Well, as my title says - I think boards should start and end at the same time of the day.

I know most of the playerbase is probably from the USA and hence they do not feel it as much, but yesterday's boards started at 10pm my time. Now this does not apply for battle boards as much, but for nurturing boards the first day is crucial as of course you can only nurture a pet once a day, and getting a bunch of nurtures in before the first daily reset gives you a massive headstart.

Considering I personally have to be at work early, I should not be up at the time (and I feel like this is the case for many Europeans), and daily resets as well as the end of boards is at 7am my time, so the crucial first day is basically mostly during when a normal working person would sleep. As it's also the ending time, I cannot even do some last minute nurturing/battling if I don't want to lose sleep.

I feel starting and ending the boards at the same or similar time of the day/hour of the day would level the field a bit!

I support this idea.

support, as someone who lives in the US but has an atypical schedule. the start times are already staggered; why not the end times as well?

It would be nice if the start time was at reset the same as end :)

So seeing how this is going to play out.. I like the idea of having the same start and end times.. meaning.. if it starts at 10am it ends at 10am.. but I think it should still be varied between the boards to ensure everyone has a fair chance. With the midnight to midnight.. it means that the stateside people miss out on the beginning and the end if you take into consideration that most people are asleep due to work/school whereas it gives a major advantage to those on the other side of the world where it ends midday/evening. Talking it over with another player, I think it would be cool to have all three boards set to start and end at the same time but each board differing from the last so that each major time zone swing would have a chance for it to start/end at a good time opposed to being heavily in favor of one side or another.

Link: https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=108587&page=1#5 Author: Shadowized Time Posted: 8/12/2024 at 7:41 PM So seeing how this is going to play out.. I like the idea of having the same start and end times.. meaning.. if it starts at 10am it ends at 10am.. but I think it should still be varied between the boards to ensure everyone has a fair chance. With the midnight to midnight.. it means that the stateside people miss out on the beginning and the end if you take into consideration that most people are asleep due to work/school whereas it gives a major advantage to those on the other side of the world where it ends midday/evening. Talking it over with another player, I think it would be cool to have all three boards set to start and end at the same time but each board differing from the last so that each major time zone swing would have a chance for it to start/end at a good time opposed to being heavily in favor of one side or another.

This was a point i was trying to make in chat when boards started. I do like having consistent times and 24 hours to work with, but having it start at midnight caters only to those who play during midnight or those willing to lose sleep or what have you because their time zone is different. Because getting the nurtures in as soon as possible straight out the gate is absolutely imperative if you want a chance at making 1st or top 5. Having it start only at midnight each time doesn't necessarily improve or fix any issue. In fact, all it does is make things far more unfair than before for people that need to go sleep, work or what have you before or during that start time, unless they are willing to sacrifice sleep each round or skip school/work.
The varied time we had before i believe were adjusted to be as such due to the varying time zones of the players and trying to accommodate for players with those times. All 3 rounds weren't meant to suit a single time zone, but each round was meant to suit people within a time zone different from the others. Can't make the first round due to real life? Then maybe rounds 2 or 3 suits your schedule instead, which it mostly did. That's how i used to see it being with the players before and that was mostly fair, in my opinion.
The primary issue that i could see then was the fact that people only had a limited window to nurture all or most available pets before reset that some people could make due to being on during the start time but others would mostly miss due to their time zones... but again, that's only for one round. Those very people that missed the limited window that one round would have the advantage next round due to the time suiting them more. ...But now its almost unforgiving to one side and wholly favors the other... I don't find that fair, at all.

So as suggested above, i agree, perhaps changing the end time instead to make all 3 rounds start/end time the same may work. Or maybe finding start time with a close enough middle ground for all timezones, even though that can be difficult? Even if it doesn't provide 24 hours on the first day, at least it'll be a little bit fairer for the ones that cannot play around midnight in-game than how it is currently this fest.

I don't think having an ending time anything outside of 11:59 PM is optimal since Nurtures reset for everyone at midnight. All it will do is create a massive advantage for anyone willing to stay up beyond midnight and spam nurture until the round ends.

I'm pretty much set in stone that the end times will always be 11:59 PM and I don't think there's any advantage to changing that - it will only cause more chaos than it'd prevent.

I'm in agreement with Amitiel here.

Before this change, I could pick a start time that worked for me and I was usually able to get into the top 5.

Now? I can't stay up past midnight. I either work, or it's simply unhealthy for me to change my sleep patterns that much. Which means I cannot compete anymore, at all. Having all three contests start right at midnight means I will never really be able to compete again, and that does make me kinda sad. I might have complained about it in a joking way in RC chat, but I did enjoy the competition on the nurture boards once a fest. I never finished in 1st place, but I was usually in the top 5.

Basically, unless you are in a time zone that favors a midnight contest start date or can stay up till that time and beyond spamming nurtures to catch those pets on the cusp of becoming adolescents or on the cusp of hatching (I find a lot of people don't hatch and let the eggs roll over to auto hatch mark so yes, it's also a thing) you aren't going to be able to compete at all.

I definitely would prefer the nurture contests have a staggered schedule rather than all three begin right at midnight. Maybe one of them, to accommodate those people who are in other time zones.

While I'm not that huge of a fan of boards starting at midnight, one has to be up at midnight for the rest of the nights anyway for it. I think I stayed up a bit longer than usual the first time because of the novelty of it but the other rounds I treated it just like I would generally with rollovers. I probably won't be able to really compete in future nurtureboards though for other life reasons so I'm likely retiring from competitive nurture board spots. My absence if that happens is not as a result of changes to the board starting time but from having far less free time.