New Level Pact Squad to face the Toughest in CoH


10100101

 

Posted

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2. Jojo did mention he died several times. Your selective quoting of him ignored that as well as several other points so either you are deliberately ignorning it or you only see what you want to see.


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Please show the several other points, as for him dying, it doesn't disprove the fact that this wasn't the toughest challange you could set up for a /Fire Brute.

It was indeed a map spawned of bosses that would be easiest for a /Fire Brute to face. That doesn't mean you can't die doing it, but that it isn't in any way, shape or form, the hardest challange he could come up with.

And really, what does it mean when someone uses their ignore list, then runs around telling other people that they shouldn't quote the person they've ignored.

Who exactly is obsessed here?

My only obessession is to point out to people who might be reading that the OP didn't do what he said he set out to do in his thread.

I go literally weeks on end without feeling the need to comment on anything anyone in this section has said. To categorize that as obsession, when those same posters seem to bring my name up just as often seems disingenuous at best.

I've seen multiple occasions where these people you claim I'm obessessed with bring me up without my having said anything in the thread or even the section for days or weeks. That never seems to be an issue with you, odd.

(And funny, I guess you just choose not to quote me, not because you don't want to be shunned by the people you mentioned admonishing you before, I'm sure you were just trying to save space.)


 

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And the funniest part is. You have people now debating about how one might theortically fix the problem that the OP doesn't see as a problem, but rather a chance to exploit something in the game for his advantage. (In this case he wants to PL people for Inf, which is kind of an odd thing for someone who is such a market-guru to be doing. As far as I can tell anyone who is even making half an effort at marketing has Inf coming out of their ears and really doesn't need any more)


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I think you missed the really funny part here. The boards guru of economics has so poorly priced his services. 350 million inf for a 1-50 power level in 6 hours works out to be about 21$, the RMT people charge about 5 times that so he has in effect valued his services at a rate less than that of third world coolie labor.


 

Posted

Thanks to this thread, I've officially added a second person to my ignore list. Thanks, Smurphy! You're not my hero, I don't know what anyone else sees in you, you're just another guy...but you did help me identify a worthless troll (whom I will not name because that would be against TOS! ZOMG!!) so for that I thank you and love you. <3


 

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Your quote there does not show maturity to me but an immature need of self aggrandizement.

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The amount of funny in this is amazing.

Think about the OP of this thread, this is all about seeking attention. He even deluded himself to the point that he believes that the Devs would be reading and interacting with him based on his plans.

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I am sure that the NCSoft employees would kindly notify me if such plans are for some reason deemed "not allowed". I am also sure that NCSoft employees would be able to kindly explain to me exactly what part of my plan needs to be corrected. I WILL be fighting the most difficult City of Heroes has to offer me.

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Oh and look, another mention about how he WILL be fighting the most difficult enemies in COH.

These were not the most difficult. Period.

If you believe a /Fire Brute fighting bosses that only do Fire damage is the most difficult challange....

Well I have no idea what to say to that.

The motivation behind this thread is completely obvious to most who read it. Some might be confused and think that he actually did do what the title suggests. Obviously this was not the case.

My image of people still fighting the Great MA War of '09 is like the stories of Japanese soliders found in the jungle 20 years after WWII ended. Whatever point is trying to be proved here. It doesn't matter. The war is over.

As Uber mentioned earlier, when it was announced that the OP would systematically determine what part of his mission was breaking the rules, that it is a lost cause. The "one" thing that will need to be fixed is the leveling speed or to not do it in MA.

And maybe that is the best point of all, if he can't do it outside of MA, then maybe that shows why MA has to be treated differently than normal content when looking at the potential for abuse through farming.

I guess he proved something afterall.


 

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And maybe that is the best point of all, if he can't do it outside of MA, then maybe that shows why MA has to be treated differently than normal content when looking at the potential for abuse through farming.

I guess he proved something afterall.

[/ QUOTE ]

Can I quote you on that?


