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Nexus Clash :: View topic - Dev Blog: Badges and what to do about them
ALL my characters stayed at lvls 1-3 until I had deathfarmed 1000 deaths (cept Koldar), 1000 food/booze. This was because I did see the big advantage 'grandfather' characters had in badges. By taking XP away from them while I ground I helped smaller character grow and in my own way helped the community.
Except for Mackey. He didn't give a fuck....
I did this so NEXT breath I would have something of a more equal footing on growth and competitiveness.
Messing with the CP will be interesting. At my levels (none maxed) I can see that I will already need to grind 3 - 5 more badges for an optimum build. Under the proposed rules that will be 7 -9 badges.
I am not sure people are going to want to grind that much AND I think you will find the change making people more anti-social... the OPPOSITE of what you are proposing the changes will do.
Just my 2 cents... _________________ Carilgar (7989) | Seldara (7990) | Nightfire (7991) | Stormshadow (8049) | A Pair of Doorknocking Mormons (8050) | Chianni (8051) | Koldar (11873) | Themys (12088) | Selaedria (12395)
Joined: May 12, 2019 Posts: 22 Location: glueman's glue abode
Posted: Fri Sep 06, 2019 11:57 am Post subject:
I've only been playing for a few months and haven't gotten to the hard grind yet, so far I only have >1 15 CP badges on 1/3 character. I did plan my builds on the assumption that I would have to grind CP badges, however 3-4 badges (15 CP) would have been sufficient for at least 2/3 of my characters. So the current dev suggestion seems fair to me, at least based on my insight on the game at this time.
There is one thing that seems to be potentially annoying though. Grinding at latter stages, rewarding lesser CP, could be mega pain-in-the-bum. Maybe someone (after already having grinded a few badges) wants a 90 CP skill, and is 40 CP short which would normally be 3-4 badges. But since they've already gained a few badges, the new number required could be 5-9 and that might put them off from playing or grinding further on that character. This could be remedied by more balanced skills/CP requirements though, as already suggested by others.
Also pyroshroom suggested increasing CP gained per level. Maybe this has been suggested before, but I think an award of larger than usual CP (say 1.5x) when going up a tier might be better. So at level 10, gain 30 instead of 20 CP but 20 from levels 11-19, and at level 20 gain 45 instead of 30 CP, but back to 30 from levels 21-29. _________________ Active Chars // Glueman - 11968 // Dr Coomer - 12377 // Rootin Tootin Rasputin - 12819
Last edited by MrFrank on Sun Sep 08, 2019 1:02 pm; edited 1 time in total
I understand that accessibility is lacking for new players. And the badge grinds are huge and intimidating.
But the proposed changes outlined seem, from my perspective, heavy handed.
I'd suggest frontloading the CP, on a per badge basis. That is to say, using food as an example, 10 CP for 250 eaten, then 5 CP for 500, 750, and 1k. Adding up to the same but making more CP available sooner.
That would both make the badges feel more attainable for a new player, and lessen the gap in CP between them and the veteran.
Looking back, those suggestion feel rough and perhaps unbalanced, but my general stance remains the same: badges should not give CP rewards at all, they should instead give some other, more specialised rewards.
If a character dedicated a part of their life to grind some particular activity, their reward should be related to that activity and not just a bag of CP that can then be spent on some completely unrelated Skills.
For example: if you eat tons of food, you should become an expert in eating food, and not in some unrelated activity like killing people. So why get CP (which would then be spent on some combat Skills etc) when instead you could get a bonus to chance of finding food or heal more HP from single item?
Take a look at current reward for finding a full set of Lore of Haldon, because it is a good example of what I mean - it is not CP but instead a boost to maximum MP.
I think main advantage of such situational bonuses/perks is that they are automatically self-limiting. A grinding veteran would not be stronger in any particular field than a young character that only have grinded that particular badge - they would get exactly the same boosts after all.
