Diminishing Return for Perk Point Gains

[Arlo]

This does not, or rather, is not working.

It works for many things in the MAs, where the self-policing community is ever present and usually on a 24/7/365 shift, but there are alleys in this game that even at high-noon rarely see sunlight.

Unless you're Skuzzy's shadow account, you have no idea whether it works or not. I reckon 90% of the 'infractions' sent to him are checked into and it's a matter of perception. Even then, if they bust someone it's not gonna make front page news, usually. Unless it's a forum thing.

[Kingpin]

Spot on.

I don't really think HTC should be spending their time/resources having to police this problem indefinitely, when closing the loophole allowing people to abuse the perk system stops it permanently.

Morf, with a diminishing return for killing the same player inside of an hour, even if they switch between multiple shade accounts, they still are only getting full perks once per hour, which is not an efficient form of perk farming.  What I think is happening is the shade-vulchers are orbiting an enemy field and killing their shade repeatedly.  For example, ArchieD has almost 90 kills in just a few days on his shade account.  The diminishing returns formula would effectively reduce the perks gained from vulching this new shade account over and over.

I still think the best way to nip this in the bud is by turning off the perk transfer from arena to arena.  However, having a diminishing return on killing the same player in a short period of time is also good, because it has a side effect of reducing the perks gained from spawn camping and vulching the same upper, so I like this idea as well.

 
Ryno

[DubiousKB]

Great points Babs. 

It doesn't seem to be impossible to have criteria to either discourage or penalize pilots.  It seems the question you're really asking is:
What is the criteria for "perk farming" and/or "shade killing".

  I'm very happy to see that the 'honor' among those in the community here dictate that this type of behavior is unacceptable and detrimental to the overall enjoy-ability of the product.

So, how can you apply a metric which successfully determines the validity of a "perk farmer" or "shade vulcher"? This is what it boils down to. If you can accurately categorize the actions of a pilot to fit the criteria of "perk farming/shade vulching", they can be handled. If you cannot clearly categorize those actions, then without human monitoring, it becomes very difficult to police/enforce.

As stated earlier, I would be infuriated if I was provided a message like:

"Your perk points have been reduces for this sortie due to AH:Regulatory infraction"  And I've genuinely been working to get my kills. It's like i said, don't you DARE accuse me of something I didn't do, because it hurts my feelings and makes me mad....

It's gatta be in the math Babalonian. 

[Babalonian]

Unless you're Skuzzy's shadow account, you have no idea whether it works or not. I reckon 90% of the 'infractions' sent to him are checked into and it's a matter of perception. Even then, if they bust someone it's not gonna make front page news, usually. Unless it's a forum thing.

Skuzzy is only one person, with many many jobs.  We both don't have the numbers at hand, but I'd place my $5 on a player being able to farm enough perks for a 262 and utilise it before the first report is even filed into Skuzzy's inbox.

Adding this feature not only would give Skuzzy one less babysitting task, but it would nip these perk farmers in the bud before they could see any fruit to their labors, nevermind crank a 262 in the MAs.


I have always greatly enjoyed with some amusement the degree and passion to which a few people will defend perk farmers and their behaviors in this game.  Not saying you are, but if you really like Skuzzy and the job he does at HTCs, do you not want to make it easier for him?


Kingpin beat me to it. 


Adding a tool to do the job automaticly for HTCs/Skuzzy would be a good thing.  Adding a tool that does it intelligently enough that it makes participating "in the action" the most fruitful way of making perk points....  Adding a tool that could, again with enough intelligence in the coding, potentialy reward players for killing many different players in a short amount of time and surviving...

[morfiend]

This does not, or rather, is not working.

It works for many things in the MAs, where the self-policing community is ever present and usually on a 24/7/365 shift, but there are alleys in this game that even at high-noon rarely see sunlight.

  I'm wondering how you know this?  The only thing players can see or the stats and they may well show player X killed player Y so many times etc.  You cant see their account info so there is no way for the average player to know what if anything is done for any perceived infraction.

  I know from personal experience that HTC will remove all perks with no notice and that's that.

   Also while I like the idea of nontransferable perks,cant use MW perks in LW my question is what about the perks already acquired? Do they stay viable in LW and from x date on they are separate,I'm just not sure how you could work that out.

  Also the diminished returns could still be gotten around with a simple name change every 10 minutes or 1/2 hour etc. so I'm not sure how exactly it could be made to work.

  It's not that I oppose these ideas,it's more that I don't think recoading a part of the game is needed to accomplish what some players want.



  

[Arlo]

Skuzzy is only one person, with many many jobs.  We both don't have the numbers at hand, but I'd place my $5 on a player being able to farm enough perks for a 262 and utilize it before the first report is even filed into Skuzzy's inbox.

And I'm sure perkdweeb would be the scourge of the arena. That or an excellent source of perks for a legit player with skill. 

[whiteman]

And I'm sure perkdweeb would be the scourge of the arena. That or an excellent source of perks for a legit player with skill. 

no joke, my first flight back after 3 months i nailed 262 and Tempest 8 min's in. If it's a legitimate problem i'm sure they handle it.

[Arlo]

no joke, my first flight back after 3 months i nailed 262 and Tempest 8 min's in. If it's a legitimate problem i'm sure they handle it.

Good man! 

(Are you gonna FSO?) 

[Babalonian]

 I'm wondering how you know this?  The only thing players can see or the stats and they may well show player X killed player Y so many times etc.  You cant see their account info so there is no way for the average player to know what if anything is done for any perceived infraction.

  I know from personal experience that HTC will remove all perks with no notice and that's that.

   Also while I like the idea of nontransferable perks,cant use MW perks in LW my question is what about the perks already acquired? Do they stay viable in LW and from x date on they are separate,I'm just not sure how you could work that out.

  Also the diminished returns could still be gotten around with a simple name change every 10 minutes or 1/2 hour etc. so I'm not sure how exactly it could be made to work.

  It's not that I oppose these ideas,it's more that I don't think recoading a part of the game is needed to accomplish what some players want.



  

I think we're both argueing on the same side of an arguement here, so I'll try to backup on my earlier statement.  I have no doubt HTCs addreses these infractions when reported/discovered (but what if they don't get reported by someone?).  I have no doubt HTCs takes apropriate actions agaisnt these individuals (sometime between 8am-5pm M-F, ontop of dozens of other duties/repsoncibilities).

Why does it keep happening then?

Is it really effective if they can farm a large amount of perk points and spend them before anything can be done to stop/address it (something quite possible in a single evening, nevermind a weekend)?


This request is not recoding the game to acomplish anything, we're askign for a new little snippet/script (with the least impact to current gameplay or "the way things are").  This request would stop attempts to farm perks, the way it currently is being done, stone cold.  It has the potential benefit of freeing up a chore for HTCs and being utilised to reward/bonus for players who survive/overcome large engagements against many other players (as has been discussed, if it can detect you killing 2-players 80-times in a single sortie/hour, it can detect you killing 80-players 2-times in a single sortie/hour).