Does Decay kill Specialization?

Its actually no different. Consider my normal 400K XP an hour farming rate:

If I die now, I lose 200K xp (I get it back in 30 minutes)

If I die and get a -50% xp debuff, my normal farm is 400K xp and hour so I would lose 200K


But I think I get you point. They would have to scale that debuff up to match the current decay system so

adv lvl 40: no debuff
adv lvl 60: 1 hour debuff
adv lvl 80: 2 hour debuff
adv lvl 90: 4 hour debuff
adv lvl 95: 8 hour debuff
adv lvl 100: 24 hour debuff
adv lvl 105: 48 hour debuff
adv lvl 110: 7 day debuff



System known as "Resurrection sickness"

 

... but even this... you are still gaining xp... Port's goal with decay is that at some point it will be impossible for you to gain xp unless you can stop from dying. At one time (I'm not sure if this is still in...) but it wasn't just on death that decay was checked... but also skill gain. So they had it designed so that you could not prevent decay so in essence had a cap, which is their design goal... anything that let's a player continue to get xp and grow (no matter how slow) goes against their stated and designed goals.

Also, under your proposal, in theory any player could get all the GMs in the game. It would just take awhile... and that's really goes against what Port wants.

But I've also seen where Port is contradicting themselves sometimes... on the one hand they have clearly stated that they want some kind of cap, that they don't want players to be able to GM everything... but at the same time they've acknowledge that you have to have different schools of combat handy since critters can be immune to your 'specialty'... which is ok if you are designing an mmo for parties only... but they've sold this as a single player only game too so you have to be the 'everyman' to be able to combat everything... So which is it? Do they open the game up so you can be a master of everything and fight anything? or impose limits but force you into party play to specialize with caps. I'm lost sometimes on the direction of SotA ... (note, I'm a solo player and find that I'm having to branch out more in my skills more than I had wanted to to be able to fight some critters. say la vee, kay sir raw sir raw...)

 

According to the skill experience google sheet I've seen

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QfkclgZFOlF6FQu5VlHowOzRbsnpkkAha2_-7kOFLYQ/

It takes 137003912 xp to GM all skills
Even if you are in your -50% xp penalty of 200K an hour. That would take someone 685 hours of play to GM all skills. If someone played 4 hours a day for about half a year they would be GM in all skills. I dont think thats intended.

 

Has the idea of hard skill caps been ruled out completely?
You could have hybrid system. (doubt they will wanna do this, but I just like thinking of alternative ways)
Skill cap points used are based on each skill level. This is just an example
Skill level : points used
20-39 : 1
40-59 : 2
60-79 : 3
80-89 : 4
90-99 : 5
100-109 : 6
110-120 : 8

Everyone will have a total of 300 (or whatever value, just making something up) points worth of skills.


On death experience decay only applies to pool.
This decay can be based on experience applied and size of current pool. (this limits the pool from getting really large)
Experience pool can go negative but your skills never drop.

 

I am no where near Adventure Level 100 and I lose over 100k now on first death. I am hoping the changes help.

 

But the bigger problem isn't not having pool to feed decaying skills, it's having everything turned on by default draining that pool. Innate skills quickly get out of hand and drain your pool before you can figure out how XP works. I remember one time back in the quarterly wipe days when I noticed that my Acrobatics skill had already passed 80, while everything else was 40-ish.

 

Yeah they should have done this since the beginning. Limited number of Skills would make everything much easier. Combined with a 100% XP refund on deleveling skills it would be much more fun to build up your charakter.
And this would be the only system where i could accept the death decay.

On the System right now, everyone will have a high number off skills on 100 soon.
Everyone uses the same buffs, the same heals, the same utility skills. Nobody will be special, everyone can be everything at the same time, we are the same, we are one, we are Legion! Oh wait .....
Joke aside.

Cartodude is right, the System is too contradictory:
You can level up everything to build your Charakter as you wish! But ... we dont really want you to level up everything.
You can level up a Skill over a hundert, there is no limit! But ... we do the best to limit you so you cant do that.
You can play what you want, if you want to be a Healer or Fire Mage, you can choose as you wish. But ... you have to understand that, thats not how it works.
We give you Mines where you can gather Ore for Crafting. But ... these are not really Mines, you have to understand that we will not give you that.
You can craft your own armor totally easy without help and little effort. But ... that is only meant for Offline Mode, if you do this Online you will destroy the market economy.
This is not a Pay to Win Game. But ... you can buy Coto's and sell them in Game so you can buy everything you need.
We give you a Risk vs Reward Systems so you can get better loot on higher Monsters. But ... if you kill the Crazy Monkey in Krul, we give you only 12 Gold and 6 Metal Scraps and we dont care that you lose 200k XP for that.
Shroud of the Avatar is Richard Garriott's spiritual successor to Ultima. But ... sorry if you expect a game like that cause, SotA is not UO!

dont take it to seriously. But ... Porta is confusing me more often then every Mob in Krul!

 

the 12, 6, 3 is in. I tried it out.

