Discussion - Dev Diary: Designing Day Jobs Feature
By
Aisynia,
Posted on: 2008-10-09 16:16 in Developers' Corner
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I don't really recall many villains, keeping their jobs, once they went villain.
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How do you think villains learn to rob a place? They need a person on the inside to make notes about the security and what times are ripe for the heist. A day job is perfect so they know when to come back at night to rob the place.
Day jobs are a welcome addition.
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i remember seeing some where that the day job badges were linked to costumes
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Day job badges are NOT linked to costumes.
The day job related costumes are free, unlocked at the start, content in Issue 13.
And the 30 days is what we are initially going with. The values may change in beta.
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I sure hope it does. No offense, but it's kind of absurd. That means for the badges you have LISTED, I have to log my main, my badge hunter, my favorite character out... for AT LEAST A YEAR.
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Maybe this is where devs made a mistake. Maybe they should have reduced the time required to get TWO of those badge for accolade but then prevented players to get any further badges from the collection.
It would have been like the Patron badges. Players would have to make a choice and live with it. So youd pick and work toward the bonus you want to have and stick with it. That way, players wouldnt have complained about needing 1 YEAR to get the badges.
Just make job badges exclusive after you earn two of them. So players only get 1 accolade in the end but theyll get it faster than 60 days.
From a RP point of view, it would also make some sense that a character cant have every jobs in the game...
And for those who say that such a system ( like Patron badges ) is screwing badgers, you should know by now that there already badges that are impossible to get ( like Celebrant, Elusive ) as of now. There are players that will never even have a chance to get every badges in game. So my point is maybe it never was intended for someone to get them all.
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Sorry Celestial I totally disagree. Only 1 day job no. Heres why.
This just an example of the different jobs I have had.
File Clerk
Secretary
Stock Manager
Sales
Sales Manager
Accountant
Inventory Controller
Store Manger
Customer Realtions Manager
plus others.
So I believe you should be able to get them all. Especially considering how time passes in game.
Pinnacle-Pale Spectre 50 Kat/Regen/Dark Scrapper
Spectre of the Gun 50 Thugs/Dark/Soul Mastery MM
MA Story Spectre of the Gun's Search" ID #352424
Spectral Darque 50 Dark/Dark Scrapper
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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.
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My roommate did this, and I plan on it too. Pirate guild, don'tcha know. 
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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.
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Sorry, but using a openly stated broken badge to compare to is not going to work here.
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On the empath badge:
"I put one too many zeroes on the thing, and by the time I realized that it was really absurdly hard to get, it was too late because people had already tried to get it and I didn't want to invalidate their play experience or the achievement they had earned. (Castle: That's the first time I've heard that story.) [...] Ten thousand Rikti monkeys changed when we changed the way--a core mechanic of the game changed, which was herding. Ten thousand Rikti monkeys was literally put in because you could herd a hundred Rikti monkeys at a time and kill them all."
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When the Lead Developer on an interview states a badge is broken, it ceases to be something that can be compared to until fixed, unless you are comparing just how long something is broken for or by how much it is broken compared to other broken badges.
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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.
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Show me where you can possibly infer that.
Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters
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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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That variance should be eliminated before launch. It serves no purpose.
Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters
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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.
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You missed a great post earlier in this thread about telling collectors what to collect.
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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. 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.
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You basically have said to badge collectors exactly that: "Continue to collect badges, but only collect some of them."
Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters
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That variance should be eliminated before launch. It serves no purpose.
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But it does. Just as hardcore players who spend 8 hours a day on average playing are able to access things like purple IOs and the epic badges and accolades, the day jobs and leveling pacts are geared toward the casual players who can't play nearly as often. The casual gamers can still get those accolades and purples eventually; the overachievers can still get the day jobs eventually. It's just going to take longer due to the playstyle.
De minimis non curat Lex Luthor.
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That variance should be eliminated before launch. It serves no purpose.
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But it does. Just as hardcore players who spend 8 hours a day on average playing are able to access things like purple IOs and the epic badges and accolades, the day jobs and leveling pacts are geared toward the casual players who can't play nearly as often. The casual gamers can still get those accolades and purples eventually; the overachievers can still get the day jobs eventually. It's just going to take longer due to the playstyle.
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So you are saying that it is proper for the developers to pretty much punish players for wanting to play their badge characters? Because that is what it comes down to.
They could instead reward everyone equally (ie only count part of a real day as a full day when determining these rewards).
Casual gamers and alternate characters earn these badges faster than characters dedicated to collecting badges. There is something seriously wrong with this.
Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters
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You basically have said to badge collectors exactly that: "Continue to collect badges, but only collect some of them."
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That is indeed my position. I think it is a reasonable position.
Completists =! Collectors
I sympathize with the pain completists may feel, but I do not feel that all content for the rest of the gaming population should be totally constrained by their particular desires.
Why Blasters? Empathy Sucks.
So, you want to be Mental?
