I want to see rewards in game come only from activities in game.
Logging in and afk'ing for a few hours should not reward players a damn thing.
~ Perhaps if the system would be geared towards criteria that needs to be met (participatory effort beyond just logging in), yet somehow with unique regularity differentiating it from the usual questing would work better.
I definitely DO NOT want to see rewards for just logging into a character each day; Gamers would quickly get bored of doing this as it would become monotonous.
~ ALTS: If a regular participation system does get introduced, I would definitely appreciate some flexibility with alts. Completing participation rewards criteria on every character may become mundane and less desirable.
I want to see rewards in game come only from activities in game.
Logging in and afk'ing for a few hours should not reward players a damn thing.
I agree. Just simply logging in shouldn't reward but I also feel logging in and doing "X" dailies should also be avoided. Maybe clearing "X" raid bosses gives you that weeks/months bonus. Attacking or defending "X" caravans or anything else they can come up with to encourage players to participate for the node/castle/community would be amazing.
I agree. Just simply logging in shouldn't reward but I also feel logging in and doing "X" dailies should also be avoided. Maybe clearing "X" raid bosses gives you that weeks/months bonus. Attacking or defending "X" caravans or anything else they can come up with to encourage players to participate for the node/castle/community would be amazing.
I like the concept of participation-based criteria leading up to a final reward for sure. Not sure I totally love the "# of 'X' criteria achieved from each category" concept, unless focus categories have some variance from week to week, or month to month. Seasonally/monthly-unique criteria would also be a cool idea.
Side-note: I don't think a rewards system should ever contribute to a notion that simply "logging in" shows player participation/loyalty; More effort should be required in order for there to be some sense of accomplishment.
I have come up with an idea regarding Log-In Rewards system and want to discuss it with the community, see how it could be improved and so on. Let me start with a hypothesis for this system:
In the system, we would have Activity Points(i will use AP from this point forward) which calculates the amount of time and effort you've spent on the activities the developers want you to steer into so as to make you explore the length of their game. Let's say that, for a rough draft, the Monthly Maximum of AP a player can get is 30000 AP. This would mean that you would need to contribute a minimum of 1000 AP everyday to reach the Monthly Maximum.
What i think would work nicely is making it so that there is a Daily Maximum of AP you can attain everyday, but making it so that the Daily Maximum is a large enough number to allow people to skip days or to simply spend less time in one day and more in the other. To give an example, if the Daily Maximum AP was 2000-2500 AP, this would allow a player to theoretically attain more AP in certain days while attaining less in others based on their schedule, work, school etc etc. This would allow players to plan their playtime according to their life and remove the bummer feeling of needing to log in every single day and doing the same task everyday like a chore or simply logging in to the game just for the reward and close the game later. Furthermore, this idea wouldn't make the rewards, especially special items like cosmetics, rare crafting materials and so on, irrelevant and practically worthless as you would still need to put the same work and hours as other players, you would just have the capacity to choose when you can work harder while still promoting a healthy desire to log in everyday.
So yeah, i want to hear your guys' thoughts on this idea, to find out the flaws in my thinking if theres any, additions that could improve on it and so on. I really hope Ashes of Creation succeeds as a game and considering the team and the big man behind it, i have hope that it will indeed be the case!
Thanks! I really want to approach to the devs with this idea, but i want to see the opinion of the community first. Also, i saw your thread but i wanted a thread specifically for the system as it was brewing in my head for a bit and was quite extensive. Sorry about that.
I think login rewards are fine and a good tool for the developers to soft-handedly steer willing players towards certain elements of the game, provided that thats actually the case rather than simply giving rewards by pressing start on the client and leaving the game again. Makes it a chore
Thanks! I really want to approach to the devs with this idea, but i want to see the opinion of the community first. Also, i saw your thread but i wanted a thread specifically for the system as it was brewing in my head for a bit and was quite extensive. Sorry about that.
Definitely worth the new thread! Your idea definitely offers a way to introduce this notion of rewarding participation while maintaining that it actually rewards "participation" rather than simply logging in each day.
Hope it's okay with you if I quote your thread so people seriously consider this idea for further discussion.
Login Rewards give players an incentive to log in and most likely keep playing. [...] It is certainly not needed to have any login rewards or milestones, but players surely appreciate free stuff.
Log-in rewards incentivize logging in, but not always to keep playing. I think any introduced participation system should require some effort, rather than just offering an easy freebie, to keep it from becoming a daily chore.
This system does make sense, specially for people with unpredictable schedules.
