Disentangle rift start times

[Ekcin 2,417]

As a consequence of the Jackal launch, all rift start times are now extremely close to one another. This was justified by the desire to allow all players on all servers to participate in Jackal opening, but now it causes issues.

 

All seven Freedom servers now start within less than 2 days, recently in a time span of about 32-34 hours, Independence as the first starting in my timezone at 2:30 AM (Central European TZ) day one, Exodus as the last server  at 11:59 AM the next day. That means that the already short timespan between Friday and Sunday for the Jackal launch has further concentrated.

 

And there is not much chance that this will ease by itself in the future, or only over a longer period. Consequence is significantly lower rift participation as much less people have a chance to find an open rift in their free time, and even most committed rift visitors are physically unable to visit more than about 2-3 rifts per week at maximum due to server crossing times.

 

Therefore, it is necessary to disentangle the rift start times by GM intervention. For example, The start of Independence could be advanced by 3 days, for Deliverance by 2 days, and Celebration by one day, while start of Release would be postponed 1 day, Exodus 2 days, Pristine and Xanadu remaining the same. That way, every server would, again, start roughly at a different date.

 

Edited September 20, 2019 by Ekcin

[Retrograde 12,013]

They'll start spreading out on their own, don't worry! 

[Finnn 3,321]

That have been a problem from day 1 rifts were a thing.... rng spawn times

You just got a random reset so all could get in jackal lands at the same time if they wanted, other than that.. nothing from usual nonsense with rift spawns have changed - they keep spawning at random annoying times that mostly never fit in people's schedules, nobody seemed to ever care that people can't participate, no amount of posts explaining the issue helped a thing to change.

[Ekcin 2,417]

In fact, spawn times are not RNG. Rather, the end of a rift determines the next start. This may be unfavourable sometimes, and leads to under-representation of off peak time zones due to lower number of participants and longer rift battles. On the other hand, those off peak battles have a certain attraction as they are more challenging, and promise better loot.

 

But other than Retrograde, I fail to see that the recent unfavourable spawn times will self repair within an acceptable time span. After having been artificially squeezed into a roughly 60hr timespan for Jackal start, they have further concentrated since, and show no tendency to fan out. Rift participation sharply dropped in consequence.

 

Maybe this will repair itself within a period of a year or so, or not, but that is not really a solution. In fact, GM messed up rift start times, albeit for a justifiable cause, but refusing to repair is no good policy.

Edited September 20, 2019 by Ekcin

[Thorinoakshield 603]

Spawn times of rifts are set by the time the previous one closes.

Closing times of rifts are set by how long it takes a group of players to close the rift. The more players are available to close a rift, the faster it closes, the "earlier" it'll open next time.

 

So what Retro said is correct. If it for example takes 3 hours to close the rift at Indy, 2.5 for the one at Release and 5 for Xan, the next ones will be spread out more. Have this a couple of time and eventually the rifts will happen with over a day between them; just like we had before Jackal.

 

So there's nothing to worry about.

 

 

As for rifts opening at "inconvinient" times.

Keep in mind we're having GLOBAL servers, not CONTINENTAL servers.

So no matter at what time the rift opens, for a certain group of players the time will ALWAYS  be inconvinient.

 

Thorin

[Finnn 3,321]

We all know about the 7+2days between spawns + time it takes from it's start until it's closed.. but that doesn't change that it's unreliable and random as you're forced to track the times(niarja does that for you) and hope you're free and have 1-3hours as you never know how big or well prepared team will be going there.

[Warjack 90]

I am pretty concerned about all the rift times lately xD, havent been at one for around 3 weeks because the times are impossible for me to attend. They are slowly getting in my time window soon though

[Ekcin 2,417]

@Thorin: It seems that you don't see the problem. That rift start times are revolving slowly at each server is known, and can be inconvenient. That is not the problem.

 

The problem is that before the GM messed up start times, rift starts took part at about 4-5 days of the week. Some clustered a bit, but there was a rift date to choose nearly every day of the week.

