RuneScape Forum Archive | Daily Challenges vs. Hero Pass

Seasons Past

Posts: 559 Steel Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

This thread offers my perspective on the new Hero Pass and how it compares with the Daily Challenge system.

Introduction

While I don't have much appreciation for marketing, I was tentatively interested in Hero Pass. Integration of reward systems with the core game experience is something I've long had a personal stake in. I was therefore encouraged to read that such integration is a major priority of the new content.

While I've caught wind of the backlash, I didn't play Hero Pass until after the initial round of fixes. I therefore have no way of knowing or verifying firsthand how bad it allegedly was on release. I hope that my view will be reasonably detached and objective as a result. Spirit of Forinthry ~ Runecrafting: Magic Armour ~ F2P Extensions ~ Dragon Slayer improvements ~ New Player Experience

22-Sep-2023 17:40:46

Seasons Past

Posts: 559 Steel Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Daily Challenges

I have generally completed Daily Challenges as regularly as I have played RuneScape. While not perfect, they always seemed like a worthwhile investment: spend a few minutes and get a reward proportional to the effort and time.

Daily Challenges were unintrusive. They rewarded engagement subtly. Once you had completed one, it would disappear and give you a burst of xp. Once you completed all of them, the menu would tell you that you were done and to come back tomorrow for new rewards. That felt rewarding. It felt like you had finished something significant. It was as if to say, "Whatever tomorrow might bring, it will be possible to actually complete it."

When Hero Pass was announced, I was intrigued and wanted to see how it was planned to improve upon Daily Challenges. Although I liked them, the latter contributed to dailyscape; as they reset every 24 hours whether completed or not, I felt pressured to do them, which was my least favorite aspect.

One of the most compelling features of the old system was that you didn't know what lay in store. If you wanted to face the next set of challenges, you would simply have to wait. A lot of people nowadays don't like waiting. They don't like uncertainty. From someone who started playing in 2007, not knowing what would happen next - and wondering of the possibilities - is among the reasons that kept me interested, always hoping and feeling confident that something worth seeing was just beyond the horizon.

The Hero Pass doesn't have the old magic. It tries to rigidly control and contain all of the answers so that you don't have to plan, don't have to explore, consider, prepare, wonder, or imagine. If everything in the world of RuneScape was spelled out and there was nothing more to learn or discover, I wouldn't want to keep playing. Spirit of Forinthry ~ Runecrafting: Magic Armour ~ F2P Extensions ~ Dragon Slayer improvements ~ New Player Experience

22-Sep-2023 17:44:50

Seasons Past

Posts: 559 Steel Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Here are the main reasons why Hero Pass does not interest me:

Contrived - feels, looks, and plays like it's separate from, and competing with, the main game; predictable carrot/stick design takes away intrinsic motivation/fun
Convoluted - many trivial details, missions, and numerical values to tease apart/memorize merely to experience the content
Passive - rewards are earned simply for playing RuneScape, removing incentive for deeper engagement; not enough agency

Each time I log in, I find that I have 8 - 12 notifications. I have no investment in responding to these prompts. It feels invasive, and I'm not allowed to shut them off. Even without seriously engaging with either, with Yak Track I could destroy the list and be done with it, whereas Hero Pass is negatively impacting my enjoyment of the game.

Suggestions

While I really don't like how Hero Pass extinguishes the potential for players to individually determine their own goals and pursue them intrinsically, one constructive suggestion I can give is to require players to manually choose missions; i.e. if you don't consciously, actively read over a set of missions and click something to commit to one, you don't make progress. This would foster agency and independence by incentivizing players to establish their own priorities rather than having goals chosen for, and imposed upon, them.

In the meantime, please consider keeping Daily Challenges not just indefinitely but also independently. Despite their limits, Daily Challenges provided a relatively seamless, intuitive, and distinct incentive and reward structure which neither Yak Track nor Hero Pass can replicate. Hero Pass is a more elaborate successor to Yak Track. It is not an adequate replacement for Daily Challenges. Spirit of Forinthry ~ Runecrafting: Magic Armour ~ F2P Extensions ~ Dragon Slayer improvements ~ New Player Experience

22-Sep-2023 17:50:49 - Last edited on 22-Sep-2023 18:00:45 by Seasons Past

Seasons Past

Posts: 559 Steel Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Thanks for reading. Spirit of Forinthry ~ Runecrafting: Magic Armour ~ F2P Extensions ~ Dragon Slayer improvements ~ New Player Experience

22-Sep-2023 18:09:35

Jun

2006

Dilbert2001

Posts: 30,176 Sapphire Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

We are going to have the original Daily Challenges back in early October. It will be totally separately from Hero Pass, and we can play either or both of them totally dictated by ourselves.

