However if what they are saying is true you might easily be killed and looted for not being diverse an useing that one skill instead of many..
That's not the point. The point is, if I gain skills by using them over and over, then I will use skills depending on which one needs to be raised. If I can spend skill points, I'll just use my skills as I want to, regardless of which one needs to be raised, and then spend my points later.
I might have a skill I don't want to raise at all. If I can spend points, then I'll use that skill sometimes because I want to, but I won't spend points on it.
If it's use = raise skill I won't ever use that skill, because the use would be wasted.
If I can spend points, I will use a skill just because it looks cool. If use = raise skill, I won't do that, because it would be wasting a skill increase.
Fallout 3 is a level based game, so it doesn't really have much in common with the way Darkfall's skill system will work.
The way Darkfall is designed to be played is you log in, decide what adventure you want to go on, then go on that adventure. Not, where do I need to kill things today to gain levels?
Do you want to go to X dungeon today to look for that PK that killed you a few days ago and you have heard hangs out there?
Do you want to go search for that dragon that lives on the top of the mountain?
Do you want to go to a neighboring city and look for some new armor?
Then, once you have decided what you want to do... you go do it. You don't go to X dungeon because you need XP or you want to grind some skills, you do it because that's what you WANT to do.
Your skill progression will happen naturally through the course of gameplay. There's no need to grind anything.
This is the way it worked in UO and it worked very well. Although, there are some big differences between the two games and I think UO did it the best after The 2nd Age expansion.
I will try to explain the progression of the skill gain system in UO.
1st phase: You basically had 700 skill points to distribute through the 30+ skills in the game up to 100 maximum. If you managed to get 7 skills to 100 and you gained skill points in another skill then you would lose skill points in a random skill you have 100 in, and that skill will continue to decrease as long as you keep gaining points in the new skill. This was especially bad considering you would gain 10-20 points for just using a skill 1 time. Once you got past 60 in that particular skill it became increasingly hard to gain points in that skill and at this time having 100 in 7 skills was almost unheard of.
The system also made your skills decay if you didn't use them for a certain period of time. I don't remember the exact decay rate, but I do remember that if you didn't log in every day and use all of your skills you were gaining, it would hurt.
2nd phase: Same as 1st phase except now skills did not degrade over time. The community rejoiced. But, there was still a major problem. Namely, if someone forced you to use a skill you have not mastered it would effectively destroying one of your maxed skills. People would place campfires around the Britannia bank and then when someone got even remotely close it would cause their camping skill to automatically raise. This was quite funny, but obviously frustrating. There were quite a few skills that you could do this with.
3rd pase: Same as 2nd phase except now you could lock your skills so that they would not go any higher or any lower. This was later refined to allow you to set if you only wanted the skill to go up, or down. The ability to manage your skill levels and create the character you actually wanted was at its optimal point during this phase.
So there you have it. The explination of the progression of UO skill gain. Hopefully Darkfall's skill gain system will be more similar to the 3rd phase than the first.
Edit: I posted this because it seems to me that there is some misconceptoin that people will need to "grind" skills in Darkfall to progress their character. This was simply not true in UO, and Darkfall has ... borrowed... quite a few things from UO so I am making an assumption that they will work similar.
In UO a brand new character could also compete with a veteran if they caught them off guard, or used superior tactics. Skill level mattered, but tactics mattered more.
In UO, if I remember correctly, you could chose 1 skill to put 50 points into and another skill to put 25 points into right from the start. Also, most skill did not take more then a few hours to raise to 50+. Swordmaster for example probably took less than 30 minutes to raise from 0-60 from just fighting monsters as you were adventuring through the game.
"There is as yet insufficient data for a meaningful answer."
Fallout 3 is a level based game, so it doesn't really have much in common with the way Darkfall's skill system will work. The way Darkfall is designed to be played is you log in, decide what adventure you want to go on, then go on that adventure. Not, where do I need to kill things today to gain levels? Do you want to go to X dungeon today to look for that PK that killed you a few days ago and you have heard hangs out there?
Do you want to go search for that dragon that lives on the top of the mountain?
Do you want to go to a neighboring city and look for some new armor? Then, once you have decided what you want to do... you go do it. You don't go to X dungeon because you need XP or you want to grind some skills, you do it because that's what you WANT to do. Your skill progression will happen naturally through the course of gameplay. There's no need to grind anything. This is the way it worked in UO and it worked very well. Although, there are some big differences between the two games and I think UO did it the best after The 2nd Age expansion. I will try to explain the progression of the skill gain system in UO. 1st phase: You basically had 700 skill points to distribute through the 30+ skills in the game up to 100 maximum. If you managed to get 7 skills to 100 and you gained skill points in another skill then you would lose skill points in a random skill you have 100 in, and that skill will continue to decrease as long as you keep gaining points in the new skill. This was especially bad considering you would gain 10-20 points for just using a skill 1 time. Once you got past 60 in that particular skill it became increasingly hard to gain points in that skill and at this time having 100 in 7 skills was almost unheard of. The system also made your skills decay if you didn't use them for a certain period of time. I don't remember the exact decay rate, but I do remember that if you didn't log in every day and use all of your skills you were gaining, it would hurt. 2nd phase: Same as 1st phase except now skills did not degrade over time. The community rejoiced. But, there was still a major problem. Namely, if someone forced you to use a skill you have not mastered it would effectively destroying one of your maxed skills. People would place campfires around the Britannia bank and then when someone got even remotely close it would cause their camping skill to automatically raise. This was quite funny, but obviously frustrating. There were quite a few skills that you could do this with. 3rd pase: Same as 2nd phase except now you could lock your skills so that they would not go any higher or any lower. This was later refined to allow you to set if you only wanted the skill to go up, or down. The ability to manage your skill levels and create the character you actually wanted was at its optimal point during this phase. So there you have it. The explination of the progression of UO skill gain. Hopefully Darkfall's skill gain system will be more similar to the 3rd phase than the first. Edit: I posted this because it seems to me that there is some misconceptoin that people will need to "grind" skills in Darkfall to progress their character. This was simply not true in UO, and Darkfall has ... borrowed... quite a few things from UO so I am making an assumption that they will work similar. In UO a brand new character could also compete with a veteran if they caught them off guard, or used superior tactics. Skill level mattered, but tactics mattered more. In UO, if I remember correctly, you could chose 1 skill to put 50 points into and another skill to put 25 points into right from the start. Also, most skill did not take more then a few hours to raise to 50+. Swordmaster for example probably took less than 30 minutes to raise from 0-60 from just fighting monsters as you were adventuring through the game.
All of that is irrelevant to the point I was making.
I have a sword swinging skill, and a lightning spell skill, and also an ice spell.
I am about to kill something, it only has a couple hits left, and I am in no danger of dying. I only have to hit it, and it will be dead.
What will I use to hit it with? In a use = raise skill system, I will use the skill that needs to be raised.
In a spend points system, that is irrelevant, I'll just use whatever I want, because I will gain points and spend them later.
That is why I like spending points better. What if I don't need or want to raise the ice spell, but it would be cool to use it anyway? I'm not going to use it, in a use = raise skill system, because it would be wasted when I could be raising my sword skill or lightning spell and raising them.
The game is encouraging me to use skills not in the order of how I want to, but in the order of what needs to be raised.
Nothing you posted changes that to "make progression happen naturally." In fact, I feel it's the opposite. It is very unnatural that I won't want to use a skill, because it will increase, but I need or want to increase another skill instead.
