Thick As Thieves: Jan 26 - Feb 3

Unknown

Switchman wrote:

Everyone in here make sure you are doing the Bracket is at _________ thread in the future. We are the minority, so if we work together to coordinate bracket entry wen don't have to work as hard.

The issue with this is it seems like there's the Vet and Regular brackets. Some people are being thrown in different brackets and I personally would feel like poop to be responsible for someone joining a bracket at 870 people and 4 refreshes behind the leader. It's the reason why I always join a bracket pre-start.


But I might take a stab at joining an event late and will definitely participate in the Bracket is at _________ thread

squirrel1120

Ben Grimm wrote:

This being a weekday event may be taknig me out of competition for a Starlord. I can clear most of the nodes 3 times if I have to, but not the top ones without buying a ton of health packs, and the fact that there's no decent end time for me means I'm going to fall further and further back with every sub.

I'm starting to hate PVE time slices. They're a great idea in concept, but in execution there's no decent time slice for me at all. Most of my playing time is in the evening, where I can chooses 6 or midnight. On is right after I get back from work, giving me no time at the end of a sub, the other is after I"m asleep, giving me no time at the beginning. Either way I fall behind every time. If they'd move slice 3 just an hour or 2 later I'd be fine, but as it is, I can barely compete.

Same story here, I get it. No matter what I pick it interferes with something, so I almost always end up going with the +0 slice (4th), which almost always means staying up too late. This time around work is slow, and I picked slice 1, which is 9am for me, which works remarkably well so far. I do have to set alarms to remind me tho, since its such an odd time of day to be looking to play. I just need to find a 10-6 job that'd support this all the time.

Unknown

I've heard a lot about how Star Lord, Elektra, etc. do not matter because they are not 4or or X-Force class. Someone please tell that to the 100+ people above me in my bracket who seem to scorn sleep.

Unknown

Mandorallen wrote:

Broken, broken, broken,
This stupid game is broken,
Broken, broken, broken,
Got another useless 2 star token,
Broken, broken, broken,
Devs wanna make sure you're broke when,
They make a stupid, dumb event,
Cause they want the money you use for rent,
Broken, broken, broken, broken, BROKEN!!!

But how do you really feel?

Trisul

Ben Grimm wrote:

I'm starting to hate PVE time slices. They're a great idea in concept, but in execution there's no decent time slice for me at all. Most of my playing time is in the evening, where I can chooses 6 or midnight. On is right after I get back from work, giving me no time at the end of a sub, the other is after I"m asleep, giving me no time at the beginning. Either way I fall behind every time. If they'd move slice 3 just an hour or 2 later I'd be fine, but as it is, I can barely compete.

I don't really understand this reasoning. Time slices never made your problem worse. In fact, you are slightly more likely to finish higher due to bracket spreading. Maybe you'd like the time slices to be a little different, but it's not like removing time slices will make it any better.

Unknown

I don't know what's the point to even have time slices in PvE if they insist on having 36 hour subs. That pretty much guaranteeds some of the sub will be in a time unfavorable to you no matter when you picked your time slice. Is it really too much to ask for every PvE sub to last a multiple of 24 hours? I think every PvE event since time slice started has the whole 'start at 9am if you want a 9pm ending time' deal so far, and that just makes no sense. If I want a 9pm ending time, wouldn't it be logical to offer me something that starts at 9pm as well? Okay so maybe you don't always want to start at exactly the same time as the end, but who thought you'd want to start 12 hours away from when you'd prefer the event to end?

Scoregasms

I don't have a lot of experience prior to Time Slices (none in fact, since I basically started with the last Gauntlet which doesn't really count anyway), so I can't compare how this is based on the period where choosing your Time Slice didn't exist (let's call it BTS or Before Time Slice). But, someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but 36 hour Subs existed before right? You didn't have a way to choose before so a lot of folks (based on Forums, mainly Europeans) were stuck with horrendous end of sub times which tended to favor those who lived in CONUS.

Just saying, at this point, folks SHOULD know that a 9PM end time comes with 9AM end times too, same with 12AM has 12PM and so on, so this plays a major factor in which you choose. Yes, every other sub does come with a complete **** end or start, but you should be able to manage it knowing it ahead of time.

