TF/SF Merit rewards: An observation.
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2010-04-19 24:37 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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The short answer is that merits are based solely on average completion time and the CoV SFs are designed around a shorter completion time since frankly that makes them less of a grind.
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Originally Posted by Neg_Let
And here's my question: why is there an imbalance? Is it because of what I've already said? Or was there somewhere back when merits were introduced (I wasn't around for this time) that a clear explanation was given as to why there is this imbalance?
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To be honest, I use to say the difference in merits was due to the length of TFs vs. SFs but I'm not so sure anymore. This weekend I was a part of a Numina TF, Manticore TF and a Master Dr. Kahn and not one of them took longer than 61 mins (manti took 60 mins). I've run all SFs in the past couple months and they usually take 45-90 minutes. |
Originally Posted by Neg_Let
Another argument that can be made is that the TFs are longer than the SFs and can be slightly more tedious due to the multiple hunt/kill all/etc. missions that they have. That's actually a very compelling argument and sadly floors my observation/argument.
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I'm not suggesting my experience is typical either. Just adding to the thread.
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Originally Posted by Clouded
To be honest, I use to say the difference in merits was due to the length of TFs vs. SFs but I'm not so sure anymore. This weekend I was a part of a Numina TF, Manticore TF and a Master Dr. Kahn and not one of them took longer than 61 mins (manti took 60 mins). I've run all SFs in the past couple months and they usually take 45-90 minutes.
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Yep, that's pretty standard in my experiences, as well... which probably contributes to why not many villains will do SFs anymore, considering that you can get more merits faster by running Ouro arcs solo. It's sad really, but that seems to be the norm now.
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I basically only play blueside when my VG mates are playing blueside too, and I really don't get how in the hell SFs come out with shorter average completion times over TFs. It's completely contrary to my own experiences.|
Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
The short answer is that merits are based solely on average completion time and the CoV SFs are designed around a shorter completion time since frankly that makes them less of a grind.
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Just yesterday, we ran two teams - a Sister Psyche TF and a Barracuda SF.
With Psyche, we finished the whole run in about two and a half hours, and that's including several of us taking breaks for food and business while doing so.
With more or less the same people, we ran Barracuda later that night. It took us three and a half hours to complete, with no breaks, and on paper Barracuda is a much shorter arc. And this is not an atypical time; our LRSF run a few weeks ago likewise took around three hours.
If the datamining just happens to be full of a bunch of speed runners pulling down the completion times, I don't think the right answer is to lower overall merit returns for people playing as intended; instead, there should be mechanisms installed to discourage rushing the SFs and skipping content.
As it stands, no one wants to do SFs because the return is simply not worth the investment due to anaemic merit rewards. You can spend three hours getting 30 merits redside, or spend the same three hours getting 50 or 60 elsewhere. Why bother?
The data mined time isn't average (ie arithmetic mean) it is the median (ie 50th percentile)
This is an important difference.
http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Merit_Rewards
Gives all the math behind the rewards
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That does not change the fact of my statement. If 25% of all SF runs are, for instance, speed runs, that's still going to pull down the median time. And given the way merit rewards currently sit, anything but a speed run is being actively discouraged by the low merit returns, which will result in an even larger percentage of runs being speed runs, thus further lowering the median time and further lowering the reward. |
Originally Posted by Catwhoorg
The data mined time isn't average (ie arithmetic mean) it is the median (ie 50th percentile)
This is an important difference. http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Merit_Rewards Gives all the math behind the rewards |
Especially with the smaller base of people playing CoV in the first place, this is a serious error in the system.
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I think the issue is that the difference in time between a speed run and a non-speed run is much larger for the Hero TFs than the villain ones (due to the larger percentage of missions which are glowie hunts or boss kills). This means that the distribution of times is less linear for hero TFs so the merit rewards are inflated.|
Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
That does not change the fact of my statement. If 25% of all SF runs are, for instance, speed runs, that's still going to pull down the median time. And given the way merit rewards currently sit, anything but a speed run is being actively discouraged by the low merit returns, which will result in an even larger percentage of runs being speed runs, thus further lowering the median time and further lowering the reward.