I should use a skill just because I want to, not because it will increase if used. I WANT to shoot off the ice spell, not increase it, I WANT to increase the sword spell, not use it right not. But the game encourages me to do the opposite.
I just notice this today on the official features FAQ, and I think it explains everything. How many skills and spells will Darkfall have? “We currently have about 300 skills and 200 spells designed on paper, but we are hoping to get at least 500 skills and 500 spells in there before retail.” I would not be surprised if most of the other features on this FAQ are also still only in the designed on paper stage.
Basicaly its a wish list that they are hoping to get to before retail, like pretty much any other MMO.
I doubt you missed when Tasos informed us that the game is feature complete?
Originally posted by Ihmotepp The only think I don't like is getting better by using a skill over and over, like swinging a sword a bazillon times to increase sword skills. I'd rather get skill points, and spend them on whatever skill I want to as I build my character.
Such games already exist, the technical term for this is level based game.
Originally posted by Ihmotepp I should use a skill just because I want to, not because it will increase if used. I WANT to shoot off the ice spell, not increase it, I WANT to increase the sword spell, not use it right not. But the game encourages me to do the opposite.
Maybe this game isn't for you then. You don't have to do anything. The game is not forcing you to use the ice spell or the sword skill. It's your choice. Edit: Personally I would rather gain skill with my sword when I use it than gaining some arbitrary number of points until I get to the next level and then assigning those points to whatever I want that just seem overly complicated to me and promotes grinding for these points. (XP) With a skill based system like UO, there is no grinding, you just play the game.
I'm just guessing that you never played the original UO design, because your entire post conflicts with the way the skill progression actually works in the game. You don't gain a skill point every single time you swing your sword or cast your ice spell. It's transparent. You didn't know how many times you had to use a certain skill to gain a point so it was never really something that the player thought about, it just happened. I'm not saying it was random, but I don't know of anyone that just sat there saying "only 1022 more sword swings till my next point!"
I will say this as simply as I can. Never in UO did I choose one attack over another only because I needed to gain a point in the corresponding skill.
If you have never played the game, it's probably hard to understand. But if Darkfall works like UO I will be very happy not having to worry about gaining levels and xp.
"There is as yet insufficient data for a meaningful answer."
Originally posted by Ihmotepp I should use a skill just because I want to, not because it will increase if used. I WANT to shoot off the ice spell, not increase it, I WANT to increase the sword spell, not use it right not. But the game encourages me to do the opposite.
Maybe this game isn't for you then. You don't have to do anything. The game is not forcing you to use the ice spell or the sword skill. It's your choice. Edit: Personally I would rather gain skill with my sword when I use it than gaining some arbitrary number of points until I get to the next level and then assigning those points to whatever I want that just seem overly complicated to me and promotes grinding for these points. (XP) With a skill based system like UO, there is no grinding, you just play the game.
I'm just guessing that you never played the original UO design, because your entire post conflicts with the way the skill progression actually works in the game. You don't gain a skill point every single time you swing your sword or cast your ice spell. It's transparent. You didn't know how many times you had to use a certain skill to gain a point so it was never really something that the player thought about, it just happened. I'm not saying it was random, but I don't know of anyone that just sat there saying "only 1022 more sword swings till my next point!"
I will say this as simply as I can. Never in UO did I choose one attack over another only because I needed to gain a point in the corresponding skill.
If you have never played the game, it's probably hard to understand. But if Darkfall works like UO I will be very happy not having to worry about gaining levels and xp.
I understand perfectly. Maybe you have never played a game where you get to spend skill points.
There is nothing "natural" about swing sword a bazillion times, and eventually sword skill increases.
This is how the Dungeon Siege games worked. Use skill= increase in skill eventually.
I would do things like this. One mob pops up from the ground, some kind of worm thing that is immobile, but spits acid at you. Now, my sword skill was pretty high, so I COULD run up to it, and kill it in a couple of sword swings, and that would be that.
That would be the sensible thing to do right? But I wanted to raise my bow skill, which was low. So instead of killing the thing in a couple of whacks, I'd shoot 20 arrows into it, so my bow skill would increase.
What's "natural" about that?
I'd prefer to just hit the creature a couple of times and kill it, but then I'd waste all that use that could be going towards increasing my bow skill.
If I had points to spend, I'd whack the creature with my sword, be on my merry way, and when I got some skill points I'd spend them increasing my bow skill, which to me, makes much more sense.
(....) Tasos says the game is "feature complete" yet we have no concrete list of features that are in the game. (....) Tasos can always say, "I didn't say that was in, but something we wanted to get in."
A great example of this is the pet system removal, im sure more will be removed before the game is actually released!
(....) Tasos says the game is "feature complete" yet we have no concrete list of features that are in the game. (....) Tasos can always say, "I didn't say that was in, but something we wanted to get in."
A great example of this is the pet system removal, im sure more will be removed before the game is actually released!
You're just being picky. I think combat has been removed, but that's not going ot affect game play very much.
Your consernes are resonable. Regaurding what u said that some players were lvling fast in easy farming mob points and then when max lvl they were ganging other players its simply wont exist in DF simply cause there are NO lvls . You can try ofc raise as much possible your avatar's fighting skills ,but in an enviroment where even mobs ,are not a picknic to kill, with other players maybe lurking around,even the gangers will get ganged ,and there will be a relative balance concernng ,skill numbers,balance ,but if u imagine the huge depth in classes, the diferent battlestyles of all players, hunderns of diferent class combinations, the ability to for many ppl to move with their friends in groups ,or groups from guilds , there wont be balancing or ganging isues,cause simply the game is made that way that throught ,its loads of diferent factors ,elements ,players skills e.t.c. not many times the same result will come in fights..
If the game was balanced in everything ,clases,talents ,lvls e.t.c. i agree there would be issues...
The key factor in balance is either strick balance in everything.. (wow) or freedom (DF)
As for me i think its time for something new and refreshing = DF
Originally posted by Ihmotepp If I had points to spend, I'd whack the creature with my sword, be on my merry way, and when I got some skill points I'd spend them increasing my bow skill, which to me, makes much more sense.
To each their own, I suppose. Sorry about the long posts then, I just assumed you had not played a true skill based system because personally I don't understand why anyone would want anything different. But, there are always different opinions on everything, so I respect your want of a level based system instead of skill based.
Darkfall will not be a level based system though, so no point discussing it any further.
"There is as yet insufficient data for a meaningful answer."
Originally posted by Ihmotepp I should use a skill just because I want to, not because it will increase if used. I WANT to shoot off the ice spell, not increase it, I WANT to increase the sword spell, not use it right not. But the game encourages me to do the opposite.
Maybe this game isn't for you then. You don't have to do anything. The game is not forcing you to use the ice spell or the sword skill. It's your choice. Edit: Personally I would rather gain skill with my sword when I use it than gaining some arbitrary number of points until I get to the next level and then assigning those points to whatever I want that just seem overly complicated to me and promotes grinding for these points. (XP) With a skill based system like UO, there is no grinding, you just play the game.
I'm just guessing that you never played the original UO design, because your entire post conflicts with the way the skill progression actually works in the game. You don't gain a skill point every single time you swing your sword or cast your ice spell. It's transparent. You didn't know how many times you had to use a certain skill to gain a point so it was never really something that the player thought about, it just happened. I'm not saying it was random, but I don't know of anyone that just sat there saying "only 1022 more sword swings till my next point!"
I will say this as simply as I can. Never in UO did I choose one attack over another only because I needed to gain a point in the corresponding skill.
