Skill decrease disabled

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Rias
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Skill decrease disabled

Post by Rias »

The ability to decrease skills has been disabled. I've noticed a tendency for people to get the skill they need to produce an item, then decrease the skill again once they have what they need, which is not something I want to see happening. It's somewhat understandable up to this point, because we're still in an early stage development-wise, and people are testing things out, but I don't want anyone to get used to the ability to do this kind of thing.

I'm looking into alternative solutions, like an annual chance to decrease unwanted skills.

Remember: There's a skill reset coming soon as we're still in a sort of testing stage, so don't panic if your character currently has some "I just wanted to test it out" skills. You'll get a clean slate when the reset happens.
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Math321
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Re: Skill decrease disabled

Post by Math321 »

"I'm looking into alternative solutions, like an annual chance to decrease unwanted skills."

Annual is a very very long time for something like that...

Perhaps make it possible to un-assign 10% of one's skill points once every 30 days, in exchange for a bunch of riln and a rare item. Then people _CAN_ fix problems within a reasonable time frame, without it resulting in abuse from people carelessly picking up and dropping skills.
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Jaster
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Re: Skill decrease disabled

Post by Jaster »

Agreed: Some in-game lore-bound method for regression of skills requiring some large but obtainable cost, riln or otherwise to the character. Perhaps also which allows someone to focus on a specific skill to decrease with the unfortunate side-effect of potentially reducing numerous other skills by some unknown amount or other ill-wanted effects to help increase the risk of doing so and reduce the eagerness of people to partake in it frequently.
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Rias
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Re: Skill decrease disabled

Post by Rias »

I'm still thinking I want the amount decreased per time period to be restricted, or maybe you can only decrease a skill so much and the rest is considered a permanent investment. Since it's supposed to more of an "oops, I ended up not using that latest thing I've invested in very much" remedy than "I'm going to change my entire character concept".

I'm admittedly using exaggerated example cases to make a point - I don't think most people are going to really try to change their entire skillset. (Yes, "most".)
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Lexx416
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Re: Skill decrease disabled

Post by Lexx416 »

I think tying willing skill decrease to some occult method with a downside would be pretty neat, and thematic. Kind of a "reverse therapy", causing sanity issues, maybe a temporary debuff to sanity or morale that can't be fixed for a period.
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SilverMoon
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Re: Skill decrease disabled

Post by SilverMoon »

Well what you could do, is you can decrease a skill but then you can't increase it again for a certain amount of time.
So let's say you have a skill up to 200, and then you decrease it by 20. Now you can't increase that skill for a set amount of time. that makes it so that you have a certain penalty for it, while still allowing people to do it.
though, I think that you should be able to decrease for free, if you're under 100. Only because new players might want to explore that skill, and might find it too difficult, or maybe it's not what they expected. so anything under 100 should be a free decrease.
anything above it though, you start really having to invest points, so the penalty can come in.
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Rias
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Re: Skill decrease disabled

Post by Rias »

The opposite is actually what I'm more worried about, I think. People quickly getting around 100 in a skilll, enough to utilize it for a specific case scenario, and then dumping it. Skill increases should be part of who a character is and plans to be, not one-off solutions.
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SilverMoon
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Re: Skill decrease disabled

Post by SilverMoon »

yeah I suppose, but I mean by the time you get up to 100, you've already invested so much time practicing and stuff.
I wonder if that's really likely to happen you know?
I suppose you can do like the first 50? I mean I just think there has to be some leniency for newbies, who take a skill, not really understanding what all it entails, but then once you take it, you're stuck for life.
that can be a huge regret point.
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Rias
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Re: Skill decrease disabled

Post by Rias »

I'm not against people lowering their skills, I'm just wanting to make sure it's something not to be done lightly, to encourage putting thought into things and discourage frequent skillchanging just because it can be done. We'll find a good sweet spot for it eventually, I'm sure, and I'm glad people are giving feedback and suggestions to help with that.
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SilverMoon
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Re: Skill decrease disabled

Post by SilverMoon »

I suppose what you could do, is have a newbie time.
So if you've not played so many days and such, then you can freely increase and decrease your skills, while you're still trying to figure out your char concept. but then after that point, you can't decrease your skills anymore. They are essentially what they are.
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