Shield intercepts: pay to play feature?

jredd

Sooo, a weird thing happened last night. after completing 10 clears (92nodes!) on the first and second subs of the simulator pve without seeing one intercept. i decided to conduct a 14$ experiment. i re-upped my vip for the first time since it was introduced. and guess what!!?? in the 20 odd nodes i've played since then i've gotten 10 intercepts!

now after going months, (lets be honest, basically the whole time intercepts have been a thing) without these working properly, i think i found the issue. you need to pay to get them to work! now i went to university, and like most had to take a statistics class, so i know that correlation doesn't mean causation. but that's an awfully strange coincidence don't you think? what is the lifetime total you need to get to to keep these things working? or do you need to just keep paying?

dirty pool d3, dirty pool.

CT1888

I'm Still getting plenty of intercepts at the moment without having paid anything since Christmas. RNGesus does not favour thee.

GuntherBlobel

Next month, try a $2 experiment and just get the Bugle Pittance if you don't like VIP.

I don't think there is malice here, the Ad system has not been reliable for everyone.

jredd

GuntherBlobel wrote:

Next month, try a $2 experiment and just get the Bugle Pittance if you don't like VIP.

I don't think there is malice here, the Ad system has not been reliable for everyone.

not that i don't like vip. i think it's probably the best bang for your buck. i'm just not going to keep it running.

Natsufan01

I get 10 to 15 a day. 3 or 4 a day from dpd. I haven't paid since December either.

granne

I was entirely FtP until a couple of weeks ago, and was getting 12 to 20 per day. Since I made my first purchase, I've had fewer, but still usually 10+.

Sometimes a coincidence is just that.

StreetPreacher

something, something, Steam users

Pants1000

Something has been causing problems, at least on iOS. I used to get plenty, but now I can go 3-4 days without any.

BatteryHorse

Pants1000 wrote:

Something has been causing problems, at least on iOS. I used to get plenty, but now I can go 3-4 days without any.

Interesting. I play on my iPad at home, but my android phone when I'm going to and from work, and I haven't noticed any difference in the number of intercepts. It's not something I paid much attention to, but I did my PvE clears this morning on my iPad and get plenty of intercepts.

irwando

Funny enough, I haven't gotten an intercept in weeks on my iPad. I played yesterday on an Android device and got 20.

I'm wondering if there is something counting ads served to physical clients and if you've gotten too many it cuts you off, or if you're not clicking through. If you VIP it could skup all that logic.

Bulls

I have a question to ppl that are getting plently of intercepts (10+): how do you manage to display those commercials and try to push for high placement in pve? Im getting 1-2 per day so I dont mind skiping them if they're not poping during dpd, but it would be painful to skip several times per event.

jredd

CT1888 wrote:

I'm Still getting plenty of intercepts at the moment without having paid anything since Christmas. RNGesus does not favour thee.

i don't think it's an RNG thing. you're supposed to get at least one per day. many days i would get 0. and there's no way you could play 90 nodes and not get a few. just not possible. there's a problem there, except it doesn't manifest for everyone.

i just find it funny that as soon as i drop a few bucks they miraculously work 'as intended'.

Crowl

Bulls wrote:

I have a question to ppl that are getting plently of intercepts (10+): how do you manage to display those commercials and try to push for high placement in pve? Im getting 1-2 per day so I dont mind skiping them if they're not poping during dpd, but it would be painful to skip several times per event.

I personally watch them anyway, they don't seem to have much more impact on your finishing position than you overestimating how long your grind will take and other than an extremely tight new release event like DP vs MPQ with its 48 hour subs, I doubt it would affect your position and the rewards more than offset that.

Clearly the optimal option would be a monthly purchase so you get the rewards without the videos, but it is not essential.

DaveR4470

After dealing with intercepts for a while, both with and without VIP status, I think I've begun to figure it out a bit. There are two aspects to intercepts that I think I've sussed out that would explain all these variances people are seeing.

1) I think that the ads are targeted, at least geographically, and possibly demographically. So the ad shown is one the advertiser has chosen to show in your country/region/whatever, or to your demographic group. So UK people get UK-targeted ads, US people get US ads, Antarctica people get snowblower ads, and so forth. What this means, though, is that sometimes there may not be ads (or not many ads) being pushed to your region or group.

2) I also think there's a specific order of operations to the intercept process. I think it goes like this, starting immediately after the match ends: (a) RNJesus decides whether you get an intercept this time. (b) The ad provider's server is queried by the MPQ system running this (I'm guessing it's server-side and not client-side) to get an ad. (c) The ad server returns one of two responses: an ad to be shown, or null (i.e. there is no ad available). (d1) If the MPQ system receives the ad response, it triggers the intercept graphics and button for the intercept. You press the button, watch ad, get reward. (d2) if the MPQ system receives the null, nothing happens and the match ends normally. You, the user, never know that you were flagged for an intercept.

Here's what I think is causing the VIP vs non-VIP issues: I think the VIP "bonus" gets applied IMMEDIATELY after RNJesus decides you get an intercept. So if you are flagged as special, the MPQ system bypasses all the normal intercept processes and goes straight to the award function.

And this (I think) interacts with the targeting system as such: when you are not VIP, you'll get ads only when the ad server has ads to dispense to you. When you are VIP, you will get an award EVERY TIME the RNG trigger goes off for you. So some people (in high-target areas or groups) see a lot of intercepts when they aren't paying, and some people (in low-target areas/groups) see them sporadically. But VIPs see them at 100% of the statistical chance of getting an intercept, always, regardless of what area/group they are in.

If it's not that specifically, I think it's something very similar -- the VIP reward does an end-around of the whole ad system, and the ad system does not always give you an ad.

CT1888

Bulls wrote:

I have a question to ppl that are getting plently of intercepts (10+): how do you manage to display those commercials and try to push for high placement in pve?

Generally I'm not pushing for placement, often just grinding away over breakfast. Get an ad, pour a drink. Get another ad, open my yoghurt. They actually stop me from getting too sucked in and trying to grind crazy style.

justsing

I always get a ton of (ad-free) intercepts within a month after a purchase, but once that month passes, intercepts stop. Maybe the ad-filled intercepts for those who don't pay are limited to certain geographical locations since clearly some people are getting them.

jredd

i'd like to see them switch to a time based system rather than a random system. might even things out a little.

waywreth

I also play on iOS devices and have not gotten any in months.

iron-n-wine

Same here - nothing since the last purchase stopped letting me skip the ads once it ran out

loslupus77

From my personal experience I can confirm that buying something really makes a difference in number of shield intercepts. I made my first and only purchase in the end of January, when Logan's Loonies had double HP-period. During the next month I had ad-free intercepts, well over 10 every day. When things returned to normal ad-intercepts in end-February, I've been lucky to get even 5 a day, even though I play about the same amount.

I don't mind intercept-rate being better when you purchase something, but it should be explicitly stated by D3. Yeah, it would create short outburst of rage, but having honest communication always helps in the long-run. Considering Demi's history of communication issues that seems unrealistic, so at least they should fix things so everyone gets the same chance of getting intercepts. Although Demi has even worse history of fixing issues than it's communication problems.

Sluggo

I'm also in the place where my main iOS account hasn't seen any intercepts in a few days, but on my separate android account, where I only hit a handful of nodes a day, I'm seeing intercepts all the time.

I'm hesitant to dive into any conspiracy theories myself; bugs seem like the more likely culprit to me. Hopefully they'll do something about it soon.