06-30-2004, 02:41 PM
No, Rest State is simply about giving a casual gamer a better sense that their time in the game is productive.
I wonder though, how much more productive will that time actually be? Given the current implementation, if we assume the game is balanced for 150% and casual gamers are always at 200%, that's a 33% gain in experience from mobs. For every 3 kills, you get one free. But, it doesn't apply to the quest experience. I really don't know what portion of experience you'd typically get from quest rewards, but it is certainly a significant amount. Let's say about a third of your experience comes from quests, then that 33% gain is actually more like 20% of your total experience.
By the time you translate that to levels, which slow down as you get more of them, it won't amount to much. In the time he would previously need to hit level 20, he might be around 22 (maybe only 21). Of course, after months of playing at "200%", he may very well be convinced that without the rest state he would only be level 10 or 11! So yes, I suspect that the rest state will be quite popular with casual gamers, but I don't think that it will actually make the game any more fun for them.
The numbers are subject to change, of course, but I wouldn't count on Blizzard making the system much stronger. They would have to deal with that "vocal minority" that feel like they are getting penalized for playing the game. Plus, if they made the system powerful enough to be meaningful, it would really screw up game balance.
I wonder though, how much more productive will that time actually be? Given the current implementation, if we assume the game is balanced for 150% and casual gamers are always at 200%, that's a 33% gain in experience from mobs. For every 3 kills, you get one free. But, it doesn't apply to the quest experience. I really don't know what portion of experience you'd typically get from quest rewards, but it is certainly a significant amount. Let's say about a third of your experience comes from quests, then that 33% gain is actually more like 20% of your total experience.
By the time you translate that to levels, which slow down as you get more of them, it won't amount to much. In the time he would previously need to hit level 20, he might be around 22 (maybe only 21). Of course, after months of playing at "200%", he may very well be convinced that without the rest state he would only be level 10 or 11! So yes, I suspect that the rest state will be quite popular with casual gamers, but I don't think that it will actually make the game any more fun for them.
The numbers are subject to change, of course, but I wouldn't count on Blizzard making the system much stronger. They would have to deal with that "vocal minority" that feel like they are getting penalized for playing the game. Plus, if they made the system powerful enough to be meaningful, it would really screw up game balance.