it was hard enough without burning HP and ISO to get 1100, let alone 1300. Now? Like the third poster I got first place with around 950, second place in my bracket was about 850 and third place didn't crack 800.

2. The 'wall' needs serious adjusting. Since better teams are having lower scores, it makes the wall hit harder and lower. They need to find some way to adjust this.

3. Early risers. When I got First place, I was in first pretty much the entire event. What I saw irritated me. Skipping galore I was matched up against maxed 3* teams and some 4* teams and only able to get UP to '6' points for fighting them. If we can't shield quickly, let us shield longer and make it worth more.
- Unreall

There is zero reason to start early, and I found that out this PvP. I ran up to 700, thinking I needed a platform to start with hops earlier if I wanted t get any meaningful progression rewards. Once there, I found a wasteland with zero available targets worth hitting. I just let my shield lapse and got hit. THAT was the best way to find any high point targets. Retaliations against people who used me as a stepping stone.

Maybe they need to expand the pool of available targets outside of slices. I know it was discussed before, and there are headaches involved, but I think they need to make it easier to find reasonable targets, not even juicy 40 point ones. I'll take a bunch of 25's at this point. Otherwise, points won't be a temptation to hop even a little bit, which reduces the targets, which reduces the desire to hop until everyone hits a target score and sits shielded for the entire tournament and we see new lows every week in scoring.

Unknown

ZeroKarma wrote:

Maybe they need to expand the pool of available targets outside of slices. I know it was discussed before, and there are headaches involved, but I think they need to make it easier to find reasonable targets, not even juicy 40 point ones. I'll take a bunch of 25's at this point. Otherwise, points won't be a temptation to hop even a little bit, which reduces the targets, which reduces the desire to hop until everyone hits a target score and sits shielded for the entire tournament and we see new lows every week in scoring.

Unfortunately that'll never happen as it's unworkable with the way they've done slices. If you expand targets beyond slices then it just means people in earlier slices, especially slice 1 are totally boned. They have to finish earlier, which means they need to climb earlier, which means they have higher scores, which finally means everyone in slices after theirs will rip them to shreds whereas ppl in slices 4 and especially 5 get a free ride on high scores from the earlier slices and there's no-one after their slice to abuse them.

The only ways to improve target discoverability are to either allow finding shielded targets which they won't allow because of score inflation OR to at least have your 5 pre-queued targets behind your 3 visible nodes update with more appropriate targets as they unshield and reshield... which is probably a lot of work.

Now that high scores are unshielded a lot less (because they can't hop anywhere near as often) you basically have to keep coming back to the game in your shielded down time to throw 20 skips at your nodes to see if anyone has unshielded (which costs ISO and might still find no-one) or make do with naff targets.

Unknown

Getting to 1300 for my illusive 5th blue cover has been annoying as hell.

- Being forced into the time slice with the highest scoring players to have enough targets to hit 1300 in the first place, removing the whole point of time slice choice

- Having to meticulously plan shields over 2 days to allow for 1 'bad hop' and resulting in over-expenditure on shields by about 150hp

- Having to track 3hr/8hr shield cooldowns which then forced me into staying awake until 1am to make sure I caught the cooldown and didn't leave myself exposed (oo-er)

- More reliance on out-of-game communication

...I could go on. But simply put, I won't be doing this often - it's not fun to have to plan your gaming like a military excercise around shield cooldowns. Whether it's the devs intentions or not, I'll probably spend less from this point onwards and just see what can be done with 1-2 shields per event.

NotYou13

So I know this has been discussed pretty much ad nauseam, but I wanted to add my observations on how the shield cooldown changes have made me modify my MPQ gaming habits.

