Daily Login Favors - Change of concept

Dear Seekers,

We are currently designing a new concept for the daily login favors. Which will replace the existing one with the 3 dices thrown do decide which reward you receive each day.
Instead all Seekers will receive the same rewards for each consecutive day they logged into the game. The login ratio (amount of times you logged into the game / your age in days) will no longer be relevant for doubling the daily reward.

Seekers will be able to claim their reward and when they login the next day, the next reward in the list will be available and so on way up to 30 consecutive days. After which the reward goes back to day one. If the Seeker would skip a day, the counter will also reset back to day one. The Grail Nobility will no longer be able to re-roll their reward but instead receive the reward of that day twice  (or +1 quality level for the potion)(similar like the daily login ratio works today). Of course, we will add a new Achievement as well rewarding the hard-core Seekers who manage to login for certain period of time.

Based on the current chances and rewards of the daily login favors, we made the following reward list (which isn't final yet):
*please note this list is NO longer in use with the current favor rewards*

Day	Reward
1	10 Bronze
2	5 Mood
3	10 Bronze
4	10 Stamina
5	15 Bronze
6	1 Grail Token
7	15 Bronze
8	10 Mood
9	20 Bronze
10	10 Stamina
11	20 Bronze
12	2 Grail Tokens
13	25 Bronze
14	10 Mood
15	25 Bronze
16	1 Popularity
17	30 Bronze
18	2 Grail Tokens
19	30 Bronze
20	10 Stamina
21	35 Bronze
22	Inventory Item
23	35 Bronze
24	10 Stamina
25	40 Bronze
26	+0.10 on a Personal Skill
27	40 Bronze
28	10 Stamina
29	50 Bronze
30	A Stamina Potion

Please, feel free to post your questions, suggestions or complains below so we can further discuss this update.

I think having the escalation stop at 30 days is a good idea. My only worry is that day 30 is worth so much more than the other 29 days combined - and it means that a large proportion of seekers will accumulate a stamina potion per month, which feels like it will have an impact on the economy.

I recently was unexpectedly unavailable for almost 3 days - I only missed 1 complete day in TGL, so I lost 20 stamina from lack of food, but other than that I didn't feel penalised for being away. Whereas in another game I play, I know that the cost of not logging in on consecutive days is so high that I haven't bothered going back.

I think the vacation feature should count towards "pausing" the system. It wont help in unexpected situations like Daradle's, but it could help when people know they will be traveling (someday) or otherwise unavailable.

Counterpoint to Daradle's concern: more potions may allow more people an opportunity to get equipment from events, and we all know how weird the equipment economy is. I'm 2.5 years old and have yet been able to do a gamble (fingers crossed this event is "The One"). 

My only question is if someone is at 100 on a skill, will they possibly lose out that month? (not that many people are at that level other than Learning)

I'm totally for it. Great idea.

I'm not against this, but the days I roll 10 stamina are exciting.  The new system would take that away.

Otherwise: 
1) TheChemist's suggestion of pausing when you go on vacation is a really nice idea, and a bonus toward returning if you are away.

2) Daradle's comment about day 30 gave me an idea: the 30th day stamina potion didn't mention what level.  How about a stamina potion that increases in quality over time?  This could be a big reward boost for staying in the game.  The potion quality starts at cheap, then the quality increases once a year, and pauses if you go on vacation, but resets if you leave and eventually start over without vacation.

3) The double bonus for grail nobles is a great idea.  The extra daily roll is the only reward that I appreciated.

4) MY IDEA:  For all seekers, a small grail chest every year on their "birthday" instead of the day 1 reward.

Can you give some random potion for every 7 days. Thank you

While I've quite enjoyed the excitement that can come from the random daily login system we have now, I'm certainly open to this change!

My only concern is similar to daradle's also, specifically on the chance to earn a grail stamina potion compared to lower stamina potions. Currently, grail stamina potions already trade regularly lower than their compared cost of 100 grail tokens when sold on the market.

Other than that, great idea. Looking forward to it!

Typical with all the preparation for the barbarian event I missed this. 

A few reflections:

1) On average the rewards under this system will actually be better than the rewards under the old system. 
2) The 2 average logins per day is no longer relevant.
3) Lose the noble advantage. - EDIT - Just reread the original post - noble advantage is modified (double reward) not lost. My bad!

Now... 

Points 1 and 2 are great - better rewards and no longer having to think of the arbitrary 2 logins per day thing is certainly an improvement. 

Point 3 - meh ok it's a loss of the noble reroll. That leaves as far as I can tell two actual advantages to nobles - the grailympics reroll and the extra vote in elections. Both useful but less tangible as they are not used nearly as often as the reroll. Not a deal breaker though. 

My problem with this system is that while it is designed as a reward system for consistent logins - some people (myself included) but also others as Daradle mentioned may see this as a punitive system - you are being punished for not login in every day. 

