Decay .... Revisited .... Again

Having listened to the Telethon, we are no closer in justifying decay than we were before. Mostly because there is no justification for it.

DarkStarr: "Let's talk about why we need it. Why it needs to exist."

Chris: "so the big thing on decay I mean the reason it makes sense is people can scream I don't like this but there's going to be some system in place you don't like there has to be limits on uh how high skills can go, how powerful someone can be ..... At some point you will hit the point where the decay matches your earned experience points ...... Bottom line is we need to have some system in place......"

Chris also takes time to explain how it will only affect higher skill levels. And how they will work to make it less painful. And how in SOTA unlike WOW you don't really notice a 5-10 level difference in skill.

Well that just begs the question, doesn't it? Why must there be a limit? Why can exponentially more difficult advancement not suffice? Why must we punish those most dedicated to the game? Why must those who play the most have to grapple with this instead of being rewarded for playing the most? Why are they working to make something less painful, when simply removing the mechanic would relieve the pain ENTIRELY?

There is further reference to going to the Oracle to confess your sins in order to mitigate decay.

What? Now decay is linked to morality instead of physical degreadation?

This is becoming a "because I said so" answer. This smacks of a mechanic, once introduced and controversial, being watered down and justified by ...... Inertia? Or Nothing?

Chris goes on to explain in general how decay will work but actually glosses over the very rudimentary question of why we MUST have decay.

The mechanic is punitive. It is uneccesary. It is unjustified. It's complex. It is contorted. It's illogical. Oh and it sucks.

Oh great look it's a nice day lets have a picnic, we have everything we need. No wait lets piss on it a little for no reason.

Sorry and not to pick on Chris who I agree with 99% of the time but this mechanic is still not justified and will hurt the game more than it will help.

 

All true.

And the best part is, mechanics like "the oracle" are going to remove the reason it's being put in.
So, yes, they're intentionally putting new mechanics in place so Decay doesn't do the job it is being implemented to do. (sound crazy? It is.) Guess what would be easier? Don't put it in at all!
OR Take it out and put in hard caps.
OR Make it only apply, at all, even a little bit, at 81+, 91+ or 100+, whichever level you want players to reach for each skill.

That's all you have to do to make the pain stop. Pick one.

@Chris : This is THE WORST solution to the problem you claim to be trying to solve. It will be a non-stop, constant, continual, unending, disastrous nightmare of a public relations debacle. You know it. Don't do it.

 

Their reason is Valid just need to tweak the mechanic, how about we wait and see how it is actually working before we go bashing them again over this subject.

 

I hate decay but admit that it makes sense to test the new iteration before passing final judgement.

I think Chris also said somewhere that locked skills will be able to maintain their level by absorbing enough adv exp in the background to combat their decay. This sounds better to me than what we have now, but it still doesn't convince me that decay is necessary.

 

Even If I will be playing very much casual and will "suffer" from decay I like it. Mostly because it adds to my immersion (get untrained after not using a skill for a given time). And as there are ways to avoid it (suitable for new britannia), it even adds more to my immersion. I am also sure that @Chris will get it right at the end.

 

OK, while my interest for this topic has somewhat decayed but I still want to reply.

Lets imagine for a second we are playing, every day, another game. We will soon reach the cap, lvl 30, lvl 55, lvl 100, doesn't matter. For this moment to the end of time (or at least until a new patch) we will not be able to gain XP. Unjust and boring.

On the other hand, at SotA we might have the exact same effect, that is we will play every day and still not advance anymore, yet still keep the thrill of gaining XP and the fear of losing it. Looks like fair and fun.

Well, maybe, 95% of if will depend on how the game will be implemented, so better to wait.

 

I still think the concept Decay brings up is brilliant, but i agree with the OP that the way it is (was?) implemented is painful. I don't see the Oracle thingy solving anything either... The way i see it, what's weighing down the concept is

• It punishes players for not focusing on leveling up.
• It punishes more the players that play less than the ones that play more.
• The way it works (the whole XP pool - XP spent - decay thingy) doesn't feel organic enough.
• The interface to handle it is unintuitive and complicated.

I'm also on the fence, waiting to check what they've done and if they've lessened this bad things so they can focus on the good things the concept may bring.

 

Good opening post.

