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Earn skill points by being active instead of passively generating them


Wolfram

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Currently, the skill points are generated in background with the queue, which leads people to having alt accounts trained to specialize in one thing in background, which is not optimal and ends up being P2W, as this clearly gives them advantage over players with only one account, specially players starting out. The proposal here is to complement the current system with skill-specific points, which are earned by doing these activities - being active in the game. This could apply to all skills or, at least, the most basic ones, such as Mining and Piloting.

 

Firstly, let's do some math. I'll take as reference the skill "Advanced Mining". In terms of skill points, each level costs, respectively: 2400, 12000, 60000, 300000 and 1500000 points, giving a total of 1874400 points to complete all 5 levels. With a full queue, we currently get 90 skill points per minute, which means it would take around 20827 minutes to complete the queue, which translates to 347 hours or 14.5 days.

 

All of this is passive, so one owning multiple accounts would be able to queue many large skill trees to specialize in these same 15 days, which for a normal account could take 15, 30, 45 or even 60 days to complete. Not really fair, right?

 

Now, with the proposal, let's say for every 25L of ore extracted, one would get 1 skill point. With a scoop size of 250L, one would get 10 skill points per scoop while actively mining. With an average time of 10 seconds to get 4 scoops (1000L, or 40 skill points), one would get an equivalent rate of 240 skill points per minute by actively mining, which would take the queue time from 14.5 days to around 5.4 days of actively mining, not considering the points still being generated in background, which would bump this to 330 points per minute and lower the queue time to just under 4 days, but the catch is: the player would need to be actively mining to achieve that.

 

The same could be applied for Piloting skills, with some adjustments to consider whether we're flying atmo or space. Currently, the maximum speeds are around 1000km/h in atmo and 30000km/h (150su/h) in space, so let's say we want to match the same 240 points rate of mining, then one would need to fly either 16.5km in atmo or 500km (2.5su) in space, at full speed, to match these rates. Anything slower would still be accounted for, but since your speed is slower and the points are earned per distance, you would make less points flying slower, the only thing not being accounted for is warps, as that would be way too easy :P

 

In the end, if this works, the passive rate could even be lowered, as anyone being actually active would still be earning their points and the passive generation would be more towards when the player is offline (like doing IRL stuff such as sleeping) instead of being a complete benefit to players with many accounts farming points in background :)

 

Hope this helps somehow!

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18 minutes ago, Wolfram said:

which leads people to having alt accounts trained to specialize in one thing in background, which is not optimal and ends up being P2W, as this clearly gives them advantage over players with only one account, specially players starting out

Nope, That's what orgs are there for too for newbros. Band together and specialize, it's a mmo. Doesn't matter in that regard and it's not an advantage whatsoever because the guy cant do anything which an org can't do. So the premise is already false

 

Actively aquiring talents would just Lead to bots doing the stuff and ppl simply leaving them running

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1 minute ago, Lethys said:

Nope, That's what orgs are there for too for newbros. Band together and specialize, it's a mmo. Doesn't matter in that regard and it's not an advantage whatsoever because the guy cant do anything which an org can't do. So the premise is already false

 

Actively aquiring talents would just Lead to bots doing the stuff and ppl simply leaving them running

Having people getting accounts and actively farming skills in background without even being logged-in is already a form of botting, which aggravates as P2W since the person is literally getting benefits by doing so... In terms of having the skills, a single player could easily be ahead of an entire org if he have enough accounts. The same goes for orgs too, they can get extremely powerful by having many people do this, which is literally mass-botting.

 

Also, having players actively play the game to gather skill points not only would would give them a chance to play, but also would balance orgs in general, as giving players specific roles would make them specialize, otherwise everyone would be a "jack of all trades, master of none" in the org.

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I still don't get how some manage to reach an opinion this is P2W. Character A can't use the skills character B has so if someone uses Alts, which many do anyway, there is no benefit form one to the other.

 

By definition your idea would greatly benefit those with a lot of time to play and put those who can't at a disadvantage while both pay the same sub

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2 minutes ago, blazemonger said:

I still don't get how some manage to reach an opinion this is P2W. Character A can't use the skills character B has so if someone uses Alts, which many do anyway, there is no benefit form one to the other.

