MeowsedMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited December 2019
I think there are only two half-decent reasons to have Dailies: either 1) they exist to LIMIT the rewards a player can receive per day, or 2) they get players to fill groups for unpopular content.
1 - Limiting progression) The idea here is that all content should have rewards, but content that people theoretically could grind for hours (anything aside from one-time story quests) should have limited rewards, so that people don't need to grind for hours.
This is where the whole "falling behind/getting ahead" thing is important. Players with 8 hours a day to grind would get incredibly far ahead (in gear score/army size/wallet power, or whatever end-game progression you want to imagine) if they got static rewards every time they did a piece of content. (Btw, I'm gonna keep using the word "content" to be vague, because these arguments can apply to literally anything, like dungeons, mob grinding, PvP, fishing, crafting, whatever.) To stop this endless race, that only streamers and no-lifers could win, many games shift the bulk of their rewards to Dailies.
This is acceptable, in my opinion. Any kind of progression in the competitive aspects of the game can, and should, be tied to Daily or Weekly limits. You can call them quests if you want (and yes, all the accouterments of quests, like quest-giving NPCs and lots of flavor text, do serve a separate purpose of making the world more enjoyable), but their primary purpose should be to limit how much you can progress per day.
And to be specific, I think this is all a good thing because it lets midcore players compete/cooperate with hardcore ones, so that the playerbase isn't spread too thin across different levels of progression/content. Also, I guess it helps people from playing too much and burning out or getting addicted (as if Rest Points or dailies have ever been successful in that regard).
1b - Catching-up) Letting people "catch-up" after a long absence or starting the game years after launch, is of course very important to the design of Dailies. Long-term stuff, like getting new players caught up after an expansion requires bigger changes and is completely beyond the scope of this thread. But for short-term catch-up, Dailies lie at the crux of the issue. Should Daily/Weekly limits stack up and never expire? Is it okay if people fall behind when they miss whole weeks/months?
Personally, I'd propose that a catch-up bonus should be added to Daily rewards (like 25-50%) after missing a few weeks, until the player is more-or-less caught up. So if you miss a week or two, you will be behind for a while, but you can catch-up within a month. Plus, the more casual players, who don't care about being "behind" most of the time, can intentionally miss a couple weeks to get the bonus, and therefore spend less time on Dailies overall (like waiting until you can buy a game on-sale). Exact numbers are up for debate.
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2 - Incentivizing unpopular content) Not all content is created equally. Some of it's good, some of it's meh, some of it was nice 2 years ago until everyone got bored of it, some of it just has niche appeal. But the vast majority of content will have at least a few die-hard fans. And it really sucks when it becomes impossible to play your favorite content because there aren't enough other people to play with.
Daily quests offer an admittedly imperfect solution. Everyone likes rewards, and some people like rewards enough to go do old/niche content that they don't enjoy just to get those rewards. So who cares if 8 out of 10 people in the content-group are just doing it for the rewards? It's better than just deleting the content (or leaving it pseudo-deleted because it's impossible to find a group for), right?
Honestly, I don't know on this one. It seems like an admirable goal. Diversifying content by subsidizing old/niche stuff with players driven by Dailies... I think it's fine as long as the rewards aren't important for progression outside of the subsidized content.
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Bonus - Problems with Dailies) So as I've establish with far too many words above, I think there are good reasons to implement some form of Daily quests/rewards. But they get such a bad rap, I think because there are a lot of possible design failures. I don't think I need to be too detailed here; either you've encountered one of these, suffered from it, and therefore agree, or you just won't agree no matter how I embellish it. (Edit: Whoops I embellished it a bit anyways). So I'll just do a list:
Too many Dailies. (Enough to take up 60%+ of your time playing the game)
Repetitive Dailies. (Not bad if it's your favorite content, I guess.)
Unforgiving deadlines. (You must play every 24h period or you'll miss stuff.)
Just plain boring Dailies. (Don't make me just fucking run in a line clicking on shrubs and waiting for bars to fill.)
In-your-face Dailies. (It's nice to complete checklists. It's not nice when that checklist isn't made by you, and it contains every variety of content in the game, and it's displayed every time you log in. And it's just sooo long, but you wanna check all these boxes don't you? Comon how long could it take? Don't you want to try fishing? No? What about tomorrow? Or the next day? There'll be an unchecked box for fishing every day if you don't. ) (Okay, I'm exaggerating A LOT, but I think you get the idea. I can find what Dailies I want to do on my own, thankyouverymuch.)
Dailies that give generic rewards that everyone wants, so you have to do ALL the dailies. (Edit: Noanni's token suggestion helps with this. e.g. you could cash in a couple Daily tokens for gold/generic power stones on whatever Daily task you want, but there's not enough for every single Daily. After that, Dailies would only give content-specific doodads.)
Shitty outro - Because I ran out of attention span) Aight, I'mma head out.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited December 2019
I've never played a game that allows "catching up" via Dailies after a long absence or starting the game years after launch.
I don't understand how that could even work. Do you have an example of games with such a Daily system?
The "advantage" of doing a Daily is that it's nice to be able to log in on a day when you only have 10-20 minutes to play and be able to check something off as completed and get some kind of reward.
Explain to me how allowing people to catch up tomorrow if they didn't do their daily today nullifies this one and only advantage.
I mean, the rest of the post is there if you want to discuss things, but the above is a key point you've completely failed to address.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited December 2019
Your reading comprehension problem:
Allowing people to "catch up" tomorrow doesn't nullify the "advantage", it nullifies the primary purpose of a Daily - which is to entice players to log in every day.
Your reading comprehension problem:
Allowing people to "catch up" tomorrow doesn't nullify the "advantage", it nullifies the primary purpose of a Daily - which is to entice players to log in every day.
Why would a game developer want players to feel the need to log on to their game whenthey otherwise wouldn't want to log on for the day?
Whether I log in to a game today or not, I am still paying my subscription fee. If I feel like I need to log in every day, even if I have other things to do, then I am far more likely to stop playing the game sooner - and thus stop paying my subscription fee.
And wasn't one of your big arguments for dailies something along the lines of "you don't need to do them if you don't want", which, in order to be true, would have to mean the developers failed miserably at their job of adding dailies in order to have people log in every day.
I mean, if you're logged in to a game and don't consider the daily worth doing, how is that same daily supposed to get people to log in?
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited December 2019
Because they want "masses" of players playing every day, even though a significant portion of the playerbase doesn't have 30+ minutes to play on weekdays/work days.
Has nothing to do with people feeling like they need to and everything to do with giving players an incentive to log in and feel a since of completion if they choose to log in.
The devs don't fail miserably if Dailies get people to log in significantly more days per week than they would without Dailies. Again, it's not about needing to. It's about wanting to.
I mean, if you're logged in to a game and don't consider the daily worth doing, how is that same daily supposed to get people to log in?
I don't really understand this question.
If I have 10-20 minutes to play, I log in to see what the Daily is and evaluate whether it's something I want to do. If there were no Dailies, I wouldn't log in at all until I had a day where I have 45+ minutes to play in order to complete quests.
Different people will enjoy different types of Dailies.
In Wiz101 - at Level 50 - I generally skip the one Daily that sends me to the Level 45 area because it takes me too far off course from where I'm hunting. I think that's, like, one out of 10 offered in the cycle or one out 15. But, other players may not have that same hang-up.
For NMS, one day I may not be in the mood to kill a mob, so I'll skip that Daily, knowing that the next time I log in, it will probably be one that I like better - like taking a screenshot of some POI. Different people will have different moods...on any given day. Maybe some people don't like taking screenshots.
For APOC, if the Daily is "Kill 1 player with a Wand", I'm going to skip it and log out - knowing that the next time I log in, the Daily will likely be one I like, like "Open 3 Chests" or "Restore 50 health" or "Kill 1 player with a Bronze Axe". Other people might love using the Wand. Different strokes for different folks.
But, it's not about what I need to do - it's not an obligation - it's about what I might want to do on any given day.
What can I complete in 10-20 minutes? Is this worth my time and effort when I only have 10-20 minutes? Is this something I would have fun doing?
You keep focusing on missing a Daily due to a dinner date, but... that's really irrelevant because missing days are inconsequential to the player. Indeed, a player might login and choose to skip the Daily. Just because there is some small incentive to do the Daily doesn't mean a player will actually choose to a Daily every day. Players are likely to choose to do the Daily most days of the week, if the Daily is relatively quick and doesn't take a lot of effort. And the rewards need to be reflective of that - small material gains (rather than material advantages), like cosmetics, emotes, housing decorations and/or embers...similar to what we have in APOC.
In Wiz101, when I go to the Daily Quest Giver to check what the Daily is, I may see a new pet or a new mount I want to purchase. If I actually do the Daily, it's likely I will end up in a group with other players as we defeat the mob of the day - might be a regular quest for that person (Kill xx mob) even though it's a Daily for me (Kill 1 mob). Devs are going to want as much of that interaction on weekdays as they can get rather than having the vast majority of players waiting until they have 45+ minutes to play Saturday or Sunday.
