Enforce "1 merit per 3 minutes" in code
By
Bionic_Flea,
Posted on: 2010-03-10 24:13 in Suggestions and Ideas
The metric is for the median earning rate for an arc/SF/TF.
It is expected that there is a distribution both faster and slower than that rate.
If the arc/SF/TF significantly over or under rewards, there have been adjustments, and I have little doubt there will be more in the future.
Clamping the 'maximum earning rate' to the current median earning rate is reducing the rewards for half the arc completions, and would be a significant reduction in the overall merit earning rate.
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Originally Posted by Megajoule
Although the Devs have stated on several occasions that their metric for reward merits is "one per three minutes of play", and have rebalanced and tweaked TFs and Ouro arcs as necessary to fit, players have still managed to come up with ways to increase their rate of merit gain. Some teams can apparently cut this down to as little as one minute per merit, a threefold increase.
My suggestion is that the Devs may wish to implement a hard-coded limit which makes it impossible to gain more than one merit per three minutes. Since these merits are awarded at the end of the arc or Task/Strike Force, it seems to me that the most appropriate solution (if the Devs do wish to enforce their game design) would be to set the merit award to either the default value or the actual completion time divided by 3, whichever is lower. (Extra merits should not be awarded for extra time, lest players leave themselves logged in overnight before completing the arc or task force.) |
Lol wat?
The second paragraph totally threw me for a loop. There isn't a mechanic in game that rewards more merits based on more time spent in a sf/tf/arch/ouro... what have you.
As to the first paragraph? Players who are able to complete tasks faster deserve the same merit reward as players that take a longer time. Please do not advocate further " dumbing down" of this game ,Op. If you( understood you) want equal merit division then please learn to make the most out of your time regarding risk vs reward instead of advocating to penalize players who do. The Dev's have already hit merit earned per time spent pretty heavy handedly. Thats why merit rewards are based on "median" times of all teams running anything in game that grants a merit reward.
If I had my preference I would put in place what you suggest but backwards. Teams completeling a task ahead of the median would get a merit bonus based on their time.Example: ITF median time is 1 hour. Team A completes ITF in 30 minutes and Team B completes an ITF in 2 hours and 30 minutes. Team A would get bonus merits of 10 additional merits for beating the median and Team B would get 0 merits for not only not achieving the median but failing to come within 30 minutes of said median. That might be a little harsh... so? Give Team B the regular merit reward for completion.To take it even further? We should get a bonus merit reward based on difficulty settings. For example: All Master's settings should give an additional 15 merits.Tasks run on highest dificulty should receive an additional 5. etc etc etc. We have that nifty little difficulty slider they spent time designing. So why not attach merits of varying degree to each option selected?Like+anything gives one more merit. Time in completion selected awards an additional +5 merits if achieved. No deaths awards an additional +5 merits. Player debuffed or no travel power rewards an additional+2. You get the idea.....
It would be nice to see good players rewarded for what they do rather than continually penalized because of the thinking along the lines of this thread.
disclaimer: the numbers above are hypothetical. The sentiment behind the thought is not.I am pretty tired of seeing players penalized simply becaue they play hard and well.Maybe if the devs set the bar a little higher and waved a carrot on a stick more players would go for faster play rather than advocating everyone live with mediocrity.
Ditzy,
in regards the difficulty settings and the like.
It was stated that the only way we would get bonus merits for having a challange setting in place (like no deaths), would be if failing that challange had a penalty in merit terms.
I would still like to see them come into play even with the penalty if you fail em.
@Catwhoorg "Rule of Three - Finale" Arc# 1984
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So because you can't run things as fast as some people you want everyone to be stuck down at your level ?
That's your whole post in one sentence - seriously merit earning is not breaking anything so why nerf it for people that are efficient at it ?
I am an ebil markeeter and will steal your moneiz ...correction stole your moneiz. I support keeping the poor down because it is impossible to make moneiz in this game.
