chess deception

invisible chess— pawns move forward if a diagonal capture is requested but the location is empty, an illegal move is reported as such and prevented, a long-distance move can end in an early capture, game pieces that are captured are displayed during removal

mechanics

04 Feb 2012

(was this recorded anywhere?)
healing—healing someone 'tags' them for a certain time (5 sec?), regardless of how much healing was done. during this time a portion of their damage goes to you for credit in PvP. tagging more people splits your attention among them equally, while other healers joining in could also potentially reduce your share of credit for damage.

no easy way to fix the 'stealthed rogue in BG' problem without affecting either someone who is CC'd, or giving healers an incentive to tag as many people as possible to be in combat with them (as well as for all other damage users to use AoE). Ignoring this second, simply counting everyone on damage list (including credit from healing) at time of death might work, if suboptimal since it still means either tagging as many as possible (AoE) or penalizing people who are CC'd (share within a group proportional to damage/credit). no reason to increase complexity of mechanics unless 'stealthed rogue leeching points' is a problem.


however, can also be extended to PvE! use for threat with local complexity.

skipping back to tanking though, 'boss attacks damage multiple people'. restores positioning as a complex mechanic with both positive and negative possibilities, instead of the purely negative (for the group) of 'frontal AoE cone'. Only being used for certain, flagged mobs (all bosses, maybe other powerful elites as well) helps with both roleplaying and server load.

not sure of justifications for tank mitigation so that 'a dodge doesn't lead to reduced damage on other targets'... separate from [the issue of balancing] other classes' relative mitigation but if a tank is being kept alive by only one healer, then a 1% marginal decrease in incoming damage is only equal to a 1% increase in healing for that single healer..? must be compared to dps as well though, since that's ultimately the concern for raid group composition. would it make sense for parry's damage reduction to be less than 1, but even lower for larger raid sizes..? (same with block) the question becomes do lower dodge rates make roleplaying sense (or would not doing so have gameplay benefit) especially if different raid sizes provide different parry reduction values.

if parry (and block) gave lower overall mitigation as a single target vs a raid boss compared to dodge, but allowed damage splitting when adjacent to the primary target unlike when dodging an attack, would it be balanced..? a rogue using Evasion would want to stand alone to avoid diverting attacks onto anyone else (..usually) and would have no reason to stand next to another class taking damage due to lack of total split damage reduction from dodge, while a class with parry/block/absorb and higher armor would want to.

not mentioned above, higher armor would mean taking a larger portion of damage even though the total pre-mitigation damage would always be higher when split. A divergence in functionality like this would be more acceptable if success was less balanced around maximum output including highest tank avoidance/mitigation, and more about the balance between multiple situations including when the tank does not have aggro. no idea about druid tanks and dodge, maybe they would just be less effective at protecting other raid members due to dodging attacks instead of being hit by them and parry/blocking?

in which cases would a lower overall single-target mitigation rate from parry/block make up for the greater predictability of incoming damage compared to dodge? if healer mana isn't a concern when the tank is taking damage, does this mean healer threat needs to be more difficult compared to a bear tanking, or would this be balanced by damage splitting in the situations where another player took aggro? can it be balanced at all for encounters where threat isn't a problem?

parry mitigation less than 1 means that the amount of parry+block must be more than marginal dodge + absorb, so it's inherently lower variance in incoming damage... if all raid sizes have at least some reduction in effectiveness of parry/block, then average mitigation probably balanced at a certain raid size... larger raids see lower total reduction but less spikyness for parry/block tanks, while smaller raids see greater total reduction as well for parry/block tanks. since incoming damage is fundamentally limited by cast time, RNG and tank health, larger raid sizes necesarily have to shift away from primary target damage anyway... just needs to be more fun and less "everyone must be perfect" (lack of both invisible and visible carrying).

did dodging bears ever make sense. any more than parrying a dragon's attack...

summary: avoiding damage split makes 'sense' for dodge and miss. this would mostly be bad for any tanks that stack dodge (which shouldn't really be that high, ideally, anyway). however it would only be bad if the primary tank loses aggro, which depends on other mechanics. furthermore only against bosses which have damage splitting mechanic for their attacks.

it's possible to balance this by slightly penalizing/balancing for tanks with parry and block to have lower mitigation when tanking... but it means this is only balanced for certain expectations of losing aggro, and a tank which can avoid this might be better off being a dodge-based tank class. damage splitting roles could even be performed by secondary tanks. the risk from higher incoming damage variance on a dodge-based tank is similar to the risk when damage splitting, and in both cases it may not be possible to fully balance this against overall mitigation advantage for all encounters.

also see, positioning for threat and risk of pulling aggro.


back to PvP and healing:
Cataclysm PVP Feedback // aka 'too many healers and Blood DKs' (p39)
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3967948445

splitting healer attention 'credit' in PvP: more is bad compared to just focusing on high-damage players. however in PvE: more is good when aggroing is from exceeding a threshold. tentative: while a mob remembers prior threat, healing threat is only added if it affects someone who damaged the mob in the last few seconds / is the current target..?

if overall healing threat is relatively constant (or capped at an asymptote with damage being similar) this leads to the strategy of sporadic aoe heals to tag for splitting threat. optimal mechanics might depend on server load..

the other possibility was not basing healing threat on the healing done at the moment of heal, but being based on the healer having tagged that player and a share of credit for their subsequent actions. completely different model but how would it work for healing throughput..?

is it cheaper to renew a timer with every attack ('attacked mob in last 5 sec') or to do a divide operation when a heal takes place?

