Question for Euro-based MPQers re: 1PM/AM end time

mohio

And you can pretty much assume that question: Does the shift to 1 hour later make a significant difference for you or is it still too early to really matter? It seems like this change is here to stay at least until they can collect enough data to see the effects of it.

For those not in Europe, is the change going to effect at all your ability to compete for PvP?

For everyone - Would you like to see this change in PvE as well? They might intentionally be staggering the endings slightly to help mitigate the effects of true healing with multiple events ending at the same time (although an hour is only at best 2 health pack regens, so not likely to make a huge difference). But if they do change to the 1PM/AM ending times for PvE as well, would this be a welcome change or not? I can imagine it might be difficult for a lot of people to stay up until 1AM grinding that PvE on a workday.

So, let's hear it - what do you guys think? (Also should this be a poll? Can I add one after the fact?)

Unknown

I still not get the idea of single end time when we have brackets anyway. As there is no cross-talk between brackets each could end at different time.

To contain chaos a bit we could start with a small set like 4-5 alternatives spread by 3h. When you enter the tournament pick one of the end times from the list of available options.

I see no problems at all with regular 60h PVP events. PVE with subs is more tricky. But could be handled by moving the start time based on the selected end time providing the same run length for everyone. Where 'community target' scores apply they would be calculated within same ending brackets.

Der_Lex

For PvE it'd be a bit nicer to get up at 6 am for that final push instead of at 5 am.

For PvP it doesn't really matter to me, when there's an am end time I tend to do my final push around the 8 hour to end mark and shield up for the rest of the event.

noobprime

I honestly think that they just forgot about it.

HairyDave

pasa_ wrote:

I still not get the idea of single end time when we have brackets anyway. As there is no cross-talk between brackets each could end at different time.

I thought there was. At the very least your available targets don't seem to be limited to your own bracket and that would be a huge advantage to anyone finishing later.

Shadow

I'm not Euro-based and I'm not in favor of 1am end time. For PvP, it is ok since I'd be shielded before that anyway but I hope they don't implement it for PvE. I don't want to stay up that late to make the final push.

Unknown

On UK time the 5am finishes are brutal, so I'm all for the change. Especially in PvE given the need to play at the end. An extra hour is worth a lot at that time of day/night!

Bowgentle

That extra hour in the morning would be _huge_ for me, since it means I can get up at my regular working day time of 6am and then grind the hell out of the final hour.
So I'm hoping this isn't just a glitch.

PVE of course, won't matter for PVP since I need to be shielded anyway.

mytisbrewin

The extra hour is good for me both mornings and evenings, so I like the change assuming it is a change.

Unknown

To be honest I don't think it makes that much of a difference in PvP events for me. PvP events that finished at 5am I would just put on an 8 hour shield the night before, now they finish at 6am I will probably just do the same since I very rarely had 8 hours left in the event before putting the shield on anyway. For PvP events that now finish at 6pm it just gives me the chance to play right at the end if a final push is needed.

Thinking about it, it doesn't really change much for me in PvE either. Since I can't do a 4 am run to grind the last hour of a PvE event it means I will never be in the top 50 of a PvE event. I usually grind as high as I can throughout the whole event and just hope/pray that I don't drop out of the top 100 over night, in the hunt I only dropped 40 places from around 20 to 60 which I was pretty pleased with. If a PvE event was to finish at 6am (which is when I would usually get up) instead of 5am, I would probably just wake up 15/20 minutes earlier and have one last run at the essential nodes to push me up if I was going to fall out of the top 50 or 100. It would be a lot better than it currently is as I would have the chance to boost my score if needed, but I will still miss the last couple of runs of the nodes removing any aims to achieve a top 20 finish in a PvE event.

Unknown

For PvE a 6am finish time (UK) would be a small positive change. For most PvE's (except the super competitive ones) getting up at 5:30am to grind to the end is far better than 4:30am, even if you might be able to get to sleep after the event ends. For competitive PvE it would be the difference between getting up at 4am (and probably the 1am refresh) and 5am.

For PvP it wouldn't make much difference except that 5:45 for waking up to check I'm still in the top 5 (or whatever) is better than checking at 4:45am but thanks to shielding it's not a complete disaster if you can't play the last hour or so.

