over 300 points lost in pvp inn under 5 mintues

Unknown

kensterr wrote:

Can someone please explain how shielding works?

In the recent DO tourney I was shielded at around 986 points. Everyone else in the Top 10 was shielded as well. I wanted to break my shield to push to 1000 points and 1100 points if possible. So I skipped lots of matches through the nodes and found 2-3 players who are shielded in my Top 10. These people were not in my nodes before this.

If I understand the replies in this thread properly shielding should have made these people including myself invisible to others, but this is not the case. I myself was hit 2-3 times by the same player while shielded. So at which point range do shielded players appear in people's nodes?

At unknown intervals, the game queues up a number of opponents (around 10 from my estimation) on your matchup list. Let's just call them A through J. These guys are queued up based on whoever is currently available based on the game's MMR matchup. If played J later shields himself, he is still already queued despite the fact that you cannot see him at this point. You'd see A B C on your list, and if you beat/skip someone you'd see D next, and so on, and it can be a very long time until you get to J, who by then is already shielded. If you skip J at this point, he should never reappear on your matchup list no matter how many times you skip barring a Kyipgate type incident. Note that you game can even queue up the same guy more than once when it pre selects your opponent ahead of time, which is why you can indeed get hit by the same guy multiple times while shielded.

This means it's generally advantageous to simply attack every person that shows up on your matchup list when you're not pressed for time, because they might have been queued up before they shielded, getting you the coveted victory with no chance of retaliation.

kensterr

Thanks Phantron for the explanation. However there was one shielded player who reappeared 2 times after I skipped him/her - so I guess that player was already in the queue for some time?

Unknown

kensterr wrote:

Thanks Phantron for the explanation. However there was one shielded player who reappeared 2 times after I skipped him/her - so I guess that player was already in the queue for some time?

Either that or you had something similar to Kyipgate where a shielded guy is clearly capable of being queued up by anybody. The existence of Kyipgate implies there must be some kind of bug that allows shielded opponent to appear on your list as a new opponent, so if it happens just consider that as good luck.

Unknown

One of our buddy named Shamsali had 1440 pts in Doctor's Orders, he dropped his shield in the final few minutes to make his final push , then dropped to 1240 instantly. Guess at least 6 people had him lined up.
There were quite a lot of similar posts complaining about this , but D3 keeps ignoring them.

Moral

Grazzt wrote:

One of our buddy named Shamsali had 1440 pts in Doctor's Orders, he dropped his shield in the final few minutes to make his final push , then dropped to 1240 instantly. Guess at least 6 people had him lined up.
There were quite a lot of similar posts complaining about this , but D3 keeps ignoring them.

The top 10 in doctors orders was between 1140 and 1040 in my bracket, which seemed to be common. Lining up a 1440 target to save for the last few minutes of an event would be pure gold for anyone trying to make a last minute push. And at that level taking out your buddy was worth 2 matches in half the time.

Plenty of people unshield in the last 10 minutes to make a move that doesn't leave time for competitors to react. Gotta consider that risk before you unshield.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

kensterr wrote:

Thanks Phantron for the explanation. However there was one shielded player who reappeared 2 times after I skipped him/her - so I guess that player was already in the queue for some time?

Either that or you had something similar to Kyipgate where a shielded guy is clearly capable of being queued up by anybody. The existence of Kyipgate implies there must be some kind of bug that allows shielded opponent to appear on your list as a new opponent, so if it happens just consider that as good luck.

Actually the original statement was never saying shielded people are completely invisible, only that the chance of them being offered is really low. I always interpreted it like some 1-2% chance. (don't ask % of what ).

Another thought, OP states he found people in his bracket. That is a thing we asked for several times. Possibly the new formula actually considers people in the bracket with more chance to offer. It would worth some experimenting, and fishing out bracket leaders provides really good advantage.

