Do you get two weekly trials instead daily?

[VedranSeawolf359]

Hey Mates;

Do you get two weekly trials instead daily?

[I_cant_Swim_]

Well, lucky you! Wind 'em in fast as you can!

[Nevermore135]

This is also the version of the Battle Pass missions that I received for the patch. There are several other variations as well, and WG will be analyzing player behavior to develop the next iteration of the Battle Pass.

[Utt_Bugglier]

4 minutes ago, Nevermore135 said:

This is also the version of the Battle Pass missions that I received for the patch. There are several other variations as well, and WG will be analyzing player behavior to develop the next iteration of the Battle Pass.

I thought about that, but then I thought “people are going to grind their damn nutz off because anniversary tokens; whose behavior is really going to change?”

Then I thought some bright WG thinker will analyze the results and say, “See? Spreadsheet sez players will grind azzes off for battle pass regardless of grind, regardless of reward! Comrades, Plan A is validated again!!! More grind, less reward for idiot players, more East European professional girls for us good guys!!!

[Nevermore135]

1 hour ago, Utt_Bugglier said:

I thought about that, but then I thought “people are going to grind their damn nutz off because anniversary tokens; whose behavior is really going to change?”

Then I thought some bright WG thinker will analyze the results and say, “See? Spreadsheet sez players will grind azzes off for battle pass regardless of grind, regardless of reward! Comrades, Plan A is validated again!!! More grind, less reward for idiot players, more East European professional girls for us good guys!!!

Some players also received the “normal” battle pass missions. The devs aren’t going to be comparing each individual player’s behavior to that of a previous patch for the reasons you mentioned. Rather, the group of players with the standard missions will serve as the control group against which the behavior of the groups with different missions is compared.

Edited September 14, 2023 by Nevermore135

[Utt_Bugglier]

1 hour ago, Nevermore135 said:

Some players also received the “normal” battle pass missions. The devs aren’t going to be comparing each individual player’s behavior to that of a previous patch for the reasons you mentioned. Rather, the group of players with the standard missions will serve as the control group against which the behavior of the groups with different missions is compared.

I’m not talking about comparison to any previous patch. The behavior this patch will be so abnormal that even differences in behavior among groups receiving different BP formulations this patch will be invalid, because people’s drive to grind will be driven by anniversary tokens, not by permutations on the battle pass grind.

The differences in behavior due to battle pass formulations will be “noise level” effects this patch.

And when some bright data analyst at WG figures that out, they’ll probably schedule another round of battle pass testing.

For mid-December.

 

[Nevermore135]

1 hour ago, Utt_Bugglier said:

I’m not talking about comparison to any previous patch. The behavior this patch will be so abnormal that even differences in behavior among groups receiving different BP formulations this patch will be invalid, because people’s drive to grind will be driven by anniversary tokens, not by permutations on the battle pass grind.

This patch will see a large boost in player numbers due to said anniversary event, leading to a larger sample size. If the distribution of mission sets is random (which it almost certainly is) this creates a very large sample population where motivation to grind due to the anniversary event will be a statistically evenly distributed property (simply by nature of being such a large, random sample). Thus, WG can take advantage of the larger sample population to run their experiment, allowing them to test more sample groups against each other simultaneously and attribute small (but measurable) differences with greater statistical confidence. I suspect this is the major reason they chose to implement this experiment during this patch, as it generally has much more widespread and universal appeal (and thus player numbers) than any other patch other than perhaps the NY event.

1 hour ago, Utt_Bugglier said:

The differences in behavior due to battle pass formulations will be “noise level” effects this patch.

The “need” to pursue the anniversary grind will indeed affect a lot of player’s behaviors (causing them to play more battles), but the likelihood that such uncontrolled factors will produce noticeable differences between the sample groups becomes less probable as a sample population becomes increasingly larger. Theoretically, changes in player behavior due to the anniversary event will affect all of WG’s randomly assigned groups equally, meaning it will effectively become “noise,” a statistical constant in the background and part of the baseline. This would also be true of just about any patch, since different battle events, early access tech tree events, etc, will all affect player behavior differently on an individual level based on the type of content offered. That’s something the devs can never fully account for, but larger sample sizes reduce the probability of those factors having a significant statistical effect relative to that from the independent variable (in this case, the battle pass missions). Combine the numerical data with anecdotal player feedback, and these results will serve WG’s purposes just fine. I suspect the types of differences the devs are really interested in are things like if having only weekly missions vs. daily missions + weekly missions affects how players choose to distribute their game time over the course of the week. For example, will players in the former group tend to play less regularly during the week and binge more games on the weekends vs the control group?

This experiment is being run over at least four weeks with a sample size in the tens of thousands. WG is searching for large amount of data to plug into their spreadsheets, and while I do think they lean on them too hard when making balancing decisions (as it’s difficult to quantify how fun something feels to play, for example), this is the type of situation that such an approach is actually well-suited for. Is it a perfectly designed experiment? No. But it’s likely good enough for the data crunchers. 

Edited September 15, 2023 by Nevermore135

[Gnirf]

i had also a new variation, My daily were 300/500/1000 base XP 1200/1500 Win base XP. The 1/2 wre varied but 10 with with the end 2 reward.

The weekly were a 5 stage where the 5 stages are 12 points each and final 20 for 80 points. The additinal (seasons bonus) 30 on stages as before.

[Utt_Bugglier]

 

19 hours ago, Nevermore135 said:

This patch will see a large boost in player numbers due to said anniversary event,

…

The “need” to pursue the anniversary grind will indeed affect a lot of player’s behaviors (causing them to play more battles), but the likelihood that such uncontrolled factors will produce noticeable differences between the sample groups becomes less probable as a sample population becomes increasingly larger.

Sample size is not the be-all and end-all for statistical analysis. If WG creates an environment where most of their sample is participating for other reasons, then they’re just creating more rejectible data.

The BP is essentially a BXP grind. The anniversary event is one of the two the biggest BXP grinds of the year. There will be a large spike up in BP completion, and it will be driven by the anniversary:

1. “Free supercontainers” for players with modest fleets,

2. “Free supercontainers or a free T8” for players with largish fleets,

3. “Free supercontainers and a free T8” for players with really large fleets.

Lots of people will sky past the BP requirements simply due to the chase for supercontainers, with the massaging of the BP having no bearing on participation or pursuit of the BP. Meaning for many, BP formulation will be irrelevant.

And WG, one would think, HAS to know this.

Makes me think the only behavior being evaluated is to see how much of the spike up in BP completion results in a spike up in BP upgrades.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Nevermore135]

3 hours ago, Utt_Bugglier said:

The BP is essentially a BXP grind. The anniversary event is one of the two the biggest BXP grinds of the year. There will be a large spike up in BP completion, and it will be driven by the anniversary:

1. “Free supercontainers” for players with modest fleets,

2. “Free supercontainers or a free T8” for players with largish fleets,

3. “Free supercontainers and a free T8” for players with really large fleets.

Lots of people will sky past the BP requirements simply due to the chase for supercontainers, with the massaging of the BP having no bearing on participation or pursuit of the BP. Meaning for many, BP formulation will be irrelevant.

You vastly overestimate the average amount of anniversary event related grinding the average player has to complete to collect their rewards. I’ve already collected nearly a third of my 20k tokens in less than three days without altering my playing habits at all. And while my port is not the largest (342 ships) I would bet it is larger than the vast majority of the playerbase. Most players aren’t going to be engaged in a frenzied grind to collect tokens throughout the entire patch, if at all, because there isn’t really any need to unless their play time is extremely limited.

Edited September 16, 2023 by Nevermore135