The problem with PVP is the shields.

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
1

Pve got an overhaul and now is acceptable, I think. Perhaps PVP will be next.

It’s really difficult once your score gets over 800, as everyone knows. So just shield, right?

This creates a situation so that when you unshield, you cant find any targets because EVERYONE IS SHIELDED!

This leads to the frustration of seeing the same targets over and over and over and … you get the picture.

Throw on top of that they are all around 30-35 points and you have made it nearly impossible to hit 1000.

Perhaps it would be better to buy a level “protection” with the HP instead of a shield.

Then your points would be protected at a certain level and there would be plenty of targets to choose from.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

Dudemon

2

This is exactly what I proposed in another thread. Great minds think alike! icon_e_biggrin.gif

3

Are you proposing a shield that doesn’t break? Or a shield that only breaks under certain circumstances? Or…what, exactly?

If you simply mean checkpointing, I’m down with that. But if the idea is say, a shield that doesn’t break until after a fight is complete, that’ll just allow people to whale harder. Shield, fight, immediately shield, wait a few minutes for things to cool off, fight, immediately shield again, rince and repeat.

4

Checkpoints. I propose to change the system of shield (pun intended) to checkpoints.

5

PvP is broken …a bit like broken Matt hardy without the fun element.

6

Dudemon,

If you use Line app or similar, you can co-ordinate with your/other alliances so you know when teams with higher points are going out and you can q them from a shielded position.

You also will know when they have shielded so you can hit them without them losing points.

You never know, they may even be nice enough put out an easier team so that you can beat it more quickly…

7

One of the main problems is the scoring system.

Why are defensive wins (the hardest type of win thanks to ai) worth so little

While defensive losses (the easiest type for the same reason) worth so much.

Make a defensive win the same value as a loss and it will help the matter a little. To stop people shield defending just make it so shield defensive wins are worth nothing (same as a loss). You might even find you make more money from the sale of health packs as people try to defend their way to their desired score.

Its outrageous that when I win a defensive fight I get 10pts But if I lose one I lose 40 points…utterly stupid

8

Defensive wins used to be worth more. Then people started finding their friends and retreat immediately to boost their scores. Thus defensive wins were devalued.

9

I get that some people enjoy gaming the system, but it hardly makes PVP accessible or fun to (what I assume are) the majority of players.

I’d like to see an overhaul too, just so long as all these things that would be considered glaring exploits in other PvP games (putting up weak targets to artificially inflate teammates’ scores, camping weak targets, invulnerability abuse) are done away with. What PvP ought to be is groupings of players at approximately the same power level vying in a fair environment for placement, and that’s it. I get too that these things are done because the progression prizes are out of reach for the majority of players, but that needs to be addressed on its own.

If I had my druthers, there wouldn’t be a need for shields at all. Pick your PvP team for the event, play x matches before you get a cooldown until the next round, starting everyone against x number of seed teams. Teams are fully healed at end of each match. Placement goes by matches won with ties broken by average number of moves made. Second round everyone is seeded by placement from round one. You play against other players’ teams, but they aren’t dinged or rewarded for these AI ran matches. It just gives you variety to go up against, and the tougher the team everyone else is running, the tougher it will be for you to place high. Play y number of rounds. Give everyone progress rewards based on bracket they get seeded into, incrementing each round. Spend optional HP betting on your placement each round for the chance at improved rewards so they can still make a bit of scratch off PvP. This is just off the top of my head, but would be a hell of a lot closer to how PvP works in other games.

10

I suggested a long time ago that shielding shouldn’t make you invisible. You don’t take damage while shielded, as it is now, but other players can still queue you up. It allows a greater number of targets to choose from, minimizing the problem of skipping through the same 3-5 teams over and over, essentially hoping to hit the poor soul that just broke their shield.

Maybe add something into the mix so you don’t hit the exact same target multiple times.

11

If the plan is to make 1300 require multiple shields and therefore lots of time, all you would be doing is taking progression possibilities away from more people. If the plan is to make the 24 hour shield practically necessary, all you are doing is making progression pay-only…

Losing tons of points in PVP is an awful experience. Not being able to find targets in PVP is an awful experience. Not being able to find worthwhile points in PVP is an awful experience. PVP’s being “lightning rounds” at the end of the event is an awful experience.