Especially with the smaller base of people playing CoV in the first place, this is a serious error in the system. |
That being said I agree with the sentiment, basing merit rewards on time was a poor decision, it encourages speed runs and in the long run merit rewards trend downward. That being said, I'm not sure there's a better option.
The FACT IS villains need more VIllains only!!!!!! SF's to match up with heroes. not these mixed heroes and villains rubbish
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Time probably isn't a horrible basis for measurement. The problem is basing rewards on median time, rather than some more static figure, like expected time, "average" time (meaning average players, not power gamers), or some time based on median team completion, thus eliminating a group that speed runs the same SF every day from pulling down the numbers. |
Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
That being said I agree with the sentiment, basing merit rewards on time was a poor decision, it encourages speed runs and in the long run merit rewards trend downward. That being said, I'm not sure there's a better option.
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Basing rewards solely on how well your players that are encouraged to game the system game the system only encourages your players to game the system even more.
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Something else that could skew blueside merit awards upward is that it was quite common to run blueside TFs on high difficulty for experience rather than running other content for a very long period of time. Before merit awards were added, it was quite common for all but the speediest blueside tasks (i.e. Katie Hannon and Eden) to have their difficulty cranked up for greater xp/inf without any consideration for the additional time because the end reward would be the same no matter what. While I'm not a redside player, I don't believe I ever heard or saw much of this going on.|
Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
I think the issue is that the difference in time between a speed run and a non-speed run is much larger for the Hero TFs than the villain ones (due to the larger percentage of missions which are glowie hunts or boss kills). This means that the distribution of times is less linear for hero TFs so the merit rewards are inflated.
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On the same note, before substantive TF rewards were added that would make rerunning a TF suitably rewarding (i.e. recipe drops), blueside players often ran TFs ignorant of any desire for speed beyond a simple desire to finish in a "reasonable" period of time. The reward:time ratio wasn't really a consideration because the reward (oftentimes entertainment or just the badge itself because this is before influence really mattered once you hit 30+) was relatively stable no matter what you did.
Depending on how far back the devs did their datamining, they could quite easily have used the huge number of blueside TF completions that didn't give a rat's *** about how long it took to complete, which would skew the blueside awards upwards.
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i agree with this, give the villains access to a section of the shard and give them some villain only shard sf's|
Originally Posted by Dr_HR
The FACT IS villains need more VIllains only!!!!!! SF's to match up with heroes. not these mixed heroes and villains rubbish
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or more sfs in general
This has been brought up before, but the gist of it is that the devs do not hate villains.
Historically the villains actually had it better because it used to be a random recipe drop at the end of every TF/SF, regardless of duration of the TF/SF.
This meant that faster completing SFs were giving rewards more frequently than TFs on average.
Also the devs were sensitive to player complaints that task forces took too long to complete, and designed strike forces with that in mind.
The changeover to merits inverted the situation totally. Villains are now 'penalized' for having shorter duration SFs than heroes. It's the nature of the beast.
The ability to speed TFs and SFs also means that the speeders get better rewards than people who are completists or those who don't know how to speed. This means that people who complete a TF/SF in hours instead of minutes feel 'ripped off' because the speeders had set the bar really high, leading to poor rewards in what the non-speeders are able to do.
However, just remember that it used to be that all TF/SFs used to drop a random recipe, and nowadays those random recipe rolls are worth 20 merits. Not many TFs reward less than 20 merits nowadays, and only 1 SF gives less than 20, so the situation is better than it used to be.
However, there is still a lot to be said about speeder vs. non speeders but the hero/villain situation is there because of the historical perspective and not because the devs necessarily designed it so villains would get fewer rewards.
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Excepting Posi and Synapse, my experience has quite firmly been with SFs not being noticeably shorter than TFs - certainly not to the extent their merit rewards would suggest. I've done the LRSF a half dozen times, and not once have I even come close to the slightly-more-than-an-hour that its 25 merits suggests. Three hours is much more typical. |
Originally Posted by PumBumbler
The changeover to merits inverted the situation totally. Villains are now 'penalized' for having shorter duration SFs than heroes. It's the nature of the beast.
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My Tarkoss runs have been around 90 minutes, Barracuda tends to be around 3 hours, and the last Mistral I did was about two. The only SF I've seen that even comes close to the right length for merits is Silver Mantis, which is probably why I'm sick of running it because we've done it so much.