Joined: Feb 24, 2012 Posts: 7 Location: Not London
Posted: Mon Sep 09, 2019 4:50 pm Post subject:
Would it make sense to just inverse the badge mechanics? make returns diminishing instead of greater. allowing new players to catch up fairly quickly but leave older players with a nominal advantage.
Just now realizing this is the same as Jutia's comment but I will leave it here as a testament to my inability to read
Joined: Sep 14, 2014 Posts: 228 Location: Probably a Stronghold
Posted: Mon Sep 09, 2019 5:15 pm Post subject:
As someone who's probably in the later tiers of badge grind (it's just combat things left now), I definitely can say that it's overpowered, and I agree with all the points made.
Quote:
Badge grinds are endgame content and should not help people level. Legacy badge grind CP should be granted at maxout and no sooner.
Absolutely.
Saint_Jimmy wrote:
Addressing your point 2 - regardless of what happens to badges, one of our aims for B5 is to avoid having classes where you feel like you need badges to be a functioning character.
Joined: Jul 05, 2011 Posts: 609 Location: Behind you
Posted: Mon Sep 09, 2019 6:55 pm Post subject:
OK where to start....
Firstly I’ll say that claiming those who have been playing longer have an unfair advantage over those who haven’t had the time to grind, is like one of my children whining because another one got a bigger piece of cake than they did. If a character does not have enough CP (before badges) to be viable when maxxed, it’s an issue with the class and not badges. Let’s define what an ‘advantage’ is. Does a certain amount of extra CP make a particular character un-killable or ridiculously overpowered? Hell no. Many of the skills purchased with those extra CP are either:
1. Purchased to allow more grinding (e.g.- engineering)
2. Useless in combat (e.g.- smithing, etc)
3. Defensive skills which are activated, and therefore useless except for the time you’re active, or
4. Offensive skills, again useable only beneficial you’re active.
I’d argue the strongest advantage any player has over another is being active at the time of combat. There is no T3 class that is un-killable, or even very difficult to kill, with any other T3 class. Yes absolutely being able to hit a bit harder makes killing easier, but it’s not a game-breaker for those without extra badge CP.
Role of grinding
Let’s have a look at why we have this badge/stats/grinding system in the first place. (Totally my own take on this as the whole reason for having it in the first place hasn’t been articulated anywhere I can see).
End-game content: Once you’ve maxxed, if there was no method to gain any further benefit to your character you would be pretty much existing only for the interaction you have with others in-game. In a small or solo faction (or even feral) there can be times where this is pretty much non-existent and has a lot of potential to get dull.
Rounding-out characters: There aren’t too many classes (if any) in which you can create the perfect character with only base CP. There are always going to be extra ‘nice-to-have’ skills which make life more comfortable.
Personal fulfilment/boasting rights: Hell yeah those guys with 1000+ all through their stats are impressive.
End-game
I think it’s fair to define ‘end-game’ as the point at which your fully equipped character has maxxed out and you have completed the purchase of skills. In other games you’d be participating in group activities such as instances/dungeons. There would be a degree of grinding repetitive activities and these are usually associated with the benefit gained from them (like Badziew has hinted at above).
Cost of grinding
All of the discussion regarding badge grinding is the CP gained. The CP it costs you is never discussed. There are a number of skills many people MAY take, depending on the character, solely to grind in the first place. These include:
- Crafting trees (60 CP)
- Engineering
- Lockpicking
- Search (granted, most take it anyway)
- First Aid
My point is while most of these are only 10 CP, they are still a deduction to the overall extra CP gained from grinding. In particular lockpicking just for badges provides a benefit of only 15 CP and a crafting tree (for items crafted and repaired) doesn’t even recover the CP spent, with a net loss of 10 CP.
Comments on proposed solution
Quote:
● Badge grinds are endgame content and should not help people level. Legacy badge grind CP should be granted at maxout and no sooner.
Sure. I couldn’t care less when legacy CP is granted. I think though it's a very valid point to make that it only takes a handful of months to max out. This is a small fraction of the length of the breath and let's face it, probably some of the more enjoyable and fulfilling time in the game.
