PVP question. What does this mean and what should I do?

mohio

@Jarvind - you joined the dev team? congratulations! 

Snark aside - it's a bit arrogant to say that this behavior is "going against the intended gameplay" without any direct knowledge of what is intended or not. Based on comments I've seen before, I don't think the developers even really intended on people shield hopping at all, but that's what started happening and they embraced it. Seeing as its been over a year since cupcakes were replaced by grills, I would be hard pressed to agree that grills are completely unintended by the development team. They could easily change it so your defense team is always the 100% best, hardest, most hitpoints, or whatever team, but they have not done that (and as others pointed out - people would figure out how to game that system too)

The OP was answered - I think quite satisfactorily - so this thread should really just be closed. It can only go downhill from here.

Spudgutter

mohio said:

@Jarvind - you joined the dev team? congratulations! 

Snark aside - it's a bit arrogant to say that this behavior is "going against the intended gameplay" without any direct knowledge of what is intended or not. Based on comments I've seen before, I don't think the developers even really intended on people shield hopping at all, but that's what started happening and they embraced it. Seeing as its been over a year since cupcakes were replaced by grills, I would be hard pressed to agree that grills are completely unintended by the development team. They could easily change it so your defense team is always the 100% best, hardest, most hitpoints, or whatever team, but they have not done that (and as others pointed out - people would figure out how to game that system too)

The OP was answered - I think quite satisfactorily - so this thread should really just be closed. It can only go downhill from here.

Ironically, i used that same argument about tapping. It's been 10 months since they said something about it, so we can infer from their silence that they are ok with a small amount.  

With that said, they are changing how pvp is played every year. 1300 down to 1200.  Introduction of shields(which led to the workaround on shielding), shield timers(which led to a workaround with cupcakes), changes your defensive team (which led to grills).

Then they tried adjusting for wins based over several off seasons, then the actual season itself. No one knows what the next step (if any) will be.

So, no, while i am not OP, i disagree that the matter is settled.  I would rather this get 27 pages of back and forth, just like the nerf gambit thread, that goes unanswered by the devs as well.

mohio

You make a good point that 10+ months with no changes doesn't necessarily mean things are where they want them to be. The development team probably spends 75% of their time on the new releases, then maybe some time on any new content (the new character simulator thing, the changed character simulator thing, new boss events, etc.). So these things like pve tapping and pvp defense team, wins-based, etc. are maybe just a tiny percentage of their time. I admit I would have expected another "test" or an alternative version to the wins-based pvp by now as that seemed to be the direction they wanted to take the pvp side of things.

I also agree that if you're unhappy with the game, you should voice your unhappiness, which maybe I'm assuming is what you're saying by referencing the nerf gambit thread and saying this matter isn't settled. I was simply saying the OP's original question was answered. With 99.9% certainty we can tell him that what he saw was a grill and it was likely from somebody in a shield check room/battle chat trying to help others in the room score as high as they are. I guess the "what should I do?" part is unresolved, but he's been provided several opinions and at least is more educated about his choices. Leaving the thread open for people to argue about what is "right" is silly, as there is no answer to that. 

My only qualm with what you've said is that this thread is not evolving into back and forth about what PvP should look like, it's simply the same thing we see every so often of one side of people claiming their way is "correct" and calling the other side snipers, and the other side claiming their way is "correct" and calling the other side point ****. I'm tired of it frankly. If you want a thread about how to fix PvP so people won't cooperate so much anymore then by all means make that thread. Complain about the season reward structure, or the alliance reward structure, or whatever you think is driving players behavior. Those would all be constructive conversations to have imo. The other stuff about cooperation vs. sniping and the morality/ethics/etc. behind it, is not constructive

aesthetocyst

Jarvind said:

Jesus, steaks or grills or cakes or crème brûlées or whatever they're called now might not "exploit" an actual error in the game code, but they're obviously going against the intended gameplay in order to artificially generate more points for those in on the scheme. Nitpicking the definition of "exploit" is just a desperate attempt to deflect attention from blatant cheesing.

