7 hours ago, Riamus said:I'd say it's artificial because the game doesn't in any way make it real. It's arbitrary at the moment. If the game had real reputation that you can gain in order to do more quests, then that would feel right. The way it is now, the "reputation" is nothing more than tiers for quests. And you can't lose progress for any reason, so it's not what I'd consider reputation right now. It is similar, but so basic that it just doesn't feel like a limit even makes sense. And yes, I know that's simply a matter of perspective and some people (perhaps many) would still consider it reputation because you do X quests to unlock the next tier.
Many other games have no mechanism to loose reputation and still call it reputation or faction system. It is certainly a subjective call whether someone sees it as artificial or not.
And I get the impression that much of this also the fault of that wretched icon that sends a wrong message.
7 hours ago, Riamus said:What would make more sense is to not limit anything, but to make each tier require more quests than the previous tier. Something like 10, 15, 20, 25, 30. That's not points but "at level" quests. That removes the delay to getting a bike and makes it take the extended time to reach max tier, which is what some people feel is necessary. I'd still be fine with a 5 per day limit to keep MP from going crazy (still optional, of course).
See it that way: We have a game that has to balance between 1 to 8 players! In the case of questing a group of 1 (aka single player) will not reach that limit in most cases, while groups will hit that limit almost daily. My group of 4 at least does. And in previous alphas that was the biggest reason why my group was finished and bored by day 35~ while I still was fighting the first ferals in single-player. TFP has to limit the progression of larger groups somehow so they don't run through the content while the single player is going at a snails pace.
A lot of players have noticed this as well, a change to trader quest progression was a common topic here.
You are focusing too much on the bike when discussing this. With 2 hour days SP you have to change the limit anyway to keep the game balanced. But with normal days getting a bike on day 4 feels natural (IMHO). A limit of 5 would still limit larger groups, but not enough, they would be at the end of progression before even the second horde night.
[EDIT] Correction: I was forgetting that higher tier quests take more time, even for groups, and the other change, the bigger gaps between trader rep tiers. Since higher tier quests take more time to do eventually even groups will be slowed down, even when they try rushing it, reaching tier5 rep will usually take more than 2 weeks. It doesn't change the point I am making though
7 hours ago, Riamus said:And again, I don't really care that much. I don't go too crazy with quests. I'll do multiple low level quests in a row just because they take so little time, so why not? And I'll go for the bike as soon as possible for the reasons I've mentioned. But otherwise, I don't rush it. Once I have the resources to actually start doing something other than questing, my questing often drops to one or two a day. I just don't think a limit of 3 makes sense, especially if you can take 5 quests per day (ignoring that you can get more by exiting and loading the game again, which really shouldn't be possible). Basically, the trader says, "Here, I have 5 quests for you to do today. Do as many of them as you want and I'll pay your for each. But I'm going to ignore that you did 2 of them because I don't feel like giving you credit for the work." Does this sound at all realistic? Does it actually make sense? If you are going to make the default 3, then the number of quests offered should also be 3. Maybe even tie the number offered to the number of quests per day that are allowed, though that would get too long for 8 and wouldn't work at all for unlimited, so not really an option unless it's only done for under 5 and anything over 5 still only offers 5 quests.
Is a reload necessary to get new quests on a specific day? I actually don't know. In our group we are 4, that means we together have 20 quests to do before we might reach that limit at all. See, this is all about multiplayer. Groups need that limit and they need it desperately. As a single player you are almost not affected at all (on everthing default).
You seem to be really arguing that the default should fit your game with 2 hour days, and actually it doesn't. I am not surprised.
7 hours ago, Riamus said:was responding to you, but yes, I did mention Roland's comments as a way to also comment on that. I don't see a reason I can't comment on more than one person's post.
Sure, but maybe as a nice gesture to me, please add something like @ Roland to differentiate who you are replying to. It is irritating to me and if anyone is still reading our walls of text might be irritating to them as well.