My experience with shield cooldowns

Unknown

Tonight, I was climbing the Sticks and Stones PVP.

I started with about 12 hours. I thought, I'd play for about an hour. Shield for 3 hours. Climb for another half hour or so and shield until the end. My goal was 900, maybe 1000 if I was on a roll.

I got to 750. Shielded for 3 hours. I came back, around 7:50pm EST (8 hours, 10 min until the end of the PVP).

I was climbing and had just hit 870, was about to queue up a match for 900 points.

Then my wife started asking me a few things, then it became a legitimate discussion.

At this point, there is no way I'm going to continue to play through our conversation, so I just stopped at 870 and shielded for 8 hours until the end.

Under normal circumstances, I would have thrown up a 3 hour shield, talked to her until we finished our discussion, then come back and finish my climb and shield until the end.

But because my 3 hour shield was on cooldown, I was FORCED to stop playing this PVP.

I didn't have a choice.

You can't stay unshielded above 800 because Xforce 4hor teams will just tear you apart. And I'm not spending 300 HP on a 24 hour shield.

So I'm currently playing a game that forces you to stop playing when you don't want to stop playing merely because a small subset of players abused shields in a way they were not intended to be used.


TL;DR
My wife wanted to talk to me during my climb, once I was past 800, so I had to stop playing for the night because of the shield cooldowns and the fact that my 3 hour shield was already on cooldown.

Solutions:
Give each player 3 3 hour shields before it goes on cooldown.
OR
Make 3 hour shields have a 3 hour cooldown on it.
OR
Lower progressions so no one will need to go beyond 900 anymore.
OR
Remove shield cooldowns


The game is not working as of right now. D3 needs to do something.
Fast.

grapez

interesting idea about the giving each player 3 of the 3 hour shields. I think that would be fair, and mabey shields recharge by 1 every like 8 hours or so?

vudu3

onimus wrote:

Solutions:

Tell you wife to ... wait ... not going to go there.

user311

Leads into a discussion of why we do need the 3 hour shield. Family activities are a big factor for me as well.

Unknown

user311 wrote:

Leads into a discussion of why we do need the 3 hour shield. Family activities are a big factor for me as well.

Yea, I'm not sure what D3 was going for here, with the 8 hour cooldown on a 3 hour shield.

Like in my case, having a wife wanting to talk to you forces you to shield. It is not me trying to abuse shields. It was me using shields for their intended purpose. To protect your score when you had to step away from the game.

But in addition to that, it basically makes screwing up once end your chances of getting much higher.

For instance, say I have 860 points and I see a 40 to 50 point match against a level 270 Xforce and 4hor and a level 249 featured character.
Can I beat them? Yea. If I boost and get a few things to go my way, I can beat them with regularity.

But what if my board is messed up? What if they get a crazy cascade? What if I just lose count of their blue and suddenly I'm power surge/smited to death?

Then you lose the match, you've been unshielded for that entire time and now you have to choose between trying to get 900 again which you'll probably fail at since you are probably about to be attacked 4 times in the next 2 minutes.

Or you can just shield and be done.

Normally, in that scenario, you just shield. Wait an hour or so to get all the attacks people have queued up on you to go through with you losing no points, then try again.

Now, is that abuse? I don't think so. That was just how you played the game at that point level. I don't understand why that use of shields is a bad thing.

The new shields make it so that one mistake ends your PVP.

Phaserhawk

Not to mention you currently have no idea how much time is left on any of your cooldowns unless you wrote it down. This is bad, bad bad bad. The top 3 alliances scored massive points to where no one was even close so you know they are goofing the system. Essentialy you have to play every 5 hours in order to make pushes while shielded and just rotate between the 3hr and 8 hr. But yeah, this is bad, bad, bad, bad.

atomzed

Phaserhawk wrote:

Not to mention you currently have no idea how much time is left on any of your cooldowns unless you wrote it down. This is bad, bad bad bad.

Fully agree!

This is what happened to me in Cage pvp.

atomzed wrote:

A final hop few hours later and I got my 1100.

