Arcanaville

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And I ask again: What does one guy's rating style have to do with griefing?

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The relevance is that while I recognize that ratings griefing does occur, I cannot think of an obvious way to clearly distinguish between ratings griefing and genuinely harsh ratings in the general case, which makes its very difficult to formulate an enforceable policy regarding ratings griefing except in very obvious and extreme situations. Even then, its unlikely to be enforceable automatically, without the involvement of customer support to research the issue carefully. That may require more time than its worth to enforce.

The IMDB formula isn't the formula they use to generate individual movie ratings. *That* formula they keep secret to reduce the likelihood of vote manipulation. The formula in question is the formula they use to select the top 250. That formula is a "credibility" based formula, and in oversimplified terms what the formula does is compute an average rating for all movies, and weight the rating of each movie against the average: in effect, the less votes the movie has, the more that movie is weighted towards the average of all movies, and the less impact its own specific movies has. The more votes a movie has, the more its rating is weighted towards its own votes, and the less its weighted towards the mean vote.

The premise of the system is essentially based on the notion that if you had *no* votes for a movie, your best guess for what its rating is likely to be is the average of all movies. But as votes come in, you start to become more convinced that the average of the votes you have is more likely to represent the "true" rating of the movie. m=1300 in this case is the tuning parameter for this weighting.

Another way to look at it is that all movies get "padded" with 1300 votes of 6.8 stars to start.

I'm not sure if this makes sense for things other than "Top X" lists because below a certain level it tends to wash out votes altogether, unless the tuning parameter is so small that it becomes somewhat valueless.

Honestly, I haven't looked at the mathematics of alternate voting systems in too much detail since beta. My gut instinct is to think that its not the sort of thing we want in all cases. I played around with a system during beta, but it was a bit too easy to manipulate if you knew the details. I had a thought a few weeks ago about a distance-based iterative vote accumulator, but I'm not sure it would work in practice. I might revisit this now that I have a bit more time (in between thinking about some new arc scripting).

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I was referring more to Umbral's distaste for the two of us being put in the same group, actually.

Though if Umbral were to take offense at myself being lumped into a 'Female posters' category with Arcanaville then I'd be sorely put out.

-Rachel-

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Let me just say: this floated right through the center of the strike zone, and I didn't swing at it, because I have semantical mercy.

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I do stat's as a hobby, and as part of being a math teacher. If I have 20 ratings all 4's and 5's and I get one 1 rating, that 1 rating pushes me down to nearly a 4.0 rating. Now based on all the other data, I should haev something like a 4.5. In other words, the 'average' is not reflective of the data set.

In statisitcs there are formulas to determine outliers. They're not that complicated and we use them all the the time to get a good read on what numbers are telling us. Rather then letting one or two anomolus data points skew our measures of center we just toss out the data that is SOOOOO far from the norm as to be unlikely to be valid.

In other words, if 20 people give a 4 or a 5 and one person gives a 1, then it's probable, statistically speaking, that the single 1 star rating is not a valid data point.

Now if we have 10 5's and 10 1's, that's a TOTALLY different ball of wax, and in taht case, the standard deviation for the data will be substantially higher and suggest that the 1's ARE indeed valid data points. Part of the trick in stat's is that you don't toss the potentially invalid data totally, you just leave them out of the average until you have more data to either confirm that there is a downward trend, or to confirm that they are invalid.

In other words, you get 10 reviews. 9 5's and 1 1. The one is likely an outlier so the average is 5 (not counting the 1). Then you get 5 more reviews all 1. Now that implies that the 1 is in deed a valid data point, so you reinclude that 1 in the average, and then you recalculate.

It's not that hard and I've only had first year stats.

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The problem with statistics is a problem intrinsic in most computational mathematics: people tend to remember the formulas but often forget the contextual applicability. Statistics is one of the worst (or best, depending on your point of view) examples of this.

