No one but the devs friends and family are currently playing as we are in Pre-Alpha still.
No one but the devs friends and family are currently playing as we are in Pre-Alpha still.
There is skill atrophy if you don't work on a skill. If will be near impossible to master more than one or two skills. You could be more like a jack of all trades and master of none though. -Click here for the Developer Journal on skills-
Divide et Impera
I have not heard anything about the rate at which skills will atrophy in one spark lifetime, and I have not heard at all about temporary death (from Coup-de-Grace or CDG) causing loss of skills.
I have read in the official design journals that skill ramps that are inherited by subsequent sparks (characters) of the same soul will decline if a character does not use that skill enough. That's probably the "atrophy" about which people have spoken. So I think you can count on losing some degree of skill ramp if a soul's next character does not use that skill.
On the other hand, there will probably not be much loss of learned skill, if any, in a single spark lifetime. I'm guessing about that because it would be a sure-fire way to lose customers if real life interruptions resulted in loss of player effort put into a character.
There will be a change in character attributes over a spark lifetime, but attributes are endowed "genetically" rather than learned. I say this mainly to make sure you are not confused by what people say about attributes.
It will take more than a week, but if you neglect a skill for too long it will start to atrophy. It will be easier to get it back, as it allows you to "remember". You should work on skills you consider important at least every so often. I think you'll find it's more of a case of significant skill loss only for skills you seriously rarely, if ever use again. The minor loss if you neglect one for just awhile will be easy to recover.
As for playing now, the Devs are keeping the testing among themselves still, as it's not quite to the point they want to spend the extra money to add the Alpha 1 group. Alpha 1 is hopefully coming soon(tm), but those packages are also no longer for sale. It should definitely be worth the wait, as they have an awesome game being developed.
Keep your eye on the forums, and join in the pre-game activities on Discord. Community is important here, so find a group you like on the server you plan to join, and start "playing" with your community now.
Good luck, and Welcome!
Can someone tell me where to find the discord server address? I would very much like to join them there.
Posted By Poldano at 12:43 AM - Tue Dec 10 2019
On the other hand, there will probably not be much loss of learned skill, if any, in a single spark lifetime. I'm guessing about that because it would be a sure-fire way to lose customers if real life interruptions resulted in loss of player effort put into a character.
If I recall correctly a character ages along with the game world regardless whether they login or not as it always exists in the game world.
So yes, long term interruptions could very well result in a player returning to an aged or even dead character and a loss of progression.
As you said, seems like an ill thought out design which would negatively impact player retention so I'm expecting them to rethink it a bit.
If not then I guess the expectation is for players to either not have real life interruptions or just suck it up when they do.
😁
You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to get angry. JAMES 1:19 NLT
I think you will also be able to deter skill decay by having your OPC (Offline Player Character) do work. Nobody knows what the rates are and we'll probably see a lot of tweaking in the alpha/beta phases. Stay tuned.
But I think the decay mechanic is ultimately necessary so we can have a world where professions actually matter, and it's not something people just do while they're not out adventuring or PvPing or managing their domain and so on. Everybody won't be able to do everything. It won't be a single player game within a multiplayer environment like so many other MMOs. If they get it right, then being a legendary crafter will have as much significance in the world as being the greatest warrior or the richest merchant or the most powerful noble.
