Discussion - Dev Diary: Designing Day Jobs Feature

If ten days is what it takes to max out a day job's bonus, why not make that the requirement for the badge?

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Double XP does a level 50 how much good?

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irrelevant when everyone doesn't have a 50.

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Quite relevant when several people in this thread alone have sigs with multiple level 50s listed.

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What I don't understand is why people think they can't play. If you want to get day jobs done on one alt, play any of your other 30 alts you've made. Just because you're playing one character doesn't mean the other one is not logged out. You can simultaneously earn a day job badge on 100 alts while playing one nonstop if you want.

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Now see, that would be a logical way to go about it, but for some folks that want to get every badge quickly on the same character, this new feature is going to be their nemesis. It's like giving a kid a bag of candy and telling them they can only have one piece per day. It's better for them to eat just one per day, but the kid only sees a bag of candy that needs to be eaten as fast as possible. They'll eat the whole bag and waste it because they'll puke up half of it from the sugar overload.

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Loose --> not tight.
Lose --> Did not win, misplace, cannot find, subtract.
One extra 'o' makes a big difference.

People are also forgetting that it will probably take a lot longer than one year to get all of the day job badges. Remember that they said that these aren't all of the day jobs that will be available and they hinted that they will be adding more. So yeah, perhaps a lot longer than one year.

Oh, and how do you feel about veteran badges?

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If ten days is what it takes to max out a day job's bonus, why not make that the requirement for the badge?

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This seems more reasonable than the 30 day time limit. However I suspect that it is designed as a graded system (you have to "complete" the activity, this case being off line, 3 times to earn the badge).

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Double XP does a level 50 how much good?

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irrelevant when everyone doesn't have a 50.

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Quite relevant when several people in this thread alone have sigs with multiple level 50s listed.

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well good for them, I have several 50's as well, I don't see the 2XP as a issue as much as the monthly timer. I think the phrase "something for everybody" fits with Day Jobs.

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However, I feel I have agree with the "30 days is too long" crowd. I don't understand why making it non-consecutive somehow makes it better. If you wanted to get all of these badges on one character in a year, you would only be able to play that character for 5 days during the year.

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This is the crux of the issue for me. We're assuming that what was released on the UK site represents "all" the possible badges - while the UK site states "most". So, what if the actual number of badges is 20? 30? 40?

One thing the badge system has done is breed a hardcore stock of "completists", who take aim at a difficult badge and fire. And during this time, the concept of "earning" a badge has always been "kill X value of Y target and get Z badge". i.e., you're "doing" something to accomplish these mini-goals.

Then you get the veteran rewards, which break the mold of badges by stating "okay, you don't have to DO anything with this character, this is just a milestone marker for your paid subscription time". This departs somewhat from the original intent of badges, but still shows something basically "positive" - that you spend X months subscribed, giving you Y badge.

And now, we have Day Jobs - great on paper, I like the idea of built-up buff values over time depending on where you logged out. THAT part of it is awesomesauce galore. But in addition, there's a badge thrown out on it.

This is the first time that a badge has been awarded to a player for NOT actively accomplishing something.

The day job badges, much like Empath and other Epic badges which encourage days, weeks and months of AFK farming, reward passivity on the part of a player toon. This is, in my mind, a clear break from the concept of badges in the CoX system - it represents a new quantifier in the game. This isn't about what your toon has done. It's about what your toon ISN'T doing - being logged in and being played.

For the hardcore badgers, we now have a year, minimum, of... doing nothing with our badge toons (most of which we've assigned because they're our favorite toons). Altoholics will make the case, "but you can be playing soooo many other toons!" And they're right.

But why should a desire to gain a badge separate me from playing my favored toon?

IMO, these aren't badge-worthy, as they indicate nothing on what the toon has done in-game. They represent, in the Dev's definition, an avenue for rolling buffs, and a way to "flesh out their identities and back stories". As such, I view this system as being antithetical to the badge concept, because badges represent actions done by the HERO/VILLAIN. Day Jobs represent something entirely different: It's a yardstick to measure what the toons are "doing" when they're NOT being heroic.

IMO, the Day Jobs rolling buffs are a grand idea. But thematically, they're antithetical to the badge system, and should not be used as such. In execution, acquiring more than one would be not only boring, as it rewards based on OFFLINE time of considerable length, but it's thematically ridiculous. How many heroes or villains do you know WITH TWELVE DAY JOBS?


Having said all this... what is my proposal?

To accomodate ease of use in the existing badge system; to alleviate the "doom and gloom" of prohibitively long earn times for potentially dozens of badges; and most importantly to STAY IN THEME with the Day Jobs concept, I propose the following:

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1. Keep the 30 day offline track for a particular badge. I'd say shorten it to 10, personally, but you'll see why I'd cede to 30, IF we do the below.