If you have never played the game, it's probably hard to understand. But if Darkfall works like UO I will be very happy not having to worry about gaining levels and xp.
I understand perfectly. Maybe you have never played a game where you get to spend skill points.
There is nothing "natural" about swing sword a bazillion times, and eventually sword skill increases.
This is how the Dungeon Siege games worked. Use skill= increase in skill eventually.
I would do things like this. One mob pops up from the ground, some kind of worm thing that is immobile, but spits acid at you. Now, my sword skill was pretty high, so I COULD run up to it, and kill it in a couple of sword swings, and that would be that.
That would be the sensible thing to do right? But I wanted to raise my bow skill, which was low. So instead of killing the thing in a couple of whacks, I'd shoot 20 arrows into it, so my bow skill would increase.
What's "natural" about that?
I'd prefer to just hit the creature a couple of times and kill it, but then I'd waste all that use that could be going towards increasing my bow skill.
If I had points to spend, I'd whack the creature with my sword, be on my merry way, and when I got some skill points I'd spend them increasing my bow skill, which to me, makes much more sense.
I don't get it, if you wanna raise your bow skill use the bow if you don't care then use the sword cus clearly you just wanna raise the bow so that you can use your sword anyway? I mean that doesn't make sense...
Yeah having a bow could be fun... but I like my sword... I wanna use my sword... yeah bows are ghey.... probably never use em cus my sword is awesome... but I wanna raise it anyway... even though I'll never use it.... yeah...
The discussion is pointless anyway... this is a key game mechanic and it certainly isn't gonna change.
Actually as a side note the great thing about the skill system is that it kind of addresses part of the issue you bring up in your origional post.
You reffer to pvp and ganking. The skill system oddly helps this out. in an xp system you need to kill something to benefit from the experience... you don't get points for almost killing it. in a skill system you better yourself with each swing and each cast. so even a fight you lose can evolve your character
getting ganked a few times is gonna be part of the game but you'll benefit from your losses.
The lack of levels also makes would be attackers cautious. you don't know what skills he has or how long he's been around and he doesn't know anything about you. theres risk there and hesitation and even if the opponent has the upper hand it may take some time to best you.
Fighting players would be like an extension of fighting mobs with better ai. the benifits and losses are the same.
I think the features listed on the official website are still so vague that I couldn't really describe them accurately in order to ask someone if they wanted that feature or not. etc...
Thank you for this thread Ihmotepp.
This has been my point too. Many of the comments made by the Developers are vague - not that this is a bad thing - in fact it is very smart as many Devs have been flamed to all hell when they fail to deliver on 'promises' they supposedly made. If I was a Dev I would be very vague all the time!
But what interests me is that the fanbois are taking these vague statements and turning them into 'fact'.
And then they quote one another until everyone actaully believes it is fact and that the Developer said it.
Earlier today, I asked posters to back up a couple of 'facts' with Dev quotes... so far the silence is deafing.
Oh and if it hasn't been mentioned yet. The views are first person for casting and ranged weapons. close 3rd person (locked camera) for melee combat. and possibly slightly wider and a mobile camera for mounted combat. There has also been speculation based on images from the italian interview that the camera switches to 3rd person when sitting to rest (likely for accelerated stamina, mana and health regeneration)
I think the features listed on the official website are still so vague that I couldn't really describe them accurately in order to ask someone if they wanted that feature or not. etc...
Thank you for this thread Ihmotepp.
This has been my point too. Many of the comments made by the Developers are vague - not that this is a bad thing - in fact it is very smart as many Devs have been flamed to all hell when they fail to deliver on 'promises' they supposedly made. If I was a Dev I would be very vague all the time!
But what interests me is that the fanbois are taking these vague statements and turning them into 'fact'.
And then they quote one another until everyone actaully believes it is fact and that the Developer said it.
Earlier today, I asked posters to back up a couple of 'facts' with Dev quotes... so far the silence is deafing.
I suppose in some cases this is a fair assumption... I could never claim to be someone who knows all things about darkfall either. and yeah some stuff is vague. But to be fair little of what darkfall is doing is new on it's own.
most fanboy's extrapolate from previous games, take what is actually know or has at least been stated by the devs and hopefully added a dose of common sense to come to theri conclusions...
Most of the features in darkfall mean little on their own. It's the sum of the parts thats where the true essense of the games potential lies and thats something intangible till the game can truly be played but it is certainly speculated on.
take for example open pvp... Yeah ok I can kill anyone anywhere... now add full loot. ok now aside from griefing I can take their shit and really grief a player (unless they decide not to come back to their body but they probably just got killed by someone else when they respawned :P
Ok now add the consequences... ok maybe I don't give a shit about my allingment. but his town has guards and they don't like me anymore... i'll wait outside for a mark.
Now use a skill based system. Ok I dunno how powerful that guy is... maybe I can take him.... at least if I get a few hits off i'll improve myself a little before i die.
Now add player crafted items. Oh he re equiped fast. hope he didn't put any gear that'll help him resist my attacks.
Just these core components can really work well off one another to create a rather interesting and exciting game experience.
But Maybe it'll be boring as hell... maybe i'm wrong... maybe my common sense isn't so common.
most fanboy's extrapolate from previous games, take what is actually know or has at least been stated by the devs and hopefully added a dose of common sense to come to theri conclusions... HUH? Oh wait... most fanboy's extrapolate from their own imaginations with little knowledge of what is actually possible with current technology, make up their own facts or misquote the devs and add a dose of rabid fanaticism and teenage hormone to come to their conclusions... Fixed it for you ...
Please don't use "Fanboi" and "common sense" together again. Ever.
Originally posted by Ihmotepp I should use a skill just because I want to, not because it will increase if used. I WANT to shoot off the ice spell, not increase it, I WANT to increase the sword spell, not use it right not. But the game encourages me to do the opposite.
Maybe this game isn't for you then. You don't have to do anything. The game is not forcing you to use the ice spell or the sword skill. It's your choice. Edit: Personally I would rather gain skill with my sword when I use it than gaining some arbitrary number of points until I get to the next level and then assigning those points to whatever I want that just seem overly complicated to me and promotes grinding for these points. (XP) With a skill based system like UO, there is no grinding, you just play the game.
I'm just guessing that you never played the original UO design, because your entire post conflicts with the way the skill progression actually works in the game. You don't gain a skill point every single time you swing your sword or cast your ice spell. It's transparent. You didn't know how many times you had to use a certain skill to gain a point so it was never really something that the player thought about, it just happened. I'm not saying it was random, but I don't know of anyone that just sat there saying "only 1022 more sword swings till my next point!"
I will say this as simply as I can. Never in UO did I choose one attack over another only because I needed to gain a point in the corresponding skill.
If you have never played the game, it's probably hard to understand. But if Darkfall works like UO I will be very happy not having to worry about gaining levels and xp.
I understand perfectly. Maybe you have never played a game where you get to spend skill points.
There is nothing "natural" about swing sword a bazillion times, and eventually sword skill increases.
This is how the Dungeon Siege games worked. Use skill= increase in skill eventually.
I would do things like this. One mob pops up from the ground, some kind of worm thing that is immobile, but spits acid at you. Now, my sword skill was pretty high, so I COULD run up to it, and kill it in a couple of sword swings, and that would be that.
That would be the sensible thing to do right? But I wanted to raise my bow skill, which was low. So instead of killing the thing in a couple of whacks, I'd shoot 20 arrows into it, so my bow skill would increase.
What's "natural" about that?
I'd prefer to just hit the creature a couple of times and kill it, but then I'd waste all that use that could be going towards increasing my bow skill.
