What if we had a new kind of shield in PvP?

wirius

So I've been thinking about a "problem" in PvP that's existed for a while now. Progression rewards are competitive, unlike in PvE. What if there was a shield that cost an appropriate amount of HP that eliminated your player from the rankings, like a sandboxed character, but prohibited you from losing progression points if attacked? And to clarify for others like the respondent below, yes, that would eliminate all ranking rewards as well.

What are some upsides and downsides you guys can see to this?

Quebbster

Would that mean that you gave up all placement rewards in order to focus on progression rewards only?

DFiPL

Quebbster wrote:

Would that mean that you gave up all placement rewards in order to focus on progression rewards only?

I would make that trade cheerfully. 25 CP and a 4* cover would do my roster more good than any number of 3* covers and elite tokens.

I mean, the shield in question would have to meet two criteria for me:

1) protects my points, but doesn't remove my points from the pool. I'm fine with not placing, but if players using that shield just aren't queueable at all, I could see slices drying out.

2) be reasonably priced. I mean, I know that metric is going to vary, and of course I realize that it would have to be above and beyond what you earn from progression rewards to make it worth it to Demi/D3, but if you aren't placing and earning HP from that, that should be taken into account when pricing this putative protection.

wirius

DFiPL wrote:

I would make that trade cheerfully. 25 CP and a 4* cover would do my roster more good than any number of 3* covers and elite tokens.

I mean, the shield in question would have to meet two criteria for me:

1) protects my points, but doesn't remove my points from the pool. I'm fine with not placing, but if players using that shield just aren't queueable at all, I could see slices drying out.

2) be reasonably priced. I mean, I know that metric is going to vary, and of course I realize that it would have to be above and beyond what you earn from progression rewards to make it worth it to Demi/D3, but if you aren't placing and earning HP from that, that should be taken into account when pricing this putative protection.

For point 1, there are a few things they could do. They could leave the players in to be attacked. Of course then that might create a new "cupcake" issue. One way is to allow those players to be attacked, but put a limit on the number of points they're worth based on their roster. So for example, if you had an all 2* roster, the most points you would show to an attacker would be 600. 2 maxed leveled 4*'s would be worth 1k at most.

Another is to remove them out of the point pool entirely. I don't think this would be good for the health of the game. Another is to cut their displayed points in half. So for example if you climb to 1200, you're only seen as 600 by attackers.

For point 2, I agree. I think they could actually get more people spending HP then they do now for shields. Only a few spend on shields, but I could see a LOT more players spending HP to just farm progression points.

GurlBYE

That's a lot of dancing around just making progression independent of placement.

They shouldn't be tied so intricately.

If they had to raise seasonal progression, so be it, as long as it's reflective of like half the season I'd prefer to actually advance my roster.

wirius

GurlBYE wrote:

That's a lot of dancing around just making progression independent of placement.

They shouldn't be tied so intricately.

If they had to raise seasonal progression, so be it, as long as it's reflective of like half the season I'd prefer to actually advance my roster.

I'm taking into consideration D3's bottom line as well. I understand they get so much money out of PvP, and simply separating the progression rewards would cut into that. The solution is an attempt to remedy this issue, and perhaps make them even more money.

mpqr7

Funny, I was going to write something similar about shields in PVP. I'll make a separate post, you'll see.

I too would prefer an easier route to progression in PVP, and I couldn't care less about placement. I'll never place high enough to win 4*s, and even if I did, I'd much rather win the 15 CP any day, because I already have 31 four-stars championed but no 5*s, so winning 5*s is truly all that matters to me.

This last PVP, after doing 8/3/8/24 shielding, I made it from 1083 to around 1235 points!!! But unfortunately also lost around 200 points from three attacks, so I ended up at 1033, ie worse than if I'd just skipped that final hop. I know, I know... "how dare you attempt a TWO battle hop near the end of the PVP... you were asking for it!!!"

Anyway I would have rather made it to the 1200+ points and not won any placement.

Dragon_Nexus

I think they should adopt the Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? approach. Bring in checkpoints. Once you get past certain score thresholds, you can't go below them.

You can have larger gaps early on until you get up higher, then maybe drop it to every 100 points your score is safe. This would make it a lot less frustrating to get progression rewards.

Crowl

A far simpler solution, have two scores, one for placement and one for progression and the latter would not get reduced by losses, they would just need to rebalance the scores needed for each progression reward to reflect the new situation.

Bowgentle

You want full progression just for showing up?
Great, Story Mode is waiting for you!

Ducky

The problem with this is that the devs have stated in the past that they only want a certain percentage getting the top progression rewards. So if you aren't getting them at the moment, you're probably not meant to, for better or worse.

