Decay .... Revisited .... Again

Discussion in 'Skills and Combat' started by Satan Himself, Jan 23, 2016.

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  1. Illesac

    Illesac Avatar

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    I'd like to see some out of the box approaches like the one Krohon suggested. Personally I think skills should not decay beyond an apprentice understanding of the skill and only the highest practitioner in the land should have to worry about practicing their trade 24/7 to keep it at the highest level. For the rest of the peons in the middle I suggest making skill gain/loss very simple but make the extreme use cases complex.
     
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  2. Nastor

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    Hm I am not sure if I understand this decay concept right. Does it mean the used xp for a skill will disapear into nothingnes over (idle) time or only when using an opposite skill or a different skilltree?
     
  3. agra

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    Apparently, it's just a constant threatening death penalty, now?
    I'm not sure why it's called skill decay, anymore, to be honest. It's a very imprecise description for a death penalty, imho.

    I guess... you could use it to unlearn or forget skills, if you wanted to ? Just set the skills you want to unlearn to Not Training and then suicide? /shrug
     
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  4. Gix

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    I'm not sure why there's so much confusion on the matter:

    - Inactivity (for up to 2 days max) accumulates decay.
    - XP gained eliminates decay before being distributed to trained skills.
    - Upon death, remaining decay is applied/prioritized to your least active skills.
    - Skills can't decay bellow level 20.
    - The Oracle may eliminate decay based on your Virtues.

    Here's a quote on an article on something relative to this:
    I'm quoting this to show that the same system can work if you give it a different twist.

    The only thing I find odd is that there must be another way to accumulate decay than mere inactivity.
     
    Last edited: Jan 28, 2016
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  5. KuBaTRiZeS

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    I'd like to say something about the three first points... In order
    - It currently caps at 3 days though i think the cap remains unchanged.
    - Are we still sure about 2? As i said before the way it's worded seems like you build up decay whether you're gaining experience or not... with last implementation your statement was true because decay was consumed on skill use, but since that doesn't happen... how sure are we that spending XP on a skill eliminates decay?
    - Personal appreciation here regarding last implementation... Decay was applied to every single skill upon use, it didnt seem to be a "decay pool" that was taking from here and there, more like "each skill getting a bit of progress took away". Don't know if this changed, as there's no info in the player instructions.

    Exactly, that's the more carrot less stick approach, but i find hard to get a softcap system that doesn't feel like a punishment o_O. Nonetheless, if i understood everything right, current implementation might work since you're punished only when you die. Still, now the worries lean towards how it actually prevents progression, being something that is only triggered when you die... but i'm happy with it, just waiting to see some data coming up.
     
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  6. agra

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    From the R26 Instructions: Skill decay accumulates whether you are logged in or not, but maxes out at 72 hours after your last death.
     
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  7. Gix

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    @agra , @KuBaTRiZeS : Right, thanks for clearing that out. Obviously, some changes were made since I last looked into the matter but the overall gist of things remains the same. It isn't as complicated as some people make it sound.

    As everyone is hunting down for ever-changing specifics, it just comes to show that the devs should publish a more up-to-date article on the system... as opposed to "patch notes" quality information.

    I was mostly talking about developer intentions rather than what's being perceived through testing. For instance, whenever the decay cap is 2 or 3 days or if it's currently working as intended (despite what Chris believes) doesn't make much difference as far as building the system.

    EVERYTHING is subject to change.
     
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  8. KuBaTRiZeS

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    Sorry if i'm not following you here (it seems my understanding is a bit damaged today :p) but are you implying that decay is intended to be built as some kind of pool? think that Chris intention regarding decay is that it affects every single skill independently, up to the cap. If i really got you, that's new information to me! i'd appreciate if you point me to the source, or at the very least tell me why you think it's intended to work that way.
     
  9. Gix

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    I'm going to have to go hunting on the exact quote where the word "pool" was used. As for your interpretation, think what Chris meant was that each skill takes points from decay independently.

    "affects every single skill independently, up to the cap." <- the cap being the accumulated decay (the pool).

