PvP: Points lost while being attacked

Polares

After a couple of PvPs with the new system I think it is time to review some of the 'new features' of PvP. I think there has been quite some threads talking about the new defence mechanism ( and the lack of information about how it works ), but what I have not seen is anything regarding the quantity of points we lose every time we are attacked. Thing is, I really don't see any big difference (or even small). It seems that when attacked by people close to you, you might lose less points, but I can't really say if it is really like that.

The problem is that this small change has not fixed the biggest problem, and why everybody gets so frustrated in PvP in the first place. I don't think the problem is the attacks from people close to you, the ones that matter and are much worse are when you are shield hoping, and you are attacked by someone who is still climbing, very far away from your score, and then you lose 75 points! , so probably losing much more than what you won in the first place (those that the retaliation gives you 1 point, how the **** can be a retaliation just for 1 point ?!?!?!? this is super unfair).

This is what it should have been fixed, and this is still happening.

These two rules should be implemented:
- Nobody should lose more than 50 points EVER, it doesn't matter the point difference between those two people, 50 should be the max, not 75. And 50 should be the max with 1200 points of difference between the two players.
- Nobody should be attacked during his first fight out of the shield, for at least 15min. Until the second fight starts or 15 min pass nobody should lose any points.

It would also be nice if retaliation were always worth something, but I guess this would be very easy to exploit....

These two rules would make PvP much better.

In my opinion, changes implemented by Devs are worth nothing, they don't help at all.

Edit: Added max time to be attacked in your first fight to 15min so it can't be used as final shield.

Cylaali

There's been no difference I've noticed when it comes to points lost per match. Still the same. And what's worse is if you get above a certain point threshold (roughly 900 is what I've seen through 2 events), if you don't have a maxed 5*, you'll get knocked down quick, even with boosted champed 4*'s.

GrumpySmurf1002

Thing is, I really don't see any big difference (or even small).

I should just post my own thread on this somewhere at this point.

The difference is simply in at what point they start charging you full points. Used to be 800, then 1000, now it's 1100. So if you're at 1050 and get hit for 50, you lose 50*1050/1100 = 47.7 = 48 instead. So yeah, the difference is small. 2 points is not noticeable, and once you're above 1100, 75 is 75.

These two rules should be implemented:
- Nobody should lose more than 50 points EVER, it doesn't matter the point difference between those two people, 50 should be the max, not 75. And 50 should be the max with 1200 points of difference between the two players.
- Nobody should be attacked during his first fight out of the shield, even if that person needs 30 min to complete the first fight. Until the second fight starts nobody should lose any points.

- The ELO calculator isn't flexible, the 1200 point difference can never be. It tops out at a difference of 870+. So they'd have to come up with a completely different scoring system, recode all of PvP, etc... Don't hold your breath. They can go back to a K value of 50, but with that comes 25 point break even matches again, so slower progress in a situation where people are already desperate for points.

-The other is a really good idea IMO. Shield breaking at match completion would mean everyone can progress through shield hopping, even if it's only one match a time.

Polares

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

Thing is, I really don't see any big difference (or even small).

I should just post my own thread on this somewhere at this point.

The difference is simply in at what point they start charging you full points. Used to be 800, then 1000, now it's 1100. So if you're at 1050 and get hit for 50, you lose 50*1050/1100 = 47.7 = 48 instead. So yeah, the difference is small. 2 points is not noticeable, and once you're above 1100, 75 is 75.

If this is true this is NOTHING there is no difference there. Then basically Devs misled to us, making us believe there was going to be a bigger difference there.

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

These two rules should be implemented:
- Nobody should lose more than 50 points EVER, it doesn't matter the point difference between those two people, 50 should be the max, not 75. And 50 should be the max with 1200 points of difference between the two players.
- Nobody should be attacked during his first fight out of the shield, even if that person needs 30 min to complete the first fight. Until the second fight starts nobody should lose any points.