First, some background. I'm currently on day 395. I've bought HP twice, both times during sales, both times to use on roster slots. My roster is considerably stronger than most, but by no means top tier (Most 3*'s cover maxed, 13 of them level maxed. Xforce cover maxed at 185. Thor/Fury at 4/2/4 & 2/4/3). I've been consistently competitive in both PvE and PvP, having finished in the top 25 a few times for the season, including both of the last two seasons. Despite having Line, I do no out-of-game communication or coordination at all, so I've spent probably damn near enough ISO in skip taxes to level another one of my characters. All of my HP goes exclusively to more roster slots and shields. I've never bought individual covers, and excluding during the Anniversary event, I've never bought tokens. But I typically spend enough on shields to only break even after constantly having to buy roster slots for the ever expanding list of characters. My 4* roster has been grown almost exclusively through shield hopping to 1300, which I was able to do maybe 2-3 times a season, so very slowly but surely. I was generally happy with this arrangement. I don't intend this post to be a whine. I'm not rage quitting the game or anything. I'm simply offering my observations on how this has impacted my play habits.

My play habits in PvP have generally been to climb unshielded until I'm high enough to start being a juicy target, then shield. From then on, I'll play in short bursts, as befits a mobile game. Those bursts were typically to skip through until I got a high value target (usually regardless of defending team comp). Unshield, fight 2-3 matches, reshield. Since I have downtime periodically throughout the day, I would often use a 3 hour shield so that I can just break it whenever I have time to play a few more matches. This allowed me to play on breaks at work if I felt so inclined while still being able to work. It allowed me to climb to 1300 for those 4* covers occasionally but never feel like I was spending too much time playing MPQ.

With the shield changes, I'm no longer able to play on my own time. Once I shield the first time, all subsequent shields have to be perfectly timed. If I fail to time it correctly, I'm either stuck paying for a 24 hour shield or losing hundreds of points. The costs of breaking shields have risen considerably, forcing you to spend more if you want to remain competitive. At the same time, because shields must be timed so specifically, out of game coordination is even more heavily rewarded, as those who do can queue each other while timing their shields. While some focus on the costs saying that it's now even more P2W, I would argue that the latter effect is more significant. The stated goal of the changes was to reduce the impact of out of game coordination, but they've instead made it almost required to get to the top tier in scoring (by top tier, I mean the general top 5-10 in each PvP, not those that push the boundaries of 6K points who are in a class of their own in dedication). As a result, I find myself no longer wanting to shield more than once during an event. This means that I'm starting my climb later and really only making one push to ~800-900 before shielding, then maybe one more push at the very end. No longer can I just decide to play a few matches during the day if making headway on points is the goal, because those points will likely just be lost by the next time I play. All told, I'm playing less because the motivation to play, building up my 4* roster, has been removed.

This may end up being addressed if they significantly change either the progression rewards or some other mechanism to allow for additional 4* covers. D3P may surprise all of us and make some other change that no one sees coming that will magically fix everything. I really don't have much in the way of suggestions towards a solution. I recognize that the old method was a bit broken, but it at least worked. Unfortunately, the cure seems to be worse than the disease.

Unknown

It would be made OH SO SIMPLE!

There's ZERO benefit (other than fatter pockets) to an 8hr cool down on a 3hr sheild.

I understand the theory behind a cool down. Just not the way it was implemented. They want to stop teams from hopping every 5min - OK. I get that. Try limiting and not banning. 3hr shield with a 2hr cool down, 8hr with 7hr CD etc. That way people can still PLAY the game, you still make money and it's a compromise.

Again - Food for thought

Unknown

Or, as many people point out - 5 shields per event maximum, but whichever ones you want (without cooldown).

At least we've been given the next PvP 'off' (what with terrible rewards and all that).

Enoc99

I know this is an unpopular opinion, but I feel that shield hopping was against the intentions of the developers, and more action should have been done against it than was, without nerfing legitimate shield usage as they did. Here would have been my way of doing it.


