One hundred trials later...

I don't understand why you didn't get any threads, Snow. I get around 4-6 threads every time I do the BAF, on top of any Astrals and component drops.

Eco

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow [The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."

I no longer worry about what I do, because I have never done anything that's given me threads.

However, I have now shifted my concern over performance to what the whole league does. I believe that does have a measurable impact on my reward quality, where I believe that personal activities only affect reward quality either only for purposes of avoiding threads, or maybe only at very low personal participation scores just above what would give you threads. (The latter is highly speculative.)

So this makes me much more concerned about the league itself, what strategies it uses, etc. As a result, I prefer small leagues with a preponderance experienced, high-performing players. I no longer am very willing to join random PuGs, because I've played the original two leagues to death, and want to maximize my return on time spent playing them any more - I want the best chance for a Rare+ for my time. (By extension, I don't play Keyes much, both because I do not like it as much and it is significantly slower, as indicated here.)

Honestly, I don't like that thought process. I'd prefer if it was totally random and playing with a bunch of folks who, say, had never done the trial before just probably took longer to get to an end reward, not took longer and meant I was more likely to get a low-value reward. Then I might progress more slowly overall, but I'd be more willing to play with random people to do so.

Before the last adjustment to the reward table, there were quite a few complaints of people getting the Thread booby prize even though they were very active in the Trial. I've not heard of such complaints since then. The Devs acknowledged that there were some player activities that weren't counting toward the reward table, but they have fixed that.

yesterday i was on a lambda trial and game froze up as soon as i loaded, by the time i restarted the game and got back in the league was almost done the sabotage phase so i was mostly there for the marauder fight and i still managed to get a common table

this said i also have not yet gotten a thread table since the most recent patch.

i have to agree with snow though, i hate how many poeple they require (more of my hate though is because all of the trials feel like speed tfs being on a constant timer, and i seriously hate those)

there have been several days this week when ive logged in hoping to get a few trials done for unlocks and pocket d is a ghost town, and it doesnt change even when i wait up to 30min to see if there were any trials in progress (btw which could be an improvement to the queue system by showing if there are any trials in progress for when you have the "join in progress trial" selected which still appears to do nothing)

i really like how they added astral merit as an option for apex and tin mage, but i still dont call them incarnate content, they are nothing but tfs forced to run at +4 related to praetorians because they have no thread drops no incarnate level shifts and no emp merits

I find I get more rares when my cat sits in my Lap when I run trials.

i dont think the trials are snobbery, but i do think that the trials could have been designed better with a better reward system (the rewards should not be limited entirely to the trials)

i think the best move they could do is altar apex and tin mage to have more incarnate related rewards

Having a ****** connection, SHOULD be punished. It means you're not helping (as much as you could anyway) if you're disconnecting or crashing you're out of the game for a significant priodof time.

I was thinking further on this:

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Originally Posted by Leandro Please remember that the drop rate was adjusted on April 26th. Any drops before then are no good.

I think I'll dig up a post from Arcanaville that seems relevant:

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Originally Posted by Arcanaville The irony is that if the devs simply lied and said that they found a bug that was causing the participation algorithm to influence random rolls, and they fixed it so that participation will no longer affect random rolls, much of the controversy would vanish because I doubt anyone has statistical evidence that proves participation actually affects random rolls. So if the devs say it changed, no player could currently confirm that the system was in fact exactly identical. People would be told what they want to believe, which is that the system is affected by participation, the devs always get this wrong, and their complaints caused the devs to remove a a feature they know to be wrong. Confirmation bias would then take over. This is not a trite point. If you're going to ask the devs to change something, you should ask them to change something you can *detect* so you know they made the change. If someone believes that the system is not in fact random as the devs say it is, could they actually notice in any way if the devs were wrong and it was non-random, and the devs fixed it to be random? If no player can tell, then what is being asked for is itself somewhat specious.

