I was revisiting the new player experience in Haven today to kind of compare where we started from 10 years ago and where we ended up now with how player progression will likely be in MO2 and I wanted to mention a few easy things SV could change/adjust to make building and progressing a character a better experience for the masses.
First I think this aspect has changed for the better in a ton of ways. I remember waiting on books to read, or waiting for certain point breaks so I could open up a new skill with a book just to quit and start another book while I grinded up the new skill manually somehow.
This has changed for the better with SV making a lot more skills unlock automatically when your skill is high enough to do so, and I suggest making all physical skills which make logical sense to open up this way. Some skills that were overlooked were all swimming subskills and the riding subskills. There may be more, but overtime SV managed to change most of these. Is there other skills you think should be changed to auto learn that aren't currently?
Secondly, and I think this is a big one, it would be a lot better to change all the skills that were always macro'd up instead of leveled organically so that they level at a more reasonable pace and aren't gated such that you're basically worthless until you either max them out or nearly do. I'm not sure if the best method is to just adjust gains, or adjust the effect at low skills, but something should be done so you don't feel like you need to macro something instead of just playing the game properly and progressing your character while doing so.
I ran into this one hardcore today making a new character and wanting to raise defensive stance. With the changes made over the years things like weapon skills, aggressive stance, damage assessment can now be raised...however monotonously, via a training dummy, but you still end up just wanting to macro it because it's so boring and the gains are so slow. But I understand the counter argument that having it slow makes it feel like an accomplishment to max it...but it really doesn't work out that way in practice for the majority of people because the ticks are so slow once you get into the 80s and upward, and when you finish it's just another box you've ticked to be viable and more of a chore you had to do instead of having fun in the game.
But back to defensive stance..there's no real viable way of raising this skill at a decent enough pace that anyone would max it in a reasonable time without macroing either with 2 clients or with a friend. I was watching the ticks while I was being punched over and over and for a single skill gain it was like 400 attacks or something crazy at around 85 skill and upwards...my wife kept distracting me when I was trying to count them...but regardless it took forever for a skill that every fighter will take yet only changes a hit you take that might have been 100 down to 92 not considering other mitigation. It doesn't feel right.
We could also talk about movement related skills and others like mental offense and mental focus (I hate spurt macro) which just start you out so disabled feeling that just don't feel right and could use a little love and consideration for MO2.
I realize it's all a balancing act and if you make it too easy or fast the feeling of making progress on your character loses some meaning, but in the end we mostly play for what comes after skilling your character and the lead up to just feeling viable in the world feels like it could use a tune-up because it's always just been a list of chores to do before you can actually play the game.
What do you think? What improvements should be made to some of the skills and player progressions, or do you think just copying over the old system is good enough?
First I think this aspect has changed for the better in a ton of ways. I remember waiting on books to read, or waiting for certain point breaks so I could open up a new skill with a book just to quit and start another book while I grinded up the new skill manually somehow.
This has changed for the better with SV making a lot more skills unlock automatically when your skill is high enough to do so, and I suggest making all physical skills which make logical sense to open up this way. Some skills that were overlooked were all swimming subskills and the riding subskills. There may be more, but overtime SV managed to change most of these. Is there other skills you think should be changed to auto learn that aren't currently?
Secondly, and I think this is a big one, it would be a lot better to change all the skills that were always macro'd up instead of leveled organically so that they level at a more reasonable pace and aren't gated such that you're basically worthless until you either max them out or nearly do. I'm not sure if the best method is to just adjust gains, or adjust the effect at low skills, but something should be done so you don't feel like you need to macro something instead of just playing the game properly and progressing your character while doing so.
I ran into this one hardcore today making a new character and wanting to raise defensive stance. With the changes made over the years things like weapon skills, aggressive stance, damage assessment can now be raised...however monotonously, via a training dummy, but you still end up just wanting to macro it because it's so boring and the gains are so slow. But I understand the counter argument that having it slow makes it feel like an accomplishment to max it...but it really doesn't work out that way in practice for the majority of people because the ticks are so slow once you get into the 80s and upward, and when you finish it's just another box you've ticked to be viable and more of a chore you had to do instead of having fun in the game.
But back to defensive stance..there's no real viable way of raising this skill at a decent enough pace that anyone would max it in a reasonable time without macroing either with 2 clients or with a friend. I was watching the ticks while I was being punched over and over and for a single skill gain it was like 400 attacks or something crazy at around 85 skill and upwards...my wife kept distracting me when I was trying to count them...but regardless it took forever for a skill that every fighter will take yet only changes a hit you take that might have been 100 down to 92 not considering other mitigation. It doesn't feel right.
We could also talk about movement related skills and others like mental offense and mental focus (I hate spurt macro) which just start you out so disabled feeling that just don't feel right and could use a little love and consideration for MO2.
I realize it's all a balancing act and if you make it too easy or fast the feeling of making progress on your character loses some meaning, but in the end we mostly play for what comes after skilling your character and the lead up to just feeling viable in the world feels like it could use a tune-up because it's always just been a list of chores to do before you can actually play the game.
What do you think? What improvements should be made to some of the skills and player progressions, or do you think just copying over the old system is good enough?
