PumBumbler
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Posts
2018 -
Joined
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Quote:Originally Posted by Phillygirl
It's more likely that the average time is more heavily influanced on the middle ground numbers being so numerious and the larger and smaller times being so few. If that is the case you should be blaming the average population. You just don't know though without the raw data your just flapping your gums.
We don't have direct access to the data and probably never will, but we can make some reasonable assumptions. Most of these assumptions are made just make the data set mining simpler.- The time does not include external activities (recruiting, shivans, nukes, potty breaks or forum posting)
- Team composition is ignored (number of teammates, logged out players, ATs, use of temp/vet powers, etc.)
- There is no distinction about who is running the TF (account wise). If someone chooses to run 3 ITFs with 3 different toons and the same 7 teammates, it will be counted as 3 entries within the dataset.
- Incompletes are tossed out (Inability to finish)
- Time to complete is from all runs, regardless of patches or issue (this means the times from the lowered difficulty bug allowing for easy Master of... runs are included, sticking Recluse in STF, TPing past Mold AVs in Eden etc.)
Regardless of the above list though, I believe that speed runners are skewing the average/median time heavily downwards, for two reasons.- Speed runners tend to specialize in TFs because they can run them fast. This means they actually like doing TFs, especially fast ones. This means they have the time to fill their day with TFs where most players don't.
- Speed runners can do a TF in a fraction of the time it takes non speed runners to do a TF.
As an example, we can compare a speed runner (Player S) to non-speed runner (Player N). Each plays 4 hours a day.- Player N chooses to play 2 hours on a TF. The other time is spent playing non-TF (maybe non-merit) activities.
- Player S chooses to play 4 hours on multiple TFs. No time is spent playing non-TF activities.
And that is if Player N does one TF a night. I know many players who do one TF a week. This can mean that Player S will be overrepresented in the samples by a factor of 4x, perhaps as high as 20x versus Player N. This will affect the average time, and will affect the median time.
This in itself is not an issue. The issue that is concerning is when the devs use the data as a benchmark for rewards. If anything, the speed runners have highlighted which TF/SFs need looking at.
When speed runners can finish a TF by a factor of 2x-3x over their non speeding counterparts, it may be assumed that the team is experienced and well designed (think ITF). However, when the factor is 5x-10x (as in Eden), I would suggest that the design of the TF needs to be looked at.
Practically speaking, there isn't a huge difference in what was going on before merits were introduced and after. The speed runners still got way more rewards than the non-speed runners, because that is the activity they have chosen to do.
I would suggest that the devs would have benchmarked a lower number of merits/TFmin if speed runner scores were reduced/eliminated anyhow; I would guess that they had a certain number of merits/day/person figured, or they would have adjusted the pricing of the recipes accordingly.
At least the non-speed runners can choose their reward now. It's just that the most broken of the TFs/SFs are putting out poor rewards.
Again, the devs should be well aware all of these issues, since I had pointed it out on more than one occasion in the forum before merits were introduced. -
Quote:http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=127171 is one time they changed quite a bit. More than just time was factored though.Originally Posted by Panzerwaffen
So, is there even a single TF or SF that has had its merit rewards reduced since the introduction of the merit system? If there isn't, I would say that the supposed effect of the speed runners is not nearly as large as some think.
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Quote:I would suggest that your unhappiness be directed at the dearth of SFs instead of the rewards from any SF, since all merits are benchmarked to median value. I'm still waiting for Black Scorpion, Ghost Widow, Scirocco and Mako to have their own SFs.Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
It is not false from our standpoint, because we do not play blueside. We are redside players. Large rewards for TFs isn't the issue; the imbalance of rewards between TFs and SFs is.
Anyone who is doing every SF and trial redside along with ITF (ISF) and LGTF (LGSF) each and every night should get their head checked, although it can be done. -
Quote:Heh. Wasn't me. :POriginally Posted by Eiko-chan
Ha! Someone already neg-repped me with pretty much verbatim that.
