Are PvP drops actually helping PvP?

If CoH should look to any game for inspiration, I'd strongly recommend looking at GuildWars Heroes Ascent, especially when remodeling Base Raids. (Hint to any dev that may be reading this)

However, I do like CoH's open zone PvP to random arenas.

But as previously stated about PvP Ios "They aren't Hurting PvP."

I've never heard this before either, and know of no reason to expect it to be true. Barring some good evidence to the contrary, I'm chalking it up to perceptions. We've been told explicitly that drop rates are a function of mob rank and nothing else. I think that makes this very unlikely unless mobs in RV have rank labels that lie about what they really are and they're actually uniquely ranked entities with different drop rates. I can't imagine the devs going through that effort.

Thanks.

I just went into RV with my DM/SR, my positionals went from 47% to 33% and I lost 2 points of regen. Combine that with the heal decay I think it's safe for me to say I won't be going back there. Whether or not mobs in RV have a higher rate to drop purples is now a moot point to me because even if they do it's not worth it when compared to an 8 man mission spawn.

Yes.

Ask Lord_of_Time, he has the actual numbers.

Also, Bab's mentioned it about a year and half ago (i11?), when drop rates were actually changed to be dependent upon the difficulty of certain encounters (certain TF missions have higher rewards; a quick intuitive note, check out how often people claim to get purples from an RSF run as compared to an ITF. now note how many mobs you kill).

Yeah, now I'm really chalking it up to perception. When someone starts talking about intuition and drop rates, it's due to a shortage of facts and statistics.

I've always noticed the STF is chintzy with drops.

The wall does seem really slow for dropping purples. It would also go towards explaining why posi has that outsize merit reward, its your likelihood of getting anything decent as a drop on it is near null. Edit: For clarity: I am saying that the devs are considering the total potential earning power when setting merit rewards

hi, my name is ironblade and i don't understand the concept of a side-note.

Then you are in fundamental disagreement with Synapse, who has stated exactly how merit rewards are assigned.

other drops doesn't enter into it

1. I have no recollection whatsoever of BaBs ever saying that. I follow the Dev Digest rather dedicatedly.
2. BaB's job is not associated with drop rates. I would take anything he said about drop rates with a large grain of salt, especially when...
3. It's been contradicted by devs who do deal with drop rates. Synapse told us what I said above in very clear terms during the mass testing of drop rates being done in I16. Mob faction nor level has any bearing on their drop probability. Only Mob rank (minion, LT, boss, etc.) has any influence, and that influence is static. Level interacts with rank only to determine whether it should give you a reward at all - the mob has to con at least green to you to give you any drop. The only known variable drop rate is from AVs, who have a binary control on them saying their drop rate is 100%. Only AVs deemed "non-farmable" have this setting enabled.

IIRC he stated that in the equation there was a big discretionary constant. Now when I look at positron, 66 merits gives an average run of 3 hours 18 minutes. I know many many people that are doing posis in an hour and a half or less as a somewhat slow speed, so I look at the number and have to think there is something odd going on there. The same holds true for, synapse, sister psyche and manticore.

The very fact that you are here on these forums, and probably play with like-minded people is very likely to be what's going on there. Never, ever assume that you or anyone you know represents the average (or median) case. I know lots of people who complete TFs in 25 minutes that other people talk about failing repeatedly, and refusing to run them any more on those grounds.

I wasn't considering myself as the average here. What I was saying is that there is a large number of people that run it regularly and quickly. To pull the average out to 3:18:00 there would seem to need to be people completing it in what would be insanely long times.

Yah, I'm not a fan of their choice of using the median. I'm quite sure there is a bivalent distribution going on.

The simple fact of the matter is that the best people can and will run multiple TFs in the time an average person will.

This likely self-selects the median to be a much lower value than it should be, since the fast TF people will get so many more kicks at the can, and generally they do kick it more, much more. It's not like an exam where everyone gets the same amount of time to get a single mark, and the grades are distributed along a bell curve.

However, I'm pretty sure the devs can see the non gaussian distribution and therefore fudge the rewards a bit.

The median is a much better choice for this sort of thing. It's far less subject to the effects of outliers, and that's why they used it. Any time you want to treat things that have real values over a wide range and represent things as a single value, you have to do one of two things.

