My surplus time is drawing to an end, so I need to get these gems out of the way.

Why the hardcore server is taking a giant dump on the mass of the player base:

“Where are all the strippers?”
“In the VIP room, dry humping a John.”
“It takes all the strippers to do that?”
“You can watch for 20 bucks.”
“I don’t want to watch that, I want to watch girls dance and put dollars down their g-strings…maybe get a blow job later.”
“You can do all that when they’re finished.”
“How long will it take?”
“They’ll be back in 3 months.”
“3 fucking months?!  Are you shitting me?!”
“What are you complaining about?  The club is free, you didn’t pay cover.”
“Yeah, it didn’t cost me to walk in, but I’m buying drinks and I just fucking bought a hundred bucks worth of their made up ‘stripper dollars’ to give the girls.”
“Well, we already spent your hundred bucks, now we want 20 bucks more.”
“I can’t use your ‘stripper dollars’ to get dry humped?  …which I don’t want to do anyways.”
“Nope, but you can hang out, enjoy the free music, sit on the free seats and buy more drinks and wait for 3 months to get what you want.”
“The music is crap, the seats are lumpy and covered in spunk and your overpriced, watered down drinks are only worth it if there are titties shoved in my face.  Why should I even stay?”
“Fuck you, I said I already spent the hundred bucks you just gave me.  I don’t care what you do.”
“There’s a newer, nicer club right down the road.”
“Then fucking go there, why should I care?”
“I think I will.”
“Whatever.  See you in 3 months?”
“…you really are that stupid, aren’t you?”

Reserved

First off, your premise is excellent and what you have is far better than what they're doing. I do disagree with your view on optionals, my position and reason should be clear from the below list.

But here are a few ideas you might incorporate, or maybe explicitly state if they're already in there but not  obvious.

1) The goal is to have all quests be equally rewarding, XP wise. That means that for a given level, all quests have approximately the same XP/Min for an at level party.

2) Optional XP should actually be optional, and should be proportional to the time spent achieving it. The decision to do optionals or not should be a matter of preference not efficiency.

3) Don't balance for the extremes - when you look at data, exclude over-leveled characters and use a trimmed mean, probably 25% but maybe 10% would be OK.

4) Quests don't scale linearly for Normal/Hard/Elite/R1-10, so don't try to shoehorn them into strictly a base XP and a multiplier - make sure the XP for the distinct difficulties are actually set based on their individual measurements.

5) Use this as an opportunity to increase choice, not decrease it. A system that requires a TR of some form to restore the rewards their full potential is beyond stupid.

OK, so it's maybe a bit insulting, but come on, it strains the patience of saints and martyrs to read the hot steaming mess they put forth and not be at least a little scornful.

Skoodge wrote on Jul 31^st, 2019 at 12:21pm:

Not all quests are created equal, but harder quests take longer to complete so a system where the XP is based on how long it takes an average player to complete it is the most fair solution. In fact, your system is much worse at assigning the same rewards to differing quests because you group them and assign rewards to the group not the individual. Mine is much more granular, and can be applied with machine learning instead of human examination and judging of each quest. Assuming they have somebody with a modicum of proficiency with statistics and programming, but we can count on that, right?

So my proposal comes out ahead in both fairness and efficiency, because a single automated query against the log Sev says he has and the quest parameters database could set the XP to a zero sum distribution and yours requires manual classification and modification of quests, though I admit it isn't much.

If that's not enough for you, consider that XP is only part of the rewards, loot is another part and it is in the loot that you have the chance to give an extra reward for unusual challenge. It's natural to put it there because as power creep progresses the quests are scaled higher and the rewards are also scaled, so the manual adjustments on top of that are minimized.

For the record, I personally have no objection to a few quests having a significantly better XP/Min than average, I think a group of standard dailies helps build social bridges in the game. But this focus on the dailies is what has Sev's panties in a knot this week, so I'm just trying to help them out. I'm a helper.

Keep in mind that Sev said he didn't want this to be a gain for players, he wants a zero sum, so "my system will automatically give most quests a better boost their their proposal" isn't necessarily a good thing.