However my only concern is that the rewards themselves would devalue merchant's wares and the ashes economy in general. For example, say one of your rewards was 20 timber, the rewards system would almost certainly devalue the lumberjack's timber now since everyone just got some timber supply.
I just worry about that negative impacts a rewards system could bring to an economy that is player driven. But if the devs find a way to work around this issue then I suppose it would be fine.
It really depends on the rewards devs would give, i agree. It also depends on just how much of a specific resource they'd give out and in what intervals of the monthly log-in. Steven and his team seems aware of the situation when it comes to player driven economies, so it would lead me to believe that if they really were to give rewards like building/crafting materials, it would be on a ''reasonable'' level and not too often so as to not devalue the currency and the value of the material at hand. In my head, if they were to be given, they would be more so a ''inbetween bonuses'' that are just a pile or two more to your stock rather than a substantial amount, so as to not reduce the value of the material obtained. Players would be more driven to getting the shiny stuff in that log-in system.
As this will be my first MMORPG, my initial thought on dailies was yes! Why not get a little bonus for logging in.
However, as I’ve read through the community posts and reflected on it more, I think it’s best if there wasn’t a daily/hours online reward (even if it is only cosmetic)
Although there are many great arguments in this thread already I will echo the ones that stand out for me:
1. I am mostly only focused in gathering herbs, if the bonus for daily log-ins was just a single unit of measure of one of the herbs that I gather, it’s devaluing the work I’m putting in. And devaluing the player driven economy.
2. Life is hectic as is and I don’t want to feel like I HAVE to log in to get a reward, I think that draw/pull to log in is unhealthy. I think me wanting to log in because the joy of playing the game is not only more healthy for the game itself but also for the IRL players.
3. If dailies were just cosmetics, I feel that the shear amount of cosmetics would gum up the inventory (Or create work to delete them), not to mention the wonderful work of all the devs and artist who designed each one would feel wasted as they likely wouldn’t see their work displayed proudly amongst the 1000s or other minor cosmetics (since I intent to play AoC for years 4 digits is reasonable).
Second, players shouldn't ever feel punished for taking a day off to take their significant other out for dinner, or to spend an evening with their children.
I definitely understand how these types of login rewards that only ramp up if you log in consistently can lead to potential "feelsbad" moments just for living your real life too. However, I've seen some games implement them where they just count up every time you log in, regardless of how long it's been since your last login - so it was more about rewarding you for overall time played. More like a "thank you for being a loyal friend" vs. "you MUST log in every day to get the greatest goodies". I'd be interested to hear more on what folks think about a system built more like this instead
Someone that is able to spend 2 blocks of 7 hours a week in the game should not be at any disadvantage to someone that is able to spend 7 blocks of 2 hours a week in the game.
Keeping this in mind and expanding further on the above, what if it was just based on your total time played in-game? So that every certain hours of playtime (regardless of consistency of login) you got a nice little gift?
I'm not sure about the hours of playtime bit but the first type I'm ok with. I've seen games that do calendars like that where you have a set amount of days (less then 30 so you can skip days) and every day you login you just progress one day further on the calendar. So you don't have to log in every day so there's no concern about missing days, but it's more so a reward for the days you do play. Off the top of my head I think ESO, SWTOR, and RIFT do calendars like this? The rewards should be useful, though and not random consumables you don't need or have tons of stacks of already.
In the system, we would have Activity Points(i will use AP from this point forward) which calculates the amount of time and effort you've spent on the activities the developers want you to steer into so as to make you explore the length of their game.
Doing activities in the game give rewards in the form of items and (character / node / story) progression.
So my first thought is why add the AP system if it's doing the same thing - giving rewards for doing activities in the game?
The second thing is introducing a hard cap on daily AP can conflict with the decision-making process of how players choose to dedicate time to activities - e.g. players choosing to spend less time chopping wood because of an AP cap even though they should spend more time chopping wood because the guild needs it.
This is a problem because player's shouldn't be deciding how to pursue character / node / story / server progression based on a detached log in system that has nothing to do with those factors; they should be deciding what to do based on / in response to events happening in the world itself.
I want to see rewards in game come only from activities in game.
Logging in and afk'ing for a few hours should not reward players a damn thing.
~ Perhaps if the system would be geared towards criteria that needs to be met (participatory effort beyond just logging in), yet somehow with unique regularity differentiating it from the usual questing would work better.
What you then end you with is effectively a daily task system.
This is just as bad as long in rewards to me.
