Give Unarmed Combat and Melee Combat a cap..

[ImpalerWrG]

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

That sounds interesting, but would it not throw ALL the importance onto equipment and particularly metal working as the deciding factor?

[Potjeh]

Rewarding obscene time investment is also lame, the game should be accessible to people with actual jobs. It just keeps the game an autistic experience rather than a community thing, which is the whole point of an MMO. Also, realism arguments have no place in a balance discussion. And it's not really a hard cap if the cap itself is variable.

[SeanPan]

Rewarding obscene time investment is also lame, the game should be accessible to people with actual jobs. It just keeps the game an autistic experience rather than a community thing, which is the whole point of an MMO. Also, realism arguments have no place in a balance discussion. And it's not really a hard cap if the cap itself is variable.

Realism has no role, but intuitive understanding makes that the game more accessible for new players is a good thing. I don't see how anything further could be discussed in regards to that. If you feel that making things more intuitive is somehow not conducive to the overall experience, then I must disagree.

If you feel that decreasing rewards that essentially hard-cap while still providing some flexibility are lame because they even provide that minimum of flexibility, then I am afraid that we have to disagree. My experience with games in both playing and administrative capacity, is that decreasing rewards, if they scale down far enough, suffice for the desired effect.

I simply do not see how "you can be 10% more effective if you play 400 more hours" will ruin the combat experience for more casual players, if casual players can simply get a second fighter to assist and overcome that -10% deficit. If you could explain that to me, I am all ears.

[Potjeh]

You can't simply get a second fighter to help you in 99% of cases. And I still don't see how is 400 more hours of grinding whatever (even if it's something like hunting or farming) makes for more engaging gameplay than raising quality of your equipment, which involves a metric shitton of player interaction (unlike the former).

[SeanPan]

If you simply cannot get a second fighter to help you, then I would humbly say that there is clearly some fault of communication. Even as a complete newbie, our tiny little estate regularly has three of us online always together and working the various projects of the day, out of five. Respectively, we have professional jobs, attend college, or otherwise are very much casual players. So trust me, we despise bucketeers as much as you do.

And yet, we have no difficulty having multiple people together.

Indeed, if we even had two or three more players, which is likely, we have been considering having us appear in formation whenever our leader emerges to discuss with various visitors and envoys.

I concede - grinding for 400 more hours does not appeal to you, and neither does it appeal to me. However, it will appeal to players on the Achiever/Killer type, and if the game can be made more appealing to that type without hurting us, presumably the Social type, then I do not see it as much of an issue. The way you write, you imply that players who want to be loners or Achievers(and yes, often are OCD math crunchers) should be completely driven from the game and given no outlet at all for any advantage. I merely feel that is too extreme.

Please correct me if my perception is incorrect.

[Potjeh]

So I see you don't hunt.

And yes, it's either them or us, and there's already a million MMOs for them out there. You simply can't have your cake and eat it too.

[SeanPan]

We do hunt; we generally go in pairs as well. We find that its more entertaining that way, and gets things done faster.

I do not feel that it is such an us/them dynamic. I feel that I have provided a concrete example of where both Social gamers as well as Achiever gamers can get something they want - Social gamers will have more reason to be social and stick together, while Achievers can still feel like they might be able to gain an advantage.

However, I understand your perspective and I appreciate that you've taken the time to share it.

[Potjeh]

Achievers can still achieve higher q equipment. It's a much better achievement than killing 5000 bears anyway.

It's also possible to have infinite skill payoffs with an equipment cap, if you make the cap an asymptote.

BTW hunting in team is suboptimal, it just means you'll cover less ground and thus find less animals then you would've if you had split up.

[SeanPan]

Not all Achievers are Social; in fact, although I am not certain about the chart, I believe that the specific Achievers we refer to, are Killers and thus on the opposite end of Socializers. They would be focused on singular advancement

Hunting alone raises the risk of being ganked alone, despite optimizing it for covering more ground. Wouldn't the tradeoff of increased safety versus increased efficiency be an element of choice that would contribute to the game, as opposed to detract from it?

[Potjeh]

It's an MMO, it should be oriented towards player interaction, otherwise you may as well make it single-player and save on server costs.