Poll - should we have skill decay?

By that reasoning there's no such thing as a non-gamey game mechanic.. There's no such thing as a perfect world simulation.

 

If you're looking for a mental exercise, ask yourself what would be the game-wide impact if 10, 100, 1000 or 10000 customers were GM x 10 or more in combat skills.

If you play in Single-Player-Offline, likely the impact to you would be zero.
If you play in Single-Player-Online, likely the impact to you would be minimal.
If you play in Multi-Player-Online, and only consume PvE content, likely the impact to you would be minimal.
If you play in Multi-Player-Online, and consume some PvP content, your participation is by consent only. So, sure, there's impact, but it will vary and is entirely optional.

Kind of an interesting conundrum, regarding justification for attempting to prevent "masters-of-all".

 

Yes, I agree, but when you try to state decay makes sense because of RL skill decay, then stating a rough estimate of how long it takes is pertinent to the discussion for that mechanic. Not contesting the gamey/non-gamey side per se as it's a game, so of course it is going to be gamey. Was more referring to the length of time and the bounce back from it.

 

In order to maintain the goal of soft skill caps, it is imperitive. The only way skill decay goes away is with hard caps. It's either/or.

 

I do not have much experience in SotA to feel my opion has much weight but I'd like to share it as a fresh pair of eyes looking in.

While I do not totaly understand the decay system besides what I gathered from reading the discussions on these forums in the last week or so. I like and dislike the concept of it.

On the like side: It adds something new to a skill system that I have never experienced before in any game. Use it or lose it. Without hard skill caps it allows those dedicated individuals to really push the skill systems limits without finding a true endgame to skilling up a character.

On the dislike side: If I play casually I'd really dislike my time being wasted by having to put more time back into skills I have already leveled up. Or spending a year or longer to GM a skill or three just to have to struggle to keep what I earned.



At this point I can not really say yes or no. Heck, just the way xp is distributed to skills and having to manage the skill intake of xp and how it all works to drain the pool is almost overwhelming, as a new player. Speaking of overwhelming... The deck system and combat with it hahahah *pulls hair* I think I got that now though thanks to an awesome player in the guild I am in spending hours upon hours breaking it down for me and helping me get set up.

 

There are actual quite a few other ways this could be accomplished, as has been discussed in other threads (don't want to derail the OP). Even as an either or situation though... still against something that penalizes casual and normal players and only rewards the heavy grinders.

 

Are you telling me that huge disparities in player strength have no economic impact? that is what it sounds like to me....

On the pvp side of things - alienate players and it snowballs until there is no pvpers left.

 

In a game where the economy of single-player and multi-player is shared, player strength means nothing.

 

You're going to go solo dragons in single player online?

It seems like all of your responses boil down to "I don't like the implementation anyway - so I'm going to call any other factors insignificant"

 

I don't see the correlation to real life skills getting rusty. If I am a good piano player and play the piano for several hours every day, I don't have to tick a box to prevent my piano playing skills from getting rusty. In SotA, if I am a good swordsman and use the sword for several hours every day but don't tick the box to set the skill to train, my skill will decay even though I am using the skill.

 

Maybe? It's been done in other games, it'll likely be done here.
My point is that given time is the only real commodity in this particular games design, there will always be a surplus of everything everyone needs, because everyone can always go out and get far more than what is required. And they can do it without competition. (friends-online mode, 5 accounts, bingo, enterprising players will be farming dragons 24hrs a day, with their "friends")

It's not that I find other factors insignificant, it's that I've seen all of these tried before, and I've seen all the theorycrafting and logical deconstruction years ago, so my personal like or dislike is largely irrelevant. If it's failed before, it'll fail again.

 

Going to nitpick you a bit here as I said it was more natural / less gamey. I didn't compare how much sense either option made. For that matter more natural / less gamey is speaking in relative terms. Nor did I say anything in regards to the time frame so I'm not sure what you're responding to in that regard. My comment regarding your reasoning was not aimed at numbers but rather that every option was a 'gamey' one.

 

Voted no, it doesn't fix problem for the reason it was created.

*edit* Also I think there are better ways to reward hardcore players too. I mean in UO, I can't count the times I died and lost Glorious Lady and Dread Lady titles. It was something I knew I could lose but could get back after a bit of work. It was something fun and rewarding to do and I didn't mind it. There are numerous other ways to reward players to get them to play the game. At no time should you be punished because you play more, or you play less.

