I wouldn't be opposed to this, myself, though I dislike the aspect that older players will always be better. I think one way around that is to have skills decay if they aren't used. So you could become a master at using swords, and then go on to become a craftsman... and if you later got into a fight with some upstart, your skills are rusty from lack of use while he's been training recently.
Goblinworks Founder
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I wouldn't be opposed to this, myself, though I dislike the aspect that older players will always be better. I think one way around that is to have skills decay if they aren't used. So you could become a master at using swords, and then go on to become a craftsman... and if you later got into a fight with some upstart, your skills are rusty from lack of use while he's been training recently.
I love the idea of skill decay. Those people that are dedicated to one form will prosper, while those that prefer to be a jack of all trades will still be a master of none.
Skill decay would ensure that people taking a break from the game would never return.
Skill decay would ensure that people taking a break from the game would never return.
Not necessarily. First, one would imagine that it would take a little time, perhaps a few weeks, before the skill starts decaying. Second, it would be reasonable to have some kind of "vacation mode" where your skills are frozen. Until the next time you log in, you don't suffer skill decay, but also don't gain skills either.
Goblin Squad Member
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I would say that we're hoping to make a game that is influenced by EVE Online, not a fantasy version of EVE Online. There are all sorts of nuances to that statement that we'll be talking about during development.
The original post does contain a substantial bit of misinformation though.
The skill system in EVE Online is an inch deep and a mile wide. As a result, the "age" of a character is not the limiting factor on skill mastery. Once you have maxed out skill training in a skill tree, you are as good at that skill as every character who has similarly maxed out that skill tree.
"Old" characters in EVE Online are not universally "better" than younger characters. They're just very good at lots of different things. Younger characters can be just as good as the oldest characters at a specific line of development within a reasonable period of time (months, not years).
The skill system in EVE is also not the sole factor that determines success. The game requires players to understand a very complicated web of interactions, from gear to buffs/debuffs, to tactics from solo up to fleet combat. If I put a relative newcomer in a character with max skills and the best gear available, an experienced vet with a much less trained character with average gear will win fights most of the time.
And EVE is not all about ship to ship combat. There's a huge number of people who specialize in "market combat" - the art & science of using pricing, availability, purchases and contracts to gain an economic advantage. And there's a whole other game of politics, espionage, and diplomacy that relies more on player human engineering than on in-game rules & mechanics.
All of these things combine to make EVE's sandbox the robust place it is, and many of the characters who are movers and shakers in that sandbox are by far not the oldest or most trained.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I wouldn't be opposed to this, myself, though I dislike the aspect that older players will always be better. I think one way around that is to have skills decay if they aren't used. So you could become a master at using swords, and then go on to become a craftsman... and if you later got into a fight with some upstart, your skills are rusty from lack of use while he's been training recently.
This only penalizes casual players more than it does dedicated players.
One thing people always want is equal footing in games no matter the level of commitment. Games are in direct competition with real world activities such as work commitments, focusing more on family life, or alternate social/hobby pursuits to name a few. I usually expect a workaholic to have more money than those who are not. I expect people from the other two groups to have less time to play a game. I expect those that happen to set a higher focus/time commitment in a game to usually have some benefit from it. I have known workaholic, family types that also game and buck the trend due to superior time management and mastery of a game. They are in a small minority though.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The skill system in EVE Online is an inch deep and a mile wide. As a result, the "age" of a character is not the limiting factor on skill mastery. Once you have maxed out skill training in a skill tree, you are as good at that skill as every character who has similarly maxed out that skill tree."Old" characters in EVE Online are not universally "better" than younger characters. They're just very good at lots of different things. Younger characters can be just as good as the oldest characters at a specific line of development within a reasonable period of time (months, not years).
As Ryan say, my 3 million skill points in industry and the 10 millions in science skills don't help in combat, like the 9 millions in drones don't help with a spaceship that hasn't a drone bay or the 4 millions SP in hybrids guns when I am using ship armed with missiles.
I have plenty of options, but I can't use them at the same time. My character has 6 years of life and a focused combat build will be be my equal (or even better) with the ships of one race in less than one year. If he were to focus on one class of ships he would be my match in less than 3-6 months depending on the ship.
A trader can be my equal in a week (barring that I have more money than him as I have the amassed wealth of years of playing).
You can think to my character as someone that can be a wizard or a fighter or a rogue, but not all three of them at the same time.
The beauty of the system is that how much time I spend on line hacking a tree will not make a difference in my "tree cutting" ability. What make the difference is how much of my character development time I have dedicated to that. So there is no reason to implement "tree hacking" bots (or sword swinging bots).
A bit less space for cheating and less of a disincentive for people with a busy real life.
