Will there be Skillsystem changes?

I know. I talked to mac a little about how changes could be made a while ago. Maybe we could stick heads together at some point

 

May be I got the intention of Stundorn wrong, but I don't think the question was just about to be better in pvp mode?

Beside this - thanx for all information from pvp players about their view how the skill system works!
If you're fine with the system like it is while playing in pvp mode - great. Thinking, Chris is pleased to hear so

To provide further possibilities for casual (or not hardcore) players to follow a role playing line could also enrich their gameplay
I think, if something fits for me and makes fun to me, will not mean it is fun for anybody else.

For example:
As I started the game I wondered about the XP POOL thing.
Fighting half an hour against enemies and gaining NO experience? No skill raised up?
The hardest fights I fought gave no experience points, because the XP pool was empty?
Logical? Not really. Not the way, a roleplayer thinks about making experience and receiving better abilities (skills) ...
It was explained, that this system was installed to prevent botting.
As we can read in Chris' daily workblog, it does not. If someone likes to bot - (s)he does. So - why this pool?
Why not gaining xp points while using skills?
The XP POOL is just one thing in the big world of the whole skill system.
And actual it is the system installed in SotA.
And there is a lot to learn in this technical skill system to understand how it works.
Not only for beginners, I guess.

For a lot of players, following the story, may be it isn't that interesting, learning all that stuff?
And telling, the Skilltrees are ok, proved and testet in pvp isn't very helpful for them
May be they just want to go around as a smart mage, without managing over 10 skilltrees the same time ...
This is also a reason, why a lot of players have problems in Solo (offline) mode.

So, I think it is important to have an extensive feedback for every play mode.

 

It's two different perspectives trying to use the same words to define their perspective.

All the skills a character has = class
All the skill in a deck = class

Personally, I don't want to limit all the skills a character can have. As I like the idea that I can swap decks and run as a different class.

 

Same here. I think making the deck play a role in attunement and resistance might be an interesting way to create diversity.

 

No you can't be anything as long as you want to be competitive. You will have to be an hybrid, using the same buff and defense skills as everyone else.

The completionist need far less experience than the one who want to specialize efficiently.

If you want to train every skill to 80, you will need less than 75 million experience points. If you want to train two trees to GM, it will probably cost as much most of the time, while the 100th level only provide small bonus over the 80th.

Sorry to say that but the system as it is is not satisfactory. The fundamentals behind it are excellent in my opinion but the way attunements, resistence and buffs behave breaks soft cap mechanisms.

(Edit : skill points recalculated)

 

Don't get me wrong : I have no probem with people who want to GM everything, who want to be blundgeon air shamans or whatever.

But the skills should not allow people to use everything without logic and, mostly, because stacking bonus with each single skill is a good way to have a balance issue between those who mastered all skills (without being bothered with soft caps) and those who want to try another play style and go further.

Regarding the success of this game, I highly doubt that many people will like to have to train hybrid builds which are very alike (because those builds use the same buffs). Some will come here and will be frustrated when they will see that their melee warrior is unable to compete with a ring of fire/corpse explosion hybrid swordman in PvE or their archer unable to kill a mage who use a chain chest piece with all HoT and defensive skill in PvP...

Just look at how many are really playing the game and how many are fighting in PvP. The figures talk by themselves.

 

No got me right, it's not only about pvp, but if one dont want or like to fill all roles (via a deck for example) he just shouldnt need to and with that many skills is optional and gives you more versatility but its not neccessary to be pvp competetive.

Yes, this!
I'm not after restricting people who want to level everything, but be able to build a viable char without to do it.
I'm fine to be nit be able to fight all and everything then, but pvp wise the deck and one build class (via deck) should be enough to be competetive.
Versatility allways grant you more power in general, but situationally it shouldnt make one stronger in this Situation versus someone who has only one Deck.

What @Hornpipe says.

If you have a char what has xxx Million xp provided into skills, able to make various decks etc... and then split that xp up into a group of players and they use the XP to create the same decks / roles of the one who have them all, then this group is nit that strong than the one with all the decks / roles.

Same for this: if one levels all skills to 80, he is stronger than someone who takes the same amount of xp and provides them into only 1 or 2 or 3... trees.
He's more versatile, he suffers less death decay and he profits from all passive boni of all skills he leveld while the specialist maybe has skills at 120, but with the diminishing returns get way less benefits from it than the one who spread their xp into more/ all skills.

