please explain endless progression to me.

Continuous growth with a diminishing return is slow growth but still feels like progression. So if you can get .001 points in a skill after a few months of playing when your at 198.9, you will still feel like you accomplished something.

Balance for new players:
There are pieces here already in place to balance Player growth and allow new players to get involved with a few tweaks.

1. Decrease the gap between level 200 and 80 so that a players with 200 skill does not have an overly exorbant advantage over someone with 80.
2. Put a hard cap on stats or really adjust the curve to keep HP totals from being almost double at higher levels.

You now have a game that is relatively simple to get to a competitive point with your player by building up a single 10 glyph deck to 80. You still give advantages to players that have invested more time, but the advantage should be able to be overcome by skill. They will invest even more time trying to get certain skills as high as they will go. After playing one style you can choose to increase your power in that style or add a secondary deck with 10 different glyphs and get that where it needs to be. You can try different combinations, build decks and armor specific to certain areas you go. You can really gear up and skill out your player how you want to play him. Either the jack of all trades with a lot of combinations at 80 or a power healer with 10 skills at 150.

To many systems overly burden the players. Decay will not lessen the Player gap and does nothing to promote the game in a good light. And for those concerned about someone becoming 200 in everyskill, well if the game is around for long enough that someone does that we all win, because it will take 20+ years with the curve the way it is. The system they have in place works without decay. That person playing 5 years before you may have more deck options to bring into a fight, but if your good enough with the deck you choose you have a chance.

 

The problem with infinite growth is the trivialization of specialty.

Character building in games become fun when you have to invent novel strategies, and as long as "all of the above" is on the menu, that level of strategy is purely optional.

It feels like rolling a D&D character with all 20's and letting it have 8 classes. What a captivating backstory he has, I imagine.

The pvp part could be independently addressed by the skill capping of the new pvp zones at GM, though I think 90 would be more accessible.

 

So what your saying is you just want people to make stuff up and give you answers you will like? because giving facts gets in the way of a good story?

 

True if it was trivial to actually specialize vs becoming a jack of all trades. Someone at 200 in all healing skills would be specialization. I would love to have them in my party behind me. But, someone in our group that can fill a support healer or ranged damage could fight multiple group combinations. To specialize in both would take for ever but to become proficient enough to be a benefit...

 

@Stundorn
So, i will tell you my impression.
It is utterly subjective of course but here we go:

At the moment i am asking myself if there is any MMO system at all out there that would make you happy.
Let's give it a short overview.

- SotA, we are all aware what you don't like about the system.
The only comperable system i can come up with is EvE. But EvE is still different.
In EvE you can max out skills. But there ae just far too many to get them all maxed in a resonable time. But players that played EvE from the start have a **** ton of skills while you, as a new player, got only a handfull and they aren't maxed out of course.
You can max out one ship rather fast. And with the right equipment you can compete with the old players rather fast as well. But as soon as they come with the ship that is the paper to your stone, they will just swat you out of space.
So no, no even playingfield there.

- WoW (and all the other WoW clones that pretend they aren't wow clones but unique games like Swtor, GW2 and so on)
Well, WoW has a hard cap. But would you be willing to play the min/max game? To play the perfect equipment for the situation game? Would you be willing to keep to the perfect skill rota and if you just miss one time in the rota your enemy will eat you alive?
I doubt it.

- CS (and all the other FPS or pseudo RPG FPS out there)
A game based on personal skill. But wait, not entirely. Even if you are skilled in this game there still may be another person that got the better hardware, the better mouse, the better internet connection or just the better reflexes than you. There is no way to even that out.

The game you seem to want is a game where everybody has the exact same skills, equipment, internet con, hardware, reflexes and where everybody is smart on the same level. I guess you can see the problem?

So for me the question at the moment isn't "does the system fit to your playstyle" but "do you even fit remotly into any exisiting system at all".

 

Hey en schwiiizer

OT: I pefer to have no cap's for the skill development, even if there are some hardcore player's that take advantage of this. But honestly I doupt that there are too many of them.
I think thats the reward for those player who spent hours, day's, months, and years into that game and for me this is absolutely OK!
For PvP' players this does certainly matter, but there is always the individual player skill that has some weight as well.
For PvE player it should not make a difference, the only one I can think of is envy -what is a weakness of charakter.

