Number of Characters & Experience


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Goblin Squad Member

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FMS Quietus wrote:
And will the tokens be ingame currency?

(With apologies to Drakhan) I hope the Kickstarter-time isn't Goblin Balls [PLEX, for those of you who missed the development of the other name] yet; I'd prefer GW be able to keep things simple for a time and implement alt-payments later. For now, just let us be the only ones using the time we've bought so far.

Goblin Squad Member

Valkenr wrote:


Does this mean that a subscription is no more than training time now? Early on we were told that a month of training time would be cheaper than a month's subscription, but the subscription would give the player more bang for their buck.

I don't remember seeing anything like that, and I do remember seeing just the opposite: that a subscription was intended as a convenient way to repeatedly buy training time without needing to fuss with it each month.

What do you imagine might be included in a subscription other than a month's worth of XP?

Valkenr wrote:
Ryan Dancey wrote:
At some point I would like to have some mechanism for a test account. These are virtually required once the game reaches a certain level of population - after the early adopter pool is exhausted, later adopters are very wary of playing a game they cannot try before they buy. But that is a problem for a much later day, maybe not even before Open Enrollment.
Are you considering a simple low-cost entry later down the line? I think there are a lot of people that aren't willing to drop $60 to try a game out for a month, but willing to pay $15-20 to try it out (didn't EVE do this?)

That's exactly what the words you quoted mean. You basically posted " 'We're going to do X.' Are you going to do X?"

Goblin Squad Member

T7V Avari wrote:

Now there is an answer!

So, last question is, can we toggle the 1 month tokens between characters, or is it an all or nothing deal?

What Ryan has said fits with my expo rations from previous statements. Looking at
Ryan Dancey wrote:
In other words, to begin, you'll have to pay for a character to be "active" in order to log that character into the game. The minimum amount of payment I expect we will begin with is a 30 day time increment.

Says a character (A) needs a torken for 30 days play. Another character (B) could play on the next months torken while A goes inactive, but could not, this month, use a piece of A's current torken. To play in the same month, they both need torkens.

Goblin Squad Member

Lam wrote:
Ryan Dancey wrote:
In other words, to begin, you'll have to pay for a character to be "active" in order to log that character into the game. The minimum amount of payment I expect we will begin with is a 30 day time increment.
Says a character (A) needs a torken for 30 days play. Another character (B) could play on the next months torken while A goes inactive, but could not, this month, use a piece of A's current torken. To play in the same month, they both need torkens.

I hope that's not what he means. My characters aren't buying any such thing. I am.

If I pay for a month of game time, I hope I'm given the choice of which of my characters I want active each time I log in, with that choice being the same until I change it.

If I have four alts, and want to play a different one each weekend for the next month, I shouldn't need to pay for four months of play time. (Unless I want all four to be gaining experience for the whole month)

Goblin Squad Member

I just want as many alts or slots as we have roles available to play. So in EE, that would be 4-7 slots total. As rangers, bards, paladins, etc are added, a new slot for an alt could be added.

That way I can play all the roles to whatever level I want or dump them all and play 7+ gatherers. Why I would want to do that, I have no idea but that fact that I could is great.

Goblin Squad Member

"I think that we will likely begin with a 1:1 ratio between paying characters and active characters. In other words, to begin, you'll have to pay for a character to be "active" in order to log that character into the game. The minimum amount of payment I expect we will begin with is a 30 day time increment."

The way I read this is that the minimum amount of XP you can buy for a single character is a month, and you would not be able to divide that month among multiple characters.

If people feel strongly that having lots of partial-XP alts is critical to their gameplay experience, make your arguments clear, loud, and convincing! For me, I'm going to have enough to do with one or two fully-paid characters, so the ability to move the hose is not my passion.

Goblin Squad Member

In EVE, and other "one Character per Account" games, you buy a month subscription for the Account and you can't swap that over to another Account halfway through.

It makes sense to me that the starting point for PFO will largely mimic this, and I'm very grateful that more elaborate options are even on the table, even if they won't be available right away.

Goblin Squad Member

I don't really mind if only character gets xp while sitting around when I'm not playing. Or no characters get xp while not playing. But being able to try out various roles and races is something I want to be able to do without having to delete each attempt.

Goblin Squad Member

I'll be extremely happy if I'm able to buy training on one or two additional characters right away.

Goblin Squad Member

I'm not sure how much clearer I can be. I'm not buying a character, I'm buying an account in a game.

I'm perfectly happy only being able to play one character at a time, and only earning experience for what is paid for, but I shouldn't have to pay for two months of game time if I want to play my cleric several times a month and my bard several other times.

