hourglass reputation

@bdt2370 It'd be cool if the allegiance you got in a fight scaled with the length the fight went on. I think it should definitely have diminishing returns so dragging fights out against easy opponents doesn't become a meta, but it'd be a good way to encourage people to not just give up after like 10 minutes or whatever, and make the mode much more fulfilling for the time spent in it. I also think they should make it so there's double HG xp each weekend. I personally like the idea of doing like double sloop rep on Friday, double gally rep on Saturday, and double brig rep on Sunday. It'd help bring casual players into the mode more often and fill out the higher crew count queues that have been steadily declining in participation.

@fysics3037 That remind me of Fight Night. They said there will be more Fight Night (don't know if they talked about a monthly or weekly event), but Fight Night never came back again sadly.

@xdragonman15558 Yeah, you get more sink because more people want to fight. Double xp is really good at gathering people around the hourglass.

@bdt2370 said:

On regular period, i play 1h and only get half a level. Which doesn't make me want to go on. with double xp, even a short session makes me grind, so I'm even more eager to continue.
Well, I don't know if changing the allegiance reputation system is a good idea (especially considering those who have grinded with the current system)...

If HG had effort-based loss XP, it would retain more activity. Right now, the losing crew is rewarded the same amount whether they try their hardest or throw the fight.

I went in depth here (old thread; please don't necro lol), but basically:

Win XP = X and Loss XP = ≤X

Winning crew's score = A
Losing crew's score = B
Loss XP = (B/A) X

A score system could be as simple as accounting for cannon hits, repairs, and boarders killed, each with their respective point values. Or it could be more complicated. Regardless, this rewards the losing crew based on their effort, relative to the winning crew's effort.

Win XP remains fixed, X. This is to prevent crews from unnecessarily extending fights just to farm XP.

If the losing crew was out-scoring the winning crew prior to sinking, they also get X amount, despite losing their streak, flag and supplies.

I think this would motivate a lot more people to continue playing. But, if they ever do make major XP changes like this, they should award gold bones/ghost players with an additional item (sails?) to reward them for their grind when the system was less forgiving.

Am I the only one to think that the hourglass is much more enjoyable to play during double xp periods

Yes. Because from what I been reading, all the cheaters come out in waves :P

@theblackbellamy they should just make it based off a square root function. Always better to end it faster but also you still steadily get more.

Also I don't think so. I mean it just ain't that deep.

@fysics3037 said:

they should just make it based off a square root function. Always better to end it faster but also you still steadily get more.

To determine Win XP or Loss XP or both?

If there is a way to maximize Win XP, there is an incentive to do so.

I loved Arena 2.0, but one of the things that turned people off was the farm, sink, repeat meta, which people did to maximize points per match (or farm commendations).

If Win XP is fixed, then the only incentive is to win, because you get the same amount regardless of how lengthy the fight was. If Win XP can climb to a point, then crews will climb it to that point.

Loss XP, whether linear or a sideways parabola, I think should be measured in comparison to the winning crew's effort. If they got dunked on, they don't get much. If they put up a fight, their effort shows.

Whoever wins, wins. And whoever loses, gets awarded based on how well they performed relative to the winner.

Also I don't think so. I mean it just ain't that deep.

Guessing this is pertaining to the sails reward idea, and not the statement you made immediately before?

I mean it's a video game, and one that neither of us plays regularly. How "deep" we find it is subjective; and while I personally agree with you, some players have stuck with this game through the worst of times, and the... slightly-less-worse of times.

Apparently at one point people were knocking down masts & it wouldn't register client side lol. I remember from one of my own sessions, where the waves desync was so bad after surfacing, it looked like ships were underwater. People grinded through all this. Taking losses, possibly because of some of this, or worse.

Folks have put up with a lot to get what are highly sought after items. Would it hurt me if they didn't reward gold bones/ghost people with something? No, because I don't have either of those items, and it's not that deep. Would it make some players happy, if Rare gave them a set of "Overachiever" type sails for putting up with HG prior to any changes that made loss XP easier to earn? Probably, I think.

@theblackbellamy I think it should definitely apply to both. A square root function offers diminishing returns (y) for the amount of time (x) meaning that it'd always be more worth playing a second match and winning that than dragging one out forever. Both parties are putting in equal effort and I don't think the loss XP should ever catch up to the win XP. If I spend 1 hours in a match vs 15 minutes I want to be rewarded more for the one hour of my time. However, if it was linear or rewarded more over time then just farming a bad player would be a better option. Faster matches should be ideal, with more reward offered for longer matches so it doesn't feel near pointless after 45 minutes.

