Leveling Design and Quest Rewards

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Skrab, Nov 24, 2021.

  1. Fanra https://everquest.fanra.info

    You make some good points here.

    Really, it isn't EQ and perhaps should not be in EQ. It is a mini game inside EQ, not EQ.

    What I was saying (and are still saying) is that Overseer is not directly pay to win (although it does have some minor P2W). Overseer does provide a way to gain experience that was lacking in ToV. It also allowed me to level up my Silver account to 110 without actually having to play them.

    Was it a good idea to add it to EQ? I don't know. All I am saying is that it is here and it provides a way to gain experience and items.
  2. Qelil Augur

    I did the recruit quests as well until eventually I didn't need to anymore and just rely on crits of missions to give me some additional ones here and there. I have everybody at this point and just need more to cover for incapacitated agents (below elite level).

    My point was it speeds up getting to a point where you don't need to waste a mission every cycle on recruiting that could be doing something more useful. So in that sense, bulking up on some agents early on did help. Did I have to do that? No, I didn't but it made it faster, particularly early on to always be able to succeed at uncommon, rare and elite missions. Your point is well taken though in that it is not required by any means to eventually get to the same place.

    Overseer takes me roughly 5 minutes per account to login, turn in missions, select new ones and run any conversions I might have available to do with excess agents. I get 3 accounts done in 15 to 20 minutes as a rule unless I am goofing around talking to people while doing it. I am not so great at multitasking.

    I wouldn't worry about Overseer getting any nerfs. You will recall they recently added more agents and missions with 3 new elites to get and of course, new packs of agents to buy. Why? My guess would be because they know people will buy those packs. They have the data to know exactly how many buy them, what that means in revenue, etc. and they chose to expand the roster, quests and sell more. I think that tells a little story right there. They did not do for that nothing.
  3. Qelil Augur

    I hear what you are saying but in terms of money, Overseer is a whale snack at the most since there just isn't a lot to be spent there really compared to where the real money is. The feast that draws the whales is Krono, lots and lots of Krono. You can buy anything in this game with Krono. You want PL to 115? Krono please. You want raid gear? Krono, many Krono especially on FV but still elsewhere as well. It's just easier to transact there with most things tradeable. Collectibles (loot crates) is another whale feast but that too tends to go back to more Krono for some folks. Tradeable items in various tiers of deluxe expansion packs? Oh, yeah. We got Krono for that. Want that shiny new tradeable mount? Fork over the Krono big fishy. Need a tradeable heroic token? No problem. Got Krono? Oh, you need the tradeable expansion? Sure, got Krono?

    The whales all feed on Krono. Nothing else really comes close that I can think of off the top of my head although DBC may be a close second. However, with DBC and the store at some point you can buy everything. In the game itself which is ever evolving you never really own everything but the whales can keep on chowing down trying.

    I could be wrong here I guess but it seems to me that pay to win means anything that gives any advantage to a player with real money to blow on it vs a player just playing the game. Downplaying the magnitude of the advantage does not fundamentally change this in any way. It's still an advantage one has to pay real money for or do without. This constitutes pay to win to some degree but the degree can vary greatly. Pay to win is kept in check(?) and thusly more palatable perhaps by keeping the win under some control. So you have something like perks which will probably make much more money than Overseer in one place on the p2w continuum whereas Overseer would be on another lesser point if that makes any sense. I think for Overseer one could ague that since you don't have to pay anything to eventually get to the same place as somebody who bought agents to get there faster. I think that argument falls apart though when you do get a better roster faster, don't need to run recruit missions gaining you up to 2 12 hour missions daily for xp or other things. So, while surely a smaller cash cow than the almighty Krono, it still does make money and that ultimately is the real reason the feature exists in the form that it does.

    You may have noted whenever p2w is brought up, people will often discount that with comments about how minor the benefits are. Whether minor or major, they are still benefits you do not get unless you pay for them. Money talks, baloney walks.

