Merchant Archive

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p4Samwise wrote:

What exactly is a "skill point sink", anyway? We should have some sort of vaguely objective definition of that term if we're going to use it in a discussion.

The term "money sink" is used for a game mechanic that forces a player to remove some of his/her money from the economy (for example, maint costs on cities). The term "time sink" is used for a game mechanic that forces players to spend time on activities they don't necessarily want to (for example, wait times on shuttles).

The intended purpose of the skill point is, as far as I can tell, twofold:

1) It provides combat balancebetween competitors that have different skillsets.

2) It provides enjoyable interdependence by ensuring that players need to see other players to satisfy certain game needs.

We'll note thatthere is an example of skills that do not require skill points - the upcoming Pilot professions. The reason is that requiring skill points in the Pilot profession would not satisfy either of the above two purposes, because Pilot skills do not provide a competitive edge against anyone but other Pilots (hence purpose 1 is not met), and nobody will have any significant dependence on other players who are Pilots (hence purpose 2 is not met).

Therefore, if the Pilot profession were to require skill points, it would be a "skill point sink", because the skill points required would not be serving their purpose.

Sound good so far?

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Okay, so far, nobody's objected to the above definition, so I'm going to start expanding on it.

One criteria we can apply to a given skill/skillset to determine whether it should have a skill point cost is to examine whether the game experience would beweakened by allowing all players to have the skill in question without otherwise compromising their skill templates.

I'll use a radical example: Image Designer. As things stand now, non-Image Designers go to Image Designers for appearance modification. (And EVERYONE, including Image Designers, goes to other Image Designers for stat migration). If Image Designer became a "skillpoint-less" tree like Pilot, the amount of business for Image Designers would completely dry up, since everyone would simply modify their own appearances. An entire form of play (the interactive process of image design) would thereby be removed from the game, which qualifies as weakening the overall game experience.

We'll note that Image Designer fulfills the "second purpose" in the above definition, which is to provide interdependence that provides gameplay. (I said that ID is a "radical example" because it's commonly considered "useless", but it can still be demonstrated that that skills provide self-sufficient gameplay by means of player interdependence.) So all the parts seem to be fitting together nicely.

For another example, let's use a combat class: Teras Kasi, say. The Teras Kasi skill tree provides a set of combat abilities and bonuses that give the Teras Kasi Artist a somewhat unique set of advantages in combat. (In an ideal world, these advantages would be reasonably balanced against those gained by other combat classes... yay combat revamp!) If Teras Kasi became "skillpoint-less", all combatants would naturally pick up the full Teras Kasi tree to supplement their combat abilities, and Teras Kasi would simply become a new "baseline" of combat ability, effectively nullifying its advantage.

Again, Teras Kasi fulfills the "first purpose" in that it grants combat bonuses, and giving it a skillpoint cost commensurate with those bonuses enforces balance without sacrificing variety. Removing the skillpoint cost would not enhance anyone's gameplay, since the advantages would be nullified, and it would effectively remove Teras Kasi as a combat class in its own right, since "Teras Kasi" would simply become a baseline.

And now, back to Pilot. Suppose that Pilot did require a skill point cost. Would any new interdepencies or enhanced variety in gameplay result? The answer is no - the only effect would be to exclude Pilots to some extentfrom the "ground game". Pilot skills do not provide any sort of bonuses in the ground combat system, any more than ground combat abilities provide bonuses in piloting, so allowing a given character to have Pilot skill "for free" does not unbalance combat. Similarly, Pilot, as a combat profession, does not have any professions that heavilydepend upon it, so allowing everyone to be a Pilot does not eliminate any potential gameplay that Pilots would normally have in the form of assisting non-Pilot players.

By applying that logic, we can see that it makes sense for Pilot not to require skillpoints, and we can therefore conclude that if Pilot DID require skillpoints, it would be a "skillpoint sink" because said required skillpoints would not be enhancing the game for anyone.

Does this all still sound good?

Message Edited by p4Samwise on 07-20-2004 02:51 PM

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Andymantium wrote:

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Tarnak_Archvold wrote:

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Andymantium wrote:

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Nioked wrote:

I think there they're both pretty useless.

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Before you learn to criticize, learn to spell.

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Hay loosen up. Not all have English as thair native languish, or even as thair first foreign languish. Moreover, not all spellcheckers catch grammatical errors, they just checks if "there" is a real word or not.

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I don't normally correct these things, but if he's going to criticize, he could at leastcheckhis grammarto provide somecredibility to his argument...not that there was any argumentation to justify his position, but anyways..

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eh, English isn't my native language either... but I've never confused "they're", "their", and "there". not even before I moved to the US.

some people can't be bothered with simple grammatical errors, no matter where they're from. it's rather disappointing.

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Songe wrote:

You can't know that it wouldn't enhance the game yet, I would think that those skillpoints will give you better attacks and improve the way you pilot a ship overall.

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I'm talking purely about adding a skill point cost to existing skills. Not about enhancing skills. It's not valid to make the assumption that adding a skill point cost will automatically enhance the skills. (Read up on JtL, if you haven't already, for info about how the Pilot skills will work.)

