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So skill points...what's the plan?


Musclethorpe

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I'm new to time-based skill point games, so perhaps this type of thing has already been addressed elsewhere. What is to become of new players down the line and skill point accrual? Will those who got in early simply have tens of millions of points more than those who recently joined? Will new players be given a higher rate? Will a temporary hard cap be created to halt progress for a time at some point?

 

This is a concern if I am to ever try to get friends to join post release.

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Eve has the same skill system, there you can buy skill points with ingame money. Maybe DU offer this possibility too in the future.
However, you don't necessarily need a catch-up mechanic, because you don't get stronger with more skill points, but only more versatile. You specialize, and after a relatively short period of time (which can be weeks in games like this) you can show the same skills in this area as someone who started years ago. 

This system has advantages and disadvantages. Not everybody likes it. 

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My suggested solution is to stop looking at skill points, you will get there eventually in the mean time play the game and have fun.

Do focused sprints if required but other wise just fill your que with what ever you think you need.

 

In regards to future players, yes old players will have more diversity, but they can only do 1 thing at a time, meaning if i focus piloting a new player would be able to over take me in industry and so on.

 

At the end of the day skill points is a way for game makers to get you invested in their game, it a mind game to hook you in, dont play :)

 

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The skill point system (especially a passive training one like DU has) is actually far more of an equalizer than it is a divider.

 

The system is pretty much identical to that of EVE and has a few basic "rules":

  • There is a standard ration on the skills which for DU is 600,3000,15000,75000 and 375000 points respectively
  • A multiplier then adds time for higher tier talents, the multipliers are x1 - x5

 

What this means is that in general you train 80% (L1-L4) of the talent in 20% of the time it takes to train all levels and L5 takes 80% of the full time. In DU the dependencies are pretty basic, they are far more elaborate in EVE for instance. But overall a new character can get to an fairly complete "general" talent level in about a month and from there would normally choose to specialize. 

 

Also, currently, DU talents are really only buffs, they hardly unlock anything which IMO should change eventually

 

Older characters would mostly be training L5 and this takes much longer, long enough for younger characters to "catch up". It's actually a far more balanced and "fair" way of acquiring skills and most of the ideas it's not really are based on a misunderstanding you need to train everything, the whole system is supposed to drive specialization. and from there characters may start training more diverse talents at higher levels which adds little to the general functioning of the character really.

 

My EVE character really only trains still to have the excess points extracted and sold, he does not need any more skills for how I play and all the skills he needs are maxed out.

 

The system in DU really needs a big overhaul as it's flawed and not really working well in some areas but it's obviously a very low priority right now and overal doe snot really impact he game that much.

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Level 3 in the stuff you want to do is adequate for most things and very quick to achieve. Log in, set your queue. By the time you finish the tutorial, you'll have enough talents to be functional. (Whether you have enough skill is on you)

 

It's not something to worry about.

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11 hours ago, Musclethorpe said:

I'm new to time-based skill point games, so perhaps this type of thing has already been addressed elsewhere. What is to become of new players down the line and skill point accrual? Will those who got in early simply have tens of millions of points more than those who recently joined? Will new players be given a higher rate? Will a temporary hard cap be created to halt progress for a time at some point?

 

This is a concern if I am to ever try to get friends to join post release.

This whole game is time based.  The earlier you get in, the bigger the advantage.  Other posts are sugarcoating one side the system.  If you're just going to build for yourself then the points do not matter.  If you are going to do anything competitive (industry, market, pvp, ect) then your fucked. 

You are not going to compete with T5 crafters because they make profits off of razor thin margins and most of them are funded by big corporations. 

PVP in this game isn't Player vs Player, it is Predation vs Player.  PVP is in the game right now and very few people are doing it because it is expensive.  Lord forbid the big corporations have to spend money, or do any real work.  They are waiting for surface PVP (Predation vs Player) so the T5 pilots can hunt lesser players for easy kills.  It's far cheaper to hunt and kill players that are less than you so the cost is on the prey, not the hunter.  Then you have the real game, which exists behind the façade.  The big corporations are in cahoots with the devs to keep them so far ahead of everyone else that new players, solo players, and small group players are just toys to be played with, players to be killed, or players to be taxed.  The trick is to never let the new players, or the players having 'fun', catch on to what the game really is.  A corporation game, where the corporations have a gross advantage over everyone else so they can take advantage of everyone else.

