How do you define "Risk vs. Reward"?

In your own words: what do YOU think Risk vs Reward is? There seems to be a general consensus that "reward" should be commensurate with the "risk" of PvP happening in a given context but that seems a bit narrow considering there are downsides to failing at PvE encounters potentially. What would be a more all-encompassing conceptualization that fits the equation of Risk v Reward into it?

Personally I find the idea that Time + Resources (and hence the risk of losing them upon failing the given task) should equal reward. This opens broadens the definition to include things like PvE contexts which may or may not involve PvP as well.

What do you guys think or what are some other conceptualizations that wrap up Risk vs Reward as cleanly as possible?

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

Otr

Caww wrote: »

"Heads I win - Tails you Lose" is all the risk v reward I can handle....

Tavern games. We got no stream about them yet

Sathrago

So to try and clarify a bit on why i think time is the ultimate factor in risk vs reward. Lets take a full loot pvp game like ultima online. When you die, you drop all of your gear and risk someone taking it. Not only that, its most likely deep in a dungeon where running back to it will most likely require you to take out another set of gear and clear back to it. Even further, you have a specific set of armor, weapons, reagents, and other consumables you need to take each time you go out to do content like this.

So with all this set up lets now look at how much time is invested.

You need to either craft or buy the "loadout" required to go back out, and that might require gathering, running around to player vendors across the map, etc. Even if you have multiple sets of loadouts now set up, you need to then go through and equip all of that (and depending on the game this shit can be tedious). Then run back out to the dungeon and clear back in to your old set assuming there are no red players and assuming you dont die to someone training mobs on you. You finally get back to your old body and loot it. Now you are nearly overweight because you have 2 full sets on you and need to leave the dungeon to extract your first set.

The main thing involved in all of this is the time invested into what you lose. The gear, the consumables, etc. The hassle of getting set up to go out is a major problem I have with games like this. Of course, in the context of ashes we dont lose gear (normally) but you will be directly losing time via xp loss on death. Gear requires materials to repair so you need to go shopping or gathering to fix it.

I really, really hope that the devs understand this and can help streamline this to some degree. This is why i personally get so frustrated with play games like ultima or mo2 or dark and darker. The Logistics of regearing to sometimes go out and instantly lose all of it to some prick or horrible mob pull is frustrating. (also time to kill in these games can in most cases be so low that you can't even learn how to play)

Dimitraeos

Azherae wrote: »

Dimitraeos wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

Dimitraeos wrote: »

So far it seems like the risk is time being lost as a result of failing to succeed at the given activity (a pvp fight, raid, dungeon, etc)

Even when we try and "calculate" (for lack of a better word) it on the basis of lost resources etc, it still comes down to time (because it takes time to get those invested resources in the first place)

How would this apply to so called "safe" forms of content and their potential rewards? Like for Instanced pve content? Obviously we still don't know the full scope of what this will entail but since we can assume there will be some form of instanced PvE, assuming it was hard enough and hence has the potential to lose lots of invested time, shouldn't the rewards in theory also be commensurate with that?

Basically, 'no', for me.

If the content is fun, and for PvE players that I know to actually like the PvE, the effort of trying and solving the encounter is the fun, then they don't need to be additionally rewarded, you rely solely on your balance and intended encounter difficulty.

For me, if you are enjoying the process of facing that encounter, you are not risking anything unless there was some resource other than time which was being consumed to eventually prevent you from being able to attempt that encounter.

I also believe that encounters 'need' these things especially in MMOs. They can take many forms, but overall, even if you want your players to have fun, if the encounter offers a Reward, then the players should be at risk of 'running out of something they use to do it', thereby Risking their ability to continue experiencing the fun of that activity/encounter.

But Risk v Reward is a core design pillar of Intrepid's game so we actually need to quantify that objectively. I understand if something is fun but takes time then the perception of loss is relative as you're saying, but we still need to quantify that to decide how to determine rewards.

Sure we do, multiple people have been having heavy discussions about it for years now.

The problem is that those people don't agree because they don't all experience the same type of fun, so we get stuck. That's one of the hardest issues to face in game design and generally should be approached more from aiming at your target audience.

But if you mean within the game relative to other actions, it's basically game economy work. I'm mostly saying two things:

1. Making gameplay that isn't fun for most people but they still need to engage with to get rewards is a bad idea.
2. Risk/loss is only a thing experienced by a player who has no path to anything fun to do, according to whatever their personal mental structure is.

I actually fundamentally agree I think. Although I think the question about how fun taking that risk/time investment in the Risk v Reward equation would simply be up to the player at that point if its worth it. The devs can still roughly decide the reward structure for any piece of content or activity based on *Time* input in the Risk v Reward equation.

For example:

Player A loves fishing. Fishing in a river near town takes a low to moderate amount of time/resource investment and hence earns him a low to moderate reward (low quality or common fish, low chance of catching rares etc and hence less reward). The player KNOWS he can take a bigger risk elsewhere (invest in a boat, go out into the ocean and potentially get killed or lose income etc) but simply enjoys having his little loop near town and chill out.