 

The Jackal update concentrated all rift starts within a period of less than 60 hours, and it has further concentrated since. There is practically no reasonable way to choose more than one, at most 2 rift dates per week. And it can take months, or even more, until this mess will clear a bit if at all. Because this situation exists globally, not continentally.

 

As the GM caused the mess, they should clear it, not just ignore and let the players suffer.

Edited September 20, 2019 by Ekcin

[Oblivionnreaver 5,175]

11 hours ago, Ekcin said:

That means that the already short timespan between Friday and Sunday for the Jackal launch has further concentrated.

Independence

6PM Fri UTC

Release

10PM Sat UTC

That's 28 hours from the first freedom rift to the last freedom rift, it's now 

2019-09-25 03:00 PM

2019-09-26 07:59 PM

28 hours and 59 minutes. not sure what your definition of concentrated is.

11 hours ago, Ekcin said:

Consequence is significantly lower rift participation

that's because everyones on jackal.

 

with one of the rifts taking 14 and a half hours i don't think they'll stay around the same time zone for long. or maybe they'll end up like rifts on epic and never get done, who knows

[Ekcin 2,417]

2 hours ago, Oblivionnreaver said:

Independence

6PM Fri UTC

Release

10PM Sat UTC

That's 28 hours from the first freedom rift to the last freedom rift, it's now 

2019-09-25 03:00 PM

2019-09-26 07:59 PM

28 hours and 59 minutes. not sure what your definition of concentrated is.

that's because everyones on jackal.

with one of the rifts taking 14 and a half hours i don't think they'll stay around the same time zone for long. or maybe they'll end up like rifts on epic and never get done, who knows

 

I stand corrected. At Jackal launch, rift dates were even more concentrated than I had assumed. There was a spread out of less than one hour since, within 3 weeks. This trend going on, rift dates may be spread over 1 day more within the next 72 weeks or less than one and a half year. In five or six years, the mess the GM caused may have been settled that way, but hardly earlier. Moreover, there is no guarantee that the dates will spread out significantly at all.

 

That is what I meant. The clustering of rift starts is unsustainable. And it is not only because some people are on Jackal. It was always the case that rifts at uncommon times were less visited. But now, it is virtually impossible to visit 1, or at most 2 rifts per week, and if those are falling into an unfavorable day of the week, even none. Before, you could practically always choose a rift date during the weekend, now you may have to wait for weeks until a rift date on weekend will occur altogether.

 

And, to emphasize again: It was completely in order to concentrate rift starts at one weekend for the Jackal launch. But it is not in order to flatly refuse to tidy up the mess, and let players suffer from.

Edited September 20, 2019 by Ekcin

[Thorinoakshield 603]

3 hours ago, Ekcin said:

@Thorin: It seems that you don't see the problem. That rift start times are revolving slowly at each server is known, and can be inconvenient. That is not the problem.

 

The problem is that before the GM messed up start times, rift starts took part at about 4-5 days of the week. Some clustered a bit, but there was a rift date to choose nearly every day of the week.

 

The Jackal update concentrated all rift starts within a period of less than 60 hours, and it has further concentrated since. There is practically no reasonable way to choose more than one, at most 2 rift dates per week. And it can take months, or even more, until this mess will clear a bit if at all. Because this situation exists globally, not continentally.

 

As the GM caused the mess, they should clear it, not just ignore and let the players suffer.

For the record, the very first rifts all started at the same time at the various servers.

They got spread out up to the point where we were before Jackal launched over the past years.

 

So I'm pretty confident that rifts will spread out in the future again; all depending at how fast they are closed.

 

The ONLY reason all rifts were at the same time, is to make sure each and every server had an equal chance to get to Jackal after a rift was closed.

So perhaps you see it as "GM's messing up"; but I see it as a very player friendly way to give each and everyone an equal chance to join Jackal.

 

However, since we got a Jackal reset after it's been active for 6 months, it's likely rift-times will all be reset to the same time as well.

I s'pose by then we get over all this crap  again?

 

Thorin