Time zones

Unknown

The End times of the events is starting to be a real handicap when I'm competing for covers. Why do the events always end at either 4am my time or 4pm ?I really don't want to stay up until 4am to battle for a cover or during the week I'm working so I have no chance of playing then.

Having missed out on a top 20 place on the hunt after 9 days of grinding, staying up until 2:30 on the last day of the event and being well within the top 20 when I went to bed only to find I finish in the top 50 because i'm not willing to stay up until 4am when im working the next day.

Surely they could start staggering the end times of the events to give everyone a fair chance at the new covers.

Surely it cant just be me that is getting tired of this.....

Unknown

There are a number of topics on this in the suggestions forum. It is definitely one of the most complained about issues (along with scaling).

My favorite suggestion for (fixing the PVP at least) is to fire off a bracket as soon as it's full, that way it ends 72 hours from when the bracket fills (giving you some control over the ending time - it ends at roughly the same time as when you signed up). Anyone who signs up after the initial 24 hour period gets a fixed starting/ending time of noon/midnight EST. So all events run a day longer, but you still only get 3 days of playable time (give or take an hour, which is negligible in PVP). The downside is that the event will end at different times for different people, and with alliance rewards, a larger share of the burden would fall on those whose brackets end latest. However, I find that a fair trade-off for those who want flexibility in their starting times.

Unknown

Absolutely this. Hollowpoint Kiss, a fair portion of the Hunt subs, the final Hunt push and Doctor's Orders have all ended at 5am / 6am in Europe. Hell, if you mess your shield timings up like I did last night then I had to get up at 2am and 4am to play MPQ or I would have dropped out of the top brackets in both events. The Hunt was most sobering as I'd been top 11-16 for nearly the entire event then woke up with 1hr to go in 25th place.

In Rage of Bahamut they handled this by getting the event entry screen up in advance with an option of which of three time zones to take part in. The biggest issue with that is the last ending bracket has a bit of an advantage in terms of knowing what they need to do in order to sneak inside their chosen reward bracket if the rewards are globally shared across all 3 zones.

Your's tiredly, DrUnpleasant.

Dormammu

You can't stagger start and end times by time zone because it gives the final group an unfair advantage - they'll know what the previous players topped out in for points and can simply reach higher without as much fear of retaliation.

Staggering it by when brackets fills up (as Riggy talks about) fixes this somewhat, but you all have to remember that who you are fighting isn't always in your bracket - how do you handle retaliations? This solution also gets muddier when you start talking about alliances.

Unknown

Dormammu wrote:

You can't stagger start and end times by time zone because it gives the final group an unfair advantage - they'll know what the previous players topped out in for points and can simply reach higher without as much fear of retaliation.

Staggering it by when brackets fills up (as Riggy talks about) fixes this somewhat, but you all have to remember that who you are fighting isn't always in your bracket - how do you handle retaliations? This solution also gets muddier when you start talking about alliances.

The advantage of starting later (i.e. fewer retaliations) is countered by the fact that there are fewer high value teams available as other earlier events finish. I would imagine that retals against someone who has already finished would be the same as if the opponent is shielded. Sure more points will be added to the point pool that way (same as if they were still in the tourney and shielded), but I think the system would be pretty hard to manipulate.

At least as I envision it in my head it would be hard to game the system. More people would need to poke at it for weaknesses to see if I've completely/correctly conveyed this idea. Heck, for all I know it may be ****. From what I hear from non-EST players, at the very least it wouldn't be worse for them.

Slarow

Midnight EST every other day is killer for many of us too...

Dormammu

Riggy wrote:

Dormammu wrote:

You can't stagger start and end times by time zone because it gives the final group an unfair advantage - they'll know what the previous players topped out in for points and can simply reach higher without as much fear of retaliation.

Staggering it by when brackets fills up (as Riggy talks about) fixes this somewhat, but you all have to remember that who you are fighting isn't always in your bracket - how do you handle retaliations? This solution also gets muddier when you start talking about alliances.

The advantage of starting later (i.e. fewer retaliations) is countered by the fact that there are fewer high value teams available as other earlier events finish. I would imagine that retals against someone who has already finished would be the same as if the opponent is shielded. Sure more points will be added to the point pool that way (same as if they were still in the tourney and shielded), but I think the system would be pretty hard to manipulate.

