A note to the developers

Freudian slip? For us players that have invested "only" ~$125, the devs have spent entirely too long fawning over the whales. That's why all the FULL LOOT PVP threads are silly. If they really wanted it, they should be convincing one of the high spenders to bring it up on the dev+ board, they'd have full loot within months that way.

 

This is the issue I've had for a long time with this game. Fun seems to be a bad word around here.

 

OP: Non linearity (2.). I disagree. The non linearity is in fact good means. It's only about setting of {derivation_in_0(xp), effect_distribution(skill(xp))}, where derivation_in_0(xp) is selfexplaining and effect_distribution(skill(xp)) means, for example in terms of crafting, across the curve a distribution of recipes (recipe groups) in an appropriate metrics (common, rare, ...). This is a subject of optimisation process.

 

I think it's okay to keep the skill progression non-linear. However, I feel the current power function where b = a number between 0 and 1 (for example: y=x^0.25) hits the soft cap way too quickly. In other words, the soft cap shouldn't be level 80. It should be at least level 150. It takes a lot of play time to reach 150 in a skill due to the exponential increase in XP required to level, which would help by rewarding those who put in the time with reasonable gains to their skill. Right now I see no point in going past level 80 for most skills since the skill gains beyond that point are so insignificant and grandmastering a skill really does nothing for you. It's easy to get to level 80 in most skills...

Or the other option is to just go pure linear with 200 as the cap. What slows you down in that case is just the exponential growth in XP required to level. They would have to of course adjust how much skills progress per level to keep this balanced though.

 

5% base is not 5% at the end of the formula. Locked decks suffer more

I agree the return on investment is low, once xp to lv goes up astronomically.

Frequency of use and specialization (or difficult to raise attributes) all play a role