Legendary points are a great idea, but need adjusted.
in New Legacy
Legendary points are a great addition to a badluck ring prevention system. I was actually on my way out the door due to the loot being so rare when it was introduced. I found my vigor again knowing I could eventually earn my way to play with the cool additions and not get janked out. To say the least I have been enjoying UO NL a lot and found rewarding players with points to help them enjoy aspects of the game that could literally just never happen for them a fantastic idea.
I even think having a cap is fine for total points you can hold at any time is a good idea. It forces players to make choices and use their points and not just hoard them.
I think the points being limited is not a good system though. Usually a system works with filling up a set amount and spending it and working your way back up. With the Legendary point system there is no working your way back up. Once points are spent you are still capped. If I spend all 180 points today I may as well cancel my account for 2 or 3 months and wait for the point total to raise once more to a level where I can acquire stuff once again.
You are probably reading this and going... well stuff still drops, and absolutely you are right it does. However removing an incentive and be detrimental to perceived value of participating. When people don't need drops and can't get points the spawns become ghost towns and you are left with under developed players working on completing the task which can be incredibly frustrating for new players. Rewarding the enfranchised players to help with spawns is great with the Legendary points, but the most these people can do in a week is 20 currently which is 5-7 hours of play total depending on how those spawn times are treating you. The incentive goes away very quickly outside of the desirable spawns such as Manticore or Crimson for the finished players to engage with.
Yes, I know the other bosses are not crazy difficult, but it's on the principal that players helping players is great and getting a guaranteed point is great.
My rambling has gone on long enough and I will get to my point. Legendary points are great and allow for people to engage with the game continuously until they hit the wall. The wall should be a little softer and the cap should be on the total someone can carry and reset how many they can earn daily over reseting weekly with a small amount.
Cap players at 200 since that's the largest reward, but allow players to earn 10 points a day or whatever is deemed acceptable. Therefore you get people to log in and engage with content to get their 10 points each day (2-3 hours depending on spawns) and you allow for a continuous flow to happen instead of a hard wall, and once a person reaches 200 they hit the wall but can buy anything they want and start again. This still limits the big ticket items to 20 days required of play in a month and keeps people engaged daily. It's obviously more points than are currently available so even if people don't play every day they can still get more points on average than the current point allotment.
Overall I like Legendary Points and they have kept me playing, but being at the cap and knowing I can only earn 20 week and I can just cancel my account without any worries for a few months to let points accumulate again seems counter productive to keep players in the game.
I bring this up for 2 fold reasons. New Legacy is having an issue with population which could be from a various amount of issues, and I think having points daily will get more people engaged with the bosses who may be sitting on the sidelines.
If nothing changes with regarding to points. At minimum there needs to be reminder text in the game that you are hard gated with points and once you cap you are just done playing, or when going to buy on the vendor there is a warning Gump telling you that is the case as well.
Sorry for the long rant, but I like UO NL and would like to keep playing, but after I bought a dragon book because I didn't want to not be able to earn points and realized I couldn't earn points anyways I felt like I got punched in the gut because I couldn't earn what I was enjoying earning anymore. I knew I wasn't going to get natural drops, but I definitely feel like a fool for not at least waiting to see with the points instead of spending them and feeling like they are 100% wasted.
I even think having a cap is fine for total points you can hold at any time is a good idea. It forces players to make choices and use their points and not just hoard them.
I think the points being limited is not a good system though. Usually a system works with filling up a set amount and spending it and working your way back up. With the Legendary point system there is no working your way back up. Once points are spent you are still capped. If I spend all 180 points today I may as well cancel my account for 2 or 3 months and wait for the point total to raise once more to a level where I can acquire stuff once again.
You are probably reading this and going... well stuff still drops, and absolutely you are right it does. However removing an incentive and be detrimental to perceived value of participating. When people don't need drops and can't get points the spawns become ghost towns and you are left with under developed players working on completing the task which can be incredibly frustrating for new players. Rewarding the enfranchised players to help with spawns is great with the Legendary points, but the most these people can do in a week is 20 currently which is 5-7 hours of play total depending on how those spawn times are treating you. The incentive goes away very quickly outside of the desirable spawns such as Manticore or Crimson for the finished players to engage with.
Yes, I know the other bosses are not crazy difficult, but it's on the principal that players helping players is great and getting a guaranteed point is great.
My rambling has gone on long enough and I will get to my point. Legendary points are great and allow for people to engage with the game continuously until they hit the wall. The wall should be a little softer and the cap should be on the total someone can carry and reset how many they can earn daily over reseting weekly with a small amount.
Cap players at 200 since that's the largest reward, but allow players to earn 10 points a day or whatever is deemed acceptable. Therefore you get people to log in and engage with content to get their 10 points each day (2-3 hours depending on spawns) and you allow for a continuous flow to happen instead of a hard wall, and once a person reaches 200 they hit the wall but can buy anything they want and start again. This still limits the big ticket items to 20 days required of play in a month and keeps people engaged daily. It's obviously more points than are currently available so even if people don't play every day they can still get more points on average than the current point allotment.
Overall I like Legendary Points and they have kept me playing, but being at the cap and knowing I can only earn 20 week and I can just cancel my account without any worries for a few months to let points accumulate again seems counter productive to keep players in the game.
I bring this up for 2 fold reasons. New Legacy is having an issue with population which could be from a various amount of issues, and I think having points daily will get more people engaged with the bosses who may be sitting on the sidelines.
If nothing changes with regarding to points. At minimum there needs to be reminder text in the game that you are hard gated with points and once you cap you are just done playing, or when going to buy on the vendor there is a warning Gump telling you that is the case as well.
Sorry for the long rant, but I like UO NL and would like to keep playing, but after I bought a dragon book because I didn't want to not be able to earn points and realized I couldn't earn points anyways I felt like I got punched in the gut because I couldn't earn what I was enjoying earning anymore. I knew I wasn't going to get natural drops, but I definitely feel like a fool for not at least waiting to see with the points instead of spending them and feeling like they are 100% wasted.