This game is so focused on making crafting rewarding that it makes adventuring feel pointless.

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Aetrion, Sep 7, 2019.

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  1. Bow Vale

    Bow Vale Avatar

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    Not slightly...To fit your narrative you dropped the wands attunement by approx. 50% and doubled that of an uncommon ankh or even added 25% to the legendary one if that was the one you were referring to...

    If you are constantly making nerf posts with regards many factors of the game it is important for your argument that you are giving accurate figures and not something that is made up...

    It disproves that the cost you say it is, is wrong. Just because someone is selling things for XXX amount (even if they are), doesn't mean that is their cost. I have seen Heart of Vrul for 500k recently, that doesn't mean that's the real value of it. You are just taking a value that you have seen and declaring that as its value to again fit your narrative.

    I have 4 Legendary Ankhs, Simple...WTB Ankh Wala, 30k in trade channel. 32*30k = less than 1 mill for 2 of them...

    I know this isn't the trade channel but if anyone wants to buy an Ankh Wala for 2mill gold each, i don't mind a profit of 1.5mill :) then please message in this post and its yours. Your getting a darn good deal according to Aetrion. Lets see if we get any takers...
     
  2. Aetrion

    Aetrion Avatar

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    Except the difference isn't important to my argument. You're nitpicking an error in the numbers because you have no actual counter argument to the fact that well over half the attunement you can reasonably attain comes from acquiring a set of legendary artifacts and thereby comes down to nothing more than spending enough gold. How have you countered that argument in any way?

    The argument remains exactly the same:

    More than half the power on a character comes from expensive items. (Arguing the price does not disprove this. Arguing how good slightly less expensive items are does not disprove this)
    This is a game where gold can be legally bought for real life currency.
    That means more than half the power of any given character can be acquired by just dropping enough dollar bills.
    Any attempt to create challenging content is immediately undermined by such extreme power differences between players purely based on how much gold they spend on gear.
     
    Last edited: Sep 16, 2019
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  3. Bow Vale

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    Doubling and halfing amounts to fit your narrative isn't needed then is it. You found it important to add those figures to your post, if they were not meant to convey a message you wouldn't have added them so you placed an importance to them to enforce your point. If you are stating incorrect figures then its likely that your argument overall is just as ropey or even an indication it is purposively biased. If your figures had been correct or thereabouts i would not have uttered a peep.

    I've bene reading many posts from yourself the last few months attacking lots aspects of the game. Sure the game needs some tough love but i generally get the impression that you feel left behind in time and skill and are trying to bring all down to a level you feel that you can compete. I understand your reasoning, i feel the game would better be served with hard caps and would make it much easier to balance for, however its not going to happen and i choose to play regardless because i enjoy the game, mostly, and one of those reasons is because we can now specialise a bit and make our characters great in certain areas. Artifacts help us to do that. We can put our efforts into specific areas of the game, and be one of the best in that field but bad/terrible in others. I like the trade off artifacts bring to the game.

    I have never argued against the fact that you can raise attunement highly by using artifacts. You are incorrect in stating that you can 'Get well over half the attunement you can reasonably attain coming from a set of legendary artifacts' as i can have 370 Sun attunement, and only 160 of that comes from 2 Walas. Ill give you the benefit of the doubt you meant ALL artifacts, sure i can get an extra 30 from chain/ring, but still even with those included that's only about a 5% difference over half, 55%, not really well over. And all this added attunement, it must be godly...Not really no, especially for your example, Sun.

    The Sun school is a support class really. The only really useful skill is a single target searing ray. Yes i do nice damage with it but that's it on a 12 second CD, and the only damage skill for the whole school. Sure Chris might add another sun damage skill, he said he would, but......if its here by Christmas ill be surprised, and we can only really judge something when the facts are clear. By using 2 Walas it forces you to really only use Sun mainly and sure the added intelligence you can get by using Sun items with high attunement and thus higher enlightenment is nice but only really cosmetic for other classes as you are using ankhs instead of wands purposed to more direct damage spell classes. The added int boost no way makes up for say using fire magic wands with their extra attunement for fire, Extra fire damage amount, added intelligence/stats and critical chance, less reagent use, etc.

