Calculate Progression Rewards BEFORE Losses!

Monged4life

This has been mentioned a few times before, but as I just suffered from it again I'll bring it up again...

While playing Black Vortex I sat shielded at 989 waiting for my chance to make that all important jump to 1000, for about the only way I can earn 4* covers with my 3* roster.

I lined up a 20 point 3* team amongst the countless Jeanbusters, played it with max boosts, won it in less than 2 minutes, and sighed a great sigh of relief as my score showed 1008.

A full minute passes as I'm nervously wondering where my X23 cover is, about to check the ranking table when a -72 loss appears. As I click close on that I'm bombarded with a second -148 popup of 4 more losses for the same event, and my score then divebombed though the 800s and 700s before the event finished.

I know full well that the score in the top left of the screen is frankly a lie. And that all that matters is the server score, which had given me this loss and just not bothered to tell me about it, so I'm not asking why I didn't get my reward. I'm asking why the game is set up to lie to me about my score?

If the screen can show me a score of 1008, raising my hopes to be mercilessly dashed in seconds, then I damn well expect the reward for reaching 1000! Either fix the progression rewards so they are rewarded when your screen tells you you made it, or fix the damn score so it shows your ACTUAL score, not an educated guess!

mpqr7

I completely agree. It's very hard to make progress in this game. If someone even licks 1000+ for a split second, they should get the 4* cover. It's not like it will suddenly make the game so much easier for everyone. They will still ultimately get squashed back to 800 points, but at least all of that effort and shielding will feel like it was worth something and not just a big waste.

madok

It does suck. I actually saw two different scores last night. I saw what the top bar said and there was a different number in the leaderboard screen. 15 seconds later, I got the hit notification that brought the top bar value down to what showed in the leaderboard.

Unknown

Yep. I still remember each and every time I go burned by this "feature."

3* Magneto, Psylocke, Bea...

Yeah. Doesn't matter to me anymore, but I hear ya.

DBC

Dragon_Nexus

I've grumbled about this before but I'm not sure how it could be fixed.

Keep the shield while in a fight? Just means people will be unstoppable while fighting, break the shield when it's done and then immediately re-shield.
Don't deduct points while in a fight? People will start a fight and then sit there for hours unable to lose points.

Maybe if disallow points to be deducted for the first 5 minutes of a fight? It's just about the only way I could think of doing it.

drcassino

Doesn't fully resolve it, but once you win a match (or put up a shield), always be sure to click on the event rankings. When you say that the hit comes in a minute or so afterwards, you're dealing with server lag: your score is updated on your device, but that change hasn't registered with the central server yet, and your reward won't be given out until it is. If the device were in constant communication with the server, it would simply take up too much data (and MPQ is a bit of a battery and data drain as it is). By clicking on the event rankings, you force a connection to the server, eliminating any server lag. If the issue is that you're getting hit after your battle, but before the reward is given, that'll fix it. If the issue is getting hit while you're fighting someone else, that's another problem entirely.

MojoWild

I think the problem is that your device registers the win, but it still has to sync with the server, where there's a loss that is already logged.
So while it appears to your device that you made the cut, the main server reflects that you never did because it had already subtracted the loss.
Just an educated guess that this is what's happening, and I feel your pain.

BlackSheep101

So when you win a fight that doesn't put you over a progression milestone, don't check the leader board or do anything else to force server communication so the poor sap on the other end has a few more seconds to get their cover.

mpqr7

Dragon_Nexus wrote:

Maybe if disallow points to be deducted for the first 5 minutes of a fight? It's just about the only way I could think of doing it.

I would be down for this to be the solution. Most fights can be finished within 5 minutes. Then you know the person's not trying to game the system by staying stuck in a fight for hours.

DaveR4470

What, you don't find it fun to have your attacks limited to one person at a time while being able to be simultaneously targeted by 30?

/sarcasm

Monged4life

MojoWild wrote:

I think the problem is that your device registers the win, but it still has to sync with the server, where there's a loss that is already logged.
So while it appears to your device that you made the cut, the main server reflects that you never did because it had already subtracted the loss.
Just an educated guess that this is what's happening, and I feel your pain.

I accept that I probably was attacked during my fight. My problem isn't even with the fact that I didn't get the cover, it's with the fact that the game displays an incorrect score of 1008, so I THINK that I've gotten the cover. If it hasn't checked with the server yet to work out my score, then don't display anything at all. My problem is with the fact that the screen lied to me, so I get excited thinking I've hit the target... then come crashing down when I realize it isn't true.

I've seen the suggestion floated around that when your device makes that sync with the server, the server could be generous enough to add your score on first, work out progression rewards, THEN deduct any attacks. I personally love this idea, as you still lose the points so there is no invincible-while-playing problem introduced, it just makes progression rewards that little bit easier to reach, and stops the initial display being misleading.
If this was implemented I would add in a caveat that the server does count any attacks made on you if you are playing mid-game when the event ends, otherwise people would be smart enough to start a game and leave it running for 2 days as a permanent shield.

DalekGAF

That 5 minute buffer window is a good idea, and is fair. I've given up trying to get to 1000 in PVP anymore. Nothing is more frustrating than the scenario the OP has described.

Arondite

Not sure if you're aware, but this could easily he abused if calculated that way. Just gotta be faster; changing it opens the door to too much cheating

JVReal

There is no fix for it without putting all the fights on the server side, then you are connecting to the server after every move and slowing down your gameplay.

Here is how I see it working currently: Your device and the server sync. You enter a fight on your phone at 994 points for a fight worth 45 points. This battle takes place on your phone and not on the server so you have a stand-alone fight going on right now. Meanwhile on the server, someone else starts a fight with your AI counterpart so a fight worth 59 points is happening with your last synced score of 994.

You win, and your phone says 994 + 45 = 1039
Your AI counterpart loses, so the server says 994 - 59 = 935

Now the two devices sync in order to verify score and rewards, Phone says "Hey I got +45 here" Server says, "great! I'll add that to my 935 because I just got beat for -59 so when I add your +45 you now have 980, no 1K yet, keep going". Phone says "Ok, 1039-59 = 980, no reward".

It sucks, and it sucks even more because you can be queued by multiple people simultaneously.

The only way to guarantee this won't happen is to remove the ability to lose points entirely. But that would just create astronomical scores so instead I propose they severely limit the loss of points to a fixed amount. I'd say keep the calculation of point values the same, but make each loss a fixed 5 points or something. This way you are still encouraged to shield to save points, but being sniped hurts so much less. This will require an adjustment in progression rewards, but I'm sure it'll feel much better not being penalized for actually playing and playing well.

I would actually try to hit bigger teams if I knew it would only cost me 5 points and a few health packs instead of costing me 40 points AND health packs and ruining my run to my target progression reward.