Topic

Turning off Giant Love

For those of us who are attempting to minimize our XP gains*, the icons are painful. They send out waves of Giant Love which I've come to consider as Giant Hate. I realize they're trying to be nice to their loyal followers, but it's to the point where I'm considering throwing them in the closet. 

I really don't want to do this. a) I worked hard for them and b) I like them and I like the Giant Lore... I don't want to hide that, I want to celebrate it.

But, just walking around my house today, I've gained around 1000xp and loads of mood. Most other XP gains can be minimized by keeping your mood low, which I do. I can accept running around as an angry faced Glitch and the constant "Your mood is getting low." spam in local chat. I can also accept that badges & quests & such are big achievements and with big achievements come greater experience that cannot be controlled by mood. But to not even feel "safe" from XP in my own house?

Can we please turn off the love? Or kindly request that the Giants not love us so painfully?

*XP is broken. There's a greater cost for leveling up then there is a reward. I do not need a greater energy well at this point, and certainly not at the cost of higher tithes & transportation costs.

Posted 12 months ago by Vera Strange Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • Hi Vera ~ I'm truly curious, and not just arguing for arguing's sake: my impression is that tithes and TP costs are essentially proportional to your energy total. I haven't experienced any difficulty maintaining a pleasant "standard of life" while leveling up at a moderate, unrushed pace (basically what accrues from just going about my glitchy day).

    What is it that leveling up would prevent you from doing or enjoying? I guess I'm just not experiencing any meaningful added burden from it.

    I find Glitch to be a game of abundance. Once I got through to about level 20, I've never had to worry about where my daily energy was going to come from, nor have I felt that I was in danger of not having enough oomph to get around Ur as I wished. Energy intensive activities generally pay off in currants (which can be used to buy food) or in food (which replenishes energy with plenty to spare).

    Unless I spend a ton at once on real estate or cubimals or something, I generally end the game day with a net gain in currants or food, and then the new day tops me up with energy and mood all over again.
    Posted 12 months ago by Pascale Subscriber! | Permalink
  • It sounds like the changes to the xp/levelling mechanics that they've talked about (http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/12/02/mmobility-tiny-speck-explains-glitchs-big-unlaunching/) will give you options for using your XP that will suit your play style better than the current universal increases to energy and mood wells.  (Whether the current system results in a greater cost than reward for levelling depends very much on your play style, it's not by any means a lose for everyone.)  I wouldn't really object if they put in interim xp-avoidance mechanisms, but I think the game will be better served in the long run by making xp gains useful/enjoyable across all play styles.
    Posted 12 months ago by Granny Weatherwax Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Pascale: they are proportional to your energy, which I have in abundance and can easily refill if I need to. I do not need any more. However, prior to the herb boon, I was also a perpetually poor glitch... maintaining a balance of about 5-10k and spending much of my time wandering, exploring, socializing, etc. I made currants, not by crafting or mining, but by delivering the occasional flower or package and selling off various oddities. If I went above 20k, I'd buy a cubimal or two, maybe hide some things, throw a party, give stuff away. The herb change made me a 150k or so, much of which I blew on the Zombie Crawl and a big purchase or two for an upcoming contest.

    I would just much rather spend my currants on stuff like that then feeding icons or travelling. Currently it costs me 748 to tithe an icon. I have all 11 and so I'm spending about 5-10k a day to keep them quiet and active for my visitors (I don't tend to use them, aside from the occasional revering, for obvious reasons). 

    And, really, I don't really have a desire to "level up". Becoming level x doesn't hold much meaning to me. It's not that I hate the idea of it, even with the increased costs to leveling without any real benefit to do so. But, I've whined about it enough that it's become a bit of a thing - heh. Though, I've whined because I do think the mechanic is broken - though I recognize that there isn't an easy fix and it's not too terribly broken.

    And, yes, Granny Weatherwax, that little bit in the interview totally made my day. I know others were all thinking about houses and reset and what not, but all I could think was "woohoo! fixing xp!". It was also nice to realize that maybe I'm not insane, XP really is a bit broken, and they see it, too. I suppose my complaint with the "Giant Hate" (i kid! kinda!) is a complete lack of patience. But every time it happens it's like this little reminder & thorn in my side :)

    I think a possible and potentially easy (?) and acceptable (??) change would just be to turn off the nagging and make it so if they wouldn't give Giant Love if they wanted a tithe. I could keep a few of them active for friends and it wouldn't feel like such a "risk" to be wandering around my home (scare quotes for obvious exaggeration purposes).  
    Posted 12 months ago by Vera Strange Subscriber! | Permalink
  • What if you didn't tithe the Icon? Wouldn't that have the effect of turning off the Giant Love?
    Posted 12 months ago by IrenicRhonda Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @IR, if you do not RRR the icons you do not need to tithe them but they still bestow their love on you randomly.
    Posted 12 months ago by MaryLiLamb Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I must be dense. I still don't see what's "broken" with the XP system. If it's proportional, then there's no special added burden to leveling up, right?

