Upcoming PVE End Times Testing (*Updated)

Unknown

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

wymtime wrote:

I am all for the PVE test end time. I am also ok with 12 hour subs and subs ending at the same time. What I really hope happens is that David [Hi-Fi] Moore hops on to have a little Q & A today or tonight to answer some questions for us. As the game is changing for the better the people on this forum are very willing to give feed back. In order for us to give the Dev's the best feedback possible we don't just need an update that you will be testing end times. Give us an update like:

"we will be testing end times here is what we are doing. Please post your questions and David will give some responses and will do a Q & A 24 hours before the event to let you know what we are looking for and what sort of feedback we need. David will then be able to answer any questions or concerns so you can have a good experience while we test end times as end times have been a strong topic based on your feedback."

David,
This is great a great test that D3 is running and you have a hard job with the forum management and taking our feedback. Please take this constructivly as a little better way to test things in the future. Information is power and communication is key.

Thanks

Winner winner chicken dinner.

I feel like the Devs are hiding in a bunker behind David now. They've implemented PvP end times and given zero feedback thus far. That makes it feel much less like a test and more like "here's a change we're putting in under the guise of a test." What general updates we do get now feel sterilized. People ask questions near instantaneously for clarification when a discussionthread for an update is posted. They're twisting in the wind, left to figure out what the Devs' cryptogram means.

David is doing a fine job, but the forums would benefit greatly from more daily (heck, weekly) conversation and less of this press release stuff that is way too common.

/end soapbox

Agree 100% GrumpySmurf. Anything that gets rolled out is here to stay. To believe any **** that the devs try to feed us about "testing" things is foolish. It's not how these jokers operate.

Boo....Boo...Boo

Poor Job with everything.

Marc

lukewin

KevinMark wrote:

It seems I missed the first sub eventhough I picked the latest time possible.

Yup. The first 2 12 hrs started the second the event started, not based on when you joined. Hopefully you got into a bracket where the pack in front is not too far in front, so you can get decent placement.

lukewin

arktos1971 wrote:

Could it be there are far less people playing this PvE so brackets fill up more slowly ?

I do agree that brackets should be smaller (especially when the rewards are not significant).

I don't think it is less people playing, but 5 choices means 5 brackets ( 1 in each time slice ) to fill up. The 5 brackets would still fill up at the same time, as 5 sequential ones would. But instead of the first couple filling quickly, and slowing down towards the 4th and 5th, all 5 are slowly filling.

Actually, the brackets in the 5 slices are going to fill up slower than 5 sequential ones would, because some time slices could be more popular than others. Old way, 5000 people means 5 full brackets. 5,000 people across 5 time slices means more than 5 brackets overall, with varied #s distributed in each.

DrStrange-616

reckless442 wrote:

So now it looks like scaling is shard-based as well. I'm in shard 4 and my China essentials are starting at 127/148 while my Namibia essentials are starting at 186 and 194. Meanwhile, an alliance mate with a similar roster, who scores better than me in PVEs, and grinds PVE like crazy is in a different time-shard and seeing level 20 nodes.

This is total tinykitty.

This. It's all kinds of messed up. Progression rewards are virtually gifted to some and nearly impossible for others because of it.

acescracked

This time slice business has really made the game unfair then if now PvE is affected.

People have pointed out that time slices have made PvP unfair for seasons. Some PvP time slices you can hit 1300 with minimal skips and less shields. Whereas in others you have to skip a ton more just to hope to hit 1100.

So now it looks like you can get way easier scaling than others based upon your PvE time slice? That is even more unfair. Progression rewards reached easier with less usage of health packs and wipes because of your time slice? This may very well push me out the door.

Ryz-aus

acescracked wrote:

This time slice business has really made the game unfair then if now PvE is affected.

People have pointed out that time slices have made PvP unfair for seasons. Some PvP time slices you can hit 1300 with minimal skips and less shields. Whereas in others you have to skip a ton more just to hope to hit 1100.

So now it looks like you can get way easier scaling than others based upon your PvE time slice? That is even more unfair. Progression rewards reached easier with less usage of health packs and wipes because of your time slice? This may very well push me out the door.

It's not specific time slice based - in the event thread players across all time slices have seen the scaling problem (even in the most popular slice 4). It was apparent to players in the earliest slices first because they are further into the event. It isn't hitting all players, but also isn't end time or platform specific. Some players saw it start in their third subs, others in the fourth, and others still have regular difficulty.

It's still a problem, and probably caused by their end time change, but the idea that they should go back to "your tiny kittied unless you live in the states or hate sleep" is nuts. Fix the bug, but let me choose my end time.

spccrain

Ok here's my thoughts on pvp and pve time shards. First off fantastic idea d3 I love the ability to work the game around my day instead of the other way around. However there needs to be a cutoff implemented at some point to close brackets when it is no longer possible to compete. For the PvP where we got blade rewards I joined a shard 36 hrs after it had opened and the leader was worldrunner with over 2k points and top 10 was already over 1300 so my PvP was over before it began. I ended in top 50 with 13xx. That's terrible and very demoralizing. Now with the pve shards if you don't join immediately or have someone to monitor for you then you are liable to jump into a bracket that's been open for days giving you no chance to get a cover.
I would suggest for PvP when someone (or 2 maybe 3 people) gets to 1300 the bracket closes. For pve maybe once a day when a sub ends close all the brackets if they are over a certain number.
Something needs to change about the time shards or it will only make people rage quit.

