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I think 720 is pretty much perfect. It makes you think about your template. You can't pack too much into any one template... you have to pick and choose. It also keeps "power creep" at bay somewhat. Itemization adds enough to power creep.
Just my opinion, of course.
Just my opinion, of course.
you can already have 820 on many templates....I have three characters at or over 800 pts on one account. It really isnt hard. The only disadvantage to it is the new masteries but you can even get around that with a little shuffling
Ok but they are considering raising the cap to 820. So now you will be able to get over 920 on a template.
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I could maybe support increasing to 740 or 750, but not to 820. That's simply too high and will drastically change too many templates. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. I sincerely hope it isn't true that they're considering that much of a boost.
I like the way it is right now....you can hit 800+ if you want it...but there are sacrifices. It is all about the trade offs, and it should be that way
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I don't think 820 is a good idea personally. I'll show you why.
This is a screenshot of one of my character's Skill window displaying real skill .
This is his modified skills. I'm running 146 Item skill points now, and that's not a maximum that I could potentially have. I still have 34.5 points of cap room left, meaning without maximizing potential skill mods on the character, for his template, I can reach 866.0. If the skill cap was 820, I could theoretically with easily hit 966, and possibly 1000 skill points on the character through the use of Skill jewelry.
This is a screenshot of one of my character's Skill window displaying real skill .
This is his modified skills. I'm running 146 Item skill points now, and that's not a maximum that I could potentially have. I still have 34.5 points of cap room left, meaning without maximizing potential skill mods on the character, for his template, I can reach 866.0. If the skill cap was 820, I could theoretically with easily hit 966, and possibly 1000 skill points on the character through the use of Skill jewelry.
Raising the skill cap was something we discussed and considered (we discuss and consider a lot of things) during ToL development in the context of skill masteries. I touched on it briefly in our 2015 video and ultimately we decided to go the route of skill masteries. Increasing the skill cap opens the door to a big power creep and is a real balancing concern, so it's not something we are keen on doing anytime soon.
You guys should have a "TC Experimental" server where you set the skill cap to 800, change players base HP, and do other weird things to see how they feel. Have a mandatory popup at every login that states "Nothing you see here is necessarily going into the real game!" so nobody gets confused.
Do it for Siege only as it can be hard to add alot skills from items on Siege
We can help test it this way too as we will have a few players using upper suits but we can kill/gank them and loot suit if a problem to balance it.
Also can I have 120 Fletching, Carpentry, Tinkering?
Raising the skull cap will bring less diversity, not more.
My problem with raising the cap is then you get to be much more like a Leveling game... first you increase the skill cap, then you have to up the mobs, then you up the skills, then the mobs.... etc....
Stuff gets too hard then it's too easy..... there is a delicate balance. And with so many different templates and character types it would be hard to keep some balanced and yet not over or underpower others.
Now as for the crafters.... I can see wanting to add skill points to them... but perhaps we need to look at other ways to get more out of crafting..... and how to make better use of skills.
Personally I always thought that crafters should get some sort of special things that they can craft and do with loyalty to various towns..... Like Minoc would obviously give bonuses to Blacksmithing, Mining.... and Tinkering... and should have special "Minoc" artifacts and deco items. Yew would of course get Bonuses to Carpentry and Brewing(Special recipes for the brewing of drinks etc...) and should have many Artifacts and such with maybe an Elven theme... Skara Brae would have Fletching and Sea Related things, Trinsic probably stone crafting, Britannia would have Music related stuff, Etc.... I think one could work it out logically.... this would give folk something to "Specialize" in and give them something to trade and sell with other crafters. And it would be even cooler if you could get parts from all the towns to make something super special like a Giant Telescope or something... A strong ship or special ship cannon..... etc... Would IMO help to bring back community and the need/desire to work together.
20 or 30 points more in the skill cap would go a really long way with a lot of templates. Anything more than that would be too much.
Would be nice to have that, but the 720 cap is working OK so far.
I can see no reason for such a change. The current skill cap should be kept at 720.
i would love to see the skill cap increased. it's disappointing to see the dev team has nixed the idea. i remember when my mage became a 7x GM tank mage. i'd like the opportunity to be a 7x Legendary tank mage. (just one example.)
