Sorry IceIX...may I suggest...

BillyBobJoe

Sorry IceIX, I know you locked that last thread concerning this. I've seen a couple threads now about changing shield hopping somehow, and I wanted to get on my soapbox now because my last question wasn't answer:

BillyBobJoe wrote:

1) Could someone explain what the "problem", is with shield hopping?

2) Why is out of game communication so bad?

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=32366

May I suggest that Line and shield hopping is not responsible for the super high scores. May I suggest two other reasons for the higher scoring as of late.

Shield hopping is limited. You can only hop so many times due to cooldowns. By my calculations you can only hop 21 times in a 2.5 day event, if you use all the shields optimally. Now many people avoid using a 24 hr shield like it was the plague, so they alternate the 3 and 8 hr shield. That reduces shield hopping to 14 times a versus event. So I'd say the high scorers are only hopping between 14-21 times an event. Line only gives you an advantage to maximize the amount of points a hop. Without Line, you can still maximize points, albeit a bit more difficult, though not impossible.

My suggestion for the recently inflated scores are 1) Boosted characters and 2) rate of 4* releases.

Boosted characters are great. They have been effective at making versus battles more diverse. They allow people to go above their "equilibrium" if they have the right combination of characters that week.

The rate of 4* has diluted the 4* pool. Until the recently added 1300 cover progression award, we could only earn 1 cover an event. Since there were only a few 4*s, you could max cover a 4* relatively quickly. With the rapid release of 4*s, it's been bogging down the rotation of rewards (I've yet to completely cover PX even though he was only the 7th 4* released) which means people are slower to level them. Not so with the whales. I don't begrudge the whales, I have a few in my alliance, and if you can, why not?

The whales completely cover a 4* overnight. They have so much stashed ISO that they can instamax them. With the corresponding 4* buffs each week, these whales have distinct advantage over the rest of the population. They have 2 fully leveled, boosted character for events.

When the Carnage versus event was out, I was in 2nd place behind a guy who was running fully leveled Carnage, 4* Thor, & Elektra. All were boosted that week. The event ended with him a full 300-400 pts ahead of me all because he was basically untouchable. Everyone was running loaner Carnage with whatever pair they happen to be using that week.

Now with Captain Falcon event underway...I'm seeing boosted 4* Deadpool with boosted XF. Boosted, fully covered, Jean Grey with partially, or fully, covered Captain Falcons. These players have a distinct advantage because most people are either skipping them, or wiping to them. And that is what causing the inflated point totals. They can hammer any team that's thrown against them and they are climbing the charts.

atomzed

BillyBobJoe wrote:

Now with Captain Falcon event underway...I'm seeing boosted 4* Deadpool with boosted XF. Boosted, fully covered, Jean Grey with partially, or fully, covered Captain Falcons. These players have a distinct advantage because most people are either skipping them, or wiping to them. And that is what causing the inflated point totals. They can hammer any team that's thrown against them and they are climbing the charts.

^ true story.

Lilc24 was in my bracket, and he has a max Falcap, JG and XDP. I didn't see him shield at all from 900 - 1300+. Even when I have him queued in my nodes I eventually decided to just skip him. Cos it's too painful to defeat this team.

So Lilc24 probably only use his first # at 1300+. That is his equilibrium point.

Unknown

What makes huge scores is mostly what makes you earn them and a little of what makes you keep them.

If you can beat anyone in 3-4 minutes at tops, that is what causes inflation most of the times.

Ultimately what makes you keep them with 98% accuracy (because of lag that might make you shield after a defense loss and see more than you have at said moment) are shields, but a big scarecrow like 3 maxed 4*s can be almost as high as 70% (on games usually the equilibrium point is 55% win percentage), be it making people skip you or defensive wins. But you can't keep what you don't have.

dr tinykittylove

atomzed wrote:

BillyBobJoe wrote:

Now with Captain Falcon event underway...I'm seeing boosted 4* Deadpool with boosted XF. Boosted, fully covered, Jean Grey with partially, or fully, covered Captain Falcons. These players have a distinct advantage because most people are either skipping them, or wiping to them. And that is what causing the inflated point totals. They can hammer any team that's thrown against them and they are climbing the charts.

^ true story.

Lilc24 was in my bracket, and he has a max Falcap, JG and XDP. I didn't see him shield at all from 900 - 1300+. Even when I have him queued in my nodes I eventually decided to just skip him. Cos it's too painful to defeat this team.

So Lilc24 probably only use his first # at 1300+. That is his equilibrium point.

I think this really matters only for the intro 4* pvps though, where most of the crowd are hobbled with a loaner/1-2-1 new character. With a full team of covered 3-4*s no one's going to care about taking on a whale pod if the points are there.

