Does Decay kill Specialization?

I've enjoyed all my SOTA friend's comments

After having had 100+ GM skilled characters and deleting them, just to check out other builds and ways of playing, these are my views about the coming and present decay.

I would point out that we've seen and gone through many game changer moments through our SOTA's development, which are still on-going. I remember when card deck combat was all the rage against what we wanted, and that change turned out to be one that set us apart from other games. Being set apart from other games makes us unique and I feel more fun, rather than become just another game which would mimic all other games.

There's more changes coming, so I don't think it's ever a good thing for us to get so attached to anything that we abandon those current and future things by supposing any of them would somehow ruin our game. These are the things that make us unique and it's our opportunity to help our developers refine them.

Everything eventually balances and refines itself, and from my standpoint, I see this as no different than any major change that's come before it. It's just unique. But that's just my view and I respect yours as well.

I personally wanted to see even more decay and the higher anyone's skills were, then the lower they would fall until they hit rock bottom as if their character had less skill than starting a new one, "if you had climbed so high". I was really looking forward to seeing a character with 1000 in a single skill, but that's just seems not to ever be, yet I'll keep on, keeping on and still enjoy our game.

Our world has seen many changes. We still have tesla rifles that will work someday, so we aren't finished with big game changes coming yet.


~Time Lord~

 

With Caps:

Player A: has 10 skills GM’d and did it in a week

Player B: eventually has 10 skills GM’d but it took a year

Player A and B are equal after a year but A got there much sooner.

Players forced to specialize due to caps.
No time lost trying to recover lost xp... character always grows until cap hit.



Decay: (real time counts)

Player A plays all the time, can GM 10 skills and keep a nice xp pool to cover the decay.

Player B plays once a week, can only maintain 1 GM and can only maintain a smaller pool for decay due to more death decay being applied (see math here, Chris confirmed).

Player B will never equal or catch Player A. Player B will have to settle for lower skills to avoid a large decay penalty otherwise he’ll waste too much precious game time just to recover xp.

Player A doesn’t need to specialize as he earns a lot more xp and can maintain more GMs. Player B has to pick and choose carefully so his decay isn’t too bad.

Players spend lots of time trying to recover lost xp.


Decay: (only adventure time counts)

Player A can GM 10 skills and keep a nice xp pool to cover decay and does it in a week.

Player B can GM 10 skills and keep a nice xp pool but does it in a year

Player B will eventually catch up to Player A since they earn the same XP and have the same Decay since it’s all based on how much time in an adventure zone.

Players will reach a plateau where they are forced to balance decay vs gain only. (This is what Port is striving for, a cap but based on xp gain.) But it’s equal for both A and B.

Both Players will need to specialize to GM the skills they want to get the right balance when they hit their plateaus.

Players may not be happy that they can’t keep growing, but the game was meant to have some kind of Cap not open ended growth.

Players spend some time recovering lost xp... and eventually when they plateau, that's all they will be doing.


No Caps/Decay:

Player A runs away and Player B never has a chance to equal him

Port never intended for this, which is why there are huge diminishing returns on skills over 100+.

Summary:

Decay if approached properly, will not destroy specialization and in fact can reinforce it if everything is balanced properly. But it will force an eventual halt to character growth as all players will be forced to balance xp gain vs decay. Port did not intend to create an open ended growth for characters.

The real question is since this game was never intended to be open ended, what kind of cap mechanic is best. The trade off is this... with Hard Caps there is no game time wasted back tracking to regain lost xp... you are always advancing... but it doesn't penalize death, you can fight until you drop. Decay forces you to back track and in theory should make you think long and hard about dying. If you are one of those players that just keeps fighting until you drop, you're going to take a lot of decay hits.

I lean a bit towards decay but only if it's balanced (adventure time only). Even now I withdraw from fights when I start to lose so I rarely die just to avoid even the low decay I have now (i'm only about AL 61). I also am very selective on what skills I have too so I won't have to deal with huge decay because I've got dozens of GM's.

It's a balancing act for both Port and the Player. Port needs to set up decay properly but players need to understand that the game was meant to have limits. You shouldn't expect to get all the GMs at skill level 200 and to keep going. Otherwise Port just needs to switch to Hard Caps and be done with it.

... my two cents.

 

Simple reminder to people, decay only matters if you die.

Im adv lvl 95 and I have died maybe 5 times since persistence (and they were afk mistakes mostly) and I probably wont die again for some time since my farming area is pretty safe.

Technically I could continue to raise my skills for ever.


What decay does is pretty much syfle the player base into doing things safe... kills group play (I aint gonna trust a group to keep me alive) and higher end play.

