Should SP be received for discovering new camps and nodes?

If any of you are familiar with the Bartle test, you know that most MMO players can be classified between four groups, Achievers, Killers, Socializers and Explorers. One the things I thought that would appeal to Explorers is if camps and nodes rewarded SP for discovering them.

Of course, right now anyone can teleport their friends to other locations so that they may tag the crystal/node so under the current system it wouldn't be viable. But if we were to eliminate that, so that you had to touch the crystal or node yourself before you can teleport there, it would be nice to receive a small SP bonus for discovering new areas.

The SP reward would scale according to the distance from cities and the difficulty of reaching the camp/node. So "You have arrived in Camp Brittle Bark" may earn you 100SP, but "You have arrived in Camp Crimson Bark" may award you 1000SP.

It wouldn't have to be a significant amount, just a little bonus for exploring every nook and cranny of the world. I think any extra way to accrue SP that would help alleviate the grind (which Yoshi-P says he wanted to move away from), would be welcomed by most.

Thoughts?

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Originally Posted by quantumsaint

If any of you are familiar with the Bartle test, you know that most MMO players can be classified between four groups, Achievers, Killers, Socializers and Explorers. One the things I thought that would appeal to Explorers is if camps and nodes rewarded SP for discovering them.

Of course, right now anyone can teleport their friends to other locations so that they may tag the crystal/node so under the current system it wouldn't be viable. But if we were to eliminate that, so that you had to touch the crystal or node yourself before you can teleport there, it would be nice to receive a small SP bonus for discovering new areas.

The SP reward would scale according to the distance from cities and the difficulty of reaching the camp/node. So "You have arrived in Camp Brittle Bark" may earn you 100SP, but "You have arrived in Camp Crimson Bark" may award you 1000SP.

It wouldn't have to be a significant amount, just a little bonus for exploring every nook and cranny of the world. I think any extra way to accrue SP would help alleviate the grind (which Yoshi-P says he wanted to move away from), would be welcomed by most.

Thoughts?

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Personally, I'd say no.

I am against this idea and have been in every MMO I've seen it in.

In a nutshell, It seems gratuitous, patronizing and completely superfluous to me.

It feels patronizing because it makes me feel like the developers feel the need to reward me for every little thing, just to get me interested in actually exploring the map. I always rolled my eyes when I'd be traveling along in other MMOs - most likely to somewhere I was headed anyway - and suddenly am rewarded for "discovering" a location I could clearly see long before I reached it. The only thing I'd done is pressed 'W' on my keyboard and crossed an arbitrary invisible line.

It places emphasis on the wrong reasons to explore (for xp reward) and just adds an arbitrary "achievement check list" into the game. The world should be explored because there's the promise of something interesting to see or do in those remote nooks and crannies, not based on how good the sp reward is for "discovering" it.

If feels completely superfluous because a lot of those locations players will be heading to at some point anyway for leve quests, regular quests... possibly for xp groups, etc.

Ultimately, it doesn't inspire a desire to explore. It inspires the desire for relatively free/easy xp. Once Chocobos are introduced - assuming you can't be attacked while on them - it'll be even easier.

In other games with it, like EQ2 and WoW, people would only go to those places because it gave them free xp. They didn't care about the locations, their lore, etc. They cared about how much it would move their xp bar toward their next level. People would "explore" only far enough to get credit for it, turn around and leave, and never return to those places again, unless a quest required it. And when you start getting up to 1000 for some locations, per your suggestion - or even less than that - they add up.

I'm all for a MMO that brings back the sense of exploration for its players through use of interesting content, beautiful locations, etc.. things that should be reward in and of themselves. However, I think that can, and should, be done without the need to bribe them with xp/sp.

People didn't need to be bribed to go to the spot in Lufaise Meadows from the opening movie. They went there for the view and because of its significance to the story. People didn't go to Cascade Edellaine in Misereaux Coast for the xp reward... They went there because it's a beautiful location. People didn't go out of their way to locate hidden or otherwise unmarked locations in XI because it would get them free xp... They did it because there was some incentive for going there related to the gameplay, be it a good xp spot, something for a quest, a rare mob spawn, etc. Those are all genuine reasons to explore, where the discovery is its own reward that has personal significance to the player or their character, not just "woot, another free 500sp toward next level... on to the next spot!"


Please, let's not turn FFXIV into yet another MMO where everything has an xp/sp reward attached to it in order to get players interested.

It really wouldn't be discovering it anyways, since we have a map with everything on it at all times.

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Originally Posted by Reika

It really wouldn't be discovering it anyways, since we have a map with everything on it at all times.