In this case, there is a subtle flaw in your reasoning (not picking on you specifically: its a flaw replicated in all posts of this nature). The flaw is that you're looking at the arcs as if they have an "intrinsic" value, and all of the individual ratings are attempts to "measure" that value. Under that context, its reasonable to consider whether some reviewers "just aren't very good at it." If 100 people rate an arc a 5, and one person rates it a zero, you could argue that "obviously" the Arc "is a five" and that one zero guy is just bad at reviewing.

However, that isn't really the case. Whether an arc is entertaining to someone or not is highly subjective. As a result, nearly all reviews are a composite score that combines the reviewer's opinion of the technical merits of the arc (which is at least somewhat objective) and its entertainment value (which is highly subjective and not always even possible to untangle from their opinion about its technical merits). There is no actual "intrinsic score" and as a result, the ratings values are an attempt to *create* a composite score across the entire playerbase (or at least the subset that plays arcs), not *measure* the score of the arc.

Suppose we have the hypothetical case that 90% of the entire playerbase universally loves challenge missions, and 10% of the entire playerbase absolutely hates them. A challenge mission might get 9 4s and 5s, and one 1. That one isn't "wrong" its representing that 10% of the player population. Claiming that the arc is really "basically a 4.5, excluding a minority that don't count" would be missing the point.

A single number cannot represent a wide range of circumstantial information. It can really only quantify a single magnitude. In this case, the proper representational number is to average all ten scores including the "outlier" as those scores properly represent the playerbase as a whole. Does that lose information in the process? Yes: as all composite scores and averages do. That's unavoidable.

Now, what happens when the scores *don't* represent the playerbase as a whole? Well, the answer to that question is: let me know when you have an example of a real-world case that can be unambiguously demonstrated to be non-representative, and I'll let you know. The problem is its very difficult to prove that a sample of the playerbase isn't a representative sample in the general case. It can be in specific cases (I can actually point to two in my own case) but even in those cases, the only things you can say are that its statistically likely that some data points are non-representative. There's no way to point to any individual one and make that claim, short of the reviewer themselves stating a clear statistically invalid bias directly.


On the subject of ratings: my opinion is still the same as my opinion in beta: while I think the rating system is problematic in a few areas, ultimately I think players should be allowed to rate by their own internal rating system, whatever that may be. Placing systematic requirements on raters - especially with any form of accountability - greatly reduces the chance for players to participate in the rating system, and in my opinion is counter to the intention of the rating system itself. The rating system is explicitly intended to be the part of the MA that is "for the masses" (as opposed to the authoring tools which are for "authors"). I think its reasonable to make suggestions to players on how to provide the most effective feedback, but I'd stop well short of telling people what constitutes each rating number.

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I'm not telling you that I'm better than you in my post. But I can, if you so desire, make a post of that nature.

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In a thread full of astronomy, redheads, experimental lesbians, Danica McKellar, Lord Byron, Quantum Leap, LISAR's breasts, Helen of Troy, and my role in the end game? That would be like claiming to have the best bunk in all of Arkham Asylum.

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I was hoping for a longer commentary on the thread as a whole

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Only one thing comes to mind.

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so... I've got this funny feeling she's not going to give you the satisfaction of posting in this thread.

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I really shouldn't. However, just this once: here you go. Hopefully I didn't blink during that one.

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It *feels* to me like the intent of the feature is to say "we don't trust the devs to assign resistances correctly, but we can't stop them, so lets add a feature to make their resistance settings essentially meaningless so we no longer care what they set a critter's resistances to."

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Close! I actually don't trust the writers to make these choices and they have been hinted already in the past to be the ones that decide what type of things critters do. It's (for what I have gathered) up to the power guy to do them within a realm of balance while pleasing the writer's desire.

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I don't think the story writers are allowed to go anywhere near the powers spreadsheets. They can probably ask for something to be stronger or weaker, or to be conceptually strong against fire or cold, but its ultimately up to the powers designers to implement that request and have the final responsibility for powers balance.

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The argument is "the devs are being inconsistent" and their "reasoning" comes off as severely disjointed.

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Synapse is saying they are specifically looking at MA badges, and changing their goals for all future badges. There's nothing specifically "inconsistent" with making the calculated decision not to revisit badges introduced prior to the MA.