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NO SKILL DECAY!!! I work 40+ hours a week, have a wife, friends, responsibilities, ect. I am a casual gamer. Do not penalize me!!! Not for having a life. Nor for having a job. Not for paying my money but not being able to take the time out of my day to play more than a few hours a week. Not for being a mature adult.
If skill decay would be an option it should be based on actual time spent playing - i.e. training skills you don't intend to use should be less effective in long run. And it should be very-very slow.
NO SKILL DECAY!!! I work 40+ hours a week, have a wife, friends, responsibilities, ect. I am a casual gamer. Do not penalize me!!! Not for having a life. Nor for having a job. Not for paying my money but not being able to take the time out of my day to play more than a few hours a week. Not for being a mature adult.
Skill Decay wouldn't be the sort of thing that would punish a player like this, using the system I am imagining. If you got on for your few hours a week, and worked on building your mining skills (for example), you would do well as a miner. If you then decided to become a carpenter, and did NO mining in your time, your mining skills would start to decay from lack of use after about two weeks, while your carpentry skills increased. If a year later, you decided to become a miner again, you would have to bring those skills back up, but it would happen a lot faster than if you were trying to learn them the first time.
If you really wanted to max out several different skills, you'd be dividing your limited playtime anyhow. But if you chose this route, you'd still only have to do a little bit of everything over a two week period to keep your skills sharp.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Skill Decay wouldn't be the sort of thing that would punish a player like this, using the system I am imagining. If you got on for your few hours a week, and worked on building your mining skills (for example), you would do well as a miner. If you then decided to become a carpenter, and did NO mining in your time, your mining skills would start to decay from lack of use after about two weeks, while your carpentry skills increased. If a year later, you decided to become a miner again, you would have to bring those skills back up, but it would happen a lot faster than if you were trying to learn them the first time.
If you really wanted to max out several different skills, you'd be dividing your limited playtime anyhow. But if you chose this route, you'd still only have to do a little bit of everything over a two week period to keep your skills sharp.
Well said.
Tough. No skill decay.
About skill decay: first it should be based on on-line time, with off-line time just freezing, otherwise casual players would be more penalized.
Another thing is discriminating skill decay and remembering: If I have a "degree" in alchemy, which took my several year to acquire, and I don't practice for a year, when I come back to it, few weeks are enough to get rolling again. If I'm a body builder it took me several month to gain muscle and mass, if I slack for a year, I'm back to square one.
I like hyper realism but at this point it seems to me that is just overly complicated.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Another additional note. Skill decay comes into play with one of the basic questions with mmorpg design, Is this system fun?
There are numerous answers to this, not an exhaustive list.
Decay based on active play: A certain grouping of players may not find that "fun". Hardcore players would find ways to offset it so it doesn't effect them. Social Idlers will see it as unfair to their style of play.
Decay based on real world time: (Very) Casual players would not find this fun as they are penalized for "having a life".
Now if Skill Decay is associated with a Total Skill Cap, such as how Ultima Online* has, it is more viable since it makes players choose their strengths and weaknesses.
Source: UOGuide
The Skill Cap is a key balancing game mechanic in Ultima Online. It controls the amount of capability of a character can have by enforcing a limit on the number of total points in Skills a character can attain.
Without the skill cap, a character could conceiveably become godlike with the max 100 points of each of the 58 skills in UO. This would ultimately make gameplay moot as everyone would eventually have the exact same capabilities, not to mention extremely time-consuming and boring to work on GM'ing all 58 skills.
Initially with the release of UO, the skill cap was 700 total skill points for each character. A character could reach the maximum of 100 points, or Grandmaster, in seven skills, or 50 points in 14 skills, or any combination for that matter, but all skills ultimately adding up to a maximum of 700 points.
In September 2002, as part of the Veteran Rewards program update, skill caps were raised for players depending on the age of their account.
Months Active / Skill Cap
0-11 / 700
12-23 / 705
24-35 / 710
36-47 / 715
48+ / 720
Consequently, while the higher skill caps rewarded veteran players nicely, it also had the effect of creating a new market for veteran accounts. Anyone could buy a 4+ year old UO account from someone else quitting UO and be able to start anew with the max skill cap.
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Goblin Squad Member
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There is nothing wrong with skill decay in theory - I think what people are debating is the implementations.
The way I understood it to work as initially discussed would be more along the lines of you have to constantly use the skills you want to be good in - but time not logged in wouldn't count against that.
It just means that you can't maintain every skill in the game at the highest level - you only maintain what you actually use. So, if you decide to stop sword fighting and instead start being a blacksmith, your sword fighting skill would degrade as your blacksmithing went up.
It would make it a lot more fun for the casual player to be able to always be a good sword fighter when s/he logged in as opposed to only the person who devotes 20 hours a week to the game and maxes out every skill.
I think the point of skill decay is actually to give the casual player a chance to compete in some areas.