wmilliken wrote:

I’ve seen this in action in STO, in their “Crystalline Catastophe” task force operation, which has extra rewards for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd highest damage. Basically, you don’t want to take anything but your high damage output characters into that TFO.

I don't remember anything in CoH that operated along the lines of rewarding anything based on "1st, 2nd, and 3rd highest damage" output. That might be a viable way to have something work in other MMOs but it appears the original CoH Devs either didn't think of doing that or (more hopefully) they decided not to do anything like that on purpose.

Perhaps if there was some way to also recognize the "best buffer/debuffer" and/or the "best healer" that'd be equivalent and fair then this might be adaptable to this game. Otherwise I tend to think the Devs of CoT will avoid this exact scenario based on how inherently biased it would be towards one class of characters versus others.

Grey Stone wrote:

First, thank you for the update! I enjoyed reading this and the new (to me at least) information it provided. So again, thank you!

Second, a positive thought about the Glory system. Based on what I read, it sounds like folks who want to strictly be known as street-level heroes can be just that. Or if there were folks that wanted to run together, but say one person really enjoyed the feel of theirs, then they could essentially turn off their XP but still be rewarded for gameplay. I like the possibilities of this! But that leads me to the my third comment...

Farming. If we are able to shut off everything else, except for drops, effectively increasing the rate at which rare items will be obtained, won't that just lead to people farming certain materials and then selling them off on the AH? It isn't a new thing to me, as every online game I've played that has an auction house has some sort of feature that better allows farming and things of that sort, but I'm mostly wondering out loud here. Is there any concern about players potentially abusing the system for that purpose?

There is nothing inherently wrong with farming. And...isn't that the point of the AH? to sell stuff? If you want to make in-game currency in the AH, wouldn't you want to go farm "certain materials" that sell well? I wouldn't classify farming as abusing the sytem.

Dark Cleric wrote:

There is nothing inherently wrong with farming. And...isn't that the point of the AH? to sell stuff? If you want to make in-game currency in the AH, wouldn't you want to go farm "certain materials" that sell well? I wouldn't classify farming as abusing the sytem.

I mean, yes, that is the point of the AH. But for me personally, I'd rather not make a majority of my in game currency by playing the AH. I'm thinking vaguely of somewhere between the issues that Diablo 3 had, and the issues that CoX had once the mission architect first rolled out (very likely I'm misremembering the latter).

So for D3, you could play the game normally, sure, but it was more practical to just go to the AH and buy gear that someone else farmed rather than try to get it yourself. Of course, D3 did not have this sort of system where farming could be encouraged to such an extent.

As for CoX... I think there was an issue with farming some of the missions that people made because those missions were dropping a bunch of stuff that was supposed to be harder to get? Or maybe it was excessive amounts of tickets being dropped..? I guess I can't really use this one as an argument since I can't even remember it well enough, but in my head it was something to the effect of "farm at MA, go sell at AH, repeat."

Again, I like this system and it's not even an issue for me necessarily. I expect that's what the true end-game will turn into though. Farming materials to just sell them, because otherwise you're making money wrong. Or something like that, anyway.

So, Credibility is the In-Game Currency?

Solid update, fairly informative, keep'em coming.

I really like all of this. For me it hits that perfect sweet spot between familiar and new, keeping the stuff from the old game that worked well, but adding some new aspects to keep it interesting.

Airhead looks forward to lots of credulities.

Huckleberry wrote:

Took me a while, but I've finally parsed through the update.

First, thanks for the exposition. This is good stuff.

