Income Inequality In CoX

[roleki]

Wondering if, and this is just me spitballing, but wondering if there could be some way to piledrive different types of content into temp powers/badges that grant temporary/scaling inf/exp bonuses to characters/accounts. 

 

Like say, for every N story arc missions you complete in a week, you get an X inf/xp multiplier, up to a cap of Y and for a duration of Z.   Same goes for TFs, participating in raids, radios and so forth, and the duration stacks but not from the same source.

 

Figure that way, people who prefer playing one specific kind of content get a small boost, but those that do a little of everything get even more, which would kind of keep the LFG lubed up and maybe keep the AE squeaks a little quieter.

 

Dunno, just an idea that I bunsourced just now.

Edited February 20, 2020 by roleki

[jubakumbi]

3 minutes ago, Blastit said:

Diversity does not mean allowing toxic behaviour. Anyone trying to build a community absolutely can't allow people to be aggressive towards each other. A rule against simply not being a jerk is necessary. If not you're going to end up driving away 1) those the aggressive people target, 2) those that fear becoming the next targets, 3) those that don't want to deal with aggressive people everywhere, 4) those that now miss the people they knew and liked who belonged to the previous three categories and 5) those that have now lost faith in the leaders of the community.

This is why it's called "toxic" behaviour. It spreads, hurts and makes the community sick. Kicking out people who display toxic behaviour is not about creating a homogeneous community, it's about creating a community at all.

The real trick here is, who gets to define 'toxic' and 'jerk'.

IME, one persons toxic is another persons normal, one persons jerk is anothers best bud.

I think it's fascinating you think I should be banned though.

 

24 minutes ago, Blastit said:

...

What actually is the real problem? What can even be done?

...

Ultimatley I think that you can really only aim for degrees. You can put a lot of work in to make a game more accessible on multiple levels and these efforts can be very successful as well but 100% isn't possible. Some people just don't want to understand a game's mechanics outside of how to move and maybe aim. No amount of tutorials will help with that. Getting absolutely everyone to play the AH the same way would probably have some weird results. Plus the general question of what this whole endeavour is about and who it's for. So probably questions that are less about math and more about judgement and decisions.

This is the meat of the discussion IMO.

The problem IMO is that some people look at what others have in the game, want it, yet won't make the effort to get it when they have the same opportunities, access to the same Internet of data on how to get the shinies, and instead want the game to change so they get the same things as the others have made the effort to acquire.

It's a people problem that cannot be solved by code because the problem has existed since mankind created societies.

 

The only way to solve the inequlity is to entirely remove the acquiring of the things and just give everyone everything.

Even if that occurs, some players will simply be better at and spend more time creating characters and the idea of the 7 IOs vs 1 SO will reamain.

[Display Name]

I want to see enhancement drops removed.  If they can't drop IOs, then I'm not interested.

 

It's really sad to think that a level 54 enemy is dropping an SO.  I bet that enemy doesn't farm or play the market, either.  And probably complains to his buddies how players have more enhancement capabilities than NPCs.

[roleki]

23 minutes ago, Blastit said:

Diversity does not mean allowing toxic behaviour. Anyone trying to build a community absolutely can't allow people to be aggressive towards each other. A rule against simply not being a jerk is necessary. If not you're going to end up driving away 1) those the aggressive people target, 2) those that fear becoming the next targets, 3) those that don't want to deal with aggressive people everywhere, 4) those that now miss the people they knew and liked who belonged to the previous three categories and 5) those that have now lost faith in the leaders of the community.

This is why it's called "toxic" behaviour. It spreads, hurts and makes the community sick. Kicking out people who display toxic behaviour is not about creating a homogeneous community, it's about creating a community at all.

And again, I find it interesting that the 'toxicity' of someone's approach is singled out for censure, but not the toxicity of the very idea that prompted them to speak in the first place.  

 

"Would you please stop shouting obscenities at me sir?  We are simply trying to break your thumbs with hammers, it hardly warrants such an UNSEEMLY outburst!"

[MunkiLord]

36 minutes ago, roleki said:

Wondering if, and this is just me spitballing, but wondering if there could be some way to piledrive different types of content into temp powers/badges that grant temporary/scaling inf/exp bonuses to characters/accounts. 

 

Like say, for every N story arc missions you complete in a week, you get an X inf/xp multiplier, up to a cap of Y and for a duration of Z.   Same goes for TFs, participating in raids, radios and so forth, and the duration stacks but not from the same source.