Player B kind of hates fishing and finds it boring but knows there are hardcore fishers out there making a KILLING fishing in risky areas or in the ocean. This player chooses to look for something else to do because despite the Risk v Reward being good for Ocean fishing, he just wouldnt find it fun.

My point is Intrepid can, and has to, quantify these things otherwise there will be a depressing amount of dead content throughout the world.

Songcaller

Sathrago wrote: »

So to try and clarify a bit on why i think time is the ultimate factor in risk vs reward. Lets take a full loot pvp game like ultima online. When you die, you drop all of your gear and risk someone taking it. Not only that, its most likely deep in a dungeon where running back to it will most likely require you to take out another set of gear and clear back to it. Even further, you have a specific set of armor, weapons, reagents, and other consumables you need to take each time you go out to do content like this.

So with all this set up lets now look at how much time is invested.

You need to either craft or buy the "loadout" required to go back out, and that might require gathering, running around to player vendors across the map, etc. Even if you have multiple sets of loadouts now set up, you need to then go through and equip all of that (and depending on the game this shit can be tedious). Then run back out to the dungeon and clear back in to your old set assuming there are no red players and assuming you dont die to someone training mobs on you. You finally get back to your old body and loot it. Now you are nearly overweight because you have 2 full sets on you and need to leave the dungeon to extract your first set.

The main thing involved in all of this is the time invested into what you lose. The gear, the consumables, etc. The hassle of getting set up to go out is a major problem I have with games like this. Of course, in the context of ashes we dont lose gear (normally) but you will be directly losing time via xp loss on death. Gear requires materials to repair so you need to go shopping or gathering to fix it.

I really, really hope that the devs understand this and can help streamline this to some degree. This is why i personally get so frustrated with play games like ultima or mo2 or dark and darker. The Logistics of regearing to sometimes go out and instantly lose all of it to some prick or horrible mob pull is frustrating. (also time to kill in these games can in most cases be so low that you can't even learn how to play)

This is called bad management. If you know you might lose a set, you have two or more sets prepared. Not only that, but, by retrieving the lost set would then get you two sets anyway so the process can be repeated. There is a risk you might have to retrieve multiple bodies but the notion is the same. You'd then have multiple sets of gear.

Otr

Sathrago wrote: »

I really, really hope that the devs understand this and can help streamline this to some degree. This is why i personally get so frustrated with play games like ultima or mo2 or dark and darker. The Logistics of regearing to sometimes go out and instantly lose all of it to some prick or horrible mob pull is frustrating. (also time to kill in these games can in most cases be so low that you can't even learn how to play)

I agree on that.
If the time to prepare is not a fun process or when is just like the leveling when ppl want to reach the "end game content"
There is no doubt that with more time some players can achieve something. Others cannot. I might fall on every single jumping puzzle no matter how many times I try... Or with a bad team/guild, I might never see the end boss of a dungeon especially if a bigger guild prevents access to it.

The thing is that some players enjoy those moments when the chance to lose something occur if the event outcome is uncertain. Other people hate uncertainty.

It is important to enjoy the process more than the result.

Azherae

Songcaller wrote: »

Sathrago wrote: »

So to try and clarify a bit on why i think time is the ultimate factor in risk vs reward. Lets take a full loot pvp game like ultima online. When you die, you drop all of your gear and risk someone taking it. Not only that, its most likely deep in a dungeon where running back to it will most likely require you to take out another set of gear and clear back to it. Even further, you have a specific set of armor, weapons, reagents, and other consumables you need to take each time you go out to do content like this.

So with all this set up lets now look at how much time is invested.

You need to either craft or buy the "loadout" required to go back out, and that might require gathering, running around to player vendors across the map, etc. Even if you have multiple sets of loadouts now set up, you need to then go through and equip all of that (and depending on the game this shit can be tedious). Then run back out to the dungeon and clear back in to your old set assuming there are no red players and assuming you dont die to someone training mobs on you. You finally get back to your old body and loot it. Now you are nearly overweight because you have 2 full sets on you and need to leave the dungeon to extract your first set.

The main thing involved in all of this is the time invested into what you lose. The gear, the consumables, etc. The hassle of getting set up to go out is a major problem I have with games like this. Of course, in the context of ashes we dont lose gear (normally) but you will be directly losing time via xp loss on death. Gear requires materials to repair so you need to go shopping or gathering to fix it.

I really, really hope that the devs understand this and can help streamline this to some degree. This is why i personally get so frustrated with play games like ultima or mo2 or dark and darker. The Logistics of regearing to sometimes go out and instantly lose all of it to some prick or horrible mob pull is frustrating. (also time to kill in these games can in most cases be so low that you can't even learn how to play)

This is called bad management. If you know you might lose a set, you have two or more sets prepared. Not only that, but, by retrieving the lost set would then get you two sets anyway so the process can be repeated. There is a risk you might have to retrieve multiple bodies but the notion is the same. You'd then have multiple sets of gear.