Oh, and do you seriously think SSG needs help finding the quickest and easiest path? They're masters at oversimplifying a complex issue, we should be encouraging them to take the time to do it right, so we're not right back here in 6 months, 12 months, 18 months, etc.

Skoodge wrote on Jul 31^st, 2019 at 1:51pm:


I'll go with I'm not explaining clearly, I absolutely do not advocate all quests of the same level rewarding the same XP. Let me try again with a bit more detail.

I think each quest should give XP proportional to how long it takes to complete by an at-level party. The proportion varies by level, and is determined by how many minutes of questing the devs want to require to level up. XP/Minute/Quest remains constant, not XP/Quest, and the constant varies by quest level (because each level takes a different amount of XP to progress).

So if Level 5 to 6 takes 40k XP, and the devs say users should spend 5 hours questing at level 5 for Normal difficulty, then all level 5 quests should reward 133 XP per (average) minute for an at level party *running it at Normal difficulty*. It's not calculated at play time, log analysis calculates the (trimmed) average completion time for an "at level" party for that particular quest at that particular difficulty (use marginal averages for base completion and each optional, the data set for just one optional would be very small and badly skewed).

So a level 5 quest that takes 30 minutes to complete without optionals should reward 4000 XP for the base quest. If completing Optional A adds 7 minutes on average, then Optional A should reward 933 XP. A level 5 quest that takes 10 minutes for no optionals and 12 minutes with optional 2 should give a base of 1333 XP and 267 for Optional 2.

The devs set the "how long to spend at this level at this difficulty" and log analysis calculates the base and optional XP for all quests. Of course you can add an optional "tweak" step if you want to sweeten the pot on a few quests, or discourage a few deemed too easy, but it's a good way to set a fair and impartial baseline for all quests with very little effort. XP efficiency no longer drives quest selection for most players.

Note that both of our methods don't take into account certain synergies - if a cleric can get through some quests very fast with Turn Undead or a Rogue with Sneak and Invisible, then my formula won't catch it and your classification will put the quest in the wrong classification, but I maintain that SSG shouldn't scale for the exception, they should scale for the majority.

Oh, and I didn't mention the Optional XP awarded on completion because I agree completely, though I might propose a mechanism to award it if a player completes a quest and goes back to finish an optional before exiting the quest.

EDIT: Adding *running it at Normal difficulty*

Skoodge wrote on Jul 31^st, 2019 at 3:51pm:

I like you too, and I like that we can have this conversation, even if it's a tree falling in the forest. It doesn't bruise my ego if I am wrong, and I admit it's possible. I don't think anybody ever makes real progress by sticking to an idea just because they are the one that thought of it - it's far better to share ideas, debate their relative merit, and try (if possible) the best one even if it's not yours.

But I'm not quite ready to admit that I'm wrong here.

You do raise one point that might pose a problem for my idea. You say they don’t have the systems in place to gather the information they would need to make my proposal a reality, but Sev said "We have been analyzing our data on quests, completion times, and completion numbers". I admit that it's possible that "his numbers" are 3 runs with Cordo and spying on one group on a Friday night. But it's not unreasonable to think that it means they've been logging basic quest completion statistics.

On a server with fewer than 500 concurrent users and quests taking at a minimum several minutes, the data load for completion stat logging is perfectly reasonable. And we know some logging used to take place because you could see your character quest history in the old web API.

So while it's entirely possible that Sev was full of shit about having data, could we set that aside as "maybe" and evaluate the rest of my proposal? Because if you do this for a living, you might find something that helps you with a customer that *does* collect good data about their game. Maybe I'm naive to think this crew is capable of such competence, but their money is on the line, maybe they've started doing something right.

Your question about the non-existent data for dead quests and packs and new packs is also a reasonable concern, my method does require a fairly large sample to be effective. But we could use your method as an approximation for both and refine it as more data comes in (and if it doesn't for older packs then the error means nothing anyway). Now I know you're thinking about the manpower thing when I say that, but read the next paragraph first.

