Shroud of the Avatar VS UO skill system

Yep, I think you pretty much captured my idea.. It would be specific to the type of mob being attacked. The more and more you kill that specific mob, the better you are at killing it and the less experience you get.


You bring up a good point I hadn't thought of about dungeons. I think you're right, some special consideration would probably have to be made there. My hope is dungeons will require more preparation, planning, and coordination with other players. In this case maybe the rate at which your experience gain dwindles should be much slower than the hack-and-slash mobs outside of the dungeon. This way you still get good XP gain for a longer time.

 

or maybe no xp till you complete the dungeon, and it is added as part of the completion. would not be fun for when the dungeon bugs or you have a group wipe - but if you are doing a dungeon crawl, I'd think you should go for the all-or-nothing approach there.

 

Nailed it. But hidden in there is the most important reason to log... to protect the real players. Especially in this game where so many people put up big cash; thieves are probably already planning how they are going to steal it. I hope they plan on adding authentication to it.

 

No, just no.
There's too many things that can cause disappointment here. Playing should be fun and rewarding. What if someone from your party loses connection and thus, you can't complete it? Even thou you just spent 2 hour on it. Everything can go wrong with this and i for one, don't wanna spend time just to find out, it was for nothing.

Don't try to design games, where scripting is hard, please. Games should be design so, that its easy and fun to play ( Wow is easy to play, still it has "quite" challenging raids ). When you start to design a game so, that it's hard to script, you make the game harder for casual user and annoying for hard core users.

Scripts don't care, they have no feelings. You never hear about script that moaned about "too low xp gain" or "loot is crappy". Many times, scripter's look for some nice spot that is nice to farm. It might not yield the best xp and gold, but hey, its free, i'm sleeping anyways. Scripts can go on and on for weeks. They can clean dungeons with party bots, over and over again. So, we are back to position, where you just end up harming normal user and making the game call for scripters. I am a scripter, take my word for it.

Once this game hits gold, there will be bots, don't make them useful.

 

I strongly disagree with this. Games should encourage active play, and discourage unattended play. There are enough creative minds at Portalarium that I will be extremely disappointed if steps aren't taken to try to accomplish both to the best of their abilities. Any scripting allowed or encouraged should only be through API directly supported by Portalarium to control certain specific game systems. For everyone else not please with this, I suggest playing http://progressquest.com

 

Trust you, you are a scripter.. Something sounds just a little bit off, there.. Especially when you argue with circular logic, saying all or nothing is bad, and you want as much gain as possible, and an easy button.

Your logic is flawed. All entertainment, especially games, are about one thing. Conflict. Conflict is challange.

I used to be a pretty hardcore gamer, forced to casual play by medical necessity and more than I'd like to admit, age. These "challange dungeons" are named for a reason.

Do not belittle the intelligence of the community, nor the devs. We want challange.. Not impossible, but challange.

 

Yes, what i meant with easy was not challenge level, but usage of the game. Certainly everyone can agree, that Wow is easy to dive in. It has nice UI, nice gameplay, fighting is fun and easy, however, if you really go to fight 5-6 lvl higher mobs than you are or if you go to raid with 9 other friends or 24 friends, that easiness is gone and you can say hello to Mr. challenge. Game can be challenging while easy to play. Point was, don't make gameplay hard just to make it harder to script, that does not work. One thing that has to be remembered also, is that not everyone really likes to bash mobs. For someone that can be just a path they have to walk, to get to pvp or high end content.

We are getting quite offrail here, but to get back on topic,
Having skill system as it is now is good for casual ( because thei can change their mind about the kit ) and hc player ( because they can change the kit until perfect, without getting frustrated about continuos grinding to get lvl up). While in UO taming and provocation, magic resistance.. were hard to level by hand. It literally took weeks to level taming to 110 when doing it manually and using 8 hours/day. I did it, by hand, like most other skills. But after 10 years? No way i would spend again that time to get taming up.
This system, that allows you to spend points and reallocate them anyway you like, prevents that boring grinding and i'm starting to like it. Once you have points, you can be what you want. I just hope, that you can't change your setup every 10s.
In my eyes, this removes the need for scripts ( atleast once your character has certain amount of points ).