Now into the details:[list=1]
[*]Kill Stealing. I really don't like the zero-sum reward system you've described. I think if a person does the majority of the work and a non-grouped person comes in and does some, that first person should still get full credit. I believe there should be a threshhold above which full credit is applied (say 33% for argument's sake). Below this, rewards should be proportionate as described in the update. So a character contributing 30% should get 30% of the glory but a character contributing 33% gets full credit. One could argue that it can still be kill stealing of the ninjas reduce the original contributor to less than 33%, but I have two responses to that. First, it would still be no worse than what has already proposed; and second, if someone's contribution did get lowerd to less than 33% by ninjas then they can't rightly claim a full kill really. The only other acceptable option I would propose is everyone gets full credit if they contribute above a certain percentage and no credit if below, and then set the threshhold someplace low like 10%. I believe this is how FFXIV and GW2 do it.
[*]Kill Stealing part deux. How to calculate contribution. I agree with WMilliken in [url=https://cityoftitans.com/comment/176842#comment-176842]post #6 [/url] above that calculating by damage alone is immensely troubling. However, I have some ideas to address this:[list]
[*]Anyone who casts a (successful) buff or debuff into a combat achieves a set damage equivalency towards that combat. The damage equivalency should be assigned based solely upon the level of the recipient in the combat. Then after that number is set, it is adjusted based upon the level of the caster just as was described in the original article. AoE buffs and debuffs would be deemed "successful" if they affect a participant who either causes damage or takes damage only. I make this restriction because when groups are taken into account, any member of a group involved in that combat is considered in that combat. Therefore this restriction would prevent people from leeching glory by joining a group and then standing out of range buffing only themselves.
[*]Any time damage taken is either evaded or otherwise mitigated away, that damage should count as an equivalent amount of contribution. So tanks can still get credit, too.
[*]Any heals cast into combat have a damage equivalent equal to the amount of healing done.
[*]In this way, when a combat is concluded, all the contributions are combined to a sum far greater than the hit points of the enemy and the glory is divided proportionately from this total. This seems equitable and rewards support contribution as well as damage done and damage mitigated.[/list]

There is no proper way to have a direct equivalency to buffs provided, damage mitigated, debuffs or controls dealt which correlates accurately to a target's hit point value. Much less providing that information in a way that a player can easily understand how the rewards were parsed. KISS exists for a reason, overtly complex systems such as described are solutions in search of a problem.

Also, there are reasons why damage thresholds aren't being used here. For one, every character can crit. Builds can eventually improve crit rates. Some builds will have ways to leverage advantages in their mechanics for improved damage dealt either through crits, or unmitigated damage, or improved damage. Many other games don't have the high rate of mobility that we offer where certain players can leverage mobility and sudden, high outputs of results.

Huckleberry wrote:

[*]You state that a character on a mission automatically becomes the group leader. What triggers this? What happens when there are more than one character on the same mission? I think a look at edge cases might be in order here. [list=I]
[*]A group forms up after characters have accepted their own different missions. I would expect group leadership remain with the person sending the group invites, as is the default method of every party forming system in every MMO, right? And whichever mission the party leader is undertaking is the mission and level assignment of the group.
[*]A group is already formed and the players are off randomly doing their own thing, selling items, talking to NPC, etc., as groups are wont to do. One of the players accepts a mission from an NPC. Does this automatically change the leadership and level of the whole group?
[*]A group is already formed and one of the players in the group gets a mission located in an instance. None of the other players have the mission. How would an automatic group leadership switch occur if the existing party leader does not see the NPC, have access to the instance 'door,' or have access to the NPC dialogue options as the mission holder? It seems to me that a deliberate transfer of leadership to the mission holder would be required.
[*]A group is already formed and one of the players in the group gets a mission located in the open world. Near as I can figure, the current group leader must have to assign a "current" mission, which then automatically appoints the appropriate character with that mission as the new group leader. (this is applicable to the above situation as well) It also, as a result, precludes multiple simultaneous missions. So one mission to "go hunt kill skuls", by one lower level character could not be simultaneously prosecuted with "find and kill skull lieutenants" by another higher level character even though both characters may be in the same group and both missions take place in the same neighborhoods of Titan City. This is a potential concern that may need to be addressed as it could frustrate players who have to switch back and forth between group leaders and character levels repeatedly, depending on the enemies targeted.
[*]A group is already formed and all the group members want to get and complete the same mission. According to your update, would they need to disband the group so they can each get credit for the mission? This doesn't sound like something you intend (but it might be when one considers the alignment / reputation / and mission tree ramifications of different players' desire to choose different dialogue options and plot decisions, but I digress). So I'm expecting you will implement the ability to share missions within a party so long as prerequisites are met. This is pretty standard fare in MMO now and would permit an existing group leader to maintain level and leadership consistency throughout the mission chain. (but back to plot and dialogue decisions, perhaps some would be incompatible with others, especially on subsequent links in a mission chain, so maybe sharing missions with party members will not be an option in City of Titans?)
[*]A group forms up to prosecute a mission. More than one group member has the same mission, but not the current leader. How does party leadership automatic switching determine which one with the mission to assign as the new leader?
[/list]
As a result of the cases above, I don't think it makes sense to say that a party's leadership automatically changes depending on the mission. Rather, I suggest the missions available should automatically change depending on the party leadership. Then leave it up to the party leader to assign a new leader to prosecute the missions of that character. It has the added side effect of placing more agency in the players' hands and preventing spontaneous changes in the leadership and character level of a group.
[/list]
That's all I've got so far.

