gotta say sometimes this game is tinykitty

MajinDavid

Been shield hopping on starfall since yesterday. Was close to 1000 earlier today and unshielded after waiting 2 hours from when I shielded. During the match, (not even 2 minutes after I dropped my shield) I was hit 3 times, dropping me to 846. Finished match and shielded again to see 10 more attacks hit the shield within 5 minutes of me shielding. A couple of hours later I try again. Get into a match and the computer has a cascade of the gods killing off sentry and my thor on turn 2. My ares killed his thor and then sentry with 2.7k life left. Obw standing with full life. No yellow, or green matches. Try to deny purple, she heals, then all I can deny is blue so she steals. Finally get some yellow and red and she keeps stealing. She finishes ares with full life from healing and stealing. And in the 4 minutes unshielded I have been hit 2 more times. Dropped from 978 to 764 in about 10 minutes unshielded. And it hasnt even entered the 8 hours the horde appears. Is a 2* max level team of ares and thor really that easy on def? Cause I normally win with ease on offense with them. Just wanted to rant cause of this tinykitty system im prolly not gonna get top 10 for the mag cover I dont have. Anyone else ever have this tinykitty happen to them to this effect or is this just a working as intended moment?

NorthernPolarity

MajinDavid wrote:

Been shield hopping on starfall since yesterday. Was close to 1000 earlier today and unshielded after waiting 2 hours from when I shielded. During the match, (not even 2 minutes after I dropped my shield) I was hit 3 times, dropping me to 846. Finished match and shielded again to see 10 more attacks hit the shield within 5 minutes of me shielding. A couple of hours later I try again. Get into a match and the computer has a cascade of the gods killing off sentry and my thor on turn 2. My ares killed his thor and then sentry with 2.7k life left. Obw standing with full life. No yellow, or green matches. Try to deny purple, she heals, then all I can deny is blue so she steals. Finally get some yellow and red and she keeps stealing. She finishes ares with full life from healing and stealing. And in the 4 minutes unshielded I have been hit 2 more times. Dropped from 978 to 764 in about 10 minutes unshielded. And it hasnt even entered the 8 hours the horde appears. Is a 2* max level team of ares and thor really that easy on def? Cause I normally win with ease on offense with them. Just wanted to rant cause of this tinykitty system im prolly not gonna get top 10 for the mag cover I dont have. Anyone else ever have this tinykitty happen to them to this effect or is this just a working as intended moment?

Once you hit 900 or so, you get put in the same buckets as players with max 3* rosters, so yes, you should be expecting to get hit almost immediately once you reach those point totals. It is a really bad idea to push past 950 or so with a 2* roster: any player that queues you will immediately hit you and kill you with their superior rosters.

Unknown

Same problem here, though I mostly use lvl 100 3*.

Unknown

yeah, when i did a run up at 14h left, there were TONS of 2star 800-900pt teams... that's just a free food sign to me. 3* roster LT/sentry (150ish)/bp = 25k health or so. 2* tank roster w/ lvl 60 sentry = 14k health or so.

if the points are equal, the math isn't hard .

Unknown

Seriously, people need to stop pretending there some kind of strategy at the 900 range. At this point they should just auction PvP rating for HP and it'd work roughly the same. You can be sitting there with your perfect plan and then someone with the exact same team as you hits you for -45 because he has you queued up since he's at 200 rating. There isn't any strategy you can possibly do against that kind of attack other than minimizing the amount of time you're unshielded. The strongest team you can run for Starfall is probably Sentry + Daken but that's still an easy win for any team with Magneto in it. The teams in the 900 range are all essentially exactly as strong and there's no way to break out of that range without extensive use of shields.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

Seriously, people need to stop pretending there some kind of strategy at the 900 range. At this point they should just auction PvP rating for HP and it'd work roughly the same. You can be sitting there with your perfect plan and then someone with the exact same team as you hits you for -45 because he has you queued up since he's at 200 rating. There isn't any strategy you can possibly do against that kind of attack other than minimizing the amount of time you're unshielded. The strongest team you can run for Starfall is probably Sentry + Daken but that's still an easy win for any team with Magneto in it. The teams in the 900 range are all essentially exactly as strong and there's no way to break out of that range without extensive use of shields.

Strictly speaking it's true but knowing that is a step in planning and preparation in effective strategies. They require patience and discipline. Luck plays a factor too so have plans for good luck and bad luck.

Unknown

Bugpop wrote:

Phantron wrote:

Seriously, people need to stop pretending there some kind of strategy at the 900 range. At this point they should just auction PvP rating for HP and it'd work roughly the same. You can be sitting there with your perfect plan and then someone with the exact same team as you hits you for -45 because he has you queued up since he's at 200 rating. There isn't any strategy you can possibly do against that kind of attack other than minimizing the amount of time you're unshielded. The strongest team you can run for Starfall is probably Sentry + Daken but that's still an easy win for any team with Magneto in it. The teams in the 900 range are all essentially exactly as strong and there's no way to break out of that range without extensive use of shields.

Strictly speaking it's true but knowing that is a step in planning and preparation in effective strategies. They require patience and discipline. Luck plays a factor too so have plans for good luck and bad luck.