For APOC, if they can entice me to complete a Daily, even though I only have 15 minutes to play, that still helps lower queue times.
Because they want "masses" of players playing every day, even though a significant portion of the playerbase doesn't have 30+ minutes to play on weekdays/work days.
Right, lets take that thought and run with it, shall we?
A brief detour first though.
It would be a bad business decision from Intrepid to add any single mechanic or system to the game where the major reward is cosmetics. A very large portion of players (possibly the majority) care less about specifically what their character looks like, and more that it just looks good and they are able to change it on occasion. If these players are able to be fairly sure that there is a system with a selection of cosmetics that
will change or be added to on a fairly regular basis (which would be needed to keep players doing dailies after getting cosmetics they like), these players will have no need to purchase cosmetics from the store.
This applies to anything that could otherwise be sold on the store - cosmetic items, skins, alternate skill for characters, mounts, boats, house items or caravans, effects, anything. Having some cosmetics available in game is fine, and won't have the same long term effect. It's just when you get in to a scheme where you have to refresh the items available regularly.
Basically, if Intrepid add in any system in which the major reward is something they could otherwise sell on the store, they are cannibalizing their own revenue. Because of that, and discussion of cosmetics as a reward basis for daily quests in Ashes of Creation is asinine.
Without a suggestion that is not cosmetic (which I have not seen), the only possible remaining rewards are faction (which I am sure we have been told will not happen) or material - which could be experience, coin, crafting ingredients, consumables or items - or a combination thereof.
Now, back to that quote up the top.
I'm going to gloss over how unimportant it has been for an MMO to want people to log in every day ever since 2004/06 when Blizzard were worried that if people weren't logging in to WoW every day, they might just log in to their competitors MMO. This was the last time developers actually made an effort to entice people to log in every day - with the exception of Korean MMO's that are designed around people playing at Internet Cafe's rather than at home and so have a vastly different content design philosophy.
So, with that glossed over, lets look at the statement.
According to said statement, MMO developers want players playing every day. So to that end, they create content that makes those players want to log in every day. This is the definition of players being compelled to log in - they are forcing a particular decision from players without actually forcing that decision. If players did not feel compelled to log in to do daily quests, then those daily quests would be failing at their objective, assuming the objective is as stated in the quote above.
I mean, if the idea of daily quests is to get people to log in every day, if people aren't logging in every day, then those daily quests have clearly failed. If people are logging in every day because of those daily quests, then they are doing so because they are compelled to do so by those daily quests. There is no middle ground here, because people either do or do not log in to do daily quests. It is very much a binary situation.
Lets have a look at the player that is logging in just to do this daily quest now.
First, we should take in to account that if they are logging in to the game just to do the daily quest, they are spending 5 - 10 minutes just logging in to the game - assuming their computer is turned off. So suddenly, this 10 - 20 minute piece of content that they are logging in for is potentially taking them 20 - 30 minutes.
Now, if the rewards for this piece of content are worth it for this player to log in to the game to do, and if we assuming that the player is spending at least half as much time as the content itself takes just to log in to the game, then it is only logical to assume that this piece of content has a very high material reward value to players that are already logged in.
All of a sudden, you can see why any content that is worth it for a player to log in to do - by it's very nature - becomes compulsory content in a competitive game as it offers the highest level of reward for the time invested.
There is no space where a daily quest can be something people log on to do, but where people don't feel like they have to do it. The gap in there simply doesn't exist. You may claim it exists in Wizard 101, but it doesn't, you have your own motivations for logging in to that game - and to be perfectly honest, I don't want to get in to the motivations of a Boomer that logs in to play a child's game.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
It would be a bad business decision from Intrepid to add any single mechanic or system to the game where the major reward is cosmetics. A very large portion of players (possibly the majority) care less about specifically what their character looks like, and more that it just looks good and they are able to change it on occasion. If these players are able to be fairly sure that there is a system with a selection of cosmetics that
will change or be added to on a fairly regular basis (which would be needed to keep players doing dailies after getting cosmetics they like), these players will have no need to purchase cosmetics from the store.
As we can see from Apoc, the cosmetics available from Dailies would be different than what's available for purchase. In NMS, some of the stuff available in the cosmetics store are wall decals for housing.
From what we see in Apoc, we can expect to see weapon skins as part of the Ashes Daily reward structure.
These kinds of rewards are already part of the design.
But, other types of cosmetics/skins could be applied to pets or mounts or freehold props. Just as we have Arcanic and Eldritch weapon variations as Apoc Daily rewards, we could have similar effects available for freehold plant life and housing. Lots of people will care what their characters' homes and freeholds look like - especially the homes and freeholds ones that are open world rather than instanced.
Basically, if Intrepid add in any system in which the major reward is something they could otherwise sell on the store, they are cannibalizing their own revenue. Because of that, any discussion of cosmetics as a reward basis for daily quests in Ashes of Creation is asinine.
This is false on several levels. In Apoc, there is also a Legendary Path purchasable for those who want premium rewards, so the devs could also include that for Dailies if they wanted extra revenue associated with the Daily reward structure.
You just love to assert stuff based on your assumptions with no evidence whatsover.
Without a suggestion that is not cosmetic (which I have not seen), the only possible remaining rewards are faction (which I am sure we have been told will not happen) or material - which could be experience, coin, crafting ingredients, consumables or items - or a combination thereof.
Aain, this is your poor reading comprehension: I have mentioned embers and emotes ad nauseum, in addition to cosmetics, so you have seen other suggestions. But, again, we can look to the rewards offered in Apoc for examples of what the Ashes Daily rewards are likely to be.
I'm going to gloss over how unimportant it has been for an MMO to want people to log in every day ever since 2004/06 when Blizzard were worried that if people weren't logging in to WoW every day, they might just log in to their competitors MMO. This was the last time developers actually made an effort to entice people to log in every day - with the exception of Korean MMO's that are designed around people playing at Internet Cafe's rather than at home and so have a vastly different content design philosophy.
You should gloss over that because that, again, is just your unsubstantiated assumption. If you don't want to count ArcheAge, Wildstar had Dailies and that is a 2014 game.
You are the only one suggesting that the dev motivation for adding Dailies is due to "worry". Dailies are implemented in MMORPGs for players who want to play during the week but who only have casual time to play on weekdays.
"Need" and "worry" are your fabricated concepts that you introduce so you can dismiss a feature you don't like.
According to said statement, MMO developers want players playing every day. So to that end, they create content that makes those players want to log in every day. This is the definition of players being compelled to log in - they are forcing a particular decision from players without actually forcing that decision. If players did not feel compelled to log in to do daily quests, then those daily quests would be failing at their objective, assuming the objective is as stated in the quote above.
Again, you introduce the concept of make.
I have not said that MMORPG devs, in general, create content to "make" casual time players log in every day. My Wiz10, NMS and Apoc examples have nothing to do with "making" players log in. The bad Daily designs are the ones designed to "make" players log in by penalizing them if they skip a day.
The good Daily designs are ones that entice players to log in and complete a relatively quick and easy task by offering rewards similar to the those available in Apoc.
Using the term "make" and then saying it's by definition "to compel" is circular logic.
And it's another strawman argument because I have not said that Wiz101, NMS and Apoc are designed to make or compel players to login every day. I have said that they are designed to entice players to log in every day. The Wiz101, NMS and Apoc Dailies are not designed to compel people to do anything. They are designed to entice casual time players to play.
I mean, if the idea of daily quests is to get people to log in every day, if people aren't logging in every day, then those daily quests have clearly failed. If people are logging in every day because of those daily quests, then they are doing so because they are compelled to do so by those daily quests. There is no middle ground here, because people either do or do not log in to do daily quests. It is very much a binary situation.
That's like saying if I don't get 100% on a test, I have failed the test.
The devs would have to evaluate whether the feature is more success than failure or more failure than success.
There is a middle ground because logging in most days rather than just a couple of days is actually still a success. Logging in more often than without any Dailies may also be counted as a success.
We would have to analyze actual data to determine failure or success. You can't just assert failure or success without evidence.
First, we should take in to account that if they are logging in to the game just to do the daily quest, they are spending 5 - 10 minutes just logging in to the game - assuming their computer is turned off. So suddenly, this 10 - 20 minute piece of content that they are logging in for is potentially taking them 20 - 30 minutes.
This is another false assumption of yours.
In Win101, NMS and Apoc I can log in, check to see what the Daily is and log out in less than 2 minutes. (Who turns computers off??!!??)
I covered this pages ago.
Now, if the rewards for this piece of content are worth it for this player to log in to the game to do, and if we assuming that the player is spending at least half as much time as the content itself takes just to log in to the game, then it is only logical to assume that this piece of content has a very high material reward value to players that are already logged in.
False assumption even from jump.
You just pile up false assumptions and then try to pawn off a flawed conclusion as reasonable.
All of a sudden, you can see why any content that is worth it for a player to log in to do - by it's very nature - becomes compulsory content in a competitive game as it offers the highest level of reward for the time invested.
So many things wrong with what you've written above...!!
