Jump to content

Recommended Posts

Final Edit: This idea has received zero support. I'm not going to argue it's case any further. I'm leaving it up for people to reference.

 

This is going to be a bit of a contentious topic, but I believe that this game absolutely needs a rest or sleep mechanic. Primarily, this should be used as a method to discourage excessive game time as well as bots. Additionally, such a mechanic will be imperative if this game is to launch in China, due to their "anti addiction" mandates. 

 

Here's how I envision possible implementations of this:

A basic version will be designed to encourage people to sleep and shower and at least take care of themselves a little bit. A more advanced version will encourage people to take breaks occasionally and get up and walk around. While I'm expecting the game to be relatively slow paced up until the action kicks off for a few minutes, I still think it'd be valuable to get people out of their chair.

The Basic version goes like this: Players will be encouraged to play for no more than 12 hours in a 24 hour period. This will be accomplished in four parts.

  1. First, the Carrot will be that "Well Rested" players gain a bonus to take less damage/move faster/need fewer consumables during their first 6 hours online. I believe the game should be balanced towards "Well Rested" players being the normal, but that the interface should present the players as having gained a Bonus. It needs to be high to have a strong impact as this isn't something we want shrugged off. It will be balanced at this level to encourage players to actually go live their lives occasionally. This needs to be a bonus because people respond stronger and more positively when they think they are getting something extra, even if they are not (Ex: most stores that have constant sales)
  2. The second 6 hours will be "Neutral" and the player will suffer no apparent penalties or bonuses. However, due to the above bit about balancing, this will actually be a malus. I'm not feeling this bit so much any more, though a transition period is necessary to not blind side players.
  3. Finally, with the Stick, any time past 12 hours of game time in that 24 hour period would be steadily penalized with movement, stamina, and health maluses. After 18 hours of play, the player's controls will become less responsible and weave around like a drunk (or extremely tired) person, scripts will stop running for them, and they'll gain experience maluses. Interference with the controls will (if properly random) serve to help counter botting of simple tasks. While counter tools will be developed, this will still hinder most players from dangerously excessive play times.
  4. When you've logged off (or are safely in a bed/cryopod/sleeping chamber), your character will gain back an hour of benefit for each hour offline. For example, if you have a crazy raid and have to push yourself for 17 hours online, you'll have to take 17 hours offline to get back up to fully rested and get your 6 hours of bonuses. As an additional bonus, you could gain "Biological Waste Material" after a long rest that could be used as fertilizer or raw material. Lore could say that we've developed quantum bathrooms, so we do a whole day's worth of waste elimination at one time!

People won't like this, as it interferes with their freedom and self determination. However, I think it's important for NovaQuark to be a socially conscious company and try to minimize the dangers of addictive behavior patterns.

 

The more Advanced version builds off the Basic by adding in encouragement to take breaks throughout the day, as well as encourage more sufficient time off, rather than possible 1 hour on, 1 hour off (or more likely 6 hours on, 6 hours off) behavior.

  1. The Carrot is tweaked that after 3 hours, the bonuses start to decrease unless the player takes a 30 minute rest in a bed or offline. Taking two rests during a day will give you extra Carrot time minus the time it takes you to take your first and second breaks. (Ex: If you play for 3 hours 20 minutes and then 4 hours, you'd get 1 hour 40 minutes of extra Carrot time).
  2. No changes to Neutral
  3. No changes to the Stick
  4. When you log off, you gain time back exponentially. For example: the first hour offline only nets you 10 minutes, the second 15 minutes, the third 35 minutes, the fourth 1 hour, the fifth 1.5 hours, and so on. The numbers are only examples, as it should still obey the rule that 1 hour spent is 1 hour that must be restored back. The idea is that consecutive hours are more valuable. This is to force even addicts to sleep for at least 8 hours. 

 

Finally, there is the question of Beds. Because of Dual Universe's unique scripting requirements (that someone must be online for them to run scripts), I see value in having Beds act as the "Rest Point" for players. As long as they are not interacting with the game (chat, moving mouse, browsing the map or encyclopedia), they can remain online to use their computer to run scripts. They will still acquire "Rested Hours" in this fashion. If they move for more than 2 cumulative minutes in a given hour period, they will not gain that hour's worth of benefit. This should help prevent people from trying to move really slowly or to act as battle masters or tacticians while "resting". Ideally, the screen would be blanked as well.