Let's say we have two groups (to keep things simple), one is American players (Group A) and one is for European players (Group E). Let's stagger their respective starts by anywhere between 7-19 hours with Group A going first in a three-day event. When Group A finishes, all the players from both groups will be able to play and retaliate. When Group E finishes, they do not have to fear being leap-frogged by any of the players from Group A, nor will they have to worry about any retaliations. And as Group E makes their push for the top, they'll have half the players to worry about randomly attacking them than Group A had - it will be far easier for Group E to get points without fear of sudden losses on defense. To me that's an unfair advantage.

Unknown

Dormammu wrote:

Riggy wrote:

Dormammu wrote:

You can't stagger start and end times by time zone because it gives the final group an unfair advantage - they'll know what the previous players topped out in for points and can simply reach higher without as much fear of retaliation.

Staggering it by when brackets fills up (as Riggy talks about) fixes this somewhat, but you all have to remember that who you are fighting isn't always in your bracket - how do you handle retaliations? This solution also gets muddier when you start talking about alliances.

The advantage of starting later (i.e. fewer retaliations) is countered by the fact that there are fewer high value teams available as other earlier events finish. I would imagine that retals against someone who has already finished would be the same as if the opponent is shielded. Sure more points will be added to the point pool that way (same as if they were still in the tourney and shielded), but I think the system would be pretty hard to manipulate.

Let's say we have two groups (to keep things simple), one is American players (Group A) and one is for European players (Group E). Let's stagger their respective starts by anywhere between 7-19 hours with Group A going first in a three-day event. When Group A finishes, all the players from both groups will be able to play and retaliate. When Group E finishes, they do not have to fear being leap-frogged by any of the players from Group A, nor will they have to worry about any retaliations. And as Group E makes their push for the top, they'll have half the players to worry about randomly attacking them than Group A had - it will be far easier for Group E to get points without fear of sudden losses on defense. To me that's an unfair advantage.

Disclaimer: I am not a hardcore pvp player (top 50 is phenomenal for me). I make a few assumptions here, so please correct me if I'm wrong.

For clarity's sake, let's draw out the complete scenario (just to make sure we're on the same page and everyone can follow along).

Let's say that the first bracket (group A) starts at 9 a.m. EST. Their event will end at 9 a.m. 3 days later.
The next bracket (group starts at 6 p.m. Their event will end at 6 p.m. 3 days later.

• On day 1, there will be a 9 hour gap where the players from group B aren't present yet.
• From 6 p.m. day 1 until 9 a.m. on day 3, everyone is in the pool, competing fair and square. Let's assume that you're matched to someone with similar points in the ELO so the players in group B won't be able to easily prey upon those in group A - I believe that's roughly how it works now.
• Starting at 9 a.m. on day 3, the players from group A have ended their event. They show the event as finished and get their final rewards and prizes (minus alliance prizes, obviously). From that point on, they are treated as "shielded" players, only available to those who have already queued them up or who have them as a retaliation.

The point of contention you bring up, Dormammu, is that from 9 a.m. day 3 onward, the players in group B have an unfair advantage because there are fewer people who will be retaliating against them. I would suggest that it would actually be parity with the current system (possibly even harder) for a couple reasons:

• The people in group B would all have chosen that particular end time so you'd have more people awake (and alert) and interested in fighting it out during that time.
• There would be fewer high value targets available for the players in group B making it harder to progress (or lots of repeat targets, which would make it even harder once shields go up).

I actually wonder if group A would have it harder since they're high value targets making their final push when the pool of players is at it's largest. Again, I suspect though that most people wouldn't be fighting during their "off hours" (i.e. Americans making their final push while Europeans are sleeping). Plus, the sheer number of brackets would help to normalize the number of players who would be ending at any given time.

NighteyesGrisu

It would help a bit if in PvE the rubberbanding wouldn't be so silly that the only thing that counts really is the last 3h of the event....PvP are annoying too if the finish at 6am but at least you can somewhat alleviate that through shields...it's still unfair but at least not impossible to place well like in PvE.

