Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Now that the Kickstarter is done I'm going to put my moth where my money went. There are very few issues I feel really strongly about to the point of want to act like a goblin in library (lots of screaming and yelling an fire) but the equivalent of post 20 play is one of them.
From the GoblinWorks Blog
We also wanted to capture the idea from the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game that dedication to one path would have additional benefits. Therefore, if your character chooses to stay committed to one of these archetypes until it has achieved all 20 archetype merit badges, your character will earn an additional capstone ability! (A character can train in many other skills outside of their archetype skill tree and still progress towards the capstone ability—they just need to avoid training in the skill tree of a different archtype. Don't worry—if you accidentally start to train a skill tree outside your archetype, you'll be warned, the consequences will be explained, and you'll have a chance to change that decision before it's irrevocable!)
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.
Reaching 20th Level
It won't be easy or quick to reach the 20th-level capstone in an archetype. Some of the prerequistes for archetype merit badges will be hard to achieve and will require your character to succeed in some extraordinary adventures. In terms of sheer time, I'd like to see the first 20th-level characters emerge around two-and-a-half-years after launch. Capstone-level characters should be unique, powerful individuals not commonly encountered.
And of course, reaching the capstone doesn't mean your character has to retire—you can continue training the same character with a different archetype if you like.
• 2.5 years to reach "20"
• 20th level in a class has a Capstone power.
• Want to Capture the Pen and Paper RPG dedication to a class.
• EVE Model of time progressed skills.
Those are the facts we currently have.
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To keep this from being a totally personal rant and a legitimate discussion thread, I though it appropriate to open this up to thoughts and discussion looking at the long term of Pathfinder Online. Unlike the table-top game there is not currently a hard limit on character progression. The "20" level equivalent can be passed by a character. This means that in about 3 years after launch we will start seeing the first post-20 characters. This is a long time but we can be optimistic believe that Pathfinder Online will survive at least as long as EVE Online (coming up on 9 years and still going).
After that 3 year mark we have two issues that come up, the same as they do in the Pen and Paper game.
1) Power Scale
2) Class/Character Progression
Of the two Power Scaling is the biggest long term issue. It's an argument that continues to roll back and forth on the pen and paper side as to what "official" post-20 content should look like, if there is any at all. While Pathfinder RPG can get away with unofficial or 3rd party post-20 rules, Pathfinder Online cannot. The nature of the EVE-like skill system insures that any character played beyond 2.5 years has to be accounted for. This means Goblinworks needs to give thought to not just the per-20 landscape but also the post-20 play. How powerful will these post-20 characters be? Will they behave like the guidelines on page 406 of the Pathfinder Core Rulebook with ever increasing attack, hit points, and resistances (saves)? Will they look something more like E6 where power progression falls off sharply and becomes nearly static? Part of the answer depends on how the Skill system is structured, the devil being in the details.
Tied to the first issue is the second of how do characters progress post-20. In an EVE-like skill system the answer is pick a new skill and train that. This brings us two to three choices. First is simplest for the design team and to allow characters to cross-train into different archetypes. This is already intended to be part of the system for multiclassing and has been brought up in earlier threads. A second option to create a post-20 Skill tree for these classes to use, which is basically like adding new classes to the game. It is what 3.0/3.5 OGL Epic rules tried to do with mixed results. A third is like the second but with what the Pen and Paper game calls Prestige Classes, classes outside the normal structure but that are linked more directly to game world in some way.
There is a great deal of mulling to do about the shape Pathfinder Online will take 3+ years down road. This does not even touch on the whole kingdom building aspect, which we hopefully won't get into here.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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This is where I kick off the post-20 discussion with an actual rant.
By limiting player access to Capstone power and requiring 2 and a half years of dedicated play to a single class, your bringing out an awfully big stick. Either that or the Capstone powers will be laughable jokes to keep players from being mad that they missed out on it. Either way your doing the game a disservice. I know this came up when you first wrote the blog post back in January.
Let me first touch on the biggest issue. Money. Money, money money money. In prior discussion you tried to clarify that a post-20 character could be a Fighter 20 and then multiclass to continue progress, say into Wizard. Easiest and simplest way to handle post-20 play. They could go all the way to Fighter 20/Wizard 20. This is 5 years of play, 5 years of paid play at that.
