Should Characters Be Able to Be Perfect In Every Skill?

[Devour]

That does not mean one doesnt want to be able to function independently, after all a sandbox game is all about freedom... and there also is a difference between forcing trading and forming communities and being able to; as in limiting one 's skills would force you to...
And @devour posting a link to farmville do not make your arguments any more valid either.

Sandbox games aren't "all about freedom". Try this "game" if you just want freedom. Posting links to games with what you want shows you how vapid and empty your ideas seem to be, though.

Sandbox games are about giving players the ability to have a great effect on their environment and the ability to go through a variety of paths to reach their goal ( whatever one they want, the game does not set that for them ). It wouldn't force you to do anything. You could have all your skills at 50 instead of three at 100, for example. Or you could have farming, cooking and carpentry at 100, which would allow you to build and grow a passable farm and trade for anything you wanted with your best quality goods.

[flaw]

At 10M LP, a character who put it all in one skill would be 40% better in that skill than a character who equally divided the 10M over 4 skills.

That 40% would cost 7.5M of the 10M.

I don't think 100M is a reasonable figure to discuss.

Possible ninja edit since I hit the wrong button: no, it's still 40%.

That isn't factoring in the value of diminishing returns.

Oh, I totally agree that my post doesn't factor in anything else. I was just giving a straight up numerical comparison. When I said "better", I really meant just a 40% higher number.

[Winterbrass]

I think the best way to handle 'generalization', aside from decay, would be to have skill value costs derived from total skill value, along with other skill values.

A character with fewer skills at the same level would have an easier time of improving their specialization, because they're not losing focus. The functional meaning of this is that if you have fewer than X skills at Y level, those skills have a reduced cost to improve (80% for the first, 90% for the second?). This would also work in the reverse, which has the added benefit of making extra specializations more costly. (For example, with three skills at 100, it would cost 110% normal LP to bring a fourth one to the same level.)

[flaw]

That isn't factoring in the value of diminishing returns.

Oh, I totally agree that my post doesn't factor in anything else. I was just giving a straight up numerical comparison. When I said "better", I really meant just a 40% higher number.

Actually, I sort of take that back. The 40% was based on the quality formula.

[Devour]

I think the best way to handle 'generalization', aside from decay, would be to have skill value costs derived from total skill value, along with other skill values.

A character with fewer skills at the same level would have an easier time of improving their specialization, because they're not losing focus. The functional meaning of this is that if you have fewer than X skills at Y level, those skills have a reduced cost to improve (80% for the first, 90% for the second?). This would also work in the reverse, which has the added benefit of making extra specializations more costly. (For example, with three skills at 100, it would cost 110% normal LP to bring a fourth one to the same level.)

That wouldn't really fix anything, though.

[Jack]

Devour,

The philosophy behind the game is not based on balance between players. Introducing a cap would go against what the game stands for.

The world is on 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. The world doesnt stop if you stop playing.

The world keeps changing, keeps evolving and so does the players.

Introducing a cap would be limiting the players evolution, thats not the premisse of a MMORPG, a living breathing world, that is persistant and dinamic, where characters evolve based on their time and effort forever as long as they keep playing.


Design decisions such as caps, are a deviation from the genre, that sold its essence for a target consumer that demands to be competitive ingame, even though he doesnt spend the time and effort others do.


People are different. Some spend more time and effort than others. You progress based on it. Putting a cap to artificially limit other players time and effort spent rewards, just so you can compete somehow, at somepoint (when they reach a cap you expect to catch up with them, but no, in MMORPGs the world doesnt stop for you, the other players dont stop for you, and you cannot demmand an artificial leash just for your own agenda).


If any sort of power or progression cap is implemented it loses the right to call itself an mmorpg. the first M of the acronymn stands for massively scope, not only of players, but space, time and effort spent, its a huge endeavour that ressembles life.

You want to compete, then play, the world is open 24 hours, 7 days per week.

[Potjeh]

So only the unemployed deserve to play?

[Jackard]

well they should be able to win at something

[warrri]

So only the unemployed deserve to play?

So only the unemployed deserve to suffer because others dont have the time?

You can pull this either way.

[Potjeh]

Uh, just what are you smoking, and can I have some?