While we're an RP VG, we're not slouches in play - at least two of my main characters can solo AVs and x8 content, and we've got similar power builds running with us too - and I simply cannot fathom how these merit rewards got set; SFs just aren't that much faster.
Their only bonus is being far less annoying than TFs in that they're pretty much in the same zone, but that can be said in general for all redside content.
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/SIGNED|
Originally Posted by Dr_HR
The FACT IS villains need more VIllains only!!!!!! SF's to match up with heroes. not these mixed heroes and villains rubbish
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I was ecstatic to see some new Villain exclusive content in I17. I think Dr. Aeon may be pulling for more Villain content. If so, more power to him. If you build it they will come. It's true.
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I'm with you Eiko-chan. It doesn't seem right. Next up... all the people saying/bragging that they can do all those you just mentioned in 30 minutes or less. 
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Not looking to brag, but we tend to zerg TF/SFs in our group. Tarikoss can be done in under 20 min, RSF in 25, and BSF in 40-ish. All 3 villain respecs can be done in under an hour (total), and the longest SF I recall is the Silver Mantis SF (the SG base one), which clocks in at just over an hour.|
Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
Excepting Posi and Synapse, my experience has quite firmly been with SFs not being noticeably shorter than TFs - certainly not to the extent their merit rewards would suggest. I've done the LRSF a half dozen times, and not once have I even come close to the slightly-more-than-an-hour that its 25 merits suggests. Three hours is much more typical.
My Tarkoss runs have been around 90 minutes, Barracuda tends to be around 3 hours, and the last Mistral I did was about two. The only SF I've seen that even comes close to the right length for merits is Silver Mantis, which is probably why I'm sick of running it because we've done it so much. While we're an RP VG, we're not slouches in play - at least two of my main characters can solo AVs and x8 content, and we've got similar power builds running with us too - and I simply cannot fathom how these merit rewards got set; SFs just aren't that much faster. Their only bonus is being far less annoying than TFs in that they're pretty much in the same zone, but that can be said in general for all redside content. |
Ice Mistral is about 22-28 min, and I can't remember how long Renault is but mid 30s comes to mind.
TFs tend to be longer than SFs simply because there are more missions and more defeat alls in TFs. Most TFs were written early on. Later TFs and SFs are much shorter in number of missions, which helps speed runs.
This is with a bunch of people and some sk, some SO'd and some Purpled builds but never a cherry picked group where everyone tries to get a 'perfect' team.
Some screenies of various TFs (mainly) can be found in this thread.
The biggest problem with the median (or even average) time is that the speeders will always skew the number lower. The simple fact is that a speeder can crank out 3-8 TFs in the time a non speeder can do ONE TF. This means that the speeder's times will be over represented in the median values by a huge factor, even though they may not necessarily be the majority of the population.
If you _are_ interested in speeding, just ask, and I can give you some pointers to maximize your TF time investment.
The basic speed runs always mean: Know the TF/SF's hardpoints, skip the rest, and know your team roles. Usually upping the defense is another part to speeding since def capping usually means only a lucky hit will see a teammate see any damage or mez. After those are taken care of, you can push towards maximizing dps.
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That's pretty much exactly my point. Speeders are skewing numbers low and hurting the rest of us. |
Originally Posted by PumBumbler
The biggest problem with the median (or even average) time is that the speeders will always skew the number lower. The simple fact is that a speeder can crank out 3-8 TFs in the time a non speeder can do ONE TF. This means that the speeder's times will be over represented in the median values by a huge factor, even though they may not necessarily be the majority of the population.
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Originally Posted by PumBumbler
If you _are_ interested in speeding, just ask, and I can give you some pointers to maximize your TF time investment.
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I still run the occasional SF because it's nice to team with my VG and, as an RPer, I like being able to claim various deeds as actual in-character victories, such as defeating Reichsman or the Freedom Phalanx. But just because I have other motives doesn't mean the pitiful merit return doesn't still bug the heck out of me.
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This is exactly the argument that I had put forth before the changeover to merits. Before you still had a reward timer to prevent you from repeating the same TF within 24 hours, afair, so the change over to merits would encourage speeding more than anything else, and inflate the rewards for the speeders. |
Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
That's pretty much exactly my point. Speeders are skewing numbers low and hurting the rest of us.
