# How to Fix Journey Mileage Calculation **URL:** \ **Category:** Feature Requests and Game feedback\ **Created:** [January 16, 2024, 12:51am UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/how-to-fix-journey-mileage-calculation/82941 "2024-01-16T00:51:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Stratelier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/977dab/32.png) [@Stratelier](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/Stratelier)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2024, 12:51am UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/how-to-fix-journey-mileage-calculation/82941/1 "2024-01-16T00:51:32Z")
By design, in Journey events each battle shows a specific number of Miles awarded, however the _actual_ amount earned can be less than advertised due to ally Troop deaths and battles lasting more than 10 turns (resulting in confusion such as [this](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/journey-mileage-calculation/82938)). This is a stark contrast to other event types (particularly World Events), where the amount of collectibles (or score) shown to the player (either in-game, or in the forum announcement post) is the exact (or at least the minimum) award given for winning. So here’s an easy idea. Instead of the Journey screen showing a base (maximum) award (but with potential _deductions_) change it so that the Journey map screen shows a minimum award (but with potential _bonuses_). For example, instead of this: - Say a given battle says it awards “30 Miles”. - Subtract 2 Miles for every extra turn (above 10 turns) - Subtract 2 Miles for every _empty_ Ally slot (e.g. ally death, 0-3x) - Actual Miles awarded = (minimum 14 - maximum 30) Do this instead: - The same battle instead says “12 Miles”. - Up to 20 bonus Miles for every turn _less than 20_ (if any) - Add 2 bonus Miles for every _occupied_ Ally slot (e.g. 1-4x) - Actual Miles earned = (minimum 14 - maximum 30) Note that the underlying calculation hasn’t technically changed at all, the only thing changed is _how it is presented_ to the player visually. (The exact point thresholds for each event reward tier is itself a different discussion…) ---
**Author:** ![redmist](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/community.gemsofwar.com/redmist/32/59905_2.png) [@redmist](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/redmist)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2024, 1:10am UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/how-to-fix-journey-mileage-calculation/82941/2 "2024-01-16T01:10:19Z")
Does your new version now imply that you must win on turn 1 to get 30 points, whereas previously there was no turn penalty until the 11th turn? ---
**Author:** ![Stratelier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/977dab/32.png) [@Stratelier](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/Stratelier)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2024, 2:25am UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/how-to-fix-journey-mileage-calculation/82941/3 "2024-01-16T02:25:23Z")
Good catch! I was intentionally trying to create an example that was mechanically equal. ---
**Author:** ![sylverscale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f17d59/32.png) [@sylverscale](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/sylverscale)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2024, 3:36am UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/how-to-fix-journey-mileage-calculation/82941/4 "2024-01-16T03:36:21Z")
That isn’t really less confusing to be honest. They should just ditch the penalties altogether. Easiest fix to both the issue with the event and the understanding of the scoring. Overly complicated scoring rules for guild events have been annoying since the introduction of world events. ---
**Author:** ![Dust\_Angel](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/community.gemsofwar.com/dust_angel/32/35256_2.png) [@Dust\_Angel](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/Dust_Angel)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2024, 3:55am UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/how-to-fix-journey-mileage-calculation/82941/5 "2024-01-16T03:55:33Z")
What exactly does it fix? Instead of being just dung it’s now dung wrapped in a candy paper? Definite improvement. ---
**Author:** ![Stratelier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/977dab/32.png) [@Stratelier](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/Stratelier)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2024, 12:39am UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/how-to-fix-journey-mileage-calculation/82941/6 "2024-01-17T00:39:54Z")
> [@Dust\_Angel](#): > > Instead of being just dung it’s now dung wrapped in a candy paper? Well, the stupid part is … that it actually works. There’s a known anecdote in World of Warcraft’s design history where they tried to implement a “Fatigue” mechanic that would slowly accumulate over time – and players hated it. One or two patches later they added a “Rested” mechanic which wore off over time – players loved it, even though it was [literally the same mechanic under the hood](https://mmogrinder.net/2014/11/25/the-truth-about-rested-xp/). Player psychology / perception matters. Advertising a specific reward (like Journey Miles) then docking penalties via formulas feels bad to the player, whereas advertising a minimum reward then adding bonuses (via the same formulas, just inverted) feels good. ---
**Author:** ![jdk](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/community.gemsofwar.com/jdk/32/58002_2.png) [@jdk](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/jdk)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2024, 4:28am UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/how-to-fix-journey-mileage-calculation/82941/7 "2024-01-17T04:28:30Z")
> [@Stratelier](#): > > whereas advertising a minimum reward then adding bonuses (via the same formulas, just inverted) feels good. This is one concept that is trying to be good in the new PVP , a pleasant surprise to get more points than the low base VP advertised . Obviously overshadowed by other problems going on there right now but this concept tracks and it seems like they must be aware of it ---