I know I can farm the same spot every day at 4K XP and 7K gold an hour.


farm farm farm safely:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/145935223

 

I haven't died very often in monster spawns, but I most likely haven't been hunting in the same hunting grounds as the Starman I think I can count maybe 67 deaths from persistence, but some of that was just from sight seeing where my current chr shouldn't have been with his low skills.

Yet this points to something I see within this, where, if a low skilled chr as myself were invited to hunt where the @2112Starman goes, then it's a sure trip to the death and decay, yet maybe offset if I were in the same party as he was?
~Time Lord~

 

For me, decay kills adventuring, and encourages specializing. I find myself farming places I know to avoid death. I do not have the time to play I once did, so death hurts me a ton. And I log on, play and go backwards just does not interest me. Only if I die will I explore for the rest of my play that day, which is sad to me. I loved exploring before, but I worked too hard to get as far as I have (which is not all that far compared to good players but it is far for me) to risk backwards sliding. I wish death would only decay skillls we are not maintaining or advancing. But I think the devs are monitoring the situation and will in the end make adjustments.

 

Starman; I agree with you and King Robert. The main negative in the whole decay situation to me is that it stymies adventuring and exploring due to the death risk and then turns this into a play safe environment for many. This in the long run leads to boredom. I have also died probably about 10 times since persistence and most of them from unplanned AFK situations. Last one was for trying to kill 3 swashbucklers at once and I just hit level 92. I am not familiar with the cost to maintain skills in case of death so it takes me about 2 hours to regain all the skill points in those skills that dropped a level. Guess it is what it is and its not going to change anytime soon for those that wish to get rid of it. R/Boris/El Pirata

 

oh! I did die twice exploring the new serps mine when it went live. Lots of places to fall with lots of hitching is bad news. I wont do that kinda thing again.

 

THIS!

I've been griping over the broken Decay system for so long (I am a supporter of specialized caps) that I forgot there was a time where I thought decay would work. Decay should be punishing unused skills, not the skills that you use the most.

When I first heard about the word Decay, I thought it was something that erodes all skills, adventuring or crafting, over time, depending on how long and how much you used it. It made so much sense and it parallels reality and it helps define unique characters. Instead, we are getting a death penalty that hits you where it hurts the most.

 

Yeah i started this thread for the specialization problem and raged to fast in the decay-madness

If you play a game you want to feel progressing further. In the current state you will need years to reach level 200 in only 1 Skill. I think you can say nobody will ever come to an end.
But i also think we need some kind of decay, a decay over time and not on death. Like a tiny tiny "unlearning" with every aktion you do. A Player who has only 20 GMs will lose lesser cause he doestn give a f**k about the other skills and will fokus more about that what he have. A Player with 100 GMs has to do more work to keep all 100 GMs up. This will give you some Specialization in XP Management, if you want more then you have to work more.
Also the "Decay Pool increse in Adventure Scenes" (what nobody exactlly understands how this should work , is it now based on time or gathered pool?) thing is a pit for Casuals. Whats with the Player who spend there time exploring some Caves, Mines, Dungeons or just want to get through a Pass or a Siege? Whouldnt they lose alot of there time doing this? A Hardcore Player goes in his Scene and does not waste time, he just want to grind.

But that all leads to another topic thats a part of the problem, the Skill Curve! Adventuring and Crafting, both are way to fast to reach GM. Every new Player gets his skill to 60 on the first day if he wants easy. You gain so many power from the first 60-80 levels and you will be able to farm a GM once a day if you want. This should be increased on 60 and 80 to make it harder to reach GM. Yes this sucks for casual players but in my mind it boots the teamplay. People cooridinate what they level up first so a friend can get benefits from his GM later and also gives a better advantage to play as a Mentor.

Last but not least, the cap for unlocking skills. As mentioned before, it is super easy to reach level 40 and you can get every skill every passive so fast. A much higher cap would make more sense and the (powerfull) passive Skills should be on the end of the line with a unlock after GMing. You can get every passive from every tree super fast and boost your strenght massiv on early game. The best example for this is the Mages with Chain Body phenomenon, they wear it because they get super easy the STR and Avoidance Skills, if you have to level up 6 skills up to 80 or 100 befor you get these skills they whould think about it if they want invest so many time and xp for this or better stay an cloth and do something other. These are limits that could improve the gameplay, you cant say: we give you everything super easy and super fast but also we dont want you to progress so fast.

 

Guessing your safety will be relative to type of character/skills you're using and your adventure level. I've tried that camp with adventure level 65-70 and those viking mobs can be a handful if they group up. I think you'll still be able to mow them down fairly quickly but I'm guessing you will be losing 80-100 crit damage per stone arrow next release. 80-100 might be high, I'm using 2 wands and 22-23% obsidian arrow str bonus per wand iirc. It's about 80 crit damage for me but your earth skills and str are higher than mine.