This is the response of someone who takes some form of satisfaction in 'good management'.

For some people it is the process of actually doing it. For other's it's the feeling of being better than the people who don't do it.

And for some other people (not saying if those people should play such games or not) this is just unfun tedium because what they want is to grind mobs, or fight people and win every time.

So to one group, there's no risk at all here, gathering all the gear and building multiple sets is the fun, they might not even go back for the set they were using. And for another group, the risk is so huge that they don't even accept it.

Sathrago

Songcaller wrote: »

Sathrago wrote: »

So to try and clarify a bit on why i think time is the ultimate factor in risk vs reward. Lets take a full loot pvp game like ultima online. When you die, you drop all of your gear and risk someone taking it. Not only that, its most likely deep in a dungeon where running back to it will most likely require you to take out another set of gear and clear back to it. Even further, you have a specific set of armor, weapons, reagents, and other consumables you need to take each time you go out to do content like this.

So with all this set up lets now look at how much time is invested.

You need to either craft or buy the "loadout" required to go back out, and that might require gathering, running around to player vendors across the map, etc. Even if you have multiple sets of loadouts now set up, you need to then go through and equip all of that (and depending on the game this shit can be tedious). Then run back out to the dungeon and clear back in to your old set assuming there are no red players and assuming you dont die to someone training mobs on you. You finally get back to your old body and loot it. Now you are nearly overweight because you have 2 full sets on you and need to leave the dungeon to extract your first set.

The main thing involved in all of this is the time invested into what you lose. The gear, the consumables, etc. The hassle of getting set up to go out is a major problem I have with games like this. Of course, in the context of ashes we dont lose gear (normally) but you will be directly losing time via xp loss on death. Gear requires materials to repair so you need to go shopping or gathering to fix it.

I really, really hope that the devs understand this and can help streamline this to some degree. This is why i personally get so frustrated with play games like ultima or mo2 or dark and darker. The Logistics of regearing to sometimes go out and instantly lose all of it to some prick or horrible mob pull is frustrating. (also time to kill in these games can in most cases be so low that you can't even learn how to play)

This is called bad management. If you know you might lose a set, you have two or more sets prepared. Not only that, but, by retrieving the lost set would then get you two sets anyway so the process can be repeated. There is a risk you might have to retrieve multiple bodies but the notion is the same. You'd then have multiple sets of gear.

Yes but you are now not playing the content you want, you are dicking around with logistics.

the problem is that those sets of gear do have value. meaning you are heavily incentivized to go retrieve them. if you dont, you have to go shopping again sooner. but either way you are stuck doing something that just isn't fun.

thats my key point. Time lost doing things you dont like to do should be reduced as much as we can without it trivializing the content/game.

Azherae

Dimitraeos wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

Dimitraeos wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

Dimitraeos wrote: »

So far it seems like the risk is time being lost as a result of failing to succeed at the given activity (a pvp fight, raid, dungeon, etc)

Even when we try and "calculate" (for lack of a better word) it on the basis of lost resources etc, it still comes down to time (because it takes time to get those invested resources in the first place)

How would this apply to so called "safe" forms of content and their potential rewards? Like for Instanced pve content? Obviously we still don't know the full scope of what this will entail but since we can assume there will be some form of instanced PvE, assuming it was hard enough and hence has the potential to lose lots of invested time, shouldn't the rewards in theory also be commensurate with that?

Basically, 'no', for me.

If the content is fun, and for PvE players that I know to actually like the PvE, the effort of trying and solving the encounter is the fun, then they don't need to be additionally rewarded, you rely solely on your balance and intended encounter difficulty.

For me, if you are enjoying the process of facing that encounter, you are not risking anything unless there was some resource other than time which was being consumed to eventually prevent you from being able to attempt that encounter.

I also believe that encounters 'need' these things especially in MMOs. They can take many forms, but overall, even if you want your players to have fun, if the encounter offers a Reward, then the players should be at risk of 'running out of something they use to do it', thereby Risking their ability to continue experiencing the fun of that activity/encounter.

But Risk v Reward is a core design pillar of Intrepid's game so we actually need to quantify that objectively. I understand if something is fun but takes time then the perception of loss is relative as you're saying, but we still need to quantify that to decide how to determine rewards.

Sure we do, multiple people have been having heavy discussions about it for years now.

The problem is that those people don't agree because they don't all experience the same type of fun, so we get stuck. That's one of the hardest issues to face in game design and generally should be approached more from aiming at your target audience.

But if you mean within the game relative to other actions, it's basically game economy work. I'm mostly saying two things:

1. Making gameplay that isn't fun for most people but they still need to engage with to get rewards is a bad idea.
2. Risk/loss is only a thing experienced by a player who has no path to anything fun to do, according to whatever their personal mental structure is.

