Time-Based experience thoughts

CidHighwind · 2011-07-13, 08:07 PM

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 · 2011-07-13, 08:17 PM

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 · 2011-07-13, 08:23 PM

Originally Posted by 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.

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

MrVicchio · 2011-07-13, 08:36 PM

Originally Posted by dsi

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 · 2011-07-13, 08:39 PM

Originally Posted by MrVicchio

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 · 2011-07-13, 09:07 PM

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 · 2011-07-14, 12:30 AM

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 · 2011-07-14, 01:33 AM

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.

Gandhi · 2011-07-14, 01:40 AM

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.

Bags · 2011-07-14, 01:38 AM

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

Sirisian · 2011-07-14, 01:56 AM

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 · 2011-07-14, 09:56 AM

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 · 2011-07-14, 10:14 AM

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 · 2011-07-14, 10:57 AM

Originally Posted by 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.

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 · 2011-07-14, 11:43 AM

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.