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5 minutes ago, Hazaatan said:

This whole game is time based.  The earlier you get in, the bigger the advantage.  Other posts are sugarcoating one side the system.  If you're just going to build for yourself then the points do not matter.  If you are going to do anything competitive (industry, market, pvp, ect) then your fucked.

 

I absolutely do not agree here. Passive training allows you to skill up to the same level as current players over time. Yes a player who has been in game for months will be better at producing than you but if you want to get into industry you will generally need to work with others to do that efficiently anyway and it is not that hard to get up to L4 on the crafting you want to do to start. From there you can progress and specialize further.

 

Currently the talent system, while based on it, is not as refined and well tuned as in EVE where training will very closely match the character gaining actually experience in game and present new options/unlock new choices as the character get to the point where these can be used effectively. I fully expect NQ will not to long from now start gating use of more elements behind the skill system like they did with industry and reset our skills again, dropping the accrued points in the pool. That is the only really viable way to control player progression in a more or less "natural" way.

 

People who keep hammering on the "you will always be behind players that have been in longer" are simply not correct as the progress ends at L5 and so anyone can achieve that in the same amount of time others did before them. There is no need to grind activities, you just need to make good choices in what to train next and manage your queue. 

 

 

And as you train the first 4 levels of a talents buff/bonus/improvement in 20% of the time it takes to train all 5 catching up can be pretty quick really.

 

 

A character will have overall usable base talents in about a week and it wil take about a month to train a generic well rounded character. It is reasonable to expect a players to have found their grounding and possible joined an org to support them in that time and from there specialization begins.

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3 hours ago, Hazaatan said:

A corporation game, where the corporations have a gross advantage over everyone else so they can take advantage of everyone else.

While you right, that larger/hardcore groups have advantage in pure gameplay competition (kinda obvious reality), I think you bit demonizing/giving "larger" orgs here way too much credit.

 

Absolute majority of them completly disfunctional paper tigers with up to 95% members not even playing game anyomore (or, in some older cases, not exist, because of alt accounts and outright fakes with only quick forum registrations for numbers). Also many of them totaly decentralized (so big org only in name, in plactice -- tiny groups/solos doing their stuff). Actual mobilization reserves are joke for most entities. A lot can be said here...

 

At any rate, if you have half-dozen active buddies, you quite OK in local pigmy world. With dozen of hardcore dudes you can compete with almost everyone. Woop ass of some emperor or president of another long fancy name federation like no sweat.

 

 

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22 hours ago, Musclethorpe said:

I'm new to time-based skill point games, so perhaps this type of thing has already been addressed elsewhere. What is to become of new players down the line and skill point accrual? Will those who got in early simply have tens of millions of points more than those who recently joined? Will new players be given a higher rate? Will a temporary hard cap be created to halt progress for a time at some point?

 

This is a concern if I am to ever try to get friends to join post release.

Personally I think that there needs to be a catch up system that gives like 120 exp or more to get you within like 5-10mil of the current top exp player. Not only does coma grinding exp ruin competition whenever the dormant players who havent even played can suddenly have everything ready to go qued. If you are actually logged in you should get +30exp per min.

 

I also think that this game needs some kind of Ultima Online style approach that you get Exp for actually doing piloting/mining/pvp/industry to actually gain exp doing things. If people have it maxed it does not matter you dont get the exp.

 

But really when you think about it we are just beign griefed by this system just as a time lock to drag out subs just to kill any kind of fun you can have until you basically let the account sit for a year before you can even really start to do anything fun. Its a terrible approach. Especially when if skills were just tied to the actual parts and not the character to free up play and you could just dump the exp into improving parts stats or performance with some kind of AA alternate advancement system this game would be a lot better off than it is now with all the time sinks and red tape it has going for DU.

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59 minutes ago, Warlander said:

I also think that this game needs some kind of Ultima Online style approach that you get Exp for actually doing piloting/mining/pvp/industry to actually gain exp doing things. If people have it maxed it does not matter you dont get the exp.

If only.  I was SO disappointed when I saw the talents system.   I'm used to working for my skills and prefer it that way.  You can speed it up if I you work harder and every chop of a tree brings you closer to GM so it's not so mind numbingly boring to tend to.  With this system you have to wait, no matter what you do or how much you mine.  Its just a time sink and IMO the lazy way to do it. 

