Came back to check out the new movement on the ARG, thought I would try playing again. There's a lot I really love about this game. The wilderness is large and wide but not too much so. Way more crafting than CLOK. Bushcraft skill is a perfect all purpose survival craft without having to spread yourself out over multiple specializations. Druidry is totally badass. We have Faewyr lore at last. Combat more interesting than CLOK's. I'm in love with multithrow shards.
The things I just can't get past though, are the level and skill systems. I don't mind the skill caps. I see their purpose. But having to level up to get skill points, and having to go to a skill trainer for each burst increase just really doesn't feel good to me. Each level takes longer, the higher your skill the less you can raise with the points you get from a level. It just seems like I level, increase my skills immediately, then get impatient waiting for the next level feeling like I'm not progressing until I get that next ding and I train my skills and it's over in a flash, can't improve again until the next level's grind. And each new level becomes less exciting than the last, because you worked harder for it but got less out of it. There's also the dichotomy where when you first get a skill, you feel like it's increasing too fast and you you're fast forwarding through portions of the journey because it's going up in large increments of 25 or even 100. But then, later on when it's higher, you spend your entire level to increase it by a few points because it's so expensive and feel cheated that you took longer to make that level, and saw a negligible result from it and you're staring down the tunnel of an even longer level for the next negligible increase. Part of that feeling because you were trained at the earlier levels to feel like each level was a huge jump in skill.
I would rather prefer to set my goals, get my experience, and let that experience go into my skill increases as I use them instead of a character level. The higher the skill, the slower it can raise so it still takes longer at higher skill and you still get that paced effect. It can take exactly the same amount of time in the end, but let us feel like we're constantly progressing our skills, instead of just empty grinding for that next level to get an instant burst of skill increase followed by empty feeling grind drudgery until the next burst. If we were putting experience directly into skill increases over time instead of having to wait until the next level, that would make it feel a lot smoother and more flowing and pleasing to watch. I would feel much better seeing my skills going up as I get my experience and getting the benefit from them as I use them, even if it was really slow but steady, instead of to have an empty XP grind gameplay with only a quick decreasingly exciting bump at each level.
What does the level system accomplish that could not be done without it, and instead just having a total skill number cap you max at without levels, and make the increase with use amount go down the higher a skill gets?
Instead of an "experience bucket" for levels, make it a progress pacer. Each time a skill increases, your pacer number increases. When it gets too high, you no longer get skill increases by using skills. Then you need to wait for the pacer to go down before you go out and grind more skill. Same effect as now.
For skill training, make it more like CLOK, where we can always increase a skill by just using it, and those who want to spend the money can go to a trainer to speed up their increase and get a small immediate boost from the training. And a skill will only increase as high as you have set your goal so you don't accidentally go over how many skill points you wanted to spend on it.
With levels, I play a few days and get frustrated that I still haven't leveled yet and feel like I've accomplished virtually nothing for days. Without levels but slow skill progression by use I play a few days and I can see that my skills have increased and I'm feeling progress through that.
I'm not arguing for less or more grind, only to see slow but steady improvement from the grind rather than infrequent delayed bursts of improvement at level-up. I think it could be the same amount of pacing and effort and cap effect, but with a better feel. A drip feed of consistent satisfaction instead of infrequent bursts of it separated by long unsatisfying grinds.
Love almost everything, but not the level and skill systems
Love almost everything, but not the level and skill systems
"Whenever the pressure of our complex city life thins my blood and numbs my brain, I seek relief in the trail; and when I hear the coyote wailing to the yellow dawn, my cares fall from me - I am happy." - Hamlin Garland
Re: Love almost everything, but not the level and skill systems
I understand why people have this issue, even if I myself don't. I think it comes down to a distinction of I play a character who oftens fills her buckets, or grinds for a while and then relaxes and talks with people for hours. I have gained 42 levels in four and a half months, and I'm sure that's really, really slow. I am happy with my progress. Sure, I wish I had more skill points, s ure, I wish XYZ whatever, but I have never once set my mind to increasing a skill and felt like the progress was minimal. Even when I stopped increasing melee skills at 200 to grind Leatherworking up from 100 to 400, whic heventually got me to leveling and spending all 100 of my points on the skll, for eight levels. That felt fine, because I knew I was aiming for a hard, tight skill point goal, and I did it in a week, and I could have done it in three days if I really, really wanted.
All this is to say, I disagree.
All this is to say, I disagree.
Re: Love almost everything, but not the level and skill systems
I don't think you understood my meaning. I don't want things to go any faster. I just want to see small consistent incremental actual progress as I use a skill, instead of seeing progress all at once in infrequent bursts at each level up. The amount of time and effort don't need to change, just how the progress is presented.
