Failing To Delivery on 8 Hour Refresh

Unknown

Congratulations. I did not think it was possible, but you found a way despite the odds. You got everyone excited about an 8 hour refresh. So everyone (happy or unhappy) is thinking they have 7 hours to have a life and still play the game optimally.

*SIGH* Naturally, MPQ runs The Hunt PVE to celebrate this new feature. With the way the subs are lined up to start/finish, there is an 8 hour refresh timer at full ever 4 hours. Also known as only 3 hours break in between optimal clears. I could be wrong but a 3 hour break is much less than a 7 hour break. There was no reason the subs could not open when another closed, so there would not be this mess.

People would have probably been happy with a 4 hour refresh timer as an improvement. But, don't make it seem like we'll have a larger break from playing PVE optimally, when that will not be the case. You knew which PVE you were running when you made the announcement of the 8 hour refresh timer.

TL;DR: MPQ failed to deliver a refresh timer that would actually give players full break from PVE. It only gives a shorter break in between subs.

P.S. I set this up as it's own thread as I'm certain that I'm not the only disappointed that MPQ did not deliver on what they promised. They made it seem like players would have 8 hours refresh for the PVE, not just individual subs.

To quote Demiurge_Miles, "Why 8hrs? Well there's a few reasons. We think 8hrs has a good natural rhythm to it, allowing for several satisfying play sessions throughout the day. On top of that, more than 50% of players voted for 8+hrs in this poll from a month ago: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=20373"

NorthernPolarity

It's still better than the old system. You would need to grind both subs every 4 hours under the old scheme, now you only need to do one sub every 4 hours. You're still doing half the work as you were doing before, it's a win-win for everyone!

Unknown

NorthernPolarity wrote:

It's still better than the old system. You would need to grind both subs every 4 hours under the old scheme, now you only need to do one sub every 4 hours. You're still doing half the work as you were doing before, it's a win-win for everyone!

I conceded that, yet it is not my fault they said 8 hours. They say 4 hours, I'm doing cartwheels. They say 8 hours, and I have to find out something different on my own, I'm going to say something about it.

They're doing an analysis on this pve to get data on 8 hour refresh timers for future pve's. However, if players only have 4 (playing subs optimally), then that data they're using to make future decisions is not accurate.

I'm saying something now with rewards that I'm meh about, so hopefully, they can work out the kinks before rewards I really want come up in pve.

tanis3303

No, I agree with Stephen here, this was false advertising. And I work in advertising, so I know it when I see it. Thankfully I don't need lazy thor covers, so I don't really care, but it's still kinda bull kitty.

scottee

They did what they said. 8 hour refreshes. It'll be around for multiple PVE's. They don't all have alternating sub times. "They made it seem like..." means someone assumed.

lukewin

Imagine if it was still 3 hr refresh times for the nodes. Then you'd be clearing all the time. At least this way, 4 hrs is what most people were asking for. Any change is better than what it was, although technically they are giving an 8 hr refresh, it just happens that there are overlapping subs. When there aren't, we will have 8 hr refreshes.

Unknown

That misses the point. They could have set up the subs so that one started after the other ended. This is exactly the kind of thing they should keep in mind in the future, so players don't run into issues where the intention of 8 hour refresh timers are inadvertently thwarted because of the timing of subs.

Unknown

lukewin wrote:

Imagine if it was still 3 hr refresh times for the nodes. Then you'd be clearing all the time. At least this way, 4 hrs is what most people were asking for. Any change is better than what it was, although technically they are giving an 8 hr refresh, it just happens that there are overlapping subs. When there aren't, we will have 8 hr refreshes.

Agree with you and it only make things more and more complex.... 8hrs is too long. As the refresh hr does not fit sub end time , they force us to buy heatlh pack at the end time for the final charge

I m laughing at their reasons in " sleep more" I dont think 8hrs can save anybody from wake up at mid night to win problem it just doesnt make sense. I started 10 am and my next 2 fresh will be 6pm and 2pm.....so i need wake up at 2pm ?! ok i have the other slice end at 4pm... wait...it start at 4am?! whats the point?! Do they solve the problem? sorry it does not.

Unknown

Well the title of the thread is misleading as hell, I assumed there was a bug or something....

Anyway. Your complaint is about the format of the hunt, which is completely unchanged and has always been bad (IMO). They delivered 8h refreshes exactly as promised but the hunt remains a TERRIBLE PvE format with the way subs rotate.

Look at is this way though. Terrible format on 8h refreshes is far better than terrible format on 3h (or 2:24) refreshes. I personally think 4h refreshes would be the best PvE format so this is fine for me but I can see your point. A bigger issue is that this doesn't do a good job of testing 8h refreshes and how they'll affect score clumping because it will function much more like a 4h refresh with the rotating subs.

simonsez

You whiners are completely out of your minds. It's an 8 hr refresh. Exactly what they said they would do. They even said it would be The Hunt. Stop with the faux outrage.

FaustianDeal

I have only 2 demands for this event:
1 - I am able to get to the Squirrel Girl progression prize at the top doing a real 8-hour refresh (instead of the rotating 4's the Hunt seems likely to demand) - cuz I don't need Fat Thor
2 - Doing so will be adequate for my alliance to remain top100 in PVE (where we have remained for several seasons on the old refresh clock) - but some of my teammates do need Fat Thor

If this doesn't throw monkey wrenches into finishing the individual progression ladder or alliance placements then I'll be willing to mark this experiment in the 'win' column.

Unknown

MPQ gonna MPQ.

