New HavenForumsGame DiscussionLet’s Talk Favour (Again)
- This topic has 12 replies, 7 voices, and was last updated 7 hours, 3 minutes ago by
Luka.
-
AuthorPosts
-
Here we go again. We’re months in, and let’s see where we’re all at. What’s your experience with the system, do you feel it’s been rewarding your activity fairly, etc.?
Me? I think this system is utterly woeful still and in dire need of more tweaking. Currently, my society is holding two boroughs, and no matter how much work you do — or how little (even nothing) — I don’t think a single one of ours has seen more than 100 favour a week. And even that is a rare sight, as mostly it’s been an influx of 50 favour per week.
I have gotten 50 favour on weeks where I attended several raids, attended several events, did a few patrols, and did hunting. An active week, sinking about 15 hours into those kinds of activities, and ruining my sleep schedule just to attend three of those events that week. Then I’ve also gotten 50 a week when I was away from the game and unable to play, only able to log in a few days of the week to check News. Make it make sense. Tell me how this is rewarding or promoting activity at this point, and isn’t just a clear-cut ‘just go play a low-pop society to game the system’ statement of the game.
Isn’t this quite literally the minimum base payout that Nova implemented?
This has me question any and all commitment to this game. Why attend events at this point, which for me requires me most often to push my bedtime by HOURS just to even be possible to attend them, and messes up my already chaotic sleep schedule. Why continue trying to patrol, something which for me has mostly continued to remain a single-player experience (likely due to the times I can do these at being anything but prime time for about ninety percent of us). Why hunt? This, in particular, has felt completely worthless as of late.
There’s people raking in hundreds, if not close to a thousand, per week. They get to hoard relics and buy market items en mass, they can spend it on charon coins with ease and sink it into investigating schemes and all that jazz. Do we genuinely think this is a fun system, because they opt to game the system by playing a low-pop society, and has this legitimately incentivized people to not game the other mechanics and systems in place?
I want to hear where you people stand. How you feel it’s been treating you. How you think it’s affected the game and its balance. If you think it needs tweaking, whether that is nerfing it further or balancing it out across the board.
I think the favor system is too obtuse to work well as an incentive structure. Whether or not its working behind the scenes, it’s too hard to connect one’s behavior to favor gains, and without that connection people either assume that their behavior isn’t connected, or they guess wildly, resulting in erratic behavior.
There’s two things to consider when setting up any incentive structure for a game like this.
1) Incentivize engagement in systems that require multiple participants to be fun.
2) Disincentivize excessive engagement that risks burnout of the players.The system here doesn’t need to be complicated. You just give out rewards for meeting minimum engagement goals, emphasizing systems that require multiple participants, but then drastically reduce those rewards for additional engagement past the minimum. In fact, the system should be clear enough that it’s obvious to anyone that engages with these systems in this way that they’re being rewarded optimally for their time. Otherwise, what was the point of the incentive structure at all?
Opaque systems work great when you don’t want people gaming the system too much, but you need to remember that Incentive structures are MEANT to be gamed. A good incentive structure encourages people towards a specific behavior, and in that way it’s different than other game systems that encourage diverse strategies. For that reason, the underlying design strategy of an incentive structure needs to be different than the rest of the game’s systems.
Appreciate the thoughts, Calk. I can’t help but agree with you fully. Don’t think anyone wants Favour turned into an overly-complicated system, we genuinely don’t need Attractiveness Code 2.0 – and I think another core issue in this system is the fact it rewards someone not just with flavour-oriented items (think faecloth or charms), but the fact it gates Relics, Charon coins, ordering research/investigations..
Haven has always had its playerbase quite split; There are those who fiercely enjoy making very competent combat-oriented builds, to find niches that work either as a lone wolf combatant or in group format, and care far less for other aspects of the game. There are those who wish to tell stories, to explore narratives together with others, and who don’t give two dimes and a penny about the combat aspect of Haven. There are people who like the idea of experiencing a narrative-driven story in a group of people, catered to this group’s specific flavour (think a specific House of a God, a commune of witches, etc.).
The fact Favour is allowing some insane and incredible power-ramp makes it a resource which, no matter how you design it, is going to get investigated in hopes of min-maxing its gains. People will want to make sure they get the most out of it. Is this inherently bad, I don’t think necessarily is, though it becomes a major problem once the reward isn’t being handed out evenly, or when people who want this resource just for buying charms, gemstones, etc., are getting out-gamed by those looking to dominate the combat game.
And that kind of feels like it is the case right about now. Already, the system is paying out better to people who opt into societies with a low player count. ‘Just join those groups too’ isn’t an excuse of sorts, I think, as some people create characters with very defining traits that just do not fit into those groups. You can’t tell me to just join the Vigil as a predating Supernatural for example, and to then just join because gains is very much anti-roleplay and steers you straight into gaming-the-system territories.
My main issue with the current system is the fact it just doesn’t pay you out according to actual merits. Sinking ten or more hours into side-activities, some of which are just time-sinks you grind through solo in hopes of participating in your society’s game and being an active contributor, should at least come with a better pay-out than a measly 50 favour. Especially when this formula is paying 500+ favour out to people who may have only sunk a quarter of the time someone else sank in, but who chose to sit in one of the low-pop groups.
