Skill Trees Passive Skills

Plate probably is a little. Over powered is just another way of saying imbalanced in favor of this or that. Though there will always be someone who wants something to be stronger or weaker.

 

i dont always cast ice arrow, but when i do it crits for 200 damage and kills the guy wearing plate. sorry, but plates only useful in pve

 

It's a moot point since no armor really protects against magic right now and 200 pts one might think ice arrow might be over powered. But we can go in circles here til the cows come home as really nothing is balanced yet. I just hope the devs tone down stuff to bring them into balance rather than power up what's weak.

 

dont be dissin my build, plates broken, not ice arrow

most of my ice arrows are 50-100, was a bit of an exageration on the 200,

 

Well I'll give you that much. Armor does need to provide some protection vs magic or else most everyone will be a mage and armor will be next to pointless in PvP.

 

I fail to see how passives aren't imbalanced?

The ability to sink my fingers into 3 trees and have +15 damage resistance is pretty crazy. The fact that I can sink my fingers into 3 trees and still wear plate instead of light while gaining benefits of the armor and the trees is ... silly.

Albeit passives are needed for some "roles"...

To be honest, the current skills system is lack luster in all manner of things. A min / maxer would easily find ways to abuse this system in its entirety.

 

I think you should have to slot passive skills the same way you have to slot actives, so you can buy all the passive skills, but you can't run all of them at the same time.

 

Or maybe have 2 or 3 "card slots" specifically for passives? The slots would not able to be upgraded, couldn't be altered by any skill, etc.

The reason I suggest a twist to your original proposal is because I'm not one for forcing people down the magic tree if they do not want to do so.

 

Why would having to slot passives force people down the magic tree? If anything having all passives active at all times forces people down the magic trees because you simply gimp yourself if you don't pick up stuff like the earth passives.

 

Because the Focus tree currently expands your hand size. With your initial suggestion everyone would have max hand size to achieve the most passives. This is why I would rather see 2 or 3 permanent slots which aren't able to be upgraded or modified.

 

By "same way" I just meant you have to put them somewhere for them to be in play, not that you have to put them on your hand.

 

The sentence below lead me to believe that I would slot them in my hot bar. You can see how I believed you were saying that you could increase your hand size with Focus then and the increased hand size would lead to holding more passives?

As long as we both agree that being able to slot more passives would be detrimental to combat balance. Then we can both agree that balance between trees definitely needs work and this could be one acceptable method.

 

Well, I'd like to speak up and say that I hate the idea of only being able to slot a limited number of passives. I prefer a passive talent build that lets me customize how the character will encounter and effect the world, typically with inherent 'give and take' in each passive, and the accumulation of passive bonuses is a huge part of the leveling experience for me.

In real life, I have hundreds of small passive bonuses I have accumulated, from my education and exercise history, my genetics, my personality, my career, and not least of all from my life experiences. When I set out to perform a random task, like navigating across town or dealing with a legal issue, those passives come in to play in various ways and make the experience of that challenge unique to me, and make me uniquely suited to deal with some challenges. It is because of that that me going to buy a gallon of milk will be fundamentally different than you going to buy a gallon of milk, and that's assuming neither of us is lactose intolerant, or wanted by the police. BIG passive conditions like that change the entire life experience.

If we are told that we have a severely limited number of passive "slots", then the value of passives will decrease exponentially, the "best" passives will be sought with vigor and persistence for the rest of this game's life, and there will be a great tendency for most people to use the "best" passives. It will reduce diversity and diminish play experience.

 

I would agree.

But, what if I said that all passives were created equal relative to specific builds?

 

Then you've just created a de facto class system.
Instead of describing myself as a Warrior, or Priest, or Shadow Knight, I'll refer to what passive I'm built around.

 

Not necessarily. If all passives were created equal and you were able to choose passives relative to your personal game style and all skills able to be activated were equal, then you could in fact create a truly custom character.

Let me ask you a question... Do you think it even makes sense to use a shield related skill in SotA without a shield?

And another . . .

Why are shield glyphs found under the Shield category?

Why do we have categories at all? Is it just to limit my imagination? If it is just to limit my imagination then by default aren't we already near your de facto class system with limitations? Is it to limit how powerful I can become? Couldn't they achieve the same end result with balancing?