I actually fundamentally agree I think. Although I think the question about how fun taking that risk/time investment in the Risk v Reward equation would simply be up to the player at that point if its worth it. The devs can still roughly decide the reward structure for any piece of content or activity based on *Time* input in the Risk v Reward equation.

For example:

Player A loves fishing. Fishing in a river near town takes a low to moderate amount of time/resource investment and hence earns him a low to moderate reward (low quality or common fish, low chance of catching rares etc and hence less reward). The player KNOWS he can take a bigger risk elsewhere (invest in a boat, go out into the ocean and potentially get killed or lose income etc) but simply enjoys having his little loop near town and chill out.

Player B kind of hates fishing and finds it boring but knows there are hardcore fishers out there making a KILLING fishing in risky areas or in the ocean. This player chooses to look for something else to do because despite the Risk v Reward being good for Ocean fishing, he just wouldnt find it fun.

My point is Intrepid can, and has to, quantify these things otherwise there will be a depressing amount of dead content throughout the world.

I think I should clarify that I don't agree with the "Risk vs Reward" tenet in the first place.

I can agree with 'Progression vs Investment', but even considering the definition I mentioned I don't think MMOs, not even PvP MMOs, actually need the simple concept of 'Risk', particularly because it can't be defined.

What I think they need is choice, challenge, dynamism, etc, and whenever true choice is involved it's possible to make the wrong one. But making the wrong choice isn't usually that big a deal, you learn it was wrong, you change your choice, then progress.

Sometimes due to the dynamic part of the game you lose a specific chance to make that choice for a while, and have to make different ones.

But as demonstrated by the two posters above, 'Risk' and 'Reward' outside of game economy is too subjective. One loves logistics more than the other (or at least likes having it in the game). We have the same sort of disagreement on things like PvE Bosses, 'daily Quests', 'login rewards', 'fast travel', 'Caravans', 'Corruption', 'gear loss via enchanting' all down the line.

The devs just need to make their stand on whatever, and players decide if they are okay with that line. I recently heard 'no gear durability loss during Node Wars', so I'm waiting to find out if the 'Risk' of those was raised in some other area, the 'Reward' was lessened, or if it was just removed because 'it would be a pain point'. Who knows.

Mag7spy

You guys need to not get bated on people saying risk vrs reward is time based. It is a surface level take and not really a strong one since at this point we may as well say any game is risk vrs reward because you play the game *sarcasm obviously*

Risk is the level of conflict * the value of what you have on the line for it, which will give you the potential loss and negative outcome; or the positive outcome and gain.

Time is universal and a inevitable investment into anything you are doing, time doesn't mean you are just inherently getting a potential negative element. The actual risk again is what you are carrying on you and the conflict you experience or could experience by continuing on.

Now even if we look at the worse example with enhancing gear and say it takes awhile to get the materials and such for it. And you are risking your gear on blowing up and you feel it will take forever to get the gear up again. Even that you can't really say the risk is time unless they do a bad design. More than likely the risk and the reason it takes so long is the level of conflict to obtain these items do to sacristy.

Awhile back in one of the pve threads i created a brief design that was more around risk and factoring time into that. But that was with time being part of the content and challenge.

Long story short playing the game a lot and investing tons of time does not equal risk.

Songcaller

Sathrago wrote: »

Songcaller wrote: »

Sathrago wrote: »

So to try and clarify a bit on why i think time is the ultimate factor in risk vs reward. Lets take a full loot pvp game like ultima online. When you die, you drop all of your gear and risk someone taking it. Not only that, its most likely deep in a dungeon where running back to it will most likely require you to take out another set of gear and clear back to it. Even further, you have a specific set of armor, weapons, reagents, and other consumables you need to take each time you go out to do content like this.

So with all this set up lets now look at how much time is invested.

You need to either craft or buy the "loadout" required to go back out, and that might require gathering, running around to player vendors across the map, etc. Even if you have multiple sets of loadouts now set up, you need to then go through and equip all of that (and depending on the game this shit can be tedious). Then run back out to the dungeon and clear back in to your old set assuming there are no red players and assuming you dont die to someone training mobs on you. You finally get back to your old body and loot it. Now you are nearly overweight because you have 2 full sets on you and need to leave the dungeon to extract your first set.

The main thing involved in all of this is the time invested into what you lose. The gear, the consumables, etc. The hassle of getting set up to go out is a major problem I have with games like this. Of course, in the context of ashes we dont lose gear (normally) but you will be directly losing time via xp loss on death. Gear requires materials to repair so you need to go shopping or gathering to fix it.

