Poll - should we have skill decay?

Yea..

One is less gamey in that, even though its not completely realistic, it can be explained reasonably in RP terms -- ie "over time, if you don't practice, you won't be as good in your skills."

One is more gamey in the sense that its hard to explain in RP terms without some kind of artifice -- ie "you go to this trainer and pay him and your skills are forgotten. That's so you can learn more skills. You can't learn new skills without forgetting old ones."

 

I think we can all agree that in RL skills decay slowly but certainly not on a DAILY rate. Maybe a monthly rate. So assuming we want to replicate RL (an impossibility and another debate) let's at least give decay a longer lag. So if you don't use a skill for 3 months, fine, show a little decay, but let it rebuild quickly and let the timer reset.

In my RL, I can pick up a guitar and play as well as I could 3 months prior after just maybe an hour of practice. In golf, I can play just as well after a 3-month break as I can at the end of the season. Maybe better. Ditto free throws. Or ping pong. Or pool. And don't get me started on beer drinking.

 

I agree with Budner's last post but how I see it and I think the analogy would be "Like riding a bike." In terms of a more RL setting, if you say have more than 2-4 skills at GM then at that point you could begin you're potential skill decay once you start training say a fifth or sixth one. But also thinking in terms of that RL aspect, Train hard enough at anything 5000+ hours at it makes you a master or at least an expert witness based on certain studies. So in theory putting that into game time lets say it takes 50 hours of game time to max out one skill and become GM, I don't find that skill decay would or should be an issue.

And to me the only thing Skill decay seems to do is penalize those people who may go on hiatus or the like, to say "You can't get on in this allotted amount of time? Well too bad! DECAY!" which in general tells people thanks for your money now F off. In general a bad business practice, because anyone who can get on the Skill Decay won't be an issue because they will KNOW to train it.

My two cents. Sorry, I know this wasn't the debate page.

 

I think it's worse than that. Coupled with the mechanics of maintaining an experience pool to be able to level up any skill, even players who play for an hour or two every day are punished. If you just play the game without thinking about leveling skills or avoiding decay, you will stop making any noticeable progress at all as soon as you are able to survive in a 4 skull area taking on one mob at a time. To make progress in any one skill, you are forced to lock other ones. When you visit beginner areas you have to lock everything if you don't want to empty your exp pool too fast. Whenever you lock skills they are susceptible to decay whether or not you use them all the time every day. Every player is punished by decay, especially players who play casually every day by themselves and have a hard time keeping experience in their exp pool.

Edit: I would love to be wrong, so if I am, let me know please!

 

As a guitar player myself, I would say that not playing for months does impact my ability to play well, or at least remember songs. However, it is also true that I can regain the skill much more quickly than it took the first time around.

 

I put YES, but I would vote No in its current state. So basically the same

I really believe that there is a sound premise there. Its not working as I think it should, I just wanna make sure we don't throw out the baby w/the bathwater.
Who knows, I could be totally wrong too. They might never be able to flesh it out properly, or maybe its a theoretical mechanic that just wont ever work well.
We might just end up tossing out the kid, water, the basin...all of it, call it a day watch some stories and eat some Bon Bons.

 

I read what you said here, Kara - twice, slowly - and I think you're pretty much spot on. The current system needs rethinking, IMO.

 

We need something that meaningfully rewards people who really specialize in something, but losing skillpoints unless you use that skill all the time sounds like it's punishment rather than reward.

 

Among trumpet players we say: Miss one day.. you know it.. Miss 2 days,the rest of the trumpet section knows it...miss 3 EVERYBODY knows it ;p

 

Then you should probably get Trumpet to GM and work on those innates....
JK, of course....

 

As of this writing the poll is 63% in favor of no decay, a sizable majority, nearly two-thirds. This is by no means a scientific poll, and this conclusion is also not scientific but I believe it to be true: that most of the people who participate actively in this forum (and vote in such polls) are more likely to be "purists" who care relatively more, and think more about, game balance and mechanics than our "average"/"casual" player will post-launch. And so I have to believe that when we have so many more average/casual players in the future, that the proportion of players who don't like decay will GROW in percentage. Meaning by keeping decay we are probably alienating a large portion of our future population, to varying degrees, with the decay feature. Again, there are a few logical leaps in this analysis, but I believe it to be true.

There should be a balancing between game mechanics (already the majority of us seem to dislike this particular mechanic), keeping the current devoted player base, and attracting a sizable population of players post-launch. This type of feature, which to many of us serves no important purpose and detracts from game play, may easily inhibit the growth of the game. Meaning smaller population, less money for development, etc.

I continue to see more harm than good in decay. I know the devs don't approach the issue lightly (to the contrary), but continued inclusion of this feature will hurt this game, at least marginally, as we continue down the path of publishing the final product.

 

Agreed. Hell if it's decay I want I can play RL!

 

I have one question here am i right in assuming that your skills decay then while you are actually away from the game in real time not in game time ? surely game time would make more sense because that wouldn't effect how often you play? I would like to add though i am no over clued up on how the decay system works and didn't read everything in this post .

 

Please just give us a skill system like UO's.

Please.

 

If you find that you can't learn new songs, try killing a few spiders first.

 

I'm not sure if decay builds while you're playing, but it's sure it builds up when you're not online. I also agree with you that decay should be tied to online time somehow.

And since i'm here i'll repeat myself; people is bothered by the current implementation of skill decay; what the mechanic pretends to achieve (or at least what i understood it's trying to achieve) is fine, and if done right we'll have an original progression system with much more possibilities than just an open progression or hard caps.

 

The arguments here aside, I haven't noticed skill decay myself, since I don't pay constant attention to numbers.

*Shakes fist at min/maxers*

 

I have made a few posts on this when it first started. But personally I like Skill fade(hate term skill decay) in the use base it feels more realistic. If you don't use a skill learnt for awhile you will incur skill fade. I would like to see as you raise a skill it has 2 levels. First is the new level reached. the second is a level which is a level that a raised skill can never fade below. Just like real life when you learn something and don't use it for awhile your skill will fade but never to a point where you have no skill. The higher your skill the more of it you will retain after long time of no use. That's how I see skill fade should work. Yes it will mean you need more XP if you want to change skills but I Idon't see any real problem with that so much.

That's some of my thoughts on it all my original post where a lil better.

 

Skill atrophy.

 

I must be a cyborg after all because i have never experienced this real life skill decay people keep mentioning ... i am just consistently awesome.