Nothing is more frustrating than completing an event and not getting rewards because the 20 hour time limit is not up.
If we have to live with these limitations, at least have the remaining time counting down somewhere.
Indeed, some sort of timer would be a great quality of life improvement.
Just looking at the clock and re-doing the event at the same time of day works if you have just one or a small number of alts, but when you have some 20 odd like me you really need to keep track of them.
Personally, I start an R&D research project (which takes 20 hours) as a proxy for an in-game timer, which I find works pretty well. But it would be more straightforward if the game could just tell you what's going on.
I use the R&D 20h projects, the ones rewarding school xp, i start as soon as i log into the character so it's pretty precise.
I usually start DOffing as soon as I get on, so any Research Lab DOffs may get sent on assignments instead, particularly on alts that may only have one. Also, on my crafting chars, those slots can be quite useful to not have clogged with a 20-hour thing for something I may not care about.
Also, it's entirely possible to have all Schools at 20 and recent change removes the 20-hour assignments when that School is at 20, so this might not even work at all for a small number of people.
The 20-hour timer is just for the Shard. Some people run the Mission multiple times during the day to build up Marks for multiple Reputations. So changing the timer off the 30-minute Cooldown is ludicrous.
Keep the Queue timer at 30 minutes, and institute a Project Special Reward timer for 20 hours. Concept can then be used for any of the Special PVE Event Queues. Put the timer right on the Project.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Having it based on a fixed reset time would still require a visible timer to tell people when the reset happens. Otherwise, a player could play "Friday at 7 PM and Saturday at 10 AM," only to realize the reset does not happen between those times.
And with trial and error as the only way to find out when it does happen.
They would do it at one of the slow times. So if I do the Event on Saturday at 1 AM and do it 2 hours later, then I could get credit for Friday and Saturday. Might have to be in some place like Asia where the play Friday at 7 PM and Saturday at 10 AM to not work properly.
No matter what time it is, it wouldn't work for someone. People would complain.
Also, what makes you think 1 AM in your timezone is a slow time for the entire world?
I made this post out of frustration because I was very ill the day before and couldn't remember when I last played the mission. I figured it was sometime during the afternoon so I gave it a shot and was wrong.
20 hours is an odd number, almost like they meant it to be hard to keep track of to make people play more trying to get the rewards. (Metrics!!)
How about 12 hours instead if we can't get a timer?
20 hours is an odd number, almost like they meant it to be hard to keep track of to make people play more trying to get the rewards. (Metrics!!)
How about 12 hours instead if we can't get a timer?
No, it's not. In simple terms, "once per day" would translate to 24 hours. But because that would necessarily cause your schedule to slip forward each day so there's 4 hours of "buffer" to it to increase flexibility.
Even 12 or 24 hours is extremely inconvenient due to schedule slip and inevitably makes players miss the time unless they're able to play at any hour.
Having it based on a fixed reset time would still require a visible timer to tell people when the reset happens. Otherwise, a player could play "Friday at 7 PM and Saturday at 10 AM," only to realize the reset does not happen between those times.
And with trial and error as the only way to find out when it does happen.
They would do it at one of the slow times. So if I do the Event on Saturday at 1 AM and do it 2 hours later, then I could get credit for Friday and Saturday. Might have to be in some place like Asia where the play Friday at 7 PM and Saturday at 10 AM to not work properly.
No matter what time it is, it wouldn't work for someone. People would complain.
Also, what makes you think 1 AM in your timezone is a slow time for the entire world?
People will always complain. It is all about trying to keep the majority of the people content with a certain change. Considering that STO is based in North America, then STO will base any reset time around North America since they don't have European servers. Cryptic has already set 2 AM PST for their daily quest reset time in Neverwinter so if they decide to add it to STO, then it would likely be the same.
Neverwinter and lots of other MMOs already have a daily quest reset time for the server instead of it being for each character. Knowing when the daily quest reset time for the server is a lot better than being limited to when you can play the game. The problem with the 20 hour timer is that it limits player to play at about the same time or later or else they miss a day. Not everyone can play the same time every day since they might have shift work or some other reason.
