Goblin Squad Member
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I am a little worried that gaining Influence will require specific in-game actions that might start to feel Grindy, but I also understand the desire to give new players especially a clear path to advance their character. I'd like to start a conversation about balancing these concerns.
One of the most exciting things about Pathfinder Online to me from the very beginning was the realization that I would be able to do whatever I wanted in-game because my character progression would be based on real-time passing, rather than on me grinding Wolf Paws, etc. I was reminded of how important this is to me while exploring the map in DarkFall. That exploration doesn't gain me significant Prowess, and I'm unable to gain Prowess by other means while doing this. I very much enjoy exploring, but feel like I'm wasting my time because I'm not progressing the way I could be.
At the same time, I very clearly understand how important it is for new players especially to understand what they can do in-game to better their characters. My wife has a particular love for games with lots and lots of fun quests. In LOTRO, she loved the Oatbarton zone with all the quests associated with preparing the town for a Festival.
How can we balance that desire for content (even if it's only clearly defining the things that allow the character to gain Influence) without creating too great an opportunity cost for doing whatever else we want to be doing in-game?
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Goblin Squad Member
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In every MMO I have ever played from EQ1, EQ2, WOW, neocron, WAR, SWOTOR, EVE, and a few others I might not remember there is always something that is grinded....sometimes is reputation sometimes its ore or sometimes its marks of X but theres always something.
I think alot of MMOs grinding as a way to give solo players something to do. Like the game saying "you got have a group? OK you can go grind marks of awesomeness and feel productive. Your welcome."
I actually don't have a problem with grindiness so long as grinding dosent seem like the focus of the game (EQ1).
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Goblin Squad Member
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My wife has a particular love for games with lots and lots of fun quests. In LOTRO, she loved the Oatbarton zone with all the quests associated with preparing the town for a Festival.
That's going to be the trick when it comes to merit badges... make it less "kill 10 rats" more "prepare the town for the festival". To a degree I completely agree with Ruick that as long as it isn't the focus of the game as it was in EQ1, then they'll be able to get it right... or at least a notch above tolerable. In either case, that's a win for GW in my book.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The great part about influence is that it isn't experience whereas prowess on Darkfall is. While it may not make sense for you to gain a ton of experience for exploring the map, it does make sense for finding new landmarks and points of interest, or just seeing areas you've never been to before to generate influence. Heck it could even generate influence the first time you see it each day, to help keep roles like explorer's, adventurers, and traders that are constantly on the move competitive with those who just move from spawn to dungeon to spawn slaying stuff all day.
Another thing I think would be really interesting is tying influence to non-spammable social actions. For instance when you go to a tavern, if you have a meal and a drink, and maybe sit back and take some puffs on a pipe, then you initiate a "Living the good life" effect that has you generate influence as long as you remain in that tavern based on the value of the consumables you used. You could also have an option that comes up every so often called "Drinks on me" where someone can pay for everyone's ale, and generates influence based on the quality and quantity consumed by the grateful patrons.
Not only does this allow people sitting around roleplaying at a tavern to generate influence, it also creates a market for consumables which might not have other useful functions outside RP props.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I remember a thread one of us started asking for volunteers to leave a free alt-slot for creating one-off characters to support RP-scenarios, but I can't find it any more. I liked the idea that someone wanted to have a travelling company of players to assist in generating non-GW story-telling content.
EDIT: Of course, that deals more with "things to do" than with "things to do for Influence"...
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Goblin Squad Member
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Oops seems I missed the point of the post lol i need to RTFP.
As for how we balance grinding with fun gameplay. The problem is that "fun" is different for everyone. You might like exploration and I might like collecting wolf paws and Mr. Snuffy might like RPing a lazy character sleeping in the inn.
So the only two ways I can think of to balance is to either give influence for everything in game or put influence on a real time system similar to XP. I doube either of these would work but it just the first two ideas I came up with.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think as long as most valid forms of gameplay generate influence the system will be good. Sure, someone is going to come along and figure out that X action generates the most influence and spam it all day. That player is also going to burn themselves out, and probably be doing something else within a week. As long as they aren't able to generate 10,000 in an hour while most players are generating 10,000 a week, we should be alright.
Since influence is a company level thing, the important part is that if a company has members actively playing the game it's consistently generating influence.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I remember a thread one of us started asking for volunteers to leave a free alt-slot for creating one-off characters to support RP-scenarios, but I can't find it any more. I liked the idea that someone wanted to have a travelling company of players to assist in generating non-GW story-telling content.
