Just some complaints

Qazzy

I should get up at 4:50 AM this moring for both PvE and PvP, but I get up at 6:30, so both are ruined, and I still have to play this PvE event for progression... makes me want to just quit the game altogether

And why I should get up at 4:50 AM while I just need get up at 7:00 for work?
that's why I wrote this suggestion with my poor english and the google translation

https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/85785/new-pve-ranking-method-suggestion

But seems nobody cares, maybe I'll really quit this game for the game mechanics that disrupt life.

Phumade

Qazzy said:

I should get up at 4:50 AM this moring for both PvE and PvP, but I get up at 6:30, so both are ruined, and I still have to play this PvE event for progression... makes me want to just quit the game altogether

And why I should get up at 4:50 AM while I just need get up at 7:00 for work?
that's why I wrote this suggestion with my poor english and the google translation

https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/85785/new-pve-ranking-method-suggestion

But seems nobody cares, maybe I'll really quit this game for the game mechanics that disrupt life.

you know you can chose a different time slice?  They are spaced out every 3-6 hours so you can start over a day and 1/2 window.  But yeah, we all used to have to play on east cost US time.  So I feel ya


Oh I see you sent it into suggestions. LOL  Nobody on the forums reads that

Qazzy

Phumade said:

you know you can chose a different time slice?  They are spaced out every 3-6 hours so you can start over a day and 1/2 window.  But yeah, we all used to have to play on east cost US time.  So I feel ya


Oh I see you sent it into suggestions. LOL  Nobody on the forums reads that

I know it, just all of time slice can't fit my life... I have chosen S1 (20:00 or 21:00 as ending time), but I need go out and have some social activities usually; I have chosen S2 (00:00 or 01:00 AM as ending time), and I am concerned about the problem of going to bed late; so I choose S3 (05:00 or 06:00 AM as ending time), and this is what happened this morning. The other slices all during my work time so there will only be more problems.

In summary, slices just can't solve anything but makes me choose from different problems.

And I post it into suggestions because I want to believe the "Your Suggestions and Feedback Are Being Read" lol
seems that devs are ones of the "Nobody on the forums reads that" so I post in general discussion this time.

TheEyeDoctorsWife

The game is irrelevant to real life , even with 5 start times I’m lucky there’s only one slice I can play effectively. If they took it away I’d quit . There probably are a lot of players that ignore this game because it optimally doesn’t fit in anywhere in their leisure time. Can you imagine a reward system based on 24 hour score if you could start anytime though ? 

shardwick

Yeah, we've bugged them a lot about changing how time slices are done over the years. Everything from adding more time slices, having you pick one time slice but then you can start whenever you like and aren't essentially punished for it as your overall time would be based on how quickly you finish clears, or even going progression only. My ideal method would be closer to progression only pve like how the campaign is setup so when you finish beating the last node on a sub the next sub would be unlocked. As for pvp that's a bit easier to do since you have the entirety of the event to do your climb. I usually just do fights here and there and then will do my climb somewhere inside of 24 hours and then shield for the rest of the event.

St_Bernadus

You don't have to play optimally to progress. I don't.

entrailbucket

Yeah, just ignore the clock and play whenever you feel like.  You get somewhat less stuff, but it's massively less stress.  The tradeoff was worth it to me.

TheEyeDoctorsWife

entrailbucket said:

Yeah, just ignore the clock and play whenever you feel like.  You get somewhat less stuff, but it's massively less stress.  The tradeoff was worth it to me.

Yet when I play at opening I always wind up in a 263-way tie for 5th place so I see about 1% of players thinking the trade off is worth it . I also drop about 360 places in the last hour which  leads me to the same conclusion. 

Qazzy

St_Bernadus said:

You don't have to play optimally to progress. I don't.

Sure I don't have to, but why can't I play optimally if I want to? Just because I am a second-class player whose life cannot keep up with the game time?

My words may be heavy, but this is probably the weight I feel about this injustice.