What the hell? Let's buff defenders.
Tactics are for those who do not have a big enough hammer. Wisdom is knowing how big your hammer is.
So you are saying that it is proper for the developers to pretty much punish players for wanting to play their badge characters? Because that is what it comes down to.
The only way you could possibly say you were being "punished" for playing your badge character is if you were playing said character for amounts of time you yourself have said would merit an intervention.
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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So you are saying that it is proper for the developers to pretty much punish players for wanting to play their badge characters? Because that is what it comes down to.
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That is quite the self-centered view, isn't it? You're assuming this is a deliberate 'let's-screw-the-badgers' act. It's something to help out the casual players. That you decide getting these badges within half a year is the only way you can be happy isn't really their problem. It's not like you're locked out of it unless you play 24/7. It's just going to take you longer.
De minimis non curat Lex Luthor.
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Because trying to collect them actively prevents you from playing your character. [color= orange]No other badge in the system does this.[/color]
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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. [color= yellow]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.[/color]
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Sorry, but using a openly stated broken badge to compare to is not going to work here.
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[color= yellow]Yellow[/color] part re-added by me. [color= orange]Orange[/color] part highlighted.
There's a reason I added that bolded part at the end.
But you stated that "No other badge in the system does this". To show that as being false one only needs to show one example of the opposite, and there is no need for me, you, Positron, or my neighbor's cat to particularly *like* the other example. It just happens to be the easiest to show the extreme case of the opposite.
But Empath isn't the only example (just the most extreme one). How about Damage badges? Mez badges?
You *can* get those from normal playing, but usually the by far fastest way is through things like "Damage farms" (which essentially keeps your character "locked" for the duration).
In a similar fashion, you *can* get the Day Job badges with normal playing, but it is faster if you keep that character offline.
(and it seems to me that the effect can be more extreme for those other cases than for Day Job badges)
You could argue that no badges should behave like this, but I think that a fair case can be made that you are wrong if you state that no other badges currently "promote" the same behavior (if you want to optimize the time required to get them).
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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.
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Show me where you can possibly infer that.
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I stated a belief, but I do feel that it is a reasonable belief.
It seems quite obvious (and you seem to agree) that these new systems give rewards that are biased towards characters that are played less.
I simply find it much easier to believe that this effect was intended rather than a remarkable coincidence.
If you want a system that benefits everyone the same regardless of how long that character is offline, why design it so that it depends on how long characters are offline?
You could argue that the system should reward people independently of how much time they spend offline, but if the system is intended to benefit characters based on how long they spend offline, then that opinion is contrary to an intended effect of the system.
Really, if it capped at, say, 8 hours per day, it becomes little more than a vet badge. You went 30 days, here you go.
De minimis non curat Lex Luthor.
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Casual gamers and alternate characters earn these badges faster than characters dedicated to collecting badges. There is something seriously wrong with this.
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All else being equal, a character that spends more time offline will earn these badges faster than characters that spend less time offline (though this isn't necessarily something that hurts characters dedicated to collecting badges. I'm pretty sure that there are many dedicated badge collectors that are willing to spend time offline if that turns out to be the overall optimal rate to earn badges).
However, not all other things are equal.
More "casual" characters are probably less likely to keep exact track of how long then need to spend offline, and will thus probably be in greater risk of "over working" a Day Job, spending more time on it than necessary. The dedicated badge collectors are probably more likely to keep track of how much longer they need, and change Day Jobs in a timely fashion when the time comes.
More "casual" characters are probably less likely to seek out a Day Job location after every play session. The dedicated badge collectors are probably more likely to do so.
I'd be inclined to believe that these factors would give dedicated badge collectors a fairly significant edge over the average player.
All in all, I'd be surprised if "dedicated badge collectors" are not among the first to actually earn all these badges, even if the system remains exactly as described in the dev diary article.
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You basically have said to badge collectors exactly that: "Continue to collect badges, but only collect some of them."
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Well, there's already a history of that. That's what those of us who can't do the ski slopes were told. "Physical or other problems that prevent you from twitch gaming? Tough noogies."
"Home is where, when you have to go there, they have to let you in."
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I am under the impression that these badges are perfectly earnable through normal gaming...
...you do log out now and then already, don't you?
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!
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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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This is how I view them as well.
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After 30 days, you are considered a professional at whatever you were doing.
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It's not 30 days. It's 720 hours, which is significantly longer than 30 days when you factor in playtime.
720 is also twice as long as the number of hours on patrol for most of my non-pl'd characters when they hit 50.
Perversely, the more you play a character, the "worse off" that character is in regards to characters you don't play. While I appreciate the rewarding of altitis since I consider that one of the staying power factors, I do think it would cause a little bad blood for people that concentrate on one or two characters.
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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.
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To get the temp power for the first 3 times it is 240 hours each, or around 2 weeks of time depending on active play time. I don't consider that a small amount of time.
