Merging melee professions / skills

[Alice]

the sad but true fact is many can not use these high level blades...

https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/...-Niflhiem...&p=2821074&viewfull=1#post2821074

I CANT EVEN PAY SOMEONE TO USE MY BLADE....

that is right i am trying to tier this blade...

but it seems not enough players can use these damn things as it is...

people usually charge money to lend ...
i am paying and still can not find any takers cause NOT enough players have the skills...
you merge the skills i bet you almost double or triple the amount of players that can use these blades


for example (these are not real numbers)
This blade takes 1000 peds to use...
player 1 has 600 peds in LB and 500 peds in SB... can not use as is... but after merger
they will have enough to use the blade...

i think one of the main problems for noone "wanting" to use the blade, is the collat and the tt
i may be wrong, but i think the min tt at 50% of the niflheim is around 10k ped already (12k?)
so thats 1200$ you need just to hold it

you ask ~+30k ped collat (dont get me wrong, im pretty ok with that figure as such)
putting you to ~40 000 or 4000$ just to hold one weapon

you didnt hunt yet

i WOULD use the sword to tier it up, but even if i manage to rise enough peds for the tt and the collat
i wouldnt be able to hunt afterwards
and yes, i know that i belong to the poor EU players who cant do that ^^

but with say ~30 L niflheims at auction per day at 103% buyout, i wouldnt have anything
you would be amazed how fast lower priced niflheims disappear at auction actually and i doubt that is just for resale

there are quite some people who have the skills to use, but not the option to do so
(lack of money for unL, lack of availability of L for those)

add a better availability and better eco of the L stuff and you prolly have even more ppl who can use the blade fairly soon

to level with embra to that kind of skill takes around 2-3 years i think and many many many merps (just my example for now)

I would like to see only people who actually use Melee the majority of the time answering in this thread for the most part.

guess i outed me with my ability to use niflheims above now, huh


besides, just for the sake of it
it isnt THAT nice to try to kill everything with my unL embra, but i am pretty much out of choices ^^

 

[SpikeBlack]

I would like to see only people who actually use Melee the majority of the time answering in this thread for the most part.

Just in my opinion being a Melee user.

find me in game and you'll see me using a enblade-a or an axe 2x0 and they're all I've used for quite a while as I only hunt low end mobs.

It's also why my strength is currently 51 and still climbing.

 

[Amber Knightley]

yep, vass is screwed same. It is used like knife :/



...someone is really needed to clear that mess in MA

+1 . . .. .
using one hand blows.

 

[Snuggins]

I remember someone in a previous thread suggested that L melee should use a system similar to what vehicles do instead of ammo. They would be able to be repaired multiple times but would gradualy lose integrety and become unusable.

That's kind of vague. How would something like that actually work?

As it is now we trade tt value for dmg within a fairly narrow range of ratios. If these weapons deal dmg based on their structural integrity loss but only decay according to their repair... would these weapons get like 5-6 dmg/pec after all is said and done?

 

[Wed]

Very well it seems as if most people think that merging the clubs would be a good idea and that the longblades / shortblades should be left alone. Ill suggest this at the next design meeting.

Thanks everyone!

I agree with this too, merge the clubs but leave long/short blade seperate

 

[slupor]

I would like to see only people who actually use Melee the majority of the time answering in this thread for the most part.

Just in my opinion being a Melee user.

Does my 99 Strength level qualify to contribute, or is it in your opinion being degraded too much by my 97 Agility which shows I held a few ranged weapons too in the past 6 years (to the date to be exact, to Slupor)

I judge people on their postings, not on what toys they own/use or not....

BTW Alice for being a silent Nilf user!


/Slupor

 

[Alice]

Does my 99 Strength level qualify to contribute, or is it in your opinion being degraded too much by my 97 Agility which shows I held a few ranged weapons too in the past 6 years (to the date to be exact, to Slupor)

I judge people on their postings, not on what toys they own/use or not....

BTW Alice for being a silent Nilf user!


/Slupor

i may have bought one or another

101 str here (with missions, without more like 95 ), but your agi is higher

 

[Lugzan]

Kim & Co,


I would not mind it if you do it differently than the famous skill nerf by saving skill points - if you decide to do it, merge the skills by tt.


J.

 

[Magyar_Republic]

Very bad proposal IMO.
Why would you want to do something like that?

These are different skills for a reason. Imagine IRL being a good boxer, this would not mean that you can play baseball very well, and opposite. Same here, this weapons have different styles of using them, therefore separate skills.

This.

My character is a swordsman. He is deliberately a swordsman, as that is what I intended for him to be. Had I wanted him to use knives, or whips, or rifles, I would have skilled those skills up. I wanted him to be a swordsman.