50s: Inv/SS PB Emp/Dark Grav/FF DM/Regen TA/A Sonic/Elec MA/Regen Fire/Kin Sonic/Rad Ice/Kin Crab Fire/Cold NW Merc/Dark Emp/Sonic Rad/Psy Emp/Ice WP/DB FA/SM

Overlord of Dream Team and Nightmare Squad

 

Posted

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And maybe that is the best point of all, if he can't do it outside of MA, then maybe that shows why MA has to be treated differently than normal content when looking at the potential for abuse through farming.

I guess he proved something afterall.

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I have to disagree with you on this. If he had of kept to the stated intention of pushing what can be done without exploits this would have been a very interesting thing. He would have shown a fundamental hypocrissy on the part of the developers and that things are alright for some people in the game and not all.

He failed in the first and now he has just reduced it to a PL service. Its as if the revolutionaries at the Boston Tea Party decided not to throw the tea overboard, instead just rob the ships and the nearby warehouses as well.

edited: for clarity


 

Posted

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And maybe that is the best point of all, if he can't do it outside of MA, then maybe that shows why MA has to be treated differently than normal content when looking at the potential for abuse through farming.

I guess he proved something afterall.

[/ QUOTE ]

Can I quote you on that?

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You'll probably have to check with people first.


 

Posted

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And maybe that is the best point of all, if he can't do it outside of MA, then maybe that shows why MA has to be treated differently than normal content when looking at the potential for abuse through farming.

I guess he proved something afterall.

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I have to disagree with you on this. If he had of kept to the stated intention of pushing what can be done without exploits this would have been a very interesting thing. He would have shown a fundamental hypocrissy on the part of the developers and that things are alright for some people in the game and not all.

He failed in the first and now he has just reduced it to a PL service. Its as if the revolutionaries at the Boston Tea Party decided not to throw the tea overboard, and rob the ships and the nearby warehouses as well.

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Your analogy is better.

And yes, I agree if he had actually done what he said he was going to do, it would have shown something about the system.

I think a much better challange (and one that will get him his required Inf from off-market sources), would be to allow people to bid to build the mission he has to level to 50 in. (with the stipulation it has to be a large farmable map of bosses)

So, I'll throw out an offer of 500mil Inf to build the enemies and then tag along as I watch how fast he levels to 50. As long as he brings the characters mentioned in his results post, I'm quite confident that he won't make it to 50 in 6 hours.


 

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So if a lieutenant-only map is harder, but gives less, than a boss-only map... would ya do it?

I'm thinking that Nemesis all-lieuts would be tougher than all-bosses.

On the original topic, I'm thinking that mixed bosses might be harder. The proverbial Rularuu Mix is pretty ugly.

Are you taking applications for custom groups of badguys?

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not for many ATs. A map full of any one type of creature is weaker threat-wise (Exception being a map of all AVs as have enjoyed few times) And find it hard to think that ANY map full of LTs could be harder then fighting Statesman or Lord Recluse.


 

Posted

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(And funny, I guess you just choose not to quote me, not because you don't want to be shunned by the people you mentioned admonishing you before, I'm sure you were just trying to save space.)

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Assume away. I didn't not quote you because of them but because it would have been (to me) a jumbled mess.

Clearly you know me better than I know myself.


total kick to the gut

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

 

Posted

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Your quote there does not show maturity to me but an immature need of self aggrandizement.

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The amount of funny in this is amazing.

Think about the OP of this thread, this is all about seeking attention. He even deluded himself to the point that he believes that the Devs would be reading and interacting with him based on his plans.


[/ QUOTE ]

Ah yes, the classic ignore what it says about you and point to someone else...

[edited to add] I don't accept that nonsense from my 10 and 13 year old boys either.


total kick to the gut

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

 

Posted

OMG ok i have to post this. Smurphy started this after i told him what happened with the recent bannings and also about my particular punishments on the forums, so take what you will from that. He IS proving that the fact that they refuse to define what they consider an exploit, other than time to lvl 50, makes too many things a grey area. The argument was you will know it when you see it and he is proving that statement untrue. I wish the moderators and developers would notice the rather large grey area that they created in that statement and their actions in the MA punishments. Odd how others can see it and it's possible effects and they can't.