GurlBYE

DuckyV wrote:

The problem with this is that the devs have stated in the past that they only want a certain percentage getting the top progression rewards. So if you aren't getting them at the moment, you're probably not meant to, for better or worse.

The rewards aren't even things the people at the top need. The top players are literally competing to compete.

Someone with every 4 star at 370 (including 2 iceman at 370) need the iceman at 900?

They say a whole bunch of things that don't make sense and them saying "4 stars aren't for everyone" 2 years ago shouldn't apply now. that doesn't work.

They need to adjust the rewards to be more indicative of players level or just nix them and make them all HP Cp and ISO.

Bowgentle wrote:

You want full progression just for showing up?
Great, Story Mode is waiting for you!

I still don't understand why posts like this get a green light.

Like there's no logic, it adds zero to the discussion and it's only made to try to fish for likes or to incite a negative response.

Ducky

GurlBYE wrote:

They say a whole bunch of things that don't make sense and them saying "4 stars aren't for everyone" 2 years ago shouldn't apply now. that doesn't work.

They have a philosophy where they only want a certain percentage of the player base getting these rewards as to not flood the economy with them. I'm not saying it's right, it's just how they have viewed top progression in PvP.

Obviously their philosophy in PvE is different as anyone who wants to, and has enough time, can hit max progression.

Until this fundamental viewpoint changes, nothing will change in regards to progression in PvP and thinking about it in relation to PvE is only going to add to the frustration because they are not seen in the same context by the devs.

wirius

DuckyV wrote:

GurlBYE wrote:

They say a whole bunch of things that don't make sense and them saying "4 stars aren't for everyone" 2 years ago shouldn't apply now. that doesn't work.

They have a philosophy where they only want a certain percentage of the player base getting these rewards as to not flood the economy with them. I'm not saying it's right, it's just how they have viewed top progression in PvP.

Obviously their philosophy in PvE is different as anyone who wants to, and has enough time, can hit max progression.

Until this fundamental viewpoint changes, nothing will change in regards to progression in PvP and thinking about it in relation to PvE is only going to add to the frustration because they are not seen in the same context by the devs.

That doesn't negate the point I'm making though. You still have to pay HP to do progression only. That's going to limit the percentage who get those covers. And if people are honestly paying every pvp? Why would they complain about money coming in? They can set the hp cost however they like to ensure the market of participation hits their expectations of income versus reward.

DaveR4470

The underlying reason why ideas like this are not implemented, and never will be, is simple: it just turns PvP into another PvE event.

There has to be some sort of distinguishing feature that separates PvP from PvE as a game mode, or else there's no reason to have PvP at all. The "losing points" thing is that difference. It's always going to be a part of PvP, unless they come up with some other distinguishing feature to have. And I just don't see that happening.

wirius

DaveR4470 wrote:

The underlying reason why ideas like this are not implemented, and never will be, is simple: it just turns PvP into another PvE event.

There has to be some sort of distinguishing feature that separates PvP from PvE as a game mode, or else there's no reason to have PvP at all. The "losing points" thing is that difference. It's always going to be a part of PvP, unless they come up with some other distinguishing feature to have. And I just don't see that happening.

Well Dave, this doesn't alter the underlying point of PvP, the place where you can directly compete. That's still be default. You HAVE to pay HP to get this shield. Essentially its an option of paying to get the progression rewards. The rosters you face will still get more difficult as you rise up.

There will be plenty of people who will still play competitively, and even try to go for progression through shield hops. A pure progression shield only would likely be something like 600hp minimal. They might make it even higher depending on their metrics.

Dragon_Nexus

DaveR4470 wrote:

The underlying reason why ideas like this are not implemented, and never will be, is simple: it just turns PvP into another PvE event.

There has to be some sort of distinguishing feature that separates PvP from PvE as a game mode, or else there's no reason to have PvP at all. The "losing points" thing is that difference. It's always going to be a part of PvP, unless they come up with some other distinguishing feature to have. And I just don't see that happening.

To be fair though, PvE is a PvP event.

cyineedsn

wirius wrote:

DaveR4470 wrote:

The underlying reason why ideas like this are not implemented, and never will be, is simple: it just turns PvP into another PvE event.

There has to be some sort of distinguishing feature that separates PvP from PvE as a game mode, or else there's no reason to have PvP at all. The "losing points" thing is that difference. It's always going to be a part of PvP, unless they come up with some other distinguishing feature to have. And I just don't see that happening.

Well Dave, this doesn't alter the underlying point of PvP, the place where you can directly compete. That's still be default. You HAVE to pay HP to get this shield. Essentially its an option of paying to get the progression rewards. The rosters you face will still get more difficult as you rise up.

There will be plenty of people who will still play competitively, and even try to go for progression through shield hops. A pure progression shield only would likely be something like 600hp minimal. They might make it even higher depending on their metrics.

