Time-Based experience thoughts

[CidHighwind]

When I first heard about the experience over time system, I was extremely worried about it being generous to the 'main-stream' FPS player - simply a way to pull more people into the game. Even now, I believe that this mechanic makes it so that those people who DO have the time to play many hours a day, even if that rate is sped up by that consistent play, feel as though their efforts mean slightly less when their friend who hops on for an hour a day is at least keeping pace.

That being said, I do see the merits of this system, if only because I, as much as all of you I assume, want to see this game succeed and expand to more than it currently is and was in the past. It WILL allow those individuals who just want to hop on for an hour on a Friday to do so, and still enjoy the game to the fullest extent.

I was thinking about this on the drive home, when what I think is a fairly simple solution that fits the mold of the game hit me. What if you made the best of both worlds and let people CHOOSE which they wanted at character creation!

For example - Joe Fragger and Billy Popsin represent the two types of gamers just mentioned respectively. Joe Fragger plays 8 hours a day for 5 days a week - this game is his freakin' job, and he's good at it. Billy Popsin plays for 1 hour a day, 7 days a week. Both of these individuals know their personal gaming habits, and can reasonable make a choice to either FOCUS (like certifying!) their experience gain on offline leveling, or on in game leveling.

To be clear, this would not mean that Joe Fragger would earn less experience overall, or lose the benefit of offline leveling. It WOULD mean that perhaps he earns 5%? (arbitrary, don't hold me to this number) more experience through consistent in game play (after 2 hours in game, this kicks in). On the other hand, Billy Popsin plays his one hour a day consistently, and whilst offline, he earns 1-2% additional exp from the offline leveling system after being logged out for a period of time.

Both of these players would CHOOSE to be either a "Hardcore" player or a "Casual" player at creation, and be locked in to their decision from that point forward (maybe switch after a 5 level trial period or some such, and then be locked in?)

Perhaps I haven't been as clear as I could be, and these examples really have been drawn out of my hat, but I do believe that a similar system would allow those gamers who HAVE the time to play to feel more like their time put in is having a distinct impact on their character's leveling progress, without leaving the 'not as often' players feeling left out.

Looking back, I'm unsure how the community would feel about this type of tradeoff, or being locked in to a certain style of leveling, but I get the feeling like most of us know what type of gamer we are, and I feel like this allows us to make the most of that knowledge.

Thoughts? Critiques? Fires to burn this to the ground?

[MrVicchio]

They'll run into a later game life problem of new players feeling like they are never going to be able to catch up to the "old players" like EVE has as a stigma to the uninitiated.

[dsi]

They'll run into a later game life problem of new players feeling like they are never going to be able to catch up to the "old players" like EVE has as a stigma to the uninitiated.

Except you can be 'battle ready' in Eve with a few weeks of training.

[MrVicchio]

Except you can be 'battle ready' in Eve with a few weeks of training.

You and I know this, most people don't. "Eve has time based experience... meh I don't have time for that".

[CidHighwind]

You and I know this, most people don't. "Eve has time based experience... meh I don't have time for that".

All the more reason why I think this would work. Those people who don't find the off-line leveling system appealing could choose to have the majority of their experience come from in game leveling, REGARDLESS of time played if they so choose, or at least have experience gain be scaled to that side in some degree.

Additionally, it sounds as if there is a type of 'global' minimum time to learn a certain skill (the time it would take to train that skill simply by sitting idly in/out of game), and seeing as there are only 20 levels, I don't think that the gap that new players would need to traverse would be that large in the end.

[Hamma]

I dont think we will see EVE like time based training. I think we are more likely to see something based on eve, but probably quicker.

[Bags]

I dont think we will see EVE like time based training. I think we are more likely to see something based on eve, but probably quicker.

This plus Higby said that you will level and unlock faster if you actively play. The slow offline leveling is so people who have jobs can keep up a bit with their friends.

I like it.

