What I feel about the Classless/Soft Cap. Port should do a better job promoting this feature

I'd like to express my appreciation for the Classless/ Soft Cap that we currently have in game. I understand that people have voiced against it. I just like to use this thread to explain why the system actually makes me feel SOTA is great. It is long so I appreciate whoever finishes reading it

Soft Cap System
Classless/ soft cap system promotes more build diversity rather than restricting it. With 10 combat/10 "non"combat slots, a player can customize the play styles based on the situation and personal preferences. For example, when tackling the Rise Mage Room, a melee oriented player can use immolation to boost fire resistance while at the same time dealing more DOT when in close combat. The same player can also use Crystal Shield with Elysian Illumination to become more tanky against Mage attacks. These two examples would both work in the Mage Room; however skills involved in execution are quite different. The in game skills provided are just tools for you to make use of.

Why bother insisting on the class concept where all magic casters are “Mages*? In a classless system it matters little as long as the skill you use allows you to overcome a challenge. I suppose if Earth tree was changed to “Bushido” or the Sun tree to “Chivalry” the strict melee folks would not be complaining about using “magic”? In Ultima, players were always able to both wield swords and cast magic, doing so will not break any immersion in SOTA, a game that is supposed to be a spiritual successor to Ultima.


A soft cap system does not discourage grouping. There are many reasons why PUG isn't that popular and soft cap is not one of them (From what I heard, a majority of the folks like to play with their friends and guildies strictly rather than random PUGs).

Even when players can train as many skills as they want to, they are not able to use all the skills on the battle field at once. Surely you can change the decks and swap to a different build or play style, but essentially you can still only be a specific “role” at a given time. When fighting a Clockwork Dragon I am pretty sure the tank would appreciate the healing blast cast on him by a “healer” or a supportive ranged character rather than trying to juggle between his own defensive buffs and constantly healing himself. Even if the tank has invested in healing tress, swapping to a deck that is loaded with healing spells and life attune items in mid combat while tanking a boss, does not seem to be a very wise choice. As a result just because you can do many things it doesn't mean you would not want the support from a group in an adventure; because at the end of the day you are still pretty much tied down to a specific role at a time.

Being able to swap decks does not discourage players from grouping as all the members on the team are still important. There is no need to restrict how many skills a player can pick up as long as the player is willing to spend time training and willing to take the risk of exp loss on death. SOTA originally intended to have only one character slot. Soft cap/classless system suits the game well. Now that we can have more than one character per account, if folks are ok with different builds on separate characters why not accept the fact that a single character can also have many builds instead. Besides without taking Specialization, the character will not end up very strong anyway.

SOTA is unique as it doesn't force you to pick a “class”. If one is interested in a class based game then there are hundreds of other games to chose from. There is no need to take away the uniqueness of the this game.

Specialization
Specialization furthers the character development at a higher level. Granted some of the benefits from still need to be worked on, currently this system is working as intended. Specializations incentivize players to focus on two skill trees of their choice. The system allows the player to be more comfortable with levelling the skills within the specialized tree to beyond grandmaster due to the reduced loss of exp upon death. The extra bonus provided by specialization to the active skills further empowers the character.
Naturally over the course of character development it somewhat puts a player into a certain “role”/play style at a higher level.
So even if you could gm in all skills, you will never be better than the folks who Specialize for example:

>Specialized Ground Slam with the additional stun chance makes it one of the best AOE melee skills in the game.
>Specialized Fire Arrow provides both fire resistance and healing debuff, this definitely beats the unspecialized version especially when against a boss.
>Specialized Healing Blast gains both faster casting speed and less cool down time. This is rather important when rescuing your party members from the brink of death.

The list goes on. Specialized players will be much more potent and useful than unspecialized players at the same skill level.

Despite the fact that you have access to many skills in game you definitely will not be a Jack of all Trades, Master of None with Specialization. You will only be Master of None if you choose not to do anything with the benefits that Specialization provides and spend all your exp to gm every single skill that is available to you. Only train the skills that you need and focus on the things you want to specialize.


A Quick Comparison to UO

People like to compare SOTA to UO so here is my take on about it. It is not directly related to the post so it's just some "bonus reading" and may contain some things I mentioned above already.

Spoiler

Group play in UO is purely for fun regardless of whether your group has defined roles for each party member or if everyone is playing a similar build. A bunch of melee orientated characters can form a powerful group by just bandaging each other and spam attacks. A group of magic users can just cast energy vortex and spam E bolts. People group up just for fun and monster bash even when the entire party has no defined roles. I guess the only REAL tank is a tamer comes with a dragon and gm in Peacemaking.

In SOTA you can definitely have a group with more defined roles as people will tend to play a style towards what they have have specialized. Even with a group of players that has not reached the point of specialization, with so many different skills available in game one can easily customize the play style to suit the group's need or their own liking. SOTA's soft cap/classless system will not discourage people from grouping since it is a big hassle (sometimes not even possible) for a player to cover every aspect of the game even with gm in all skills. Playing with more friends and guildies at the end of the day still makes the boss fight/dungeon crawl a lot more smooth.