My suggestion would be as follows:
You can use any shield, no cooldowns upon the shield being applied, but as soon as your shield expires (whether due to its time running out, or due to you breaking it early) you incur a 15 minute cool down before a new shield can be applied. This way shields could be timed so you can use them effectively to "lock-in" a score until the end of an event, or even to protect your score overnight, but not a way to coordinate rushes. 15 minutes is short enough of a cool down that it wouldn't significantly hinder your ability to schedule your playtime effectively, but is long enough that once you get to a high score, it ceases to become a practical form of protection to justify hopping. I feel that shield hopping as it was done, while certainly fun for the competition to some of the highest players, was not the intended usage of the mechanic.

Unknown

Enoc99 wrote:

I know this is an unpopular opinion, but I feel that shield hopping was against the intentions of the developers, and more action should have been done against it than was, without nerfing legitimate shield usage as they did. Here would have been my way of doing it.


My suggestion would be as follows:
You can use any shield, no cooldowns upon the shield being applied, but as soon as your shield expires (whether due to its time running out, or due to you breaking it early) you incur a 15 minute cool down before a new shield can be applied. This way shields could be timed so you can use them effectively to "lock-in" a score until the end of an event, or even to protect your score overnight, but not a way to coordinate rushes. 15 minutes is short enough of a cool down that it wouldn't significantly hinder your ability to schedule your playtime effectively, but is long enough that once you get to a high score, it ceases to become a practical form of protection to justify hopping. I feel that shield hopping as it was done, while certainly fun for the competition to some of the highest players, was not the intended usage of the mechanic.

A 15 minutes cooldown on EVERY shield would nullify the previous shield. Seriously, if I stay unshielded for more that 3-5 minutes when over 750 points the attacks start pouring down from heavens.

Ebolamonkey84

Kappei wrote:

Enoc99 wrote:

I know this is an unpopular opinion, but I feel that shield hopping was against the intentions of the developers, and more action should have been done against it than was, without nerfing legitimate shield usage as they did. Here would have been my way of doing it.


My suggestion would be as follows:
You can use any shield, no cooldowns upon the shield being applied, but as soon as your shield expires (whether due to its time running out, or due to you breaking it early) you incur a 15 minute cool down before a new shield can be applied. This way shields could be timed so you can use them effectively to "lock-in" a score until the end of an event, or even to protect your score overnight, but not a way to coordinate rushes. 15 minutes is short enough of a cool down that it wouldn't significantly hinder your ability to schedule your playtime effectively, but is long enough that once you get to a high score, it ceases to become a practical form of protection to justify hopping. I feel that shield hopping as it was done, while certainly fun for the competition to some of the highest players, was not the intended usage of the mechanic.

A 15 minutes cooldown on EVERY shield would nullify the previous shield. Seriously, if I stay unshielded for more that 3-5 minutes when over 750 points the attacks start pouring down from heavens.

I agree with Kappei. In Unholy Outlaw, I saw someone in my bracket drop from 1100 to 950 in probably 10 minutes unshielded. A 15 minute cooldown would essentially invalidate all shields that don't last until the end.

NotYou13

Kappei wrote:

A 15 minutes cooldown on EVERY shield would nullify the previous shield. Seriously, if I stay unshielded for more that 3-5 minutes when over 750 points the attacks start pouring down from heavens.

I think that's kinda his point. Use the shield to protect yourself at the end instead of using to hop.

Ebolamonkey84 wrote:

I agree with Kappei. In Unholy Outlaw, I saw someone in my bracket drop from 1100 to 950 in probably 10 minutes unshielded. A 15 minute cooldown would essentially invalidate all shields that don't last until the end.

See above.