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Quote:There isn't a need to min/max. You assume that everyone's desire to min/max stems from a need to get the best rewards. Not everyone is speeding TFs to get the carrot at the end of the TF.Originally Posted by Agonus
Really?!
You're saying this game isn't a competition, so there's no need to min/max and speed through content to get rewards at a faster pace?
The only direct competition in this game is in PvP and the market. All other forms of competition in the game and indirect and may be unintentional. Merit competition is indirect, and blaming me for your need for faster rewards isn't going to change the situation at all.
I've already offered Eiko-chan the opportunity to see what we've done to improve our efficiency; I extend that same offer to you. From that point on, it is your choice to decide how to improve your TF times, but if you choose not to, be aware that you are leaving merits on the table for the time that you spend.
I really want to resist the urge to say, "you're doing it wrong," but if you are taking whole integer multiple times longer than the benchmarked merits, AND you are unhappy about it (because of rewards or any other reason), then I would suggest you need to change the way you are doing it. -
Quote:The difference is that I didn't propose this system, the developers did. I'm sorry that it is not congruent to your style of play. I never asked them to do it and I always thought it would overly reward speeders at the expense of the casual player.Originally Posted by Agonus
So it's a bad idea for you to play closer to my or Eiko's slower style, but it's okay in the current system where your speeder style forces us to match how YOU play to get decent merit rewards? No. Try again.
I think the original intent was to normalize the reward/time per TF relative to the other TFs, ie. Doc Q (~3 hours) giving a random recipe drop versus KHTF (~15 min) giving the same drop roll. The method they chose to compare them was by using the median time.
I kinda liked the old system better. -
Can't she be a rogue or vigilante? Early early early beta testing?
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Quote:I'm sorry if you think that the speeders have ruined the merit system, but the merit system was pre-ruined before anyone ever set foot in a TF/SF.Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
That said, before speed runs actively affected my rewards for my playstyle, I didn't mind them beyond not wanting to do it myself. Now that they adversely affect me to the huge extent they do with Strike Forces, it bugs me.
AFAIR, most changes to the merit rewards have been a couple of merits here or there, and the biggest change was for BSF, which went up.
So although in theory your times can be the benchmark in which all the rewards can be given, in actual fact the speeders will always bring the median/average down. -
Quote:Are you suggesting people adhere to your style of play simply because you don't find theirs valid? I'm not sure that speeders are that small of a minority, but I am sure they get over represented in the data mining.Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
I'd be heavily in favour of a system that tracks a percent completion - number of foes on the map defeated and so forth - and that then deducts merits for completing the technical mission parameters while bypassing most of the content (or, alternatively, tacks on extra merits for completing most missions more completely.)
I'm not suggesting you'd need 100% completion to get full reward, but if you only take out 10% or 25% of the opposition, you really shouldn't get the same reward as a group that takes out 50% or more, whether both groups get the mission objectives done or not.
In my experience, I can get a full team and start a task force in about 5-10 minutes, including recruitment on public channels. Basically I only do task forces and I always speed. I usually have more people (non-globalfriends/non-SGmates) asking to join my team than I have spaces as well. The demand for fast TF/SFs is there in the general population and not as small as you've stated.
Just remember that whatever system you want to devise, like a defeat half, the speeder will always do it the fast way and then get out. To be honest, that's kind of the reason why I play. I like teasing apart the hard points of the game and working around it. The (merit) rewards don't even matter to me anymore. A change to a grading system reminds me of figure skating, would be complicated to (re)program and would confuse the casual player.
I think that attempts to slow the speeder down would just put you on the sliding scale to make every mission a defeat all. Yet still the speeder will do it significantly faster than the general population.
The devs implemented the changes knowing full well that there are two populations working the task forces. Don't forget that defeating those mobs nets you xp, salvage, recipes and inf. Or are you implying that those mob rewards are insignificant? Purple recipes can be found defeating high level mobs, and skipping those can be considered foolish, but a speeder does what a speeder does.
The technical mission parameters you refer to are stated on the nav of every mission. Most modern TFs/SFs have multiple goals in order to finish the mission, which _are_ the technical parameters.
