Drop Rates Weighted by Supply/Demand...Possible?

Space_Goat · 04-09-2008 11:03 AM

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The number of complainers sure matters. Its democracy. Majority rules. Anything repeated often enough will be taken as the truth.

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To quote NOFX: Majority rules don't work when ignorance is celebrated.

SwellGuy · 04-09-2008 11:03 AM

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The number of complainers sure matters. Its democracy. Majority rules. Anything repeated often enough will be taken as the truth.

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To quote NOFX: Majority rules don't work when ignorance is celebrated.

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Or a song "When you listen to fools, the mob rules."

total kick to the gut

This is like having Ra's Al Ghul show up at your birthday party.

Eliwood_NA · 04-09-2008 11:30 AM

Ok let me clarify. By majority rules I mean that when enough ppl vote with our feet, changes we feel strongly about will get implemented. As it is most of the gamers are unwilling to vote with their feet hence the situation abt ED etc.

As a profit-driven company, they have to produce what is wanted by the players. This 'want' is measured via our playing or leaving the game. Just discussing on the forum while continue playing the game does not constitute action.

Unfortunately majority still drives the trend even if it doesnt work.

Comicsluvr · 04-10-2008 07:23 AM

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Ok let me clarify. By majority rules I mean that when enough ppl vote with our feet, changes we feel strongly about will get implemented. As it is most of the gamers are unwilling to vote with their feet hence the situation abt ED etc.

As a profit-driven company, they have to produce what is wanted by the players. This 'want' is measured via our playing or leaving the game. Just discussing on the forum while continue playing the game does not constitute action.

Unfortunately majority still drives the trend even if it doesnt work.

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Very true. Statesman said that their data showed no significant player changes after the big nerfs (ED, GDN, there may have been others) so obviously even though players objected strongly they were still playing. By still playing they were giving their silent consent to the nerfs even as they were complaining about them.

Now based on this, how many players logged in to redside the day before I9 went live?

How many logged in the day after?

A month after?

Last month?

I don't know these numbers but I bet the Devs do which is why once they had their new hires up to speed they sat them down, chained them to their comps and said [big booming voice] FINISH THE VEATS! [/big booming voice]. So now we're soon going to have the VEATS we've been promised for two+ years.

The point is that the game should be a positive sum. Players should have more fun than they experience frustraton and boredom in order to encourage them to play. Once that scale tips into the negative players leave.

Players have already left redside due to a lagging Market. They LIKE Inventions and the Market and so they want to go and play with the side that has a healthy one. They haven't left the game, simply the villainous side of it. This may be one reason why the Devs have not seen mass cancellations of accounts...players frustrated with the redside Market simply went to blueside. The recent merging of the games, making both sides available without buying them both was probably yet another attempt to bring the player numbers up by making it free for hero players to explore villains.

All this boils down to players getting what they want but in a reasonable fashion. Nethergoat complained that the increase of the costume piece drop rate ruined that portion of the Market because they fall so often that those that want one get the drops and those that have a surplus sell them, driving the prices down. 'Might as well have made them all available as costume pieces at the Tailor' I believe he said.

Ok...good. I for one never liked the idea that something as simple as the way my character looked had to be a lottery. Many players rave that one of the advantages of CoX is that the character's appearance has no bearing on their performance. They can be wearing a bikini and a veil and be an Invul Tank that can sustain hideous damage with relative ease.

Ok, if this is the case then why is it important that the really cool costume pieces should be restricted to the few? Some posters seem to think that everyone will leave if there isn't some sort of tangible carrot hanging just past their nose every minute...something to keep or collect. Sure, there are lots of badgers and others who fill all their costume slots and to them that's fun.

How about just playing the game? Isn't that a good motivation to...you know...play the game? I for one don't need badges and l33t costume stuff in order to keep playing and all the shiney junk in the world will not make me continue to pay my money for something I don't really own anyway.

But all of this is WAY off topic.

My initial point (yes, I had one of those remember?) is that if the Markets worked so damned well then players wouldn't grouse about them. Sure, some would because there is always someone who can complain about the color of the sky. But many of the complaints are not simple 'I WANT IT ALL NOW!!!!!!' rants but honest, sincere, rational requests for changes to be made.

I do not believe that the devs are always right. Yes, they designed the game. Engineers designed the Pinto too but the damned thing STILL blew up when rear-ended. Designers are fallible too.

I do not believe that most players would use an 'I Win' button even if it were given to them. Yes, portions of the playerbase have proven themselves to be a bit dim at times, but wanting something to work better is not the same as wanting it handed out for free. I want the redside Market (indeed, both Markets) to work better. This does NOT mean that I want it all for free.

The devs have posted that there is a disparity between the Markets and because of this and other factors there will be no merger in the immediate future. Ok, so why not fix them and keep them seperate?

As for all of the players complaining, they may not have left the game but many have left the redside of it. Not smart for the devs to wait until the players are already on their way out the door to try and bring them back is it? Wouldn't it be smarter to encourage to never start to leave in the first place?

By the way just because a small portion of the players are savvy enough to game the Market and get whatever they want does NOT mean that it's working well. It means that there are a few players savvy enough to take a bent system and make it work for them.

In essense they can take the car on the lot that almost never starts and make it start every time. This does not mean that the car is working well, it just means they understand HOW it's broken and can work around it.

Is this REALLY how we want to judge how successful a feature is?

"Comics, you're not a Mastermind...you're an Overlord!"

BlkFalcon · 04-10-2008 09:47 AM

I think until you know what it causing the supply to be low, you can't propose an effective solution.

Catch me in-game - @blkfalcon

Nethergoat · 04-10-2008 11:23 AM

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The number of complainers sure matters. Its democracy. Majority rules.

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this is the opposite of a democracy.
devs aren't elected, they're hired by a corporation and nothing any of us do or say have any more impact than the devs allow.

The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.

My City Was Gone

Comicsluvr · 04-10-2008 01:52 PM

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I think until you know what it causing the supply to be low, you can't propose an effective solution.

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A perfectly valid point. This data will likely only come from datamining on the dev's part.

However they have to think that such a thing is worth the effort to even do it. They won't think of doing it if most of the posters here smile and nod and say the Market is working fine. They have limited man-hours and I don't see them chasing down data for something that most of the players don't see as broken.

Defiance didn't get fixed because players asked for it. It got fixed because players begged for a change and the devs devoted resources to confirming that it was indeed broken. If their datamining had revealed that Blasters were performing just fine and it was all player perception they would have said so and moved on.

But the people who can best tell IF there is a problem and WHAT the problem might be won't even look for problems unless the players, and more than a few, ask them to. This is what all of these posts are for. We can't change anything...we have to convince them to look and agree that change is needed.

If more than half of the playerbase posted on a regular basis that they wanted more/better PvP then I bet a stack of cash that the devs would try to move it up the priority list. On that same note if most of the posters here agreed the Market is fine then it must be fine.

They don't though...thus IMHO the devs need to devote time and energy to looking at it. If they say it's all good here in a public forum then I'll shut up. If not...I'll continue my campaign to make them see that their Market system is at least bent of not broken.

"Comics, you're not a Mastermind...you're an Overlord!"