    With that said, here are a few quick quotes (that are pretty old, mind you):
    http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/...ewsletter-Details-Use-Based-System-For-Skills
    http://ultimacodex.com/2015/08/shroud-of-the-avatar-update-of-the-avatar-139/
     
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  10. agra

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    The R26 implementation doesn't prevent Multi-GM's at all, in any way, if the player never dies.
    It's not a progression prevention mechanic anymore; it's a death penalty, right now, today.
    It's only ever applied at death, according to the current information.
     
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  11. Gix

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    Fair enough and I'm all for pointing out problems but, should we scrap it entirely on the grounds that it doesn't work "today"?
     
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  12. Cinder Sear

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    You didn't test out this version yet, have you? Noone has experienced decay yet, have they? ;)
     
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  13. KuBaTRiZeS

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    It's curious how the human mind works. When i read that i understood that every single skill accumulates its own decay up to the cap, and i still do (reinforced with my impressions on suffering decay last release) so i'm still don't picture the common pool as a fact, sorry. We'll need some data to check it out!

    Oh also its interesting that decay built up also when you were online in last implementation, didn't know that! i guess you dind't notice since decay applied when using skills, so it was reseted almost instantly when you were grinding.
    Exactly, the point on testing new things is to improve them and make them usable. Saying "This is punishing" is feedback, but asking for removal is surrender.
    Death penalties are progression prevention mechanics, that's why they're so popular on ARPG's. The difference is that the death penalty incurred by decay is not a fixed amount, it only hits you for the amount you accumulated. That being said i'm concerned as well regarding how well will achieve its purpose now that it's only tied to death... But i feel current implementation may be deemed as less of a punishment, so i think we're improving!
     
  14. Themo Lock

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    I don't post much anymore but... decay is a dealbreaker. About 90% of my group will simply play something else if it remains. It simply makes the entire game not fun.
     
  15. KuBaTRiZeS

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    Weeee Themo! have you felt the pain of decay already? It seems that tying it to death makes it a bit more forgiving... I couldn't log in until the 9th so i'd appreciate any game data to satisfy my curiosity.
     
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  16. Nastor

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    Hmph, great - does that mean from dragon slayer to mice killer after idle time? Does that also apply to the player level in general? Is the player level also lowered at the same time? - Not that the enemy is shown as yellow when it should be in reality red, because one doesnt have enough skill to kill it anymore.

    Also I think trained weapons skills shouldnt be able sink into the negative damage modifier through decay, which some still have at 20, when I remember right. And I think should the decay remain in the game there should be ways to raise the cap above 20 permanently - for example be a weapons master or a (high rank) member of the sword fighters guild etc.

    And the invested xp shouldnt disapear into nothingness - at least not complete. I would say some should drip back into the xp pool at least than when the decay happened because of idle time or a bonus skill gain should be applied after idle time. Otherwise you would punish the casual players too much and they wont care to come back or even invest time and money in the game in the first place
     
    Last edited: Feb 1, 2016
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  17. Krohon

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    I don't understand your grief. On a competitive, PvP oriented game, while all are subject to the same rules, it doesn't matter the absolute skills but the relative to the other players. Decay or not, the one able to best master the game mechanics should win the battle.

    Crafters have a much rough time since they will lost time and mats to do their business. Yet the best of them will be still the best, no absolute quality standard there either.

    If you hit some hardcaps, how will improve your game? All your group will have almost the sames (top) skills in this case too.

    The only thing decay will make too hard is if we want to login just 5 minutes to check the mail (or whatever) every 3 days. Then, the decay will bit. If we, however, log and play everyday, it should work as if we had reach a hardcap.
     
  18. Themo Lock

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    If only that were the case (it isn't).
     
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  19. Ice Queen

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    One thing I'm not clear on..Say you play every single day and make time to go out to use your combat skills, and make sure you do your gathering/crafting skills. Do you still get decay? Or is it only if you do not use those skills does it start to accumulate?
     
  20. KuBaTRiZeS

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    Not sure if somebody out there had gathered data about it, but the It's all matter of how you read what's been said. Since it says "Skill decay accumulates whether you are logged in or not, but maxes out at 72 hours after your last death." in the player instructions i get that it doesn't matter what you're doing, you just build decay up, and it only resets when you die.

    The thing about decay resetting everytime you used a skill on previous implementation was because using a skill also triggered decay, meaning that as long as you were using your skills decay applied was next to zero, but that's not specifically mentioned in the instructions so i tend to believe it's not happening.
     
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