dvoraen
commented
5 years ago So, my take on legendary skills is that they should be a set value that isn't subject to the XP tax. Even if something like 1000/2000xp is the value set for each legendary, that's still a considerable amount of XP to accrue. Speaking for myself, in seven months I've gotten on the weekly XP post twice, as I'm usually in the low high teens to low 20s for XP. If we just use that value and ignore +firstimpression XP contributions, that's almost an RL year for a non-combat legendary purchase, and only the legendary purchase is what would happen. It's a serious time and patience commitment just in terms of XP alone.
And that's without factoring in the tax. Just from playing around with numbers, legendary XP goes astronomically higher (in terms of RL time to accrue). Higher XP PCs approach 2-3 RL years to pick up a legendary skill, and Pantheon help them if they want a combat legendary at higher tax values, since training discounts don't(?) happen with legendary ranks.
So I'm repeating @dreamsofgold a little, yes, so I'll get to kind of the point of this, in how I see legendary ranks:
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Set to a fixed value not subject to the XP tax. I do not think the combat legendary cost should be simply 2x the non-combat one. 50% more, perhaps, but not double. Double is a lot to ask for one extra die even in combat. (Picture someone with Legendary Dodge; what did they really gain from it, statistically speaking?)
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A small (5%?) critical chance bonus just by virtue of it being legendary, if this isn't already the case. They're legendary for a reason, it's a lot of XP, and the benefit arguably does not outweigh the requisite XP (and thus, time) investment. I feel like knacks are a better XP investment than a legendary, in short.
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The requirement for a legendary skill should involve one or more actions, rather than just xp/spend. Why?
- First, it should be an action so staff can directly work with the PC on why they are legendary. I don't think any legendary purchase should be 'eh' versus the entire Compact knowing about it, just by definition of the word. Also, legend prestige for obvious reasons.
- Secondly, it will also allow for the XP cost to be reduced from the getting-out-of-control values we currently have for them on account of the XP tax. If I wanted to buy rank 6 for my PC's combat skill that's at 5 right now? 3794xp. YIKES. ~22 RL months (this is my estimate for my rate of XP gain as a player) is a pretty big time demand where I also can't spend XP on anything else. I realize I'm excluding some things (XP from firstimpressions, goals, plots, events etc.) but that time estimate is not an exaggeration, and arguably the minimum for me.
- Third, it forces the PC to commit to this course of action. I'm kind of inclined to think Legendary should have its own progression system, where you start the process, and have to commit (XP and AP) until you finish it. You don't become the best just by sitting around drinking, after all. No one's expecting Pulitzer levels of writing here to gain a legendary, but I strongly feel like the PC should be building a case for earning it other than the player's ability to earn XP.
Whether there should be a limit on how many 6's a PC can have for skills is not something I've put much thought into. I rather think there should be a cap (you can only be so capable, after all), but again, not a small time investment to get one, let alone two, because of the % tax.
rozzingit
dreamsofgold
CaspianWild
This isn't a feature issue so much as a follow up on two things:
I made a +request on the game about a month ago about legendary costs that I will copy/paste here duly, and which I had also pasted on issue #50.
@rozzingit suggested I make a separate issue to open it for discussion so here it is:
So, this is likely not something you want to deal with right now, but in light of the work you guys are gonna have to do for the postgres cutover, I figured this is as good an opportunity as any.
As you may have noticed, both through my goals and my rfrs, I spun Amund's entire story around training and becoming a blademaster of note. Part of this is attaining a combat legendary, medium wpn 6, and then starting to work on teaching and capping a few skills at five in order to achieve the overarching goal.
The problem is, I'm running up a very, very steep hill. And that hill is the double-cost for combat legendaries. See, with the base XP changes, plus the refactor of the multiplier for combat legendaries, instead of the nominal XP cost of 1000 as is written in the code, it costs me three thousand XP to get there. I am currently sitting on a pile of 1800 XP.
It's been said before that the order of spends don't matter, and that legendaries need to be end-game... but they do. Especially now that legendaries add to XP tax, which means that you can't really just do them last if you want. You have to do them first, and rely on either gear or your lucky stars to survive long enough for three thousand XP.
And the problem is that anyone who can only dedicate maybe 10 hours a week or less to the game cannot attain that goal in less than 3 years. Let's assume a person earns 20 XP a week through any combination. You still need 150 weeks in order to achieve your goal. 150 weeks split by four equals 37 and a half months.
That is roughly three years, one month, fifteen days to achieve the legendary. Understand, then, that that is a lot of time to dedicate to a single purchase in the game, and while I understand the design in making legendaries harder to attain, this has made them inconvenient unless you can somehow pull 40 or 60 XP a week. As a frame of reference, the top 20 earners only get around 25 to a maximum of 35 a week, tops.
It isn't a deal breaker, and it can be quite an exercise in cunning to use only a character's starter sheet to overcome challenges, but there comes a time where even that hits a plateau. It is hard to see other people's characters progressing and seeing yours encased in ice until that fateful day it dies or it vaults over the peak and finally makes the goal.
So, as a tl;dr, what I'm asking is to reconsider the refactoring of combat legendaries to something like 1.25 or 1.30 instead of 2.00 because this would make the goal much less of a sacrifice on the player.