Skill system?

[JCatano]

Hell no to only a soft cap. That leads to people being masters of everything in the end, and only encourages long term macroing. He should scrap skill decay and just give us a certain amount of points we can earn (like Pre-NGE SWG). So, it would basically be a hard cap on points we could invest. If you want to free up some points, drop <insert value and/or skill> and start earning the experience in order to put them into other skills.

I guarantee that macroing would be incredibly prevalent if there was only a soft cap. Darkfall is a perfect example, since the only skill mechanic in that game is a soft cap.

Master of a few things or a jack-of-all-trades. Decay or a hard cap are the only ways to accomplish those things.

[Andius]

There is no soft cap in Darkfall, and can you describe an easy method for macroing any skill in this game? I can go and write a Darkfall macro with Auto-Hotkey right now to level my magic, melle, archery, trueforge. Hell you name it. The only thing I can think of macroing in this game would be fishing. Also macroing is only prevalent in Darkfall because AV doesn't even try to stop it. If they started handing out bans for macros with perma-bans to 3rd time offenders, it would be gone overnight.

[orious13]

There is no soft cap in Darkfall, and can you describe an easy method for macroing any skill in this game? I can go and write a Darkfall macro with Auto-Hotkey right now to level my magic, melle, archery, trueforge. Hell you name it. The only thing I can think of macroing in this game would be fishing. Also macroing is only prevalent in Darkfall because AV doesn't even try to stop it. If they started handing out bans for macros with perma-bans to 3rd time offenders, it would be gone overnight.

Funny how the most important parts of J's post you entirely missed.

[Andius]

I said macroing is an issue in Darkfall because its easy to do there, and AV makes no effort to stop it. So the fact this game is already hard to macro, would mean if Notorious made any real effort to stop it, it would be a very minor issue.

My last post addressed how with a soft proper soft cap it would be virtually impossible to max a character out.

So what point am I missing?

[JCatano]

There is no soft cap in Darkfall, and can you describe an easy method for macroing any skill in this game? I can go and write a Darkfall macro with Auto-Hotkey right now to level my magic, melle, archery, trueforge. Hell you name it. The only thing I can think of macroing in this game would be fishing. Also macroing is only prevalent in Darkfall because AV doesn't even try to stop it. If they started handing out bans for macros with perma-bans to 3rd time offenders, it would be gone overnight.

Yes, it does. Each skill/school has a soft cap. That's why it gets slower and slower as you climb, obviously.

It doesn't matter if you do it that way or a collective soft cap. Macroing and/or grinding until you have everything will be the way people play. It's human nature to want, want, want. It won't matter if you made it an epic grind of 10 years. People will go after it, which creates a wide gap that the lower experienced players will have to make up in order to compete. At the end, we have clones of each other. No diversity at all, and everyone self dependent skill-wise.

There are already multiple tribes macroing a lot of skills. Take a look around. And... You will never, ever completely get rid of macroing. There is no monitor for it.

[Andius]

If there is a soft cap its a pretty weak one as I haven't even noticed it and I have many maxed skills on that game, not an exponential softcap like I am suggesting. Unless you are talking about how as a single skill raises it gets harder to raise.

If you know of people using macros don't tell me, tell the Guides. Thats how we solve this problem.

What I am suggesting is that the amount of grinding it takes to gain skills double periodically based on how many skill points you have. So it goes 2, to 4, to 8, to 16 times as hard as you go. Like in the example I gave it was over 1000 times as hard to level for the last few levels until max everything.

Sorry but even if you were running a macro 24/7, they would probably be releasing new skills faster than you could hit max in everything. And you know what? I would rather have a few cheaters max in everything then have something that would ruin my game experience like skill decay. If the solution is worse than the problem, its not a solution at all.

A would go for a hard cap before I would go for skill decay 5000 times though. Personally I like to be able to make my character more versatile over time even if slowly, but skill decay gives me the feeling I cannot simply do what I want to do without being punished for it EVER.

In my opinion skill decay is simply not an option in any form. Its equivalent to saying "Lets chop of my arm so I forget my nose has an itch."

Also using Darkfall as an example. I still find there are many people out there in need of items from various crafts. The only thing I hate about how it is, is how the top players are all 100% maxed at PVP, and there is a huge difference in strength between a maxed character and a moderate or low level character. If they simply made gear and stats have a minimal effect on PVP performance or made it is easy to quickly reach max PVP stats, I would be fine with there being just as many "fully maxed" characters as there are in Darkfall.

In fact I think a hard cap or skill decay would make the problem worse. You would get people who would fully max their PVP or constantly grind combat who would be PVP gods while crafters would basically just make items for their PVPer buddies and get owned all the time.

[JCatano]

Yes, which is why I said each skill/school has one in DF. To repeat, a collective soft cap as you suggest will still cause people to grind and/or macro simply because the carrot is there. That means people will be top end no matter how tough you make the progression. Human nature to progress cannot be beaten (unless it's decay or hard cap).

I highly disagree with you idea, since it allows people to everything. And if you think the DF economy is working... It's barely working. That "barely" refers to the laziness of just getting some rare ore or a few mats here and there for enchants so they are purchased. I've been playing since the very first day and don't need anything from anyone. Many, many people are in the same boat.

A hard cap or soft cap/skill decay would not make the problem worse. It would be a situation where choices are made... Master a few things? Jack-of-all-trades? Full combat build? Combat/craft build? Full crafting build? Or anything in between... Pre-NGE SWG had a single character servers and 250 skilll points that could be earned. Some chose full combat, some chose full crafting, while others were somewhere in between. It worked very well. All of those styles played off of each other and supported the metagame of it. Also, we have every skill at a basic level in this game, so technically you already have your hand in each one. If someone wanted to go full crafting or a full PvP build that would be their choice. It's not an end-of-the-world decision, since it's what that individual would have chosen to do.

