Here's an idea for rewarding building. Allow players to create a "Building Site" sign. Other players would be able to right-click the sign to "Like" the build. Then the player who placed the sign would receive tokens for reaching certain tiers of Likes, (ie. 100, 500, 1,000). A player could also be rewarded for Liking a certain number of Build Sites (Perhaps a different reward structure for Build Sites in Town vs Frontier, since one is obviously much easier). There would need to be certain restrictions of course. The ones I can think of now are: 1. The bonuses would accrue on a PER SIGN basis, not an accumulation of all the likes on all Build Signs a player placed. 2. In the Frontier, a Build Sign cannot be placed within __ blocks of another build sign and __ blocks away from spawn. This would have to be a rather large distance to restrict people from abusing this with fast means of travel. Perhaps the same distance requirements for establishing Outposts would be appropriate. 3. In Town, each player is allowed __ Build Signs (Total, not per residence? Or 1 per residence? Either way should be a very low #). Placing a Sign subtracts from your total. Destroying a sign does not immediately add to the allowable total. Either a certain time period must pass, or the player must vote a certain number of days in a row, must vote a certain number of times total, must pay a certain number of tokens (probably not a good idea as the only requirement), must pay a certain number of rupees (Also not good as a singular requirement), or a combination of requirements. 4. In the Frontier, if a Build Sign is destroyed, the ban on placing another Build Sign within __ blocks stays in effect for a period of time (6 months? So as to keep large Frontier communities from becoming token farms). 5. Restrict the number of Builds a player can like of a particular other player. 6. Restrict the total number of Builds a player can like in a given time-frame. I rather like this idea for the Frontier. This might encourage those who tend to stick around Town to get out and explore a little more and a good way to reward those who build something of merit.
Hm, the liking is of course too easy. Because people can like everything if they do it for the tokens, even if they do not like it.
This is absolutely true... IF there is an unbalance between the reward and the effort involved. I seriously doubt that this could be implemented in Town with a reward structure that is comparable to other more challenging activities. In the Frontier, if my caveats noted above are observed, the task is not all that easy. Thus, why I advocated a difference in reward structure between Town and Frontier. I don't think of this as necessarily an equal way of achieving tokens, as say, going out and killing mobs or grouping with other players to achieve a common goal, but for those who just really don't want to or don't have the time to engage in group activities, or don't enjoy mob hunting, this would be an alternative to earn some tokens. The key, as with many things, is keeping the proper balance. And sometimes balance doesn't equate with everyone being completely satisfied. Some players might not like the idea of an alternative method of gaining tokens that's "inferior" since it "pays piddly squat." But for someone who might not want to fulfill the requirements of other challenging activities, giving them an alternative could satisfy their immediate desire to not be left out completely and perhaps even motivate them to reach out for more difficult challenges once they "get a taste of the good stuff!"
if im being honest personally i think challenge tokens should be exactly that, something you get for challenges. i mean seriously why am i working my tail off murdering thousands of monsters if someone can come along and just place a predetermined amount of blocks/signs? thats not a challenge, nor is just about anything living in town. events are challenges, boss fights are challenges, playing on hardness 10 is a major challenge. thats what challenge tokens should come from. otherwise put everything back to level 5 before difficulty was released and lets play the town challenge game where i place a billion cobble blocks. /rant
1. I think you forget that there can be different levels of challenges. This suggested feature could be balanced in the same way that you will gain more tokens for playing on Level 10 than someone who plays on say, Level 3. The way you're talking, it's as if to say "If you don't play on Level X, or kill X number of mobs, or do something just as challenging, then you're not really being challenged and don't deserve to receive any reward." Please remember that each player's desired level of challenge is different and this is not simply because some are lazy. Some players just don't have as much time as others, others might be very young, while some might just not gain much enjoyment from going out into the wild and killing mobs. This is after all a game and games should be enjoyable. Fun needs to be in balance with required effort and skill. This can be one of the hardest things for game developers to balance. 