You say it would take tremendous manpower, but it wouldn't. You do this for a living, but what I do for a living is SQL programming and data analysis. I could write a query that implemented my idea in a few hours (assuming I had the data, but we're letting that slide for now, right?). And once written, that query could be re-run at any time in seconds. Maybe a few minutes, but certainly no longer than that. They could use it to refresh the baseline every 3-6 months to take into account changes to systems or enhancements that changed how easy quests were! It doesn't even have to be done on production servers, the quest activity log could be warehoused nightly in a slow period or at worst on every Tuesday on restart and the analysis done on a development server.

You say they can't collect the data I need, but Sev implied that they already are (see above). All I need is Quest ID, Optionals completed, time in quest, and CharacterID for each party member. Hardly an onerous data collection task. They already display all that and more at the end of the quest if you hit the X key, just log it. I can look up quest details from the database from the QuestID. I can look up character details from the CharacterID. Maybe the character has leveled between questing and warehousing, but one level won't make a difference and multiple levels is unlikely to happen that often and just means a few otherwise valid data points get discarded. With a few month's data, dropping a few completions won't matter.

You say there’s no such thing as an average party, but I'm not looking for an average party, I'm looking for the average *of* parties. I want Average(CompletionTime(Parties-OverLevelParties)) not CompletionTime(Average(Party)), and that's readily available (if you've collected the very basic data). And using a trimmed mean gets rid of the outliers you mention, like the 3 noobs and the 3 long time players you mention.

And by the way, your system is just as susceptible to that - do you classify a quest as short, medium, or long? 3 Noobs give one classification, 3 vets a different. Your method is no better than mine under those circumstances, and enjoys no competitive advantage.

And so what if the party size is 1 or 6? You base it on what people are actually doing, so if the quest is usually run solo then pay it out at the solo average, and if they usually group then pay it at the group rate. For some of each take the average, which is exactly what my method does. If that leads to people suddenly grouping to get a faster rate, what's the problem, it's more grouping.

You ask do we drop the xp in spies dramatically for someone trying to run it at level because it’s mostly run quicker by toons 8 levels over on a daily basis? I assume you're talking about Epic, because in Heroic they would be filtered out as over level, but I say yes, if it's usually run 8 levels higher, then that's how the reward should be calculated. There are plenty of quests people commonly skip and go back to because the rewards don't justify the frustration at level - Proof in the Poison, Stealthy Repossession, etc. It's not worth sweating the 5%, get numbers that work for 95% and you're golden. You're already telling me that when you say your "quick and dirty method" is close enough, we both agree that sweating the details for small differences isn't worth it.

You say that by my proposal Wiz King becomes a 5 minute quest - yes, so set the reward accordingly. It's no longer 10x better than the average quest available? Fine. Sev wants to ransack it into oblivion anyway, and he's not going to take your system and let Wiz King be a relative gold mine. But remember that I agreed with you that optional XP should be paid at quest completion, so under those conditions would WizKing even really be just 5 minutes anymore?

Consider also that changing the rewards might change the dynamic of how it's played, but that's OK too because rerunning my script is basically free so after a few iterations it will reach an equilibrium. Maybe the equation will need a damping factor, but that's no big deal.

You also worry that adding a new pack will invalidate my method or cause an ever increasing amount of work, it won't. I don't need any manual entries for a quest, when it shows up in the log of run quests it gets included in the output with absolutely no modification to my script needed. It's entirely data driven. You may need to add an entry for "pot sweetening" if you want people to favor the new quest over and above the draw of novelty and better loot, but it's not necessary for my system.

And your system isn't even all that different from mine, I'm really just replacing your discrete distribution (6 classifications for quests and 1 for optionals) manually decided on with an continuous distribution automatically calculated by a short script. Increase your number of classifications and your calculations for base XP will approach mine as the number of categories approaches infinity. Treat optionals like Base XP, and they'll approach mine too. Sure it's impractical to do manually, but with a little logging we don't have to do it manually ever again.