[Sifer2]

I think its a mistake to view as just a way for casual players to keep pace. The better reason they mentioned was that it allows people to not feel like there time is wasted when they are not getting kills. So you can organize folks or defend a hack. An while that is happening your still training your skills so your not wasting time. You also can't just afk your way to max level since you still have to earn BR ranks the traditional way before your tree is opened up to be unlocked with the time based training.

[Death2All]

I don't understand the point of a time based unlock system. All it seems to do is reward those with lives and punish the ones without them.

So if I nerd out on this game for 12+ hours a day some douche who has to work and support his wife and kids is going to be able to be on even ground as me? No fair.


But in all honesty people who play actively should be rewarded accordingly. Just my two cents.

And yes I know that they said you can't just make a character from day one and then log on months later and have it be the most amazing character in the world. I just don't see the point in waiting for some skill to unlock and having to queue up for it. Why can't I learn it the instant I have access to it?

[Bags]

I don't understand the point of a time based unlock system. All it seems to do is reward those with lives and punish the ones without them.

So if I nerd out on this game for 12+ hours a day some douche who has to work and support his wife and kids is going to be able to be on even ground as me? No fair.


But in all honesty people who play actively should be rewarded accordingly. Just my two cents.



Did you completely ignore the fact that you gain skills faster if you actively play? Matt said so. The time based unlock is a way for people with lives to have a chance to keep up with their friends who play and get kills, objectives, support all day.

[Death2All]

Did you completely ignore the fact that you gain skills faster if you actively play? Matt said so. The time based unlock is a way for people with lives to have a chance to keep up with their friends who play and get kills, objectives, support all day.

I've heard that but I've been confused with how it works. I've never played EVE so I have no clue how that system works but he made it sound like you unlock skills by playing actively but in addition there are some skills you must queue up for.

Any clarification on how the system works in EVE would be nice.

To me it just sounds like you can actively level up by playing or queue your skills offline in order to keep up.

[Bags]

Nah, I think it works like

You are always slowly, but surely leveling up skills, but if you get experience they level faster.

I hated doing raids while leveling solely because they usually took so long to setup and were horrible xp in the end, yet fun. But this way you are technically getting xp just for having a character so you don't feel like you waste your time when you do nothing.

That's what I think they're going for, I could be completely wrong.

[Skorne]

I have mixed feelings. EVE's system was annoyingly frustrating in that it took at least a week before you were any good at anything and at least a year to be really great at something other than minor PvP support, there were simply too many skills you needed to learn to be fully effective in even 1 area. Even worse the first thing you really needed to train in EVE was learning skills (recently, thankfully removed from game) which did nothing but make other skills train faster. So essentially you couldn't do anything new for the first month or so unless you wanted to waste a load of time in the long run. Not fun.

So that's the slow and frustrating aspect of it - the positive part is obviously if you take breaks from the game or can't play a lot you can come back and have new stuff available. That is a nice idea but I'm not sure it outweighs the negatives.

There is the greed aspect. I cannot see SOE not offering skill speed boosters on PS2 shop, there is simple too many people that will pay silly amounts of money on this. Then there is the fact EVE gives 3 character slots per account but it might as well only be 1 since you can only train on 1 character at once. In EVE almost every single player has more than one subscription because of that. In the case of PS2 (which will likely be B2P) a similar sytem would mean most players will have to buy more than one copy of the game. Of course these are big IFs but it leads me to my final point...

Multiple characters on 1 account. Lets pick an arbitrary number say you can have 5. So day 1 you create 5 characters and set them all training skills. 6 months in you might then have a character capable of performing any role in the game. My question is... how is that different from being able to make one super character other than the inconvenience of having to log out to switch and having a different name for each? The only thing that might prevent this is having to achieve a certain BR to train certain skills, depending on how heavy that requirement is it could make or break it.

