On Deterministic and Non-Deterministic Reward Systems

I was reading through Brian Holinka's Twitter feed a few weeks ago when I noticed his responses to these tweets by DanZiniti:

@DanZiniti @Ghostcrawler PvP gear is gained through a deterministic system while PvE gear is gained through a non-deterministic one.
— Holinka (@holinka) June 14, 2013 

@DanZiniti @Ghostcrawler We agree this isn't perfect system and we continue to discuss ideas.
— Holinka (@holinka) June 14, 2013

While the idea of PvE and PvP gear being identical is an intriguing one, I think it's ultimately impossible to balance to a satisfactory degree - too many players will feel like one method is more efficient than another and flock towards that content, even if they find it less fun. What interests me more about this tweet is the underlying idea that there should be a variety of ways to earn identical gear within a single format - that each piece gear should be obtainable both in deterministic and non-deterministic fashions.

PvP gear already has a minor implementation of this concept in that the world bosses Nalak and Sha of Anger have small chances to drop specialization-appropriate Season 13 Tyrannical Gladiator's and Season 12 Malevolent Gladiator's gear, respectively, but by and large most PvP gear is purchased through the deterministic Conquest and Honor Point currencies. Personally, I think this system could be expanded to offer additional non-deterministic methods for earning season-appropriate gear, such as via raids on the opposing faction's capital cities, achieving victory in world PvP zones, and completing certain tough objectives in battlegrounds and arenas (like winning Alterac Valley or Isle of Conquest with more than half of your total reinforcements remaining, or winning 3 arena matches in a row). In order to minimize incentive to "game the system" and keep such rewards as a bonus, loot could be awarded in a manner similar to world bosses - namely you have a small chance to win a random piece of gear and a large chance to win a bag of gold or PvP-specific consumables- keeping things unpredictable.

PvE gear, on the other hand, already has both deterministic (Valor and Justice Points) and non-deterministic (boss drops) systems for obtaining gear, but the fact that each system offers different gear can be problematic. For example, players who participate primarily in Raid Finder might feel pressured to replace tier gear that has fun set bonuses with less exciting Valor Point gear because of the item level difference, cheapening the value of boss drops, while players who engage in heroic raiding may be unable to take advantage of Valor Points' role as a consolation prize because the currency only offers rewards with item levels equivalent to normal mode raids. Thus, it makes sense to me to consolidate the two systems such that Valor Points could be used to purchase the same gear that bosses drop at the same item level as the player's highest-difficulty victory over that boss.

I could envision such a consolidated system that works thusly:

1. Any player would be able to purchase Raid Finder gear for Valor Points one week after that wing has opened for Raid Finder. This would require the total maximum Valor Points cap to be increased so players don't run into it while waiting to be able to purchase items.
   
   
2. Players who defeat a boss on Flex/Normal/Heroic difficulty would be able to purchase Flex/Normal/Heroic gear (respectively) from that boss' loot table for Valor Points.
   
   
3. Valor Point costs for purchasing items would be relatively higher, so that gearing doesn't become too efficient, and farming bosses stays attractive.
   
   
4. Both purchasing and upgrading items from higher difficulties would cost more Valor Points than those same items from lower difficulties.
   
   
5. Higher difficulties would allow proportionally more Valor Points to be earned per kill and per week, such that purchase and upgrade prices stay consistent with weekly progression (i.e. if Raid Finder players cap at 1000 Valor Points per week, spend 2000 points to purchase an item, and upgrade that item for 250 points, Normal raiders might cap at 1200 points per week, spend 2400 points to purchase an item, and upgrade it for 300 points).
   
   
6. Elite and Thunderforged-equivalent items would be acquired solely by drops, so Valor Points remain a consolation prize for bad luck and not a primary gearing method for raiders.

Such deterministic and non-deterministic hybrid systems for PvP and PvE gear aren't without their flaws, certainly, and I doubt Blizzard will go in that direction anytime soon, but it's an interesting thought, nonetheless.

