I think this is a little unfair, given that we’ve just done a release that rebalances the XP and progression based on player feedback. The rebalance was specifically in response to numerous comments, posts, reviews and our own experience of the pacing of the game. We don’t want a “grind”, and never intended it to be a “grind”, so when the game is described that way we want to fix it. XP and progression will get another pass, but not until we have true metrics to evaluate possible changes against.
Additionally, when I was reviewing the rebalance there were a few specific points we discussed:
-
How many players are using all their plots (also normalising for players with working(?wtf) perks). This was a valid query, given that if the majority of players had deployed all their plots then it would suggest that actually players were starving for more. But this wasn’t the case.
-
When we discussed the # of plots rewarded up to Level 50 as a reduction I was extremely mindful of taking something away from our players. Now it might be the right thing to do - but we would need to explain this super well to keep everyone on side and going in the same direction. But this query became a little moot when we calculated that, ignoring the absolute amounts, that the rate of plots earn was actually increasing. So we weren’t taking anything away, we were actually accelerating the rate at which players earned plots.
-
Plots can be earned indefinitely.
Fixating on the # of plots earned per level, or by Level 50, doesn’t take into account the changes in the XP required to achieve these levels and the rate at which XP can be earned.
The claim is that Release 180 increased the # of plots all players receive.
(Discourse has just told me that “I’ve already replied 3 times to @Xaldafax in this particular topic, … and have I considered replying to other people?”)
Finally, I’m wondering if there is room for a builder skill that increases the number of plots by a fixed percentage: Increase total plots by 5%, Increase total plots by 10%, etc. Other professions have skills that increase drop rates, mine faster, shot harder, etc, maybe there is room for an increased landowner skill.