 

Figure that way, people who prefer playing one specific kind of content get a small boost, but those that do a little of everything get even more, which would kind of keep the LFG lubed up and maybe keep the AE squeaks a little quieter.

 

Dunno, just an idea that I bunsourced just now.

I like this idea! I think the Windfall temp power would be a good reward for this as it increases drops and other stuff for an hour at a time.

[roleki]

35 minutes ago, MunkiLord said:

I like this idea! I think the Windfall temp power would be a good reward for this as it increases drops and other stuff for an hour at a time.

Oh, I didn't know this was already a thing, but, if  that much of the framework is already there... wonder how hard it would be to put the rest in place?

[Coyote]

1 hour ago, roleki said:

And again, I find it interesting that the 'toxicity' of someone's approach is singled out for censure, but not the toxicity of the very idea that prompted them to speak in the first place. 

 

How are the ideas toxic? They can be foolish, they  can be ignorant, they can even be... OMG.... groupthink!!!.

But toxicity comes from interaction, not from ideas.

If the idea is mistaken, foolish, ignorant, or in other ways could use improvement... then improve it with your opinion and advice.

Same holds for posters when their posting is detrimental to the forum's health (yes, health includes diversity)... it's when they refuse to listen and insist that how they are is fine, and everyone has to deal with their rudeness because it's a forum, that toxicity begins.

[Blastit]

1 hour ago, jubakumbi said:

The real trick here is, who gets to define 'toxic' and 'jerk'.

IME, one persons toxic is another persons normal, one persons jerk is anothers best bud.

I think it's fascinating you think I should be banned though.

Only so long as you are intentionally aggressive and rude towards other people. Otherwise there's no problem. It's not really that hard to define toxic behaviour. Value judgements can be difficult but they can also be easy. Additionally, the concept of "guidelines" does exist. Further additionally, you have personally admitted to knowing that you sometimes choose to be aggressive and rude so the question of how to actually define a "jerk" is evidently not one that is far from your grasp. Plus you say you've run into jerks, so...

 

Anyway, in a very real sense the people who get to define "jerk" are the people who can put you on a posting vacation for a week if they judge that you're being a jerk. In order for someone to be a moral authority they do first need to be an authority. If the process of what is done and why is transparent other people can see if the judgement exercised is good or if it is bad. Then they can talk it out. After that it depends on everyone involved. Exercising maturity and wisdom is fully possible. They just aren't reducible to mere mechanical principles that one can rules-lawyer their way around.

 

1 hour ago, roleki said:

And again, I find it interesting that the 'toxicity' of someone's approach is singled out for censure, but not the toxicity of the very idea that prompted them to speak in the first place.  

 

"Would you please stop shouting obscenities at me sir?  We are simply trying to break your thumbs with hammers, it hardly warrants such an UNSEEMLY outburst!"

I'm not torturing anyone, tho. I'm not inflicting grievous bodily harm while insisting that the dying victim smile about it. I did, however, see someone pass off knowing rudeness as simply being blunt. Talking about a disparity in resource access depending on how people spend their game time (according to choice or awareness) is not toxic. The OP wants to articulate what they consider to be a problem and even claimed to not know of a good solution. That seems like a fair starting point for a discussion. People were free to disagree with the premises, too, which some in fact did. Arguments being made and challenged all around. Plenty of discussion. Not toxic at all. I mean, I don't know if this person has been doing this twice a week the past half a year or something and consistently ignored any actual points raised. It didn't seem like it from the posts that were made when I saw the thread. That would be bad behaviour. But I haven't actually seen that yet and thus can't comment on it as such.

 

Then jubakumbi floated the idea of everyone just getting everything because levelling up and slowly unlocking new things wasn't what mattered to them. Fair enough, the beta/test server is like that (although mainly for practical reasons) and there's an argument to be made that CoH might as well become a digital toy. There's also an argument to be made that levelling is the game as designed and as originally enjoyed by many here and that without the progression there wouldn't be the same atmosphere or emotional journey. Nothing on either side of the pearl clutching particularly interested me anyway and there was much that I ignored but as it went on I began to wish that people would post in some other way. The artlessness of it got to me.

[Troo]

220+ posts in a couple days?!

 

Looks like I'll be adding 'Inequality' to all new subject titles.

Examples:

'Costume Inequality - Post your favorites here'

'Power Inequality - Energy Transfer'

'Archtype Inequality - Scrappers'

 

[DR_Mechano]

1 hour ago, roleki said:

Oh, I didn't know this was already a thing, but, if  that much of the framework is already there... wonder how hard it would be to put the rest in place?