EDIT: Of course, that deals more with "things to do" than with "things to do for Influence"...
The Unofficial Guide Program has its own section in the Nihimonicon :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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From the OP:
Reaction to first sentence, paragraph 1: "Oh god, I hope not....*sigh*"
One way that might not seem too grindy is by defining a list of actions a player character can take. When a player successfully completes one of those actions they get a RNG roll and if it exceeds TN, they gain influence.
Not being guaranteed to generate Influence I think will make actions less tempting to grind for earning purposes. Heck you could even put a cool down timer on earning Influence for a given action per day.
May also want to put a behind the scenes tracker on it so that the more varied a player's actions and the more actions they take toward bettering a community they might gain a small modifier to their earning or a daily bonus earning. Actually, all of this would be behind the scenes. If you allow players to see any of it it'll probably generate that desire to grind, heh.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I really hope influence is not something you grind until you hit the weekly cap.
I want my level playing field between people who play continuously and those with a few hours a week to play.
Influence should just accumulate while sub is active. Maybe add some bonuses from doing things for the first time; on an account, not character, basis.
It could be 10 influence to start a war, 5/day to keep it going (between 'equals')
If everyone gets 1 per month, that'd be 4500 per month in EE, should be plenty to keep Wars going all over the place.
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Goblin Squad Member
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As long as there is an incentive for those that have time and want to play more than those that don't. It does not matter if it does not give a wide advantage gap. It should be rewarded, somehow, to put more time in, if you are so inclined.
You risk losing the commitment of the portion of your player base that wants that, if you don't. They will simply seek other games that give more reward for their time and effort.
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Goblin Squad Member
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From the blog entry "Join Together with the Band": From the moment of its creation, each company begins earning influence—a measure of the ongoing deeds of its members, and a currency with which the company can claim territory, trophies, and various boons for its members. Each time a member player earns an achievement, his or her company also earns a small amount of influence. (bolding added for emphasis)
While deeds and achievements haven't been defined by GW here, one place those words were used a lot was the thread Sepherum started to get input on a better name than 'merit badges'. I'll predict that that's exactly what Influence is going to be based on - the qualifying tests for our skills. So it probably won't be grindy - it will be things we want/need to do anyway, and it will be related to subscription experience gain.
If I'm right, then some might choose to maximize Influence by learning a lot of skills like Basketweaving 101. Having a company full of barely competent basketweavers might not be a winning strategy. People and companies will have to balance having a broad range of skills and having some skill tree with real depth.
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Goblin Squad Member
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As long as there is an incentive for those that have time and want to play more than those that don't. It does not matter if it does not give a wide advantage gap. It should be rewarded, somehow, to put more time in, if you are so inclined.
You risk losing the commitment of the portion of your player base that wants that, if you don't. They will simply seek other games that give more reward for their time and effort.
I'm all for things to do for those who have an abundance of time. I will be one of those players. I just would prefer not grinding Influence points or any other points, per say.
I'd rather be engaged in as non a repetitive action as possible.
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Goblin Squad Member
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As long as there is an incentive for those that have time and want to play more than those that don't. It does not matter if it does not give a wide advantage gap. It should be rewarded, somehow, to put more time in, if you are so inclined.
I think there will be lots of incentives for putting in time. A lot of PvE and harvesting rewards are going to be very much based on play time. Some things like skill training time and labor pools for construction might give flatter rewards, but even there, the player who can pick a skill and has time to finish the qualifying step is that much further ahead.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'll predict that that's exactly what Influence is going to be based on - the qualifying tests for our skills. So it probably won't be grindy - it will be things we want/need to do anyway, and it will be related to subscription experience gain.
That would certainly put my mind at ease about the Grindiness, and I'm quite confident we'll have enough player-generated content to deal with the Nothing-to-Do problem. Thanks for pointing that out, and I hope you're right.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Early on, maybe even in the Kickstarter, Ryan mentioned many achievements for different things. Achievements have become one of the more fun additions to games that didn' necessarily handicap new players, but rewarded players who put in lots of time, chose to grind rep, explored, did a lot of PvP, crafted a lot of something, or a variety of something, of a unique item, or even killed this or did that is really crappy gear.
