Stefan Stahl
Seituoda Taskforce Command
Caldari State
342
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Posted - 2013.11.13 19:58:00 -
[1] - Quote
I would be in favor of a diminishing returns scheme of active SP accrual.
The idea is that game design sits down and says how many SPs they think their median active player should be earning for their content-strategy to work out long-term. Below this threshold SP accrual is quick with a high SP/WP and SP/matchtime ratio. The closer the gained SP of the last 7 days gets to the threshold the lower these ratios get, making SP accrual more time consuming. Beyond the threshold these ratios slowly approach zero, never becoming zero exactly, but decreasing returns the more the player exceeds what game-design originally intended.
Here's an example:
Consider you've been away from home for 7 days. The active SP you accrued during this time is zero. Not a worry, CCP recently released roll-over-SP for Dust.
During your first games you earn 2 SP/second of matchtime and 5 SP for each WP you earn in the match. This pays out handsomely for the first couple of games.
After a number of games, or perhaps the next day, you start to notice that SP accrual starts to slow down. At some point you're only getting 1 SP/second and 1 SP/WP. This is the ratio we currently have in the game.
Nevertheless you're enjoying yourself with those black eagle suits and you keep playing more than the average player does. This is where you notice things getting progressively slower. At some point you'll only earn 0.5 SP/second of matchtime or even less, and even your WP only earn you 0.5 SP/WP.
I could whip up some nice degressive curves if I was a game designer, but I'll leave this as homework for the guys at CCP. I hope the concept is clear: Motivate players to turn on the game and get in a couple of games with large incentives at the start of the active SP pool, but stop people from chewing through all the content by handing out fewer skillpoints when the player starts to leave the rest of the community behind.
Important thing to note: In this model playing more always grants more rewards. The reward per effort ratio is just not constant but asymptotically approaches zero for a very large amount of SP earned per 7 days. |