Highest PVP scores being promoted by D3

Buret0

IceIX wrote:

Buret0 wrote:

IceIX wrote:

By allowing people to queue you while shielded, those players would never have a time that they could unshield without immediately being pounded by attacks. It'd pretty much mean that if you aren't hopping directly from shield to shield post equilibrium, you're not going to keep that score, ever. Sure, currently the unshielded bubble is only a few minutes, but this would drop it to zero. That hurts *everyone* who shields, not just the high end or casual shielders.

Wouldn't it also create more high value targets, meaning that you might not actually see as many hits?

You'd think that, but what would more likely happen is that more people would be running matches since it feels more lucrative, so the overall hits against high value targets would remain roughly the same. The same thing happened for the Versus Tournies following the +50% points increase until people reacted to the new status quo. In this case though, the new status quo would be to maintain the higher pace since that would naturally be the way to gain more points for the majority of players.

It also has a very nasty knock on effect: You could queue #1, 2, 3, etc. while they're shielded and time their shields to pop them off very easily. You can kinda sorta do this now if you're lucky to catch them unshielded to queue, but if they were always in the pool, you could have an entire Alliance secure a T10 finish by coordinating hits on a given bracket set.

I suppose that making the attacks anonymous isn't an option? I don't need to know the user name of the points I'm hitting. As far as I'm concerned, in Project Mayhem, your name is 65 points. That's all I need to know when I'm queuing the attack. In death, they can have a name. You can even say, "you defeated Buret0Sux37 and earned 57 points," if you care about having names. You can even make a special point of showing names in retaliation nodes, but other than that, your name is points.

donietsche

Buret0 wrote:

I suppose that making the attacks anonymous isn't an option? I don't need to know the user name of the points I'm hitting. As far as I'm concerned, in Project Mayhem, your name is 65 points. That's all I need to know when I'm queuing the attack. In death, they can have a name. You can even say, "you defeated Buret0Sux37 and earned 57 points," if you care about having names. You can even make a special point of showing names in retaliation nodes, but other than that, your name is points.

Alliances would be a thing of the past. You may end up attacking your team mates, without knowing it (until the damage is done).

Basically all the team play factor would be gone forever.

Besides, it would make the game even more impersonal. It would be like playing against glorified seed teams.

Malcrof

donietsche wrote:

Buret0 wrote:

I suppose that making the attacks anonymous isn't an option? I don't need to know the user name of the points I'm hitting. As far as I'm concerned, in Project Mayhem, your name is 65 points. That's all I need to know when I'm queuing the attack. In death, they can have a name. You can even say, "you defeated Buret0Sux37 and earned 57 points," if you care about having names. You can even make a special point of showing names in retaliation nodes, but other than that, your name is points.

Alliances would be a thing of the past. You may end up attacking your team mates, without knowing it (until the damage is done).

Basically all the team play factor would be gone forever.

Besides, it would make the game even more impersonal. It would be like playing against glorified seed teams.

PVP = Player vs Player, not Team vs Team..

donietsche

Malcrof wrote:

donietsche wrote:

Buret0 wrote:

I suppose that making the attacks anonymous isn't an option? I don't need to know the user name of the points I'm hitting. As far as I'm concerned, in Project Mayhem, your name is 65 points. That's all I need to know when I'm queuing the attack. In death, they can have a name. You can even say, "you defeated Buret0Sux37 and earned 57 points," if you care about having names. You can even make a special point of showing names in retaliation nodes, but other than that, your name is points.

Alliances would be a thing of the past. You may end up attacking your team mates, without knowing it (until the damage is done).

Basically all the team play factor would be gone forever.

Besides, it would make the game even more impersonal. It would be like playing against glorified seed teams.

PVP = Player vs Player, not Team vs Team..

not necessarily true. If we're talking about pvp categories, theres' FFA (the casual mode), Duel (1 vs 1) and TDM. The pvp element of the game is a mixed bag, right now. None of the aforementioned elements is really predominant (which is ok).

pvp as a label makes sense as long as there is a pve component of the game (and that's the case of mpq and of most of the mrpg games).