Generally speaking, I can't see that the benefit to the EU/UK population for such a change would significantly outweigh the issues this would cause the US/Americas based players. Still, if it stays (specifically for PvE) then I'd welcome it.

IamTheDanger

I have a members spread all over the world in my alliance, and couple of them seem to like the idea. Personally, i live on the east coast of the USA, and 1am for those like me can be hard sometimes. But is was just as hard to on UK players to get up at 4 and 5am. Of course with players all over the world, it would be nigh impossible to please everyone.

While it may inconvenience me from time to time, it will make things easier and more fairly distributed. Which for me, just gives the game a bit more of challenge. After all, it may not be a Big change by itself, but sometimes a tiny change is all it takes. So if it helps some of my guys score better, then I am all for the time change.

Unknown

HairyDave wrote:

pasa_ wrote:

I still not get the idea of single end time when we have brackets anyway. As there is no cross-talk between brackets each could end at different time.

I thought there was. At the very least your available targets don't seem to be limited to your own bracket and that would be a huge advantage to anyone finishing later.

Not if you cut ALL crosstalk so you compete only with those in your ending, others like not even exist in the game. Thinking again it would even remove the requirement of later starting.

Der_Lex

I have to admit I'm a little bit amused by the 'oh noes, I have to stay up late if it's 1 am' crowd while there are now players staying up till/waking up at 4 or 5 am to ensure those days of PvE play weren't a total waste.

I mean, I do get it's probably kind of late-ish for some people and it's easy for me to say 'no problem' since I never go to bed before 2 am anyway, but it still seems like the lesser of two evils by far compared to the current situation.

Unknown

pasa_ wrote:

Not if you cut ALL crosstalk so you compete only with those in your ending, others like not even exist in the game. Thinking again it would even remove the requirement of later starting.

The impact would probably be more on Alliances rewards than individuals, as Pasa stated - matching could easily be on timezone bracket. However for Alliances you have a slightly different situation as Alliance competition is global and therefore to get maximum advantage you would want all your Alliance members to be from the later finishing brackets so that you could see what you needed to do at the end of the event.

For example, Alliance 1 (mainly US based) finishes starts and finishes 5 hours before Alliance 2 (mainly Europe based). Both have the same amount of time to score points, but Alliance 2 has more of a chance to leapfrog Alliance 1 because at the end of the event it has 15 people who can push for Alliance placing whereas Alliance 1 has mostly finished their participation.

In reality such a situation would be rare, and only really relevant at the highest end of Alliance rankings and around 100th rank where it means getting a cover or not. Basically I'm just pointing out the only real (minor) issue with what seems a very, very sensible solution.

Unknown

DrUnpleasant wrote:

However for Alliances you have a slightly different situation as Alliance competition is global and therefore to get maximum advantage you would want all your Alliance members to be from the later finishing brackets so that you could see what you needed to do at the end of the event.

Indeed that effect is there, though I'm not sure it is important enough to care. I think only a handful of alliances care about the raw position to start with and the only point of contention is at the cover cutoff point. Where I think it's more luck based even now -- and in any case the last-min push is based on the members who are active fighters at the finish. Who would be in that ending arena. While who would not be there could finish with the early enders without changing the outcome.

I think even if the effect was more serious the amount of affected people in the alliances is at least 2 magnitudes smaller than the portion of the player base who would be happy to use a different ending time.

Unknown

Certainly I've played a mobile game before (Rage Of Bahamut) where they had different finishing bracket times but global rewards and I've sat there, ashen faced, as my rank when I finished slipped from 350 (out of c70,000) down to 605 when the last bracket finished - and I could do nothing about it. The difference in rewards for rank <600 and rank 600-800 was worth around £50 to me in terms of in game items. So, yeah, global rewards for individuals is a very bad thing but we're not talking about that kind of issue here.

Unknown

I don't think an hour would make that much of a difference for me, though actually the previous event end times were a little bit better for my schedule. The only downside I can think of is putting up a shield and realizing that my shield expires 1 hour before the pvp end. That happened to me last Heavy Metal

HairyDave

With this change I'm now back to 3AM/3PM end times - which suck badly.

Der_Lex

****, that's right. Poor Aussies. You guys always get the even shorter end of the stick.

dr tinykittylove

For me it's 1am/1pm - am is doable, but pm means where previously I could make a quick last minute push and shield for 3 hours before work, it's going to be 8 hours or nothing.