It creates the implication that you need to log in to the game and perform these daily tasks before you can do anything else for the day, which is not ideal.
I am also not a fan of players being penalized for taking a day away from the game. People should know they can take their significant other out for dinner and not miss out on something. Obviously things like sieges happen when they happe , but they can be planned around if a player wishes to do so.
To me, all activities in game should be appropriately rewarding in and of themselves, so no other reward is necessary.
Doing activities in the game give rewards in the form of items and (character / node / story) progression.
So my first thought is why add the AP system if it's doing the same thing - giving rewards for doing activities in the game?
It is still a game afterall, and facing the reality of MMOs by and large, there still is a need to have incentives for people to log-in and that it is simply common place of a practice in the MMO genre.
The second thing is introducing a hard cap on daily AP can conflict with the decision-making process of how players choose to dedicate time to activities - e.g. players choosing to spend less time chopping wood because of an AP cap even though they should spend more time chopping wood because the guild needs it.
Hmmm, you raise a good point. I suppose what could be done is to present a list of activities that either deliver the same amount of AP gain or AP gain based on the time and effort investment of said activity, in which the AP gain would be clearly presented next to that activity. Overall i agree on the last part though, a detached system is a big no-no. However i do think that these could be the solutions for these problems. Thanks for the criticism! Appreciated.
Edit: The Monthly Maximum AP and Daily Maximum AP would still be the same cap, whatever that number may be even though i chose 2000 for the sake of the hypothesis, but the AP gain from the activities would be shown.
Doing activities in the game give rewards in the form of items and (character / node / story) progression.
So my first thought is why add the AP system if it's doing the same thing - giving rewards for doing activities in the game?
It is still a game afterall, and facing the reality of MMOs by and large, there still is a need to have incentives for people to log-in and that it is simply common place of a practice in the MMO genre.
The second thing is introducing a hard cap on daily AP can conflict with the decision-making process of how players choose to dedicate time to activities - e.g. players choosing to spend less time chopping wood because of an AP cap even though they should spend more time chopping wood because the guild needs it.
Hmmm, you raise a good point. I suppose what could be done is to present a list of activities that either deliver the same amount of AP gain or AP gain based on the time and effort investment of said activity, in which the AP gain would be clearly presented next to that activity. Overall i agree on the last part though, a detached system is a big no-no. However i do think that these could be the solutions for these problems. Thanks for the criticism! Appreciated.
It is common practice...but that's not necessarily a good thing. Unfortunately, we see it being used in MMOs as a tactic where the core game doesn't have enough to keep players engaged. When used to incentivise players to actually play, it's like a cover for underlying issues.
I get listing AP gains next to activities can be informative for players, but it'll still create the problem of a detached secondary reward path that conflicts with the primary reward path players would otherwise pursue in game - unless the rewards are the same, in which case it just becomes redundant.
1. Without login rewards, after a few days away from the game, I am excited and looking forward to playing again. With login rewards, after a few days of just logging in for login rewards, I have a negative feeling toward the game, like the game has been intrusive and annoying.
2. Guild chat:
>> Bob logs in.
A>> Hey Bob!
B>> Mornin Bob
Bob>> Uh... just here for login reward, cya
>> Bob logs out.
No login rewards:
Fomo
Useless trinkets taking inv space
Annoying marketing gimick. My reward is my gameplay.
Fair enough. Implementation of @Settra32's Activity Points system would be nice though; Maybe in the form of another aspect of the game, such as reputation/honor/achievement activity.
I think steven did talk about it being completely cosmetic so it probably wouldnt be a big part of the game. I think this can work if its just passive points that you get. There will eventually be minmaxing but it wont but since it wont change anything about the game except cosmetics it wont be that bad.
Then again, if its purely cosmetic then there wont be much incentive to actually try to do it regularly and it will probably feel like some cheap shit again. I think overall it could work but its so difficult to implement that there will probably always be more downsides and id rather just not bother
It looks like majority of people posting do not want a log-in rewards system. I would agree in terms of logging in being the specific metric by which to measure progress for a rewards system; However, I would still like to see daily/weekly repeating quests.
If the game is fun, it should not require rewards for logging in. I could see an annual reward for the account, but a log in reward just screams a kind of "Pump up server numbers to show our game is great" mentality for investors. It adds work for the player that should not feel like work.
If you enjoy the game, log in. If you do not want to play or have other things to do, why penalize that freedom?
If you want to do account based awards then do Annual Awards that reward the player for having played for a year. Make sure the award is account bound.