Quote:
● People should receive some amount of CP for legacy badge grinds.
It’s nice to have the prior work recognised but if the legacy CP wasn’t available to anybody in the new breath (i.e.- stats and badges remained but CP benefit had to be regrinded) it would put everyone on a level playing field. That’s sort of the point of reviewing the system and a source of complaints isn’t it?
Quote:
● The amount of CP attainable through legacy grinds right now is immensely overpowered and should be substantially nerfed.
I don’t really agree with that. There are some who have gained a metric shit-ton of CP but they’ve worked for it and are not that common. My characters who have been around a comparable time (since B2) have bugger-all in comparison and I accept it’s because I didn’t do the work.
Quote:
● Badge grinds as a feature should be something the average (new) player sees as accessible to them. As such, the rewards from grinds should be greater for early grinds than later ones; "completionism" is its own reward to some degree and should not confer enormous advantages.
Seriously, these are as accessible to the new player as they are to the old. Let’s define “new player”. Someone that’s been playing for 2 months? 6 months? 2 years? Someone that’s been playing 3 characters for 12 months (which is a fraction of this breath’s length) could have achieved a shit load of badges if they want to work as hard as some others. I don’t really accept this as a valid argument. To do so is saying that anybody that’s played for longer than X months/years should all have the same CP available.
Quote:
● There should be a lot more options for endgame content, such as better raid rewards, measurable player impact on Breath outcomes, Cults, boss monster battles, and others.
I couldn’t agree more. Luckily, after a number of hard years, we still have an interested and involved Dev team. Unfortunately such content comes at the cost of their free time. I think activities like this should be the endgame content, not grinding.
Random thought:
Badziew’s comments got me thinking. What if the grind of a number of stats specifically granted the CP for the next tier of that skill. E.g.- xxx HP healed with First Aid granted the Surgery skill. xxx items repaired as a Bowyer granted the Master Bowyer skill. Xxx doors repaired granted Structural Engineering. It’d be pretty hard to impliment though, just a thought. _________________ DS Vengence (10321)|Exar Kun (9839)|Odysseus (6385)|Sac II (3599)|Secundus Nulli (3900)|Spécïâl Chàrăcŧẽr (6153)|Darth Bane (5067)|The occasional shadow (4078)|Ventis Secundus (3858)
Addressing your point 2 - regardless of what happens to badges, one of our aims for B5 is to avoid having classes where you feel like you need badges to be a functioning character.
Not having to build badges into my Conduit's Smith/Gunsmith/Bowyer Enchanter build would be wonderful. So many times I've wished I could just gift extra CP from other characters to him!
Jutia wrote:
I'd suggest frontloading the CP, on a per badge basis. That is to say, using food as an example, 10 CP for 250 eaten, then 5 CP for 500, 750, and 1k. Adding up to the same but making more CP available sooner.
That would both make the badges feel more attainable for a new player, and lessen the gap in CP between them and the veteran.
I really like that idea. Unlike some other players, I don't often grind for the sake of grind. My grindiest character is probably the ferret, who is not much of a grinder compared to some. (Hey, just noticed he's 3 from 500 lifetime deaths. (That is not an invitation.)) Anyway, spreading it out could certainly make it more appealing to those who, like me, find grinding really boring and tend to just drop characters from play rather than spend time grinding.
Only thing I agree is that career CP should be given at max out and don't show up in the log (it's too much spam), otherwise I think current way is fine. I don't think I'm at disadvantage compared with people with 10 extra badges, my characters kill people just as well.
I think it's awesome that some people went through all the trouble of getting all the badges and thus can have all the skills or extra combat trees, why nerf these people after all the hard work they put in?
And btw, most people can actualy get 2-4 badges just by playing naturaly. Reading books helps you level, removing power, and if you play long enough you'll probably get damage dealt, kills, damage taken and deaths. That's 6 badges, an extra 150 CP for anyone who just played the game normaly through the years.
