Joining events late?

Unknown

So I hear this suggestion going around forums a lot. Join the event late to get a weaker bracket and maybe fewer players in the bracket.

However, if this is the advice going around on the forums wouldn't that mean that a few hardcore forumites will always show up in the late brackets?

I've never actually tried joining late as I automatically click into the event to see the rewards.

The main downside to joining early is that everyone in your bracket has more time to amass points. My most recent brackets has seen #1 at around 1100 (under the new PvP scoring scheme - 800-900 under the old system).

Another reason why I join early is to tank for the first day of the event before making my real push to the top.

I'm just wondering HOW good is it to join an event really late?

Unknown

it's the old bait and switch. lure the forum players to join late, then join early to avoid these players. sneaky.

Unknown

Clicking to see the rewards doesn't mean you've join a bracket already, it's after your first battle that you get placed into a bracket.

In terms of points being amassed... I joined with 24 hours to spare and Polarity was in my bracket, finishing off with 1,100pts... It's the same.

It's mainly luck of the draw, if you start early, you'll join the massive flood of people entering at the same time; if you start late, you're joining the last few brackets where everyone has the same idea as you and might be just as hardcore.

I still choose to join later (about 24-36hrs remaining) because I hate entering the game and seeing the "You got attacked!" notice, and also because at that point, there are enough points in the bracket for you to coast easily to 5-600pts where you wait until the last 3 hours of the tournament to push to your desired points and shield up. This assumes you're not going for the 1,100pt reward, because if you do, you better start early before the zombie horde catches up to you.

WilsonFisk

I used to join right away when an event started. The last few weeks, I've experimented with joining late. I joined the torch event with around 24 hours to go, and had 2 guys in my bracket hit 1100.

I've really seen no advantage to joining late, but not any worse than joining early either. It's all luck I think.

Unknown

With the current Alliance system people from best Alliances don't want to be in the same brackets, so they join in very different times. And with the amount of strong players it's not that simple to join an easy bracket.

Lately I started joining early, like in the first 5-6 hours after the tourney started. Main reason - I have 2 days to grind my way up + I can farm a crapload of ISO.

Good option is to join more than 24hrs till the end, grind your way up to 300-500, then put on the tank team. go back whenever You want and collect retaliations.

Unknown

If you've got HP to burn on shields join early push out to a lead, then ride retals to your desired progression and turtle up down the stretch.

If you're hurting for HP, join late should be plenty of high value targets to make one massive push.

If you want top prize, pray to bracket gods you don't see a S.H.I.E.L.D member.

Unknown

Top 10 is generally always the same. Top 100 is easier imo. Which generally agrees with your assumption of weaker (overall) but still few really good players.

Bacon Pants

I joined the Human Torch PVP last night at 11pm est. I made it up to 588 points I think, which was good for 16th. Usually joining pvp's late works for me...it's somewhat predicated on if I have the featured character leveled though.

Unknown

My goal is to play as little as possible and still get decent rewards. So, joining late has always made more sense to me. You have a bigger selection of people to attack (thus seeing more 40+ point wins) and less retaliations because of that point disparity.

The trick is always knowing when to shield and anticipate the wave of retalitions that happen once you reach a certain point threshold. You wait them out, then make a small mini-push right at the bell.

It will easily put you in a top 20 situtation and maybe top five/ten with some luck. Not bad for an hour's work.

You just sacrifice the ability to win brackets or reaching the higher progression rewards.

yo-m-o-m-m-a

I started the torch event last night for the first time with a little over 4 and a half hours to go (so I could spend the least amount of HP to shield and work on the other event before it ended). I got to 953 points with 3 hours to go and ended up taking 1st place, 2nd was 100+ points behind me.

If 2 events weren't ending at the same time, I generally don't start till there is 3 hours left or less, get to 700+ points and either quit when all my matches are against a team of 141's or I get attacked. That usually puts me in the top 10.

So starting late works pretty well IMO.

over_clocked

My friend has always joined events late to get easier brackets, it has been working very well for him barring some recent grindy events.
I, on the other hand, like to join earlier to grab more ISO on the way. Sometimes I see other hardcore players in my bracket, sometimes I don't. If there's a PvE peak ongoing at the same time, probably a good time to join a PvP event.
But the point is, don't hope to always avoid other good players, strive to become one yourself (if you care for the rewards). Something was done to MMR I believe so now 1100 points for top placement will rather be the norm than the exception.

Unknown

I don't know what they tweaked on matchmaking, but I like it.

Used to be a low point desert once your crossed 1000, now I'm still seeing 25+ matches.

Makes the push for 1100 a formality instead of an exercise in frustration.

Clintman

I wonder if it was a change in matchmaking or a result of the top alliances pushing for higher rewards than individuals used too in the past. Oddly enough I am curious to see if the points go as high anymore as the rewards for Alliance first place are not just top 2. I don't think you will see S.H.I.E.L.D being quite as insane any longer.

The sad result I can see happening is that without the super pushes there will no longer be the high point targets available for much longer at which point you will see points drop back down.

over_clocked

You just wait and see if they make LT a 1100 prog reward (don't remember if that has been done before but probably not, IIRC he has never been a PvP award yet).

Unknown

Toxicadam wrote:

My goal is to play as little as possible and still get decent rewards. So, joining late has always made more sense to me. You have a bigger selection of people to attack (thus seeing more 40+ point wins) and less retaliations because of that point disparity.

The trick is always knowing when to shield and anticipate the wave of retalitions that happen once you reach a certain point threshold. You wait them out, then make a small mini-push right at the bell.

It will easily put you in a top 20 situtation and maybe top five/ten with some luck. Not bad for an hour's work.

You just sacrifice the ability to win brackets or reaching the higher progression rewards.

Brilliant!

Unknown

locked wrote:

You just wait and see if they make LT a 1100 prog reward (don't remember if that has been done before but probably not, IIRC he has never been a PvP award yet).

Pretty sure he has been the progression award in all the Lord of Thunder events, but that was back when reaching 1100 required a small miracle. They obviously changed something with MMR to make the higher PvP progression rewards actually reachable.

Unknown

I don't join immediately, but prefer to join on the early side. I still do the bulk of matches on the last day, but I like seeing how the boards are shaping up before I push.

Unknown

I think...you can't have a strategy without taking into account D3's trying to make some cash. So basically, all joining late does is save on some HP for shields. I've joined late and made rank 5 on numerous occasions. I recently started joining early and shielded twice throughout and made rank 2 once, during the Hotwhatsit with Human Torch and the number 1 spot was Walkyourpath, who I knew I had no chance of catching up to. I guess that could say something about brackets but honestly there's zero difference between 2-5 so now that I've used up all my HP I'll be back to joining late. No matter what, the real tourney action doesn't start until the last couple hours, if not the last hour, if not the last fifteen minutes. I think this is true in any bracket.

Unknown

I always used to join events with about an hour and a half left, made gettin top 10 easy and didn't require a time commitment. Now that I have an alliance to feed, i join at about a day and a half left.

Unknown

Really, I don't think it matters how early or late you join, you just want to avoid stiff competition. I like to try to join PVP events by winning a quick match with a seed team during the last 15 minutes of a PVE event or sub on the theory that hopefully most competitive players are hitting the PVE at that time

Unknown

LoreNYC wrote:

Toxicadam wrote:

My goal is to play as little as possible

Brilliant!

What's the issue with that statement? Being efficient in your play leaves you with more time for other things in life.