What to do with 1x XP?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by FBohler, Mar 1, 2022.

?

What you're gonna do while 2x XP is off?

  1. Tea party, it's actually great!

  2. Dance party!

  3. Do some quests to empty out the Journal

  4. Decorate my lots

  5. Manage my POT

  6. Resupply my vendors

  7. Ask for 2x XP in the forums

  8. Gather some materials

  9. Craft some gear and use that good pool of XP

  10. Grind XP sluggishly

  11. Mess with my dungeons

  12. Go out PvP

  13. Grind some gold

  14. Do fishing tournaments

  15. Play other games

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  1. queenbee

    queenbee Avatar

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    I'm going to look for a certain someone hiding behind trees because he owes me a death...
     
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  2. Duke Gréagóir

    Duke Gréagóir Legend of the Hearth

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    I will volunteer to kill ya Bee! ;)
     
  3. queenbee

    queenbee Avatar

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    Yes my comment could be taken both ways :D
     
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  4. FBohler

    FBohler Avatar

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    I missed a big activity which is bug hunting but, besides that, what activity is missing in the list that you would like to vote for? Maybe "just adventure"?

    PS: By activity I don't mean what will you change in your routine. I mean what you guys plan to do.
     
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  5. Anpu

    Anpu Avatar

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    I do what I have been doing for years. I log into the game, then ask myself what do you want to do? And then I go do that.
     
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  6. Barugon

    Barugon Avatar

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    I used to report a lot of bugs but then they would sit for months or years without a response (one particularly nasty bug that's still around predates persistence). If I asked about a bug then I would just get berated. I don't bother so much anymore.
     
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  7. FBohler

    FBohler Avatar

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    Hmm care to define that? :rolleyes:
     
  8. Anpu

    Anpu Avatar

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    I log into the game and do many thing. Like last night when I got home from work people claimed that the Clan of the Boar barbarians supposedly dropped Clan of the Boar armor. So I ran off to Sawtooth Thicket and proceeded to slaughter all the Barbarins there. Not one single one of them dropped for me in the time I was there. But I was able to update the bestiary listing for that scene a bit.

    Another example was during double xp, I spent the vast majority of my time in Offline adding every single task, quest item and npc related to the entire The Path of the Oracle series of quests on the Wiki. It's not done yet :/

    And this morning I needed to actually see and confirm the +1 Confused effect an Underdweller Troll can sometime place on the Avatar when using the Ground Pound creature ability trolls use. Which was utterly fascinating and ... enlightening.

    So for me, it varies so much. But for now, when I log in I need to salvage all my damn scrap my damn scrap trunks are all full... oh and I need to make ton of boards because I used them all up :(
     
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  9. FBohler

    FBohler Avatar

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    Sounds like good fun :D
     
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  10. Time Lord

    Time Lord Avatar

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    ~Incentives, old and new, there is a difference!~o_O:confused::cool:
    Without motive through incentive, first I found myself taking a break and playing another game, then I came back into the game and worked on some crafting skills I needed to finish out so I could have a full GM crafting in all trees, (still lacking 2), and now I need more materials, so I went hunting for 30 min, then logged out and watched a movie.

    "Now it's time for me to work on one of my newer characters and I'll explain why" :):

    Without the motive through incentive, I now find that my goals don't have the motivation levels they did while X2exp was on. There's no hurry to do anything, so leisure means more log out time than when the chaotic time based incentive was there.

    While I can see where "old players with old single characters" proceed in thier normal levels of routine, many of which unchanged in their normal routine whether x2 was or not, new characters and new players have much more motive to take advantage of such 2Exp Event Boosts, thus adding to their fun which then translates into more intensity to their motive to disregard all other activities except logging into our game. Our game takes over more of their life in that way, creating routine in an otherwise disincentived need to focus on our game. Our game requires new players to have a certain amount in more focus needed to overcome all our technical ways, and X2 adds incentive to drill those actions needed which create their individual and intensely focused planned desired results.

    In this way, when we are taking our comments from players who use old single characters that are within their old single character accounts, we do not see the same motivations surrounding X2 Exp, as they do not get that new game feeling which boosts player's motives needed to drill sota game tech ways into routine.

    When our game becomes a routine within new player's gaming desires to log in, then we can retain them.

    An old donkey won't follow a carrot dangling on a stick in front of their face as much as a new donkey will.

    I have 5 accounts with countless characters which allows me to enjoy X2 Exp in "anything", amplified volumes more than those players with only single personified characters.

    Single character players and multi-character players, one of these is more similar to a new player, and new players thrive on incentives!