Thanks again for sharing your concepts with us.

Sorry if the update implies that when one accepts a mission they are automatically the group leader. That wasn't intended. The intent was meant to impart that the mission holder of the mission selected IS the group leader in order to adjust all the characters within a group to that of the mission holder. In order for the mission to be selected, the holder will need to be the leader.

As to point 4, where 2 players of different levels have missions involving the same faction, this is a limitation. One cannot both complete a mission that isn't set as the group's mission. The system acknowledges the active mission. If we can resolve this issue we will, at the time though, we have limits on what the mission system is capable of.

Regarding point 5, I don't know where you got the impression. We intend to allow for an auto-complete feature. Truth be told, the current system doesn't work that way but we have to iterate on the mission system to get there. We are planning on it.

Point 6 - see point 1.

Huckleberry wrote:

Tannim222 wrote:

Huckleberry wrote:

2. Kill Stealing part deux. How to calculate contribution. I agree with WMilliken in [url=https://cityoftitans.com/comment/176842#comment-176842]post #6 [/url] above that calculating by damage alone is immensely troubling. However, I have some ideas to address this:[list]
[*]Anyone who casts a (successful) buff or debuff into a combat achieves a set damage equivalency towards that combat. The damage equivalency should be assigned based solely upon the level of the recipient in the combat. Then after that number is set, it is adjusted based upon the level of the caster just as was described in the original article. AoE buffs and debuffs would be deemed "successful" if they affect a participant who either causes damage or takes damage only. I make this restriction because when groups are taken into account, any member of a group involved in that combat is considered in that combat. Therefore this restriction would prevent people from leeching glory by joining a group and then standing out of range buffing only themselves.
[*]Any time damage taken is either evaded or otherwise mitigated away, that damage should count as an equivalent amount of contribution. So tanks can still get credit, too.
[*]Any heals cast into combat have a damage equivalent equal to the amount of healing done.
[*]In this way, when a combat is concluded, all the contributions are combined to a sum far greater than the hit points of the enemy and the glory is divided proportionately from this total. This seems equitable and rewards support contribution as well as damage done and damage mitigated.[/list]

There is no proper way to have a direct equivalency to buffs provided, damage mitigated, debuffs or controls dealt which correlates accurately to a target's hit point value. Much less providing that information in a way that a player can easily understand how the rewards were parsed. KISS exists for a reason, overtly complex systems such as described are solutions in search of a problem.

How is this overly complex? It is very very simple.

If I cast a buff or debuff I get X equivalent contribution for every buff or debuff I cast. Can't get simpler than that.
If I cast a heal, I get the same amount of contribution as I heal. can't get any simpler than that.
If I take damage I get contribution associated with the damage taken. (remember I only get this if we defeat it, so people won't fight losing battles just to get glory by taking damage)
If I'm an evasion tank, I get contribution for every attack I evade as if it had hit me. Can't get any simpler than that. An alternate form of this would be to provide a set amount glory as applies to buffs and debuffs above.

I don't think such a contribution system is asking players to think too hard or would confuse many at all. Furthermore it doesn't disenfranchise (and downright discourage) the very large proportion of your playerbase who will be playing Stalwarts, Guardians and Operators.

