An American in EU Ending Time Hell

Moon Roach

Colognoisseur wrote:

Now it is time to kill time on the flight testing out the new toy I woke up so early to get.

One word, How?

Unless you mean at the airport waiting for the flight. Also unless you can now use Wi-Fi and teh Interwebz on flights, which you can't do here yet.

Unknown

I only do the stupid 4am start when a new cover is coming out and sometimes in the multi sub, non main node events I have built enough of a cushion that even this is not required but that is rare. The 3 PvP a week ending at 6 am are done and dusted using an 8 Hour shield at 10 pm. It does mean I have no hope of 10 ten in PvP events as people will just hop pasted me but after a few months you either accept it or give up its not like D3 have shown any willingness to change the timetable for events.

Phillipes

+1 to all Americans in this thread !!
Im amazed with your solidarity
Thank you!
Threads like this needs to be created often to make sure that this really is a problem which still endure!

Unknown

So Cologn, I now have the answer why you attacked me so much this week-end ! You were on the same time zone !

Unknown

I think that the PVE finish times are mostly a joke for international compatibility (live NZ, GMT+12). Surely there are systems simple enough for all to participate on a more level playing field without confusing the player base. For the PVE I would like to never see a main only. It is all the more harsh that they did it with a terrible end time for EU/UK with a new character up for grabs.

A quick idea on a way to do PVE format better could be:

1. Offer full PVE schedule in advance. I can't see why they don't have this available in event rules tab and FB and here.
2. Run main with no RB.
3. Run sub, and run same sub again 12hrs elapsed (subs 1a & 1b). RB to global sub leader in your sub time bracket.
4. Rinse and repeat with all subs (eg. 2a & 2b, 3a & 3b).

Entry - Enter as many subs as you want but...
Scoring - To stop people with a time zone favourable to both sub 1a & 1b finish times being the top by doing both, main scores could be calculated either by; the greatest of the scores from the subs 1a & 1b counted to progression/main, or by the top x of sub scores from the total event (where x=number of subs/2). In the second version progression/main score only increases when the value of the top x of sub scores increases.

I know there are issues with this as well, but it was just a quick thought to share. Tear it up while laughing maniacally if you want.

Edit: Messed with wording to try make less confusing.

Unknown

Thumbs up for showing us a schedule beforehand. Couldn't quite follow most of the rest, but that probably is because it's past 2 AM here. See how MPQ kittied up my sleep patterns?

Wolarsen

Everly wrote Mon Sep 15, 2014 9:47 am "Ending an event at 1 AM on a weekday morning is substantial different from ending it at 10 PM on Sunday night."

And even then you can take this in 2 different ways! I'd rather a finish time at 1 AM because at 9 PM I am still wrestling with kids. My wife would kill me if I flee in the middle of dinner-teethwash-bedtimetale routine (that's even worse than 4 am alarm buzzing her, DrUnplease!).

It's clear that PvE events should be WAY less time-dependant. To ease this, the very first thing that should be done is remove rubberband completely, imo. Without rubberband, if event starts and ends at the same time of the day, people would have a certain amount of complete days to play at ease.

Keys are NO RUBBERBAND, EVENTS STARTS AND ENDS SAME TIME.

I'd love to see a further step: no refresh times, so I could play plainly whenever I wanted. Scaling would build up a natural wall, so at certain point it would be really hard to keep scoring. Of course, this would need a delicate node initial level and scaling balance.

Unknown

Given the plethora of threads, posts and general feedback on this topic in the last week (none of which started by me!) I think it would be great to get a more complete answer on this from David/Ice. It was a great first step from David to give an acknowledgment of the issue (after 9 months of silence) but it's clear that this is at least one of the 'top 5' issues for the community and that players from all over the world, not just the UK/EU/Africa would benefit from more flexibility on PvE end times.

Sooooo many solutions have been suggested, it would be great to understand why the team are struggling to get to grips with it. Sure, there's probably a commercial reason for having one inflexible PVE finish time (although I don't understand what that reason is) but it has to be stacked up against a loss of both existing player base and damage to advocacy levels / world of mouth which attracts new players.

So, guys, can you please expand a little further on why this issue is so difficult to address for Demi/D3?

Unknown

I am one of those guys that loves playing the game and I like most of the stuff about it.

I do not like to complain a lot but this time issue is really affecting game play 100%. I am not the guy that will wake up at 4am for that final push and I am not the guy that will pay money for shields health packs etc. either. I play completely F2P because I enjoy the game and I do not care on being one of the best very fast.