    I don't get stuck in a rut and remain happy remaining in that rut ;)
    [​IMG]
    And that's what being a Time Lord is all about :cool:~TL~
     
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  11. Stryker Sparhawk

    Stryker Sparhawk Avatar

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    Collect it, love it, call it your own.
     
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  12. Anpu

    Anpu Avatar

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    What bug is that exactly?
     
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  13. Barugon

    Barugon Avatar

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    If you play on Linux and use the right mouse button for mouselook then you know what it is.
     
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  14. kaeshiva

    kaeshiva Avatar

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    While I love double exp, I also hate double exp the way it is being done.

    I feel manipulated/forced into changing my in-game goals and schedule based on the whim of the double-exp-gods and this starts to burn me out on the game.
    I try to just go on with what I'd normally be doing, but I can't enjoy it, knowing that "double is on, and might not be tomorrow" and I'm sitting here decorating or attending an event.
    We hear things like .... "when double is off, we can go xx" or, "that's something we can do when there's no double."

    Adam Crow makes an interesting suggestion above about linking it to a quest. I think that's a kinda neat idea, but can see why some people would rage against it, questing in Sota can be ...special... and having your entry-to-xp-quest randomly not work could be pretty irritating. There's also the point that, with the amount of 2x we've had, its become common to hear people refer to "normal" XP rates as "1/2" xp and to behave as if the double being turned off is some sort of penalty. We've all lived through this before a few years ago, and the base rate was increased to what is normal now, as a permanent bump to advancement rate. Honestly, if the 2x rates are what we feel is a healthy, fun advancement rate - then just make it permanent again. The game evolves, whatever. Its uncanny to see my friends list numbers plummet and groups doing stuff disappear the moment that toggle is set to off. Sure, some people will grind anyway. Some people wont change their activities at all. But quite a few do. I have a whole bunch of crafting stuff I need to do, but "I might as well wait for double exp" to get it done - here again, my goals/playtime is being manipulated by this. Which is annoying!

    My suggestion?
    Pick an advancement rate, and stick with it. Whether its 1x or 2x. We've had so much 2x now (its been on almost constantly since I came back in December) that the 1x ship has probably sailed and everything feels like a slog. Stop manipulating things with double sometimes, its not healthy for new players or old players.

    The irony is, we USED to have a system that would fix this problem quite neatly, too.
    Before persistence, we had a daily bonus.
    Each day, you'd have a daily bonus and you'd have a buff icon on your character to illustrate this bonus was in effect.
    You'd essentially have double experience (both producer, and adventurer) for every kill or item harvested/crafted, until a certain amount of experience had been earned. This reset every day.
    The higher level you were, the higher this was /longer it lasted.
    I still am unable to fathom why this was discontinued, other than we lived in a time where "punish the players for playing" was very much the philosophy. This has changed.


    Reinstating the daily bonus that previously existed, with a few tweaks, would be a tidy solution to this problem. Set the daily bonus xp to whatever amount you wanted - or scale it as it was before for different thresholds, with the highest level players getting the first 15 million or the first 30 million or w/e done at double rates (and pick a sensible amount for producer, perhaps 1/10th of this since producer advancement rates tend to be about 10% of adventure rates on average). If people want to grind more than that in a day, it goes back to normal rates. If you didn't use the bonus, it would simply reset the next day (not accumulate forever lol).

    This will:

    • Incentivize people to login daily and play to "burn off their bonus" (exactly as it used to in the old days!) We'd even get special groups going for this.
    • Make every day have bonus xp time for activities you want to reserve for this (such as certain crafting, or grouping etc) so you aren't waiting for some future "double" event that could be turned on at a whim
    • Make it so after daily bonus is consumed, people can proceed playing as normal without feeling like they are "missing out" or feeling compelled to grind.
    • Encourage attendance at player events regardless of when they are scheduled - since the bonus is individual and daily rather than a global toggle. Currently we see people prefer to grind (if double is on) than attend stuff, which makes scheduling stuff awkward.
    • STOP BURNOUT and normalize (and hopefully increase) daily player concurrency
    • Stop the nonsense of "must attenuate!!!" - diverse activities could be done to work the bonus off rather than this need to max out the hourly limit and then sit afk for 40 mins that we see become the norm.

    Overall, this seems a no-brainer to me, and completely automatable.
    If you wanted to do special weekends, you could always just throw more bonus XP into the pot or rather than hitting a global switch that stays on for days/weeks that gets shut off with a resounding THUNK of disappointment.
     
    Last edited: Mar 3, 2022
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  15. brewtus23

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    This right here is an amazing idea and i also feel like it would be a huge improvement over what we have and are doing now. I also really think this Attenuation needs to be taken out of the game as well. It really does nothing but hurt the population and the activity of players. All you see now is get Attenuated asap within that hour and then people sit afk for 40 mins, then rinse and repeat. It really does just kill the game play and the social activity of the game. I quote and reply to make this post by kaeshiva seen over and over hopefully and something be done.