Do not merge long blades and short blades. Do not merge massive groups of skills into one group. There is no real point to this. It does not make melee any easier or more attractive to prospective melee players.

Want to make melee more attractive? Add specialty moves. Add the ability to unlock an arc swing that can damage more than 1 mob in an attack. Add abilities to kick, block, duck and roll, and make them unlockable based off certain skill types. Add dual wielding. Add amps to change damage type and effiiency. Create a living, breathing system that is unique to melee.

Make its high cost be attractive to players and they will pay to be involved.

Dumb it down and all you have is a bunch of people who spent money looking for a unique and signature experience only to end up with something very vanilla.

 

[jenny ferr]

I would like to see only people who actually use Melee the majority of the time answering in this thread for the most part.

I hope my power fist skills qualify me to the post I made too (which is my second highest skill after anatomy which I chipped years ago)

Do not merge anything, but if you do take a look at this: I think they should just condense all weapons into 2 items.
excellent thread for crazy ideas like this...

 

[das]

seems like a bad idea... and would devalue UL items

So would dropping a shitload of L's.. just like we've seen on ul sib guns & rifles & the L versions.
Can't always be in you're best intrest.. sometimes stuff has to be decided in best intrest of the game, & not towards 10 players.

 

[Atraie]

I agree that clubs should be merged, and keep blades separate.

While you are at it tho kim, please suggest that melee weapons get turned into something more like vehicles SI. The true problem with melee weapons is on the limited ones you have to pay markup on 100% of your tt turnover. While guns you only pay markup on about 10% or so of your turnover. This means that a 150% markup gun is equivalent to a ~105% markup melee weapon. A small Markup can make melee unpractical very quickly.

Need a way to basically repair melee weapons 10 times before they break. Of course i don't advocate 10 repairs. Just having a repair counter would lead to screwy markup in auction, and people trying trying to scam others by selling a blade that has used up its repairs for a high price.

They should have a small TT decay every hit (10% for an example, it should vary just like guns vary in their decay vs ammo usage), and the rest decay a SI bar or 2nd TT bar that you can repair(through the repair terminal). Or decay 'ammo' instead, could just make them batteries or something and make all melee weapons electric. That's probably easier....but using a dual decay bar, or SI like system makes more sense.

This would also let you scale down the TT value of a lot of weapons so they drop more often, and make them more affordable to more players.

 

[Joker]

So would dropping a shitload of L's.. just like we've seen on ul sib guns & rifles & the L versions.
Can't always be in you're best intrest.. sometimes stuff has to be decided in best intrest of the game, & not towards 10 players.

i was saying for all weapons... this would happen not just blades...

 

[Vaako]

I really like the different professions, i think it would remove part of the depth of the game if you removed any of them.

 

[BlackHawk]

I really like the different professions, i think it would remove part of the depth of the game if you removed any of them.

The game has depth if it has players to play it at that level. As long as there are only 20 people in game with high enough level to use the big swords, it only points out the fact that a change would be good.

If adding LB and SB skills would result in higher level of skills for more playes and easier progress, I say is a good thing. People that complain for skilling in both are actually the least affected. Actually they end up in advantage because they would gain significant profession boost.

However, making this change and not creating even more items for higher skills, up to level 100-120-140, would be a mistake, because if you push the skills up for all players, they have them at that level but have no good reason to keep them is just lame.

Any change has to be part of a bigger picture. If they are to make this change just to do it, I am against it. If they actually have a plan, I am all for it.

Complexity is game is good, but when the game needs it. That is, when all the system we have are working and are used. If the system are not working, is just a ghost game. Adding things just to have them is a sign of stupidity, if not disease.

Have a look at what adding content with no purpose can make: Click here

 

[Tycoon]

swords & knives = no!

Clubs = yes!

this thread should have a poll!

 

[Joker]

The game has depth if it has players to play it at that level. As long as there are only 20 people in game with high enough level to use the big swords, it only points out the fact that a change would be good.

If adding LB and SB skills would result in higher level of skills for more playes and easier progress, I say is a good thing. People that complain for skilling in both are actually the least affected. Actually they end up in advantage because they would gain significant profession boost.

However, making this change and not creating even more items for higher skills, up to level 100-120-140, would be a mistake, because if you push the skills up for all players, they have them at that level but have no good reason to keep them is just lame.

Any change has to be part of a bigger picture. If they are to make this change just to do it, I am against it. If they actually have a plan, I am all for it.

Complexity is game is good, but when the game needs it. That is, when all the system we have are working and are used. If the system are not working, is just a ghost game. Adding things just to have them is a sign of stupidity, if not disease.

Have a look at what adding content with no purpose can make: Click here

good insightful post

 

[Kim|MindArk]

I agree that clubs should be merged, and keep blades separate.

