NPC Reputation System & Shop Improvements: How It Works & Future Plans

Hello everyone! We've been testing the new quests and NPC reputation systems, and I wanted to create a dedicated thread for feedback specifically about the reputation system, separate from the questing thread where we've been discussing quest rewards and prizes.

Let's use our old friend, The Wizard, as our example for this discussion.

What is NPC Reputation?

Our new reputation system allows you to build relationships with individual NPCs throughout Subeta. Each NPC has their own reputation ladder with distinct tiers, unlocking various rewards as you progress. This system is designed to:

• Provide long-term goals for dedicated players
• Create meaningful relationships with NPCs
• Offer themed rewards that match each NPC's personality
• Allow us to easily expand with new tiers and rewards over time

How the System Works

Current UI Display

When you view an NPC with reputation enabled, you'll see:

• Their current reputation level as a badge
• Your total reputation points with that NPC
• A progress bar showing advancement toward the next level
• The points required to reach your next level

Earning Reputation

Currently Available:

• Completing quests for an NPC

Coming Soon:

• Participating in events with that NPC
• Trading specific items the NPC desires
• Daily interactions
• Special activities themed to each NPC's personality

Reputation Rewards

As you climb the reputation ladder, you'll unlock various benefits:

Cosmetic Rewards

• Avatar Borders: Show off your dedication to specific NPCs with unique decorative borders
• Titles: Display your relationship status with your favorite NPCs
• Reactions: Express yourself with NPC-themed reactions

Functional Buffs

The system includes several buff types that can be assigned to different NPCs and tiers:

• Quest sP Reward Boost: Increase the sP earned from quests (The Wizard's specialty!)
• General Quest Reward Enhancement: Improve overall quest reward quality
• Shop Discount: Reduce prices in NPC-specific shops
• Bulk Purchase Limit Increase: Buy more items at once from favorite NPCs
• Quest Prize Rarity Boost: Raise the minimum rarity floor for quest prizes

Major Shop Improvements

Goodbye Quest Points, Hello Simplified Shopping!

We've completely revamped the way NPC shops work:

• All former Quest Shop items are now available directly from their respective NPC's shops
• Standard sP currency replaces the old Quest Points system
• No more waiting weeks to collect enough Quest Points for a single item
• Buy as many items as you want without arbitrary restrictions

What's Happening to Quest Points?

Quest Points are being retired in favor of this new, more flexible system. Don't worry though - we'll be converting all existing Quest Points to sP at a rate of 50,000sP per Quest Point when this system goes live, with plenty of advance warning 💖

A Growing, Sustainable System

This new approach gives us the ability to:

• Add new specialty items to higher reputation tiers
• Create clear progression paths for accessing rarer items
• Develop NPC-specific content that feels connected to their stories
• Balance item availability by tying it to actual engagement with NPCs
• Introduce fresh content regularly that requires active participation to access

The reputation-based approach means that new items won't immediately disappear into inventories based on accumulated points. Instead, players will need to actively engage with NPCs to earn the reputation needed to access special items, or trade with other players who have done so.

Future Development Plans

We're excited to expand the reputation system in several ways:

Additional Buff Types

We're considering adding:

• Crafting bonuses with specific NPCs
• Battle advantages related to NPC specialties
• Training enhancements for pets
• Energy/resource regeneration improvements
• Special item 'random' find rates boosts

Enhanced Interactions

• NPC-specific daily quests that change based on your reputation level
• Special reputation events where you can earn bonus points
• Reputation challenges with unique rewards

Social Features

• Leaderboards showing top players for each NPC
• Reputation badges for profiles

Feedback Wanted!

We'd love to hear your thoughts on:

1. What rewards would make you excited to increase reputation with a specific NPC?
2. Which NPCs would you be most interested in building reputation with?
3. What activities should award reputation points?
4. Are the current progression rates and reward tiers satisfying?
5. How do you feel about the shop changes from Quest Points to sP?
6. Any other ideas or suggestions for this system?