Unknown

ok, how does this out-of-game communication thing work? i'm f2p in a casual f2p alliance but i cant climb pvp anymore on my lonesome apparently. at least not efficiently. i've been grinding hard and have, i think, a really good roster relative to how long i've been playing: 247 5/5/3 xforce, 6 166s, been playing almost 8 months. i can usually place top5. in the past 2 pvps it was a struggle getting to 900. and would only shield in the last hours of the event to protect my worthless score lol. once i crossed 700 it was back n forth retals. nutty. so if i ever want to reach 1100 again, let alone 1300 i guess i should get into this whole out of game communication thing i keep reading about. so..anyone?

tanis3303

Basically, you and your alliance mates get yourselves the LINE app for your phone/tablet, that seems to be the easiest way to do it. Facebook would probably work as well. Then talk to you alliance members, and when one of you with a sufficiently high score (in this new environment, probably 900-1000 or above) goes out for a few battles, they announce it there, and you go in-game and skip around until you find them. Then they will tell you when they're re-shielded so you can hit them. Presto, you get points, and they don't lose any. (barring any sniping that may occur to either of you while you're unshielded, of course)

BTW, this is exactly the type of thing this change was supposed to eliminate, but instead, it has only reinforced the need for it.

Enoc99

NotYou13 wrote:

Kappei wrote:

A 15 minutes cooldown on EVERY shield would nullify the previous shield. Seriously, if I stay unshielded for more that 3-5 minutes when over 750 points the attacks start pouring down from heavens.

I think that's kinda his point. Use the shield to protect yourself at the end instead of using to hop.

Ebolamonkey84 wrote:

I agree with Kappei. In Unholy Outlaw, I saw someone in my bracket drop from 1100 to 950 in probably 10 minutes unshielded. A 15 minute cooldown would essentially invalidate all shields that don't last until the end.

See above.

Exactly my point. Thank you.

Yes, my suggestion would invalidate shield hopping without significantly hurting other intended shield usages. My belief is that was what D3 was ultimately going for, so I feel that my suggestion would have been a more effective solution than the one they put out there.

Unknown

tanis3303 wrote:

Basically, you and your alliance mates get yourselves the LINE app for your phone/tablet, that seems to be the easiest way to do it. Facebook would probably work as well. Then talk to you alliance members, and when one of you with a sufficiently high score (in this new environment, probably 900-1000 or above) goes out for a few battles, they announce it there, and you go in-game and skip around until you find them. Then they will tell you when they're re-shielded so you can hit them. Presto, you get points, and they don't lose any. (barring any sniping that may occur to either of you while you're unshielded, of course)

BTW, this is exactly the type of thing this change was supposed to eliminate, but instead, it has only reinforced the need for it.

haha ironic then that it isnt until NOW that i decide i need to resort to out-of-game communication

..i see. so this only a thing you can do with your alliance? oh well, guess i'm out of luck then cause i'm the only one in my alliance that really plays pvp.

Ebolamonkey84

Enoc99 wrote:

NotYou13 wrote:

Kappei wrote:

A 15 minutes cooldown on EVERY shield would nullify the previous shield. Seriously, if I stay unshielded for more that 3-5 minutes when over 750 points the attacks start pouring down from heavens.

I think that's kinda his point. Use the shield to protect yourself at the end instead of using to hop.

Ebolamonkey84 wrote:

I agree with Kappei. In Unholy Outlaw, I saw someone in my bracket drop from 1100 to 950 in probably 10 minutes unshielded. A 15 minute cooldown would essentially invalidate all shields that don't last until the end.

See above.

Exactly my point. Thank you.

Yes, my suggestion would invalidate shield hopping without significantly hurting other intended shield usages. My belief is that was what D3 was ultimately going for, so I feel that my suggestion would have been a more effective solution than the one they put out there.

There are many reasons to put up a shield before the end of an event that do not include hopping. Common things such as sleep or work or school. There would be no point in me putting a shield up before work if I was going to be out in the open for 15 minutes after the shield anyway. How is putting up a shield when you cannot play not an intended shield use?

Unknown

Ebolamonkey84 wrote:

There are many reasons to put up a shield before the end of an event that do not include hopping. Common things such as sleep or work or school. There would be no point in me putting a shield up before work if I was going to be out in the open for 15 minutes after the shield anyway. How is putting up a shield when you cannot play not an intended shield use?

The implication of "needing to shield" for school or work implies that you wouldn't have shielded if not for work, so you would have been unshielded during that time and lost points anyways. If you would have shielded anyways to protect your points, you're shield-hopping, not shielding because of work.