    Once upon a time before Smedley brought this stuff to EverQuest, everyone was on a 100% equal playing field regardless of additional disposable income to spend on the game. Anything that changes the playing field, even by inches is actually what people typically mean I think when they use the term p2w. I sense people don't like hearing that in some cases because they are okay with it. That's fine but it doesn't change what something is.
    Jumbur likes this.
  4. Tappin Augur

    P2W is P2W. It doesn’t change based on how outrageous it’s implemented.
    Qelil and Jumbur like this.
  5. Tucoh Augur

    You ever play a real p2w game?
  6. yepmetoo Abazzagorath

    LOL at this whole thread.

    Overseer was a waste of resources to develop it. Obviously done to copy WoW. But as it is, calling it P2W is pathetic.

    Its not required, its not necessary, its just something there to use to your advantage (odd collect you can't find/afford, some ornament you want, tradeskill items quick and cheap, or lazy exp on a character you don't play or play very often).

    And no, missions are not "required" to level up. Players ASKED them to make leveling harder and take longer, and they did. Then they gave you bonus exp for doing progression as an out. I hope they take out all the exp gains from progression and make everyone grind the levels the old way, with the inflated exp curves on the level 111-120 in place. Its all people deserve after the incessant whining about it.
  7. Jumbur Improved Familiar

    Tbh, it is super easy to gain from overseer without paying anything for it, and it it also true that if you spend as much cash as you can on overseer, you can get slightly more out of it.

    All of that pales to the P2W-issue we never discuss: You can pay for multible accounts and get almost an entire group(or more, the sky is the limit...) worth of character power.

    Complaining about the advantage, that spending money on overseer gives you, when allmost everyone is multi-boxing seems a bit out of proportion.

    Im not judging, Im just putting things in perspective...:p
    Celephane likes this.
  8. Tappin Augur

    What’s the difference between afk boxing and afk overseers? They’re both in violation of EULA and both a means to the same end.
    Qelil and Jumbur like this.
  9. Qelil Augur

    Again, I think people draw their own imaginary line about what constitutes p2w and what does not and they draw this line based on how much gain is had by paying. I can in some sense appreciate that point of view, when something is minor, it is minor. However, minor advantages or major ones in this context are still essentially the same thing. You pay real money, you gain something other players don't unless they pay too. This has a way of creating haves and have nots depending on disposable income and/or willingness to part with some for this. Is that a big deal in EverQuest? I don't honestly know but probably not on any wide scale. You can't know this stuff for certain without the data to back it up.

    The worst thing about shoehorning in or far worse, designing from the ground up (a real p2w game?) money extraction features in any game is that it impacts the design. In a perfect world (depending on your point of view I guess) everyone would always be on a 100% equal playing field and the only real distinctions between characters would be the time people put into playing them. Money would not be a factor in even the slightest sense, not at all, not even a little. Zero.

    Regardless of what we think of them individually, microtransactions, loot boxes, krono and other means of extracting much more money out of a given playerbase are here to stay until and when players reject them in large numbers by refusing to fork over the money. Considering that the whales would be the last ones to do this along with many others I think it is safe to say it is what it is and no amount of taking issue with it is going to change it short of a government intervention. Naturally, that is about as likely as an ice cube remaining frozen in hell.

    All anyone can do is make their own choices here and be on their merry way. Arguing about it will change nothing. It's all about whatever the market will bear and in this case the market has clearly spoken. The market is more than willing to bear all kinds of microtransactions. I disagree with them myself but it doesn't matter. It is not going to change.

    Anyway, Overseer is a nice little addition that nobody has to do if they don't want to. Nobody has to spend a nickel on it either but I can tell you firsthand that yes, there is some advantage when starting out with it to doing so. Is it a big deal? No. Overseer itself isn't a big deal. I don't know why people make a big deal out of something that in classic EverQuest fashion takes a very long time to get anything significant out of. In its own way and by design I am sure, it fits right in. It's just one more thing that takes a long time to yield substantial results but you do get there eventually. Nobody is forced by the game design to use Overseer. I see that stated sometimes but that simply is not true. You can help yourself with a little extra xp or its other perks or you can skip it. That's up to you but this isn't some huge game changing feature.

