Prodigal Son (Feb. 24th-Mar. 02nd, 2015) - Bracket Size_____

Unknown

ecir2002 wrote:

Slice 4 bracket (vet)

689
24143
Been open 37 hrs

The new update is...

4th bracket
703
27158

Judging from this it will be a day or so before it fills up.

Unknown

Slice 5:
722 players
Leader is Dappervillelnn with 21276 points

Unknown

Slice 4 - Vet bracket*
3:45 PM EST
704 players.

Current top 5
win2spurr
Genmaster
Rickgnr
Dadragon81
Omegablue14


*Note - there seem to be usually be two vet brackets open at a time, and one newbie bracket. Be cautious if you see a vet bracket close, there may be another still open in the same time slice. Reports are that both brackets fill at roughly the same speed, but which one you go into looks random, so while they may be close in numbers it might be best to see both close, or wait until the new one is up to 25-50 players to insure the other has closed and you don't get slot 1000 in an old bracket.

spccrain

Slice 3 vet @ 781
#1 Xman2000 @30320

Viking Tacos

Thanks. Keep the updates rolling.

DrStrange-616

Vet slice 2 @ 688

Leader is still johnnyzero with 42655

I doubt this bracket will fill at all.

Unknown

What is going on with this game? Does it really have thousands of players? Where are they? I feels like it's just us in the forums and we are all waiting for a new bracket to open; at this point to any slice would be fine. This is the first time I check what happens with the slices before I join and it is nerve-racking.

Professa D

I think part of the problem is that most of their thousands of players are on the n00bier side which means they wouldn't go into filling the brackets that we are all watching. We're waiting for these brackets to be filled by players who are experienced enough to not be placed in the n00b brackets *but also* n00b-y enough to not know to check here before joining. Seems like a much smaller slice of the player base. Just a guess though.

Unknown

At this rate I don't think any of the brackets will fill before the end of the event. So where does that leave us? On the outside looking in, wishing for an Iron Fist cover and being handicapped for the next PvE.

Trisul

joecoolmd wrote:

At this rate I don't think any of the brackets will fill before the end of the event. So where does that leave us? On the outside looking in, wishing for an Iron Fist cover and being handicapped for the next PvE.

Not the worst fate in the world.

Unknown

Ben Grimm wrote:

Mavrek32 wrote:

Question. So what is the strategy here? Do you wait until finding out the lowest point lead and join that bracket? Or join the bracket with the lowest amount of people?

Generally speaking, you don't want to join a bracket where you're way behind, especially if some subs have already finished. If you can get into a fresh bracket, you can start late without having to start behind. But after the first day or two, brackets start to fill very, very slowly, so if you join a bracket that's been open for long enough, you can get locked out of doing well.

It's essentially about maximizing your effort:reward efficiency.

Ah thanks. I guess I was worried that I am doing something wrong. I typically pick my slice before the event starts, and pick a convenient time that I can schedule around. Although, I got kind of screwed this time around as my slice filled to 1000 in the first day.

AXP_isme

It's clearly non-linear. Someone with more time on their hands could analyse the traffic in these threads to derive an approximate filling function. I suspect it would be correlated to working hours I specific time zones but I'll leave that to the r^2.
I think there are probably a few factors at play:
Time of day, day of the week, time zone adjusted end time, size of regional player base, relative desirability of the reward...
If you normalise for rewards and time zone I think it's probably a very front loaded decay function but someone else would have to prove that out.

My prediction is that one bracket will fill before the end of the weekend and all the remaining vets will jump in. A few brave, or foolhardy, souls will wait it out and end up getting very good (or very bad) rewards waiting for their respective slices. This would make a great psychological case study.

Unknown

Trisul wrote:

joecoolmd wrote:

At this rate I don't think any of the brackets will fill before the end of the event. So where does that leave us? On the outside looking in, wishing for an Iron Fist cover and being handicapped for the next PvE.

Not the worst fate in the world.

True but isn't collecting covers the reason why we play? And what about our alliance depending on us for points to finish top 100? Don't get me wrong, I don't miss all the grinding but the first two points are a concern.

