Fate Diminishing Returns

21

We like to play games for the freedom to play around. So why does it feel like the current Fate system is more of a punishment with the weekly diminishing returns. 

I started noticing last week and again this week with the Fate system. I started one of every class because I like freedom of choice. Some days I want to be a tank and smash things in the face. Some days I like to be sneaky and snipe things and take my time to stab them in the back. Some days I feel like being the epitome of the glass cannon Some days I feel like playing for hours since I'm retired and doing a little of all three. 

The problem is the Fate cost goes up for all characters if I use Fate missions. 

An example of this is this week I spent around 500 Fate raising the relics on the Psyker which in turn raised the cost on the Crusader and the Assassin. The Fate cost got up to around 140 for a mission on every toon. It didn't matter that there was a lul in the leveling and I had to use fate to boost the Crusader. It didn't matter that the Assassin is at 669 and the next series of missions start at 700. If I want to raise the Crusader to 40 (no more story) it costs 140 per mission. It doesn't matter if I want to level the Assassin to 700, again 140. If I want to continue to try to figure out where to get two warp rods for the Psyker to get rid of the greens, again 140. Next week it is back down to 100 until I start running Fate missions again. 

To me this feels more like a penalty that the more I play the more it costs me. It is a form of artificial inflation and punishing me because I want to spend several hours in game rather then running a couple missions at the beginning of the week and then running off to play something different. That does not bode well for game longevity.

Now I could see it go up if that was all I was doing or playing one character constantly, but I'm not. Nor does it feel rewarding to run umpteen million missions to get the Fate for one mission. Why should I continue grinding Fate if I'm getting a negative profit for investing my time in multiple character development.  Economics 101. Either that or it is just a means to artificially deflate the Fate system to force slower progress. Usually the more you  spend the more cost goes down, not up. 

I understand we don't know everything and all the story is not in, so you could very well get to 40 without using a Fate point. Perhaps I am jumping the gun at complaining but isn't that what an Alpha is for?

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Fate Diminishing Returns
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6 years 247 days ago
Airsick Hydra
Actually the purples are not bad. They are on the average of 2 to 5 points above the highest green of that level. The problem is you will out grow it faster then it is worth gathering a full set. Let's say you are in the 30's. It takes 3 Fate missions to gain one level. Now by the time you grind all the Terot cards needed for a full set of gear of your choosing (two weapon types, armor, implants, etc), you have already gone 3 levels making the first purples you got worthless and your Fate cost per mission has jumped.


So you decide you want to craft a set of purples instead. Well, to open up all the crafter tabs (granted all branches are not all in the game) it will cost you several million credits and 2150 Fate..on top of several hours scanning the vendor for blueprints that you need...which is even less Fate you can use to run missions. Now you are stuck between a rock and a hard place again as the mission amount you have to run for that much Fate and the credits needed will up your Glory exponentially, causing the cost per mission to jump as well. Now you are having to do 2 to 3 times the missions at 8 for small, 10 for medium, and 12 for large that you would have to do for one Fate mission if you decided you wanted to gear up. Sure you can do yellow and reds or even co-op a few at a higher level to increase the Fate amount but those missions take you two to three times the time it would take to do a green mission (grey is kinda worthless skill up, Glory, and Fate wise). Special missions seem the best, but doubles and triples Glory, again upping the Fate cost to goofy levels. Again, now it seems you are being punished for trying to gear up.


Not all the missions and end game is in the Alpha, but even so, this will aggravate people to no end if this goes live. I understand wanting to limit it so people don't burn through the game in one night and actually enjoy it, but this is  not an enjoyable experience. Any word from Neocore if this is a bug or intentional? 

6 years 248 days ago
+1
When we can go further at release and have more systems we can visit fate stockpiling will reduce itself until the "Endgame". Those restrictions in a testing enviorment are strange at least and IF this DR is a thing after release a lot of ppl who played the EA version will be displeased. There is no reason for a Fate system like this outside of kicking players in the nuts who have spend more time playing.
6 years 248 days ago
Posted by Irrelewahnt 6 years 248 days ago

Okay an example out of life. Think about it, you do the same  job day by day.  If you get your payment weekly everything is fine but if you are payed per month you'll get only a quarter of your money or less. The outcry would be huge. 


Why should I get less like someone else? I invested time to get things done, why should I be punished in a way that my fate is worth less then someone elses fate? That's simply stupid and inconsequent. The next step should be to increase crafting costs and to get less credits the more you play. Nothing happens in that department so it's only fate chicane.

