The mathemathics of base-building and Prestige
By
Accel,
Posted on: 2006-03-03 16:01 in Base Construction
*applause*
someone in the US beat you to showing that prestige is flawed.
Calculating in rent, and what an SG CAN earn, the maximum value of all your belonging is soft-capped at 92 million i believe. so no one will ever be able to even afford the largest plot, as the rent gets larger than the amount of prestige an active SG can bring in, ill look up the thread for ya.
edit: he goes from earning 200k per day as an active SG, believing his is the most earning on its server.
for the link: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showf...art=1&vc=1
oh yeh, no dev ever replied in the thread......
@Shift
Shift 50 DM/DA Scrapper ][ TTL 50 Kat/Reg Scrapper ][ Shabriel 50 Peacebringer ][ Ion Shift 46 Rad/Rad Corruptor ][ Thermal Shift 35 Fire/Fire Blaster
"A Scrapper is a lot like a chainsaw. Somewhat hard to handle, incredibly dangerous, and by far the most fun when wielded by the slightly insane."
Interesting article... still, it proves a different - though equally valid - point from mine. They show that graduately buildling up a base will 'bog down' at a certain point due to Rent. I show that, even if Rent was removed entirely, it would take ridiculous ammounts of work from an impossibly active SG to get to the 'big base'...
Hey, Bridger, you'll make sure this stuff gets to the big cheese in the US, right?
Then all we can do is hope that they won't just shrug and say 'Hey, as long as they keep paying their subscription, who cares?' 
interesting math... though i wonder....... Violators VG is the strongest growing SG amongst the top 10 (and prolly more) ive been taking stats on the prestige in the top SGs since it was enabled, and a few questions come to mind as well. based on what we earned for the last 2 months (58 days) i made a good calculation on what a leading SG earns for real, with the variables of life, such as ppl leaving, getting bored, reaching 40 and more.. we made 92k pres per day with an avarage of 40 active toons (daily players) of course an SG with 75 active toons would earn up to 200k/day but.... if u lead an SG u know the probability of having 75 daily active toons lol.. its like 0,0000001% the last 2 weeks our numbers show more than 30-40k more per day, but this is a long time stats and is more reliable when it comes to possibility of achievment.
this in mind, u'd say 'impossible' but Circle of Tarot (#1 SG on Unoin) had a total sum of 32 million pres after 2 months of Live-play. (This however looks like a major bug or similar though) if this is correct, it means they have earned 16 mill/month and would earn 192 mill/year.. sounds acceptable, then again.. something is wrong with the top 3 SGs on Union, since they arent earning any pres (cept for CoT that earns aprox 1k/week nowdays) my best guess is that this have been hero-SGs that took a massive amount of lvl 50s and all chipped in to buy prestige and made some Drek farming to boos pres as well, but grew tired of it, since during the 1st 2 months, nothing base-like had any real function.
I totally agree that 3 years is too long to achieve the strongest base possible. A good market strategy from NCSoft should be to have goals wthin reach so that dumb subscribers like us, actually would try. the main reason for why the bases gets to expensive in the long run, is the secure plots. As a very wealthy VG, the prices we are looking at in the beginning seem fair and joust. we have a massive base and alot of equipment, but looking past the 1st year, the base gets to expensive even for us, since we wont be able to by the secure plots. and no SG can stay motivated with earning pres when they have to save up for 4 months just be able to buy the smallest secure plot. perhaps a fix that would remove the secure plots all together and make the 4 largets hideouts auto-secure instead would be a good way to go.
Hmm, well, if your data is correct, it would seem that my estimate for daily earnings are set a bit low... your SG earned 50% less Prestige per Month than my fictional SG, but mine had 75 active players every day, while your had 'round 40 more-or-less irregular players.
So maybe this fictional SG could actually make it in ONLY 1½ year - or so. 
I've been able to pull in about 100k prestige in 2 or 3 days... but this was shile tedious monkey hunting during the bugged period when they gave more pres than Lts.
I rallied the other lvl50s and we made about 300k in those days. This was a nice boost, but it's never going to happen again.
