The problem with PVP is the shields.

WelcomeDeath

kobu wrote:

amusingfoo1 wrote:

kobu wrote:

If I had my druthers, there wouldn't be a need for shields at all. Pick your PvP team for the event, play x matches before you get a cooldown until the next round, starting everyone against x number of seed teams. Teams are fully healed at end of each match. Placement goes by matches won with ties broken by average number of moves made. Second round everyone is seeded by placement from round one. You play against other players' teams, but they aren't dinged or rewarded for these AI ran matches. It just gives you variety to go up against, and the tougher the team everyone else is running, the tougher it will be for you to place high. Play y number of rounds. Give everyone progress rewards based on bracket they get seeded into, incrementing each round. Spend optional HP betting on your placement each round for the chance at improved rewards so they can still make a bit of scratch off PvP. This is just off the top of my head, but would be a hell of a lot closer to how PvP works in other games.

What I don't like about this is that it forces you, if you want to be competitive, to play every round. Do you want to have to play some matches every few hours? That sounds a lot like something else they used to do around here...

No, I wouldn't want that actually. X number of games per round, play when you like. Pick a reasonable number for X. New round kicks off every 24 hours for the duration. I think a completely "play when you want" system is far preferable.

So less play time by far than current system, also less iso? Also if everyone wins all X matches, placement is RNG depending on the board you had? No thank you, that sounds awful.

kobu

Welcome Death wrote:

kobu wrote:

amusingfoo1 wrote:

kobu wrote:

If I had my druthers, there wouldn't be a need for shields at all. Pick your PvP team for the event, play x matches before you get a cooldown until the next round, starting everyone against x number of seed teams. Teams are fully healed at end of each match. Placement goes by matches won with ties broken by average number of moves made. Second round everyone is seeded by placement from round one. You play against other players' teams, but they aren't dinged or rewarded for these AI ran matches. It just gives you variety to go up against, and the tougher the team everyone else is running, the tougher it will be for you to place high. Play y number of rounds. Give everyone progress rewards based on bracket they get seeded into, incrementing each round. Spend optional HP betting on your placement each round for the chance at improved rewards so they can still make a bit of scratch off PvP. This is just off the top of my head, but would be a hell of a lot closer to how PvP works in other games.

What I don't like about this is that it forces you, if you want to be competitive, to play every round. Do you want to have to play some matches every few hours? That sounds a lot like something else they used to do around here...

No, I wouldn't want that actually. X number of games per round, play when you like. Pick a reasonable number for X. New round kicks off every 24 hours for the duration. I think a completely "play when you want" system is far preferable.

So less play time by far than current system, also less iso? Also if everyone wins all X matches, placement is RNG depending on the board you had? No thank you, that sounds awful.

I can understand objections to not needing to be glued to the game all day. It's a preference thing. I don't know how many players actually like a large amount of required playtime versus how many would jump in if there were less time commitment. I'd think more players would be engaged if it only took an hour or so to knock out PvP each day, but that's speculation based on my experience in other games. If I could do Deadpool, Story, Versus, plus a few nodes of a play-at-your-pace board in a few hours each day, I'd be a really happy camper. Heck, maybe there could be a "choose your rounds" option so those wanting to play 50 matches a day could do so and get some bigger rewards.

No need to assume less ISO. You're thinking less matches == less ISO, but there's no reason to not adjust ISO rewards to the new structure. And there would be no need to remove Lightning rounds for those who want to do more and want to pick up some extra ISO, just adjust them a bit to match the new structure.

Board layout would even out for all players over time. Everyone has lucky and unlucky boards, and they aren't going to play a huge factor over, let's say, 50 matches in an event. It's the same thing other PvP games have--sometimes you just have bad map or boost placement. It's already a factor in the game anyway. Some system of measuring play skill would need to be in effect to get away from either a timed system or rewarding those who simply grind the most or pay to win via shields, health packs, and boosts. If you have another proposal that achieves "play when you want", I'm all ears.