Unfortunately, I remembered my shield cooldown wrongly, and I was 9 mins too early. Couldn't use a 3 hour shield nor a 8 hr shield. So I was unshielded for 9 full mins. Got hit for around 120 points before I shield up.

No big deal though dropped out of top 5.

I probably could stay in top 5 if I remember my shield timing correctly. There is no reason why they cannot show us the shield timing.

CaptainFreaky

So, looking at the Alliance result on Sticks & Stones, only about 17 people (from top 10 alliances) made it to 1300 points. Of those 10 were in a single alliance - The Crewsaders.

The breakdown of players earning 1300 pts + in Sticks and Stones (Cage) PVP:
The Crewsaders - 10
The X-Men II - 3
The X-Men - 1
Immortal Rage - 1
Asgard Empire - 2

And ALL of those that made it already had a fully covered 4* roster. That means that NOT A SINGLE NEW PLAYER received the 1300 cover as a reward that they needed to actually increase the covers on their roster. So, yeah, you have to basically already have a solid 4* roster in order to earn a 4* cover - great.

Obviously, it's still a good reward for those who made it and I congratulate them for getting to 1300 - while probably working through the new way of shield hopping with the cooldown mechanic. But I'd have to ask Demiurge, is this "working as intended" or is this enough data already that 1300 points is too high for the last progression award when basically nobody who really needs the cover can actually get it?

I don't think 1300 points should be trivial to achieve, as it was increasingly becoming before cooldowns (where hundreds or more players were routinely getting over 1300 points on PVP). But I also think that 8 hour cooldowns not only force people NOT to play the game, but is also a big step in the wrong direction to "easing the transition" to 4* that D3 said they were focused on in the December Q&A, also making the high end rewards more P2W than ever before (because of higher shield costs to work around cooldowns).

My 2c and observations from this PVP - I would really like to see what the Devs have seen in terms of data as well.


EDIT - corrected # of players scoring 1300+ and added more detail.

Wonko33

I think D3 should do something about your wife ...

Yeah almost got in the same situation last night, my bad for starting my climb before she goes to bed. I had my 3 hour shield but i wanted to climb a bit more, got lucky and stayed top 10 but there is no way I would have unshielded and paid for the 8 hour shield.

I do much better shielding only once per pvp, and not trying to climb more, in the long run I buy the covers with the HP i save. Doing this I now have a positive HP change every pvp

SodaPopinski

Wonko33 wrote:

I think D3 should do something about your wife ...

Yeah almost got in the same situation last night, my bad for starting my climb before she goes to bed. I had my 3 hour shield but i wanted to climb a bit more, got lucky and stayed top 10 but there is no way I would have unshielded and paid for the 8 hour shield.

I do much better shielding only once per pvp, and not trying to climb more, in the long run I buy the covers with the HP i save. Doing this I now have a positive HP change every pvp

I was in the same boat (where I could not play until she went to bed) until I nudged her into pinterest. Surprise...now she does not complain about "my silly game playing" anymore. A bit devious, I know, but that is my evening relax time and pretty much the only time I play.

Unknown

user311 wrote:

For instance, say I have 860 points and I see a 40 to 50 point match against a level 270 Xforce and 4hor and a level 249 featured character.
Can I beat them? Yea. If I boost and get a few things to go my way, I can beat them with regularity.

But what if my board is messed up? What if they get a crazy cascade? What if I just lose count of their blue and suddenly I'm power surge/smited to death?

Then you lose the match, you've been unshielded for that entire time and now you have to choose between trying to get 900 again which you'll probably fail at since you are probably about to be attacked 4 times in the next 2 minutes.

This pretty much happened to me at the end of Sticks and Stones. I put on a 3 hour shield at around 820 with 10 hours to go. After about 2.5 hours I went for a shield hop but lost the game and was attacked as well. I ended up coming out with a net loss of around 40 points where my only choice was to shield for 8 hours. I then had to wait another 5 hours before I could do another shield hop again and then I could only use a 3 hour shield after. Because I was unlucky to a crazy cascade it had meant that there was no way for me to recover even if I had wanted to and I don't believe that is how the game should be.