Unknown

NighteyesGrisu wrote:

It would help a bit if in PvE the rubberbanding wouldn't be so silly that the only thing that counts really is the last 3h of the event....PvP are annoying too if the finish at 6am but at least you can somewhat alleviate that through shields...it's still unfair but at least not impossible to place well like in PvE.

The rubber banding is a bit of a nonsense. Being in the top 20 through nearly the entire 9 day event only to drop out in the last 2 hours due to needing my beauty sleep and the rubberbanding catapulting people past me.
The rubber banding is just too extreme and very unfair on the players that put the effort in and keep the game running.

The shielding in PVP is more helpful but the players in america are still at an advantage as they are less likely to need to shield so save the HP.

You could easily separate a PvE into a couple of different start /end times. You could just be shown the alliance scores for your team until the event is over and then you could see the leader board. It would make it more competitive as every alliance would try and as each team would be trying to score as much as possible without knowing what everyone else has.

The PvP could do the same and you just fight against the players in your time bracket.

Unknown

Riggy wrote:

Disclaimer: I am not a hardcore pvp player (top 50 is phenomenal for me). I make a few assumptions here, so please correct me if I'm wrong.

For clarity's sake, let's draw out the complete scenario (just to make sure we're on the same page and everyone can follow along).

Let's say that the first bracket (group A) starts at 9 a.m. EST. Their event will end at 9 a.m. 3 days later.
The next bracket (group starts at 6 p.m. Their event will end at 6 p.m. 3 days later.

• On day 1, there will be a 9 hour gap where the players from group B aren't present yet.
• From 6 p.m. day 1 until 9 a.m. on day 3, everyone is in the pool, competing fair and square. Let's assume that you're matched to someone with similar points in the ELO so the players in group B won't be able to easily prey upon those in group A - I believe that's roughly how it works now.
• Starting at 9 a.m. on day 3, the players from group A have ended their event. They show the event as finished and get their final rewards and prizes (minus alliance prizes, obviously). From that point on, they are treated as "shielded" players, only available to those who have already queued them up or who have them as a retaliation.

The point of contention you bring up, Dormammu, is that from 9 a.m. day 3 onward, the players in group B have an unfair advantage because there are fewer people who will be retaliating against them. I would suggest that it would actually be parity with the current system (possibly even harder) for a couple reasons:

• The people in group B would all have chosen that particular end time so you'd have more people awake (and alert) and interested in fighting it out during that time.
• There would be fewer high value targets available for the players in group B making it harder to progress (or lots of repeat targets, which would make it even harder once shields go up).

I actually wonder if group A would have it harder since they're high value targets making their final push when the pool of players is at it's largest. Again, I suspect though that most people wouldn't be fighting during their "off hours" (i.e. Americans making their final push while Europeans are sleeping). Plus, the sheer number of brackets would help to normalize the number of players who would be ending at any given time.

I don't think it would work that way.

Envision each bracket as a bucket. Imagine that the points in the bracket are represented by water in the bucket. When a bracket starts, there's a lot of water that flows into the bucket from seed teams. As people start hitting each other, water is transferred between buckets, but the overall amount of water slowly increases because each match isn't zero-sum. As new brackets start, they start out empty, but they gradually equalize as they start swapping with other brackets. (Buckets with a lot of water end up gaining less and losing more when fighting buckets with less water, so everything tends to equilibrium.)

Now if you let a bucket/bracket start late and finish late, then when the other brackets end, it'll be on level with the others, but then it will continue to increase on it's own, because matches aren't zero-sum.

So the last bucket will have more water in the end if they don't all end at the same time.

Now this would actually work if you made all the matches zero-sum - but that would require significant changes to the rewards structure.

Honestly, I think the simplest solution is to run the event twice, with a six-hour offset in start/finish times, and create new logic that only allows a player to enter one of the two.

Dormammu

ZenBrillig wrote:

Honestly, I think the simplest solution is to run the event twice, with a six-hour offset in start/finish times, and create new logic that only allows a player to enter one of the two.

This is the best solution I've heard so far.

Unknown

Dormammu wrote:

ZenBrillig wrote:

Honestly, I think the simplest solution is to run the event twice, with a six-hour offset in start/finish times, and create new logic that only allows a player to enter one of the two.