[tangent] getting group threat levels on a tank asymptotic to dps from other players at large group sizes can be done with faster threat decay in larger groups. threat spikes from rng can then lead to single mobs peeling away from the group.


08 Feb 2012

'chained' relationships based on logical distance of an action. Healing would be flagged as 'originating from a threatening entity' when done to a mob's current target, or possibly 'a target in the last 5 sec'. That healer would then be ranked on a second-level list along with sources of incoming damage. Healing anyone on the second-level list would generate threat, but would not lead to being placed on the second-level list.

May be possible for total healing threat to continually increase with number of mobs for which healer is generating threat. This would be a solution to two contrasting situations, one where a player tanking a single mob would occasionally do a small amount of damage to another so that a dedicated healer has their threat split between those two mobs, the other where a player damaging a single mob does enough threat to a second, weak mob to keep it aggroed while attacking the primary mob to (once again) split healing threat. (These show that prioritizing healer threat based on which mob is targeting the healed player is not a workable mechanic.)

Other possibilities for unpredictability in large groups are if 'random component to aggro' is cheap enough to be done for all mobs, and capping total threat of non-damage aoe abilities (are there even any left?) the same way aoe damage is capped.

No conclusions on balancing number of healers in a 'realistic' way... even a system that reduced effectiveness of healing as time went on would not achieve the goal well. The perception of enrage timers delimiting competence and consequences of tank death from RNG are significant; if not for these then periodic events that led to loss of group members and weren't preventable by having more healers could be used more. When balanced off of raid performance (must kill adds with certain HP, or other dps check) must take into consideration range of group performance and use mechanics with which the group can compensate for individual player skill deficits. As with other types of class stacking the tradeoff of time and effort for a greater chance of success may be acceptable if the cost is clearly visible.

A system where capped aoe damage is not done equally, but instead the closest mobs receive full damage might have gameplay benefits that justify a higher server cost (and display complexity)... for example not feeling penalized on single target dps when using an aoe spell that hits multiple. Greater threat variability and increased difficulty tanking would be a 'bonus'. Being able to aim a spell so the most important targets receive the full effect would become a component of skilled play.

One interesting mechanic used in Aion is spell cancellation from taking damage, based on the damage from the attack. A counter-stat ("Concentration") causes a linear reduction in the size of an attack for the purpose of calculating interruption but it's probably broken/imbalanced especially with the game's scaling... but it leads to a very different feeling when a healer takes aggro even without the possibility of being locked out from a spell school. It provides an immediate danger from pulling aggro on a boss (multiple interruptions leading to death) without the vicious cycle caused by a healer healing themself and generating more threat or the long-term penalty of total mana used.

Examples of PvE healing threat and AoE tanking difficulty:
- boss goes crazy (period of high risk of pulling aggro); an injured player steps away and uses a self-heal ability. For the first few seconds they are still on the 'second-level list' and generate threat from self-healing; however since they were not the boss's primary target this healing does not keep them on the second-level list and they drop off of it, and the remainder of their self-healing does not generate threat on the boss.

- a tank/healer hybrid is healing players taking damage from separate mobs when one of those mobs aggros the healer. After taking some amount of damage a specialized tank manages to recover aggro, and the healer begins to heal themself. This does not generate threat on mob A which was doing incidental damage to player A without targeting them, whom the healer did some healing to in the past few seconds; it does generate threat on mob B which is targeting player B whom the healer healed recently; and it also generates threat on mob C which recently attacked the healer. The amount of threat on each of those two mobs is not half of what it would be for a single mob, but instead an intermediate amount somewhere between half and full. After several seconds, heals to self or to the player tanking mob C would no longer generate threat on mob B [see note 1].

This is similar to what would result from "healing threat based on proportion of each mobs' total threat list with threat decay" but would be much cheaper for the server if updating timers is cheaper than several divide operations for each heal.

- a tank is attacked by twice the usual number of mobs that do half normal damage. The tank's aoe attacks (or splash threat from single-target attacks) do more total threat but significantly less than double the total amount of threat due to caps/reductions on aoe threat and damage. AoE damage from other players in the group scale similarly to the tank's threat, but faster threat decay with twice the usual mobs and unequal distribution of AoE damage with some mobs taking full damage (different for tank vs other players due to proximity to ability origin) means they are more likely to pull aggro. The healer is doing the same amount of total healing since the mobs do half normal damage, but the total amount of healing threat is increased. So the tank is doing roughly normal threat to some mobs (the closest for aoe attacks) and significantly reduced threat to other mobs for reduced average threat and higher variance; the healer is doing reduced threat per mob but the same threat to every mob, and no upper bound on the total amount of threat as the number of mobs increases for the same healing done. These curves for average tank threat vs healer threat should use complementing formulas, but the expected values of tank dps and mitigation and mob damage should mean that the healer pulling aggro is assured for large groups.

- tank is attacked by a large group; healer pulls aggro from mob A and takes damage. Tank recovers aggro. Healer continues to heal tank and is healed by hybrid dpser; this generates aggro only on mob A, which has also become more sensitive to aggro (threat decay) due to switching targets, and so hybrid dpser pulls aggro on mob A. ...well this doesn't work, since the healer would be on the 'second-level list' for all mobs, although on first list only for mob A (and hybrid dsper is already on second-level list of mob A due to using aoe attacks)... but say if hybrid dpser had been attacking something else, then they would have generated a small amount of healing threat on mob A and as a result... not pulled aggro. So this is more a 'threat decay' thing, while the purpose of first and second-level 'threatening target' lists (separate from current threat amounts list) would be only to cause mobs to see healers as 'threatening' in some cases without the healer needing to cause damage and without making the healer permanently threatening by self-healing and renewing that threatening status.