In that discussion it became clear that your design intent with multiclass would favor the player who spend 2.5 years playing the fighter and then spend 2.5 years playing the wizard. This dedicated player would get capstone for both the fighter and wizard for completing all 20 "levels" in order for each class. A player who chose to dabble and multiclass between fighter and wizard over those 5 years and 40 levels would get neither capstone. There was even a 3rd path where you start fighter, take a break and do 20 levels of wizard with capstone, and then finish fighter.
From a paying customer perspective this is intolerable, unfair, and deeply flawed game design. Why should I (the multiclasser) spend 5 years on a subscription/time-card having fun the way I like and the system allows, only be to shut out of the final prize for both classes at the end? While my good friend (who is hard core mix/maxer and completionist) spends those same 5 years focused like a laser to one class after another in sequence and collects the capstones. It only gets worse the further in time we go. 5 years is two classes, 10 years is now 4. If we hope the Pathfinder Online will remain active and profitable (and you can keep subscribers for all 10 of those years) that's 4 class capstones a player could miss.
That's the money side.
Second, capturing the feel and flavor of dedication in the Pen and Paper game. I'll drop the words again, post-20, let hang for a moment…. Pathfinder Roleplaying Game does not have post-20 play! The RPG is capped at 20. Of course you can't multiclass in that game and get the capstones! The game itself is capped! It's not mathematically possible!
Once you look beyond the Core rulebook and into the optional guidelines, community, and 3rd parties we find many different kinds of post-20 play. Not all of which apply to what you're currently setting up in Pathfinder Online. The nature of Skill system ends up making post-20 play in Pathfinder online look very much like the guidelines on page 406 of the Core Rulebook. To explain if I was playing a Fighter 10/Wizard 10 in the Pen and Paper game I would have the capstone at 20. As the P&P game goes into post-20 play if we somehow make it to 40th level I'd now be a Fighter 20/Wizard 20 and would have both capstones. While your idea of sticking to the dedication of the Core Pathfinder RPG game is laudable, it doesn't hold post-20. After 2.5 years of play Pathfinder Online leaves what Core covers behind, do not blind your design by holding to an ideal that doesn't apply at all even exist pen and paper officially.
Let me continue the point and explain why there is even a capstone power in the first place. 3.0/3.5 D&D introduced full open multiclassing but tried to restrict it adding a penalty for doing so. Over 7 years of play and game design it became clear that the penalty wasn't working and that player were actively trying to find ways to avoid it or lessen it while still abusing multiclassing in game breaking ways (flaws in class combinations, to long to discuss the history of it). When Paizo revamped things in Pathfinder those penalties went and the carrot of capstones were added. This worked because the as I said above Pathfinder is capped at 20 levels. The fact is sticks have a proven record of not working well. By trying to use the Capstones as a stick you're just rehashing what didn't work in 3.0/3.5 OGL, which is not the flavor or feel of Pathfinder.
That's capturing the feel and flavor of the pen and paper game.
Third, design constrains. Back when this was discussed originally the point was made that a super-powerful-awsome capstone would be unfair to people who multi-class. To that there was a bit of mutter about not making the capstones super-powerful-sex-special-awsome but more fluffy colorful with little game impact. Two bad options that do little good in design. You either punish player for not playing "your way" as set out in the archetypes or you don't reward players for staying focused for 2.5 years to a single class. If you take the multiclassing penalty off the table you can now go back to really cool and useful capstone powers that make people want to complete the classes, some will want to complete them as quickly as possible.
