Turns out with all the GJW Grading and real life stuff I totally missed a February Report. That means this one will be extra long. Topics covered: Gaming Nights, Bots, ROC Project, TOR CF Table Updates, Wiki Update for PVP Score, Star Conflict PoB Project, Diablo 3 CF Review, Non-GJW Gaming during a GJW, Old Tier 2 Games, and catching up on past Gorefests.
You've probably all read in GM Pravus' recent report that we're going to be bringing Gaming Nights back. These will occur twice per week (days TBD) and the member with the best PVP Score will be earning a PoB. This project is currently at the top of my To Do List, its an easy win and we should see this happening in the next few weeks.
The longer term piece of this is making DBBot do some kind of slick match making, score calculating voodoo. Apparently this used to happen (different Bot) in the dark ages of IRC, so hopefully this won't take too long to get out to everyone.
Also mentioned in the GM Report, Jac and I will be working on some modifications to the ROC to limit the gaming drama that occurs. Whether this results in an entirely new section or an update to an existing part like Unsportsmanlike Conduct is yet to be determined. More details to follow as our discussions continue.
The most recent patch of TOR included several changes and updates to the Flashpoints in game. We're making the following changes to keep our systems in line with the in game updated Bioware is making:
Short section. I've added some clarification to the PoB Wiki page which explains what platforms are currently not at the default value for PVP Score Weighting. These items were covered in my last report, but hadn't made their way to the wiki until now.
We are planning for this to go live very soon. We are currently looking at it based on the different classes of ships available in game (there's 3) and the Tiers for each of them (5). Something that's been tossed around is to earn a PoB for maxing out all Ships in a Tier of a Class. This would be specific to the Tier, resulting in a max of 5 PoB which could be earned from Star Conflict. An Example:
This project is still ongoing and that path forward may change before Go-Live. Feedback is always welcome.
With the introduction of Ancient (aka better) gear Blizzard has once again thrown our CF tables off from in game reality. During this review of Diablo 3 we're going to be considering a different angle on earning CFs in game all together. With the introduction of Rifts and Greater Rifts we have the potential to move rewarding activity in Diablo 3 to be more in line with TOR. Using this sort of as a Tier'ed Flashpoint type thing (with demons instead of Jedi/Sith). Here's a first glance at what's being tossed around, again, all subject to change:
These values have been based on the target Greater Rift completion times of 15 minutes. Additional consideration has been made on lowering the regular Rift values based on progress we've seen with Seasonal characters. With characters less than 1 month old it is already possible to crush through Torment 6 difficulty. That makes it seem like the difficulty levels are no longer a good standard to apply for the game.
Once again, nothing final yet. Feedback is welcome.
One of the suggestions which has been popular on this topic has been to create a new IRC Channel specifically for Vendettas. This would allow members to utilize DBGaming for "normal" gaming throughout the year, however challenges for GJW/Vendettas would need to be made in a different channel. Probably something like #Vendetta, which we could register with X for control over. Check out the thread and provide your thoughts.
So last month I added a proposal in the Forum Thread related to this topic for additional discussion. There have been no additional comments on the thread yet, so I'm taking that as a positive thing. Baring anything groundbreaking next April we'll be applying the following rule to Tier 2 Platforms.
Any Tier 2 Game (except Star Wars Games) which has no matches submitted in a 12 month period may be removed after notification of this game's "Near Retirement" status in a Fist Report and no earlier than one month after the Report is published.
Due to the GJW taking up most of January and February I postponed both of these Gorefest Events. Now we're going to play some catch up. There will be two Gorefests in March (for January and February) and two in April (for March and April). Dates are as follows, competitions will be live soon:
This report is already crazy long and I see I have several competitions that still need to be judged for this section. To get all the earlier information out sooner, I'm going to delay this section until next report.
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For D3: Are those CFs on top of 'Killing Named Mob' or in place of?
Awesome info
Great report Val! I'm sure few will be able to argue that the ROC and CF table changes weren't JSTified.
