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?

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Noaani

Otr wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Otr wrote: »

That death can decide something, like obtaining a unique item.

Unless death is tied to some form of time penalty, this is not true. If you lose the item because you respawned a distance away, then that lost item is due to travel time.

Or if the death count matters.

In the same way an MMORPG wouldn't ever be built to the hypothetical I laid out for Mag, no MMORPG would ever be built to where this was the case.

I mean, the hypothetical I gave Mag was that of a game where there was no time penalty - it is technically possible to create, it would just suck as a game. Same where death count was what determined who gets a one off item rather than any other factor - and in order for your point here to be valid, death count would need to be the ONLY factor in determining who gets the item, and there would need to be no way to lower your death count.

Otr wrote: »

If you enjoyed the time spent, then you gained fun.

See, if you prescribe to this perspective, you then have to assume that either people playing the game do not enjoy playing the game, or there is no penalty.

If you are the developer of this game and perscribe to this perspective, you would then need to ask yourself why people would play your game and not enjoy it - that is something you would need to fix. Thus, your assumption at some point needs to be that people are always enjoying your game as you fixed the previous issue, at which point you need to now function under the assumption that your game no longer has any risk vs reward.

I mean, as a perspective, what you are talking about here is inherently flawed, I'm just trying to illustrate how flawed it actually is, and how obvious the flaws are when you actually think about it.

Otr wrote: »

In an mmorpg, even spending time with your guild mates is a reward.

Not in the context of a discussion on risk vs reward in terms of game design. In that case, it most definately is not.

Risk vs reward is a specific notion, it isn't a case of "all risks" and "all rewards" associated with the game. It is a case of taking specific pieces of content and assessing the reward the developers offer vs the risk the developers provide. Thus, spending time with guild mates is abolutely not a part of this discussion.

Otr

I am amazed how you always have a good answer!

Songcaller

Plenty of pvp mmos are built for death counts to matter. In fact, if you gain experience from pvp to level pvp levels death count is the greatest risk as you want to grow in power faster than others. Thus, each death given to an opponent makes the opponent stronger and narrows the gap between each competitor. Therefore, death counts more than time here because time has no limitation but the death counts do. Hence, the risk is nothing to do with time but is to do with death.

Ludullu

Songcaller wrote: »

Plenty of pvp mmos are built for death counts to matter. In fact, if you gain experience from pvp to level pvp levels death count is the greatest risk as you want to grow in power faster than others. Thus, each death given to an opponent makes the opponent stronger and narrows the gap between each competitor. Therefore, death counts more than time here because time has no limitation but the death counts do. Hence, the risk is nothing to do with time but is to do with death.

Death removes your invested time, which makes others have more of that invested time and be stronger than you because of that.

So risk of death is the risk of losing time. And it's a compounding issue, because you not only lose invested time, but you're then doubly behind the time value of others, because you need to spend time trying to catch up (if that is even possible).

This is why Noaani gave that example of penaltiless deaths, where the time doesn't matter because you simply immediately resurrect on the spot and time has no impact cause there's no loss of time.

But at that point there's absolutely no risk. Anywhere. You'd always be moving forward, so only those who have more irl time to play the game would be stronger (given that the skill of using said time is equal).

Noaani

Songcaller wrote: »

Plenty of pvp mmos are built for death counts to matter. In fact, if you gain experience from pvp to level pvp levels death count is the greatest risk as you want to grow in power faster than others. Thus, each death given to an opponent makes the opponent stronger and narrows the gap between each competitor. Therefore, death counts more than time here because time has no limitation but the death counts do. Hence, the risk is nothing to do with time but is to do with death.

I can't think of any where death count wasn't able to be worked around via spending more time.

Edit to add; I also can't see why a developer would want to add that. Making death count matter encourages players to not play.

Noaani

Otr wrote: »

I am amazed how you always have a good answer!

I have been talking about MMORPG design for more than 20 years. Some of that has been with player, some of that has been with game developers (I tend to listen and ask questions more with developers, rather than actually discuss things).

I also spend time reading white papers on game design, but also on somewhat related topics. For example, I have just read a paper on why "fun" and "enjoyment" are technically not the same thing.

While people may disagree with me some times (though I am clear when I am talking about objective things - perhaps I should note more when I am speaking more subjectively), at the end of the day my positions are a result of decades of active learning.

