Themo: end of release feedback

This is a key element that I think is missing in a lot of current designs. They put stuff in to test a concept but don't picture the full aspects of it. Fun needs to come first (or people will stop playing), then logical strategy for the implementation (or it confuses everyone), then gameplay (see fun), then game mechanic (intention behind design).

Decay being an easy example to poke at for an example.
What purpose does it serve? - It's to stop people from getting unattainable god like levels of uncapped skills
Is it fun? - No
Is there logic behind its implementation? - debated in a bunch of threads, but ultimately yes for game mechanic and "immersion" but not for gameplay
Is it a game mechanic or does it enhance gameplay? - It is just a game mechanic
Does it accomplish its intended goal without frustrating people? No, it doesn't impact those who have time to grind everything. No, the current implementation frustrates people (see all the threads against it).
How is it going to affect coding time to implement or change? No clue, but VERY important (sadly we rarely have any feedback on this question).

I know this isn't the end all of questions that should be asked, but I see them as the key questions that every mechanic needs to go through. I'm sure the designers have their own list of questions and they bounce through them all and then check our feedback to see if we as testers are on the same page they are. But that is always what I think through prior to complaining about something.

 

The reason i say that is due to the following scenario...

I meet a group of people in game who play in character and think "nice" and play along, we head back to one of their homes and have a game of chess while telling tales of dragons and talking horses. The next day i log in, since i had fun yesterday i seek these guys out again and we work together to form an in game band and spend the rest of the week writing and syncing songs. The following week we decide to party up and go and fight a troll and discover that because we logged in each day but did not craft or fight.. we accumulated decay multiple times and get hit with it each time we use a different skill. The next day i ask if they want to play some music and they all say "no way, we need to fight stuff and then craft a bunch of stuff we don't need so we don't lose progress".

 

I mostly agree, but I am honestly disappointed that still we have no real alcoholic beverages to drink. I mean in the game, not the devs.

 

Me neither (pretty sure i'm not leaving room for doubts lol). We couldn't get "all" of them because decay is there (Chris said he expected we should be able to keep up with 25GM's in the end), but the way the deck system works (most decks are just 4 copies of 6 different skills) we should expect to see the minimal amount of actives required while the rest of XP goes to innates.

I do agree, if all those statements are related to the current implementation. I love the concept of decay and think that what it intends to achieve (as i tried to expose in this thread) may create a very fun high end progression vibe. I'm not commenting about it because changes are going to be made... but still feel most of the nasty is there (even when it wasn't working properly until now).

 

Very good example.

 

I have no idea how EVE does it.

How do they do it?

 

That's a great example, but it hightlights that we need to grind, not that decay is bad.

Want to PVP? Nope, can't sorry I have to grind to be pvp competitive.
Want to RP? Nope, sorry I have to grind to be pve competitive.
Want to talk? Nope, sorry I have to grind so I can get to the next part of this quest.

The decay system is currently broken. It's not bad to have decay, it's what allows players to constantly attempt to gain as many skills as they can. If we take away decay then we probably force ourselves to cap the number of skills a player can have. Otherwise, what's the point of the skill trees? How would any high level character be different? How meaningful would it seems to players when they found out everyone was just like they were?

Decay (when working) at high levels serves an important purpose. It keeps players that have too much time on their hands from ruining the game for everyone else.

 

How have I been on the forums all damn day and I just noticed this thread!! Really, I'm a moron.

@Themo Lock pretty much hits the nail on the head. Cant see anything to argue. I do have to reiterate this though:

 

They're both bad to me, the grind and the decay. You can't do other things in the game without having to worry about decay. The grind while I don't like it, doesn't prevent me from doing other things in the game when I want to, like skill decay will. I still think Themo's example does highlight a big problem that most of us will run into with decay. So I know we can go to the oracle and get rid of it as Chris has told us, but really whats the point of decay? Currently, it doesn't prevent us from grinding to no end to get past 100 in skills, so the purpose it was created for doesn't fix it. Is it's purpose to get us just to go to the oracle and do a quest to get rid of it to make us visit the oracle? Why? So I can camp out at the oracle, do a daily chore and go on my merry way? What's the point? Decay is a much bigger problem than the grind is for me.

 

Decay is broken, it's not working as intended, it's bugged.

So yes, it doesn't fulfill its purpose. The point of Decay is to fulfill the purpose of not allowing players to level to extreme levels in every skill. This is unbalancing, and devalues the game for people that care about that sort of thing - like me.

 

agreed, but that new bug that breaks casting while moving (even if its ticked 'Don't move while casting' in settings) is maddening. Especially as a speed rouge melee, fire type build. Fire spells take forever to cast and I'm constantly interrupting myself because its letting move while casting. I'm just holding W cause that what I wanna do next, not now dangit!!
A little of topic as it's a bug, and not true feedback, but its stuck in my craw right now.

 

Just an FYI, if you grief them until they actually leave the scene as a ghost you get tons of gold.

 

how would you change it so skill decay works but does not hinder the human element of "OH LOOK, SHINEY!" ?

i'm thinking make it simple - if you are active, you do not decay any skill, and each skill has a seperate speed of decay.

 

Man do I ever feel your pain.

 

Active doing what? His example was being active in game, just not levelling skills up. Or do you want to only penalize those of us who can't log in daily? Not being nit-picky as such, but genuinely curious for you to expand on your thought.

 

yep. i kept it vague on purpose.. simply active. if you do anything that releates to any skill, you are active.

if you login and lierally do not move and just chat, i personally do not consider that active.


oh, and i'm one of those who won't be able to login daily. - i haven't spoken yet about how long it lets you not be active.. jsut what active means yet. *grin*

 

Chris already said decay will see change, just need to wait and test again after wipe. The advantage of actually logging in and putting time into testing everything (rather than basing your feedback off other peoples posts) is that we see how things work and often find out that things are not working as they are supposed to. You also get to see first hand how much difference various adjustments make to the system as a whole. Without people testing at ALL stages of advancement it is extremely difficult to put a fully functional system in place. This is also why wipes are a good thing during pre alpha, we get to see how changes affect people from scratch and not just at the mid to top end. We could really use more feedback from actual experiences and less from theoretical scenarios based off other peoples posts and guesswork.

 

lol I'm aware of that. I have been on the wrong side of that before. It's also not what I would call good game design.

 

Nice post none the less Themo, shame it seems to have boiled down to the same argument that plagues tons of posts on the forums. Decay.. Even though there are multiple threads on this subject, it seems every post ends with that same old argument. How about a Moderator move the posts to free up space for other thoughts. Just pick any one of the dozens of topics about decay and throw them there. Oh wait.. I just remembered I didn't log in at all yesterday to busy with the telethon !! I better go take 20 minutes and fix my decay issue.. Or just stop testing until next wipe because that is a complete game breaker that is not overcomable (Not sure that is even a word). So in closing, lets continue to test, give feed back, not bicker about how it is broken. They know this that is why it is being adjusted next patch.

 

You're absolutely right.

I'm looking forward to next testing cycle because i'm positive i'll have more time to play daily (because a more convenient schedule and a more determined will) and i'll probably have time not only to play, but also to put me in situations where i can gather data to back up my statements. I'll try to figure out if all my concerns are real, and if they are... oh boy am i going to wield that data around until i GM Forum Posting

In the end we just want to have a good game, but it's not the same claiming that there's a ghost in the abandoned castle than sleeping there to catch a glimpse of it