JohnValentine wrote:1. I wouldn't agree that 400/600 skill cap limitations can be grinded on a x1 in a "short time". Sounds more like experience from a modified LIFYO server than vanilla settings. I would go further to say, that although highly motivated or cheeky players could brutally grind up the trees relatively quickly, it's often done by methods that are absurdly wasteful/inefficient.
2. Alt swapping as you've described has very limited use in combat situations. Judgement Hours and Crafting, that's about it. Instance Battles, Instance Sieges which are where alt swapping would be the most useful and is the end-game pvp content, is not applicable. It also will not be applicable in the proposed arena system.
3. The Skill Cap is absolutely challenging. It also has a lot of historic parallels and is clearly of intelligent design. You can survive on your own, but you likely won't live well. With the rise of agriculture, populations grew and cities formed. The entire purpose of a city was to enable people to specialize into very specific fields, since they no longer had to be a jack of all trades to survive. It's represented in this game. You want those T4 Skills? You'll need support from somewhere.
4. Comparing the available character slots on a subscription based game to a "one time fee" game, is like comparing purchasing a mustang on a credit card to paying lump sum.
I played WoW for close to 8 years, mostly on the same character. Sub fee alone that's roughly $1440 spent on monthly fees, not including initial purchase, which was easily $40 to $60 for each version/expansion. That's roughly $1740 by the time MOP dropped, which doesn't include any expenses on hardware or aesthetic changes or server swaps. Furthermore, you couldn't have different faction characters on the same server for a very long time, and end-game content has always been a two to three month investment as a GROUP, to have access to all the content.
Meanwhile for $140, you can get the MMO, 3 Characters and it's sister game with no sub fee. Hell if you own the sister game, you get one character for FREE. Even without knowing how much a character will cost per ticket, as long as there isn't a sub fee, you will ALWAYS pay less than a sub game in the long run. It's so ridiculously consumer friendly, I'm really curious if they'll be able to make a long-term profit off of premium/aesthetic buys/tickets.
TLDR: If you want to be in a small group and play LIFMMO, just buy the tickets (they really are a good deal), join an alliance, or figure out how to trade for what you need. If you want a bajillion skill points on one character, then play LIFYO.
1. This experience was from the launch of NA. I know its 2x, but even so it was crazy fast how quickly I watched people get skills up and how quickly my own skills went up. I imagine with enough dedication, there will be people at skill cap within the first week.
2. I don't see it that way. I see potentially a lot of uses for alts as spies, robbers, scouts, and general intelligence gathering. The Arena system is the only thing that alts would not be useful for.
3. No its not. Its a cheap way to locking out content in the name of getting you to spend more money. I much rather it take months to get the T4 skills up through dedication. Asian games are great at this. See Mabinogi where a player can get every skill if you choose to. BUT, it will take you a long time to accomplish as it progressively takes longer and longer the higher level you are. It is also very likely that unless you specialize, you will be bored of it before you master any skill.
People lived though out history just fine on their own. I want you to explain to me why a a master forger is not also a master armor smith, or someone who is a master builder cant figure out how to repair what they made, or that a farmer doesnt know how to tailor, or that someone that raises animals doesnt know how to cook, or how you cant make bows, build a barn, farm, and tailor at the same time. Sure some had it worse than others, but nothing stops them from learning it if they dedicate themselves enough. This game treats everyone like peasants that only know 1 job, which is completely false.
The way I see it, there should not be a skill cap in this game. Instead, a better solution would be to decrease the skill point gain for doing an action the more SP you have. Or the more skills you have on a tier, the less sp gain you get for that tier of skills.
4. Im comparing Content to Content. In WoW, you paid $15 a month so you could experience the content that you wanted. There are F2P games where you can play every class and/or get every skill without spending a dime on it. Mabinogi, Tera you can buy character slots with in game currency, EvE Online which can be free if you play enough, APB, there are plenty of examples of games that you can pay absolutely nothing for and get more out of than this game. You are completely locked out of 85% of this game with this skill cap and must barter that out to someone else (whether its a guild, trading, or buying alts).
TL;DR: If I didnt want to play with other people I would play LIFYO. But I do want to play with others. I want to always be in danger of losing everything. However, I just don't want to be forced into someone else's play style by locking me out of most of the game and telling me to go get it from someone else.