Okay onto the bones of the subject

Rollover SP system.

I know we all want it but do we 'really' want it?

The fantasy that we could grind away that extra SP whenever we want instead of being leashed by the neck from week to week is a wonderful idea indeed.

However, there are down sides to such system while a hard core cap week to week player may not notice this a semi casual might feel as if he's been further burdened that he may never catch up? End of match screen pops up and declares he has 2 million bonus SP to claim that he can only seemingly claim 2k at a time? The notion of grind sets in and in the end becomes a disheartening thing. A wall, a contributor to the http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3088/2335016192_44938cf481_o.jpg syndrome and something that may just drive casual players away.

With this in mind would still want the roll over system?
How would you address the potential backfire?
Can we reasonably introduce the system safely?

Discuss.

Side Note: The 'design' of the roll over system in question is left ambiguous on purpose, so feel free to introduce your solutions or a design of it for the discussion.

But lets say you started with 20 mil cap you grind grind grin and get it down to 19 mil, then decide okay time to take a break and play this newest game. You beat that game come back and now you're at 22 million untapped SP you are locked away from. This quickly turns that glimmer to hope to gloom of doom of not even being able to 'catch' up with even yourself which can compound the entire issue in playing 'catch' up with the pro players.

There are many players who do play regularly and never cap out. that bonus SP is going to keep growing and growing.

End of match screen pops up and declares he has 2 million bonus SP to claim that he can only seemingly claim 2k at a time? The notion of grind sets in and in the end becomes a disheartening thing.

I don't think players are that stupid.

Well here is another bone to throw into the pile, Someone mentioned monetizing this pool, I am somewhat against this under various types of offerings (like doubling the pool) but I am willing to break over it provided that its a fair purchase.

With this bone in the mix what are you guys thoughts to it or how would you implement or not?

Easy, increase SP payouts the higher your cap is.

1) Have an active SP reward pool which is the size of a weeks worth of SP, which with the current limits would be 190,400 SP.
2) Active SP rewards deplete this pool, as they do now.
3) Each tick of 30 minutes 566 SP are added back into the SP reward pool.
4) The pool never goes above the maximum size of 190,400 SP
5) Once empty, no rewards (or a nominal reward) is given).

Pros:
A) Whether you play weekly or daily, you have the opportunity to achieve the same number of active SP rewards from your plays.
-- You can spread your 10 hours per week over the entire week, playing each day. Or you can have a marathon weekend and do it all in one go!

B) No matter how much you have played, you will always have some more SP that you can earn the next day. A full day's worth of SP in fact.
-- Even if you've earned an entire week's worth of active SP reward in the previous 2 days, you don't have to wait for a weekly reset day before it is worth playing some more

C) No waiting for a reset at down time before, just wait 30 minutes!

But then you'd be ... REWARDING inactivity? What's next, AFKing in the MCC?

You know not what you ask for!

Okay onto the bones of the subject

Rollover SP system.

I know we all want it but do we 'really' want it?

The fantasy that we could grind away that extra SP whenever we want instead of being leashed by the neck from week to week is a wonderful idea indeed.

However, there are down sides to such system while a hard core cap week to week player may not notice this a semi casual might feel as if he's been further burdened that he may never catch up? End of match screen pops up and declares he has 2 million bonus SP to claim that he can only seemingly claim 2k at a time? The notion of grind sets in and in the end becomes a disheartening thing. A wall, a contributor to the http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3088/2335016192_44938cf481_o.jpg syndrome and something that may just drive casual players away.

With this in mind would still want the roll over system?
How would you address the potential backfire?
Can we reasonably introduce the system safely?
Your thoughts on careful design?

Discuss.

Side Note: The 'design' of the roll over system in question is left ambiguous on purpose, so feel free to introduce your solutions or a design of it for the discussion.

I would think the solution would be simple. Just settle a maximum amount of SP that can be accumulated with the rollover. Once it reaches that amount, it stops accumulating.

Let's suppose the maximum equal the amount of 3 weeks SP, 570k.

So, perhaps i would not play this week. Next week i'd have 380k available to earn. I'd play but not enough to earn all that SP. I'd end that week with 250k SP left. The week after i have 440k available. I don't play that week, so next week i don't get 190k more, just the remaining until the rollover cap, 570k SP.

I could be gone for an holiday for 3 weeks and still come back and earn those SP points. I also wouldn't need to earn them all in that week after i get back, i could just manage the points i earn and slowly lower it. Say i get back from a 3 week break, i'll have 570k waiting for me, i earn 200k SP that week, next week i'll have 560k available. That week i play a little more and earn 300k SP. The week after i have 450k available. I just play enough to get 100k that week. But that's ok because next week i'll have 540k available and still below the rollover limit.

This would let me manage exactly how much i want to play each week and put a very reasonable limit on how much you accrue.

EDIT: The limit could be higher, of course. If instead of 3 weeks it was a month, the rollover cap would be 950k SP.

Huh? That makes no sense why would you or anyone tell me or any player how he might feel about having the opportunity to catchup? Right now you are telling players you will never be able to catch up . how is that working out for player retention?


You are saying that you would be concerned that the average player could not handle the fact he has a lot of playing to do to catch up. Or that if we didn't have it like we didnt tell him like we do now he is too stupid to find out that he can never catch up?

The pressure comes from the need to grind the points NOW, BEFORE TUESDAY NIGHT!

A large pool can give you the feeling that there is no cap and you can play as much or a little as you want without fear of losing something.

Remember, it's the feeling of loss that hurts. People are loss averse and that's the mechanism used in a number of P2W schemes such as displaying your winnings but making you pay to keep them.

As long as the points accumulate and don't evaporate there won't be a feeling of loss.

Did I really have to read through 4 pages of drivel to find this ^^ ... the original proposed SP rollover system.

It's not ment to be a system to allow a new player to 'catch up' to the vets ... it was ment to be a system that allowed you to take a break, go on holiday, not feel like it was a job you had to turn up to every day (or every week as it is now with the weekly cap).

The roll over should simply roll over a week, 2 weeks or whatever period of SP caps so your progress progress isn't completely lost if you don't cap out 1 week.

People here who want to be able to 'catch up to the vets' want an uncapped system with a rolling maximum a character is allowed to have. THIS IS NOT an sp rollover since no sp is being rolled over a cap ... sp is just being built up in a pot (equal for everyone) to earn uncapped as and when they feel like.

What Yagihige has explained here is the only viable option for an sp rollover system with variables like how many weeks can be rolled over and whether or not there is a slight increase in gain for banked sp.