Chris new changes about decay.. death.. 10000 xp for newbies...

why?

 

I'm trying to work out if this is a serious question or not.
Why?
Because if playing more didn't get you further along, why would anybody play?
Games like this are about progression, advancement, getting better at it, killing something harder today than you could yesterday. Its about long term growth and development of your character.
If it weren't for that, why even have experience in the first place? Why kill anything? For some people, logging in and chatting and making outfits is fine, but even for that, you gotta kill stuff to be able to do anything in this game. There is no pure crafter possibility with the current system, so unless you exclusively want to roleplay...then yeah. More effort should equal more progress. Otherwise why bother.

 

Because its fun .... If progression is the only thing keeping you going it doesn't say much for how fun the core gameplay is.

Not really what the Ultima games were about ...

 

Decay does not put a stop to this unless you log in to die every day and do nothing else. EDIT: It does not stop progression because as logn as there is ANY ammount of XP in your pool at all, it can be put twards skills.. Its intended to make it increasingly more difficult to progress as you do so, but does not fully stop it, unless YOU stop it. I am continuing to progress beyond GM in my chosen abilities, picking up new one's here and there to try soemthing different, and decay has not even come close to ever stopping my progression.

So you dont have to worry about not being able to progress because you always will be able to. I jsut hope that your up to the challenge, because soem of these other folks are deffinately not.

EDIT: If you lose 1 million XP when you die (which is an EXTREME case and only applicable to 1 person i've only heard of so far) thats less than 42k an hour. The people who are THAT high a level, LOVE to grind because they had to been doing it religiously (or exploiting) to get to that point anyways, so it isnt hurting those people that bad, and most others will not feel anything like that for years. This game is not intended to make number crunching your stats easy and in most of these cases, its a fact that it is only the SIGHT of a number beign decreased that is upsetting them.

 

I don't think the devs appreciate the gut reaction people have to these things...Chris, It's all psychological. You yell 'Soft Cap,' everybody says 'Huh? What?' You yell 'Skill Decay,' we've got a panic on our hands on the Fourth of July.

 

yes serious!

why wuld anybody play if it's not going further - hahaha, sorry, you even can't see it anymore it seems - are you getting better at Monopoly if you play mre, are you getting better at Ludo?
Yes you get better at chess by practicing - but do you practicing or do you grind in SotA?
Do you need a better understanding of skills and gamemechanics, once you have understood it and it now need to be mastered like Go, Chess or a Sport(game) or is it just always the same do it over and over?
I assume its the last one, so the game should be fun and there is absolutely nothing to master other than numbers in an excel sheet.
therefore there is no need to be or get better at spended time - thats just a timesink and feature for addicted people.

Yes, you need to grind to do everything in this game, excluding chatting or buying only add on store items and stay in your private bubble.

But then i ask again, why does someone be better at grinding at a specific point than everybody else?

edit: or even better question - why should grant spended time (and not training playerskills) make you better at pvp. Why do i need to agree to the timesink and skill every single Skill in the Magic trees to be competetive?
Practice makes you better - right, but why do i have to spend 5000 hours min maxing into the game to start serious training?

Why do we create a meritocracy here? Why not just create a game thats fun playing and playing it is all we want, forgetting about numbers and excel sheets?

Why?

@redfish agree!

 

Not really... story was a part of the games, but there was plenty of gameplay besides story. The games became a little bit more story-centric in the latter games, especially from U7 onwards. But in U5, for instance, most of my gameplay was just having fun adventuring around. The story was something in the background of the game that would catch up with you while you adventured, and for instance, stopped in towns to pick up food, lockpicks, torches, gems, arrows, reagents.

And I'm not saying there shouldn't be any goals or incentives to pull you into the gameplay... and level progression, story progression are some sorts of goals. Also, getting loot (absent getting XP) is also another goal. Other RPGs are survival-based, so the incentive is not even progression -- just to keep an even level. And some quest-based games are not about progressing a storyline, but completing generated quests and tasks.

The key here is that the gameplay should be fun even without the incentives. And Ultima was generally fun without those incentives. So, where I disagree strongly with kaeshiva is where she said "Because if playing more didn't get you further along, why would anybody play?"

Well, incentives are great, but they're not the whole picture; they aren't a substitute for unfun gameplay. And fun gameplay sustains itself.

 

I don't feel the slightest bit of pain playing the game, grind, decay, all of it. It is supposed to be a game afterall, not a utopia. It is understandable that the maxer wants to be a god and will naturally detest anything that hinders, prevents or caps it. More power to those people that earn it. But trying to change the game design for such reasons at the expense of others is not the right way to go about it. Optimise how you play, don't force the game to adapt to you, because if it did you would just get bored and quit anyway.

Perhaps keeping maxed out is part of the end game challenge.

 

I still have not heard a good reason why a person shouldn't be able to have every skill at GM. If the person earned those skills, let them keep them. That person shouldn't be punished for their time and energy put into their goal. They can't use all those skills anyways and there are still gear restrictions.

