Discussion - Dev Diary: Designing Day Jobs Feature
By
Aisynia,
Posted on: 2008-10-09 16:16 in Developers' Corner
Because trying to collect them actively prevents you from playing your character.
No, it prevents you from playing your character 24/7. Even you agree that no one should be doing that, though, so this isn't a particularly strong complaint.
Better that they NOT be visibly collectible items if the implementation is flawed from the start.
It's not flawed. You just don't like it because it doesn't suit your approach to collecting badges.
To make it less of a variance, the developers could cap the reward day at 8 hours per day.
This argument translates to: "I don't want anyone to be able to get this badge faster than I can, so the requirements should be changed to keep that from happening". The answer should be a resounding "no".
Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
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When you are playing one character you will still get progress on the other characters.
Only the time you play a specific character will slow down the progress for that specific character.
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Are we sure about this? I'm not questioning you directly I just haven't seen a developer comment on it. To be fair I haven't looked for one either. I know in other MMO's I've played you only earn rested xp when the account is logged off and not a particular character. Meaning as long as the account was logged on none of your characters would be gaining rested xp, I assume if the xp portion works that way so will the badge portion. Any one know if we have any confirmation on this?
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Hmm. Interesting.
I've only glanced at Rested XP implementations in other games.
My impression from reading the Dev diary article (and my previous impression) was that it would work per-character. After reading through it again, it seems like the article alternates between talking about a "character" being logged out and a "player" being logged out (and not always using the words consistently).
To me that still seems to indicate that it is enough that a character is logged out (if a player is logged out then so is also all its characters) though.
Anyway, my impression has always been (and continues to be) that the log out time is counted per character, but I don't really recall any dev posts specifically stating that (possibly because I always assumed that it would be, and thus would not have found any such comments noteworthy).
Alright, I've been thinking about things over the last couple days and was suddenly hit with a realization when somebody was talking about "invisible" badges a few pages back.
There are visible badges that are actually multiple badges as well. For instance, the Respec Trial badges. You get one badge (with associated text) for earning a respec, and then the badge changes after using the respec.
So why not take the same approach to Day Jobs?
At 10 days, you earn a Day Job badge, but it doesn't boost any of the rewards associated with that Day Job (like reducing the time it takes to earn full credit towards those rewards).
At 30 days, the badge gets a star logo, and the description text is changed to say that you are a "Star Employee." This is the point when you start gaining the benefits associated with the badge. The badge's title still says you're a "Professor," it's just the flavor that's changed.
The technology and precedent already exist in the game to support this. Originally, there was a contact red-side that was supposed to be activated for earning the 24-33 and 34-43 respecs. However, it was accidentally made so the contact was only activated after using those respecs.
The Accolades would work the same way. You earn the badge simply having the two job badges, but then you can earn "Star Employee" on the Accolade, and the benefits, by having "Star Employee" on both the jobs required to earn it.
If you have any problems with this proposed implementation other than "I think it's fine already and don't see why anyone would want to change it," please let us hear them. I'm trying to propose a constructive change, and appreciate constructive criticism.
Main Hero: Chad Gulzow-Man (Victory) 50, 1396 Badges
Main Villain: Evil Gulzow-Man (Victory) 50, 1193 Badges
Mission Architect arcs: Doctor Brainstorm's An Experiment Gone Awry, Arc ID 2093
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Originally Posted by Nethergoat
it's NEVER too late to pad your /ignore list!
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Because trying to collect them actively prevents you from playing your character. No other badge in the system does this.
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That's a matter of interpretation I suppose. One could argue that badges like Empath prevents you from playing your character in a similar fashion. Both of them are set up in a way that generally makes "actively playing" your character slow down the rate at which you earn them compared to the "optimal" rate (unless you consider sitting in a Gladiator farm (or similar) to be actively playing). The difference is that the Day Job badges (presumably) "prevent" you from playing that specific character, while Empath prevents you from "actively playing" that account.
"Playing" (an account with) a character aiming for Empath probably also slows down the rate of gain more than playing a character aiming for a Day Job badge does, unless possibly if you are playing in situations that provide for extreme healing.
That's not to say that Empath is a shining example of badge design that all other badges should aspire to, but the situation does not seem to be completely unique.