And I believe the rent is 1% of the total value of the SG (base + inf) per 2 weeks. This sounds more like tax than rent
@ShadowGhost & @Ghostie
The Grav Mistress, Mistress of Gravity
If you have nothing useful to say, you have two choices: Say something useless or stay quiet.
If they lowered the prices then rent would automatically drop as well..
yeh, they just need to cut the prices in 1/5th of what they are now (or thereabouts).... or, multiply the prestige we earn per mob by 5 (or thereabouts :P) so that, a good SG can have a raidable base up and running shortly, and it shouldnt take more than a year for a REALLY active SG to have a full base will all the tingles.
As it stands now (US board numbers) in 5 years, you can gater around 95-105 mill prestige, and stay there, you cant overcome the interest (tax!!!) by this point. This is your prestige + the cost of you base. This leaves you VASTLY short of even the largest PLOT. somethings wrong here Cryptic/NCSoft!
@Shift
Shift 50 DM/DA Scrapper ][ TTL 50 Kat/Reg Scrapper ][ Shabriel 50 Peacebringer ][ Ion Shift 46 Rad/Rad Corruptor ][ Thermal Shift 35 Fire/Fire Blaster
"A Scrapper is a lot like a chainsaw. Somewhat hard to handle, incredibly dangerous, and by far the most fun when wielded by the slightly insane."
Somebody told me that exemplaring does raise prestige, and I think it might do, but I haven't tested it properly... ah well.
Interesting, however your base prestige per day (490) seems a bit small. I think that a "true CoH Fanatic" is able to achieve way more than that, by effectively playing without pauses and kill way more than 2 enemies per minute. For example, I won something like 5k prestige per hour during a TF in shadow shards. So I think the average prestige per hour can be significantly higher than 490.
However, as you said, you did not consider rent and items in your calculation. The rent will be higher and higher every month. It's not easy to calculate, but I believe that it's not actually possible to complete the biggest base, even with 75 players playing 8 hours a day for years.
When you reach the 200M prestige, your rent should be something like 7M every 15 days. You cannot pay such an amount with 8M a month. You can still refuse to pay the rent of course. Even when you reach 100M prestige, your rent should be something like 3M or 4M, and that will definitely slow you down.
I realize that my average is set a bit low - it's based on 'normal play', rather than dedicated Prestige-hunting... but really, with things such as TF's, AV's, GM's, and all the other acronyms playing in, what IS a realistic, long-term average?
But okay, let's say that these people are hunting Prestige with abandon. 2000 Prestige per hour - 16.000 per day - 1.200.000 per day for the whole SG. That's 36.000.000 per month...
My original figure for the biggest base plot with one of each room in the highest magnitude stands at 137.812.500 + 78.325.000 = 216.137.500
So, 216.137.500/36.000.000 = aproximately 6. So if we accept these figures, and continue to ignore rent and the cost of actually furnishing the base, which I don't have the figures for, it would 'only' take half a year for this theoretic Fanatic SG to achieve their goal.
What are you all waiting for? 
[ QUOTE ]
Hmm, well, if your data is correct, it would seem that my estimate for daily earnings are set a bit low... your SG earned 50% less Prestige per Month than my fictional SG, but mine had 75 active players every day, while your had 'round 40 more-or-less irregular players.
So maybe this fictional SG could actually make it in ONLY 1½ year - or so.
[/ QUOTE ]
Your figures are VERY low. We once for ourselves 5k short to place a telepad. I sent to the other member (a Leader btw) that wouldn't take too long to earn. He promptly buggered off and left me to it.
I went out and did a spot of hunting. At the time there was only one other player on and in the half hour he earned about a grand and I eanred the 4k.
In half an hour!
True, I was going after high prestige targets, but nevertheless, that's 8k an hour, or 64k in an eight hour sitting.
If we factor that into your hypethetical SG that's a total day's earning of 4.8 MILLION, or 144 million for one month of fanatical play.
I'm not suggesting this would ever happen but only to demonstrate that the margin for error in these calcs is enormous. Especially when considering top end potential.