 

Do you actually have much experience with other games that have the split single player online systems? (I'm specifying online because offline data storage heavily increases exploit potential)

I'm mostly asking this out of curiosity and my own lack of a history with them.

 

Two points.. 1.. no but if you don't practice your skills and then sit down to play a difficult piece a couple years later it's not going to be as easy for you. 2. Pre-alpha.. subject to change.

We're not going about 1 to 1 correlations here. Skills in real life DO fade if you don't practice them.. the point that it takes a lot longer generally in RL is irrelevant. It DOES happen over time. Especially physically demanding skills if you don't stay in shape. That a game has an interface is moot at best.. it's a game. The point is how do unused skills behave.. not whether or not there's a user interface attached.

 

If you mean, split economies by interaction mode? Crowfall is a modern example that uses that model. (and if their testing to date is any indication, successfully)

 

I am going to throw my $0.02. As a soldier if you do not use skills they do indeed decay. In rough numbers decay starts around the 6 month mark with some variance based on complexity of the skill. Skill recovery, which has not been discussed, should increase exponentially the gain back on skills we have gotten rusty in. Perhaps 10 - 20 times that of gaining the skill to begin with. Exact numbers here are not as important as the idea. When I get rusty at something because it does happen it takes me no where near as long to remember how to do something or get good at it again. Should decay prevent doing something yes, should it limit no. Its much easier to remember how to do something than to learn it in general.

I do not personally agree with the mechanic period because I prefer to enjoy playing a game and do not want to be "punished" by loosing a time investment that none of us can get back. Real life follows us all enough as it is no reason to make the game overly real or a time sink for those that have more time. In discussing concepts such as "one should only loose two days worth of skill". Two days based on level 120 use or two days worth of level 40? That is a large disparity on the amount lost exp and time wise to gain. I would personally prefer to loose my pool than my skill, and if skill must be lost regain it at an accelerated rate.

Pre-aplha got it, unfinished mechanic got it. Does this mechanic prevent truly what those that have a lot of time on their hands? No. The question is which demographics it affects the most and how to prevent these demographics from getting frustrated and leaving the game while stopping one stop shops. If decay is the answer then somehow it needs to be tied into a mechanism where one person not even Themo can master it all. A real life example would be that people have a "limit" to how much they can learn or a "cap" per se whether soft or hard.

Just a my opinion on the matter. There are several good articles on skill decay, retention, and learning in case we are going down the ultra realism path. There will be no perfect answer or solution that will satisfy everyone.

Edit: Typos

 

Ok, I've read all the comments so far - and can sort of see the pros/cons of skill decay.

Before I comment, I'd like to ask one simple question:

Is the purpose of skill decay to prevent someone from having too many GM's?

 

I think i would be for skill decay, i dont think one character should be able to do everything. That being said could easily get rid of skill decay if a skill cap was put into place, very similar to how UO worked with being able to raise and drop skills. Get bored of a skill? Set it to drop and raise another not to exceed the cap. Also stats should be capped too but thats a diff topic! Also since i refrenced uos cap system, if anything was ever changed to have caps please dont put in soul stone type features. Just my personal opinion!

 

I will post this here also.

Decay doesn't stop power gamers from putting distance between themselves and casual players, power gamers not only have more time and understanding to gain levels.. they have more time and understanding to maintain them. It is just annoying for everybody and discourages social activities. The reason why i prefer the scaling exp requirements is that power gamers will quickly leap ahead but gradually slow down advancement to the point where it takes an extreme amount of time to go further. This means that other people catch up to within a level gap that is functionally insignificant. If it NEEDS to be in then an adjustment to how it functions now would be the least punishing form, with levels never being taken away but progress towards the next level being difficult to hold on to. Right now, it is not somebody like me who is hit by decay... it is people with long work hours or other reasons why they can't log in AND use all their skills daily. I had 18 GM yesterday, 20 today and il have 21 or 22 tomorrow.

Also remember that (as i understand it) exp gain is accelerated for pre-alpha.. and ON TOP of that we have 4x exp gains up to highest level previously reached. But we do not know if the rate of decay is also accelerated or standard. We also have fast travel and accelerated overland map speed that will be going away, as well as control points that do not yet control anything. What we accomplish in these 3 month brackets could very well be the equivalent of a year or more playtime after release. Think about what that means for your own play styles, and then think about how decay factors into it. I will still be level 100 with 20+ GM skills, i just won't be enjoying myself as much as i could be, some of my friends and guild members however just plain will not be here. What i want is a competitive system that prevents me from becoming a god but lets me push limits without making the game antisocial and miserable for everybody else.