    From my perspective, leveling up does have a real advantage, namely the cost to get through the game day in supplemental food/energy is greatly reduced, because activities other than TP and tithing—harvesting, crafting, mining, etc.—are not proportionally expensive. They stay the same in absolute terms. ( I imagine higher-level players rarely need to eat. Your overhead really does go down.) Having a bunch/all of icons might, perhaps, restore some of the balance, but since they also give energy—both in revering and in love on occasion—I doubt they're much of a net energy sink, although I admit I haven't done the math.

    In other words, it seems to me that the energy rich just get richer. And they get richer faster as they level.

    When I first started playing, I was astonished at how higher-level players could afford to spend tens of thousands of currants on parties and give-aways and so on. I couldn't understand how they could amass those kinds of resources. But once you've got the croppery and gardening and AK skills, you're basically sitting on huge amounts of effectively free resources (proportional to your energy endowment).

    It was an "aha" moment for me when I realized that in the Glitch vendor economy, the standard benchmark rate for food was 1 unit of energy = 1 currant of cost. (At auction of course you can get things even cheaper.) The clue is even in the name currant=current (as in electrical energy), they are equivalent currancies! :D When you make food, you are actually leveraging your energy to create value added, and some foods are more efficient at doing that than others.

    I agree with @Granny that changes in the XP system may alleviate some of your concerns, as XP becomes "imagination quoins" or what have you for us to put to work customizing our environments.

    My style of play involves me having almost 0 interest in amassing piles of currants or goods. I collect things as I go, without making extraordinary effort to acquire them (emblems, icons, cubimals). Every now and then I'll splurge on something, but mostly I just gradually get wealthier and wealthier as my increased energy gets leveraged into currants or other goods.

    So the XP/leveling doesn't seem broken to me, it just isn't terribly interesting or important—unless you want it to be. 

    Having said all that, I think it would be fine to turn off the icon nagging. I agree that it's obnoxious. If you want the benefits of RRR and love, then tithe; if not, being nagged is just a hassle.
    Posted 12 months ago by Pascale Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I have a three level (50k) house and keep the icons on one side of the main floor. There's nothing else I need to do over there except deal with icon neediness on occasion, so I rarely get spontaneous love from them because I rarely walk past them or "see" them on my screen.

    I can go upstairs to garden and downstairs to harvest (and chortle in a self-satisfied hoarderish way over my various hoards of various crapz), and the icons leave me alone most of the time. 

    Maybe it is triggered only when you can "see" them onscreen or walk past them?
    Posted 12 months ago by ✰ Lorelei ✰ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Pascale, it may be proportional, but that hurts when you go beyond the day's free energy... here's a comparison of L30 & L50

    Free energy at level 30: 950
    Free energy at level 50: 2130

    TP at level 30 w/TP5: 95
    TP at level 50 w/TP5: 213

    Tithe at level 30: 451
    Tithe at level 50: 1111

    Let's say you teleport 5 times and tithed 4 icons (a third of them).

    Level 30 = (5*95)+(4*451)-950 = 1,329 (or about 6.6 awesome stews)
    Level 50 = (5*213)+(4*1111)-2130 = 3,397 (or about 16.9 awesome stews)

    Yes, at level 50, you've got more energy with which to gather stuff, but you've used it all up teleporting & tithing. So you've got to spend more time working to make up those costs. That's fine, if you like spending time mining, harvesting, and crafting (and can now do more of it before needing to refuel!). Not so good if you like spending your time exploring and socializing (and don't really benefit from the big well). The current system benefits a particular play style and detracts from another. (or multiple on both counts).

    It's certainly not a problem with an easy solution, and perhaps no solution (though the tease from Stoot in the Massively interview has me almost giddy!). However, there can be ways to lessen the costs felt most by the social explorer sorts - and they've done some of that (the Gandlevery Essence is fantastic, lowers mood & increases energy), The only thing that's seemingly out of the player's control is the giant love from the icons... unless they choose not to display them. (which, in my opinion, is a really terrible option - I love my icons and don't want to hide them in a closet or whatever).
    Posted 12 months ago by Vera Strange Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I'm level 37 and I get about 300-400 (average) energy every time I Revere an icon, and sometimes much more. And the occasional energy dose of Giant Love can be even more than that. (My observation has been that those RRR rewards are also proportional to Level; am I wrong about that?) Additionally, the little doses delivered by Contemplating all 11 emblems every game day add up to an amount of extra energy (220). All combined, these sources essentially eliminate the disproportion you've measured in awesome stews.

    It also seems to me that when my mood is high I get more bonus harvests.

    I start my game day by harvesting my home crops (12 patches), piggies (only 2), and butterflies (just 4), emptying the collector and milker, and then crafting a bunch of food with the proceeds. As my energy is depleted making the food, I pause periodically to Revere and Contemplate or munch some of my cuisine to bring my energy right back up to where I started. This routine takes no more than 10-15 minutes. Not only do I wind up with bagfulls of food to sell, donate, give away, or eat, but I'm at my full energy quotient and ready to zip about at will.

    I sort of think of it as "eating a good breakfast."

    Maybe by the time I hit level 50 I'll feel that things are out of whack, but so far icons seem like a net gain to me, and leveling doesn't seem to pose much of a burden. But perhaps, as you've said, it's because of my style of play.

    Here's hoping that the changes to come render our discussion moot! :D
    Posted 12 months ago by Pascale Subscriber! | Permalink