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1 minute ago, Dhara said:

If only.  I was SO disappointed when I saw the talents system.   I'm used to working for my skills and prefer it that way.  You can speed it up if I you work harder and every chop of a tree brings you closer to GM so it's not so mind numbingly boring to tend to.  With this system you have to wait, no matter what you do or how much you mine.  Its just a time sink and IMO the lazy way to do it. 

 

I am also completely against this skill system. I have talked in detail about this in my Video Review of DU - but the point is: it shouldn't be possible for you to be jack of all trades and master of all. And everyone in the game will eventually get there - because you keep getting talent points by doing absolutely nothing. You should specialize, i.e. get skill points for things you actually do more. This in turn should be connected to various unlocks.

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On 2/7/2021 at 12:39 AM, sHuRuLuNi said:

 

I am also completely against this skill system. I have talked in detail about this in my Video Review of DU - but the point is: it shouldn't be possible for you to be jack of all trades and master of all. And everyone in the game will eventually get there - because you keep getting talent points by doing absolutely nothing. You should specialize, i.e. get skill points for things you actually do more. This in turn should be connected to various unlocks.

Agreed.

 

I think someone calculated it out to master all the skills to 5, it's like 27 years?  And they'll definitely be adding / tweaking more in the future.  I'm not a fan of buying your skill points though - hope they never implement that.

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29 minutes ago, OrionSteed said:

I think someone calculated it out to master all the skills to 5, it's like 27 years? 

 

Do you have the expectation to be able to learn and master every possible career opportunity there is in real life?

You're not supposed to train all skills to 5 .. It's amazing to me how ppl still do not get that..

 

It's also quite amazing to see long time backers, ATV members no less pretending they never knew until the talent system was implemented.. It's not like we have not known .. oh, since kickstarter that talent training would be passive and time basis

 

Quote

Like in real life, you won’t be stuck in a particular playing style in Dual Universe: we use a skill-based character progression. You can select one skill at a time to train, and specialize your character as you go. Skills train in real-time, whether you're online or not. We make it so that first level skills of any type of activity are fairly quick to train, so that you can explore a broad range of gameplay easily and quickly. But, as often, to become the best in your trade, specialization is key.

 

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Just now, blazemonger said:

 

Do you have the expectation to be able to learn and master every possible career opportunity there is in real life?

You're not supposed to train all skills to 5 .. It's amazing to me how ppl still do not get that..

 

It's also quite amazing to see long time backers, ATV members no less pretending they never knew until the talent system was implemented.. It's not like we have not known .. oh, since kickstarter that talent training would be passive and time basis

 

 

I was making a general comment.  I don't expect anything...

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Its a moot discussion anyway. They won't change the skillsystem. This was the plan from the start. Changing it now would not only mean additional work for the release in 11 months but also a complete overhaul of existing systems plus outcries from players everywhere to compensate them in a way. 

 

Amazing how ppl sub and pay for a game with existing features and then complaining about it

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Also one dude has his games mixed up. Its EvE Online that is like 27+ years to train every thing to 5. In DU it was about 6.5 last I saw when someone queued everything just to see.  Considering I played eve for 10 years, and would like to do the same in DU If the game ever gets not boring, then 6.5 is pretty low. Means at some point my combat toons will be training industry for no reason. 

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1 hour ago, Lethys said:

Its a moot discussion anyway. They won't change the skillsystem. This was the plan from the start. Changing it now would not only mean additional work for the release in 11 months but also a complete overhaul of existing systems plus outcries from players everywhere to compensate them in a way. 

 

Amazing how ppl sub and pay for a game with existing features and then complaining about it

You didn't pay attention to my original post. This isn't about complaining or changing the system. This is about how the existing system will treat future players down the line, which can easily be tweeked. Regardless of what others have said about time to train to a reasonable level of skill, there is absolutely no catch-up method for new players. I'm an alpha backer and even I can't get behind having a leg up for the rest of this game just because I got here first.

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4 hours ago, blazemonger said:

It's also quite amazing to see long time backers, ATV members no less pretending they never knew until the talent system was implemented.. It's not like we have not known .. oh, since kickstarter that talent training would be passive and time basis

I never said I never knew. I was one of the ones who constantly advocated against it back when I still thought the devs might be listening.  What I said was that I was SO disappointed when I saw it.  Not only was it the most boring way to do it, but it was poorly executed and has done nothing but get worse ever since. 

