**Mastery Loadouts**
Due to issues related to the release of Mastery Loadouts, the "free swap" period will be extended.
The new end date will be May 1st.
Due to issues related to the release of Mastery Loadouts, the "free swap" period will be extended.
The new end date will be May 1st.
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I just think that I can single handly clear my lane in 1 push then wait on the next person to clear my node is reasonable enough, but to be limited to 5 moves just makes u on your toes especially map...6
An alliance can pick either or, but the points are adjusted accordingly
less points earned if 30 min timer was selected versus 1 hour
I personally like the 45 min idea!
Apparently you have all the time in the world to be on the forum.
Except you don't have to move every half hour. I wind up logging in less, not more with 30 minute timers.
It's counter intuitive because it's not really accurate. When dealing with multiple time zones, one hour timers will exclude some from participating in some sections or force them to be on at inconvenient times. 30 minute timers will also exclude some if the alliance clears the map quickly. With one hour timers out Australian player almost never can be on when the boss goes down. With 30 minute timers it's our UK player that misses a chance at the boss. But 30 minute timers offer everyone more flexibility and more options. I don't really care but the reasons which are generally put forth against 30 minute timers are mostly garbage.
You have said some things, but this has to be one of the most asinine statements you have produced yet.
30 min AQ timers makes AQ worse, Kabam CEO confirmed.
I cannot deny that there might be idiotic lunatics demanding that people move every time their timer ticks up one, but if I was designing the game I would not spend any significant time dealing with idiotic lunatics. That's not the segment of the game player population I would particularly care to service.
For most rational people, the ONLY reason to demand that someone move is if them not moving is holding someone else up, generally due to links. And the only reason why holding someone else up is ever bad is if they then cannot use all of their energy because they are or will get full before they can move. This includes if they go to sleep and thus we lose all of the energy they currently have because they will be topped up anyway when they wake up, but have more progress that they will need to spend their energy on.
If we add "intelligence" to "rational" then the goal is always to reach the end of AQ before it expires, with some healthy margin. For any reasonably coordinated alliance, failing to do this is always caused by one of two things: too many players die, or you run out of energy. It is never, EVER due to someone not constantly burning energy every half hour or every hour, except maybe on Map 6 and not even then is it that ridiculous.
If you are someone that messages alliance members every half hour to move when we have reduced timers, unless you are in an alliance full of members just as crazy as you are, you need to go away so the rest of us can have a game that doesn't have to cater to crazy.
Ignoring idiotic lunatics, more energy is always good. Less energy is always bad. Period the end. I coordinate a battlegroup with people spread out about as far as it is possible to be spread out and still be on Earth. Half the bg is in the central time zone, a bunch are in Asia, someone is in Europe and I'm in Hawaii. We're spread out from GMT-10 to GMT+9. Every single one of us love it when we have reduced timers BECAUSE we are spread out, not in spite of being spread out. Everything has to go almost exactly right for us to complete Map 5, and we complete Map 5 because we're very good at it. But with reduced timers, everything is easier, everything is smoother, and we always finish with plenty of time to spare. Under one hour timers, I cannot tell you how many times I and the other people in the bg have coordinated movement right to the last second, literally finishing the Map with minutes to spare (*normally* we finish with about two hours to go). On more than one occasion we've missed full completion while someone was literally fighting the last stretch of Dormammu.
Being told that one hour timers is partially to protect alliances like us is beyond ridiculous, and I speak for everyone in my battlegroup (the other two are less widely distributed) when I say stop trying to help us with longer timers. And I would bet a lot of cash that the overwhelming majority of widely distributed battlegroups would agree with me.
I can buy that the timers are there in part to add difficulty, but it isn't really possible for something to simultaneously be a quality of life improvement and an enhancement to difficulty. Reduced timers do make it easier to finish maps, so reducing them would impact AQ scores globally by at least some amount.
He's just copying Kabam answer when they answered it previously.
That's all.
He has a point that it would be more pressure on players to be about to move, as I have experienced that myself on 30min timers.
Overall though 30min or 45min timers would overall be much better.
Fact is though, even for an hour it's sufficient, more than enough time to complete the maps, map 6 is a push, all top ally's share accounts to complete it, never gets punished though
I think increasing the energy cap would be a reasonable compromise between increasing the total amount of energy players have (which reduced times does) and increasing the flexibility to use that energy.
Your last sentence is so cunning in it's structure and content that it is not easily understood even by the well educated. Can you explain what seems inexplicable for the unwashed masses including myself that see no way for your statement to be true?
For reference we do 5X6 and finish with 5 hours to spare. Please post your maps and how quickly you finish if you quote or respond to me.
The "issue" of AQ energy is a matter of location. In order to clear 5 maps in 5 days, our start times are essentially locked. Because of this, the Asia/Pacific players typically miss the bulk of Phase 3, the Middle East players miss Phase 1 and the US don't really miss anything and get a free energy refill overnight. For me in NZ and my friends in Australia, our AQ ends when we go to bed even though there is 6+ hours left on the timer. We have the same ~17 hrs to play like everyone else, but we don't get the free overnight refill.
