[suggestion] PoF Meta predictability

And with daily demolisher, and the restoration of my hope of getting progress on the realm portal spiker achievement im beating this horse again:

Can we pretty please get some way to predict the time when PoF metas start? I'm specifically talking about junundu rising, maw of torment meta and hounds of war or whatever the meta for forged firebase is.(augury rock despie being a meta event, i haven't actually had any issues waiting for it to start amazingly because there's a clear order of events and iirc, not much waiting between the last event and the first event.)

One of the highlights of my time in PoF was waiting 40 minutes for junundu rising to start then failing to get the achievment anyway. 40 minutes of standing around doing nothing at all. Frankly i don't care what method should be used to get some way to predict the time/or induce the start of a meta, just anything is better than the current situation (which is no way to predict or push it forward.)

Potential methods

1- Global timer. The metas get put on a global timer, we can all predict the time because it happens at a specific time. While i do love global timers myself, a bunch of people don't, and i imagine with HoT being on a constant 2 hour cycle no one wants more timers for PoF even with smaller increments of time.

Upsides: Nothing is more predictable than a global timer. Downsides: People have to organise their schedules in accordance with timer, similarity to HoT.

2- "Local timer". As opposed to the above- A local timer, different in each map, cycles through events. Eg- event fails, timer goes to 20 minutes before the first event will start again. Event succeeds, x time to loot/leave and then timer goes to 15 minutes before event starts again. Crucially, a clear visual indicator for this time should be shown in meta box- this gives it the predictability.(i noticed earlier today that people have begun to predict the time when maw of torment starts- this implies the existance of local timer which is hidden to us.)

Upsides: Very predictable. Downsides: Still brings a wait, but i think as long as the timer is short enough the wait won't be much of a problem cus it gives time to assemble squad.

3- Kill x amount of mobs to induce the start. A little bit like istan, and a big bit like lake doric once a town has fallen- a bar of progress and all you have to do to fill it is slaughter mobs (or do local events.) This means players can induce the meta by killing, so if a group pops up wanting to do the meta all they need to do is get their squad to kill things until it starts. Once bar is filled meta starts, if meta fails or completes the bar INSTANTLY empties so people can instantly start contributing to it again.

Upsides: Gives squads the ability to push the meta for themselves. Downsides: Randoms just doing hearts and such will induce timer, and a group of people can easily troll organised groups by forcing meta start early and forcing group to wait even longer.

4- Minor event chains -> Meta event chain. So...like the temple of balthazar in orr kinda- do some minor, sometimes soloable events and once x events have been completed the big meta event chain starts. This would need more events implemented for...well, all of the mentioned metas really (tbh, that probably wouldn't be a downside in the case of the forged firebase, pretty much the longest heart in all of PoF cus killing enemies contributes so little to the heart...) cus only really the maw of torment has non-meta related events around it, and there's what, like 2 whole events (protect gates / patrol with redeemer kossan). Note though, those events shouldn't be like a mystery long time wait between them either, if events fail they should take a MAXIMUM of 10 minutes to appear again.

Upsides: More events in the related areas to do, predictable as squads can do events. Downsides: More events would need to be created, plus a way to deal with the fact that people will need some events that are pre events for stuff, but pre events may be inaccessable once they are completed.

These metas are already unappealing enough, and as they are with no way to predict or induce the start of them they remain even more unappealing (consider: even if they did add better rewards for meta, groups would still be stuck waiting around for 40 or insert time here minutes with no clue when it'll start, which is going to frustrate people to no end like it already does, and also as it already does ends up with people spending time in other maps asking for commander to ping the waypoint when it starts lmao)

I second this

@Lexi.1398 said:3- Kill x amount of mobs to induce the start. A little bit like istan, and a big bit like lake doric once a town has fallen- a bar of progress and all you have to do to fill it is slaughter mobs (or do local events.) This means players can induce the meta by killing, so if a group pops up wanting to do the meta all they need to do is get their squad to kill things until it starts. Once bar is filled meta starts, if meta fails or completes the bar INSTANTLY empties so people can instantly start contributing to it again.

Upsides: Gives squads the ability to push the meta for themselves. Downsides: Randoms just doing hearts and such will induce timer, and a group of people can easily troll organised groups by forcing meta start early and forcing group to wait even longer.

4- Minor event chains -> Meta event chain. So...like the temple of balthazar in orr kinda- do some minor, sometimes soloable events and once x events have been completed the big meta event chain starts. This would need more events implemented for...well, all of the mentioned metas really (tbh, that probably wouldn't be a downside in the case of the forged firebase, pretty much the longest heart in all of PoF cus killing enemies contributes so little to the heart...) cus only really the maw of torment has non-meta related events around it, and there's what, like 2 whole events (protect gates / patrol with redeemer kossan). Note though, those events shouldn't be like a mystery long time wait between them either, if events fail they should take a MAXIMUM of 10 minutes to appear again.

Upsides: More events in the related areas to do, predictable as squads can do events. Downsides: More events would need to be created, plus a way to deal with the fact that people will need some events that are pre events for stuff, but pre events may be inaccessable once they are completed.

Any of these 2 would make me happy

The timer would be nice. I'd like them to show up no matter where you are on the map.

Edit: local timer

@Edgy McEdgelord.4790 said:I second this

I third this.(Is this how this works? Beacuase the idea is very good and it would be great, If they snuck the Temples in Orr somewhere on the timer too and I know many ppl doing collections and achis would appreciate some kind of predictable method to trigger an event or estimate the time until it starts. Also, Augury Rock has been handled so smooth, the event chain is long but linear and there are less than 30 min between end and reset. I know not all event chains or metas follow that scheme, just wanted to mention a positive example of a locally timed event where you don't want to add a visible timer to the UI.)