Skill Gain System

[JCatano]

edaw22 wrote:

The following is an email from Xsyon regarding the post I made above. Hopefully I provides some interesting information regarding their stance on macroing and what measures are built into the skill system to make it both difficult and most importantly unnecessary.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Hey Wade,

This is almost exactly what we already have, though some of it is not 100% finished yet. I need to check through the system but it will definitely have:


- Skill soft cap with leveling a skill above 100 getting very difficult

- Skill soft cap based on skill groups

- Skill decay based on least used skills

- Diminishing returns

- Additional skill points based on experience gained.

- Skill increase slowing down based on a use timer. Repeatedly trying one skill over and over will be less effective for leveling than just playing and using skills on a regular basis. This isn’t fully implemented yet.

In addition, I think a lot of the skills are designed to make macroing difficult, and hopefully the game is just fun enough for low level players that they don’t feel the need to race to level before the game is fun.

That’s the basic idea behind having players start off with decent stats. These stats affect skill use and depending on a player’s choices they should start off with some decent abilities and not feel like a weakling compared to the ‘high level’ characters which happens too often in games.

I’ll go through the skill leveling code again to make sure everything is balanced and working once we get the damn server working better and most of the bugs and current changes completely out of the way.

Talk to you soon,

Jordi

This one concerns me. All skills should be in the same pool. SWG-Raph Koster > Jordi if the orange is what it seems to mean. I hope it's not.

I'm tired of games thinking they have to hand-feed people with regard to separate pools in a skill system. It hurts people who want to be pure crafters, because everyone can be an elite crafter (in at least one line) and elite fighter (in at least one line).

If one pool of skills allowed for that, then fine, but at least there would still be decisions about tradeoffs. With separate pools, there are no crafting versus combat decisions.

[kiwibird]

Another reason why I love this game, thanks for the reply edaw.

[edaw22]

JCatano wrote:

edaw22 wrote:

The following is an email from Xsyon regarding the post I made above. Hopefully I provides some interesting information regarding their stance on macroing and what measures are built into the skill system to make it both difficult and most importantly unnecessary.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Hey Wade,

This is almost exactly what we already have, though some of it is not 100% finished yet. I need to check through the system but it will definitely have:


- Skill soft cap with leveling a skill above 100 getting very difficult

- Skill soft cap based on skill groups

- Skill decay based on least used skills

- Diminishing returns

- Additional skill points based on experience gained.

- Skill increase slowing down based on a use timer. Repeatedly trying one skill over and over will be less effective for leveling than just playing and using skills on a regular basis. This isn’t fully implemented yet.

In addition, I think a lot of the skills are designed to make macroing difficult, and hopefully the game is just fun enough for low level players that they don’t feel the need to race to level before the game is fun.

That’s the basic idea behind having players start off with decent stats. These stats affect skill use and depending on a player’s choices they should start off with some decent abilities and not feel like a weakling compared to the ‘high level’ characters which happens too often in games.

I’ll go through the skill leveling code again to make sure everything is balanced and working once we get the damn server working better and most of the bugs and current changes completely out of the way.

Talk to you soon,

Jordi

This one concerns me. All skills should be in the same pool. SWG-Raph Koster > Jordi if the orange is what it seems to mean. I hope it's not.

I'm tired of games thinking they have to hand-feed people with regard to separate pools in a skill system. It hurts people who want to be pure crafters, because everyone can be an elite crafter (in at least one line) and elite fighter (in at least one line).

If one pool of skills allowed for that, then fine, but at least there would still be decisions about tradeoffs. With separate pools, there are no crafting versus combat decisions.

I can understand exactly what you mean when you say this and that is why i brought up that exact point when I was chatting to Jooky.

What he told me was that while there are a few different softcaps and groups of skills that contribute to them, the more you fill up one softcap the smaller the others get, thus a player who goes heavily into crafting skills will be somewhat inhibited as to the number or level of which skills in other groups can be raised.

In my opinion this is a good system as it creates a compromise between two severe systems. It does not allow the player to be master of crafting and master of combat etc but at the same time it doesnt say if you want to be a great crafter you cant do any combat at all.
Instead it says look, ya cant be awesome at everything, if you wanna be a master crafter ya just not gonna be able to be a master combatant too, but you can get semi-decent at it. And at the same time it allows a player to spread their focus evenly over all aspects.

I can understand you might feel that way if the softcaps were to operate entirely independently. However now that you know that they effect each other based on their own level, what are your thoughts?

[Jadzia]

edaw22 wrote:

JCatano wrote:

edaw22 wrote:

The following is an email from Xsyon regarding the post I made above. Hopefully I provides some interesting information regarding their stance on macroing and what measures are built into the skill system to make it both difficult and most importantly unnecessary.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Hey Wade,

This is almost exactly what we already have, though some of it is not 100% finished yet. I need to check through the system but it will definitely have:


- Skill soft cap with leveling a skill above 100 getting very difficult

- Skill soft cap based on skill groups

- Skill decay based on least used skills

- Diminishing returns

- Additional skill points based on experience gained.

