Discussion - Dev Diary: Designing Day Jobs Feature
By
Aisynia,
Posted on: 2008-10-09 16:16 in Developers' Corner
Strictly speaking, Venture, he said "anti-badger," not "anti-badge." I think your longstanding stance against the desire to get every badge on a given character could reasonably be described that way.
"Every badge on one character" is an extreme position. Describing me as an anti-badger because I object to an extreme is like calling someone a communist because he objects to laissez-faire.
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One thing I will note, I play a lot of static teams that are on a weekly schedual. If the on patrol bonus is a percentage, then when I log in to play 6 days and 21 hours after I last logged out (we tend to play about 3 hours) then I will have almost 10 full bubbles of double xp. Which is fine.
If it is all or nothing, then I get a full bubble ever other week, and loose lots of patential logged off time. If the second case is how it works, I would like to see it lowered to a bit under 7 days instead of 8 days to completely refill your timer.
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Something's been bugging me as I've been reading through the last 20 odd pages of replies. I keep seeing "We're getting rewarded for doing nothing." This is wrong. You get rewarded based on where you park your character. You have to actually move your character to the place that will earn you the badge you're trying to earn. It's a minor point, maybe, but I just like it when people get the terminology right. Much like when I keep seeing "This is a slap to the face to (insert group here)."....but that's for a whole nother argument 
Put me in the camp of folks that sees this feature as nothing but an extra shiney or two for doing the exact same thing I'd be doing without it, namely playing the game as normal. You want a badge for doing nothing in the game? Just keep paying your sub fee, and eventually you'll get vet badges, or an anniversary badge just for logging in at the right time. The day job badges take way more effort than those.
Loose --> not tight.
Lose --> Did not win, misplace, cannot find, subtract.
One extra 'o' makes a big difference.
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Well, if the goal is to gain xp (and this is how the game is set up), then the smart thing to do is to play each toon for a level and move to the next.
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If it takes 10 days to get 1 level's worth of double xp, it would take 490 days in addition to play time to level a character to 50. If you started at level 20 it would take 300 days. No matter how many characters you have that is not smart.
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Badge Hounds are just like the Content Hounds. When new content comes out, they blow through it and demand give me more! Same with the badgers.
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Demonstrably false. I for one do not "blow through" new content.
Broad overgeneralizations that are just made as hand-waving arguements, pulled out of your butt without any shred of evidence, do not as a general rule actually help whatever point you're trying to make.
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How does the counter work? If I am logged out for 8 hours do I get a 1/3 of a day credit, or do I need to be logged out the full day. I assume it's the first 
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The counter is based on seconds, so every second you are logged out you are getting credit.
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I know this may sound silly at first, but my mind sometimes goes in odd directions.
What exactly is required for the server to recognize that a character is logged out? I'm sure the obvious bit of logging out will do the trick, but what about extended mapserver disconnects? I'm not campaigning to get time credited for the time during a mapserver disconnect (but I wouldn't complain about it either, as common as they can be sometimes), but rather wondering if we suffer an extended DC, does that read our character as logged out or not? I mostly wonder because I've had a number of DCs crashed the client, and upon restarting, tried to log in and was told my account was already logged in. So is there any chance of time not being properly awarded if you get DC'd, and don't manage to log back in and then properly log out?
Dear NCsoft, if you go through with this shutdown you've guaranteed you'll not see another dime from me on any project you put out, ever.
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Say you're in a prison (because let's face it: as an OCD gamer, that's pretty much what badges are to me at this point).
The warden gives you a choice between two options:
1) You can have 6 decent-sized meals a month, one every 5 days.
2) You can have a feast every 30 days.
(Also, every 2 meals you eat comes with a dessert to help tide you over to the next meal.)
You could manage to survive only eating a good meal once every 5 days. But how long would it take before you and the other prisoners (badgers) died out completely waiting for the thirty day feasts?
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This right here is the reason why all analogies should be against the EULA for these boards... 
