Decay .... Revisited .... Again

How revolutionary! Oh I have an idea that I would like to strive for. Let's all be subjected to electroshocks whenever we touch our mouse, and whenever we see a monster, we have to poop our pants. It will make the game much more interesting, that's for certain. Please insert this mechanic now, and let's test it over several releases and many, many sets of underwear.

C'mon, let's give it a go!

 

Clearly the install-base would be really small as I haven't heard of anyone using mice that would give the user electric shocks If it's something you strive for, maybe you should work on that.

You're being sarcastic yet, the whole thing about design being an iterative process (which includes experimentation) had to be said... So... What do you want us to tell you? That we'll bring pitchforks and torches onto Portalarium's doorstep?

You asked "Why" and you received plenty of answers to chose from (with some repeating, mind you).

 

Nope. It's only shown to be bad design AFTER the logical deconstruction. I can presume anything I like, that doesn't affect logical deconstruction. " The concept of logical form is central to logic, it being held that the validity of an argument is determined by its logical form, not by its content."
Which applies to any idea, implementation or design, universally.

Sometimes, after logical deconstruction, you're left with a logically sound idea, implementation or design. Time to profit!
Sometimes, after logical deconstruction, you're left with a logically unsound idea, implementation, or design. Time to be sad.

Remarkably, this doesn't depend on the person doing the logical deconstruction.
At least, it shouldn't, because logic, applied properly, should always yield the same results.

I've seen this argument on these forums many times, and it goes like this:
P1: You can't possible know, ahead of time, the outcome. Wait and see. Be patient. Don't be so critical.
P2: Experience, logic, wisdom, and history have all taught me the outcome will be bad, before one byte of source code is typed on a keyboard, or one mouse button is clicked in an IDE.
P1: You're wrong, you'll see!
... result is bad ...
P2: Hey, look, I was right.
P1: You guessed. You didn't actually know. It's still in pre-alpha. Give them more time. Agile development is hard. Transparency is hard. You're not a fantasy-themed persistent multi-player online game developer. This is the first time in the history of mankind this exact thing has ever been done, so there's no comparison. It's not so bad. I personally like it, I'm emotionally invested in it, so there can't be anything wrong with it. It's still 6 months to launch. It's only just launched. It's only just 6 months since launch. <insert any other sophist line of reasoning / excuses>
... repeat ad nauseam ...
And thus a terrible product is born.

It happened with the 'deck' system, and it is happening with 'decay'. It's exactly the same, except decay won't be excused away by Steam reviews or game site reviewers because there's 2+ years of pre-alpha ahead of us. With a launch date set (if not now, soon), futzing about with core mechanics like decay, within 6 months of launch will be seen as amateur-hour, from a professional perspective. You think the Steam reviews are bad now? Wait until there's 1000 of them with this: This game has Skill/XP Decay; you lose your skills/XP as time passes, even if you can't play for a day. Skip it, save yourself frustration, time & money.

What this does is reinforce bad design decisions on the part of the development team. When the entire customer base is either apathetic or sycophantic, it does nothing to help the product.
Surrounding yourself with yes men is like riding a waterslide. Yep, it's fast & easy, but in the end, you're always at the bottom.
Surrounding yourself with critical thinkers is like hiking a mountain. Lots of twists and turns, definitely more effort, but in the end, you're at the top.

I think that's enough philosophy for one day.

 

I used hyperbole to make the point that not all mechanics should be introduced just because there is some possibility they may work. Some things are objectively bad. Decay was a bad idea from the outset and no adjustments that have so far been made over many months, or that have been announced as future adjustments, presumably over many more months, will transform decay into a good idea. Admittedly this is a controversial subject but 1) the majority of us do not want decay, 2) after launch an ever larger majority will not want decay IMHO, 3) there are already game mechanics in place that make decay redundant, and 4) bottom line is that decay is an unnecessary and annoying feature for most of us. In our lives, when something is both unnecessary and annoying, we get rid of it.

