Grind/time investment reduction

[ImpalerWrG]

Dosen't WoW basically do just what the OP sugjests? Some kind of diminishing rate of XP gain when logged on, don't know how successfull it is/was.

Theirs been a great deal of speculation and desire around a system called 'Curiosties' which replaces LP gain from actions with a constant trickle that occures both when online and offline. This seems to be the prefered solution for most people familiar with the system, search for some of the threads on it to see for yourself.

[Tamalak]

Dosen't WoW basically do just what the OP sugjests? Some kind of diminishing rate of XP gain when logged on, don't know how successfull it is/was.

Sort of.. while you were logged off, you accumulated a "double XP" bonus, that lasted longer the more you're logged off. I can't say that it was successful or unsuccessful because leveling in WoW is extremely easy to begin with.

Theirs been a great deal of speculation and desire around a system called 'Curiosties' which replaces LP gain from actions with a constant trickle that occures both when online and offline. This seems to be the prefered solution for most people familiar with the system, search for some of the threads on it to see for yourself.

That would work.. that's how skill gain is handled in EVE Online. The drawback is that it's kinda boring.. LP gain from actions just seems so immediate and visceral. All you need is to balance LP from actions is curve it so that people can't abuse it for monstrously more-than-intended LP, nor get completely screwed if they have a lifestyle that doesn't involve a ton of LP standard.

Also, it's good that lots of actions give SOMEWHAT more LP than few actions. If I built a huge wall on Tuesday I'd like to go to bed with more LP gained then when I pulled up a couple carrots on Monday, even if the gain difference isn't linear.

[Scilly_guy]

Ok so I'm new, newish to MMOs, only played Entropia (which is now called something else I think), but I didn't put any money into it. However I am not new to computer games, (I have a degree in computer games software engineering).

My thoughts on this matter may not carry much weight as a newbie but heres my 2 pence (I'm not American).

There is a real world and some of us have jobs and other things to do, as much as I would like to play HnH all day it is not practical and not healthy (mentally or physically). I am not bothered by people having much higher skills than me, that is the way the WORLD is. I'm not even that bothered by someone coming along and trashing all my stuff, it could happen in real life. If I haven't left something on my claim then I should expect people to take it. If I haven't built a wall then even an unskilled theif can nick my stuff.

I plan to play by making stuff I need, yes I grow a lot of flax, but thats to make linen crates and improve my seed quality. Yes I am building a big palisade but that is to protect my girlfriend and my sister. I am specialising into hunting and exploration where as my girlfriend is improving cooking, sewing etc, (we both farm).

It is not for me to tell people how to play, if people want to make a lot of buckets then so be it, if its actually them making the bucket they are probably getting bored... Maybe their character should too.

What is peoples opinions on Unhappiness actually doing something? The more you do the same task the more unhappy you get, the slower you work, tasks which yield less LP should make you less unhappy per repetition. Having a long sleep should make you very happy. The PB sliders could affect how unhappy tasks make you, full nature and farming might not change your happiness, etc. Smoking a pipe, drinking beer, wine etc increases happiness.

My thoughts on that idea:
Once the PB slider is full in your chosen area you can still grind just as effectively, but if you try to do something in the other direction not only will you be rubbish at it but you will be slow (realistic).
Alcohol and nicotine should make you work slower/less efficiently in regards to real life but having a drink at the end of the day is relaxing, so.... tricky.
Most tasks are split into so many sub tasks that they aren't as repetitive as they first seem, from a coding perspective this might cause issues, but I'm unfamiliar with the internals of HnH.

Regarding the OP:
The numbers are unimportant, that can be worked out with a bit of balancing which the devs will be familiar with. I think the scale should be a simple formula rather than steps though, the right hand side of a bell shaped curve for example. Reducing learning rate to a base value after whatever amount of LP the devs feel is appropriate. I know some games have access to multiple servers and have different worlds where things like this are different, so people who want to grind can play together and people who can't play all day everyday can play knowing that someone trying to run a bot won't be effective.

PS I have been pretty tired lately, sorry if I stopped making sense.

[Mopstar]

after reading this its still clear even with dmish returns unless you are making the first cap at all or even the second cap you cant really complain.And those who are so far ahead of you can always be toppled.

With the returns in effect if your only going to be playing an hour a day while some crazy grinder plays 5 -10 hours as some do putting a cap on them is just going to make them more inclined to reach that cap ,than go make better goods are go exploring for better nodes thus pushing their "power" up while still keeping "casual" players down.

