Xp bonus should be just that, something additional to your normal rate of xp progression. When a character logs out for X time, there is nothing that explains why they should be granted this addition when they log back on.
Xp bonus if any in-game, could be found/rewarded or sorts by actually doing things in the game, something that affects your character and/or it's surroundings/community. Still, it remains something to be abused or something that will derail over time. The extra's become the minimum. Overall, from my personal view, it doesn't seem to fit within the style/design of VR's world.
I agree with the suggestion of being able to earn/collect a buff by interacting with the world itself or being present when other players or npc's cause something beneficial.
If your aim as a dev is to persuade players to log back into your game only for those buffs per week as a minimum, you've missed the boat by design. Like others mentioned, the world should be entertaining enough. As those players will not be the ones that provide your earnings.
My thoughts are that rested experience is unnecessary and ultimately detrimental. Most of what people liked the most from early EQ was the journey to 50, not the end-game progression. While familiarity with MMORPGs will make that experience nearly impossible to replicate, I don't want any mechanics built into the game that ultimately increase leveling speed.
As for incentivizing logging on more, I disagree with that as well. It would incentivize me to log on to burn my rested exp, then log off for the time period it takes to maxmize my rested exp again and then grind, ultimately making leveling the most time efficient as possible - especially as I will have limited time.
I'm all for adding systems that add to the game, but I want them to fall in line with the tenets. If you were wanting to add some roleplay/unique element to Inns, I would like to see activity occuring in them similar to Single Player CRPGs - "You there, come... stay awhile and listen." And, maybe based off perception cues etc. you may find out information on unique named in the area, quests, ongoing issues that may be dynamic to the area, etc.
I want systems that increase the game's lifespan, not lessen it - with a smaller development team, it will already be difficult for them to keep up with the content locusts.
Trasak said:
I don't believe you can really force sociability or directly encourage it in ways beyond that natual, those who are social know that being so is rewarding in many ways on its own. Those who are disinclined to be social will find ways to avoid any non-required interaction as possible, and those that are required will trend toward being brief/to the point. The old proverb "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink" comes to mind here.
I feel like putting crafting stations, banks, any AH/player merchant equivalents, or trainers at Inns or semi-frequent towns/villages is actually a bad idea. It would make it harder for those who desire being social or looking to find other players for non-combat purposes to do so by spreading people engaging in those activities across the world rather than centralizing them (like they are in major cities).
The points of interest for adventuring/grouping/leveling are the areas or zones in which players of the same level range tend to be, you don't need anything else. With lfg tools and zone chat players can log in and hit the ground running by already being in the area where others are actively grouping. They can do a zone lfg, join a group looking for replacements/join a new forming group/start their own, and/or they can use the lfg tools and be on their way. In this case players are more inclined to be active and get things moving rather than passively jumping around from table to table in an inn somewhere waiting for something to come together while crossing fingers hoping other players near your range are also hanging around there waiting for someone like them to get going.
As for limiting LFG time, I don't think there is any magic bullet here. Ample LFG (and friendship building) tools will help quite a bit I think, but also in my experience being able to log in at the entrance to a hotspot zone or dungeon and start looking right away helps quite a lot.
Rested Exp is counterintuitive to me.
I have had good groups, people that I have labeled as friends and would love to group with again, who I have seen outlevel me to the point where I could not play with them. Thats the breaks. THis was merely due to play schedules and times. So I had to make new friends.
Back in the day we had no clear method of determining who was on what time zone however, with the "something-sophisticated-that-is-not-called-matchmaking" system that they are planning to put in, this cycle of meeting and re-meeting new friends until I have a good core group that is on the same time I am and has the same schedule I do and from that levels at the same rate I do...
will do away with the need of ever needing rested exp, ever, for you will know who is on at what times that are near to or on your similar schedule and by default, will be leveling at the same rate that you are. Therefore, no need for rested exp.
Besides, it sounds too much like participation awards. Believe it or not, you can show up with alot of money, bathed, pocket full of condoms, a clean bill of health and still get turned down at a whore house.
I'm ok with a rest bonus with a Cap (exp, or some other buff) as long as the "rest" is significant. What I mean by significant is something like being offline 10 X longer than you were online (i.e. if you played for 8 hours one day, you wouldn't get rest bonus unless you were offline for 80+ hours consecutively). This would incentivise people that can only play for 2-3 hours a day to actually log in and play the following day instead of thinking "well, I can only play for 2 hours tonight and may not even find a group because the group I was with last night are 6+ hours ahead of me, so I may as well just do something else"... until two or three weeks of that goes by and they just unsubscribe. Playing P99Green again, I play about an hour or two a night for the past couple of months and while some people that started at the same time as me are already level 50, I'm barely lvl 20... some of the people I use to group with message me and say "man, you need to catch back up to me" and it makes me want to quit and "invest" my "time" elsewhere. If I were paying for it I would absolutely quit, regardless of how fun or nostalgic it is, I couldn't justify so many hours of my life sitting LFG or repeatedly running around never actually accomplishing something.
