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Ideal AM Playing Time
tekkn1kal
Posts: 430
What is your ideal playing time for AM? Please consider times based on US PST. So, when I say early to mid-day, that would mean something like 6 AM - 12 AM PST.
Feel free to expand on your poll result with explanation of why this time works best for you!
Feel free to expand on your poll result with explanation of why this time works best for you!
Ideal AM Playing Time 45 votes
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Weekends are generally bad for me, especially during the day.
While it is obvious that every possible schedule is going to be bad for someone, I think I fall directly in to the time zone that the "majority" of the players are in, so I tend to think that many users will echo my concerns.
Really, though, the worst thing about the change to me, is that the "US majority" will lack that "recharge time" that we are used to overnight. This same "recharge period" will now come at a time where AM is either already completed, or AM will likely be over by the time you wake up.
This will result in the majority of the players staring at 0/5 or 1/5 energy throughout the day. Further, it will remove that period of the map, usually occurring when people woke up, where you could rattle off a bunch of nodes with everyone all on at the same time.
Instead of that coordinated rapid-fire effort occurring once at the start of the map, and again around the mid-way point of the map, it will now be replaced with a lot of scenarios where people are being waited on to log back on to use their one energy.
These situations create frustration for everyone. IMO the old schedule was nearly perfect. MOST people are around at the previous start time to be able to kick off the AM, you could clear thru the second mini boss, then go to sleep, and everyone wakes up with full energy to push through the second half of the map.
Things are even worse now for your average international player, as the time they would normally be able to log on and carve through a bit of the map, waiting for the US players to get back online, is now the window at the end, when AM had better be completed already anyways.
The logistics just don't make sense.
Like we've said in the past (and you did as well), we know that no time is perfect for everybody, but we are totally open to possibly changing the series start and end in the future.
No worries! I didn't feel that way at all, but wanted to make sure you know that we have talked about this internally as well
This time change (based on US clientele) is VERY difficult for the working adult as the start time is when the average adult is either getting ready for work or on their way to work. In conjunction with what Tekk said, the 8-10 hours of recharge time while sleeping is now nonexistent.
This also hurts some players that rely on their AM team of bots to help in missions, raids, etc. So an average BG starts (old way) at 8pm EST and the soonest that I've ever seen finished (that I partook in) was 10am EST the next day (recharge time, players in different locations, etc). So that's 14 hours. Under the new change, that would be 10pm EST. Now people are going back to bed. I'm sure there's varying situations depending on time zones but you get the general idea.
This is a real head scratcher because of all the new additions, chips, etc and that no new things were really added to the milestones in AM, you can earn back and then some in other ways without tying up your best bots in AM, it may just cause people/alliances just to skip certain AM's all together if they can earn more T3's, T2A, bot chips in SLM's, Arena's, Raid's, etc.
Based on the previous time schedule the am started during our night (02 am). So we started am around 06-07 am, when the first players woke up. We were almost forced to complete it in the evening since no time was left for completion the next morning. However, we managed most of the time to complete it around 10 pm.
In the new scheme we start 02 pm (thus not as above mentioned we only have a few hours to play before going to sleep).
At first, we were concerned about the night. But we never had thought about our energy which is fully recharged when we wake up. Reading the above posts it looks like an advantage but we never faced it.
All together I think that it looks like harder than it will be for completion despite the time AM is started.
I totally agree which is said above with regard to the days of AM. The weekends should be OFF en not ON.
During weekend I really want to use my top bots for completion of the hardest Spotlight Missions (Expert Mode for example). With the current schedule I expect my bots to be stuck in AM the whole day and thus whole weekend).
Just a thought, if it needs to be morning in the US for start time why not 8am PST instead of 5am?
Europe and Asia would get afternoon/evening start times
All time zones in the US would generally be awake (sorry Hawaii) and into their morning rather than just starting it and should a group be running behind at the end, the possibility of an early morning blitz is still possible.
I actually think it would fit great for your schedule, since you are all European. Europeans in mixed alliances probably will have a less comfortable fit, like Sabugen was talking about above.