Srheer0

 but this is probably the weight I feel about this injustice.

I feel you. Ideally slices would be every 3 hrs over a period so it could fit into your life.  

Most PVE and PVP times work out for me. Wake up at about 6 30 am. Do pve final clear. Then at 7am start the next sub, time the clear and set alarm accordingly for the following day.  

The times which it doesn't work well is the PVP that ends on 8pm on wednesdays. I get home from work at 6pm and badminton starts at 8pm. So it makes it quite tight for dinner eatings.  

If it makes you feel any better, this kindof thing happens with most other competitive free to play pvp games I have played. Events are time restricted, so you have to plan around them if you want to compete.

You can't easily change the game (I disagree with most of your suggestions in the linked topic. It sounds far too complicated). But you can plan around events you want to compete in. Top 50 (scl10) can still get you good stuff and you don't have to go for top10 or higher. You just miss out on some 5star shards and LL tokens.

Qazzy

what your method of planning the game is exactly where my problem lies. I CANNOT plan around events that I want to compete in, unless I quit my job or quit most of social activities with colleagues, or quit sleeping till midnight and still get up early.

That's why I said I'm  a second-class player whose life cannot keep up with the game time.

All I can do now is ignoring compete, and it always make me feel bad.

I don't think those suggestions in the linked topic complicated to players if not to try cheating (but maybe it's complicated for devs to develop new mechanisms), just play any time you want and make sure stay focused during those few minutes of playing for score, just like you can shield/unshield any time in PvPs.

Current game mechanics make players need stay focused in at least 1-2 hours for clean all nodes, I even can't see the cutscenes because I need rush the whole event.

The feeling of being bound by the game is the part that I care about the most.

As for the ranking rewards, as you said, it’s not really that serious, I have been playing this way for almost 7-8 years (with leaving for a year or two because it affects my work badly), it’s just a problem of feeling.

I know this kind of thing happens with most other competitive, but I think this is not right, playing games should be a more flexible thing, rather than requiring scheduling like work.

Sekilicious

None of the times work for my schedule as well. I mostly play each node 4 to 5 times on a flip. If you haven’t seen it, here is a tracking sheet from Reddit 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1sAu8QyO8lKSQ7yXon-BIxKhXMeHUANPzamy0AymuDkE/edit#gid=0

Each event only has 1000 people. The real keeners play right at the start to maximize their points. If you wait until more than a 1000 people enter then a new event is made, this is the flip. There are a few you can get to top 20 but if you’re ok with top-50 to 100 then just do 4 or 5 clears and make sure you make it progression. 

Or you can threaten to quit. But this has been a problem for years, and though it is much better than at the start of the game, it probably isn’t changing too much any time soon. 

MegaBee

Qazzy said:

St_Bernadus said:

You don't have to play optimally to progress. I don't.

Sure I don't have to, but why can't I play optimally if I want to? Just because I am a second-class player whose life cannot keep up with the game time?

You can play optimally. You have to be willing to make sacrifices to do so. It's okay not to, though. I certainly don't. Optimal play seems like far too much of a hassle for me.

HoundofShadow

I think things have improved a lot from doing node every 3 hours to every 8 hours to every 24 hours.

In order to increase the number of slice, the number of players need to increase drastically to prevent too many players from getting good placement reward easier.

fight4thedream

@Qazzy It's a fair criticism that unfortunately doesn't tend to get a lot of traction on the forum. I also made a PvE revamp suggestion a few years ago: https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/comment/784741#Comment_784741

While many will say the ship has sailed, I still hope a PvE restructure is in the cards. I've been a proponent of non-competitive PvE for a long time and would like to see them do something more with the format that doesn't require a player to schedule their day around events.

I believe that the current format plays a large part on why players leave the game. While I acknowledge that most players are able to attain most of the rewards by simply completing the event, presenting the event as a competition can leave potentially long-term players with a bad experience. Granted the vast majority of players don't play the game competitively but still if player retention is a goal of the dev team, the current PvE format is an issue that should be addressed. 