If I had points to spend, I'd whack the creature with my sword, be on my merry way, and when I got some skill points I'd spend them increasing my bow skill, which to me, makes much more sense.
What's "natural" about it is that this is the way real life works. If you want to get better at something, you have to practice it... usually by repetitive action, as it turns out. I personally don't find this particularly "fun" but it is nonetheless realistic.
What it comes down to is that there are two kinds of people in the world: those who derive enjoyment from things that are more realistic, and those who derive enjoyment of from things that are more abstract. Darkfall comes down very strongly on the side of the former - everything from its art style to its combat system, its skill progression to its social mechanics (full looting, open PvP etc) is an attempt to recreate a kind of Real Fantasy world.
In doing so they've really made a rod for their own back. Many of their proposed features (which are in most cases sufficiently vague to allow Tasos to claim that he never actually promised them... but that's another discussion altogether) sound interesting on paper, particularly for those gamers who haven't played older gen MMOs that focussed more on this unforgiving style of gameplay. In practice I expect many who thought they would like this game will ultimately find such 'realism' to be boring and/or frustrating, and only a niche group will actually thrive in such an environment.
Furthermore, it's far FAR more difficult and demanding to create a game that is `realistic' than one that is abstract. Given the size and inexperience of the dev team (shown time and again by their unrealistic dev goals and expectations of release, beta etc) and the long (and growing!) dev cycle, it's no surprise that most observers (even some of the more fanatical DF fans) have serious doubts about Aventurine's ability to deliver on the features they have promised. Whether this failure to deliver comes in the form of missing features, or whether it's existing features that don't work well enough to create this realistic environment they're shooting for, either way any such failure will have a much greater negative impact in a game that's trying to create a Real World.
Bad lag on overloaded servers will render an FPS combat system frustrating and worthless; poor skill balancing will force everyone to create clone characters or be disadvantaged; a huge world that isn't correctly populated will feel pointless and empty... the list goes on. Unless these guys manage something of a coding miracle, I believe that Darkfall's major features could well prove its undoing.
But of course, that's still assuming they ever manage to release the thing.
Originally posted by Ihmotepp I should use a skill just because I want to, not because it will increase if used. I WANT to shoot off the ice spell, not increase it, I WANT to increase the sword spell, not use it right not. But the game encourages me to do the opposite.
Maybe this game isn't for you then. You don't have to do anything. The game is not forcing you to use the ice spell or the sword skill. It's your choice. Edit: Personally I would rather gain skill with my sword when I use it than gaining some arbitrary number of points until I get to the next level and then assigning those points to whatever I want that just seem overly complicated to me and promotes grinding for these points. (XP) With a skill based system like UO, there is no grinding, you just play the game.
I'm just guessing that you never played the original UO design, because your entire post conflicts with the way the skill progression actually works in the game. You don't gain a skill point every single time you swing your sword or cast your ice spell. It's transparent. You didn't know how many times you had to use a certain skill to gain a point so it was never really something that the player thought about, it just happened. I'm not saying it was random, but I don't know of anyone that just sat there saying "only 1022 more sword swings till my next point!"
I will say this as simply as I can. Never in UO did I choose one attack over another only because I needed to gain a point in the corresponding skill.
If you have never played the game, it's probably hard to understand. But if Darkfall works like UO I will be very happy not having to worry about gaining levels and xp.
I understand perfectly. Maybe you have never played a game where you get to spend skill points.
There is nothing "natural" about swing sword a bazillion times, and eventually sword skill increases.
This is how the Dungeon Siege games worked. Use skill= increase in skill eventually.
I would do things like this. One mob pops up from the ground, some kind of worm thing that is immobile, but spits acid at you. Now, my sword skill was pretty high, so I COULD run up to it, and kill it in a couple of sword swings, and that would be that.
That would be the sensible thing to do right? But I wanted to raise my bow skill, which was low. So instead of killing the thing in a couple of whacks, I'd shoot 20 arrows into it, so my bow skill would increase.
What's "natural" about that?
I'd prefer to just hit the creature a couple of times and kill it, but then I'd waste all that use that could be going towards increasing my bow skill.
If I had points to spend, I'd whack the creature with my sword, be on my merry way, and when I got some skill points I'd spend them increasing my bow skill, which to me, makes much more sense.
What's "natural" about it is that this is the way real life works. If you want to get better at something, you have to practice it... usually by repetitive action, as it turns out. I personally don't find this particularly "fun" but it is nonetheless realistic.
I disagree. It's not realistic at all.
Imagine any actvity that requires lots of practice. The Practice is boring repetition, not real performance.
If you area boxer, you don't practice by having real boxing matches. You get in a sparring ring and practice, and you hit a bag over and over.
If you are going deer hunting, you don't get good by simply running off into the woods and shooting at deer over and over. You go to a range, and shoot targets, over and over.
If you are going to be a ballet dancer, you don't just get on stage till audiences like you, you go to a studio and dance in front of a mirror over and over.
If you want to be a good race car driver, you practice going around and around the track with no cars, before you enter a real race. You don't just start racing, and get good while you're racing.
So no, there's nothing "natural" about getting good doing something without boring practice, which is how things work in the real world.
The boring practice is where you get good, but you're not saying that's in the game, you're saying you get good while in the act, not "practice". Again, very unnatural.
But that's ok, because games aren't supposed to be "natural" they['re supposed to be fun. If they were like real life, our characters would have to go to the bathroom every so often. That would be very natural.
What's "natural" about it is that this is the way real life works. If you want to get better at something, you have to practice it... usually by repetitive action, as it turns out. I personally don't find this particularly "fun" but it is nonetheless realistic.
I disagree. It's not realistic at all.
Imagine any actvity that requires lots of practice. The Practice is boring repetition, not real performance.
If you area boxer, you don't practice by having real boxing matches. You get in a sparring ring and practice, and you hit a bag over and over.
If you are going deer hunting, you don't get good by simply running off into the woods and shooting at deer over and over. You go to a range, and shoot targets, over and over.
If you are going to be a ballet dancer, you don't just get on stage till audiences like you, you go to a studio and dance in front of a mirror over and over.
If you want to be a good race car driver, you practice going around and around the track with no cars, before you enter a real race. You don't just start racing, and get good while you're racing.
So no, there's nothing "natural" about getting good doing something without boring practice, which is how things work in the real world.
The boring practice is where you get good, but you're not saying that's in the game, you're saying you get good while in the act, not "practice". Again, very unnatural.
But that's ok, because games aren't supposed to be "natural" they['re supposed to be fun. If they were like real life, our characters would have to go to the bathroom every so often. That would be very natural.
I think now you're just getting into semantics. Aventurine is attempting to create a realistic environment, within which you improve your skills by using them repeatedly, but still within the context of a computer game. Yes you're right, the essence of improvement comes from drilling simple activities (or indeed from being taught by someone, something I'm not aware of MMO games having really touched on yet). But this is still the same basic concept, that of doing something to get better at that thing.
By contrast, the system you prefer (and I'm not saying it's better or worse, just different) is completely abstract - which of your skills you use doesn't need to have any bearing whatsoever to which of your skills are improving. This is completely unrealistic. Not inferior (in my opinion anyway), but without even a tenuous link to the real world. Fact is, Aventurine are committed to implementing the former system in Darkfall, and that's not going to change. Unless they decide to scrap the whole thing and start again.
