Fix Time Shard Negative Impact

Unknown

Issues with time shards:
1. Time shards don't fill up for long PVE events making it impossible to place decently unless started at the beginning of the time shard's creation.
2. PvP competition is clustering in such a way that newer players can't compete in later shards and similar PVE issue with long bracket fill times impacting placement

Suggested fix:
1. Drop bracket size, this would mean that brackets fill faster and reduce the chances of entering a bracket where others have an overwhelming lead

Spoit

Droping bracket size is the worst possible 'solution'. You think the competition for top 5 is bad? They'd almost assuredly keep the same ratios, so for example if they cut the brackets in half? Good luck getting top 2 with the same amount of sharding

Unknown

Droping bracket size is the worst possible 'solution'. You think the competition for top 5 is bad? They'd almost assuredly keep the same ratios, so for example if they cut the brackets in half? Good luck getting top 2 with the same amount of sharding

The 'Worst' really?

Well if the ratios are maintained then it would theoretically mean the same level of competition. In some ways it could makes things easier, if people pick a slice before the start of the slice they could be more easily distributed randomly increasing the chance of getting lucky with an easy bracket. Smaller bracket *Might* makes things worse with competition, but that could be managed.

fmftint

Spoit wrote:

Droping bracket size is the worst possible 'solution'. You think the competition for top 5 is bad? They'd almost assuredly keep the same ratios, so for example if they cut the brackets in half? Good luck getting top 2 with the same amount of sharding

not only that, they would lower the award threshold to keep the number of covers going out at the same %

they are not going to double the potential pool of players that can attain T2/10/50/100

MaskedMan

I often start late and have never noticed this problem myself. I don't place in top 10 however I'm just shooting for 500 to 600 score and top 100.

FaustianDeal

I hate starting a PVP and seeing that there are already people with >1000 points in my top 10. It is somewhat demoralizing, but a top 100 (even top 50) is sometimes possible in some of those brackets.

If you want to see a rough bout of sharding, this run of Prodigal Sun PVE...

I picked slice 4 for end time and played starting the first sub about 8 hours late. I watched the player count on my overall bracket and it didn't completely fill until just as Hell's Kitchen and DC were closing. That shard took more than 4 days to completely fill. The last players in completely missed 4 subs in 3 rounds, and only got a few hours with 2 subs before they closed and dropped them into the final sub.

The last 50 of my 1000 players got fairly well jobbed in this event.

I'm not sure if dropping the numbers is valid... but it does seem like there should be windows during which they close on their own. Take the above PVE as an example... the players that got loaded into my bracket after 3 rounds of subs had finished (practically 4 rounds) were likely presented with a rage-quit level situation. They were > 150k behind the overall leaders, and that's a chasm you aren't going to get across with only Thunderbolts Mountain to work with.

It seems a little unfair to expect them to compete with people who completed multiple rounds of subs... is it not workable to have mains close as each round of subs close? Or for the love, maybe load fewer subs concurrently? If it took my sub 4 days to get 1000 players then maybe they are too selective about who I was competing against? (auto-loading everyone in my main into the same subs was also a little rough.)

(Not that I necessarily mind, It is easier to make a top 50 finish when you lock 10-20% of my competition out of contention... and having a 3/4ths-full bracket for the first 4 subs probably helped my individual placements there as well... on 2nd thought maybe I am not in favor of this change - until I join the deadpool event tonight and get loaded into a mature, decided bracket.)

Unknown

So was thinking about this some more.

What if instead of fixed shards, the shard times were fluid up to a point.

When the event starts, you have 24hrs to join a shard end window, and once you join your main and sub timer starts right then. So if you join shard 2 at 6pm or 9am within the 24hr window you get the same 160 hours to grind that other players get. This would remove the lead for people starting immediately when the shard opens and probably even the shards out some.

This would change shards to being 24hr start windows with different start and end times, but as long as you start within the initial 24hr window you have the exact same amount of time to grind as everyone else.