[dev1047] Thoughts/Feedback on "Legion"

[Zaknafein]

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

Congratulations!

At what point have I ever said VW loot distribution is functioning properly. It is in fact that complete antithesis of how the game should work. Instead of rewarding competent groups, and players the random number generator rewards anyone. Just for the hell of it.

[Ravenmore]

Congratulations!

At what point have I ever said VW loot distribution is functioning properly. It is in fact that complete antithesis of how the game should work. Instead of rewarding competent groups, and players the random number generator rewards anyone. Just for the hell of it.

It would still be a grind. Anything that doesn't have a 100% drop would turn into a grind after the first kill. At least with the point system no one would be at the mercy of a single group. Its still a grind no matter how you slice it. The way Camate had worded it to start sounded like the best all around with you could still get the item from it randomly droping or getting it from points if you got screwed.

[Zaknafein]

Like I said earlier. Should all people participating in the event get points to use toward purchasing gear above, and beyond drops during each run? Hell yeah! Should any Joe schmoe be able to grind away endlessly to purchase even the most elite gear that is dropped in Legion? No way. The points system should should provide access to good gear/items to account for the effort to reward ratio. Same as Abyssea provided casual players with with great gear as in af3.

The highest tier gear in legion should go to groups who excel, and defeat the most challenging of fights at the highest level of difficulty.

This clarification you people are whining about from the Community reps is only common sense, and you are blowing it out of proportion.

[Kimble]

Like I said earlier. Should all people participating in the event get points to use toward purchasing gear above, and beyond drops during each run? Hell yeah! Should any Joe schmoe be able to grind away endlessly to purchase even the most elite gear that is dropped in Legion? No way. The points system should should provide access to good gear/items to account for the effort to reward ratio. Same as Abyssea provided casual players with with great gear as in af3.

The highest tier gear in legion should go to groups who excel, and defeat the most challenging of fights at the highest level of difficulty.

This clarification you people are whining about from the Community reps is only common sense, and you are blowing it out of proportion.

And yet again, we said "if you want to give gear to people who are able to beat the hardest of the NMs, just make it so they have to have the points and have to have had beaten the NM that drops it as well"

Seems like a good middle ground. Don't know why anyone would argue against that.

[Ravenmore]

Because there would be no high tier NM that only the select few could beat. Just like how Kirin was once the hardest NM in the game. Once people learn the trick its easy for other groups to copy and repeat.

[Zaknafein]

A trophy system could work like that. Like the one used in Abyssea. Rank 1-5. The highest most difficult NM's giving everyone a 1st tier trophy when defeated. Only difference would be you can only trade trophies down. That would prevent spamming, and trading up to get T1 trophies. I would have no issue with that sort of model.

[FrankReynolds]

A trophy system could work like that. Like the one used in Abyssea. Rank 1-5. The highest most difficult NM's giving everyone a 1st tier trophy when defeated. Only difference would be you can only trade trophies down. That would prevent spamming, and trading up to get T1 trophies. I would have no issue with that sort of model.

Fair enough. That sounds like a great system.

[Zaknafein]

Fair enough. That sounds like a great system.

Make it so #1 "Engage!"

[Kimble]

why did you only quote, engage? lol

[saevel]

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.

You play the game for enjoyment, just like you go to the casino. It's what happens next that is questionable.

The difference between a skinners box and regular random rewards is how the developers designed it. Abyssea is a good example of a non skinner system. The drops are random, but the developers didn't design it to keep you hitting a lever frantically while trying to get your daily fix of dopamine (the chemical responsible for the reward feeling in the brain). Things were random, but the system wasn't' designed as a box. Voidwatch on the other hand is obviously designed to make the player keep doing what is essentially no content for long periods with no incentive other then the gamblers fallacy of "its gotta drop eventually, maybe the next one". It's designed purposely to treat you like a rat. The inability to share your loot is the key difference between those two.

I learned these things years ago, and not from google but from a MS article about gaming studios using behavioral researchers in MMO's to design their content reward systems so as to create optimum addiction quality. The companies are actually doing studies to figure out the lowest possible reward rates to keep you playing the longest while utilizing the least amount of company resources. There was a debate between production companies and the medical community on whether or not it was ethical to conduct and utilize skinneresque studies on human players with the objective of making them more addicted to the video game. The conclusion was that the medical community considers it unethical to deliberately design something to create addiction and to treat humans as lab rats. If you had actually read my post instead of hitting reply after the first three sentences you'd know this.

Game companies are still using skinner's techniques to maximize profits, their just not publishing the fact that they do it. Their analyzing statistical data and determining reward rates (aka drop rates) not based on player feedback but based on what their numbers say is the best rate to keep players doing the event. If they make it below a certain amount then the players will get angry and quit (the bird in the 2nd case study), if they make it too high the players will only do it when they need something (the 1st case study). So by making the drops artificially low yet creating a method for the player to feel they have some control over it (the lever smashing, or lights production) they can create an addictive system that has the players constantly coming back in an attempt to get their rewards but not actually getting those rewards.

I'm also fairly positive they have a check in place that if you already have an item, there is a significantly greater chance of it appearing in the chest. Statistically speaking, its not possible for a multitude of people to go 0/200 on Akvan's body or a Toci's harness yet other people to get three or four without that same period. Yet somehow we get people on insane numbers of attempts which indicate a drop rate of 0.5 ~ 0.8%, yet those who already have it will get it again and again which would indicate a drop rate in the ~5% range. It's a clever system designed to give the illusion of a reward while not actually giving a reward, like making the random food pellet drop in a container outside of reach of the rat.