PVP - points promised vs. points awarded

IlyaF

Hi,

There is now frequently a huge gap between the points you are promised when you pick an opponent in PVP and the points are actually awarded when you win. This was never exact, and was always off by a few points, but since the recent scoring changes, it has grown dramatically. I had several matches in Webslinger where I was promised a decent # of points (like 25 or so) and ended up getting something like 7. At this point I have absolutely no idea how many points I will get per match, and this makes it very hard to accurately judge risk vs. reward.

In Webslinger, I feel like I got screwed out of top 10 because of this. I was already comfortably in top 10 and shielded and then decided to unshield with 10 min to go to try to get into top 5. But due to the combination of 2 attacks on me (ok) and the points promised for win being a huge lie (not OK), I ended up in top 25 instead.

I don't think it's acceptable to promise one amount of points and award another. I just don't understand why the devs think it's OK. This has always been a minor annoyance but now it's a major one.

I have a crazy idea - please implement a "promise given is promise honored" policy. The points I see when I attack is the points I should get, regardless of what happens in between. Anything else is just wrong.

Unknown

This has happened to me and a few alliance-mates over the last 2 pvps too. Not on old stale nodes either, on brand new ones, and not for small amounts that could be explained by them being attacked by someone else at the same time. Like huge differences of 25-50 points and sometimes I even see the exact same guy immediately afterwards and it still has him listed with the wrong amount from the first time. I put in a bug report about it the other day. Hopefully someone will pick up on this soon...

Tannen

I think that this should be left alone. Otherwise you won't be able to hit a retaliation node for more than was taken from you later on in PVP.

For example, I hit three retaliation nodes this morning that showed 35 points and received 70+ points from each one instead. Why? Because I know the people who hit me regularly climb for spot #1, and gambled on them being worth a lot more later on.

Sometimes this is an issue, but 9/10 times the rewards (for me) far outweigh the risks. I suppose that keeping the points "live" would be a better idea -- so that you always see exactly what you'd get -- but I'm personally very happy with the current method.

Cheers,
- T

IlyaF

Tannen, I am not saying that the worth of a node can never change. I am just saying that the game should tell me the right number of points before I attack and award that same number of points. It's like getting an insurance quote. You can get it fro amount X, if you wait you can get another for amount Y, but if you decide to buy it, you know what you are paying. They can't change the price after you signed.

In the example you gave, the game would quote you 70+ points right before you attack them and this is what you would get. Is there anything wrong with that?

GothicKratos

The number shown on a node isn't so much a set price tag, but as a notation of it's current worth - kind of like a stock in the stock exchange.

The point worth of a node in PvP is calculated by using a formula that used both your point total and your opponent's.

Essentially, the bigger the gap between you and your opponent is, the more points it is worth, so there is a huge onslaught of things that can happen between the time you finish a node and when you started it.

It's pretty annoying, I can definitely agree - just thought I'd try and explain why it happens sometimes.

Unknown

I can't speak for Illyaf, but again, what I and my teammates have been seeing is not the same as the standard small bit of points missing because someone's point value changed before we finished beating them.

If I find a battle worth 46 points, immediately attack the guy and end up getting 25, this is already a much bigger discrepancy in points than normal as it is, but when I immediately start looking for the next fight and right away find the exact same guy who still says 46 on him, then attack him immediately and get 25 again, I'm pretty sure that guy did not get attacked so much that he dropped to a 25, but then fought back and got back up to being worth 46, then was attacked again all the way down to being 25, all in the space of the 4 minutes it took me to beat him twice. I mean I've sat there and attacked the same guy 4 times in a row before and not seen their value drop by half that much. His point value was clearly being misreported.

Again, I am hearing the same kinds of stories from my teammates too and this has happened several times to me recently too. I have never, in over a year of playing, seen differences in points of this size until now. If it had been happening since the point increase, maybe you could attribute it to the different point ranges now in place, but this only started happening after the last patch a few days ago.

DFiPL

It's gone in reverse for me and I suspect is a big part of why I scored as well as I did this season. Nodes promising 25, returning 50, or promising 40 and returning 70...that cuts down on how much fighting I have to do.

I can definitely see where it would annoy high-end players, but I'd rather have the opportunity to get more than what I'm being shown than to get an endless drumbeat of 20-point fights that will never return more than 20 points.

acescracked

There was already a thread created that discussed this very topic. Why create a new thread? A common theme in the forums lately has been people wanting to create their own thread on the same topic.

With regards to the point difference question. Very late in events you may hit someone that shows to be worth x amount of points. However, you maybe very slow in your match or hit them after they have been out for too long. Your target may have lost a lot of points. So it would not be correct to award you the x points when said player had dropped significantly before you completed your match.

I'm also sure you've found yourself getting more points than what it showed you would get in a match. You haven't complained about that in your thread. Why?

Tannen

IlyaF wrote:

Tannen, I am not saying that the worth of a node can never change. I am just saying that the game should tell me the right number of points before I attack and award that same number of points. It's like getting an insurance quote. You can get it fro amount X, if you wait you can get another for amount Y, but if you decide to buy it, you know what you are paying. They can't change the price after you signed.

