Get rid of the passive skill system.

[entityofsin 316]

2 minutes ago, VIKINGNAIL said:

The essence of uncle bob is having such a huge advantage that other people can not be competitive.  The way they combat this is by having resetting worlds where you have a variety of options of how much you want uncle bob elements to play a factor.  Whether it be high import campaigns with whales and mega guilds slamming into each other with tons of resources from the getgo, or low to no import campaigns where they are trying to create a level playing field for players to start anew on.  

The resetting nature of the campaigns is a much bigger selling point than the passive skill training ever was, and you can be assured that many people want even playing fields on their fresh servers.  

That's why I mentioned Albion Online. With how export and import rules are going to work, not every guild is going to take home to their EK everything they spirit banked. Smarter players and guilds are always going to find a way to get ahead and those that aren't will have to suck it up and just figure out how to get on the same level as others.

The issue that made it so blatant in Albion was that SBI made castle defending too strong. Designed the castles to have choke points that favored defenders since the camera view always gave advantage to those that positioned above someone else. You could see more of the map on your screen. About 1 or 2 character widths to be exact. This was enough for castle defenders to cast ranged AOE attacks and in a lot of cases, pulling enemies into kill zones. Now days if you want a castle you need to have like 100+ million Silver (which is a massive amount) and a large guild and alliance to back you up other wise it's GvGing over plots, Hellgating, and ganking people in Red and Black Zones to get your competitive pvp.

Nobody competes over castles in that game cause it costs guilds and alliances too much in resources. I don't think anyone wants to see that in Crowfall either. The campaign resetting part of Crowfall is going to help keeping things from being the same each campaign. Maps will be different. New features will probably be put in (like new parcel types). Even PvE elements that spark pvp activity.

So I get what you're saying and the concern. I do think it's way to early to tell whether or not passive skill training is going to lead to any serious uncle bob scenarios. If it will, ACE probably has a good 12 or 24 month time frame to figure out a solution if it even is a problem to begin with.

[VIKINGNAIL 5,680]

5 minutes ago, entityofsin said:

That's why I mentioned Albion Online. With how export and import rules are going to work, not every guild is going to take home to their EK everything they spirit banked. Smarter players and guilds are always going to find a way to get ahead and those that aren't will have to suck it up and just figure out how to get on the same level as others.

The issue that made it so blatant in Albion was that SBI made castle defending too strong. Designed the castles to have choke points that favored defenders since the camera view always gave advantage to those that positioned above someone else. You could see more of the map on your screen. About 1 or 2 character widths to be exact. This was enough for castle defenders to cast ranged AOE attacks and in a lot of cases, pulling enemies into kill zones. Now days if you want a castle you need to have like 100+ million Silver (which is a massive amount) and a large guild and alliance to back you up other wise it's GvGing over plots, Hellgating, and ganking people in Red and Black Zones to get your competitive pvp.

Nobody competes over castles in that game cause it costs guilds and alliances too much in resources. I don't think anyone wants to see that in Crowfall either. The campaign resetting part of Crowfall is going to help keeping things from being the same each campaign. Maps will be different. New features will probably be put in (like new parcel types). Even PvE elements that spark pvp activity.

So I get what you're saying and the concern. I do think it's way to early to tell whether or not passive skill training is going to lead to any serious uncle bob scenarios. If it will, ACE probably has a good 12 or 24 month time frame to figure out a solution if it even is a problem to begin with.

Are you opposed to ACE offering campaigns with fresh passive training for other players that would enjoy that?

[entityofsin 316]

Just now, VIKINGNAIL said:

Are you opposed to ACE offering campaigns with fresh passive training for other players that would enjoy that?

As a campaign rule set, no.

Completely doing away with passive skill training completely in favor per campaign reset training, yes I am opposed to it.

Players should have the freedom to choose which campaigns they want to play in based off the rule sets associated with them. If people like fresh passive training campaigns, then they should join them. I shouldn't be forced to have to play in them just because someone else likes to. It isn't why I bought into the game and I doubt a lot of other people did as well.

It's one of those things where you can have your apple pie and enjoy it while I eat my carrot cake and enjoy it. We can have both. The real question I would like to have an actual real answer to (which nobody in the world has an actual answer to right now) is whether or not there is going to be enough players to merit all of these potential rule set ideas. We could have 10 Dreg campaigns going and 5 Shadow Reach going and 4 God's Reach, etc. all going on at the same time if the player population is large enough. We could also just have 2 in each campaign band.

