Many people stopped playing

It still sounds like a lateral move.

Withe the decay in, youre gonna see numbers fight to go up and down (but only if your trying to get a bunch of skill trees really high), without it having any noticable effect on your power.

Without the decay, you hit a point where youre not likely to ever see your skill increase again, and ithas no noticable affect on your power.

I cant see how the second option is more exciting than the first.

With decay, the more you try to diversify the harder it gets, which is great for the economy in game.

If everyone can get to a point where they can do most things, if not everything, then theresgonna be some pretty big economic holes unless they start making skills cross-dependant on multiple trees

 

Because it is something to work on, something to achieve just because you can. A way forward and a means to compete. A representation of effort, a trophy. Something that is not taken from you.

 

. So the number is what you want. Just a number to look at?

Youll be able to lock some skills and do that.

 

For those people who aren't playing right now specifically because of the skill decay thing, I'd like to remind you that we'll be having a complete skills reset (probably multiple times) over the next few months, long before the skill decay can have any significant effect. Actually, it's the ultimate form of skill decay.

And from what I've heard over the past month or so since I started, it's normal for people to play for the first week of a new release, then go away until the next one.

mumble mumble construction zone pre-alpha mumble mumble

 

Yes we have lost a large number of PVP'rs who have played everyday for the last 6 months. After speaking with them they are a bit frustrated with not being able to excel or advance there player like before. I am sure the devs do not want us leveling to 90 in 2 - 3 weeks having a large pool of points. I understand that. Any leveling methods like: Soloing Vertes pass in single player, Killing tons of wolfs/spiders with earthquake have all been fixed. I like the aspect of joining a group to level up because it kind of forces us to do this to gain adventure levels but at the end of the day the main complaint I have heard from all players is about the magery combat damage nerf. None of the magery spells are working in PVP so everyone is forced to create builds they do not enjoy or have not played before so it is foreign. Me myself I had to go archery and come to find out when I shoot a PVP player with my bow it does little to no damage at lvl 92 aim shot. My adventure lvl is 61 and it is stuck will not advance. Also I ma level 100+ in ice arrow, fire arrow and death ray and still these spells do no damage in PVP. I am hoping that the devs are going to release a patch that will apply the proper damage in PVP. I am not a PVE player I am strictly PVP so I am trying to figure it all out. So since my aim shot, ice build and fire build does little to no damage in PVP I decided to level in pole arms and again the damage is little to none! I understand it is pre alpha but a majority of players have chosen this as there main game to play! So if it is our main game we would like to enjoy the game even though it is in test mode.

 

Hallo Edward!
Meine Beobachtung ist eine andere.... ich sah schon lange nicht mehr so viele Spieler in SotA, wie jetzt.
In unserer Gilde sind auch viel mehr Spieler, viel länger anwesend, als sonst.
Das "neue Skill System" ist noch etwas "gewöhnungsbedürftig" aber ich hoffe auf eine gute Endlösung.

 

Es geht den meisten darum das A viel zu leicht gebotted werden kann mit dem neuen system, du bestraft wirst dafür das du viel trainierst (skilldecay)

 

I've never read a logical reason to justify the design goal to prevent players doing this.

I've read a bunch of illogical reasons like: We don't want a single customer able to do x by themselves. Ok, multi-account, multi-boxing is the reality of all persistent multiplayer online gaming today. It is the way hardcare players will play, if you don't let a single character do everything.

If I need to, I will have an account for combat/gathering. Another account for pure combat, and another for pure crafting. If that's what it takes for me to play the way I want, I will. And I know I'm not alone. I know people will have dozens of accounts, if that's what it takes, to reach their goals. I've seen it first hand in PFO, GW2, Rift, and many other similar recent games.

As such, the current design goal is either a speedbump, or an inconvenience for players unwilling to spend more RL $$$. Well, to me, that's ridiculous. Success in a game, for entertainment, shouldn't be about who has more disposable income. It should be about who has more time, skill, or determination.

Punitive global skill caps are an outdated thinking from 1995. Fast forward 20 years, Portalarium.

 

You have to consider multiple factors in regards to this.

From a Lore perspective. No, 1 character shouldn't be Amazing at everything. It doesn't make sense.
From an Economy perspective: If everyone can have 100 everything then your player driven economy goes down the toilet.
From a Gameplay perspective: You would have to balance against a character that has mastered everything, thus requiring everyone to max everything in order to accomplish certain goals. Not feasible.

