When shield hopping goes horribly wrong..

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In the Hood event I was feeling pretty confident at 950 and ready to hop. I sought after the juiciest targets and even found me a couple with a squishy hood. First match is over in what feels like 30 seconds, second match is about a minute thanks to a semi slow board but I got lucky and squeeze off a smite to level their XF without incident. Hit for 30 pts -_- Well that match I went negative 15 alright I'll make it up on this next one! and still get out positive 15 overall since each match was worth 15 pts. The match is over in a heartbeat thanks to boosts and a black match 5 as first move. You know what happens next. I was wrecked for 147 pts -_- Goodbye Starlord, hello top 10.

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  • konannfriends
    konannfriends Posts: 246 Tile Toppler
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    3uphoria wrote:
    In the Hood event I was feeling pretty confident at 950 and ready to hop. I sought after the juiciest targets and even found me a couple with a squishy hood. First match is over in what feels like 30 seconds, second match is about a minute thanks to a semi slow board but I got lucky and squeeze off a smite to level their XF without incident. Hit for 30 pts -_- Well that match I went negative 15 alright I'll make it up on this next one! and still get out positive 15 overall since each match was worth 15 pts. The match is over in a heartbeat thanks to boosts and a black match 5 as first move. You know what happens next. I was wrecked for 147 pts -_- Goodbye Starlord, hello top 10.

    There really needs to be a limit to how many points you can lose at one interval. In my opinion while in a natch I should never lose more than that matches I can win will give me.

    It kills me when I can only find 18-22 point matches. But when someone defeats me I lose 27. And when I get a defensive win I get something like 11 points. Heck one time I only got 4 points from a defensive win against someone with maxed Xthorce( I check rosters )
  • Ebolamonkey84
    Ebolamonkey84 Posts: 509 Critical Contributor
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    If you can't find anything higher than 15 points at 950, that means you are near the top of the totem pole in your time slice so you will be an appealing target to everyone.
  • If you can't find anything higher than 15 points at 950, that means you are near the top of the totem pole in your time slice so you will be an appealing target to everyone.

    That's true but should it shouldn't feel like the game realizes you're in a top spot and prioritizes you to be queued up by everyone who clicks the skip button. If you spend money on this game getting the HP to shield hop and a shield hop costs you money and time then you end up placing significantly lower in the ranks then you have a very flawed system. There should be like a 5 minute period where you can't be queued after you drop shields.
  • atomzed
    atomzed Posts: 1,753 Chairperson of the Boards
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    3uphoria wrote:
    That's true but should it shouldn't feel like the game realizes you're in a top spot and prioritizes you to be queued up by everyone who clicks the skip button. If you spend money on this game getting the HP to shield hop and a shield hop costs you money and time then you end up placing significantly lower in the ranks then you have a very flawed system. There should be like a 5 minute period where you can't be queued after you drop shields.

    You want to make the game more p2w? Sounds like a good plan. /sarcasm.

    If you were around during the pre nerfed sentry period, and before the pre shield cool down period, the situation was as what you wanted. Pay shield fees and hit whatever scores that you want. Sure it was easy to hit that 1300 (if you have sentry or have hp to shield hop.infinite times).... But it also wasn't fun for the people who don't.

    I don't like the shield cooldown, but I think overall it makes the game less p2w. By the same logic, putting a cap on the points you can lose, or preventing you from losing points if you are shielded, will make the game more p2w.
  • Flare808
    Flare808 Posts: 266
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    3uphoria wrote:
    If you can't find anything higher than 15 points at 950, that means you are near the top of the totem pole in your time slice so you will be an appealing target to everyone.

    That's true but should it shouldn't feel like the game realizes you're in a top spot and prioritizes you to be queued up by everyone who clicks the skip button. If you spend money on this game getting the HP to shield hop and a shield hop costs you money and time then you end up placing significantly lower in the ranks then you have a very flawed system. There should be like a 5 minute period where you can't be queued after you drop shields.

    The pool of players available to queue at the top of PvP is always small. Most of the time you can only queue people worth 3-5 points. When someone worthwhile pops up at 35+, that sticks out. It's not the game prioritizing you, it's the other people skipping that prioritize you for the points you present.
  • As far as I can tell people simply don't give up on skipping and take a 20 point match. If you want to eliminate getting hit for being ahead of the curve you'd have to make skipping not allowed. That'd solve the problem of getting lit up by everyone because nobody can even attempt to try to attack you anymore (outside of the first 3 matches offered) but it'd be a fundamentally different kind of game. Most competitive games have blind matchmaking because allowing you to back out once your see your opponent is inherently distorting the playing field and leads to the dreaded 'you were attacked by way too many people' popup. I've seen a game where it'd cost the equivalent of HP to skip, which is pretty P2W but at least you don't get lit up too much. Sure, if you have a weak team you'll still be preferred whenever you do show up, but it's considerably harder to find a weak team when the cost is high.
  • Quite a few people in my Hood bracket seemed to suffer disasterous hops. I shielded in fifth place, had no defensive wins, and somehow came in third. Yikes.
  • atomzed wrote:
    You want to make the game more p2w? Sounds like a good plan. /sarcasm.

    If you were around during the pre nerfed sentry period, and before the pre shield cool down period, the situation was as what you wanted. Pay shield fees and hit whatever scores that you want. Sure it was easy to hit that 1300 (if you have sentry or have hp to shield hop.infinite times).... But it also wasn't fun for the people who don't.

