On Skill Caps...

[Jirato]

Let me start this by explaining that we have set skill levels for NPCs ranging from "Novice" to "Proficient" to "Exceptional" to "Masterful" to "Legendary". The majority of event content is at the Novice to Proficient level. Guards are usually between the Proficient and Exceptional level, and guild masters are typically within the exceptional to masterful level. There are only four active legendary NPCs. These guys (and a gal) are intended to be super special. We don't even let our GMs create new NPCs with those skill levels. It's something that has to be explicitly approved, and there likely aren't going to be any new Legendary NPCs for quite some time, if ever.

There are several player characters already in the "Masterful" range of skills, rapidly approaching "Legendary". We're left with an issue. Do we continue buffing our NPCs to grow with them, or do we implement some sort of cap for player skill? While I love the open-endedness of CLOK and the idea that you can get super strong with enough effort, we feel if we constantly adjust the game to match these player characters we will just be creating a larger and larger gap for any new player characters.

So, after some careful thought, we feel a skill point cap of 2500.0 is a good balance of still allowing player characters to reach the "pretty darn high" skill levels that will still require a great deal of effort and work that most people will likely never even see, while still avoiding giving new characters a feeling that they'll never be able to catch up, and maintaining the "legendary" status of our elite four NPCs. (Which I swear is not a Pokemon reference) This change will also allow is to more carefully balance and plan future hunting area additions to the game, now that we've got a clear idea of what the top end is. Note that this new implementation only affects skill checks and skill rolls. So any bonuses through abilities or what not still apply.

This change will be continually evaluated and monitored as more player characters reach the new cap. Expect to see a change to the skills verb to reflect when a cap is reached in the near future after we solve the mechanical issue of skillgain and working off depart/ASP penalties.

Also note that this applies to all skills equally, not just combat.

[Skah]

Seems reasonable to me.

[preiman]

I have no issue with this, though I do have a question, say i get my melee to that level, but not any of my weapon skills, will the weapon skills also be capped from going up, or will the gain as they always did?

[Jirato]

I have no issue with this, though I do have a question, say i get my melee to that level, but not any of my weapon skills, will the weapon skills also be capped from going up, or will the gain as they always did?

Your weapon skill would continue to rise independently of your melee skill.

[Acarin]

So what you're saying is... I will never be able to single-handedly punch a drakolin to death?!? Dreams... crushed...

[Kunren]

First things first, I find the idea of skill caps in general a bit distasteful when such a lovely draw of clok has been its limitless skill gain, but I will say that not only is that skill cap very reasonable and in fact will likely be a rare thing for ANY skill to reach (much less a plethora of combat, crafting, or survival skills, or some combination of these). I don't believe that this will, mechanically, be a drawback of any sort for 99 percent of the playerbase. Not only that, I think the skillcap will open up far more variety and flexibility for events, and may even slow down the "if this character is here, we will probably win this event no matter what it is" type mindsets. It could also open up new and interesting pathways for abilities, and rp, for example seeing as 2500 is the cap you could say that is the max potential of a human swordsman barring special ability of some sort, so you could quite honestly state yourself as one of the best swordsmen in the world. As for abilities, perhaps some extremely combat oriented guilds could offer abilities that, say, increased the skillcap for a particular skill to 2600 or 2700. Maybe even a general ability implying natural talent in something. Back to my first point though, I don't like the very idea of limiting the skills because that means that some characters will never get as far as they need to to complete their storylines. Some characters wont be able to dedicate ten years to clok to have 7000 sorcery and declare themselves deities. Some characters wont be able to kill a drakolin barehanded as 2500 skill is too low for that even if every combat skill was there (yes, thats a bit much, but hey if its your characters dream it should be possible), and it always has been there to dream for. Now it won't be, and to me that is a sad, sad thing.

Pros: Will help the game as a whole, will provide increasingly fun events, will allow newbies or even moderately strong characters the up til now kind of hopeless chance to catch up to the real monsters, chance of making rp and abilities more accurate and interesting, and more.

Cons: Loss of endless improvement and all of the love for it, little for those who prefer the grindier aspects of clok to do after they reach end game status (yes, some people do prefer the grind over rp most of the time), and more that I cant think of right now likely.

I have no issue with this, though I do have a question, say i get my melee to that level, but not any of my weapon skills, will the weapon skills also be capped from going up, or will the gain as they always did?

I think an interesting bonus here would be that if melee was capped (or one of the other overarching, general skills such as marksmanship) that all skills under their reach have a bonus to growth speed, since you technically arent grinding two things at once anymore, just one.

[Kunren]

So what you're saying is... I will never be able to single-handedly punch a drakolin to death?!? Dreams... crushed...

you posted this as I was posting mine darn you, now everybody will know whos dream it is!