What's worth it is going to be subjective for each individual and will also be dependent upon that player's mood on any given day.
What you've described is one way of designing Dailies - it's not the only way of designing Dailies.
I have been concerned about not hitting Level 50 in Apoc. Especially due to the grinds I've had to slog through - Outlive 400 Opponents is cool when matches are 20-100 players, but it's mind-numbing when matches are commonly 4-8 players. 4K points every day for completing the Dailies would be awesome - but, not awesome enough for me to try the "Kill 1 player with a Bow" or "Kill 1 player with a Wand" Dailies because it could take me more than a day to pull those off. I'm not enticed to even try those. Lots of players don't have a problem with bows and wands.
If there is a day that with both Bows and Wands as the two Dailies, I will just ignore them with little concern because it's highly likely that the next time I log in I will want to do one of the Dailies and fairly likely that I will want to do both, like "Open 3 Chests" and/or "Heal 50 Health". I can complete both of those in one 15 minute match (which actually is another form of "catching up" if I cared at all about "catching up").
The enticing part of these quests is not the high value of the reward, rather it is the ease and speed of completing the quest, where the "achievement" of quest completion is almost as satisfying as the "material" reward.
In one of my first posts in this thread, I state that Dailies should be superfluous - that is a contrast to being compulsory. There is nothing obligatory or forced about opening 3 chests in Apoc. Healing 50 Health is just a matter of grabbing a couple of health potions - of which there are a plethora easily found in Apoc - running into the Storm for a few seconds and drinking a health pot.
Within the schedule of tasks, there should be a range of tasks that players are likely to be interested in doing anyway - these tasks should be quick and easy for them to complete (within 20 minutes) and they should get some reward.
Quests come with rewards. Quest rewards are typically higher than what you would get for doing the content without a quest associated with the content. But, the Daily Reward could be the equivalent of the reward for a more time-consuming quest.
I expect Ashes MMORPG Daily rewards will be similar to Apoc rewards: cosmetics, emotes and embers.
There is no space where a daily quest can be something people log on to do, but where people don't feel like they have to do it. The gap in there simply doesn't exist. You may claim it exists in Wizard 101, but it doesn't, you have your own motivations for logging in to that game - and to be perfectly honest, I don't want to get in to the motivations of a Boomer that logs in to play a child's game.
You can assert that all you want. It's not convincing because it's not true.
You can also assert that Wiz101 is a child's game, but that also isn't true - Wizard101 is a family game.
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MeowsedMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
I've never played a game that allows "catching up" via Dailies after a long absence or starting the game years after launch.
I don't understand how that could even work. Do you have an example of games with such a Daily system?
I keep rewriting this, because I keep realizing that my examples and perspective are not very relevant to AoC. I've mostly played themeparks, where "catch-up" is just done via content patches. i.e. When new top-tier content is released, they make previous content much easier to gear up for and beat. And they also try to remove gear and grinding from competitive aspects of the game entirely (most PvP uses normalized gear).
I don't have any experience with sandbox games like EVE, Albion, or Archeage, so I don't know how important or wonky their dailies are.
But thinking about this does bring to mind a second option. Dailies don't have to have to be relevant to personal progression or "catch-up" if they only give trade-able currency and materials. If most of the conflict in AoC is centered around GvG or Node vs. Node stuff, then dailies could exist to help those groups rather than yourself. You're personal progression would probably follow more of a themepark route, (followed by a bazillion side quests that only reward you with side-grades). And if there is competitive gear grinding, "catching-up" could be the responsibility of the whole guild (gathering, trading, crafting, and then distributing gear), so no one would have to grind dailies every day to keep up.
I think my suggestion of getting bonus catch-up is only really relevant to those side-grinds for like faction rep and secondary classes. Thankfully those should only provide side-grades and not give advantages over other players. (Or at least, those unlocks should only be marginally better because they synergize better with certain builds.)
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited December 2019
Right. The Daily designs I like are casual.
They are designed with a casual challenge/task primarily for players who only have casual time to complete a quest. The reward is also a casual reward... casual enough that people are not stressing about skipping days or who else got what precisely because it doesn't provide a material advantage.
This type of Daily is enticing for casual players because it's convenient rather than compulsory.
This is false on several levels. In Apoc, there is also a Legendary Path purchasable for those who want premium rewards, so the devs could also include that for Dailies if they wanted extra revenue associated with the Daily reward structure.
If Ashes launches with a scheme where players pay a subscription, and then pay more to get the most out of daily quests (even if only cosmetic), then the game will fail quickly.
Most people will look at that scheme, look at the unproven developer, and just say "hell no". You don't have to go far on these forums to find people that have lost trust in Intrepid - whether for good reasons or not. Adding in what essentially amounts to a second subscription for the game is a really good way to expand on that.
I mean, if they are happy to tack on an additional fee now to get the most out of daily quests, what is stopping them expanding that in the future? Legendary Pathways for crafting, for group dungeons, for raids, you name it, they could do it.
This works in Apoc specifically and only because there is no fee to enter the game.
You can't just assert failure or success without evidence.
Actually, you can.
It's called logic.
There are three possibilities that pertain to us right now.
1, a player doesn't log in for the day.
2, a player logs in because of the daily quest
3, a player logs in because of reasons other than the daily quest.
Now, logically, if the purpose of a daily quest is to achieve number 2, then we can assume every time number 1 happens, the system has failed - at least in this one specific instance (a system that fails sometimes can still be a successful system).
Obviously, any time number three happens, we can essentially ignore it in terms of this discussion.
Now, when number 2 happens, a player logs in to the game specifically for the daily quest, that is the daily quest compelling that player to log in.
Just in case you need it, the proof that the player was compelled to log in is in the simple fact that they logged on when they otherwise wouldn't. If the daily quest didn't exist, that player wouldn't have logged on, thus by definition the daily quest compelled that player to log in on that day. Even if you were only "enticed" to log in, that still falls under the same category, because you wouldn't have logged in if you weren't "enticed" to do so.
Now, lets assume we don't want players to feel compelled (or enticed) to log in if they otherwise wouldn't, and that should this happen, it is considered a fail.
So with that in mind, in the above three scenarios, daily quests fail in the first, succeed and fail in the second, and are not applicable in the third.
Now we have a system that can not be considered successful, as every time it succeeds it also fails.
Daily quests being used in the way you suggest is a circular logical fallacy, which is why we can call it a failure without needing actual evidence.
There is exactly one caveat to all of the above, and that is if the developer is ok with compelling players to log in. If you are ok with this, then the notion of daily quests to see more daily log ins "just works" - but on the flip side it shows that you are a lazy, shady and unimaginative developer (looking at you, Blizzard).
with the exception of Korean MMO's that are designed around people playing at Internet Cafe's rather than at home and so have a vastly different content design philosophy.
You should gloss over that because that, again, is just your unsubstantiated assumption. If you don't want to count ArcheAge, Wildstar had Dailies and that is a 2014 game.
Again, I expect better from you.
I talk about content that has only been in Korean games in the last 10 years, and you try to counter that by giving me two examples of 5 year old games with that content - yet both of the games you name are Korean owned.
I know you make a lot of your arguments up on the spot, but a little bit of research wouldn't hurt.
Your reading comprehension problem:
Allowing people to "catch up" tomorrow doesn't nullify the "advantage", it nullifies the primary purpose of a Daily - which is to entice players to log in every day.
There is a middle ground because logging in most days rather than just a couple of days is actually still a success.
So, obviously these two statements are contradictory. This kind of thing happens when you make things up as you go, but thats ok.
I'm going to assume the most recent of these two statements is the one you are holding on to right now. If that is the case, your objection to the idea of having daily quests where you can log in the following day to do the one you missed the day before completely falls apart.
On the other hand, if you can't bring yourself to admit you were wrong with the thing you made up, you could always just say that no - you want to stick to the first of the above two statements you made, and that the idea of daily quests is to see people logging in to the game every day.
Thing is, since you used the second statement to argue against a logical result of the first, you'd probably have to think really hard about how to make something up where you can try and keep both statements as things you claim to believe.
See, this is the problem. Your argument is now so full of holes, it can't be debated. You've argued both sides of a point without even realizing it, and claim both to be right and both to be wrong.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited December 2019
It's just your poor logic as well as your poor reading comprehension.
Again, it's like saying I have failed if my goal is to get 100% on a test but I only get 90%.
You have once again reached my threshold for your absurdities, so I'm going to keep this relatively short and be done.
You're trapped behind a "top end raid" lens which has you only seeing games from a hardcore worldview of "need", "make", "compel", "compulsory", "advantage".
Since you can only conceive of a worthwhile motivator as "the highest level of reward for time invested", you obsess over "catching up" and "competition" with how often other players might do Dailies.
Which leaves you incapable of comprehending casual considerations like "want", "entice" and "convenient", where casual rewards offer some small material gain, but no material advantage - thus, there is no sense of obligatory participation and no sense of missing out on the Daily rewards due to skipping a day. Casual Daily rewards are meager bonuses - not must-haves.