I could have used a 24 hour shield when there was only 5 hours remaining and then broke shield with 2 hours left but I feel like it's a waste of HP just to reach 900.

Unknown

Wonko33 wrote:

I think D3 should do something about your wife ...

Yeah almost got in the same situation last night, my bad for starting my climb before she goes to bed. I had my 3 hour shield but i wanted to climb a bit more, got lucky and stayed top 10 but there is no way I would have unshielded and paid for the 8 hour shield.

I do much better shielding only once per pvp, and not trying to climb more, in the long run I buy the covers with the HP i save. Doing this I now have a positive HP change every pvp

Haha, yea.
Wives always getting in the way of gaming!

Luckily, I don't have to wait until she goes to bed. On an average night, we'll be watching our weekly shows and I'm on MPQ my phone or just surfing the internet, she's on pinterest or facebook on her phone.

But when she starts talking to me, I have learned to put the phone down haha.

mmrosek

I've all but stopped playing and have found 2 other games. I'm hoping this is just short term. There is absolutely no point in playing outside of the final hours. So I climb to 600ish for the first 2 days...aka, not playing. Then I'm forced to play during the final hours if I want to place. I fell asleep early last night b/c it's been a long week at work. Normally, I would have already been around 1000-1200+. But as it was, I was only around 600. So it's my fault i scored where I did, but I've gone from buying tons of shields b/c shield hopping was the funnest part of the game, to buying zero shields. Some disjointed points there, but the tl;dr - cooldowns stopped the funnest part of this game and i've stopped playing competitively.

mohio

I'll toss in my hat with the "this is now less fun" crowd. Many many times yesterday I wanted to play more, make a big push and shield, do hops later throughout the day when I had a spare 15 minutes. Instead I'd look at my score, realize if I went much higher I'd just invite the zombie hordes to knock me down and just decide not to play. It boggles my mind to think that d3 really wants us to stop playing their game but that's what most people have been doing it seems. So...working as intended?

Konman

mohio wrote:

I'll toss in my hat with the "this is now less fun" crowd. Many many times yesterday I wanted to play more, make a big push and shield, do hops later throughout the day when I had a spare 15 minutes. Instead I'd look at my score, realize if I went much higher I'd just invite the zombie hordes to knock me down and just decide not to play. It boggles my mind to think that d3 really wants us to stop playing their game but that's what most people have been doing it seems. So...working as intended?

When I read this, I saw that you think the game is fun, as long as you aren't being hit. You probably did not intend that to be the take away, but that's how its reads to me. As a member of the apparent "zombie horde" that you like to look down on, I am pretty sure you stepped in quite a few of us to get your high scores, only to find it not fun anymore when confronted with the prospect of a returned favor.

I think the real question in all this discussion should be: Do players actually like playing the game, or do they only like winning the game?

GothicKratos

Konman wrote:

I think the real question in all this discussion should be: Do players actually like playing the game, or do they only like winning the game?

Devil's Advocate reporting for duty; both.

mohio

Konman wrote:

mohio wrote:

I'll toss in my hat with the "this is now less fun" crowd. Many many times yesterday I wanted to play more, make a big push and shield, do hops later throughout the day when I had a spare 15 minutes. Instead I'd look at my score, realize if I went much higher I'd just invite the zombie hordes to knock me down and just decide not to play. It boggles my mind to think that d3 really wants us to stop playing their game but that's what most people have been doing it seems. So...working as intended?

When I read this, I saw that you think the game is fun, as long as you aren't being hit. You probably did not intend that to be the take away, but that's how its reads to me. As a member of the apparent "zombie horde" that you like to look down on, I am pretty sure you stepped in quite a few of us to get your high scores, only to find it not fun anymore when confronted with the prospect of a returned favor.

I think the real question in all this discussion should be: Do players actually like playing the game, or do they only like winning the game?

