Decay yay or nay?

You might think that, and some people would for sure. But you will always have the overachievers that would go above that. Now I would say there should be special things after level 105, level 110, level 115, and so on. Some kind of incentive. Maybe special recipe's people would learn at those levels and unlearn if they dropped. But others still could be casual and still feel somewhat important.

 

Yes Arkah - you personally don't - because you're not at the level where its painful yet.
I went to help with a dragon group the other day and got killed to an unlucky crit. Fortunately I was rezzed, but it still makes me re-think going again, because in the entire time doing said dragon I got no loot to speak of and very little xp, certainly not enough to mitigate even a 10th of what I lost. It makes doing that sort of thing extremely unappealing except for the social benefit.

And that's because of decay.

Why are we in favor of a mechanic that is adding no benefit to the game other than frustration / lack of incentive to group / share experience, discourages trying something new, discourages trying something challenging, discourages exploring, etc? When said mechanic is not even doing what it is supposed to be doing, which is limiting the hardcore grinder?

I go out and do something 'challenging' and get killed, well, the next several hours of gameplay 'business as usual' are just making up the loss. Unless I go do hardcore grind. Why in the world are we trying to encourage hard core grind?

 

If you think or progression as in things to do sure there is a stopping point. If you think of it in what your character can do no there is no end point. 200 isn't even the end point that's just what is currently in the system. There is also a bit of confusion over the gains above 100. It's not small. Base skills and attunement grow exponentially in power stacking up more and more. So the small amount that they show is actually much greater then it appears. But the cost is massive. For instance my life power cost over 12million exp per point above 140 but every point gives a .06% amplifier.

 

You are right. I have gone above GM in a bunch of skills. Working on a couple skills to 150 now even knowing how painful that will be. I like trying to specialize.

 

Right, but how is a casual player supposed to care about this. If there is no hope for a regular player to gain at least somewhat a higher tier then this game will only be for powergamer. You have to throw the casual a bone. Right now look at the game, look at what is really going on. 4 years into the game and the average forum count is like 45 people. The in game players is debatable but lets say on the high there is 500 to 1000 online at the same time. Most of these players are invested players. They want to help and to groom new players. But if there are no new players or if the new players want to carve a way out for themselves without the hospitalers or powerleveling then what is it they will enjoy this game for? They as independent players will just move on, as the mechanics are hard and unrewarding, and there are godlike characters they can never have the hope of even coming close to.

 

Death decay is a bad mechanic because it discourages me from trying new things, exploring new areas, and helping other people. The daily skill decay is also a bad mechanic. If I take a six month break from the game, why should I log in and discover myself to be weaker, especially after I have spent what seems like gazillions of hours grinding - it's all the stupid GRINDING that likely drove me to take a six month break in the first place! Talk about giving me NO incentive to return to Shroud of the Avatar if I took a break. I really feel bad for US soldiers (such as in the National Guard) who get activated for six months or more - they'd return only to find the smoking wreckage of their decayed character. No way - it's a bad, bad mechanic.

If you want death to mean something, let us retrieve our "souls" and recoup some of the xp loss.

 

by the way I am not saying any particular number could be gm. 100 is a general reference point but it could vary along with what port dictates a gm.

 

Wait, you mean if i want to PvP ill never be able to beat the guys that have been playing since persistence non stop? Even if im a skilled PvPer? sure sign me up i would love to PvP in this game and never be considered top tier regardless of how many hours i put in unless someone up there stop playing and accumulating experience. Some could argue theres people beating older pvpers now but id bet those people being beat are part time pvpers not serious ones. Basically whoever is on top of their game will stay that way especially the way skills work. I couldnt even try to gank a guy with friends. 3+ on just the 1 my bet is wed still lose. Most people i play with are above average pvpers as well but yeah unlimited skill etc.

 

There are people who started playing months after I did who blew right by me in level. And while yeah, decay effects them and annoys them and sets them back, at the pace they accumulate experience its not stopping them from levelling and continuing to invest in skills. Someone who plays less, but plays consistently every day, feels the burn the most, unless they dedicate playtime specifically to 'grind tax'. I can literally name dozens of players who have stopped playing citing decay as the reason - for someone who plays a few hours a night and maybe a bit longer on the weekend, getting set back to last week is /ragequit worthy. And its only going to get worse the more the game population ages.