I mean if everyone could get rid of herpes, they would. Decay is the herpetic sore on SOTA's pretty mouth. But in this case there's a cure.

Introducing Decay-Away (morfunazine). Taken once, this miracle drug makes redundant and annoying game features a thing of the past. Side affects may include happiness, contentment, enthusiasm, and joy. For smiles lasting more than 4 hours, see your doctor, who will agree that decay sucks.

 

In theory an exponential increase in the XP required to go up one level should suffice. We already have that. At some point even Themo would not be able to level up. If you combine that with a gradual (linear?) decline in the benefit of advancing to the next level (I assume that is also currently implemented), then I'm not seeing how decay is necessary.

Decay is starting to look like a correction to account for outliers like Themo who are not sufficiently reigned in by the basic formula. It certainly doesn't seem to be worth the angst that it is generating. Perhaps the exponential formula needs tweaking.

 

Agreed, Womby. Properly scaled, you're completely correct, in my opinion.

A simple, and entirely exaggerated example:
XP required:1,2,3,4,5,10,20,40,80,160,320,960
Skill result:1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12

That is, in this hypothetical arrangement, it takes 192 times as much XP to reach skill 12 as skill 5. But skill 12 is only 2.4 times as powerful as skill 5, all other things being equal. 192 vs 2.4... yowza!

Currently, in R25 SotA, XP required per skill grows (is not linear) while Skill/Level acquired is linear. Thus, it's up to the player to justify time spent vs. reward achieved, as they progress. It's up to Portalarium to decide how steep and at what point the curve becomes vertical.

 

I also think skill decay could be mitigated by accounting for the lost amount of time that occurs when you're offline. What is your character doing while logged out? Suspended in time for several NB months or years? I'd like to tell the server what my character will spend it's time doing and perhaps this will offset skill decay a bit. This could use up the accumulated XP pool while you're offline, if you tell the server to do so. Otherwise skill decay would function as normal. Basically a skill decay buffer.

I thought the skill system was going to allow you to be really good at 12 skills, but after that it will be very difficult to increase other skills to that same level? Does it read off of the total amount of XP you've distributed to skills? It makes sense to me that you can only be exceptionally good at so many things, because being a master at everything isn't logical.

Perhaps STR, DEX and INT can control your skill caps in some way, depending if the skill is based on those stats. If you raised the individual stat cap to 150-200 and kept the total stat cap at 300, players could focus more of their stats based on what type of character it is. Is it more of a pure mage? Put more stats into INT than STR or DEX. More of a meat character? STR would be a better option. But then I guess there would need to be a way for stat atrophy. hmm.

 

There is only one thing that comes from hard caps.
- In the next episode, you will want hard caps raised.
- In the next episode, you will want a new continent with whole new enemies that feed your XP requirements.
- Long time players will migrate to the new continent. Development will continue on new continent, Novia forgotten.
- New players will see barren land, no high level players they can apprentice or ask crafting.
That is the world of Hack & Slash MMOs.

Or would it be okay for you if there is no hard caps raise in the next episodes ?

As I see it, the skill decay will portray the limits of a human capabilities in very organic way, and is a very logical design.
You can infinitely modify and optimize your character class (given time) without doing the "Hack & Slash, create a Uber mensch, make new continents" routine.
It will keep old characters co-existable with new character on Novia. They can still go out together on the same proving grounds.
IMHO, the decay should be weakened so that hard earning player can GM and maintain two or three skills (one general combat skill, one speciality combat skill, one healing/crafting skill), but not more.

 

I soft caps are not new content, they are the same content you have to keep grinding on endlessly. With hard, soft or firm caps I thought the new content was supposed to be unlocking and then leveling up NEW SKILLS from hidden trainers, old scrolls and other stuff you find and quest for.

You're also overlooking the mental effect that real-time bases decay will have on the player base. It will make people who have taken a break LESS likely to come back. Rest exp bonus is a common MMO thing because it works to retain players. Doing the opposite does the opposite.

