Cool Down Conspiracy Theory

Unknown

I'm generally not a d3 conspiracy theorist, but what if this is all a half-step towards the ultimate goal of providing the option to pay to unlock the cool down, similar to recalling TUd characters? I can see the rationale now. "We're providing players with the freedom to shield and not worry about losing points or to shield hop to your heart's content. Everybody gets what they asked for!" I know I've already found myself wishing I could pay 50HP to unlock for just ONE more hop. It would be a blatant ploy to double-dip on shield hoppers, but d3 might be willing to absorb their outrage and move on. Just a thought.

Vhailorx

This change would be hard to rationalize in light of their previous statements about the 8 hour shield cooldowns being necessary to prevent people shield hopping throughout the night.

Then again, this game is so aggressively monetized that I wouldn't be terribly surprised if something like this was implemented.

I agree that conspiracy theories are generally a waste of time. I do think, however, that in this new realm of freemium games chock full of microtransactions (though the "micro-ness" is debatable given the price of covers), it is fair for players to speculate about the monetary motives of game design decisions. If game devs are going to force me to evaluate every in game activity in terms of how much money I am willing to spend, then I will speculate about the the profitability of game design decisions.

tanis3303

I feel ya Jr. I just had a bad hop, AI got a good cascade and gave fury like 14 of every color. Now I'm "out of shields" costing me any chance I had at the top 5 doom cover. I'd probably pay 50hp for one more hop, but then again, so would everyone else. We'd be right back to where we were without cooldowns, only now it would cost a ton more hp. Certainly wouldn't put it past them...$$$. 'Murcia.

simonsez

I don't think they could justify that level of hypocrisy. "Shield hopping is not what we intended, and it horribly detrimental to the health of the game. But if you want to pay extra to do it, knock yourselves out, guys!"

Unknown

Something needs done, even if it is payment. There's no points on offer because everyone is using their shields for the duration and what was a 2 day event has now become a couple of hours (at most) at the end of the pvp.
It has become really difficult to juggle pve and pvp as well now, as you cant just pop out of shield to maximise health packs between both events. From where I'm sitting its been an absolute failure and I'm rapidly losing patience.

tanis3303

You aren't the only one my friend...the Unholy Outlaw event almost broke my brand new iPad last night. I have what could be considered an amazing roster, with a 270 xforce, a 270 fury and something like 23 166s...and it means absolutely NOTHING right now. It'll never get me anymore 4* covers, so where am I supposed to from here? The nature of my roster has scaled me out of PvE events, so 1-2 place finishes there are out of the question. I battled till my fingers bled last night just trying to reach 900 in the Hood event (finished at 899 and was completely out of shields to use), so the 1300 prog rewards is COMPLETELY out of the question. Apparently a team of 270 Xforce/Fury and 249 Hood is really easy to beat, because in ~1.5 hours I lost over 15 fights and had only 1 defensive win, for 5 points.

Apparently the only way to progress now is to throw $100+ at the current "best character", of which there will always be a new one. I mean, I guess I could level up some more 3*s (and screw up my scaling even more) but whats the point if the future is 4*s (which at present are completely unattainable)

Interest...waning...quickly...

Unknown

jralbino, heres a quote from Naom Chomsky that could fuel your conspiracy theory

"That's the standard technique of privatization: defund, make sure things don't work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital."

simonsez

tanis3303 wrote:

Apparently a team of 270 Xforce/Fury and 249 Hood is really easy to beat, because in ~1.5 hours I lost over 15 fights and had only 1 defensive win, for 5 points.

If it makes you feel any better, XF/GT is really easy to beat too. Decided I'm no longer doing this shield nonsense, so I just went to bed and let my shield expire with 2 hours to go. Ended up getting beat down from 850 to 600, with no defensive wins. And I no longer care. If the options are to buy 3/8/3/24/3 shields to MAYBE get a shot at a top 5 cover, the smartest move is to buy no shields and just buy the cover with the HP you'd save after two events of not doing that.

JamieMadrox

I had no problem hopping in to third place with just under three hours to go and shielding for the event. I did one fight near the end and ended up in 6th by 2 points. Not my usual placement, but considering the effort and HP spent, it wasn't a bad investment. Sure I lost out on the Doom purple cover, but my Doom isn't getting levels anytime soon and I'll likely pick up the other one to three sooner rather than later. I think I may be the only high level player that actually like cool downs as they are (with the exception of not being able to see them when shielded).

simonsez

Jamie Madrox wrote:

Sure I lost out on the Doom purple cover, but my Doom isn't getting levels anytime soon and I'll likely pick up the other one to three sooner rather than later.

That's kinda my point. You spent HP on shields, didn't get T5, so you probably would've netted out better if you'd just laid low, grinded the last hour and gotten a T25

wymtime

MarCr wrote:

Something needs done, even if it is payment. There's no points on offer because everyone is using their shields for the duration and what was a 2 day event has now become a couple of hours (at most) at the end of the pvp.
It has become really difficult to juggle pve and pvp as well now, as you cant just pop out of shield to maximise health packs between both events. From where I'm sitting its been an absolute failure and I'm rapidly losing patience.

