Devs should bring a scarcity approach to player ‘stockpiles’ of loyalty points.
Points earned should expire at the end of the calendar month one year after they are earned.
Players would receive a notification list of the respective factions to what amount of loyalty points are expiring that month.
Introducing rolling expiration at this time scale would help give devs an extra lever for designing recurring events (e.g. resource wars LP store) to help push player engagement with the motivation of not wanting to miss out on expiring points.
Maybe I’m too tired right now, but I still don’t understand the potential benefits.
What I do know, however, is that I will hold on to loyalty points when they give me a poor isk/LP ratio, and use them when the inverse is true. And I doubt making LP rewards expire is going to help me make more money. Perhaps I could spend more time thinking through the second and third order effects of this change, but my first instinct is just that it’s going to cost me money and annoy me with more “errands” (i.e. having to spend LP before they expire). Moreover, I’m sure it’s going to give returning players something else to complain about.
And what I’d really like to see (because it would help me make more money, and provide a wealth storage alternative to plex) is the ability to buy and sell LP on the market. But, I won’t be holding my breath.
The ability to buy and sell batches of LP with so called expiration windows would help me get on board with OPs scheme, however it just feels like a lot of stick with little carrot for already high intensity LP earners.
Expiration of goods/materials has been something that devs have wanted to look at. Playing devils advocate, what’s so bad about reducing the overall ‘stockpile’ of loyalty points? FOMO does drive increased player participation numbers.
For folks that don’t want to participate in that gameplay they have the in-game option to pay a higher premium on goods procured from the loyalty point stores of those that do grind the content before Expiration occurs.
Edit: Where this system probably helps is being a mechanical incentive to remain and defend areas impacted by the dynamic bounty system. There’s a reason to stay in maximize advantage of particular agents in null/low sec. Adds additional weight to evictions if there is an eventual expiration on the loyalty points earned by the previous occupants.