[ArcJurado 22]

4 hours ago, VIKINGNAIL said:

Are you opposed to ACE offering campaigns with fresh passive training for other players that would enjoy that?

Absolutely no one is opposed to having that as a campaign ruleset.  I haven't seen a single person saying they don't want this to be possible.  What I'm opposed to is completely removing the passive skill system without an adequate replacement for long term persistent progression.  Why is that necessary?  To give player some sense of permanence and long term goals outside of the immediate campaign.

[Durin 1,541]

Quote

One of the key elements of strategy games is they have a win condition followed by a board reset.  You start the game, you play the game, someone wins.  You reset the board and start a new game. 

One of the key elements of MMOs is that they are persistent.  Actually, that’s not the right word, is it?  They’re permanent.  Players expect to play them over years, and the game world is (generally) static.

These two design goals seem diametrically opposed: the game must reset and the game must last forever. 

Can they be married together?  I think they can.

Eternal Heroes, Dying Worlds

What if characters are persistent/permanent – but the Worlds are not?

What if your character exists outside of any given Campaign, and can join new matches once a match is over?

This opens up a whole new world of design possibilities.

...

This is the foundational change that we’ve made.  Crowfall isn’t an MMO with a “battle ground” strapped to the end of the level treadmill.  Crowfall isn’t a three-way tug of war that never resets.  It’s a real blend of a strategy game and an MMO.

 

There’s more (a LOT more) to come, but it all starts with this basic idea:

 

Eternal Heroes, Dying Worlds.

 

Todd

ACE

 

Emphasis mine.

 

[VIKINGNAIL 5,680]

1 hour ago, Regulus said:

 

Emphasis mine.

 

Crowfall also used to have individual character slots, and different combat, games should evolve, those that stay with inefficient ideas end up inefficient.  

For me it's obvious like all the other things I saw before others were able to really feel or understand it.  Passive training is going to be one of the weaker "features" this game will offer, especially as it currently is, it could be so much more than it actually is right now.  

Edited January 17, 2018 by VIKINGNAIL

[ArcJurado 22]

1 hour ago, VIKINGNAIL said:

Crowfall also used to have individual character slots, and different combat, games should evolve, those that stay with inefficient ideas end up inefficient.  

For me it's obvious like all the other things I saw before others were able to really feel or understand it.  Passive training is going to be one of the weaker "features" this game will offer, especially as it currently is, it could be so much more than it actually is right now.  

Yes games should evolve but just because you don't like the idea doesn't mean it's inefficient.  The notion of eternal heroes and dying worlds seems fairly integral to their vision for the game.  Asking them to completely remove the eternal heroes part of it is a bit much honestly.  We can all voice concerns and make suggestions but at some point you have to respect the dev's vision and consider if this is the game for you or not.

[Durin 1,541]

37 minutes ago, VIKINGNAIL said:

Crowfall also used to have individual character slots, and different combat, games should evolve, those that stay with inefficient ideas end up inefficient.  

For me it's obvious like all the other things I saw before others were able to really feel or understand it.  Passive training is going to be one of the weaker "features" this game will offer, especially as it currently is, it could be so much more than it actually is right now.  

It is "obvious" to you before anyone else can "feel or understand it" that the eternal heroes concept is primitive and "inefficient"?  That's a bold claim, especially since the guy who came up with the idea is Todd Coleman. 

Not only did he come to this idea in an effort to address the shortcomings of the innovative, cult classic (I'll call it) Shadowbane (for which he was a key developer), he clearly uses it as a core design principle (based on his own statements, see above) on which to build a new game--a mix of MMORPG and strategy game, which we know as Crowfall.  Further, Mr. Coleman routinely (and recently) refers to Crowfall as an RPG (which still means something regardless how games try to bastardize it now) and I believe that he and the rest of ACE will resist the subversive efforts of our arena/twitch/MOBA hangers-on and create a worthy successor to Shadowbane (and PvP sandbox MMORPGs like it) which is sadly missed and missing from the market.  Finally, I strongly suspect that the reason this game was able to make its funding goals through Kickstarter in the first place was due to the passion, hope and generosity of old school, MMORPG PvP grognards (using that term in the best possible way--cheers!) and not Overwatch/League of Legends twitch kiddies. 

There is, without a shadow of a doubt, a place and market for "Eternal Heroes, Dying Worlds".    

[KrakkenSmacken 4,602]

11 hours ago, thomasblair said:

 Unfortunately that style of play as we have seen over and over is people race to the end, look around, ask where is the end game? proceed to complain about being bored and quit. Without fail. Every single game.

