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joedobo

Remove the sleep bonus cap for premium.

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Remove the sleep bonus cap for premium.

 

SB cap causes unfair sleep time rewards and promotes feelings of unfair compensation.

1. Remove the Sleep bonus cap.

2. Consider reducing the standard SB compensation/gift/apology/whatever-you-want-to-call-it allocation. Five hours might be a bit to high if the SB cap was removed.

 

The one game balance issue regards free to play. It doesn't feel right that someone can make a f2p alt and log it out in a bed for 6 months (log in once a month to stop deletion). Then play with sb for weeks if not months.

 

 

 

Why do I think this is a good idea? Well there are three indisputable facts that pretty much sum up why.

 

1. Sleeping in a bed penalizes anyone who happens to sleep in a bed for more then 5 days.

 

First we address player A who doesn't play for 6 days out of the week and sleeps in a bed for the whole time. On Sunday the player puts in about 11 hours play session and sleeps in bed for the remainder of the day. Lets calculate total sleep time: [13 hours(Sunday) + (6 days x 24 hr)] x 60 min is 9420 min; This divided by 24 (24 rl min. sleep = 1 min sb) is 392.5 SB minuets. BUT, the player only gets 300 because 300 min is 5 hours or the cap on SB.

 

Now we have player B who plays every day. Shim also plays a total of about 11 hours a week. If B plays for 69 minuets a day and sleeps for the rest it will be 1371 minuets sleeping. This is about 57 minuets of sleep bonus every day. B is able to use every minuet of sleep bonus and never gets limited by the cap.

 

A and B both play for about 11 hours week and sleep the rest of the time. B get all  and A is denied the benefit of an hour and half of sleep bonus time. 

 

note...if player A happens to have a strange schedule where say shim can only play for say 1 week out of month the fairness of SB allocation is even worse.

 

 

2. Next we have the good old situation where something undesirable happens and Wurm's leader, Rolf, caps out everyone's sleep bonus to 5 hours. There are many different angles we can look at this but I choose to focus on the facts. And that is, players with more SB stored up when Rolf does this are given less.

 

 

3. Removing the cap DOES NOT increase how fast people get SB. People with lots of SB would have that because they slept in a bed and saved it up.

Edited by silakka
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-1, another poorly thought out suggestion. If I decided to log out for a year and come back with 365h of SB, that would be severely broken. People would have multiple toons logged out racking up prem, log them in once to 90 skills and back out again.


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Interesting idea, for sure. Would be great for my play style. Would it balance though? Sleep bonus is supposed to be a way for those who cannot play 12 hours per day to kind of keep up in skill gain. The 5 hour cap keeps other exploits from happening.

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I would appreciate it if we could get a day or two notice before all sleep bonus is filled back to five hours.  Making a note about it AFTER it has been awarded does not give people the opportunity to use their sleep bonus before it gets filled back up.


 


Edit:  This is in response to the OP: 2. Next we have the good old situation where something undesirable happens and Wurm's leader, Rolf, caps out everyone's sleep bonus to 5 hours. There are many different angles we can look at this but I choose to focus on the facts. And that is, players with more SB stored up when Rolf does this are given less.

Edited by Fairyshine
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-1, another poorly thought out suggestion. If I decided to log out for a year and come back with 365h of SB, that would be severely broken. People would have multiple toons logged out racking up prem, log them in once to 90 skills and back out again.

Note that this would require you to pay premium for a toon you're not playing at all. Would still be cheaper than sleep powders, yeah, but much slower.

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I think the compensated sleep bonus should be given as powder. Just so that people can stop complaining about already having 5hrs after being compensated.

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-1


 


Sleep bonus is not, in my opinion, primarily purposed for everyone to skill fast it is, in my opinion, more to allow those that spend less time in game to keep up with friends who would stay on line longer (debatable).


 


Further to add is the "use on demand" sleep powder you get from premium, (f2p must use a bed)


 


When ever i see these posts i always think of that old good saying  "give an inch and they will take a mile"


 


Sleep bonus is good as it is and works well. 


