Skill enhancement

[omnipresence]

I find it strange that you can max out a skill at low levels of the game. I'm constantly seeing enchantresses maxing out AOE skills at low levels and easily clearing out dungeons by themselves. I think the game would be more balanced if there were caps on how high you could max out a skill based on your level. Maybe:

Levels:
-------
0 - 10 = skill 1 cap
11 - 20 = skill 2 cap
21 - 30 = skill 3 cap
31 - 40 = skill 4 cap
41 = skill 5 cap

Obviously the effectiveness of the skills at those caps might have to be adjusted to ensure the skill is usable for each level range.

Further, it would be cool if you could raise one skill to 6 OR have a choice of a new skill once you reached level 45 (or 50) as a reward for continuing to level up your character. This would allow for a little more diversity between players.

[superglut2]

great idea, would really help.

[Pharcyde]

Why don't I just buy a bunch of respecs while i'm at it? Why would Spacetime punish players for being low level? Because once they get to level 50 they will need to respec to dump their useless skills and make boost their good skills.
If you just started playing then you don't know how mages were before the combat rebalance. They were the laughing stock of the game because of how weak they are. So STS gave them a big ol boost. Now they are the dominant factor in the game. Just let it be, they will eventually come out with better balances.



Further, it would be cool if you could raise one skill to 6 OR have a choice of a new skill once you reached level 45 (or 50) as a reward for continuing to level up your character. This would allow for a little more diversity between players.
Bears have that. I am not sure about birds and mages for sure though. If you have the full rift set then some of the bears skill effectiveness gets raised a little. Basicly level 6 skills.

[Necrobane]

No I like the idea, it would make more sense to have to spread out your talents more and at lower levels. But remember it would have to work the amount of spells you have available as well. No point not being able to max out any of the spells you have available but still have extra points to spend on them.

[Pharcyde]

No I like the idea, it would make more sense to have to spread out your talents more and at lower levels. But remember it would have to work the amount of spells you have available as well. No point not being able to max out any of the spells you have available but still have extra points to spend on them.

This limits certain customizable abilities though. Healing is crucial at all levels and you wouldn't be able to max it out until level 41? talk about crappy medic.

[Necrobane]

I think the better way of going about this is awarding a new skill every 3 levels, and giving a skill point every two. That way people will be getting more skills at higher levels, when they have the m/s to use them. Also the skil order would have t be rearanged so that the skills that are necessities would be available at lower levels.

[Pharcyde]

I think the better way of going about this is awarding a new skill every 3 levels, and giving a skill point every two. That way people will be getting more skills at higher levels, when they have the m/s to use them. Also the skil order would have t be rearanged so that the skills that are necessities would be available at lower levels.

They already are, healing is the first spell you get. Then you get revive before level 10. Everything else is totally optional on mage. The next important skill would have to be the buffs, but they should stay last. Thats the only thing stopping mages from soloing everything is the fact that they can't buff their survivability up. So this forces them to join parties and learn teamwork.

[omnipresence]

This limits certain customizable abilities though. Healing is crucial at all levels and you wouldn't be able to max it out until level 41? talk about crappy medic.

I said you would have to adjust the effectiveness of each skill. Maybe for heal you can get more healing power with lower skill levels and then slowly cap it off at 4 and 5. For AOE skills, maybe you keep it the way it is. I just think it's silly that a level 10 character can use the best AOE skill a level 50 can use. Only difference between them is number of skills they can use and the armor they can wear. Surely there should be more variance.

[omnipresence]

Why don't I just buy a bunch of respecs while i'm at it? Why would Spacetime punish players for being low level? Because once they get to level 50 they will need to respec to dump their useless skills and make boost their good skills.
If you just started playing then you don't know how mages were before the combat rebalance. They were the laughing stock of the game because of how weak they are. So STS gave them a big ol boost. Now they are the dominant factor in the game. Just let it be, they will eventually come out with better balances.


Bears have that. I am not sure about birds and mages for sure though. If you have the full rift set then some of the bears skill effectiveness gets raised a little. Basicly level 6 skills.

Almost everyone will respec at a higher level anyway because you receive several skills at low levels at skill level 1 that you want to allocate elsewhere. You would also need to ensure players have a choice of where to put their skills. Give skills earlier but with a cap. Players would choose what was important to to them and how they played. In the end you should spend your skill points the same way as you do now.

[Pharcyde]

Almost everyone will respec at a higher level anyway because you receive several skills at low levels at skill level 1 that you want to allocate elsewhere. You would also need to ensure players have a choice of where to put their skills. Give skills earlier but with a cap. Players would choose what was important to to them and how they played. In the end you should spend your skill points the same way as you do now.

what about the high levels with alts? They already know the builds they want but this would force them to respec anyways when they get to 50.

[Necrobane]

When I said spell rearrangement I was referring to skills like iron blood and Shattering Scream. I think If done propperly, all that would change is that you'd be learning the last of your skills at much higher levels. This would be good for two reasons. The first of which is because the higher rank your spell is, the higher mana cost, and players get more mana and m/s at higher levels. The second is because your receiving your spells at later levels, lower level'd players would not constantly be running out of mana because they have heaps of spells and no m/s. It would be a bit more balanced and make more sense.

[Lesrider]

Wait since when do low lvl mages have as much skill power as high lvl mages? Int still affects skill damage.

[Pharcyde]

increase required mana with every skill increase? That will drain bears and birds dry of mana. They already rely heavily on health and mana potions. I like the balance as is right now, its perfect to make a small profit using potions and elixirs in ao3. Anymore and it will cost gold to play the dungeons.. Then the only people running around in top gears would be the lucky people with drops..

Mages are fine too. The Mana sheild dry's us out really fast and its costly to refill with potions.

[Seratonin]

The way it is right now is a decrease of mana for most skills with increased level of skill. if this were to be reversed, then it would only make sense to increase health and mana per level-up, and keep stat bonuses as well, what that could mean is maybe +10mana/health per level with total of about 1000/1000 base health and mana. Then all creatures would have to be scaled to deal out more damage. Big revamp, well, maybe not, its probably easy to change percentages for damage based on creature level. It would definitely add more flexibility to things.

[Lesrider]

Omg please please stop -- you're suggesting a whole nother "rebalance." Many of us are still recovering from the last "rebalance," do please don't give the devs any ideas.