Songcaller

Ludullu_(NiKr) wrote: »

Songcaller wrote: »

Plenty of pvp mmos are built for death counts to matter. In fact, if you gain experience from pvp to level pvp levels death count is the greatest risk as you want to grow in power faster than others. Thus, each death given to an opponent makes the opponent stronger and narrows the gap between each competitor. Therefore, death counts more than time here because time has no limitation but the death counts do. Hence, the risk is nothing to do with time but is to do with death.

Death removes your invested time, which makes others have more of that invested time and be stronger than you because of that.

So risk of death is the risk of losing time. And it's a compounding issue, because you not only lose invested time, but you're then doubly behind the time value of others, because you need to spend time trying to catch up (if that is even possible).

This is why Noaani gave that example of penaltiless deaths, where the time doesn't matter because you simply immediately resurrect on the spot and time has no impact cause there's no loss of time.

But at that point there's absolutely no risk. Anywhere. You'd always be moving forward, so only those who have more irl time to play the game would be stronger (given that the skill of using said time is equal).

Noaani wrote: »

Songcaller wrote: »

Plenty of pvp mmos are built for death counts to matter. In fact, if you gain experience from pvp to level pvp levels death count is the greatest risk as you want to grow in power faster than others. Thus, each death given to an opponent makes the opponent stronger and narrows the gap between each competitor. Therefore, death counts more than time here because time has no limitation but the death counts do. Hence, the risk is nothing to do with time but is to do with death.

I can't think of any where death count wasn't able to be worked around via spending more time.

Edit to add; I also can't see why a developer would want to add that. Making death count matter encourages players to not play.

I could keep going in circles but the risk would be too much time spent.

mfckingjoker

Going in a 2 hour siege and losing, trying to defeat a raid boss and the opposite team gets the loot, pking some random dude and somebody kills you and you drop important gear. All these and a lot more are tied to a risk vs reward system (a very oldschool system btw) where if you win it really feels rewarding and if you lose you literally just lost time of your life, compared to other systems where everybody gets something just for participating.

I hear from many people that they don't really like this idea, especially those who never played a similar mmo before. As an old school lineage 2 player all I can say is that this system is one of the ways the people are emotionally connected to the game and is something that's gonna help them in the long run.

Azherae

Ludullu_(NiKr) wrote: »

Songcaller wrote: »

Plenty of pvp mmos are built for death counts to matter. In fact, if you gain experience from pvp to level pvp levels death count is the greatest risk as you want to grow in power faster than others. Thus, each death given to an opponent makes the opponent stronger and narrows the gap between each competitor. Therefore, death counts more than time here because time has no limitation but the death counts do. Hence, the risk is nothing to do with time but is to do with death.

Death removes your invested time, which makes others have more of that invested time and be stronger than you because of that.

So risk of death is the risk of losing time. And it's a compounding issue, because you not only lose invested time, but you're then doubly behind the time value of others, because you need to spend time trying to catch up (if that is even possible).

This is why Noaani gave that example of penaltiless deaths, where the time doesn't matter because you simply immediately resurrect on the spot and time has no impact cause there's no loss of time.

But at that point there's absolutely no risk. Anywhere. You'd always be moving forward, so only those who have more irl time to play the game would be stronger (given that the skill of using said time is equal).

Yes, this sort of thing is why OP would even want a definition. Because a PvP MMO player has a different definition than a MOBA player, different than an FG player, different than a logistics/strategy/PvE only player.

But Ashes is aiming to design a game that is functionally combining the incentive structures of all those things.

It is a game in which you can invest time into becoming a leader of a 'geographical area' through sociopolitical approaches, lose that geographical leadership via the outcome of a MOBA-like PvP event in which your strategy isn't good enough, try to maintain your position/regain your geopolitical status through leading your followers in logistics to make up for it, lose small skirmishes with those followers due to smaler scale PvP events because you didn't practice a certain combo timing enough, and find yourself unable to regain your position as leader again no matter how much you practice your combo, and no matter how many times you try to siege your geographical target because no one is willing to let you be leader anymore.

I still don't agree that time spent is the only risk due to the above complexity, because there does come a point, rarely though it comes, where investing more time cannot regain a status you have lost.

The 'issue' is that Steven's design also goes beyond merely 'winners' and 'losers'. It starts to touch on 'status' and 'capacity'. PvP incentives usually cause this because of the limits on human emotional fortitude, but at least some are 'Immune' to that, or can easily discard the negativity of failure in many ways while seeking a 'fair' or weaker target.