Dailies can motivate with a treat instead of a stick. Most adults can deal with skipping a treat for a day or even several days without feeling compelled to "catch up" or worry about who else got a treat when.
The MMORPG will already have a cosmetics cash-shop, so it's likely one of the Daily Rewards will be cosmetics coins similar to NMS.
Steven has an issue with P2W. He doesn't appear to have an issue with gouging players for cosmetics. If he felt like IS could use another steady stream of revenue, I would not be surprised to see him implement a Legendary Path to already existent Dailies similar to APOC.
It's just your poor logic as well as your poor reading comprehension.
Again, it's like saying I have failed if my goal is to get 100% on a test but I only get 90%.
You have once again reached my threshold for your absurdities, so I'm going to keep this relatively short and be done.
You seem to be forgetting that it was my suggestion where a system be put in place so that players could log in after a day of being away and be able to do the daily they missed yesterday.
My argument is that even though this wouldn't see players logging in 100% of the time, it would be enough.
Your argument against it is incomprehensible at this point.
You're trapped behind a "top end raid" lens which has you only seeing games from a hardcore worldview of "need", "make", "compel", "compulsory", "advantage".
Since you can only conceive of a worthwhile motivator as "the highest level of reward for time invested", you obsess over "catching up" and "competition" with how often other players might do Dailies.
Which leaves you incapable of comprehending casual considerations like "want", "entice" and "convenient", where casual rewards offer some small material gain, but no material advantage - thus, there is no sense of obligatory participation and no sense of missing out on the Daily rewards due to skipping a day. Casual Daily rewards are meager bonuses - not must-haves.
Actually, I'm looking at it from an almost purely casual PvP perspective.
Good luck getting anything done in Ashes if you willfully neglect the avenue of content that has the best time to material advantage ratio in the game. If you fall behind, before long there will be people scouting out the areas where these daily tasks are worked on, picking at anyone that has fallen behind.
Basically, with content like this, in a game like this, you either keep up or don't participate. Want proof? Look to any other game with open PvP.
If you're behind the curve - good luck getting your 10 minute daily quest done in less than an hour.
Dailies can motivate with a treat instead of a stick. Most adults can deal with skipping a treat for a day or even several days without feeling compelled to "catch up" or worry about who else got a treat when.
Whether motivating with a reward instead of a punishment, the idea is still to get people to do something they wouldn't have otherwise done. The end result is still the same - a player fearing missing out on their treat for the day is no different than a player fearing they will get the punishment for the day. And in a game with competitive open world PvP, both of those fears are real.
The MMORPG will already have a cosmetics cash-shop, so it's likely one of the Daily Rewards will be cosmetics coins similar to NMS.
Steven has an issue with P2W. He doesn't appear to have an issue with gouging players for cosmetics. If he felt like IS could use another steady stream of revenue, I would not be surprised to see him implement a Legendary Path to already existent Dailies similar to APOC.
Whether motivating with a reward instead of a punishment, the idea is still to get people to do something they wouldn't have otherwise done.[/quote]I would be surprised.
Doing this would cut in half the number of non-backer players willing to play the game at launch. Even many people that have backed the game wouldn't bother playing it if this were added. Almost everyone on the forums is looking for ways to distrust Intrepid - handing ways to them is not a god idea.
It isn't so much the notion of paying more to get cosmetics, it is the notion of paying more to get more out of existing content on top of paying a subscription to have access to that content. It is exactly the kind of slippery slope that MMO players are weary of.
On the other hand, doing it would get Intrepid a lot of press/YouTube coverage - the same type of coverage that Fallout 76 gets.
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MeowsedMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
@Dygz@noaani I'm genuinely curious. I see y'all arguing a lot, but what's it like for y'all? Are you like two good mates who like to banter and debate about their shared interests? Or are y'all really frustrated trying to educate a thick-headed stranger on the internet?
Mega troll fr
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited December 2019
It's the latter, because... our playstyles are practically diametrically opposed.
(also, I have been a game dev... I'm pretty sure noanni does not have game dev or game design experience)
From my perspective, it's kind of like how when you have a cat, but you also have a laser pointer.
It's just fun to see how far I can make him jump up a wall, trying to catch the laser. Or setting up a box (of his own making) and pointing the laser inside it to see if he'll knock the whole thing down on himself (which he often does).
It's all so predictable, other than the few times the cat headbutts the wall - or Dygz makes stupid (even for him) claims. Just a few posts back when I was talking about only Korean games having a specific content design and he tried to counter that by citing two Korean games - that was like a cat chasing a laser and crashing through a window.
It's also kind of fun to see how dearly he holds on to his time working for a game developer (he started off claiming he worked at a game studio, now he is claiming he worked as a game developer, I'm sure next he will claim lead designer - my money is on janitor).
I find it amusing to no end when he states game design principles from 15 years ago as still current and relevant.
I mean, none of the discussions on these forums will have any impact to the game (as it should be). We are all really just here for entertainment value - and Dygz provides entertainment even if he doesn't mean to.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited December 2019
I've mentioned NWO Dailies ad nausem - that was 2013. Wizard101 added Dailies in 2016...so you are still absurdly wrong, regardless.
But, yeah, I'd be hard pressed to think of a Western MMORPG that released after 2013.
And, yeah, you just talk a bunch of nonsense and watch me attempt to make sense of it for you.
Should a daily restricted quest taking 20minutes offer better rewards than killing non-quest monsters for 20mins? Assuming both are equally challenging.
Should there be crafting dailies that give bonus experience?
Yes? Then the quest is then the quest along with its content is forced on u.
No? Then the quest is irrelevant.
"You're seeking for perfection, but your disillusions are leading to destruction.
You're bleeding for salvation, but you can't see that you are the damnation itself." -Norther
I've mentioned NWO Dailies ad nausem - that was 2013. Wizard101 added Dailies in 2016...so you are still absurdly wrong, regardless.
But, yeah, I'd be hard pressed to think of a Western MMORPG that released after 2013.
And, yeah, you just talk a bunch of nonsense and watch me attempt to make sense of it for you.
Except the comment wasn't about dailies, it was about developers adding dailies to games to get players to log in every day.
WoW added them for this reason, Korean MMO's have them for this reason, but according to you, Wizard 101 doesn't have them for this reason because you've gone to great lengths to tell us all how they don't actually make you log in every day.
So either Wizard 101 isn't an example of what I was talking about, or Wizard 101 dailies do in fact make people log in every day.
Which is it?
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Should a daily restricted quest taking 20minutes offer better rewards than killing non-quest monsters for 20mins? Assuming both are equally challenging.
Should there be crafting dailies that give bonus experience?
Yes? Then the quest is then the quest along with its content is forced on u.
No? Then the quest is irrelevant.
Quests always reward more than grinding mobs without a quest. That's the purpose of a quest.
Dailies should include tasks that players are likely to do in any case - so, sure, a Crafting Daily would be similar to the "Open 3 Chests" Daily in APOC.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
So either Wizard 101 isn't an example of what I was talking about, or Wizard 101 dailies do in fact make people log in every day.
Which is it?
Wizard101 Dailies don't "make" players log in every day. They entice players to log in every day.
So what you're now saying is that Wizard 101 isn't an example of a game where the developer added daily quests just to get people to log in every day, which is the claim you made 5 posts above this one.
Quests always reward more than grinding mobs without a quest. That's the purpose of a quest.
Dailies should include tasks that players are likely to do in any case - so, sure, a Crafting Daily would be similar to the "Open 3 Chests" Daily in APOC.
Wouldnt this mean that instead of doing something for my own enjoyment and reasons I am locked to whatever the daily quest giver has to offer in order to progress rapidly?
If there are multiple dailies of activities I would want to do and progress in, I would be enticed to run after daily quests for optimal progression?
Then what do daily quests reward?
Currency? Inflation
Embers? Less money for IS
XP? Ripping freedom of progression path
"You're seeking for perfection, but your disillusions are leading to destruction.
You're bleeding for salvation, but you can't see that you are the damnation itself." -Norther
“If content is designed to be rewarding we don’t need dailies”
Dygz: No we need dailies because I need something to do in 10-20minutes
“There will be plenty of options for activities when you log in, the game doesn’t have to handhold players if it offers a lot of varied content without requiring quests for them”
Dygz: No those don’t give me enough reward. I want the bonuses from dailies quests.
“If dailies give disproportionately big rewards for the minimal time investment then they become obligatory progression or resource generation tools”
Dygz: No they don’t “force” you to do them, they only “entice” you to do them.
“Those words mean the same thing: there is a compelling force to do dailies, in this case, overly dense rewards per minute spent.”
Dygz: Who cares I just want a lot of rewards for a little bit of time!
“If content is designed to be rewarding we don’t need dailies”
Dygz: No we need dailies because I need something to do in 10-20minutes
“There will be plenty of options for activities when you log in, the game doesn’t have to handhold players if it offers a lot of varied content without requiring quests for them”
Dygz: No those don’t give me enough reward. I want the bonuses from dailies quests.
“If dailies give disproportionately big rewards for the minimal time investment then they become obligatory progression or resource generation tools”
Dygz: No they don’t “force” you to do them, they only “entice” you to do them.
