One of my original beefs of the sims and one I liked of freeso pre-patch is the skill degradation. Given I think it should degrade but down to a level say 10 in each area minus body, and also degrade at a lower rate... IRL, you dont just forget how to cook or that your a mechanical engineer... locking should also be gotten rid of...
skill degradation adjustment
- Thread starter Siman
- Start date
I already gave a suggestion, but moving this as a carbon copy of the sims with all its original problems is a bit counter productive. Well, if you want to grow the community outside of nostalgia seekers. I also think skills need to be harder and funner to earn, not just a grind background application while playing other games...
You seem bothered by the fact that the skill degradation isn't designed to emulate real life. Why in the world would the mechanics of a goofy mmo emulate real life in any way? This is far from a real life simulation. Mechanics in the game serve purposes to influence peoples behavior in the game environment in order to obtain sustainability and growth. The decay system does that by forcing people to specialize, which fosters a diverse community in terms of lots and activities. A system without that fosters staleness - as we saw evident for a bit with jam and nothing but cooking related activities. If you want a community filled with things to do in a world entirely created by its users - you need mechanical guidelines that work and achieve effects so the game world doesn't turn into a wasteland.
Kay T
New Member
No need for a better design. Keep the skill decay. Just slow it down to a reasonable pace. Let's say an average player spends 4 hours in-game on a weekday, and 6 hours per day in-game on a weekend - so 32 hours a week. Now, does losing a skill point in every unlocked skill every 2 weeks sound reasonable enough? This means that we need to lose 100 of 0.01ths over 64 hours, or 3840 minutes, of playing. 3840/100 = 38.4 minutes. So, we'd lose 0.01 of every unlocked skill every half an hour. That is enough to both bring us back to the skill lot from time to time and let us keep the liberty of engaging in other activities!
Now, if we want our skills to decay faster the higher they are, we can calculate the decay that has to occur by multiplying 0.01 by a rounded sp/5 (sp for skill points). Then, every 30 minutes we lose
0.04 in every unlocked skill that has 18, 19, or 20 points;
0.03 in every unlocked skill that has 13 to 17 points;
0.02 in every unlocked skill that has 8 to 12 points;
0.01 in every unlocked skill that has 3 to 7 points;
none in every unlocked skill that has 0 to 2 points.
(Obviously, the numbers I used for hours are merely off the top of my head, I do not have the actual statistics. If you do, plug in your numbers!)
At the moment, we, the players with much more than 50+ skill points, are losing our skill points faster than gaining. I am not sure how other sims who have got 50+ points feel about it, but I do not appreciate that the game artificially forces me to keep the pace it chose, when it comes to my skilling. It reminds me of that first grade teacher from To Kill A Mockingbird who scolded the student after she discovered that the student was writing, and her argument was: "We don't write in the first grade, we print. You won't learn to write until you're in the third grade".
Yes, it is better that we have a new skill lock every 7 days instead of 21, but it is still a limit. After I get that new skill point in a first day, during the following 6 days, I am forced to either grind endlessly just to keep the skills I have at the same level - or I am forced out of the skill lots, because there is no point in getting the next skill point until these 6 days pass and I get a new skill lock.
... Also, the current skill decay pace gives the unfair advantage to older players over newer players. Just because the newer ones were unlucky to learn about/get interested in TSO later than older players, they are punished with close to never being able to catch up with those who play it for longer. Well, maybe in 2 years, when they too get that 120th lock, but I bet most of them will lose interest in the game earlier that that.
Now, if we want our skills to decay faster the higher they are, we can calculate the decay that has to occur by multiplying 0.01 by a rounded sp/5 (sp for skill points). Then, every 30 minutes we lose
0.04 in every unlocked skill that has 18, 19, or 20 points;
0.03 in every unlocked skill that has 13 to 17 points;
0.02 in every unlocked skill that has 8 to 12 points;
0.01 in every unlocked skill that has 3 to 7 points;
none in every unlocked skill that has 0 to 2 points.
(Obviously, the numbers I used for hours are merely off the top of my head, I do not have the actual statistics. If you do, plug in your numbers!)
At the moment, we, the players with much more than 50+ skill points, are losing our skill points faster than gaining. I am not sure how other sims who have got 50+ points feel about it, but I do not appreciate that the game artificially forces me to keep the pace it chose, when it comes to my skilling. It reminds me of that first grade teacher from To Kill A Mockingbird who scolded the student after she discovered that the student was writing, and her argument was: "We don't write in the first grade, we print. You won't learn to write until you're in the third grade".
Yes, it is better that we have a new skill lock every 7 days instead of 21, but it is still a limit. After I get that new skill point in a first day, during the following 6 days, I am forced to either grind endlessly just to keep the skills I have at the same level - or I am forced out of the skill lots, because there is no point in getting the next skill point until these 6 days pass and I get a new skill lock.
