proficiency overhaul and experience decay

[Potjeh]

If you make it so managing 6 characters is too much work for a 6 h/day player, you'll make managing a single character too much work for a 1h/day player.

[Dallane]

The point here is that managing alts in an enviroment with experience decay is more work than generalizing. Or in the best case scenario, just as much work. Therefore no alts. This is because there is a skill tree and maintaining two sets of prerequisites is in efficient compared to maintaining one. Using alts would be heavily discouraged by any mechanism that uses decay over time.

The point is not to force anyone to specialize but to give people incentive to organize by giving them incentive to specialize. You should still be able to forage and do agro stuff on your own. Or maybe forage and build defenses or agro and defenses. Or any such combination of roles you can maintain within the budget constraint defined by the number and distribution of inspirationals you can get your hand on and the persistent discounts to skills you have used for a long time.

There is no incentive to specialize with adding MORE grind to this game

[cairde]

Potjeh, I dont really mind letting a 6 hours per day hard core gamers have six times the budget restraint of a 1 hours per day causal gamer as long as the casual player still finds the game enjoyable. I would prefer some capping over time which could be worked into the learning penalty (like getting less and less for each of the same inspirational every day) but it is really no big deal. The hard core gamer could possibly pick up every low level skill in the game, however Ricardian economics teaches us that with trade that player is better off maximizing his comparative advantage and trade for what ever goods he cannot produce. And I am not even sure I want very casual players to have a presence in the very end game. Let them build villages with neighbours and fend of wild animals and burn the occasional witch while the elite carries the torch of civilization west, encountering strange things and lives and dies by their own hard work, wit and virtue.

Dallane, what part of the game is it that you are grinding right now? This is a rather grindy game as it is. I do agree that specializing means doing more of less but at the same time I see no reason why not every part of the game could be a game in it self when not everyone have to play every part. There is plenty of suggestions in this forum on how to improve on such things as terraforming, alchemy, fishing, foraging, pvp. With more content there is of course more balancing to be made but moving from very rigid to very fleeting characters makes balancing the game so much easier. Part of my proposition is to add time played to the part of the game where you constantly encounter new things. The part where you get more skills, crafting recipes, new buildings. But it is mainly to create incentives to actually play the game with other people. Social interaction, that's like the opposite of grind.

[Potjeh]

There's just too much overhead in trading to make it a viable option for daily operations.

And I think we have to agree to disagree here, because my stance is that a casual player should be able to engage in end-game content too, it should just take him longer to get there.

[cairde]

Of course the best kind of trades are the ones with people you actually play with and trust and for the rest...

Build walls as necessary. They are not there to keep people out, just to alert you that the trading post is compromised. When items dropped send message on skype

Disagreeing on the matter of casual gamers and end game is perfectly acceptable to me too. It is one of those decisions every game dev must make and there is not necessary a right or wrong. Luckily it does not have a huge impact on the matter at hand, if we want causal players in the end game we just raise the rate at which you get the discounts to skills/permanent points. The "promoting long term play" suggested in the original post.

[Dallane]

Dallane, what part of the game is it that you are grinding right now? This is a rather grindy game as it is. I do agree that specializing means doing more of less but at the same time I see no reason why not every part of the game could be a game in it self when not everyone have to play every part. There is plenty of suggestions in this forum on how to improve on such things as terraforming, alchemy, fishing, foraging, pvp. With more content there is of course more balancing to be made but moving from very rigid to very fleeting characters makes balancing the game so much easier. Part of my proposition is to add time played to the part of the game where you constantly encounter new things. The part where you get more skills, crafting recipes, new buildings. But it is mainly to create incentives to actually play the game with other people. Social interaction, that's like the opposite of grind.

You idea doesn't improve the game at all. It just makes it so you need to make and upkeep 6+ alts to be viable in a village and maintain them.

Social interaction, that's like the opposite of grind.

Not in this game.

[Potjeh]

I don't mean security issues when I talk about trade overhead, I'm talking about time. It takes more time to arrange and conduct a trade than it does to just make the goods on your own, for most common goods used in daily operations.

[cairde]

Dallane,

The point here is that managing alts in an enviroment with experience decay is more work than generalizing. Or in the best case scenario, just as much work. Therefore no alts. This is because there is a skill tree and maintaining two sets of prerequisites is inefficient compared to maintaining one. Using alts would be heavily discouraged by any mechanism that uses decay over time.

Just to illustrate, look at the below two images. They are cropped parts of the skill tree from the wiki (not 100% consistent with the info in the wiki...) and examples of how two players sharing a claim could organize. Now, I made this while on a break at work so hold your citizism please. Just looking at the two trees, can we agree that there would be no point running two alts like this since the cost to maintain childish things, survival skills etc would be doubled?

Potjeh, Yes! And that is exactly the point.

It is far easier to just produce anything you need yourself rather than trading for it. By making it harder to maintain a large set of skills, trade is encouraged.

When we are at it. Looking at the above images, can we agree that the farmer probably can be a decent farmer and the miner a decent miner on their own? Continous interaction would not be neccessary, it is not like the famer needs someone else to collect humus or the miner needs someone else to build his piles of wood. But they would benefit from each others work. Eg The farmer can get coal and boards from the miner and the miner can stay in the p-claim set up by the farmer. No need to formalize a trade agreement there, building the coal clamp is easy and it is there even when the miner is away. Same goes for the claim.

[Dallane]

I don't think you have played enough of this game to be asking for MORE grinding or how a town works. Please stop.

[cairde]

Dallane, i dont think ad hominen arguments are relevant. If there are faults in my argument please point them out, I am willing to listen.