Share your thoughts, and thank you so much for reading 💖

1. Battle stuff & unavailable books
2. If Merana doesn't become an option, I'll stick with Maleria. Wizard always for the Tokens, may be Saggi if he recovers his wealth. Right now I love to do Alexander, because he's fast, asking for a single book and giving out a vaaaast variety of rare stuff (without deflating them!!!!!)
3. needs extra testing because of all the changes and ups & downs... I hate, how the Wizard gives out tons of the same rare books. Why? Unnecessary! Why not just Tokens (for underwear ;-) )
4. As said before: hate it. We could WORK for the Quest Points, made questing important and my reason for GA. Now we would have to spend/muster tons of money. I have concentrated on buying seasonal books only. I'm somewhere at 12-15 of each (depending on season) out of 19 so far and hardly anything from NPCs
5. The whole plan is intimidating and makes me highly afraid, that I will feel compelled to do EVERYTHING and it's going to kill me. Already now I'm spending WAY too much time here! Long time goals are great, but I won't live to see another 18 years here! I'm sooo happy to be, where I am and I finally want to see light at the end of the tunnel, relax and enjoy leisurely doing what I actually really want to do and not only work my butt off, to be able to afford, what I need :-(

I've said it before - I don't want to start from scratch on a new site :-( I still want to feel that I have achieved something in all those years. After all we long time members have stuck with the site through all the hard times.

Afterthought: Aren't you swapping one old currency for again a new one? Reputation (a shrouded new currency) for Quest Points?

I have thoughts. I just don't want to be first or say something truly stupid because I misunderstood the assignment. So, I shall wait :)

That's a lot to take in so I'll only make a few comments for now.

I love the idea of building relationships with the quest givers. Of the quest givers we have so far I'm most interested in building a relationship with Maleria - I find it very amusing that she seems to dream of taking over Subeta with an army but only asks for low tier weapons which she claims are just for their artistic merit. If we get other quest givers in the future I would like to build a relationship with Alexander.

I like the idea of the additional buff types which you are considering.

The change from Quest Points to sP for the Quest Shops items wlll be OK as long as the items aren't too expensive and the quest givers reward enough sP to make up for losing Quest Points.

If QPs are changing to SPs I would want the quest shops to still be open & accept QPs for quite a while because I don't want to just spend all my QPs for items I may or may not want. Thanks.

How do you feel about the shop changes from Quest Points to sP?

I am not a fan of this. With items not having much value, because of various reasons, it is hard to make sp on the site now days. I used to think it was easy to make sp here. With restockocking and battling and reselling the items you could make sp. Well that has changed so much. Not only do I have a subscription I also buy a lot of csc each month and still struggle to have much sp. With the quest shops costing quest points instead of sp it keeps those items open to all people that want to do the work of questing.

I see people sell quest points/items in forums for sp too, so chaning it would take away another option of making sp.

I am not against some new things, but a lot of us really do like that site the way it is (minus all the problems).

Hm...this is an interesting idea and could have the potential to be a really interesting feature.

My only theoretical concern:

If there is a potential to LOSE rep points, I think that could suck. Like if I'm bonding with Shinwa and she HATES jaxon skelly for some reason, and I get punished for visiting the pumpkin patch by losing shinwa rep points? Icky. No one should be punished for utilizing different parts of the site. I know that wasn't mentioned as part of the feature, but I just wanted to voice that concern in case NPC revenge was possibly on the table.

I'm sorry if this is read as Rude, but I'm too drained to make it sound happy and mask my disappointment. but you've been hyping up this "super generous" amazing conversion rate for QP to sp that will make everyone happy they're going away (I very much am not and you keep saying you're not ignoring users feedback then refuse to back up with any convincing argument why, of any of the "excess" currencies that Must Be Axed, you decide this one is the hill to die on - while making this reputation system of all things!) and you go with 50k???? if that's what's considered generous I'm extremely worried about your post on the thread about making quests "more profitable" when people were losing so much money and giving hard data on how little kumos was paying out in comparison to OG.