There was one KS reward called the Crowdforger Geography Buff, as follows:
"Crowdforger Geography Buff – Patrons at this level get all the Pioneer level rewards, including month one access to the Beta through the Early Enrollment process. In addition, you will provide Goblinworks with a proper name for a character and a 300-word history of that character, and our staff will use your character's lore to create a name and history for a specific location like a bridge, stream, crossroads, copse, hill, or similar geographical feature in the Crusader Road region of Pathfinder Online. Upon launch of the Beta, you will be given the geographical coordinates to the area named for your character. Characters who explore that area will learn of your character's name, accomplishments, and the history of your area via an in-game marker. Finding these markers within the game will unlock exploration achievements, spreading your character's legend far and wide! Who knows, the Battle of Fergrud’s Grove could go down in Pathfinder Online history!
There's where you'll get your exploration chops (there were 44 of these rewards in the Kickstarter). There surely be other cool things added like "hidden feats" (Darkfall has these) where you get some reward for something you didn't know you were getting! Cool! (Of course everyone on the Darkfall forums are crying they should not be hidden...boo hooey hoo.)
Crafting experimentation, recipes, even some skills should come as a pleasant surprise so you get treats for playing, not because you were aiming for a specific reward.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I remember a thread one of us started asking for volunteers to leave a free alt-slot for creating one-off characters to support RP-scenarios, but I can't find it any more. I liked the idea that someone wanted to have a travelling company of players to assist in generating non-GW story-telling content.
EDIT: Of course, that deals more with "things to do" than with "things to do for Influence"...
Jazz,
I think you are referring to my thread:Playing the Role of Extras
If that's not what you were thinking of, my apologies for being presumptuous.
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Goblin Squad Member
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"Your Honor, the question is leading...."
Of course no one would choose doing nothing over grinding, but that does not make grinding a good alternative to doing nothing.
Simple dynamic I would propose:
1. Limit the amount any particular grind requires.
2. Vastly increase the types of grinds, and have them hit all aspects of the game.
3. Have a meaningful reward for grinding, but not one that has too much of an in-game impact. These could be in the form of Title, Social Clothing (Green Hats!), Emote Unlocks, or perhaps a small amount of Influence.
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Goblin Squad Member
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...When a player successfully completes one of those actions they get a RNG roll and if it exceeds TN, they gain influence...
I confess my opinion is surely biased (I intend to align TN), but tying rep to alignment in any way seems contrary to an implied distinction between alignment and reputation. That reputation in your model accrues whenever an activity is other than true neutral suggests that true neutral is a void alignment, a lack of alignment.
This is similar to the conceptual misconstrual in current politics that derides moderates as meaningless, which is a serious disservice.
Balance and moderation is the opposite of extremism. Extremism is generally unhealthy. Moderation, with exceptions, is healthy.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Making an action only provide a reward on an RNG roll doesn't discourage grinding, it promotes it. It turns the action into a form of gambling, an activity that is even more enticing than mashing your face against a problem until it works.
Grinding is an almost impossible aspect of online games to rectify. There will always be actions that are repeatable that provide a better reward than other actions. Andius' suggestion that, once found, people will burn themselves out on these actions is naïve. Without outside influence those exploitable actions will be exploited ad infinitum. There will be people who lack the patience to grind out their reward, but those people will quickly be outmatched by those who do have the patience.
The only way to reduce grinding is to tie every single reward ever to a real-time cooldown. By doing that you actively work against those who act as the life blood of your game (those willing to spend large portions of their time within the game). It quickly leads to boredom, which leads to people playing other games, which limits growth. Granted GW seems to be content with nice and slow growth rather than large bursts, but having negative growth is still a risk.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think you are referring to my thread:Playing the Role of Extras
That's the one! Can't figure out how I missed it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Oh c'mon admit we love to grind or we would have never played these games;)
It was great in EQ 1, when I had 100 free hours a week. It sucks now I have maybe 20 hours a week for gaming.
Level playing field between those who start the game late and those who begin at the beginning, level playing field between those who can play a few hours a week and those who can play continuously. That was the promise...
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Goblin Squad Member
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...When a player successfully completes one of those actions they get a RNG roll and if it exceeds TN, they gain influence...I confess my opinion is surely biased (I intend to align TN), but tying rep to alignment in any way seems contrary to an implied distinction between alignment and reputation. That reputation in your model accrues whenever an activity is other than true neutral suggests that true neutral is a void alignment, a lack of alignment.