Originally posted by Ihmotepp There is nothing "natural" about swing sword a bazillion times, and eventually sword skill increases. This is how the Dungeon Siege games worked. Use skill= increase in skill eventually. I would do things like this. One mob pops up from the ground, some kind of worm thing that is immobile, but spits acid at you. Now, my sword skill was pretty high, so I COULD run up to it, and kill it in a couple of sword swings, and that would be that. That would be the sensible thing to do right? But I wanted to raise my bow skill, which was low. So instead of killing the thing in a couple of whacks, I'd shoot 20 arrows into it, so my bow skill would increase. What's "natural" about that? I'd prefer to just hit the creature a couple of times and kill it, but then I'd waste all that use that could be going towards increasing my bow skill. If I had points to spend, I'd whack the creature with my sword, be on my merry way, and when I got some skill points I'd spend them increasing my bow skill, which to me, makes much more sense.
Nothing natural? Are you kidding?
Is it more natural to gain a level by using solely your sword, level up by putting all points in bow mastery, and suddenly you become expert with the bow?
If you want to kill said worm with your sword, kill it with your sword. If you want to get better with your bow, hit it with your bow. I don't understand the unnatural thing you're getting from this.
Besides, in this example, it's good to use your bow, if you want to become good, not only your character, because you also get better, since it's an fps. You get a better feeling of how the bow works, the aim, the leading you must apply to hit your target, etc etc. And I guess the same goes on magic-using.
Originally posted by Ihmotepp There is nothing "natural" about swing sword a bazillion times, and eventually sword skill increases. This is how the Dungeon Siege games worked. Use skill= increase in skill eventually. I would do things like this. One mob pops up from the ground, some kind of worm thing that is immobile, but spits acid at you. Now, my sword skill was pretty high, so I COULD run up to it, and kill it in a couple of sword swings, and that would be that. That would be the sensible thing to do right? But I wanted to raise my bow skill, which was low. So instead of killing the thing in a couple of whacks, I'd shoot 20 arrows into it, so my bow skill would increase. What's "natural" about that? I'd prefer to just hit the creature a couple of times and kill it, but then I'd waste all that use that could be going towards increasing my bow skill. If I had points to spend, I'd whack the creature with my sword, be on my merry way, and when I got some skill points I'd spend them increasing my bow skill, which to me, makes much more sense.
Nothing natural? Are you kidding?
Is it more natural to gain a level by using solely your sword, level up by putting all points in bow mastery, and suddenly you become expert with the bow?
If you want to kill said worm with your sword, kill it with your sword. If you want to get better with your bow, hit it with your bow. I don't understand the unnatural thing you're getting from this.
Besides, in this example, it's good to use your bow, if you want to become good, not only your character, because you also get better, since it's an fps. You get a better feeling of how the bow works, the aim, the leading you must apply to hit your target, etc etc. And I guess the same goes on magic-using.
No, I am not kidding. IMO, this is completely unnatural.
I can kill this mob with one smack of my sword. Why, in a "natural" i.e. realistic setting would I not go ahead and do that. What possible motivation, realistically could I have for not killing a menacing monster as fast as possible?
In a use = skill increase system, instead of killing this mob with one whack of my sword, I might shoot it 20 times with my bow.
Why? Skill increase.
That's natural? Hardly.
Natural is I go to a target range, and if I want to get better at using a bow, I shoot 8 bazillion arrows at targets. I don't "practice" while I'm trying to stay alive. That's silly.
But again, it's a game. If it's fun, then it's fun. If we wanted realism, we could play real life.
Don't believe me? Go find someone that hunts deer with a bow and arrow, and tell them you want to go hunting, but you've never used a bow before. They will send you to the range, not hope you get good practicing shooting at deer and wounding them.
Comments
However if what they are saying is true you might easily be killed and looted for not being diverse an useing that one skill instead of many..
My theme song.
That's not the point. The point is, if I gain skills by using them over and over, then I will use skills depending on which one needs to be raised. If I can spend skill points, I'll just use my skills as I want to, regardless of which one needs to be raised, and then spend my points later.
I might have a skill I don't want to raise at all. If I can spend points, then I'll use that skill sometimes because I want to, but I won't spend points on it.
If it's use = raise skill I won't ever use that skill, because the use would be wasted.
If I can spend points, I will use a skill just because it looks cool. If use = raise skill, I won't do that, because it would be wasting a skill increase.
Fallout 3 is a level based game, so it doesn't really have much in common with the way Darkfall's skill system will work.
The way Darkfall is designed to be played is you log in, decide what adventure you want to go on, then go on that adventure. Not, where do I need to kill things today to gain levels?
Do you want to go to X dungeon today to look for that PK that killed you a few days ago and you have heard hangs out there?
Do you want to go search for that dragon that lives on the top of the mountain?
Do you want to go to a neighboring city and look for some new armor?
Then, once you have decided what you want to do... you go do it. You don't go to X dungeon because you need XP or you want to grind some skills, you do it because that's what you WANT to do.
Your skill progression will happen naturally through the course of gameplay. There's no need to grind anything.
This is the way it worked in UO and it worked very well. Although, there are some big differences between the two games and I think UO did it the best after The 2nd Age expansion.
I will try to explain the progression of the skill gain system in UO.
1st phase: You basically had 700 skill points to distribute through the 30+ skills in the game up to 100 maximum. If you managed to get 7 skills to 100 and you gained skill points in another skill then you would lose skill points in a random skill you have 100 in, and that skill will continue to decrease as long as you keep gaining points in the new skill. This was especially bad considering you would gain 10-20 points for just using a skill 1 time. Once you got past 60 in that particular skill it became increasingly hard to gain points in that skill and at this time having 100 in 7 skills was almost unheard of.
The system also made your skills decay if you didn't use them for a certain period of time. I don't remember the exact decay rate, but I do remember that if you didn't log in every day and use all of your skills you were gaining, it would hurt.
2nd phase: Same as 1st phase except now skills did not degrade over time. The community rejoiced. But, there was still a major problem. Namely, if someone forced you to use a skill you have not mastered it would effectively destroying one of your maxed skills. People would place campfires around the Britannia bank and then when someone got even remotely close it would cause their camping skill to automatically raise. This was quite funny, but obviously frustrating. There were quite a few skills that you could do this with.
3rd pase: Same as 2nd phase except now you could lock your skills so that they would not go any higher or any lower. This was later refined to allow you to set if you only wanted the skill to go up, or down. The ability to manage your skill levels and create the character you actually wanted was at its optimal point during this phase.
So there you have it. The explination of the progression of UO skill gain. Hopefully Darkfall's skill gain system will be more similar to the 3rd phase than the first.
Edit: I posted this because it seems to me that there is some misconceptoin that people will need to "grind" skills in Darkfall to progress their character. This was simply not true in UO, and Darkfall has ... borrowed... quite a few things from UO so I am making an assumption that they will work similar.
In UO a brand new character could also compete with a veteran if they caught them off guard, or used superior tactics. Skill level mattered, but tactics mattered more.
In UO, if I remember correctly, you could chose 1 skill to put 50 points into and another skill to put 25 points into right from the start. Also, most skill did not take more then a few hours to raise to 50+. Swordmaster for example probably took less than 30 minutes to raise from 0-60 from just fighting monsters as you were adventuring through the game.
"There is as yet insufficient data for a meaningful answer."
All of that is irrelevant to the point I was making.
I have a sword swinging skill, and a lightning spell skill, and also an ice spell.
I am about to kill something, it only has a couple hits left, and I am in no danger of dying. I only have to hit it, and it will be dead.
What will I use to hit it with? In a use = raise skill system, I will use the skill that needs to be raised.
