City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

TF/SF Merit rewards: An observation.

Adeon Hawkwood

By Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2010-04-19 24:37 in CoH and CoV General Discussions

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Eiko-chan View Post
Not if the "just hack and slash" has substantially superior rewards to the richer parts of the game.
Not saying that you should have to choose, but if you are looking for substantially superior rewards you should be speeding.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by PumBumbler View Post
Not saying that you should have to choose, but if you are looking for substantially superior rewards you should be speeding.
Or do Blueside TFs at my usual pace.

Hence the issue.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by PumBumbler View Post
If the devs wanted to equalize things a bit, they should put in a separate timer for not doing any TF at all, and put that at 4 or 5 days (or even build up towards it). If you don't do a TF between that time you can get a bonus for the next TF you do...let's say (it caps at) +15% or +5 merits (whichever is more), and then it resets itself. Consider it a day job for doing 'normal activities' as opposed to grinding TFs.

As well, reducing the range of lowest to highest rewards should reduce the amount of TF/SF 'cherry picking', and a big bonus (20 merits or so) should be given to people who get the (finishing) badge for the TF/SF. This means that first timers (toonwise) will get a bonus for running a TF/SF, since you can only get the badge once.

It would mean that KHTF and Eden trial may actually be worth something to the casual player instead of getting a poor reward because the speeder has lowered the time so drastically.
I like these ideas, either one would be cool.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Eiko-chan View Post
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.
why would they do that?

If you base rewards solely around what average player are able to accomplish the efficient ones will blow up the whole system.

I don't like merits at all and think they were a bad idea, but since we're stuck with them they must take the capabilities of efficient players into account.

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Posted

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Originally Posted by Nethergoat View Post
why would they do that?
To prevent a small minority of players from messing things up for everyone else.

 

Posted

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Originally Posted by Kitsune9tails View Post
Tyranno and Tokyo: I don't think your suggestion is workable, but at least it's a suggestion; thanks. If you want me to elaborate, I will, but this post is long enough already.
Well, I tossed it out just to further discussion. Such a system would probably be unworkable, unwieldy, and far too easy to break. I've really got nothing invested in the discussion - I can count the number of TF/SF I've done on one hand, even counting the two unsuccessful ITFs I did before finally getting thru one.

edit: Actually, I can't count it on one hand (unless I wake up tomorrow with an extra pinky and Mandy Patinkin chasing me...). Forgot about actually doing the Cavern Trial once.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Eiko-chan View Post
To prevent a small minority of players from messing things up for everyone else.
If there's a four-or-more-fold difference between the normal and the speed timing, no formula for merit rewards that ends up giving everyone the same reward for the same TF is going to prevent a small minority of players from "messing things up for everyone else." That's not a problem that can be fixed by fiddling with the merit formula. It requires deciding what the tasks required to complete the TF should be, and then ensuring that the design of the TF actually requires you to accomplish those tasks (instead of circumventing them in a non-obvious way). Once that's in place, it's down to the players to put together a good team that knows what they need to do and wastes no time in doing it, and you really shouldn't try to remove that kind of advantage.

I do support the "occasional TFer" bonus and particularly the "first time through" bonus; it's a drop in the bucket for speeders, but gives more casual players a nice reward for trying something new. In fact, I'd extend the "first time through" bonus to just about anything that rewards merits - players who are doing new things every time they play, and are rewarded for doing it, are players who don't burn out quickly.

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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by SpittingTrashcan View Post
If there's a four-or-more-fold difference between the normal and the speed timing, no formula for merit rewards that ends up giving everyone the same reward for the same TF is going to prevent a small minority of players from "messing things up for everyone else."
I'd be heavily in favour of a system that tracks a percent completion - number of foes on the map defeated and so forth - and that then deducts merits for completing the technical mission parameters while bypassing most of the content (or, alternatively, tacks on extra merits for completing most missions more completely.)