 

it has been stated many times that there will be a point where one cannot progress any further and the decay will be so great that it will negate any progress. How is that different than a hard cap? In addition, this only helps the people that can play the most. The casual player will suffer as they will never be able to reach the soft (hard) cap that the person that plays unhealthily 18 hours a day. This leads to the mindset that one will never reach the pinnacle that the 1% hardcore can, leading to disillusion and just not playing. this is why I am against decay and the soft cap, as a hard cap would eventually level the playing field. Maybe the hard cap could be increased each episode, or be enhanced by artifacts, buffs, potions, or skills learned in specific schools, but that would be it IMO.

 

Right RD. But what reason is there for a person to play if they have everything? Without a challénge, it is just pure boredom. But with the current system, to change fighting style may mean of letting go of the previously mastered style. It gives the end game player more to earn as they progress in game mastery. It adds value to making thoughtful choices in skill selection because there is a real cost in making the choice. It means that a game amongst game master's will be more than maxing, it will be choice. Sounds pretty awesome to me. However, in practice people have way more GMs than they should and new players are getting GMs in a day or two. It is not working as well at it should be at restricting god mode, yet people are arguing to make god mode a permanent benefit. It is just me, but I am happy that there is at least some level governor in place.

 

this is your opinion. If the right RP tools are in game then that will negate the bordem instead of the repulsion of punishing systems.

If your happy with "some" level governor in place, then why not hard caps? Let buffs, foods, skill buffs (buffs applied to certain trees like attunements) be the higher level goals. Make the buffs hard to get or short lived, but achievable. Let there be faction buffs (faction vs faction buffs). But what we have now is causing people not to play.

 

I don't object, but that is not this game. It sounds a lot like every other game that I am not playing. It is no more my choice to make than any players. The choice we make is if and how to play the game. This thread it just a rapping session. I am having tons of fun playing the game for what it is. It is the top of my list when I feel like playing any game.

I have not presented any suggestion or false statistics that suggest I am speaking for anyone but myself. So, yes it is just my opinion.

 

Thank you for not objecting Tahru. I have to point out that "this is not this game" is your opinion. Many people feel contrary to what you prefer. That does not make you wrong, or even me or anyone else wrong. We are stating our opinions. I am stating mine because I sincerely feel this game is in jeopardy with the current implementation. I have always valued your insight though and have to respectfully disagree with you.

 

Why does anyone need to catch up? *sighs*. Something is not right if people cannot come into a game and play with others or solo in a fun and interesting environment where the things to do don't make it such an ****effort*** to have fun. Missing basics create a game where people are lost and confused and not having fun.

Creating new areas to go to will not create that people will go to them more than once or if so it is just to grind for something. What is missing the presence of which would make this a fun and interesting game? That is the question to ask rather than in trying to rangle through incomplete systems to find fun. Heading toward release we should be asking this question a lot. What someone else is doing should not be the question.

Look at complete games. How do they get their people of appropriate levels and skill to participate? Well take for example in Wow you went to Wintergrass. I am not a pvp player normally but man this was so fun. Players pulled together to achieve what is needed to be achieved in the Battle of Wintergrass. It was like a daily thing or a cool-down timer thing I do not remember exactly but you got tokens you could trade in for armor after you get so many of them. I can see something like this for things to do. It is not everything and there could be lower areas.

The thing that could not be in this type of thing is no ransoms because that is not the goal of an event like this. Perhaps points towards cotos would be the goal to earning these points. And it was pvp also . Having players too afraid to lose their stuff would not make this fun. That could happen in another idea someone offers like guildwars, take the flag, steal the castle, or quests that give criminal points to work toward wanted poster and criminal system .



And this basic:
https://gamedevelopment.tutsplus.co...ing-achievements-for-your-games--gamedev-3371

 

historically people in MMO's rush toward the endgame. They skip over content because they think that they need to be powerful, instead of enjoying the journey. This however is not the major problem. The major problem with people catching up is combat. Having the best dps, being the best at pvp, the most kills, blah blah blah. Its competition. But this right now will never have a level playing field for completion. Maybe this system would work if they had a wipe at the "official" launch, when ever that is. But people want to be on top, its a race. Portalaruim helps this mentality because it promotes leaderboards instead of rp.

 

Instead of putting time and effort into capping, controlling, or punishing a player, maybe more challenging content should be the focus. For instance, The Rise or similar dungeon could have more and more levels added. Each level harder and more rewarding then the previous. I think this would add challenge to the game and having all those GMs be more worth it. This would also make the skill choices more meaningful. BTW GM does not equal god mode.

 

Yes I know and I think this has been the focus since day one here because there was very little else to do that incentivized players to play but of course just imo . I am like you I just want a damn fun game but where is it without basics
https://gamedevelopment.tutsplus.co...ing-achievements-for-your-games--gamedev-3371

 

And what is wrong with that? There will always be people that are better at one aspect of the game then other people. That is life. There are a lot of people that like being on top, they like being their best. Maybe new players will never catch up to the top 1%, but does it matter with the current level of content?

 

well I can understand the rush to the top and some people like the casual player might take much longer, but they know that some day they will get there. Being better does not always mean better gameplay or player retention. People want to know that they have a chance. They do not want to think that they will never be equal or able to compete with someone in a "game" that if you put more time in that you are better just because of it.