Discussion: Skill-Based Difficulty, Time-Based Difficulty, and Value Preservation

[Qyune-exodar]

It’s been one of those days… here is another deleted post probably to be followed up with a heavily edited post.

@Níghtstalker-malganis

This could be done by 1000s of players over time yet only a few will even get the mount once it shows up on those BMAHs. The BMAH is not the better solution. It is an additional chance that might be even worse in terms of investment and potential outcome. If you argue that 2000 hours are fine to farm that gold: 2000 hours of effective gameplay are (currently) enough to amass 3-4x the gold cap if not more. So the mount showing up on BMAH might also be worth that much if it wasn’t for the cap. And even then YOU have to get it. A deadlock on spawn with > 9.6m gold can’t be countered anymore. Anecdotal evidence from different points in time where the available gold via vendor/quest or AH was less is not truely representative of the effort.

From a design standpoint, this is what you want, right? If there is ever a rare drop in the game (or something just difficult to earn), then you don’t want the BMAH to become the better source for this item. The intent for the BMAH is to give players an additional chance at the item – not a better chance.

@Níghtstalker-malganis

On the baseline it should also not depend on structuring your entire weekly schedules around it. Running 30+ chars to up to 4 MoP mounts can easily take up double digit hours per week. At some point there has to be a better compromise.

There are millions of players who play this game. Each with their own level of skill, gold-making ability, preferences of types of content, and availability of time. Whenever the development team designs a Mythic-level raid, they don’t center its overall design around the player who has an LFR level of skill. In fact, they don’t even design around the average player’s skillset. However, the opportunity is still there for players to push to a Mythic level – if they want to. Also, the transmog appearance specific to Mythic is only available from Mythic-level difficulty. This content becomes available to most others around 2 – 3 years later when the content is soloable. This is your preservation of communal value transitioning from Skill-Based Difficulty to Time-Based Difficulty.

The same is true for players who really enjoy the slot-machine style of RNG. This type of hunt on this level is content that is enjoyed by some within the community. I believe Mythic raiders make up 1% - 2% of the community, and yet there is an entire tier built specifically for them (and anyone who want to go to that level). So, it completely reasonable that a handful of mounts require an extraordinary amount of effort for those wanting to put in the effort. However, as opposed to Mythic-level raid transmogs, this content was available to everyone from Day 1, because it is Time-based content outright. So, the communal value is preserved because its Time-Based difficulty that isn’t forcibly changed. The compromise here is that there are 800+ mounts currently in the game for those who find the MoP WB mounts and X-45 Heartbreaker excessive.

Again, this is all for the standard bell curve to 2 – 3 standard deviations. We will cover bad luck protection later. I just want to focus on value preservation more than anything.