The effects of shield cool downs

Unknown

How about every time you lose a match you are given a 1 hour shield. As soon as you complete an offensive match or the hour is up, the shield breaks. This would prevent the massive punishment that we all face at a certain point level (level varies based on roster), protects players from a mistime of the cooldown, and drives points slightly higher for the entire population.

Unknown

papa07 wrote:

How about every time you lose a match you are given a 1 hour shield. As soon as you complete an offensive match or the hour is up, the shield breaks. This would prevent the massive punishment that we all face at a certain point level (level varies based on roster), protects players from a mistime of the cooldown, and drives points slightly higher for the entire population.

That would destroy my "hit 900, stay unshielded, climb back on juicy retals" strategy

Unknown

papa07 wrote:

How about every time you lose a match you are given a 1 hour shield. As soon as you complete an offensive match or the hour is up, the shield breaks. This would prevent the massive punishment that we all face at a certain point level (level varies based on roster), protects players from a mistime of the cooldown, and drives points slightly higher for the entire population.

I really like this. I look toward to the forum big brains picking it apart for feasibility.

Unknown

papa07 wrote:

How about every time you lose a match you are given a 1 hour shield. As soon as you complete an offensive match or the hour is up, the shield breaks. This would prevent the massive punishment that we all face at a certain point level (level varies based on roster), protects players from a mistime of the cooldown, and drives points slightly higher for the entire population.

1. Spurt Grinders win.
2. Even 2* rosters would be able to win with enough grinding.
3. This system is used in many other online games and would drive points much much higher.
4. If you wanted to be cheap HP wise, you wouldn't even need shields for coordination, just more than 2 people. Take 3 team members ABC who queue each other.
Player A hits B, C.
B hits A for retal, and C (no point loss). A requeues B while soft shielded.
C hits B. A requeues C. C hits A (no point loss)
A hits C. B requeues A. A hits B (no point loss)
B hits A. C requques B. B hits C (no points loss)
etc... 2 win - 1 loss ratio. You can push that ratio up to 3 to 1 with a 4th person. Just tell your alliance mates when you're soft shielded so they can hit you back.
5. Loss in revenue for d3 from shields.
6. Even if you raise the threshold on loss to say 100 points, you're still stuck with the grinders winning.
7. Eventually, almost everyone would be soft shielded. You'd run out of targets and maybe be stuck with 1 pt seed teams (eg this happens at the very top some times when everyone in their points zone is shielded). The people getting hit would be the people who just won games, and everyone knows how annoying it is to get hit when you're trying to make a run.

Unknown

daibar wrote:

papa07 wrote:

How about every time you lose a match you are given a 1 hour shield. As soon as you complete an offensive match or the hour is up, the shield breaks. This would prevent the massive punishment that we all face at a certain point level (level varies based on roster), protects players from a mistime of the cooldown, and drives points slightly higher for the entire population.

1. Spurt Grinders win.
2. Even 2* rosters would be able to win with enough grinding.
3. This system is used in many other online games and would drive points much much higher.
4. If you wanted to be cheap HP wise, you wouldn't even need shields for coordination, just more than 2 people. Take 3 team members ABC who queue each other.
Player A hits B, C.
B hits A for retal, and C (no point loss). A requeues B while soft shielded.
C hits B. A requeues C. C hits A (no point loss)
A hits C. B requeues A. A hits B (no point loss)
B hits A. C requques B. B hits C (no points loss)
etc... 2 win - 1 loss ratio. You can push that ratio up to 3 to 1 with a 4th person. Just tell your alliance mates when you're soft shielded so they can hit you back.
5. Loss in revenue for d3 from shields.
6. Even if you raise the threshold on loss to say 100 points, you're still stuck with the grinders winning.
7. Eventually, almost everyone would be soft shielded. You'd run out of targets and maybe be stuck with 1 pt seed teams (eg this happens at the very top some times when everyone in their points zone is shielded). The people getting hit would be the people who just won games, and everyone knows how annoying it is to get hit when you're trying to make a run.

Good points., thanks for the feedback.

4. Is this really possible? I seem to see the same handful of names when I skip. I can't imagine trying to find 2 or 3 specific people for each node every time.

