The change to AT scheduling is just bad

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

Idea for weekly AT, idea for 2v2 AT, this was cool.

But chopping off AT frequency where we have to wait till 5:00 pm eastern before they even start running, and then we only get them at 5:00 pm, 8:00 pm, 11:00 pm, 2:00 am, is just bad. This is the most disappointing thing I've seen changed in pvp yet. I mean what the hell is this?

First of all, some of us are most active in the earlier hours of the day and we go to sleep earlier. Now we just don't get to play ATs anymore? Maybe get to play just one a day, the 8:00 reset. I don't understand what the goal was here. Lately, prime time has shifted. 8:00 pm reset may be the central prime time "because it is actual server reset" but in all seriousness, there are more players online in the pvp lobby playing between the hours of say 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm, than there is from 8:00 pm to 11:00 pm. There are honestly more people playing pvp earlier in the day than there are at night nowadays. Even early morning, I'm talking say 6:00 am to say 4:00 pm, has been much more active in pvp than say 10:00 pm to 2:00 am. The execution of this AT scheduling is all off.

Secondly, this is highly disappointing because ATs were the only matches left that actually had a certain level of quality to them. The only place you can still form 5 man teams to go against 5 man teams, to be able to avoid win trading. The only place where you were ensured some good matches where full plat+ teams go against full plat+ teams. Is Arenanet not aware of how many people are hanging around the pvp lobby specifically for ATs? We're going to lose a lot of regulars from the community who normally frequent ATs throughout the day every 3 hours, because now there is no reason to play this mode unless you're on some kind of 3rd shift schedule for being awake.

People are pretty confused about what the goal was here, because it looks like this was intended to push people away from the game mode. This wasn't a "slight alteration we have to get used to" like other things in the past, no. This changed has effectively removed the AT game mode for some people who are not able to operate on a 3rd shift schedule. There are many many people who let go of the ranked game mode years ago because you guys let the cheating go too far. These players will leave GW2 before they go back to that mode. And they aren't interested in unranked either because it's too casual. Removing ATs like this removed the only reason why they're still here in the community.

This was a bad idea boys. Might want to consider turning these back on for those of us who play through the day.

 

 

[Sahne.6950]

Waiiiit..... are you saying that "reducing the frequency of AT´s" did not help the gamemode, instead it is yet again another Halfbaked change , that straight up hurts pvp, instead of improving it, because its excluding a huge chunck of the remaining playerbase!? 😯  

Noone could have seen this coming! /s

 

Atleast the Djinn´s dominion rework is good, right? 🥕 🎣  🧑‍🦯

Edited July 18 by Sahne.6950

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

I guess what they were going for was a narrower scope so they could monitor tournaments for wintrading by squeezing everyone into timeslots where there would be less room for shenanigans.

It's a bold strategy. It'll make paying for prizes harder to turn over.  Maybe, if they're smart, the new game mode will pick up the people lazing about the arena looking for something to do.

If that IS the plan I would communicate it quickly, since Trevor's notion is correct.  The slots should have something looser filling them. 

Edited July 18 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[arazoth.7290]

5 hours ago, Sahne.6950 said:

Waiiiit..... are you saying that "reducing the frequency of AT´s" did not help the gamemode, instead it is yet again another Halfbaked change , that straight up hurts pvp, instead of improving it, because its excluding a huge chunck of the remaining playerbase!? 😯  

Noone could have seen this coming! /s

 

Atleast the Djinn´s dominion rework is good, right? 🥕 🎣  🧑‍🦯

But I like the new djin change 🥺. A lot faster to get the buff in and out

[Vancho.8750]

Old man Trevor complains about his bed time schedule.

Old Man screams at clouds moment.

Kinda on Trevor's side though, not because of ATs schedules and what not, but for wasting time on them. Most people didn't play them before cause they got rolled and wont play them now for the same reason. It was fine as is.

Do tournaments even have 400 people playing them across EU and NA? Pretty sure they don't.
Tournaments are kind failed mode that has taken too much development time for literal minority of players. Like the core mode of pvp is in shambles but ATs get most of the development, which is kitten all in the grand scheme of things, but it would have been better spend to cater to the new (if pvp even gets them anymore) and average player, cause pvp ain't fun and if there are not people in the normal queues there would no new players in the ATs in the long run. All the goobers and MacGuffins for the 20 players that win the AT ain't making your average player to play or even care for PVP.

 

[youle.5824]

6 hours ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

I guess what they were going for was a narrower scope so they could monitor tournaments for wintrading by squeezing everyone into timeslots where there would be less room for shenanigans.

It's a bold strategy. It'll make paying for prizes harder to turn over.  Maybe, if they're smart, the new game mode will pick up the people lazing about the arena looking for something to do.

If that IS the plan I would communicate it quickly, since Trevor's notion is correct.  The slots should have something looser filling them. 

You think they reduced amount of ats to monitor wintrading ??? lmao . Thats some next lvl delulu. They reduced amount to balance out the higher gold input from weekly ats. Imagine thinking good teams need to wintrade ats lol. 