As for "use" you get out of skills, that doesn't enter into the above definitions.

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Andymantium wrote:

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Nioked wrote:

I think there they're both pretty useless.

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Before you learn to criticize, learn to spell.

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Hay loosen up. Not all have English as thair native languish, or even as thair first foreign languish. Moreover, not all spellcheckers catch grammatical errors, they just checks if "there" is a real word or not.

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Tarnak_Archvold wrote:

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Andymantium wrote:

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Nioked wrote:

I think there they're both pretty useless.

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Before you learn to criticize, learn to spell.

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Hay loosen up. Not all have English as thair native languish, or even as thair first foreign languish. Moreover, not all spellcheckers catch grammatical errors, they just checks if "there" is a real word or not.

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I don't normally correct these things, but if he's going to criticize, he could at leastcheckhis grammarto provide somecredibility to his argument...not that there was any argumentation to justify his position, but anyways..

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p4Samwise wrote:

In another thread, it was said that Politician is a skillpoint sink, but Merchant is not. A bold statement.

Discuss.

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Pappi wrote:

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Andymantium wrote:

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Tarnak_Archvold wrote:

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Andymantium wrote:

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Nioked wrote:

I think there they're both pretty useless.

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Before you learn to criticize, learn to spell.

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Hay loosen up. Not all have English as thair native languish, or even as thair first foreign languish. Moreover, not all spellcheckers catch grammatical errors, they just checks if "there" is a real word or not.

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I don't normally correct these things, but if he's going to criticize, he could at leastcheckhis grammarto provide somecredibility to his argument...not that there was any argumentation to justify his position, but anyways..

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eh, English isn't my native language either... but I've never confused "they're", "their", and "there". not even before I moved to the US.

some people can't be bothered with simple grammatical errors, no matter where they're from. it's rather disappointing.

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Yeah same here. I think that in general people for whom English wasn't their native language do less spelling mistakes and don't do the most common grammar errors.

Gramatical and spelling mistakes on forums are generally just people in a hurry or mistyping. I don't really get worked up over it unless they are just not bothering at all. I make plenty of spelling mistakes in posts. Usually things like "you rwrite" If I see them I go back and fix them.

Oh I have found one place where politician is better then merchant...
The NPC hired by a politician are obviously from a better recruitment bureau, not only are then not short and fat and old, they have a much better dress code as well.

you know what says merchant is a skill point sink to me... is the fact that you have zero reason to actually master the profession. Most profession's skill trees improve your character from the novice level. They give you things you can actually use, daily. And when you hit master in that profession, it boosts everything.

Merchant... you are 'good' at business 3 in artisan. The only reason to go on to merchant is to get more vendors if you need them, and to register them on the map. so really.. management and advertising are the only skills worth investing in. And out of advertising, only advertising 3 is worth it. Barking is annoying and I know a lot of people that wish there was an ignore option. As for the other two trees... I would bet most customers could care less about what a vendor looks like. I know as a customer myself I don't sit there and only look at items on attractive vendors. and the maintenance reductions are pretty pointless because the fees are so minimal to begin with.

Soooo, assuming they fix merchant and get rid of vendor poaching, but leave it the way it is now, there is zero reason to master merchant or invest into half the skill trees. That, to me, is a skill point sink.

Now.. you might say other professions are the same way.. but if you say get 4004 in tka... which is good for defense and healing... it doesn't make you a TK, and you have a long ways to go before you are as good as a master TK. Merchant on the other hand... is just as good at novice, in actual usefulness, not fluff (because to me... minimal discounts and dressing your vendor are fluff), as master is.

bump.

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DragonScout wrote:
you know what says merchant is a skill point sink to me... is the fact that you have zero reason to actually master the profession. Most profession's skill trees improve your character from the novice level. They give you things you can actually use, daily. And when you hit master in that profession, it boosts everything.

Merchant... you are 'good' at business 3 in artisan. The only reason to go on to merchant is to get more vendors if you need them, and to register them on the map. so really.. management and advertising are the only skills worth investing in. And out of advertising, only advertising 3 is worth it. Barking is annoying and I know a lot of people that wish there was an ignore option. As for the other two trees... I would bet most customers could care less about what a vendor looks like. I know as a customer myself I don't sit there and only look at items on attractive vendors. and the maintenance reductions are pretty pointless because the fees are so minimal to begin with.

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Same is true for politician though. Skill trainers can cycle although after awhile your citizens are going to master their builds and more or less stay stagnant meaning that skill's use is gone. Same with militia, after you grow to your peak/don't want anymore citizens you don't need to "manage" the militia. Everyone's on the militia.

Basically I'd say they are even as "sinks" since you can easily master then drop both of them and keep all the pro's for good or ill. Although I do keep it mastered for the tags (warmaster is just nifty when I go to battle, statesman just looks good since my char dresses formally most of the time, and urban planner works great since I"m actually an architect major and urban planning is what I"m considering majoring in) I'd really only want to keep the 4th line since I might just rearrange the parks and statues etc. and a few other skills or at least have the xp to get 'em at a moment's notice.