I don't disagree with you but it's more like being paid at different points in your life rather than different days of the week. Fate at low level serves a different function than it does in high level. 


In response to Falzure it's more about the priority of spending. While it's unlikely anyone will hit max level with 5000 fate spare, how you "should" spend it as you level is what I currently dislike.

Pre level 40 the value of tarrot missions is almost entirely as an exp "filler" when you run out of story. The item drops aren't of much importance or impact. The reason I use the word stockpile is that i've had 2000 sitting around because i've had only story to do. But, the very moment you reach 40 it becomes the complete opposite.

Why do I dislike this?

Because I don't see it as a system inherently friendly to new players. It's counter intuitive to what most arpg players would naturally do within a game. Normally we seek out good gear as a means to make levelling faster, it would make sense to a player (I presume) to chase some nice new weapons whenever possible so that they are now stronger and progress with more ease. Only in Martyr that's actually going to make their levelling process harder and they will likely be undergeared in terms of power rating when they meet a challenge.

Again I dislike the current system / bug of increased cost. It's not benefiting anyone. But, I also dislike how we prioritise story over getting purple loot. Which unfortunately is just a natural byproduct of the gear system dropping according to ones level. There's ways around this but for the moment i've got chicken I need to nom.

6 years 248 days ago
+1

Okay an example out of life. Think about it, you do the same  job day by day.  If you get your payment weekly everything is fine but if you are payed per month you'll get only a quarter of your money or less. The outcry would be huge. 


Why should I get less like someone else? I invested time to get things done, why should I be punished in a way that my fate is worth less then someone elses fate? That's simply stupid and inconsequent. The next step should be to increase crafting costs and to get less credits the more you play. Nothing happens in that department so it's only fate chicane.

This comment was edited 6 years 248 days ago by Irrelewahnt
6 years 248 days ago
+1

Well, where the problem with : a) Does spending all of your fate in one go cause any potential issues through the leveling process?


Just how many tarots will you decide _NOT_ to run during your levelling process because you are saving them up until you hit 40? You are always going to prioritise story missions for rank, and when there's no story missions then you'll do tarots, or you might do a tarot if the next story mission is too high a powerlevel for you. 


I'd hardly call this "stockpiling" fate during the levelling process, especially since the number of tarots you'll do before 40 completely and utterly pales in comparison to the tarots you will do after level 40. The term "orders of magnitude" comes into play here. How much fate do you think you can stockpile for when you hit 40? I'll tell you, because I did this on my Psyker, and it's about 2700 fate. That's 27 tarot missions (assuming no DR, possibly 15-20 missions with DR, so it's only taking away 5-10 missions). Is that game-breaking, to such an extent that Neocore has to implement a DR on tarot costs? 


There's no other consideration for stockpiling fate, after level 40 there's no benefit whatsoever to stockpiling fate.

This comment was edited 6 years 248 days ago by Faluzure
6 years 248 days ago
+1
Hmm on second thoughts 


Why don't we just give people a little nudge / buff when they haven't done a tarrot in say 48 hours, a small discount of 20 or so :D Perhaps it goes against the aims of the new system, but then again so does increasing the cost. 

6 years 248 days ago

Not entirely convinced that mechanisms in place for balancing are ever intended to be fun. If it's there for a purpose, the purpose is to prevent something from happening. Presumably something which would / could lead to an "un-fun" situation. I'm not saying it does that, but I don't think the solution to issues needs to be fun - just not punishing.

I think there's two questions to be asked.

a) Does spending all of your fate in one go cause any potential issues through the leveling process?
Here I don't think it's healthy that players feel they should be passing on as much good gear as possible during the leveling so that they can get more at the end, we should be chasing rewards not avoiding them during the leveling process. Note that part of the issue is the lack of any incentive to get purple items during leveling, they just aren't worth it. Tarrots are for Rank exp. So the result is avoid doing tarrots till you have to - whereas most games will throw bosses at you intermittently which will give you rewards as / when.

b) If there is any response to (a) is there any other way in which this could be solved.

Personally I think you shouldn't be punished for spending it in chunks. Instead there should be a mixture between rewarding more for using it frequently alongside a way to minimize the need to stockpile it for endgame or at the very least not made to feel like you need to horde it for the endgame.   