In UO Bushido and Chivalry were introduced to game so that heavy armor users (that are not able to use Meditation) can have more interesting skills to use. Whereas in SOTA, you have Earth, Sun, Water trees that are fizzle friendly for heavy armor users. It is pretty much the same stuff in a different package. I am not sure why folks get so upset because they may need to cast a simple Douse spell once in a while for that extra fire resist. Perhaps changing the name of Douse to Warrior's Sweat would make the non-magic users happier?

To me the classless/ soft cap system is one of the most fun aspects of SOTA. It allows players to have access to all the skills in game along with Specializations to shape a character to their own unique play style.

This system is not common in many games and Port should be doing a better job to help new players to understand it. After all it is one of the core mechanisms of the game, it is rather essential to improve the information guide that we currently have on the official web site. The Player Guide on the official site looks wordy and ghetto. If Port wants to attract new player's attention they need to do a major revamp on the design of the player guide.


To @Lord British @DarkStarr @Chris . Thanks for coming up with the Soft Cap/ Classless system, I really appreciate and enjoying building my current character. However please make sure that the system is also easy for new players to understand. It isn't easy to introduce an unique/uncommon system like this, if the tutorial is done right I'm sure SOTA will attract many more new players.

 

I agree with most of your assessment. However, a couple of notes:

Not quite; the single-player Ultima games had classes, and only certain classes had access to magic. Late in the series, the Avatar was always capable of using magic, but that wasn't consistent. The Underworld series did a lot with being able to learn different skills to differentiate from your class, and magic was all but essential there. If you are just referring to Ultima Online, then yes you didn't have the clear distinction there, but Magery (which most will define as traditional Britannian Magic) was not a required skill.

The only real complaint I hear about the SotA skill system now is that not everyone wants to use magic, but they don't really have a choice (due to attunement and lack of non-magical healing). Once they add in bandaging, so at least healing can be accomplished, I do hope they revisit how to combat attunement/resistance requirements; many would take negative attunement in order to get raw resistance, and bypass the need to level skills they will never use.

The Player's Guide is kind of a precursor to the manual that is currently getting ready to ship. I'd assume this will simply get replaced with a link to that PDF at some point.

 

To me another question is more important - How many like it the way it is setup and would changing it attract more, new and old players.
e.g. if it would be more of a UO like Skillsytem. Plenty of Skills and Trees available, including crafting, but only a few to pick and to GM.

To me the endless and only time restricted System destroys not just immersion and RP, but also Group PvE and PvP.

To immerse and identify with my char into a RPG and a virtual world i not only need stuff i can do, but i also need stuff i cannot to.
I allways loved and think its very important to also have weaknesses, lacking to do something. The things we cannot do, we suffer from, we just allways fail to do are also important characteristics of our Avatars imho.
The only restriction we have is time - imho thats bad.
Self restriction is posvible and was many times recommended, there were groups of players who self restricted them to provide a more classical pve group experience etc.
But at the end of the day you make just a foll of yourself.
Another thing is - i know many will say now dont compare yourself to others, there is allways one who is nicer, stronger, more beautifull or whatever.
I agree totally, but to immerse and to identify oneself you always compare.
Comparison is not bad at all we all do it, we all need it, not only to emulate role models and personal hero's, but also to segregate from people or characters we dont like.
So we cannot not compare ourselve with others and it's just an essential part of everybodys personality.
Sure the Avatars of Novia aren't all the same, but they are too much viable in my opinion, to versatile, too strong, to much of a super hero.
Ok its also a SP Game, but i never understood how it can be a good Group PvE Experience if there are no interdependencies for characters.
Dont want to write too much, it is also true for harvesting, refining, producing and that you can be a Master Artisan, Master Blacksmith, Master of Everything.

thats what we are, we are all Avatars and we are all going to become omnipotent. We are all going to solo Dragons and the whole Game, we are all going to Crafters of all kind, its just a matter of time, but not rules and restrictions the Game, the Environment, the world lay on us.

Some like it - to me it destroys a lot.

It was the cause i quit the game to release, and it will be the cause i quit it again i guess.
Actually i have some aims and things i want to do and test, but in the lomg term the virtual sandbox world i imagine all the time is not possible with this setup we have.

But ok, if there are enough players who like it and keep it running, who am i to change it.
But exactly that it is. this system seems not to be fun an worth playing for the majority of original backers.
Sure all want something else priorized.
And that was SotAs main failure. It wants to be a SP Game, a Coop Game, a MMORPG and all of that simultaneously.
Best evidence are almost all surveys in this board, what end up mall 50:50 more or less.

Let's see what the future brings to SotA. i already mentioned Sea of Thieves or Fractured MMO as games without vertical progression and others are developing in the same direction.
Grind is only a timesink methos to prevent me from playing the game, make a living and not only min max roleplay elements, but roleplay with what i have, what i am virtually.