In regards to "worshiping" Smurphy he is a loved and valued friend if you define that as worship (i personally don't) then I can't imagine what a gift basket sent to the makers of a game is defined as.......



"Play Nice and BEHAVE! I don't want to hear about any more of your shenanigans brought up in our meetings at Paragon"
-Ghost Falcon @Tritonfree @Philly's 2nd Convenient CIGAL BoBC/INOANN Arts&Crafts Sporks
Average Joes FAP THE MENTOR PROJECT Justice Events

 

Posted

Try to solo Judgment 154775, Ten AV's on one map... its designed to be fun and tough for a full team of high levels... if you do solo it, send me a tell, and I will put your name on the souvenir.


 

Posted

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In regards to "worshiping" Smurphy he is a loved and valued friend if you define that as worship (i personally don't) then I can't imagine what a gift basket sent to the makers of a game is defined as.......

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I've had my disagreements and battles with Smurph, but in this instance he's doing something immensely valuable for the game's population, shining a spotlight on a dev-created minefield where they refuse to provide useful, well defined guidelines while threatening players with bans and other punitive measures.

As with their original reluctance to give players meaningful information about powers- if they don't tell us the numbers, we have to find them out ourselves.

For that he deserves a hearty round of applause.


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

My City Was Gone

 

Posted

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I don't believe I said it was impossible, I think I said it was intractible. And not because the problem you're mentioning is not solvable, but rather because the problem as you're describing is functionally limited: it only encapsulates one point of view regarding XP splitting.


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Well, perhaps you'll forgive me for misinterpreting your words. I had honestly forgotten the buff/debuff part of the debate.

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The "two-scrapper experiment" unfortunately dodges the main problem in the way its described. In the way its described, its presuming that the two players do not actually assist each other, and therefore their overall team contribution can be expressed as the linear sum of their individual capabilities.

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While the two scrapper experiment does assume that the players don't assist each other, I respectfully disagree that this dodges the main problem. In my opinion, until you fix the case of XP leeching by a non-contributing team mate, buffers/debuffers are just as screwed when they're the higher level teammate and just as leechy when they're the low level teammate as scrappers are.

In other words, the two scrapper experiment examines a degenerate case that must follow the same rules as the more complex general case. If the degenerate case fails, which it currently does, the more general case fails too.

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That doesn't work in all cases, because it undervalues other contributions. Consider this hypothetical: imagine a level 35 (buffing) defender following a level 35 and level 40 blaster. If the defender buffs damage, then the defender's team contribution is actually *higher* when teamed with the level 40 blaster than with the level 35 blaster, simply by virtue of buffing a stronger ally. In this case, the primary contribution isn't offensive, and therefore isn't trivially scalable offensively.

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From the perspective of the blaster, no, the contribution of the defender is not higher if they are -5 to them than if they are even-con. The buffs are equivalent, and the defender is not going to be doing any damage to the enemy. Why should the defender get so close to the same relative XP? It's ridiculous.

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If you choose to pick an XP splitting mechanism that is based on a theoretical offensive contribution proportionality, you can make the mathematics work. But you'd be devaluing most of the *point* of actually teaming with anything other than offensive peers.

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Again, I have to disagree. Balance the equation for scrappers and everyone else will work out in an equitable fashion, because scrappers with no force multipliers are the best degenerate case to balance around.

If teaming with someone actually does help you defeat enemies faster, then you get faster XP no matter what scheme you use to do the division than if they didn't.

Here's another degenerate case for you: imagine the team is all the same level. Then my division system and the current one are equivalent. In that situation, are you encouraged to team only with offensive teammates? No, you're not. So my system of balancing doesn't inherently encourage only offensive teammates.