On top of that, placement rewards could be shifted in part to progress rewards. Give extra ISO, HP, etc. so hitting T10 is more of an extra cool thing to do and gives bragging rights rather than something to stress out about. Win matches at your pace, get the sweet covers, and get some nice bonuses if you did well relative to everyone else, and of course add those points to your alliance's score.

Thanks for the response. I'd really like to propose a solid system that feels a lot more like the PvP games I've really enjoyed, and every bit of constructive criticism helps.

Dudemon

I really think the invisibility of shielded targets is the main problem. It reduces the amount of targets available.

They also need to raise the amount of points available.

Perhaps more points for unshielded targets, less for shielded.

If there were more targets available, perhaps it would also reduce getting hit 5-6 times at once from 800-1000.

Dudemon

acescracked

Dudemon wrote:

I really think the invisibility of shielded targets is the main problem. It reduces the amount of targets available.

They also need to raise the amount of points available.

Perhaps more points for unshielded targets, less for shielded.

If there were more targets available, perhaps it would also reduce getting hit 5-6 times at once from 800-1000.

Dudemon

Yes, more targets would be great. But don't be fooled by false reasons of this problem ie - shields.

The true problem is the segregation of the player base into 5 different playing slices. When playing shield stimulator do you run out of high point targets? Do you get pummeled like crazy? Not in the least. It's a simple numbers game.

There should be a change to allow the entire player base to play together in PvP events.

Xeonic-Ice

acescracked wrote:

Dudemon wrote:

I really think the invisibility of shielded targets is the main problem. It reduces the amount of targets available.

They also need to raise the amount of points available.

Perhaps more points for unshielded targets, less for shielded.

If there were more targets available, perhaps it would also reduce getting hit 5-6 times at once from 800-1000.

Dudemon

Yes, more targets would be great. But don't be fooled by false reasons of this problem ie - shields.

The true problem is the segregation of the player base into 5 different playing slices. When playing shield stimulator do you run out of high point targets? Do you get pummeled like crazy? Not in the least. It's a simple numbers game.

There should be a change to allow the entire player base to play together in PvP events.

Yep, the player base is unfortunately fragmented into separate buckets. I'm pretty sure that cupcakes only became a thing because slices 1-3 are usually dry for points outside of getting lucky when the big alliances are coordinating hops. I personally don't understand why time slices for bracket determination exclude the other four buckets of players. If progression can't be hit because there are no available points (everyone is shielded) then it's not a very good system to begin with. When Winter soldier released, I chose a dead slice and ended up getting 1st but couldn't even hit the 1k progression because all targets were worth less than 5 points. It's such a weird approach to pvp.

Ducky

If a checkpoint shield was ever introduced, progression rewards would be moved up as scoring would be easier. The devs set progression rewards where they are because they only want a certain percentage of people getting them. If you aren't able to hit a certain target in PvP yet, it's likely that the devs don't want you to.

Dudemon

I like the idea of setting it up like the SHIELD simulator.

Huge playerbase, no slices. Just a time to get it completed by.

Dudemon

HaywireII

DuckyV wrote:

If a checkpoint shield was ever introduced, progression rewards would be moved up as scoring would be easier. The devs set progression rewards where they are because they only want a certain percentage of people getting them. If you aren't able to hit a certain target in PvP yet, it's likely that the devs don't want you to.

If that's true then the devs criteria is horribly broken. I was in a Line room for a while when I only had 3* champs and I was easily hitting 1000 to 1300. Now that my roster is much stronger but I'm not doing the chat room collaboration it's hard just to hit 1k even though I have 4* champs.

WelcomeDeath

kobu wrote:

I can understand objections to not needing to be glued to the game all day. It's a preference thing. I don't know how many players actually like a large amount of required playtime versus how many would jump in if there were less time commitment. I'd think more players would be engaged if it only took an hour or so to knock out PvP each day, but that's speculation based on my experience in other games. If I could do Deadpool, Story, Versus, plus a few nodes of a play-at-your-pace board in a few hours each day, I'd be a really happy camper. Heck, maybe there could be a "choose your rounds" option so those wanting to play 50 matches a day could do so and get some bigger rewards.

