Request: Skill Training Through Usage


Pathfinder Online

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Goblinworks Executive Founder

Marou_ wrote:
Kalmyel Stedwethren wrote:

The last I checked, nothing had been said one way or the other about this, and it may well be possible to chop and change between in-progress skills with no difficulty. Obviously, it would delay reaching the threshold of whichever skills you put on hold, but otherwise there's no difference aside from what you're doing while the fletching skill is being trained.

Or am I misunderstanding you?

No, you are understanding me correctly, the issue is part psychological and part related to how time-based training works in Eve, and this.

If you play with your friends in X settlement and want your character to meaningfully contribute say, smithing at level 7 profiency; you will likely chart out a plan to navigate through the skill paths to get you to where you want to be, smithing the things the settlements needs that require skill level 7, perhaps a new structure the settlement plans to begin construction on that day.

You know that under your plan, if you logged in only to requeue skills you'd be ready by Wednesday.

If you had a few extra hours to play on Sunday but didn't feel like doing things related to smithing, you can't advance any of those other activities or you will not achieve the goal you actually care about on Wednesday.

In a game with player driven advancement those extra few hours spent messing around would do nothing but help your character. In a game with time-based advancement they don't. They either set back your primary goal, or provide no advantage. It's fine for things to provide zero advantage, but if they do provide zero advantage the mechanics behind them have to be VERY FUN or how would they entertain you.

Opportunity cost comes into play when you want to dabble in Eve, it shouldn't, I dislike it, I consider it a problem with the system. That's the crux of my complaint with purely time-based advancement.

I find the assertion "I want to do a little bit of this and that freely." incompatible with the assertion "My goal is to focus on one thing." Do you want to fly subcaps as soon as possible, or do you want to play around with scouts a little bit in the meantime? Do you want to spend a few hours unlocking a combat skill to play around with on Sunday, or finish smithing 7 by Wednesday? Those are important choices with long-lasting effects, a staple of sandboxes.

Opportunity cost comes with any system which has progression- time you spend grinding craft skills is time that you aren't spending grinding some other skill, even when grinding is active rather than passive.

And not everybody measures entertainment by how much a number increases.


DeciusBrutus wrote:

I find the assertion "I want to do a little bit of this and that freely." incompatible with the assertion "My goal is to focus on one thing." Do you want to fly subcaps as soon as possible, or do you want to play around with scouts a little bit in the meantime? Do you want to spend a few hours unlocking a combat skill to play around with on Sunday, or finish smithing 7 by Wednesday? Those are important choices with long-lasting effects, a staple of sandboxes.

Opportunity cost comes with any system which has progression- time you spend grinding craft skills is time that you aren't spending grinding some other skill, even when grinding is active rather than passive.

And not everybody measures entertainment by how much a number increases.

That's missing the point I think. I have certain things I would like to accomplish in certain time frames, usually for social reasons. In a player-centric advancement system if I had an extra 4 hours to game on Saturday I could use that to reach my goal quicker, or I could dabble in whatever I wanted without impacting my long term goals.

That freedom to play at the pace that suits you is hampered by time-based advancement in that you are are forced to adjust or sacrifice long term goals on the plate of short term diversions.

That's way too much deep thinking to engage in merely to splash some skills and try other activities. It doesn't feel very game-like, it feels like project planning on a work endeavor. As a result the natural impulse in such situations is to just log back off and play something more "fun" and that doesn't feel as if it's penalizing you for wanting to engage in a variety of activities.

Goblin Squad Member

Scarlette wrote:

Bad example, nobody will even have 2 capstones

Valkenr wrote:
No-one has said we won't be able to have more than one capstone, and no one has corrected us when we say so.

From the "Your Pathfinder Online Character" thread, we pretty clearly can have more than one:

Ryan Dancey wrote:
I'm reading along. So far I haven't seen anything that I felt needed to be corrected. I guess the question of "can you have more than one capstone" is "yes", you just have to do 20 levels in series instead of parallel in more than one archetype.

Goblin Squad Member

@Scarlette, I posted this in the other thread too.

Ryan Dancey cleared it up in a post.

Ryan Dancey wrote:
I guess the question of "can you have more than one capstone" is "yes", you just have to do 20 levels in series instead of parallel in more than one archetype.

Goblin Squad Member

Marou_ wrote:
... if I had an extra 4 hours to game on Saturday I could use that to reach my goal quicker...

The opposite is also true. If you had planned out your advancement in a "player-centric advancement system" (I'll use your phrase) that would accomplish your goals by Wednesday, but then find that you have 4 fewer hours to play, then you would reach your goal more slowly.

Or, let's consider the case where you actually get to play the amount of time you expected to be able to play. In order to achieve your goal, you must spend all of your play-time grinding through blacksmithing to get to 7 by Wednesday. If you wanted to spend a little of your time running a dungeon with some friends, then you would again reach your goal more slowly.

PFO-style progression allows you to do whatever you want to do, every single time you log on.

Goblin Squad Member

Marou_, if skill-training through usage isn't on the table, and I'm making an assumption here, then can you (or anyone else really) think of a compromise wherein your concerns are alleviated, and the core mechanic isn't unbalanced?

There's a lot of pros and cons to all these ideas, I think it would be beneficial if we could look for a theoretical middle ground.

Goblin Squad Member

Marou_ wrote:
That freedom to play at the pace that suits you is hampered by time-based advancement in that you are are forced to adjust or sacrifice long term goals on the plate of short term diversions.

It can also be said of use-based advancement that "you are are forced to adjust or sacrifice long term goals on the plate of short term diversions". The only difference is that, with use-based systems, most players don't actually calculate out much time it's going to take to accomplish their specific goal. They just hunker down and start clicking/grinding.