If you want to have fun just dont mess with the bigger powers try to stick to softer targets or rev up w/e is being used to grind these days and get to it.

[Scilly_guy]

The length of my previous post missed what was probably my most important point, there should not be clear cut caps, but a sliding scale. Otherwise, like Mopstar said, people will push to reach that cap and then stop/do something else. If you have a scale where Learning Ability tends to 0 as Learning Points per day tends to infinity, then there would be no obvious time to stop grinding.

My sister also pointed out that some people can only play at weekends... maybe most. I think to be fair an analysis of playing habits should be done.

[LimaZulu]

Agent Smith should virus sweep the bots.

[Tamalak]

The length of my previous post missed what was probably my most important point, there should not be clear cut caps, but a sliding scale. Otherwise, like Mopstar said, people will push to reach that cap and then stop/do something else. If you have a scale where Learning Ability tends to 0 as Learning Points per day tends to infinity, then there would be no obvious time to stop grinding.

I agree. I only gave the sharp-stepping categories on the first page for simplicity's sake.

My more ideal system would work like this..

Say an average character is expected to get about 100,000 LP BEFORE LEARNING MODS in 10 days. This includes days when he is not being played.

Give each character a hidden stat called "LP fatigue" and start it at 100,000.

Every time he makes an LP action you multiply the base LP award by (100,000/(LP Fatigue)). The result is added to LP fatigue, and then multiplied by Learning to add to his LP total.

Then every hour you reduce a character's LP Fatigue by 0.4%, whether or not he's logged in. So it would go down every day by about 10%.

That means.. someone playing "normally" would add 10,000 to his LP in a day for a total fatigue of 110,000, and it would go down about 10,000 in the same day to 100,000.

A grinder getting four times as much base LP would end up at 200,000 fatigue - he'd get 40,000 base LP per day, then it'd be halved, and he'd end up with 20,000 gained in a day and 220,000 LP fatigue. Then 10% fatigue would be lost and he'd end up back at 200,000 LP.

A very casual player getting 1/4 as much base LP would end up at 50,000 fatigue.. he'd get 2,500 base LP per day, then it would be doubled, and he'd end up with 55,000 fatigue which would go back to 50,000 during the day.

So players end up with sqrt((expected LP) / (gained LP)).. grinders still get more than normal players who get more than casuals, but the difference would not be so game breaking as it is now. And there would be a point on the curve for everyone where they don't feel like they "need" to grind. And the system is smooth enough to be almost invisible.

Since it's all done before Learning mods, someone with 300% learning would still get flatly 3x as much LP.

[TeckXKnight]

So your solution is to change almost nothing but make it more complicated for virtually no reason. Seriously, it's not hard for someone to earn 200k lp in an hour or two without grinding or botting. This is with building up your village and developing everything as you go because you're highly incensed to anyway. What you're mostly suggesting is a way to limit people who play longer than the average person -- but why? This won't stop or even slow down bots/grinders, they'll just keep botting and grinding through the debuff and still get ahead of you and everyone else. Now people who want to play for more than a few hours a day are highly discouraged though as they're getting boned hard. People who play normally see nothing change. You've hurt one statistically relevant group but it's not really the group that you were targeting. For some reason, every newbie seems to absolutely hate the "no-lifers" in this game even though they're the crux of every truly great city -- perhaps out of jealousy? I don't know.

Anyway, your solution is bad and you should severely revise, rethink, and reevaluate it if you want to present it in a serious fashion. You've offered no solution to botters and grinders other than "You shouldn't be gaining more than X a day" where X is and always will be some arbitrary number. If anything, this encourages botting and grinding to get over this daily hump so you can progress your skills to equal the growing quality of the crops, materials, and ores you get. If I had a retarded cap at 100k LP a day before my gains diminished like fuck, I'd have to spend a few extra hours grinding if I wanted to not softcap my crops and meat quality while building up a few points in combat skills. Seriously, a few hundred thousand lp doesn't go very far, a farmer will be raising their farming skill by at least 5 points a day.

[orderr]

How does the curiosities system work? I can't play on the test server as my account is too new.

[erozaxx]

My input in this is to lower LP gain for repetitive action to - let's say 50% after X times doing the same stuff, slowly refilling the LP gain back each time, you perform different action or action, which are not grind/bot extensive (Hunting, Fighting, Treeplanting... basically anything what can not or usually is not botted). Also there might be slight LP gain over 100% for performing the unrepetitive actions, what can bring someone playing just normal (doing everyday stuff without botting) getting to avg 105 or 110% LP gain.