Do we want people to forgo joining any of the bigger societies just because they wouldn’t be able to enjoy any of the things Favour allows for? (don’t forget, it is also a resource to convert into other currencies, which can be direly needed)
Do we sacrifice characters’ integrity to their concept, their backstories, and force them to pretty much just retcon what they were conceptualized at in order for them to find a place in the societies they wouldn’t otherwise be a fit with?
A lot of these kinds of questions could be asked. I still believe Favour is skewing any semblance of balance. It promotes creating characters while already keeping in mind possible optimization of mechanics such as favour accumulation in a low-pop group.
I believe the issue is as follows…
1. Everyone gets favor
2. The gap between high end payout and minimum is very largeLets look at other resources which are incentivized like karma. You do an encounter your range is bounded. You do a plot your range is bounded. The variance is presumably due to quality or better understanding of the system but not necessarily large. Favor if true is 50 minimum to 300+ for some.
1. Only give favor to top X performers by % so larger groups still payout more people so it is still diffused.
2. Cap favor earned at like 150 and minimum at 50.Just become another time bound resource.
It promotes creating characters while already keeping in mind possible optimization of mechanics such as favour accumulation in a low-pop group.
I know you said in your initial post that this isn’t ‘just go and play in a low-pop group’ thing, but as someone who plays in the Vigil (roster 4 people) and has never been a part of a faction, playing in low-pop is not the solution. I haven’t seen any favour in six weeks now (petition pending), and I am very active both in hunts and attending events even if I do not host them because of IC reasons. We are certainly not the ones raking in these thousands of favour, I can promise you.
I am mechanic dumb. Does the Vigil currently own a borough you need to have territories to generate the favor, right?
The Vigil currently does not have a borough which we need to garner favor according to the helpfiles. We have been trying our darndest but we just can’t get the number to budge from what I have been able to tell.
According to note 270, Nova said:
I’ve added an up to 5% random swing to elections, and I’ve updated favor rewards so you can get up to 200 or so favor each week from your general individual contributions to things city wide, regardless of how your groups are currently doing.
It was previously mentioned that the 200 was removed without announcement, which in retrospect may not have been the most effective approach.
If it was, I do agree that it shouldn’t have been. Though the removal of it would track with the drop in favor earnings I noticed a few weeks ago.
As it stands currently, much like Tamar mentioned about the Vigil trying for a borough, I have been putting a variety of different things into Highgate and instead of anything going up, the Legion is only gaining more of the votes and I’ve noticed this in a few different boroughs in general.
I acknowledge one of the issues with Highgate may very well be because no other faction is trying actively for it although the Court has held a few events there now which I would think would have caused some kind of sway.
Another factor could be with LT Characters in play, the Legion is just generally stronger and so that’s a good incentive for getting rid of them but I know we still have several unanswered ATS regarding them.
Back on the topic at hand: The addition of Personal Favor was one of the better updates that came in imo. It rewarded people who didn’t have any territory but were still actively participating in the city and people who couldn’t be ‘top performers’ in their faction but still were doing what they could when they had time.
Really, the better compromise might be returning personal favor – making it a bit of a higher maximum you can earn per week based on active participation and then straight up equally distributing the 1000 favor/borough among all Active faction members (people on the roster who aren’t greyed out) as just like a bonus for your faction controlling it.
I wasn’t saying the Vigil was raking in thousands. I know people who do rake in 500+, though. One got 700 this week. Most of ‘us’ got 50, with two outliers getting 100.
I share your grievances with this system – Being active feels punished, almost. Why would I waste ten plus hours a week mostly doing single-player content and still end up with 50 favour. Despite us holding two boroughs. It is rubbish. It is actively spitting on the player and their invested time in our cases.
While I like Matias’ suggestions, I don’t think top %es is a good solution. Not when we do not even know what calculates that, as the system still seems HEAVILY skewed to favour people just hosting/spamming events, or it might promote people forgoing any and all grid activity to just grind mist hunting for days. I’d rather it just be a more balanced system that rewards people taking time away from roleplaying, and investing it in societal gameplay. If you are active; If you hunt, if you attend events, if you patrol, etc., you should be given some due payment for it.
And as I said before, I think it is just plain bulls… that there are people who barely need to do more than log on and maybe attend a raid or two per week who are given upwards of fifteen times more favour than someone who sank ten if not twenty hours into actively grinding patrols/hunts/raids/etc.
Oh. And I don’t think personal favour is implemented well at all yet. The idea is great. But make it actually worth wasting your time. Fifty favour a week is not getting you anything. You’d need a whole month to investigate a single scheme… and almost a whole year for a single bolt of faecloth.
Also, your engagement with the game sounds unhealthy Mojojojo. Please don’t compromise on your sleep schedule to play Haven. you’re getting (quite rightly) frustrated for the lack of return you’ve been getting for your time investment, but even if you were getting good favour for that time, a MUD is not capable of giving you anything worth over extending yourself like that for. Please take care of yourself!
-
AuthorPosts
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.