    Leveling up with Overseer in PoK isn't exactly playing EverQuest really. You are getting zero experience playing your character if you rely on this exclusively. You are getting zero upgrades for them in PoK. It is hardly some free pass to glory. I think people make this out to be a great deal more than it really is in some cases. Lastly, as has been previously stated above of all the things that can be called p2w, this really ranks at the bottom of the pile. Why? Because the win is so minor and the pay is so minor. That is why. We might as well start calling cosmetics p2w too. You can run around Norrath looking like some pleb in your dyed armor or you can fork over money to get the good stuff. It should just be in the game, etc. Remember those arguments when this stuff first began? Nobody even talks about cosmetics for sale anymore because they are at the absolute bottom of the ocean in terms of p2w. Pay to win the fashion show? I guess.
    Jumbur likes this.
  10. Qelil Augur

    By the way, I think I posted this math one time before but just for fun I will do it again. Let's have a clear look at just how OP leveling with Overseer is or is not. Ready?

    First, you have to get Overseer leveled up and staffed up with enough agents to be able to always run 5 xp gaining missions every 12 hours for this example. That takes some time. Please, let's not argue about how much. It doesn't matter. It does take some. You can't run level 5 missions at first.

    I think the hassle that is making sure you are in EQ doing Overseer on the clock every 12 hours to maximize the benefit is worth pointing out. I don't do it. I almost always do once a day and sometimes if I happen to be on maybe twice. Somebody will tell me that is no big deal, that is easy, that is xxx... Okay, fine. It is for you and that's great. Just please don't tell me that is just great for everybody because I know it isn't. I know it isn't for me. I know I am not the only one either who will not slavishly attend to anything in EverQuest every 12 hours. I have a life outside of this game such as it is. :)

    Despite how Mr. Casual here does things, let's go for the max shall we? So, at least 10% of a level per day by running 5 missions and every one of them has to be for XP x 2 at a base return of 1% per mission. Now, naturally you will want to get the highest percent success chance missions for this no matter what they are. Never take less than 88% success in the hopes of more crits and more xp as such. So the 10% is a baseline. I am not going to even attempt to factor in crits. You can make your own guess there as you see fit.

    What do we wind up with? 10 percent x 10 days = 1 level. Therefore, to go from level 85 to 115 will take 300 days. Very soon now we can add 5 more levels to this for another 50 days. That brings us just shy of one entire year of doing Overseer every 12 hours without fail to get one character on one account from 85 to cap. Of course, you won't know how to play that character at level 120. You also will have skipped all loot you might have gotten by leaving PoK and playing the game. So, you will need gear, spell/disc upgrades, etc. The plat for all this will have to come from somewhere to feed this leech toon.

    I am so guilty here. I'm sorry but maybe it was worth pointing out just how insignificant Overseer really is in a discussion about leveling design and quest rewards. It's just a little help along the way and nothing more. That's also why nobody should feel compelled to do it if they don't want to. You would not be missing a lot if you are out playing regularly in some productive fashion.
    Jumbur likes this.
  11. Jumbur Improved Familiar

    P2W by overseer is not a clear-cut area imo. P2W requires the player to spend real money in order to gain an in-game advantage.
    But is it P2W if you only spend the free DBC on it? After all, you didn't use additional cash to get it, and you don't spend more DBC than what others have at their disposal.

    The DBC being spend on overseer, is not being spend on XP-potions, which is probably a more efficient use of DBC if you want to level fast. Of course XP-potions requires you to get your lazy butt out of pok, but still...
    I just don't see P2W by overseer as being a good bargain, and Im surprised that it is being used that way.

    Personally, I spend most of my free DBC on Bayle-marks, because I have trouble keeping up with all the platsinks.