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Post by Kitsunenotsume on Oct 8, 2015 14:09:04 GMT -5
Good day everyone,
It has been naggling me for some time now, so I figured I might bring it up for general community forum.
What is bothering me is that it appears that not all skill foci are created equal.
We have three focuses available:
Offence Focus, which grants a bonus to XP gained with weapons
Defence Focus, which grants a bonus to XP gained from armors
Utility Focus, which is just about anything not crafting or related to weapons and armor.
However, we also have a mechanic currently implemented which requires abilities to be trained in non-crafting, non-combat skills to gain any experience, while weapons and armors simply suffer a reduced rate, since everyone needs them to dungeon delve.
The outcome, that I see, is that Offence and Defense focused characters continue to benefit from their skill focus even without abilities trained in various skills, since the focus is a multiplier, but Utility focused characters do not. As the difference is small percentage of a small number compared to a small percentage of 0, Offence and Defense characters have a substantial level-rate benefit over Utility focused characters.
The secondary matter that I see, is that the current means of bypassing this limitation is to throw money at the problem: for a minimum of $200, a character can get the ability to improve a utility skill. Money is largely gained by killing higher level opponents. Higher level opponents are determined by some algorithm of a character's total skill ranks, while killing ability is based effectively only off combat skills. As a result, a combat character has a much higher probability of walking away with loot than a non-combat based character (funny that), and therefore has a greater ability to garner funds without a team.
In example, I have heard anecdotes from others of soloing spiders, deaders, or bandits for quick cash. James gets creamed in the first or second fight in any of them, since he is a support char with more of his total effective level coming from craft skills than combat.
As such, it is my observation that Offence and Defence characters appear to be more capable of accepting monetary loss for greater experience gains, which would exacerbate the issue.
I am aware that I only play one character, am not online as much as a large portion of the player-base, and may have incomplete or skewed data regarding my observations. However, I figured I might voice my concerns and see if it matches reality. If anyone has any comments supporting or contradicting my observations, please discuss. If my observation is correct, I can see about suggesting resolutions. If not, we won't need it.
In brief: It appears to me that Utility-Focused characters are at an innate disadvantage for character progress. This discussion is intended to verify that what I am seeing isn't just me being biased and better identify what the actual case is.
Cheers,
Kit
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Post by Fuzz on Oct 8, 2015 16:47:14 GMT -5
The ultimate plan at one point was to allow players to pick 5 skills that they "focus" in... any 5. Those would replace the current Focus method for gaining exp. If they're all weapons kills, okay. If they're all crafting skills, that's fine, too. Ultimately they would be whatever players choose at character creation, and they would maybe be alterable (for a cost that would vary based on the skill level, so switching out of something you have a high skill level in would cost a lot more than something you barely trained) ingame.
PE would be the person to weigh in on this, of course, but there were several lengthy discussions about this Staff-side.
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Post by Psionic-Entity on Oct 8, 2015 18:16:54 GMT -5
No plans to change to a system where you pick individual skills. The only plan is to make it possible to change them and maybe add a crafting one. Overall the skill focus system was not designed to create "offense" characters or "utility" characters, that much you can get from the fact that any decent PC will have highly trained skills from at least two out of the three categories. Everyone needs some armor, most people need to deal damage, and most people will end up with one of detecting, lockpicking, searching, stealthing, etc. A skill's membership in a focus has nothing to do with whether or not abilities are required to progress it, it's all about whether or not a given source of XP involves combat. In combat everyone has limited rounds so you need to prioritize your actions. Out of combat that isn't the case so in a setting without some sort of investment requirement you end up with people racing to spot objects, racing to unlock objects, etc.
I'd be interested in hearing what kind of changes or solutions you might have for the imbalance you noted. It's definitely there to some degree, but I haven't thought of a better answer than the one in game.
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Post by drunkensolamnic on Oct 8, 2015 21:49:00 GMT -5
I'd increase the xp reward for detect and lockpicking at the very least. There's far fewer opportunities for those skills to "tick" than any others I can think of. Detect for example was once my highest skill, and now at 48 it is lower than my block skill which I trained from 20 to 52 in the amount of time I gained 3 detect levels.
