Rebalance Hunters Boost Road Point & Boost System

[NDW]

Right now, I see a few issues with the current HBR system that could be addressed and resolved to create a better, more balanced HBR system. These issues are:

1. A large percentage of the 31 available boosts from HBR can be obtained with a small percentage of the 300 points used within the boost system (~67.7% of the total boosts available can be obtained with 20% of the total points used within the boost system).
   
   Right now, +21% DAR is easily obtainable with 60 points (which is 10 HBR sets in Ultimate), but anything after +21% DAR scales too high with the points required for any further boosts. The time needed to continue earning points for additional boosts isn't worth it.
   
   For example, it takes:
   - 26 sets to reach +25% DAR
   - 50 sets to reach +25% DAR and +6% RDR
   
   
2. The current HBR boost system mostly benefits enemies with low base DAR for a large percentage of the time when building points for boosts (DAR-only boosts make up ~59.66% of the total boosts available).
   
   Enemies with high base DAR don't get much of a drop rate boost (or any) until you get enough points to start gaining RDR boosts. It would take 180 points (30 HBR sets in Ultimate) to start to see any RDR boosts which benefits enemies with higher base DAR the most.
   
   
3. There is a huge gap between players who play HBR on Normal & Hard difficulties compared to players who play HBR on Very Hard & Ultimate difficulties.
   
   To obtain the +21% DAR mentioned above, it would take:
   - 10 HBR sets in Ultimate
   - 15 HBR sets in Very Hard
   - 30 HBR sets in Hard
   - 60 HBR sets in Normal
   
   That means it would take Normal & Hard difficulty players up to 6x the amount of time and effort to achieve the same +21% DAR boost that Very Hard & Ultimate players can achieve.

Due to the issues mentioned above, I've developed a new system that:

1. Changes the amount of points required for certain boosts.
2. Integrates RDR boosts much earlier when building HBR points.
3. Changes the amount of HBR points a player gets in Very Hard and Ultimate

This new system will require players to play more HBR sets to achieve decent boosts, but also reward players at a continual, steady rate for doing more HBR sets. It reduces the total amount of time required to reach max HBR boost and narrows the gap in how many points you get from a Very Hard or Ultimate run, compared to a Normal or Hard run.

====

Points gained after clearing an HBR quest:

Spoiler: Current

1 - Normal
2 - Hard
4 - Very Hard
6 - Ultimate

Spoiler: New

1 - Normal
2 - Hard
3 - Very Hard
4 - Ultimate

====

Time spent during a 5-quest HBR with the new system:

Spoiler

5 quests per HBR set
15 minutes average per quest
75 minutes average per HBR set

75 minutes average per HBR set
15 sets to reach max boost
1,125 minutes average to reach max boost

Average player's playtime*:
45 minutes per Monday through Friday (225 minutes per week total)
75 minutes per Saturday & Sunday (150 minutes per weekend total)
375 minutes per week

Week 1: 375 minutes spent for 5 sets total (+9% DAR, +1% RDR)
Week 2: 750 minutes spent for 10 sets total (+17% DAR, +3% RDR)
Week 3: 1,125 minutes spent for 15 sets total (+25% DAR, +5% RDR)
Week 4: Enjoy last week to hunt with max boost.

*Average player's playtime refers to the average amount of time a person can reasonably spend playing. Actual playtime may vary.

====

Time comparison:

Spoiler

Current HBR system:
3,750 minutes (62.5 hours) average to reach max boost.

New HBR system:
1,125 minutes (18.75 hours) average to reach max boost.

6.25 hours per week for three weeks to achieve max boost sounds a lot better than ~20.8 hours per week for three weeks to achieve max boost. It's more fair to those who aren't able to put in the insane amount of time required towards achieving max boost.

====

DAR sets information:

With current system, it currently takes:

Spoiler

- 1 set to reach +5% DAR
- 2 sets to reach +10% DAR
- 5 sets to reach +15% DAR
- 9 sets to reach +20% DAR
- 26 sets to reach +25% DAR

With new system, it would take:

Spoiler

- 3 sets to reach +5% DAR
- 6 sets to reach +10% DAR
- 9 sets to reach +15% DAR
- 12 sets to reach +20% DAR
- 15 sets to reach +25% DAR

====

RDR sets information:

With current system, it currently takes:

Spoiler

- 30 sets to reach +1% RDR
- 34 sets to reach +2% RDR
- 38 sets to reach +3% RDR
- 42 sets to reach +4% RDR
- 46 sets to reach +5% RDR
- 50 sets to reach +6% RDR

With new system, it would take:

Spoiler

- 3 sets to reach +1% RDR
- 6 sets to reach +2% RDR
- 9 sets to reach +3% RDR
- 12 sets to reach +4% RDR
- 15 sets to reach +5% RDR

NOTE: New system would remove +6% RDR boost.