In a spend points system, that is irrelevant, I'll just use whatever I want, because I will gain points and spend them later.
That is why I like spending points better. What if I don't need or want to raise the ice spell, but it would be cool to use it anyway? I'm not going to use it, in a use = raise skill system, because it would be wasted when I could be raising my sword skill or lightning spell and raising them.
The game is encouraging me to use skills not in the order of how I want to, but in the order of what needs to be raised.
Nothing you posted changes that to "make progression happen naturally." In fact, I feel it's the opposite. It is very unnatural that I won't want to use a skill, because it will increase, but I need or want to increase another skill instead.
I should use a skill just because I want to, not because it will increase if used. I WANT to shoot off the ice spell, not increase it, I WANT to increase the sword spell, not use it right not. But the game encourages me to do the opposite.
I doubt you missed when Tasos informed us that the game is feature complete?
If you did its to read in one of the numerous developer journals available over at http://forums.darkfallonline.com/forumdisplay.php?f=29 .
Personally I like how Tasos describes the game here: www.giantbomb.com/darkfall/61-22142/
It's straight-forward and simple, I wish they would write it like this on the official site.
Such games already exist, the technical term for this is level based game.
Maybe this game isn't for you then. You don't have to do anything. The game is not forcing you to use the ice spell or the sword skill. It's your choice. Edit: Personally I would rather gain skill with my sword when I use it than gaining some arbitrary number of points until I get to the next level and then assigning those points to whatever I want that just seem overly complicated to me and promotes grinding for these points. (XP) With a skill based system like UO, there is no grinding, you just play the game.
I'm just guessing that you never played the original UO design, because your entire post conflicts with the way the skill progression actually works in the game. You don't gain a skill point every single time you swing your sword or cast your ice spell. It's transparent. You didn't know how many times you had to use a certain skill to gain a point so it was never really something that the player thought about, it just happened. I'm not saying it was random, but I don't know of anyone that just sat there saying "only 1022 more sword swings till my next point!"
I will say this as simply as I can. Never in UO did I choose one attack over another only because I needed to gain a point in the corresponding skill.
If you have never played the game, it's probably hard to understand. But if Darkfall works like UO I will be very happy not having to worry about gaining levels and xp.
"There is as yet insufficient data for a meaningful answer."
Maybe this game isn't for you then. You don't have to do anything. The game is not forcing you to use the ice spell or the sword skill. It's your choice. Edit: Personally I would rather gain skill with my sword when I use it than gaining some arbitrary number of points until I get to the next level and then assigning those points to whatever I want that just seem overly complicated to me and promotes grinding for these points. (XP) With a skill based system like UO, there is no grinding, you just play the game.
I'm just guessing that you never played the original UO design, because your entire post conflicts with the way the skill progression actually works in the game. You don't gain a skill point every single time you swing your sword or cast your ice spell. It's transparent. You didn't know how many times you had to use a certain skill to gain a point so it was never really something that the player thought about, it just happened. I'm not saying it was random, but I don't know of anyone that just sat there saying "only 1022 more sword swings till my next point!"
I will say this as simply as I can. Never in UO did I choose one attack over another only because I needed to gain a point in the corresponding skill.
If you have never played the game, it's probably hard to understand. But if Darkfall works like UO I will be very happy not having to worry about gaining levels and xp.
I understand perfectly. Maybe you have never played a game where you get to spend skill points.
There is nothing "natural" about swing sword a bazillion times, and eventually sword skill increases.
This is how the Dungeon Siege games worked. Use skill= increase in skill eventually.
I would do things like this. One mob pops up from the ground, some kind of worm thing that is immobile, but spits acid at you. Now, my sword skill was pretty high, so I COULD run up to it, and kill it in a couple of sword swings, and that would be that.
That would be the sensible thing to do right? But I wanted to raise my bow skill, which was low. So instead of killing the thing in a couple of whacks, I'd shoot 20 arrows into it, so my bow skill would increase.
What's "natural" about that?
I'd prefer to just hit the creature a couple of times and kill it, but then I'd waste all that use that could be going towards increasing my bow skill.
If I had points to spend, I'd whack the creature with my sword, be on my merry way, and when I got some skill points I'd spend them increasing my bow skill, which to me, makes much more sense.
A great example of this is the pet system removal, im sure more will be removed before the game is actually released!
10 print "go home"
20 goto 10
A great example of this is the pet system removal, im sure more will be removed before the game is actually released!
You're just being picky. I think combat has been removed, but that's not going ot affect game play very much.
Your consernes are resonable. Regaurding what u said that some players were lvling fast in easy farming mob points and then when max lvl they were ganging other players its simply wont exist in DF simply cause there are NO lvls . You can try ofc raise as much possible your avatar's fighting skills ,but in an enviroment where even mobs ,are not a picknic to kill, with other players maybe lurking around,even the gangers will get ganged ,and there will be a relative balance concernng ,skill numbers,balance ,but if u imagine the huge depth in classes, the diferent battlestyles of all players, hunderns of diferent class combinations, the ability to for many ppl to move with their friends in groups ,or groups from guilds , there wont be balancing or ganging isues,cause simply the game is made that way that throught ,its loads of diferent factors ,elements ,players skills e.t.c. not many times the same result will come in fights..
If the game was balanced in everything ,clases,talents ,lvls e.t.c. i agree there would be issues...
The key factor in balance is either strick balance in everything.. (wow) or freedom (DF)
As for me i think its time for something new and refreshing = DF
To each their own, I suppose. Sorry about the long posts then, I just assumed you had not played a true skill based system because personally I don't understand why anyone would want anything different. But, there are always different opinions on everything, so I respect your want of a level based system instead of skill based.
Darkfall will not be a level based system though, so no point discussing it any further.
"There is as yet insufficient data for a meaningful answer."
details and pics
Maybe this game isn't for you then. You don't have to do anything. The game is not forcing you to use the ice spell or the sword skill. It's your choice. Edit: Personally I would rather gain skill with my sword when I use it than gaining some arbitrary number of points until I get to the next level and then assigning those points to whatever I want that just seem overly complicated to me and promotes grinding for these points. (XP) With a skill based system like UO, there is no grinding, you just play the game.
I'm just guessing that you never played the original UO design, because your entire post conflicts with the way the skill progression actually works in the game. You don't gain a skill point every single time you swing your sword or cast your ice spell. It's transparent. You didn't know how many times you had to use a certain skill to gain a point so it was never really something that the player thought about, it just happened. I'm not saying it was random, but I don't know of anyone that just sat there saying "only 1022 more sword swings till my next point!"
I will say this as simply as I can. Never in UO did I choose one attack over another only because I needed to gain a point in the corresponding skill.
If you have never played the game, it's probably hard to understand. But if Darkfall works like UO I will be very happy not having to worry about gaining levels and xp.
I understand perfectly. Maybe you have never played a game where you get to spend skill points.
There is nothing "natural" about swing sword a bazillion times, and eventually sword skill increases.
This is how the Dungeon Siege games worked. Use skill= increase in skill eventually.
I would do things like this. One mob pops up from the ground, some kind of worm thing that is immobile, but spits acid at you. Now, my sword skill was pretty high, so I COULD run up to it, and kill it in a couple of sword swings, and that would be that.
That would be the sensible thing to do right? But I wanted to raise my bow skill, which was low. So instead of killing the thing in a couple of whacks, I'd shoot 20 arrows into it, so my bow skill would increase.
What's "natural" about that?
I'd prefer to just hit the creature a couple of times and kill it, but then I'd waste all that use that could be going towards increasing my bow skill.