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This is something else I'd like to see addressed. Hopefully for new zones, we don't automatically have the map, or at the very least, reveal the terrain as we uncover it.

@Preypacer, thank you for that eloquent counterargument. However, I disagree with your statement, "Please, let's not turn FFXIV into yet another MMO where everything has an xp/sp reward attached to it in order to get players interested. "

If it's one thing this game needs, it's more player interest. Many of the rewards in the game right now are not worth the time invested. If the terrain was more varied, sure more people might want to go check it out, but since it's not, SP seems a harmless enough carrot to promote exploration.

Your other concerns such as chocobos making it too easy are valid, but we're still not sure to what degree we'll be able too ride them. Maybe they won't want to travel to the higher rank camps. "You're chocobo will go no further." Something like that would be easy enough to implement.

Rather than giving exploration XP I would like to have content that encourages us to visit far edges of the map. By this I don't mean the incredibly annoying walk 800 miles to visit an NPC type quests, but rather populating these areas with good mobs either for farming or xp groups. Placing NM's there, or other forms of content.

I think though that is entirely their plan from what I've read about their zone revamp and plans for 1.19 and 1.2.

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Originally Posted by Murugan

Rather than giving exploration XP I would like to have content that encourages us to visit far edges of the map. By this I don't mean the incredibly annoying walk 800 miles to visit an NPC type quests, but rather populating these areas with good mobs either for farming or xp groups. Placing NM's there, or other forms of content.

I think though that is entirely their plan from what I've read about their zone revamp and plans for 1.19 and 1.2.

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I'd really like to see some ??? out in the boonies that you can trade certain items to to force pop NMs.

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Originally Posted by quantumsaint

This is something else I'd like to see addressed. Hopefully for new zones, we don't automatically have the map, or at the very least, reveal the terrain as we uncover it.

@Preypacer, thank you for that eloquent counterargument. However, I disagree with your statement, "Please, let's not turn FFXIV into yet another MMO where everything has an xp/sp reward attached to it in order to get players interested. "

If it's one thing this game needs, it's more player interest. Many of the rewards in the game right now are not worth the time invested. If the terrain was more varied, sure more people might want to go check it out, but since it's not, SP seems a harmless enough carrot to promote exploration.

Your other concerns such as chocobos making it too easy are valid, but we're still not sure to what degree we'll be able too ride them. Maybe they won't want to travel to the higher rank camps. "You're chocobo will go no further." Something like that would be easy enough to implement.

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I meant in terms of getting players interested in doing something they probably wouldn't be interested in to begin with. It grows out of the rest of my explanations.

People who are Explorers by nature are going to do so on their own, for their own reasons and their own personal sense of reward. They won't need to be bribed into doing it.

People who have no interest in exploration otherwise would only do it for the sp. It's not like offering sp to ride/run to some remote spot on the map they otherwise couldn't care less about is suddenly going to awaken the explorer spirit within them.

I've had myriad discussions with people in other MMOs who had done their exploration and gotten all their xp if they saw any really cool areas while they were riding around. I was asking in hopes of having some cool spots to look forward to when I could safely explore those areas (I'm definitely an explorer type). The response I received was mostly along the lines of of "I wasn't really paying attention. I just rode in as far as I had to for the credit, then left".

The actual explorer types, however - those who would have gone out of their way to find these places anyway - had a short novel's worth of specific details, lore and such about those locations.

In other words, all SE would be doing by adding sp for "discovery" is giving people who wouldn't care otherwise, a relatively free/easy way to get sp by simply riding/running around to key locations (which you know would end up on a wiki with specific locations for easy reference). People would be using those guides in order to avoid "wasting time" in finding the locataions. To someone who's out exploring for the sake of exploration, wandering around is not a "waste of time", it's part of the experience.

It's like a restaurant offering people $10 to eat a tuna fish sandwich they're trying out for their menu. People who normally wouldn't eat, and don't particularly like tuna fish would likely eat that sandwich. They're not suddenly fans of tuna fish. They wanted the easy $10.

If people can't ride chocobos into those areas, then it's more likely they would avoid those locations until they're high enough level to run through without having to worry about being killed first, than that they would dismount and make their way bravely into dangerous territory on foot for a moderate amount of sp.

In summary, the concept of having to bribe people to explore with SP just seems superflous at best:
1. Those who enjoy exploration for exploration's sake don't need an sp reward to do it. The reward is in the exploration itself
2. Those who wouldn't otherwise care about, much less explore, all the remote areas would only be doing it for the sp.

Give meaningful gameplay, lore or history-related reasons to explore.. and I'm all for it.

