What node refresh rate would you prefer?

Carnage_78

I think that 2.5/3 hours is too short...endless grind for 7 days...with major setbacks for not playing for a few hours like an 8 hours night of sleep...

On the other hand, 8 hours is way too long...no real way to separate yourself from the pack if you are keen to do so by being consistent in following your refresh times.

I think that the 4 hours option is the good middle ground...less burning yourself out trying to keep up with all the refreshes but still some penalty to make up for if not grinding perfectly synchronised with the refreshes without it being impossible to make up for if you double tapped the nodes before bed for example...

That solution would ease up a little the burden on the players without removing too much of the competition of the grind towards the rewards...and most important of all, it would be a little more sustainable for playing PvE after PvE in a daily life context!

Spoit

Would the playing 'on the dot' be alleviated for 12 hour refreshes (or really any other rate) if they "locked in" the RB at each refresh? I.e. all rubberbanding is based off of the high score at the refresh, ignoring any points gained in the interim?

Unknown

I don't mind the 2.5 hours. I'm not sure what people are talking about staying up all night or waking up every 2.5 hours. I made top 5 in thr thor tournament, and top 10 in Gamora. I didn't wake up every refresh, and I didn't play every 2.5 either during the day.

SymmeTrey

The 3 hour timer is a marked improvement but I think that 4 hours is the real sweet spot. Clear twice, sleep 8 hours. Clear once before work, play on lunch break, play after work, etc.

It also feels like the difficulty is about right this time. The good players are going to complete the hard/deadly nodes and separate that way.

bknfoodie

I think anywhere between 4-8 hrs is fine. Personally I prefer 6-8 hrs. But I can definitely see the argument that 8 may be too boring and not competitive enough.

Ryz-aus

Three is fine for me, and four might be even better. I also haven't ever bothered with arranging my schedule around the game - I just play each node two/three times if I will be busy or sleeping, and take the 20-25% point loss on that refresh. It's never really mattered - I still am usually in the top 10 before the last day if I bother to push. Longer than that leads to too much bunching and with rubber banding could over-emphasize playing at the very end of the window.

It's the event end times that have dropped me because I am not in the US and am not going to take off work to play this game because it finishes mid-afternoon in a workday. I'm really optimistic that this choosable end time thing will work out and I'll finish around the same place I am throughout the event.

Unknown

I voted 8 hours because I'd really like to get some sleep without losing any points during the night. However, I'd be fine with 4-6 hour refreshes too.

Dartmaster01

As long as it's enough time to regenerate health and healthpacks, I'd say 4-5 hours. Two clears for sleep/work easy to work out so I voted 4 hours.

SnowcaTT

Interesting feedback for sure. Most seem to agree longer: the poll bell curve is putting it right around 6 hours - an option I should have included, as many have suggested that as the perfect time. Many of the replies that like short time consider short 4 hours, longer than the current options.

Good to see the results and hear the voices, I hope the Devs see and hear as well.

Unknown

I'm voting for an other option. Scaling and competition in PVE should not exist, PVP is enough for that.

And don't say it's imposible cause there is lot of things to do. With a bit of imagination posibilities are endless.

An exemple could be:

You have a story for a certain amount of time with tokens and iso rewards like gauntlets. In function on where you finish the story at the end of the time you get personal rewards. It could have a competition between members of the alliance and if there are people with same score then it's the one who have reached the score first who get the better reward. Or just alliance rewards when you and your mates reach certains amount of points.

Should have more rotation on stories and it should have always a story available for the ones who don't want to pvp in plus of the new story (Actually Prodigal Sun plus Hulk's story for exemple ). If devs don't wanna give us covers no problem, but give us more 2* tokens than 1*.

Rotation on prologue coulb be good too for the ones who finished it. Every 2 weeks(or more or less) prologue become harder(3 or 4 level of difficulty) with better rewards. If you don't finish it, Prologue stay at the same dificulty than the last rotation till you complete it.

There is a lot of possibilities and since 1 year the game haven't change yet except we can choose our beggin/end time (GREAT! 1 year for this feature).

Sometime when 1 event is finished there is nothing to do. It's not normal at all, make your game alive and constantly give something to do at your players.

Take exemple on Marvel Heroes 2015 they completely change their game and actually is based on fun and unwind. I spent 15€ in the game(maybe more later) cause i don't feel opressed by their system comparate to this one. Maybe stress and frustration is working on certain people but i'm sure you could get really more without system like that. One thing is sure i'll never spend money on a game based on random(prefer Euromillions for that ), stress and frustration. But if i'm seeing devs make some efforts for their community why not spend some money to get more places for my collection, but unfortunately that will never happen.

PS: Sorry if there are some mistakes, english is not my native langage, but i'm working on it ;-p.

FaustianDeal

Gauntlet does demonstrate that we don't have to be bound to refresh times, but there are only progression prizes in gauntlet and no alliance component. I agree that the format is valid - I would also like to see a different weekly gauntlet post to give us a third option for play. Having a semi-regular 'non-alliance' event would also be awesome (even it isn't gauntlet). How do you map gauntlet into a standard PVE so we can have the oppressive goodness of individual and alliance placement prizes?

There is (or seems like there can be) a known maximum number of available points for a given PVE sub... in a 12 hour event (on a 2:24 refresh clock) you can set the hard cap at 8x the base number of points for all the nodes.
time 0:00 - 100%
time 2:24 - 100%
time 4:48 - 100%
time 7:12 - 100%
time 10:36 - 100%
time 12:00 - 100% + 80% + 60% + 40% + 20%

The first 5 is repeatable; so in a 24-hour event 13x is the hard-cap, and in a 36-hour sub its 18x. No one is going to hit those thresholds, but that's the whole point - how efficiently you are able to cover the required ground in the time allotted? (There were a few hell-grind PVE events where it seemed like the math didn't work - you had to pull max theoretical points to get the last progression prize, but I digress...)

When you couch it in those terms isn't it still a race with multiple stages - and you are managing some set of finite (but purchasable) resources to get across the finish line (health packs).

It seems like there are 2 ways you could recharacterize the accumulation of points...
1 - mini-gauntlet style sprints
Instead of having a setup where it takes 2:24 to regenerate 20% of the points in a node you run it like a series of 12-hour sprints within the sub in which you can play each node 5 times for maximum points within a given 12 hour window? (subsequent plays could still be done for 1 point for hard-core grinders... just like now... only difference being it doesn't have to handicap your next 12-hour sprint.) The final 12-hour sprint has 8x the total available points, but you could still have the sliding scale with 5 repeats for full points and then the next 4 providing the 20% die-off to 0 after which repeats net you 1 point. You still have to manage health packs, but you have 12 hours to accomplish 5 clears instead of doing 1 clear every 2:24. If the enemy scaling is done right finishing 9 clears in the last 12 hours should still feel fairly impossible for anyone not buying health packs (and those people were going to buy them anyway.)

That feels more humane to me, but maybe I am wrong. Rubber banding could still be incorporated... it could, for example, "roll over", say, 80% (or even 90%) of any points a player left on the table during a previous sprint into the available total for the next stage. In this model a player completing full clears still cannot be overtaken by banding, but it can keep it interesting and allow players to make up ground lost to 'real life'.

2 - Pure 'timed' finish
Is there a model where it could be recast as a timed race? Start times become even more variable at that point, since they could be completely individualized, but your overall placement is measured based on how many stages of the race you complete and how quickly you do it. Final Gauntlet placement already implies this because the first person to finish is assigned #1. You would probably need to expire nodes or points to progress the pack toward the finish. The piece I haven't worked out in this model is how to account for real life. You need some kind of 'pause' button or some way for the game to say "you were gone for 5 hours, how much of that time do you want to have 'count' toward health pack regrowth and health regeneration." I could pick 3 hours... giving me (up to) 5 fresh health packs and 3 hours on the healing clock of my characters. the problem is that this dynamic almost makes PVE separate from PVP.. so the normal trade-offs don't occur.

I like #1 better. Hopefully I didn't over-muddle the explanation...

TL:DR --
Instead of having a setup where it takes 2:24 to regenerate 20% of the points in a node you run it like a series of 12-hour sprints within the sub in which you can play each node 5 times for maximum points within a given 12 hour window? The final 12-hour sprint has 8x the total available points, but preserves existing scoring somewhat: 5 repeats for full points and then 80%-60%-40%-20%.

Rubber banding still possible... "roll over" 80% (or even 90%) of any points missed points and add them to the available pool for the next sprint. Players completing full clears on schedule still cannot be overtaken by banding, but it allows players to make up ground lost to 'real life'.

Unknown

I agrre with all who vote for 4h it will be best refresh time, enought to sleep, work, helthpack regeneration etc.

I think 8h will be to long, and its not good idea to implement so long regeneration time.

I hope Devs will colect data after next event and change refresh time from 8h to 4h