Skill decay unfair for casual players

Meow, purrr

 

Decay on only 90+ skills ?

But we need decay IG for sure.

 

Yes I stated somewhat around 90 but very slowly decays Like a few notches after a week but once you hit 100 or so the curve goes up exponentially so the higher you go the more it decays.. so The power users will have to power play to keep their extra points while casual users can sit back at a slightly lower level but not have to grind or power play to able to play in harder areas.

I would however like to see areas that do need to have very high skill levels to beat ( Like even above 100 or other Harder to obtain skills at GM level ),, this would give us all a goal now and then to achieve and makes for a better game in my opinion..Also not to forget the control areas that would surely benefit from having a power player around you.

Certain skills should be harder to obtain GM Levels than others.

For PVP I have mentioned before several thing can be done to make it fair for casual users.

1: Match making: As in this arena you are partnered up with someone within your skill level.
2: Level Matching: This would do the total skill of both players and divide by 2 and lower or raise skills to balance them out.. ( This would be tricky for the devs to figure out how to do it )
3: Base weapon Equal match: This would take your highest base weapon skill and match it to your opponents or you select the base weapon you want to use. all other skill would be inactive.. So only weapons to weapon fighting..
4: No holds barred: Anything goes.

Score boards would be held in all categories and Pots users could select one of the above as the default to their PVP towns as well..

 

well journeyman is from late middle english meaning someone who has worked enough to no longer be indentured, and gets paid by the day. on a static scale of 100, i'd say around 65-70%, assuming it is going to be very difficult to get to GM (on my scale that = 100).

that should afford those like me that will play casually the ability to maintain at least that much with relative ease/time.

 

Actually we are all basing the level on the present difficulty and not actual time frame to reach a GM skill level, to do so we would have to determine what is a casual player and what is a power gamer.
Then once you have determined that you can adjust how much time it will or should take to get to GM for all types of players..

Casual players ( 10 hours a week )
1: So for 10 hours a week playing.( roughly 2 hours a day for 5 days a week ) how long would you expect it to take to reach GM level in a base weapon?
2: How long would you expect it to take to reach most skill levels ( Given the above time frame ).
3: How long would you expect it to take to reach advanced/difficult skill levels ( Given the above time frame ).

 

THIS.

 

while i think 10 is a bit large to be considered 'casual', honestly i'd cut it by half - but lets use 10 as a frame of reference for ease of use.

1. gm on a base weapon, i'd consider 6-12 months to GM it, for non-casuals. for casuals i'd want it to be impossible to have a full experience and gm more than one skill.

2. as for skill level advancement, i'd scale it .. i'm going to use woodcutting as an example.

i'm using the following sccales:
10 hours a week = 2 hours a day average, excluding weekend play.
100 skill is grandmaster, as i'm treating this more as a percentage base not what i think it should be 1:1.

first few levels, are done the first few times used - like cutting the first tree, gets you level 2, then the third tree level 3, up to level 10.
novice levels 10-45 i'd start here to base it on time+instances for a roll on leveling up - 1-2 hours per level of cutting.
46-65 i'd call advanced and base that by time+instances- %of instances, for the roll - 2-3 hours per level of cutting.
65-80 is where i'd call the journeyman levels i guess - same roll as above, but subtracting more of a percentage - 3-4 hours per level.

note: at journeyman levels that would be about halfway through every second day of play, per level. if ALL YOU DO is level this, which is not realistic.

80- 90 - i'd implement skill decay from here, and the roll would be the same as journeyman. - with decay it'll still take 3-4 hours per level if active every day. if every other day, or as it stands now after 2 days, it should be 5-6 hours per level.

90-100 - decay should be on a sliding scale with math above my ken, and the roll should simply have larger numbers for every variable to make it much harder.

decay from 100 should only go as far as 89 so you have to work for a day or two more to get back to GM level if you take a vacation.


if that is too easy at the 90-100, add another range of difficulty at 95-100, for the themo locks.

3. advanced to difficult i'd say around 5-9 months should be the goal when we start to see some really neat stats on items moving forward.

 

I'm fine with decay as long as it will be refined/tweaked. What we have now is not acceptable.

 

+1 hardcaps

 

As a casual player I am saddened you want me to never have the full experience or GM more than one thing. 8^(

 

i see it as a way to work smarter at something, not harder.

and i used one as a way to make it clear that casual players should never have anywhere near the number of GMs themo lock got - i don't personally care if that is the ACTUAL number or not, but for casuals it should be much lower than hardcore players. - if i wanted easy, i'd play wow or everquest, if i wanted impossible i'd play pathfind...oh, yeah.

