[dev1047] Thoughts/Feedback on "Legion"

The rare drops should be obtained by defeating the most gnarly of the NM's.

Point systems are great, and people should be able to get something decent for their efforts. Effort to reward ratio, and all that. However, there still needs to be some top of the line rewards available only to those who actually succeed at the highest level of difficulty. Just farming incessantly lower tiers, or only making it through so many targets in the 30 mins repeatedly should not allow you to grind your way to everything.

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Originally Posted by wish12oz

So if they just make harder mobs give more points you'll have no objections?

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Wouldn't be the same. To you, maybe, achieving something great and investing a lot of time are the same. To me it couldn't ever be. I think no amount of trash-mob grinding should be able to give you HNM drop items. A point-based solution would be for tougher NMs to give different kinds of points, so you can't take the "easy way" out.

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Originally Posted by Arcon

Wouldn't be the same. To you, maybe, achieving something great and investing a lot of time are the same. To me it couldn't ever be. I think no amount of trash-mob grinding should be able to give you HNM drop items. A point-based solution would be for tougher NMs to give different kinds of points, so you can't take the "easy way" out.

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So add a qualification to the items, where they can only be bought if you have killed the monster that would normally drop them, and that problem would be solved.

I think you guys are looking at this all wrong. The idea is simply to give people the ability to obtain the items they want from the event, no matter how screwed they get on drop rates/lots/LS leadership, as long as they go do the event a lot. There's nothing wrong with that and it would be a good thing if implemented smartly.

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Originally Posted by Mahoro

I didn't "ask" for it. I stated the reality of the game we play, and countless other MMO's and web-based games. To be fair, you (and I) have zero information regarding the drop rates of Legion HNM's, so perhaps the system is less Skinnerian than most. I merely stated SE's objective is to have people DO the content, beat the actual bosses, and in so doing give the content a degree of longevity.

Frankly Saevel, your post contains some pretty wild assumptions regarding mental conditioning and superiority complexes that I can say with certainty do not apply to me. I think the loot systems in some of FFXI's events are quite egregious. I am by no means an advocate of the types of drop rates VW enjoys, and I would certainly not want Legion to contain the same. What I AM an advocate of is doing the content, taking on the event's challenges (e.g., Odin at level 75), and walking away with the best rewards on a "reasonable" timetable. For example, I am a huge advocate of Abyssea "drop rates," where even the rarest stuff has about a 25-50% drop rate if you bring blue/yellow procs.

I wouldn't expect something like an E. Body to have a 100% drop rate from Odin. However, I am fine with the fact that Odin drops it and that you cannot get it from Therion Ichor, because it is a suitable reward for beating something like Odin. Are you advocating to have every single Abyssea drop purchased with cruor? When do the Skinnerian assumptions end and simple gameplay begins?



I'd say a better solution to my problem is to have reasonable drop rates from Legion HNM's. See discussion above.

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Then you might want to go open some books, or use google and learn what a Skinner Box is and who Dr. Skinner was. His research and invention (if it could be called that) of that box allowed many other behavioral scientists to do research. There have been many thesis's and phD's based on similar studies concerning constant vs variable reward schedules (basically drop rates) and their effects on animals. Many of this work has since been studied by game studios and used as research for how they design their games. Remember, their not there to make you happy, their goal is to make you pay as much as possible for as long as possible for as little content as possible. To do this they have resorted to the same mechanics that electronic slot machine designers have resorted to, a variable schedule reward system.

I'll share with you two studies done. First involved a skinner's box and a rat with food pellets. Now they tried several different programs, first being that hit the lever and a food pellet would drop (reward), the pellet was 100%. At first the rat would hit it as quick as it could, but quickly it learned that it could always get pellets. The rat then stopped hitting the lever and would only hit it when it was hungry. Next they changed it so that after a set number of press's the food would drop. At first the rat hit the lever as fast as it could, soon it learned the number of press's required to get it's reward and afterwards would only hit it the number of times required to get food when it was hungry. Finally they tried a variable reward schedule, their was a chance the food would drop every time the lever was hit. They found that the rat would constantly hit the lever, and due to there being no discernible pattern, the rat never stopped hitting the lever, even if there was lots of food in the cage. They found the lower the chance of the food dropping the more frantic the rat become at hitting that lever. Thus by controlling the chance of food hitting they could control the rats behavior and actions, forcing the rat to do what they wanted it to do (hit the lever).

Sound familiar, sound like a game we all know and love / hate? Sound like a certain event that we're currently forced to do for gear. Application of that study has been done on humans, especially those involved with gambling addiction. The addiction comes from the irrational part of the brain that desires a positive reward response. They keep playing and paying because "the next one might win".

Another study, this one involving two birds in a cage with a lever and pellet dispenser. First bird had it's foot tied to the bar, it couldn't reach neither the lever nor the food pellets. Second bird was free to move around and quickly discovered that if it hit the lever, food would drop. The researchers then stopped having the pellets drop. The second bird kept hitting the lever but no food would drop. It's reaction was curious, instead of stopping hitting the lever or just flying around, it attacked the 2nd bird who was tied down. With an expected reward removed, the bird attacked the nearest recognizable thing thinking it was responsible. Study concluded that when an expected reward is not given that the animal (or human / player) would resort to blaming easy to identify sources. Also concluded that removal of expected reward is considered an aggressive action and creatures will respond to it as though they had been attacked.

