unlocking Specialites Increase is way to big

[Conchipedia]

Version: 0.6.4.1 alpha

Tested by learning a skill scroll and writing down the next visible SP cost for learning another Specialty, no points in Tree Column of Specialties affects the SP needed to learn a new Specialty. To Lonewolf a player needs to have a massive 1,699,265 SP this is JUST to learn the Specialty, i didn't even attempt to work out points in the tree part.

Unlearning and adding points into the sub tree does not change these values, and anyone Worried about Lonewolfing by Giving the Player a FREE Stone Axe, Wooden Shovel, Stone Pickaxe and a Workbench need NOT be concerned, at 100sp a day that will take 16,992 days (roughly 46 years) to get just the Specialties.

[Huntermeign]

This does seem ridiculous. Maybe cap it at some point. Otherwise to many servers will just find a way around this if they have a small player base.

[midn8t]

we set the difficultly rating in the tool setting to .03 and then we set the base skill to 1 with the speed rate to 5 we have higher rate so people feel rewarded while there playing that way there less likely to log off and come back in few days.

the .03 = 3% compound in cress so by the time they hit there 5th unlock it cost them 15 points which is fine sense there earning like 16 points day with a balance diet

as for the lone wolfing issue - skill points balance is not way to discourage this and lone wolfing on public servers is not a huge issue most people tend to keep closer to there friends and with the groups of people they know even on larger server.

the main issue is people prefer to play on there own servers and with there friends due to the law system this causes there to be a huge amount of tiny servers with not a lot of players at one time on any of them if you monitor the server list it even tells this story.

reason people do this is for example I will use my group they do not want to play on a large public server because they do not want mob rule telling them what they can and cant do in own community / part of the world. for example group of friends playing on a public server 5 of them do not want to be told what they can cant do on there land property by anther group of friends who happens to have 6 or 7 people. where the group of 5 will always get out voted. so instead people chose to lone wolf on there own servers and play in there smaller groups with there friends. how skill progression is balanced wont effect lone wolfing or small player counts on servers.

so when developers are thinking of balance I hope they do not try to use skill progression as way to force people to socialize it is not good way to do this. - what it will cause is for people to log out for longer period of time to wait for there skills to = what they need to unlock what they want. that is why on our server we increased rate and lowered the base.

the difficultly rate that in cress the cost of skills should be relabel to more accurately reflect what it does due which is in cress or decrees research technology speed.

to get people to socialize on the servers or want to you have to create need for that socialization but way to do that would be with need to share information about the world as a whole and to give better representation on world level for groups of individuals so it is not mob rule or so server world can not be controlled by a dictator who has largest group of friends on the server.

but to try to use research cost as the force to do this seems like flawed.

a lot of players I have that have been on our server still feel that best system for skill progression would be to use a pro active approach where people earn there skills by being reward for what they do in the game instead of just having it handed out. to try to encourage game play instead of encouraging the logout and wait approach. - "a mix of the two could be used also."

because even right now with settings we are using we are spending more time out of game just playing other games or doing other things waiting for skill points to trickle in, then we are in game doing stuff.

[MarjieAVolk]

Yeah the steep curve was basically intended to cap the number of specialties you can take, the higher ones weren't supposed to be reachable. So the numbers are kind of silly.

We did some math and some discussion, and came up with these numbers to use instead: 0, 5, 20, 100, 250, 500, 800, 800, 800 [... 800 for everything else]

I think this might be a bit on the cheap side for the higher ones... might up the last one from 800 to 900 or 1000

[MarjieAVolk]

@midn8t I think you are right that skill points can't be the only thing driving people to cooperate. On the other hand, skill points are one of the primary challenges in the game, that drive a lot of the central mechanics like food and housing, so the amount that things cost needs to be at a level that is challenging. But I agree that we also need to encourage interaction in other ways. And that we do have a problem with people feeling stuck and logging out to wait for better stuff. It's kind of a central problem to Eco, since the game is designed to be able to do alright without having to log too many hours. So with that as a central tenet, it's hard to prevent diminishing returns on time spent in game.

[midn8t]

I have idea that may or may not help just thought,

how about two diff ways to earn skill points one for specialties that are done with research and other with doing stuff that being skills inside the skill tree.

separating the two to make skill points earn t over time being used for advancing the world and skill points earn t by doing those specializes for in cress your ability to do the job.

so when people are in game playing they get rewarding with in cress in that skill set in that they are using current as they play and then time management the current system for advancing the technology over course of time. ?

when u do something like plant corp or use hoe or digging or cutting could action 8xsomething experience experience could be what call new skillpoint and skillpoints name could be changed to something like knowledge. knowledge used to advance world forward and opening up the tree and experience used to spend in that tree. that could help with some of that overall cost and then could use research for what u want to do and experience system be used for rewarding people on using the research they unlock.

mix system best of both worlds. people would not notice the time it takes to gain experience and would feel rewarded for doing things they do in the game. - as system is now you just end up looking at the skill gain with a clock and it becomes feel like real life waiting game where ur just staring at a clock. a mix system would help get focus off of that timer.

[MarjieAVolk]

Hmmmm that is a cool idea