Give Unarmed Combat and Melee Combat a cap..

[ewlol]

I know this is a radical idea, but in my opinion, this game would benefit from this. Giving unarmed and melee a cap would make combat entirely dependent on your strategy, number, and equipment. I think it would add a bit of balance and get rid of these retardedly high melee stats on some characters, and level the playing field (sort-of). Now there wouldn't be ridiculous LP grind to get melee high... maybe just a farming grind so you can get better plants than your enemies and thus better trees....

[Irish_Pride]

No

[saltmummy626]

No

[DatOneGuy]

lmstfy search.php?keywords=melee+cap+unarmed&terms=all&author=&sc=1&sf=all&sr=posts&sk=t&sd=d&st=0&ch=300&t=0&submit=Search

[SeanPan]

Necropost: but the most appropriate thread that I could find to comment in regards to this.

Melee/unarmed/combat should NOT be capped, however, there should be decreasing returns after a certain level. This should be minor at first, but increasingly significant over time. So while having significant skills should be major at first, against another organized army, it would not provide nearly the same degree of confidence and it would encourage organization and coordinated teamwork to be the emphasis, not grinding.

Simultaneously, anything that improves the combat experience for a group working together, I feel, would be a boost.

[Jackard]

there were some suggesting it be tied to the level of your equipment, similar to how farming is now

[Sazed]

Personally, I believe that the combat skills, or maybe even skills in general, need some sort of cap. One of the biggest problems that was floating around recently was the menace of Bucket Grinding, and now with it removed (Sort of not really) people are turning their eyes to the next grind. The problem inherent in trying to nerf whatever the latest grind is that it isn't going to stop people from grinding, it's just going to push them to a new grind, because people need to grind to stay competitive. There is essentially a combat skills arms race, and people that can't grind their skill the most efficient way possible get left behind and ganked because of the people with 500 more skill then them, since they DID get themselves on the latest grind (And then the people with the higher skill kill the lower skill people, putting them even further behind in the arms race). You can keep nerfing grinds all you want, but the only result is that every activity in the game will result in 1 LP because combat characters will always grind out whatever gives the most LP or the fastest LP at the moment to stay competitive and/or superior (In that everything is 1 LP world, the grinders would be the ones doing the fastest possible activities for that 1 LP).

The only viable way of truly limiting the grind is some sort of cap. If there is no incentive to grind beyond X point, then most hardcore grinders and macroers won't have a reason to keep doing it (Ending mindless grind once they reach the cap, and encouraging activities that actually produce some sort of benefit will be done to get that benefit, IE cooking, farming, crafting). Not only that but it also ends the arms race, seeing as you could never get beyond X skill level, so it's impossible to end up with a class of players that are completely invincible because they rode the Grinding Exploit waves at the time (Bucket Grinding may be gone, but there are still a lot of people that exploited it and are much MUCH more powerful for it, and people are figuring out the new best grind as we speak), ended up with completely untouchable combat skills, and are more then capable of wiping out anyone that tries to get close to their skill level. I do agree with the OP that it would basically force good warriors to have actual skill with the combat system, instead of just winning because they had the biggest skill numbers, and it would reward groups that could work well together over individuals with better stats.

I would also be interested to hear counter arguments with some substance, instead of just "No" with no backing for why the current system is better. The current system really doesn't seem to have any benefit other then allowing people to get the biggest numbers possible, and big numbers make people feel good.

[SeanPan]

Hard capping is pointless. You have just given grinders a goal to hit, and then they will go to max out something next else; failing that, they will complain for the lack of endgame goals to accomplish. Some player types are Achievers, and there's nothing wrong with that if handled well.

Decreasing returns are by far the best idea, I feel. It should never be hard-capped, and if someone wants to put in an additional 150 hours for a marginal improvement in combat ability, then both the Achiever's need to maximize power as well as the overall balance of the game are brought in line.

Big numbers do make people feel better, but to take an example from another game...it would take approximately six months to get from basic combat skills to 80s combat skills, to which a player could consider himself to be a reasonable warrior. To get to 100s combat skills would take a player yet another six months - but two players working in tadem with 80s could be able to seriously harm the 100s player, and three would most likely kill him. And for someone to get to 110 combat skills, it would take him yet ANOTHER six months. And five players in the 80s would kill make him run for mommy.

Yet, of course, in a fair duel, the 100s would cream the 80s combat skill; the 110 player would most likely be able to count himself as winning against a 100 player. Such "uber" Champions like that end up having their role, for morale and for certain important roles, without dominating everyone. And they have adequate fear of dying, and losing all their skill and the 18 month investment. Wars end up being decided by groups, not superheroes. Groups may sometimes be led by a superhero, but the tribe always matters more to the outcome than the champion.

I like that.

[Potjeh]

I don't like that. Why should the gameplay experience of people that like macroing be more important than that of everyone else?

Anyway, I think capping it with equipment is the best idea, since raising q of stuff is an involved process to which the whole village can contribute, therefore this'd make the game more community oriented rather than grind oriented. It would also be consistent with how marksmanship is capped.

[SeanPan]

I don't like that. Why should the gameplay experience of people that like macroing be more important than that of everyone else?

Anyway, I think capping it with equipment is the best idea, since raising q of stuff is an involved process to which the whole village can contribute, therefore this'd make the game more community oriented rather than grind oriented. It would also be consistent with how marksmanship is capped.

Ideally, we aren't rewarding macroing; we are rewarding the people who are focused/obsessed enough to actually raise combat to that level to a limited extent. NOTHING should reward macroing at all, which is basically cheating. I'm assuming that the people willing to grind to the highest levels of (our presumably decreased effect combat) are just such Achievement/Killer players. If they want to endlessly grind for 0.000111% increase in effectiveness, I really can't see how it poses an issue for anyone. In fact, if someone wishes to design a macro for such a pointless reason, they can enjoy their wasted time. If my system is implemented, any reasonable organization will still slaughter them and it will further take advantage that most Killer player types are not Social.

I don't really like the idea of capping with equipment primarily because its counterintuitive; a person's actual skill isn't capped by the weapon he's using. On the other hand, the notion of decreasing returns is very intutive - we can see how a trained soldier is much more effective than a civilian with no training, yet we can also accept that a spec ops is only so much more effective than your average soldier and only at specific roles.

Hard-capping it will just result in individuals endlessly whining that there's no more 'endgame' to continue to develop in.