This is similar to the conceptual misconstrual in current politics that derides moderates as meaningless, which is a serious disservice.
Balance and moderation is the opposite of extremism. Extremism is generally unhealthy. Moderation, with exceptions, is healthy.
I believe V'rel probably meant TN (Target Number) rather than TN (True Neutral).
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would agree here that adding a random chance to not gain influence would only increase the disparity between grinders and non-grinders instead of decreasing it. The reason is that someone who doesn't grind may become discouraged from the action after doing it several times and getting low or no incentive to continue doing it, while the grinder will still attain a relatively normal amount of influence given enough rolls. Best case scenario here, everyone simply takes longer to gain the same amount of influence; worst case, there are less non-grinders and the same amount of grinders.
My ideas here are:
1. Diminishing returns on each specific task, with a cooldown to raise/restore the level of returns. People who want to put in a lot of time and not get screwed on rewards simply diversify the tasks they do (e.g. do some gathering, then when the gains become too low switch to crafting).
2. In a similar vein, have big important tasks that only take an hour or so to do, then less important tasks that take more time, and have only the big one on a cooldown. The idea here is that if you only have an hour to play, you can get the big thing done, but if you want to put more time into it you can grind the lesser reward.
Both of these ideas rely on a real-time cooldown of some sort. Do these seem like good compromises between grinders and "weekend warriors"?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Do these seem like good compromises between grinders and "weekend warriors"?
My fear is that those solutions would result in the "weekend warriors" having set tasks that they feel they must complete or else they'll fall behind. Obviously, a certain amount of that is okay - even desirable. However, as I alluded to in the Original Post, one of the things that most enticed me about PFO is that I would be freed from the XP grind to go out into the world and do the things I wanted to do because they were personally fulfilling, not because they gave some mechanical advantage.
My current thinking is that the best option would be to have a steady trickle of Influence being gained while the character is earning XP, with bursts of Influenced gained through the same Merit Badge (or whatever) system that unlocks the skills we buy with that XP.
That is, I'm leaning towards being generally opposed to repeatable Tasks that grant Influence.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Nihimon
Please don't take this as confrontational. I am seeking to clarify your opinion. :)
If we take (for example) 2 Companies of players, each with 20 members at the start of their exp climb. Company A plays a combined total of 100 hrs a week and that is enough to accomplish all available Merit Badges as they become available. Company B plays a combined total of 300 hrs a week and does the same plus other pursuits.
Are you saying that Company B, which likely influences the game world more than A, should not accrue more Influence?
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Goblin Squad Member
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In case anyone isn't clear, when I said promise, I meant:
A Journey of a Thousand Miles Begins with a Single Step:
We know people are apprehensive about the "first mover advantage," where the earliest adopters are able to hold all the power, and we want to assure everyone that we're going to avoid that problem. The world of Pathfinder Online is not going to be dominated by the characters and groups who are the first to explore the world. Players who enter the game later will have similar opportunities to carve their kingdoms out of the wilderness.
Your Pathfinder Online Character:
(The EVE model) It also levels the playing field between people who can only put in a few hours a day (or a few a week), and those who can play continuously.
The reason we settled on a system that naturally allows your alignment to drift back to your core alignment over time is that we wanted to avoid senseless grinding to maintain an alignment.”
These quotes define the holy grail of a Pathfinder MMO, in my opinion: to create the game such that what makes you successful on the tabletop will be what makes you successful in PFO.
It's different from the MMO's that already exist.
It's not an easy goal.
It's what we're here to do.
I don't think we need grinding, I think we need to get creative. There can be other rewards for people who have a lot of time to spend. Quantifying rolepalying is one avenue. For example, you should get more influence for staying in character than for slaying 100 orcs more than the next gal.
<tosses a coin in the wishing well>
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Nihimon, I could definitely see that as being an issue, getting that feeling of, "Man, sorry I can't help you with that fun stuff, I gotta go do my dailies."
