Victory Bonus - Upcoming Feature Discussion

IceIX

Up in the News and Announcements section as well, but here for conversation.

For S.H.I.E.L.D. Field Agent immediate consumption:
A recent memo was released detailing what on private S.H.I.E.L.D. forums our Agents have taken to calling "Skip Tax". While we have no intention of taking away an Agent's income while they are simply completing tasks in the line of duty, Agent feedback to the proposed change has been such that we have decided that moving forward with the change was not the right thing to do. So, while our reasoning behind wanting to implement the change in costs for skipping opponents in our Versus Simulators remained the same we decided to go back to the drawing board on how this would affect our Agents.

We have been rolling things around with our Level 7+ S.H.I.E.L.D. officers and doing some further digging on exactly how Agents are currently utilizing the Versus Simulators. With this additional data in hand, S.H.I.E.L.D. will be turning the income lowering "tax" into an incentive for bravely stepping up to opponents in the face of danger. Starting with the R48 revision to the Starktech Versus Simulator, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s quartermasters will offer bonus Iso for taking on matches without utilizing the Skip function of the device. This bonus will start at a peak and lower each time Skip is used until the Agent is finally being charged a small (capped) amount for continued use of the function. It is believed that Agents will be incentivized to earn extra Iso in addition to the normal 70/140 rewards that are available for each victory. The Victory Bonus is reset after every match, so even if an Agent ends up wanting to skip a couple of times for one match up, they will still be able to take advantage of the bonus Iso for the next match that they come into.

As a summary of what this will look like with R48:

- The Victory Bonus begins at +30 Iso for a win - The bonus lowers by 10 Iso per Skip - The bonus disappears at 0, then caps out at -10 Iso per skip after additional skips - The bonus returns to +30 Iso after the match is completed, win or lose - The Victory Bonus is only gained if the Agent is successful in their matchup

The intended effects of this change:

- Agents will skip less often due to the likelihood of increased Iso gain - Agents will fight other teams that are more balanced to their current matchmaking scores instead of skipping until they can find weaker Agents to cherry pick - Agents will begin falling more in line with others they *should* be matched up against as they are not winning against cakewalks all the time and raising their rating when they would otherwise be facing a challenging team - Being attacked multiple times by other Agents will decrease as Agents are incentivized to fight who they're matched against instead of picking someone "below" them, which multiple attack recipients often are. - As Agents get used to this system, they'll be gaining more Iso per battle overall.

S.H.I.E.L.D. officers will be monitoring this change after it goes live on the Simulators and will be ensuring that it in fact has the positive Agent training results that are expected. If necessary, tweaks to this system will be implemented to ensure that Agents feel the full positive effect of this change over time.

Unknown

AWESOME NEWS! Thank you thank you for choosing the carrot over the stick.

Puritas

good job

TheVulture

Woo hoo!

As I skip as little as possible, pure good news for me.

NorthernPolarity

Carrots, carrots for everybody! Thanks for listening to us devs, greatly appreciated.

Kelbris

What about if I have 500 points and I keep seeing people for 300? Will that be addressed?

I have no issue trying to beat someone who is a higher level than me (that's fun) but hitting someone worth 16 points that can fire back for 25+ is frustrating (not fun)

Although, removing retaliations would address this

Unknown

This is great news, and even better that the devs have listened to the community and responded with a change like this. Whoever first came up with a bonus streak idea on the forums deserves a medal!

Unknown

With a good "carrot" on one end and a small "stick" on the other, I think this change might finally get the MMR to start working as originally intended. Good job!

Unknown

Cheers!

+1 for the idea and looking forward to how it will work in practice.

Unknown

Nick-Fury wrote:

This is great news, and even better that the devs have listened to the community and responded with a change like this. Whoever first came up with a bonus streak idea on the forums deserves a medal!

That's me! Well, i wrote one of a few threads on that idea

turul

So +30 is the max bonus?

Unknown

This is basically like WoW having rest XP going from 100% XP and 50% penalty outside, to rest XP worth 200% XP and 100% normal and then double the XP needed period, but if people are happy, who am I to complain?

Unknown

Sounds great! Really like sound of that.

jojeda654

IceIX wrote:

For S.H.I.E.L.D. Field Agent immediate consumption

NOM NOM OM NOM

Unknown

THANK YOU!!!!!!!! This idea is a billion times better than a straight up skip tax. Now just add that skipping skips all three fights, not just one.

Unknown

Does the SKIP also take into account that Retaliations pop-up and cover the original next future victim???

Sometimes I don't want to retaliate for 6 points when the person they replaced is say worth 35 points.

Unknown

Good job all, I like it.

And I take it that this replaces the previous suggestion of increased ISO rewards.

Only problem now is that it isn't rolled out yet.

Unknown

If we *have* to have skips, this is a pretty generous compromise. It doesn't address a lot of the underlying mmr/retaliation issues, but good step in the right direction devs!

turul

Its still better to skip guys, if you can complete the new one in a shorter time

Unknown

This is much better than a skip tax. Now I just hope they'll stop giving me nothing but matches worth way less than 25 pts.

mags1587

This is great news. I really like this setup. You can skip a couple of times to find an opponent worth playing without losing ISO you already have, but it should cut down on skipping over and over and over and over.