Fourth, EVE-like skills and time advantage. The advantage of focussing a single class for 2.5 years is that you get all of the cool higher level powers faster/sooner including the capstones. This means your character is participating in higher level events, is more capable in their role and class, and can likely knock the stuffing out of someone who was a dabbler for the same amount of time. That's how it works in EVE, only EVE doesn't have the same kind of help the archetype gives in guiding player progression and doesn't' get blocked by the cost of skill books at times. If I want to focus on being an Interceptor pilot I can focus that and complete it before a generic dabble works his way up to Battleships. There's even a chance I could take out the dabbler's battleship when we meet as I'll have the better equipment for the class of ship I'm flying and the better skills. Even if I can't do it solo, in a fleet action I'm not the weak link, that dabbler battleship pilot is, and a much bigger loss at that. Same thing is going to happen with multi-classesed characters in Pathfinder Online, it's the nature of a Skill system like EVE's. The more time you spend dabbling in lower level skill trees the weaker you are compared to someone who was focused into a single class/ship. Over time EVE-like skill system plateau as players begin maxing out different specializations and diversify, or the diversified dabblers being completing what they dabbled in. At the end of the chain all the players end up relatively the same place… with give enough time. Currently with Pathfinder Online that would be 27 or so years.
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TL;DR summation
Capstones should be available regardless of multi-classing. Carrots are better then sticks. There are other factors that will reward dedicated play in a single class. You should not try to force it.
Goblin Squad Member
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I have read your rant carefully, sir, and I want to add my voice. I never played EVE, so I can't speak to the comparisons frequently made on these forums, but I have to say that it seems intuitively obvious that hard-restricting capstones to dedicated single-classers is unnecessary. The reasons given above are also my reasons, so I won't enumerate them here.
Furthermore, since I fully intend to get into PFO as early as possible, I'm worried that there won't be sufficient information for me to choose my archetype when I create my first character. Without the experiences of other players to draw on, I'm more likely to mistakenly choose an archetype that, while sounding good on paper, ends up playing rather differently than I had hoped. Let's say I get 10-15 badges into Fighter before realizing that, due to the unforeseeable ways in which the world has evolved since the first months of its existence, I'd really rather play a Barbarian. So I go the next 20 badges all as Barbarian, gaining the much-coveted capstone. What's next? Well, logically, I may wish to finish off the last 5-10 badges of Fighter, since I've already invested so much time into it. Do I really deserve to be denied the Fighter capstone, 5 years after launch? I mean, for the last half decade, I've worked hard to shape the very world I (my character) live in. I don't want fluffy capstones; I want a real reward for my substantial investment of time. For my time, not for sticking it out in an undesirable class (Fighter) because I was afraid to lose my time investment and go for what I really wanted (Barbarian).
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Goblin Squad Member
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By limiting player access to Capstone power and requiring 2 and a half years of dedicated play to a single class, your bringing out an awfully big stick. Either that or the Capstone powers will be laughable jokes to keep players from being mad that they missed out on it. Either way your doing the game a disservice. I know this came up when you first wrote the blog post back in January.
I don't see why the capstones should be strong abilities? What is wrong with them being the equivelent of an "achievement", IE the primary purpose of them is bragging rights. Nowhere have they said there isn't a normal reward at the 20th merit badge without a capstone... so you have an ability at 20th, and if you went straight through, you get a weak extra ability that is more for bragging rights than effectiveness.
I mean essentially people are acting like there is no reward to reaching 20th without the capstone there, there is no reason why the best ability is just for reaching 20th merit badge, and the capstone is just a flashy little extra for bragging rights. Overall I would like the smallest possible power difference between the elite and the mid-grade of the game no matter what, so the idea of super powerful capstones rubs me the wrong way no matter how you look at it.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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By limiting player access to Capstone power and requiring 2 and a half years of dedicated play to a single class, your bringing out an awfully big stick. Either that or the Capstone powers will be laughable jokes to keep players from being mad that they missed out on it. Either way your doing the game a disservice. I know this came up when you first wrote the blog post back in January.I don't see why the capstones should be strong abilities? What is wrong with them being the equivelent of an "achievement", IE the primary purpose of them is bragging rights. Nowhere have they said there isn't a normal reward at the 20th merit badge without a capstone... so you have an ability at 20th, and if you went straight through, you get a weak extra ability that is more for bragging rights than effectiveness.
I mean essentially people are acting like there is no reward to reaching 20th without the capstone there, there is no reason why the best ability is just for reaching 20th merit badge, and the capstone is just a flashy little extra for bragging rights. Overall I would like the smallest possible power difference between the elite and the mid-grade of the game no matter what, so the idea of super powerful capstones rubs me the wrong way no matter how you look at it.