1. Ignore or at least devalue large outliers
2. Allow the single value to be disproportionately modified by large outliers

Option (2) is almost certainly to be considered unfair by a significant number of players, because it balances the game's rewards downwards for everyone to account for the best performers. Very few of the devs' changes have done that, even when you include some of their most extreme changes (ED and I13-PvP). Instead, many of their changes try to make the majority of people perform at the levels the devs want, while accepting that some will perform above it. Certainly, balancing merits around median values fits that philosophy to a tee.

Of course let's not forget that balancing to the median also allows some people to perform significantly poorly without suggesting rewards need to be increased. This is pretty important, because it helps keep people from gaming the stats by staying logged into TFs overnight.

Um, I never suggested an alternative to the median. I think you've just assumed that I would suggest an average in lieu of using the median.

An example of the median being a poor choice is reflected in the Eden trial. A better solution should be thought up was always my suggestion.

The discretionary component is there, it is never big. I was used for example to round the SFs that came up shy of the amount to an exact random roll.

Then of course they upped the median desired rate, and the discretionary portion was dropped as no longer needed.

Go back to the Feb 10th notes and see what was upped, and by what amounts and you can easily see that certain rewards lost that bump.

The other alternative is to work the reward system a bit differently. Think wider. Anyhow this is massively OT, just like the last 50 posts.

Sorry, but any reward system is going to have to solve these fundamental problems. Saying "think of something better" is just silly.

Edit: any reward system except going back to a flat reward per TF. Given their past objections to that and the way it incentivised the shortest TFs, I'm assuming that's not on the table.

Given the massive amount of brain power that is going around arguing in circles about PvP IOs is also rather silly don't you think?

Just because I don't take your position doesn't put me into your categorical other camp. Let go of the forum PvP and maybe we can have a real discussion.

You could easily baseline the merit reward system on the fastest completion times -25% and work the diminished reward system from there with a longer tail on the timer.

A simplistic linear scaling system that you seem to cling to isn't the only way to imagine implementations. All the current system has done is made the fastest runners get even more rewards, while (eventually) punishing the non speed runners.

Two examples I can think of of how the current system is flawed are LRSF and Eden Trial. Both have been run by speeders so often that the datamining supports that the overwhelming majority of runs will be by the fast folks, and then the median value is then of course, the fast times.

Again, let me point out that the fast people are able to run 3-6 TF/SFs easily in the time it takes an average team to run one TF/SF. This would also imply that the speeders are over represented by a similar factor, again skewing the median values.

Previously, you just got a TF pool drop upon completion, randomly given. Now, with a random merit drop costing 20 merits, most TFs can give 1 or 2 rolls easily. This means that fast runners are now also being rewarded twice or three times more for most TFs (SFs are kind of a different story) than before.

The current merit system thus gives massively greater rewards to the fast people, since they tend to metagame anyhow and will gravitate towards the best bang for the buck. This means they will target the TFs that give the best merit/minutes they can receive. This will also result in the median times dropping for the targeted TFs, leading to reduced rewards similar to what has happened to Eden Trial and LRSF.

Now you may argue that the average speed TF person doesn't know about this and really isn't being hurt currently. However, the massive disparity between the fast people and slow people also makes itself shown in other ways, which in a sense, pushes what Another_Fan has been speaking about. That disparity tends to make itself known by having all the farmed purples, PvP IOs and abundance of merits being distributed first to the fast folk, who profit from it a lot more than the average folks. If the average person is still doing the same things they were doing 2 issues ago, they've actually gone backwards in effective income since a Luck of the Gambler global recharge has easily doubled in price. Which group do you think will get more of those precious IOs?

As well, you can make an argument that the speeders are like locusts...after ruining the reward for Eden Trial, no speeder ever bothers with it anymore. What's the point? So now your average speed TF person finishes the Trial in 60 minutes (or more), and gets a measly 9 merits...how do you think they're going to react? Will they ever work an Eden Trial again?

This is a natural enticement for the average folks to get in the fast lane. If you're not getting up to speed on a TF, eventually your reward will be diminished for doing it the slow way.

