Event End Times Feedback Request - Hulk 'Smash Hit'

chris0001

I would have to say this has got to be one of the worse mistakes that have been made, (unless it was intentional)! Address time issue ok, can live with that, but most of the comments are its not working and I would have to agree. The amount of ISO I have spent on the skip tax is more than I have spend on several pvps combined! When you go through 30-50 skips of 3 to 5 points to find one at 12, come on give me a break! The one post earlier about one week standard endtimes and the following week UK end times may be more viable than this set up. Also, this was to be a test in Hulk pvp now its continuing??? Hoping this get addressed very soon.

MarvelMan

onimus wrote:

Another problem I've had. And I don't know if this pertains to this PVP or if this is just a problem in general:

I'll skip through people and find 3 good nodes. I'll sit on them and then exit the game, intending to come back to those nodes and beat them once my shield expires and health packs return.

I come back in....and the nodes were reset back to what they were before I found the three good nodes!

So I try searching again, but of course they are all shielded now.

This has cost me, minimum, 200 points this PVP. It has happened so much and I have no idea what to do? I guess just not search until I'm ready to fight? But I have no guarantee there will be people available at that time...

Skip tax needs to be eliminated and once you get a node, it needs to stay that way.

This is generally due to a data push, which happens around 9am EST each morning and occasionally other times. Plus, if you force close the app it can happen as a data push might have been pending.

It may also be worse this week because there are issues with constant data push after the last patch: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=19423

MarvelMan

I actually like the way this worked out. Less stress for me as the end time worked better. Yeah, it has also meant lower scoring so that XF at 1300 was out of reach. It wasnt meant to be candy on Halloween so I can live with that. The biggest issue for me is how the scoring will interact between slices, and the affect it will have on alliance/individual placement for events and season.

Unknown

In my opinion, there were two PVP's in off season (which could have been extended to 2.5 days longers to allow 3 PVP's) to perform end time and MMR testing. MPQ did the responsible thing as far conducting the MMR test in between the seasons. I'm at a lost as to why it was not done for time slicing. Moreover, PVE's needed the time slicing more, and it does not matter if that test is done in season or not.

I do like the PVP was for "older" rewards, so there was some consideration to it. However, the tests have really messed up season scoring. I'm not looking for compensation. A viable end times would be reward in itself.

Colognoisseur

I am in shard 4 with an ending time of 1AM EST.

So far the event has gone pretty much as it has in the past. Once I got above 800 on the climb higher point targets appeared and I was pretty quickly able to hop north of 1100 on one shield.

When we are done I wonder if the devs might share with us the percentage of players in each time shard. Based on looking at the top alliance scores it seems like the high scores are still in play and I am assuming they are able to be queued.

I do agree I've been skipping more than in the past and it is irritating to watch iso bleed away while skipping single digit targets.

It also seems like bracketing is a little less aggressive as I have some big names I recognize in my top 10 but for the past four or five it has been multiple players from the top alliances. It seems to be the least aggressive bracket I've had in awhile.

That's my feedback with about twelve hours to go in my shard.

Unknown

Colognoisseur wrote:

I am in shard 4 with an ending time of 1AM EST.

So far the event has gone pretty much as it has in the past. Once I got above 800 on the climb higher point targets appeared and I was pretty quickly able to hop north of 1100 on one shield.

When we are done I wonder if the devs might share with us the percentage of players in each time shard. Based on looking at the top alliance scores it seems like the high scores are still in play and I am assuming they are able to be queued.

I do agree I've been skipping more than in the past and it is irritating to watch iso bleed away while skipping single digit targets.

It also seems like bracketing is a little less aggressive as I have some big names I recognize in my top 10 but for the past four or five it has been multiple players from the top alliances. It seems to be the least aggressive bracket I've had in awhile.

That's my feedback with about twelve hours to go in my shard.

I think a lot of people were sceptical of joining non-typical end times without knowing how the new system would work. Therefore, I would not be surprised if the normal end time slot is very close to being like it normally is and has at least 50% of all players in it.

laughingMAN

I was in the 4pm bracket... but my event seems to have already ended... Bug?

Unknown

D3, thank you for the End time Event. i'm from russia. i couldnt play mpq because of the ending time of the event. most of the pve/pvp ends in local time 8am/9am, it's hard to play in this moring rush hour. but now i can select my own time to play. thank you so much.

reckless442

If this remains, the skip tax must be eliminated. The amount of skipping at lower scores to find a target is ridiculous.

