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Balancing Character Growth in Beta 3 Open Letter @ NA Test Site
Bureyku
Member Posts: 488
Balancing Character Growth in Beta 3
Once again, we would like to thank you all for your participation and support during the Closed Beta. We will continue to take your valuable feedback into consideration as we develop the game during Open Beta and even beyond the official release.
Now I would like to take a moment to respond to the many questions and opinions regarding the manner in and rates at which experience and skill points are obtained in Beta 3.
Firstly, the concept for FINAL FANTASY XIV was to design a system of character progression that offers meaningful advancement for those with limited time to dedicate to playing. We did not want to create a game that forced people to play for hours on end to see their efforts rewarded. To that end, in addition to the Guardian's Aspect and guildleve systems, we introduced a means of apportioning swifter advancement to shorter periods of play.
In order to achieve this balance, we calculated a value for the amount of skill or experience points that could be earned in a one-hour period. This theoretical value represents an hour spent engaged solely in combat, levequests, or any other activities that earn skill or experience points, and sets a threshold delimiting how many of these points can be earned in a period of play.
Based on this, we have implemented a “threshold value” concept. These thresholds are regulated by a one-week timer that begins counting down the instant you earn skill/experience points. After a week has passed, the thresholds will reset, and the moment skill/experience points are earned again, the timer begins counting down anew.
For the first eight thresholds during this week-long period, players will receive skill/experience points at the maximum rate possible. The actual amount of time spent reaching these thresholds is not significant. That is to say, a player who exceeds eight hours of gameplay will still be rewarded the maximum amount of skill/experience points, so long as the total amount earned is below the eighth threshold value. For the subsequent seven thresholds, players will earn skill/experience points at a gradually decreasing rate, eventually reaching a rate of zero.
It is worth noting, however, that the reduced rate will also gradually recover while players are engaged in activities that do not yield skill/experience points. In this manner, it is possible for the threshold value to reset completely, even before the completion of the one-week timer.
Any skill points earned in excess of the threshold maximum—that is, at a rate of zero—will be stored as "bonus skill points." These are specific to each class, so players limited to earning bonus skill points still have the freedom to change classes and begin earning skill points again at the maximum rate, allowing their reduced skill rates to recover in the meantime.
The experience point threshold, however, is unrelated to class, and switching classes will have no effect on the decreasing rate of earnable experience.
This is how the progression system currently works.
This system was not introduced in Beta 3, but has been in place since the beginning of beta testing. There are several reasons why many people believe that these features were only recently implemented:
- Leading into Beta 3, operation hours were extended, making it possible to play more often during the span of a week.
- To encourage players to form guidleve parties in Beta 3, skill and experience point rewards for guildleves were significantly increased.
- The process that reduced the amount of skill/experience points awarded for weak enemies attacking in groups was unintentionally removed at the start of Beta 3. (This issue has been addressed.)
That last reason in particular was the biggest cause for players running up against the threshold penalty, with characters earning far more skill/experience points than we anticipated. We also faced an issue where we were simultaneously unable to adjust the amount earned for guildleves as well as the effects of crossing each threshold.
We sincerely apologize for the lack of explanation and our failure to make the necessary adjustments in the game.
The threshold values are being reexamined, and we plan to further adjust the different rates of earnable points based on feedback from our testers. One of the top issues we are looking at right now is fixing the excessively rapid drop after crossing the eighth threshold. We also plan to improve experience point reduction rates, even more so than for skill points, considering the threshold is unaffected when changing class.
At the very least, we can promise that players won't be running into the threshold penalty in the same short time span as they did in the beginning of Beta 3.
We would like to take this opportunity to also explain the following issues.
The diminishing results experienced during gathering are a function related to that class alone, and have no connection to this progression system. We are in the process of adjusting this system, and plan to make changes based on tester feedback.
We are currently in the process of considering the means in which bonus skill points can be used. There have been suggestions for various types of incentives, but as encouraging people to play with that in mind defeats the purpose of this threshold system, we will be examining this issue very carefully.
These are not the only adjustments we have planned for Open Beta. As mentioned previously, we are looking into increasing the amount of skill points earned when fighting in a party, and we look forward to seeing your input on these changes.