    As an example my character has 290 int at the moment using 2 legendary Walas.
    For ring of fire the damage at skill 110 ( although i do have 100 fire warding but it is still relative) the damage with 290 is 12-20, with no enlightment on(99.8 addition), 190 int, the damage is 10-17, a difference of 2-3
    A better example, For Ice arrow the damage at skill 120, the damage with 290 int is 85-127, with no Walas, 74-111, a difference of 11-16. Average with = 106, without 92.5. Approx 13.5, About 13% more damage. If i was using wands purposed for those specific schools then the damage would be much greater.

    The other skills in the Sun tree are basically useless. Dazzle is nice on occasion, but still even without wala its more than sufficient for the task. Blind is boosted by attunement but still need to be using Wala's that thus negate your overall effectiveness. I can get a near 6 hour light spell but im expecting that to be nerfed soon :( :)

    So why do i like the Sun tree? Well, its the gold Walas they look cool and hsiny and the laser beams that do it for me..oh and the smoke when they get vaporised...I never chose it for the OP reasoning, cause it wasn't and it isn't.
    Nope. They will not be nerfed. The reason is that the game needs these kind of drops for a number of reasons.

    We only have a handful of top tier crafters in the game. I would be very surprised if a new player now ever gets to make items similar to what they can produce as they are well behind the curve in time/expense/knowledge and locations. By removing or nerfing artifacts and taking everything of power to the crafters the game would become amazingly dull for the vast majority of players. The artifacts and the now combining of makes adventuring for them or gold making to acquire them fun and worthwhile. Without them in the game i doubt many would play as people need this kind of rewards instead of rusty spoons, obsidian chips and 1 gold ore. The loot in the game has and still is to a big degree, terrible.

    Artifacts have made adventuring less monotonous and gives all players a chance to acquire something special and to work towards, and thus specialise their build. By using artifacts it encourages diversity. Sure you may be powerful in certain areas but weak in others and we just need the game content to catch up to gel all those differing specialised builds and give a reason to group up and play together. I don't see the problem is with artifacts, its with the core adventuring/combat which needs synergy between builds and a reason to group to manage top tier/loot rich combat.




     
  4. Aetrion

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    You're arguing from the exact position of someone who's benefitting from broken builds like this while the entire game is crumbling because of grotesque power differences itemization like that creates. "But only 55% of my insanely overpowered game ruining character came from items that are obtainable by just throwing money at the game!". That's a perfect example of the rot at the core of this system I'm talking about. Crap like that wouldn't be allowed to exist in any reasonably managed system.

    Characters with stats like 290 Int and 370 attunement are an absolute blight on this game. They ruin any possibility of meaningful, well scaled PvE content. They ruin any pretense that PvP could ever have competitive merit. They destroy any chance of having a balanced game. They make the game unpalatable for the vast majority of the MMORPG audience.

    There is no redeeming quality to allowing characters like that except being too timid to tell the players behind them that the game can't revolve around them if it is to attract more than a few hundred people.
     
    Last edited: Sep 16, 2019
  5. Bow Vale

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    Those high numbers really got you excited!
    But why?? You again do not explain in any concrete terms why. You just dramatize your point with these comments without explaining why.


    How in my instance am i benefitting from a broken build? An Insanely overpowered game ruining character!! I have taken the time to explain why its not the case, please explain why you insist it is. Just saying it doesn't make it true.


    This 55% is just attunement as shown to you prior. You imply that this attunement is game ruining. HOW!??! Again you just attach any old argument to what suits your narrative.

    95% of my gold is made ingame. What point is there in playing the game if we don't aquire gold/loot. And what is the purpose for acquiring the gold....Maybe to expand our characters, as you do with all games. Making gold and converting that gold to 'power' is not a new idea in games. And approximately half of that 'power' as you describe it, but is infact only attunement, comes from normal means including skills and easy to aquire buffs. Personally i feel that a 50% skills, 50% equipment ratio to overall power/effectiveness is quite fair in building a character. Again, artifacts allow the player to specialise into areas of the game and encourages diversity. A good thing imo.

    I do agree with you on one thing. The main issue of the game is allowing the purchasing of crowns and then converting that to gold and thus items. I've argued from the start of the game against the funding model for it. Everyone should have started equal and all advantages should only be gained from playing the game. That said its what it is and its quite possible to earn 1mill gold a month which allows people that play the game the opportunity to purchase items and to tailor their characters the way they wish.


    Yes they quite high but as I've shown to you in figures they do not make anything especially in the Sun class OP or effects the other schools detrimentally. Don't just say it, show me why they do according to you. What are the benefits to this high attunement/intelligence that you are so against. Again don't just say it, prove it to me, give me facts and figures.

