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Posts
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Polar Bear
Posts: 45I think a more elective specialization system would be good. I don’t think it’s fair to JVH to condemn this idea without knowing more about the reasoning behind it though. Transparency as to exactly what prompted this change would be nice.
I’m assuming that there is already an exp penalty in place where the higher your player/skill level, the more exp it takes to get to the next level. So why would we need an additional penalty to add on to the first penalty? It doesn’t seem to make any sense why you would want to hit players with a double penalty on leveling up.
This is not good for new or old players. It’s not like you can get away with only doing one thing in this game. Even a player that only likes the underworld has to use other skills. They’ll need to build/repair a house to live and store their stuff. You’ll need to harvest to get the mats for this. But with this new system, people will feel the need to have multiple characters just to do different things on each. Character count will go up but that’s not actually individual players and it’s individual players that would be donating money not each character.
For new players, they won’t realize this penalty as much and once they get to a certain level and realize that all the time they spent doing harvesting, building, farming, and etc was a waste of time. Some would feel the need to have to re-roll and make multiple characters for different skills. Since they are new this could frustrate them and they will just quit the game to begin with. This causes less new players to stay which it seems this game already has a hard time keeping new players.
If you want a penalty system like this, then I would rather this type of penalty be applied to an individual skill then to the actual player level. For example, if someone has level 50 in destruction, then place this exp penalty on just that skill. This way the player level doesn’t affect all skills. However, even this type of penalty would not be liked by most because this is a sandbox game. You’re suppose to be able to do whatever you want and have fun in your own way without feeling like you have to do it a set way.
Skeleton
Posts: 119I can’t know the exact problem you are addressing. And among my suppositions are prompting more specialization and having farming be less convenient. I have some food for thought:
(1) Skills usefulness after a certain point goes by a paradigm shift. The exact point and the nature of the shift are on a skill-by-skill basis (e.g.: chance of having a repair kit not waste a use) and can be abrupt (e.g.: damage +5 at weapon skill level 20) or gradual (e.g.: damage +1 at each weapon skill level from 15 to 20); a similar things can be achieved altering the experience curves, but having skills be already reasonably effective at level 0. The point I’m suggesting in this paragraph is that the first time spent training a skill could be way less useful than the successive one.
(2) Have skill decay dependant on time, with skills decaying faster the lower they are, independent of charachter level and other skills’ level.
(3) Training a skill could decay the other ones. Maybe if you have some skill at 0, the skill being trained suffers the same penalty to that, so that total experience gained would be conserved (otherwise the new best strategy would become training one skill at a time).
(4) Have old age and its experience penalty depend on charachter age; one will have to die at a certain point, but adjust the algorithm so that it’s actually possible to increase in power.
(5) Farming could take a lot of time, for example one could plant seeds and go in the dungeon while waiting for growth, and some plants could grow for 16 hours or more (supposing watering), to support a different play and farming style. Also there could be some competition for land.
I don’t like Akhen’s idea to have the ability to elect a group of skills, because for me the appeal of this game is that such things are left to emergent behavior. If a group of skills is connected then one will already have advantage in training them, and I see no purpose in supporting some paradigms just because they are paradigms outside of the game (did I mention that I don’t like references?). This is also why, amongst my points, there isn’t a what-is-a-sandbox-game argument. To me it’s about this game, not about what a sandbox game is supposed to be.
Goblin
Posts: 73Yeah, my idea was just a random thought in case that’s where the idea of specialization is heading into.
But, maybe there is no specialization idea! That’s the problem with lack of transparency!
Polar Bear
Posts: 45My problem is that I just don’t see a reason for this kind of curve to be necessary. Infinite power growth can be solved with individual skill caps, behavioral trends (like farming to level) can be solved by tweaking the offending skills in isolation, hardware and software limitations can be solved by tweaking the storage format, etc. There isn’t a reason that I can see to adopt a system that punishes players for errant skill exp.
I do think it would be a different story if we had an easy way to remove or reallocate skill levels, but even then players would still be encouraged to have lots of alts.
Guys, he said in his post that he has good reasons for the experience curve change. He also said the numbers will be adjusted until it is as balanced as possible, but he needs more time to collect data. Just gonna have to trust him and wait it out.
Penguin
Posts: 3Without good explanation, it’s hard to understand the whole situation. But, I hope, solo sandbox game is still possible
Turtle
Posts: 7In addition to not having a “preview post” button, these new forums don’t have a “quote post” button either.
Ivana, please understand that as the wife of the sole developer you are in a unique position that comes with more information than any other player. We aren’t able to have your passive response because we have ZERO indication that this change was coming and ZERO explanation that is coherent.
JVH, I get that you are one guy making the game and that you are making changes on the fly in response to an active and growing playerbase. Being around for a third of a year, I feel qualified to weigh in on the ramifications of your style of game updates. Without discussion, player testing, or transparency this style will continue to rub your donors and non-donors alike the wrong way.
