Display real project remaining time

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psychowico
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Display real project remaining time

Postby psychowico » Fri Jan 27, 2012 2:21 pm

RedQueen.exe wrote:
Right now, the effects of skills are incredibly easy to ignore, not because they are not severe enough, but because those effects are mostly hidden from players and very easy for them to not think about. The only thing you see on the project initiation page is how long the project will take the average person, not how long it will take you relatively. The only way you will notice the effects is if you're paying attention, remember when you started a project, and then the next day remember when you started it and say "hey! I started this project 9 hours ago and it said it should take 8 and I'm not even near done yet!

Outside of that, the only way people know what the effects of the skill system are is if they read the wiki and all of the updates. I bet some novice players may think the times are more or less randomized. Even once you understand what effects they have, you're not going to remember the unique skill set combinations across 5-15 characters. You would have to check your character page every time you consider starting a certain type of project.

It is cognitively taxing to be checking and thinking about that all the time, so people are likely to simply ignore it instead. Until the effects of skills are made more obvious, giving them more equally non-obvious effects are probably not going to change the way that people act.


So, maybe it would be good idea to showing player how long they will work at project in real (including character skill, tired lvl, health) ?
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RedQueen.exe
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Re: Display real project remaining time

Postby RedQueen.exe » Fri Jan 27, 2012 3:09 pm

Yes, I think so. :)

Are you suggesting this replace the current percentages? I like that idea. Perhaps a remaining over total hours might be handy. So if at your skill level and tiredness, a project will take you 12 hours, and you've put in 7, it would show ( 7/12 hours ) instead of a %? Or would it be better to show the remaining? ( 5/12 h remaining)?

My guess would be that remaining would be more useful. That's the information that most people want. Maybe show the remaining hours alone, since the total might change as the person gets more or less tired and damaged anyway, and that might be a little confusing.

It should definitely be on the project initiation and project status pages though.
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Re: Display real project remaining time

Postby RedQueen.exe » Fri Jan 27, 2012 3:20 pm

Maybe something like this? :

Code: Select all

This project takes the average person:      8 hours
Your skill level lets you work:             5% quicker
Your tiredness of 30% lets you work:        30% slower
Your damage of 0% lets you work:            No effect
This project will take YOU:                 10 hours (9.9)
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psychowico
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Re: Display real project remaining time

Postby psychowico » Fri Jan 27, 2012 3:33 pm

Your skill level lets you work: 5% quicker
Your tiredness of 30% lets you work: 30% slower
Your damage of 0% lets you work: No effect


I think this is too detailed information, I don't sure that we want give user this information, who know, maybe they can be used to make some mechanic tricks or something..
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Re: Display real project remaining time

Postby the_antisocial_hermit » Fri Jan 27, 2012 3:51 pm

I think I'd rather see how much I've gotten done, rather than how much I have left. It's not that much of a leap to figure out how much you have left, and seeing what you have done is more satisfying.

And I agree, I think knowing exactly how much things slow you down or help you is too much information.
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Re: Display real project remaining time

Postby RedQueen.exe » Fri Jan 27, 2012 4:24 pm

True, that is more information than needed.
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Re: Display real project remaining time

Postby the_antisocial_hermit » Fri Jan 27, 2012 4:41 pm

It could say something like:

Code: Select all

This project takes the average person: 8 hours
Factoring in your skill, tiredness and damage, this project will take you: 10 hours (9.9)
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Re: Display real project remaining time

Postby Greek » Fri Jan 27, 2012 6:51 pm

I'm against adding more and more numbers, so detailed information from my point of view is unacceptable.

Time being shown as hours remaining sounds quite nice, but it could be quite confusing. What if somebody else joins the project? Remaining hours will be recalculated? I.e. We will see 4 remaining hours instead of 8? And if he joins just for one minute we see for this one minute that we WOULD succeed in 4 hours if somebody will help us. But that person's one minute help didn't help to achieve any progess so how character got information how long would it take?

It should be discussed but that idea in that shape it's bad idea for me.
I'm also against strict information about skill level factor. If somebody wants to know it he will see it when working on a project.
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Re: Display real project remaining time

Postby psychowico » Fri Jan 27, 2012 8:12 pm

Time being shown as hours remaining sounds quite nice, but it could be quite confusing. What if somebody else joins the project? Remaining hours will be recalculated? I.e. We will see 4 remaining hours instead of 8? And if he joins just for one minute we see for this one minute that we WOULD succeed in 4 hours if somebody will help us. But that person's one minute help didn't help to achieve any progess so how character got information how long would it take?


Do not overdo it, GreeK, with similar argument you can attack many information, for sample actual project time info. In life when I want make something I know less or more how long it take me and know my own skill.

Factoring in your skill, tiredness and damage, this project will take you:


From this sentense I clearly know that this is information how long I need work at it myself.
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RedQueen.exe
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Re: Display real project remaining time

Postby RedQueen.exe » Fri Jan 27, 2012 9:17 pm

Well here's the thing, skill impacts are effectively a way at trying to effect the economy through power-gaming, but then we are trying to discourage power-gaming at the same time by trying to hide and obscure the effect skills have - and then we wonder why nobody pays attention to it and it hasn't changed the cantr economy!

If we expect people to change their behavior based on certain impacts, then those impacts have to be visible. Otherwise, people will just ignore them and we may as well not even have them.
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Re: Display real project remaining time

Postby Yang » Fri Jan 27, 2012 10:15 pm

Giving such information will be way to much. But giving info that this is time for one average skilled person.
When starting project it could give information how much average person and YOU need to do it and information that speed of your work depends on your skills, tiredness and health.
There also could be added information, how much time you would need to finish project at current at present, not how much time left you to do, especially with help of others that are currently working with you.
With this information people would see that they are below average and with information that speed depend on their skills, tiredness and health they would know why.
When i started a game i meet 40-50 year old character that was working on 90% tiredness and he was saying that it only slow a little bit. It took me some time to prove he is wrong, but how many players wont check it and dont thing unless they see numbers?
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Re: Display real project remaining time

Postby RedQueen.exe » Sat Jan 28, 2012 1:42 am

Just don't expect people to change their behavior based on a mechanic if you don't make the effect of that mechanic apparent to them.

I can understand the argument that it is information overload. I'm not positive I agree with it, but it is a coherent argument. I do NOT however, understand the argument of not presenting it because we think players shouldn't have that information, because they can have it already. Start a project at perfect health and 0% tired and see how far you get in an hour. That tells you how your skill effects it. You can then figure out exactly how big to size your projects so as not to waste time by over-working on the final tick. Making the information available, but difficult to get, only rewards players that spend more time crunching and tracking numbers.
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Doug R.
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Re: Display real project remaining time

Postby Doug R. » Sat Jan 28, 2012 2:07 am

RedQueen.exe wrote: Making the information available, but difficult to get, only rewards players that spend more time crunching and tracking numbers.


Agreed.
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psychowico
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Re: Display real project remaining time

Postby psychowico » Sat Jan 28, 2012 7:12 am

Making the information available, but difficult to get, only rewards players that spend more time crunching and tracking numbers.

So, we have this situation today, maybe you right. But I still not sure that this info is necessary in-game. Maybe info about this relation on Wiki would be enough?

BTW Following this path we should public almost any info about game mechanic, because most of "hiding" things are possible to "guess" by experimental method.
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Re: Display real project remaining time

Postby Henkie » Tue Feb 14, 2012 10:10 am

*bump*

Perhaps something more like this:

You have finished project 'digigng for gas', 548 grams ending up in the inventory of character X. You have worked 2 days and 2 hours on it.

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