I started playing falcap pvp earlier than usual to try out the buffed combos of the week as there didn't seem to be a natural pairing that stands out, and have traded a couple of hits with an obliging person using jean and dpx - not fully covered/levelled, but high enough, and with a falcap at the same level as mine. Maybe a bit more risky and I might think twice if shield-hopping given alternative softer targets, but most 3* pvps won't be so easy for them, I expect.

Unknown

I think about anyone wouldn't think before hitting the maxed falcap + fistbuster instead of a loaner + maxed XDP and Jean.

BillyBobJoe

dr tinykittylove wrote:

I think this really matters only for the intro 4* pvps though, where most of the crowd are hobbled with a loaner/1-2-1 new character. With a full team of covered 3-4*s no one's going to care about taking on a whale pod if the points are there.

I disagree. Ppl with maxed 4*s probably have the 3* s maxed as well. So 3* is lvl 240 with two buffed 4*s to 350 to back them up. Ppl without a buffed 4* will look for someone running two buffed 3*s

I.e. when Iron Fist's pvp rolls around and Hulkbuster & PX are buffed that week, that's alot of power with HB health over 20k.

cyineedsn

BillyBobJoe wrote:

I disagree. Ppl with maxed 4*s probably have the 3* s maxed as well. So 3* is lvl 240 with two buffed 4*s to 350 to back them up. Ppl without a buffed 4* will look for someone running two buffed 3*s

I.e. when Iron Fist's pvp rolls around and Hulkbuster & PX are buffed that week, that's alot of power with HB health over 20k.

Just wanted to say that's a very specific example of a very strong buffed event 3*, and 2 4*s specifically boosted that have synergy with him. (What are the odds they will boost both of them during that event? I would LIKE to think it's low). Looking at the upcoming schedule, buffed gsbw flanked by two 4*s will not be as scary to people fielding gsbw with two level 240 3* characters. Not saying it wouldn't be a tough match as well, but for enough points that's still a match alot of people will take.

wymtime

BillyBobJoe wrote:

Sorry IceIX, I know you locked that last thread concerning this. I've seen a couple threads now about changing shield hopping somehow, and I wanted to get on my soapbox now because my last question wasn't answer:

BillyBobJoe wrote:

1) Could someone explain what the "problem", is with shield hopping?

2) Why is out of game communication so bad?

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=32366

May I suggest that Line and shield hopping is not responsible for the super high scores. May I suggest two other reasons for the higher scoring as of late.

Shield hopping is limited. You can only hop so many times due to cooldowns. By my calculations you can only hop 21 times in a 2.5 day event, if you use all the shields optimally. Now many people avoid using a 24 hr shield like it was the plague, so they alternate the 3 and 8 hr shield. That reduces shield hopping to 14 times a versus event. So I'd say the high scorers are only hopping between 14-21 times an event. Line only gives you an advantage to maximize the amount of points a hop. Without Line, you can still maximize points, albeit a bit more difficult, though not impossible.

My suggestion for the recently inflated scores are 1) Boosted characters and 2) rate of 4* releases.

Boosted characters are great. They have been effective at making versus battles more diverse. They allow people to go above their "equilibrium" if they have the right combination of characters that week.

The rate of 4* has diluted the 4* pool. Until the recently added 1300 cover progression award, we could only earn 1 cover an event. Since there were only a few 4*s, you could max cover a 4* relatively quickly. With the rapid release of 4*s, it's been bogging down the rotation of rewards (I've yet to completely cover PX even though he was only the 7th 4* released) which means people are slower to level them. Not so with the whales. I don't begrudge the whales, I have a few in my alliance, and if you can, why not?

The whales completely cover a 4* overnight. They have so much stashed ISO that they can instamax them. With the corresponding 4* buffs each week, these whales have distinct advantage over the rest of the population. They have 2 fully leveled, boosted character for events.

When the Carnage versus event was out, I was in 2nd place behind a guy who was running fully leveled Carnage, 4* Thor, & Elektra. All were boosted that week. The event ended with him a full 300-400 pts ahead of me all because he was basically untouchable. Everyone was running loaner Carnage with whatever pair they happen to be using that week.

Now with Captain Falcon event underway...I'm seeing boosted 4* Deadpool with boosted XF. Boosted, fully covered, Jean Grey with partially, or fully, covered Captain Falcons. These players have a distinct advantage because most people are either skipping them, or wiping to them. And that is what causing the inflated point totals. They can hammer any team that's thrown against them and they are climbing the charts.

