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Skill atrophy / decay / "erosion"
Deathofsage
Member UncommonPosts: 1,102
I was thinking, while talking to a guy in another thread, that swimming skill would be nicei n more games, and it should be something where if you don't swim often, your swim skill fades. (I do know some games have a swimming skill, though they aren't very popular).
Anyway I was thinking that all skills should slowly erode without use, over time. This would be like becoming less and less fit in real life. Perhaps it would be a model somewhat friendly to casual gamers. "For any day that you're logged in more than 3 hours and did not use the skill, your skill goes down [x] points" so that leaving a spec idle for a long time would be punitive. Coming back to it would require some re-training--getting back in shape.
Should you choose to take taxis/get summoned everywhere, you would even become less proficient with your mount, driving slower or whatever.
Spec'ing properly is a gateway drug.
12 Million People have been meter spammed in heroics.
Comments
That sounds like something Blizz, and other makers of Skinner Box games would think of doing. "Hey, instead of spending money on developing new content to support the neverending progression treadmill, let's just make them grind through old content more often!"
Sorry, but this gets an enormous "No" vote from me. I really dislike grind in general, and having to "get back in shape" would be an absolute deal breaker.
Edit:
Also, how is this friendly to casual gamers? This is probably the *least* casual-friendly thing I've heard in a long time. Casual gaming means spending what little time you have for gaming on doing meaningful things. The less time spent on progression in general the better, let alone maintenance. How is any gamer, let alone casuals, supposed to enjoy having to go swim or cook or mine for a while every 3 hours when they were in the middle of doing something else? Like I said, this is sounds to me like the sort of game padding that Skinner Box games would use to keep hardcore gamers on that infinite treadmill.
Don't really have time for that type of game, better give me permadeath and be done with it.
I can't agree that Blizzard would implement such a thing. It's not friendly to how they intend to maintain subscribers. The "grind" in WoW is mostly about the monotony of 85, and 80 before that. Getting there was disgustingly easy.
That aside, I respect you don't like it and particularly why you don't like it.
As to it's relation to casual gamers. First, it wouldn't effect them, or any player, on a day when that player was logged in less than 3 hours. I covered that in the OP. Any day that you did play, you should be keeping your MS spec skills up naturally. Just playing your character keeps it up and if you didn't play for a full 3 hours, your character isn't negatively affected at all. I appreciate MMOs are a light hobby for many. I'll reread my OP but don't think I said any skill had to be ground for 3 hours, or any length of time.
Spec'ing properly is a gateway drug.
12 Million People have been meter spammed in heroics.
It is "casual friendly" if you make the rate of decay dependent upon the skill level attained. Low levels of skills really wouldn't decay. "Medium" levels of skill would only decay slowly, and then the higher you got the decay would accelerate. So basically, you could be elite/expert/etc at some thing but unless you "stay sharp" this level of skill will decay. It addresses the latecomer power skew in games.
Also, I'm not really even sure that the concept is all that applicable to treadmill style games. You don't have levels of skills that are learned/practiced/etc in those games. You usually magically attain new skills or ranks after killing enough turtles, etc.
People enjoy becoming less fit in real life. It's fun.
I bet they'd like it in games too.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I actually have to say that I like this idea.
The fact is, playing and doing what you want means you get good at whatever it is youre constantly doing. Why would you grind your swimming skill up when you dont swim much at all? The skill erosion wont affect them at all because they wouldnt have attained the skills in the first place unless they actually trained it. Why would casuals mine? If they enjoy mining, they will go mine! If they just want money then they mine for money then theyd be doing that regardless of skill decay.
The OP also posted that the decay starts after 3 hours of gaming.
Few things I would like to change is that the basics never go away. So if you have fireball, youll never forget fireball but itll just get weaker till it reaches a certain point. So if youre always using fireball like a fire mage in WoW or w/e then that means it will almost always be getting stronger till it reaches max or w/e.
Also I think that AFK-ing or spending time in certain areas (like the auction house) should prevent it from decaying for a certain amount of time. Like say....aside from the 3 hours, you get 1 hour of no reduction while browsing the AH or something.
Hmm what else..I think that getting "back in shape" should be easier than getting in shape for the first time. So if your skill decays completely, you can get it back faster than when you first got it up. Should balance itself out fine o.o
Also, Id like to bring the fact up again that skill decay only starts at the 3 hour mark after logging in.
Edit:
I have to say that this will actually help with reducing the carrot on the stick thing that most mmos do. Because if you grind up something then go do actual content then the skills you grinded up will balance out with what you do in the content. Doing combat will make you better at combat. Doing gathering or crafting will get you better at that. o.o Want to respec? Just go do other stuff! o.o
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Another way to look at it, take a top NBA player, like Kobe at his peak. On the off season he plays pick up games in the park. Next season, his game will be much lower level. In skill based games, playing against scrubs should drop your skill points rather than raise them. Always going up against better opponents should work towards raising them.
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Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
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This was done in Ultima Online over 10 years ago now. It's an old idea but it does work well in a skill based environment. It keeps people from building the 'Jack of all trades' type characters.
Bren
while(horse==dead)
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What's the point of a mechanic like this? If someone were to ask me whether I'd like to have a new toy and keep it or whether I'd like to have a new toy that they take away from me if I don't play with it a lot, I'm going to go with option A.
I don't like it. In a way, skill decay forces players to doing things they don't feel like doing for the sake of maintaining their skill points at a certain level. For example, if I decide to log in just to sell things, use the auction house, craft, etc. and don't feel like engaging in combat on that particular day, I would still be forced to go out and do some combat in order to secure my combat skill at a certain level. No one wants to be pulled back in terms of progression.
