Once again, once more, EU players got screwed

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Comments

  • Unknown
    Unknown
    For the 'needing X character from PvE rewards for the next event' issue is pretty much a non-issue if either:

    - the next event starts slightly later
    - or that next event also has time zones so the people needing the character wouldn't be starting until later anyway

    The zone banding issue also reduces stress on servers where (at the moment) everyone who can / are awake is trying to grind in the last hour. Imagine 20% of the player base is in Europe - that's 20% less people trying to manically grind at the same time as US players.

    Anyway, if we knew the reasons why Demiurge hadn't tackled this issue then we wouldn't need to speculate so much. All I can guess at the moment is that the reason is "because we don't give a toss about Europe/Africa, but we don't want to tell you that incase you stop playing/spending".

    I'd certainly agree that stopping rubberbanding 12 hours earlier wouldn't exactly solve the issue, it would just create a different optimal grind point (which would, however, at least be a time when the US/EU were both awake).
  • _RiO_
    _RiO_ Posts: 1,047 Chairperson of the Boards
    DrUnpleasant wrote:
    The zone banding issue also reduces stress on servers where (at the moment) everyone who can / are awake is trying to grind in the last hour. Imagine 20% of the player base is in Europe - that's 20% less people trying to manically grind at the same time as US players.
    Good point. And something I actually hadn't considered yet. Easing server stress is a good thing around the board. Less hassle with the equipment for Demiurge/D3P and a more stable playing experience for the playerbase.
    DrUnpleasant wrote:
    Anyway, if we knew the reasons why Demiurge hadn't tackled this issue then we wouldn't need to speculate so much. All I can guess at the moment is that the reason is "because we don't give a toss about Europe/Africa, but we don't want to tell you that incase you stop playing/spending".
    Yes. Certainly, it is in their best interests as well to come clean on this. Unless ofcourse, your speculation is spot-on. (In which case I'd have more of a problem with the fact that we would have been lead on for months on end, rather than with the actual statement.)
  • shuusin
    shuusin Posts: 27
    My suggestion is not to remove rubberbanding at the end, but refreshes that add to the point total. This would allow for players who are not available at the event end to accumulate some of the points they have missed, while the players who have finished at the optimal point will still have a higher overall cap.

    Yes, the optimal grind point would be moved away from the end, but the optimal grind point for pvp is not the event end either.
  • _RiO_
    _RiO_ Posts: 1,047 Chairperson of the Boards
    shuusin wrote:
    My suggestion is not to remove rubberbanding at the end, but refreshes that add to the point total. This would allow for players who are not available at the event end to accumulate some of the points they have missed, while the players who have finished at the optimal point will still have a higher overall cap.

    Yes, the optimal grind point would be moved away from the end, but the optimal grind point for pvp is not the event end either.

    Not removing the rubberbanding means everyone is going to sit on their last node refresh until the very last 30 minutes and is then going to grind like crazy, trying to make optimal use of the rubberbanding and denying anyone else the option of climbing past them by using rubberbanding. The optimal grind point will move forward. The optimal final play point will remain exactly as it is now. Unless you stop both rubberbanding and node refreshes, the optimal final play point will not budge.

    If you don't believe that this is what will happen, then I would like to point your attention to this game's history. If we rewind a bit, then before node refresh times were placed at 2.5hrs they would be spaced 8 to 12 hours apart. A final refresh followed by 8-12 hours of no more refreshes would sound familiar, I hope. How did players play during these events? Why; they saved their last refresh for the last 30~60 minutes of the event, ofcourse. Doing so maximized points from the rubberband stretched taut and simultaneously ensured you'd have enough nodes left to 'outrun' anyone that had used his/her nodes up beforehand.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    I think one of the better ideas is to rubberband up until the last 1-2 refreshes, then not. The last one or two giving out a fixed (but quite high I suppose, and subject to diminishing returns) amount of points.
  • Wolarsen
    Wolarsen Posts: 326 Mover and Shaker
    How about this:
    No rubberband, no refresh timers. Each node has a fixed value and enemies lvl increases each time you defeat it.

    MUST-HAVE: careful starting lvl and scaling calculation.
    PROS: no time constraints at all, you could grind as much as you wanted, in a single time or on several sessions, untill you hit a natural "too strong" wall
    CONS: not exactly pay-to-win, but you could dump health packs for some extra advance
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    So, another day and another visit from the D3/Demiurge guys without any comment on this issue.

    I'm not going to keep bumping this thread beyond today as it's somewhat pointless as it's fairly unlikely that this discussion has gone un-noticed (on the dozens of times it's been on these boards) and so I'm guessing a concious 'no comment' decision. I'll keep playing for a bit longer because I'm curious to see what the team-up changes bring but long term it's simply not sustainable for a UK/EU person to be expected to wake up at stupid 'o' clock just so they can compete.
  • hurcules
    hurcules Posts: 519
    DrUnpleasant wrote:
    Eliminating rubberbanding would alienate casual players, so no go.