Besides, the whole point here isn't that the players will be parsing the contribution percentages. The players won't even see the calculations gong on, all they'll know is that they get rewarded for playing their character and not the system. And that's what we're trying to instill, right?

There is no "X equivalency" which directly correlates between every single type of possible buff or debuff which determines direct contribution to determine if a reward should be split or not. This isn't something that is an issue for groups. Split rewards are only a concern for when multiple players are not in a group attacking the same target. Which is different from world events. The system acknowledges rewards based on defeating a target. In order for a target to be defeated, it must take damage. The system doesn't weight rewards based on mitigating factors because there is no equivalency which is directly applicable and one which players will readily understand how their reward was split.

Huckleberry wrote:

Tannim222 wrote:

Also, there are reasons why damage thresholds aren't being used here. For one, every character can crit. Builds can eventually improve crit rates. Some builds will have ways to leverage advantages in their mechanics for improved damage dealt either through crits, or unmitigated damage, or improved damage. Many other games don't have the high rate of mobility that we offer where certain players can leverage mobility and sudden, high outputs of results.

I'm unsure of what you mean. Could you please explain better, because I can't tell what point you are trying to make here.
It sounds like you are saying every character can create a damage spike. Well, okay, if something is common to every character, how does that illigitimize damage threshholds for contribution credit?
It also sounds like you may be saying that some players will be able to create immensely higher spikes in damage than others. Yes, I know it sounds like your two thoughts contradict each other, but that's one of the reasons why I am having difficulty understanding it. But this point doesn't invalidate damage threshholds either. Like I said, implementing damage threshholds will allow the major contributors to achieve FULL CREDIT for a kill while lesser contributors only get the portion of glory that your system was already giving them. In my book, that is BETTER than your proposal not worse; because it does a bit more to mitigate the negative (anti-social) effects of kill stealing, and is all the reason I would want to implement damage threshholds.

Damage thresholds can easily be abused when it comes to characters which can have high burst damage. It can also lead to a high rate of full rewards being given out along with partial rewards given out which results in a higher rate of intended rewards earned overall. Its one thing if it happens for 2 players, its far different if there are hundreds, or thousands of players. Remember, we have one mega-server and multiplying rewards for full credit based on damage thresholds and partial credit for under thresholds multiplies the intended reward rate of the world spawns.

This also incentivizes grouping up where players who work together can defeat enemies at a higher rate and have bonuses based on their group size.

Huckleberry wrote:

Nothing is stopping you from making an X equivalency, though. As an idea, saying it won't work because you haven't done it yet is a poor argument. However, I think I understand where you're coming from. If someone wants to participate in open world content, they should expect only the damage done to be counted for glory because the mechanics are easier to implement and the relatively small quantifiable return on developer investment to make it more fair for Guardians, Controllers and Operators is not worth it. I'm sure if a larger portion of the content was open world this might shift the value equation somewhat because it would affect a higher percentage of players' lives. But it's not, so it seems not worth fine-tuning for parity. Do I understand you correctly?

Firstly, I don't appreciate the insinuation that I'm taking the easy route because I don't want to try something yet. I've done months upon months of modelling and simulating the math that drives the game. Quite simply, there is no direct nor indirect correlation between every possible type of buff or every possible type of debuff or every possible type of control as it relates to damage dealt or hit point value of an enemy. Nor is there a correlation between how much damage is mitigated by an enemy for its hit point value.

Is it possible to make such a mathematical model? Perhaps though I can guarantee that it the equivalency over time wouldn't be fair in the least. Coding that math would be altogether a different, complicated issue as the pure formula would be enormous.

Also, you make certain assumptions about certain Archetypes and their damage capabilities. While they certainly won't immediately compare to Enforcers or Rangers, there is a lot of parity in capability within the game.

Huckleberry wrote:

How do you quantify the effect of positive social interactions in an MMO?

Analyzing metrics. We will be able to tell how many players group up or play alone, for how long they do, what type of content is engaged, how many are active in super teams, etc. We can measure how long a player play in general and compare these metrics. What you want to see is the majority of players engaged in group activities within the game within certain time frames of play time as a general rule of thumb. This isn't to say soloing is "bad" or anything like that.