I'm not laboring under the delusion that my saying this will stop anyone from doing it, but good lord, stop lying to yourself about it. This is like the MPQ version of trickle down economics.

Hey in MPQ there's actual trickle down.

Spudgutter

mohio said:

My only qualm with what you've said is that this thread is not evolving into back and forth about what PvP should look like, it's simply the same thing we see every so often of one side of people claiming their way is "correct" and calling the other side snipers, and the other side claiming their way is "correct" and calling the other side point ****. I'm tired of it frankly. If you want a thread about how to fix PvP so people won't cooperate so much anymore then by all means make that thread. Complain about the season reward structure, or the alliance reward structure, or whatever you think is driving players behavior. Those would all be constructive conversations to have imo. The other stuff about cooperation vs. sniping and the morality/ethics/etc. behind it, is not constructive

Imo this is the best, most constructive discussion to have, when it comes organically from the main question asked.  Ive seen and heard good arguments on both sides, and they work better with the context laid out beforehand, like from the OP.  I'm not much of a thread starter, but i do enjoy commenting lol

Qubort

evade420 said:

Noobulator said:

Hit as soon as you see it. 

Do this and you'll seriously tick off a hardcore player and you will likely get a bunch of ppl coming after you .
Wait ~10 min then hit it 

I'm sure a whole team of enforcers will drop just to punish one hit from a random. Ain't happening.

Dragon_Nexus said:

sinnerjfl said:

Its perfectly fine to hit them, thats why they do it. Very rarely it's a trap but dont worry about that.

If you're already shielded when you come across grills, have the decency to wait, it costs you nothing.

Hitting them right away is fine if you're in a hurry but they dont have to do this for anyone you know, I appreciate the work these people put in and you should be thankful for it as well.

I hope you're not suggesting I'm not grateful for the relatively free points, because I totally am. I was just making sure hitting these guys is an okay thing to do or if I'm going to bring the wrath of an alliance down on me or something.

Now that I know what these guys are for, I'm in the right frame of mind for it all.

You'd have to eat a ton of grills before anyone noticed. If you hit a grill while climbing, you'll be fine.

Welcome Death said:

Quebbster said:

It's called a grill team. High-level players put them out before shielding to give others an easy fight so they can gain points faster. With out of game communication you can chain grills and gain in points really fast, which is the reason for the high scores at the top of the scoreboard.
Anyway, it's not a trap, so you shouldn't feel you can't hit it. However, you should not hit it immediately - give the player who put the grill out time to shield so they don't lose points over their kindness.

There were other comments made along the same lines, that people grilling are doing it to help other people out and blah blah blah blah blah.  People that are utilizing this exploit (cause that's what it is, an exploit) are doing so because they want to score really high so they and their friends take all the top spots in pvp.
  They do it so their hops are faster cause they're just hitting cakes.  They don' do it to help you.  Any crumbs you happen to find are just lucky coincidence, but they use the bounces from people not in their check rooms and lie to themselves (and you!) in acting like they're some benevolent point gods raining points down for you sorry people at the bottom.     Hit it.  Wait or don't wait. It doesn't matter. They're onlky hitting cupcakes anyway so your hit won't land, they'l already be done

It's not an exploit and everyone should be happy for front runners. In a room or not, people scoring crazy high means less matches I need to play.

Jarvind said:

Jesus, steaks or grills or cakes or crème brûlées or whatever they're called now might not "exploit" an actual error in the game code, but they're obviously going against the intended gameplay in order to artificially generate more points for those in on the scheme. Nitpicking the definition of "exploit" is just a desperate attempt to deflect attention from blatant cheesing.

I'm not laboring under the delusion that my saying this will stop anyone from doing it, but good lord, stop lying to yourself about it. This is like the MPQ version of trickle down economics.

The game is intended to be alliance based. Grilling is nothing more than working with your alliance to maximize points. Just as intended.

Spudgutter said:

mohio said:

@Jarvind - you joined the dev team? congratulations! 