So if you look at it from a Dev's perspective you want PVP to have scores where the #1 player and the # 100 player have much closer scores. As a developer you want someone who uses 1-2 shields to have a closer score to #1. When someone is using 14-21 shields to score 2000+ and players who have a solid 3* roster struggle to hit top 100 and are over 1000 points away from the leader it is disengaging for that player. The goal should be to have a system in place where top players can get all progressions and a little more. So the #1 score should be between 1300-1500 points with a last progression of 1300. Now the challenge is how to create that system to limit scores to 1500 but a system that allows lower players to still hit 800-1000 points.
i have said many times remove the cool down and only allow 5-6 shields if this is the goal.? High end players could still hit the progressions but there score would be limited by the number of shields. Also by removing cool downs players could play on there own schedule instead of the cool down schedule.
Another option is just make 1300 points the max points you can score in an event. Once you hit 1300 your score stops. Placement will be determined by who got there first. Now thee might be a lot of people hitting 1300 but you would again be able to remove shield cool downs and let people play on there to own time.
Think about the range of where the Devs want scoring to make PVP engaging for the majority, where players feel like they have some chance. When players score 2000+ points the 800 point scorer does not feel like they have any chance at anything.

Unknown

14 too 21 shields? I'd point them to LINE and help them get in the right chat to continue burning that much $$ on my product. Those of us at the low end of the spend can just continue to have not.

BillyBobJoe

wymtime wrote:

So if you look at it from a Dev's perspective you want PVP to have scores where the #1 player and the # 100 player have much closer scores.

Why do you need closer scores? This is my point about 4*s being boosted now. With 4*s and weekly boosted characters in play, it has effectively created new tiers of placement:

Tier 1.1 - Two Boosted 4*s
Tier 2.1 - Boosted 4* & 4*
Tier 2.2 - Boosted 4* & Boosted 3*
Tier 2.3 - Boosted 4* & 3*s
Tier 2.4 - Two 4*s
Tier 2.5 - 4* & Boosted 3*
Tier 2.6 - Two Boosted 3*s
Tier 3.1 - 4* & 3*
Tier 3.2 - Boosted 3* & 3*
Tier 4 - Two 3*s
Tier 5 - Transitioning to 3* players
Tier 6 - 2*s

When I was in 2* land, I regularly was around 400 pts. When I had maxed 3*s, I was hitting 700. With shields, yes, I was about to hop a little higher to gain some progression rewards, specifically the 4* reward. Now with some 4*s, I can hit 800-900, sometimes 1000 if the points are there, before having to shield.

wymtime wrote:

and players who have a solid 3* roster struggle to hit top 100

I find this to be the players fault. Even when I'm not playing for placement/progressions, and just hitting my alliance minimums, I have never failed to place in top 100. Sometimes I fall out of top 50, but not often.

wymtime wrote:

The goal should be to have a system in place where top players can get all progressions and a little more.

Who said progressions are supposed to be guaranteed to anyone? Some events are harder than others for various reasons, lack of leveled featured, boosted that week, off season event, etc... Once again, as I was developing my roster, I never assumed I would be able to get ALL rewards.

wymtime wrote:

Now the challenge is how to create that system to limit scores to 1500 but a system that allows lower players to still hit 800-1000 points.

There will end up being 20-30 people in first place with 1500.

Much like when the devs expanded the levels (2*s went from 85 to 94, and 3* went from 141 to 166), they need to expand the tiered rewards. My point with the boosted 4*s was the fact that it created an expanded gap between tiers of people based on their roster strength.

edit: changed the tiers. With boosted characters of 3* & 4* variety, there are 10 possible combinations. I made sub tiers because 2 boosted 3*s arguably can content with 4*s. The tiers are just to show how wide the power range is and why the wide range of finishing points.

BillyBobJoe

Splarne wrote:

14 too 21 shields? I'd point them to LINE and help them get in the right chat to continue burning that much $$ on my product. Those of us at the low end of the spend can just continue to have not.

Yeah, I don't understand this either. I spend the majority of my HP on shields, not covers, health packs, nor roster slots.

But the devs say shields aren't a money maker for them.

BillyBobJoe

BillyBobJoe wrote:

When I was in 2* land, I regularly was around 400 pts. When I had maxed 3*s, I was hitting 700. With shields, yes, I was about to hop a little higher to gain some progression rewards, specifically the 4* reward. Now with some 4*s, I can hit 800-900, sometimes 1000 if the points are there, before having to shield.

What I find awesome is that the MPQ scoring system is a great illustration of Reagan Economics.

If players are allowed to keep their points (via shielding and hopping), it creates a wealth of points for other players. That allows an easier time for people to hit higher points, and therefore progressions.