We need to stop obsessing over what the hardcore players can achieve and balancing the game around it. They are always going to find the most efficient, fastest, best way forward - without a hard cap, that's not going to change. If someone can get 1 mil xp per hour and does so 12 hours per day and never gets killed...decay isn't going to stop them. If someone gets 500k in an entire day's play session and loses it all to a single misstep, well, as has been evidenced they'll find something else to do with their time.

 

you are right, I never even touched on the pvp aspect. I have a unique aspect, sort of like stunborn so I do not mention it much. It is not popular with powergamers. I would love for a balance RP/PvP scenario, where the builds can be matched and balanced (classes). Alas I understand I am in the minority so I will not go further into it, as I have created hundreds of threads in the past on this. But getting back to your point, this game is not pvp balanced at all, RP or not.

 

Oh I totally agree it's something I think about constantly as Im working with new guild mates. I personally believe decay is terrible because of the effects is has on the casual players. It should not take a casual player days of game time to make up for a death that is why I prefer if we even had to decay that it is tied to a average exp ear time per half hour. That would make it less of a burden on a casual and the daily bonus. Right now were stuck where casuals work really hard with the time they have then get massively discouraged from a death. That is a terrible system.

 

Chris mentioned putting in some sort of limiter on pvp zones where basically everyone becomes level xxx (80 i think it was?), not sure if its in yet but it would mean all pvpers would be the same.

 

thank you for understanding my point. I say that in all sincerely because many will never even acknowledge it. *bows*

 

If that is true AND it works as intended that might be enough to get me back in game.

 

The thing is, because of the diminishing returns for exp investment, while yes someone who's got a skill at 120 vs. your 100 (for 6x the cost?) will be a teensy bit better at it, but the increases aren't insurmountable with gear and tactics. Take an example skill at level 100 for me is 52-165 damage. If I took that to 120, its 54-170, and it costs me over 6 million to do so over the 1.2 million to get to GM. A few points harder is not the end of the world, and besides, they're talking about adding PvP caps or something to mitigate this.

The point is, if a player invests the time to level a skill to GM 7 times over, they deserve their 3 point damage increase. Otherwise why keep doing stuff? Just get your skills to whatever level you can stomach grinding to then you're done, you've won the game. Now what are you going to do? PvP? How long will that stay interesting? Or just grind xp just enough to maintain status quo with no growth or improvement? How long will that stay interesting?

 

This is something I touched on a couple years ago, seems like forever now. I suggested a PvP skill tree. When you entered a pvp area you switched your deck to your PvP deck(s). This would be totally independent from the PvE builds you do with your friends.

 

This sounds more like a problem with the bosses not giving enough XP (especially sicne scenes are soft capped for XP now) than decays fault. The hard stuff should be generating enough XP to keep up

If you earned 300k for killing the dragon 3 times in a group i dotn think that it'd be as intimidating to take on the dragon.

 

if someone does put the time in they do deserve an increase but problem is from what ive seen, its more than 3 pts of damage. Players are like gods in alot of scenarios. What is offsetting about this is if im dedicated to SOTA i would have a hard time beating someone that is a crappy PvPer for lack of better term ONLY because they have been playing since 1999. Should there be a bell curve to catch up? Yes there should be. There should also be a light at end of tunnel for the new players too. ie i know if i put in months of time and farming getting gear or whatever ill be competitive. Right now its impossible to be competitive with any other person whom has been playing since persistence that is also competitive. Thats for PvE, PvP, or any of that. I mean look at MAC whos ever going to touch him? Nice guy, i used to be guilded with him way back but seriously guy is a freaking monster.

 

I agree here, the problem is because of hardcore soloists anything they make worth doing in a group is 10x better to do solo.
I'd like to see a group XP BONUS rather than a group XP SPLIT to encourage cooperation ...that'd be a start.

 

This is not true actually. I didn't start at persistence and I have no problems competing in PVP. I've also surpassed the majority of players in the game at this point and that just took focus and a ton of time going after the best exp locations.