Revisiting Enhancements, the Markets, and Management of the Supply of Influence and Infamy
By
Evil_Legacy,
Posted on: 2010-06-05 14:40 in Suggestions and Ideas
Anticipated Benefits
Regarding suggestion 1, cryptic enhancement names are not immersive or fun. Eliminate them as a first step toward making the enhancement system simpler to understand, less time consuming to manage, and more friendly to new, novice, and occasional players. There don't seem to be any significant costs here beyond the time it takes to change enhancement names.
Regarding suggestion 2, boosting base stats for powers--increasing the base recovery and regeneration rates, along with damage for attack powers, accuracy, mez duration, healing, defense, and resistance, and by reducing recharge rates and reducing endurance costs--would have several salutory effects. First, characters without stamina as a default power pick become easier to consider. Second, the stamina gulch that occurs in the late teens and early twenties will be reduced or eliminated. Third, careful attention to all the math involved can leave performance ceilings for characters in essentially the same place, while bringing up the performance floor for novice players and also for powers that have only a base slot in them. For example, no longer does a heal or hold need to have base values that make it perform poorly without further slotting, if enhancements have a less dramatic effect on the stats of powers. On a closely related point, no longer would we need to spend as much time at lower levels waiting for attack powers to recharge or waiting for a little more blue to creep into our character's blue bars, if enhancement values were set lower than they currently are.
Another key benefit has to do with improving the consistency with which certain ATs perform across all level ranges. Currently, tanks are generally squishy and they tend to hold aggro poorly until at least the teens, or more likely the 20s. Better base levels of defenses and resistances, made possible by scaling down enhancement values, would allow tanks to perform more like ... tanks even in earlier levels, when slots are relatively few in number, without overpowering them in later levels. Brutes will gasp for endurance less often in earlier levels, stalkers can reasonably put stamina off even longer (or forever), controllers and dominators will perform their roles more effectively when slots and enhancements matter less, bubblers will impart bubbles that defend better from low levels onward, heals will move a teammate's green bar more visibly as of level 1, debuffs of all kinds of will be more effective out of the box, and so on.
Another benefit has to do with reducing the yawning gap between peak and floor performance of powers and, by extension, characters. Calculations given in Sidebar 1.2 showed that the base attributes of the powers themselves pale in their importance as a driver of power effectiveness, when compared to enhancements; enhancement choices are easily and by far the most important determinant of power efficiency and effectiveness. When developers need to set balance for mobs somewhere in the middle of the performance floor and ceiling, having a huge range in character performance has the practical effect of leading to a greater number of brick walls for new and novice players, leading to higher levels of frustration and disappointment for them as they move closer to the floor of the performance scale, which will tend to lead to more problems with retaining new and novice players.
The chief risks here are ensuring that stealth nerfs (or other nerfs) don't occur because of errors in calculations and successfully addressing the challenge of maintaining game balance when powers that do damage recharge more quickly and powers with a base slot in them come to function better overall. Given that the devs already managed to re-balance leveling speed without major hiccups and have carried out a *lot* of other balance-related changes, I have a high degree of confidence that they could (and would) skillfully handle the calculations needed to re-calibrate the game around lower enhancement values and better base stats for powers.
As a possible starting point, I'd like to suggest that regular enhancements all offer a 15% boost to an enhanceable attribute of a power from level 1 onward. A bonus enhancement value of 5% could be added to an enhanceable attribute of a power when three regular enhancements of the same type are slotted into a power. These easier-to-visualize values, in combination with other suggested changes, would make regular enhancements far easier to understand than under the current system.
If there are balance concerns associated with having resistances or defenses on low level characters that are at the same level as high level characters, because of enhancement values that are standardized across all levels, then resistances and defense totals could vary on a sliding scale according to character level, just as mez durations and healing values are currently given on a sliding scale, according to character level.
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Regarding suggestion 3, enhancement diversification makes players' lives more complex than necessary; fractional enhancement values are not loved by most, and allowing players to do self destructive things by over-enhancing powers hinders new players and novices, without adding anything substantial of value to the game. Cap the number of enhancements at 3 for a single enhanceable attribute and cap the total amount of enhancement values that can be added to a single attribute of a single power. That would be a simple system, such rules are easy for players to understand and remember, and there are no fractional enhancement values that confuse people or turn them off. As long as this is managed in ways that don't lead to nerfs, there seems to be no downside to this change, other than the time it takes to make the coding changes. |
Sidebar 1.4: Would some powers need to be re-scaled if these suggested changes to base power values and to enhancements were put in place? Improving the base stats of powers (ie: by setting base accuracy to 85%, for example, instead of the current 75%) would naturally lead to a need to re-consider powers that essentially function like enhancements. Thus, for example, leadership bonuses, hasten, and some other stat-boosting powers would probably need to be slightly or somewhat reduced in their potency to keep them from being overpowered. Beginner's luck may need to be modified as well. Still, given that beginner's luck was put in place to help cover for lower level character performance issues ultimately--if indirectly--caused by high enhancement values, it makes sense that toning down enhancement values would lead to re-considering the values used for beginner's luck. On a similar note, the purple patch would be another possible candidate for review, if enhancement values are re-scaled. This can be done in ways that don't lead to significant nerfs in the performance ceiling of individual powers or overall character effectiveness. |
To implement suggestion 4, a set of changes would need to be implemented, including a reduction in the number of value scales for enhancements from two to one. Also, it would be necessary to reduce the number of types of regular enhancements from three types to one type that never stops functioning and never needs to be replaced. In addition, the base stats of lower level mobs would need to be adjusted upward (especially their hit points) to account for higher enhancements that would be accessible from level 1 onward, under this suggestion. Finally, the inf sink associated with the purchase of enhancements every five levels, or thereabouts, would be replaced with training and maintenance payments that occur after every level-up, or that occur after a fixed amount of time spent in-game for maximum level characters.
Having three distinctly different types of enhancements (training, dual origin, and single origin) that follow two different scales of values and that need to be merged with newer enhancements or replaced altogether every five levels (six at most), in addition to incorporating level-specific variation in enhancement values, wth a lot of cryptic enhancement names for good measure, has led to an unnecessarily complicated enhancement system. Re-read the last sentence if you're not convinced how complex the current system is, and if you're still not convinced then try to explain the current enhancement system to somebody who doesn't play this game. Their blank look in response will be all the evidence you need about the level of complexity of the current enhancement system.
The complexity of the current enhancement system adds nothing positive to the game, particularly for new, novice, and occasional players, unless that complexity somehow helps the enhancement system to function as an effective inf sink. Which it does not. On the subject of sinks, it is an unenjoyable time sink--and a distraction while teaming--to need to fully replace regular enhancements every several levels, especially given the many cryptic enhancement names that slow the process down. That many players, particularly those who are more experienced, currently don't even bother buying training origin enhancements is a sign that they are not viewed as particularly important, and definitely not useful enough to incur the hassle costs associated with acquiring them.