 


+1 to compensation powders, that would be awesome, but probably not as practical as awarding the time, stop hoarding sleep bonus is my advice   :P


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Actually, what the OP suggests is not a broken or overpowered mechanic.  Just look at Eve online, a vastly more successful game.  In Eve, your skill gains can happen while you are offline.  It was designed that way, to allow the part time player to stay on par with the 24/7 player.  I once spent 6 months on Eve, just logging in briefly, 2-3 times a week, to update my skill training paths.  THose were 6 months where I had zero time to play the game, but it kept me paying for premium, knowing I would not fall behind everyone else.


 


It was one of the most appreciated and innovative skilling systems I have ever encountered in an MMO and I so wish we had something more like it here.  SB certainly helps.


 


Aether, I see your concern there, but don't forget there is a fatigue mechanic here as well, to prevent someone from power skilling nonstop.


 


+1 to the general principle of offering better balance for players that can't play all day, every day, as long as they are prem.


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-1, another poorly thought out suggestion. If I decided to log out for a year and come back with 365h of SB, that would be severely broken. People would have multiple toons logged out racking up prem, log them in once to 90 skills and back out again.

Huge erroneous exaggerations in your post. Its not possible to log in once and get 90 skill (maybe on challenge, yes on test center). Even with SB.  You'll cap out on fatigue. I"m not sure how long it would take to max something easy like masonry assuming you max fatigue every day and use SB.  But I know absolutely for sure it is more then one day.

 

 

If you want to pay premium for a whole year and not log in once, Yes, I do think you should get a years worth of sleep bonus accumulated. 

 

 

oh, and how about you put a little more effort into posting well support comments before saying things are " Poorly thought out". My suggestion guarantees that no player will be allocated an unfair amount of sleep bonus. And (imo), will end all future disappoints players have had with SB tied down time.

 

 

-1

 

Sleep bonus is not, in my opinion, primarily purposed for everyone to skill fast it is, in my opinion, more to allow those that spend less time in game to keep up with friends who would stay on line longer (debatable).

 

Further to add is the "use on demand" sleep powder you get from premium, (f2p must use a bed)

 

When ever i see these posts i always think of that old good saying  "give an inch and they will take a mile"

 

Sleep bonus is good as it is and works well. 

 

+1 to compensation powders, that would be awesome, but probably not as practical as awarding the time, stop hoarding sleep bonus is my advice   :P

This thread isn't about skilling up fast or what SB is intended to do. It is about making sure the allocation of sleep bonus is as fair as it possibly can be. I've given a few example how the cap creates unfair and unequal allocations.

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Interesting idea, for sure. Would be great for my play style. Would it balance though? Sleep bonus is supposed to be a way for those who cannot play 12 hours per day to kind of keep up in skill gain. The 5 hour cap keeps other exploits from happening.

Can you think of one potential exploit? I don't see how it could be unbalanced. The rate which players get SB has not changed. Thus, the only way to get SB is to sleep in a bed.

 

Player's need premium to accumulate lots, so if you want to sleep in a bed, pay premium, and not play....does it really matter? I'd argue from Wurm's financial standpoint this is actually good. You'd be paying for services and consume hardly any resources.

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It could be good, but only allow sleeping to fill it up to 5 (or maybe 10) hours. All other sources (downtime, missions, RoS, powder etc) can push it above that level. You never lose out on special rewards but you might negate the benefits of the bed if you never use it.


Edited by Othob Rithol

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I have mixed feelings about anything to do with changing how sleep bonus works/is given. If it weren't for the downtime and sleep bonus being given to people, I don't think there'd be anything major to complain about.


 


The main thing causing complaints seems to be that some people have empty sleep bonus when the server goes down, and some have full or varying amounts. The people who have sleep bonus effectively get no compensation while other people get a full 5 hours of it. I myself often lose out on much of the added sleep bonus since I save mine up, but I don't really mind all that much.


 


Not everyone has time to use all of it all the time, and some people try to save it up for a big grinding spree all at once when they have a good weekend to kill. Not everyone uses it as soon as they have it, so there's always going to be unequal amounts given out.


 


Is it fair? Maybe, maybe not. You're not 'entitled' to the sleep bonus, nowhere does it say you should expect it all the time. It's something that is done as a kind gesture.


