NorthernPolarity wrote: ark123 wrote: So TL;DR: If there are subs, join at least half way through the time. If there are no subs, join with 2 hours left on the clock. Got it. Joining 2 hours left on the clock is really risky since you might get into an old bracket where the leader has a refresh up on you: its much safer to join ~1-2 days before the end of the event so you have time to rubber yourself into the top 10 and outgrind everyone on the last day with your super secret forum tech.
ark123 wrote: So TL;DR: If there are subs, join at least half way through the time. If there are no subs, join with 2 hours left on the clock. Got it.
kerravon wrote: Stopped play 3 hours before the finish as I had to work and was in the top ten. Came back after the end of the event for a top 200 finish. Seriously this nonsense needs to be fixed. In future if I see a pve finishing at a time that I can't play on I won't bother playing.
NorthernPolarity wrote: Bowgentle wrote: NorthernPolarity wrote: Try starting your final refresh 2 hours before the end by grinding all of the easy nodes down to 1 first, and then doing the essentials down to 1 ~1 hour before the end, saving the hard nodes for the very last if you need it: that's been my strategy and it seems to be working. 40 minutes before the end isn't enough nowadays if you want to guarantee top 10, since thats what most people do and they end up underestimating how much time it takes to for clearing. Starting the final refresh 2 hours before the end means 3am/4am for Euros like Arktos. So that strategy only works for you guys in the one true time zone(TM) of Murica. Those old PVEs before subs are especially bad for us. Myself, started with about 11 hours to go, did 2 clears before bed and then what I could in the last hour, sacrificing one hour of sleep, as usual. Finished 44th, and wished there was a meaningful distinction between t50 and t150. T50 should get two covers instead of one. Ah, I was unaware. My apologies and condolences then: being in EU sounds like a nightmare when it comes to playing MPQ. Getting into the top 10 must be impossible without sacrificing all your sleep.
Bowgentle wrote: NorthernPolarity wrote: Try starting your final refresh 2 hours before the end by grinding all of the easy nodes down to 1 first, and then doing the essentials down to 1 ~1 hour before the end, saving the hard nodes for the very last if you need it: that's been my strategy and it seems to be working. 40 minutes before the end isn't enough nowadays if you want to guarantee top 10, since thats what most people do and they end up underestimating how much time it takes to for clearing. Starting the final refresh 2 hours before the end means 3am/4am for Euros like Arktos. So that strategy only works for you guys in the one true time zone(TM) of Murica. Those old PVEs before subs are especially bad for us. Myself, started with about 11 hours to go, did 2 clears before bed and then what I could in the last hour, sacrificing one hour of sleep, as usual. Finished 44th, and wished there was a meaningful distinction between t50 and t150. T50 should get two covers instead of one.
NorthernPolarity wrote: Try starting your final refresh 2 hours before the end by grinding all of the easy nodes down to 1 first, and then doing the essentials down to 1 ~1 hour before the end, saving the hard nodes for the very last if you need it: that's been my strategy and it seems to be working. 40 minutes before the end isn't enough nowadays if you want to guarantee top 10, since thats what most people do and they end up underestimating how much time it takes to for clearing.
nunberry wrote: Went to sleep at 1AM in 2nd place. Teething baby woke me at 4:40am - I was in 139th. Thank goodness for gum pain. Managed to grind myself into 54th place over the following 20 minutes without waking my wife. I felt a level of smug satisfaction I'd never experienced before. It was only when I woke up this morning that I realised that the prize for 139th is the same as the prize for 54th. SON OF A BITUMEN!
Moon Roach wrote: nunberry wrote: Went to sleep at 1AM in 2nd place. Teething baby woke me at 4:40am - I was in 139th. Thank goodness for gum pain. Managed to grind myself into 54th place over the following 20 minutes without waking my wife. I felt a level of smug satisfaction I'd never experienced before. It was only when I woke up this morning that I realised that the prize for 139th is the same as the prize for 54th. SON OF A BITUMEN! But if you hadn't done those last 20 minutes you would have ended up in 151st or worse. You worked harder than you had to, but without it...
HairyDave wrote: And while we're having a moan, get rid of the damn 2.5 hour refresh cycle! It was a tinykitty terrible idea when it was implemented and it hasn't gotten any better. At least when everything was on a 12 hour cycle you could go and do other things like work, sleep, have a life...
Thugpatrol wrote: HairyDave wrote: And while we're having a moan, get rid of the damn 2.5 hour refresh cycle! It was a tinykitty terrible idea when it was implemented and it hasn't gotten any better. At least when everything was on a 12 hour cycle you could go and do other things like work, sleep, have a life... To qualify my statements to follow let me just say first I ended up finishing 2nd in my bracket, by a good degree of working the system rather than grinding and a fair amount of luck that my bracket wasn't super competitive. I bring this up not to brag but merely to erase any question that anything I'm about to say is sour grapes. I live in a favorable timezone and the flexibility of my schedule allows me to profit from the current system more often than not when I'm motivated. That said, if they cared in any way about the people who play their game, they would stop this 2.5 hour refresh madness immediately. The damage people are doing to themselves to play optimally for extended periods when Fury covers and new characters are dangled out there as bait is really insane. You can watch the scores and see the people who aren't sleeping properly for days at a time. That's messed up. Can we go back to 12 or even 8 hour refreshes? I'd like to see this whole hamster-wheel mess of rubberbanding and global scaling go away in favor of something far more skewed toward personal progress and incremental challenges based on individual accomplishments, but in the absence of radical change can we at least abolish this 2.5 hour cycle of insanity? It's not a reasonable burden to place on players for the sake of competition and it's definitely not healthy. It needs to go.
Thugpatrol wrote: That said, if they cared in any way about the people who play their game, they would stop this 2.5 hour refresh madness immediately.
yendi wrote: So do the new characters tend to be the required ones for the next PVE, or do they get a PVP first? PVEs tend to feel like they reward the rich (just having Patch ensured I'd get enough points so that I could get another Patch cover in this last one, for instance).