There are also things you can't quite "measure" but you can use as a sign post that you have a healthy community that is engaged with one another. One will be the way the general player base reacts to new players. The general "word of mouth" in how the public discusses the type of community that exists in the game. Ways that players provide emergent experiences, like costume contents or new player races in low level areas. You can't measure them, but seeing those happening regularly certainly provides some indication of positive social interactions.

Huckleberry wrote:

it sounds like you are trying to make it far more complicated than it needs to be. Just give it a value. Call it a day, and play test it a bit to see if it feels too much or too little

You can’t just “give it a value”. That is completely arbitrary and meaningless. All values mean something. They carry a worth of something, hence, the term.
All the different types of buffs, all the forms of damage mitigation, every type of control would all need galaxies which somehow correlate to damage being done in order to ensure a truly “balanced value”.

And then you have to test every possible permutation of every effect combination for every archetype in order to verify if there is any parity.

That is even if you can identify what the “values” mean in relation to every other value.

If it were I easy, games they focus on combat like this one would be doing it. It’s not. In fact it’s so convoluted that it won’t work in then long run because of how many complications will arise by all the possible combinations.

Heck, I even looked at a simplified version of using our threat system. And it didn’t work. It doesn’t use direct equivalencies of all effects of combat but used a multiplied formula and stripping it down made it too easy to manipulate.

The system requires an enemy to be defeated to yield its reward value. There isn’t a fair way to distribute rewards for assisting in all the possible ways that can be done that also has an equivalency to how well Damage was mitigated and how much damage was dealt to the target.

Tannim222 wrote:

Huckleberry wrote:

it sounds like you are trying to make it far more complicated than it needs to be. Just give it a value. Call it a day, and play test it a bit to see if it feels too much or too little

You can’t just “give it a value”. That is completely arbitrary and meaningless. All values mean something. They carry a worth of something, hence, the term.
All the different types of buffs, all the forms of damage mitigation, every type of control would all need galaxies which somehow correlate to damage being done in order to ensure a truly “balanced value”.

And then you have to test every possible permutation of every effect combination for every archetype in order to verify if there is any parity.

That is even if you can identify what the “values” mean in relation to every other value.

If it were I easy, games they focus on combat like this one would be doing it.

How many other games besides [i]RIFT[/i] have an actual support archetype instead of the typical trinity of Tank DPS and Healer? And if you're going to mention why other games don't factor in buffs heals and mitigation, you should at least be intellectually honest enough to admit that MMOs that have come out in the past 10 years have one thing in common: they've circumvented the discussion by giving ALL participants full rewards for every kill; which is something you've established is a line you will not cross. Why would they do this if not to avoid the toxic atmosphere created by kill stealing and role disparity when it comes to rewards.

Tannim222 wrote:

It’s not. In fact it’s so convoluted that it won’t work in then long run because of how many complications will arise by all the possible combinations.

Heck, I even looked at a simplified version of using our threat system. And it didn’t work. It doesn’t use direct equivalencies of all effects of combat but used a multiplied formula and stripping it down made it too easy to manipulate.

The system requires an enemy to be defeated to yield its reward value. There isn’t a fair way to distribute rewards for assisting in all the possible ways that can be done that also has an equivalency to how well Damage was mitigated and how much damage was dealt to the target.

And again, I believe you are making things FAR more complicated than they need to be.

I'll say it again:

Quote:

As long as the character who casts the buff or debuff gets the feeling that their actions contributed measurably and were recognized by the system as having contributed, that's all these players need to have. If the players finish a combat thinking their buffs and debuffs contributed measurably but the system did not recognize it nor reward it, then in my opinion you will have unhappy players who will stop participating in that way. (it may actually have an even more negative reaction when a player realizes his buffs or debuffs helped another player get more glory at the expense of his own)

Whether you get there by somehow divvying up the rewards based on some calculation, or yo get there by just providing a damage threshhold, I really don't care; as long as you get there. In my opinion.

