PvP nice guys

Meander

loroku wrote:

Meander wrote:

Yes, the 30 seconds is to provide people the opportunity to queue your team.

Are you saying if you are shielded people can't queue your team?

Not actively. Now, if they obtained your queue before you shielded, they can attack at any time as long as they have that node. But if they skip that queue and cycle through to a fresh cache (game seems to load a cache of 5-10 teams per cycle) with the skip button, you won't reappear as long as you're shielded.

PeterGibbons316

Meander wrote:

cozmo1682 wrote:

Peter - in your steps, what does the waiting for 30 seconds before shielding do on your last setp? Allow your team to get out there and be seen? Seems like those 30 seconds could result in a few attacks before you shield?

I'm at the right team right slice a little luck can get to 1k part of the game, but always looking to understand the techniques of the higher scorers.

Yes, the 30 seconds is to provide people the opportunity to queue your team. Can you take hits, especially from people who are seen as snipers (in this case, I specifically mean 5* players who keep their points low via 'dumping' to try and bring down others)? Absolutely. It's a risk you take any time you bake, regardless if you wait 30 seconds and shield on a cake (low level team) or do a reset match (play another lined up cake with your normal fully powered team). Traditionally, this potential loss of points is a reason why some don't bake cake teams until they're past 1300. Some front-runners or charitable people will bake pre-1300, but they're assuming the risk.

That's right. Most of what I have seen is people that climb as high as they can before first shield. Luckily for me this has been around 1200-1300 pts recently, but we have some 3* players in our group that often have to drop their first shield closer to 800. Once people drop their first shield they start finding cakes and hopping, and most people try to bake on just about every hop. So typically you queue 3 cakes, fight the hardest one first, then bake on the second one, then fight the easiest team last and shield. It's actually pretty rare to get hit while baking. The reason you do this is because when you unshield the team that shows up is the last team you won with. When you hop again you want your A-team to show up, not your cupcake. I only end on a cake if I know I am going to shield for the rest of the event. I can feel comfortable leaving the cake up for 30 seconds because on most hops my last battle takes about 30 seconds anyway, and I rarely get hit then so it's unlikely that I'll get sniped in just 30 seconds.

TxMoose

loroku wrote:

Meander wrote:

Yes, the 30 seconds is to provide people the opportunity to queue your team.

Are you saying if you are shielded people can't queue your team?

that is correct. however, the server is sometimes slow in updating the batch of teams you have to choose from, so you could theoretically queue someone who has recently shielded. so after you shield, its a good idea to give it a good 30-45 minutes at a minimum. 1 hr is better to allow 2 things - 1) for you to clear out of queues (this should happen within 5-10 min) and 2) to allow retaliations to come back (those can happen at any time but you can't control that). the 30 seconds allow his cake to enter plenty of queues to help the general population, or more likely, enter the queues of his teammates who are searching for it. since that takes some time, many bakers will take on an easy cupcake team after they bake to allow their team to be queued and since they need to spend a little time unshielded after, might as well get more points. and they can use their A team for the next time they break shield - their team will be their A team when they break instead of the cake. if you bake and then take on a match, even a cake, if it bogs down for any reason, you really risk getting beat down. but the benefit is worth the risk for most because there are tons doing it without hesitation.

Meander

loroku wrote:

...or why you can still get attacked after shielding and lose points (check your placement immediately or you will get hit!).

One thing I wanted to point out here, there's a common misconception that you can lose points while shielded. Yes, when you first shield you should check the leader board to ping the server. This will reduce the time between being unshielded to being shielded once you have hit the shield of choice on your device. However, some seem to think that the popup they get after they have checked the leader board that (sometimes) shows loss of points is because you weren't fast enough, or somehow there was increased lag. This is often not the case. You cannot lose points once you see that icon by your IGN. The reason for this notification after seeing the shield icon is server lag. The proof can be seen if you use multiple devices simultaneously. What do I mean by that? I do most of my major climbing and hopping on my tablet, while I use my phone for Line and second by second updates from others. Because I also use my phone to play when I'm out and about I'll get push notifications when I get hit. I will often see these way before they pop up in game. However, my points in game will update real time.