In the example you gave, the game would quote you 70+ points right before you attack them and this is what you would get. Is there anything wrong with that?

Heh. I did, in actual fact, say that I'd be okay with "live" scores.

Having thought about it some more, I'm not sure how this would affect the loser of the scores. In your example, you hit the same person, listed as 46 points, for 25 each time -- when you saw them it was 46 and after you came out you got was 25. This means that someone else (probably more than one) hit that person at around the same time for presumably around the same amount of points. What happened on the loser of the point's end though was one attack worth 46 points, then another at say 35, then your two at 25, for a net loss of 46 + 35 + 25x2 -- 131 points. Subsequent losses on their end would also be less than the 25 that you obtained. Now in contrast, lets assume that everyone that saw them hit them got 46 points 46x4 -- 184 point loss.

The sort of change that you're talking about will cause people to get hit in much larger spikes than current, it will cause people to lose much more than they currently do if they're hit multiple times in a short period of time. I'm probably not okay with that, although it would mean that the retals would be worth more... Mmmmm...

As a side note : if it was changed it so that only the attacker gained the "correct" amount of points and the defender loses points as would happen currently, then you're "creating" points and this would be gamed at higher levels by large alliances to their advantage.

Unknown

acescracked wrote:

There was already a thread created that discussed this very topic. Why create a new thread? A common theme in the forums lately has been people wanting to create their own thread on the same topic.

With regards to the point difference question. Very late in events you may hit someone that shows to be worth x amount of points. However, you maybe very slow in your match or hit them after they have been out for too long. Your target may have lost a lot of points. So it would not be correct to award you the x points when said player had dropped significantly before you completed your match.

I'm also sure you've found yourself getting more points than what it showed you would get in a match. You haven't complained about that in your thread. Why?

It's been explained by multiple people now since the first post that this is a separate, new issue. There's absolutely no reason for you to be in here dumping on these posts and diverting attention from the actual issue at hand, especially when you obviously didn't even read them.

If by some chance you DO decide to actually read the posts and have the same question? No. I sure wish I was getting accidental extra 25 points on matches, but that hasn't happened once. If you'd like to try fighting some matches so low that you would normally never touch them just to see if you get lucky and get a huge amount of extra points from nothing though, please be my guest.

acescracked

Ralstonator wrote:

acescracked wrote:

There was already a thread created that discussed this very topic. Why create a new thread? A common theme in the forums lately has been people wanting to create their own thread on the same topic.

With regards to the point difference question. Very late in events you may hit someone that shows to be worth x amount of points. However, you maybe very slow in your match or hit them after they have been out for too long. Your target may have lost a lot of points. So it would not be correct to award you the x points when said player had dropped significantly before you completed your match.

I'm also sure you've found yourself getting more points than what it showed you would get in a match. You haven't complained about that in your thread. Why?

It's been explained by multiple people now since the first post that this is a separate, new issue. There's absolutely no reason for you to be in here dumping on these posts and diverting attention from the actual issue at hand, especially when you obviously didn't even read them.

If by some chance you DO decide to actually read the posts and have the same question? No. I sure wish I was getting accidental extra 25 points on matches, but that hasn't happened once. If you'd like to try fighting some matches so low that you would normally never touch them just to see if you get lucky and get a huge amount of extra points from nothing though, please be my guest.

Whoa, you need to take your own advise about reading a post horoughly. I did respond to your question in my second paragraph.

I don't agree with your complaint of the game but at least I took the time to give you an explanation as to what happens to points near the end of the event. Would be nice if you extend the same kind of courtesy to others who don't share your own opinion.

For webslinger PvP I climbed to 692 and stopped. Queued three players that I was 90% sure would have very high scores near the end of the event. When i queued them they were worth anywhere from 25 to 40. Started my final climb with 1 hr 30 mins left. Hit those first. Highest one returned 71 lowest 60. Finished with 1203 in 2nd place with using zero shields. The game mechanic works fine for alot of us.

With regards to this being not a duplicate thread, you are incorrect.

https://d3go.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=29982#p361139
Title of thread-"Misleading PvP nodes -- can we fix this please?"
Date of thread-May,22 2015 less than 25 days ago
Excerpt:
"This aspect of the game requires strategy, but it's very difficult to strategize when you are given misleading information. And in this case, this can cost you a lot of and leave you without anything to show for it. This doesn't seem like it would be a difficult thing to fix.. Can't we calculate how much those nodes will give you dynamically when you access the PvP page?"

Sorry for all the detail. Didn't want you to wiggle out of this. I will read your response but I'm not going to respond further only because I'm not trying to create a flame war. To the devs, the way scores are handled with regards to this topic are working fine. Thanks!

Unknown

I read your post just fine. You're not showing me anything except more proof that you have not read a single post here. What you say in your second paragraph has already been addressed multiple times and it's been stated over and over again that this is not the same thing. I don't know what language to say it in to get that across any clearer.

The story of yours and that thread you have pasted are NOT the same thing for the exact same reasons. You and that guy are both talking about getting unexpected different points from stale nodes that you queued up hours ago. That is NOT WHAT WE ARE TALKING ABOUT. I'm not going to explain it again in detail because it's already been done in the posts above and it's absolutely pointless to explain something to you when it's already right there on this same page already.