If I had points to spend, I'd whack the creature with my sword, be on my merry way, and when I got some skill points I'd spend them increasing my bow skill, which to me, makes much more sense.
I don't get it, if you wanna raise your bow skill use the bow if you don't care then use the sword cus clearly you just wanna raise the bow so that you can use your sword anyway? I mean that doesn't make sense...
Yeah having a bow could be fun... but I like my sword... I wanna use my sword... yeah bows are ghey.... probably never use em cus my sword is awesome... but I wanna raise it anyway... even though I'll never use it.... yeah...
The discussion is pointless anyway... this is a key game mechanic and it certainly isn't gonna change.
Actually as a side note the great thing about the skill system is that it kind of addresses part of the issue you bring up in your origional post.
You reffer to pvp and ganking. The skill system oddly helps this out. in an xp system you need to kill something to benefit from the experience... you don't get points for almost killing it. in a skill system you better yourself with each swing and each cast. so even a fight you lose can evolve your character
getting ganked a few times is gonna be part of the game but you'll benefit from your losses.
The lack of levels also makes would be attackers cautious. you don't know what skills he has or how long he's been around and he doesn't know anything about you. theres risk there and hesitation and even if the opponent has the upper hand it may take some time to best you.
Fighting players would be like an extension of fighting mobs with better ai. the benifits and losses are the same.
Thank you for this thread Ihmotepp.
This has been my point too. Many of the comments made by the Developers are vague - not that this is a bad thing - in fact it is very smart as many Devs have been flamed to all hell when they fail to deliver on 'promises' they supposedly made. If I was a Dev I would be very vague all the time!
But what interests me is that the fanbois are taking these vague statements and turning them into 'fact'.
And then they quote one another until everyone actaully believes it is fact and that the Developer said it.
Earlier today, I asked posters to back up a couple of 'facts' with Dev quotes... so far the silence is deafing.
Nothing says irony like spelling ideot wrong.
Oh and if it hasn't been mentioned yet. The views are first person for casting and ranged weapons. close 3rd person (locked camera) for melee combat. and possibly slightly wider and a mobile camera for mounted combat. There has also been speculation based on images from the italian interview that the camera switches to 3rd person when sitting to rest (likely for accelerated stamina, mana and health regeneration)
Thank you for this thread Ihmotepp.
This has been my point too. Many of the comments made by the Developers are vague - not that this is a bad thing - in fact it is very smart as many Devs have been flamed to all hell when they fail to deliver on 'promises' they supposedly made. If I was a Dev I would be very vague all the time!
But what interests me is that the fanbois are taking these vague statements and turning them into 'fact'.
And then they quote one another until everyone actaully believes it is fact and that the Developer said it.
Earlier today, I asked posters to back up a couple of 'facts' with Dev quotes... so far the silence is deafing.
I suppose in some cases this is a fair assumption... I could never claim to be someone who knows all things about darkfall either. and yeah some stuff is vague. But to be fair little of what darkfall is doing is new on it's own.
most fanboy's extrapolate from previous games, take what is actually know or has at least been stated by the devs and hopefully added a dose of common sense to come to theri conclusions...
Most of the features in darkfall mean little on their own. It's the sum of the parts thats where the true essense of the games potential lies and thats something intangible till the game can truly be played but it is certainly speculated on.
take for example open pvp... Yeah ok I can kill anyone anywhere... now add full loot. ok now aside from griefing I can take their shit and really grief a player (unless they decide not to come back to their body but they probably just got killed by someone else when they respawned :P
Ok now add the consequences... ok maybe I don't give a shit about my allingment. but his town has guards and they don't like me anymore... i'll wait outside for a mark.
Now use a skill based system. Ok I dunno how powerful that guy is... maybe I can take him.... at least if I get a few hits off i'll improve myself a little before i die.
Now add player crafted items. Oh he re equiped fast. hope he didn't put any gear that'll help him resist my attacks.
Just these core components can really work well off one another to create a rather interesting and exciting game experience.
But Maybe it'll be boring as hell... maybe i'm wrong... maybe my common sense isn't so common.
Please don't use "Fanboi" and "common sense" together again. Ever.
Nothing says irony like spelling ideot wrong.
Maybe this game isn't for you then. You don't have to do anything. The game is not forcing you to use the ice spell or the sword skill. It's your choice. Edit: Personally I would rather gain skill with my sword when I use it than gaining some arbitrary number of points until I get to the next level and then assigning those points to whatever I want that just seem overly complicated to me and promotes grinding for these points. (XP) With a skill based system like UO, there is no grinding, you just play the game.
I'm just guessing that you never played the original UO design, because your entire post conflicts with the way the skill progression actually works in the game. You don't gain a skill point every single time you swing your sword or cast your ice spell. It's transparent. You didn't know how many times you had to use a certain skill to gain a point so it was never really something that the player thought about, it just happened. I'm not saying it was random, but I don't know of anyone that just sat there saying "only 1022 more sword swings till my next point!"
I will say this as simply as I can. Never in UO did I choose one attack over another only because I needed to gain a point in the corresponding skill.
If you have never played the game, it's probably hard to understand. But if Darkfall works like UO I will be very happy not having to worry about gaining levels and xp.
I understand perfectly. Maybe you have never played a game where you get to spend skill points.
There is nothing "natural" about swing sword a bazillion times, and eventually sword skill increases.
This is how the Dungeon Siege games worked. Use skill= increase in skill eventually.
I would do things like this. One mob pops up from the ground, some kind of worm thing that is immobile, but spits acid at you. Now, my sword skill was pretty high, so I COULD run up to it, and kill it in a couple of sword swings, and that would be that.
That would be the sensible thing to do right? But I wanted to raise my bow skill, which was low. So instead of killing the thing in a couple of whacks, I'd shoot 20 arrows into it, so my bow skill would increase.
What's "natural" about that?
I'd prefer to just hit the creature a couple of times and kill it, but then I'd waste all that use that could be going towards increasing my bow skill.
If I had points to spend, I'd whack the creature with my sword, be on my merry way, and when I got some skill points I'd spend them increasing my bow skill, which to me, makes much more sense.
What's "natural" about it is that this is the way real life works. If you want to get better at something, you have to practice it... usually by repetitive action, as it turns out. I personally don't find this particularly "fun" but it is nonetheless realistic.
What it comes down to is that there are two kinds of people in the world: those who derive enjoyment from things that are more realistic, and those who derive enjoyment of from things that are more abstract. Darkfall comes down very strongly on the side of the former - everything from its art style to its combat system, its skill progression to its social mechanics (full looting, open PvP etc) is an attempt to recreate a kind of Real Fantasy world.
In doing so they've really made a rod for their own back. Many of their proposed features (which are in most cases sufficiently vague to allow Tasos to claim that he never actually promised them... but that's another discussion altogether) sound interesting on paper, particularly for those gamers who haven't played older gen MMOs that focussed more on this unforgiving style of gameplay. In practice I expect many who thought they would like this game will ultimately find such 'realism' to be boring and/or frustrating, and only a niche group will actually thrive in such an environment.
Furthermore, it's far FAR more difficult and demanding to create a game that is `realistic' than one that is abstract. Given the size and inexperience of the dev team (shown time and again by their unrealistic dev goals and expectations of release, beta etc) and the long (and growing!) dev cycle, it's no surprise that most observers (even some of the more fanatical DF fans) have serious doubts about Aventurine's ability to deliver on the features they have promised. Whether this failure to deliver comes in the form of missing features, or whether it's existing features that don't work well enough to create this realistic environment they're shooting for, either way any such failure will have a much greater negative impact in a game that's trying to create a Real World.