Besides, this is an unavoidable accusation for the devs. If they address past issues, they are accused of not grandfathering the past and focusing on the future. If they don't address past issues they are accused of treating things inconsistently. In fact, Synapse gets a gold star for managing to trigger *both* accusations simultaneously. That's comparable to the scene in the West Wing where Bartlet says "I've got to hand it to you guys, you've pulled off a political first. You've managed to win me the support of the Christian Right and the Cheech and Chong Fan Club in the same day."

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This may help me champion the "Armor Breaker" system.

The idea is a single target attack on every melee set (yes only melee sets) that will "break" resistances on a single target for a limited amount of time. The method:

Detoggle + Resist Cap set to zero to a specific damage type. If you are MA, you set the resist cap to Smashing to zero. If you are katana, you set the resist cap to lethal to zero, etc etc.

This makes sure no one does more damage than base against foes without resistance but helps break the resistance disadvantage in a single target fashion.

The effect should be added to the worst DPA ST attack in the set. Intentionally, it should not be optimal to do this on a power you would normally use in an optimized attack chain.

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My gut instinct is to say that this sort of thing is usually undesirable for game design reasons.

Every feature in a game design should have a very well-defined purpose to it, and those features should function in a manner consistent with that purpose. The purpose to resistances is to actually make the target resistant to that damage: if you don't want the target to be resistant, you don't give it the resistance. In this case, the armor breaking system appears to be a way for one game designer to override the intentions of another game designer: designer X adds resistances to mob A, designer Y adds the ability to break those resistances into powerset B.

So I want to make a critter - it could be an AV, it could be something else - that is actually *supposed* to be highly resistant to damage. Lets say its Lord Recluse in the STF. What's my option: add a "Immunity From Armor Breaking" feature and tag the critter with it? Does the other designer then add a special "Armor Breaking Immunity Override" ability into the powers to compensate for my compensation? This sort of game mechanical duelling implies a lack of overarching oversight of the game mechanics.

This appears to me to be a case of intent subversion. It would be one thing if there was some specific intent that the current game couldn't satisfy, that Armor Breaking could. If, say, there are cases where the devs actually want to make a critter highly resistant to a type of damage, except not always, in precisely the ways that Armor Breaking allows, then it would make sense to me. But if its only there because we want to handwave the resistances in the game as a "mistake" then I think its bad game design. It *feels* to me like the intent of the feature is to say "we don't trust the devs to assign resistances correctly, but we can't stop them, so lets add a feature to make their resistance settings essentially meaningless so we no longer care what they set a critter's resistances to."

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And if said badges actually "encouraged' this behavior, they've got a lotta 'splainin' to do about how they're going to fix all the older badges that "encouraged" the exact same behavior.

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Synapse already did: he said "not gonna, at this time."

The argument that a corrective action is invalid specifically because it doesn't address issues its not targetted to address is not an especially strong one. This is the "what about this" rule.

Personally, I think the change is a bit too severe. However, whether it addresses other issues is irrelevant.

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And, by the way, this is the only industry in the entire world that acts like this. No matter where else you go for service there's ALWAYS someone else you can complain to if the manager you're dealing with is being obtuse. Always.... but never in the online gaming industry.

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You've never called an outsourced help-desk, have you?

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In reality all badges can encourage farming. Ouro badges can encourage farming a mission arc can be played multiple times to get all the badges for that one level range. If someone wants a badge or badges they cant get it the way they want then? They have to do it the way the Dev's want them too?

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If you insist on framing the situation in those terms, then you can get them any way you want. But the devs make whichever ones they want.

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In the other thread Synapse said
". . . they were unobtainable by a large portion of our players, . . . "

SO WHAT ??? Honestly do all badges HAVE to be attainable by most players, in MA?
They certainly are not in the other badge categories. My blaster will never get Empath. Why should MA be different ??

The point of getting a BADGE is that it is difficult and rare !!!
Some Badges (not all) should NOT be attainable by MOST players.

What are your thoughts ?