Does my proposed system penalize buffers/debuffers who seek out higher level teams to buff and leech? Yes, but I think it should. Those situations are broken currently. Buffers/debuffers have to massively overperform in order to overcome the leech phenomenon the two scrapper experiment reveals. Most of them don't, and even if they did, what they're doing increases their rewards without significantly increasing risk, or (in my own parlance) increasing reward rates without significantly increasing complexity. If it rewards skill (your parlance) it's only the social skill used to con your way into a leeching situation, which is not a skill I think the game should be rewarding.

Anyway, this is all highly theoretical since IMHO the more promising avenue is making sure massive level disparity on teams doesn't happen in the first place. That would have many other benefits for teaming, actually, since it would mean you could run content other than specifically designed AE content and not have to worry about SKs. TFs and Trials in particular would be much easier to manage.


And for a while things were cold,
They were scared down in their holes
The forest that once was green
Was colored black by those killing machines

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
I've had my disagreements and battles with Smurph, but in this instance he's doing something immensely valuable for the game's population, shining a spotlight on a dev-created minefield where they refuse to provide useful, well defined guidelines while threatening players with bans and other punitive measures.

As with their original reluctance to give players meaningful information about powers- if they don't tell us the numbers, we have to find them out ourselves.

For that he deserves a hearty round of applause.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree wholeheartedly. In fact Smurphy did a lot to change my thinking about how the devs should have handled the MA release debacle - if we'd had people like Smurphy doing things like this in closed beta, the devs probably would have been more prepared for what happened in live. Instead, what I remember is that nearly everyone was focused on using the MA for storytelling (myself included), like good little lemmings, and we led the game neatly off a cliff.

The devs should be seeking out people like Smurphy and rewarding them for efforts like this. If I were on the dev team I would be nominating Smurphy for Bug Hunter.


And for a while things were cold,
They were scared down in their holes
The forest that once was green
Was colored black by those killing machines

 

Posted

Hey Smurph,

For your next experiment, you might consider designing a team specifically to defeat Lord Recluse serially. He's worth a boat load of XP.


And for a while things were cold,
They were scared down in their holes
The forest that once was green
Was colored black by those killing machines

 

Posted

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[ QUOTE ]
I've had my disagreements and battles with Smurph, but in this instance he's doing something immensely valuable for the game's population, shining a spotlight on a dev-created minefield where they refuse to provide useful, well defined guidelines while threatening players with bans and other punitive measures.

As with their original reluctance to give players meaningful information about powers- if they don't tell us the numbers, we have to find them out ourselves.

For that he deserves a hearty round of applause.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree wholeheartedly. In fact Smurphy did a lot to change my thinking about how the devs should have handled the MA release debacle - if we'd had people like Smurphy doing things like this in closed beta, the devs probably would have been more prepared for what happened in live. Instead, what I remember is that nearly everyone was focused on using the MA for storytelling (myself included), like good little lemmings, and we led the game neatly off a cliff.

The devs should be seeking out people like Smurphy and rewarding them for efforts like this. If I were on the dev team I would be nominating Smurphy for Bug Hunter.

[/ QUOTE ]

/jranger

I appreciate the sentiment but I am certainly not deserving of anything like that for this thread. I was in Closed Beta. I brought up none of these issues. I am not Closed Beta material though I keep getting invited. I'm not a very good "out-of-the-box" thinker. I can poke fun of silly logic like "shoot first explain later" and "we won't tell you what you did wrong but you were bad".

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So all the pacting is done on Freedom?

I think there is going to be demand for other servers.

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There is surely demand on other servers. I'm only doing the ones I want to do. At the moment I am the lone supplier. I'm a monopoly. I don't need the monies. I'm just picking the ones I'd do anyway. My last pact team had some toons that were simply "not fun" to me. I am trying to avoid teams that might be "not fun" to me. For now, I'm going with the sure things on Freedom.

[ QUOTE ]

Hey Smurph,

For your next experiment, you might consider designing a team specifically to defeat Lord Recluse serially. He's worth a boat load of XP.


