The shields...they do nothing...

wuweird

In the just ended Webslinger PVP, I managed to hit 749 points - ranking just under #90 - with 20 minutes left on the clock. Threw up a shield because I always seem to take a flurry of damage in the last half hour or so. When I checked backed after it had ended, I had lost 115 points from 5 different attacks, finishing off at #123.

What's the point of shields if they're unreliable....other than them being a HP sink, that is? If I can't predictably guarantee I won't lose points, or even tell with any accuracy how many points I'll get from a match, where is the strategy?

Unknown

Mine just did this as well. I have lost 55 points so far and I have 26 minutes left in the event.

I shielded at 2h50m and should have been protected until the end of the event.

Moon Roach

This could be the known undocumented gotcha of shields. They are not instantaneous, the server has to process the request, and it's in a queue.

You can force the server to process your request earlier by checking your ranking, and the top 10.

If you're still losing points more than a couple of minutes after buying the shield, it's a different issue.

wuweird

Awesome, I need to manually do something totally unrelated to shielding because the game can't just automatically do whatever sync magic it needs?

Seriously, if I can avoid the issue by checking rankings, can't the client just do the bit it needs to? Or if they don't work without it, how about giving a pop up explaining that?

If a game's working behaviour is indistinguishable from broken behaviour to a player, then's it's effectively broken.

Malcrof

Also, if someone has you queued up before you shield, you will lose points for the match if it is in progress.

I have started a match and had to put down my phone for a few minutes and come back to it.. if the person i was fighting shielded while i was cooking.. when i came back and won, even though they shielded 10+ minutes ago, they are still going to lose points because i had started the battle prior to the shield.

Cypr3ss

Malcrof wrote:

Also, if someone has you queued up before you shield, you will lose points for the match if it is in progress.

I have started a match and had to put down my phone for a few minutes and come back to it.. if the person i was fighting shielded while i was cooking.. when i came back and won, even though they shielded 10+ minutes ago, they are still going to lose points because i had started the battle prior to the shield.

I have an outstanding support ticket regarding this exact issue, and from what you've said above, it sounds possibly like what happened to me, ~10-15mins after the shield had gone up, I lost points... which is just broken.

When my shield is active points shouldn't be taken off my score, ever, otherwise, what is the point of the shield? This combined with the fact that that 43 point match I started is actually only worth 27 points when I'm finished (then drop more points while shielded) is just fubar.

A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.

Regards,
Cypr3ss

wuweird

aesthetocyst wrote:

'But doing so would up user data usage and further strain servers, so it won't happen.

I don't really understand why that would be the case.

When you buy a shield, it should notify the server. Immediately. The server stores a single record containing <timestamp + duration of shield>. That's not a huge amount of traffic, and it must already be doing that because how else would it work? The question is why does it delay this notification? It's not like I'm going to hammer on the shield button several hundred times in a minute...

Then, when someone finishes a match against you, it notifies the server. Which it must already do because that's how we get/lose points. But as part of the point allocation process, the server checks for a shield record where <end of match time> < <timestamp + duration of shield>.

And that's it. There shouldn't be a need for any increased traffic or syncing. It's not like the client needs to constantly know if you're shielded, unless of course all of the processing is actually happening on the client and there's no server-side processing of anything. But that would be crazy.

Malcrof

aesthetocyst wrote:

wuweird wrote:

aesthetocyst wrote:

'But doing so would up user data usage and further strain servers, so it won't happen.

I don't really understand why that would be the case.

When you buy a shield, it should notify the server. Immediately. The server stores a single record containing <timestamp + duration of shield>. That's not a huge amount of traffic, and it must already be doing that because how else would it work? The question is why does it delay this notification? It's not like I'm going to hammer on the shield button several hundred times in a minute...

Then, when someone finishes a match against you, it notifies the server. Which it must already do because that's how we get/lose points. But as part of the point allocation process, the server checks for a shield record where <end of match time> < <timestamp + duration of shield>.

And that's it. There shouldn't be a need for any increased traffic or syncing. It's not like the client needs to constantly know if you're shielded, unless of course all of the processing is actually happening on the client and there's no server-side processing of anything. But that would be crazy.

Wu, please don't respond selectively. Your device already notifies the server when you shield. In your case, what happened was you had already been attacked, and those attacks registered on the server, prior to your shielding. What hadn't happened was that the server hadn't notified you of the fact, making it appear on your end that you were attacked after shielding. This is not a new phenomenon. Been around as long as shields have been around. And yes it sucks.

I said "This game has a LOT of issues relating to syncing. Upping the communication between device and server could solve lots of problems, stale q's, the crash penalty, and this thread subject. But doing so would up user data usage and further strain servers, so it won't happen."