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As far as "hurting the rest of us", that point is debatable. Prior to merits being awarded, the same philosophy of getting through a TF meant that (within our group) we were still seeing comparable completion times.
No one in our group wanted to defeat everything, even if we are able to. One person called it 'leaving xp on the table' whenever we'd run from half-defeated mobs. We just did it because we felt like it. Only now we're being rewarded for it.
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Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
I would like this game to discourage the mindset of "speed runs" as much as possible. It is not intended gameplay and it is bad for the game overall.
I still run the occasional SF because it's nice to team with my VG and, as an RPer, I like being able to claim various deeds as actual in-character victories, such as defeating Reichsman or the Freedom Phalanx. But just because I have other motives doesn't mean the pitiful merit return doesn't still bug the heck out of me. |
People will always try and optimize in order to perform at their best, and one of the ways of demonstrating that efficiency is in finishing a TF quickly.
Your idea of optimizing may be by soloing AVs. Currently I don't have any toons that can do that. My inability to do so doesn't bother me but I'm not going to advocate discouraging soloing AVs either, 'intended gameplay' or not.
Personally, I feel that the devs should have flattened the rewards scheme so that time was not as big a factor in the number of merits awarded. No one wants to run an Eden trial just because it awards 6 merits (speeders can do it in under 10 minutes).
The major reason cited by the devs for implementing the new scheme was that a random drop made a poor reward when the drop itself wasn't desirable. IMO, they should have just allowed people to get 15-30 merits from each TF/SF and left the random roll at 20 merits, with diminishing returns.
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Tartikoss can be run at under 45 minutes with minimal effort. We've done it in 20 minutes before, admittedly with stealthing and teleporting.
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Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
Excepting Posi and Synapse, my experience has quite firmly been with SFs not being noticeably shorter than TFs - certainly not to the extent their merit rewards would suggest. I've done the LRSF a half dozen times, and not once have I even come close to the slightly-more-than-an-hour that its 25 merits suggests. Three hours is much more typical.
My Tarkoss runs have been around 90 minutes, Barracuda tends to be around 3 hours, and the last Mistral I did was about two. The only SF I've seen that even comes close to the right length for merits is Silver Mantis, which is probably why I'm sick of running it because we've done it so much. While we're an RP VG, we're not slouches in play - at least two of my main characters can solo AVs and x8 content, and we've got similar power builds running with us too - and I simply cannot fathom how these merit rewards got set; SFs just aren't that much faster. Their only bonus is being far less annoying than TFs in that they're pretty much in the same zone, but that can be said in general for all redside content. |
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I like making my characters as tough as possible. That's really all it is. Soloing AVs certainly isn't optimal - last one I did took like forty minutes.
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Originally Posted by PumBumbler
Your idea of optimizing may be by soloing AVs.
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We don't need to get into an extended argument about how speed runners are eating our merit babies. Just do something the OP didn't when he looked at the list. Count the number of missions. On top of that, take a couple minutes to get a rough count on the number of zones you have to go through.
Villain SFs are flat out shorter than most Hero TFs, for the simple fact that most Hero TFs were added at a time when they were running under radically different design rules.
There's a lot of factors you have to account for before you make the snap judgement "that's not fair"
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Respec trials:
CoH: 28 merits, 20 merits, 20 merits
CoV: 14 merits, 14 merits, 15 merits
Redside trail "may be" shorter, but quite harder to be honest. Like 1st respec, actual people trying to do that, will mostly give up & they get less merits.(no 50's mal'd down but, actual around the lvl folks with gimptastic power setups) While blue, final mish is quite a bit of standing around & picking your nose, waiting for spawns.
So that should be looked into.
Yes, They need to re-adjust the merits redside, they won't though cuz they don't care.
Hell, I could & have made 10-15 SF on Redside(via AE) that was very well received by populace, took it down cuz AE is lulz anymore(I built like a Dev would).
So yah, More TFs with more Merits or go back through & redo our merits on redside would be nice, cuz I 90% time play Red, I just don't like blue.
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There's nothing particularly harder about the Red Side respec. The case you cited (lowbies with bad builds) is something that fails on EITHER side, and honestly the trials weren't designed around such teams. You're SUPPOSED to be bringing some people tough enough to do well.