My apologies I don't think made my point clear enough.
To rephrase. I'm saying that punishing multiclassing is not okay.
I don't really care if you get Nuke or a Party-Popper at 20th class level.
I do care that the 2.5 years I play and pay to get there is not given the same value as someone who makes a beeline for it. Especially when its an artificial distinction built on a flawed perception of the source material.
Carrots, not sticks.
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Your other point about the difference in power is good one, and part of the reason I wanted to open this up to the whole post-20 spectrum.
I would personally like to see Capstones that are more in line with the P&P versions. The final closing ability to a class/archetype that is balance for its level. Hopefully one that gives a sense of accomplishment (yay 2.5 years!) and closure (now I can move on).
What do you consider "mid-grade" and "elite" again this in the context of 3+ years down the road.
At the 3 year mark I would take "elite" to mean anyone who's completed one class and begun another. These are going to be the players with the most powerful sets of abilities, but not widest.
I'd take "mid-grade" as those people late come (1.5 to 1 year) or who have split their time between two or more classes.
Unfortunately at that point there is likely going to be a fairly big gap. Just like in any progression based MMO. The only games where this is less of an issue are FPSs where actually skill at aiming with a mouse or thumbsick tends to offset gear/power advantages.
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Moving 5 years out the "elite" are now people who've complete 2 class (one way or another) and the mid-grade have finished at least 1. Here we can start hoping the power gap begins to close. In EVE as you begin to max out skills in a particularly kind of ship you become as good as someone who's been in the game longer.
For our non-EVE players I'll set the example at the smallest ship you can fly, the Frigate. Flying a Frigate is a very quick and early skill to get. What takes time are the secondary skills, like evasion to reduce chance of getting, or gunnery skills, shield use skills, and so on. A long time player will have most of these secondary skills maxed out and will be working on doing the same for the next larger ship. Our new/mid-grade player can complete those same Frigate and be just as good at Frigates as the long term player. If they go head to head there will be little to no mathematical difference between them. Just don't put them in a cruiser vs cruiser fight. Considering the way EVE works a Maxed out "mid-garde" Frigate flyer could take out a longer time cruiser flyer who isn't maxed yet.
For Pathfinder Online I'm not sure how it will play out. Without details on how attacks are calculated I can't say how having completed two class vs having only one will look. In EVE there are basic gunnery skills that translate across all weapons, then there are the ones specific to each size of gun (small, medium, large, ex-large). Your skill in one size does not directly impact your skill in another. For PFO I see two possible ways it could go.
1) It acts just like the guidelines on 406 of the Core where things like Attack Bonuses and HP just keep stacking on. In which case an Elite will well outclass and Mid-grade just on pure linear progression. Same problem plagued P&P epic play.
2) You start getting diminishing returns on core abilities like attacks and saves to the point where we are talking about fractions of a percent difference. This would cause even 60 or 80 level characters to be more or less on par with each other, with the difference being the wider selection of tools (class abilities) to bring to a problem.
Again the comparison to EVE, which uses a diminishing return or stacking penalty. Bonuses are multiplied, and in some cases funky math is done. Much like the Resistance attribute in EVE, Attack Bonus PFO could be done a similar way.
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Goblin Squad Member
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1) It acts just like the guidelines on 406 of the Core where things like Attack Bonuses and HP just keep stacking on. In which case an Elite will well outclass and Mid-grade just on pure linear progression. Same problem plagued P&P epic play.
if that were the case, then almost every concept the devs made in the early days on power differences, were outright and absolute lies. They pretty much repeated many times over that a 20/20/20 would not be more powerful than a 20, only more versatile.
My theory for how this can work, is a minimalization of stacking, IE sneak attack + smite evil + barbarian rage etc... cannot all be applied on the same hit, a vet may be able to alternate them, and some will be situationally better in some circumstances then others, but actual combinations will likely be limited.
BAB HP etc... should be the combination of a universal skill not connected to any archtype, and equipment. IE in heavyer armor you could get more HP, but that may interfere with some of the other abilities. The skill itself could train as you want it, regardless of your class or archtype, and cap in the same area no matter what your main class is (though it may train faster based on your attributes as they did mention attributes effecting training speed).
