Ignore all the opinions. A redname TOLD US that, once your participation passes a certain point and lets you avoid the '10 thread consolation table', the determination of which salvage table you get is RANDOM.
I honestly don't think that Paragon staff would lie about something so simple and harmless.
Paragon City Search And Rescue
The Mentor Project
what Ironblade says is right
there are still a ton of rumors currently floating around when there was all that ambiguity about how participation linked to the reward table, but it has been clarified as mentioned above
This is actually what I thought, too, but good to know I am not alone.
Global Name: Denver Nugget
Playing since i3 on 8 servers
Quote:
I actually got the impression from posts of Arcanaville's (who has almost certainly worked out the most about how the system works, and may well have figured out a few things the devs don't know about it yet) that this may only be partially true. |
Originally Posted by Ironblade
Ignore all the opinions. A redname TOLD US that, once your participation passes a certain point and lets you avoid the '10 thread consolation table', the determination of which salvage table you get is RANDOM.
|
She thinks, if I recall correctly, that as an INDIVIDUAL, once you participate a certain amount, you get the reward table instead of threads. Participation includes shooting at enemies, sticking with the team, click buffing of teammates (as opposed to running Maneuvers, say), and probably other factors. It doesn't include much love for pets and pseudopets, unfortunately, so if you rely heavily on those consider adding some personal attacks, even if its just a Brawl or Origin attack once in awhile.
But she also thinks that its likely that there are more than one reward table, and how the whole LEAGUE performs can move the people in it to a better table. It is, as yet, much less clear about what is considered "good performance" for a league. It probably includes fewer people dying, more people being active, more objectives being accomplished (such as zero escapees in BAF, all collectibles collected in Lambda, etc.). The kinds of things that, in theory, good players should be trying to accomplish anyway to succeed.
The last thing the devs probably want in the system is an incentive to, say, leave dead teammates lying there in favor of running around "doing something". I doubt they can cover every single nuance of player behavior in their system, but so far with the exception of pet heavy ATs it seems to be working reasonably well with the recent fix to reduce excessive uncommons.
Quote:
Scientist--I have no idea if what you are saying is true or not, but I hope you are wrong. I am the type of active player that doesn't go afk, plays hard, likes to be a large part, but I hate the idea (pressure) of having to make sure I hit some target that I have no way of monitoring in order to get a "good" reward. Where did you see this? Can you link it for us?
|
Originally Posted by Scientist
I actually got the impression from posts of Arcanaville's (who has almost certainly worked out the most about how the system works, and may well have figured out a few things the devs don't know about it yet) that this may only be partially true.
She thinks, if I recall correctly, that as an INDIVIDUAL, once you participate a certain amount, you get the reward table instead of threads. Participation includes shooting at enemies, sticking with the team, click buffing of teammates (as opposed to running Maneuvers, say), and probably other factors. It doesn't include much love for pets and pseudopets, unfortunately, so if you rely heavily on those consider adding some personal attacks, even if its just a Brawl or Origin attack once in awhile. But she also thinks that its likely that there are more than one reward table, and how the whole LEAGUE performs can move the people in it to a better table. It is, as yet, much less clear about what is considered "good performance" for a league. It probably includes fewer people dying, more people being active, more objectives being accomplished (such as zero escapees in BAF, all collectibles collected in Lambda, etc.). The kinds of things that, in theory, good players should be trying to accomplish anyway to succeed. The last thing the devs probably want in the system is an incentive to, say, leave dead teammates lying there in favor of running around "doing something". I doubt they can cover every single nuance of player behavior in their system, but so far with the exception of pet heavy ATs it seems to be working reasonably well with the recent fix to reduce excessive uncommons. |
Global Name: Denver Nugget
Playing since i3 on 8 servers
Random is random.
I have done Incarnate trials where I've "participated" to the maximum extent my character could and have only gotten common table rewards. I have been in other Incarnate trials where I mapserved/crashed at least half of the total time of the trial and logged back in just in time to get very rare table rewards.
I know people love to over-analyze and rationalize all sorts of conspiracy theories when it comes to mysterious facets of the game like this. But I remain unconvinced that there's anything going on other than what Ironblade described earlier in this thread. Sure maybe overall league participation factors into the net result of whatever individuals do. But until the Rednames confirm that it's merely an academic speculation. *shrugs*
Loth 50 Fire/Rad Controller [1392 Badges] [300 non-AE Souvenirs]
Ryver 50 Ele� Blaster [1392 Badges]
Silandra 50 Peacebringer [1138 Badges] [No Redside Badges]
--{=====> Virtue ♀
Quote:
I tend to agree. I think that part of it is that some people don't understand research or statistics. Random means that you may, statistically speaking, run 100 trials and never get a rare or run 100 trials and get 15. Random is random.|
Originally Posted by Lothic
Random is random.