wymtime

Here is what I have seen with the time slice PVE and my suggestions to tweet it. The big thing with the time slices is when you choose your slice you get entered into a bracket. Since you are only in a bracket you have a higher chance of getting into a PVE where someone has already gotten out to a huge lead. In PVP this can be overcome. In PVE not so much. You can be locked out of top placement because you joined 2-3 hrs after the leaders. Same thing goes for the subs since I am already placed in the sub if I don't start right when the sub starts it is not possible for high placement. with the way time slices work with PVP here are a couple ways to make PVE work better for all.
1) don't make 12 hr subs going forward. Make a min of 24hrs so people might sleep and others can catch up. You will need to increase rubber banding within the first 12 hours of the sub and decrease rubber banding in the last 12 hours. This will even the playing field so if a sub starts at 12:00 you don't have to grind from point one.
2) make PVE a fixed point system And eliminate refresh times and make it only personal scalding. Have each node start on trivial. You can play this node twice as trival, then twice as easy, three times as normal and three times as hard. It will then go to deadly and you can grind deadly down as many times as you want. Each difficulty will b worth more points. This would give you 10 times before difficulty goes to deadly and if someone wants to grind down deadly to win more power to them. This will allow players to not worry about rubber banding and people can be entered into slices right away. If someone defeats higher levels the win more rewards.
As it is now time slices will hurt a lot of people the way it is currently set up or force a lot of grinding. Please take a look at these options to make some small or larger tweets.

Thank you D3

Ducky

Looks like time slices just borked the end of the season.

Job well done!

Flare808

DuckyV wrote:

Looks like time slices just borked the end of the season.

Job well done!

Thread is for PvE end times. Hopefully they fix the PvP problem before it affects PvE.

Ducky

Flare808 wrote:

DuckyV wrote:

Looks like time slices just borked the end of the season.

Job well done!

Thread is for PvE end times. Hopefully they fix the PvP problem before it affects PvE.

Wrong thread. >< haha

They still have a lot of work to do on the pve time slice implementation, though. Hopefully they get it worked out before implementing it again. There are brackets that have been opened for days, making it severely unfair for people who join late.

Unknown

Hi Devs,

Just in case you missed it... 12/36hour subs are really not a great fit with time sliced PvE. I'm not going to throw my toys out of the pram about it as it's equally bad for everyone (if you pick a daytime finish, but then end up with middle of the night subs) but please, please try to adapt existing PvE and future PvE to 24hr or 48hr subs.

Unknown

DrUnpleasant wrote:

Hi Devs,

Just in case you missed it... 12/36hour subs are really not a great fit with time sliced PvE

Oh and in case you missed the other you failed to fix the scaling problem with the nodes turning a 7 day event into a total grind fest.

simonsez

Sumilea wrote:

Oh and in case you missed the other you failed to fix the scaling problem

Are you also the guy who called the bank and said "You still haven't fixed that ATM machine that's spitting out free cash" ?

Unknown

For some feedback, I'm not liking the time slices you've picked. For me, the ideal ending times would be 10 or 11 PM. What I have are:

9 AM: I'm often in meetings during the end
3 PM: Often in meetings at the end, plus 3AM subs ugh
6 PM: 6AM subs
12 AM: Ends too late at night
3 AM: Heh, no

Even 9 PM instead of AM would probably be OK, missing the last refresh of a sub or two isn't THAT bad when you're only going for top 20.

Yeah, the 6 PM and midnight times are better than the poor Europeans used to get. I don't care about Europeans and west coasters, I demand you schedule your game around me, me, ME

Unknown

DrUnpleasant wrote:

Hi Devs,

Just in case you missed it... 12/36hour subs are really not a great fit with time sliced PvE. I'm not going to throw my toys out of the pram about it as it's equally bad for everyone (if you pick a daytime finish, but then end up with middle of the night subs) but please, please try to adapt existing PvE and future PvE to 24hr or 48hr subs.

I want to really emphasize this. The 36 hour subs made sense when there was a single end time, but they just undermine the convenience factor for everyone here. I'd like to be able to pick the 6 pm (Eastern) end time - I've got Monday off next week, it would mean I wouldn't have to grind to midnight and could get a good night's sleep - but 6 am subs are just impossible. Now that we can pick the end time, make sure that end time applies to all the subs. You're punishing people with work or school obligations this way, and people who can play whenever they want already have enough of an advantage in PVE as it is.

Unknown

If i m the owner of this designer house i will "FIRE" all the idiot design team! Sorry if you are the boss please point a gun to you brain and finsih yourself ASPS. Your design house will be broken very soon under your bad decision

I pick a backet In my day time ( let say 6:pm) and i think it is perfect for me to play

However the event last for 6 day +12 hours oh the end time is 6:00 am.... great!

Even such a small thing can not help player and what the **** is this desginer can do?

Unknown

While I cannot echo benben's suggested solution to the problem, the choice of end times and different length sub events seems a bit, well, silly.

Unknown

I'd love to know if the dev's read this stuff and either:

1. Think... 'oh yeah, we didn't think of that'
2. Think... 'suck it up you ungrateful gits, this event has 36hr subs - deal with it'
3. *Shrug*
4. Think... 'we've got enough work to do with making other changes, we'll get round to making everything 24/48hr subs eventually'
or,
5. Cackle and sport an evil grin

Unknown

DrUnpleasant wrote:

I'd love to know if the dev's read this stuff and either:

1. Think... 'oh yeah, we didn't think of that'
2. Think... 'suck it up you ungrateful gits, this event has 36hr subs - deal with it'
3. *Shrug*
4. Think... 'we've got enough work to do with making other changes, we'll get round to making everything 24/48hr subs eventually'
or,
5. Cackle and sport an evil grin

Yeah, I really can't find a reasonable explanation other than "Oops" for this. I mean, what's the point of having time slices when you still get screwed for half of the event? OK, not screwed, I may be exaggerating here, but you still can't take full advantage of this change.

The thing now is that it is bad for everyone and not just one timezone, so we've got that going which is nice.