To their credit, they have developed non-competitive events like Welcome to SHIELD and Puzzle Gauntlet and it is my hope that such events prove popular enough that they consider a new PvE format that is challenging and rewarding for players at every level. 

HoundofShadow said:

I think things have improved a lot from doing node every 3 hours to every 8 hours to every 24 hours.

In order to increase the number of slice, the number of players need to increase drastically to prevent too many players from getting good placement reward easier.

Or they could simply increase the event player limit to 2000 or 3000 players to balance out the increase in slices. Obviously it will reduce the likelihood of bracket flips but I think it would be a fairer way to distribute rewards while providing more players worldwide an opportunity to compete.

HoundofShadow

That will work too but it will affect those players who snipe brackets to get T10 placements. I think the lack of big number of players limit the potential of non-schedule based pves.

Qazzy

MegaBee said:

You can play optimally. You have to be willing to make sacrifices to do so. It's okay not to, though. I certainly don't. Optimal play seems like far too much of a hassle for me.

You're talking same thing to me.
Why optimal play should seems like far too much of a hassle for you and me, but not other that have a fine working time slice?
Just because I am a second-class player whose life cannot keep up with the game time?

Why do you think that playing the game until it is like a work schedule is more reasonable than the "play as you want" design method?

In fact, the difference in ranking rewards is not that important to me, but arranging players to compete in such a crude and life-affecting way makes me feel very bad.

Sekilicious said:

Or you can threaten to quit. But this has been a problem for years, and though it is much better than at the start of the game, it probably isn’t changing too much any time soon. 

I am not threatening D3 by quitting the game, but this kind of game mechanism that turn the puzzle game into an "hours-racing game" will force me to give up this game that I have played for more than 7 years, and it happened once.

Qazzy

Otherwise, can I suggest that every time a new PvE event is added on line, the ending time of all slices should be adjusted forward by 1 hour?

There will be a time that suits me eventually, and there will be a time that is not suitable for players in different time zones eventually.

Just let everyone experience the feeling that game time can’t be included in the life schedule, but not in every events, so maybe everyone can tolerate it? this should be an easiest way to adjust game, although it didn’t solve anything, but the feeling will be more balanced, haha

P.S. @fight4thedream I see you often recently on PvP, nice to meet you  

Godzillafan67

None of the slices work for me all seven days of the week. I've figured out which one works the best overall and then just play as optimally as possible. If your goal is to have top placement in PvE, then you cannot compete. If your goal is to get full progression and place decently ( circa top 100), then you likely have a shot.

Timemachinego

I also have to move slices during the week, pve4 is close to ideal for me but I have weekend activities that can interfere so I go up a slice or two in response, Sometimes I just have to look at what I have coming up and realize I can't place well given my schedule, no matter how perfect I am able to play off schedule. I think that's the consequence of designing a casual game that instead attracted a bunch of perfectionists and high-achievers.

You're not alone in disliking how it all works Qazzy, it's just such a fundamental system that I think we don't even know where to begin with making suggestions on changing it so I give you my respect for venturing something forth! Your idea about time-only, no resets was pretty inspired but would also require something like the MMR system we see in PVP and we all know how fallible and previously exploitable that was...

entrailbucket

Competitive MPQ causes burnout.  Why wouldn't it?  It's baked into the design.   If you're competing, you're competing with other players.  To win, you have to beat them.

When tapping was a thing, you couldn't win a PvE unless you were willing to spend several hours grinding a node for one point.  Plenty of players were willing to do that to win.  If you weren't willing to do that, you'd lose. 

The bottom line is that if other players are willing to play this game like a work schedule and you aren't, you will lose to them.  That might be right or wrong, but it undeniably *is*, as long as the game remains a competition.

If PvE becomes noncompetitive, progression-only, rewards will be reduced compared to what the top placement players get now.  Would you be ok with that?  If it stays a competition, then how should they decide who wins?