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Agreed. Take a look at the history and how long it took to go from 700 to 720. IF they were to increase it, they should take it slow and in small increments. The next logical step of increasing would be to go to 725.
I heard it was confirmed you weren't getting fired! Glad to hear it!
Hmmm I could see where 820 has the potential be a real mess. Maybe some sort of boss could drop a one time use per character +20 scroll or something. Seems like I'm always 20 points short on things
Why are some people always wanting to change the game? *votes no*
No, it's not worth the amount of time it would take to re-balance everything again, Besides there's enough that needs worked on right now.
Increasing the skill cap could potentially kill the game. Pvm is already too easy... pvp would become parry-mage online, except it would be with every sub-type as well with room for med & resist. It would be pointless to play a dexer it's bad enough the balance between melee dexers & ranged dexers.
No one wants that.
Increasing the skill cap could potentially kill the game. Pvm is already too easy... pvp would become parry-mage online, except it would be with every sub-type as well with room for med & resist. It would be pointless to play a dexer it's bad enough the balance between melee dexers & ranged dexers.
No one wants that.
I'd rather see some of the ancillary skills weighted less against the cap. Taste ID, Item ID, Forensics, Detect Hidden, etc. Skills with such a narrow focus, or no real focus at all.
But then I'd also like to see magery revamped to get rid of the worthless spells and see them replaced with more elemental damage spells that are worth casting. Mages have NO worthwhile cold or physical based spells, and the summons are so anemic as to be near useless...even with the mastry boost.
But then I'd also like to see magery revamped to get rid of the worthless spells and see them replaced with more elemental damage spells that are worth casting. Mages have NO worthwhile cold or physical based spells, and the summons are so anemic as to be near useless...even with the mastry boost.
I'd love to be able to have 7 maxed skills again instead of 6 maxed skills. Barding requires for 480 training points now instead of the 400 it used to. In the pre power scroll days you could have maxed 4 barding skills, magery, Eval & Meditation making an effective PvM character, now you get the 4 Barding skills (480), Magery (120), Eval (60) and Meditation (60) which isn't worth much of a damn. Make it so we can have 7 maxed skills with our available training points again. 
I don't like it. The 720 limit forces people to be a but more strategic and produces bit variety between peoples builds. If we get 820, then all that time, headache, hours and days we've taking into strategizing, building, imbuing, and collecting armor to fit in for many of my characters, is all down the toilet. Now I would have to start from ground up on building new suits, moving numbers, and thinking of new strategy and the headaches that come with it.. Then everyone becomes a bit overpowered relative to the monster environment, overtime we just come back to a balance but slightly but overpowered to the monsters.
No
No
I'd make it 840.
Back in the day when the skill cap was 700 you could max 7 skills. The game worked perfectly that way. They should have changed it to 840 when they brought in powerscrolls so you could max ... you guessed it .. 7 skills. 7 x 120 could have been balanced the same as 7 x 100 was.
Of course theyve fubared the whole system with skill jewellry but we are too far down that road to ever undo that pile of crap.
Back in the day when the skill cap was 700 you could max 7 skills. The game worked perfectly that way. They should have changed it to 840 when they brought in powerscrolls so you could max ... you guessed it .. 7 skills. 7 x 120 could have been balanced the same as 7 x 100 was.
Of course theyve fubared the whole system with skill jewellry but we are too far down that road to ever undo that pile of crap.
I think the +Skill jewelry is the biggest reason why I'd rather them NOT increase the skill cap. I've seen what a skill cap of 1000 (don't ask) does to game balance. It's not pretty.
Agreed. But that doesnt mean the skill cap is the problem. an 840/820 whatever skill cap gives you the same choices and diversity as a 700 skill cap did when GM was the max. Skill jewels are what screwed the whole thing up.