However, at my peak I was earning around 130k prestige per month, which multiplied by 75 works out within the ballpark of your figures, which you clearly demonstrate is insuffienct for the high end bases. Meaning it would take a fanatical prestige generating machine of an SG to get up there and frankly, that's asking a bit much.
Expect prestige cost to undergo some heavy rejigging over the next few issues.
(\_/)
(O.O) Bunny: Our time is coming
(> <)
Yeah, I guess you could do that but then where would the point in actually playing the game be!? I enjoy the content in the game, and even though I do a lot of number-based stuff at the end of the day I play it to have fun. Going out and killing high prestige monsters all day for several hours is not my idea of fun. This needs to be fixed. Now.
....and not forgetting that you dont earn inf after lvl 32 (in fact it slows down at around lvl 28) - so if a 75 man SG were all active from the word go.. they would not be able to fully support there toons after lvl 32 for SO's sake, thus leading to break the Prestige earnings down by 100% while they gather the inf that they so require.
Although I DO remember reading a post a long while ago on this very subject and bridger did mention that the prestige was under investigation..
ok, soo much theoretical numbers.. here is a good fact, based on a very active player (let me just say i got 10 lvl 50 heroes and 3 lvl 40 villians and many, many alts with various lvls.. and all this in 14 months)
i make on a lvl 30+ char when im doing the regular grind, somewhere between 900-1000 prestige per mission. 1 mission takes 8-12 min depending on lvl-spawns and map-size. this will mount up to 5k/hour including minor afks such as bio and smokes (and slapping the kidz around) I play every day (no exceptions) though my effective game-time varys coz of base-building, recruiting, TFs, and mood..
in 124 days that i have been earning prestige, i made 1.52 mill prestige. as characters earn aprox half the amount of pres lvl 1-20 compared to lvl 30-40 per kill and kill-rate increases to atleast the double, alot of pres is lost on numerous alts the never reached higher than lvl 20 (in this case 6 alts lower than 20) and 4 chars that has been taken above this lvls up to 30+. the aprox amount of pres made lvl 25-40 is 300k (if u play as i do) and will take 3 weeks. this resulting in 1 player playing only for prestige with higher lvl-chars can easy make 100k/week
to be honest, there is no way u can run a SG with 75 active players, though 50 would be a great achievment (we are currently the strongest growing SG and have an avarage of 40-50 active chars/day. some of theese are alts, and in a perfect SG it wouldnt.)
50 players with tha same intensity as myself would earn:
50*100k = 5M every week. or 20-25M / month
through alll the gaming ive done in CoX i met only a few ppl motivated enough to keep my pace, but none for the same duration of time as me. ppl in general grow tired of the repeatedly lvling and grinding same story-arcs and same boring maps within 3-4 months.
The only way possible imo would be to PL for prestige. but since ED and all the PL-nerfs, i doubt you would be able to do much more than 100M/week in an all-PL-SG and that dont count for the extreme boredome and frustration PL creates.
btw, u dont make twice pres when EX'd, but if a lvl 30+ with all SOs would EX to lvl -12 he would do 2-3 times as fast kill-rate thus resulting in twice the pres/hour when EX'd but not pres/kill
So it a case of large expenses combined with too little prestige?
Now if they would make arcane salvage a little more common 
Althought if it helps for figures, we made 540k prestige over the weekend as an SG.
[ QUOTE ]
So it a case of large expenses combined with too little prestige?
[/ QUOTE ]
Yup - you basically summed up all my long-winded and mostly theoretical calculations with that one sentence.
Ok, can anybody actually see a valid reason for base rent to actually exist?
Defiant
Proud Member of the Liberty Legion
Venture - Emp/En Defender
Seph - Kat/SR Scrapper
Blizzard - Ice/Storm Controller
Legionelosis - Rad/Rad Defender
Well its beacuse...........
You see it like.........
If you take into account.........
No.
I *could* see a reason for it.
To reflect the rise and fall of an SG, such that an SG that has long since had its day doesn't see a half dozen players sitting on a massive base.
BUT.
