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Google Alerts: DOFF Edition
treaen
Member Posts: 43 Arc User
This just came to me when I was making another post. Since the DOFF system is growing all the time and since there are so many assignments, could we have a Google Alerts-style feature that allows us to be notified when an assignment we're looking for pops up? It's one thing to be able to tell your friends so they can be on the look out for you and then invite you over. But it still requires that people are flying through the galaxy and actively looking through every assignment they have available in every place, which is quite time consuming. If we had the ability to set five or ten alerts for assignments we needed, then the system could tell us and eliminate the flying around and looking time sink, thus opening up more actual play time. I'm sure that this wouldn't be the easiest function to build, but it would definitely be used and appreciated.
Post edited by treaen on
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Players, generally speaking, take the path of least resistance. If a long corridor and a short one lead to the same objective, they will take the short one. If they can fight a difficult opponent or an easy one for the same rewards, they will choose to fight the easy one. What makes a game, the substance of the game, is that resistance, the obstacles between the player and his goal, and the efforts of the player to minimize those obstacles through learning, skill, creativity, risk-benefit analysis and time/resource management.
Now there are things like Dofftracker and the doff channels, players collaborating, or creating tools, to facilitate gameplay. Those are examples of the latter: player adaptation to the resistance designed into the game. Creating, or learning to use those things, contributes to the substance of the game.
What you propose would vacillate the game because it would reduce the substance of the game to manual input. It would make the game an errand, a hassle, a chore. You may think there's not much difference between reading something off your iPhone and checking Dofftracker, or flying around a bit, but there is.
One big difference is suspense. Receiving a random *beep* that something awaits you in game is less suspenseful than periodically checking Dofftracker. This is a case of watching a pot boil. You may not think you enjoy it, or that it adds anything to your game experience, but that is the sublime genius of the doff system, that hook that keeps you going.
The precipitous decline of World of ******** is a good case study in how too much convenience vacillates the game and is dangerous to its long-term health. Inexperienced or foolish developers tried to make the game more convenient and less arbitrary, and in doing so they removed much of the suspense and challenge, and while this seemed initially appealing, it ultimately vacillated the game and made it far less worthwhile for most players.
Does that make sense to you?
What I suggest is really more of a search feature than anything else. It allows you to input what you're looking for, see if it's out there, and then go get it if it's there or keep doing something else if it's not. When you're talking about a player who only has time in their life to play for a few hours a week, this could be something that allows them to actually play more, rather than just stare at load screens and their ship flying from one corner of the galaxy to the other.
The spreadsheets and the doffjobs channel are useful, but not foolproof. As a casual player, trying to run the game from a laptop, juggling the spreadsheets and trying to make sense of them while flying through the galaxy is a pain.
Instead, I've got checklists for the colonial renown/support DOFFs so I can tell which ones I don't have yet. That works well enough for me. I target the ones I want and sometimes I camp the exploration zone.
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That's the problem though, like I said, it runs the risk of reducing the game to manual input - simply picking up the assignments.
Fwiw, I think queue systems are a horrible idea that are seen as a must for no better reason than that every other online game has them. I think queue systems are something suited to MOBA/FPS/RTS games and contrary to the nature of MMOs.
That's the point. That was the same term used by WoW devs.
The "feature" vacillates the game. The search is the game.
If you only have a few hours a week to play, then play a few hours a week, same as any other hobby or limited-time obligation.
The "I has life" argument is basically never valid (or even factually true), and it's another one of those "tail wagging the dog" trends that has been hugely destructive to gaming.
This is my approach as well. It's also more time-efficient than running around with a laundry list, since you can take the shortest path to the nearest sector.
Huh? You only have to look at one row of boxes.
One ought to have multiples of most of those doffs. The fairly long cooldown and high spawn mean that with limited time input, camping is pretty unnecessary.