Something to play towards or un-necessary forced time sink

[majorprankster]

12 hours ago, VV said:

I think that the idea of putting a time sink into a freebie game that nobody makes any money off of is ridiculous and the assumption that anyone would do that is equally ridiculous.

 

(Of course, the time sinks that were already in there notwithstanding)

IMO, the thread is simply asking for more 'rewards' surrounded by 'gates' simply because some players are bored with the current ones.

Call them gates, rewards, shinies, or worthless bits in a database, does not matter, it's just a long rant of over the fact the game is no longer getting heavy development, with a big dose of people that don't like the idea of participation awards that seem to think they need another 'badge of honor' to show off to the other players.

Arm chair development by committee is a very popular design method on the Internet though! 🤣 

[Leogunner]

5 hours ago, tidge said:

I feel that this snippet should be the mission statement for the thread, as it's the only point of discussion (*1) that separates this discussion from simply being a suggestion thread asking for more things in the game.

Wouldn't these gates just depend on what the reward is?  Or maybe not.  I never understood why certain accolades required certain badges.

 

Whether the reward is an accolade power, a piece of gear, a feature unlock or a costume piece, wouldn't you then try to devise an intriguing an engaging task to obtain it?  You could come up with all kinds of ways to obtain a thing but I'd personally consider making the method to obtain it meaningful or have some other kind of design direction besides fixating on the concept of a gate existing to put the thing behind that has no relevance or lore behind it.

[Luminara]

17 minutes ago, Leogunner said:

Wouldn't these gates just depend on what the reward is?  Or maybe not.  I never understood why certain accolades required certain badges.

 

Whether the reward is an accolade power, a piece of gear, a feature unlock or a costume piece, wouldn't you then try to devise an intriguing an engaging task to obtain it?

 

It's more appropriate to go from the other direction.  Create the gate, then determine a suitably compelling reward.  If you create the reward first, then you're obliged to make the gate fulfill preconceived expectations, whether those expectations are developmental or perceptual, and you face the very real possibility of tuning the gate too far in one direction or the other.  You can very easily find yourself with an unpleasant gate that no-one wants to bother with because no reward justifies it, or a gate which you thought you were designing to be difficult to match the quality of a reward, but players skate through it like it's tissue paper and have a huge bonus in comparison to other rewards.

 

Another way I can say it is - you don't create the rewards, then build the game and content around them.  You create the content and build the game and gates, then set down rewards where necessary to entice players through gates.  If you show up for a tabletop game and tell everyone that you've created a list of cool gear, but no world, no encounters and no system, they're going to molest you with your own dice.

 

Obviously, since this game exists and there are already numerous gates, the mind immediately turns to how to make those gates "better" simply by scattering around more rewards.  But skipping straight to adding more rewards still isn't the correct solution.  Fixing bad gates, improving other gates and creating new and more interesting gates, that's the way to address the problems of grind and lack of perceived challenge.  People in this thread haven't expressed consternation over the rewards, they've outright stated that it was the removal of the gates which led to those rewards which bothers them.  The rewards themselves were of secondary consideration, it was the loss of the gates, the measure of progress, the moment of cresting the mountaintop, that affected them.  And grinding is, in the end, just excessive and excessively bad gating, which is also directly relevant and important because it emphasizes how bad some of the gates were, and how bad some still are, and how meaningless some rewards were, and are, when placed behind bad gates.

 

The gates are what really matter.  So that's what we should focus on and address.  Once we have suitable fixes for bad gates, improvements for bland gates, and interesting and exciting new gates, then we look at how to reward players.

 

Gate.  Reward.  In that order.

[Leogunner]

1 hour ago, Luminara said:

 

It's more appropriate to go from the other direction.  Create the gate, then determine a suitably compelling reward. 

If we were making the game, maybe.  Since the game is already made and we're looking at it from lots of angles (from trying to increase traffic to old content or reward achievements over a spread out timeframe), it can really be either or.  Compelling reasons to the contrary are: power creep...someone put out giving more slots for vet levels and I think that's a blatant example of power creep that should probably not be a targeted reward/tasking. Obligation/choice...even if the reward is minute, it's ultimately your choice to pursue it or not but likely someone out there will or maybe not even know and just get something extra for doing something they were doing anyway.  Lastly, the concept of "gates" itself....it's not like there is much to this game besides using your powers, clicking stuff and looking cool.  Creating a list of tasks isn't difficult.

 

Ultimately though, I don't think it's particularly more fruitful to start from one point or the other unless you have a particular idea and you're starting from that vantage point.  To anyone else who has a completely different idea, it might be worse.  Still, I think whatever tasking you can devise should have some purpose/link to the reward you're getting moreso than not. 

[ivanhedgehog]

On 11/11/2020 at 8:27 PM, Hero_of_Light said:

I wonder how the Have Cake server is doing.

Honestly, they started much later than homecoming so a majority of the very dedicated went to HC. not anyones fault or anything bad, just the first chance to play got people established.