Decay .... Revisited .... Again

Shouldn't that be MMOMMORPG?
Massive
Men
Only

 

*Darkstarr voice on*
Good catch! Fixed.

 

Were you already past the multiplier bonus?

 

They sell that in the store?!

 

No, I was level 75 in R25, so bonus is still on.

 

Huh, maybe this did counter the decay somewhat...

 

We can all agree that implementation of skill decay is terrible penalizing those who cannot play as long and preventing for multiple GM etc.

But in general it feels to me like even when implemented in a proper manner or the way it "should" be is still counter intuitive. Lets say skill decay takes effect only on skills that are locked that you choose not to put points into past say 70+. The way it should work in my opinion, if you are not directly exercising your muscle there it would decay.

Yet this discussion to me seems quite stale, even with all the negative / "not being implemented properly" posts here, it doesn't seem to be going away. They feel it necessary for all those folks that will Hardcore this game into the next century, but I'm still wondering why having a multiple GM skill pool is a bad thing. With this decayr or ANY decay for that matter you are adding faux progression, stating that now that you've worked on this skill for X amount of time work on it some more until you feel comfortable enough with your self imposed buffer to lose some progression. Why? The hardcore players will simply farm it until they are comfortable with a certain percentage they are willing to lose and anyone with any less amount of time will simply focus on no more than they could devote time for.

Hard caps, soft caps, skill decay, how about a system that could combine spell effects after a certain progression in certain skills? Not that you could do it will all of them but a very similar system with the chaos tree where combining a certain spell nets you a very opposite effect but more streamed to an actual wanted effect? Perhaps thats what they were trying to do with combos with various spells and melee but how about taking that one step further having to do directly with skill progression? This way you are rewarded instead of penalized and there is still progression? A lightning hail storm for instance, a flame tornado, etc. etc. Now these abilities you would need say 125-150 points in each of those trees but doable for someone working towards with a reward past GM. Food for thought and .02.

 

You're on to something here, we've spoken about this in the past

 

Ideas like this for truly innovative combat and online interaction were all pitched 2.5+ years ago, on these very forums.
Most were dismissed and/or ignored. Detailed core mechanics are not part of "guiding the game" and the devs have their playbook they're reading from.
There is no risk, at all, in one person having 20 GM's. It doesn't affect anyone else, without their consent, in the slightest, especially given SPO and FPO modes.
As you and others have pointed out, whatever cap or method is put in place to prevent 20 GM's from happening, hardcore/dedicated players will simply buy another account and get what they want on that second account.
Remarkably, just like every other game that has tried similar limiting schemes in the past 20 years.

What's really funny is the original purpose behind a single character per account was that, given enough time investment, that one character could do everything, acknowledging that players would simply buy a second account if they couldn't do that.

 

You can, just not simultaneously and/or at a high level.

 

That distinction is just an patronizing platitude, from my perspective.
The first justification people use to defend the design decision of limiting/preventing All-GM chars is "one character shouldn't be able to do everything", while in the past, "one character should be able to do everything" was used as justification for limiting one player to one character per account.
The consequence of the original design decision is still in place (limit of one char per account), while the justification for it is gone. (one character shouldn't be able to do everything, currently)

So, that leaves us with today. The justification is no longer true, because it's a design goal that a single character cannot do everything, thus, multiple characters per account should be permitted.
And yet..
A single player can do everything, with multiple accounts, leaving any design decision in this area pointless. Regardless of the intent (should / shouldn't) players will do whatever they want, and ignore any limitations the devs attempt to implement.

As a result, the primary negative effect everyone is afraid of (which doesn't really exist, but that's another topic), that is, self sufficiency, has been and always will be possible. It's happening and will always happen.

It's also worth pointing out that if a character never dies, decay never touches them, and there's no reason (at least none publicly disclosed as of R26) they can't be GM's in everything. Unless there's more to this 'decay' mechanic that they're not telling us, that occurs constantly, not just at death.

 

That was the justification for introducing characters having both producer and adventurer level, so you weren't forced to choose between an artisan or an adventurer. In that case you can be both. But saying that statement was meant to every player being able to have all skills in game is taking it out of context.

If for being self sufficent people are willing to buy more games, be my guest. It's not pointless, you're putting a price to self-sufficiency.

That's right! one of my main concerns (mostly regarding players that opt out adventuring). I'm curious to see how that's avoided.

 

From my perspective, you're grasping at some technicality based on your interpretation of what was said years ago. I just pointed out that, technically, what was said still holds true; just not in the way you expected or want.

Just like stuff like "SotA's gonna be a successor to the Ultima series, including UO" doesn't mean "this is Ultima (Online) without the brand!" yet we have tons of people in the forums bitching that SotA's "not Ultima".

What else do you want me to say? Last time I checked, not a single RPG (including the Elder Scrolls, as much as you would like to believe otherwise) allows you to do everything at optimal output on a single character.

 

It's not about a single character anymore, that ship has sailed. My point was that the reasons for what we have now are no longer valid or true, yet we still have the restriction, which does nothing to solve the larger problem.

In other words, for the target demographic, anyone who wants to be self sufficient as a player can be, if they want to. So what's the point in the rest of the punitive pointless mechanics? All they do is restrict the target audience potential.

 

Who might that be? Seems like everyone who disagrees with something about the game will say that the demographic is "anyone but themselves" so I just want to make sure.

For the same reasons you can't wield all possible weapons simultaneously. Yes, you picked them all up. Yes, you can swap them at practically any time. Yes, you could instead create a character for each weapon type for optimization. But no one seems to mind that they have to decide which weapon to wield at any given time.

The point? Fantasy. It call comes down to that. It's the idea that (especially in a multi-player environment) you don't want to be just another team-colored MasterChief. What's the point of making decisions if you're always going to end up exactly the same? Why not just make all avatars fully maxed out?

No restrictions right? Everything's even!

 

Still can't tell what decay does if you don't die. So much fail. Maybe the skill based system is even more grindtastic now or it's decay and only playing every few days? Who knows! God forbid we get any kind of feedback! My exp bars fills up, my skills, not so much. Must be time to break out the macros.

 

Thanks to frostl to show that by testing....now imagine this skill is a crafting one and requires mats to get it up again...

+111

For me decay is a funkiller for this game

 

I have to agree.