2.Have only ONE day job badge visible at any time, similar to the Patron badges villain-side. You can earn multiple day jobs for the accolades, and those would be tracked behind-scenes. However, to stay in theme with a hero/villain's "day job", there should be one profession, not twelve or more. Every badge-earning period would "reset" your Day Job badge to a certain title.

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This gives the player the option to earn the various accolades; relieves the pressure to the badgers for excessively-long offline farming; and allows theme purists to select a day job and STICK with it. You could continue to earn the various buffs at your leisure, but at the end of the day? Captain Awesome is really Milo Sweed, The Milk Man.

Not Milo Sweed, the Milk Man / Doctor / Engineer / Dragon Tamer / Orthodontist / Mechanic / Politician / Janitor / Stable Cleaner / Gambler / Oh My Stars I Can't Write Anymore Jobs.

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In other news, how can I become the Good Humor Man?

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Hey, I like the idea of some fun badges. "Good Humor Man" sounds awesome. Let's see: log out next to cart vendors in Cap au Diable, or next to the Donut Shop in Faultline. That work for you?

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Quite relevant when several people in this thread alone have sigs with multiple level 50s listed.

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well good for them, I have several 50's as well, I don't see the 2XP as a issue as much as the monthly timer.

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Please see my first post in this thread. I see it as one of the potential problems with the system.

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The day job badges, much like Empath and other Epic badges which encourage days, weeks and months of AFK farming, reward passivity on the part of a player toon. This is, in my mind, a clear break from the concept of badges in the CoX system

[/ QUOTE ]Given that you have "much like" comparisons at the ready, it can't be that much of a break now can it?

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I like the idea of the system. It does incorporate the "secret identity" concept of the comics into the game. I'm not sure about the implementation. The 30-days target seems a bit too long to me, and I don't see how it could be beta tested with that time frame. Unless it isn't 30-days "real time" and instead 30-days "game time", but then it would seem to be too short of a target.

I am wondering if there are plans to add additional day jobs in the future for some of the more common jobs in the comics. Things like reporter, photographer, private detective, etc. that are very common in the comics aren't really represented by current in-game locations. I would like to see those and others such as museum curator, construction worker, fireman, mailman, game designer , programmer, gang member, spy, etc. added to the game over time.

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Quite relevant when several people in this thread alone have sigs with multiple level 50s listed.

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well good for them, I have several 50's as well, I don't see the 2XP as a issue as much as the monthly timer.

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Please see my first post in this thread. I see it as one of the potential problems with the system.

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yes...I've seen it, and I don't agree w/ the 2XP being a problem. Everything else I do agree with.

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Double XP does a level 50 how much good?

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If it doesn't do any good, would that be a problem?

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A reward that isn't a reward is a problem. A big one.

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Not if its not intended to be a reward for level 50s in the first place. XP itself is a reward that has no benefit to 50s, because 50s don't need to level anymore. That doesn't make XP itself problematic.

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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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If the question is "why are some rewards valuable to a level 50 and why are some not?" that might seem like a reasonable question. But given the apparent design intent, the actual question being asked is ultimately "why would a reward explicitly intended to accelerate levelling not be meant for a level 50?" and in that event the answer is obvious.

It does not appear to be a reward that just happens to involve XP. It seems to be a reward explicitly targetting levelling speed: the fact that its benefit accrues relative to "bars" of XP and not points of XP or minutes played means its intended to be a proportional levelling speed boost. The fact that its targetted at levelling automatically exempts level 50s has having the issue that the reward is actually targetting. Since there are rewards that 50s can get but not others (epic archetypes, purple recipes) I don't see any specific reason why every single reward must include level 50s as participants, especially when they are so specifically targetted at an activity that level 50s no longer participate in.

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OK, let's say the time to get the badge was dropped to 5 days. But let's say there are 73 day jobs and 73 badges possible. That would still mean a full year for one character to get all 73 badges. Are you badgers going to ruin things for the rest of us who'd like to see a wide variety of day jobs, but the devs can't do that because it would upset impatient badgers?

The fact is, this one can't be farmed unless you know how to speed up time in a practical way. I'm sorry the lack of farming these badges to get them all at once is upsetting to you. Playing your character four hours a day on average (which is a lot of time) would mean that it would take 35 days to get the badge instead of 30, so let's stop with the canard that you have to stop playing a toon to get the badges.

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.

The devs have finally put in a system which should ordinarily be a collector's dream: the gradual release of new/available items that have to be meticulously gathered over time. Just like what happens with stamp collectors or coin collectors who have to wait for new stamps and coins to come out. I wonder how many coin collectors wrote the Treasury demanding that the three year release of the state-quarters be made available immediately?