I could be ok with decay if the game somehow placed it in the context of why it is fun (other than it just being portrayed as 'necessary math'). How could decay be portrayed by the game as fun, important, meaningful? Can it be associated with the lore? Is the plan to allow the Oracle to mitigate decay is a step toward this? Could it be used as a reason to lure more players to shardfalls (as if going there somehow reenergizes the avatar to avoid decay)? Etc. etc.

 

I'd love to. But considering the recent 'we're planning to provide you with a solid finish line sooner than later' stance, it's now or never. If we do not complain now, we are going to stick with the system, even if it 'sucks', simply because they can not change it a month before release.

Everybody who played SotA a couple of month ago obviously knows that ain't true. We had a 'level skill based system' and we didn't need any form of decay, nor did we 'fear a master of all trades' and there was still constant growth and gaining experience. The switch over to a used based system makes no mathematical difference. You'd simply have to apply the same algorithm in a different setting. 'Problem' solved, everybody happy.

 

Ok they have give a VERY good reason for decay, it is how it will prevent players from GMing EVERY skill over time . . .

It is logical and realistic, not punitive. A person loses proficiency if something they know how do doesn't do it every so often. . . .

It is necessary to prevent players from GMing everything. Justified for the same reason.
They are working on the complexity of it. Contorted same as complex.
totally logical.
and it does not suck - skill caps suck

I am sorry you do not like it, but you should start to embrace it, it is not going away.

-If you do not focus on your skills while leveling up, and yes you need to go train to get better, you are actually punishing yourself if you don't do either.
-Actually it works out in the long run in balancing out players who play a lot and those that don't, If all it was skill caps players who play a lot would have everything GMed and would outpace the casual player 100 times worse.
-They are working on the way it works, how it works
-same as the interface - actually all it is set a skill to train or not, how complicated is that?

???? why does decay have to be fun - it is a tool implemented in the game to make sure there is in the end a balance between players so some are not GMed in everything and other players who cant play as much, It is a realistic tool.

And as Chris said - everyone will not be pleased, they know it and accept it

In closing there is MASSIVE changes to the systems coming in R26, decay caps (wont lose as much), ways to offset it, and at max 3 days (72 hrs) decay at most??? And 3 days is NOT all that much at higher levels.

So once again wait till R26, see how the changes they made work, and learn to deal with it as it is not going away

 

Decay is something I actually really like, and the fact that there will be some level of limits on it as well as a balance to it, means if I get super busy (like I tend to get) I know i can take a break from the game for a while and come back to it and only have to put in time to start bolstering those skills back up. If we don't lose skill points but only have to build up a backlog of negative exp that is far better then losing actual skill points. In fact it makes it a great way not punish those players who do have limited gaming time. yes it may take longer to level some things up then hardcore players, but that would have been true even without decay.

 

Would it be possible to create some sort of game mode where we can go with "casual" mode where there is no decay and the "hardcore/prestige" or whatever we wanna call with the skill decay? Those who go with hardcore/prestiege will have special title or some aesthetic pixel cracks that make them stood out and enjoy the challenges of limitless grinding, so the casual ones can just play however they want to play?

 

A character can not be allowed to keep on leveling with no restrictions. It's unrealistic to be good at everything, and it would be boring to start the game 2 years after release and enter a world populated by super humans.

Personally, I don't like having a level/skill cap. It promotes planning and building a specific character template over actually playing the game. So I think decay might be a good solution. Another thing I won't miss is aiming for the vanity points of a perfect skill level.

 

I get what they are trying to do, they are trying to create a system that unlike Ultima Online doesn't have specific skill caps for people to reach because that caused people to minmax rather than develop their characters organically like originally intended.

I think it's extremely unrealistic to expect them to somehow put infinite levels in the game instead of some kind of restriction.

My main concern with decay is how it affects people who don't have as much time to keep their skills high.

 

I don't see why you have to Grandmaster on a "casual" mode. Maxxing out your skills is a "hardcore" gameplay.
I am not an Olympic athlete, just a casual human. I do not expect myself to be able to run world-class fast, swim, jump, and throw, all at once. That's hardcore.

 

I don't like the idea of disciplining players that play more and while doing so disciplines the casual players even more. The point of a game is to make people want to play more right? I'm more for rewarding people for playing the game. We've been told several times it's to keep hardcore players from being able to max out all their skills past 100 since we have no skill caps. So far that isn't the case, it's still possible to get them over 100 for hardcore players, and casuals suffer more from it. We're also told you can go to the Oracle to get rid of decay by doing some sort of quest. So getting rid of the decay that's suppose to be keeping people from maxing out skills, but yet you can go do a quest to get rid of decay anyways, so it still doesn't do anything to fix the problem it was suppose to be created for.

