Suggestion: Introduce a Point System To Place Winners out of Mayhem Categories

Hello.

I have a suggestion for mayhem categories.

Introduce a Mayhem point system that when a player reaches a certain point threshold, they must move to the next category.

For example, let's say you competed cat 6. You could give the following

1st: 8 points
2nd: 5 points
3rd-5th: 3 points
6th-8th: 2 points
9th-10th: 1 point

If a player gets more than 20 points in a category, they have to move out of the category. So if a player wins cat 6 3 times, or gets 2nd 4 times, they must move on to cat 7.

These are just example values, the developers would have to balance and set the correct values. But this would prevent players from persistently staying in a category by chipping out. And also give new players a chance at a category.

Zho

I see where you're going with this but I must disagree. I'm against forcing people to play at a higher cost tier than they want just because of their skill level.

IMO the whole category thing needs a serious reworking. I can appreciate wanting to level the playing field and giving new players a chance but the current system is flawed.

1. They could lock the first couple cats to a non-modifiable stat like agility. This would prevent chipping in or out just to get into the lower cat. Of course still have limits on the gun DPS as well.

2. Here's a crazy though but why not have the same mob level in the higher categories? I mean really... why does the cost need to exponentially grow with each category level to compete? This is WHY so many people are chipping to compete at lower levels is that it's too expensive. MA needs to take the hint there. I mean, cat one is like 80 pec a kill but cat 10 it's 20 ped a kill??? WTF for??? Why can't we just have a mid level mob that's the same HP and does the same damage in each category? Let's focus on ped cycle rather than cost per kill. Maybe something like:
Cat 1 = 250 hp mob (agility locked)
Cat 2 = 500 hp mob (agility locked)
Cat 3 = 750 hp mob (agility locked)
Cat 4 - 10 = 1200 hp mob
Cat 11 (free for all #1) = 3000 hp mob (no restrictions, anyone can compete here by choice)
Cat 12 (free for all #2) = 4000 hp mob (no restrictions, anyone can compete here by choice)
Cat 13 (free for all #3) = 5000 hp mob (no restrictions, anyone can compete here by choice)

3. Have a new type of instance like the practice ones that's not part of the competition but has the exponential growth on mob size per category. That way people that just want to run the instance to hunt BIG mobs can do that too without it interfering with the competition.

Anyways, just a thought.

Thats a nobrainer Jambon, sorry.

It really doesn´t matter how many HP the mob has or how much cost to kill is.

If someone in Cat10 shoots Terminator, for 15 hours, it doesn´t matter if the mob has 2k HP or 10k HP, its just 15 hours shooting the Terminator. The costs for shooting this 15 hours is exactly the same.

Where it makes a difference is the DMG this mobs deal, speak you need bigger armor in Cat10 compared to Cat8 and more FAP decay.

If you want a constant shooting event without the need for FAPing or wear armor, then yes reduce the HP so everyone can kill the mobs in his Cat befor it even reach him.
But would that be the spirit of a real competition when HP and Evade no longer matters ?

jambon said:

I see where you're going with this but I must disagree. I'm against forcing people to play at a higher cost tier than they want just because of their skill level.

IMO the whole category thing needs a serious reworking. I can appreciate wanting to level the playing field and giving new players a chance but the current system is flawed.

1. They could lock the first couple cats to a non-modifiable stat like agility. This would prevent chipping in or out just to get into the lower cat. Of course still have limits on the gun DPS as well.

2. Here's a crazy though but why not have the same mob level in the higher categories? I mean really... why does the cost need to exponentially grow with each category level to compete? This is WHY so many people are chipping to compete at lower levels is that it's too expensive. MA needs to take the hint there. I mean, cat one is like 80 pec a kill but cat 10 it's 20 ped a kill??? WTF for??? Why can't we just have a mid level mob that's the same HP and does the same damage in each category? Let's focus on ped cycle rather than cost per kill. Maybe something like:
Cat 1 = 250 hp mob (agility locked)
Cat 2 = 500 hp mob (agility locked)
Cat 3 = 750 hp mob (agility locked)
Cat 4 - 10 = 1200 hp mob
Cat 11 (free for all #1) = 3000 hp mob (no restrictions, anyone can compete here by choice)
Cat 12 (free for all #2) = 4000 hp mob (no restrictions, anyone can compete here by choice)
Cat 13 (free for all #3) = 5000 hp mob (no restrictions, anyone can compete here by choice)

3. Have a new type of instance like the practice ones that's not part of the competition but has the exponential growth on mob size per category. That way people that just want to run the instance to hunt BIG mobs can do that too without it interfering with the competition.

Anyways, just a thought.

Click to expand...