 

The problem is that Port designed (and wanted) SoTA to be a game that was not opened ended. They did impose limits, in this case via decay. This all comes back to what kind of game we each like to play and if we are willing to accept Port's design. If they (Port) want a limited growth game, then there's no point in pushing for open ended growth/progression. (I'm not advocating, just pointing it out...) So the question is what kind of limiting factor works best for the most fun?

... which brings us to this...

What kind of death penalty for the risk are players willing to accept? There has to be some kind of penalty and risk. I know I've always hated games where all my inventory gets dropped on death (and it's the first thing I mod out if I can...) If Port imposes an xp decay, some players hate it... if they impose a gear decay some hate it (though crafters will rejoice...). So what is going to work for the vast majority? (I haven't a clue actually...)

We all want the game to be 'fun' but Port wants there to be limits and risk/rewards... so if, by Port's terms, you go off adventuring/exploring in dangerous areas there's a certain risk. As much as I love to explore, I realize that right now at my level, there are places I'm not willing to go to yet... but should Port open them up with no risk just so I can 'explore'? (no)... There's always going to be some kind of penalty for screwing up in a risky situation... and if it's something you're 'willing to live with'... is it really a risk? (I'm willing to play poker for low stakes, but there's no 'risk' really, I can't lose more than ten or twenty bucks... but I refuse to play for higher stakes, so should I get upset about the higher stakes/risk? no. )

But all said and done, Port needs to balance Risk/Reward with Fun and I don't think they are anywhere near that yet. If I only have an hour to kill in an evening after work, Skyrim is still a lot more 'fun' to play. SoTA is all about the grind still for me, so I'm still waiting for the 'fun'. (... and I have hopes that it will still be added.)

 

Well here is a simple proposal on the death decay that could be studied: I am sure Port has a way to find out how many hours a week each account is logged in for. With that said they could apply death decay in this manner: 1) 1k adventuring xp point loss per hour of weekly average game play. (i.e. you played 24 hours last week so you lose 24k from your xp pool per death that week. 2)Set death decay to occur a maximum of 3 times in a week (same player who played 24 hours that week in total only loses maximum 72k xp from his/her pool).

May sound simplistic but If I lose 72k a week for 3 deaths it encourages me to be more adventuresome and others as well which = more fun for everyone.

1k xp point per hour of weekly play is just an example and could be adjusted to the right or left. It may sound simplistic but its a start for possible consideration. R/Boris/El Pirata

 

I disagree with this view on the motive of Portalarium for SOTA. SOTA is meant to be an open-end game.

I've seen this countless times within our SOTA-Psychology examinations. We have been fed by the gaming industry a certain entertainment food within this genre and our brains at first encounter with anything that deviates from that needed gaming drug fix is instantly rejected. Many people who come here have UO withdraws symptoms until they play enough where our SOTA play style becomes their craving. It's just like hearing any new music, most doesn't appeal to us until we have played or heard that particular band many times. "Taylor Swift" began her music career advertised on McDonalds Happy Meal drinking cups before she was ever famous or come to be viewed as anything but a normal talented singer.

We haven't even played R#42 and some are screaming for it's demise. Does that make sense?
The same thing happened with the cards, the targeting system and the fashions which began our journey into SteamPunk design. Some didn't want us to go that way, but now I see those same people dressed from head to toe in it though there are many more medieval looking outfits to be had.

I'll be much more interested in comments about the decay issue at the end of R#42, than before it.
But that's what all I've seen from having been here so long here on our forums

I can understand that and agree with it. But I'll also point out that it's never fun to loose, but that's what makes the other side of that same coin exciting and therefore headed into "the right direction of fun".
We need to help them refine it during our coming releases before we write it off as being bad design.
~Time Lord~

 

... but Richard, Starr, and especially Chris have made many statements in the hangouts to the contrary. Their description of Decay when it was first introduced was based around this whole premise of a game with a cap without having a hard cap on skills. Even recently Chris pointed out that he still has a hidden cap in the system but left it in as he doesn't expect anyone to ever be able to reach it. That doesn't sound like they have an open ended game nor plan for it to be one.

I agree, which is why I still play, I don't mind the risk vs reward, I just think there needs to be more of a balance and more emphasis on 'fun' instead of grind. I hate to keep using my example of Skyrim but I find it 'fun' even when I'm grinding for stuff as I keep stumbling onto other things to do that side track me from my grind. But there's no penalty for dying in Skyrim... it's call 'reload'... so there's zero risk/reward so it's all fun w/reward but no risk. Which gets old after awhile too. I don't consider SotA a bad design, just something that still has a ways to go to be balanced and more fun introduced. It's taken them awhile to get the core mechanics into the game (which I'm fine with) so now hopefully they can start on some of the more 'fun' mechanics and content.

