Please Don't Let Players Sell XP

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Wilfred, May 18, 2020.

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  1. Wilfred

    Wilfred Avatar

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    Letting players sell XP is not a good idea.

    A while back, Fzol talked on his stream about how he (along with a lot of other players) left Dungeons & Dragons Online because they started selling experience points.

    In the Patch Notes and some recent SotA Twitch streams, there is discussion about how XP was recently added to supply bundles, and players can now sell XP books called "Book of Learning" that are loot from supply bundles.

    If players are allowed to sell XP books, then the XP books should be sold in the Crown Shop as well, to stop players from price gouging, and give the developers part of the profits.
    A system where some players can make a lot of profit while the developers get nothing is not fair to the developers.

    But really, letting players sell XP directly is not good, since someone could level up without any effort by purchasing a bunch of XP books.

    Selling XP directly is a bad idea, no matter whether it's by players or through the Crown Shop.

    ----------

    Patch Notes
    https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?page_id=32989

    Build Number 1193-1197 – May 3rd 4:00PM
    Updates
    - XPs and ore added to supply bundles

    Build Number 1198 – May 6th 6:00PM
    Updates
    - Supply bundles now sometimes give tradeable books that can be read for experience instead of just giving experience when opened

    Build Number 1200 – May 8th 10:00AM
    Updates
    - Fixes for Book of Learning descriptions to now include amounts of experience granted

    Build Number 1201 – May 12th 10:00AM
    Updates
    - Books of learning have now had their descriptions updated to show how many xps they are worth

    ----------

    Wednesday, April 29, 2020 -- Starting about 00:19:35
    Wednesday stream for testing, Q&A, prizes, chat!
    https://www.twitch.tv/videos/606298783

    Friday, May 1, 2020 -- Starting about 00:39:30
    Friday Stream with Atos and Elgarion. Pre-stream of FISH!
    https://www.twitch.tv/videos/608397250

    Friday, May 8, 2020 -- Starting about 00:20:40
    Friday Stream with Atos and Elgarion. Time for some hide-n-seek plus Q&A
    https://www.twitch.tv/videos/615178905
     
  2. CICI

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    Pay to win for sure if they added it....
     
  3. Charon

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    Initially I felt the same way but the xp from the books is pretty underwhelming. You absolutely could use nothing but the books to level but it'd get stupid expensive very, very quickly. I don't recall what common or rare books give but it stuck with me that uncommon books give 2500-5000 xp per book. Think about that for a second and then think about how many books you'd need to get 100k, 1M or 10M xp.

    1 Obsidian bear in Ulfheim will give you more adventure xp and if you got lucky skinning it about the same producer xp. Every bear can be skinned but not every bag has a book in it.

    In other words it sounds a lot worse in theory than it is in practice.
     
  4. Violet Ronso

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    That is for sure, but wait until someone packs up enough to sell!

    But that is not my main issue, the books are underwhelming yes, but there have been rumors, and it usually happens like this usually (include a little bit, and then a bit more, and then a bit more, until the whole thing is in, just think about steampunk items in this game, they included them slowly just to make the community not think too much about it, but many were against it initially). The next steps would be to allow players to sell experience from their pools (the rumor), or simply have exp books sold on the COTO store (possible end goal for Catnip). These 2 potential en goals would simply ruin things, and exp farmers (like those who afk macro at ERG all day) would be able to sell their "Hard Earned" experience to others, and make this game become the P2W game everyone called it out to be. This is the scary part about the introduction of these books, the possibilities it opens up...
     
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  5. evillego6

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    I'm not sure how different it is from leveling services, which have existed since persistence for real money with developer's knowledge.
     
  6. Violet Ronso

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    Leveling services require you to spend the time in the zone and receive the experience, spending the hours to gather it and thus somewhat playing.

    Meanwhile, buying experience means I log in, buy my experience pack, and continue as nothing happened, just 100x stronger than before, with no time spent doing anything! That is a huge difference. And if the exp starts selling from the crown store, that means that this experience literally comes from nowhere! Both are bad, and I wouldn't even consider one worse than the other. In both cases, I am out.
     
  7. Spinok

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    1) ONLY obtainable from Supply bundles.
    2) The VERY lucky guy open 50 blue one and got ~1kk XP. - Its nothing, You can pay 30k for one hour on CP (or even fo free) or can buy things like potions mats food mats. to get far more xp then 1kk. (BTW I open around 600 bundles with 15 orange one and 100 blue one and didn`t get better loot then this guy)
    3) Do you realize the problem of getting 100 blue one to get 2kk XP ? Even best of us will need more than 24 hours of PURE playing time with high level of concentration to do this.
    4) Supply bundles loot was extremely bad (XP is a good addition)
    5) What the problem with XP book selling between players ? EVE players sell XP now to each other I don't see the problem it feels ok.
    6) I`m against selling XP from pool maybe only in the rate of 1 to 100, so you put out 100kk XP from the pool and get 1kk XP book. Against - because a bunch of players exploited and was not punished and selling XP from their pool is exploit promotion.
    7) Adequate guys recognize P2W only if xp sold by devs, if it sold by players it is NOT P2W - other points of view are very weak.
    8) Devs should NOT sell XP books in the n shop.
    9) In player-driven economy, limitation on what players can sell and what cannot it is VERY bad idea.
     