 


Still, a few things could be changed to make it more accessible and allow everyone to receive the same share. I've seen people suggest making it like /refer, where you're given the option to use it at any time to give yourself the 5 hours, but you lose the opportunity to use it the next time you're given it, as the new sleep bonus/refer thing would overwrite it.


 


We could also be given it a bit delayed. Maybe make a post about it on the launcher after maintenance and give it a few days later. That would help give people time to use up their bonus, if they actually play regularly enough for the downtime to have probably affected them.


 


Then there are other suggestions such as sleep powders, which in many cases would just get sold. I don't really agree with doing that with a compensation gift, and having so much sleep powder given out would flood the market with it.. It could be made untradable, but that seems like a hassle to try to manage.


 


Uncapping it entirely would throw off the balance of the game, since it would be much easier to accumulate large amounts of it, even if it's limited to premium players only. If it was uncapped, I'd have several days worth of hours by now from my disappearances. Not that I'd be complaining if I had that much sleep bonus, but it seems like it'd be a bit overkill. Sure, it would help me catch up for time I lost, but it still seems a bit unfair to give me that much of an added advantage when I knew I had premium and still didn't play.


Edited by Ellietrap
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Uncapping it entirely would throw off the balance of the game, since it would be much easier to accumulate large amounts of it, even if it's limited to premium players only. If it was uncapped, I'd have several days worth of hours by now from my disappearances. Not that I'd be complaining if I had that much sleep bonus, but it seems like it'd be a bit overkill. Sure, it would help me catch up for time I lost, but it still seems a bit unfair to give me that much of an added advantage when I knew I had premium and still didn't play.

Lets say there was another player who played and slept the same number of hours as you but instead played a little bit every day or two. In this situation both players will have played and slept for the same amount of time. But you will have been capped and receive less SB then the other player. This is the single biggest supporting reason why It wouldn't unbalance anything. People are already benefiting form an equivalent allocated in small daily amounts. If you got ~57 minutes sb, play for an hour, and sleep for 23 hours a day that is about 13.3 hr sb in total for two week.

Now compare that with someone who doesn't play, and sleeps in a bed for about 1.9 weeks (13.5 days). 13.5 days is about equal to the 13.3 hr of sb other other person got over the two weeks. But the two week vacation person will have been unfairly caped and denied 8.5 hrs of sb.

I still don't see how it would unbalance the game. It would simply make the allocation more fair for people with different schedules.

 

 

@ thread; Many people saying that uncapping would some how unbalance things yet not a single person can explain why this might be true. 

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The OP has a very valid point. First of all, this would somewhat offset the advantage of the players who have the resources to buy powders from other players. It would allow newbies and more casual players a better chance to catch up to veteran players who can play all day. If you can play all day, you should get some kind of advantage for your efforts, but the gap is much too big.


 


I really don't think logging out is a problem as long as this is premium only. If you really want to log out in a bed for a year, fine, you won't be playing for that entire year and you still have to be paying for premium. It's not really worth it to most players, considering they could potentially gain a lot of skill in that year with or without sleep bonus.


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Wurmhole is spot on about why this is a very good suggestion. I too paid premium for accounts in EvE even when I didn't have time to play, as it allowed me to continue to gain skills. Similarly, if I could save up sleep bonus when I can't play for a month then I'll keep paying for that month instead of skipping it. I wouldn't be surprised if there are plenty of other players who will think twice about letting their prem elapse after the proposed suggestion has been implemented.


 


 


What does one month of sleeping get you? 30 hours of sleep bonus. Skill gain wise this is worth 30 hours of play time, thus if you sleep for a month and then play for 60 hours in the next month, while another player skills up for 30 hours each month, then you'd progress equally fast.


 


Thus:


Player A who sleeps in the even months and plays 60 hours in the uneven months effectively spends 117.5 hours every 2 months on skill gain.


Player B, who plays 30 hours every month and sleeps for the rest of the time, effectively spends 117.5 hours every 2 months on skill gain.


 


It's completely even here, both players on average play 30 hours a month, but player A is now encouraged to keep his premium up on the even months.


