PlaneShift
Support => Complaint Department => Topic started by: Echoes91 on July 18, 2014, 03:29:26 pm
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This is addressed to everybody who worked/works on this game. I've been around for some years now, even if playing very seldom and never writing on forum. I followed all the big progresses you made on this game, writing a 3D MMORPG from scratch to release as open source for free must be an exceptionally hard work and I've always been happy to test and support games and program for the GNU world, but unlucky I'm loosing hopes for this one.
A lot of playing hours have passed by, but my only character is still unable to complete most of the quests because of poor skills. I did my best to grind some of them, but when it takes DAYS of repetitions to level up enough the will passes. Why so much time and repetition? Is there any need to make the game not enjoyable? It seems like it wants to lead players to payed subscriptions even if there's no one. You could cut half the training times and still get a long lasting process.
And so came today, after more than 40 min WALKING, because obviously i have not a mount and nobody have been able to tell me how to get one, for the Bronze Doors through big empty spaces, because there are so few people around, some neither answer, and absolutely nobody out of the town to interact with, I came to this "labyrinth" where the uniform green color made impossible to tell how terrain was made. After another 20 minutes and 4 unsticks I fell into nowhere, died and respawned back to the start.
I understand that this is more testing than playing, but that's one more reason to let people test instead of let them pay for the game problems. Why can't we simply respawn where we died? Is the back of smith's shop someway special?
I'd not like to waste another hour like this, it seems to me that this game wants to keep a small elite of 20-30 players and push everybody else away. It's not wrong itself but is it really your intention after the huge job you've done? An MMRPG should rely on a MASSIVE playerbase, but it looks like this struggles to even have a playerbase
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I doubt that the issues you have rightfully addressed here are in any way intended by current or former member of the dev team.
For example, I remember that a prominent and open minded rules dev has hinted to have no problems with scaling down the time requirements for skill training if that can improve the game experience. Also keep in mind that with the removal of skill theory training, things have already become much less tedious, and further tweaks are well possible.
The way I experienced PS over the years indeed had some emphasis on multiplayer. Often, I was way too lazy to learn a skill in order to complete a quest, so I just asked around to buy or earn crafted goods.
Finally, I do have the feeling that the dev's "intention" is to make the game fun to play - but getting there is a slow process. Yet, I think people like Venalan and Eonwind have already done so much more in this regard than previous "generations" of devs.
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A uniform green colored labyrinth does not sound like any place I have seen, perhaps you need to check your graphics drivers/setting.
Most of the quests require no skill, but the quest chains are somewhat problematic as you need to do unspecified quest x in order to receive quest y. Some of the quests require body parts of critters that new players cannot defeat but those parts can be bought from other players. Make sure to enable chat tabs beyond the basic setup -- options (hotkey o)->interface->chat tabs and select some or all of the checkboxes in the second column. I tend to uncheck everything in the first column so only dialog goes into the main chat tab. If there is nobody around, perhaps you are in an unfortunate time zone.
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You might consider joining a guild that will help you accomplish what you want to do. Ad Libertatem and others help players with everything from weapons and armor to quest chains for getting mounts and glyphs.
One of the great things about this game is the players that help others.
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TO Echoes91:
No offense my friend, but the DEVS are doing a great job with this game. Roughly every 2 months, a major update happens and most seem pleased with the results. Open source, which implies that EVERYONE understands that no devs should be rushed to make the game better and devs will address issues from the BUG TRACKER, not forum onions of individual minds. Please kindly stop whining and if you feel you cannot do something at this time because it has not be implemented or made possible, then patience is all you will get. If you cannot wait for your own little petty needs, then perhaps it's time to gracefully say goodbye and move along citizen.
Perhaps you should try focusing on a different aspect of the game and try and proactively RP more with your community instead of grinding skills. "Those who wait (even if its a few more years) will reap the rewards of good developer coding".
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EXAMPLE: I have been waiting for many years for the tailoring skill but it has not happened yet.
I also struggled with the quests even their limitations, but with patience, the DEVS resolved the issues.
I also realize that some skills even if they are maxed still do not allow me to accomplish certain facets of the game because game mechanisms have not been balanced yet. It is what it is so instead of whining I sought to focus on other skills in the game.
The point is this: If your precious time is felt hindered, then it's time to go channel that time and energy else where away from PS.
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I don't want anyone playing to move along and suggestions for people to leave are unwelcome.
Comparing your patience with waiting for some esoteric skill with someone playing without a mount and with low stats is false.
