Shroud of the Avatar VS UO skill system

It doesn't matter what anyone else says, whether it's so many, or only a few. But what does matter is that Richard Garriot said it himself. And other people repeat what he said.

It is not anything like UO really. The same kind of community, but you can't program that into a game.

Just what some people (myself included) have been saying for a year.

 

As for unattended macroing, I don't have an issue with it, nor do I see an issue with it. I see absolutely no difference between that and walking into a game on day 1 owning a lot of extremely high priced merchandise.

.....which is the main reason I've had issues with items for sale in the game. Unfortunately it's the only way they're funding the game. But they could have done this soooooooooo much differently.

I didn't macro in order to get ahead of someone. I did it just to play the game in a way that was enjoyable.

I'm not ashamed to admit I did 8x8 macroing on a boat. What I think is worse is they didn't design more interesting ways to achieve goals. Don't blame the player. Blame bad game design. I don't know of anyone that enjoys clicking the same thing for hours on end.

Water under the bridge.

 

I disagree. When you have a skill cap and a stat cap it is essential to think which skills you are raising. Probably you never played UO otherwise you wouldn't be saying this. Skills are sandbox weather levels are themepark. There is no good or bad system, just different system. To me a skill system gives much more immersion compared with a level system, moreover I find it more complex (this is my opinion). There is nothing inferior, to me second generations games (SotA, Neverwinter, ESO, etc..etc..) look all same, that's why I and others we were hoping SotA would be a different type of game more oldschool and real sandbox. What we have now is an hybrid single/multi/themepark/sandbox/putwhatyouwant game, which is a bit of everything and doesn't have a real soul. But that's of course just my opinion I am not trying to convince you

 

hm...to do so...the npc would have to pass a turing test, yes? dangit.

 

For the answer being simple, i didn't find my questions answered at all. I acknowledge you expected another kind of game from SotA and you enjoy certain features of other games and you miss them in SotA... but i don't see a reason why you prefer an skill gain system over a skill tree system, just how you enjoyed games that had an skill gain system more than games that had a skill tree system.

I disagree with skill tree system in SotA not requiring thinking. in WoW you only had three skill trees per class and you wanted to get to the end of one of them, so it was pretty straightforward. With the current concept you have the freedom of choosing what skills you want over others, how many points you want to distribute and what kind of character you want to build; same as in UO, where you had to level up certain skills to the desired amount to get certain bonuses. Both systems can be reduced to best builds, and both systems offer certain level of freedom to the player.

What i'm thinking about roughly speaking is to eliminate innate skills from the skill trees, filling them with only active skills. Apart for that, i suggest some changes in the progression system.

• We keep levels. Everytime you gain a level, you acquire a point that allows you to learn a new skill in the skill tree you want to (you still need to find the appropiate skill trainer for that, what's a lesson without a master?). Level acquired points are not suitable for anything else, just for learning skills.
• Every skill tree has an associated value that represents your affinity with the discipline the skill tree implies. This value works pretty much like skill in UO; as you use a skill from a skill tree there's a chance of earning points (or tenths) increasing that skill tree affinity.
• This affinity values are used to replace innate skills in skill trees; as you use bludgeon skills you gain damage with bludgeon skills, you increase the damage you to items and increase your stun effects. As you use ranged skills you gain range, damage and accuracy. As you use fire skills you raise fire resistance, damage and time for your dots. As you use Earth skills you earn extra strength, and damage resistance. This could be automatic and handled by the game (as your affinity raises all those values raise proportionally) or customizable by the player (i can say how my affinity is distributed).
• As you use a certain skill you also raise your affinity with that skill in particular; the amount of copies of that skill you can put in your deck also increases.

I think this system gets the best of this two worlds, using levels to learn new things and skill gain to reflect how you improve in the things you already know. It also fixes the problem of people choosing the best selection of innate skills, since you need to use the active skill of that discipline to get them. It's also something new, while keeping the old, and if well balanced, has two interesting layers of character customization; what skills i want to use, and what passive benefits i want to enjoy.

Any obvious downsides i missed?

 

This is exactly how the current system works, except with less tedium. If you are leveling up, you are presumably using a skill set you put points into.

