new feature Social Points and "Hero's Presence"

[Rebus]

Suggestion:

This suggestions consists of two parts, which are supposed to work in symbiosis:

1. Add a "Hero's Presence" aura to max level characters, which increases the out-of-combat regeneration of HP and MP for leveling characters by a significant amount.
    
2. Add a social point system, which lets a leveling character commend a max level character once per account for being a tutor, friendly, welcoming or helpful in any other way.
   These could be either a currency for special "social" cosmetics or accumulate as a number for cosmetic rewards at specific milestones or for a (weekly/monthly) leaderboard. I personally prefer a system you cannot "finish", i.e. something like a regularly resetting leaderboard (at least as a part of it).

 

Why:

With the rework of the Cleric, concerns have arisen, that the main interaction between low level and high level players - going around and buffing leveling characters, while having friendly and helpful chats here and there - is going to get lost. This was something, that was unique to ROSE and albeit not perfect, still something very positive.

• The second suggestion is aimed at giving max level players of any job an incentive to seek out leveling players to engage with them and be helpful.
• The first suggestion ensures, that there is always some tangible improvement with a max level character around. Though, it is specifically not supposed to be an in-combat bonus and no power increase, to prevent it from being mandatory (to bring a second client).

 

Potential Implementation Difficulties:

• If dual-clienting is allowed, it will be hard to stop someone from creating as many accounts as it takes to keep commanding themselves.
• I am unsure, whether an aura as described is possible to implement without major rewrites.
• "Once per account" might also not be a thing right now.
• Commending would probably have to come in form of a new skill (like Party or Trade).

 

Pros:

• provides welcoming environment for new players
• brings recognition to helpful max level players
• makes "helping low levels" into a more official end game activity
• removes a concern about the Cleric rework
• helps populate old zones

 

Cons:

• possibly too much time investment to implement.
• exploitable, if not implemented right (though it could be obvious if someone did not earn their social points the honest way), but then again, it would be about a few cosmetics at most

[Shid0x]

I'm not a fan or forcing interactions. Things should be organic, just like life. I don't like forced narrative.
 

Quote

With the rework of the Cleric, concerns have arisen, that the main interaction between low level and high level players - going around and buffing leveling characters, while having friendly and helpful chats here and there - is going to get lost.

 

I'm not sure "pa buff po" was really an insightful conversation.
I mean i get the intent behind your ideas but we all know where its gonna get...  

[rayun]

This idea has some similarities to Mentor/etc system in some games, where new players can "look up" specific job class mentors, and high levels can sign up as being mentor.

New players can search and see list of available ones and chat with them and initiate mentorship. They will also get extra exp with it and get guided via game.

"mentor" players earns some reputation points/etc points.

In general this logic of "high level helping low level" is good i think, as it gives maxed up bored players to do something, helps new levels to learn game better, also guides new people to game community since start

[Rebus]

1 hour ago, Shid0x said:

I'm not a fan or forcing interactions. Things should be organic, just like life. I don't like forced narrative.

My suggestion does not force anything, it just incentivises. If I go around with the sole intent of "farming" social points, I will likely not get them. Leveling players will sense, whether someone is really looking to help or not, and reward (or not reward) them accordingly.

This is a self-moderating system and in large part in the hands of the community.

1 hour ago, Shid0x said:

I'm not sure "pa buff po" was really an insightful conversation.

That might have been the most common interaction, but there were still a lot of instances where something more arose out of that opportunity. I understand, that not every single one of the interactions on the back of this system would be worthwile, but at least it would create a lot more opportunities for worthwhile ones.

[Whoop]

Feel like the current sitting HP regeneration rate is plenty for its use, doubt having even faster regen adds much to the game. Pretty fun passive effect though. And how would you go against abusing the social point system which would probably happen if there are actual rewards in play. 

Don't think the development time would be worth it for this in the current state, might be something for the long run? 

