Vitality, or, the stealthy EQ2 Rest system

[Alkiera]

http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=chars&message.id=1051&view=by_date_ascending&page=1

Background
 
Some players have noticed that two grouped characters of the same level can defeat the same number of opponents and have the same number of deaths, yet they advance to the next level at different rates. This isn't due to a bug or race/class bonuses, but rather because of a feature called Vitality which augments the amount of XP you receive.
 
Vitality was added to the game during beta, and our plan was (and still is) to add a visual UI element that shows your current Vitality status. Unfortunately the visual portion wasn't put in place during beta, and other UI tasks became a priority over it.
 
While it's a rather straightforward idea, the current way it works has led to confusion and concern on the part of players who have seen their experience gain change for no apparent reason. We definitely feel it's important that you understand things that relate to your character's advancement, so we'd like to offer this overdue explanation.
 
How Vitality Works
 
All characters gain a chunk of Vitality every hour, on the hour, and keep accumulating it until the maximum amount is saved up. Each time characters gain experience, they use up a portion of their Vitality and receive a bit more experience than usual. When the character runs out of Vitality, he or she no longer receives bonus experience.
 
So what is the confusing part? Well, currently the Vitality bonus is received at three different levels. At high Vitality, you're receiving matching experience for what you earn. At medium Vitality, you earn half as much bonus XP. At low Vitality, you earn one quarter bonus XP. Because each level of Vitality accumulates separately, it is possible to jump from one level to another when a previously empty pool accumulates enough bonus to draw from it. Unless a character stopped earning XP until their Vitality pools were completely full and played until they were completely empty, the bonus wasn't being awarded in a way that seemed to make logical sense. The lack of a gauge showing how much Vitality you have only makes things more difficult to understand.
 
In order to clearly show the effects of Vitality, we're going to switch to a single pool that gives a consistent amount of bonus experience. We also plan to add a UI gauge that shows how much Vitality you have left. This way everyone will be able to easily see how your XP is affected.
 
Who Benefits?
 
Vitality was designed to benefit everyone, whether you only play a few hours a week or whether you play many. If someone only spends a few hours here and there earning experience, they will spend a lot of their playtime earning bonus XP. Playing so much that you constantly use up all the Vitality you earn means you'll get every bit of potential bonus XP coming to you. There's no need to quit playing if you run out of Vitality, because you know you'll get a new chunk of it at the start of the next hour.
 
Vitality applies not only to adventuring experience, but to quests and crafting as well. Any activity that earns XP will make use of the Vitality bonus, assuming you have it available.
 
The goal of this system is to provide a benefit to everyone, regardless of play style or the rate at which you choose to advance your character. We didn't intend for it to seem mysterious and confusing, so hopefully now it's a bit clearer. Once the system is totally in place, it will be much more straightforward and easy to keep track of, which is how your character's progress should be.

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Moorgard
EverQuest II Community Guy

Basically, it's a lot like the system WoW proposed, except you gain 'rest' every hour, whether you're logged in or not, and whether playing or not.  Not using your Vitality causes it to build up and thus grant bigger bonuses when you do use it, but there is a cap on total Vitality you can have.

Discuss.

Alkiera

[Murgos]

People noticed this three months ago and were flatly denied that there was any difference in exp earning between characters (it was aassumed by the players to be class based, obviously they were partially incorrect but still...).  Nice to see that someone at Sony bothered to ask a dev about it and find out what was going on.  Left hand meet right hand.

[Ardent]

Interpretation for the reasoning behind any 'rest' system:

"We know playing our game is a chore, so we have systems in place to make it seem slightly less like moving rocks from one pile to another all day for no reason."

[Joe]

I wouldn't go so far as to call it a chore. It's actually a lot of fun. I find the combat similar to CoH, but the content isn't as easy to burn through or as linear.

I didn't even know the bonus existed until the UI addition last patch, and it's really yet to affect my play at this point. I haven't played since last night, so it'll be interesting to see where I sit when I get down to play the game eighteen hours later.

[Polysorbate80]

I don't think I've burned through more than about 15% of my vitality 'bonus' on any given 2-3 hour night, and that's with at least half my time killing with no more pause than the time it takes to run twenty feet to the next mob.  And it's always full again the next night.

Of course, there are some caveats with that statement:  I only solo, and I'm only level 16.5 at the present time.  So, your mileage could well vary.

[Alkiera]

On a good long night of grouping in the mid-20's, say 3 solid hours of hunting stuff that gives exp, I went thru about 25-30% of my vitality.

You gain 0.6% per hour, online or off, inlcuding while you are hunting.  So in 24 hours, you gain 14.4%...  If you play alot, it's easily possible to bottom out the bar, and then the next day, reduce it to zero while continuing to hunt, just at normal exp rate rather than the double rate. (by 'alot' I'm refering to the 4+hours/day +more on weekends crowd)  If you play less than 2 hours a day, you're very likely to never run out of vitality, thus always getting the exp bonus.

Alkiera