Separate Stat Re-allocation from Class Change #5082
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I actually am not sure I like this idea. It makes it far too easy to On Fri, Apr 24, 2015 at 5:25 PM, lemoness notifications@github.com wrote:
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I like the idea, but I think it should cost a lot more, for the reasons @deilann stated. Something like 1000 gold, to at least discourage people from rapidly changing. |
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1000 GP puts it out of reach without significant forward planning (or encourages use of Fix Character Values more than a lower cost would, effectively making it free). One of the reasons we are changing it to a gold cost is so that when the skill changes are made live, people can adjust their stats to help compensate for the changes, without being forced to pay real money. That could be an important factor in increasing acceptance of the new skills. Hence the stats re-allocation ability needs to be achievable without too much effort. If a player feels that 100 GP is too easy for them, they can create a custom reward to make it more expensive. It is not an ideal workaround, but it is impossible to select a gold amount that is equally fair for all players. |
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I think it's a really, really bad idea to build a lasting feature to Also, it doesn't address the fact that some people may want to change their I'd actually find a way to give away 1 free class change to every player. On Sat, Apr 25, 2015 at 11:24 AM, Alys notifications@github.com wrote:
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I think I'm with @deilann on this. |
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It's not just a one-time need. It also allows it to be a gold sink, which |
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Definitely agree that there should be a single free change. Speaking for us lowbies, having the mechanics change, while not having the gems/gold to do anything about it, would be very frustrating. Would be fine seeing both (a single-use token, and a gold sink), whether it's a class change, or even just a stats reallocation, with a fixed class. Pffft, you endgame raiders! I still can't afford my contributor gear :P |
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It's not actually an effective gold sink, unless you expect people to be Yes, we need more gold sinks, but that doesn't mean we should rush into You know what would be a good gold sink? The ability to dye your equipment But really, what we need to address is the reason we need gold sinks. On Sat, Apr 25, 2015 at 4:53 PM, Alys notifications@github.com wrote:
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The most effective gold sink would be a Gambler feature, that takes a This would deal with the fact that everyone has a different gold economy On Sat, Apr 25, 2015 at 4:59 PM, Ryan yandoryn@gmail.com wrote:
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I'd actually argue that if we had such a feature (and maybe you could only On Sat, Apr 25, 2015 at 5:06 PM, Ryan yandoryn@gmail.com wrote:
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That sounds like a good idea to me but can you suggest it in Trello.
Otherwise it will get lost when this issue is closed.
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I second that. |
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I still maintain that we should not create a feature due to a single site I maintain that this won't be an effective gold sink, won't be affordable I propose that we do not run into this rashly, as something like this, once What I would do: Separate stats allocation from class change. Make it cost 1 gem instead of On Sat, Apr 25, 2015 at 5:15 PM, Blade Barringer notifications@github.com
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There's a lot of points that have been raised, so I'm summarising them to help us assess them all. I am paraphrasing your comments in some places for brevity - tell me if I have lost your original meaning. These are summarised by topic rather than chronologically, to keep similar comments together. I have added my own responses to some of them (in non-bold text) - these are not meant to be a final response to any of the points; they are just my contributions to the conversation. FCV = Fix Character Values
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I'm just going to bow out of this conversation. I don't have the emotional On Sat, Apr 25, 2015 at 8:38 PM, Alys notifications@github.com wrote:
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@Alys I'll see. :) I just know that this may need to be taken care of On Sat, Apr 25, 2015 at 9:24 PM, Alys notifications@github.com wrote:
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The way I see this, re-allocating stats is a separate thing from changing classes, and so free class changes aren't part of this issue (but might be worth discussing separately). Once a player has changed class (for free or otherwise), they might want to experiment with different stat allocations and this issue is about how we let them do that. So here all we are discussing is whether we let them change stats with gold. The options are:
