PvE on a Schedule - What’s the fix?

ZeroKarma

I wanted to create a separate thread to discuss this topic since it is derailing the related but separate discussion on tapping fixes.

There have been several suggestions. Let’s keep them here so they don’t get lost.

My biggest concerns are:

1. That the introduction of too many more time slices will dilute and fracture the player base and leave dead slices with little to no participation.

 2. That D3 will restrict rewards to ensure that they aren’t opening the vault.

3. That the fix to eliminate time slices will take a long time and a decent amount of man hours to make happen and

4. That there is no monetary incentive for D3 to do so since they have to justify said resources.

Thoughts?

JackTenrec

The only reason schedule is important is that points regeneration allows for better placement, and placement gives better rewards (but honestly, significantly only for 1% of the slice).  PvE could be entirely schedule-free (aside from subevent ending times) with progression-only rewards.  The question is whether any of the placement rewards would be rolled into the progression reward schedule.  If the answer is no, I doubt you'd find much support for it even on these forums.

IceHockey333

Every game has rules and restrictions.  Without them, it wouldn't be a game.

The slice times are not ideal for me, I would love more flexibility, but I have no problem with the way things are.

One or two more slices would be nice, if only to have more chances at top rewards.

broll

I love how this topic is supposed to be for proposing ideas and the OP just lists 4 reasons not to do it and none pro doing it...  

Anyway ideas:
1.  The old standard of no placement in PvE.  Remove all placement and add some rewards to Progression.  Take out all the time mechanics and just make points cost what they cost and people decide when and if they want to grind out progression for the rewards or not.  (Conversely make PvP placement only could be the other side of the coin)
2.  More time slices.  Adding one or two time slices in key areas could be hugely beneficial
3.  Smooth out the existing time slices:  7am - 12pm (5 hours), 12pm-5pm (5 hours) 5pm-11pm (6 hours??) 11pm-2am (3 hours??) 2am-7am (5 hours).  Moving slice 4 back an hour or two would be a big improvement for EST.
4.  No time slices at all.  There are multiple ways this could work but what I would suggest as the best is that when the event opens all subs also open.  Start time doesn't commence until you enter at which point you get an appropriate timer.  You start sub 1 at 8:04pm EST then tomorrow at 8:04pm it closes.  If you want to do all subs the same day and take several days off PvE you can do that.  (the same thing could also be done with more restrictions on starting sub times).
5.  Completely change how scoring is done to not be time/speed based at all.  @fight4thedream has some good suggestions on this.  There could also be that nodes difficulty continue to scale up and each harder fight increases both the difficulty and the score of that node.  The cap for how high you could go would be more based on how strong your roster is and how good you are at choosing effective teams to take down stronger opponents (this would also give people a practical reason to use D3adpools whales x3 more often).  

None of these are perfect and the OPs concerns aren't completely without merit, but let's talk them out.

IceHockey333

broll said:

It might have just said get off my lawn... 

IceHockey333

I don't understand the above comment about getting off his lawn in terms of the topic we are discussing. Could you clarify please?

Dormammu

I'd like to see individual placement removed. Take those rewards and shift them to alliance progression rewards, similar to what we have in boss events.

broll

IceHockey333 said:

I don't understand the above comment about getting off his lawn in terms of the topic we are discussing. Could you clarify please?

I remove the comment to avoid confusion.  Please stay on topic...

ZeroKarma

broll said:

I love how this topic is supposed to be for proposing ideas and the OP just lists 4 reasons not to do it and none pro doing it.  It might have just said get off my lawn... 

I’m actually interested in hearing ideas, but I’m laying out initial problems that have to be addressed for implementation. I think people have proposed ideas but there are distinct roadblocks to them. 

D3 is a business. Businesses require business cases, so maybe I should  be more positive. 

What can D3 do to improve the PvE experience with the goals of increased engagement and positive revenue stream flow? Because those are the two arguments you have to make to get anywhere.

Thanks for kicking off this constructive thread in a constructive fashion.

Dogface

Dormammu said:

I'd like to see individual placement removed. Take those rewards and shift them to alliance progression rewards, similar to what we have in boss events.

This is something i completely disagree with. This is in the first place a single player game with an alliance component. Your plan would make it much more a team based game.

ZeroKarma

Dormammu said:

I'd like to see individual placement removed. Take those rewards and shift them to alliance progression rewards, similar to what we have in boss events.

I think this is interesting as an addition rather than a replacement. Maybe having alliances splitting up to unlock different paths of a story line.

 Changing PvE rewards more to the alliance side will cause some major upheaval across the game and will put a ton of pressure from commanders to Merc out or kick low performers with higher frequency.

animaniactoo

ZeroKarma said:

I wanted to create a separate thread to discuss this topic since it is derailing the related but separate discussion on tapping fixes.