Bad lag on overloaded servers will render an FPS combat system frustrating and worthless; poor skill balancing will force everyone to create clone characters or be disadvantaged; a huge world that isn't correctly populated will feel pointless and empty... the list goes on. Unless these guys manage something of a coding miracle, I believe that Darkfall's major features could well prove its undoing.
But of course, that's still assuming they ever manage to release the thing.
Maybe this game isn't for you then. You don't have to do anything. The game is not forcing you to use the ice spell or the sword skill. It's your choice. Edit: Personally I would rather gain skill with my sword when I use it than gaining some arbitrary number of points until I get to the next level and then assigning those points to whatever I want that just seem overly complicated to me and promotes grinding for these points. (XP) With a skill based system like UO, there is no grinding, you just play the game.
I'm just guessing that you never played the original UO design, because your entire post conflicts with the way the skill progression actually works in the game. You don't gain a skill point every single time you swing your sword or cast your ice spell. It's transparent. You didn't know how many times you had to use a certain skill to gain a point so it was never really something that the player thought about, it just happened. I'm not saying it was random, but I don't know of anyone that just sat there saying "only 1022 more sword swings till my next point!"
I will say this as simply as I can. Never in UO did I choose one attack over another only because I needed to gain a point in the corresponding skill.
If you have never played the game, it's probably hard to understand. But if Darkfall works like UO I will be very happy not having to worry about gaining levels and xp.
I understand perfectly. Maybe you have never played a game where you get to spend skill points.
There is nothing "natural" about swing sword a bazillion times, and eventually sword skill increases.
This is how the Dungeon Siege games worked. Use skill= increase in skill eventually.
I would do things like this. One mob pops up from the ground, some kind of worm thing that is immobile, but spits acid at you. Now, my sword skill was pretty high, so I COULD run up to it, and kill it in a couple of sword swings, and that would be that.
That would be the sensible thing to do right? But I wanted to raise my bow skill, which was low. So instead of killing the thing in a couple of whacks, I'd shoot 20 arrows into it, so my bow skill would increase.
What's "natural" about that?
I'd prefer to just hit the creature a couple of times and kill it, but then I'd waste all that use that could be going towards increasing my bow skill.
If I had points to spend, I'd whack the creature with my sword, be on my merry way, and when I got some skill points I'd spend them increasing my bow skill, which to me, makes much more sense.
What's "natural" about it is that this is the way real life works. If you want to get better at something, you have to practice it... usually by repetitive action, as it turns out. I personally don't find this particularly "fun" but it is nonetheless realistic.
I disagree. It's not realistic at all.
Imagine any actvity that requires lots of practice. The Practice is boring repetition, not real performance.
If you area boxer, you don't practice by having real boxing matches. You get in a sparring ring and practice, and you hit a bag over and over.
If you are going deer hunting, you don't get good by simply running off into the woods and shooting at deer over and over. You go to a range, and shoot targets, over and over.
If you are going to be a ballet dancer, you don't just get on stage till audiences like you, you go to a studio and dance in front of a mirror over and over.
If you want to be a good race car driver, you practice going around and around the track with no cars, before you enter a real race. You don't just start racing, and get good while you're racing.
So no, there's nothing "natural" about getting good doing something without boring practice, which is how things work in the real world.
The boring practice is where you get good, but you're not saying that's in the game, you're saying you get good while in the act, not "practice". Again, very unnatural.
But that's ok, because games aren't supposed to be "natural" they['re supposed to be fun. If they were like real life, our characters would have to go to the bathroom every so often. That would be very natural.
What's "natural" about it is that this is the way real life works. If you want to get better at something, you have to practice it... usually by repetitive action, as it turns out. I personally don't find this particularly "fun" but it is nonetheless realistic.
I disagree. It's not realistic at all.
Imagine any actvity that requires lots of practice. The Practice is boring repetition, not real performance.
If you area boxer, you don't practice by having real boxing matches. You get in a sparring ring and practice, and you hit a bag over and over.
If you are going deer hunting, you don't get good by simply running off into the woods and shooting at deer over and over. You go to a range, and shoot targets, over and over.
If you are going to be a ballet dancer, you don't just get on stage till audiences like you, you go to a studio and dance in front of a mirror over and over.
If you want to be a good race car driver, you practice going around and around the track with no cars, before you enter a real race. You don't just start racing, and get good while you're racing.
So no, there's nothing "natural" about getting good doing something without boring practice, which is how things work in the real world.
The boring practice is where you get good, but you're not saying that's in the game, you're saying you get good while in the act, not "practice". Again, very unnatural.
But that's ok, because games aren't supposed to be "natural" they['re supposed to be fun. If they were like real life, our characters would have to go to the bathroom every so often. That would be very natural.
I think now you're just getting into semantics. Aventurine is attempting to create a realistic environment, within which you improve your skills by using them repeatedly, but still within the context of a computer game. Yes you're right, the essence of improvement comes from drilling simple activities (or indeed from being taught by someone, something I'm not aware of MMO games having really touched on yet). But this is still the same basic concept, that of doing something to get better at that thing.
By contrast, the system you prefer (and I'm not saying it's better or worse, just different) is completely abstract - which of your skills you use doesn't need to have any bearing whatsoever to which of your skills are improving. This is completely unrealistic. Not inferior (in my opinion anyway), but without even a tenuous link to the real world. Fact is, Aventurine are committed to implementing the former system in Darkfall, and that's not going to change. Unless they decide to scrap the whole thing and start again.
Again.
Nothing natural? Are you kidding?
Is it more natural to gain a level by using solely your sword, level up by putting all points in bow mastery, and suddenly you become expert with the bow?
If you want to kill said worm with your sword, kill it with your sword. If you want to get better with your bow, hit it with your bow. I don't understand the unnatural thing you're getting from this.
Besides, in this example, it's good to use your bow, if you want to become good, not only your character, because you also get better, since it's an fps. You get a better feeling of how the bow works, the aim, the leading you must apply to hit your target, etc etc. And I guess the same goes on magic-using.
Nothing natural? Are you kidding?
Is it more natural to gain a level by using solely your sword, level up by putting all points in bow mastery, and suddenly you become expert with the bow?
If you want to kill said worm with your sword, kill it with your sword. If you want to get better with your bow, hit it with your bow. I don't understand the unnatural thing you're getting from this.
Besides, in this example, it's good to use your bow, if you want to become good, not only your character, because you also get better, since it's an fps. You get a better feeling of how the bow works, the aim, the leading you must apply to hit your target, etc etc. And I guess the same goes on magic-using.
No, I am not kidding. IMO, this is completely unnatural.
I can kill this mob with one smack of my sword. Why, in a "natural" i.e. realistic setting would I not go ahead and do that. What possible motivation, realistically could I have for not killing a menacing monster as fast as possible?
In a use = skill increase system, instead of killing this mob with one whack of my sword, I might shoot it 20 times with my bow.
Why? Skill increase.
That's natural? Hardly.
Natural is I go to a target range, and if I want to get better at using a bow, I shoot 8 bazillion arrows at targets. I don't "practice" while I'm trying to stay alive. That's silly.
But again, it's a game. If it's fun, then it's fun. If we wanted realism, we could play real life.
Don't believe me? Go find someone that hunts deer with a bow and arrow, and tell them you want to go hunting, but you've never used a bow before. They will send you to the range, not hope you get good practicing shooting at deer and wounding them.