[/ QUOTE ]

I tried doing all Archvillain maps. I used custom AVs though in my test. I'll try with Lord Recluse. The custom AVs gave about 3-4 times the experience of a boss yet took 10 to 20 times as long due to outrageous hitpoints. I'll give Lord Recluse and some other pre-made ones a try.


 

Posted

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[ QUOTE ]
The "two-scrapper experiment" unfortunately dodges the main problem in the way its described. In the way its described, its presuming that the two players do not actually assist each other, and therefore their overall team contribution can be expressed as the linear sum of their individual capabilities.

[/ QUOTE ]

While the two scrapper experiment does assume that the players don't assist each other, I respectfully disagree that this dodges the main problem. In my opinion, until you fix the case of XP leeching by a non-contributing team mate, buffers/debuffers are just as screwed when they're the higher level teammate and just as leechy when they're the low level teammate as scrappers are.

In other words, the two scrapper experiment examines a degenerate case that must follow the same rules as the more complex general case. If the degenerate case fails, which it currently does, the more general case fails too.

[/ QUOTE ]

It is a simplified degenerate case, and as such any proposal ought to say something at least nominally proper about it. However, because it eliminates all traces of the complexity of the problem, as opposed to reducing that complexity to a manageable level, it isn't particularly useful to propose solutions likely to work for the more complex case. Basically, it doesn't offer guidence as to what an XP algorithm might be doing wrong.


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That doesn't work in all cases, because it undervalues other contributions. Consider this hypothetical: imagine a level 35 (buffing) defender following a level 35 and level 40 blaster. If the defender buffs damage, then the defender's team contribution is actually *higher* when teamed with the level 40 blaster than with the level 35 blaster, simply by virtue of buffing a stronger ally. In this case, the primary contribution isn't offensive, and therefore isn't trivially scalable offensively.

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From the perspective of the blaster, no, the contribution of the defender is not higher if they are -5 to them than if they are even-con. The buffs are equivalent, and the defender is not going to be doing any damage to the enemy. Why should the defender get so close to the same relative XP? It's ridiculous.

[/ QUOTE ]

Relative to the defender the contribution to the team is numerically higher. Proportionately speaking, its identical (more or less) in both cases. The important thing is that relative to the level 35 blaster case, the defender ought to be making more XP, because their net numerical "activity" is higher, and relative to the level 40 blaster case, the proportional XP the defender is getting ought to be the same as the level 35 blaster case, which is another way of saying the defender should be getting numerically more XP (because the 35/40 team would obviously be getting more XP/min than the 35/35 team, all other things being equal).

Perhaps to put it more simply, if a 35 defender + 40 blaster runs missions at approximately the same rate as a level 40 defender + level 40 blaster, then both should get about the same amount of XP. Granted, the 40/40 team will run somewhat faster due to the defender's offensive output, but that difference will be low relative to, say, if the defender was replaced with a scrapper. However, in the case of a 35 scrapper/40 blaster vs 40 scrapper/40 blaster, the scrapper's primary contribution is offense, and that offense is highly devalued in the 35/40 case. In the 35/40 defender/blaster case, that's not true. So balancing strictly for the scrapper/scrapper case essentially applies a penalty to defenders, relative to their intended team contribution mechanisms.


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If you choose to pick an XP splitting mechanism that is based on a theoretical offensive contribution proportionality, you can make the mathematics work. But you'd be devaluing most of the *point* of actually teaming with anything other than offensive peers.

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Again, I have to disagree. Balance the equation for scrappers and everyone else will work out in an equitable fashion, because scrappers with no force multipliers are the best degenerate case to balance around.

If teaming with someone actually does help you defeat enemies faster, then you get faster XP no matter what scheme you use to do the division than if they didn't.

Here's another degenerate case for you: imagine the team is all the same level. Then my division system and the current one are equivalent. In that situation, are you encouraged to team only with offensive teammates? No, you're not. So my system of balancing doesn't inherently encourage only offensive teammates.