Example of that last: player A is tanking mob A away from the boss. Player A periodically damages the boss to maintain some uptime on their second-level list, so when healed the healing threat is split between mob A and the boss (although closer to full than half). This is fine and intended use of mechanics.

However, healer pulls aggro on mob A from healing player A despite the reduction of healing threat from healing mob A's damage. Healer takes some damage from mob A before player A recovers aggro. They need to heal themself at this point, and will generate less threat on mob A if they can get on another mob's list of 'threatening targets'. They can either... 1) cast a quick spell on the boss, or 2) throw a quick heal on the boss's current target, while still healing player A, and then heal themself with some healing threat being split with the boss instead of going to mob A. This reduces the chance of pulling aggro from mob A again. While if simply attacking a mob put you on their first list (instead of being targeted by that mob), then player A would already be on the boss's first list, the healer would be on their second list from healing player A, and healing threat from self heals would be split between mob A and the boss with no action necessary on the part of the healer, lowering their skill cap. It would also mean that either you would be penalized for self-healing just before dropping off the first list (if you could normally avoid going from first to second list), or... hmm.. it would mean that a healer who was trying to act as a threat transfer agent for another healer would need to occasionally attack the boss (which would put them on the first list) instead of just healing other players (second list)... anyway maybe there aren't any reasons it would need to be "being targeted puts you on first list" instead of "healing puts you in a status where being healed doesn't put that healer in the same state"... so troublesome.~ If you were a dragon, would you care about all of this?


Right, so trying that again. The point of giving more total threat as the number of mobs increases is to try to balance it so the total risk remains roughly the same. This is only possible if there's a non-zero amount of risk despite a decrease in threat, so that the lowered risk on the 'primary' mob to which the threat would normally go without unnatural casting patterns is balanced by increased risk on the mobs to which threat is being split. Since such a casting pattern already has a cost in attention and time compared to what would be necessary if threat weren't an issue, the risk on the secondary target doesn't have to be as much as the decrease in risk on the primary target but it does still need to exist for actions in the immediate temporal continuum despite a lack of activity earlier in the encounter (so threat decay).

The purpose of special treatment for heals on a mob's current target, on the other hand, is as a heuristic for the 'importance' of those heals and consequently to denote the attention the mob pays to that healer. This is because a tagging system, while it may simplify the information or choices presented to a player and reduce server resource costs, does not give any other way of distinguishing large healing throughput.

That's almost convincing. Since this additional layer of complexity would only have any effect in the following situation: boss attacks a target. That target is healed by a healer. That healer takes damage, but not because the boss directly attacked them; it's incidental damage or from another mob. Then they heal themself or are healed by someone else (less likely). Result: this healing threat goes to the boss. Almost ask why so much focus on healing but this entire system is about healing so... one consideration is someone might feel it's too risky to do any damage at all to a boss if trying to reduce threat from self-healing, so treating healing on a mob's current target differently causes some healers to be already tagged to generate threat on self heals, while giving other healers a choice between the two distinct situations of either avoiding directly attacking the boss and therefore demonstrating a sort of deference which leads to no threat on the boss when self healing damage from whatever source, or using whatever abilities are efficient to use in that spec to damage the boss and risk pulling aggro when self healing.

In other words, in the rare situation of healing someone who hasn't directly damaged any mob in the past few seconds (which is usually themself or another healer), it would normally be desirable for that heal to either generate threat on no mobs or on as many as possible. Proper mechanics will cause that number to be one or higher in at least some cases, for the reason that a threat mechanic exists at all. When threat is a problem and a healer can't just assume that they've already attracted the attention of all mobs over the course of the fight through their previous actions, then it makes sense to keep casting patterns that maximize that number from feeling necessary by also having the possibility that it could be zero.

Summary: no 'first-level list', only a current target. Healing that player would generate threat on the boss, but it would seem there are gameplay and roleplaying advantages to not requiring players to be on the 'threatening targets' list despite being attacked. A dps player might simply try to escape without attacking or trying to tank, and after losing aggro could be safely healed after less than the usual amount of time has elapsed; the more unusual case is a healer who generates threat from healing players other than the primary target, and after pulling aggro refrains from healing themself at all.

[note 1] — a careful reading of the above text reveals a hidden assumption: that a healer being on a mob's 'second-level list' would cause all healing they do to have its threat split with that mob. In fact, this sentence, "May be possible for total healing threat to continually increase with number of mobs for which healer is generating threat" was originally something like "...number of entities on the second-level list". That seemed to be a mistake since it didn't make sense and was corrected, but it may in fact have resulted from that assumption about threat. This might not be a bad way to do it, if threat is split so the total amount of threat increases when split. It would mean that healing threat depends not only on the recent actions of the target of healing, but also on the recent actions of the healer and it would give a significance to a healer being on the 'second-level list' that otherwise isn't really present. The significance of a mob's current target, then, would be that healing that player would be the only way for a healer to get on the second-level list other than being targeted by that mob... or attacking that mob, I guess...

since right now healers can pretty much assume they're already on every mob's aggro list (at least the boss at all times) I think it was an understandable assumption to make..!~ When talking about it though, it's possible to forget that being on the 'second-level list' would only last for a few seconds and in many cases everyone you healed (other than self heals) would already be on it so your healing threat would already be going to the boss. This tagging system would be meant for more complex situations, for the specific purpose of causing healing threat to go to as few mobs as possible (and keeping it high even in the cases where it's being split). Yes I think it makes sense now.

