Poll: Ability Point Cap

[Jirato]

What are your thoughts on the current ability point cap?

[Math321]

I like having it at 20, personally. I wouldn't complain about having more, of course, but I think the way it currently is forces you to make some actual choices about your character's build instead of just picking up tons and tons of abilities, which is nice.

[Hakkon]

I think having just a few more would be nice a jump to 22 or 24

[Xanthe]

Would I like more? Definitely so.

Am I content with 20? Mostly. Why? Because it makes you cut down to what your character really is, and wants to be.
I think one or two more would be nice. But no more than that.

[ClokNinja]

Hello.
I wouldn't go any higher than two more ability slots. Just my opinion.

[TheCacklackian]

I would like more, but no more than maybe 2 or 3 more.
That being said, I don't feel like we 'need' more. 20 is a comfortable number, though a little tight for a certain guild.
Basically would like more, if not, not the end of the world.

[preiman]

I want more but that’s going to be True regardless of how many points you actually give us. When we only had 19 I really wanted one more point, at 20 I really wanted 1 more point, if you give us 21 I’ll really want one more point. 20 is a good number, it’s enough to do everything you really want to do but not so much that you can do everything.

[Hakon]

20 is good. It lets you play with some side skills other than your main focus but makes specialization key, for the most part.

No berserker lapidarying metalsmith gunmaster so and so's for me por favor

[Kent]

I would like to see at least two more ability slots added, please.

Another angle I would like to see the matter tackled would be instead of adding slots, to combine some current abilities into one slot. For example, we have

Leatherworking
Leatherworking: Advanced (to make rigid leather)
Leatherworking: Exotic

I think this should be dropped down to 2 slots only, for example, combine the first two so that with Leatherworking, a character can make both soft and rigid leather armor, and if he wants to make drakolin scale armor, then he learns Leatherworking: Exotic, with only two slots being consumed instead of the current three.

Likewise, I would remove melee focus and ranged focus, it is enough to reach 500 in hafted to be able to learn Weapon Specialization: Hafted and 500 in archery to be able to learn Weapon Specialization: Bows.

With Bushcraft, there are currently four slots, and it would make sense to merge them down to two, for example, we currently have

1. Bushcraft Basics
2. Bushcraft: Knapping
3. Bushcraft: Tracking
4. Bushcraft: Trailblazing

That's a lot of slots for the outdoorsman. I think it would be better if we had

Bushcraft Basics and Knapping

combined to take up one slot, and

Bushcraft: Tracking and Trailblazing

combined to take up one slot, for a total of two not four slots.

For blacksmithing, I would recommend Blacksmithing and Blacksmithing: Heavy Heads be combined into one ability slot, then keep separate blades and armor, for a total of 3 slots taken up by blacksmithing, instead of 4.

Finally, I would recommend the simplest of all constrained tasks, Fishing with a rod, be made to not require any ability slot at all.

If all these ideas were implemented, then it might even make sense to drop the cap back down to 19! However, in the event my suggestions to combine abilities into one slot were not implemented, then the next best thing imo would be two more slots under the current system, please.

[Eagalon]

I believe that with the latest addition of the forging system, at least increase of one ability slot has become necessary because moving arrowheads from commodities to bladed weapons impacts the char build of many non-specialized characters. Its similar to the situation when the apprentis of the land ability slot was added. Now if you are going to add more slots then I would not mind having at least 22 slots in total. will give me some more options to work with. However, 21 slots have become essential in my opinion.

[Kent]

There might be a couple​ other combineable abilities I haven't thought of as well. Dirty Tricks: Trip and Foot Stomp? Any other suggestions?

[Eagalon]

I would like to see at least two more ability slots added, please.

Another angle I would like to see the matter tackled would be instead of adding slots, to combine some current abilities into one slot. For example, we have

Leatherworking
Leatherworking: Advanced (to make rigid leather)
Leatherworking: Exotic

I think this should be dropped down to 2 slots only, for example, combine the first two so that with Leatherworking, a character can make both soft and rigid leather armor, and if he wants to make drakolin scale armor, then he learns Leatherworking: Exotic, with only two slots being consumed instead of the current three.

Likewise, I would remove melee focus and ranged focus, it is enough to reach 500 in hafted to be able to learn Weapon Specialization: Hafted and 500 in archery to be able to learn Weapon Specialization: Bows.

With Bushcraft, there are currently four slots, and it would make sense to merge them down to two, for example, we currently have

1. Bushcraft Basics
2. Bushcraft: Knapping
3. Bushcraft: Tracking
4. Bushcraft: Trailblazing

That's a lot of slots for the outdoorsman. I think it would be better if we had

Bushcraft Basics and Knapping

combined to take up one slot, and

Bushcraft: Tracking and Trailblazing

combined to take up one slot, for a total of two not four slots.

For blacksmithing, I would recommend Blacksmithing and Blacksmithing: Heavy Heads be combined into one ability slot, then keep separate blades and armor, for a total of 3 slots taken up by blacksmithing, instead of 4.

Finally, I would recommend the simplest of all constrained tasks, Fishing with a rod, be made to not require any ability slot at all.

If all these ideas were implemented, then it might even make sense to drop the cap back down to 19! However, in the event my suggestions to combine abilities into one slot were not implemented, then the next best thing imo would be two more slots under the current system, please.

I second this as well.

[artus]

I agree with kent. Adding something new in the system greatly impacts abilities sometimes, especially when you base everything on those abilities but then suddenly decide to gate one thing that was once for basics or didn't require more abilities to be behind abilities (like what's happening to arrowheads right now, which honestly made me cry, for real.)
I honestly didn't expect you to suddenly make something that once required nearly nothing require two slots of abilities. It seriously impacts many characters who've been doing it for months or even years to get to that point. I like the new forging system, but I wish you gms asked us if we really wanted something like gating abilities to happen first before jumping to the "It's my game and I'm gonna do whatever" kind of conclusion and make stuff like this happen out of the blue. I mean you're probably not in that mindset. You just wanted to make the game great so you thought doing this would be cool. But for players, stuff like this out of nowhere can leave this feeling lingering. If you do then please make abilities less of a pain to learn, since everything is based on abilities now. Some abilities may make sense if they require two three slots, but then players have to waste slots for something that doesn't do anything much to them. Elemencers waste one slot for elemency abtitute may kind of make sense, though it'd still be a pain because they'll have to spend their slots learning abilities from their guild anyway. But making arrowheads require bladesmith is kind of a pain. Those who forge arrowheads regularly don't even want to forge blades unless they're artisan or take blacksmithing as their main focus, but now they have to learn forge blades to be able to do that, when there're melee focus, range focus, bushcraft basics etc etc etc to spend their slots on. I disagree with Kent's idea of making forging general go with forging heavy heads, because they don't correlate. I'd suggest removing forging general at once and make it so blacksmiths can learn anything in the general set as long as they have one forging ability. This way, anyone even arrowhead forgers can take whatever they want to learn to forge 20 without having to spend 2 slots just to do one thing. 20 is fine. I even like the number, but making some abilities real pain to be able to use isn't really good for characters to develop their playstyles imo.
Ps. tracking doesn't require knapping.:)

[Sneaky]

I've only ever reached the ability point cap on one character, and that character belonged to a guild that had a lot of its own abilities. There's only four guilds I can think of other than artisans where this becomes an issue. I think a lot of strain would be removed if guild abilities didn't take up the same ability spots as general abilities, but I doubt splitting them into two categories would ever happen. That being said I feel that the current cap on abilities is fine, and is only some what limiting for people in determining the path that their character will travel.