Death Decay Poll

You are right, thats what i did with the dacay system.

 

You will be missed. By somebody. I guess.

 

Not from the people who already have my money, i guess

 

LoL. Touché.

 

I probably suffer from the most decay in the game. I know decay was going to be implemented before persistence, so when persistence came, I practiced not dying. I probably made it a month before my first death. I only takes risks now when I know I have the pool to support my death without losing skills. I am going to guess that I probably lose 700-800k on death at max decay now. I am very diligent about having proper deck, gear, regs, blessings, food and buffs on before I get into major fights. I do this because of the decay system.

I watched a group doing the dragon, and they sat right around where it spawns and they knew it spawned there, no one was buffed, and people got killed. I even told them not to stand there. I would have thought decay would make a better player as you don't want to die, but this might not be the case. Now, if there was no penalty, people would just play sloppy like this all the time, but maybe some people are anyways. This is not decays fault though, the player should take responsibility for their actions, or lack of actions in this case.

Now the casual players that only play a couple hours at a time, are in high risk places for their level, and dies once or twice and lose all they gained because the decay accumulated while they were offline, and they are always at max decay because of that, this is the problem I see with the current system.

Now dying to bugs and glitches, yes, that totally sucks. I really don't like that the skill lock up bug is around, it does not happen often, but it still does happen. This is another problem, but the problem is the bug, not the decay.

 

Agree in total!

Thing is. What is the game for the player about:
Playing or growing?
If it's about growing then any decay, any cap hard or soft is unwanted.

If it's about playing any cap, even hard cap wont matter.

What was it that keep people playing UO for 10 years?
Obviously not endless growing.

No it was it's various and somewhat balanced gameplay where everyone count after some Month of play.

What some ask is that the measure and the only measure is time= effort and therefore players who played as early as possible and as much as possible rule about any competetive aspect of the game.

About PvE Groupplay it just divides the players more than its needed or usefull at the current Situation (small community).

 

And that's in my opinion the whole story of it all.
People that hate the decay system will hate every death penalty that is punishing. Dosen't matter what it is.
That's the reason nobody came up with a real alternative to decay so far.

Disclaimer:
Yes the system needs some tweaking so it dosen't impact the casual player too much.

Disclaimer2: but then again, just avoid dying. Really, it isn't that hard.

 

@Mac2 besides playing more carefull now, does it slow you down, stop from leveling or throw back?

 

I think everything surrounding decay upon death is the fact that some were racing to 100+ and the developers were not ready or unable to deal with avatars at such a high adventure level,because they would eventually become bored. The idea was for a long term game. I have heard others say in the past they played other games with skill decay,none that I ever played had it. If this concept had ever been introduced into Warcraft,they would have had hundreds of thousands unsub.
Obviously in Warcraft,the object is to reach max level, gear and fight raid bosses, although there are tons of other things to do. In Shroud,the concept seems to be we will keep you from ever maxing out at all cost. Although these two games are different,my idea of death in shroud should be:
Adventure Level:
1-25 First Death 5% XP gain loss for one hour,2.5% XP gain loss per hour each additional death. Resets after 6 hours of game time.
26-50 First Death 7.5% XP gain loss for one hour,4.5% XP gain loss per hour each additional death. Resets after 6 hours of game time .
51-75 First Death 15% XP gain loss for one hour,7.5% XP gain loss per hour each additional death. Resets after 6 hours of game time .
76-100 First Death 25% XP gain loss for one hour,20% XP gain loss per hour each additional death. Resets after 8 hours of game time.
100-125 First Death 35% XP gain loss for one hour,35% XP gain loss per hour each additional death. Resets after 10 hours of game time.
126-200 First Death 50% XP gain loss for one hour,50% XP gain loss per hour each additional death. Resets after 24 hours of game time

In other words,looking at level 126-200 the first death their XP gain goes from full to 50% of what it would be, their second death cuts that in half again,their 3rd death cuts that in half yet again and so on. Given a 24 hour of game time reset window,that would slow people down a lot,while lower level adventurers are taking less of a hit death wise.
To me this makes more sense than taking away what people have already gained,to me that concept is just brutal and encourages lower level not to group together to adventure.

 

1. When the Decay throws you back.. Did you ever though about the posibility, that this is portas way to tell you, that you char is to strong? That you have more skillpoints than they ever wanted a single player to have? The telling you: "Dude! to many GM's! focus and drop some! you knew we are making such a system, why did you level up a superhero?!"

2. What do you think is a amount of GM's and higher a single char should be able to reach?

3. Do you think a char with 120 gm's should have a place in a RPG game? How do you call such a char? Whats his Profession in an RPG environment? "Most noble Knight of the everything, Archmage of omniscience and efficency. ps. need some stuff? i can craft you highend armor/weapon/potions and knit you +100 defense socks against undead and mosquitos"


I think we have 2 major problem here:

1. casual players gettin pissed, because the really active players rush miles in front of them. And are 10 times stronger without any end in sight.

