Goblin Squad Member
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After seeing that Base Attack Bonus 4 (or 5?) was upwards of 50.000 XP, I wanted to start a discussion on how people feel about these large cost feats.
My first experience in EvE lasted between 1-2 months. The moment I queued up Carrier V, I lost all interest when I saw a 60 day training time.
Keeping people interested is very important, from my experience in gaming, this means that they are actively advancing their character in a very obvious way for a long period of time. I would like to be see people able to pick up at least a feat every two days that moves them towards maxing their role. And for the first few months, people should be able to pick up multiple feats a day.
So instead of having something that costs tens of thousands of experience, you give it lots of requirements, or trickle down that xp into the required feats.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Valkenr, that is actually a mess up, its going to be 5,200 in the next build.
Currently, the highest costing skill takes about a month to earn. There are a lot of Tier 2 things that take 1-2 days worth of Exp, it is when you hit tier three that its taking 2-5 days on the lower end, and 20-30 days on the higher end, per feat.
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Goblinworks Game Designer
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The Base Attack costs are correct they just got randomly sorted somehow. In the current build, they're:
1. 145
2. 776
3. 6,346
4. 56,185
5. 10,055
6. 170,518
7. 66,741
8. 318,536
9. 558,718
10. 76,604
In the next build we're sorting them correctly, so 4 will cost 10,055 and then 5 will cost 56,185.
So the currently bugged nature of Base Attack 4+ should not dissuade you from a discussion about how much XP higher level stuff is going to cost. :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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Valkenr, that is actually a mess up, its going to be 5,200 in the next build.
Currently, the highest costing skill takes about a month to earn. There are a lot of Tier 2 things that take 1-2 days worth of Exp, it is when you hit tier three that its taking 2-5 days on the lower end, and 20-30 days on the higher end, per feat.
I'm not sure if it's a mistake, but right now the latest spreadsheet has level 10 of Fortitude, Willpower, and Reflex Bonus costing about 7.5 months worth of XP. The vast majority don't go over about 1 month.
[Edit]
9. 558,718
And that's even higher that the 546,185 XP for Fort/Will/Reflex Bonus level 10.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I dealt with it in EVE the same way I deal with my absurdly long drive to and from work: don't think about it. I focus on something else -- anything else -- and put that objective completely out of my mind. Then when it's finally over, I'd almost forgotten I was even waiting for it to finish.
I know that sounds like cheesy self-help advice, but it really does work for me.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Doesn't it work:-
Trialers = Fun = Instant or very immediate gratification desirable
Beginners = Learning = Slower gratification but lots of diversity of sources/options of it to find and follow.
Converted = Doing = Even slower gratification but focused by now on achieving and goals (and maybe knowing and chatting to ppl)
So, I think if the character is more mature, the xp gain is about doing better what you're enjoying doing?
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Goblin Squad Member
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The "ding" factor of leveling up in most games and the "wow" factor of finding the purple leet item are not what is intended to drive this game.
The people you form associations with and against will be what keeps you here and if you're doing it right the month or two between skillups farther along in the game will just be something that happens while your enjoying the game.
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I love the idea of a slow advancement. It takes away the rat race that is grinding and trying to hit level 20 (or lvl 80,000) as fast as possible.
Personally, as a gaming addict, it will help me to know that playing 8 hours isn't going to get me to a higher level any faster than playing 4 hours or even just 2 hours.
Lastly, just as a part of my role playing style, I like the idea of getting to hangout at a level for a long time and really get to be in my character with all of its limitations, instead of just be trying to run forward to the next level.
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Goblin Squad Member
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| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
After seeing that Base Attack Bonus 4 (or 5?) was upwards of 50.000 XP, I wanted to start a discussion on how people feel about these large cost feats.
My first experience in EvE lasted between 1-2 months. The moment I queued up Carrier V, I lost all interest when I saw a 60 day training timm...
I personally wouldn't use carriers as an analogy to generalized training times. Carriers are a BIG DEAL and basically only given by mega corps and only to players who are going to be active and contributing on the longest term you can expect from a video game. In the big picture that two months is a drop in the bucket as investment for all the time you're expected to spend in the carrier.
Cruiser 5 is 20 days for me, and that's perfectly reasonable since it unlocks a vast universe of spaceship experiences for all time after it's done.