I really, really hope that the devs understand this and can help streamline this to some degree. This is why i personally get so frustrated with play games like ultima or mo2 or dark and darker. The Logistics of regearing to sometimes go out and instantly lose all of it to some prick or horrible mob pull is frustrating. (also time to kill in these games can in most cases be so low that you can't even learn how to play)

This is called bad management. If you know you might lose a set, you have two or more sets prepared. Not only that, but, by retrieving the lost set would then get you two sets anyway so the process can be repeated. There is a risk you might have to retrieve multiple bodies but the notion is the same. You'd then have multiple sets of gear.

Yes but you are now not playing the content you want, you are dicking around with logistics.

the problem is that those sets of gear do have value. meaning you are heavily incentivized to go retrieve them. if you dont, you have to go shopping again sooner. but either way you are stuck doing something that just isn't fun.

thats my key point. Time lost doing things you dont like to do should be reduced as much as we can without it trivializing the content/game.

I think logistics is a key staple to do the game. I mean, once the game is live the risks will be real. The caravans could get raided, the supply might not sustain the production, the only sources of the repair materials are now under enemy control, your base of operation might be sieged or levelled. Everything will be active. Time can be a bane and time can be an ally. You can improve your gameplay by doing timed runs. We might have to time specific phases and moves on a boss. Just travelling around the game world will be difficult enough if you want to explore everything. Yes, everything does take time but not everything you devote time to will have risk.

Sathrago

Mag7spy wrote: »

You guys need to not get bated on people saying risk vrs reward is time based. It is a surface level take and not really a strong one since at this point we may as well say any game is risk vrs reward because you play the game *sarcasm obviously*

Risk is the level of conflict * the value of what you have on the line for it, which will give you the potential loss and negative outcome; or the positive outcome and gain.

Time is universal and a inevitable investment into anything you are doing, time doesn't mean you are just inherently getting a potential negative element. The actual risk again is what you are carrying on you and the conflict you experience or could experience by continuing on.

Now even if we look at the worse example with enhancing gear and say it takes awhile to get the materials and such for it. And you are risking your gear on blowing up and you feel it will take forever to get the gear up again. Even that you can't really say the risk is time unless they do a bad design. More than likely the risk and the reason it takes so long is the level of conflict to obtain these items do to sacristy.

Awhile back in one of the pve threads i created a brief design that was more around risk and factoring time into that. But that was with time being part of the content and challenge.

Long story short playing the game a lot and investing tons of time does not equal risk.

I think you are going too general with your idea of time. There is a difference between playing a game for 1000 hours and playing a game for 1000 hours but 40% of that time was spent setting up to actually play the game or catching back up after failing. Time becomes apart of the risk factors when its a direct penalty to progression (exp loss/gear loss).

A good example of this is why most players do not hit 100 in path of exile each league. Once the penalty to exp becomes so high in terms of time required to catch back up each time you die, most people hit a point where that risk of death is just not worth it and stop playing.

Ludullu

Azherae wrote: »

because what they want is to grind mobs

Yep, it me

The closest I've gotten to the "your gear drops on death" was a recent EVE-related closed alpha test.

Definitely took me a few deaths to get used to it, but that test also provided people with the most basic set of "gear", which let you at least do some basic stuff to restart your grind, so the impact on my gameplay was still not as big as some of other similar games might've had.

In Ashes, the only management would come from you not dying, because even if you don't have any droppable loot - you'll still go into XP debt and get other debuffs that relate to the "prevention of the same lvl of fun".

And depending on whether artisan tools are seen as "gear" when it comes to decay on death, even the pure artisans might get their fun stopped by PKer, if the artisan tool decays and/or gets destroyed on death.

Otr

We're very clear with our objective and philosophy on the game and we understand that they may not appeal to everybody. But it is an important reciprocal relationship between the content that's related to PvE and the content that's related to PvP and they feed off of each other. They're catalysts for change: Their progression, their development. It's things that people can value when they see something earned and they see something lost. That elicits an emotional response from the player: That they've invested time in to either succeed or fail; and PvP allows for that element to be introduced into gameplay. And we're very clear that is our objective: That risk versus reward relationship, that achievement-based mentality. Not everybody's going to be a winner and that's okay.[11] – Steven Sharif

This is why I will play the game.

Ludullu

Otr wrote: »

That they've invested time in to either succeed or fail

Ayeee

Mag7spy

Sathrago wrote: »

Mag7spy wrote: »

You guys need to not get bated on people saying risk vrs reward is time based. It is a surface level take and not really a strong one since at this point we may as well say any game is risk vrs reward because you play the game *sarcasm obviously*

Risk is the level of conflict * the value of what you have on the line for it, which will give you the potential loss and negative outcome; or the positive outcome and gain.

Time is universal and a inevitable investment into anything you are doing, time doesn't mean you are just inherently getting a potential negative element. The actual risk again is what you are carrying on you and the conflict you experience or could experience by continuing on.

Now even if we look at the worse example with enhancing gear and say it takes awhile to get the materials and such for it. And you are risking your gear on blowing up and you feel it will take forever to get the gear up again. Even that you can't really say the risk is time unless they do a bad design. More than likely the risk and the reason it takes so long is the level of conflict to obtain these items do to sacristy.

