Suggestions for a better PVP point structure

[Ringe666-7406]

In addition to Slauki's proposal for higher rewards, it'd be nice to get some bonuses for finishing battle with a fury (at least minimal, for the sake of it). Great way to crown a successful battle.

[mjmxiii]

Thanks for the great posts Slauki. Agree the points system needs to change as PvP is a great idea but has always seemed flawed to me due to it's point system. Every attempt to adjust it only seems to magnify the intitial flaws. Would welcome a change to it but a few things that would motivate me more than a better points system follow...

I would like to see better items in store as that would have motivated me to play more from the start. For example, the arena store should not only have SoW, current souls and skill shards, it should also have rare GA souls, Eternal souls (as in souls that only drop Eddie chars, not just Eternal Ed), and then the soul fragments that they speak of could be a separate item that would over time, give you specific chars (an example being a Prisoner Tier after reaching a certain amount of them, if he drops through other means, you look to the next char tier you want most) and all should be unlimited purchase.

While I dont question the value or really understand why they would release items like these, they should have never released talismans like Strike and Immunity through the arena store. All those items seem like they should be drops from secret locations or BNW and would have given us a bit more incentive or reward for the daily trooper grind.

A minor thing that makes me SMH, why not just have an arena tab in the game store?

[slauki]

Thanks for making a dedicated thread for this, slauki. Great explanation and chart for your approach, too.

A couple things I want to point out:

• The average attack win of 10 means lowering the floor from 12 to 10; probably still feels better overall if defense losses are usually not as severe as they are right now, but that's something to consider
• This is a flaw with my original calculations as well, but the suggestion of average attack probably makes most sense for people ranked near the top; people who are ranked lower probably need to assume to have better average returns (it'll be rare that they decide to pick on just lower-ranked people, but that somewhat of a choice for them). This is not the worst thing in the world, but it makes the next point a bit more of a problem...
• With the way the weekly point reset works, a lot of people getting to 1900+ by the end of the week will reset to around 1500 (and higher up people will reset even higher); this means almost every archetype listed will reach Warlord III points every week, which trivializes the climb through Acolyte and Duelist divisions unless we greatly raise the division VP requirements for Warlord (and/or add more divisions... although reward differentials between division is already discussed as pretty weak). Overall, I'd want the climb into Warlord's point requirement to be a bit more meaningful than that (while yes, it's a bit out of reach for the 250 people right now, this system would produce the opposite extreme). This could be done by not slashing the point losses for losing as much, or by further reducing point gains on successful attacks/defends, but I'm not sure if that just makes climbing feel slow in a different way (and would make the fight for the divisions near reset less turbulent)
• Specifically forcing the loss points down based on your current win rate does complicate the point calculation more than I'd like, but it's overall a pretty smart idea to keep things in line based on win rate. I'd probably want it to gradually hit the breakpoints you suggest (such as -12 for defense loss normally, but -10 for 16 - 20%, then -9 for 15% or less or something), but that's a minor detail at that point, and going with just a single breakpoint is probably still fine.
• Your approach requires three things our tech doesn't currently handle; handling half-points, adjusting point yields based on your respective win rate, and adjusting defense wins to be a particular value (instead of being based on what an attack win would be). I wouldn't really want to go the direction of fractional points, as that could be worked around without losing too much from what you've got there. Beyond that, the other two things aren't really a problem, it's just two things that need their own implementation and testing time, which if we do choose to go this route, it puts some time and resourcing barriers before we can have that implemented and then go live

In the next major update (not the upcoming hotfix update), we already have logic put in place to reduce point losses based on a fraction of the normal loss value, but if it doesn't turn out as well as we'd hope, I think what you're proposing here is probably along the lines of the next thing to try. Maybe not the exact same values you've proposed, but the concepts of a greater bonus for a defensive hold and overriding loss values based on win rate are sound ideas.

thank you for your detailed reply. Was very busy the last days so i had no time to answer. first i have to say, that's great that you are thinking about/planning changes and that you listen to suggestions from the community.