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Originally Posted by Murugan

Rather than giving exploration XP I would like to have content that encourages us to visit far edges of the map. By this I don't mean the incredibly annoying walk 800 miles to visit an NPC type quests, but rather populating these areas with good mobs either for farming or xp groups. Placing NM's there, or other forms of content.

I think though that is entirely their plan from what I've read about their zone revamp and plans for 1.19 and 1.2.

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That's something I can get behind. Actual content that you wouldn't encounter otherwise. NMs, perhaps hidden quests, lore, clues relating to some other aspect of the game.

Simply saying "Hey, go out to this remote location you wouldn't otherwise care about and we'll give you some free sp" just seems incredibly forced to me.

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Originally Posted by Preypacer

I meant in terms of getting players interested in doing something they probably wouldn't be interested in to begin with. It grows out of the rest of my explanations.

People who are Explorers by nature are going to do so on their own, for their own reasons and their own personal sense of reward. They won't need to be bribed into doing it.

People who have no interest in exploration otherwise would only do it for the sp. It's not like offering sp to ride/run to some remote spot on the map they otherwise couldn't care less about is suddenly going to awaken the explorer spirit within them.

I've had myriad discussions with people in other MMOs who had done their exploration and gotten all their xp if they saw any really cool areas while they were riding around. I was asking in hopes of having some cool spots to look forward to when I could safely explore those areas (I'm definitely an explorer type). The response I received was mostly along the lines of of "I wasn't really paying attention. I just rode in as far as I had to for the credit, then left".

The actual explorer types, however - those who would have gone out of their way to find these places anyway - had a short novel's worth of specific details, lore and such about those locations.

In other words, all SE would be doing by adding sp for "discovery" is giving people who wouldn't care otherwise, a relatively free/easy way to get sp by simply riding/running around to key locations (which you know would end up on a wiki with specific locations for easy reference).

If people can't ride chocobos into those areas, then it's more likely they would avoid those locations until they're high enough level to run through without having to worry about being killed first, than that they would dismount and make their way bravely into dangerous territory on foot for a moderate amount of sp.

In summary, the concept of having to bribe people to explore with SP just seems superflous at best:
1. Those who enjoy exploration for exploration's sake don't need an sp reward to do it. The reward is in the exploration itself
2. Those who wouldn't otherwise care about, much less explore, all the remote areas would only be doing it for the sp.

Give meaningful gameplay, lore or history-related reasons to explore.. and I'm all for it.

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They could easily do this with the power of the Echo. Show backstory of a place through a cs, then give us a task to complete before awarding SP. I liked in FFIX, CC, and other games, when you walk into somewhere and it pans around says the name of the area on the screen.

Picture this. You walk up to a node and touch it, the Echo triggers, sending you flashing back many years ago. You see a Lalafell and Elezen peacefully fishing side-by-side. The Lalafell gets a tug on his line, and starts pulling up. After struggling for a moment, he pulls up a large carp, smiling wide. The Elezen looks at him with a smirk. He feels a tug on his line, and pulls it up quick, eager to surpass his friend and rival's catch, but is dismayed to find a guppy. The Lalafell's laughter is cut short when the animals go quiet, and the earth starts shaking from heavy machinery. Trees are pushed aside as Garlean Magitek stomps into the clearing, spewing smoke and causing the Lalafell and Elezen to drop their poles and run in fear. But it's too late - as they stumble backwards, the Magitek's laser focuses in on them, right before it fires, the screen goes black.

You have arrived in Murmur Rills.
Find Enoa's missing fishing pole, so that his wife may finally rest, knowing her husband is gone.

(Complete objective)

You have obtained 1,000 SP.

Something like that?

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Originally Posted by quantumsaint

They could easily do this with the power of the Echo. Show backstory of a place through a cs, then give us a task to complete before awarding SP. I liked in FFIX, CC, and other games, when you walk into somewhere and it pans around says the name of the area on the screen.

Picture this. You walk up to a node and touch it, the Echo triggers, sending you flashing back many years ago. You see a Lalafell and Elezen peacefully fishing side-by-side. The Lalafell gets a tug on his line, and starts pulling up. After struggling for a moment, he pulls up a large carp, smiling wide. The Elezen looks at him with a smirk. He feels a tug on his line, and pulls it up quick, eager to surpass his friend and rival's catch, but is dismayed to find a guppy. The Lalafell's laughter is cut short when the animals go quiet, and the earth starts shaking from heavy machinery. Trees are pushed aside as Garlean Magitek stomps into the clearing, spewing smoke and causing the Lalafell and Elezen to drop their poles and run in fear. But it's too late - as they stumble backwards, the Magitek's laser focuses in on them, right before it fires, the screen goes black.