Overall though I think if they do it right I think it could work quite well. I like the idea of playing more speeding up skill training a bit. Skill training times also need to be a lot less than EVE, it shouldn't take a month or more to max out a single skill. How will they handle multiple characters per player though? TBH I wouldn't like the job of making this system work with a sub-less game.

As usual all the above is speculation and just my initial impressions at this stage - I would wait for some solid info before commenting further.

[Bags]

You level faster if you actually play the game. I just really don't see the problem.

[Gandhi]

I think the big difference between the two systems is that in EVE you had to train skills just to use game content like interceptors and battleships. If I'm understanding the PS2 system right you'll be able to use the base version of everything very quickly, with the skill system just there to open up more options for customization and other bonuses. At least I hope that's how it works.

[Sirisian]

Yeah I'm hoping to only have one character. Matt already mentioned queuing up skills for 24 hours. I don't see it being one of those games where to have everything it takes years. Remember the skill system doesn't have a point other than to keep people subscribed for months (even when they're not playing) so don't think too hard about it.

Not sure if you're familiar with the term "waitplay". It's built into most MMOs, but developers try to keep it very subtle. I'm actually amazed CCP got away with adding that much waitplay into EVE. Normally players get bored and quit. The reward model usually has to be finely tuned like in farmville or tap zoo such that players keep playing and the waitplay delays them just enough between rewards to keep them playing for a much longer period than without the waitplay. Anyway what's I'm getting at is that waitplay like this skill training system is more of a veteran reward system. If you could unlock these skills through playing, like get 200 kill with a suppressor to unlock a scope, the waitplay model could be skewed by good players to break the frequency of rewards. I think they're trying to minimize this by placing physical timers on things.

Sounds good in theory for their business model.

[Hamma]

Yea good point above in that you dont *NEED* the skills to drive prowler, they just make you better at it. Wheras in EVE you NEED the skills in order to even get in the cockpit.

[WarChimp130]

I kind of like it, and I'm happy you actually have to play the game to get BR's. Hopefully the combination of the two will make it overall faster than EVE. EVE I felt like I was just playing to log on once in a while and fill up my training queue to get something I really wanted. Of course then you'd have to spend hours flying from system to system to buy all the equipment for that ship also. Such a freaking time sink.

[Gandhi]

I kind of like it, and I'm happy you actually have to play the game to get BR's. Hopefully the combination of the two will make it overall faster than EVE. EVE I felt like I was just playing to log on once in a while and fill up my training queue to get something I really wanted. Of course then you'd have to spend hours flying from system to system to buy all the equipment for that ship also. Such a freaking time sink.
The way I always describe EVE to people now is "90% boring time sink, 10% the best game you'll ever play". For a long time that 10% was worth it for me, but as time goes on that other 90% gets more and more annoying.

[basti]

Ah, eve, aye? The skill system is very nice, allows alot of stuff that usual leveling would made impossible, but the combination of both SOE is currently trying with Planetside 2 may actually be the holy grail of gaming. The basic idea is genious, giving benefits of both systems while taking out quite a few disadvantages. If executed well, this could allow for ALOT of stuff that would be impossible with any other leveling system.

As for eve: dont get to crazy about SOE comparing eve and Planetside. They just took the basic idea for gaining certifications, and the easiest way to describe such a system is simply "like eve".

YOu wont need to train 500 days for a skill, and you wont need to get your learnings up before you are even remotly able to do something. You wont be useless in everything until you put a few million skill points, worth several weeks, into something. This is planetside 2, not Eve 2. ;)

[Sirisian]

Ah, eve, aye? The skill system is very nice, allows alot of stuff that usual leveling would made impossible, but the combination of both SOE is currently trying with Planetside 2 may actually be the holy grail of gaming. The basic idea is genious, giving benefits of both systems while taking out quite a few disadvantages. If executed well, this could allow for ALOT of stuff that would be impossible with any other leveling system.
Lost me there. What doors does it open? I think you're overthinking it. It doesn't do anything really other than place delays on skilled players and slow down new players, that are skilled, from nearly instantly surpassing not very good players that have played longer. (Again veteran reward model. Used to keep players for a long time. Not a bad thing, it's just a different game model for keeping subscribers).