yeah i wasn't sure how easy it is to implement some of my suggestions, but i found that this approach would balance the numbers you gave us and it would be very good from a psychological perspective.
Especially the reduced losses for specific ratios it's a really good way to archive more fairplay i feel, because people with non exclusive roosters would have better chances to reach something and they deserve some protection too. a more gradual approach like you mentioned would be even better, i just wanted to try to keep things simple.
i'm sure you guys will find some smart solution for the technical problems just wanted give some players input, since a fresh perspective can help from time to time .

one big problem came to my mind again:
if the defense wins will give us a huge points boost, this would open the doors for cheaters. i could even outpace jofer, when i go with my 2nd account vs. my main account and loose intentionally in 30 seconds per round (20 secs of them loading time). i could earn 4500points in 3 hours (assuming 1 fight per minute and 25 wins per defense) or 6750 points (assuming 1,5 fights per minute and 25 points) which would be great for the big saturday rush while it would be very obvious, sneaky players could use it in a more incognito way. i wrote a thread some months ago about this possibility to exploit the system without an attack limit, i think you saw that:

http://forum.ironmaidenlegacy.com/sh...ighlight=cheat

so some kind of attack limits would be necessary to prevent people from cheating, especially if defense would matter even more. i think, that this has been overlooked by now.

anyway, i'm curious to see the next changes hoping for some awesome improvments in the points and rewarding structure. :-)

cheers

[Sparton_LOTB]

yeah i wasn't sure how easy it is to implement some of my suggestions, but i found that this approach would balance the numbers you gave us and it would be very good from a psychological perspective.
Especially the reduced losses for specific ratios it's a really good way to archive more fairplay i feel, because people with non exclusive roosters would have better chances to reach something and they deserve some protection too. a more gradual approach like you mentioned would be even better, i just wanted to try to keep things simple.
i'm sure you guys will find some smart solution for the technical problems just wanted give some players input, since a fresh perspective can help from time to time .

Yeah, like I mentioned above, the idea of overriding gains specifically for defensive holds or cutting losses when at specific win rates is definitely a good idea, it'll just be a matter of the where and when to prioritize tech time for those kinds of changes.

one big problem came to my mind again:
if the defense wins will give us a huge points boost, this would open the doors for cheaters. i could even outpace jofer, when i go with my 2nd account vs. my main account and loose intentionally in 30 seconds per round (20 secs of them loading time). i could earn 4500points in 3 hours (assuming 1 fight per minute and 25 wins per defense) or 6750 points (assuming 1,5 fights per minute and 25 points) which would be great for the big saturday rush while it would be very obvious, sneaky players could use it in a more incognito way. i wrote a thread some months ago about this possibility to exploit the system without an attack limit, i think you saw that:

http://forum.ironmaidenlegacy.com/sh...ighlight=cheat

so some kind of attack limits would be necessary to prevent people from cheating, especially if defense would matter even more. i think, that this has been overlooked by now.

Definitely been something we're aware of, we're just hoping that our current ability to monitor and adjust based on people exploiting the system would be sufficient. Obviously that's been kicked up now that someone actually did do that, but it's still something we don't condone and will not hesitate to ban users/adjust scores accordingly if people do engage in such activities.

Nonetheless, we are investigating the cost of implementing a measure which should stop the exploit from being possible instead of relying on manually correcting instances that occur.

[Nicko]

Nonetheless, we are investigating the cost of implementing a measure which should stop the exploit from being possible instead of relying on manually correcting instances that occur.

Absolutely needed. You guys have your hands full as it is - to try to monitor thousands of accounts for cheating? Seems impossible.

Glad you're looking into this!

[Sparton_LOTB]

Absolutely needed. You guys have your hands full as it is - to try to monitor thousands of accounts for cheating? Seems impossible.

Glad you're looking into this!

A combination of automated checks, random sampling of accounts, and player reports can sound surprisingly reasonable when an engineer says something could take days to do (and then who knows how much more for QAing and further fixes), but yeah, at some point you've burned more time than the cost to implement the preemptive measure in the first place.

Ultimately, we don't want to sit on an issue that actually affects live players if we can help it (such as someone being artificially inflated with points). Systematic issues (people being able to inflate others, or people sometimes still being in a state where they're not matchmade against frequently) are another matter, as those take time and usually cannot be pushed to live players on a whim.