Increase Merit Rewards on Positron TF 1&2

It certainly doesn't hurt to bring it up though and try to encourage them to look at it.

enri, you know you're likely to get burned at that stake for talking logic in the forums, unless you weight more than a duck...

Angel Red
"We're heroes. Fighting injustice is the thing we do." ~Rebel Scum

No it isn't. The merits are what they were when it launched. That answer would work for the other TFs.

and you presume that there was NO data mining done on the TF's run during the beta?

Some, but not enough to get a solid number on what the TF should award. TFs are typically vastly undertested in betas.

Originally Posted by Dispari I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.

And you presume that the selection of players running TF's in beta testing is representative of the normal player base?

no. but it does give the devs an idea of where to start them at. i'd almost wager that they look at them after GR.

thanks Shark.

If you've ever read anything of what I've wrote about the beta testing process before, you wouldn't be asking this question. It's well known that I often go off about running into people in beta's who do not understand what a beta is for. As is I've already climbed the cases of several players in the past, both on the forums and in the -Test client, for basic incomprehension of beta testing.

I don't pretend to suggest, or indicate, that the normal players involved in a beta test represent any significant majority of the player base.

In the case of the Positron Task Force, they don't have to. There's a difference here between data reading and data mining. The developers already have loads of data from the original Positron Task Force over how many different groups respond to, and handle, the various enemies found-within the Task-Force.

From the developers perspectives, the only combat data they lack is how groups handle the Shadow-dopplegangers from the CoT, and how the groups would handle an Archvillian.

For practical purposes of reward assignment, the developers already have the expected numbers for the majority of the battle content within the "new" Positron Task Force, and only need the combat data from the Dopple-Gang Encounter, and the combat data from the fight from the Dam.

All a beta has to provide is confirmation on whether or not those numbers are within the range of what the power-gamer achieves, and what the oh shinies player achieves.

Except that all of that information largely went out the window when the TF was dramatically restructured to have substantially fewer missions and substantially different mission goals.

Even if there was any salvageable information from the original Posi that could be applied (i.e. how the players respond to the various enemy groups), it still wouldn't affect the merit award determination because the devs don't assign the merit awards based on the structure of the TF but rather on the median completion time of all completions of the TF. It doesn't matter how many AVs are in a mission or whether it has Rularuu or Hellions: the only determining factor in merit awards, as it stands now, is median completion time.

In beta, the TFs were sped run mainly because you don't get many newbies in betas (because newbies don't speed run well and experienced players tend to be able to run at quickly even when playing "normally") and most of the people that would be willing to run a TF multiple times are those that are going to speed run it (I can tell you this because I was one of those people that ran it 3-4 times and was largely focused on getting it done quickly after the first time).

Now, there is probably a very good argument that there should be some kind of failure rate variable factored into the reward equation somewhere (which would increase the rewards of TFs that are substantially harder, whether by having harder enemy groups or more difficult encounters). I can only assume that there are some problems with gathering that data, which is probably why it hasn't been done (the servers likely only log times for completion rather than times and completion percent for partial completion upon disbanding).

No I don't. They did use some, as it was adjusted during beta. You're changing the subject and debating a straw man as a distraction.

That is what you said. It is what I replied to. At no point did I suggest that there was no use of data mining.