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That was stated as being only one of many reasons why some badges were removed. The entire quote with the ellipses filled in is:

"This is because they encouraged farming, because they encouraged aberrant behavior by doing one thing over and over again, they were unobtainable by a large portion of our players, or earning them was completely out of a player's hands and in the hands of other players."

He doesn't explicitly state that all badges must be attainable by most players.

Also, "obtainable" means different things to different people. The ski jump badges are obtainable by everyone in theory, although they are not obtainable by everyone in practice.

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The thing is, with better difficulty tools the players will very likely find the balance point for us in terms of difficulty vs play.

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The problem is that there's no real incentive not to just make the critters as easy as you possibly can, given the powersets you choose - i.e. simply always pick "standard" for everything. As an author I might like to run on higher difficulty settings when I play by myself, but I know that there are players out there who will downrate my content if I make it too hard. The reverse does not seem to be true.

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The same incentive there is to make custom critters at all: to attract people to your missions who are otherwise bored with the existing ones.


Here's an interesting data point which I don't claim is representative, but interesting nontheless. The hardest arc I've published is the scrapper challenge, of course. In second place is Secret Weapons which is significantly, but not overwhelmingly, more difficult than conventional PvE content. The easiest is Bug Hunt which is probably about par with conventional PvE content. Guess what the order is in terms of plays (or at least, rated plays)? SC first, SW second, and BH last. The hardest gets the most plays, and the easiest gets the least.

Also, I've had negative feedback go both ways, with some claiming a particular arc was too hard, and others claiming it was too easy. Those complaints run about 3 to 1, but they exist. I don't believe the playerbase is very uniform in whether they want to experience easier or harder content, irrrespective of rewards.

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Ummm... did you read the article, Arcanaville?

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Yes, I did. My prior comments stand.


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When the point of the conversation is addressing the futility of policing the player base's exploits, then why would the proper follow up be, "... what percentage of time does AoC spend addressing exploits."?

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Because he's in a position to actualize his design philosophy. If he really believes in it, and he believes it can work, its logical to ask questions regarding areas of game implementation he may have either had an influence on or would like to have an influence on that he hasn't gotten to yet. I'd like to see the practical application of his statements. Unlike most of us, he can prove or disprove that his philosophy will work with a real MMO by direct example.

The first time he sees an exploit in AoC comparable to, say, the AE ones, AoC's reaction will indicate whether he's making a serious attempt to impose them or not.

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My point is not that any of what you describe doesn't occur, but rather that my experience suggests it doesn't occur in as large a quantities as you're implying. Even in the case of PvP missions which awarded even *higher* rewards than radio missions ever did, there was never a mass-exodus towards them, and the risk of forced PvP when running them was extremely low to zeo.


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There seems to be some sort of threshold that has to be overcome. The difference between radios and arcs could just be at a level that isn't noticeable or isn't considered significant.

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At the moment, this is probably true to a large degree. But I'm not sure that would be equally applicable to PvP missions before they were adjusted. The PvP countdown made the risk of being ganked while running PvP missions extremely low, and the reward level for those missions was significantly high (even higher than the RWZ ones).

More likely in this case an additional sticky factor is simple awareness: most players have no idea what the relative reward levels are for anything, and only learn through experience. If that's the case, they might never gain the experience of running a PvP mission to judge.

That suggests that the problem isn't MA arc difficulty per se, but rather the ability to detect it and select it deliberately for each individual player. Better search tools would help here.


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While I have no idea how this factors into the reward calculation you are speaking of, ARCs offer other rewards besides inf and drops. There are temp powers to be had and badges to gain.

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True, but MA missions have alternate advantages, in particular the fact that the ticket cap is somewhat easier to manage than inventory limits, reducing the likelihood of losing drops by virtue of being full (with some reasonable awareness and practice). I'm not sure if there is any way to determine how those qualitative differences affect player decisions without actually in effect asking them, by poll or by datamining.

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Well, its an interesting perspective...

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It's a refreshing perspective.
Especially to be espoused so prominently.

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Not really. Essentially all dev teams say exactly the same thing. What makes the perspective interesting is that he also makes the additional implication that most of the design teams he's worked with don't actually believe it. That's probably true to some degree, but its still an interesting position to stake out.