2. I think I stated this clearly before, but I'll say it again: I don't think gaining tokens through a Build Sign would be as challenging as any of the things you just mentioned and therefore it should not have anywhere near the reward that these other activities have. 3. Wow. Just, wow. I think some Players who have invested huge amounts of time and resources into building beautiful, creative, or helpful things in Town would really take exception to that comment. Just so you know, I'm not referring to grotesque, massive, empty skyscrapers, which often leave me uninspired and asking, "Why?" Yes, these may be self-imposed challenges for those who undertake them and if they have a shop included then they may benefit from their hard work by attracting more customers even if they don't have the lowest prices. But that doesn't mean they don't deserve to be rewarded in any other way. 4. You're statement also assumes that massive amounts of people will "like" someone's Build if it's a big pile of cobble or some other ugly monstrosity. Yes, someone could just place a sign, build nothing, and their "friends" could "like" their sign. But truthfully, how many people would do this? Even if this happened, if my suggested structure of smaller reward in comparison to other challenges is followed, this really is not an issue at all. In order to "abuse" this type of feature, you'd have to expend tremendous amounts of time and effort (traveling in the Frontier, placing signs X,000 blocks apart, providing a clear path to each sign, then getting lots of people to wander around and "like" them. Even this issue is easy to fix. You just place a limit on the number of signs that can be placed by each player in the Frontier, just like I've suggested for in Town. 5. If you reeeeally want to limit this to avoid it being abused, instead of my suggestion to limit the number of signs you can like which have been placed by any particular player; just place a hard limit on how many signs can be placed, ever, by each player. In combination with restrictions on the signs' proximity to each other and spawn, this would be highly effective.
their reward for building would be a standing building, that people routinely visit, and likely sell things at for massive amounts of rupees. the reward for traveling blank amount of blocks would be the distance you traveled and now can move huge amounts of resources. these things arent challenges but instead normal play that nets its own rewards. a challenge is not based off individuals ability otherwise we would have to issue tokens for some of the younger players to type a coherent sentence but instead what the community agrees is a legitimately difficult thing to do. maybe builds like silks would be the exception to this rule or anyone who throws up a beautiful building in a couple weeks, but otherwise you would have a bunch of people spamming in town chat come "like" my building and then i arrive to see a large cobble square that 30 new players have liked.
This just isn't true. Otherwise, why do we even have 10 difficulty settings? If we go by your logic, whatever you decide is challenging, is challenging, and everything else isn't. Then we would have normal difficulty.... and Hard, not level 1 to 10! Just because you don't find constructing something in Town to be a "challenge" doesn't mean others don't feel it is. My guess is that you just don't find this aspect of gameplay interesting, therefore you feel it's not worth being rewarded for. Other players might think even playing one of the higher difficulties is easy and killing mob after mob after mob is not a challenge at all for them, but constructing something in Town is. Each player can find different things to be "challenging." Oh, but wait, so you do agree that building can be a challenge.... just under certain circumstances. Well, I'd agree with that. That's where balancing the "likes" to reward ratio comes in. See my last comment below for more on this. Sure, probably. But then if you actually read my earlier posts, you'd realize that these people are really going to gain.... oh, wait for it..... Nothing! The whole point was that the build would have to be interesting enough to get lots of people to "like" it, not 30. I'm sure that "throwing up a beautiful building in a couple weeks," or builds like silks" might be a couple of the things that would get large numbers of players to visit and "like."
no the 1-10 system is not based off ability its a set of parameters from not challenging to challenging. if a player has trouble on less then 5 they arent completing challenging tasks but simply struggling to accomplish easy tasks. in order for a task to be challenging it operates off accepted norms. emc is not the special olympics you dont get diamonds for existing. and again you are cherrypicking things out of order in order to de-legitimize a valid argument. so i will make it simple: THE REWARD YOU GET FOR BUILDING A BUILDING IS A FINISHED BUILDING. i mean seriously if we are going to reward players for simple basic minecraft tasks why not tokens for digging dirt? or breaking any block? or killing passive mobs? why not just throw out tokens for picking up things at drop parties? enraged mobs are meant to be challenging thus they net you challenge tokens.
Well, how about the higher the level you turn in for tokens, the more tokens you get because levels get harder to get as you get more levels.
