Thanks CMDr...
so tell me how does this work...
Before cycle I had and earnt 1544 merits
I jumped to rating 4 (which gives me the shields)
But now I have 744 merits.
So not rating 4 next week until I earn another 800 merits.
Sounds right according to the merit system.
My question is this...where do I go to get my shields which is the bonus for rating 4 for my faction?
They should just go with the CG method - top 5% of contributors are Rank 5, top 15% Rank 4, top 50% Rank 3, any other contributions are Rank 2, and new pledges are Rank 1. There wouldn't be any need for decay at that point.
That would just make the grinding against your own fellows in your own pledged power. There was a big argument against PP that you were in fact competing with other members of your own power. Implementing this would just turns it more as a competition against other power members.
Well as usual they changed the rules without telling anyone. I'll stay in the power one more week to get my last salary and I'm out. And I'm VERY happy to have stayed at rank 4, seeing how FD conned all the guys that farmed rank 5. I'm not farming 1K merits weekly at 50 merits per hour thank you very much, I'm not daft.
You're going to need 5,334 specifically. And the reason many of us thought it was total merits and not merits earned is because FD keeps saying "total merits" (in both a developer's post AND the powerplay manual) but every example they provide describes a "merits earned" model. They keep using the word "total" incorrectly. And the "merits earned" model isn't hard at all to implement or set correctly, but it seems they can't do even that. It was supposed to be corrected this last cycle change, but it's still wrong.
Math(s)-less illustration, with the numbers in a spoiler so as not to clutter the explanation:
Think of merits like poker chips.
You have four piles of chips arranged in a line. At the start of each week the pile furthest from you is taken away and each of your remaining piles loses half its chips. The piles are all moved away from you to make room for a new pile of chips (merits) you earn during the week. At the end of the week all your chips are counted and your rank is determined.
The bug was that not every pile was losing half its chips. Specifically the pile from last week was being moved along without having half its chips taken away. The bug is now fixed. The numbers are still wrong because you're losing half of what was too many in the first place.
For example, using support's numbers of 1000, 800, 4000, 2400, 3000 and 1500:
Week 1: You start the week with no chips. You earn 1000 chips. Your score is 1000.
Week 2: The first lot of 1000 chips is moved away from you, and half (500) are taken away. You start the week with 500. You then earn 800. Your score is 1300.
Week 3: Your pile of 500 chips and your pile of 800 chips are moved further away. You lose half (250) from the oldest pile and half (400) from the newest pile. You start the week with 650 chips. You then earn 4000. Your score is 4650.
Week 4: Your piles of 250, 400 and 4000 chips are moved away from you. You lose half (125) from the furthest pile, half (200) from the middle pile and half (2000) from the newest pile. You start the week with 2325 chips. You then earn 2400. Your score is 2725.
Week 5: Your pile of 125 chips is removed. Your piles of 200, 2000 and 2400 chips are moved away from you. You lose half (100), half (1000) and half (1200) from each. You start the week with 2300 chips. You earn 3000. Your score is 5300.
Week 6: Your pile of 100 chips is removed. Your piles of 1000, 1200 and 3000 chips are moved away from you. You lose half (500), half (600) and half (1500) from each. You start the week with 2600 chips. You then earn 1500. Your score is 4100.
The bug was that until this week you were only losing half the chips from the two furthest piles. The other piles (last week's and this week's, which was empty) were not halved.
In the same example what was actually happening in the game was:
Week 1: You earned 1000 for a total of 1000.
Week 2: You earned 800 and kept 1000 (not 500) from week 1 for a total of 1800.
Week 3: You earned 4000 and kept 800 (not 400) from week 2. You lost half (500) from week 1 as expected. Total 5300.
Week 4: You earned 2400 and kept 4000 (not 2000) from week 3. You lost half (400) from week 2 as expected. You lost half (250) of what remained from week 1 as expected. Total 7050.
Week 5: You earned 3000 and kept 2400 (not 1200) from week 4. You lost half (2000) from week 3 as expected. You lost half (200) of what remained from week 2 as expected. Your pile of 125 from week 1 was removed. Total 7600.
Week 6: You earned 1500 and kept 3000 (not 1500) from week 5. You lost half (1200) from week 4 as expected. You lost half (1000) of what remained from week 3 as expected. Your pile of 200 from week 2 was removed. Total 6700.
This week they fixed the bug whereby you kept all of the chips from last week.
This week (week 7) your pile of 1000 from week 3 was removed. You lost half (600) of what remained from week 4. You lost half (1500) of what remained from week 5 and you lost the full half (750) from week 6. You started this week with 2850.