@Pinosaur, I'm not sure what other systems you can put into place to reward a time-consuming task which would not be considered grinding. In your example, you'd just have a lot of guys sitting around the bar occasionally giving an in-character blurb and for the rest of the time just afk'ing, to grind up their influence. Also, I have no idea if a system could be put into place which automatically rewarded roleplaying, but that sounds like a very difficult thing to do.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Bringslite
There's a case to be made for both sides of the argument, but I also think we shouldn't get too hung up on the idea of Influence (capital I: game mechanic) as opposed to influence (small i: how things actually are in the River Kingdoms). Even if Company A, with their 100 hours a week accrues as much Influence as Company B with 300, they are unlikely to be able to put it to such good use. It's no good having influence if you can't spend it because you don't have the required amount of timber to build X or the permissions need from other companies to achieve Y. I suspect Company A will be far more limited in their choices than Company B.
It may not be linear, but I suspect a third of the hours played would result in a significant reduction in resources, be they material (wood, stone, weapons, trade goods) or abstract (contacts made, geographical knowledge earned, know-how). Bluddwolf is quite right, for example, when he says to be good at PvP you have to PvP a lot - in fact, to be good at anything that is true. This disparity in both physical resources as well as player knowledge and player (not character) skill will result in a disparity in influence (small i) in game that cannot be underestimated, and should lead to Company B having a significant advantage.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Bringslite
There's a case to be made for both sides of the argument, but I also think we shouldn't get too hung up on the idea of Influence (capital I: game mechanic) as opposed to influence (small i: how things actually are in the River Kingdoms). Even if Company A, with their 100 hours a week accrues as much Influence as Company B with 300, they are unlikely to be able to put it to such good use. It's no good having influence if you can't spend it because you don't have the required amount of timber to build X or the permissions need from other companies to achieve Y. I suspect Company A will be far more limited in their choices than Company B.
It may not be linear, but I suspect a third of the hours played would result in a significant reduction in resources, be they material (wood, stone, weapons, trade goods) or abstract (contacts made, geographical knowledge earned, know-how). Bluddwolf is quite right, for example, when he says to be good at PvP you have to PvP a lot - in fact, to be good at anything that is true. This disparity in both physical resources as well as player knowledge and player (not character) skill will result in a disparity in influence (small i) in game that cannot be underestimated, and should lead to Company B having a significant advantage.
Well, nice long reply lost to "space". I will think on what you have written. I am not sure that I know how I feel yet, without knowing more about the mechanics of it all. If it works out the way that I have interpreted it, then I feel I will likely be in disagreement with anyone that would advocate "special" limiters to accrual of anything except experience pts. for time and effort invested.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Pinosaur, I'm not sure what other systems you can put into place to reward a time-consuming task which would not be considered grinding. In your example, you'd just have a lot of guys sitting around the bar occasionally giving an in-character blurb and for the rest of the time just afk'ing, to grind up their influence. Also, I have no idea if a system could be put into place which automatically rewarded roleplaying, but that sounds like a very difficult thing to do.
Yeah, I was just trying to break out of the box. These systems won't be easily made, or some game would already have them.
Definitely becoming a drunk in character would lose influence, not grind it up ;p
ps
If you choose to stay in game 24-7, you should get professional help, not a reward.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Idk, isn't "early" Influence gained from new players joining CC's a sort of gamification of:
a) Joining a group productively
b) Hiring new blood proactively
Ambitious companies are therefore encouraged to actively recruit low-level members, guiding them through their early development in order to benefit from the rapid achievement gains of new players.
In addition, special company achievements and even some items and trophies provide influence boosts.
It's basically a tap of new players = more exercise of claiming territory/alliance/feud content for the experienced players. The newbies get the rewards of achievements which no doubt tie into skill training anyway? So it depends on what those will be per "path"?
Sorry if I have picked up the wrong end of the stick, playing catch-up!
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Goblin Squad Member
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I feel there is a place for grinding, but it is not in character skill advancement or influence gain, beyond occasional achievement grinds to catch up to how much Time-Based XP you may have if you haven't spent it in a while and have a bunch to burn through.
The place for grinding should be where it actually makes sense... resource and item acquisition. If Warg Fangs were used in crafting some form of item, there would be a place for grinding to acquire Warg Fangs to sell on the market. It is not a required thing for you to do to advance your character, but it would be an option to earn some coin if the market had demand for that item.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Nihimon
Please don't take this as confrontational. I am seeking to clarify your opinion. :)
If we take (for example) 2 Companies of players, each with 20 members at the start of their exp climb. Company A plays a combined total of 100 hrs a week and that is enough to accomplish all available Merit Badges as they become available. Company B plays a combined total of 300 hrs a week and does the same plus other pursuits.