I have done Incarnate trials where I've "participated" to the maximum extent my character could and have only gotten common table rewards. I have been in other Incarnate trials where I mapserved/crashed at least half of the total time of the trial and logged back in just in time to get very rare table rewards. I know people love to over-analyze and rationalize all sorts of conspiracy theories when it comes to mysterious facets of the game like this. But I remain unconvinced that there's anything going on other than what Ironblade described earlier in this thread. Sure maybe overall league participation factors into the net result of whatever individuals do. But until the Rednames confirm that it's merely an academic speculation. *shrugs* |
I think some people get a rare or very rare when they have done a certain thing and create a causal relationship when, in fact, it was just random and happened to match what they believed helps you get one.
I could be wrong...who knows?
Global Name: Denver Nugget
Playing since i3 on 8 servers
Quote:
I was also in a Lambda trial where we lost members such that we only had 7 by the time all was said an done, none of the remaining 7 ever mapserved, and only 1 person avoided the 10 Threads reward (and he got a VR...). It was really weird, because I didn't do anything different from what I normally do, and I had never gotten 10 Threads before.|
Originally Posted by Lothic
I have done Incarnate trials where I've "participated" to the maximum extent my character could and have only gotten common table rewards. I have been in other Incarnate trials where I mapserved/crashed at least half of the total time of the trial and logged back in just in time to get very rare table rewards.
|
It wasn't even an issue of the league doing poorly, unless practicing for Master badges counts as 'poorly' (we refused to use the grenades).
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt
Quote:
I don't believe there is anything you can do to personally improve your own drop by any significant amount, except to actually qualify for any component drop at all. The only thing you can do is help your league perform well, and have *everyone* get a somewhat better chance of getting a better drop - you and everyone else. But there's no magic target you have to hit to get the rares or anything like that. If you qualify you qualify, and past that point the entire league can sometimes do better. But once you qualify, you have a chance at every component reward, including the rares.|
Originally Posted by shaggy5
Scientist--I have no idea if what you are saying is true or not, but I hope you are wrong. I am the type of active player that doesn't go afk, plays hard, likes to be a large part, but I hate the idea (pressure) of having to make sure I hit some target that I have no way of monitoring in order to get a "good" reward. Where did you see this? Can you link it for us?
|
My only advice there is try to follow along with the rest of the team: whatever they are shooting at, you shoot at. Whatever they are doing, follow along and help. When the team breaks up, stick with your subgroup. Logically, if the system is awarding league bonuses, the best way to ensure you are getting them along with everyone else is to help do what everyone else does. Whatever the system is looking at, you want it to think that if you're doing it, everyone else is also.
But I wouldn't worry about it too much. If you're getting component drops consistently, you're already doing enough for the system to count you as a full participant. No sense going nuts trying to figure out how to do better than that, since there really isn't anything better than that according to the devs and so far as I can see. If you're getting threads a lot, that's a different story.
[Guide to Defense] [Scrapper Secondaries Comparison] [Archetype Popularity Analysis]
In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile...
(Please support the best webcomic about a cosmic universal realignment by impaired angelic interference resulting in identity crisis angst. Or I release the pigmy water thieves.)
Quote:
Practicing for a Master badge may skew your "participation" score relative to how people normally do it, for example there may have been more wait time for instructions, or to coordinate for something. But I believe Arcanaville also said in one of her posts that there may be issues with rewards for particularly small Leagues that she is trying to investigate. She has offered to go through any chatlogs people send her, so if you are trying something like this it may be worth logging it so she can add to her data. I doubt the devs are deliberately trying to penalize people who run this in a smaller group, though I don't know if they will make a big effort to help people out who decide to duo it, say. |
Originally Posted by Fleeting Whisper
I was also in a Lambda trial where we lost members such that we only had 7 by the time all was said an done, none of the remaining 7 ever mapserved, and only 1 person avoided the 10 Threads reward (and he got a VR...). It was really weird, because I didn't do anything different from what I normally do, and I had never gotten 10 Threads before.
It wasn't even an issue of the league doing poorly, unless practicing for Master badges counts as 'poorly' (we refused to use the grenades). |
If you want to see just what she has to say on the Trials, I suggest a forum search on her global for her posts. They will include the closest thing we have to any hard data on the reward formula, though she summarizes what she has so far just above.