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  8. Charon

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    Selling XP on the Crown Store would be bad. I'd be surprised if anyone would argue that it'd be a good thing for the game but if players are selling books in game I don't see an issue with it now that I've actually seen the amount of xp you get from them.

    They're a nice addition to bundles and made them, in general, suck a little less but hardly game breaking.
     
  9. Lazlo

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    I don't think the actual effects of this are any big deal, but I still wouldn't do it. There's a lot of ways to accomplish the same goal without the optics of vendors full of xp that freak people out.
     
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  10. Bedawyn

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    I did see one vendor over the weekend that was entirely stocked with Books of Learning, mostly common. I considered buying some, didn't because I was saving gold for the particular item(s) I was looking for and hadn't found yet. But if I had, it still wouldn't have been pay-to-win.

    I have several alts. The adventurer is on its own account, the two crafters are on their own account, and all three of them I make pay their own way in everything; they don't get anything they didn't earn. At best, I will loan them some gold from my roleplay alts to pay their rent, but they have to pay it back. But the roleplay alts, who spend way more time decorating than adventuring or crafting, have a different backstory. I buy crowns from Portnip and play Twitch raffles and use those "earnings" to give them the resources to decorate appropriately for their backstory. And they're very low-level characters. There's only so many times I can play the same Tier 1 and 2 scenes over again, especially with characters who are supposed to be noncombatant city dwellers, not adventurers. It's boring, it doesn't make IC sense, and I just ain't gonna do it.

    And so just this weekend, with my urban merchant wandering between market towns, I still ended up having to run away from wandering bandits because that alt can't handle even a Tier 2 scene -- and I'd never willingly take him into one. I could have bought every book on that vendor and it still wouldn't have given me enough XP to go do the kind of scenes you folks are worried about -- scenes I'd never want to enter with anyone but my main adventurer anyway. But buying those books would have made it possible for me to safely explore market towns while knowing I could handle a random highway bandit. And I don't see anything wrong with that at all, nor do I consider it pay-to-win.

    Of course, if it's possible, someone somewhere will abuse it. That's a given. And I do want the devs to do what they can to minimize abuse. Given the other dev trends, I can see why folks would be worried this is a slippery slope. But I wanted to offer another data point about how it can be helpful and useful as well.
     
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  11. Wilfred

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    Thanks everyone for the thoughtful responses.

    So after reading the replies here, I think the current XP book system is probably OK, as long as the drop rate is really limited, but I worry that it could provide the wrong incentives, especially if it is expanded in the future.
     
  12. Bedawyn

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    Yes, people have already started asking Atos to make the books combinable. I don't like artifacts being combinable already, having books combinable -- there's your slippery slope, all right, VERY slippery. And it's worth having these discussions so that hopefully the devs can consider the consequences before making decisions that will affect everyone just because a few noisy people asked for it.
     
  13. GMDavros

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    would be a first...

    Fenris
     
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  14. evillego6

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    Not all leveling services require a user to participate or even play. Also, one can already purchase an account that is of a high level without spending a moment in game.
     
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  15. Alleine Dragonfyre

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    Please don't sell XP in any way shape or form or allow it to be packaged in a way it can be sold player to player. That's just insane. Have we finally lost our minds?

    If people don't want to play this game to get XP the reason for them not wanting to play it should be examined. The game should be entertaining enough to make the majority of players WANT to play it. If that's not the case, well... there is work to be done.
     
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  16. Barugon

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    As I posted in another thread, good luck collecting enough of the books to make a dent in anyone's XP pool.
     
  17. Prada

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    I think selling experience is a good idea, for the team funding...a player can buy an account, but not buy experience?

    All of the Pay To Win talk has not been well thought out IMO. Who can buy an item that is more powerful than any other for its slot in game? Or a power that is more powerful than any other in this game?

    Do players not buy and sell items and armor for RMT?

    It's simple for me personally, time vs money! It appears that some of the folks with the luxury of free time want to keep the folks that do not have this luxury, from buying what their time earned... Why?

    The longer this game sustains itself, the better...the longer this games sustains itself, the greater the need for offering experience for sale that the company directly profits from.

    I say let the game succeed financially, and I am fine with letting the lion's share be funded by the folks who have money, and are willing to spend it, but do not have the luxury of as much free time!
     
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  18. Cora Cuz'avich

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    It is really battling that these things aren't no-trade.
     
  19. Sara Dreygon

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    Guessing someone already said this but it would take about 1066 rare books to get 8m XP. From opening blue bundles, I assume 50% books so that would take the "seller" roughly 2300 blue bundles to get...

    Who the hell would spend money buying this many books instead of just joining a PUG at ERG for 50 mins? I don't see much worry here.
     
  20. Violet Ronso

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    For me, like I said previously, it isn't as much the books as it is the door/possibilities that these books open up. If the books are a "tip your toe" to see the players reaction to make pooled experience saleable or to make it become available on the crown store, then that is where these books become an annoying part for me.

    Crown store exp or player packaged exp is where my issues are truly.
     
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