Buret0

donietsche wrote:

Alliances would be a thing of the past. You may end up attacking your team mates, without knowing it (until the damage is done).

Basically all the team play factor would be gone forever.

If by Alliance you mean the 20 people in your actual alliance and not the 12 feeder alliances, then the easy fix would be to make it so that you can't attack people in your own alliance.

If by the 12 feeder alliances that the top people use... well they aren't actually in your alliance. The game has defined an alliance as 20 members. If they wanted to include loose association alliances, they could have or would have done so.

People will still be able to share information about top scoring slices. People will still be able to share covers. People will still be able to share strategies. People will still be able to play Ultron. What this will do is fix all of the "exploits", fix all of the intentional sniping, fix all of the Alliance gang-up nonsense, and fix PvP so that you don't have a bunch of people communicating outside of the game to coordinate attacks.

donietsche

You either promote or tolerate the human (cooperative, and sometimes antagonistic) factor of a game, or you don't.

If devs want to make the game an impersonal grind/slot machine, they're entitled to do so. Some players will appreciate that, others won't. In relation to this issue, I believe there isn't really a right-wrong approach, but simply different point of views.

The 20 people limitation, and the lack of more sophisticated in game mechanics is/was not, in my opinion, the result of a meditated choice. It simply happened to be the easiest solution.

The igc sucks; it's not designed to make communicating with your allies harder than it should be. It's not a bug, it's a feature.

But it's a bad feature.

Buret0

donietsche wrote:

The igc sucks; it's not designed to make communicating with your allies harder than it should be. It's not a bug, it's a feature.

But it's a bad feature.

This for sure. There is nothing instant about this communication tool. Messages often take ages to get transmitted, assuming they get transmitted at all.

lukewin

Dauthi wrote:

It's not just me that can't consistently do it, it's 4-5 others in my alliance with similar rosters that can't. I am not talking from just personal experience, but everyone who has ever existed in my top 100 alliance of 1 and 1/2 years. It is entirely possible, but there are so many factors that can prohibit your movement, for example time slices or random chance. I have personally tried for 1300, and seen my own members try for 1300, only to waste hundreds of HP because valid targets never show up. This makes it inefficient to even try. This of course is not the case if you coordinate hops.

I'd say a lot of people in top 100 alliances of 1 and 1/2 years also aren't getting 1300. If people were hitting 1300, they'd probably join a top 10 alliance. If they are in your alliance, I assume they're listening to your advice, which includes not coordinating outside of the game, which is something that might actually benefit them. You could have tried to coordinate within your own alliance, if you really wanted to try successfully hitting 1300. Multiple people have said they've done it by coordinating within their alliances or with no coordination at all, so your experience of not hitting it shouldn't be valued over theirs of hitting it. Some hit it, some don't, most don't go to the forums to ask for changes that would bring the playing field up or down to their level.

lukewin wrote:

Some people believe that because the 1300 pt reward is there that it should be obtainable by everyone. I am not one of those people. I grab my 1k, and call it a day.

Dauthi wrote:

The truth of the matter is for those not using out of game communication, obtaining 1300 is extremely difficult when you get lucky, and unobtainable without it. If using this communication makes it easier to get 1300, D3 is seeing the wrong numbers because that many people shouldn't be hitting 1300. Because of this, I also grab my 1k and move on.

And I'm not sure what your definition of moving on is, because to me moving on doesn't mean going on the forums and calling for an end to shield hopping or outside communication because I can't hit 1300.

Malcrof

It takes steps.. for a while, 650 was my mark, as my roster fleshed out, it became 800.. now i am able to get 1k occasionally.. once i can hit 1k regularly and start to get 4* covers.. i expect 1300 to be my next step..

that being said.. i will probably spend many months at the 1k or so mark, no max 4*s yet, so i think it is quite an accomplishment. 1300 should not be easy right now, it is the final reward. Final rewards should be a hard goal, not a gimme.

Unknown

lukewin wrote:

And I'm not sure what your definition of moving on is, because to me moving on doesn't mean going on the forums and calling for an end to shield hopping or outside communication because I can't hit 1300.

I'm not sure why you keep bashing Dauthi, all his points are valid. You guys who are trying to protect your shield hop and out of game communication really don't understand how this is affecting normal players.

