Macros,afk swimming, chopping wood..the good ol days. My PC would be on all night.
Make skilling take longer
- Thread starter BleckCat
- Start date
I like the quick leveling. I work a 9-5, so its pretty easy to compete with the no-lifers in the current iteration. def prefer that.
at the end of the day we're playin this game for the bang and pvp. not to macro for 48hrs
at the end of the day we're playin this game for the bang and pvp. not to macro for 48hrs
It's important to differentiate between skills and attributes here.
Attributes should and do level extremely quickly, and you're able to completely max out your character in a single day of playing, or under an hour if you know what you're doing.
Skills however, currently have heavily boosted experience gains for the beta. You can reach 100 in basically any lore skill with a very small amount of materials.
This will obviously change, and I believe for the better. Having skills take a long time to reach level 100 makes them long term goals, and increases player investment and attachment to their character.
Take refining in MO1 for example. That skill took an extremely long time to get to 100, and gave very tangible rewards for doing so. All extractors will know what I mean when I say getting 100 refining was a day to remember.
Attributes should and do level extremely quickly, and you're able to completely max out your character in a single day of playing, or under an hour if you know what you're doing.
Skills however, currently have heavily boosted experience gains for the beta. You can reach 100 in basically any lore skill with a very small amount of materials.
This will obviously change, and I believe for the better. Having skills take a long time to reach level 100 makes them long term goals, and increases player investment and attachment to their character.
Take refining in MO1 for example. That skill took an extremely long time to get to 100, and gave very tangible rewards for doing so. All extractors will know what I mean when I say getting 100 refining was a day to remember.
I think there are 2 outcomes for leveling the first is it takes too long the second is leveling is too quick if you are a game developer leveling too quick is better than slow it means you get players to that meat of gameplay that will get them hooked and be paying customers for a long time.
You can never have a perfect system everyone has different ideas on how long it should take to level up a char so as a developer you will never have everyone happy however if you make it reasonably quick leveling you have a higher chance of capturing new players because they get exposed to more of the game than just grinding.
(MY PERSONAL THOUGHTS ON THE MATTER) I feel like it should be about 50ish hrs of grinding for a PVP fighter and 80-120 ish hrs for the crafter and about 50ish hrs for really top-tier skills. I feel like with 50 hrs and you have a fully fleshed out mage or footie done means that you could probably do a lot in the first few hrs and it would also give enough attachment to the char to provide a meaningful full experience and having more valuable skills like crafting/ ogh lore take longer you also get that feels in the heart of you did good son.
You can never have a perfect system everyone has different ideas on how long it should take to level up a char so as a developer you will never have everyone happy however if you make it reasonably quick leveling you have a higher chance of capturing new players because they get exposed to more of the game than just grinding.
(MY PERSONAL THOUGHTS ON THE MATTER) I feel like it should be about 50ish hrs of grinding for a PVP fighter and 80-120 ish hrs for the crafter and about 50ish hrs for really top-tier skills. I feel like with 50 hrs and you have a fully fleshed out mage or footie done means that you could probably do a lot in the first few hrs and it would also give enough attachment to the char to provide a meaningful full experience and having more valuable skills like crafting/ ogh lore take longer you also get that feels in the heart of you did good son.
I disagree, for a lot of people the progression and "getting" there is part of the actual gameplay. "End game" where the game begins once you are maxed out is a horrible concept.
Generally one way too prevent macros would be to have diminishing returns on doing the same task over and over. This wouldn't prevent you from progressing further it just means you can't do the same task over and over and expect to get all that much better. There are obviously details to be worked out like at what point have you diversified actions enough so you can do some of the tasks again etc. But this is also kind of how things work in real life. Sometimes you need things to sink in, look at them from other angles or simply let parts of your body rest and recover. That's literally how real life muscle growth works for example: You stress and tear muscle fiber and in the resting time muscles recover and grow back stronger.
I'm not proposing hard limits, just a brake on basically stupid repetition.
And why is crafting "more valuable" in your eyes than fighting or magic skills? There are people that want it to be hard long work to be a master of something in-game as well as in the meta. And it just taking a few days or weeks really just means there is almost no point to the progression at all.
The shorter it is the more of "just an initial grind" it is.
Generally one way too prevent macros would be to have diminishing returns on doing the same task over and over. This wouldn't prevent you from progressing further it just means you can't do the same task over and over and expect to get all that much better. There are obviously details to be worked out like at what point have you diversified actions enough so you can do some of the tasks again etc. But this is also kind of how things work in real life. Sometimes you need things to sink in, look at them from other angles or simply let parts of your body rest and recover. That's literally how real life muscle growth works for example: You stress and tear muscle fiber and in the resting time muscles recover and grow back stronger.
I'm not proposing hard limits, just a brake on basically stupid repetition.
