Surprise Attack... finished?

[nicoley13]

Yeah, that must be it for the war now that the normal Battledome challengers are back. I really hope something fairly unexpected and exciting happens when the obelisk opens though. Probably not, but it's still possible. I didn't think there would be any more war opponents -- how can you top the last round? That was enough fighting and losing, and anything else would be anticlimactic. But I'm glad we can battle the normal challengers again! I missed my PRIZES!

[Doozy]

The prizes seem to have really gone down in quality. I've gotten sooo many quetzals and juppies. D:

 

 

I really hope that there's more to this than what has already happened. There better be like a puzzle or something interesting inside. I'll be sooo mad if there's nothing.

[Realcar]

Prizes definitely have gone down in quality. I'm hoping that'll pump the red codestone prices back up. I used to get excited when I'd get one cuz it would be a big sale. Now it's...... just going into the SDB. Not even worth it to sell at these prices.

[Balance]

Prizes definitely have gone down in quality. I'm hoping that'll pump the red codestone prices back up. I used to get excited when I'd get one cuz it would be a big sale. Now it's...... just going into the SDB. Not even worth it to sell at these prices.

 

Adding the fairies has diluted the prize pool. Not that they aren't useful in their own way, but they'll hit a partial saturation point when everyone interested in them will have all the faerie abilities they have access to or care to pursue. At that point, the only market will be new battlers and players who want to switch an ability for some reason. Codestones don't have that sort of saturation, since you can always train for more health, if nothing else. It's unfortunate from my perspective, since I need a lot of red codestones to continue training, but I expect the prices to go back up.

[coltom]

My analysis is a bit more complicated, given that many of the abilities from the availability of cheap bottled fae will cause more to train to the 300-500 stages to get the fantastic abilities. Given the power of Warlock's rage, no half serious battler is going to try to do two player battle at less than level 300, and I think most are going to go for level 500 to get serious attack ability.

 

Also, I have a small fear that my Roombas are actually a cybermat in disguise.

[Balance]

Of course, having said all that, my next set of battles netted me 4 reds. Perhaps it's not as bad as I thought. Time will tell.

[plotinus_theos]

So it's been about four days since the bosses were defeated. Does anyone have any idea when they will start handing out prizes or (not holding my breath here) release a new phase?

[~Xandria]

So it's been about four days since the bosses were defeated. Does anyone have any idea when they will start handing out prizes or (not holding my breath here) release a new phase?

I agree. They are making us wait forever.... I am going to explode! :sad01_anim:

[Frostfire Rockwind]

I agree. They are making us wait forever.... I am going to explode! :sad01_anim:

 

It does sort of fit the theme, though. Just now, instead of "Sending Move...", we're "Sending Score...".

[siniri]

I suspect it will be soon. They have to figure out appropriate scores for a 6-way competition, making sure that there's good spread (which I suspect is impossible if it just comes down to "doing your part") and that it's fair, so that the best prizes are for those who worked the hardest and are still reasonably rare to be worth something. I don't know if they'll have a prize shop or just everyone-gets-the-same for a given tier, but if they go the shop route, they need to assign point values to each prize, balancing points based on how "awesome" they are and the aforementioned distribution of points across individuals. TNT used to take weeks or months; they've gotten faster, but they still have to wait until things are done to finalize their scoring system since they won't know in advance what the distribution will be like. Plus, since they keep hinting we can go inside the obelisk, they need to make sure that whatever's inside is working properly, too. It's a lot more complicated this time because there were so many factions. I'd rather let them take as much time as they need and get it "right" than have them rush and be unfair or have glitches.

[kris10ly]

I suspect it will be soon. They have to figure out appropriate scores for a 6-way competition, making sure that there's good spread (which I suspect is impossible if it just comes down to "doing your part") and that it's fair, so that the best prizes are for those who worked the hardest and are still reasonably rare to be worth something. I don't know if they'll have a prize shop or just everyone-gets-the-same for a given tier, but if they go the shop route, they need to assign point values to each prize, balancing points based on how "awesome" they are and the aforementioned distribution of points across individuals. TNT used to take weeks or months; they've gotten faster, but they still have to wait until things are done to finalize their scoring system since they won't know in advance what the distribution will be like. Plus, since they keep hinting we can go inside the obelisk, they need to make sure that whatever's inside is working properly, too. It's a lot more complicated this time because there were so many factions. I'd rather let them take as much time as they need and get it "right" than have them rush and be unfair or have glitches.

These are all things that were done (or else SHOULD have been done) during the planning stages of the event.

 

Personally I'm speculating that this really will turn into a plot or at least a longer-term event, and this pause is just one of what will be several built-in breaks during which site activity returns to normal, scheduled annual activities happen, etc. But maybe I'm overly-optimistic and TNT is really as disorganized as you're guessing, siniri. :P I hope not!

[Sheepish]

These are all things that were done (or else SHOULD have been done) during the planning stages of the event.