Saw this thread after checking in on the current state of the game. I like Badziew's idea of badge grinding being independent from CP rewards. It offers a sense of progression while also tailoring things to players' interests rather than making grinding feel obligatory. Stuff like food healing slightly more or booze lasting longer wouldn't be game-breaking, but would still be noticeable effects for people willing to put in the time for the badges.
If grinding for CP is really necessary, I think it might be better for another system to be put in place, like a "prestige" system where a level 30 player can reset their character but carry over an additional 10 CP mortal skill per prestige level. Doesn't mess too much with late-game balance, incentivizes more diversity in player levels so 80% of the player base isn't level 30 within a few months (thus making the game relatively more noob-friendly), and allows people to pick up skills they might otherwise skip but might find useful/fun down the road, and allows people to play the way they want instead of long stints of non-interactive grind-fests. Having an incentive to respec might also inspire more people to explore different builds, as well.
^ reminds me that one of my original bits for badge alternative proposals was 30 cp on reset up to 10 times, think has a decent amount of perks (possibly more now than it did then, but in retrospect might prefer that to outright shunting badge cp into core level cp)
I looked at a lot of ways to slice and dice data, but wound up deciding that probably the most effective chart I could provide was this one... the chart that tells you how many CP the currently-active set of 288 characters would "lose" under this change.
The best way to express this is that 76% of characters currently active in the Nexus would be completely unaffected by this change. And since not until you get to 30 CP does the difference become large enough to cover a single T3 skill, about 90% of characters would probably not see enough of a difference in available CP at all. Why, then, are we treating this as such a big deal? Because we recognize that the longer the game goes, the more characters will cross over the grinding threshold where it starts to matter. And we want to prepare for that.
However, a much more important topic has been touched on a in this thread that I'd like to take an opportunity to discuss a little more... and that is class design. One of the things we are very aware of is that some T3 classes feel like they can't be brought up to usability with just the 370 CP available from levelling and 40 exploration badges. Several people have noted it is hard to make an informed judgement about these changes without knowing how class skills are going to shake out. A more involved post about this will probably come out at some point (and I suspect the dev team will all put our heads together to try to write it), and others of the dev team have already touched on some of this, but the reader's digest version is that the dev team has two major points we are trying to straddle:
1. Play should be fulfilling. This means it should be possible to fully flesh out a role for your character with the CP you have available.
2. Choices should be hard. There should be more available options for roles than you can ever hope to purchase with all the CP on a single character.
This means that if we've done our job properly, you should expect to be able to be "the best" at one or two things with your available CP if that's the way you want to go... there should never be, "I need more CP to become effective at X" if you are willing to focus on X... however, if we've done things right, you should always be looking at a couple of other skill trees that do different things and wishing you had the CP to do those things well, too - and maybe you can't be quite as effective as you like at X not because there aren't enough CP to spend on it, but because you ALSO liked Y so much you couldn't resist spending some of your CP budget on Y. This philosophy has always been present with Tier 1 skills. There are far more Tier 1 skills than any normal person could hope to take. It has kind of been the case in the past with Tier 2 spellcasters but less so for the Tier 2 combat classes - most T2 combat classes have no problem fitting in all the T2 skills they want and then some. We've tried to change that somewhat for Breath 5 (as you are likely to see shortly). For Tier 3 classes this has been hit and miss in the past, and while we are trying to be better at it, if we're being frank with you and with ourselves, it is likely we'll still have some hits and misses here, if for no other reason because there are far more T3 classes and thus more chances to screw it up. But we're excited to continue revealing more about Breath 5 because we hope you'll see more of this and hopefully the complaint won't be "I can't afford the CP to do X because there aren't enough CP available" but rather, "I can't afford the CP to do X because I'm going to spend my CP to be able to do Y instead." You can be a jack-of-all-trades, but you're not going to be able to do any of those things as well as a specialist. And if you're a specialist, there are going to be some things you have to give up on doing. This is by design. The game where everyone can do everything is boring because nothing differentiates one character from the next.
