So how are shields supposed to work?

Vhailorx

As others have pointed out, it seems clear that demiurge wants to curtail shield hopping. They have made sveral changes that seem designed for that purpose

1) nerfing cmags
2) nerfing sentry
3) shield cooldowns
4) nerfing 4*Thor
5) nerfing xforce
6) reducing boosts
7) buffing the health of everyone who isn't popularly used for shield hopping.

But all of these changes beg the question: what are shields for if not shield hopping? It seems like demurge wants everyone to grind constantly for an entire event and then shield just once or maybe twice at the end. But if that's the case, why put the prog rewards so high? Why make shields reusable at all?

What do you think the devs' "ideal" shielding system looks like? I don't think I have any idea.

Meto5000

Before sharding, I would use 8 hour and 24 hour shields if the ending time was in the middle of the night or during work. These days, I typically join events with 1-2 hours left and shoot for ~650. Depending on how fast I get there I'll typically throw on a 3 hour shield for the last 15-30 minutes to cement my score. I'll also queue up a few matches if I need some extra points right before the timer expires.

GuntherBlobel

Shields were never meant for hopping. They were added because players didn't like losing points while sleeping or at work. Remember, there weren't selectable end times at that point in the development. So, you could easily lose an Event just because you slept through the feeding frenzy at the end. However, shield hopping soon emerged as a side effect and the Devs didn't squash it immediately and players grew to rely on these tactics to achieve the otherwise impossible Progression rewards.

I think the Devs now feel that the game has evolved too far from where it began and that it is now unfriendly to new players who don't use or benefit as much from shield hopping. At the same time, they don't want to completely remove a play strategy that some find very fun. And that's why shields are a big confusing mess.

To me, playing unshielded with the new matchmaking feels very much like the game did for me in the early days, which I think is what the Devs are going for. Except now, I can at least use one shield near the end of an Event to secure my progress.

bknfoodie

Without shield hopping, I don't think the progression rewards are even attainable....

Unknown

bknfoodie wrote:

Without shield hopping, I don't think the progression rewards are even attainable....

They're obtainable without shields but it'd only be obtainable by guys who are so strong that they don't need them in the first place.

This is probably why they didn't completely stamp out shield hopping because otherwise progression targets are indeed too hard. As mentioned above they're intended so that you can actually walk away from the game without finishing #275 when you come back, not as a springboard to generate points out of thin air. It turns out the latter helps address the general unreachability issue of progression rewards even though it's likely unintended.

Unknown

I think it's important to remember that shields were introduced at least in part to inject points into the tournament system, which is admittedly pretty borked. Since the scores event-wide are zero sum above a certain score point, you have to have players with shields on or no one would ever get anywhere without great luck or shenanigans. Shield hopping might be a slight corruption of their intention (which is to safeguard your score while you're asleep), but they were developed with the full awareness that they helped generate more points overall.

firethorne

I don't think I can come up with an "ideal" shielding system because the framework where I loose points for what the computer does with my characters in my absence itself isn't ideal. The problem isn't just shield hoping, but a system that made it necessary.

My idea for that requiring the least amount of changes would be one where you can still attack others and get points for winning, but won't lose any for getting attacked. You only lose points when you pick a fight and loose.

Unknown

Moon 17 wrote:

I think it's important to remember that shields were introduced at least in part to inject points into the tournament system, which is admittedly pretty borked. Since the scores event-wide are zero sum above a certain score point, you have to have players with shields on or no one would ever get anywhere without great luck or shenanigans. Shield hopping might be a slight corruption of their intention (which is to safeguard your score while you're asleep), but they were developed with the full awareness that they helped generate more points overall.

You can hit 800 in a relatively stable steady state and if you got 100 guys with 800 points, you got to be able to produce at least 1 guy at 1000. Note that if shields aren't in the game the number of targets we'd see would likely be significantly greater since nobody can hide behind shields anymore, and assuming there's some minimal level of cooperation, as in after a guy hits 1000 he becomes less aggressive then you can actually just rotate the 1000 threshold to a significant portion of those 100 players. If they're intended to generate points out of thin air you wouldn't immediately drop off of any new queues once you're shielded.

Wonko33

I think they were originally made because before time shards, people from other time zones were complaining that they could not compete if they did not play at crazy hours to be there for the last moments. I think shields were made so that people could achieve their goal and lock up. Then shield hopping occurred....