If there is a split in the SG and, say, half the members leave and the remainder is left with trying to make enormous rent payments the situation where you have a small SG with a massive base that they can't get into until they stump up the 10s or 100s of thousand of prestige in rent in order to unlock the base and sell off some rooms or items to make the next rent payment.
Not very well thought through.
(\_/)
(O.O) Bunny: Our time is coming
(> <)
That's cause secretly prestige represents money, but "killing"/"arresting" people for money is not an heroic thing to do, allthough some Villians do it...
If it represents money, then let me rob a bank to pay for it sadly I will just have to pay the 265k rent bill I just got
[ QUOTE ]
He promptly buggered off and left me to it.
[/ QUOTE ]
LOL, what do you I was doing? 
.
Ok, yeah, I was faxing over photocopies of my bum to Snow's SG, on the SG photocopier , but I think there was another lump of spare change shortly after that 5k .
I remember, back in the days of the 'Great Nerfs' of I5 and ED, the Devs would challenge us to put forwards exact calculations to show how bad it was, rather than just claim that it sucked... nevermind that lots of people did and it STILL went ahead, I'm going to try and do the same thing for the Prestige-costs of bases, by doing a calculation that will show how well the pricing fits.
-pulls up a blackboard-
Okay, let's see... from my own experience, you will earn, at average, around 20 Prestige per kill when soloing. That's an average between the many, many minion, who may give 7-9, and the bosses who'll give more (and of course the occasional big payout from AV's). Figuring in travel-time between mobs, and between missions, I will assume that, on an hourly basis, you get two kills per minute. Figuring in two 'Mission Bonuses' of 250 Prestige (since a fairly competent player can usually complete a mission in 'bout half an hour - again, this is a wide average), that makes 490 Prestige per hour.
This should also loosely apply to teams, since bigger teams means more kills, but less Prestige per kill. And of course, SK'ing and Exemplaring doesn't affect Prestige gains at all...
Now, a true CoH Fanatic would probably spend an average of 8 hours per day playing, and we'll of course assume that he's in SG mode all the time... this figure is based on the fact that, generally speaking, you need to sleep 8 hours per day to stay concious, and work 8 hours per day to pay the rent, the electricity, and the 'net connection. Of course, in the week-ends, there is more time, but on the other hand, you'll also need to stop occasionally for bio-breaks and eating on working days, so we go with the 8-hour average. That makes 3920 Prestige per player per day. Not bad, huh?
Well, let's assume that this individual is in an SG filled completely with similar no-life CoH Fanatics. SG membership roof is 75 - so, that would mean that the SG as a whole makes 294.000 Prestige per day. That's 2.058.000 per week, or 8.820.000 Per month.
Now, the biggest plot available, the Massive Secure Complex, costs 137.812.500 Prestige. Assuming that the SG used their 'Starting Bonus' to set up a minimal base on the smallest ordinary plot, that is.
So, this theoretic group of utter and complete CoH Fanatics would have to fight for 137.812.500/8.820.000 = 15,625 months - that's around one and a quarter YEAR, to be able to afford just the PLOT. Now, of course, that's just the plot - let's assume that they want to put in one of each type of room, of the biggest type available, obviously - why else would you need such a big plot?
Great Room: 150.000
Secure Generator Core: 16.900.000
Command Center: 12.500.000
Secure Portal Room: 1.350.000
Workshop: 400.000
Trauma Center: 525.000
Secure Dual Vault: 9.000.000
Stronghold: 37.500.000
Total: 78.325.000
So, dividing with the old figure of 8.820.000 earned per month, that comes to 8,88 months - add that to the 15,625 from before and you get aproximately 24,5 months - that's just over TWO YEARS of work to complete this theoretic base with all the rooms. And that isn't even counting the stuff you need to put IN the rooms - I don't have access to the necessary data to calculate exactly how much THAT would be, but it's probably safe to assume that it would add another half year or so...
Also note that this calculation completely ignores the problem of 'Rent', since I don't know how to calculate the rent - it's interesting to contemplate whether, after those 2 years of hard work creating the base, this fictional Fanatic SG would actually be able to support the Rent...
I just hope this calculation makes it to the devs somehow...
Class dismissed.