2. Some superhero players are really pissed because they spend ages to level their chars, and now get punished for it.


In my opinion we should start to accept that powergamers are exotic players and cannot be the target group of sota. The most players are casuals. And by the most i dont talk about you guys here. You are way to active in this forum to be a real casual gamer. Casual gamers make 90% of a game. They have very limited time to play, because of work/family/uni/whatever... Should they get punished by the system?

 

Yes. If death is to be meaningful EVERYBODY has to be punished at death.
The real question is if casuals should get less punishment. Another yes, in my opinion.

No. I just have a lot of latitude at work ^^ that dosen't make me a powergame.
If it makes me anything than its boored hehe.

 

1. Decay does not throw you back, at best it slows down the progress and annoys everyone

2. If i have more skillpoint as they ever wanted they should limit it. If i have more gms as they ever wanted, they should work on the xp curve. If they dont wont my to progress further they would set a hard cap

3. Even normal players run around with 13-18 GM where i would say they are not pro gamers, they just are very active. And thats befor we even hit the release

4. What do i call my Char in this Game? A Sword Fighter. Does the Game supports my Choice? No, playing the god gets more supported.

Now did i something wrong for play this game and enjoy the system? Yes i should not do this.
Did Portalarium with the unfinished broken System wrong? Seams not....

90% Casual? Maybe thats the reason why the world is empty and boring. So why not Support the people who actually play the game.

Edit: to active in the forum cause i care about the game and in my work i sit on the computer ^^

 

I think there are not many possibilities aside of decay to “equalize” avatars at some point to keep everyone in competition. I personally can think of three other options for "soft caps":

1. One possibility would be e.g. to reduce at some point the growth of skills by e.g. reducing the amount of experience that is flowing into skills.
E.g. reaching your two thousands skill and all of your skills start to absorb lesser and lesser experience out of your pool.

trained 2000 or lesser skills = max. 100 exp per skill usage out of the pool
trained 2001 skills = max. 95 exp per skill usage out of the pool
trained 2050 skills = max. 50 exp per skill usage out of the pool
trained 2100 skills = max. 1 exp per skill usage out of the pool

Avatars could still level up but it would be wise to plan the usage of your first 2000 skillpoints and start training less important skills after reaching this limiter. (Tried to describe it here: https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f.../kind-of-different-soft-cap-for-skills.92273/)

2. Another possibility could be that your experience points you gain are based on your avatars level compared to the enemy.
Killing a monster that is above your level and you get more than normal experience, killing an enemy around your level and you get normal experience and if the enemy is weaker than you your avatar gets lesser and lesser experience the more wide the level difference is.

E.g. enemy lvl 50
Avatar A is lvl 40 = 1500 exp for killing the enemy
Avatar B is lvl 50 = 1000 exp for killing the enemy
Avatar C is lvl 60 = 500 exp for killing the enemy
Avatar D is lvl 100 = 1 exp for killing the enemy

Again avatars could still level up but at some point they would have to kill millions of enemy’s just to gain one level and so even the most active avatars starts to slow down in their progress.

3. Another possibility could be that your e.g. 10 highest skills defining your avatar and are automatically defined as primary skills or that you can mark them in the skill tree to be primary skills.
Every skill that is not marked as primary skill and is above lvl 75 is losing e.g. 1% experience each day until reaching lvl 75.
Active avatars could still maintain stronger than normal avatars as they could compensate the loss by killing enough enemies.
Or active avatars could start focusing on their primary skill to train them to go sky high but as the skills power profit is getting lesser and lesser the more you advance the skill the casual avatars would have the chance to close up even if they would stay weaker.

 

+1

Thank you Frederick!

I think this is a perfect solution with which I could live very well.

 

just want to say: it is also all about aproach and what we are here for.

Some focus more on growing, developing their char and want to find out what works the best aka min max efficency thing - i dont want to sound negative about that - to a medium degree or lets say 2nd priority that is also my focus.

The other aproach/ focus playing is for the playing itself - the "be in the world and idle/ play for fun playertype", because content is fun. If its not, then why play and bother, why "work on the neccessary evil of grind to get futher if the system i not fun?"
So if you focus more on the play itself, like to be in the world and such and while you are there online you "accidently" get loot and xp and level further.

thats what people described me about UO - after some time you maxed out 700 Cap and such and play for fun, because it was fun and plenty to do beside endlessly growing/ developing your Character.

And to me, believe it or not - it's fun to be there and online - exploring, fighting and become stronger by the way

I just played and thought: Why rush from Here to there, from one effective spot to another? Why not harvest this encounter there and enjoy the gameplay, because the combat system is fun (at least to me).
I really like to play my char - the only thing i begin to compare me to others is because i would like to participate in PvP one day, but i am not that min max efficency player, but still want to be competetive.
I dont want to win against a passionate Player and PvPer. For that case i agree to time or "investment" (playing time, figurng out mechanics etc..., not money) = effort.
But that shouldnt be the only thing about it.
And we still talk about a gap - what is actually to wide, because some people are 100 times stronger than others, who aren't playing for 3 days, but also month able to fight a T5 Scene.