I'm not suggesting you'd need 100% completion to get full reward, but if you only take out 10% or 25% of the opposition, you really shouldn't get the same reward as a group that takes out 50% or more, whether both groups get the mission objectives done or not.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Eiko-chan View Post
I'd be heavily in favour of a system that tracks a percent completion - number of foes on the map defeated and so forth - and that then deducts merits for completing the technical mission parameters while bypassing most of the content (or, alternatively, tacks on extra merits for completing most missions more completely.)

I'm not suggesting you'd need 100% completion to get full reward, but if you only take out 10% or 25% of the opposition, you really shouldn't get the same reward as a group that takes out 50% or more, whether both groups get the mission objectives done or not.
Are you suggesting people adhere to your style of play simply because you don't find theirs valid? I'm not sure that speeders are that small of a minority, but I am sure they get over represented in the data mining.

In my experience, I can get a full team and start a task force in about 5-10 minutes, including recruitment on public channels. Basically I only do task forces and I always speed. I usually have more people (non-globalfriends/non-SGmates) asking to join my team than I have spaces as well. The demand for fast TF/SFs is there in the general population and not as small as you've stated.

Just remember that whatever system you want to devise, like a defeat half, the speeder will always do it the fast way and then get out. To be honest, that's kind of the reason why I play. I like teasing apart the hard points of the game and working around it. The (merit) rewards don't even matter to me anymore. A change to a grading system reminds me of figure skating, would be complicated to (re)program and would confuse the casual player.

I think that attempts to slow the speeder down would just put you on the sliding scale to make every mission a defeat all. Yet still the speeder will do it significantly faster than the general population.

The devs implemented the changes knowing full well that there are two populations working the task forces. Don't forget that defeating those mobs nets you xp, salvage, recipes and inf. Or are you implying that those mob rewards are insignificant? Purple recipes can be found defeating high level mobs, and skipping those can be considered foolish, but a speeder does what a speeder does.

The technical mission parameters you refer to are stated on the nav of every mission. Most modern TFs/SFs have multiple goals in order to finish the mission, which _are_ the technical parameters.

Older TFs like Positron have multiple defeat all missions which players have overwhelmingly told the the devs about the tediousness of doing such TFs.

Sister Psyche takes no more than an hour +/- 10 minutes.
BSF about 50 min +/- 10 minutes.
RSF about 35 min +/- 10 minutes.

Since you've stated your personal experience adds hours over what I've experienced, I can see why you'd be unhappy with a merit system that is benchmarked to be closer to the lower times.

I can only suggest that you come over to Justice and take a peek at what we're doing. I'd be more than happy to describe our strategies and show you what we do. Then you can decide where best to optimize your TF/SFs and then you can decide if you want to skip parts or defeat all or try for the lowest time. I've never had anything to hide and you can always ask me what/why I do the things I do in a TF.

Sorry for the long response, I just don't want to come across as being glib.

 

Posted

I am in favor of a system that hands out labeled Merits for sub-objectives at the end of a mission, like Rescued Han: 2 Merits. Rescued Leia: 4 Merits. Defeated Jabba and his minions: 1 Merit. Defeated Boba Fett: 1 Merit. Destroyed Sand Skiff: 1 Merit, etc.

However, we also don't want to "force" people to roll all-Defender teams so they can steamroll critters (and click all glowies) in 5 minutes either.

No matter what the Mission Complete rewards are, if they are significant, they will encourage speed runs, simply because then you can run another mission and get the bonus again that much sooner.

But I think we are losing sight of the goal here.

Let's say we have an arc that has a median completion time of 30 minutes.

In that arc, we have 40 groups of critters, an AV (that scales down), and 3 glowies.

Team 'minMAX' can steamroll the arc in 5 minutes, defeating every critter and clicking every glowie, set at max difficulty.

Team 'eekaPuG' will take 1 hour to do this arc, and will only find 90% of the critters, at minumum difficulty (plus will rack up debt due to 3 teamwipes).

Team 'NinjaU' can stealth the arc in 5 minutes, but will defeat almost none of the mobs.

Team 'casualpals' will take an hour to do the arc, mostly due to RPing, bio breaks, joking around, and frequent visits to the tailor.

Team 'luck' just happens to have the right mix of powersets, so despite fairly casual playing, will complete the arc in 10 minutes.

