I know why EP is account wide

TheLizardbones

I was designing an MMO in my head while in the shower earlier (you know you do it too, so don't laugh) and I wanted some way to try and even things out between casual players and constant players.  There would be some sort of experience that accumulated for as long as you kept your account open, just like Perpetuum.  That wouldn't be the only resource, but it would be one of them.  It would be account wide.

 

Then I asked myself, "Why?"  I thought about it, and it's because when you log into two different characters in games where the XP accumulates from doing stuff (quests and such), it doesn't accumulate on both characters at the same time.  It accumulates for the character you are playing.  In effect, XP accumulation is account wide.  It does vary by how much you play, but it's still account wide.

 

So that's it.  Accumulating EP for each character would be like earning XP on multiple toons simultaneiously.  There.  That's it.

Neoxx27

Congratulations of figuring out the simplest game design choice of Perpetuum.

TheLizardbones

I'm kind of amazed that there was a response to my post.  This particular subject has come up a few times in regards to PO, and I'm sure it has with Eve in the past 7 years.  Some people just seem to think there's something inherently wrong with how it accumulates.  Hence this post.  I honestly hadn't really wondered why PO & Eve accumulated their XP type resource the way they did until this morning.

StoogeMonkey

I don't get it...

How exactly does this design choice help bridge the gap between casual and hardcore?

Neoxx27

Casual = waits for more EP or doesnt have time to play as much and it gives them a sense of progress even in the absence of gratuitous amounts of play time 

Hardcore = doesnt wait for EP because he has more to do with corp that EP wont make a difference with.

 

It allows the casual players to feel like they're not being left behind just because they cant play as much.  It may take a corp thats generous enough to keep those players in the loop even if the hardcore players do more of the leg work, but it certainly allows the casuals to stay on the top of the game because they're not further behind in ability (equivalent to not being as high of a level in an MMO because you couldnt play as much as your guild).

TheLizardbones

Originally posted by Neoxx27

Casual = waits for more EP or doesnt have time to play as much and it gives them a sense of progress even in the absence of gratuitous amounts of play time 

Hardcore = doesnt wait for EP because he has more to do with corp that EP wont make a difference with.

 

It allows the casual players to feel like they're not being left behind just because they cant play as much.  It may take a corp thats generous enough to keep those players in the loop even if the hardcore players do more of the leg work, but it certainly allows the casuals to stay on the top of the game because they're not further behind in ability (equivalent to not being as high of a level in an MMO because you couldnt play as much as your guild).

The people who invest gratuitous amounts of time are rewarded with another resource to spend.  In the case of PO, it's NIC, which you spend on robots and upgrades to robots.  Your EP is used to optimize your robots and the types of robots you can drive (among other things).