“Those words mean the same thing: there is a compelling force to do dailies, in this case, overly dense rewards per minute spent.”
Dygz: Who cares I just want a lot of rewards for a little bit of time!
Tada, now can we please let this thread die?
A good summary, though you forgot to note the entertainment value.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited December 2019
It's not a matter of whether I want Dailies. I don't really care if Ashes has Dailies or not since I typically have plenty of hardcore time to play.
The OP asks us to share how impactful we would want Dailies to be.
I have shared Daily designs I don't like and Daily designs I like.
MMORPG devs typically add Dailies to try to get players to log in every day.
They can either compel players to log in every day (which I don't like) - or they can entice players to log in every day (which I do like).
If devs want me to log in every day to complete a quest, they are going to have to make it convenient for me to complete a quest even on days when i only have 10-20 minutes to play.
“There will be plenty of options for activities when you log in, the game doesn’t have to handhold players if it offers a lot of varied content without requiring quests for them”
That is an unsubstantiated claim.
From what Steven says, Ashes will have the equivalent of Dailies - quests which entice rather than compel.
In response to the question about Dailies, Steven said "those quests". So, I dunno why you would be having a problem with "those quests". Steven also says that the reward structure for "those quests" will not make players feel like the quests are obligatory or like they will be missing out if/when players choose not to do them.
“If dailies give disproportionately big rewards for the minimal time investment then they become obligatory progression or resource generation tools”
I have repeatedly stated that casual rewards should be associated with casual tasks which take casual time.
You are the one obsessing over disproportionately big rewards for minimal time investment - that is an example of bad Daily design.
The Daily designs I advocate have casual rewards for casual tasks that take casual time.
If you have such poor reading comprehension that you believe compel and entice have the same meaning, I can't fix your stupidity.
I have never said anything about wanting a lot of rewards for a little time. That is your delusion.
As long as that is clear, yeah, maybe we can be done.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Quests always reward more than grinding mobs without a quest. That's the purpose of a quest.
Dailies should include tasks that players are likely to do in any case - so, sure, a Crafting Daily would be similar to the "Open 3 Chests" Daily in APOC.
Wouldnt this mean that instead of doing something for my own enjoyment and reasons I am locked to whatever the daily quest giver has to offer in order to progress rapidly?
If there are multiple dailies of activities I would want to do and progress in, I would be enticed to run after daily quests for optimal progression?
No. The Daily designs I have advocated do not help players progress rapidly. They just ensure that players with casual time have one quest per day that can be completed within 10-20 minutes.
The tasks for the Dailies should be simple tasks that players are likely to enjoy anyway - which is a major reason why these Dailies feel enticing and convenient rather than compulsory.
In the examples I have provided, the max number of Dailies that can completed is two - typically the max is one. Precisely to prevent players who have more than casual time from stacking up Dailies.
APOC gives us the example that the Ashes devs will likely use for MMORPG Dailies:
Embers, cosmetics, emotes, etc...
Steven has said that they have plans for the reward structure for these types of quests - and that they won't make players feel obligated to do them or like they are missing out if they skip them.
I'm not overly concerned - especially since APOC gives us a great example of the IS philosphy regarding designs for Dailies. And I happen to like that design.
(As opposed to other Daily designs, like NWO's, which I abhor.)
“If content is designed to be rewarding we don’t need dailies”
Dygz: No we need dailies because I need something to do in 10-20minutes
“There will be plenty of options for activities when you log in, the game doesn’t have to handhold players if it offers a lot of varied content without requiring quests for them”
Dygz: No those don’t give me enough reward. I want the bonuses from dailies quests.
“If dailies give disproportionately big rewards for the minimal time investment then they become obligatory progression or resource generation tools”
Dygz: No they don’t “force” you to do them, they only “entice” you to do them.
“Those words mean the same thing: there is a compelling force to do dailies, in this case, overly dense rewards per minute spent.”
Dygz: Who cares I just want a lot of rewards for a little bit of time!
Tada, now can we please let this thread die?
A good summary, though you forgot to note the entertainment value.
I can only watch a dog fighting it’s own tail for so long before it gets weird
“If content is designed to be rewarding we don’t need dailies”
Dygz: No we need dailies because I need something to do in 10-20minutes
“There will be plenty of options for activities when you log in, the game doesn’t have to handhold players if it offers a lot of varied content without requiring quests for them”
Dygz: No those don’t give me enough reward. I want the bonuses from dailies quests.
“If dailies give disproportionately big rewards for the minimal time investment then they become obligatory progression or resource generation tools”
Dygz: No they don’t “force” you to do them, they only “entice” you to do them.
“Those words mean the same thing: there is a compelling force to do dailies, in this case, overly dense rewards per minute spent.”
Dygz: Who cares I just want a lot of rewards for a little bit of time!
Tada, now can we please let this thread die?
A good summary, though you forgot to note the entertainment value.
I can only watch a dog fighting it’s own tail for so long before it gets weird
MMORPG devs typically add Dailies to try to get players to log in every day.
You realize that this is the definition of "to compel", right?
Like, when you do a thing in order to try to cause a specific action from another person or group of people, that is you compelling them.
You can claim it is "enticing" all you want, but enticing is just one form of compelling.
Further, I'm not sure how many players in a game that will have essentially open PvP would be "enticed" by anything that takes time, but doesn't give them a material advantage.
Lastly, I want to remind you of something you said earlier in this thread.
I'm going to wait until the next day that I have 45+ minutes to play. Unless there is something compelling that is enticing me to play for only 20 minutes.
You specifically said you are fine with being compelled, but all of a sudden, you now are not and you argue at the mere mention of the word "compel", despite it being you that used that word in this thread first.
I've said it before, your arguments don't actually hold up to any form of scrutiny. Maybe the argument as it resides in your mind does, but the argument you type out absolutely does not. And unfortunately for the rest of us - and as I have said in this thread - the rest of us can only speak to what you type, not to what you think.
And what you type is a messy pile of drivel that is usually self-contradicting.
Comments
1 - Limiting progression) The idea here is that all content should have rewards, but content that people theoretically could grind for hours (anything aside from one-time story quests) should have limited rewards, so that people don't need to grind for hours.
This is where the whole "falling behind/getting ahead" thing is important. Players with 8 hours a day to grind would get incredibly far ahead (in gear score/army size/wallet power, or whatever end-game progression you want to imagine) if they got static rewards every time they did a piece of content. (Btw, I'm gonna keep using the word "content" to be vague, because these arguments can apply to literally anything, like dungeons, mob grinding, PvP, fishing, crafting, whatever.) To stop this endless race, that only streamers and no-lifers could win, many games shift the bulk of their rewards to Dailies.
This is acceptable, in my opinion. Any kind of progression in the competitive aspects of the game can, and should, be tied to Daily or Weekly limits. You can call them quests if you want (and yes, all the accouterments of quests, like quest-giving NPCs and lots of flavor text, do serve a separate purpose of making the world more enjoyable), but their primary purpose should be to limit how much you can progress per day.
And to be specific, I think this is all a good thing because it lets midcore players compete/cooperate with hardcore ones, so that the playerbase isn't spread too thin across different levels of progression/content. Also, I guess it helps people from playing too much and burning out or getting addicted (as if Rest Points or dailies have ever been successful in that regard).
1b - Catching-up) Letting people "catch-up" after a long absence or starting the game years after launch, is of course very important to the design of Dailies. Long-term stuff, like getting new players caught up after an expansion requires bigger changes and is completely beyond the scope of this thread. But for short-term catch-up, Dailies lie at the crux of the issue. Should Daily/Weekly limits stack up and never expire? Is it okay if people fall behind when they miss whole weeks/months?
Personally, I'd propose that a catch-up bonus should be added to Daily rewards (like 25-50%) after missing a few weeks, until the player is more-or-less caught up. So if you miss a week or two, you will be behind for a while, but you can catch-up within a month. Plus, the more casual players, who don't care about being "behind" most of the time, can intentionally miss a couple weeks to get the bonus, and therefore spend less time on Dailies overall (like waiting until you can buy a game on-sale). Exact numbers are up for debate.
_______________________________________________________
2 - Incentivizing unpopular content) Not all content is created equally. Some of it's good, some of it's meh, some of it was nice 2 years ago until everyone got bored of it, some of it just has niche appeal. But the vast majority of content will have at least a few die-hard fans. And it really sucks when it becomes impossible to play your favorite content because there aren't enough other people to play with.
Daily quests offer an admittedly imperfect solution. Everyone likes rewards, and some people like rewards enough to go do old/niche content that they don't enjoy just to get those rewards. So who cares if 8 out of 10 people in the content-group are just doing it for the rewards? It's better than just deleting the content (or leaving it pseudo-deleted because it's impossible to find a group for), right?
Honestly, I don't know on this one. It seems like an admirable goal. Diversifying content by subsidizing old/niche stuff with players driven by Dailies... I think it's fine as long as the rewards aren't important for progression outside of the subsidized content.
