rework Rift Point Rework

[Galatyn 438]

1 hour ago, Zuelatak said:

This is how I would like to see rifts go, but I'm still confident with a fresh character I can get pretty similar points to you. Also, I feel the need to say this again but the difference between tagging and not tagging scales with the amount of players present at a rift. I'm looking into making a new character to prove my point as it seems that it's needed.

 

I plan to attend Release's rift in a couple of days.  Coordinate with me in private message and I'll summon your new avatar to the rift.  I'm very interested in your results.

[Josso 156]

21 minutes ago, Galatyn said:

 

I plan to attend Release's rift in a couple of days.  Coordinate with me in private message and I'll summon your new avatar to the rift.  I'm very interested in your results.

We tested it today, I placed third behind two priest with his tagger 17 places behind me. But according to him it didn't count because my fighting skill is too high and "he was pretty sure that he saw me tagging mobs". Talk about living in a facts-free zone.

https://imgur.com/a/xwjb5f8

[gnomegates 1,429]

1 hour ago, Josso said:

We tested it today, I placed third behind two priest with his tagger 17 places behind me. But according to him it didn't count because my fighting skill is too high and "he was pretty sure that he saw me tagging mobs". Talk about living in a facts-free zone.

https://imgur.com/a/xwjb5f8

 

I'm pretty sure I did not see you tagging mobs Josso, there were many times you and I were side by side fighting the same target.

 

Just to be clear, I was NOT tagging mobs today, as I stated I would not, and I also showed up at the start of the 3rd wave due to the server being down. (Volladol on the list)

 

I can share that in my experience, I'm not sure that the mobs die any faster really not tagging then tagging. Because when I would tag in the past my method was to tag everything around me then focus the main groups mob down with them. Tagging the mobs around me can normally be done in a few seconds. If new mobs moved into my range (I use a spear so my reach is a little more then most others using sword/staff) I would tag them then switch back to what ever the main target the group was working on.

 

Today with no tagging, I do feel that it was a little more boring, less things to look for, ignoring the other mobs coming into my range and just staying on the main target. I also felt it was much safer with no tagging, as with tagging at times you would get the agro of mobs on you and they would beat on you. With out that happening there was much less to focus on or worry about.

 

None of this speaks to the issue of if a non prem, or low skilled player can be effective and tag and top the leader boards, something some say is not possible, but I know in my experience of early Cad and Harmony rifts I saw people doing and talking about it in local chat during the rift. 

 

So that was my experience of todays Rift on Harmony of not tagging mobs. My rewards for the points I got were an 89ql piece of seryl at .26 weight, and 10 rift mats with average of just under 40ql on those. In the past when I've been 400+ in points, 95+ ql moon metals and 90+ ql rift mats were normal. For someone who is interested in higher ql mats, being effective at tagging during a rift with many people attending is something they may do. However, as Josso has pointed out, you can also get high decent points with out tagging at the same rift if there are many people there, with many being 100+ in my experience.

 

With less then 30-40 people at a rift, I do not think tagging would be an effective method of rifting, at least not for trying to get high points, as there would be very little chance to do so with so few rift mobs to even tag to begin with. So the rewards at 150 points vs 250 points are not large enough to spend the time trying to tag mobs. This does not rule out tagging as a playstyle for someone who wants to create more risk or just stay busy with looking for more mobs in their range, but that is something that would be on an individual level playstyle.

 

Overall was a fun rift, I do think there should be a better system for rewarding points, adding in all possible actions during the rift, as others have suggested. Not just tagging, or damage, but all healing and butchering and burying and anything else that can be measured. Rewarding everyone who shows and puts some work into the rift, even if not killing mobs, but cleaning up the bodies and harvesting the meat.

 

See you at the next one!

 

 

[Zuelatak 235]

5 hours ago, Galatyn said:

I plan to attend Release's rift in a couple of days.  Coordinate with me in private message and I'll summon your new avatar to the rift.  I'm very interested in your results.

My testing will be on NFI which I'll also be getting better results on due to their being more people.