I realize that speaks to your argument about the psychology of the whole thing, and that is a valid argument, and one that I hope GW spends a lot of effort working on.

But there's a psychology argument to be made on the other side as well: When I sit down to play my game, I want to have fun. Making 100 Copper Swords is not fun. It's tedious, and I hate it. It doesn't matter whether I click "Make All" and walk away to watch something on TV a la LOTRO or WoW, or whether I have to actively participate and respond to challenges a la Vanguard. Either was is maddeningly frustrating, and directly interferes with my ability to play the game.


Nihimon wrote:
But there's a psychology argument to be made on the other side as well: When I sit down to play my game, I want to have fun. Making 100 Copper Swords is not fun. It's tedious, and I hate it. It doesn't matter whether I click "Make All" and walk away to watch something on TV a la LOTRO or WoW, or whether I have to actively participate and respond to challenges a la Vanguard. Either was is maddeningly frustrating, and directly interferes with my ability to play the game.

That's the thing though. You don't usually craft 100 copper swords on one sitting. You control the pace of the progression. You decide whether you want to advance more quickly or more slowly. If things get boring, you just stop crafting and go on an adventure or something.

On a real-time training system, it frankly becomes a drag having to pause skills then queue new skills, then pause again, etc. etc. The "use to advance" system provides greater flexibility for people who want to control the pace of their gameplay with more freedom and immediacy.

Goblin Squad Member

stealthbr wrote:
That's the thing though. You don't usually craft 100 copper swords on one sitting. You control the pace of the progression. You decide whether you want to advance more quickly or more slowly.

In the games that I've played that had such skill systems, the system basically required players to create massive numbers of items to advance their crafting skills, or fire off massive number of spells to advance a magic skill. So people do exactly what the game requires: they craft straight through or until they run out of materials. Or they give up, or they "get creative".

In the blog entry this was considered a big downside to that character advancement method. I don't think that this thread has answered the implied question yet: how does a "use to advance" system get over that downside, and how does it limit character advancement to level 20 to not less than 30 months? I read the 2-1/2 years to capstone as a pretty solid target for the design team.


Urman wrote:
<snip>

True. In an online scenario, competition leads to exploitation and exploitation leads to disappointment or conformity. I'll do some brainstorming and see if I can come up with an idea to counter this issue.

Goblin Squad Member

There's another side as well that wasn't discussed in the blog. The massive numbers of items some skill systems require has a big impact on the player economy. The crafters have to make way more items than the market could possibly bear, which pretty much destroys their ability to cover costs. If they can't cover costs, then crafting is a hobby for adventurers, not a possible profession to be pursued on its own.


I'd like to suggest that it might be possible for the two sides of this debate (skill training through usage versus skill training on an out of game timer) to both be satisfied, simultaneously.

Consider, if you would, a blending of the two systems: One in which training a skill had a default timer that decreased, regardless of what you were doing and where you were, based on the time since you queued the training, but actions you took while you were in game could cause that timer to elapse at a faster rate (similar to the rested bonus someone else brought up).

For instance, a wizard is training up his evocation skill. This would take him two weeks normally, and he can, if he chooses, just wait for those two weeks to pass. But when he is logged into the game, and his character casts valid evocation spells (ie, targeting an enemy of equal or greater power) while that training is ongoing, every second that is spent casting those spells removes 1.5 seconds from the training timer. If he plays every moment of that time casting spells that are appropriate, he could reach his goal in 1 and a third weeks, instead of two.

Such a system would provide an encouragement for people who are choosing to train a skill to actively make use of it within the game, regardless of the other options they might have available, while not actually penalizing anyone who chooses not to.

Goblin Squad Member

DreamAtelier, I like where you're going with that, but what about social/company/nation skills and perhaps exploration/logistics skills?

Goblinworks Executive Founder

I have a different idea for a hybrid system: Require both the timed progression and some amount of in-play activity to open up new avenues. All of the tier-0 stuff (picking corn) should be available from the start, and tier-1 stuff (making simple weapons) should be available with only practice using tier-0 abilities (smelting ore into pure metals). tier-2 stuff (making martial weapons, building a farm) would require timed training (which could be completed any time) and some amount of practice doing tier-1 stuff.

At no point should the 'grind-like' requirements be economically nonviable. The economy might need to be tweaked to ensure that is the case- megafarms should compete with small farms, not put them entirely out of business.

Goblin Squad Member

GW wrote:
Of course, if you decide that it would be more interesting or fun for your character to training in the skills of more than one archetype, you'll still earn the appropriate class-type bonuses when you meet the prerequisites—you just won't be eligible for the final special capstone ability when you achieve the 20th merit badge in that archetype.

Direct quote from GW... YOU WONT BE ELEGIBLE FOR THE FINAL SPECAIL CAPSTONE ABILITY WHEN YOU RECIEVE THE 20TH MERIT BADGE IN THAT ARCHTYPE. Can't see how much clearer it can be. Go back and read it, "your pathfinder online character" the paragraph above reaching 20th level.

@Nihimon

Yes after reading that post I do stand corrected. But reading the blog made it real plan you could only have one capstone. So now we can have a character that is everything, why have classes at all ?

Goblin Squad Member

So, as per my same concern with more "abstract" skills, someone could get to level 2 in "Chartered-Company Management", and then to progress to level 3 and be able to make a larger Company, they would first have to make a Company?

Is there any benefit to being actively practicing the skill, in regards to the time required, to reach level-3 in this system? So far what you're describing reminds me of the merit-badges mentioned in GW's blogs.

