Discussion on the balance skill cap.

[asdlegioner]

What do you think about removing the Skill Cap restrictions completely? Or increase the Skill Cap to 1000 instead of 700. How will this affect the game balance? What do you think about it? And maybe someone has experience?

 

[Djeryv]

Only you can answer this and it comes down to how you want to design your shard and how you want it to function. It also guides the course of how you want player characters to be. You can have the extreme of no-cap and then a single character can master every skill. This may have players make less characters. So do you care if character master every skill?

Also, isn't the cap 720? Regardless, the 700ish skill cap is meant for players to create a particular character class-type like a ranger, fighter, wizard, or thief. Characters with limited skills encourage varying play styles as one would play a heavily armored fighter much different than a wizard. So, do you want this style of play on your shard?

I have run shards that had no skill cap and I don't recall anything being game breaking about it. If you have a low population shard, then allowing characters to master every skill makes the game single player friendly...without having to change other mechanics. I simply moved away from the unlimited skills due to my particular play style and my outlook on what a fantasy role-playing game should be. So decide what type of game you want to run...and more importantly...what type of game do "you" want to play?

 

[asdlegioner]

Only you can answer this and it comes down to how you want to design your shard and how you want it to function. It also guides the course of how you want player characters to be. You can have the extreme of no-cap and then a single character can master every skill. This may have players make less characters. So do you care if character master every skill?

Also, isn't the cap 720? Regardless, the 700ish skill cap is meant for players to create a particular character class-type like a ranger, fighter, wizard, or thief. Characters with limited skills encourage varying play styles as one would play a heavily armored fighter much different than a wizard. So, do you want this style of play on your shard?

I have run shards that had no skill cap and I don't recall anything being game breaking about it. If you have a low population shard, then allowing characters to master every skill makes the game single player friendly...without having to change other mechanics. I simply moved away from the unlimited skills due to my particular play style and my outlook on what a fantasy role-playing game should be. So decide what type of game you want to run...and more importantly...what type of game do "you" want to play?

That's why I created this theme. I make up all the pros and cons and I am very interested in the opinion of those who have already passed through this choice and have accumulated any experience and statistics . My personal experience of playing uo is servers with unlimited skill cap. But I also like the class system. When you can meet an opponent without immediately understanding who he is. It gives its variety as well as limitations. I plan to expand my skill cap to 1000.

 

[Falkor]

I wrestled with the question for a while and then came to the realization that I need to stick to my target player. People seem to want either EA-exact or a total free-for-all, with very little in between. I tried a raised skill cap and then decided since I'm going non-PVP anyway (except for guild wars as desired) I might as well keep people from needing 6 mule chars to get things done. The result is exactly the same except for needing to log out and in a dozen times to craft various items.

My shard isn't live yet so who knows how it'll fare? I may not attract any players at all! There's really no point in me trying to roll out another EA-exact shard or a super-hard-PVP shard so I might as well make it mine.

 

[asdlegioner]

So I'm thinking of an intermediate option. I don't have a goal to repeat EA, I and other players don't like a lot of things there.