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I think you're hand-waving too much in the wrong way when dealing with degenerate cases, which is always a danger of using them in the first place. If the problem I'm specifying regarding your thought process is that it devalues non-offensive contributions at different combat levels that problem will disappear at identical combat levels. Its therefore not appropriate to use the degenerate case of equal combat levels to suggest the problem doesn't exist. Your system (or rather one that follows your thesis to its logical conclusion) seems to be that players should be valued based on assuming that their relative contributions in effect obey the purple patch, which is only true for foe effects and not ally effects. But of course it will converge on a solution that values everyone identically in the degenerate case of everyone being the same combat level. Its at different combat levels where I believe the problem actually occurs.


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Does my proposed system penalize buffers/debuffers who seek out higher level teams to buff and leech? Yes, but I think it should. Those situations are broken currently. Buffers/debuffers have to massively overperform in order to overcome the leech phenomenon the two scrapper experiment reveals. Most of them don't, and even if they did, what they're doing increases their rewards without significantly increasing risk, or (in my own parlance) increasing reward rates without significantly increasing complexity. If it rewards skill (your parlance) it's only the social skill used to con your way into a leeching situation, which is not a skill I think the game should be rewarding.

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I think you should replace the "two scrapper experiment" with the "two blaster experiment." It might be more illustrative. I don't think the typical blaster in-game finds an accompanying empathy defender to be a "leech" and in fact there is generally sizeable synergy between the two. However, in a scheme where the defender is a couple levels lower than the blaster, your system seems to suggest that even though the defender's net contribution to team speed is similar to what it would be if they were both the same level, they should earn significantly less XP.


[ QUOTE ]
Anyway, this is all highly theoretical since IMHO the more promising avenue is making sure massive level disparity on teams doesn't happen in the first place. That would have many other benefits for teaming, actually, since it would mean you could run content other than specifically designed AE content and not have to worry about SKs. TFs and Trials in particular would be much easier to manage.

[/ QUOTE ]

A system where everyone autoSKs to the same level does dodge all problems involving trying to figure out what differing level characters ought to earn. However, something about that idea makes me just a little uneasy, although I'm not sure why. In things like task forces, it seems to me to be an "obviously" reasonable solution, but outside of that, something doesn't quite feel right about it, although I can't really put my finger on it yet.


[Guide to Defense] [Scrapper Secondaries Comparison] [Archetype Popularity Analysis]

In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile...
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A system where everyone autoSKs to the same level does dodge all problems involving trying to figure out what differing level characters ought to earn. However, something about that idea makes me just a little uneasy, although I'm not sure why. In things like task forces, it seems to me to be an "obviously" reasonable solution, but outside of that, something doesn't quite feel right about it, although I can't really put my finger on it yet.

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There are a few potential pitfalls to the auto-SK feature. It doesn't address the problem that people who are contributing less are getting equivalent XP. You look at a level 8 who joins a level 40's mission. Just like current SKing, he doesn't have his powers nearly as well as enhanced as the 40, doesn't have stamina for potential endurance issues and doesn't have the power selections to deal with situations that a level 40 has to deal with.


 

Posted

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It is a simplified degenerate case, and as such any proposal ought to say something at least nominally proper about it. However, because it eliminates all traces of the complexity of the problem, as opposed to reducing that complexity to a manageable level, it isn't particularly useful to propose solutions likely to work for the more complex case. Basically, it doesn't offer guidence as to what an XP algorithm might be doing wrong.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sure it does. For two scrappers who aren't otherwise affecting each others' play, the next XP reward rate should be the same teamed as not teamed, assuming you and your teammate are both going full steam ahead. The current system doesn't accomplish that, so it's broken. If you don't agree with that basic premise, then the rest of the discussion is moot.

As far as I'm concerned, that's a valid guiding principle and everything that follows from it is straightforward math (assuming you can datamine the relevant constants in the matrix).

I started responding to the rest of your points (I will cede that my same-level degenerate case wasn't representative, but I'm glad you explained further what your point was) but quickly realized we'd get into the weeds of details.