letters

shape

19 Apr 2011 4:20am

(7)
Shape of mind, adapt, react, chaos, persist, social, predict

3 May 2011
incentive (subset)

accumulation・separation[・enforcement], barriers (linking, effects of diversified experiences and sampling confidence)

vs scope of action..? local resolution at points of contact

※ benefits and dangers of 'level 0' thinking (aka "positive disintegration"); analogy to protein folding and directing vectors with limited information.

fate 12 May 2011

individual vs group ethics

stories for undirected minds to show that something can be done
stories for directed minds to show how it is done, or in some cases the reason it is not achieved

*
speech conveys expectations
possibility of being wrong

question 21 Aug 2011

progress is made by eliminating ideological sources of conflict

or

progress is made by eliminating physical sources of conflict

(bonus)
reflections 07 Dec 2011

. . .
"priorities"

society: fix economic problems, *then* reduce the working week

individual: accomplish personal goals, *then* address society's problems

King

"desire 18 Nov 2011.txt"

it's funny when the world doesn't work as expected, or

it's funny when the world works as expected.


the best way to get close to people is to make yourself seem less than you are, or

the best way to get close to people is to make yourself seem more than you are.

"honoji.txt"

no 'ifs'

what you want can't depend on what other people want without constant reinforcement, it must exist unconditionally until changed

'both'


the general problem caused when a given signal is not recognized, and external feedback disappears... evaluation of risks and overcompensating..? (moon photo)


"hidden value" if known only by multiple metrics means that capability and risk known only to those aware of progress

external metric allows feedback on risk levels, avoids compoundment of errors when risk is tied to progress metric predicting optimal risk


reason for forgetting all this: perceived cost of information and value of simplicity goes up as info increases
"correct vs successful"

"when eliminating small problems at size of comprehension decreases perception of larger problems? local flatness" (being happy & change)

^ 12 June 2011

4 Aug 2011

based on intent
necessity of similar understandings of signalling schemes, depth
communication based on resistance to poking, and result of lack of feedback
nominal and specific benefits as the foundation for understanding of wants, so conflict is more likely to be based on conflicting benefit than wants for the two strategies of resolution priorities

7 Aug 2011

looking for something and expecting to see it, usual assumptions about interacting with the world... in normal circumstances things with a presence in the future also have a detectable influence in the present. when this isn't true, usually a reason that can itself be observed in the present. these expectations of reality do not include situations where an object is hidden, and the reason that it can't be observed is also hidden, when this reason is internal and not recorded in any external aspect of reality.wanting something to happen, based on a presumption of benefit with no observable confirmation, leading to reactions based on the perception of this want and removal of evidence for it, or against it


__________

"forgetful 17 Aug 2011.txt"

awake - activity (note sleep)
shine - counter (metrics)
picture, essence (graph)

^ 17 Aug 2011

19 Aug 2011
attractors, stability

21 Aug 2011
large events are more difficult to handle than smaller events and can be more destructive. when a system does not direct the outcome of smaller events to maintain stability, a large event may occur from interaction with the environment. size and frequency can be seen as related either to resistance to change from small events or weakness to same, depending on whether there is interaction with other objects depending on the result of smaller outcomes.

*

is the purpose of economic innovation to improve the ratio of utility to price, or instead to improve the ratio of price to effort and profit margin?

22 Aug 2011

attitude toward conflict, honesty - not only benefit to society, but also informational aspect for other people. iterated games and lack of reliable system record mean that conflict arises from switching strategies even if any given game is played cooperatively due to unknown value of information in future interactions.

allows control over predictions of future choices based on available information on current strategy, even if strategy is not always openly stated

'i spend too many thought cycles trying to predict what i'll do' but actually, trying to answer the emotion questions based on past events to determine strategy... cost of switching leads to different priorities and timing

prince, formless, essence

27 Aug 2011

expectations as a differential encoding of the understanding of society's values, which is subject to change as a result of interaction within society and life experiences that influence the prediction of the average strategy and values

relationships - 'hidden' value roughly equal, and implications when agreed and personal measurements of value change unexpectedly in separation distance

29 Aug 2011

[morning] The third strategy - effectiveness. avoids stating any preference for conflict, preventing any contradiction from occurring or any requirement for such a preference to be confirmed or validated for third parties. Intended to be a temporary state when entered and lasting until critical information is obtained relating to an open question.

a dangerous state to be in and not often entered willingly, due to what can otherwise and normally be accomplished with a proper understanding of conflict and local quality variation

*

[evening] butterfly - eternity - ?
a pure heart

simple

(and controlling thoughts, topic on strategy.. level at which event occurs)

values, motive, potential - see above
cloned

31 Aug 2011

mind games - ways to justify change of strategy or current goals. primary motive is attitude toward conflict, with regard to signals and deviation from expectations, and complication arises from the attempt to accomplish a goal without conflict. however, the divergence or disagreement in expecations results from the values inherent in a situation, and all complexity can be reduced to the identification of these values, both relative and absolute.

the choice is one of whether to compromise by changing strategy to the one optimal in the local circumstances or to adhere to one's own understanding of absolute potential regardless of any change in apparent success or lack of confirmation of the size gap between agreed and hidden value.

part of topic of risk

*

[evening] benefit means a promise to adhere to the same strategy despite unknown circumstances. void is to prevent phase changes in strategies of others from linked promise by withholding information, not just one's own benefit