While you are at it tho kim, please suggest that melee weapons get turned into something more like vehicles SI. The true problem with melee weapons is on the limited ones you have to pay markup on 100% of your tt turnover. While guns you only pay markup on about 10% or so of your turnover. This means that a 150% markup gun is equivalent to a ~105% markup melee weapon. A small Markup can make melee unpractical very quickly.

Need a way to basically repair melee weapons 10 times before they break. Of course i don't advocate 10 repairs. Just having a repair counter would lead to screwy markup in auction, and people trying trying to scam others by selling a blade that has used up its repairs for a high price.

They should have a small TT decay every hit (10% for an example, it should vary just like guns vary in their decay vs ammo usage), and the rest decay a SI bar or 2nd TT bar that you can repair(through the repair terminal). Or decay 'ammo' instead, could just make them batteries or something and make all melee weapons electric. That's probably easier....but using a dual decay bar, or SI like system makes more sense.

This would also let you scale down the TT value of a lot of weapons so they drop more often, and make them more affordable to more players.

Very interesting, thank you for that suggestion.

 

[Magyar_Republic]

If adding LB and SB skills would result in higher level of skills for more playes and easier progress, I say is a good thing. People that complain for skilling in both are actually the least affected. Actually they end up in advantage because they would gain significant profession boost.

Pimping out skills to keep the player base happy is not the way to improve the game. Its a band-aid. A shot of heroin in the arm of an addict. A smoke screen.

Once you start coming down off the euphoria of higher skills what's the next high you'll be chasing?Touting a skill gain as a selling point is a ludicrous appeal.

Sometimes it takes a simple person to get a simple point across. A simple person once said "You can put a skirt on a pig, but you'll still have a pig."

What we have here in this proposal is essentially a pig. The more I think about it the more I dont like it.

 

[Xen]

You wouldn't have to do this. You just need to change 1-handed Clubber to Clubber and make all clubs use that profession.

Ok, then what about the two handed clubbers that had skilled heavy melee weapons and now that skill only helps longblades?

Yes, I know there aren't many two handed clubbers, but still, what you described is not really a merge.

 

[BlackHawk]

Pimping out skills to keep the player base happy is not the way to improve the game. Its a band-aid. A shot of heroin in the arm of an addict. A smoke screen.

Once you start coming down off the euphoria of higher skills what's the next high you'll be chasing?Touting a skill gain as a selling point is a ludicrous appeal.

Sometimes it takes a simple person to get a simple point across. A simple person once said "You can put a skirt on a pig, but you'll still have a pig."

What we have here in this proposal is essentially a pig. The more I think about it the more I dont like it.

Actually, anything can be a good idea and should be considered and looked into it. Further more, a designer must have some vision and a plan for having things in one way and another.

The fact that Kim posts the plans on forum asking for suggestions is great. We all love him for that. But in the end, he must make the choice. And I think he is smart enough to see behind the forum noise. I am convinced he knows alread that the community input is needed and has a lot of value, but in the same time, a most of the input comes from people that are just too stupid to know any better and have no clue what they are talking about. So the decisions should be made based on logic arguments and common sense..


And @Kim... you liked the idea with L melee items that have SI that can be repaired. That is great. But that should be good for all L items. That would help the economy. Another way to do that, and not reinvent a new system would simply be to reduce the decay on L items by 100. Just as an idea...

Further more... whatever changes you may put in, having the loot variance you implemented will cast people away, simply because the loses are insane at times. You make the game way too expensive and too many just quit. If you would turn back the game to the loot system that used to be few years back, you would have a lot more activity, because people would trust that they would have something back after a short hunt. In order to have some return that makes sense, you need to run over 1000 ped at low level, and is depressing for most people to wait for the hof. Those who get the hof too soon, like the big ath on special noob avatars, make people consider quitting the game, simply because it looks fake. So.. shame on you for not fixing the most important problem in EU.

 

[TheOneOmega]

I don't skill clubber or blade professions at the moment, but I don't think a change like this would really be fair.

Folks set long term goals for themselves and make decisions based on those goals. Making major structural changes to the game is sometimes necessary, but should be avoided when not necessary, in my opinion.

 

[Oleg]

Ok, then what about the two handed clubbers that had skilled heavy melee weapons and now that skill only helps longblades?

Yes, I know there aren't many two handed clubbers, but still, what you described is not really a merge.

Heavy/light is 7% of the profession. And there is one club affected. So the worst case scenario is that the guy who has skilled for years using nothing but Large Thorifoid Battle Spike Club (dps 20.2) will have his hit profession on that weapon drop by up to 7%. That drop will reduce for every time he's ever used another weapon in the past.