 

I don't recall anyone ever suggesting easy, but it should certainly be made possible with enough time.

 

This might strike or rub Casual users the wrong way.. I would Let them get to GM ( though it would take still long enough to get there ) though its when you go about getting to 110 or 130 that would be extremely difficult or long to arrive..

Themo lock is not the rule in this case, I would say more the exception.. though if you use him as an example I would say then it should take him approximately 1 year for him to reach 130 and 2 years to reach Level 150..with a decay rate at which for every 2 days not played he losses 1 level and every day after that 1/3 ... though the slop like it went up it will go down and less decay as he drops to 120 and 110 respectively..

I think there is decay and then there is real decay.. from 90 to 100 there should be nothing too significant.. its only after that the the curve should start slowly climbing up to the above example. That way GM's are possible for everyone as its just a matter of time before you get there ( even for light users or casual users ). Its only the insane Levels that are very difficult to obtain and should bring in its on rewards as like I mentioned should have areas that are in need of such High levels...

We mostly are passionate gamers here at the moment. so do not forget that we do not have the same mind set as the average user that's going to be playing the game when the release game is out for 50-60 dollars...
I personally would love to see the game harder enough to even make Themo lock suet when playing but that would not be much fun for the average user now would it.. so balance is the devs challenge

 

@Odyssey2001 to sum that up, you think there should be skill decay but only at the very top eschelon before GM is reached, or do you mean zero decay until gm reached, then decay after that?

i certainly think the first may work, but i do not think the latter will work, assuming that you too are using a 1-100% scale, not a 1-100 scale.. i do not think there should be much of a buffer above grandmaster rank itself, maybe enough to last 2-4 days as a grandmaster before the decay eats it away, so they can go on a RP binge after working so hard on the skill.

personally i would be ok if i take 2 years to GM something and quit the game, and come back two years later at level 12 or so at that skill.

i would also be ok with no decay until you reach GM, then you can't turn decay off on that skill, until it reaches journeyman level again...if you don't use it frequently enough to maintain it. (that for each skill, individually) - but one could game the system by going to 99% and no longer training it if they are ok with NOT getting the perks of the GM tier.

so make the decay harsh for the VERY high levels of each individual skill, and not take into consideration at all how many of the skills are that high?
one option for that could be to take them into consideration only to make it even more difficult to GM the next one. but i think that is what they are currently striving for.

 

@ThurisazSheol Actually I was thinking that decay is mostly for anything above 100.. ( there should be some from 95-100 ) but it would take like a month or so of not playing to go from 100 to 95 lets say..Just so users always have something to aim for or retain..
It should be so that the game keeps users on there toes a little ( sort of speak ) if they wish to keep there GM levels AND for those who wish to be power characters ( 130 and 150 ) should be fighting just as hard to retain their skills as they did to achieve them..
This way both casual and power gamers are satisfied and both have reasons to play and continue playing for years to come.. ( Of course creating this balance is the trick and its the devs challenge )

In RL how many skills can one be a top master at? at one point something will start to decay because you cannot be working on everything at the same time.. I would approach this with similar logic and say that the MORE GMs you have the more decay you have on each present and every new skill accumulated.

So not only would the curve go up as you go beyond 100, the curve would also curve up even more according to the amount of GM skill you have.
This would not effect so much the average players as it would the power gamers and give them more of a challenge.

One other things you made me think of is we could use a greater decay but with a multiplier like we have now once the user gets back online.. this may work as well.
perhaps the best of both worlds..

From 80-100 decay with a multiplier and from 100 on its a curved decay at which the slop gradually gets greater as the level rises and also get even greater as new GM get acquired...

So like now if you are at 90 and you go away for a week you may come back and you are 85 but the users will notice a little icon like we have now with a multiplier that quickly raise the user to the level he/she once was..
From 100 on however things get much harder and the decay Although perhaps slower but more permanent and take more effort to bring back up. and also the decay gets greater as more GM skills are acquired..

 

No matter how you slice it, skill decay will punish the player that can't, for whatever reason, power-game.

 

+This

Skill decay is the worst idea that ever entered the minds of game developers. I hated skill "atrophy" in UO and I hate skill decay here. Please come up with a more innovative solution instead of relying on a 90's mechanic that was hated even then.

 

Skill decay is a gameplay 's mechanic as bad as daily quest on others mmos.
I don't want to log in the game and feel obliged to *play* in a certain way, just to avoid losing xp/skill/whatever.
I prefer hard cap.

 

Will the skill decy apply to the offline mode, too? Basically in offline mode the time of day does not advance when I am not in the game...

 

IF i remenber correct: No skill decay in Offline-Mode.