But Darth Fez repeats what I also said earlier, and what I think you also believe. To wit, the return on developer investment to drive character parity (wrt glory rewards) doesn't favor the effort and analysis required. I personally think it's worth more, but you disagree. And I can live with that.

Then again, I've never liked people kill stealing off me even if rewards aren't depreciated by the assist. Once I'm in the rhythm of combat, I've always preferred the challenge and accomplishment of a personal take-down.

Tannim222 wrote:

Oh I know very well what some other games have done. Some give full rewards, some use thresholds, some still split rewards. Just because it’s done now doesn’t make it good either.

I’m intellectually honest enough to say that I believe many newer MMOs are much less about the massive multiplier aspect and treat their design more like single player experiences that happen to occur along side other people.

That is a good point. There certainly has been a noticeable simultaneous push in the same timeframe to cater to a more solo-friendly play. And I would be a fool to think that we could separate the evolution of modern MMO without looking at them as integrated systems taking all these factors into account in their design decisions. But just because there may be additional reasons for granting full rewards to all participants doesn't mean that the original and primary driver wasn't as a response to the negative aspects of kill stealing. I have participated in enough discussions with the developers of Wildstar, GW2 and FFXIV to know this. Kill stealing is the primary reason for full rewards and when full rewards were introduced to the public, in every case it was delivered with commentary that "you'll never have to worry about someone else stealing your kills again!" or words to that effect; to great applause from the community.

tannim222 wrote:

I am curious though, why are you so certain that players of characters that don’t have offense primaries will feel slighted by the system and be unhappy and cease participating?

What evidence do you have to support this claim?

Actually that's not what I said, but I admit I can certainly understand the way you interpreted it is a reasonable interpretation based on the words I used.

What I said was that players would "stop participating [b]in that way[/b]." And I stand by this statement. It is cause and effect, stimulus and response, goal-driven human nature. I don't think I have to further support such an obvious conclusion now that I've clarified my statement. But since you asked and this is asynchronous communication, I'm going to support it with the hypothetical scenario below:

For any given opponent there is a certain amount of action economy. Depending on how damaging a character's attacks are, let's say for argument's sake that the average player character can defeat an equivalent level opponent within five attacks. Those more damage-oriented can do it in less and those less damage-oriented would take more attacks to do so.
A character who's build is based on debuffing the opponent so her attacks can do more damage, for example, would debuff the opponent and then attack it. That's a one action investment. Another character who is totally damage oriented uses his first action to attack. Not only does this second character not need to invest an action on debuffs, but he also get to capitalize on the investment made by the debuffing character. As a result, by the time the debuffing character gets around to making her first attack the damage oriented character who by his very nature requires less attacks to defeat an opponent has already made one attack taking advantage of the debuff and is making his second. And with that, the opponent is defeated. The debuffing character takes a measly 30% or less of the reward. The lesson the debuffing character takes away from this is: do not invest the action to debuff the opponent. One interesting observation of this is psychologically the player's opponent becomes other players, and not the opponent his or her character is facing. In effect, they no longer have to outrun the bear, they just have to outrun the other characters. This is the participation change I was referring to. Rather than trying to defeat the character's opponents the best way they know how, or in the way most consistent to their character's design, they instead have to prosecute opponents to keep other players from contributing more than they do. Taken to the extreme, it could cause a player to redesign his or her character away from what they want towards what they need to compete. That's not a friendly environemnt.
This also makes the player a bit sad, because she is proud of her augmented debuff ability yet the game will only reward her build in group or instanced content.

As a player of typically support characters, I have myself had to adjust my own combat actions to account for this phenomenon. I learned quickly to make my first action an instant cast ability just so I could be on the damage ledger at all. I also learned to spam this instant ability across as many opponents as possible in order to game the system, knowing that others would pile on. As a player, this always felt disingenuous to me. I would have preferred to play my character in accordance with the world in which the character was in rather than the game system in which I the player was in.

But then, like we've said, and Darth Fez supported, how much is open world combat really going to matter when it comes to how you spend your development time? Only you know the answer to that.