 

Personally I'm speculating that this really will turn into a plot or at least a longer-term event, and this pause is just one of what will be several built-in breaks during which site activity returns to normal, scheduled annual activities happen, etc. But maybe I'm overly-optimistic and TNT is really as disorganized as you're guessing, siniri. :P I hope not!

 

Can't plan for everything. Isn't this the first war they've done in the new battledome? It can't've gone as smoothly as they'd hoped underneath the surface - all well and good in testing until half the playerbase is hunting for ways to break it. We already saw the Surprise Attack break (okay, which TNT member said "This is going great!" and jinxed it?), can't be the only thing or I'll be incredibly impressed with TNT. I'd hazard a guess that the people losing their way to equality wasn't part of their plan either (but I could be wrong).

 

Myself, I can't see this turning into a huge plot. I'd love it, but it seems to me like it was hardly more than a test for the new battledome and possibly other new systems they're putting in place. On the bright side, I do think this means they'll be bringing out a huge plot some time in the near future.

[siniri]

I think it's over; TNT said they're tallying, and there's no point in doing so if there were more to the war. Of course there's still what's inside the obelisk -- maybe it will be a "part two" since they said only those who made it can continue. But again, that could just refer to the prize shop.

 

In addition to what Sheepish said, there's the simple fact that you can't make sure there's spread until you see what the spread is -- I'm sure they had things mostly planned out, but they need to see what the users did, what kind of distribution there was in "points." And make sure that they can reward everyone fairly based on the spread that they got, which might mean redistributing points in the prize shop to reflect the realities of the different "levels" of participation. And given that it was a 6-way competition, complicated by the losing-your-way-to-your-part technique... it could take some time to make sure it's fair but also has good spread. If everyone were to get the equivalent of an Ylanas Blaster, it would be a disaster. So TNT will have to figure out how to allocate points based on the data they collected for each user.

[kris10ly]

lol people still think losing to DYP was a glitch?

 

 

ETA: "you can't make sure there's spread until you see what the spread is" - this doesn't make sense tbh; why would TNT want to make sure there's a spread? There's no reason to curve scores, and force a quota of players into each prize tier. Not only would that be bizarre and incredibly unpopular, it's also unnecessarily difficult to organize and totally unprecedented in both online gaming and contest/competition in general.

 

There were a finite number of point-earning activities (achievements, DYP bar, possibly each extra win). Besides the few players who managed to KO the surprise attack bosses, there's no element of the overall event that they wouldn't have been able to assign values to during the event planning stages.

 

I'm doubting there's more at this point, after that editorial, but I don't think this delay in prize shop has anything to do with their needing to "see what the spread is" and invent an entirely new scoring metric out of thin air.

[siniri]

Well, that's true to an extent, but don't forget that there are scores for each faction. The scores could be based on a percentage of participants who did their part for each wave, how fast they beat their boss, how many times they beat their big boss, etc. But let's say 10,000 people signed up for the Sway vs. only 1,000 Seekers. Of course the Sway would kill their boss faster if its HP chipped away based on number of times people lost to it. Or what if one person killed their big boss 5 times for one faction, but another faction didn't have anyone able to kill their boss by themselves? (There are very few of the weapons that would let you do so around; I'm sure they weren't distributed evenly.) Should the faction that person joined automatically win? How much credit should the team get? What about people who signed up but didn't participate, or quit after the first wave? How much should that hurt their team? Sure, TNT should have an idea of how to weigh all these things, and they do need a way to objectively decide which faction won, but making sure the weight of various components gives a result that seems objectively fair when looking at the overall data could be difficult, especially if the various factions were strong in different things, making the final scores come out very close.

 

Regarding individual points, they could have an idea of what the spread would be, but what if instead of a nice bell-shaped curve like they were expecting, they get a bunch of people at the top and a bunch of people at the bottom, but no one in the middle? Sometimes things don't go as planned. Prizes become part of the larger economy, and you do need to balance how many you give out so you don't crash part of the economy. When HCCs were given out, sure, the value of ROTL dropped, but they didn't give out so many HCCs as to make the ROTLs completely worthless. As more good weapons become more available, prices drop, but they don't want people to feel like the bottom has completely dropped out on them, especially for things like HT weapons where TNT controls the price. Because events are only part of a meta-game, TNT needs to make sure the meta-game stays balanced on top of being fair within the event prizes. They can do that by making sure only the top x% can afford the best weapon prize, etc., but to do that, they need the final point distribution across users. And if there are huge clumps of ties, it becomes harder.

 

If they have data to possibly break up the clumps and separate out the placement a bit (e.g., maybe they could use win-loss records within each wave), it would still be fair, as long as they use an objective, concrete method of allocating points based on the effort and skill of participants. There are hundreds of ways of calculating the scores, and some of them may result in a "prettier" distribution than others, one that would make allocating prizes easier and affecting the larger meta-game in a more "fair" way. As long as the method chosen doesn't put too much weight on a single factor, it could be considered fair (though of course users who might have done better using a different method might disagree). There's a reason TNT doesn't divulge the details of its scoring.