By all means, continue to have regular enhancements slightly degrade in their enhancement values after each level up, to some pre-determined floor above zero. But, allow players to pay to train and maintain, to keep all of their enhancements functioning at their peak values. Also, allow players to train and maintain powers one by one, as they choose, or to push a few buttons to train and maintain all their powers at once. The more a power has been enhanced, the larger the training and maintenance payment. It would also make sense to have training and maintenance payments occur periodically after reaching level 50 (use time spent actually in-game to determine when this is needed, rather than penalizing players who don't play their 50s very often); after all, gun barrels periodically wear out, blades dull, armor needs repair, and spell casting technique sometimes needs to be re-visited.
Training and maintenance payments would function as an inf sink and they can be made simpler and quicker to carry out each time than replacing a full slate of enhancements, while still absorbing a similar amount of time overall because such payments would be made more often; replacing enhancements is too abstract a set of actions to perform anyways, to meet a goal of providing an immersive power-up experience. Players could even be given the option to engage in power customization when picking a power for the first time or training and maintaining a power while leveling up; power customization makes at best marginal sense as a tailoring function anyways, especially for characters with a science, mutant, or magic origin.
Keep the amounts for training and maintenance payments for individual powers significant, but not extortionary, so that training and maintenance payments are not substantially out of line with current payments to repurchase enhancements every five levels, or thereabouts. Also, allow players to pay for train and maintain sessions in advance, if they have the inf to spare and would like to do that, to further simplify the level-up process. And, allow players to unlock the ability to finance training and maintenance payments out of future inf gains with particular contacts by doing a mission or a short arc. This would be an actual kind of debt, instead of a defeat-related debt, that would slow down inf gain until the payment has been completed.
As a key benefit of implementing suggestion 4, allowing players to train & maintain enhancement values as they level up would eliminate the sawtooth in character performance that has never had a compelling rationale for its existence. Also, implementing suggestion 4 would make the game much more friendly to new, novice, and occasional players because doing so would substantially simplify the process of acquiring, understanding, and managing regular enhancements.
In conclusion, allowing players to begin buying regular enhancements that have a standardized value from their first contact (ie: Kalinda, Burke, Antonio Nash, Azuria, Rick Davies, ...), that they would never need to replace, and which they could continue to train and maintain thereafter, would probably be welcomed by most players.
Regarding suggestion 5, perhaps a default state of poverty for the first few characters of new players is one of those vestigial leftovers from an earlier time in the life of COX that can be done without. Perhaps it isn't an important rite of passage to make it even more difficult for new players to build effective characters by keeping them poor by default, in addition to asking them to overcome all of the other barriers posed to building effective characters that arise because they're novices. If some believe that it is important to make new players struggle to overcome an initial, default state of poverty, I'm curious about what the reasoning for their arguments might be. Finally, two or three tokens wouldn't make a new player suddenly wealthy or overwhelmingly powerful; they would have the practical effect of helping new players to be, at best, a little less breathtakingly behind other, more experienced players in their accumulated wealth and in how effective their characters are in-game.
Implementing suggestion 6 would lead to taking another step forward in making the purchase process quicker, easier, less prone to error, and more intuitive. Still, suggestion 6 is admittedly a fairly minor quality of life change.
Summing up the key reasons behind these suggested changes, the goals are to make enhancements simpler to understand, easier and less time consuming to manage, and less of a detriment to the base stats and consistent effectiveness of the powers that players choose, as well as far friendlier to new, novice, and occasional players.
2. Invention Origin Enhancements (IOs) and the Markets
These issues are being discussed together because, in practice, the value to players of each has a great deal to do with the value to players of the other.
The COX markets have not functioned particularly well, on an overall basis. Even in the healthier hero-side market, volume is very thin in many markets, pricing information is sparse and potentially even misleading, and the rate of player participation can be improved. A few of the key underlying reasons for performance problems are the very large number of in-game markets in existence, relative to the number of players and items likely to ever appear on the markets, the scarcity of tools available to help players make good choices when setting prices for bid and ask prices, and high hassle costs associated with using the markets, particularly in light of the low value of most tradeable items. Liquidity and supply issues are particularly acute for the Black Market, where overall trading volume has always been lower than hero-side, because of a lower player population. Ongoing inflation in the influence supply and the infamy supply have exacerbated problems with how well the markets have functioned.
On the subject of hassle costs, a substantial proportion of player time gets spent searching for selling prices for what turn out to be low value recipes and salvage items. It may even at times feel a little like panning for gold, from a player's perspective, when you go to the market without knowing the value of what you have in your inventory. Some may like or love that, but many will probably think to themselves something along the lines of Damn I'm spending a lot of time sifting through mud like this, to find a handful of valuable items. Those in the latter category are likely candidates to start vendoring or deleting everything but the most obviously valuable items. Whatever their various reasons, many players have clearly voted with their feet by not using the markets much, or at all. With these observations in mind, the chief challenges in making the markets function better, which is the focus here, are to reduce the hassle costs associated with using markets, to make the price discovery function that the markets play more transparent and more useful for players, to maintain a functional balance between the supply and demand of specific items, and to increase sales volume on a per market basis so that liquidity is consistently strong and market manipulation is relatively difficult.
To maintain game balance, it is suggested that IO enhancement values and set bonuses be scaled to maintain balance between regular enhancements and IOs, if enhancement values are modified as suggested for regular enhancements. Also, the suggestions given for the Black Market and for Wentworths in this section, as well as those offered for influence / infamy sinks in the next section, are intended to work together to bring supply and demand for particular items into a longer term state of balance.
Suggestions:
1. Keep purples functioning as level 50 IOs, only accessible to high level characters, as is currently the case. Attach the level at which all other IOs function to the lower of the character's actual level, the level of the mission in which a player is engaged, or to the level of the PvP zone in which a player is present, instead of making a specific level an innate characteristic of IO recipes or enhancements themselves.
2. Have the markets take delivery on items offered up for sale by players. Also, allow bids to be phoned in to the markets. Require players to come to the markets to acquire items, though, for security reasons and for the fitting of enhancements to the character purchasing them. A fee could--and probably should--be collected for delivery services.
3. Provide players with access to the same pricing information as before. In addition, allow players to set up a database query that extracts historical price data for one specific item, for any one of the following user-determined time frames: hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annually. The prices extracted for the specified time frame are the maximum price, 90th percentile ranking, 75th percentile ranking, average price, 25th percentile ranking, 10th percentile ranking, and minimum price. Also, provide numerical and/or graphical representations of average sale prices for the time frames specified by the player (ie: show a graph of average market prices for one item at a time for the past week when a player chooses one week for the specified time frame). When selling a single item, allow players to pick their bid / offer prices by mousing over a graph of pricing trends, and showing the player a specific price, and selecting that price. When selling multiple items, allow players to pick their bid / offer prices by entering that data manually or by selecting a specific time frame (ie: one week) and a specific price range criterion (ie: 75th percentile to sell, and so on), and then clicking a mouse to confirm the use of that set of criteria.
4. Set up the market UI to allow players to manually set prices for offers and bids as before, and also to allow players to use the price and time frame they select, mentioned in the previous suggestion, to set up bids for items and to price their for sale items using an Auto-Price button. Allow players to set prices for one item, multiple items, or even every item at once that they have in their inventory and that can be put onto the markets, if they'd like to do that.