Accept the fact that without communication, you need to be "lucky" enough to find targets when skipping nodes. Some of you claim that you can score 1300 without communication, that's awesome! You got lucky. There are numerous times when I can't find a target, so what do I do? I close my app and try again in 10 minutes, such a hassle. I can easily make this experience easier if I joined those battlechats, but refuse to because that should not be required for me to effectively play this game. Unless D3 puts a notification "Dear players, if you want to hit high scores and shield hop effectively, please download LINE or use outside coordination with people from your slice".

Let's not even speak about 1300, since that is can be obtainable. There are times when I try to get Rank 1, and I cannot because I can never find targets worth points, compare to the guy that can.

He's saying he grabs 1k reward and then shield/quit. This is normal, and something I would do as well, because it takes a lot more work to get 1300, and factor in some luck to get good targets. I reach my 1300 and then "Move on", because beyond that point, your chance of finding any good targets without communication is pretty slim.

I'm not trying to get your outside communication be removed, I just want it to be fair for everyone, I want to get the same amount of points w/o needing to use LINE. I have the app installed, but mostly to talk with family and friends, I feel no need to use it to play this game effectively. Not being stubborn, just refuse to exploit and play the game the way it is NOT meant to be played. Also this makes it so that everyone is working together rather than actually "Versus" each other, kind of ruins the whole game play of Versus.

Thanks.

EDIT: I'm fine with high scores, as long as everyone can equally obtain that high score, right now it's not unless we use the method above. I can still shield hop the same way those guys are (same amount of shields, same amount of hops, just get less points per hop), so I won't be as effective, which is unfair.

lukewin

sagapo wrote:

I'm not sure why you keep bashing Dauthi, all his points are valid. You guys who are trying to protect your shield hop and out of game communication really don't understand how this is affecting normal players.

Accept the fact that without communication, you need to be "lucky" enough to find targets when skipping nodes. Some of you claim that you can score 1300 without communication, that's awesome! You got lucky. There are numerous times when I can't find a target, so what do I do? I close my app and try again in 10 minutes, such a hassle. I can easily make this experience easier if I joined those battlechats, but refuse to because that should not be required for me to effectively play this game. Unless D3 puts a notification "Dear players, if you want to hit high scores and shield hop effectively, please download LINE or use outside coordination with people from your slice".

Let's not even speak about 1300, since that is can be obtainable. There are times when I try to get Rank 1, and I cannot because I can never find targets worth points, compare to the guy that can....

His points aren't any more valid than mine, so if he wants to voice them, I should be able to voice mine. It just happens that they are opposing points. I do accept the fact that without communication, you need to be lucky to find targets. I don't use any battle chats. I go thru the hassle of lining up targets too, but that's part of it. If I didn't want to go thru the hassle, I would join one too. I made my choice, I accept the consequences. But those that don't choose to join shouldn't expect those that do to feel guilty or feel like they're doing anything wrong or call for an end to the other choice. People should make their choices and be ok with it, and move on, as opposed to making their choices, then crusade against other people that made different choices.

donietsche

sagapo wrote:

lukewin wrote:

And I'm not sure what your definition of moving on is, because to me moving on doesn't mean going on the forums and calling for an end to shield hopping or outside communication because I can't hit 1300.

I'm not sure why you keep bashing Dauthi, all his points are valid. You guys who are trying to protect your shield hop and out of game communication really don't understand how this is affecting normal players.

Accept the fact that without communication, you need to be "lucky" enough to find targets when skipping nodes. Some of you claim that you can score 1300 without communication, that's awesome! You got lucky. There are numerous times when I can't find a target, so what do I do? I close my app and try again in 10 minutes, such a hassle. I can easily make this experience easier if I joined those battlechats, but refuse to because that should not be required for me to effectively play this game. Unless D3 puts a notification "Dear players, if you want to hit high scores and shield hop effectively, please download LINE or use outside coordination with people from your slice".

Let's not even speak about 1300, since that is can be obtainable. There are times when I try to get Rank 1, and I cannot because I can never find targets worth points, compare to the guy that can.

