Changes to Shatter

Thoughts? Big changes to the ice spawning rates with a far greater emphasis on competition over big ice. It's like they took onboard the need for more actual PvP and then they... halved the points for kills.

Wut?

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

Thoughts? Big changes to the ice spawning rates with a far greater emphasis on competition over big ice. It's like they took onboard the need for more actual PvP and then they... halved the points for kills.

Wut?

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They want people to move around the group fights more which is not a bad thing since usually packs of players are being farmed because they lick the ice forever. Will have to see if people catch on and finally do pvp.

Forcing more PvP in PvE Frontline, while reducing points from PvP. They almost had it right.

Players will run after big ice now, having to kill 40 players or destroy 1 big ice, that respawns every minute - what is easier to do in 30s? Maybe ice reward points should have been reduced further, while max ice needed to win as well, then they could reward 5 points per kill.

Also think they should bring back higher point rewards for taking out battle high targets, like in the past.

Finally played it a minute ago... and my fears from reading the patch notes were right, it just exasperated the issue of 72s having too many people around to be enjoyable on Shatter. Pretty much been a game of 1 Step Forward 2-3 Steps Back with every PvP update since they removed 48s (16v16v16). Too many bodies in an area with too few things to do, and Shatter feels super formulaic now. Though it's ironically refreshing that their steps back were on the game mode this update not the combat itself, Purify was a nice change. Unless they finally concede that PvP where the only real win/loss condition is how many people happen to target the same person isn't fun, I feel we will be stuck in this place.

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Originally Posted by OcieKo

Finally played it a minute ago... and my fears from reading the patch notes were right, it just exasperated the issue of 72s having too many people around to be enjoyable on Shatter. Pretty much been a game of 1 Step Forward 2-3 Steps Back with every PvP update since they removed 48s (16v16v16). Too many bodies in an area with too few things to do, and Shatter feels super formulaic now. Though it's ironically refreshing that their steps back were on the game mode this update not the combat itself, Purify was a nice change. Unless they finally concede that PvP where the only real win/loss condition is how many people happen to target the same person isn't fun, I feel we will be stuck in this place.

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It's actually very wrong, there are less bodies in a single area now since there are 2 big ices... So far and from the games I've played alliances are more spread out and there are more 1v1 depending on where the spawns are.

But why they had to reduce points awarded for doing pvp is weird, games take forever.

I think they want people fight over big ice so there are some actually pvp. Camping in spawn for small ice is even more brainless than getting sastash in leveling.

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Originally Posted by Teno

It's actually very wrong, there are less bodies in a single area now since there are 2 big ices... So far and from the games I've played alliances are more spread out and there are more 1v1 depending on where the spawns are.

But why they had to reduce points awarded for doing pvp is weird, games take forever.

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I only got to play one before the switch to Onsal. It seemed overall a significant improvement, but halving the KO points doesn't make any sense to me at all.

https://i.ibb.co/0mC8V6S/PVC2.png
This is all you need to know about the new Shatter, you win if you don't fight, or you win if you have a DK and Dragons in party to wipe out the entire alliance instantly so you can have the crystal all for yourself. And in this case on the image, there is no team with a DK who team wipes, this is normal PVP, the teams who fought, lost.

The changes are pretty dumb and misguided. Fighting for big ice is a terrible idea right now. The ramp team (safe ice team) has such a huge advantage that it will usually need 2 teams to overcome, but with 2 big ice always being up you can basically ensure this will never happen. The way they removed small ice spawns also makes the top sections of the map almost useless and empty space. It also greatly limits the areas where battles actually take place. Most of the major engagements took place in the upper area with walls and structures to use as hiding spots and cover. Now, most fights will take place in an open pit. Once in a while there is a mid fight where it will either be a 2 team or 3 team face off. This portion is actually pretty good, but the lower hp of the big ice means it does not last very long. You end up with a game mode where 2 teams lick safe ice while the 3rd team either feeds a team points by trying to attack, is strong or coordinated enough to bulldoze through anyways, or forced to twiddle their thumbs and do nothing.

The previous shatter (shatter 2) was in my opinion an amazing map. It's main problem was that if your team didn't coordinate, it had no chance against a coordinated team. I don't actually see this as a problem, and this is just as prevalent in the other maps, but I digress. There was a lot of decision making to be done. Which ice to go for? Do we use it as bait for the enemy team or just take it and go? Should we harass the big ice team to lower their points or compete with the other team for smalls? What route should we take to maximize points? The mode was all about point efficiency and it was very hard to 2v1 a team if they got close to winning like with what happens in seal rock and onsal. The recent patch took out all this decision making, nerfing commanders' ability to swing games through tactical superiority, but really does nothing besides lowering the contribution of pre-mades just being stronger and wiping regular players over and over.