I'm from Europe, and a working dad of two young kids. Most of my AM action I get (got) done early morning before everyone else in my house got up on weekdays (usually about 4 hours into an AM, always last to join). And then the occasional toilet break in work after I got a morning of work done. I'm lucky to be in a very good and very active alliance that wraps up AM in about 12 hours from start to finish which meant that my AMs were done around 2pm EU time. Perfect. Got evening to myself with family, and GF after kids are in bed. No game obligations. Weekends were a little more difficult because everyone has stuff to do, stays up late, wakes up later, bit more out of sync there, would typically take 14-15 hours to complete running into the afternoon for me. Never my most active part of the day as my GF and I both have full-time jobs, we like to spend some time with the kids in the weekend and, if at all possible, do something outside the house.
Now with the change what I am foreseeing, or rather am afraid of, is that during my work hours, I get to play for about 3 hours before I go home, cook, eat, bath kids, put em to bed, etc. Then if I don't have my volleyball practice in the evening, my GF does like some attention and does not appreciate me playing on my phone very much. And we go to bed at the same time (Yuck! I know...) I would like to keep this one as my GF for a while longer...
Then there is the weekends .... with starting time at 2pm my afternoon ... basically I'll be able to sneak some fights in, but won't be very responsive or pro-active as I'm most likely doing something else.
So yeah there's my story. Last couple AMs were absolutely perfect as the dead-zone had just shifted to overlap with the weekend so I couldn't be happier. Then this gets announced that 50% of the AMs will be in the weekends, always, and not just that, but also to when I'm least available. I hope it won't be as bad as I'm afraid it'll be. We'll find out.
ps. I voted Weekday late night, because late night PST means (early) morning for me.
Weekday or weekend afternoon to evening is pretty much the old one.
This would be better but like others have said why even change the times. Everything seemed to be much better balanced. As it stands now unless we rush through and actually finish those on East Coast time will almost always have top bots in AM unless we start late. In addition we have to wait for anyone further West to start.
This just makes no sense, worse than usual.
AM used to start at 8PM EST. That meant I could go in, slaughter some bots make some moves, run the arena, raid, then go to sleep. Wake up and I have 5 moves ready to go. Also my AM team they do the same. We now have half of a BG team that may be in bed if we don't finish by 11PM EST. We probably will finish before then, but how am I supposed to play the rest of the game?
Here is my schedule, I wake up at 6AM EST to get ready for work. While I get ready I log into the game, kill bots, kiss the wife, kiss the kids and off on my commute. By the time I get to the office I have one AM mission energy, ready to roll. Login, crush a bot, run some arenas maybe a raid then I move on. Now its work time....work away, login kill some bots, maybe buy some extra energy and BOOM...down goes Shockwave faster than Tyson rolled through boxers in his prime.
This is 11AM EST Total time in AM 14hrs. However I now I have the rest of the day to raid, run arenas etc. At this current schedule, I do not. If we finish today by 8PM that is 12hrs, not only is that quick for us, its clearly a cash grab by you because in order to do that, we need to by AM energy which is conveniently located next to the raid chips that we can cash in for energon today.
Listen you want us to play and we want to play. You want us to spend money and we want to spend money (on things we actually want or need) but lets compromise.
Keep the schedule at 4 days on and 3 days off but move the time back to the original start time. This is not something people can easily adjust to especially people on the East Coast of the US.
Explain to me how on this planet you expect us to actually play anything else while in AM all day? Alot of us have a job. How are we supposed to sleep? Pretty sure this is going to push me out of AMs all together same as half the other guys on here. BTW all of these guys posting have been around since the start of this game like myself. Thanks
This is me exactly, usually would end up with a nice 12 hours to run spotlight etc. Now ill be lucky to have 2 hours with my top bots available.
We did rearrange bgs with the change in mind and will make tweaks as we go
Yes it’s a 180 from what we are use to but you could potentially be done by evening and do your other stuff with bots free or spend time with your families
For those who have already shared their opinions, I imagine there is not much new to be said, but I would like to hear from those who were reserving judgement, as well as anyone who has changed their position.
How did the change affect your day-to-day? If Kabam leaves it this way, how does that sit with you? Progress report, please!
Your experience is certainly valuable, because it shows what can be done if you run your lanes optimally and don't leave wasted energy on the board. However, I'm also curious to get more of a broad idea from many; how the less organized alliances are faring.