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Originally Posted by Catwhoorg
Ditzy,
in regards the difficulty settings and the like. It was stated that the only way we would get bonus merits for having a challange setting in place (like no deaths), would be if failing that challange had a penalty in merit terms. I would still like to see them come into play even with the penalty if you fail em. |
I'd be up for this.
Maybe a Master Run Double Or Half option? (Double or nothing seems a bit much considering how hard Master Runs are.)
But I think +Difficulty should boost merits, but I think difficulty is currently disabled on Task Forces.
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I see this being griefable, not sure how probable but still an issue. |
Originally Posted by CapnGeist
I'd be up for this.
Maybe a Master Run Double Or Half option? (Double or nothing seems a bit much considering how hard Master Runs are.) But I think +Difficulty should boost merits, but I think difficulty is currently disabled on Task Forces. |
Say 8 of you sign up for a MoSTF where having no deaths equals 20 additional merits, yet dying once negates the entire reward and provides an additional -20 merits (hypothetical). One person can easily grief the TF and cause 7 other players to lose out on merits.
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No thank you. My time is valuable to me. I don't have time to spend 2 to 4 hours in a TF. Besides all your proposal would do to speed teams is make them log onto another character before completing the last mission objective until your "allowable time" clock ran it's course.
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Although the Devs have stated on several occasions that their metric for reward merits is "one per three minutes of play", and have rebalanced and tweaked TFs and Ouro arcs as necessary to fit, players have still managed to come up with ways to increase their rate of merit gain. Some teams can apparently cut this down to as little as one minute per merit, a threefold increase. My suggestion is that the Devs may wish to implement a hard-coded limit which makes it impossible to gain more than one merit per three minutes. Since these merits are awarded at the end of the arc or Task/Strike Force, it seems to me that the most appropriate solution (if the Devs do wish to enforce their game design) would be to set the merit award to either the default value or the actual completion time divided by 3, whichever is lower. (Extra merits should not be awarded for extra time, lest players leave themselves logged in overnight before completing the arc or task force.) |
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
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Originally Posted by Bionic_Flea
No thank you. My time is valuable to me. I don't have time to spend 2 to 4 hours in a TF. Besides all your proposal would do to speed teams is make them log onto another character before completing the last mission objective until your "allowable time" clock ran it's course.
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Already been there a few issues back. That lead to the current system we have now.
Another thought seperated from Flea's post:
How about additional - merits attached to the options in the slider? If you fail the challenge the team( or single player) still gets the regular completion merits? As to a penalty for failing challenge? They could set it at a -1 or -2 per challenged failed. That was players still get merit(s) , even if below the base reward, for doing the activity and bonuses for fulfilling challenge requirements. SO a team ( or player) that fails challenges in the difficulty setting still receives merits . Just below the " median" reward" becase of failed challenges. The players that completes challenges get a bonus reward for additional effort. Neither group of players is penalized by "time vs reward" anything. I see that as an incentive... not a griefing opportunity. The dev team has sited the term "risk vs. reward" over and over. Ok? Give us a reason to take risks rather than making everything based on "mediocre" play.
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It's more that speed-running actually lowers the merit rewards for T/SFs. I dunno if the devs determined the merit rewards manually or just ran a program through it, but it's common knowledge that it's the median amount of time in a T/SF determined the merit rewards.|
Originally Posted by Lohenien
So because you can't run things as fast as some people you want everyone to be stuck down at your level ?
That's your whole post in one sentence - seriously merit earning is not breaking anything so why nerf it for people that are efficient at it ? |
And this isn't even about running something faster or slower. If people wanna speed-run SFs? Awesome! Have fun, guys! I don't like speed-running, though. I expect my Stalkers to stick to the team and help causing mayhem and destruction as we go forth.
This wasn't a problem in those pre-Merit Reward days, but now that we have them, speed-running means that not only that Merit Rewards are lower than what they would've been without speed-runners, but some people even take that as an encouragement to speed-run SFs.
So the way I see it, it's not an issue of how fast you can do it but a conflict of play-styles.
All that said, though, I think the OP's idea is unsuitable if only because it encourages stalling in the last mission to get the most Merit Rewards and just breed a situation where it encourages not playing, which is rather backwards to say at least.