Why compare an apple to an orange, when we can have either or both?

22-Sep-2023 18:43:35

Jan

2014

Silvery Lynx

Posts: 783 Gold Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Here are a few things I've noticed with Daily Challenges.
1. Granted that as a rule you get challenges assigned randomly from all skills, but there is a caveat: If you have achieved lvl 99 in ANY skill you can turn off challenges in that skill.

2. Challenge system will NOT assign you challenges for something you haven't met minimum requirements for. It may not be as noticeable in the revised challenge system, but the way it was originally set up, like if you received a slayer task, it was to kill XX amount of a certain type of creature. If you hadn't met the slayer reqs for that monster or unlocked the area where it lived, you were never assigned that task.

Noq, here are two examples of what's onm y Hero Pass that I haven't done, and my reasons why:

1: Catch Chronicle Fragments. Won't bother doing, and you know why? Because this only affects 2 skills: Hunter and Divination. What's wrong with that, you ask? I have 200m XP in OBOTH those skills, so for me this task would be a waste of time, training a skill (divination) where I'd get no XP.

2. Complete 20 Raptor Slayer Tasks. Fine, I have the level for it, but under the challenge system, I would not be assigned tasks from this slayer master. Reason: I have NOT completed the task that unlocks the Raptor as a useable slayer master.

In sum:

A nice to have on the challenge system is this: Once you've achieve 99 in all skills, you can CHOOSE which skills you receive challenges for, by locking the ones you don't want challenges for. This is very nice so that I don't get challenges in skills I've already maxed.

The so-called "Hero" Pass does not give you this option, nor does it recognize areas that are locked for you because you have not met minimum requirements.

I"m sure there are other examples other folks can come up with.

26-Sep-2023 17:30:06

Seasons Past

Posts: 559 Steel Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Hey, thanks for your insight. It seems like the Hero Pass just doesn't take the player into account at all. It's like, "we made a bunch of stuff for you to do, now go fetch."

Games are supposed to be fun and something you do by choice. The fundamental problem is that if something outside of a person's control is deciding exactly what someone should do, how, and why, with alternatives being irrelevant, then it's not worth playing. That generalizes to the rest of the game and to real life as well.

I can't remember specifics, but I've read about experiments where people were given problem solving tasks which were somewhat cognitively demanding. When people were offered the opportunity to do this for the experiment, they generally performed well and were motivated to do it. Then the experimenters paid participants to do the same tasks. They found that when people were given an extrinsic reward (in this case, $) to do something they would have engaged in by their own initiative, it took a lot longer and both enjoyment and performance declined dramatically.

Marketing people don't understand or don't care about the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Schemes like Hero Pass have to rely on deception, control, and manipulation because they're inherently designed to benefit the ones making them, not those who are fed the content.

I would like to see them milk some entirely separate gimmick outside of the game. Make separate mobile games where idiots can bankrupt themselves for status and prestige. Then use the revenue to keep building and maintaining RuneScape. Spirit of Forinthry ~ Runecrafting: Magic Armour ~ F2P Extensions ~ Dragon Slayer improvements ~ New Player Experience

27-Sep-2023 09:48:00 - Last edited on 27-Sep-2023 10:33:15 by Seasons Past

Seasons Past

Posts: 559 Steel Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Additional philosophy session, not intended as personal criticism:

In my opinion, it is not in our interest to believe that these systems can be made better. Their function is to extract life from the civilian population. The idea that advertising can be improved to be more humane is like saving the environment by not buying plastic bags. It just shifts responsibility to those in the weaker position. You know who's killing the environment? The ones manufacturing plastic bags.

Are plastic bags necessary? No. But they keep selling them. Spirit of Forinthry ~ Runecrafting: Magic Armour ~ F2P Extensions ~ Dragon Slayer improvements ~ New Player Experience

27-Sep-2023 10:27:42 - Last edited on 27-Sep-2023 14:26:47 by Seasons Past

Seasons Past

Posts: 559 Steel Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Having unwittingly bumped this thread less than 24 hours before the announcement, I'd like to add a final message.

This almost certainly will sound pretentious or sycophantic, but...

Thanks.

I don't have anything else to say about it. The feedback was taken seriously and promptly translated into a tangible, appropriate result. That's all I could have asked for. Spirit of Forinthry ~ Runecrafting: Magic Armour ~ F2P Extensions ~ Dragon Slayer improvements ~ New Player Experience

07-Oct-2023 00:56:03

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Daily Challenges vs. Hero Pass