Also, for those who say that the brackets aren't bad, my bracket in the normal end time shard has three members of my alliances (SHIELD), TooBadUnknown from our sister alliance, TheLetterD, and Arrognt Bastard in the top-10. I know my alliance mates and I joined over a span of a few hours, so to have death brackets in a shard that already has limited players just adds insult to injury.

Unknown

The only thing I'm noticing is my score is being lowered a bit ie I play some one for a reward of 20 point and only get 18 but then again this had happened on other event and occasionally I get more point so I have no idea what going on. unless I'm being attacked with out being notified but no revenge nodes are popping up

Oh and my score is going to be lower because of tougher people to fight. Problay due to less people to chose from though I'm assuming the list is being pulled from people in my time slot and not from every who has an active event

Other than that I love being able to choose when the event ends

whitecat31

Jimilinho wrote:

This is compounded by the fact we have season scores, I'm gonna fall way behind anyone who can post a big score in this event. Variable end times for Pve would be fine, variable end times for non-seasonal events would be great, but having it in this event really has killed the enjoyment for me.

A very good point is made here about Season scores. In theory you are competing against everybody else for a season score in a particular bracket based on your first event starting time. Now if you chose the wrong time shard, there is a very good chance that you are now very far behind in season scores, and you won't win. In fact there is a good chance you won't even place in the top 10. I had to score over 21000 to win my bracket last season. For many people they are going to be down by over 800 to 1000 in this event from where they normally might finish.
I think the shard idea is a good idea, but I also think we should be able to target everybody to make this event fair for season scores.

Or we could lock people in to same time slot based on their first season event start time. (I am not for this by the way)

Unknown

reckless442 wrote:

If this remains, the skip tax must be eliminated. The amount of skipping at lower scores to find a target is ridiculous.

Also, for those who say that the brackets aren't bad, my bracket in the normal end time shard has three members of my alliances (SHIELD), TooBadUnknown from our sister alliance, TheLetterD, and Arrognt Bastard in the top-10. I know my alliance mates and I joined over a span of a few hours, so to have death brackets in a shard that already has limited players just adds insult to injury.

I agree. Sharding and death brackets are one of the worst ideas ever by the developers. Between this and scaling, there are no greater illustrations of MPQ penalizing players for playing the game. There should be no features that disincentivize players developing their rosters aka a stick for players that have played the game more and longer than others.

Colognoisseur

stephen43084 wrote:

Colognoisseur wrote:

I am in shard 4 with an ending time of 1AM EST.

So far the event has gone pretty much as it has in the past. Once I got above 800 on the climb higher point targets appeared and I was pretty quickly able to hop north of 1100 on one shield.

When we are done I wonder if the devs might share with us the percentage of players in each time shard. Based on looking at the top alliance scores it seems like the high scores are still in play and I am assuming they are able to be queued.

I do agree I've been skipping more than in the past and it is irritating to watch iso bleed away while skipping single digit targets.

It also seems like bracketing is a little less aggressive as I have some big names I recognize in my top 10 but for the past four or five it has been multiple players from the top alliances. It seems to be the least aggressive bracket I've had in awhile.

That's my feedback with about twelve hours to go in my shard.

I think a lot of people were sceptical of joining non-typical end times without knowing how the new system would work. Therefore, I would not be surprised if the normal end time slot is very close to being like it normally is and has at least 50% of all players in it.

I am sure your percentage is not far off the mark. honestly this is the trade-off a player has to make. If you want to play for the long game season award then you need to be in the most populated time shard which will probably be shard 4 which was the normal one for so many. The trade is to have it end at a time other than that with smaller percentages lets say even distribution of 12.5% across the other four shards. Less competition for placing and less opportunity to post a high score. You'll finish at the top of the leaderboard easily with less hields spent but you will spend more iso skipping around.

The purpose of this test is to see if players would rather have convenience, event ends when it works for each player; or scoring highly.

The devs need feedback from everyone on which is more important for them.

Unknown

I'm not entirely sure, but I think I'm noticing less retals when unshielded. May be the one benefit to multi-level sharding or it could just be because Hulk's the star. Will have to see how it is when the end of the event rolls around.

Unknown

daibar wrote:

I'm not entirely sure, but I think I'm noticing less retals when unshielded. May be the one benefit to multi-level sharding or it could just be because Hulk's the star. Will have to see how it is when the end of the event rolls around.

That is one bonus, and this may be D3's solution to not having Sentry around anymore for super quick shield hopping.

By lowering the number of people who can attack you, they are decreasing the risk of being unshielded for a period of time.