 

4 hours ago, Josso said:

We tested it today, I placed third behind two priest with his tagger 17 places behind me. But according to him it didn't count because my fighting skill is too high and "he was pretty sure that he saw me tagging mobs". Talk about living in a facts-free zone.

https://imgur.com/a/xwjb5f8

We did NOT test it today. I said I would be unable to test it because I was not ready to do so. I tried with my non-prem alt, but you need to be prem in order to get points. I mentioned to you at that rift that I will be testing at the NEXT rift. I told you that I was not tagging effectively and missed out on most of wave 1 and 2 and still managed to be behind you by 17 points. There were certainly times where I saw you not fighting or your were wandering past several mobs so I was under the assumption that you were doing some form of tagging like what gnome described where he would normally tag things in his vicinity and then switch back to his main target. If you were entirely doing one mob at a time that's great, but today's rift was not a test, so there isn't much to be drawn here besides me keeping up with you while being extremely lazy.

 

Hope to see you at the next rift where we do the actual test.

[Ekcin 2,417]

I read the accusation "I saw you tagging" and shrugged in disbelief. It would be great when people lacking basic understanding of Wurm's client-server communication would think twice before embarrassing themselves.

 

More generally: Every action we perform on our client needs to be recognized by the server, processed in ingame data, where on-map positions are synchronized for the frames submitted and received, then the according frame sent back to the client, processed and presented via GPU on screen there. This is one round trip.

 

Someone else recognizing "the same picture" does not see the same. Rather, s/he sees the results of the frame received and processed by the client above, resent to the server, processed there, and included in positional data sent that someone else's client which still has to process and present it.

 

Now (those who are able to) think what a latency of 100+ms in NIC to NIC communication alone (transatlantic "ping" RTT frequently is above 200ms) does to the presentation of positional data.

 

I sometimes sail or ride on cart, or even horses, with one or more of my alts. So I can visually experience how latency, GPU and CPU performance, and other factors do influence on screen presentation (all being on different boxes with their own GPU and screen). Especially in tunnels I built or helped building I know every tile by heart. Though on the same ship/cart, even in relatively low lag situations, the positions always differ, in lag situations by up to or above 50 tiles.

 

This happens in my home network, over the same Internet router and provider, one box connected by WiFi, the others by Ethernet over a Gbit switch, ICMP RTT ("ping") to wurmonline.com usually at or below 20ms.

When someone tells "I saw you .." he or she just says that s/he saw the graphical presentation of my actions at the time the positional data were communicated to his screen via his GPU. Whether a single movement in animation matches what the player character in question has done in the same moment of real life spacetime of our galaxy is absolutely guesswork.

 

Edit: Citing one of my teachers in programming assembly language very long ago: "Before I was working with computers, I only trusted what I could see with my own eyes. Since then, I don't even believe that."

 

Edited May 27, 2021 by Ekcin
typo

[Zuelatak 235]

11 hours ago, Ekcin said:

I read the accusation "I saw you tagging" and shrugged in disbelief. It would be great when people lacking basic understanding of Wurm's client-server communication would think twice before embarrassing themselves.

 

More generally: Every action we perform on our client needs to be recognized by the server, processed in ingame data, where on-map positions are synchronized for the frames submitted and received, then the according frame sent back to the client, processed and presented via GPU on screen there. This is one round trip.

 

Someone else recognizing "the same picture" does not see the same. Rather, s/he sees the results of the frame received and processed by the client above, resent to the server, processed there, and included in positional data sent that someone else's client which still has to process and present it.

 

Now (those who are able to) think what a latency of 100+ms in NIC to NIC communication alone (transatlantic "ping" RTT frequently is above 200ms) does to the presentation of positional data.

 

I sometimes sail or ride on cart, or even horses, with one or more of my alts. So I can visually experience how latency, GPU and CPU performance, and other factors do influence on screen presentation (all being on different boxes with their own GPU and screen). Especially in tunnels I built or helped building I know every tile by heart. Though on the same ship/cart, even in relatively low lag situations, the positions always differ, in lag situations by up to or above 50 tiles.

 

This happens in my home network, over the same Internet router and provider, one box connected by WiFi, the others by Ethernet over a Gbit switch, ICMP RTT ("ping") to wurmonline.com usually at or below 20ms.

When someone tells "I saw you .." he or she just says that s/he saw the graphical presentation of my actions at the time the positional data were communicated to his screen via his GPU. Whether a single movement in animation matches what the player character in question has done in the same moment of real life spacetime of our galaxy is absolutely guesswork.

 

Edit: Citing one of my teachers in programming assembly language very long ago: "Before I was working with computers, I only trusted what I could see with my own eyes. Since then, I don't even believe that."