If players don't shield (off season events), points are dried up and hard to come by.

Introduce a product (shield hopping or LINE) that increases productivity, then the points flourish. Add regulation to the market and it decreases productivity, and then the points diminish.

SnowcaTT

atomzed wrote:

BillyBobJoe wrote:

Now with Captain Falcon event underway...I'm seeing boosted 4* Deadpool with boosted XF. Boosted, fully covered, Jean Grey with partially, or fully, covered Captain Falcons. These players have a distinct advantage because most people are either skipping them, or wiping to them. And that is what causing the inflated point totals. They can hammer any team that's thrown against them and they are climbing the charts.

^ true story.

Lilc24 was in my bracket, and he has a max Falcap, JG and XDP. I didn't see him shield at all from 900 - 1300+. Even when I have him queued in my nodes I eventually decided to just skip him. Cos it's too painful to defeat this team.

So Lilc24 probably only use his first # at 1300+. That is his equilibrium point.

It is getting pretty annoying where event after event you run into the whales - often entire alliances of them - who seem to have all of the boosted/buffed new characters maxed already.
Then again, they pay for the game and if you are running into them it means you are likely in the top 10% or so of folks anyway.

I just question if the "new" characters need to be included in boosted characters - for weeks and weeks. I get it, incentive for your whales : you paid, you win! But isn't it incentive for them to get every 4* anyway by the simple process of adding them into boosted rotation? Then you don't get quite so frustrated at seeing max boosted Jean or DPDX for six weeks in a row.

wymtime

BillyBobJoe wrote:

Much like when the devs expanded the levels (2*s went from 85 to 94, and 3* went from 141 to 166), they need to expand the tiered rewards. My point with the boosted 4*s was the fact that it created an expanded gap between tiers of people based on their roster strength.

edit: changed the tiers. With boosted characters of 3* & 4* variety, there are 10 possible combinations. I made sub tiers because 2 boosted 3*s arguably can content with 4*s. The tiers are just to show how wide the power range is and why the wide range of finishing points.

The hooded statement is exactly the point I was making when I look at it from the Dev's side of the table instead of the players. Yes the boosted 4* should have an advantage, the player willing to use 14 shields should have an advantage. The question is how much of an advantage should they have. You have said you feel the points are fine the way they are and from my point of view when ICE says shield hopping is a hot topic, it makes me think the Dev's don't agree with you. I imagine that the gap between tiers in points in PVP is more then they would like it to be. They want players who really push the envelope to have the opportunity to get all progression rewards, what they don't want is scores over 2000 or 3000. The adjustments they have made show that already. I believe the Dev's want top scores to be max 1500 points. More than the 1300, but significantly less than what is going on now. I would appreciate your suggestion on how they could do that without making it harm the entire player base. That is the real debate the Dev's are having right now.

BillyBobJoe

I agree with your assessment. I think it's a matter of unintended consequences. The devs did not foresee the extent of the point ceiling players would attain.

I believe with players coming up with strategies such as shield hopping and alliance communication & coordination, the staggering amount of 4*s, boosted characters, and the overall season totals has contributed to players' willingness to push the boundary of point totals.

I cannot come up with proper solutions since I am not privy to the data the devs have. But I would assume (based on subjective observations) that they need to revisit the ranking award structure. They already did that with progression awards when they put shield cooldowns in place. But that is my suggestion (based solely on limited information, so I am willing to dump that opinion if confronted with different facts).

Heartburn

the only reason this is an issue is because the current igc sucks and the developers have no one to blame but themselves.

messages are slow to come if they come at all i had two accounts in the same alliance and my steam account would miss out on half the posted info. you can only chat within your alliance where you can do the exact same thing on a smaller scale and there is no global/general chat where this can be performed, hence line.

what happens if i have more then 20 friends i can't communicate ever or else it is "exploiting" with them cause there not enough chairs in the alliance chat? i swear in this game every single major issue comes down to chairs. Alliance chat not enough chairs, roster slots, ranked rewards for 4*s, tacos pooling chairs stacked too close together need to make another pile, daredevils purple not having secondary function cause he tripped on a chair, doc oc sucks cause he doesn't have to leave his chair, xforce wolverine got hit in face with a chair, and quicksilver is so slow in game because he is the one messing with all the chairs.

Unknown

I can see how the economics of pvp and of the game in general cause spikes of emotions. I get caught up in that too a lot. But overall I think the pvp system is only a couple small adjustments away from removing the worst problems and making it far more casually likable.