This need to be fixed imho.

 

So the solution is to take away the different decay multipliers for higher level skills so one does not feel hindered for specializing, that way you can put the skills to what you want and pay for it the same as anyone else.

 

As I posted on page 1 of this thread:

To give someone a good chance who wants to specialize needs to give him bonus points to distribute to fewer skill(tree)s.

Someone who give more focus on less skills should have an advantage over someone using a lot of skill(tree)s ...

 

If I put all my exp into only a few trees I would be a ton stronger at certain things. I could only imagine how fast I could kills the dragon if I focused on water, defenses and blades, and be way safer from higher defenses. The speed could I kill monkeys if I took all my exp from all my magic trees and sunk it all into death would be crazy. Bring a party, and go to the kill sara and andar event, sara casts no magic skills and killed like 22 people before a full party took andar and him down. Andar is pretty much impossible for a single player to kill as andar has put a great majority of his exp into healing and defenses.

 

When you are discussing your point with the term "class" and they are replying with a different meaning to the term. Things get lost in translation.

What they are saying is you can be your class but what you are asking for will limit their class. You say you are not after restricting people who want to level everything but why do they level everything? Currently, it's because the can do more if they do level more.

Not agreeing/disagreeing, only pointing out the area things are not on meeting up.

 

Sucking blood from mechanical monkeys ? I don't think that you get what I mean when I'm talking about logic.

And seriously, I doubt that you would be much stronger if you put your experience in a few trees. Just look at how the soft caps are working. Even with 200 GM going down to level 1, we are talking about a bit less than 500 millions experience points, and that's not even sufficient to get EAGLE EYE to 150 . So, if you put your billion into two or three trees, you won't get any determinent advantage over what you have already. I even think that you would miss your versatility a lot when you will see that you can't use all the buff and passive you want. And that's precisely the whole problem.

I am reaally surprised that you don't already know that, sincerely.

(Edit : skill points recalculated)

 

I think that you miss the point. They level everything because they felt like it was the most efficient way. If you were right, the top 30 players would not be all hybrids, including Sara Dreygon who is the only one exemple people always use and who trained every spells nonetheless to get attunement and resistances (and who probably use buffs like Strength of Earth).

 

It would be really fun to have a test server that was all PVP and everybody had some very high amount of XP and could rebuild their character at any time. Also a supply vendors where all permutations of equipment and supplies were freely available. Then lots of various tournaments for different sized teams. Fun and great data collection.

 

That would have been a great test bed... But, we would have needed that before persistence.

 

Ya, vs the right things, I would be stronger, I don't think you comprehend just how much 1 billion exp will do. I could have my good sword skills at 140, my defs at 140, probably some other passives at 120. If I put it all in death, I would have lots of the skills at 140. death touch, corpse explosion are only 50 mil to 140, death ray, shield, field, tap soul, 100 mil to 140, death mastery at 140 200 mil, and still have 300 mil to play with. Have you seen what fzol does with earth magic, as he is very high earth. ya go fight fzol and see how "weak" he is for specializing"

No sara does not cast magic, I cannot convince sara to use death shield and I have tried. sara does not use spells.

 

Am I missing the point? Because what I am saying is nothing to do with the skills but everything to do with the two different conversations happening.

Those that have many skills leveled or want to have many skills leveled reply to “class” or “build” or “RP” etc with “this is my earth mage and it’s doing fine”. While someone with only earth skills believes they are not doing fine.

The focus being on deck vs the focus being on the deck + everything else.

Is it the goal to take all those +’s away from them? Then say that so the conversation is clear.

Not going to get a lot of support from people that already have this though. Which is where comments like “you want what we have without the work” come from.

If we were looking to brainstorm a solution I wouldn’t start with a major nerf to these people.

 

If you put everything in Death, you will be certainly very good in certain situation ... and very weak with others (undeads, celestian blessing). But the fact is that you didn't specialize. The fact is most of Novia doesn't specialize. Even me, who wanted to focus on bow, I have thousands of points in other skills. There is a reason for that.
You can put this in all ways you want, there is a simple truth : specialization only grants you with very limited bonus at a very high cost when hybrid builds are based on lower costs and are overpowered with skill cumulation, and grants, on top of that, versatility.

