Evening starting time story event/rethink points rechargee

Jwallyr

So I live in Texas (CST) and for some reason the window for new story events opens and closes exclusively at times at which I should be either going to bed/asleep/getting up or am already at work. The biggest semi-reliable chunk of time in which I can expect to be free is the biggest chunk of time where there is no available story event begin/end time. To break it down:

2AM- I'm asleep.
6AM (4 hours later)- I'm getting up and getting ready to get to work. I'm not getting up at 5AM for a stupid phone game, and I can't afford to spend the time after 6 playing said stupid phone game instead of getting ready for work/driving into work.
11AM (5 hours later)- I'm at work, and only get an hour for lunch even if I wanted to spend it 100% on a phone game.
4PM (5 hours later) - I'm still at work leading up to 4, and then on the way home after picking up my kid.
(6 hour gap goes here)
10PM - I'm getting ready for bed.

Why is there no story window around 6 or 7, which is the early-mid evening for a huge chunk of the US? For my current situation (slightly between level brackets, so I can reliably clear one story event but not the next higher) it takes easily an hour to put all story events on point recharge, and another hour at the end of the story window to clear the last 2-3 clears on a node. Does D3 really want me to either spend 2-2.5 hours during my work hours or get/stay up like an hour and a half early for their spruced up bejeweled clone?

I like the game, I enjoy the collection of characters and the strategic interplay of ability combinations, but I *hate* having to either be a bad employee (playing multiple hours at work) or resign myself to lower placement because of the penalty for having a life outside of MPQ. If a story bracket were introduced for people who *gasp* work during the day and are primarily free during the evening (like why is this not already a thing?) or the points recharge mechanic were rethought, I'd be a lot less tempted to quit the game entirely (and by extension not renew my VIP membership).

I get that the recharge is supposed to spread out peoples' play, as opposed to simply letting people run the story nodes 6 times and call it done, but if there weren't an explicit penalty for playing games when it's convenient for *me* instead of on the arbitrary schedule of the phone game, this wouldn't be a problem. Maybe that can be reconsidered?

Quebbster

Long story...

At the beginning, all events ended at the same time, (the current fourth end time on the list if I recall correctly). There was a lot of complaints and eventually the system with different end times was introduced. I Believe the different end times were set through a poll among the forum members.

However, that was a long time ago and the way to play Story events has changed considerably. Back then to play optimally you needed to hit each node once every 2½ hours, then make a mad dash at the end to get the remaining Points. To play optimally now you need to dedicate a lot of time at the beginning of a sub and then a bit at the end too, so it would certainly be nice if the developers could take a look at the time slice system and see if they could change the times around a bit, at least for Story events. It's not as much of a problem in Versus since you can Always play early and shield to get around uncomfortable end times.

Jwallyr

I get that there are different pros and cons to the various structures for this kind of game, and they might not want a simple "play all the games and be done" setup. I just really don't get why the single biggest chunk of time between event start/end times (6 hrs) is precisely straddling the evening between 4PM and 10PM for the CST time zone. For the east coast I guess it's 3PM and 9PM, so night owls can plan to play from 8 to 10ish and still get to bed at a decent hour, but even the west coasters are stuck handling possible commutes from their 5-6 to 7-8 window around that start time.

I just really wish d3go would reconsider the structure. To players like myself with real-life time commitments but who nonetheless want to be able to be competitive in story events based on our ability to clear them (as opposed to our willingness to neglect our work or sleep schedules), the current set of time slices is a massive impediment. Please stop forcing me to choose between MPQ and work/sleep!

Bowgentle

Jwallyr said:

I get that there are different pros and cons to the various structures for this kind of game, and they might not want a simple "play all the games and be done" setup. I just really don't get why the single biggest chunk of time between event start/end times (6 hrs) is precisely straddling the evening between 4PM and 10PM for the CST time zone. For the east coast I guess it's 3PM and 9PM, so night owls can plan to play from 8 to 10ish and still get to bed at a decent hour, but even the west coasters are stuck handling possible commutes from their 5-6 to 7-8 window around that start time.

I just really wish d3go would reconsider the structure. To players like myself with real-life time commitments but who nonetheless want to be able to be competitive in story events based on our ability to clear them (as opposed to our willingness to neglect our work or sleep schedules), the current set of time slices is a massive impediment. Please stop forcing me to choose between MPQ and work/sleep!

There are more time zones than the US.

TPF Alexis

Yeah, but it seems like it should be possible to have that big gap end up hitting reasonable evening times over the middle of one of the oceans or something, instead of the middle of a continent.