As to the wealth inequity... perhaps increase the bonus from having abilities in mercantilism? One thing to keep in mind is that soloing areas doesn't usually net mountains of cash, but rather a few hundred a trip. So it takes a lot of time to "strike it rich" usually. At least for me.
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Post by Lugwy on Oct 9, 2015 0:50:08 GMT -5
For Utility-Focused characters, the bone could be them either not needing abilities to progress their Utility skills, or the abilities they do invest in it exponentially increasing the EXP gain in the related skills, far beyond what an Offense/Defense Focus character would receive, as the circumstances where Utilities could feasibly advance Utility skills are somewhat more restricted than advancing in the art of swinging a sword or wearing armour better.
For example, and I'm not sure if this is ever intended, but since the various skill progression passes I have never gained points in Stealth by waiting near an enemy of equivalent level. In order to advance Stealth, I actually have to Sneak Attack them. Unless I plan to burn smoke grenades like crazy (financially unfeasible) or attack multiple mobs at once (survivally unfeasible), that means I would get at most one tick of Stealth from a mob, while I pile on the Light Armor and weapon ticks beating down said mob.
Either Utility skill progression needs to be more significant for people with Utility focus to make it worth choosing over the other two, or preclude the requirement of abilities in the related skill to continue progressing in it.
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Post by Fuzz on Oct 9, 2015 8:20:24 GMT -5
Have Utility Focus also improve your chance at not losing stuff like picks on use? Though that might be too good...
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Post by drunkensolamnic on Oct 9, 2015 9:07:06 GMT -5
Utility focused characters are treated as having 1 more ability in a given skill than they actually do for the purpose of being able to continue to gain xp?
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Post by Psionic-Entity on Oct 9, 2015 9:38:13 GMT -5
I still really don't see a reason why utility focus should do more for its skills than the other focuses do for theirs. It's just 20%, once you're far enough along the choice between offense and defense is essentially choosing between 55 weapon, 50 armor and 50 weapon, 55 armor. Adding special progression rules to utility would make it a no-brainer for anyone interested in even one utility skill.
If peoples' non-combat skills are lagging behind the others that's a problem with the skills, not the option to get 20% more XP in them.
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Post by drunkensolamnic on Oct 9, 2015 10:19:09 GMT -5
To James initial post.. perhaps it would be possible to have the spawn calculator ignore crafting skills when generating what monsters are going to be spawned? having 40+ crafting and 20 combat skills is far different in performance from 20 crafting and 40+ combat after all. This way the monsters spawned if someone alone are somewhere close to their combative ability?
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Post by Lugwy on Oct 9, 2015 10:29:26 GMT -5
It's mostly a problem with the skills themselves and how they progress, yes. For weapon and armour skills, all you really need is appropriately levelled gear and a sufficiently scaled mob to use as a punching bag, and you can keep piling on the ticks until the EXP cow runs dry. Opportunities to level utility-related skills tend to be more restricted or at least inconvenient to train in the same way, such as only getting one tick of Stealth for Sneak Attacks (for that sufficiently levelled mob, I would need either a door or a lot of smoke grenades), or one tick for picking open a chest, and recently, the ability requirement for further progression, in a system where ability points are scarce enough as is.
Per Drunkensolamnic's suggestion, having Utility Focus mitigate (but not entirely obviate) the ability requirements would be something to consider until/less something comes up that could address the disparity in levelling Utility skills.
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Post by Psionic-Entity on Oct 9, 2015 11:38:10 GMT -5
What sort of numbers have you been seeing for non-combat skills relative to the other ones? If the problem is that they aren't progressing fast enough there are lots of ways to address that.
