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Does or Will Skill Advancement take into account an expected rate of use?

Discussion in 'Release 33 Feedback Forum' started by Rufus D`Asperdi, Sep 20, 2016.

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  1. Rufus D`Asperdi

    Rufus D`Asperdi Avatar

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    Now that persistence is here, and my prior focus has progressed to the point where I need to wait for further development to advance farther, I've actually started adventuring.

    I've determined that I shall NOT grind... I'll just Play. I'm enjoying myself.

    One frustration though is that there are some skills/spells in the trees that are of use only occasionally, but they seem to advance at the same rate requiring the same number of uses to advance them as very commonly used attack and defense skills and spells.

    Is this a miss-perception on my part?

    If not, are their plans to balance advancement of individual skill against the situational applicability of the skill?
     
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  2. PrimeRib

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    My sincere hope is that there will be many, many quests and quest-like mechanics which dump xp into your pool. And that the correlation between skill use and skill gain changes a lot with gobs of xp sitting in the pool vs now, when I don't break 200.

    So I'm not really sure that I'd spend too much time balancing this around the grindy game today vs. how the game may look like tomorrow.

    I agree that the net effect today doesn't work well. But I can't imagine that this game is meant to be World of Wolf Slaughter.
     
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  3. Snazz

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    Some are greater (xp required per glyph rank) Stats, quite a few passives. Likely some Tier 5 abilities.

    That said, a % of your xp pool is consumed + base per usage.

    So buffs, summons, all that stuff that is used less frequently will be slower.

    Passives typically get a 'use' with almost every action, so that balances those a bit.

    That's why many people get a large pool (locking most abilities) then 'train' a hard to level ability. Either by overuse in play, or more commonly, in town/with gustball
     
  4. Rufus D`Asperdi

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    This is the part that I have a problem with... This to me is the soul and definition of Grind.
     
  5. Snazz

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    AHK may be your saving grace.

    Since you have to earn the xp pool, and it's macro vs botting, I believe it's within the rules
     
  6. Rufus D`Asperdi

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    What does "AHK" mean?
     
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  7. Lifedragn

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    I tend to agree that this is poor design.

    I definitely see an advantage in maintaining a large XP pool. I am noticing that overall, maintaining a pool size of 18-20K is causing better gains in my Summon Ice Elemental skill than it did in my Summon Water Elemental in which I typically 3-5k XP. One of the problems though is that those skills are extremely difficult to raise through natural play. I did Grind Up water ele so I could get to ice. Since I have no more skills to unlock I have been using ice naturally. And it is super slow to advance. When I do well, I am only casting it once per scene. The only reasons I need to re-cast it in a scene are if it dies - which is rare since I hold most of the aggro or pull it off of them super easy, or if I want to raise skill which is not immersive at all.

    Summon abilities could be easy to fix by having a spell that gives a temporary boost to the creature and that raises the summoning skill that called it. Go ahead and let it use reagents. But we should either have an ability that makes sense to use more often or greatly reduce the XP need for some of these low-use actives.
     
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  8. Lifedragn

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    Thinking about, that would also give me reason to put summoning related abilities into my combat deck as well! Right now my summons are in my non-combat bar and I cannot envision having use for more than one card in my deck for summoning in the current setup.
     
  9. Snazz

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    Auto Hotkey. Has a million uses. Free program. Can be used to remap anything as well.

    I also have training decks that deal 4 cards for the skill I am focusing. Removes long cooldowns and increases availability.
     
  10. Rada Torment

    Rada Torment Community Ambassador (ES)

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    There are lots of options and mechanics they can use and add but there is something I didnt expect to see in just 1.5 months, players with already 10-15 GMs. I'm not waiting to see something hardcore tbh but seems like the skill system is too easy for those who knows (there are some OP pve builds there and we all know this) how farm millions xp while leveling all they want.

    Some adjustments are needed.
     
  11. Sixclicks

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    Yep, I have a leveling deck just for this reason. Although I manually push the hot keys rather than using a macro.

