Skill degrade concerns

[Gandhi]

What was implemented is a stat gain and decay system (strength, agility, intelligence etc.). Your stats shift based on skills that you use (not necessarily skills that you gain skill in).

Skill decay will work in a similar fashion, but it will take into account skills gained using skill points when you level up. If some skills are not gaining fast enough, these will be balanced out.

Both stat and skill decay are minor and meant to create balance instead of having everyone trying to grind to max everything out.

That means, it will be not a grind-game like Darkfall, in which you were able to max almost every skill out with sepending enough time for grinding?

Because in Darkfall, the developers also promised a kind of soft cap to prevent the game of becoming a grind-ame. But that didnt work.

I would hate to see Xsyon turning into a grind-game. In my opinion the best thing would be a hard skill-cap like in UO.

[JCatano]

That means, it will be not a grind-game like Darkfall, in which you were able to max almost every skill out with sepending enough time for grinding?

Because in Darkfall, the developers also promised a kind of soft cap to prevent the game of becoming a grind-ame. But that didnt work.

I would hate it, so see Xsyon turning into a grind-game. In my opinion the best thing would be a hard skill-cap like in UO.

It didn't work, because they never finished the mechanic of soft cap/skill decay. It was never turned on. The skill management commands were ingame via /help (not working, obviously), but I'm quite certain that once they noticed how fast everyone was macroing and exploiting their way far past the soft cap curve in those first few months, they were like: "Oops. Now what?"

The commands were taken out of /help about 4 months after launch.

Skill decay needs to come with a soft cap. Once at the soft cap, any skill points earned over it should decay in a quick fashion. This basically acts as a hard cap. Or... Just put in a hard cap to make it simple.

Whatever happens, all points should count towards the cap. I have no idea if anything has changed with combat versus crafting skills, but every skill should be taken out of the same pool of points. It worked very well for Pre-NGE SWG. Players were either combat focused, crafting focused, or any style in between. There was rarely ever an "OMG I can't be a master of everything" post in those forums.

[Kinslayer]

I think that if someone wants to spend enough time grinding skills, they should be aloud to master many skills. But it needs to be made hard, and made to be a lot of work, so that it would turn most people off. As long as skill gain is "macro-proof", we dont want another Darkfall.

It shouldnt matter if combat and craft skills are in the same points pool, just so long as there is plenty of room to move. What I mean is, we dont want the point restriction of MO when we only have 1 character.

[Jadzia]

I think that if someone wants to spend enough time grinding skills, they should be aloud to master many skills. But it needs to be made hard, and made to be a lot of work, so that it would turn most people off. As long as skill gain is "macro-proof", we dont want another Darkfall.

It shouldnt matter if combat and craft skills are in the same points pool, just so long as there is plenty of room to move. What I mean is, we dont want the point restriction of MO when we only have 1 character.

Absolutely agree.

[mrcalhou]

I think having characters able to max any skill they want, but only being able to have the benefits from a few "active" skills at any one time is the best option. And make skills branch out into specalizations and sub-specializations so players can better differientiate themselves from one another.

As far as crafting. Have lots of crafting skills with branches and sub-branches and make it take a while to max any one particular branch, but have useful items through the leveling curve so crafters can actually sell their items.

[Gamefreak]

I think some of you have misunderstood what is being said here. There is not a skill decay, there is a stat decay. So you can have 100 weapon skill in something, and it will never decay. The stat it effects (strength, endurance, agility) will decay if you do not perform tasks that make use of the stats. For example, picking up a log would involve strength, running in bursts and distances would involve agility, and a result of combat and other strenuous tasks would result in fortitude increases.

With this system, if you perform abilities only respective to one stat, only expect that one stat to be high.

[Kinslayer]

I think some of you have misunderstood what is being said here. There is not a skill decay, there is a stat decay. So you can have 100 weapon skill in something, and it will never decay. The stat it effects (strength, endurance, agility) will decay if you do not perform tasks that make use of the stats. For example, picking up a log would involve strength, running in bursts and distances would involve agility, and a result of combat and other strenuous tasks would result in fortitude increases.

With this system, if you perform abilities only respective to one stat, only expect that one stat to be high.

Im not concerned with stat decay at all. You'll find, that most things you do in game will involve 2 stats, so as long as you are doing stuff that you normally do, the stats you want to be maxed, will be maxed.

[zettoz]

We can't all be MacGyver

[FabricSoftener]

from the description of how skill degrade works it almost sounds like what surging is in darkfall.
0-99 doesnt degrade 100 degrades on use for combat related skills.

I doubt its that extreeme but I bet its similar, just something to worry about at very high levels

[Gandhi]

I think that if someone wants to spend enough time grinding skills, they should be aloud to master many skills. But it needs to be made hard, and made to be a lot of work, so that it would turn most people off. As long as skill gain is "macro-proof", we dont want another Darkfall.

It shouldnt matter if combat and craft skills are in the same points pool, just so long as there is plenty of room to move. What I mean is, we dont want the point restriction of MO when we only have 1 character.

I do not agree with that. I think i shoudlnt be possible to master many skills with spending enough time on grinding. Moreover combat and craft skills shold be in the same pool. If everyone can do everything there wouldnt be much need for specialized crafters. I think, that you should have to choose, if you want to be a fighter or a crafter.