I see a lot of comments talking about being at a disadvantage. Just need to listen to exactly what Steven said... These would just be cosmetics, he never said P2W or advantages. If you don't want the cosmetics, don't work for them.
I see a lot of comments talking about being at a disadvantage. Just need to listen to exactly what Steven said... These would just be cosmetics, he never said P2W or advantages. If you don't want the cosmetics, don't work for them.
I dont care about cosmetics.
But people that do dont wanna feel forced to log in for 31 days straight and be punished if they miss a day.
Comments
~ Perhaps if the system would be geared towards criteria that needs to be met (participatory effort beyond just logging in), yet somehow with unique regularity differentiating it from the usual questing would work better.
I definitely DO NOT want to see rewards for just logging into a character each day; Gamers would quickly get bored of doing this as it would become monotonous.
~ ALTS: If a regular participation system does get introduced, I would definitely appreciate some flexibility with alts. Completing participation rewards criteria on every character may become mundane and less desirable.
I agree. Just simply logging in shouldn't reward but I also feel logging in and doing "X" dailies should also be avoided. Maybe clearing "X" raid bosses gives you that weeks/months bonus. Attacking or defending "X" caravans or anything else they can come up with to encourage players to participate for the node/castle/community would be amazing.
I like the concept of participation-based criteria leading up to a final reward for sure. Not sure I totally love the "# of 'X' criteria achieved from each category" concept, unless focus categories have some variance from week to week, or month to month. Seasonally/monthly-unique criteria would also be a cool idea.
Side-note: I don't think a rewards system should ever contribute to a notion that simply "logging in" shows player participation/loyalty; More effort should be required in order for there to be some sense of accomplishment.
In the system, we would have Activity Points(i will use AP from this point forward) which calculates the amount of time and effort you've spent on the activities the developers want you to steer into so as to make you explore the length of their game. Let's say that, for a rough draft, the Monthly Maximum of AP a player can get is 30000 AP. This would mean that you would need to contribute a minimum of 1000 AP everyday to reach the Monthly Maximum.
What i think would work nicely is making it so that there is a Daily Maximum of AP you can attain everyday, but making it so that the Daily Maximum is a large enough number to allow people to skip days or to simply spend less time in one day and more in the other. To give an example, if the Daily Maximum AP was 2000-2500 AP, this would allow a player to theoretically attain more AP in certain days while attaining less in others based on their schedule, work, school etc etc. This would allow players to plan their playtime according to their life and remove the bummer feeling of needing to log in every single day and doing the same task everyday like a chore or simply logging in to the game just for the reward and close the game later. Furthermore, this idea wouldn't make the rewards, especially special items like cosmetics, rare crafting materials and so on, irrelevant and practically worthless as you would still need to put the same work and hours as other players, you would just have the capacity to choose when you can work harder while still promoting a healthy desire to log in everyday.
So yeah, i want to hear your guys' thoughts on this idea, to find out the flaws in my thinking if theres any, additions that could improve on it and so on. I really hope Ashes of Creation succeeds as a game and considering the team and the big man behind it, i have hope that it will indeed be the case!
Definitely worth the new thread! Your idea definitely offers a way to introduce this notion of rewarding participation while maintaining that it actually rewards "participation" rather than simply logging in each day.
Hope it's okay with you if I quote your thread so people seriously consider this idea for further discussion.
However my only concern is that the rewards themselves would devalue merchant's wares and the ashes economy in general. For example, say one of your rewards was 20 timber, the rewards system would almost certainly devalue the lumberjack's timber now since everyone just got some timber supply.
I just worry about that negative impacts a rewards system could bring to an economy that is player driven. But if the devs find a way to work around this issue then I suppose it would be fine.
However, as I’ve read through the community posts and reflected on it more, I think it’s best if there wasn’t a daily/hours online reward (even if it is only cosmetic)
Although there are many great arguments in this thread already I will echo the ones that stand out for me:
1. I am mostly only focused in gathering herbs, if the bonus for daily log-ins was just a single unit of measure of one of the herbs that I gather, it’s devaluing the work I’m putting in. And devaluing the player driven economy.
2. Life is hectic as is and I don’t want to feel like I HAVE to log in to get a reward, I think that draw/pull to log in is unhealthy. I think me wanting to log in because the joy of playing the game is not only more healthy for the game itself but also for the IRL players.