With all these reincarnation and reaper benefits, this game is driven by XP per minute and unless you use free market forces like making them all pay the same XP per minute, any attempt to engineer behavior against that is going to both fail and generate resentment.

So yeah, it requires that they do some basic logging, but wouldn't you advise a client to do that anyway? Maybe if Sev has a real fire under his ass today and his logging is a lie he could implement your method today and start collecting data to re-evaluate in the future, but wouldn't having all quests having the same XP per minute be the best way to encourage variety in quests run?

Hey, it's all theory crafting, Sev's not going to listen to either of us, but I've gotten more enjoyment analyzing this with you than the last 5 quests  I've run in DDO, so I consider it time well spent. If you're not too frustrated I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, and if you've ever got a client who does appreciate data enough to collect it I'd be happy to chat about how to use it. 10 years ago the tools for big data analysis were rare and expensive, but today they're within reach of even a small cash strapped company.

Carpone wrote on Aug 1^st, 2019 at 4:14pm:

First, I couldn't agree more with the highlighted part. Severlin has his panties in a knot because we're not having fun the way he wants us to. Sev, grow the fuck up, you've invested in this game and you're going to let your fragile ego kill it.

As to the optional XP decay being a bandaid because refactoring all the quests is too much work, I guess that makes sense, but why wouldn't he just refactor the one or two quests that are bothering him? He doesn't have to do them all, just the few that bother him. He's using a shotgun blast to kill the mosquito that's on my arm but not even biting. Stupid dick.

Carpone wrote on Aug 1^st, 2019 at 4:14pm:


I'd say common sense would obviously categorize that type of extreme quest in something other than the basics I put down, but who I'm pitching to might take it to literally so I'll thank you for drawing that weak spot to my attention and let's turn the final category into "Raids and Raid length quests" for added clarity.  That would include your WGUs, WPMs, ToEEs, etc...

And also for clarity I want to put throw out a few examples.

Let's start with HoRB (and HoDU as well).  By Meursault's system it becomes a very short quest (3 minutes if you know what you're doing) and the quest's XP gets nerfed compared to the longer quests in the chain since his system is based on less time = less XP, more time = more XP.

By my system HoRB and HoDU are given the same lengths as Broken Chains and have roughly the same basic XP.  The way we run them, we cut off easily 60-70% of the quests because we skip almost everything in there.

So if you want to run for speed and skip all the really long and out of the way optionals, you're still way ahead of the game XP per minute wise.

But if someone actually likes roll playing or exploring and they want to waste 20 minutes of their lives really getting in there and exploring, they get a boost to their XP and their reaper XP.  Not nearly enough to warrant running the opts IMHO, but they're better off for their time then they presently are.

The big win here is we're not being forced into the optionals and technically we're not being punished for skipping them.  The XP stays the same, just the guys who were getting screwed before get a little more for their effort.  Most optionals just aren't worth it and most groups will say that "we don't get reaper XP for it, no reason to bother with it."  My system gives a little incentive past the chest and avoids the fucking constant nerfs or making us do shit we don't want to do.

Now take quests like Spies, Jungle and WGU.  The opts are all right there and take 0 time to complete as they are.  If you're not getting full XP for these quests every time you run them, you're just throwing XP out the window.

My system would see a slight decline in the base XP, but the optionals would boost them right back up to where they are now. 

The big difference would really come in chains like RL where opts are skipped left and right.  You'd still be able to run for speed because right now the RL chain's XP is all types of way too low and most of them would see a massive needed boost.  You're still walking away with the same XP you always had, but if things go south in one of the castle RL quests or Amber and you end up running a few opts because someone got lost and stretched the time of completion out, now you get a bit more compensation for that time plus a handful reaper xp for your effort.

My system wouldn't punish anyone for the way they're running things now or force them into running opts - but it would reward you slightly more for those times you feel like picking up that extra chest or when it takes longer to find the passwords and you end up killing a few red names while wandering around Amber.

Mostly - it flat out would be the easiest to implement quickly.