I'm a casual as well btw.

 

You are more or less totally right.
But i can adapt to some degree ;-)
I recognize some players dont care for competition.
I allways was able to do that in other games. Also EvE, WoW, AoC, PotBS and whatnot, but i would like to compete. I am not that bad in some Arena competetive games, but sure no pro.
I like fair circumstances.
And yes i even dont like ironsight perks ala Battlefield.
I like Go and Chess :-D

I fit perfectly into this game except competition.
But you are right, it seems i dont fit into competetive Systems at all, if they rely on spent time playing.

So no Problem, i found my niche.

@Lippone not my business, keep calm, already reported your post, seems you have a personal Problem with me.
I even dont know who you are.

 

I totally understand why some people would like to have a skill system without cap.
But i think you should think "further" than just your own entertainment..
(If you want to play in one of the online modes)

In Singleplayer Online and Multiplayer Online your actions could effeckt everyone.

In PvP a chars with all buffs, all resists, all passive skills on 100 is at first a balancing problem and at second a "new player experience" Problem. In early stages of the game thouse chars will rule the PvP zones, and in late stages of the game thouse chars will be the "normal pvp crowd". So new players will face a situation where they are "years" away from being compedible.. Which i think is bad in a game wich hopefully lasts many years.

On the other hand, chars who can solo everything because of their strength, influence the market. Items for which some players need to farm in big groups for days, thouse highend players can farm solo. This changes and COULD destroy the item market.
And in the online mode i think you allways should encourage the group gameplay, and not the solo gameplay.


I think we need better systems to reward veteran players, than just giving them the opinion to level without a cap or softcap.

 

But balance in Pvp is not really a problem because it can act like the Pve side. More experienced players showed as "yellow/orange/red ones". Less experienced players showed as "green ones". Fights can be chosen wisely. Don't apply any ransom to the weak outlanders killed by stronger one. Apply a courage virtue hit on him... Ideas are not missing here.

 

And there are many other solutions than caps to the problem you are pointing out. For exemple, dynamic loot limits logic (a dragon need yo replenish its "treasure").

Also being years away in this game doesn't mean nothing because of the soft caps this game already has. For some of us it already takes weeks to get a 0.8% bonus on our most used skills. The gap will get even narrower when it will take months to do so.

I think that it's up to you... to think "further"

 

Yes.. there are allways different ways to approach a problem. But we play a game in which softcaps where introduced way back in the kickstarter campaign. So in this game the solution clearly is a softcap.

So IMO the discussion about cap or no cap is completely unnecessary! And bashing the decay system is unnecessary two!
We should focus our effort on "understand" the decay and give good hints to the devs how to fix the problems or reduce the frustration.

And as bad as it sounds, but some players need to accept that leveling without any form of softcap is not how the devs want sota to be.
And i accept that there will be no hard cap

 

I do not do PvP and I do not care about MP competition.
The main fun for me to continue playing is to improve my character.
In case of reaching a hard cap I would reduce my playtime significantly (maybe once in a while checking a new scene or having a MP tour), same when I reach the soft cap from the death decay, but this is still a long way.

 

The game has launched, the guys that are waiting 2 3 and 4 years should start yesterday. The game is perfectly playable as is. I have an entire guild and town populated to the brim. We have a crafting guild and a pvp army plus masons to boot.

So I guess people need to stop thinking this games release is the true launch and its not. Perhaps we should change the wording because this game has launched in my eyes.

 

Except that you can't "wisely" choose a fight where someone much stronger attacks you without warning. As long as fights can be "chosen" by one side and not the other (aka "ganking"), there is a problem. That part of the current PvP system is not something that I would call "meaningful"; hopefully they'll figure out a way to increase the risk for those who would play that way.

 

And if the stronger guy get no interest and penalty with it, he won't attack you at all. That was the intent with my suggestion in the part of my post that you didn't quote.