PVP has long needed some fixes. Shields are one way to do it! But something needs to be done. I don’t think Shield clearance ranks will fix any problems - it may simply exacerbate them.

12

maybe they should look at increasing defensive win value and instead severely punishing retreat losses. not many people would be willing to score their buds 40 points if they lose 150 in the process.

13

Do folks get many D wins? Talking to alliance/inter-alliance folks, they have a similar experience to mine…I get about 1:20 D wins. I had a wipe yesterday that is like my typical wipes (probably 1:50), just horrible cascade luck.

I don’t think increasing D wins (and punishing retreats, which would help the dumping problem) would matter much in the overall scheme of things.

14

it depends on the event i guess. and the team you can throw out there. i’ve had events where i’ve gotten 5-10 D wins and some where i didn’t get any. at any rate, if for the very few i do get, i got 50 points instead of 5 i’d definitely appreciate it.

15

Another bad side effect of the shields is that when you unshield you become one of the only available targets for everyone who is climbing in your slice. The already bad state of Versus mode encourages stronger teams to climb late instead of early so when you drop your shield to try to climb over 1000 you are suddenly a 75 point tasty treat to dozens of strong teams that are just starting their climb. At least a few of those teams will be playing at any given time which is why you’ll always get hit multiple times minutes after dropping your shield.

If shields didn’t make teams invisible and just protected your score then you wouldn’t lose 200 points minutes after you drop your shield. There would be plenty of available targets. The side effect of this though would be massive point inflation across the board since there would be so many wins that awarded points without taking any away. All of the players would be happy with this but I don’t know if it would ever happen.

16

This particular thing happened to me last night, and it happens all too often… and I hate it!!!

After around 20 battles, I make it to 1080 points. I decide to do just one more battle and shield, so that I’m in decent range of 1300 points.

But no.

I lost a defensive battle or two, so I’m now at 987 points.

I think you can see where I’m going with this.

So the next 3-4 battles, I’m spending boosts and health packs like crazy just to get to the 1080 where I was.

I finally give up at 1040, too far away to get to 1300 without at least four battles.

I give up, angry and frustrated, all that effort for nothing.

I feel that if I get to 1080, my shield should save my score at 1080. It shouldn’t be all “oh you waited 3 seconds to see if there were more decent points available, and now you’re down to 800 points.”

I should be shielded at 1080, because I fought to get there, and I was there. I shouldn’t then need to pay for like 10 more shields to get there a second time. That’s just not right.

The shield should save the highest points you had before shielding.

I hate needing to plan my life around this game. Every time I try to get to 1300, I instantly regret it and remember why I hated it so much.

And then in the times I finally get to 1300, I generally end up drawing a useless cover anyway, so there’s more frustration and zero feeling of accomplishment.

17

Dude. If youre above 800 (900, whatever) and you’re out of targets, shield up. Someone is bound to break shield. Come back, scroll again til you get 3 qs, THEN break shield. Your post seems to indicate that you’re breaking shield and then scrolling qs. That makes no sense. Get qs ready, break shield, hit your qs, shield up and be FAST to avoid taking hits.
As far as mpqrs post. You CAN lock your score at 1080, use a shield! It’s pvp, youre supposed to take hits, just be quicker than the hits. If you want the devs to create a competetive system where points are locked in and its just about who does the most battles, i have great news! It’s already in the game! Just switch from “versus” to “story mode”. Nobody can even attack you there.

18

What I don’t like about this is that it forces you, if you want to be competitive, to play every round. Do you want to have to play some matches every few hours? That sounds a lot like something else they used to do around here…

19

This would be one way to get rid of cupcakes, I guess. Part of the reason cupcakes work is that there aren’t enough targets in your MMR range (it sometimes breaks, as is, for 5* players, if too many people are unshielded). If shielded people can be queued, then there are always enough targets available for cupcakes to be invisible.

20

This has been suggested before. It’s a bad idea. Part of the reason shields work is theres usually a minute or two from the time you break shield until people scrolling find your team. Gives you just enough time to get a couple matches in before you’re hit, if you’re quick. If your team is available at all times then people could be mismatch with you while you’re breaking shield (possible on current system if they save the q. But less likely)