Timegated collections & achievements

[Lascax.2163]

Timegated collections are not new to players, but I want to ask what is the purpose of that.

The most prominent reason I can see is making people playing the map for at least a week before moving forward, however I see several problems with that:

- most items can be collected beforehand and one can just login, deliver the item and mind other stuff

- like most timegated content, it is not well received by some players in general and it's seen as not engaging and not a valid reason to actually play everyday

- tying the daily item to collect to an event would only cause people to focus on just that event/heart and then stopping to care

- due to a bug, some people were able to obtain the newest golem backpack faster than others, so it can fail its purpose

 

 

What I want to know is: why do we have timegated collections? I really enjoyed the 3rd collection of this particular backpack and the bag collection because it gave me purpose to play the map and revisit PoF content in a wider scope at my own pace, and I think other players can share my PoV.

Timegating collections is not a reason to play the map more than it is the actual good content of the map or some other achievements ( the Specimen achievements actually made me care about replaying it and I can see myself doing it with others needing that achievement or just for the fun of it ).

Are we seeing timegated collections in the future like this on every episode or are you considering avoiding timegating at all?

 

[Matthew Pennebaker.7921]

There are a few very valid reason for why we use time gating in rewards, and I'm happy to go through some of them now. In the past we've tried a few different reasons and methods. When done correctly it isn't jarring, when done poorly, it is the thing you focus on. In the past I feel like we've seen some of both.

Now, as for why we do it:

The first, and absolute best reason, is for immersion. When doing a thing that you expect to take time, it should take time. This is where the mechanic is least noticeable. A great example of this would be planting a seed and waiting for it to grow. If we asked you to grow an apple, you planted a seed, and it immediately grew into a fruiting a tree, that would be far more jarring, and less expected, then if you planted the seed, a few days passed, and then you could claim your apple. (I hope all you home gardeners and farmers can appreciate the "realism" of a few days)

The second reason, and this one can be a little trickier, and sometimes harder to swallow for the players, is for balance. And by that I mean balancing a system for players that engage the game in different ways. If we balance a reward completely around "hours played" (this is often done through the use of map currencies) it makes the reward feel out of reach for players who can't play the game as much. And don't get me wrong, we want to reward our players for the time they put in to the game, but we also want to avoid alienating this other large group of players. When we do this we like to also mix in lesser amounts of the "hours played" requirements. This way all types of players can get at the reward, and the ones who devote more time to the game can get through the individual gates faster, but we don't have to require all players to commit to that style of play. This is what you see in the backpack collection.

As we go forward we'll still see time gated content where appropriate, and will keep striving to do it in a way that feels expected and natural. To quote one of my favorite Futurama episodes, "When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all."

[Lascax.2163]

Thank you for explanation. I can see why there is such design choice; this is the kind of insight I want to know about the game design.

Then I hope to see much more stuff like the Draconis Mons backpack, since I really liked how that collection provided a lot of context about the region while making you journey the progress day by day. Honestly I'm not a fan of stuff like "deliver an apple per day", but even the most recent golem collection is something that actually has some feeling of progress into it. Maybe the timegate there should've been placed on the recording types so we could feel like he's processing that specific notion day per day rather than the Modules.

Anyway, thanks for the detailed reply: it is much appreciated.

[Ayrilana.1396]

> @"Lascax.2163" said:

> Thank you for explanation. I can see why there is such design choice; this is the kind of insight I want to know about the game design.

> Then I hope to see much more stuff like the Draconis Mons backpack, since I really liked how that collection provided a lot of context about the region while making you journey the progress day by day. Honestly I'm not a fan of stuff like "deliver an apple per day", but even the most recent golem collection is something that actually has some feeling of progress into it. Maybe the timegate there should've been placed on the recording types so we could feel like he's processing that specific notion day per day rather than the Modules.

> Anyway, thanks for the detailed reply: it is much appreciated.

 

The time-gates in the second collection make sense as updates do take time.

 

Never mind that an antique golem was able to do tens of thousands of updates in a matter of minutes for the Rata Novus event meta but a newer golem takes much longer to do just a single update.

[warherox.7943]

I wish that time gated achievements would be fixed so they weren't time gated. I think the players should have the choice of doing it all in one day if they want to, instead of having to wait for several days or a couple weeks like the Druid backpiece. Some of the achievements are already gated by having to wait for certain events to spawn.

[Ayrilana.1396]

Also, wasn’t the timegate for the LS3 Episode 5 primary due to the vendor not offering the druidstone fragments after the initial purchase for that day and not because of waiting for the seeds to grow?

[Lascax.2163]

> @"Ayrilana.1396" said:

> Also, wasn’t the timegate for the LS3 Episode 5 primary due to the vendor not offering the druidstone fragments after the initial purchase for that day and not because of waiting for the seeds to grow?

 

Yeah, but at least you got a piece of story everyday when you delivered those items, iirc.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

@"Gaile Gray.6029"

Is there some reason why @"Matthew Pennebaker.7921" isn't getting tagged as an active ANet employee?