I do not know what the dev team's design goals were, but if it was to make the mode simpler, longer, and more monotonous they definitely succeeded. It makes me feel like that they do not play this mode at all and are very content to sit back and let it burn. Instead of throwing changes at us out of the blue, they could have done some A-B testing where both modes of the map were in the game and randomly chosen each match, or they could have listed the reasons for the changes like they do for jobs, or they could have made a new map with similar rules (secure) instead of ruining a decently acceptable map. From the matches I've played, most teams are going to end up hitting a glorified training dummy for twenty minutes with a 3 button rotation. I just wished that the PVP situation was better. It feels like they constantly take things away and when they do give stuff back, it's worse than before.

https://i.imgur.com/N6Dy16h.png

We won by just walking back and forth between whichever of the two large ice spawns wasn't heavily contested. I rarely queue for Shatter anyway since the last rework, but that was heaven compared to this. I barely saw the enemy teams for the first 10 minutes of the match.

Even less incentive for pvp and even more PvE. Head--->Table.

I do not know what to say.

Just finished match of Shatter, since it's the daily Frontline.

Outside of usual Dark Knights doing Dark Knight things, who knows how long they'll allow that, there was no PvP.

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Originally Posted by Anzaman

Outside of usual Dark Knights doing Dark Knight things, who knows how long they'll allow that

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I mean they said they'd be looking at PvP content in 7.1 at FanFest, so they'll probably allow it for the next 11 months or so.

Yeah... after 2 matches I honestly can't see this being any fun. Might as well be a Golden Saucer event

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Originally Posted by OliviaLugria

if it was to make the mode simpler [...] they definitely succeeded. It makes me feel like that they do not play this mode at all and are very content to sit back and let it burn

From the matches I've played, most teams are going to end up hitting a glorified training dummy for twenty minutes with a 3 button rotation. I just wished that the PVP situation was better. It feels like they constantly take things away and when they do give stuff back, it's worse than before.

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x

Edit: Looking at JP forums, they aren't really happy about it either. Feels even more PvE than PvP to a few, the opposite of what was requested.

They could have gone all out with job skill and recuperate changes, because PvP tournaments are over now.

Yeaaahhh after doing one game, I'm pretty sure this feels worse. I already hardly ever did shatter since the change, and now I think I will just avoid it altogether. I kind of liked the small ice changes at least; having a moment part way through the match to regroup and have a bit of a breather to get small ice is fine, though it would be nice if it was used more in a way for the losing team to catch up on points a bit. Like maybe only having the ones in their base spawn? But man. Big ice sucks right now. It would be a lot nicer if only one spawned at a time and probably still needs less health, or at least a larger break in between them spawning.
They're slowing getting there with the changes, but still needs a lot more work... Strange how it always feels like the devs are always on the extremes when it comes to changes EXCEPT for when it comes to shatter.

I had a match earlier where the duty timer actually ran up before any team could win. I can't remember the last time I saw that happen.

On one hand, I'm liking the smaller engagement sizes. On the other, if this was their attempt at gauging how smaller engagements tend to play out, I think there are better ways to do it.

I wish they'd just axe the third team entirely in DT.

Throwing my two cents in here:
The changes to how crystals spawn are not great.
One of the things that was enjoyable about the mode was the ability to contribute to by running around the outside and going after the smaller crystal spawns, and the changes have completely ruined that aspect.
As it stands, the current mode encourages a wrecking ball approach where one team just steamrolls everyone else while just a few of their members hack away at the crystals for points, pretty much causing a steamroll while the third team is off in a corner somewhere working on their crystal in a vain hope to catch up.
Maybe this is me talking as a casual who tends to stick to either Roulettes or CC for the Malmstones, but it is NOT FUN to be working towards the objective (as one should) only to be yanked into a mob and die in about two seconds as the dominating team rolls in like a flood, and wins with double the points of the other two teams combined.
The mode was a lot more tolerable (dare I even say 'fun') when weaker members of the team could actually FEEL like they were making a difference going after the smaller clusters.

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Originally Posted by Araxes

Even less incentive for pvp and even more PvE. Head--->Table.

I do not know what to say.

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Ironically, as I seem to be surviving team fights more often thanks to the near-complete absence of a third team during said fights, I'm actually enjoying those fights more, as I'm not getting instantly vaporized (most of the time). Maybe I've just gotten lucky, or maybe it's just a convenient side-effect of the changes, but the lack of that additional source of damage and cc is nice for a change.

Holy s-, decided to poke my nose into shatter to see if it was a bad I thought it would be and it's even WORSE then I'd imagined. I had stopped queuing for it after the initial changes, other then the odd forget get to check the days FL(would just stick it out), but now if I forget to check I'm just going to eat the penalty.

my thoughts?