My hope is that he changes his mind and doesn't allow for separate soft caps. Currently, what is supposed to be coded is that combat and crafting have their own soft caps with decay. I think every skill should be in the same pool and move towards choices and not spoon-feeding just because someone is bitchy about wanting as many skills as possible.

[Andius]

You know, I heard of a great game that only allows players to be useful in one narrow role. It's called 90% of current MMO's AKA non-sandboxes. Diversity is the pillar of a sandbox game. ESPECIALLY when you are only allowed one character per account. I don't mind only being able to max 2-3 crafting skills to help promote trade and a working economy, but simply put, being able to have max PVP performance and also craft from the same character are essential to my enjoyment of the game.

I played Freelancer five years. I played it for five years because the you can kill anyone for any reason, and amazing combat yielded one of the most fertile grounds to really enjoy a full game experience of every aspect of leading an empire. The diplomacy, the economics, the battles, everything about it was great. What eventually killed Freelancer for me, is that the only way to really obtain victory was through making your opponent give up because they were tired of dying and territorial control was not a built in feature. All it really was, was map on the forums showing who owned what. The ownership came with no real power. And economy in Freelancer was taking a trade ship back and forth between point A and B all day long.

In this game I can build real bases. I can occupy my time doing a variety of interesting crafts when I am not fighting. And I can get real meaning from someone's death via full loot PVP.

But if I can't actually craft when the action is low, because it will take away from how strong my character is, and I can't terraform or scavenge because doing these things starts making my combat skills, or leatherworking skills decay. Why the hell not just go back to a game with fun non-buggy combat like Freelancer. Why the hell would I pay all this money and suffer through all these bugs when I can go experience better combat on a game for more stable FOR FREE, right now.

Or if all I want to do is craft why not go to Wurm? They have better crafting in my opinion. They are stable. The graphics aren't great but I'm not big on those anyway. And they got rid of skill decay. Plus its about half the price.

No I'm playing Xsyon because it will allow me to go out and just have fun fighting all day, and then sit back, relax, design a cool fort or make some neat armor when the action is low. It combines combat and crafting. If what you're telling me is you think people should have to either be crap PVPers or not be able to craft. I might as well choose which one I want to do, and then go back to Freelancer or Wurm. I'm not paying to get a game experience I can get somewhere else. I want a great crafting system combined with a PVP system that is not only fun but offers me freedom, and this is about the only place I can find that. Why kill Xsyon's best selling point?

[JCatano]

"Sandbox" simply means non-linear gameplay. Anything else is just a personal definition, because there isn't an official one.

The soft cap/skill decay system that is going to be in Xsyon isn't linear. It's dynamic, since you'll be able to change your build. You don't need more than one character for that, although alts will certainly be beneficial to those who buy an extra account.

You will be able to master crafting skills and combat skills, unfortunately (in my opinion), since he made separate pools for each. Also:

- You have no idea how fast skills will decay
- You have no idea what the soft cap value is going to be

Even if all skills were in the same pool, you might be able to do both. Pre-NGE allowed for it because of the number of points given, but you had the choice to invest fully in either playstyle, too.

You're referring to yourself, so I'll refer to me... I enjoy games where people have to make choices, because it allows for interdependent gameplay. Quite a concept for an MMO, eh?

Nobody is saying that you have to be a "crap PvPer" or "not be able to craft". He already Hopi'd the system by separating the pools, so you can be l33t at something in both lines. The system isn't a locked one. It has fluidity, but accountability with regard to your choices. It would have even more accountability without separate pools, but whatever.

If you want no cap at all... Not going to happen. He already assured us of that long ago.

[Andius]

As I said, I don't mind being restricted to a 2-3 crafting skills on a decent combat character. Trading and interdependence aren't bad things but making but being forced into a single role or else thinly spread over many roles is. A good sand box character needs multiple functions so the player can enjoy a more full game experience.

And in a PVP centered game it is ESSENTIAL that you be able to do nothing that moves your level one bit for hours on end without taking a penalty. Wars do not stop for skill decay. I don't want to be out escorting convoys and fighting ruffians, all day to figure out my leathercrafting went down .30 points. I don't want for the convoy arriving safely to mean I go down .02 in my axe skill. I really don't even care how low the skill decay is. Like I said before, its like saying I can't judge whether I want a broken bone or not before I know which bone they are going to break, and how badly they will break it. Even if its just a bruise on their arm I get while they fail trying to break my bone its a bad thing. All skill decay is bad skill decay. It is never, ever, ever, ever, good even a little, in any situation, unless its a voluntary skill decay that comes from trading skill points from one skill to another. But I don't believe people even refer to that as skill decay. So I don't want to hear how they intend to implement it. I simply want to hear that it won't be in the game. Period.

That said I never asked for no cap at all. I asked for a soft cap, once which grows exponentially, to the point there is literally not enough hours in the day, and days between new skill releases, that it would be possible to ever entirely max a character. The "People will always max the character" argument doesn't trump math. If its deemed entirely impossible for a hardcore player with no job to get within 5 skills of max before a new skill release, and the amount of time to level a skill doubles with each skill. It is IMPOSSIBLE for even a 24/7 macroer to get max skill in all areas. Its not "If it can be done, it will be done." Its, it can't be done. Period. End of story. There is simply not enough time. You could implement a system like this and still set the soft cap so that if you are taking a reasonable number of skills you can have a pretty diverse and versatile character that is still interdependent on other characters.

My point with no cap, I would rather have it than skill decay. I just hate skill decay that much.