As far as the D3 issue, I think pegging to regular Rifts at least is problematic. Some people run a rift to the end and clear the entire thing, other people clear the rift just to the boss and then exit. I do agree with the GR level stuff being different from Torment (and Torment stuff being somewhat crushable) that maybe it's time to just lower the CF rate again. But I still fail to see why restricting the type of activity you can do for clusters is good just because in TOR the only easily tracked activity model is FP's/Operations. Yes, bounty stuff isn't done as often as rifts, but why totally eliminate rewards for that just because? The other problem with doing it only by rift and not by diff is that there's no reason not to run rifts on low dif, or worse just face crushing low level GR's. I remember them saying that GR's at 25ish (or some level, not sure) were equal to T6, and I know the really low level GR's are akin to normal. I think something based off the current system of kills and then have modifiers for GR level might be the best choice. Plus, that saves a person having to upload a few hundred screenshots if they're going to actually get near the cap. =P
Good report Val!
Val: will someone start a corporation on star conflict?
Dae - we started a Corporation in SC back in January. It was in my last report. Landon and I can both send out invites (Landon's in game ALOT more than me)
Arcia - The idea would be in place of. Again, still early in the review and just spitballing stuff.
Slags - we're looking into some of the numbers a bit more. Basing rewards off G Rift Level and Kills would require 2 screenshots per G Rift, rather than just 1. Making it even more tedious for members.
With how D3 has been evolving I just don't see a good way to keep CFs balanced by Elite kills. It's a disservice to the non-D3 playing members for me to dump hours into rebalancing this one game every 3-6 months. We need something more permanent so other platforms can see some love as well. That probably means a rebuild on how CFs are rewarded.
I guess what I'm saying is that I don't see a viable way to keep moving forward with CFs based on elite kills and difficulty.
First, why would it require two screenshots? Right now, nobody has to "prove" that they were actually playing on a diff level, we basically operate under the honor system. Second, saying that having to submit more screenshots would be tedious is totally viable. But you're going to require people to submit a ton more screenshots than they do now if you move to a Rift/GR reward mechanism.
As far as having to rebalance, you're going to have to do that with the way D3 is evolving regardless of if it's based off of kills or rifts. The changing difficulty of the game due to new gear and rift balancing (both of which have happened) will require a balancing act no matter what. If it kills of elites are getting faster, so are rift completions.
As far as making things viable on a per kill basis, I'd say set your base level of CF awarding at T6. If you're below T6, make it less by plenty (or maybe no CF's for below Torment period). On the submission screen, then have another drop-down box in addition to difficulty that selects a range of GR levels (1-25, 25-35, 36+). Have 1-25 be like a .5 modifier (decreasing the CF's per kill), have 25-36 be a 1.0 modifier, and have 36+ be a 1.5 modifier (increasing the CF's per kill). The other option would just be to have the diff selector have Normal-Master, Torment 1-5, Torment 6, and Greater Rifts (with GR offering the same base CF number as T6 and then using a second modifier selector based on GR level as outlined above).
Two screenshots because you would take one at the start and completion of each G Rift. How else would you deal with getting a different level one from a Trials thing or when you decide to switch from G Rift to regular rifts? That is double what I'm proposing.
Yes rebalancing will occur again in the future. However using the Clan leaderboards to see what people are completing makes this a faster and more accurate process than it being based on how fast I can kill elites on my geared guy.
I've had some others email me and in our discussions most were amicable to a system similar to what I proposed. With a few tweaks.
Part of my reply:
You're probably right that the current set points are a bit high. Maybe something like the following, since G Rift 25ish is supposed to be T6 equivalent.
It would be more even for average geared folks, but well geared people are going to have more CF earning potential. So that's the trade off. The CF cap remains in place to keep stuff from going completely out of control.
Remember no other platforms earn CF 100% of the time for all activities. Not TOR, not Destiny. This change is no different than the way our other platforms already work. I have to agree with a response that someone sent when I brought that up ,"The competitive side of me may not like it, but it makes a lot of sense."
And remember, I'm "nerfing" myself here just as much as anyone else. I'm on D3 a lot, it's not like I won't feel the difference with this change.
Can I get an invite to the Corporation?
Some Diablo 3 numbers for any curious folks. This is all based on the 5 min to 1 CF standard.
Helo (well geared monk), Muz (new 70 Wizard), and myself (well geared DH) ran a few Rifts:
Between both of those Greater Rifts 82 elites were killed, so 16 CF in 22 minutes. 12 over target. Based on original proposal 5 CF (2 + 3) would have been earned, 1 over target. Based on revised comment proposal 6 CF would have been earned, 2 over target.
Maybe using well geared characters to balance Diablo 3 CFs is unfair to less geared folks. Which is why numbers were revised after my initial post.