ID:151705
 
If you were going to incorporate skill loss over time into a game, which manner would you do, and why?

1: Continuous skill loss, even while gaining points in that skill.

2: Skill loss only while not gaining points in that skill.

I'm not sure which way to go on this. I'm leaning towards option 1 to create somewhat of a 'soft skill cap', where the skill loss (curved to be higher for higher skill levels) would mostly counteract any skill gain you could achieve. That way the typical 999 skill limit wouldn't actually be reachable, but whatever you choose to maintain.

Side note: I would make it so that regaining skill points in a field you already had a higher value in would be easier, to avoid pissing people off too much.
Number 2 seems the most logical...
In final fantasy 5, as your character aged, they slowly forgot skills, and skills that were like secondary, would be forgot at a much faster rate.

Perhaps you'd want to add in a aging system, that kept track of how "old" characters were, and then base skill loss somehow on that.
Honestly speaking, skill loss is a good way to irritate your players.

I can understand skill loss for death in some games, but for the most part, punishing your players for not playing religiously, is only going to drive people away.

Wurm Online is a good example of what NOT to do in an MMO. Check it out, almost everything they have done in the last three years has been exclusively a bad decision.

Skill loss over time discourages players who can't keep pace with the no-lifers and high-schoolers, and in the end, you end up with a community of people who play like addicts, and help to chase away any new blood.
In response to Ter13
It has to be based on online time, not whole. For example even if you play 1 hour a day, and haven't used [Skill] for 10 hours of online play, then it starts to go down. Not the whole time itself
In response to Ripiz
That punishes people who do anything with their time besides endlessly grind skills. Like, say, socializing.
In response to Garthor
Garthor wrote:
That punishes people who do anything with their time besides endlessly grind skills. Like, say, socializing.

For sure. Socializing in video games is incredibly under-encouraged, and I don't want to do that. It adds a very large dynamic to games. I am actually looking to ENCOURAGE this, not discourage it.

Did you ever play Hedgerow Hall? In that game using skills didn't grant experience, and so you had no reason to use your skills unless you actually needed to make something. This left you free to run around doing whatever the hell you felt like. I like this aspect, but not in that pure of a form. I'm creating a mix between that sort of a system, and the grind-for-levels system.

Ham Doctor wrote:
In final fantasy 5, as your character aged, they slowly forgot skills, and skills that were like secondary, would be forgot at a much faster rate.

Perhaps you'd want to add in a aging system, that kept track of how "old" characters were, and then base skill loss somehow on that.

This more or less is what I'll probably be doing. 'Age' not being so relevant as simply time spent not using a skill.

Ripiz wrote:
It has to be based on online time, not whole. For example even if you play 1 hour a day, and haven't used [Skill] for 10 hours of online play, then it starts to go down. Not the whole time itself

As Garthor said, this discourages using your free time in the game.

Ter13 wrote:
Honestly speaking, skill loss is a good way to irritate your players.

I can understand skill loss for death in some games, but for the most part, punishing your players for not playing religiously, is only going to drive people away.

Wurm Online is a good example of what NOT to do in an MMO. Check it out, almost everything they have done in the last three years has been exclusively a bad decision.

Skill loss over time discourages players who can't keep pace with the no-lifers and high-schoolers, and in the end, you end up with a community of people who play like addicts, and help to chase away any new blood.

A very viable fear, for sure. I'll keep this in mind, and possibly check out the game you mentioned for a guide on what not to do.
In response to Ham Doctor
Ham Doctor wrote:
In final fantasy 5, as your character aged, they slowly forgot skills, and skills that were like secondary, would be forgot at a much faster rate.

Perhaps you'd want to add in a aging system, that kept track of how "old" characters were, and then base skill loss somehow on that.
Did you play FF5 at all? The aging status lowered your level, it didn't make you forget anything (considering it was an in-battle effect).

...okay, I can understand not noticing your level going down, as that isn't shown in battle, but surely you saw your damage go consistently down, no?

Level influenced damage BIG TIME in that game, so aging was deadly.