5. Disagree with this. This temp shield lasts an hour (or 30 minutes or whatever time they want it set to). If I choose to run these for the last 3 hours of an event, then I would lose between 75 and 90 points that I cannot afford to lose for my alliance and season score. Maybe those at the top can do that after they make their progression targets, but I don't see it. If that is a concern, then shorten it to 30 minutes - that would make the drop 150-180 points, more at higher scores.

The biggest issue with the new cooldown rules is the margin of error for the transitioners. I need to score 600 each event but as soon as I cross above 600, I am an easy target. My optimal strategy now is to get into the 500s, wait until the 3 hour mark, and push as fast as I can before dropping a 3 hour shield. If all goes well I can get close to 700. However, if I get a bad board or eat an all day cascade or get 5 defensive losses while I was pushing and find myself at 575, what do I do now? In the past, I could shield and wait 90 minutes for healthpacks, hit one or two more attacks, and put up another 3 hour shield. Or even more optimally, I could play at the 5 hour mark with the intent of running 2 3 hour shields

1,2, and 6. I think if you are taking at least 1 loss for every win, it is going to be hard for grinders to do more than tread water once they hit their threshold. Not to mention healthpacks will stop the grinding as well (especially the 2 stars)

7. Agree this could be an issue, but more indicative of MMR issues and the artificial limiting of the player pool of options. If I can see that 8 or 9 of the people on my page of the leaderboard are unshielded, there is no reason that the same names should keep appearing when I hit skip. Especially when my bracket is one of maybe 20 in the time slice. If the MMR system instead pulled from anyone whose score is between 75% and 150% of your score, there would still be plenty of unshielded targets.

Unknown

Temp shields in last 3 hours and 75-90 pt loss.
I agree that most people would buy shields if they're going to take any more than 3 attacks. Right now, play in the last 3 hours is so aggressive that it probably wouldn't make sense to use temp shields unless you're going for the shield hop. The loss in revenue is more from before that when people are hopping -> see next points:

2. When people are soft shielded, they won't be queued until they win the first match. This means you should be able to win your second game and not get hit yet unless a person is attacking you as soon as they queue you and not finding a couple other targets as well, barring bad luck in your game etc... Makes it at least a 2 win 1 loss ratio. Actually, this is even easier than the coordination idea. Health packs: the behaviour of people here won't really change. What I mean is the people who are more willing to spend on health packs can play longer, grind to the top. If you assume most of your defensive losses will come in between 7-15 mins after you beat the person, an optimal strategy might be to play 2 or 3 matches, quit for 30 mins and repeat until you're ready to hard shield for the day or too many people are watching you. I don't think it's unusual for many players to play more than a few hours at a time.

4. At the top most people are shielded, so it's easier to find the few people who aren't if you know when to look.

7. If you widen the scope of the search, all that would happen is that the top grinders would put more of the lower population into protection, meaning people at that range would have to hit lower and so on. Not very fun going after 10 point matches when people already complain about not being to find anything over 20 now.

GothicKratos

Here is what I posit to everyone that is upset about Shield Cooldowns;

If Progression Rewards in PvP were adjusted to such a benchmark that the highest reward was attainable, but only with a lot of dedication and Hero Points? (So, basically, like it was before.)

Right now it looks like this;

25 points: Standard Token
50 points: 100 ISO-8
100 points: Stockpile of +1 All AP Boosts
200 points: 250 ISO-8
300 points: Event Token
400 points: 25 Hero Points
500 points: 2* Cover
600points: 25 Hero Points
700 points: 1,000 ISO-8
800 points: 25 Hero Points
900 points: Event Token
1,000 points: 1,000 ISO-8
1,1000 points: 3* Cover
1,200 points: 1,000 ISO-8
1,300 points: 4* Cover

Plenty of people proved that those goals were child's play before cooldowns, so honestly, personally, I was waiting for them to get retooled anyways.