But Ashes contains 'Rewards' powerful enough to offset any 'Risk' calculations, for now. Which is my second problem with that tenet. The arrow of implementation currently 'points down'. Your Reward in many cases is 'having less Risk' as a generality, and that just compounds as you get closer to the top.

Arya_Yeshe

@Ace1234 it's just that I dont read people anymore in here, they have too many long posts, so I usually read the op and then I speak. This is because I don't want to enter in the circle jerk of arguments with the many people who do this on a daily basis here and they are also nitty picky about words

Noaani

Azherae wrote: »

I still don't agree that time spent is the only risk due to the above complexity, because there does come a point, rarely though it comes, where investing more time cannot regain a status you have lost.

While I can see hypothetical situations where this could be the case, I can't point to any one existing game where it is.

Like, if we are talking single player games and the risk is actual loss and the end of the game, then all you actually risk is the time since the last save (or the time spent on that run of the game, as a worst case scenario).

For online/multiplayer games, developers are usualy very careful to not put players in a state where they stand to actually lose something they have no way of regaining. I have honestly never seen a game that does not follow this - even though it is obviously technically possible.

Myosotys

Ludullu_(NiKr) wrote: »

Time spent vs reward.

Damn... If it's the case it would mean that AOC is not better than a mobile game like Clash of Clan.

Risk versus Reward means to me, that you can improve the reward by increasing the level of risk of activities and you successfully carried out these activities, thanks to your skills (high PvP risk, fight a stronger opponent on paper, stronger mobs etc).

Time is just one variable among many (for instance : optimizing time by taking more risks to improve the reward). The ultimate risk is the death and you will lose time in consequence, but there are plenty of other risks other than death that can allow you a better reward.

Srixun

At the core, its Balance vs Counterbalance. which doesnt answer the initial; question at all.

However, as an old UO player and an Eve Online player...

With UO, You could wear bigger armor, to mitigate the risk of loss, but if you lost then you lose more. however, with that being said, take said equipment into a dungeon, you need more to be able to finish it, but if you die, you lost everything on your person with a few minor exceptions.

Eve Online is the same, High risk vs High reward, You can fly "blingy" to have a better chance, but checks and balances comes into play a lot. but if you win, and they flew blingy too, to compete with you, they die, and they drop equipment/gear and you can take some of it that wasnt destroyed. so "shinier" fights always reaped more rewards. This is a playstyle I enjoyed thoroughly, but its so niche its hard to make a game survive with full loot mechanics like that. So i don't want to see this entirely in Ashes, but some risk with PVP reward is something I want for sure.

I also have an interest in corrupted play. But alot of people want to demonize it and use it as a penalty box. Sure, there will be penalties with PK'ing, but the game needs to have that outlet.

Percimes

I've been active on these forums for about four years now, although I've been aware of this game for maybe five-ish. "This game won't be for everyone" if often throw out at new posters, or people expressing a view which can be at odds with the one of the target forum audience. But you know what? I still don't know if it will be a game for me, and it's in good part because this pillar of "risk vs. reward" doesn't resonate with me.

My definitions
Risks: the obstacles and difficulties that, if not overcome, lead to negative outcomes
Reward: positive outcomes, a desired result

Balancing risk vs. reward doesn't always make sense to me. It's often possible to get a great positive outcome while overcoming little risks, or beating impossible odds yet gaining little in return. There is a disconnect. It's not fixed. Sometime you can fiddle with the risks. Sometime the reward lose its lustre. And I think this wiggle room is essential, trying to fix the ratio of risk for reward, it would make it too predictable (maybe not in details but in scope) and it would diminish the magic of the unknown. Maybe it's only because I am, to a certain point, numb to both. I dunno /shrug.

What I care about is enjoying the time I spend in a game. Spend, not invest. It's fun vs. tedious/boring. Chasing rewards usually falls into the tedious platter of the scale. Strangely, part of the risks is often in its fun side. Short term goals, the now.

ExiledByrd

I am with those saying time <> risk.

However time is one of the things that you can risk. If a gatherer gets ganked and loses materials, the attacker just cost them the time it takes to gather those material.

There are other things besides time you can risk though. A mayor sets tax rate to high? They risk their position when it comes to re-election. Taking a flying mount to a siege, would risk the mount itself.

Azherae

ExiledByrd wrote: »

I am with those saying time <> risk.

However time is one of the things that you can risk. If a gatherer gets ganked and loses materials, the attacker just cost them the time it takes to gather those material.