You have arrived in Murmur Rills.
Find Enoa's missing fishing pole, so that his wife may finally rest, knowing her husband is gone.

(Complete objective)

You have obtained 1,000 SP.

Something like that?

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Something like that, yes... It would almost play out like the first time you enter a zone to trigger a cut-scene for an expansion in XI (like Delkfutt's Tower for CoP, etc).

Aside from being specific to a quest, an echo "cut scene" like what you describe could also be a clue as to how to spawn a NM in that area... though maybe not specifically through fishing :-p. That would be a neat way to provide clues or tips for gameplay that can be unlocked.

Could be used to give clues as to how to access an otherwise hidden or inaccessible area, etc. The area that's hidden could be elsewhere on the map, but that specific location has some relevance to it.

Of course, there's no harm in there being really cool out-of-the-way areas in the game world that exist simply to be found by those eager to explore and find them. Sometimes the reward for exploration is in finding some place new by itself.

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Originally Posted by quantumsaint

They could easily do this with the power of the Echo. Show backstory of a place through a cs, then give us a task to complete before awarding SP. I liked in FFIX, CC, and other games, when you walk into somewhere and it pans around says the name of the area on the screen.

Picture this. You walk up to a node and touch it, the Echo triggers, sending you flashing back many years ago. You see a Lalafell and Elezen peacefully fishing side-by-side. The Lalafell gets a tug on his line, and starts pulling up. After struggling for a moment, he pulls up a large carp, smiling wide. The Elezen looks at him with a smirk. He feels a tug on his line, and pulls it up quick, eager to surpass his friend and rival's catch, but is dismayed to find a guppy. The Lalafell's laughter is cut short when the animals go quiet, and the earth starts shaking from heavy machinery. Trees are pushed aside as Garlean Magitek stomps into the clearing, spewing smoke and causing the Lalafell and Elezen to drop their poles and run in fear. But it's too late - as they stumble backwards, the Magitek's laser focuses in on them, right before it fires, the screen goes black.

You have arrived in Murmur Rills.
Find Enoa's missing fishing pole, so that his wife may finally rest, knowing her husband is gone.

(Complete objective)

You have obtained 1,000 SP.

Something like that?

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If i had Y-P's email, i'd send him this thing as fast as I could!
YES YES YES YES!
1000x's yes!

btw quantum, made a thread with your idea in it.
all credit to you of course.

Any other thoughts on this?

No need for an SP reward. Make it just be an achievement.

Have the incentive for exploring be the ability to get to new places to get SP or find new items, and that should be enough.

I like the idea of an SP reward for exploration. I really enjoyed discovering new areas in WoW. I liked the on-screen text cue that told you the name of the new area you had entered as well as the sound effect that came with it. It added to the sense that you were striking out into new and distant territory. The exp reward was like the cherry on top.

It's a minor feature, but it's nice. I'd like it if they added it to FFXIV.

Being an explorer type myself, I must say I do like having a little perk of getting exp while exploring. Yes, I'd be traveling to new areas anyways to look around, but a little reward, exp and or achievements, is always nice.

One quest I did enjoy doing while exploring in FFXI, was the clay tablet one. There were old stone tablets in out the way places that told the story of an explorer and what he learned about the land, people, and history of that particular area. A person hires you to make clay impressions of the tablets and pays you for each one you bring back to him. http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/db/quests.html?fquest=181

Maybe we could have something similar?

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Originally Posted by britestar90

Being an explorer type myself, I must say I do like having a little perk of getting exp while exploring. Yes, I'd be traveling to new areas anyways to look around, but a little reward, exp and or achievements, is always nice.

One quest I did enjoy doing while exploring in FFXI, was the clay tablet one. There were old stone tablets in out the way areas that told the story of an explorer and what he learned about the land, people, and history of that particular area. A person hires you to make clay impressions of the tablets and pays you for each one you bring back to him. http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/db/quests.html?fquest=181

Maybe we could have something similar?

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That was a fun quest. I second this idea!

The only negative about that quest was that you had to do it to get the map for Crawlers' Nest. It shouldn't be so time consuming to get something as basic as a map. (And it was kind of a pain if you didn't have it.)

Should SP be received for picking your nose?

I don't mind this "many activities provide SP" plan but the important thing is to make the effort/reward ratio not-ridiculous. It's the mindset that everything you do must give you a reward so you feel like you're always given a prize for your troubles.

Even if the "trouble" is simply moving from one place to another.

Achievement is already lol-worthy enough, really.