Edited July 18 by youle.5824

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

23 minutes ago, youle.5824 said:

You think they reduced amount of ats to monitor wintrading ??? lmao . Thats some next lvl delulu. They reduced amount to balance out the higher gold input from weekly ats. Imagine thinking good teams need to wintrade ats lol. 

If that's the case, they could have you know, just halved the gold rewards?

They shouldn't have removed the one mode where you could play the game of conquest the way it was meant to be played, 5man vs. 5man.

The schedule they chose for this simply does not accommodate the majority of NA players, and I'm not just talking "who we think are the pvp people", I'm talking everyone who plays GW2 at all. Anyone who actually pves in this game knows there is a massive dip in activity between the hours of about 10:00 pm to about 6:00 am in the morning. LFGs to join things like fractals becomes pretty thin, and general map activity becomes barren as well. With wvw reset nights, we get a boom of activity around 9:00 pm to about 12:00 midnight, and then even with wvw resets, activity begins to really drop off past midnight. On normal wvw nights, we see most activity from around 6:00 pm to about 10:00 pm and then things map population goes like 1/4th of day time hours from about 12:00 midnight to noon next day.

So what the hell is this AT arrangement? They seriously situated these AT start times in the lowest population hours for not only pvp NA players, but also just NA players in general of all modes. I mean this looks sarcastic. They had to have known what they were doing. Regardless, they should address the community on this one. There are a lot of people who are upset about this. The AT community like enjoyed being able to have a reason to get together every 3 hours and form a party to see/play with each other, but now that has been removed for those of us who aren't living on a 3rd shift schedule.

Edited July 18 by Trevor Boyer.6524

[youle.5824]

I am not defending their decision, just explaining the most likely reason behind.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

1 hour ago, youle.5824 said:

Imagine thinking good teams need to wintrade ats lol. 

They don't, but they're not all good teams.

Quote

You think they reduced amount of ats to monitor wintrading ??? lmao . Thats some next lvl delulu. They reduced amount to balance out the higher gold input from weekly ats.

*shrug* idc one way or the other, but if this were the case they could have staggered the times throughout the day, adjusted the rewards themselves, etc. There's cleaner ways to do it that don't involve wedging everything into a nine hour max block.

if your aim is to have someone peek in on the tourneys through the day though-

 

Edited July 18 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[Mne Malo Tebya.2965]

1 hour ago, youle.5824 said:

They reduced amount to balance out the higher gold input from weekly ats

For what reason would they do that?

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

2 hours ago, Vancho.8750 said:

Do tournaments even have 400 people playing them across EU and NA? Pretty sure they don't.
Tournaments are kind failed mode that has taken too much development time for literal minority of players.

ATs are the most competitive environment, so of course it will have the least amount of players who are willing to participate. It's always been that way and tournament modes are this same way in every game. Modes like Unranked/Ranked are designed for "everyone", well are supposed to be at least. Tournament modes are designed for the top end of the player base.

The population in NA at least, that queues ATs all day, is higher than you're giving it recognition for. At any time of day, we're getting at least 4 to 6 teams. That's 20 to 30 players queueing even a low pop AT. Then usually the 5:00 pm, 8:00 pm ATs have a high chance of having 6 to 8 or sometimes even 10 to 12 teams participating. This is 30 to 40 people at the least queueing in for those ATs, and quite often actually we see those 10-12 team ATs and that's like 50 to 60 people queueing in. And usually once or twice a week we'll get reset ATs that are 14-16 teams, which is 70 to 80 players queueing in man. Then our MATs are usually like 20 to 24 teams participating, which is around 100 to 120 people.

Despite the peak numbers at daily reset, the majority of these people who were participating, was coming from the timeframes of around 8:00 am to 8:00 pm eastern. The timeframes from 8:00 pm to 8:00 am, sees literally half the numbers of representation. And this is what I mean, it just doesn't make sense why they would situate AT start times during those hours.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

Someone's on an Eastern time zone with this take.  

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

41 minutes ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

Someone's on an Eastern time zone with this take.  

Yeah that's pretty much NA my guy.

If you go west all the way over to California, it'll go 3 hours back, so their ATs would be starting 2:00 pm for them, keep on at 5:00 pm, 8:00 pm, 11:00 pm. Which, if you lived way out west in Cali, that isn't too bad of a schedule. But let's not get distracted by which bad schedule is the better of the bad schedules, because what we are looking at is indeed bad scheduling. Even with California Pacific time zone, not EVERYONE plays between the hours of 2:00 pm to 11:00 pm. No matter how you look at this, they're just bumming out people who can't log into these AT blocks they've concocted.

[Val.2980]

I agree. The changes to the Automated Tournaments are bad and will be worse when Daylight Savings Time starts.

