Why is that...

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Stundorn, Jul 17, 2018.

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  1. Rowell

    Rowell Avatar

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    Can we all agree on one thing here?

    The SOTA Skill system is done. It has been designed, coded, implemented, tested, bug fixed, tested, released.
    We've been in persistence for what, 2 years now?

    Portalarium is NOT going to rewrite their skill system. Portalarium is not going to take away XP or skills in order to enact a class based system, or put hard caps, or limit the number of over-1XX skills a person can have. They would only be alienating their base supporters if they did that.
     
  2. Ravicus Domdred

    Ravicus Domdred Avatar

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    This might be true. Honestly though there is no great influx of players loving it. Something is not right and some things might need to change.
     
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  3. Paladin Michael

    Paladin Michael Bug Hunter

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    Well, playing since 2014 I would confirm, what @kaeshiva said. I remember really hard times, as no outskirts exists. I searched for a possibility to earn XP by doing quests ...
    And I fought the most time in my (game) life for nothing with the first decay system! It was really hard to loose so much XP.

    And now?
    Search for a group, follow them to upper tears and enjoy the xp rush! And best time is on weekend, when double XP is going on ;)

    Yes, it was very hard before Chris lowered the death decay ...

    Not to forget the costs for regs and the very low loot! Compare it with today: loot is great!
     
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  4. kaeshiva

    kaeshiva Avatar

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    @Bambino
    I stand by the "its easier to level than ever" statement.
    Attenuation 1m caps exist, yes, but honestly before the recent change to CPs this was not easy to hit anywhere. I'm not talking about exploiters here. You could only farm CP with pets for like, a month of persistence? And then pets got nerfed to the floor and CPs got changed to be not worth doing until the very recent revamp of them.

    So yeah, there was the monkey room - but you couldn't reach 1m an hour easily and if you were in a group, the xp split made it a lot less lucrative. And the respawn on the monkeys, making them faster, was added around the same time as attenuation, and even with the faster respawn, getting over a mil an hour solo was not easy and impossible in a duo or bigger.

    The revamped CPs were the go-to place where a full group could attenuate, but those are fairly recent additions as well, they weren't around 'back in the day' - not at the current lvl of gain in a full party, not even close. You got better money from them back then (chests), though.

    For the majority of the legit playerbase (I'm not going to address the macro/botter/exploiter crap...I know it existed at some point, I hope the devs banned them all, I expect some slipped through, nothing I can do about that) -

    Levelling is absolutely easier than it ever was
    .
    Firstly, the group XP split has been adjusted so they you aren't penalized for not soloing. Makes a massive difference. Not just to what you gain by grouping but the general attitude toward grouping has changed as a result, as its less punishing for more experienced players to group with new guys.

    Next, there's outskirts now, that can get you to the level 40-50 range if you do all 3, from them alone. When I started out I had to kill crocodiles in Veiled swamp lol. After that, with some good gear, you're pretty much able to do T4 or some of the more tame T5.

    Also, Double XP has been ON nearly as much as its been OFF, since MARCH. That was unprecedented prior to that. Double makes a massive difference.

    Gear is better, cheaper, and more available than ever due to crafting changes resulting in people listing things dirt cheap. Not high end stuff, but better starter gear than ever existed in the past, for far less.
    Scenes have been revamped and improved across the board, with many low tier scenes now having quests/content for extra rewards or just being modernized.
    Several other low tier scenes are also now being brought up to speed, like Wyntons Folly, East Vauban, etc.

    Of course, then there's always joining a tears group (no shortage of them available esp. during double) and get more XP in a single evening than I think I did my first 6 months playing.
    So yeah. Much. Easier.

    Even if you're a pure hermit soloist living in a bubble and never speak to people there are more opportunities now, more low level content, more gear availability, etc. etc. etc.
     
  5. Bambino

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    No agreement. It is not done, still not fully tested, still has multiple bugs, yet it was released. They are alienating their playerbase by keeping the system as it is in place.
     