- The ELO calculator isn't flexible, the 1200 point difference can never be. It tops out at a difference of 870+. So they'd have to come up with a completely different scoring system, recode all of PvP, etc... Don't hold your breath. They can go back to a K value of 50, but with that comes 25 point break even matches again, so slower progress in a situation where people are already desperate for points.

-The other is a really good idea IMO. Shield breaking at match completion would mean everyone can progress through shield hopping, even if it's only one match a time.

They can do the calculation over 75 and then scale it to 50, that would be enough. But If it really needs to be changed, then change it. I think most of us agree this is a BIG problem in the current system, so If it can't be tweaked then change it.

It is not fun for anybody to be attacked for 75 points by someone that is climbing when you are hoping, and it doesn't add any type of competition. It is just blind luck. They guy climbing found you and then obliterated your hop, probably double or triple tapping you. You can't do anything about it. Not even retaliate. You are screwed. The only thing you can do is shield again and lose your hop. You can control people hoping close to you or on the top of the classification, but not the people climbing.

mpqr7

Yeah it would be nice to get a positive gain on points, even if you are getting attacked. It's a pain to be 30 points away from your progression goal and keep losing 50 points after each 40 point match, doing 5+ fights, but just never getting there.

simonsez

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

- The ELO calculator isn't flexible

But nothing is forcing them to deduct whatever points the ELO calculator spits out. They can program it however they want. They could make all defensive losses cost zero if they wanted to.

GrimSkald

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

Thing is, I really don't see any big difference (or even small).

I should just post my own thread on this somewhere at this point.

The difference is simply in at what point they start charging you full points. Used to be 800, then 1000, now it's 1100. So if you're at 1050 and get hit for 50, you lose 50*1050/1100 = 47.7 = 48 instead. So yeah, the difference is small. 2 points is not noticeable, and once you're above 1100, 75 is 75.

<snip>

Thanks for posting this. I know that's what the "like" button is for, but I wanted to add this - it's great to have a better understanding of how this works.

I honestly thought that's what they did, but couldn't say for sure. It felt like I was losing slightly less than before, generally between 10-20 points less.

mpqr7

Polares wrote:

It is not fun for anybody to be attacked for 75 points by someone that is climbing when you are hoping, and it doesn't add any type of competition. It is just blind luck. They guy climbing found you and then obliterated your hop, probably double or triple tapping you. You can't do anything about it. Not even retaliate. You are screwed. The only thing you can do is shield again and lose your hop. You can control people hoping close to you or on the top of the classification, but not the people climbing.

Yeah, I don't mind gaining 75 points on a sweet hop (or someone else gaining 75 points off me), but I see no reason why I should be punished to the loss of 75 points, especially when I haven't even hit top progression yet. Let the true competition begin AFTER people have hit top progression, because at that point, it truly is just a battle for placement.

I don't see why I should be punished for simply trying to hit progression (ie cp, ie the only prize that actually matters). If I get good placement, then great, but I'm really not that excited about winning some extra covers and tokens, compared to winning enough cp to try to get another oml yellow (around 1% draw rate lol).

Polares

mpqr7 wrote:

Polares wrote:

It is not fun for anybody to be attacked for 75 points by someone that is climbing when you are hoping, and it doesn't add any type of competition. It is just blind luck. They guy climbing found you and then obliterated your hop, probably double or triple tapping you. You can't do anything about it. Not even retaliate. You are screwed. The only thing you can do is shield again and lose your hop. You can control people hoping close to you or on the top of the classification, but not the people climbing.

Yeah, I don't mind gaining 75 points on a sweet hop (or someone else gaining 75 points off me), but I see no reason why I should be punished to the loss of 75 points, especially when I haven't even hit top progression yet. Let the true competition begin AFTER people have hit top progression, because at that point, it truly is just a battle for placement.

I don't see why I should be punished for simply trying to hit progression (ie cp, ie the only prize that actually matters). If I get good placement, then great, but I'm really not that excited about winning some extra covers and tokens, compared to winning enough cp to try to get another oml yellow (around 1% draw rate lol).

