Please fix the point gap in PvP, and shield hopping.

Unknown

How many times have you lost Rank 1, Top 5, or even Top 10 because they were 300-500 points above you when each match you play gives you only about 10-20 points?

Example: Top 5 are all at 1500 points (If you check their alliance, they are usually in the same alliance), you are at 1100, each win only yields 10-15 points. Because you are this high, you can only do 1-2 games before you have to shield again to avoid losing points. How would you catch up on points like this???

Solution: Must have friends or be in the same alliance as the Top 5, coordinate with them when they will unshield so that you can cycle through your nodes to select them as targets, wait for them to be finished with their 1-2 games, and let them shield, now it's your turn to beat them and gain massive points, repeat until you are well above everyone else.

Issue: If you aren't friends with these people or in most cases, in the same alliance as they are, there is absolutely no way that you can catch up with them or even try for Top 5 (Of course there are times when you do catch them playing and are able to queue them up, but most of the time, that's meaningless since you can't do this consistently). It has nothing to do with your roster (You really just need the same 3 chars and play 1-2 games and shield hop), your ability to play this game well (You may be an expert player, understand all the mechanics, even the characters, but so what?), you are at an unfair disadvantage because you simply don't know any other high ranked players (and you don't care to know them, which you shouldn't have to in order to do well, this isn't an MMO)

Right now when you shield, you are "hidden" from other players aside from retaliation or if they had you queue'd up already. Is this really a good change? I know that when I shield, I don't want to be discovered by other players, because when I unshield, there's a chance I will get hit right away, but not being able to find them really allow "unfair" plays like this.

I am unsure how you should fix this, but I think this pose as an issue because this pretty much means that the majority of players will never get Rank 1 even if they shield hopped perfectly.

simonsez

sagapo wrote:

How many times have you lost Rank 1, Top 5, or even Top 10 because they were 300-500 points above you

The solution is not to give them a head start. You shouldn't be surprised that it's difficult to catch someone who's already had 5 more hops than you. When shields were unlimited you could gain ground, but now that we're all pretty much limited to the same number of hops in a given period of time.

grunth13

They should just get rid of the name of the person you are attacking so that there won't be sniping from a group and would limit outside communication.

Unknown

simonsez wrote:

sagapo wrote:

How many times have you lost Rank 1, Top 5, or even Top 10 because they were 300-500 points above you

The solution is not to give them a head start. You shouldn't be surprised that it's difficult to catch someone who's already had 5 more hops than you. When shields were unlimited you could gain ground, but now that we're all pretty much limited to the same number of hops in a given period of time.

Even if you both had the same score, let's say 1000, and you spend the same amount of HP on shields, and you both shield hop the same amount, the fact is that, you won't gain as many points as the people that are coordinating because you just don't know people who are "unshielding" at that time, thus putting you at a disadvantage even though you are spending the same HP, have the same roster.

Unknown

grunth13 wrote:

They should just get rid of the name of the person you are attacking so that there won't be sniping from a group and would limit outside communication.

Removing names won't resolve it, because you can still say "Hey Bob, I'm unshielding at 2pm today, look cycle through your node until you find someone that gives you a lot of points, or has these characters, it's probably me, I'll be done in 3 minutes", and then you can attack.

Other person: Thanks Bill, I'm unshielding at 2:10 pm today, when you're done hopping, cycle through your node and look for me, let's repeat this so we get a bunch of points from each other so that everyone else can't catch up.

Unknown

The worst part of all this was recently in BoP. This is what we consider an even playing field. Either way that doesn't matter, since we had the same team composition.

I was unlucky and joined a bracket that composed of people from the same alliance in the top 5. I lost rank 1, simply because they were doing this. I try so hard to catch up, and in the end I was only 20 points behind from Rank 1.

I made sure to wait at least 3 minutes before the event ended to unshield and fight the last battle to get that 20 points (because I know that guy in rank 1 won't unshield since he ran out of shields and he would be risking it). I won my match in 1.5 minutes, right as I got out, I lost 60+ points to the Rank 3 guy which was in the same alliance as the Rank 1 guy. The guy in Rank 3 had no way to get Rank 1, he was about 200 points behind, they were literally waiting for me to unshield, and his friend probably used Deadpool's whales to get a quick win to bring my score down.