DrStrange-616

joecoolmd wrote:

Trisul wrote:

joecoolmd wrote:

At this rate I don't think any of the brackets will fill before the end of the event. So where does that leave us? On the outside looking in, wishing for an Iron Fist cover and being handicapped for the next PvE.

Not the worst fate in the world.

True but isn't collecting covers the reason why we play? And what about our alliance depending on us for points to finish top 100? Don't get me wrong, I don't miss all the grinding but the first two points are a concern.

Those are the risks of waiting. Of course, you can still earn your alliance points by joining and starting to grind now.

Unknown

Professa D wrote:

I think part of the problem is that most of their thousands of players are on the n00bier side which means they wouldn't go into filling the brackets that we are all watching. We're waiting for these brackets to be filled by players who are experienced enough to not be placed in the n00b brackets *but also* n00b-y enough to not know to check here before joining. Seems like a much smaller slice of the player base. Just a guess though.

I didn't know there are veteran and noob brackets (so that's what the vet I kept seeing means ). Does this mean that someone who is new to the game should not pay attention to the numbers we see here and jump right in? Do we know what it takes to put someone in a noob bracket instead of a vet? In the Cyclops pve 2 weeks ago I entered the event 2 hours before the end and still managed to get the #10. Does this make me a noob or just lucky? Maybe it's because I had participated in almost 0 events since July.

Unknown

joecoolmd wrote:

And what about our alliance depending on us for points to finish top 100? Don't get me wrong, I don't miss all the grinding but the first two points are a concern.

Rubber-banding ensures that you'll get plenty of points if you join this weekend and you'll likely be able to move into the IF zone with playing on the refresh and a final grind of each sub. I typically wait until the event is 40-50% over and still score at least 2x the top progression score and easily make top 100.

Unknown

updates on slice 1?

DrStrange-616

shade_tree wrote:

joecoolmd wrote:

And what about our alliance depending on us for points to finish top 100? Don't get me wrong, I don't miss all the grinding but the first two points are a concern.

Rubber-banding ensures that you'll get plenty of points if you join this weekend and you'll likely be able to move into the IF zone with playing on the refresh and a final grind of each sub. I typically wait until the event is 40-50% over and still score at least 2x the top progression score and easily make top 100.

Will you post some points for various nodes when you do join? I'd be curious to know how big the rubberbanding is.

Unknown

AXP_isme wrote:

It's clearly non-linear. Someone with more time on their hands could analyse the traffic in these threads to derive an approximate filling function. I suspect it would be correlated to working hours I specific time zones but I'll leave that to the r^2.
I think there are probably a few factors at play:
Time of day, day of the week, time zone adjusted end time, size of regional player base, relative desirability of the reward...
If you normalise for rewards and time zone I think it's probably a very front loaded decay function but someone else would have to prove that out.

My prediction is that one bracket will fill before the end of the weekend and all the remaining vets will jump in. A few brave, or foolhardy, souls will wait it out and end up getting very good (or very bad) rewards waiting for their respective slices. This would make a great psychological case study.

My guess is that Slice 1 will fill late in sub 4 or early sub 5 (32 to 42 hours from now) and Slice 5 will fill in the first half of sub 5 (54-66 hours from now). It will take balls the size of grapefruits to pass on the fresh slice 1 for the opportunity of an empty slice 5. I don't think anything else will fill.

But keep us posted anyway, I have been wrong many times before. Thanks

udonomefoo

papa07 wrote:

My guess is that Slice 1 will fill late in sub 4 or early sub 5 (32 to 42 hours from now) and Slice 5 will fill in the first half of sub 5 (54-66 hours from now). It will take balls the size of grapefruits to pass on the fresh slice 1 for the opportunity of an empty slice 5. I don't think anything else will fill.

I'm hoping for that exact scenario. My grapefruits are ready to weather the storm.

I'm betting there will be a small surge tonight & tomorrow of people too busy to play during the week. Especially in 5 where people are still at work. I'm just hoping 1 fills first so I don't have to jump into the shark tank with all you suckas.