 

Ive made light armor melee work outstandingly for myself.

When trying to incorporate magic into that it always seems to gimp me and i can tell you why:

Because my gear is not intelligence/attunment boosting.

I built a pure air mage deck and am working tward a completely seperate set of gear for it to test it better, but from its effectivness without any appropriate gear im betting itll be formidable

 

To me there is a difference between a soft cap of it getting harder and harder to raise a single skill, to a hard cap where you can raise whatever single skill all you want but you only have 2,000 skill levels to spread around. For me it's that fine line that gets lost when talking about this. Not talking about a hard cap of max level 100, but a hard cap of total levels one is able to spend. Either in total across everything, or a certain total in combat and a certain total in crafting.

 

Hard cap it.

 

If there is a hard cap then I run out of reasons to play. I would like a game that gives me reasons to play.

MMOs are typically under constant development, thus a journey instead of a destination. Thus having a way to grow as the environment grows makes sense.

 

Depends on your goals. Completing the main questline starts you off on the path to home ownership, so thats an aspect you can explore. They could also consider adding a character slot to the quest rewards, which would allow you to try a completely different skillset. Hopefully factions and better PvP are coming in the long run as well.

I'm not for or against hard caps, anyway. It really wouldn't affect how I play. (Disclaimer, I have enough character slots that I can satisfy my alt-itis regardless of how skills are capped.)

 

I like both sides of it and always felt it definitely needed some revisions or even complete restructuring. Also agree there needs to be constant implements to give more reasons to play. Some of the reasons one plays may not be too thrilling for others. The more things implemented, the more you'll have to choose from and hopefully keep it entertaining and exciting for a larger base of players.

 

I am sure that as additional episodes get added then there will be completion rewards. Already have the house covered. If alts are your thing fine. It is nice being able to progress continually as I choose. Leveling up my 8th alt to v16 in TESO retreading everything was fairly tedious. I suspect people are asking for caps simply from the perspective of being able to have a static/fixed set of builds instead of... well just go get more XP. That way someone can run the numbers and then there will be a bunch of build clones running around based on fotm. Got bored of that too.

 

Port should not promote anything right now.

Better off waiting until the game is in better shape.


You want people to buy this game and experience blatant / in your face broken content or buy it, enjoy it and tell their friends?

 

How long do you wait? They've been working on stuff for 5 years now. Compare other games and they work and improve as they go over the years, even big name titles. Should we wait another 5 years before promoting? I think not. The game has many good qualities that a lot of people enjoy. Yes, there will always be something people don't like or think could be improved, and yes, the game can still be polished more. Takes time and it's a small company... you have to take these things into consideration as well.

 

Stages of showing SoTA to new players:

1.) Wow, those graphics look like 2010/2006/1999
2.) This is not a SP game
3.) I dont' like the combat hotbar
4.) Wait, housing isn't free ? This game is PTW
5.) .....
6.) I love this game

 

I think the complete opposite is true. I dont understand how you can identify with a character and spend "time" shaping it and say it destroys anything... I dont know any rpg games where you dont develop a character at the cost of time... I think what you really mean is that you want an "end" to identify. Something that tells you that you are done. Well, SOTA is a sandbox. There is no end other than what you want to define yourself.
Specializations have debuffs associated with the opposite school
You are limited to 1 set of gear, focusing in 1 direction with it brings the most benefits
The limitation of the hotbar prevents you from being everything at once
I think the whole system is the best thing in Sota by far

 

I agree. I played some Big name titles now that started with a rough game.

The difference here is that it is more than a little rough in 2 of the most important areas (Questing & Basic Combat)

Both can be greatly improved in a reasonably short period of time.

 

hell yes, especially the quest journal.. omg it's almost like just opening up *notepad* and jotting stuff down here and there.

 

You know, that *is* how we used to play rpgs back in day... in my day, we didn't need quest journals.....

 

Yeah sadly I still have a lot of old notebooks with all that just for nostalgia, lol. I've weeded out most of them but still save a few, especially early UO & EQ, oh and all the Might & Magic series.

 

I am in agreement with the OP

 

In a role playing game, I like the idea that my character is a particular archetype: a knight in shining armour, a cunning thief or a studious wizard.

I don't hate the system per say but, when you can't role-play the characters you want to play (because content/encounters don't seem to be designed to support it), then I'd classify this as a major flaw. You are severely shooting yourself in the foot if you ignore any of the magical abilities; so everyone ends up being a hybrid. The "but who cares about archetype when you can build your own" argument is kind of missing the point.

Then there's the issue that some players have gained so much XP that they can essentially train every skill and swap to any kind of build they wish... and it's now being considered as part of the meta in PvP... where you need to switch to a PvP build if you want to do PvP; or have multiple PvP builds in order to perform.

Lets not forget that the idea of gaining XP to train skills is unnecessarily convoluted. This is possibly the part I hate the most as I'm constantly managing my skills instead of just "turning on" the skills I want my character to have and just have him naturally progress.