I guess this is fair play, and the whole point of alliances.... but still quite a disadvantage overall when you use it all the time to boost your season score for your alliance + always getting more points than everyone else.

Unknown

I know how to fix it in 4 words: High level seed teams

san

While I get your point, and empathize with your frustration, I cannot say that this is a huge problem for me. My alliance and I do NOT coordinate attacks, nor do we ever care for this. I score fairly consistently in top 50, sometimes even eking out a top 25 (and once top 5). Alliance is top 100 for sure, usually better. I have no problem with folks who wish to coordinate and get the top 1 spot, but in reality, the prize isn't a whole lot better. Sure, they get an extra cover and some iso, but difference between top 5 and top 25 is not all that much. Top 25 IS obtainable without any hopping or coordinating...

Whub Whubz

Hoppin ain't EZ!
But seriously 5-10 points? your match selection is terrible

acescracked

So sick of seeing people coming to the forum and demanding game changes when they themselves aren't able to compete. "I" can't win so lets change the rules. Screw that.

If you want to be that competitive in this game and you feel one of the ways that helps you win is your alliance then join a good one. Why keep trying to change the game to help the lowest common denominator when a bunch have figured out how to play smarter?

The alliance aspect and being able to work with alliance mates to get top 1,5,10 whatever is what is keeping many still playing the game. I've played this game along time and the outside communication is what has extended the games fun.

To be honest, even if you got d3 to make changes that would somehow stop coordinated hops you still wouldn't get 1st. The good players and good alliances would still figure it out.

My apologies of the tone in my post but there has been alot of game to hard to compete, get covers, to win threads lately. D3 just needs to hand out bigger and better little league participation trophies.

Edit- BTW forgot to mention a few of the players in my alliance use zero communication during their PvP play and get top 10 or above frequently.

Unknown

Time and effort, are you putting in the same amount ?

If No, then nothing can be done or change, just face reality of not doing it or not able to.

If Yes, just face it, you are not the best, regardless where and what you do, someone will better than you.

GothicKratos

I fail to see why a coordinated group of players, let alone an Alliance of players, shouldn't have an advantage over non-coordinated "random" players.

It would be different if the LINE chats where these things happen were "elitist" and only invited the "accepted", but they're not at all.

If you want to get in on the pie, get LINE and drop me a message there. I'll invite you to the proper channels to get started.

(Disclaimer: I do not participate in "Battle Chats", or top end PvE/PvP in this game, but in several others, so I do lean toward the competitive end of the spectrum.)

OneenO

sagapo wrote:

I was unlucky and joined a bracket that composed of people from the same alliance in the top 5. I lost rank 1, simply because they were doing this. I try so hard to catch up, and in the end I was only 20 points behind from Rank 1.

Not to be a jerk but you didnt lose rank 1. You got beat plain and simple.

Try searching for better queues with higher points. I would suggest not hitting players worth 20 pts cause u leave yourself open to huge retals.

As far as alliance mate leapfroggin each other, well you cant punish people for working together isnt that the whole point in being in an alliance.

scottee

I've missed #1 a couple of times because of going up against coordinated players. I am perfectly okay with that fact. My alliance is on Line, lots of top players are on Line, and I could easily download it and join them. I've made the choice not to, because I don't want a separate app just for this game. So I know that means I'll miss out on the coordination. And I'm 100% ok with that. Sometimes I win, sometimes I don't.

(I actually revel on the times I do take #1 without using any outside communication.)

Phillipes

OP is missing point completely.
Just install Line, participate in battlechats and you will be top 5 again.

People doing that do that for reason. To have advantage. They are doing something MORE. They deserve to be top 5.
Infact, you can do the same.

wymtime

I will ask the question to the forum this way. The devs put shield cooldowns in place because PVP became pay to win with people scoring crazy scores with shield hopping. Now with the point changing system players are now hitting 1500 points and the PVP is now pay to win again. So the question is will the devs do something about this? Will the devs say put a limit on the number of shields you can use?

Colognoisseur

wymtime wrote:

I will ask the question to the forum this way. The devs put shield cooldowns in place because PVP became pay to win with people scoring crazy scores with shield hopping. Now with the point changing system players are now hitting 1500 points and the PVP is now pay to win again. So the question is will the devs do something about this? Will the devs say put a limit on the number of shields you can use?