This comment was edited 6 years 248 days ago by Airsick Hydra
6 years 249 days ago
+1
What's there to discuss after all? If someone farms 2k Fate why should he punished in any way? If they don't want that everyone stockpiles fate, or make more then X ammount of fate mission per day they should go back to to a restrictive number of fate gain or possible fate runs per day. This system simply punishes people who play more because it inflates Fate.
6 years 249 days ago
 It's not the removal of the dailies because Airsick has a point, it was where you got on once every five days, spent an hour and moved on racking up a huge amount then nada for the rest of your time spent in game. It's not the amount of Fate per mission that grinds my gears, because if you took out the DR or fixed the bug, you can literally do a Fate mission every 10 missions or so (although once you start gearing and it starts turning grey, 5 to 8 does seem a bit low end especially with the DR kicking in).  


Here is my biggest complaint on this.


We spend Fate to raise our crafter. We spend Fate to run missions to increase our gear. Now they are talking Fate for unlocks...if you add in DR function to try to gear the character for the content (there are increased chance of drops, not guaranteed drops) then literally you are punishing mid tier to hard core players and putting casuals at a disadvantage as well. For the retired or the only game we play scenario then the more time we spend the steeper the penalty. For those that can only grind on the weekend the cost goes up fast making it harder on those with jobs and a family. It literally goes from one every 10 missions to one every 20 to 25 missions at a quick pace for your one to two days off. While you get quite a bit on regular missions to 40, but by the time you spent all to unlock all the upgrades then you literally dump 3/4  or more of what you may have earned on that class as is, and now you got to try to gear them out.  The more you gain levels or account the less you can do missions for gear at end game. That isn't a very fun feature for anyone, but perhaps it is a bug. 

6 years 249 days ago
+1
I think the question that needs to be asked is this:


Is this system of diminishing returns fun for anyone? Do it do anything other than punish one type of players? It punishes the players who give over the most of their free time to play the game.


In a game with no head to head PVP worth talking about, who is benefitting from this DR? If it is not fun, it should be taken out.

6 years 250 days ago
+2
Irrelewahnt

There's a difference between playing the way you want though - and being able to gear up at end game insanely fast because you stockpiled something which others did not. Now you might argue that's fair if the time was taken, but most games don't allow for this sorta preperation. You might be able to instantly kit yourself out with well crafted stuff within most games if you were prepared. But not with BIS stuff. That at least is what I think this is intended to prevent.

But. I think there's perhaps other ways it could be done.. Although oddly the only ways I can think of would be either forcing players to spend fate earlier or b reducing their reward from fate missions in a DR sort of system, which would be very backward. Perhaps it's the least crap option they could come upwith ? Perhaps its a bug :D who bloomin knows.

6 years 250 days ago
+1
Airsick Hydra
An example... Maybe someone with a family and work and other hobbys may confirm this. But think about someone who can play 5-10h at working days and gethers his fate to spend it on the weekends were that person have 10h straight time. A system thatÄll kick you in the nuts if you do to much on a special day will be bad.


They said that they want to give us the freedom to play the way we want to, all I see so far are even worse restrictions then we had the last EA build. This suxx big time. I dont even bother to use my fate to level twinks because i dont want my fate costs to climb. Now I sitt on 3k Fate and i get more and more.


An explanation would be nice because if there is a mechanic it's only fair to tell us how it works and it's bad to throw random crap at us without explaining it.

6 years 250 days ago
+1
Irrelewahnt
Wouldn't go so far as saying it's worse than before. It's different. Previously we got a massive reward for logging in and playing 3+ missions (Daily quest) it would then take about 40 more missions to gain a comparable amount of fate to the first 3.
Currently I think it's the intention that it stops players stockpiling fate and is supposed to encourage fate to be spent in chunks of 2-300 per day. Only it doesn't really make it clear if this is the purpose.


Two scenarios

  • If you reach endgame and run out of fate there's no problem. You can do 6-8 normal missions, gather fate. Do a tarrot. All in under an hour. Fairly balanced ratio or normal to premium content. 
  • If you reach level 38 and have 2000 fate in the bank however - you can't suddenly spam it all on rewards and will see this feature kick in. Which I think does at least have a base level of logic behind it. Just that it feels that there needs to be a way to encourage fate to be spent as it's accumulated while leveling rather than stockpiling. Currently there's the punishment for stockpiling, but not enough reward for spending imho. 
6 years 251 days ago
Airsick Hydra

Seems that way, or tied to Glory. Right now the campaign missions are giving half the Glory they say they do, but I'm usually having to cram a couple Fate missions to raise item level with the current gaps in the story missions (for instant the finishing around 220 from rescue/terrot mission and 550 for the next chapter, or the gap between the 790 of Chapter four and the 850 of Chapter 5). With each additional Fate mission or raising the Weekly Glory it seems to go upward. Around 100 it jumps to 110 or so for the Fate missions. 400 ends up around 130. Finishing the week around 800 and well you are jumping the Fate mission cost to around 140...until the Weekly Glory reset where it falls back to 100 and starts over.