Hasn't the game designer created a de facto class system while attempting to persuade you that there is no class system? Are they attempting to trick us with the idea that we have freedom to create any type of character we desire? Why am I required to purchase Flaming Fist to get Flaming Arrow? Am I not by default being FORCED to be a fire mage? The game already requires me to get Focus... Am I not a mage because I have 80 points out of my 200 in Focus?

What is the alternative? Would the only way to have a truly unique and open ended character template be to have no skill tree? Instead provide a pool of activate and passive glyphs which do not force me down a specific path? Then I allocate my points in whatever I felt necessary to achieve any end result I wanted relative to what is provided by the leveling system? Isn't this a truly OPEN and classless character model?

 

Hmmm, well lets take that in order:
Using a shield glyph without having an actual shield. I suppose it depends on the glyph, but also the user. According to the story, Musashi Miamoto fought his final, and most challenging, duel using not a sword but a broken oar that he had whittled down while being rowed over to the island where the dual was to take place. It was undoubtedly inferior, vastly inferior even, to an actual sword, but in the hands of a true master it functioned as a sword and delivered a killing blow on the first hit.

I can see someone being so good with shield SKILL that they don't need the actual giant piece of wood strapped to their arm, but can attempt a shield like block or rush or stance and get some benefit just from their skill. Of course, the benefit that even a novice gains from that big piece of wood would be MISSING, but the skill counts for something. I can accept a game system where someone could TRY this.

Why are shield glyphs in a tree? Since you take one obvious route next, I'll just cover the other obvious route for posterity: Because the tree exists to gather all the skills under one roof, for good or bad.

Now, addressing trees and the need for them, which seems to be the meat of your post.

What you propose sounds a lot like the skill wheel in "The Secret World". I could take ANY set of passives and ANY set of actives, though I could only hold one weapon in each hand, and most actives were built around a weapon, and many passives only applied to certain types of active. It's a workable system, but it DEMANDS limitation, and permanently limits character growth. Once I have my "ideal" build in TSW for any particular role, the only ways to improve it are A) evolutionary sacrifice, in which I give up a skill to put in a 'better' one, or B) gear, which allows me to up my numbers without changing my tactics. Now, I noted when they brought in the secondary weapons skill trees, but that actually hurt them IMO. Once they said I could have a skill and a passive from a THIRD weapon, I started wondering why I had to choose only from those three weapons as a third. I mean, if one of those weapons was ROCKET LAUNCHER, you'd think the same skill that let me hold a weapon in each hand AND whip out a rocket launcher for a strike and then return to resting state would let me do the same with, say, a PISTOL. But no. Damaged the believability of their world.

SotA started out, as I recall, promising unlimited growth. IF you play regularly for ten years, your character will grow continuously for ten years. Not based on gear (that was a promise) and without sacrificing what you've learned before.

Now, this part is just MY interpretation and vision of what they meant, but what I saw was a world where periodic new content would open up new trees, and I would pick and choose from the new offerings those things that served and furthered my character, spending my precious high level ability points on new passives, occasionally on new abilities, and just become cooler and cooler over time, yet only in my very narrow character build. My buddy would also be progressing, but his character would be NOTHING like mine. My PvP opponents would be progressing, and sometimes I'd recognize and understand what they were doing and sometimes I totally wouldn't, and that would make PvP a smorgasbord of variety and challenge.

I don't think the mere existence of skill trees is putting us on the edge of a de facto class system, because there is no limiter on how many trees you can progress in or how you mix/match/use those trees.

Whereas, putting a limiter on how many passives I can ever have 'slotted' and affecting gameplay will INSTANTLY cause that effect.

 

Admittedly I must concede that a man who is a sword master could utilize nearly any tool which is sword like to great effect. However, this is not what SotA has created.

You can undoubtedly put points into the blades skill and use a hammer. You can also use the Rend glyph with a mace if I'm not mistaken. How do you Rend someone with a mace? (obviously you can put hooks on the mace head!)

You can clearly put points into light armor and wear plate with very little (if any) negative impact. You can wear cloth armor and train in heavy armor (this actually makes sense!!!)