     
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  16. Adam Crow

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    @kaeshiva If I haven't said it already - very happy to see you playing again :D
     
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  17. kaeshiva

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    I strongly feel that any mechanic that encourages players to STOP playing the game, and either sit afk, tab out, or log off and do something else, is counterproductive. Whether that's mining all the nodes in a scene and then having to sit afk for 10 minutes for a respawn with nothing to do (except tab out and do something else), or whether that's grinding experience for 20 minutes and then having to wait 40 minutes for the attenuation debuff to wear off (while tabbing out to do something else), or even just having to set, watch, and wait through hours of progress bars to process/smelt your stuff,(probably while tabbed out of the game and doing something else.)...you see the pattern here. True, it can be nice to kinda be half-playing sorting out your smelting while you're working from home (I admit to nothing!) and the progress bars have been sped up, so that one's less of an issue :x

    Bottom line for me tho re double - we all like double, we all like MOAR - but the current implementation of double-sometimes combined with attenuation is not great. The daily bonus suggestion ^ up there solves both - it is a way to give players a daily incentive to log in, (which could be increased for holidays/special events without being a 24/hr toggle encouraging us normally responsible adults to show blatant disregard for things like sleep). People who want to grind for 22 hrs a day can still do it and because they'd burn up the bonus in a few hrs there's no need to force attenuation since it would be very hard to reach 15m/hr consistently for hour after hour except in a very small number of scenes/group configurations (which can be addressed based on collected data).

    And I can FINALLY get my POT deco situation sorted out without constantly feeling like I absolutely must keep trying to knock that airship out of the sky with meteor showers all day long or, that if we aren't there to stop them, the elementals in the breach will continue to multiply and overrun all of Novia. I mean, they might do, but double's not on right now, so somehow, we don't care as much? :x
     
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  18. Anpu

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    I think what happened was the abundance of double xp for so long has now shifted many players perception of what is considered worth their time. And now this time is only when double xp is on.

    Now with double xp off, many people still will continue to play but some will play less and also reserve specific activities to only when double xp is on (notice how there’s basically no air ship groups currently).

    I think the adding double xp at random times is doing more harm than good.

    I personally would like double xp to be something players could control when it’s on or off through various activities. Like say when all control points have been cleared, we will have double xp for x amount of days.

    This encourages players to be active, do group activities and get a very rewarding reward.
     
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  19. Time Lord

    Time Lord Avatar

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    @Anpu , Do you have the population numbers? Population numbers before, during and after?

    Does anyone here have those numbers?

    I can only base my own guess on the population by my own friends list and the amounts of universal chat activity, the amounts of names on universal chat that I never saw before ad the amount of questions being asked on universal chat.

    Are the most popular hunting parties the same as when x2xp was on? "no."
    I also do not see the same amount of complaining old characters, complaining about having too many newbies wanting to join high level content parties. "Newbies!"

    And I can only judge that from memory of odd things that seemed different during the time.
    We need the actual numbers or we do more harm than good expounding our own desires.

    Truth is in observable prima facie facts not the desires of one, or one sector, which in the case of this thread, is an abundace of single character old account holders.

    What our long time player @Adam Crow has to say about our long time player @kaeshiva ...
    What our long time player @kaeshiva has to say about that character's desires...
    In both cases quoted above the evidence is clear in their modus operandi of being undoubtedly motivated to: #1 One player say to the other welcome back, while #2 the player welcomed back describes the irresistible force which guided their actions, that force operating in both instance of comments being X2exp availible only when taking drastic uncommon for them actions in the game.

    The forces of chaos within x2xp caused an evident explosion.
    [​IMG]
    "Does the airship raid fill and fill as fast or fill as long now?"

    :eek: "NO" :confused:~TL~


     
    Last edited: Mar 3, 2022
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  20. Redhammer

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    Turn it on or turn it off, I play when I have time...Honestly leave it on all the time...New players need it more than old players...when you turn it off you are just slowing them down...a lot... Really, find a sweet spot and then never do it again...not sure it will make a big deal either way once you find the sweet spot that keeps new players in the game... If you want to do special events put in some special quests that only last a month...Have those give 10X's Exp but they only last for a season or so...like Christmas, LB's Birthday, Starr's Birthday, Halloween, etc. Tie them in with existing seasonal stuff...That way "folks" can plan around them to see if it helps! Imagine if 90% of the old players started coming back to the game just for the special events... Just saying! Good Hunting Everyone!! And thanks Devs and Players for all your efforts!!
     
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