Particularly because:

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Craig Morrison (AoC Lead Designer) : You know, I think in normal MMO-and anyone who's worked on an MMO will probably tell you the same thing: You spend 90% of your time on the last 10% of any design, preventing players from doing stuff. [Laughs]

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The proper follow up question would have been to ask what percentage of time does AoC spend addressing exploits. I'd be curious to know for context on whether Morrison's comments are hypothetical, or practical (and I recognize the statement is obviously somewhat hyperbolic).

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We see mass migration

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My point is not that any of what you describe doesn't occur, but rather that my experience suggests it doesn't occur in as large a quantities as you're implying. Even in the case of PvP missions which awarded even *higher* rewards than radio missions ever did, there was never a mass-exodus towards them, and the risk of forced PvP when running them was extremely low to zeo.

*Most* of the difficulty settings, with a few exceptions, are not *massively* stronger than the strongest critters in the PvE game. The few (BU, Confuse, Stealth) are likely to be very infrequently used once players have access to the ability to remove them selectively. What's left is stronger, but not so much stronger that I think you'd see a mass migration away from AE missions.

The thing is, with better difficulty tools the players will very likely find the balance point for us in terms of difficulty vs play. This was only a critical problem when there were no such tools, and in effect every AE mission (with custom critters) would have been an Extreme one.


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I agree that we can't get perfection, but I do not think that perfection is required, because I disagree that the only alternative is exploit city. I need only point to our existing PvE mob groups, some of whom offer increased rewards on the basis of (presumably) greater "challenge" or at least time to defeat. If those can exist, in theory so can MA critters. The challenge is in limiting how easy they are to "game" under player placement control.

...

Which is why I oppose (fully) piecemeal creation of custom critters. It would be the responsibility of the devs to create well-rounded powersets for the critters, much as they presumably do with their own mobs.

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This is a question of design philosophy, and I stated it when the architect was first introduced. Control creates exploit opportunities, which requires restrictions on rewards. The more flexibility you want in the reward system, the less control you can give to players. I will always side on the side of giving control to authors in exchange for rewards.

If players want a way to get higher difficulty missions that then generate higher levels of rewards, that's cool. But the only way I can see to do that without removing authorship control from the system, which I would oppose, is to advocate for a parallel system whereby players and devs could somehow cooperate to create "custom-critter templates" that generated dev-approved custom critter powerset/power combinations that would then grant a dev-approved higher level of rewards. But that is at best a very downstream suggestion.


Your perspective seems to be that missions have to be reward-balanced first, and its up to the AE to guide authors to creating such. Under that philosophy, removing options that cannot be reward balanced is not problematic. However, I see the AE as an authorship tool in which the primary goal is to provide players the opportunity to author missions, and the rewards associated with playing them are only added where they cannot be exploited. Those two priorities are not trivially reconcilable and probably ultimately mutually exclusive to at least some degree.

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That article is very interesting.

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Well, its an interesting perspective, but it really boils down to the simple fact that if you make your game entertaining enough, it doesn't need a reward system at all. You don't suddenly get a +5 sword of gemstone smashing in Bejeweled after a hundred levels. The game is designed to specifically attract the people that want to perform that activity, so they don't need to specifically "reward" it.

Similarly, if you want to retain MMO players, the best way to do so is to either addict them, or entertain them. Everything else is just implementation details.

However, it is at implementation that the ideal either lives or dies. And because no design team has an infinite ability to entertain, compromises eventually occur. The most important thing is to recognize that they *are* compromises, rather than rules. Rules you follow. Compromises you make until you can safely break.

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I also don't think the underlying premise is entirely valid either. Radio missions have a higher level of continuous reward than the majority of story arcs, so under this theory radio missions themselves should be diverting the majority of players away from story arcs already. I'm not sure that is true.

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I'm not sure what part of my premise that counters. That's almost an example of the opposite of what I was describing. Consider the bonus difficulty settings on Ouroboros missions or TFs. The only time I see people use them is when they are trying to earn badges, to see what their character performance limits are, or to get bragging rights.

