Decay: Worst Mechanic Ever

Alright now you're talking... but the problems you enunciated about UO as you said are UO's problem. The lack of continuity you experienced was probably after 2000 when the storyline was gone after all we seers and gms were fired in a pathetic attempt to stop RMT and hacking in the game. It's really a shame you missed UO with a common thread...

Fine, fine, now Mr.Vio you are enunciating problems with both Ultima online AND SOTA. You see the point at which your logic collapses is where you generalize in order to simplify.

I appreciate all your clarifying on how SotA is better, but some of the points you raised are moot because of how we were prevented giving feedback because we are left in the dark as to the math not to "spoil" anything. We know math makes the game and the community feels it'd rather talk about it in alpha than get a possibly bad surprise on release.

Far from feeling entitled we feel part of it, and most of all we're doing what King British asked us to do, we're being ourselves and clearly the voices in this thread are those of natural leaders.

Well this underlines a deeper problem, if the game is designed in a good way it will be mitigated at best but never conquered unless as you said, common thread.

But a princess is not going to work here, noone will beleive it because noone participated in creating it : only one thing can work, but then again I'm not here to push my personal agenda. I ... thought at least a few people would be interested in learning why I feel so illuminated by the xorinite, but aight nobody cares and I'm a lone wolf again...

That dosen't matter, I have hopes as great as you but the fact that you never enunciated your point of view so clearly before is a sign that the community is lagging behind (yes I'm using you as a reference ), and I feel kind of vindicated in the fact that this is done on purpose, for one reason or another ; I'm not judging...

peace

 

It affects your grandmaster title, which is important to folks who wanna be seen as a grandmaster.

No it isn't.

from what was said about the implimentation of decay before it came into the game, i was in favor of having it. After seeing the effects it's currently having i completely understand everyone hating it currently. Once its adjusted to its intent, i hope it ends up working the way i had heard abotu originally, cuz I (and even themo) can live with that, even tho themo will still disapprove O.O

 

#laughs Totally a true story...

 

Totally ignoring all the posts above and such (especially as UO - never played it and really, it's SotA that concerns me and I'm playing so), here's my feelings on skill decay and why it feels soooo bad.

Most people (including self) dislike being punished and like being praised. It's why you try to be good as a child, so your mum and dad wouldn't be after pulling down your pants and taking a swing at you. It's why you try to do your job right, so you get to keep your job and take home a bonus, instead of pink slip and your fired notice. It's why there is such things as laws and why we abid them - well, this may be carrying a bit far, but you get the idea. We are conditioned to work hard so we can be rewarded.

Now, with skill decay, I would view this as a punishment. Why? Because I work hard and due to a game mechanic and no failure on my part - lack of playing will result in loss - I have it taken away. Does it matter that I could go to the Oracle before doing anything and have it prevent it help? No. Why? Because it still there - my work has been taken away - whether I really lost it at that point is irrelevant. It's there. I know it's there. I have done nothing but have a real life outside of the game and I lost because of it is there. I can't prevent it from happening - well, I can stop the actual act from happening by visiting the Oracle but the loss is still there and it is this feeling of gloom and doom you can get when this looms above your head. And it takes away from your enjoyment of the game, if you know it's there, waiting to take away from you all your hard work.

Now, if only there were a way to prevent this from happening? Why do I have to do something to make this badness go away after the fact? Why can't I take the smart route and log into the academy to train (paying for it each time - ouch goes my wallet) so in case I can't log in, I, at least won't lose my hard work? Why do I have to visit the Oracle when I think she's kind of creepy - all seeing and such?

 

Ok, you didn't read.

It wasn't even Themo himself having that problem, go figure...

Btw, what he lost in that video (which is NOT what is being discussed in this thread, thanks for polluting it) probably is a whole run lvl 1-100 equivalent of XP. If that's so little for you...

 

Problem with the current system "as is":
To keep your hard earned skills and 100's of thousands of XP you need to add a "chore" workout of using the all skills to prevent them from decaying.
Since most players dislike such "chores" in games, this will encourage AFK macros and botting.
Also
If you are alternatively playing this game's different conceptual features, you will be hit with decay, even if you play every day. Say that you are one of the active and social in community.
For a couple of days you are decorating and holding RP events, then...
For a couple of days you are focused on adventuring, seeking a quest or exploring an area, then...
For a couple of days you are focused on crafting from all of what you have gathered, then...
For a couple of days you practice in PvP and hit a killfest in the shardfall with your mates, then..
For a couple of days you are trading on the public vendors and making lots of purchase & sales from all the gold earned, then...
For a couple of days you focus on your home, expanding a basement, getting furniture, decorating, inviting folks over etc...