    I have again explained why i feel artifacts and the chance to gain good loot important to myself. There is no endgame at present, Artifacts and raising attunement and stats to high levels keep me playing the game. I have dreams of having 400 attunement and 400 intelligence, that will get your knickers in a twist! This is a goal the game allows me to create and work to. Is all the effort and cost going to be worth the investment. Certainly not and is not efficient gameplay as the time/resources could be put into other areas for a much better investment of xp/gold to efficiency. Its just what floats my boat and as shown in figures isn't overpowered. You just think it is as you see high figures and make assumptions. If things are overpowered then adjustments are needed but the core principle of making adventuring worthwhile to expand your character by increasing skills, crafting good equipment and using hard to aquire through adventuring artifacts is basically what all games of this type do. its normal.

    With regard to low population you put down to people having op characters. That is not the reason the game has a low population and even if it was an issue then its to deep in the system to be noticed by new players initially. Theres many other reason that i see for the low population but dont lie in this thread.
     
  6. Aetrion

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    Because 999 out of 1000 players are not willing to invest the time or money required to make a character with such absurdly high stats. The vast majority of players are also not willing to play a game where the difference between them and the most hardcore players is not 10-20% more power, but more like 100-200%.

    The insane power difference this game creates between the hardcore players and the average players by not having any reasonable caps on stats is destructive to absolutely everything in the game. You can't entice people with competitive PvP if the barrier to having a character that can't get stomped out by statistics alone is so high. You can't create challenging PvE content if the characters that the average players in your game create are half as powerful as the characters of the most hardcore players, because you wind up with a game where the content is either inaccessible to the majority of players, or a game where pushing your character to the upper edge makes all content trivial. You can't have a balanced game when minmaxed characters are so much more powerful than average characters that balance decisions that make sense for the strongest characters seem completely unjustified to the average player.

    The biggest thing you need to realize is that most people who play MMORPGs simply leave when they realize that they are in a game where the amount of work they are comfortable with putting in is not sufficient to max out a character. The vast majority of players in this game do not have characters anywhere near as powerful as yours. Even people who have played solidly since the games inception are usually not even close to as geared up, and that's just the small number of people who don't care that they won't ever make it to the top. Most people do care, and have left accordingly.

    The bottom line is, when a game caters to an extreme minority it hurts its player numbers, and characters with stats like yours are created by an extreme minority of players, and have a drastic negative impact on everyone else's enjoyment of the game. It keeps people from feeling competitive in PvP, it keeps the devs from getting the challenge of PvE encounters right, it makes balancing the game needlessly difficult, and it just flat out drives people away when they realize that their priorities in life don't allow them to max out a character.

    There is a very good reason why basically no successful MMORPG has vastly superior gear as tradable rares instead of content completion rewards and infinite character advancement. These are not good ideas, they both specifically conspire to create a tiny elite, and when the effect of that is as drastic as it is in this game nobody should act surprised that it's hurting player numbers. And yea, obviously the people at the top of the pyramid are going to say everything is great, and they aren't wrong for having created broken characters in a game that allowed them to, but they are definitely guilty of lacking self awareness if they can't see how that affects the rest of the game.
     
  7. kaeshiva

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    Here's the problem.

    I don't disagree with what you're saying in this and other posts about the power differential between what most players can reasonably obtain, and what the high end minmaxers obtain.
    While new gear opportunities (both from arti, and improved mw/enchant) has pushed the accepted "soft cap" on things like int and attunement, the bonuses are not linear.
    To get 1 more point of natural attunement at my level I need to invest -millions- of experience. 20 attunement ups my base damage by like ...10 points. To get 20 raw attunement in my chosen element without gear I'd need to invest around three hundred million xp for a very, very small benefit. And the higher you go, the less that attunement will give you. This is by design, power gain for xp point spent tapers off extremely steeply. Gear pushes you more into that curve but the curve still applies.

    I don't think the problem is the gear, I think the problem is, as we've seen repeatedly, that high level players who can trivialize content are being used as the benchmark for new content

    Since day 1 in Sota, I've been 'just behind' the "top players" and since day 1, as soon as I get to the point where I can just about do something, its either changed, nerfed, balanced, adjusted, or whatever, so its no longer possible. Because the handful of "top players" are the ones that new content is being added for and being balance checked against. New gear opportunities are a chance to push me into 'that bracket' and I'm sitting here, cringing, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

    Some players will invest hundreds, thousands of hours to be "top." And if a player is willing to put in the work, there has to be reasonable reward/benefit for doing so. Otherwise you run into a player retention problem - why stick around if there's nothing more to do? Many, many players, the majority of players - will not put in the time (or money, in some cases) to get to that level. And that would be perfectly fine, if all the new content wasn't balanced against what 1% of the player base can actually do.

