Enforce "1 merit per 3 minutes" in code
By
Bionic_Flea,
Posted on: 2010-03-10 24:13 in Suggestions and Ideas
You do understand that by the very concept of averaging (well using the median in this case) that some people are faster and some are slower ?
That is the design intent.
@Catwhoorg "Rule of Three - Finale" Arc# 1984
@Mr Falkland Islands"A Nation Goes Rogue" Arc# 2369 "Toasters and Pop Tarts" Arc#116617
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Cat beat me to it, but do you understand what the word "average" means?|
Originally Posted by Megajoule
The position that players should be earning, on average, 1 merit per three minutes from task forces is not mine, it's the Devs'.
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| I do believe that this would be fairer to players |
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| than reducing the rewards for everyone to reflect common speed-run times, which would be another method to enforce their game design (one which they've used in the past). |
Even if this boogieman of speed runs causing nerfs became true, there are potentially much better ways to address it, rather than punish certain types of players for their playstyle.
As I understand it, about a year ago(?), some of the Kheldian arcs were being completed (in Ouroborous) in much less time than their merit awards suggested. Players became aware of this and began farming those arcs. This, of course, came to the attention of the Devs. The awards were adjusted accordingly, most of them downward. Other arcs had their awards tweaked about the same time, again (as I understand it) to match the "1 per 3" metric.
On a recent visit to the Market forums, several players informed me that they employed various tactics to increase their rate of merit gain from the expected 1 per 3 to something closer to 1 per 1. I am aware that this is an average; however, if such behavior becomes common, one may expect the average to shift noticeably (to 1 per 2, say) and for the Devs to take action accordingly.
Furthermore, given that the last time the Devs implemented sweeping changes in order to prevent players from greatly exceeding the intended rate of experience/reward gain - in that case, via the AE system - the result was to implement strict new controls that affected all users of that system. Players who were only interested in quick rewards, of course, promptly migrated to other areas of the game or to other games entirely, leaving the remaining users of the Mission Architect to suffer the consequences of their actions.
So yes, I'm concerned about the possibility of a few players - the speed-runners - ruining things for everyone else, if the Devs are committed to enforcing their oft-cited "speed limit". We don't know that they are. But if they are, then I would like to see a fix that actually focuses on the people who are pushing the curve out of wack. That sort is going to move on to the next Get Stuff Faster trick anyway, as soon as this hole is plugged; I would simply like to see as little collateral damage land on everyone else as possible.
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My understanding was that the arc you mentioned was given an incorrect (and excessive) merit value when merits were introduced, and that it was corrected after it was pointed out how skewed the rewards were by players.|
Originally Posted by Megajoule
As I understand it, about a year ago(?), some of the Kheldian arcs were being completed (in Ouroborous) in much less time than their merit awards suggested. Players became aware of this and began farming those arcs. This, of course, came to the attention of the Devs. The awards were adjusted accordingly, most of them downward. Other arcs had their awards tweaked about the same time, again (as I understand it) to match the "1 per 3" metric.
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| On a recent visit to the Market forums, several players informed me that they employed various tactics to increase their rate of merit gain from the expected 1 per 3 to something closer to 1 per 1. |
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| Furthermore, given that the last time the Devs implemented sweeping changes in order to prevent players from greatly exceeding the intended rate of experience/reward gain - in that case, via the AE system - the result was to implement strict new controls that affected all users of that system. Players who were only interested in quick rewards, of course, promptly migrated to other areas of the game or to other games entirely, leaving the remaining users of the Mission Architect to suffer the consequences of their actions. |
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| So yes, I'm concerned about the possibility of a few players - the speed-runners - ruining things for everyone else, if the Devs are committed to enforcing their oft-cited "speed limit". We don't know that they are. But if they are, then I would like to see a fix that actually focuses on the people who are pushing the curve out of wack. That sort is going to move on to the next Get Stuff Faster trick anyway, as soon as this hole is plugged; I would simply like to see as little collateral damage land on everyone else as possible. |
Before merit rewards, when speed runners were concentrated solely on a very tiny handful of TF's, primarily Katie Hannon and the Eden trial, it was easy for the speed runners to seriously affect the average completion times. Now, those same relative number of speed runners are spreading their activities across a much wider variety of TF's, making it much more difficult for them to significantly skew the average.
Some reward oriented players prefer ITF or LGTF. Others prefer Positron or the Striga TF's. Most I have seen don't really care, and are happy to run any of them. What you have proposed is a solution in search of a problem...
The last big changes in merit rewards are the 02-10-2009 and then again in I16
http://wiki.cohtitan.com/w/index.php...4&oldid=113600
Is a complicated page showing the Feb 2009 changes.
Most were increased due to a change in the formula from 1 merit/5min to 1 merit /3 min for TFs, and corresponding increase in the expected rate for arcs.