1. This is an option, but it would require more work than MA has put in to events for quite some time.
2. I don´t see this as a bad suggestion, I just don´t see why a soft cap on everything except dps would be a bad idea for the different cats.
3. I don´t see a problem with this, at all, sounds like a good idea.

GoNi said:

Thats a nobrainer Jambon, sorry.

It really doesn´t matter how many HP the mob has or how much cost to kill is.

If someone in Cat10 shoots Terminator, for 15 hours, it doesn´t matter if the mob has 2k HP or 10k HP, its just 15 hours shooting the Terminator. The costs for shooting this 15 hours is exactly the same.

Where it makes a difference is the DMG this mobs deal, speak you need bigger armor in Cat10 compared to Cat8 and more FAP decay.

If you want a constant shooting event without the need for FAPing or wear armor, then yes reduce the HP so everyone can kill the mobs in his Cat befor it even reach him.
But would that be the spirit of a real competition when HP and Evade no longer matters ?

Click to expand...

The HP of the mob is pretty much all that matters in this game. Not sure why you think otherwise?

if someone in cat10 shoots the terminator for 15 hours and the mob has 3,6 million hp, and you can kill maximum one more, or someone in cat 10 shoots the terminator for 15 hours and the mob has 2k hp, do you see the difference now? in the first scenario the return is anywhere between -60% of terminator to +1000000%, in the second scenario it´s more likely to converge to the average.

The cost to kill is the main limiting factor for people, since it´s the only thing you can´t work around.

jambon said:

I see where you're going with this but I must disagree. I'm against forcing people to play at a higher cost tier than they want just because of their skill level.

IMO the whole category thing needs a serious reworking. I can appreciate wanting to level the playing field and giving new players a chance but the current system is flawed.

1. They could lock the first couple cats to a non-modifiable stat like agility. This would prevent chipping in or out just to get into the lower cat. Of course still have limits on the gun DPS as well.

2. Here's a crazy though but why not have the same mob level in the higher categories? I mean really... why does the cost need to exponentially grow with each category level to compete? This is WHY so many people are chipping to compete at lower levels is that it's too expensive. MA needs to take the hint there. I mean, cat one is like 80 pec a kill but cat 10 it's 20 ped a kill??? WTF for??? Why can't we just have a mid level mob that's the same HP and does the same damage in each category? Let's focus on ped cycle rather than cost per kill. Maybe something like:
Cat 1 = 250 hp mob (agility locked)
Cat 2 = 500 hp mob (agility locked)
Cat 3 = 750 hp mob (agility locked)
Cat 4 - 10 = 1200 hp mob
Cat 11 (free for all #1) = 3000 hp mob (no restrictions, anyone can compete here by choice)
Cat 12 (free for all #2) = 4000 hp mob (no restrictions, anyone can compete here by choice)
Cat 13 (free for all #3) = 5000 hp mob (no restrictions, anyone can compete here by choice)

3. Have a new type of instance like the practice ones that's not part of the competition but has the exponential growth on mob size per category. That way people that just want to run the instance to hunt BIG mobs can do that too without it interfering with the competition.

Anyways, just a thought.

Click to expand...

My strategy is to mitigate the problem of a small group of players always dominating a category always without ever moving up. Once you own the best gun for a category, you can essentially ensure being in top 5 or so...

I don't think a player should stay in a category and simply dominate ad infinitum it if they are shown they can win it many times over. I'd not go as far as say it is abusing the system, but the system needs some checks in place to prevent this, and my suggestion can help to do that.

I strongly disagree. The cost to tier an event-winning weapon requires significant investment and therefor a prolonged period within the category in which that weapon is used to break even. In my case it will take roughly 8 1st place wins in category 6 to break even with my cost of tiering the weapon to the point where it can significantly compete.
If MindArk wants to charge a down-payment on a house to get a weapon to tier 10, they should allow that investment to be recovered by means such as these competitive events. It's a very high risk investment to situate yourself to dominate a category. High risk should yield high reward and currently it does.

Forcing people into higher categories would increase the utilization of alternate avatars while reducing the overall participation in Mayhem.

So, in other words, if a player:

Skills up to be one of the best
Buys/rents the best weapon they can afford
Buys/rents the best armor they can afford
Plans ahead to get enough time off work they can afford to put all their attention on the contest
And have thousands of hours in this game so they understand it's quirks

That's "unfair"?

It really gets tiring listening to some of you, over and over and over and over and over.....

Captain Jack said:

I strongly disagree. The cost to tier an event-winning weapon requires significant investment and therefor a prolonged period within the category in which that weapon is used to break even. In my case it will take roughly 8 1st place wins in category 6 to break even with my cost of tiering the weapon to the point where it can significantly compete.

Forcing people into higher categories would increase the utilisation of alternate avatars while reducing the overall participation in Mayhem.