He's saying he grabs 1k reward and then shield/quit. This is normal, and something I would do as well, because it takes a lot more work to get 1300, and factor in some luck to get good targets. I reach my 1300 and then "Move on", because beyond that point, your chance of finding any good targets without communication is pretty slim.

I'm not trying to get your outside communication be removed, I just want it to be fair for everyone, I want to get the same amount of points w/o needing to use LINE. I have the app installed, but mostly to talk with family and friends, I feel no need to use it to play this game effectively. Not being stubborn, just refuse to exploit and play the game the way it is NOT meant to be played.

Thanks.

I used to hit 1k+ back when my old alliance didn't use line, and under the old scoring regime. And my only working 4* was the nerfed x-force, plus a selected bunch of 3*. Luck was a factor? Maybe, but I think that learning how my environment worked (which players are "reliable"? Do they have jumping routines or schedules? etc.) and sharing intel (in the igc!) with my mates was much more relevant.

Getting to 1.3 required a bit more of effort: i.e., learning to communicate more efficiently, and using a few more shields. Is it worth for you to spend x hp (300, 600, 800, whatever) to grab an additional 4*? For me it was in some cases, and I did so. If you dream of getting to 1.3 while choosing target randomly (igc or Line doesn't really matter) and using one shield near the end of the event... it won't happen.

Though, truth to be told, in my old alliance I had guys with not-so-amazing rosters who were able (I repeat back when they nerfed scores) to hit 1k consistently while playing the last 8 hrs of the event, and leeching points wherever they could find them. Kudos to them (that was never my case).

Line is not an unfair advantage: you can use it, if you want to. You don't want to spend time evaluating targets, sharing intel or checking your nodes? Fine, but that's your choice (because you don't have the time to, because you don't like to). The reward tier is adequate to your approach: you will hit 1k when you're lucky (or more), and you won't other times.

Who decides how a multiplayer game is supposed to (or can) be played? It's the community... this debate about Line, in my opinion, is borderline absurd. Nobody would say that teamspeak is an unfair advantage because teams use it while playing fps (or rpg) games.

Hell, one could use the private messages on the forum to share intel about targets. What would you say in that case?

Der_Lex

sagapo wrote:

I'm not sure why you keep bashing Dauthi, all his points are valid. You guys who are trying to protect your shield hop and out of game communication really don't understand how this is affecting normal players

I'd really like to hear more from them, then, because the only people on this forum that I ever see posting long anti-LINE rants are you and Dauthi. As much as you both might like to think so, you don't speak for the 'normal' MPQ player any more than I do, nor is your definition of 'fair play' necessarily more than a very subjective opinion that, as Ice himself has pointed out in this thread, might lead to a game situation that will be a lot more disadvantageous to the average player than the current one.

donietsche

EDIT: I'm fine with high scores, as long as everyone can equally obtain that high score, right now it's not unless we use the method above. I can still shield hop the same way those guys are (same amount of shields, same amount of hops, just get less points per hop), so I won't be as effective, which is unfair.

everyone can hit high scores, as long as the same amount of shields (and time) used by high scorers is dedicated to such purpose.

the concept of high score has no meaning if everyone can hit the same (high) score, don't you think?

Everyone (with a solid roster and a bit of experience) can hit 1.3, and it's easier these days because of high scorers (you can leech points from them, directly or indirectly).

Sure, not everyone can hit 2k (unless he/she puts a significant amount of time and resources into coordinating, hopping way past the reward milestones etc. ... and as long as there is a lot of team work that makes that possible).

simonsez

sagapo wrote:

Not being stubborn, just refuse to exploit and play the game the way it is NOT meant to be played.

According to the devs, shield hopping itself is NOT the way they meant the game to be played. So are you going to stop doing that entirely?

JamieMadrox

mags1587

Not being stubborn, just refuse to exploit and play the game the way it is NOT meant to be played. Also this makes it so that everyone is working together rather than actually "Versus" each other, kind of ruins the whole game play of Versus.

If my goal in PvP is the progression awards, not any placement awards, why shouldn't I view the other players and I as working together instead of fighting each other? If I see someone in my bracket unshield and queue them up, I want to wait until they shield (and I want everyone else to wait too) because I want to get every point possible from them so I can reach the next progression award. If I don't care about placement, I don't care if they get top 5 and I'm outside of top 10.

