New Event End Times Feature Coming Soon

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Comments

  • atomzed
    atomzed Posts: 1,753 Chairperson of the Boards
    HailMary wrote:
    locked wrote:
    Shadow wrote:
    "David wrote:
    Moore"]Players will be matched only with others who have also chosen that Event Shard.
    ...
    I presumed 'matched up' means in brackets, not in the actual match-making range. Why would I suddenly I see 2/3 fewer matchups even if I choose a bracket suited for my timezone?
    I kinda assumed the opposite, i.e. players can only see and fight opponents who share their Event Shard.

    It seems terribly obvious that only players who share an Event Shard would share a bracket.

    Agree with HM, that's how I read it too.

    So the Shard > Bracket .

    When you choose your shard, you will be grouped with those who choose the same shard.

    Within this same shard, your standard rules* (i.e. time based, MMR nudging) for bracketing remains.

    We may or may not be able to see nodes of players in another shard.

    * not entirely clear about our current standard rules
  • IReallyHatePVP
    IReallyHatePVP Posts: 254
    if there is a sign-up for the beta, I officially declare myself eligible for the test.

    if the beta is for everyone, I cannot wait to participate.
  • mjh
    mjh Posts: 708 Critical Contributor
    How are you planning on calculating alliance rewards?

    a) based on the end time bracket/shard. That would mean alliances members would all need to enter the same one. That is a terrible idea and one I hope you are not even considering.

    b) The best option would be cumulative. Alliance rewards will be awarded after the last bracket has ended. Scores will be calculated from the sum of the alliance. If you truly want people to play together across all lines, this would be the way.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    HawkeyeSucks wrote:
    How are you planning on calculating alliance rewards?

    a) based on the end time bracket/shard. That would mean alliances members would all need to enter the same one. That is a terrible idea and one I hope you are not even considering.

    b) The best option would be cumulative. Alliance rewards will be awarded after the last bracket has ended. Scores will be calculated from the sum of the alliance. If you truly want people to play together across all lines, this would be the way.
    That still puts a heck of a lot of pressure on the peeps who enter the shard with the latest end time. It will come down to just a few who will have the power to determine where the entire alliance ends up in the ranking.

    This announced version is very similar to some of the suggestions put forth in one of a myriad of threads on this topic. I like it, but it'll be interesting to see how alliances deal with the new complexity / stress.
  • Pwuz_
    Pwuz_ Posts: 1,214 Chairperson of the Boards
    Riggy wrote:
    HawkeyeSucks wrote:
    How are you planning on calculating alliance rewards?

    a) based on the end time bracket/shard. That would mean alliances members would all need to enter the same one. That is a terrible idea and one I hope you are not even considering.

    b) The best option would be cumulative. Alliance rewards will be awarded after the last bracket has ended. Scores will be calculated from the sum of the alliance. If you truly want people to play together across all lines, this would be the way.
    That still puts a heck of a lot of pressure on the peeps who enter the shard with the latest end time. It will come down to just a few who will have the power to determine where the entire alliance ends up in the ranking.

    This announced version is very similar to some of the suggestions put forth in one of a myriad of threads on this topic. I like it, but it'll be interesting to see how alliances deal with the new complexity / stress.

    2 ways to handle this.

    #1 Alliance Rank is hidden till the final bracket ends.

    #2 Assume everyone tries just as hard despite Alliance rank.
  • hex706f726368
    hex706f726368 Posts: 421 Mover and Shaker
    Say I'm in a shard that ends first. After my event ends and my shield expires, do I pop up in queues for shards that haven't ended yet? Or does the latter shard's pool shrink?
  • HailMary
    HailMary Posts: 2,179
    hex706f726368 wrote:
    Say I'm in a shard that ends first. After my event ends and my shield expires, do I pop up in queues for shards that haven't ended yet? Or does the latter shard's pool shrink?
    My interpretation is that, for matchmaking, every Event Shard operates entirely separately from every other Event Shard. People who selected End Time A will only see fellow End Time A players in their nodes. Thus, every player you can possibly queue up will always share your end time.