There's obviously strategy involved even if shield hopping is pretty P2W, but it's getting to a point where the amount of effort involved is too intensive, because as time passes teams become more even (people catch up in covers/levels) and you lose your edge in team strength that was possible during the earlier stages of the game. Right now I'd say you've at most 5 minutes before the horde catches you if you're unshielded at a juicy point level and that might be too generous, and the general aggressiveness of the pursuers greatly reduces the amount of strategy you can have. If you're pretty much guaranteed to lose 100 points for staying unshielded for longer than 10 minutes above 1000 then you don't really need to know much about strategy in the first place, other than that you must reshield almost immediately after every game. Yes luck matters too but I'm pretty sure you'd never have so good luck that you can stay unshielded for 15 minutes without being hit.

I'd say a few months ago there was a reasonable balance between strategy (team selection, timing, target selection) and P2W (shields) because the general populace was less aggressive back then for whatever reason. But unless people start quitting the game en masse I don't think you can dial that aggressiveness back. Although everyone seems to be saying they're quitting the game, there's certainly no shortage of guy with 500 point with a max roster smacking me for 40 points, and I find it hard to believe other people don't run into these guys.

Unknown

Remember the times when there was no need for shield-hopping if you wanted to score high? Back then, I just slapped on a shield for 3 hours at the end of the game and then spent the last thirty minutes playing my way further up. If you do that kind of thing nowadays, you get torn apart and lose something like 300 points in ten minutes, with no chance of regaining them.

simonsez

I'd like to see a different kind of shield that would still let you attack, while reducing (not eliminating) how often you get hit. That would really cut down on the frustration.

_RiO_

simonsez wrote:

I'd like to see a different kind of shield that would still let you attack, while reducing (not eliminating) how often you get hit. That would really cut down on the frustration.

I'd rather we just do away with shields altogether and place a cap on point loss, e.g., only those points scored over the last hour can be lost.
Ofcourse, it'll never happen. Shield hopping means D3P must be making a killing on HP sales.

GrumpySmurf1002

_RiO_ wrote:

I'd rather we just do away with shields altogether and place a cap on point loss, e.g., only those points scored over the last hour can be lost.
Ofcourse, it'll never happen. Shield hopping means D3P must be making a killing on HP sales.

Last line is correct, they're not going to kill a cash cow.

A possible solution is add another type of shield. Say, a 225HP one (that slots between 8hr and full day) that locks 75% of your score and protects the rest for 3 hrs. Restrict it to one time use, so there's some strategy when to use it, and the rich can't shield hop it.

Alternative is to make it 75% of the bracket leader. If you're in a bracket with an 1100 guy, you can protect up to 825. Caveat there is if you lock 700 pts, then that's it. If you get to 825 later, that extra 125 is vulnerable.

This adds actual strategy and generates more revenue for the game. Win-win.

user311

MajinDavid wrote:

Is a 2* max level team of ares and thor really that easy on def?

Not a lot I can really say because your near 1000 score before mayhem was impressive compared to my sub 700 finish -- but I got to ask why would you unshield in that point range with Thor and Ares on your team. I think on defense in any score range we are all always going to attack a non OBW team before any other. And then with two characters playing each others colors, you can't predict if the AI is going to hold back its green and make Ares useless or use it every five and make call the storm useless. And I don't even want to guess who committed yellow suicide first. I think the AI is manic depressed sometimes.

Unknown

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

_RiO_ wrote:

I'd rather we just do away with shields altogether and place a cap on point loss, e.g., only those points scored over the last hour can be lost.
Ofcourse, it'll never happen. Shield hopping means D3P must be making a killing on HP sales.

Last line is correct, they're not going to kill a cash cow.

A possible solution is add another type of shield. Say, a 225HP one (that slots between 8hr and full day) that locks 75% of your score and protects the rest for 3 hrs. Restrict it to one time use, so there's some strategy when to use it, and the rich can't shield hop it.

Alternative is to make it 75% of the bracket leader. If you're in a bracket with an 1100 guy, you can protect up to 825. Caveat there is if you lock 700 pts, then that's it. If you get to 825 later, that extra 125 is vulnerable.

This adds actual strategy and generates more revenue for the game. Win-win.

This would just lead to massive point inflation much the same as we seen during the days of shielded people being visible Make your 700 look more like 500 and 1000 being a joke next to the 1600's.

GrumpySmurf1002

MTGOFerret wrote:

This would just lead to massive point inflation much the same as we seen during the days of shielded people being visible Make your 700 look more like 500 and 1000 being a joke next to the 1600's.

Wouldn't any point cap system do that?

Anyway, spitballing further, say when you lock in, it resets your internal number to zero. If you're attacked unshielded, you can fall negative and have to get those points back. So if you lock at 700, that's simply your minimum score. Something like that. The bloodbath that is the last couple hours would still be there, so I'm not sure how many can actually overcome it without shielding further.

MajinDavid

user311 wrote:

MajinDavid wrote:

Is a 2* max level team of ares and thor really that easy on def?

Not a lot I can really say because your near 1000 score before mayhem was impressive compared to my sub 700 finish -- but I got to ask why would you unshield in that point range with Thor and Ares on your team. I think on defense in any score range we are all always going to attack a non OBW team before any other. And then with two characters playing each others colors, you can't predict if the AI is going to hold back its green and make Ares useless or use it every five and make call the storm useless. And I don't even want to guess who committed yellow suicide first. I think the AI is manic depressed sometimes.

That last line cracked me up. But I use them cause in events before this when I dropped for a few minutes the amount of health the 2 have normally detours people. And its normally a quick win on off for me. Use thors yellow to get ares hitting fast with a ton of green and either thor or ares red depending on the situation. If the board is yellow rich normally thors red will grt a good match so I can use his yellow, but its normally ares red to hit the full team. And an update, I got 6th place after a little more shield hopping. Finally got my first purple mag. 4/3/1 now