Forums » General Pantheon Discussion

Rested Experience - General Thoughts?

    • 370 posts
    December 10, 2019 11:07 PM PST

    I'm 100% for rested EXP that has a cap, something small but rewarding. Maybe .5% a hour and cap at 25% of your current level. Power gamers wont log off to get an exp bonus and I can't think of a MMO where the bonus has encouraged people to not play. The game needs to have a mechanic that encourages people with less playtime to play, not just play but maintain a subscription. Rested EXP adds a carrot for people. Not everyone plays games for the same reason so just because one person doesn't need rested EXP as motivation to log in another may. If someone knows that their rested will be caped in 50 hours maybe that will encourage them to log on mid week to use some of it. Rested EXP is a psychological motivation to log in. If total exp required to level is increased slightly to offset rested EXP then it doesn't impact how long it takes to reach MAX level while tricking people into logging in more if they may not.

     

    Someone who is relying on rested exp to level their character will never catch someone who always consumes it. Furthermore no game should consume your life. If the only way to progress through Pantheon is to play 6-8 hours a day it will turn the majority of people off. Now I know many people here don't care about appealing to more than just those on this forum, but you have to realize that for Panethon to succeed more than just us need to sub and play it. Now that being said there shouldn't be a cap on how much EXP you can earn in a day or play session. FF14 had that at launch at it sucked, badly. While it's not healthy to sit and play on a computer for 14 hours a day its not something I feel should be restricted. I played EQ with some wheel chair bound people and that was literally their only social outlet. 

     

     


    This post was edited by EppE at December 10, 2019 11:10 PM PST
    • 379 posts
    December 11, 2019 12:03 AM PST

    For an example; let's say that level 20 ->  21 requires 50k exp and mobs give 100 exp per kill. If each kill takes you ~ 1 min, it would roughly take (with no downtime) a little over 8 hours to level. Now with rested exp bonus, say you generate 100% bonus exp for logging out at an inn, and that exp caps at 50% of your level after 2 days. That 3rd day you log in, getting 50% of your level with rested exp will only take you 2 hours. If you stay on to finish the rest of the level, you will have spent 6 hours to achieve what someone else did in over 8 hours - and - all you had to do was log-in less. This over time makes leveling less important and less meaningful, in my opinion.

    The importance here is making sure everyone is eating the same apples and not oranges. Exp should always be 1 to 1 no matter the /played - it keeps the accolades and achievements (ie the work put in) more meaningful. This is where other systems (like mentoring) can be put in place for when you can't play as much as your friends or guild mates.

    P.S. I hope I did the math right.

    • 1584 posts
    December 11, 2019 1:59 AM PST

    Yeah i don't think Inns or loggning out should guve any passive gains of any kind, I mean if anything at all the Inn/Tavern if you really want to use it for anything, should be for you to go to a place to find more groups than anything, but that entire different topic and I'm not going to talk about that here, but as for passive nah its not for me.

    • 145 posts
    December 11, 2019 2:11 AM PST
    You should not be punished for playing the game for any amount of time so perhaps going to an inn could be beneficial while logged in or out for the same reward. I want to play long sessions fine go to the inn get your bonus xp just for going there to do tradeskills shoot the breeze whatever the same could be said for logging out there. There could be a cap per day for logging out there for just one day and no cap for people who play for 30 hours. Of course not having rested xp is fine too
    • 145 posts
    December 11, 2019 2:13 AM PST
    No cap per 24 hour period so I could go there come back again and get rested again if I played for 24 hours or more
    • 145 posts
    December 11, 2019 2:16 AM PST
    also doesn’t have to be xp
    • 145 posts
    December 11, 2019 2:16 AM PST
    also doesn’t have to be xp
    • 2756 posts
    December 11, 2019 4:01 AM PST

    I really not sure that people who *weren't* going to play the game *would* play because of an XP bonus.

    Also not sure that encouraging people to log out in 'hubs' is a great idea. They need to visit for vending/auction/training/etc and a lot of reasons traditionally already. You almost want to encourage people to stay out in the wilds just as much.

    I suppose enabling casual players is ok. It should come in the form of buffs, though, rather than XP gain. They need an ability aid as a helping hand, not direct faster progression.

