Diminishing returns and powerlevelling

[zanzibar]

In the presentation Vengeance did for the google thing, one of the things that sticks in my memory was the concept of "diminishing returns" as a way to stop cheaters.  Basically, it means that the more you do something, the less incentive you have to do it.  An example would be mining.  The longer you mine, the less of a chance there is that you'll find anything.  Eventually, you won't be able to mine successfully anymore, and you'll have to take a break.  Vengeance thinks this will help stop cheaters, and I think he's right.  But can we also use this on powerlevelling?  When mental stamina was introduced to the game, part of the rational for it was to force people to take breaks from mining and killing things so that they would spend more time actually talking to other players and connecting socially with people.  The problem of course is that if you level your character enough, it's very difficult for you to run out of mental stamina.  Anything we do with stats and fatigue will end up affecting new players the most and levelled characters the least.  So how about "diminishing returns"?  Is there a solution in that?

[Mythryndel]

I agree with the concept to a point... but what is the real problem with power leveling. Apparently it is thought that I do that, and at times I guess they would be correct. However, unless someone is being rude, I see no problem with the character being an anti-social work-a-holic if they want them to be. There are much more important issues to spend R&D time on than worrying about if someone spends too much time leveling their character.

Just my 2 Trias.

[khoridor]

[...] the concept of "diminishing returns" as a way to stop cheaters.

Cheaters? What cheaters?
Do you wish to force the characters to sleep as well? And the players should read a book while watching them sleep?
If your efforts aim more specifically towards the silent miners, I'll say:
1) Mines are not so bad. Even at the plat mine, with the number of miners there, there's a very good chance of finding at least one open to chit-chat.
2) The best incentive is that, if one chats while he is digging, he ends up with his bag full seemingly much faster than when acting robot-like (even if it actually took a little bit longer that way). The green and gray bars may even seem to never go down, suppressing the need for breaks.

No need to complicate the mechanics for something which relies entirely on players choices.

[Vannaka]

Cheaters? What cheaters?

I think the cheaters being referred to are the ones that have mining macros or ones that have several alts that sit at the mine and work to support the main char's leveling

[Tuxide]

Cheaters refer to people who run unattended sessions to mine, because people have done that before.  Also this doesn't necessarily mean bots.

[khoridor]

Oh. They need dialog macros as well then. 

[Mythryndel]

Honestly, I say if it is allowed, leave the player alone to do whatever they will. If they want 5 alts that all sit at the plat mine... as long as they aren't using bots, who cares? Why should we care? To each his/her own.

Without talking to people in-game, I don't see them staying more than a few months. Things will get boring doing the same old thing all the time. I am working my metallurgy right now to take full advantage of the fact that there are almost always plat miners working day and night. I get too bored mining all the time. I would much rather go kill things than spend hours mining plat. But that is my preference, not something that has been forced on my by special code designed to make me do something else. It is too difficult in-game right now to either make a living in-game that isn't a hybrid fighter without putting additional restrictions on those activities.

I assumed the biggest reason for making the current mining spot only work once was to keep people from simply clicking a shortcut for 2 hours. Is that not enough?

[Adder]

There are already diminishing returns in place for levellling because it costs more the higher you get.

[Mythryndel]

Ain't that the truth. I can't seem to mine silver/gold/plat any better at level 21 than I did at level 6. Is this intentional? In fact, since I reached level 21, silver has actually gotten harder to mine that it was before.

Is any/all of this intentional?

[zanzibar]

There are already diminishing returns in place for levellling because it costs more the higher you get.

I hadn't thought of it that way before.  I've actually thought of it the other way around.  Because there are fewer people at the very top, getting to the top becomes more significant.  It's more special, it allows you to do things other players can't, and so on.  So I had thought of the reward as bigger.  The more you level, it does get harder, but it getting harder actually makes it more rewarding if you actually do it.

[Tuxide]

I assumed the biggest reason for making the current mining spot only work once was to keep people from simply clicking a shortcut for 2 hours. Is that not enough?

Since they implemented this (3 and a half years ago), I've still seen times when people have ran unattended sessions for mining.  Before this, I could've mined for two hours in one spot and carried 200 platinum ore to the vendor (item weight and metallurgy weren't implemented either).

[Mythryndel]

So this was an effective anti-bot measure. yes? Is more in-game mechanics needed to keep people from trying to legitimately mine?

[Tuxide]

So this was an effective anti-bot measure. yes? Is more in-game mechanics needed to keep people from trying to legitimately mine?

I already said I still see people running unattended sessions in my last post, I'm not going to explain it a second time.

Also another reason for this is that currently mines are unrealistic in that the supply of ore they contain is infinite.  This makes it hardly worth going out and discovering new veins because the known ones never dry up.  Furthermore, platinum is supposed to be super-rare anyways:  On Earth, I once heard the total gold/platinum ratio was about 30:1 (but I could be wrong)

[Mythryndel]

Don't explain again if you don't feel like it. I did not miss your statement. However, if they run bots... they are highly inefficient already. They cannot script when they get an ore or not. And if you know they are running bots, why haven't they been banned per the rules? Also, in your ideal world, how long should someone be able to mine before they start getting less and less? 5 minutes? 30 minutes? 1 hour?

You seem to be supporting the idea that the higher level I get in mining, the less likely it should be that I should find anything... because I'm just out here with a bot. It already takes more and more ore each level to practice. What I have a problem with right now, is that 20 levels of mining, and people that have only level 1 end up with more plat than I do in the same amount of time. Why is this? It seems incredibly backwards if this is on purpose.

How is it in any way fair to those that want to train a skill, to make it less and less useful the higher they train?

[zanzibar]

Vengeance's idea is that after a certain length of time, you'd need to take a break before you'd fine anymore ore.  That's it.  It would affect everyone equally.

I've seen people use bots and I've reported them.  Their bots don't simply dig for ore.  They'll also move their character from side to side.