Design Philosophy: Reward vs Punishment

Unknown

Hi everyone, I'm Chuckova, long time lurker, first time poster.

You might have seen me in such tournaments like Hood lighting round failing to get top 2.

I usually don't post, but the direction of the game is taking a turn for the worst, so I wanted to say something and hopefully help get it back on the right track.



Design philosophy: Reward vs Punishment.


It's usually better the reward those that play they way you want as a developer instead of punishing those that play differently.

Seems like MPQ is making the same mistake that early World of Warcraft made by going the direction of punishment instead of reward.


Blizzard didn't want players playing 24/7 and killing themselves, so they wanted to make players take a break once a while.

So in early WoW beta, they add a 'fatigue system' which punished players who played many hours a day with dimishined xp gain and other penalites. Everyone hated it.

They eventually replaced it with the 'rest system' which is increase xp gain for those that logged off. Everyone loved it.


They both achieved the same result of getting players to take breaks, but the implementation of rewarding rather than punishing is vastly superior and accepting to the players.


In MPQ

If you log in everyday and play one match you get a bonus chest containing some 100-500 xp or 1 health pack or 50 gold.


Could you imagine if it was change, that if you logged in every 24 hours you got nothing, but if you didn't login every 24 hours you would be TAXED 1 health pack or 100-500 xp or 50 gold.

This idea is obviously super terrible, should be burned with fire, and never spoken of again.

Both give reason for player to log in every 24 hours, but one is much superior to the other.


Currently in MPQ there are some examples of punishing instead of rewarding.


1)

The Oscorp Heroic event is implemented poorly by punishing players with the lock out of most characters and forcing the use of a few select heroes, most of whom have no boost bonus.

A hero pool similar to the Hulk and Ares event would have been much better, where every hero is available, but a few select heroes are boosted so players are encouraged and rewarded for using these heros.

"Captain America has 10x boost and will make this event easier? Sure I'll pump 10-20 levels into him." That is the feeling you want players to have.

Not, "Oh god I need to use my unboosted level 6 Captain America for this event. Because everyone else is locked out. Time to play something else for the next 5 days"

You need to give players the OPTION to use the heroes you want them to use, not FORCE them by locking everyone else out and alienating a large percentage of your player base who either don't have those heroes,

or don't have the levels for those heroes.


This event also punishes grinders with increased mob levels of 230 max for every match, and punishes people who don't play a lot with Zero rubber banding.

It's pretty obvious some tweaking needs to take place to achieve a finer balance of grinding and rubber banding.


2)

Future implementation of -10 iso skip tax.

There was a brief moment where this was actually live for like 5 mins of game time a few days ago. The skip button was pink and had "Skip -10" on it if I remember correctly.

Just seeing it, I had an instant reaction of disgust.


It would be wiser to reward players not to skip constantly rather punishing them with a skip tax.

I remember someone suggesting some kind of streak bonus which breaks on skip or lose.

This bonus has to be good enough so there is a decision to skip and break the streak or not.

But not so good that skipping is no longer a option.

The max streak bonus also can't be too long because after a skip it should be somewhat quick to rebuild it back to max bonus.


*note: numbers are not set in stone, it's just to give you a rough idea of how it would work.

2 streak: + 5 iso bonus
3 streak: +10 iso bonus
4+ streak: +20 iso bonus per win


now there is a small incentive to keep your streak alive and not skip. But players still have the option to skip if need be.

Also it has a side benefit of gently leading players to play on different stages.

Since if I get a hard match up on the forest stage, to keep my streak I have to play on a different stage. So it's like you get 2 free skips with stage changes before you have to break your streak with an actual skip.

This also gives a small incentive for players to level other heroes to take advantage of these 'free' stage skips in some tournaments to keep the streak alive.


with this system, the average iso gain per match will increase from 105 iso currently to a range of 105-125 iso.


Which is similar to what it would have been after the developers added the 100 iso and 200 iso rewards which makes it (70 + 100 + 140 + 200) / 4 = 127.5 iso,

with -10 skip tax and average of 2 skips per match it goes down to 107.5 iso per match. 2 skip per match is probably a very low estimate given the current match making system for many players.


In the end I don't think this tax would reduced the number of skips as much as you would expect.

But, it for sure will annoy and frustrate a lot of the player base.