I think my personal border with decay will be a level between 80 nd 100 - i maybe have 10 GM one time and most other skills at 80, and only those skills i use - i wont level anything only for resistancies - maybe the fire resistance innate, but no Arrow, RoF to raise Attunement to get higher resistance - just because of Decay but the first cause is i am a "class" mage using his schools, avoiding others for RP reasons.

And that should be enough to be somewhat competetive in PvP someday and strong enough to group with others.
If i die then - it may take me some evenings playing to catch that up again, but thats fine for me, thats how it works, thats my personal border, the border of a casual aka "normal" gamer, playing 10-20 hours a week and not only grinding and leveling, but also roleplaying, idle, explore, do inefficent things like playing Harpsichord or writing books, creating lore, enliving the world.

That's also aspects to fill the world, to make it an interesting place.

We all need to find the mediocre way and come together somehow - or stay in our private bubble - but thats not what a lot of players want and why the game turned more into a MMORPG than that singleplayer game with online-coop features.

And thats ok to me too - if there weren't these PvP Scenes - i personally wouldnt care - i would stay in my privte bubble and end of story - but i like the thrill of PvP somehwat and if its there i'm fine to take it into my gameplay when i'm ready and somewhat competetive.

But if we do not have any cap that close the gap between a player spending 10+ hours a day min maxing and the sort of casual like me playing 10+hrs a week not min maxing and still after lets say playing for 2 years isn't in the slightest way competetive - then something is wrong to me.

 

Just an assumption - if the wants of the "most active" players are the causes that the casuals don't play or even begin playing - then it's maybe better to change the gamemechanics to encourage these players to play again or start playing to fill the world.

For some players i know is exactly this system that some want (not constraint you Tetsu) and had created while development process by their asks to the devs the cause to not play anymore or dont want to play it.
I avoid to say this is right or that is right - i am the Seidmen or the Grey Path - i say lets find a mediocre way, a compromise to get the most players of both attitudes/ playstyles.

some have to sweat more - some need to be more patient - some have to loose some power!

 

You didnt understand what i mean. WHEN it throws you back, it is the signal to you that you levelt to high in a time where no decay was included. This sucks, but yea.. maybe thats an alpha problem.

They are limiting it right now! You dont need a hardcap! Leveling should get harder and harder til its to hard to go further for a normal beeing.

I have absolute no problem with 13-18 gms. I have a problem with 50-150

Jep. Thats the problem. The game SHOULD support your coice to play a spezialised char. Maybe pure swordfighting is not the best choice for PvP, because of whatever reason. But the reason should not be "you need ALL resist skills and ALL stats an 100"

This part is just a look into the Orb.. MY opinion is, that die PvE active players right now arnt casuals. And this game lacks of thousands of backers which are waiting for a finished well polished system in wich they compete. What i am saying:
Maybe all the casual players which should be the majority of a living and breathing world, arnt playing because they are frustrated by the grind and the lack of story or possibility to participate in PvP?

Like me and i dont try to piss you off or whatever.. Its just want to argue about it

 

Stundorn the Decay will also stop you as Casual long befor you reach 10 GM's, while i still can hold and increase everything what i have if i want, simply because i have more time. Decay will not work.

 

then we need something that works - i agreee - i take your opinion serious, 'cause you have more experience with the game.
If actually soft cap aka death decay doesnt work to close a gap and to force more specialisations, then they need to find better ways.
As long as a death is punishing my like it actually does, recatch possible in 15-30 Minutes i'm fine and want the challenge to better not die because it hurts.

I was against a hard cap, becuase i ever thought that they will figure out a soft cap that works to get us all close someday - gamers with more time still stronger, but not op against lets say 3-5 casuals who have tenths of the time the "powergamer" has and to say that again - i'm ok about gear as long as we dont have the "classic" item spiral.
Everybody one day can buy +15 equip i guess.

 

One of many examples:
To earn the 1. Skill Point you have to farm 500xp
To earn the 2. Skill Point you have to farm 500xp * 1,1
To earn the 3. Skill Point you have to farm 550xp *1,1
..........................
To earn the 40. Skill Point you have to farm 22629xp *1,1
And so on. I have now 40 Points spend in Blade Combat. So my next Skill will be Glancing Blow in Heavy Armor to level 1. The next Skill get the costs of 27381 because it is the 41.
This will stop skip the first 60 levels for high level player.

You will spend our Skillpoints whisly. Even if you are adv level 100 you have to work for a skill to reach level 40. You have unlimited progress thats get harder and harder.
Spezialization will benefit, the jack of all traits will be what it should be, a mage with plate would not waste skillpoints in it to get STR. The gap will be closer.