This is the best solution I've heard so far.

Completely agree. It shouldn't be difficult to implement for the developers

Unknown

As I'm in the UK I try to join a bracket at a time when I'm most likely to be competing with players in the same time zone who hopefully have similar time constraints/sleep requirements as me.
For example: In Doctor's Orders I joined Sunday morning & played to ~800pts fairly quickly, by 9pm or so I'd only received 1 retaliation so I pushed to 936 (~20 pts above 2nd who was already shielded) to get 1st, dropped an 8hr shield & went to bed - woke up to 1st place (was hoping for top 10).

Pre-shields I used to get to top 5-10 and wake up to anything between rank 10-45 rewards, shields just make some hp expenditure worth it for covers I particularly want (sods law I received the glitched falcon covers when I only pushed to get red Cmags!).

Give it a try, you may be pleasantly surprised by the results...

Unknown

Numpty wrote:

As I'm in the UK I try to join a bracket at a time when I'm most likely to be competing with players in the same time zone who hopefully have similar time constraints/sleep requirements as me.
For example: In Doctor's Orders I joined Sunday morning & played to ~800pts fairly quickly, by 9pm or so I'd only received 1 retaliation so I pushed to 936 (~20 pts above 2nd who was already shielded) to get 1st, dropped an 8hr shield & went to bed - woke up to 1st place (was hoping for top 10).

Pre-shields I used to get to top 5-10 and wake up to anything between rank 10-45 rewards, shields just make some hp expenditure worth it for covers I particularly want (sods law I received the glitched falcon covers when I only pushed to get red Cmags!).

Give it a try, you may be pleasantly surprised by the results...

I will give this a try. not a bad idea for the short events.

user311

This thread in my head this morning. Looking at my watch and I'm 30 minutes late to work already. Im playing MPQ. I hit 800 points (9th in my bracket) in Top Gun and see 3 1/2 hours left in the event. Can't play anymore I got to get to work. What to do? Shield for 3 hours / 8 hours? This has happened to me before a few times where the event ends during my work day. But there's others where the event ends at Midnight for me. I guess its more managable then the all nighters the OP faces but I can still relate. I figure like most things its designed to for us to buy shields.

Unknown

user311 wrote:

This thread in my head this morning. Looking at my watch and I'm 30 minutes late to work already. Im playing MPQ. I hit 800 points (9th in my bracket) in Top Gun and see 3 1/2 hours left in the event. Can't play anymore I got to get to work. What to do? Shield for 3 hours / 8 hours? This has happened to me before a few times where the event ends during my work day. But there's others where the event ends at Midnight for me. I guess its more managable then the all nighters the OP faces but I can still relate. I figure like most things its designed to for us to buy shields.

I've definitely blown a 24 hour shield when life won't let me predict whether I can play in the 8-24 hour range. So if I find that I'm able to make a good solid push at 10 hours remaining, I'll push as hard and as far as I can and just buy a 24 hour shield. That usually gets me a top 50 finish at worst. Which 300 HP for a cover that I need (not even counting the alliance-won cover) isn't a bad deal in the least.

Unknown

Captains Log, star date 010514. Set alarm to wake up at 4:30am in the morning to play the last 30 mins of current PVE event subs due to the joy of rubberbanding.

Unknown

Slarow wrote:

Midnight EST every other day is killer for many of us too...

I'll take a midnight finish over a 5am finish any day of the week.

MarvelMan

DaveyPitch wrote:

Slarow wrote:

Midnight EST every other day is killer for many of us too...

I'll take a midnight finish over a 5am finish any day of the week.

I would take a midnight or 5am (I get up then for work anyway) over a 9pm/9am finish (PST).

HairyDave

MarvelMan wrote:

DaveyPitch wrote:

Slarow wrote:

Midnight EST every other day is killer for many of us too...

I'll take a midnight finish over a 5am finish any day of the week.

I would take a midnight or 5am (I get up then for work anyway) over a 9pm/9am finish (PST).

And I would happily take 9 over the 2am/2pm I have (which is still WAY better than the 3am/3pm I started with thanks to daylight savings).