Thank you for the lesson on Latency in my discussion about Rift Points. That is why I said I "might" have seen them. Looking for confirmation as to why I saw what I saw. Just as likely as it could have been because of Latency it also could be because of them doing some lesser form of tagging. It could even be me seeing someone completely else and getting confused. Sometimes people believe they know what they're talking about even if they don't, so I like to double check especially with something like this that is very important to me. Just as you've explained to me how latency works.

 

Apologies for being concerned about people skewing things to their view. I will be taking things more at face value when they are during actual tests.

Edited May 27, 2021 by Zuelatak

[Josso 156]

Final thoughts on this topic:

Your initial hypothesis was that "Currently the system doesn't care about your skill or however much effort you put into fighting. The BEST way for someone to gain participation points is to go around spam targeting mobs in melee range in order to get a "tag".

You fail that substantiate that hypothesis, keep shifting goalposts, and call me a liar when I provide proof that shows that skill and effort quite clearly matter for rift rewards.

It is obvious that you are making mountains out of molehills here.
I hope the devs do not waste ressources on this issue when there are plenty other areas the game could actually be improved upon.

[Zuelatak 235]

11 minutes ago, Josso said:

Final thoughts on this topic:

Your initial hypothesis was that "Currently the system doesn't care about your skill or however much effort you put into fighting. The BEST way for someone to gain participation points is to go around spam targeting mobs in melee range in order to get a "tag".

You fail that substantiate that hypothesis, keep shifting goalposts, and call me a liar when I provide proof that shows that skill and effort quite clearly matter for rift rewards.

It is obvious that you are making mountains out of molehills here.
I hope the devs do not waste ressources on this issue when there are plenty other areas the game could actually be improved upon.

I stand by my initial post. I did not state you could not get good points with good skill and gear, but that the system doesn't care. If someone who isn't helping the rift at all, can get in the top 20% of the leaderboard I consider that a problem. Several people have backed my hypothesis, but you and others want me to provide my own evidence to substantiate my claim. And when I state that I will do so you decide you are no longer interested in the topic and leave.

 

I apologize for calling you a liar. I was frustrated that you acted like my point was defeated after a rift that wasn't meant to be used as an example, and I didn't have the energy to deal with you in that moment. I wanted to put the conversation aside and wait until we ran an actual test to discuss, but in doing so I discredited you. 

 

Under the assumption that I was only tagging during that rift and was 17 points less than you I still consider that a problem because I should have no points at all, so no I do not see why you're skeptical. My main point about this entire system is that it doesn't do a good job of representing actual participation. 

 

I hope that you still participate in the testing next Rift and that I can help show you the problem. 

[Sheffie 1,120]

My proposal was an attempt to find a reasonable compromise between offering "participation points", where there are no additional rewards for players who try harder or have better equipment, and points based on damage done, which give higher rewards to players with better gear as well as those who make more effort. 

 

To be clear, I have a problem with introducing a system that rewards everyone identically, because that will tend to discourage high level players.

I also have a problem with giving more rewards to players who are already richer. That seems at odds with the idea of a community event that attracts everyone.

 

That's why I proposed a system which rewards activity, not just presence, and not equipment level.

 

Feel free to disparage my input, but I'm probably one of a very small number of players who has experience not only of Rift battles but also of balancing rewards systems in an MMO.

[elentari 2,660]

3 hours ago, Sheffie said:

That's why I proposed a system which rewards activity, not just presence, and not equipment level.

 

 

I think from a game design perspective those things are mutually exclusive. Someone will always have more RL $ to use to buy a dragon set / enchanted weps or even buy out a toon via pming some older players. Yes RMT is banned but pretty sure toon selling hasn't stopped for that. Rifts unlike other mmos are not level-based-entry. You can't do lvl 20 dungeons in other mmos when you're level 10. But wurm has no such limitations which creates difficulty balancing stuff. 

Sadly higher level players will always be at an advantage due to this. No amount of game design will ever change that UNLESS we create instanced rifts based on levels. And wurm devs have an anti-instancing philosophy in Wurm. 

 

Personally I think rifts should have better rewards to actually encourage lower level players to skill up so they can participate. Atm the rewards are mostly cosmetic and debatably useful. The recipes aren't game changing from rift mobs. The only useful reward is some rift crystals/wood/stone for runes. But those are so common right now that they aren't that hard to buy, not expensive. 

[Zuelatak 235]

Unfortunately the person who was going to help me test broke their ###### keyboard lol, so the solid testing will have to be at the Harmony rift. I'll still do nothing but tagging this rift and see where I land, but it's not going to be the best data.