====

Link to new HBR system's points and boost information:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pErX5VtzmiITo5iV-PgGScjhpvoyNg-KpTwiJqTsrtc/edit?usp=sharing

 

[CARNAGE]

"6.25 hours per week for three weeks to achieve max boost sounds a lot better than ~20.8 hours per week for three weeks to achieve max boost. It's more fair to those who aren't able to put in the insane amount of time required towards achieving max boost."

Yes please.

 

[Xurai]

I have only recently joined the server (as seasonal) so I don't have access to this HBR. However after reading this post I would also rather have to spend 6-7 hours a week rather than 20-21 hours a week for these boosts. As that extra time would allow me to go back into lobbies to farm for items myself or join others who need help.

 

[Matt]

This won't be happening.

Diminishing return mechanics are intentional in games like this to make it so that players who play a lot have something more to go for, even if it ends up being minor (the idea being that you are playing for perfection). The fact that you get the vast majority of the points with a small amount of sets is intentional. You're only gaining +4% DAR and +6% DAR for going to max, it's not a necessary task to accomplish, but you can aim for it if you want maximum boosts.

Your change essentially proposes just making HBR easier, which is not what we need.

 

[NDW]

Diminishing return mechanics are intentional in games like this to make it so that players who play a lot have something more to go for, even if it ends up being minor (the idea being that you are playing for perfection). The fact that you get the vast majority of the points with a small amount of sets is intentional. You're only gaining +4% DAR and +6% DAR for going to max, it's not a necessary task to accomplish, but you can aim for it if you want maximum boosts.

Your change essentially proposes just making HBR easier, which is not what we need.

Statistically speaking, the percentage of players that are able to reach max HBR boost in a month's time is very small. Those who reach max HBR boost don't even get that much time to be able to utilize their boost towards concentrating on hunting certain things from the Boost Road.

The main goal of trying to rebalance the current HBR system isn't to make it "easier". It's to make achieving max boost much more realistic given the amount of time people are able to play on a weekly basis. It shouldn't be pandered towards the minority of players who are able to play HBR for 2.97 hours or more per day.

 

[Matt]

HBR isn't pandered to the minority of players who are playing 3 hours or more a day, it's for everyone and that's why most of the boosts are obtained relatively quickly.

You don't need max boosts to be able to hunt things. You're focusing way too much on hitting the cap rather than the benefits earned in the first place.

 

[Metaldude]

I was originally with NDW fully on this, but thinking about how the largest portion of the boost is fairly accessible I don't have any immediate qualms with the system. If I can make any kind of suggestion, I'd say that the point values per quest should be increased or the rank requirements should be decreased if an HBR has more than 3 quests. I've completely opted out of the 5 quest HBRs in particular because it feels like such a tremendous hassle to coordinate and build consistently.

 

[Save Smokey]

The one thing I think people miss in this type of discussion is the age old 'attack speed' vs 'raw damage' argument. There's almost in no way any value in running HBR past the 30% points required because the farming strategy would have a much higher probability when investing more repeat runs with 30% boost than EVER going beyond that in any way. SO imo that makes HBR incredibly easy and creates absolutely no drive for players to continue where NDW's suggestion at least takes a middle ground between being too easy and it being worth maxing out. Diminishing returns isn't really considered a wise design choice for a boosting type system because it forces the players to theory craft scenarios to try and determine the optimal farming strategy which ultimately creates a single determined sweet spot, and it just works more for a system like stats and gear which can be adjusted and experimented with in a safe environment and involve a lot of personality. However I do really like the idea of the HBR system and it's certainly far from a bad implementation in it's current form. But, I do think some of it is going to waste and needs to be re-evaluated in some way.

 

[NDW]

You don't need max boosts to be able to hunt things. You're focusing way too much on hitting the cap rather than the benefits earned in the first place.

Of course people don't need max boosts to be able to hunt things. That's not the point of this discussion.

The issue is once a certain amount of points are obtained, it reaches a point of diminishing returns where benefits gained after about +21% DAR is worth less than the amount of time invested into getting those benefits.

For these reasons, myself and others don't care about focusing on reaching the HBR boost cap as a goal. Once a player reaches a reasonably high boost available in a reasonable amount of time, there's no point in grinding points anymore. It becomes a waste of time.

 

[Matt]

Then don't bother. We're not trying to make HBR easier, those boosts are there if aiming for perfection.

It doesn't need changing.

If it ends up changing, it will be made more difficult so that getting to the max boost takes a similar amount of time, but the stuff is more evenly spread out, or the max boost will be lowered. HBR is already OP enough, it's not getting buffed as the original post suggests.