Increased server communication could address many issues including this one. There should be no delay in the attack notices... but there is. Q's should not be stale, or stuck, but they are. There should be no crash penalty...but there is.

After trying to figure it out, here is what i do

As soon as i am ready to shield, i go do a lvl 1 prologue mission.. takes about 5 seconds.. i come out, it tells me if i have been hit or not, if not, toss up shield, if i have,, i check what i lost, if worth it, i shield, if not, i do another match or 2 and try again.

wastes about 10 - 15 seconds total, but keeps this from happening to often.

Hendross

I also had this hiccup... I reached 1000, claimed the reward and shielded to the end (3hr)
When I logged back on I had been attacked twice for -61. So the claim is I was under attack before the shield was active?
Quite frustrating.

Cypr3ss

Hendross wrote:

I also had this hiccup... I reached 1000, claimed the reward and shielded to the end (3hr)
When I logged back on I had been attacked twice for -61. So the claim is I was under attack before the shield was active?
Quite frustrating.

Basically that is what they're saying is happening, its even more infuriating when you've done all the "make the server update" **** that seems to be required (i.e. hit the leader board before you shield, so you know your points are current, hit the leader board after you shield, to make sure those points are still there) but you still drop points when the shield is active because "the match was started before you shielded"... so yes, quite.

Regards,
Cypr3ss.

Unknown

If you look at it from an attacker point of view activating a shield while one person is in battle would be unfair. Example:

I attack a player that is a higher level to gain more points. After one fight two heroes are defeated and a third is severely wounded making them unusable for the rest of the event but on the plus side I won the fight. Only to see a notification that my heroes died for nothing as the player became shielded and I received 0 points yet I took damage to health.

The fair result in the example would be allowing battles to finish before a shield goes up.

Cypr3ss

Aoroi wrote:

If you look at it from an attacker point of view activating a shield while one person is in battle would be unfair. Example:

I attack a player that is a higher level to gain more points. After one fight two heroes are defeated and a third is severely wounded making them unusable for the rest of the event but on the plus side I won the fight. Only to see a notification that my heroes died for nothing as the player became shielded and I received 0 points yet I took damage to health.

The fair result in the example would be allowing battles to finish before a shield goes up.

It has no impact on the attacker at all because as the attacker you receive points for your victory, the only time you don't receive points as an attacker is when you lose. The shield only affects the defender.

So in your example you would attack a player that is a higher level and after that match 2 of heroes are dead and one severely wounded making them unusable for the next 1.5 hrs (at which point you'll have more health packs available), but on the plus side you won the fight. Only to see a notification that you received <some amount of points less than the advertised points when the match started> because the person you attacked was also attacked by 5 other people, dropping their overall points value once your match finished.

Still annoying I guess, but having the shield activated while one person is in battle would be completely fair and actually work like you would expect the shield to work, i.e. protects your points while active.

Regards,
Cypr3ss.

Unknown

Cypr3ss wrote:

Aoroi wrote:

If you look at it from an attacker point of view activating a shield while one person is in battle would be unfair. Example:

I attack a player that is a higher level to gain more points. After one fight two heroes are defeated and a third is severely wounded making them unusable for the rest of the event but on the plus side I won the fight. Only to see a notification that my heroes died for nothing as the player became shielded and I received 0 points yet I took damage to health.

The fair result in the example would be allowing battles to finish before a shield goes up.

It has no impact on the attacker at all because as the attacker you receive points for your victory, the only time you don't receive points as an attacker is when you lose. The shield only affects the defender.

So in your example you would attack a player that is a higher level and after that match 2 of heroes are dead and one severely wounded making them unusable for the next 1.5 hrs (at which point you'll have more health packs available), but on the plus side you won the fight. Only to see a notification that you received <some amount of points less than the advertised points when the match started> because the person you attacked was also attacked by 5 other people, dropping their overall points value once your match finished.

Still annoying I guess, but having the shield activated while one person is in battle would be completely fair and actually work like you would expect the shield to work, i.e. protects your points while active.

Regards,
Cypr3ss.

Unless the attacker started his match against you and then put the game down for 15 minutes and then came back to finish it. Doesn't seem fair, but fair isn't what MPQ is about anyway.

Cypr3ss

MikeHock wrote:

Unless the attacker started his match against you and then put the game down for 15 minutes and then came back to finish it. Doesn't seem fair, but fair isn't what MPQ is about anyway.

I'm not sure what you're getting at here? It shouldn't (wouldn't) matter what time frame exists between when an attacker starts a match and finishes it (as long as its complete before the end of the event) if the shield actually protected your points after it was activated.

On the plus side in response to my support ticket D3 have said "While we do not have a definitive date for a fix release<snip>" which gives me some confidence they're working on a fix. I enquired if further info would be posted on the forums but so far haven't had a response to that.

Regards,
Cypr3ss.