What went down (Blueside)
Justin Augustine -9
2nd and 3rd respec -5
Twlight's Son -1
Arcs:
Stolen Power (Deadalus) -1
Nictus Alliance -7
Nictus Insurrection -25
The Final Darkness -1
The Nictus Insurrection arc being the one that is referred to up thread. It was plain and simply bugged at 29 merits for 6 fairly simple missions.
Then the same sort of analysis for I16
http://wiki.cohtitan.com/w/index.php...6&oldid=133365
The main thrust of I16 changes being a targeted 50% boost to story arcs
STF -1
(I notice that Augustine got +18 correcting the previous reduction)
Crown of glory -5
Magic Man -4
Dirge of Chaos -3
Future Threat -2
(these 4 were all fairly new arcs)
Drums of Peace -1
Even the Posi TF, which was well known as a good 'farmable' one for TFs got boosted from 64 to 66 in the I16 patch.
Outside of obvious bugs, the idea that merits get nerfed by people speed running just doesn't hold weight in the light of the patch notes.
Speed runs are something that seems to dominate discussions in the forums, but they are not the overwhelming way that people run arcs and TFs in the game. The forum population is not representative of the game as whole.
@Catwhoorg "Rule of Three - Finale" Arc# 1984
@Mr Falkland Islands"A Nation Goes Rogue" Arc# 2369 "Toasters and Pop Tarts" Arc#116617
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Well, mostly:|
Originally Posted by Panzerwaffen
And how is this any different than players employing various tactics to increase their rate of XP gain? Or influence/infamy gain? Or recipe drops? Should those types of rewards also be given a hard limit? Why not throttle all rewards, so no one is allowed to earn more than anyone else?
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(1) I tend not to keep my ear to the ground for the latest tricks (I'm the sort of player who prefers to play the game "as it lays"), and so I only happened to learn of this one by dropping into a discussion into a forum I rarely read;
(2) I prefer to focus on one issue at a time, or at least per thread;
(3) The devs haven't given us numbers for those, whereas "1 per 3" (vs "1 per 1", which was quoted at me a lot in that other thread) is pretty clear and simple, IMO.
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| Apples & oranges. The vast majority of the AE fixes were to address exploits & loopholes such as low risk/high reward enemies, all boss farms, etc. |
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Originally Posted by Megajoule
Well, mostly:
(1) I tend not to keep my ear to the ground for the latest tricks (I'm the sort of player who prefers to play the game "as it lays"), and so I only happened to learn of this one by dropping into a discussion into a forum I rarely read; (2) I prefer to focus on one issue at a time, or at least per thread; (3) The devs haven't given us numbers for those, whereas "1 per 3" (vs "1 per 1", which was quoted at me a lot in that other thread) is pretty clear and simple, IMO. It does, however, indicate how the Devs are likely to act if they think that speed-running et al is getting out of hand - nerf rewards for everyone, even the people at the other end of the average. ("Nerf 'em all and let States sort 'em out.") I would like to encourage them to be a little more discriminating, is all. |
you still don't get it do you?
Read what the poster above you said, here I'll even quote it for you the part I'm talking about.
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| The forum population is not representative of the game as whole. |
OK now that has been said again, some of the biggest power gamers come to forums. Mainly to learn to be better at power gaming and show off said power gaming skill. If the devs really used this for the median for rewards they would be kicking themselfs you know where.
This is a casual game for the most part and probably less then 5% of the game population actively uses the forums.(87% of all statistics are made up).
So chill stop trying to get stuff nerfed and let people play how they want. The devs will adjust rewards they see fit and I'm pretty sure they aren't going to put hard caps on rewards.
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I know we're sorta hammering you with this point, but what indication, if any, do you have that speed running TF's is "getting out of hand" or that the devs are even remotely concerned about it?|
Originally Posted by Megajoule
It does, however, indicate how the Devs are likely to act if they think that speed-running et al is getting out of hand - nerf rewards for everyone, even the people at the other end of the average. ("Nerf 'em all and let States sort 'em out.") I would like to encourage them to be a little more discriminating, is all.
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Or, is it simply that you are making a HUGE FREAKING ASSUMPTION here, based off of some thread you ran across on the forum? ETA: The Marketing forum of all places!
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| so I only happened to learn of this one by dropping into a discussion into a forum I rarely read |
Finally, you keep looking at faster than average completion times as some kind of trick or exploit. In my experience, what is much more commonly seen in-game is simply teams of good, solid players that steamroll everything in their path and quickly complete objectives. Perfect example, a couple friends and I ran the Silver Mantis SF the other day. The merit reward for that SF is 42 merits, so on average it should take just over 2 hours to complete. We ran with the minimum number of players to start, 4, and completed in 1:20. Nothing to brag about by any means, but a good solid time. We didn't cheat. We didn't use any exploits. It wasn't a "speed run". It was a relaxed and fun time for all of us. Can you seriously state that it is, in any way, "fair" for us to have our rewards reduced? Take a moment and really think about that before answering.