I have always thought that competition should be with the people around you, not the ones that are 800 points away from you. But this systems encourages just the opposite, and snipers, etc. :S This is no competition!

GrumpySmurf1002

aesthetocyst wrote:

The divisor has been increased, so the discount is present to higher scores. Grumpy thinks it's 1100, I think it's 1200, based on apparent (tiny) discounts on losses taken while over 1100, but the difference is so small (1-2pts), the particular implementation of ELO in this game could be having a greater impact. Until the devs come out and say what the change was (Remember when they used to do that?), the world may never know.

1200 does make a helluva lot more sense, and I should've grabbed mine when I got hit at 11xx last night to check. I ran 5 or 6 through early on from myself and others and 1100 came spitting out. I'll start hedging the number when I have to put that in 7-8 more threads on the topic.

aesthetocyst wrote:

As for the idea of discounts pts lost in relation to pts won, of course that can be implemented. If they can arbitrarily multiply all pts awarded from defensive wins by 1/3rd, they can just as well multiply all debits due to defensive losses by 2/3rds. Or whatever. Figure the points according to ELO, then apply modifier, just as the existing defensive divisor / discount is applied. The existing discount has a cutoff (good thing, too, or defensive loss points would start inflating once your score exceeded the divisor!), so this idea of multiply all defensive losses arbitrarily is even simpler to implement.

simonsez wrote:

But nothing is forcing them to deduct whatever points the ELO calculator spits out. They can program it however they want. They could make all defensive losses cost zero if they wanted to.

You're right, forgot about the whole 'defensive win*1/3 thing.' 10 internet points for you both, -5 lost for me.

Dragon_Nexus

Polares wrote:

These two rules should be implemented:
- Nobody should lose more than 50 points EVER, it doesn't matter the point difference between those two people, 50 should be the max, not 75. And 50 should be the max with 1200 points of difference between the two players.

Not a bad idea but...I think there needs to be a time limit on that. I mean, if I'm away all day from PvP and I was in the top 10, no-one could pull me down from my position. It would be a free shield, basically.
I'm all in favour of a point loss limit, but there needs to be some kind of time limit with it. No more than 50 points every...20 minutes, maybe? Gives you the chance to make gains within those 20 minutes for progression but you can still lose 50 points every so often.

Polares wrote:

- Nobody should be attacked during his first fight out of the shield, even if that person needs 30 min to complete the first fight. Until the second fight starts nobody should lose any points.

Problem is you'd just hit someone for high points, shield, scan your queue for high points, hit them for high points, shield, scan your queue, hit someone for high points again and then shield and wait 8 hours and do it over again. You couldn't be hit and we'd be back to the days of shield hopping.

Polares

aesthetocyst wrote:

As for the idea of discounts pts lost in relation to pts won, of course that can be implemented. If they can arbitrarily multiply all pts awarded from defensive wins by 1/3rd, they can just as well multiply all debits due to defensive losses by 2/3rds. Or whatever. Figure the points according to ELO, then apply modifier, just as the existing defensive divisor / discount is applied. The existing discount has a cutoff (good thing, too, or defensive loss points would start inflating once your score exceeded the divisor!), so this idea of multiply all defensive losses arbitrarily is even simpler to implement.

The thing is, it would of course contribute to higher scores rising even higher, and the devs are convinced that "excessive" scores by the few kill morale of the many, and or create the impression that cheating is afoot.

I say so what. Taking the sting out would make PVP less scary, and THAT would improve morale.

Yes, they can and they should. This is what I thought they were doing when they said attack lost points were being reduced. The final implementation is almost as not doing anything at all.

And as you said, after removing cupcakes, it would improve morale A LOT.

Splitting CPs in two different progressions and reducing max progression to 1200? Cool !
Changing the starting score position from 1000 to 1100? CLEARLY NOT ENOUGH!