Now I'm not saying that this is a good or bad thing, but if the intent of the devs is to keep the casual players happy, the task force merit system only made the fast people fat. Which is an epic phail from my point of view. While nothing is keeping the casual player from doing the same thing as the speeders/farmers/powergamer is doing, people's general happiness can be measured by how their neighbour/friend/co-worker is doing. Parking a hopped up IO'd sports car type toon beside your average family sedan toon for weeks on end doesn't exactly prop up the self esteem for the average person. Which means go hard or go home, or keep the separate classes away from each other.

On the old boards I had posted that TF merits were going to concentrate the loot instead of making it more egalitarian. Again, if that was the goal, well, Mission Accomplished.

And as to the OP's post, PvP drops are just making the farmers rich. No one is PvPing for the drops when they can just farm them instead.

All of these devices should be thought of as part of an overarching strategy that the devs wish to pursue. If they want the game to be more like EVE online, then great, it's working out that way.

I just think they are straying further and further from the original ideal that this is a casual game.

PS. I am an unrepentant speeder. And posting this verbiage in an OT manner is very silly.

Edit. As most people who are in this thread are interested in the market anyhow and know how to play it, this is like me arguing that middle class needs a bump at a black tie function for oil barons.

Absolutely correct. And believe me, they're out there. That's why I don't do PuG TF's.

Sure you can. Add some code that says "anything more than 1 standard deviation away from the norm is discarded". There are other less blunt more effective ways also.

I'll disagree on "the only way" while agreeing with the rest. "Best" and "Easiest" perhaps (though I am not sure on either). And by best I in no way mean to imply "Good" or "Desirable" but more along the lines of least bad. At least three other methods immediately spring to mind and I imagine people can come up with more given the opportunity:

1. Mechanics that reward player skill over character build. Think First-person shooters. All characters have the exact same capabilities. The only thing that differentiates the winner from the loser is the player abilities, not the character abilities. Existing timed missions fall into this category but the timers are so short as to make it not matter. Some aspects of PvP fall into this category. It is possible to make twitch-reflex-based mechanics give enough of an advantage as to reward people who have crappy builds. Now, a second problem is what is the comparable percentage of casual gamers with great reflexes vs wealthy speed runners? Probably not where it needs to be for this to be an effective solution. Enter #2:

2. Non-combat oriented obstacles. The devs created inspirations for a detective system. Doesn't currently exist. Might not be combat related. Might be able to force a slow-down in speed running. Might be something more rewarding for casual gamers. Runescape has a repeatable quest with an amazing reward and the primary obstacle is solving a sodoku with a limited number of attempted moves. I'm not sure many speeders are good at sodoku, but I bet a fair number of casual gamers are. If you can beat down the big bad villain and I can crack the vault and get access to his secret weakness and defeat him without having to fight, we might both finish at the same time. Or at least, a lot closer to each other's times. And there are lots of ways to vary this. For example, dangerous hazards. Croatoa has a mission (Gordon's arc, first mission with ghosts) with a smoky debuff field as a static hazard on the map, not created by any enemy. The hero respec trial has the radiation room, the Shadow Shard has the super jump geysers. Clearly the technology exists to give areas hazardous/helpful effects. Dunno the limits but if this can be applied to different powers and effects this is something that doesn't need to be created it already exists and could be written into missions to give an interesting challenge.

3. Fiddle with the speed techniques. Stealth and teleport are biggies for speeding missions. Make better use of enemies who over come or limit stealth. Knives of Artemis, Rikti Drones, Snipers, etc. Proximity bombs. Timed defend missions like the Croatoa finale in town, or the hero respec. If you and I are forced to do the most critical portion of a mission for the same length of time, it can't be speeded. The rest could, but this could alter averages some.

Again, I'm not saying any of these are better than rebalancing or that any of them are a good idea. Just that there are other options and I bet people can come up with options that are better than anything I can think of.


Average time to complete portions of a mission only tracking logged-in time and dropping anyone who is AFK from the numbers. Base the reward on actual time taken not average time taken. Speed it for lower results. Go really slow and frustrate the hell out of yourself. Sit around in a mission not defeating anyone to try and game the system and still get bad rewards.

Use a variation of patrol exp to generate patrol merits. Someone who only does 1 TF per month would get more per TF than someone who runs lots. Can't jump from TF to TF to avoid diminishing returns if they are consumed. But speeders could just use multiple characters which is already a solution in use to defeat diminishing returns.

I dunno, no actual good ideas but I'm sure someone can think of one eventually.