Part of what makes games that rely on stats/skills great, is the necessity of people having to make choices, figure out what best combination works for them and go ahead with that. I would say it is one of the things that WoW/FFXIV is missing now a days. Today they have made it so every character is a cookie cutter copy of another, the rules are such that they expect everyone to be basically the same at the end of the day. With having skills and capping the global pool you limit that to an extent and allow everyone to have their own unique way of building their character.

 

That's exactly my perplexity.

Not allowing players to excel because... Because... Because otherwise they'd be too excellent!

Makes no sense, in a game where there's advancement and advancement is the way to overcome obstacles.

Despite the decay (that's just a tool), it's the whole concept that baffles me. I'm still on the fence, but I don't really see an objective reason for the punishment to be there:

I politely disagree.

The very story of the Avatar is exactly the reverse of what you said: an amazing character so much excelling at everything that he became the paragon of all the virtues: Ultima IV at its very core.

Not only it makes sense in general, it makes MUCH sense if we're before of a spiritual successor of Ultima. Like we do.

And what if everyone can have 99 everything? I mean, it's that last point that breaks the camel back?

I very seriously doubt so.

I think what slips is that "mastering everything" cannot be reasonably done in a lifetime.

If the actual progression is any indication of what we should expect, I think we can measure in months the time needed for some skills to go from 99 to 100.

What if our progression requires one year to master a single tree? Would you complain if someone will become "master of everything" fifteen, twenty RL years from now?

I don't. I just tip my hat (and cringe at the idea).

So you say you prefer an hard cap, a wall against which the players will stop progressing so they can diversify?

I fail to see how this can happen. The very caps in WOW and FFIX - if anything - mandate what the perfect build everyone has to aim for.

Well, I'm still unsure of that design decision. I'm just happy I'm not the one tasked with solving this particular riddle.

 

With magic not working, and folks switching to archery instead, i think they are experiencing the logn existing problem with heavy armor that killed PvP for all melee several months ago

 

but not every player can afford to do that. If it were jsut the mater of forkign over another 15$ subscription like in other games, but you pretty much have ot buy this game again to get another account.
If everyone could skill up everything to 100, then they will. And there would be an extremely small, boring economy because of it.

Combat and crafting progress seperately so any character can do whatever they want for one without affecting the other.

Whatever the price of this game is (righ now its 45$) thats what you have to pay to get another account. Some people will do it anyways cuz they can, but the people that dont want to pay that much can, and will, just pay in-game money for things they cant make.

 

I would love to discuss this in depth with you, but there is too much I don't know myself. I believe the explanation for the production points was given before there were three character slots. For me it is also a doubtful explanation since even with maxed out crafting, it should be too much for a single player to gather all the required resources.
As for the Pvp I don't think under the current decay system it's possible to get to those lvl99s you say, it is much more restrictive than that. So the playing field in Pvp under the current decay system should be pretty fair, even for casual players. The difference between Joe and Max should be pretty small actually, according to Chris's post:

So even casual players will be able to get a fair number of skills into the 80 range and keep a few dozen at 60+. The real challenge is going to be for those players that want to keep 1 or more skills in the 100+ range. Remember, that the difference between a 100 skill and 80 skill is around 10% but that last 10% costs 5 times as much as it took to get from 1 to 80! If players want to push beyond 100 they can but that curve gets steeper and steeper!

To give players a rough idea of the effort involved in leveling up a skill from from 1 to 80, which is what we consider to be master level, the effort required is about the same as it takes to get to level 28 right now. With the effort it currently takes to get to level 50, players could master 5 skills and have 30 additional skills to 40.​

Now I am all for that, but for different reasons. I like games like CS, Go and Bomberman, where it is (mostly or in Go only) your own skill level determining the result of a match. The more numbers determine the outcome the more I am turned away from a game. No matter if these numbers come from grinding or pure luck. (God knows my suffering playing some of those small children's game which are based on luck with my son and daughter.)

Ps: Thanks for correcting my English (seriously). I used to check a dictionary thoroughly before posting, alas, I give it up now due to lack of time.

 

There was a Note that said that levels in PvP where negated - Meaning if a player level 5 met up with a player level 50 that it wouldn't matter. Perhaps this is overriding some of the skills?

 

Negated is not the word nerfed is the word!