There are other things besides time you can risk though. A mayor sets tax rate to high? They risk their position when it comes to re-election. Taking a flying mount to a siege, would risk the mount itself.

Depending on your outlook we can go beyond this too, in both the main games I play you can also 'risk' access to content.

Even though this might not be lost permanently, in the case of Elite Dangerous where there is an active simulation, it sometimes might as well be. If content type A is only available when Faction A controls System A, even if there is lots of 'similar' content, there really may be nothing like it in any place that anyone knows about.

All it takes to 'permanently' lose access to that content you enjoy because your Faction controls Star System A, is for another stronger group to take a vested interest in 'Faction B controlling that star system'.

Which, in turn, might happen because of political outcomes, shifts in power, or just the Devs putting a Community Goal too close to your space. Not even intentionally. They put a minor war nearby, suddenly mercenaries are everywhere, and somehow this results in the control changing.

Unlike FFXI where it probably only takes a month or two to 'regain' access to content that is lost like this, for Elite it can easily be pretty permanent. This is a result of high dynamism.

Nor am I talking about just 'the way you get to experience content' exactly. Some high level materials become extremely rare because they only appear in Star System Type A controlled by Faction Type A under rare Simulation Status A. Now, the 'bubble' is big enough that you can probably find them somewhere else, so I guess one could say you're still 'only losing time', but that's just layer one.

The GameWorld changes, players adapt, but the dynamics of the simulation mean that some things, 'nitpicky precise' as they are, just go away, and stay 'gone' until the world dynamically changes again, if it ever does, and some historical stuff is now so far 'gone' as to be basically impossible.

I'd say there are mini events that took 5 years for the stars to align, quite literally, for them to appear, and the alternate event they 'replaced' can't be regained without probably another 4 years of practically uncontested activity.

As long as Ashes is aiming even near this, I'd expect the same.

Noaani

ExiledByrd wrote: »

A mayor sets tax rate to high? They risk their position when it comes to re-election. Taking a flying mount to a siege, would risk the mount itself.

That is still a time risk though.

In this case, it is the time it would take to become mayor again.

The only time you can say you risked something that wasn't time related is if you are unable to ever get that thing again. That in itself is something that is exceedingly rare in MMORPG's, as people tend to leave games when they face unrecoverable loss.

Yhakob

I think concern about time risks take away from what the developers can actually control- there will always be someone who can just play the game more than you. I work 8-6 and know I won't be able to sink as much time in to the game as other players- I will already be well behind in terms of time. Most players will be.

Time in the game is one thing the devs can't control, but material and XP loss is. I still want to feel that sense of dread close to death, and triumph when I succeed at something challenging.

"I think that it's interesting if the difficulty level you're faced with in this open world with many other players forces you to think critically..." great quote from the fighter dev update video. I really hope the game isn't afraid to put real consequences in for players that go beyond just "well, guess I have to do it again." Make me despair at my losses and rejoice at my victories!

Otr

Time is always lost (or spent). If players see it as a resource, time flows constantly for everybody.
It is just a figure of speech to say you lost time when you actually have to spend future time to do something again.

Risk implies chance. It is easier to estimate chance when you can observe the outcome of similar events, if they are repeatable.
Higher risk does not mean higher reward. Reward has a maximum fixed value and can even be 0.

Imagine a case where you have a decoy caravan and you successfully make your opponent think that is the true caravan. They hunt it, you defend it trying to get more time for the real caravan to reach the destination.
Those who hunt the decoy caravan have no reward but they think they have. They feel a risk in losing it.
It comes a moment when the real caravan reached destination safely.
The decoy caravan could stop but they chose to continue the journey. Attackers keep trying to destroy it, defenders keep moving from place to place with it.
Both sides perceive a risk yet there is no reward? What is the reward? What do you lose?

By the way, if you accept determinism, you have no free will. Everything is predetermined by the past.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determinism

Myosotys

Noaani wrote: »

ExiledByrd wrote: »

A mayor sets tax rate to high? They risk their position when it comes to re-election. Taking a flying mount to a siege, would risk the mount itself.

That is still a time risk though.

In this case, it is the time it would take to become mayor again.

The only time you can say you risked something that wasn't time related is if you are unable to ever get that thing again. That in itself is something that is exceedingly rare in MMORPG's, as people tend to leave games when they face unrecoverable loss.

You thought the debate was the High School diploma in Philosophy ? Wait I'll reopen my books about time and death of Kant, Sarte or Epicure.

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