Make points "safe" after they've been sustained for 12 hours

Nonce Equitaur 2

In the Daken event, I sustained over 700 points for over 36 hours. I got to #1 many times. Then the server crashed, and I lost half my score.

There should be some sort of bonus for participating in the first half of an event. Currently, these points can only be protected by shielding them twice. As such, early players are quintuply penalized for playing early.
1&2. They need to shield twice.
3. When not shielded, they lose 50 points every time they are attacked.
4. They only get 1 point back from retributions.
5. While they are fighting, they only get 20-25 points per match.

The penalties for being an early leader in a tournament are gruesome. This design concentrates the importance of the final hours of an event, which repeatedly and reliably crashes the servers, which costs $$$$. D3 is literally shoveling money out the door with this design.

To fix this, points should be handled differently. For example, if you average 600 points in the first half of the event, then those 600 points could be made safe. They won't be lost, and don't need to be shielded. Further points would need shielding, but there is a limit to how much can be lost.

The result would be much less stress on the servers, much less stress on the players, and more money for D3. And there would be a reason for playing early.

Unknown

I thought the game already makes you less likely to show up if you've been inactive for a while, or are you talking those guys with 100 points that had you queued up since the very beginning? I'm not sure what you're supposed to do about the latter issue, though. You are in their queue and while it seems pretty dumb they can save you for so long, it's no different than you have 1000 points and save a guy with 1200 in queue for the 1100 push. The guy at 1200 can likewise make the same argument here if he's not shielded.

Unknown

I think a better resolution would be to make sure no one can join your bracket after X time has passed, and they have to go into a new bracket.

Unknown

Idk about making it safe and untouchable, but you have a good point, why having an event of 3 days if it's only played in the last one?

Making it safe will actually make a 2 parts PVP, you'll have the same issues and stress twice in the same event, but only one reward. Not good.
If you make something about when you joined, people can just fight once at the very beginning and then just leave. Not good too, solve nothing.

Maybe they could make some kind of discount based in the amount of fights and time you spent in that event.
For example: I'm playing Fresh Cut since the beginning, I got about 500 points. Every time someone hit me, I lose 30 points. So back to, lets say, 350. I go again and grind it back to 500. This time, when people hit me, thought they get their 30 points, I have a discount and only lose 25 points. You keep doing it and in the end you'll lose less than the players with the same points as you have that joined later.
Of course that need to hit a limit, we can't have a player that has like 90% discount, the discount has to be good enough to make the player play since the beginning and give an advantage in the end; but not high enough that you wouldn't feel the need for shielding.
It also will have to count the time shielded as time played, so shielding will also give you that extra advantage.

esoxnepa

I think it would be nice to have the points you have won heal to a permanent state over time. Something like a rate of 25-50 points per hour, but only have the points healing if you are unshielded or if a shield naturally expires.

This would let shield hopping continue to exist, but it would also add a strategic element to using a shield or not based on when you expect to play next. So while you can still lose progression, it would make the event more strategic over the 2.5 days, and not just the dog pile on the final day.

If you really want to spread out the load on the servers, you could also have a cap on unhealed points. Then people would not be able to just rush the final 3 hours.

GrumpySmurf1002

Really agree with this. There's no incentive to starting early when you just get smashed back down for 2 days and end up presumably worse than you started.

An alternate to this is just to create a retaliation window. If the opponent doesn't strike back in X number of hours, they no longer can. That would really help eliminate how often you're exposed, and the +25 on day 1, -50 on day 3 type transactions.

Unknown

I like the idea, every pack of points could have an age and if survived certain time could get fixed. That would create an interesting game really.

Though it requires a different server side store with more data, complete remodeling of the progressions and certainly some new shield design from ground up, as the well established HP burn rate would be a goner.

For D3 the whole PVP serves the single purpose of making people use HP any change that interferes with that has no chance really.

Unknown

pasa_ wrote:

I like the idea, every pack of points could have an age and if survived certain time could get fixed. That would create an interesting game really.

Though it requires a different server side store with more data, complete remodeling of the progressions and certainly some new shield design from ground up, as the well established HP burn rate would be a goner.

For D3 the whole PVP serves the single purpose of making people use HP any change that interferes with that has no chance really.

That still depends on how the HP is spent. We know from their chart that most of their HP comes from comic packs, ability upgrade, and roster slots, and shields account for relatively little. There's nothing wrong with a change, from a financial point of view, that'd decrease revenue from shields but increase it from elsewhere. Now, I'm not sure how it'd increase revenue from elsewhere either, but I think you can integrate some kind of 'safe point' design that's tied to having a strong roster, which would almost certainly indirectly lead to more HP spenditure.

Unknown

I like the concept, what about a value of 75% of your max score then becomes your safe level? Keeps the math nice and simple. Reach 800, well you will stay above 600 for sure but shields will still let you stay at the apex. Pushing early can get you to a nice place and then you can make a final push from there.