Mind you - since I embraced the game I've been logging in every day for the better part of a year, but it is a huge bonus to me knowing that if I don't login for a day nothing terrible is going to happen. If I am on day 25 of the above bonus scheme and fail to login one day being reset back down to 1 is not going to be making me happy. And that adds up to the other penalties for not having logged in. 

Which comes to the crux of the issue really. 

Is this a rewards or a punishment system? I would argue the latter. 

People who are committed to the game are going to login every day - you can see it with your core player base it's what they do. 

People who login just because they are going to get one step closer to that stamina potion are not going to be committed to the game. After they get the stamina potion they may wonder if it was all worth it. It's not this login game that is going to incentivise people to login continually. 

It can however punish people who are already committed to your game. Is that really what you want to do? 

By the way TGL already has a huge incentive for daily logins - the use of stamina, which is lost if you don't log in. Compared to that, this is really no incentive at all. If someone is not able to login because RL is kicking in and they know they are already going to lose all their stamina, is this progression of logins going to make them log in instead? I don't believe so. But the punishment which comes from falling of the login progression is going to be real. 

In all the games that I have played many of them have this kind of daily rewards system - not one of them has ever incentivised me to play more because of the login rewards. At times the rewards were good enough that I would login and just do nothing else than collect the reward... which didn't last very long to be honest. 

Personally I see the presence of this kind of system where the more often you log in the better rewards you get as a sign of a game that does not have other ways of keeping its players engaged on a daily basis. That is not the case for TGL. 

By all means reform the daily login system if you wish - several things which you have identified I completely agree with - most notably the arbitrary 2 logins a day rule. But I do not see this as a real incentive for continued engagement and I am not sure the majority of players would either. I will try to find some data on this but that's my initial feeling and understanding of the proposal.

Firstly just as daradle mentioned I think the quality of the stamina potion will be the biggest issue, although I don't agree with Saffron about the quality increases by your age. I think it would be better that (similar to the weekly quest) your chances of a better quality stamina potion increases with each month you successfully complete.

A more practical view on what I mean: With each month you could gain 10% bonus chance on a better quality stamina potion (starting from cheap). With 100% or 10 months of hardcore daily progression you "evolve" the cheap quality to a normal quality. The next month it would be 10% chance for a expert quality potion but still 90% for a normal quality.
This way everybody starts at 0 and eventually after 5 years someone will be guaranteed a grail stamina potion each month. (but well he did work for it)
If 5 years is still too much (similar to how skills work) the 10% would drop by 2% to a minimum of 2% each time the quality increases. Meaning each month at grand master level you would get 2% more chance of getting a grail stamina potion.
Calculated this would take 10 months for the first quality upgrade, 12.5 for the second, 16 for the third (4% extra from the previous teir), 25 months for the fourth and 50 months for the fifth. In total almost 9 years and a half.

Secondly I believe that to avoid people taking it as a punishment system (although I'm not one of those people) there could be something as a monthly skip day. Just one and perhaps it could even cost grail tokens, stamina, even only available to grail nobles or a combination of the former but this would avoid it being too much of a "punishment" system.
If you forget a day, redo you day, pay for it or heck even put them at half the days they were.

In a year, I have never rolled a 3, which I believe is the stat boost. I really like the idea that those that have never been lucky enough to roll an 18 are able to ensure they get a stam potion each month with daily play. Maybe we could add pralines or 3 days of nobility or something to the awards? Also on that, it would be nice when you get nobility, for it to be operational for the NEXT 3 resets (the way, say, a pig boosting potion works) so 3 days isnt really two haha.

I'm not against the change. Just a few minor suggestions:

1) No Life-Points in the list? Maybe you could replace one of the Mood bonuses with a life-points bonus?
knowing a life-points bonus is coming next day, I may travel and do some combat ;-)

2) With the current daily login bonus and >2 logins/day, I should get an average of 608 bronze every 30 days. (dice 8-13 has 67.6% chance to drop).
   With the new list that will be reduced to 400 bronze. (not being a grail noble)
   or increased to 800 bronze. (for the grail nobles)
   It's not clear what that will do to the TGL economy. But for me personally, it will be a loss of 208 bronze /month

I wonder if a random piece of equipment (Common or Uncommon only) could be one of the rewards? At the moment, most Seekers are equipped from the (supposedly Rare) sets, and though Common items can be made, they are usually too much work for a new Seeker who knows there will be a combat event before they are likely to be finished.

I am not happy about Popularity being a random reward, since if it does not come from other players (or drinking beer, which usually involves other players) it may become just another random thing that builds up, benefitting long-term players but not encouraging newbies. I concede, though, that the Popularity system has defeated all efforts to fix it, and have no real suggestions to offer.

The other thing I am concerned about is how the rewards will be assigned to each day.  Making each day better than the last could easily appear a naked bribe, of the sort that has put me off several other games, as well as disadvantaging somebody who has to miss a day (and the day's stamina) for external reasons; but equally you don't want careful calculation to reveal that a player is better off missing a login at day 17, and starting again. And there are several careful calculators around

Nobody logs in just to get the daily reward.   We log in to play the game.    Whether a daily reward is random or progressive won't make any difference.   The reward is a nice start to the day; something to enjoy and appreciate, but not the reason for logging in.  

