Upcoming Feature: S.H.I.E.L.D. Rank & Clearance Levels!

killerkoala

it's not really new content, just "better prizes", and that is very ambiguous. for all we know it might just be crit boost change to 20 iso. don't get ur hopes to high or dreams of better ranking/bracketing.

insound0

The update info said they increased total usable roster spots from 200 to 300.

I wondered if that has anything to do with anything or im just cynical about everything.

The Herald

insound0 wrote:

The update info said they increased total usable roster spots from 200 to 300.

I wondered if that has anything to do with anything or im just cynical about everything.

Why not both?

Mawtful

_Daywalker_ wrote:

FWIW, here's my speculation... MPQ already keeps track of your overall roster progress and determines the difficulty of enemies you see in PVE and opponents you see in PVP -- it's your MMR. I think the SHIELD Rank will be tied to your MMR. As you level up your roster, your MMR gets higher, and so will your SHIELD Rank. This would be relatively easy for them to implement, since it's just creating a visual representation of a number that's already being calculated for every player.

I then think that the "SHIELD Clearance Level" will be putting you into a different prize bracket for events, based on your SHIELD Rank. So there might be a Clearance Level 3, which is a typical 3-Star player, and they would earn more 3-star covers and the potential to win 4-star covers. And then a Clearance Level 4, which would be a typical 4-star player, and they would earn more 4-star covers and the potential to win more command points/legendary tokens. I'd expect (and hope) that each Clearance Level will have higher and higher ISO rewards as well, commensurate with the rank/level of player.

I don't think it will be a restructuring of events themselves, just the prizes you are able to earn from events (hopefully both progression and placement).

This is pretty close to my own speculation. And I think a lot of people are getting excited about this under the assumption that it's "for the players.

The Herald wrote:

I AM EXCITE!

While only based on speculation, I like the idea of the Dev team using the MMR statistics for good instead of evil

Whoa there! Let's not get carried away... there's plenty of room for evil around here.

It's my belief that these Ranks & Clearance Levels are designed to end "noob brackets". If the game is, essentially, giving you a rating based on the "strength" of your Roster, then even if you tank your MMR, it knows that you've got a 5* Clearance roster so suck it up, sunshine!

I have no doubt that this is an attempt to increase player "engagement" (and, in turn, increase $ARPDAU because clearly more players will need to pay to stay competitive). The only thing I have left to wonder about is if Clearance Levels are going to get recalculated for Heroic events. Heh, just kidding - they won't.

mpqr7

Sounds great!! And I have no concern about needing retroactive rewards. Whatever new bonuses I'm eligible for will be highly appreciated.

El Satanno

I will allow myself cautious optimism but with low expectations. Kinda like VIP. I wasn't disappointed by VIP because I was expecting little. But I will at the very least give Demiurge credit for finally coming around to address the issue. Good for you guys!

Blahahah

So here's a brief thought that deserves some discussion...

Assuming this works in a way that causes a sort of "bracketing" between roster strength and general scores, does this mean the end for cupcakes as we know them?

Linkster79

Dudemon wrote:

The biggest question is how will this affect alliance rewards with people at different "levels".

Perhaps some discussion here will yield some creative responses the developers can use. I for one have no clue what might work.


Dudemon

I don't see why alliance rewards should even factor into things. Better alliances already get the better rewards, Shield Rank I imagine is for personal use only.

Bowgentle

I'd be a whole lot more excited if the game had a history of giving us choices.

If we're bracketed according to roster strength without any choice as to which rank/rewards we want to play for this will be painful for everyone involved.

Cause, you know, the guys generating points in all slices are running 5* teams.
Take those out of lower brackets and you have a whole ton of people who are never going to reach 1K again, let alone 1300.

Hopefully the implementation will be better than that, though - god knows it took them long enough to come up with that.
Leagues should have been implemented 18 months ago.

Wjohnson992

I hope this doesn't alter PVE progession and make achieving max progression only possible for vets.

HxiiiK

I'm not about to count my chickens before they hatch, D3 has been notorious for their "one step forward, five steps back" implementations.

I'll be very happy to be proven wrong in this case, but I'd rather not hold out hope that they'll do something that will vastly improve the game, though I'm really hoping they do.

Credit where credit is due though, the past few quality of life improvements I really find a pleasant enough change.

The Herald

Had a thought about roster slots.

While we may not be expected to, they may be giving us enough space to have two of each character. A set of max level champions, and a set for cover farms.

Wjohnson992

If they adjust bracketing to stop champed 4*'s rosters ending up in the same bracket as a champed 2* rosters it would be awesome.

Felessa

Am I the only one who read this and understood it as an "eternal big progression reward list" instead of "placement" (nothing to do with brackets, ally or PvE/PvP placement) ? It's even a button similiar and next to the S.H.I.E.L.D. Resupply one.

By the way, this sounds promising!

broll

Mawtful wrote:

_Daywalker_ wrote:

FWIW, here's my speculation... MPQ already keeps track of your overall roster progress and determines the difficulty of enemies you see in PVE and opponents you see in PVP -- it's your MMR. I think the SHIELD Rank will be tied to your MMR. As you level up your roster, your MMR gets higher, and so will your SHIELD Rank. This would be relatively easy for them to implement, since it's just creating a visual representation of a number that's already being calculated for every player.

I then think that the "SHIELD Clearance Level" will be putting you into a different prize bracket for events, based on your SHIELD Rank. So there might be a Clearance Level 3, which is a typical 3-Star player, and they would earn more 3-star covers and the potential to win 4-star covers. And then a Clearance Level 4, which would be a typical 4-star player, and they would earn more 4-star covers and the potential to win more command points/legendary tokens. I'd expect (and hope) that each Clearance Level will have higher and higher ISO rewards as well, commensurate with the rank/level of player.

