Skill Point distribution [dev1021]

[Psytic]

The reason SP is so easy now is because they are just throwing it at us.
They're using behests to do that. Rather then fixing the system as they go, they decided it was best to nerf leveling until they can figure out a better solution.

Most of the reason I don't want to make it to 50 yet is because I like the climb so much, I find it the best part of the game. Regardless, it needs to be easy and interesting for players.

Right now that five minutes once an hour isn't very fun. Of course you can do Guildleves but some like to kill monsters on the field as well. Anyway, it takes a different type of strategy to kill each individual monster as a team.

Before they made the switch from action based to lump sum it was very rewarding and challenging to seek out new adversaries to fight for SP. There was alot of exploring involved, it was fun. If this current system stays, the game will never be like that, it's actually impossible for them to balance the game with the current type of SP distribution.

I know, you're not going to believe me about balance, but what do you imagine is balanced?
Balance would be this, all monsters at any given level give the same SP per hour, they only way to do that is if you pretty much relate SP to time spent in battle.
So basically if you fought threw 5 monsters in the time it would take to to fight one other you would make the same SP.
Obviously this is going to vary, but not by much.
If it takes you an extra few second to grab another monster, that's coming out of your SP gain, but that comes outta the current system just the same.

It basically comes down to this, do you want to be able to fight anything and the only way to increase SP is through increasing the difficulty of monsters or the strategy in which you kill them. Or would you rather this game end up like FFXI, only basically one monster gives you ideal SP for every level range, Also having only certain jobs wanted in the parties.

*Dunes*
Lizards in 9-11
Crabs 11-13
Gobs 13-16
Fish 16-18

*Qufim*
worms 18-20
Crabs 21-22
worms 21-23
fish 23-25

*Jungles*
25-27 mandy
27-29 gobs
llizards.

Anyway I could do this all day.

At 75 we hit Birds and they became the only thing we could level off of. Only specific jobs were wanted.
I know, jobs are very versatile so no one will be left out, but that means we also have to fight a specific way, just slaughter helpless enemies really fast.

If the system was changed back to action based, it would reopen their inital goal of allowing us to fight anything. This can only be good, there's nothing wrong with balance, it's what we wish we had but never did. Rather then being restricted in the way you fight, or what, we could do anything.
I've worked hard on this and that math has became near flawless, every time someone brings up something wrong with it, it's fairly easy to fix. I just have to manipulate the initial equation.
There's another huge added bonus to this type of SP system. They never have to adjust it. Because it is one formula, one equation and all the variables are linear, it's prepackaged to use flawlessly in any aspect of the game.

I don't just like saying this stuff because I like to hear myself talk, I really don't. This is tiring for me.
The thing is though I'm really good at math, I understand how complicated this current system is to balance, I understand their intent with the initial system (opening up anything as a target) and I used all this understanding to create a system that would be fair and fun and favour no class or no enemy.

It's really a step forward for an MMO. The balancing of SP has been completely removed.

If you have any questions I'm more then happy to answer them, but this system does everything I'm saying, I'm not making that up.

I was hoping Shadowtail would throw in his input, sounded like he new what this system could be.

So why don't they just do the ff 11 system? I don't see why its a big deal. They should scrap physical level too.

This time around you shouldn't worry about the ideal party setup because theres enough competition in the market now that Square will have to keep all classes balanced or desirable if they expect to keep subs.

Blizzard has successfully made about 3 or 4 zones people can lvl in and multiple classes that can heal, tank and dps in group effectively per level range right up to lvl 60 why cant square? I think people are letting them off the hook by suggesting an elaborate leveling system instead of asking for more content and better classes.

[Reika]

I was playing during the 'SP Gains Through actions' phase of the game. It didnt work. Sometimes while soloing a monster didnt give any SP at all. so, lets not go back to that, k?

[yukikaze_yanagi]

@eli_jin: this could work in a world where archers don't 2-shot EVERYTHING :P maybe when they nerf it

[Jinko]

The current SP system is fine, the devs just need to rebalance monster to give adaquate SP/XP values.

To hell if I would play this game if they reverted back to the SP system they had before.

[Kimahri]

What other people are trying to say, ESAR, is that this is a class not a skill. I do not want to level my class based off of the amount of abilities I used or number of times I hit an enemy. The only way you'd be able to do anything near your example would be to bring back the skill system of FFXI to let you gain more skill off your weapons and magical attributes.

[Reika]

RF online is one game i know of that has a system like this in place... I think this would only hurt people who are healing and buffing you. The exp as it is is traditional RPG-style, Each member participating against the enemy gets an equal share of the exp. It is good like that.

[Kimahri]

Absolutely right, Reika. +1!!

[RobotRivers]

I believe that the point allocation system needs to be automatic for the reason that if the player doesn't distribute the points within reason your character will be no good, this'll mostly be end game though.

Better yet I like the idea for a point allocation system that is unique to each class, so when you switch classes you already have the better stats to go with it.

[Reika]

It is good that it is manual, it just needs to be so that different stat setups can be saved for different classes, instead of one setup for all classes. And this does not require the removal of physical levels.

In turn, stat points need to carry more weight than they currently do, so that we wont have to re-assign up to 400+ stat points. They can pretty much halve the amount of stats you can distribute, and double their effect, or something to that end.

[Powercow]

With the old SP system, few enemies could actually be fought by parties because of ridiculous disparities in enemy type (they had to have a lot of HP and strong AOE.) Most enemies were ignored because of bad SP gains. This is a bad thing. I should not run through a zone saying, "Wow, look at all these dangerous-looking and awesome enemies that aren't worth killing because they suck for SP gains. Where are my crabs, man?!"

And what, pray tell, makes the current system impossible to balance? In any system, people will find out what works best and use that. An implementation of an SP chain would work in the system we have now too, so there's no need to limit us in terms of enemy choice.