**Author:** ![Mithran](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/community.gemsofwar.com/mithran/32/18064_2.png) [@Mithran](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/Mithran)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2024, 4:36am UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/how-to-fix-journey-mileage-calculation/82941/8 "2024-01-17T04:36:32Z")
> [@Stratelier](#): > > There’s a known anecdote in World of Warcraft’s design history where they tried to implement a “Fatigue” mechanic that would slowly accumulate over time – and players hated it. One or two patches later they added a “Rested” mechanic which wore off over time – players loved it, even though it was [literally the same mechanic under the hood](https://mmogrinder.net/2014/11/25/the-truth-about-rested-xp/). Not exactly. I see this little anecdote get thrown around a lot, and while it is true that the way a mechanic is sold matters a _lot_, there is a bit of revisionist history going on every time the “everyone was happy” part gets repeated. The truth of the matter is that there was significant backlash around the time about trying to “sweep it under the rug” as it were, particularly by the people that were number crunches and min-maxers. For our purposes, this solves exactly nothing for nearly anybody that spend any of their time posting or even reading forum posts. For one, the illusion breaks pretty heavily when you have this kind of perspective. The aforementioned group of people that couldn’t be placated by the change? The people dedicated enough to read and post on forums and apply to be beta testers. In our community, if there were a parallel, it would be pretty much anybody reading this post (or tl’dring it and reading any of the other posts here, even). The situation is also very different - we have a well established baseline of what an event _should_ cost, both comparing other events and previous iterations of this event, and the loudest complaints are how these metrics are affected. In WoW, a huge amount of people didn’t like feeling that they were getting punished for playing too long, because that felt bad, and a shift in perspective can fix the issue. For the large majority of the playerbase, the mechanic feeling bad wasn’t about being able to grind x levels in y amount of time. In our case, it feels bad spending the additional time and gems on an event because the silly troops that existed when the baseline was established were basically obliterated without a proportional drop in milestones, resulting in the event requiring significantly more commitment than the established baseline. There is an expected amount of resources (time, gems) which was already considered high compared to other events (for tier 15) which is now even higher. No amount of repackaging is going to fix this issue. If the event had _started_ as these miles being packaged as “bonus” miles, it would have changed nothing if the established baselines included the bonuses from the start if the established baselines included. We can even see this for other events **within this same game** , when 2x scoring bonuses for “event captains” in other events went live, NOBODY here was signing their praises because in every instance they were transparently a handicap compared to previously established baslines because you were required to use the troop/weapon to get to the same (in sometimes slightly more, in some even less, _before_ the new reward tiers were added) score. Then, _outside_ of established baselines, theres the matter of what is “reasonable”. Now, this is a metric that is a lot easier to fudge, but if an event buy-in is too high or takes too long it will see significant drop off in engagement that can propagate to the other areas of the game. The subset of players that includes a _lot_ of frequent forum goers are going to, dispute everything, buy into and finish these events whenever possible. But even the most dedicated players are going to be subject to burnout and you don’t want your thresholds so high these players are actively annoyed by “needing” to participate in the event because, and you _especially don’t_ want an event where your most dedicated players have decided it isn’t worth playing. Because this event gives books, I’m not sure where _that_ line is, but everyone has a limit. For the record, I’m of the opinion that the nerf of the journey troops was a long-term net positive for many reasons that I may or may not explain when the other threads are out of lockdown. A potential fix is _somewhere_ in how the scoring is decided, and having troops that just auto loop forever by themselves without needing set ups being the “counter” to score decay and lack of scaling in the first place was a bad idea. There is _a_ solution with troop design as well, and it definitely isn’t either how the troops were designed or what they were nerfed to, but I’ll get to that if I get a chance to post where it is relevant. ---
**Author:** ![AMT](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/community.gemsofwar.com/amt/32/56829_2.png) [@AMT](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/AMT)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2024, 5:16am UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/how-to-fix-journey-mileage-calculation/82941/9 "2024-01-17T05:16:44Z")
> [@Mithran](#): > > but I’ll get to that if I get a chance to post where it is relevant Looking forward when/if the time comes: particularly interested in whether the Epic Trials & Underspire that relied on those particular troops can be salvaged without a drastic bump in difficulty. 🤞 🖖 ---
**Author:** ![TheIdleOne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c68b51/32.png) [@TheIdleOne](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/TheIdleOne)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2024, 5:44am UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/how-to-fix-journey-mileage-calculation/82941/10 "2024-01-17T05:44:22Z")
In the grand scheme of things, the Underspire ones can be salvaged eventually. The Epic Trials, Vulpacea and Hellcrag in particular: let’s just say I’m glad I don’t have to do them again. ---
**Author:** ![Stratelier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/977dab/32.png) [@Stratelier](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/Stratelier)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2024, 6:02am UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/how-to-fix-journey-mileage-calculation/82941/11 "2024-01-17T06:02:54Z")
> [@Mithran](#): > > There is an expected amount of resources (time, gems) which was already considered high compared to other events (for tier 15) which is now even higher. > > No amount of repackaging is going to fix this issue. Agreed! But the scale of the Journey reward tiers feels separable, given we have like 3 other topics about it… (Again, I don’t play events to “complete” the reward tiers. I largely just play through the free sigils and call it good.) ---
**Author:** ![Elfbard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/977dab/32.png) [@Elfbard](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/Elfbard)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2024, 1:49pm UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/how-to-fix-journey-mileage-calculation/82941/12 "2024-01-17T13:49:24Z")
I see why you think just changing the way how it’s presented would matter now. But for people who are in a guild which requires minimum buys to finish the event, how it’s presented doesn’t matter. How much actual change, how much gem cost is what matters. No intention to argue which play style is better. Just to clarify that for many of us, the one thing we check is how many minimum tiers buy is needed to finish the event. And if this doesn’t get changed, nothing will change our opinions. I don’t even look at how many miles I gain after each battle, do I “gain” from minimum or do I “lose” from maximum. I only need to know it’s T2 buy or T4 or T6.