Analysis of Labor Regen & Labor Cap

[Garbaka]

The labor system in ArcheAge plays a crucial role in the game's progression mechanics. As you all know, labor points are used to advance characters proficiencies as well as reap an economic benefit for the labor used (Often in the form of gold or materials needed to craft items).

However, in 2023, many of us are much older now, with kids and jobs and we find ourselves with limited time. Simply put, we can't log in everyday due to real world responsibilities. As a result, it becomes increasingly important to consider adjusting the labor cap to accommodate the needs of modern players. By raising the labor cap, players who cannot log in as frequently will have the opportunity to accumulate more points before reaching the cap, ensuring they do not fall as far behind in terms of progression. This adjustment would promote a more inclusive gaming experience, allowing players to enjoy ArcheAge and its labor system without feeling pressured by time constraints.

I've put together a graph of Labor Regen & Labor Caps to show how long it'd take to fill labor. The current plan (10,000 Cap, 40 Regen = 21 Hours) is significantly more hardcore than even retail was (42 Hours).

I believe the ideal sweet spot should be around 72 Hours (3 days), meaning if we have 40 regen, the cap should be 35,000 or 40,000. If we have 30 regen, the cap should be at least 30,000. If we have 20 regen, the cap should be at least 20,000, etc, etc.

 

[Furyan]

The labor system in ArcheAge plays a crucial role in the game's progression mechanics. As you all know, labor points are used to advance characters proficiencies as well as reap an economic benefit for the labor used (Often in the form of gold or materials needed to craft items).

However, in 2023, many of us are much older now, with kids and jobs and we find ourselves with limited time. Simply put, we can't log in everyday due to real world responsibilities. As a result, it becomes increasingly important to consider adjusting the labor cap to accommodate the needs of modern players. By raising the labor cap, players who cannot log in as frequently will have the opportunity to accumulate more points before reaching the cap, ensuring they do not fall as far behind in terms of progression. This adjustment would promote a more inclusive gaming experience, allowing players to enjoy ArcheAge and its labor system without feeling pressured by time constraints.

I've put together a graph of Labor Regen & Labor Caps to show how long it'd take to fill labor. The current plan (10,000 Cap, 40 Regen = 21 Hours) is significantly more hardcore than even retail was (42 Hours).

I believe the ideal sweet spot should be around 72 Hours (3 days), meaning if we have 40 regen, the cap should be 35,000 or 40,000. If we have 30 regen, the cap should be at least 30,000. If we have 20 regen, the cap should be at least 20,000, etc, etc.

As is being discussed elsewhere, this introduces a second issue.

With a much larger cap, when we do manage to log in and play the game and have 10k, 20k, or 30k labor, we won’t be on long enough to burn it all.

So it’s being suggested elsewhere that activities that are more time consuming should cost more labor and reward more gold/mats.

I don’t know about you, but I couldn’t IMAGINE getting to play for 2 hours on a Wednesday cause my gf is working late and having to figure out how to spend 10k+ labor in 2 hours lol.

We’d still have to log in routinely to burn labor or else we would be capped eventually from generating more than were burning.

 

[Blondie]

I've been crunching some numbers as well (you did it much better than me ).

As far as I know, AA Classic is going to have a 10,000 labor cap and 40 labor regen every 5 minutes.

That means we'll be earning 480 labor every hour. So yes, it will take approx 21 hours to fill up our labor.

At first, I was worried about this, I thought it would mean infinite resources flooding the market, but I'm starting to think it might be ok. As others have pointed out, I'm stuck in the past, thinking of the days when everybody and his grandmother had 20 Alt accounts.

I forgot to factor in the 1 account per player rule. If the team behind AA Classic can really enforce that rule, then I think these labor rates might be ok.

For me personally, I'm not going to try spending ALL of my labor every day. That will just turn me into a slave. I won't have time to do anything else. Not fun! So I'm just gonna play the game. This version of AA has so much more to do, than just worrying about spending all my labor.

Does that mean people with more time will get ahead of me, of course it does! But to be honest, hardcore players have always gotten ahead of me, be it gold generating or gearing. It's useless and unhealthy to try to keep up with them. So this time, I'm just gonna play a game, not make it my life's work

 

[Narsil]

At the set 10k and 40LB5 what's the point? its not classic and its enough to not matter,just eliminate labor. Most things have timers, and with the current labor amount you're no capping crafting. It all around makes zero sense. Either have low like classic or don't have it at all. Wanna slow people down put timers on everything.

 

[Blondie]

At the set 10k and 40LB5 what's the point? its not classic and its enough to not matter,just eliminate labor. Most things have timers, and with the current labor amount you're no capping crafting. It all around makes zero sense. Either have low like classic or don't have it at all. Wanna slow people down put timers on everything.

I think ArcheRage tried to remove labor altogether, but they couldn't do it. I think it's hardcoded or something, so it's impossible to remove it. The best they could do was increase the cap and regen rate like AA Classic is doing.

 

[LexyKey]

At the set 10k and 40LB5 what's the point? its not classic and its enough to not matter,just eliminate labor. Most things have timers, and with the current labor amount you're no capping crafting. It all around makes zero sense. Either have low like classic or don't have it at all. Wanna slow people down put timers on everything.

Yeap, if there will be no alts, what is the point of keeping labor system? The economy won't suffer. The most stupid thing about ArcheAge is labor system. If you could remove it, that would be great. Also... I was thinking on a better solution. Maybe make it like no labor needed to upgrade and craft gear (also make gear bound to player who crafts it and remove proficiency system for crafting gear) and keep labor consumption on the other activities like crafting all the other items and opening purses and crates.