Usage of these behavioral models on humans in video games is considered unethical by the medical community. Humans are not supposed to be treated as rats in a cage hitting a lever to get food pellets. Developers should not create content specifically designed to attract and attack the irrational reward center of human beings in an attempt to get them addicted to hitting that lever.

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Originally Posted by Zaknafein

The rare drops should be obtained by defeating the most gnarly of the NM's.

Point systems are great, and people should be able to get something decent for their efforts. Effort to reward ratio, and all that. However, there still needs to be some top of the line rewards available only to those who actually succeed at the highest level of difficulty. Just farming incessantly lower tiers, or only making it through so many targets in the 30 mins repeatedly should not allow you to grind your way to everything.

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Wake up the grind is what the game already does, what it has always done.

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Originally Posted by Ravenmore

Wake up the grind is what the game already does, what it has always done.

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Einherjar which is what for all intents, and purposes Legion is based on was not grindy. It was one of the few events where skill mattered. Where the skill of the linkshell you did the event with directly related to your success rate. Also it allowed smaller groups to accomplish the same goals other shells needed more members to equal. As far as events went at 75 cap it was by far the most enjoyable imo.

PS: If you're so keen on grinds go grind out your limit break, and get to 99.

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Originally Posted by Zaknafein

Einherjar which is what for all intents, and purposes Legion is based on was not grindy. It was one of the few events where skill mattered. Where the skill of the linkshell you did the event with directly related to your success rate. Also it allowed smaller groups to accomplish the same goals other shells needed more members to equal. As far as events went at 75 cap it was by far the most enjoyable imo.

PS: If you're so keen on grinds go grind out your limit break, and get to 99.

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It's already been said, but "just make it so that a person cannot buy the item with points unless they have defeated the monster that it drops from.".

Learning how to defeat and defeating the monster == Skilll / overcoming challenge.
Defeating the monster 1,000 times and never getting the drop == Luck based grind.
Buying the item with points from a monster that you have defeated repeatedly == fair reward system.

In my experience, einherjar allowed the shells with the most mule accounts to do the final mob more often. after 1,000 runs, the only real challenge is getting enough people to actually show up every week so that you can kill the boss. Showing up for einherjar for months / years, waiting on a drop while you accumulate thousands of useless ichor is an incredibly "grindy" thing to do. Especially when you consider that they made the zone out in the middle of nowhere, so that gathering people together took twice as long as the actual event.

There is no reason why 1 person should be able to do content 1 time, and walk away with an item that another person has tried for 200 times. The above posters explanation about skinner box is absolute fact. Low percentage drop rates are just flat out inhumane.

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Originally Posted by saevel

Then you might want to go open some books, or use google and learn what a Skinner Box is and who Dr. Skinner was. His research and invention (if it could be called that) of that box allowed many other behavioral scientists to do research.

[studies, etc.]

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I actually do know what a Skinner Box is, thanks in no small part to years of reading FFXI forums. Not to mention previous posts on these official forums in the last year by people like yourself and Runespider. But thanks for the Googledump. I also imagine you are familiar with the concept that an operant conditioning chamber is essentially created by ANY repeatable game. The more nefarious aspects of operant conditioning come when rewards are so randomized that you are forced to carry out the behavior thousands of times with no reward. As I have said repeatedly in this thread (and your post makes me think you may not have read the rest of my posts), I am not OK with 0.001% randomization such as one finds in VW. I have advocated for a more reasonable drop rate on par with those we enjoyed in Abyssea, where even the rarest items were 25+% drop if you brought proper procs. Sure, this results in people capping out on items that much quicker (many people in my LS now have everything they need from Abyssea after only one year), but ultimately the hope is that by the time THAT happens, the devs will have created more content.

In the final analysis though, while the Skinner box concept can explain part of what you do in the game, it doesn't explain why you started to play the game in the first place. Unlike the rat, nobody forces you into that Skinner Box. You enter it voluntarily, because an MMORPG is a form of entertainment. We have disposable time, gaming is a hobby, and we play MMO's because we find the content and people interesting. Ultimately, if Legion is a fun activity I can do with my LS where people get stuff at a reasonable pace and members are happy, I will not mind "grinding" it over the course of the coming months. Nevertheless, I stand by my position that I'd rather have the "best" rewards come from actually defeating the hardest mobs in the event rather than mindlessly grinding out trash mobs for Legion points in the name of "anti-Skinnerianism." Seems like some folks who posted above agree with me.

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Originally Posted by Zaknafein

Einherjar which is what for all intents, and purposes Legion is based on was not grindy. It was one of the few events where skill mattered. Where the skill of the linkshell you did the event with directly related to your success rate. Also it allowed smaller groups to accomplish the same goals other shells needed more members to equal. As far as events went at 75 cap it was by far the most enjoyable imo.

PS: If you're so keen on grinds go grind out your limit break, and get to 99.

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How aboout not going by what the site says about my level. FYI I got 4 jobs at 99 blu is one of them. I never Log out of the site so that might be why My info doesn't update idk. Back to the point how is grinding VWNM working for you. Thats the same thing just at the end of the day you can still not get crap for your effort.

Yep logged out logged back in and looky there 99 in 5 mins.

Being able to beat an HNM 100 times doesnt make you more skilled. Honestly, making a good item from an HNM come from getting points (and requiring you to have killed said NM at least once) isn't bad at all. At least it gives you a goal you can reach and still means you have to have killed said NM.