No Dailies. No Chores.

Hello Forum Users, It's been awhile since I've posted.
I was an active user on the old website but decided to step back while the same threads and questions seemed to get repeatedly asked and answered over and over again. Looking at the current threads it appears not much has changed since then. However it's nice to see an active growing community.

Now I have no doubt these issue have been already discussed previously but i am going to lay another spread on the MMO destroying fall back player incentive of the 'daily quest' and routine 'login chores'

You all know what I'm talking about.... That slightly uncomfortable sensation of feeling forced to log into a game to perk up the (global population statistics) but have no real community input/interaction as you numbly go through the motions to fulfill some arbitrary tasks...then when done, log out because the incentives are not really there to keep playing for FUN.

So what I would like to see from Ashes is no Dailies or Login rewards or accumulative bonuses.

Let me decide my motivations and tasks for the day and give me a drive to not want to log out...not the bread crumbing tactics of trying to keep me logging in.

Any current MMO that has these sort of systems to me appear desperate and not confident in the merit and foundation principles of their game.

Dear Intrepid, do not fall for this genre trope, it will not bode well for the longevity of the game.

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mobtek

We saw it in WoW and GW2, it killed fun and made playing a chore chasing after, what in the end, was nothing.

PoliceGirl

Sup.

@Uncommon Sense That slightly uncomfortable sensation of feeling forced to log into a game

I hate that bad. I hate the calendar login tracker that shows a "big" prize at the end of the month. Then I miss a day and there goes that treasure box. I feel like they are manipulating me just to get me to log in and buy some stupid thing from their store.

Marketers would say it drives in-game item store profits. I say it makes me want to fart in their general direction.

But that's...like, my opinion man.

Jxshuwu

Totally agree with this! Daily activities aren't necessarily bad, it just shouldn't be too important to the game. Like let's say you're growing herbs in your garden at your house, and you have to water them daily for them to grow, that'd be a cool daily activity and completely optional to the player.

CounselorMin

I would love to see a "daily" quest that requires you to go on an epic quest to a different node, say half an hour to an hour's travel, to pickup some materials, and then take to a second location for another purpose, only to then come back home and get a piece of armor or a weapon. Something that requires some travel and time and consideration to completing. Perhaps you don't even get to get home on this epic quest until a day or two later.

Repetitive quests are boring as hell, however having the ability to go on epic journeys over a huge, huge open world invites great imagination and player immersion.

bloodprophet

Welcome back.
Was a couple threads recently on this. Most of us agree there should be minimal daily quests.

https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/47344/daily-quests-yes-or-no/p1

and a long one about log in rewards

https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/48009/dev-discussion-26-login-rewards/p1

Uncommon Sense

Yep was expecting there to be extensive discussions already on the topics...no surprise.

From skimming through the general consensus to me is that most players don't want them.

With the argument being some players only have a limited time to play due to other life commitment and require* some catch up incentive.

Well. I am of the opinion that other than perhaps rested XP there should be no other forms of catch up hand holding.

That fact that Steven may have implied in the past that it would even be a cosmetic cash shop incentive just irks me.

It's Steven's multi level marking background taking over and not the pure gamer soul we need as an MMO player community.

There is probably going to dailies in Ashes...All I'm saying to Intrepid is consider this choice very carefully because much like the cosmetic cash shop, these consumer manipulations can be detrimental to the overall package and quality of the game.

My opinion is that if the game is designed well enough, then daily login chores should not be a requirement.

bigepeen

I'm not a fan of doing dailies that feel like chores, and then immediately logging out either. Even games that reward simply logging in can be annoying, because it's constantly in the back of your mind that you need to log in for the day.

It would be nice to somehow still accumulate cosmetic cash shop currency though. Maybe, instead of dailies, give us a way to convert in-game gold to cash shop currency. With the amount of cosmetics in this game (lol), I think that the amount of gold required to buy everything would satisfy even the most hardcore grinder.

maouw

Uncommon Sense wrote: »

You all know what I'm talking about.... That slightly uncomfortable sensation of feeling forced to log into a game to perk up the (global population statistics) but have no real community input/interaction as you numbly go through the motions to fulfill some arbitrary tasks...then when done, log out because the incentives are not really there to keep playing for FUN.

Relatable.
I'm really glad Intrepid heard our voice on this.
It is their decision ultimately and even if we get daily rewards, I'm glad they're trying to separate it from the rest of the economy.

Vhaeyne

It feels like we have won the war against dailies for now, but it honestly feels like whack-a-mole

Welcome back the constant war of ideas.

Voidwalkers

Yup, no dailies plz. Verra is supposed to be a world where players have to FIND something to do, instead of having the system force-feed chores to them.

ariatras

Dailies absolutely suck. I prefer the activities in the end of the game be it PvP or PvE to make sense.