Would you be happier if it looked something like this;

25 points: Standard Token
50 points: 100 ISO-8
100 points: Stockpile of +1 All AP Boosts
200 points: 250 ISO-8
250 points: Event Token
300 points: 25 Hero Points
400 points: 2* Cover
500points: 25 Hero Points
600 points: 1,000 ISO-8
700 points: 25 Hero Points
800 points: Event Token
900 points: 1,000 ISO-8
950 points: 3* Cover
1,000 points: 1,000 ISO-8
1,100 points: 4* Cover

russreid91

Not sure if this is the right area to post this in but IMO, this has taken some of the fun out of the game. I understand a lot of the arguments about this not being the intended purpose of shields however to me shield hopping added a certain amount of tension and drama to the game. I never was an avid shield hoper but I did do it and it could be a lot of fun, I once climbed to 1700 and still didn't get the top 5 cover I was going for but I knew that was a chance I was taking when I went in. Usually however I would throw up a shield after climbing as high as I could and that being it for the rest of the event, the original purpose of shields. Shield hopping kept those with established rosters engaged in a game that has remained relatively static since day one.

There is going to be an adjustment period as people get used to lower scores and we may see 4* available at a lower level and we will all adapt as we did to "True Healing" however I think an intangible fun component was just removed from the game and I am sad to see it go.

Unknown

daibar wrote:

2. When people are soft shielded, they won't be queued until they win the first match. This means you should be able to win your second game and not get hit yet unless a person is attacking you as soon as they queue you and not finding a couple other targets as well, barring bad luck in your game etc... Makes it at least a 2 win 1 loss ratio.

I don't think I was clear with my intent of the soft shield. If you are attacking someone and take 3 losses while you are attacking, the shield kicks in after the first and protects you from the 2nd and 3rd loss. However, when you finish your attack, the soft shield breaks. Up to you whether you shield for real or continue attacking, but the soft shield is gone once you return from your battle.

In fact, since you bring it up, no reason to take a soft shielded player out of the queue. To me, this was more of a falling market concept, where you couldn't take multiple losses in a row, especially since the ability to make them up has been removed with the 8 hour cooldown.

GothicKratos wrote:

Would you be happier if it looked something like this;

25 points: Standard Token
50 points: 100 ISO-8
100 points: Stockpile of +1 All AP Boosts
200 points: 250 ISO-8
250 points: Event Token
300 points: 25 Hero Points
400 points: 2* Cover
500points: 25 Hero Points
600 points: 1,000 ISO-8
700 points: 25 Hero Points
800 points: Event Token
900 points: 1,000 ISO-8
950 points: 3* Cover
1,000 points: 1,000 ISO-8
1,100 points: 4* Cover

Hell yes. The third hero point reward (at 800, proposed at 700) is 50, fyi. With a transition team and one shield, my ceiling is 700. To put those hero points back on the table would be big. Using an 8 and then 3 hour shield in the last event, I made 800, so that extra token would be on the table for more shielding as well. This transitioner approves.

Of course, we need to talk season progressions too. 7500 probably needs to scale to 6500 as the top tier.

Unknown

papa07 wrote:

daibar wrote:

2. When people are soft shielded, they won't be queued until they win the first match. This means you should be able to win your second game and not get hit yet unless a person is attacking you as soon as they queue you and not finding a couple other targets as well, barring bad luck in your game etc... Makes it at least a 2 win 1 loss ratio.

I don't think I was clear with my intent of the soft shield. If you are attacking someone and take 3 losses while you are attacking, the shield kicks in after the first and protects you from the 2nd and 3rd loss. However, when you finish your attack, the soft shield breaks. Up to you whether you shield for real or continue attacking, but the soft shield is gone once you return from your battle.

In fact, since you bring it up, no reason to take a soft shielded player out of the queue. To me, this was more of a falling market concept, where you couldn't take multiple losses in a row, especially since the ability to make them up has been removed with the 8 hour cooldown.

I see how that could be abused too: Grind a lot of points. Start a fight and don't finish it. Boom! Semi-Permashield.

Unknown

Not a huge fan of the shield cool down's. 8hrs is too long. It has sucked alor of fun out of the game for me. Sniping and shield hopping were my favourite part of the game now there just a chore. I can no longer okay when I want to play if I want to score high.

But then again Im pretty sure D3 wants rid of us high scores. Well mission acomplished!! Have a cookie

Unknown

the answer to this issue is so ridiculously easy that it baffles me d3 hasn't thought of it.

1. get rid of shields.

2. change the amount of points people lose per defeat by a fraction of what it is now.

