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ManualThe Concept
As a game developer it was always clear that the point system in most guilds was severe limiting and favored one group of people over the rest. Points seem to be awarded mysteriously, and only those parts of the inner circle really knew what was going on; leaving the rest to wonder about the legitimacy of the operation. Furthermore, simple point accumulation allowed for those who have been part of the guild for a longer period of time, to completely cripple the chances of other attaining the gear. In other words, a point was not worth the same value to the veterans and the new comers. On the other hand, points did work much better then systems based on merit, and rewards based on discretion. In other words, the goal was to devise a system that would balance all the problems and possible conflicts of loot distribution, while creating a high level of transparency.
Phase 1: Building Utility Functions
The major topic of the AI Summit at GDC 2010 was Utility. Utility is a method by which Artificial Intelligence in Sims determines what to do next. It is in essence a collection of several simple functions and variables that all come together and return value. This is the system that we are basing our points system on.
We begin by determining the ways in which points are awarded, while asking ourselves important questions that might help highlight the variables. For example; one way to earn points is through participating in events. We determine that not all events pertain the same quality and the quality of the event should determine the reward. This allows us as a guild to have fine control over all events, and placing more emphasis on particular raids, over say birthday parties. We intend to implement a system where certain types of events can be initiated by anyone in the guild and therefore those participating should be rewarded. Unlike normal events these are considered "unscheduled events" and therefore will actually yield less reward then pre-scheduled events. The reason for this is similar to the reasoning for many other variables placed into the Utility functions. They come from past experiences, such late night HNM spawns that participation is still encouraged but are much more spontaneous. Finally we want to reward people accurately based on how long they participated in any given event. To do this, we'll employ tools (more on that later) that will auto-post people's arrival and departure time. Then creating a simple multiplier of (Total Time Player Stayed / Total Time of the Event) thus forming a percentage multiplier over the total possible points to be earned. This creates a lot of flexibility and encourages the players to participate for the duration of the event.
Phase 2: Building the Value of a Beli
An important distinction from common point based systems is how the points (or Beli) are spent. One way points are spent is by buying items from the guild bank (such as crafting materials), or items dropped during events. Each item has a calculated value whose complete formula would be much to tasking to explain in this short paragraph but ultimately fluctuates based on the following variables.
- Is the item sellable
- Can the item stack
- Is the item rare
- Is it an ingredient
- Is it perishable
- Does it degrade
- What's the item's market worth
- Calculate the cost of the least costly means to attain the item (crafting, drop, etc..)
This data is all aggregated automatically or collected via data entry. Ultimately allowing the manual cost adjustments as we see fit, the idea is that these adjustments would happen at the micro level.
An important principle to solve in the concept of value is to determine what one unit of work equates to in gil. This will be challenging at first but as time goes on we hope to gather more data from the markets. For now we estimate 10,000gil = 1 hour of work = 1,000 Beli.
Phase 3: Develop the Tools
The tools being developed (dubbed Straw Tools), is a collection of calculators and officer programs intended to simply such a complex system. These tools will allow a Matey to login and see all of his/her past transaction. Watch a graph depicting his ups and downs as well as see similar graphs for items, and events. These tools further aim to provide an advantage on predicting and evaluating the market in game; we can quickly tell if an item is being overpriced, or under based on what the calculators estimate raw attainable cost to be.
These tools benefit the various ranked individuals as they can easily manage people's attendance, growth rates in one location. The goal of the point system is to simulate a bell curve among all the "active" members of the company. This is achieved, through various penalties implemented in the system as well as rewards that help keep things in balance; ultimately creating our own internal economy.
Summary
The StrawHats point system is an unbiased, mathematically calculated, transparent, and rewarding. There will little to nothing that a member of the company will partake in that will not reward him or her in points. As a matter of fact; we are playing around with the idea of awarding achievements such as Full Timers, or Beli Whore to those who attend every scheduled event that month, or achieve maximum number of points during the course of the month. These awards yield a % based of the points earned for that month as bonus to the given individual for his or her extraordinary effort.