No need to assume less ISO. You're thinking less matches == less ISO, but there's no reason to not adjust ISO rewards to the new structure. And there would be no need to remove Lightning rounds for those who want to do more and want to pick up some extra ISO, just adjust them a bit to match the new structure.

Board layout would even out for all players over time. Everyone has lucky and unlucky boards, and they aren't going to play a huge factor over, let's say, 50 matches in an event. It's the same thing other PvP games have--sometimes you just have bad map or boost placement. It's already a factor in the game anyway. Some system of measuring play skill would need to be in effect to get away from either a timed system or rewarding those who simply grind the most or pay to win via shields, health packs, and boosts. If you have another proposal that achieves "play when you want", I'm all ears.

On top of that, placement rewards could be shifted in part to progress rewards. Give extra ISO, HP, etc. so hitting T10 is more of an extra cool thing to do and gives bragging rights rather than something to stress out about. Win matches at your pace, get the sweet covers, and get some nice bonuses if you did well relative to everyone else, and of course add those points to your alliance's score.

Thanks for the response. I'd really like to propose a solid system that feels a lot more like the PvP games I've really enjoyed, and every bit of constructive criticism helps.

A few things. First of all, if you think theyre going to cut playtime and give out more iso, youre dreaming. They're a business and their interest is in driving more playtime, not less. Same thing with not using health packs, boosts and shields. Good for you, for a while, bad for business. If nobody is spending, there business shuts down. Things that use hp stimulate spending, especially among the top competitors.
Including covers, hp, etc in progression rather than rank makes no sense at all. Pvp is player versus player. If youre not rewarded for rank, whats the point? Pvp an hour a day for progression should be very reasonable. Start ASAP, climb as high as you can, float for a day. Climb from higher start point as high as possible, shield. Do a hop or two, come back later. Hop a few times before event end and you're at 1k or 1.3k. It's doable in less than an hour a day. Just need to spend some hp.

To respond to some other points. Ducky is 100% right. If # locked in score, progression points would necessarily skyrocket so that only top players would get top prizes. Dude mon, if they increased points for unshielded targets, then when you broke shield EVERYBODY would be gunning for you. Progress would be harder, not easier. As far as combining the playerbase BACK into a single shard like it was in the days of the dinosaurs, thats not really fair to a lot of people. What if pvp ends at 4am your time? Or 2pm while you're at work? Willing to give up all your play time at the end if that's the case? That's the reason time slots were created in the first place.
Lastly, to xeonics post. First of all, s1-3 are not where cc were created. I mainly say that bc of s2. Players in s2 are defiantly proud of the fact that their shard is gluten-free. Cc have been around a long time, but mostly used as a gag for a time, if i understand correctly. The proliferation of cc (or the creation of the cc industrial complex) seems to be tied to the time that 5* were introduced to the game, coincidence or no. This may be the result of players attempting to Rebalance a very unbalanced power structure or at least a reaction to it.

The biggest issue for players hitting 1k or 1.3k is likely the 4* transition. Used to be you could beat 4* teams with 3* teams. But since champions were introduced and the boosts on the 3* tier were nerfed across the board, this has become next to impossible, exacerbated further by 4* boosts becoming more potent than they were prior (this happened some time around March, if i recall - 4* ultraboosts). I would think it's still possible to get there, youve just got a bigger hill to climb. Clearance levels seem to promise to address this issue, we shall see. There are still strategies on this forum for getting to scores with just in game play, no Line required.

8punch

i think so many can come up with a better PVP system then this.