This seems to me an essential carryover from tabletop. You play the character you bring to the table. You don't join the society twice to play two different characters

Goblin Squad Member

As far as roles go, changing roles isn't really a reason to change characters. If you have a 2-week-old fighter and you want to try a wizard, you're better off just starting to train your fighter as a wizard now, rather than deactivating or deleting the fighter and starting a new wizard from scratch.

Race, gender, and social identity are really the only reasons to have more than one character on the same XP hose. Everything else is just as easy (or easier) to swap out on the same character as it is to have different characters for.

Goblin Squad Member

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Not to derail, but all of this talk of Destiny's Twin and such reminded me that I don't remember exactly what add-ons I purchased. I hope they get the account manager on Goblinworks.com working soon since I can't check that stuff on Paizo anymore!

Goblin Squad Member

Caldeathe Baequiannia wrote:

I'm not sure how much clearer I can be. I'm not buying a character, I'm buying an account in a game.

I'm perfectly happy only being able to play one character at a time, and only earning experience for what is paid for, but I shouldn't have to pay for two months of game time if I want to play my cleric several times a month and my bard several other times.

This seems to me an essential carryover from tabletop. You play the character you bring to the table. You don't join the society twice to play two different characters

Based on how Ryan has described the system, "buying a character" is actually a better phrasing than "buying an account" at least for the initial part of the game.

With that said, there's very little practical gameplay difference between "I have a cleric and a bard and each of them gets 2 weeks of XP per month", and "I have one fully-paid character who spends half of his XP on bard and the other half on cleric".

Maybe your elf has MPD, and changes personalities whenever you change his role/feat setup?

Scarab Sages Goblin Squad Member

What seems simplest to me from a player perspective (but would probably be complicated from a programmer perspective) is the following:

I have one account, without a Destiny's Twin. (I might have more accounts, or a DT, but for purposes of this example, I only care about one DT-less account.)

I buy a 30 day torken on the account. (Great name, by the way.)

I apply the torken, and start playing Character A.

Character A starts gaining xp.

I log out of the game.

Character A continues gaining xp (and working on any long-term projects like crafting or structure building.)

The next time I log in, I play Character B.

Now Character A stops gaining xp, and Character B starts earning xp. (When Character A's projects in progress end, Character A does not move on to start any new queued projects.)

If I log out of Character B and log into Character C, then Character B stops earning xp.

In a nutshell, the character I'm currently playing gains xp while I'm playing, and while I'm not playing, the character I most recently played gains xp.

Benefits: No need to distribute my 30 days among my characters when I apply a torken to the account.

The pool of unspent xp belongs to me, the account holder; pre-assigned chunks of it do not belong to the individual characters.

If I delete the last character I played, the xp begins flowing to the second most recently played character, or the game asks me to choose one. No unspent xp is lost with the deleted character.

No need for a set of xp toggles on the character selection screen.

Drawbacks: Only the most recently played character earns xp while I'm not playing. If I want a different character to have that xp, I need to remember to log into that character right before I shut off the game.

Might be more complicated to program than a proportional xp distribution system.

Assumes that sometimes I'll be logged out. (Since characters can work on projects while I'm logged out, and unattended logged-in characters burn system resources, and unattended logged-in characters are vulnerable to ganking, I assume this isn't really a drawback.)

If I'm multiboxing (i.e., I have multiple characters logged in simultaneously), only the first character I logged in is gaining xp during my multiboxing session, and only the last character I log out at the end of the multiboxing session continues gaining xp while they're all logged out.

Goblin Squad Member

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Guurzak wrote:
Maybe your elf has MPD, and changes personalities whenever you change his role/feat setup?

My Cleric-role-character and my Bard-role-character will have nothing in common, be it equipment, race, alignment or home settlement.

Goblin Squad Member

Then, at least for now, it looks like you're either going to have to pay twice, or leave one or the other inactive each month- unless you can convince GW that implementing partial-month XP is more important than whatever feature they'd have to postpone in order to implement it.

(Or make them twins- but that solution doesn't scale past 2 characters.)

Goblin Squad Member

Could it be solved by barely making the computer work a bit harder with Torkens being 1 week's worth?

Goblin Squad Member

If one set of people have interpreted Ryan correctly, yes. I will have to do that.

Goblin Squad Member

Could it be a toggle with a cooldown?

You have "X" experience in a pool and you can toggle which character you wish to have gain experience. The toggle might have a cooldown to make sure there's no way to scam the system by bouncing back and forth too quickly. Perhaps 24 hours.

Goblin Squad Member

Bringslite of Fidelis wrote:
Could it be solved by barely making the computer work a bit harder with Torkens being 1 week's worth?