Megajoule: Couple follow-up questions for you, mostly out of curiosity.
How often do you join TF/SF teams?
How often do you form and lead TF/SF teams?
On average, would you say those TF/SF teams you have played on complete faster or slower than the expected times?
What do you do with the merits you earn?
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Nowhere in my post was I suggesting anything about people that don't speed-run being bad players. However, I find it ironic that you say you don't like being told how to play, yet a suggestion like the OP's would be the very definition of being told how to play. You'll notice throughout this thread evidence has been presented as to how speed running has not significantly impacted merit rewards, except for a few pieces of content which only have a low reward because most teams that were running them before I13 were speed teams. Fact is, for the majority of content out there, there aren't enough speed teams running to really affect the reward.|
Originally Posted by Noxilicious
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.
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. |
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Originally Posted by Megajoule
The position that players should be earning, on average, 1 merit per three minutes from task forces is not mine, it's the Devs'. My suggestion was simply that if the Devs wish to enforce that game design decision against people who have found ways to change the ratio substantially in their favor, capping the final award at 1/3 of the actual time spent might be one way to do so. I do believe that this would be fairer to players than reducing the rewards for everyone to reflect common speed-run times, which would be another method to enforce their game design (one which they've used in the past).
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Originally Posted by Megajoule
As I understand it, about a year ago(?), some of the Kheldian arcs were being completed (in Ouroborous) in much less time than their merit awards suggested. Players became aware of this and began farming those arcs. This, of course, came to the attention of the Devs. The awards were adjusted accordingly, most of them downward.
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"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."
Yeah but by this idea people would sit arround for hours raking up he merits for just one TF!
One way you could look at the merit scheem. If a team manages to finish the TF/SF really quickly then they get the same merits as a reward for being fast, if they spend ages on a TF then they get punished by only being given that ammount of merits. It works and nothing needs to be changed =)
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I'm sorry what!? so people doing TF's faster is runining the game for people. I don't think so, no matter how fast you do the TF you get the same rewards and the reward is halved if you do the TF again within 24 hours, therefore every team is getting just about exactly the same ammount of merits per 24 hours per TF because people are a lot less likely to redo a TF for a lower reward, if they were only doing it for a reward in the first place. Yes there are some people that do more TF's becasue they can do them faster, but it's not like they refuse to let people who do TF's slower join.|
Originally Posted by Megajoule
So yes, I'm concerned about the possibility of a few players - the speed-runners - ruining things for everyone else,
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To me this thread looks like a pointless way to bash people who are supposedly getting more rewards than you, i appologise if i'm wrong here but i think it's time you stop trying to ruin the game for other people. this aspect of the game you are wanting changed is perfectly fine and doesn't need changing as there is nothing unbalanced about it, because if there was then something would have been done about it by now, and concidering the opposite happened, i can therefore conclude that there is nothing wrong with this at all. =)
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Other people have alluded to this, but I don't think you understand the actual effect of what you're proposing.|
Originally Posted by Megajoule
The position that players should be earning, on average, 1 merit per three minutes from task forces is not mine, it's the Devs'. My suggestion was simply that if the Devs wish to enforce that game design decision against people who have found ways to change the ratio substantially in their favor, capping the final award at 1/3 of the actual time spent might be one way to do so.
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At the moment, the devs datamine the median completion time. They then give a merit award based on the rule of 1 merit per 3 minutes. Some people will be faster and some people will be slower. E.g. a TF with a median completion time of 1 hour will give 20 merits. People who complete in 30 minutes will get a reward of 1 merit per 1.5 minutes. People who complete in 2 hours will get a reward of 1 merit per 6 minutes. However, *on average*, the reward for the TF will be around 1 merit per 3 minutes.
Your proposal is that everyone who completes faster than the median time will be capped at 1 merit per three minutes. So, back to the 1 hour, 20 merit, TF. Everyone who completes in 1 hour will get 1 merit per 3 minutes. Everyone who completes in 2 hours will get 1 merit per 6 minutes. However, everyone who completes in 30 minutes will still only get 1 merit per 3 minutes. Therefore, the average reward for the TF *must* become less than the 1 merit per 3 minutes that the devs want.
So, your proposal will not, and cannot, maintain the average reward ratio at the devs' desired level. The only way it could is if taking longer than the median time increased the reward, with all the attendant issues of people finding ways to game the system.
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Since you asked:
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Once or twice a week, when my SG/playgroup organizes them.|
Originally Posted by Panzerwaffen
How often do you join TF/SF teams?