You are also completely ignoring the accolade related powers. After all, what if I want to be a bank guard? That's 1440 hours, or approximately two and a half months.
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If the devs make the time requirements so short that everyone can get every job, then that makes all of the jobs meaningless.
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This is a straw man. I think what people are trying to say through intuitive arguments, is that 9360 (15 months) to 10800 (17.5 months) hours is a bit high
What you are failing to do, is to provide an actual argument against lowering the requirements beyond "I think", yet you already feel that you are superior. You are arguing on opinion, not fact.
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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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And you have a quote for this? Because I don't see it. It could be inferred from the really high requirements, but there is absolutely *nothing* to prevent it, and it would be ridiculously easy to do so.
720 is also twice as long as the number of hours on patrol for most of my non-pl'd characters when they hit 50.
Hopefully, you didn't play those characters at least five times as much as you did.
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"
i just don't see why the amount of time it takes to get one of these is a factor, since you don't have to do anything to get them.
Just play for awhile, and every few weeks/months you have a new badge. No muss, no fuss.
Of course, if you happen to prioritize getting a certain badge over your playing time, you have that option also.
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!
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So you are saying that it is proper for the developers to pretty much punish players for wanting to play their badge characters? Because that is what it comes down to.
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People that focus on a single character aren't being punished, they just aren't getting as much as a reward as other players. We could probably do without the hyperbole.
I think there is a misconception that the devs explicitly want the badges to take a very long time to get. I think it has more to do with how long they want it to take for players to get the day job bonus powers, and to make them not easily farmable.
Personally, I disagree with the time spans for the rewards recieved. I think it would be much more reasonable for them to reward in 10 days, keeping in mind active playtime, rather than 10 days logged out total.
This is the merit I see to the 8 hour counts per 24 hour period idea someone else had. It makes the logged out times not easily farmable, while allowing for the rewards to pop every 10 days without forcing people that want the rewards to change their playstyle.
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Ok, how about this: Can the developers confirm that the double xp bars would double the INF that would normally be earned instead of XP, and the extra debt removal be equally increased at level 50?
It seems to me that all the rest of these rewards are meant for all characters, why would this be an exception?
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What I want to know, is if it does allow for increased debt removal for 50's, does it factor into the xp gain calculated while exemping down? (for the slow, all XP gained while exemped down is directly converted to inf. Beta testers will want to verify that either it doesn't double exemped XP at all, or that it decays properly while exemped.)
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The dedicated badge collectors are probably more likely to keep track of how much longer they need, and change Day Jobs in a timely fashion when the time comes.
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I lolled at the thought of Beef's alarm going off in the middle of the night for him to get up and switch job locations.
It's a bit more likely that he'd just log in as normal, note the new job badge, and log out somewhere else, the same as any other collector.
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I think there is a misconception that the devs explicitly want the badges to take a very long time to get. I think it has more to do with how long they want it to take for players to get the day job bonus powers, and to make them not easily farmable.
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I think they want it to take a bit over a month to get them. I think it may be possible to persuade them that it should take a bit less than a month, but I personally kind of like the idea of it taking about 1 month, give or take a few days.
If I had to guess, "I won't be able to get ALL the badges in under 8 months," is not going to persuade them to change the time required, but I could be wrong.
Why Blasters? Empathy Sucks.
So, you want to be Mental?
What the hell? Let's buff defenders.
Tactics are for those who do not have a big enough hammer. Wisdom is knowing how big your hammer is.
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You missed ....
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Nope I didn't miss it, I just didn't think it was a great post like you did.
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You basically have said to badge collectors exactly that: "Continue to collect badges, but only collect some of them."
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Yes! Collect the ones that have importance to you and not all of them have to be important. If you do think they are all important to collect then do that too.
By proposing the 30 day offline time for day job badges, it would seem inherent that the system for these badges is intended to take a long time. And nothing more than that, just a long time to get some shiny badges and neat temp powers. The whole thing is not geared toward getting them all quickly, but you can still get them all.
Now some people come along and say," WAH! I have to log out my badger for a year or so to get all the badges." Well, sure you can do that, but truely thats not what the system is about. You play the game and as time goes on the day job badges are some of the badges you can work toward just like you can work toward any other goal in the game. You just can't rush or farm day job badges. Is that really such a bad thing? They should actually be more meaningful because of the time investment to get them.
But if the whole thing is really going to take too long, then boycot the system and don't colloect them or don't count them in your badge tallies.
At this point I really feel the whining has been enough that the time for day job badges will be shortened, and probably by a large portion. Personally I hope the time stays the same or if it is shortened, then only by a tiny bit. I feel day jobs should be more of a system for people to add to their toons different qualities and backstories more than racking up a high badge total.
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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...
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That was sarcasm, my dislike of it is, that it makes no sense. Villains don't keep a day job. Instead of focusing on BS new content, I'd rather they fixed the stuff that doesn't work, or that we were promised, but never recieved. <cough> cathedral of pain <cough>