Avoiding Burnout

Two of Clubs

A handful of my alliance members are pretty close to burning out, and I have to admit I'm feeling it a bit too. These are regularly paying customers; VIP + occasional additional purchases. The "lull" from gauntlet did surprisingly little to alleviate the feeling. This got me thinking:

What would it be like if two different PVE events ran concurrently, but the duration of each was doubled (24hr subs become 48, 48 hour subs become 96)? Let's call them pveA and pveB.

Very competitive players could play both and there would be no change in pace or rewards. However, players looking to slow down for a little while to avoid burnout, or who have unexpected events come up in their daily lives, or who just want to play at a more relaxed pace can still have the opportunity to place well in pve events (By focusing on just one of the two).

New types of alliances would spring up; For example T100/AB for alliances that place top 100 in both events, or T100/A for an alliance that places top 100 but only in half of the events.

Any potential unintended consequences I'm not thinking of? I'm sure a solution could be hammered out.

Edit: Just thought of one. Doing the initial 4 clears for both events on the same day would be too much, but easily solved by a slight staggering. PveA would start on an even numbered day, pveB would start on an odd numbered day.

Crnch73

I do think they need to do something to help avoid burnout. When people are crispy, they just quit or merely play DDQ only. I do think this idea is interesting, especially to give some people more to do, but I think the dev's would be unhappy that some people would play both super hard, and therefore get double rewards. Meanwhile, lower level people who aren't burned out would not be able to do the same nearly as well, so the chasm between the haves and the have-nots would only grow.

Two of Clubs

Competitive players already play every event super hard, so I'm not seeing what would be different there. Twice the rewards in twice the amount of time comes out to exactly the same rewards as now.

Less competitive players would get a boost because they would have twice as long to focus on just one of the events.

Maybe you overlooked the point that the duration of all pve events would be doubled?

Dormammu

There is no avoiding burnout. Do anything, whatever it is, every day and tedium will set in. I love pizza, but if I had it every day for dinner eventually every bite would start feeling like a chore. Every player's activity will ebb and flow. Ask any commander of a competitive alliance and they will tell you the same thing: juggling active players in and out is like a full time job.

Two of Clubs

That's an awfully defeatist attitude. If we can recognize a common problem, we should discuss potential solutions and attempt to alleviate it.

Sure, we'll all get bored of a game and stop playing eventually, but I'm sure d3 would rather continue making money off us for as long as possible.

Dormammu

Two of Clubs wrote:

That's an awfully defeatist attitude.

Not really, it's just matter-of-fact. Skyrim is my favorite video game of all time, but I certainly don't want to play it every day of my life for three years straight. I go in spurts, just like with MPQ. Some days I don't feel like grinding out an event. Some days I do. That's not a negative against the game or an indication they need to do something different to maintain my interest. My interest will return, I just need a break.

Rika

I'm still fairly new to the game (150 days in) but am nonetheless shocked to read some players are reporting burnout.

For a, what I thought, "casual" game that offers nothing but digital rewards (that might be gone in an instance if devs decide to close down)?

On the other hand, scientifically, burnout is defined as a mismatch between effort and reward. It does not seem to matter what or how huge/lousy one of these is, as long as you personally perceive a mismatch you might be in for a burnout, apparently even in a game.

If there is a significant portion of players who experience this, then I think the devs should really do something about the (random) reward system. The combination of random board/ game outcome and random rewards might be a bit too much regarding this mismatch.

Finally, my personal recommendation would be to try to play more casual or even stop for some time, as some of the other posters suggested. Maybe explore different activities that are more rewarding or provide a more 'real world' reward for you (could be e.g. helping others, doing paid overtime at work if you seek material rewards, run a marathon etc.). Or, as everyone seems to be constantly busy all the time these days, just do 'nothing' or medidate.

DaveR4470

I think your idea would actually increase burnout. The problem is that you need to do everything -- grind PvE, max your PvP placement as best you can, do DDQ every day -- just to keep up with the Joneses in the game. You can't let up off the gas, or you'll fall irretrievably behind. Especially if you're in a t100 alliance - slack, and you're gone, and if you're out of a t100 alliance, you are never going to top the leaderboards ever, except in unusual circumstances.

Having two 48-hour subs that now need to be max-min'd in order to keep up the points needed for personal/alliance placement would be an insane amount of playtime. I just don't see how it's an improvement.

I appreciate your thinking outside the box, though.

Crnch73

A lot of this game is cyclical. And I don't mean that they just keep running the same events. What I mean is, lots of the game goes like this:

- if you have a great roster, you can earn better rewards
- those rewards are just more of the same items that made you have a great roster

so basically, you need a great roster to have a great roster. Otherwise, you just need to rely on luck to enter you into the circular path. Like you need somewhat high 4* characters to beat the Crash of the Titans. And what do you win? Basically, a 4* character. So the people who win it are the ones who need it least, etc.

That's the only true reward for having a good roster, since scaling takes a lot of the advantage away. At some point, having a better roster should mean something, and it shouldn't be so hard to make progress in any tier. RNG and luck-based rewards are in lots of games, but I don't remember many games that were dependent on that a sole mechanism for progress.