The more you play the better bonuses you have - the other way around is just wrong.
This is how any MMO already works. The more you play, the more you are rewarded by becoming increasingly stronger (exponentially!). BUT. not every other MMO is group-centric which makes it difficult for people that can't spend hours LFG. EQ had to introduce hireable NPCs to fill in for the lack of players because it was a group-centric game that was originally successful because there weren't many competitors or even anything to compare it to really.
I don't think "the other way around" is nearly the same, but is instead an incentive for people with less available time to continue to have a desire to pay a sbuscription to support future developement of content. I say having some kind of rest bonus isn't nearly the same as someone that gets to actually play more because the person playing more actually gets to advance and explore the entire game (have fun). Even with a rest bonus, that level 6 ranger is going to be sitting in the n00bie area(s) for weeks (likely super boring), until they quit because they can't find a group or even explore any of the game outside of their starting city because they gain minimal exp solo for the amount of time they have to play.
Of course if you can spend 10hrs a day playing you're going to have tons of fun and "get better bonuses for playing more". Rest bonuses is not even close to the equivalent of bonuses for playing a long time in my opinion. If people "pay to play" and never get to actually "play" they're going to go elsewhere - and before you say that you don't want people playing that can't contribute several hours at a time to a game, I'll say that you can't have a Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game without a "massive" number of players. To put it into a smaller scale, a game designed for say 6+ people is kind of boring when you only have 2 people playing it...
If you have to be offline for a long time in a multiplicative association to how long you were online before receiving the rest bonus, I don't see how its the same as being able to play 10+ hours as long as there is a cap to how long the rest bonus lasts. (i.e If you play more than 2 hours in a day, you'll never get a rest bonus if the multiplier is 12... until you have been offline for more than 24hrs, and if the multiplier is 10 with a set maximum of like 12 hours offline (to promote a player logging back in every day), the bonus would be insignificant imo). I'm not saying to "reward" players for less effort as much as I'm saying that players with less time to play are instead "punished" in a game that requires significant preperation to even begin playing nearly every time you log in, although they "pay" the same subscription. Players with more free time will obviously be rewarded, but players that have less time are not just unrewarded, but are actually punished (even though again, they pay the same subscription).
((I'm not saying to "reward" players for less effort as much as I'm saying that players with less time to play are instead "punished" in a game that requires significant preperation to even begin playing nearly every time you log in))
((and before you say that you don't want people playing that can't contribute several hours at a time to a game, I'll say that you can't have a Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game without a "massive" number of players.))
This *is* the heart of the problem. Whether rest xp is a good idea or a bad idea this is something that needs to be addressed.
Pantheon can live long and prosper as a game that strongly encourages grouping and rewards it better than soloing. As a game that virtually requires grouping and where it doesn't pay to subscribe unless you can group most of the time you want to play ....no.
Pantheo can live long and prosper as a game that has good things to do in two hour or longer blocks of time. As a game that virtually requires such and where logging on for an hour is essentially useless .....no.
It isn't even a matter that a relatively small number of people can and want to block out 2-4 or more hours to play one game. They have to be hours without much in the way of interruptions.
The core tenets call for *encouraging* group play and socializing. Mandating it is a formula for failure.
In other words we need to provide the content for grouping for long and uninterrupted hours but also give paying subscribers something useful to do in shorter or more interrupted blocks of time.
dorotea said:((I'm not saying to "reward" players for less effort as much as I'm saying that players with less time to play are instead "punished" in a game that requires significant preperation to even begin playing nearly every time you log in))
((and before you say that you don't want people playing that can't contribute several hours at a time to a game, I'll say that you can't have a Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game without a "massive" number of players.))
This *is* the heart of the problem. Whether rest xp is a good idea or a bad idea this is something that needs to be addressed.
Pantheon can live long and prosper as a game that strongly encourages grouping and rewards it better than soloing. As a game that virtually requires grouping and where it doesn't pay to subscribe unless you can group most of the time you want to play ....no.
Pantheo can live long and prosper as a game that has good things to do in two hour or longer blocks of time. As a game that virtually requires such and where logging on for an hour is essentially useless .....no.