Quote:
There are five reward tables: 'consolation', Common, Uncommon, Rare, Very Rare. We were told flat-out that, once you get off the 'consolation table', it is RANDOM which salvage you get. And, unlike the Taunt system where the person who wrote it was no longer with the company, this is a recent addition and is presumably thoroughly understood. If you think we're being deliberately lied to, okay, but I don't believe that to be the case.
|
Originally Posted by Scientist
But she also thinks that its likely that there are more than one reward table, and how the whole LEAGUE performs can move the people in it to a better table.
|
Paragon City Search And Rescue
The Mentor Project
No, I don't think anyone is lying. I think one of the points of confusion is use of the term "table". You mean the list of choices of components, I'm talking about a table of entries with a different chance for each entry. So if there is a 20% chance of the Common entry on the reward table, and you roll in that range, you get the list of Common components to pick from. Arcanaville has an example of how one such reward table set up in one of her posts, all the entries are in one table with different numbers of each entry.
What it could have is a random table you roll on if you don't participate enough, with all Thread rewards, or say, 90% Threads, 5% chance of Common, 3% Uncommon, 2% Rare, 1% VR.
If you participate "enough" you get a random table of 60% Common, 30% Uncommon, 7% Rare, 3% VR. As the devs said, guaranteed component drop for personal participation.
If you participate enough AND the league does "well" you get a different random table set up as 30% Common, 60% Uncommon, 6% Rare, 4% VR. This is where the incentive for helping the league succeed comes in, so your optimum strategy is no longer just to put Brawl on autofire and walk away.
Obviously I made those numbers up, but they could have many different tables, all random, with different distributions based on how the league does, and this wouldn't contradict anything they have said. This could explain why the devs said more Uncommons were being awarded then they expected and had to tweak the formula, if it was just one random component table its hard to see how the distribution could have surprised them. If all the leagues were clustered on the second example table I gave performance-wise, everyone was seeing twice as many Uncommons as Commons.
I will say I'm still seeing more Uncommons then Commons, but thats fine with me, since they downgrade for free, letting you pick the Common you want later when crafting instead of right when you exit the Trial, and you can upgrade a set of them to a Rare with Inf + Threads, making them more flexible then Commons.
It doesn't sound like it works that way.
Quote:
I suppose that line is not completely definitive, but it sounds like that once your participation gets you off the 'consolation' reward, your participation has no effect on what kind of salvage you get. The quote is from Baryonyx's post here.
| It has never been possible to guarantee that you will receive a Very Rare. Once the participation system has done a handoff to the random table, it no longer has any effect on your reward. |
Paragon City Search And Rescue
The Mentor Project
Right, but he said "If you participate enough AND the league does well", and I do think that league success may be either getting us into different reward tables or directly modifying our reward "roll". This is based off of these excerpts from the quoted post.
Quote:
| It has never been possible to guarantee that you will receive a Very Rare. Once the participation system has done a handoff to the random table, it no longer has any effect on your reward. While reports of multiple Very Rares are not unexpected, these occurrences are evidence of consistent league success combined with a large amount of good luck. |
Quote:
|
I know I ran a Trial recently with two people who padded with alt accounts which were largely on autofollow, and both got non-Thread reward tables.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
Quote:
Baryonyx specifically said that league performance benefits personal participation scores as a bonus:|
Originally Posted by UberGuy
The color emphasis is mine. That section strongly suggests that league successes can improve your individual success, even possibly to the point of raising you above having low "valid" activity for the participation system.
I know I ran a Trial recently with two people who padded with alt accounts which were largely on autofollow, and both got non-Thread reward tables. |
Quote:
|
[Guide to Defense] [Scrapper Secondaries Comparison] [Archetype Popularity Analysis]
In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile...
(Please support the best webcomic about a cosmic universal realignment by impaired angelic interference resulting in identity crisis angst. Or I release the pigmy water thieves.)
Quote:
Nah, we just said, "Hey, let's see how well we can do without using grenades", and then ignored the grenade temp powers after clearing out the warehouse.
|
Originally Posted by Scientist
Practicing for a Master badge may skew your "participation" score relative to how people normally do it, for example there may have been more wait time for instructions, or to coordinate for something.
|
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt
I tried to decipher the answer in the 1000+ responses to the Incarnate Reward thread, but I couldn't do it. I am not smart enough.
I do have a few questions, though. So the way I understand it, you have to have enough "participation". If you do, you get a random roll at the type of table you can get.
I read a lot of people not believing this and thinking that they needed to be the one to kill the AV or have the most damage or be the tank. Now that we have more experiential data, are people still going with this theory, or are we believing the random table thing?
For example, has anyone tested enough doing "just enough" participation (killing), but not a lot, and still gotten good rewards?
Global Name: Denver Nugget
Playing since i3 on 8 servers