Poll - should we have skill decay?

Just curious about the community's like/dislike of skill decay, hence this very simple poll. Not trying to create further debate, just want to see raw numbers on this issue.

Edit: Predictable that many would say the issue isn't that simple. And it isn't. But since decay has been thoroughly debated on numerous other threads, really just trying to get a sense of the people who like decay in general and/or SOTA's system in particular, or not. I realize any "science" behind this very simple poll is lacking.

 

I can't see a good reason not to have skill decay. There should be better in-game communication of how and when it occurs though.

 

Unfortunately, there are a lot of factors here. I have the sense that most will simply put forth an emotional vote. I would say yes but that's highly dependent upon how well it's designed and implimented.

 

I think the decay shouldn't be your skills, but the actual pooled XP. If you die, you lose a base %. You don't use the skills as they say you should in order to not hit skill decay, then you should lose a base % to your pooled xp. It still affects your skills in the sense that you cant raise them unless you have Pooled adventure xp.

 

Ditto (but i emotionally voted yes )

 

A veyr interesting way to look at it.. I can see death or idleness effecting your pool over time.. but I would still like to see a natural feeling way for your skills to get 'rusty'..

 

I read this question as "Do I want skill specializations; such that nobody can be everything?" YES!

 

Oh yeah there's also offline mode to consider. I don't think we need decay offline.. only online.

 

I put "no", but there are actually some variations of "yes" i would vote for.

 

Personally against skill decay. I'd rather see it get exponentially harder to GM skills. This, when mixed with the ability to forget/untrain skills, would still prevent people from getting everything while not penalizing people who can't constantly play/grind.

 

In regards to the above:
I would concur with that, and add that the more GM's you have the more xp it takes to Gm the next skill. just as a cut example. If it takes 100 xp for your 1sr gm, the 2nd would take 200 xp the 3rd 400 the 4th 800 xp.. and so on..

 

I voted no because I am still waiting to hear 'why it is fun' in the game design, but don't think I have seen that yet. If the fun purpose of decay is to limit grandmasters / grandmaster skills to keep some fluctuation of that interesting/dynamic for players in the 'end game', I can understand that. I just feel its been expressed either mathematically or in 'cap' terms relating to the alternative, but not why decay creates better game play fun. I'm looking forward to this being described as a 'really cool feature.'

 

Respec is such a gamey mechanic.. and that's exactly what 'untraining' skills is.. but if you had control over which skills decayed then the end result is the same..

 

i think skill decay is a good thing for a game with organically integrated systems. i think there should be a line in the sand with how far decay can really go though.. you never forget how to ride a bike, really (your skill raises much faster to where it was previously when used again after a while, to a point), but certain advanced tricks you just don't grok anymore..and have to re-learn from scratch.

 

I don't think such a raw poll can mean much.

I'd answer differently based on the actual question:

- should we have skill decay as we have right now without any change? No

- should we have skill decay rethought such as some mechanics prevents too-many GMs, but lets single skills to grow indefinitely? Maybe yes

- should we have skill decay with the most glaring problems fixed? Probably yes

- should we have skill decay with per-skill dampening, preventing anyone from reaching lvl 150, but not really the Themo Locks from being "just GM" in everything? Maybe not

- should we have a mechanic where we can selectively and mandatorily set a percentage of our skills to be set as decaying, and see them fall down while we train the rest? Most likely yes

The question isn't clear. The answer can't be but unreliable.

 

Tackling questions like this I always keep design goals in mind as I understand them.

1: no one can literally master everything.
2: players shouldn't feel they need multiple character to explore all skills.

In other words.. if a player decides they want to change their play style and try out new skills.. there has to be a way go unused skills to go away to make room for new ones. To me that's what skill decay is all about. A more natural feeling mechanic to allow you to make room for new skills. (and I strongly dislike gamey mechanics like "untraining" skills.. )

Early thinking had #1 as theoretically impossible due to both diminishing returns and the idea that new skills would keep being added as we go along. There would just be too many skills to master.

 

Skill decay is every bit as gamey of a mechanic as respec would be. It's just significantly more frustrating for those who can't dedicate massive grind time to the game, while respec/untraining wouldn't penalize the casual players. Either way, it won't accomplish what the intended reason is... but at least one way it doesn't penalize people.

**EDIT** reading your second post above I see more of where you are coming from. I still feel Decay is the wrong way to do it as I don't think it accomplishes either 1 or 2 in an effective way, but I understand wanting something better than an unlearn design style.

 

I agree with this.

I would rather have a skill cap than decay...I just don't want to have to worry about my hard earned skills being destroyed. I can always create alts to learn everything.

 

You've never gotten 'rusty' at something? RL skills that go unused deteriorate over the time..it's just a lot slower and more permenant in-game.. but it's a heck of a lot more natural than paying someone to wipe your memory.

 

If I don't do something for YEARS, then yes I am worse at it than I was before. Somehow I don't think we are going to implement it by years (plural) even if using the ingame counter of 14 days = 1 Novian year (so minimum of 1 real life month before the first minor ping of decay). I've never had it where I'm rusty after not doing something for a few days or months.

Also, with no built in mechanic to build it back up incredibly quickly (as in RL where it is easier to retrain your muscle memory to a skill you've spent a long time perfecting) then it still is just a gamey mechanic to stop people from trying to GM everything. It doesn't resolve that issue, it just makes the grind feel more tedious in my opinion.