Drop level system for a full skill based system

Like many of you, I really like the skill system of UO and I also like the deck combat system. It took a while to think of a way to combine the two. Initially I didn’t think they could go together very well. What follows is an idea I had. I’m not sure whether it is good or bad, just an idea of how to combine the level system and skill system.

First disclaimer – This is solely meant for the combat system. Crafting is not incorporated into this idea.
Second disclaimer – I didn’t fully read every thread on the forums to verify this has not already been proposed.
*Edit* It looks a lot like what Jizmakpiston proposed above. I missed that post whilst writing!

The basic points of the idea are this:

1. Kill stuff / complete quests / win PvP duels to gain experience points (XP).
   1. As you gain XP you gain levels, lets arbitrarily say levels 1-50.
   2. Gaining levels grants ability points to spend on abilities like those in the current 5-tier system. When you reach level 50 you will not gain any more ability points.
   3. Ideally the cap is sufficiently large to provide opportunity for unique builds but is low enough that you cannot max out every type of skill area (that number would need to be determined by the devs).
2. Using a specific armor type / weapon type / magic school gains you skill in that area (swords, bludgeons, fire magic, shields, etc.) that levels 0-100%.
   1. Gaining skill within a skill type unlocks the tiers of the skill tree as you increase in that type of skill.
   2. For example: 0% unlocks tier 1, 20% unlocks tier 2, 40% tier 3, 60% tier 4, 80% tier 5.
   3. It may be relevant to introduce a cap on total skill so that you cannot be great at everything.
   4. Skill advancement should be able to be stunted to prevent unwanted gains in a given skill if there is a cap.

1. Skill level in each skill area also determines how many of your ability points (See above) can be spent at a given tier.
   1. For example every 2% within one of the above 20% tier windows would allow 1 ability point be spent in that tier or a lower tier. So if you had 30% sword skill you could spend up to 5 ability points in tier 2 and still have 10 ability points in tier 1, or instead maybe choose to spend 3 in tier two so you can spend 12 in tier 1. This would allow for more/fewer cards for your combat deck much like the current system.

There are a number of benefits I see to this skill/level system idea:

1. I think that system would prevent the undesirable idea of killing rats with a sword to become a wizard because you would still need to practice your magic to unlock each magic school’s ability tiers and to spend ability points within.
2. There is a cap on ability points (character level) and total skill (tbd) so you cannot be great at everything.
3. Having a character level gives a rough estimate of that character’s overall power.
4. We can keep the interesting (and imo fun) deck system for combat.

 

Huh. These are all interesting points. I have an opinion too, but I don't like getting moderated. You gus are all probably right.

 

I am just worried about the pvp with the current lvling system, I know in games like WoW a lvl 20 has no chance against a lvl 25. pvp in lvling games is all about what lvl you are and not about the personal skill of the player.

 

You should listen to the recent hangout videos to get a feel for what the devs are going for in regards to leveling in this game.

The videos are listed here : https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?cat=10

The power curve is expected to level out after Level 20, allowing players to be competitive in PvP against higher level characters (presuming a comparable "level" of user-skill).

 

The problem with skill specific XP is it can encourage a lot of boring or exploitative behavior, and macroing, just like UO had for a long time. Leveling your armor skill by going and letting creatures beat on you while you purposefully don't kill them is a classic example of what this leads to. They're at least going to have combat and crafting pools, this is a good step forward IMHO.

Respeccing is a hard problem. Right now we have free respecs since it's alpha and a ton of stuff is missing or broken, only melee has damage progression, skills are missing and so forth. Every MMO, even after release, has bugs and balancing that makes certain specs broken both in a good or bad ways, and usually the dev response will be at best a week or two, at worst, months. So respecs to ditch broken things are a must. However I think it would be good to make it so there is some timer associated with changes beyond just a trip to a trainer and some cash. Big changes like dumping a whole tree should be a big (days to weeks) timer but ditching one skill should be a small one. Sing it looks like there will be a cap on skill points when you reach the max level I think it would be good to keep earning XP past that to use for respecs on a reduced timer.

Thankfully they are looking at a lot of the broken parts of the skill system now, like deck size and lack of scaling for bows and magic. The R11 postmortem has a lot of good info on that.

 

I prefer skill based system myself, thought this was going to be a skill based game guess I should have known better WOW brainwashed everyone into thinking its the only option out there still Ill wait and see how things turn out. My concern is will the leveling system create a huge imbalance on PVP. Ganking someone lower level was way to easy with the other player having no chance whatsoever getting one shot is not fun. People need to start thinking outside the box.

 

Life is Feudal got it right....

 

Indeed!
Sandbox, realism, full loot, terraforming, building, skill cap, stat cap, physics combat, free pvp and politics.
These are the keywords of life is feudal.
It's unfortunate that they are a small team with limited budget..this is exactly what many of us are asking in sota, a real sandbox game.