I'm honestly surprised the Windfall temp power isn't in the P2W vendor. The other ATO temp booster powers are in the (Survival etc.) so I don't see a problem with someone getting the windfall one. Though this does make the problem of the rich getting richer since the people that would be able to afford to stack it to 8 hours would be the very people who farm inf and thus we'd end up with inf-lation (ha a word pun, I iz smart) because the people who earn a lot of inf (i.e farmers) would be able to earn MORE of it quicker.

 

So that's probably why it's not in there...bummer.

[roleki]

3 minutes ago, Coyote said:

 

How are the ideas toxic? They can be foolish, they  can be ignorant, they can even be... OMG.... groupthink!!!.

But toxicity comes from interaction, not from ideas.

If the idea is mistaken, foolish, ignorant, or in other ways could use improvement... then improve it with your opinion and advice.

Same holds for posters when their posting is detrimental to the forum's health (yes, health includes diversity)... it's when they refuse to listen and insist that how they are is fine, and everyone has to deal with their rudeness because it's a forum, that toxicity begins.

In this case the idea itself is toxic because it is grounded entirely in "people are enjoying themselves in a way that is different from what I do" and, unfortunately, there are enough persons with that idea in their head to make "just because" seem like a legitimate reason to force their wants on the world through sheer weight of numbers. 

 

Any opposing view, no matter how well-reasoned or gently expressed, is dismissed wholesale.  People in these forums, on THAT side of the argument, have accused me of having a personality disorder for preferring to skip low level content, and one suggested I learn how to "woo women" instead of devoting time to farming.  Now that I think about it, it's kind of weird because I didn't see the toxicity police on patrol THAT week.  Luckily I didn't need their assistance because I am an adult who understands some people squeeze words out of different ports than others, and that's ok.

 

Bottom line, railing against the practice of efficient resource gathering within the published framework of the game makes as much sense as complaining that Costume Contests ruin your immersion, and should be treated with a similar level of disdain.  Instead, people wiggle out of the woodwork every hour on the hour to beat the dead horse of influence.  

 

It's my opinion that, in the face of such constant chittering, if I want to continue to play the game the way I prefer, I have to weigh in every time they do just to keep a thumb on the scale.

[Haijinx]

When did this game come out?

 

 

[roleki]

2 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

When did this game come out?

 

 

April 27th 2004, according to my copy of google.

[jubakumbi]

25 minutes ago, Blastit said:

Then jubakumbi floated the idea of everyone just getting everything because levelling up and slowly unlocking new things wasn't what mattered to them. Fair enough, the beta/test server is like that (although mainly for practical reasons) and there's an argument to be made that CoH might as well become a digital toy. There's also an argument to be made that levelling is the game as designed and as originally enjoyed by many here and that without the progression there wouldn't be the same atmosphere or emotional journey. Nothing on either side of the pearl clutching particularly interested me anyway and there was much that I ignored but as it went on I began to wish that people would post in some other way. The artlessness of it got to me.

I floated the idea, to show how taking the INF idea to an extreme would look, as an example.

In doing so, I made the mistake, it seems, of saying I would prefer instant IOs over INF gathering.

 

The memes came out full swing, the hyberole of 'why even play?' etc.

I chose to clap back with, IMO, an amusing pearl reference, and simply because I don't back down to the groupthink, here we are.

 

Artless? Perhaps.

Honest, real thoughts on my part, Entirely.

I happen to think it's funny that the mere idea of changing the game makes some poeple lose thier minds.

If that makes me a bad person (or artless), for seeing humor in that, I can live with that.

 

9 minutes ago, roleki said:

Any opposing view, no matter how well-reasoned or gently expressed, is dismissed wholesale. 

Non-stop.

It's not a matter of what idea is produced, it's simply a matter of if the self-appointed 'save the game' posters see it or not.

It's an echo chamber that has been running for years.

These same people are playing a game on rogue servers and still trying to take some sort of moral high-road.

It's frickin' hilarious!

[DougGraves]

50 minutes ago, Troo said:

220+ posts in a couple days?!

 

Looks like I'll be adding 'Inequality' to all new subject titles.

Examples:

'Costume Inequality - Post your favorites here'

'Power Inequality - Energy Transfer'

'Archtype Inequality - Scrappers'

 

/troo

[Leogunner]

3 hours ago, roleki said:

Wondering if, and this is just me spitballing, but wondering if there could be some way to piledrive different types of content into temp powers/badges that grant temporary/scaling inf/exp bonuses to characters/accounts. 