3. set a % value of your points that you can lose before you stop showing up in people's queue's, say 5%.

this way, people at lower points can climb easier and people at the top will face more competition, making it more "fun" since that's what people at the top seem to want.

so for example, with this system, someone at #1 has 1000 points. he/she can be hit for 50 (5%) while they are not using the app and then they automatically disappear from everyone's queue. the player logs on and finds that they are now at 950. no biggie. they do a quick climb up to 1200 getting hit maybe 5 times on the way there. however, with the second step of the ridiculously easy plan, each hit costs this player only 10 points. the player is now at 1150 for a net gain of 150 points. they then log off and get hit for another 50 points, bringing them down to 1100. still a total net gain of 100 points from their original 1000 points despite getting hit 5 times while active and losing 5% and another 5% over two active sessions. at this point they can decide to do another battle and put themselves back in the queue to try and get more points or just remain hidden at 1100 until the end of the event. this way the entire event, especially the ending hours, will be very active since people will play lots of last minute matches instead of a stale boring shield fest like it is today. plus every player will know if they continue playing that they can risk getting hit a lot but never to the point where it will be catastrophic and that if they don't lose they can score more than they will lose when getting hit while active.

also with this ridiculously easy plan, you won't have cases of people accidentally crashing or not being able to shield and getting hit for 1500 points or nonsense like that.

EASY.

atomzed

atlasspeaks wrote:

the answer to this issue is so ridiculously easy that it baffles me d3 hasn't thought of it.

1. get rid of shields.

2. change the amount of points people lose per defeat by a fraction of what it is now.

3. set a % value of your points that you can lose before you stop showing up in people's queue's, say 5%.

this way, people at lower points can climb easier and people at the top will face more competition, making it more "fun" since that's what people at the top seem to

No please. With your suggestion, the pvp will become a grind. Those who can grind will win, as their point loss limited.

We already have the pve where grinding is king. Please don't make pvp the same as pve.

Unknown

DJSMELLZ IN DA HOOUUSSEE!!!

Shield cool downs inspired me to rhyme!

Before that, I just didn't have time!

If your alliance is public, we're sure to meet!

I'll bust in the door and drop a phat beat!


*drops the mic*

Unknown

atomzed wrote:

atlasspeaks wrote:

the answer to this issue is so ridiculously easy that it baffles me d3 hasn't thought of it.

1. get rid of shields.

2. change the amount of points people lose per defeat by a fraction of what it is now.

3. set a % value of your points that you can lose before you stop showing up in people's queue's, say 5%.

this way, people at lower points can climb easier and people at the top will face more competition, making it more "fun" since that's what people at the top seem to

No please. With your suggestion, the pvp will become a grind. Those who can grind will win, as their point loss limited.

We already have the pve where grinding is king. Please don't make pvp the same as pve.

i must be playing a different pvp than you because even now it IS currently a grind.

my idea would make it easier for people to progress without having to worry about losing all their points due to not being shielded and wanting to climb. with my idea the high value targets will still get hit a ton, helping to slow their climb so it would still be wise to NOT grind with my idea, in order to say hidden.

Unknown

atlasspeaks wrote:

atomzed wrote:

atlasspeaks wrote:

the answer to this issue is so ridiculously easy that it baffles me d3 hasn't thought of it.

1. get rid of shields.

2. change the amount of points people lose per defeat by a fraction of what it is now.

3. set a % value of your points that you can lose before you stop showing up in people's queue's, say 5%.

this way, people at lower points can climb easier and people at the top will face more competition, making it more "fun" since that's what people at the top seem to

No please. With your suggestion, the pvp will become a grind. Those who can grind will win, as their point loss limited.

We already have the pve where grinding is king. Please don't make pvp the same as pve.

i must be playing a different pvp than you because even now it IS currently a grind.

my idea would make it easier for people to progress without having to worry about losing all their points due to not being shielded and wanting to climb. with my idea the high value targets will still get hit a ton, helping to slow their climb so it would still be wise to NOT grind with my idea, in order to say hidden.

What's your definition of a grind?

I started the Punisher PVP today at 3:30pm.

Shielded at 5:00pm for 3 hours.

Unshielded at 7:45pm.
Played until 8:00pm.
Shielded until the end of the PVP (4:00am).

1:45 of play time. 951 points.

I love it.

Much better than PVE which, before the upcoming change, had you coming back every 3 hours to play for 15-20 minutes.

THAT
is a grind.