5. Create an item sink that is particularly easy for players to use, to help them dispose of low value items for minimal hassle costs. Allow players to (un)select an option to sell their gear at the higher of two prices: either the price generated by the Auto-Price function described in suggestion 4, which would place the item(s) in question on the appropriate market, or the disposal price that eliminates items from the game. Under the disposal option, the selected item(s) will be acquired by unknown entities for the vendor price and it (they) will disappear from the game forever. Under the auto-price option, the affected item(s) will be put onto the market at the average price for that item for a player-specified period of time--one week by default, perhaps, and adjustable by the player as outlined in suggestion 4. A summary screen would then pop up and summarize which items would be sold at the disposal or average price for time period X, just to ensure that a player doesn't accidentally sell or destroy the wrong item, or set up the wrong criteria for setting the auto-price. The player would then hit an Execute Trade button to complete that (set of) transaction(s).
6. Provide crafting services at the markets so that players can pay a non-trivial--and also not exorbitant--fee to have IOs crafted for them.
7. Eliminate markets that are hardly ever used by players. On that note, establish criteria to help decide when it is time to modify specific IO sets that players clearly don't value as is, or to set the drop rate for consistently unpopular IO sets to zero. Trading volume and prices on the markets can be used to help pinpoint IO sets that players would happily see modified or dropped out of existence. Naturally, set IOs already slotted into powers shouldn't be taken away from players or prevented from functioning, and it would be courteous and appropriate to give notice to players well in advance when a particular IO set will have its characteristics changed or its drop rate set to zero.
8. Bring the markets into canon, and generate strike forces, task forces, and story arcs related to them.
Anticipated Benefits
I'll work backwards in addressing the anticipated benefits associated with each suggestion, and add in some discussion of costs and risks.
Regarding suggestion 8, the markets are currently storefronts only, organizations that have an obvious and physical presence in the game, with specifically defined locations, but with generic NPCs inside, essentially no history or lore associated with them, and no rationale for their existence beyond these markets make their invisible, unknown owners money. That is wholly at odds with the central role that the markets would be likely to be play in Paragon City and in the Rogue Isles. After all, Wentworths isn't a corner store selling milk, kleenex, and magazines. Its a kind of exchange for heroes that powers up heroes (and rogues, soon) to fight off Rikti invaders, devouring earth who seek to destroy humanity, and all manner of other dangers Members of the Freedom Phalanx may not want to directly involve themselves in commerce, but they--and government officials all around the world--would have to be fools to ignore Wentworths. In the Rogue Isles, this is also true; given the intense level of interest that Daos, the Fortunatas, and others show in what is happening around the world, their ongoing blind spot vis a vis the Black Market makes no sense.
Bringing the markets into canon would have the added benefit of increasing player participation in the markets, by functioning as a kind of communications campaign for their existence. Also, as COX ages finding new source material for story arcs and TFs / SFs can become more difficult; exploring the potential of the markets to produce fresh content can be quite helpful as doing that leverages what is already in the game, making the development of new content easier. In the future, at least some non-Praetorian arcs and SFs / TFs that help players select rogue / vigilante / hero / villain status for their characters could reasonably be tied to the markets because of the moral implications of making choices related to the handling of items and wealth. On the whole, the markets are a potentially rich, essentially untapped source of material for new content.
I wouldn't be surprised to find out, through a newly developed task force or strike force in the future, that at least one of Recluse's inner circle was heavily involved in setting up the Black Market and helping it function, or at least in functioning as its protector, to funnel off profits and to gather information about new spells or technology.
Regarding suggestion 7, an ever-expanding supply of different kinds of items is obviously not functional over the long run. It would therefore be helpful to consider when to modify the characteristics of particular items or to withdraw them from the list of items that can drop in-game. Doing that sooner rather than later has the beneficial effect of reducing the overall hassle costs of participating in the markets by reducing the presence of what amounts to clutter, from the perspective of players. On a closely related point, if a key objective of putting items into the game is to enhance player enjoyment, then getting players to handle an ever-increasing profusion of low value items will tend to work against that objective.
Sidebar 2.1--given immediately below--addresses a key assumption underneath the arguments given above, which is that players have a fairly limited level of tolerance for spending time handling items and wealth.
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Regarding suggestion 6, the idea is, once again, aimed at opening up a new option for players that allows them to reduce the hassle costs of using the markets, as well as creating a new inf sink that players would use on a voluntary basis. It also makes sense that a market that would traffic in super-powered items would be willing to offer crafting services--for a fee, of course. |
Sidebar 2.1: To what extent do players enjoy spending time handling items and wealth? If the devs believe that time spent handling items and wealth is a key source of enjoyment for players, and a crucial time sink that helps to keep subscription rates up, then they will be unlikely to ever eliminate items that players don't value. In fact, the devs would be much more likely to go out of their way to make more and more items and to make items more and more complex for players to handle, over time. However, the handling of items and wealth is not likely to be a key source of fun for most players; although most players don't mind handling items and wealth for some amount of time, and even enjoy it as a way of building up their characters, for most players spending substantial amounts of time handling items and wealth is probably about as enjoyable as doing taxes. Player tolerance for spending substantial amounts of time handling large quantities of low value items is likely to be particularly limited. Also, should it take longer to IO up individual characters than it does to fill out a Form 1040 (which it can do these days, especially villain side), then many players will find acquiring IOs through the markets to be a frustrating and disappointing experience. The question How complex and time consuming should we make the 'items and wealth' side of the game? is a thorny--and very important--question for the devs to address. I don't have any final answer to offer about this question. But, quite clearly suggestions given here are based on the idea that the hassle costs of using the markets are, at present, an important impediment to having many players voluntarily spend substantial amounts of time participating in them. |
To explain the rationale behind suggestion 5, item sinks are crucial to the long run health of the game. The acquisition of items is one of the key reasons that players go adventuring and if the overall supply of items is always and only increasing, with minimal destruction of items ever taking place, then at some point the game would be awash in ultimate items--relative to the number of characters available to use those items--and incentives to continue to play the game would decline. On a related point, prices for items will have a steady source of downward pressure operating on them if items disappear from the game at a far slower pace than new items are found--with the caveat that character creation and development is a key source of demand for newly appearing items, of course, but that cannot be assumed to always be happening at a high and constant rate.
Beyond the more general reasons to have item sinks, item sinks can be used to help to dissolve huge and potentially persistent gluts in the supply of some recipes and salvage items that would inevitably arise in the absence of item sinks. Although the devs could in theory be constantly tweaking drop rates to prevent huge and persistent supply overhangs in particular markets, they also have other things they could usefully do with their time; it is much simpler for the devs to allow players to automatically (and easily) adjust the overall supply of particular items by inserting a disposal price into the markets. Players would also probably value being able to quickly and easily sell off items that have little value to an always, and immediately, available buyer.