Goblin Squad Member

I can really see both sides of this argument. I know in EVE it was very off-putting to look at my training and know it would be 3 months until I can fly that ship I want to or something no matter what I do. A lot of times it makes you feel like there is no point to logging in.

On the other hand it is nice that whenever you log in, you do what you want to be doing, instead of grinding so you can get the level you want in order to do what you actually want to be doing.

I think the first model is more true to D&D. I remember one campaign I played where it was just a small three man campaign. Two of us were paladins with high diplomacy checks and we literally talked our way through the entire campaign up to the final fight.

We weren't out grinding on mobs, we were following the storyline and getting things done. It was a lot fun. I think one of the highlights of my D&D experience was walking up to a Gold Dragon as a Paladin of Bahumat/Dragon Rider/Chosen of Bahumat with maxed diplomacy for my level and getting a 20 on a diplomacy check with him. All of a sudden we had an army of dragon allies. XD

I want my decisions to be driven by "What would my character do?" and not "What will give me the most XP?" Sometimes RPing is just a hell of a lot more fun that finding every possible opportunity to kill anything you can.

Goblin Squad Member

@Scarlette, there has been a lot of discussion of that very question.

The only thing I can say that might make it easier to accept is that, if it's going to take 2.5 years to get one capstone, then it's going to take between 25 and 30 years to get 11 (one for each Adventuring Archetype). That's not even considering any crafting skills. And what do you think the chances are that in the next 25 years there might be a new Archetype or two added to the game? Or maybe even some new levels tacked on to the end of existing Archetypes, that bring the time to "cap" that Archetype up another 2 years or so?

While it's theoretically possible that a single character can do everything, in reality it's not going to happen.

Goblin Squad Member

DeciusBrutus wrote:
I have a different idea for a hybrid system: Require both the timed progression and some amount of in-play activity to open up new avenues.

I had this same general thought, and then realized that the Merit Badges are the "in-play activity" requirement. Or, at least, they can be.

I suppose it would be helpful for us to tell GW the kinds of things we'd like the Merit Badges to require, and give them a sense of the amount of "grindiness" we consider to be "about right".

Goblinworks Executive Founder

Nihimon wrote:
DeciusBrutus wrote:
I have a different idea for a hybrid system: Require both the timed progression and some amount of in-play activity to open up new avenues.

I had this same general thought, and then realized that the Merit Badges are the "in-play activity" requirement. Or, at least, they can be.

I suppose it would be helpful for us to tell GW the kinds of things we'd like the Merit Badges to require, and give them a sense of the amount of "grindiness" we consider to be "about right".

I did write that to basically describe how I saw the system-as-described working in practice.

Personally, I would disagree with the DCUO model: Performing 'feats' (achievements such as "explore this area" "win 10 consecutive rounds of PvP" "Complete this instance within this time") grant different amount of skill points (from 1/10 to 1/2, depending on the feat). Skill points can be spent on any skill, many of which provide no benefit other than "+x to a stat".

It's the last part that is the worst: Merit Badges should unlock abilities which are relevant to the badge, not player-selected abilities. Someone who has completed only all the exploration and stealth badges should not be able to do the same things as someone who completed the gathering and combat badges.

As for the grindy aspect, I'd want roughly half the badges to be endurance-based (defeat 200 total orcs) and half of them to be accomplishment based (kill an orc in one hit). Ideally, the endurance portion would help provide the player knowledge used to complete the accomplishment portion.


I have to step back into this discussion even though I've already articulated my points to my satisfaction because my wife said some interesting things this morning after she finished swearing; when I told her Pathfinder was using an Eve-like skill based advancement system.

Random comments from her:

-Quite honestly, I don't ever want to wait 1, 2, 4+ days to level a skill.
-I don't want to ever be hampered by specializations that prevent other gameplay. There is nothing fun (for me) being stuck to the same thing everytime I log in
-Or having to wait DAYS to do something I wanted to do, it is not sandbox where you can do whatever you want if it's completely unrealistic to do other things simply because you didn't take those skills
-Which just tells me when we get to play, it will only be fun in very short bursts, like Eve.
-Why use the Pathfinder name on a system that bears only passing resemblance to it?
- Another point that makes me unhappy, is the letting in of only so many at a time, thus giving everyone at the beginning a permanent head start

Her comment about it not really being a sandbox struck a chord with me. How fun would minecraft be if you had to wait days of realtime to move up to mining different types of blocks. Or, if you killed monsters and explored for 2 days you could not build a house without waiting 2 more days?

If you look at some of the player statistics Eve has released over time the vast majority of their playerbase never leaves empire space. So, basically they built a sandbox only a small fraction of their playerbase can or is willing to participate in.

How many people *here* that have played Eve have run a POS in nullsec, or piloted a Titan? My guess is, none, because out of all the people that have played Eve there are only a few hundred or a few thousand that actually have.

How interesting would the player run aspects of Eve be if the majority of the playerbase were actually participants in it? If the barriers of entry to activities were not time based?

How fun does it sound to be the functional equivalent of a level 1-5 character for 5 months? Then knowing that when you hit level 5 it would take you a 5 more months to get to the same tier of content in crafting, or gathering?

I guess I fundamentally don't understand in what way gating access to the sandbox elements of the game, where player politics, creativity, and competition will keep the game fresh is beneficial to it's success. It wouldn't have helped Minecraft at all, certainly.

Which brings me to my final thought, does Eve FEEL like an RPG to anyone here? It never felt like one to me. Instead it feels like a simulation that charges immense prices in time and money to access the most interesting aspects.