Penguin
Posts: 1Even though I played Legends in the past, I’ve only been playing Legacy for a few days. That being said, I can already tell that the concept of the “sandbox” is more fully realized here than in many MMOs. There are very few games which allow for such brutality and so few rules, and the boundless skill system that allows for infinite improvement is at first both daunting and highly interesting. As a new player I can easily see how it might be fun to level my skills up and create a character that is truly formidable. I have quickly come to realize, too, that with great power comes great anxiety – I can only imagine what it is like to watch your level 100 character with many high level skills die at the hands your enemy.
All this being said, I was disappointed to hear about the latest game mechanic which decreases skill experience gain after level 50. Since the required skill experience to level up increases as the skill level increases, there is already a natural curve of diminishing returns for skill improvement in place, so this adjustment seems redundant and unnecessary.
Second, this new development makes the game less attractive to me as a new player. As an MMO player, I am looking for a game that I can play for the long run. Such a game would of course require material and motivation for me to keep playing, and while having a great community is part of this, having the option to continually improve my character is also part of it. Making skill gains increasingly difficult to attain past level 50 will only motivate me to slow down and eventually stop playing after level 50.
From what I have heard, this change may be in part due to concern about characters power-leveling using only 1 or 2 stats. If this is this case, I do not believe that decreasing skill gains across the board is the correct solution to the problem. In my head, it makes more sense to fix specific skills so that they can not be power-leveled any longer. Farming is an easily-leveled skill that may need work, for instance, whereas mining is not and should not receive any skill gain decreases.
Perhaps, too, decreasing skill gain is also a method of increasing the longevity of the in-game content. In other words, making it harder to gain skill levels results in it taking longer for a player to reach the higher level areas of the game. This will have the desired effect without a doubt, but there is a huge downside that is increased grind/decreased game flow. There is nothing more frustrating in my opinion than reaching a point in a game where accomplishing anything takes hours upon hours of work for minimal gain. Personally, I think adding new content is always a better solution to fixing such a problem, but I am cognizant of the fact that this is not always feasible for a busy developer. The best solution would be to get help, but I understand that it isn’t always easy to find good, trustworthy help either. I don’t have alternate solutions at the moment, but increasing the grind aspect of the game is just going to decrease the number of active players in the long run.
Anyways, those are my long-winded thoughts.
Polar Bear
Posts: 45Ivana, I don’t think this is a numbers problem, any mechanic that makes levels in particular skills detrimental to have would cause the issues people are voicing concerns over.
JVH is certainly doing what he thinks is best for the game here, and I’m sure his reasons are perfectly valid, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t other solutions to the problem that players would be more on-board with. He doesn’t have the same perspective as players who are on the ground every day playing the game, and obviously players don’t have the same perspective he has. The best way to ensure that everyone remains satisfied with how the game progresses is to have transparency and open discussion regarding future developments, even if it’s only with a select portion of the playerbase.
Turtle
Posts: 7Can’t believe I have to bump this, I think this many dissatisfied people deserve some form of communication.
Polar Bear
Posts: 45He probably just hasn’t seen most of it yet.
Penguin
Posts: 4(4.b) Same as (4), but dependant on awake time, not on real time.
Polar Bear
Posts: 388 years of avoiding forums to do this…
I am a fairly new player and joined only because of how addicted Jopah was to this game. After a few days of playing I started falling truly in love with ML. So much so that I kept joking with Jopah “I don’t live here” because this is not the type of game I play. For this reason I thought it wasn’t my right to weigh in.
However, with the player activity drop that I have seen it kinda kills the game for me. I thrive on the social aspects of gaming as much as any of the game mechanics. I even thought to myself; maybe I am bothered because I am over the level 50 “prime xp” cap… but even lower level players have voiced that they don’t have much motivation to level up. I understand this was done for a reason but without transparency it makes it hard to accept that this is how things are going to be. Some have said they will ride it out till the next patch and see how you fix things… but others are more frustrated with your lack of response. We all know you are one man, our reaction isn’t so much a negative reflection on you, but more of a positive reflection of the game. Many feel this drastic change will kill this game that we are all currently addicted to.
Ivana, I understand your need to defend JVH, as he is your partner. I am very much the same way with Jopah… especially if I feel he is being attacked. However, as others have said, it is easy for you to give JVH the benefit of the doubt when you are privy to more information… again the transparency that every one keeps asking for.
I am a bit more blunt than the average bear… so take the following as you will. You say it is your goal to stay home and work on this full time, as a person who believes in following your dream, I love to support something like this. When Jopah first discussed donating with me I was all for it! However, it is unfair to expect donators to keep donating to a game that no longer feels playable to them with out a tangible reason other than “trust me I see a lot that you all don’t see.” There are ways to rectify this (reversal, modification, information!!!) and who knows maybe the reason you haven’t responded is because you are working to fix it… but without a more clear response it comes off as you simply don’t care. I really hope that’s not the case… I think this game has incredible potential and would hate to see it die out so young.
Polar Bear
Posts: 45Sephi’s echoed my thoughts perfectly, specifically about this response not being a negative reflection on JVH. Most gamers would kill to have a dev this passionate and involved behind their favorite game, and I’m sure everyone in the community appreciates the work JVH puts in. It’s just that this particular change is hard to swallow.
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