4-hour recharge timers

madwren

Brigby said:

4) Increase Node Recharge Time. Decrease Boss Health. Keep Max Charge Same.
Same as option 3, however decreased boss health might balance out the lower number of attempts.


Of course this isn't every option, but just based on these 7 scenarios, what are everyone's thoughts? Which option(s) do you think need to be addressed? Which option(s) do you think do not need to be addressed?

The primary complaint with Trial of Zeal--and indeed, with prior boss events--is that they take too long to complete. Events that drag on for four days are too long, particularly when the event is a) repeated frequently, and b) does not change significantly or offer any sort of novelty. The easiest, simplest, and most logical solution was to reduce boss health.

By the time you're on your third time through the event, and you're running the same decks against the same opponents again and again, surely one can understand that the level of enthusiasm for the event wanes. At least in PVP events we have variable opponents. In PVE that isn't the case, and the result is that fewer trips around the hamster wheel are preferable.

We've had 8-hour nodes for a significant period of time now. There was a collective sigh of relief when the change to 8 hours initially occurred, and people have adjusted to it.  Reducing the refresh to 4 hours means not only do we have to go twice as fast around the aforementioned hamster wheel, but now it also interferes with our daily lives as well--something we thought was long past.

There was an additional change, however, which you haven't mentioned: The previous progression barrier--450 points--was almost doubled. I'm not sure what the motivation was behind it. Perhaps it was to give people a reason to play beyond "progression", but that was not communicated. The thing is, that barrier is important. Why?

1. People who dislike the event will at least play it until progression in hopes of getting the old reward (a guaranteed, specific rare). Sans reward, and with progression extended, I suspect more people are checking out of the event early or bypassing it altogether.

2. People who like the event, but cannot beat all of the nodes, can set a smaller goal for themselves--reaching progression. However, if they cannot beat the nodes and BECAUSE of that cannot score enough points to reach progression, then resentment sets in. You're essentially giving them no reason to play.

Of course, people who can beat all the nodes are being rewarded with relatively insulting "prizes" like a Basic Booster. In Platinum tier.  I mean, c'mon.

Regardless, the key is length. Many of us do not like long events. From our perspective, gamewide, rewards were nerfed, events were made twice as long, and all currencies were devauled. Just imagine how it looks when you then take the longest, grindiest event and make it longer and grindier.

Go back to the way it was.

Captsquee

I hear you,  not a great example but fateful showdown for 4 days.  Its a day one event and done.  PvE progression events should be 2 days max if that

wereotter

The four hour refresh time is fine by me so long as the node can hold more charges. Making sure that someone can balance their life and stay away from the game longer due to sleep, work, or other life commitments, and still come back later and complete even 3-4 charges would be good. 

khurram

Captsquee said:

I hear you,  not a great example but fateful showdown for 4 days.  Its a day one event and done.  PvE progression events should be 2 days max if that

Actually the current version of ratc is very much preferable the way it is. There are no recharges. You can do it in one sitting if you prefer. The longer period that it runs for means that there is no pressure, you have plenty of time to decide and can do it at your leisure whenever you want.

Ohboy

Brigby said:

Hi Everyone. I just spoke with the developers, and here is some more insight into the changes to Trial of Zeal. (FYI, all other events still have 8 hour recharges)

There are several reasons why the recharge hours were changed to 4.

• First and foremost, we want players to be able to play more of the event, and at 4 hours you have double the possible charges.

• Losses are less impactful on personal progression (they are still at the same as when we were at 8 hours) so you have double the chance to hit all your personal progression goals, while not impacting the guild competition aspect.

• It also gives you more attempts at the encounters, giving you more time and opportunities to tweak your decks and defeat the opponents.

[Players] have a 12 hour window once they complete all their charges. They shouldn't need to wake up in the middle of the night (you can have 3 4-hour charges on the nodes) so at any time when they exhaust their recharges they can technically wait 12 hours for all their recharges to fill up again.

(Another FYI, I emphasized the recharge concern by saying some players would need to wake up in the middle of the night to stay competitive, in case any of you are wondering why they mentioned that)

Update: In addition, the development team will be monitoring this event over the weekend, and will be sure to adjust things if necessary

This would have made perfect sense and been great if the event had been longer. The boss hp this time round was not enough for the benefits listed there to kick in for lower level players this was targeted for. 

James13

Brigby said:

1) Increase Max Node Charge. Keep Else Same.
Players might play for a longer duration in a single session, but they can stockpile more attempts from the faster recharge time, so they can hit progression when their schedule allows.

I like 1, personally.  The boss health can even be increased just slightly in this scenario relative to the last run.  That would allow more players a little more leeway to hit progression, and opens the window for named event progression reward rares, should those become a thing again, to be realistic.

babar3355

I also would probably select option 1.  @Brigby perhaps we should make this a poll so its more clear you are seeking community input rather than having your request for responses buried 4 pages into a thread.

