---- Quick word on passive vs active skill training concepts ----
by ThomasB 6 hours ago in forum General Discussion in Concern Over Passive Vs. Active Skill Training
I'll weigh on this topic a bit with what we are thinking.
Skill systems that are usage based tend to lead to macro botting. In UO I'd always setup a machine to cast Kal Vas Xen An Flam all night long. In AC same thing, cast spells in the mana pool for weeks. EQ was much more limited, jump into a pool, press numlock and go away for hours, same result. I'm sure everyone could quote their own examples all night long. Everyone is worried about the new player, imagine telling a new player that before they can go play the game they need to AFK macro their character for a few days, then they can see what the game is like! As Todd likes to say "laaaaame!"
The problem with macro botting in a competitive environment is everyone has to do it, or you fall behind. It also becomes a straw man to point a finger at why you lost a fight.
How do we plan to avoid this? Limited gains on usage, lets say the first 10-20% of a skill can be gained this way. For you non EVE players the beginning of a new character is pretty drab and doesn't feel very good. We hope that the limited gains spice it up a bit in the beginning.
You may have noticed in our Centaur Polearm example the skill potential went from 1-175 opposed to EVE's discrete ranks of 1-5. We wanted to do this so you could feel gains happening all the time and not 1 rank point every 30 days. I can also say the amount of time to train from 150-175 may be crazy extreme for very little statistical gain, that time may be better spent getting a bunch of other skills from 80-100.
For crafting we might do an inverse and put the usage gains at the end of the spectrum requiring additives that are more difficult to get. However the bulk of their training will also be passive, nothing is worse to a player economy than thousands of pieces of extra equipment made for the purpose of skilling up.
There is a plethora of comments about "how will new players survive" because their skill values are so low. I would be more concerned about them not knowing how to block, or dash, or which powers do what. Numerical superiority may not save you when you go against a counter class who has figured out how to use all the tools available to that character. I have always admired how in EVE the new players who fly the smaller ships still have value in fleet battles webbing and jamming the bigger ships. I would like to think Crowfall would have roles like that as well, digging under castles, placing sapper charges, firing trebuchets, etc.
Passive training lets us all progress when we are sleeping, working, at school, etc. It's great knowing your characters are advancing when you aren't able to be online 24/7.
