ZenMonkey wrote: Hi Everyone, This issue isn't about the 1 percent, it effects everyone. You may just not have noticed it yet because most have been joining the standard time slot out of habit. If you pick the wrong slot 1)Progression rewards become a lot more expensive or impossible to reach for many 2)Alliance rankings are hurt. I have been in alliances struggling for 100 before, it usually consists of a few players that can score high and help carry the team to victory. If any of these players pick the wrong slot kiss top 100 goodbye. you can argue all day about not needing a high score. I don't score high for my personal rewards I do it for the alliance. The alliance is the only thing keeping me in the game. As for the statement session placement doesn't matter..... Well then seasons don't matter...... But they exist and they are a part of the game. If they don't matter they should be removed, until then this feature goes directly against a fundamental game design. You can't develop a feature in a void and once again it just demonstrates what's wrong with the game, It's schizophrenic. They introduce seasons then they make game changing changes during a season totally invalidating rankings. They nurf characters to encourage a varied roster then they release sentry They give us alliances with ranked rewards then they split alliances up with different time shards. How splitting alliances up is a good thing is beyond me but hey I guess I'm an out of touch 1 percenter Lastly I just want to give a shout out to X-men. They are often villainized but they have always played nicely with me. You guys are insane but I love you, this wasn't about beating you but to make a statement against a feature that may kill the game for me.
seasong wrote: Hi, I'm Seasong and for some context on my perspective, I'm one of the late/non-crazy scorers in X-men 2. Firstly, congrats to OPH for some awesome scoring and for taking first! You guys did a great job! However, I don't think the ability to form such an alliance after slot 4 had ended implicates a new flaw in the system. As many have said, you can always manipulate placement by last minute switching. X-men could have similarly responded by switching people around though that's generally not our policy. I think the real hypothetical flaw is one where you have a hard-gunning alliance who all go to slot 5, look at the scores already posted and then work together to outscore that. If X1/X2 were all in slot 4, we wouldn't have a way to come back legitimately by having our players score higher. But if this hypothetical alliance did exist, then I guess everyone would just have to go to slot 5 and be done with it. Meanwhile, I think the real problem that needs to be addressed is the much smaller player pool in each time slot and its effect on the game. To me, the most pressing issues are: 1. Crazy sharding. When you have an over-concentration of top scorers in one slot, you're naturally going to have more competitive brackets, and the "gentle nudging" provided by the game becomes overkill. 2. Disparity of points between time slots. To make the system more viable, I think you should have at most two or three slots. This would give you a more robust pool of targets allowing those who wish to score higher to still find targets to hop off of while also increasing the chance of finding other high scorers who did not go with the herd. 3. Unfair skip tax. Not as important in the larger scheme of things, but when you're at 1900+ and continuously cycling through people who are at 0(!) points to 300 points, it does seem a bit unfair. Maybe when MMR is so weird, consider getting rid of skip tax. Overall, I think my experience with time slots has not been as bad as some though I disagree with it from an even playing field standpoint. In PVP as opposed to PVE, where player choices directly impact each other, having which time slot you chose be a factor seems to take something away from the competition. I'm lucky to be part of a large, organized alliance group who can adapt to this change, but I feel for high scorers in smaller alliances who have to make their own way. Finally, I've seen some people say, "Why should D3 listen to the top 1% of players when it makes the rest of the 99% player base happy?" I think the simple answer is that that 1% shoulders much more than 1% of the cost of the game. As Operation Pay Harder highlights, to truly compete requires a financial commitment. D3/Demiurge should be commended for making a very enjoyable game on the F2P level but on the other hand, the needs of the paying players who help sustain the game shouldn't be glossed over. Different end times offer a seemingly universal benefit in providing choice, but for top competitive players, there is still no real choice. Thus, top players are saddled with the negative effects without fully realizing the positive. I think D3/Demiurge should do more mitigate those negative effects.
onimus wrote: So, this entire test has made just about everyone except for the highest scorers basically have to choose between progression rewards and event rewards. That is just tragic.
reckless442 wrote: Operation Pay Harder is now in effect. Welcome to the new MPQ. Actually, no, that’s not true. But we have your attention now and wanted to explain who we are and why we stole first place in Hollowpoint Kiss.
Phantron wrote: I'd need to see some demographics from D3 before I buy the whole 'certain timezone guys have it much harder hitting 1300 (max progression) reward'. If there are shards where they have to spend about 2500 HP to hit 1300 then I can see that being a problem, but I have a hard time believing that. Now if you want to say people in EST can score 2000 while people on European time can only get 1600, I'm sure that's quite possible but since you only need about 20 guys willing spend a ton of money to prop up an arbitary high score, that just means there aren't enough crazy guys in Europe to do it and maybe that says more about how rest of the world isn't as crazy as people on US time rather than a fundamental flaw of the system. If MPQ become the national sport of South Korea and you start seeing the Asian timeshard with scores of 5000 that just means Koreans are more competitive than the rest of the world and I see no reason to change the game just because one timezone is dominating the game.
lokiagentofhotness wrote: As a casual-ish player I like the new timw slots. Yes I never get 40 plus pointers but I could never beat sentryhood 40 pointers to begin with - the only difference now is that I have a chance at top 10 in a lazy time shard with others in the same boat as me. This is a win as far as I can tell.