From what we have right now with decay and what is coming it feels like the point of decay is to make us visit the Oracle every few days to do a quest. If I remember correctly it was in a hangout a while back when they were talking about bringing the sheep to the wolves by going to the Oracle to do some sort of pvp related quest. I wonder is this that quest they were talking about?

I, like Beaumaris, would like to know what makes this fun must have mechanic? What does this add to the game to make one want to play it more? What does it add to the game except a must needed quest every few days?

I would rather people want to play the game and not worry with discipline if you can't play, but decay mechanic is to try and keep people from maxing all skills...I ask.....If the point is to discipline hardcore players to keep them from maxing all the skills how come decay it isn't based on time played instead?

I don't think anyone's down on Chris, we're all just trying to understand the point of it and hope it all turns out well in the end no matter what's implemented.

 

Responding to various posts, if we have a system that makes it exponentially harder to continue to level up (we do!), I think that addresses the problem of "realism" (which is, thankfully, already suspended in a thousand aspects of this game). And as for creating "uber" players, 1) Chris himself says at higher levels it's hard to even notice a 5-10 level difference between players. So the decay isn't really doing anything except create a frustration and annoyance for many players, and 2) if you put the time in, I don't have a problem with you being more powerful - in fact, the game is already designed to do this, thankfully.

So various game mechanics already address the issues that decay is supposed to address, and according to Chris decay has already been substantially nerfed. So why have it? Why deliberately create a nuisance that the majority of players don't want?

Poor feature in a really neat game.

Finally, let's admit that the people who frequent the forums are more likely to be gaming purists. The more casual players, who will play this game (and pay for this game) will join us in far greater numbers than we already have. The percentage of players who will be annoyed by this feature will be even higher post-launch, IMO.

 

The way I understand it: decay will not be a big problem for characters who only have a bunch of medium level skills or a few high ones. Those decay losses will be fast to regain. The charcacters which will suffer are the ones who try to keep a lot of skills very high, which is exactly what the system is supposed to prevent.

The problem about overpowered characters is not about how hard it is to go from 90 to 100 since it's not a big difference, but how many skills are raised to a high level. It's not a problem for a newbie to look at a swordsman or a mage/archer/blacksmith/cooker whatever and see how much better that guy is. The problem is if all those things are in the same character. And eventually they will be no matter how slow leveling is, unless there is some system that guards against it.

 

OK the ONE simple question - what is your plan to prevent players from Maxing out all the skills they want?

 

First things first, i'll say it again. I want the concept of decay to stay, but i find flaws in the current implementation that could be avoided.

I wasn't talking about "focusing on my skills while leveling up", just about "leveling up". Every time you're not leveling, your skills are decaying. Want to decorate your house? too bad, you get decay. Want to hang out in the tavern? oh my, there goes decay.

Let's say we have player A and player T; both spend all the time in game leveling and they worry about optimization at the same level. If players build up decay when they're not fighting, and player A plays 4 hours every day and player T plays 15 hours everyday, who's going to suffer more decay?

That's true, aren't we all waiting to get more data?

Don't know, i really dropped it there because it's another of the common complains.

I fully agree with the purpose of decay and your view of it, and I'm not asking for it to be fun. It can't be fun in the same way hard caps are not fun. But even when not being fun it should not be a continuous bother as it was in the soon to end R25. We'll see if how much of a bother it is has been reduced, but as long it stays tied to the time you're not playing it's going to be a bother, imho.

It was part of the core design to lose skill points, so we can presume that's going to happen. With current implementation of decay, If you have limited gaming time you may find yourself entering and not doing anything because you can't recover the amount you lost while "not playing", being more convenient to level up to just don't use any skill and leave your character with the decay capped until you can play more time straight.

The purpose for decay is to generate an organic limit to character progression, while keeping the progress sensation for high end players (which with hard caps just end their progression and stays there). It also has the potential to generate many interesting strategies on high end, giving something else to do.

As Honador said, Decay is here to stay, so i think it's better to focus in the elements we don't like about it instead of asking to "remove it entirely". The other options are either dull or simply not feasible. I'm sure the concept can be tuned to reach what is intended; to be almost unnoticeable to low level players and to start doing its thing only as you're high enough to deserve such treatment.