At least that is the way it has played the last couple of weeks.


The issue is they have started giving out "prizes" (an additional chest) for the weekly top 50 and top 10. Right now there is a bug that if you log in right at reset it locks your Glory where it was which in turn locks the Fate cost of missions. More people will push their Glory if the prizes become better then just a couple purple items. Thus their cost will increase. 


My Glory right now is about 1700+ and the cost per mission has climbed to 150. With gear being part of the Fate end game (the better drops Neocore discussed should alleviate this a small amount) to have your character prepared for Boss Battles and the new sector opening that season you will have to increase your Fate and Fate grinding which in turn means more special missions (higher Glory count for the week) which ups the cost, causing basically diminishing returns. It makes me not want to do Fate missions (which I need for gearing) until the reset. I talked to someone else who ran about 3 missions after running several special missions and it jumped to 110 (around when he hit 100 on the weekly Glory). 


It is as you said a bit odd, and perhaps intentional (perhaps not). Just it's a hindrance for those that want to grind full relic sets while waiting for the end game preview. 

This comment was edited 6 years 251 days ago by Whtwolf74
6 years 251 days ago
Posted by Airsick Hydra 6 years 251 days ago
Can confirm it seems like a DR feature. If you do too many then it increases. 10 per every 1-2 missions, can't confirm 100%. 


But it's been consistent for me... Bit odd. Can only assume it's a form of balancing control they have added.

Which is odd.

They changed the system to give us the freedom to play like we want to and here we are with increasing costs in a worse state then before.
6 years 251 days ago
+1
Posted by Irrelewahnt 6 years 251 days ago
My Fate costs reduced from 150 to 100 after I have'nt played Tarot missions for 2 days without a Monday reset of any kind.
Can confirm it seems like a DR feature. If you do too many then it increases. 10 per every 1-2 missions, can't confirm 100%. 


But it's been consistent for me... Bit odd. Can only assume it's a form of balancing control they have added.

Which is odd.

6 years 251 days ago
+1
Whtwolf74
My Fate costs reduced from 150 to 100 after I have'nt played Tarot missions for 2 days without a Monday reset of any kind.
6 years 252 days ago
Irrelewahnt
I'm sure you are right in seeing some sort of Fate increase, perhaps by account level...although it kinda goes back to diminishing returns for your time. 


On a side note, for the developers, I think I figured out where the bug is. If it is intentional it leads people to not want the leaderboard every week. It seems the bug is tied to weekly Glory. When my weekly Glory bugged (as reported in another post) this week, the price of my Fate missions for the week stayed at 140 per. My brother on the other hand had his weekly Glory reset and is down to 100 again. That would lead to the higher your weekly Glory the higher your Fate cost for the week, meaning if you want to grind levels it would be simpler to keep your Glory lower. Kind of weird since we have now introduced Leader rewards

6 years 252 days ago
+1
I'm not even sure if this is intended so we might have to wait on an answer as useual the closer the release is coming.  Some mechanics they have are simply bad and we'll have to suffer them. I'm pretty sure we'll se the incrasing fate costs ingame after the launch as well.
6 years 253 days ago
Irrelewahnt

That is kinda my point on DR. it doesn't matter what sector if you select fate mission and start plugging in cards, or which character you use. Also, if you are a *noob*  and group with someone that already has DR in place for the week, guess what...you just made all of your missions that high for the rest of the week because you grouped the first Fate mission of the week. 


An example of this would be last week. I had mine up to 110 while my brother was at 130. We decided to do a mission together on our Crusaders. Next thing I know, all my missions were 130. Did another solo and poof, 140. 


I don't expect Neocore to answer today (although Megapull is on sometimes during the weekend). 


In a way I guess I don't understand since the build got rid of dailies (good) and is supposedly balancing Fate (not quite there).


6 years 253 days ago
+1
How do you know it's DR and not a bug? Sure it works like a DR but if you take a look at the Galaxy map that DR will be busted. When you finished the first "noob" sektor you pay already 150 Fate? Where are we at in the later game? 500? It seems like noone from Neocore want to answer this question anyway when i look into the Steam discussions.