3. If dailies were just cosmetics, I feel that the shear amount of cosmetics would gum up the inventory (Or create work to delete them), not to mention the wonderful work of all the devs and artist who designed each one would feel wasted as they likely wouldn’t see their work displayed proudly amongst the 1000s or other minor cosmetics (since I intent to play AoC for years 4 digits is reasonable).
Hope this helps,
Skylarck The Botanist
I'm not sure about the hours of playtime bit but the first type I'm ok with. I've seen games that do calendars like that where you have a set amount of days (less then 30 so you can skip days) and every day you login you just progress one day further on the calendar. So you don't have to log in every day so there's no concern about missing days, but it's more so a reward for the days you do play. Off the top of my head I think ESO, SWTOR, and RIFT do calendars like this? The rewards should be useful, though and not random consumables you don't need or have tons of stacks of already.
Doing activities in the game give rewards in the form of items and (character / node / story) progression.
So my first thought is why add the AP system if it's doing the same thing - giving rewards for doing activities in the game?
The second thing is introducing a hard cap on daily AP can conflict with the decision-making process of how players choose to dedicate time to activities - e.g. players choosing to spend less time chopping wood because of an AP cap even though they should spend more time chopping wood because the guild needs it.
This is a problem because player's shouldn't be deciding how to pursue character / node / story / server progression based on a detached log in system that has nothing to do with those factors; they should be deciding what to do based on / in response to events happening in the world itself.
What you then end you with is effectively a daily task system.
This is just as bad as long in rewards to me.
It creates the implication that you need to log in to the game and perform these daily tasks before you can do anything else for the day, which is not ideal.
I am also not a fan of players being penalized for taking a day away from the game. People should know they can take their significant other out for dinner and not miss out on something. Obviously things like sieges happen when they happe , but they can be planned around if a player wishes to do so.
To me, all activities in game should be appropriately rewarding in and of themselves, so no other reward is necessary.
Hmmm, you raise a good point. I suppose what could be done is to present a list of activities that either deliver the same amount of AP gain or AP gain based on the time and effort investment of said activity, in which the AP gain would be clearly presented next to that activity. Overall i agree on the last part though, a detached system is a big no-no. However i do think that these could be the solutions for these problems. Thanks for the criticism! Appreciated.
Edit: The Monthly Maximum AP and Daily Maximum AP would still be the same cap, whatever that number may be even though i chose 2000 for the sake of the hypothesis, but the AP gain from the activities would be shown.
Fomo
Useless trinkets taking inv space
Annoying marketing gimick. My reward is my gameplay.
Fomo
Useless trinkets taking inv space
Annoying marketing gimick. My reward is my gameplay.
It is common practice...but that's not necessarily a good thing. Unfortunately, we see it being used in MMOs as a tactic where the core game doesn't have enough to keep players engaged. When used to incentivise players to actually play, it's like a cover for underlying issues.
I get listing AP gains next to activities can be informative for players, but it'll still create the problem of a detached secondary reward path that conflicts with the primary reward path players would otherwise pursue in game - unless the rewards are the same, in which case it just becomes redundant.
1. Without login rewards, after a few days away from the game, I am excited and looking forward to playing again. With login rewards, after a few days of just logging in for login rewards, I have a negative feeling toward the game, like the game has been intrusive and annoying.
2. Guild chat:
>> Bob logs in.
A>> Hey Bob!
B>> Mornin Bob
Bob>> Uh... just here for login reward, cya
>> Bob logs out.
times 1000, all across the server
Fair enough. Implementation of @Settra32's Activity Points system would be nice though; Maybe in the form of another aspect of the game, such as reputation/honor/achievement activity.
Then again, if its purely cosmetic then there wont be much incentive to actually try to do it regularly and it will probably feel like some cheap shit again. I think overall it could work but its so difficult to implement that there will probably always be more downsides and id rather just not bother
It also doesnt look good for a strong candidate for the top mmos to deal with a system that was designed to salvage failing mmos.
We will see in janouary. I hope there will be a poll as well.
If the game is fun, it should not require rewards for logging in. I could see an annual reward for the account, but a log in reward just screams a kind of "Pump up server numbers to show our game is great" mentality for investors. It adds work for the player that should not feel like work.
If you enjoy the game, log in. If you do not want to play or have other things to do, why penalize that freedom?
I have the same feeling towards dailies....
I would also like to say "NO" to dailies as well.
If you want to do account based awards then do Annual Awards that reward the player for having played for a year. Make sure the award is account bound.
I dont care about cosmetics.
But people that do dont wanna feel forced to log in for 31 days straight and be punished if they miss a day.