And on the topic of sails, they've made PL and other similar "goals" much easier to hit over time and offered no extra benefits. Even stuff like gold PL set, year one PL was not much different from year two PL. I just don't think it's necessary, and it'd prolly bring a bunch of cheaters along and ruin the mode for months.

@fysics3037 said:

@theblackbellamy I think it should definitely apply to both. A square root function offers diminishing returns (y) for the amount of time (x) meaning that it'd always be more worth playing a second match and winning that than dragging one out forever.

If the baseline Win XP is substantial (lets say at 1 min), and then rapidly diminishes the longer a fight goes on after 1 min, then this is something I can absolutely get behind. Maybe even a fractional power function (x^0.3 or something), as this is even more motivation to end the fight quickly, while still rewarding some XP for fights that extend inadvertently.

Both parties are putting in equal effort and I don't think the loss XP should ever catch up to the win XP.

Let's say you're in a sloop fight that you clearly have the upper hand in, and an open crew, non-HG, no-emi gally comes in all "sHaReD wOrLd aDvEnTuRe gAmE" and hard focuses you. Pretend you're just a casual player, and let's say you lose.

If your activity was greater than the opposing sloop's activity, would you not want your effort to grant you at least as much XP as the winner received? I mean maybe this comes down to personal differences, but I think it's a fair ask lol. It would certainly be more motivating to the player to continue, hopefully re-queueing against the same player and getting their fair one.

I don't think Loss XP should ever surpass Win XP, but in the fights where both parties are putting in equal effort, then wouldn't it be nice if both parties are awarded accordingly? This is why tracking (and comparing) things like cannon hits, repairs, boarders killed (and other metrics, depending on how complicated or simple you want it), would help reflect how much XP the loser gets; regardless of how you scale it along time.

If I spend 1 hours in a match vs 15 minutes I want to be rewarded more for the one hour of my time. However, if it was linear or rewarded more over time then just farming a bad player would be a better option. Faster matches should be ideal, with more reward offered for longer matches so it doesn't feel near pointless after 45 minutes.

No, I hear you, spending an hour in a match vs 15 min in a match - you're clearly putting more effort into the former over the latter. And provided that the current Win XP is baseline (1 min), faster matches would still be ideal.

No disagreement here.

And on the topic of sails, they've made PL and other similar "goals" much easier to hit over time and offered no extra benefits. Even stuff like gold PL set, year one PL was not much different from year two PL. I just don't think it's necessary, and it'd prolly bring a bunch of cheaters along and ruin the mode for months.

Wouldn't effect me either way, but the reason I said "Overachiever" is because those are the name of a set of sails, awarded to players who hit certain achievements before changes were made. After they shut down Arena, they let us keep the nice PL weapons and everyone thereafter only had access to the Barney PL set.

It's not like Rare hasn't done it before, even though they haven't done it for every little thing they later ended up nerfing. But gold bones/ghost doesn't seem like a little thing.

Would it bring in more cheaters? Sure. But pretty much any new HG anything probably would, along with all the other normal activity it would bring in. If "cheaters" are the limiting factor, we'll never have nice things lol.

Besides, they've already said they're not making any changes to HG until they deal with cheaters. So any potential/pipe-dream XP changes would probably take a backseat to their security/anti-cheat cheat plans regardless.

@theblackbellamy A square root function always has a positive slope, meaning the player would always be getting more xp, but it tapers off over time meaning the player wouldn't be getting as much per minute as a fight goes on. Having it so there's a set value (like 100 xp) that gets subtracted from over time wouldn't be a good idea, as it discourages people from continuing a match after a long time. And people are already encouraged to fight as quickly as possible, so there's not really any issues of running. Making it so that you start at the current xp value, and then will earn more over time just with diminishing returns is the best solution IMO. It still encourages faster matches while making longer matches worth playing out. As I said before, if it was linear or more than linear then just camping some bad player would essentially grant the same xp as playing like 20 matches if you did it long enough. I dunno if you were quite getting what I was saying before, so this is just to hopefully make it clearer. If you were then great, if you weren't then now you know!

I know the start of it is really sharp, but functions can be edited to exclude certain parts and shift things back to zero, as well as change the horizontal and vertical stretch. There's basically a whole part of calculus/programming that lets you make custom curves really easily so this is an example function that's common and easy to understand, it doesn't have to actually be a sqrt function.

As for whether the loss and win xp should increase, it's simple. The best strategy should be trying to win, not just running and waiting for your loss xp to be roughly equivalent to a win... Ensuring the win reward is worth going for at all points is just what makes funny monkey people tick. Like imagine if 1 hour of a match made the win and loss xp roughly equivalent, why keep playing past an hour? If you lose you just get the same thing as winning. Plus it still has the issue of making the winner feel like it was a waste of time. Why would they spend an hour fighting for something if they could just lose and fight an easier person quicker?