I have no idea what your pvp score or shield status has to do with this and NO ONE is saying that the game is broken and unplayable. The game doesn't have to be unplayably broken for a bug to exist. I still got over 1000 too, hooray we're all tough guys, but it's still a waste of resources and an increased risk of attacks to remain unshielded longer and open yourself up to more retaliations (which I really shouldn't have to explain to you if your points are that high) when you have to make up for points lost for no reason. The fact that it hasn't happened to you doesn't mean it isn't happening or doesn't matter, and it sure as hell isn't reason for you to try to actively stop people from bringing the problem to D3's attention. Stop looking for things to argue about and being blatantly antagonistic and just READ THE POSTS. It's all right there already.

Unknown

Here, I will even quote and highlight all the relevant parts for you, just so you don't "wiggle out of this".

IlyaF wrote:

Hi,
There is now frequently a huge gap between the points you are promised when you pick an opponent in PVP and the points are actually awarded when you win. This was never exact, and was always off by a few points, but since the recent scoring changes, it has grown dramatically.

Ralstonator wrote:

This has happened to me and a few alliance-mates over the last 2 pvps too. Not on old stale nodes either, on brand new ones, and not for small amounts that could be explained by them being attacked by someone else at the same time. Like huge differences of 25-50 points and sometimes I even see the exact same guy immediately afterwards and it still has him listed with the wrong amount from the first time. I put in a bug report about it the other day. Hopefully someone will pick up on this soon...

Ralstonator wrote:

I can't speak for Illyaf, but again, what I and my teammates have been seeing is not the same as the standard small bit of points missing because someone's point value changed before we finished beating them.

If I find a battle worth 46 points, immediately attack the guy and end up getting 25, this is already a much bigger discrepancy in points than normal as it is, but when I immediately start looking for the next fight and right away find the exact same guy who still says 46 on him, then attack him immediately and get 25 again, I'm pretty sure that guy did not get attacked so much that he dropped to a 25, but then fought back and got back up to being worth 46, then was attacked again all the way down to being 25, all in the space of the 4 minutes it took me to beat him twice. I mean I've sat there and attacked the same guy 4 times in a row before and not seen their value drop by half that much. His point value was clearly being misreported.

Again, I am hearing the same kinds of stories from my teammates too and this has happened several times to me recently too. I have never, in over a year of playing, seen differences in points of this size until now. If it had been happening since the point increase, maybe you could attribute it to the different point ranges now in place, but this only started happening after the last patch a few days ago.

If you understand now, SAY NOTHING. There's been more than enough derailing already.

simonsez

You ARE aware that each node caches 6 or 7 matchups, and just because you're seeing it for the first time doesn't mean it's not already stale, right?

And the reason you're seeing such big swings now is because points are so cheap. People don't mind hitting 1k and then letting themselves get hit down to 700, because it's so easy to climb right back again.

Unknown

simonsez wrote:

You ARE aware that each node caches 6 or 7 matchups, and just because you're seeing it for the first time doesn't mean it's not already stale, right?

And the reason you're seeing such big swings now is because points are so cheap. People don't mind hitting 1k and then letting themselves get hit down to 700, because it's so easy to climb right back again.

This sounds about right to me. Each PVP node can be skipped a few times before you have to pay the ISO penalty to skip again. All those 'free skips' are likely to have been queued up for a while, and the total they show may not reflect the true total that you receive when you win the match. And with the recent changes to the scoring, I can see the difference between the two being pretty drastic.

It's been happening to me as well, but I took it to be as a result of those two things. I may be wrong, but it makes sense to me.

MarvelMan

@Ralsonator: It IS the same issue as before, but because points can be gained in such large chunks (up to 75 vs 50 before) there is much more fluctuation between a queue and the fight finishing. So yes, this IS a duplicate thread. And nothing is going to change, move on.

Esheris

The points for the nodes worth should act the same when it's just sitting there, what should change is when you actually do the battle you should get the amount of points it says it's worth (instead of changing mid battle and giving you a different sum).

MarvelMan

Esheris wrote:

The points for the nodes worth should act the same when it's just sitting there, what should change is when you actually do the battle you should get the amount of points it says it's worth (instead of changing mid battle and giving you a different sum).

That would add another variable the game would have to track, increasing up/down data and adding lag. So no, things are fine as they are.

Esheris

Hmm...getting the wrong amount of points is not fine with me.

MarvelMan

Esheris wrote:

Hmm...getting the wrong amount of points is not fine with me.

The thing is, you are getting the RIGHT amount. The display is off. I guess they could drop the display value (like they did with the opps point total).......

Esheris

MarvelMan wrote:

Esheris wrote:

Hmm...getting the wrong amount of points is not fine with me.

The thing is, you are getting the RIGHT amount. The display is off. I guess they could drop the display value (like they did with the opps point total).......

Not arguing with you, just curious to know why they don't fix the display number then. I still would like to know the exact number of points (so I know if it's worth the fight). ^_^