lokiagentofhotness wrote: ZenMonkey wrote: Hi Everyone, This issue isn't about the 1 percent, it effects everyone. You may just not have noticed it yet because most have been joining the standard time slot out of habit. If you pick the wrong slot 1)Progression rewards become a lot more expensive or impossible to reach for many 2)Alliance rankings are hurt. I have been in alliances struggling for 100 before, it usually consists of a few players that can score high and help carry the team to victory. If any of these players pick the wrong slot kiss top 100 goodbye. you can argue all day about not needing a high score. I don't score high for my personal rewards I do it for the alliance. The alliance is the only thing keeping me in the game. As for the statement session placement doesn't matter..... Well then seasons don't matter...... But they exist and they are a part of the game. If they don't matter they should be removed, until then this feature goes directly against a fundamental game design. You can't develop a feature in a void and once again it just demonstrates what's wrong with the game, It's schizophrenic. They introduce seasons then they make game changing changes during a season totally invalidating rankings. They nurf characters to encourage a varied roster then they release sentry They give us alliances with ranked rewards then they split alliances up with different time shards. How splitting alliances up is a good thing is beyond me but hey I guess I'm an out of touch 1 percenter Lastly I just want to give a shout out to X-men. They are often villainized but they have always played nicely with me. You guys are insane but I love you, this wasn't about beating you but to make a statement against a feature that may kill the game for me. No it really is about the 1 percent. As a casual-ish player I like the new timw slots. Yes I never get 40 plus pointers but I could never beat sentryhood 40 pointers to begin with - the only difference now is that I have a chance at top 10 in a lazy time shard with others in the same boat as me. This is a win as far as I can tell. I have never hit 1300 points and that's fine with me - if I can stay out of the time slots all the 1 percenters congregate at, all the better for me. I doubt it will affect my alliance score either, I'm still getting the minimum requirement they set. The only way to beat someone with sentryhood is with sentryhood or similar - and no casual or semi-casual player really ever gets over 1300.
gamar wrote: Seeing as how the "power" slot turned out to be the "normal ending time" slot, everyone who cares about timeslot uneven-ness can play exactly the way they did before and not be affected a bit, and let the rest of us enjoy our sleep
ZenMonkey wrote: Also gambling on a time shard whether your looking for an active one or a slow one is a poor game design. You better believe X-men are going to start rotating their shards.
Raekwen wrote: gamar wrote: Seeing as how the "power" slot turned out to be the "normal ending time" slot, everyone who cares about timeslot uneven-ness can play exactly the way they did before and not be affected a bit, and let the rest of us enjoy our sleep You're right. I'm US, and my gameplay wasn't affected at all. My bracket wasn't horrible, and it was business as usual for me this last event. The whole reason I'm saying something is because the solution can be better. If you actually read everything I said, I'm not advocating taking away the time changes. I feel horrible for my alliance mates who are outside of the US and have to either choose low scores or sleep. Again, why can't they have both? What's so wrong about that?
Raekwen wrote: lokiagentofhotness wrote: As a casual-ish player I like the new timw slots. Yes I never get 40 plus pointers but I could never beat sentryhood 40 pointers to begin with - the only difference now is that I have a chance at top 10 in a lazy time shard with others in the same boat as me. This is a win as far as I can tell. And as a casual-ish player you shouldn't be able to have a chance at the top 10, and have the same rewards as the rest of us killing ourselves. It's like saying you feel you should be able to show up the day of the SAT test without studying and have a chance at the same score as the people who studied for weeks. It just shows how far the system is flawed right now.
_RiO_ wrote: Raekwen wrote: lokiagentofhotness wrote: As a casual-ish player I like the new timw slots. Yes I never get 40 plus pointers but I could never beat sentryhood 40 pointers to begin with - the only difference now is that I have a chance at top 10 in a lazy time shard with others in the same boat as me. This is a win as far as I can tell. And as a casual-ish player you shouldn't be able to have a chance at the top 10, and have the same rewards as the rest of us killing ourselves. It's like saying you feel you should be able to show up the day of the SAT test without studying and have a chance at the same score as the people who studied for weeks. It just shows how far the system is flawed right now. Given the fact that roster progression is the exclusive goal in the game, you are essentially telling more casual players that progressing further into the game is not meant for them, that they should be content with being stuck in the 2* morass of limited rosters and that that they should just suck it up. It goes without saying that this is an extremely flawed premise off of which to base further discussion... Ask yourself this; would a veteran, hardcore player continue playing this game if D3 were to decide to stop introducing new 3*s and 4*s and would concentrate on new 2* or 1* every other week instead? Because that's pretty much what casuals are facing in 2* land without a shot at earning 3* covers and eventually transitioning into playing the much more expansive and varied 3* roster.
lukewin wrote: I was in 5th time slice for Hollowpoint. 1st was 1193, 10th was 858. No one hit the 1300. In talking with alliance mates, scores like these were average across time slices 1, 2, 3 and 5.
_RiO_ wrote: Given the fact that roster progression is the exclusive goal in the game, you are essentially telling more casual players that progressing further into the game is not meant for them, that they should be content with being stuck in the 2* morass of limited rosters and that that they should just suck it up. It goes without saying that this is an extremely flawed premise off of which to base further discussion... Ask yourself this; would a veteran, hardcore player continue playing this game if D3 were to decide to stop introducing new 3*s and 4*s and would concentrate on new 2* or 1* every other week instead? Because that's pretty much what casuals are facing in 2* land without a shot at earning 3* covers and eventually transitioning into playing the much more expansive and varied 3* roster.