We already have disposal prices in place, in any event, because of vendor prices for various items; making a disposal option available through the markets, just a couple of mouse clicks away, makes disposing of low value items even easier for players. On a related point, item sinks increase the number of items for which using the market ultimately yields a profit, which reduces the frequency with which players feel that they pressed a lever, hoping for a peanut, and came away with something smelly and dirty instead. Item sinks also leave a little room to answer the questions What if the authorities wanted to put some kind of cap on the availability of items that can be used to create or enhance super powers? How might they try to do that in ways that don't necessarily annoy those with super powers? (After all, annoying super-powered beings without a strong reason for doing that probably wouldn't be that high on any rational person's to do list, on any given day)
Suggestions 3 and 4 are intended to work together to provide players with more meaningful information about pricing for items and to then allow players to put that information to use to make quick and easy pricing decisions that reflect the player's preferred basis for setting prices. The ability to follow pricing trends in a granular manner, and to easily find out about the level of volatility in pricing over different time frames, ultimately gives players the opportunity to do a better job of setting prices than the current system of only seeing the last five sale prices will ever allow. Also, the auto-price function--with a user-toggled option to sell items for disposal at the disposal price--helps players to clear out relatively low value items quickly and easily, without bothering to search for the price of each low value item, one by one. Since the substantial majority of sales involve relatively low value items, at least at present, the ability to clear out large amounts of low value inventory in a relatively time efficient manner is likely to be widely appreciated by players.
If suggestions 3 and 4 were implemented, then the proportion of player time spent engaging in the labor-intensive handling of numerous low value items would drop, and more time would be spent watching the value of a small number of high value items, where the possibilities or profit and loss are more substantial. Getting players to make that shift would help the markets function better overall by increasing player understanding and certainty about pricing and availability for what players regard as the most important items offered on the markets.
To minimize the risk of mistakes caused by mis-clicks of the mouse, when using the auto-price function, there are a few steps that can be taken. In cases where players use the auto-price function for one item, show the auto-price to the player and have two buttons appear, with a timer beside the two buttons that counts down from 10 to 1, with that time period representing the cool off period before the price is finalized. The player can accept the price by pressing Accept Price or by letting the timer run out. Or, they can select Cancel Price to reject selling at the automatically suggested price. When a player uses the auto-price function to set the price for multiple items, show the price at which each item(s) would be sold, and require a final check-off for each item. No timer should be offered to a player who is selling numerous items at one time, using the same auto-price setting, because of the possibility of leaving players too short of time to make the correct decision.
Implementing suggestion 2 would increase the supply of items on the market by increasing player participation rates in market activities, primarily by reducing the hassle costs of using the market. First, a delivery option would lead to a lot less salvage and recipes getting deleted or sold to vendors, which would do a great deal to increase the supply of items on the markets. Phoning in bids on items should also be added into the game, at some point, to further reduce hassle costs and to boost player participation in the markets, as well as sales volume and market liquidity.
This particular suggestion would probably do more than just about any other suggestion could for increasing player participation in the markets, particularly during those potential dead spots in the game where people are often otherwise bored (ie: when waiting for teammates at a mission entrance, while endurance and health are recharging when solo, while in a mission, ...). Doing research about prices and getting bids in place ahead of a soon-to-arrive level-up, while waiting for a mission to start, would be something that players would be very likely to appreciate being able to do.
Implementing suggestion 1 would shrink the total number of set IO markets by over 95% (see Sidebar 2.2 below), which would improve sales volume for all remaining markets and reduce the search costs associated with finding and selling IOs; the research process that takes place before putting in bid or ask prices will be considerably shortened, in many cases. Drastically shrinking the number of set IO markets would also allow the markets to remain highly liquid at lower overall set IO recipe and enhancement transaction volumes, which makes the markets more robust over the long run. On a related point, de-leveling non-purple IOs can be viewed as a direct and final solution to problems with supply and demand for IOs in the middle level ranges. Solving this problem is not the main purpose of this suggestion, but it is a pleasant benefit nonetheless.
Shrinking the number of markets also eliminates the negative psychological response that predictably arises upon entering a 500,000 square foot store, only to find 80% to 85% of the floor space nearly or completely empty; the potential annoyance factor associated with search costs goes up along with the extra time needed to search through a nearly empty warehouse. On a closely related point, the continued existence of markets with thin or nearly non-existent sales volume, for particular set IO level ranges, increase the odds of players finding they can't move particular items that drop for them. This raises the transaction costs of dealing with the markets, acts as a drag on sales volume for all markets, decreases player confidence in the functionality of the markets, and reduces player enjoyment associated with participating in the markets.
A potential downside of this suggestion is that characters would not have quite the same power levels when operating at lower levels than their high level characters. Still, with access to five more levels worth of powers and the extra slots acquired while leveling up, characters would generally be very well equipped when operating at lower than their characters' levels.
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Sidebar 2.2: How many set IO markets are there in the game? The simplest way to calculate the number of set IO markets is to ask for how many items you need to post a different bid / ask price. Markets can be regarded as related, but still distinct, if prices do not track each other perfectly. By that set of criteria, each level of each set IO should be treated as a separate market. The number of markets calculated for each recipe should be doubled because you can buy a recipe and then craft a set IO enhancement, or you can just buy the enhancement--as long as the needed salvage is available for purchase, of course. Using this definition of a market, there are 35,754 set IO markets. To provide the details used to make this calculation, the data is given further down: Information given on each row: 1. Set IO category 2. Total # of markets as defined above, for the named set IO category 3. Total # of recipes plus total # of enhancements, for the named set IO category melee damage, 2064, 114 pbaoe damage, 2080, 80 pet damage, 1638, 78 ranged damage, 2064, 114 recharge intensive pets, 504, 24 sniper attacks, 1456, 56 targeted aoe damage, 1576, 56 accurate healing, 504, 24 defense, 2076, 76 healing, 1878, 78 resist damage, 2076, 76 confuse, 1218, 58 fear, 1206, 46 holds, 2214, 94 immobilize, 1218, 58 knockback, 852, 36 sleep, 1218, 58 stuns, 1218, 58 taunt, 852, 36 flight, 432, 12 leaping, 432, 12 running, 432, 12 teleport, 432, 12 universal travel, 492, 12 accurate defense debuff, 504, 24 accurate to hit debuff, 504, 24 defense debuff , 852, 36 endurance modification, 852, 36 slow movement, 1206, 46 to hit buff, 852, 36 to hit debuff, 852, 36 Totals for all set IO categories: 35754 distinct markets, at present 1518 distinct recipes + enhancements are currently in the game, if levels are ignored If the suggestion given below to 'de-level' all non-purple set IOs is implemented, the total number of set IO markets will drop from 35,754 in total to 1518 in total, which would be a decline of 95.75% in the total number of set IO markets. You can see the exact drop in the number of markets for each particular class or type of set IO by looking at the fine-grained data given earlier in this sidebar, given on the right hand side of every row of data. |
Thematically, the idea of a hero exchange (heroes helping other heroes) and a villain exchange (where increasing one's wealth and power is the aim) makes good sense; broad participation by characters would seem quite reasonable. But, the way the markets have been implemented has limited player participation and depressed market liquidity. The suggestions given here would increase the rate of player participation in the markets and help the markets function substantially better than they currently do. Long run balance in the supply and demand of items, as well as the functionality of inf sinks that preserve the long run viability of the game, would be enhanced by implementing these suggestions and the suggestions that follow in the next (and final) section.
