Hard cap vs. Soft cap

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Originally Posted by ocoma

IMO a hard cap would be better for a few reasons.

First if you want to bring macro's into the equation, a soft cap is more beneficial to the macroer. Unless the skill decay is severe, and I'm talking minutes, a macroer can incorporate multiple skills into a single macro. They would be able to train up new skills while still maintaining their current skills to reach well beyond the cap. If it is possible to do it, people will find a way to do so.

Secondly a hard cap would mean an entirely balanced playing field amoungst players. You get your 500 points or whatever and thats that.

Then there is the "pissed off factor". With skill decay I personally would be pissed if my running or swimming leveled up and took me over the cap without my knowing it and than I lost a point from one of my GM'd skills because of it. You may not immediately lose a point to decay once over the cap, but I could easily go a day or two in game and not make a tool cause I was doing other things like traveling across the map for a trade deal or something. To get from 99 to 100 in toolcraft was over 2000 craft attempts(I don't have the exact number I stopped tracking at 2k). There are any number of reasons a person may be online and not actively working on their skills. Since things like swimming, running, and combat skills from defending oneself from animals will constantly be leveling without the player actively wanting them to count toward their soft cap, people could very easily lose points from their high leveled and hard earned skills cause of things they can't control. Thats very likely to piss people off.

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The above quote I posted in the another thread which is now simply about how to combat macros. I believe a seperate thread to discuss hard vs soft caps + skill decay is appropriate to see how others feel on this issue. I will comment a bit more on the above points below.

Point 1. Even if you take macros out of the equation, a soft cap leaves the possibility to be exploited. If it is possible to exploit there are players that will find ways to do so.

Point 3. This point above applies to both hard and soft caps. There are skills in the game that basically autolevel. It is not reasonable to force players to walk everywhere so that their running doesn't level, or not defend themselves when attacked so as not to level a combat skill. However when you combine this with a soft cap and skill decay it is going to potentially really piss people off when they lose points from skills they actually want cause they can't not level these "autoleveling" skills. If you remove skill decay from the equation then you run into the DF problem where everyone is a master of everything.

So what are your thoughts on skill caps?

Concerning point three, I believe that the developers intend on separating the softcap limit into subsets of skills, so that running (and subsequent increases in the skill) isn't going to cause you to lose points in Tailoring, for example. (That's actually not an example of a softcap, but of a floating system of skill management, ie. one skill goes down because another goes up).

I'm all for a hardcap myself. Yes, some are going to disagree, but overall, it's the best system to promote interaction within the game. Pick a job or two and be good at them and accept that you're playing a Massive MULTIPLAYER Online RPG...and work with others for the things you need/can't do.

I agree with the OP to a point.

I think soft cap with skill decay is best. Here is why. Fighting once in a while isnt going to effect you greatly, I do agree about the running/walking issue, and it should be addressed I posted this in another topic.

Jordi is grouping the skills up based for a soft cap, each group is going to have a soft cap of its own. So combat group will have like say 300 point soft cap, which isnt effected by crafting soft cap pool.

Using this system people can do many things but focus only on a few in each pool.

Like you might not want to swim a lot so you dont swim you might run, or dont jump a lot. While others will do jumping and not swimming/running. (I really cant see anyone NOT taking running at this point).

Samething with crafting soft cap. You might want a hunter tree logging weapon crafter. Well you likely to use axes for combat.

One of the first things I asked my friend who told me about this game was how the skills worked. That's part of what drew me in.

I had always felt the skill mechanics of the original SWG were great, but still somewhat constricting. I wanted more freedom to make the character I wanted to make.

I like what they have in store. Is it open to exploit? Well, yeah, I guess... but the mentality that leads to the exploit will probably always find a way to game the system as I presume that's the part they actually enjoy, rather than just playing the game. *shrug* To each his/her own.

Would love to see the greatest amount of freedom on this one, whether it's hard cap or soft cap... just malleable and personalized, and ultimately revisable as your character ages and interests change.

Hard cap and soft cap/skill decay are both the same at the top end if the latter is adjusted effectively.

Personally, I don't care if people macro when a skill cap of some type is involved, because in the end we're all "maxed".

I'm fine with either of the two.

I don't like hard caps or soft caps. I want to be able to eventually, theoretically, max out every skill. What I don't want is to be able to draw from every skill at the same time like you can in Darkfall. I much rather prefer Eve's system of being defined by my equipment--where I could have maxed out frigate skills but they don't do jack for me if I'm in a battleship.

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Originally Posted by mrcalhou

I don't like hard caps or soft caps. I want to be able to eventually, theoretically, max out every skill. What I don't want is to be able to draw from every skill at the same time like you can in Darkfall. I much rather prefer Eve's system of being defined by my equipment--where I could have maxed out frigate skills but they don't do jack for me if I'm in a battleship.

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That works for Eve, but is not as easily implemented in a game with an actual Avatar.
I'm pretty sure DarkFall's armor system is going to be an epic failure. It does not address attributes or passive skills like mana conservation. Attributes are the number one thing that needs capped in games like this. DarkFall has shown just how valuable a skill cap is!

As far as item/gear restrictions... Sure, a ship or vehicle will restirct the vailidity of your skills, but that is much different that the clothing or armor a persons wears. It just stops making sense... Why would a chainmail shirt stop me from firing a bow? Why would it lower my intelligence or raise my strength? The only thing armor should affect is encumberance.

To make something like this work, I thought of a cool system DarkFall should implement.
You can have every skill to 100, yet you can only have so many skills "active" at one time. Like a template you chose. You could even be able to chose multiple templates, and then switch between them (Out of combat, with a cooldown). So vet players arent any stronger, but have more options when switching templates. You can grind out every single skill, and even use every skill, just not at the same time.

The attributes would then need to be capped and work a littel differently, it would take grinding to raise one and reduce another. Refer to UO where gains can be set to "raise, Lower, or Lock".

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Originally Posted by Belight

That works for Eve, but is not as easily implemented in a game with an actual Avatar.
I'm pretty sure DarkFall's armor system is going to be an epic failure. It does not address attributes or passive skills like mana conservation. Attributes are the number one thing that needs capped in games like this. DarkFall has shown just how valuable a skill cap is!

As far as item/gear restrictions... Sure, a ship or vehicle will restirct the vailidity of your skills, but that is much different that the clothing or armor a persons wears. It just stops making sense... Why would a chainmail shirt stop me from firing a bow? Why would it lower my intelligence or raise my strength? The only thing armor should affect is encumberance.

To make something like this work, I thought of a cool system DarkFall should implement.
You can have every skill to 100, yet you can only have so many skills "active" at one time. Like a template you chose. You could even be able to chose multiple templates, and then switch between them (Out of combat, with a cooldown). So vet players arent any stronger, but have more options when switching templates. You can grind out every single skill, and even use every skill, just not at the same time.

The attributes would then need to be capped and work a littel differently, it would take grinding to raise one and reduce another. Refer to UO where gains can be set to "raise, Lower, or Lock".

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Yeah I pretty much wrote something about the same type of system last year.

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Originally Posted by mrcalhou

Yeah I pretty much wrote something about the same type of system last year.

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Yeah I've seen alot of really good suggestions for DarkFall, yet the devs continue to ignore good ideas and instead pump (More like drip) out half assed bandaid fixes that no player has ever asked for, all the while completely ignoring the glaring bugs, issues, and exploits that have remained in game for litterally years.