Levels

What can we expect in this game in regards to the skill levels? Is it going to be a skill list and each skill goes to 100 again?

 

We don't quite have the specifcs on that yet. What we do have are stated intentions that the biggest obstacle to maxing out all the skills is simply having too many skills. Along with "IF" there is a skill cap it will be raised when new skills are added.

Granted this is only an intention and subject to change. I personally am a bit skeptical that they'll be able to pull that off in the long term.. but if they continue to add skills (and add enough of them) then it's just a matter of balancing skill gains vs time I suppose.

There's also been talk of skill trees.

We don't have any official information on actual skill lists, how XP will be gained and applied.. but we do know the game is skill based rather than level based.

I suspect we still won't know a great deal until December.. at which time most of us will be playing alpha and we'll know what's going on.

 

My hopes. Skill based, no caps. Will it take for ever for one character, to gm every skill, darn right. I prefer that to making alts any ways. But we shall see how it goes.

 

I hope there is a skill cap as it forces people be created with their skill selections, it also prevents what happened in Darkfall where you could have all the skills on one character, which proved a very big problem since some people did max out all the skills and it unbalanced the game.
Eitherway, if its going to be a level based game like Wow or Rift etc... then I doubt I will play it and it will be a shame to see.

 

I liked the way Eve Online handled skills (other than the time based training). There were simply so many skills and skills advance so slowly at high levels that you could never be the master of everything.

The way levels were explained in SOTA it will give you more access to skills so you would become more versitile rather than powerful as you advance. I hope there is some likenesses to EVE where there will be a lot of skills and they get crazy difficult to advance as time goes on. In those cases, I don't think you need caps because if you want to over increase a skill you will be sacrificing all others.

 

It "sounded like" levels would be a way of tracking time in the game and the earning of experience and that the experience you earned would be applied by choice to skills and abilities in some manner. SOTA is a classless system, by gaining experience you can place that into whatever skills and abilities you choose.

This has a very nice option of allowing a new player to come in the game and get versed in say "sword use" and start playing with his/her buddies without a huge grinding curve - but still allowing the veteran player to be more advanced by simply having mush more diversity in combat skills.

That was my take on the skills/experience system from what i've heard to date but as it has been said, until we see alpha, its all subject to change and further definition.

 

At one point they mentioned that "combat" skills and "trade" skills were maintained separately. I assumed that meant that combat skills would be capped, so you would need to make decisions on what weapons and magic you would wield, but tradeskills would not be, so they would be limited only by your desire to pursue them and what recipes you were able to obtain. Still waiting on details, however.

 

For what it's worth, I really enjoyed the ridiculously huge skill tree concept in Path of Exiles. The concept that everyone picks a point on the same giant inter-locking skill tree, and then moves in whatever direction they wish to create a fully customizable character, and very few would be exactly alike.

I can see complications with this, particularly when you consider that some skill sets (harvesting & crafting come to mind) are "class neutral". So while there may not be a "class" on a single massive skill tree... where do you put the crafts? Maybe if there were a seperate massive skill tree with all crafts on it, allowing players to pick a point and highly specialize/customize their Trade abilities too?

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree

 

I favor no caps on learning but caps on what you can have equipped in a current build. This rewards people for exploring and works well with a single character, while preserving balence.

I'd also like to see characters get to full power very quickly so that while more skills are more choices, they're more for flavor than statistically better.

Also, I'm happy for any skill to grind forever to infinity and just keep unlocking new moves with visual flair. Cosmetic skill progression is a good thing. This might also include RP rewards, achievement unlocks, new titles, etc.

I just don't want the game continually out of balence with level / skills / gear / or whatever else.

 

I hope there are no levels in a traditional sense. I detest WoW and all that junk. I love what they did in UO with the ability to mix your skills based on what you practiced.

I dont want levels... I like that they are describing a system where if a noob comes up against an expert its not a one hit shot like WoW.

 

I'm hoping for a fair number of Passive effects scattered throughout the skill trees.

Being able to develop multiple skills will be nice, inevitably something will force me to pick one skill over another in my build, rinse repeat: I get my own semi unique character. IF Portalarium achieves the Holy Grail of skill balance and it really doesn't matter which skill setup I choose, all are effectively equal in value, then only that small percentage of the gaming population that thinks exactly like me (so, VERY small percentage) will have the exact same build. More likely there WILL be ideal skill combinations, and I will share my rough skill build with several thousand or tens of thousands who think vaguely like me.

This will end up making "classes", or at least stereotypes, despite everyone's (including my) distaste for them.

I'm sure at this point most of you are cringing in pained offense, but I bring this up to clarify my justification for this idea.

The process of making stereotyped "best" builds will be hindered most by two things, diversity and equality. The more options there are, and the more equal they are, the more viable builds we get.

I propose that the skills will contain active abilities, and passive bonuses. While the active abilities may have to be que'd into the "deck" (assuming that happens) and linked to hot keys (my keyboard doesn't have infinite keys, how about yours), inevitably, we will all run low on some sort of space limitation. The PASSIVE bonuses, however, can continue to benefit us regardless of what skills we primarily use, what cards are in our "decks", etc. And the acquisition of those passive skill bonuses would represent a slow and gentle, but progressive and palpable, improvement in a character as they learn successive skills.

 

This system does work really well and it is tested and proven. (Asheron's Call) You can learn any skill but you are only better at the ones you practice the most. Time is your enemy not the game. Released in 1997 the game is still being played and people are still paying to play it!!