Yanno, that might be a good option. We couldn't just universally convert all 30-day tokens into 4 @ 7-day tokens because we'd have peasants with torches screaming about their missing 2 days. But having the option of "What would you like to do with your Big Torken? A) Apply it to a character, B) Split it into four Little Torkens" would probably be very easy to code and would address a lot of the concerns of the alt-happy community.

Goblin Squad Member

It shouldn't need even that much effort, Bringslite. The XP isn't assigned by the month, it's assigned by the clock. When I log in character A, their counter starts accumulating. When I switch A off and move to character B, that counter starts accumulating instead. All that is required is a character flag for active or inactive, and a variable for how many active flags you have available today. When you login, it displays active characters. When you uncheck one of them, it offers you a list of your inactive characters to turn on another flag or create a new character. When you buy a month, you tack it onto an existing flagged character to have it inserted in that queue, or flag yet another one. 10 tokens can activate 10 characters at one time for up to a month, or 1 character for ten months or one for six and two for two. None of this needs to be a resource issue, and frankly, my interpretation is that something like it is more likely than the alternative.

Goblin Squad Member

Caldeathe Baequiannia wrote:
It shouldn't need even that much effort, Bringslite. The XP isn't assigned by the month, it's assigned by the clock. When I log in character A, their counter starts accumulating. When I switch A off and move to character B, that counter starts accumulating instead. All that is required is a character flag for active or inactive, and a variable for how many active flags you have available today. When you login, it displays active characters. When you uncheck one of them, it offers you a list of your inactive characters to turn on another flag or create a new character. When you buy a month, you tack it onto an existing flagged character to have it inserted in that queue, or flag yet another one. 10 tokens can activate 10 characters at one time for up to a month, or 1 character for ten months or one for six and two for two. None of this needs to be a resource issue, and frankly, my interpretation is that something like it is more likely than the alternative.

Describing a system, and creating one, are two completely different things.

Goblin Squad Member

Yes, they are. I'm not saying it's easy, or they will do it that way, I'm saying I think doing such would be less work than dividing month tokens into weeks.

Goblin Squad Member

<Kabal> Dan Repperger wrote:
Not to derail, but all of this talk of Destiny's Twin and such reminded me that I don't remember exactly what add-ons I purchased. I hope they get the account manager on Goblinworks.com working soon since I can't check that stuff on Paizo anymore!

If you bought in the second kickstart before $ million mark you have DT. If you did not participate in second kickstart, I don't think you have (but they have later added some 2nd kickstart to those in first, maybe). If your account was not acquired in Kickstarter, you don't have DT.


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Nihimon wrote:

In EVE, and other "one Character per Account" games, you buy a month subscription for the Account and you can't swap that over to another Account halfway through.

You are right about EVE.

More detail on the system: in EVE you designate any one of the three character slots available to the account as the one that accumulates skill points (EVE's xp) and can play any of those characters at anytime without having an effect on that skillpoint acquisition (as long as you maintain an active subscription for the account). I could solely play on my hauler character while another character on the account is the one 'leveling'. The option for character advancement is completely separate and independent from character usage on the account, and training is controlled independently from playing. It is possible to waste the advancement your subscription grants you by not having a character training at all (although the game gives you big warnings if you do this).

Not stating this as a contradiction - just a clarification for using EVE online as an example (and deliberately skipping past the option to have multiple characters on the account training at the same time etc).

Goblin Squad Member

Why not just restrict free accounts to only be members of NPC settlements? You can experience quite a lot of the game from that perspective, and those people will see that by subscribing there will be a lot more they can experience. Only allow them to get to a certain point in training, perhaps 1 week of exp gain (which I think is currently 16,800 exp). NPC settlements will allow them to use that exp for Tier 1 stuff and maybe some Tier 2 as well, but with only a week's worth of exp I doubt they would even get to that point. Character names would still be a problem, but you could wipe the characters if they haven't added game time after a couple of months or something. That is, if the point is to allow people to play for free just to try the game. If the point is rather to allow people to play for free to increase population then you could do everything mentioned above except wiping the characters.

Goblin Squad Member

The option to terminate a character's training at will and move the hose over to another character creates programming work and potential for abuse which doesn't exist with a scheduled XP system.

The ability to start and stop XP credit freely would mean that the systems which process bonuses to buildings, completion of job queues, etc would constantly have to query the character database to verify that credit was still in place, rather than just once when the job or bonus was initiated.


Guurzak wrote:

The ability to start and stop XP credit freely would mean that the systems which process bonuses to buildings, completion of job queues, etc would constantly have to query the character database to verify that credit was still in place, rather than just once when the job or bonus was initiated.

