New Event End Times Feature Coming Soon

Unknown

Same first doubt about it, I guess it will be hard to determinate Alliance score
At least from a member point of view, to understand which of your team can still push to get you over top 100-50-10

hex706f726368

orionpeace wrote:

Would there be a concern in the implementation for PvP of a dwindling supply of targets to attack?

What if 50% of players join P1, 25% join P2, and the remaining join P3? I would assume that once P1 ends, those players are done and cannot be attacked. Their score is locked. Likewise, when P2 ends. For the final hours P3 players could only attack other P3 players, while P1 could attack all players through to their end time.

It just seems that scores could be drastically diminished for P2 and P3, with a smaller pool and therefore fewer opportunities to rise.

Or am I totally misunderstanding how this is going to work?

[color=#FF0000]David &#91 wrote: »

Players will be matched only with others who have also chosen that Event Shard.

Unknown

hex706f726368 wrote:

orionpeace wrote:

Would there be a concern in the implementation for PvP of a dwindling supply of targets to attack?

What if 50% of players join P1, 25% join P2, and the remaining join P3? I would assume that once P1 ends, those players are done and cannot be attacked. Their score is locked. Likewise, when P2 ends. For the final hours P3 players could only attack other P3 players, while P1 could attack all players through to their end time.

It just seems that scores could be drastically diminished for P2 and P3, with a smaller pool and therefore fewer opportunities to rise.

Or am I totally misunderstanding how this is going to work?

[color=#FF0000]David &#91 wrote: »

Players will be matched only with others who have also chosen that Event Shard.

This exact line is what we need more info on though!! It could just mean bracket wise and not attack wise! Both are very different and they need to come confirm what it actually means!

homeinvasion

Yay, D3 got something right!!!!!!

Unknown

No it cannot work having people in separate shards being able to attack each other. If that were the case the meta would instantly be choose the third shard. Wait till everyone in the first shard is fighting for their end time and climb to high points then revel in watching opponents drop out and retaliations dry up. Or worse still being able to hit the people in other shards for points after they are done. That would be disastrous. The only functional way it can work is for it to separate everyone completely so brackets and matchmaking are all within a shard. Yes this will cause chaos with alliances so if you care more about you alliance rank than choosing when to sleep then always be in the last group so you can push past whatever bar the first two groups set.

Unknown

^See that right there^ ? That is why Alliance bracketing needs to come next. Anyone in a top 100 alliance will face pressure to use the latest available time so a "final push" can happen if needed. On paper if you put up your 900 points or whatever it shouldn't matter when your end time is. If you are in the top 5 tho, somehow I think it's going to matter to you.

Shadow

Lerysh wrote:

^See that right there^ ? That is why Alliance bracketing needs to come next. Anyone in a top 100 alliance will face pressure to use the latest available time so a "final push" can happen if needed. On paper if you put up your 900 points or whatever it shouldn't matter when your end time is. If you are in the top 5 tho, somehow I think it's going to matter to you.

There's really no connection between alliance bracketing and event end times. Sure, the alliance ranking will change because of the final shard but would these changes be of significance? It probably would be for those on the borderline of a particular range. i.e. top 1 to 5, 45 to 55 and 80 to 120. The top 5 alliances will probably just join the last shard and that resolves the issue. Other than the top 5 alliances, the rest are probably dependent on just a few key people which means most of the members will be able to join whichever end time shard suits them. An alliance capable of rank 10 will not suddenly be top 2. Neither would an alliance in the top 30 suddenly drop out of top 50.

Having said that, would alliance bracketing be helpful? It would be only if the number of alliances suddenly becomes very huge. The devs have shown precedence with personal ranking that top tier cover rewards belong to top 2% (PVP for the 4*) or top 1% (PVE top 10 of 1000). Unless there are suddenly more than 10000 active 20-man alliances, don't expect there to be alliance bracketing any time soon.

Unknown

This will make a great change to the game and I am eager to see it implemented.