This may be one of the positives of this testing.

It's just a matter of correcting the bad parts.

chris0001

reckless442 wrote:

If this remains, the skip tax must be eliminated. The amount of skipping at lower scores to find a target is ridiculous.

Also, for those who say that the brackets aren't bad, my bracket in the normal end time shard has three members of my alliances (SHIELD), TooBadUnknown from our sister alliance, TheLetterD, and Arrognt Bastard in the top-10. I know my alliance mates and I joined over a span of a few hours, so to have death brackets in a shard that already has limited players just adds insult to injury.

They should refund the "skip tax" for this event period, ( as they are calling it a TEST)! I have skipped more in this event than I have in the past 3 events! When you're around 900 pts you should not have to skip a player with 0 pts!!!! Skipped about 15 - 20 1-5 points just to get a fight worth 15-20 points??? Doesn't seem right!

Unknown

chris0001 wrote:

reckless442 wrote:

If this remains, the skip tax must be eliminated. The amount of skipping at lower scores to find a target is ridiculous.

Also, for those who say that the brackets aren't bad, my bracket in the normal end time shard has three members of my alliances (SHIELD), TooBadUnknown from our sister alliance, TheLetterD, and Arrognt Bastard in the top-10. I know my alliance mates and I joined over a span of a few hours, so to have death brackets in a shard that already has limited players just adds insult to injury.

They should refund the "skip tax" for this event period, ( as they are calling it a TEST)! I have skipped more in this event than I have in the past 3 events! When you're around 900 pts you should not have to skip a player with 0 pts!!!! Skipped about 15 - 20 1-5 points just to get a fight worth 15-20 points??? Doesn't seem right!

I completely agree.

They need to refund out skip tax for this PVP.

And now that the Black Widow PVP seems to be in the same boat, they should just eliminate skip tax for that event as well.

MarvelMan

Colognoisseur wrote:

If you want to play for the long game season award then you need to be in the most populated time shard which will probably be shard 4 which was the normal one for so many. The trade is to have it end at a time other than that with smaller percentages lets say even distribution of 12.5% across the other four shards. Less competition for placing and less opportunity to post a high score. You'll finish at the top of the leaderboard easily with less hields spent but you will spend more iso skipping around.

The HUGE bonus is that I was able to EASILY get to the #1 slot in my slice/bracket with 995. That netted me more HP and covers, plus I spent a lot less HP. Normally I was a T10 player around 1100, occasionally 1300, with an outlay of HP. Seems worth it to me to trade not getting delayed season tokens that might get me something for guaranteed covers/HP now.

SnakesArrows

Generally the beta has worked ok for me. No problems with no receiving points for wins as folks had earlier (bummer for those that had that happen and i hope they compensate you all). I like being able to choose my end time, but i don't think this was absolutely necessary for PVP and is necessary for PVE. The major problem is in the lack of high value matches (echo the frustration at a needed out there and probably slightly out of reach!). I can't even find 20 point matches without 10x the skips in normal events. Most are 3 points and i don't know if i have ever seen a 3 point match before this event. This lack of value targets started at around 600-700 points for me. I agree that if they are beta testing they need to eliminate the skip tax during the test. If continue with the choose your end time and it devalues the matches they need a solution such as they can only have skip tax if you skip a 20 point target (maybe 25?) or more. Most of these were covered in prior posts.
Sum
1. Generally worked ok.
2. Find way to increase match values. Look at reducing the options to 3 time slices to increase point values.
3. If can not increase match value eliminate skip tax during beta
4. If need a skip tax after full release eliminate the tax for skipping less than 20 point nodes.
5. If match value is decreased to this extent they need to look at lowering the progression rewards. 1300 is out of sight against a string of 3 point matches.
6. I appreciate that you are testing and trying to make the game better. That is a good thing. However, run betas/ make major meta changes during the week between seasons. If making a major change there is nothing preventing you from having two weeks between a season.

Unknown

Finding it nice to have options. Chose the early timeslice and didn't have time to put up an exceptional score but still going to place top 10 with one shield. Will be very curious to see if the later slices are going to be just as competitive as normal. and if they are, then people who care more about competition than sleep will know to choose the later ones for points and everyone else can choose the earlier ones for better chances at ranking higher. Seems a good compromise, leaving everyone a little dissatisfied as good compromises should.

I would look hard at progression award tiers after these test runs maybe also going down to 3 tiers. I would personally vote for end times at 5 hours apart if there are only 3 slices though, instead of 8 hours apart spanning a little more than 12 hours but not a full 24