Also the only point we wanted the shop search back was because it's a way to find new items that weren't in wardrobe/collections.... so now there's a completely different shop search we have to go through that doesn't display the notification anyway but takes more clicks and doesn't even fit on the page

edit: also apparently kumos doesn't let you edit posts and you have to hunt down the topic on the normal site to make any changes. that would've been nice to know beforehand... >>

I'm loud in my annoyance of quest points, but only because I'm lazy af and that's a me problem. Do we have a lot of currencies? Yes. Do all of them need to be axed? No. Think about events like Vesnali or Survival or Masquerade, which have currencies. Take away those currencies for a second and replace them with sPs. Do you know what happens? The fun of the event plummets because now everything is buyable with sPs. That's why I don't rush to deal with Zombie Den stuff, cause it's year-round, costs sPs and I don't have to think about it.

Candy hearts though? I busted my ass for those. It was fun to kiss other users, try to recipriocate, heck, even started a trend where people made banners referencing an old 90s song!! If those candy hearts get taken away and replaced by sPs, then there goes any interaction with other users.

That's why people are concerned about quest points going away, because what it means for the other currencies. Also, those who quest daily and accrue QPs help those of us who don't quest daily by allowing us to pay them sPs for them to burn their QPs on items we need. Once that changes, think about it, with sPs getting tight for some players, even if you pay someone 12 millions sPs to buy as many items out of the quest shops because they have all the reputation tiers unlocked, that person isn't making a profit at all. At least with QPs, they're selling a currency to make profit from the main currency. I think that's what people are trying to get across.

What rewards would make you excited to increase reputation with a specific NPC?

Literally anything pet-related. Anything pet-focused would make my day and encourage me 500x more than increased sP or items or whatever, which honestly I do not care about that much. I know that there are limited resources for the site but sometimes I just feel bummed about how little focus pets get.

Training enhancements sounds exciting! I'm currently in the process of trying to get half my pets up to tier 5. I have 132 pets and it is slow going, so I'd be very 👀 over another sort of small speed boost for the training center, maybe by befriending Jim or something?

Which NPCs would you be most interested in building reputation with?

I want to be friends with everyone! I think I'm most interested in Quentin from an 'I like this character' standpoint, esp since a lot of their quest shop items are great for some of my pet TCs so I imagine I'd be frequenting their shop hah. But I also love the idea of building reputation with the questgivers who tend to be demeaning toward us, like Maleria and Saggi, just to see if their attitudes change over time! I seriously love that kind of thing.

What activities should award reputation points?

More pet-related ones pls. ):

The current list of what you have planned sounds good. I think battling would also be cool. I imagine that Battle Quests will eventually raise our reputation with Reischen, but it would be cool if other NPCs might gain respect for us if we've beaten certain opponents, or if there were like... little mini-events where a NPC needs us to defeat some opponents or something?

I feel like having Jim train our pets should logically raise our reputation with him, I'm just unsure what the best way to go about that would be...

I'd like it if some NPCs would get reputation points for other pet-related tasks. I guess we could get reputation points with Pete for having an accomplished gourmand, points with Alexander for a well-read pet. Maybe the owner of Paw Naturel... uh... Clementine, I guess her name is? Maybe we could build reputation with her by having our pets well taken care of....? Ah but most of us just throw our pets in the resort if we need them taken care of and that seems a bit... eh...

Are the current progression rates and reward tiers satisfying?

It's a bit early for me to feel sure but I think they seem fine so far? I like that it takes some consistency to get to the next rank. I don't have a lot of opinions on the rewards because I haven't really noticed much, with all the changes happening with the quests, but in theory they seem fine?

How do you feel about the shop changes from Quest Points to sP?

I'm fine with it. I don't like Quest Points because 5 quests for 1 point is such a slog. I don't tend to really spend sP much; I live my life with the fear that if I finally spend my sP, you guys will decide to release more MC pet slots... but having 1 billion makes me feel like I don't need to bother earning more, and I don't like doing quests solely for QP. I like the idea of the newer system better because I'll be able to unlock the ability to buy the item and get multiples with sP that I can earn from various activities on the site, instead of having to complete 100 quests for one copy of the lowest-priced seasonal item...

Wait.