I agree that +Skill jewelry is probably a mistake. However, making the skill cap 840 while still keeping the jewelry around would cause skillsets at least in the 900s. Raising the skill cap would worsen what is already considered a problem. They could always, I suppose, make a HARD cap of 840, which would mean that even with jewelry, the maximum your skill total could be was 840. Then, I might consider it okay. However, that would make +Skill items less valuable as well. So it's a slippery issue.
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The next logical step is to bump up the cap to 725. Then maybe 730 a few months down the line. Let's see how some minor changes affect the system first before such a major 100+ point cap change.
MalagAste's analysis is spot on.
Our characters are OP as it is. The more you can solo the less you're playing a multiplayer game.
They need to have some massive event happen that nerfs every item in the game 50% or more so that those with multi kazillion gold suits & super uber armor and weapons startf inding it difficult to solo things. They upgrade the monsters for you few guys and the rest of us people who can't solo half the monsters due to our normal gear are even more screwed.
Hahahahaha! Why do you think I'm enjoying Seige so much? It's not the Dark Wisps I tell ya....those plucky suckers
Thing is what Mal said wouldn't actually happen. The monsters would not get harder or the mobs tougher. They didn't when the gear went all uber on us, did they? I see Headless Ones, Ogres, Trolls, Harpys, Lizardmen, Reapers all over the place.....pre AoS they were not trivial. Now they're just ludicrous but somehow, for no reason I can think of, they're still with is.
Yes, yes, lots of folks are running over 800 skill point builds right now, with items. Players want their characters to be able to do more, be mightier, have more answers to more problems; nobody wants to be weaker. But, as Mal said, it would be put us on the leveling game track. EQ2 went that route - substituting individual player power for actual content - until EVERYTHING could be soloed.
A skill cap rise is consumable content. You use those points and then what? Emergent content, created by the players by playing the game, only happens in groups. It's what happens when a given group of people face a tough challenge together. Without emergent content you're stuck on the give me more treadmill, just like leveling games.
Just look at Corpse's videos on YouTube. For top players everything is soloable now. Make it soloable for more people and you needn't bother with a network connection.
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Again a red herring. Yes, characters are over powered, but not because of the skill cap. They are OP because this game has turned into a complete item fest. Equipment is overpowered, not characters. Again, this game is f***ed beyond recognition from what it was. If you want it to be a skill based game then providing vastly OP'd equipment is not the way to go, although its irreversible now and one of the reasons why the game isnt a shadow of what it once was. So no ... skill cap isnt overpowering, its the over reliance on items that has caused it.
Characters' power is a combination of their skills and their gear. To object to raising the former in light of the latter is not a red herring. Two sides of a coin.
I have issues with making Shame loot everywhere loot too. It has fatally harmed the importance of crafting on all shards except, perhaps, Siege, thus reducing play style diversity.
Many of these items, jewelry in particular, you believe made the game FUBAR have high added skills. A higher skill ceiling simply increases the power of those items even more.
You're right they haven't raised the power of the Mobs they just made new harder mobs but they aren't harder skill wise they are harder to kill because they gave them insane amounts of HP and such making them grindy... like so many other things they keep adding to the game.
I recall many fun times when it took a guild to do things. Now no matter what they add to the game someone finds a way to solo it... and eventually it becomes weaker. And then when you want to do something with a group nothing is worth doing because most the time you stand about scratching your backside... and less time actually playing.
I recall many fun times when it took a guild to do things. Now no matter what they add to the game someone finds a way to solo it... and eventually it becomes weaker. And then when you want to do something with a group nothing is worth doing because most the time you stand about scratching your backside... and less time actually playing.
If I wanted to play solo I wouldn't be playing an MMO I'd be playing Diablo... oh wait I do play that.
When I play an MMO I expect to play with others, not get all pissy about other people taking up what I want.
Okay. Doesn't change the fact that playing with others just might not be an option in this game at times anymore.
Yes, group hunts have become multiples of what were once singular group challenges. You don't do Medusa, you do multiple runs of Medusa for example....or Scalis....Dreadhorn...and so on.
True. And both the new loot system, and the likely addition of skill points are both concessions to that fact. Perhaps it's that fact that bothers me more than concessions to it.
That reminds me, UO needs dishwashers
