Topic

Make emblem learning time scale - Please?

This isn't the first time this has happened to me - but never so dramatically. I spent almost two hours making food to donate. I used EHSP, did the math (or so I thought) and donated to Lem to cut down on the time - but I was over by one Tasty Pasta.

Instead of getting 2699 (or whatever) favor that I could spend to take over 7 hours off of my skill, I got an emblem. Worth 1000 favor - 2 hours on this skill.

Why must this happen? It punishes players for poor math skills or simple errors in a really, really punitive way. With all the other scaling that happens in the game, would it be too much to ask that emblems scale to represent the favor they're worth or took to get? Or could we have a return slot? Or at least a confirmation warning when you're about to earn an emblem? There has to be SOME kind of simple solution...

Okay, possible problems with scaling - I get Lem up high - 3000 favor for an icon - but I haven't spent any of my previous emblems yet. Are they all worth 3000 now? Disproportionate reward. Same problem can crop up with trading emblems I can get cheaply to other players who have extra Lems.

But.. ARGH! So frustrating and unnecessary, this current system is.

It seems like functional scaling would be the best solution. They could introduce tiers of emblems - bronze emblems are worth 1000 favor, silver 1500 favor, gold 2000 favor when spent. That way, the emblem itself can't be hoarded and spammed just because the player has been dutifully earning new emblems. Glitch metals could be used for the tier names. This could even impact icons, perhaps - 2 gold emblems + 9 bronze emblems = 1 icon. Or not! Keep icons a pain to earn. Makes em worth more (except for their outrageous tithing costs - more on that another day).

Very, very simple math here. And if there are reasonable tiers - like every 500 - that's not a whole heck of a lot to program. It gives players something new to collect, and it rewards them instead of punishing them for donations. Emblems become worth collecting again!

I mean, really, after you get all 11 icons and the emblem-collecting accomplishment, getting an emblem is just a bad idea right now.

Posted 13 months ago by WereBear Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • oops
    Posted 13 months ago by WereBear Subscriber! | Permalink
  • A problem with this is that someone with lower level could make an emblem out of 1000 favor worth of donates, give it to you, then you would suddenly get 2600 worth of skill time.

    To fix this they would need to either link emblems to a player or link favor value to an emblem. Both of those are a bit klunky, especially in terms of how the UX would work.
    Posted 13 months ago by mirth Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I mentioned that exact type of abuse as a possibility - that's why I suggested the different tiers of emblems. A bronze emblem is a bronze emblem - a low-level player can't give it to me and have it be worth more. I can give a gold emblem to a lvl 1 player, but the skills that character is learning wouldn't need that much favor, so it wouldn't break the game. It would take half the time off and be done.

    1000-1400 favor (bronze) emblems can be redeemed for 1000 favor in skill time
    1500-1900 favor (silver) emblems can be redeemed for 1500 favor in skill time
    and so on...
    It means creating new items, but when has that been a problem? :)
    Posted 13 months ago by WereBear Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I agree with you completely. I posted something about this a while back.  The penalty for over-donating is too steep and there is no warning.  Rather than emblems scaling, I'd like to see a menu with "collect emblem" or "spend points" at a full shrine. It would be a little simpler.

    There are a couple things that help.  Spend your favor and then donate to an empty shrine.  You'll get a warning if you're going to go over the favor cutoff for the day (full shrine) and can adjust your donation.  I also use Favor Saver and it helps a lot.  agent86.nfshost.com/glitch/...; Just be sure your donation won't level you because the extra favor from leveling can push you into getting an emblem.
    Posted 13 months ago by Lucille Ball Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I would be happy with anything to correct the unnecessary penalty. If it was a simple option to stop you from ruining your donation chances, fine - give us something!

    But the inherent problem of emblems being practically useless to higher level players is still an issue that needs to be addressed somehow.
    Posted 13 months ago by WereBear Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Perhaps once you have collected all the icons (or the icon for a particular giant), the emblems you can receive after that point are gold or platinum or molybdenum (to differentiate them visually) and worth more than a flat 1k favor. 

    Lower-level players could still trade for or be given a higher-level emblem, but would not have any use for them until they construct their own icon(s) out of basic bronze emblems for the relevant giant(s). Collecting a particular giant's emblems and iconizing 11 of them could toggle the production of the gold / whatever higher favor value emblems for iconized giants; non-iconized giants would still burp out regular bronze emblems until they, too, were iconized.

    Ability to spend the higher-level gold / whatever emblems collected would thus only kick in once you have your icon, even if you don't have all 11. 

    This could become more pertinent if we discover that giants reward particular donation items more than others (you might get a lot of extra Zille favor / emblems for mining a lot AND from giving Zille the gems and chunks she likes best), much like certain tasks appear to generate favor with particular giants now. If Zille presides over higher level skills (such as Mining skills), your mining activity helps you cut down on mining skill learning time by providing you with (first) the Zille emblems to make an icon, and (second) the special gold / whatever icons that will shorten learning time for a Zille-related skill.

    Food for thought, thanks.
    Posted 13 months ago by ✰ Lorelei ✰ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • A level cap for using a more powerful emblem might help avoid an imbalance issue, too - earning emblems on your own will make you level up after a while, so as long as these were reasonable caps, a high level player couldn't toss high level emblems at low-level players and have them be worth anything.
    Posted 13 months ago by WereBear Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Agree, 100%.  I've had this happen way too many times, then you have to wait another game day to try again, meanwhile you've used up all your good donations, and all because some of us are not so good at math...  grrr...
    Posted 12 months ago by Clarabelle Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I avoid this problem by not pushing the donation to the limit. We're only talking about minutes, anyway - compared to the hours penalty if you go over. I always try to shoot for about 50 points below and then spend.
    Posted 12 months ago by Mablem Tiipot Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Agreed completely - and I would even find the emblem "tiers" to be a perfectly reasonable solution to this problem.  Though I think if the devs are going to bother to put the time and effort into this, it seems like they may as well push through and just "imbue" emblems with the appropriate amount of favor.

    As to avoiding the trading to lower level players... I'm not sure why this is an issue, to be honest!  There are already tons of ways that you can trade items to a lower level player to give them a substantial advantage.  And since the "speed up" from favor is capped at half the total learning time, an emblem worth 7 hours of learning time won't necessarily help a brand new player learning skills with shorter learning times.
    Posted 12 months ago by Zoethor2 Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Dr. Hackenbush - Okay, but what happens when the XP you get makes you level up, which gives you favor, which pushes you over the limit and ruins your donation?

    Flawed system is flawed.
    Posted 12 months ago by WereBear Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I get what you're saying about the scaling, WereBear and I don't disagree with the noted imbalance. Your post is appropriately placed in the "ideas" forum.

    I was just suggesting that under the current system you have to play on the conservative side. I've had exactly what you describe happen to me - twice. I take the blame on myself for not looking at my very visible XP indicator telling me that I'm close to leveling up - and yet I've still done it. Hopefully I won't do it a third time.
    Posted 12 months ago by Mablem Tiipot Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Dr. - sorry, didn't mean to sound confrontational. It seemed like you were suggesting using your idea in lieu of fixing the system. Using it until they fix the system makes perfect sense, though!
    Posted 12 months ago by WereBear Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I agree that something needs to be done about this. An option for choosing whether or not to spend points on an emblem, linking favor value to emblems as they're created, or some other solution. I've gotten accidental emblems from levelups too.
    Posted 12 months ago by Kaja Rainbow Subscriber! | Permalink