__________

"hikari 8 Sep 2011.txt"

8 Sep 2011

capabilities determine adherence to common standards
willingness to handle additional complexity of differing from expectations based on whether limits have been reached or currently being tested, exceeding limits leads to fundamentally different approach than not having discovered limits.

strategy change and social interaction, or cessation of


knowing which patterns to break, and which to adhere to is itself a form of skill that can demonstrate competence

being correct, vs being optimal within a set of constraints that may prevent ideal behavior (verifying a solution, given the quality variation but also the perception of accuracy of standardized quality measurements on that quality variation)

10 Sept 2011
[a.m.]
be very clear what you are bad at, and what the costs are of improving any specific area at a certain point in time. minimizing the overall effect of a weakness is as important as improving one's strengths in pursuit of an objective


origins of lack of confidence..? what defines the recognition of a 'weakness'

12 Sep 2011

congruence
"level 0" = determination to anticipate future events, which allows strategies toward conflict as a distinct element for others to react with

confidence in abilities obtained from practice, meaning self predisposition in conflict is a natural assumption from the gain in capabilities that results

"level 1" = deference to others in conflict, based on observed intentions of other entities and the potentials that result in the local space

conflict results from the search for the optimum global strategy and the attempt to eliminate local factors from the decision-making process without regard to inter-region movement and overall quality level, which might be assumed to be constant. The idea of expected relocation determines the regions to be placed under consideration, due to prior and future agreements on social values and likely results from residence in a certain space

elimination of conflict reduces degrees of freedom as the complexity of the situation increases, meaning that higher initial degrees of freedom or obtaining new capabilities will increase the set of possible outcomes


"reality interpretation" essential for understanding the decision layer above the values layer in the activity process, common pattern of mistakes and omissions from aggregate opinion and relation to goal completion and system design. signal evaluation, but also conflict strategies and correlation with quality variation in a population

part of understanding, anticipating, or preventing future change. ("level 0")


18 Sep 2011

aversion to showing 'nice', torrent creation
but also cost of learning and confidence..?

29 Sep 2011

attraction: 'unaware of signal quality' matches absolute value, 'aware of variation in signal quality' follows different strategy of matching hidden value. implications for sheng nu, ladder theory of attraction, etc.

02 Oct 2011

relationship, able to accept selfish behavior and knowledge cost of transition from selfless to selfish. conflict often manifested between individual benefit and social norms, but is not expected to occur between connected individuals meaning that actions which imply a strategy that welcomes conflict should not be met with resistance

deception/ambiguity as described in art of war is the essence of the adaption to poor signal evaluation in a population, as a way to influence the thoughts of other people to avoid potential conflict between one's self and society. The need for ambiguity is not obvious in any single local context, and so its manifestation can be an indication of knowledge of local variability in signal quality as a result of average incidence of critical evaluation in the general population.

The strategies toward conflict used under the cloak of ambiguity may depend on one's estimation of relative ability and the feasibility of the adoption by the general population of strategies to cope with signal quality variation, as well as other goals and unshared knowledge.

(unshared knowledge is the basis of unpredictability of goals, for all cases where the cost of learning exceeds the expected benefit to society)

3 Oct 2011

signalling: behavior that is consistent with both strategies toward conflict. most difficult pattern to adhere to which consequently demonstrates understanding of the world and future obstacles, more so than simply avoiding conflict in pursuit of goals at cost to self

demonstrates objective "minimum competence" or lack of having reached limits of ability


__________

"mind 27 Oct 2011.txt"

"if everyone you had any obligation to were to, one day, forget everything you had ever said or done, what would you then do"

If everyone you knew were able to convince you that they had forgotten everything you had ever said or done, what would you do


a distinction between goals that are defined in terms of change to the outside world, and goals that exist only in one's thoughts in order to influence one's future behavior in reaction to situations that one might encounter. The value of statements that cannot be verified by the outside world to a degree that everyone can agree upon


_____________________________________


"unknown.txt" last modified 07 May 2011

does having done a thing give more confidence in being able to do it?


__________

"progress 22 May 2011.txt"

22 May 2011
absolute strengths, relative values. objective increase always has greater long-term benefit than progress in personal value. due to memory and complexity, greater personal ability allows more freedom to avoid branches of reinforcement in personal value, bounded by confidence in the extent of one's capabilities.

absolute strength = capabilities, nonlinear growth due to prior dependencies

part of the topic of estimating risk

limit as ability increases, contrast to experience of reaching that limit.


technique: failure of large goal by pursuit of a smaller one, by avoiding knowledge of the larger goal's failure until a decisive point
usable when the knowledge of a goal's feasibility is more important than its outcome
can be useful when a negative outcome may have harmful effects, technique should only be used when willing and prepared to accept those consequences



5 Jun 2011
if conflict between self and others, which takes priority? prior commitment to avoiding such conflict can only be upheld by negating personal goals.

putting priority on self is less risky, but leads to different results and the lower prediction of potential leads to different goals for the self and different perception of value by others. with entropy causing conflict of benefit, arguments for absolute value mean that mixing types benefits neither party.

if conflict is seen as reducing efficiency, the most efficient framework is one which encourages accurate prediction of overall variation of quality by observation of a small part of it. this homogeneity can only result from stability due to awareness of and constant effort to correct drift in an environment where change accelerates and locally spreads.