- Skill increase slowing down based on a use timer. Repeatedly trying one skill over and over will be less effective for leveling than just playing and using skills on a regular basis. This isn’t fully implemented yet.

In addition, I think a lot of the skills are designed to make macroing difficult, and hopefully the game is just fun enough for low level players that they don’t feel the need to race to level before the game is fun.

That’s the basic idea behind having players start off with decent stats. These stats affect skill use and depending on a player’s choices they should start off with some decent abilities and not feel like a weakling compared to the ‘high level’ characters which happens too often in games.

I’ll go through the skill leveling code again to make sure everything is balanced and working once we get the damn server working better and most of the bugs and current changes completely out of the way.

Talk to you soon,

Jordi

This one concerns me. All skills should be in the same pool. SWG-Raph Koster > Jordi if the orange is what it seems to mean. I hope it's not.

I'm tired of games thinking they have to hand-feed people with regard to separate pools in a skill system. It hurts people who want to be pure crafters, because everyone can be an elite crafter (in at least one line) and elite fighter (in at least one line).

If one pool of skills allowed for that, then fine, but at least there would still be decisions about tradeoffs. With separate pools, there are no crafting versus combat decisions.

I can understand exactly what you mean when you say this and that is why i brought up that exact point when I was chatting to Jooky.

What he told me was that while there are a few different softcaps and groups of skills that contribute to them, the more you fill up one softcap the smaller the others get, thus a player who goes heavily into crafting skills will be somewhat inhibited as to the number or level of which skills in other groups can be raised.

In my opinion this is a good system as it creates a compromise between two severe systems. It does not allow the player to be master of crafting and master of combat etc but at the same time it doesnt say if you want to be a great crafter you can do any combat at all.
Instead it says look, ya cant be awesome at everything, if you wanna be a master crafter ya just not gonna be able to be a master combatant too, but you can get semi-decent at it. And at the same time it allows a player to spread their focus evenly over all aspects if they want to a play a more "Jack of all trades Master of none" Type character.

I can understand you might feel that way if the softcaps were to operate entirely independently. However now that you know that they effect each other based on their own level, what are your thoughts?

I like it.

[Derek]

Sounds good to me.

[Primavera]

I like the way this thread is heading - thanks for posting the stuff from Jooky, Wade.

Just a question here to Jadzia on the suggestion below (Even though the thread has moved on a little). I read this and felt it would mean solo players would be very disadvantaged by the system, for fairly obvious reasons - was that your intention or did you envisage ways around it?


Jadzia wrote:

Another way I can think of is not to get xp at all for activities, but people could get a level when they accomplish a goal. Like for construction skill one would get level 1 when he build a bench. After that he can build more benches if he needs some, but that won't give him any xp or levels. He will get his next level only when he build a tent.

For combat it could be the same, he gets lvl 1 when he kill a wolf. After that killing wolves won't give him xp, he can kill them though for resources. He will get the next level when he kills a bear, the 3rd when he kills a zombie or whatever. The higher level the goal is, it should be harder and harder to accomplish, harder to kill the monster or in building-wise would need more resources and would take more time.

And of course every new level opens up a new set of available goals, like you won't able to build a tent till you haven't built a bench. And you won't be able to kill a bear till you haven't killed a wolf ( you would be able to attack it though, just wouldn't be able to finish it up.)

[kiwibird]

Sounds good to me, where problems of 'my way is my fun' in MMOs its important to give that master-of-all the flick, which typically comes from single/solo playing games.

I keep saying it, but Jooky has really thought about a lot of details of this game, and I like that he has done this now, and not during the production (thou Im sure a lot of things happened that way).

[Primavera]

kiwibird wrote:

Sounds good to me, where problems of 'my way is my fun' in MMOs its important to give that master-of-all the flick, which typically comes from single/solo playing games.

I keep saying it, but Jooky has really thought about a lot of details of this game, and I like that he has done this now, and not during the production (thou Im sure a lot of things happened that way).

As a soloist in Darkfall (Not meaning to harp on about DF here but its the only "master of all" game I've played) my experience has been the complete opposite - the master of all is not the fun I expected, in fact its one of the worst things about DF, and its great to see Xsyon is trying to avoid that.

edit: That sounds like I'm disagreeing about something - if I am its only the idea that "master of all" is a fun mechanism for soloists

[Jadzia]

Primavera wrote:

I like the way this thread is heading - thanks for posting the stuff from Jooky, Wade.

Just a question here to Jadzia on the suggestion below (Even though the thread has moved on a little). I read this and felt it would mean solo players would be very disadvantaged by the system, for fairly obvious reasons - was that your intention or did you envisage ways around it?


Jadzia wrote:

Another way I can think of is not to get xp at all for activities, but people could get a level when they accomplish a goal. Like for construction skill one would get level 1 when he build a bench. After that he can build more benches if he needs some, but that won't give him any xp or levels. He will get his next level only when he build a tent.

