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I should probably add to this, but the goal of the milestone system was to make people play more, and that's not what it accomplished, but rather the opposite. People never played more for the boosts, they just played less so it was easier to get, and whenever it was close, people just went into normal difficulty to spam kills, which was somewhat against the spirit of the milestone system (and as Ryan said, once double EXP was hit, everyone then got on and double EXP stayed for at least 2 weeks due to the increased activity).
I mean it makes sense, why play during normal times when you can focus on something else and play at another time when it's more worth it?
It was a great idea in theory, but I think the implementation and frequency of the boosts ended up doing more harm than good.
Of course, just taking away boosts doesn't do any favours because people aren't just going to turn around and say "oh, I guess there's no more boosts, guess I will play now", so we'll be replacing the system now with something else that encourages people to actually get on when they feel like it, instead of waiting for a "better time" to play.
Another thing is, Ephinea is supposed to be a non-boosted server that replicates the feel of the official game, and the constant boosts every month took away from that. While boosts are fine, the double EXP boost is so significant that many players felt it just wasn't worth playing otherwise when you could wait for double EXP to come on (along with everything else).
This is also why the EXP Curve discussion is happening. People loved 2x EXP especially for starting out, as it cut out the tedious N-VH grind to get into Ultimate with the rest of the playerbase, and made levelling up alternate characters less of a chore, and since the majority of players obviously don't care about N-VH, we figured why not implement a solution to make that grind less of a chore while getting rid of the issues with the milestone reward system.
Speaking of the replacement, right now we're considering the following (note that this is not set in stone):
What we're thinking is that each week there will be a minor boost with no strings attached (no need to "earn" it, not that the milestone rewards were ever actually "earned", they just happened), so something is always happening and each week has a small purpose to it, but none of the rewards are large enough that's it "not worth playing until the next boost".
Week 1: Drop Anything Rate +25%
Week 2: Rare Enemy +50%
Week 3: Rare Drop Rate +25%
Week 4: EXP +25%
And repeat.
During events of course, this system may be disabled, stacked or continue on as normal, and bigger boosts may be applied. This will only be during the big events though (Christmas, Easter, Anniversary), the three minor events (Halloween, Valentine's and Summer) will just have the rotation go through as normal.
We don't have anything against surges and are well aware people will flood online when something is happening, but ultimately the milestone system ended up discouraging players from playing normally, as doing so would just make it so the boosts were less frequent.
The new proposed system isn't even random.
The system we're working on has no random elements to it. There are four boosts lined up that go in order (numbers aren't finalized, but they're likely to be accurate):
+25% DAR
+50% rare enemy appearance
+25% RDR
+25% EXP
These boosts cannot be extended nor overlap with each other, one simply ends and the next one begins. There are no kill counters or anything - it's automatic and everyone can benefit from it in any way they wish.
After EXP boost, it loops back around to DAR and repeats. This way each week has a sort of purpose to it, and due to the predictable rotating nature, you can plan out any long-term plans you may have - like if you're hunting Psycho Wand, you could do Oran for DAR week, then move to Purplenum if you want for rare enemy appearance rate week.
We've considered putting the kill level restrictions up similar to the event restrictions, but it doesn't solve the basic problem of people relaxing for two weeks and then rushing for a relatively easy two weeks of doubled EXP.
Another thing we've considered is having it just be on static kill amounts, but that would need to be adjusted based on active population and kill rates - if the population increased enough, we'd have to increase the kills required, and people would absolutely hate seeing things be "nerfed" like that.
If you have any other suggestions, you're free to lay them on us. I thought that the details of the new system were already mentioned somewhere in public during discussions, but they could have just been missed.
make people play more
Exp boost seems a not a whole lot though, but personally could not care less.
We'll look into it. I agree that 25% is a bit weak after looking over the numbers again.Yea I agree on the exp rate boost seems kind of low when compared to the other boost. I'd suggest maybe 50% EXP would be more fitting and wouldn't be to insane while also making people looking forward to that week.
The system we're working on has no random elements to it. There are four boosts lined up that go in order (numbers aren't finalized, but they're likely to be accurate):
+25% DAR
+50% rare enemy appearance
+25% RDR
+25% EXP
These boosts cannot be extended nor overlap with each other, one simply ends and the next one begins. There are no kill counters or anything - it's automatic and everyone can benefit from it in any way they wish.