Ditto. But I don't mind the decay to start with if it was just balanced a bit better to effect all players equally. Hopefully Chris's changes for R42 will help. I'm dying to try it out.

 

FFXI had it. You would lose a good chunk of XP when you got killed, though you get some of it back if the resurrect spell was cast on you, depending on the level of the resurrect. Sometimes during the equivalent of "raids", players would de-level to the point where their armor popped off. Even worse, you then had to sit through five minutes "weakened", with half hit points and some other negative effects. They did eventually reduce the XP loss and made XP gain easier, but that was only after the game was on the decline.

And "200+ game titles" doesn't mean much, because it's an MMO mechanic, not a solo or arena game mechanic. I don't think you have 200+ persistent world MMO game titles. (And I fully expect decay to not apply in SotA offline mode.)

You do know that the decay does NOT apply to PvP deaths, right? And decay only comes off of skills, at a rate corresponding to what it takes to increase the skill. It also applies to each skill individually, so it hits people with 20GMs much harder than those with just one. The people crying about how much XP they are losing are the ones with 20+GM skills, and then everyone else gets the idea that it would hit them with the same force.

It's like most people just rage out and stop reading after 2-3 sentences about decay, without ever getting to the details.


And I like the new decay changes. No penalty for offline (or non-adventure scene) time, and half decay per incident to make the second death more meaningful.

But I would also like to see the Resurrect spell mitigate decay, perhaps based on the caster's skill level. This would encourage use of the spell and inviting those with higher level resurrect skill to groups.

And they still won't, because it's an exponential curve. Have you ever heard the story of the chess board and the grains of rice? Level 200 is like the 64th square.

 

It does, if you only set a few skills to "maintain". That's the equivalent of saying "I am keeping this skill current".

 

There is nothing you have said that I haven't heard before, and no I don't PVP so I could care less about no decay in PVP. As far as my 200+ games, I have played World of Warcraft starting at The Burning Crusade and beyond,so I think I would know some sliver of MMO's, as one example. I never felt the need to list all of the games I own that are not solo games. At 59 yrs old and a gamer starting at 21, let's go out on a limb here just assume I know what a MMO is. Not one thing you have said changes my mind about skill decay.
And I have read everything about decay after it was being discussed about being in the game along with what @Chris post about it,so I have read more than 2-3 lines. I gathered the info,read updates about it,I still feel the same. Did you miss the this is how I feel about it? So making assumptions about me,what I own or what I have read, does not change my mind. Nor do your thoughts about it change my mind. I stated what I thought about the subject after researching,reading and forming my thoughts.

 

Decay is easy to fix, it really is.

If you die, you take a 50% XP debuff for an hour while in game.

done... fixed...

Simple reverse of what it is now.

It achieves everything the dev's want and it not a subtraction penalty which everyone over the past 20 years in every game that has ever had it hates.


for me, I make about 400K an hour farming now. My decay loss is 200K so if I chose to continue farming I would gain 200K exp less and if I chose to just leave and wait for the buff, I would have lost the ability to gain 400K xp in that time.

 

If we don't die, then it's possible to reach that mark that Starr mentioned, but not probable even within not dying in a matter of 5 years Things just slow down. the open end I see, is that skills can rise and fall with the character's life and the way they use that life, which means an open game in my view. We are entering into where the "don't lawyer me bro" thing came in, where terminology has evolved to fit what is being discussed as it has to do with our current issue, yet within other issues, remains quite another meaning. "So I see what you're saying". When I first heard of these "soft skill caps", it was a real game changer for all of us in that way.

I think they bring skill before challenge within Portalarium's ways of development. With each content they wish to put into our game as something or someplace new, they usually have brought the skills to be in those areas or challenges, before that content has been added. "So I hope they continue with that same gaming philosophy as we head our way into any further decay. They could have plans to lighten that up in the future, because bad news should always come first before the cookie which makes us feel good.

I sure hope so! But as I've seen throughout our game's development, the longer they wait for those mechanics, means there's more to those mechanics than just a simple fill-in.

Unfortunately, "I will too"

This is something I'd like to comment on within the "new player" play of our game. new players have a nasty habit of running out of exp.
Example from what happened to me;
I had low to zero exp in my pool, and I died. I had set a few skills to maintain when they were just at the 50 skill mark. 2 of those skills dropped to 49 because I had no exp in my pool This is how decay hits and matters to the new player, who may not loose much, but that little was a direct hit on me. I quickly made those skills back to 50 with ease, but I wanted to mention that here.
~Time Lord~

 

... except... (and I'm playing Devil's Advocate here)... that leaves the game open ended which Port does not want... so that solution while great for the players.. is not great by Port's design goal.