 

I have to ask, how long do you actually expect the average player to play the same, intense, dedication required to win, game?

How much of the "complain about being bored" do you think is because they reached the end game, and how much is simply people getting tired of a game and moving on after reaching a goal?  

There are many games I have never gotten to the end of, and yet became bored with simply because I had been playing it for so long.  I wonder if your not battling poorly designed game mechanics in other games, but rather fighting human nature about wanting change.  I know some of the MMO's I've played I gave up on, not because I had reached all the ends possible, or I was upset by any mechanic in particular, but because I finished a particular goal or logical quit point, and was tired of the game. You have plenty of those logical quit points built into the system with dying campaigns already.  If I am tired of the game, or my guild, or of the idea of starting over a new round of building/harvesting, starting a new campaign would be just as distatefull as starting a new character at level 1 would be in the other games that rely on needing to level multiple characters in different roles to experience the whole game.

If the end game only comes with passive training and you can not affect the pace of that, are you not also risking people being bored with the process of waiting for skills to train into the next step.  Some of them are at 21 days for a single node.  

In short, have you considered that what you are fighting with some of these mechanics is not in fact other games having poor mechanics, but human nature to desire change and new experiences?  If you are fighting human nature, no mechanic in the world will fix the problem, because it's not a mechanical problem, it's a problem of developer expectation. A disconnect between what people are actually like and how you would like them to be, or how you think you can manipulate them into behaving. I would think you should build the mechanics around a reasonable length of time that average players can and will be engaged for. What is in fact your target market player's game average life time? 

Do you even know? 

Until they die is not a valid answer to this question.

Edited January 17, 2018 by KrakkenSmacken

[VIKINGNAIL 5,680]

49 minutes ago, ArcJurado said:

Yes games should evolve but just because you don't like the idea doesn't mean it's inefficient.  The notion of eternal heroes and dying worlds seems fairly integral to their vision for the game.  Asking them to completely remove the eternal heroes part of it is a bit much honestly.  We can all voice concerns and make suggestions but at some point you have to respect the dev's vision and consider if this is the game for you or not.

I don't like the idea because it is inefficient.  They already removed the eternal heroes part, then they cobbled together a bit of lore and created the crows and vessels system.  

The game doesn't work because of passive training, it works because servers reset instead of stagnating and making players go inactive.  

Their vision has changed a lot over the years and sometimes for the worse, I am pretty sure they would rather have a successful game that can keep the lights on over a flop, and they are not perfect, they don't project everything correctly, and some would argue that they can often seem out of touch with what the players are asking for.  (Sometimes this is a fair assessment sometimes it isn't)

[VIKINGNAIL 5,680]

48 minutes ago, Regulus said:

It is "obvious" to you before anyone else can "feel or understand it" that the eternal heroes concept is primitive and "inefficient"?  That's a bold claim, especially since the guy who came up with the idea is Todd Coleman. 

Not only did he come to this idea in an effort to address the shortcomings of the innovative, cult classic (I'll call it) Shadowbane (for which he was a key developer), he clearly uses it as a core design principle (based on his own statements, see above) on which to build a new game--a mix of MMORPG and strategy game, which we know as Crowfall.  Further, Mr. Coleman routinely (and recently) refers to Crowfall as an RPG (which still means something regardless how games try to bastardize it now) and I believe that he and the rest of ACE will resist the subversive efforts of our arena/twitch/MOBA hangers-on and create a worthy successor to Shadowbane (and PvP sandbox MMORPGs like it) which is sadly missed and missing from the market.  Finally, I strongly suspect that the reason this game was able to make its funding goals through Kickstarter in the first place was due to the passion, hope and generosity of old school, MMORPG PvP grognards (using that term in the best possible way--cheers!) and not Overwatch/League of Legends twitch kiddies. 

There is, without a shadow of a doubt, a place and market for "Eternal Heroes, Dying Worlds".    

I'm sorry but I'm not under the impression that JTC is some sort of game design messiah.  The issue with shadowbane was the stagnation.  The issue was not about character persistency.  Some of the most diehard shadowbane fanboys actually enjoyed the aspect of rerolling new toons frequently and trying new things out.  

Diablo is referred to as an ARPG, you play a role, it doesn't mean the role has to last forever, nothing actually lasts forever.  

What was advertised on KS is not the same product that you have before you now, in many ways it is worse, in some ways it is pleasantly better. 