Apart from that, I am sometimes very frustrated with the event times. I should mention I am at GMT +1. So a 5-6am end time is what I usually get and a 6-7pm one when they rotate (which I can't profit as I finish work at 5:30 and unless I decide to play while driving back home I still cannot compete). Although I am not the very competitive type of guy and I am ok with a top 100 position for just the one cover (Maybe 2 with alliance help), I still am forced to shield for the last 8hrs in order to keep my position minus 10-50 positions depending on how many people will pass me.

I don't care though because I have found a balance between HP expenses for shields, roster slots etc. However, there is times where I want to be competitive and this is when I understand what everyone else is going through. I push hard and I have even reached 1st at some point. Now with work in the morning and 8hrs more to go, the only sure thing is that I will be in top 100 in the morning if I am lucky enough. If this was not the case, I would be more than happy to keep playing in order to manage that position.

To sum it all up. Timed events are discouraging. I have tried to hit top 10 twice and even though I shielded the 8hrs time frame where everyone is grinding and hopping is the worst thing. I have given up and I try to satisfy myself with that top 100 (Also by shielding). Not to mention PVE where I can never hit top 150 (Which was needed for Colossus in the last event) because the main grind time frame is my sleep time. And I value my sleep too much to ruin it for a game.

So here is my 2 cents hoping that it will contribute in this peacefully without flaming any developers or pointing fingers. I would just appreciate a straight answer or some feedback on how this issue is being approached and constant updates would be very welcomed.

Polares

Bowgentle wrote:

I'm reposting this from the Juggernaut event thread to give this more visibility and maybe get Demiurge to take notice.

To me, this event was everything that's wrong with PVE in MPQ right now.

1) Scaling
This needs to go. Obviously some people weren't getting scaled out because the enemy levels kept rising right until the bitter end.

2) End times.
Live in Europe? You better be satisfied with a single cover, because there's no way in hell you'll get t20.
Unless you're a vampire or a student/jobless person who can bend their lives around the final 4 hours of PVE.
Next time I'll just accept that D3 doesn't want me to be competitive and stick with t150 from the start.
I tried for t10 this time. I really tried. I was 4th 6 hours from the end, I was 40th when I got up at 5am for the final hour. During that last hour I managed to grind my way from 40th to 30th while there were alliance mates in t10 who got there because they were able to hit all refreshes during the final 9 hours.
Just pull your App from the international stores, Demiurge, it'd be more honest to us outside of the one true timezone(TM) of Murica.

3) Prize structure
Reward tier cutoffs of 2 - 10 - 20 - 150 are just stupid. There needs to be a cover as a progression reward, or at least a better cutoff for meaningful rewards.
Make it T20 for 3 covers, t50 for 2 covers, t100 for one cover.

4) Cover colours
Get back to the alliance reward being the highest single player cover.
Now I have a 0/2/0 Colossus. Of course that's _massively_ better than 0/1/0. Next time I just won't bother playing for a personal cover.

5) Old Heroics with no subs
We saw how much this sucked in the last PVE that gave out a new char. Why oh why do you insist of running these old Heroics, Demiurge?
Scrap them. Kill them with fire. They belong to a bygone era. Give us PVEs with a new structure, like Deadpool, Sentry, or the new Heroics with subs.
Anything but these horrible horrible events that you keep running over and over again.

6) Rubberband
Get rid of RB in the final 12 hours. Period. Just do it.

7) 2:25 hrs refresh cycles with timers
Look how well that turned out! People are grinding a lot less now, just like you wanted!
Seriously, please, get back to 12 hour refresh cycles. Don't literally poke people's noses in it and say "GRIND NOW".

8) Stuff ending at the same time
We had PVE, Shield Simulator and the final PVP of Season V all end within an hour of each other. End this. Make PVE end on Sunday 6am CET instead of Monday. This way there would have been a meaningful timeframe to play both PVE and finish the season in a sensible way.

9) Competitive PVE in general
That says it all, really. Player Versus ENEMIES. See? Enemies. Not other players.
Get rid of these idiotic competitive aspects of the single player campaign.
Get rid of leaderboards for PVE, get rid of giving covers out based on placement.
Make covers progression based. Please. There's enough competition in PVP. Nobody enjoys the competitive aspect of PVE. Trust me. We don't. We won this event, and we hated it. Every minute of it.

Exactly this.

I really really hope someone from D3 can read this post and do something, because PvE is 'very easy' to fix, and the game would inmensely benefit from these changes.