It'll probably be higher, like much, much, much, much higher. As you said, it's essentially paying HP for progression rewards, presumably the ones we care about for this discussion that many people can't reach are the 4* and 15CP rewards.

There's no way that a shield like what is described here would be even 1000HP. Think more like 5000HP, because if you could pay 1000HP to easily get a specific 4* cover and 15CP every event, why would anyone buy a 40pack/leg token for 10kHP? Why would anyone make buy clubs to whale their rosters to dominate in PVP if it only takes 1000HP to easily get the best rewards in each pvp event? There would have to be a whole shuffling of the pricing/rewards of both pvp AND the store to keep things balanced, which is...well, not impossible, but pretty improbable...

wirius

cyineedsn wrote:

wirius wrote:

DaveR4470 wrote:

The underlying reason why ideas like this are not implemented, and never will be, is simple: it just turns PvP into another PvE event.

There has to be some sort of distinguishing feature that separates PvP from PvE as a game mode, or else there's no reason to have PvP at all. The "losing points" thing is that difference. It's always going to be a part of PvP, unless they come up with some other distinguishing feature to have. And I just don't see that happening.

Well Dave, this doesn't alter the underlying point of PvP, the place where you can directly compete. That's still be default. You HAVE to pay HP to get this shield. Essentially its an option of paying to get the progression rewards. The rosters you face will still get more difficult as you rise up.

There will be plenty of people who will still play competitively, and even try to go for progression through shield hops. A pure progression shield only would likely be something like 600hp minimal. They might make it even higher depending on their metrics.

It'll probably be higher, like much, much, much, much higher. As you said, it's essentially paying HP for progression rewards, presumably the ones we care about for this discussion that many people can't reach are the 4* and 15CP rewards.

There's no way that a shield like what is described here would be even 1000HP. Think more like 5000HP, because if you could pay 1000HP to easily get a specific 4* cover and 15CP every event, why would anyone buy a 40pack/leg token for 10kHP? Why would anyone make buy clubs to whale their rosters to dominate in PVP if it only takes 1000HP to easily get the best rewards in each pvp event? There would have to be a whole shuffling of the pricing/rewards of both pvp AND the store to keep things balanced, which is...well, not impossible, but pretty improbable...

Because with shield hops, someone can get that 900 point character with 300-500 hp. Essentially you're paying more for safety, AND you're not getting any rating rewards for you or your guild. You still have to play to get up there, and as your number gets higher you're going to be fighting the higher teams at the top too. Its a tactical decision this way.

The people who are doing the buy clubs are also not struggling to reach progression rewards. So no, I don't think it would affect the buyer's clubs at all.

Ducky

If someone has to pay 300-500 in HP just to reach 900, then they aren't ready to hit 900.

Another factor not considered in is how does this effect alliance scores? Is the person with this special shield included in alliance scores as well? If not, then why would their alliance want them on their team? They'd just be eating up a slot and not contributing. If they can contribute to the alliance's score, it becomes crazy unfair as they have free reign to score as much as they want since they aren't capable of being targeted.

TheWerebison

PvP has always been this way, and I think the addition of SCLs has only made it feel more broken. I do see people's point that losing points toward progression is the main difference between PvP and PvE.

I think it's a feeling of...not entitlement, that would imply that he isn't willing to work toward a goal, he just wants it handed to him. Maybe it's like me. I have a frame of mind that enjoys progression: leveling up, finding weapon upgrades, increasing abilities. That is TRUE progression. It's why I enjoy most of the game, especially since they added championing. If there's a video game in which I would start losing levels just because I hadn't played it in a number of hours, I would never play that game again.

Likewise, I steer clear of games that involve doing things within set time frames. I don't enjoy feeling rushed or that I can't take the time to truly experience everything the game has to offer because I'm trying to complete it before I lose everything. Some people enjoy that tenseness, but I play games to avoid tension, because there is already so much in my life. And PvP has TWO elements of time: the time the event is running, and the time it takes for you to beat matches as fast as possible, switching over to the time you choose to give yourself a shield before you have to do it again. So stressful.

I doubt they will ever change PvP, because there are people who enjoy that kind of tension, and because it most certainly results in more money for them. As much as I hate not experiencing everything in the game, I very often avoid PvP matches, and when I DO do PvP, I take myself down 2 SCL levels, to level 6. I know I will never ever get top rewards of a nature I need in PvP, so I only go for 575 points, to get the 10 CP, and it's usually enough to get top 25, which is 2 3* covers. I could use much better rewards, but I have to accept that I'm not willing to spend that kind of money, and don't enjoy the stress of top placement.

tl;dr version: play PvE like me, try to forget the other mode exists, or else find a comfortable place to get SOME rewards