So I ask you:

- How many Merits is the mission worth?
- Should all of these teams get the same number of Merits?
- Do we want to reward or penalize any of these styles of play?
- Is the amount of standard rewards (xp, inf) the mission is worth a factor?

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Posted

I think it would be a good idea to give certain badges a merit bonus. So that when you first complete a TF or trial you get a little something extra for your effort.

I also wouldn't mind a bonus for killing more on a TF/Trial. I'm not sure if the game calculates the percentage of critters defeated, but if it did, that would be a good measure. Barring that, perhaps a we could have a counter that awarded a bonus merit for every 100 or 200 foes defeated.

That said, I feel that Eiko-chan has a definite bias against speed runners. Eiko seems to be dictating how people should play the game when he or she has the same choice everyone else has -- do it as fast as possible, clear every mission, or some where in between.

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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bionic_Flea View Post
That said, I feel that Eiko-chan has a definite bias against speed runners.
I do. It's definitely not my preferred play style, and I avoid doing speed runs whenever possible.

That said, before speed runs actively affected my rewards for my playstyle, I didn't mind them beyond not wanting to do it myself. Now that they adversely affect me to the huge extent they do with Strike Forces, it bugs me.

I really don't care if someone can get a rare recipe roll every ten minutes, frankly. It doesn't bother me. It doesn't affect my game. Having my merit rewards diminished because they are doing that, however, does affect me, and does bother me.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Eiko-chan View Post
That said, before speed runs actively affected my rewards for my playstyle, I didn't mind them beyond not wanting to do it myself. Now that they adversely affect me to the huge extent they do with Strike Forces, it bugs me.
On a facetious level, not doing speed runs has always affected your rewards. I think that what you are getting at, however, is that because rewards are now based on speed runs that hit only the mandatory objectives, your reward/time is worse on SFs than TFs because SFs have fewer mandatory objectives.

There are a couple of things that could conceivably be done about this. One is to make all the missions in all TF/SFs kill-all, which would serve to make the reward/time for TFs and SFs more or less a constant... and also make them all miserable slogs. Another is to introduce merit awards for optional objectives, but this won't entirely remove the issue because speedrunners will still select the best reward/time objectives and you'll still be penalized for making different choices. There's the idea mentioned above of giving additional rewards for running TFs rarely or for the first time, which will blunt but not entirely remove the differences between the various TF reward/time ratios.

But in the end, basically any time you choose to do a bunch of stuff that you don't strictly have to, you're losing rewards, and the only way to prevent that is to make everything mandatory. And that's exactly the kind of mission design that neither devs nor players seem particularly keen on...

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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Clouded View Post
It depends. Should a team that can stealth and TP most missions get the same rewards as a team that steam rolls the same content and does not skip any?
Actually by steam rolling through he mission you ARE recieving more rewards: More XP, More infamy/Influence, More salvage, A greater chance of a purple drop, More IO recipes.

The speed at which you complete a tf or SF should not be calculated into the merit reward formula.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Eiko-chan View Post
That said, before speed runs actively affected my rewards for my playstyle, I didn't mind them beyond not wanting to do it myself. Now that they adversely affect me to the huge extent they do with Strike Forces, it bugs me.
I'm sorry if you think that the speeders have ruined the merit system, but the merit system was pre-ruined before anyone ever set foot in a TF/SF.

AFAIR, most changes to the merit rewards have been a couple of merits here or there, and the biggest change was for BSF, which went up.

So although in theory your times can be the benchmark in which all the rewards can be given, in actual fact the speeders will always bring the median/average down.

 

Posted

I think one of the reasons the speed runners skew the numbers is that they do a LOT more TF's than the rest of us. That means 50% of the runs are done by 10% of the population. Those are obviously made up numbers but the point is that a typical speed runner is going to run 3-10 TF's a week while I run 0-2 in a month. A median calculation would be more fair if everyone ran them at the same rate or each player were only counted once at their best time. I'd also think they should figure out the ratio of started vs finished tasks and assign a difficulty modifier based on how many teams gave up after getting half-way through.