 

tl;dr: TNT needs to consider the effect of prizes on the meta-game that is Neopets, so distribution matters. Tweaking the point allocation (using objective data collected during the war) so that there's a more bell-curve like distribution is fair, even if it's different than TNT originally planned (because we don't know what they were planning anyway), and it might be fairer regarding the meta-game. It's worth taking the time to get it "right."

[coltom]

Personally I hope it is because my daughter was not able to complete all of her tasks, because one of the task involved the neomailing of a gift to someone on a different faction. As my daughter is under 12, she has a protected account. TNT's only options to complete the task, and I have the ticket that I've forwarded to two attorney general's offices, was to have me remove her age appropriate restrictions to complete the game. Since this is a violation of federal law one can see that I was slightly irked.

I like y'all, but my daughter is not ready to have pervs sending her neomails yet.

[kris10ly]

Personally I hope it is because my daughter was not able to complete all of her tasks, because one of the task involved the neomailing of a gift to someone on a different faction. As my daughter is under 12, she has a protected account. TNT's only options to complete the task, and I have the ticket that I've forwarded to two attorney general's offices, was to have me remove her age appropriate restrictions to complete the game. Since this is a violation of federal law one can see that I was slightly irked.

I like y'all, but my daughter is not ready to have pervs sending her neomails yet.

.....................................dude. There's no federal law against age-restrictions on websites, and as age-restricting her account is your parental choice, there's nothing wrong with TNT leaving it up to you whether or not to allow her to complete that achievement.

 

I would love to have been working for those atty general offices the day your email came in, though.

[coltom]

.....................................dude. There's no federal law against age-restrictions on websites, and as age-restricting her account is your parental choice, there's nothing wrong with TNT leaving it up to you whether or not to allow her to complete that achievement.

 

I would love to have been working for those atty general offices the day your email came in, though.

 

Really, so the federal and state regulations do not clearly state that no "enticement nor incentive shall be offered to any user to remove ..... protections ". Really? You totally sure about that?

 

My, my my.

 

Or you might want to argue that the intrinsic nature of the game or site require such protections to be wave, but the task itself was an arbitrary choice with no intrinsic functionality. Therefore, a violation.

 

Actually, my state's AG's office has concurred and forwarded the complaint. Aint it nice to have friends in high places?

[Wildbreeze]

Oh my goodness. It's a game, not an attack against your 12 year old. If you're not willing to let her participate in parts of the site, then that's how it has to be, in all respects, until she's 13. Regardless of whether they include an achievement that involves gifts or not. That wasn't something "enticing" parents to give consent to remove account restrictions.

[coltom]

Oh my goodness. It's a game, not an attack against your 12 year old. If you're not willing to let her participate in parts of the site, then that's how it has to be, in all respects, until she's 13. Regardless of whether they include an achievement that involves gifts or not. That wasn't something "enticing" parents to give consent to remove account restrictions.

To complete all of the tasks, she would have had to forfeit her legal protection. If Neo was offering a substantive prize in exchange for her forfeiting her legal protection, than that would be a chargeable offense. If the competition of all task does not give substantive advantage, then there would be no violation. However, Neo did not have the sense to respond to my neomail in such a manner that did not imply an attempt to violate federal and state law, their very words appear to indicate a compensation to have my daughter trade her birthright for a bowl of stew.

 

She worked very hard on making sure her pet was trained, and to be denied because of a completely arbitrary and capricious action that appears to be a circumvention of legal protection that children are provided by federal and state law seems some how unfair to me.

 

It is hard to protect a child, even harder to try to teach her that values of honor and fairness have any place in this society. One does what one can.

 

Really Wildbreeze, is this the value that the Doctor has taught you? Did he ever leave the fight unfought? I think naught!

[Bubbleline]

Um, what? Neopets is a site run by Nickelodeon, therefore any 'perv' contacting your daughter could easily be reported by her (or you) and then blocked and Neopets would probably take serious action against whatever person as there are many rules in place to avoid people 'perving' on the site. Second of all, its a game. You had the choice to allow your daughter to browse the site unhindered, but you didn't so she ended up missing out on a very small prize that she can easily buy. And unless you monitor every second she spends on the computer, she can talk to and be approached by people way worse than the people she'd be around on Neopets. Basically, you seem like you're being completely unreasonable. The 'best' case scenario is that TNT gets annoyed by your legal action and never has events and such where players would need to communicate to complete tasks, which would annoy and disappoint almost every single other person on the site, just because you wanted to 'protect' your daughter but also didn't want there to be any drawbacks or disadvantages for that. There are just certain things she won't be able to do until she's 13, chill out dude.

[kris10ly]

Disgusting. This is why we can't have nice things.

[Zombiiesque]

This whole topic has moved to beyond off topic, so since we're into personal attacks, I'm locking this thread.

 

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