Goblin Squad Member

Marou_ wrote:
How fun would minecraft be if you had to wait days of realtime to move up to mining different types of blocks.

Is it really more fun to mine the same type of block for "days of realtime to move up to mining different types of blocks"?

I'll ask again, what makes you so absolutely certain that the real time required to train a particular skill (at least in the relatively early phases) is going to be any different than the developer-defined time targets for use-based advancement from other games?

I'll admit that I believe there's a high probability that the later phases of skills will probably take significantly more time than the use-based systems usually target, but that's not what we're talking about. All of your examples have been about the barriers to dabbling in something new.


Nihimon wrote:
Marou_ wrote:
How fun would minecraft be if you had to wait days of realtime to move up to mining different types of blocks.

Is it really more fun to mine the same type of block for "days of realtime to move up to mining different types of blocks"?

I'll ask again, what makes you so absolutely certain that the real time required to train a particular skill (at least in the relatively early phases) is going to be any different than the developer-defined time targets for use-based advancement from other games?

I'll admit that I believe there's a high probability that the later phases of skills will probably take significantly more time than the use-based systems usually target, but that's not what we're talking about. All of your examples have been about the barriers to dabbling in something new.

It wouldn't be fun in either case, which was her point. If you look at Asheron's Call it was relatively quick to get to a point where you were competitive enough to do things which was about level 60. However, that game (which was skill based) had no level cap. In theory you could be level 200, you just started getting rather large diminishing returns on what a level gave you, and ever increasing amounts of time needed to gain new ones.

Heck, alot of muds did the same thing, where you could multi-class (each subsequent one took more and more xp) when you finished your first class and eventually be a "hero" that was capped in many classes. However, the hps and mana of that hero weren't different from any other level capped toon, they just had a ridiculous amount of options in combat.

Goblinworks Executive Founder

Marou_ wrote:
Nihimon wrote:
Marou_ wrote:
How fun would minecraft be if you had to wait days of realtime to move up to mining different types of blocks.

Is it really more fun to mine the same type of block for "days of realtime to move up to mining different types of blocks"?

I'll ask again, what makes you so absolutely certain that the real time required to train a particular skill (at least in the relatively early phases) is going to be any different than the developer-defined time targets for use-based advancement from other games?

I'll admit that I believe there's a high probability that the later phases of skills will probably take significantly more time than the use-based systems usually target, but that's not what we're talking about. All of your examples have been about the barriers to dabbling in something new.

It wouldn't be fun in either case, which was her point. If you look at Asheron's Call it was relatively quick to get to a point where you were competitive enough to do things which was about level 60. However, that game (which was skill based) had no level cap. In theory you could be level 200, you just started getting rather large diminishing returns on what a level gave you, and ever increasing amounts of time needed to gain new ones.

Heck, alot of muds did the same thing, where you could multi-class (each subsequent one took more and more xp) when you finished your first class and eventually be a "hero" that was capped in many classes. However, the hps and mana of that hero weren't different from any other level capped toon, they just had a ridiculous amount of options in combat.

Other than being able to reach a cap, how does that differ from the effect of time-based progression as described in the blog? Assume that there is something insteresting* to do at every tier, including tier 0, for at least an amount of time proportional to the time it takes to train the next level of the skill.

*For the sake of this discussion, SWG's surveying counts as interesting, but just barely.


DeciusBrutus wrote:

Other than being able to reach a cap, how does that differ from the effect of time-based progression as described in the blog? Assume that there is something insteresting* to do at every tier, including tier 0, for at least an amount of time proportional to the time it takes to train the next level of the skill.

*For the sake of this...

Because the blog described Eve and nothing I've heard from the creators disagrees with that assessment, which is the opposite of a game accessible to most people. Not only are your range of activities time unlocked but the gear you can use and everything else too.

In that type of system with the type of curve Ryan described (2.5 years to capstone). If you invested 5 months of REAL TIME to moving towards that capstone, it would take you another 5 months of REAL TIME to get your character to the same level of content doing something else.

Assuming you've played other MMO's of any variety you know after 5 months of real time you're probably farting around on alts, and doing all types of other activities while you also work on improving your (probably already level capped) main character. You're basically able to access at some level all of the content in the game. If it's a game with good sandbox styled PvP you may spend all your time on the main, but those are few and far between.

If you want those options in Eve you have to buy a subscription to progress the training on seperate characters in all of those areas you might want to try out. Else, you need to have played for SO LONG that you have all that stuff open to you on the one character. It's perverse, it's by far the least attractive aspect of the mentioned plans to me. To the extent that while I will definitely follow the game and play it sporadically, I know it won't be my main MMO.

The guys who controlled nullsec in eve the first several years of it's release were power-gamers with 3+ accounts dedicated to different builds/activities and corps so large and huge that'd it'd be impossible to know most of the people in them. Pathfinder following in those footsteps is highly unattractive *to me*.

Goblinworks Executive Founder

So, you want to be a one-character settlement? Able to do everything within 5 months?
Or am I misreading you?


DeciusBrutus wrote:

So, you want to be a one-character settlement? Able to do everything within 5 months?

Or am I misreading you?

You are misreading me, I want a sandbox where I can do many different things. Not a sandbox where I can unlock doing many different things if I either pay $50 a month in subscriptions (to simultaneously progress multiple builds) or stay subbed for long periods of time while new stuff trains up after I tire of what I'm currently doing.

I like alts, I like trying new things. Time based advancement and the incentive you have in "sticking with" certain activities when months or years of real time have passed improving them vastly limits a game's ability to hold my interest.

Maybe you disagree in theory, but do you in reality? Have you piloted titans in Eve, or something most similar such as progressing to level cap in Lineage 2 (which takes years of grinding investment).