 

To summarize:

  1. DU will need a Rest mechanic for the health of players.
  2. This should consist of a requirement that every hour spent online must be matched by an hour spent offline.
  3. The first 6 hours online in a given 24 hour period result in bonuses.
  4. The second 6 hours are neither bonused nor malused.
  5. Any time past 12 hours in a 24 hour period will be increasingly malused.
  6. After 18 hours, the player will have their controls and visuals steadily degraded.
  7. Breaks every 3 hours are encouraged by granting extra bonus time up to a maximum of 3 extra hours. This is by taking at least 30 minute breaks every 3 hours.
  8. Once offline, players will gain back time spent either a) in a linear Basic system B) or an exponential Advanced system.
    1. Once the "debt" of time is gained back, no extra time may be gained. There are no bonuses for staying offline longer than necessary.
  9. Beds can be used as resting locations while logged in if the player does not interact in anyway with the game. This will be done so that the players can continue to run scripts while still gaining the advantages of rest. Interacting with the game means you aren't resting.

 

P.S. The "24 hour period" means that logging off sporadically, but still playing for more than 12 hours still results in penalties. Ex: 2 hours of play, 7 times is still 14 hours of play and will be penalized. 

P.P.S. All references to "Will", "Must", and "We" reflect the intent and idea of the document, not necessarily anyone else's view. If you agree with the first intent (That players should play no more than 12 hours a day), then you should align (somewhat) with the "We"s, "Will"s, and "Must"s

Link to comment
Share on other sites

45 minutes ago, AzureSkye said:

First, the Carrot will be that "Well Rested" players gain experience/take less damage/move  at a "greater" level during their first 6 hours online. I believe the game should be balanced for this level of experience gain, but that it should be presented as something like +50% experience/damage resist/speed/stamina. It needs to be high to have a strong impact as this isn't something we want shrugged off. It will be balanced at this level to encourage players to actually go live their lives occasionally. This needs to be a bonus because people respond stronger and more positively when they think they are getting something extra, even if they are not (Ex: most stores that have constant sales)

So.....you want to force ppl to take rests.

And at the same time you "force" them to be AT LEAST 6h on to gain +50% XP boost (which is the only real valuable resource ingame).

 

Makes sense....

 

@dualism with @name you can link names.

 

And no, I still don't agree - it's up to players to decide how long they want to play. If they want to play 24h straight - it's their life. If someone is happy playing 24/7 - let them. They have to pay for it so it wouldn't make much sense to restrict them. You can't punish them for being online.

Plus: a casual gamer only logging in once or twice per week doesn't have any disadvantage (skill wise). The ONLY thing a nolifer will have more is quanta. But never skills

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nice post and thoughts!

I agree with the basic part, less so with some of the penalties because of the additional programming that would be involved. I think I'd go for increased recovery in the first few hours of "sleep" too.

 

Edit Lethys: I think @AzureSkye(how do you link a name? - ty) means boost is over all of first freshly rested 6 hours, but skills are actually balanced to that being the 'normal rate'.

 

Thanks @Lethys, not sure I understand:

Quote

Plus: a casual gamer only logging in once or twice per week doesn't have any disadvantage (skill wise). The ONLY thing a nolifer will have more is quanta. But never skills

Did I read somewhere that skills will continue to be gained even when logged out? Maybe you mean that? Won't the skilled areas depend on what you select to skill, however? Will you select this before you log out?

 

If so, then skills will be gained differently from how Azure assumes, but I think the basic idea of trying to decrease 24/7 botting or avatar sharing in some way is a good one...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

While the idea is interesting, it is too easy to bypass the bonus/malus by just logging another account, and you will never be able to track it.

So it probably means a lot of developments (concepts + implementation) for no real gain.

 

Regards,

Shadow

Link to comment
Share on other sites

51 minutes ago, dualism said:

Did I read somewhere that skills will continue to be gained even when logged out? Maybe you mean that? Won't the skilled areas depend on what you select to skill, however? Will you select this before you log out?

