Why not cap skills?

I am sure this has been raised before but I cant understand why you would not cap (or decay) skills?

I can see a year after release we will have many GOD like characters Grand Mastering almost everything?

Where do you draw the line?

 

I have no issues with a hard cap system.

I do have issues with a decay system.

So not sure the focus of what you are asking as to me they are very different things. One stops people from mastering everything. One penalizes casual players more than those who are trying to master everything.

 

go look at all the decay threads this is same topic and it is covered there MANY times

No Hard caps "soft caps" (decay) are the way they are dealing with it so players cannot GM everything . . . .

 

In my mind Skill Cap and Skill Decay are part and parcel. If you capped skills how do you change your characters class or skill set without reinventing the wheel?

Are you suggesting Skill Decay penalizes casual players more than those who are trying to master everything? How so?

 

it is changing next release, need to wait and test again

 

Soft Caps - now thats a new one, ill check it out...

 

Is there a specific dev link/discussion for next release plans you might have on hand for this topic?

 

Also, the winter telethon but i don't have a timestamp for it sorry

 

For the respec side of things, we already are planning to have trainers remove skills. Not advocating it (many things I don't like about that option too) but it is already in the works so it wouldn't change current design intentions at all.

Skill decay penalizes casual players more because they are the ones more likely to be affected by it (based on current design as I can't speak to what doesn't exist yet). Unless you are constantly leveling up all skills all the time the skills you are not using will decay. If you don't log in, all the skills you have decay. Someone who is able to log in every day and is pushing every skill to try to max GM everything is using everything so decay doesn't affect them, or will only minimally affect them. The person unable to log in every day and use everything they have unlocked will be getting penalized. Hence the reason I believe it affects casual players more than hardcore grinders.

There are some major changes coming next release but I am skeptical it will do much good to alleviate the underlying concern I mention above. Once the changes are in, my opinion might change, but not having high hopes.

One thing I would like to consider would be a hybrid system where locking a skill causes it to decay, leaving it unlocked doesn't and then make each skill have an exponential curve at some point. So 1-70 everything levels the same 70-90 much harder as a multiple for each skill in that range (10 skills in 70-90 range each skill requires *10 to get leveled) 90-100 double it 100+ now its GM to the power of total GM skills (first 2-3 not painful 4+ really hard 10-20+ unlikely). Setting a skill to locked causes it to decay out so it lowers the number in the math to get everything else up. Yes there is room for abuse here (get everything to 69 or whatever the cap prior to the exponential boosts happen) but I honestly think any system someone can come up with can be abused. The main difference here is that you are selecting what skills decay and accepting a harder climb to level if you want to try to achieve GM in everything.

I also don't know why so many people are anti-GM everything on 1 character as most people who want to GM everything will probably just grab multiple accounts (but that discussion would derail your thread).

 

Eww Skill Decay when you're offline? If this is a plan (I'm a casual player/forum user so a I little out of date) its an awful concept - the idea never crossed my mind.

The ability to reverse skills (user choice) is my preference - I'm not too fussed how this happens as long as it does.

"I also don't know why so many people are anti-GM everything on 1 character as most people who want to GM everything will probably just grab multiple accounts" - Good point but I'm thinking on the developers side it could be more lucrative - on a game side, specially PVPers (and I'm not one of those) it could be too convenient for an opponent to swap decks when they are losing?

 

Great question...for some reason there is no line. I don't agree with this, it's bad for the game.

 

From the notes I was able to gather here: https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/telethon-transcript.43631/

The main idea is that they expect players to average their top skills at around 80. The decay system allows/forces the players to make decisions on whenever or not they want to focus on a few skills and go beyond 100 or go with a mixture of skills; whichever they prefer.

Maxing one skill and moving on to the next with no consequences is not healthy for character development or game-play as you end up being the same regardless of your earlier decisions. Which is what hard caps do.
Either that or you limit the amount of points a player can accumulate which indirectly forces them to hoard up and not spend the points until later, follow a guide (to learn how the system works), or constantly respect or run with flavours of the month builds... all of which aren't friendly for role-play environments.

Considering that the game is being worked so that the power/leveling curve will flatten out mid-to-late game, the differences (in theory) won't be a deal breaker.

 

This is the attitude I've seen displayed most often in fantasy themed persistent multi-player online games:

If you don't let me do it with one character, I'll do it with multiple characters. If you don't let me have multiple characters, I'll have multiple accounts.

So, ultimately, any goal that skill decay tries to achieve, it will fail to accomplish. The exact moment it's made harsh enough to be effective is the exact moment you'll simply lose all your customers in your target demographic, and your game turns into a ghost town. Also, skill decay as a flagship/selling feature? Horrible. Does nothing but push customers away from the "Buy Now" button.

And make no mistake, as long as skill decay (for skills under 101) is in the game? That's all this game will be known for on Steam and by the general public. No-one wants to play a game where casual players are punished.
Punitive mechanics only worked in the 90's because there was no other choice. Now there's dozens or hundreds of games in every genre that are more fun and easier, all waiting to take those customers away.

And to Portalarium: If you only want players to reach 80? Charge players (in-game and/or RL $$$) for the privilege of exceeding that skill cap, each skill per character. Or, only have skill decay apply, at all, in any way, for skills above 80.
Hey look, that same logic works for skills above 100! How about that? Now you can see what the real reason behind skill decay is. If it turns into a money grab, or a "balance" issue. (Yeah, right).

 

There you go!


Jokes apart, I stopped commenting on this subject because I know decay is going to change - but I don't know how just yet.
However, I like what I heard during the Telethon (the fancy charts plotted by Chris, and crafting specialisations).

 

I have no problem with skill caps, but decay just doesn't sound very avatar like. Why would a person who is not subject to death, but is subject to decay? If a person cannot stay dead, then why would that same person degenerate?

Rather than decay I would be open to a cap with skill evolution. Once the cap is reached then if they want to continue to gain skill let some other skill decrease, but no net loss of skills do to inactivity.

 

That only applies to a "hardcore" demographic. I don't think the vast majority will go through the trouble or cost of multiple accounts. The multiple character complaints will be far more common though, but only a slightly larger group of people will get extra accounts because of it.

I would like to see unlocking of a small number of additional slots through game play. If they wrap it in the guise of your soul swapping bodies (paraphrasing RG), then people have something to work toward.

 

maybe a decay for high levels only, means over 70. This would mean: the majority of players and also the casual ones can play with decent skills and do what they like. And the top builds, with the high skills rewarding the daily players. This is a good way to solve the issue, I think.

 

God Like !!!!!!!!

15 GM skill !!!!!

I'm Gm Gm !!!!

 

What about the title supreme master for those who are just not satisfied with grand master?

Ok Master, Grand Master, Supreme Master, Supreme Master with honors, Supreme Master with honors and worthy of note, Supreme Master with honors worthy of note defender of the virtues by the grace of Lord British ....

Stacking of titles to show that master is just not good enough!

 

See here... queen isn't good enough...

Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen,Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith"