Penalty for playing too much?

from Stardock Forums

From the FAQ


Q: How do you keep the guy who lives in his mom’s basement and just plays the game all day, every day from just conquering the world over night?



A: Well, there’s around 30,000 provinces in a given game, but more to the point, players gain bonuses depending on how few hours they play per week. A player can bank up to 8 hours per week of "bonus" time where their units gets various bonuses. If a gamer plays more than a certain number of hours per day, they start to take penalties to production and unit effectiveness.


I understand that powergamers need to somehow be put on a leash or they could get out of control in a game like this, but I don't think penalizing someone for playing too long is the right kind of "collar". I haven't played it in a long time, but take a look at the result and feedback of giving benefits and penalties based on playtime in Ultime Online. Surely, there has to be a better way to balance gameplay rather than based on playtime. Limiting enjoyment of playing determined by how often you can play lowers the overall enjoyment of playing. People who can't play very often will get used to enjoying the bonus they get, yet won't have as much fun when they occasionally get more free time. People who play all the time will get frustrated with having penalties because they are doing something they like, and will seek other forms of entertainment that suites their personal lifestyle.


While it's not multiplayer, persistant, or has to deal with the potential gameplay problems caused from playing too much, think about what would happen if you did this in GalCiv2. I know if I starting getting penalties in GalCiv2 because i'd been playing too long, I probably wouldn't play it. On the other side, if I got a bonus to my gameplay for only playing so little then I'd only play during the time I could have the bonus. I'd look to other games during the time I wouldn't be playing GalCiv2. I'd start playing the game that lets me choose how and when I want to play more, and end up playing less and less GalCiv2.


Please find a better solution rather than playtime to balance the powergamers and people with limited time.
society
8,739 views 14 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
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Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
I agree - I like to play alot, if my playing alot is going to incur penalties then I wont play, probably wont buy the game to begin with - which is a shame because I like the premise. I also dont particularly like the concept of the AI playing as me if I am not online while being invaded - if the AI isnt any good - everyone will wait till they dont get a response from someone and then invade. Now I know you make a good AI - I do play GC2, but there are ways to beat hard AI's - or your games would be too hard and wouldnt sell. I think tho, that if I had to chose then I would take the invasion problem long before I took the penalties for playing too long option.
Galactic Civilizations IV
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top

Depends on what is considered a "healthy" amount of game time.  4 hours a day seem like a safe upper "max". After that effency would slide down to 50% at 8 hours.



I used to play neveron because I was a huge battletech fan.  I had a top 100 empire wiped out over night when I was asleep by three power players with out any warning.  If you die in WoW, no biggie.  If you lose an empire that took 18 months to build, you quite the game.

Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
I would imagine that in this case, say there are certain types of Socians...one way to do this is by selecting which type of player you are at the beginning of the game and from there, if you login often, your Socians then rely on your help greatly, meaning that your military may not perform as well because they require at least 'some' form of guidance while attacking or being attacked. But by logging in often, your Socians are work a bit faster once given an order or your military can take more land, kill more people, or move faster once given an order (all based on how often a player logs in)...while a person who perhaps logs in once a day for a few minutes would have Socians that would be used to guiding themselves and so perhaps would do better defending themselves if the player wasnt on compared to a players army who's player is always on. But the for a player that logs in once a day would have Socians that are able to do for themselves, yet dont kill as much, or dont take quite as much land, or who take a bit longer to carry out an order because they are used to doing things on their own...

...did that make any sense? Anyway, rather then limiting play time or something similar, make it so that people who play often are rewarded for their effort, but also make sure that those who dont login as much aslo have a fighting chance.
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
yes it makes more sense if they are doing it that way. But I think it should be adjustable - there are binge players that will play constantly for a week then you don't see them for awhile. Needs to be adjusted a lot - averages figured out etc.
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
Wow, i shoudl really proof read before posting Anyway, hop that made sense.
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top

I don't think penalizing someone for playing too long is going to go according to plan.  I could see a large number of players being chased off by this, particularly on the premium memberships.  Consider two game companies, both charging $10-$15 a month for a game.  Game A begins penalizing you for playing too much, so you only get to play 4-6 hours a day.  Game B doesn't penalize you at all for playing too long.  If you have a lot of free time to play, and can only afford one, which game are you going to choose to pay for?  The one that you can play for only a few hours a day, or the one where you can play as much as you like?
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top

Hey all!