"OK, first of all... Shut Up." - My 13-Year-Old Daughter
29973 "The Running of the Bulls" [SFMA] - WINNER of the Mighty Big Story Arc Contest !
- The Stellar Wind Orbital Space Platform
i cant wait to start earning badges and salvage as a scholar my guy is a big enhancement builder and seller and so even if its a lot of common salvage its good.
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Well, if the goal is to gain xp (and this is how the game is set up), then the smart thing to do is to play each toon for a level and move to the next.
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If it takes 10 days to get 1 level's worth of double xp, it would take 490 days in addition to play time to level a character to 50. If you started at level 20 it would take 300 days. No matter how many characters you have that is not smart.
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I don't know what your point is ... but you seem to be making MY point.
By your math, if I play for another year (and if I don't make a lot of new toons), I'll have about 60 level 50 toons.
By contrast, in my play since May 2005 I have brought only 2 toons to level 50. So this On Patrol rule would seem to make the game a lot easier.
But, no big deal. I was just trying to bring up a point about the devs designing more and more for rewards instead of challenges, and wondering if that was a good policy.
I don't see how you are going to have to time to play 60 toons to level 50 in one year even with the On Patrol bonus but heaven help you if you can. Of course you can do the same thing now and much faster by just power level farming.
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Now, because they tied badges to the system, they bring in a completely different set of competing criteria that it now is a sizable barrier to badge completists
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You can't tell people "be a collector, of some stuff." That's incompatible with the collector mindset, and a good game designer should acknowledge the target audience they are targetting.
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Are you sure most collectors are also completists? There can be value to collecting something, without the goal of collecting all of something. I know a lot of collectors who do not and will not ever have all of something and they still seem happy with their collecting hobby, but I do not know enough of psychology to say which way is the best here.
Completists might get alienated by a system where they can't collect it all, but I and all of my SG mates still collect badges here and there, and not just for the powers and other rewards, even though I think we only have one or two completists amongst us (one for sure, but they seem OK with the fact that it will take a very long time for them to complete, and the other I think is a closet completist).
Perhaps the target is collectors, not completists. That may or may not be a good choice, I have no idea if there is even a real distinction, but it seems to me there is one.
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That's me. I like getting badges and I go out of my way to get them when I can, but I'm under no illusion that I'll ever have them all and some of them just aren't worth the time for me to get. I'm fine with that. I don't need them all, let alone need them all right this second! I like that there'll always be another badge to go find. I think I would be disappointed if there ever came a point when there were no more badges to get.
Honestly, I think even the completists would be disappointed if there ever came a time when they didn't have another badge to shoot for. If Positron came out and said "Ok, we've run out of ideas for badges so we won't be adding any more to the game" would there really be people who feel "Ah, now I have all the badges, my character is complete"? What would such a person do with their character at that point?
There will always be new badges added to the game so the 'badge bar' will always be raised. The Day Job system, like the Vet Reward system, is just more overt about letting people see that. Even if they reduced the time to get the current job badges, they'll probably just add more anyway. It's a system designed for Sisyphus.
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*Nod* I agree, point made; Badges will keep coming because people love finding things, its human nature.
Point made; who cares if it takes forever, nobody is really complaining that much about the vet rewards, i'm at 30 33 any time now thanks gothika, you pretty much said what was needed to be said
Offering Web grenade to EVERY villain is a PvP disaster. I already get web grenaded by most enemies in PvP and now you are telling me you are going to offer it to ALL of them? and I can get a BATON????????????????? Something I have to be in close range to use ... UM IF I AM WEB GRENADED HOW AM I GONNA GET NEAR ENOUGH TO MY TARGET. Please think before handing stuff like this out. I already have a hard enough time with my blaster in PvP as it is and yes I DO have to brave it cause I want the pillbox badges. I am running set enhancements in almost every power and yet a soldier can come in and wipe me in 2 shots. Dominators hold me, everyone has a power to shut off my toggles (Hopefully you plan on extending the defensive toggles to heroes and not just villains to make them even more UBER) but I saw that and my first thought was "Great ... now EVERYONE is going to be able to stick me to the ground and pound on me" Common guys, if you are trying to create game balance you are way off the mark.