Awhile back in one of the pve threads i created a brief design that was more around risk and factoring time into that. But that was with time being part of the content and challenge.

Long story short playing the game a lot and investing tons of time does not equal risk.

I think you are going too general with your idea of time. There is a difference between playing a game for 1000 hours and playing a game for 1000 hours but 40% of that time was spent setting up to actually play the game or catching back up after failing. Time becomes apart of the risk factors when its a direct penalty to progression (exp loss/gear loss).

A good example of this is why most players do not hit 100 in path of exile each league. Once the penalty to exp becomes so high in terms of time required to catch back up each time you die, most people hit a point where that risk of death is just not worth it and stop playing.

Naa the issue is anyone here making a time arguing is being general which it literarily = people playing the game.

The risk is the death and how that comes about, you talking about recovering from your death is a result of the risk but not risk itself.

That could be 40% for some, 60% for some and 20% for others, that depends on how they play the game and how the choose to use their time. IE go out to high risk areas that are super far, or play it safe. The value of what each person obtains could be different as well based on what they are doing to feel its worth the risk.

There is a difference in talking about risk and talking about you not liking the result of death in general in the game or travel time. But if that death is tied to high conflict / reward zones which means high risk. Then perhaps its better to avoid going their constantly for some types of people.

Without doing to large a post for my point above that conflict zone is going to spread to other area potentially. Regrouping and getting back to your spot if a large war is going on will be a journey start to finish with content and pvp (potentially).

Im currently playing poe (lvl 93) and I'm a casual in it cause game is too deep so i just go as far as i can go with my own build and not being copy paste and search online for everything + buy all the gear. PoE has to be the worse example for you to use here since there is no down time in reaching the content. So i don't know how you are comparing this to poe, which makes me think you are not a big fan of risk.

The challenge in poe is your build + gear and how you can approach the challenges + surprises and overcome them. The more effective your build is the most easily you will level up. Though since the game is min maxed so hard when you are going from lvl 90-100 its difficult because you need a strong build for that if you are doing it on your own. It doesn't mean you can push on getting better gear and increasing your odds.

Even when i play poe i don't feel like I'm losing time or look at time. I'm looking at the level of danger between maps and my xp bar as it isn't tied to time. If i ran t17 or juiced 16 and my build was op leveling would be easy.

Hence where i bring it back and again say the view things take time is a general point on all games. Something taking time has nothing to do with risk, which the risk is the conflict. You are simply talking about the result of losing the conflict. Also people in conflict need the breathing room, you shouldnt be dying and then showing up in 1 min to attack them again. Which if that was the case is on the side of not wanting risk since you know yuo have nothing to lose and want to run it down every life.

Sathrago

Mag7spy wrote: »

Sathrago wrote: »

Mag7spy wrote: »

You guys need to not get bated on people saying risk vrs reward is time based. It is a surface level take and not really a strong one since at this point we may as well say any game is risk vrs reward because you play the game *sarcasm obviously*

Risk is the level of conflict * the value of what you have on the line for it, which will give you the potential loss and negative outcome; or the positive outcome and gain.

Time is universal and a inevitable investment into anything you are doing, time doesn't mean you are just inherently getting a potential negative element. The actual risk again is what you are carrying on you and the conflict you experience or could experience by continuing on.

Now even if we look at the worse example with enhancing gear and say it takes awhile to get the materials and such for it. And you are risking your gear on blowing up and you feel it will take forever to get the gear up again. Even that you can't really say the risk is time unless they do a bad design. More than likely the risk and the reason it takes so long is the level of conflict to obtain these items do to sacristy.

Awhile back in one of the pve threads i created a brief design that was more around risk and factoring time into that. But that was with time being part of the content and challenge.

Long story short playing the game a lot and investing tons of time does not equal risk.

I think you are going too general with your idea of time. There is a difference between playing a game for 1000 hours and playing a game for 1000 hours but 40% of that time was spent setting up to actually play the game or catching back up after failing. Time becomes apart of the risk factors when its a direct penalty to progression (exp loss/gear loss).

A good example of this is why most players do not hit 100 in path of exile each league. Once the penalty to exp becomes so high in terms of time required to catch back up each time you die, most people hit a point where that risk of death is just not worth it and stop playing.

Naa the issue is anyone here making a time arguing is being general which it literarily = people playing the game.

The risk is the death and how that comes about, you talking about recovering from your death is a result of the risk but not risk itself.

That could be 40% for some, 60% for some and 20% for others, that depends on how they play the game and how the choose to use their time. IE go out to high risk areas that are super far, or play it safe. The value of what each person obtains could be different as well based on what they are doing to feel its worth the risk.

There is a difference in talking about risk and talking about you not liking the result of death in general in the game or travel time. But if that death is tied to high conflict / reward zones which means high risk. Then perhaps its better to avoid going their constantly for some types of people.