I am really tired of events like the last Juggs one, where I played a lot, I endured a lot (it is not funto play agains a 20+ level Juggernaut), I had to wake up at 5am and just for one Collossus cover and some iso (25 position :_(). I really really like this game, but it keeps pushing me away, and some day it is going to win and I will stop playing

Unknown

As and veteran player in England I have learned to just live within it and only bother with pve to help the alliance and do not push hard to try for new characters. I will not give up my sleep.
Maybe a solution is just to stop releasing new characters on pve and instead use this as their platform to keep giving g out underpowered 3* rewards. Then everyone can compete in PvP where you can shield up to avoids missing 5 final hrs of event to get some sleep.

thedude

Agree that it's good to see some solidarity from US players.

D3 - pull your finger out and do something for those of us that don't live in the US. Rotating finish times seems fair to all, but there are lots of alternatives that would be better than the current set up. It's not fun never being able to win anything because of sucky end times.

Unknown

DrUnpleasant wrote:

Sooooo many solutions have been suggested, it would be great to understand why the team are struggling to get to grips with it. Sure, there's probably a commercial reason for having one inflexible PVE finish time (although I don't understand what that reason is) but it has to be stacked up against a loss of both existing player base and damage to advocacy levels / world of mouth which attracts new players.

So, guys, can you please expand a little further on why this issue is so difficult to address for Demi/D3?

I am right there with you Dr. This has been talked about as a problem since Moses was a baby and we don't seem to be getting anywhere. Ironicaly Ice locked a new thread yesterday stating there are numerous threads on this topic. So they are more than aware, but I can't for the life of me understand why this is so difficult for them to wrap their minds around a fix.

I really believe the actual reason none of the suggestions have been implemented is something very small but immovable. I can't imagine what it is, but the fact that they have not come out and said,"Guys we aren't doing this because ......" leads me to believe whatever follows "because" is a reason that would spark even more anger and frustration in the community.

Unknown

Probably, yeah.

In terms of something that would work for both us (fairness, gameplay) and them (money, player numbers) I don't think rotating the end time is going to be a runner because they want the maximum number of players online in order to eat up as many healthpacks as possible. In addition it would aggrivate many US players who are in school/work at that time. For me, while it's super simple to implement it's a bad compromise.

Adding a choice of event times is the 'tech' solution and would require some developer time to implement, but once it's done then players can have no real complaint if they can't play at the end of an event timeslot they've chosen. It works in other mobile games, and should work even better in MPQ because rewards are driven by small(ish) brackets rather than global participation. You might get some initial customer service peaks with people saying "I selected the wrong timeslot by mistake" (hard cheese) but other than that... what is the downside? Maybe from their standpoint it creates problems with staff availability at their end? No idea.

Eliminating rubberbanding is the 3rd way, and while it does allow (virtually) equal opportunity to everyone, it does promote grindy gameplay. From their point of view it's probably a 'no go' because rubberbanding is what makes people spend $$$ on healthpacks at the end through fear of being overtaken by... well, a whole lot of people because of rubberbanding. That said, if it was implemented then it would need to be in combination with longer node refresh times (8hrs?) to reduce the grind and there would still be a small component of last hour optimal play as you grind the nodes down as much as possible - but we're talking the difference between finishing top 5 and top 10 here, not top 5 and top 200 as we sometimes get.

It's really #2 (timeslot selection) that I'd like to understand their reservations on. It would suit nearly everyone, give equal opportunity, balance server loads, still have competitive brackets ($$$) etc etc...

Unknown

DrUnpleasant wrote:

Probably, yeah.

In terms of something that would work for both us (fairness, gameplay) and them (money, player numbers) I don't think rotating the end time is going to be a runner because they want the maximum number of players online in order to eat up as many healthpacks as possible. In addition it would aggrivate many US players who are in school/work at that time. For me, while it's super simple to implement it's a bad compromise.

Adding a choice of event times is the 'tech' solution and would require some developer time to implement, but once it's done then players can have no real complaint if they can't play at the end of an event timeslot they've chosen. It works in other mobile games, and should work even better in MPQ because rewards are driven by small(ish) brackets rather than global participation. You might get some initial customer service peaks with people saying "I selected the wrong timeslot by mistake" (hard cheese) but other than that... what is the downside? Maybe from their standpoint it creates problems with staff availability at their end? No idea.