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Offering Web grenade to EVERY villain is a PvP disaster. I already get web grenaded by most enemies in PvP and now you are telling me you are going to offer it to ALL of them? and I can get a BATON????????????????? Something I have to be in close range to use ... UM IF I AM WEB GRENADED HOW AM I GONNA GET NEAR ENOUGH TO MY TARGET. Please think before handing stuff like this out. I already have a hard enough time with my blaster in PvP as it is and yes I DO have to brave it cause I want the pillbox badges. I am running set enhancements in almost every power and yet a soldier can come in and wipe me in 2 shots. Dominators hold me, everyone has a power to shut off my toggles (Hopefully you plan on extending the defensive toggles to heroes and not just villains to make them even more UBER) but I saw that and my first thought was "Great ... now EVERYONE is going to be able to stick me to the ground and pound on me" Common guys, if you are trying to create game balance you are way off the mark.
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Whether I agree or disagree; this is the path that I was expecting out of this thread... balance issues regarding temp/accolade powers in regards to the number that could be held at one time and the powers themselves.
Apparently, I play "City of Shakespeare"
*Arc #95278-Gathering the Four Winds -3 step arc; challenging - 5 Ratings/3 Stars (still working out the kinks)
*Arc #177826-Lights, Camera, Scream! - 3 step arc, camp horror; try out in 1st person POV - 35 Ratings/4 Stars
No prestige day job??!! What a slap in the face. People who actually enjoy base building and having small supergroups are being told to go.
Alt-holic - Always have characters from startup to 50 as scrappers or Defenders.
My serialized story about world created so badly the creatures fight back.
Can a toon change careers? Or do they lock in to just one?
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Snow_Globe isn't completely off his rocker here. There is an intrinsic value to the badge system that actual badge collectors provide. Unless it is required for an accolade or other unlockable, only completists really go after, or even care about things like explore badges, or many of the defeat badges. The devs have sent mixed messages about the badge system by statement and action for as long as the badge system has been in place. It is not unambiguously a given that players just aren't supposed to be able to get all the badges as Venture claims. In an absolute sense, that's technically true, but the devs have always hoped that the players would pursue everything else.
You can't tell people "be a collector, of some stuff." That's incompatible with the collector mindset, and a good game designer should acknowledge the target audience they are targetting. If the devs are targetting people who care enough to pursue some of the badges with no meaning beyond collection, and will happily ignore all the ones that are designed to be out of reach, they are targetting a phone booth: there aren't bound to be lots of people like that.
*If* the devs push the collector mindset too far, they could devalue badge collecting past a tipping point, and simply eliminate collectors from the system. The only people left would be the ones who would only pursue badges if there was something else in it for them. And in that case, badges cease to be a meaningful reward item in the game. They would only be a game mechanical contrivance to act as a placeholder to unlock the *true* rewards.
That is a gameplay loss of some value. Why its not a higher priority to address is something that I'm honestly not sure about. It almost seems like the Powers That Be think its something they can fix whenever they want, so its a low priority. I'm not sure I agree. I don't think there's any danger *now* to the badge system, but I also believe that the first sign I detect that it is in danger will be when its dead. We're not going to have swimming polar bears giving us a hint.
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That is a great response, Arcanaville.
Mind if run with that from a slightly different angle?
The fun of badges is in the earning not in the chasing. 30 days on offline badges pushing the earnings so far apart as to be unnoticable, thus they're not a very fun badge concept.
The design goal of badges is to promote content. (Which is why Empath sucks, it doesn't promote healing as content, it instead begs for farming.) Yeah, these promote more abstract content, since you're not online to see it, but the idea applies rather well. The badges should be an added way to encourage people to experience multiple day jobs. Instead, 30 days would seem to stick someone into one job for such an incredibly long time to get a reward that it outwieghs the incentive to try the other jobs.