Click to expand...

i agree....its actually pretty cool as it is, and i really think they did a great job - it's right. No need to force people up the chain - after all, this game is all about maximising your available bankroll (responsibly).

microdot said:

i agree....its actually pretty cool as it is, and i really think they did a great job - it's right. No need to force people up the chain - after all, this game is all about maximising your available bankroll (responsibly).

Click to expand...

That, and people will naturally move up the chain as their bankroll allows. I intend to move up in category as soon as I recover my current (substantial) investment in equipment for my current category, and make sufficient preparation to place top 5 in my potential category. With prizes arranged the way they are currently, I believe this will be a 3 year transition unless MindArk changes something significant between now and then. When they do, I will roll with the punches and re-adapt to the new situation just like I always have.

Jhereg said:

My strategy is to mitigate the problem of a small group of players always dominating a category always without ever moving up. Once you own the best gun for a category, you can essentially ensure being in top 5 or so...

I don't think a player should stay in a category and simply dominate ad infinitum it if they are shown they can win it many times over. I'd not go as far as say it is abusing the system, but the system needs some checks in place to prevent this, and my suggestion can help to do that.

Click to expand...

Having one of the best guns for a category is only one piece of the puzzle.
1. Weapon
2. Armor
3. Heal Tools
4. Rings
5. Buff pills
6. Defensive profession levels
7. Attributes
These are all critical aspects to winning a Mayhem event, and all require substantial investment in order to place well.
One player asked my advice on a category 6 weapon earlier this year. That weapon certainly has potential to win a top 3 spot, but that player failed to invest in the other factors which play a significant role in these events. Consequently said player did not even achieve a top 5 spot despite having one of the best weapons in the category.

I don't think that it is a "problem" for people to dominate a category if they have made intentional efforts and substantial investments focused on doing so. In a competitive event I believe that the most devoted players should always win the top 5 spots.
If we want to just make it completely random and "fair", MindArk should just establish an ingame lottery system which rewards Mayhem tokens and P-tokens. Players would be limited to their category number multiplied by 1000 as the max number of PEDs they are allowed to use to purchase tokens. Sweat bottles could be used to pay the entry fee in categories one through three.
This way nobody can lose due to lack of personal skills, time, or reasonable funding.
While such a system may be fair, that is not what these competitions are about.

item lock to player.

that way 3 ppl arent winning the same cat with the same gun.

this includes armors, faps/chips, rings, urrrrthang.

Xcessive said:

item lock to player.

that way 3 ppl arent winning the same cat with the same gun.

this includes armors, faps/chips, rings, urrrrthang.

Click to expand...

Definately NO!
If I own a gun that has a value somewhere above 15k PED, I want to be able to sell it anytime I want to.
I also want to be able to rent it out anytime I want, as this can make me some money I lost on hunting, or just to recover the tiring costs.

Btw its also a risk involved for the owner of the gun, to get pushed down in this event if he rents a out the gun.

What MA should do, is checking if this 3 or even more avatars that compete with the exactly same gun in the competiton are multi accounts (breaking the ToU/EULA), if so they can simply disqualify the multi and even better get out the ban hammer.

microdot said:

i agree....its actually pretty cool as it is, and i really think they did a great job - it's right. No need to force people up the chain - after all, this game is all about maximising your available bankroll (responsibly).

Click to expand...

And additionally its very good for the ESI market, keeps the MU of ESIs at a high level.

GoNi said:

Definately NO!
If I own a gun that has a value somewhere above 15k PED, I want to be able to sell it anytime I want to.
I also want to be able to rent it out anytime I want, as this can make me some money I lost on hunting, or just to recover the tiring costs.

Btw its also a risk involved for the owner of the gun, to get pushed down in this event if he rents a out the gun.

What MA should do, is checking if this 3 or even more avatars that compete with the exactly same gun in the competiton are multi accounts (breaking the ToU/EULA), if so they can simply disqualify the multi and even better get out the ban hammer.

Click to expand...

Isn't renting gear as a business model somewhat not allowed?
The current system works great, except, one little detail - the chipping out frenzy.

What MA should actually do is to lock the avatar to the category they belong to according to their accumulated skill and not according to their current skill. If your avatar would have been level 50 if you wouldn't have chipped out, you belong in the 50+ cat. Did you chip out and want back in the game? Chip back in and np. The 'normal' level 50 players have to compete with players that are a lot more skilled and geared but that just chipped out some essential skill that gets offered for free just to dominate a lower category...

This would fix a lot of stuff and it would make the events even more fair. Sure, this could be reset every year or so to allow old players that came back to get back to the game in the current cat they belong according to their current skill level.
This chipping out to force lower cat should really stop now. The argument that the gear for the next cat is a lot more expensive is no argument. winning is not for everyone and someone should not dominate a low cat for years, tehy have time to improve equipment-wise too...