For example, what if pvp match rewards were split into two currencies, a permanent pool and a pvp destroyable pool. You take on a match worth 38 points for example, and if you win, say 19 goes into your permanent pool and 19 into your destroyable pool. If you lose pvp matches or other people beat your team, you only lose points from your destroyable pool (if there's any left). Your permanent pool can never be lost through pvp.

Shields are useful but not as crucial. Whales can pay to have higher ratios of permanent pool splits on their rewards. 4* rewards become more accessible to everyone who's willing to grind.

But most importantly, the guaranteed progress will go a long way to reducing the worst problem, the fear of losing more than it's worth to play. It took Matthew Broderick a whole 80s movie to teach that lesson to a computer. It shouldn't be that hard now.

Unknown

herbal wrote:

I can see how the economics of pvp and of the game in general cause spikes of emotions. I get caught up in that too a lot. But overall I think the pvp system is only a couple small adjustments away from removing the worst problems and making it far more casually likable.

For example, what if pvp match rewards were split into two currencies, a permanent pool and a pvp destroyable pool. You take on a match worth 38 points for example, and if you win, say 19 goes into your permanent pool and 19 into your destroyable pool. If you lose pvp matches or other people beat your team, you only lose points from your destroyable pool (if there's any left). Your permanent pool can never be lost through pvp.

Shields are useful but not as crucial. Whales can pay to have higher ratios of permanent pool splits on their rewards. 4* rewards become more accessible to everyone who's willing to grind.

But most importantly, the guaranteed progress will go a long way to reducing the worst problem, the fear of losing more than it's worth to play. It took Matthew Broderick a whole 80s movie to teach that lesson to a computer. It shouldn't be that hard now.

Interesting approach.

What if all matches award the same amount of points. Match players to their respective level so they don't purposely pick on weaker teams, maybe even limit the amount of skips per hour. 4* team should fight 4* teams or match by level for powered up characters. Most people should be within score ranges of each other. The only thing I don't like about this is that scores will be almost similar for most players since each win awards a fix amount, many players will be at 100, 150, 200, and we won't see 101, 102, 103, etc. But there are workarounds to that end.

Scoregasms

I suggested this a while back and will throw it out there again, I think one way to help some folks that see these huge losses is that we have 2 points buckets, one for the event and one for the season. The one for the season is what is used to decrease the majority of points lost in the case of a PVP defensive loss (80%), but your event total is reduced by only 20% of that total loss. For those that care not for season rewards, they will rarely shield and probably end up with a near 0 score for the season, also missing out on any season progression rewards (this includes the 10 Pack). However, if you do care about the Season Points and those progression rewards (at least the 10 Pack), then you will shield to protect those points as per the norm.

Caveat being if you have 0 season points, then you lose 100% of the value from your event total. You HAVE to have a buffer in total season points to pool from, otherwise, you just end up losing the full amount in the event and keep folks from just gaming the system once they hit their 10 pack reward.

MPQ_Daywalker

sagapo wrote:

What if all matches award the same amount of points. Match players to their respective level so they don't purposely pick on weaker teams, maybe even limit the amount of skips per hour. 4* team should fight 4* teams or match by level for powered up characters.

I think the same amount of points idea (or herbal's idea of a base amount of permanent points per match) has potential, but one side effect of only matching up opponents by level is that you take away the ability to take on someone above your level. It's often possible to take on someone at a higher level than your roster, either using boosts or depending on the characters used by your opponent or by you. For example, a level 127 Cyclops with 5 black covers packs one heck of a punch. Or I might want to try my luck against a high level Professor X with my 3* team (hoping the AI doesn't get any 5 matches).

It's been brought up in the forum numerous times before, but the best solution I've seen in other games (like Marvel's Contest of Champions) is to have separate Vs. events with a rarity entry requirement for characters. For example, you could play in a 2* and 3* only Vs., or a 3* and 4* only Vs. Those events could even have separate award structures (3*s given out to Top 100 in the 2* & 3* only, and 4*s given out to the Top 50 in the 3* and 4* Vs., for example). It wouldn't stop the Fistbuster or maxed Jean Grey/whoever teams from creating walls at the top of the higher level Vs., but it would help spread out the player base into sections of similarly leveled opponents. Heck, there could even potentially be a 1* and 2* only Vs. that the 2* players would actually enjoy playing in.

GritsNGravy

Shields need more limits to reduce the total number people can do. Escalating cooldowns, could bring things down and limit the high end shield hoppers without impacting the casual to midcore. Example, first 3 hour shield has a 3 hour cooldown, the second time you use it, a 8 hour cooldown, third time a 24 hour cooldown... etc.

Also I agree that the *new* characters, are globally boosted for too long, maybe there should only be one at a time.