Given that last graph I put up, I can't see a difference between the first 50 recorded runs (those happened before May 3rd) and the rest. In addition the April 26th patch was supposed to produce higher level components, which my graph does not reflect. In fact, my overall results seem to reflect that the rewards seem to be fairly constant. Can you tell where the rewards were increased? I can't. So that post from Arcanaville is fairly accurate in that we can't tell if there has been a change before/after the April 26th patch.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville The players who like randomness are intrinsically willing to take a chance of getting below average rewards for a chance to get above average ones. They know the difference between those two possibilities can be high: that is the point. The players who like deterministic rewards aren't willing to make that trade: they do not want the possibility of getting sub par rewards even if it offers the chance for higher rewards.

Well, I personally wouldn't mind the random reward table at the end of the trial IF the deterministic approach used was less punitive. Two weeks (not everyone does 3 trials/day) to compensate for the RNG is not a balanced approach between Random and Deterministic.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville I believe in most circumstances, and especially the high reward ones, the reward system should address both desires by having a predictable component that is itself highly uniform, and a random element that has the chance for high variability between the best and worst case. This will satisfy people who want one or the other and are willing to concede the other to the rest of the player population.

My problem with the reward tables is that it doesn't address the desires for a predictable component in a meaningful way. The reward tables (and Merit stores) are geared in such a fashion that it is clearly better to wait to win the lottery than it is to spend merits on components. A player will get a Rare or Very Rare component faster by grinding trials for the reward table than to buy them with merits. By putting an additional strain on merits with costumes and recipes, it makes purchasing components a fool's task in comparison.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville You're a strong advocate for all deterministic rewards, and you either are aware that will cost customers that find that boring, or you're unaware that there even exist such people in large numbers. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt that it is the former, which is why I find your question just a little puzzling.

I think you might have that reversed. The former would have me intentionally wanting to get rid of those that want random drops, while the latter means that I don't know how many people want random reward tables. In truth, it is somewhere between those extremes. I don't think there are as many that would quit over static reward tables, as the static reward tables exist throughout the game. Random drops exist, and I don't have any problem with those. I do have a problem with a full task having a random reward. The difference is that while the random drops are present, that the rewards for completing a task

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville It comes down to the fact that I think you are assuming that people advocating randomness just don't understand why their preference is unfair, when its actually that people who prefer randomness have a different definition of fairness. Your definition of fairness is everyone gets the same thing. The other definition of fairness is everyone has the same chance and/or opportunity to get anything, but the person by person results can be different.

But that isn't entirely accurate either.

Leandro: With a steady league of players getting 10% Very Rares, 20% Rares, 30% Commons, and 40% Uncommons.
Your guess: a moderately skilled league getting 5% Very Rares, 10% Rares, 30% Uncommons, 55% Commons, plus or minus a few percentage points here and there.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville My guess is that the floor is somewhere around 5/10/30/55, plus or minus a few percentage points here and there.

Though I'm not sure about the Uncommons/Commons when you said 5/10/30/55. I'm assuming you meant 55% commons and 30% uncommons.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville We've covered this before, but my design requirements for a system analogous to the trial rewards is that the rewards should have some built-in minimum reward level that meets some earning standard (which might itself be debatable) and it should have some opportunity for luck to play a significant role in what the player can achieve beyond that minimum.

The problem is the league participation changes that luck.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville If this was just my personal preference, it would stop there. But I also believe this is the correct strategy to create a healthy game and appeal to the widest possible audience. Which is why I don't just say its my preference, I also say that if it was my decision to make, that's the call I would make and I would override subordinates to make it without hesitation.

Okay, here are my problems with the random reward tables based on how they exist at this point:

• The deterministic path is punitive.
• The deterministic path has other pressures on it (Costumes, Emotes, Recipes).
• The deterministic path is limited per day.
• The random path is shrouded in secrecy.
• The random path is somehow affected by not only your participation, but other players' participation.
• The random path seems to favor some people over others.
• The random path rewards far more frequently if you grind out trials.
• The random path rewards more than daily.

If a player could only get the reward table once a day per trial, I doubt that many players would agree that the random table is a good thing.

Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters