I think the Skill Points need to be adressed/reworked. The way they are made right now, they fall into the just another daily mission trap, and this shouldn’t be the case. I do believe that the Unlimited Skill title should be one of, if not the hardest to unlock but it should be justified by more than just playing 500 days in a row, because if you really think about it, it wouldn’t make it all that different from Master Collector title, except its permanence. Here are a few ways I believe this could be addressed:
- Really difficult seasonal/time limited that give ~200 Skill Points. - Includes many of the current challenges maximised for difficulty. Could be 2 weeks or 1 week per mission and occur after one another or once per month.
Cons: Needs constant editing of the new missions, if multiple missions are created and put in the system it risks repetition.
Pros: Justified linear progression system that doesn’t force you to log in every single day for 500 days. - Permanent missions - could be related to already existing missions. Say reaching 5 million parts gives you 500 Skill Points, however if it is to give 500 then its gonna be a really small amount compared to dailies. Other missions may include: Reach 1Q money, Reach 20K Tuning score.
Cons: Basically makes the requirement to get a ton of other titles, the vast majority of which are focused on playtime rather than actual skill (except derby and racing), gives even more exclusive titles for people with too much freetime.
Pros: Less grinding for older/endgame players, which was a major turn off back when platina goals as well as derby knockout missions released (could be a con, depends on Panwellz’s vision). - Challenges that can be completed multiple times - By this I mean a system where, for example, you earn 50 points for 1k tuning score. However, this sets up the trap of Skill Points being just another Platina. It would also give a huge boost to endgame players, which may or may not be desired (It would give another title locked to endgame players like Annihilator or Platina Overlord, that can be both achieved by a ton of playing but not that much real skill).
Cons: Risks falling into the trap of being just another Platinam, gives even more exclusive titles for said players.
Pros: Less grinding for older/endgame players. - Time limited global challenges - something similar to weekly leaderboards in Bee Swarm Simulator, where you can earn skill points by placing high places in such events, that could involve for example racing. I believe this approach justifies >Skill< Points the most out of everything. Some titles like Master Collector, Master Crusher or event titles are already locked to long time hard grinding players and I do not see why this should be any different, except with a much bigger focus on skill rather than playtime (imagine new player grinding to Master Crusher, it takes unimaginable amounts of time, meanwhile a skilled player should be able to get it decently quickly).
Cons: It will require moderation (races and derby are notoriously full of cheaters).
Pros: Justifies the >Skill< Points being named as such, instead of being Playtime Points. - Locked/Limited to multiplayer events - I believe that to most accurately judge Skill in this way would be to compare the players to other players. This idea is similar to the previous idea, with the exception of this using features already in game, such as competitons, derby, racing/racing leaderboards.
Cons: Can be abused/inaccure if alterative accounts or bots are used, or otherwise being paired up against less skilled players (intentionally or not) than other players grinding Skill Points.
Pros: Measures Skill of a given player against different players.
Mix and matching of the ideas is also possible.
I do believe that parts and money do correlate somewhat to the skill of the player, however that is not always true. At the same time, we are all better or worse at things, for example I am great at finding bugs but decent at everything else, however I think its those areas for multiplayer competiton, where skill can be judged the most accurately. I would not even be against the idea of a Skill Points leaderboard, or Skill Points being awarded by outside events (ex. racing event, that happened like a year ago, reporting rare bugs), however I believe this may be a bit out of the scope of the feature.
I will update this post as I see fit. Vote on which approach is the best, or give your own ideas. I do not believe that Pan will fully incorporate any of my ideas but the ideas given were to express my own perspective and as a possible way for the community, which from my understanding isn’t a fan of Skill Points, to express their ideas on the new feature.