[Elystole]

Can we get the number to level equivalents for both comparison and RP sake? I vaguely recall a "skill RP" command or something that would at least give you the equivalent levels. Is 2500 masterful? What is the difference between masterful and legendary?

What will happen to the PCs whose skills are already over the cap?

Overall... I think I like this idea. Partly because we can finally, eventually, get off the skill treadmill. If I can only play CLOK for one or two hours at a time, I don't want to spend all of my time grinding skills. Elystole is no slouch, but he has to grind to stay competitive which gets boring, tiring, and stressful. Now I can hit 2500 and say, "Alright. I'm done. Time to do other stuff." Even if I don't ever hit 2500, at least there isn't that feeling that the people who can play all day, everyday are constantly getting further and further ahead. They'll just hit the cap faster and then I am slowly but surely catching up.

I'm a little concerned in that I think PCs can be legends in their own right, but if "legendary" means something akin to "supernatural" and masterful is the peak of human ability, I'm alright with that.

[Acarin]

I like the idea of mastery abilities.... special abilities that unlock only once one achieves cap... maybe these abilities have an additional subskill associated with them that can continue to be skilled up to increase the effectiveness of the ability? An example would be damage multipliers for weapons (i.e. 2.5% more damage in that weapon type for every additional 250 ranks of subskill past mastery) or additional roll weighting (minimum roll increases by 2.5% for every additional 250 ranks of the subskill for dodge or block). Maybe increased passive proc rate of certain abilities associated with that weapon? This would allow us to continue to become more powerful in our chosen combat skills without breaking the bank (if done correctly) and making rolls grow astronomically. The same could be done for crafting (slowly increased chance of masterfuls, for example). just something to think about for the future...

I say this because we, as characters, like to continue to make progress. While I'll never achieve that cap with all of Acarin's primary skills, it's quite reasonable with Zuki that I'll make those caps within a year or two... then what? Work on something else? eh.

[Jirato]

Can we get the number to level equivalents for both comparison and RP sake? I vaguely recall a "skill RP" command or something that would at least give you the equivalent levels. Is 2500 masterful? What is the difference between masterful and legendary?

What will happen to the PCs whose skills are already over the cap?

Overall... I think I like this idea. Partly because we can finally, eventually, get off the skill treadmill. If I can only play CLOK for one or two hours at a time, I don't want to spend all of my time grinding skills. Elystole is no slouch, but he has to grind to stay competitive which gets boring, tiring, and stressful. Now I can hit 2500 and say, "Alright. I'm done. Time to do other stuff." Even if I don't ever hit 2500, at least there isn't that feeling that the people who can play all day, everyday are constantly getting further and further ahead. They'll just hit the cap faster and then I am slowly but surely catching up.

I'm a little concerned in that I think PCs can be legends in their own right, but if "legendary" means something akin to "supernatural" and masterful is the peak of human ability, I'm alright with that.

PCs can totally still be legends in their own right. They're not going to be on par to the four named NPCs who are considered truly gifted and legends of their times, but at 2500.0 skill, you're still quite a force to be reckoned with and either stronger than or equal to almost any other NPC out there.

As for the option 30 (skillnums) ranges. They do not match up exactly with the NPC skill guidelines that I previously mentioned. And those numbers are internal. I'd rather not disclose the specifics. The option 30 skill ranges are as follows:

0-50 = Novice
50-100 = Unskilled
100-300 = Competent
300-600 = Proficient
600-1000 = Talented
1000-2000 = Exceptional
2000+ = Masterful

The change is presently with the function that calculates and returns your skill values for skill checks and skill rolls, so even if you have exceeded the cap, you will not be checked at anything higher than 2500.0.

[Acarin]

So you're saying that our skills will continue to appear to rise after 2500? Or does this only apply to those that have already exceeded 2500 (i.e. their skills will not be set back to 2500)?

[Jirato]

So you're saying that our skills will continue to appear to rise after 2500? Or does this only apply to those that have already exceeded 2500 (i.e. their skills will not be set back to 2500)?

At present, they will continue to rise past 2500.0 but will be evaluated at 2500.0 if over. I intend to correct that this weekend. The skillgain and skill verb code is a bit more complex, and I'm still thinking of the most efficient way to do it. I also don't want to lock it out so you can't work off a depart penalty just because the skill your using is capped.

[Rias]

It should be said that even these "Legendary" NPCs we're mentioning would have trouble, say, taking on a drakolin solo. They're not like untouchable gods of combat or anything.

[Elystole]

At present, they will continue to rise past 2500.0 but will be evaluated at 2500.0 if over. I intend to correct that this weekend.

I <3 round numbers. And then the rolls will make more sense.

Sounds like I can stop worrying about keeping certain skills "balanced" because eventually the game will do that for me!