[Rebus]

6 minutes ago, Whoop said:

Feel like the current sitting HP regeneration rate is plenty for its use, doubt having even faster regen adds much to the game. Pretty fun passive effect though. 

The idea was, that it would help completely fresh players the most, since they might not be able to afford or not know to bring plenty of food and drinks. But you are right, that there is a variable in the difficulty of leveling.

8 minutes ago, Whoop said:

And how would you go against abusing the social point system which would probably happen if there are actual rewards in play.

Since it is supposed to allow only one commendation from account to account, it should require a lot of unusual account creation activity to cheat the system. You could also lock commendations behind level 5 or 10.

14 minutes ago, Whoop said:

Don't think the development time would be worth it for this in the current state, might be something for the long run? 

Just throwing the idea out there. No expectations from my side. 

[HoneyBuns]

I would definitely miss buffing newbies. I spent a good part of most days doing that (while my other toons were standing in our clan spot in Junon lol).  I know there are going to be some major changes to the cleric job class but clerics will still be able to buff.  I really feel that buffing is the most natural way to interact with new players and from what we've been told, groups will still be in the game so that option will still be available.

Back to this idea- if I am understanding it correctly, this Hero's Presence aura would affect the hp and mp of low level players within a certain radius but I'm not sure how helpful that would be if it's not in combat situations.  We had something at NA when titan first closed called "Help a Noob".  During this mini event, max level characters were given a special skill where they could buff lower level players with basically a 10 min extra exp buff.  The percent of the bonus exp scaled by level with the highest boost for players lvl 1 - 50 and the lowest percent for lvl  201+.   The skill lasted for 24 hrs and max level toons got the skill whether or not they were logged in.  Perhaps something like that might be a possible alternative to consider.

The social credit thing is interesting. On one level I kind of dislike the concept of helping others because you will be rewarded but realistically that's how most people are generally. On the other hand, being recognized for helping (or even just being thanked) always feels good.  It might be too much work to add a skill but there could also just be something here at the forum where new players could give a commendation.  Maybe sending a dm to whoever and giving the details of their own account plus the name of the person they are commending and a ss of both together in the game.  Then after you guys check game logs to be sure this isn't someone trying to cheat the system, the social credits could be awarded. That would also introduce the newbies to the forum itself and the guides and other useful information that is or that will be here.

[Rebus]

Appreciate the in-depths feedback @HoneyBuns! Let me explain my thought-process a bit further.

On 1/21/2022 at 2:51 AM, HoneyBuns said:

Back to this idea- if I am understanding it correctly, this Hero's Presence aura would affect the hp and mp of low level players within a certain radius but I'm not sure how helpful that would be if it's not in combat situations.

As stated before, it really depends on how the leveling pans out. Lazypenguin had to use a lot of consumables during his streams. So I imagine, that not having (many) consumables could lead to a lot of downtime for a new player.

The main target demographic for this suggestion is new players. Any veteran should be fine without a random max level approaching them to be friendly and helpful (and providing regen, since they can afford consumables themselves).

On 1/21/2022 at 2:51 AM, HoneyBuns said:

We had something at NA when titan first closed called "Help a Noob".  During this mini event, max level characters were given a special skill where they could buff lower level players with basically a 10 min extra exp buff.  The percent of the bonus exp scaled by level with the highest boost for players lvl 1 - 50 and the lowest percent for lvl  201+.   The skill lasted for 24 hrs and max level toons got the skill whether or not they were logged in.  Perhaps something like that might be a possible alternative to consider

I am not super convinced of this for two reasons:

1. It is more than just "nice to have". Even if it was restricted to  e.g. one buff every 24 hours per leveling player, it would still be desirable to have this up whenever you can.
2. You can just apply the buff and be on your way, collecting the "social points" without actually interacting.

My aura suggestion would make it, so the interaction is mainly about just being there (since the effect is only in place, when the max level character is still there) and being friendly. What I wanted to avoid at all costs, was having a max level nearby / provide buffs be part of the optimal leveling method for new players and veterans alike.

