So I recently noticed that vocab gives you XP (I don’t do vocab on Bunpro so it had never crossed my mind before) but, as far as I can tell from 30 seconds of testing, that XP goes towards your regular XP/level. Maybe I am mistaken about this though. As someone who only uses Bunpro for grammar I feel like these should be kept seperate or there needs to be some rebalance or something since it feels like it cheapens the levels and badges? I honestly don’t have a good idea for how to do this other than just having two different levels/XP pools. I am assuming the levels were designed with just grammar in mind originally and haven’t been rebalanced or anything since.
Anyway, since I don’t think this is that important since we are just talking about digital badges and also I don’t have a great idea for how to address it from a design/user point of view I thought I would throw it out to the community to see if anyone had any thoughts or ideas on this? Maybe it isn’t even really a problem for most people. What do you think?
I’ve been thinking the exact same thing. I’ve read others mention it before too. I don’t do vocab here, but from what I’ve seen it does add to the xp level and since vocab is easier, it makes the xp much easier to farm. So I think they should definitely be separated with some sort of indication of which xp badge it is.
I find the xp grammar (lvl) badge really useful when I want to see how much experience someone has with the language. Obviously not fool proof, but it’s nice to know when someone is newer so I can maybe adjust an explanation to be more helpful for them, or see someone with a higher number and talk shop
I would also like to chime in that I would very much like the XP separated. I love syncing wanikani so I can see how many words I’ve learned for each N level, but having XP that should probably just be used for grammar shoot up to the moon when I do so isn’t the best.
Even if XP isn’t separated, each vocab should be worth much much less XP in my opinion - that would also solve this issue.
Of course, either way, users will likely have to deal with a hit to their level, so that might need to be figured out too. I don’t mind (and would prefer taking the hit actually so my level isn’t ridiculous compared to my actual skill), but I bet some people do.
Conversely, if I added all the vocab I know to Bunpro then I think my level would be much much higher (but I don’t want to do that as it feels like cheating somehow).
Bunpro should just do a revamp to their current XP and leveling system as it was based off what the system was before more grammar points and vocab were added to the mix. Adding a separate system would needlessly complicate things.
In the spirit of keeping things simple, it would be nice if Bunpro made it very freakin’ difficult to get to level 100, and make obtaining XP a merit based value that doesn’t necessarily need for you to get to a next SRS stage. For example, you get XP for finishing a review session, or getting X number of questions right, or having a certain review streak.
As of right now, it’s very easy to get a high level in this system when they introduced Vocab, as many simply synced their Wanikani progress for a huge boost. Before vocab was added it was really rare seeing someone with a level of 90+, I think only a few dozen, perhaps less than 100 had it?
I kinda like it being tied to the SRS levels personally as it gives a better picture of ability level - I tend to have a pretty high accuracy and I don’t care about streaks so I would weirdly end up with a lower level despite possibly having a higher ability than someone else in an effort based system (and I believe the levels are intended to show ability in a similar way to WK levels or something, not that they are perfect for this purpose or anything). Having said that, getting points for showing up and trying when things are tough is also a good incentive for some people so I don’t disagree in principle.
I’m sure I’m not alone coming into Bunpro with vocab already being handled elsewhere (Anki). Starting a large amount of vocab over in a new SRS environment is no small hurdle. Since this place was originally only for learning grammar I imagine a lot of users might not have any intention of doing vocab, so that should probably be taken into consideration.
Well you can still get XP the same way using my proposed system but there would be additional ways of obtaining XP. My philosophy is that by using extrinsic motivation, you can use that as a catalyst to inspire intrinsic motivation.
Think of it like this, what if someone is learning Japanese and they are teetering on the edge of kinda sorta quitting, however they know they will get a reward, either it be XP or a level, or a badge. Whatever the case may be they logged into Bunpro and did their reviews or maybe a lesson, it would still be a net gain. Yes, they used extrinsic motivation as an excuse to learn Japanese for the day, but they still learned Japanese for the day versus not doing it at all.