Polares

Dragon_Nexus wrote:

Polares wrote:

- Nobody should be attacked during his first fight out of the shield, even if that person needs 30 min to complete the first fight. Until the second fight starts nobody should lose any points.

Problem is you'd just hit someone for high points, shield, scan your queue for high points, hit them for high points, shield, scan your queue, hit someone for high points again and then shield and wait 8 hours and do it over again. You couldn't be hit and we'd be back to the days of shield hopping.

Thing is, the number of shields you can use is limited, they all have cool downs. So you can do one attack, shield for 3h, attack, shield for 8, attack, shield for 3, attack, etc, etc. so basically to do 5 'free' attacks you need 22 hours.

And most of the time it is already like that, you usually don't get attacks on your first match.

JVReal

Dragon_Nexus wrote:

Polares wrote:

- Nobody should be attacked during his first fight out of the shield, even if that person needs 30 min to complete the first fight. Until the second fight starts nobody should lose any points.

Problem is you'd just hit someone for high points, shield, scan your queue for high points, hit them for high points, shield, scan your queue, hit someone for high points again and then shield and wait 8 hours and do it over again. You couldn't be hit and we'd be back to the days of shield hopping.

That would be a free shield to the end. Climb high, buy a 3 hour shield, find a fight, break shield... then just stay on that fight until the end of the PVP and you've shielded to the end using only 75 HP... even if that end is 36 hours away.

How to not allow people to get hit by 5 people when you can only battle 1 person at a time... that's a tough nut to crack.

Polares

JVReal wrote:

Dragon_Nexus wrote:

Polares wrote:

- Nobody should be attacked during his first fight out of the shield, even if that person needs 30 min to complete the first fight. Until the second fight starts nobody should lose any points.

Problem is you'd just hit someone for high points, shield, scan your queue for high points, hit them for high points, shield, scan your queue, hit someone for high points again and then shield and wait 8 hours and do it over again. You couldn't be hit and we'd be back to the days of shield hopping.

That would be a free shield to the end. Climb high, buy a 3 hour shield, find a fight, break shield... then just stay on that fight until the end of the PVP and you've shielded to the end using only 75 HP... even if that end is 36 hours away.

How to not allow people to get hit by 5 people when you can only battle 1 person at a time... that's a tough nut to crack.

Well, if you manage to run the application on the phone, without the phone closing it.... I guess in Steam it would be easier. Let's just add a 15 minute cap. If you have not finished your first fight in 15 min then you can be attacked.

Always trying to find cracks in the system

Kolence

aesthetocyst wrote:

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

- The ELO calculator isn't flexible, the 1200 point difference can never be. It tops out at a difference of 870+. So they'd have to come up with a completely different scoring system, recode all of PvP, etc... Don't hold your breath. They can go back to a K value of 50, but with that comes 25 point break even matches again, so slower progress in a situation where people are already desperate for points.

The K-value influences the cut off in spread between the points. Increasing the K-value increases the "actionable" spread. Buuuuuuut, increasing it from 870ish to 1200 would require going from a K of 75 to a K of 500. Players would not enjoy that.

As for the idea of discounts pts lost in relation to pts won, of course that can be implemented. If they can arbitrarily multiply all pts awarded from defensive wins by 1/3rd, they can just as well multiply all debits due to defensive losses by 2/3rds. Or whatever. Figure the points according to ELO, then apply modifier, just as the existing defensive divisor / discount is applied. The existing discount has a cutoff (good thing, too, or defensive loss points would start inflating once your score exceeded the divisor!), so this idea of multiply all defensive losses arbitrarily is even simpler to implement.

The thing is, it would of course contribute to higher scores rising even higher, and the devs are convinced that "excessive" scores by the few kill morale of the many, and or create the impression that cheating is afoot.

I say so what. Taking the sting out would make PVP less scary, and THAT would improve morale.