1. remove shield system al together.
2. only count the winnings. when someone lose it wont be redacted from their score.
3. points. win is 1 point. no more difference in score levels. like 1 playeris worth 70 points. 1 is worth 40 points etc.
keep it simple.

to be honest i never experienced a game were there are so many gameplay mechanics that are so anti gamer as this game.

how people have kept up playing this for more then 1000 days is beyond me. and yet i come back playing it too. so i am just as guilty.

maybe addiction?

SnowcaTT

Welcome Death wrote:

The biggest issue for players hitting 1k or 1.3k is likely the 4* transition. Used to be you could beat 4* teams with 3* teams. But since champions were introduced and the boosts on the 3* tier were nerfed across the board, this has become next to impossible, exacerbated further by 4* boosts becoming more potent than they were prior (this happened some time around March, if i recall - 4* ultraboosts). I would think it's still possible to get there, youve just got a bigger hill to climb. Clearance levels seem to promise to address this issue, we shall see. There are still strategies on this forum for getting to scores with just in game play, no Line required.

Good thoughts WD! I have passed the 4* transition so I could be wrong - but I think the problem is the 5* transition.

The 4* transition is possible. CP comes to everyone eventually, and LT's give out 4*'s. It used to be really hard to get 4*'s, now they come around in many more ways. The pool of them is -huge- so it's hard to max cover any given one - but once you get a couple, you can compete.

But just how 3*'s used to be able to beat 4*'s...4*'s have never been able to beat 5*'s. Maxed/champed 4*'s could get some wins in - but those 5*'s will be retaling immediately. And there is -no way- to guarantee yourself 5*'s to compete and advance!

Anything (ie: shield problems and/or eliminating cupcakes) preventing folks from getting more CP just further slows them down to any possible transition. But another problem I've seen is folks getting lucky and just bypassing the 4* transition with 5*'s - this isn't good for the health of the game or the morale of anyone who doesn't get that lucky! [RNG-only progression: still worse than any other problem in this game]

simonsez

Welcome Death wrote:

The biggest issue for players hitting 1k or 1.3k is likely the 4* transition. Used to be you could beat 4* teams with 3* teams. But since champions were introduced and the boosts on the 3* tier were nerfed across the board, this has become next to impossible, exacerbated further by 4* boosts becoming more potent than they were prior (this happened some time around March, if i recall - 4* ultraboosts). I would think it's still possible to get there, youve just got a bigger hill to climb. Clearance levels seem to promise to address this issue, we shall see.

I don't see how. We were told clearance levels aren't going to affect matchmaking at all, so scoring should be unchanged. The difference is going to be the scores needed for placement awards in the different tiers.

SnowcaTT

simonsez wrote:

Welcome Death wrote:

The biggest issue for players hitting 1k or 1.3k is likely the 4* transition. Used to be you could beat 4* teams with 3* teams. But since champions were introduced and the boosts on the 3* tier were nerfed across the board, this has become next to impossible, exacerbated further by 4* boosts becoming more potent than they were prior (this happened some time around March, if i recall - 4* ultraboosts). I would think it's still possible to get there, youve just got a bigger hill to climb. Clearance levels seem to promise to address this issue, we shall see.

I don't see how. We were told clearance levels aren't going to affect matchmaking at all, so scoring should be unchanged. The difference is going to be the scores needed for placement awards in the different tiers.

I could see it being a problem if matchmaking is still only in your own slice. If all you can see is unshielded folks in your slice - and suddenly that slice is sliced up another 10-ways.....queue repeats might be worse than ever.

I think this is why people here keep calling for SIM-type PVP (everyone in one slice), to try to help out those horrible Q-repeats. But the counter-argument is that folks like to compete for the top placement. A counter-counter argument I'd throw out is many try for that top placement by gaming the system - joining late, using the PVP's like LR's, and that leads to complaints here - strong rosters simply run over the weaker ones that started earlier.

Lots of ways to fix that though. Force folks into joining early - if you don't join before event starts you don't get to start. Folks won't be able to try to bracket snipe...but great rosters can still run late to stomp the weak rosters that racked up points earlier. I suggested long ago point count-downs; Q's that folks find lose a point off of their value (to anyone finding them) every hour, so if you run early your points still "matter".