 


 


Now yes, it could be abused by having multiple premium accounts, switching between them when prem runs out on one of them. But is this an issue? Not really, as they need to pay premium for each character (more money for Rolf), right now these players can also buy sleep powder, and they can invest in a vynora priests for wisdom of vynora. And most importantly, as the math above shows that Player A and B are equal, this also means that the tactic of having multiple characters and switching between them when sleep bonus runs out is already valid right now. If you play 4 hours a day then 4 characters would ensure you have sleep bonus at all times, even when doing non-grindy things like walking around. Add a vynora priest to the mix and you could probably do fine with 2 other characters (as you'd never cap out on the fatigue).


 


 


So I feel that the math shows exactly what Wurmhole states, this suggestion is neither broken nor overpowered. From a financial point of view it's a great idea, and for players with irregular playtimes it's also great. I would not add a cap to the maximum amount of hours, as there's really no advantage to that, and it discourages people from keeping up their premium even when they can't play for months.


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It's completely even here, both players on average play 30 hours a month, but player A is now encouraged to keep his premium up on the even months.

 

Cool! Another good reason to do this. I didn't think about how this could increase Wurm's revenues by encouraging ppl to keep premium.

 

The good.

1. Since SB tied to down time will result in everyone getting the same amount of time we won't see people complaining about how they didn't get any or got less SB.

2. Wurm may see increased premium revenues because players will be more likely to keep premium active even when they can't play.

3. All the math has proven that this it is not creating some new advantage. Those who are logged out for long periods with premium will benefit from the same sleep bonus as someone who plays every day (assuming both play and sleep the same amount of time given a time frame).

 

 

The bad.

As far as I can tell, there isn't anything negative. Sure some folks may have a "gut feeling" about not liking it. But their doesn't appear to be any sold facts indicating anything bad about it.

Edited by joedobo

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If you want to pay premium for a whole year and not log in once, Yes, I do think you should get a years worth of sleep bonus accumulated. 

 

 

This thread isn't about skilling up fast or what SB is intended to do. It is about making sure the allocation of sleep bonus is as fair as it possibly can be.

 

sorry mate, but that is ignorant. good luck with pushing this one up hill tho.  ;)

 

Anyone that would pay 12 months sub gets 12 sleep powders anyway, also why would you not log on for a year after paying premium.....

 

I like the cap for a lot of reasons, fairness as i see it is one of them.

Edited by lawurm

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Anyone that would pay 12 months sub gets 12 sleep powders anyway,

 

also why would you not log on for a year after paying premium.....

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These two clauses seem to contradict themselves in this context. If someone wouldn't log out with a year of premium, then there is no problem. The twelve sleep powders wouldn't matter.

 

Sleep powder is sleep bonus, its the same thing..... by your logic (and i agree with you btw) sleep bonus would not matter if that player did not log on.

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I'd argue more thoroughly against your proposed change, but last time we argued you stated categorically that you "don't like talking to people that don't agree with you." Lack of opposition can come from a variety of reasons, only one of which is lack of valid reasoning.


 


Fixing the cap so nobody gets shafted by awards is fixing a problem.


 


"Fixing" the cap so that with some management you can always have sb available is making it easier to skill up.


 


The prior is a good idea, the latter I am opposed to on the grounds that Wurm has a fundamental problem with making it easier and easier to become a master of everything, thus decreasing the motivation to interact with others and making it harder for newer players to participate as anything other than laborers.


 


Raising the cap I can get behind. And removing the cap for special extra SB I think should be done. Removing the cap totally I think is a bad idea.


 


Disclaimer: I am the type of player that would benefit from this change, I often log in just to burn off SB doing something since I usually have multiple hours stockpiled. I almost never benefit significantly from 'special awards'.


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-1 If u dont play wurm more than 1 day a week or something, why should u benefit more from something like sb..
So the active players who do play every day, gets nothing out of this, so actually this would benefit afkers more than actual players.. not fair imo..

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sorry mate, but that is ignorant. good luck with pushing this one up hill tho.  ;)

 

Anyone that would pay 12 months sub gets 12 sleep powders anyway, also why would you not log on for a year after paying premium.....

 

I like the cap for a lot of reasons, fairness as i see it is one of them.

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