I am new to tracking the finer details of PFO as we get closer and closer to EE.

Can you please explain why this is the case?

My thought would be that a query to the character database for buildings, completion of job queues, etc would be checking purchased character skills. Not xp flows. Why would the acquisition of unspent xp impact abilities in game? Isn't a character with 1 million unspent xp as capable as a 0 xp character newly created? What to do I still need to learn about how PFO characters 'tick'?

Goblin Squad Member

Guurzak wrote:
The ability to start and stop XP credit freely would mean that the systems which process bonuses to buildings, completion of job queues, etc would constantly have to query the character database to verify that credit was still in place, rather than just once when the job or bonus was initiated.

I don't understand this. Nothing should need to query anything in this fashion. When the character crosses a threshold, the system reports to the neccesary databases "I have one more DI for the settlement bringing my total to XX. I have the skills/achievements and am spending the necessary materials or xp to create this object or acquire this training" All of those things have to be in place before the job starts, I think. Later: I am going inactive, these DI values no longer apply to this company and this settlement and this activity is suspended."

No XP is going away, it just stops getting higher and activity that is "account active enabled" pauses. There's no reason for things to constantly be polling if the Character management is reporting when something changes.

Edit: Not to say that such polling should never be done, but it should be infrequent exceptions, rather than the norm, such as a weekly or monthly inventory to catch errors and/or check for irregularities.

Goblin Squad Member

Guurzak wrote:

The option to terminate a character's training at will and move the hose over to another character creates programming work and potential for abuse which doesn't exist with a scheduled XP system.

The ability to start and stop XP credit freely would mean that the systems which process bonuses to buildings, completion of job queues, etc would constantly have to query the character database to verify that credit was still in place, rather than just once when the job or bonus was initiated.

Perhaps part of the routines that run when a character starts to shift the hose are checks on queues, building bonuses, etc.:

"You are 23 hours into a 36 hour long job making mincemeat pies. If you shift the hose, the job will be canceled and some materials may be lost. Do you want to shift the hose? (Y/N)"

"Your skills are currently providing big bonuses to your settlement. If you shift the hose, the settlement will be notified and will lose the bonuses until you have been replaced. Do you want to shift the hose? (Y/N)"

Goblin Squad Member

The bad news is if you don't like the chars hairstyle...tough cookies.

The good news is you should get to redo your chars looks at every character graphics update.

CEO, Goblinworks

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Iteration 1: You train a character for a month.

Iteration 2: You can redirect which character is being trained during the month.

Iteration 1 will happen first, and then Iteration 2. It is unclear at this time if we will get to iteration 2 before Early Enrollment begins.

Goblin Squad Member

Ryan,

Thanks again.

Goblin Squad Member

Valkenr wrote:


Are you considering a simple low-cost entry later down the line? I think there are a lot of people that aren't willing to drop $60 to try a game out for a month, but willing to pay $15-20 to try it out (didn't EVE do this?)

Actually EVE trial accounts are free for either 2 or 2 weeks depending on the "deal" you get. They are a normal account with a couple of restrictions (such as you cannot fly industrial haulers) which are pretty much to limit the usefulness of the trial account as a free disposable alt people can cycle through.

At the end of the free trial period the account can be converted to a normal account and will retain any training/standings/assets it has acquired by adding game time with either a subscription or a PLEX purchased with in-game cash.

A paid cash sub to EVE is only $10-$12 a month for a full account with three characters on it.

Goblin Squad Member

Rynnik wrote:
Nihimon wrote:

In EVE, and other "one Character per Account" games, you buy a month subscription for the Account and you can't swap that over to another Account halfway through.

You are right about EVE.

More detail on the system: in EVE you designate any one of the three character slots available to the account as the one that accumulates skill points (EVE's xp) and can play any of those characters at anytime without having an effect on that skillpoint acquisition (as long as you maintain an active subscription for the account). I could solely play on my hauler character while another character on the account is the one 'leveling'. The option for character advancement is completely separate and independent from character usage on the account, and training is controlled independently from playing. It is possible to waste the advancement your subscription grants you by not having a character training at all (although the game gives you big warnings if you do this).

Not stating this as a contradiction - just a clarification for using EVE online as an example (and deliberately skipping past the option to have multiple characters on the account training at the same time etc).

Pretty much it. My main EVE account has a central character I always train. Think of this character as the pathfinder equivalent of your main pathfinder PvP character.

I also have two other characters that are in different corps ( in pathfinder "settlements" ) and they are only trained just enough to do specific jobs (pathfinder example is a trade character and a gathering character).