Someone who plays all aspects of the game like that is hurt multiple times. They could be playing every day and still get repeatedly hit with HUGE decay in all their prefered skills. Just because they enjoy the game in multiple aspects.


Now since someone said that one "must" present solutions as well not to be whiny about it. (Although I prefer winy myself)...

Proposed Solution:
IF we want to prevent the jack of all trades account grandmastering everything too easily.
Then the easiest way would be to have a cost increase for skill gain for each high tier skill you have in the same category i.e. crafting/melee/magic.

Lets introduce some fake math.
Lets assume expert >60, master > 80, grandmaster > 100

if the current gain costs xp exponentially more per skill level
cost = (level)^2

then we add an added % cost per skill already gained
GainedFactor = 1 + ( (1*NumberOfExperSkills + 5*NumberOfMasterSkills + 20*NumberOfGrandmasterSkills) /100 )

then add that factor on skill gain cost (if and only if the skill itself is > 60 )
If SkillLevel > 60 then
cost = (level * GainedFactor)^2
else
cost = (level)^2
EndIf


Then the ordinary causual player would be completely unaffected (skills < 60).

The player who macro level with AFK would be hit with slower skill gain (since they are more likely to hit skill > 60) in the same category.

The über players can still grind as much as they would like, but it will be progressively harder and harder to level.

What this would mean is that all players could have 1-3 really high skills in each category, but if they try for more they will all progressively cost more and more.

(please note that this is a simple fake math model, there would be lots more ifs and buts in a real system)


EDIT
So each avatar could potentially have some fighting skills and some crafting skills.
But it would be less grinding to focus on a specific career within each category.
EDIT 2
It would also make the extra characters some get worth something.

 

I like @Spoon 's idea, although it doesn't solve the "power creep" problem completely, i.e. all players will eventually be GM in everything and new players will not be able to compete in MMO mode.

I would love to have "sub-specialisations"; for example one could be a level 100 carpenter, but if he has never made a chair in his life then why wouldn't a level 50 guy who's only been doing chairs all the time build a better quality one?
And while a grandmaster swordsman who has never used a scimitar can surely wield one without any issues, a level 50 bloke who has used scimitars since day 1 might still be better at that.
Some diversity would be good.

 

Not yet!

 

If you go through the math you'd notice that a new player who only grandmaster in one skill would soon outpace an old timer who has 2-3 grandmaster and a handful of expert skills.
So if a new player is trying to beat the diversified old timers in a specific skill they could as long as the specialize.

 

That is absolutely correct, even with "made up maths" (and of course the devs would do their maths right anyway).
What I was suggesting is more economy-related: new players would eventually be excluded if a single old character can be GM everything at some point.

 

Nobody will be able to GM everything because once you get past a few GMs, all your XP will be soaked up maintaining those, making it impossible to achieve more.

 

Yes, that is as long as there is a need to maintain them.
I may be wrong, but as I read Spoon's post I thought he was also suggesting to not have any maintenance system (i.e. decay), just a slower progress the more skills you master. Slower is still > 0, i.e. no cap, thus given enough time you can still GM everything.

That was kind of my point: even with that system you would either need some sort of decay mechanics, hard cap, or just let people be "masters of all trades".
I am not in favour of any of these (decay being my least favourite), but I can't think of anything that does not resemble a hard cap. Even in my previous suggestion I was presuming that if your GM carpenter specialises for example in making bows he would not be able to specialise in making furniture at the same time because of some sort of "subtree cap".

 

I think Spoon's suggestion should work in principle, provided the increase in difficulty is sufficient. An alternative to
(level * GainedFactor)^2
could be
level^(2 * GainedFactor)

Even Themo would have trouble with that. Most people would create a second character instead - meaning more money for Portalarium.

 

I see Spoons suggestion as good. But again, I think there should be a skill limit/hard cap in order to prevent the omniscient/omnipotent god that no one will ever be able to catch.

 

The way i heard this system proposed originally involved the ability to lock a number of skills at the expense of having all other skills becoming more difficult to raise, which would allow you to do anything you want, but in maintainign your main skills, you would make the decay rates mroe prominant in the other skilsl you have that arent locked.

 

that makes sense. Now does that mean if you (for example) reach 101 in swords that you can lock it and it would not decay and you could then skill up other skills?