    Overall, I don't think there's a compelling case.

    • 1019 posts
    December 11, 2019 5:10 AM PST

    I don't think Experience should be the bonus for resting in a safe location i.e. Inn.

    I do think if you choose to travel to an Inn or Brothel you could possibly receive a different bonus when logging back in.  As long as you rest at that Inn for a minimum set amount of time.

     

    Inn - You defense is raised by X for X amout of hours.

    Brothel - Your resistance to disease is raised by X for X amount of hours.

    Guild Hall - You gain X amount of Luck for X hours.

    So on and so forth.

    • 752 posts
    December 11, 2019 5:11 AM PST
    So Everquest had something similar. You could make your friends do all the work and leave your character afk at the camp. I dont see why we cant just let this happen and not implement some crazy exp mod for doing nothing just to arbitrarily keep up with your friends.
    • 3852 posts
    December 11, 2019 7:05 AM PST

    ((I'm 100% for rested EXP that has a cap, something small but rewarding))

     

    Exactly. In a game not based on the "endgame" and focused on slowing not accellerating progress there is only one obvious reason to have rest xp at all. That reason is to encourage people to log-on more and play more often. Which, whether or not it benefits the players, tends to be beneficial for the game.

    If rest xp is awarded once per day and never goes above the daily amount anyone that wants to be "efficient" and make maximum use of the system will log-on daily if they can. 

    So you never let it go higher - why incent people to stay away for a week? And you keep the cap low so that it does not allow excessively fast progress.

    • 3237 posts
    December 11, 2019 7:29 AM PST

    We should always be mindful of the game tenets.  This one, in particular, seems to have been hand-crafted with a "rested bonus" in mind:

    An understanding that player involvement is required for progression.  All actions (or lack thereof) should have consequences.  Positive actions should be rewarded.  Apathy or lack of action should not be rewarded with bonuses.

     

    • 18 posts
    December 11, 2019 8:06 AM PST
    Rested xp would be good for the game, but it shouldn't be the optimal leveling strategy.
    • 1785 posts
    December 11, 2019 8:13 AM PST

    The more I think about it, the more I don't really want to see rest bonuses of any kind.  I simply think they drive the wrong behavior in players.

    How Neph would make Inns/Taverns/Towns (and not just the home city/bind location) matter to players:

    1) They're where specialized merchants, services, and player-owned vendors are.  Sure, that guard tower out in the wilderness might have a traveling peddler who sells a few basics like fishing bait, but if you want some new armor or you're shopping for a spell component, you probably need to hit an actual town or at least a player-run outpost.

    2) If you're looking specifically to earn some coin or faction, they're where you can pick up small or not-so-small tasks to do that - like learning about the bounties the guards have posted today to hunt down notorious monsters and villains, or finding out that the local tavernkeep is running low on boar meat and paying extra for it today, or even simply hearing about that mysterious string of disappearances that has everyone a little rattled and gee wouldn't it be nice if some brave soul would investigate that and put a stop to it.

    3) They're centers for non-combat content.  It's harvest time and the local farmers could use some help bringing it in.  The blacksmith is overloaded with orders for the guards and looking to outsource the work.  The baron is looking to throw a party and wants some new furniture and drapes for the ballroom, as well as someone to help his kitchen staff with a feast.  The town magistrate is offering contracts to supply the guard towers outside of the town with goods and materials.  And so on.

    4) They're where you can learn about special events, if you listen.  The people in the marketplace are all talking about how there's been these weird lights seen at the old fort up in the hills.  They weren't saying that last time you were in town.  Over in the tavern, a farmer lurches in the door, bleeding heavily, gasping something about how there are goblins coming out of the cave by the lake and headed for the town.  Or while you're shopping at that merchant, a bunch of guards run by shouting things like "Find the thief!" and "We can't let them get away with the Scroll!"

     

    I know that most of us are conditioned to think about things in terms of mechanics and numbers and gameplay and how fast we level, but maybe we should step back here and say "Hey wait, we're supposed to be presenting a world here.  How do we use THAT to encourage players to spend time in town?"  Because I feel like if we allow the world to define the game, rather than the other way around, Pantheon will come out much better for it.