I have like 197 wins to go for the title.

https://media4.giphy.com/media/j5bvO...BS5i/giphy.gif

maybe ill just... skip that achieve

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Originally Posted by Mayhemmer

Ironically, as I seem to be surviving team fights more often thanks to the near-complete absence of a third team during said fights, I'm actually enjoying those fights more, as I'm not getting instantly vaporized (most of the time). Maybe I've just gotten lucky, or maybe it's just a convenient side-effect of the changes, but the lack of that additional source of damage and cc is nice for a change.

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It is also because the points from killing players are reduced so you are punished in that regard.
In the 2 matches I got, the first was a quick victory because we pretty much stole majority of small ices and had better contest on ices, we did not chase enemy teams and only fought when forced.
The 2nd match took forever because all 3 teams tried to mix more fighting toward players and that ended up dragging the match so badly...

And just think, Secure, Seal Rock, and that other frontline map are all supposed to get shatter like changes in DT. It's almost like SE is trying to push people into CC if they want aggressive PvP while making the other modes more netflix and chill.

Lmao wtf is Yoshi-P's team doing over there with the FL. This is so incompetent and wasting time and money. Just bring back Borderland and delete Shatter.

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Originally Posted by OzzRabbit

One of the things that was enjoyable about the mode was the ability to contribute to by running around the outside and going after the smaller crystal spawns, and the changes have completely ruined that aspect.

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This was kind of one of the issues which players had with the previous Shatter: when a third of your team spend the entire game chasing small crystals, leaving the rest to somehow survive vs a more aggressive team whilst heavily outnumbered. And even once further into a game when a team has BH and is taking a notable lead, trying to encourage your team to stick together and focus more on siding with the other losing team to take them down, many will totally ignore it and stick with the safe 'focus small crystals' method. Yes, I would agree it was preferable to what we have now, but even the old Shatter wasn't ideal.

Focusing more on this newer one though: personally, I think it's terrible. The games are slow. The time is just spent running from large crystal to large crystal. The only time spent PvPing is if the third team (whichever team doesn't have a ramp-accessible crystal active) happens to choose your crystal to fight over and, as they are destroyed so quickly, those fights never last long. 1v1v1 fights don't really happen anymore, except in the unlikely event that all teams meet over the middle large crystal. While two teams are fighting each other over one large crystal, that leaves the third team to do nothing other than twiddle their thumbs while they destroy their own and wait for new spawns in the hope that something remotely interesting happens. I have never spent so much time just destroying crystal as I have done in these new Shatters.

The only tiny benefit of these changes is that, excepting the moment when the small crystals all spawn at once, they do keep the team together. But, personally, I don't find that comes remotely near to compensating for the countless other negative changes which were made. It's now more mind-numbingly PvE than ever.

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Originally Posted by Dionysius

Just bring back Borderland and delete Shatter.

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If there wouldn't be that one skill that pulls everyone down the cliff... They should just replaced Salted Earth with the old "Tar Pit" that slows everyone standing in it, instead of removing the map.

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Originally Posted by Commander_Justitia

If there wouldn't be that one skill that pulls everyone down the cliff... They should just replaced Salted Earth with the old "Tar Pit" that slows everyone standing in it, instead of removing the map.

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There are so many ways they can do it, adding water pond at the bottom, remove fall damage, etc etc. Instead everything spent on revamping Shatter and balancing (breaking) it.

This new version of shatter is still a steaming pile of garbage and this re-work is proof enough that they KNOW it sucked and wasted months of time dragging their heels to put a fix out to something that could have been found if they had PLAY TESTED their maps prior to implementing them. Heres my take, as the number one official hater of Shatter ever since it was reworked months ago.

The update;
Is there more PvP? Generally speaking, yes.
Does the team that dominates PvP fights usually win the match? No.
Is the map balanced (including node spawns?) Usually.
Is it fun to play on, compared to; Original shatter, Onsal, Seal rock? NO.

Don't get me wrong this map is a step in the right direction, though I have a feeling thats purely accidental at this point, as I refuse to believe the devs responsible for PvP changes are capable of implementing anything positive if they tried. I don't think they even understand PvP at a fundamental level. Or really care about PvP at all at this point, it's just another minigame to them. Wasted potential.

The common theme persists with this map, which plagues all of front lines, and will continue to do so until they abandon this MMO. We need a developer in charge who genuinely respects PvP, and wants to see it succeed rather than sidelining it, pushing out bad map re-works like THIS. They NEED to listen to community feedback, The JP Community was ridiculing the shatter re-work the day it came out, they could AT LEAST listen to them, if they're not even going to think of having public play testing. There are so many creative PvP maps they can make, and they instead insist on pushing this garbage our way. Disappointing, to say the least. My Shatter hate campaign will carry on into Dawntrail, or until it gets removed from the game.

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Originally Posted by Archeron

I don't think they even understand PvP at a fundamental level

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or worse, the "team" they have on PVP THINK they know PVP far more than what they actually do and feel justified with these clownass changes.