I love the game and play it often. Raising stats in this game is ridiculously difficult. Leveling one weapon to have a half maxed skill - 100 out of 200 - takes months of grinding.
I play for the people only. But there are long stretches every single day of approximately 15 people in the game. I would say 10 hours per day has this number.
Agree with Boni, recent devs are awesome. And they know things need changing, and they are changing.
But we NEED people like Echoes91 to post here, give opinions, for good or bad. It's his or her own perspective and experience and we are lucky to hear it to be honest. Most people do exactly as the last commenter said, even without one of us rudely suggesting it - they move along.
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Stating "move along is a self-inflicted wound created by the whiner not a rude comment". Thanks for putting words or mislead concepts in my mouth.
The concept is very simple: IF you want change in the game, THEN code it yourself. OTHERWISE, be humbled that this open source project so graciously is available to you. Too makers takers, not enough doers.
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I'm always happy when somebody answer to me and even more when a full RP conversation happens, unfortunately this happened so few times that i can remember ALL character's names who answered me once (and i have a bad memory for names) and only one who spontaneously spoken even if she'd never needed help from me, i don't know if i can write the name here but thanks a lot "K". Lately i asked to five or six chars who had just killed a Tefusang if they were interested in selling me its tooth, but never got an answer, and there's still no command to shake their shoulders. It may be that they all didn't spoke english, but a wider player base again would help.
Individual progress seems essential, and I think it takes too long. I still have not been able to bring any of my friends in this game, always because it takes too long to achieve anything.
By the way, i never argued about devel's work which i described as exceptional and huge, but about the choices they've made that I can't understand and, in my opinion, prevent the player base from growing as this game deserves.
So Adash, either you didn't read more than two or three words from my post or you have serious savvy problems. I know the meaning of Open Source at least as good as you do and devels already got all my respect
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Lately i asked to five or six chars (..) but never got an answer, and there's still no command to shake their shoulders.
That's surprising to me. Often, senior players are happy to help. Sometimes people busy with "mechanics" tend to miss messages in main chat (as it gets cluttered with attack/kill messages) - it may help to poke them with a /tell! Also, asking for help in the "gossip" chat might give you a response. Apart from this, there is actually an advisor system, which you can use via the "help" chat tab. Players who turned on advisor mode can answer your questions there. Finally, if you need a GM's help for any reason, do not hesitate to file a /petition. (Though: Might take a while to get a response.)
Okay, you probably know about all of these things as you have been around for a while, but maybe it is useful for other readers :whistling:
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All feedbacks are always welcome even criticism is welcome if it's respectful.
Regarding some pointed issues I know settings devs are working on a a quest to allow a Pterosaur ride to BD fortress, however settings wise BD maps are meant to be far reached and dangerous places not the next bus stops, so afaik it will be possible to get a travel permit to after a (rather small I believe) quest chain.
Regarding the "green" dungeons it's should not be all green so there must be something wrong happening with graphic settings or something like that but even if there weren't any graphic bugs this place is meant to be a dangerous place for skilled players (since there are a lot of challenges), do not expect it to be easy to face right away. I think in the future its access may be "locked" by a quest which will hint players how dangerous that place can be, however writing quests is not a straightforward process so for now we choose to leave it open for everyone to explore.
Regarding the amount required to train a skill: well yes I know it really high (honestly reaching around rank 50 is something not too time consuming imo) but maxing out a skill is really time consuming. In my opinion a skill of 100 should be the craft of masters and getting to 200 should be something rare and exceptional, however some players use to feel like the characters is not "done" until it's maxed out, no matter what we say about it, so ... let's leave it be. Anyway I still feel it's too high and if it was for me I would have already lowered the amount of practice required but the project leader is not yet convinced of my theory. May be in the future that can be reconsidered.
Regarding the player base I really feel like adding contents and feature to the game (while surely helpful and much needed) is not the key for retaining a good player base. Like it has been shown by a beloved and former GM the keys are the events.
I want to be honest a small and volunteer project like our can not compete in term of graphic quality, amount of content released per year and new features added with the rest of games supported by commercial software houses; what makes PS unique and special IMO is it's strongly oriented toward RP with an interesting settings behind.
So if a player really want to help increase the player base I think the key is creating more events for other players. My 2 cents.
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There is nothing wrong with the skill based system: IF the devs made it hard to max it to 200, THEN so be it.
IF certain skills are not hard to get to 200, THEN so be it. Just take it for what it is and work hard, work hard, work hard, work hard.