Some abilities could flat out require a certain item equipped to use. IE sneak attack may require a dagger, power attack may require a 2 hander, wizard spells could require a spellbook equipped etc...
There are numerous ways to balance it out to actually live up to their quote, if they actually wind up making it to the point that an 8 year vet, will always steamroll the 2 year players, ad infinium... then you basically set an experation date for when no player will ever want to join.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Per the descriptions of the game, this is incorrect. A capstone is gained by training 20 merit badges in any archtype consecutively. IE going wiz 20, fighter 20, monk 20, in that order, will gain all 3 capstones, while going monk 10, fighter 10, wizard 10, monk 10, fighter 10, wizard 10. Will lock you out from all 3 capstones.
You mean all 11 capstones but I follow. I disagree in your interpretation based on the description I quoted from the blog but I'll do so again.
"We also wanted to capture the idea from the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game that dedication to one path would have additional benefits. Therefore, if your character chooses to stay committed to one of these archetypes until it has achieved all 20 archetype merit badges, your character will earn an additional capstone ability! (A character can train in many other skills outside of their archetype skill tree and still progress towards the capstone ability—they just need to avoid training in the skill tree of a different archetype. Don't worry—if you accidentally start to train a skill tree outside your archetype, you'll be warned, the consequences will be explained, and you'll have a chance to change that decision before it's irrevocable!"
I take this as a either/or is possible case based on what is written. If you have gained 20 merits in Fighter you have already have gained skills outside other archetypes. So it would seem to me you would be disqualified from being able to get the second cap stone. However I can see your viewpoint could also be true if we look more to the PnP game and assume you could level to 40. If you went 20 Fighter/ 20 bard you would indeed have both level 20 powers. Who knows though whatever it IS now could change tomorrow. /shrug
If a Dev could clarify that would be great since arguing about getting a single capstone power vs possibly over years gaining multiple ones does matter in this discussion.
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Goblin Squad Member
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You mean all 11 capstones but I follow. I disagree in your interpretation based on the description I quoted from the blog but I'll do so again.
Actually no, not all 11 capstones, let me do some history digging, but it was clarified, a capstone requires you to gain all 20 merit badges in an archtype consecutively. So if say our hypothetical 20 monk/fighter/wizard mentioned in that example, were to say start bard, and follow it straight through to 20 at that point, he would qualify for the bard capstone. Basically you can't take any other archtypes merit badge between your first and 20th merit badge. What you have or haven't done before taking the first merit badge in the archetype is irrelevant.
Here is the origional discussion on the topic from back when the capstones were announced.
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Goblin Squad Member
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You mean all 11 capstones but I follow. I disagree in your interpretation based on the description I quoted from the blog but I'll do so again.
Actually no, not all 11 capstones, let me do some history digging, but it was clarified, a capstone requires you to gain all 20 merit badges in an archtype consecutively. So if say our hypothetical 20 monk/fighter/wizard mentioned in that example, were to say start bard, and follow it straight through to 20 at that point, he would qualify for the bard capstone. Basically you can't take any other archtypes merit badge between your first and 20th merit badge. What you have or haven't done before taking the first merit badge in the archetype is irrelevant.
Here is the origional discussion on the topic from back when the capstones were announced
Aaaaaaah see, wish the blog was a little clearer. I stand corrected. Well kickass I would rather it be that way. I like the idea of capstones as a reward for me giving up on multiclassing. If I don't try to be a gish I would like a reward for my sacrifice of not min-maxing. Thank you Onishi for looking that up for me.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Good point Waruko...I must agree. I just hope there is enough variation within each "archetype" to allow not feeling like a copy of every other member of your archetype. I really think they should accomplish this my creating the options defined in the alternate class builds (which Pathfinder PnP calls archetypes).
For example, for a bard, the "alternate class features" in the table at the bottom. I think this would allow enough variation to allow anyone to make a unique-feeling character while also staying within focus of your capstone.
And of course, this would all have to be available at release because you cannot go back and take abilities they release later if you are bound in an attempt to get your capstone.