Snark aside - it's a bit arrogant to say that this behavior is "going against the intended gameplay" without any direct knowledge of what is intended or not. Based on comments I've seen before, I don't think the developers even really intended on people shield hopping at all, but that's what started happening and they embraced it. Seeing as its been over a year since cupcakes were replaced by grills, I would be hard pressed to agree that grills are completely unintended by the development team. They could easily change it so your defense team is always the 100% best, hardest, most hitpoints, or whatever team, but they have not done that (and as others pointed out - people would figure out how to game that system too)

The OP was answered - I think quite satisfactorily - so this thread should really just be closed. It can only go downhill from here.

Ironically, i used that same argument about tapping. It's been 10 months since they said something about it, so we can infer from their silence that they are ok with a small amount.  

With that said, they are changing how pvp is played every year. 1300 down to 1200.  Introduction of shields(which led to the workaround on shielding), shield timers(which led to a workaround with cupcakes), changes your defensive team (which led to grills).

Then they tried adjusting for wins based over several off seasons, then the actual season itself. No one knows what the next step (if any) will be.

So, no, while i am not OP, i disagree that the matter is settled.  I would rather this get 27 pages of back and forth, just like the nerf gambit thread, that goes unanswered by the devs as well.

He's question was what is a loner team. So.....the OP questions is settled.

//Consolidated all post -Brigby

Spudgutter

Qubort said:

Spudgutter said:

mohio said:

@Jarvind - you joined the dev team? congratulations! 

Snark aside - it's a bit arrogant to say that this behavior is "going against the intended gameplay" without any direct knowledge of what is intended or not. Based on comments I've seen before, I don't think the developers even really intended on people shield hopping at all, but that's what started happening and they embraced it. Seeing as its been over a year since cupcakes were replaced by grills, I would be hard pressed to agree that grills are completely unintended by the development team. They could easily change it so your defense team is always the 100% best, hardest, most hitpoints, or whatever team, but they have not done that (and as others pointed out - people would figure out how to game that system too)

The OP was answered - I think quite satisfactorily - so this thread should really just be closed. It can only go downhill from here.

Ironically, i used that same argument about tapping. It's been 10 months since they said something about it, so we can infer from their silence that they are ok with a small amount.  

With that said, they are changing how pvp is played every year. 1300 down to 1200.  Introduction of shields(which led to the workaround on shielding), shield timers(which led to a workaround with cupcakes), changes your defensive team (which led to grills).

Then they tried adjusting for wins based over several off seasons, then the actual season itself. No one knows what the next step (if any) will be.

So, no, while i am not OP, i disagree that the matter is settled.  I would rather this get 27 pages of back and forth, just like the nerf gambit thread, that goes unanswered by the devs as well.

He's question was what is a loner team. So.....the OP questions is settled.

? You might not be in the right thread. OP was asking about a grill team.

Brigby

*Please keep all comments civil and constructive. In addition, please try to consolidate your responses into a single post, as opposed to posting individual responses back to back. Thank you!  

tiomono

Daiches said: 8

tiomono said:

Daiches said:

Wheaton's Law seems unknown. Too bad I can't spell it out.

It's basically "dont be a jerk". 

Which I feel could apply to both sides of the discussion.

In game I feel if you see a beatable team worth good points you should hit it. That is not being a jerk. Hitting it immediately or waiting a bit also does not make you a jerk. Expecting everyone in the game to know unwritten rules and abide by them or get hit by several people hard and repeatedly, seems a little jerkish to me.

I was referring to the hate campaign against the cooperative style of play in this and similar threads by advocates of the other playstyle. Like what you are doing here. 
Play the game. Don't hate or troll on those that play the way they prefer.

I'm not on a hate campaign. But if someone punishes someone else for breaking an unwritten rule that they potentially know nothing about, because the game does not expressly state what is the "proper" way to play, that feels wrong to me.

j0nats

Daiches said:

These threads are always good to remind people of Wheaton's Law.

will wheaton?

Brigby

*Thread has been closed, because OP has acquired the information they were requesting, they requested its closure, and the thread is gradually becoming more and more non-constructive.