An Update on Objective-Specific PvP Inventory Items

Good news, everyone: I'm either a genius or a prophet. =P

@TheLionGuard Trying this out for SotA in 5.4
— Holinka (@holinka) June 18, 2013

For those of you who don't know Brian Holinka (@holinka on Twitter) is the public face for the PvP side of World of Warcraft's design team. Also, this paragraph is brought to you by the wacky desire to ensure the post is actually longer than the title. <.<

Are Objective-Specific PvP Inventory Items Still Necessary?

While PvP in World of Warcrft has always involved the use of consumables, such as potions, bandages, and drinks, the Wrath of the Lich King expansion added a brand new type of inventory item for PvPers: objective-specific explosives. Explosives were actually fairly frequently used items in classic WoW PvP, and items such as Ez-Thro Dynamite and Ez-Thro Dynamite II were common sights on the faction auction houses because they were effectively cheap bonus damage, but those were more general use items than what I'm referring to. I'm speaking of items such as The RP-GG in Lake Wintergrasp, Massive Seaforium Charge in the Strand of the Ancients battleground, and both Seaforium Bombs and Huge Seaforium Bombs in the Isle of Conquest battleground, all of which were designed to help players demolish specific obstacles.

However, one question comes to mind again and again when I encounter these items in their respective PvP zones: why do these items still exist?

By that question, I don't mean to imply that these items have outlived their usefulness and should be removed from the game - quite the opposite, in fact - but I ask because the fundamental mechanics of such explosives seems downright antiquated in the Mists of Pandaria age. These days, when Blizzard wants to give players access to a zone or encounter-specific ability, it often does so through a User Interface element named "ExtraActionButton1", commonly just called the Extra Action Button because there has yet to be an "ExtraActionButton2". The Extra Action Button debuted in Cataclysm's Dragon Soul raid instance during the Ultraxion encounter, where it served as a way for players to activate the encounter-specific Heroic Will ability to negate powerful attacks, and is now a frequently-used element in many of Pandaria's dungeons and scenarios.

So here we have this user interface element that has dedicated screen real estate, can be activated by picking up specific objects (as evidenced by the Smash! ability granted by picking up Big Ol' Hammers dropped by slain Virmen Boppers during and prior to the Hoptallus encounter in Stormstout Brewery), and is entirely unused in PvP - why not use it for RP-GGs and the various Seaforum explosives? Unlike raids, which tend to become less frequented over time, battlegrounds stay in use for years, and thus I think it makes sense to expend some resources to ensure that they stay up to date and modern.

Also, we need a tabard wardrobe and a toy chest, because I no longer have spare inventory space for PvP bombs. <.<

PvP Thoughts: On Battleground Losses and Honor Rewards

As I've been PvPing more often in WoW, I've increasingly run across some of the unsavory characters people often complain about in PvP—I'm sure you know the types: botters, AFKers, and (most infuriatingly) "just let them win"ers. I think the most frustrating thing about running into these players is that the controls put in place by Blizzard to prevent these kinds of behaviors are completely overshadowed by the incentives the game gives to engage in any or all of the above. Essentially, people do these types of things because they consider gaining a mediocre reward for little to no effort as being far superior to gaining a slightly less mediocre reward for a substantially larger amount of effort.

And the fact of the matter is that they're right. The reason for this, as contradictory as it may seem at first, in my opinion is because Battlegrounds are simultaneously too rewarding of and not rewarding enough of failure—it all depends on the degree, the particular shade of gray, of that failure. While there is some level of pride that can be had from pushing the opposing team to their limits and losing by the slimmest of margins, at present there is quantitatively little additional reward for doing so.

Consider it from a PvE perspective. If you zone into a dungeon or raid and wipe on the first trash pack before the group disbands, you get nothing but a repair bill and some wasted time. If you kill a few trash packs but are unable to down any bosses, you get some gold and maybe some vendor/crafting/green items. If you down the boss, you'll have a chance at winning a blue or purple and maybe some Justice or Valor Points. Complete all but the final boss, though, and you'll still have earned a decent-sized sum of gold and goods, even if you don't get the bonus prize(s) for ultimate success.