I would agree that difficulty settings could and should award bonus merits, but nothing over the top. How about 1 merit for each additional setting?
+1 level = 1 merit
+4 levels = 4 merits
+time limit = 1 merit
+debuff players = 1 merit
no deaths = 1 merit
no temps = 1 merit
Etc.
So a Master Run would generally give two more merits than normal, unless you added other challenges. So if you did a Master Run, + 4 levels, with players debuffed and Critters buffed you would get +8 merits added to your normal bonus.
I don't think that is overly generous and it wouldn't require a concommitant penalty for failing the challenge. Hell, if you can do a +4 Master Run buffed/debuffed you probably deserve more than 8, but I wanted to keep it simple and not go overboard.
Maybe the time limit is too easy for a merit though.
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This video states my opinions on this quite well.
Start at about 3:24.
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
Lets think like Joe Player( no offense,Joe). An extra merit or 8 would be welcome. I think Master's should give an additional 10 merits minimum( yes, I know for many they are easy breezy ). Yes, there are a select few players that will get more merits if we ever get merits based on the difficulty slider( won't be me cause I barely play here anymore). But there are many players that view a master's run as an accomplishment thats REALLY hard. Those players should be rewarded as should the players that kickout Master's in eyeblinking times( and I am not talking about only Master's runs here,either.. if Joe can kickout any sf//tf in record time with +4, no deaths, players debuffed, no travel and a time limit than WHOEVER JOE IS deserves a REWARD) There will ALWAYS be players that exceed the median. Just as there will always be players that fall far below the median. Seems adding merits on the slider is a way to reward all types of players. It's a veritable win//win.
It might seem hard to balance slider merits. But it really isn't(Not talking bout actual coding implementation and whatnot). If some players excel they should be rewarded for their achievements. Not constantly penalized by suggestions such as the one in this OP. By the same token Joe should get an extra goodie if he achieves something that was really hard to him. Players are all Joe in the end.Joe Smith just has less time to play than Joe Fields. Still the same ole Joe.......
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It might be useful to cap all rewards per unit time at some ludicrously high rate to prevent characters from using exploits or bugs to gain excessive merits, xp, influence, etc. This would allow the devs to avoid having to rescind levels, or deal with other fallout from excessively high reward rates. By ludicrously high, I mean something two or three times as fast as the best non-exploiting team has done according to the devs' datamining.|
Originally Posted by Megajoule
My suggestion is that the Devs may wish to implement a hard-coded limit which makes it impossible to gain more than one merit per three minutes. Since these merits are awarded at the end of the arc or Task/Strike Force, it seems to me that the most appropriate solution (if the Devs do wish to enforce their game design) would be to set the merit award to either the default value or the actual completion time divided by 3, whichever is lower. (Extra merits should not be awarded for extra time, lest players leave themselves logged in overnight before completing the arc or task force.)
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Instead of a mushy "we won't tell you beforehand what we consider exploitative," there would be high but well-defined metric for what constitutes abuse. Much of the AE unpleasantness might have been avoided had such a system been in place.
The way merits are awarded should be more like all other reward systems in the game: the more mobs you defeat, the more rewards you get. With TFs, the focus is totally on fast completion times for merits; defeating enemies is not a consideration.
Thus, a logical change to bring TFs into line with the rest of the game would be to reward some base number of merits (smaller than now) for completion of the TF, sort of like a mission completion bonus, plus some number of merits based on the number of mobs defeated. Teams that took longer because they didn't stealth lots of missions wouldn't be penalized for defeating mobs. This would also reward players who run in every mission (assuming that currently someone who sits out a mission gets the same number of merits as someone who did every one).
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1 merit per 3 minutes is only the metric for TFs:
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Originally Posted by Megajoule
Although the Devs have stated on several occasions that their metric for reward merits is "one per three minutes of play", and have rebalanced and tweaked TFs and Ouro arcs as necessary to fit
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Originally Posted by Synapse
Task Forces give an average of 1 merit every 3 minutes of average time (20 merits an hour), Trials give an average of 1 merit every 2.5 minutes (24 merits an hour), and Story Arcs give an average of 1 merit every 7.5 minutes (8 merits an hour).
