Finderne
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Posted - 2004.03.31 06:01:00 -
[1]
Edited by: Finderne on 31/03/2004 06:11:53
 Quote:
If not the consequences for the entire element of "doing R&D missions" becomes null and void. Negligeable chance increase = no point expending time and isk.
(snip)
Ignoring the past and even the current situation I would ask those interested to answer the one, central, salient issue that lies at the heart of the entire issue and the lottery:
Should *working harder* for you R&D agent grant you a *significantly better chance* of obtaining a BPO than simply ignoring the agent?
(snip)
The key here is not the actual % chance at all - those figures aren't that important. What is is the concept of Dedicated R&D Agent Runners having a significantly better chance over AFK-Runners and given that skills such as RPM cost so much to the individual, would such a significant advantage turn into domination of the R&D area by mega corps who can afford such fees for all their Agent Runners?
I quoted some of Morkt's post because I mainly wanted to reply on the more general points. (Hopefully it'll get the thread back on track too)
My understanding of the way the current system was rolled out was that Papa was pretty clear in saying that setting the odds of winning at 1 ticket per RP and putting the mission bonuses at dbl the daily total were 'safe' first-pass guesses. There was no way to predict what % of players would do research, and to what extent they'd jump into it. Analysis after it was rolled out would allow CCP to tweak the weighting factor to arrive at a fair compromise between rewarding effort while not making it a pure powergaming buttonmashing exercise (put enough time in and you win). And as Papa has mentioned, there is a keen interest in restricting the spread of T2 so that lottery winners can actually benefit from winning.
CCP has all the numbers on winners and their RP's, # of R&D missions, hat size, etc. It's just a matter of them deciding what they'd like to favor, and what they'd like to penalize from what has happened to date. It's a very limited reward pool, so there are no win-win answers. Improving the odds of the top 5% RP-earned ppl in a field to win might decimate the odds of the bottom 50%.
I don't care for putting too much additional bonus on the R&D missions until they've been substantially improved to be more diverse. Right now they're either extremely simple or nearly impossible without doling out big ISK. I'm more in favor of going to a slightly nonlinear weighting function so that as ppl get substantially above the 'average' RP pool without winning, their odds go up at a higher than normal rate. But obviously not to the extent that every semi-dedicated researcher is assured of winning eventually...
Ultimately, this issue can't be separated from the repeat-winner thing. We have no idea what % of BP's went to ppl in proportion to the factors as originally described (one ticket per RP, winning drops you back to 0) vs the % that fell through the *****s to be rewarded as repeats. Or if repeats were taken from the intended BP distribution pool, or were somehow tacked on above what CCP wanted to release. So the players have no idea how close the current system matches up to what was originally intended. We're already basing our opinions on very limited direct experience and word-of-mouth reporting from other players. So I think the odds that we're able to accurately assess what is going on is lower than my chances in the next BP lottery...
/edit LOL - I really should petition to remove cr4ck from the filter. If every slang term for illicit drugs was filtered we'd have not much left to work with. Dunno why this one was singled out as being so horrible...
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