Unknown

Grazzt wrote:

One of our buddy named Shamsali had 1440 pts in Doctor's Orders, he dropped his shield in the final few minutes to make his final push , then dropped to 1240 instantly. Guess at least 6 people had him lined up.
There were quite a lot of similar posts complaining about this , but D3 keeps ignoring them.

IMO he had it coming. I would never in sane mind break shield last minutes with those points. He must have been around enough time to get cached with high (What I consider 1200+, more than 10 matches away!) points.

Many people play in last 5 minutes from a sensible position like #11 or #2 where the have nothing serious to lose and spent time and ISO to prepare the 3 nodes with best matches.

For unshielding you better think how many people are likely to have you for that last minute play.

Unknown

Agree with pasa your insane to unshield at that point it's a big risk. There are plenty people who have something to play for even to the dying minute. trust me I know because that's what I used to do. Wait till near the end hit a few people claim top 10.

Unknown

pasa_ wrote:

Grazzt wrote:

One of our buddy named Shamsali had 1440 pts in Doctor's Orders, he dropped his shield in the final few minutes to make his final push , then dropped to 1240 instantly. Guess at least 6 people had him lined up.
There were quite a lot of similar posts complaining about this , but D3 keeps ignoring them.

IMO he had it coming. I would never in sane mind break shield last minutes with those points. He must have been around enough time to get cached with high (What I consider 1200+, more than 10 matches away!) points.

Many people play in last 5 minutes from a sensible position like #11 or #2 where the have nothing serious to lose and spent time and ISO to prepare the 3 nodes with best matches.

For unshielding you better think how many people are likely to have you for that last minute play.

I know, I warned our members not to drop their shields at the end, but he was not in the chat
But I still think getting attacked by numerous people at the same time should be limited

Unknown

pasa_ wrote:

Phantron wrote:

kensterr wrote:

Thanks Phantron for the explanation. However there was one shielded player who reappeared 2 times after I skipped him/her - so I guess that player was already in the queue for some time?

Either that or you had something similar to Kyipgate where a shielded guy is clearly capable of being queued up by anybody. The existence of Kyipgate implies there must be some kind of bug that allows shielded opponent to appear on your list as a new opponent, so if it happens just consider that as good luck.

Actually the original statement was never saying shielded people are completely invisible, only that the chance of them being offered is really low. I always interpreted it like some 1-2% chance. (don't ask % of what ).

Another thought, OP states he found people in his bracket. That is a thing we asked for several times. Possibly the new formula actually considers people in the bracket with more chance to offer. It would worth some experimenting, and fishing out bracket leaders provides really good advantage.

I'm not sure if the 'extremely low' is because a built in chance, or just the extremely low chance is the chance you get hit by a Kyipgate event. Since Kyipgate exists, it implies there must always have been a small chance shielded opponents show up on new matches (Kyipgate is an extreme case where he was showing up on virtually everyone's list).

I have seen people in my own bracket show up if they're within the right point/MMR range. That is, I probably won't see someone near me in points if they're running a 1* roster, but I've seen max 2* and higher rosters on my matchup list quite a few times. I'm not sure if there's any particular weight toward or against those guys showing up, other than that if they've a roster that looks eligible to be your opponent, it's definitely possible to see them.

DD-The-Mighty

Phantron wrote:

This game is very good at correcting anybody whose rating is significantly higher than their roster would indicate.

Let us imagine a moment frozen in time and you found out that all the 141X3 guys are hanging out at 1000 rating, and for whatever reason you got 1000 rating with 3X100 characters.

Now for anybody that queues up a random 1000 rating opponent, they'd see either a 141X3 or you at 100X3. What target will they attack? You, of course. Also, people remember when an extra-weak player is available. See Kyipgate to see how easily it is for people to identify mysteriously weak players with high rating (Kyip's rating was insanely high due to the bug and his team was weak for that rating even if he wasn't bugged). They'd simply beat you, and then skip until they see you again, and again.