    • 291 posts
    December 11, 2019 8:26 AM PST

    oneADseven said:

    We should always be mindful of the game tenets.  This one, in particular, seems to have been hand-crafted with a "rested bonus" in mind:

    An understanding that player involvement is required for progression.  All actions (or lack thereof) should have consequences.  Positive actions should be rewarded.  Apathy or lack of action should not be rewarded with bonuses.

     

     

    Im fully in the no camp at this point if rest equates to xp.

    • 1479 posts
    December 11, 2019 9:02 AM PST

    Keno Monster said:

    MauvaisOeil said:

     

    While I agree "sleeping" in an inn/bed should give something such as a rested state, I don't think it should be experience based. Perhaps even, sleeping in non safe areas should give a 5% malus to stats that an inn doesn't impact, something that reflect the "fatigue" of the character.

    Which directly impacts experience gain. Let's stop suggesting that increasing attack speed, or lowering stats, isn't exactly tied to exp, to make people feel better about this terrible idea. 

     

    The fact you don't like it doesn't make it terrible at all. However, it's just a raw idea, that may, or not, fit the goal.

    • 1315 posts
    December 11, 2019 9:29 AM PST

    I am also sliding more to the side of not being rewarded for time spent off line. The only exception I kind of liked was the idea of getting a boost to reearn experience lost due to character death. You are not really speeding up character growth just recovering lost ground.

    One of the most interesting features of SWGs was the Entertainer tree and their need to be in a cantina to provide their buffs to players. This turned the cantina's into hubs for player interaction and trading as you needed to watch the entertainers for a few minutes to get the buffs. Cantina's both in developer created cities and in player made cities also usually had trade terminals and mission terminal in close proximity.

    That little cluster of points of interest really tended to bring players together in an otherwise huge sandbox that you could play for days without seeing another player if you went off the beaten path.

    The spacing of these hubs would be greatly dependent on just how big zones are and how long it takes to travel from one location to another. I would put a node roughly a 15-20 minute walk away from each other hopefully with logical points of interest surrounding it to attack subgroups of the populations. If the world is small then only a couple per continent would be needed or conversely maybe dozens per.

    With Pantheon being group focused one of the most important activities will be group finding and joining. The smoother and faster we can make this activity the more people will willingly group and the more rewarding a game play session can be. Login/logout nodes are one of the tools that can be used to help speed up finding a group for the next day. As such it is better to have the bandwidth of levels serviced by a single node as narrow as possible in order to focus players with similar needs together.

     

    • 370 posts
    December 11, 2019 9:36 AM PST

    disposalist said:

    I really not sure that people who *weren't* going to play the game *would* play because of an XP bonus.

     

    I know people who log in to FF14 during the week simply because they want to use up their rested EXP. The more reasons you give people to log into the game the better. Like I said too it could be an illusion of a buff more than a real buff. If you figure that over a 24 hour period someone would earn 10% rested EXP you then increase the total amount of EXP required to level by 10%. The point here isn't to actually level faster, it's to encourage people to log in. If VR figured it would take 10,000 XP to go from level 10-11 and they changed it to 11,000 without any anouncment to offset the rested EXP you create the illusion of faster leveling without it actually being there.

     

    I just don't see how someone who only plays a couple times a week being encouraged to log in more via rested EXP is a threat to someone else who logs in and plays all the time.

     

    Also I'm fully against any stat buffs from rested but that's probably a different discussion. Stat buffs from food is still a debated topic so adding it to rested is likely a hard no for most the community. 

    • 3237 posts
    December 11, 2019 9:56 AM PST

    Encouraging people to log-in just to take advantage of a limited-time-offer is heavily reminiscent of the daily quests from WoW.  We don't need smoke and mirrors that compel players to log-in every day if they want to avoid missing out on a tenet-violating bonus.  That sort of thing is widely perceived as an effort to manipulate the psyche of gamers and many folks are tired of that.  Just create a persistent world that is fun to spend time in and the last thing we need to worry about is getting people to spend time playing.  FFXI is a good testament to that.  Before being able to log-in to the game, players always saw this message:

    A Word to Our Players:

    "Exploring Vana'diel is a thrilling experience.  During your time here you will be able to talk, join, and adventure with many other individuals in an experience that is unique to online games.  That being said, we have no desire to see your real life suffer as a consequence.  Don't forget your family, your friends, your school, or your work."