I get that the devs never meant for outside communication to be such a big factor in PvP. Just as they never meant for people to need to play every 2 and a half hours when those were the PvE refreshes -- people did, though, and it took them awhile to change that. I'm glad IceIX let us know that the devs are aware of the complexities involved in any change to PvP and shield hopping and all the downstream effects that any change can have.

Really, the players who have the motivation will find ways to score high. In PvP, pre shield-cooldowns, it was spending lots of HP hopping over and over again. Post shield-cooldowns, it's coordination. For a while, it was coordinated retreating -- then they tweaked point values for wins/losses. What it will be after the next change? Who knows. But it will be something.

Ducky

The only thing required to do well is knowing when to shield, how to shield hop, and having a decently developed roster.

Oh, and a bit of luck.

I broke 2000 this past PvP and I do not use any type of battlechats to coordinate hops or my climbing. I use LINE to check when fresh brackets are available if possible (unfortunately I couldn't this PvP and it increased my playing time ><) and where points slices are if I want to put up points.

I just hit whoever I see that is worth points that isn't in my alliance. When I can I save the juicy nodes for the end of my climb to give myself an extra boost. It isn't always best to hit the 70+ point target immediately if you have 50 and 60 point targets queued up as well.

For those that are wondering, I used two 3 hour shields and two 8 hour shields and purchased 1 set of +all AP boosts.

Dauthi

Dauthi wrote:

It's not just me that can't consistently do it, it's 4-5 others in my alliance with similar rosters that can't. I am not talking from just personal experience, but everyone who has ever existed in my top 100 alliance of 1 and 1/2 years. It is entirely possible, but there are so many factors that can prohibit your movement, for example time slices or random chance. I have personally tried for 1300, and seen my own members try for 1300, only to waste hundreds of HP because valid targets never show up. This makes it inefficient to even try. This of course is not the case if you coordinate hops.

For those who insist that I can't hit 1300, please read the bolded. If you can hit 1300, say 1/5 times, and each time is stressful/wastes hp, then it is inefficient to try. Let's drop the straw-man that I am attacking the exploit because I can't hit 1300. It is an exploit, and exploits should be fixed.

TheOncomingStorm wrote:

What does this mean? It means pvp coordination is not an exploit, it is the natural consequence of having alliances. That's like saying setting an alarm clock for pve is an exploit. Everyone has access to it, the game is set up so that is helpful, but people who do not as well others will always have to find something or someone to point a finger at. So instead of their alarm, they'll say people using them are exploiting the system.

Do you think the devs would openly discourage you from using an alarm? Please, let's not forget this:

IceIX wrote:

Dauthi wrote:

Would it be safe to say you discourage it but it is not punishable then ?

Pretty much exactly this, yes. Now, if you somehow figured out how to *stay* shielded and still hop, that'd be a different matter.

If you want to use the exploit, go for it, it's not punishable. Don't try to explain to others who don't how it is morally correct however, or bash others who would like to see no advantages given due to outside communication.

donietsche

I fail to see how one can talk about issues of (im)morality in relation to players communicating (in order to play a match-3 game).

But let's accept that it's a debate about morality: I think that it's much more immoral to snipe a player while the guy (or the gal) is hopping: 'cause you're stealing, in a sense, his/her hard work.

Players who check shields aren't stealing a reward from your hands.

If they hit 1.3 using this strategy rather than attacking like hungry wolves, as soon as a match pops up in their nodes, they aren't making more difficult (or impossible) for you to get the same reward.

I repeat the question: let's make sure (lol, how?) that people can't use LINE; and let say that I call my friend on his phone to check if he's shielded before attacking; or to let him know that one juicy target is out there.

What are the devs supposed to do? Make sure that the game is played only in an isolation chamber?

The game can be played cooperatively and that is going to stay in one form or another.

In my book cooperation is a nobler form of gaming. But that's just my opinion: the antagonistic strategy has its merits, and it deserves to be accepted as well.

The game theory could be easily applied to understand the different approaches to the game (including the pve section).