Being good at this game is recognizing when you're above what your rating ought to be and put up a shield, or suffer the consequences. This isn't exclusive to weak rosters too. Suppose another player with 141X3 somehow hit 1200 and becomes unshielded, he will be attacked by a lot of 3X141 guys sitting at 1000 because his rating is significantly higher than the expected norm.

While that sounds great on paper, what that looks like in execution under the current climate of hiked player points to win, is something else.

If you have a stable of fully covered 85 2*s but all of the 100's 3*s are shoving out the top 50 spots by inflating the points required to get to 50+ you will not be able to compete with their roster might and you will either be drummed out point wise (shielded) or get stomped on my other 85ers and 100+ers is you attempt to go unshielded. I'm also sure the lowered 3* progression cover and season 1 4* push is playing a huge role in this as well.

As for the 141x2 plight, it is much easier to get those points back for your final push when all you have to worry about is other 141x2 players. if your anything less than that you have to worry about them AND the those on your level. This was ok for the top 10-25 but when this extends well past the top 50 i think there may be a problem.

As of the last 2 tourneys the required point spread of my brackets to achieve 50th at a minimum were near 800+ points. as everyone knows, that is a hard thing to keep without shielding up for most of the last day. and even under non-final-6-hours-of-the-tourney conditions you still need a solid team of scary fully covered 100's to keep the massive point loss at bay. Before a solid team of 85's could get you at least one 3* cover (possibly 2 before the cover nerf) now im stuck getting drummed out to 2* rewards i don't need (as i have them all) and i'm not foolish enough to presume this is a me only problem.

So if a fully fielded 85/85/passenger cant get 3*s in the PVP and scaling and gross competition make PVE 3* acquisition farther and farther away, the only folk getting the specific covers they need are those fortunate to have joined before the placement rewards were all mucked up. Its easy to say "water knows its level" when you already have most of what you need to handle whatever the game throws at you. I'm not particularly mad about this drastic shift in PVP, more tired. I assume they will probably readjust the reward structure to compensate for this.

CNash

Rusalka wrote:

PVP is the one thing in this game where being in Australia has actually worked out for me. Half the events end at 2:00 AM my time, so my only practical strategy is to do a final push late in the evening and then put up a three-hour shield just before I go to bed. Amazingly enough, that's also the best strategy! (Well, best for me, anyway, since I'm satisfied with a top 10 finish and don't belong to a competitive alliance. If I was trying to win the 4* covers or get my alliance into the top 100, I might not be so mellow about it.)

This works well for me too, in the UK, but I have to stay up 'til 2am in order to shield before the 5am event end times...

The only problem with this strategy is that while people can't attack you because you're shielded, they can still attack other people and leapfrog you in the rankings while you're sleeping and unable to counteract this.

Unknown

Was working my way up the ranks last night, made it to 20th in my bracket had been playing 2 hours or so at that point no retaliations at all, pure point gain.
go for one more match for 20+ points, come out with 4 losses -100, one more match to make some of that up, -70, one more -50, -20, -15

Continuing to win matches consistently I went from ~850 points to ~650 points to finish at a stellar rank 103....moral of the story, shield while you are ahead and have the luck/timing to know when that is

Unknown

Cryptobrancus wrote:

Continuing to win matches consistently I went from ~850 points to ~650 points to finish at a stellar rank 103....moral of the story, shield while you are ahead and have the luck/timing to know when that is

With the old system it was pretty simple, when I got 2x141 team offers I shielded up like crazy thinking it is symmetric, I see them, they see me.

Unknown

i finished last pvp with 1400+ points, and the rule is "do not unshield during the last 20 minutes." I got hit (while shielded) 12 times. 3 people in my bracket (#2-#4) all tried it with 1300+ points, one went from 1340 to 1280 instantly. one went from 1360 to 1340, and one actually gained points (1379 to 1397), but they all got hit along the way. I had 2 of them in queue from earlier hops anyways, just in case i needed to create a 50 point differential (in hindsight i would have been hit for 40 while doing it, but i would have still added 10 relative points).

but yeah, last 20-30 minutes and no shield is a very bad combination.