There is absolutely nothing the devs can do about the out of game communication happening on LINE and elsewhere. The only solution would be to upgrade the in-game chat so that it allowed one-on-one conversations and out of alliance groups. Then it would be available to all within game. The reason this probably won't happen is I imagine the resources necessary to upgrade the in-game chat to this level of functionality is just not available. They aren't going to take programming time away from things that make them money and help most of the players to fix something that affects only a few.

As for shielding there is also only one solution to curtail sky-high scores. You get one shield per event and one shield only. There would be no more hopping except for within the final few minutes which would be risky. It would still have the effect of making the time period just before the end a free-for-all with players playing a leapfrogging game of hoping their score will hold up while using their one shield.

I don't think you will see either of these things happen.

GrumpySmurf1002

wymtime wrote:

I will ask the question to the forum this way. The devs put shield cooldowns in place because PVP became pay to win with people scoring crazy scores with shield hopping. Now with the point changing system players are now hitting 1500 points and the PVP is now pay to win again. So the question is will the devs do something about this? Will the devs say put a limit on the number of shields you can use?

This is from the original change:

Some suggestions involve getting rid of shields or the reasons why they exist. Our aim isn't to get rid of shields - the experience of breaking a shield, biting your nails as you beat a fight as fast as you can, and deciding whether to dare go for another win or shield up is the source of the best adrenaline rush in MPQ for many folks. The thing we're putting a lid on is the number of points that can come from using shields over and over. We still expect that players that use shields well will have an advantage over those who don't - but we're aiming for things to be more about the strategy of when to break a shield, when to re-shield, and how long to stay vulnerable, instead of the top of the leaderboards being decided by the raw number of shields you're willing to use.

They're not wrong. Shields > no shields, and timing your climb to optimize your hops is part of the strategy. Their only failure really is thinking this would limit outside coordination, where it really maximized it.

CrookedKnight

Isn't this the opposite of pay-to-win? It's all about how well you coordinate your shields, not how many you buy, and as far as I know none of the big alliances charge an admission fee.

Wait, should I be charging an admission fee?

Wonko33

Colognoisseur wrote:

There is absolutely nothing the devs can do about the out of game communication happening on LINE and elsewhere. The only solution would be to upgrade the in-game chat so that it allowed one-on-one conversations and out of alliance groups. Then it would be available to all within game. The reason this probably won't happen is I imagine the resources necessary to upgrade the in-game chat to this level of functionality is just not available. They aren't going to take programming time away from things that make them money and help most of the players to fix something that affects only a few.

As for shielding there is also only one solution to curtail sky-high scores. You get one shield per event and one shield only. There would be no more hopping except for within the final few minutes which would be risky. It would still have the effect of making the time period just before the end a free-for-all with players playing a leapfrogging game of hoping their score will hold up while using their one shield.

I don't think you will see either of these things happen.

yeah shields were originally implemented to stop the free for all stuff that forced all top players to be playing at the end, so probably not.

I think just removing the names would but a big damper with coordinating, just show the name once you won to keep some of the fun of it being PvP I guess. Someone said they would just organize using time and teams but that would really make it a guessing game because at the end there most 45+ point matches are the same teams. MAybe you could tell by watching their rosters but that is time consuming

Square

I find the OP a little baffling myself. I've got loads of 3*'s covered and maxed, a solid assortment of 4*s, and am in a great alliance... and I never come in first in anything (my alliance mates tend to). I get top five sometimes, but I'm just not that competitive. I'm happy at 1k or 1300.

Whatever complaints the people complaining about the top players have, the top players have at least equal frustration. How maddening is it to try to jump to get that 1300 cover and be hit by some guy at 400 points, taking 70 points from you... You can retaliate for 2 points, which would give the person another 70 point retal queued up. And you'll likely be hit by another few people, if not the original person themselves again, who frantically skipped through their queues to take another hunk of flesh from you (those are the people you remember and loathe, the ones who hit you twice in short order, rather than move on).

So, the problems in PVP are on both ends. Both sides have reason to feel at a disadvantage. And they're both right, but maybe that is as good of balance as we can get.

Maybe the OP would like a Mario Kart style 'blue shell' to make things more 'fair'? Oh wait, Whales, Whales, Whales....