_______________________________________________________
Bonus - Problems with Dailies) So as I've establish with far too many words above, I think there are good reasons to implement some form of Daily quests/rewards. But they get such a bad rap, I think because there are a lot of possible design failures. I don't think I need to be too detailed here; either you've encountered one of these, suffered from it, and therefore agree, or you just won't agree no matter how I embellish it. (Edit: Whoops I embellished it a bit anyways). So I'll just do a list:
- Too many Dailies. (Enough to take up 60%+ of your time playing the game)
- Repetitive Dailies. (Not bad if it's your favorite content, I guess.)
- Unforgiving deadlines. (You must play every 24h period or you'll miss stuff.)
- Just plain boring Dailies. (Don't make me just fucking run in a line clicking on shrubs and waiting for bars to fill.)
- In-your-face Dailies. (It's nice to complete checklists. It's not nice when that checklist isn't made by you, and it contains every variety of content in the game, and it's displayed every time you log in. And it's just sooo long, but you wanna check all these boxes don't you? Comon how long could it take? Don't you want to try fishing? No? What about tomorrow? Or the next day? There'll be an unchecked box for fishing every day if you don't.
) (Okay, I'm exaggerating A LOT, but I think you get the idea. I can find what Dailies I want to do on my own, thankyouverymuch.)
- Dailies that give generic rewards that everyone wants, so you have to do ALL the dailies. (Edit: Noanni's token suggestion helps with this. e.g. you could cash in a couple Daily tokens for gold/generic power stones on whatever Daily task you want, but there's not enough for every single Daily. After that, Dailies would only give content-specific doodads.)
____________________________________________________Shitty outro - Because I ran out of attention span) Aight, I'mma head out.
I don't understand how that could even work. Do you have an example of games with such a Daily system?
Great list of Daily designs nobody wants.
Still waiting for an answer to this. I mean, the rest of the post is there if you want to discuss things, but the above is a key point you've completely failed to address.
Allowing people to "catch up" tomorrow doesn't nullify the "advantage", it nullifies the primary purpose of a Daily - which is to entice players to log in every day.
Why would a game developer want players to feel the need to log on to their game whenthey otherwise wouldn't want to log on for the day?
Whether I log in to a game today or not, I am still paying my subscription fee. If I feel like I need to log in every day, even if I have other things to do, then I am far more likely to stop playing the game sooner - and thus stop paying my subscription fee.
And wasn't one of your big arguments for dailies something along the lines of "you don't need to do them if you don't want", which, in order to be true, would have to mean the developers failed miserably at their job of adding dailies in order to have people log in every day.
I mean, if you're logged in to a game and don't consider the daily worth doing, how is that same daily supposed to get people to log in?
Has nothing to do with people feeling like they need to and everything to do with giving players an incentive to log in and feel a since of completion if they choose to log in.
The devs don't fail miserably if Dailies get people to log in significantly more days per week than they would without Dailies. Again, it's not about needing to. It's about wanting to.
I don't really understand this question.
If I have 10-20 minutes to play, I log in to see what the Daily is and evaluate whether it's something I want to do. If there were no Dailies, I wouldn't log in at all until I had a day where I have 45+ minutes to play in order to complete quests.
Different people will enjoy different types of Dailies.
In Wiz101 - at Level 50 - I generally skip the one Daily that sends me to the Level 45 area because it takes me too far off course from where I'm hunting. I think that's, like, one out of 10 offered in the cycle or one out 15. But, other players may not have that same hang-up.
For NMS, one day I may not be in the mood to kill a mob, so I'll skip that Daily, knowing that the next time I log in, it will probably be one that I like better - like taking a screenshot of some POI. Different people will have different moods...on any given day. Maybe some people don't like taking screenshots.
For APOC, if the Daily is "Kill 1 player with a Wand", I'm going to skip it and log out - knowing that the next time I log in, the Daily will likely be one I like, like "Open 3 Chests" or "Restore 50 health" or "Kill 1 player with a Bronze Axe". Other people might love using the Wand. Different strokes for different folks.
But, it's not about what I need to do - it's not an obligation - it's about what I might want to do on any given day.
What can I complete in 10-20 minutes? Is this worth my time and effort when I only have 10-20 minutes? Is this something I would have fun doing?
You keep focusing on missing a Daily due to a dinner date, but... that's really irrelevant because missing days are inconsequential to the player. Indeed, a player might login and choose to skip the Daily. Just because there is some small incentive to do the Daily doesn't mean a player will actually choose to a Daily every day. Players are likely to choose to do the Daily most days of the week, if the Daily is relatively quick and doesn't take a lot of effort. And the rewards need to be reflective of that - small material gains (rather than material advantages), like cosmetics, emotes, housing decorations and/or embers...similar to what we have in APOC.
In Wiz101, when I go to the Daily Quest Giver to check what the Daily is, I may see a new pet or a new mount I want to purchase. If I actually do the Daily, it's likely I will end up in a group with other players as we defeat the mob of the day - might be a regular quest for that person (Kill xx mob) even though it's a Daily for me (Kill 1 mob). Devs are going to want as much of that interaction on weekdays as they can get rather than having the vast majority of players waiting until they have 45+ minutes to play Saturday or Sunday.
For APOC, if they can entice me to complete a Daily, even though I only have 15 minutes to play, that still helps lower queue times.
A brief detour first though.
It would be a bad business decision from Intrepid to add any single mechanic or system to the game where the major reward is cosmetics. A very large portion of players (possibly the majority) care less about specifically what their character looks like, and more that it just looks good and they are able to change it on occasion. If these players are able to be fairly sure that there is a system with a selection of cosmetics that
will change or be added to on a fairly regular basis (which would be needed to keep players doing dailies after getting cosmetics they like), these players will have no need to purchase cosmetics from the store.
This applies to anything that could otherwise be sold on the store - cosmetic items, skins, alternate skill for characters, mounts, boats, house items or caravans, effects, anything. Having some cosmetics available in game is fine, and won't have the same long term effect. It's just when you get in to a scheme where you have to refresh the items available regularly.
Basically, if Intrepid add in any system in which the major reward is something they could otherwise sell on the store, they are cannibalizing their own revenue. Because of that, and discussion of cosmetics as a reward basis for daily quests in Ashes of Creation is asinine.
Without a suggestion that is not cosmetic (which I have not seen), the only possible remaining rewards are faction (which I am sure we have been told will not happen) or material - which could be experience, coin, crafting ingredients, consumables or items - or a combination thereof.
Now, back to that quote up the top.
I'm going to gloss over how unimportant it has been for an MMO to want people to log in every day ever since 2004/06 when Blizzard were worried that if people weren't logging in to WoW every day, they might just log in to their competitors MMO. This was the last time developers actually made an effort to entice people to log in every day - with the exception of Korean MMO's that are designed around people playing at Internet Cafe's rather than at home and so have a vastly different content design philosophy.
So, with that glossed over, lets look at the statement.
According to said statement, MMO developers want players playing every day. So to that end, they create content that makes those players want to log in every day. This is the definition of players being compelled to log in - they are forcing a particular decision from players without actually forcing that decision. If players did not feel compelled to log in to do daily quests, then those daily quests would be failing at their objective, assuming the objective is as stated in the quote above.
I mean, if the idea of daily quests is to get people to log in every day, if people aren't logging in every day, then those daily quests have clearly failed. If people are logging in every day because of those daily quests, then they are doing so because they are compelled to do so by those daily quests. There is no middle ground here, because people either do or do not log in to do daily quests. It is very much a binary situation.
Lets have a look at the player that is logging in just to do this daily quest now.
First, we should take in to account that if they are logging in to the game just to do the daily quest, they are spending 5 - 10 minutes just logging in to the game - assuming their computer is turned off. So suddenly, this 10 - 20 minute piece of content that they are logging in for is potentially taking them 20 - 30 minutes.
Now, if the rewards for this piece of content are worth it for this player to log in to the game to do, and if we assuming that the player is spending at least half as much time as the content itself takes just to log in to the game, then it is only logical to assume that this piece of content has a very high material reward value to players that are already logged in.
All of a sudden, you can see why any content that is worth it for a player to log in to do - by it's very nature - becomes compulsory content in a competitive game as it offers the highest level of reward for the time invested.
There is no space where a daily quest can be something people log on to do, but where people don't feel like they have to do it. The gap in there simply doesn't exist. You may claim it exists in Wizard 101, but it doesn't, you have your own motivations for logging in to that game - and to be perfectly honest, I don't want to get in to the motivations of a Boomer that logs in to play a child's game.
From what we see in Apoc, we can expect to see weapon skins as part of the Ashes Daily reward structure.
These kinds of rewards are already part of the design.
But, other types of cosmetics/skins could be applied to pets or mounts or freehold props. Just as we have Arcanic and Eldritch weapon variations as Apoc Daily rewards, we could have similar effects available for freehold plant life and housing. Lots of people will care what their characters' homes and freeholds look like - especially the homes and freeholds ones that are open world rather than instanced.
This is false on several levels. In Apoc, there is also a Legendary Path purchasable for those who want premium rewards, so the devs could also include that for Dailies if they wanted extra revenue associated with the Daily reward structure.