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And if you are competing with others, then the length of time doesn't matter as long as it is the same for everyone.
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Actually, it isn't. The time varies (in both extremes) from 30 days to 60 days for one day job badge as proposed. Now playing for 12 hours a day is unhealthy in the extreme. It is more likely that each Day job badge will take from 35-45 days, but there is still a variance. Variance != same for everyone.
To make it less of a variance, the developers could cap the reward day at 8 hours per day. So instead of 2,592,000 seconds, it would be 864,000 seconds, but would grant the award every 30 days unless someone played for 16 hours a day. They should have a way to tell if anyone is consistently playing that long and likely should notify medical health people for an intervention.
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Many other badges have a signiicant variance in the rate at which you achieve them during regular play, in many cases *far* more extreme than the ones for the Day Job system. Why is variance inherently a problem for Day Job badges?
As for capping the reward rate, that would essentially equalize the reward rate (excepting around the clock offline farms of one kind or another), and that would seem to be contrary to what I believe is one of the intended effects of the system. If this is the case, then claiming that the change would reduce variance would not be a very persuasive reason to implement the change.
Even if it is not intended to be that way, I still see no specific reason that capping reward rates would be "good".
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There are visible badges that are actually multiple badges as well. For instance, the Respec Trial badges. You get one badge (with associated text) for earning a respec, and then the badge changes after using the respec.
So why not take the same approach to Day Jobs?
At 10 days, you earn a Day Job badge, but it doesn't boost any of the rewards associated with that Day Job (like reducing the time it takes to earn full credit towards those rewards).
At 30 days, the badge gets a star logo, and the description text is changed to say that you are a "Star Employee." This is the point when you start gaining the benefits associated with the badge. The badge's title still says you're a "Professor," it's just the flavor that's changed.
The technology and precedent already exist in the game to support this. Originally, there was a contact red-side that was supposed to be activated for earning the 24-33 and 34-43 respecs. However, it was accidentally made so the contact was only activated after using those respecs.
The Accolades would work the same way. You earn the badge simply having the two job badges, but then you can earn "Star Employee" on the Accolade, and the benefits, by having "Star Employee" on both the jobs required to earn it.
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Hmm.
That would certainly take care of many of the complaints.
However, consider this:
As the system is currently set up, the badges provide an incentive to keep exploring the Day Job system; many players will probably continue to pursue different careers simply because doing so awards badges.
If you reduce the time required to gain all the badges, you also reduce the amount of time the system continues to be a draw for certain groups of players.
This obviously has to be weighed against the negative sides of long acquisition rates, but reducing the time to acquire all badges is not purely a benefit.
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Because trying to collect them actively prevents you from playing your character. No other badge in the system does this.
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Exploration and History badges require you to find specific locations; Accomplishments require you to do specific missions; and Achievements require you to kill specific mobs or do X amount of something else. Each of those categories of badges has a different requirement, and fulfilling those requirements takes time away from doing other things.
Now, what if one player only liked doing missions to get badges. Should the devs remove the other kinds of badges? I mean, going to all those other locations and defeating X of each kind of enemy prevents him from playing his character as he wants to play it. By introducing those badges into the game, the devs are "forcing" him to waste time doing all those other activities.
Or, perhaps he should just collect the badges that fit his playstyle instead of asking the devs to design the game around how he specifically likes to collect things.
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In this game every single badge is counted. Even the ones that Positron considers "not-badges": Gladiators. At that point your argument fails. If it looks like a badge, acts like a badge, then it should follow that they are badges.
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I didn't say they weren't badges, only that they were a different kind of badge. Just as there are many different kinds of badges in the real world, there are also many different kinds of badges in the game. And different ones are obtained in different ways, with some being more collectible than others.
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Actually, it isn't. The time varies (in both extremes) from 30 days to 60 days for one day job badge as proposed. Now playing for 12 hours a day is unhealthy in the extreme. It is more likely that each Day job badge will take from 35-45 days, but there is still a variance. Variance != same for everyone.
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The out-of-game time is the same for everybody. If you spend more time per day playing a character than somebody else, you are the one introducing variance, not Day Jobs.
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At 10 days, you earn a Day Job badge, but it doesn't boost any of the rewards associated with that Day Job (like reducing the time it takes to earn full credit towards those rewards).