It isn't even a matter that a relatively small number of people can and want to block out 2-4 or more hours to play one game. They have to be hours without much in the way of interruptions.
The core tenets call for *encouraging* group play and socializing. Mandating it is a formula for failure.
In other words we need to provide the content for grouping for long and uninterrupted hours but also give paying subscribers something useful to do in shorter or more interrupted blocks of time.
You do realize that people can still log on and do something useful without having rested exp right?
It's not like we are actually taking away anything from you in anyway, we simply aren't giving you anything either.
Plus rested Exp does nothing when it come to ^Encouraging* group play, so I have no idea what that whole statement was trying to accompolish, as the two features have nothing to due with each other, exdept in a very indirect way, as you could solo/group with rested exp just as effectively as you could without it, so yeah kind of confused on this one.
If you want to increase porductivity maybe instead of saying Rested Exp, how about ways to create groups better, and things like this, features that actually would affect some kind of gameplay and not some feature that rewards people to do absolutely nothing at all.
2 hours of grinding in a group should look exactly like that much like 2 hours of soloing should look exactly like that.
Rested Expience shouldn't be the reason they want to log onto Pantheon, they should want to log onto Pantheon becuase they enjoy playing the game, that they want to Socialize with the community, that they want to adventure into something they know they have time for, if they are logging onto the game with basically any of these reason(not nessacary all of them.) than they are logging onto the game for what i would say is a good reason. If they are logging on only becuase they maxxed out their Rested Experience or close too than i don't see them actually enjoying the game in general.
After reading so many replies, I've come to the opinion that Rest XP is a potentially useful solution....to a problem that Pantheon may or may not have to deal with.
If VR notices an issue of short term logins who try but fail to find groups before logging off, I'm sure they'll try to fix the problem. That might be a much more useful time to debate the finer points, pro & con.
I do not believe XP bonuses are a good idea for Pantheon. XP penalties over bonuses imo. Now, regaining/recovering some XP (with some work) from a resurrection? Yeah, I can see that working in this game.
Maybe not an exp bonus but a pool that regenerates over time that death exp will pull from before lowering your actual experience. This would give more casual players a bit of help and make it less punishing with mishaps. Regenerates Offline and online. Could even have it regenerate faster offline. Enough maybe to cover a death or two a day that caps at like five deaths worth and shared among all characters/alts on a server.
Seems a bit easy to die at the moment.
I say no to rested EXP. I say this for it be a fair thing you need to have more ways quickly getting back to a place to secure that rested exp. Which means have more and more access to quick travel. I want those that can quick travel to be meaningful not at a whims notice, but do not want to punish those that can not get to rested exp fast enough.
Rested XP is a casual game mechanic. A very casual game design indeed, especially if it works like WoW by doubling XP gains on kills. I don't think Pantheon is looking for the "Casual MMO" title so I would avoid implementing something like this. Players should want to log in every day if possible, not take several days off to build up rested XP to improve their time/experience ratio. The players other than casuals who thrive with rested XP systems are the players who love making alts. Another thing I don't think the game should be encouraging too heavily. I'm fine with offering some kind of minor buff to players who log out inside of an inn or whatnot for immersion purposes but don't get carried away. Most players aren't gonna want to feel forced to go back to town every single time they log out especially if there is limited fast travel. I'd go with something like +1% to all stats for the rested bonus. That would be good enough to take the trouble to rest at an inn but not so good as to make players leave out non rested people (except maybe extreme min/maxers). The duration of the rested bonus could be whatever duration the devs feel like. I'd shoot for around 4 hours. And I'd make the time logged out to get the bonus fairly short...maybe remain logged out 4 hours to gain it. I'm assuming even the most dedicated players sleep for at least 4 hours IRL haha.
I would have to say, when I boil it down for myself...rested EXP doesn't really matter to me. It was never something that got me to play when I did play WoW, nor was it something that I didn't get me to play either. I didn't find it all that influential on how I played or when I played. When I had rested EXP I never logged out after it was done, nor did I really get anything from it either. If anything, it was a small boost to help keep me caught up with friends or even just for myself. It didn't help me get into raids, it didn't help me level in any way really. Sure, when I was maybe level 5, it gave me a level, ONE level, but this was WAY back when... but after a certain point it was barely a drop in the bucket compared to what I got playing the game. If anything I saw it as something that was like a 'hey we know life exists, here's just a small something for that.' type of thing. It didn't influence my sub, but it was something that was a nice little treat.
