Skill decay unfair for casual players

Alright, but what if I play Episode I then do the MMO thing for a long while. Then, i leave the game a while, my skills decay and I want to play Episode II when I came back with the skill levels I had?

 

read the post directly above yours. we're talking about WHERE skill decay should start, as opposed to having it.

remember offline and online modes are firewalled. you won't be gbringing your offline toon to online play, nor will you take your online avatar to offline mode.

 

Regardless of where skill decay starts, it still punishes the casual player.

This discussion was never about offline mode.

 

yours wasn't, but my response there was for someone who did bring it up. i spoke to two separate people in that post.

ok, the devs have already acknowledged that it is not working as intended right now - this thread is not about "its broke", it is about how to balance it for casual and hardcore players alike, so they can have a better view of the direction in which to plod on.

how, precicely from your viewpoint, does it punish the casual player?
do you have any recommendations on how to resolve those punishments?
what affect will those changes have for those casual players, as well as the hardcore players, that you can see?


it doesn't affect the casual player from what i can tell, if utilized and balanced in the way the post i already linked to you describes, from my viewpoint as a casual player.

the more detailed and succinct viewpoints we have on this, the better for the devs - "its broke" does nothing constructive here.

 

Skill decay is a tricky subject, as I do agree that putting in a lot of time and effort to hit max ability should not result it completely losing it if RL time requires a break. I think it would be based first on how harsh of a decay rate we're talking about (if you lose a point or so every month, it would take a long time to drop below what would still be a "master" ability), and if there is a cap on how low your skill can drop via decay.

Call it like riding a bike. Even if your skill decayed down to around half, you should still be able to come back and have some leg up on regaining the skill (maybe even if it was at an advanced rate due to having it maxed previously?) as opposed to a brand new player.

 

I've heard alot of arguments that rl skills decay when not used in a given amount of time. Even tho I disagree with that since this is a game and not real life...by that same argument, decay should only happen (if we are stuck with this mechanic) during gameplay. Your character is not really living while you are off-line...What is there to decay? Unless our characters are going to have a life of their own during offline haha

 

that is a good point baldrith...but the question then is what happens if you quit playing for a year or more and come back, zero decay? i don't think that is right either.. heck, your skill at using those skills has gone down, in the real world too, at that point, simply due to disuse. kind of a catch .22 if you ask me.

 

My actual game skill could decay, but my character skill should not. It's like instantaneous that he was just in game, not based on how long it was between logging off and loggin on...

 

in a singleplayer rpg that would be true - and is for the offline single player mode here too. but in a multiplayer universe, time keeps moving forward.

 

You never know........

 

The current system isn't half bad. The rate is too high though. As I said before it's based on XP points and not %. Someone at 100 appears to decay less severely than someone at 20 skill due to the defined XP point loss relative to the skill level's total XP requirement/pool. Though if you do no play for a few days, you get a sweet 4x PAE (and PPE but not sure if I'll ever need it) bonus. Lasts for several kills. Go kill a few high XP mobs, then go whack at some tough mobs for 10-15 minutes and I've made back all that I've lost, plus gained more on top of it. 10-15 minutes once every two days isn't much of a commitment and you'd be moving forward slowly but surely.

A better rate of decay would be 5% of your level per day, no caps, with decay applying daily instead of next use. The person at 100 skill would decay just as fast as a person with 20 skill. Casual players have it the same as hardcore players. This is significantly less for casual players. I just didn't play for two days, used double slash (level 32) and it went down 30%. If I go adventuring and training for an hour I can make back that 30% and more, but for more casual people the 5%/day sounds better. That'd be 10% opposed to 30% loss in my specific case. Don't play for 365 days you lose 18.25 levels (100 to 81.75) or just 0.35 per week (which is less than it is currently unless you're over 100 skill).

 

decay must exist. It gives "one more reason to play", and reward daily players. Anyway, it must be done in a way that casual players can still play, maybe roleplay (since they will never have the best builds) and do what they like, as example crafting, or farming, or exploration with decent skills.

 

Neither Decay nor hard caps "must exist". I understand that some people see no reason to play a game after they get to max level. That is not my playstyle, though. I choose to rush to max level and then go enjoy the high-end PVE and PVP content. I do not want to play a game of constant mindless grinding just to stay viable in my playstyle.

If there was a choice I would go for hard caps over decay any day. Limit how many skill points I can invest, but at the same time do not force me to take skills I do not want. Problem with skill cap with choice to pick up or release skills (reset template/etc) is it creates unbalance and FOTM (Flavor of the month) builds.

Skill decay does not remove FOTM as the devs attempt to achieve balance (nerf/buff skills) which will be impossible in this system since all I have to do to max several skills is play all day and macro all night (or vice-versa).