    Some skills just aren't practical to level while adventuring because they just don't get used enough or gain enough XP per use. For example, Shield of Air.... if you use that in combat when it's lower level, you will lose all of your focus in a few seconds and either have to run away or die. It's not until level 100+ that Shield of Air starts to become actually useful (that's when the focus transfer ratio drops below 1.0).
     
    Last edited: Sep 20, 2016
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  12. Snazz

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    There are definitely some that are difficult to level in combat or just plain dangerous lol

    Corpse Explosion is one that has minimal casts when used properly, but I do hang out at a pile once in a while to train :)
     
  13. Lazlo

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    Skills that are only used occasionally like pets or things that are very situational should have higher caps on xp distribution.
     
  14. Nadomir

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    Although I'm not that much of a hardcore roleplayer, lets try and see it from the roleplaying side:

    Imagine you are a mage who has learned some new mighty spell, one that he might not use very often... like 'Armageddon' or 'Sink continent' ... ok, bad examples... lets take some more common used but still powerfull spell like 'earthquake' ... You know how to cast it... alright... but to actually MASTER the spell you need to practice... and probalby practice alot.
    Imagine you are a fighter, a swordsman of some kind. Your old mentor taught you that great final killing-strike that you are only ment to use when all other means have failed... with his dying breath... You know what todo... but to really MASTER it you need to... right! you need to practice!
    Imagine you are a craftsman, lets say a carpenter. You know your craft, but to really be a Master you need... exactly: to practice!

    You see... if you don't call it "grinding", but practicing it even makes sense... even from the RP-perspective.

    Even with all that fancy graphics and sounds and all most of the action still happens in our heads.

    Don't get me wrong: I'm not a big fan of senseless grinding myself. But if you want to master a skill, even the ones you don't need very often, you still need to practice, so once you really need them, you can do it right. The challenge now is, to give that practicing some meaning, make it fun, so we don't need to call it "grinding" anymore. But this game will never be like Wow for example, where the game takes you by the hand and everything is taken care of from lvl 1 to 110 (or whereever the max there now is). Where Wow is the full entertainment movie to watch and enjoy, SotA is more like a box of toys, where you decide which game you want to play with them next... that is way more flexible, but also requires more action from ourselves.
     
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  15. Rufus D`Asperdi

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    Good point.
     
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  16. Nadomir

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    But regardless how you call it: if it is no fun to do (in a game!) then there IS something wrong there.
     
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  17. Burzmali

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    If you live in a fantasy world where a capricious god makes the rules, sure, but cutting the heads off thousands of wolves isn't going to give you any great insight into chopping off the heads of armed human attackers. Making hundreds of thousands of arrows isn't going to help you build a 4-post bed. SotA abstracts a lot to keep things simple, but that same abstraction leads to players grinding the most efficient XP/gp or XP/hour strategy available.
     
  18. Rufus D`Asperdi

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    But that is their choice.

    If they wish to Grind to be efficient, taking advantage of the (necessary) abstraction, that is their choice... You shouldn't blame an act of free will on the design of the game.
     
  19. Burzmali

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    I don't blame the grinders, I blame the devs for oversimplifying a system that should take years to fully explore, and futhermore I blame them for bolting such a system to an unstable economy and promptly flipping it over.
     
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  20. Lifedragn

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    What are you suggesting? The problem is that there are a lot of players with a lot of time on their hands that do nothing but grind. There is very little that can be done to slow them down that does not also penalize into impossibility the ability for someone who only plays 20 hours a week or spends significant time roleplaying or participating in community events to also reach GM skills. Implementing time gating by character age can establish minimum times to advance regardless of play amount but those kinds of systems are quite divisive in communities.

    Time it takes to reach the point aside, I also do not think 10-15 skills are too many to have GMed. I actually think that is a pretty good number if it is stretched over actives and passives alike.

    1.5 Months to "end-game" is actually where most games end up these days, if not even faster. We've got a good mix of independently wealthy players with a lot of time on their hands and players that work all day to earn expendable income and have much less free time to devote. Finding a good balance to suit both audiences is rough.
     
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