I want to use a skill and see that skill steadily improve. Not use a skill and see my experience go up so I can level up so I can put a few points into the skill and then have to wait for the next level up to see progress again. Not how long it takes. Just how the sense off progress and learning skills feels.
I want to use a skill and see that skill steadily improve. Not use a skill and see my experience go up so I can level up so I can put a few points into the skill and then have to wait for the next level up to see progress again. Not how long it takes. Just how the sense off progress and learning skills feels.
"Whenever the pressure of our complex city life thins my blood and numbs my brain, I seek relief in the trail; and when I hear the coyote wailing to the yellow dawn, my cares fall from me - I am happy." - Hamlin Garland
Re: Love almost everything, but not the level and skill systems
I understand that. I think your suggestions are good, though my OCD would go off the walls seeing, particularly combat, numbers all odd and nonuniform like that.
The way it works now allows me to satisfy that numbers urge while not focusing on said numbers, I.E. role playing and just kind of every now and again leveling.
The way it works now allows me to satisfy that numbers urge while not focusing on said numbers, I.E. role playing and just kind of every now and again leveling.
Re: Love almost everything, but not the level and skill systems
I think you will see something like this, just not quite in the way you envisage here. The way 'affinities' will work, as I understand it, you'll be rewarded with perks and improvements simply by using abilities that are linked with that affinity. For instance the druidry ability 'Growth' has the Primal Transfusion affinity that extends its duration (and may well have other more complicated effects that are not easily coded, in the future). I don't recall if affinities will also function for, e.g. tradeskills in some way, but it might be worth digging up more on it. Anyway, that will hopefully give you a bit more satisfaction, tweaking your development based on what you do rather than your skill levels.
Beyond that, personally, I can't see the current level/skill system being scrapped. It's a pretty defining feature of the game. I would hope some of your frustrations would be alleviated once we start to see more complex ways to customise our characters' development, whether that's affinities, guild ranks or societies.
I could also go on and on about how I've made an effort to stop obsessing over my EXP bucket and just started doing stuff I want to do with my character, regardless of level, which really is the bottom line here for me. You don't mention RPing character development, which I think shouldn't be overlooked in this discussion. I get the sense you don't see that as a possible solution, in terms of how you want to play, though?
Re: Love almost everything, but not the level and skill systems
Re: Character Customization. Once Ability Trees are fleshed out more, we should see a large upscale in how much you can tweak to see small, satisfying changes to characters.
I think @Tulpa is right, though. This is a Roleplay Mud. I'm not going to be that guy who demands you play a character how I invision it, but I've learned the hard way that obsessing over the numbers leads me to overthink things, and this is a game I would very much like to see without a "META," or at least, not highly influenced by what is the "optimal" combat build.
Edit to say: This is more of a general point, this certainly isn't what @OPP is saying, I hope.
I think @Tulpa is right, though. This is a Roleplay Mud. I'm not going to be that guy who demands you play a character how I invision it, but I've learned the hard way that obsessing over the numbers leads me to overthink things, and this is a game I would very much like to see without a "META," or at least, not highly influenced by what is the "optimal" combat build.
Edit to say: This is more of a general point, this certainly isn't what @OPP is saying, I hope.
Re: Love almost everything, but not the level and skill systems
Not exactly the all over change being proposed, but in a similar vein, I'd like to see the number used in equations being "Practice" instead of "Current". It would help that gradual shift in power during levels, instead of that immediate skill point dump.
- Karjus
Speaking to you, XYZ says, "Never bother to wash it. It gets dirty again anyway."
Speaking to XYZ, you say, "I hope you don't treat your ass the same way."
Speaking to you, XYZ says, "Never bother to wash it. It gets dirty again anyway."
Speaking to XYZ, you say, "I hope you don't treat your ass the same way."
Re: Love almost everything, but not the level and skill systems
I had a feeling I would be viewed as a power gamer uninterested in RP for making my post. Let me try to explain. I am not the type who only plays for progress and doesn't enjoy RP. I would not have played CLOK without the RP. If I want nothing but progress quest, I have hundreds of single player games that fill that need. I'm glad the people here are focused on RP too. But that doesn't mean I don't want to enjoy the mechanics of the game too, and feel good doing that as I RP and feel immersed in the world. I feel to fall back on the argument that you should just not pay attention to progress and let RP carry you is a cop out. We could say it about any part of the game we don't like the mechanic of. It is good advice, yes. But it does not mean we shouldn't enjoy the non RP parts of the game, too. Why not both? This is why I avoid RPI games. I don't think they're bad. But they're not what I'm looking for. I want to enjoy the RP, and I want to enjoy the gameplay too. That's what I loved on CLOK. That's what I want to love on COGG. I have my complaints with the level and skill system and it's why I am posting about it and hoping to have a discussion. I won't be offended if nothing changes, but I wanted to get my feelings and suggestions out there.