Sorry I will clarify my point, and you indeed have a valid one about me as well. I'm a competitive guy so I want to do well. I also have a fun alliance I play with and we're in the 80-100 range usually, so I would like to put up a nice score to ensure we stay there and not fall out of top 100. To me there is a rush in your last big push. You're playing as quickly as you can and finding as many high point targets as possible. Same thing for shield hopping, play fast and maybe you get in 3 good matches, or maybe you risk just one more and you hold your breath on the way out just waiting for that attack screen to popup.

So more to your point, yeah I guess I could have played a few more matches during the day and maybe I get hit back down to where I started at so I'd be no worse off. But that's an annoyance built into the game, and not something I would have to deal with when you could protect your score with a 3-hour shield and not then essentially forced to commit to an 8-hour one after that and keeping track of shield cool down times, etc. anyhow you can see the dilemma, I do like playing this game, but I would also like to score as highly as I can. If I climb beyond where it's safe to stay unshielded for a few hours too early in the event I will get a little frustrated and feel like some of that time I spent earlier May have been wasted since I could have stopped sooner and been at the same point. It's not about keeping points away from others, simply trying to maximize my score per time spent, so I have more time to do other things.

Also I do not look down on the zombie horde, that's simply a phrase that goes way back on these forums, sorry if I offended you or anyone else by using it.

Unknown

Other than that you have to play more methodically if you want to place high as opposed to strictly spend more there hasn't been any significant changes. The zombie horde and you are one and the same and as long as people think they're somehow supposed to be more special than the 5 guys that pummeled you with the same strength roster no one's ever going to be happy.

This game does a pretty bad job at making everyone think they're a special snowflake when it's still pretty strictly P2W. I remember back when the game was less diverse at the top you're looking at everyone with virtually exactly the same team but that didn't stop any of those guys thinking they deserve specal treatment compared to any of the other guy running the same team. It's pretty weird since the game's reward system does seem to be egalitarian in mind (see PvE scaling) but if the point is that nobody deserves anything special, they sure do a pretty bad job conveying this message.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

Other than that you have to play more methodically if you want to place high as opposed to strictly spend more there hasn't been any significant changes. The zombie horde and you are one and the same and as long as people think they're somehow supposed to be more special than the 5 guys that pummeled you with the same strength roster no one's ever going to be happy.

This game does a pretty bad job at making everyone think they're a special snowflake when it's still pretty strictly P2W. I remember back when the game was less diverse at the top you're looking at everyone with virtually exactly the same team but that didn't stop any of those guys thinking they deserve specal treatment compared to any of the other guy running the same team. It's pretty weird since the game's reward system does seem to be egalitarian in mind (see PvE scaling) but if the point is that nobody deserves anything special, they sure do a pretty bad job conveying this message.

You raise an interesting query as to the point of playing this game.

I think we all agree, no matter what your team is, you'll be attacked.

Before time shards, pretty much anyone could get to 1300 with Sentry.
Then time shards were created. Now only people who went into shards 4 and 5 could get 1300. But, because of the higher concentration of 1300 point seekers in a now smaller pool of players per shard, that increases the number of attacks taken while climbing to 1300, and the rate and point level at which they arrive.

Pre-time shards, I could be sitting unshielded at 800 without really worrying. Because every player was in the same pool, there were plenty of higher value targets than me. In shards 4 and 5, you start getting hit at around 600 to 700 with the same team, due to fewer players in the shard, therefore fewer better options than you.

Then Sentry was nerfed, throwing many people back into the stone ages of max 800-1000, when they were accustomed to 1300.

Now, shields are nerfed. For those that just got back to 1300 capability, they are again thrown back to max 800-1000.

How can you gain a sense of accomplishment when every method to score points is being taken away, one after the other? Or the environment is changing so drastically you can't tell if you're just unlucky in how many hits you've taken or if it is due to the concentration of the players, the improvement of the players around you or the fact that there are fewer targets and fewer players above 1000 to poach points off of?