There have been several suggestions. Let’s keep them here so they don’t get lost.

My biggest concerns are:

1. That the introduction of too many more time slices will dilute and fracture the player base and leave dead slices with little to no participation.

 2. That D3 will restrict rewards to ensure that they aren’t opening the vault.

3. That the fix to eliminate time slices will take a long time and a decent amount of man hours to make happen and

4. That there is no monetary incentive for D3 to do so since they have to justify said resources.

Thoughts?

Line by line here...

1) The player base is already diluted and fractured by living in different time zones. Both globally, and within the US where the playerbase is the largest. One of the biggest things pushing me out of playing (before I was forced to stop) was the fact that I don't have a time slice that actually works for me - certainly not once work moved out of famine mode back into feast mode (and this is true of other professions as well, teachers, etc.) Neither does most of the rest of the East Coast who works or does anything regularly on a fairly 9-5 schedule. 

Given that I believe that a lot of the player base would shift into an additional slice, but there would be more than enough to cover the rest. I also think it would gain more players who would be willing to play the PVE side, but currently don't because they don't like working against the disadvantage. So basically, I think this is a negative nelly concern which is actually creating more fracturing and diluting than if they instituted a more even distribution.

2) I agree that this is possible, but I hope that they would be willing to test it before enacting it.

3) Potentially.

4) More players and happier players are more sources of income. If they're going to step over the dollar to pick up the dime, that's a shortsighted view on their side of what the monetary incentive would be to create that fix *if* it were deemed to be the most player-friendly and workable.

----------------------------------------

Personally, I would like to see 6 slices, with a 4 hour distribution spread between them. This should be a very very simple thing to do unless there is something significantly wrong with the code that underpins the entire game. I believe that would give most players something that worked well for them at some point along the day.

I would also like to see a difference in how the refreshes are handled. My push would be:

Sub opens: Have 8 hours to complete the first 2 clears for full points. At the end of that 8 hours, have another 8 hours to complete the next 2 clears for full points. After that 4th clear, points refresh as usual until the end of the sub, with only 1 or 2 additional clears possible.

My thinking around this is in terms of breaking up the play and the repetitiveness and not having to be glued to it for a large block of time every day in order to be somewhat competitive, which I believe is the other biggest roadblock that keeps people from engaging in the PVE mode.

TetsujinOni

animaniactoo said:

Sub opens: Have 8 hours to complete the first 2 clears for full points. At the end of that 8 hours, have another 8 hours to complete the next 2 clears for full points. After that 4th clear, points refresh as usual until the end of the sub, with only 1 or 2 additional clears possible.

My thinking around this is in terms of breaking up the play and the repetitiveness and not having to be glued to it for a large block of time every day in order to be somewhat competitive, which I believe is the other biggest roadblock that keeps people from engaging in the PVE mode.

That requires three engagements during the day rather than one, for ~ 20 matches per engagement. They moved *away* from that windowing...

Also, your  posited mode optimizes like this:
Sub opens: Do nothing
Sub open +8Hours-2-clear-time: 2 clears from "sub open" window
Sub open + 8hours: race through 2 clears to start refresh timing
Sub end: End grind (which would be a 1 or 2 grind in your model?).

So, your proposal seems to only move the "clear" 4-clear time forward by approximately 8 hours. Did I misunderstand something in your proposal?

Spudgutter

What can D3 do to improve the PvE experience with the goals of increased engagement and positive revenue stream flow? Because those are the two arguments you have to make to get anywhere.

Stupid mobile, didnt mean to take out your name lol

I agree with this premise, but disagree with your conclusions in the op.  

I am of the opinion that increased engagement leads to increased spending.  So you have to spend money to make money.  So that is my counter to your 4th point.

The 3rd point is debatable, because neither of us know how much time and effort this would take.  Take the fixing of tapping as an example.  Realistically i think we can agree that it didnt impact a very large percentage of the playerbase, and yet they did address it, after a year, and just with a test so far.  So if someone started to beat that drum week after week, who knows, they may attempt to make a change.

2 and 1 tie together, depending on what the goal is.  If you want more logical end times, spaced out better then they are now, they are moot points.  No new slices mean no new rewards.

If you want just one more slice (a slice every 4 hours), i still think you wouldn't have to worry too much, imo.  People that just jump in and play whrn they want, and bracket watchers with the time to do different slices will continue to jump in fresh brackets as they flip.  If you want more slices than that, i think it borders on too much and i start to agree with you that it would be a detriment.  