Let's say your skill went down 1%, so 5/500 points, that would be easily made up.
See, this system actually protects the crafting community too imo.
The player that crafts every day keeps their skill up. The player that crafts once in a blue moon needs to restore their skills. In this way, the players of games who only play the auction house, get better at it. The players who are dedicated crafters spamming /1 all day don't have to worry about the guy who levelled a profession because he had a profession space to level.
There could even be hard-stop barriers in place so that people don't lose the ability to do something altogether. Take WoW's (Pre-Cata) mount system. Riding was a skill and purchasing a new training increased your skill. Say the more you rode, the faster you got but if you were the guy that never left the city on horse or griffon-back, you'd still be able to use all your mounts, but not as proficiently ("fast") as the explorer-type who rides everywhere and hates idling in the cities. This also means that Joe's OS having as good of gear as your MS doesn't make him just naturually as good at your role.
I never played UO, but I did play GTA: SA (wasn't it?), with this sort of fitness system and really enjoyed it.
Spec'ing properly is a gateway drug.
12 Million People have been meter spammed in heroics.
Protecting the crafting community via mechanics that people are either lukewarm on (or hate) is probably not an ideal solution.
Why not solve the problem with a true solution (or possibly admit that it's not considered a problem in most games by most players)? ...and one which adds gameplay and fun rather than siphons it away.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
The idea of the thread wasn't about protecting the crafting community but I responded to the poster's example. One of the key "benefits" of a system like this is making off-specs truly off-specs. The guy who never plays a spec should be naturally worse than the guy who won't leave it.
I certainly do not think this a perfect idea, or even a great one. (I do think it's fundamentally good or I wouldn't have posted it). The alternative, however, is that I sit and just wish and wish someone would do something different because monotony of daily dungeons, weekly raids, and gear going to complete shit every few months is getting boring.
It's an idea that could probably be honed into something great.
Spec'ing properly is a gateway drug.
12 Million People have been meter spammed in heroics.
They did the same thing to The Sims Online. They eventually added a feature to the game where you could "lock" two of your skills, but the more skills you had in TSO, the faster the decay was.
Yuppers. I agree.
I agree with this too.
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I know it isn't the point of the thread so bear with me. It is just after reading the "getting fit" part made me think of an old thread I read about people complaining about realism in a game. You can't expect people to use real life scenarios "you lose the ability because you don't use it BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IN REAL LIFE". We normally are talking about non-realistic games to start, fireballs from fingers, force fields, flying unicorns etc etc...
Like I said, was just my first thought when the working out analogy was used heh
Still does not address the issue with those who want to do everything a game has to offer. If someone enjoys both combat and crafting equally, yet tends to focus their gameplay to a specific one at a time, such a player would be punished. The system would not be conducive to those who enjoy changing their gameplay routines for they would constantly suffer from skill decay. The jack of all trades type of character would be at a disadvantage as he would be forced to do several things on one session as opposed to the more specialized, who would only be required to train their area of expertise.
While I agree with you that it is interesting to see people who are specialized at something truly being better at it than those who focus on many other things as well, I believe a skill cap becomes more appropriate in such occasions. In the end, skill decay becomes a nuisance and only interferes with the way we want to play. If we are forced to do a particular thing every play session to remain "competitive", the game becomes more like work than an actual game.
I think this progression system is a better solution. You can specialize and not be penalized by how you play. It's also more friendly to casuals.
Well it just seems to fundamentally work against one of the core compelling reasons players play MMORPGs: to advance.
While such an idea could probably be twisted 180 degrees to improve a game slightly, it's probably more effective to start with an idea that's already heading in the right direction (of something players want to experience,) and spend effort improving that instead.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Actually one of my problems with the idea is because it is quite unrealistic. Unless you are playing an extremely forgetful character, you should not be losing skills that fast. In RL I can go months without using a particular skill and not really be much worse at it when I had to use it again. I have not ridden a bike in years but I have not forgotten how to do it.
Skill erosion (and other "entropy" mechanics) tends to punish people for not being power gamers. If you wander, if you experiment, if you play in any way that isn't driving your advancement/maintaence, your character is eroded (or peaks at a lower point before treading water).
I'm not saying a system like this can't work (I like mechanics that involve some ticket to enter), just that you need to put yourself in the place of a player who has reached the limit of the grind they enjoy and ask what the game looks like to that player. Is it fun to be treading water?
I'd have to agree with Axehilt here. This isn't fun in real life so it really wouldn't be much fun for most in a game.
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Well the answer is a hostile "no", I'd say lol.
It's not so much about becoming less fit on your off-specs/skills you don't use but about maintaining your "fitness" on the skills and specs you do use.
I mean so what? If I dual spec in WoW as say Holy and Prot Paladin and I decide I want to raid-tank again but my mace/sword/whatever skill has fallen and my defense is low, then I have to go work at it for a few hours. Big deal, imo.
Spec'ing properly is a gateway drug.
12 Million People have been meter spammed in heroics.
"Wanna come raiding Bob? We're short a tank."
"I'd love to! I'll be ready in 2 hours."
"The 24 of us can't really wait 2 hours for you to switch roles..."
So yeah, it really is a big deal especially in PVE grouping games. It prevents friends from playing with friends, and just generally hampers what could otherwise be a fun social experience.
You have to have pretty strong justification to create new barriers to grouping. Conversely if you take that same creative energy and apply it to making it easier for players (particularly friends) to group with one another, you'll improve the game by a lot more.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I'm all for this idea, if used in moderation.
-It should be used in a skill based game, not level based.
-A skill can't be forgotten.
-They have easy to obtain caps.
-A skill to degrade from max rank to lowest should take ~24 hours gameplay time.