    I don't think the solution is to start putting hardcaps though. The softcap situation is functioning as it should, and a hard cap is basically synonymous with "the end" - there's no reason for that player to play anymore if they've gone as far as they can go. Even if they did put in hard caps, it would not solve the problem, since the "levelling up" experience is a grind measured often in months, especially if you include gear in the equation. And if they decided to put in caps a lot lower than where people are now, it would be no surprise if those people left. If I've spent 2 years developing my character and logged in tomorrow and found that I was no more powerful than people who'd been playing for a month, I'd be done . I'm sure I'm not alone here. If I can achieve in a month the maximum level of power in the game, what incentive is there to keep playing beyond that?

    Instead, content should be added/balanced based on what the mid-tier, average players can be expected to group up, complete, and enjoy. If there's a few powerplayers that trivialize that content, well, we're in same position we are now - except at least the majority of the playerbase doesn't feel like they can't do anything. You cannot stop the powergamers. They will devour content and, more often, move on when they get bored, as I've seen many, many people do in my time here. Its the nature of the MMO.. You're never going to satisfy those players and dishing out new content frequently enough to keep them all satisfied is a near impossible task.

    Its a valid argument for PvP - and probably one of the more significant reasons why I don't PvP in this game (though, the pointless ransom and 15 mins of inventory management, lack of any defined faction or goals, or built-in-pvp-content that isn't just ganking people while they're engaged with mobs is a bigger factor) - but caps for pvp scenes or for "vs another player" damage are ways to solve this without destabilizing the rest of the content.

    Our active population is not that high, as such things go. And for people who have played other MMOs and can achieve maximum power in a few weeks, or even days, Sota is a different animal. Maybe that's why I've got over 10,000 hours in this game, and my typical stint in other MMOs usually caps around 500 hours, when I've achieved everything I possibly can and there's no real reason to keep logging in. To me that says they are doing -something- right. The whole "but I'm so far behind everyone!" reasoning is applicable in every single game there is, unless you start on day 1, you're going to be behind. That's no different here. "Catching up" to the point where you're able to do "big stuff" takes longer here than in other games, but its absolutely achievable without being a powergamer - which has been made easier, and easier, and easier, with the doubling of XP progression, and the lifting of attenuation caps, and the adding more and more scenes where xp can get gotten faster and faster. Some now think its already too easy for a new player to get to the level in a month that it took earlier players over a year to get to.

    Higher level players trivializing content - how much does it hurt the game? I mean, I'll cede that there are economic impacts of boss-steamrollers flooding the market with artifacts ....but, as we saw in the past, that made a lot of those items obtainable and more affordable for people who couldn't get them themselves. Right now we're in a crunch because of the new changes but over time this will abate. Instead of putting artificial limits on things, I'd like to see crafting be able to fill the void here. Can't afford a Dolus Hood? Nowhere near being able to solo a cabalist? No problem, go spend 50 hours mining/refining/harvesting and craft yourself something almost as good. This to me is the key disconnect in that crafted items come nowheere close to these 'best in slot' artifacts, and still needs further development or, if it is going to be so significantly weaker, it should at least be controlled - not random. Don't like crafting? Then go spend 50 hours looting/selling stuff and buy it from someone. The options exist, but any "path to being poweful" is going to require a time investment on the player's part. If not, then there is no point in playing a game like this.
     
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  8. Sulaene Moon

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    Most games do have these, but you have to meet a certain requirement before you can use them. Such as a level requirement, or skill amount requirement, but not here.
     
  9. Aetrion

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    The XP scale isn't the problem, because you are correct, the costs scale up so dramatically that even the most hardcore players can only pull ahead by maybe 10-20%, which is a reasonable reward for their dedication. The gear on the other hand is absolutely the problem, because the system is blatantly designed to make sure that not everyone gets the best gear, and the best gear isn't a tiny bit more powerful, it's a huge amount more powerful. If the average player had +150 attunement on their whatever gear and then someone who went out of their way to put the perfect set together had +190, fine, that probably wouldn't be a big deal, but the average player doesn't have that.

