Hi all,
One of the things we've been talking about for some time is how to handle timezone changes for people who have moved, particularly significant distances, since they first set up their SWGOH account. Since SWGOH bases your payouts on the timezone when you first set up the account, we have a number of players with incredibly inconvenient arena and fleet payout times, and we would like to help improve their quality of life.
While frequent timezone changes have the potential to create abuse around shard payouts, we do want to slowly begin to roll out a program by which we allow a one time only timezone change for anybody who has moved in excess of four time zones (so from US to Europe or Asia, for example).
Our Customer Support team has a process that will be able to verify this information, and so you will need to provide some info to them in order for them to make sure your account is eligible.
If you are a player who has moved or who set up their account while on vacation abroad, or is four or more timezones away from your current time set for any reason, please contact our support team at https://help.ea.com to request your one-time timezone change to your current timezone.
Please be patient with them as this is a new process, and we will continue, as always, to evaluate and see if it warrants other limited timezone changes to other people for any reason, along with any other policies that may be able to be improved to better your experience.
Thanks, and as always, we'll see you on the holotables,
-Carrie
<<MEGATHREAD>>
Replies
But I would think the majority of calls to change the 2 HOURS of payout times for your account is not because a great chunk of players moved from Siberia to Vancouver
It's because those 2 hours (arena plus fleet) are right in the time when you either commute (drive!) or spend time with your family making dinner and playing with the kids before the sun sets.
So why limit timezone changes to only the first category??
It bothers me as well since it rewards lazy bums who have no life and no job, and people who's real life schedule is not busy around those hours. And punishes responsible people who have lives, family and responsibilities.
It seems to, yes.
However, I literally did not read one comment in the previous Q&As where this came up from people who moved timezones. Most of what I saw echoes what I experience - people want to play the game in time that does not suck from their other responsibilities.
I personally have a work schedule off 1:45pm- 9:45pm (got out early today) with about an hour commute before and after. ALL of my energy refreshes and arena Times are while I'm working or driving... I don't complain mostly because changing them would probably make it so I have to choose between game or sleep. I would like to be able to have my arena times changed so i could hit them during breaks and not have to cross my fingers that no one hits me for the next 2 hours but it's just a game and I'm not going to get that worked up about it.
I would suggest that they had a way to take into account people's daily work schedules when setting these things but I'd rather see in game bugs fixed first.
Edit: adjust for daylight savings time, for kitten's sake!
As Carrie said, this is for extreme circumstances, such as I move from the US to Europe/Asia, and now my bonus energy and arena payouts are in the middle of the night.
It would be incredibly nice if arena payouts weren't smack dab in the middle of most people's busiest time of the day. However, they would have to rework the entire payout system, which I don't believe they're going to do (they don't want everyone to be able to take 1st every day).
just allow you to change your payout times (or your default timezone as it were) on a one-time deal
many many players can't reach first - that's not the point (even though I can and try to)
the point is for most working people, the hour or two around your payouts is when you can enjoy the PvP portion of the everyday game and maximise your crystal returns (whether you payout 50 or 500 crystals) - and having that happen during your busiest family time is just kitten...
if I knew what the payout time would be when I downloaded the game I would have manually changed TZ on my phone, but that's bygones and should not be a workaround that's needed?
How is allowing a one-time payout time change exploitable? I cannot imagine an exploit I could do in that system.
ea/cg chosing to only adress the former is understandable.
That said, i wish they'd get rid of pay-out times alltogether.
Is this supposed to answer my question?
Perhaps this limited-basis pay-out change will show us--and CG--that allowing the occasional pay-out change doesn't necessarily break the game. I think many of us would appreciate being able to adjust our game schedule to fit with our work and family schedules, and not only the "normal" schedule of a majority of people within your time-zone (as there's always going to be people working extraordinary schedules).
For months I’ve missed PO (it’s 6am) until I finally managed to enter shard chat and negotiate with my shard mates. They are great and helped me stay at rank 2 everyday. I sit there for about 7h and nobody touches me, they even prevent snipers to hit me.
So even tho I would be able to be more active during PO if I change it, if it’s gonna be 6pm, I may have worse income because I’ll be superbusy at work.... so I think CG should consider real life schedule as an important issue.
Many players get upset by not being able to collect crystals and after a while, they move to Marvel game. So please, treat us well cause if you don’t, other game developers will learn from your weaknesses and steal your customers.
I moved from California to New York and i habe 3 time zones.
Why does the limit has to be 4 ?
I always miss the last energy refresh which is at 1 am because i sleep.
This is why shard chats should not be allowed he is protected though not active and active players are penalized. Great system.
I moved from California to Florida and was hoping for a shift, but I'm one time zone short of qualifying. That's unfortunate.
But hopefully, this will be slightly more generally available in the near future.
If Florida passes its DST Law change, then you should qualify come fall. I moved from Washington State to Florida, so in the same boat.
This is why shard chats should not be allowed he is protected though not active and active players are penalized. Great system.[/quote]
Yeah, I had to do that or retire from game. I’d rather fight my own battles but won’t set alarm to play a game. Besides that, I’m ok with shard chats. Coordinating with other players are common in multiplayer games. I believe CG agrees with that as much as they are releasing a better ingame chat in near future.
Back to the topic, I am favorable of us being able to choose a PO hour that best suits our playtime. This way game becomes more enjoyable as Arena is the best part of this game. Might prevent gamers to stop playing. CG wants our cash? Fair enough, but for us to pay, we need to keep playing and not feeling frustrated.
EDIT:
I know not everyone likes when the standard payout time hits, but it's better than being 7 or 8 hours off
I want to play the game but don't make me choose between the 2 options.
(I say "suffering" in quotes because I have a sense of perspective and realize that this is just a cell phone game)
-Sun Tzu
We don't take kindly to folks that got perspective around here!
-Sun Tzu
Are you kidding? First of all, how exactly would you enforce that? You know he's probably using Discord right?
Second, "though not active" .....at five in the morning. You're right, he's such a leech, not waking up at five A.M. to play a cell phone game. He's probably plenty active at other times throughout the day. You know, like when he's awake.
Third, shard chats are great. If people want to be proactive and engage with the people around them for their mutual benefit then more power to them. I do it, and guess what? Everyone is super cool and we help each other out by not attacking each other right before our payouts. We collectively bring in more crystals because we're working together.
You should go try to find your shardmates. They may actually be pretty cool people.
-Sun Tzu
This was because the payout times might suit kids who just finished school but they don't suit adults with a life, work and family.
@CG_Carrie this will become the one biggest asked for qol update. Please allow a one time update to move payout time..... Or as an alternative I have those suggestion...
Is there a way to revamp the shard system totally and allow players 24 hours in which to battle as much as they need to reach as high as they can. That way people can play at times when it suits them and fits around life. I'm sure you will find a lot of people suddenly become a lot more active and willing to work towards the top arena and ship payouts.
One thing that will be needed to be monitored is the selfish sort of players who constantly feel the need to always live at the top of their arena no matter what the time of day. These players don't think about others and working together.... Shard chats exist so we can coordinate against players like that.
So... Maybe have a system that once you have reached number 1 in a particular day that you can't battle any more that day. This will need to be clearly monitored in terms of how it actually worked. After all you want everyone to participate and you need the incentive to be earning rewards (crystals).... And if you have to spend more than you earn then there is no incentive at all in that.
So all in all maybe it would be easier to let folks have a button to choose their payout time in game settings.