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Skill Caps & Racial Matters
A few of the most common discussions center upon "Skill Caps" and "Racial Allignment". A number of past and some present players feel that with a skill cap (UO Style), one would be forced to pick a clear character role and play it, allowing them to raise & lower skills as they wish to change their character if they so decide. Another possible benefit of this is it's an easily understood system and may help attract more players and produce a playing field some would experience as being more level with a chance to catch up and compete with long time players in a faster manner.
Racial Allignment is also a hot topic as currently a pure race clan and such has no benefit and having negative allignment (being red) matters very little.
In a recent thread in Public Forum for Darkfall http://forums.darkfallonline.com/showthread.php?t=254709 I posted the text below and thought I'd share it here for others to consider and respond to if they wish.
1) Character Roles:
Caps on skill that force players to make choices as to what type of character they are is a concept most on both sides of the debate understand. It's easy to understand. We had this in UO and it worked very nicely. If we had this in DFO and in addition the bar was lowered on how many skills were allowed, many players who left the game would be more enticed to return as there would be a sense of being able to compete and also easily relate to the concept.
As you know, DFO is attempting to address this through specializations and soon to be released "Prestige Classes". It's not quite the same as "Skill Caps", but it can produce a similar result.
The concept behind DFO in character evolution and choice is different from any other game I know, but there is a method to the madness; understandably hard to see as well, but it's there.
We are given just "1" character, not 3, not 5, but 1. The reason we are given only "1" is for the purpose of accountability. With the inability to easily roll alts and act in ways that have no consequence as they are not ones main character, a player must live with the reputation this "1" character obtains.
With only "1" character, what DFO provides is the "option" for us to skill up any and all skills we so desire. This is where the "soft cap" advocates get stuck because they believe the following:
A) All characters strive to become carbon copies of each other, and
All characters "must" strive to become carbon copies to compete.
Both A & B above are incorrect and I'll explain why.
a) Show me 12 players with the exact same skills on their characters and I'll show you 12 players that make different choices and fight differently in-game.
b) Take 1 player with every skill raised to 100. Now take a player that has 100 in each skill you imagine would be the limit in a "soft cap" situation. I submit these two characters would be competitive against each other.
You must understand that a character who develops every skill or spell in the game, can't use every skill or spell in the game in one fight. They need to make choices. What the "Soft Cap" advocates are suggesting would result in these players characters limiting their choices; not over time, but compared to how it is now. Now, a player can approach a fight in many different ways. With a "soft cap" a player would have to spend a lot of time reducing and raising different skills to approach a fight in another way. That is not fun; that is time consuming. The biggest point is here is you are not forced to do what you feel most of the server is doing. Be great at the way you want to play and you should be just fine.
Now the only way for all I've said to be true, is for global cool-downs to work through-out each and every skill/spell in the game.
2) Racial Benefits & Conflict
In concept, I like the idea of giving some incentive to one racial guild and giving incentives for race warfare. The problem I have with this is DFO is not a realm vs realm game and while in theory I get what those advocating this are after, in practice what one gets is just more game code trying to force behavior. So now I'd like to talk about behavior.
I have some ideas, but can't explain what has changed in the ffa pvp sandbox community. Once upon a time many of us played a game called Asherons Call on the FFA PvP server called Darktide. All players were red on this server. There were no racial incentives or such, yet the community created its own dynamics based upon differences among guilds in ideology. This is void and absent in DFO for the most part and a huge part of the problem; in fact a huge part of multiple problems as in DFO the players have the unique opportunity to do much of what players are asking the developers to do.
I see no differences in ideology in DFO among guilds. The only difference between ownership of one city over another is the name of the clan owning it for the most part. On Darktide this wasn't true at all. Each town/city had its own fairly unique personality. There were good guys, bad guys and all shades between.
Switch now to UO. There were clans like "Shadow Clan" if memory serves. These guys used to take over ORC mob forts and role play orcs. It's just an example, but the point is that players have changed a lot over time. People mock "role play" yet "role play" played a huge part in making UO and Darktide the amazing games they were. Undead Lords were what you'd call RPK's (random killers) but they roll played and made PvP that much more fun.
In Summary:
Perhaps those calling for soft caps and more narrow character paths with stricter limits on those things that make the game more attractive and less threatening to new players are right. Perhaps that would bring more players to the game and work out just fine. On the other hand, perhaps all I've explained is correct and the evolution of this game is only now getting to where a group of new players can enter and be totally viable in a reasonable period of time and without having to max 100 skills.