    I don't like the shield cooldown, but I think overall it makes the game less p2w. By the same logic, putting a cap on the points you can lose, or preventing you from losing points if you are shielded, will make the game more p2w.

    If you have enough HP you will win. I'm going to place where I want depending on how bad I need the reward regardless of a 5 minute breathe time on getting queued up. I can also circumvent that instance by playing at the right times so by no means does my suggestion give me a huge advantage. It's just costing me another 150-225 more HP than I care to spend. You should know by now that this game is as p2w as it gets and if you have enough time on your hands the advantage is even greater.
    Phantron wrote:
    If you want to eliminate getting hit for being ahead of the curve you'd have to make skipping not allowed. That'd solve the problem of getting lit up by everyone because nobody can even attempt to try to attack you anymore (outside of the first 3 matches offered) but it'd be a fundamentally different kind of game. Most competitive games have blind matchmaking because allowing you to back out once your see your opponent is inherently distorting the playing field and leads to the dreaded 'you were attacked by way too many people' popup.

    I rarely skip until I'm ready to set up matches for a hop anyways so this would be fine with me. The idea of skipping matches is dumb for obvious reasons. D3 would stand to gain from people having to fight stronger rosters opposed to skipping them.
  • atomzed
    atomzed Posts: 1,753 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited March 2015
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    3uphoria wrote:
    atomzed wrote:
    You want to make the game more p2w? Sounds like a good plan. /sarcasm.

    If you were around during the pre nerfed sentry period, and before the pre shield cool down period, the situation was as what you wanted. Pay shield fees and hit whatever scores that you want. Sure it was easy to hit that 1300 (if you have sentry or have hp to shield hop.infinite times).... But it also wasn't fun for the people who don't.

    I don't like the shield cooldown, but I think overall it makes the game less p2w. By the same logic, putting a cap on the points you can lose, or preventing you from losing points if you are shielded, will make the game more p2w.

    If you have enough HP you will win. I'm going to place where I want depending on how bad I need the reward regardless of a 5 minute breathe time on getting queued up. I can also circumvent that instance by playing at the right times so by no means does my suggestion give me a huge advantage. It's just costing me another 150-225 more HP than I care to spend. You should know by now that this game is as p2w as it gets and if you have enough time on your hands the advantage is even greater.

    Pls read my post again. I said, "do you want to make it more p2w?". shields is already a p2w mechanics. But by implementing what you suggested:
    3uphoria wrote:
    That's true but should it shouldn't feel like the game realizes you're in a top spot and prioritizes you to be queued up by everyone who clicks the skip button. If you spend money on this game getting the HP to shield hop and a shield hop costs you money and time then you end up placing significantly lower in the ranks then you have a very flawed system. There should be like a 5 minute period where you can't be queued after you drop shields.
    [/quote]

    The game will be even *more* p2w.

    And I don't want the game to turn out like that.
  • 3uphoria wrote:

    I rarely skip until I'm ready to set up matches for a hop anyways so this would be fine with me. The idea of skipping matches is dumb for obvious reasons. D3 would stand to gain from people having to fight stronger rosters opposed to skipping them.

    I usually don't skip either but from what I understand this is a very unusual amongst players. I do think the reason why we have shields at all is because you can skip so it's easy to find anyone at the top. If you can't even skip then the guy at the top would at least never be singled out on purpose since the game cannot support such behavior to begin with. They probably have the skip mechanism so that it makes everyone feel like a winner, as without skipping it is quite possible for a weaker player to end up with 3 opponents where he cannot beat any of them. The problem is that due to a lack of general content in the game, not playing is not really a viable option either. In any other competitive game, if for some unknown reason I get promoted to a league I've no business in, I should not be playing anyone and just play the other aspects of the game until my erroneously high ranking gets corrected. In MPQ, players are generally erroneously rated too high (hence the wall) but not playing is not an option either, because there's nothing else to advance your characters with.
  • There really needs to be a limit to how many points you can lose at one interval. In my opinion while in a natch I should never lose more than that matches I can win will give me.

    It kills me when I can only find 18-22 point matches. But when someone defeats me I lose 27. And when I get a defensive win I get something like 11 points. Heck one time I only got 4 points from a defensive win against someone with maxed Xthorce( I check rosters )
    Agreed, although the only way for this to happen would be to change the match-making to place each player as an enemy only to 1-2 player nodes. This way you can lose max 2x50 points (both opponents who play against you have significantly less points than you), but realistically, you should lose 25-60 points for each match you play and only if they both attack simultaneously while you are unshielded. These 2 opponents (or even the 1 I mentioned at first) that the game chooses for you and the retaliations you offer to the opponents you attack should be more than enough to fill everyone's nodes. There is an issue with what happens after a player skips many opponents, but I don't think this would be a huge problem if the match-making is fixed and the game doesn't set you up with the same opponents again and again.
  • Ebolamonkey84
    Ebolamonkey84 Posts: 509 Critical Contributor
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    3uphoria wrote:

    I rarely skip until I'm ready to set up matches for a hop anyways so this would be fine with me. The idea of skipping matches is dumb for obvious reasons. D3 would stand to gain from people having to fight stronger rosters opposed to skipping them.

    There are two types of skipping:
    1. Skipping because there is a roster you can't handle. This is mainly done by transitioners.
    2. Skipping because someone is not worth enough points and will retaliate for more than you are gaining. This is done by vets.

    I hate skipping. The amount of ISO wasted on skipping adds up. But I will almost never hit someone worth less than 25 points if I feel they are strong enough to hit me back because that is a losing proposition.