 

By definition your idea would greatly benefit those with a lot of time to play and put those who can't at a disadvantage while both pay the same sub

Get 3 characters: Maxed mining, maxed piloting, maxed industry. use one to mine ores, use second one to transport those to your base. Use third to process them into end products. 
Entire process give your allot more then you could achieve with one character and its based on your will to put out extra real bucks into few extra subs. 
You will need to transport your ore in any case after mining, so having master pilot as your alt will get you allot better results, while you can transport your ore into your base and process them with best results with your third account. If you cant realize how this breaks entire game play and is quite a p2w scenario, then i have no idea what you even call p2w. 

Talent points are not earned through any type of actions, it simply given over time, which means that if you play with one character there is literally no way to catch up with some one who has multiple of those. 

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7 minutes ago, blazemonger said:

I still don't get how some manage to reach an opinion this is P2W. Character A can't use the skills character B has so if someone uses Alts, which many do anyway, there is no benefit form one to the other.

 

By definition your idea would greatly benefit those with a lot of time to play and put those who can't at a disadvantage while both pay the same sub

Well, if you have one account/character you'd probably take like 45-60 days just to max out the skills. If you break it down across 3 accounts/characters, you can get it all done in 15-20 days by queueing up talents in all of them, all you gotta do is pay for the extra subscriptions (or buy an beta code from anyone, which will pretty much let you play free for the entire Beta). Basically, you're paying RL money to get IG advantage, also known as pay to win.

 

And regarding the second point, people who don't have a lot of time to play and also have one account get an even worse advantage in the current system. In the end, their only options is to either pay for many accounts and try to make a profit in-game or just slave all their time as they don't have skills for Industry or Piloting. Letting people level up by actively playing and doing activities in-game allows them to be rewarded progress in their skill tree for their play time. You don't need to completely get rid of the passive skill earning, it's still useful as something extra to learn in background, just won't be as "profitable" than actually playing the game, which will allow people to actually grind and compete with long-time players who just afk many alts most of time.

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The only real reason there are so many alts in the game right now, is because you can get your hands on a beta key fairly easily, and that account you create with it isn't charged a subscription till 'release'. There are going to be a lot of alt accounts that are left dormant at release. Personally, I'm not sure if I'll be able to earn enough DAC's in-game to support all or even some of mine. I'm gonna have to wait and see on that.

 

There's still gonna be people with alts at release, but they wont be free anymore. :P

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8 minutes ago, Wolfram said:

Well, if you have one account/character you'd probably take like 45-60 days just to max out the skills. If you break it down across 3 accounts/characters, you can get it all done in 15-20 days by queueing up talents in all of them, all you gotta do is pay for the extra subscriptions

The only thing you show here is that you entirely miss the point of the talent system. it is not designed not are you supposed to learn _everything_. Also, if you have 10 alts and all of them train a different specialization, you stil will have a hard time having them all active and working together as a group as you need a separate computer for each of them. Your suggestion of how long it takes to train skills also tells me you have not even actually looked at the talent system as it wil take _years_ to train everything to max.

 

You are just going off on a rant without actually understanding what you are ranting about which by definition makes your opinion meaningless

 

 

8 minutes ago, Wolfram said:

(or buy an beta code from anyone, which will pretty much let you play free for the entire Beta). Basically, you're paying RL money to get IG advantage, also known as pay to win.

It is only P2W if the advantage is not attainable by anyone else without using RL money which is not the case. 

 

 

8 minutes ago, Wolfram said:

And regarding the second point, people who don't have a lot of time to play and also have one account get an even worse advantage in the current system. In the end, their only options is to either pay for many accounts and try to make a profit in-game or just slave all their time as they don't have skills for Industry or Piloting. 

The point of the game and of the talent system is not to be a single person able to do anything. Having alts who are set up to do different things does not mean you can do everything at the same time either. Your mindset is of someone who plays solo and wants to do everything, finds he can't and then rages at those who have separate characters because they like to play the game in different ways.

 

Some of my characters are in game with orgs that would not like it if they knew that I am the player behind these characters. Some of my alts are connected to players who would not want me to know what they say about me  and I find that extremely funny.