From the question of "should we have all the badges" let's simplify to "should we have all the day jobs?" Is there a real harm in making that so much easier? With the inherant limit that you can only log out in 1 spot to gain the log-in benefit later, would it matter if one person quickly unlocked all potential benefits on a single character? They're still only going to be able to *use* one at a time, even if they have more of the badges.
Consider that for every day job badge you chase simply *as a badge* you're passing up on logging out in some other area where you may get an offline benefit of more use. ie: you have to gimp yourself to chase a day job badge for the badge's sake. That's not good for the badge system, either, and its effect should be minimized.
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I said it before and I'll say it again, rewarding players for being offline brings with it all kinds of SUCK. Especially when you need to beoffline for like a year in total PER CHARACTER.
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so you'd pay a years subscription even though you wouldn't be online for any of it? 
Again i just dont get it. The day job mini-game and associated badges are somethin FREE. U dont have to do anything any different then u have been doin all the 4yrs this game has been out. The only change is now for doin that same nothing u can get temp powers, INF, XP and badges, why complain?
It really just blows my mind, and yea ive read more of this thread than i care to admit, hehe. People always complain and when u demand that new stuff should be given to u quicker and easier it sounds just like all the WoW kids that all of u same people complian about. Its free stuff and yes fun for alot of people when they keep doin things the way they always have except now sometimes when i log in i will have extra stuff that i didnt have before from doin the same thing.
However i know that im wastin my words here and just givin people somethin else to complain about, but maby the devs will understand that there are some players who will enjoy this, alot. O yea also i do try to get as many badges as i can, also i have really hardcore OCD, but the meds help, hehe. Thought id throw that in there becuase i know there will be more than a few people who say i dont understand becuase i dont badge or have OCD.
Hero: It's not about quicker and easier. Some of us actually think the implementation is flawed, while the concept is fair. For instance: So thematically, why should one hero have twenty five day jobs?
Read the link in my sig for my argument. Tired of arguing in circles, the link thing was the best decision I made in this "discussion".
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I got a couple of heroes who have day jobs as part of their background.
I have one who is postal delivery man. Another who is a detective.
So, it seems to me that neither have dayjob spots setup since only certain
buisness are indentified now in Paragon City.
I might be mistaken since all dayjobs were not listed on the deveopers diary news
and I have not read all the posts here either.
I was also thinking that maybe resturant/bar (like Pocket D) should be included since you can
have food sevice personel, hosts, entertainers, etc.
50's on Freedom--12+ Lone Eagle INV Tanker, Crey Avenger NRG Blaster,
Dnase EMP Defender, Paradox? GRAV KIN Troller,FireFox FIRE Blaster,
Irish Ember FIRE EMP Troller, Marble ST Tanker, Archangel FIRE Kintroller
Let's end one of these circles people seem to be arguing in right now.
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The CoX day/night cycle is extremely disproportionate to RL time. What is it, 2 CoX days per RL hour (I don't know, maybe more/less) but at bare minimum you're looking at 24 CoX days per RL day with 30 RL days putting you at about 2 years of CoX time. That looks like a ton of leeway dictating how many jobs, internships, vocational and associate degrees a person could have stepped through in a year of RL (8640 CoX days/23 CoX years).
Personally, I've held 3 jobs at a time (2 jobs consistantly) for the better part of 10-15 years with changes in the job(s) from relocation and/or wage jockeying. Heck, between paper routes and summer programs (JTPA), I had burned through 7 between the time I was 12 and 18.
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So, any of us military around here?
What does Airborne Infantry mean jobwise to you, or ParaRescue or Military Police or Guardsman/Reservist?
To me, the title represents a plethora of training leading up to and continuing past that one job title.