It's funny, I'm not a big fan of PvP. (Mostly because the design of classes sucks in most games, and there's too much crowd control, and because PvP is meaningless in them) But in Ashes, I see many of the late game activities naturally incorporate PvP. Which sounds fun to me (caravan, city/castle sieges)

The only type of dailies I could see that would be engaging in Ashes is that a city requires upkeep. The NPC guards need to be fed/geared up. As far as food goes. Farmlands/Orchards etc around the city, offering quest for new players to keep wild animals away. But for gear, I would hope that some materials required in the upkeep are minable in dangerous zones, requiring some forethought, planning and communication with others.

But typical daily quest grinds? No thanks.

Warth

ariatras wrote: »

Dailies absolutely suck. I prefer the activities in the end of the game be it PvP or PvE to make sense.

It's funny, I'm not a big fan of PvP. (Mostly because the design of classes sucks in most games, and there's too much crowd control, and because PvP is meaningless in them) But in Ashes, I see many of the late game activities naturally incorporate PvP. Which sounds fun to me (caravan, city/castle sieges)

The only type of dailies I could see that would be engaging in Ashes is that a city requires upkeep. The NPC guards need to be fed/geared up. As far as food goes. Farmlands/Orchards etc around the city, offering quest for new players to keep wild animals away. But for gear, I would hope that some materials required in the upkeep are minable in dangerous zones, requiring some forethought, planning and communication with others.

But typical daily quest grinds? No thanks.

Agreed. The bad ones are dailies that "force" you to do them, oftentimes through being your primary / most efficient way of progression.

I'd like to see weekly tasks, that are aimed around the upkeep of the node, rather than personal gain.
Based on the node level, the community would have to do a certain contingent of tasks each week. A concrete example would be, that witgin a week the community of a city level node has to bring 20.000 (400 population * 50) Stone to maintain the roads around the city.

Failing to do that would reduce the quality of roads and reduce the speed of caravans within its ZOI by up to 50% depending on how severely the node failed for a week. Reaching that goal consecutively each week could instead provide a small but increasing boost.

A similar thing could be done for the city stables, the walls, the religious shrines, marketplace etc.

ariatras

Warth wrote: »

ariatras wrote: »

Dailies absolutely suck. I prefer the activities in the end of the game be it PvP or PvE to make sense.

It's funny, I'm not a big fan of PvP. (Mostly because the design of classes sucks in most games, and there's too much crowd control, and because PvP is meaningless in them) But in Ashes, I see many of the late game activities naturally incorporate PvP. Which sounds fun to me (caravan, city/castle sieges)

The only type of dailies I could see that would be engaging in Ashes is that a city requires upkeep. The NPC guards need to be fed/geared up. As far as food goes. Farmlands/Orchards etc around the city, offering quest for new players to keep wild animals away. But for gear, I would hope that some materials required in the upkeep are minable in dangerous zones, requiring some forethought, planning and communication with others.

But typical daily quest grinds? No thanks.

Agreed. The bad ones are dailies that "force" you to do them, oftentimes through being your primary / most efficient way of progression.

I'd like to see weekly tasks, that are aimed around the upkeep of the node, rather than personal gain.
Based on the node level, the community would have to do a certain contingent of tasks each week. A concrete example would be, that witgin a week the community of a city level node has to bring 20.000 (400 population * 50) Stone to maintain the roads around the city.

Failing to do that would reduce the quality of roads and reduce the speed of caravans within its ZOI by up to 50% depending on how severely the node failed for a week. Reaching that goal consecutively each week could instead provide a small but increasing boost.

A similar thing could be done for the city stables, the walls, the religious shrines, marketplace etc.

Yea, I really hope that cities will be proper communities, where you have a reputation and stuff. And not just that everyone does there own thing. The example you gave is beautiful. though I'd go further than just a resource dump, for that's pretty much a solo activity. But things that would require teamwork. Things you -cannot- do alone.

What I mean is you don't -have- to do them if you want to solo (you'll still benefit from bonuses it provides). But if you want to help the city node you're in, make it a team effort. I don't want to say "force" me to play with others. But that's essentially what you do. It's not always content that keeps bringing players back. It's other players, friends you make along the way. And team-focused content helps with that tremendously.

Leonerdo

Dailies aren't bonuses; they are restrictions. Every piece of content in the game will have some reward or another, and you have to decide which content is most worth your time. Dailies just make it so a piece of content is only worth doing once per day, so you can't grind it all day long.

If a daily is a "chore" it's because the reward is too big (compared to other content you could be doing) and/or the task is too boring. So you're only choice for progress is to grind that chore endlessly. That's just poorly designed content/rewards. It can happen regardless of the daily restriction.