 

Having different characters in game is not by definition P2W and this is especially true in DU as it is very tough to actually multibox which would be the only way in which what you suggest would have any merit, no matter how small.

 

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2 hours ago, Wolfram said:

Having people getting accounts and actively farming skills in background without even being logged-in is already a form of botting, which aggravates as P2W since the person is literally getting benefits by doing so... In terms of having the skills, a single player could easily be ahead of an entire org if he have enough accounts. The same goes for orgs too, they can get extremely powerful by having many people do this, which is literally mass-botting.

 

Please show how one guy with 10 accs dies better than one org with 10 ppl playing. They will have more ressources, more production, more everything. But please show, I do want to know.

 

2 hours ago, Wolfram said:

Also, having players actively play the game to gather skill points not only would would give them a chance to play, but also would balance orgs in general, as giving players specific roles would make them specialize, otherwise everyone would be a "jack of all trades, master of none" in the org.

Yeah. If botting is ACTIVELY playing the game then sure.....

 

The Crux with the talent system is that it doesn't really force ppl to specialize because nothing is gated behind talents like in eve. In that regard du by design is made to please everyone, thus making everyone a jack of all trades. That has nothing to do with talents being passively gained tho, it's NQs design of that system

 

 

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1 hour ago, Zripss said:

If you cant realize how this breaks entire game play and is quite a p2w scenario, then i have no idea what you even call p2w. 

You dont seem to realize that the exact same thing is done via orgs. So orgs are p2w too I guess 

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I really can't understand the point of you guys on botting. In the current state, everyone is a bot, since they still get skill points without any effort, not even being online. Even botting still requires the person to actually run the bot.

 

Also, botting is against the EULA and can result in bans, while having multiple accounts just to get an advantage on other players seems to be completely ignored by NQ, maybe because that's literally paying to win, I guess?

 

The proposal I gave on this post was meant giving new players a chance to actually do something in the game beyond being mining slaves for weeks until they get enough skill points and quanta to start doing anything else, plus, actually reward active players, as I really don't see the point of selling Dual Universe as an MMO when a good part of the accounts are owned by the same people and are only there to farm skill points. It's pretty interesting that most reactions I've seen on this matter going against were from already stablished Alpha/Patron players, while the few ones who seemed to agree with it were all new players. Maybe there's interests here regarding not letting new players compete in certain areas of the game, I guess?

 

Combine these all these factors and at some point it will simply be pointless to play the game as a newcomer, no matter it being a Beta or even released. The advertised "The role you play in the shared universe only depends on your actions and your choices. Be a space pirate. A galactic trader. A cargo hauler. An interstellar industrialist. And everything in-between." in the game homepage becomes completely false the moment you realize your actions pretty much don't matter, as skills are only earned with your subscription time. Even if you get the basic skills for industry, you still have to completely master all the required resources for your chosen product just to make it barely profitable.

3 hours ago, Lethys said:

Please show how one guy with 10 accs dies better than one org with 10 ppl playing. They will have more ressources, more production, more everything. But please show, I do want to know.

 

Yeah. If botting is ACTIVELY playing the game then sure.....

 

The Crux with the talent system is that it doesn't really force ppl to specialize because nothing is gated behind talents like in eve. In that regard du by design is made to please everyone, thus making everyone a jack of all trades. That has nothing to do with talents being passively gained tho, it's NQs design of that system

 

 

Have an org of 10 people with no skills, where their only profitable activity is to mine and sell at markets for low prices because they have no talents and try to make them compete with someone with 10 accounts, each specialized in something. Even for mining, if the person with alt accounts have two computers it becomes easy to keep one account mining while other is hauling stuff around. Have one account with Industry skills and you basically have a machine of making money where you buy cheap ore and profit on it with manufacture.

 

2 hours ago, Lethys said:

You dont seem to realize that the exact same thing is done via orgs. So orgs are p2w too I guess 

Please, enlighten my ignorance and show me how orgs are P2W, because I really don't see your logic here.

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18 minutes ago, Wolfram said:

Have an org of 10 people with no skills, where their only profitable activity is to mine and sell at markets for low prices because they have no talents and try to make them compete with someone with 10 accounts, each specialized in something. Even for mining, if the person with alt accounts have two computers it becomes easy to keep one account mining while other is hauling stuff around. Have one account with Industry skills and you basically have a machine of making money where you buy cheap ore and profit on it with manufacture.