"Null is as much an argument "for removing the cottage rule" as the moon being round is for buying tennis shoes." -Memphis Bill
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Blueside trial does not require killing fast - yes, you can get overwhelmed, but you also get tools (heals) to help make up for doing poorly. |
Originally Posted by Lemur Lad
There's nothing particularly harder about the Red Side respec. The case you cited (lowbies with bad builds) is something that fails on EITHER side, and honestly the trials weren't designed around such teams. You're SUPPOSED to be bringing some people tough enough to do well.
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Redside trial requires killing fast or you fail, period full stop. There are no tools to help you make up for lost ground.
I've never completed a redside trial because of this difference.
tl;dr:
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Couldn't help but notice that when comparing the Hero Merit Rewards and the Villain Merit Reward pages from ParagonWiki, heroes tend to have higher amount of rewards per TF then villains per SF. Discuss.
========WARNING: VERY LONG POST AHEAD============
Let's take the following as examples: Dr. Quaterfield's TF worth is 122 merit rewards whereas Silver Mantis' SF is simply 42 merit rewards both of which are the highest amount of merit rewards offered on both sides. The next highest on heroes side is Faathim the Kind's TF with 72 merit rewards while villain's next highest is Barracuda's SF with a mere 30 merit rewards. Not exactly fair or equal in my opinion.
Now there are those who might argue that it's perfectly fine for CoH to have crazy high merit rewards because the two TFs mentioned are from the Shadow Shard and are perhaps the hardest to complete because of the location and general layout of the Shadow Shard. Well lets look at the more commonly done TFs then, shall we?
Positron's old TF: 66 merits (now 40 and in flashback system? New version is 26, both parts)
Synapse's TF: 58 merits
Sister Psyche's TF: 50 merits
Citadel's TF: 40 merits
Manticore's TF: 32 merits
Numina's TF: 36 merits
Not so commonly done but accessible:
Dr. Kahn's TF: 20 merits
Moonfire's TF: 32 merits
Ernesto Hess' TF: 19 merits
Katie Hannon's (trial or TF?): 9 merits
Karsis' (TF or trial?): 8 merits
Woodsman's Trial: 7 merits
Marienn MacGregor's (Abandoned Sewers) Trial: 29 merits
Take note that I do not mention respecs; I plan on mentioning them later. Now what of CoV? Well:
Virgil Tarikoss' SF: 13 merits
Silver Mantis' SF: 42 merits
Operative Renault's SF: 24 merits
Ice Mistral's SF: 26 merits
Barracuda's SF: 30 merits
And that's that. There is of course the LRSF and the STF and the respec trials to look at as well:
Statesman's TF: 37
Lord Recluse's SF: 25 merits (has more AVs strangely enough, or so it appears on Paragonwiki)
Respec trials:
CoH: 28 merits, 20 merits, 20 merits
CoV: 14 merits, 14 merits, 15 merits
Doesn't add up in my book, add up meaning that it's not fair. One can then do some math involving the average merits per TF/trial/SF found on both sides and one finds that CoH has up to 35 merits per TF/trial compared to CoV's 23 merits per SF/trial (the math done was using the above data including the Shadow Shard TFs along with the new Positron's TF, both parts mind you, divided by the amount of Trials and TFs/SFs found in both sides).
Another argument that can be made is that the TFs are longer than the SFs and can be slightly more tedious due to the multiple hunt/kill all/etc. missions that they have. That's actually a very compelling argument and sadly floors my observation/argument.
Nonetheless it strikes me a bit unfair that heroes are given not only more merits but more opportunities for merits. Sure I've heard enough arguments as my time as a player on the forums about the unequal treatment of CoV when compared to CoH but that's not what I'm trying to bring up. I'm simply trying to let it be known that there is an obvious lack of equal opportunity when it comes to merits, despite the fact that all merit vendors for both sides sell items at the same price. I really have no ideas or intent in offering ways to mend this imbalance but I would hope that perhaps a change in the near future (perhaps GR?) will resolve this.
And here's my question: why is there an imbalance? Is it because of what I've already said? Or was there somewhere back when merits were introduced (I wasn't around for this time) that a clear explanation was given as to why there is this imbalance?
Sorry for the long thread but I was in a writing mood today
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