And why is crafting "more valuable" in your eyes than fighting or magic skills? There are people that want it to be hard long work to be a master of something in-game as well as in the meta. And it just taking a few days or weeks really just means there is almost no point to the progression at all.
The shorter it is the more of "just an initial grind" it is.
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I think it will be extremely difficult to stop people from macroing skills, and I don't think its very necessary to stop them (sure maybe make it less effective but I don't think without a complete overhaul of how skills work it'll stop macroing)
I can already see a way around this....a more complex macro that runs for a bit, spurts, sits, blocks, repeat or any other combo. Again unless the way skills are increased is overhauled I don't think macroing will go away.
I think the difference is the reason why the crafting skill is 'more valuable' is because the end product is simply an item in the game where as the combat skills are 'less valuable' because the way a player uses those skills shows mastery of combat...I don't think this game should move towards skill crutches by making combat/action skills harder to obtain.
I think having action skills easier to level is a good thing because it allows people to test builds without feeling like they may not be combat viable for a week or two...or even longer for those who don't have the time to put into the game.
I can already see a way around this....a more complex macro that runs for a bit, spurts, sits, blocks, repeat or any other combo. Again unless the way skills are increased is overhauled I don't think macroing will go away.
I think the difference is the reason why the crafting skill is 'more valuable' is because the end product is simply an item in the game where as the combat skills are 'less valuable' because the way a player uses those skills shows mastery of combat...I don't think this game should move towards skill crutches by making combat/action skills harder to obtain.
I think having action skills easier to level is a good thing because it allows people to test builds without feeling like they may not be combat viable for a week or two...or even longer for those who don't have the time to put into the game.
I've already told our macro guy I want an "omni-macro" that levels every skill you can reliably level while entirely afk so we can set that 1 macro, go to bed, and wake up with like 15 maxed skills.
So yeah not going to stop me.
Action base leveling is just a terrible system for MMOs. Always has been, always will be. Action XP gained on kills you can invest into any action skill is just a better system. It takes the tedium out of the skills you want to macro past and makes macroing itself entirely non-viable if you're not going to try escalating to full-blow botting.
I don't mind leveling my skills on walkers. But I'm not going to level mounted combat on real opponents before it's high enough to be viable. I'm not going to level ecumenical using spurt on things that actually fight back. I'm not going to level swimming occasionally crossing streams. These things can be afked/macroed twenty times more efficiently than actually using the skill properly... so they will be.
I don't mind leveling my skills on walkers. But I'm not going to level mounted combat on real opponents before it's high enough to be viable. I'm not going to level ecumenical using spurt on things that actually fight back. I'm not going to level swimming occasionally crossing streams. These things can be afked/macroed twenty times more efficiently than actually using the skill properly... so they will be.
thank you for taking the words from my brain and putting them to page
That's the usual simple view of things. I didn't say repeating the same action over and over. I said diminishing returns per action. So even if you do multiple actions repetitively they would all give diminishing returns in time.
Oh ok, I think I see where you're going with this. To continue to play devil's advocate...you could have your macro make your character sit at the end of the loop for the diminishing returns duration before starting again.
Really the only way to fix macroing is if you overhaul the system.
I'm not even disagreeing with you on an overhaul or changes.
Let them sit and gain nothing during that duration that may be of longer time while they could gain more if they were actively doing other things that can still increase things.
In theory if the system notices you are doing the same shit over and over they could even prompt you in-game to see if you are actually there and not just AFK macroing.
Let them sit and gain nothing during that duration that may be of longer time while they could gain more if they were actively doing other things that can still increase things.
In theory if the system notices you are doing the same shit over and over they could even prompt you in-game to see if you are actually there and not just AFK macroing.
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Actually pretty simple to get rid of macroing. Combat/Magic: If you aren't hitting (another player) or being hit (by another player) within X seconds, the server stops your ability to skill up.
Bye macros problem solved.
Now you can actually play the game they way it was intended and go out and fight people who either are still at level 70 themselves, or you can practice with your friends until you feel safe enough to venture out of Tindrem.
Bye macros problem solved.
Now you can actually play the game they way it was intended and go out and fight people who either are still at level 70 themselves, or you can practice with your friends until you feel safe enough to venture out of Tindrem.
People are already hitting each other with afk macros to skill up, so that's not even really a solution.
Could always add trainers or allow players to train each other.
I can't think of an MMO I've played that was ever able to stamp out macros/automation.
I'd much rather see a system that makes macroing less desirable and suboptimal, instead of devs chasing their tails on unsolvable problems.
I can't think of an MMO I've played that was ever able to stamp out macros/automation.
I'd much rather see a system that makes macroing less desirable and suboptimal, instead of devs chasing their tails on unsolvable problems.
Of course it wouldn't all by itself. It would just be one of the things the watchdog script would check for. I'm not typing 5 air tight paragraphs XD. SV will eliminate botting and accomplish the Vision or they wont.