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Post by Rhicora on Nov 13, 2016 23:17:34 GMT -5
That's a good point. I think it'd come down to the amounts and making them balanced, but perhaps it's best just not to do it at all.
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Post by drunkensolamnic on Nov 14, 2016 10:17:09 GMT -5
Another suggestion was to let players do this for each other. Mentor and student choose a skill to practice together. They both spend BXP, and the student gains some skill XP. This could be horribly abused and probably isn't the best idea since people could make a vested effort to game the system then and powerlevel each other. Agreed, it is hard enough to generate differentiation among characters without incentivizing people trading training in skills with each other for character xp on top of grinding up every skill for xp. |
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Post by ronan on Nov 16, 2016 12:09:10 GMT -5
A new suggestion then, inspired by my training mentors idea.
Converting bonus RP xp into Skill XP is already a thing..... through dungeoning.
Converting bonus RP xp into CxP would be imbalanced, as people would be able to game the system by raising their skills and stats to extreme heights with minimal investment aside from standing about in town.
What of a way to convert bonus xp into Skill Points?
I've noticed a trend starting to go on here, where characters are encouraged to start leveling EVERY skill, even those their character would never RPly focus on, solely to raise their max level and get more skill points to focus in what they ARE focusing on. This seems detrimental to me, instead of believable focused characters you end up with jack of all trades characters with say, a First Aid skill higher than an RPed dedicated medic solely because they have more time to grind and are focusing more skills to game the system.
There is a definite drought of CxP and Skill Point gain aside from the XP you gain from leveling your respective skills. It's difficult to get to new boss tiers for that XP because EVERYONE is such a nice player that they bring along characters that may not have done the boss yet, or done the boss as much yet. Aside from those two means, I know of no such way to gain actual XP and skill points.
For example..... Grayson, my character, has been focused entirely on Heavy Armor, Block, and Two-Handed, with a tad of mercantile creeping in there from selling loot. He's your stereotypical knight character raising his combat skills, but NOW he's having to branch out into First Aid and Demolitions and..... hell I may start raising light armor and unarmed and go on training sprees for ENTIRELY IRRELEVANT SKILLS to his actual RP solely to get more skill points to pump into Heavy Armor, Block, and Two-Handed.
If there were a way to directly convert my massive Bonus Pool into Skill Point's (without the HP, Stamina, Toxicity, just pure skill points), it would somewhat mitigate this need to be a master of everything and allow characters to actually focus mastery on the skills they're known for.
I do not see how this could be abused so long as it does not result in an actual level up, just more skill points, and you are directly converting and trading bonus XP you COULD use to level up and raise your stats for it. |
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Post by gorirah on Nov 16, 2016 12:40:07 GMT -5
By skill points, you refer to abilities? If so then converting bonus pool experience to abilities has the same issue as converting bonus pool experience to character experience.
In practical terms, we all have a limited number of abilities. If a character were to complete all quests, ten tiers of bosses and level all 23 skills to 100, then that character would have about 54 abilities. This progression is the same for all characters, hence equality of potential. To have a new source of abilities, particularly an unlimited one, from bonus pool experience would unbalance this. Even if there was a hard limit to number of abilities from any source, you may find players taking the easier route and huddling to grind bonus pool experience.
If on the other hand you mean converting bonus pool experience to skill experience without the adventuring bit in between, then that is another matter.
Edit:
To put this more in perspective, even if you only leveled 5 skills to 100, and left the rest at 0, you'd still be at around 48 abilities because of the diminishing returns.
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Post by electrohydra on Nov 16, 2016 13:48:27 GMT -5
I believe you only need to "max" out about... 6 abilities to gain 95% of your cXP from skill gains. So for a knightly character, that could be weapon skill, block skill, armor skill for sure. Then you have options like first aid and demolitions. Lock-picking and detect. Animal training. Monster hunting fits the bill quite well. Mercantilism, though that one is hard to control how much it raises.
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Post by ronan on Nov 16, 2016 14:04:49 GMT -5
The problem is, there is an inequality of XP to Skill ratio as is now. Take the example of two characters here.
Character A raises Heavy Armor, Block, and Two-handed, and focuses any skill points he gets solely into those three trees. He does not bother with detect because he is a military focused character, nor does he bother with First Aid because he his not RPly a medic, nor does he invest in any crafting skills or other weapon choices. He is, solely, a focused two-hander build as his RP dictactes. (Yes, this was me, I am an example. 
Character B raises Heavy Armor, Block, Two-handed, One-handed, Dual wielding, First Aid, Demolitions, and Detect..... and saves the ability points from all of those extra trees to push solely into Heavy Armor, Block, and Two-handed, running an exact same RPed build and role as Character A. Character B is not a medic, demolitionist nor does it ever use one-handed or dual wielding, but has more skill points to invest in those 3 same trees.
This heavily encourages everyone to jack of all trades, and leads to an environment where characters are not as diversified as they should be in build.
There needs to be some way to earn Character XP or Skill Points outside of spending time grinding and raising skills entirely irrelevant to your build and RP aside from solely completing higher boss tiers. Yes, it would still be possible to do that and come out on head and game the system in some way, but it is necessary to maintain a healthily diverse RP environment, and to help those of us who have less time to / refuse to grind on their focused skills regardless, without having the time / desire to grind entirely irrelevant skills as well just to stay relevant level wise.