Older TFs like Positron have multiple defeat all missions which players have overwhelmingly told the the devs about the tediousness of doing such TFs.
Sister Psyche takes no more than an hour +/- 10 minutes.
BSF about 50 min +/- 10 minutes.
RSF about 35 min +/- 10 minutes.
Since you've stated your personal experience adds hours over what I've experienced, I can see why you'd be unhappy with a merit system that is benchmarked to be closer to the lower times.
I can only suggest that you come over to Justice and take a peek at what we're doing. I'd be more than happy to describe our strategies and show you what we do. Then you can decide where best to optimize your TF/SFs and then you can decide if you want to skip parts or defeat all or try for the lowest time. I've never had anything to hide and you can always ask me what/why I do the things I do in a TF.
Sorry for the long response, I just don't want to come across as being glib. -
Quote:Not saying that you should have to choose, but if you are looking for substantially superior rewards you should be speeding.Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
Not if the "just hack and slash" has substantially superior rewards to the richer parts of the game.
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Quote:Theoretically completists are getting xp and influence and salvage and recipe drops along with defeating mobs, counterbalancing the skipping of the mobs to just get to the end.Originally Posted by Clouded
It depends. Should a team that can stealth and TP most missions get the same rewards as a team that steam rolls the same content and does not skip any?
That part of the rewards formula touches upon the fact that teaming in itself gets lesser rewards per individual than a solo person doing the same content. ie. soloing x8 or farming x6-x8 missions for drops. -
Quote:Currently the system just looks at the last time you've done that TF and sets in to penalize you such that you receive 1x, .5x, .33x, .25x in a 1/N multiplier, where N is the number of times you've done the TF without an 18 hour gap.Originally Posted by Tyrrano
Perhaps rather than awarding merits based on average completion time, base it on actual completion time. Since this would obviously result in teams just idling in a TF to maximize merits, you could base the elapsed time on a log of actual power activation times, split up between team members. IOW, the game keeps a log, finding that during the TF, Mr. Fantastic activated Brawl 200 times at X seconds, Havoc Punch 300 times at Y seconds, etc. Then add a set allowance for travel time between missions, clicking any glowies, leading hostages out, or other non-combat events.
Sure, there's probably lots of ways to 'game' a system like that. And it'd be a coding nightmare. But it would directly correlate the reward to the time spent actually defeating the mobs.
Evidently the TF/SF times are bimodally distributed: there are two populations, the speeders and the non-speeders.
If the devs wanted to equalize things a bit, they should put in a separate timer for not doing any TF at all, and put that at 4 or 5 days (or even build up towards it). If you don't do a TF between that time you can get a bonus for the next TF you do...let's say (it caps at) +15% or +5 merits (whichever is more), and then it resets itself. Consider it a day job for doing 'normal activities' as opposed to grinding TFs.
As well, reducing the range of lowest to highest rewards should reduce the amount of TF/SF 'cherry picking', and a big bonus (20 merits or so) should be given to people who get the (finishing) badge for the TF/SF. This means that first timers (toonwise) will get a bonus for running a TF/SF, since you can only get the badge once.
It would mean that KHTF and Eden trial may actually be worth something to the casual player instead of getting a poor reward because the speeder has lowered the time so drastically. -
Quote:Is that a good thing? Isn't having new types of missions and spawns adding to the richness of the game as opposed to just hack and slash?Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
Still harder than the blueside trial. The reactor doesn't take "strategy", it just takes sitting there and bashing spawns as they come in.
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Quote:A tip for this mission is that the CoT counted are universal. That is, it does not have to be CoT in a specific area or even in the same zone.Originally Posted by Clouded
Redside:
Mission 1: defeat CoT (either 25, 40, or 50). Typically just time consuming.
A very fast way to do this mission is to station a couple of people at the ferry. Once the trial is started have them zip into Cap Au Diable and just zap the low level CoT on the hill just left of the ferry (near the BM).
