Once again, once more, EU players got screwed

Marty17

It's not that it's difficult either, in the past they ran the same event back to back, both with different end times (one US friendly & one EU friendly), don't know the reason why they stopped doing that. In a way it's similar to the Brotherhood event, where during the halfway point they switched the ends times of the subnodes.

MajinDavid

Ok so im not a European player. Im central usa. But I work overnights. Most events end while im at work. So I can understand your frustrations completely. The trouble is that a majority of the player base the ends times work for. Thus others are pushed to the side. A rotating timer on events would be nice but then when it was a good time for European players and myself would be a bad time for the mass majority. And then theyd have more players mad at them. Lately ive been almost completely ignoring pves other tha. For progression rewards as I know I wont place well. Went to work in 30th and got home well under 300 which I counted on. The best thing I can say is enter pvp at about 1 day and 18 hours left. Normally 500 points will be a top 100 for 3* covers. Last 2 events where I got 700 points I was top 25. Its helpful on when you enter them. Best advice I can offer

_RiO_

MajinDavid wrote:

The trouble is that a majority of the player base the ends times work for. Thus others are pushed to the side. A rotating timer on events would be nice but then when it was a good time for European players and myself would be a bad time for the mass majority. And then theyd have more players mad at them.

So?
Run two events back to back. One with a US-favorable finish time, one with an EU-favorable finish time.
Or run two events concurrently and allow entry into only one of the two.

Everyone happy; problem solved.

MajinDavid

_RiO_ wrote:

MajinDavid wrote:

The trouble is that a majority of the player base the ends times work for. Thus others are pushed to the side. A rotating timer on events would be nice but then when it was a good time for European players and myself would be a bad time for the mass majority. And then theyd have more players mad at them.

So?
Run two events back to back. One with a US-favorable finish time, one with an EU-favorable finish time.
Or run two events concurrently and allow entry into only one of the two.

Everyone happy; problem solved.

Again when that 2nd one ran and the main player base sees it ends at a time bad for them they get upset.

_RiO_

MajinDavid wrote:

_RiO_ wrote:

MajinDavid wrote:

The trouble is that a majority of the player base the ends times work for. Thus others are pushed to the side. A rotating timer on events would be nice but then when it was a good time for European players and myself would be a bad time for the mass majority. And then theyd have more players mad at them.

So?
Run two events back to back. One with a US-favorable finish time, one with an EU-favorable finish time.
Or run two events concurrently and allow entry into only one of the two.

Everyone happy; problem solved.

Again when that 2nd one ran and the main player base sees it ends at a time bad for them they get upset.

Then run both concurrently and allow only entry into one, with a nice little explanation dialog. (Like the ones they already have for recent news, event briefings, tutorial messages, etc.)
Problem still solved.

Polares

As I said in another thread...

I went to sleep in the top 10 (I think I was in the 5 position ), I had been during all the event in the top10, and I finished 26 or so (wow I got one tinykitty cover!! yeah, I am so lucky!!), but I had to woke up at 4:40 am to play for more than an hour (when I woke up I was in position 250 or so (!!!!!!))

In this event rubberbanding was tinykitty out of proportions, like in all one node events. THIS EVENTS HAVE TO END. They are terrible. A total disaster for the players that tried to play during all days as much as possible. And it is even more terrible to EU players.

And I have to say ALL, and I say ALL the last PvE events (maybe 5 or more) have finished in EU at 6-7am. This is ridiculous. I get that there are more american players, but this is really out of proportions.

NO MORE RUBBERBANDING OR NO MORE ONE NODE EVENTS!!!

hurcules

_RiO_ wrote:

MajinDavid wrote:

_RiO_ wrote:

MajinDavid wrote:

The trouble is that a majority of the player base the ends times work for. Thus others are pushed to the side. A rotating timer on events would be nice but then when it was a good time for European players and myself would be a bad time for the mass majority. And then theyd have more players mad at them.

So?
Run two events back to back. One with a US-favorable finish time, one with an EU-favorable finish time.
Or run two events concurrently and allow entry into only one of the two.

Everyone happy; problem solved.

Again when that 2nd one ran and the main player base sees it ends at a time bad for them they get upset.

Then run both concurrently and allow only entry into one, with a nice little explanation dialog. (Like the ones they already have for recent news, event briefings, tutorial messages, etc.)
Problem still solved.