Tannim222 wrote:

I’m very aware of action economy. The issue is not all effects in the game have an equivalency. Nor nor is it feasible to account for every possible combination of effect and every possible value of each effect and its combination that will ensure equivalent results. Especially with every combined effect such as buffs and debuffs that have diminishing returns.

Or when an effect is used which had no impact on combat. Super simple examples could be someone using a resistance debuff on an enemy that debuffs their physical resistance but the other character is using exotic damage which isn’t being resisted, or if the character was using armor piercing damage which bypasses resistances altogether.

These players would get acknowledged for combat assists if their effect is active when the enemy is defeated but which can be counted toward achievements but doesn’t equate to Glory rewards for the defeat itself.

I love this kind of juicy response. Get's me wanting the play the game even more.

While this discussion is merited...I just can't see kill-stealing being an issue in this game. If you're not in an instance then street battles are going to take a period of time best defined in seconds, not minutes. Even if someone is trying to grief you by following you and kill-stealing...just report and go hit up an instance. Chances are that person will be gone in 30 seconds after you leave. Again...the discussion is merited but I just don't see it being an issue for 99.99% of players in this game.

Cooltastic wrote:

I'm in no way as brainy as you guys, but I had a thought.

Would it be possible to make rewards based off the amount of power activation's players do within a certain range of the enemy target during the time the enemy target is aggro'd?

Every player no matter the style should be firing off abilities at roughly the same pace. So I feel like this would be the simplest route to take beside's granting full rewards to all.

PS: It would have to be set to only while the target is being aggro'd to keep people form spamming PBAoE's and buffs before aggro in order to boost their reward.

Cooltastic, In the system you describe, there wouldn't be any way of knowing that every power activated within range of a mob is directed at that particular mob or affects the characters who are interacting with that mob. And at what range would it extend? To extend it out to the maximum range of Ranger archetypes, (or even Guardian archetypes who are even farther away buffing the Rangers perhaps), and taking into account the possibility of slotted range [i]Optimizer[/i] [url=https://cityoftitans.com/content/what-we-can-do-augments-and-refinements]Augments[/url] and [i]Range[/i] Refinements, and the number of possible power-using candidates could be great indeed. Awarding every one of them within that range credit for a kill, regardless of what they were actually doing during the time the target was aggroed, with the discriminator being that all they had to do was use a power during that time, does not seem like it would be rewarding the right people for the correct behavior. It would also short-change the people who were actually prosecuting that particular target by sending portions of their rewards to all the others. While this kind of socialism sounds great on the political stage of the real world, I don't think it would be conducive to a good gaming experience.

Not being one to poo poo another's idea without offering some sort of suggestion, I think there may be a way to make your idea work, but you might not like it. Make the range very short. This would have a beneficial effect on Stalwart and Enforcer archetypes since it would cut down on the number of people they would have to share their rewards with. But, this would cause a behavioral shift in ranged character archetypes; requiring them to come in to short range if they want to get any glory for the kill. Some ranged players who design their character around kiting or placing movement debuffs on their targets to enable and survive long range combat would no longer be able to use such a play style from short range. Many of these characters are also glass cannon builds who would not survive long at short range either. Anyone who played a glass cannon Blaster in CoX knew that range = survival.

Here’s an idea: base contribution to a fight on the Endurance spent on it. Each point of Endurance spent on a power targeting a bad guy counts. Each point spent on a power targeting a player who is in the fight counts. Thus effort, as measured by the Endurance each player spends, will be proportionate to the contribution.

Presumably Endurance is balanced so that each point has roughly the same effectiveness when used for a power. If that’s not balanced, there will be larger balance issues than xp division.

Darth Fez wrote:

Apologies if this suggestion has already been made and I overlooked it. With an eye on larger and longer fights - open world events, be they some kind of alien invasion or GM - I think a system similar to Warhammer Online's "open party" is the best approach. When someone starts an open party anyone is free to join. They don't need to know the name of the group leader, or to send a whisper / tell to them, or wait for an invite. They join the group, do their thing, and then they can leave. This should lower the barriers for people who don't otherwise group up and help overcome any disparity between contribution and rewards.

That is a really good idea.