As shown by my example of playing it Friday at 7 PM and Saturday at 10 AM. A person comes home from work or school on Friday to play the event at 7 PM. In order to get credit for Saturday with a 20 hour timer, then they have to play at 3 PM or later. Lots of people are busy on Saturday so the only time they can play the event is in the morning. If they can't play in the morning, then they can't get credit for Saturday. A daily quest reset time will allow players to play when they want to get credit for the day. If my daily quest reset time is 2 PM, then I can Friday at 7 PM and Sunday at 2 AM and still get credit for Friday and Saturday.
Having it based on a fixed reset time would still require a visible timer to tell people when the reset happens. Otherwise, a player could play "Friday at 7 PM and Saturday at 10 AM," only to realize the reset does not happen between those times.
And with trial and error as the only way to find out when it does happen.
They would do it at one of the slow times. So if I do the Event on Saturday at 1 AM and do it 2 hours later, then I could get credit for Friday and Saturday. Might have to be in some place like Asia where the play Friday at 7 PM and Saturday at 10 AM to not work properly.
No matter what time it is, it wouldn't work for someone. People would complain.
Also, what makes you think 1 AM in your timezone is a slow time for the entire world?
People will always complain. It is all about trying to keep the majority of the people content with a certain change. Considering that STO is based in North America, then STO will base any reset time around North America since they don't have European servers. Cryptic has already set 2 AM PST for their daily quest reset time in Neverwinter so if they decide to add it to STO, then it would likely be the same.
The dilithium refining reset in STO is at midnight GMT, so if they decide to add any more daily resets, then it would likely be the same.
Or something entirely different. Guesses...yours, mine, as good as.
12 hours means you get to do this more often and Cryptic will have none of that. They won't get their metrics in daily logins as you could conceivably run it twice a day without much of a sweat. Then you're done in 7 days. You could, if you slotted them in the past, do three different Crystalline Projects in the 21-day Event. Not likely but very possible.
20 hours was picked to allow players to get out of a daily 'rut' so to speak. For example, you run the Event at 11 PM on a weekend night, now you are stuck running it at that time on Weekday (normally work) night unless you skip a day. 20 hours gets you back to a more manigible 7 PM. (Your mileage may vary depending on your work days, work hours, or even if you work).
People have been complaining about that 24-hour timer still on the New Romulus Epohh Projects for years (don't think they fixed that yet like they did with Risa Bird and Monkey Projects).
Post edited by ltminns on
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
I ran this event two times before the 20 hrs was up on 2 of my alts. That's when I started doing only 20 hr Doff missions right after each character does the event.
It may limit my Doffing, but personally I'd much rather that than running the event and not gotting a shard.
event timer would be nice. I've run across that a few times too; complete an event and get no item. At least there are work-arounds:
1.) set a 20hr doff mission
2.) grab a freaking piece of paper and write it down!
Sometimes I think I play STO just to have something to complain about on the forums.
I just run one of the R&D 20 hour school project's, or one of the reputation 20 hour/daily projects for something like this.
edit: Also, if you happen to get on at about the same time or later the next day the 20 hour timer for it would already be up. though that might not always be the case for when people may or may not be able to get online. etc. *shrugs*
as i only run the missions once a day on 6 characters usually at around the same time I have very little problems with the lack of a 20hr timer, having said that there have been occasions when I have run the missions early but I can usually work out what time I need to start playing to be sure to get the project token.
its not that hard to work out as there is a 20 hour cooldown for the project token I know if i allow 21 hours or more before playing again I will be not have the inconvenience of a wasted attempt.
sure it would be sweet if there was something to indicate whether you will get the token or not when you play a queued mission but the devs obviously think there are more important issues in the game that require their time especially as there are numerous work around's that players can use to compensate for the lack of a timer.
pen and paper is one, 20hr doff or R&D project are others, mobile phone with an app that allows multiple count down alarms all set for 20hrs and titled with characters names like the dupacount app for the android is yet another.
Comments
Indeed, some sort of timer would be a great quality of life improvement.