Foundational, Specialist, BFD
What I'm getting at is there are different classes of skills in this time-based system. The foundationals are quick and frenetic popping out left and right, even to max out only a few days or less than a week. They happen quickly because everyone is expected to have them and like you say people want to feel skill advancement as character progress especially as a new player before they have other attachments built up.
Then there are specialist skills, like Cruiser 5. These need to take several days mid-level and even a couple of weeks to max out because specialist needs to stand out. In a game players are anticipated to spend years in skills that pop out easily at rapid pace stop holding value; in this case the sense of character progression comes when you finish the marathon and can think, "I finally made it, this is a special place. Whew".
And the two month trains by virtue of their gargantuan size are just a BIG F*^$)@ DEAL. The sense of progression comes from knowing only a few other people in the game have made the same commitment to get where you are, you're character is standing in rarefied atmosphere, and that makes them special. It is by definition not a BFD unless it required that much effort to achieve and not many players choose to make the effort over other things they could do in-game. Leaving out skills like that from the game would take away one type of sense of character development for players.
Personal note: I have been the top crafter of a thing on my server which made me the BFD-trained person for that thing. Watching the Big Deal Guy come to me for a new weapon because no one else could make one even close to the level he needed, HELL YEAH. Worth... the time... I spent getting there.
It's not for everybody, but many players will definitely want the option.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I personally wouldn't use carriers as an analogy to generalized training times. Carriers are a BIG DEAL and basically only given by mega corps and only to players who are going to be active and contributing on the longest term you can expect from a video game.
Titans, not carriers, carriers ain't a big deal, my little casual 50 players french corp in CVA had 5 or 6 carriers, I used to play mine to farm NPCs in our pocket.
I actually don't mind. I like the long xp strives. I say keep them in and add more muahaha!
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Goblin Squad Member
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As long as the day to day gaming is fun and interesting a month or 6 of time to train something powerful would bother me at all.
A lot of the complaints that leveling/training take too long seem to have the unspoken addendum "and I can't play/ won't have any fun until that's complete." If we assume that the pre-cap part of a game is actually fun to play, and not just a speed bump on the way to some endgame, those complaints are mostly hollow.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I meant cruiser, didn't play much, too many C-words in EvE, I always mix them up.
Ok 60 days for cruiser 5 is messed up, it might be 4 weeks tops or you have no business training ship skills with those attributes :0P.
^ The above comment stems from the EVE-specific trait that training time is directly determined by character attributes, which is not the case in Pathfinder Online. That's something I think will get taken for granted often because of the similarity in skill systems so I flung out this weekly reminder.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Ok 60 days for cruiser 5 is messed up, it might be 4 weeks tops or you have no business training ship skills with those attributes :0P.I meant cruiser, didn't play much, too many C-words in EvE, I always mix them up.
Had to be it. Characters I have trained to cruiser 5 have been less then 3 weeks.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I meant cruiser, didn't play much, too many C-words in EvE, I always mix them up.
Aren't most of the "C-words" in EVE the players? :P
In anycase, Guurzak has the right of it, since content in PFO is mostly player driven with only a splash of PvE, and characters can theoretically train everything in the game, the isn't truly an end game to strive for. All your time spent logged in should be spent making and breaking relationships with other player characters.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Aren't most of the "C-words" in EVE the players? :P
In anycase, Guurzak has the right of it, since content in PFO is mostly player driven with only a splash of PvE, and characters can theoretically train everything in the game, the isn't truly an end game to strive for. All your time spent logged in should be spent making and breaking relationships with other player characters.
Yeah, if we want only hardcore gamers, but one of the original goals of PFO was to open sandbox a little more to the large audience, and the larger audience doesn't really play like we do. It seems that they need some kind of perpetual feeling of advancement, which is why people are so easily hooked on stupid purple items.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Yeah, if we want only hardcore gamers, but one of the original goals of PFO was to open sandbox a little more to the large audience, and the larger audience doesn't really play like we do. It seems that they need some kind of perpetual feeling of advancement, which is why people are so easily hooked on stupid purple items.
Thanks for that in-depth analysis.
