Why does Scarlet Spear need the three hour timer?

[DrBorris]

The intention of the timer, at least by my understanding, is to encourage players to work together to finish a Flotilla as fast as possible. Okay, sure, but there is another mechanic that does the same thing, the victory bonus. I very much doubt DE put in the timer as a punishment, if DE were trying to make it "difficult" to get 100/100 then the timer would have been much shorter. In my opinion, the timer is redundant to its purpose, so that clearly was not their intent.

Current problems with the timer...

1. Punishes players who may have been doing great individually, but had a low Flotilla population.
2. As it stands it is a risk to help a struggling Flotilla because you may get screwed out of your reward. This makes for a positive feedback loop where because nobody is joining, less people will join.
3. There is an awkward lull when the three hour timer is getting low where nobody wants to join any Flotillas because it is either too risky (Flotilla is far from finishing) or there may not be enough time to ramp up rewards to get value for your time (Flotilla is close to finishing).

 

So what about this...

• Remove the three hour time limit.
• Increase the Flotilla cooldown after reaching 100/100 to 30 minutes.
  • This is to more forcefully encourage players to leave the Flotilla they are on to go help other Flotillas. If it were to remain at 10 min, many would probably just wait it out. And if people are not switching Flotillas, then many Flotillas will be stuck not getting help. This keeps players flowing and hopefully makes for a consistent experience across the board.
• Leaving a Flotilla to assist another Flotilla forfeits your bonus for the first Flotilla.
  • This is to encourage people to stick with the Flotilla they are currently on to completion, even after they pass 5000 points. Of course after you receive your bonus for one Flotilla you are free to help other Flotillas and get their bonuses.
  • This does necessitate there being a way to see what Flotilla you are currently assigned to as well as a more consistent way of getting back to that Flotilla if you temporarily leave.

With this system it is still the most efficient to attempt to finish a Flotilla as fast as possible, but it fixes (or at the very least lessens the impact) most of the large problems with the current timer...

 

Slightly-unrelated-but-kinda-same-topic change: Have the bonus be based on the sum of ground and space missions. This is to allow for people to switch from ground to space (or vice versa) if the Flotilla needs it. You shouldn't be punished for trying to help the team.

[Drachnyn]

The 10 minute timer between waves was presented as to 'give people the chance to take a short break from farming'. I dont think that works though, I've been saying for a while now that either the 100 Murex limit needs to go (with the victory payout just moving to the end of the 3 hour timer) or the 3 hour time limit needs to go with flotillas being up all the time. Currently starting a flotilla at the end of the timer is just not worth it as you'll very likely not get a victory payout.

[DrBorris]

25 minutes ago, Drachnyn said:

The 10 minute timer between waves was presented as to 'give people the chance to take a short break from farming'. I dont think that works though, I've been saying for a while now that either the 100 Murex limit needs to go (with the victory payout just moving to the end of the 3 hour timer) or the 3 hour time limit needs to go with flotillas being up all the time. Currently starting a flotilla at the end of the timer is just not worth it as you'll very likely not get a victory payout.

To people who are hard farming, the forced 10 minute wait will only annoys them. Maybe keeping the timer at 10 minutes will encourage people to take a break and wait rather than hop Flotillas, but people who are willing to do that are probably the same people who aren't grinding hard anyway. If DE really wanted to force us to take a break they could add a 10 minute personal cooldown that makes it so you can't join another Flotilla, but people would (rightfully) despise a system like that.

Removing the 100 Murex limit would defeat the entire point of having Flotillas in the first place and brings us back to the standard event where your contributions feel worthless. I get that it has been meme'd, but Reb saying that this event is "basically a Raid" has quite a bit of merit to it. It has a lot of failings that make its Raid-ness not come through, but improvements to Scarlet Spear should lean it more into being a Raid, not less.

Currently, not sure what hotfix this came into affect, victory payouts have been handed out immediately after reaching 100/100 and you are able to get multiple victory bonuses per three hour rotation.