The life form that works the hardest reaps the greatest rewards.
That has always been the most fair system since the beginning of time.
\\o//
NOTE: It's not wrong to leave slackers behind if their WILL is weak and they are not driven for success by any means possible.
ONLY EXCEPTION: It's wrong to leave slackers behind if the ones at the top of the food chain have rigged the system.
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Events would surely help but they tend to be targeted usually at middle-advanced players who already got some good skills and stats and need something new to concentrate on. I think that the hardest part where this game loses most of new potential players is next to the beginning, with long unpleasant times (walking, trying, dying), hardly intuitable mechanics and very limited possibilities.
I want to be honest a small and volunteer project like our can not compete in term of graphic quality, amount of content released per year and new features added with the rest of games supported by commercial software houses; what makes PS unique and special IMO is it's strongly oriented toward RP with an interesting settings behind.
I totally agree, PS has a unique feeling to compensate these lacks and is a rare 3D graphical world that sill lets players use some imagination.
There is nothing wrong with the skill based system: IF the devs made it hard to max it to 200, THEN so be it.
IF certain skills are not hard to get to 200, THEN so be it. Just take it for what it is and work hard, work hard, work hard, work hard.
The life form that works the hardest reaps the greatest rewards.
That has always been the most fair system since the beginning of time.
Your reward will be an even more empty server so nobody will take away your jealously preserved skills, enjoy it. If I were part of the devels team I'd prefer somebody who suggest how to get the most from my work and make more happy users who could contribute in the future (remember anything like... open source?) instead of somebody who treats my choices as God's law in such a ridiculous way
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Psychological mumbo jumbo and manipulation of words will not phase me. No wonder society continues to degrade; every individual (most not all) is only interested in changing the variables to their own petty whims.
I however do not do this and just appreciate the way things are now and allow the DEVS to use their best judgement to make this open source free project work to the best of human ability.
once again, please kindly leave the barking outside and enter only when you actually have logic thought.
:detective: very sneaky approach you have but I nor anyone else of intellect is going to be fooled.
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Training skills has actually gotten a lot easier in the last year or two. More practice is given out and you no longer need to waste time finding trainers and paying for training.
Also, I really think this is key:
Regarding the amount required to train a skill: well yes I know it really high (honestly reaching around rank 50 is something not too time consuming imo) but maxing out a skill is really time consuming. In my opinion a skill of 100 should be the craft of masters and getting to 200 should be something rare and exceptional...
It really doesn't take a super long time to become competent in a skill (especially with the changes). Maxing out takes forever but in my opinion is totally unnecessary. That's just my opinion.
Now where new players are most disadvantaged is knowledge about the game mechanics, locations, etc. This is where teamwork and finding older players to guide you helps. New players a lot of times don't know where to ask for help (the guy pounding at the anvil or mining for 6 hours straight probably is less likely to help new players than role players in Kada El's).
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the guy pounding the anvil is just as likely, but you have to get his attention first. Crafting generates a lot of system messages and if they are going into the main tab then dialog gets lost very easily. This is why I uncheck every box of optional things to show in main. Options-> interface -> chat-tabs: first column. unfortunately this also serves to remove some of the standard emotes like /dance, /wave. etc. leaving only /me and /my which are preferred for that reason. /me waves shows up where /wave does not.
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There will probably be /emote wave instead of /wave
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Yes to all of this:
Events would surely help but they tend to be targeted usually at middle-advanced players who already got some good skills and stats and need something new to concentrate on. I think that the hardest part where this game loses most of new potential players is next to the beginning, with long unpleasant times (walking, trying, dying), hardly intuitable mechanics and very limited possibilities.
I want to be honest a small and volunteer project like our can not compete in term of graphic quality, amount of content released per year and new features added with the rest of games supported by commercial software houses; what makes PS unique and special IMO is it's strongly oriented toward RP with an interesting settings behind.
I totally agree, PS has a unique feeling to compensate these lacks and is a rare 3D graphical world that sill lets players use some imagination.
and cheers, Eonwind, for the thoughtful response, you are one of the best O--)
Wish I could have made it to the last event, it sounded awesome, especially allowing the players to choose sides...maybe someone will post a summary :)
Disagree about becoming competent being relatively easy - agree with Eonwind that getting to 50 is not so bad - getting to 100 (barely competent to my mind, as far as what can be done with the skill, what level mobs I can handle, what players I can tussle with) is painful. And it's true that some players don't feel their character is done until maxed, i.e. they then feel comfortable settling into the realm and the RP in a fully immersed way.