From now on all your piles will have half their chips taken away, which is what the developers always wanted to happen. Because three of your piles were bigger than they should have been, even though they now lose half they are still bigger and you are still carrying over more merits than intended.
The reason people are confused about how many merits they carry over is that although it's easy to think of the formula as being "this week plus half of last week plus a quarter of the week before plus an eighth of the week before that" behind the scenes the game is actually taking away half your merits each week rather than remembering how many you earned and running the calculation each time.
You weren't losing merits from each week as the devs intended. Now you are but because you came into this week with more than you should have you are still coming out of it with more than the expected amount. After two more weeks the piles which are still too big will have been removed and the numbers will follow the formula again.
Math(s)-less illustration, with the numbers in a spoiler so as not to clutter the explanation:
Think of merits like poker chips.
You have four piles of chips arranged in a line. At the start of each week the pile furthest from you is taken away and each of your remaining piles loses half its chips. The piles are all moved away from you to make room for a new pile of chips (merits) you earn during the week. At the end of the week all your chips are counted and your rank is determined.
The bug was that not every pile was losing half its chips. Specifically the pile from last week was being moved along without having half its chips taken away. The bug is now fixed. The numbers are still wrong because you're losing half of what was too many in the first place.
For example, using support's numbers of 1000, 800, 4000, 2400, 3000 and 1500:
Week 1: You start the week with no chips. You earn 1000 chips. Your score is 1000.
Week 2: The first lot of 1000 chips is moved away from you, and half (500) are taken away. You start the week with 500. You then earn 800. Your score is 1300.
Week 3: Your pile of 500 chips and your pile of 800 chips are moved further away. You lose half (250) from the oldest pile and half (400) from the newest pile. You start the week with 650 chips. You then earn 4000. Your score is 4650.
Week 4: Your piles of 250, 400 and 4000 chips are moved away from you. You lose half (125) from the furthest pile, half (200) from the middle pile and half (2000) from the newest pile. You start the week with 2325 chips. You then earn 2400. Your score is 2725.
Week 5: Your pile of 125 chips is removed. Your piles of 200, 2000 and 2400 chips are moved away from you. You lose half (100), half (1000) and half (1200) from each. You start the week with 2300 chips. You earn 3000. Your score is 5300.
Week 6: Your pile of 100 chips is removed. Your piles of 1000, 1200 and 3000 chips are moved away from you. You lose half (500), half (600) and half (1500) from each. You start the week with 2600 chips. You then earn 1500. Your score is 4100.
The bug was that until this week you were only losing half the chips from the two furthest piles. The other piles (last week's and this week's, which was empty) were not halved.
In the same example what was actually happening in the game was:
Week 1: You earned 1000 for a total of 1000.
Week 2: You earned 800 and kept 1000 (not 500) from week 1 for a total of 1800.
Week 3: You earned 4000 and kept 800 (not 400) from week 2. You lost half (500) from week 1 as expected. Total 5300.
Week 4: You earned 2400 and kept 4000 (not 2000) from week 3. You lost half (400) from week 2 as expected. You lost half (250) of what remained from week 1 as expected. Total 7050.
Week 5: You earned 3000 and kept 2400 (not 1200) from week 4. You lost half (2000) from week 3 as expected. You lost half (200) of what remained from week 2 as expected. Your pile of 125 from week 1 was removed. Total 7600.
Week 6: You earned 1500 and kept 3000 (not 1500) from week 5. You lost half (1200) from week 4 as expected. You lost half (1000) of what remained from week 3 as expected. Your pile of 200 from week 2 was removed. Total 6700.
This week they fixed the bug whereby you kept all of the chips from last week.
This week (week 7) your pile of 1000 from week 3 was removed. You lost half (600) of what remained from week 4. You lost half (1500) of what remained from week 5 and you lost the full half (750) from week 6. You started this week with 2850.
From now on all your piles will have half their chips taken away, which is what the developers always wanted to happen. Because three of your piles were bigger than they should have been, even though they now lose half they are still bigger and you are still carrying over more merits than intended.
The reason people are confused about how many merits they carry over is that although it's easy to think of the formula as being "this week plus half of last week plus a quarter of the week before plus an eighth of the week before that" behind the scenes the game is actually taking away half your merits each week rather than remembering how many you earned and running the calculation each time.
You weren't losing merits from each week as the devs intended. Now you are but because you came into this week with more than you should have you are still coming out of it with more than the expected amount. After two more weeks the piles which are still too big will have been removed and the numbers will follow the formula again.
No, it wasn't. It never was and it still isn't. I know this because that's what I thought two/three weeks ago, and broke down the math to determine whether it was the case.
