Character Progression Modernization
Are characters too static for a dynamic world?

I think this development pace is good! I think there are a lot of underserved concepts that are iconic cyberpunk elements, and I'm happy to see them start to filter in. I also think players on the whole would be screaming bloody murder if the balance swings on some of these systems over the last year had happened to PvP combat.

I do think as well that the greater fluidity of changing tools and game systems does not really lend itself to a very rigid and permanent character development, especially when characters can take several years to progress. World of Warcraft can make live balance changes with some freedom because player characters can rebuild their skills in a moment, and rebuild their entire characters in days or weeks.

Players make largely permanent character choices based on imperfect information, and some hope that the systems they're learning and tools they're using more or less work the same way tomorrow as they did yesterday. I want to see updated and new systems, but it can be pretty dispiriting to invest time and resources in something just for it to become worse and worse through code updates.

I think there are several problems with the current progression system, and if the development and updating and balancing pace continues the way it has, I think it's worth revisiting it. For example: Making respecialization work as advertised rather than a limited skill haircut, allow max UI skill retraining via forget, issue yearly skill adaptions at the level of current respec guidelines, let character unlearn skills through IC AER retraining.

There really isn't enough meaningful character turnover and I worry this would just result with a bunch of UE bloat at the top by individuals who wouldn't apply that power responsibly or know how too. The level of stagnation this can cause in the game can be brutal.

Secondly, there are a number of skills I'd like to try out to see if they're interesting enough to go further with, but I can't get them to a level where I can do anything to give me a good idea of how they will play without going beyond the "forget" limit and being permanently stuck with them.

So, i'd prefer to see a higher limit on when skills can be "forgotten," and at least a partial refund of UE invested in forgotten skills to take out some of the sting of lost time when game mechanics and functions are changed.

As for turnover, I can see the benefits but it's important to keep in mind that there are probably a lot of players who wouldn't want to reroll, myself included. I'd rather my character change and adapt over the literal years of investment than start a whole new one, assuming I'd even have the energy to if the worst were to happen. 0x1mm makes a great point about this system contributing to apathy towards other characters as well which, I think, goes directly against the insistence that we should be worrying more about roleplay than mechanics.

I'd love to see a little faster progression or more points at creation. I think it does take a very long time to get good at something which certainly will predispose people to be risk averse. If you stand to lose years of progress, then yeah... there will be fear and mitigation of what you want to do. Plus, making people better quicker allows them to engage in more parts of the game. Yes, you can make an impact, but new characters rarely make a huge splash other than something more established people might fight over.

The second thing is that more vacation options, to the point of letting people take frequent breaks from their "main". Maybe not a concrete six months. Maybe let people explore short term characters to cause some chaos. Here's your short timer. They get a little skill bump, or a percent of their prior UE, but you have a cap on how long you can play them, 1-3 months or something like that. It might encourage people to sample more risky play styles and see if they like them. Or let them continue after their hard cap and if they choose so, their "main" dies.

Just my thoughts.

Just offering an oddball opinion here, but I think that certain skills become useful mechanically and in RP as a function of where the player is in the bell curve of other players, rather than as a function of the absolute UE investment. Like... having 5 months' worth of combat UE does not have any intrinsic value on its own, and is relative to the skill level of other active players and NPCs. So, a "viable" PC in this case becomes so due to having invested time in a skill longer than most people, who get bored and go do other things or are permed. If UE gain was faster, this would do nothing to change the amount of time you need to invest in those skills, since you'd still be competing with others who have the same boost you now have, it'd simply just make the NPCs weaker.

I also suspect this would work the same in other non-combat skills, but if it doesn't, this would basically be an unnecessary buff to non-combat people while also not solving the issue with the lack of character flexibility.

That said I disagree with the philosophy that players should be encouraged to reroll because their characters become ill-suited over time, so I may be at odds with staff here, as I think players should reroll when they don't want to play that character anymore and I would prefer to see more of the population sit around ~2+ years.

I don't know, the impression I've always been given is the game very much wants frequent character attrition, play to lose and reroll, learn systems on one character and reroll to use them. I think over time this has done noticeable damage to the character ecosystem and is a huge discouragement from investing in new characters because they're heavily incentivized to deal with mistakes by starting again before sunk costs kick in.

There was only a single meaningfully active character with a living memory of a major plot six years ago. The character churn is so great there is hardly any cultural memory of anything, rendering so much story telling irrelevant since no one is likely to remember it a year later. Six months is ancient history, let alone six years.

Even besides progression tweaks I'm raising here, I think just in general we need to encourage longer term play at this point, rather than discouraging it. If there was ever an issue with too many players sitting on Max UE characters forever it has to be long past.

I'm frankly tired of hearing about Bilbo swordman was the best blade of gangster street. It's okay to let old characters die, especially when they get NPCified.

What gets me excited is seeing some up and comer carving out a real name for themselves in the game, and leaving a lasting impression on people. Living in the moment, embracing the supposed 'harsh reality' of life in Withmore.

I'm a fan of other games that do forced character death either to character age, annual or once per 2-3 year server wipes. That's not SD, but those games aren't lacking in content or lore, is more my point.

One of the take away messages I got from the UE reroll change and the recent skillsoft change is that what was super OP standard doctrine for 1,2,5,10 years doesn't mean that it's going to stay that way. And that shakeup of things along with lessening the pain of rerolls was overall a gentle nudge from staff towards more established characters that now's a better time than ever before to start planning that CP exit.

But, that's a tangent for another thread.