If they are struggling, the challenge for them is too improve, not do something they are incapable of.
I don't think you grasp the concept of what a challenge is. Let's make this easy. One of the definitions of challenge, which I think is fitting: "Difficulty in a job or undertaking that is stimulating to one engaged in it" So, guess what... What's a challenge to you may not be a challenge to someone else. What's a challenge to someone else may not be a challenge to you. You say that the 1-10 difficulty is not based off ability. This is incorrect. Take for example an average ten year old playing EMC. Playing on Difficulty 5 is a much greater Challenge to them than it is to you or I. I'm sure you would argue that Level 5 is no challenge to you at all. That may be true, but you cannot really argue that Level 5 is not a Challenge for at least some players. The game code to adjust the reward for a single player specifically based upon their personal skill level is much more complicated than creating a sliding scale of how much reward there is based on the average amount of challenge the task presents. There are games that accomplish this by adjusting the challenges the players are even able to take on for a reward based on their performance in previous tasks, or lowering (or eliminating) the rewards for easier tasks as their level of proficiency increases. But yeah, go ahead and ask Aikar to try to implement that type of system and see how long that takes. In the same way that you must acknowledge that playing on Level 5 is a challenge for some, you cannot argue that Building a magnificent structure is not challenging to at least some players. For some it isn't really a challenge because they can build things in their sleep, overnight. One day there is a blank residence plot and the next day BAM! there's something there. For yet others it's not challenging because they don't find the undertaking stimulating (look again at that definition). But there are some players where it is a challenge to be creative and build something amazing and they shouldn't be forced to incorporate a shop into their build just so that they can see some reward for their time and effort they put into making EMC a more pleasing and stimulating environment for the rest of us. Yes, people can donate rupees or materials to them as an expression of their appreciation too, and I know that happens. I just thought would be nice if we offered the same kind of incentives or rewards ( just in a balanced way) to those who are inclined to play differently than the hack-n-slash. Now, as I've said before, I don't expect there to be the same level of reward for this type of activity as, say, going out and hunting down Enraged Mobs or Mob Bosses. Why is this? Because I concede that the percentage of players who find this kind of activity Challenging is going to be much lower, just like the percentage of players who find playing on level 5 challenging is going to be much lower than those who find level 10 challenging. But we don't say, "Well heck, why offer any challenge coins at all to anyone who plays below level 8, because anything below that isn't really challenging to the majority of players." Because we recognize that there are some who find lower levels of difficulty challenging and we want them to feel like they are welcome and part of the EMC community and able to enjoy some sort of reward, even if it's not as much as those who are more capable.
as ive said before you cannot design a system for peoples challenge level, otherwise we would have to design one for infants to press any key in game. instead as in any game there are set parameters for what anyone with a pulse should be able to do. if level one is a challenge for you then to put it quite plainly you are bad at the game. level 5 only a few months ago was the normal level of play for everyone emcwide, and while some may have struggled at this they should not be struggling now because not only has lvl 5 gotten easier but there are even more easy levels below it. at level one it takes 3 punches to knock out a zombie and you can stand in the center of a creeper explosion and live. even a new player has access to iron gear which would lower the difficulty of that by itself. level one was designed as a way for miners to just mine and not be bothered. look at any other game other then facebook games and tell me where they give you medals for doing menial tasks that net their own rewards. while i have agreed in the past that people able to put up a beautiful building in a short amount of time are completing a challenge ive also stated that that challenge nets its own reward, you have a final product there. the purpose of the difficulty system was also to move people out of town so why would we reward people for staying in? I will concede that a magnificent building in the wild can be a challenge, you have things atleast trying to kill you, have to get the block out there and not a blank canvas to do it on that would be a challenge and could net rewards. in town you are protected, if you run out of the block you can just go buy more, you would be rewarded for essentially right clicking, thats your only challenge. if these ideas were to be implemented they should be done in the frontier on difficulty 5.
Sorry, but I didn't read bitemenow's entire post. It kind of is the same every time, long posts stating their opinion and long posts stating their opinion.