For combat it could be the same, he gets lvl 1 when he kill a wolf. After that killing wolves won't give him xp, he can kill them though for resources. He will get the next level when he kills a bear, the 3rd when he kills a zombie or whatever. The higher level the goal is, it should be harder and harder to accomplish, harder to kill the monster or in building-wise would need more resources and would take more time.

And of course every new level opens up a new set of available goals, like you won't able to build a tent till you haven't built a bench. And you won't be able to kill a bear till you haven't killed a wolf ( you would be able to attack it though, just wouldn't be able to finish it up.)

No no, it wasn't my intention at all. I don't agree with forced grouping, and in the long run it hurts the game...in a later period when everyone is higher level its kind of impossible for a new player to find groups to level up with.

I'm not a combat-oriented person so let me give you an example of my idea with blacksmithing.

Let's say you have a decent level in blacksmithing, so reaching the next one should be hard and time consuming. You get your next level by crafting a real masterpiece. You know that your masterpiece requires a special tool, which you can find in ancient chests hidden somewhere...so you have to scavange for that chest.

Once you find it (it shouldn't be hard, frustration is not a good way to entertain people ) you realize that you have to solve a hard puzzle to open it. Once you did that you get your tool which is not tradeable. You know as well that you masterpiece requires a special material which can only be found in an island inside the lake...on the bottom of a small but deep lake there. So you have to craft your boat, and somehow you have to be able to dive so deep.

You go and get some sand and ash and you make glass in a furnace...and with your glassblowing skill you craft a glass helmet which will make you able to breath underwater. Now you are prepared to get that special material.

And your quest goes so on and on, till you gather everything to craft your masterpiece. The whole process should take like 1 month on a high level. But since there is nothing repetive in it, and every activity is planned to be fun, its not boring and irritating, and unable to be macroed. And all these stuffs you will need are not tradeable, so its not like your high level friends rush you through the content. While leveling combat a kill is only granted to you if you kill the monster all alone, noone else hits it. Thats when its about to get a new level, otherwise you can kill in group of course.

I'm not saying all these skills are or will be implemented in Xsyon, I only tried to give a feeling how my idea would work

[JCatano]

edaw22 wrote:

JCatano wrote:

edaw22 wrote:

The following is an email from Xsyon regarding the post I made above. Hopefully I provides some interesting information regarding their stance on macroing and what measures are built into the skill system to make it both difficult and most importantly unnecessary.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Hey Wade,

This is almost exactly what we already have, though some of it is not 100% finished yet. I need to check through the system but it will definitely have:


- Skill soft cap with leveling a skill above 100 getting very difficult

- Skill soft cap based on skill groups

- Skill decay based on least used skills

- Diminishing returns

- Additional skill points based on experience gained.

- Skill increase slowing down based on a use timer. Repeatedly trying one skill over and over will be less effective for leveling than just playing and using skills on a regular basis. This isn’t fully implemented yet.

In addition, I think a lot of the skills are designed to make macroing difficult, and hopefully the game is just fun enough for low level players that they don’t feel the need to race to level before the game is fun.

That’s the basic idea behind having players start off with decent stats. These stats affect skill use and depending on a player’s choices they should start off with some decent abilities and not feel like a weakling compared to the ‘high level’ characters which happens too often in games.

I’ll go through the skill leveling code again to make sure everything is balanced and working once we get the damn server working better and most of the bugs and current changes completely out of the way.

Talk to you soon,

Jordi

This one concerns me. All skills should be in the same pool. SWG-Raph Koster > Jordi if the orange is what it seems to mean. I hope it's not.

I'm tired of games thinking they have to hand-feed people with regard to separate pools in a skill system. It hurts people who want to be pure crafters, because everyone can be an elite crafter (in at least one line) and elite fighter (in at least one line).

If one pool of skills allowed for that, then fine, but at least there would still be decisions about tradeoffs. With separate pools, there are no crafting versus combat decisions.

I can understand exactly what you mean when you say this and that is why i brought up that exact point when I was chatting to Jooky.

What he told me was that while there are a few different softcaps and groups of skills that contribute to them, the more you fill up one softcap the smaller the others get, thus a player who goes heavily into crafting skills will be somewhat inhibited as to the number or level of which skills in other groups can be raised.

In my opinion this is a good system as it creates a compromise between two severe systems. It does not allow the player to be master of crafting and master of combat etc but at the same time it doesnt say if you want to be a great crafter you cant do any combat at all.
Instead it says look, ya cant be awesome at everything, if you wanna be a master crafter ya just not gonna be able to be a master combatant too, but you can get semi-decent at it. And at the same time it allows a player to spread their focus evenly over all aspects.

I can understand you might feel that way if the softcaps were to operate entirely independently. However now that you know that they effect each other based on their own level, what are your thoughts?

That sounds fine to me.

But, if the groups affect each other soft cap-wise, why are the investment pools separated? I'm missing something.