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http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt
I would be in favor of this idea, but ONLY if they at the same time implement getting additional merits for setting (and completing) challenges, as I think they said they intended to a while back.
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I think the only word on merits for challenges that any dev has mentioned came from BAB (and hence, is really just a player's opinion, since BAB has no control over the subject). He said something along the lines of 'if merits are granted for challenges, failing those challenges should reduce the merit award' (heavily paraphrased).
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Originally Posted by Rebel_Scum
I would be in favor of this idea, but ONLY if they at the same time implement getting additional merits for setting (and completing) challenges, as I think they said they intended to a while back.
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http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt
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So, essentially you want to punish players for being good at the game? No thanks. A game where performance and achievement is punished out of some misguided sense of "fairness" is not a game I would want to be playing. What's next? Some players earn influence faster than others, so restrict their earning rate? |
Originally Posted by Megajoule
Although the Devs have stated on several occasions that their metric for reward merits is "one per three minutes of play", and have rebalanced and tweaked TFs and Ouro arcs as necessary to fit, players have still managed to come up with ways to increase their rate of merit gain. Some teams can apparently cut this down to as little as one minute per merit, a threefold increase.
My suggestion is that the Devs may wish to implement a hard-coded limit which makes it impossible to gain more than one merit per three minutes. Since these merits are awarded at the end of the arc or Task/Strike Force, it seems to me that the most appropriate solution (if the Devs do wish to enforce their game design) would be to set the merit award to either the default value or the actual completion time divided by 3, whichever is lower. (Extra merits should not be awarded for extra time, lest players leave themselves logged in overnight before completing the arc or task force.) |
All players have equal opportunities to earn merits (or other rewards). How well they do so is based partly on their ability & skill, as it should be. If you can't perform at that level, then work at improving yourself, not at dragging others down to your level.
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This is only if the majority of runs of that TF/SF are speed runs (see: Eden, Katie, Cap). You'll notice that the LGTF offers 36(?) merits, which works out to about 108 minutes median time. Almost every team I'm on that runs these regularly (and some I'm not) finish in around 25 minutes. Obviously not enough of these speed runs are happening relative to total runs to skew the results greatly (you'll notice that the merit rewards for the LGTF and ITF actually increased during the first round of merit adjustments).
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Originally Posted by Noxilicious
It's more that speed-running actually lowers the merit rewards for T/SFs
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Yeah, obviously it differs from TF to TF, and personally I don't actually care for Merit Rewards to begin with, so that never bothered me.|
Originally Posted by macskull
This is only if the majority of runs of that TF/SF are speed runs (see: Eden, Katie, Cap). You'll notice that the LGTF offers 36(?) merits, which works out to about 108 minutes median time. Almost every team I'm on that runs these regularly (and some I'm not) finish in around 25 minutes. Obviously not enough of these speed runs are happening relative to total runs to skew the results greatly (you'll notice that the merit rewards for the LGTF and ITF actually increased during the first round of merit adjustments).
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What does bother me are posters, like the one above you, that seem to think this is all just a disparity in player-skills when it is also, if not more so, a disparity in player-style.
It's not that I'm not good enough to speed-run SFs for maximum efficiency, it's that I simply don't like speed-running, i.e. ignoring every mob and rushing to the end of every map. I prefer tackling those mobs in front of me, go pew pew and watch them fall down.
And that's exactly the thing, I don't think anyone who shares my mentality would tell a speed-runner to to slow down. If you have fun, great! But whenever someone brings up Merit Rewards for T/SFs, there's several people that just say "YOU'RE JUST NOT GOOD ENOUGH A PLAYER! STOP COMPLAINING AND SPEED-RUN LIKE ME!", and I do not like being told how to play, especially if it's the kind of play-style I don't enjoy at all.