I can see both sides, truly, but I have seen more reasons from the side that is wanting to have it in the game. The world of gaming has changed because the world around us has changed. More people have less time to play, that includes kids too. More people have to work more hours, and in some cases, kids are getting jobs as soon as they are of age because parents can't just pay for their subs anymore. On top of this, a lot of kids go to school and even more and more adults are taking night classes to get out of jobs that don't provide them the money they need. Not to mention the people with kids that want to play. This game is going to have a sub, we all know it. We also know that, while we try to escape it through games, reality still exists and in the end this is a game that is going to want and need ot make money. So you need to have something, anything really that's even just a nod and a thank you to the ones that can't log in as much as other people.
If someone wants to, or can, spend 10 hours a day in the game, and has people that log in at or around the same time and can play just as long, that's great. If someone can't log in for as long, nor can be on at the same time as most of their guild or friends are; because of shift work or even home work and whatnot, why not give them some a little extra? I'm not saying give them a level for every day of being off, or give them a level for for even a certain amount of days off, but something small that lets them know that their sub is still appreciated even with a busy life. It's honestly no skin off my nose if they get it or not, nor does it really give them an edge over anyone else. They are still going to have to run the same content as everyone else, with the same obsticles as everyone else. It's not like them having a small bit of a rested boost is going to get them to raid or even dungeon areas any faster.
When I think of stuff like this, I think about the devs of the game. How often are they going to get to run through the content? how often are they going to actually get to log into an account and play the game as it was meant to be played? They work on other things, keeping the game running, making content and stuff, they surely won't be able to kill 6 to 10 hours just playing. They have families too on top of this. Not to mention that the other devs would be busy too, too much in fact to be on at the same time as them to play. I'm sure the devs think of this too when topics like this come up. While I'm SURE they have tools to help them in this aspect, but I'm also sure they would never use them if they were playing the game from an average person's standpoint lol. Overall I would have to agree with having a small rested exp in the game, if anything as just a thank you for those that can't be on nearly as long as some, and to show that their sub still matters. I'm not saying that they should be given massive amounts of it, but something small, and no real kill boosts or special weapons or anything like that; just something small to say thank you, that's if they are the type motivated like that.
Jothany said:
After reading so many replies, I've come to the opinion that Rest XP is a potentially useful solution....to a problem that Pantheon may or may not have to deal with.
That's interesting, I pulled the exact opposite from the majority of posts here. I felt that what many people were trying to do was oppose the argument but offer a compromising solution. Saying they would be happy with (their suggestion), but please do not put rested experience in.
Kargen said:
Jothany said:...
That's interesting, I pulled the exact opposite from the majority of posts here. I felt that what many people were trying to do was oppose the argument but offer a compromising solution. Saying they would be happy with (their suggestion), but please do not put rested experience in.
Actually I agree with you, I was just a bit less straightforward in how I said it. I don't support Rested XP, and reading all the replies didn't make me think that many people want it. However...
The number of people who either endorse it or offer a compromise solution suggests to me that the idea is more widely known and embraced than I was aware of. (I've played MMO's for 20 years, but only 3 different games in all that time)
Over time, the player population in less important cities and towns does tend to thin out, so mechanisms to encourge their continued use by even high-level players is a worthwhile subject.
Therefore, the subject of Rested XP "may or may not" come up again for serious consideration, especially after release if players encounter population problems. And if only as a starting point for discussing alternate solutions to those problems, it is "potentially useful". :)
Mekismo said: I think rested xp is a good idea personally, some people can't play as much as others, so if you have a group of friends that play together but 1 has limited play time it gives them a chance to catch up a little. Maybe they could add like a holiday mode or something similar which you can only activate once a week and if you know you cant play for a few days you can log out in an inn for example and you will gain a boost to your xp the next time you log on. Prehaps it could be calculated so that you get 1 hour bonus xp per 24 hours offline time. Just a suggestion anyway!
Ugh - terrible idea. If group of friends want to play together, but everyone have different amount of time to spare, then those with more time can always play on alts while others are offline. There is no reason to catch up to people that simply played a lot more than you - if you started late then play with others that are on the same "level" as you (unless higher level decides to mentor you or help you by other means - buffs/equipment).
jpedrote said:It pormotes not playing the game, it does not make sense, hope it's not implemented.
With the exception of FF14 1.0 I've never met anyone who felt not playing for rested exp was more rewarding than playing. If you play 8 hours a day someone who only plays 4 is not going to catch you. You will still out level them. I don't beleive a small amount of rested exp will break the game or trivilaize content. That being said I think this is a feature that could be implemented a year after launch or something. You could also "unlock rested" after reaching max level on a character then allow you to level alts with it.