The leader of the trial shouldn't have to leave the contact for this mission. -
Quote:Blueside respec trials used to be fun like the redside ones are, in that the core was a lot more exciting.Originally Posted by Lemur Lad
There's nothing particularly harder about the Red Side respec. The case you cited (lowbies with bad builds) is something that fails on EITHER side, and honestly the trials weren't designed around such teams. You're SUPPOSED to be bringing some people tough enough to do well.
Currently the waves are spaced out so far as to create a yawnfest. I never do bluespecs anymore unless I have a gun pointed at me. If there was a big red button in the Terra Volta reactor that spawned all the waves at once I would push it. Repeatedly.
However, it must be said that the *reason* on why you'd need to go on a respec trial is because your toon is not optimally configured, so requiring tough people was always a bit of a conundrum for me to grok.
Of course the spacing out the waves had the unintended side effect of increasing the merit rewards by lengthening the time it took to complete the trial.
Redside respecs can be done easily even if you have a low damage output team.Quote:Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
Redside trial requires killing fast or you fail, period full stop. There are no tools to help you make up for lost ground.
I've never completed a redside trial because of this difference.
The trick to the vines is that they do not respawn individually, they are grouped into bundles. Depending on how cautious you want to be you can adopt this strategy:
1. Clear the CoT around the room surrounding the vines.
2. Use your ranged attackers and tough melee toons to go around and damage all the vines but not defeat them (bring their health low).
3. Cull a select number of vines in a spaced out fashion. Vines will not reappear individually. A respawn of the entire bundle happens only after the last vine in that bundle has been defeated, pending a delay. This means you can prune out a few vines, probably 1 in 4 or 1 in 3 without triggering any respawns. Usually you won't need to do this at all if you've done step 2, but it also means that accidentally defeating a few vines in step 2 won't trigger any bad consequences.
4. Spread the team out and basically go in and one shot the vines. Put the tough toons in the front where the tree can't one shot the squishies.
5. The Tree AV is just like any other AV at this point. The vines will not respawn. Make sure to watch out for the ambushes incoming, although at this point faster is better since fewer mobs will need to be dealt with if you can get out quickly.
Depending on how strong the team is, you can skip 1, 2 and 3 and just zerg the vines and then defeat the tree. -
Quote:Tarikoss can be done in 17 min. 8 min KHTFs were done by failing the first mission, which was then changed, resulting in 17 minute KHTFs. No real difference to most speeders.Originally Posted by Siolfir
Except that they didn't have it better, because of the speedruns of Katie prior to merits - unless you're going to tell me that an average completion time of 8-15 mins is longer than 20-30.
I'd also say that the "minimal effort" 45 minute Tarikoss (which by its merit reward has a median completion time of 39 minutes, so that's still too slow) is also doing their best to skip as much as possible - sure, it takes about as much time as an ITF (which can also be finished in 20 mins if you skip all but the objectives), but it rewards half the merits of an ITF.
The rewards are simply unbalanced. -
Quote:That sounds like too much work, since I have to leave work to do thatOriginally Posted by Kohei
Thank you PumBumbler, Omega Sector is now ranked #2. You can see the ranking at City Hall in Atlas park by clicking on the registrar behind the desk about ten feet behind the City Rep who gives the cape and aura missions.
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Quote:This is exactly the argument that I had put forth before the changeover to merits. Before you still had a reward timer to prevent you from repeating the same TF within 24 hours, afair, so the change over to merits would encourage speeding more than anything else, and inflate the rewards for the speeders.Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
That's pretty much exactly my point. Speeders are skewing numbers low and hurting the rest of us.
As far as "hurting the rest of us", that point is debatable. Prior to merits being awarded, the same philosophy of getting through a TF meant that (within our group) we were still seeing comparable completion times.
No one in our group wanted to defeat everything, even if we are able to. One person called it 'leaving xp on the table' whenever we'd run from half-defeated mobs. We just did it because we felt like it. Only now we're being rewarded for it.