    - Not if you changed the refresh timers so that they were 8 or 12 hour refreshes instead of 2.5hrs, and/or reduced rubberbanding's upper limit (to say 300% of initial max node value). I think Demiurge Will has already commented that the 2.5hr refresh timers are promoting the grindy gameplay more than they'd intended.

    3 time zones PvEs? Too complicated. No go.

    - Other mobile games of higher complexity do this, so it's not exactly rocket science.


    Best way forward, IMHO, is to rotate end times. Every region gets their fair share of shafting.

    - I'm not on board with the idea of the idea that anyone should struggle to compete in any event, and some PvE's have got it right (and been praised on here) with the way they've worked (She Hulk and Sentry PvE's) so I really don't understand why they can't make sure all PvE's use the same mechanic.

    Just wanted to state up front I am a UK player too. So I suffer from the stupid o'clock PvE end time as you do too. Incidentally the 1h move back of PvP finish means my HP income decreases slightly because I usually stay up late til 2am and throw up one 3h shield. 6am PvP end time means I am using 8h shield instead.

    To your points:

    1) I don't know if 12h refresh timer is an improvement to reduce grind or not, but I appreciate that 2.5h refresh plus rubberbanding means I can play sparingly every x hours, where x hours >> 2.5, and still get decent progression in PvE. If I need to switch up a gear to catch up closer to bracket leader, then I will grind according to the refresh schedule. The point is, knowing these mechanisms are in place means I can schedule my play time around work / life, not the other way around.

    2) I don't play a lot of mobile games. So I'm not aware of other mobile games with similar structure PvE for different timezones. Care to name them and detail how they are run? I suppose D3/Demiurge can set up different servers in each regions for this purpose?

    3) Even if we use the PvE that people said they have got it right (Max rubberbanding then no rubberbanding for the last 12h), people would just take advantage of that max rubberbanding period. In effect you are just shifting the end-time grind to 13 hours prior. As for vetheran's point that when PvE end time gets rotated we may get **** cover rewards (e.g. Loki), well, over a long period of time every timezone gets **** with stupid o'clock end times AND **** cover rewards. So that's a moot point. In any case, one does not need to compete in every PvE. I'm just suggesting every time zone gets its share of good end time and new char introduction PvE.

    #doingmybittopropthisthreadup
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    hurcules wrote:
    2) I don't play a lot of mobile games. So I'm not aware of other mobile games with similar structure PvE for different timezones. Care to name them and detail how they are run? I suppose D3/Demiurge can set up different servers in each regions for this purpose?

    I don't think they need seperate servers, but if you look at the way Rage of Bahamut did this (as a good example as they had a similar structure of PvE and PvP rotation) then before the event started there would be a banner that you clicked on and selected whether you wanted one of three start/finish times. Then as the event started you would have pre-formed groups that competed against each other in those time zones. People clicking on the event after it started would still be able to select their zone but might have to wait until their group is full (so typically a 30 minute delay or thereabouts).

    For that game it was actually less straightforward to implement because rewards were global (e.g. top 100 players globally get X, top 600 get Y, etc etc) so the implications of starting earlier were significant as your finish total was known by later finishing players and left you at a disadvantage. In MPQ rewards are bracket wide and so no such concerns exist.

    Now Rage Of Bahamut was one of the top grossing mobile games for some time, and other games that implement similar systems might have bigger budgets or developer crews to put this in place so maybe it's not viable for MPQ... but at the moment we're completely in the dark.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    why the developers don't make a whole pve and season finishing at EU time only in order to see the reatcion elsewhere?

    that would be great!
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    biomarvel wrote:
    why the developers don't make a whole pve and season finishing at EU time only in order to see the reatcion elsewhere?

    that would be great!

    Because they don't really want to be applying for new jobs right now...
  • Marty17
    Marty17 Posts: 503 Critical Contributor
    Marvel: War of Heroes had an event where there's about 3-5 particular times you can sign up & participate in, I felt that was a good idea to balance everybody's time zone.
  • hurcules
    hurcules Posts: 519
    Marty17 wrote:
    Marvel: War of Heroes had an event where there's about 3-5 particular times you can sign up & participate in, I felt that was a good idea to balance everybody's time zone.
    That's a good example. Do you know how it panned out? And did they do this format again in subsequent events?
  • hurcules
    hurcules Posts: 519
    DrUnpleasant wrote:
    hurcules wrote:
    2) I don't play a lot of mobile games. So I'm not aware of other mobile games with similar structure PvE for different timezones. Care to name them and detail how they are run? I suppose D3/Demiurge can set up different servers in each regions for this purpose?