Are you saying that Company B, which likely influences the game world more than A, should not accrue more Influence?
@Bringslite, it would be difficult for me to take anything as "confrontational" when it comes from such a friendly looking avatar :)
I will answer your question directly, but first I'd like to turn it on its head just a bit. Are you saying that the characters in Company B, which likely have much more experience in the game world, should not accrue more XP?
In essence, I think there's a reasonable argument to be made that Influence Gain should not be grindable. So, yes, I think it's reasonable that Company A and Company B have the same Influence, assuming their members have acquired the same Merit Badges, etc. I think that Company B will likely be in a better position because they've had more time to harvest, make relationships with other players, and do all of the other things that benefit them in less tangible ways.
I suppose an argument could be made that Influence is like Harvested Resources, and no one is suggesting that Harvested Resources automatically accrue over time.
It's a difficult problem, which is why I started the thread to probe for new ideas.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Are you saying that Company B, which likely influences the game world more than A, should not accrue more Influence?
I'd say that Company B will likely not be able to accrue three times as much Influences as Company A, not on a long term basis. GW has told us that new players have more rapid achievement gains - which suggests Influence gained each hour will be subject to diminishing returns.
Look at two of the currencies that will be used in the game: coin for characters and Influence for companies. Coin will come through interplayer trade and from various faucets. Characters who play more will hit those faucets more often. They'll also have more resources to trade for coin. Influence, invested in POIs, settlements, or other holdings, will likely be able to enhance the coin earnings of the owning company, either directly like an inn might, or indirectly from additional resources gained from a manor and its grounds.
If Influence and coin per hour both increased linearly, then coin gains would likely increase exponentially for the member of Company B. If coin per hour increases linearly, but Influence is subject to diminishing returns, then Company B will be richer than Company A. Likely more than 3 times as rich, but not 9 times as rich. Company B *might* be rich enough to convince Company A to spend their Influence on something Company B wants done.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Just a side note - up above, I suggested that the deeds and achievements that allow us to accrue Influence would be like merit badges. Going back through the blog, I found this bit:
Merit Badges: Merit badges are a combination of measuring the progression of your character (as in first-person shooters like Battlefield 3) and recognizing the character has done something notable (like the achievements in World of Warcraft). Most merit badges require that you first finish training a specific skill or skills. Some also require that you do something in-game, such as harvest a certain amount of resources, or slay a certain number of monsters, or explore a portion of the map. When you have completed the requirements, the merit badge is awarded, and you will likely also get a new ability associated with that merit badge. (bold added for emphasis)
"Most" doesn't mean "all". I'd think it very likely that there will also be deeds and achievements in addition to those on the xp/skill paths. It benefits Company B who has time to pursue them, but it could still be subject to diminishing returns.
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Goblin Squad Member
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You could get a set 'income' of influence per 'day' (month, w/e) , that increases as you gain 'merit badges' (some, all, class only, w/e).
Experienced characters who have 'influenced' (little i) the game a lot would thus get the most Influence (big I) to employ in changing the world.
People with a lot of time could get that higher 'income' faster, but the use of Influence would still depend on funding and surviving the wars. That takes resources and group play beyond any individuals ability to 'game'.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I will answer your question directly, but first I'd like to turn it on its head just a bit. Are you saying that the characters in Company B, which likely have much more experience in the game world, should not accrue more XP?
Honestly, I am not sure that I will personally like real time exp accrual. I have never played EVE or any game with such a system. I can't say that I won't like it either, yet. :)
Should it be that way? Yes, it should, because that is the way that it was advertised in the kickstarter. Influence was not then a concept or a feature being considered.
As I have said, I am not really sure WHAT I personally feel about the question yet. As a person with some free time, I hope that the time I put into the game is rewarded. It may turn out that extra resources gathered, contacts/friends made, things found and explored will be plenty satisfying.
That would be just fine too.
The game can have grind, but the game can't be the grind. At that point it's not really a game to me anymore.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think Bringslite summed up my position well:
I hope that the time I put into the game is rewarded. It may turn out that extra resources gathered, contacts/friends made, things found and explored will be plenty satisfying.
As long as putting in extra time is being sufficiently rewarded in some way, I'm personally not opposed to having influence divorced from grinding mechanics. The thing to remember is that nobody likes grinding, but the time people put into the game is one of the only things here with real value. You have to have a means of rewarding people for playing your game, or people won't play it.