I'm afraid that you won't get your wish, because everyone metagames in MMOs. It just depends on the degree. Speed runs have many motivations, some of them more complex and reasonable than by simply attributing speed running to getting fast rewards.Quote:Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
I would like this game to discourage the mindset of "speed runs" as much as possible. It is not intended gameplay and it is bad for the game overall.
I still run the occasional SF because it's nice to team with my VG and, as an RPer, I like being able to claim various deeds as actual in-character victories, such as defeating Reichsman or the Freedom Phalanx. But just because I have other motives doesn't mean the pitiful merit return doesn't still bug the heck out of me.
People will always try and optimize in order to perform at their best, and one of the ways of demonstrating that efficiency is in finishing a TF quickly.
Your idea of optimizing may be by soloing AVs. Currently I don't have any toons that can do that. My inability to do so doesn't bother me but I'm not going to advocate discouraging soloing AVs either, 'intended gameplay' or not.
Personally, I feel that the devs should have flattened the rewards scheme so that time was not as big a factor in the number of merits awarded. No one wants to run an Eden trial just because it awards 6 merits (speeders can do it in under 10 minutes).
The major reason cited by the devs for implementing the new scheme was that a random drop made a poor reward when the drop itself wasn't desirable. IMO, they should have just allowed people to get 15-30 merits from each TF/SF and left the random roll at 20 merits, with diminishing returns. -
Gratz!
Who's #2? -
Quote:Not looking to brag, but we tend to zerg TF/SFs in our group. Tarikoss can be done in under 20 min, RSF in 25, and BSF in 40-ish. All 3 villain respecs can be done in under an hour (total), and the longest SF I recall is the Silver Mantis SF (the SG base one), which clocks in at just over an hour.Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
Excepting Posi and Synapse, my experience has quite firmly been with SFs not being noticeably shorter than TFs - certainly not to the extent their merit rewards would suggest. I've done the LRSF a half dozen times, and not once have I even come close to the slightly-more-than-an-hour that its 25 merits suggests. Three hours is much more typical.
My Tarkoss runs have been around 90 minutes, Barracuda tends to be around 3 hours, and the last Mistral I did was about two. The only SF I've seen that even comes close to the right length for merits is Silver Mantis, which is probably why I'm sick of running it because we've done it so much.
While we're an RP VG, we're not slouches in play - at least two of my main characters can solo AVs and x8 content, and we've got similar power builds running with us too - and I simply cannot fathom how these merit rewards got set; SFs just aren't that much faster.
Their only bonus is being far less annoying than TFs in that they're pretty much in the same zone, but that can be said in general for all redside content.
Ice Mistral is about 22-28 min, and I can't remember how long Renault is but mid 30s comes to mind.
TFs tend to be longer than SFs simply because there are more missions and more defeat alls in TFs. Most TFs were written early on. Later TFs and SFs are much shorter in number of missions, which helps speed runs.
This is with a bunch of people and some sk, some SO'd and some Purpled builds but never a cherry picked group where everyone tries to get a 'perfect' team.
Some screenies of various TFs (mainly) can be found in this thread.
The biggest problem with the median (or even average) time is that the speeders will always skew the number lower. The simple fact is that a speeder can crank out 3-8 TFs in the time a non speeder can do ONE TF. This means that the speeder's times will be over represented in the median values by a huge factor, even though they may not necessarily be the majority of the population.
If you _are_ interested in speeding, just ask, and I can give you some pointers to maximize your TF time investment.
The basic speed runs always mean: Know the TF/SF's hardpoints, skip the rest, and know your team roles. Usually upping the defense is another part to speeding since def capping usually means only a lucky hit will see a teammate see any damage or mez. After those are taken care of, you can push towards maximizing dps. -
This has been brought up before, but the gist of it is that the devs do not hate villains.
Historically the villains actually had it better because it used to be a random recipe drop at the end of every TF/SF, regardless of duration of the TF/SF.
This meant that faster completing SFs were giving rewards more frequently than TFs on average.
Also the devs were sensitive to player complaints that task forces took too long to complete, and designed strike forces with that in mind.
The changeover to merits inverted the situation totally. Villains are now 'penalized' for having shorter duration SFs than heroes. It's the nature of the beast.