    This post was edited by oneADseven at December 11, 2019 9:58 AM PST
    • 291 posts
    December 11, 2019 10:05 AM PST

    oneADseven said:

    We don't need smoke and mirrors that compel players to log-in every day if they want to avoid missing out on a tenet-violating bonus.  That sort of thing is widely perceived as an effort to manipulate the psyche of gamers and many folks are tired of that.  Just create a persistent world that is fun to spend time in and the last thing we need to worry about is getting people to spend time playing.

     

    Hear, Hear!

     

    Fully no, and no turning back.

     

    This topic has been slain by pain and suffering!

    • 2752 posts
    December 11, 2019 10:30 AM PST

    Trasak said:

    @Iksar

    We come down on different sides on this one. I think the natural tendency is for players to just solo grind. I don't want to just psychologically manipulate players into centralizing and interacting with other players I want to directly and tangibly reward them. You can choose to never go back to town but you are choosing to forgo the well rested buff. Its a benefit but it is partially to offset the loss in efficiency that is represented by going back to town before logging out rather than just logging out on a random hill side.

    Inns would not need to be in every zone for this to work, it really more depends on run speed and zone size. I would try and have one inn within a 10 minute walk from all major dungeons and points of interest. If centrally located and the zones are small enough then that one Inn could service 4-9 zones.

    Logging out in an Inn is intended to serve a lot of functions rather than just generating buffs. A little bit it is an immersion tool, especially of beginning and end of play session tasks are located in or around an Inn. Knowing where to go to find groups in your level is also helpful for speeding up getting into a group and getting back to playing, knowing you have logged out exactly where groups will be forming is helpful. Inn's can be a good place to put adventuring boards where group leaders can pick up level appropriate, quasi randomly generated group quests. The quest your group gets will take you into nearby content but have you moving around and possibly discovering rather than just calling out a camp name and sitting there for hours. Not that you can't still sit at one spot and grind just that there could be other more enjoyable and equally efficient play styles.

    The concept of an Inn itself is really just a construct. The true point of it is to create natural gathering nodes for areas by concentrating non-combat or pre-combat functions into centralized locations that are relatively easy to access and service a larger area of considerable danger.

    You aren't directly and tangibly rewarding players for interacting with others though; there is no impetus to actually talk to anyone when going to an inn, especially when you are going there to log out of the game. That time running for an inn could have been spent staying in whatever group on was already actually interacting in, and when the player logs back in they are likely already in a hotspot for grouping/interacting instead of having to take another X amount of time running back. 

    Even at 10 minutes to any inn, thats roughly 20 minutes a play session just running back and forth for a bonus that doesn't make sense. 

     

    It also doesn't really convey the idea that us as players are adventurers of any kind, at least it doesn't to me. Is one really an adventurer or explorer if they never range farther than the nearest inn because the world is too scary to set up camp in the wilds or it's otherwise somehow impossible to get a good rest outdoors? Seems to me being encouraged to return to an inn to sleep as though it would be realistic or more immersive is the same as turning players from brave/hardened adventurers into something more like tourists or daytrippers. 

     

    It's a dangerous world with all kinds of creatures & beasts but somehow many small villages/inns with limited resources and guards exist from zone to zone and can fend off the many types and factions of orcs, gnolls, goblins, giants, etc that lay claim to the wilderness? 

    • 168 posts
    December 11, 2019 11:01 AM PST

    So I think rested exp is too narrow minded of a concept to ever make it into Pantheon RotF.  When thinking of conceptual systems for the game, you need to think, why would this occure in this world?  Becoming strong faster because you sat/stood in one place for an extended period of time doesn't particularly make sense unless you give reason.  So, rather than a broad 'everyone gets bonus exp for being in town for an hour' or whatever scenario fits your dream, you could have something like 'inspiration' from D&D.

    With something like this the developers could grant a 'buff' with a duration for achievements, such as defeating names/raid mobs, completing quests/journeys, finding new areas/dungeons, etc..  