The time when people explored just for the sake of exploring and finding out new locales all long-gone. Guess. That's not a shiny reward!

Also, 46000 SP for the last main scenario? Well considering how incredibly difficult it is.......................

If you like exploring why do you need an SP reward?

I'm a bit of an achievement whore and do stuff just to say I did it, and I like the game keeping records of everything.

Eventually when the achievement system comes out with the fact that you get rewards for collecting them, that's enough incentive for explorers and non-explorers alike to do it.

I'm against SP for exploring.

I think that you shouldn't be awarded xp for visiting a place. If SE wants players to get out there and explore, they need to put things that are interesting enough by themselves to get players to go out there. Quests, NMs, party camps, etc. For example, the stone-visiting quest in FFXI (Crawler's Nest map? sorry been a really long time) was a great way to get players to see hidden areas while at the same time completing a quest with a good reward.

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Originally Posted by quantumsaint

This is something else I'd like to see addressed. Hopefully for new zones, we don't automatically have the map, or at the very least, reveal the terrain as we uncover it.

@Preypacer, thank you for that eloquent counterargument. However, I disagree with your statement, "Please, let's not turn FFXIV into yet another MMO where everything has an xp/sp reward attached to it in order to get players interested. "

If it's one thing this game needs, it's more player interest. Many of the rewards in the game right now are not worth the time invested. If the terrain was more varied, sure more people might want to go check it out, but since it's not, SP seems a harmless enough carrot to promote exploration.

Your other concerns such as chocobos making it too easy are valid, but we're still not sure to what degree we'll be able too ride them. Maybe they won't want to travel to the higher rank camps. "You're chocobo will go no further." Something like that would be easy enough to implement.

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Personally I miss finding/buying maps and doing quests for them in 11 >.< Hope they put this in when expansion time rolls around :P Or even for current zone revamps!

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Originally Posted by quantumsaint

If any of you are familiar with the Bartle test, you know that most MMO players can be classified between four groups, Achievers, Killers, Socializers and Explorers. One the things I thought that would appeal to Explorers is if camps and nodes rewarded SP for discovering them.

Of course, right now anyone can teleport their friends to other locations so that they may tag the crystal/node so under the current system it wouldn't be viable. But if we were to eliminate that, so that you had to touch the crystal or node yourself before you can teleport there, it would be nice to receive a small SP bonus for discovering new areas.

The SP reward would scale according to the distance from cities and the difficulty of reaching the camp/node. So "You have arrived in Camp Brittle Bark" may earn you 100SP, but "You have arrived in Camp Crimson Bark" may award you 1000SP.

It wouldn't have to be a significant amount, just a little bonus for exploring every nook and cranny of the world. I think any extra way to accrue SP that would help alleviate the grind (which Yoshi-P says he wanted to move away from), would be welcomed by most.

Thoughts?

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It would definitely promote exploration of the game... but I can't see it happening in a SE game.

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Originally Posted by buritoslicer

It would definitely promote exploration of the game... but I can't see it happening in a SE game.

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Let's be accurate here. It promotes fetching for a carrot through doing the tasks the game wants you to do. It has nothing to do with exploring and all to do with the tasty carrot.

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Originally Posted by Betelgeuzah

Let's be accurate here. It promotes fetching for a carrot through doing the tasks the game wants you to do. It has nothing to do with exploring and all to do with the tasty carrot.

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I like your Carrot terminology! Sounds tasty! :D

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Originally Posted by Betelgeuzah

Let's be accurate here. It promotes fetching for a carrot through doing the tasks the game wants you to do. It has nothing to do with exploring and all to do with the tasty carrot.

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Isn't that kind of the point of video games? And isn't that what's lacking in the game and the reason most people quit? For months the only reason people had to level up was for its own sake. If this game needs anything, it's more carrots.

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Originally Posted by quantumsaint

Isn't that kind of the point of video games? And isn't that what's lacking in the game and the reason most people quit? For months the only reason people had to level up was for its own sake. If this game needs anything, it's more carrots.

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To offer artificial carrots to make people do these activities? No, that's not the point of video games.

If the joy of exploration isn't a carrot in itself forcing people to do it through artificial carrots is no better.

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Originally Posted by Betelgeuzah

To offer artificial carrots to make people do these activities? No, that's not the point of video games.

If the joy of exploration isn't a carrot in itself forcing people to do it through artificial carrots is no better.

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Seemed to work well for most devs this gen. Achievements and trophies keep people playing games long after they would have usually shelved them. I'm not saying SP at aetheryte would change any opinions on this game, but it might keep a player playing longer before running into the inevitable "needs more content" wall.