Because sometimes you just need to push that skip button for one reason or another outside your control, MMR hell, 0 or 1 point reward, +50 lvls above me, and it's just so shiny! I need to click it!

I believe the streak system(reward) is superior to the skip tax system(punishment) for the players, and in the end achieves what the developers want more effectively, less skipping overall.


So to the developers and designers of MPQ, for the future changes, I hope you ask yourself if this feature is rewarding the player or punishing the player.


Reward the players and they will reward you back... with money!, buckets full of money! and less forum hate, which is probably more valuable at the end of the day.

Just kidding, money is awesome!

Unknown

I'm on board.

The difference in perception is amazing. A skip tax and a streak bonus are essentially the same thing, but I want to be given things, not seeing them taken away. And in the Hunt, when Captain America was buffed, I played the hell out of him, even leveled him up to 60. And I was happy to do it, despite the fact that he's one of the weaker characters in the game. I had to use him, but because I could've used anyone else, it felt like a mandatory choice and I was happy to take him along. Right now I'm just angry looking at my roster choices in Oscorp.

bcas76

Wow, that's brilliant. The skip tax makes me not want to play in tourneys because there's a chance I'll need to skip, and break even or possibly lose iso for playing more than two matches. A steak bonus would make me more likely to accept a match with even odds for a win just to avoid ending the steak, or at least having it end because I tried (played) and failed rather than just giving up. Which I've been doing a lot lately and it isn't because my team's bad. It's because everyone had the same team; the dubious AI giving me only a slight advantage easily negated by a bad board.

Anyway, thank you for making a productive, reasoned criticism and a great suggestion. I wish all threads at least started this way.

LordWill

Excellent post.

Stick vs. Carrot methodology in these types of games, or any game for that matter should embrace the carrot!

No one has said they don't like a challenge, but it needs to be attainable and rewarding. Fun is paramount.

We aren't asking for an I win button. Take a breath and step back and ask yourself how to give us what the players want that fits with the direction of the game.

Unknown

Welcome on board (hah!) Chuckova. Great post, completely agree with the points and sentiment. Let's see if the Devs take note. The crucial point, which you make so well, is that the same end result is achieved.

On that point - wouldn't it be good if the Devs could kick the tyres on new ideas in here first, instead of throwing them straight into the game? There are some clever, passionate individuals on this board, who genuinely care for the game. Harness the hive mind!

I was thinking along similar lines re: nerfs. Nerfs are inherently bad, as they change the mechanic. The mechanic is core to the experience in this game. You get a 'feel' for a character, familiarity increases your capability to do well. If Thorverine was so over-powered, introduce a new character/power who specifically balances them out more, either by matching the base power capabilities, or by diluting some of their skills. E.g. for Thor, someone who specifically heals / gains power the more Yellow / Green tiles there are on the board. (A buffed Daken would be good for this. heal more on Yellow, and create Strike tiles on Green. Daken would have been a perfect counter to Thorverine if he had been specced closer to them.)

CFacto

I agree. Every change recently has made the game less fun. Even if it is more balanced, it now has so many punishing aspects that it is not fun to play. I play games on my phone to have some casual fun (which I have and will spend money on if it is fun). This game has become slow and oppressive and, as you say, needs more carrot and less stick.

Unknown

There is an old saying in my country, it goes something like this:

"You will catch more flies to a drop of honey than to a whole barrel of vinegar"

Devs go figure.

Twysta

This is exactly the kind of things the devs need to listen to.

Unknown

Agree with almost every word, except that I'm a bit more on board with the very limited roster for heroics. Without scaling making it actually impossible, "do this with only these less than ideal heroes" is an interesting challenge mode to me, much like the ultra-limiting No Man's Land introduced some to the possibility that Moonstone isn't completely useless. Should probably slip a few more lv15 loaners in there to improve accessibility. I do understand some find it patronizing (Yeah, you know why I don't use this lesser-used character who isn't actually all that lesser-used? It's because she's **** without a green feeder, **** unless well covered and leveled, and **** at board control compared to other options. It's not because I'm stuck in a Thorverut, it's because I can read.).

Still should never have introduced Daredevil on a series of maps that are full of goons, Daken, non-red-users and heavily encourage stunlock. I do think his red's going to be scary, but they've managed to introduce him in an event that emphasizes only his weaknesses.

Streak Bonus (M-M-MULTIKILL) would be so vastly better, even if functionally identical to Skip Tax. Ooh, I'm winning bonuses! Go me.