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Post by Kitsunenotsume on Oct 9, 2015 12:21:59 GMT -5
A skill's membership in a focus has nothing to do with whether or not abilities are required to progress it, it's all about whether or not a given source of XP involves combat. In combat everyone has limited rounds so you need to prioritize your actions. Out of combat that isn't the case so in a setting without some sort of investment requirement you end up with people racing to spot objects, racing to unlock objects, etc. I still really don't see a reason why utility focus should do more for its skills than the other focuses do for theirs. It's just 20%, once you're far enough along the choice between offense and defense is essentially choosing between 55 weapon, 50 armor and 50 weapon, 55 armor*. Adding special progression rules to utility would make it a no-brainer for anyone interested in even one utility skill. If peoples' non-combat skills are lagging behind the others that's a problem with the skills, not the option to get 20% more XP in them. The way I see this, as illustrated by drunken and Lugwy, is that there is a lot more opportunity for combat than utility skills. Round management is a concern, certainly, but less so when you consider that you can get XP every single round of combat in multiple combat skills (hitting and getting hit) as long as you can keep it going until the spawner runs dry, but in an entire dungeon there is only a finite number of opportunities for non-combat skills besides First-Aid. In essence, there is an hour or so worth of combat in Wyler for the entire party, but only a couple minutes worth of non-combat skill-use which can only go to one-person at a time. I can agree that Utility progression being handled differently would be overbalanced faaaar in the wrong direction. If a utility skill person gets the ability to rank *every* skill, as opposed to just combat ones (before considering ability ranks), then the imbalance has flipped. As it stands, however, the different in how progression in combat-noncombat skills is handled is what is creating an offset. To James initial post.. perhaps it would be possible to have the spawn calculator ignore crafting skills when generating what monsters are going to be spawned? having 40+ crafting and 20 combat skills is far different in performance from 20 crafting and 40+ combat after all. This way the monsters spawned if someone alone are somewhere close to their combative ability? I see a different issue with this, in that as a craftsman, higher tier enemies mean higher tier loot. Higher tier loot means better crafting progression. As far as I am concerned, most of James' XP from dungeons is from salvage. In a party, that is fine and viable. Running solo? not so much. Suggestions:In terms of a suggestion as to how to mitigate the issue, I would suggest the following possibilities: - A significant decrease in XP (90-99%) if no ability is had, rather than zeroing out XP in non-combat skills, so that a percentage multiplier is useful (abet minimally).
- Secondly, a tier system similar to the locks could be used, decreasing the XP gain in utility skills to whatever fraction is applied to similar weapon and armor skills, and simply preventing success if a tier requirement is not met.
- A third solution would simply be to give each utility skill some combat use. First-aid is already a combat-prioritization skill: heal somone or deal damage. Stealth seems similar - you don't sneak if the possibility if getting shived does not exist. Demolitions is definitely a combat skill. Detecting stealthy persons certainly has its role in combat, since, again, people don't stealth unless at risk of being stabbed. The only question would be Merchantile, which I argue would benefit from having Taunt - the ability to craft verbal and non-verbal arguments to get the effect you want (but that results in other balance issues).
- Lastly, one could drop the XP bonus entirely, and simply have each skill-focus set give the effect of +1 ability rank in the relevant skills, which would provide a faster progression by both allowing for a longer improvement in those skills before the XP gains taper out, as well as amplifying the effect of learning an ability in a given supported tree.
*: returned to initial values, due to ramped XP requirements with higher levels. |
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Post by drunkensolamnic on Oct 9, 2015 16:38:36 GMT -5
Kit,
I'm under the impression that loot is based on the area, not the level of the spawns you get in that area. Hence why I still only find level 15 items in the spiders.
PE:
On non-combat skills as a offensive focus character, I gain roughly 15xp per successful detect. Fighing monsters I usually get 2-6 or 0 xp per successful hit with my sword, sometimes up to 15xp for a critical. The difference Is that I have to hit say.. the Test Subject a few hundred times to kill them. Where as up to that point in the dungeon on a good day I may have found 4-6 objects. The same goes for my heavy armor: I get 2-4xp each time I get hit by something high enough to trigger XP for me. All my gear is 10 levels lower than my skill levels btw.
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