For those of us on the East coast (U.S.) with normal lifestyles, it is difficult to be competitive within the current start/end time structure on PVE events. Slice 3 ends at 5 PM EST (not home from work yet), and slice 4 ends at 11 PM EST (too late). I need an 8 PM EST slice, or a slider bar that allows me to adjust to a different start/end time while remaining within the current 5 slice structure.
Given that we humans split our days into 24 hours, I have always kinda wondered why there are five slices in this game. Four would make sense, six would make sense, but with five you’re inherently going to create an uneven gap somewhere (assuming you’re always going to start/end things on the hour).
I hear you when I was playing s4 I would fall asleep during my initial clears and with s3 I can’t play optimally
Psst…people play all over the world. There are at least 5 people in my alliance in Europe, even though I’m east coast too. It’s hard to set up slices that meet everyone’s needs.
Seriously though, more slices split up the active players more. Too many slices means the people actually trying (a small subset of all players) get rewards too easily.
Understand about the global differences and giving out too many(?) rewards. However, consider the idea of having a user-selectable 3 hour window on either side of each start/end time to better fit everyone’s issues.
So offer more slices but no more flips. Gets rid of the BS of people waiting for a flip for an advantage. It will even out total rewards given out.
Maybe the gap is there to provide a window for maintenance?
There are certain time zones where not many people live (the Atlantic and Pacific oceans swallow several time zones each), or where not many people play MPQ, so time slices being based on the Active player base is not that strange.
I’m in Europe too and I have pretty much the same issue as the OP:
For PvE, slice 1 shifts at 1 PM, when I am busy working.
Slice 2 shifts at 6PM, which is at least workable, but there’s lots of other things that need doing then too.
Slice 3 shifts at 11PM, which means if I need to grind a new sub I need to stay up until midnight, and that is just not doable when I have to go to work the next day.
Slice 4 shifts at 6AM, when I am usually asleep, and I don’t particularly care to Wake up at 5 AM just to grind.
And slice 5 shifts at 8 AM, when I start working again.
I actually Think it is kind of odd that the end times have remained constant when we have had at least two major revisions of the PvE system. When time slices were introduced I Believe the nodes refreshed after 2 hours and 23 minutes, so you only needed to hit each node once at the start of the sub and then come back to it over and over, and finally do a large grind at the end to get whatever Points were left. Then it shifted to 8 hours refreshes, which still meant a Quick playthrough in the beginning, coming back whenever timers ran out, and then a large end grind.
Now though, you need to do the large grind at the beginning of the sub, and then nothing else until it’s time for the end grind, so if you want to play optimally you need to have a time slice where there’s a two hour window open around the sub shift - one hour for the end grind and then Another for the initial grind. (yes, I know you can play a lower SCL for a faster grind, that’s besides the Point). It would be great if the end times could be looked over and revised to take this into account.
That’s why it’s so puzzling to see how badly the existing slices fit two of the biggest markets for the game (East Coast and most of Europe)
Won’t disagree there. I’d love it if slice 3 ended at 9PM or even 10PM instead.
Move to the UK
Slice 1 - 12pm
Slice 2 - 5pm
Slice 3 - 10pm
Slice 4 - 4am
Slice 5 - 7am
Preaching to the choir. This is without a doubt my biggest issue in the game. I get so sick of people on the forums talking about playing optimally or missing their T10 rewards when I’ve gotten T10 a grand total of once in over 1.5 years of playing because the time slices tinykitty me. The only time I got it was a 3 day sub on a 3 day weekend where I had free time in the magic window and it wasn’t all that hard in that scenario, but that scenario doesn’t exist for me 99.999% of the time. It’s just a giant tinykitty.
But then I’d have to live in the UK. No thanks.
Eh, don’t move to the UK yet, we might have better slices than the rest of Europe, but wait at least until this whole Brexit nonsense has been resolved!
Shifting time slices would probably upset just as many people as it helped. It’s not screwing over certain time zones, because many people with different schedules probably prefer a 5pm or 11pm end time.
Having a user-selectable start time would lead to confusing leaderboards. You’d never really know who was in the lead or who finished initial clears fastest.
One idea I’ve seen suggested is rolling event end times. Give us an hour break between events so one ends at 9pm, then next at 10pm, etc. Eventually everyone would get a time slot that worked perfectly for them. Then again that would probably lead to lots of complaints from people who like today’s system, and from alliance leaders handling mercs.
That’s why the DST offset is one of the sweetest times of the year. It’s a lot easier to find good end times with just one measly hour’s difference.
How often is that really needed in PvE? I see that as a concern in PvP, but in PvE aren’t you generally clearing as fast as you can regardless of what anyone else does? Other than not knowing for sure in advance I don’t see a big problem here.
That would certainly be better than what we have today IMO.
Slice 1: Driving son to daycare/myself to work
Slice 2: Middle of the day (doable some of the time. The finish optimal clears/immediately clear optimally again really hurts this choice.)
Slice 3: Driving to pick my son up from daycare/driving us home
Slice 4: Best option, but some nights just want to sleep!
Slice 5: Asleep!
1 and 3 simply aren’t available to me to play competitively. 2 would be a huge waste of time, as I inevitably would always miss a day during the event. 5 could be done, if I wanted to unhealthily rearrange my sleeping schedule, so no.
Slice 4 it is. But I’ve tried to do the optimal play thing and I just think its stupid.
So here I take my stand and advocate to leave the slices alone, yet set personal clear timers within them. You can play within any slice you choose, within the 24-48 hour period, but start time doesn’t matter, only that you clear quickly. Points are gone on the leader board, replaced with “total time taken”. Points would still be used to determine progression.
SCL 9, Slice 1 Top 5:
Bob 25:50
Tom 25:53
Tim 26:02
Eli 26:33
Joy 26:34
Done.
We really do have it lucky in the mid-west and west coast of the US. I’m in the central time zone and slice 4 starts/ends at 10pm. That’s doable if I’m seeking optimal PvE play because I can finish the day with some MPQ and be in bed by 11pm for work the next day.
I Believe the devs are on the west coast… I sense a bias here…