You mean the school which has been nerfed at least two times because it was known to be unbalanced ? I still highly doubt that Fzol is pure Earth, as long as he certainly use/trained buffs, heal, resistances which need to get attunement from other schools. So he is an hybrid, like I am, like you are, like everyone here.

Necessarily, she used spells to train magic trees. She publicly said that she did that. Even though she trained against a dummy, she had to train spells. She had to spend experience in the magic trees, like we all did.

We cannot say that we can be what we want to be in SotA. This is perfectly untrue. Even the most casual player will face this problem. He or she will meet enemies who are too strong for him or her. Even this same casual player will find out that if he or she can use a combination of spells which help him or her to overcome the challenge. That is what the skill system in SotA necessarily implies. I don't know any people who never touched spells because spells are the only way to get the best strength, intelligence or dexterity. I don't know any people who never touched spells because spells are the only way to get elemental or magic resistance. We don't know any high end player who never touched fortify defense or ice shield, healing grace or soothing rain, douse or dodge/glancing blow, because there are some skills which are completely necessary if you want to stay competitive in PvE or in PvP. Some people say that they have been able to build their character with complete freedom but that's not true. They didn't feel forced to use those skills. They simply fell tempted to do so. So, ok, SOME people can be what they want to be in SotA.

And what's the problem with this ? SotA doesn't have any classless system. At the end of the day, everyone will use every defensive and healing tricks they have because they are able to do so and because they need to do so if they want to improve their gameplay. At the end of the day, a large part of us will grind with AOE because that's the best way to do so. At the end of the day, we'll have multiple variances of one same build.
You can deny this but look at the high end players. All of them have built their character with the same scheme, more or less. Do you really know someone who use earth magic with 0 in the life tree, the air tree, the death tree, the fire tree... ? You have to train many skills to be competitive. Then, soft caps aren't even a thing because it's far easier to get multiple skills to a small level like the GM 100th than to train one single skill to a decent level like the 150th.

Of course, you can blind yourself and tell that everything is fine. Maybe you are right. But the fact is the game will feel completely wrong to most new players who could be interested with it :
- because the soft caps are useless with skill cumulation which exacerbates the "high gap" phenomen between those who played a lot and the other ones. You know ? That gap devs were talking about some release ago.
- because you can't advertise this game as an RPG when rain and sun can heal simultaneously, or when you can suck life out of machines like shock monkeys ; what will you tell to the new players ? Become a sorcerer and burn your enemies* (note that you could have to use water spells with juxtapose sometimes) ; Be Robin Hood or Guillaume Tell (but don't forget to use Fireflies on your target to get the best damages) ; Did you ever dream to be the Green Knight ? (Ok, but be prepared to train every strength and earth passives as long as the proper shield with any defensive buffs in the game, to get the better resistance).
- because, and that's the main concern, a large part of the players will feel compelled to train skills they don't want to, and will get a lot of frustration from it. That's not the freedom that some like @DarkStarr are hoping for, sorry.

Now we can blah blah blah for days, weeks, months or years about that. The thing is that I will never be able to convince you, because you have built your habits on the current system, like @Andartianna and every other high end players, the ones that the devs are following for fair and smart reasons. And you know what ? This is not about questioning the fact that you have advantages with more hours played. I'm glad that you have those. Thanks to you, Novia has progressed and feel more alive.
But the facts and the figures are here, everywhere on those forums. There is something wrong with the way how buffs, attunements, resistances work. Many made suggestions. Sure, none of us are happy to see that there is still a lot of work to do to get a decent and balanced system. We can waste time discussing. We can even all agree to do nothing (because I'm tired too, to have to repete the same damn things all over those forums). But something tells me it would not be a good idea for this game.

Tell me that I'm wrong. Demonstrate with statistics and real tests. At least, I could have fun with this discussion.

 

Oh and sorry but your billion is nothing.

Do you know that you would need 7 627 times that to get every skills to the maximum ? 400 times that billion to get one magic tree to the maximum ? I'm sure you do.

In order to use your own expression : "I don't think you comprehend just how exponential learning curves are working."

Good luck with your effective specialization.