At 30 days, the badge gets a star logo, and the description text is changed to say that you are a "Star Employee." This is the point when you start gaining the benefits associated with the badge. The badge's title still says you're a "Professor," it's just the flavor that's changed.
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That would only work if people would be satified with the 10-day badges. But if they weren't satified with just ignoring Day Job badges, I'm not sure why they wouldn't want to collect all star-logo badges, and then you'd be right back where you started.
(QR) *logging in to all of my alts to park them in the right places*
Lvl 50 fire/rad troller Wantonya - Infinity
Too many other alts and servers to bother counting
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Explain to me how one toon can have twenty or thirty day jobs. (Trizz, do NOT post that youtube here!)
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I know a guy (in real life) that has A) worked construction, B) was an amateur boxer, C) was a mechanic, D) was a car salesman, E) bred dogs for police use, F) was a master welder, G) was used as a human forklift, H) was a bouncer at a trucker rest haven, I) was a factory foreman, J) last I heard was doing custom metalwork design and fabrication.
That's just the stuff I know about, and he didn't have powers granted to him from beyond the unknowable veil of time and space, verily, infused with the powers of the gods themselves.
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I'll say this much though: better to err on the side of a long timer because if it's set too short, people will get all the badges quickly and then there'll be no other badges for them to get.
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You are assuming that the mini game ends after the badges are retrieved. In fact, the game only gets more "interesting" after people start getting badges.
Seems like most the people in this thread are missing some important points, so I'll outline them:
For each location:
A) There is a bonus power achievable for 240 hours of being logged out. The power lasts for 2 hours, which is a bout 0.83% of the time "spent" to get it.
B) there is a badge achievable for 720 hours of being logged out. (that means you'd get the badge after getting the power about 3 times.)
C) after getting the badge, you get the bonus power again after 192 hours of being logged out (about 1% of the time spent to get it.) and the power has increased stats.
D) There are accolade powers based on having 2 or more day job badges. (Possibly a combination of 3 or more badges, but I don't remember where I saw something that implied an accolade would require more than 2.) This means an accolade (and additional badge) is unlocked after minimum of 1440 hours, and that's assuming there are no 3 job accolades.
E) To recharge your accolade, you need to log back out at one of the locations that you have the badge already for another 192 hours. (I'm assuming. The article didn't specifically say what was needed to recharge the accolade power)
F) There are more than 12 day jobs. 12 were listed as being Most but Not All. That means there are at least 13, but I'd guess around 15 day jobs. I would also guess that each job has two other jobs that form an accolade with it, meaning there are possibly 13-15 more accolades with them.
So, what things can be inferred from this? For one, the devs do expect people to get more than 1 day job. The devs also expect players to spend a lot of time doing day jobs that they already have the badges for. They also apparently are planning for people to get the bonuses from day jobs about 30 times a year. Using my above 205 hour 50, which I played in approximately 3-4 hour sessions (let's assume 3.5), yields about 1200 hours of offline time. That's not even enough to get a single accolade, from 1-50.
Let's go with my first toon, which was about 320 hours with a smattering of bridging thrown in, again, with 3.5 hour play times (this isn't accurate, because this one I would spend about 6-16 hours in one session at times. Why yes, that character has been on a Doctor Q. What was the tell?) which yields about 1874 hours of time offline. Which is enough for 1 accolade, and possibly charging it twice.
In the end, I guess the question is, is getting a day job related bonus about 3-8 times for your entire career from 1-50 reasonable? Furthermore, for something that occurs so few times during your career, how big is the feature really?
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I think a lot of people in this thread don't really realize how much their characters are really offline
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Indeed. In fact, I have characters that I don't play that regularly that have last logged in times of 18-20 days.
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[Arena heal farms] In fact, the more people who do that and get the badge that way, the less likely Positron will ever change the requirement to something more reasonable.
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Heal farms are the only way to get Empath. In fact, Father Bob has Empath (got the first 4 heal badges without farming, btw, and I have a thermal that has the first 5 without even stepping into an arena) and I fully support the requirement being changed to a slightly more sane number of 100,000,000 points of healing.
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People really complain about a gifted horse in this case. Its not even funny. Its sad.