Edit: I can only go so far into First Aid without having a skill that FAR EXCEEDS the RPed ability to simply stabilize someone until they can see a medic or doctor. I've started going down the path of demolitions JUST to bump some much needed character XP even though it was previously not in my character's RPed demeanor ever to do so. I've ditched animal training entirely because Pet's are a buggy imbalanced mess, helmets interfere with Detect enough to discourage it's leveling and I find it illogical for a character to remove their head protection in a hostile environment just to OOC look for loot better.
Having to branch into skills entirely irrelevant to your core character concept still encourages a hybridization jack-of-all-trades mentality, where a vast majority of characters will have 100 in skills like First Aid..... when in actuality only the RPly focused doctors and medics should have 100 in First Aid. It's a completely META gimmick, just like if you had a bunch of non-crafters with max crafting solely so they had higher HP/Stamina and could funnel those skills into combat skill trees. |
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Post by gorirah on Nov 16, 2016 14:20:32 GMT -5
There is a big distinction between a character with 100 first aid and a character with 100 first aid and the abilities to back it up. It is the spread of abilities that make you a specialist or a jack of all, far more so than the skill levels themselves. If the skill levels for any skill lend more to the skill's practical application than the abilities do, then that would be more of an issue.
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Post by Lugwy on Nov 16, 2016 14:32:06 GMT -5
Raw skill points do have a practical application for some of the skills. They're what lets you wield a level 30 sword with level 30 statistics, which is a lot better than a level 5 sword. Half skill level when crafting is a lot better than zero.
IIRC the amount of EXP you get from levelling skills is proportional to how many skills are in that levelling bracket anyway. At least this was the case in beta when I was noticeably getting less EXP for levelling skills once I reached a certain average level.
It's just easier to train a bunch of low leveled skills up than your few high leveled skills, which may contribute to the problem.
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Post by ronan on Nov 16, 2016 14:35:48 GMT -5
If skill level were not a representation of the skill, just as much as abilities, then it would not be rolled in events. It's literally there in the name "skill level."
Why should I have to train first aid, for example, to be able to have more skill points to invest in two-handed?
It is illogical.
It is also impossible to the minority of players who either do not have the time to grind as often or in as many things as other players, nor those who view this server as more of an RP server than a grind one.
If skill points were somehow tied to only be used in the skill they were earned from, then your arguement would be valid. Heavy Armor earns Heavy Armor points and the like, cannot be used elsewhere. But to argue that you have to raise skills you will never use to be good in those that you do is silly.
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Post by Psionic-Entity on Nov 16, 2016 14:43:07 GMT -5
For reference, the current scale (with intro quests or skip prologue) looks like this:
3: 37
4: 43
5: 46
6: 48
7: 49
8: 50
23: 50
That's how many ability points you get for raising that number of skill levels to 100. It's also a bit misleading since doing quests and post-100 leveling on your top skills first reduces the amount you'll get by taking another skill from 0-100.
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Post by beets on Nov 16, 2016 14:52:46 GMT -5
Is XP actually finite? I recall reading something about being able to get XP by leveling skills post-100. I assume that's repeatable if true, but I could be wrong about it.
edit: although I would assume character level is capped at some point even if xp isn't, so it doesn't really change the spirit of discussion. I'm just curious.
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Post by ronan on Nov 16, 2016 14:53:34 GMT -5
So the sweet spot seems to be a build that incorporates 5-8 skills. This is very good to know, thank you PE.
It still seems somewhat odd that a dedicated melee knight has to master unrelated skills such as demolitions or first aid or the like to reach "max" skill potential. 100 in any skill, to me, indicates mastery of a chosen focus.... with feats on top of that a dedicated focus beyond.
Ima end up being a grenadier / knight / surgeon solely so I can have those extra skill points to invest in all the combat trees.
IF skill points eventually cap out entirely anyway..... then i don't see what the problem would be in allowing bonus XP to be exchanged to skill points up to that cap. A character who's maxed all those extra skills would not benefit, no one could go over the cap..... but one who has chosen to focus solely in a few would still be able to attain mastery of those without investing in entirely unrelated skills?
I.e. A character with 8 100 skills would have those 50 skill points, but a character with 3 100 skills and, 20 or so in assorted support skills could also have 50 skill points eventually through exchanging bonus XP they are otherwise not benefitting from for them. Everything would be equal in the end, because no matter what route you take no one can go over that cap, just different play styles of reaching it?
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Post by Psionic-Entity on Nov 16, 2016 14:56:19 GMT -5
At level 100 getting an extra 5000 SXP (hard to do) gives you 500 CXP. The requirement (5000 to start) goes up every time its used and it also keeps taking more CXP to get a level. It's currently hard capped at 75 abilities total but it would take a very long time to get there, even starting from 70.
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Post by ronan on Nov 16, 2016 14:59:21 GMT -5
A 75 ability cap then. With increasingly higher Bonus XP to skill point costs, it could still be made just as lengthy and tedious a process to gain points as to max skills, but be equally as accessible to both crowds?
I'm not pushing for easier progression, by any means, but an equal yet different means of progression. Two paths to the same pond.
No matter how you attain the skill points, there is still a cap preventing exploitation.
And you cannot spend said skill points without training the relevant skill you wish to spend them in, to unlock the ability for training.
It would solely ease the path of progression and make things more accessible for players with less time to handle lengthy dungeon runs.
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Post by gorirah on Nov 16, 2016 15:18:09 GMT -5
I was commenting on how it is, mechanically, not how it should or should not be interpreted or changed. Granting character levels or abilities directly from bonus pool experience, regardless of reasons for it, would be such a substantial change that it will certainly leave me quietly thinking for quite some time.
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