_____________________________________

random unrelated video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-GP615oIUo

"intelligence"

from somewhere in dreams, unknown
(something to do with school lunches, selecting someone from a crowd to start off or announce something, buying food to maximize quantity, renewing an item, returning an item from distant past when someone else female was principal or teacher, sister remarking on being late, sister saying that something works better now and can have actual conversations, door, ... )
hiding in blankets to avoid getting sick from cold while sleeping

intelligence:
1) the ability to perceive signals, values, and norms held by people, including those arising from hidden information and complex situations

2) the ability to evaluate signals and perceive the optimal course of action regardless of the opinions of others, including when the complexity of a situation leads to an incorrect conclusion on the best way to accomplish a goal

Revolutions

A very wise dwarf once said on the WoW forums, "Items are not content. Items are the reward for completing content." This is a very important distinction, because it means that content should be fun but should not be easy to complete, even if it's easy to begin attempting it.

Blizzard's misunderstanding of this basic principle is very evident in a recent post by one of the CMs on the topic of daily quests:

[quote="37908288004"][quote="37893499209"]Given that Blizzard posters have made exceedingly similar statements about every major daily hub from IQD onwards, and that these have all turned out to have the same basic failings, you'll forgive me if I take that note with a pinch of salt.[/quote]
[...]
No one likes being the guy on the assembly line putting the left index finger on the doll 250 times a day, 5 days a week. They might not mind it as much though if they're paid $100k a year. Right?[/quote]
Items are not an excuse for the available options after logging in to be boring or mindless! If it is, that suggests huge problems with the game if people feel they need to do something which isn't fun instead of finding something else to do entirely that doesn't require any character progression at all.

(A real-life analogy, which hopefully won't get this thread deleted, is Foxconn workers in China making iPods. By the standards of factories in China they are paid and treated well, but... "Each employee would sign a 'voluntary overtime affidavit,' in order to waive the 36-hour legal limit on your monthly overtime hours. This isn't a bad thing, though, as many workers think that only factories that offer more overtime are 'good factories,' because 'without overtime, you can hardly make a living.' For the workers desperate for making money, overtime is like 'a pain that can breathe:' without it, the days without money make them 'suffocate'..." —without any choices it lead to a string of suicides from loss of hope or enjoyment with life. Just goes to show that the 'rewards' aren't everything. End of interruption.)


Someone in a previous thread I made suggested that it's pointless to post about problems without also offering a solution. In that case, here is the problem and the solution. Blizzard has been vacillating for the past several expansions between "challenging" and "accessible", without ever having the fortitude to do what's necessary to offer BOTH.

This means different things for PvP and PvE. For PvE, most importantly content should not become obsolete as soon as the next major patch arrives. In Cataclysm this can clearly be seen with Firelands, which many people would still like to see but almost no organized groups are still going to.

This did not happen in, dare I say it, vanilla and early TBC, and the clear difference is JP/VP allowing everyone access to the latest gear with what's basically soloable progression. There are many stories of encountering people in the LFR who are literally afk during much of the instance, and the 4.3 Heroics were basically easier than the troll ones which is part of why the troll Heroics were recently nerfed in hotfixes. The difficulty of early Cataclysm in 5-person content is no where to be found.

This tuning in itself doesn't reflect poorly on Blizzard. The 'casual' content of 4.3 is designed so new players can be carried by the rest of the group, because the alternative with the state of the community is that new players are insulted and kicked for holding back the group and preventing it from completing the instance.

This happens because people want to complete 4.3 content before it becomes obsolete. Blizzard must realize the relationship between the JP/VP gear reset model and community attitudes if it wants to provide challenging content that's still accessible even to the most inexperienced players.


So this is a very long and complicated explanation of the interaction between different parts of the game. That's unfortunate and I should apologize for such a lengthy post.

Free Gear and the Burning Crusade

The current system of buying PvP and PvE gear from vendors with points that take more time than skill to acquire started in TBC, and the justifications for its existence remain the same now as they were then. It went like this:

1) Blizzard wanted to offer a 'skill-based' way for PvPers to obtain gear so they could compete against PvE epics, without the huge time requirement of the vanilla honor system. Getting the best PvP rewards in vanilla could potentially require 18 hours a day of farming BGs in a group for weeks on end; arenas could be done with just 10 games per week.

2) After a while, it became obvious that casual guilds were not having enough success in raiding beyond 10-person Karazhan. People who wanted to see more content were forced to abandon their old guild to join the 'hardcore' raiding scene of 25-person raids, and even the original ZA didn't fix this. This was one of the major failures of design of TBC that Blizzard has tried to address with 10-person raids for every instance since then.

3) To address the simultaneous problems of hardcore guilds feeling forced to run old content that most people in the raid didn't benefit from, casual guilds stuck on the 10/25 transition having their members stolen, and arena weapons being used for PvE, Blizzard removed attunements for raids and introduced new vendor rewards equivalent to BT/Hyjal loot in the first example of the gear reset that's been a standard of every major patch since.


Since this post is about "solutions" and not just "problems", it's necessary to point out what Blizzard could have, and can do differently. Blizzard does not need to give free PvP gear (which people feel they must grind before they can even start PvPing) if PvP is fun even in low-quality gear. If casual guilds can progress beyond the initial raid content of an expansion and there's enough of a healthy and active raid culture on each server so that both small and large raid guilds can fill replacements in their raiding roster and everyone is accustomed to not basing loot on promises to remain in the guild, then it won't hurt a server community for someone to naturally progress to the point of being able to do recent raid content even if it means associating with other guilds and less progressed raid groups along the way. If everyone accepts that a game should be not only rewarding but also fun, then it won't matter if a guild has a disadvantage in a PvE 'race' when some of their members haven't fully upgraded all their gear, because even if they can't complete raid content within an arbitrary time limit they will still feel like they are personally rewarded within the game by doing something they enjoy.