If they are actually logging in every day just to get to the stamina potion; they are not going to stay.  However, if that desire to get to the potion helps keep them logging in and playing for all 30 days; then there is a better chance they will get hooked and actually keep playing.

This is something a progressive reward can provide that a random cannot.  Brand new players might need the additional motivation to keep coming back until they reach the point the rest of us are already at.

I disagree with the reset from a missed login. Just have it keep rolling and reset after 30 logins regardless of how long it physically takes.

I don't think majority of the people will see not logging in consecutively as a punishment, after all there are worse effects from not logging in such as stamina loss and eventually skill loss already in the game. If that alone doesn't inspire you to log in, I doubt losing out on additional rewards will matter much. However the 30 day streak bonus seems a bit long. The first week seems to be the most important in trying to keep a new player interested. Waiting 30 days to be able to claim the big reward may be too long. Most of the games I've played or play now lean toward a 7 day streak bonus system. Of course you won't be able to get all the nice bonuses from having a 30 day system, but you can always put in something like if a person collects 4 streak weeks together they get an additional bonus as an alternative.

As for the big bonus at the end I would prefer something random like when we open a present, we can either get stamina to use during the day or a stamina potion for later. There is just something desireable about not knowing what you will get,, which I think is what makes the daily favor interesting in it's current state.

I do like the nobility change though. I will be honest I had no desire to purchase nobility when my time had run out. The re-roll while nice majority of the time will not change the outcome and the other perks were not enough to justify the cost for me with so many other ways I could be spending my tokens.

Heyo!

Lord Arogandor wrote:confusing as the game might be, the daily login favor might just help a new player to login again the next day.

It seems like this is really the heart of the problem you are trying to tackle: veterans who have been playing for over a year are probably going to keep playing, no matter what change is made to the DLF (Daily Login Favor).

With that in mind, why not revamp the DLF system specifically to keep new Seekers engaged in that crucial first week or two?  I'm betting most players who abandon the game, do so within the first week or two.  If that's the case, then let's focus on changing that.

Rhodrisan wrote:Nobody logs in just to get the daily reward.   We log in to play the game.    Whether a daily reward is random or progressive won't make any difference.   The reward is a nice start to the day; something to enjoy and appreciate, but not the reason for logging in.  

<snip>

This is something a progressive reward can provide that a random cannot.  Brand new players might need the additional motivation to keep coming back until they reach the point the rest of us are already at.

Rhod makes an excellent point: knowing what you will get by logging in tomorrow is probably a much more powerful motivator than a random roll that is usually just 30 bronze... especially for new Seekers.

Filbert wrote:I wonder if a random piece of equipment (Common or Uncommon only) could be one of the rewards? At the moment, most Seekers are equipped from the (supposedly Rare) sets, and though Common items can be made, they are usually too much work for a new Seeker who knows there will be a combat event before they are likely to be finished.

This sounds like a great idea to me.  Some beginner-level equipment can be exceptionally useful for, well ... for beginners.  It can still be useful for veterans (who always want to increase their Sustaining skill), but without having a large impact on the potion economy.  You could also include specific tools with limited durability, much like the chicken given during the Scrawny Chicken quest.

An idea stolen by combining all of the above comments:
Have something(s) useful for beginners early in the reward sequence, instead of at the end of 30 days.  If many new players don't make it to day 30, give them something to look forward to every 5 days: day 5, 10, 15, etc.  I don't think many people will mind if the 'good' rewards are every 5 days, and the in-between rewards (days 6-9, for example) are much smaller rewards.

Nolly wrote:As for the big bonus at the end I would prefer something random like when we open a present, we can either get stamina to use during the day or a stamina potion for later. There is just something desireable about not knowing what you will get,, which I think is what makes the daily favor interesting in it's current state.

What if the final reward actually _is_ a present?  Those are cheaper than than a Grail Stamina Potion, right?  It also maintains the element of randomness, while having much less of an impact on the in-game economy.  If you are worried about players getting 12 presents a year, you could set up a DLF progression that lasts longer than 30 days.  If you set up a 100 day schedule for DLF, instead of 30, every Seeker could get 3.6 presents per year, which probably wouldn't break the game in any way ... but I think it would be a very nice addition that players would enjoy, especially those players who generally won't be able to afford presents any other way.  Or you could make it a 50 day schedule, and players would get 7.2 presents per year.  In other words: you have options to find the right fit.

Edit: Another option would be to have two different DLF schedules:
one specific DLF tailored especially for new Seekers, a set progression that covers their first 30 days.  After they are hooked on the game (at the end of that 30 day progression), you could change it up and implement the new DLF 30-day schedule that you are considering.

Cheers,
Pan

didn't see this before. not a fan of the resetting thing we get punished enough for misses imo.