I don't think it will be a restructuring of events themselves, just the prizes you are able to earn from events (hopefully both progression and placement).

This is pretty close to my own speculation. And I think a lot of people are getting excited about this under the assumption that it's "for the players.

The Herald wrote:

I AM EXCITE!

While only based on speculation, I like the idea of the Dev team using the MMR statistics for good instead of evil

Whoa there! Let's not get carried away... there's plenty of room for evil around here.

It's my belief that these Ranks & Clearance Levels are designed to end "noob brackets". If the game is, essentially, giving you a rating based on the "strength" of your Roster, then even if you tank your MMR, it knows that you've got a 5* Clearance roster so suck it up, sunshine!

I have no doubt that this is an attempt to increase player "engagement" (and, in turn, increase $ARPDAU because clearly more players will need to pay to stay competitive). The only thing I have left to wonder about is if Clearance Levels are going to get recalculated for Heroic events. Heh, just kidding - they won't.

These posts are totally in line with what I'm guessing based on what was announced and if so I find it to be a very good thing.

The Finn

Per Google, "late fall" is typically defined as a late November time frame. That means 3 more months of wild speculation.

While I can't help but also get caught up in the excitement of hoping for really big, exciting (and overdue) changes, unless they feed us more details on a regular basis I could see the end result being really deflating for the fanatical base that is this forum simply based on the fact that imaginations will invariably run wild and outstrip anything that the devs could ever hope to deliver.

Punisher5784

aesthetocyst wrote:

Punisher5784 wrote:

.... it has been 7 months since I left.

7 very productive months I'm sure!

hahaha yeah it was. I lost over 15lbs and I am much calmer because I'm not stuck in the house grinding for hours getting angry! However, I still find myself on the forums from time-to-time when I am bored at work because I have not played ANY video games at all in the past 7 months

I'm curious of all these changes but I do not foresee myself playing like a crazy man again, if at all! We'll see, this SHIELD rank caught my attention

kobu

This is great news! I think...

If it means no more being thrown into Story and Versus groups with people who stomp all over my roster I'll be a very happy camper.

JFisch

Felessa wrote:

Am I the only one who read this and understood it as an "eternal big progression reward list" instead of "placement" (nothing to do with brackets, ally or PvE/PvP placement) ?

Not at all. I think that's what we're looking at - some sort of a global and/or event-based progression board in addition to the existing PVE/PVP ones with rewards catered to your roster strength. I wouldn't expect any changes to the current progression/placement rewards, available nodes, or node rewards. The real question is whether we get a big, rolling, global board or specific ones for each individual PVE and PVP.

From that perspective, even if the rewards that populate this board are on the modest side, can you really get too upset when you're given something you weren't getting before?

MPQ_Daywalker

Some more thoughts/speculation to build on my previous post...

I think the reason they announced this so early is because some of the code for the SHIELD Rank and Clearance Levels went into R107 and they wanted to get ahead of the data miners. Since many people found out about championing due to data miners finding references to it in the code, they may be trying to learn from past mistakes/put some good PR & speculation out there.

Also, in this announcement they stated, "We're excited to get these features fully in place by late Fall." The "fully in place" part makes me think they will be rolling it out in sections, over time. Like they could roll out SHIELD Ranks first, then the Clearance Levels with the "different rewards and appropriate challenge" later.

There's questions in this thread as to whether we should save up ISO or wait to level our rosters... IMO if there was an advantage to us doing either of those now, they wouldn't have done a formal pre-announcement. There was a distinct advantage to saving covers and ISO prior to championing, and they worked hard to remove any mention of championing from the forums in the month or so leading up to its release, prior to its official announcement. Using that same logic, if they're announcing this so early, it must mean we won't gain anything by making changes to our roster, or hoarding covers or ISO.

And while it would be nice if these changes truly mean tiered PVP events (like has been suggested various times) based on how the announcement was worded and the game's recent history I really doubt that. Demiurge's changes to the game over the past year have all been fairly simple changes that add on to the existing game but don't change the overall mechanic. For example, championing gave us a new interface for covers and allowed us to level people higher but still kept all the same mechanics in place. We've gotten little boosts to the amount of ISO everyone gets (getting rid of 20 ISO, increasing the alliance daily reward, more ISO in taco vaults, higher ISO sellback rates for champions) but none of it changed the core of the game or its events, which tiered PVP, or changes to brackets, would definitely be.

That's why I think this isn't a major change, but really more tweaks to how the game works now -- e.g., SHIELD Rank being a visible representation of your (already calculated by the game) MMR, new rewards based on your SHIELD Clearance Level.

Chronicler wrote:

Felessa wrote:

Am I the only one who read this and understood it as an "eternal big progression reward list" instead of "placement" (nothing to do with brackets, ally or PvE/PvP placement) ?

Not at all. I think that's what we're looking at - some sort of a global and/or event-based progression board in addition to the existing PVE/PVP ones with rewards catered to your roster strength. I wouldn't expect any changes to the current progression/placement rewards, available nodes, or node rewards. The real question is whether we get a big, rolling, global board or specific ones for each individual PVE and PVP.

From that perspective, even if the rewards that populate this board are on the modest side, can you really get too upset when you're given something you weren't getting before?

Yep, it's possible it's just an overall progression board, but I agree with Felessa -- even if they're modest rewards, I'm definitely interested.

Punisher5784 wrote:

I have not played ANY video games at all in the past 7 months

Whaaaaaat? I... can't... comprehend.