Ironically enough a lot of people have a lot of issues with how the combat is right now, and it's development is one of the more clear examples of why inefficiency and a stubbornness to adapt can cause problems.  Maybe if people didn't run around calling people with actual skill "twitch kiddies" it wouldn't be such a painful process to evolve games into what works in 2018, instead of trying to force things back into 2003 for the sake of nostalgia.  You can never truly go back.  

But like I've said before, this is not a make or break system in the game, but as it is intended to work now it will end up being one of the things the majority of players will dislike, and I am sorry but this game will flop if it only goes after mmorpg players that like pvp environments but have an inability to adapt and fit into modern gaming.  How many of those players do you think exist, furthermore are those the type that excel in PvP and can keep a game world thriving and active?  

You need hardcore players to keep mmo worlds sprawling.  

Edited January 17, 2018 by VIKINGNAIL

[ArcJurado 22]

23 minutes ago, VIKINGNAIL said:

I don't like the idea because it is inefficient.  They already removed the eternal heroes part, then they cobbled together a bit of lore and created the crows and vessels system.  

The game doesn't work because of passive training, it works because servers reset instead of stagnating and making players go inactive.  

Their vision has changed a lot over the years and sometimes for the worse, I am pretty sure they would rather have a successful game that can keep the lights on over a flop, and they are not perfect, they don't project everything correctly, and some would argue that they can often seem out of touch with what the players are asking for.  (Sometimes this is a fair assessment sometimes it isn't)

Actually the game works because of all of the systems together.  No single system 100% makes or breaks the game.  Everything, together, is what people are buying into and playing.  

Asking for a Hardcore ruleset is fine but demanding that they outright remove a key system of the game is completely selfish.  And to be clear, your title is "Get rid of the passive skill system."  Not change, not revise, not flesh out or add depth.  Outright removal is what you're demanding.  Adding options for hardcore players in rulesets that ignore any account bonuses makes sense and certainly could help the game.  You're not asking for options though, you're telling them to remove all account bonuses.  You don't seem to have an issue with the passive skill training itself, from everything I've seen here you just don't want there to be any persistent character progression outside of any given campaign.  They could add dozens of things to flesh out the persistent, long term progression but even if they did you'd still want them to completely remove all of it.

[VIKINGNAIL 5,680]

30 minutes ago, ArcJurado said:

Actually the game works because of all of the systems together.  No single system 100% makes or breaks the game.  Everything, together, is what people are buying into and playing.  

Asking for a Hardcore ruleset is fine but demanding that they outright remove a key system of the game is completely selfish.  And to be clear, your title is "Get rid of the passive skill system."  Not change, not revise, not flesh out or add depth.  Outright removal is what you're demanding.  Adding options for hardcore players in rulesets that ignore any account bonuses makes sense and certainly could help the game.  You're not asking for options though, you're telling them to remove all account bonuses.  You don't seem to have an issue with the passive skill training itself, from everything I've seen here you just don't want there to be any persistent character progression outside of any given campaign.  They could add dozens of things to flesh out the persistent, long term progression but even if they did you'd still want them to completely remove all of it.

Combat will make or break this game, everything else pales in comparison to how significant it is to the survival of the game.  

No game is ever perfect, there are plenty of examples of systems that games work despite of, not because of.  They could literally remove passive training completely and turn it into active skill progression and the game would be better off, or at the very least not really suffer popularity wise.  And things being passively trained doesn't really enhance the combat at all, it isn't really critical or hard to replace to any aspect of the game.  But that's just hypothetically if they completely removed it, I don't even care about that, I just think the game is better off offering full reset servers as an option.  Generally any settings that will be attractive to really competitive PvPers gets met with resistance here because people know that if you give competitive PvPers their playground then others playing in softer campaigns have to admit they are not the top dogs in the game.  It's never the competitive PvPers that are afraid of opening up options to more people.  What do I care if someone wants 50 safezones in a 3 faction campaign, if that's their fun and it makes ACE money that's great.  But some people here are terrified of the game offering anything more hardcore than their own personal comfort level.  It shouldn't matter to them as long as they have a ruleset that closely matches their own preferences, and that ruleset is financially efficient for ACE to offer.

I'm not sure anyone is making demands here.  I'm simply telling them what they need to do to make the game better, just like I did with combat, just like it took a year for other people to eventually realize. 

And no, nothing here is a demand, and a title does not tell the whole story, to ignore the actual content of the post and focus solely on the title is simply obtuse.  