Crafting bonuses with specific NPCs [...] Energy/resource regeneration improvements

Crafting like... baking and alchemy? I always forget about those. I'm very curious how many people actually use them. Energy and resources? Are there things on the site that have this and I'm oblivious, or is this a potential upcoming thing?

i dislike having the randomness of quest points and doing a ton of quests to maybe get a few points here and there. what i do like is that it is separate from sP and i can have a choice of wanting to spend quest points or buying an item from the user shops for sP. this is both a positive and a negative, but quest points are much more limited -- i have to be choosy with what i buy and a purchase has more impact. it feels good to be able to afford and buy something without using sP.

i also like the idea of progression and being able to have something tangible (aside from achievements) that shows how many quests i've done with each person.

while the current quest point rate makes saving up (particularly for seasonal items) feel like a crawl, especially if you're not grinding out quests every day, idk if the solution is to take them away and just have us buy items with sP directly. the nice thing about special currencies like quest points is that, since you accrue them as a byproduct of doing a particular activity AND they can only be spent directly on a specific set of things, it kind of feels like you're getting those things "for free" to an extent. when you have to spend sP on those items, it just feels like... spending money on stuff. it doesn't feel like a special side thing or a bonus reward, it just becomes more regular commerce.

and depending on how high the prices will get (expensive quest shop items right now range from 60-90 QPs, so at an exchange rate of 1:50k that's 3mil - 4.5mil) i can see myself hesitating to make that kind of splurge, in a way i wouldn't were they priced in their own unique currency that i could only spend on THOSE items. yes the equivalent exchange would be that i'm then earning that sP from the quests, but surely you can see how it feels different when i could also be spending that sP on other things. it kind of turns into a secondary Millionaire Center.

so it's not that i'm like wholly against the idea on principle, i just feel like the balance would be hard to strike and it might disincentivize me from actually buying some things that i would have otherwise.

It seems that Quest Points are popular so maybe it would be a good idea to keep them. If you want to reduce the number of special currencies on the site how about getting rid of Bathhouse Tokens? The Bathhouse shop isn't very exciting and I can't remember when anything new was last added to it.

Will Sarah's quests be added to the Kumos site? If so, this could cause problems because they are limited to players who have less than 1,500,000 sP in their account. The legacy Quest Shop system allows us to buy items from Sarah's shop with Quest Points even if we have too much sP to do her quests. If she is switched over to the Kumos system only new and very poor players will be able to build reputation with her and it won't be long before they have too much sP to do her quests as well. There's no point in having items in her shop which are only available to higher tier reputations with her if nobody can get these higher reputation tiers.

Lots of thoughts, I've thrown them under a spoiler so I don't stretch the page.

I am not looking to have a conversation, please don't ping me. Thanks.

SPOILER (click to toggle)

I've been watching the original thread on quest updates since it popped up, but haven't posted or interacted because I was waiting to reserve judgement until the feature was more fleshed out. I'm assuming by seeing this post, it means that more of it is fleshed out, and so I'm finally going to give my opinion.

--

I don't hate the idea of a reputation system, I think this has the opportunity to be something very good for the site. That being said, I do have some major concerns, and I strongly believe that we're trading one system that punishes it's users for another system that also punishes it's users, just in a different way.

In the original Quest Point system, users were typically punished by low QP reward payouts, and needing x amount of QP each season before it rolled over and effectively cut off the items they were actively working on. Waiting 3/4ths of a year to continue your questing for something specific was brutal. That combined with the sheer amount of content within the quest shops and it made it near impossible for users to catch up or even to start if they were new.

The new reputation system at the start seems very easy and intuitive. Participate a little bit, and unlock ranks and be able to choose your own rewards. The problem is the 'long term' of this system, and where it could potentially be in a few years. As new items come out, if staff wants them to retain value, they're going to continue to move those 'goal posts' on the reputation further and further. I have no doubt they'll be looking at things like active users current points / reputation / etc and wanting to make those 'goal posts' require more time and 'effort' to get to, to inflate the value of those items. At that point, we're getting right back to the core issue with quest points. It starts to get impossible for users to catch up, or start if they're brand new.