I think this is a very good suggestion.

Unknown

You don't need back to back events, rotating end times OR concurrent events. They just need to make it so being on right at the end doesn't matter and therefore isn't necessary, or at least doesn't matter anywhere near as much.

If the last 24 hours of an event has zero rubber banding AT ALL then going to bed 5 hours before the end will cost you 40% of the nodes base values worth of refreshing points but won't let everyone rubber band past you for free just by being able to be up. That means, while you may not be able to get first (unless there have been subs where you got a decent lead) you at least won't drop hundreds of places for no good reason.

There is literally no good reason for them not to make this the case unless they are money grubbing for last minute health pack sales as people try to abuse rubber banding. Which is probably the reason they only did it once then immediately dropped it without explanation.

I wonder if anyone at D3 thinks about long term metrics like losing players due to their short term metric chasing.......

_RiO_

bonfire01 wrote:

If the last 24 hours of an event has zero rubber banding AT ALL

I suggested that myself as well some time ago, but after having given it some more thought, I reached the simple conclusion that it would not work. It would only move the 'final rush' to 24 hours earlier in time and anything after would no longer matter: thanks to rubber-banding being gone at that point, you'd be unable to catch up to any substantial points lead anymore. As long as whoever passed you by continued to gain points at a steady enough pace, you'd never be able to overtake them, no matter what you did. (Unless you were prepared to grind for 1pt matches, in which case you have bigger issues to worry about than winning a game event...)

hurcules

_RiO_ wrote:

bonfire01 wrote:

If the last 24 hours of an event has zero rubber banding AT ALL

I suggested that myself as well some time ago, but after having given it some more thought, I reached the simple conclusion that it would not work. It would only move the 'final rush' to 24 hours earlier in time and anything after would no longer matter: thanks to rubber-banding being gone at that point, you'd be unable to catch up to any substantial points lead anymore. As long as whoever passed you by continued to gain points at a steady enough pace, you'd never be able to overtake them, no matter what you did. (Unless you were prepared to grind for 1pt matches, in which case you have bigger issues to worry about than winning a game event...)

Exactly. Having final rubberbanding-less x hours doesn't work cos it just shifts the final hour grind earlier.

Multiple regional entry or rotating end times are easier to achieve.

Unknown

Inventing a cold fusion powered robot monkey who could make dinner and grind your first 800 points in a PvP would be easier to achieve than getting some kind of D3/Demi person to respond to this thread.

hurcules

DrUnpleasant wrote:

Inventing a cold fusion powered robot monkey who could make dinner and grind your first 800 points in a PvP would be easier to achieve than getting some kind of D3/Demi person to respond to this thread.

Here's hoping the new community manager actually notices this thread and respond/acknowledge.

/shameless thread bump

Unknown

Demiurge_will came, made a comment about whether certain TU's 'make a good story' and then left. Clearly that's far more important than addressing the concerns of a couple of continents worth of players, oh yes.

_RiO_

DrUnpleasant wrote:

Demiurge_will came, made a comment about whether certain TU's 'make a good story' and then left. Clearly that's far more important than addressing the concerns of a couple of continents worth of players, oh yes.

Yeah, and to top it off: the arguments Will presented made absolutely no sense as a motivator for changes that completely throw off the game's balance. Ofcourse Demiurge being Demiurge they'll just push their ideas through unaltered anyway and then spend the next three months trying to fix the problem they created (possibly through adding yet another lame patch-up mechanic powered by monetization, like shields).

All the while continuing to ignore actual problems that have been around for, counting back, just about a tinykitty tiny tiny ff-ing tiny-ff-ing-kitty year. (Do I sound pissed off? It's because I am...)


Oh, and just to shake things up for a bit; let's try adding some injury to insult for a change:
The Doctor's Orders PvP event that's awarding Beast? Apparantly Beast's debut PvE didn't give the home market all the needed opportunity to get covers for him, because the PvP event is ending at a US-friendly screw-the-EU timeslot as well.

Unknown

Bumped as essential reading for our new CM

Unknown

bonfire01 wrote:

You don't need back to back events, rotating end times OR concurrent events. They just need to make it so being on right at the end doesn't matter and therefore isn't necessary, or at least doesn't matter anywhere near as much.