I'd much rather see some other use for exp you can choose to use after you start capping out if you want. Be it short buffs, removal of death panalties, or something else it would be a far better option.

 

From one perspective, it is only a 'bad' design if it is not fun. I think I understand the math. Can someone explain why decay is fun if it is a good design? How would you explain it as fun to a friend?

 

+1000 and better said than any other decay post ever. I hope you dropped the mic after that rhetorical question.

 

I believe they are protecting the economy. If everyone is GM everything, no one is buying crafted items, and the economy will turn to trading rares. It seems the team is aiming to have a balanced economy. (and perhaps a ecosystem too, just for fun).

If a GM Smith have to buy leather and cloth stuff from third parties, perhaps even ingots, then a lot of people will participate on the economy, on a level never seen online yet.

It however pains me not to be able to GM all the skills on my char, but perhaps offline mode has no decay and I really want to see a working economy.


Most online games use the approach to simplify the balance issues by breaking the game on small parts. So we see games with 10+ currencies, and most items are "bound" (to character, to account, to something else...) and also stuff is allowed to use just by some subgroups (lvl 20, lvl 30, Warriors... etc ). This way the designer take an easy path to achieve balance, multiplying rules and limits, segmenting the player activity. But it's not good for the player.

Attempting to balance the whole game on just one system is very bold (clap, clap, SotA team) but I don't remember any other online game doing the same.

Everyone else is using hard caps which, I believe, it's a shortcoming that poison high level player experience. The high level players became aimless, PvE lost its charm, and because usually there is no a good economy running, the only fun left would be PvP. But, as fun as it might be, most people get tired eventually, and drop their account, since they signed for a MMORPG on the first place.

We cannot know how the Portalarium implementation of the decay will be, I want to imagine it as a daily quest.
- "Lets get some XP!" and a reward
- "Game: You done it! You feel whole again! Get this item and this gold, you earned it!"
replacing the free giveaways that many games are implementing, just for login.

In other words, on a typical game you login and have nothing new to do, since you already hit the hard caps, and you already are rich. Yet the game will give you XP and stuff just for login again (there are too many games to check them all, I do with 4 and it seems most do the same). On SotA we will have an immediate goal, honing our skills back. And hopefully we will got a daily reward that we will earn -that is important, unearned stuff are not good in the long run-. The earned gold should be welcomed since, on a working economy, we will have to buy stuff often. As a result I expect a much better way to play for a high level SotA player than a typical online gamer, both more rich and more fun.

Of course Portalarium may mess it up, I hope not, but we never know. I remember UO, it had an open skill system too, but in the Beta they capped it. I though it would be a temporary patch, but it was there to stay. I still remember fondly my overpowered character I had then. (latter on I had to use 12 chars on 4 accounts). I know first hand what means playing a uncapped char, and while decay is not good I still believe we will be much better that using the hard caps shortcoming.

 

Doing things within available resources, finding the best combination of things to overcome problem is fun.
If this isn't fun, you'll likely quit before you even reach the level of skills.

You should remember that hitting the soft caps with the decay does not stop the game.
You are still able to grow other skills, shift resources to focus on GMing other skill. Learn and adapt, hone your player skills.
In fact, you do not need to GM whatsoever to play the game. Going for the caps is absolutely optional.

If I am in a hard caps world (with periodic raises), if I come back and find that all my friends has advanced forward and nobody is willing to play with me - that would be a breaker.
Doing the opposite does exactly the opposite. The decay keeps your friends together (everyone is still human, dependent), while hard caps results in XP inflation and create divides in in-game community.
When you hit the decay, it would be a good time to do something different, or do something more efficiently (and don't just mindlessly grind).

With decay, everyone will be unique. With hard caps (no decay), everyone will eventually become the same.

 

Thankfully we have less than 2 days to begin seeing how IT HAS been adjusted....