Of course, I agree, with the permanent change to 8 hour timers, 48 hour subs should be more prevalent and hopefully the norm. However, I can't imagine this is actually WORSE than before when you didn't have a choice, or am I missing something?

squirrel1120

I certainly don't want time slices to go away, but certainly more choices would be nice, and as Phantron said, it really isn't a lot to ask that they set sub lengths to multiples of 24.

There has to be demographics somewhere they can look at tailor them just a little better. Its really the 3hr offset that makes it annoying. Yet, with most of the demographic being the U.S. (I would venture to guess), why not a slice that ends at a decent bedtime for each timezone here? Then again a slice for every major demographic, like if Australia is a big part of the market, as many as would make their playtimes feasible. So what if there was 12 to chose from? Its not like that would make it more confusing now that people generally understand the mechanic.

Unknown

Trisul wrote:

Ben Grimm wrote:

I'm starting to hate PVE time slices. They're a great idea in concept, but in execution there's no decent time slice for me at all. Most of my playing time is in the evening, where I can chooses 6 or midnight. On is right after I get back from work, giving me no time at the end of a sub, the other is after I"m asleep, giving me no time at the beginning. Either way I fall behind every time. If they'd move slice 3 just an hour or 2 later I'd be fine, but as it is, I can barely compete.

I don't really understand this reasoning. Time slices never made your problem worse. In fact, you are slightly more likely to finish higher due to bracket spreading. Maybe you'd like the time slices to be a little different, but it's not like removing time slices will make it any better.

No, because I used to have a lot of people in Europe or Asia or where have you that were worse off than me in my bracket, and now they've gravitated towards other time slices. Also, I didn't used to get forced into a sub six hours before I woke up.

I don't want them to eliminate the time slices, I want them to spread them out a bit better. If slice three were an hour or two later it would be perfect. They're separated at six or three hours right now, where they should all be four or five hours apart. They're divided badly.

gambl0r312

Phantron wrote:

I don't know what's the point to even have time slices in PvE if they insist on having 36 hour subs. That pretty much guaranteeds some of the sub will be in a time unfavorable to you no matter when you picked your time slice. Is it really too much to ask for every PvE sub to last a multiple of 24 hours? I think every PvE event since time slice started has the whole 'start at 9am if you want a 9pm ending time' deal so far, and that just makes no sense. If I want a 9pm ending time, wouldn't it be logical to offer me something that starts at 9pm as well? Okay so maybe you don't always want to start at exactly the same time as the end, but who thought you'd want to start 12 hours away from when you'd prefer the event to end?

What evidence do you have that D3 does things in a logical manner, when we have lots of evidence to the contrary?

Also I completely agree with you! The subs need to be multiples of 24 hrs so that picking a PvE time slice makes sense...especially over the course of a 7 Day event!

Trisul

Ben Grimm wrote:

No, because I used to have a lot of people in Europe or Asia or where have you that were worse off than me in my bracket, and now they've gravitated towards other time slices. Also, I didn't used to get forced into a sub six hours before I woke up.

This is only true if the majority of players who play MPQ are from Europe or Asia. I don't recall D3 ever posting metrics, but I'm pretty sure NA is the most popular region for this game.

I didn't notice competition getting fiercer post-slice. If anything, it was easier.

Also, isn't slice 4 the "classic" slice? So if you kept your schedule pre-slice, post-slice 4 is exactly the same timing.

Unknown

Trisul wrote:

Ben Grimm wrote:

No, because I used to have a lot of people in Europe or Asia or where have you that were worse off than me in my bracket, and now they've gravitated towards other time slices. Also, I didn't used to get forced into a sub six hours before I woke up.

This is only true if the majority of players who play MPQ are from Europe or Asia. I don't recall D3 ever posting metrics, but I'm pretty sure NA is the most popular region for this game.

A plurality are from North America, but I don't know if a majority are. If half the players moved to other time slices, Slice 4 gets twice as hard, essentially, because it goes from having half the people be from a time zone where they can play competitively to everybody. And the further West you are, in general, the better the time works for you. I'm in the East, and the time is bad for me. It was always bad for me, just not as bad as it was for other people. It didn't get better just because there are more options.

I didn't notice competition getting fiercer post-slice. If anything, it was easier.

Are you still slice 4? If not then of course it got easier; if so, where do you live?