On 1/21/2022 at 2:51 AM, HoneyBuns said:

The social credit thing is interesting. On one level I kind of dislike the concept of helping others because you will be rewarded but realistically that's how most people are generally.

New players (for the most part) will only commend you, if they had a pleasant interaction. To me, it is irrelevant, whether the max level initiating that interaction did it for selfish reasons or not. At the end of the day, a new player got more enjoyment out of the game and is more likely to make this game their home.

On 1/21/2022 at 2:51 AM, HoneyBuns said:

On the other hand, being recognized for helping (or even just being thanked) always feels good.

I think so, too. And that is the reason I suggested some cosmetics as a reward, so you can stand out as a pillar of the community.

On 1/21/2022 at 2:51 AM, HoneyBuns said:

 It might be too much work to add a skill [...]

The way I see it, we would need an accountwide collection, storing the account IDs of commendations received / given. Then, the skill would only need to check against that data and either add a social point and the ID into each account's collection or give some feedback about already having commended the player.

If you want to get more fancy with leaderboards and such, you might also want to keep track of the timestamp etc.

On 1/21/2022 at 2:51 AM, HoneyBuns said:

[...] there could also just be something here at the forum where new players could give a commendation. Maybe sending a dm to whoever and giving the details of their own account plus the name of the person they are commending and a ss of both together in the game. [...] That would also introduce the newbies to the forum itself and the guides and other useful information that is or that will be here.

I do like the idea of introducing newbies to the forum. But that commendation system is way too impractical in my opinion.

Once you have to go all these extra steps to commend someone, you might not want to do it. It also put way more focus on the max level getting rewarded for being nice, than just taking them being nice at face value. Just having to click a skill is probably the most I would want a leveling player to think about, when they are trying to thank a stranger for interacting with them.

Not to mention the enourmous time investment of someone having to manually check these .

On 1/21/2022 at 2:51 AM, HoneyBuns said:

 Then after you guys check game logs to be sure this isn't someone trying to cheat the system, the social credits could be awarded.

I would want staff to have as little interaction with this system as possible - it should be a community thing. When I mentioned this being a "self-moderating system" in an earlier post, I meant, that it will be known who the main people engaging in this activity are. And thus, cheaters should easily be exposed and shamed.
 

Imagine someone randomly having one of these helper cosmetics and showing them off in Junon Polis, even though no one knows them or has seen them traveling low level zones. It would surely get those, who honestly earned the prestige of being a pillar of the community, asking questions very quickly. Staff do not even have to take their rewards away, since the cheater would be known as an impostor.

[HoneyBuns]

Thanks for the explanation! It's really difficult to imagine when we don't actually know what changes will be made to the game and how they will affect game-play (or how game-play feels) but I get where you're coming from.  It's also probably going to be awhile before there are maxed level characters here too so this is more for the future imo.   

The situation is different since it's a new server. When we came to NA, there were countless maxed lvl people and I would say many just used that little exp buff to help themselves.  We did usually find someone in Junon that would both buff with a cleric and give us that exp buff but it was not exactly an interaction between us newbies and the veterans. I just thought it might be something to consider since that skill exists in the game already.

My plan is the same as it's always been on every server- I help whenever I can because I love this game and I want everyone who plays to love it just as much as I do. It doesn't matter to me personally if I'm rewarded or even acknowledged.  It's just what I am most comfortable doing and will continue doing. 

[Trebor]

I, like HB, loved to buff people too.   The ones I didn't enjoy as much were the ones who would come to you and just say buff or whatever they said.

Some were quite rude, even if you did buff them.   No Please or Thank you.   Remember, I am much older than most of you and these 2 words have been something in my life for almost 65 years and it goes a long ways.

I would say, that these things you give can only be given to accounts that are not been on the same IP network nor owned by the same person.