  6. kaeshiva

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    I agree that it is possible (if unlikely, at this point) that they could adjust the skill system, we had this discussion a year ago about the hard caps and nothing came of it. I think at this stage of the game it would be difficult to implement a such thing without alienating the players currently playing. How would you even do such a thing? If you capped by number of what, level 120 skills? 100? Total skill points? There are potentially hundreds of players who are probably light years beyond whatever the 'cap' would be. Do they just get a slap and told 'tough' all this work you've done to build your character we are taking away? I can't think of a quicker way to lose an active player/subscriber than that.

    For this reason I think that any massive revamp is unlikely. This is a bit of a shame, because a system with a fixed limit makes it so very much easier to balance content to player power, instead of doing what we see happening now - players reach levels of power not anticipated, and get nerfed back down. The door gets slammed in the face of the folks not quite at the top 5% but just below, patch after patch after patch. A hardcap system would eliminate a lot of this pain, it would eliminate the need for any sort of decay mechanic, and well, we'd be playing a different game. But I do think its a bit late to go back to the drawing board on this, unless they want to effectively dismiss every player who is beyond that power point. Unless of course they found the highest level player, and capped everything where they are now. Probably a much higher cap than some folks who want caps would like, but at least there'd be an 'end'.

    I do think that there is potential for improvement, and I'm fairly sure that additional content/scenes/zones and or systems/mechanics to make the grind less "grindy" are in the works.

    I dislike the notion of capping total skills on a character, personally, because it kills versatility. If you don't like grinding on one toon, I imagine you aren't gonna wanna roll up and gear 4-5 alts so you can have a healer character and a tank character and etc.
    I mean then we just end up being a class-based game, albeit a highly customizable class based game, but such a complete 180 at this point is a dangerous step. Might it make the game better? Maybe, maybe not - personally softcap system and incremental growth over years appeals to me - once I 'cap' and 'max out' in a game I usually move on from it soon after. I appreciate that I'm probably not the majority, but there must be others who are the same. How many people will they lose with a new system? How many will they gain? How do you gauge that risk? What would be the cost in development time, testing, etc. to do such a radical change to the game, to skill balance as a result, to creature balance? I just don't see how they'd feasibly pull it off.
     
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  7. Bambino

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    There are several way to approach this if major changes took place. I'm sure Atos has some even better ideas on how it would work.

    As a one time thing, we put all that XP into a bottle with 100% return, then allow it to be delegated to the avatars of your choosing. You would basically be re-rolling your avatar into possibly 3-5 different avatars.

    IMO, in a system like this, a max adventure level would be more desirable than a hard cap on every skill. I'd only desire a hard cap on skills if we didn't have an adventure level cap.
     
    Last edited: Jul 18, 2018
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  8. kaeshiva

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    I think I'd rather a level cap to a skill cap too, if such a thing ever were to happen.

    But I don't really wanna spread my progress over several alts...that just sounds like a logistics nightmare to me. I don't want to play 3 mediocre characters, I'd like to keep what I've worked for.
    That drastic a change would likely cause an exodus of many veteran players.

    The problem with a cap is once you hit it there's no point in continuing to go kill the monsters and such because well, you don't need XP. And if you're not fighting as much well, then you're not gonna need new gear as often so there's no point in going and harvesting stuff either. I mean I don't even know what I'd log in and do? PvP for a while I guess? That doesn't appeal to me as a long-term endgame . Um, decorate? I already spend far too much time doing that instead of doing something productive. But its one thing to decide I'm going to be unproductive today and go to an event, or write a book, or do some gardening, and another thing to have the possibility of further advancement/development not exist.

    I think we're missing something here, in the center - in most games that have a cap system there is a definable end game - be it a pvp-centric system, a raid-centric system, but there's progression outside the level 1-50 grind, after which in many games, the game truly begins. I don't feel that here, and maybe that's the problem.
     