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I'll use a sandwich metaphor.
You look at the complainers as starving men that get a free sandwich, who then whine about the crust not being cut off when they are lucky to get a sandwich at all.
They see themselves as starving men who are getting a sandwich that has been peed on, and while they'll still eat it because they are hungry, they do wish they there was a bit less urine on it.
Maybe we should be able to daylight?
Sermon
@sermon
One of Six, Cannibal 6
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I'll use a sandwich metaphor.
You look at the complainers as starving men that get a free sandwich, who then whine about the crust not being cut off when they are lucky to get a sandwich at all.
They see themselves as starving men who are getting a sandwich that has been peed on, and while they'll still eat it because they are hungry, they do wish they there was a bit less urine on it.
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Crusty Old Bum: can you spare a dollar?
Girl from Scary Movie: *gives bum a sandwich*
Bum: I asked you for a dollar [censored]! *throws sandwich at girl*
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In the end, I guess the question is, is getting a day job related bonus about 3-8 times for your entire career from 1-50 reasonable? Furthermore, for something that occurs so few times during your career, how big is the feature really?
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It's big for characters that don't get to 50 that quickly. In fact, I think that is the point. It helps to boost up the characters that are played less frequently.
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Explain to me how one toon can have twenty or thirty day jobs. (Trizz, do NOT post that youtube here!)
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I know a guy (in real life) that has A) worked construction, B) was an amateur boxer, C) was a mechanic, D) was a car salesman, E) bred dogs for police use, F) was a master welder, G) was used as a human forklift, H) was a bouncer at a trucker rest haven, I) was a factory foreman, J) last I heard was doing custom metalwork design and fabrication.
That's just the stuff I know about, and he didn't have powers granted to him from beyond the unknowable veil of time and space, verily, infused with the powers of the gods themselves.
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Or like me, who has been over the course of my life a farm worker, worked a factory assembly line, a secretary, a cashier/hostess in a restaurant, bred tropical fish, and have worked in three different areas of crime lab work - serology, drugs, and now computer crime. At the moment, I'm working on getting a writing career going.
I don't look at the day job badges as 'jobs my alt is doing right now". I look at them as skills that have been accumulated over their lifetime. Not that many people start off in one career and stick with it their entire lives.
"Home is where, when you have to go there, they have to let you in."
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Explain to me how one toon can have twenty or thirty day jobs. (Trizz, do NOT post that youtube here!)
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I think this system looks great and is a fun way of having your hero "doing" something when logged out. The "rested XP" is a nice addition as well.
Sure there are naysayers but I swear some on this board would complain if you announced everyone would get free back massages and a new car.
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Ah man, no happy endin and only 1 new car! Ima cancel if they cant do better than that, hehe.
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I don't look at the day job badges as 'jobs my alt is doing right now". I look at them as skills that have been accumulated over their lifetime. Not that many people start off in one career and stick with it their entire lives.
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And you can do just that with Day Jobs. Within 10 days of unplayed time, your skills already start to give you benefits. (And 10 days is the maximum benefit, so you will likely see benefits in under a day of out-of-game time, depending on what kind of benefit it is.)
After 30 days, you are considered a professional at whatever you were doing. Players that want to be jacks of all trades can spend a small amount of time at each job, getting a wide range of bonuses, while those that want to focus on a few skills can become experts in those areas.
If the devs make the time requirements so short that everyone can get every job, then that makes all of the jobs meaningless. They might as well have a "Can Do Everything" job in that case. They don't want all players to have every single job. They want players to choose what they want to focus on just like they are required to choose which AT and power sets they want to play with.
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I don't look at the day job badges as 'jobs my alt is doing right now". I look at them as skills that have been accumulated over their lifetime. Not that many people start off in one career and stick with it their entire lives.
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And you can do just that with Day Jobs. Within 10 days of unplayed time, your skills already start to give you benefits. (And 10 days is the maximum benefit, so you will likely see benefits in under a day of out-of-game time, depending on what kind of benefit it is.)
After 30 days, you are considered a professional at whatever you were doing. Players that want to be jacks of all trades can spend a small amount of time at each job, getting a wide range of bonuses, while those that want to focus on a few skills can become experts in those areas.