You gain levels and put points into weapon/magic specific trees to gain more skills/branch specific innate bonuses which give you more abilities, more uses of said abilities and boost the entire branch. The more you spend, the higher your proficiency (Points Spent) is. What you are suggesting would actually remove choice what gets upgraded and how much withing a specific branch.

You also put points into other branches for bonuses: Focus for deck related stuff, some magic trees for resistances of various sorts or combo components. Lastly, Tactics of Focus for STR/DEX/INT which in turn directly affect your damage potential.

Everything you want seems to already be in the current system and again, if you are leveling up then you are already using a given weapon/magic school that you presumably are advancing.

The only thing I see your suggestion adding is removing my choice on what aspects exactly I want to build on and adding the extra layer of having to grind proficiency. Neither is needed at this point.

One thing in this whole system that I thing should change is the ease of respecs. I do believe that the cost of respending your skills should be very, very high, to the point that a total respec at levels 50+ costs a small fortune. Not quite Path of Exile levels with their Orbs of Regret, but fairly high up there. To offset this, keep the costs more till around 20-30, while you are still learning and picking what exactly you want to do. I'm actually fairly certain that the trainer system is not finite right now (iirc there are supposed to be specialized trainers for each branch?) so for now, it seems like the current system is exactly what you want it to be, except giving you more control and we keep the "grind" to a single factor - level (outside of crafting/PvP skills ofc)

 

Yes, the outside layer is basically the same (because i like it) but the implementation of an affinity for each skill tree changes the way it works a bit, while trying to address some concerns.

At the moment, you gain a bunch of points you can put wherever you want, hence people is complaining that "you learn how to throw a fireball by using a sword". With this affinity i'm suggesting you're able to learn how to do stuff while you level up, but improve with practice. I think is a more immersive point of view for the progression system, and is no grindier than the current system; i'll go and kill wolves over an over again to get levels and in the meantime i'll improve in the disciplines related to the skills i use.

At the moment, skills are kept at minimum (you don't want to have more than 25 skills in your deck) and people abuse innate skills. Chris showed concern about it, and the diminishing return while climbing the skill tree is a way of adressing it. With my affinity mechanic, innates depend on your level of practice of that discipline (the skills in the skill tree), so fire resistance belongs to fire mages and damage resistance from earth magic requires the player to be a practitioner of Earth magic, not everybody is getting them because "they're must have innates if you want to survive in PVP".

I can't deny is restricting the innate bonuses you want to put in your character, mostly because that's intended. I think that innates from a certain skill tree should belong to the ones who practicet that skill tree, not to everybody who deem them useful. That way innate bonuses tied to a skill tree increases its value from a player perspective, and they're not just "something i must have because is far better than the rest of options"

As i said before, Affinity bonuses may be customizable from a player side if deemed interesting, meaning that it could be implemented so you can say that all your earth affinity goes to damage avoidance. That's just matter of taking a closer look at the system.

Maybe you're right, and i can accomplish everything i'm suggesting with the current system, but this suggestion is about innate skill balance by using skill gain concept, something that certain members of the community want to see in game. So yes, i'm trying to make a more restrictive (yet logical, imho) system. I do agree with raising the cost of respec, though. I'd also like a layer of logic on it (to respect a skill you cannot use for a week or so, allowing it to be "forgotten").

 

Ultimately, it definitely needs tweaking, which is a given considering the phase of production.

I feel like part of the troubles with current "I need all of the innates, ever" will also be relieved a little bit once stats are made much more relevant, but I can see your point more clearly now at least. I'd honestly would like to see pokemoning inates still a viable solution, but as I said, offset by severe lacks in other fields. I'm not sure if your tweaks would still preserve that, but well, either way, it's not like the two systems are that different.

 

I feel like part of the troubles with current "I need all of the innates, ever" will also be relieved a little bit once stats are made much more relevant, but I can see your point more clearly now at least. I'd honestly would like to see pokemoning inates still a viable solution, but as I said, offset by severe lacks in other fields. I'm not sure if your tweaks would still preserve that, but well, either way, it's not like the two systems are that different.[/quote]

Yeah, current system definitely need tweaking, that's why we're starting the process, and probably current system may address these problems (or others discussed in other posts with another solution, i'm just suggesting one i consider cool from my point of view.