Phase

@Brigby Your list of scenarios only addresses one of the two major issues with Trial of Zeal as a whole.

1. The event requires way too many matches to complete (and with 4 hour recharges, in too short a timeframe as well)
2. Progression was hard to hit for many players

The simple solution that delivers value to everyone is to go back to 8 hour recharges, with up to 4 stocked so players can play all their nodes in one play session per day, while decreasing the amount of points needed for progression. This solves nearly every problem with the event, save for the boss difficulty (which you guys actually addressed with the nerf to Temmet's ability cost from 4 to 6 loyalty. Nice job there).

If the original concern was that players couldn't hit progression, you can do two things- make progression require less victories, or allow players to play more matches. One of these saves players time- the other requires more time. The user-friendly thing to do here to deliver value is to save the players time, therefore the points required for progression should decrease.

The new concern is that with 4 hour recharge timers, we have to play an insane amount of matches in a given 24 hour period to keep up with other coalitions on the leaderboards. And this IS a coalition challenge, after all. Again, this is alleviated by my proposed solution. 9 matches a day should be more than enough to stay on track considering there are other concurrent events and TG going on to give players other things to do when they are waiting for nodes to recharge. And stocking up to 4 charges per node means players who lose against 3.x nodes will have one more shot than they had before if they are stuck on a particular boss. This is something that was requested in this very thread.

If you need us to come up with a new progression points scheme to make this happen, I am sure we would be happy to make that a reality for you. As for total event length, boss health can be adjusted on a per-event basis based on the previous event's time to completion. I think most people agree that 72 hours should be the max length for the event, considering EO and FiRF come right on the heels of that timeframe.

Hope you take this feedback seriously. I realize there are other solutions out there but this one seems to be the one that best supports the coalition challenge competition while respecting the players' time.

DragonSorcerer

1) gets my vote

Brigby

@babar3355
Good suggestion! I've gone ahead and created a poll where players can discuss these options HERE

wereotter

Brigby said:

@babar3355
Good suggestion! I've gone ahead and created a poll where players can discuss these options HERE

Poll is a great idea, but just one note of confusion I have, if @Brigbycould clarify, and possibly update the poll to reflect.

When you say "change" considering there have only been two runs of the event thus far, what is the baseline we're changing from?

Is the base what it was last time with 4 hours timers, or is it what it was with the 8 hour timers? I assume we're using the 4 hour refresh rate as the basis of what we're taking a poll on what to change from, but I would want to be certain before giving my feedback.

Brigby

wereotter said:

Brigby said:

@babar3355
Good suggestion! I've gone ahead and created a poll where players can discuss these options HERE

Poll is a great idea, but just one note of confusion I have, if @Brigbycould clarify, and possibly update the poll to reflect.

When you say "change" considering there have only been two runs of the event thus far, what is the baseline we're changing from?

Is the base what it was last time with 4 hours timers, or is it what it was with the 8 hour timers? I assume we're using the 4 hour refresh rate as the basis of what we're taking a poll on what to change from, but I would want to be certain before giving my feedback.

@wereotter
Good point! Please use the recent changes to 4hr timers and 4 max node charges as the baseline for your consideration.

Dologan

The polls were very clear that people don't like the 4 hour recharge timers. @Brigby , why are they still a thing, even on new events?? If developers are going to ignore the feedback from the community, can we at least get a reasoned explanation of why they are doing so??
 

Phillmoore

Actually there are a lot of people like the 4 hour charge as there are that don't. Leave it alone @brigby

shteev

Phillmoore said:

Actually there are a lot of people like the 4 hour charge as there are that don't. Leave it alone @Brigby

I'm very big on polls, at the moment. Why not start one of those?

Dologan

This poll suggests there are more people unhappy with the recharge time than those who like it. Where's your evidence to back up that "actually", @Phillmoore ? 

Phillmoore

This is only people in forums. @Dologan. These tend to be the disaffected anyway. The majority of people never find this place.  Those that do seems to be in top coalitions who seem to have the most to lose by 8 hour recharges.  You want to poll. Poll via the game of that were possible. This is a top heavy forum and doesn't include the majority of people who play just for the hell of it

but let's not continue this.  It's been done to death.  It's not gonna change.   We are not getting bAck quick battle.   We are not getting back 3 cards every 8 hours.  We are not getting back better packs with more cards in them. We are not getting away from standard.  We are not getting compensation for purchasing cards which are later nerfed.  Why would we get back 8 hour charges.  Let it go. 

Brigby

*Since the last active comment, prior to Dologan's comment, was from June 7th, this thread will be closed. Please start a new discussion, so that all comments within the thread are relevant and accurate. Thank you!*