The only thing this allows that usual leveling doesn't is that players that don't play the game as much can continue to level as long as they have a subscription. Other than that it doesn't really allow anything that couldn't be given by a simple in game reward model based on kills or actions.

[Bags]

Sirisian, you can level faster by getting kills and the like. How does this slow down skilled players?

[basti]

Lost me there. What doors does it open? I think you're overthinking it. It doesn't do anything really other than place delays on skilled players and slow down new players, that are skilled, from nearly instantly surpassing not very good players that have played longer. (Again veteran reward model. Used to keep players for a long time. Not a bad thing, it's just a different game model for keeping subscribers).

The only thing this allows that usual leveling doesn't is that players that don't play the game as much can continue to level as long as they have a subscription. Other than that it doesn't really allow anything that couldn't be given by a simple in game reward model based on kills or actions.

They slow down your maximal progress speed, allow the devs to be ahead of the players. That means they could always add new stuff BEFORE every player in the game have already got everything. In other words, there is ALWAYS something you dont have yet, ALWAYS something you can work for, always something you cant wait to get. Eve does that very well. Not a single player has ever managed to be able to do everything. Every eve player always have options what they can do next, what they can work for. Same rules for Planetside 2. YOu always have something you want to train for. Compared to planetside, thats a leap in the right direction. In planetside you reached max level at some point and thats it, your done with getting XP, and the huge personal reward for getting the next level or getting that skill done is just out of the window, and you will never have that again.
Combining that with the "you play, you train faster" concept gives players a real reason to keep fighting. I often enough saw the Planetside icon on my screen and felt like "meh, not today, outfits not on anyway", and then switched to some other MMO because i wanted to get that new stuff.

Combining all that with a class system restricts players in their ability to stack powerfull stuff, allowing the devs to actually add more uniquie stuff, making it special. This way a Medic could get a medic gun that heals everyone close to him, Heavy assault guys could get Heavy assault, and the AV guys could have strong AV, makes your squad of 10 having 2 medics, 6 HA guys and 4 AV guys, opposed to have 10 guys being capable of everything.

[Bags]

Why does everyone ignore the fact that actively playing the game levels you faster? It's only slow if you don't play.

[ShowNoMercy]

get off the idea guys, its all about money. offline leveling gives people an incentive to keep their accounts active when they dont play much. For example, im in college and when I am taking classes during a semester i generally dont play mmos, thus i cancel my sub and resub during the summer or for a month between semesters. With this system, it is advantageous for me to keep my account subbed so that if and when i do decide to pick it up again I have not wasted 4 months of sub fees. We all want PS2 to succeed so they release more content and the like, keeping that in mind let them incorporate some features for revenue gain. This is a big revenue gainer, and I promise you that we non-casual players will not be affected by this to the extent you are worried about. My only hope is that playing gives rate increases instead of tangible gains. So base your rate increase off your averaged kills per hour or something to that effect. This way there is not so much of a benefit to kill-whoring and some will be more likely to engage in tactical group play even though it is slower pace.

[Sirisian]

Why does everyone ignore the fact that actively playing the game levels you faster? It's only slow if you don't play.
We're not ignoring that? I think everyone is well aware of that fact. I don't have a problem with the off-line training system for that very reason. I was just pointing out that the reason the system exists at all is to keep subscribers and do it in a way that won't be annoying to player's that are familiar with EVE.

They slow down your maximal progress speed, allow the devs to be ahead of the players. That means they could always add new stuff BEFORE every player in the game have already got everything.
:lol: Yeah that's the first thing I mentioned in the original thread about this feature. I made a joke in the IRC about how SOE is going to have pictures for you to unlock features that won't even exist in the game for two months.