From HabitRPG's financial point of view, I don't think there is any benefit to keeping the 3 gem cost. Gems have too many uses and the number of players who would spend 3 gems just for stats is probably limited. Also from the financial view, a 1 gem cost probably doesn't have much advantage either. You'd get more players willing to pay it, but perhaps not enough more to make it a sizeable source of income. User happiness from being able to change stats without gems is probably more valuable. So we're considering only user-focussed reasons for making stat allocations cost gold. Advantages of Stat Re-allocation for 100 GP:
Disadvantages of Stat Re-allocation for 100 GP:
Advantages of Gem-Purchasable Stat Re-allocation:
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Comments from @deilann, sent to me by chat because of bandwidth issues: There's an option you didn't bring up: rearrange stats for free. Also, the difference between costume changes and whatnot and making stats allocation is that the game at higher levels would seriously reward you for regularly changing your stats. So the game is actually encouraging it. You'd want to spec STR or PER during the day and then INT at night, so there'd be multiple changes going on and a lot of micromanaging. While folks could make rules for themself about it, the game is literally encouraging doing it. |
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There have been a lot of very good points and interesting alternatives
I'll keep turning these options over in my mind to see if I come up with On Sun, Apr 26, 2015 at 12:11 AM, Alys notifications@github.com wrote:
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Just a thought, what if the price of the stat re-allocation increased slightly with every use? Maybe capping out at a certain price and returning to the minimum price after using the orb of rebirth. This would allow people to use it, but discourage frequent uses of it, since it would increase the price each time. Alternatively, the price could rise with each use throughout the day/month and reset at the next one. |
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I like that idea! Taking a page from Blizzard with regard to class respecs :) I'd suggest that we should probably auto-reset the minimum price at any point in the future where skills are significantly changed. With regard to @Alys's point about FCV — I'm very hesitant to see this as a viable workaround. At least for me, the instant I start using "cheat codes" in a game, it becomes much more challenging for me to avoid the temptation to make tweaks and adjustments in the future. This could just be a personal thing, but psychologically, I'm trying very hard to avoid the use of that feature. (As an aside, the biggest thing that's been holding me back is having a negative habit for smoking, which is a multiple-times-a-day activity. From an operant conditioning perspective, it's best to have to lose the HP immediately after performing the bad habit, but it does make the gameplay balance pretty challenging. If I were to open up the pandora's box that is FCV, it would be very hard to close it again.) |
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I really like that as an option! Definitely reset after orb of rebirth. Note that we will get a lot of user questions, though. We'd need to find a Maybe: 400 every time is daunting enough that I think the majority of players That being said, I am still not totally convinced that we need to add this On Sunday, April 26, 2015, Kevin Gisi notifications@github.com wrote:
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My few cents: |
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👍 to all that ^ It is my hope that one day FCV will be removed, once the site has fewer recurring syncing bugs. |
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I strongly recommend against removing FCV at any time. Even if we were bug free, there'd always be situations like a player being unable to log in due to network problems leading to them and their party taking a lot of undeserved damage. Also, I've seen several users discuss useful ways of using FCV, e.g., reducing Health to make the game harder (optionally with a matching increase in MP or GP as incentive to try harder), gold banks to save for specific things so they don't fritter their gold away on other rewards. It's a very useful tool. Giving the users flexibility is a good thing. |
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@deilann sent me some comments to post (bandwidth issues again) Regarding gamification (and this greatly clarifies it for me), he said: "when you allocate your points, you're building a character. Easily being able to move those points around makes the points kind of... not really have meaning and not feel as much like a game/character. A big part of RPGs is making choices about where to put your skill points... and just like in Habit, you give some things up to be better in other things." Regarding an increasing gold cost for stats reallocation: "I'm really not really in favour of it. It feels like it takes away from the whole point of attribute points, at least for me. The class change feels like a 'reroll' and having it be a gem cost makes it be a significant barrier. I do, however, like the idea of gaining the ability to reallocate your points every five to ten levels." "I realized that what's been upsetting me the most about this conversation, is that it feels like this is not being treated like it's a massive change, more like a minor one. However, for some users, this is a very significant change." |