When suggesting mechanics or fixes i try not to derail much from the current line of thought, that's why both systems are quite similar. I assume current concept is the way they want to go (that's considering i don't think the whole concept is messed up), so i try to change current concept the less. Seems i achieved it this time!

You mention relevance in stats as a way of avoiding everybody picking innates because they'll pick the stats? Now that's something i think is messed up (stats being innates) but that's another topic material

 

No where near the same kind of community, sorry for the bad news. Players on Ultima Online were what I like to call relentless, and still are to this day.. Players here are pretty much entirely based around role playing, being fair, and not attacking others which is the complete opposite of Ultima Online which is why people enjoy it so much.

 

Stats are raised by initiates, yes, but not only the relative initiate skills are unique in the entire trees since you can raise them ad infinitum with diminishing returns and they affect a wide spectrum of character characteristics. Like the trees they are in (Tactics and Focus) they are, at least in my eyes, a separate entity from the rest of the skill trees. And yes, some other initiates also raise stats, but that is a finite bonus meant to complement the "main" stats. I'd honestly woudn't be surprised if they aren't moved to their own, dedicated branch, but at this point stat calculations and effects seem to be mostly inactive, so it is hard to tell.

Anyway, considering their unique function, I consider them a separate aspect of the trees and something that has the potential to balance things off since the player will have to maintain balance between the rest of the skills they take and keeping their stats high enough.

 

Im sure you will see the relentless crew start to appear at launch....too early for them yet.

 

I'm not so sure some players could pass the turing test. lol

kidding, kidding

 

I will try to explain myself clearly.
First of all what we have now is a level system, which unlocks abilities (we don't have any skills), therefore a basic sword swing at level 1 will be the same at level 10. The difference is that at lvl 10 you will have more ABILITIES to enhance your swing.

Reasons why I prefer a real skill system over the level system + abilities are the following:
- Is more immersive
- Gives a real feeling of progression (when my sword is 0 I will miss a lot whereas when my sword is 100 I'll hit almost every time)
- You are obliged to think a lot because with a skillcap of 600 or 700 you can have only 6/7 skill maxed or maybe some skills to 100 and others to 50
- I am rewarded for the skill I am using
- It is possible to implement a system of skill loss on death or when you become a PK

Reasons why I don't like the level system
- Breaks the immersion
- I personally find it very linear and simple
- Once you get an ability you'll be able to access it most of the time like if you already had 100 of that skill, even if you are just level 2.
- I can raise any combat skill by doing something else. Eg. I can kill with a sword and put my points on archery, which in my opinion is illogical

This is of course my opinion.

 

I didn't hang around relentless folks. I was in Trammel most of the time to get away from that. So to me, the friendly and inclusive events in Shroud are exactly what I was used to in UO.

 

I am in support of any system where there will be no need for elitist jerks. Cloning builds takes the fun out of the game.

 

We need to remember that some of the reasons UO was so successful was because of how things worked. I keep seeing really awkward things here that nobody has done before, and can't help but think "nobody has done them for a reason". It feels with some things that they've made new systems just to "make new systems", even if they're poorer than what was done in UO or follow the status quo.

 

Glad to see we're on the same page with the attributes! It's one of the things i consider a big flaw... but i hope it doesn't make into the final version (not even the beta) and consider current implementation "for testing purposes only".

Since included i felt both Focus Skill tree and attributes totally out of place. I think i exposed it well a couple of months ago... it's not like i had answers telling me the opposite!

 

Exactly.

This should be printed out and placed over every monitor at Shroud HQ.

 

the question begs, barnabas and morreion...how is it KNOWN that it hasn't been done before because it was tried and failed in previous development? these companies do not share that information across years and company ties, and whatnot..maybe if they were devs on previous projects (most were, mind you) they still can't talk much about some of their experiences due to no-compete clauses in their contracts.

as an indie game, they have the ability to try new things to see how well th ey work, against the industry standard. hopefully to help evolve the genre a bit more to further OUR entertainment values and engages us for longer than the usual.

mind you, this is coming from a player who LOVES the skill systems that 'doing x raises x, not y z 0 3 b g and z too."