You just love to assert stuff based on your assumptions with no evidence whatsover.
Aain, this is your poor reading comprehension: I have mentioned embers and emotes ad nauseum, in addition to cosmetics, so you have seen other suggestions. But, again, we can look to the rewards offered in Apoc for examples of what the Ashes Daily rewards are likely to be.
You should gloss over that because that, again, is just your unsubstantiated assumption. If you don't want to count ArcheAge, Wildstar had Dailies and that is a 2014 game.
You are the only one suggesting that the dev motivation for adding Dailies is due to "worry". Dailies are implemented in MMORPGs for players who want to play during the week but who only have casual time to play on weekdays.
"Need" and "worry" are your fabricated concepts that you introduce so you can dismiss a feature you don't like.
Again, you introduce the concept of make.
I have not said that MMORPG devs, in general, create content to "make" casual time players log in every day. My Wiz10, NMS and Apoc examples have nothing to do with "making" players log in. The bad Daily designs are the ones designed to "make" players log in by penalizing them if they skip a day.
The good Daily designs are ones that entice players to log in and complete a relatively quick and easy task by offering rewards similar to the those available in Apoc.
Using the term "make" and then saying it's by definition "to compel" is circular logic.
And it's another strawman argument because I have not said that Wiz101, NMS and Apoc are designed to make or compel players to login every day. I have said that they are designed to entice players to log in every day. The Wiz101, NMS and Apoc Dailies are not designed to compel people to do anything. They are designed to entice casual time players to play.
That's like saying if I don't get 100% on a test, I have failed the test.
The devs would have to evaluate whether the feature is more success than failure or more failure than success.
There is a middle ground because logging in most days rather than just a couple of days is actually still a success. Logging in more often than without any Dailies may also be counted as a success.
We would have to analyze actual data to determine failure or success. You can't just assert failure or success without evidence.
This is another false assumption of yours.
In Win101, NMS and Apoc I can log in, check to see what the Daily is and log out in less than 2 minutes. (Who turns computers off??!!??)
I covered this pages ago.
False assumption even from jump.
You just pile up false assumptions and then try to pawn off a flawed conclusion as reasonable.
So many things wrong with what you've written above...!!
What's worth it is going to be subjective for each individual and will also be dependent upon that player's mood on any given day.
What you've described is one way of designing Dailies - it's not the only way of designing Dailies.
I have been concerned about not hitting Level 50 in Apoc. Especially due to the grinds I've had to slog through - Outlive 400 Opponents is cool when matches are 20-100 players, but it's mind-numbing when matches are commonly 4-8 players. 4K points every day for completing the Dailies would be awesome - but, not awesome enough for me to try the "Kill 1 player with a Bow" or "Kill 1 player with a Wand" Dailies because it could take me more than a day to pull those off. I'm not enticed to even try those. Lots of players don't have a problem with bows and wands.
If there is a day that with both Bows and Wands as the two Dailies, I will just ignore them with little concern because it's highly likely that the next time I log in I will want to do one of the Dailies and fairly likely that I will want to do both, like "Open 3 Chests" and/or "Heal 50 Health". I can complete both of those in one 15 minute match (which actually is another form of "catching up" if I cared at all about "catching up").
The enticing part of these quests is not the high value of the reward, rather it is the ease and speed of completing the quest, where the "achievement" of quest completion is almost as satisfying as the "material" reward.
In one of my first posts in this thread, I state that Dailies should be superfluous - that is a contrast to being compulsory. There is nothing obligatory or forced about opening 3 chests in Apoc. Healing 50 Health is just a matter of grabbing a couple of health potions - of which there are a plethora easily found in Apoc - running into the Storm for a few seconds and drinking a health pot.
Within the schedule of tasks, there should be a range of tasks that players are likely to be interested in doing anyway - these tasks should be quick and easy for them to complete (within 20 minutes) and they should get some reward.
Quests come with rewards. Quest rewards are typically higher than what you would get for doing the content without a quest associated with the content. But, the Daily Reward could be the equivalent of the reward for a more time-consuming quest.
I expect Ashes MMORPG Daily rewards will be similar to Apoc rewards: cosmetics, emotes and embers.
You can assert that all you want. It's not convincing because it's not true.
You can also assert that Wiz101 is a child's game, but that also isn't true - Wizard101 is a family game.
I keep rewriting this, because I keep realizing that my examples and perspective are not very relevant to AoC. I've mostly played themeparks, where "catch-up" is just done via content patches. i.e. When new top-tier content is released, they make previous content much easier to gear up for and beat. And they also try to remove gear and grinding from competitive aspects of the game entirely (most PvP uses normalized gear).
I don't have any experience with sandbox games like EVE, Albion, or Archeage, so I don't know how important or wonky their dailies are.
But thinking about this does bring to mind a second option. Dailies don't have to have to be relevant to personal progression or "catch-up" if they only give trade-able currency and materials. If most of the conflict in AoC is centered around GvG or Node vs. Node stuff, then dailies could exist to help those groups rather than yourself. You're personal progression would probably follow more of a themepark route, (followed by a bazillion side quests that only reward you with side-grades). And if there is competitive gear grinding, "catching-up" could be the responsibility of the whole guild (gathering, trading, crafting, and then distributing gear), so no one would have to grind dailies every day to keep up.
I think my suggestion of getting bonus catch-up is only really relevant to those side-grinds for like faction rep and secondary classes. Thankfully those should only provide side-grades and not give advantages over other players. (Or at least, those unlocks should only be marginally better because they synergize better with certain builds.)
They are designed with a casual challenge/task primarily for players who only have casual time to complete a quest. The reward is also a casual reward... casual enough that people are not stressing about skipping days or who else got what precisely because it doesn't provide a material advantage.
This type of Daily is enticing for casual players because it's convenient rather than compulsory.
Most people will look at that scheme, look at the unproven developer, and just say "hell no". You don't have to go far on these forums to find people that have lost trust in Intrepid - whether for good reasons or not. Adding in what essentially amounts to a second subscription for the game is a really good way to expand on that.
I mean, if they are happy to tack on an additional fee now to get the most out of daily quests, what is stopping them expanding that in the future? Legendary Pathways for crafting, for group dungeons, for raids, you name it, they could do it.
This works in Apoc specifically and only because there is no fee to enter the game.
Anyone with a concern for the environment.
But that's ok, boomer. Actually, you can.
It's called logic.
There are three possibilities that pertain to us right now.
1, a player doesn't log in for the day.
2, a player logs in because of the daily quest
3, a player logs in because of reasons other than the daily quest.
Now, logically, if the purpose of a daily quest is to achieve number 2, then we can assume every time number 1 happens, the system has failed - at least in this one specific instance (a system that fails sometimes can still be a successful system).
Obviously, any time number three happens, we can essentially ignore it in terms of this discussion.
Now, when number 2 happens, a player logs in to the game specifically for the daily quest, that is the daily quest compelling that player to log in.
Just in case you need it, the proof that the player was compelled to log in is in the simple fact that they logged on when they otherwise wouldn't. If the daily quest didn't exist, that player wouldn't have logged on, thus by definition the daily quest compelled that player to log in on that day. Even if you were only "enticed" to log in, that still falls under the same category, because you wouldn't have logged in if you weren't "enticed" to do so.
Now, lets assume we don't want players to feel compelled (or enticed) to log in if they otherwise wouldn't, and that should this happen, it is considered a fail.
So with that in mind, in the above three scenarios, daily quests fail in the first, succeed and fail in the second, and are not applicable in the third.
Now we have a system that can not be considered successful, as every time it succeeds it also fails.
Daily quests being used in the way you suggest is a circular logical fallacy, which is why we can call it a failure without needing actual evidence.
There is exactly one caveat to all of the above, and that is if the developer is ok with compelling players to log in. If you are ok with this, then the notion of daily quests to see more daily log ins "just works" - but on the flip side it shows that you are a lazy, shady and unimaginative developer (looking at you, Blizzard).
Again, I expect better from you.
I talk about content that has only been in Korean games in the last 10 years, and you try to counter that by giving me two examples of 5 year old games with that content - yet both of the games you name are Korean owned.
I know you make a lot of your arguments up on the spot, but a little bit of research wouldn't hurt.
Speaking of making up your argument as you go... So, obviously these two statements are contradictory. This kind of thing happens when you make things up as you go, but thats ok.
I'm going to assume the most recent of these two statements is the one you are holding on to right now. If that is the case, your objection to the idea of having daily quests where you can log in the following day to do the one you missed the day before completely falls apart.
On the other hand, if you can't bring yourself to admit you were wrong with the thing you made up, you could always just say that no - you want to stick to the first of the above two statements you made, and that the idea of daily quests is to see people logging in to the game every day.
Thing is, since you used the second statement to argue against a logical result of the first, you'd probably have to think really hard about how to make something up where you can try and keep both statements as things you claim to believe.
See, this is the problem. Your argument is now so full of holes, it can't be debated. You've argued both sides of a point without even realizing it, and claim both to be right and both to be wrong.