I understand trying ... But believing? Those are two different things. What is commonly accepted isn't necessarily true. What is true may not be commonly accepted.

If you call that open ended and could cite another real life example I'd appreciate it... Because I don't follow. Could you please clarify further?

In my opinion the only reason to have trees is to put the most powerful skills and spells at the bottom. It is a logical way to hinder people on the path of obtaining something great. It is a logical way to force specific behavior. I can think of no known real life example where a structure of some sort doesn't force specific behavior. But, I just got back from the gym and my mind may not be thinking clearly. SotA does not accomplish this behavior. It in fact does nearly the opposite. Most passives are up front. Most End of tree spells are beyond lack luster. In my opinion, that isn't an indication of a lack of balance. It is a lack of foresight.

I'm not necessarily proposing any particular system. Plus, I've never played Secret World. I am merely indicating that trees being present indicates a structure. All examples of structure (that I can think of) indicate a desired forced behavior. Presenting skill trees and structure to me provides a large degree of predictability. Software teams love predictability. Unpredictable outcomes do not allow for metrics to be generated. Metrics that cannot be generated do not close the feedback loop except by end user qualification (us, the players. All the players).

There is another example within SotA of forced behavior. Currently the PRD levels raises your ability to gather materials combined with specific trains you acquire in the respective gathering skill tree. They are attempting to not force behavior but then place restrictions on what you can successfully accomplish as a crafter. Because if you don't move from lower level zones to higher level zones it would take you an infinite amount of time to level compared to someone who followed the linear, restricted, nearly enforced behavior they devised. This is predictive behavior.

If the software development team desired, they could track all players levels through time and create metrics based on the data. They could then force specific behavior with the data. This forced behavior based on the data is the feedback loop. This completes the development cycle without qualification or end user feedback to meet their vision. It also doubles as an example of a bounded system which I cover later.

Are you saying that casual, intelligent gamers are doomed to be constantly out skilled by a potentially hardcore, less intelligent gamer by sheer skill points? You are saying there is no cap on the amount of active abilities a player could learn? That in 10 years we all have the same build because we've literally run out of abilities to purchase with our skill points? Please clarify.

I'm not sure how you can quantify this effect. In reality there is "no limit" to anything you can do ... but you are still bound by all the variables that make up who you are and what can accomplish. These boundaries makes you a system. Using the previous quote, you say that in ten years our characters could still develop. Is ten years the limit? Is that the edge of the bound? Or are you saying that SotA has no bounds?

In essence, if it has no bounds it isn't a system by definition. If it isn't a system ... what is it ? So telling me that a computer program (which always has bounds) has no bounds is ... well crazy.

I challenge you to find an example, any example that has no bounds. Because science and most of reality lies within the boundaries of the natural world. To quote Einstein, " ... the century-old endeavor to bring together by means of systematic thought the perceptible phenomena of this world into as thorough-going an association as possible".

Basically, we don't have anything except qualification to speak about things which have no bounds. This is why video game developers use principles like gravity in their development. Not only is it familiar, it doesn't garner much critique. It feels right because of individual perception and bias. This is because we are living in a bounded society. In conclusion, I find it extremely hard to believe that SotA is an unbounded piece of software. I see clear indications where the developer pretends you have unbounded systems but then force boundaries through behavior. One is false and one is true. You may believe you have unbounded systems ... but quantification will prove otherwise.

 

Unlimited growth was never promised. The possibility of skill caps were always there "if necessary" but also any such cap would be raised when new skills were added. Though I would argue that the ability to respec negates any meaningful cap that might be put in place.

 

I concur.

Where do you think Malak received his information then? Is he just misinformed?

Its funny, but this exact scenario brings up a very valid point about the player base testing the functionality of this game. In my job I have specific words which dictate how a feature functions. They are meant to clearly define how the features work to the group which writes the software. It also is meant to clearly define how the feature works so the testers can test against said phrase. Obviously in some cases the words are poorly written. The software team doesn't implement the vision or the tester doesn't understand how to test based on the phrases ...

Is there a database, a matrix if you will, of planned features? A document which stipulates how the features are meant to function? An actual road map besides what has been communicated to us, the end user AND the financial backer? It makes me think of my favorite comic.