I'm sorry for my bad english, it can sometimes ( quite often) lead to miss understandings.
-Katu

 

its true that this is NOT UO

BUT, when making a new game, one must consider what they learned from all the older games, and what the players want.

in my case, what this player liked based on playing MANY MANY rpgs, is the origional way UO did skills.

Id MUCH rather see a return to UO's skill system, but evolve it a bit.

 

What is the benefit of a system where people level with macros while they sleep?

The only other series that does this is the Elder Scrolls series (you level something by repeating that particular task) and they are routinely criticized and mocked for how terrible that system is.

 

i used to be anti "grinding"

but i see things a different way now.

you have 2 forms of playable content. Storyline progress, and replay value.

no matter how interesting your replay value is, its still just a grind. you'll be doing the same episodes and stories and dungeons over and over. This is grinding technically.

all games require grinding. it takes 100's of hours of programming for each hour of playable content. eventually there is a maximum amount of playable content and you must settle for replay value.

replay value is basically making grinding fun, and encouraging competition (both pvp and non pvp competition)

i no longer hate "grinding"

 

non. forgive me for wording it wrong, i wasn't defending macroing.

consider this. is grinding goblins to train in combat any different then sneaking through dungeons to train stealth? or mining to train mining?

to discourage macroing, all they need to do, is require you to actually complete skill based challenges, as opposed to repeating the skill over and over.

for example, instead of having to tame a million bulls, you could gain skill in animal taming by "training" your current pets. why not allow people to raise animal taming by taking their dragon into dungeons?

maybe for stealth, your skill would only rise if you stealthed through the agro radius of a mob that is the appropriate spot level, or it will raise when you sneak attack something

well, that's because they encourage macroing by making it too literal. as mentioned above, hiding a million times to raise hiding skill, seems silly, but you could evolve said system, instad of abandoning it.

i understand why SOTA did the level system to remedy this, but how about a compromise?

instead of one single level, you could have a magic level, a crafting level, a stealth level, a melee level, etc.

 

i agree

the current system was an interesting idea and i definitely see why they did it.

but instead of one level, there should be several. a sort of hybrid of the old and new.

for example, there could be an entire section for stealth related skills like hide, move silently, ambush, lockpick etc. anytime you kill a mob with stealth or pick a lock, youd get xp in your rogue tree. any time you burn a mob youll gain xp in your magic tree.

 

I would be happy if the points got distributed automatically across the skill tree pools (the total numbers we see in each skill now) in a way related to how much you used each skill. Then players could distribute the points they have in each tree as they see fit. That way players would have most of their points in trees of skills they use the most. If that makes sense.

 

There are some UO unofficial shards where macroing is forbidden. Therefore it is possible to have fun without macroing.
Skill system without macro is a good compromise for me. Skyrim doesn't have macros, in my opinion it is a great system and very immersive.

Elder Scrolls series are one of the most sold and most acclaimed RPG series (Skyrim received universal acclaim from reviewers upon its release). All reviews have close to 100% scores. Terrible system? Maybe this is only your opinion, look for instance at Skyrim scores.

Anyway ALL games are based on repetition, regardless the genre. I think that what makes a game fun is the immersion and the community.

 

What if I told you that I may have already done this in Shroud

The notion of hiding behind the whole 'someone might macro' argument and using it as a reason to not put in place a great idea is really really sad and very very floored. If a player decides that they want to do something afk, they will do it regardless of the system.

 

Before I throw myself into the conversation on skills, I should start by saying that the best gaming time of my life is the years of hardcore roleplaying in Ultima Online. Throwing myself into a alternate reality, taking on the skin of another character with a over the years meticulously evolved personality and history, is something I would love to experience again. With this said; I value realism. In the best of worlds we wouldn't have any in-game skills at all, only our real-life skills as players sitting in front of the computer. This combined with your in-game items and gear would decide how good you are (Star Citizen have a good idea about this, ie. being good with your controls as a pilot combined with a good head for improving your ship adds up to your prowess in the game). For me, having a system that can make you a better swordsman by throwing fireballs around, makes me want to look for another game to play. And sadly, most of the games are like this today. If I want to be good with wielding two swords in battle, I want that the best way to get better at that is by wielding two swords in battle. Not by running errands for NPCs or using which ever other way is best for gathering XP and gaining levels...

