Brigby, pls help! B4T last recharge 1am & end 7am here. A Serious Plea for our health and sanity.

ArielSira

Current:

Charge at 12h, charge at 6h before end.

New:

Last 2 charges at 12h before end.

Isn't this the quickest and easiest solution?

NickBKK

Ugh, I am just realizing that it has come around this week! 
I’m going to take a break after this event.

Dropspot

There are several suggestions in this thread to solve the issue. Some easier than others.

In the past we used to have only one start/endind time for events. Now seems like every event has a different schedule. I understand that this may seem like helping players by offering different times so you aren't hurting the same time zone every time.

But  imo this is worse than before. When you have a fixed start/end time you can schedule yourself to work around it even when the ending time is bad. Having this changing constantly it's hard to get used to it and to work around when the end time gets your time zone.

Mburn7

Dropspot said:

There are several suggestions in this thread to solve the issue. Some easier than others.

In the past we used to have only one start/endind time for events. Now seems like every event has a different schedule. I understand that this may seem like helping players by offering different times so you aren't hurting the same time zone every time.

But  imo this is worse than before. When you have a fixed start/end time you can schedule yourself to work around it even when the ending time is bad. Having this changing constantly it's hard to get used to it and to work around when the end time gets your time zone.

Hmm, this is an interesting take on it.

On one hand I agree with you, since its easy to just know that I'm staying up super late 2 nights a week instead of remembering which weeks I need to do it.

On the other hand, since each individual event is held at the same times (so Terrors always starts and ends the same times and usually the same days each time it is run) you are still kind of able to plan your "bad time" events by just remembering which ones are an issue.

This is definitely a super complicated issue that may very well have no solution (since I'm assuming that "making the refresh timer longer on the last charge" is not possible/practical to program based on dev lack of response)

souki12

We have some cushion at the beginning of the events until we start losing charges on the nodes. It is up to 24-36 hours for some.

Just give us the same at the end as well. Four or six hours to clean the last charge is not enough. Maybe on a different planet, but it's not going to work on Earth.

We should not structure our lives around the game if we want to be a bit competitive!

Brigby

Laeuftbeidir said:

Brigby said:

Thank you! And not to worry. It's just different work, not more.

Yes. Comparing event end times in different time zones will certainly be part of my methods used. Right now I'm working on comparing the results of A World Reborn (ends at 2am UTC) with The Dragon War (ends at 6pm UTC) to see how much that affects engagement in different and/or the same time zones.

From a data enthusiast perspective that sounds really interesting. From a more practical point of view that sounds like you're collection data to try to disencourage the smallest number of players possible while forgetting those will likely be the few who were able to remain active - instead of actually investing time to implement a real solution.

On the contrary! I'm trying to dig up data that would prove that players enduring inconvenient event times end up engaging less than players in opportune event times, in order to further bolster the proposal to implement a solution. Every decision needs both data and sentiment supporting each other to really drive home the message.

To address your concern, it's not about trying to justify discouraging a small demographic, but instead about finding data to support that demographic, so we can help that community grow larger.

Horadrim

I always wonder why full charges can be allocated to Trial of the Planes, whereas it cannot be done to other events. Give full charges to all events and let us play in our available time. We can still log in every 6 hrs to get the freebies if logging in is your issue.

Tremayne

@Horadrim - is if I recall correctly, we fought hard to get this in TotP (and several other events), but we do not win them all.

NickBKK

@Brigby your data will include me as one of the “engaged” people who manage to play the last B4T1 & B4T2 recharges, despite being in the more negatively affected time zone. 
However, your data will not capture the fact and the misery that I stayed up until 1am and finished playing some time closer to 2am, before going to bed to start a lousy Monday morning with just 5 hours of sleep.

I am feeling like a zombie today. 😩

Stager

@Brigby
any update?

Aeroplane

just make the final 3 charges available at once. Solves everyone's problem of scheduling. Personally, I would have all charges up front. This thing of having to log in every 6 hours of your life on the weekend  to keep up is pretty ridiculous.

Tremayne

@Aeroplane - you do see the problem with this suggestion, right?

A player with many charges left at the point in time the devs select, will loose all charges above max charges. 

Example - as you suggest the last three charges is assigned 16 hours before the event ends (assuming 6h charges and 4h to clear the last charge). So player A with zero charges left gets his 3 charges and is happy, but player B with 5 charges left gets 1 charge and looses 2 charges and is unhappy.

The only solution I recall that will work is the one solution that seems unacceptable to the devs. which is give players all charges at the start of the event (a solution which, I might add, has is own pitfalls).

Don’t get me wrong I don’t like the current solution (I’m getting my last charge at midnight Sunday to Monday), but I’m pretty sure someone else will be angry, when it is changed so I’m happy.

Stager

Making event end 12 hours after last charge (not getting another) would also help and would not make anyone angry. At least I don't see a problem with this approach. Might be wrong.

Aeroplane

Tremayne said:

@Aeroplane - you do see the problem with this suggestion, right?

A player with many charges left at the point in time the devs select, will loose all charges above max charges. 

Example - as you suggest the last three charges is assigned 16 hours before the event ends (assuming 6h charges and 4h to clear the last charge). So player A with zero charges left gets his 3 charges and is happy, but player B with 5 charges left gets 1 charge and looses 2 charges and is unhappy.

The only solution I recall that will work is the one solution that seems unacceptable to the devs. which is give players all charges at the start of the event (a solution which, I might add, has is own pitfalls).

Don’t get me wrong I don’t like the current solution (I’m getting my last charge at midnight Sunday to Monday), but I’m pretty sure someone else will be angry, when it is changed so I’m happy.

Sorry , wasn't really clear with that . All it is to make available  remaining charges in a bigger window at the end adding to the charges the person already has. Regardless of how many charges you already have , you have more opportunity to sit down to finish the event without waiting for Sun to come up. The current situation to sign in every 6 hours or to time it so you don't lose charges drives people away from the game .