Last of all, I would like to apologize for the delay in releasing a developer's comment due to my recent attendance to Gamescom. The article based on my interview during that trip, coupled with conjecture, outdated information, and some misunderstandings on overseas websites, only added to the confusion. In the future, I hope to avoid similar problems by responding directly through official developer's comments as often as possible. Thank you for your understanding.
See you in the Open Beta Testing!
FINAL FANTASY XIV Director
Nobuaki Komoto
Comments
This has shed more light on the issue. I dislike the idea of losing experience but its way better now that while your playing another class the reduction decreases back to original exp.
Child of the Stars
I forgot about Gamescom. It seemed like people flipped their wigs for a couple days and were freaking out about SE not responding. It makes more sense when you realize they have been at Gamescom...
If I read this right, I would not worry too much about this. If they determine their bucket/threshold value base on the most "hardcore" possible player aka someone sit in one place skill up 1 class 24 hours a day. Then 8 chunks of 1 hour of that guy would be likely way more than enough for me.
Also think about the time expansion effect of the fomula. For the first 8 chunks there are none but for the later 7 chunks your time to reach the max of the chunk actually will be longer since you are getting less exp.
So your time for your exp to drop from 80% to 70% will be 10% longer than the time for your exp to drop from 90% to 80% etc...
So, I think the time for it to drop from 90 to 0 will actually be at least double the 100% time. So, it probably that you will have about 24 hours played time for it to reach 0 using the most efficient exp income method possible.
So if you running around at all or stop to chat or run to the bathroom at any time during your exp section, it will refill up.
So, actually this system encourage you to play LONGER but not concentrate on 1 single action. Heheh, sound kinda weir.
So if you gain more exp than what they think is max to gain in 8h stright grind you loose 50% of the exp gain, if you do somethin other than grinding or log off, you regain the bonus partially or completly, and it resets to 0 after a week regardless if you have bonus or not.THIS is perfectly aceptable. you should NOT GRIND FOR OVER 8 HOURS, is NOT HEALTHY. They say 8h of MAX NO STOP grinding to reach the maximun exp posible in 8h , most of us wont even achive it on 10+ hours of gameplay.
If someone STILL have a problem with this , now that is actually explained in every beta forums with the actual info , i have 2 thins to tell you.
1 - This is clearly NOT YOUR TYPE OF GAME, go look somewere else.
2 - If your planing to play for over 10h straight, PLEASE GET A LIFE.IS NOT HEALTHY.( i done it way to many times before so i know what im talking bout)
Exactly Thac. I doubt 90% or more of the playerbase will ever see surplus or take much negative xp from the system. I played my Pugilist for 30 hours one week in beta and never hit a threshhold where I saw the surplus. They are also still tweaking the numbers leading to launch.
Well I can understand that the hard core players are upset over not being able to grind all day and night, but at the same time I can understand the developers rewarding those that can't/won't as well. For every hard core player, there are 10 casuals.
In FFXI, it was totally skewed the other way: if you didn't have 20 hours a week to throw at the game, there was almost no point to playing...at least, in it's "prime" back in 2005. WoW came out and snapped up millions and millions of people because you can accomplish something whether you play for 5 hours a week or 50.
I know a lot of us Final Fantasy fans like to hate on Wow, but you have to give them credit for creating a game that appeals to so many people. Blizzard rakes in millions with that game every month, 5 years after it's release. Sure, it's juvenile in a few ways, and the community leaves a bit to be desired at times, but trust me, S-E doesn't look at WoW and think about the community, they look at WoW and think of the subscription fees that roll in every month.
it's not hours but an xp number, with my teammates when tried pushing for maximizing xp rate with an optimal/xploit team we got to 0 xp in 3 hours.
8 hours+7 hours is the extimated time a really bad , clueless solo player will get to 0 xp.
They know about people doing this. It is a threshhold per hour or whatever, but they addressed this saying the numbers are off because of increased skill gain in beta 3, increased leve rewards, etc. and numbers will be tweaked.
I am sure that it will be targetted at the high end of the spectrum and constantly be tweaked.
Post in other thread but I will repeat it here. You assume that they set the exp number at the average incoming exp rate. You don't know this. If they set their threshold to the fastest exp gain possible then 99% of their player base will not be able to do that. One single mistake or wipe, while you are running returning to your exp spot, the exp chunk will get refill.