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| How often do you form and lead TF/SF teams? |
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| On average, would you say those TF/SF teams you have played on complete faster or slower than the expected times? |
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| What do you do with the merits you earn? |
So between what you and the other posters have said, I suppose the moral of this is to not believe what anyone says on the forums. Or at least not on the Market forums. The posters there led me to believe that most "serious" players used such methods to increase their rate of merit gain.
I am not a "serious" player, though I am a long-time one. I am not a farmer. My main experience with farming has been observing the rampant exploitation of the AE system a year ago and the sweeping nerfs which the Devs were finally forced to impose (with some complaining that they should have known it would be abused thus, and acted accordingly rather than trusting the players to not be selfish and greedy - imagine!). These nerfs succeeded in making the AE system unappealing to many farmers, but also to many average players as well. Before that, I've seen several cases of powers and preferred farm missions altered to try to prevent behavior the Devs disapprove of; this often inconveniences regular players, but not the people who had developed "more efficient" strategies, who simply find something else to do.
On the assumption that speed-running TFs was being done by a significant minority, who would bring down Dev attention and negative consequences on the innocent majority, I made this thread to suggest an alternative to yet another blanket nerf. It seems that such a thing is not as imminent as I was led to believe, which makes such boasting (and perhaps the Devs' apparently unenforced policy also) seem rather hollow.
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Faces of the City
People should be rewarded bonus merits for setting the difficulty settings. They shouldn't be too high though. 5 merits for 0 deaths is a little too much, for instance (a bonus of like 3 merits would probably be better).
People should also be penalized if they fail a challenge, but failing ANY challenge should only result in the lose of 1 merit per failure. Griefing can be easily be avoided by not using difficulty settings on pug teams.
This risk/reward system is the only way to reward players for taking chances and coming out ahead. The penalty is needed or else everyone would just turn on like no deaths and 30 minute time limit all the time.
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This isn't necessarily false, it's more a question of how you define "serious", and what percentage of the playerbase falls into this category.
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Originally Posted by Megajoule
So between what you and the other posters have said, I suppose the moral of this is to not believe what anyone says on the forums. Or at least not on the Market forums. The posters there led me to believe that most "serious" players used such methods to increase their rate of merit gain.
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Let me get this straight.|
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.) |
Positron TF, 66 merits. Average time of completion 3 hours 18 minutes by rule of 1 merit for every 3 minutes of TF time.
If people get it done faster than 3:18, you want them to get less. But if they take longer, and on an 8 man Posi TF, I find this TF usually take longer, more so when you have non-exemped toons on the team, they're stuck with the 66 merits.
Why would you want this? Why would you want to give a penalty to those who can complete the TF faster than the average time? What's the point of this suggestion?
Are you tired of seeing people saying Speed Run? Well, no one says you have to join in on the speed runs.
Want people to do kill alls on TFs? Then form your own TF, and tell everyone, you're forming such a TF.
Or is it you're not making enough merits, and want others to make less?
I really don't get the point to this suggestion at all.
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection
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In all fairness to Megajoule, I think she has realized some of the problems with her suggestion...
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Originally Posted by BrandX
I really don't get the point to this suggestion at all.
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This is a good point. Even if just about every serious powergamer out there was trying to run TF's at max speed for merits (which I don't believe for even a moment is true), the ratio of those serious powergamers to the rest of the player population is very likely so small that it wouldn't skew the averages at all.
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Originally Posted by Redoubtable
This isn't necessarily false, it's more a question of how you define "serious", and what percentage of the playerbase falls into this category.
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A good suggestion imo, would be to increase the merits of some of the TFs. Namely STF and to a larger degree LRSF.|
Originally Posted by Panzerwaffen
This is a good point. Even if just about every serious powergamer out there was trying to run TF's at max speed for merits (which I don't believe for even a moment is true), the ratio of those serious powergamers to the rest of the player population is very likely so small that it wouldn't skew the averages at all.
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Yes, there are those who can and do form speed teams that can fly through those two, really fast and make it look easy.
However, for the average group, I don't find this to be the case at all. ESPECIALLY on the LRSF.
ITF, I'd still like to see averaged out to 90minutes for Merits, but I've been on enough teams to feel 26 (1:18) is fair.
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection
The position that players should be earning, on average, 1 merit per three minutes from task forces is not mine, it's the Devs'. My suggestion was simply that if the Devs wish to enforce that game design decision against people who have found ways to change the ratio substantially in their favor, capping the final award at 1/3 of the actual time spent might be one way to do so. I do believe that this would be fairer to players than reducing the rewards for everyone to reflect common speed-run times, which would be another method to enforce their game design (one which they've used in the past).
My characters at Virtueverse
Faces of the City