Example-
Say I'm climbing at 1200, and I see a push on my phone saying I took a hit. If I check the leader board, it will now show me at 1150, so I can calculate my point loss at 50. I continue my climb and shield at 1350. After shielding and confirming the shield on the leader board, I get a popup for -50. Does that mean I'm now at 1300? No, it's just severe lag from when I went from 1200 to 1150. I see this every single event. Sometimes the lag time is small, a minute or two, sometimes it can be up to a half hour, it just depends.

loroku

PeterGibbons316 wrote:

So typically you queue 3 cakes, fight the hardest one first, then bake on the second one, then fight the easiest team last and shield.

The reason you do this is because when you unshield the team that shows up is the last team you won with. When you hop again you want your A-team to show up, not your cupcake.

This part doesn't make sense to me, even though two people explained it. I'll try parsing it out to see where I am confused:
- you find 3 "easy" teams and get them queued in your three nodes
- you fight #1 with your massive 5* death star roster
- you fight #2 with your tiny 1* fluffy kitten roster
- you wait 30 seconds
??? - you fight #3 with your death star 5* roster???
- you shield

Shouldn't this make the team that shows up to everyone your 5* team, since that was the last one you won with?

Or are you saying you fight #3 with your 1* roster, which is confusing because why are you even talking about the 2nd one?

What you seem to be saying is that the game ignores the shielded 5* roster and shows people the 1* roster, even though you last won with your shielded roster. And you are further saying that when you break your shield, your 5* roster is THEN the one that gets shown, even though you are fighting with whatever roster you are fighting with.

Is that right? If it is, then I don't understand how the game chooses your roster for showing others.

PeterGibbons316

What you typically do:

- you find 3 "easy" teams and get them queued in your three nodes
- you fight #1 with your massive 5* death star roster
- you fight #2 with your tiny 1* fluffy kitten roster
- you fight #3 with your death star 5* roster
- you shield for 3/8/24 or until you find 3 cakes again to start over

What I have been doing recently:

- keep an easy retal from start of event
- climb with massive 5* death star roster
- fight easy retal with tiny 1* fluffy kitten roster
- wait 30 seconds
- shield through the rest of the event

loroku

Meander wrote:

One thing I wanted to point out here, there's a common misconception that you can lose points while shielded.

I mean, you're sort of talking about semantics here. In the strictest sense, once the server realizes you are shielded you won't lose points. But that is pointless in a practical sense, because when you shielded is when you shielded, not when the server decides you shielded. If I shield and then get a point loss, I lost points while shielded. However the server updates or whatever, whenever the messages were supposed to arrive or whatever, that's what happened in practical effect, and yes, that's extremely frustrating and another annoying aspect of PvP in this game, mostly due to poor communication/timing. My understanding is the best thing you can do to minimize this is to check your placement after shielding, which helps tell the server you are shielded when you are shielded. All other points about whether or not it actually happened are moot, because what happened is that I lost points after shielding.

In other words: you aren't wrong, but the end result is the same, and it's just how the game works, which is frustrating.

loroku

PeterGibbons316 wrote:

- you fight #3 with your death star 5* roster

Ok, so this is the thing I don't understand. Why does the game show your 1* roster to others instead of your 5* roster, since that was the last one you won with?

Meander

Think of it as 2 methods.

The 'standard' method is a 3 match set where you use
1- normal team
2-'easy team'
3- normal team and # after

Then there's Peter's method, which I also use when done for the event, which goes
1- play as many as you will
2- use 'easy team' on final match
3- wait 30 seconds and #

The reason you don't wait 30 seconds on the 'standard' method is you have that 3rd match, which takes 30 seconds (or more if you're unlucky). Your team will not reset until you've finished that final match, so the whole time you're playing, people can be queuing (and fighting) your easy team.

BlackSheep101

loroku wrote:

- you fight #2 with your tiny 1* fluffy kitten roster
- you wait 30 seconds
??? - you fight #3 with your death star 5* roster???

In the span of time between winning match #2 and winning match #3, you show up with your cupcake team. After winning #3, you would show up with your A-team, but you shield immediately so that's only out there for a few seconds. You do this so that the next time you break shield, your cupcake team doesn't show up for everyone.

You only have a minute or two to queue up the cupcake. Without coordination, finding them is pretty random.