That above paragraph is probably the most important in this post as it sums up everything that's needed to make the game about content, instead of about the in-game rewards for content, even if it's much too short to describe how these several goals can be accomplished. Anyone who thinks items are enough to keep people in the game, ask yourself whether this very vague description of a game without free gear would be something you'd enjoy.


Infinite dynamic content

Switching randomly back to the topic of PvP, the most important difference between world PvP now and in vanilla is that in vanilla, other people wanted to PvP. "But Blizzard can't control what people want to do!" Right... that's why the game has titles, mounts, items, and pets. The danger with offering 'rewards' in PvP is that other players can become no more than a bump on a progress bar, but this is the reason for only giving rewards that no one should feel they need to have. "That doesn't make sense!" you might reply, but talents and other character customization work in a very similar way—the difference in this case is that instead of giving up another ability you aren't sure you'd use when making your choice, you would be giving up a different way of declaring what it means to win.

It may sound complicated, but it really isn't. Right now for the most basic form of PvP, two players encountering each other in 1v1, it's well accepted the winner is the one that's still alive at the end. Now imagine that it's possible to say that the winner is not the player that's still alive, but rather the one who died? This can easily be done by introducing a system that measures performance and can cause positive or negative effects on a character, that doesn't pretend like both players had an equal chance to win.

It's possible that Blizzard is already working on something like this for MoP and if so this post is unnecessary, but still might have some good discussion. Anyway. This would mathematically be different from arenas in that it's meant to make the game more fun so the numbers would be set up in a way to encourage this (for example in arenas rating changes are based only on relative ratings, not absolute), and it avoids the idea of a precise measure of skill from the start because in world PvP and BGs you can always zerg a single powerful player. So to continue on the topic of solutions...

By PvPing, you would gain rank. This is similar to the rank in the old honor system, but since the way of limiting the number of higher ranks would be different, it wouldn't only be calculated at the end of each week (although this still could be done!). The more PvP you did, the more attractive a target you would become as you would be worth more points. Someone who doesn't like PvP could avoid it simply by never doing it, since there's a chance you're actually a very skilled player who just doesn't enjoy that aspect of the game and anyone who attacked you would have a high chance to lose. Furthermore, for someone who does PvP you would also begin to lose points as you become worth more to the opposite faction.

The PvP difficulty of any enemy would be indicated by their rank, just like in the old honor system. The ranks might be different since the old ranks are now used in rated BGs, maybe they would be based on some other attribute like race or class, but you would have a rough idea beforehand of what your chances to win are in a fight, or how disappointed to feel if you just lost. This is very important in establishing an estimate of whether it was reasonable for you to win or lose a fight, so you can feel ecstatic after fighting off someone who should have been able to destroy you and know how to react when you notice several high-ranked names materialize at the limits of your vision while doing a repeatable quest.

Group size can be important, and if it's necessary Blizzard could account for this while calculating point loss and gain. It might not be strictly necessary when the system is done correctly, with no way for an experienced PvPer to 'erase' their history and be treated like a PvP newcomer with no penalty for dying, but if people want it the server could easily calculate this with only a small resource cost. By comparing damage and healing sources between two opposing groups in active combat, the 'attention' being paid by and to each character can be derived and used to calculate a single number for each character of how dangerous their situation is while taking damage. Any given character would be assumed as paying 100% 'attention' to any other at the instantaneous calculation of damage, but the effect this has on the coefficient for the actual level of danger would depend on the interactions between the groups within a specific timeframe to derive relevant actions; so if someone stopped attacking or being attacked for say, 5 seconds, then the server could do a single re-calculation for each character on both sides with which that person had been directly interacting as that person is no longer considered an active part of the fight. The cumulative effect of this means that the number participants in a fight would be important not just at the moment a character dies. But no point in being more specific since probably no one's reading this.

It might help if there's a way to discourage ganking lower levels. If people feel like they're properly rewarded for taking on challenge in PvP this might not be a problem at all, but if it is then the best way is with a "PvP solution" that assists the low-level player by encouraging people on their faction to hunt down whoever's attacking people weaker than them. There are more possibilities for this if items are squished, since then a low-level player can enjoy PvP more when they don't die by being looked at and they might be able to participate in the fight after high-level help arrives, and consequently it would be more acceptable if the 'penalty' for ganking (more PvP) was not purely negative or punitive but instead provided an alternative way of looking at things.

One of the last changes that should be made in PvP is balancing BGs for gear. Not everyone on both teams needs to have the same quality of gear or anything like that. Much more simply, the system should estimate the 'power' of a player based on their items, which is not proportional to the iLevel (even ignoring that iLevel to stats is exponential these days) since an increase isn't just to AP or Spellpower but also to health and combat ratings like crit and resilience. While adding players to each team the gap in power is calculated with each step, and whether to add the next player in the queue is based on if it would increase the gap or decrease it. Team size might even have the possibility of being larger than now, like if the system lets you queue as 10 people all in the best gear then it might match you against as many as 15 people in average gear to balance the teams, or you might have to queue in a smaller group if you want a reasonable wait time if the team sizes have the current restrictions. Coordination and skill can be valid reasons for winning a BG, but having better gear should not be. Dying less than your undergeared teammates should be its own reward. And point losses and gains that affect rank would be halved while in a raid group like a BG so people have a reason to venture out into the world for PvP without the constant action and instant rezzing of BGs.