 

I'd say that a level-based system IS a skill based system, just one that rewards you with skill at the culmination of a bunch of activity, vs. incrementally every moment.

A level-based system is fine. It rewards players for a collection of activities over a period of time. It gets away from rewarding players for simply grinding the exact same task over and over minute by minute simply to get skill points up. It moves the game away from skill grind, to awarding skill based on the collective experience of one's total adventure. Why would grinding skills by whacking the same thing over and over just for the skill be better? If you want to grind, you can, and still get the same result, but you just have to wait a little bit longer to get the skill point reward.

 

I think it'd be better to call SotA point based rather than skill based. Now this assumes that you level is never used for any of the game mechanics past determining how many points your have to spend. If this is true then a level 90 character who has spent 10 points will be just as effective as a new level 1 character that has also only spent 10 points, also assuming equal gear and player skill. Note this is a bit untrue now as your minimum required deck size goes up with level right now, which would make the level 90 weaker due to all the slugs they would get.

I think this is still mostly true for SotA now as your HP and Focus only go up when you spend points. They're also making the power curve flatten out as higher levels of most skill and passives cost more points each time your increase them. This means that someone who has spent twice as many points may only have 50% (or less) more skills or stats. The first few levels are fairly linear but most people should get out of the linear zone of power progression in fairly little play time. There is still a lot of work to be done clearly since they just added the barest level of progression this release.

 

I have to disagree with your opinion.
A level based is not a skill based system. Grinding is insignificant on this matter as you can grind in both level based and skill based systems.

A level based system rewards players of some ABILITY points regardless of what they do. Furthermore once you spend your ability points (these are not skill points) you get some active/passive abilities which do not impact your skills. We are therefore talking about abilities and NOT skills.

A skill based system rewards players according how much they are using their skills. To increase a skill means to get better in one/multiple activity/s or movement/s (e.g. you miss less with your sword, or you make more damage, or you flizz less a spell, etc). Also the increase of a skill will eventually unlock some abilities. Furthermore a skill based system is much more realistic and it is what a sandbox game is supposed to be.

 

Skill based system all the way, majority of the people coming to play this game used to play Ultima Online, we want to see a lot of the mechanics from then. When you take a classic and distort it, you destroy it.

 

Can I see the graph showing your statistics please? I want to know where you get your facts so I can fact check them.

 

Then they shouldn't be using "from the creator of ultima online". This game only shares cosmetic features with ultima online, Its NOTHING like ultima online. I'm very disappointed with many of the decisions being made by the developers. To think people are spending thousands of dollars on this game, where do you get that kind of commitment if there isn't already some sort of previous relationship? (ie. ultima online) Many people are going to be very disappointed if they are not already.

 

Obviously there are no statistics of what said by netbios2005. But I do understand what he's saying (and I think you also do).
Although we cannot make a statistical comparison it is indubitable that one part of SotA success comes from UO fans. I believe that if Lord British and other famous developers weren't in the team, SotA wouldn't even be successful during the Kickstarter campaign.
Therefore it is obvious that UO fans don't want SotA to be another WoW clone, that's one of the reason why a portion of the players is asking for a skill based system.

 

I agree that a certain part of the people come from UO. I came from UO. I understand that this is not UO. People should actually read the frequently asked question and the forums before making posts though. This is probably the billionth thread on this topic. It is almost routine that a first time poster that just made an account jumps in and starts this exact same thread. They use terms like "we" and "the majority of us". All I am asking for is the facts. I can only speak for myself generally and If I am going to post using words that include many people I would probably back it up some how.

 

There were also a bunch of Ultima games before UO and they didn't all use the skill system. Abandoning the level based power curve of WoW (and D&D before it) doesn't mean you have to go to a skill based system. Go look at the table top RPG industry, there are TONS of non-level based game systems there that are also not the narrow UO style skill based system. What skill is the Focus tree? Tactics? How to you level the Armor trees in a way that isn't like the elder scrolls' where you sit there and get hit by some mob as long as you can without killing it? We have other choices, surely we can improve on what UO had after all this time and also not be WoW or D&D either. This is one of the reasons why I really wish they'd not used levels at all and just had you earn points directly. It creates the false sense that just because we have levels in the game it's an exponential power curve based on them. As far as I can tell this really isn't the case since when I spend my points on a bunch of useless crap I get destroyed and when I spend them smartly I do far better.

 

Beautiful.

 

I am on board with removing the level system and going back to the UO roots skill system. What RG does not realize is that system rocks and its loved by everyone. I bet if we put up a vote it will be a landslide to put back the skill system.

However its not so different from a skill system. So I don't think leaving it as it will be a game breaker for me. However if there is a vote my vote is on the old school skill system.

 

Everyone? No. Even in this thread you have people saying they don't want the UO skill system. We don't want levels but there are more than two choices here.