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Goblin Squad Member
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One thing that gamers have taken to lately is achievements. Even fairly casual games have them now. If people can't grind to end game (bleah), or chase new gear that makes their old gear obsolete (bleah again), they can always chase Goblin Killer 15, Zombie Slayer 21, and Master Trader 10.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It'll be fun the first time we see a big caravan of wagons loaded with smelted ingots pulled by oxen and guarded by 40 escorts heading to a trade hub. Can't wait to see stuff like that. Or maybe the very first player built stone bridge, or discovering a dungeon entrance for the first time. Or crafting your first tier 3 item and taking it out (threaded of course) and whomping the crap out of some big monster. Or seeing a green had casting a spell with an effect you have never seen before and you know it's not gonna end well. Those moments are cool.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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No. I just like knowing that anyone who "doesn't really play like [you] do" must need some kind of perpetual advancement and be "attracted to stupid purple items."
It isn't what I meant, I meant that the classic sandbox public wants to create its own goals, but it isn't the case of the large audience.
That's not judgemental, that's just a fact. That is the main business plan of most Theme Parks. If you look at the basic customer, most of the time, they consider they have finished an extension, when they have the best stuff at their disposal, not when they have beaten every dungeons.
Which creates some weird paradox. The player will do the same dungeon over and over and over, until he gets the best stuff. But if you give him the possibility to acquire said stuff by crafting or daily quests, he won't even bother trying the dungeon.
If you think I am exaggerating, You should look how much the WotLK extension of WoW was criticised for its lack of content and challenge, even though the majority of players didn't actually kill Arthas.
Am I criticising these guys ? No, I think they are mostly victims, actually. But there is indeed an inversion of values.
In a normal situation, the epic stuff is meant to give you enough power, to discover new, harder content. The Dungeon is the goal, the loot is the mean. By forcing you to loot, the lifetime of the game is extended, because you must wait, before being able to "Beat the game".
In the real situation, it's the other way around, actually. The loot is the goal, and the dungeon is just a mean to get it.
And you know, it's not even my opinion, it's just the business plan of every modern Theme Park.
There is actual psychological studies about this phenomenon, which implicates the "reward" parts of the brain.
So yeah, the base audience has a tendancy to look for this kind of reward system. And it is more addictive to have a few tiny rewards each weeks, than one big reward every three months.
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Goblin Squad Member
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[stuff]
Well, I'm not a hardcore gamer, having never played an online game before and only doing tabletop about 8-10 times a year. That puts me pretty firmly in your "they" (who are not hardcore gamers) and you broadly painted that category with some negative attributes, and then, in the last response, added a bunch more.
That's not judgemental, that's just a fact.
Even facts are judgmental when you apply them to everyone in a category, regardless of the fit. That's just the way it is.
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Goblin Squad Member
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'Sandbox' players are also in the spectator class if their ingenuity only finds expression in a game, and self-congratulation arguably also rewards the pleasure centers of the brain. Many things reward individuals. You may think you are creating your own goals but they are still in the sandbox, and not out in meatspace. Let's think it through before we prostrate before our own images in self-praise.
The utility of a game is to relax from the stresses of the real interactions we worry over day-to-day. If in the real world we are relatively powerless then what happens in the sandbox becomes serious as a surrogate expression of personal power. It may be that some real-world players get stressful over their sandbox, but I suspect most who really engage the world as other-than-spectator would rather play the game for entertainment.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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[stuff]Well, I'm not a hardcore gamer, having never played an online game before and only doing tabletop about 8-10 times a year. That puts me pretty firmly in your "they" (who are not hardcore gamers) and you broadly painted that category with some negative attributes, and then, in the last response, added a bunch more.
That's not judgemental, that's just a fact.Even facts are judgmental when you apply them to everyone in a category, regardless of the fit. That's just the way it is.
I am sorry if I make you feel that way, that is not my intention.
To resume, what I am saying is that the classic audience of sandbox MMO, is not the same as the more mainstream Theme Park, because the first one is made of way more highly invested players, who are looking for this specific kind of experience.
But I don't really know why you feel concerned, since you are neither hardcore player nor more "normal" player, if you never played online. You're just a new player in our community. Try WoW, SWTOR, Rift or WildStar and then try EvE or Darkfall to compare, you will see.
It would be judgemental if I said that it was good or bad, which I don't. I'm just saying that for the normal classic mainstream MMO player, social interactions aren't enough, and you need to give them a feeling of regular progression.
Which is why I agree with the OP. I think it is better to get +0.001% hit chance in 3 days, than +0.1% hit chance in 300 days.