ZeroKarma

4) More players and happier players are more sources of income. If they're going to step over the dollar to pick up the dime, that's a shortsighted view on their side of what the monetary incentive would be to create that fix *if* it were deemed to be the most player-friendly and workable.

So, I don’t want to outright challenge this, but a similar premise was floated with regards to win-based PVP. 

Given that was targeted as a QoL improvement for the masses, it should have resulted in happier people spending more money. But instead it spooked the devs so much that they reverted to the old system and haven’t even discussed it since.

What would be different here? 

TetsujinOni

animaniactoo said:

4) More players and happier players are more sources of income. If they're going to step over the dollar to pick up the dime, that's a shortsighted view on their side of what the monetary incentive would be to create that fix *if* it were deemed to be the most player-friendly and workable.

More players with a level of unhappiness which can be salved by an in-game purchase which seems to address their particular unhappiness are sources of income. Happy players don't have a very large incentive to spend. Just-unhappy-enough players have an incentive to spend.

Spudgutter

TetsujinOni said:

animaniactoo said:

Sub opens: Have 8 hours to complete the first 2 clears for full points. At the end of that 8 hours, have another 8 hours to complete the next 2 clears for full points. After that 4th clear, points refresh as usual until the end of the sub, with only 1 or 2 additional clears possible.

My thinking around this is in terms of breaking up the play and the repetitiveness and not having to be glued to it for a large block of time every day in order to be somewhat competitive, which I believe is the other biggest roadblock that keeps people from engaging in the PVE mode.

That requires three engagements during the day rather than one, for ~ 20 matches per engagement. They moved *away* from that windowing...

Also, your  posited mode optimizes like this:
Sub opens: Do nothing
Sub open +8Hours-2-clear-time: 2 clears from "sub open" window
Sub open + 8hours: race through 2 clears to start refresh timing
Sub end: End grind (which would be a 1 or 2 grind in your model?).

So, your proposal seems to only move the "clear" 4-clear time forward by approximately 8 hours. Did I misunderstand something in your proposal?

It needs work, but i think what he is trying to say is that instead of needing to play one large block at the end and beginning of the sub, you could space your first 4 clears out amongst the first 16 hours of the sub, so that you could play more at your leisure without the penalty of losing points.

Interesting concept, i just dont know if it would be feasible.

animaniactoo

TetsujinOni said:

animaniactoo said:

Sub opens: Have 8 hours to complete the first 2 clears for full points. At the end of that 8 hours, have another 8 hours to complete the next 2 clears for full points. After that 4th clear, points refresh as usual until the end of the sub, with only 1 or 2 additional clears possible.

My thinking around this is in terms of breaking up the play and the repetitiveness and not having to be glued to it for a large block of time every day in order to be somewhat competitive, which I believe is the other biggest roadblock that keeps people from engaging in the PVE mode.

That requires three engagements during the day rather than one, for ~ 20 matches per engagement. They moved *away* from that windowing...

Also, your  posited mode optimizes like this:
Sub opens: Do nothing
Sub open +8Hours-2-clear-time: 2 clears from "sub open" window
Sub open + 8hours: race through 2 clears to start refresh timing
Sub end: End grind (which would be a 1 or 2 grind in your model?).

So, your proposal seems to only move the "clear" 4-clear time forward by approximately 8 hours. Did I misunderstand something in your proposal?

Sub Opens - do 2 clears sometime in the next 8 hours. (for full points)
Sub Opens +8 hrs: Clear 2x as soon as possible after the initial 8 hrs has passed. (for full points)
Sub End: End Grind.

I might be mistaken, but I think on average, people have a lot more time for 3 ~30 minute blocks of time on a schedule, than they do for a single 1.5-2 hour block.

From my experience, in order to get worthwhile rewards to progress your roster, after the first month or so, you don't move outside of that 1.5-2 hour block until you make it to high 4* or 5* land where you can minimize your clears down to ~30 min on each side of the sub end/open - and even then you're still putting in a single 1 hour solid block of time. More manageable, but I don't think sustainable from a real world vantage point and therefore I do not think should be the optimal possibility from a PD standpoint. It's a testament to the game's appeal that so many of us have been willing to pour our time and energy into it in this way. From a PD standpoint, I would be pulling on that appeal to make the game more accessible to a wider audience and trying to be realistic about how much time the average person has to play at a single point of the day every single day (or most days).

JHawkInc

ZeroKarma said:

Dormammu said:

I'd like to see individual placement removed. Take those rewards and shift them to alliance progression rewards, similar to what we have in boss events.

I think this is interesting as an addition rather than a replacement. Maybe having alliances splitting up to unlock different paths of a story line.