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8 hours ago, Lethys said:

Its a moot discussion anyway. They won't change the skillsystem. This was the plan from the start. Changing it now would not only mean additional work for the release in 11 months but also a complete overhaul of existing systems plus outcries from players everywhere to compensate them in a way. 

 

Amazing how ppl sub and pay for a game with existing features and then complaining about it

Release in 11 months??  I really doubt that.  I think it will be pushed back a few times.  Lots of things need fixing, and PVP is going to be released.  That will require balancing and fixing within itself.  I really don't see 11months.  

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On 2/6/2021 at 1:13 PM, Hazaatan said:

.Then you have the real game, which exists behind the façade.  The big corporations are in cahoots with the devs to keep them so far ahead of everyone else that new players, solo players, and small group players are just toys to be played with, players to be killed, or players to be taxed.  The trick is to never let the new players, or the players having 'fun', catch on to what the game really is.  A corporation game, where the corporations have a gross advantage over everyone else so they can take advantage of everyone else.

I wish we had as much sway over this game as some of you seem to think we do. If we did, the pvp update would've been the first thing after beta release. 

 

But to the actual topic at hand, the skill system actually works fairly well. There does need to be more skill gating of items in general. Itd help slightly more with specialization of roles. 

 

Pvp still lacks specialization because the system is shallow in general. Industry is still unspecialized because there isnt a lot of separation between items. It isn't a big step to go from producing atmospheric engines to something like space breaks. That'd require industry 3.0 though and I doubt we'll ever see that.

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10 hours ago, Dhara said:

 Not only was it the most boring way to do it, but it was poorly executed and has done nothing but get worse ever since. 

 

That the way NQ implemented the talent system is at best weak we can agree on for sure. It's pretty much one of those "let's copy what EVE does but ignore the full set of dependencies that make it work there"..

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1 hour ago, blazemonger said:

It's pretty much one of those "let's copy what EVE...

It not helps, that overall DU much more meta-game centered -- voxel building, lua coding and other activites (that likely grow in numbers) generaly not connected to any character skills, and especialy not demand go deep into them beyond some conviencies like better flying or container things, more cores.

 

Half-year into game and I (being mostly meta-game player) already leveling things I likely not need.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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On 2/6/2021 at 7:13 PM, Hazaatan said:

This whole game is time based.  The earlier you get in, the bigger the advantage.  Other posts are sugarcoating one side the system.  If you're just going to build for yourself then the points do not matter.  If you are going to do anything competitive (industry, market, pvp, ect) then your fucked. 

You are not going to compete with T5 crafters because they make profits off of razor thin margins and most of them are funded by big corporations. 

PVP in this game isn't Player vs Player, it is Predation vs Player.  PVP is in the game right now and very few people are doing it because it is expensive.  Lord forbid the big corporations have to spend money, or do any real work.  They are waiting for surface PVP (Predation vs Player) so the T5 pilots can hunt lesser players for easy kills.  It's far cheaper to hunt and kill players that are less than you so the cost is on the prey, not the hunter.  Then you have the real game, which exists behind the façade.  The big corporations are in cahoots with the devs to keep them so far ahead of everyone else that new players, solo players, and small group players are just toys to be played with, players to be killed, or players to be taxed.  The trick is to never let the new players, or the players having 'fun', catch on to what the game really is.  A corporation game, where the corporations have a gross advantage over everyone else so they can take advantage of everyone else.

People are not doing PvP because it is a place holder you can easily avoid. 

Interesting that you see this game as such a competition, I supposed that is the difference in our attitudes.  Can you explain what this 'advantage' is please?  I am building a civilisation, I am not in competition with anyone. My org is a team of two players and we sell ships, we trade goods, are making a racing team, building a casino.  Not sure any BIG ORG has 'played with me' and they will certainly never 'tax', infact all the big orgs I know (and i know many) have been very friendly and helpful.  Prehaps this is the problem, you are talking about what you think big orgs are, rather than having any actually interaction with them.

If you see this game as everyone is in competition with each other (which they are not), then your concerns are valid but, as with civilisation, we are not actually all against each other, just living in the same place.

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