@ajqtrz
Everyone is being meticulous about collections, so it isn't actually affecting who wins and who loses. There is zero skill involved in clicking the FA interface every 3 tournament encounters. No FS is gaining an advantage over another.
I disagree regarding the zero-skill claim. I don't have numbers or citations to back this up, but we know people vary in skills, period, and some are better at multi-tasking and impulse-control than others. These are personal traits that can sometimes be improved upon through intent, but it is a component of every individual's personal skill set. It could be argued that fellowships with higher percentage of members who possess a higher level of these two particular skills are likely to be comparatively more successful (contributed by badge redemption without waste), but this is a people-thing and not something for the game/quest design to be held responsible for fairness.
My reasoning is that the more differences you have between fellowships in terms of their abilities, the more the Fellowship Adventure is a competition. If, for instance, you allowed all badges to be automatically collected, then all fellowship would have that done for them. If you let fellowships combine their partial badges all fellowships would have that avenue to make up for less successful planning. If you allowed a pool of badges to be applied by the AM or Mages, that too would pretty much make the distinction between those fellowships who plan and execute and those who do less planning more fuzzy. In other words, while all these are good suggestions, they all have the result of making the differences between fellowships less distinctive in the FA. And without a good deal of distinction, the competition becomes more about luck than anything else.
I agree. I do not think leveling the playing field in this particular aspect by universal fool-proof collection is an answer. What is the answer? In my opinion, it is do nothing (to make collection more fool-proof). Variance in collective group skill is a legitimate factor and one I don't believe should be repressed.
@ajqtrz
In fact, I would argue that the current system introduces an entirely unfair luck metric since many (most?) misclicks actually occur due to lag which is totally out of the player's control.
I understand that lag is out of player's control, but I don't understand how the misclicks resulting from it demonstrates success based on "luck" (
not sure I phrased this correctly, but you likely get my meaning). This is back to the skill argument/discussion around collection for badges without waste. If you know the badge you're fulfilling needs three collections, you click once-twice-thrice-redeem. The lag just means an extra moment of delay before redemption (and determining if all the clicks contributed to that redemption), but there is never a reason to click more than three times if you are collecting for a 3x badge (until you determine one didn't count). The only way I see lag being responsible for misclicks is if the player is clicking away and depending on the game to tell it when to stop (which is irresponsible, in my opinion, if one is trying to maximize badges and minimize waste). Even the most experienced and meticulous players misclick sometimes, but
I don't believe lag should be blamed.
@jtrain Regarding the original post request (which we got only a bit off track): I think that the solution is not a universal redemption button but that there be
specific exceptions to the no-stacking rule. I do not oppose no-stacking (and maybe a little bit defend it), but it is unfair when it is collecting things of quantities that are consistently out of alignment from the quota and there is practically unavoidable waste. I would see the problem solved by lifting the no-stacking restriction from sacks of gold, arcane residue, bracelets, and elvarian guard (only those, as I believe the others can be managed with infrequent waste as opposed to practically unavoidable waste in the current scheme).
[ me bracing for the dog-pile, lol]