Goblin Squad Member

Marou_ wrote:
It wouldn't be fun in either case...

So how about if instead of needing to run around clicking nodes of copper for 2 hours, you just had to train a 2 hour skill? Is that really so bad?

Marou_ wrote:
If you invested 5 months of REAL TIME to moving towards that capstone, it would take you another 5 months of REAL TIME to get your character to the same level of content doing something else.

I think this is a fundamental misreading of what PFO will be like, and may be the key to why you're so uncomfortable with time-based progression in PFO.

From everything Ryan and Vic have said, reaching Capstone will not make you radically more powerful, it will just give you a much greater variety of options. So, the idea that you're spending 5 months progressing a single facet of gameplay is not realistic. That 5 months will actually be spent training a very broad variety of skills that will give you many options. It simply won't take another 5 months to get "as good" at one other thing.


Nihimon wrote:
Marou_ wrote:
It wouldn't be fun in either case...

So how about if instead of needing to run around clicking nodes of copper for 2 hours, you just had to train a 2 hour skill? Is that really so bad?

Marou_ wrote:
If you invested 5 months of REAL TIME to moving towards that capstone, it would take you another 5 months of REAL TIME to get your character to the same level of content doing something else.

I think this is a fundamental misreading of what PFO will be like, and may be the key to why you're so uncomfortable with time-based progression in PFO.

From everything Ryan and Vic have said, reaching Capstone will not make you radically more powerful, it will just give you a much greater variety of options. So, the idea that you're spending 5 months progressing a single facet of gameplay is not realistic. That 5 months will actually be spent training a very broad variety of skills that will give you many options. It won't take another 5 months to get "as good" at one other thing.

"So, the idea that you're spending 5 months progressing a single facet of gameplay is not realistic."

I think were that true Ryan instead of jumping in to tell me I was playing Eve wrong, would have told me they weren't making fantasy Eve. In Eve, the most efficient route to join and be effective in the sandbox part of the game is to advance one facet of gameplay for months.

Goblinworks Executive Founder

Marou_ wrote:
DeciusBrutus wrote:

So, you want to be a one-character settlement? Able to do everything within 5 months?

Or am I misreading you?

You are misreading me, I want a sandbox where I can do many different things. Not a sandbox where I can unlock doing many different things if I either pay $50 a month in subscriptions (to simultaneously progress multiple builds) or stay subbed for long periods of time while new stuff trains up after I tire of what I'm currently doing.

I like alts, I like trying new things. Time based advancement and the incentive you have in "sticking with" certain activities when months or years of real time have passed improving them vastly limits a game's ability to hold my interest.

Maybe you disagree in theory, but do you in reality? Have you piloted titans in Eve, or something most similar such as progressing to level cap in Lineage 2 (which takes years of grinding investment).

So, given that there is something insteresting to do at tier 0 (no skill points) you have no objection to the system as proposed?

I'm trying to establish exactly what your objection is, so as to develop a proposal which may or may not influence the designers.

Goblin Squad Member

Nihimon wrote:
... the idea that you're spending 5 months progressing a single facet of gameplay is not realistic.

Given the example that you used before, about Grognak wanting to make arrows, my point is that it's not going to be likely that he'll have to wait 5 months to be able to make arrows with the same efficiency that he can currently guard caravans.


DeciusBrutus wrote:


So, given that there is something insteresting to do at tier 0 (no skill points) you have no objection to the system as proposed?

I'm trying to establish exactly what your objection is, so as to develop a proposal which may or may not influence the designers.

Well, let's quantify what makes something fun. Going back to Eve since many of the systems proposed mimic it. Trading, production, exploring, killing npc ships, killing player ships, all of these CAN be fun.

However, if you invested 5 months of real time into killing ships, the level of trading, production, etc you are able to engage in is so vastly less profitable that it sucks the fun out.

Eg, doing a trading run that takes 2 hours in a sub-par hauling ship and earning 200-300k sucks compared to blowing up one ship and netting millions in salvage and components. The fundamental *gameplay* aspects of those other things are not fun enough to make them enjoyable to do when they are vastly less productive to do than the thing you specialized for initially.

/edit: In a normal advancement system the fact that you were visibly and reasonably improving the return on those activities through usage offsets the lack of monetary gain.

Goblin Squad Member

Marou_ wrote:
If you look at some of the player statistics Eve has released over time the vast majority of their playerbase never leaves empire space. So, basically they built a sandbox only a small fraction of their playerbase can or is willing to participate in.

I wondered if those stats were out there and if GW was considering them. In WoW and like games, servers are mostly PvE; a small fraction are PvP. I'd think that a lot of players will hold close to the NPC settlements here in the same way.

Goblin Squad Member

Urman wrote:
I'd think that a lot of players will hold close to the NPC settlements here...

I imagine the actual effect will be that players will yield to the very strong incentives to socialize, and will venture out into wilder lands, but more often than not in sufficient force to deter attack.

Goblinworks Executive Founder

Marou_ wrote:
DeciusBrutus wrote:


So, given that there is something insteresting to do at tier 0 (no skill points) you have no objection to the system as proposed?

I'm trying to establish exactly what your objection is, so as to develop a proposal which may or may not influence the designers.

Well, let's quantify what makes something fun. Going back to Eve since many of the systems proposed mimic it. Trading, production, exploring, killing npc ships, killing player ships, all of these CAN be fun.

However, if you invested 5 months of real time into killing ships, the level of trading, production, etc you are able to engage in is so vastly less profitable that it sucks the fun out.