Eventually if they stick around long enough, they should want to start knowing how things work, and start moving into the intrinsic phase of learning. So in my mind having a system like that, in which it yes manipulates you but does it with the intent on making you learn, can be a powerful tool to get more people fluently communicating in Japanese.
I honestly stopped caring about the XP and streaks, as all I care about is the info. But some people need that little push, so why not use cheap psychological tricks to make it happen?
Agreed, and I think the devs know that too, as why vocab is still in beta. An SRS is an enormous time sink. There’s a way for the Bunpro devs to have their cake and eat it too. They just need to F5 the current system to make it work imo.
I don’t know how the XP that we already accumulated could be separated at this point. But I do like the idea of a grammar level and a vocab level. Or maybe raise the level limits?
Personally, I like it how it is but could entertain the idea of splitting into two separate systems, so long as an appropriate way to do that can be found.
With the current system, sure, it’s not that difficult to get to Level 60, but this isn’t Wanikani.
60 is just a number, and so is 100, etc.
I would be in favour of extending the experience badges beyond 800,000 to 1 million, perhaps even more, but maybe that’s another story.
You accumulate experience for vocab much more slowly than for grammar because I believe (correct me if I’m wrong) the experience accrued for each SRS level of a vocab point is just one tenth of the amount you get for a grammar point.
Also bear in mind that not all that many people have made it much past Level 100 in the current system.
I know it isn’t a perfect measure at all, but searching on the forums returns only 45 users at Level 100.
The levels get increasingly harder to achieve as you go higher and higher, which incidentally I think is also a good thing.
If this is true and I set as known all the vocab I have as mature in the SRS I use for vocab then it would basically double my XP (which at my current level would put me artificially very high, I would think) so even if it is slower to build it still totally throws of the levels if you don’t use the vocab system. It seems the levels are far far easier to achieve if you do vocab as well as grammar and since the early levels are pretty easy to burn through with just grammar they must be insanely fast if you do vocab as well. If there was some kind of balancing then the levels, whatever they may be, need to be roughly as hard for everyone.
I don’t think it’d be a problem to move the vocab xp, because when others reset vocab they mention their level dropping. So it is tracked where it comes from
While this sounds fair and all, I wonder how much work it would take the BunPro team to achieve this.
To me it sounds like a monumental task to go into each member’s account and figure out what portion of their XP went into Vocabulary, so that it can be placed where? Are we now going to have two levels (one for Grammar and another for Vocabulary) displayed next to our avatars in the forums?
Considering all of the things the developers and staff are currently working on, is this even important?
I could be wrong, and this might actually end up being a trivial thing for them to do, but if not, I’d rather the BunPro team focuses their resources on the things that actually matter to us (unless this is actually something that’s important to a lot of people).
Personally I don’t judge people by their level, but by their knowledge of Japanese when they express themselves here. Even if the BunPro team separated the XPs, it wouldn’t still be an accurate measure of Japanese knowledge, so what’s the point?
But I guess that in the end, it really doesn’t matter because levels and badges aren’t THAT important. What’s important is if you can actually read that book, talk to that person, play that game in Japanese.
It’s only important for rpg people like me who make it a point to get all of the titles/achievements/max out levels and skills and such plz help me
In general having a feel for where they are at in their grammar knowledge helps cater advice / have interesting conversations about nuace.
I lean towards it would be trivial to account them separately, but it would be hard to design a reasonable frame and system to use.
I agree that level is not a marker of fluency, but it does correlate with a certain amount of effort put into language. All things can be gamed, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t consider the opinions of those who have a higher level and a track record of studying above those without. Which is not to say that I would disregard a lower level person either.
Just hard to know where someone is at, and where they are coming from.
Just to clarify, I have zero issues with this change as long as it doesn’t take the BunPro team a considerable amount of time to implement, given the many other features still missing that are of higher priority on their “to do” list for the rest of this year and on.
