Y'know, I think the best rewards in this game are costume pieces.
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On the contrary, I feel they are the WORST rewards of them all. I'd rather have as many of them available at creation and reserve rewards for other, functional things.
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Originally Posted by Prof_Backfire
Y'know, I think the best rewards in this game are costume pieces.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Let's look at precedent - TF merits. Granted, those are largely time-based rewards, but at the end of the day, long, boring TFs are also an annoyance. This became very evident with Positron and Shard TFs never being done. Simply remaking the TFs was obviously not in the cards (pity), so the developers turned it around and gave the most annoying, unpleasant TFs the biggest reward. In this way, they gave players compensation for doing them, and one that seems to have panned out.
Generally speaking, should more annoying content be given higher rewards? In the absence of fixing it, yes. Leaving two events with the same reward, only one really, really sucks is worse design than giving the one that sucks more reward. On the one hand, goading people into playing bad content with shiny rewards is bad. But on the other hand, people WILL do every bit of content because the world is full of oddballs. It then makes sense to give these people rewards, if for no reason other than to make them fell less stupid for engaging in these events.
Take firefighting for instance. The Steel Canyon Fires give no rewards. Yes, they give badges, but compared to missions which give badges AND experience AND drops, they give pretty much nothing. OK, I guess if I like fighting fires, I should do it with no reward. But the problem comes when fires can KILL you, thereby REDUCING the other rewards you will get later. So it's annoying, yet it rewards nothing. That's not right. I'm not saying it should have higher reward. I'd settle for removing the death penalty. That would still make for better worth. It doesn't reward much, but it doesn't cost much, anyway, so who cares?
Also to note: I finally see what you mean by challenge. However, as you noted, this system-level challenge doesn't always translate into real final difficulty. As such, basing rewards on JUST that has problems, specifically when certain people can sidestep that challenge entirely. However, balancing by REAL challenge can make strong people feel like they are being penalised for being strong, because they have to work harder for a higher reward.
In the end, I don't believe challenge or difficulty alone should be the final tally. Power in this game comes with investment. An investment in research, an investment in planning, an investment in building and so on. While, yes, stronger characters are sidestepping the challenge and reaping higher rewards for not a lot more difficulty, but they ARE paying for that in other ways.