Again, it's like saying I have failed if my goal is to get 100% on a test but I only get 90%.
You have once again reached my threshold for your absurdities, so I'm going to keep this relatively short and be done.
You're trapped behind a "top end raid" lens which has you only seeing games from a hardcore worldview of "need", "make", "compel", "compulsory", "advantage".
Since you can only conceive of a worthwhile motivator as "the highest level of reward for time invested", you obsess over "catching up" and "competition" with how often other players might do Dailies.
Which leaves you incapable of comprehending casual considerations like "want", "entice" and "convenient", where casual rewards offer some small material gain, but no material advantage - thus, there is no sense of obligatory participation and no sense of missing out on the Daily rewards due to skipping a day. Casual Daily rewards are meager bonuses - not must-haves.
Dailies can motivate with a treat instead of a stick. Most adults can deal with skipping a treat for a day or even several days without feeling compelled to "catch up" or worry about who else got a treat when.
The MMORPG will already have a cosmetics cash-shop, so it's likely one of the Daily Rewards will be cosmetics coins similar to NMS.
Steven has an issue with P2W. He doesn't appear to have an issue with gouging players for cosmetics. If he felt like IS could use another steady stream of revenue, I would not be surprised to see him implement a Legendary Path to already existent Dailies similar to APOC.
My argument is that even though this wouldn't see players logging in 100% of the time, it would be enough.
Your argument against it is incomprehensible at this point. Actually, I'm looking at it from an almost purely casual PvP perspective.
Good luck getting anything done in Ashes if you willfully neglect the avenue of content that has the best time to material advantage ratio in the game. If you fall behind, before long there will be people scouting out the areas where these daily tasks are worked on, picking at anyone that has fallen behind.
Basically, with content like this, in a game like this, you either keep up or don't participate. Want proof? Look to any other game with open PvP.
If you're behind the curve - good luck getting your 10 minute daily quest done in less than an hour. Whether motivating with a reward instead of a punishment, the idea is still to get people to do something they wouldn't have otherwise done. The end result is still the same - a player fearing missing out on their treat for the day is no different than a player fearing they will get the punishment for the day. And in a game with competitive open world PvP, both of those fears are real. Whether motivating with a reward instead of a punishment, the idea is still to get people to do something they wouldn't have otherwise done.[/quote]I would be surprised.
Doing this would cut in half the number of non-backer players willing to play the game at launch. Even many people that have backed the game wouldn't bother playing it if this were added. Almost everyone on the forums is looking for ways to distrust Intrepid - handing ways to them is not a god idea.
It isn't so much the notion of paying more to get cosmetics, it is the notion of paying more to get more out of existing content on top of paying a subscription to have access to that content. It is exactly the kind of slippery slope that MMO players are weary of.
On the other hand, doing it would get Intrepid a lot of press/YouTube coverage - the same type of coverage that Fallout 76 gets.
(also, I have been a game dev... I'm pretty sure noanni does not have game dev or game design experience)
It's just fun to see how far I can make him jump up a wall, trying to catch the laser. Or setting up a box (of his own making) and pointing the laser inside it to see if he'll knock the whole thing down on himself (which he often does).
It's all so predictable, other than the few times the cat headbutts the wall - or Dygz makes stupid (even for him) claims. Just a few posts back when I was talking about only Korean games having a specific content design and he tried to counter that by citing two Korean games - that was like a cat chasing a laser and crashing through a window.
It's also kind of fun to see how dearly he holds on to his time working for a game developer (he started off claiming he worked at a game studio, now he is claiming he worked as a game developer, I'm sure next he will claim lead designer - my money is on janitor).
I find it amusing to no end when he states game design principles from 15 years ago as still current and relevant.
I mean, none of the discussions on these forums will have any impact to the game (as it should be). We are all really just here for entertainment value - and Dygz provides entertainment even if he doesn't mean to.
But, yeah, I'd be hard pressed to think of a Western MMORPG that released after 2013.
And, yeah, you just talk a bunch of nonsense and watch me attempt to make sense of it for you.
Should there be crafting dailies that give bonus experience?
Yes? Then the quest is then the quest along with its content is forced on u.
No? Then the quest is irrelevant.
You're bleeding for salvation, but you can't see that you are the damnation itself." -Norther
Except the comment wasn't about dailies, it was about developers adding dailies to games to get players to log in every day.
WoW added them for this reason, Korean MMO's have them for this reason, but according to you, Wizard 101 doesn't have them for this reason because you've gone to great lengths to tell us all how they don't actually make you log in every day.
So either Wizard 101 isn't an example of what I was talking about, or Wizard 101 dailies do in fact make people log in every day.
Which is it?
Dailies should include tasks that players are likely to do in any case - so, sure, a Crafting Daily would be similar to the "Open 3 Chests" Daily in APOC.
So what you're now saying is that Wizard 101 isn't an example of a game where the developer added daily quests just to get people to log in every day, which is the claim you made 5 posts above this one.
If there are multiple dailies of activities I would want to do and progress in, I would be enticed to run after daily quests for optimal progression?
Then what do daily quests reward?
Currency? Inflation
Embers? Less money for IS
XP? Ripping freedom of progression path
You're bleeding for salvation, but you can't see that you are the damnation itself." -Norther
Dygz: I want dailies
“If content is designed to be rewarding we don’t need dailies”
Dygz: No we need dailies because I need something to do in 10-20minutes
“There will be plenty of options for activities when you log in, the game doesn’t have to handhold players if it offers a lot of varied content without requiring quests for them”
Dygz: No those don’t give me enough reward. I want the bonuses from dailies quests.
“If dailies give disproportionately big rewards for the minimal time investment then they become obligatory progression or resource generation tools”
Dygz: No they don’t “force” you to do them, they only “entice” you to do them.
“Those words mean the same thing: there is a compelling force to do dailies, in this case, overly dense rewards per minute spent.”
Dygz: Who cares I just want a lot of rewards for a little bit of time!
Tada, now can we please let this thread die?
A good summary, though you forgot to note the entertainment value.
The OP asks us to share how impactful we would want Dailies to be.
I have shared Daily designs I don't like and Daily designs I like.
MMORPG devs typically add Dailies to try to get players to log in every day.
They can either compel players to log in every day (which I don't like) - or they can entice players to log in every day (which I do like).
If devs want me to log in every day to complete a quest, they are going to have to make it convenient for me to complete a quest even on days when i only have 10-20 minutes to play.
“There will be plenty of options for activities when you log in, the game doesn’t have to handhold players if it offers a lot of varied content without requiring quests for them”
That is an unsubstantiated claim.
From what Steven says, Ashes will have the equivalent of Dailies - quests which entice rather than compel.
In response to the question about Dailies, Steven said "those quests". So, I dunno why you would be having a problem with "those quests". Steven also says that the reward structure for "those quests" will not make players feel like the quests are obligatory or like they will be missing out if/when players choose not to do them.
“If dailies give disproportionately big rewards for the minimal time investment then they become obligatory progression or resource generation tools”
I have repeatedly stated that casual rewards should be associated with casual tasks which take casual time.
You are the one obsessing over disproportionately big rewards for minimal time investment - that is an example of bad Daily design.
The Daily designs I advocate have casual rewards for casual tasks that take casual time.
If you have such poor reading comprehension that you believe compel and entice have the same meaning, I can't fix your stupidity.
I have never said anything about wanting a lot of rewards for a little time. That is your delusion.
As long as that is clear, yeah, maybe we can be done.
The tasks for the Dailies should be simple tasks that players are likely to enjoy anyway - which is a major reason why these Dailies feel enticing and convenient rather than compulsory.
In the examples I have provided, the max number of Dailies that can completed is two - typically the max is one. Precisely to prevent players who have more than casual time from stacking up Dailies.
APOC gives us the example that the Ashes devs will likely use for MMORPG Dailies:
Embers, cosmetics, emotes, etc...
Steven has said that they have plans for the reward structure for these types of quests - and that they won't make players feel obligated to do them or like they are missing out if they skip them.
I'm not overly concerned - especially since APOC gives us a great example of the IS philosphy regarding designs for Dailies. And I happen to like that design.
(As opposed to other Daily designs, like NWO's, which I abhor.)
I can only watch a dog fighting it’s own tail for so long before it gets weird
Like, when you do a thing in order to try to cause a specific action from another person or group of people, that is you compelling them.
You can claim it is "enticing" all you want, but enticing is just one form of compelling.
Further, I'm not sure how many players in a game that will have essentially open PvP would be "enticed" by anything that takes time, but doesn't give them a material advantage.
Lastly, I want to remind you of something you said earlier in this thread. You specifically said you are fine with being compelled, but all of a sudden, you now are not and you argue at the mere mention of the word "compel", despite it being you that used that word in this thread first.
I've said it before, your arguments don't actually hold up to any form of scrutiny. Maybe the argument as it resides in your mind does, but the argument you type out absolutely does not. And unfortunately for the rest of us - and as I have said in this thread - the rest of us can only speak to what you type, not to what you think.
And what you type is a messy pile of drivel that is usually self-contradicting.