Permanent Character Alteration Concern(s)

[Lidocaine]

With both Lycanthropy and Druid, you are warned that it is a permanent, irrevocable decision to take the skill. It cannot possibly be made any clearer (especially with Druid, there were like, 4 prompts before it let me take it.) So unless you're one of those "Blah blah yea go kill stuff" type of questers, and don't bother to read everything, you saw the warnings. You have no one to blame but yourself for taking on a permanent choice.

That isn't at all what I'm talking about. No one is complaining about there being permanent, irrevocable decisions. No one is complaining about there not being enough warnings regarding the nature of a permanent, irrevocable decision, in and of itself.

From what I gather so far, there doesn't seem to be any skills that explicitly prevent a character from acquiring another skill. Skills may be incompatible for simultaneous use or unavailable in animal form, but there is nothing preventing someone from learning both Lycanthropy and Druid. You just can't use werewolf skills and druid skills at the same time. If that's how all skills are intended to work, I'm okay with that. If it's not, if having access to the Druid skills wholly prevents your character from acquiring Lycanthropy or Vampirism, then I think is an ill-thought-out decision, from a UX standpoint as long as the player is unable to make an informed decision. Especially if the game encourages a "do anything on one character" idea over an alt-centric, "one character, one role" idea.

[cratoh]

I paid a max level toon to powerlevel me to 50 druid at the very start of my PG gaming, just for flight. I don't mind that I can't gain exp during druid events, I either log out, or do something that doesn't give exp.

[Spiritfingers]

I was always rather gutted about Lycanthropy. There was never any trial period, and I picked it up blindly on my main because wolves. Even a couple weeks in, I regretted it, it wasn't until 6-12 months later, somewhere there abouts, that I eventually just rerolled, forsaking a tremendous amount of progress I'd made on my main.

I can't believe you waited so long. I rerolled within 2 weeks of becoming a cow.

[Spiritfingers]

That isn't at all what I'm talking about. No one is complaining about there being permanent, irrevocable decisions. No one is complaining about there not being enough warnings regarding the nature of a permanent, irrevocable decision, in and of itself.

From what I gather so far, there doesn't seem to be any skills that explicitly prevent a character from acquiring another skill. Skills may be incompatible for simultaneous use or unavailable in animal form, but there is nothing preventing someone from learning both Lycanthropy and Druid. You just can't use werewolf skills and druid skills at the same time. If that's how all skills are intended to work, I'm okay with that. If it's not, if having access to the Druid skills wholly prevents your character from acquiring Lycanthropy or Vampirism, then I think is an ill-thought-out decision, from a UX standpoint as long as the player is unable to make an informed decision. Especially if the game encourages a "do anything on one character" idea over an alt-centric, "one character, one role" idea.

I think I finally get what you are saying. You want to know if becoming a Druid means that you cannot become a Vampire later on. You get that some skills are compatible - you just want the chance to get the skills you want. I haven't tried to unlock all the skills in the game - I have quite a few though. I've never had Druid prevent me from even unlocking other skills. I'm hoping someone who has unlocked more than me can chime in though.

[Lidocaine]

I think I finally get what you are saying. You want to know if becoming a Druid means that you cannot become a Vampire later on. You get that some skills are compatible - you just want the chance to get the skills you want. I haven't tried to unlock all the skills in the game - I have quite a few though. I've never had Druid prevent me from even unlocking other skills. I'm hoping someone who has unlocked more than me can chime in though.

Yes! That's essentially what I'm concerned about. I have absolutely no qualms about a permanent decision having lasting pros and cons that affect my overall gameplay. I am concerned that, basically, if I pick Druid, does that mean I'm permanently barred of learning Vampirism down the line. As of now, these are really the only 2 skillsets that I can see butting heads--I don't really want to be a vampire or a werewolf or even a druid, necessarily. But I've no way of gaining more information about any of those three to decide if it's worth making the decision permanent. I'd like some form of glimpse into the skillset before having to affect my character permanently.

I'd argue instead that there be some involved quest or something to revert the permanent decision, but I really don't want to undermine the nature of permanent character alterations in this game. I just want to make the choice an informed one without having to research the wiki, forums, and various gameplay videos on YouTube.

[Spiritfingers]

Yes! That's essentially what I'm concerned about. I have absolutely no qualms about a permanent decision having lasting pros and cons that affect my overall gameplay. I am concerned that, basically, if I pick Druid, does that mean I'm permanently barred of learning Vampirism down the line. As of now, these are really the only 2 skillsets that I can see butting heads--I don't really want to be a vampire or a werewolf or even a druid, necessarily. But I've no way of gaining more information about any of those three to decide if it's worth making the decision permanent. I'd like some form of glimpse into the skillset before having to affect my character permanently.

I'd argue instead that there be some involved quest or something to revert the permanent decision, but I really don't want to undermine the nature of permanent character alterations in this game. I just want to make the choice an informed one without having to research the wiki, forums, and various gameplay videos on YouTube.

I get where you are coming from completely now. I just learned the the gods both the Druid and Vampire are on the complete opposite ends of the spectrum. Since I have no working knowledge of how Vampires will be implmented, this is something Citan will have to answer. So far in my experience playing this game, nothing Citan has added has destroyed what was already there. He has made things work together.

[Crissa]

Choices-have-consequences always runs into time-sunk and lack-of-psionics in players' abilities to make informed choices.

[alleryn]

I totally identify with this concern, but it's not really realistic to have all the permanent possibilites laid out when many of them haven't been implemented yet. (For example you've already made the (presumably permanent) decision of your character's race, but half the races aren't even in the game yet).

My best advice to you is not to make any permanent choices you don't have to, if you feel you may regret it down the line.

[Lidocaine]

I totally identify with this concern, but it's not really realistic to have all the permanent possibilites laid out when many of them haven't been implemented yet.

Exactly! That being said, it feels like, at least during testing, we should be able to revert a permanent decision until the point in the game's development where that decision is an informed one. Something beyond 1-3 "are you sure, you can't undo this!" confirmation windows.

For example you've already made the (presumably permanent) decision of your character's race, but half the races aren't even in the game yet.

This is true, but this is one of those things that is pretty standard. But, more importantly, there's no inclination that choosing a specific race would prevent that character from learning one or more skills in the future. Moreover, you have absolutely nothing invested in your character upon his/her initial creation.

It would be nice to give all alpha players some type of character re-customization token upon beta/launch, but that's a topic for another day. lol

[Silvonis]

We need to gather data from players who make permanent skill choices and that data would be skewed if players could revert their permanent choices during alpha/beta but not at release. We don't have any plans to change that policy and we don't plan on offering a way to revert those choices at launch.