That being said, my international ally has setup BG's so that our online times complement one another so we're always moving forward. Very rarely do we run out of time while running map 5.
I would agree that reducing the timers would definitely make things easier for the international community though. Adding more capacity to the energy limit would only really benefit the US players as they're the only ones who have the luxury of full playing time before and after a night's sleep.
The current AQ/AW setup is designed so that players have to coordinate their efforts, but also so that you can't pop a single boost and clear the map (which is exactly how a lot of players clear the harder solo content).
Another suggestion would be to introduce timed "gateways". Essentially remove the energy system from AQ, but set it up so that Phase 2 doesn't open until 2-3hrs after the Phase 1 boss is KOd. All of the internal links would remain, so you'd still have to coordinate your attacks. Just a thought.
I'm not sure if you're being completely sarcastic, but in fact there is a way for @CoatHang3r 's statement to be true given the wording. I'm not saying he meant this (other posts suggest otherwise), but only that it parses this way. He doesn't say that 1 hour timers are inclusionary, he says the way AQ is designed with one hour timers is inclusionary. The timer is not designed arbitrarily. The AQ map itself was designed with the knowledge that the individual players will have a certain amount of energy to complete it. MCOC is balanced in part by energy costs: you can see this effect in how the energy costs for the monthly event changed when they added uncollected difficulty.
So technically speaking, an alternate design of AQ with timers were half hour would likely have a map twice as large and that could in fact be worse than a map at the current size with one hour timers.
This has nothing specifically to do with player suggestions to lower the timer, as the presumption behind that suggestion is in effect to grant players more energy to run the same content.
No I'm pretty sure it's just the Official Kabam position that with half hour timers some people in some time zones either are compelled to wake up every half hour to move, or they have to miss part of the map. Thus they are excluded or have undue pressure placed upon them and it is Very Detrimental. The fact that they give us 30 minute timers around the holidays as a treat gives the lie to this position, but that is the position. Whereas with one hour timers the map takes longer allowing more people a chance to participate and people can't be pressured to move when they have no energy, thus they are included. In actual fact some people get included and excluded either way and everyone has more options.
I’d say your counter was cunning but it's simply an argument from ignorance. Here’s a simple explanation I can type out on my phone.
The map is designed to require x moves by x people to complete/explore. Map 4/5 is 8(?)ppl and map6 is 10ppl. Maps 1/2/3 require much less and are likely the most played maps BTW.
Map5 could be cleared by 8 people over about 10 hours if the timers were halved. The lesser maps could likely be done much quicker.
The energy timer limits the amount of moves players can make over a period of time giving others the opprtiuntiy to participate.
Map5 and lower (with 30m) could be cleared while somone slept, worked, etc; they are excluded. With 1 hour timers you are gauranteed an oppritunity to take part in the quest because others will not be clearing it while you are otherwise occupied.
1)You are misrepresenting Kabam’s postion. Not sure if that’s willful or a result of the “telephone” game. It’s hyperbole and a strawn man. It is false.
2) During the holidays people will, by and large, want to spend thier time with family and doing things other than being distracted by mcoc. 30 minute timers during the holidays give players leeway to compete in the game during the holidays without much distubance to the harmony of alliances. The are not a treat, you are free to percieve them as such though but that perception does not support an argument.
It is hyperbole and it is mostly false, but it is also explicitly something @Kabam Miike said, and also reiterated when given the opportunity to retract the statement. He said in no uncertain terms that half hour timers were detrimental to at least some players, in that they encouraged other players in the alliance to compel them to move more often.
It wasn't the only thing he said about timers, but it is a real statement he made multiple times. More important, the first time he stated this was in a thread whose topic was why timers couldn't be reduced to help the players.
This seems unlikely to me because it presupposes that there's something special about Map 5. The timers do not exclude anyone in Map 6 because that map is engineered to require all ten players and the lower maps can be completed with fewer players even with the one hour timer. So its only with Map 5 that coincidentally one hour timers and half hour timers significantly shift this around (by my calculations Map 4 can be done by eight players in about ten hours with one hour timers, the same problem you claim for half hour timers in Map 5).
For that matter I don't see anything special about the ten hour timeframe. If the goal was to ensure the map couldn't be completed in eight hours, that would be consistent with trying to make sure the entire map couldn't be done during one person's sleep interval. But ten seems more arbitrary.
So because you get more energy while you sleep with 1/2 hour timers than you do with hour timers it causes alliance members to become angry. If my take was hyperbole the real quote is worse
You need to look at it from the persepctive of the people who designed it, they designed it to be played over a 24 hour period with x moves. If they changed the timers they would need to add more tiles to the map to make it playable over 24 hours and you would lose more steps to down time. Context.
Here’s what i know from personal experience with map 6 twice a week. Our paths are horribly set up based on avengers x’s maps or whatever; we have 4 people on the left for section 1 and 2 despite there being the same number of tiles on each side. On top of that 3 of the 4 people from left section 1 also run section 2 left and we still manage the map despite being set up to fail by requiring 4 people to use more energy than the other 6. There is lots of leeway built in sans 30 minute timers even with map 6.