... Also, the current skill decay pace gives the unfair advantage to older players over newer players. Just because the newer ones were unlucky to learn about/get interested in TSO later than older players, they are punished with close to never being able to catch up with those who play it for longer. Well, maybe in 2 years, when they too get that 120th lock, but I bet most of them will lose interest in the game earlier that that.
Last edited:
The decay rate is not too fast. The only people I see complaining about decay rate clearly don't understand why their points are decaying so quickly. Two factors lead to an understanding of this as well as how to deal with it properly. 1) The higher your total skill points, the more accelerated will be the effect of decay on your skills in general. 2) The lower the level a skill is, the LESS XP PER SKILL POINT IS THERE TO BE BURNED THROUGH BY DECAY. So if you're doing something STUPID - like getting a bunch of skills to somewhere below 10 and one+ above 10, or even just a bunch of skills AROUND 10, your decay rate will be boosted by the total and rip through your skills because none of them are high enough to be able to absorb this rate, and they aren't locked because you don't know how to manage your locks properly.
USE YOUR LOCKS TO PROTECT YOUR LOW LEVEL SKILLS AS THEY DECAY AWAY MORE RAPIDLY
USE THE .99 BUFFER TO PROTECT YOUR HIGH LEVEL SKILLS - AS IT WILL TAKE DAYS AND DAYS TO DECAY THRU AND YOUR LOCKS ARE UNNECESSARY ON IT
This will put you in a place to only have to skill like an hour a week to protect a lvl 20 from decay, and your little 8s for interactions can be locked. The fact that I see people quitting over this is ridiculous.
USE YOUR LOCKS TO PROTECT YOUR LOW LEVEL SKILLS AS THEY DECAY AWAY MORE RAPIDLY
USE THE .99 BUFFER TO PROTECT YOUR HIGH LEVEL SKILLS - AS IT WILL TAKE DAYS AND DAYS TO DECAY THRU AND YOUR LOCKS ARE UNNECESSARY ON IT
This will put you in a place to only have to skill like an hour a week to protect a lvl 20 from decay, and your little 8s for interactions can be locked. The fact that I see people quitting over this is ridiculous.
Kay T
New Member
I beg to differ. WAY too much in the game is skill-based. Daytime jobs? Need skill. Money making objects? Need skill. Fun interactions? Need skill. Of course, one can perform all the said actions without skilling, however in that case one can forget about promotions and making any reasonable money per unit of time, as well as having a limited set of interactions and being the last one to be invited for pizza or code. So, one HAS TO have skills to possess some value as a player in the TSO community. The better their skills are, the higher their value as a player. It is reasonable for every human being to desire to improve their value for the society, is it not?The game isn't all about maxing skills and keeping them, cmon now!
Hoo boy, can I relate to that. The other day, when the day was slow and not many people were online, I have greened up after work and decided to skill me some Body or Charisma, two skills I'm keeping up. There was no Body or Charisma skill lot online, so I simply logged off until the next shift.
Mixa97sr
Active Member
REPEATED 5 MILION TIMES ALREADY! YOU SPECIALIZE IN ONE OR TWO SKILLS! We get the locking points with the age of our character. You start of as a specialized citizen. With this you can combo one job, one group money object, one solo money object and one special service interaction all with one skill and you need exactly 20 lock points for it. And the longer you play you have more chance for further developing other skills. If that's not generous than I don't know what is.
Also, the game is not designed to have all the sims have all the skills. I may be retro (even though I am barely 20) but gamers these days got used to meningless games, routine gameplay, easy routes that have no challenge or no fun in them and just pander to players ego by making them feel important in some way. I'm not that kind of person, and I don't like seeing/playing those kind of games. If everyone of us in the game is going to be completely maxed out on skills and completely same in all regards, there is no diversity, no fun. I bet developers of this game also don't want that.
Also, the game is not designed to have all the sims have all the skills. I may be retro (even though I am barely 20) but gamers these days got used to meningless games, routine gameplay, easy routes that have no challenge or no fun in them and just pander to players ego by making them feel important in some way. I'm not that kind of person, and I don't like seeing/playing those kind of games. If everyone of us in the game is going to be completely maxed out on skills and completely same in all regards, there is no diversity, no fun. I bet developers of this game also don't want that.
Alonzo
Active Member
Kay T, skills matter, but why does a sim need all of them to be maxed? Max Charisma, you get the diner job covered, telephones, and pizza. That's 3 money, and 1 job opportunity covered with 1 skill maxed; and it's locked so you would never have to skill again. I am still missing your point? It is reasonable to improve, to a CERTAIN POINT.