I've been thinking about starting my own TF/SF's and trying for a "kill most" approach but I'm not sure if I could really put together a PUG that would do that. I guess I should give it a try. Up until now my experience is that story arcs give me a better rate of return on merits than any other content.

 

Posted

One additional little tidbit that the merit calculations don't account for is preparation time. Statesman and Recluse SF frequently involve getting shivans, or nukes or both, and that time is not accounted for at all.

I also don't think that the time calculations include attempts that failed, which is rare on most TFs but not uncommon of RSF and STFs.

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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tokyo View Post
Actually by steam rolling through he mission you ARE recieving more rewards: More XP, More infamy/Influence, More salvage, A greater chance of a purple drop, More IO recipes.

The speed at which you complete a tf or SF should not be calculated into the merit reward formula.
I thought we were talking about merits. Let me rephrase then.

Should a team that can stealth and TP most missions get the same MERIT REWARD as a team that steam rolls the same content and does not skip any?

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bionic_Flea View Post
One additional little tidbit that the merit calculations don't account for is preparation time. Statesman and Recluse SF frequently involve getting shivans, or nukes or both, and that time is not accounted for at all.
Might be why my experience with the LRSF is so much longer than the "median"; I've never done an LRSF with Shivans, nukes, or any other of the tricks. The two times I've completed it have been using the "Sleep them all" tactic and an attempt at "Sleep them all" that failed, so we just huddled inside our FFGs and slowly whittled them down.

 

Posted

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Originally Posted by Clouded View Post
I thought we were talking about merits. Let me rephrase then.

Should a team that can stealth and TP most missions get the same MERIT REWARD as a team that steam rolls the same content and does not skip any?
If Stealthing a mission is not consciously being penalized, the stealthers should definitely not receive LESS.

Stealthing a mission penalizes itself; the 'problem', if there is one, is Buffer Overrun type groups that:

- Defeat all the mobs and click all the glowies
- Do so in 25% of the median time
- Do so multiple times per day, several times per week
- Do so with resources other team don't have or don't want to get (they are friends who always play together, have minmaxed characters, are IO'ed out, have spent a lot of time focusing on doing stuff like this, are using characters handpicked to handle that specific critter group, etc)

These are the guys who bring the median time of a particular arc down to 40 minutes when the average PuG can't do it in under an hour.

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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kitsune9tails View Post
If Stealthing a mission is not consciously being penalized, the stealthers should definitely not receive LESS.
Why should someone skipping content receive the same merit reward as someone completing all the content?

Please know that I speed run TFs/SFs as well as run them normally. I'm only trying to figure out why stealthing missions and skipping content should provide the same merit rewards for people not skipping content.

 

Posted

It all depends on what the Merit Reward is conceptually.

I have no problems with the Stealther getting less Merits if there is a seperate Merit reward for each sub-goal in the mission, and they are choosing to skip past those with that foreknown.

If on the other hand, the Merit reward is a reward for acheiving Mission Complete by any means possible, then it should be equal so long as they get Mission Complete: that's what they signed up for.

However, if you are going to penalize people actively for stealthing through a mission, then what is stealth even for in PvE? As it is, it is only of use in skipping fights. They would have to rework the mechanics so that it would actually give better benefits to combat in order for it to be worth it otherwise (unless you think the arguably tiny Defense bonus it gives is the point).

You don't hire Nightcrawler to steal the Hope Diamond and then pay him less because he didn't disable every guard in the building. If you want the job done that way, you hire The Hulk instead.

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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Clouded View Post
I thought we were talking about merits. Let me rephrase then.

Should a team that can stealth and TP most missions get the same MERIT REWARD as a team that steam rolls the same content and does not skip any?
A team should not be penalized for running a tf or sf the way they want to. You did not specify "merit' rewards. Your post stated clearly "rewards." The fact is, you recieve MORE rewards from tfs/sfs by steam rolling than speed running; so no, merit rewards should not be affected by the pace you choose to complete a mission.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tokyo View Post
A team should not be penalized for running a tf or sf the way they want to. You did not specify "merit' rewards. Your post stated clearly "rewards." The fact is, you recieve MORE rewards from tfs/sfs by steam rolling than speed running; so no, merit rewards should not be affected by the pace you choose to complete a mission.
But why should a team that skips content get the same merit reward for a team that does not?