I love the fact that we don't have classes in SotA, that the community is so highly valued, that roleplaying seems to be encouraged, that they want to bring back that old-time RPG feel to the game. But the current skill system just ruins it for me.

My two coins...

 

very well said. if our skills were what leveled by its use, that woudl be amazing.

i want to be able to wield a bow for a year. and get REALLY good at it. then after that, switch to magic, and SUCK at it until i've used it a long time so i can BECOME really good at it.
Afterwards, i'd probably use both. but NOT until i train, literally, for years on it.

i don't want "use bandages X amount of times, and you get better at bandages", i want "used Bandages X amount of time, but with Y amount of successes, that success ratio gets better over time, and i use them faster, for slightly more health gain"

then, if i grab a potion, I want the same math done to determine how often I'll succeed in having the desired effect. - Because i also want potions to require a little focus. - all the skill should NOT be in making the potion, it should also be in USING the potion. if i fail on the roll of desired effect, depending on what the potion is supposed to do, chaos and chance could determine if i get struck by lightening, rooted for a bit, summon a chaos demon who throws a can of spam at my face, or healed in one of multiple tiers.. roll a natural 20, and i get instantly full heal with all but that focus cost of using the potion rejuvenated also.

all of that can be accomplished with an extensive skill level line added to the player-level. and i'd like the player level to take a VERY SMALL part in the math for skill uses.. the older the character (play time), the more chance that the wisdom imparted by age will lower the size of the die rolled by chaos and chance.

 

I am against unattended macroing. Why even play the game if you are bored and do not want to level up your char? Unattended macroing also can be exploited by the "leveling char services" that will level characters and sell you the account pre made and leveled up. This is not just for laziness for some people, its a game exploit and people capitalize off of it. It should be dealt with harshly and accounts should be banned for it, even if they are high level backers or base level backers. These same people that afk level up, also collect gold, sell the hides or loot for gold to npc's, and in turn sell gold to players.

 

not all of them rav.

i know a guy who has a medical disability and loves end game content. he couldn't play long periods of time but the only way to get there was to get there yourself.

he saved up enough for a game he loved, and bought he services so he could do what he enjoyed.

he knew he missed out on a lot, but what he did was rewarding to him, and that is what mattered.


this is an exception to the rule, wouldn't happen often, but. and this is a big but here. but, it is an explanation as to why these issues should be taken on a case-by-case basis. - i do not think that guy did anything wrong. yes, it was against the EULA, and he did get banned - but for the duration he got to play, he enjoyed every second of it. - this entire scenario could have been avoided if he asked the game company for permission, first.

along that thread, here's another, sadder, example:

Spoiler

in my time playing America's Army, there was this child, 11 years old, terminal. cancer. for a few years, all he ever wanted was to enlist in the army, and do his part. his parents handled it right - they called the devs and asked for permission to get his account max leveled quick. instead of allowing them to hire out someone to level his account, they leveled him up from the back-end immediately, and let him play the way he wanted to play before, well..you know. my squad had been playing with him and his parents regularly, knowing the score full well and we all appreciated what the army did for him. we were in a few competitive ladders, and for the championship match on one, we let him play with us - our opposing force knew the score too. let him get the winning shot. his parents said he was beaming from ear to ear for a week after that.

when he'd go on public servers, and people found out he didn't earn that rank - some people wouldn't understand, and TRY and troll him. our squad took care of that and always tried to play the opposing force, knowing we wouldn't complain. in the end, it wasn't sunshine and rainbows, but it certainly was a little brighter having done right by him.

TL;DR
so in short - yeah, sometimes i see a reason for it to happen, most times I'd agree with you. botters looking for a profit, need to be taken care of. and i think they're doing a good thing with not having zone chat, as well as a few other, more subtle modifications to the gaming experience. if they can't "fix" the problem, i believe they can, and will, minimize any actual impact on those of us who are here for the journey.

 

I agree with you 100%! And It was done right by contacting the company, and the company was very good about doing this for him. About the people giving him crap about it, its like rain off a ducks back, let it run off, they know nothing of the man behind the monitor. Great story man.