 Changing PvE rewards more to the alliance side will cause some major upheaval across the game and will put a ton of pressure from commanders to Merc out or kick low performers with higher frequency.

It depends on where exactly they place the rewards. I think it would help more than hurt.

First off, it would probably function like boss events where people lock in, which means no mercing out in the first place.

Second, the top 100 line moves a lot between events, where an alliance putting in an effort to earn top 100 placement in one event could put the same effort into the following event, and miss out on top 100. Alliance progression would be static, so if you hit the mark and earn the rewards, you've got it, and there would be no losing rewards hours later because another alliance was better at mercing than yours and knocked you down a reward tier.

Third, depending on where they place the rewards in the first place, you may be able to account for lower performers. What if maximum alliance progression was 20x maximum personal progression? Anyone who goes above and beyond that final CP for personal progression would be helping cover for anyone who is unable to meet personal progression. It would let more active players directly help out someone who can't go all out for an event for some reason (missing an essential, busy real life stuff, unexpected "it happens" moments, etc).

The potential to hit max alliance progression early on the last day of an event, and to know that, as a commander, I'm "done" and kick back and relax for an afternoon, would be AWESOME. (again, assuming the rewards structure worked out)

TetsujinOni

animaniactoo said:

TetsujinOni said:

animaniactoo said:

Sub opens: Have 8 hours to complete the first 2 clears for full points. At the end of that 8 hours, have another 8 hours to complete the next 2 clears for full points. After that 4th clear, points refresh as usual until the end of the sub, with only 1 or 2 additional clears possible.

My thinking around this is in terms of breaking up the play and the repetitiveness and not having to be glued to it for a large block of time every day in order to be somewhat competitive, which I believe is the other biggest roadblock that keeps people from engaging in the PVE mode.

That requires three engagements during the day rather than one, for ~ 20 matches per engagement. They moved *away* from that windowing...

Also, your  posited mode optimizes like this:
Sub opens: Do nothing
Sub open +8Hours-2-clear-time: 2 clears from "sub open" window
Sub open + 8hours: race through 2 clears to start refresh timing
Sub end: End grind (which would be a 1 or 2 grind in your model?).

So, your proposal seems to only move the "clear" 4-clear time forward by approximately 8 hours. Did I misunderstand something in your proposal?

Sub Opens - do 2 clears sometime in the next 8 hours. (for full points)
Sub Opens +8 hrs: Clear 2x as soon as possible after the initial 8 hrs has passed. (for full points)
Sub End: End Grind.

I might be mistaken, but I think on average, people have a lot more time for 3 ~30 minute blocks of time on a schedule, than they do for a single 1.5-2 hour block.

From my experience, in order to get worthwhile rewards to progress your roster, after the first month or so, you don't move outside of that 1.5-2 hour block until you make it to high 4* or 5* land where you can minimize your clears down to ~30 min on each side of the sub end/open - and even then you're still putting in a single 1 hour solid block of time. More manageable, but I don't think sustainable from a real world vantage point and therefore I do not think should be the optimal possibility from a PD standpoint. It's a testament to the game's appeal that so many of us have been willing to pour our time and energy into it in this way. From a PD standpoint, I would be pulling on that appeal to make the game more accessible to a wider audience and trying to be realistic about how much time the average person has to play at a single point of the day every single day (or most days).

So, let me go over that again:

Sub starts at 0: Do 2 clears here.... up to and including ending at Sub +7:59
Sub at 8 hours: Do 2 clears here as fast as possible to start timers
Sub at 23 hours N minutes: Do end grind here.

So a "number of times I have to remember to be on my phone to get full points" engagement looks like:

Sub +7:xx minutes: Do 2 clears here ending at 7:59:59 then do 2 more clears here.
Sub + 23:xx minutes: Do end grind

Instead of: N minutes either side of the sub end is when I story clear.

I'm not finding much in the way of "friendlier timing and engagement" for T5 competitive players here. Players who do not intend to T20 can already do more flexible timings with the extant system.

broll

ZeroKarma said:

4) More players and happier players are more sources of income. If they're going to step over the dollar to pick up the dime, that's a shortsighted view on their side of what the monetary incentive would be to create that fix *if* it were deemed to be the most player-friendly and workable.

So, I don’t want to outright challenge this, but a similar premise was floated with regards to win-based PVP. 

Given that was targeted as a QoL improvement for the masses, it should have resulted in happier people spending more money. But instead it spooked the devs so much that they reverted to the old system and haven’t even discussed it since.

What would be different here? 

The devs haven't posted their rational for pulling win based, so you can't conclusively say this.  It could have been high spending players boycotting which could translate here, it could have also been far less HP spent/IRL purchases on HP spending which would not have an impact here.