Just looking at the clock and re-doing the event at the same time of day works if you have just one or a small number of alts, but when you have some 20 odd like me you really need to keep track of them.
Personally, I start an R&D research project (which takes 20 hours) as a proxy for an in-game timer, which I find works pretty well. But it would be more straightforward if the game could just tell you what's going on.
I usually start DOffing as soon as I get on, so any Research Lab DOffs may get sent on assignments instead, particularly on alts that may only have one. Also, on my crafting chars, those slots can be quite useful to not have clogged with a 20-hour thing for something I may not care about.
Also, it's entirely possible to have all Schools at 20 and recent change removes the 20-hour assignments when that School is at 20, so this might not even work at all for a small number of people.
Keep the Queue timer at 30 minutes, and institute a Project Special Reward timer for 20 hours. Concept can then be used for any of the Special PVE Event Queues. Put the timer right on the Project.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Also, what makes you think 1 AM in your timezone is a slow time for the entire world?
There's one hidden countdown. The game tracks it. People would like to be able to see it. It's not that hard.
20 hours is an odd number, almost like they meant it to be hard to keep track of to make people play more trying to get the rewards. (Metrics!!)
How about 12 hours instead if we can't get a timer?
Even 12 or 24 hours is extremely inconvenient due to schedule slip and inevitably makes players miss the time unless they're able to play at any hour.
da hell are these? Some kinda new invention?! do they use android or macOS? /sarcasm
People will always complain. It is all about trying to keep the majority of the people content with a certain change. Considering that STO is based in North America, then STO will base any reset time around North America since they don't have European servers. Cryptic has already set 2 AM PST for their daily quest reset time in Neverwinter so if they decide to add it to STO, then it would likely be the same.
Neverwinter and lots of other MMOs already have a daily quest reset time for the server instead of it being for each character. Knowing when the daily quest reset time for the server is a lot better than being limited to when you can play the game. The problem with the 20 hour timer is that it limits player to play at about the same time or later or else they miss a day. Not everyone can play the same time every day since they might have shift work or some other reason.
As shown by my example of playing it Friday at 7 PM and Saturday at 10 AM. A person comes home from work or school on Friday to play the event at 7 PM. In order to get credit for Saturday with a 20 hour timer, then they have to play at 3 PM or later. Lots of people are busy on Saturday so the only time they can play the event is in the morning. If they can't play in the morning, then they can't get credit for Saturday. A daily quest reset time will allow players to play when they want to get credit for the day. If my daily quest reset time is 2 PM, then I can Friday at 7 PM and Sunday at 2 AM and still get credit for Friday and Saturday.
Or something entirely different. Guesses...yours, mine, as good as.
20 hours was picked to allow players to get out of a daily 'rut' so to speak. For example, you run the Event at 11 PM on a weekend night, now you are stuck running it at that time on Weekday (normally work) night unless you skip a day. 20 hours gets you back to a more manigible 7 PM. (Your mileage may vary depending on your work days, work hours, or even if you work).
People have been complaining about that 24-hour timer still on the New Romulus Epohh Projects for years (don't think they fixed that yet like they did with Risa Bird and Monkey Projects).
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
It may limit my Doffing, but personally I'd much rather that than running the event and not gotting a shard.
1.) set a 20hr doff mission
2.) grab a freaking piece of paper and write it down!
edit: Also, if you happen to get on at about the same time or later the next day the 20 hour timer for it would already be up. though that might not always be the case for when people may or may not be able to get online. etc. *shrugs*
its not that hard to work out as there is a 20 hour cooldown for the project token I know if i allow 21 hours or more before playing again I will be not have the inconvenience of a wasted attempt.
sure it would be sweet if there was something to indicate whether you will get the token or not when you play a queued mission but the devs obviously think there are more important issues in the game that require their time especially as there are numerous work around's that players can use to compensate for the lack of a timer.
pen and paper is one, 20hr doff or R&D project are others, mobile phone with an app that allows multiple count down alarms all set for 20hrs and titled with characters names like the dupacount app for the android is yet another.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.synicworld.dupacount&hl=en
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.