Users who are active and enjoying themselves with this new system will unintentionally influence the direction that these 'goal posts' go. And in some cases, this can be pretty extreme for casual users. (I am looking at the absolutely ridiculous snowball achievement that staff thought was necessary because a handful of users were having a lot of fun.) I am imagining joining a site, finding an item I really love and being told I might need to quest for 100+ days to unlock the reputation needed to get that item. Of course 'you can just buy it from another user' but the item is probably expensive, especially for a new player to purchase (otherwise the reputation system is not doing what you intended, right? which is retaining the value of these items.) This would absolutely feel like a punishment. And this would apply not just to new users, but also to users who cannot grind for reputation constantly.

I want to clarify, that I said 'cannot' and not 'will not' grind for reputation. There is a difference between users who just don't want to quest / work on reputation / etc and your userbase who cannot. It's important to consider your userbase who loves and cares about your site, but may have reasons they cannot be extremely active. Things like disability, chronic illness, multiple jobs, strenuous school activities, etc. IMHO your system should not punish those users who do care for your site, by putting them increasingly so far behind that they're left in the dust.

As far as I can tell, it does not look like you're implementing any kind of reputation loss or decay. That's really good and I hope it stays that way. I think that type of punishment is really bad in general, and will actively discourage those with little time or ability to be on your site from even trying.

I think we can take things just a little bit further though, with adding some extra features that might help users with catching up / not getting too far behind. These are some that I've thought of, but obviously there may be better ideas out there.

1. If you're not already doing so: implement reputation caps. Do not allow users to continue to inflate the reputation beyond the current cap. This will help ensure that your active users cannot damage those 'goal posts' you want to add later on. It will prevent them from 'hoarding', which is what you seem concerned most about with the QP system.
2. We already have bonus quests on the weekend, so why not add bonus reputation events as well? One NPC gives out increased rewards, and maybe another gives out increased reputation.
3. Reputation circles. "This NPC is friends with this NPC". Maybe adding a small chance for these NPCs to talk, and you gain a small amount of rep with an NPC you haven't been working on via 'word of mouth'. This could also be taken a step further by having NPCs in a group, rather than each NPC having 100% of their own rep system. This would be helpful for users who don't have all the time in the world to do quests. Maybe you have enough time and capability for just one or two quest givers a day? You could prioritize a group you care about, rather than just one or two NPCs specifically. This could also help with staff work / efforts. As having dozens of singular quest shops sounds like a lot of work and effort IMHO.
4. Free Market Event: Maybe once a year, for maybe 1 week or something short like that, the quest givers open all their stalls for you to access, BUT your maximum reputation denotes the maximum level of item you can get, and you can only get one item per NPC per day. (So for example, let's say the rep cap is 20, but my maximum is only level 12 with the Wizard. I could go to any shop and buy items up to rep 12, but only one item per NPC a day, to prevent hoarding or stocking up.)

I think it's important for this system to consider "Will this feature feel like a punishment over time". I'd like to hope the goal should be "How can we reward our users for any amount of activity and participation they can afford to give the site." I play games like Guild Wars 2 where their daily log in system is very minimal. Spend 5-10 min max doing your dailies and get a decent reward that stacks over time. Have more time? You can do your weeklies for even more rewards. Have less time? You don't even need to finish your dailies or weeklies entirely to at least get SOME kind of reward for your efforts. It won't be as good as if you finished the work, but it's something and it's 'thanks' for doing what ever you can. I know for me, that encourages me to participate as much as I can, when I can and feel good about it. I currently do not feel this way about Subeta. Most of the site feels like a chore that only rewards me if I spend days / weeks / months / years grinding for it. I genuinely hope to see Subeta reach a state where being here feels rewarding and positive and not just a huge tedious grind fest in the future.

Some very good points were raised.

Just to illustrate some points raised. I have been retired for over 10 years and am now disabled and housebound. Apart from a couple of months taken up with the complexities of moving house and a few holidays many years ago I have been able to complete all the legacy quests every day. Even after spending hundreds of quest points over the years I still have 2,357 of them with more being added every day. When the Kumos system gets fully underway I will be able to do all the Kumos quests every day (unless I quite some of them because they will result in a big sP loss) and build up reputation much faster than people who have limited time to play for one reason or another.