Unknown

bonfire01 wrote:

Well the title of the thread is misleading as hell, I assumed there was a bug or something....

Anyway. Your complaint is about the format of the hunt, which is completely unchanged and has always been bad (IMO). They delivered 8h refreshes exactly as promised but the hunt remains a TERRIBLE PvE format with the way subs rotate.

Look at is this way though. Terrible format on 8h refreshes is far better than terrible format on 3h (or 2:24) refreshes. I personally think 4h refreshes would be the best PvE format so this is fine for me but I can see your point. A bigger issue is that this doesn't do a good job of testing 8h refreshes and how they'll affect score clumping because it will function much more like a 4h refresh with the rotating subs.

8 hr refresh have another VERY serious problem. You are not allow to sleep. If you are not luck that one sub full fresh in 400 am.... please wake up and play. 4 hrs point loss reduce your totally source to hell.

simonsez

benben77 wrote:

8 hr refresh have another VERY serious problem. You are not allow to sleep. If you are not luck that one sub full fresh in 400 am.... please wake up and play. 4 hrs point loss reduce your totally source to hell.

And how is this worse than a 3 hr refresh?

simonsez

benben77 wrote:

8 hr refresh have another VERY serious problem. You are not allow to sleep. If you are not luck that one sub full fresh in 400 am.... please wake up and play. 4 hrs point loss reduce your totally source to hell.

And how is this worse than a 3 hr refresh?

Lidolas

The Hunt has always had a terrible format.

Added: At the very least, with the longer refresh times, I don't have to choose which sub I want to focus on. I never could clear both subs in the 2.5 hours. This way I clear one and four hours later I can clear the other. Thinking about it some more, this may be the best event to start 8 hour subs on. It weans us off of the shorter refresh times.

JVReal

simonsez wrote:

benben77 wrote:

8 hr refresh have another VERY serious problem. You are not allow to sleep. If you are not luck that one sub full fresh in 400 am.... please wake up and play. 4 hrs point loss reduce your totally source to hell.

And how is this worse than a 3 hr refresh?

You can double up a 3 hour refresh right before bed and be clear to play for full points in the morning as you sleep through your 6 hour refresh.
You double up an 8 hour refresh, and you can't play for full points for 16 hours... or you lose the extra hours because it refreshed in the middle of the night and play for full points in the morning 3 hours wasted after having to already wait 8.

NotYou13

Non-whiny way to word this complaint:

While we certainly appreciate the effort by D3P & Demiurge to address the excessive grinding issues created by a sub-3 hour node refresh rate by increasing to 8, The Hunt appears to be a sub-optimal event to properly test this new refresh rate. Since The Hunt has sub-events alternating on a multiple of 12 hour cycle instead of a multiple of 24, a truly optimal grind rate will often result in alternating between sub-events on a 4 hour cycle instead of 8 hour. While this is certainly an improvement over the previous 2.5-3 hour refresh rates, we would ask the following:

1. Run the next PvE event also with 8 hour node refreshes. Since The Hunt is not optimized for this event, please allow another event to run to allow for proper testing and data gathering before making a decision regarding long term node timing.
2. If 8 hour refreshes become the standard, please consider modifying The Hunt for future runs to compensate for expected 8 hour node refreshes.

simonsez

JVReal wrote:

You can double up a 3 hour refresh right before bed and be clear to play for full points in the morning as you sleep through your 6 hour refresh.
You double up an 8 hour refresh, and you can't play for full points for 16 hours...

Why in hell would you double-up with an 8 hr refresh? Who suggested that? Unless you plan on drinking a bottle of scotch, I can't imagine a scenario where that would make any sense.

simonsez

JVReal wrote:

... or you lose the extra hours because it refreshed in the middle of the night and play for full points in the morning 3 hours wasted after having to already wait 8.

Kinda like how if you double-cleared a 3 hour refresh, and slept for 9 hours, you'll be hitting the nodes after they'd been sitting full for 3 hours. Actually, it's not "kinda like", it's exactly the same thing.

Devs must be loving this... the people who didn't want 8hr refreshes aren't happy, and those who did are still looking for reasons to be unhappy.

Unknown

simonsez wrote:

JVReal wrote:

You can double up a 3 hour refresh right before bed and be clear to play for full points in the morning as you sleep through your 6 hour refresh.
You double up an 8 hour refresh, and you can't play for full points for 16 hours...

Why in hell would you double-up with an 8 hr refresh? Who suggested that? Unless you plan on drinking a bottle of scotch, I can't imagine a scenario where that would make any sense.

You might have a real life where you can't play during that time. Assuming all else is equal:
Let's say you do a clear at 6 PM, but go to bed at 10PM and wake up at 6AM. The question is, do you clear nodes then or when you wake up?
If you clear nodes at 10 PM, you get say 90% points of a clear, but the nodes won't fully refresh until 10 AM (and you stay on refresh schedule)
If you don't clear nodes, then you miss out on a full refresh, but have fresh nodes at 6 AM.

Now 4 hours at the end of the node means a reduction of about 8% available points when you grind at the end. Instead of
100%+83%+67%+50%+33%+16% => 350% clear points, you have about
92%+75%+58%+42%+25%+8% => 300% clear points, a 50% difference

90% > 50%
The choice is clear. It makes sense to double up/early clear depending on when you choose to play, if you're not willing to let this game dictate your life schedule. If you're willing to wake up in the middle of the night, then you'll get an additional 10% of a clear over the early-clear strategy in exchange for your tiny kitty sleep. Congrats!