After some thinking, and weighing the pros and cons, this is what I figured out.  Although I am by no means a power gamer (there would, ::gasp:: be days I don't play AT ALL), I have several friends who are power gamers (the whole 18 hours sprees).  I think we can all agree that nobody likes a game that is too easy?  Well, then consider what the time based penalties are: a way of increasing the challenge to the most skilled gamers.  Hope that makes them seem less bad!


-Dave
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top

I don't believe artificial solutions are necessary, I think we just need to let the parts of the simulation that occur despite whether the player is online or off, to matter. Furthermore, the economy needs to be able to hum along efficiently for 24 - 48 hours assuming the player has made the proper choices when they were last logged in. They should be able to keep the economy humming with a minimal amount of maintenance.

A player without a lot of time should be able to log-in for the first time in a day and make important decisions, solve bottlenecks, and keep their society headed in the right direction within 15 - 20 minutes. They should be able to get a decent stockpile of resources while they're away, so once they're able to invest an hour or two they can make a lot with that time.

Players with more time may have certain advantages, but they will not inherently acquire more resources than less active players without putting in plenty of more time and effort. They can afford to be less decisive and they can afford to wait around and see the impact of their choices, as well as having more time to make cosmetic changes and mess around with finer details of their society, but they won't get a reward just for clicking a button every 15 minutes.

One game I feel that tried this solution but didn't entirely succeed, was Time of Defiance. Exploration, mining, and construction took several hours of real-time regardless of player input, but here's the problem.. with a decently sized mining operation all of your storage capacity would be taken up in 6 - 8 hours, requiring you to log back in, find a way to spend it, make new construction orders-- and if you didn't you began to see a resource bottleneck seize up your acquisition of resources.. In other words, a few hours after you logged out your whole empire came to a screeching halt. The long spans of time to wait for construction and travel to finish actually meant a player would have to invest =more= time not less, the ability to queue new important orders was simply too limited.

In other words, no matter how well you played your empire would only operate at 100% capacity if you were online 24 hours 7 days a week. And don't even get me started how much more vulnerable you were to attack once your neighbors figured out you were offline..

I guess what I'm hoping for is we have enough automation capacity and enough capacity for fore-knowledge that we can choose to plan things out instead of being online 24/7. Almost to the extent of 'teaching' an AI how we want our society to develop and for it to faithfully run our society while we're gone. Just a simple governor to avoid things coming to a screeching (and illogical) halt, that's all I'm depending on.
Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top
i think the game should definately have a timer to tell how long youve been playing so you can tell whether youve been on too long
Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top
I think you should get extra time in the beginning so that you can get the hang of the game before the they start penalizing you however
Reply #12 from Stardock Forums Top


Perhaps set it up so that people are automatically logge dout after say 2 hours of being on straight? Just a simple message saying you need to log back in, you've been on for 2 hours...
Reply #13 from Stardock Forums Top
You should not at all penalize players who are playing to long. Knowing myself I always get deeply addicted to MMO games very quick and spend alot of time with them. Most likely I will be paying for that game monthly and I dont want that paid time to be penalized just because I am using the product. Better solutions would be bonuses for players that are offline a lot.

Something like "resting" time in WoW. If you are offline you gather "resting" time which when you log in gives you a small bonus. So that the players who aren't always active can keep up with the 24 hour players while those are not deprived of their fun.

Limiting players for "fairness" is NEVER a good thing. I believe the saying goes "Whoever sacrifices a little freedom for a little security (fairness, in this case) will gain neither, and lose both"
Reply #14 from Stardock Forums Top
In games where acting is depending on "time" variable (SimCity, RTS, TBS...), the time goes at the same speed for everyone so.. why would one produce double just because he's ruling his kingdom like if he was a bureaucracy-on-two-legs on a spree?

This said, he might simply be brought more challenge, or maybe he could win medals I don't know what... in any case, WoW players DO play alot even if they could do almost as well within fewer hours. And this system limiting "many hours = better" just make everything more fun.

Why do WoW players play more? Because it's fun. The reward system is there in good part to make the advancement "credible"/immersive ("suspend belief" and such).