You know what else would help? Stop making the notices so damn wannabe scary. "YOU"VE BEEN ATTACKED!!!! SHIELD YOURSELF!!!!" has always been a bit much. It needs to go. It sucks enough to lose points. I know you want to sell shields, but why try to make PVP into a bootcamp-like experience?

About the underlined part... Couldn't that be sovled by further tweaking the points gained/lost at higher scores? Say you can win 75 pts at most (and lose what, 2/3 of that? so 50) up to 1300 for instance, then up to 1400 you can win 60 pts (lose 40), 1500 - 45 (30), and so on. Maybe make it drop even steeper? So it would at least "appear" that the top scores are not as far away...

Evil_Dude

Good topic and some good ideas. I'd also like add to the comments about defensive wins. One, they are rare, because the AI is dumb. I might get 1 or on a rare occasion 2 defensive wins per event...wait for it...for a total of 3 points. My opinion is if you get a defensive win, you should the same points (or a decent fraction ) of what the attacker would have gained. Gaining 1 point on a rare defensive win is a joke. At the very least, we should get 10 points for a defensive win.

Evil_Dude

My point is really another aspect of a prior point. You can be targeted from someone far below your current ranking. The attacker has everything to gain, nothing to lose. The team on defense can only lose, and lose big. If people were abusing the system by intentionally losing I get why the change was made. The system needs some rework.

Maybe adding a minimum for both sides would mitigate the cheating. You lose, you lose at least 10, and the defender gains at least 10.

OneLastGambit

Evil Dude wrote:

Good topic and some good ideas. I'd also like add to the comments about defensive wins. One, they are rare, because the AI is dumb. I might get 1 or on a rare occasion 2 defensive wins per event...wait for it...for a total of 3 points. My opinion is if you get a defensive win, you should the same points (or a decent fraction ) of what the attacker would have gained. Gaining 1 point on a rare defensive win is a joke. At the very least, we should get 10 points for a defensive win.

I made the same suggestion to my alliance today only for one of my vets to point out that you "game" that system by having your alliance chums attack you and retreat giving you the easiest points ever made. Sadly that's no solution.


I think capping defensive defeats is the way to go, I'd even propose a smaller cap than suggested. Considering you can (and do) get hit far more than once during a hop (though recently this has drastically reduced for me but let's pretend everyone has a different experience than me) even reducing a defensive defeat to a 30 point cap would result in a 90 point loss for 3 defeats (this seems about the average ) huh that actually sounds reasonable.

So what was...
3 defeats at 75 points = 225 points lost on a hop where you probably gain 75 for a sweet -150 points

Becomes...
3 defeats at 30 points = 90 points lost on a hop where you gain 75 for only a -15 points.

Can anyone tell me thats not reasonable?

stewbacca

Besides the norm of developing a system to keep placement and cumulative totals separate.

I wish they could fix the system so that you can only be attacked by a person once (or at least so that you can only take the negative hit from them once (despite multiple attacks).

I was attacked last night by the same person 8 x an hour, that is ridiculous. Maybe it was because you could say it was retaliation for hitting him 4×. But here's the thing, he was the only one showing up in my queue. Id skip him and he'd pop right back in, and he was the only one worth more than 15 pts. So what else am I supposed to do. I'm not attacking him on purpose but he may think I am.

How about we just get rid of negatives entirely... and it's just top score get the placement. They can tweak it by beating higher powered enemies are worth more, or if you beat someone in retaliation it's bonus pts. Or even give bonus pts for number of wins or something.

I think any of these things would help a little bit.

Evil_Dude

It would be nice if there was a limit to how many people can queue a person. I'm guessing there would be programming difficulties, and I can already see how that could also be exploited, but an Evil Dude can dream. During these last few events each time after breaking shield, I did 2 quick matches and reshielded. Immediately 6+ hits bounced off shield with a few stragglers afterward. Climbing to the first shield only results in a few hits. But breaking shield seems to put a big target on you, because there is a dearth of people available to hit at higher levels So everyone sees a big target pop up and whales away.