However, might I suggest a slight tweak: instead of having 3 brackets at 8-hour intervals, what if we had 4 brackets at 6-hour intervals? It would certainly allow for greater flexibility and accommodate (I think) a greater percentage of the global user base. I don't believe that it will be difficult to implement on the technical side (if you get it working for 3 it should be easy to tweak it for 4 - then again I have no idea how they actually implement it so what the hell do i know? ), what worries me is possible player dilution if the players in a bracket are matched only with other players in the same bracket and we end up with brackets having too few players.

Then again, maybe we should simply defer to the sacred wisdom of Monty Pythons and call it a day : "Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shall thou not count, neither count thou two except that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out".

GrumpySmurf1002

epick_fayle wrote:

However, might I suggest a slight tweak: instead of having 3 brackets at 8-hour intervals, what if we had 4 brackets at 6-hour intervals?

The screen shot shows them staggered by 6 hours. Why it only shows 3 brackets and not 4 may just be a UI issue.

CrookedKnight

If they just make it so you can only see opponents in active brackets, I'd think the metagame implications of being able to attack people in staggered brackets would be less than the effects from completely cutting off the different brackets from each other. There should be no reason to pick an ending time other than the simple question of when you'll be available to play.

Unknown

Hands down best announcement ever on these forums.

Finally, the Doc is happy. Nice one Demi/D3!

Ducky

I can see this being an issue for people who like to start PvEs late to join fresh brackets and get easier placement. With three different time brackets there will be less brackets, so starting later means risking getting stuck into a bracket that's been open for several refreshes, if not more.

Or I could just be over thinking it and it will be similar to the current format. Either way, it will take some getting used to, I think, to figure out the best times to enter brackets if you aren't a crazy grinder.

Luckily, I'm a crazy grinder.

Unknown

DuckyV wrote:

I can see this being an issue for people who like to start PvEs late to join fresh brackets and get easier placement. With three different time brackets there will be less brackets, so starting later means risking getting stuck into a bracket that's been open for several refreshes, if not more.

Or I could just be over thinking it and it will be similar to the current format. Either way, it will take some getting used to, I think, to figure out the best times to enter brackets if you aren't a crazy grinder.

Luckily, I'm a crazy grinder.

Not to mention that starting late in most PvE's harms your alliance ranking substantially in most cases.

Pwuz_

After thinking about this a little bit, I'm not sure this is going to help me personally very much.

Let's take PvP Event A which normally would have ended at 1pm EST (which is my timezone.) I'm normally working at 1pm, so that doesn't work well for me. Assuming the options will be the 6 hours before and after the normal times: 7pm I'll still be working & 7am would mean waking up absurdly early.

If if PvP Event B which normally ends 1am EST, I'm still stuck staying up late to grind as 7am & 7pm are out of the question again.

Now, what is the same about these two situations? Oh, if 7am or 7 pm are optimal times, you get your preferred end time for ALL EVENTS!!!

Ok, perhaps I'm overreacting. Perhaps they will stagger the end times. So Event A may end at 7,1,&7, but Event B may end at 1,7,&1, & Event C ending at 7,1,&7, and so on.

Unknown

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

epick_fayle wrote:

However, might I suggest a slight tweak: instead of having 3 brackets at 8-hour intervals, what if we had 4 brackets at 6-hour intervals?

The screen shot shows them staggered by 6 hours. Why it only shows 3 brackets and not 4 may just be a UI issue.

Wow, you are absolutely right. I don't know why I automatically thought "3 brackets == 8 hour intervals" and didn't bother to actually count the hours.

Unknown

I really hope that they make it 8 hour intervals. There is no points to having more than 2 choices with 6 hour intervals. It's pretty much choose morning or night.

dippdogg2002

this is going.to be a really awesome thing can't wait till it goes live!

Unknown

Real great news. It was difficult to go out from bed and do event at 5 in the morning.

Quebbster

Very much looking forward to this change.

Unknown

Oh man, after another night annoying the Mrs as I woke up at 4am to play MPQ (and even then, not for a top 20 place in the PvE because I couldn't play midnight to 4am)... this cannot happen fast enough.