Edited July 19 by Val.2980

[Eurantien.4632]

West Coast Best Coast. Times are solllliiiiid

[Devi Mevi.6928]

Meanwhile Australia and Asia:

Hey, why don't we start the first tournament at 9-10pm and the last one at 6-7 am? :'D

[Anthonev.6452]

Try being an Aussie with the new times, I basically can't do tournaments now.

I mean all the new special event ones along with the monthly are between 4:45-5:45AM and the time NEVER CHANGES. So totally excluded from all them, reason I've never done a monthly.

Now, with only 4 normal ones, first it at 6:45AM, so yeah, great time, basically as bad as the monthly/Specials.

Then 9:45AM, so start of working day, then 12:45PM, so middle of lunch, then 6:45PM, so middle of dinner.

So if anyone is wondering why they haven't seen me and my Ranger in a tournament since the change, that's why and I basically won't be ever again.

And before anyone replies, no, I'm not going to try and rearrange my life around the schedule of a video game. If it comes to that, I just stop playing.

On a side note, just as well I already have the legendary items I need from tournaments, imagine how hard it would be now to get those wins......

[maxwelgm.4315]

18 hours ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

ATs are the most competitive environment, so of course it will have the least amount of players who are willing to participate. It's always been that way and tournament modes are this same way in every game. Modes like Unranked/Ranked are designed for "everyone", well are supposed to be at least. Tournament modes are designed for the top end of the player base.

The population in NA at least, that queues ATs all day, is higher than you're giving it recognition for. At any time of day, we're getting at least 4 to 6 teams. That's 20 to 30 players queueing even a low pop AT. Then usually the 5:00 pm, 8:00 pm ATs have a high chance of having 6 to 8 or sometimes even 10 to 12 teams participating. This is 30 to 40 people at the least queueing in for those ATs, and quite often actually we see those 10-12 team ATs and that's like 50 to 60 people queueing in. And usually once or twice a week we'll get reset ATs that are 14-16 teams, which is 70 to 80 players queueing in man. Then our MATs are usually like 20 to 24 teams participating, which is around 100 to 120 people.

Despite the peak numbers at daily reset, the majority of these people who were participating, was coming from the timeframes of around 8:00 am to 8:00 pm eastern. The timeframes from 8:00 pm to 8:00 am, sees literally half the numbers of representation. And this is what I mean, it just doesn't make sense why they would situate AT start times during those hours.

Those numbers are a bit surprising. It would imply a group of players are chain playing ATs practically every day - unless we would assume there really is a weekly rotation where different ~30 players go to ATs every day of the week, which is in itself also doubtful. You are a regular AT player yourself - do you play them as often as conceivable? Do you notice people going in on their alts for ATs as well?

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

35 minutes ago, maxwelgm.4315 said:

Those numbers are a bit surprising. It would imply a group of players are chain playing ATs practically every day - unless we would assume there really is a weekly rotation where different ~30 players go to ATs every day of the week, which is in itself also doubtful. You are a regular AT player yourself - do you play them as often as conceivable? Do you notice people going in on their alts for ATs as well?

Nah it's just a time zone thing. This is what I used to see when ATs ran all day, and I would run at least 3 or 4 of them a day myself:

• Certain players with religious schedules. Clearly these are people who go to school, work, and/or have families to tend to. I'd usually see this particular people logging in and then logging out and very specific times of day. Like you can catch a couple guys in the morning for morning AT, but you'll never seem them queueing any other time of day outside of the time they wake up early to drink coffee and catch an hour or two of free time before they go to work or w/e it is they do with their day. Likewise, it's the same thing with prime time players, completely different demographic of people who are home and playing at that time, and you very rarely ever see them earlier in the day unless they have a day off or something.
• Certain players who log in sporadically. Some people don't seem to have a hard school/work/family schedule to regulate their day, but they also don't play the game manically for elongated amounts of time either. These are the types of players I'd usually see in an AT or two throughout the day, and it just seems random. I could see them in the morning or mid day or late at night going into the early hours of the morning. But I notice these people don't play for elongated amounts of time, but they can log in at any time.
• Certain players who play all day long. There are some players who go through these phases where they are seriously playing all day long. Well, sort of. Like they'll sit idle and let their game run, but then when 3 hour AT rolls around, they come back to get into a team. And the only time they aren't online, is when they are sleeping. There are certain people who I could mention by name who would still be doing this if they hadn't turned off 3 hour cycle ATs. Now that these are off, I haven't been seeing these people often lately outside of maaaaybe the 5:00 pm AT. Most of them by the late hours are either sleeping or have moved off to do pve daily reset stuff. THIS was the demographic of people who made up at least roughly 50% of NA's active AT community. And just as I said, they are now moving away from the game mode because queueing unranked or win traded ranked all day just aint the same feeling as making your own 5man team and going against other good 5man teams.

But within what I said here ^ this is what was adding up to those numbers I mentioned. For such a low pop in NA, there really was a lot of people playing ATs.

It was a bad call on Arenanet's part to deactivate the only mode left where you could play conquest the way it was meant to be played.

Edited July 19 by Trevor Boyer.6524