In PvP, though, the difference in reward between standing around at a graveyard twiddling your thumbs for an entire match and losing by the skin of your teeth is fairly negligible. As such, I think that widening this gap significantly is the best way to give players reason to give it their all every match. "Just let them win so we can requeue" is a far less appealing argument to make if you know that you're within spitting distance of a better reward no matter what the current situation looks like.

Imagine if the following system were put in place: if you win a Battleground you earn 100% of the bonus Honor that Battleground awards, and the bonus Honor awarded by each Battleground is significant enough as compared to slaying enemy characters such that it is more economical to complete the Battleground's objectives and queue for another one rather than stall victory and farm kills. On the other hand, if you lose, you have a potential to earn a percentage of the bonus Honor depending on how close the fight was. If you lose by a slim margin, you earn up to 75% of the bonus Honor that Battleground awards (so almost as much as the victor, but not quite). The wider the margin of your loss, the less bonus Honor you receive, down to gaining no bonus Honor whatsoever for getting totally steamrolled.

As an example, the metrics could work out as such:

For Arathi Basin:

0% bonus Honor baseline for losing
+10% bonus Honor for each base controlled at end of match (maximum of 4 = 40% total maximum)
+5% bonus Honor for having more than 800 resource points
+5% bonus Honor for having more than 1000 resource points
+10% bonus Honor for having more than 1200 resource points
+15% bonus Honor for having more than 1400 resource points
=75% cumulative maximum for a loss with 1400 or more resource points and with 4 bases controlled at end of match

For Warsong Gulch:

0% bonus Honor baseline for losing
+15% bonus Honor for each flag capture (maximum of 2 = 30% total maximum)
+10% bonus Honor for a match lasting longer than 10 minutes
+10% bonus Honor for a match lasting longer than 15 minutes
+10% bonus Honor for a match lasting longer than 20 minutes
+2% bonus Honor for a match lasting longer than 21 minutes
+2% bonus Honor for a match lasting longer than 22 minutes
+2% bonus Honor for a match lasting longer than 23 minutes
+2% bonus Honor for a match lasting longer than 24 minutes
+2% bonus Honor for reaching the 25 minute time limit
+5% bonus Honor for a tied loss
=75% cumulative maximum for a tied 2-2 momentum loss from hitting the time limit

And so on and so forth for the various other Battlegrounds.

Assuming the bonus Honor is significant enough to be enticing, I think the net result would be this:

• Losing teams would have a reason to put up the best fight they possibly can, because the closer the match, the better their reward.
• Winning teams would be disincentivized from resting on their laurels because winning quickly and requeuing would be mathematically superior Honor gains than allowing things to draw on longer than necessary.
• "Just let them win"ers would have less reason to give up the fight when investing incrementally more effort gives a reasonable chance at incrementally greater reward.
• AFKers and botters who contribute nothing would earn less rewards over time as their lack of participation would result in wider margins of loss for their teams. This would also encourage reporting of said individuals since they'd immediately cut into potential honor gains for everyone who is participating. As it stands right now, many PvPers have such little faith in Blizzard's reporting system that botters and AFKers seem to be able to hang around for entire matches due to lack of votes against them.

I do think that there are other methods Blizzard can employ to reward participation and discourage giving up, but I'll get into those in a future post.

Brief Thoughts on PvP

Lately, I've been getting more and more into PvP in WoW. Part of this is because how efficiently I can cap out Valor Points these days - all it takes is one day of Raid Finder and one day of raiding and I'm either capped, or extremely close to it. As such, it makes little sense for me to run heroic dungeons, because I've already obtained most of the meaningful upgrades they provide.