Eg, doing a trading run that takes 2 hours in a sub-par hauling ship and earning 200-300k sucks compared to blowing up one ship and netting millions in salvage and components. The fundamental *gameplay* aspects of those other things are not fun enough to make them enjoyable to do when they are vastly less productive to do than the thing you specialized for initially.

/edit: In a normal advancement system the fact that were visibly and reasonably improving the return on those activities through usage offsets the lack of monetary gain.

Is trading fun, or is being profitable fun? Is blowing up ships fun, or is selling the salvage fun?

You choose whether to get better at salvaging ships or at trading. In a traditional system, time spent doing the trade activity is time not spent doing the combat activity, and thus points not earned in combat. How is that different from skill points being spent in trade rather than spent in combat? If the only fun activity is flying titans, why would you ever do anything else? If the highest definite integral of fun with respect to time involves a mixture of fighting and trading, why doesn't the skill distribution follow suit?

Sorry about bringing calculus into a video game discussion, but I am under the impression that EVE players in general have to be at least a little mathy.


DeciusBrutus wrote:


You choose whether to get better at salvaging ships or at trading. In a traditional system, time spent doing the trade activity is time not spent doing the combat activity, and thus points not earned in combat. How is that different from skill points being spent in trade rather than spent in combat? If the only fun activity is flying titans, why would you ever do anything else? If the highest definite integral of fun with respect to time involves a mixture of fighting and trading, why doesn't the skill distribution follow suit?

Sorry about bringing calculus into a video game discussion, but I am under the impression that EVE players in general have to be at...

Because usage based systems often have random elements, and I'm not acutely aware of the time loss, instead I'm immersed in the game. I can't put a price tag and timer on it and say, "It'll cost me $60 real dollars and 5 real months to make this activity as worthwhile as what I'm doing right now." Meaning unless the activity is insanely more "fun" than what I was doing before, it's a waste of time.

If my objective is to protect caravans passing through ogre country, and I can be there by next month in a regular advancement system playing my regular hours; suddenly having extra free time means I can dabble without impacting my goals.

In a time based system I must sacrifice my goals while not seeing any tangible benefit for doing so for months of real time.

I think I've said the same thing at least 5 times now, I'm not sure how I could better convey the difference.

Goblin Squad Member

Marou_ wrote:
In a time based system I must sacrifice my goals while not seeing any tangible benefit for doing so for months of real time.

Again, I think that's a fundamental misreading of what's been described so far.


Nihimon wrote:
Marou_ wrote:
In a time based system I must sacrifice my goals while not seeing any tangible benefit for doing so for months of real time.

Again, I think that's a fundamental misreading of what's been described so far.

Have you played Eve would be my question? If not, you should do so as it sheds light on many of the problems with the system. You as a new player would see them. My original character doesn't have these problems because he sat on his arse passively training for over a year in a myriad of activities while I was doing a ridiculous contract with a hedge fund.

The one I rolled with my wife to make her want to play the game made me hate the system of advancement.

The new player experience in Eve, quite frankly, sucks. If the overly complex UI doesn't drive someone away the time based overly complex advancement system does.

Goblin Squad Member

I have played Eve, and the reason I quit had more to do with my not being ready for open PvP at the time.

But even then, PFO will not be Eve. I keep coming back to the example you gave with Grognak wanting to make arrows. And I remain convinced that it won't take significantly more time to "dabble" in that in PFO than it would in any other game.

However, it almost certainly will be true that if you spend 5 months leveling up as a Barbarian, then it probably will take 5 more months to be "as effective" as a Wizard. Does that bother you?


Nihimon wrote:


However, it almost certainly will be true that if you spend 5 months leveling up as a Barbarian, then it probably will take 5 more months to be "as effective" as a Wizard. Does that bother you?

Yes, it does, just not nearly as much as non-combat diversity within a combat centric character.

It bothers me because all of my knowledge, the fact that I know what I'm doing, and that I'm already established financially should make it easier to rear a wizard. Instead, it doesn't, which means as a player what I'm doing is not meaningfully contributing to my rate of advancement.

At the heart of the issue is that if you've been through tier 0 content and it took 2 months, you don't want to go back to tier 0 content for 2 months.

/edit: What bothers me more that's not even in Eve, but is planned to be in PFO, is that if I even wanted to try that after 5 months because I was tired of smashing heads, I'd have make a new character and let the barbarian just lie there as a dead alt or I'd never get my capstone. Which means if I spent 5 months raising non-combat skills, and 5 months raising barbarian skills, I'd actually be losing 15 months of training to gain half the versatility of action as an equal level wizard.

Goblin Squad Member

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Pathfinder is not going to be your run-of-the-mill MMO. Between WoW and now TOR, everyone is used to instant gratification and the market has been numbed to a disappointing level.

Most MMO's can have you at max level within a month. DCUO was a 17 game hour mission grind. TOR is a 2 week semi-casual mission grind. I never played WoW so I have no input there.

From what I understand, PFO is not going to be a 'leveling' game. It is going to be a 'content' game. If you are pure focusing one skill to the max, you are probably going to run into some time gap issues. In EvE i was trying to get my ship capabilities up fast, and eventually it told me there was a 60 day training period. I could wait the 60 days, or start diversifying in other areas that could help me. Other than that, there was never a skill that took to long to train. The starting skills where quick an easy.

Too many inferences are being made. We have no idea how Ryan is going to space out the training. We do know that the game is going to have real-time progression, two months after the announcement there are only a few voices that are against the system and pretty much everyone else is excited for the system. So lets move the discussion to ways to make it more enjoyable.

