Weekend Coalition Event -- too short

FindingHeart8

Shortest one in a while, over halfway through the weekend. Probably not intentional but still worth addressing because it's not quite fair to have such a high scoring event, especially for people who aren't available the entire weekend to add points in my opinion. It should last until at least mid-Sunday so all players have an opportunity to contribute.

Sorin81

I've always liked these events ending Monday morning or so, eventhough I know I'm not with the majority on that. I agree that this event ended much sooner than it should have. I'm not sure what happened to cause its end to come quicker then usual. Was there more players giving Bolas a beatdown? Did the devs reduce the boss health? Was the start time a factor?
Whatever the case, I too think it should be readjusted to go at least until miday Sunday or Sunday evening.

Mainloop25

Let's just finally do away with the "Boss HP" mechanic. It's never been a good idea, and it's time this new team finally does away with it.

Tolkne

Please return this event and remove the HP.

All the players did not have time to fully collect 600 points for this event, and as a result, they finished the event so early ahead of schedule!

For example, I started at 11 (because I have a UTC +2 time zone), and the charging rollback should be updated at 24 a.m. and went to bed at 22 a.m., and I was sure that all charges would be updated and I would continue on Sunday, at least until the evening.
It turns out that the beginning of 11 p.m. on Friday, and ended at night - 1.5 days have passed. The event ends too quickly. Therefore, please remove the HP and put everything back in place, and give people another 600 points and above!

Please fix

Janosik

There are two problems here:

One is that the event was too short, and so, I'm told, players had to score a perfect (against the brand new 3-3 zombie objectives, too!) to hit progression on the reward ladder.

The second, and IMO larger problem is that the event was unexpectedly too short. Honestly I don't think any of us like events that go on for 5 days. But I can't be the only player who went to bed last night thinking, based on experience, that the 30%+ health the boss had would last him the rest of today, and then woke up to find that he was nearly dead.

The boss health mechanic needs to die. Sure, in theory it's fun to have all the game's players working together to bring down an enemy, but in practice this mechanic just doesn't feel like that to the players, so all it means really is that the end time of the event is functionally random. Players who want to score the best for their team end up having to wake themselves up in the middle of the night, not knowing whether they'll find the event has ended or if they'll have to play a bunch more games in the early morning.

• If you'd like us players to check your app on our phones all the time, then we'd appreciate it if you didn't make us check them in the middle of the night when we're asleep.

• If you'd like the whole player base to work together as a team, we'd appreciate it if you designed a better mechanic to do that. Why not ask us here on the forums, I'm sure we could brainstorm some fun new ideas.

Sarah

Hey! I tried my best during the recent ROTGP and I wasn’t perfect. I dropped a 5 point secondary by winning too quickly and I dropped an entire match of 2.1 trying to win too slow… but I thought I’d have one last charge to attempt to make progression but I guess not?

The HP system is super-interesting and dynamic and definitely encourages engagement so I don’t want to throw the whole concept out.

I’m just wondering if there’s a happy medium between ending before (most) players make progression rewards and dragging the event on until Tuesday?

Sarah

Although setting the HP so very low does suggest something about how many players they expected to actually play… and where they would play. I feel like the new devs/marketing team don’t necessarily understand the player base?

Scrounger

I also think that the boss health mechanic needs to die. Having a random end time inevitably ends up hosing some players in certain time zones, and that isn't fun.

But I strongly disagree with the perspective that this event was too short. I chose not to play the event at all because RotGP is normally interminable, and I couldn't commit to playing matches on Monday and Tuesday when I am working. I know other players made the same decision. Avacyn's Madness and Hour of Devastation are two other coalition events that suffer from the same problem: they are normally way too long. That RotGP was finally a short event is a dramatic improvement.

But I will agree that it was unexpectedly too short. If players had been notified that the event would be much shorter, then some players would have chosen to play the event -- for example, I would have played had I know that it would end on Saturday -- and the players would have been able to plan to play matches early enough so that they could finish all of their charges.

Recognizing that the event was unexpectedly too short just underscores how terrible of a mechanic the boss health is in terms of deciding when an event ends. Next time RotGP runs, do away with the boss mechanic and have the event timer last for 46 hours or less. That would be perfect.

But for the love of god, do not return RotGP to the slog that it used to be. I'd rather that the admittedly bad boss health mechanic stay than have RotGP return to an event that extends into Monday or Tuesday. That's a disaster.

Scrounger

I'm hopeful that the new Devs deciding to set the Boss HP so low was because they looked at the data and saw that lots of players decided to sit out events like RotGP because it lasted way, way too long. Last time it ran, I'm pretty sure it extended into Tuesday. That's ridiculous. Even ending on Monday sucks hard. I didn't even play it this time because it normally runs so long. I know other players that made the same decision.

The most important change in my mind for events like RotGP, AM, and HoD is too make them shorter. Much shorter. The second most important change is to kill the boss HP mechanic. Having an end time that isn't fixed always ends up hosing players in certain time zones. If they want to be there for their team, they need to set alarms to wake up at ridiculous hours of the night and, what's worse, they can't even be completely sure when the wake up that there are more matches to play. So they may have woken up at 3a.m. for nothing. That's just cruel.

Mainloop25

Cannot agree more with @Scrounger

Sarah

@Scrounger @Mainloop25 I’m not certain that I’m disagreeing with you—I have always hated it when the weekend's PVE event overlapped with the mid week PVP event. Oh? What’s that? There’s only one event per week and we’re just complaining that it stretched sooo very far past progression? Ok. I hear you.

This particular post is about how we casual players (also some serious players—not me, I’m not serious!) missed out on progression rewards because they swung the pendulum too far towards “easy” which makes me think that the devs think there are less players than we organizers think there are.

That worries me!

naabaldan

I played until 1 am cest and set my alarm to play again. At that time bolas life was at 13%.
Woke up at 3:33 cet (no summertime) checked the status and found him at 1% that zeroed while I was playing one match.
This is why we don't like health related boss fights.
We have to adjust our weekend to fit the games need.

Tremayne

I liked that the event was done much earlier than normal, even if it meant that I didn’t get the last to prizes, because the alternative is so much worse.

Xibvert

If the boss health isn't going to go away at least don't make it trigger the end of the event. Keep the event running until it's scheduled end time but stop giving out new charges when the boss health is gone. Then everyone still gets a reasonable opportunity to play their charges at whatever time works for their schedule. A random number of charges is tolerable. A random end time for the event is terrible.

On a positive note the event being much shorter was a really nice improvement. Though people would have been a lot happier if there had been a warning about this change. Planning your schedule around the expectation of a 4 day event and then it being a 2 day event can really ruin your plan.

Mainloop25

I just don't think that they even knew it would end so quickly. It was a step in the right direction, just too big. I'll just repeat the prevailing sentiment: do away with the Boss HP mechanic, it's not fun for anyone

Janosik

Us: "RotGP was too short"
Monkey paw curls finger