If you take a break at all, go to the bathroom, eat, take a shower, sleep ... your exp chunk will go back up. Like I said, if you are extremely efficient, sit on a bowl will a stack of pizzas you will still be able to go more than 16 hours straight (more like 24 hours If my math is correct) for your exp gain to reduce to 0. After that, don't you think it's time to take a break? people are known to die after long straight gaming period, you know?
Could someone explain how these two statements work together?
I read this as there is a threshold for Physical Level and an independent threshold for Rank. So we could (hardcore that is) be in a spot where we would only be increasing our Rank and not Physical Level?
Overall I'm fine with the system. I think they would have done better to make an EXP Bonus that builds and fades instead and adjusted the numbers so that both systems do the same thing (bonus sounds better than penalty).
I also am torn on if they should add some feedback to the player on where you are with the thresholds. What do you guys think about that?
Well, they distinguish that in the article several times. Also as a beta player I have seen how this work. You have 2 separate measure of progress an experience point which counts toward your physical level and skill point which counts toward your current weapon.
So, yes, it is possible that you reach your max of experience point gain and will not progress your physical level while your class rank still advance but they also said that they are looking to relax more regarding to experience point gain.
Basically you always get physical XP for doing everything and that increases your physical level which gives you attribute points to spend.
Each class including crafting and gathering classes have individual ranks. So each class has fatigue, and your physical overall xp has fatigue as well.
Basically you have two XP paths.
You have Weapon Skill Rank.
You have Physical Level.
When you kill a mob you get both XP sets. So say a mob is like 200 Wpn skill, and 600 Physical XP, right?
What this means is if you get your Weapon Skill Rank to surplus and then you switch to a different weapon - you're still earning XP to the Physical Level Threshold.
So say you cap out Lancer and Pugilist for the day - then all of a sudden your Phys Level caps out and you can't get any more XP for it.
You still can get XP for other Weapon Skill Ranks, but just not for Phys Level.
I hope that makes it easier to understand.
Yeup, thank you all for the replies. I've done low level beta and understand there are two different paths but for some reason what he said didn't click.
As a follow up question, I assume since there are more of them that rank increases faster than level. Would someone who hits 0% level gain and starts working on a 2nd class run into a situation where they would max out 2 or 3 classes and not reach max level (thus having to play a 4th or 5th class to reach max)?
We'll probably play ~ 10 hours a week and not all on the same class so this system will really won't be on our mind.
They said in the article that they are looking into relaxing the physical level threshold since it's global. So, I don't think that will be a problem.
like i said in the oher thread people where freaking out for no reason . but i guess it will help and geting the threshold raised a bit
The thin is experience points / Physical level,compared with Skill points/class rank, is close to a 3-1 ratio gain.
Like you reach lv 3 on your class / rank/weapon ( whatever you whant to call it) you should be around lv 5 on physical.
Phisical will be on most cases way above your rank, so im not really worried if the fatigue does cross over.Even tought they did say they will tweak it since it does have a global cool down.The thin is it must be a global cool down, becouse other wise you could be lv 1 with 1k hp, since stats does inflict hp and everythin else stats inflict on the rest of mmos.
Physical/exp points ---> STATS,
Rank, skill points--> actual class lv /skills/ this is the measure for equipment as well.It works very similar to skilling up on ffxi.
Based on this, we have implemented a “threshold value” concept. These thresholds are regulated by a one-week timer that begins counting down the instant you earn skill/experience points. After a week has passed, the thresholds will reset, and the moment skill/experience points are earned again, the timer begins counting down anew.
For the first eight thresholds during this week-long period, players will receive skill/experience points at the maximum rate possible. The actual amount of time spent reaching these thresholds is not significant. That is to say, a player who exceeds eight hours of gameplay will still be rewarded the maximum amount of skill/experience points, so long as the total amount earned is below the eighth threshold value. For the subsequent seven thresholds, players will earn skill/experience points at a gradually decreasing rate, eventually reaching a rate of zero.
Give us a real world example already.
First you say 8 hours then you say 8 threshholds and the amount of time reaching these is not significant, and then you put in a "this means" (that is to say) - That does not fulfill its purpose of explaining previous statement.
Playing more than 8 hours will still reward max skill/exp as long as total is below the 8th threshold? Soo is it 8 hours of combat time? 8 thresholds based hours of X minus Y plus 123.... *ummm* carry the decimal, subtract the V. Deduce the rounded equation of the nth power, and add 2+2?
