I think the reason the staff chose not to do it that way is because it's abusable. You get a fixed amount of meditations a day, right? Well imagine if the benefit was just 5% and the total uses was something like 30. A user with 1000 points could refill their energy with just 20 meditation sessions, with 10 left over. It might make Animal Kinship or cooking obsolete. Why buy food at auction if you know you have a 100% chance of refilling your energy bar with meditation?
If staff did this, they'd have to seriously nerf the daily meditation limit to keep it balanced.
@Vermillion: That would be true if it returned a fixed percentage, but I think the OP meant changing the maximum possible benefit to a percentage, not a fixed number.
"You get a fixed amount of meditations a day, right?"
Not as far as I know. I think you get a fixed (well, increases with level) maximum/total amount of energy restored per day. You can meditate for mood and radiate unlimited I think.
@EnnuiStreet: Thanks for clarifying this. I'd mistakenly interpreted that the OP was advocating a the full % boost for every meditation, as opposed to a random boost capped by a percentage.
@Friend: I apologize for misunderstanding your idea. Though I personally find meditation to be sufficient, the buff you suggested could be an interesting change, and make the skill more popular.
@Juv3nal: I once achieved something called 'zen' status which forbade me from meditating. I'm not sure what triggered it, but I assumed I reached some kind of meditation cap. That cap may no longer exist.
"That cap may no longer exist"
At work right now, so I can't get ingame to be sure, but if you click the date(?) time(?) thingy in the top right that shows the number of coins you've collected out of your maximum 100 per day, it should show your meditation cap. The cap is in amount of energy restored and not # of times meditated if I recall correctly, but, again, can't get in game at the moment so not 100% sure. I've gotten "zen" and been able to focus meditate for mood and radiate afterwards in the past.
Thanks juv3nal, I wasn't aware you could get that info by clicking the game clock. So maybe the total you can regenerate in a day increases with level, but each meditation session restores the same amounts regardless of level. So to hit your daily regen cap (or just to maintain the same % of your energy you regen from meditaiton), you must devote more time to meditating? That doesn't seem right.