Eliminating rubberbanding is the 3rd way, and while it does allow (virtually) equal opportunity to everyone, it does promote grindy gameplay. From their point of view it's probably a 'no go' because rubberbanding is what makes people spend $$$ on healthpacks at the end through fear of being overtaken by... well, a whole lot of people because of rubberbanding. That said, if it was implemented then it would need to be in combination with longer node refresh times (8hrs?) to reduce the grind and there would still be a small component of last hour optimal play as you grind the nodes down as much as possible - but we're talking the difference between finishing top 5 and top 10 here, not top 5 and top 200 as we sometimes get.

It's really #2 (timeslot selection) that I'd like to understand their reservations on. It would suit nearly everyone, give equal opportunity, balance server loads, still have competitive brackets ($$$) etc etc...

RE: rubberbanding.... the game is already a grind. Rubberbanding promotes ****!

Its total **** that I spent 2+ days playing to reach 25k in the Juggy Heroic event and then I read the forums and saw people joining with 10 hours to go and earning 25k in one hour!

Unknown

DrUnpleasant wrote:

Probably, yeah.

It's really #2 (timeslot selection) that I'd like to understand their reservations on. It would suit nearly everyone, give equal opportunity, balance server loads, still have competitive brackets ($$$) etc etc...

I think you hit the nail on the head that implementing any solution impacts their cash flow. Favorable end times, time specific bracketc, etc, these all favor us as players. We will immediately see how to take advantage of the change and adjust our game play to maximize our benefit, which minimizes the likelihood of spending for health packs and shields. D3 sees that as putting a kink in their cash flow hose so they aren't going to move forward. However, how do you explain that to the forum?

"Guys, we aren't going to make any changes because it will allow you to be more successful and we think you won't spend as much" - How do you think that would go over?

I never have and because of terrible token draws in even Heroic 10-packs, never will spend a dime on this game. However, if they did come up with a staggered ending time for all events and offered a one time fee of $10 to be able to pick which ending bracket you were in....guess what?, they just made $10 off of me. I'm sure staggered brackets are more complicated, but I think money is the reason they don't go that route, not the technical challenge.

Professa D

As an American on the West Coast I have it about as easy as it can be for end times (9 or 10am or 9-10pm) but I totally feel for everyone over there negatively impacted by the "play at this specific time or you're screwed" structure. It seems simple enough to split events according to player location but there must be some technical/server issue that makes it challenging. It could be that one larger player pool increases competition which could translate to more healthpack sales, but really you're only ever competing against those in your bracket anyways and if the EU members of your bracket's ability to "compete" is being hindered by terrible event ending times, then by that logic it seems like you would get MORE competitive brackets if they were segregated by player location, no?

If they can't divide the events then they should restructure them in such a way that it matters less when you play and more how much you play. So it would appear that we are on a sliding scale between "THE ONE TRUE TIMEZONE" and "MPQ GRINDFEST". Obviously I would vote for the one true timezone because I happen to be located in it, but that's not really a global solution

Unknown

Professa D wrote:

It could be that one larger player pool increases competition which could translate to more healthpack sales, but really you're only ever competing against those in your bracket anyways and if the EU members of your bracket's ability to "compete" is being hindered by terrible event ending times, then by that logic it seems like you would get MORE competitive brackets if they were segregated by player location, no?

Correct-a-mundo. Allowing people to select timeslots that will allow them to play with people in their own region will increase competition / participation and therefore sales of health packs. I really don't get why they don't do it.

Colognoisseur

Moon Roach wrote:

Colognoisseur wrote:

Now it is time to kill time on the flight testing out the new toy I woke up so early to get.

One word, How?

Unless you mean at the airport waiting for the flight. Also unless you can now use Wi-Fi and teh Interwebz on flights, which you can't do here yet.

C'mon I'm a whale shouldn't I have a WiFi enabled private jet??? jk
I was on a transAtlantic flight and most of those have wifi on them these days. I'd rather watch Colossus die than a movie I've already seen. Anything to keep me distracted on a 9-hour flight works for me.

Colognoisseur

arktos1971 wrote:

So Cologn, I now have the answer why you attacked me so much this week-end ! You were on the same time zone !

With limited playing time and efficiency the key my usual try and hit somebody once and only once was tossed out the window. If you were worth the most points you were next in line. I was also probably grumpy from having to play early in the morning too.
I'm back in the Promised Land of Convenient End Times so you won't be getting multiple shots from me in the future.
Also I now have more patience for receiving multiple hits over and over because if I had to do this all the time I'd be taking it out on me too.