However, any "solution" like this means less shields. The devs (obviously) want folks to spend money, and this is (probably) one way they look at to get that money spent - make shields necessary, perhaps many shields, perhaps more than you can do as a FTP player. Should placement be primarily pay-to-win? I don't have a problem with that. Should -progression- be pay-to-get? THAT I'd have a problem with, as should everyone. Speed up progression with payment, fine - but don't require payment for that progression (which can primarily only be had with CP currently....)

GrumpySmurf1002

SnowcaTT wrote:

I could see it being a problem if matchmaking is still only in your own slice. If all you can see is unshielded folks in your slice - and suddenly that slice is sliced up another 10-ways.....queue repeats might be worse than ever.

But they already said that's not how it works. There's no additional slicing, it's still you can queue anyone in your time slice, their clearance only matters for how they're bracketed. So progression should be unaffected, but placement is going to become a war.

kobu

Welcome Death wrote:

kobu wrote:

I can understand objections to not needing to be glued to the game all day. It's a preference thing. I don't know how many players actually like a large amount of required playtime versus how many would jump in if there were less time commitment. I'd think more players would be engaged if it only took an hour or so to knock out PvP each day, but that's speculation based on my experience in other games. If I could do Deadpool, Story, Versus, plus a few nodes of a play-at-your-pace board in a few hours each day, I'd be a really happy camper. Heck, maybe there could be a "choose your rounds" option so those wanting to play 50 matches a day could do so and get some bigger rewards.

No need to assume less ISO. You're thinking less matches == less ISO, but there's no reason to not adjust ISO rewards to the new structure. And there would be no need to remove Lightning rounds for those who want to do more and want to pick up some extra ISO, just adjust them a bit to match the new structure.

Board layout would even out for all players over time. Everyone has lucky and unlucky boards, and they aren't going to play a huge factor over, let's say, 50 matches in an event. It's the same thing other PvP games have--sometimes you just have bad map or boost placement. It's already a factor in the game anyway. Some system of measuring play skill would need to be in effect to get away from either a timed system or rewarding those who simply grind the most or pay to win via shields, health packs, and boosts. If you have another proposal that achieves "play when you want", I'm all ears.

On top of that, placement rewards could be shifted in part to progress rewards. Give extra ISO, HP, etc. so hitting T10 is more of an extra cool thing to do and gives bragging rights rather than something to stress out about. Win matches at your pace, get the sweet covers, and get some nice bonuses if you did well relative to everyone else, and of course add those points to your alliance's score.

Thanks for the response. I'd really like to propose a solid system that feels a lot more like the PvP games I've really enjoyed, and every bit of constructive criticism helps.

A few things. First of all, if you think theyre going to cut playtime and give out more iso, youre dreaming. They're a business and their interest is in driving more playtime, not less. Same thing with not using health packs, boosts and shields. Good for you, for a while, bad for business. If nobody is spending, there business shuts down. Things that use hp stimulate spending, especially among the top competitors.
Including covers, hp, etc in progression rather than rank makes no sense at all. Pvp is player versus player. If youre not rewarded for rank, whats the point? Pvp an hour a day for progression should be very reasonable. Start ASAP, climb as high as you can, float for a day. Climb from higher start point as high as possible, shield. Do a hop or two, come back later. Hop a few times before event end and you're at 1k or 1.3k. It's doable in less than an hour a day. Just need to spend some hp.

The spending for shields and health packs for those few at the top of the PvP game has got to be marginal given the overall picture. Any system people enjoy can be monetized, and one that attracts and keeps more players overall is going to be a winner on volume. Even if it just drives more incentive for roster slots and token purchases, it's going to be a win.

I gave an example above about wagering on your round's outcome, say spend 100 HP to double ISO rewards for that round. For some people it might be worth an occasional purchase to keep the ISO flowing each round. Others might keep it free to play and only drop the 100 on the last round, or not at all if their HP is more valuable to them elsewhere.