And no, it's not semantics to say that you don't lose points while shielded. The game server keeps track of events: wins/losses/shields. It processes them in the order they occur. If someone beats you 30 seconds before you shield, you don't get notified immediately. You see the notification after you shielded, but the win took place beforehand.

TxMoose

loroku wrote:

Meander wrote:

One thing I wanted to point out here, there's a common misconception that you can lose points while shielded.

I mean, you're sort of talking about semantics here. In the strictest sense, once the server realizes you are shielded you won't lose points. But that is pointless in a practical sense, because when you shielded is when you shielded, not when the server decides you shielded. If I shield and then get a point loss, I lost points while shielded. However the server updates or whatever, whenever the messages were supposed to arrive or whatever, that's what happened in practical effect, and yes, that's extremely frustrating and another annoying aspect of PvP in this game, mostly due to poor communication/timing. My understanding is the best thing you can do to minimize this is to check your placement after shielding, which helps tell the server you are shielded when you are shielded. All other points about whether or not it actually happened are moot, because what happened is that I lost points after shielding.

In other words: you aren't wrong, but the end result is the same, and it's just how the game works, which is frustrating.

the issue there isn't when you shielded. you shield and the server is immediately notified and updates your score immediately, including hits that come in (but its not automatic that the message comes in that you got hit). the confusion comes from the lag between hits coming in and notifications coming through to your device. that throws everything off. from what I can tell, the score doesn't drop - the score is usually correct even if an unreported hit comes in. its really confusing for players though when hit notifications come through after shielding. and to make matters worse, you can shield, close the game. open it up hours later and then get notified of the hit and if you didn't know about the notification delay, you'd think the shield system is broken. that's kinda messed up, but it is what it is.

nic13

@loruku, I suspect most times the attacks aren't coordinated.

Usually when you're amongst the mass of people at 400-600 points you kind of skip around and find only 30+, 40 point matches. Those are the people around the same point range as you. The MMR tries to match you with people in your roster strength range, and at times tries to give you matches with good points.

However once you hit a certain magic point range (the exact number differs from time to time, depending on where the masses are mostly at, unshielded), and surpass the masses, you become that sexy 50, 60 point match to the those still in the mass. Hence people hit.

It's not about people ganging up against u, but that the game makes you more visible to others when you have more points. Then the rest of what happens is just... pvp..

loroku

BlackSheep101 wrote:

loroku wrote:

- you fight #2 with your tiny 1* fluffy kitten roster
- you wait 30 seconds
??? - you fight #3 with your death star 5* roster???

In the span of time between winning match #2 and winning match #3, you show up with your cupcake team. After winning #3, you would show up with your A-team, but you shield immediately so that's only out there for a few seconds. You do this so that the next time you break shield, your cupcake team doesn't show up for everyone.

You only have a minute or two to queue up the cupcake. Without coordination, finding them is pretty random.

Thanks for the explanation, that helps a lot!

So the ones I see that are sitting around for hours, those are the people who just threw in their cupcake team and then shielded and quit playing, I suppose. (Although once you shield you're supposed to no longer be available? I don't understand.)

Speaking of don't understand, no idea why this was moved to Tips and Guides. It's gotten a little off-topic on how PvP shielding works, but it's a thank you to people who are cupcaking. Maybe because it tells people that cupcaking exists? The world works in mysterious ways?

loroku

nic13 wrote:

The MMR tries to match you with people in your roster strength range, and at times tries to give you matches with good points.

Oh wow, this is new information. I'm also sure it doesn't happen all the time since I was getting a lot of people with strong 4* teams and single 5*s and I am solidly in 3* land, although sadly I do have a couple of unleveled, single-cover 5*s (that are basically worthless) which are probably messing up my "roster strength" level. (I wish those 5*s started at level 150 and you could level them to 250 for 1 ISO/level or something, that would really help us out.)

Partyof5

I may be one of those "nice guys" you ran into. In my case I stopped using shields a few weeks back. I'd rather use the HP for roster spots. At the rate of new characters being released I need all my HP for that. As a result, my PvP strategy has changed. I don't try for placement awards, just progression. I may get up to 675, but because I don't shield I end up around 300.

It's not that I'm trying to be helpful to others, it's just that I'm not playing the shield hopping game in PvP.