I've always found forge workers super helpful unless mid-task, when they probably miss the main chat for the reasons Bilbous states.
More events and easier after starting the game, my 2 cents (pulling one cent from Eonwind and one from Echoes91).
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Several parts of these posts were tl;dr, but I do have one comment I'd like to throw out there:
To all the old players who are pretty much just saying "If you don't like it, than leave" - this is not the solution. You need to respect other people's opinions and allow them to have complaints/suggestions. We will only continue to get better through these suggestions.
The flipside of this is obvious:
to all of the new players: Play through the game first, and make sure your suggestions are not unfounded or haven't been made yet. Do some of your research, so that when your voice is put out there, it is loud and clear, with a goal in mind.
We can't just be pushing away new people, folks. We have to work to include others.
Towards the matter of events:
Most new players won't make it to events. They'll come into a barren, mostly player-free world, and run into people too busy to help them. They will then log out, and visit a different game. Yes, it's mostly they're fault, but we need to be able to grab them up into this world as soon as possible. Events can help with this, but taking time out just to acquaint new players will help even more so. The revamped starter quests & starter area are a huge boon in this regard.
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it would help if some of the equipment in the tutorial area was usable as it would give established characters a reason to linger and to be available to answer questions. Then again, it could be abused so maybe not.
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Ehh, that's a thought.
I kinda have the opinion that if people won't even make it all the way through the tutorial, then they're just not going to want to play this game anyways. We can't hold their hands too much, haha!
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I have to say, after trying to get back into this game again, I also find the long grind very discouraging. I'm not sure how I had so much patience back in the day. Even getting into the 60's for a skill is excruciatingly slow, not to mention there's more than 100 levels to go after that. Maybe if the skills capped at 100 I'd be okay with it, but this is too much. I have played many games with hard grinds such as Wurm, but I wouldn't hesitate to say Planeshift might be one of the grindiest.
I understand the intention might be to make capped skills rare, but that's disappointing for people who want to finish their characters, and not feel like the cup is left half full if you know what I mean. All of the important fights are done via roleplay anyway, where winning is not only unimportant, but determined by the story and imagination. It's for this reason I miss the days when the caps were lower. It meant less time invested in grinding, and an overall simpler (and fun) leveling experience. But now I think the game has become bloated with grinding, especially for combat which seems to be nearly impossible to level high without devoting months of time doing lots of clicking, which can even be physically harmful. Some skills like miscellaneous crafting skills might not even be useful enough to grind. So not only does the grind deter players, but it prevents you from experiencing certain content and testing it. Something you should not want as an alpha game developer if you want new players to stick around, especially with how few players there are right now. And I would rather have an easier game to get into than have more time to level, because even if you had maxed all of the skills you want, you can still settle down and roleplay, finish all the quests, make a new character, or start a business which are all probably more interesting anyway.
This is because the grind is one of the least interesting parts of an MMORPG. Planeshift's forte is quests, exploration, and roleplaying in my opinion. So why is there so much emphasize on grinding? You should be able to sell to players, explore most the content, and fight tough enemies without having to pass a long grind first. And with how slow the leveling is, this also means that old players are going out and doing all of those things successfully, not you. It rewards the old players while giving the new a lot of trouble. It use to not be this way before, and all you needed was a good weapon, but as of the combat update it seems to be much more of a problem.
If it wasn't for the lore and roleplaying in this game, I would have quit long ago. I'm not young anymore, and I don't have the time to waste auto-attacking training dummies all day, and I imagine the same goes for most of you other players. I personally have tried introducing several people to this game, and they all quit. Do you know why? It was because of the grind, and that sucks, especially since they were interested in the game but the grind got in the way from what they wanted to do. It's stressful, both mentally and physically. And as we enter an age of games that are more streamlined and less 'hardcore', I fear that Planeshift will fade from disinterest with the coming generation of gamers if this state of the game persists, so I speak for a lot of gamers when I'm saying this. There's nothing wrong with a hard MMORPG though, don't get me wrong, but there's no difficulty involved leveling a skill high in this game. It's easy but is lots of time you're willing to do the same thing, and it's not just that I don't have enough time, it's also not fun to do in the first place. Gaming is my hobby because I want to enjoy doing something interactive in my spare time, not work more, which is basically all I'm trying to say. :innocent:
I implore you developers to reduce the amount of time training takes. I like Planeshift a lot, and I have a lot of fond memories with it, but I don't know if I can enjoy it much longer with how much of a boring timesink it has become. However, if that timesink were more interesting things, that'd be great. But unfortunately, it's the skill grinding I am talking about. We are just testers after all, and the game is not released yet. So do not be afraid to change the experience rate, we are testers and we are giving you feedback, so this is exactly something you should be tinkering with.