One thing I may suggest is giving the player 'training points' instead of making us always log in and select a path. Have training points be at a static rate, and our attributes determine the amount of points it takes to train a skill. This way if you are unable to get onto the game, lets say you are deployed by the military, and you keep your subscription running, you will have 8 months of skill points ready to use when you get back.


Valkenr wrote:
Pathfinder is not going to be your run-of-the-mill MMO. Between WoW and now TOR, everyone is used to instant gratification and the market has been numbed to a disappointing level.

And a sandbox game that is was relatively easy for people to get into wouldn't be successful because? Oh wait...Minecraft.

Valkenr wrote:


Most MMO's can have you at max level within a month. DCUO was a 17 game hour mission grind. TOR is a 2 week semi-casual mission grind. I never played WoW so I have no input there.

In TOR and WoW at least, the brunt of the content is at the end. Leveling is "training" to learn your class and prepare for that point. If you like PvP the compelling content in PFO is the sandbox player run areas. The accessibility of those areas 3-4 years after launch will be far less than it is at launch.

Valkenr wrote:


From what I understand, PFO is not going to be a 'leveling' game. It is going to be a 'content' game. If you are pure focusing one skill to the max, you are probably going to run into some time gap issues. In EvE i was trying to get my ship capabilities up fast, and eventually it told me there was a 60 day training period. I could wait the 60 days, or start diversifying in other areas that could help me. Other than that, there was never a skill that took to long to train. The starting skills where quick an easy.

This doesn't really address any points made. In an earlier example losing 15 months of real time to get a wizard to an equal power level with narrower content options than your current barbarian is by far more hardcore than any game that has ever been released.

Valkenr wrote:


Too many inferences are being made. We have no idea how Ryan is going to space out the training. We do know that the game is going to have real-time progression, two months after the announcement there are only a few voices that are against the system and pretty much everyone else is excited for the system. So lets move the discussion to ways to make it more enjoyable.

His comments that I was playing Eve wrong don't inspire confidence that the PFO system will be different in fundamental ways.

Valkenr wrote:


One thing I may suggest is giving the player 'training points' instead of making us always log in and select a path. Have training points be at a static rate, and our attributes determine the amount of points it takes to train a skill. This way if you are unable to get onto the game, lets say you are deployed by the military, and you keep your subscription running, you will have 8 months of skill points ready to use when you get back.

This is a reasonable suggestion and I don't know why it wouldn't be implemented. I probably lost a good 2 weeks of training time on my aforementioned Eve character where I might not get on to queue up more skills when I wanted to.

--------------------------------------

At the end of the day games are played for fun. Restrictions like disabling capstone for characters that diversify (which is to get you to pay for 2 subs at once), and not allowing characters to utilize existing progress to springboard new activities to viability; discourage experimentation and "play".

If you aren't "playing around" you're working. If you're working and meticulously planning everything because the penalty for not doing so is wasted money and real time, you're probably not having fun. At least not the way I prefer to.

When I game I like to leave spreadsheets, deadlines, and schedules behind at the job. I want to forget time and be immersed in what I am doing. Putting fixed dates on all my progress and discouraging experimentation through penalties leave me in an unhappy position.

Of the 30 or so people I've been gaming with and posting (on another forum with) since the DAoC/UO days, all have played Eve, and none play Eve. We had a large discussion one day about why. The ultra-hardcore nature of the game in many ways tied to it's realtime progression was the number one reason.

Goblinworks Executive Founder

Marou_ wrote:
DeciusBrutus wrote:


You choose whether to get better at salvaging ships or at trading. In a traditional system, time spent doing the trade activity is time not spent doing the combat activity, and thus points not earned in combat. How is that different from skill points being spent in trade rather than spent in combat? If the only fun activity is flying titans, why would you ever do anything else? If the highest definite integral of fun with respect to time involves a mixture of fighting and trading, why doesn't the skill distribution follow suit?

Sorry about bringing calculus into a video game discussion, but I am under the impression that EVE players in general have to be at...

Because usage based systems often have random elements, and I'm not acutely aware of the time loss, instead I'm immersed in the game. I can't put a price tag and timer on it and say, "It'll cost me $60 real dollars and 5 real months to make this activity as worthwhile as what I'm doing right now." Meaning unless the activity is insanely more "fun" than what I was doing before, it's a waste of time.

If my objective is to protect caravans passing through ogre country, and I can be there by next month in a regular advancement system playing my regular hours; suddenly having extra free time means I can dabble without impacting my goals.

In a time based system I must sacrifice my goals while not seeing any tangible benefit for doing so for months of real time.

I think I've said the same thing at least 5 times now, I'm not sure how I could better convey the difference.

You keep speaking of your goals as "things I want to be able to do by a set time in the future" not "things I can currently do that I want to accomplish this play session". Does that reflect how you want to approach them? Does that line of thinking effect how you actually play?

Goblin Squad Member

Marou_ wrote:
Valkenr wrote:


From what I understand, PFO is not going to be a 'leveling' game. It is going to be a 'content' game. If you are pure focusing one skill to the max, you are probably going to run into some time gap issues. In EvE i was trying to get my ship capabilities up fast, and eventually it told me there was a 60 day training period. I could wait the 60 days, or start diversifying in other areas that could help me. Other than that, there was never a skill that took to long to train. The starting skills where quick an easy.

This doesn't really address any points made. In an earlier example losing 15 months of real time to get a wizard to an equal power level with narrower content options than your current barbarian is by far more hardcore than any game that has ever been released.

It has been stated by Ryan and Vic that PFO will not be a time=power game. There will be a small hump to get over, but from then on it's a strategy game. You probably won't be able to stand against an equally skilled(personal player ability) character of the same class with more skills trained, but you will be able to stand against someone who simply has more time in the game but less skill.