(None of these suggestions are actually original)


Raiding with friends

Of the reasons for not raiding with friends, "neither I nor my friends enjoy punishing raid mechanics" is one of the most common among people who don't raid. Some others are loot drama, the fact that raid content quickly becomes obsolete and can eventually be soloed, and the difficulty of maintaining a steady group of people who can meet at regular times or are willing to raid at irregular times. All of these problems can be solved, but the challenges facing implementation of the solution in each case are different for each situation.

The first complaint, that raid mechanics are too difficult, may sound extremely subjective. But whether a difficult mechanic is fun is something that can be analyzed by components, which (among others I'm sure) include the timing leading up to an event and its degree of predictability which influence the dramatic tension experienced during the encounter, and the potential for mitigating a mistake by someone in the raid and even completely negating it by turning a downward-trending situation into a positive one.

For this second, a simple example would be if the main tank of a raid lost aggro and the boss aggroed onto a kitty druid. If the druid immediately switches to bear form and uses a defensive cooldown and as a result the healers spend less mana than if the previous tank had maintained aggro for those several seconds, then this turned out to be an awesome way for the kitty druid to show how willing they are to adapt to the situation as their class is meant to.

However, if the kitty druid switches to bear and uses a defensive cooldown and still take twice as much damage as the tank, there's really just no way for the raid to 'win' in that situation and the encounter is much more dull than it could have been. When all answers are the wrong one, it's not very fun so it would help for the mechanics to cause at least one of the available options to players in a raid when things go 'wrong' to be the right one. I won't go into more detail on this as it would be a very significant change to raiding that would deserve its own discussion.


Loot drama is one of the main complaints with this early version of LFR in 4.3, but it's also important for casual raiding. Very frequently the number of people who want to raid in a guild won't match the size of a raid instance, so either people will be left out or the raid will be short on members and this can vary especially if people can't keep a regular schedule from week to week. With the raid lock changes of Cataclysm, the only things preventing many guilds in this situation from raiding is making up the difference to the next marginal raid group size and a way to fairly distribute loot to raid members who aren't part of the guild.

As an example, pretend LFR was actually difficult and a guild with 19 members online decides to fill in the rest of the raid group with PUGers from the same realm. So they clear the first boss with 6 out-of-guild PUGers, and an item drops meant for healing priests. One priest in the guild has a 359 epic in that slot, another has a 378 epic, and one of the PUGers has a 378 epic. (Yes three priests, maybe one of them is shadow or something) The guild member with the 378 epic decides to be nice and pass so the 359 priest can roll on it, without knowing who wants the item outside of the guild.

Then the 378 PUGer outrolls the 359 guild member and wins the item. There were only 6 PUGers in the raid, but the guild had a 50% chance to lose the item which would have significantly helped on future progression. Was this fair? Is the guild likely to continue in the same way, or will they get all upset and feel justified in 'defending' their nice 359 priest by insulting the PUGer and everyone rolling on all future drops in the same instance?

This loot drama can be avoided with a system that fairly rewards everyone in the raid, whether or not they win the item or have any gold to bid. GDKP has a reputation for being used by 'greedy' people and devaluing the meaning of epics if someone can't win an item due to being poor, but these problems can be addressed by only allowing a single bid and letting everyone roll to pay the highest bid, with a bonus for accurately stating the value of an item with a high bid. The entire raid would then be split the proceeds of each item, allowing each player to afford to pay items with what they earn from the raid and rewarding groups in proportion to their contribution to raid slots, not on how many items they end up winning (and paying for). Using the same example as above,

1) Item drops for priests.
2) The 378 guild priest passes after discussing in private with the 359 guild priest.
3) The 359 guild priest makes a hidden bid of 500g.
4) The 378 PUGer makes a hidden bid of 350g.
5) The highest bid of 500g is announced, and the 378 PUGer gets an option to match this bid but has an RNG penalty to winning the roll.
6) Due to the RNG penalty, the 359 guild priest wins the roll and 500g is automatically split with the entire raid, with the 6 puggers receiving a total of 120g (20g each) and the guild receiving the remaining 380g.

This is explained in greater theoretical detail at http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3754955563 .

The remaining reasons for not raiding would be solved if JP/VP were removed (since they discourage seeing older content), if LFR was improved, etc. (post limit)

Nightwish

Including lower-geared characters in raids, basis for.

clearly lowers chance for group to succeed. Requires philosophical shift away from the idea that "it's fine for wiping to not be fun, because it encourages better play to defeat an encounter". If raiding is fun even when wiping may mean the next attempt will happen an undetermined time in the future due to schedules and life priorities, then it becomes acceptable to bring 'undergeared' characters even on difficult progression fights.

...really just a restatement of 'skill cap' argument.



"that which is not forbidden is required"

since 2.1 with epic buffs
smart players realized this, and either quit or adjusted their expectations, for the game and for the relevance of resulting community ideas of achievement, accordingly.

general problem is lack of tolerance for less 'progressed' characters or less experienced players, solution is change in evaluation standards so goals of being accepted can be accomplished without progression, leading to choice

(http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3566337439)

result of "oh this problem is unavoidable" leading to acceptance of chain of problems that result. definitely not an A+ standard of design, even if most other competitors in the realm of complex (not able to isolate a single element with a 'focus group') systems of competitive evaluation and achievement that appeal to unstated motivations are scoring a D-