[Jirato]

It should be said that even these "Legendary" NPCs we're mentioning would have trouble, say, taking on a drakolin solo. They're not like untouchable gods of combat or anything.

^ This.

I hate to crush dreams, but it's not entirely reasonable to expect to be able to solo a drakolin (At least, it shouldn't be - loopholes always come up). Barehanded or not, without GM powers. I never really thought he was serious.

[artus]

Another cons I can see by limiting pcs cap is, especially for grinders, if you push something up to 2500, something essential, then you switch to another one, push, switch, push. you keep doing til you feel like you have everything you need for this character. Then you just have nothing to do. I find some combat oriented characters on most cap limited muds like this get bored of that character real quick for some reason. This doesn't happen to me, since I don't care much of how high my skill is, unless it's a combat or crafting skills i seriously need. I don't think it's a good picture, either, of having a creepy murder push strum strings to 2500 just because they have nothing to do. Worse, some ksills are stricted to generalization, which makes it even more fussy and crappy to take a monthly cooldown just to get gain on that.

I personally don't have any problem, since my playstyle is sorta the mixture of rping and grinding. But from what I heard a player stated (I don't have the right to tell the name here, sorry), Clok is more of a grinding mud than rp driven mud for some reason. So this cons could be put up for consideration.
Thank you in regards.

[Lun]

I love the skillcap.

That is all. I happily await the new stuff coming that's planned!

[Acarin]

It should be said that even these "Legendary" NPCs we're mentioning would have trouble, say, taking on a drakolin solo. They're not like untouchable gods of combat or anything.

^ This.

I hate to crush dreams, but it's not entirely reasonable to expect to be able to solo a drakolin (At least, it shouldn't be - loopholes always come up). Barehanded or not, without GM powers. I never really thought he was serious.

Great... now you're crushing my dreams of brawling god status too!

I'll show you all! I'll still going to solo that drakolin at cap and its head will be mounted in the retreat (even if it means being extra crispy)!

[Dorn]

As a PC who had a legendary skill, and was about to hit another, I have for a long long long time supported some sort of skill cap. That it happens now after spending the riln and time getting one skill significantly over it, I can't say I'm not a little bitter and irritated at where the cap lands and the timing. Especially upon reading that "This change will be continually evaluated and monitored as more player characters reach the new cap." I can't but feel like Icarus at the moment.

However, this does make me wonder a few things. Some specific, some a little more broad.
1) While we may never punch Drakolins to death, are Shardlings/Yetis going to be tweaked a little? I was so close to being able to manage. >.< Even if a miss would have meant a crushed can.
2) Do you have any thoughts about how this may end up resulting in less specialization, and more generalization as now eventually, everyone may end up being just as good as each other?

3) This most importantly. I've been told quite a few times, especially when I played for so long, that being unguilded didn't matter. You may not have access to *fancy* abilities (Not true now of course, hence the bold *fancy* because while in premise it isn't true, generalized abilities are often more broad), but it didn't matter because you could just grind some more skill out and your character could compete on the field with Guild A, B, C, D... etc.

This is no longer the case. Whenever an issue of Guild Balance is brought up, the thing that gets thrown most at people is "Join a guild for RP, not abilities." which is a very valid point as to why they should join a Guild but at the same time totally ignores any queries about the actual balance. In an environment with caps, expect any sort of imbalances between Guilds show themselves even more.

Let us take, two combat Guilds. Templars, and Mercenaries. Very different RP, and one is a lot easier to get kicked out off, or suffer penalties... but in a world of caps, let us just take a look at their numbers, now that they can both cap.

It is possible for the Templar to... boost his melee up to 3000, while boosting his dodge up to 3000, along with Perception as well. The Templar also has a passive resistance to a lot of negative effects, including stuns/knockdowns/fear, while maintaining a variable extra damage reduction to all sources. The Templar will also have access to every single ability the Mercenary has, except for 1. Coup de Grace.

Now. These are both combat heavy guilds, perhaps the Mercenaries even more so due to how RP can lead the Templar down the route of non-violence. In a world of caps however, there is always going to be a clear situation between skills/abilities as to which of the two is going to be superior. This is without muddying the mess by adding Dwaedn/Harbingers/Wyrvardn. Just looking at the non-stealth ones here.

In the past, just get some more skills, now... yeah. What I'd like to hear more than anything about this, is that from this the Guilds are going to get looked at. Especially those who may as well be an Organization like the Outriders were turned into. To quote Rias, "Naturally, as they're no longer a guild, they won't give any special abilities or things like that - but then, all their abilities were Generalized away already." That is near enough the case for a few Guilds who have little to show for making that jump into "The only Guild they'll ever get to join" when they could have easily just remained unGuilded and RPed. Guilds should be about RP, but if all the Guild has is RP, why aren't they just an Organization instead?