 

No, you compare Apples to oranges. How is "having 10 ppl with NO skills" even remotely comparable to "someone with 10accs fully trained"? It isnt. Cause you know. Some guy with 10 accs starting and some org with 10 ppl starting have the SAME AMMOUNT of skillpoints 

 

21 minutes ago, Wolfram said:

Please, enlighten my ignorance and show me how orgs are P2W, because I really don't see your logic here.

Read his comment again and mine. One guy having 10 accs isn't any advantage. Because he cant play all 10 simultaneously. 10 ppl in an org are perfectly fine. Ergo, an org with 10 ppl is ALWAYS superior to one guy. Regardless of the alts. He alone can do more stuff when compared to another guy with one acc. But he pays for it. And he cant do ANYTHING which anyone cant do within an org. So yes, That's not p2w at all. Because in an org ppl do specialize too and can do stuff 

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33 minutes ago, Wolfram said:

The proposal I gave on this post was meant giving new players a chance to actually do something in the game beyond being mining slaves for weeks until they get enough skill points and quanta to start doing anything else

your proposal just shows you have no understanding of how the talent system works and what its purpose is in game. You are also factually incorrect that a new player needs to be a "mining slave" while he get enough skill points and quanta. It just goes back, again, to you thinking as a solo player but looking at achieving goals which require a group.

 

A new player does _not_ have to start mining, if he joins an org it's very possible the org will set him up with a ship and tasks to complete, that may include mining sure, but it is not a requirement. There is several orgs that will be able to set up a new player for hauling and will provide  talent plans to achieve improvement in that area over others.

 

You still seem to think you needs to train everything which just is not true. You also think you need to spend months to become proficient in anything, also not true.

 

What you fail to see is that many will be perfectly happy doing one thing in game, they love flying and running cargo or yes, they may indeed like mining. And all of that is fine.

 

There is also players who like to spend time mining one day and run cargo the next or run industry in between.. You know.. as in enjoying the options the game offers.. And to achieve that, some will choose to start several characters each in their own playstyle. You assume these characters will always work together, which is actually not true and in fact is not all that easy to do in DU.

 

New players can get a well rounded character up and running in about a month and can choose to specialize from there, a basic usable character takes about a week. for an MMO that is really not abnormal, I'd actually say that is pretty quick.

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Just a quickie,

 

Firstly I actually like the idea, I do think that people should be in some way rewarded for participation...Sadly, I have no idea how it would be implemented long term though as there are only so many skills for mining etc. so if i were a dedicated miner i'd just mine for a month then i'd be awesome and further mining yields few rewards (assuming i'm not interested in doing anything else with that toon)

 

However, the assumption that people need more than one computer to run more than one account is not true...virtual machines are a thing and do work with DU..i'd know, i tried it.

Additionally its also it is very possible for one person to do two things at once...for example i have a pilot and my main toon. The pilot alt spends a lot of time slow boating stuff around while my main does pretty much everything else. Does it convey any in game advantages for me.. I have to say not really, i know a fair number of other players and orgs so i could just as easily get one of them to move crap for me, I just don't think that something as simple as ferrying stuff around warrants hassling someone else to do it for me when doing it myself is easy enough.

 

Is having multiple accounts P2W?  Again no I don't really think so given that a 3 month subscription costs less than the cost of a fast food order each month, and if you can't afford that then lets face it you have bigger RL problems than not having a DU alt.

 

that brings us to Bots....i think its inevitable that bots WILL become a thing. NQ can try all it likes to detect them via security software etc but the people who sell and use bot software are just as determined so its going to be an ongoing problem if DU gets enough big enough to warrant their (the botters) investment.

 

Lastly, the passive skill system lends itself to character trading which is where you will find your main P2W issues. Regardless of it being against the user agreement if DU becomes big enough to make it RL profitable then some their party websites will inevitably start either trading characters. Bringing in a 'participation' aspect of the game just leads to power levelling websites instead of character trading.

 

Soo....all in all i think its a nice idea but i don't think it will solve any game issues as...I'll be quiet now.... 

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