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I was responding to this assertion specifically:

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However, increased challenge at no particular increase in reward only attracts a smaller component of the playerbase, and usually only for a limited engagement before they return to "regular" play for it's better reward/time.

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This suggests that given two choices, one with a higher reward earning rate, only a small percentage of players will willingly choose the lower earning rate activity, and even then only temporarily. However, that situation does not appear to be the case with regard to radio missions. Both activities attract a significant number of players.


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I consider "hard" and "extreme" MA mobs to be a variation on this. People may poke them just for the sake of the challenge now and then, but I think that letting them ride with standard rewards is going to mean that most people will avoid them, because the lesson seems to be that a lot if not most people are playing it for the end, not the means.

I think that if the MA could be both harder and appropriately more rewarding it would be vastly superior product for consumers of arcs, and a lot superior for authors interested in aspects in aspects beyond strong storytelling/creativity.

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In theory I think that is laudable, but I think in practice this methodology has only two possibly outcomes: balance perfection, and exploit-city. I don't think the reward systems or frankly the critters themselves are sophisticated enough to reach balance perfection.

Consider the case of a critter that can be manipulated into using mostly mezzes. Very dangerous to most players, but it actually makes them weaker against the mez-protected. That's one of those weird ironies of melee characters: they aren't just immune to mez, they often make a complete mockery of mezzers because the mezzers spend too much time trying to use useless mezzes rather than actually attacking. More generally, it seems to still be possible to give a critter a boatload of powers and then trick them into using only a few of them. The system appears to be not just too easy to game, but gameable in ways not everyone can take advantage of equally. That's double-trouble when it comes to detecting balance problems.

Basically, the moment I discovered in beta I could make a mission with nothing but AVs that spammed web grenade (despite having a boat-load of powers) I knew that autocomputed rewards was a non-starter in practice.

Even when the situation appears obvious, its not always quite so obvious after reflection. Build Up is one of the most lethal powers you can give a critter, and yet it doesn't always actually increase the difficulty of the critter in actual fact. Controllers can nullify the advantage of BU simply due to mez (even something like immobilizes can significantly reduce the impact of BU for primarily melee oriented critters). Is stealth always problematic? Or confuse? Some powers have such radically different effects on different players that they are sometimes incredibly problematic, and sometimes virtually worthless. When that happens, how do you decide how much to modify the XP of that critter by? And regardless, how do you prevent players from rolling just the right character to nullify all of those advantages and yet still reap the increased rewards?

In the regular PvE game, the Malta are harder for some players, while Carnies are pushovers. For other players, its vice versa. The PvE rewards associated with them are similar not because they actually *are* similar in difficulty to anyone in particular, but because in the PvE game those differences largely average out. You can't rely on anything averaging out when you allow players to create their own content.

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For the MA, it seems like the devs have to make the "floor" for custom critters match the expectations for reward rates of regular PvE critters. Making the custom critters harder from there but not adjusting reward rates seems skewed to me.

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The problem is that its not trivial to "autocompute" the difficulty of a critter. Adding powers doesn't always make them stronger. Removing powers doesn't always make them weaker. The way the AI works complicates matters even more. The PvE game strongly suggests that a critter (or critter group) has to be exceptional in some way just to get the devs to even look at it, much less increase its rewards, probably because the act of reviewing them is always a rather nebulous and potentially risky process. Consider the XP bonus of Rikti Comm Officers. You don't think that's actually computed in some way, do you? Its a wild-hair guestimate, and probably wildly wrong. But wildly wrong doesn't matter too much when players can't predict, control, or modulate access to that wildly wrong guestimate. Its just a conceptual bonus moreso than a "difficulty" bonus. But when players can predict, control, and modulate access to those wildly wrong guestimates, you have the RWZ in the best case, and meows in the worst case.


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Radio missions have a higher level of continuous reward than the majority of story arcs, so under this theory radio missions themselves should be diverting the majority of players away from story arcs already. I'm not sure that is true.

