Best Ultron solution?

Turbosmooth

The game should let people grind to get their 1MM points as if there is an active round.

I got my Quicksilver covers. But my Alliance is not great. Two other players did some good work, but we might not even finish Round 5. No SW for me. I would give up my QS for the SW.

Eddiemon

You are arguing against yourself now.

Phumade wrote:

Ultimately, someone in both alliances made a conscious decision to alter play to enable other people to achieve certain awards. Good Event design should continue to encourage people to make cooperative decisions that benefit the entire alliance.

Good event design encourages people to make decisions that benefit the entire Alliance.

This was a bad progression table because people could make a decision that would hurt other members of the alliance.

But you should take away their ability to make that decision because they might not make the 'right' decision. There canot be a 'right' decision without a corresponding 'wrong' option. You're trying to argue that decisions and teamwork add depth to the game while arguing that the game should remove those decisions because some of them have consequences.

Thanks for making my point!!!!

I don't really think you have a point. You want everyone in the Alliance to be able to be all out for themselves to get all their rewards while at the same time paying lip service to actual co-operation and teamwork.

The poster said that their Alliance was mature enough to appreciate 5 free things and not get bent out of shape that some of them could have had 6 free things. And you're still focuse on how the sixth free thing is a problem.

Phumade

Eddiemon wrote:

You are arguing against yourself now.

Phumade wrote:

Ultimately, someone in both alliances made a conscious decision to alter play to enable other people to achieve certain awards. Good Event design should continue to encourage people to make cooperative decisions that benefit the entire alliance.

Good event design encourages people to make decisions that benefit the entire Alliance.

For the record, I would say that the reward structure of this event was "bad" design because it creates a conflict between individual goals and alliance goals. I hope you didn't misconstrue my statement to imply that the OP alliance members actions were a result of "good event design", rather they are acting altruistically and against their self interest by stopping at the 1M point mark. My point here is to make the analogy that their behavior is actually no different than when a commander decides that the high point scorers need to slow down play for the benefit of other alliance members.

Eddiemon wrote:

This was a bad progression table because people could make a decision that would hurt other members of the alliance.

But you should take away their ability to make that decision because they might not make the 'right' decision. There canot be a 'right' decision without a corresponding 'wrong' option. You're trying to argue that decisions and teamwork add depth to the game while arguing that the game should remove those decisions because some of them have consequences.

In many ways, YES!

The best game designs should give you the illusion of choice while still encouraging you to make 'right decisions' and progress to an end state. Good game design should discourage 'wrong' decisions because this is a game and not real life were 'wrong' decisions have real consequences. Let me make this analogy, In diablo, "hardcore" mode exists to create a very real sense of consequence for a gamer. This is fine for people who choose to participate in this mode, but I don't think you would argue that "hardcore" mode should be the normal and default state of diablo gameplay. In fact, I would say that the designers probably don't enjoy "hardcore" mode for the simple fact that most participants won't get to enjoy all the fruits of their labour. In summary, good game design should minimize the consequences of 'wrong' decisions while amplifying the benefit of 'right' decisions.

In bringing this discussion back to Avengers PVE, the ultron prize tokens tied to QS nodes creates an incentive for people to farm ultron->QS nodes, a natural consequence is that people will score over 1M points. This mechanic by itself isn't a bad feature. Its the combination of that mechanic and the fact that points were limited to 17.5M is what creates a conflict between

a. Individual players desires to maximize scores and ultron tokens and
b. Alliances commander goals of ensuring that every member can maximize awards.

If the available points pool had been 30M, I would not be arguing that the progression table was poorly chosen.

Eddiemon wrote:

Thanks for making my point!!!!

I don't really think you have a point. You want everyone in the Alliance to be able to be all out for themselves to get all their rewards while at the same time paying lip service to actual co-operation and teamwork.

Seems to me that should be the point of every game. Maximized individual goals aligned with maximized teams goals! While I don't deny that you can make a game that creates incentives for personal achievement at the cost of team achievement, it would seem to me that most people want to play a game that is "I win, we all win". The original poster acknowledges my factual premise, there aren't enough points in the event for all members to reach the highest achievement. By game rules, only a maximum of 17 people could have achieved the top award, and they achieve those awards at the expense of 3 people who can't. I would note that if we prioritized an even distribution of points among all 20 members. Each person would get 856K and no one would have achieved maximum progressions awards.

Good game designs should align individual objectives within team goals! I.e. everyone on a team should be able to 'win' while still enabling a team win.

Its up to individuals to decide if 5/6 rewards constitutes a win. I personally, would tell you thats not a good thing for alliance commanders to decide who gets 5/6 awards. I want all of my teammates to get all possible awards and my job as a commander is ensure that the rules objectively allow them to achieve those rewards and that I or individual members of the alliance aren't precluding other members of the same team from achieving their goals.

Eddiemon wrote:

The poster said that their Alliance was mature enough to appreciate 5 free things and not get bent out of shape that some of them could have had 6 free things. And you're still focuse on how the sixth free thing is a problem.

actually he said

I guess my alliance is composed of more mature and practical members than some because no one had an issue with slowing down play at the 1M mark, or expressed any hard feelings for not getting one lousy QS cover, but everyone was quite happy to get all three SW covers.

and the bold section (my added emphasis) reinforces my point that someone had to make a decision outside of intended game design to change the optimal play style to maximize awards for the alliance. Kabir himself acknowledges this concept.

Demiurge_Kabir wrote:

Hey all,
Just weighing in on the issue Alliances are experiencing where the main Avengers vs Ultron sub-chapter is closed after Round 8 is done. We initially designed it this way because when you reach the point target in Round 8, you’ve beaten Ultron. This wasn’t intended to promote inter-Alliance combat, but it has and that’s not fun. Thanks for the feedback about this. We’re looking at fixing this issue in the future, but won’t have a fix in time for Run 2.

My emphasis in bold