My gosh, I must be a damn graduated idiot because I am more confused than ever on this stupid topic.
Rates, decreasing, gradually, eventually, reaching, zero, rate, points, exceeds.... frickin jibberish.
Yaay for Square hole round peg rhetoric!
/rageover - betas suck I am done just gonna wait till the 22nd see if I can figure it out or if it doesn't even affect my playstyle and if not /cancel. and I love Final Fantasy console games... something is wrong with me.
Haha Aer I hear you man. Nothing wrong with you. FFXI did the same thing to me. Some of my friends are just going to wait for PS3 release so that PC players can iron out any remaining bugs and figure everything out so when they start they know what is going on.
They have never said 8 hours as a limit. This is their first official English article. The previous one you read are FAN translated from a Japanese article. Obviously, things are lost in translation.
To make it simple, they have a set amount of experience/skills points that presumably a person could attain in a hour of pure killing. They use this amount as a threshold. You can obtain 8 times this threshold at 100% xp/sp. So say the threshold is 10.000 xp/sp then you can obtain 80.000 xp/sp at 100% value. From 80.001 to 90.000 you will see a reduce of about 13% in xp/sp and this amount will go to "bonus points" which could be used later at something else. So on and so forth.
When you are not gaining xp/sp, not in combat mode with this particular class, this threshold will slowly reduce (not sure that what rate yet, but the article mention you can reduce it back to the begining wihout having to wait a week). Think about it like a cool down ability.
Using random numbers....
They looked at data and said 1 hour of good exp grinding gets you 1,000 exp. They set thresholds at the 1,000 exp marks. When you have accumulated 8,000 exp points your exp rate will go down. When you reach 15,000 exp you will stop gaining it. Every hour the count for your total exp gain against your maxiumum goes down by 50 exp (8,000 exp / week).
Casual player, 1 class:
Scenario 1: You play 3 hours a day with 50% of your time dedicated to exp gain.
You would gain 10,500 exp a week towards your cap. You would have 8,000 a week decay from your cap. About day 5 or 6 you would start to have reduced exp.
It would take you 3 weeks of this playstyle until you were constantly getting less than 100% exp and 6 weeks until you never get any exp.
Scenario 2: You play 10 hours over the weekend each weekend with 75% of your time dedicated to exp gain.
You would gain 10,000 exp that weekend towards your cap with ~ 1,600 exp decay by the end of the second day. 400 exp would be at a reduced rate.
It would take 4 weeks until you were constantly getting reduced exp and 7.5 weeks until no exp.
Scenario 3: You play 2 hours a day casual with about 50% of your time dedicated to EXP gain. You would never experience reduced exp.
Note: in any scenario if you split your time between 2 classes you would never have reduced exp.
Hardcore player, 2 classes:
Scenario 3: You play 2 classes 6 hours a day with 75% of your time dedicated to exp.
You would gain 31,500 exp per week towards 2 caps. 16,000 exp would decay away from both caps a week.
By day 5 or 6 you would start to experience reduced exp. By the end of your second week you would start to recieve no exp.
Note: adding a 3rd class would extend you to the same time frame as Scenario 1. Adding a 4th class would make you never recieve reduced exp.
Final Note: Because you start recieving reduced exp its possible that for the Scenario where you would reach 0% exp you never actually reach that point and just some equal balance of 50% exp loss.
Thanks Thachsanh,
It helps, I also watched Rocs Loc's video on system which also clarifies your point. I suppose like many I am whipping myself into a frenzy over nothing that will really affect me in the game. You know if they had approached this whole thing differently, like saying: to combat bots we have implemented diminishing returns when you hit an extreme XP gain per hour. "Don't worry though, we expect this to affect less than 2% of the community..." (Ala Comcast)
Nah people would still be upset... I am frustrated because of the forum frenzies when nobody really understands the point, purpose or mechanic. I read 100 different statements and speculations and it's all a clusterf, and then the Square folks spew rhetoric adding more confusion than clarity.
So having a XP gain per hour max and then hitting a cool down point, makes it easier to wrap my head around.
Something like that, except that everytime you are not gaining skill point for that particular class and everytime you are not gaining exp for your physical level, the cool down kick in. Like when you are traveling, exploring, playing different class, the cool down will kick in.
On top of that, they do a hard reset every week to make it 100% again.