Something better can be created. Something other than only a few classes with a "couple" class specific imbedded skill trees to invest skill points in.

I'd be happier with being given the choice of 6 major skill sets to invest in at character-roll with the option to delay three skill sets to unlock as desired while playing the character. No skill decay and no hard cap.
For instance I could start with mage fire, ranged, healer, and light armor. Later I decide to help my character I open chaos and begin to level that up. Finally I add taming because I want to torture myself for years attempting to GM it.

Tactics and Focus should be something we all have access to.

But that's just me. Wanting to play a game as if it was a game - something to login to and play when I'm ready to - not spend my life in just to stay viable. It seems like we are forgetting the key element to a game - it needs to be fun not punishing.


From what I've seen, though, we don't lose the level that we have achieved, we just lose XP that we gained in that level and go negative - nothing that can't be dug out of again given a ton of mindless grinding. What that simply means to me is with Shroud I need to commit to a few/several months of extreme grinding and I'll get to level 130 in whatever I feel is essential and then never care that the skill goes negative infinity XP. Woe be to me if I should ever decide to go for level 131.... So not end-of-the-world, but certainly horrible for attempting to balance completely unknown player templates and not really fun.

 

Since there's only 10 slots in the combat bar, and you can only switch between two on the fly, I personally see no reason for other limitations.

 

Not trying to be disrespectful, but I don't know how to characterize your comment other than the biggest load of crap I've heard in a while. NO SYSTEM should benefit full time players that much. The 'one more reason' to play should be the game itself. Skill decay is a time sink, that's it. If you are suggesting this game requires a time sink, they you are essentially saying the game sucks.

This game needs PvE, PvP, crafting, and other actual gameplay features that make the game itself fun to play. And it can't punish casual players too much. I want to play maybe 2-3 days a week, and I don't want to face a huge deficit in skills against players who play all day every day. It's not fair to handicap part-time players in PvP. You need a system that has balanced PvP between casuals and hardcore players (other than actual skill at the game, obviously). The benefits that hardcore players should have is more maxed characters, more/better houses, more crafting skills, more unique rewards and custom decorative items. Hardcore players shouldn't get huge PvP advantage against casuals. That's the mark of a bad game.

Now, I agree in the absence of skill decay, the 'max all' characters are problematic. But the answer there is clear -- hard skill caps. It worked in ultima online and it will work here. This will necessitate multiple characters, which should be available anyway. The whole way the SotA dev team is going about this game just tells me they are out of touch with reality. It seems they just want to make a game for hardcore full time players only, which absolutely will not work. This game will die if they do that, and you'll have a lot of pissed off people who invested in the pre-alpha.

 

Skill decay...so if I don't log in every day(or somewhat frequency that might require) and leave my toon to rot...then my effort to raise my skill will just vaporize? Is this what this means?

Ridiculous! User's effort is something that should be rewarded, and shouldn't be a barometer of playtime.

Hardcore players may GM every skill in a short while after release, and that's fine. That's a reward for their effort.
Casual players may take more time to GM skills, but ultimately they should, without any hinderance other than their time spent.

I see there's some people think skill decay is some kind of 'privilege' for diligent players, but be sure not to forget this.

'Game is to be enjoyed.'

Skill decay has a aspect of punishment to casual players, IMO.

 

Chris discussed decay during the winter telethon, including how it odd intended to work, what is not working now, limits, and possible ways around it.

 

Will skills that decay allow you to regain the skill faster again?

The reason I mention this is that I use to take stick fighting back in my late teens and early 20s, and I got rather good. After abruptly leaving martial arts for other things I find that I can still pick up a stick and I'm no beginner. I suppose I am not as good as I was two decades ago but I most certainly could easily thrash a person whos only been doing stick fighting for a year.

If a person's skill decays it should be able to be regained again very quickly. Especially if somebody mastered an artform. The countess hours spent practicing and using your skill literally creates neural connections in the brain that will be with a person long term. There is also muscle memory as well. If I spent a month or two I think I could be just as good as I was in my early twenties (minus age limitations), even though the muscle memory is gone the brain remembers.

So it really should be easier to brush up again after having decay.

 

Sorry but HUGE changes to decay coming so any thoughts / ideas / concerns about what is old are really not worth it.

The general idea is still there to keep players from obtaining GMs across the board but the actual mechanic is chaning so much . . . . .

Do worry abuot what was, wait and see what s coming then you all can go back to worrying.

 

Why do we get extra character slots if we lose skills while not playing them all? I don't mind caps. Cap the number of skill points or xp points you can apply to skills, but don't take something that I've worked for away from me. If I have to go off to and do real world things, the likelyhood I'll come back is directly proportional to the expense I'll have (in time) of coming back.