 

If so, then skills will be gained differently from how Azure assumes, but I think the basic idea of trying to decrease 24/7 botting or avatar sharing in some way is a good one...

Normally you can put 20 or 50 skills in the skillqueue, which will then automatically train those skills. That could only take some hours for lowlevel skills or weeks to months for highlevel ones. And yes, ofc you train while offline.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm always a friend and vocal supporter of survival or realism mechanics (in the case of DU specifically, making food items more relevant by needing them "on occasion" to avoid debuffs or starvation.)

 

But in this case, despite the thought-out or detailed delivery, I seem to be against it so far and at its core. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm going to have to agree with others here.  I don't need any carrots or sticks forcing me to play or not to play.

 

I'm all for some survival mechanics but I would definitely prefer if they we're centered around encouraging the player to do stuff in the game.  Or explore parts of the game.

 

But not telling me when to stop playing.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 hours ago, Lethys said:

So.....you want to force ppl to take rests.

And at the same time you "force" them to be AT LEAST 6h on to gain +50% XP boost (which is the only real valuable resource ingame).

...

Plus: a casual gamer only logging in once or twice per week doesn't have any disadvantage (skill wise). The ONLY thing a nolifer will have more is quanta. But never skills

13 hours ago, Lethys said:

Normally you can put 20 or 50 skills in the skillqueue, which will then automatically train those skills. That could only take some hours for lowlevel skills or weeks to months for highlevel ones. And yes, ofc you train while offline.

14 hours ago, dualism said:

Thanks @Lethys, not sure I understand:

Did I read somewhere that skills will continue to be gained even when logged out? Maybe you mean that? Won't the skilled areas depend on what you select to skill, however? Will you select this before you log out?

 

If so, then skills will be gained differently from how Azure assumes, but I think the basic idea of trying to decrease 24/7 botting or avatar sharing in some way is a good one...

@Lethys @dualismYou are right. As I originally described it, that's exactly what would happen. That, however, is not the intent. I completely forgot that skill progression is similar to EVE Online. At the time I wrote this, I was coming from reading about anti-addiction/anti-poop socking mandates levied on WoW by the Chinese. As such, I mistakenly conflated the two EXP systems. I'll edit the head post to remove references to EXP bonuses. However, I still think there should be an EXP malus for 18+ hours play. 

 

 

13 hours ago, Shadow said:

While the idea is interesting, it is too easy to bypass the bonus/malus by just logging another account, and you will never be able to track it.

So it probably means a lot of developments (concepts + implementation) for no real gain.

 

Regards,

Shadow

@Shadow I get where you are coming from, however that will be true of any anti-bot or anti-addiction mechanism. The difficulty there is maintaining and paying for the separate accounts. Which just reminded me that NQ has stated that Players will be able to have multiple Characters. As such, the system above would need to apply to the Player rather than any single Character.

 

 

12 hours ago, Warden said:

I'm always a friend and vocal supporter of survival or realism mechanics (in the case of DU specifically, making food items more relevant by needing them "on occasion" to avoid debuffs or starvation.)

 

But in this case, despite the thought-out or detailed delivery, I seem to be against it so far and at its core. 

14 hours ago, Lethys said:

And no, I still don't agree - it's up to players to decide how long they want to play. If they want to play 24h straight - it's their life. If someone is happy playing 24/7 - let them. They have to pay for it so it wouldn't make much sense to restrict them. You can't punish them for being online.

10 hours ago, Atmosph3rik said:

I'm going to have to agree with others here.  I don't need any carrots or sticks forcing me to play or not to play.

 

I'm all for some survival mechanics but I would definitely prefer if they we're centered around encouraging the player to do stuff in the game.  Or explore parts of the game.

 

But not telling me when to stop playing.

I understand this line of thought and strongly agree with it, the idea that it's you should be able to play how you please, for most games. However for an MMO, they have to consider people more than that. Unfortunately, there are people who lack the discipline and control to manage themselves and will hurt themselves with overindulgence. 12 hours is a lot of time. I expect that the vast majority of player will never see a malus because they won't play for that long, including the inevitable obnoxious 12 year olds on summer break. The danger here is largely PR damage to the game, as well as potential government intervention in some case (Namely China, but the EU is also a potential). 