Another example would be allowing players to go another round if they missed progression. I envision progression moving forward on wins, with wins in higher brackets counting for more points. If you bottomed out on your bracket or just didn't accumulate enough being in lower brackets and want another chance, pay 100 HP and get another try at the round, or drop down to randomized opponents from the next lower bracket for progression points only. Let players do this until they are content with their progression rewards.

I'm sure there are probably better ideas even. Let's not get stuck on the idea that there even has to be a shield system and justify it by assuming that's the only way they're going to stay in business. Build a great system, think of a way people might want to accelerate their progress, and the money will flow.

To reiterate the point of it--most people would play for the progression prizes. A whole lot more people would play in fact if the rewards are feasible to more than the few taking advantage of the all the unintended system quirks. Doing well each round would move towards progression and placement ranking. Beat up the other players' teams to progress, and if you do better than the rest, get extra ISO, CP, HP and maybe a few tokens. It's pretty straightforward I think, and the same basic outline most PvP games follow. Want your PvP gear? Then keep fighting. It's not reserved for the top 1%. Those guys get there faster in some games by gaining PvP currency, in some they get extra loot, and in some it's only for bragging rights. Bottom line though is, players across the board should be able to participate and feel rewarded for their efforts.

Bowgentle

The problem with PVP is that people with weak rosters feel entitled to compete with the big dogs for top rewards.
Hopefully shield clearance levels will help with that misconception.

Astralgazer

Ah, the big dogs. The ones who turned Player versus Player into Player Cupcaking Player? Who turned competitive match into coordinative match? Big Dog indeed.

Bowgentle

Astralgazer wrote:

Ah, the big dogs. The ones who turned Player versus Player into Player Cupcaking Player? Who turned competitive match into coordinative match? Big Dog indeed.

No, the ones running 5* rosters who can go to 1300 at will, without cakes.

chaos01

With a full 40 three star champion team and 2 champion 4 stars I feel like I should be able to get over 800 in a PVP. But even running my best teams I can usually only queue up 400+ 5 star teams after 700.

Have shielded players would increase targets. But I'd also be worried about hitting known players just in case they had just broken and then I would get sniped into oblivion by someone using line.

Fightmastermpq

Shields are not the problem with PvP. Shields are a revenue generating solution to much deeper problems the would result without them based on the current mechanics:

- The AI fights your defensive battles for you: You get to set your defensive team, but the AI plays the team for you. And the AI is dumb. We all know it because when we find the same team that we are using in PvP worth decent points we attack it almost instantly every time - it's almost a sure win. Consequently PvP is an offense focused game mode, because we are going to lose the vast majority of defensive fights.
- Multiple Attackers: You can get hit by multiple people at the same time on defense, often coming out of a battle to learn that you lost more points than you gained.
- Scoring: Once you pass 800 pts (I think, maybe 1k?) every point your opponent gains in fighting you is lost from your score. This makes battles over 800 pts point neutral to the slice.

Without shields these three mechanics create a system where scoring much higher than 800 points results in really just spinning your wheels because you can't pick a team that can't be beaten on defense, you can't protect your score, and you can't win points faster than you lose them. You can only queue targets worth ~38 pts, but people are queuing you for 50-60. So your only hope in scoring much higher than 800 is to be able to play at a time where other players are not active, so that you can get multiple offensive victories without any defensive losses.

Shields fix this in a number of ways by allowing players to protect their scores, to build up high value targets while they are shielded and then beat them as quickly as possible before shielding again, and most importantly it allows players to add points to the slice by preserving points while shielded when they would otherwise be lost.

kobu wrote:

putting up weak targets to artificially inflate teammates' scores

While this happens, it's really NOT the primary purpose of cupcakes, nor why they evolved. I talked about it here, but the TL;DR is that cupcakes are a product of the necessity for speed.