With PVP, you can make your own schedule.
With PVE, you live by their schedule or you don't place well.

lokiagentofhotness

I have to say that a transitioning / recently transitioned player shield cooldowns have really affected my ability to hit 1300. I only started shield hopping at the end of the previous season, when my alliance mates told me that boosts weren't precious things you hoarded and rarely used (oh if i had only known this then). I spent a lot of hp on my climb because i only had a level 200 not fully covered xf and a 166 hulk or lcap, so I usually could only do one or two games a hop, and start shielding at 600 plus. But 600 hp for a 3* and a 4* cover is worth it.

Now I can't even hope for 1300, even if I have the hp to spare, simply because there are no more 50 pointers around. I am happy to throw myself boosted against a 270 max team, but if you do that and only gain 30 points each hop becomes more painful and eventually you just give up - especially since at some point all you get are 3 pointers.

On the plus side, I've finished top 5 in the last 2 pvps, and only did not make it for the doom covers because I didn't have a usable hood. It's actually easier to place - unfortunately with the current meta you really need 4*s and not 3*s.

I do play less, so there's that. You can shield for 8 hours and relax.

But I really miss the fun of shield hopping tbh, and feeling like I can compete against the big boys. That's been taken away from me - a lot of my 4* covers have come from hitting 1300. That's an impossibility right now.

Unknown

I'm kinda fine with it. If I don't want to hop I'll wait until 11 hours to go and burn my health packs, shield for 3 hours, hop again and finish for the duration. I still have the option for another hop before the end, and if that fails or I need to hop again, I still have the option of spending 300hp on a cover. All this knowing that people won't be hopping every 10 minutes, so my 900~ points are probably enough to top10, maybe even top5. The rewards need tweaking obviously (end progression should probably be 1.1k), but I'm digging this new pvp system.

atomzed

onimus wrote:

atlasspeaks wrote:

atomzed wrote:

atlasspeaks wrote:

the answer to this issue is so ridiculously easy that it baffles me d3 hasn't thought of it.

1. get rid of shields.

2. change the amount of points people lose per defeat by a fraction of what it is now.

3. set a % value of your points that you can lose before you stop showing up in people's queue's, say 5%.

this way, people at lower points can climb easier and people at the top will face more competition, making it more "fun" since that's what people at the top seem to

No please. With your suggestion, the pvp will become a grind. Those who can grind will win, as their point loss limited.

We already have the pve where grinding is king. Please don't make pvp the same as pve.

i must be playing a different pvp than you because even now it IS currently a grind.

my idea would make it easier for people to progress without having to worry about losing all their points due to not being shielded and wanting to climb. with my idea the high value targets will still get hit a ton, helping to slow their climb so it would still be wise to NOT grind with my idea, in order to say hidden.

What's your definition of a grind?

I started the Punisher PVP today at 3:30pm.

Shielded at 5:00pm for 3 hours.

Unshielded at 7:45pm.
Played until 8:00pm.
Shielded until the end of the PVP (4:00am).

1:45 of play time. 951 points.

I love it.

Much better than PVE which, before the upcoming change, had you coming back every 3 hours to play for 15-20 minutes.

THAT
is a grind.

With PVP, you can make your own schedule.
With PVE, you live by their schedule or you don't place well.

Thank you ominus, this is my exact experience with PVP too. For my recent Pun pvp, I play one hour to reach 300 points on first day. Play till 600 points on second day. And play till 900+ points in the last 3 hour. I could do that mainly because I have a strong roster.

In pvp, your roster strength AND shielding timing/ strategy affects your final standing.

In pvp, You cannot grind, because the higher you go, the more people will hit you. Eventually, you tea chin an equilibrium point befitting of your roster.

Atlas idea means that the more points you play, the more points you grind. Those who have more time, will surrely win with atlas proposal.

GuntherBlobel

After a few PvPs, I've come to like the new norm. Now that we can pick end-times, I find that I no longer want to shield, ever. I take my losses and log in a couple of times a day to maintain my place in the top 25. I don't have to play in 5 min sessions, because I'm not limited to speed matches, so I now play more of my Roster. My matches are slower and more fun. Also, I don't feel compelled to endlessly add to my score because my competition isn't sheild-hopping either.

Guess what? Sheild-hopping wasn't that fun for me.

And lastly, if the whales want maxed 4* characters, let them buy tokens and upgrades. The game will always be pay to win; I'm OK with it being a little more expensive to do so.