Without doing to large a post for my point above that conflict zone is going to spread to other area potentially. Regrouping and getting back to your spot if a large war is going on will be a journey start to finish with content and pvp (potentially).

Im currently playing poe (lvl 93) and I'm a casual in it cause game is too deep so i just go as far as i can go with my own build and not being copy paste and search online for everything + buy all the gear. PoE has to be the worse example for you to use here since there is no down time in reaching the content. So i don't know how you are comparing this to poe, which makes me think you are not a big fan of risk.

The challenge in poe is your build + gear and how you can approach the challenges + surprises and overcome them. The more effective your build is the most easily you will level up. Though since the game is min maxed so hard when you are going from lvl 90-100 its difficult because you need a strong build for that if you are doing it on your own. It doesn't mean you can push on getting better gear and increasing your odds.

Even when i play poe i don't feel like I'm losing time or look at time. I'm looking at the level of danger between maps and my xp bar as it isn't tied to time. If i ran t17 or juiced 16 and my build was op leveling would be easy.

Hence where i bring it back and again say the view things take time is a general point on all games. Something taking time has nothing to do with risk, which the risk is the conflict. You are simply talking about the result of losing the conflict. Also people in conflict need the breathing room, you shouldnt be dying and then showing up in 1 min to attack them again. Which if that was the case is on the side of not wanting risk since you know yuo have nothing to lose and want to run it down every life.

You are actively taking the risk out of the game when you play it safe like you described. Like I tried to explain, playing the game to 100 is different from playing the game to 100 and trying to craft your own build and seeing if you can do bosses or juiced maps. I could just sit there farming t16s with my build, but there's no risk there and its much slower. A risk is when i decide to go 10 rounds in ultimatum or do a pinnacle boss not sure if my dps or skill can overcome the mechanics. Death at 96 is literally 2 hours of your life expunged from the character.

So when you put yourself in situations to gain more reward or exp at the risk of death, you are directly putting forth the chance that you are losing time invested in the character. In many cases its not even "more than normal" its just "normal" exp or reward that you are fighting for. This will absolutely be the case in ashes by the way. Funny enough Time is probably the most prominent of risks involved in ashes compared to most other mmos. exp loss on death is the purest form of it.

Ace1234

For me off the top of my head I think risk is two-fold

A) the potential consequence of spending time not doing what you want to do

(best example for me was playing one life modes like search and destroy in COD, cuz who wants to spectate while everyone else plays the game? Not me if I am trying to play/win), this makes you want to stay alive, thus evoking a sense of risk that gives you the "sweaty palms moments" and boosts adrenaline.

This assumes the player actually wants to stay alive to play the game/win though, which means the actually gameplay needs to be fun and worth investment from the player otherwise why would they care if they have to sit out, which is subjective, of course, based on individual player preferences (including the notion of risk itself and if players enjoy a stressful type of experience). Thats where the other aspects come into play like choice, reactivity, challenge, etc. to create investment into the gameplay for certain types of players and to create that opportunity for risk to be injected into the experience.

Obviously we get in our moods and sometimes couldn't care less about dying in a specific mode and just want to play something else, or just want to relax or whatever, which would eliminate the risk within the context of that situation. So if I feel like playing team deathmatch instead, then I now don't care about dying in search and destroy so there is no risk anymore, the real "risk" at that point would be being forced to continue to play search and destroy because I now prefer to be playing something else entirely. So I think the idea of risk itself is also contextual as well.

B- level Effort/Mastery

If someone is a master at running caravans, pvp, economy, etc., etc., I think they should get rewards that should allow them to better progress in the aggregate experience of those activities, compared to someone who just specializes and excels at one of those activities.

So, for example, in theory if you were going to offer different types of experiences to players (like being able to choose between purely playing arena pvp, vs. having the choice to play the open world). For something like arena pvp if it had progression; one could master arena pvp by simply playing arena pvp and progressing within that and could be equally competitive as someone else who has mastered the other systems in the open world (no advantage to open world player in arena pvp otherwise you force the arena pvp person to play open world and eliminate that content choice)- However, the arena pvper would not be as competitive in the open world, due to not mastering the other open world systems compared to the open world player, due to the additional mastery/effort that the open world player invested and thus was rewarded with that competitive advantage.

Dolyem

Risk is the possibilities that can set you back. As many have said, it all boils down to time lost, but these things tend to also result in death/loss of resources as the risk.

Ace1234

Risk is the possibilities that can set you back. As many have said, it all boils down to time lost, but these things tend to also result in death/loss of resources as the risk.

*Sword Art Online entered the chat*

Mag7spy

Sathrago wrote: »

Mag7spy wrote: »

Sathrago wrote: »

Mag7spy wrote: »

You guys need to not get bated on people saying risk vrs reward is time based. It is a surface level take and not really a strong one since at this point we may as well say any game is risk vrs reward because you play the game *sarcasm obviously*

Risk is the level of conflict * the value of what you have on the line for it, which will give you the potential loss and negative outcome; or the positive outcome and gain.