Some other ideas I have are for quests to level certain skills (possibly repeatable), increasing skills increases their associated attribute, or the use of training weapons that are fast but very weak. Also, the cap for skills could be lowered, but in turn each level would be more important than before.
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Grinding has become easier with the change of not going to trainers at every level. There are players that never grind and just role-play, others that grind and never role-play and some that do both. It should take some time to master a skill but one can be proficient at lower levels (except music ::) ).
There is no other game that I've found that offers so much for free.
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I understand the intention might be to make capped skills rare, but that's disappointing for people who want to finish their characters...
I personally don't think a character should ever be "finished." Nobody's perfect, and the Mary Sue phenomena really kills immersion in most MMOs. Taking a long time forces people to pick one or two things to be great in, at the sacrifice of others. If it's easy to max skills, then a lot of people are going to max all their skills and the diversity of characters disappears.
With regards to the rest of the issues, I can understand where you're coming from. I've always thought that the focus should be on helping new players become regular players. The beginning stages of this game were hell (which I didn't mind all that much, Morrowind is my favorite single player game ever) but I can see how that can drive people away. Information should be easily accessible in-game for those who seek it out. The library is great, but it can be hard to filter out the random world backstory content from the "I'm new and this will help me with the game" content.
tl;dr: I like that it takes a lot of effort to become god-like in this game, but progression at lower levels could be faster and information for new players shouldn't be hard to find.
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).
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We have discussed dynamic abilities in the past, where using a skill makes it stronger, and not using a skill causes atrophy in that skill. Many folks disliked that idea since skills were so hard to come by. The problem is, once you max your skills, you are done, and once you are done, it kind of kills the growth experience a little - perhaps more for some than for others.
Since we now have half of this in place - skills increase automatically with use, why not consider the second half - atrophy as a result of non-use. Perhaps such decay could be rigged in such a way that it is not a game killer. If you have atrophy in place, then perhaps you could speed up training a little bit more without having to worry about everyone hitting a permanent plateau? In such a case, losing skills from long periods of being away could be retrained fairly quickly.
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What about having skill atrophy tied to practicing other skills instead of time? Make it a trade off but make skills atrophy at a slower rate than they build.
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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.
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Well there is also the possibility of skill reduction from repeatable quests as well. So maybe you can risk getting injured in a quest and if you do get injured, say your hand, you lose a little skill in skills that require your to use your hands like leatherworking, pottery making, and so on.
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I understand the intention might be to make capped skills rare, but that's disappointing for people who want to finish their characters...
I personally don't think a character should ever be "finished." Nobody's perfect, and the Mary Sue phenomena really kills immersion in most MMOs. Taking a long time forces people to pick one or two things to be great in, at the sacrifice of others.
Just because you have a max'd character doesn't mean you can't roleplay a weaker one. And anyway, the things you can do at high level in this game seem pretty tame. You might be hunting Ulbernauts but you won't be doing anything "Mary Sue" like. However, back in the day creatures were even easier to kill, and higher skills matter now. But getting a skill high (not maxing it) is very time consuming, and is more important in this version, so I felt they could do with an increase of experience gain. At least certain skills, like shield handling and magic which seem extremely slow.
What about the skills that don't make you Mary Sue though? Cooking, smithing, alchemy, etc. Still very grindy nonetheless.
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Shield Handling is only difficult if you have too much armor skill as your shield never has a chance to come into effect. If you dodge every attack there is no chance of getting shield practice. What some people do in this case is to equip a shield start an attack then equip a second shield and switch to bloody stance. This is very OOC. Hopefully this is something that will be affected by the new combat system coming down the pike.
Armor practice is super easy to come by, just trigger a swarm of attackers and let them attack you until you fall asleep from boredom. Hopefully this too will be dealt with in the upcoming update. Armor is the easiest thing to train.
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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.
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The only thing is that with the new system, you will max anything you do eventually if you keep doing it.
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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.
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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).
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building up [...] a system of connected skills going up and down will shape a system of "masqueraded" classes
Yeah, I agree with this point.