Either stop with the "please take breaks" mentality
Quote:
"We know everyone will be busy at the end of the year, so please challenge it at your own pace. There is nothing wrong with taking your time. Please enjoy all the variety of different games as well"
or actually design your game to not punish taking breaks.
"but the game is already designed to not punish taking breaks"
If you were ready to say that, then I'm here to tell you that's just bull.
Weekly Tome Cap
The weekly tome cap provides a rigid, week-by-week power upgrade struggle to keep you subscribed longer. I've never been a fan of this, but I see the reasoning both from a retention standpoint and an MMO gameplay structure one: it keeps players powering up over the course of a patch and feeds into the sense of accomplishment. But it is also at odds with the notion that the game doesn't punish you for taking a break - I cannot go 7 days without playing my ass off on atleast one day or casually over the course of several days, lest I fall behind on the gear curve.
Proposed Solution: Catch-up tomes. Make it so that any unclaimed tomes for a week move on to the next, and the next after that and so on. Will this create a system where I can decide to grind my ass off for 4500 tomes after not being subscribed for 10 weeks? Yeah! But I'm also not falling behind for not playing the game, so I'm allowed to take breaks now.
Savage Lockout:
Savage Lockout is another way the game funnels you into minimal progression each week. I'm actually more fine with this than the tome gear lockout - you're probably much more invested in the game to begin with if you're doing savage, and you're more likely to clear with the gear you have 10 weeks in anyway, so the weekly tome cap adjustment would help alleviate the annoyance of Savage Lockout regardless.
Proposed Changes:
I'm not fine with the fact that Savage Lockout also means you're disincentivized to help others out due to affecting *their* gear drops as well. Remove this. Everyone just gets one chance to loot each week as before, but you don't delete drops from the pool for existing. Although I realise this would probably mess with their wish for world first races to be their own sort of esport, so let's say this relaxation only happens starting the week after someone on the server has cleared T4 the first time.
The reason I'm very adamant about this change is because if you're not already raiding by week 2-3, people usually stick to clear groups from that point onward for their reclears. There's a few gems of people who will offer their services to learn the fights a bit better, but by and large there's a specific culture in PF and otherwise your only option is a static, which doesn't work if you're a part of the crowd that takes breaks routinely. Therefore, you need to create a system that, even if not incentivizing people directly to go back into lower levels and helping others out, atleast doesn't disincentivize people to do exactly that.
Also, uncap Savage entirely in the off-patch. It's been out for 3-4 months by then. It's fine.
Housing Changes:
Housing is scarce, and I understand that there is no desire from the developer's side to change the way it works right now because you would much rather have the neighbourhoods. This is why housing auto-demo is a thing.
Since Housing autodemolition is currently 45 days after inactivity, which on the original patch structure meant ~15 days off from patch, you would need to add atleast 30 days extra to truly gauge whether someone is quitting for a time or just taking a break, like you and your team supposedly intend for us to do.
Minor Suggested Changes:
Roulette Charges. I'd like to be able to save my roulette bonuses for a few days. Doesn't have to be a lot, just like upwards of 3 days saved, so I can take minor breaks during the week and play when *I* want, as opposed to feeling like I'm missing rewards if I'm not playing the game.
Higher Allied Society Quest Allotment. Please make this 24. It'll make catching up so much better. Please.
Higher Poetics Carrying Capacity. I want to spend less time micromanaging a currency I get too much of. Please allow me to park my ass away from whatever vendors trade things for Poetics. You did it for scrips, you can do it for this too!
In my opinion, this will go a long way in creating a game that, as is intended, allows you to take breaks with minimal falloff. And who knows? Maybe I'll finally play Final Fantasy XVI with the money I won't have to use to stay subscribed all the time
Continue reading...
Quote:
"We know everyone will be busy at the end of the year, so please challenge it at your own pace. There is nothing wrong with taking your time. Please enjoy all the variety of different games as well"
or actually design your game to not punish taking breaks.
"but the game is already designed to not punish taking breaks"
If you were ready to say that, then I'm here to tell you that's just bull.
Weekly Tome Cap
The weekly tome cap provides a rigid, week-by-week power upgrade struggle to keep you subscribed longer. I've never been a fan of this, but I see the reasoning both from a retention standpoint and an MMO gameplay structure one: it keeps players powering up over the course of a patch and feeds into the sense of accomplishment. But it is also at odds with the notion that the game doesn't punish you for taking a break - I cannot go 7 days without playing my ass off on atleast one day or casually over the course of several days, lest I fall behind on the gear curve.
Proposed Solution: Catch-up tomes. Make it so that any unclaimed tomes for a week move on to the next, and the next after that and so on. Will this create a system where I can decide to grind my ass off for 4500 tomes after not being subscribed for 10 weeks? Yeah! But I'm also not falling behind for not playing the game, so I'm allowed to take breaks now.
Savage Lockout:
Savage Lockout is another way the game funnels you into minimal progression each week. I'm actually more fine with this than the tome gear lockout - you're probably much more invested in the game to begin with if you're doing savage, and you're more likely to clear with the gear you have 10 weeks in anyway, so the weekly tome cap adjustment would help alleviate the annoyance of Savage Lockout regardless.
Proposed Changes:
I'm not fine with the fact that Savage Lockout also means you're disincentivized to help others out due to affecting *their* gear drops as well. Remove this. Everyone just gets one chance to loot each week as before, but you don't delete drops from the pool for existing. Although I realise this would probably mess with their wish for world first races to be their own sort of esport, so let's say this relaxation only happens starting the week after someone on the server has cleared T4 the first time.
The reason I'm very adamant about this change is because if you're not already raiding by week 2-3, people usually stick to clear groups from that point onward for their reclears. There's a few gems of people who will offer their services to learn the fights a bit better, but by and large there's a specific culture in PF and otherwise your only option is a static, which doesn't work if you're a part of the crowd that takes breaks routinely. Therefore, you need to create a system that, even if not incentivizing people directly to go back into lower levels and helping others out, atleast doesn't disincentivize people to do exactly that.
Also, uncap Savage entirely in the off-patch. It's been out for 3-4 months by then. It's fine.
Housing Changes:
Housing is scarce, and I understand that there is no desire from the developer's side to change the way it works right now because you would much rather have the neighbourhoods. This is why housing auto-demo is a thing.
Since Housing autodemolition is currently 45 days after inactivity, which on the original patch structure meant ~15 days off from patch, you would need to add atleast 30 days extra to truly gauge whether someone is quitting for a time or just taking a break, like you and your team supposedly intend for us to do.
Minor Suggested Changes:
Roulette Charges. I'd like to be able to save my roulette bonuses for a few days. Doesn't have to be a lot, just like upwards of 3 days saved, so I can take minor breaks during the week and play when *I* want, as opposed to feeling like I'm missing rewards if I'm not playing the game.
Higher Allied Society Quest Allotment. Please make this 24. It'll make catching up so much better. Please.
Higher Poetics Carrying Capacity. I want to spend less time micromanaging a currency I get too much of. Please allow me to park my ass away from whatever vendors trade things for Poetics. You did it for scrips, you can do it for this too!
In my opinion, this will go a long way in creating a game that, as is intended, allows you to take breaks with minimal falloff. And who knows? Maybe I'll finally play Final Fantasy XVI with the money I won't have to use to stay subscribed all the time
Continue reading...