Time is universal and a inevitable investment into anything you are doing, time doesn't mean you are just inherently getting a potential negative element. The actual risk again is what you are carrying on you and the conflict you experience or could experience by continuing on.

Now even if we look at the worse example with enhancing gear and say it takes awhile to get the materials and such for it. And you are risking your gear on blowing up and you feel it will take forever to get the gear up again. Even that you can't really say the risk is time unless they do a bad design. More than likely the risk and the reason it takes so long is the level of conflict to obtain these items do to sacristy.

Awhile back in one of the pve threads i created a brief design that was more around risk and factoring time into that. But that was with time being part of the content and challenge.

Long story short playing the game a lot and investing tons of time does not equal risk.

I think you are going too general with your idea of time. There is a difference between playing a game for 1000 hours and playing a game for 1000 hours but 40% of that time was spent setting up to actually play the game or catching back up after failing. Time becomes apart of the risk factors when its a direct penalty to progression (exp loss/gear loss).

A good example of this is why most players do not hit 100 in path of exile each league. Once the penalty to exp becomes so high in terms of time required to catch back up each time you die, most people hit a point where that risk of death is just not worth it and stop playing.

Naa the issue is anyone here making a time arguing is being general which it literarily = people playing the game.

The risk is the death and how that comes about, you talking about recovering from your death is a result of the risk but not risk itself.

That could be 40% for some, 60% for some and 20% for others, that depends on how they play the game and how the choose to use their time. IE go out to high risk areas that are super far, or play it safe. The value of what each person obtains could be different as well based on what they are doing to feel its worth the risk.

There is a difference in talking about risk and talking about you not liking the result of death in general in the game or travel time. But if that death is tied to high conflict / reward zones which means high risk. Then perhaps its better to avoid going their constantly for some types of people.

Without doing to large a post for my point above that conflict zone is going to spread to other area potentially. Regrouping and getting back to your spot if a large war is going on will be a journey start to finish with content and pvp (potentially).

Im currently playing poe (lvl 93) and I'm a casual in it cause game is too deep so i just go as far as i can go with my own build and not being copy paste and search online for everything + buy all the gear. PoE has to be the worse example for you to use here since there is no down time in reaching the content. So i don't know how you are comparing this to poe, which makes me think you are not a big fan of risk.

The challenge in poe is your build + gear and how you can approach the challenges + surprises and overcome them. The more effective your build is the most easily you will level up. Though since the game is min maxed so hard when you are going from lvl 90-100 its difficult because you need a strong build for that if you are doing it on your own. It doesn't mean you can push on getting better gear and increasing your odds.

Even when i play poe i don't feel like I'm losing time or look at time. I'm looking at the level of danger between maps and my xp bar as it isn't tied to time. If i ran t17 or juiced 16 and my build was op leveling would be easy.

Hence where i bring it back and again say the view things take time is a general point on all games. Something taking time has nothing to do with risk, which the risk is the conflict. You are simply talking about the result of losing the conflict. Also people in conflict need the breathing room, you shouldnt be dying and then showing up in 1 min to attack them again. Which if that was the case is on the side of not wanting risk since you know yuo have nothing to lose and want to run it down every life.

You are actively taking the risk out of the game when you play it safe like you described. Like I tried to explain, playing the game to 100 is different from playing the game to 100 and trying to craft your own build and seeing if you can do bosses or juiced maps. I could just sit there farming t16s with my build, but there's no risk there and its much slower. A risk is when i decide to go 10 rounds in ultimatum or do a pinnacle boss not sure if my dps or skill can overcome the mechanics. Death at 96 is literally 2 hours of your life expunged from the character.

So when you put yourself in situations to gain more reward or exp at the risk of death, you are directly putting forth the chance that you are losing time invested in the character. In many cases its not even "more than normal" its just "normal" exp or reward that you are fighting for. This will absolutely be the case in ashes by the way. Funny enough Time is probably the most prominent of risks involved in ashes compared to most other mmos. exp loss on death is the purest form of it.

Again this time argument isn't valid like I said it is akin to playing any game and saying it equals risk. Talking about xp loss is the closest thing you can get to that if you are making a argument for it. Which then you be saying they shouldnt have xp loss in the game. Though this is going to be minimal as i expect xp loss to only be around corruption which will be very minimal in the game.

Arguments around i died so i need to walk back to my spot and it takes time is not risk. The risk is the encounter that yuo were pvping in and died.

So ill just repeat the way you are explaining time is just playing AoC in general which at that point playing any game is risk suddenly. You are mostly complaining about the affect effect of dealing with high risk situation. It is extremely clear to know what is the actual risk factor by looking at the extreme. If you remove the time element all together is it still high risk, answer is yes as the people attacking you is why you died. If you remove the people attacking you element it will be deemed as almost 0 risk.

Child Item