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

If they're intended to generate points out of thin air you wouldn't immediately drop off of any new queues once you're shielded.

Again, this is why people think you're a troll-bot. I know that you were playing when they were introduced, and I know that you know that that's precisely what they did when they were first introduced. That effect (queuing up shielded opponents) simply proved too effective and sent scores overall too high. Still, the idea that they were adding points to the pool was an actual stated part of developer justification for shields (without bothering to find the topic and the quote, I'm 90% sure that this statement is still true).

Now, since progression rewards have been dropped down and the zero sum point in matchmaking is lower, it might be argued that shields aren't strictly necessary in order to hit top progression markers anymore. I haven't hit 1000 since Heavy Metal, though, and Smash Hit was such a terrible slog that I decided not to bother trying. So I don't have any particularly relevant insights to add to that argument.

Unknown

Moon 17 wrote:

Phantron wrote:

If they're intended to generate points out of thin air you wouldn't immediately drop off of any new queues once you're shielded.

Again, this is why people think you're a troll-bot. I know that you were playing when they were introduced, and I know that you know that that's precisely what they did when they were first introduced. That effect (queuing up shielded opponents) simply proved too effective and sent scores overall too high. Still, the idea that they were adding points to the pool was an actual stated part of developer justification for shields (without bothering to find the topic and the quote, I'm 90% sure that this statement is still true).

Now, since progression rewards have been dropped down and the zero sum point in matchmaking is lower, it might be argued that shields aren't strictly necessary in order to hit top progression markers anymore. I haven't hit 1000 since Heavy Metal, though, and Smash Hit was such a terrible slog that I decided not to bother trying. So I don't have any particularly relevant insights to add to that argument.

Why do players selectively pick things favorable to them as 'intended'? From this board I got the feeling that devs are totally incompetent and stupid but a move that made the top score going from 700 to 2700 is clearly some kind of well thought out intended change?

In this case the devs obviously had no idea what the heck they were doing in the original implementation of shields. That'd also be why the 4* progression got moved from 1300 to 2400(or 2600?) immediately.

Unknown

No, I'm not saying it functioned as intended, I'm saying that shields were made to add points to the tournament pool. As in, when they were debuted, I'm reasonably confident that that's one of the things the developers said they were supposed to do. Obviously, they underestimated the number of points that would be generated by having shielded players visible all the time, so they had to re-adjust. But, again, if shields weren't intended to inject points into the tournament pool "out of thin air," then why don't you disappear from people's retaliation queues when you shield? Because, as I've said, that's part of what shields are supposed to do. Add more points to the mix. It's just that when a shielded person is visible in the queues (even one person who is visible and shielded due to a bug), the inflation effect is massive.

There's a lot of middle ground between developer incompetence and simple miscalculations. And bearing in mind that this change happened over a year ago, near the dim and misty beginnings of MPQ, it's not a surprise that a miscalculation was made regarding the point inflation effect of visible shielded opponents. All I was saying is that the developers said when shields came out that they were intended to help people reach progression rewards in PvP (which at that point were basically unreachable). Part of the way they were supposed to achieve that (and again, I can't find the original post, so it's possible that this next part is my inference and not my memory) was by injecting more points into the pool. Whenever a shielded player is attacked for points, the entire community benefits.

Unknown

Obviously some points are intended to be generated by shields but if they're supposed to be a primarily point injection mechanism then we'd not have CDs on them either. All the PvP points after a certain threshold is completely dependent on the existence of shields and that's the part I consider 'generate points out of thin air' and there has been efforts to try to dial that back down. Shields are a necessary evil because if there are 100 players at 800 in equilibrium in a shieldless world, all that means is the top 0.1% (100 out of 100K estimated players) monopolizes the 1000 threshold so even though 1000 is perfectly reachable it doesn't do most people any good. I'd say it's a good use of shields that allows people to break into the 800 club that they'd never be able to get without shields so that progression rewards are within range, but I can't imagine the ability to arbitrarily pile on more PvP rating as long as you have shields to be intended.

simonsez

If the devs wanted to completely curtail shield-hopping, it would be VERY easy to do. Just set of limit of 2 or 3 shields per event. But they didn't do that. Instead we get this absurd cooldown mechanic. They might not love it that people are doing it, but they sure don't mind it when people spend over 1,000 HP on shields fighting for first place. So don't wring your hands that this is never what the devs intended, if they don't hate it enough to stop it.