First, just clarifying that a character's Limit Meter would be universal (not per-skill) and would be intended to be similar to the experience bucket concept in in concept and pacing times. I'm mostly trying to just trim out the fat (the extra experience/level layer that could potentially be done without), reduce potentially confusing yet redundant mechanics concepts, and change the presentation and perception of the progress pacing concept. "I'm good as long as my Limit Meter isn't full" is, to me, better than "I'm not good unless I have some experience sitting in my bucket."
The 10k skillpoint cap would also remain. It'd just be a skillpoint cap rather than a level cap with related skillpoint cap.
Heron wrote: ↑Fri May 21, 2021 6:17 pmWould this effectively un-cap all our skills and ability points? If I wanted to, could I ride the limit meter up to 700 in my preferred combat skill without hitting any other ceiling on the way?
I'd want to keep the 10k overall skill point cap. One thing that I was increasingly frustrated with in The Other Game was the phenomenon of "I skilled up skill X, because I had no reason not to" and the eventuality of longer-term characters having virtually every skill just because.
Would ability points become a function of spent skillpoints, or some other metric, like riln?
My first instinct is to say based on total practiced skill, maybe? I was already fiddling with the character level function on a test server to determine level based on this rather than experience, just to see what it'd be like.
I do feel like the meter rewards specialization if level caps are no longer going to be a thing. Since I raise melee, ranged, dodge and block, I'd advance at 1/2 the rate of someone doing melee/dodge, and 1/4th the rate of the rare exclusive career lumberjack. Right now, that's not really a thing, as you can raise whatever you like in tandem with anything else up to your current ceiling. As long as you have the points.
I think we're at a disconnect here. Can you explain more what you're seeing with this example vs the current experience bucket system?
nobody wrote: ↑Fri May 21, 2021 9:34 pmCall the limit meter a skill meter, and add an ability meter.
Interesting idea. Part of me is thinking the game shouldn't need to start bending over backwards to make people feel they're always progressing in some way no matter what, though. Idle time when the limit meter is full can still be filled by activities that don't require skillgain to be achieved - RP, earning riln, exploring areas, gathering resources, etc.
Nominations and sunset points
I was thinking they'd just increase the rate of skillgain instead of experience absorption.
Will there be an aggregate cap on current vs practice? For example, at level 1, could I put 25 points into everything? OR would I be able to put 25 points into 4 skills and then need to practice before I can buy more skills?
Hmmm. Would it help to base skill rolls on practice levels instead? So you could put 25 points into everything, but you're still going to have to practice those all up before you get any actual benefit from them, rather than instantly. This idea was played with a few times before, and I think I like it.
what is the secondary benefit of non-skill tasks like those in the town hall? Would they just be for riln?
Just riln, yeah.
What is the analogue of going from rank 0 to rank 100 vs rank 600 to rank 700?
I think might be the biggest snag. One idea was to have practice increase rates adjusted based on current skill, so it takes longer to practice each skillpoint from 600-700 than it would from 0-100. Another temptation is to remove the increasing cost per 100 skill and instead just raise the cap per individual skill to 2800, which I imagine a lot of people would probably feel better about with the perceived value per skill point spent at any level of skill. But then we get into a lot more number tweaking and adjusting of existing mechanics for that new number scale. It would be one less thing to confuse people about numbers-wise, though. I know the increasing cost per 100 skill is something that a fair number of people are confused or even discouraged by.
Inability to progress
This is always going to be a thing eventually though, right? Getting rid of generic experience does remove one thing for people to strive to increase to cap, but they're going to hit that cap eventually and be in the same spot in the current system. That said, some other things would be Guild and Society merit points, which currently are set up to have an increasing cost per rank similar to the level system. That's one number people can grind higher just to see the number go higher even once they've gotten well past any appreciable rewards of doing so, and I don't think it needs to be capped, though the increases will start to get pretty insane eventually. There's something to be said for bragging rights, though.