Anyway, you shouldn't lose skills overtime. Why? As a death penalty, I can understand, but it shouldn't be too noticable (Chrome is being picky about that, I know I didn't typo it).
In response to AJX
Ok what about, if you use [skill1] your all other skills lower, but it has to be very low amount, so people would have chance to max all skills
In response to Ripiz
Ripiz wrote:
Ok what about, if you use [skill1] your all other skills lower, but it has to be very low amount, so people would have chance to max all skills

To build up on this, I liked Final Fantasy 2J's system. Say, if you began training physical type skills, your magical skills start to go down, or if you began training range skills, your melee skills would start to go down.

This way there's a so-called balance. You can have a physical type character with magic, but of course they're going to have weaker skills than a pure physical or pure magical character.
In response to Vic Rattlehead
No, characters aging in Final Fantasy effected lots of things.

Here's the deal, if he wants to incorporate skill loss, why not? I think it's a decent way to allow players access to every single ability in the game, but still not have them grind up every skill and power to max stats to be urber awesome.

To be honest, it has been years since I last drew a picture and I used to be fairly good at it. And I am no longer very good at drawing. Age does effect skills, especially if you are not constantly practicing it.
In response to Ham Doctor
I would like to say that age will never effect your ability to draw, at least not directly. The reason you 'grew worse' at this skill was because you were 'out of practice'.
In response to Demon_F0rce
Age is a measurement of time. Nothing more. It is a concept. As time wore on and the less I practiced my skill, the worse I became.
In response to Ham Doctor
Realistic != fun.

Games should be fun. Having to endless to boring tasks so you don't lose what you have already achieved is not fun.

If you want a skill cap, why not just put in a cap? If there are 20 skills that can each be raised to 1000, you could just cap max points at 4000 or whatever. That way you can never max everything out, but a character can be really good at a few things or pretty good at many things. And if you want players to be able to reconfigure, let the pay to train to shift points (at a net loss), turn on "forgetting" or whatever.
In response to Ham Doctor
Ham Doctor wrote:
Here's the deal, if he wants to incorporate skill loss, why not? I think it's a decent way to allow players access to every single ability in the game, but still not have them grind up every skill and power to max stats to be urber awesome.

Yay! You grasp my intention.

I hate games that have classes. Why the [insert expletive here] couldn't a person learn to be sneaky, AND throw fireballs? I mean seriously.

Jmurph wrote:
Realistic != fun.

Games should be fun. Having to endless to boring tasks so you don't lose what you have already achieved is not fun.

Yay again! You bring up an excellent point. And that is why I am doing everything in my power to work away from the repetitive tasking-to-level process, but still make you earn your skills.


I appreciate everyone's input on this topic. I think I have come to an answer, which is a middle ground between the two. If you have used a skill recently then the skill loss is lower than if you hadn't used it in a long time.

Of course everything is very controlled to prevent overly pissing people off:
you don't lose skill points if you are an amateur in the skill,
you can't lose more than a certain amount of points total, no matter how long you don't use them,
you regain experience in a specific skill considerably faster if you had in the past been above your current skill level.

If anyone has any ideas on other ways to keep that 'fair' then feel free to share.

Again, thanks everyone for your input.
In response to AJX
AJX wrote:
I hate games that have classes. Why the [insert expletive here] couldn't a person learn to be sneaky, AND throw fireballs? I mean seriously.

Because it's considered more important to provide a gameplay experience that is varied and balanced. Allowing people to mix-and-match skills leads to min-maxed cookie-cutter builds, and massive imbalances.
In response to Garthor
Garthor wrote:
Because it's considered more important to provide a gameplay experience that is varied and balanced. Allowing people to mix-and-match skills leads to min-maxed cookie-cutter builds, and massive imbalances.

Very true.

But balancing a game is an incredibly difficult thing to do, with or without classes. So my opinion is you may as well work balancing the harder of the choices than the easier.
In response to AJX
Classes are generally wanted due to the fact that it helps balance.
Also, nice way to completely forget a word >_>
In response to Vic Rattlehead
Vic Rattlehead wrote:
Classes are generally wanted due to the fact that it helps balance.

I think you missed the point of my post. Or didn't read it.

Also, nice way to completely forget a word >_>

Duly noted.
In response to AJX
See, the thing is with that much freedom, there IS no balance.
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