Quest points can be spent in any quest giver shop including Sarah's even if we have too much sP to do her quests. Maybe the reputation system could be changed so that player reputation points are awarded for having a good reputation with the quest givers. Having tiers could be kept for each quest giver but players would only have to concentrate on increasing tiers with their favourite quest givers instead of all of them.

Is the objective simply to control rarity by tier instead of rarity by price?

"Reputation" is currently how the Blue Building works, and I can't see your data but I trust very strongly that Blue Building are not anyone's favourite quest reward system.

Further thoughts. Keep the current quest point system where points can be used to buy any item in any quest giver shop. However, an option to buy the items with sP could be added for people who don't have enough quest points.

Building reputation with individual quest givers could be based on this - (quote from the opening post)

"### Additional Buff Types We're considering adding:

• Crafting bonuses with specific NPCs
• Battle advantages related to NPC specialties
• Training enhancements for pets
• Energy/resource regeneration improvements
• Special item 'random' find rates boosts

Enhanced Interactions

• NPC-specific daily quests that change based on your reputation level
• Special reputation events where you can earn bonus points
• Reputation challenges with unique rewards"

I would be very interested in building reputation with quest givers who awarded battle related buffs but I wouldn't be interested in building reputation with quest givers who gave crafting bonuses if crafting is anything like Fantine's bakery.

If each quest giver gives unique buffs and enhanced interactions depending on a player's reputation level with them people with limited time to play could concentrate on building reputation with the quest givers they are most interested in. They could still do other quest givers' quests if they have time to spare. People with more time to play can still choose how they want to play by having favourite quest givers.

I did Pete's quests today and the payout is much better but the thought of grinding through them every day when he asks for 4 items makes me shudder - I would hate to be in the position of having to build up reputation with him just so I could see all the items in his quest shop

A chance to be awarded a +1 to any stat but level or chance to receive a stat booster. More retired items in the rewards pool. Special multi-part story quests with an NPC once you unlock the required tier (nothing complicated, but just to add more to their characters).

The main shop NPCs for their perks. NPCs like Shinwa, Oracle, or Jim for perks related to stats. I want to learn more about the Paw Natural NPC. I don't even know her name. She's not listed in the Subetapedia.

Edit: Euclid! Imagine being able to get a guaranteed zap of an experiment you want?

Edit 2: The Job Agency NPC. I'd love to be able to schmooze up to them to skip a few promotion levels lol.

Thinking about games like Harvest Moon, I'd love a central area or cafe(s) in each continent where a rotating group of NPCs gather everyday. Like on Mondays, you can talk to Manwar, Nico, and Alexander. Interacting with them gets you one point. Every Sunday, the groups of NPCs are randomized, and you get bonus points with everyone in the area. I want to see more low-effort activities in general.

I'm fine with it. They don't motivate me to complete quests like Morty Cards or Wiz Tokens do (or even just more sP). Earning them is grindy and slow. Having to do 25 quests to buy a 5 point item feels annoying.

Last Lumi, someone was giving away 3k QPs, because they bought everything. There's an ongoing giveaway thread for the same reason. May as well convert it to sP, I feel, if the end result is they're going to be hoarded and sold anyways. The current sell rate is 24k per point. So baking in an extra 25k-50k per quest seems reasonable.

A solid like 90% of my QPs come from the bathhouse and.

No i don't like this actually? It kind of sucks. It's another thing to force you to grind and grind and grind instead of just randomly taking a bit of your time (because let's be real here, most of us are people with a whole lot of other things going on, we're not 13 year olds with more hours than we know what to do with) and do a few quests, (i typically do Shinwa, then Wizard, Saggi, Library, Carl, and if there's any quests needed left over to round me up to the nearest 5 i do those with Pete.) and have a bunch of QP to buy some cute items you want.

The Rep points? Cute. This might get me to do a few more quests.

The change to QP? very not cute. Ugly, in fact.

Why are we making it harder to get things? That seems silly.