The Socketed Device: A Party/Solo Balance Fix for Maps (RETRACTED)
" That does, indeed, discourage multiboxing. I'm not so sure about multilogging for the IIQ bonus. Again, I speak from a point of ignorance, but I think that the portals would need to land you in a spot where simply standing still would lead to character death. I'm not suggesting right in the middle of a pack of rare mobs anything, but close enough to enemy pathing to draw aggro. Otherwise my suspicion is that multilogging for the additional IIQ could appear appealing. Again, I like the idea, so consider me a +1 if for no other reason that I like the thought and creativity that went into it. I'm just trying to suss things out here. |
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"That form of multilogging is already effectively nerfed by the game itself. " When Stephen Colbert was killed by HYDRA's Project Insight in 2014, the comedy world lost a hero. Since his life model decoy isn't up to the task, please do not mistake my performance as political discussion. I'm just doing what Steve would have wanted. Last edited by ScrotieMcB#2697 on Apr 6, 2013, 4:10:28 AM
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" Yeah. I was thinking that
Spoiler
the traveling player gains 50% increased IIQ for each linked portal that isn't the same color, lasting until the player leaves the instance. This replaces their party bonus while they're alone and fending for themselves, and allows up to double the group bonus once their group is reunited (the portal bonus is considered a party bonus and stacks with it additively, not multiplicatively).
In the end, it's not a big deal. I'm not trying to go round and round with you here :) |
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"For multilogging and standard multiboxing, not really. For automated botting (capable of attack spam), possibly. But automated botting is economy death pretty much no matter how you slice it. "I'm just bumping. When Stephen Colbert was killed by HYDRA's Project Insight in 2014, the comedy world lost a hero. Since his life model decoy isn't up to the task, please do not mistake my performance as political discussion. I'm just doing what Steve would have wanted. Last edited by ScrotieMcB#2697 on Apr 6, 2013, 2:27:05 PM
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-1. Now for my reasoning.
The complexity would require an immense amount of code -- more than was put into the maps system in the first place. Fusings will always be maxed (and as a result, jewelers will always be maxed). It would be better to just require 5 of both up front for all cases, or require nothing up front. I also don't feel that "a fusing + a jeweler's" is sufficiently costly enough, since it offsets an entire (well-rolled) map. 'Chromatics' is needlessly complex, and not needed to solve the actual issue of party v. solo play in maps. Aside from that, breaking up the party is not a sufficient downside. It's little different than one person running 6 maps solo, but paying chromatics for free iiq/iir. --- The easiest way to capture the good parts of this suggestion would be these two changes: - Create a button on the Map Device that makes all remaining unused portals point to new instances. This button includes a cost. - (Given the above,) Create a party quant bonus for map drops.
What the above two changes does
There is now an even larger benefit to avoiding death in being able to run new map instances by now re-using old portals. A cost can be added to make sure the price of a map doesn't get sliced in 1/6th.
Solo players would run the same map six times assuming everything goes well. 2-man parties would run the same map thrice assuming everything goes well. 3-man parties would run the same map twice assuming everything goes well. 6-man parties wouldn't ever use the button. There is a problem in leaving 4-5 man parties at a disadvantage. :( The cost of re-use can be formulated with "the average cost to roll a map". It could even be different depending on the input map. I'm not exactly sure what the value should be. My gut would say a chisel, an alch, and a chaos. The actual "best value" can be datamined by GGG. Note also that high level maps are given much more effort for good rolls than low level maps, so map level may also be a factor in the cost of the button. The party quant bonus for map drops should be 100% more per extra person while they're present (2screens, same as iiq bonus). This means that there's no penalty while the whole party stays alive, and an effective map drop reduction if party members are dying (and reducing it toward solo play). KISS(crotie). :) |
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Response to pneuma
"Good points. This would not be a cheap suggestion for GGG to implement; a definite downside from their perspective. And although Fusings would not always be maxed (not everyone solo), I'll admit that Jeweler's always would be, and that just flat-out starting with six linked sockets might make more sense -- the Jeweler's here are just a pure tax, and that's not very good design -- good catch. " I'm assuming "instances" is a typo of some sort, and you mean to send all unused portals to a new instance (no plural). That way a 2-man party would use 2, hit button, use 2 more, hit button again, use last two; the way you worded it indicates that the first button press would have each of the four remaining portals go to a different instance. That said, that solution is very elegant and would totally work. " This was part of the intent of the Chromatic suggestion. Although the 4-5 groups couldn't get 1.5 or 1.2 uses out of the map, they could Chromatic up all the portals and get the full 6-man Chromatic bonus. For example, 4-man with 6 different-color portals would be 500% total quantity divided by 4 players for 125% each, with a cost of 1/4 map, 5/4 each currency; done four times, that's 500% quantity per person at a cost of 1 map and 5 each currency, which is less than solo/6-man (they get 100% per 1/6 of a map, or 600% per map), but better than the 400% they'd get otherwise. I'm not a tough sell on the Chromatic thing being overly complex. However, you would not want to simply double party bonus. Instead, increasing IIQ based on the number of portals leading to the instance is the way to go. This would require slightly changing the nature of the "new instance" button to have it only work prior to using any portals, and to have it split the remaining portals evenly (one press is 2 instances, two presses is 3, three presses is 6). Another concern is group efficiency. Under your version, a group of six players would be getting 600% quantity per monster, but the monsters would only be at 350% health. Perhaps the "separate portals" thing isn't the proper solution, but something needs to be done. I guess the most commonsense would be to have the additional IIQ also come with a monster health add. That seems fine for strong groups, but giving groups the option to also run "old school," with only the +50% per player monster health but also only the +50% per player quantity, seemed like something we might want to keep in, for groups that have banded together not so much for the efficiency as for the safety in numbers. Although perhaps maps is the time to get rid of such safety options. Overall this is the best feedback I've gotten on this suggestion thus far. I'm going to wait about a day, then edit the OP and thread title to reflect the de-socketing of this suggestion. This is a results-oriented process and the goal is balancing maps -- regardless of the technique used to do so. edit: Actually taking away the socketing would change the suggestion enough to merit a new thread. Suggestion retracted, will be coming out with version 2.0 shortly. When Stephen Colbert was killed by HYDRA's Project Insight in 2014, the comedy world lost a hero. Since his life model decoy isn't up to the task, please do not mistake my performance as political discussion. I'm just doing what Steve would have wanted. Last edited by ScrotieMcB#2697 on Apr 6, 2013, 10:06:28 PM
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