    It also completely puts the kibosh on building your character however you want when only a specific combination of gear pieces produces such insane results, and in fact it's impossible to hybridize a character between several different skills without having to surrender the ability to reach overwhelming numbers like that. I mean we don't need to pretend that someone can make a sun mage with a staff or wands, or who wields a sword and shield who can cast spells that aren't a complete joke compared to double ankhs. Again, in a reasonably designed game the gains from hyper specialized items would be around 20%, in this game those items alone give double what you can reasonably expect people to work up to as their natural attunement.

    Expecting people to put 10,000 hours in a game before they reach the upper echelons of power is completely absurd. You can't grow the game's playerbase that way. It's not that people want everything handed to them either, but there is a break even point for the amount of time the game demands and the amount of time the majority of it's possible players have. This game is overshooting the demand part by a huge amount. MMORPGs have been getting easier over the last decade and have lost players because of it, too easy obviously isn't a good thing. MMORPGs also gained players, and were briefly the most profitable thing in digital entertainment, when they became easier in the decade before that though. Clearly there is a sweet spot between giving people stuff to do and respecting people's time.

    The bottom line is: this isn't real life. If you're stuck on the **** end of grotesque inequality you just leave. There is no outcry, there are no protests, there is no populism, there is no revolution. All you get in an empty, dead game, and that should be of concern the people who built the game to make money.

    Most games do have rare tradable items, yes, but in most games those items aren't the most powerful in the game, or there is only one or two slots where they are and they are a marginal improvement over something much easier to obtain. Level requirements would stop people from just spending cash to get an uber set right out of the gate, but the problem in SOTA is that even the people who earned their power through thousands of hours of hard work are breaking the game because there are still thousands of potential players who don't have that kind of time who simply walk away when they see what it takes.

    It's simply too much of a power difference to be reasonable.
     
    Last edited: Sep 17, 2019
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  10. Barugon

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    The problem is that they keep "adjusting" skills because of these outliers and that makes the average player feel worthless.
     
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  11. Cordelayne

    Cordelayne Bug Hunter

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    Yes.

    Yes!

    Yes!!

    Ye...er...no...I actually respectfully disagree with this point. :p

    I have been a proponent for hard caps ever since it became abundantly clear that balancing this "limitless" skill system is damn near impossible. There are literally thousands of skill permutations the player could choose from, making skill balance impossible!

    We have seen this time and time again with the countless nerfs and balances implemented for disparate build types. You allude to this in your earlier statements, specifically in reference to the top 1% trivializing content by min/maxing a perfect build type; which is fine. It's human nature to do so. However, this just leads to Chris needing to focus on balancing that new archetype and so the nerf/balance cycle continues. Hard caps on the other hand would allow for greater efficiency and malleability for overall skill balance, because it limits the number of options available for the player to choose from. Yes, I get that this isn't as exciting as a soft cap, limitless system, but it's the only way for a small development team to ever have hope of an actual balanced system. Blizzard has difficulty with balance in WoW and they have both the budget and the bandwidth. We have neither here.

    While I don't completely disagree that some might quit due to hard caps, I believe it would encourage more people to play, myself included. The reason being because I know that I could focus on my build and progressively work up to being able to enjoy all the content in the game. This doesn't exist unless, like you mentioned above, a player devotes thousands of hours maxing out skills to become whatever the best "Build D'jour" is that day. Right now, I feel like adventuring is pointless because I don't have the time to grind out my skills to be able to enjoy high end content, like Despair.

    I guess my point is simply this, hard caps allow the devs to actually create a balanced skill system. This would then free up a lot of their time, which could be used to create Episode 2 and new content for all players to enjoy. Otherwise, we will keep feeding the nerf/balance beast and reading future posts similar to this one.

    Yes!!!

    Respectfully disagree. If you think putting 10,000 hours of time into a game is reasonable, you're crazy. ;) Unless you live in the game who the heck has time for that?
     
    Last edited: Sep 17, 2019
  12. Aetrion

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    I think gear wouldn't be a problem if gear was similar to skills where it's easy to get up to 80-90% of the power curve, and it felt like you had a lot of choices about what to use and how to get it, but that's not the case right now. It's a small number of artifacts that basically just go to whoever has the most money to throw around.

    The more I talk to people about all this the more I realize that this isn't happening to the benefit of crafters, it's just that if you're not a crafter there isn't much of a difference between good crafted gear and artifacts. They are rare, they come from grinding, they are traded to the highest bidder and the richest players constantly speculate on their value. But I guess if you are a crafter artifacts do all of that while not even being crafted.