3. Managing the Supply of Influence and the Supply of Infamy
Note: influence and infamy are denoted by inf in what follows, rather than by writing influence / infamy over and over and over.
Inf sinks are needed to keep inflation in the supply of influence and infamy under control, which in turn minimizes inflation in market prices. In the absence of effective inf sinks, inflation in the inf supply through player activities in the game can be a subscription-killer; those who disappear from the game for a while may find themselves discouraged after returning to the game because their purchasing power declined substantially in their absence. Also, infrequent and novice players may get discouraged and cancel their subscription when they feel that their ability to enhance and play characters they find to be super is deteriorating over time.
There's another potential problem that gets little attention, in general, because the more pressing problem has long been how to keep inflation under control. A substantial and sustained drop in the inf supply would probably lead to sustained price deflation and a series of market shocks; players will substantially cut back on bids that they place on the markets if they expect prices to keep falling, and this drop in demand can lead to a glut of items accumulating right when the inf supply is already low, putting even more downward pressure on prices. Uncertainty about the direction of prices could easily have a further--even if temporary--chilling effect on market participation and, hence, a drop in the liquidity of various markets. In those markets for which liquidity temporarily becomes low, as a result of supply and demand shocks, and reactions to uncertainty, attempts to manipulate prices are likely to arise; speculators who buy items and then remove them temporarily from the market in the hopes that they can flip those items later, as the inf supply and prices re-inflate, may become a key set of buyers. A general and substantial drop in sales volume, along with the hoarding of some items and a hefty burst of item disposal through vendors or deletion, would be predictable responses to sustained price deflation. In the end, there would be plenty for players to be frustrated about if sustained price deflation arises.
Thus, arriving at a sustainable and workable level of balance between item drop rates, inf generation, and player use of item sinks and inf sinks is one of the trickier--and more important--balancing acts for the dev team. This balancing act is even more difficult because players generally don't react well to coercive changes in the kinds of item and inf sinks already in existence, they tend to dislike nerfs to drop rates (at least, for valuable items), and they don't react well to nerfs to inf generation rates.
Suggestions:
1. Create custom order enhancements, a type of enhancement that functions for a specific, limited amount of time and that sells for a very high fixed price that is set according to the value and rarity of the IO in question. When a custom-made IO is inserted into a specific slot, the enhancement that was in that same slot beforehand goes into the character's enhancement inventory.
2. Allow any IO enhancement in the game (including purples and PvP IOs) to be created as a custom-order enhancement, according to the preferences of the player making the purchase. Also, have custom-order IOs function much like usual IOs of the type being copied; thus, allow set bonuses to accrue when custom-made and usual set IOs that are in the same IO set are slotted in the same power.
3. Suggested lifetimes for custom-made enhancements are 2 months of real, offline time for a custom-made IO that offers 150% of the enhancement value(s) on which it is based, 4 months for a custom-made IO that offers 130% of the enhancement value(s), and 6 months for custom-made IOs that offer enhancement values at 110% of the usual level.
4. Make custom-made enhancements non-transferable to other characters or other players, and establish a minimum level requirement before a character can order and use of custom-made IOs.
5. Allow no more than 6 to 12 custom-made IO enhancements per character.
6. The burned out shell of all custom-made enhancements that have stopped working because time has expired automatically get taken out of their respective slots, and are put into salvage.
7. Provide a partial refund of inf at the end of the life of a custom-made IO, as long as the character returns the burned out shell of the custom-made IO to the NPC group from which it was originally purchased.
8. Allow players to see the remaining life of a custom-made IO whenever they hold the mouse cursor over it, in the enhancements screen.
9. Create a new NPC group that would sell custom made enhancements to heroes, rogues, vigilantes, and villains. Creatures of the air or sea or earth (or mist creatures) could be appropriate choices; creatures providing custom order enhancements may be interested in something other than power as humans understand it, which would make them willing to deal with creatures of all different alignments. These creatures could be introduced into canon, and could be the subject of story arcs / SFs / TFs.
Some anticipated questions are posed and answered, to lay out the reasoning behind this particular set of suggestions.
Why would this kind of inf sink work?
Most suggested inf sinks that allow players a choice to use them or not would fail because very few players would voluntarily use them. The inf sink suggested here would be likely to work because it provides meaningful value to players and players would, therefore, voluntarily use it. Also, this kind of inf sink keeps a lid on the inf supply by providing more options to those who are wealthy, which is crucial if one wants to create an inf sink that will actually work. Inf sinks that attract no attention from those who are wealthy will not draw influence or infamy from those who have the bulk of it, in addition to probably having the drawback of acting as a regressive tax on those who are less wealthy.
If the suggestions given here are implemented as is, there would be two main kinds of motivations to purchase temporary enhancements. One purchase motive would be to get the higher enhancement values associated with temporary enhancements; this might be done to attain some character-specific goal for accuracy, damage, recharge, defense, or resistance totals, or to enhance ahead of a specific PvP tourney, or for some other player-selected objective. Another reason a player would buy a temporary enhancement would be to defer the purchase of a permanent alternative until market prices would, hopefully, have fallen; the latter motivation could be a key driver of purchases of temporary enhancements when prices are high and rising for at least some IO recipes and enhancements, and there's a general sentiment among players that purchases of temporary enhancements are about to spike upward, leading to a reduced inf supply and downward pressure on prices.
The mechanics that explain how this inf sink would work are explained next. As the inf supply increases over time, prices will creep upward in markets for the most generally desirable items. It will at some point become a better value for players to buy some custom-order enhancements than to buy those same IOs in their respective markets. Demand that is then deflected into purchases of custom-made enhancements will lead to lower prices in the relevant market, both by reducing demand for regular IOs into temporary enhancements and also by lowering the inf supply in circulation in the affected part of the player economy. Some proportion of the wealthiest players will be likely to lead the way in shifting to purchases of custom-made IOs, as the inf supply increases, as the performance improvements from custom-made IOs can be substantial when well chosen and those who are wealthy will miss the influence or infamy that it takes to purchase custom-made IOs much less than others.
High fixed prices and ready availability of custom-made IOs would effectively cap the inf supply at some multiple of the available supply of items, for each of the two player economies. On the low end, setting disposal prices and keeping a willing buyer immediately at hand allows players to always realize some value from stuff that finds its way into their inventory.
This suggested method of regulating the supply of influence and infamy does pose three key risks that needs to be carefully monitored and managed by the devs. First, the markets can suffer persistent price deflation, as well as steep declines in the volume of items offered for sale, if there are sudden and sustained spikes in demand for custom-made IOs. Second, if prices are set and kept extremely high, then players will become irritated at the presence of options that have the look and feel of an undisguised rip-off, considering the price/value proposition being offered. Third, if even a handful of custom-made IOs are priced so low that they easily pay for themselves through gains in inf generation, then the upper end of the performance curve for many characters will shift upward and balance problems would be likely to develop. On a related point, sufficiently under-priced custom-made IOs would actually increase problems with inflation by increasing inf generation rates.