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It's interesting you chose that example, because for a long time radio missions did significantly divert players away from story arcs. Positron complained about that effect specifically on the forums. IIRC, the response was to generally up the defeat rewards, and possibly up the story arc completion bonus, while leaving mission bonuses untouched.

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Although radio missions did divert players in significant enough numbers for Positron to take notice, it didn't do so to an overwhelming degree. (See next post below).


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Overall, I think the devs are faced with a problem they must solve one way or another - either by somehow normalizing critter difficulty, or by scaling rewards based on difficulty. Neither approach is easy. The latter is possible given massive amounts of data to mine, but we don't have that much data yet, I don't think, and maybe never will.

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I believe the generalized problem is intractible at the moment. In my opinion the best solution currently available is the solution I proposed in beta (and one I made a very strong case to the devs on), which is to punt the problem to the authors by giving them tools to regulate the difficulty of custom critters. Custom critters are optional, and making them difficult is optional. Authors and players can then resolve the issue of "risk/reward" on their own, without the devs attempting to manipulate them, possibly incorrectly, with the reward system.

If critters become more predictable at some future point, I think the issue would be worth revisiting. However, unless someone can propose even in theory a workable way to autocompute difficulty for critters and translate that into a reward structure that isn't exploitable, I'm likely to be skeptical it can be done at all. If a workable system is proposed, I'd be willing to consider it and change my mind.

Long time posters may remember I was once very anti-planner until Mids came along. Mids converted me to at least the ranks of the "what-if" crowd, especially with inventions, and not only me. Mids certainly has my appreciation, and I believe he's placed the project in good hands.

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I have been referring to the "Reward Level" or the "Reward Ratio" of a given task, defining it as the ratio of Reward to Risk and/or Time (to borrow Posi's phrase), or the ratio of Reward to Effort.

However it's measured, I have been saying it's a variable figure even for a single task, because the composition of the team, the builds of the individual characters on the team and the skill/ability of the players behind the characters all affect the actual value.

Is that a valid assumption, or am I barking up a tree that doesn't even exist?

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Well, sort of. As far as I know, the devs don't have a literal earning rate target they expect *everyone* to have. Rather, they have a target they expect the average of all players to hit, within a certain margin of error. They do, however, look at things like solo performance vs small team performance vs large team performance, drilling down to see if there are anomalies that the large averages might blur or hide. And they look at powerset combinations individually. So there are different numbers that can crop up under different analysis situations. Do they do the full matrix of everything under every condition? Probably not: its probably more selective than that.

While every single player and team will extract a slightly (or significantly) different earning rate from any given activity (and even the same player or team from day to day) that's just the nature of the game. The devs aren't concerned that much about that sort of variability. The important thing to them as far as balance is concerned is that the average of all players lands near the expected target and the distribution curve of all players is clustered mostly around that target without too many extreme outliers or other weirdness.

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Ah, thanks, yea that's important info, the pet summon was info I couldn't find on Mid's or in game CoH. Pseudo pets cause me trouble sometimes when they're not given their own tabs in the powers.

[Also, just curious, why exactly would a pet summon (summon: rain of arrows) have such a high accuracy.Does that have any determining factor on the amount of times it hits the mob? (I know RoA can possibly hit 3 times)]

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I honestly have no idea, but different pets even have different "Accuracy" on the summon. Most Permanent pets from Control sets have a Summon Accuracy of 1. Fire Imps and Dark Servant have a summon Accuracy of 2. RoA is 1.6, all of the Traps pseudo pets are 1.0 as well.

[/ QUOTE ]The acc of the summon does nothing. Best guess for the reason for such high acc on them is being able to quickly find the power definitions in their spreadsheets, kind of a internal system to tag the powers so that they can be found again. *shrug*

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More likely, its a don't-care error. Since that value doesn't do anything any error put in that value is unlikely to ever be spotted and corrected.

There are powers that print incorrect combat messages to critters. Since critters don't have combat chat windows, its impossible to ever see this happen, and therefore its impossible for anyone to observe the error and report it under ordinary circumstances. And that's why there used to be a lot of those.