There's nothing wrong or broken with this system except your impatience.

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There's nothing wrong or broken with this system except your impatience.

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Find me that one hero with seventy-three day jobs and tell me you're in theme.

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There's nothing wrong or broken with this system except your impatience.

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Find me that one hero with seventy-three day jobs and tell me you're in theme.

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SEVENTY-THREE JOB!?

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There's nothing wrong or broken with this system except your impatience.

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Find me that one hero with seventy-three day jobs and tell me you're in theme.

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SEVENTY-THREE JOB!?

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Brilliant link, Trizz.

My point's still valid though! Read my post further up and tell me if you think my compromise concept passes.

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There's nothing wrong or broken with this system except your impatience.

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There's nothing right with the system, either.

"We're so worried that you're going to leave us that we'll give you free <beepity beep beep!> when you're not around, just to keep you from leaving!"

Eff that. I don't care if the other MMOs do that. That's one of the many reasons I don't play the other MMOs. My ex plays WoW, and I told her countless times that it's stupid that she has to log off when she'd rather play if she wants to get full exp so her account can "cool down" or whatever.

And as for your other comment, about making 73 badges that take 5 days each? You'd hear a lot fewer complaints about that, because it's a time vs. reward equation.

73 rewards in a year > 12 rewards in a year

You get visible progress faster, and you can stay competitive with the rest of the badge community even if you want to play your badger here and there. Adding 4 hours to 120 still leaves a smaller lag than adding 4 hours to 720.

But regardless, giving rewards away for not playing is a weak and desperate tactic that I had hoped CoH/V would have been bigger than. I don't blame the developers for the <more bleeping!>-up that is Day Jobs; I blame marketting.

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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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10 days sounded fair to me, believe I said the same way earlier in the thread. Have to think about your other suggestion, but it sounds good.

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My point's still valid though! Read my post further up and tell me if you think my compromise concept passes.

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I find it about as acceptable as I could ever possible find the idea of out-of-game rewards to be acceptable.

Run it like the Villain Patron Badge, where it's just one badge with 12 (or whatever) different titles. Sure. It's better than the current implementation where you can supposedly have 12 (or whatever) completely different jobs.

(30 days is still waaaaay too long though, especially for something I'd prefer not even exist in the first place. )

EDIT: ((Pssst, gratz on 13000 posts Trizz.))

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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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There are few people making a lot of noise. Everyone I know thinks the system looks great. You can't have everything right away. You have to make choices of what to get first. I prefer the proposed system, different characters will take different paths. I don't mind my characters not having everything; having everything means I don't need make a real choice, and my character is a step closer to being like everyone else, not farther away.

As far as badges are concerned I am going to make an unpopular comparison. To me, it's like being upset that they aren't giving out the 6 year anniversary badge this year. "Why make us wait!?! It will come out eventually!"

The fact is, it's a system everyone will be in, badger A and badger B will still be getting these badges at the same pace, more or less. Even if it's your most played character I certainly hope that character spends more time offline than on.

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And as for your other comment, about making 73 badges that take 5 days each? You'd hear a lot fewer complaints about that, because it's a time vs. reward equation.

73 rewards in a year > 12 rewards in a year

You get visible progress faster, and you can stay competitive with the rest of the badge community even if you want to play your badger here and there. Adding 4 hours to 120 still leaves a smaller lag than adding 4 hours to 720.

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Ehm, no.
You'd fall further behind.

Let's say that it's 10 or 100 rewards instead (for easier examples).
By the time you're 1 badge behind in the 10 badge system, you would be 10 badges behind in the 100 badge system. The gap between you and the really really hard core would increase.

A gap of one badge is easier to make up for with other badges than a gap of 10 badges is.

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Even if it's your most played character I certainly hope that character spends more time offline than on.

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I'm currently on 23.75 hours a day (on non-maintenance days) in a heal farm. Hurray for existing broken badges, let's just add some more shall we?

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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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And the 30 days is what we are initially going with. The values may change in beta.

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Unless closed beta lasts until christmas I don't see how you're going to get many of those accolades tested...

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OK, let's say the time to get the badge was dropped to 5 days. But let's say there are 73 day jobs and 73 badges possible. That would still mean a full year for one character to get all 73 badges. Are you badgers going to ruin things for the rest of us who'd like to see a wide variety of day jobs, but the devs can't do that because it would upset impatient badgers?

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Well, if they were to separate the Day Job system from the Badge system, increasing the number of Day Jobs wouldn't get any complaints from the "Badge people".

There are reasons for and against that though...

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