Unknown

In current PVE they locked out even *Storm. So people who kept their starting party could fight.

And we discovered that leveling mob levels based on other people's play is nuts a full week ago, yet it stayed in the system.

Whoever plays on probably deserves, even wants the streak of punishments.

Vohnkar

Agreed with the post.

On the heroic events I don't mind if they "reduce" my rooster as long as the vent is playable, although I prefer events like hulk where you can play whatever heroe you want, but having the ones boosted gives you an edge. In fact I lvled captain america and hawkeye on the hulk event because they were boosted and it was fun to play something else.

If I had to play them at lvl 10 or so it would be boring, I lvled them to lvl 20-30 and they were fine for the first few missions at least. That would be the direction they should go, not punishing us on every step they do.

Twysta

Yeah I don't mind the limited roster too much for heroic mode, it's just the enemy level scaling that's the issue.

Unknown

Everything you said is true. I got knocked out of second place in the Thor tourney because the same people have been hitting me, and the decided to do it at 1 am. That shouldn't be allowed. Where ever in the us you're playing from 1 am is night.

warcin

Loved what you wrote here and this should be required reading for anyone starting in game design

Thank you

Unknown

I think the reason for skip tax is mostly to protect people ranked higher from being the target of everyone. If you're unshielded near the end of a tournament and in the top 10 or so, there's a strong chance you'll get hit several times in a couple of minutes as everyone skips through 20 enemies to target the high value targets. This means that shields are required at the end for any sort of position. Perhaps shields wouldn't be required as much if there were a skip tax.

I think reducing the amount won by 10-20 iso per skip (or by a percentage such as 10%) would eventually dissuade people from skipping large numbers of people + maybe a limit of 10 skips could stop people with lots of iso from ignoring it. I don't think requiring an up front payment to skip is a good idea - for one thing it would require going to earn iso in other ways if you run out when matched against a much stronger team which would break the game flow.

Unknown

bughunt wrote:

I think the reason for skip tax is mostly to protect people ranked higher from being the target of everyone. If you're unshielded near the end of a tournament and in the top 10 or so, there's a strong chance you'll get hit several times in a couple of minutes as everyone skips through 20 enemies to target the high value targets. This means that shields are required at the end for any sort of position. Perhaps shields wouldn't be required as much if there were a skip tax.

I think reducing the amount won by 10-20 iso per skip (or by a percentage such as 10%) would eventually dissuade people from skipping large numbers of people + maybe a limit of 10 skips could stop people with lots of iso from ignoring it. I don't think requiring an up front payment to skip is a good idea - for one thing it would require going to earn iso in other ways if you run out when matched against a much stronger team which would break the game flow.

If I'm matched against a team I'm pretty sure is going to flatten me (which, it has to be said, is far fewer teams than some seem to think, but can certainly be an issue with buffs or, say, a 1* team somehow getting matched against a MagsRagsSpidey or some such) what I anticipate doing is accepting the match, anyway, then retreating. You lose a few points (very few if they're higher rated than you), and little enough health that you can do a quick prologue heal or even carry straight on.

PorkBelly

Good ideas all around.

Incentives to play are always more effective than penalties.

I also prefer buffing other characters to compensate for ones that seem overpowered rather than nerfing the strong.

Unknown

Poster makes some very valid points however I caution giving them another reason to find something else to do other than fix the BROKEN MATCHMAKING


aside from that love his ideas!

Crazze47

Great post definitely agree with everything but like others I think a limited roster in heroic is okay as long as they fix scaling and maybe considering which characters they use more thoroughly. Very few of the characters chosen have any way to deal with countdown tiles, along with Daredevil not showing of his strengths in this event. Handled better I could see myself having fun in a heroic event.

turul

Could you imagine if it was change, that if you logged in every 24 hours you got nothing, but if you didn't login every 24 hours you would be TAXED 1 health pack or 100-500 xp or 50 gold.

They will be surely implementing this soon

Unknown

I wholeheartedly agree with OP: all points presented by him are pure gold. If the devs (and D3 for that matter) wish to hook players deeper into this f2p game, they need to shower them with tiny but instant rewards. This gives players (a false) sense of progression that might even open their purses. But blatantly showing every new rule and aspect of the game from the negative point of view (like recently done) will shoo customers away in the long run.