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It seems that most opinion has been coalescing around the increasing gold cost, although @deilann has brought up the point that making changing stats a more prominent part of the game will hurt the classic RPG feel of the game for some players. I've been trying to brainstorm more options for us to see if we can reach a good compromise between letting people change their stats and keeping it from becoming an overwhelming strategy change. How do people feel about this:
Good idea? Terrible idea? Idea that can be saved with a bit of tweaking? If opinion continues to vary on this substantially, I would suggest creating a poll from the top options and deciding that way. We've only had to do that a few times in the past, but it has worked well! |
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I like where you're going with this, as far as restricting it as a strategy device. But I worry that if someone decides they like their current stats, or makes once change and sticks with it for a while, the remaining "rerolls" become a tempting strategy change. Throwing this out there - what if instead of capping it on quantity, we cap it on time? The idea is to give folks a bit of time to experiment with new stats, yes? So howabout having some sort of "One-Week" Item (with whatever Fantasy trappings we want to add. "Freaky Friday Potion", or "Empathy Potion" or something). Single-use, and you don't need to use it right away (to account for people who may be out-of-town during the stats rollout), and once you've used the item, you can change your stats, but only within that time window. We could do this with a gold cost, or even make it free. As soon as your 7 crons (or however long we want to make it) are up...that's it. No more re-rolls. But that way, people get a brief period where they have the opportunity to play around with the new stats before settling on something, but it doesn't become a permanent mechanic that affects strategy? |
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I’ve been turning this issue over in my mind, and while I still feel that we will need to address this topic, I think that we should release skills rebalancing before we make a final decision about this feature. It looks like the conversation about how to best handle stats allocation may continue for a while, and given the amount of debate, I am not comfortable making this decision quickly. However, for scheduling reasons, it really makes sense to release the skill changes sooner rather than later. What we can do instead is to link people to this ticket in the announcement, which will give the people who are most passionate about this issue a chance to share what would make them happy. It will also help us assess the true demand for this sort of feature. If there's a ton of demand, that leans in favor of the gold-purchasable options... if there's no interest, a change may not be necessary at all. For those unhappy in the interim, Alice has proposed creating a script that she can run to reset people’s stats. In her plan, we'd give people a week or so put their UUID in this ticket, and she will reset the stats for a bunch of UUIDs every so often. This will alleviate immediate stress without locking us in to a feature change that hasn’t been well-thought-out. If nobody feels strongly that releasing skill rebalancing without this feature is a terrible idea, we’ll proceed with that launch, and take our time with this decision. |
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Attribute points have been reset for the players listed below. If you have added your UUID to this issue and do not appear in this list (nor in the list I posted earlier), please comment here again. 030d0e1a-21df-4d53-bc05-4fb0f7f8ffcd SubRosa Lux |
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I think the implementation of the cooldown with the 20% reduction and @AgentX999 @glenanderson - One of the proposed ideas was to have a cap on What about a cooldown by itself, just for a longer period of time - several I'm intrigued by the gold cost being related to attribute points (10 per On Sun, May 3, 2015 at 5:21 PM, Alys notifications@github.com wrote:
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@lemoness I might need some more time to think about both of those, but here are my initial thoughts. One of the things I personally like the most about HabitRPG is that everything connects back to how productive you are. The gold, experience, mana, and drops you get from checking off a task can be used for equipment and casting skills and hatching pets and gaining levels and pretty much every (non-social) feature of HabitRPG that exists right now. I'd be opposed to the 3 per class change idea because it kind of messes that up. It basically says "here, you get this magical ability without working for it at all" and I think that's a little jarring when compared to the rest of the system. I'd be more comfortable with the cooldown period over the 3 per class change, because at least that way the cost of reallocation is tied to your gold so it makes sense with everything else. I think the time delay would do a lot in preventing me