Given these various risks, it would likely be prudent to set prices for custom-made IOs at very high levels when first introducing this system, perhaps using open bids for limited quantities of the most powerful set IOs (ie: Gladiator's Bane, purple damage procs, LOTG 7.5% recharge IOs, ...) in the early stages of implementation to help establish the initial set of prices to use, and to then fairly slowly reduce the prices for custom-made IOs over time as they become a regular part of the game. The devs would need to regularly monitor for sudden and sustained spikes in purchases of particular custom-made set IOs; prices for particular custom-made IOs may need to be adjusted upwards from time to time to minimize shocks to the markets that would otherwise occur along with sudden and sustained spikes in demand for specific custom-made IOs.
Still, when set up reasonably well markets tend to be fairly robust. The markets will be likely to function relatively well when the inf supply is increasing and orders of custom-made enhancements are relatively low, and also during (probably shorter) periods of price deflation for IOs caused by rising orders of custom-made enhancements and a deflating inf supply. And, the immediate availability of custom-made IOs reduces the incentive to hoard valuable IOs, which would be more likely to occur in the absence of a way for players to unilaterally increase the supply of a substitute good for highly desirable set IOs (ie: custom-made IOs). Also, the suggested limit on the number of custom-made IOs per character helps greatly toward limiting the scope for sudden and drastic falls in the inf supply.
Could this way of setting up inf sinks discourage players who purchase custom-made IOs, only to find themselves poor after the custom-made IOs wear out?
In a word, yes. In fact, buyer's regret is highly likely to occur now and again. That is a key reason why a partial refund is being suggested, upon the return to the selling NPC group of the burned out shell of custom-made IOs (ie: enough to buy a replacement, regular enhancement or a fairly low percentage of the custom made IO purchase price); leaving characters with some seed money to refit their character's newly opened up slot makes players less likely to leave the game because they suddenly feel poor, after custom-made IOs wear out on multiple characters in a short period of time. Still, at some point players need to take responsibility for their own choices. If a player spends an uncomfortably large amount of inf on custom-made IOs, then they're responsible for the consequences of that choice and hopefully they'll learn from their mistake.
Even if a fair percentage of players will make mistakes from time to time, most will settle into a self-monitored, relatively functional level of use of temporary enhancements that reflects their wealth and their goals. Many won't purchase them at all, which would be fine; they're designed to be a high end option, aimed at the not so idle rich. 
Some percentage of the super-rich will probably purchase them regularly, secure in knowing that their inflow of inf will allow them to defray their ongoing expenses for temporary enhancements. Others will be more selective, purchasing a handful ahead of particular events (ie: ahead of an anticipated downward slide in market prices, as the inf supply heads downward after a period of inflation, or ahead a PvP tourney or a PvE event in which they engage with their friends). And, a steady exit from the game of inf from those at the top end of the wealth scale would be helpful because it would reduce the number and severity of shocks to the inf supply that would otherwise be likely to occur with the kind of non-coercive inf sink being proposed here.
Furthermore, the no exceptions policy suggested for custom-made IOs (ie: you can make any set IO you want, for the appropriate price) would sharply reduce the odds of any items becoming the source of highly inflated, speculation-driven asset bubbles that could undermine confidence in the markets and leave hard feelings long after the bubble bursts. This pleasant outcome from this kind of suggested inf sink strengthens the argument for tolerating occasional buyer's regret from player purchases of custom-made IOs.
Wouldn't we end up with a large number of overpowered characters permanently souped up with custom-made IOs?
This can happen under some scenarios, and it is most likely to occur if the devs adopt a policy of offering some IOs with extremely low drop rates and that offer extremely powerful enhancement characteristics, much like the extreme upper end runewords in Diablo 2. This is still mostly a pricing issue, though, and if prices are set reasonably well then this will be unlikely to become a significant problem. Even if this problem emerges among a very small segment of the extremely rich, the limited time frame within which each custom-made IO functions and the ability of the devs to make adjustments as we move forward means that such problems do not need to continue forever.
This kind of inf sink would serve another purpose, as well. The frequency of orders for specific custom-made IOs would provide the devs with information about how drop rates might be usefully changed, about how particular IOs may need to have their enhancement values adjusted, for the sake of game balance, or about emerging exploits, on occasion.
4. Closing Thoughts
The goal for changes have frequently involved making COX both a bigger and better game, albeit often at the cost of added complexity. These suggested changes aim to make the game better by making it less complex overall (ie: by making it smaller, in some ways); much of the current complexity on the items side of the game would be swept out of existence, or at least out of plain sight to players, by implementing these various suggestions. Novice and occasional players would find it far easier to navigate the items and wealth side of the game, as well as finding it easier to create characters that perform well across different level ranges--particularly in lower levels. The main way in which complexity would be added is operative chiefly at the upper end of the wealth scale, through custom-made IOs; that added source of complexity would be wholly voluntary for each player to embrace or not, and in any event (most) rich players have already shown a high degree of tolerance for complexity. Many of those who are rich have even embraced complexity. Finally, having workable item and inf sinks would be a substantial boon to the long term viability of the game, by bringing greater stability to the inf supply and by making the markets more reliably functional and more popular, over the long run.
In conclusion, enhancements, markets, and the inf supply are an important part of the COX game for players. On an abstract level, these issues can be conceived of as the GUI in the background, behind the GUI used during battles; this metaphor can make sense because each player's handling of items and wealth becomes the background planning and execution that underpins use of the GUI that players use when fighting mobs. Nobody would question the importance of having a GUI that is simple and easy to use when fighting mobs. Hopefully the same goal of simplicity will guide the devs when they design the GUI in the background that determines how players accumulate and use items and wealth.
Credits
I'd like to thank Umbral and Arcanaville, as I switched to healing aura and did a better job on the relevant calculations thanks to their feedback about an earlier draft of Sidebar 1.2. I'd also like to thank Icelock for feedback about addressing mez powers, given as part of that same Sidebar.
Kitsune9tails posted a suggestion on the forums to have the markets take delivery, which I believe is a very good idea.
Mentioning the name of any other poster in no way associates them with the ideas presented here, especially those ideas with which those mentioned here may disagree. Any mistakes are mine and mine alone.
*bump*
Because, well, at this point why not?
Plus, there is an idea about how to manage inflation in MMOs. It might even work.
very good write up.
Especially the name of the regular enhancement section, like the majic ones can be a little confusing and I been playing sice i6 and still dont know what all of them mean. The inflation one too is a very good point. I dont know what happened but the value of an inf sinked very quickly and with that came the "gold spammers". They must of been making good money too because they been around for a while since the inflation time period. I remember when 25 million was more than enough and 50 million was considered rich. After a while, it got to a point where items, one single item sold for almost the inf cap if not at inf cap of two billion and many in the 100s of millions. Inflation control is important.
All of it is good stuff, though. Maybe if new game is made they will take heed to some of this advice, It would cut down on the need for farming, spammers, people feeling the need to buy "gold" just to keep up and risking a lot in RL, just to keep up with the virtual jones.
-Female Player-
Quote:
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Originally Posted by mauk2
Evil_Legacy became one of my favorite posters with two words.
"Kick Rocks." I laffed so hard. Never change, E_L! |
This post will examine three topics: regular enhancements, invention origin enhancements (IOs) and the markets, plus regulation of the supply of influence and infamy. Suggested changes will be outlined for each of these sets of issues. I'll also outline anticipated benefits from carrying out suggested changes, along with some of the risks and costs.