    This neatly avoids the "opponent pool weirdly shrinking at various times" issue.
    HawkeyeSucks wrote:
    How are you planning on calculating alliance rewards?

    a) based on the end time bracket/shard. That would mean alliances members would all need to enter the same one. That is a terrible idea and one I hope you are not even considering.

    b) The best option would be cumulative. Alliance rewards will be awarded after the last bracket has ended. Scores will be calculated from the sum of the alliance. If you truly want people to play together across all lines, this would be the way.
    Option B seems like a no-brainer to such an extent that I never even contemplated any other possibility. This, of course, means that the pressure is on for those alliance members who selected the latest Event Shard.
  • reckless442
    reckless442 Posts: 532 Critical Contributor
    This really could be problematic for alliances. If too many end early and the late bracket takes off in scoring, the alliance would be out of luck.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    Is there any chance that end time displayed on screen capture your phone date/hour and show you proper time based on your time zone or do we have to play around with US vs ours timezone comparisons?
  • h4n1s
    h4n1s Posts: 427 Mover and Shaker
    While I am not surprised that there's and will be lot of doubts on the new system (like stress put on the members of alliance in the last 'bracket', PvP distribution of scores based on which brackets will contain x-men and which not... etc.) I wish to say following:

    A) Finally an announcement which clarifies the longterm frustration of insufficient transparency whether the complaints on timezones have been heard or not
    B) I appreciate the initiative to include IN-GAME beta testing involving the whole community (applause!)
    C) This is one of the biggest changes in the game, one of the toughest to define conceptually and I believe also to implement. It is a brave move to actually incorporate that in the agenda and pursue till completion
    D) It is a sign that the game's intention is to become truly global (world wide game)

    As with every change, every opinion, every statement there will be early adopters, laggards, but also people with strong reasoning why the change is bad. D3, don't get derailed by them and get the job done, you're on the right path!
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    reckless442 wrote:
    This really could be problematic for alliances. If too many end early and the late bracket takes off in scoring, the alliance would be out of luck.

    I see the exact same issue. If it works like how most people think it will work here, there is an advantage for joining the later shard in that you can better gauge how far to push for placement in alliance and season bracket. However, if all the competitive players hopping early decides to join a particular shard, that shard may instead be the optimal one to join for scoring the most points b/c a later shard may have too few people to hop off of to build a high score. Looks like there will be an advantage for joining a later shard, but there will be even more of an advantage for having partners to hop with.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    Cool announcement. I might jump back on the train after this is implemented. Hello last hour of PVE grind. I hope scaling and refresh times are on the list for a friendly tweak after this.

    This change seems to fix the end time issue, at least a big part of it. The way I see it, is what HM said. Once you enter in a timezone you can't see anyone from any other time zones on your nodes and you don't appear in theirs. I don't know how this will work with big alliances and arranged choosing of timezone in order to manipulate placement, but that remains to be seen.

    This not only gives you the chance to play that last hour, it also eliminates enemies that will attack you during your sleep times. Since everyone is going to be on the same timezone, then you wont be attacked for 200-300 points overnight.

    If you think about it, this change breaks down the players into US, EU, AS servers while they still share the same alliances. I know this still allows people to join different timezones, but not many people will choose US end times when they are in EU. However, it is a good change as you can choose a different timezone for every event, because you cannot always be there for that 10PM finish (Arbitrary end time).

    I'm really glad the communication on this is clear. I hope the implementation will be as pleasing as this announcement. Even though people have been expecting a change like this very long ago, I think everyone is ready to put all that behind and look forward to what the game will look like after this. Fingers crossed!
  • thedude
    thedude Posts: 55
    Great news, good to see you addressing the issue, the solution seems sensible and well communicated. Hope its PvP and pve.

    Happy to beta test if you need volunteers, based in the uk.
  • Shadow
    Shadow Posts: 155
    Looks like my last post managed to change the focus of this thread from "Awesome" and "Finally D3 Listens" to "How does this new function affect the scoring and placement". icon_e_smile.gif

    Good to know that HailMary's view of what Hi-Fi said is the same was what I had mentioned. But the other factor needs to be taken into the picture as well I suppose. i.e. the final bracket will affect alliance placement. To an alliance like X-men, it probably doesn't matter that significantly since they basically hop off each other once a certain point range has been reached. They can join the first shard end time or the second shard end time and still score super high scores. But then again, it lets other alliances such RaiderOutlaws and 5DV know where the bar is for #1 and get overtaken so they probably will not join the earlier brackets either.