and other people from reallocating their stats whenever they feel like it. But there's still the problem of some people like me finding the cost too cheap while other people finding it too expensive. There will be people struggling to pay that 100 gold, and there will be people that are able to afford it easily. I'm not sure it's fair to change something this significant and have the overall effect of it vary from player to player. That's why I like the idea of reallocation cost scaling with attribute points. Since it's not a fixed cost, the too cheap vs. too expensive problem is significantly lessened. People that are higher leveled will a) have more gold in the first place and b) have more attribute points to reallocate, so it makes sense to have reallocation be more expensive for them. I'm not sure what the specific number to scale it by should be (that would affect things too), but I really think that this is the most reasonable option. Then again, I think all three of the above are better than the original idea of 100 gold and no cooldown period. ...I really hope that made sense. |
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Having X reallocations per class change would give reallocation an indirect gem cost which seems to defeat the point of decoupling them. I agree with @AgentX999 that it would be better if reallocations are earned in some way, even if that is just through gold. Any cooldown should be long enough to prevent reallocation becoming part of regular gameplay but short enough that people can experiment on a reasonable timescale. I'm starting to think that a 1 day cooldown is insufficient from a gameplay perspective and that a longer cooldown makes experimenting too difficult. What if stat reallocation was a potion of some sort in the market. When you choose/change classes the market has N in stock at a cost of X gold. There is no cooldown on the potions themselves but the market only gets restocked at a rate of 1 potion per week, and never has more than N in stock. This lets experimenters perform a few reallocations in a short period of time but prevents them from being used frequently as part of general gameplay. My first thought is that N = 3 would work well. This is the kind of effect I was aiming for with the varying gold cost idea although I agree that was too complicated. This seems a lot less complicated to me and arguably clearer than a cooldown as there is nothing "hidden" going on in the background - if there's a potion in stock you can reallocate, if there isn't you must wait until there is another in stock. It could also make it easier to deal with changes to the class system in the future since you could just hand out an extra potion when changes are made. There is also the possibility of adding other ways to earn said potions which wouldn't be the case if reallocation was just a new button next to class change. Maybe a subscription linked cap increase like there is for purchasing gems with gold. Having a fixed cost that is suitable for high level players would suck for newer players who have just unlocked the class system. That's a time when people are likely to want to play around (I'd love to try a strength build, for instance) but 100g is worth a lot more at that stage than it is later on - 100g could get you 3 weapon upgrades at level 10. If 100g is the desired cost at level 100+ then 1g/point would be a good way to keep the cost sensible for lower level players. I've got a few gripes with the general experience of levels 1-10 which I won't go into here, however, putting reallocation out of reach of players that have recently unlocked the class system would only make things worse. |
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If you want to link stat reallocation to an earned reward, then why not give people the option to reallocate their stats each time they level? You could also allow people to do that post level 100, which would give higher level players something they could work towards now that we don't get stat points post 100 anymore. |
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I also support the idea of making Stat Reallocation gold purchasable. Similarly, I'd like to re-allocate after the recent changes. |
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My UUID is f2435647-4d92-4176-a536-c29f6363f617 |
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please reset my points: 8fe0a890-2ae6-4755-964e-9837caa1f104 |
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Thanks for all the work behind the changes so far, and the thoughtful consideration for how to adjust attribute re-allocation. My comments on the suggestions made so far:
Again, thanks for all the discussion, and I look forward to seeing how it all turns out! |
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Maybe it's because I'm fairly new, or because I am a solo party and I don't do very much with quests, but I have yet to earn any gems at all. So the concept of being able to change point allocations without having to buy gems sounds great to me. For that matter, buying gems with GP would be a welcome change for me. I would consider it appropriate to make the gems very expensive, but even just having a chance would make me like the gems as currency better. |