I'm pretty sure that guy doesn't exist. If he does and is still unhappy about such a minor change, give him a Force Mace Basher as compensation, it'll give him more dps and dpp than he had before. Unless he was level 100/100, which he wasn't.

 

[Chrome]

i am just excited that MA is finally looking to improve the melee section of the game...
very encouraging

Looking to improve melee?!?!? Just by proposing to combine skills?

How about updating and improving ingame melee action (and the rest of the hunting game mechanics) so that it actually looks like combat, rather than a Mindark hand job?

I'd go along with Oleg, Manique and others.

getting rid of redundancy, such as only having one type of weapon cell is an improvement and welcome.

Sorry Mega, I disagree...

We already have one simplified weapon cell, one simplified mining tool, and now there is talk of combining (and simplifying) combat skills?

When does it end? Will MindArk combine all melee skills next? (The player mentality is there, see below). How about combining laser/blp pistol/rifle into just "gun" skill? I mean, you load them all with the same weapon cell, point them and pull a trigger, why have seperate skills for them at all?

melee is melee lets do this

Mmmm-hmmm...

As the title suggests I've been thinking about merging one/two handed clubber to a single profession and skill. The same goes for longblades and shortblades.

Is this something you would like or not?

Honestly Kim, I don't feel it really matters what the players think.

You and MindArk will ultimately make business decisions about game design and mechanics based on what will provide the company with the most profit. In the end, that is all that really matters.

 

[Joker]

Very interesting, thank you for that suggestion.

there are other games that are modeled AFTER entropia that are strictly limited and they do this... where you have a weapon or item will have a status of lets say

5/100%
which mean 5 reapirs and it is at 100%

and to repair this you must use some kinda material to repair it...

so you would essentially be copying another game... Entropia is unique... keep it that way

merge melee...
melee amps....

dont copy other games... thats just plain LAME!

p.s. this repair method can not be for just melee would have to be for all tools... armours... and weapons... which would totally devalue all the Unlimited items... esp. if these items are made in abundance

 

[Kim|MindArk]

I wouldn't spend as much time on the forums and in game interacting with the players if I didn't value your opinions. The reality is that most of you spend far more time than me playing Entropia and your perspective will always be different from mine since the real money factor isnt there for me when I play.

Ofcourse profit is important as MindArk is first and foremost a business and it must yield a profit. However my view is that this goal is best pursued by being focused on making the gameplay as good as possible which means keeping you, the players, happy. Now that I think of it these last two sentences seem kind of obvious but ill post them anyway...

 

[Ludvig|MindArk]

so you would essentially be copying another game... Entropia is unique... keep it that way

merge melee...
melee amps....

dont copy other games... thats just plain LAME!

But your suggestion would be copying another game Oblivion!

Oblivion merged the Blade skill, which was seperate Short/Long in Morrowind (the game before it in the series). I really, really disliked this change.

Also, the Poisons you can use on your weapon there is kinda like a melee amp

 

[Joker]

But your suggestion would be copying another game Oblivion!

Oblivion merged the Blade skill, which was seperate Short/Long in Morrowind (the game before it in the series). I really, really disliked this change.

Also, the Poisons you can use on your weapon there is kinda like a melee amp

i dont know of oblivian... must be a cool real cash economy?

 

[Chrome]

I wouldn't spend as much time on the forums and in game interacting with the players if I didn't value your opinions.

Ofcourse profit is important as MindArk is first and foremost a business and it must yield a profit. However my view is that this goal is best pursued by being focused on making the gameplay as good as possible which means keeping you, the players, happy.

Your goal is a good one.

That said, making gameplay good and keeping players happy might best be accomplished by re-establishing existing game mechanics that have repeatedly been promised to be returned for months and months and months... things like taming, makeup, etc. etc. I'm sure I don't need to list them all, as you state you read the forums and value the opinions of your playerbase.

Good luck with your revisions to the combat skill system.

 

[Oleg]

Ofcourse profit is important as MindArk is first and foremost a business and it must yield a profit. However my view is that this goal is best pursued by being focused on making the gameplay as good as possible which means keeping you, the players, happy. Now that I think of it these last two sentences seem kind of obvious but ill post them anyway...

They are obvious but also misleading.

You need to remember that some people have goals which are not purely about having fun.

There are people who earn all or part of their income from EU. And there are many more who would like to do so and have been working towards this goal, often for years.

The challenge, or reality, of doing so is an element of gameplay which differentiates EU from any other MMO-type game. Without that, EU has no uniqueness and will be lost among the hundreds of other available MMOs.

Take that away and EU will die.

This is more relevant to another of today's threads about changing the old-school weapons than it is to this one, but worth mentioning here since this is the one you're posting in.