Can't understand your intentions

[tman]

Just because you have a max'd character doesn't mean you can't roleplay a weaker one.

Yeah that's true, but I'm not talking necessarily about roleplay.  If you can max out skills quickly, every mage will have all the spells in the game.  Every warrior will have have maxed out skill with their armor and their main weapon.  It kind of defeats the whole point of leveling up if everyone reaches the same point in the end anyway.

What about the skills that don't make you Mary Sue though? Cooking, smithing, alchemy, etc. Still very grindy nonetheless.

I consider it just as Mary-Sue-ey if your master blacksmith is also a world class level chef, master potion maker, leatherworker, etc.  The whole point of an MMO is that different players focus on different roles.  If one character can do everything, there's no point in teamwork, cooperation, or trade.


I can agree with you that at the beginning, it shouldn't be such a grind to come to a level of competency with a skill.  But a single character shouldn't be a master of more than 2 or maybe 3 things total.

[Illysia]

The only thing is that with the new system, you will max anything you do eventually if you keep doing it.

[tman]

The only thing is that with the new system, you will max anything you do eventually if you keep doing it.

"Eventually"

I've been playing since April of 2011, and my highest skill is 150.  I only have 4 skills over 100 (and alchemy and herbal shouldn't really count as two, since you level up herbal by doing alchemy).  I don't know the numbers on the practice points required for each level, but I imagine going from 150-200 takes roughly as long as going from 0-150.

I get what you're saying though.  A character that's been around for a very long time will become a "master" at everything they do, just by having done it enough times.  Which is why for IC reasons I only practice skills that relate to my characters desired profession and goals.  It can be a pain though, as an alchemist whose never done any mining or metallurgy, for example.

[Eonwind]

Edit:  I am strongly in favor of alternative ways of leveling up.  Especially, periodic quests that reward you for using your skills by giving practice points toward skill level instead of just experience.  Crafters can be requested to make products, combat users can be requested to kill specific enemies, etc.  Since trainers no longer do anything in-game, the former trainers can now be skill quest-givers.  You could even make them choose between skills (ie getting a sword quest from trainer A prevents you from also getting an axe quest from trainer B).

This is being worked on, in the future some repeatable quests will hand out practice points as a reward. It will not be ready for the coming release as we had to focus on already many new features. However the point of this feature will not be to train faster, but to have fun (and help immersion) while training. This will be especially true for crafting skills to start with, but maybe in the future it will be possible with other skills as well.

Its a possibility. The whole point in having atrophy is to address the problem of skill maxing. To date, the problem of skill maxing has been effectively addressed by raising the ceiling on stats or making it hard to max skills. Raising max stats from 200 to 400 was basically equivalent to cutting player's stats by 50%, except the latter is more discouraging because you *feel* like you are losing something with with the former, you feel like your potential has been raised. xD

There are still more issues with this - for example, how to introduce atrophy in a way that is fair to grinders , role players, frequent and infrequent players.

Sorry Rig but I don't like the idea of atrophy for many reasons, the first is that while a low progression con be discouraging a penalty is always a bad user experience and it's best to avoid it; the second reason is PS has been conceived without classes and the freedom to develop a character in whatever way the player likes without constrains, building up a system of connected skills going up and down will shape a system of "masqueraded" classes (but less intuitive and harder to come up).

[Bonifarzia]

building up [...] a system of connected skills going up and down will shape a system of "masqueraded" classes

Yeah, I agree with this point.