That's why I say this is a conflict of play-styles. Ideally, you would get suitable Merit Rewards regardless of how you play, but when Merit Rewards are gimped to the point where speed-running is considered necessary to make doing an SF worthwile*, you'd think that's an indication that there's a problem, no?
*That is not to say that this is the case. Like I said, I don't care about Merit Rewards, so whether the rewards are gimped or not, I don't know. It's just that when some people say they are, and then others tell them to shut up and SPEED-RUN MOAR, NUB, I get the impression that a problem does exist.
I think you read something into Macskull's post that wasn't there. He said nothing about skill or nubbery or anything like that. He did say that he ran them quickly but that most people did not and therefore the average time was relatively stable.
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You can't just pigeonhole playstyles into speedrunners vs. normal players. A good team will steamroll through mobs at a rapid pace, take down AV's quickly, etc. A sub-par team will struggle along, taking longer, even if both teams do the exact same things along the way. If the fast team completes the exact same objectives as the slow team, but in less time, why should their rewards be reduced? |
Originally Posted by Noxilicious
What does bother me are posters, like the one above you, that seem to think this is all just a disparity in player-skills when it is also, if not more so, a disparity in player-style.
It's not that I'm not good enough to speed-run SFs for maximum efficiency, it's that I simply don't like speed-running, i.e. ignoring every mob and rushing to the end of every map. I prefer tackling those mobs in front of me, go pew pew and watch them fall down. And that's exactly the thing, I don't think anyone who shares my mentality would tell a speed-runner to to slow down. If you have fun, great! But whenever someone brings up Merit Rewards for T/SFs, there's several people that just say "YOU'RE JUST NOT GOOD ENOUGH A PLAYER! STOP COMPLAINING AND SPEED-RUN LIKE ME!", and I do not like being told how to play, especially if it's the kind of play-style I don't enjoy at all. |
I don't like being told how to play either, and I'm not trying to tell anyone else how to play. The only one that seems to be advocating that here, is the OP...
Please, can we not use average (mean) in this discussion.
The times used in the calculation are the median (50th percentile), at least in part as that is less sensitive to variation in the extremes.
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Sorry, I thought they did use mean time. Although colloquially speaking, having a time close to the median is rather average.|
Originally Posted by Catwhoorg
Please, can we not use average (mean) in this discussion.
The times used in the calculation are the median (50th percentile), at least in part as that is less sensitive to variation in the extremes. |
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
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Since we know we're getting a system that will determine what percent of the mobs are left on the map (last 10% will show up on the map is coming in i17 I believe) perhaps they can also add bonus merits for percent of map cleared.
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Originally Posted by Bionic_Flea
I would agree that difficulty settings could and should award bonus merits, but nothing over the top. How about 1 merit for each additional setting?
+1 level = 1 merit +4 levels = 4 merits +time limit = 1 merit +debuff players = 1 merit no deaths = 1 merit no temps = 1 merit Etc. So a Master Run would generally give two more merits than normal, unless you added other challenges. So if you did a Master Run, + 4 levels, with players debuffed and Critters buffed you would get +8 merits added to your normal bonus. I don't think that is overly generous and it wouldn't require a concommitant penalty for failing the challenge. Hell, if you can do a +4 Master Run buffed/debuffed you probably deserve more than 8, but I wanted to keep it simple and not go overboard. Maybe the time limit is too easy for a merit though. |
Although the Devs have stated on several occasions that their metric for reward merits is "one per three minutes of play", and have rebalanced and tweaked TFs and Ouro arcs as necessary to fit, players have still managed to come up with ways to increase their rate of merit gain. Some teams can apparently cut this down to as little as one minute per merit, a threefold increase.
My suggestion is that the Devs may wish to implement a hard-coded limit which makes it impossible to gain more than one merit per three minutes. Since these merits are awarded at the end of the arc or Task/Strike Force, it seems to me that the most appropriate solution (if the Devs do wish to enforce their game design) would be to set the merit award to either the default value or the actual completion time divided by 3, whichever is lower. (Extra merits should not be awarded for extra time, lest players leave themselves logged in overnight before completing the arc or task force.)
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