Let me approach this from a different angle that might appeal better to some of you. The reason I don't like the level and skill system, is because it makes it feel more gamey and the concept does not feel natural. When I have to grind basic experience, just to get to a level up, and then put points in a skill which suddenly jumps: that is difficult to RP, or work with the flow of RP. My character is grinding some imaginary meta stat just so he can get to some magic level up point where, wow, all of a sudden I'm way better at bushcrafting. I could just forage and crush thornleaf for 10 levels, and then dump all the skill points into something for a sudden dramatic jump. It feels wrong.
It would feel much more natural, and work seamlessly with RP, to have a character slowly and consistently get better at something the more they do it.
Let me approach this from a different angle that might appeal better to some of you. The reason I don't like the level and skill system, is because it makes it feel more gamey and the concept does not feel natural. When I have to grind basic experience, just to get to a level up, and then put points in a skill which suddenly jumps: that is difficult to RP, or work with the flow of RP. My character is grinding some imaginary meta stat just so he can get to some magic level up point where, wow, all of a sudden I'm way better at bushcrafting. I could just forage and crush thornleaf for 10 levels, and then dump all the skill points into something for a sudden dramatic jump. It feels wrong.
It would feel much more natural, and work seamlessly with RP, to have a character slowly and consistently get better at something the more they do it.
"Whenever the pressure of our complex city life thins my blood and numbs my brain, I seek relief in the trail; and when I hear the coyote wailing to the yellow dawn, my cares fall from me - I am happy." - Hamlin Garland
Re: Love almost everything, but not the level and skill systems
For context, Rias is definitely open to feedback on that kind of thing (or was a year ago, but I cannot imagine that has changed), the discussion last it came up is located here: viewtopic.php?f=9&t=792
I wasn't crazy about the level and skill point system when I started, and mostly I've come to be quite content with it except for when I try to play a wilderness hermit (though for me it is mostly that I need to go back to town and pay some townie to teach me how to use the skills I've been using to survive in the wilderness - I know it's a frontier town and those townies are grizzled explorers and rugged survivalists, but still).
If I understand the suggestion it is very much in line with what Rias was pondering previously. I'm curious, would you find it any less jarring if you received skill points throughout the level up process? E. g. in going from level 1 to 2, you'd get 1 skill point every 55 exp (or roughly 1 skill point every 4 minutes), in going from level 10 to 11 it would be 1 skill point every 100 exp (~7 minutes), 40 to 41 every 250 exp (~ 17 minutes), and around level 50 an even 1 skill point per 20 drips of the bucket. I imagine that would be less of a total overhaul to implement than scrapping the level system altogether, but would it feel like good incremental progress?
I wasn't crazy about the level and skill point system when I started, and mostly I've come to be quite content with it except for when I try to play a wilderness hermit (though for me it is mostly that I need to go back to town and pay some townie to teach me how to use the skills I've been using to survive in the wilderness - I know it's a frontier town and those townies are grizzled explorers and rugged survivalists, but still).
If I understand the suggestion it is very much in line with what Rias was pondering previously. I'm curious, would you find it any less jarring if you received skill points throughout the level up process? E. g. in going from level 1 to 2, you'd get 1 skill point every 55 exp (or roughly 1 skill point every 4 minutes), in going from level 10 to 11 it would be 1 skill point every 100 exp (~7 minutes), 40 to 41 every 250 exp (~ 17 minutes), and around level 50 an even 1 skill point per 20 drips of the bucket. I imagine that would be less of a total overhaul to implement than scrapping the level system altogether, but would it feel like good incremental progress?
Re: Love almost everything, but not the level and skill systems
Really not a fan of the level system, either. I usually refuse to play games with levels as a general rule, but COGG has enough other things going for it that I deal with it.
I would agree that it's terrible for roleplay. Just being unable to get better at pottery for a few days until I've delivered enough packages really doesn't make any sense and having to tip-toe around that is fairly immersion-breaking.
The bucket also makes me feel like I have to constantly be gaining XP any time I'm with someone or else I'm holding them back or wasting their time, which isn't fun. I end up not wanting to log in because I have to be always 'on' and doing things rather than taking time to chill and roleplay socially or else I'll feel guilty.
But, as others have said, these are fairly core features and unlikely to change.
I would agree that it's terrible for roleplay. Just being unable to get better at pottery for a few days until I've delivered enough packages really doesn't make any sense and having to tip-toe around that is fairly immersion-breaking.
The bucket also makes me feel like I have to constantly be gaining XP any time I'm with someone or else I'm holding them back or wasting their time, which isn't fun. I end up not wanting to log in because I have to be always 'on' and doing things rather than taking time to chill and roleplay socially or else I'll feel guilty.
But, as others have said, these are fairly core features and unlikely to change.