Ebolamonkey84

gamar wrote:

Ebolamonkey84 wrote:

There are many reasons to put up a shield before the end of an event that do not include hopping. Common things such as sleep or work or school. There would be no point in me putting a shield up before work if I was going to be out in the open for 15 minutes after the shield anyway. How is putting up a shield when you cannot play not an intended shield use?

The implication of "needing to shield" for school or work implies that you wouldn't have shielded if not for work, so you would have been unshielded during that time and lost points anyways. If you would have shielded anyways to protect your points, you're shield-hopping, not shielding because of work.

What? This makes no sense to me at all. Shielding to protect your points is literally the entire purpose of shielding. If I did not have to work, I could actually be playing and maintaining my current point level or climbing more.

I don't usually shield while I'm at work, because I typically take at least two **** a day and that is prime MPQ time, but some people do need to shield when real life interferes. A 15 minute post shield cooldown would lower the scores even more than they are now. I wasn't around in the pre-shield era, but from what I've heard it was quite horrible. If I get into top 5 and shield to the end of the event, should I just cross my fingers and hope no one gets higher than me and bumps me out of top 5? Because with a 15 minute post-shield cooldown I would basically be SOL if that happens.

Unknown

Ebolamonkey84 wrote:

gamar wrote:

Ebolamonkey84 wrote:

There are many reasons to put up a shield before the end of an event that do not include hopping. Common things such as sleep or work or school. There would be no point in me putting a shield up before work if I was going to be out in the open for 15 minutes after the shield anyway. How is putting up a shield when you cannot play not an intended shield use?

The implication of "needing to shield" for school or work implies that you wouldn't have shielded if not for work, so you would have been unshielded during that time and lost points anyways. If you would have shielded anyways to protect your points, you're shield-hopping, not shielding because of work.

What? This makes no sense to me at all. Shielding to protect your points is literally the entire purpose of shielding. If I did not have to work, I could actually be playing and maintaining my current point level or climbing more.

And... You WOULDN'T be playing in the 15 minutes after you broke shield? Then why did you break shield?

Ebolamonkey84

gamar wrote:

Ebolamonkey84 wrote:

gamar wrote:

Ebolamonkey84 wrote:

There are many reasons to put up a shield before the end of an event that do not include hopping. Common things such as sleep or work or school. There would be no point in me putting a shield up before work if I was going to be out in the open for 15 minutes after the shield anyway. How is putting up a shield when you cannot play not an intended shield use?

The implication of "needing to shield" for school or work implies that you wouldn't have shielded if not for work, so you would have been unshielded during that time and lost points anyways. If you would have shielded anyways to protect your points, you're shield-hopping, not shielding because of work.

What? This makes no sense to me at all. Shielding to protect your points is literally the entire purpose of shielding. If I did not have to work, I could actually be playing and maintaining my current point level or climbing more.

And... You WOULDN'T be playing in the 15 minutes after you broke shield? Then why did you break shield?

Maybe my work plus my commute takes more than 8 hours, and an 8+3 is cheaper than a 24 hour.

Enoc99

Ebolamonkey84 wrote:

gamar wrote:

Ebolamonkey84 wrote:

gamar wrote:

The implication of "needing to shield" for school or work implies that you wouldn't have shielded if not for work, so you would have been unshielded during that time and lost points anyways. If you would have shielded anyways to protect your points, you're shield-hopping, not shielding because of work.

What? This makes no sense to me at all. Shielding to protect your points is literally the entire purpose of shielding. If I did not have to work, I could actually be playing and maintaining my current point level or climbing more.

And... You WOULDN'T be playing in the 15 minutes after you broke shield? Then why did you break shield?

Maybe my work plus my commute takes more than 8 hours, and an 8+3 is cheaper than a 24 hour.

What if the shields were changed to 6 hours, 12 hours, and 24 hours (same HP costs otherwise)?