Most basic military personnel (outside of USAF) get weapons training, hand to hand training, first aid training, small unit training, drill and ceremony training, orienteering training, home ed training, basic security training, hazmat training, vehicle training, communications training, etc with a specialization/emphasis on whatever their career field may hold.
Even in home construction, a well-trained crewman will be trained in carpentry, bricklaying, electrical wiring, plumbing, roofing, tiling, insulating, sheetwalling, painting, etc... all legitimate jobs in themselves (lets not even get into commercial construction)
Did anyone ever watch an old TV show called 'The Fugitive'?
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A toon is not concurrently holding 20+ day jobs, he's holding one job at a time... what the toon does have however, once they get 20-30 of these badges is more akin to a certificate of accomplishment, completion, graduation, time-served, merit badge, service ribbon, whatever.
Holding 30 of these badges doesn't mean that you are working all of these jobs at the same time... it just means that you've gotten enough training in each of these tasks that you are qualified to do any of these 20-30 tasks (at least in basic capacity) if asked to do so.
[/ QUOTE ] -Example: Right now, if I were asked, I could cook a variety of meals (Cook), sell products over the phone, the net and door-to-door (Sales/Telemarketing), handle sales transactions in most settings (Cashier), handle books (Accounting), prepare and sort taxes (Tax Preparer), operate forklifts, powerjacks and Dusenhafs? (Small Equipment Operator/Transport/Warehousing), do inventory, unloading and stocking (Inventory Control/Unloader/Stocker), manage in a fast food and retail capacity (Manager), etc... does this mean that I hold all these jobs at one time... emphatically, no.
But I have done all of these jobs to the point that I am proficient at them and have earned my 'badges' in each... although the two I currently wear are 'Parent' and 'Retail Associate'.
In addition, some of the 'badge's I've held required that I actually do work that was spread into 4 or more separate job titles (all with diferent job codes and paygrades) due to being shorthanded or the company being 'thrifty'. So yes, I've had the pleasure of sporting 4-5 badges at one time on occasion.
No toon is actually holding 20 day jobs at once, not even in the game mechanics... when you log out, you're only gaining time for one badge; one job; one set of rewards and that's it. When you apply that badge to your title, you're only wearing one job tag.
This argument that a character is actually holding X amount of jobs at the same time is baseless no matter which angle you approach it from; so please, please... refrain from bringing this back up.
Apparently, I play "City of Shakespeare"
*Arc #95278-Gathering the Four Winds -3 step arc; challenging - 5 Ratings/3 Stars (still working out the kinks)
*Arc #177826-Lights, Camera, Scream! - 3 step arc, camp horror; try out in 1st person POV - 35 Ratings/4 Stars
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2 Weeks to me seems more or less a better time than 30 days per badge.
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just curious about the 'Out of Combat' recovery and regen bonuses... how does the system differentiate the potentially different stages of combat:
approach, first strike, fleeing, etc?
Apparently, I play "City of Shakespeare"
*Arc #95278-Gathering the Four Winds -3 step arc; challenging - 5 Ratings/3 Stars (still working out the kinks)
*Arc #177826-Lights, Camera, Scream! - 3 step arc, camp horror; try out in 1st person POV - 35 Ratings/4 Stars
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just curious about the 'Out of Combat' recovery and regen bonuses... how does the system differentiate the potentially different stages of combat:
approach, first strike, fleeing, etc?
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Just a guess, but it'd seem plausible that the bonuses suppress when you attack/are attacked. Sort of like travel powers.
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And if you're an anti-badger like CodeJunkie and Venture,
Don't have time for a full reply, just wanted to hit this: my main, whom I rerolled (at 50) in i11 to switch origin and primary, has 369 badges.
I'm not "anti-badge". I like badges. I just don't think that a) they should be free or easy or b) that anyone should have any expectation of having them all on one character.
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Strictly speaking, Venture, he said "anti-badger," not "anti-badge." I think your longstanding stance against the desire to get every badge on a given character could reasonably be described that way.
-D
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