The “tl;dr” version of this is that enhancements, influence / infamy, and the markets are an important part of COX to players and that there are quite a few less than desirable outcomes associated with the current way these aspects of the game have been implemented. The following suggestions are intended to bring about the following benefits:
1. make enhancements easier to understand and manage at the “entry level” in which new, novice, and occasional players engage with them
2. improve consistency in how powers and characters function at different levels
3. make the markets easier to use and make them function better, as well as increasing the rate of player participation in the markets
4. create influence / infamy sinks (inf sinks) that keep inflation (and deflation) under control
Under the following proposals, average sales volume per market would increase substantially, the hassle costs associated with using the markets would sharply decline, the quality and quantity of information available to players to help when setting bid / offer prices would improve substantially, and the rate of player participation in the markets would (probably sharply) increase. Regular enhancements would shrink in number and complexity and they would become easier to manage, among other benefits; as an aid to retaining new, novice, and occasional players, I believe that proposed changes to regular enhancements would be particularly helpful. The generally disliked, level-dependent "sawtooth" in power effectiveness associated with the current enhancement system would disappear. The current “high end” of enhancement purchases and use would shift to purchases of player-selected, custom-ordered enhancements with a fixed lifespan (ie: temporary enhancements made-to-order for the buyer). The volume of those purchases would shift over time, in response to the objectives of those purchasing them and changes in the price of set IOs on the markets. Variation over time in purchases of temporary enhancements would serve as a key mechanism for regulating the inf supply, and would act an an inf sink that keeps inflationary pressures under control. Player participation in these inf sinks would be voluntary.
Regarding formatting, a set of “sidebars” that provide examples and calculations to support points raised nearby are enclosed in “quotation” blocks. Sidebars provide evidence and detail, and explore a few “side issues”; you don't need to read any of them to be able to follow any of the suggestions and key arguments being presented.
Final warning: Because of the number and complexity of issues addressed, this is a REALLY LONG post. If you find reading through long posts unenjoyable, this is your opportunity to escape.
1. Regular Enhancements
The way that regular enhancements are currently implemented is a vestigial remnant of an earlier time in the game, a time when players were not supposed to understand the mechanics of the game; rather, they were supposed to simply play it. To review a few pertinent facts, there are three different types of regular enhancements (training, dual origin, and single origin), with two different underlying scales for enhancement values for each of the three different types of enhancements. There are dozens of names for different enhancements, with widely varying levels of clarity about the connection between specific enhancement names and the attribute being enhanced (Sidebar 1.1 explores clarity issues for enhancement names). Regular enhancements are tied to a specific character level range, and you can use them across a maximum span of six different character levels before they stop functioning.
Many enhancement names are, thankfully, quite simple to decode. For example, endurance modification device (doh!) and medical device (heal) are quite easy to decode. Somewhere in the middle of the clarity scale would be oxygen device (reduces endurance cost) and agony grenade (taunt); the connection between the name and the attribute being enhanced might not come to mind immediately, but some kind of connection can be seen after a little reflection. To provide several examples of how non-intuitive enhancement names can be, five enhancement names are given below. I encourage you to attempt to figure out which attribute is enhanced based solely on the enhancement name, before looking further down to view the answers.
1. Li Tieh Kuai's Gem
2. Paraxial Modifier
3. Oscillator Overthruster
4. Crowley's Jewel
5. Glasses
The attribute connected to each of the above five enhancement names is given next:
1. Flight speed
2. Confuse
3. Intangibility
4. Sleep
5. Taunt
If you got even one of these correct, you're probably either a vet who plays on a regular basis or you're one of that relatively small proportion of the population who knows the meaning of the word “paraxial.” Newer and relatively infrequent players will probably get none of these correct.
Many of the dozens of enhancement names are as simple and straightforward as can be, and many others are just as cryptic as these last five examples.
Furthermore, enhancements have always been priced so that new and novice players will, by default, struggle to purchase the first few sets of “single origin” enhancements for their initial characters when they're still learning combat tactics, which powers to choose, and how to slot and enhance powers. If newer and novice players wish to overcome an initial state of poverty that is still, to this day, hard-coded into the game for them, then they need to find somebody to power-level their first character(s), take on the added learning curve and hassle costs associated with participating in the markets quite soon after starting the game, or go out of their way to find lower level TFs/SFs or other means of building up enough influence or infamy to get that first few rounds of SOs for their first one or two characters.
Finally, enhancement values in later levels have always been high enough that the base values of the powers being enhanced have needed to be noticeably less generous than they could otherwise be, for the sake of game balance. Enhancement values have been so much taken for granted as a “fact of life” that the problems associated with high enhancement values may not be immediately obvious. Still, the anticipated benefits listed for one of the suggestions that follows below end up highlighting some of the unintended and perverse effects of high enhancement values.
If you would like to review some relevant numbers, Sidebar 1.2 below explores what proportion of a power's effectiveness and efficiency can be derived from slotting and enhancements. If you would rather not read Sidebar 1.2, the conclusion supported in Sidebar 1.2 is that enhancements are much more influential in determining the efficiency and effectiveness of powers than are the base stats of the powers themselves.
I'll work with the defender version of the Empathy set power “healing aura” for the calculations that follow, with one arbitrary modification; I'll set the amount of healing done to 100 hit points, to make the following calculations a little easier. That means the base stats to work with become 100 points of healing, 2.03 seconds of activation (or casting) time, a casting cost of 13 endurance, and a base recharge time of 8 seconds listed in the “real numbers” provided in-game. Lets work with the assumption that a player uses set IOs to enhance healing aura to produce a 90% level of enhancement to healing power, endurance cost, and base recharge rate. How much do these enhancements to healing aura improve its performance?
Each enhanced attribute, by itself, is relatively easy to calculate using a spreadsheet. Enhancing healing by 90% means that a base level of 100 hit points of healing becomes 190 hit points, for a 90% increase in healing power, per casting. The endurance cost falls to 6.84 endurance ( 13 / (1 + 0.9) = 6.84 ), for a 47% drop in endurance cost, per casting. The recharge time drops from 10.24 seconds to 6.45 seconds, leading to a 37% improvement in recharge time^.
^ The base recharge time is listed as 8 seconds in terms of “Real Numbers” (ie: in the game). But, powers don't start to recharge until their activation time has completed, and the activation time for healing aura is 2.03 seconds. There is also Arcanatime to factor into recharge times, as powers don't actually start to recharge immediately after their activation time completes; there is a small delay before a new action is begun, after a triggering event has occurred. Thus, the calculation used to generate the average recharge time for healing aura was as follows: 8 + ( [RoundUp(2.03 / 0.132) + 1] * 0.132 ) = 10.24 seconds. A similar calculation was used to determined the recharge time after healing aura has its recharge time enhanced by 90%.