 

LoL well yeah but do you think this is causing some of the issues? Perhaps it is bleeding into skills causing unwanted effects?

 

Back to the topic: I did not stopped playing but currently have reduced interest for some reasons. To let you know it does not mean i give up the hope and i know the game is still in development process. But i'll take the opportunity and tell you why i don't play so often. But these are my personal impressions and maybe i am alone with my reasons. To mention: For sure SotA has also a long of very nice features.

• Portalarium focused to much on PVP which simply is nothing of interest for me. PVP is boring me. I personally don't like PVP . I don't need PvP to play a Spiritual Ultima Successor, but respect those who wishes that implementation. But PVP players must also respect those who don't like it! I really don't like the idea that PVP could be a must of the storyline / getting the best resources. This thoughts annoyed me. My hope is on the single player part with the option having an online world to meet friends and have fun. To much influence of PVP means for me less interest in the game. The only reason for PvP would be a Guild vs Guild or Realm vs Realm feature like in Dark Age of Camelot. I have no interest getting robbed by a PK.
• I don't see progress on the promise that the virtual world is more interactive than Ultima VII. What i see is a lot of scenes which are lifeless e.g. houses/dungeons are don't decorated and a lot of houses are with empty rooms...lot of areas are sterile. Currently no roleplay feeling comes up. That means i am losing interest and can't develop some kind of immersion. Castles are huge, but look at their decorations. Huge blank areas.
• The fighting system (hey i like the new use based skill system, an improvement!) needs revise. It should feel more powerful if you swing your sword and hit the opponent. Archery is a nightmare and unplayable, the fights vs monsters and mass on monster groups are unbalanced, i understand sounds are placeholder. Please, if you discuss about decay: I have a family and a job and it can happen that i am not online for two weeks. Please, don't punish casual players. That fears me and i hope you come back to the roots what you've promised, i pledged for SotA because it was firstly announced to be a Spiritual Ultima Successor, now its comes more and more closer to Ultima Online.
• Don't hit me, but i hate the water and the water textures. It makes the game so ugly. Portalarium developed so many object and house decorations for the players, we got new and beatiful trees, but invested no second to improve this ugly and everywhere appearing water textures. Its a real immersion breaker for me. Elder Scrolls Morrowind had better water textures years ago. I know graphics is not all, but this is an immersion killer for me personally.
• Simply i have seen a lot of things and i am waiting on improvements, new features and more about the solo player part. Don't forget we had some wipes and i don't like to start again and again from the scratch. I don't have the possibilities to invest so much time.

 

I am actually happy about this

I understand where you are coming from.
I like both, PVE and PVP. I agree that PVP shouldn't be needed to advance in the storyline.
PVP Resources, i agree, i hated it in EVE. But they could just place a greater amount in PVP zones instead, but then again you can just play "solo online" to farm everything you need (unless you can't zone into PVP Zones if on solo online mode, never tested).

I totally have to agree with this, a lot feels and looks just empty.
I hope many things are not final and that a couple of designers take a look at all these things you mentioned again.

Also have to agree.
Expecially in swamp zones, the water just looks ugly (mostly just dark/black), and why is it not transparent in most if not all Zones? Unity 5 can do better.
But i did also read somewhere that Unity 5 has some terrain lighting bug, not sure exactly how or if that affects the terrain/water.

 

We all can see how SotA is becoming more and more like Ultima Online and this worries me... a lot. I have yet to see anything that resembles the single player Ultimas (and by this I don't mean the story).
Will the devs really put in as much work into the single player part as they have into the MMO aspects? Will SotA really be a true single player RPG like Ultima 7? Yes, we need to be patient as all of the other systems have to be in place for the devs to start working on the SP part... But it is hard to wait and see the game drifting more and more towards being an MMO and away from being a single player game, too. There are so many questions coming up as to how the single player will work with so many MMO-features in place. I am still excited about the single player part as this is what I pledged for but with every release my fears grow that the SP part will just be an MMO without other players...

 

I like the overall changes to the ways skills will be structured and look forward to the final version. Decay doesn't worry me in the slightest because ultimately it's capped and there are ways to manage it in the pipeline, like praying to the Oracle.

I'm just not playing a lot at the moment because there have been so many good game releases recently. Like other people I'll be back next SOTA release!

Balance in all things after all. Can I be a follower of Balance from Serpent Isle?