FD says it applies merit decay to "total merits," but they don't do that, because they use the word "total" wrongly every chance they get. You will see an example posted by a dev here that shows an obviously intended "earned merits" model, even though in that post he's actually saying "total."
But they changed this week to new earned Merit halving with each passing week.
Wrong again. Here's the deal: The merit decay is supposed to be 50%, 25%, and 12.5% of the EARNED merits for weeks 3, 2, and 1, respectively (assuming week 1 is 4 weeks ago and week 4 is right now). Instead, there was a bug that made it 100%, 50%, 25%. That has been fixed, but now instead of the intended model, it's set to 50%, 50%, 25%.
So no, it was never based on total merits. I used to think so too. How in god's name this simple math keeps getting screwed up on their end is beyond me. I understand game coding is complex stuff, but this by itself is ridiculously easy. What is going on? I know a couple ED players who are coders themselves and they're baffled.
I don't even pretend to know at this point. All I know is I lost more than 50% of my total last night and I'm done. This is a joke. It's work, not fun.
Almost certainly it is fixed. TargetLost in another thread pointed out the key thing in all this, namely that the game is using a shift register (which I described in non-technical terms as a set of poker chip piles) rather than running the calculation from scratch every week.
We all understand that merits older than three weeks don't carry over. The server could track every player's earned merits for every week, resulting in an ever-increasing storage requirement in their database. It could, when calculating players' merit decay each week, start at cycle 1 for every player and apply the formula to each week found. That would mean that each week the calculations would take longer and longer for no gain, because only the previous three weeks carry over.
So instead the most likely explanation is that the game keeps a pool of four numbers for each player. Each week it discards the oldest number, shifts the other three along and inserts that week's new earned value in the empty space. Even if a particular player participated in Powerplay every week from the beginning and the game ran for years and years, this method ensures the server only ever has to deal with four numbers so it's much more efficient.
They fixed the bug whereby not all the pools were being halved. Now they are but because last week's figures carried over too high it looks like the wrong formula is being applied. The algorithm just halves what's given to it. Last week the numbers were wrong so this week they're wrong. Garbage in garbage out.
Using this idea I updated my shonky Javascript merit calculator to use a shift register and its results match the number of total merits I actually earned and carried over (which I recorded in a spreadsheet each week) for every week including this week's surprising results. Add dummy entries for two more weeks and it shows the formula stabilising, too.
Regardless of decay and merits, the entire rank and reward system needs rework.
-Pathetic monetary reward for work done up to lvl 3
-Lvl 4 is 10 times lvl 3
-Lvl 5 is a stupid amount of credits per week compared to lvl 4
-Lvl 5's 10K merit demand is a full time job where a focus is on gaining merits as fast as possible
-People hunt merits in the end, not the PP politics and "excitement" due to the decay
1. Make rewards linear and LOWER [Say 1,25M / 2,5M / 5M / 10M / 20M
2. Make Merit demand lower but a higher base per rank [ 0 / 500 / 1000 / 2000 / 4000]
3. Limit rank progression to +1 rank per week so it takes TIME to earn a rank
4. Merit decay is based on ACTIVITY*
*Activity
-Each day not doing a mission reduce your total merit pool from last week by 1/7
-Any objective in PP done per day (deliver, preparing, kills etc) keeps the decay dormant
-Away for 1 week reduce your rank by 1 and your TOTAL merits are 0 after 1 week
-Away for 2 weeks and your rank drops another level.
-A rank 5 gone for 1 month is back at rank 1 after 4 weeks even if merits drops to 0 after 1 week
-Regardless of activity during a week a player earns his rank in rewards
So many games have tried decays and failed.
Long story short, players get upset...why?
Casual players it is unfair, work overtime... Oh sorry you are penalised for having a life.
EQ, DDO, WoW all tried decays , they lost a large number of core players, decay mechanics was soon dropped.
Players don't like working towards something then having it taken away.
So many games have tried decays and failed.
Long story short, players get upset...why?
Casual players it is unfair, work overtime... Oh sorry you are penalised for having a life.
EQ, DDO, WoW all tried decays , they lost a large number of core players, decay mechanics was soon dropped.
Players don't like working towards something then having it taken away.
Yup, in the end it would be better if it works like reputation and no monetary reward is added.
-Give us bonuses to mission rewards per rank
-Give us trade bonuses per rank
-Give us cost reductions per rank
-Give us ENEMIES due to our affiliation
-etc...
A list of passive bonuses and the risk of loosing ranks due to reputation loss for working other factions would be better.
Some people still say 50mil wage is a reward, it isnt.
You need 5666 merits each weak to maintain rank 5, thats 56.66mil if you fast track. So if you dont fasttrack all you barely cover the cost with wages.Its not a reward at all.Its grind without rewards.