I can probably rant on that subject, because I really do not like looking at the comparison between some of the older, well-cared for and fleshed out guilds in comparison to the newer.

Okay. Yep. Skillcap, good. Just really hope you guys do a good job of balancing everything else around it. It might even bring some people back I know who hated the limitless skilling.

[Jirato]

I've stated before and I'll state again, I have absolutely no intention of balancing guilds against each other. CLOK is not a guild versus guild environment. If you want to be all meta and just base your decisions on what makes you the "best" mechanically, yes, at present you'll benefit more mechanically from being a Dwaedn or a Templar than being a Mercenary or a Wyrvardn. But I honestly believe we have people in the Templar and Dwaedn because they wish to, you know, roleplay a Templar or a Dwaedn, and I'm certain we have people in the Wyrvardn and Mercenaries who are in there because they wish to roleplay as Wyrvardn or Mercenaries - many of which have joined since after generalization went live and their guilds were pretty much reduced to one or two abilities.

I will address guilds and their abilities objectively, but independently of other guilds. I do not make my balance changes based off "X guild versus Y guild".

[Rias]

This is going to be unpopular, and I'm not the dev anymore anyway, but I never had combat balance in mind when I made any of the guilds. Dwaedn and Rooks were designed to be especially powerful, for instance, and when people said they were OP I'd respond "Yep, they are. By design." We can agree or disagree with whether they're actually "more powerful" than other guilds elsewhere, but the point is that it was the intent that they be. I had no intention to make sure that Thieves or Mercenaries or Claw were "balanced" with them so that none could have a clear edge over the other when it came to CvC. Combat balance was never something I was particularly interested in. I expected CvC in CLOK for sure, but I didn't ever worry about making sure everyone was on a completely fair and level playing field due to their abilities alone. Be smart, be tactical, group up, ambush, use traps, debilitate/debuff your foe, buff yourself, accept that the Dwaedn is the likely winner in a melee if you don't pull some tricks out of your bag.

So that's some clarification on initial design goals, with the overall idea that combat balance with other guilds was never a significant consideration in the creation of guilds or assignation of their assets. I will now pass the buck to Jirato (aren't you happy I made you dev, buddy?).

Oh. He already responded. I fail at timely buck-passing.

[Lun]

If a Legendary Dwaedn is bugging you, pull a gun on him

[Kunren]

I've stated before and I'll state again, I have absolutely no intention of balancing guilds against each other. CLOK is not a guild versus guild environment. If you want to be all meta and just base your decisions on what makes you the "best" mechanically, yes, at present you'll benefit more mechanically from being a Dwaedn or a Templar than being a Mercenary or a Wyrvardn. But I honestly believe we have people in the Templar and Dwaedn because they wish to, you know, roleplay a Templar or a Dwaedn, and I'm certain we have people in the Wyrvardn and Mercenaries who are in there because they wish to roleplay as Wyrvardn or Mercenaries - many of which have joined since after generalization went live and their guilds were pretty much reduced to one or two abilities.

I will address guilds and their abilities objectively, but independently of other guilds. I do not make my balance changes based off "X guild versus Y guild".

Jirato. I love you bro, you've got the patience of a freakin sage and the work ethic of the average Japanese business man. But this post is killing me here. I, personally, thought balance at its core was to give everybody a relatively even playing field with leniency granted for roleplay difficulties at times. Seesaws can't balance with only one weight (guild) on them, and that's what I'm getting from your post. Please, explain a bit better here or within another topic since this is a bit off topic.


Whoops! Nevermind I get it now, thanks Rias, that... Changes things for me. I'm honestly shocked the game is amazing as it is because I am personally not a fan of that mindset.

[Rias]

P.S. This isn't to say I don't think some guilds could use some significant love. Some really could, and I love discussing new unique guild abilities/perks for some of the less-hammered-out guilds. So please open discussion topics on their respective boards!
P.P.S. This is my personal opinion, I can't actually code anything and I'm not a guru of any guild, so keep that in mind.

[Jirato]

P.S. This isn't to say I don't think some guilds could use some significant love. Some really could, and I love discussing new unique guild abilities/perks for some of the less-hammered-out guilds. So please open discussion topics on their respective boards!
P.P.S. This is my personal opinion, I can't actually code anything and I'm not a guru of any guild, so keep that in mind.

Last I'll comment on this particular subject since it's a bit off topic, but I want to add. Yes, we're aware. We know a lot of guilds need love and we're always thinking about things to do. It's mostly just a matter of A) ensuring they make sense and fit the guild and B) having time and energy to do them with all the other things we have on the table.

I dream for a world where each guild is guru'd by a unique GM. That would be the day!