Perhaps racial conflict should be promoted by AV. Or, perhaps the community needs to reflect on what I've written and remember past games and ask themselves what they/we could be doing to make DFO more interesting. It's pitiful that we are relying on developers to do what we already have the power to do ourselves. I just don't see leaders in DFO taking the initiative, at least not yet.
-CC
"Lately it occurs to me,
what a long, strange trip it's been". -Hunter
Comments
Wow, I can't believe this was the topic at the top of the forum. I was literally just thinking about Darkfall for the first time in almost a year, got to wondering 'wtf happened to skill caps?', and came here specifically to post about it.
I remember 'skill caps' and 'skill decay' being one of the most talked about features of the game before it came out. I remember Tasos talking about it in interviews. I remember seeing dozens of topics on the forum along the lines of 'What are you guys going to be?' -- 'I'm gonna be a knight! I'm gonna be a light armor, dagger-wielder! I'm gonna be a mage! I'm gonna go heavy armor, 2H sword, healing magic!' There were even topics that said, 'Hey, what keeps me from being an awesome melee/archer/mage?' and people would respond with 'Skill decay and skills caps. Go read about the game, nub.'
I remember being in beta and watching people trying to figure out where the cap was. I remember playing in release for the first three months, wondering when I was going to hit that cap. It never happened.
Did Tasos state why they decided to go back on this feature without telling anyone? (at least for the first couple months after release -- did they ever address this?) It was really a game-breaker for me, because I was getting sick of afk macroing, getting in those pyramids to build up my rigor, etc, just to be amazing at everything.
Originally posted by geldonyetich
Wow, I knew you guys were pretty desparate to slam the game, but hacking the web page of a major game site so a user review masquarades as an official one? Pretty impressive.
[Edit: no, after seeing there's an actual video associated with it, I guess not, despite the wierd way GameSpot distributes its content making it looks like the reviewer didn't even write this.]
I don't recall any official word on this after release. I remember the same as you; in fact, I even bought two accounts so my alt could do all the crafting since I assumed I would be limited and like others didn't know what the limits were. It's all speculation why this was never implemented but if you read my entire post you can see that it really never needed to be and actually with only one character option made the game more fun in terms of choices / options in how to fight. The key though to make this work was/is global cool-downs as this would have totally avoided cycling nukes as an example.
I don't see skill caps on the horizon but there have been changes that make things better for younger players vs older ones and prestige classes are in the works.
Cheers -CC
"Lately it occurs to me,
what a long, strange trip it's been". -Hunter
I have to say, I disagree rather strongly about skill caps.
I LOVE knowing I can learn anything, like in Eve.
There are no "mistakes", I cant fubar my character.
Personally, I think the system AV has put in place just needs "more". If I put on a set of Scale Mail, my Magic and Archery suffer terribly, hence a kind of skil cap.
The same goes for the most part with the Specializations. Choose one Specialization and some skills in other categories suffer.
Its not perfect, but I respect the skeleton of the system they have in place. We just need more options and more polish.
While I don't doubt its true for some, I just dont see why skill caps would attract people to a game. Sure, I don't want to be fighting Melee/Magic/Archery gods either.. but it seems to be the system in place can handle this kind of thing. Maybe it just needs to be tweaked more.
----
Personally, I LOVE the idea of Realm vs Realm.
Alfar vs Humans/Elfs/Dwarfs vs Orcs/Miradim (sp?). Perfect! a 3-way realm system similiar to DAOC. One side gets too zergish, the other two weaker sides start to help each other.
I might be stoned for this, but I'd like to see the Alignment System tweaked to the point that you basically cant attack your own side. Clans take over cities for the greater good of their Realm.
Taking over a city gets your Realm/Faction a small buff.
Why not take it further and compliment-copy DAOC RvR system. Some cities contain artifacts that give their side a decent boost/buff of some kind. Maybe the artifacts are stealable, maybe they just effect the side controlling the city.
Give us a reason to RvR.
And make being an Outlaw much more serious, such as in Eve where getting your alignment back is a real pain. You lose Alignment VERY quickly for Outlawish acts and regain it very slowly.
Anyway, NOT a fan of a soft-skill cap.
BIG fan of a Realm vs Realm system (with extras).