 

Yes, but above 100% any increase was intended to be negligible, and effects the difficulty of gaining and/or decay rate of all other unlocked skills

And themo told me abotu a wonderful idea of having higher-then-100% skills provide some kinda visual effects or badges instead of providing fractions of a percent increase

 

You should be able to use a Grandmaster title in the game at least.

 

Phew. After reading through all the 20 pages of this thread, I'd like to chip in my two cents as well.
Whatever solution there is, it wont ever solve everything completely, even more so as no system can be fully secure. That doesn't mean you shouldn't try to get a basic (cheap) mechanism though, after all, even though a good burglar can always pick your lock, I think that most all of us still lock their door regardless, simply to keep the a minimum level of security. That, and there always has to be a compromise, so while not everybody is going to be perfectly happy, we want to avoid a great amount of people being extremely unhappy.

That said, first I'd like to identify and list the potential problems the solution would have to solve, just so we're on a common ground.

• For the sake of economy, diversity in combat and (social) interaction, you want to avoid players becoming master of all trades. But at the same time, you should grant people the option to spread out builds instead of focusing on one as well. This is true in singleplayer offline to a certain (but lower!) extent as well, because there needs to remain challenge in combat and possible NPC interactions (such as a master smith helping you to craft something out of the rare ingredient you found... if you help him as well)
• The solution should be easily scalable and adoptable to singleplayer offline (preferably by adopting the algorithm or numbers instead of a procedural change)
• You want the casual and new player to remain competitive
• You want to grant the 'achievers' something to work for
• Social activity (one of this communities strong points) should be rewarded
• Psychologically 'negative' punishments should be avoided and must never be random or 'unavoidable'. Work with 'rewarding' players for 'good behaviour' instead wherever possible.
• Ideally try to migrate 'high end content' less to higher DPS (more health, more damage), but more to advanced tactics
• Use already existing techniques ('code reuse') wherever possible to avoid feature creep
• The solution should feel 'logic' and 'immersive'

@Spoon and I have both independently came to a similar conclusion, but I'd like to add a few points.
I agree that simply through having all skill gain offset new skill gain, instead of the current system where only one skill further offsets progression in this skill already solves a big part of the problem. It would be theoretically possible to become a 'master of all trades' in such a scenario, but if that takes several hundred years of 24/7 gameplay, this isn't really a concern. I like SotA, but I doubt it's going to survive through centuries Diminishing returns on the higher levels are going to massively help in such a scenario as well (logarithmic gain at exponential investment).
In order to further help new and casual players and to promote (instead of hinder) social interaction, I'd go a step further though. Calculate an amount of experience/skill gain (for the player's level/skill) that an average player should achieve during a sane amount of playtime. Provide a pool for this value so that it doesn't matter if somebody plays massively for a week, but then gets off to three weeks holidays, or if the same player would just spend less time constantly. If you stay below that amount of gain, grant the player a buff, if you are above that value, simply stay normal (no punishment!).
That way, you can grind all day long if you want and get out slightly more benefit, or you can have a real life/join social activities in-game without loosing track.
A combination of both methods, along with a proper scaling of the potential values ensures that there is a soft cap nobody ever reaches, with no unpreventable punishment (I still think you should loose a marginal amount of skill upon kissing the floor, but persistent, and not depending on 'skill-decay', though that would derail the thread). Achievers would have something to keep them happy, but could never really fully offset casual players and have a reason to enjoy and attend social activities. If you manage to scale the higher end content with tactics instead of pure damage and health, then diminishing return on the high end gain is no problem either.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and sorry for the wall of text, but it's a somewhat complicated issue.

 

My only concern for the concept of exponentially scaling GM lvls (which I personally like the concept of) is that is would make changing something almost impossible. If I started out playing as a sword swinging metalsmith extraordinaire, harvesting copper no sane man would, then what happens when I decide I want to try to be the devilish rogue of a ranged master who mixes his time between farming, fishing and hunting? It would be incredibly difficult to get to GM because of the already GM'd skills I no longer want to use.

If you have a way to remove all progress (hated decay system or what have you) then you are fine and can level the next set. Maybe tweak it so that the exponential system would also have the ability to trade out already levelled levels (i.e. talk to neuromancer - mental mage - to erase your years of dedicated training and experience... or hit you on the head with a large mallet for skill induced amnesia) so that you could effectively reset skill trees to 0 (or master level or whatever) to not penalize the new skill tree you are wanting to train. It wouldn't force you to lose it, but it would give the option to not be penalized so much for trying or switching to new things.