And I am literally asking for options throughout the thread.  

Man people gotta learn to be more objective about what they are reading.  

And no, again you misunderstand, the issue is with the current implementation of their persistence.  It's slow and boring.

I've never actually said I don't want there to be persistent character progression outside of any given campaign, I've simply suggested that they not neglect the option of complete fresh resets.

I'd be all for character persistency if they did it in a meaningful way, timegating stuff for a slow buildup of stats and the occasional unlock of something that may be useful isn't really intuitive.  

But I've already highlighted why they would benefit more from in-campaign training.  It requires much more intuitive play, opens things up much more to active and reactive character building, etc.  

Yall need to stop reading what you want to see instead of what is actually being said.

Edited January 17, 2018 by VIKINGNAIL

[ArcJurado 22]

35 minutes ago, VIKINGNAIL said:

Man people gotta learn to be more objective about what they are reading.  

I've never actually said I don't want there to be persistent character progression outside of any given campaign, I've simply suggested that they not neglect the option of complete fresh resets.

Yall need to stop reading what you want to see instead of what is actually being said.

On 1/12/2018 at 11:53 AM, VIKINGNAIL said:

The system should have been giving people points over time in each individual campaign as it goes on, letting players try to stay ahead of specific campaign metas, and then letting them do it all over again in the next campaign.  This would have also kept the game feeling more fresh as people had more flexibility to truly deviate in separate campaigns and try to build and counterbuild each other, much like the reset button on rts games.  

 

On 1/13/2018 at 12:49 PM, VIKINGNAIL said:

I really think they'd be better off going the RTS route and letting people build and rebuild their characters each campaign.  If they think they need persistence and the passive system is the solution that is just silly because no one gets attached to the passive system.  We've seen with games like d2 and poe how successful the thrill of rebuilding and reoptimizing characters can be.  If someone is truly in love with their build they can just do the exact same build again. 

12 hours ago, VIKINGNAIL said:

What is the benefit to an account wide passive training that gives more of a slow burn type of feel over one that resets at the start of a campaign but lets players transition from early character builds into mid to late game with the progression of a campaign.  That seems like it is more synchronized and has a better flow for the game.

12 hours ago, VIKINGNAIL said:

The question is does a slower ticking persistent progression and the uncle bob that it ultimately helps facilitate create more fun than a faster progression system that resets on per-campaign basis.  Sure there are always players that will like things that others do not.

Literally all you've been asking for is for progression to be per-campaign and then to reset after the campaign is over, essentially making all progression tied to that specific campaign.  This would make every campaign it's own self-contained battle and mean you're starting every single campaign with 0 training.  That's not asking for options, that's asking to have every single campaign inherit this rule.  I'm all for having a set of campaign rulesets that ignore all account bonuses but don't make all of them that way.

[VIKINGNAIL 5,680]

2 hours ago, ArcJurado said:

 

Literally all you've been asking for is for progression to be per-campaign and then to reset after the campaign is over, essentially making all progression tied to that specific campaign.  This would make every campaign it's own self-contained battle and mean you're starting every single campaign with 0 training.  That's not asking for options, that's asking to have every single campaign inherit this rule.  I'm all for having a set of campaign rulesets that ignore all account bonuses but don't make all of them that way.

Exactly where did I say that this must be the rule for all campaigns that the game offers?  Again you aren't reading what is being said.  You like the current system so you are being overly defensive of it.  

[DeathByLemmings 2]

Honestly I just find a passive system like this boring.

There's no actual playing of the game involved, something I feel Crowfall is suffering from in other areas as well (gathering as an example, at least we have crit points now).

Imagine 2 years after release, you want to get a friend into the game. You play with a guild that have played since release and they need a couple new members. Are they going to pick a guy that has just started and is literally incapable of keeping up with the rest of the guild, or are they going to find someone that actually matches the guild in terms of progression?
Worst part is, your friend can't even catch up! Assuming everyone involved in this scenario keeps their skill trees ticking, at no point can your friend even close the gap until the OG players reach full build.

Imo it's a bad system that only serves to instill sunken cost fallacies, reduce build experimentation and ultimately turn new players away from the game. The beauty of a concept like Crowfall is that it does reset, allowing new players to join and not feel under-powered. Allowing weird builds where if they aren't that great, at least in a month or two you can re-set and try something else. Allowing you to step away from the game and come back at a later date without having nerfed yourself.

I think the passive skill system goes directly against these ideas.

