Season Two, Event 35: 30 Minute Lethal Solo
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The distribution of rewards for race participation and survival should look like a logarithmic graph.
This means that the majority of points are awarded to the lowest tiers, with very small increases for the top. Right now you have the opposite: points for level based, first clear, first quest, top 20, and lotto tickets all synergise to create a tremendous wealth and point gap. Over 90% of race participants are getting 3 or fewer points while a tiny group of players, under 5%, are getting 15+ points. This small group of players will have over 1000 points before the season is even 1/2 way through. It should be clear that rewards are too heavily stacked at the top-end. Facts about my interpretation of the race system: 1. Races are content: participation extends interest in the game. Therefore, participation incentives should be strongest toward the majority of players (not just the top 5%). 2. High competition is a result of participation: as more players play races and gain experience, the competition will naturally increase. Therefore, the primary goal should be to motivate participation, which means it has to be rewarding for the majority of players (not just the top 5%). If you accept 1 & 2, the obvious solution is to clump race rewards toward the majority of surviving participants. A logarithmic type reward graph for this race may look like (level on x-axis, points on y-axis): Level 12: 7 Reward Points Level 8: 6 Reward Points Level 6: 5 Reward Points Level 4: 3 Reward Point Vs what you have now, which basically graphs as a near vertical line (but the slope gets even steeper near the top, which is effectively the exact opposite of what I propose). The top 5% already has demi's and top 20 rewards to motivate them to push further. This is another reason why I believe it is better to bias level-based rewards toward the majority. Never underestimate what the mod community can do for PoE if you sell an offline client. Last edited by Vhlad on Apr 27, 2013, 1:16:24 PM
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Sharing my thoughts...
First, if you want to scale rewards with time invested, you need to scale the rewards themselves. Here's an example: 30 minute race = 1 to 6 pts (level & rank) + 1 for #1 overall 1 hour race = 1 to 10 pts (level & rank) + 2 for #1 overall 3 hour race = 1 to 25 pts (level & rank) + 5 for #1 overall 8 hour race = 1 to 60 pts (level & rank) + 10 for #1 overall 1 week race = 1 to 250 pts (level & rank) + 50 for #1 overall 1 month race = 1 to 1000 pts (level & rank) + 200 for #1 overall Unique rewards (guesstimated): 1st = 10 pts 2nd = 25 pts 3rd = 60 pts 4th = 150 pts 5th = 400 pts 6th = 1000 pts 7th = 2500 pts 8th = 5000 pts 9th = 10000 pts Basically the point reward ladders always follow the same level and rank pattern, though differently from one another. The level ladder, for the same race difficulty, awards the same number of points for the same level reached. If a regular 30-minute solo race gives 1 point for reaching level 5, then all regular solo races give 1 point for reaching level 5. Turbo races might give the point at level 4, for instance, while BLAMT races give it at level 2. The rank ladder would follow the current trend where longer races include more and more ranks so that the 1 point reward would be given to a casual player investing a good amount of time and effort. Obviously those are broad lines that would require adjustments based on race metrics. Hope this is useful to someone. TL;DR - Give lots more points in longer races, but also require lots more points for higher "unique" rewards. | |
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@ above poster: I get what you're saying, but with your present example it would be near impossible for someone* doing only 1-3 hour races to get the 7th-9th rewards, thereby turning the longer races from optional to required. This is not desirable.
