Testing 194: Epic Skills, Skill Sets and the Exchange!

You did better than me. It didn’t sound interesting before it came out. When it did come out I watched the comments. Overall they could best be summed up with “I’m tired of gambling today.” That was all I needed to see to ensure I lost interest forever. I just hope I don’t have to use one for some reason. I have zero interest in ever even seeing a forge.

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Having watched Jiivita’s videos (excellent as usual) I have to admit that the new skill system looks pretty good and will allow anyone who is willing to invest the time and effort the ability to eventually do pretty much anything they want to. Still a little unsure about skill resets though in terms of can they only be bought with cubits? They are not something I want to do on a regular basis but I know at some point I would like to reconfigure them as I get better acquainted with the various configurations and affects. Losing out on over 26 plots (800 cubits) seems pretty steep especially for any newer players who wouldn’t necessarily understand all the options with the various skill points.

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this is a bit of a problem for me - I would rather see three epics here: hammer/ax/shovel - you pick one and the other two get locked

at the moment 5 skill points can go to hammer mastery and 5 more can cover ax and hammer (comparing with 10 skill points you would have to spend on them two masteries step by step);
something of an exploit here

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First time playing in testing, are only some planets meant to be available? (many portals say cannot load server).

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Yup, only the US East servers are available. So Solum, Epsilo and Vulpto

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I let my grandson play on one of my alts who I farm for extra plots. With the Loss of XP on death this is not a good thing as he dies alot (he is 4 years old!)… I wish you all would rethink that one.

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I would think 4yo is a bit too little for gaming like that? (I mean when there are things at stake like xp or equipment etc.).

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He’ll probably need his own account by the time he is 6 … best to get him his own one, so he can learn to build amazing things too :wink:

Seriously though, from what we have seen so far - you should be able to unlock up to 10 characters using cubits (although this could be subject to change), so you should be able to farm a few characters for plots.

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I have seen people on testing already enhancing their builds with some of them.
I really wanted to see all craftable doors and with big help from @Jiivita and @virresss I managed to get the ones I couldn’t craft myself due to power requirements.
Big hug lads!! :sunglasses::heart_eyes:

I also wanted to see how different types of doors look against different kind of frames and that’s how this video came to life. It shows all types of doors but only chunk of possible color variations (should I mention all possible frames vs. door type/color? I only created wood, brick and metal frames for the video - there is way more to try out in search for your perfect combination!!).

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I tottaly agree with you. I remember that the same thing happened when the old jump skills were nerfed. I have some complains too, mainly about having to choose between health and energy regeneration or between damage/health and armor. However, I can see that those changes will be very positive in reinforcing the mainly purpouse of the skill tree: making sure that everyone can choose different skills and be able to do different things.

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Now that I’ve made time to have a proper look at this and really mull it over, I honestly don’t think this will have the effect of making more unique characters.

Almost all of the MMO playing experience I have tells me that when people don’t have enough skills to max out a specific goal, the majority of people look to the internet to find ‘the most efficient build for X’ and use that. I don’t believe the new skill system will truly cause people to stop, consider their options and come to their own conclusions. I think you’ll find that everyone just ends up with a tool crafting spec that is the same as the majority of the population’s tool crafting spec, and then they’ll get a spec for the next goal they want to achieve that is also the same as the majority of other players etc etc.

I would suggest that the best way to actually encourage players to create unique builds and be distinct is to give them a handful more points than they need for their goal. But that’s just my opinion, and you’re all probably as tired of hearing it as I am of rehashing it at this point.

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Yeah we’re not happy with the defeated penalty and we’re open to ideas for alternatives. We need something that is simple to explain and understand.

  1. What alternative ideas do we have?

  2. Should you be able to take a Skill that partially or full limits the effect of the defeated penalty?

  3. If we stick with an XP penalty, what percentage of your current level should be lost?

  4. Ideally we want something that hits new and veteran players equally.

  5. We want a balance where players are cautious about being defeated but also don’t flip the table when they are. This needs to add some drama to exploring and combat. The past solution with a defeated penalty negation skill resulted in zero drama.

Ideas?

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i like the xp loss best so far.
here is an idea that would make dying depend on where your xp bar is.
when you die you loose a percent of this levels current xp. if you had 100 xp and you lost 5 percent from dying thats only a 5 xp loss but if you 10,000 a 5 percent would hit you a little harder.
I like the gamble that this option would offer. also instead of being to harsh (like losing durability on all tools) or not quite harsh enough (loosing a smal set amount of xp) this would sometimes be harsh and some times not so bad.

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penalty in cubits? like 10% of what you have (would encourage spending it regularly as well, instead of hoarding)

to respond to all set of questions and starting from this:

here is an idea:

Maybe make it random? Characters is defeated and goes to Sanctum - a Wheel Of (mis)Fortune rolls and a player loses something (xp, cubits, coins, tool/weapon durability, etc.). Maybe there could be a small chance of avoiding penalty?

An epic skill reducing it would be nice, but only partially limiting the penalty. It could either increase a chance of “no penalty” event on the Wheel , or change the draw into a player’s choice (still a small chance of no penalty; if penalty applies, a player gets a list of penalties from the Wheel, and he/she picks the one that suits him/her most).

Well, I’d say 10% is just about right. Reduced to 5% with an epic skill.

Does the idea above covers that? Would it be equally annoying/challenging/motivating for players with both low and high level characters?

Agree. That’s why a defeat penalty reduction skill (if its introduced at all) should only decrease the costs of defeat to a certain degree.

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ouch! I would rather loose tool durability

however I love the wheel of misfortune

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It’s a tough one because it should be punishing but not offputting.

  • Limited duration debuff with effect on energy (or regen, if that’s fixed), health, healing and DPS. Possibly a positive on incoming DPS.
  • Too weak to warp/portal debuff

Depends on the penalty chosen. Fully is a problem because as we see on Live, if you plan to play in a way which makes death likely you have a must-have skill cost and that isn’t good design. I would say partial, up to 75% or similar.

It should not be XP at all but if it must be it needs to be tempered in some way - like a max cap on XP lost per level or similar. So perhaps 5% a death up to 5x per level.

Hobbling active play for a short time with a debuff that targets a -% effectiveness across a few key stats would do that.

Wow, just me who gets plenty enough internal misery from chastising myself about the defeat then. :slight_smile:

I think the gear penalty was better. It sucked but not as much as XP. It also hits everyone equally because higher chars would have better gear. If the “Bring an iron bow only” to the hunt is a problem then the stat debuff meets the target of it being a punishment that isn’t avoidable through meta-gaming and doesn’t undo progress.

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I would like to add to my idea, that the existing debuff after defeat should stay anyway.
Just so there is some sense of sickness/weakness from being temporarily removed from the physical - coming back shouldn’t be too easy. (Makes me think about sleeve sickness from the Altered Carbon).

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Reduce XP gained and luck for a non-avoidable period after death (1-2mins?). The main reason then why players would try to avoid dying is an interest in loot or XP - which covers almost everything possible in-game.

This also doesn’t affect what has already been earned making it less likely to feel bad but still punitive enough to be something to avoid.

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there you go. i like this one!

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I think we are going to have to think outside of the box here.

What about a penalty to luck?

Going long periods of time while avoiding death can grant a lucky boon on the player, granting better drops and rewards. However, repeated deaths cause a temporary unlucky bane that reduces luck for a period of time, with repeated deaths stacking this effect to until no items drop.

This would affect hunters and miners of any level equally, while not discouraging players from seeking challenging gameplay like dangerous dungeons or parcore courses.

Edit: @OmniUno get out of my head please!

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