If you love RvR you'll love how I think RvR would work in DFO. You can read by clicking on the link below.
http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AYNanGuEEWawZHp3Y2Jxd183aGZnMzJ2Y24&hl=en
Games:
Currently playing:Nothing
Will play: Darkfall: Unholy Wars
Past games:
Guild Wars 2 - Xpiher Duminous
Xpiher's GW2
GW 1 - Xpiher Duminous
Darkfall - Xpiher Duminous (NA) retired
AoC - Xpiher (Tyranny) retired
Warhammer - Xpiher
Spot light thread
Darkfall vs. Skill Cap
http://forums.darkfallonline.com/showthread.php?t=216349
Really sad.
C:\Users\FF\Desktop\spin move.gif
Difference is, in EVE, you can progress while you are offline while in DF, its tedious and you have to AFK progress for stats. To raise stats and skills, you have to focus them down. By focus instead of just playing and wait for your stuff to get raised naturally. Buff spells, debuff, you have to spam them in town none stop in order to raise them at a noticeable rate.
DF is suppose to have skill, stats decay. IF you had to make a mistake somewhere, you was suppose to have the possibility to simpy let the unwanted skill decay and raise an other one easily(Considered that DF was not suppose to be a huge grind time sink.)
Full plates, scale or whatever made to enforce your def higher in return make magic and bow being less effectif. Full scale for example will make in return, archery and offensive magic to make super ultra low damage. Problem is, players take bone armor instead because its the best gear for hybrid type players. All DF players are hybrid anyway, so bone armor are the most popular.
C:\Users\FF\Desktop\spin move.gif
You are always sad about DFO no matter the subject. Is there any game you enjoy?
That link is to a post that explains much of what I did in the OP. In fact they followed through with what was addressed in that link and contnue to with the planned prestige classes. It's a good read. Here..........
Darkfall vs. Skill Cap
A skill cap refers to a maximum number of skill points you can use making it necessary to carefully plan your character’s development. In a skill based game like Darkfall, this would emulate a class system. Players are forced to focus on becoming an archer, a crafter, a mage, a warrior etc. because there are not enough skill points to go around. Darkfall doesn’t have a skill cap and the reason why is one of our most frequently asked questions. We spoke with Claus Grovdal, Darkfall’s lead designer, who answered the community’s question and explained what Darkfall is doing instead.
Claus explained that Darkfall is designed for PvP and that it should be more about the player behind the character than the character itself. Class-based games tend to make you good at PvP through PvE and being good at PvP is all about class, level and gear. It gives players the illusion of diversity when in reality classes are never balanced. There’s always an overpowered flavor of the month class configuration. Adding levels to the equation compounds these imbalances and individual player skill becomes less and less important.
Many Darkfall community members argue that characters with developed skills have a strong advantage over newer characters. Claus pointed out that having an advantage is normal and has nothing to do with the complete domination that we encounter in class/level systems. People tend to forget that a relatively new Darkfall player with some work and individual player skill is very viable and competitive. You definitely can’t have that in a class/level system where even small level differences make it impossible to be competitive. This is why in most games PvP is usually restricted to the higher or even the highest levels: it simply doesn’t work before then.
Another argument against Darkfall’s open model is that competitive players need to work too hard at improving their characters and a skill cap would magically fix this. According to Claus, adding a skill cap would be taking away from the game and forcing players to give up their freedom. He explained that Darkfall’s philosophy is adding options rather than restrictions. Specialization options are already in the game, and many more are on their way. He offered three quick examples from October’s upcoming free expansion:
An option called Jumpshot allows you to jump and fire a bow at a 10 percent penalty on max mana. Aquatic Shot allows you to use a bow under water at a 5 percent penalty on max mana. Finally Mage-Killer will give you bonus damage against users wielding a staff but completely blocks your ability to use elemental, arcane, and necromancy magic. You could select to use all three of these options to get a real edge as an archer vs. magic at a 15 percent max mana penalty plus the magic use penalty. This is a choice you make, you’re not forced to do this, and if you don’t like it you can reverse it easily and get something else that suits your play-style better. There are many high-end specialization options available and more will be added with every update. Claus explained to us that this is the just first step in adding even more diversity to Darkfall.
From what we’ve seen, the changes look very exciting and we’re looking forward to seeing them in action in Darkfall’s upcoming free expansion. We’ll spotlight more features and updates that the new expansion brings in the next days and weeks leading up to it.
-CC
"Lately it occurs to me,
what a long, strange trip it's been". -Hunter