Also, isn't slice 4 the "classic" slice? So if you kept your schedule pre-slice, post-slice 4 is exactly the same timing.

They didn't used to force you in subs, pre-time-slices.

In any case, I started a discussion on this in General Discussion, and I think it makes more sense to discuss it there.

Unknown

Scoregasms wrote:

I don't have a lot of experience prior to Time Slices (none in fact, since I basically started with the last Gauntlet which doesn't really count anyway), so I can't compare how this is based on the period where choosing your Time Slice didn't exist (let's call it BTS or Before Time Slice). But, someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but 36 hour Subs existed before right? You didn't have a way to choose before so a lot of folks (based on Forums, mainly Europeans) were stuck with horrendous end of sub times which tended to favor those who lived in CONUS.

Just saying, at this point, folks SHOULD know that a 9PM end time comes with 9AM end times too, same with 12AM has 12PM and so on, so this plays a major factor in which you choose. Yes, every other sub does come with a complete **** end or start, but you should be able to manage it knowing it ahead of time.

Of course, I agree, with the permanent change to 8 hour timers, 48 hour subs should be more prevalent and hopefully the norm. However, I can't imagine this is actually WORSE than before when you didn't have a choice, or am I missing something?

The 36 hour sub existed before, but when time slices announced people thought this means things will get better instead of being still the same as before where you missed roughly half of the sub finishes for anyone with a remotely normal schedule. I think they used to do these 36 hour subs to ensure people in other timezones aren't completely screwed since if they're all multiples of 24H for US based time then people outside of US can't realistically compete. There is no need to do that anymore now that there are time slices. I get that when they try to run something like Iso 8 Brotherhood in 4 days they have to do 12H subs because otherwise the time won't work out, but if you can run 36H you can definitely run 24H or 48H instead.

Unknown

Ben Grimm wrote:

This being a weekday event may be taknig me out of competition for a Starlord. I can clear most of the nodes 3 times if I have to, but not the top ones without buying a ton of health packs, and the fact that there's no decent end time for me means I'm going to fall further and further back with every sub.

I'm starting to hate PVE time slices. They're a great idea in concept, but in execution there's no decent time slice for me at all. Most of my playing time is in the evening, where I can chooses 6 or midnight. On is right after I get back from work, giving me no time at the end of a sub, the other is after I"m asleep, giving me no time at the beginning. Either way I fall behind every time. If they'd move slice 3 just an hour or 2 later I'd be fine, but as it is, I can barely compete.

I think you should have some avenue of adjusting your time slices because, obviously, the ones given to you aren't working. I'm lucky enough to have time slices that end at reasonable times(well, tuesday PVP is sometimes painful)

And YES I KNOW THIS COULD BE ABUSED so don't waste your breath haters.


----

Competition became fierce at the end of the first day for me, but I've not been pushed back too far from top 150, which is what I'm aiming for. Folks are really back into the competitive spirit.

Koko81 wrote:

Sumilea wrote:

Koko81 wrote:

I guess the majority of the people have alarms set up to wake up in middle of the night and get those points.... First place has a 10K lead on me and ive missed 1-2 refreshes... I guess I gotta step it up for top50

I just about clawing D3 Foobar back even having to do double clears at night and during my lunch hour. A double clear looses you about 350 points where a missed refresh is 2371. Node scaling starting to climb however my cheese of basically killing hulk on Anderson 5 not going to last much longer and I had to use the B team on Anderson 4 twice now due to the C team being wiped out by cascades. Thor still one "Goding" the essentials with the help of some 2*s.

I know what you mean and if I really wanna get starlord ill need to start some double clears as well... currently 67th in my main and I keep going down! What sucks is we complain about the format but always push ourselves more each and every event


*ME* Hi my name is Koko, and I'm an MPQ Addict...

*CROWD* : Hi Koko!

It's not your fault you want to play. Contrary to popular belief, you can be critical/hate something and voice your opinion and still enjoy parts of it. I'm still gonna spend $$ on this game for the foreseeable future.

stephen43084 wrote:

I've heard a lot about how Star Lord, Elektra, etc. do not matter because they are not 4or or X-Force class. Someone please tell that to the 100+ people above me in my bracket who seem to scorn sleep.

Yes, Starlord will suck according to popular opinion/datamining(check out his thread), UNLESS they do something drastic with his 5 Cover abilities a la Surgical Strike/Espionage.