Map 5 the first map 5 alliance i was ever in was, for the most part, a free for all of a mix of England and US, we failed less than 1% of the time. Plenty of leeway.
no pressure if my energy is full at some point cus it will accumlate quickly again.
It is only alliances that focus on full energy that cause a problem. As you run your map you know that at 6pm you should be here.... at 8pm you should be here... etc.... look at it that way... it doesnt matter how full everyones energy is aslong as you are not behind time. There is no need to finish the map in 10hrs just cus of 30 kins timers... slow down stress less, take it easy and it will easily be done in normal time with no stress...
I am relying upon memory, which is very clear about the conversation because I was an active participant in it. However, if you want some sort of proof of context, I can deliver that.
This was the thread where Kabam Miike first states that half hour timers are detrimental to many players, archived by the wayback machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20170425145416/http://community.kabam.com:80/forums/showthread.php?790847-New-aq-season-timers
Question: "Moderators can you answer why kabam refuses to implement 30 minute timers ?? as no one as ever honestly answered the question that the masses ask.."
Kabam Miike: "The entire mode was built for 1 hour timers. There is a careful balancing act that takes place between making it accessible for all players, and punishing those that can't be on all of the time. People seem to think this will make it easier for all players, but neglect to think about a majority of players that cannot check in every 2.5 hours. This is especially important to Alliances with players all over the world."
I will note that he posted this after you yourself posted: "AQ timers are part of the challenge/difficulty" and Kabam Miike didn't echo that (he didn't acknowledge energy balancing in the timers until long after these threads came and went in a completely different context).
Kabam Miike then referenced that response in the new AQ season thread here: https://web.archive.org/web/20170425101054/http://community.kabam.com:80/forums/showthread.php?790453-Alliance-Quest-Dormammu-s-Dominion-Discussion-Thread/page65 (unfortunately wayback didn't preserve the entire thread, but did catch his original statement as a quote). "Long story short, the mode is built for 1 hour timers, and having shorter timers doesn't make it easier for a lot of players, but makes it more demanding."
Kabam Miike then emphasized the fact that shorter energy timers are "more demanding" in another post: https://web.archive.org/web/20170425193559/http://community.kabam.com/forums/showthread.php?790453-Alliance-Quest-Dormammu-s-Dominion-Discussion-Thread&p=3512535
"We have been, but some people don't want to believe it. Think about members of Alliances in areas of the world where AQ starts at 1 am. Everybody starts with 3 energy. Within 2 hours, you'll have 5. If you sleep until 7 am, you've missed out on 4 potential Steps. That's not the worst thing in the world, for most alliances, you haven't held anybody back. If it were half an hour, you'll have missed put on 10 energy. You're now behind, players have Alliance members angry at them. This is very common and happens for a lot of Alliances. It's easy to believe that only your opinion is correct when it's in an echo chamber, but this game isn't for a select group of people. It's for players from all around the world."
For the third time, and with additional emphasis, Kabam Miike states that one hour timers are detrimental to many players, and in particular he emphasizes people across different time zones, and the fact that the cause of the problem is that other alliance members will be angry when they do not use the energy given with shorter timers. He specifically states that this problem is "very common."
I participated in many of the threads that referenced AQ timers at the time, and no context before or during could have been interpreted as Kabam ever stating the position that shorter energy timers were necessary for game balance. If you ask me, that is likely to be a design component of them and Kabam did acknowledge that as a balancing component much later. But we are not discussing game design theory, we are discussing what Kabam's *stated* position was. In *every* case where Kabam made a statement about shorter timers, that statement always revolved around the notion that shorter times were bad for "a lot" of players, and the reason why it is bad is because other players will be angry with players that don't use the extra surplus energy, and that this impacts players in timezones outside the continental US (referencing players for whom AQ starts in the middle of the night). There is no legitimate way to take the *statements* as anything other than their face value.
That doesn't respond to what I said. What I said was that your statement "Map5 and lower (with 30m) could be cleared while somone slept, worked, etc; they are excluded. With 1 hour timers you are gauranteed an oppritunity to take part in the quest because others will not be clearing it while you are otherwise occupied" is false on its face because maps lower than 5 can already be done with fewer than ten players in a short amount of time: in fact Map 4 can be done with eight players in 11 hours, which is essentially the problem you think half hour timers create for Map 5. The one hour timers do not prevent exclusion on lower maps, and they don't prevent exclusion on map 6. They only do so for map 5, assuming we accept your logic that being able to do the map in ten hours excludes other players. For the one hour timer to be significant according to your own logic, you have to presuppose that there's a special reason for making sure not to exclude two players from Map 5 that sleep for ten hours. Because that's not the case for any lower map.
But if you cant your energy may get full but if you log in after 5hrs you have 5 energy... same...
And it also means that those that can move a little more before bed/work amd it covers the time they wont be...
i dont understand how this can still be a discussion
Wenever half hour timers are run maps get done quicker with no stress.....
It would only be a problem with half hour timers if they also made the map bigger (and take more energy) to counter it.