Now, related to class balancing, there is one more thing I will put out there because it makes a difference as far as worrying about "revised CP costs for skills" and similar. One of the most exciting things (for me, anyway) that has been added to the admin panel for Breath 5 is the ability to mass-remove skills from the game and automatically refund CP to every character that bought the skill (and this recurses to do the same for all of its child skills). One of the big issues we have always had is that once a skill is in the game and someone has purchased it, we can't easily "un-do" the skill until the next breath, meaning mistakes we make in class design have been "permanent." Now we have a safety net so we can make re-balancing changes to skill trees on the fly if we need to (adjusting on the fly would have been really helpful with, say, the way the Infernal Behemoth skill tree turned out this breath). If it does turn out we made a mistake with building and costing things, we can fix it much more easily than in the past and that is a relief to us... and hopefully it's a relief to you too.
Joined: Jan 19, 2010 Posts: 239 Location: USA - CST
Posted: Mon Sep 16, 2019 11:16 am Post subject:
BobGeneric wrote:
Now, related to class balancing, there is one more thing I will put out there because it makes a difference as far as worrying about "revised CP costs for skills" and similar. One of the most exciting things (for me, anyway) that has been added to the admin panel for Breath 5 is the ability to mass-remove skills from the game and automatically refund CP to every character that bought the skill (and this recurses to do the same for all of its child skills). One of the big issues we have always had is that once a skill is in the game and someone has purchased it, we can't easily "un-do" the skill until the next breath, meaning mistakes we make in class design have been "permanent." Now we have a safety net so we can make re-balancing changes to skill trees on the fly if we need to (adjusting on the fly would have been really helpful with, say, the way the Infernal Behemoth skill tree turned out this breath). If it does turn out we made a mistake with building and costing things, we can fix it much more easily than in the past and that is a relief to us... and hopefully it's a relief to you too.
This is all great news! Nice to know that there will be a built in safety to fix things if something drastic is overlooked, that's rather refreshing.
In regards to the stat based badge rewards, I've seen some stuff floating around like Badziew's idea for little stat related perks instead, I don't really mind that concept I think it would be neat to get rewarded with a search bonus or some other passive bonus of that nature related to the stat you've done a bunch in. Of course this assumes that we will still have enough cp to go around to build the effective character that we'd like. And that part of it jives in with what Bob said about the way the game has been designed, in that you are suppose to have to make choices. For example if you want to be a Wormhole Conduit you should have to look at giving up some of the enchanting or a different area of expertise. This is completely reasonable. _________________ "Hey, don't talk about bacon." - Frank Lapidus
plscks-20 | Davington-25 | James Ford-26 | Wiggles-1297 | Desmond-1298 | Richard Feynman-2769 | a random janitor-2772 | Kaz-12345 | Advocado-12867
This means that if we've done our job properly, you should expect to be able to be "the best" at one or two things with your available CP if that's the way you want to go... there should never be, "I need more CP to become effective at X" if you are willing to focus on X... .
Speaking only for my Conduit Smith/Enchanter, he has indeed felt very squeezed for CP with mostly focusing on just his chosen path. Mostly in this case meaning that, yes, he has a few skills outside the strict range, but really not many - and Sense Morality is pretty important (not absolutely necessarily, I know, but very very useful) in a Good faction, First Aid is likewise extremely useful for showing friend and enemy HP, and, well, someone needs to be able to cast Glyph Against Evil and Erase Glyphs. I don't count Alchemy as outside since potions are such an intrinsic part of enchanting.
Nowhere in his wildest dreams could my character ever gain some of the skills another Conduit might take for granted, like Arcane anything or any Conduit combat or Portal spells. And that's fine; one always makes trade offs. But he still had to count on badge XP to get just the focused Smithing/Enchanting skills he (I? we?) wanted. And I am so hoping and looking forward to a future where a simple ferret Smith/Gunsmith/Bowyer/Enchanter can plan a build without needing to count on badge XP.
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