Could we target shielded players now that cupcakes are gone?

firethorne

After seeing some threads complaining about the dearth of available targets as you climb the PvP ladder, something started rattling around my brain...

Now that cupcakes are gone, is there any rationale for not allowing us to target shielded players? Sure, in the past, someone could climb, pop in a couple 1*s shield, and let the entire bracket hit progression. But, now that the loophole is closed, is there any reason to not allow us to queue up shielded players?

They wouldn't lose points if they lost. They would gain points if the attacker lost. It would keep people from skipping twice only to be presented with the same opponents again and again. It would help with people unshielding to make a jump from instantly being hit by dozens for lack of any other targets, and causing them to drop on the ladder despite a win on their attack. It seems like it would help with a number of things, without presenting any significant downside. Am I overlooking something? Could this help the game?

tanis3303

This is how it was when shields were first introduced, and people just climbed the whole event. With 5*s running rampant, you'd see scores of 10,000+ per event. Please no...

mpqr7

Someone had a suggestion that you can hit each shielded player just once, and then they disappear for you from mmr. I think that would be fair.

Polares

mpqr7 wrote:

Someone had a suggestion that you can hit each shielded player just once, and then they disappear for you from mmr. I think that would be fair.

The problem is that with alliances and LINE, etc. those things are really easy to exploit. Even with just one fight, you can theoretically queue half your alliance and hit them while they are safe under a shield for a **** of points.

firethorne

Polares wrote:

mpqr7 wrote:

Someone had a suggestion that you can hit each shielded player just once, and then they disappear for you from mmr. I think that would be fair.

The problem is that with alliances and LINE, etc. those things are really easy to exploit. Even with just one fight, you can theoretically queue half your alliance and hit them while they are safe under a shield for a tinykitty of points.

And I think that's maybe what I'm not fully understanding. Now that these should be "real" fights instead of simple cupcake matches, why is it a problem? How does that count as an exploit if anyone can see the same targets you see using line or not. If you win a fight, you get points. Wether or not you targeted an alliance mate or not seems irrelevant. Not trying to be argumentative, just trying to understand. Feel free to explain further.

GurlBYE

tanis3303 wrote:

This is how it was when shields were first introduced, and people just climbed the whole event. With 5*s running rampant, you'd see scores of 10,000+ per event. Please no...

Think about how many players could reach progression though?

It's not a horrible idea.

It'd also make it so 900+ isn't a 3 person circle jerk slog.

It'd make placement harder but only like the upper echelon of 5 star players even place high anyway. Nothing would change about that.
But progression would actually award playing.

Imagine a game where you were rewarded for playing more.

Quebbster

GurlBYE wrote:

tanis3303 wrote:

This is how it was when shields were first introduced, and people just climbed the whole event. With 5*s running rampant, you'd see scores of 10,000+ per event. Please no...

Think about how many players could reach progression though?

It's not a horrible idea.

It'd also make it so 900+ isn't a 3 person circle jerk slog.

It'd make placement harder but only like the upper echelon of 5 star players even place high anyway. Nothing would change about that.
But progression would actually award playing.

Imagine a game where you were rewarded for playing more.

I think the devs might disagree about more players reaching progression not being a horrible thing. Too many players reaching progression killed the cupcakes.

cyineedsn

I like the idea of easier progression for everyone too, but this suggestion seems to assume that they would make this change, and nothing else. Allowing hits on shielded players would raise overall scoring alot. Like, alot alot alot. Whatever you are thinking the scores will raise by, probably double that and that's what will happen.

What I'm saying is, scores will raise by so much that they will raise the bars to progression by a commensurately large amount, and instead of worrying about spending HP on shields and spending hours looking for targets, we'll be spending just as much time grinding endlessly and spending HP on health packs.

Phumade

Lol how is that any different than putting out a CC team. Its just a different scoring mechanic.

As I read more and more of these posts. We should stop calling people bakers. Rather, the correct term is

People who understand how the game works

and

People who know how the game works.

Group 1 is composed of people who understand the implications of rule changes and take advantage of those implications.

Group 2 is composed of people who know the black letter law but not necessarily the reasons and justifications behind those rules.


The impact is that group 1 players can change tactics and mechanics to accomplish their goals (score gajillion pts, help team mates etc....)

Group 2 players have a hard time changing tactics because they don't really understand how a stated rule impacts their personal objective.

nigelregal

Cupcakes were taken out because as far as i'm aware the scoreboards had insanely high scores if you looked at the top 10. Assuming you are in CL7 its likely that is still the case but the difference is the top 20 or so has a very large divide where as before it was gradual. In the past top 20 might start from 1300 points and go up to 4000 points. Now it might start at 800 points and go up to 3000 points.