    So, it may boil down to:

    - Join the final shard end time so that scores can be controlled and high points can be reached.
    - Since all the high scorers are in the final shard end time, if you want to do well for personal placement, join an earlier shard end time.

    It does help a person in transit from 2* -> 3* since they will know the above 2 pts and can join the earlier shards. Of course this doesn't apply to new character releases since many ppl will also want to do well for personal placement and thus join the earlier shards or the fact that a vet might want to restock on HP and join an earlier bracket too.

    Overall, I do expect that this change most likely means the final shard will be the meatiest in terms of getting high points.

    As with all other announcements, the above is based on pre-release information and is subject to change when actually implemented. Lol.
  • Eminently Bored
    Eminently Bored Posts: 13 Just Dropped In
    This is great news. Thank you for listening and adding this much desired feature!
  • atomzed
    atomzed Posts: 1,753 Chairperson of the Boards
    Okin107 wrote:
    This not only gives you the chance to play that last hour, it also eliminates enemies that will attack you during your sleep times. Since everyone is going to be on the same timezone, then you wont be attacked for 200-300 points overnight.
    !

    Sorry to burst your bubble, but the pve refresh rate change to 2.5hr only show me that if a method gives ppl a competitive edge, they will take it. So in this case, if people find that it's better to play during "sleeping hours", the person will wake up to play it.

    If you think about it, it does makes sense to play when others are sleeping, cos you are less likely to get attack and can climb more before shielding.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    atomzed wrote:
    Okin107 wrote:
    This not only gives you the chance to play that last hour, it also eliminates enemies that will attack you during your sleep times. Since everyone is going to be on the same timezone, then you wont be attacked for 200-300 points overnight.
    !

    Sorry to burst your bubble, but the pve refresh rate change to 2.5hr only show me that if a method gives ppl a competitive edge, they will take it. So in this case, if people find that it's better to play during "sleeping hours", the person will wake up to play it.

    If you think about it, it does makes sense to play when others are sleeping, cos you are less likely to get attack and can climb more before shielding.

    So, why are most of people asking about a time change to the end times when they can play when the rest of the world is sleeping? Sure there will be several people that will do this, either because they work at those hours or because they choose to. I don't think it is going to be a world wide phenomenon though. I was trying to talk about the general behavior of the players.
  • Ryz-aus
    Ryz-aus Posts: 386
    TooBadUnknown wrote:
    reckless442 wrote:
    This really could be problematic for alliances. If too many end early and the late bracket takes off in scoring, the alliance would be out of luck.

    I see the exact same issue. If it works like how most people think it will work here, there is an advantage for joining the later shard in that you can better gauge how far to push for placement in alliance and season bracket. However, if all the competitive players hopping early decides to join a particular shard, that shard may instead be the optimal one to join for scoring the most points b/c a later shard may have too few people to hop off of to build a high score. Looks like there will be an advantage for joining a later shard, but there will be even more of an advantage for having partners to hop with.

    I don't know if it's optimal, but it's still an improvement on the current situation. For alliances who are highly competitive, they can all join the latest ending time and be in the same situation that currently exists. For someone like me who has events that end in the middle of my workday, being able to shift my end time to closer to when I'm actually going to stop playing anyway is an improvement. I don't really care if my score doesn't keep up with those players making a later push for alliance ranking - that's already happening - picking an earlier end time just improves my individual placement because there is less time from when I've stopped to get passed.
  • Wolarsen
    Wolarsen Posts: 326 Mover and Shaker
    Great news, there is an uproar of players asking for an improvement in event times!

    David, 2 questions:
    * What are the plans for rubberband? If you keep it, we will still be forced to play during last hours of events (even if it will be WAY better time for it). I would like to see it completely removed; at least diminishing to allow players to catch up midevent, but no endtime frenzy. Could rubberband rules be shown in event info?
    * For similar reasons, what are the plans for node refreshing times? Any chance to make them longer, at least in some events?
  • Spoit
    Spoit Posts: 3,441 Chairperson of the Boards
    I'm not really seeing how "Players will only be matched with those sharing the same shard" implies that that'd be the only people that they'd be able to find in their Matchmaking, as opposed to the obvious reading of it: that each bracket doesn't mix people from different shards. I.e. at time X there'd be (at least) 3 open brackets, one for each time shard that fills up as people from that time shard join.

    Though yes, it does need a bit more clarification.

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