Upcoming patch: is blizzard real?

[Apps]

Zenga, I think I get what you are trying to say, but Im not sure.

what is the "basic gaming theory"? Is this something in writing and a law or something like that?

The solution is actually already in place. It was copied from the PVP holds in Hellfire. There is a repeatable quest that offers PVP rewards upon a set capture, for each faction. If the Alliance hold all three, other than farming honor, whats the incentive to keep it?

In the case of TB, there is an Instance attached to winning and control. I believe... (my opinion), from purely catering to the masses of a business; blizzard is trying to make the dungeon available to everyone, more often.

Example; Servers that have a large faction population difference, maintain VoA. If a player were of the lesser populated faction, wouldnt this be grossly unfair, as he/she can not control the server population, and thus is denied a portion of the game which he/she pays for?

Course this is only my opinion, and it matters nothing to anyone but me. Im ok with that. I still think the solution is "thinking outside the box", and is a fantastic step. Whether it stays or gets modified further is yet to be determined.

[Boylston]

what is the "basic gaming theory"? Is this something in writing and a law or something like that?

Game theory is a very specialized branch of applied mathematics that is very useful for a broad variety of disciplines. Economics, pure science, psychology, biology, and yes, computer games like this one.

The Prisoner's Dilemma is a classic example of a Game Theory problem.

[Sam DeathWalker]

I find it improper that the best stratagy for maximum advancement is to lose, because I play to win.

[Tonuss]

Of course you can blame the devs for not organizing proper testing. If a certain (major) feature in the game requires 80 vs 89 players, than they should make sure it's been tested extensively before releasing it. When that can't be done by volunteers on the fly, they should pay people to do so on a fixed day.

Blizzard is in a position where taking the lazy way out (pushing poorly-tested content to live and letting players pay to test it) is the most efficient solution, in the purely practical sense. This is a company that is riding on record sales after record sales and will probably record another set of record sales when D3 ships. We'll beta test TB on live servers for them, and both they and we know it.

[Apps]

Game theory is a very specialized branch of applied mathematics that is very useful for a broad variety of disciplines. Economics, pure science, psychology, biology, and yes, computer games like this one.

The Prisoner's Dilemma is a classic example of a Game Theory problem.

Cool! I just learned something there. I read the entire article on Game Theory, and the one for The Prisioner's Dilemma.

Since this one was cited, I think its quite possibly most appropriate to Game Theory now, and what Blizzard is proposing.
I.e. If the Horde and Alliance work together, and alternate, they both win. If the one defending TB holds, they win, but only slightly. Similarly to the ...

CooperateDefectCooperate-1, -1-10, 0Defect0, -10-5, -5

The Prisoner's Dilemma
On the other hand, some scholars see game theory not as a predictive tool for the behavior of human beings, but as a suggestion for how people ought to behave. Since a Nash equilibrium of a game constitutes one's best response to the actions of the other players, playing a strategy that is part of a Nash equilibrium seems appropriate. However, this use for game theory has also come under criticism. First, in some cases it is appropriate to play a non-equilibrium strategy if one expects others to play non-equilibrium strategies as well. For an example, see Guess 2/3 of the average.

[zenga]

Just won a TB while attacking. A few screenies to support my point.
So we (horde) are far outnumbered on our server. We've been holding TB in the last 14 days all the time. One way or another someone misread the post on mmo champ and though hotfix was already live, so they convinced the horde to lose deliberately.

Screen 1 Screen 2

20 minutes later ...

Screen 3

This while prior to the WG tenacity patch, alliance was holding wg 80% of the time. And when asking around this seems to be the case on many many servers.

[zenga]

Cool! I just learned something there. I read the entire article on Game Theory, and the one for The Prisioner's Dilemma.

Since this one was cited, I think its quite possibly most appropriate to Game Theory now, and what Blizzard is proposing.
I.e. If the Horde and Alliance work together, and alternate, they both win. If the one defending TB holds, they win, but only slightly. Similarly to the ...

I believe you are confusing things here:
Alternating wins = defect /cooperate (1 side plays to win, other sides plays to lose)
The reward for cooperate / cooperate (both sides play to win) should always be bigger for both sides than the rewards for defect/cooperate.

I prefer to play games that are cooperate / cooperate, else they might just give us the gear or send us the honorpoints by mail. What sam said a few posts earlier is hitting the nail on the head (if that is proper English).

The idea that blizzard goes for a defect/cooperate approach here is just ridiculous. Luckily it won't last long, as it won't change shit. Eventually they'll have to change/fix something fundamental.

[Ualaa]

I'd think, each time you lose the battle (and every attacking side has lost at least once) the sides should be skewed by +/- 5 players or so. So that in each subsequent losing battle, the attackers get a slight (but cummulative) edge.

And once they win, and become the defenders, set the other side back to only +5 players.

So if 30 horde and 100 alliance queue...
If the horde are defending, go with 30 Horde / 35 Alliance (and add +5 Alliance, each battle until the Alliance wins).
If the alliance are defending, go with 30 Horde / 25 Alliance (and decrease the Alliance by -5, each battle until the Horde wins).
That is assuming, a constant 30/100 player ratio.

The trick would be encouraging equal numbers to participate on both factions.




Ideally, you can enter as a group of five, but no larger.
The game looks at the average BG/Arena internal rating of all the players involved (queuing) on both sides.
And then divides the entire group into two balanced sides, with either equal participants or one side has the extra player; call them Red team and Blue team.

That kind of defeats the horde vs alliance thing.
But every BG/TB etc., would be balanced in terms of total numbers and average rating level on both sides.

[Apps]

yeah, I see what youre getting at Zenga. I was looking at the alternating as cooperate / cooperate... I.e. you win, they win, you win , they win. Perhaps I am way over thinking this. Even now, as I rethink it, seeming to say a win, loss, win, loss as working together (Cooperating), might be a stretch because the opposing faction may decide to defect, and thus its win, loss, loss, loss.

dunno. I think my buddy may have been overly excited about it, since its new to the game.

Regardless, it tends to reason that there is still work yet to be done. I now think Tonuss is onto them.

[Tonuss]

I'd think, each time you lose the battle (and every attacking side has lost at least once) the sides should be skewed by +/- 5 players or so. So that in each subsequent losing battle, the attackers get a slight (but cummulative) edge.

I always saw this as a better option for WG, and I can see it as a good option for TB. Add +5 slots to the losing side for the next battle, after a minimum of XX players join for each side. In other words, if you lose, the next time you get +5 player slots so that you can have a 5-player advantage, but only after ten or fifteen players have joined. That keeps it from being seven versus two or something equally silly. If you lose with a +5 advantage, then it's +10 the next time, and +15 the time after that. Then it resets, because if you can't win with +15 players then frankly, you really don't deserve it.

I would really rather that they simplify these "open-zone" PVP events, though. Why not just make it a resource race? Three towers, each faction begins at opposite ends of the map. You have XX resources that are depleted via player deaths. For each tower you hold, the opposite faction loses one additional resource per kill. The event is over when one side reaches zero or 30 minutes are up. If the game is tied after 30 minutes, winner is the faction that got the final kill. Your goals are entirely defined by killing the other players and avoiding death. Your secondary goal simply makes the killing more profitable. Holding the control points is only useful if you kill other players. The win condition makes it imperative that you go fucking berserk if the timer is running out on a close game.

It's PVP. Let the players do just that.