On the sails, I just simply don't think it's necessary. It's not like making it a little easier to progress in HG is going to diminish the worth of 1000 levels of HG. Even if it only added up to like 90% of the time it used to be it's still going to be close to like 700+ hours to get it, so they would both be around the same skill and dedication. If anything the reward would make more sense for level 100 players, which would actually maybe prove some skill separation. Also yeah I agree with your point about cheaters.

@fysics3037 said:

@theblackbellamy A square root function is always has a positive slope, meaning the player would always be getting more xp, but it tapers off over time meaning the player wouldn't be getting as much per minute as a fight goes on.

I'm guessing you started replying before I edited my comment to clarify, but I think an even "flatter" curve (x^0.3 or even less tbh) would more effectively achieve:

Making it so that you start at the current xp value, and then will earn more over time just with diminishing returns

But we are basically on the same page here. As for:

... Like imagine if 1 hour of a match made the win and loss xp roughly equivalent, why keep playing past an hour? If you lose you just get the same thing as winning. Plus it still has the issue of making the winner feel like it was a waste of time. Why would they spend an hour fighting for something if they could just lose and fight an easier person quicker?

The incentive to win is that winner still keeps all their supplies, streak, and flag lol... The loser only gets XP. They still have to start from scratch.

Maybe that's not so much an issue in the world of supplies exploits (idek what is and isn't patched, what went away, what came back); but for casual players, losing supplies is a pretty big demotivator. It comes up so much that folks request "HG supplies," which just simply won't work in the larger context of Adventure. Another reason I miss Arena...

At least if they get rewarded for their effort, losing everything else might not feel so bad? 🤷‍♂️

If anything the reward would make more sense for level 100 players, which would actually maybe prove some skill separation.

Yeah the gold bones/ghost reward thing isn't a hill I'm willing to die on lol. Like I said it wouldn't benefit me either way.

I'm all for sails, trinkets, or whatever else at every 100 levels, 500 levels, doesn't matter. The end result is folks, who went through the grind prior to nerfs, feel better about caring when others didn't.

@theblackbellamy I was just making sure we were on the same page with the first part, no worries!

Also yeah there's the streaks but like it's not that worth it? Also I think it'd make running a really common strategy. You could just run for like 20 minutes or whatever to get decent XP and then sink. No supplies, streaks, or intended gameplay loop needed. I think the gap between losing and winning should always be clear, with losing seeing pretty small improvements overall. Winning is the overall goal and anything that makes winning less worth it is just not a good idea.

@fysics3037 said in hourglass reputation:

Also yeah there's the streaks but like it's not that worth it?

Is it not still worth going to 4 and then turning in? There are commendation driven reasons too. Can't remember if there are milestones for streaks as well, but if so, there's another reason.

Also I think it'd make running a really common strategy. You could just run for like 20 minutes or whatever to get decent XP and then sink... I think the gap between losing and winning should always be clear, with losing seeing pretty small improvements overall. Winning is the overall goal and anything that makes winning less worth it is just not a good idea.

This is why regardless of how you scale Win XP, let's call it W, Loss XP (let's call it L) should be rewarded based on their relative activity (e.g. cannon hits, repairs, boarders killed). The post I linked earlier gives examples of point values.

However you determine the score, and whatever point values you assign to activties, the loser's total points (B) could be compared to the winner's points (A) when determining their appropriate amount of XP.

Let's say a win is 100 XP at 1 min for simplicity. We both agree that this value (W) increases, albeit with diminishing returns, the longer the match lasts. But whatever the value is in the end, it is W.

What I think is a simple and fair way to determine Loss XP (L) is L = (B/A)*W.

So in your example, if someone runs for 20 minutes, then their activity would be nothing. Using a very flat x^0.03 to scale Win XP, at 20 min, the winner would have just shy of 110 XP. The loser's activity (0/A)*~110 would be nada. They do nada, they get nada. Even if the winner landed only 1 cannon hit, they get 110 for their 20 min chase, and the loser just did all that for nothing.

Not all fights have large gaps in performance; some (especially between two casual crews) tend to be very close, before one crew finally wins. I'd like Rare to make an environment where players who try their damndest are rewarded for their effort, and players who throw and run end up with nothing lol.

@theblackbellamy I mean I guess that would work, but I still just don't like the idea of losers getting a lot of rep for trying. Takes away from the feeling of winning imo and the impact of the mode. I don't think your idea wouldn't work, I just don't think removing the "lows" would be a good idea because of how that impacts the "highs"