To train those other characters I could have stopped training my main but instead chose to spend extra cash/PLEX and train them all simultaneously for a time.

Once they were trained enough to do the job I wanted them for I stopped training them and only train the main. At anytime I want to use the alts (pathfinder example - do some trade deals in another settlement) I log in these alt characters. Even though they are no longer training I am still free to log them and make use of the training they already have.

CEO, Goblinworks

Key difference. EVE allows a total of 3 characters per account. Those accounts cost $15/mo. If we allow a larger number of characters per account we introduce a revenue problem that CCP does not have, and remove a limiter to behavior misaligned with the best interests of the business that they do have.

Scarab Sages Goblin Squad Member

I would be fine with 3 (or 6, or whatever finite number) characters per account, as long as GW acknowledged and supported the option for one customer to pay for multiple accounts. Want 21 characters? Buy 7 accounts. Don't want to pay 7x per month? Let some of the accounts coast without training, for as long as GW will let you.

Earlier, someone suggested that each account could have as many character slots as there are roles in the game at that time. Don't forget that you don't have to put all of your advancement into a single role. Even trying to focus on one role, I suspect that most players will end up with a few levels of other classes (especially when the roles expand beyond the first four). Train a tenth level fighter, and I bet you'll end up with a level or two of rogue, paladin, or (eventually) ranger. A tenth level cleric will probably qualify for a couple of levels of fighter.

To bring in comparisons to two other MMOs, just because your EVE character is from the Gallente space empire, that doesn't mean the character can't fly spaceships from the Amarr empire, and if you're a GW2 elementalist, choosing to specialize in fire and ignore air isn't just unnecessary, it makes you less effective than an elementalist who uses all four elements. (That last comparison may be stretching things a bit, but it might not be so far off the mark.)

Edit: Maybe this will be a better EVE comparison: A character who can fly a black ops battleship really, really well is valuable to some corporations. A character who can fly a black ops battleship, and an electronic warfare cruiser, and an interceptor frigate, all pretty well, is valuable to lots of corporations.

Goblin Squad Member

KarlBob wrote:


Edit: Maybe this will be a better EVE comparison: A character who can fly a black ops battleship really, really well is valuable to some corporations. A character who can fly a black ops battleship, and an electronic warfare cruiser, and an interceptor frigate, all pretty well, is valuable to lots of corporations.

True, though the tendency in EVE is to create a batch of specialist alts. Your jump freighter character really only has hauling skills and your cyno character that creates the beacon he jumps to pretty much does nothing else but create cynos etc etc.

Sure there are stacks of general ship fitting skills etc that all characters (other than station trading alts) will need but there are very few situations in EVE where, for example, a Mining + Combat character ends up better than two characters one of whom mines and the other is good at combat.

Goblin Squad Member

MVP
WHat happens in EE will be less than ultimate. At same time early EE players want to try a lots different things to determine what is best deal. It seems if you want that variety, you pay for it. Except if it is a must have, the rules will adjust. Ryan has said that 1 week granularity may happen. Like others have said, I will have main and DT gain skill and exp. and work the time each can gain feats. If I want to play with other options, I will pay for additional characters. My current fascination is Summoner which may never be in PfO while they implement other templates which are very recent.

This is their product. My passive acceptance of their right to do this fights against me vs others who spend thousands of lines advocating for this concept. So be it.

Squeaky wheel and all that. But some prayer wheels are noisy by design.

Scarab Sages Goblin Squad Member

KoTC Edam Neadenil wrote:


True, though the tendency in EVE is to create a batch of specialist alts. Your jump freighter character really only has hauling skills and your cyno character that creates the beacon he jumps to pretty much does nothing else but create cynos etc etc.

Sure there are stacks of general ship fitting skills etc that all characters (other than station trading alts) will need but there are very few situations in EVE where, for example, a Mining + Combat character ends up better than two characters one of whom mines and the other is good at combat.

I'll grant that there are specialist roles like cyno alts, and that mixing mining and combat on the same character wouldn't be ideal most of the time (with wormhole life being one of the rare exceptions).

On the other hand, I think that there are plenty of EVE characters who can fly logistics cruisers (or "space priests") and force recon cruisers. This is the EVE equivalent of having some cleric levels and some rogue levels.

(EVE also has many, many more roles than PFO right now. Some specialization becomes necessary when the role tree looks like this.)

Edit: Wow. Looking at that chart after reading these forums (and not playing EVE for a while), it's quickly apparent that several entire branches of that tree will be unwanted behavior in PFO.

Scarab Sages

In fact, login in multiple characters from an account at same time, it will be a great paid feature, if even implemented sometime.

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