116670-rewards-for-helping-new-players

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Yeah, I know FFXIV:ARR gets put down sometimes for being slow and plodding, but they do a lot of things right. Especially the extra loot for helping new players. A few addiitonal notes on Maytree's points: 1.  Personally, I think giving extra rewards for pugging as opposed to premade kind of punishes people for running in a premade, so I'm against it on that principle in Wildstar. However, I've enumerated a (at this point vague) system whereby individual players are rewarded for being reliable in pugs over extended periods of time which mean individuals get rewarded for sticking with pugs. That might work. 2.  Is just a fantastically good idea all around, but why stop there? Why not give additional rewards in any form for the first run, each week, of every single adventure and dungeon in both veteran and normal modes? That might help quite a bit with circulating in veterans to at least run some normals and give them a reason to finish them, especially if the system I mentioned in point 1 is instituted. 3.  This didn't always work that well in practice. The idea was solid, but it did intrinsically favor tanks and healers over DPS who might have been more helpful and likeable. The idea of awarding helpful players is good, though. I think what might be helpful is that you can earn something similar to a commendation if, for example, you're the healer, but your pug is taking heavier than normal damage (newbie DPS) or if you're the tank but your taking a lower amount of healing or the DPS are doing less. You could rack up something for that. Or, even better, if you pug and you have a much higher progression level than the rest of the party, the loot compensates you somehow a bit more for sticking around and obviously pulling more than your fair share of weight to teach. I think the crux of this is finding something players might want that could bring even established raiders back to help out in normal dungeons in pugs. Most definitely, though, what has to happen is a change in the way pugs are viewed. PUGs full of well-trained players complete things. PUGs where people take the time to teach the fights complete things. I think, in the end, what hurts pugs the most is the convenience of them coupled with the lack of punishment when people do pitch a fit or quit. Essentially, someone in a pug who wants gold but has a new player has everything to gain by leaving (he won't have to pay his repair bill) and nothing to lose (his deserter buff won't last longer than running the dungeon). That's why I proposed a sliding scale that starts in the middle and can go positive or negative. Positive pug work and reliability increases benefits and rewards. Negative pug work and constant bugging out should impact players accordingly. That should sort things out to a degree.


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Gear scales down, but you still have extra amps/tiers/ability slots. If you didn't scale down at all, tanks would have no hope in hell of holding aggro, whereas my alt tank can just barely hold off a geared 50.


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Not skill positions, responsibility positions. At least, IMO. Between tanking and DPS, I've found that DPS requires more skill, but tanking is more stressful because there's more responsibility. I've sat in some long dungeon queues as a tank, but generally during prime time I get queues.


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Nah, it's not sad, it's psych. Back in 1973 Darley and Batson showed (in the classic "Good Samaritan" experiment -- Google it if you want details) that putting people under time pressure drastically increased the likelihood that otherwise helpful people would ignore a stranger in medical distress. Think about the pace of modern life. Think about the time pressure most people play MMOs under. It's not that people (or MMO players) aren't willing to be helpful, it's that the presence of time pressure kills that impulse. Offering rewards is the way to counteract that natural tendency to ignore others when you are in a hurry.


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