    I don't think they need seperate servers, but if you look at the way Rage of Bahamut did this (as a good example as they had a similar structure of PvE and PvP rotation) then before the event started there would be a banner that you clicked on and selected whether you wanted one of three start/finish times. Then as the event started you would have pre-formed groups that competed against each other in those time zones. People clicking on the event after it started would still be able to select their zone but might have to wait until their group is full (so typically a 30 minute delay or thereabouts).

    For that game it was actually less straightforward to implement because rewards were global (e.g. top 100 players globally get X, top 600 get Y, etc etc) so the implications of starting earlier were significant as your finish total was known by later finishing players and left you at a disadvantage. In MPQ rewards are bracket wide and so no such concerns exist.

    Now Rage Of Bahamut was one of the top grossing mobile games for some time, and other games that implement similar systems might have bigger budgets or developer crews to put this in place so maybe it's not viable for MPQ... but at the moment we're completely in the dark.

    So...good format to include different timezone players, but might need some tweaking to fit the MPQ model.

    Yeah, any query of EU-friendly end times have been ignored completely. Not even anything like "we are looking into it".
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    Yup, I've posted threads in the ideas forum (along with many others), regularly posted in event forums, posted in threads I know D3 are looking at and then there's threads like this in the general forum. People have commented on facebook, and the EU end time comment by someone in the new Youtube vid got the highest number of likes. I've asked nicely, I've been a bit snarky and I've been blunt...

    Nothing. Nada. In well over 4 months of trying. I've stopped short of PM'ing Ice or others because they already know and I don't want to be seen as a pest.

    My custom doesn't matter, if I walk away then who cares - I'm worth no more than £10 a month... but this is an issue that affects EVERY person in the UK and Europe playing (or wanting to play) this game.
  • Marty17
    Marty17 Posts: 503 Critical Contributor
    hurcules wrote:
    Marty17 wrote:
    Marvel: War of Heroes had an event where there's about 3-5 particular times you can sign up & participate in, I felt that was a good idea to balance everybody's time zone.
    That's a good example. Do you know how it panned out? And did they do this format again in subsequent events?

    It was pretty well received IMO, as we can sign up to whichever time slot we wanted (also if we want to change it, we can with - I think - 2hrs prior to event start). With the wait times, you can part take on other events such as PvP, story mode, etc.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    Aye, that seemsto be the standard way of handling timezones.

    Oh, and I just went on the MPQ facebook page for the first time in months and guess what type of comment gets the most likes on their news posts? Yup, comments about EU end times - even on the Deadpool announcement thread.
  • hurcules
    hurcules Posts: 519
    One more bump to highlight this issue and hope against hope that Deadpool event will have EU-friendly end time.
  • NighteyesGrisu
    NighteyesGrisu Posts: 563 Critical Contributor
    hurcules wrote:
    One more bump to highlight this issue and hope against hope that Deadpool event will have EU-friendly end time.
    good luck icon_e_wink.gif

    I understand that not wanting to antagonize your biggest group of customers (americans) is important to d3, but surely there's a way of not constantly screwing over europeans over without doing that, right? I mean even if we, as a group, are much smaller than the Americans our numbers can't be that insignificant.

    The suggestion to turn up refreshes for x hours before the end seemed to best to me so far. Unlike someone stated this wouldn't 'just' move the deadline x hours ahead as you could still play after that. It just means that the critical time got extended by x hours instead of just being the last 2 hours or so. Of course, for that to work rubberbanding would have to be frozen (not removed) at that point as well.
  • Bowgentle
    Bowgentle Posts: 7,926 Chairperson of the Boards
    NighteyesGrisu wrote:
    hurcules wrote:
    One more bump to highlight this issue and hope against hope that Deadpool event will have EU-friendly end time.
    good luck icon_e_wink.gif

    I understand that not wanting to antagonize your biggest group of customers (americans) is important to d3, but surely there's a way of not constantly screwing over europeans over without doing that, right? I mean even if we, as a group, are much smaller than the Americans our numbers can't be that insignificant.

    The suggestion to turn up refreshes for x hours before the end seemed to best to me so far. Unlike someone stated this wouldn't 'just' move the deadline x hours ahead as you could still play after that. It just means that the critical time got extended by x hours instead of just being the last 2 hours or so. Of course, for that to work rubberbanding would have to be frozen (not removed) at that point as well.
    I'd be fine with every event ending like the current Heroics: Scale back rubberbanding enormously for the final hours.
    Still allows determined grinders to leap ahead, but doesn't invalidate all progress made in the days before the final 3 hours.

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