    Inspiration in D&D i believe was intended to encourage people to pay attention and use all of their surrounds, knowledge, skills and spells in ways that would inspire themselves/others to want to do that again/too.  Likewise, an 'inspiration system' could be implemented in a later iteration of the game, because obviously that's not what is needed to get this thing out the door.  This system could gauge the difficulty of your achievement based on previous achievements and reward you with an appropriate boost to your dmg/dodge/xp/MP comsuption/etc/etc/etc/... The number of combinations of rewards could be limitless, however, as you become stronger and stronger those inspirations are harder to achieve.  

    Imagine a level 5 person Kraum is fighting The King of Rats with his buddies, and everyone struggles, but in the end they beat him!  The RL excitement could be matched by the in-game inspiration the character gains from that battle.  Lets say at level 25 Kraum decides to seek out the new King of Rats and destroy him.  The inspiration the character gains should likewise reflect what the excitement of the player might be, none.  This is where, 'gauge the difficulty of the achievement based on previous achievments and rewards' comes into play.  If you have many achievments as a renouned dragon hunter and a true master of the hunter, you will gain no inspiration from defeating mundane beings below those you have defeated.  It would also degregate/strip the inspiration of killing the same mob twice since you already knew you could kill it no problem.

    This would make for a very fun aspect that would encourage those to seek out new lands and challenge new content, while not giving rise to the farming of lowbie achievements just for the buffs.  They would be constantly having to one-up themselves to expect the same rewards from achievements.  Someone who has slain 1000 Wargs cannot expect to get a thrill from slaying 100 snakes.  Someone who has ventured through the ancient ruins of Phar`khen could not be peaked by exploring an old abandoned village.

    p.s. Phar`Khen is not real, or imaginary, or fantasy, or whatever you want to call it.  so dont go asking me about it :P


    This post was edited by Kargen at December 11, 2019 11:10 AM PST
    • 1315 posts
    December 11, 2019 12:08 PM PST

    @Iksar

    All fair points. The disconnect in my mind anyway is the difference between in a story where finding a place to sleep is an important part of the heroes journey and the episodic nature of only having 3 hours to play on a weekday evening. The outpost idea that had been kicked around by Brad a few years ago now would be an interesting middle ground between the two. Something temporary and out in the wild but still a centralized location to build groups from.

    Ultimately the goal of getting people to log out in an Inn is to shorten group finding the next time you log in as others are already there and waiting for the same purpose or soon will be. Inns or a collection point of some sort would also be an ideal location for crafters and non-combat focus players to interact with and support the adventuring characters on a daily basis.

    Rested bonuses really may not be the best way to do that but it is a way to encourage it. Crafting stations, banks, auction houses (of one form or another), npc vendors, job boards, sacrifice driven buff alters, grave yards are all other points of interest that could push the groups together.

    If the Well Rested buff could be gotten by either login out in the Inn or by sitting down at one of the Inn tables and playing a mini-game with another player that could give a form of social interaction that could then give you some return on your time spent not killing. Realistically between travel and not killing your time would still be better spent chain pulling. The goal is not really to make if more efficient to go to town but rather less in-efficient.

    Its not perfect by any means. I know you come at game design and experience from a different perspective than I do and talking ideas through from different perspectives is really the only good way to vet ideas. Do you have any suggestions on how to drive non-combat player interaction on a daily basis? What is fun for you in that vein rather than just an uncomfortable chore? How can we set up the game to limit the LFG time? I the days of early EQ I would have been happy if the LFG period only took 10 minutes.

     

    • 1714 posts
    December 11, 2019 12:15 PM PST

    I think one could easily make an argument that rested EXP would be a disincentive to grouping and socializing with others, just as it was in WOW. I'm sure many of us had that friend who would only log on when he/she had a slew of rested EXP. Additionally, getting that bonus exp is just going to make people be more comfortable soloing. It violates core game tenets, is unnecessary in general, and has the potential to have the exact opposite of the desired effect. 

    • 291 posts
    December 11, 2019 12:18 PM PST

    Keno Monster said:

     has the potential to have the exact opposite of the desired effect. 

     

    I believe the opposite of the desired effect is actually the inevitable one.