(edit : experience points recalculated)

 

The point here is - we can have archetypes/ player build classes, but as long as there is only benefit from spreading and no punishes or limitations its will allways end up like we have it today.

or hit ghosts, water, fire, air elementals with physical weapons
or have dragons what are high resistant to magic (fine), but a rusty sword with skill high enough can do it?
or hit skeletons with arrows, bludgeon was allways the best to fight skel's
If we have bosses that are only vulnberable to 1 or 2 sorts of damage, then the way to beat them schould not be to train a whole new skilltree, but to have other bosses that are vulnerable with your sort of damage. And thats for all sorts of damage.

Ghosts, Skeletons, Undead and Elementals need to be only vulnerable to specific magic, except Zombies maybe.
and yes melee only fighters then cannot kill them right.
On the other side there need to be mobs that are completely immune against all magic. Blobs maybe or specific magic creatures.
Dragons should need both a group of magicians and physical fighters to beat them.
The game needs way more content and balance in these categorys - sure alpha, small team, time, money... all ok, but they really need to have a plan before they announce a release date.

the Combat is good imho, the animations are ok, decks, heat system, whtever but all fine, maybe finetuning here and there, but good.

Skillsystem and Content and the way how resistancies work, how to get to a viable build and how many hours it takes to grind the xp - better have enough quests and sandbox content to not to grind, but level things by the way you play the game instead of "work" at respawn and camp spots or switch modes to kill more bosses/ hour.

All this need to be done, else it doesnt matter if some are fine and satisfied here with the skillsystem and content, nobody else will be!

the chance to counter the bad reputation is to release something that is fully fleshed out, amazing, a deep and educated RPG what ask his players to immerse and understand how things work, how all is connected, the virtues and all that.
There are some deep mechanics or lets say they are roughly there, but it needs so much more, like the suggested factions, the deck limitation.
And imho we strongly need dependencies within all players who play in an online mode, no matter if SPO, FMO or MMO.
The SP offline can be as it is now, but to create an economy we need constraint dependencies within players, else it will only be a farce imho.

I really understand the people who want to be all and selfsufficient and whatnot, but its not healthy for the game and less people will be interested.
Especilly Roleplayers and SotA imho is the best game for Roleplayers if we talk about housing, emotes and such.
And if its true, that over 50% who backed at KS hasn't logged in since ever, than i'm sure these are a lot of the Roleplayers who expect and want a true oldsql RPG, where people need to RP and do it without to know they do it, like it was in UO and SWG or to some degree also in Neocron 2 iirc.

If people need a Healer to cure the plague or if people strongly need harvesters, because its limited what you can harvest, refine and craft and all these things, then the "roles" come to shine and get important and the Multiplayer enlives with more trade, more interaction more RPG, more immersion....

At the moment everything of this CAN happen, but honestly, it doesn't happen that much, because it only CAN happen, but like many of the players state, they play MMO, but like it to play solo and stay self sufficient.
Yeah great, then play a themepark mmo, oldsql and real and immersive mmos do not have things like that.
someone recommended Pantheon Rise of the Fallen to me, what i already know, because i was a huge Vanguard: Saga of Heroes fan (but never played EQ), this is 1000 times more RPG than SotA, because SotA atm has very less RPG mechanics, it has tons of RPG Elements, but they are not yet connected the way it need to be to have SotA a great, oldschool RPG.

Devs should know that and hopefully create this RPG or at least share their plans how to do it BEFORE they anounce a release date.
the 2 years plan is not about these things.
And if they believe that the Skillsystem is enough and let everything in players hands and all level everything and go on further soloing bosses and camp respawns etc... then i forsee this game wont have any further episodes.

Many things to do - i extremely doubt we are at the last 20% - i am more to say we need 1000 quets all over the world and more things like rowing encounters and sieges, so called sandbox content to mask the grind and we need the skillsystem fleshed out, restricted, limited.
some skills can go, they are only an obstacle to the higher spell, nobody use them, other need to come - Warmup in the Fore tree to counter freeze maybe. Things like that.

Do you know what keeps people playing UO for 10+ or even 20 years?
It cannot be endless progression. Maybe it is about gamemechanics, limitations, restrictions, relations... ???
idk, i just ask.
What was it that made SWG a great RPG?
to have chars that can do everything, progress endless?
idk, tell me!
or Everquests PvE?

i claim that these games were successfull and liked because of their well designed skillsystems with dependencies for the players.
ok maybe they werent that successfull because of World of Woldemort... äh Warcraft , but you all know that these games are famous for specific things that were unique and well done.

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