If the last 24 hours of an event has zero rubber banding AT ALL then going to bed 5 hours before the end will cost you 40% of the nodes base values worth of refreshing points but won't let everyone rubber band past you for free just by being able to be up. That means, while you may not be able to get first (unless there have been subs where you got a decent lead) you at least won't drop hundreds of places for no good reason.

There is literally no good reason for them not to make this the case unless they are money grubbing for last minute health pack sales as people try to abuse rubber banding. Which is probably the reason they only did it once then immediately dropped it without explanation.

I wonder if anyone at D3 thinks about long term metrics like losing players due to their short term metric chasing.......

I think something similar has been suggested before but what if rubberband simply decays over the last 24 hours. So with a day left rubberband is full strength. Wait 8 hours and it is down to 66%. Not nearly as good as 8 hours before but still many points to be had. Wait 8 more hours and we are down to 33% rubberband still some points out there for the grinders but the amount of people hopping over one another slows down greatly. Last hour has almost no rubberband and people are grinding for base point values only can shift you position slightly but there will be no miraculous come from behind victories over those who have been putting in the time beforehand.

Unknown

\o/ we got a reply \o/

...

/o\ no solution decided upon /o\

Still, at least it's something eh?

hurcules

Yup. One step at a time. At least now we know D3P and Demiurge recognise this is an issue and it is under discussion. Props to Mr Hi-Fi for answering this question.

y2fitzy

very encouraged that the issue was at least acknowledged. Doubt anything will happen before new year anyway, but it's a start

Unknown

hurcules wrote:

Yup. One step at a time. At least now we know D3P and Demiurge recognise this is an issue and it is under discussion. Props to Mr Hi-Fi for answering this question.

D3P has known this was an issue almost a year ago. Notice Ice's comment in a thread of mine when I had been fed up with not only the ending times but other issues. It was made in November of 2013.

IceIX wrote:

Everly wrote:

Hummm, I guess I must have misunderstood. This is a subject that has been talked about multiple times in several different topics here on the forum but there was never a detailed response like you just posted. When you said "we either support different end times or we don't" I concluded that you were talking about the developers either favored it or they don't. Even after I asked a question on what you posted you didn't reply, so I must have jumped to the conclusion that it wasn't something the developers felt was an issue. Then other members of the forum started commenting on reasons why the developers would want to leave the tourney as is, and there was no response from you. So I just assumed you didn't feel the need to comment because what was stated was pretty much where you were coming from.

Definitely apologize for the miscommunication then. I can see how you misunderstood and precisely why that misunderstanding remained. I can't promise anything, see Zathrus above for reasonings on that. We are well aware of the overall time zone issue with Tournaments overall however. We don't like the fact that a portion of the audience that we're reaching for has to either change their living schedule to account for a game or simply do less well.

So from my OP I mentioned that it had been talked about several times in several places and no D3P rep ever responded. In Ice's reply we got the first real evidence that D3P was aware of the issue. You will notice in this double quote that confusion resulted when subsequent questions went unanswered. He said "I can see how your misunderstood and precisely why that misunderstanding remained" yet their has been no change in MO to avoid it. D3P has continued to remain largely silent on the issue. Fast forward to Sept 2014 and 2 days ago we get this reply from Hi-Fi.

"David wrote:

Moore"]

DrUnpleasant wrote:

The UK / EU players here have serious issues with event end times and have never had any response from a D3 or Demiurge to our posts or posts or PMs. Anything you can do to improve communication on this major problem would be greatly appreciated.

An ideal solution for International players, including those in the UK & Europe, regarding event times hasn't yet been found. I can confirm though, that this topic is being discussed internally. It is something D3 and Demiurge are aware of.

So at this rate we went from D3P being "well aware of the overall time zone issues" in November of 2013 to it being "something D3 and Demiurge are aware of" in September of 2014. If anything, in the 9 months they went from being "well aware" to just regular aware, probably moving in the wrong direction. I also think it is rather humorous when Ice said, "We don't like the fact that a portion of the audience that were (sic) reaching for has to either change their living schedule to account for a game or simply do less well" when there have been countless posts about how players supporting the game are doing exactly that. One of my favorites is this one, which if nothing else is a great read.

http://www.d3pforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=4184

So if you are holding your breath that D3P will address the issue, then I have only one thing to say....Can I have your HP when you are dead?