    So, weirdly enough, throughout this thread my opinion has kind of evolved to: Crafting actually needs to be a lot more powerful to close the gear gap. We still need some meaningful rewards for content completion, but we need to eliminate the absurd power divide first so that good, challenging content is even possible in the game.
     
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  13. Vladamir Begemot

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    So what do the hard core grinder top 1% do if there is suddenly a skill cap?

    Just asking, I'll never even come close to that, I get maybe 1 mil XP a month.
     
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  14. Aetrion

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    Well, I mean, what did people do in Ultima Online when they hit their 700/225? There are plenty of people who would argue that UO didn't even really start until you got there.
     
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  15. Barugon

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    I disagree with this. I have made it a point to use nothing but indestructible gear and it didn't take me very long to get to a point where even massive amounts of experience will only result in miniscule benefit. However, I could easily triple (or more) my current capability through gear.

    Skills are not the problem.
     
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  16. Aetrion

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    Yup, this is my observation as well. You can push your skills up to 100-120 in a reasonable amount of time, beyond that you're seeing marginal improvements at extreme cost for pretty much everything. You've barely tapped half the potential power of a character without minmaxing gear though.
     
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  17. Cordelayne

    Cordelayne Bug Hunter

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    I never said skills were the problem, lol.

    My point was that a limitless skill system inhibits the ability of the development team to properly and effectively balance said system, because the permutations of the various skill combinations are virtually endless.
     
    Last edited: Sep 17, 2019
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  18. Barugon

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    You are already limited by the number of skills that you can use at any given moment. Skill caps would not help here.
     
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  19. Aetrion

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    Hm, I agree, in an ideal version of this game the limiting factor to what works together should be deck building. I also somewhat agree with Cordelayne though that a skill system that forces you to make choices would go a long way toward creating better balance in the game, because you'd be able to make some things exclusive to each other. Most games that are based on building a hotbar from a larger number of abilities have features like only being allowed to slot one ultimate skill to make sure the system can have really powerful skills without letting people build a deck with all of them.
     
  20. Cordelayne

    Cordelayne Bug Hunter

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    This is partially true, you are limited on some but not others. Specifically as it relates to innate skills that apply automatically.

    While this is indeed cool in a limitless system where a player has limitless time, it creates inefficiencies due to the near impossibility of creating overall skill balance. @Chris has rightfully alluded to this in the past, pointing out the difficulty of constantly trying to balance the virtually endless possibilities within the system. This is no knock on him, I applaud his constant efforts to always try and find game balance, but it's an impossible task. Maybe if he had a team of people working the multitude of permutations and possibilities, but for one man...no way. It's a Herculean task with limited possible outcome!

    Allow me elucidate on my point of view, if you don't mind Barugon. I appreciate you taking the time to engage with me on this, my friend. :) To be clear, I speak from the casual gamer standpoint. Someone who loves video games but probably plays an hour a day at most. Whether that is Shroud or my new game purchase, Greedfall. When I spend that time playing a game I want to feel like I am making progress towards a goal, I don't feel that here.

    The way Shroud stands now, I have very limited interest in adventuring. Why? Very simply because I am bored with it. I have no interest in all the grinding necessary to be able to play all the higher tiered content in the game. Don't get me wrong, I would love to journey into Despair and other "high level" places, but I'm not willing to spend 10,000 plus hours on a game to do so! Furthermore, I don't believe that to be an irrational expectation. I am by no means trying to take away from the efforts of those that have; rather I am trying to point out why new and casual players can get easily frustrated with the state of the game. Currently, you need to spend all your free time playing in order to be a viable player and enjoy ALL content. Then, even if you manage to reach a point where you are awesome, the nerf bat comes around and you're back to the drawing board. Remember, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result; exactly what we have now.

    Limiting skills and creating hard caps doesn't need to hurt those "top tier" players, either. Make GMing a skill actually worth something! Make it powerful enough that it is worth pursuing; yet not necessary for a player to be able to enjoy all of the features within the game. This would also make the "mentoring" aspect of the GM system more worthwhile as well. Hard caps don't need to be limiting if appropriate avenues are made available to the player that make sense, are fun and provide a rewarding overall experience that contributes to their growth.
     
    Last edited: Sep 17, 2019
    Gravidy, Jaesun, Sulaene Moon and 3 others like this.
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