If the devs make the time requirements so short that everyone can get every job, then that makes all of the jobs meaningless. They might as well have a "Can Do Everything" job in that case. They don't want all players to have every single job. They want players to choose what they want to focus on just like they are required to choose which AT and power sets they want to play with.
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Just to be clear, while I have no problem with an alt having every day job badge, I also have no problem with the 30 day time period to earn them. The jobs I listed for myself are over my 45 year lifespan. I didn't do all those things in a couple of years.
I see nothing wrong with setting getting all the day job badges as a long term goal for my characters. Of course, I confess I'm more easy going about it because I doubt I'll have any problem getting them, seeing that I'm coming up on my 42 month badge and still don't have a 50. Altitis? Who has altitis?
"Home is where, when you have to go there, they have to let you in."
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Just to be clear, while I have no problem with an alt having every day job badge, I also have no problem with the 30 day time period to earn them. The jobs I listed for myself are over my 45 year lifespan. I didn't do all those things in a couple of years.
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Okay, then we are in agreement. I don't have a problem with a character having every day job badge either. I just don't think the devs should adjust their time requirements simply to cater to that desire.
However, if the devs don't add any more jobs, or if they add them at a slower rate than 1 a month, and people are able to get them all, more power to them!
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In this game every single badge is counted. Even the ones that Positron considers "not-badges": Gladiators. At that point your argument fails. If it looks like a badge, acts like a badge, then it should follow that they are badges.
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The game may count every single badge in the total, but that doesn't mean YOU have to do the same. You and the others to whom it matters can get together and agree which badges matter and which badges don't. If you don't like the vet badges or gladiators, then don't include them in your personal mental totals when comparing badges. Sure this might require a little extra effort on your part but it is really your extra mini game to begin with. Tons of people collect badges, but it really is a small amount that are fanatical about it, so take a little of that extra energy from badge hunting and put it to work on keeping your personal important badge total in your head.
My less-played alts thank you, Devs!
Story Arcs I created:
Every Rose: (#17702) Villainous vs Legacy Chain. Forget Arachnos, join the CoT!
Cosplay Madness!: (#3643) Neutral vs Custom Foes. Heroes at a pop culture convention!
Kiss Hello Goodbye: (#156389) Heroic vs Custom Foes. Film Noir/Hardboiled detective adventure!
<QR>
Just to go off on a bit of a tangent, if you think getting these Day Job badges is hard....
...go get a Blood Parrot instead.
Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
Hmmm. So I'm paying money not to play my toons? How about NCSoft not charge us for the time that we are earning these badges? I understand the intent, however, where a secret identity and day job is kind of par for the course with heroes. I don't really recall many villains, keeping their jobs, once they went villain. What possible reason would there be, money? you're a villain go rob a bank, or mug somebody. To protect your family from any enemies you make? you're a super villain, I'm not certain how much concern you have for anyone other than yourself. What day job would the Joker have? Cashier at a grocery store? Instead of this type of content, how about fixing existing issues. Items of Power (or did that get completely scrapped), Enchantment of Serafina doesn't work, how about doing something about the in game economy which is hosed, or moonbase/underwater zone (which we were asked about several months ago). And by the way love the Zombie Apocalypse idea....great job there.
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Hmmm. So I'm paying money not to play my toons? How about NCSoft not charge us for the time that we are earning these badges?
[/ QUOTE ]Do you realize that, right now, you are receiving nothing while you're offline and yet you're still paying NCSoft? Subscriptions are on a per-month basis, not per-hour-played. You don't get a refund because you had to go out of town for the week and so couldn't play your usual 4 hours a day. Right now you get nothing for that time. They're now offering something.
Why people think this is an incentive to get you to stay off your characters is beyond me. You'll still get so much more from an hour of playing than a week of not playing.
De minimis non curat Lex Luthor.
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When you are playing one character you will still get progress on the other characters.
Only the time you play a specific character will slow down the progress for that specific character.
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Are we sure about this? I'm not questioning you directly I just haven't seen a developer comment on it. To be fair I haven't looked for one either. I know in other MMO's I've played you only earn rested xp when the account is logged off and not a particular character. Meaning as long as the account was logged on none of your characters would be gaining rested xp, I assume if the xp portion works that way so will the badge portion. Any one know if we have any confirmation on this?