More points for longer races is fine (so as to balance the risk/reward/time-commitment relationship), but not so much so as to necessitate even higher thresholds for unique rewards. I wouldn't go higher than the rewards GGG already had for the 1-week race, for example. *someone = a player of skill level matching that of the majority playerbase (i.e. 90%+ of racers), who participates and survives in ALL of the 1-3 hour races. Never underestimate what the mod community can do for PoE if you sell an offline client. Last edited by Vhlad on Apr 27, 2013, 2:24:38 PM
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" These players are not meant to receive the higher rewards. Period. | |
" If you play at a skill level equivalent to 90%+ of racers and participate and survive in ALL of the 3 hour or less races (I wrote 1-3 before, but I meant 3 hour or less), you're not meant to receive the higher rewards? Does that reflect the position of GGG (link?) or just your own position? I most certainly believe that the top rewards should be theoretically reachable for a player of average skill who is able to put that amount of time into the game (in fact I would prefer the top rewards to be reachable for a player of average skill with something closer to a 30% participation rate, which is still a very significant dedication to race participation, given the multiple timezone availablilty of races). The current data is more supportive of my position than yours: In season 2 we have seen 50 events. Of these, 46/50 (92%) were 3 hours or less. Since Season 2 is projected to have approximately 260 races, if the prior ratio holds, we can expect about .92*260 = 239 of the races to be 3 hours or less. Therefore, under the present reward structure, a player of skill level matching that of the majority playerbase (i.e. 90%+ of surviving racers seem to receive about 3 points per race), who participates and survives in ALL of the 3 hour or less races would have received about 3*239 = 717 points. Such a player would thus receive all of the higher rewards, except the final tier. i.e. under the present reward stucture, these players would be able to get the 6th, 7th, and 8th tier rewards. Your suggestion would move those tiers completely out of reach, so instead of increasing the rewards or incentives for participating in longer races, you're effectively penalizing non-participation. Races above 3 hours in length are, IMO, better utilized as an optional path toward maximum rewards - not a requirement. In fact it may not even be possible to get 8th and 9th tiers in your suggested reward structure, given the small number of races above 3 hours in length. Never underestimate what the mod community can do for PoE if you sell an offline client. Last edited by Vhlad on Apr 27, 2013, 5:39:58 PM
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" " It reflects my position, which is to not entitle sub-optimal effort to optimal rewards. And I did say my values would need adjustment based on metrics, though you are free to share your napkin math of course. For all I care they can give the 9th unique still at 1000 points. The main issue is not getting rewarded equally for equal effort in races of varying length. Edit: oh, and I believe it is much easier for a casual player to invest time in a week- or month-long race than any other race, since they can do so at whatever time pleases them. Just thought I'd raise the point. Last edited by Arkatar on Apr 27, 2013, 6:42:45 PM
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I could throw out arbitrary math and logrithms or algrorithms or whatever, but I won't. When did it become neccesary for the 90% to feel as good about their efforts as the top 10%? In the olympics the top 3 spots in each conpetition are awarded a medal, everyone else has to go home empty handed, should the olympics change to giving a medal for being in the majority too?
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" If you participate in 239/260 races to the best of your ability, and 90% of race particpants perform equal or worse than you, how, exactly, is that a sub-optimal effort? It sounds like you only want the best of the best, the top 5% or higher, to achieve any meaningful reward. This is severely detrimental to encouraging broad race appeal, which is extremely important if races are viewed as a form of content that prolongs the game's lifespan. Presently, we are only 12.3% through the season (32 events out of 260), and the top 10 in the ladder have an average of 263.8 points. At this rate of progression, these players will have a 1072.36 point average when the season is only 50% completed. The rewards are skewed way too heavily at the top end. The graph of point reward (on y-axis) vs level (on x-axis) needs to change from having an increasing reward slope at high performance tiers to having a decreasing reward slope at high performance tiers (i.e. the optimal reward distribution should resemble a log function). The same should probably be done for top 20 rewards. Never underestimate what the mod community can do for PoE if you sell an offline client. Last edited by Vhlad on Apr 27, 2013, 7:16:17 PM
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" Yes the best should get the prizes, but the thing is they aren't only doing the race occasionally, like winning a few (around 10 or even 20). The top 20 players are usually the same and they do almost all or most the races. Lets take Krip, numero uno, he has freakn 60 demis...really? Yes he should win them but there should be a cap on what one person should get. The main point is that not everyone has the ability to do what they do, and the problem people are worried about is that the race points are near impossible for normal to even better players to get. It is ideal for the BEST to get the demi's but also rewarding them so much points that allow them to get the point rewards and random ones too? That's way over kill. They get so much points that it doesn't allow the next tier under them to acquire the 10 points that they can use, but instead goes towards the top 1% that is already well over the maximum points. In Short: Everyone should be able to attain enough points for all the point prizes (ideally in my view) if they wanted to through sacraficing their sleep or w.e by doing all or more race, and let the average players at least be able to attain 5 or 6 or the 9 prizes. Maybe even 4 for those that are in the competitive extremes. | |
" I think you fail to realize the huge benefits of simply competing at the olympics. These athletes are already at the top (for their country at the very least), win or lose, and there's recognition there, and likely some sponsorship. You're also comparing a game to the ultimate sporting event. One needs to attract participants to be viable while the other is forced to refuse most applicants. Catch my drift? Again, the problem is about forcing players to participate in shorter races (which are often scheduled at impossible hours) to get anything out of it. If you don't agree, fine, you're one of those and I'm not. I'm sure GGG wants both our participation. |