 

Like say, for every N story arc missions you complete in a week, you get an X inf/xp multiplier, up to a cap of Y and for a duration of Z.   Same goes for TFs, participating in raids, radios and so forth, and the duration stacks but not from the same source.

 

Figure that way, people who prefer playing one specific kind of content get a small boost, but those that do a little of everything get even more, which would kind of keep the LFG lubed up and maybe keep the AE squeaks a little quieter.

 

Dunno, just an idea that I bunsourced just now.

I was thinking more along the lines of rotating server diminishes/boosts depending on what is ran the most.  Basically content, TF, contacts and modes played more often would get a diminished value for the next content cycle while content, TF (SF!!), contacts and modes played very seldom get a boosted return for the next content cycle.  So if AE is shown to be ran 55% among all content while the rest fit in the 45% side, AE would get a diminishing value for the week and if a certain contact or SF/TF is shown to have not been ran at all for multiple weeks, a bonus to that content would be added equivalent to the time/difficulty involved.  Even if you yourself don't want to run the content despite the extra rewards it grants, you could at least gain solace that some scarce rag-tag villain group running those contacts that barely anyone even knows about are getting some extra benefits despite the lack of participants.

[jubakumbi]

3 minutes ago, Leogunner said:

I was thinking more along the lines of rotating server diminishes/boosts depending on what is ran the most.  Basically content, TF, contacts and modes played more often would get a diminished value for the next content cycle while content, TF (SF!!), contacts and modes played very seldom get a boosted return for the next content cycle.  So if AE is shown to be ran 55% among all content while the rest fit in the 45% side, AE would get a diminishing value for the week and if a certain contact or SF/TF is shown to have not been ran at all for multiple weeks, a bonus to that content would be added equivalent to the time/difficulty involved.  Even if you yourself don't want to run the content despite the extra rewards it grants, you could at least gain solace that some scarce rag-tag villain group running those contacts that barely anyone even knows about are getting some extra benefits despite the lack of participants.

Warframe tried something like this with how powerful certain mods were based on how popular they were.

Did not work too well for them in terms of player satisfaction, but I think was mainly due to not actually changing things often enough.

 

We already have featured content with more rewards - is that contecnt actually run more than other things?

I have no idea.

 

I know I would be a player that just keeps having fun doing what I enjoy, I do that now during events in most all MMOs.

The changing of the rewards for doing the same thing one did yesterday would at the least be a bit confusing, IMO, for those that don't 'keep up with the minutae'.

 

Other games give rewards for just logging into the game each day...

Seems like if the whole reason for making a change is to simply give the have-nots more INF, why not just give them more INF - you log in, if you have less than this many INFs, your get the Rewards Booster mentioned earlier applied to your character automagically.

Or just run a script on the DB that gives every account with a total INF of less than X, Y amount as a booster, in an email to the account.

Seems simpler than trying to code out some balancing act that is meant to do nothing more than give crumbs to those that don't how to get them.

 

Any of these things still seem like a lot of effort to expend on players that don't seem to want to expend that effort themsleves...

[roleki]

17 minutes ago, Leogunner said:

I was thinking more along the lines of rotating server diminishes/boosts depending on what is ran the most.  Basically content, TF, contacts and modes played more often would get a diminished value for the next content cycle while content, TF (SF!!), contacts and modes played very seldom get a boosted return for the next content cycle.  So if AE is shown to be ran 55% among all content while the rest fit in the 45% side, AE would get a diminishing value for the week and if a certain contact or SF/TF is shown to have not been ran at all for multiple weeks, a bonus to that content would be added equivalent to the time/difficulty involved.  Even if you yourself don't want to run the content despite the extra rewards it grants, you could at least gain solace that some scarce rag-tag villain group running those contacts that barely anyone even knows about are getting some extra benefits despite the lack of participants.

That makes sense too, or maybe leave everything at 1.00x as it is now, then for 'rarer' content, scale rewards accordingly? 

 

What I was thinking when I made the suggestion earlier is, how would I get players to naturally gravitate back to contacts and TFs "... like we used to" and still put a bump out for people who prefer to do 'X' and only 'X'?  So that's where that came from; I would NOT favor anything that discouraged people from doing what THEY do outright, but I am fully behind something that would incentivize trying (gasp) Other Things.

 

ETA: not advocating so violent or drastic, but IMO ED improved the game immensely because it ALLOWED us to try enhancing secondary effects and still get our beat on.  It was wildly unpopular and people still bristle when it is mentioned, but, maybe the in-game economy is due a tectonic shift of similar scale?