I think it is interesting that you find PVE harder with the shield cool down. I find PVE easier. I have climbed early in PVP and just remained unshielded. I lose some points but I also get some defensive wins so I don't lose to many points and then I have some nice retaliations to climb off of. I used an 8 HR shield with about 10 hours left and then did 1 hop with a little over 2 hours left. I finished in 2nd place and got my Doom Purple cover. Becuase I was shielded so long it was easier to hit the refresh for the PVE. I will admit I was only a little over 900 points and was not looking to climb to 1300. I have been able to get top 5 placement in the past 3 events with the new cool down with 2 shields.

I think for players trying to get 1100-1300 points it is going to cost a lot of HP, but to get a quality placement the new shield cool down system has made it easier to place without hopping 3,4,5 times in an event.

JamieMadrox

simonsez wrote:

Jamie Madrox wrote:

Sure I lost out on the Doom purple cover, but my Doom isn't getting levels anytime soon and I'll likely pick up the other one to three sooner rather than later.

That's kinda my point. You spent HP on shields, didn't get T5, so you probably would've netted out better if you'd just laid low, grinded the last hour and gotten a T25

I spent 125HP. 75 on a 3 hour shield and 50 on a health pack for Hood to give me the last two matches I needed to shield in top 5 with less than 3 hours to go. I could have easily spent another 150 on an 8 hour shield and done a hop in those 3 hours and still did my match at the end. I'd have gotten the doom and still made a 25HP profit on the event, but I chose not to.

Unknown

If I put on my conspiracy-minded tinfoil hat, I'd say the point would be forcing people to buy 4* (and, to a lesser start, 3*) covers by making the 1100/1300 prizes virtually impossible to get. Once you hit a certain point in the game, there's not much point in spending money unless you want to be king of the mountain, but forcing up to put money in for covers one way or another would do it.

What I really think is that scores were getting so ludicrous that 1300 was becoming pretty common and that - given people crossed 6000 points - raising the bar wasn't enough.

Unknown

Jamie Madrox wrote:

I had no problem hopping in to third place with just under three hours to go and shielding for the event. I did one fight near the end and ended up in 6th by 2 points. Not my usual placement, but considering the effort and HP spent, it wasn't a bad investment. Sure I lost out on the Doom purple cover, but my Doom isn't getting levels anytime soon and I'll likely pick up the other one to three sooner rather than later. I think I may be the only high level player that actually like cool downs as they are (with the exception of not being able to see them when shielded).

I'm actually going the same route as you JM. I spent 225. Climbed to 800 early. Just maintained for a day and a half. At 10 hours out I made a run to 961. Popped a 3 hour. Queued a few over time. At 4 hours out, did a 3 hop to 1064, put out an 8 hour. Waited to see if I needed another 3 for top 5. Turned out I didn't, but if I did, I still would've been HP neutral for the event. Granted, that won't ever get me to 1300, but I'm not willing to absorb the cost of doing that anyway.

Unknown

What Ben Grimm said.

Unknown

Keep in mind that LUDICROUS SCORING didn't start until the end of June, and at that point 1400 was a ludicrous score. My point? MPQ existed as a "non shield hop" meta for longer than it existed as a shield-hop meta! I dearly hope 4* covers become easier to get, but either way, this too shall pass, or we'll get used to it.

Unknown

Ummmm..... couldn't they just have increased the costs of shields?

Unknown

stephen43084 wrote:

Ummmm..... couldn't they just have increased the costs of shields?

That'd alienate a lot of the starting and lower ranked players who buy shields. I wouldn't have minded if they made HP costs of shielding a team dependent on your team level as opposed to having the cool down, eg have a 3/8/24hr shield costs 50/100/150HP for up to level 100, 75/150/225HP up to protect 200's, 100/200/300HP to protect higher; still would be cheaper than what we're paying now.

Unknown

simonsez wrote:

I don't think they could justify that level of hypocrisy. "Shield hopping is not what we intended, and it horribly detrimental to the health of the game. But if you want to pay extra to do it, knock yourselves out, guys!"

I think insta-purchasing and max leveling a 4 star is horribly detrimental to the health of the game as well, but it makes them 700 to 800 dollars per person who does that...so they're fine with it.

If they made a new rule that limited you to buying, at most, 5 covers per character just to "top off" or "respec" that character, then I might believe they give a **** about the health of the game.

But when every single person who is in the top 5 runs level 270 Xforce, level 270 4hor, it is clear to me that they don't care about health.

So why make shield cooldowns?

Because they don't want you getting those 4 stars without spending way too much for them.

simonsez

onimus wrote:

I think insta-purchasing and max leveling a 4 star is horribly detrimental to the health of the game as well

Right, YOU think it is, but the devs never issued a statement like that...

Unknown

gamar wrote:

Keep in mind that LUDICROUS SCORING didn't start until the end of June, and at that point 1400 was a ludicrous score. My point? MPQ existed as a "non shield hop" meta for longer than it existed as a shield-hop meta! I dearly hope 4* covers become easier to get, but either way, this too shall pass, or we'll get used to it.

On July 13th, 2014 Nick Fury was released
On September 3rd, 2014 Xforce was buffed.
On December 1st, 2014 Lady Thor was released.

It is not a coincidence that the ludicrous scoring started right around the time getting a 4 star actually meant something.

Before Nick Fury was released, all there was in 4 star land were Garbage Xforce and Invisible Woman, commonly referred to as Bag Lady.