There has been a good deal of talk about grind (much of it in chat channels; thank you to the folks who have given me some summaries, though I encourage people with strong thoughts to post in this thread to make sure the thoughts are heard). There have been some particular worries of potential very low gain rates. Making progress excruciating isn't a part of the plan, and when I said "like it was in CLOK" I meant the complete-skill-by-use mechanic, not the progression rates from that game. I know some of that was really bad. I also know some of the methods of gaining were bad. I know dodge and shield training as current are pretty bad in fact, having dedicated some time to experiencing it lately and getting feedback from players about it. We'll be making tweaks to those, as the point wasn't to make them painful to increase, but rather to avoid situations like 600-skill characters routinely training against 0-skill mobs. We want the game to remain fun, and while the progression process (the grind) is part of the intended feel of the game, we want it to be balanced so that it feels more satisfying than frustrating. It's a hard line to determine but we'll always be chasing it and willing to make tweaks.
I also want to emphasize that there is no intention to accommodate "do-everything characters". This seems to be another common concern and rightly so - we're concerned about it too - but with limited ability point gating we're confident it won't be an issue. And if testing shows that it doesn't fix the issue, we'll work on that or deem the plan to be non-viable.
Another common concern appears to be infinite progression, which I will admit there is technically potential for if we could somehow provide infinite content additions ... which is not something that could happen, even if we wanted to, which we don't. The idea isn't to provide infinite skill progress and an endless grind, but rather to always have the opening for new higher-challenge content if we want to add some. So, uncapped skills in this context doesn't mean they can just be infinitely ground up to an infinite number. There will be caps to how high a skill can go based on content released in the game. If there are only (common) mobs of skill up to 800, then the combat skill cap is 800. If there are only woodworking recipes available up to a challenge rating of 900, then the woodworking cap is 900. And if the numbers ever do get real high to the point that the grind from start to end feels too tedious and the old-vs-new skill gap overly difficult to surmount, we can toss in a little multiplier to speed it up.
This is a tough one, because different skills can be viewed at different scales. I don't think there will ever be a satisfactory global conversion rate.
I do want to caution PCs from thinking that a 700 skill (or whatever the cap may be at the time - 400 for crafting skills, for instance) means they're Olympian-tier or world-class. I know it can be a blow to the fantasy of a character being the best at something, but also keep in mind that your fellow player characters can get to the same skill levels as you can. Unlike D&D campaigns, this isn't a setting where characters level and skill up to the point that they're essentially gods (or god-killers) because that's some pretty setting-breaking stuff. PCs are meant to be just more people in the Lost Lands. 700 skill would mean one is in the higher tiers for sure, but by no means the best in the world or even the region. There are town guards with 700 Melee skill. There are little old frontier tailors with 700 tailoring skill. It's impressive and it's indicative of both talent and skill, but it's not peerless. And there are some NPCs that go beyond the typical skill caps. Rig-Jarl Bjorn of the Dwaedn Wyr comes to mind, and there aren't plans for his skill levels to be attained by PCs (or his position usurped by a PC).
This system probably needs its own re-think, honestly. Farms can get to some pretty excessive levels. I'd rather reign things in and make smaller amounts feel more meaningful, granting better yields from more skill rather than more land from more skill.
In COGG, this affects your rerolls rather than your maximum roll number, so it won't be possible to "game" challenge-based skillgains with these methods. A character with a dodge of 600 can go and break their legs and lie down and their dodge is still going to be 600, just with a ton of negative rerolls. That means the number the skillgain challenge is based off of isn't changing, hence there's no benefit in intentionally penalizing oneself in the pursuit of gains. (There are a few effects that do affect max rolls rather than rerolls - we're thinking about what to do with these. Partial rerolls rather than changing the max roll is the current leaning.)
These would leave me back in the Constrained Development Box, so they may be avenues worth considering if the current plans don't work out, but they're not my first priority as they don't address one of the primary issues I'm facing.Various alternative ideas to the uncapped skill idea