The most valuable help provided by enhancements, of course, comes in how enhancements to individual power attributes work together. If you look at healing efficiency, measured as hit points of Healing Per Endurance point spent (HPE), with an unenhanced healing aura you spend 1 point of endurance for 7.69 points of healing, which translates into a HPE of 7.69 ( 100 / 13 = 7.69 ). If you slot healing aura as indicated earlier, you end up using 6.84 endurance to do 190 hit points of healing, for a HPE of 29.44 ( 190 / 6.84 = 29.44 ). In summary, the enhancement levels outlined earlier lead to healing aura being 3.83 times as endurance efficient for the amount of healing provided ( 29.44 / 7.69 = 3.83 ). If you care less about efficiency and more about the raw amount of healing that can be done during a single battle, then enhancements boost the amount of healing that can be done from 300 hit points in 32 seconds (with no enhancements)* to 760 hit points in 32 seconds (enhanced as described earlier); a well enhanced healing aura provides 2.53 times as much healing as the unenhanced power could provide in the same time frame ( 760 / 300 = 2.53 ).
* Note that a 30 second time frame would reduce the “unenhanced” amount of healing to 200 hit points, which would compare even more unfavorably to the enhanced healing aura under discussion, as that would still come in at 760 hit points over 30 seconds, just as it does for 32 seconds.
Next, I'll use the calculations just done to provide an exact answer to the question “How much of the benefits available from using healing aura are due to enhancements, and how much are due to the base attributes of the power itself?” In the above example, the healing efficiency (HPE) of healing aura is 26% due to base power attributes and 74% due to enhancements ( 7.69 / 29.44 = .2613 and 1 - .2613 = .7387 ). Enhancement totals being used here ( 90/90/90 ) would account for 60.53% of the raw amount of 760 hit points of healing done over 32 seconds (( 760 – 300) / 760 = .6053 ), while the base power attributes would account for 39.47% of that same healing (( 300 / 760) = .3947 ).
The upshot? If you focus on examining healing efficiency (HPE), then enhancements account for about three quarters of the healing efficiency achieved. If you factor in the option to use healing aura substantially more often, one could quite reasonably argue that enhancements are much, much more important in determining the performance of healing aura than the base attributes of healing aura itself. Furthermore, it bears mentioning that the values used for calculations made earlier are not as high as they can be; enhancement values can actually be higher for characters using higher level set IOs, and players can do better than the 90/90/90 enhancement levels used for these calculations, through the use of set IO bonuses.
The conclusion that enhancements exercise much more influence on power effectiveness and efficiency than the base stats of the powers themselves applies to more than just healing powers; consider also the effect of enhancements on attack powers. Measuring the effect of enhancements on the damage potential of attack powers requires more complex calculations than for healing powers because at a minimum you will need to consider the percentage chance to miss, damage done when a mob is hit, attack availability because of recharge speed, whether or not an attack chain can be “saturated” with high damage attacks (ie: there are no gaps in it, so that in theory your character could continue it forever), endurance costs, and activation times. Area of effect (AOE) attacks are even harder to analyze because of variability in how many mobs are hit and the effects of enhancing range on the damage potential of some AOE attack powers (especially cones). Still, the conclusion for damage powers is the same as for healing; skillful enhancement strategies easily overpower the base attributes of damage powers, as a percentage of damage that can be done to mobs. This is true in part because of improvements in the damage potential of individual powers through skillful enhancement choices and in part because any given character's best attack powers can be the focus of heavy slotting and enhancement, to increase the prominence of the most damaging attacks in saturated attack chains that far surpass the performance of a set of unenhanced attack powers.
Furthermore, neither healing nor attack powers are arguably at the top in the list of powers that become better through enhancements; powers that gain the second most through enhancements are mezzes, such as holds and stuns. An unenhanced hold such as freeze ray, in the ice blast set, will at lower levels not even keep an even level lieutenant permanently held, when it even hits at all, which it often will not do when operating with just the base slot. A fully slotted, skillfully enhanced freeze ray will rarely miss its target and it can keep many higher level bosses permanently locked down, after two initial castings that hit the boss (Purple Bres, Overseers, Gunslingers, and Elite Paragon Protectors, I'm looking at you!). As an aid to the survival of the relatively “squishy” character classes that can choose the “ice” blast set, there is currently a huge difference in utility between an unenhanced and a fully enhanced freeze ray. Even for controllers and dominators, which get a decent hold duration and reasonable accuracy with just an accuracy in the base slot, the number of mobs that can be held during a battle increases noticeably, and the degree of safety with which bosses can be perma-held substantially increases, as holds are better and better enhanced.
If mezzes are close to the top, but not at the top, what powers are at the “top of the heap” for how their performance improves through enhancements? Resistance and defense powers, especially those offering high base values for the melee classes, have the potential to gain more from enhancements than any other type of power. Consider the often-targeted defense “softcap” of 45% defense to all (or at least some) damage types, which leads to a default miss rate by mobs of 95% for each attack against which the defense total(s) in question are applicable. A mere 2% drop in defense below the softcap leads to a 40% increase in damage taken for the affected damage types--or positional origin, depending on the defense type and damage type. Invulnerability and stone tanks gain easily the greater share of their survivability from enhancements, rather than base power attributes, because enhancements substantially improve each of their multiple layers of defense (healing, regen, resistance, and defense, as well as any enhanceable mitigation provided in their secondary), and layered damage mitigation methods complement each other in a multiplicative fashion (ie: 50% mitigation by three separately determined methods leads to 0.5*0.5*0.5 = 12.5% damage getting through; compare that with 80% mitigation by three separately determined methods leading to 0.2*0.2*0.2 = 0.8% of damage getting through). The “softcap” example and the examples for tanks underscore the high marginal value of enhancements to powers that enhance resistances or defense.
All of the foregoing even further understates the possible improvements in power effectiveness if a player uses purples, procs, or other IO-driven methods to improve overall performance.
Suggestions:
1. Give regular enhancements more intuitive names
2. Boost the base stats of powers and reduce enhancement values
3. Replace enhancement diversification with two “hard limits” for enhancements; no more than 3 regular enhancements of the same type in one power and a specific upper limit on the total enhancement value for any single, enhanceable attribute of a specific power.
4. Replace all the different incarnations and values of enhancements with one enhancement type that has a fixed value scale for all enhancements, for any given level range, that can be purchased in all of the usual locations, and that never stops functioning. Periodic “training and maintenance” payments would need to be paid to keep regular enhancements working at peak efficiency.
5. Give new players two or three time-limited “enhancement maintenance” tokens, which can each be attached to a different character, as the new player chooses, with each of these two or three tokens usable at a vendor so that a new player can afford to purchase and to “train and maintain” enhancements until level 35, when paired up with influence / infamy gained through adventuring. Price enhancements relatively cheaply in the lower level ranges so that new players can have some leeway to make mistakes and still find themselves able to properly enhance their first two or three characters.
6. Add a new option for buying enhancements; when inside a store that sells regular enhancements a player would like to buy for their currently logged in character, allow the player to call up the enhancement screen and right click on the slot in question (most likely an open slot). The player then gets a list of enhancements that can go into that slot, along with the purchase price for each. The player could then complete the purchase with a few mouse clicks, have the enhancement automatically put into the slot in question, and be on their way.
The intention would be to scale down enhancement values for Hami-Os and IOs in ways that are comparable to suggestions given for regular enhancements, for balance reasons; further details about suggested changes for IOs are provided later.