Evey said:

Isn't renting gear as a business model somewhat not allowed?
The current system works great, except, one little detail - the chipping out frenzy.

What MA should actually do is to lock the avatar to the category they belong to according to their accumulated skill and not according to their current skill. If your avatar would have been level 50 if you wouldn't have chipped out, you belong in the 50+ cat. Did you chip out and want back in the game? Chip back in and np. The 'normal' level 50 players have to compete with players that are a lot more skilled and geared but that just chipped out some essential skill that gets offered for free just to dominate a lower category...

This would fix a lot of stuff and it would make the events even more fair. Sure, this could be reset every year or so to allow old players that came back to get back to the game in the current cat they belong according to their current skill level.
This chipping out to force lower cat should really stop now. The argument that the gear for the next cat is a lot more expensive is no argument. winning is not for everyone and someone should not dominate a low cat for years, tehy have time to improve equipment-wise too...

Click to expand...

The same amount of chipping would occur, just people would make new alts every X period of time between resets.

Just get rid of the categories altogether. There are other ways to encourage participation at all levels without punishing people for advancement.

Make it a system based on Agility and Health Points, and make Agility more worth than HP...because it's not possible to lower youre attributes.

Flash said:

Make it a system based on Agility and Health Points, and make Agility more worth than HP...because it's not possible to lower youre attributes.

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Agility does not correlate well with overall avatar skill. Some have done a lot of agility missions, some have done few.

Ferial said:

The HP of the mob is pretty much all that matters in this game. Not sure why you think otherwise?

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Thats true for all day hunting, grinding, missions and whatever you want to hunt all day.

Its not true for events that are time based, in such events the dps matters to get more kills than the others in the same time.
Here the HP dont matter, as you shoot your weapan the whole period the events last.

15hrs shooting is 15hrs shooting, the cost for that is the same independent of mobs HP.
Mobs HP just have an influence on how many mobs you can shoot in that given time, but does not change the costs shooting in the given time.

Look at smaller events, those player created events at LAs, which are time based aswell.

Now the math:

You have a weapon with 100 dps and a eco of 3 dpp (just some numbers to do the math)
1hr = 3600 sec means you can deal 360k DMG in that hour, which cost you 1200 PED.

With a 1000 HP mob you can shoot 360 mobs, with a 5000 HP mob you can shoot only 72 mobs.
That really doesnt matter, as this would be the same for all others participating, what matters is your cost for this event is 1200 PED speak 1hr constant shooting. Mob HP doesn´t change your costs for the event!

To lower the costs for that event, you would need to have a better eco gun, lets say 100 DPS and 4 DPP gun, in that case you can shoot 360k DMG for 900 PED

To have better chance to win, you would need a higher DPS gun, lets say 150 DPS at 3 DPP, then you can deal 540k DMG, but it will also increase your costs for the event, as this would be 1800 PED for shooting 1hr.
HP of mob still doesn´t matter here, if you calculate the costs for the event.

In mayham anhilation we have the same situation, its a time based event, just 15hrs instead 1hr.
Shooting 15 hrs with the gun you need will cost you the same, no matter how much HP the mobs have, speak how many kills you can do in that time.

In time based events, the HP of mob really do not matter!
DPS is the key to win, nothing else!

So your idea of lower HP for higher cats, does not impact the costs everyone has in that event.
Cost for time based events is determinated by the gear you use, not by the HP of the mob.

Xen said:

Agility does not correlate well with overall avatar skill. Some have done a lot of agility missions, some have done few.

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Exactly, plus, what if the ava is mainly melee? then it is much easier for them to skill up health, but they will have lower agi.

I know some posting here might have invested quite a significant sum (100k-200k+) to basically overpower any possible competition in their current category (not cat 10 obv). So they would obviously be against getting pushed out of a cat they can keep winning.


I just don't think this is good for the game.

Or just use the same system Ark uses, which works quite well. GR Cat1 is for noobs and has an HP cap. Cat2-Cat4 have different HP mobs and are open for anyone. You can chose with level to compete at based on your budget.

Detritus said:

Or just use the same system Ark uses, which works quite well. GR Cat1 is for noobs and has an HP cap. Cat2-Cat4 have different HP mobs and are open for anyone. You can chose with level to compete at based on your budget.

Click to expand...

It's a good point but it;s somewhat about the same as the current system except they need to ad 5 extra cats to serve as a FFA - increasing HP and prizes. 15 cats... 300 prizes =))
It's not quite there but it's close. My only issue with it is that it made some skills cost less than the chip used to transfer the skill. I think that's very bad for everyone....