Anyone else think the cap of 900 for tomes should be the future cap?

[Dzian]

Do this and you effectively guarantee people lose incentive significantly earlier. Why keep raiding for 6+ months when you can be bis within the first four weeks. Less if you're a better player.

For a few maybe but I don't think it'd be that many people. look at the primals if you so desired you could have every drop from an ex primal in the first day. yet you still see dozens of parties for them in the party finder months after there release..

also lockouts tend to kill incentives as well... for the most part once my tomes are capped or my expert is done and ive got any weekly loots. that's it i'm done. there's no incentive to do anything else...

People don't want to work for gear. They want it given to them for little effort.

I'm of the opinion that it isn't that people don't want to work for gear that's the problem.
it's more that people don't want to see there efforts wasted next month....

it's something that comes up a lot on the forums. especially with regards to things like savage. loads of players don't do it simply because the rewards for clearing it will be trash next month and thus any effort they did or would put in to getting it is ultimately wasted.

players did midas savage got 240 gears. second 3.4 dropped many of em crafted straight into 250 before even setting foot in creator savage. so what was the 240 good for really.. wasn't good for midas cos by time you got it you'd already beaten it. wasn't creator because a lot of it was replaced with 250 as soon as 3.4 landed...

I think it's easy to understand why players don't want to work for gear when it ultimately has no value at all. and that's why players will put in massively more effort into getting a piece for glamor than they will about getting a piece for upgrade.....

[Bourne_Endeavor]

For a few maybe but I don't think it'd be that many people. look at the primals if you so desired you could have every drop from an ex primal in the first day. yet you still see dozens of parties for them in the party finder months after there release..

also lockouts tend to kill incentives as well... for the most part once my tomes are capped or my expert is done and ive got any weekly loots. that's it i'm done. there's no incentive to do anything else....

And what keeps them there? Mounts. Take away the birds and ponies and every single EX Primal dies within a month or two. You cannot put mounts in everything otherwise people stop caring since it's no longer anything special.

What keeps you playing say, 2-3 months after the patch? Most people will have obtained all the gear they want, tried Savage if so inclined and have no use whatsoever for crafted, normal mode raids or the 24 mans. All three basically die as a means for gear progression.

players did midas savage got 240 gears. second 3.4 dropped many of em crafted straight into 250 before even setting foot in creator savage. so what was the 240 good for really.. wasn't good for midas cos by time you got it you'd already beaten it. wasn't creator because a lot of it was replaced with 250 as soon as 3.4 landed...

Welcome to why FFLogs is so popular. Although, I will say, it'd be nice allowing raiders to have a leg up on the next tier. Unfortunately, the casual crowd doesn't appreciate it. We now have two separate threads on tomestones and a number of people hate the idea of raiders getting any sort of advantage despite them having to put in a lot more work for their gear. The devs solution seems to be a third difficulty tier meant entirely for challenge. That... is admittedly pretty cool.

[Zojha]

You cannot put mounts in everything otherwise people stop caring since it's no longer anything special.

Mhm...
We have mounts in Savage, in EX primals and PotD (higher floors) already. We also have them in Beast Tribes. We sometimes even have them in the MSQ.
What even is missing? NM raids and dungeons?

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Mhm...
We have mounts in Savage, in EX primals and PotD (higher floors) already. We also have them in Beast Tribes. We sometimes even have them in the MSQ.
What even is missing? NM raids and dungeons?

No one does Savage on content for the mount. It's a secondary reward with a significantly higher drop rate (50% at release, iirc. 100% afterwards). The rest can either be bought or are guaranteed. They aren't intended as incentives. Are you really suggesting they make it so the only reason to continuously run stuff once you've bought the now unlimited Scripture gear... is mounts?

[Pintsized]

Are you really suggesting they make it so the only reason to continuously run stuff once you've bought the now unlimited Scripture gear... is mounts?

For some people, yes, not everyone is fixated on phat lewt as the be all and end all of MMOs.

I couldn't care a fig about gear's ilevel or anything else, gear is a gating mechanism for content access, nothing more .. and content gives REWARDS that people are interested in and lots of people are interested in mounts and other stuff.

[Zojha]

They aren't intended as incentives.

:|

EVERY reward is intended as incentive. There's no reason to reward something otherwise. But that's beside the point.

What I'm questioning is the mentality of:"If it's everywhere, it's no longer anything special and therefore not worth attaining." and that people would stop caring as a result. Mounts already ARE almost everywhere. They already "are" no longer anything special. By that logic, people should have stopped caring about them "already".

[Pintsized]

What I'm questioning is the mentality of:"If it's everywhere, it's no longer anything special and therefore not worth attaining."

ABSOLUTELY AGREE .. I d couldn't care a fig how many others have something that appeals to me, I'm not trying to be a special snowflake, I use galmours/mounts/titles that I find amusing or whatever and I really don't care if every other player in the game has them too.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

:|

EVERY reward is intended as incentive. There's no reason to reward something otherwise. But that's beside the point.

What I'm questioning is the mentality of:"If it's everywhere, it's no longer anything special and therefore not worth attaining." and that people would stop caring as a result. Mounts already ARE almost everywhere. They already "are" no longer anything special. By that logic, people should have stopped caring about them "already".

Uh, no, they aren't. Some rewards are essentially "you did a good job." When it's guaranteed, that won't incentivize people to do it. Hence why no one does Savage unless they're already raiding. The mount is nothing more than a "Hey, I got this thing". Gear is what they're after.

A lot already have. The one site that actually tracks mount collection shows it's not nearly as popular as people like to believe. Putting them in even more content won't make people do it anymore than they already do.

[Zojha]

Uh, no, they aren't.

Yes they are. That is precisely what rewards are - a tool to control behavior via incentives. What do you think a "Good Job!" is supposed to achieve? To reinforce the behavior you show and incentivize you to do it more often/keep at it. Incentives simply don't always work. Many firms give you a monetary incentive to work overtime or night shift, but people simply often prefer to chill at home and sleep at the times they're used to. Likewise, many people have so much money, they stopped caring about it and instead want prestige and promotion options - monetary incentives fall completely flat for those people. Similar goes for any other incentive - including mounts, gear and anything else.

Further, you are complete and utterly wrong in every way when you say that a guaranteed reward doesn't serve as incentive. As a matter of fact, a guaranteed reward will always have a higher incentive function than an identical reward tied to probability - People are more willing to do a given task for 100$ than a chance at attaining 100$. The chance at not obtaining the reward requires the reward to be set higher to achieve the same incentive as a guaranteed reward. How much higher depends on the risk sensitivity of the individual. Likewise, people do temporal discounting when judging rewards - an apple today is worth more to people than an apple in a year. Delayed rewards also have to be higher to be worth as much as immediate rewards. Individual preferences also play a role here - an apple might be worth more than a pear to one person and vice versa to another. That's one of the reasons rewards frequently fall flat.

It's a well studied field. Go educate yourself. It's far too expansive to put it in a forum post.

That said, I can only speak for myself, but I personally never cared for mounts as such in the first place - I only care for a select few mounts I like the look of. Likewise, I don't care for glamour as such - I care about specific pieces because I find them pretty. And I care naught for stats - They're solely a means to an end.
Any reward SE puts up will be judged by my personal preference filter and will fail to fulfill its purpose if it is not judged favorably. If it manages to suit my preferences, it will be subjected to scrutiny of temporal accounting and risk accounting. My behavior will only change if after those steps, the effort to reward ratio still seems "worth it" to me, in which case, the incentive succeeded. Otherwise, it fails.