So when asked if I enjoy playing this game or do I enjoy winning this game? My answer is...I enjoy playing when I'm winning. If I can't get past 800 points with the same roster that could get 1300 points, I'm not having fun.
If I can't place in the top 25 with the same roster that used be to be able to place in the top 5, I'm not having fun.

With no real end goal to this game, the only real point of the game is to feel like you are getting stronger as you gain more covers, ISO and experience. Score more points. Place better in brackets. Get higher progressions.

But all I've felt in the last few months is how much weaker I'm getting due to the changes D3 is forcing onto the game.

TL;DR
I used to be able to get 1300 points because everyone, including all the 1500-2000 point players, were in the same pool, giving me many targets while not being targeted as much. Then they introduced shards.

Then I used to be able to get 1300 points when I had Sentry and could get 100 points within minutes. Then he was nerfed into oblivion.

Then I used to be able to get 1300 points with Xforce and some mild shield hopping (400 to 500 HP worth of shields per PVP). Now shields are being nerfed.

Now only a small small hand full of people can get 1300. That means there are no players to attack that can get you 40 to 50 points once you're past 1000. Meaning there is no longer much of a chance of ever getting 1300 points.

So what's the point? In a game with no end goal (no "win" condition to the game), the only monitor of improvement is placement in PVPs and points scored. Both monitors are being adjusted at a nearly constant rate, making it impossible to FEEL like you're improving at all.

It's closer to feeling like you got knocked down, then once you get back on your feet, you get knocked back down again.

For eternity. No progress. No sense of accomplishment. No. Point.

Unknown

Onimus brings a good point as to what is the sense of accomplishment? There probably isn't any. If there's some kind of all powerful MPQ oracle that you can consult before any PvP event it's probably going to tell you that you're the #172th best PvP player in the world but for the low price of $5 it can bring you up to #102 and for $10 more it can move you up some more. Sure the exact number may vary but I can guaranteed you the most important part is going to be how much more $ you're willing to supply, so if you don't supply the extra cash you're always going to be relatively mediocre and if you do supply the cash it's still largely decided by how much you're willing to supply relative to others.

The problem I have with this game is that if you're not supposed to be making meaningful movement without a constant infusion of cash then at least don't make me do the same thing over and over again. It's not like I forgot everything I know about the game every 3 days so the game needs to see if I can still completely rollover teams that have absolutely no chance of beating mine. Maybe it doesn't quite have to be collecting a check for 100 HP every 3 days but it should be sort of close to that if you got a roster that can easily hit 800. There's a lack of interesting dynamics in terms of your PvP score if you're not paying and it has to be repeated way too often for no good reason.

FaustianDeal

The

CaptainFreaky wrote:

So, looking at the Alliance result on Sticks & Stones, only about 17 people (from top 10 alliances) made it to 1300 points. Of those 10 were in a single alliance - The Crewsaders.

I can see alliance ranks from 45-54 and I can say that none of those 200 players made 1300. I think only 4-5 shielded above 1100 (for the Red Luke Cage).

I'm not sure how many brackets they load for PVP - but I am still willing to bet that they awarded more 4* covers as placement than they did for progression in the previous event (I'll bet they awarded at least 3-4 times as many). I can't believe that is the desired rate of awarding 4* covers.

I also noted that everyone who made 1300 was probably playing 4horverine in the event... so that became another 1,000ISO progression award for them instead of being a meaningful cover.

Maybe have the 1,000 and 1,300 progression award trade places? It will have the same net effect for the 4* players out there, but it will allow 3* players a chance to move up. (If we are trying to go back to the rates at which awards were won prior to the introduction of cooldowns the 1,100 prize probably needs to move down to 800; given current scoring levels.)

The 4* card might not have been worth fighting for, but the Luke Cage cover probably was a worthwhile get to a pretty big percentage of the playerbase... and the number of people who hit that number wasn't substantially better (it was ~5x in the top-10 teams, but I imagine that didn't hold for many teams beyond the top 10.)