Remember Merits are the reward for median time is takes to complete a TF/SF. So if someone is skipping the content to get a faster merit/hour ratio why should people who don't skip the content be subject to the same merit reward because they choose to actually experience the full TF/SF?

Basically, what I'm seeing is that speed runs (stealth + TP) are the norm (especially on the ITF) and normal runs are what seem out of place. If anything, people running normal TFs/SFs should be a bonus merit(s) for not skipping content.

In short, merits stay the same, but completing certain % of content rewards additional merits. That way speed runners aren't being penalized and normal TFs get their just merit rewards.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kitsune9tails View Post
These are the guys who bring the median time of a particular arc down to 40 minutes when the average PuG can't do it in under an hour.
Yes, but they don't create differentials in the per-player reward/time ratio.

I'm going to try to explain this, and bear with me because I'm having trouble coming up with the right terminology. Let's say that any given group of players can complete tasks such as defeating mobs, fighting AVs, etcetera at some average rate. Powerful teams such as the one you describe have a high rate, while an average PUG may have a lower rate. However, if they're both completing the same amount of content, the reward rate for both groups will be consistent across all content, and basically be a fixed multiple. So if Efficient Group EG can complete Task Force A in 20 minutes and Inefficient Group IG can complete Task Force A in 60 minutes, then it stands to reason that if EG can complete Strike Force B in 10 minutes, IG can complete it in 30 minutes. There are some issues with calibrating rewards so that EG isn't getting too much and IG isn't getting too little, but as long as merit rewards are some function of completion times, TFA and SFB will be equally worthwhile to run no matter what your efficiency is because the reward/time is consistent across all choices. Note that this is better for people who want to run lots of different TFs and SFs than the old single-random-roll reward scheme was, because it makes longer TFs and SFs more rewarding whether you're efficient or not.

The issue with speedrunning is that the difference between doing everything and doing what is necessary varies from mission to mission and from TF/SF to TF/SF, and because Strike Forces don't have as many "you must kill everything" missions, they tend to have a higher ratio of optional to mandatory content. So if we now compare Speed Group SG, who does only what is required, to Completion Group CG who kill every last mob on every map, then it might take SG 20 minutes and CG 60 minutes to complete TFA, while it takes SG just 10 minutes to complete SFB but it still takes CG 60 minutes. Since merit rewards are based on a completion time metric that includes both SG and CG, SFB rewards fewer merits than TFA, but CG spends the same amount of time clearing both, making SFB look less attractive than TFA to them. On the other hand, CG's slow completion time skews the reward for SFB upward, making it more attractive for SG. The end result is that SFB is choice for speed runners and TFA is popular with completists. This is, in and of itself, pretty much the situation before merits: the most popular TFs and SFs were the ones that could be run the quickest. The perceived disparity lies in the fact that due to the abysmally poor (and I cannot emphasize this enough) design of the heroside TFs, most of them had lots and lots of mandatory objectives and very few optional ones, while the better designed villain SFs have more optional objectives. And that creates the perceived "merit disparity" between the sides. I would venture a guess that for speed runners, the rewards are actually better redside, but I'm not an expert here.

And that brings us back to the poor choices available as remedies. You can reward infrequent TF runs or first-time TF runs, and that blunts the impact a bit. You can require 100% completion for 100% merits, which would have the net effect of either turning all TFs into defeat-alls (bleh, IMO) or turn speed runs into speed-and-then-kill-exactly-the-optimal-number-of-enemies runs, with little net effect on the disparities. My personal favored remedy would be to go back and fix the TFs and SFs to give them a roughly equal ratio of optional to mandatory content, which would once again equalize merit per efficiency across the board, and then decide how much you want to reward speed running strategies versus total completion - because as has been mentioned, speed running does pass up other reward opportunities to maximize merits.

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