I think the crux of the difference of opinions here is this: you believe the current system is valid because it supports proper division of XP in the presence of ally effects. I actually disagree with the latter point, but even if it were true - is that the right way to govern XP division? The majority of player powers are not ally effects. And under the current XP division system, which assumes that players are proportionally effective even at vastly lower combat levels, aren't we penalizing everyone but buffers? Damage, control effects, and debuffs are all vastly less effective when the team is fighting higher level foes, so teams are discouraged from carrying lower level members that aren't buffers.

IMHO, we should balance around the majority of the powers system, and if buff powers turn out to be outliers, address them separately, instead of the other way around. Again IMHO the fix would be to apply diminishing returns to higher-level buff recipients, but make it one way (i.e. no accelerated returns from buffing lower-level buff recipients - otherwise un-teamed angeling becomes too much of a power play).


And for a while things were cold,
They were scared down in their holes
The forest that once was green
Was colored black by those killing machines

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
There are a few potential pitfalls to the auto-SK feature. It doesn't address the problem that people who are contributing less are getting equivalent XP. You look at a level 8 who joins a level 40's mission. Just like current SKing, he doesn't have his powers nearly as well as enhanced as the 40, doesn't have stamina for potential endurance issues and doesn't have the power selections to deal with situations that a level 40 has to deal with.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's true, but that's addressed by the fact that with less effective teammates the team overall is earning lower XP rates.


And for a while things were cold,
They were scared down in their holes
The forest that once was green
Was colored black by those killing machines

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
you believe the current system is valid because it supports proper division of XP in the presence of ally effects.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, I don't think that: I think the current system isn't completely valid. I just think that one that is based foundationally on presumptive level-adjusted contribution is not that much better.


[ QUOTE ]
IMHO, we should balance around the majority of the powers system, and if buff powers turn out to be outliers, address them separately, instead of the other way around.

[/ QUOTE ]

I believe that archetypal design balance presumptions override the individual powers mechanics concerns. Some archetypal contributions are intended to be highly level-sensitive, such as offense (or even moreso foe debuffing). However, others like ally buffing are explicitly not intended to be as sensitive to level scaling. As a result, archetypes designed to revolve around a high-degree of non-scaling team contributive effects should factor into the method for XP distribution in teams. Otherwise, the archetype team-specific balancing concerns would not be supported by the reward system: a highly contradictory state of affairs.

It isn't just buffing powers that are the problem: they are just the easiest to describe numerically. Take tankers. If a level 39 tanker discovers they can tank just as effectively for a level 40 team as a level 39 team, the level 39 tankers should receive more XP/min when tanking on the level 40 team, even though by the two-scrapper thought experiment, there are circumstances that suggest he should earn less (if the team is fighting 42s or higher, they would be +2 to the level 40s but +3 to the level 39, and depending on how you calculate, the XP curve would suggest that in isolation the tanker should earn less XP/min fighting +3s than +2s - other ways of calculation suggest this actually happens at the +3/+4 point, but that's not important here).

I don't think the two-scrapper thought experiment represents the bulk of all cases, but rather only a minority of them (at least hero-side: the intended design factors are different on the red-side).


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Posted

this wont explain why i got a minus in xp in front of the mish door, say the 4 1st mobs, then get a lil more on the rest of the map.
not like i care, just wanna feed you.


 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
It isn't just buffing powers that are the problem: they are just the easiest to describe numerically. Take tankers. If a level 39 tanker discovers they can tank just as effectively for a level 40 team as a level 39 team, the level 39 tankers should receive more XP/min when tanking on the level 40 team...

[/ QUOTE ]

Here's the crux of the disagreement then. I don't see why this should be true. At best they should be earning the same XP/min since their contribution is proportionally the same (assuming all they do is tank - if they also do damage or control, their contribution is proportionally somewhat less).


And for a while things were cold,
They were scared down in their holes
The forest that once was green
Was colored black by those killing machines