 

[Blondie]

Yeap, if there will be no alts, what is the point of keeping labor system? The economy won't suffer. The most stupid thing about ArcheAge is labor system. If you could remove it, that would be great. Also... I was thinking on a better solution. Maybe make it like no labor needed to upgrade and craft gear (also make gear bound to player who crafts it and remove proficiency system for crafting gear) and keep labor consumption on the other activities like crafting all the other items and opening purses and crates.

Sorry LexyKey, I have to disagree with making crafted gear bound or changing the proficiency required to craft it. That's pretty much what official AA did with Hiram gear and it killed the crafting market dead in the water. This was a huge kick in the guts for dedicated crafters who made a living by crafting gear. All of their time and effort was now useless.

This is why I'm so hyped for AA Classic. Maybe PvE players will actually have something to do again .

 

[Beerson]

As is being discussed elsewhere, this introduces a second issue.

With a much larger cap, when we do manage to log in and play the game and have 10k, 20k, or 30k labor, we won’t be on long enough to burn it all.

So it’s being suggested elsewhere that activities that are more time consuming should cost more labor and reward more gold/mats.

I don’t know about you, but I couldn’t IMAGINE getting to play for 2 hours on a Wednesday cause my gf is working late and having to figure out how to spend 10k+ labor in 2 hours lol.

We’d still have to log in routinely to burn labor or else we would be capped eventually from generating more than were burning.

Yes, we had this issue on ArcheRage with fishing, you would be regening more labor then you were able to spend by fishing, not even accounting for travel times, but increasing the labor cost and value would introduce another issue, it would become way too profitable to hunt fishers and nobody (with exception of top gear guilds maybe) would fish since the effort and time wouldn't be worth it for the fisher. This would be offset if the "crafter payout" was reversed, 80% pay for crafter 20% for the one delivering, but I don't think it's possible to set that separately from trade packs.

Other labor dumps would have similar issues on different scales.

Basically there is no way to get around not having enough time to spend labor without screwing someone more then if it was just left alone. Those with limited time will need to find ways to dump appropriate amount of labor quickly, be it crafting taxes or w/e.

On the labor cap vs regen, my opinion is that the cap should be 1.5 days worth of labor regen, so that people aren't penalized too much for not being able to play for a day at a time, and people who play daily would have more freedom in choosing when and how to spend their labor.

I think the Labor system is a good thing if set up properly, it encourages trading and cooperation between players, it also encourages smart choices on how to spend this resource, it adds depth to the economy side of the game, it just needs to be set up in a way that isn't detrimental.

 

[Blauauge]

I think having a 10k cap is the max of what should be thought about simply for maipulation and dump all labor at once to crash something reasons. If we assume a 10k cap than a lower regen rate would also make sense since you dont want to have to login every 20.5h. Imo the sweetspot would be to have 10k as a cap an a regen of 30 since 25 might slow down the progress too much in comparison to what the darus intended. That means you would have 27h 46 mins before you reach the 10k cap which i think caters to an ex-hardcore audience that doesnt want to stress too much but still has the time to log roughly every day while now hardcore grinders still get a slight advantage over ppl who dont log/burn labor for more than 28h.

 

[Beerson]

I think having a 10k cap is the max of what should be thought about simply for maipulation and dump all labor at once to crash something reasons. If we assume a 10k cap than a lower regen rate would also make sense since you dont want to have to login every 20.5h. Imo the sweetspot would be to have 10k as a cap an a regen of 30 since 25 might slow down the progress too much in comparison to what the darus intended. That means you would have 27h 46 mins before you reach the 10k cap which i think caters to an ex-hardcore audience that doesnt want to stress too much but still has the time to log roughly every day while now hardcore grinders still get a slight advantage over ppl who dont log/burn labor for more than 28h.

Consider formatting, reading this gave me a headache.
Another reason why it gave me a headache, you have no idea what you're talking about.

There are no labor potions, there are no alts, that is the reason the devs decided on 40 regen to match the amount of labor average player would have on official, they didn't do it because they want us to speedrun the server.
0/10 thanks for effort

 

[Blauauge]

Consider formatting, reading this gave me a headache.
Another reason why it gave me a headache, you have no idea what you're talking about.

There are no labor potions, there are no alts, that is the reason the devs decided on 40 regen to match the amount of labor average player would have on official, they didn't do it because they want us to speedrun the server.
0/10 thanks for effort

Litteraly doesnt matter at all for my point but its alright. No reason to be condescending.
Also them increasing the exp rates and adjusting various other things is a testament to them speeding up the server to a certain degree.

 

[Arkenervs]

Basically there is no way to get around not having enough time to spend labor without screwing someone more then if it was just left alone. Those with limited time will need to find ways to dump appropriate amount of labor quickly, be it crafting taxes or w/e.

max construction prof here I come.
Though the 10k cap will help a ton. It was horrible on ArcheRage because iirc you capped after like 10 or 11 hours? I remember logging in before classes to make taxes or open purses or craft something because if I didn't I was wasting half my daily labour.
And I had 200k labour in pots sitting in my inventory because even as a student I couldn't burn it fast enough with what I enjoyed doing

I think the Labor system is a good thing if set up properly, it encourages trading and cooperation between players, it also encourages smart choices on how to spend this resource, it adds depth to the economy side of the game, it just needs to be set up in a way that isn't detrimental.

Agree with this whole heartedly. It's just 1 additional resource so instead of selling your time, you're selling your time+the cost of labour.

Personally, I work a decent amount, pulling in usually 55-60 hours a week for most of spring/summer/fall. Then I come home, have to cook, clean, ect. It doesn't leave much time for gaming like when I was a kid and having the labour cap fill up in less than a day is kinda a bummer to me and anyone else who works any kind of extended hours. At the very least I want to not have to log in twice a day to not waste labour.