 

So let me ask you, do you agree that:

  1. Excessive gaming is dangerous, both to the players and to the companies reputation?
  2. That 12 hours is a lot of game time, but 18+ hours is definitely Excessive?

I think the exact implementation as laid out here is flawed (fatally so, if giving EXP Bonuses), but the general concept, that NQ should do something to help prevent people from hurting themselves (like putting labels on a pill bottle or warning on a power saw), is very important.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Perhaps it's just me but I believe in the responsibility of the user (player) first and foremost. 

 

If they are younger, the parents (or anyone in a comparable role) should have an eye on it. 

 

Adults? Largely responsible for themselves. The body and mind will rebel at some point anyway. 

 

Most have a daily schedule anyway and likely can't reach a dozen hours consecutively. But maybe a few sometimes want to catch up on the weekend or have a Marathon or finish some building project. Why stop them with such measures in, say, exceptional cases? 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, AzureSkye said:

However, I still think there should be an EXP malus for 18+ hours play. 

Why?

 

4 hours ago, AzureSkye said:

As such, the system above would need to apply to the Player rather than any single Character.

You can have multiple accounts too.... so yeah, pretty impossible to control that

 

4 hours ago, AzureSkye said:

So let me ask you, do you agree that:

  1. Excessive gaming is dangerous, both to the players and to the companies reputation?
  2. That 12 hours is a lot of game time, but 18+ hours is definitely Excessive?

I think the exact implementation as laid out here is flawed (fatally so, if giving EXP Bonuses), but the general concept, that NQ should do something to help prevent people from hurting themselves (like putting labels on a pill bottle or warning on a power saw), is very important.

That's up to each player - they have to decide that for themselves. Alcohol, cigarettes - all bad things and everyone knows that, yet still people drink and smoke.

Are you working more than 40h sometimes? yeah, that's bad too you know but it happens every day.

 

The sub guarantees that only mature ppl enter DU (and if some kid plays his parents have to see to his online times). So everyone should be well capable of deciding how far he might go.

 

I don't know why but all your posts sound like you just fear no-lifers who are online 24/7 and will be better than everyone else. Sounds like you only want to punish those guys so that a guy who only logs in for 2h a day is somewhat on equal footing with them.

 

So yeah, let them play - it's their life and money.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, AzureSkye said:

...the general concept, that NQ should do something to help prevent people from hurting themselves (like putting labels on a pill bottle or warning on a power saw), is very important.

Then just stick a label on it, as in your two examples there.

If I want to play 20 hours straight on a Saturday because I can't get on in the week due to work, why should I be punished? I shouldn't, is the answer.

 

A warning on the initial load screen is enough. If an informed adult hurts themselves, that's on them; don't restrict my service because they might ignore the warning.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Alright, the maluses have proven to be about as popular as arsenic ice cream, so I've scratched it out.

 

Is giving a "Well Rested" bonus (not to EXP) something that people might be interested in?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Trying to implement "systems" to limit people's play time is a fruitless exercise.

 

The OP has already abandoned the idea of penalties for long play hours, and is now focusing on "massive bonuses" to the first few hours of a play session.

 

That will just make things worse, because those with ample spare time on their hands will get the full benefit of the bonus every day PLUS whatever they can get done in the remaining X hours that they play. So someone who cannot use up their full bonus time every day will fall even further behind those that can...

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 3/1/2018 at 11:35 PM, AzureSkye said:

So let me ask you, do you agree that:

  1. Excessive gaming is dangerous, both to the players and to the companies reputation?
  2. That 12 hours is a lot of game time, but 18+ hours is definitely Excessive?

I think the exact implementation as laid out here is flawed (fatally so, if giving EXP Bonuses), but the general concept, that NQ should do something to help prevent people from hurting themselves (like putting labels on a pill bottle or warning on a power saw), is very important.

1

While admirable you are looking out for the health of the commoner, as many have said which I would have to agree with, restrictions on playtime will serve to help no one when they can be bypassed anyway.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...