Time != Power

Goblin Squad Member

I think what is really scaring some people here. Is like Marou's concern that you will be investing a ton of time into doing one thing.

In EVE it takes a couple months to get to be a really good miner. It takes a few months to specialize in logistics. It takes a few months to get really good at flying a battle cruiser/command ship with group buff modules. It takes a few months to specialize at using probes. It takes a few months to specialize in research in development. It takes a few months to specialize at trading.

My main was specialized in using a passive tanking drake. Some days I would log on and... all I really wanted to do was mine. However I could not mine efficiently enough for me to feel it was anything but a waste of time. So the direct EVE system SERIOUSLY limits what you can do. It isn't fun to only experience one aspect of the game at a time.

However if this works more like D&D where I wait my time, complete my achievement, and then I am granted a level and get to spread some skill points around... The game will be a MUCH more fulfilling experience for me. Then I can say "Oh goodie I get my level! I'll take this new archery feat, and these skills in tracking, and these skills in sneaking, and a couple points in logging and construction..."

That is perfectly acceptable to me. But I 100% agree with Marou, if we are waiting months for each individual thing we want to do it won't be fun. Every day you log into a sandbox you need options as to what you can do. Not just.. "Dammit I can't do anything but archery because I want to be competitive in PVP!!!"

Goblin Squad Member

Andius wrote:
... if this works more like D&D where I wait my time, complete my achievement, and then I am granted a level and get to spread some skill points around...

That's not what they're describing exactly, although it's close.

Instead of earning a level and then being granted skill points and feats, you'll instead have a specific list of skill requirements needed to earn your next Merit Badge (level) in your chosen Archetype.

Andius wrote:
In EVE it takes a couple months to get to be a really good miner. It takes a few months to specialize in logistics. It takes a few months to get really good at flying a battle cruiser/command ship with group buff modules. It takes a few months to specialize at using probes. It takes a few months to specialize in research in development. It takes a few months to specialize at trading.

I really don't expect PFO to be like that, although I could certainly be wrong; they really haven't given enough details to conclude with any certainty one way or the other.

But based on what they have said, my own expectations are that it will take a few months to get reasonably effective at being a Paladin, at which point I can be useful in a group of long-term players. It might take a few more months for me to then turn around and get reasonably effective as a Wizard, but most people probably aren't going to try to do that. I just simply can't imagine hitting that point where my Paladin is reasonably effective, deciding to train Blacksmithing, and thinking to myself: well, now there's no reason for me to play the game for 3 months. Inconceivable...

Yes, it's going to take a long time to max out your character, even in a single Archetype. That's a fact. Doesn't bother me. I'm hoping that the fact that character advancement is locked into skill training time will get the players to really buy into the adage "Life's a Journey, not a Destination".

Silver Crusade Goblin Squad Member

How is that different than any other game? Lets use The Old Republic as an example. If you created a trooper, played it to the mid 40s, and suddenly wanted to by throwing lightning like a sith, well, tough. Start the character, get learning the skills. No matter what the game is, *it takes time* to be able to do anything. The only thing PFO is doing differently is the length of time. They don't want to see people doing the race to endgame. There *is* no endgame here. If you want a game where you can do anything you want in two weeks or less, well, i'm sorry, that isn't this game. GoblinWorks has been clear: this is a niche game, and if its not your cup of tea, then that is unfortunate for you.


Alexander_Damocles wrote:
How is that different than any other game? Lets use The Old Republic as an example. If you created a trooper, played it to the mid 40s, and suddenly wanted to by throwing lightning like a sith, well, tough. Start the character, get learning the skills. No matter what the game is, *it takes time* to be able to do anything. The only thing PFO is doing differently is the length of time. They don't want to see people doing the race to endgame. There *is* no endgame here. If you want a game where you can do anything you want in two weeks or less, well, i'm sorry, that isn't this game. GoblinWorks has been clear: this is a niche game, and if its not your cup of tea, then that is unfortunate for you.

The difference is you didn't invest real life months or years getting your trooper to mid 40's. You probably invested like 3 weeks. Eg. Leveling to cap in this game is around 32X slower for a casual player, and probably 100X slower for a powergamer than a standard theme park deal. It's also not going to take you months to start throwing lightning, it's going to take you about 10 minutes.

Goblin Squad Member

Marou_ wrote:
Nihimon wrote:


However, it almost certainly will be true that if you spend 5 months leveling up as a Barbarian, then it probably will take 5 more months to be "as effective" as a Wizard. Does that bother you?
Yes, it does...

That really shuts me down. There's nothing I can say to that.

Marou_ wrote:
... just not nearly as much as non-combat diversity within a combat centric character.

I guess I see your concern, even if I don't share it.

I'm fairly confident there will be strong incentives to diversify to some degree just to earn the Merit Badges and "level up". Whether you choose to avoid diversifying into non-Archetype things, or you choose to focus solely on earning Merit Badges... well, that's your choice. I would imagine the only real incentive to do so will be that, at some point, taking a few days to learn a handful of skills to dabble at crafting just won't seem like that big of a deal, even if it does temporarily stop the 60-day skill you're training for your Archetype (if such a thing exists). At least, I imagine it won't seem like a big deal to me. Perception's a funny thing...

Goblin Squad Member

Marou_ wrote:
Leveling to cap in this game is around 32X slower for a casual player, and probably 100X slower for a powergamer than a standard theme park deal.

If that's the foundation of your complaint, then I don't think you're going to get much sympathy. For a lot of us, that's a feature, not a bug.

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