 

While your statement is true, it doesn't make it objectively bad. There are a ton of games that I don't enjoy playing but I completely acknowledge the design philosophies behind it: Hearthstone being one of them. One the other hand, there are also a ton of games where I believe it's poorly designed yet I'm having fun nonetheless: Super Smash Bros, for example.

In it's current state, I don't believe the game to be fun in the first place as combat is a horrible, clunky mess. I'm sure there are other reasons why the game isn't fun for different people (like Decay, for example). So I'd argue that none of the systems in place right now are "fun".

 

Further issue with decay, as Chris and the R26 instructions remind us, is that it's triggered by death. Which will clearly discourage people from doing PvP and PvE or even exploring (possible falling damage). The more I learn about it, the more I think about it, the more I hate it. There is nothing being introduced in R26 to turn this into a good game feature.

 

It seems so. Trying to make it less painful doesn't make it pleasant. And it doesn't sounds a lot less painful...

I'm very interested in decay because as i stated before i love the concept but not so much the implementation... even when i know it's here to stay, maybe there's room to change the way it works so it doesn't hurt that much?

 

Given their response to the deck system, a similarly horrible mechanic that they continue to flog even though it's horrible, I have no doubt they will continue their path of hubris until they've driven just enough of the target demographic away to fail.
In other words, no, I doubt they will consider any of the excellent solutions already presented on these forums to solve the public relations disaster that is coming, for decay.
Why?
Because they've already done it before, with the deck system.

It's like dragging a stubborn mule up a muddy hill, with Portalarium. It's a bad experience for everyone.
They will never, EVER admit they were wrong about something that is supposed to be a distinguishing "great idea" or genre changing feature, in their own eyes. Sorry to be blunt, that's my opinion based on their past actions.

 

@agra

I understand your objection to the decay system, and largely agree that implementing caps could probably be done in a way that causes less angst. Personally I think they should adjust the exponential XP requirement curve (making it steeper), and do away with decay. The decay system as currently implemented however is (for average players) not as punishing as many seem to think. The real problem is Portalarium's inability to convey that information convincingly.

The fact that they have chosen not to reveal details of the calculations and methods involved gives people free reign to assume something far worse than is currently in place. In my opinion if they are unable or unwilling to explain their decay system with sufficient clarity and detail to alleviate fears, then they might be better off dropping it and relying exclusively on
1. exponentially greater XP requirements to advance a level (currently in place, but might need adjustment)
2. a linear reduction in the amount of benefit obtained from each level advance (I don't know if this is currently implemented)

When people realise that they can have multiple skills at level 80 for the same XP cost as one skill at 100, and that several skills at level 80 is more useful to them than one skill at level 100, the problem should solve itself. The only thing working against that is player ego.

 

@Womby

You're right, as highlighted in the R26 Instructions recently released to the public..

Any skill above 20 is subject to decay, "Skill decay accumulates whether you are logged in or not", and this by the current information, you can apparently set a skill to Maintain, but somehow, it might still decay, maybe if it's set to Not Training instead?
They could certainly explain things a bit better, given the information appears to contradict itself directly.

If the entire point of decay is to act as a death penalty, then just make it a death penalty, and lose the skill decay entirely. It makes no sense that a skill you're training is the one that can decay, if you're just using it, so the whole "you've forgotten it's been so long" is not part of this justification. You can use that skill one second before you die, and still have it affected by 'decay'.

My personal opinion is that the worn-equipment damage on death is sufficient incentive to avoid it, and this attempt at a punitive death mechanic is adding insult to injury.
As an entirely separate mechanic, skill decay should never even appear until skills reach 100, if multi-GM's are what they're trying to avoid. However, given the oracle mechanic permits multi-GM's, that's out the window.

Two separate things are at play here. A death penalty, and a method to punish or prevent overachievers. (which it doesn't)

All it's going to lead to is players leveling up useless skills, and setting them to Not Training so that one skill will be consumed on death, leaving their actual useful/wanted skills untouched. Such a bad design, it makes me die a little inside seeing how little forethought and logic has gone into it.