 

On many of my new character builds, I'd bypass the active and raise the "health" which at first actually worked better than raising the healing skill did. I think I only have 2 active skills training up now getting ready for my next death by keeping around 8000-10,000 exp in the pool. It's not truly a big deal, but decay did place more meaning in keeping "something" in the exp pool.
~TL~

 

There is said 2 things are sure: death and taxes - well, in SotA there are 3 things sure: death and decay - and taxes (for not-tax-free house owners)

Two things would be great to treat us all the same way:
1. Decay time should base on GAME time (Chris mentioned this will be included in a better way)
2. Specialists, using their XP to have a few Skills up to 120, are beaten harder by the decay.
So - if it is necessary anyway to treat players - please let the decay base on the complete XP-POOL!
I mean: don't punish the people for trying lvl up a few skills very high more than people for trying to have a wide range of skills at 80.

Death should have the SAME meaning to all of us. (Okay, let's talk about the taxes later )

Well, if Karma comes along(!) than it would be great to have a bonus based on our behaviour:
"how many gold have you spent to the beggars, how often have you visited the oracle AND - how often have you done bad quests -like Morgan's foul play in Owl's Head- ?

This would give a meaning to our actions inside the game

 

It isn't clear to me from Chris' latest comments whether the switch to actual game time is still being made. I guess we will find out when the R42 release notes are posted.

 

@Sargon,

yes, you're right, it isn't clear. Relating to the amount of Threads and Posts to the decay theme I really hope that it will change with R42. We will see soon - I hope the best

 

To me it looks like decay works on making it harder to have many skills at high value thus promoting specialisations.

 

Having blades to 120 will give as much xp decay as having blades, air, earth, water and life to 100. And that doesn't even take into account the extra factor for decay (ie 80-100 =1x, 100-120=2x, 120+=4x, as I wasnt sure if 100 exactly is 1x or 2x, and 120 exactly is 2x or 4x). So even with that amount, your could probably have the same decay with about 8-12 skills at 100 as you can with 1 skill at 120.

 

From 100-120 is about 8x the exp. With the new decay on higher skills, and 120 being 2x, one skill at 120 will be worth the same as 16 skills of the same exp at 100 as far as decay goes. I THINK it could have the effect of people of not going to specialized, but it all depends on the person, so I can't be sure.

 

I hope not. The soft cap is an exorcise in futility.

 

Yeah it looks like you could have a dozen skill trees at GM and your decay would probably be around 150K give or take a few.
If someone can generate even a fraction of 400k an hour in xp with 12 skill trees GMd, I dont really see decay as that much of an issue. Its only if you try to take it over that amount. And I'm not sure you would get much benefit for going that much over 100, other than bragging rights.

 

The decay system actually encourages players to be mediocre in everything. This is counterintuitive to its supposed purpose of not having people level every skill. Cost for 100+ skill decay should be lower, not higher, as they are exponentially more expensive and the whole point is to encourage specialization and make it so every player doesn't GM everything. Right? Right? Then why are recent changes directly opposed to this?

Prior to the new moon skills, the total xp required to gm EVERY adventuring skill was around 550 million.

Every single skill. Getting just one TREE (for example, blades) to level 120 costs around 140 million. That's 10 skills.
What if you wanted level 150 in one tree? It would cost you 2.5 billion - basically 5 times what it would cost you to be a grandmaster OF EVERYTHING.
And your xp decay would be absolutely unsustainable.

As previously iterated, again and again, the decay system is an annoyance, a hindrance, a stumbling block, a discourager for doing anything challenging, a discourager for grouping, another pointless sink making even more grind required and it is doing absolutely nothing to encourage specialization and will not keep people from GMing every skill. In fact, the changes to the cost make me MORE likely to push everything to 100 and leave it, than to raise anything a single point higher.

With the current design, players can get as powerful as they are willing to stomach in "grinding xp you've already earned" tax - and that's it. The top players will still be miles ahead of the pack as they've already demonstrated they have the stamina and/or free time to play play play. There is no cap, there is no soft cap, and decay isn't making a meaningful cap, its just ruining several aspects of gameplay.

And we don't NEED a cap - the XP curve already creates a natural end point, even without decay, pushing skills beyond 120 takes weeks even for the hardest of hardcore.

The benefit / power gain from xp investment becomes barely noticeable after a certain point. But if a player grinds through that and invests 50 million experience, then they deserve that 1% bonus. This is how you create player longevity and retention! Let people grow and progress! Stop with the 2 steps forward, 1 step back crap.

Assuming you can grind 500k adventure per hour (which is higher than I have ever managed by a large margin, but I'm sure hardcore players can do it) it would take 33,418 hours, or 1392 days, or 3.8 years to get a SINGLE of the CHEAPEST (1.2m xp) skills to level 200. YEARS. I mean, its not even remotely achievable. Even if new zones are added that double xp output in the future, its still measured in years. And what do you get for pushing to 200? A miniscule increase.

The curve is the cap.

There is NO need for decay. Get rid of it.

 

The gains you get at really high levels is so minimal, I think soft caps will work out. I think many people think 20 levels is a lot, but it is not. The difference average is 3 damage or health in case of life magic. I think spending 8 mil for 3 damage will eventually have things even out.

 

Yep. +10x(10x1,000,000)