 

Endless progression is the reason why my friends and I decided to quit this game, and every time we think about coming back we remember we have way too much catching up to do.

 

Even those of us who prefer hard cap, accept that it is not an option on the table at this time.

One significant issue though is the extremely false belief that soft cap = decay. That fallacy is one reason why people bash on it. Bashing on something that is an un-fun mechanic is perfectly fine, as it is a way to express displeasure. Its same reason I bash on the crap mechanics we currently have for crafting, gathering, and getting recipes. Its the reason I support and will actively engage those enjoy PvP but bash on the state of ours. If something is not enjoyable then it is a hindrance for those are here for that specific reason and they need to express that now during the design stage of the game rather than once everything is officially launched and less able to be fixed.

I would question the purpose of going into threads about this topic if you feel the discussion is unnecessary, especially as you don't generally come across as just trying to troll those of us who feel that it is worth discussing.

 

Dont give up, i have relative good Info from devs that a lot of nerving is coming like i say al the time.
Specialisation is planned to be an advanced compared to be a Jack of all Trades. And many more. Just so say soloing a dragon is not intended, also switchmodes IS an exploit.
I wont go deeper, but these things are adressed, but Development focus is still quests and balance of level 1-50.
People just dont get it, and yes defs dont say anything about it, until they know what they do exactly. Wise imho.
Many powergamers will have to accept changes versus their playstyle and behavior as they do now and arent punished etc.. It's development time Alpha, beta, early Access whatever you call it.
They clearly see the problems and it's a WiP.
There will be no more 50+ GM chars, no soloing Dragons Artefakt framing etc... Game will be balanced more and more like they do the whole time.
Encloned mines, death decay are clearly hints what they want this game to be and they allways said this is no Grind game, its more about adventuring and exploring.
I believe they will balance things out.
It will take time and it will upset some players, but to it's long life of SotA MP or MMO it's neccessary and although a lot of people dont care for competition its part of the game and sure need to be adressed and balanced.
@Bulveigh did some math and to create a spezialized toon with 2 magic trees and the generous skills from tactics, focus etc.. You can build a char what is fairly viable, who cannot do all, but most of, who has maybe some nemesis like fire elementals or whatever, but do well elswhere. And thats totally good to have for MP purpose.
And with such a character you wont suffer a lot of decay what cannot be restocked within half an hour for example.
Hardcore gamers still can have some more GM or 120 but then suffer hard from decay. As intended and just get low boni like +3 damage and not more.

Patience, trust in Devs and for me everything runs fine the last couple off Month. All changes that were made and get people upset, focus Nerv, mines, death decay and whatnot havent touch me seriously and of course i was influenced too i allways thought yes right direction, good nerf.
And this is ongoing.

Dont give up, play and have fun.
Things will be never perfect anf there will allways be issues and exploiters and people who are just more passionate and better, but that's totally fine if overall game balance is ok.
And i dont doubt that wont be the case, i strongly belief it goes the right direction i like, others maybe not that much, sorry, but that's also true for me with hundreds of games i played before.

 

Unfortunately, it is the eyes of the developers who keeping us from saying we are officially launched. Yes it is playable in the current state, but to be fair it's been playable and decently populated since at least R13 when I joined up. Until all the bugs are out and the devs are confident in the full game, it isn't launched.

 

1. On the one hand, i like a system where death gets punished.. On the other hand i would like to see a different punishment thats less frustrating. But i think, it is a good way to solve 2 problems at once.. Punish and cap. (I know! The actual system has some issues!)

2. I dont want to troll anyone, i just hope that my arguments maybe convince some people. I would be much happier if we had 15 page long diskussions about skill templates with reasonable decay.

3. I did some math in an other thread, and just dont think that decay is that bad. I think people have a verry different understanding how strong chars should get. I think a char should never be strong enough to kill boss monsters and dragons solo. It should be allways be necassary to group up in highlevel areas. For singleplayer offline we need different mechanics to make soloing possible.. Maybe mercenarys? And because i am 100% convinced that my opinion here is right! I am willing to diskuss it, but i did not get any argument that could change my opinion on that.