Dear Mythic... About skill points.

[Viquire]

Keep them where they are. I see a lot of posts asking for more.

Adding interesting options is very cool. Allowing players to use all options would not be cool.

I understand the min/max rule of things... I have seen it ruin many games.

Keep adding options, keep the points where they are. That is all.

Signed, soulstones as well btw.

 

[sayler04]

Everytime the boat gets rocked, people fall off it. But there aren't many new passengers coming aboard anymore.

So lets not mess with the basics. Skill points are fine as is.

 

[SUPRsalad]

dear nintendo, can you please make mario jump higher, and can i have a couple more lives, and also, can yoshi get a laser?

Wait, what? Wrong forum??

Wouldn't it have been whack if we did that back then? I mean, we paid for the games right?

Anyone see my point?

 

[Zyon Rockler]

I think everyone gets a bit off track with Soulstones and forget the fact you have to configure a character's stats and also we have race.

If skills would have a greater affect with race types like a Gar giving a bonus to say smith. It locks the skill you can use on that character or what race works best with the skill.

So, we have other factors that make up a character. If more are added it would change how we set up our characters.

Let's say they added a new stat, like faith, the more you had the more you could control your own fate, but you would have to give up maybe dex. This is the soul of the character.

Its' race where it comes from and its' basic stats that drive the skills.

That's why we should think of skills being the lesser of 2 evils. The cap is good but we should keep an open mind to change.

Again, I think, letting us build all the skills we want would be good. Maybe to switch the skills in your cap of 720 real, you could use the soulstone frag to turn them on and off and a full stone to move them, and they could be made so you could trade them as long as there was no skill on it.

I just think people would play more if the skills were on the character, rather than a stone.

I agree with Kelmo, but I don't think we can just close the book.

Treeing skills would also help I think, where you would need to have 1 skill to turn on another or you could not use some skills if other skills were on. Even races could determine the skill cap of an individual skill being 80, 120, maybe even higher.

 

[Llewen]

Everytime the boat gets rocked, people fall off it. But there aren't many new passengers coming aboard anymore.

So lets not mess with the basics. Skill points are fine as is.

Excellent point. It's a lesson that the developers of SWG learnt. If you completely change the basics of the game you will lose your core client base.

 

[Taylor]

There have been suggestions made where people didn't want any skill caps, where you can just max out all skills, making it one character per server..

Some of the newer skill based games like Dawntide and Darkfall.. You can do that.

That would be the day I stopped playing UO. Everyone would have the exact same template, doing the exact same thing... boring.

Likewise. Template building is my favorite aspect of UO.

 

[EnigmaMaitreya]

Everytime the boat gets rocked, people fall off it. But there aren't many new passengers coming aboard anymore.

So lets not mess with the basics. Skill points are fine as is.

Excellent point. It's a lesson that the developers of SWG learnt. If you completely change the basics of the game you will lose your core client base.

Well, the problem is that the proposal (as quoted) is pretty to a person looking at a meal and being asked if it is a well balanced meal and then immediately focusing exclusively on one part of the meal and answering yes or no.

As had been said by me and others, the problem is oriented around this.

The short version of what follows, ask yourself a question and be honest, given the dependencies of skills, the individual skill cap, the total skill cap of 720, AND THE REMOVAL OF SOUL STONES AND ITEMS THAT GIVE A PLUS SKILL POINTS, would you believe that your perceived main character would be effective enough to play UO, ALL OF UO (as in not just going to Delcuia and killing the Bulls).

If the answer is NO then to deny the Plus Skill Points and Soul Stones is to not be realistic about the issue.



The Original Publish of UO did not have the linkage of skills to make one effective at one was trying to do.

You had 700 skill points, you had so a set of well defined skills to distribute them over and you were effective.

Then comes the desire to start linking skills together (yes we are still in the Bad Old Days of UO) and now then if you want to be as effective as you had been you must now also GM an Additional Skill.

This escalates and escalates and escalates.

Now we get a redo on items. And all of a sudden if you want to be as effective as before you must become properly itemized.

So now we have the player being required to balance at the very least 2 complex systems to be .... you got it, as effective as they use to be.

Now comes the need for bigger and meaner mobs.

Fine we get them.

Oh my god, now we are so totally under powered that there is no way in Hades we can go up against them, read that as really Large Scale Raids vs Small Groups vs Solo.

Now then the PvP crowd insinuates it piece and starts to say that NEW TERM Template X is to powerful.

So now the Game Stewards need to start dealing with multiple, complex systems that do not lend themselves to balance as a total package.

All the while your skill cap has NOT CHANGED.

Now comes the Oh, lets make the individual skill cap 120 and just rescale the effectiveness of the skill over a 120 range vs a 100 range and this allows us to answer the demand for change in the Skill System.

Oh my god, we can NOT get the total skills my character needs to be effective.

Ok, out comes the Jewelry/Items that give Skill Bonus points.

Now comes the demand to NOT LOSE a developed skill just because the combination of skills has been changed to be effective.

Answer, Soul Stones.

By this time it is totally Fubar'd from the Game Stewards perspective and the game players perspective.

 

[MalagAste]

I agree that 720 should remain the cap... there is NO reason to go beyond that.

I would quit if they forced us to one character per shard... that would be it for me.

I don't have 7 characters per account because I need more skills... I do it for RP.. if they did that I would want to be able to change my name race and appearance at will... and THAT would ruin more than anything.


I guess I don't care if they give everyone 720 points... but as for the newbs... It's a goal worth reaching... honestly the 20 points in the whole scheme of things doesn't make a whole hill o' beans of difference... especially when you can put on a bunch of items and go beyond anyway.

Though if they just gave you to 10 point raises per year instead of 4 fives that would be good too.

To me the 20 points is a goal to be earned by showing your dedication and support.

I'm getting a bit fed up with the gimme gimme gimme whinning about aw he has this and I don't she got that and I didn't...

I think actual gameplay and being around to earn things is important... if everything was just handed to you what is the point of the game???

I'd like to see the quest/reward system expanded. As well I like the work for your rewards... the more you play the more you earn. Though if things are easier to obtain it would certainly make duping FAR less profitable.

I miss when I could just whack out a new suit on my crafter... If I didn't know better I would say that my brother obviously works for the team since they take simple laws and rules and make them so complicated it's insane.... the whole throwing thing just screams overly complicated. But having seen it in action I think it looks awesome...

 

[Essence of Siege]

By this time it is totally Fubar'd from the Game Stewards perspective and the game players perspective.

Not by my accounts.

720 is PLENTY. If it were 820 the templates you could make would be insane and unstoppable in both PvP and PvE. There's been so many times in coming up with a template that I went 'if only I had 100 more skillpoints, this would wtfPwnJ00s0xx0rsoff!' But it made me decide what's important.

I wholey agree that some stuff needs to be changed. tactics should give a chance for critical hit or something along those lines. As it stands you can substitute DI stuff for anat/tactics.

Also necro template sans magery is a pointless template if you're playing with a team. Necro should get a rez to allow for more teamwork as it stands it's a great solo template, but without magery to back it up it's not great for teamwork. Spiritspeak would seem to fit that you can 'guide' the ghost back to the land of the living.

I'd also like to see Chiv's noble sacrifice rez bonded pets, but that's just me.