The ability to speed TFs and SFs also means that the speeders get better rewards than people who are completists or those who don't know how to speed. This means that people who complete a TF/SF in hours instead of minutes feel 'ripped off' because the speeders had set the bar really high, leading to poor rewards in what the non-speeders are able to do.
However, just remember that it used to be that all TF/SFs used to drop a random recipe, and nowadays those random recipe rolls are worth 20 merits. Not many TFs reward less than 20 merits nowadays, and only 1 SF gives less than 20, so the situation is better than it used to be.
However, there is still a lot to be said about speeder vs. non speeders but the hero/villain situation is there because of the historical perspective and not because the devs necessarily designed it so villains would get fewer rewards. -
Heh, I got here late. The title seemed like a joke thread to me so I didn't look in until now.
I've seen some great suggestions and I'll mention some that have already been posted before but I'm pedantic that way.
1. Forget expensive stuff. TV ads just are too much money for the penetration you get. Stay focused on your intended core audience.
2. Product placement. I heard that more than a few celebrities play this game, or have played. Try and get in touch with them and send them some swag. I know for a fact that some people who were in the Firefly series/movie used to play this game. Maybe Jenna Jameson in a CoX T would be a bit controversial but controversy gets attention. Seeing an Arachnos logo'd shirt at a movie premiere would be great.
3. Sponsorship. Give some youtube celebs some sponsorship bucks. The Guild, Miss Hannah Minx (who doesn't like catgurls?), ZeroPunctuation all would be a decent fit for getting some attention. There's probably a dozen more online celebs that could be mentioned here.
Buy adspace/sponsor the comixology and marvel ipad comics app.
4. Reviews. Everyone outside of this game has forgotten that each issue can potentially bring a brand new experience to the game. Get some big sites to review it.
Arstechnica, slashdot, and ZeroPunctuation would be good to get a review in on. Coordinate the reviews so they all go out at the same time. Give those guys early access to GR.
A retrospective 2 minute video comparing issue 1 to the new ultramode graphical and content differences would be a great way to lure back the other huge population that used to play CoX who doesn't know how far the game has come.
5. Technology. This involves programmer time but can be well worth it.
Make a free iPhone/iPad app that has the costume creator and then uploads it to the server so people can dress their toons before subbing.
Additionally make a script to render their newly made toon in a variety of comic book cover style poses so they can be used as desktop pics would be great.
Online realtime name check/reservation would be nice too.
Smartphone chat client. Logs you into the game so you can keep chatting on a few globals so you're never out of the loop. No real marketing part here but more customer retention than anything.
With the introduction of Ultra mode, having all options on can bring a powerful machine to it's knees. Create a benchmark and sponsor various websites to use it. It's free advertising every time a new video card is reviewed. Deploy a 'test' server or script for the sites to minimize external variance.
6. More swag. Steal the art guys and lock them in the marketing dungeon for a week.- CoX Calendar.
- Cheesecake/beefcake pin up posters
- BackAlleyBrawler mitts. Just kidding, sort of.
7. Contests
Contests with real world prizes for things like video review of GR on youtube and deviantart would get people to talk about CoX again.
That's all I can think of right now. Oh yeah, welcome to the forums (as a red name). -
I leave for a couple of weeks and everyone has disappeared. Where is all the drama?
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Quote:I think you are stuck with that graphics card.Originally Posted by GavinRuneblade
I'm looking to update my iMac's internals. I've got the oldest metal iMac out there, the 2007 model 24-inch.
Currently I have 2g of Ram, going up to 4 which is the most this thing can have. Where I'm stuck is what options I have, and what options I even want to consider as far as my graphics card.
Right now it's a Radeon HD2600.
What will work with my model of iMac and what is, err, one or two steps down from top-of-the-line at most. I don't like top of the line for the cost factor, but want to be close to that for longevity.
Any recommendations?
http://www.everymac.com/systems/appl...abilities.html -
Quote:I think I'm already playing this game.
"Your character levels up by screwing up," Bianco added.