People who are best at gaming the system with champion 5* rosters are still using cupcakes to feed themselves and for most part not many others. Why you will see points still that high but just less of them since a 4* roster would not have an easy time getting very high.

I understand your logic from your post of if everyone has way more people to see even if shielded it makes the game more fun and more people can get points to climb to progression. The problems that people will mention is that the same 5* people who use cupcakes to climb easily can now use way more of them so the point divide would become really high. A top 20 bracket might be like 1200 points to 6000.

keep in mind the 5* rosters are doing a lot of shield hopping just like before to get the high points so they are paying HP to do that. There is just less risk for them than a 4* player since it takes less time to beat the new cupcakes.

I am in support of something like what you are saying because last event I skipped 20 times through nodes and every match it had was 4-6 points and not easy to beat either. My roster is not strong enough to see the 5* people who have really high points so I have to wait for them to bake cupcakes then I can see that for 50-75 points and now I have something to play. I would much prefer to play a 4* roster equal to mine for 30 points even just to be able to play the game. I am going to try out a different method in Fresh Cut of starting later and just not using shields until maybe closer to end to see if I can see more points. At least then I can have some fun and maybe hit progression without spending almost entire PVP hitting champion 5* team CC's and using Whales TU's

amusingfoo1

One problem OP is probably not considering is that, currently, when you unshield (autocorrect tried to turn that into unsoiled. ROFL), people need to queue you before they can attack you. That gives you a little bit of grace period to do your hop (though, judging from the comments I'm hearing copiously in battle chats, not nearly enough). If people are able to queue you continuously, you have no grace period at all. You're as likely to be hit in your first match as in your third (and, just to be clear, it seems that a lot of 3* and 4* players are finding now that they can't even do three, as is).

So count me as a no vote on this one (as if there would be a vote .

MarkersMake

How about a partial shielding mechanic?

Anything from an 80% effective shield (hits take off 80% fewer points, and you are worth 20% of what you would normally be worth)? As long as mmr is based on your unshielded point value, it should open up a lot more targets, rather than hitting the same 3 or 4 when everyone else is shielded.

Other possibilities include shields that fade gradually over time, shields that affect points lost and points gained in different ratios, or combinations of the above.

Just spitballing, so feel free to point out obvious problems with any of the above.

firethorne

nigelregal wrote:

I understand your logic from your post of if everyone has way more people to see even if shielded it makes the game more fun and more people can get points to climb to progression.

Yes, that is the intent.

The problems that people will mention is that the same 5* people who use cupcakes to climb easily can now use way more of them so the point divide would become really high. A top 20 bracket might be like 1200 points to 6000.

Fair point. Perhaps that is where I wasn't putting enough consideration on the scores for the top 50 competing type players. Having nowhere near a complete 4* roster and a zero fully covered 5*s, placement and scoring beyond progression rewards are completely irrelevant and have become some academic minutia that has no impact on my game (aside from knowing higher overall scores mean progression rewards are attainable). From the perspective of all but a select few, whether the top score is 2000 or 6000 doesn't matter a bit. Most aren't going to hit either.

I admit, I was more focused on the 450 players out of the 500 who have had years to learn they will never catch up to the people already getting top ten placement, and finding reasons why the lower teir transitioning players should even bother playing above the 575 cp reward in the new PvP landscape.

JVReal

MarkersMake wrote:

How about a partial shielding mechanic?

Anything from an 80% effective shield (hits take off 80% fewer points, and you are worth 20% of what you would normally be worth)? As long as mmr is based on your unshielded point value, it should open up a lot more targets, rather than hitting the same 3 or 4 when everyone else is shielded.

Other possibilities include shields that fade gradually over time, shields that affect points lost and points gained in different ratios, or combinations of the above.

Just spitballing, so feel free to point out obvious problems with any of the above.

I like this idea! Shielded players can be visible for queuing but not lose points, when they break the shield, the protection can taper off over time... maybe start at 80% protection once shield breaks and then tapers off every 5 mins in increments of 10%?

Break shield - 80% points shielded
5 mins - 70% points shielded
10 mins - 60% points shielded
15 mins - 50% points shielded
etc.

Will give you longer for your hops, and since you still don't want to bleed points, even reduced bleeding, you'll still have people doing multiple hops, just making bigger strides between.

There can be the little shield symbol by the name of the opponent if they are shielded like it shows on the leaderboard. And where it normally shows your timer when you are shielded, it can instead show your % of shield left after breaking.