Contrary to others, I would actually say that dailies (or weeklies) are perfect for combatting the feeling of repetitive chores, because they limit how long you spend on one activity. They encourage you to briefly dip your toes into each activity without incentivizing you to grind it all day long.

The problem that most dailies have, which people rightfully hate on, is that there are so many dailies that you spend all day doing them, and they often require you to do the most boring content.

The solution is just to make better dailies... Put the best rewards behind more engaging content. Incentivize people to tackle harder content, or go on adventures with a party, or visit a new place. Don't force people to gather wood and grind trash mobs for 3 hours every single day.

And a note on what the "best" rewards are: Gold and materials tend to be low-tier rewards, unless they are needed for top-end gear or it's a ridiculous amount of gold. EXP and gear rewards (or gear tokens) tend to be more enticing for most players. And (good) cosmetics are best at end-game, after players finish the EXP and gear grind.

(Edit: This is tangential to the topic, but just wanna suggest horizontal progression as another good reward. Let people grind for new abilities to play around with. It's such a shame when the gameplay stops evolving at max level.)

Asgerr

PoliceGirl wrote: »

Sup.

@Uncommon Sense That slightly uncomfortable sensation of feeling forced to log into a game

I hate that bad. I hate the calendar login tracker that shows a "big" prize at the end of the month. Then I miss a day and there goes that treasure box. I feel like they are manipulating me just to get me to log in and buy some stupid thing from their store.

Marketers would say it drives in-game item store profits. I say it makes me want to fart in their general direction.

But that's...like, my opinion man.

But would you do it for a CANNON? I hear bit**es love cannons?

Jokes aside, I agree, but I don't see it as a punishment for people who can't log in daily, but a reward for those who do.
This means that it'll be a matter of what you would earn from said daily chores. If it's something potentially game changing or basically required to be competitive, then it's bad. If not I don't see an issue with it.

Although yeah, I do believe there was some sort of poll a couple of months ago about it and it was quite clear that people didn't want it, so I assume Intrepid will likely not pursue that plan.

Uncommon Sense

Leonerdo5 wrote: »

Dailies aren't bonuses; they are restrictions. Every piece of content in the game will have some reward or another, and you have to decide which content is most worth your time. Dailies just make it so a piece of content is only worth doing once per day, so you can't grind it all day long.

'Restrictions' and 'only worth doing' are terrible design mantras. Restrictions are not the same as boundaries. As soon as you implement systems that work outside of the actual game you are in effect diverging away from the core principles if the game. Dailies are not solutions they're a lazy band aids covering up a lack of immersion.

Suggesting they are integrated to prevent 'grinding' is nonsense. look at other games with dailies and you will see players cycling multiple alt characters doing daily cycle runs to 'profit' all why crippling the community aspect.

there a far better solutions to grind farming...(if that even is really a problem?) that the general population will balance out just by natural supply and demand and diminishing returns and resources.

Dailies are not a feature they are a poor implementation of faux 'content' player drive propping up what is really a WEAK game.

Khronus

I like the idea of dailies for money or dailies that have something to do with fighting an enemy for the purpose of extending the lore. I am a monster, sometimes I like to just mindlessly slay my enemies. If I can be rewarded for doing so, that is awesome. Dailies that are required to get some super item at the end is just a time sink. If I choose not to slay enemies this weekend, I don't want to feel like I ruined my game.

Semi

I agree, dailies are bad. Repeatable quests are fine - especially ones to gain crafting materials or reputation. Capping how much you can do daily or weekly is bad design.

Ideally, I want to create a list of what I want to get done, then I decide what from that list I want to work on that day. That way I dictate the content I play. The content doesn't dictate how I play. I don't have to do "chores" before I can get to the content I want to play either. It also could help people find like-minded people in the open world, as you would run into people who enjoy playing the game the same way you enjoy playing. If you were spending most of your time doing the tasks that everyone has to do to stay on top of their chores, you may be less likely to find like-minded people and less likely to interact with the people you do find as you're doing chores and maybe not in the most social mood during it.

I'm unsure how I feel about lockouts when dealing with instanced content. If there is going to be instanced content, I could see it going in either direction on locking out loot and I think I'd be okay with either direction. Although, with certain dungeons/raids only being open at certain node progression points, lockouts could be bad as there may only be a window when that content is available and I would want to run it until my friends and I get the loot we need instead of just rolling the dice once a day or once a week to see if the items drop.

Selo

If there ever was a reason to invent a time machine, it is to go back in time and .."deal"..with the person that invented daily quests XD

maouw

Selo wrote: »

If there ever was a reason to invent a time machine, it is to go back in time and .."deal"..with the person that invented daily quests XD

and lootboxes. and "energy" games.
probably the same person.

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