[VIKINGNAIL 5,680]

6 minutes ago, DeathByLemmings said:

Honestly I just find a passive system like this boring.

There's no actual playing of the game involved, something I feel Crowfall is suffering from in other areas as well (gathering as an example, at least we have crit points now).

Imagine 2 years after release, you want to get a friend into the game. You play with a guild that have played since release and they need a couple new members. Are they going to pick a guy that has just started and is literally incapable of keeping up with the rest of the guild, or are they going to find someone that actually matches the guild in terms of progression?
Worst part is, your friend can't even catch up! Assuming everyone involved in this scenario keeps their skill trees ticking, at no point can your friend even close the gap until the OG players reach full build.

Imo it's a bad system that only serves to instill sunken cost fallacies, reduce build experimentation and ultimately turn new players away from the game. The beauty of a concept like Crowfall is that it does reset, allowing new players to join and not feel under-powered. Allowing weird builds where if they aren't that great, at least in a month or two you can re-set and try something else. Allowing you to step away from the game and come back at a later date without having nerfed yourself.

I think the passive skill system goes directly against these ideas.

It really does contradict the resetting nature of the game, creates a situation where they know they will need a catch-up mechanic, but that mechanic is either going to have a financial element to it (bad idea) or in essence turn into active progression for those players playing catch up because they will need to farm whatever they can to trade for skill tomes.  

I have no idea why they feel so strongly about inserting passive training, well I mean I do have an idea, it's to cater to people that don't want to feel obligated to put in time and effort to advance, but I donno why a game would ever want to cater to that kind of player over the ones that want to be active and put effort into things, those are the ones that are going to keep your servers alive and populated at all hours.  

I mean we both know they are probably too invested in this current system to scrap it, but hopefully they at least have full resetting campaigns for people that want completely level playing fields at the start of a campaign, and also for newer players that want to play without feeling like they are way behind with no practical way to ever completely catch up.  

[BarriaKarl 1,091]

I think saying the passive skill training leads to uncle bob situations (i love how this a technical term now) is a bit of a stretch. There are too many factors working together to blame one mechanic of ruining the game.

You guys also forget about skill tomes which is ACE solution to close the gap between veterans and new players. If they sell one month of training for 5 bucks will this even be a problem? They will get a poorly made sockston of money and solve the problem all at once. Honestly i can see tomes bringing more money than VIPs.

[DeathByLemmings 2]

1 minute ago, BarriaKarl said:

I think saying the passive skill training leads to uncle bob situations (i love how this a technical term now) is a bit of a stretch. There are too many factors working together to blame one mechanic of ruining the game.

You guys also forget about skill tomes which is ACE solution to close the gap between veterans and new players. If they sell one month of training for 5 bucks will this even be a problem? They will get a poorly made sockston of money and solve the problem all at once. Honestly i can see tomes bringing more money than VIPs.

 

I'm not saying passive training ruins the game, I'm saying it has the potential to cause long term issues and seems in a totally opposite direction to the rest of the games concepts.

There is absolutely no way you'll entice someone into the (fully costed) game by saying, "Oh btw, y'know how you feel under-powered? Yeah the only way to get rid of that is by spending more money".
That's some F2P bs right there.

And once again, how is it fun? You click a button once every few days....woohoo

[BarriaKarl 1,091]

13 minutes ago, DeathByLemmings said:

 

I'm not saying passive training ruins the game, I'm saying it has the potential to cause long term issues and seems in a totally opposite direction to the rest of the games concepts.

There is absolutely no way you'll entice someone into the (fully costed) game by saying, "Oh btw, y'know how you feel under-powered? Yeah the only way to get rid of that is by spending more money".
That's some F2P bs right there.

And once again, how is it fun? You click a button once every few days....woohoo

*Shrugs* It is a catch up mechanic. You cant reward older players without punishing new players. The only way to avoid this is doing like VN said and deleting all progress between CW. That for me is worse, i dont enjoy doing the same stuff over and over just for it to become void in the end, again. Seeing months worths of progress vanishing just 'cuz newbies all salty that i am awesome? Nah, i better play minecraft.

How fun is crafting 1000000 wood swords before being able to craft a iron one? lvling skills is hardly fun at all (maybe fighting skills but that is mostly just fighting itself) and the passive nature of the current system is hardly to blame.

You arent supposed to focus on the passive skill tree, this isnt what CF is about. There is (there will be?) a whole new world out there and here you are complaining that the skill tree is boring. My point is if the only thing fun enough in the game is the passive skill tree, well, we failed and the game is done for.