The other significant reason, as silly as it may sound at first, is the introduction of Void Storage. I think one of the biggest problems I had with PvP in the past is how squishy I'd felt, and since I didn't have enough bag space for a full set of PvP gear with which to unsquishify, PvP would easily become a source of frustration rather than enjoyment. Thanks to Void Storage cleaning out much of my bank and bags, I now have the inventory space necessary to maintain a complete set of resilience gear (well, nearly - I'm still using a PvE weapon because it's better than what's available from Honor Points), and as such I find myself leaps and bounds tougher to kill.

Momma said heal you out!

Rather than being frustrated by my own helplessness in one-on-one scenarios, now I find I can easily survive as long as I need to in such situations - often long enough for reinforcements to arrive or for my opponent to get bored and try to find someone less difficult to kill. It's gleefully heartening.

Plus, it seems that more and more of my raiding friends are also taking a new interest in PvP. While I certainly still queue solo almost all of the time, just the mere prospect that I know people I can go to for advice and the occasional Horde-slaying somehow makes the whole experience all the more enjoyable. What a difference a change as simple as that can make.

It's the End of the Raid as We Know It

So this past Friday marked the final official TRI raid of this expansion. We wrapped up with one last Lich King kill. It's a fitting finale, I guess. To say I'm sad about TRI no longer officially raiding 25s is a bit of an understatement. I think the worst part about this at the moment is not knowing what TRI is going to do in Cataclysm. Will we stay together as a 25-man raid, or will we break up into a group of 10-mans? As it stands right now, the future is more than a little uncertain, at least to us non-officers—I have no idea about whether the officers have discussed things or started planning or if they're just waiting for Cataclysm to drop before figuring things out.

Officers have talked about how there will likely be unofficial 10s and 25s continuing to run raids up until the next expansion (or at least patch 4.0) drops, but to be totally and completely honest, I doubt anything much is going to happen. I'm not saying that to disrespect the officers or anything—I'm just being realistic. Between burnout, summer plans, and StarCraft II, people just don't seem to have the time to put things together anymore. For example, the Icecrown Citadel 10-man group I ran with ended up disbanding. It was supposed to combine with another 10-man group to keep going, but I haven't heard a thing about it running or not running for months now. Another 10-man specializing in achievements and hardmodes was under construction, but that either fizzled out or went underground. I'd pick up the mantle and try to put something together myself, but I can almost never get a full raid rostered unless it's an ad-hoc weekly raid quest run, and I simply can't justify either the time investment or the inevitable frustration I will be left with if I try to put together anything else. =(

On top of that, the forums that were the essential out-of-game hub for TRI folks to plan things have pretty much died out. Part of it is due the fact that raid signups were moved to an EQdkp site, and part of it is the result of the snowball effect in reverse (in other words, the forums just couldn't maintain the critical mass necessary to remain active). This makes it exponentially more difficult to actually generate interest in any event that requires some degree of forethought and planning. Events such as raiding. =\

Honestly, I just don't know what to do now. Raiding is one of the major factors that keeps me playing WoW. On weeks when I don't raid (either because there is no raid or because I know I won't be able to attend), I find myself logging on less often. Additionally, when I do log on during such weeks, I end up aimlessly wasting time just logged in and running around Dalaran wondering what to do. Comparatively, weeks when I know I'm raiding are far more fulfilling: I log in with clear-set goals, I waste less time running laps through Dalaran, and I'm better able to focus on the tasks I set for myself (such as hunting achievements or getting recent upgrades gemmed and enchanted).

I guess I'll just mess around with PvP for a while. Battles in Lake Wintergrasp are usually a good time, though Arenas and Battlegrounds are far less fun for me. In hopes of making the lattermost a bit less stressful, I've invested some Badges of Triumph and Honor Points into a pseudo-set of PvP gear to get me to 799 resilience (which is 799 more than I used to have =P ), though the loss of nearly 15,000 mana is very noticeable. I'm still horrible at PvP, and the chance of me heading into Arenas is hovering roughly between fat and none whatsoever, but a quick trial run by random queue has shown me that Eye of the Storm is at least tolerable with some PvP gear.

Perhaps it's time to try my hand at leveling an alt again. All previous attempts have been futile, but it's worth a shot, I guess...