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  9. Ravicus Domdred

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    have you thought about factions? And have a faction rep grind, that would reward you in other ways? If we could compromise with switching the grind from exp to factions, or something else besides exp I think we could reach a balance.
     
  10. Bambino

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    But, killing monsters is not just about XP? Shouldn't it be about getting gold, obtaining a particular ingredient for a recipe, farming an ultra rare artifact, vanquishing foes in a quest, and putting yourself through a challenge? I mean there is more I am missing here, but I still can't grasp how infinitely gaining XP is the determining factor in giving the feeling that you have achieved something if you don't like to grind. I'd feel very accomplished and content with a successfully completed build. I get all that XP stuff out of they way, then I get to have fun.
     
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  11. Ravicus Domdred

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    this is where I like having factions. It adds a layer of immersion. Not really factions like uo, but I am not opposed to that either. But city factions where individual who are not in guilds can join and gain rep and rewards from the cities they align with, or possibly racial factions for elves and kobalds.
     
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  12. redfish

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    Getting XP is the least RP-ish and least compelling reason to kill monsters.
     
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  13. 2112Starman

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    One of our guild mates started ~4 - ~5 months ago and is already adv lvl 128. I agree with you 100%
     
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  14. Bambino

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    Only 4-5 months? just sayin...
     
  15. Ravicus Domdred

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    can I do that playing 10-20 per week?
     
  16. DeadnGone

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    True, reality and games are 2 different things no matter how close you try to mimic reality. But lets factor in facts. Those who work less but get paid more... are 90% or more going to be HIGHLY SKILLED at their jobs and have some serious experience under their belt for the money they make. That's a fact. Sure, there is corruption, sometimes nepotism throwing in your family, gf, or just a friend instead of the most qualified candidate, but that is not the norm either. But I don't think players are going to want people to do less and get more than they do putting in their hard work as well... that doesn't seem realistic in real-life or in game.

    Some catch-up incentives are nice, some quick leveling up options are nice as well (as mentioned, for *long established* games). But not 24/7, every day of the week. That would just anger those that spent all their hard earned time into something and they may wind up quitting too.. so, you may gain some, but you're going to lose some too. It's already happened.
     
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  17. Lord Tachys al`Fahn

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    You can do that over the weekends :p
     
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  18. Jefe

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    All of these threads have one thing in common. Someone wants to PvP and is upset that the growth system allows someone else to always be better and/or worse than their player. That's what all of these threads trace back to. So the core problem is not that players can continue to grow, the core problem is that PvP players want some way to cap/limit player growth so they feel like they can fight on equal footing.

    That is why there are references to no growth games like SoT, etc. Chances are, if there was a sufficient mechanism to equalize player points-based power levels for PvP, then these conversations would become a lot more scarce. They would shift to the "this person is cheating because they killed me" conversations.
     
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  19. Ravicus Domdred

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    :p
     
  20. DeadnGone

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    Hah, think someone has been misleading you :) Not saying they didn't tell you that but there is no possible way anyone can gain 128 adventure levels in 4-5 months, even with the recent boost to exp. Think someone is pulling your leg, they are secretly a dev, or they devs have graced them with a cheat.

    We have a guy in our guild, Diaz, and the guy is a grind-master. Always grinding. He came in persistence shortly after me and just flew through stuff because he loves grinding. If the servers are up, he is on, grinding... not small gain areas, but max gain areas for him. He's a math whiz as well and tries to maximize his efforts. Some days, he may actually take a nap... other than that he's power-grinding. The double exp events has him doing it even more and I believe just this past Sat/Sunday he finally hit Adventure level 114. Think he said with the way hes getting exp in Upper Tears with double xp going on, he was on par to get 2 levels in a month of grinding there. Xp gain isn't non-stop there, you can only get so much per hour, so i'm pretty sure this guy, if he actually is Adv Lvl 128... certainly put in more time than 4 to 5 months :D Sounds good though, hah.
     
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