Edited February 21, 2020 by roleki

[Haijinx]

50 minutes ago, roleki said:

April 27th 2004, according to my copy of google.

So its possible that this sort of income vs activity balance has existed for a while.  

 

 

[Leogunner]

2 minutes ago, jubakumbi said:

Other games give rewards for just logging into the game each day...

Seems like if the whole reason for making a change is to simply give the have-nots more INF, why not just give them more INF - you log in, if you have less than this many INFs, your get the Rewards Booster mentioned earlier applied to your character automagically.

Or just run a script on the DB that gives every account with a total INF of less than X, Y amount as a booster, in an email to the account.

Seems simpler than trying to code out some balancing act that is meant to do nothing more than give crumbs to those that don't how to get them.

 

Any of these things still seem like a lot of effort to expend on players that don't seem to want to expend that effort themsleves...

Because it's too difficult to tell who is a "have-not".  What's stopping someone just making several dozen accounts and just log in to mail the rewards to the main account?

 

Federalized Welfare is never the answer unless someone is literally incapable.  And even then, those that are incapable should be relying on the charity of the capable rather than getting free gibs at the expense of the economy.

 

And the purpose of my suggestion isn't so much to give crumbs to the supposed needy.  It's to get players to expand their playing experience.  Rather than just rotating the same sets of TF/SF that people only run on one side, maybe more would participate in varying content.  And even if they don't, people that do will be rewarded.

[jubakumbi]

Just now, Leogunner said:

Because it's too difficult to tell who is a "have-not".  What's stopping someone just making several dozen accounts and just log in to mail the rewards to the main account?

 

Federalized Welfare is never the answer unless someone is literally incapable.  And even then, those that are incapable should be relying on the charity of the capable rather than getting free gibs at the expense of the economy.

 

And the purpose of my suggestion isn't so much to give crumbs to the supposed needy.  It's to get players to expand their playing experience.  Rather than just rotating the same sets of TF/SF that people only run on one side, maybe more would participate in varying content.  And even if they don't, people that do will be rewarded.

I agree, it's a bad idea, again just taking the basic premise of inequality to an extreme on the slippery slope.

 

As for expanding the content players encounter, I was serious - does the featured content get more people to play it?

If it does, then that's really what you propose from a certain point of view - adding rewards to content to get players to play that content.

 

I think the same thing can happen as you describe with just giving INF away - the hardcore players will run multiple characters through the enhanced reward content as fast as they can, gaining an inordinate amount of the shinies meant for balancing then just becomes the new money machine.

 

IME, there is no way in code to stop the players determined to game the system, just as there is no way in code to get players to become IO users, etc., if that is not their gig...

IMO, we are talking about trying to alter human gaming behavior - if we crack that nut, it's time to get hired by the casinos...

[Haijinx]

I just realized now that I gave my box away I'm Cohomeless. 

 

 

 

 

[Haijinx]

This could explain why so many heroes are forced to ride public transit though.

[Leogunner]

3 minutes ago, jubakumbi said:

As for expanding the content players encounter, I was serious - does the featured content get more people to play it?

If it does, then that's really what you propose from a certain point of view - adding rewards to content to get players to play that content.

No idea.  I'm pretty casual as I just run solo on whichever side the character I'm playing happens to be on and when SF or TF are being advertised, I run whichever I'm not bored of.  For me, it'd hopefully get people to run things not often run and I'll tag along.

 

As for gaming the system, I suppose I'm not really participating in the discussion.  I'm not that concerned with farmers or poor slobs who know nothing about making inf or refuse to try.  My angle is aimed purely at running those content streams rarely touched and put a break on others overly ran.  When you start trying to form SFs or run through some arc that no one wants to help in because they are focused on AE farms or the same TFs needed for specific accolade rewards, it gets daunting and if we're going to hobble on with less than 4 or doing extra travel, it might feel more inciting and worth the effort.

 

I suppose certain aspects of the other content could also be adjusted like excessive travel times or way too many street sweeping missions....but then I'm not really participating in the discussion if I go on more than I have.

[roleki]

6 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

So its possible that this sort of income vs activity balance has existed for a while.  

 

 

From the dawn of time, only, people seem to forget that it was much, much worse back on Live.

 

In those days, people would sell inf on eBay outright.  Then AE came along and everything at Wentworth's went off the charts. 

 

HC doesn't have that problem, despite popular reports that say otherwise.