But that's not going to stop people from playing, as I mentioned earlier in the thread.

There's collectors.

There's people who don't care.

There's people who just want to krutack with you.

There's also the fact getting him will give you a leg up in the next PVE, and that's one less cover you need in the future for any presumable buffs he gets/less effort you have to put into PVP/when he's top PVE prize

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

I don't know what's the point to even have time slices in PvE if they insist on having 36 hour subs. That pretty much guaranteeds some of the sub will be in a time unfavorable to you no matter when you picked your time slice. Is it really too much to ask for every PvE sub to last a multiple of 24 hours? I think every PvE event since time slice started has the whole 'start at 9am if you want a 9pm ending time' deal so far, and that just makes no sense. If I want a 9pm ending time, wouldn't it be logical to offer me something that starts at 9pm as well? Okay so maybe you don't always want to start at exactly the same time as the end, but who thought you'd want to start 12 hours away from when you'd prefer the event to end?

Every PvE I have played in has been X.5 days. That means that this one is one that works perfectly for time slices. 36 followed by 48 followed by 48 means all 3 subs end at the chosen end time.

The bigger issue for this event, again relating to the uncertainty of how this event will play, it what is going to happen in the main nodes. Last time TaT was run, it was 5.5 days, with subs of 36-48-48 and had non-repeatable, one time only nodes with no rubberbanding on the main page. With an extra day this run, do we have a rubberbanded, repeatable 24 hour main node bloodbath to look forward to?

loroku

simonsez wrote:

slidecage wrote:

what would be the reason to extend these features to slices 2-5

The reason would be that the initial reward levels were too stingy in the first place.

Seriously. Top 5% get 1 cover, top ONE PERCENT get two. They even took out 11-20 and 51-100 rewards, which were the teeny bonuses you got for being slightly less crazy than the top people, but still more crazy than the ones below. I mean, I get that it's a 4* cover, but it just makes it even more demoralizing somehow.

Unknown

papa07 wrote:

Every PvE I have played in has been X.5 days. That means that this one is one that works perfectly for time slices. 36 followed by 48 followed by 48 means all 3 subs end at the chosen end time.

The bigger issue for this event, again relating to the uncertainty of how this event will play, it what is going to happen in the main nodes. Last time TaT was run, it was 5.5 days, with subs of 36-48-48 and had non-repeatable, one time only nodes with no rubberbanding on the main page. With an extra day this run, do we have a rubberbanded, repeatable 24 hour main node bloodbath to look forward to?

It's not some kind of universal law that every PvE event must last exactly X.5 days. I can only assume it was done because before time slices that was a way to rotate sub ending time but that's no longer necessary.

Rubberbanding has been ultra weak recently and on a heavily grinded event it wouldn't matter because the places that you really care about are all going to be in a range where rubberband is irrelevent unless you just started the event on that day. It's likely a bloodbath no matter what but because the final node features The Hood + Magneto at 150% of their normal levels (for being down a person), it might be slightly less of a bloodbath as that kind of combination is relatively difficult to do for someone who is used to low level scaling. It probably wouldn't be enough to matter, but at least at 150% of their normal levels it might filter out some of the level 100 guys.

Unknown

Was in 6th after first node. Day 2 I spent the day car shopping and dropped to 16th, probably out of contention for top 10 and oddly enough it felt...liberating. Now playing just enough to stay in top 50. I forgot that sometimes it feels good to not give a rat's a**.

slidecage

loroku wrote:

simonsez wrote:

slidecage wrote:

what would be the reason to extend these features to slices 2-5

The reason would be that the initial reward levels were too stingy in the first place.

Seriously. Top 5% get 1 cover, top ONE PERCENT get two. They even took out 11-20 and 51-100 rewards, which were the teeny bonuses you got for being slightly less crazy than the top people, but still more crazy than the ones below. I mean, I get that it's a 4* cover, but it just makes it even more demoralizing somehow.

then find a league that is top 50. theres tons of them advertising.

The top less then 1% get the best cover in each PVP

4 stars have already been like this.

Unknown

Will having a lvl 94 two-star boosted to 134 make your scaling up to 134? Or does it only scale according to your highest pre-boost level?

I remember reading something about leveling up 3*s to 103 or something, what was the reason for that specific number?