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@KenRhodes You can read about the ways of acquiring gems at Gems on the wiki. Attribute points have been reset for the players listed below. If you have added your UUID to this issue and do not appear in this list (nor in the lists I posted earlier), please comment here again. 8fe0a890-2ae6-4755-964e-9837caa1f104 Oppes |
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5b71bd34-22dc-4af8-a9c2-9c7bca83ec37 |
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Hey this is my User ID: cbdfd640-7c36-470a-8c42-d9cc69986109 Christos_Pax |
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Attribute points have been reset for the players listed below. If you have added your UUID to this issue and do not appear in this list (nor in the lists I posted earlier), please comment here again. 5b71bd34-22dc-4af8-a9c2-9c7bca83ec37 Reenen |
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e30cffba-5253-45c5-9435-6c23e52df3cb pleease |
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@earwin Your attribute points have been reset. |
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Attribute points have been reset for Mithos (9964d8d7-c64d-4b61-8422-844dc8081912) from their request in the Tavern. @lemoness The link to this GitHub ticket in the blog post isn't working. |
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30cce048-aae4-43da-9ce6-209b2028a4ca Please reset my attribute points! Thank you! |
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@tdc0819 Your attribute points have been reset. |
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I would like to reset my attribute points, thanks! |
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@rurupoisson Your attribute points have been reset. |
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@lemoness Only 23 people put their UUIDs into this thread for having their attribute points reset for free, and one asked in the Tavern. That's far fewer than I was expecting! Attribute resets were less popular than I thought they'd be. Given that, and the arguments presented here against easy attribute changes, I'm not sure that I'm still in favour of gold-purchasable stat re-allocation. There have been some interesting ideas proposed for limiting the number/frequency of re-allocations, but they tend to be complex and I dread the number of questions we'd get about them. (This is not intended to shut down the debate; I'm just describing my current opinion.) |
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I'm still in favour of switching to a gold cost but I think it'd be unwise to make any changes right now. It would be better to reevaluate this after the other planned gold sinks have been released and people have had some time to adjust to them. If those gold sinks are working a simple gold fee would suffice; the pressure from the other gold sinks would be enough to limit the frequency of reallocations. To put it another way; while you have other ideas for gold sinks, implement those first until the complex mechanics to limit reallocation are unnecessary. |
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Agreed - I think we should put this on the back burner for a while, and On Fri, May 15, 2015 at 5:06 PM, Glen Anderson notifications@github.com
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I haven't followed the discussion, but here are my thoughts:
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Just FYI: I did re-allocate my attribute points after the change, using gems for the class change - as a subscriber with the one-year subscription, three gems are a very affordable thing for me. (Actually it feels like I'm swimming in gems, and giving a few to my party members who are not subscribed would be no problem at all.) If class changes/re-allocation add to the revenue of the site, I'd say keep them that way. (You'll always have people complaining about "everything costs gems".) Levelling up allows to gradually change the stat points, and class change lets you re-allocate all of them, which does fit in with the idea of building a character. I'd think that temporary things would be much better gold sinks - buying something that only lasts for a day or two, and is cosmetic instead of something affecting gameplay as fundamentally. Sorry if that's a bit rambly - long day. |
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I'm closing this issue. I don't think anyone felt strongly enough about being able to change attribute points without spending gems to make it worth adding that feature, and there were some good reasons presented to not allow that. This can be reopened if anyone thinks it's worth still considering this change. |
and others
A bunch of new skill changes are in the works, and lots of people will probably want to change their stats around to try them out. Currently, the only way to do this is by changing class, which costs gems.
We can't make Change Class free because it is an important source of revenue for the site and so removing it would hurt HabitRPG, but we CAN separate out Stat Re-allocation and make it gold purchasable instead of gem-purchasable! This way, non-paying users can switch around their stats, and there is a new gold sink on the site:)
Since this is a Major Gold Sink, it should probably cost 100 gold to be consistent with other planned Major Gold Sinks like the Enchanted Armoire.
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